Did You Know.....

[Warph]

She was a clown, too.    I did not know that.  I think you are referring to the time (behind the Buffalo Bill circus tent)
where she was "doing" a clown, Guns.

[Warph]

Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service the day before he died!

On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.   He'd die the next morning.  But also on April 14, 1865, Lincoln signed into law a piece of legislation which created the Secret Service.... the law enforcement agency charged with defending the President from, among other things, assassination attempts such as the one that befell Lincoln that evening.  Was Lincoln also a victim of bad timing?  Perhaps he had ESP?  Not really... rather, it's a strange historical coincidence.  While we currently think of the Secret Service as primarily existing to protect the President, that was not its original intent.

During the early to mid-1800s, roughly a third of American money was counterfeit.  The solution was something similar to today's approach to large scale problems, form a commission.  On the urging of Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch, Lincoln did exactly that.  The conclusion was to form a federal law enforcement division (at the time, there was no FBI), the "Secret Service of Division of the Department of the Treasury."   That Division was born just hours before John Wilkes Booth fatally shot the President.

The Secret Service carried out their Treasury duties, primarily, for the next 35 years.  While Lincoln's assassination sparked a discussion about the need for a permanent security detail for the President, this need went unfulfilled for decades.  In the interim period, both James A. Garfield (1881) and Warren G. Harding (1901) were assassinated.  The latter caused Congress to work toward a solution, and, informally, Presidential security became a duty of the Service starting with Harding's successor, Theodore Roosevelt.

The Service's mission still includes "investigations into crimes against the financial infrastructure of the United States."

Bonus fact:  During the American Revolution, then-General Washington had a security detail which traveled with him, called the "Command-in-Chief's Guard."  The Guard was disbanded in 1783, after the War.  But it was not free of controversy.  One of the Guardsmen, Thomas Hickey, was caught counterfeiting (another coincidence!) and incarcerated.  While incarcerated, he confessed to another inmate that he was plotting to defect to the British.  He was executed in June of 1776.

[Warph]

The Star of David
Before 1979, Iran was under the control of the Shah and had relatively peaceful relations with Israel.   Iran Air's headquarters was built in that calmer, friendlier time, and the lead architects on the design were, in fact, Israeli.

Fast forward a few decades.  Iran and Israel are, in no way, friendly, and the world has given us Google Maps, replete with satellite view.   So a small, possibly innocent/accidental marking of the building's history... hidden on its roof... is now in full view: a Star of David.  Iran, upon finding it, was not amused and is currently investigating how to remove the mark from the building.
http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=197395      (Note: I believe it has since been removed).


This isn't the first time Google Maps' eagle eye has caused controversy.  In 2007, map-watchers noticed that a Naval building in Coronado, California resembled a swastika when viewed from above.   A small controversy erupted, and the Navy has since decided to do something about it.
http://www.naturalsearchblog.com/archives/2007/09/26/google-maps-forces-navy-to-redesign-swastika-building/

To date, they've taken minor steps to try and obfuscate the shape, mostly by adding trees and bushes around the building.  (Strangely, the Google team seems to have also taken steps to help, as the Google Maps satellite view of the building changes angles when you view it...
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Coronado+CA&t=k&om=1&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Coronado,+San+Diego,+California&ll=32.676138,-117.157763&spn=0.00454,0.005289&z=18

....instead taking a 45 degree angle approach.)


Other discoveries?  A man-made, man-shaped lake near Sao Paolo, Brazil...
http://googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=1460&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=-21.805149,-49.089977&z=18

and this absolutely incredible raised-earth sculpture of Sultan the Pit Pony in Wales.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/8018761/Britain-from-the-Air-an-exhibition-of-aerial-photographs-in-Bath.html?image=4

Bonus fact: In World War II, Japan had an interesting method for reading maps at night.  No, not flashlights.  Bio-luminescent organisms, pictured here. http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/cypridina-zahl/

They glow blue when disturbed, allowing for reading at night -- batteries not required.

[Warph]

.... that Henrietta Lacks, died on October 4, 1951, from cervical cancer which had metastasized throughout her body.  She was 31 years old, and was buried in a family burial plot without a tombstone.  But while Lacks herself is gone, a small part of her lives on.  And lives nearly everywhere. 

