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The name “anaconda” is probably from the Sinhala language which is common to Sri Lanka, the island off India once known as Ceylon. It was applied to pythons for about 100 years until the late 19th century when it became a common name for the giant South American snakes. In Brazil, they call them sucuriuba.
Medusa, a reticulated python, owned by Full Moon Productions Inc. in Kansas City, Mo. is the longest snake ever measured in captivity at 25 feet, two inches.
The mercury fell in Philadelphia to 28 F on this date (May 11) in 1966. It is a record low for May in the region that still stands.
The last man to play without a face mask in the NFL was flanker — and Philadelphia Eagle — Tommy McDonald.
Dunkirk is famously known as the evacuation point for the British Expeditionary Force from France in 1940. What’s not that well known is that the Nazis held the French port until May 9, 1945, the day after Germany’s official surrender.
Don’t call yarrow, aka achillea millefolium, the flowering plant found just about everywhere, a weed. The Indians used it to treat headaches, toothaches and just about everything. The Cherokee made a tea of it to reduce fever and aid in sleep.
Of the 12 presidents since World War II, three years account for the births of seven of them. Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford were born in 1913; Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were born in 1924; and Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Donald Trump were born in 1946.
What Next? is the only opera by the great American composer Elliot Carter Jr. He wrote it when he was 90. It premiered Sept. 16, 1999.
The Japanese surrender demands were ambitious to say the least. In May 1942, when the Empire thought it was going to win everything, it wanted Australia, all of British India, Canada’s British Columbia and the state of Washington.
Ireland was the only neutral nation to offer condolences on Hitler’s death.