THE SCHIZOPHRENIC KING

In 1542, the Irish Parliament enacted "The Crown of Ireland Act 1542," which established that the King of Great Britain would also be the King of Ireland. Subject to a hiccup or two along the way, this system persisted until 1800, when Ireland and Great Britain were merged into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, Ireland became a free nation, but it still retained the King of Great Britain as its head of state (Northern Ireland, of course, continued to remain and still remains entirely a part of Great Britain).

In 1936, after the abdication of King Edward VIII, Ireland amended its constitution to strip the king of all of his duties except for the appointment of consular and diplomatic representatives to Ireland and the "conclusion" of international agreements when authorized to do so by the Irish government. It was not until 1949 that Ireland withdrew from the British Commonwealth and the British monarch was no longer involved in the Irish government.

As a result of the foregoing, during World War II, King George VI was involved in the dual role of trying to destroy Germany on behalf of Great Britain while at the same time formally meeting with and receiving the credentials of the German diplomats to Ireland and being available to execute agreements between the Irish and German governments.

In a similar vein, when India and Pakistan were Dominions of the Commonwealth and fighting each other in 1947, George VI was the monarch of both countries simultaneously.

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WHY DOES IT ANTIMATTER?

As any science fiction fan knows, antimatter is the reverse image of matter where the electrons in antimatter carry a positive charge and the protons carry a negative charge. When a piece of antimatter encounters normal matter, both of the masses are destroyed and converted to large amounts of energy. 

Antimatter is the primary source of fuel for space vessels in Star Trek. 

It would take the CERN particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland one billion years to produce enough antimatter to equal one gram (one 1/454th of a pound). However, that one gram would be enough to vaporize the entire city of Chicago.

People actually secrete antimatter. As a result of the radioactive decay of Potassium-40 found in the human body, a person who weighs 175 pounds emits about 180 positrons (positive electrons) of antimatter a day. These positrons immediately collide with matter and are destroyed. However, the amount of energy released from the destruction of a single positron is not noticeable under ordinary circumstances.

Theoretically, matter and anti-matter were created in equal amounts. So why is there so much more apparent matter than antimatter in the universe, and why didn't all of the matter and antimatter cancel each other out, leaving nothing in the universe but a whole lot of energy?  Good question.

USDE, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

THE HOOD SCOOP ANOMALY

1955 T-Bird

A hood scoop (or "bonnet scoop" for you Brits) is provided on a high performance car (and often on a not so high performance car) for usually one or more of the following reasons:

1. It forces additional cooler (and hence, denser) air into the carburetor which then supports the burning of additional fuel with a resulting increase in power.

2. It allows cooler air to bathe the engine and reduce the chances of overheating.

3. It looks studly.

On the 1955-57 Thunderbirds, the hood scoop was installed for a more prosaic purpose. Quite simply, the body stylists designed the hood so low that there was no room for the air cleaner on the top of the engine. The addition of a hood scoop provided the necessary extra few inches for the air cleaner and also, as a side benefit, achieved Reason No. 3 listed above.

Ford provided these early Thunderbird owners with a metal plate to block off the hood scoop in cold weather so that the engine could achieve ideal operating temperatures as soon as possible.

Tests performed in a wind tunnel in the 1970s revealed that the Thunderbird hood scoop actually interferes with the proper distribution of air around the engine and into the carburetor and that the car ironically always runs slightly better with the scoop blocked off.

PROJECT SUPERPRESSURE

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In the early 1950s, universities and chemical companies were engaged in the industrial Holy Grail quest of creating artificial diamonds--a product which would have numerous industrial applications and would bring vast fortunes to whomever first unlocked the process. In 1953, chemist H. Tracy Hall (on the right in the above photo) joined the diamond research team at General Electric for Project "Superpressure." GE was purchasing a $125,000 press in the hope that it could be used to make diamonds. Hall requested, but was refused, $1,000 and time in the lab to repair and retrofit an older and much cheaper alternative device which would use a different method to create the necessary intense heat and high pressures required to achieve the same goal.

Hall completed his device on his own time and at his own expense and tested it the GE labs during Christmas vacation in 1954. It worked, while the $125,000 press did not. 

