History with Descriptions - A through Z

St Nazaire Raid, 1942.
An incredible brave undertaking, which prevented the big Nazi capital ships reaching a haven for repairs. There was a damned good programme about it; see here.
Wiki has some good info as well.

Handley_Page said:

St Nazaire Raid, 1942.
An incredible brave undertaking, which prevented the big Nazi capital ships reaching a haven for repairs. There was a damned good programme about it; see here.
Wiki has some good info as well.

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The letter 'F"?

Hard_Rom said:

The letter 'F"?

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Francization A program in Québec started by the Parti Québecois which aims to make everything in Québec French. It involves requiring public signs to have French lettering at least twice as large as any other, and for businesses to have French names and conduct their business in French. It even has its own government agency - the Office Québecois de la Langue Français - which has it own enforcers, commonly known in English as the "Language Police." These civil servants have ordered (laughably) an Italian restaurant to replace the word "pasta" with "pâte alimentaire de la type italienne," and once had a business place masking tape over the word "hold" on their telephone.

Tio_Narratore said:

Francization A program in Québec started by the Parti Québecois which aims to make everything in Québec French. It involves requiring public signs to have French lettering at least twice as large as any other, and for businesses to have French names and conduct their business in French. It even has its own government agency - the Office Québecois de la Langue Français - which has it own enforcers, commonly known in English as the "Language Police." These civil servants have ordered (laughably) an Italian restaurant to replace the word "pasta" with "pâte alimentaire de la type italienne," and once had a business place masking tape over the word "hold" on their telephone.

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Amazing the lengths folk will go through to protect their culture. But I couldn't imagine living in Quebec and not making every effort to not learn French fluently. Even as a tourist I would expect to think I was in a foreign country.

Lot of pressure on Quebec to assimilate then and even now. From receiving only 60,000 colonist from France they have done well to keep a very unique culture.

G-8

The G-8 is the most exclusive club in the world. There are 190 nations in the UN, 54 in the Commonwealth, 19 in NATO, but only the United States, Russia, Japan, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Canada in the G-8. How did Canada come to be a member of this political "directoire" when economic giants like China and Brazil are excluded?

In 1975 President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing of France had a good idea. In that era of energy crisis and galloping inflation, France recognized that the world economy required the most important states to work in concert. To develop a coordinated strategy, the French president recommended that the world's leaders meet to debate forcefully and informally the issues of the day free from the protocol and vast organization of most internal organizations. There was ready agreement to the concept and the agenda. But a major issue arose - who would be invited to be a member of this new club?

Invitations were extended to France's partners in the G-5 economic consultative group, and as a neighbourly gesture, Giscard d'Estaing also invited Italy. Canada, however, was left out. France's decision may have been a continuation of the Gaullist campaign to diminish Canada that had begun with General Charles de Gaulle's "Vive Quebec Libre" speech in Montreal. Or France may not have wanted to set a precedent for other middle powers, but the French president was adamant - No Canada!

The G-8 is one of the most important forums in the world. In 1983 Prime Minister Trudeau persuaded his partners to endorse his peace mission, in 1987 Prime Minister Mulroney led a dialogue on South Africa, and in 2002 Prime Minister Chrétien has made African development the centrepiece of the agenda. Through the G-8, Canada is part of the major leagues of international diplomacy. Canada's membership is probably the most significant foreign policy achievement of the Trudeau era. We owe this elevated status, however, to a decent man largely unrecognized in his own country's history, President Gerald Ford.

As a long time representative of Michigan in the Congress, Ford knew Canada well. When he became president, through the accident of the Watergate scandal in 1974, Ford and Trudeau immediately hit it off. President Ford was irate about Canada's exclusion, and he briefly considered refusing to attend the summit. A more positive approach, however, was chosen. The United States was to host the next summit, and just as France had invited Italy in 1975, the United States would invite Canada to attend the 1976 summit in Puerto Rico. Once invited, President Ford concluded, you would not be excluded in the future. So it has proved.

Hard_Rom said:

Amazing the lengths folk will go through to protect their culture. But I couldn't imagine living in Quebec and not making every effort to not learn French fluently. Even as a tourist I would expect to think I was in a foreign country.

Lot of pressure on Quebec to assimilate then and even now. From receiving only 60,000 colonist from France they have done well to keep a very unique culture.

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Oui, et nous - presque tous les anglophones du Québec - parlons français. Mais il est insuffisant. Et vous? Êtes-vous canadien? Parlez-vous les deux langues officiel de notre pays?

Je suis canadien. Né en Angleterre. Mon Français est terrible. Deux ans d’école publique Français c’est tout. Serait bien d’être plus fluide ou fluent du tout.

Yay for Bing translation. Even lets you hear it. I read French far far better than I speak it.

H. How do I add pictures to my post? (Not an outside link.)

Carnal_Flower said:

H. How do I add pictures to my post? (Not an outside link.)

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Add an attachment. They won't display though. But can be clicked on and opened.

What about the Transcontinental Railroad pic? Help us, JKD!

