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Cybele is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible precursor in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük, where statues of obese women, sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations. She is Phrygia's only known goddess, and was probably its state deity. Her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies around the 6th century BC.
In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception. She was partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia, her Minoan equivalent Rhea, and the harvest-mother goddess Demeter. Some city-states, notably Athens, evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and processions show her as an essentially foreign, exotic mystery-goddess who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine, and a disorderly, ecstatic following. Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a eunuch mendicant priesthood. Many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis, who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele is associated with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, and wild animals, especially lions.
In Rome, Cybele was known as Magna Mater ("Great Mother"). The Roman state adopted and developed a particular form of her cult after the Sibylline oracle recommended her conscription as a key religious component in Rome's second war against Carthage. Roman mythographers reinvented her as a Trojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince Aeneas. With Rome's eventual hegemony over the Mediterranean world, Romanized forms of Cybele's cults spread throughout the Roman Empire. The meaning and morality of her cults and priesthoods were topics of debate and dispute in Greek and Roman literature, and remain so in modern scholarship.

David M Mallon |

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Stark Tower (later Avengers Tower; appearing in Marvel's The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), and Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015)) appears in place of the real-world MetLife Building in New York City.
However, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe television series Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil, and Jessica Jones, the MetLife Building is visible in some shots. TheMetLife Building is most noticeable in the series Iron Fist, as the fictional Rand Enterprises Building is also located in Midtown Manhattan, and the MetLife Building can be seen clearly through its windows.

Kajehase |
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Zanjeer (1992 - 2000) was an Indian labrador retriever who worked in the Mumbai police as a detection dog, where he helped discover 243 bombs and around 600 detonators - most notably averting three attacks during the 1993 Mumbai bombings. Following his death due to bone cancer, Zanjeer was given a full state funeral.

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Misfits of Science is an American superhero fantasy television series that aired on NBC from October 1985 to February 1986.
The show concerned super-powered humans and their madcap adventures. The team is formed by Dr. Billy Hayes, a research scientist at the Humanidyne Institute who specializes in "human anomalies". He works with shrinking Dr. Elvin "El" Lincoln, and together they recruit electrically powered Johnny Bukowski, a rock-and-roll musician, and Gloria Dinallo, a telekinetic teen.

David M Mallon |
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Frank Conniff, Sr. (1914– 1971), born in Danbury, CT, USA, worked for Hearst Newspapers and was editor of the World Journal Tribune of New York from 1966 to 1967 when the newspaper ceased publication. He was also national editor of Hearst Newspapers.
In 1955, Conniff interviewed Nikita S. Khrushchev, premier of the Soviet Union, in Moscow for Hearst's International News Service, earning him a 1956 Pulitzer Prize, which he shared with William Randolph Hearst and J. Kingsbury Smith for a series of exclusive interviews with leaders of the Soviet Union.
His son Frank Conniff, Jr. (1956-) is an actor and screenwriter, best known for his role as "TV's Frank" on the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000.

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Akihito is the reigning Emperor of Japan. He is the 125th emperor of his line according to Japan's traditional order of succession. Akihito succeeded his father Emperor Shōwa and acceded to the Chrysanthemum Throne on 7 January 1989. There has been ongoing coverage of his possible abdication due to age and health issues; 31 December 2018 and 1 January 2019 have been mentioned as possible dates of abdication.

Ambrosia Slaad |
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If he were still alive, today (May 17th) would have been the 105th birthday of Archibald Cox.
On May 16 (one day off), 1973, Archibald Cox was appointed Special Prosecutor.

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A douche is a device used to introduce a stream of water into the body for medical or hygienic reasons, or the stream of water itself.
The word's first known use is in 1766. Douche came into English via French, from Italian: doccia "conduit pipe" and docciare "pour by drops" to douche, from doccia water pipe, probably back-formation from doccione conduit, from Latin: duction-, ductio means of conveying water, from ducere to lead.