GE, as a result of Hall's accomplishment, proudly announced that it had made the first industrial diamonds and eagerly awaited for the profits to come pouring in. GE gave Hall a $25* savings bond as the reward for his efforts.

For further information on Mr. Hall, please click here.

*Some sources indicate that it was actually only a $10 savings bond, but that denomination was available only to active duty U.S. military personnel during the war era.

TSUTOMU YAMAGUCHI--"THIS REALLY SUCKS"

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Tsutomu Yamaguchi had a bad week in August of 1945 when he went on a business trip to Hiroshima and was severely burned by the first atomic bomb. He made his way back to his home in Nagasaki in time to endure yet another A-bomb blast. In both cases, he was within two miles of ground zero but still survived.

Yamaguchi, for understandable reasons, became an advocate for nuclear disarmament. He died from cancer, probably as a result of his exposure to radiation, in 2010 at age 93.

You can read more about Mr. Yamaguchi at the "Today I Found Out" website.

IKE'S MOO COWS

Photo from Eisenhower Presidential
Library and Museum

President Eisenhower's home at Gettysburg, which he acquired in 1950, was a working cattle farm. Just like how the Republicans used to complain about President Obama's frequent golf vacations in Hawai'i, Democrats used to gripe whenever Eisenhower spent any time with his herd in Pennsylvania. Eisenhower's Black Angus cattle won many prizes, and Ike, at least while he was President, had his cattle business partners enter the beeves in competition under his partners' own names, not the President's, so that there would be no favoritism shown by the judges.

Eisenhower hosted many dignitaries at his ranch, including Konrad Adenauer (pictured above in the dark suit in the center), Charles de Gaulle, and Winston Churchill. One of the most impressed visitors was Nikita Khrushchev, who was fascinated by the operation and evinced considerable knowledge about agriculture in general. Khrushchev was not nearly as awed by the drive to the farm, indicating that the numerous single-family homes he saw on the way were a waste of resources.

"LIMELIGHT" NOT IN THE LIMELIGHT

Limelight was a movie starring Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton which was made in 1952. It received an Oscar for its score in 1973. Normally, only new pictures from the prior year can win an Academy Award, but when Limelight came out, Chaplin was being accused of being a Commie, and only East Coast theaters would show it. For Oscar purposes, the official release date of a movie is determined by when it first plays in Los Angeles, and, in this case, that did not occur until 1972.

Limelight received outstanding reviews from high-brow film critics and was very popular in Europe and Japan. Its sales in the USA, however, were a lackadaisical $1 million--most likely because most theaters refused to screen it.

I have never seen the picture and thus cannot legitimately pass judgment on it. However, the descriptions of it I have read suggest to me that it may be one of those poignant, bittersweet, feeling-sharing type of treacle fests which would bore me to tears. 

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THE CARBROOK GOLF CLUB WATER HAZARD

Chaloklum Diving, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

The Carbrook Golf Club in Queensland, Australia, has a water hazard in the truest sense of the word, especially for a golfer who wades in trying to retrieve a lost ball.  The lake on the course contained at one time at least six bull sharks, some near ten feet long.  Bull sharks are maneaters who attack people more than any other shark species, as they like to cruise in shallow water and are very aggressive. They also have the ability, unlike other sharks, of thriving in fresh water for extended, if not indefinite, periods of time.

The sharks populated the lake in the 1990s when floods temporarily connected it to the ocean. Unlike most other golf courses, the management does not allow divers to harvest balls from the water hazard. Lamentably, the sharks have not been spotted recently, and their fate is unknown.

Bull sharks have been known to travel up freshwater passages and have been caught in the Mississippi River as far north as Alton, Illinois.

If you wish to know what a bull shark who calls a golf course home looks like, please click on this video clip.

THE SECRET OF THE HOLEY STONE

A "holey stone" is a stone where erosion or another natural event has bored a hole through it. These rare rocks are highly regarded in folklore and are supposed to possess a wide variety of magical powers. Perhaps the most significant use of a holey stone is to look through the hole with one eye while keeping the other eye closed. If you do so, you are supposed to be able to spot faeries, elves, brownies, or any other fey creature in the area who would otherwise be invisible.