In January of 1951, Lacks was originally diagnosed with cancer.  Unbeknownst to Lacks or her family, the treating physician took a sample of the cancerous cells and gave them to a researcher, Dr. George Otto Gey. Gey (pronounced "Guy") made an incredible discovery: Lacks' cells did not seem to die very quickly, if at all.  While most others' cells -- cancerous or otherwise -- died in a few days time, Lacks' could be kept alive, and divided and multiplied.  From this small cluster of cancer cells, researchers could create a seemingly infinite number of human cells upon which they could run tests.  This was a huge boon for research, as prior to Gey's discovery, researchers spent an inordinate amount of time trying to keep human cells alive and viable so that meaningful data could be produced from experimentation.

In order to protect Lacks' privacy, Gey dubbed his discovery the "HeLa" cell line.  Gey, to his credit, made HeLa cells available to researchers throughout the world -- and the world responded.  Jonas Salk used HeLa cells in tests of his polio vaccine.  Per Baltimore's City Paper, Lacks' cells have also been used in research regarding AIDS, cancer, gene mapping, exposure to radiation and other potential toxins, and a bevy of other scientific endeavors. 

The Virginian-Pilot reported that there are over 11,000 patents filed which involve Lacks' cells. 
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/05/cancer-cells-killed-her-then-they-made-her-immortal?cid=posld

The New York Times notes that over 50 million tons of her cells have been grown over the last sixty years, and apparently, "you can get some for yourself simply by calling an 800 number."  In total, over 60,000 published scientific studies involved HeLa cells, with ten more being added each day as of early 2010.

Of course, as reported by ABC News, the companies which now produce and sell HeLa cells make billions of dollars.  But Lacks' family -- which did not even learn that the cells came from Henrietta until the mid-1970s -- has not made a dime from HeLa's widespread use.

[Warph]

.....that on August 21, 1911, the Mona Lisa.... Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece... was stolen off the wall of the Louvre, leaving bare the four iron pegs on which it hung. The thief, later identified as then-Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia, hid in a closet the day before (a Sunday), knowing that the museum would be closed the next day.  He emerged from his hiding place on the 21st, took the Mona Lisa off the wall, discarded its nearly 200 pounds of security devices and decorative frames, and carried the painting up under his smock.  He walked out the door and into freedom.... until, 28 months later, he tried to sell it, and was instead nabbed by the authorities.

Peruggia's motivations, however, are almost certainly not those of the standard art thief: that is, he was not looking to simply (to understate the feat) fence the masterpiece and walk out an overnight millionaire.  Rather, Peruggia was either a nationalist ideologue looking to reclaim the artwork on behalf of his native Italy, or, perhaps, a rube to a master criminal in the making.

The former theory is straight-forward: Peruggia, an Italian by birth, allegedly believed that da Vinci's work (in that he, too, was Italian) could only be properly displayed in Italy..... so he stole it to fix that "problem."  Unfortunately, there are a lot of reasons to believe that Peruggia simply used this excuse.... successfully, it turned out... to limit his jail time once caught.  (Tried in Italy, he served seven months, with Time implying that his patriotic motives played into the short amount of time behind bars.)  Some examples include the fact that he attempted to sell the painting (for the equivalent of $100,000) and not merely donate it; that he waited over two years to move it; that he returned to France after his release; and that he was at least loosely affiliated with another criminal syndicate: art counterfeiters. 

It is the art counterfeiters story which suggests that Peruggia's motives were less than honorable patriotism.

An Argentine con man by the name of Eduardo de Valfierno allegedly was behind the theft.  (In 1914, after the theft and recovery of the Mona Lisa, but before Peruggia was brought to trial, Valfierno told his story to an American journalist named Karl Decker, with the promise that Decker not publish the story until after Valfierno's death.  Decker agreed.  This is the only source for Valfierno's account.) Valfierno's "business" was in faux masterpieces.  He'd commission artists to create realistic-looking copies of famous works of art and sell them to collectors around the world, claiming the works were the original.  To buttress his claims of authenticity, he would pass off another forgery -- documents from the museums in which the original hung, stating that that the original was stolen and, to avoid embarrassment, the museum in question instead quietly displayed a replica. Unfortunately for Valfierno, one such collector bragged about one of his purchases, leading to press coverage of the (faked) theft -- and almost exposing Valfierno's fraud.  So Valfierno decided to take no further chances.