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The chemtrail conspiracy theory is the unproven belief that long-lasting trails, so-called "chemtrails", are left in the sky by high-flying aircraft and that they consist of chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed for sinister purposes undisclosed to the general public.[1] Believers in the theory argue that normal contrails dissipate relatively quickly and that contrails that do not dissipate must contain additional substances. These arguments have been dismissed by the scientific community: such trails are normal water-based contrails (condensation trails) that are routinely left by high-flying aircraft under certain atmospheric conditions. Although proponents have attempted to prove that the claimed chemical spraying does take place, their analyses have been flawed or based on misconceptions.
Because of the persistence of the conspiracy theory and questions about government involvement, scientists and government agencies around the world have repeatedly explained that supposed chemtrails are in fact normal contrails.
The term chemtrail is a portmanteau of the words chemical and trail, as contrail is of condensation and trail. Believers in the conspiracy theory speculate that the purpose of the claimed chemical release may be solar radiation management, psychological manipulation, human population control, weather modification, or biological or chemical warfare and that the trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems.

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The Preakness Stakes is an American flat thoroughbred horse race held on the third Saturday in May each year at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. It is a Grade I race run over a distance of 9.5 furlongs (1-3⁄16 miles (1,900 m)) on dirt. Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds (57 kg); fillies 121 lb (55 kg). It is the second jewel of the Triple Crown, held two weeks after the Kentucky Derby and three weeks before the Belmont Stakes.
First run in 1873, the Preakness Stakes was named by a former Maryland governor after a winning colt at Pimlico. The race has been termed "The Run for the Black-Eyed Susans" because a blanket of yellow flowers altered to resemble Maryland's state flower is placed around the winner's neck. Attendance at the Preakness Stakes ranks second in North America among equestrian events, only surpassed by the Kentucky Derby.
The 142nd running of the Preakness Stakes will take place on Saturday, May 20, 2017.

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Agave tequilana, commonly called blue agave (agave azul) or tequila agave, is an agave plant that is an important economic product of Jalisco, Mexico, due to its role as the base ingredient of tequila, a popular distilled beverage. The high production of sugars, mostly fructose, in the core of the plant is the main characteristic that makes it suitable for the preparation of alcoholic beverages.
The tequila agave is native to the states of Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit and Aguascalientes in Mexico. The plant favors altitudes of more than 1,500 metres (5,000 ft) and grows in rich and sandy soils. Blue agave plants grow into large succulents, with spiky fleshy leaves, that can reach over 2 metres (7 ft) in height. Blue agaves sprout a stalk (quiote) when about five years old that can grow an additional 5 metres (16 ft); they are topped with yellow flowers.
The stalk is cut off from commercial plants so the plant will put more energy into the heart.
The flowers are pollinated by a native bat (Leptonycteris nivalis) and produce several thousand seeds per plant. The plant then dies. The shoots on commercial plants are removed when about a year old to allow the heart to grow larger. The plants are then reproduced by planting these shoots; this has led to a considerable loss of genetic diversity in cultivated blue agave.

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Julie Newmar (born August 16, 1933) is an American actress, dancer and singer, known for a variety of stage, screen, and television roles. She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Katrin Sveg in the 1958 Broadway production of The Marriage-Go-Round, and reprised the role in the 1961 film version. In the 1960s, she starred for two seasons as Catwoman in the television series Batman (1966–67). Her other stage credits include the Ziegfeld Follies in 1956, and playing Lola in Damn Yankees! (1961) and Irma in Irma la Douce (1965) in regional productions. She appeared in the music video for George Michael's 1992 single "Too Funky", and had a cameo as herself in the 1995 film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. Her voice work includes the 2016 film Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders, reprising her role as Catwoman.