THE GHOSTBUSTERS CASE

In 1989, New York City resident Jeffrey Strambovsky entered into a contract with Helen Ackley to purchase Ackley's Victorian house in Nyack, New York for $650,000. Neither Ackley nor her real estate agent bothered to mention during the negotiations that the home also featured three resident ghosts. Upon hearing of the haunting--after signing the contract but prior to closing--Strambovsky filed a lawsuit for damages and for rescission (a legal term meaning "I want to wuss out of the deal") based on Ackley's failure to disclose a condition (i.e. the presence of ghosts) of the property which could not otherwise be determined by a reasonable inspection of the real estate.

Ackley's lawyer, invoking the doctrine of caveat emptor ("let the buyer beware") convinced the lower court that the seller did not have a duty to tell the potential buyer every little thing which could be wrong with the property, as long as she did not affirmatively misrepresent the facts by specifically saying "the house is not haunted." If the buyer simply had failed to ask if there were spirits on the property, it was his fault for not doing so. 

The appellate court, however, in a 3-2 opinion, reversed the decision. Ackley had several times in the past told local newspapers as well as the Reader's Digest that the house was occupied by ghosts. Having done so, she was "estopped" from asserting at trial a contrary position, and the judges therefore presumed, at least legally, that the house was haunted. The appellate court further determined that a haunted house is worth less than an unhaunted one, that Strambovsky had no reason to suspect that it was haunted, and that equity required that he be able to squirm out of the contract. The court further pointed out that were it to rule otherwise, the standard home inspection done for a buyer would include not only a structural engineer and a guy from Terminix but also a medium or a psychic. 

The court did find, however, that Ackley did not owe Strambovsky additional money for damages, as she did not affirmatively lie about the haunting but merely failed to mention it.

The spectre of yielding to the temptation to shade this factoid with numerous ghost puns is overwhelming. However, the court in its opinion already did so, and in the spirit of compassion, as well as in the interest of avoiding my readers' wraith, I will not repeat them here.

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COMMON CENTS

Geezers among us will recall the ubiquitous use of the United States penny in vending machines for candy and gum as well as in parking meters and other devices. Today, however, that has all changed. A nickel today is worth less than a penny was in 1972. It costs 2.1 cents to mint each penny--even when considering the fact that they have been made primarily out of zinc since 1982 (specifically, they now consist of a zinc core with a thin outer shell of copper for a total composition of 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper). Gumball machines and the like are now fueled by higher-denomination coins.

According to the infamous 2001 "penny episode" of the West Wing TV series (a brief excerpt can be found here), the only vending machines which still accept pennies are toll booths in Illinois. The episode further claimed that Illinois politicians were successfully blocking any and all attempts to eliminate the penny from circulation out of respect for the individual pictured thereon (who, incidentally, was born and raised in Kentucky and Indiana--not Illinois).

Any truth to the West Wing assertions? Actually, yes, at least to the one about the toll booths. Toll booths in Illinois at the time were still accepting pennies. In fact, in 2001, they were taking in 800,000 of them a DAY. However, in 2020, the Illinois Tollway eliminated all cash payments--pennies or otherwise.

Whether or not Illinois representatives were the ones opposed to eliminating the penny is not nearly as well-documented. In fact, the highest-ranking politician alive hailing from Illinois, Barack Obama, indicated in 2013 that he would be fine with getting rid of the coin.

When the small-sized penny was first issued in 1856, it had the buying power of about 37 cents today when adjusted for inflation. Nowadays, virtually nothing can be purchased for a cent, while using a bunch of pennies to buy groceries is cumbersome, impractical, and irritating to both the cashier and the people behind in the line. Most banks will not count loose change, and anyone desiring to redeem their coins for cash without a major hassle is doomed to take them to one of those ubiquitous coin-counting machines in grocery stores and the like which will convert them to paper money while charging a substantial premium for that privilege. Americans normally instead take the pennies home and stuff them in a jar to deal with later, effectively removing them from circulation and creating a shortage which results in the mint making billions (literally) more cents each year to fill the gap--cents which will also end up in the same vicious cycle.

