The world’s most southerly wind farm is to be found on Crater Hill, Ross Island, Antarctica. It consists of three 333kW turbines which will provide power to New Zealand’s Scott Base and McMurdo Sound, the American base. (Google Maps link) Constructed by Meridian Energy during 2008/9, the turbines started a limited test operation with an [more...]
Baton Rouge is the capital and second largest city in Louisiana. Baton Rouge dates from 1699, when French explorer Sieur d’Iberville leads an exploration party up the Mississippi River. Since then, Baton Rouge has been governed by France, England (UK), Spain, Louisiana, the Florida Republic, the Confederate States, and the United States. Baton Rouge became [more...]
This deadly bloom is one of the most common wildflowers in the late summer in U.S. Midwestern woods and is seldom noticed, since it is somewhat weedy. It is a notorious killer, and at one time ravaged whole communities with its poison. Small pioneer settlements were visited by a terrible affliction, which came to be [more...]
It was not until January 24, 1935, that beer was successfully sold in cans. It was to revolutionize the manufacture, distribution and consumption of beer. It also resulted in two slightly different ways of packaging. Apart from Prohibition delaying the introduction of beer cans, the brewer and can manufacturer had to overcome two main problems. [more...]
The Euro is the official currency of over half of the countries of Europe, but there are two other continents where the Euro is in official use. Although most of Spain is in Europe, Spain also includes a sprinkling of Mediterranean islands plus three enclaves that are on the African mainland. The Spanish cities of [more...]
The Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the Pyramid of Zoser, is the oldest known free standing stone structure in the world and the first of the Egyptian Pyramids. King Zoser’ name was Netjerykhet. The name Zoser was given by New Kingdom visitors to the monument, thousands of years later. The original name of the Step Pyramid [more...]
Frankfort is the capital of Kentucky and the 5th smallest state capital city. In 1786, the area of Frankfort was first purchased and an effort was made to make it the national capital over Washington D.C. It was established as Frankfort, Virginia, and became the capital of the new state of Kentucky in 1792. This [more...]
Wild canaries inhabit the Canary Islands – but were the birds named after the islands, or were the islands named after the birds? The origin of the name Canary Islands is uncertain, but the most likely explanation is that the Atlantic island now known as Gran Canaria was originally Insula Canaria – latin for Island [more...]
Is the Pyramid of Kufu (the Great Pyramid of today) really one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World? Actually, no. It was the Pyramid of Khafre, the second largest pyramid at Giza which was the Great Pyramid of the Seven Wonders, even though smaller in both height and volume than the Great Pyramid [more...]
When the modern Olympic Movement began, in 1894, the newly-formed International Olympic Committee (IOC) considered ice skating as a possible sport for the first modern Olympic Games, in 1896. Needless to say, that didn’t happen but figure skating was on the program for the 1908 Olympic Games in London. In 1911, it was suggested that [more...]
Here we will have a fuzzy beginning. It is difficult to say who “invented” the first snowboard. People have always figured out how to slide down a snow covered hill on something, so it would be next to impossible to point out one specific person, who came up with “the first snowboard.” There are still [more...]
“Parts of speech” refers to categories that are used by grammarians to describe how words are used in sentences. English has traditionally been viewed as having eight parts of speech, as follows: Nouns are words that represent persons, places, things or ideas. In the sentence “Life is good,” “life” is a noun. Pronouns are words [more...]
The Australian game of two-up is a simple game of chance, being not much more than “heads or tails” with two coins thrown at once. Nevertheless it has been played for over two hundred years. It is particularly remembered as a way that the troops amused themselves during World War I. The game is straightforward. [more...]