Anyway: EDWARD HOPPER, the great American painter

Hopper is a complex painter combining Psychological mood, introspection, "alienation", along with a very strong architectural structure and a modernist formal attention to color, shape etc. I've seen a few shows and when you see them exhibited they look like abstract works almost, full of brilliant color and light. His subjects are ordinary people, slices of Americana, the city, houses and landscapes.

https://www.google.com/search?q=edw...AUICCgB&biw=320&bih=496#imgrc=XUaUtojDD4ZPtM:

He was a depressive, a cynic, and a romantic.

Hard_Rom said:

Add an attachment. They won't display though. But can be clicked on and opened.

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Inuit

Inuit — Inuktitut for “the people” — are an Aboriginal people, the majority of whom inhabit the northern regions of Canada. An Inuit person is known as an Inuk. The Inuit homeland is known as Inuit Nunangat,which refers to the land, water and ice contained in the Arctic region. The term Inuit Nunangat may also be used to refer to land occupied by the Inuit in Alaska and Greenland. In 2011, using data from the National Household Survey, Statistics Canada estimated that 59,440 people in Canada, about 4.2 per cent of the Aboriginal population, identified themselves as Inuit.

During roughly 4,000 years of human history in the Arctic, the appearance of new people has brought continual cultural change. The ancestors of the present-day Inuit, who are culturally related to Inupiat (northern Alaska), Katladlit (Greenland) and Yuit (Siberia and western Alaska), arrived about 1050 CE. As early as the 11th century the Norse exerted an undetermined influence on the Inuit. The subsequent arrival of explorers, whalers, traders, missionaries, scientists and others began irreversible cultural changes. The Inuit themselves participated actively in these developments as guides, traders and models of survival. Despite adjustments made by the Inuit over the past three centuries and the loss of some traditional features, Inuit culture persists — often with a greater reflective awareness. Inuit maintain a cultural identity through language, family and cultural laws, attitudes and behaviour, and through much acclaimed Inuit art.

Grace Hopper, Admiral.
The lady to gave us the COBOL computer language and the term 'bug' (after a moth had got caught in a relay).
She was the longest serving US Naval Officer; ever!

Carnal_Flower said:

What about the Transcontinental Railroad pic? Help us, JKD!

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The only way you can have them display in your post is to click on the picture icon and insert a valid website address for the image in the pop up which can be either from a website of your own or hot linked.



Jerry Ford

United States President 1974-1977. The only man to ever move up to the Oval Office from the VP position without being elected as Vice President.

Ford served in the difficult years after Nixon resigned but did provide many comedic moments between falling down the stairs of Air Force One and his tendency to pop people in the head with his wayward golf drives.

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Handley_Page said:

Grace Hopper, Admiral.
The lady to gave us the COBOL computer language and the term 'bug' (after a moth had got caught in a relay).
She was the longest serving US Naval Officer; ever!

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Getting closer.

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Michael Faraday (1791 - 1867)

At a time when serious advances in science were almost common, Faraday stood head & shoulders above his peers. He received little or no formal education as a young man, but being apprentice to a bookbinder, he managed to read several influential textbooks and developed a keen interest in the then new study of Electricity as well as Chemistry.
He managed to get a job as Assistant to Sir Humphrey Davy.
Not being of the "top drawer", Faraday was not considered a superior being, but despite his being regarded as little more than a skivvy ('you can eat with the servants'), Faraday managed to meet some of the most influential scientific minds in Europe.
It was mostly due to Faraday's work in electromagnetism that led to the electric motors we see today.
He discovered Benzine, invented a sort of bunsen burner and became Professor of Chemistry; he turned down a Knighthood and burial in Westminster Abbey (he's in Highgate Cemetery) but a memorial plaque was erected in his honour in the Abbey..

Ok what am I missing here. I don't see a picture icon. All I see is 'Manage attachments," and it comes up as a link. Techno-illiterate here.

JKendallDane said:

The only way you can have them display in your post is to click on the picture icon and insert a valid website address for the image in the pop up which can be either from a website of your own or hot linked.

Jerry Ford

United States President 1974-1977. The only man to ever move up to the Oval Office from the VP position without being elected as Vice President.

Ford served in the difficult years after Nixon resigned but did provide many comedic moments between falling down the stairs of Air Force One and his tendency to pop people in the head with his wayward golf drives.

.

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Carnal_Flower said:

Ok what am I missing here. I don't see a picture icon. All I see is 'Manage attachments," and it comes up as a link. Techno-illiterate here.

Click to expand...

In the two rows at the top of the reply box. In the second row is bold, italics, underline, etc. Further down are five icons. The fourth one is for images. Click on it.

One caveat: Be sure to not duplicate the "http:" that pops up with it automatically.

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You don't get a pop-up with the ability to upload files from your computer? My pop-up has a link at top. Maybe click it?

Copy shortcut from a general search page like Google will just copy Google page. You need to open up the picture you want and then copy that URL.