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Archaefructus is an extinct genus of herbaceous aquatic seed plants with 3 known species. Fossil material assigned to this genus originates from the Yixian Formation in northeastern China, originally dated as late Jurassic but now thought to be approximately 125 million years old, or early Cretaceous in age. Even with its revised age, Archaefructus has been proposed to be one of the earliest known genera of flowering plants.
Because of its age, lack of sepals and petals, and the fact that its reproductive organs (carpels and stamens), are produced on an elongate stem rather than condensed into a flower as in modern angiosperms, Archaefructaceae has been proposed as a new basal angiosperm family. An alternative interpretation of the same fossil, however, interprets the elongate stem as an inflorescence rather than a flower, with staminate (male) flowers below and pistillate (female) flower above. The discovery of Archaefructus eoflora supports this interpretation, because a bisexual flower is present in the region between staminate and pistillate organs. If this interpretation is correct, Archaefructus may not be basal within angiosperms, rather it may be close to the Nymphaeales or the basal eudicots.

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Big Sur is a lightly populated, unincorporated region on California's Central Coast where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The coast is frequently praised for its rugged coastline and mountain views. As the "longest and most scenic stretch of undeveloped coastline in the [contiguous] United States," it has been described as a "national treasure that demands extraordinary procedures to protect it from development" and "one of the most beautiful coastlines anywhere in the world, an isolated stretch of road, mythic in reputation." Big Sur's Cone Peak at 5,155 feet (1,571 m) is only 3 miles (5 km) from the ocean. The stunning views make Big Sur a popular tourist destination.
The region is protected by the Big Sur Local Coastal Program which preserves the region as "open space, a small residential community, and agricultural ranching." Approved in 1981, it is one of the most restrictive local use programs in the state, and is widely regarded as one of the most restrictive documents of its kind anywhere. The program protects viewsheds from the highway and many vantage points, and restricts the density of development to one unit per acre in tourist areas or one dwelling per 10 acres (4.0 ha) in the far south. About 60% of the coastal region is owned by a government or private agency that does not allow any development. The majority of the interior region is part of the Los Padres National Forest, the Ventana Wilderness, Silver Peak Wilderness, or Fort Hunter Liggett.
When the region was ceded by Mexico to the US in 1848, it was the United States' "last frontier." The region remained one of the most isolated areas of California and the United States until, after 18 years of construction, the Carmel–San Simeon Highway was completed in 1937.
The region does not have specific boundaries, but is generally considered to include the 76 miles (122 km) segment of California State Route 1 from Carmel River south to San Carpóforo Creek near San Simeon and the entire Santa Lucia range between the rivers. The interior region is uninhabited, while the coast remains relatively isolated and sparsely populated with about 1,000 year-round residents and relatively few visitor accommodations.
The original Spanish-language name for the unexplored mountainous terrain south of Monterey, the capital of Alta California, was "el país grande del sur" meaning, "the big country of the south." It was Anglicized by English-speaking settlers as Big Sur.

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Café du Monde is a renowned open-air coffee shop located on Decatur Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It is a New Orleans landmark and tourist destination, known for its café au lait and beignets.
The French brought coffee with them as they began to settle along the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi River, circa 1700. During the American Civil War, the New Orleans Creoles developed the chicory-blended coffee (as there was a coffee shortage) — which has continued to be served at Café du Monde and other New Orleans restaurants. Chicory adds a chocolate-like flavor to café au lait.
The Acadians (Cajuns) from Nova Scotia brought other French customs, such as the beignet, to Louisiana in the 18th century. Unlike most doughnuts, beignets are squared pieces of dough with no hole in the middle and are most often covered with powdered sugar. Sometimes they are seen served with fruit, jam, maple syrup, or even savory items. At Café du Monde, the beignets are served with a thick coating of powdered sugar and sold in orders of three.
The menu at Café du Monde is simple, as it only includes dark-roasted coffee with chicory, beignets, white and chocolate milk, hot chocolate, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. The coffee is served either black or au lait (with heated milk). According to the Café du Monde’s vice-president, Burton E. Benrud, Jr., the beignets remain the only food item on the French Market location's menu; and Café du Monde is committed to “keeping things the way they’ve always been: recipes have gone relatively unchanged.”
Café du Monde is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, except for Christmas Day and days when "the occasional hurricane passes too close to New Orleans", and is patronized by both locals and visitors.

