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 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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Smilodon
Saber-toothed tigers
are some of the best known and most popular of
all Ice Age animals, but were actually more
closely related to modern-day wildcats (pumas,
bobcats, etc.) than to tigers. |
What
Happened on June
24th?
1811 Author Harriet Beecher Stowe was born.
1812 Napoleon Bonaparte invaded
Russia.
1908 Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United
States, died. |
George
Fox left home at the age of 18 to seek spiritual enlightenment. In
1647, after experiencing a series of visions and
voices from God, he began preaching to anyone who
would listen, and soon began attracting
followers. He founded the Society of Friends that
same year, and by 1654 was spreading his message
around the world. |
Elizabeth
Patterson Bonaparte was, for a
couple of years, the sister-in-law of Napoleon
Bonaparte, Emperor of France. Unfortunately,
Napoleon did not agree with her marriage to his
younger brother, and had the marriage annulled. |
Macbeth
became King of Scotland when he killed King
Duncan I, in 1040. He subsequently ruled in
relative peace for seventeen years before being
fatally wounded in a battle with one of Duncan's
sons in 1057. |
Stewart
Lee Udall served as Secretary of the
Interior under Presidents John F. Kennedy and
Lyndon B. Johnson. In that capacity he was
instrumental in the passage of several laws aimed
at protecting the environment, and for a major
expansion of the National Park System. |
Matthew
Fontaine Maury published the first
popular textbook on marine science, Physical
Geography of the Sea, in 1855. During the
Civil War, his work for the Confederacy led to a
$3,000 price being put on his head, second only
to the price put on the head of Confederate
President Jefferson Davis. |
Jamsetji
Nasarawanji Tata established India's
textile industry, its iron and steel industry,
and its hydroelectric industry. He also pledged a
portion of his vast personal fortune towards the
establishment of an Indian Institute of Science. |
The Department
of State handles U.S. relations with
other governments. Founded as the Department of
Foreign Affairs in 1781, it is the oldest
executive office of the U.S. government. |
The Nuremberg
Trials were a series of 13 trials
held in Nuremberg, Germany, from 1945 to 1949. In
these trials, leaders of Nazi Germany were tried
for crimes against international law, including
causing World War II deliberately, waging
aggressive wars of conquest, and persecution of
Jews. |
Mordecai
Wyatt Johnson was the first
permanent African-American president of Howard
University, in which capacity he served from 1926
to 1960. During his tenure, Howard grew from
eight unaccredited schools and colleges to ten
that are still fully accredited, saw its
enrollment grow from 1,700 to 6,000, and
increased its budget from $700,000 to $8 million. |
John
Knowles Paine was the first American
composer to have a work performed in Europe, the
first American to write a symphony, and the first
professor of music in the United States. |
Peter
Behrens worked as a painter and
graphic artist before turning to architecture. As
artistic consultant for a major German
manufacturing company, he not only designed the
company's logo and sales literature, but its
factories and workers' apartments as well. He
also designed a number of household electrical
appliances, china, glass objects, and patterned
linoleum flooring. |
Aphra
Behn was one of the first women to
make writing her sole source of income. She is
best known for the historical novel Oroonoko, the History of the Royal
Slave, which has been cited as one of the
earliest examples of the noble savage in
literature. |
The
Bobwhite
(Colinus virginianus) is a relatively small game bird,
weighing approximately 5-6 ounces, and averaging
8-10 inches in length, with a 3.5-4.7- inch
wingspan. Adult males are distinguished from
females by their white facial stripes and throat
and sharply contrasting black markings on the
feathers. |
Emil
Adolf von Behring spent his life in
the study of immunity. In 1889 he produced an
antitoxin against diphtheria, and in 1890
produced an antitoxin against tetanus. He was the
receipient of the 1901 Nobel Prize for Physiology
and Medicine. |
Daffodils
are large trumpet-shaped flowers that grow from
bulbs. A very popular garden flower, it is often
one of the first bulbs to blossom in the spring. |
Mathew
B. Brady opened a daguerreotype
gallery in New York City in 1844. By 1850 he had
gained a reputation as one of America's greatest
portrait photographers, and by the time of his
death had photographed every President from John
Quincy Adams to William McKinley. He also gained
considerable fame for his photographic record of
the Civil War. |
Richard
Jordan Gatling thought the invention
of an automatic gun that could deliver a high
rate of fire would reduce the number of soldiers
required to man the battlefield, thus helping to
reduce the number of battlefield casualties. In
1862 he patented the Gatling Gun. |
John
Philip Holland launched his first
successful submarine in 1881. The company he
founded ultimately became the Electric Boat
Company, which has subsequently built the vast
majority of the U.S. Navy's submarines, as well
as submarines for many other nations. |