As the story goes, Valfierno hired Peruggia and others to steal the Mona Lisa... but not before he commissioned the creation of six counterfeits and made sure they were distributed around the United States.  (Valfierno surmised that it would be easy to get through customs before the theft but nearly impossible afterward.) Once the media took up the story of the theft itself, Valfierno was able to sell the six fake paintings without much trouble and without much risk, as the purchasers, now knowingly buying stolen property, had no real recourse if they ever caught on to the swindle.  With the real Mona Lisa in Valfierno's possession, he also had the luxury of knowing that the Louvre would never get back the original, making it unlikely at best that the purchasers of the fakes would catch on, anyway.  Of course, this part of the scheme did not go to plan.

Valfierno claims that Peruggia was well compensated for his role, but that the thief gambled that money away.  Peruggia's solution?  He knew where Valfierno kept the true Mona Lisa, so he simply did what he had done a year or two earlier, and stole it.  Again.



Bonus fact: The Mona Lisa is not painted on canvas, but on three pieces of wood roughly an inch and a half thick. 

Source:"The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection" by Thomas Hoobler.  Eleven reviews, 4.5 stars on average.  It contains an approximately 6,500 word chapter on the theft of the Mona Lisa, upon which the above is based.

[Warph]

....that on August 9, 2003, an airplane named the Spirit of Butts Farm took off from Cape Spear in Newfoundland, Canada, on its way to Clifden, Ireland.  In the world of modern aviation, such a transatlantic flight should be common.  But neither Cape Spear nor Clifden have an airport.  In fact, Clifden has a population of only about 3,000 people, many of which live in the relatively rural outskirts of the town.  And Cape Spear has a lighthouse, but is otherwise uninhabited.

On the plus side, Cape Spear is considered to be the easternmost point in North America, while Clifden is located on Ireland's western shore.  Which makes sense, as the Spirit of Butts Farm, below, is a radio-controlled model airplane.  And it's the first RC plane to make the flight across the Atlantic.

Weighing 11 pounds and carrying about a liter of fuel, the plane -- named after the farm of a man named Beecher Butts (where the flight crew practiced) and Charles Lindberg's Spirit of St. Louis -- made the over 1,800 mile flight in about 38 hours.  In doing so, its pilot, a then-77 year old, legally blind and partially deaf man named Maynard Hill, set two world records: one, for the longest distance traveled by a model airplane; and two, for the longest time in flight. 

The feat was no overnight success.  Hill and some friends worked, on and off, for ten years designing the plane, in the end settling on a lantern-fuel powered vehicle made of fiberglass and balsa wood.  They first attempted the feat a year earlier, making three attempts, each of which failed to travel more than 500 miles.  And the successful flight did not go off smoothly.  The plane was equipped with a GPS device which helped the plane -- running across the Atlantic on autopilot -- stay on course, all while reporting its position back to Hill (in Canada) and his colleague Dave Brown (in Ireland).  But for a three hour period, communications ceased, leading most of the team and onlookers to think the plane had crashed.  When the GPS data came back in, cheers were short-lived, as the plane's flight data had the plane going slower than had hoped -- it was travelling at 42 miles per hour, while Hill et al were hoping for tailwinds to push it along at 55 mph.  This heavily suggested that it would run out of fuel before making its way. 

But at roughly 2 p.m. on August 11, 2003, the Spirit of Butts Farm landed safely -- with less than two ounces of fuel left in its tank, leaving it less than an hour left before it would have crashed.

Bonus fact: The landing spot for the Spirit of Butts Farm -- again, Clifden, Ireland -- was not chosen at random.  In 1919, John Alrock and Arthur Whitten Brown completed the first non-stop transatlantic flight when they crash landed there.  The flight took just under 16 hours.

[Warph]

Now that you've read the "The Spirit Of Butts Farm" watch the video's of what these airplanes can do:

RC Jet - Full 3D LAVI Fighter, Turbine Powered. Crazy!

And my favorite of all the Air Force Airplanes, The F-4 Phantom:

[Diane Amberg]

Clap,clap,clap! Love' em!