Kirth Gersen |
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Chicory adds a chocolate-like flavor to café au lait.
One could describe the flavor as a lot of things, but "chocolate-like" is decidedly not one of them. (For the record, I drink exclusively coffee with chicory at home -- I greatly prefer it to pure coffee -- and I don't like chocolate at all.)

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Zatarain's is a food and spice company based in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States that makes a large family of products with seasonings and spices that are part of the cultural cuisine and heritage of Louisiana and New Orleans' Cajun and Creole traditions that includes root beer extract, seasonings, boxed and frozen foods.
The company was started in New Orleans in 1886 and moved to the suburb of Gretna when the family sold the company, in 1963. It was founded as a grocery by Émile A. Zatarain, in 1886. He created a formulation for root beer that became popular regionally after its introduction at 2:30 p.m. on May 7, 1889, at the Louisiana (Purchase) Exposition under the brand Papoose Root Beer, for which he took out a trademark. He started a new business, Papoose Pure Food Products, built a factory, and began to market it in 1889.
He expanded his product range to include mustard, pickled vegetables, and extracts. Then he moved into the spice business and became known for New Orleans and Cajun-style products. In 1963 the family sold the business, which has been owned in several different forms in its more than 130-year history. The brand is currently owned by McCormick, the world's largest spice company.

David M Mallon |
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The Beast of Hollow Mountain, starring Guy Madison, Patricia Medina, and Carlos Rivas, is a 1956 "Weird West" film about an American cowboy living in Mexico who discovers his missing cattle are being preyed upon by a dinosaur.
The first film to show dinosaurs and cowboys in the same picture, it is notable for being based on storyboards drawn by special effects innovator Willis O'Brien for a scrapped 1939 film. The Beast of Hollow Mountain was one of the few American/Mexican co-productions of the 50s, and was directed by Ismael Rodríguez and Edward Nassour.
The film mostly used stop-motion animation with some replacement animation, and was the first feature film ever made using animation with color and anamorphic (CinemaScope) cinematography. It was also the first feature to utilize anamorphic background projection with animation, and was the first film to feature stop-motion effects shot in widescreen and color. The movie was filmed back-to-back in both English and Spanish at Churubusco Studios in Mexico City and released as La bestia de la montaña in Mexico.
After Willis O'Brien's death in 1962, his protégé, Ray Harryhausen, used O'Brien's original story idea in a more polished version of O'Brien's original pitch, which was made in to the 1969 film The Valley of Gwangi, directed by Jim O'Connolly and written by William Bast.

David M Mallon |
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During World War II, animator Ray Harryhausen served in the United States Army Special Services Division under Col. Frank Capra, as a loader, clapper boy, gofer and later camera assistant on Capra's Why We Fight series, as well as working at home animating short films about the use and development of military equipment. During his time with Capra, he worked alongside composer Dimitri Tiomkin and writer Theodore Seuss "Dr. Seuss" Geisel.

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Filet mignon is a steak cut of beef taken from the smaller end of the tenderloin, or psoas major of the beef carcass, usually a steer or heifer. In French this cut can also be called filet de bœuf, which translates in English to beef fillet.
The tenderloin runs along both sides of the spine, and is usually harvested as two long snake-shaped cuts of beef. The tenderloin is sometimes sold whole. When sliced along the short dimension, creating roughly round cuts, and tube cuts, the cuts (fillets) from the small forward end are considered to be filet mignon. Those from the center are tournedos; however, some butchers in the United States label all types of tenderloin steaks "filet mignon." In fact, the shape of the true filet mignon may be a hindrance when cooking, so most restaurants sell steaks from the wider end of the tenderloin - it is both cheaper and much more presentable.
The tenderloin is the most tender cut of beef and is also arguably the most desirable and therefore the most expensive. The average steer or heifer provides no more than 500 grams of filet mignon. Because the muscle is not weight-bearing, it contains less connective tissue, which makes it tender. However, it is generally not as flavorful as some other cuts of beef (example, primal rib cuts), and is often wrapped in bacon to enhance flavor, and/or is served with a sauce.