Canada had a similar coinage system as the USA (distinguished, however, with quaint designs including royalty, leaves, boats, woodland creatures, etc.) which featured the minting of huge quantities of pennies. In 2012, the Canadian government stopped making pennies and started withdrawing them from circulation for melting in 2013, leaving the 5-cent nickel as the lowest-denomination coin. Transactions are still initially conducted, however, to the nearest cent. Then, if cash is used, the total bill, including tax, is rounded up or down to the nearest multiple of 5 cents--for example, a total ending in $0.62 would be rounded down to $0.60, a total ending in $0.23 or $0.27 would be rounded to $0.25, and a total ending in $0.08 would be rounded up to $0.10. Credit card or check transactions are billed and paid to the exact cent and are not rounded.

If the USA were to adopt the Canadian system, the mint itself would probably save in excess of $80 million a year. The costs to businesses and individuals in having to deal with the pesky pennies would be harder to calculate but would nonetheless be substantial. In addition, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have gradually been shifting to a cashless economy with even less reason to use the coins. On the other hand, there would be the resentment engendered in many citizens for paying ten cents in an eight-cent transaction as well the public outrage against removing a denomination which has been around prior to the establishment of the Republic and a coin which has featured the beloved Abe Lincoln ever since 1909. It thus seems unlikely that Congress will be eager to drop the penny in the near future to save $80 million annually, especially since it spends almost $7 million every MINUTE on other stuff.

Finally, however, remember, even though a penny today is virtually worthless, you can still get in deep trouble if you transport more than 500 of them out of the USA.

TAKING THE LEAD

Many decades ago, a common attraction at a county fair would be a salesman who would drive up in a Model T Ford, Hupmobile, or the like which would be running very roughly and knocking. The salesman, once a crowd had gathered, would sprinkle a few drops of a chemical on his necktie and then wave the necktie in front of the carburetor. The car engine would then immediately subside to a gentle but enthusiastic purr once fumes from the necktie were sucked in. The spectators would then shove dollar bills towards the salesman for a bottle of this miracle additive to put into the gas tanks of their own vehicles.

I did not use the term "huckster" or "charlatan" or any other derogatory term for the salesman, as his product actually worked to boost the octane of the gasoline and to improve engine performance. Unfortunately for the salesman, the miracle ingredient was tetraethyl lead, and many of the salesmen ultimately discovered that wandering around with lead fumes wafting from a garment around one's neck is not healthy. However, even the surviving salesmen soon went out of business once the major oil companies added tetraethyl lead to the gasoline at the refinery so that everyone, in true democratic equality, could be exposed to poisonous lead fumes. 

Tetraethyl lead was phased out by law starting in the late 1970s, which proved to be an inconvenience to those owning cars from the 1950s with high-compression engines which needed high-octane gasoline.

THIS TOOK A LOT OF BALLS

A freighter full of 5,000 sheep capsized and sank off of the coast of Kuwait in 1964. The sheep died and started decomposing. This was unacceptable, as the scene of their putrefaction was next to the source of Kuwait's drinking water and no one wanted to drink rotten sheep.

Danish inventor Karl Kroyer solved the problem by devising a way to run a hose to the sunken vessel and to pump into it 27 million small buoyant balls, which caused the sheep ship to become shipshape and rise to the surface.

Kroyer then attempted to patent his invention in Holland, but it was rejected by the Dutch patent officers because they claimed that the idea was not original. Although Kroyer did not intentionally poach another person's work, it turns out that the patent office was correct. Specifically, the May 1949 issue of Walt Disney Comics featured the story The Sunken Yacht where Donald Duck and his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie had used the exact same technique to fill Uncle Scrooge's sunken yacht (hence the name of the episode) with ping pong balls to raise it from the depths of the sea. 

It is still unclear why the Dutch authorities were using Donald Duck comic books to conduct a patent search, but hey, they obviously knew what they were doing. Some folks have asserted that the Dutch patent office did not have the comic book in mind when it denied the patent, but the patent office itself actually gainsays these skeptics.

For further information, click here.

Copyright 1949 "The Sunken Yacht"
by Walt Disney Corporation

THE GROOM OF THE STOOL

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One of the most coveted positions in medieval times was that of "Groom of the Stool."  The lucky individual selected for the job had the privilege of administering enemas to the king when needed, of wiping the royal buttocks after a No. 2, of disposing of the royal bodily waste, and, in general, of making sure that the king's rear end was squeaky clean. The king could not be expected to perform these tasks on his own.

Being appointed Groom of the Stool was in fact considered a very prestigious honor.  Only the hands of a very high nobleman could be allowed to touch the kingly posterior.  The person so selected would always become a close confidant of the regent.