Juarez, Benito (1806-1872) is considered one of Mexico's greatest and most beloved leaders. During his political career he helped to institute a series of liberal reforms that were embodied into the new constitution of 1857. During the French occupation of Mexico, Juarez refused to accept the rule of the Monarchy or any other foreign nation, and helped to establish Mexico as a constitutional democracy. He also promoted equal rights for the Indian population, better access to health care and education, lessening the political and financial power of the Roman Catholic church, and championed the raising of the living standards for the rural poor (from Mexonline). The son of Zapotecos, he served as President for five continuous terms from 1857 to 1872.

Krakatoa

The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) began in the afternoon of August 26, 1883, and culminated with several destructive eruptions of the remaining caldera.

On August 27, two-thirds of Krakatoa collapsed in a chain of titanic explosions, destroying most of the island and its surrounding archipelago. It was one of the deadliest and most destructive volcanic events in recorded history, with at least 36,000 deaths being attributed to the eruption itself and the tsunamis it created.

JKendallDane said:

Krakatoa

The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) began in the afternoon of August 26, 1883, and culminated with several destructive eruptions of the remaining caldera.

On August 27, two-thirds of Krakatoa collapsed in a chain of titanic explosions, destroying most of the island and its surrounding archipelago. It was one of the deadliest and most destructive volcanic events in recorded history, with at least 36,000 deaths being attributed to the eruption itself and the tsunamis it created.

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I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Krakatoa tsunami raised the high tide in the English Channel by almost three feet. Impressive.

SamScribble said:

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Krakatoa tsunami raised the high tide in the English Channel by almost three feet. Impressive.

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It the noisiest (natural) bang ever made; they heard it in South Australia.

Hard_Rom said:

Inuit

Inuit — Inuktitut for “the people” — are an Aboriginal people, the majority of whom inhabit the northern regions of Canada. An Inuit person is known as an Inuk. The Inuit homeland is known as Inuit Nunangat,which refers to the land, water and ice contained in the Arctic region. The term Inuit Nunangat may also be used to refer to land occupied by the Inuit in Alaska and Greenland. In 2011, using data from the National Household Survey, Statistics Canada estimated that 59,440 people in Canada, about 4.2 per cent of the Aboriginal population, identified themselves as Inuit.

During roughly 4,000 years of human history in the Arctic, the appearance of new people has brought continual cultural change. The ancestors of the present-day Inuit, who are culturally related to Inupiat (northern Alaska), Katladlit (Greenland) and Yuit (Siberia and western Alaska), arrived about 1050 CE. As early as the 11th century the Norse exerted an undetermined influence on the Inuit. The subsequent arrival of explorers, whalers, traders, missionaries, scientists and others began irreversible cultural changes. The Inuit themselves participated actively in these developments as guides, traders and models of survival. Despite adjustments made by the Inuit over the past three centuries and the loss of some traditional features, Inuit culture persists — often with a greater reflective awareness. Inuit maintain a cultural identity through language, family and cultural laws, attitudes and behaviour, and through much acclaimed Inuit art.

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Columbus was a JKL.

Boxlicker101 said:

Columbus was a JKL.

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Definitely; earliest evidence of human occupation of the New World is 20,000 years ago or earlier. New sites are constantly being found, and old ones re-examined. The "nothing-before-Clovis" thesis is defunct.

Leonardo da Vinci.

Interesting facts:


• Leonardo was raised by his single father.

• Leonardo was one of the first Italians to use oil paint .

• He was left-handed

• Leonardo da Vinci left many paintings unfinished and destroyed most of his work.

• Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, are the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time.

• Leonardo was a vegetarian who loved animals and despised war, yet he worked as a military engineer to invent advanced and deadly weapons.

• Leonardo drew the plans for the first armored car in 1485

• He invented the bicycle 300 years before it appeared on the road.

• He created an inflatable tube so people could float in the water.

• When he made notes on his inventions it was all written in reverse, which made it hard for others to dig through his notes and steal his ideas.

• He dug into graveyards at night to steal corpses and study human anatomy (and find out where the soul was).

• He produced aeriel maps for Cesare Borgia which are still accurate today.

• He was the illegitimate child of Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine notary, and Caterina, a peasant.

• Leonardo sketched the first parachute, first helicopter, first aeroplane, first tank, first repeating rifle, swinging bridge, paddleboat and the first motorcar.

• Leonardo was very much interested in the possibility of human flight. He produced many studies of the flight of birds and plans for several flying machines.

• He was also a sculptor, designer of costumes, mathematician and botanist.

• He made maps of Europe.

• He invented hydraulic pumps.

• He designed a movable bridge for the Duke of Milan.

• He drew the plans of the first armored car in 1485.

• The Mona Lisa is perhaps his most famous work. The subject of this portrait is still debated to this day, the most popular current view being that it is of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo. One of the most unusual hypotheses is that it is a self-portrait of Leonardo as a woman.

• It took da Vinci about ten years to paint Mona Lisa's lips. {!!!}

• He painted The Last Supper at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan; a dramatic depiction of the moment Jesus announced that he would be betrayed.

• Leonardo would wear pink to make his complexion look fresh.

• Leonardo da Vinci never married or had children.