Kirth Gersen |

Zatarain's is a food and spice company based in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States that makes a large family of products with seasonings and spices that are part of the cultural cuisine and heritage of Louisiana and New Orleans' Cajun and Creole traditions
I love when people use "Zatarain's" to refer to any generic Cajun or Creole recipe, or, better yet, when they use it as a verb.
Disclaimer: I've got I-don't-know how many different boxes of their stuff in my pantry.
Kirth Gersen |

When I was a kid in the 1980s, most Swedish stores only had 5 types of pasta: spaghetti, macaroni, "fast" macaroni, tagliatelle, and lasagna-plates (and not always the tagliatelle).
When I was a kid in the 1980s, most Italian-American stores sold more types of pasta than I could possibly name!

DungeonmasterCal |
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Aberzombie wrote:Zatarain's is a food and spice company based in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States that makes a large family of products with seasonings and spices that are part of the cultural cuisine and heritage of Louisiana and New Orleans' Cajun and Creole traditionsI love when people use "Zatarain's" to refer to any generic Cajun or Creole recipe, or, better yet, when they use it as a verb.
Disclaimer: I've got I-don't-know how many different boxes of their stuff in my pantry.
I just finished off the last of some Zatarain'a Red Beans and Rice I made the other day...lol

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An internal combustion engine (ICE) is a heat engine where the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combustion engine the expansion of the high-temperature and high-pressure gases produced by combustion applies direct force to some component of the engine. The force is applied typically to pistons, turbine blades, rotor or a nozzle. This force moves the component over a distance, transforming chemical energy into useful mechanical energy.
The first commercially successful internal combustion engine was created by Étienne Lenoir around 1859 and the first modern internal combustion engine was created in 1876 by Nikolaus Otto.
The term internal combustion engine usually refers to an engine in which combustion is intermittent, such as the more familiar four-stroke and two-stroke piston engines, along with variants, such as the six-stroke piston engine and the Wankel rotary engine. A second class of internal combustion engines use continuous combustion: gas turbines, jet engines and most rocket engines, each of which are internal combustion engines on the same principle as previously described. Firearms are also a form of internal combustion engine.
Internal combustion engines are quite different from external combustion engines, such as steam or Stirling engines, in which the energy is delivered to a working fluid not consisting of, mixed with, or contaminated by combustion products. Working fluids can be air, hot water, pressurized water or even liquid sodium, heated in a boiler. ICEs are usually powered by energy-dense fuels such as gasoline or diesel, liquids derived from fossil fuels. While there are many stationary applications, most ICEs are used in mobile applications and are the dominant power supply for vehicles such as cars, aircraft, and boats.
Typically an ICE is fed with fossil fuels like natural gas or petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel or fuel oil. There is a growing usage of renewable fuels like biodiesel for compression ignition engines and bioethanol or methanol for spark ignition engines. Hydrogen is sometimes used, and can be made from either fossil fuels or renewable energy.