However, as Henry Norris--a former Groom of the Stool to Henry the VIII--unfortunately discovered, being a confidant of the king and the cleaner of his butt nonetheless does not give you license to have sexual relations with the king's mistress. There is evidence to suggest that Norris may have been falsely accused of this error in judgment, but the final result was the same--although the king in a moment of benevolence allowed Norris the mercy of being beheaded instead of drawn and quartered.

COOKING WITH YOUR CHRYSLER

By Historianbuff (Own work)
 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0),
Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

My wife is a superb cook and has incredibly well-honed instincts on working with ingredients, temperatures, and timing to consistently produce diverse delectable dishes. It is a gift with her, and even if you would burn all of her recipe cards, she would still shine in the kitchen. I can count her culinary failures since 1977 with the fingers on just one hand--and that does not include the thumb.

However, a food preparation arena she has not yet entered is one that has been occupied for years by truckers and other individuals who spend much time on the highway--i.e. cooking with a hot vehicle engine while driving.  There are recipes available devoted to this art (for example, the seminal "fast food" cookbook Manifold Destiny by Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller). Although there are certain basic concepts which auto chefs quickly ascertain (such as "don't place the food directly on the oily engine block--wrap it in foil first," "don't allow leaking radiator hoses to steam your veggies with coolant," "keep the crown roast well away from the fan," and "avoid making souffles unless your car is running really smoothly"), there are enough variables in the process that only an individual with keen culinary instincts could prepare decent banquets on the motor (or, as they call it in the trade, "host a block party").

As with real estate, the key is location, location, location. Steaks should be grilled on the exhaust manifold, which is the hottest part of the motor. Baked potatoes go on the engine block. Vegetables should be steamed on the cooler valve covers. Ironically, nothing should be cooked on the grill.

A workman is only as good as his tools.  Unfortunately, modern cars with their overcrowded engine compartments and heavy layers of insulation under the hood are not nearly as well suited space-wise or temperature-wise as their elder brethren in serving as stoves or ovens. Most experts agree that the ultimate vehicles for preparing "meals on wheels" are mid-fifties to early-sixties Chrysler products equipped with the massive Hemi V-8 power plant. These engines are well ventilated, have plenty of spacious flat cooking surfaces, and produce the best ranges of heat for food preparation.

THE LEGEND OF THE SLEEPING GIANT

The most famous quotation attributed to the architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Naval Marshal General Isoroku Yamamoto, is, of course, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." The vividly-phrased declaration demonstrates that Admiral Yamamoto was extremely astute and accurately predicted the highly-negative American response to the attack.

The only problem with the quote is that there is no evidence that Yamamoto ever said or wrote it. No one appears to have found any documentation for it prior to it being uttered by the actor portraying Yamamoto at the end of the 1970 movie Tora! Tora! Tora!.

This is not to say, however, that the quotation does not accurately portray Yamamoto's actual beliefs. History does record that he was depressed after the attack and expressed grave reservations about the chance of his country's success in any conflict with the United States if the fighting went on for more than six months. The Harvard-educated admiral had spent considerable time in the USA as a naval attaché and was quite familiar with the American psyche as well as its industrial capabilities. He realized to his dismay that the inadvertent failure of the Japanese government to notify the Americans that the ongoing peace negotiations were terminated before launching the Pearl Harbor attack would enrage the American populace to the point where the United States would require revenge and would reject any negotiated settlement and early termination of the war. 

In a letter written on January 9, 1942, Yamamoto did state: "A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack." Perhaps this statement was the basis for the famous quotation from Tora! Tora! Tora!. One must admit, however, that this version certainly does not make as good a sound bite.

RAKING

In the days of naval battles between wooden sailing ships, the act of "raking" referred to an attacking ship crossing either behind the stern or in front of the bow of an enemy ship at a right angle so that the attacking ship's cannon fire would go through the entire length of the defending ship. The damage from each such shot would be far more devastating than if the cannonball was fired broadside and merely went from one side of the ship to the other. To add insult to injury, the defending ship would not normally be at an angle to be able to return fire while this carnage was going on. In other words, this transaction would be a bad thing for the defending vessel.