[Warph]

Imagine going home one evening and ordering dinner for you and your family, something simple from the local restaurant, and putting it on your credit card. The next day, you run some rather pedestrian errands – drop off the dry cleaning, pick up some cereal and toothpaste and other odds and ends at the grocery store, and maybe some M&Ms or something. Again, charge it all to the credit card. At the end of the month, you are going to get a bill – a bill you are expected to pay.

Now imagine that you are the President of the United States. Instead of ordering from a local eatery, you call up your Executive Chef. Instead of running your own errands, White House staff does it for you. The salaries of all of these people are covered by the government. But the items themselves? The meals, the dry cleaning, the toothpaste, and the snacks? What is true for the rest of us is true too for the President: at the end of the month, you are going to get a bill – a bill you are expected to pay.

Yes, the President has to pay for incidentals.

Don't worry -- the state dinners, Secret Service detail, etc. are all paid for.  And the President can probably afford his four to six eggs, potatoes, and wheat toast --  http://www.saveur.com/article/Kitchen/Breakfast-of-Champions ....

....his annual salary, set forth by 3 U.S.C. 102, http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/3/usc_sec_03_00000102----000-.html

....is $400,000, plus another $50,000 for expenses incurred in official duties.  (And no, he does not pay rent nor hotel-like occupancy fees. That same section of the U.S. Code notes that the President "shall be entitled also to the use of the furniture and other effects belonging to the United States and kept in the Executive Residence at the White House.")  Given the other amenities that come with the job -- and the (gratis) White House's staff which can approach 100 employees -- the salary is more than enough to cover the cost of toothpaste, etc.

So every month, the White House provides the First Family with a bill.  And as National Geographic reported, "n the first months of a new administration, sticker shock is routine."  
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/01/president/bumiller-text/3

Says Gary Walters, former chief usher at the White House (who managed the home for multiple First Families), "I can't remember anyone not complaining."  After all, when you have world-class chefs preparing your food, they spare no expense.  And the bill reflects that.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/01/president/bumiller-text/4

[larryJ]

WHY DO THEY CALL IT A GLOVE BOX?

In the early days of the automobile the use of gloves was considered essential, not only as a style statement for the discriminating, often wealthy driver wearing a pair of white, gauntlet gloves, but also for utility reasons to keep the hands warm. Many early automobiles didn't come with heaters, and driver and occupants were forced to dawn heavy gloves to protect their hands.

What is a Glove Box?

The glove box, sometimes referred to as the glove compartment, is a sealed, or unsealed container inside an automobile used for storage. Most modern cars have sealed glove boxes, but the Jeep Wrangler, for example, even in recent models, have glove boxes, or portions of the box that do not have a door.

Glove Box History

There's not a lot of printed information available to show when the first glove boxes were included in automobiles, or even which makes and models had them. It is clear, however, the reason for having a glove box in your car. Many early vehicles did not have enclosed cabs and driving to church with the family on those cold Sunday mornings required everyone to wear a pair of gloves. It just makes sense to keep the gloves in a special compartment in the car so they would always be handy.

Jockey Box

In England, and in certain areas of the northwest United States, glove boxes are still referred to as "jockey boxes.". The World Detective website is one of few that offers a plausible explanation for this term. A jockey, of course, is a person who works with horses, and according the this site, the term jockey carried over to include one who works on horseless carriages. A bit of a stretch, possibly, but it's the only explanation available.

Glove Box Design

For those who can remember the glove boxes that came in cars in the 1940s through the '70s, you'll recall they were oftentimes large and always secured by heavy metal doors with locks. Sometime during the '70s car makers starting including shallow cup holders on the back side of these doors. The Buick Electra, made sometime during the '70s had one such feature. The problem with those containers is they were so shallow the cup would fall easily, even during a curve on a highway, much unlike the deep holders in cars today.

Modern Uses

It's likely if you looked in a sample of glove boxes in today's cars few pairs of gloves would be found. Vehicle registration, insurance papers, sunglasses, pens, paper and maps are more the probable items carried in modern-day glove boxes. Owners of convertibles may use the locking feature on glove boxes more than those who own hardtops, for obvious reasons.

___________________________________________________

Larryj