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Midway Atoll is a 2.4-square-mile atoll in the North Pacific Ocean at 28°12′N 177°21′W. As its name suggests, Midway is roughly equidistant between North America and Asia. Midway Atoll is an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the United States. Midway continues to be the only island in the Hawaiian archipelago that is not part of the state of Hawaii. Unlike the other Hawaiian islands, Midway observes Samoa Time (UTC-11:00, i.e., eleven hours behind Coordinated Universal Time), which is one hour behind the time in the state of Hawaii. For statistical purposes, Midway is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands. The Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, encompassing 590,991.50 acres (239,165.77 ha) of land and water (mostly water) in the surrounding area, is administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The refuge and most of its surrounding area are part of the larger Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
Until 1993, the atoll was the home of the Naval Air Facility Midway. The Battle of Midway, which was fought between June 4 and 6, 1942, was one of the most important battles of the Pacific campaign of World War II. The United States Navy defeated a Japanese battle group marking a turning point in the war in the Pacific Theater. USAAF aircraft based at the original Henderson Field on Eastern Island joined the attack against the Japanese fleet, which suffered losses of four carriers and one heavy cruiser.
Approximately 40 to 60 people live on the atoll, which includes staff of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and contract workers. At present, visitation to the atoll is possible only for business reasons (which includes permanent and temporary staff, contractors and volunteers) as the tourism program has been suspended due to budget cutbacks. In 2012, the last year that the visitor program was in operation, 332 people made the trip to Midway. Tours focused on both the unique ecology of Midway as well as its military history. The economy is derived solely from governmental sources and tourist fees. Nearly all supplies must be brought to the island by ship or plane, though a hydroponic greenhouse and garden supply some fresh fruits and vegetables.

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Pontchartrain Beach was an amusement park located in New Orleans, Louisiana, on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain. It was founded by Harry J. Batt Sr. (father of American actor Bryan Batt) and later managed and owned by his sons, Harry J. Batt Jr. and John A. Batt. It opened in 1928, across Bayou St. John from an existing amusement resort at Old Spanish Fort. Pontchartrain Beach's original location is the present-day lakefront neighborhood of Lake Terrace.
In the early 1930s, subsequent to the construction of a seawall extending from West End to the Industrial Canal which created a new shoreline for Lake Pontchartrain, Pontchartrain Beach was moved to a new location at the lake end of Elysian Fields Avenue, a location formerly offshore of Milneburg.
Pontchartrain Beach included a beach with a large art deco style bathhouse and swimming pools, amusement rides (including a wooden roller coaster called the Zephyr), and concession stands. The park featured live music concerts, including many local musicians and touring national acts such as Elvis Presley.
Other rides and amusements included the Zephyr Junior, Smoky Mary, the Wild Maus, Musik Express, Log Ride, the Ragin' Cajun (a modern, looping steel coaster), the Bug, Paratrooper, Scrambler, Calypso, the "airplanes", Haunted House, Ghost Train, bumper cars, carousel, Ferris wheel, the Monster, Trabant, Sky Ride, Hard Rock, Galaxy, Laff in the Dark, Magic Rainbow, Red Baron, and Kiddieland. As with other amusement or theme parks, over time certain older rides were changed out for new ones.
In addition to rides, there were also the summertime shows which changed every few years (Skipper & Dolly dolphin show, Great American High Dive Show, Merlin's Magic Rainbow Show). For a few years there was also a fairly large petting zoo with many farm animals and a huge red barn house. A miniature golf course was added, when this pastime became popular. Just outside the entrance gates was the Bali Hai Tiki-style restaurant. Another popular restaurant was the Ship Ahoy, which featured hamburgers and seafood.
Pontchartrain Beach was sold on September 23, 1983. The main reason it closed down was due to declining attendance.

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John James Audubon (born Jean Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his extensive studies documenting all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats. His major work, a color-plate book entitled The Birds of America (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. Audubon identified 25 new species.

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The Texas Renaissance Festival is a Renaissance fair in Todd Mission, Texas, about 50 miles northwest of Houston.
The Texas Renaissance Festival (TRF) started in 1974 on the location of an old strip mining site. The Texas Renaissance Festival is the nation’s largest Renaissance theme park. The festival sits on 55 acres of land, and offers camping facilities to patrons. The festival welcomes half a million guests annually.