Purportedly, on occasion, a ship's captain (generally British), who wanted to demonstrate what a gallant testosterone-filled macho stud he was, would at the beginning of the battle intentionally expose his ship to the enemy vessel so that the enemy could inflict one free raking. Such captains risked receiving negative performance reviews from their surviving crew members. 

Actually, it was not so much that insecurity in his masculinity would provoke a British captain to voluntarily submit to a raking; it was more a function that the naval crews and officers from the United Kingdom were generally exceptionally competent in their craft and thus could successfully pull off such a stunt.

"PIECES OF EIGHT! PIECES OF EIGHT!"

 

The term "pieces of eight" refers to Spanish milled dollars, which were silver coins each worth 8 "reales" and which are a trope in virtually every pirate book and movie. They were minted for centuries in Spain and its New World colonies and were legal tender in many nations (including the United States until 1857). 

Alexander Hamilton established the weight and silver content of the U.S. silver dollar based on the average weight of worn examples of the Spanish coin, and, as a result, a newly-minted Spanish dollar without any loss of metal due to wear would weigh more and contain more silver than a newly-minted example of the U.S. version--a fact which made the Spanish dollars quite desirable to Americans.

 

It was a common practice to cut the coins into up to eight pie-shaped wedges which could be used for small change. Two of these wedges were equal to one quarter of the dollar and were commonly called "two bits."

A highly-worn example of the more common varieties, like the one pictured above which was made in Mexico City,  can often be obtained for less than $200. However, numerous fake ones abound. While some were manufactured for fraudulent purposes, most were made of base metal, not genuine silver, and serve as souvenirs in novelty stores or tourist traps near the seacoast.

The influence of the Spanish milled dollar may still be pervasive today. The reverse of the coins featured two columns (the "Pillars of Hercules") with a banner loosely wrapped around each one. Although no one for sure knows of the exact origin of the dollar sign, a common theory is that it was adapted from and evolved from this design.

A HEROIC ENDEAVOR

The first known coin-operated vending machine was developed by Hero of Alexander approximately 2,000 years ago. It was used to dispense a set amount of holy water at religious shrines in order to thwart participants who had been taking more water than they had actually purchased. The weight of the coin exerted force on a lever which would lift a plug, allowing a predetermined amount of water to flow out--a system very similar to the flushing mechanism in modern toilets.

The below illustration contains a translation of Hero's description of his invention.

WHAT'S IN YOUR WALLET?

The highest denomination bill ever printed by the United States was $100,000.  It was issued only in 1934, featured Woodrow Wilson, and had a buying power equal to about $2,355,000 in today's inflated money. Much to the relief of toll both attendants, it was to be used only in transactions between federal reserve banks and was not released to the general public.

The back of the bill was orange, not green, because it was a gold certificate.  FDR abolished gold certificates later in 1934, so these bills did not have much of a printing run.

National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History
 [Public domain or CC BY-SA 4.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

THE BRIDGMANITE INCONGRUITY

The most abundant mineral on earth is bridgmanite (also known as silicate perovskite). In fact, it is estimated that 36 to 38% of the volume of the planet is made of this substance.

If you have never heard of bridgmanite, it is probably because it was identified only in the past few years. Because it is normally found 400 to 1600 miles underneath the surface of the planet, no one previously named it, as no one had ever seen it. However, geologists finally located a sample within a meteorite which had been exposed to intense pressure (called a "shocked" meteorite), and bridgmanite is now an official mineral. It is made out of magnesium, silicon, and oxygen. It was named after Percy Bridgman, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1945 for his research on the properties of matter under high pressure.

Ironically (or should I say "bridgmanitecally"), although it is the most abundant mineral on earth, it is also probably the scarcest, due to its inaccessibility.

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NAZI GERMANY'S ONLY DECLARATION OF WAR

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Nazi Germany declared war officially on only one nation--the United States. This declaration was issued on December 11, 1941--four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor and over two years after World War II officially started on September 1, 1939. Germany's mutual defense treaty with Japan did not obligate Germany to declare war against America. The treaty required Germany to assist Japan only if Japan had been attacked--not when Japan was the aggressor.

Hitler was actually an admirer of the USA with its vast areas for living space and its massive industrial base. He believed that America on the whole was comprised of a Nordic master race largely in proper control of its "undesirable" minorities through racial segregation, eugenics laws, and Indian reservations. On the the other hand, he was convinced that this vision of a "pure" America had been corrupted by Roosevelt and his "Jewish ruling elite" (which is fairly ironic, considering that the Roosevelt administration was actually rather anti-Semitic).

Hitler also realized that America's entry into WWI was a pivotal element in the defeat of Germany, and he had no real desire to repeat the same scenario.

Why then did Hitler nonetheless declare war on the United States? Many theories abound, but one factor certainly was the fact that Roosevelt was already clearly supporting the Allies in the ongoing conflict in numerous ways, including sending millions of tons of materials through Lend-Lease and engaging German warships on the oceans. A formal declaration of war meant that the Germans were free to turn their U-boat wolfpacks loose on the Atlantic seaboard to disrupt totally the movement of supplies to Europe--a tactic which came dangerously close to succeeding. An additional popular theory is that Hitler naively believed that the Japanese would quickly defeat the Americans and would then open a second front against the Soviet Union in the Far East. Finally, there is simply the issue of Hitler's ego. If there was ultimately going to be war between American and Germany anyway, Hitler did not want Roosevelt to beat him to declaring it.

Hitler himself set forth in detail his purported justifications for taking on the USA.

Many historians believe that Hitler originally had no territorial ambitions against the continental United States and that had America practiced strict non-interventionism, der Führer would have been content merely with sharing the Eastern Hemisphere with his Japanese and Italian allies (at least for a while).

THE TOTO DISPLACEMENT

The original stage play of The Wizard of Oz did not feature Dorothy's canine, Toto. That role was instead filled by Imogene, a cow. It was much easier to use live actors in a spacious bovine costume than trying to train a live dog.

Imogene did appear in some of the Oz books which were sequels to the original adventure. Her milk production depended on her mood--when she was contemplative and ruminating--chocolate. When she was contented--normal whole milk. When she was excited--butter.  When she was mad--sour cream. When she was gloomy--skim. She could also produce a magic golden healing elixir in the event of a medical emergency.

THANKSGIVING CHRONOLOGICAL ANOMALIES

In 1621, the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony celebrated the first Thanksgiving along with their guests from the Wampanoag Tribe, who contributed five deer to the communal meal.

Well, actually, it was not really the first Thanksgiving. On September 8, 1565, Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles from Spain landed at what is now St. Augustine, Florida, and was peacefully greeted by the Timucua Tribe. He celebrated a Thanksgiving Mass in gratitude for his safe arrival in the New World and broke bread with the natives (most likely, hardtack, along with chickpeas, wine, and salted pork from the Spanish supplies and fish, game, beans, corn and squash from the locals).

But what about the French? On June 30, 1564, over a year before the Spanish gluttony, French explorer Rene Goulaine de Laudonnière organized a Thanksgiving feast for his crew and the Timucuas near what is now Jacksonville, Florida. The French provisions had been pretty well depleted, but the natives saved the day by providing a variety of grains, fruits and game--including barbecued alligator. 

So, was the 1621 shindig at least the third Thanksgiving? Maybe not. There were numerous other explorers who provided thanks when they safely arrived in America, and, no doubt, some of these occasions involved the Europeans sharing food with the Native Americans who greeted them (or, more likely, accepting food from the Native Americans who greeted them). However, the passage of time has obfuscated what actually went on in these other encounters, so we cannot say for sure how many Thanksgivings preceded 1621.

So, why do U.S. families normally count the Pilgrims' dinner party as the first Thanksgiving? Well, duh. The victors get to write the history, and the English and their descendants eventually elbowed the French and Spanish out of what became the USA.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, do not forget that you should NOT wash your turkey.

MORE FUN THAN A BARREL OF WELL, YOU KNOW...

In the ubiquitous toy Barrel of Monkeys, which features a plastic barrel containing a bunch of plastic monkeys, any single pair of the monkeys can be joined together in over 80 different combinations.  As a result, biochemists for nearly fifty years have used the monkeys to help them visualize how the molecules in complex proteins and viruses could be constructed and linked together. 

One of the original creators of the Barrel of Monkeys, Leonard Marks, was inspired to make the toy when he was standing around in a store aimlessly playing with replacement links for snow chains for tires.

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