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Saffron (pronounced /ˈsæfrən/ or /ˈsæfrɒn/) is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the "saffron crocus". Saffron crocus grows to 20–30 cm (8–12 in) and bears up to four flowers, each with three vivid crimson stigmas, which are the distal end of a carpel. The styles and stigmas, called threads, are collected and dried to be used mainly as a seasoning and coloring agent in food. Saffron, long among the world's most costly spices by weight, is native to Southwest Asia and was probably first cultivated in or near Greece. As a genetically monomorphic clone, it was slowly propagated throughout much of Eurasia and was later brought to parts of North Africa, North America, and Oceania.
Saffron's taste and iodoform or hay-like fragrance result from the chemicals picrocrocin and safranal. It also contains a carotenoid pigment, crocin, which imparts a rich golden-yellow hue to dishes and textiles. Its recorded history is attested in a 7th-century BC Assyrian botanical treatise compiled under Ashurbanipal, and it has been traded and used for over four millennia.

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The Emerson Electric Company is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Ferguson, Missouri, United States. This Fortune 500 company manufactures products and provides engineering services for a wide range of industrial, commercial, and consumer markets. Emerson has approximately 111,000 employees and 205 manufacturing locations worldwide.

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After reading the screenplay for the 2007 Disney film Meet the Robinsons, director Stephen J. Anderson actively lobbied to direct the movie. As a child of adoption himself, Anderson personally experienced many of the emotions (questions about belonging, being wanted, etc) that Lewis expresses in the film.

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The discovery of bronze enabled people to create metal objects which were harder and more durable than previously possible. Bronze tools, weapons, armor, and building materials such as decorative tiles were harder and more durable than their stone and copper ("Chalcolithic") predecessors. Initially, bronze was made out of copper and arsenic, forming arsenic bronze, or from naturally or artificially mixed ores of copper and arsenic, with the earliest artifacts so far known coming from the Iranian plateau in the 5th millennium BCE. It was only later that tin was used, becoming the major non-copper ingredient of bronze in the late 3rd millennium BC.
Tin bronze was superior to arsenic bronze in that the alloying process could be more easily controlled, and the resulting alloy was stronger and easier to cast. Also, unlike arsenic, metallic tin and fumes from tin refining are not toxic. The earliest tin-alloy bronze dates to 4500 BCE in a Vinča culture site in Pločnik (Serbia). Other early examples date to the late 4th millennium BC in Egypt, Susa (Iran) and some ancient sites in China, Luristan (Iran) and Mesopotamia (Iraq).
Ores of copper and the far rarer tin are not often found together (exceptions include one ancient site in Thailand and one in Iran), so serious bronze work has always involved trade.

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The Sea Peoples were a confederacy of naval raiders who harried the coastal towns and cities of the Mediterranean region between c. 1276-1178 BCE, concentrating their efforts especially on Egypt. The nationality of the Sea Peoples remains a mystery as the existing records of their activities are mainly Egyptian sources who only describe them in terms of battle such as the record from the Stele at Tanis which reads, in part, “They came from the sea in their war ships and none could stand against them." This description is typical of Egyptian references to these mysterious invaders.
Names of the tribes which comprised the Sea Peoples have been given in Egyptian records as the Sherden, the Sheklesh, Lukka, Tursha and Akawasha. Outside Egypt, they also assaulted the regions of the Hittite Empire, the Levant, and other areas around the Mediterranean coast. Their origin and identity has been suggested (and debated) to be Etruscan/Trojan to Italian, Philistine, Mycenaen and even Minoan but, as no accounts discovered thus far shed any more light on the question than what is presently known, any such claims must remain mere conjecture. The three great pharaohs who record their conflicts and victories over the Sea Peoples are Ramesses II (The Great, 1279-1213 BCE), his son and successor Merenptah (1213-1203 BCE), and Ramesses III (1186-1155 BCE). All three claimed great victories over their adversaries and their inscriptions provide the most detailed evidence of the Sea Peoples.

David M Mallon |

In 1977, filmmaker George Lucas hired science fiction author Leigh Brackett to write the script for a sequel to his film Star Wars (AKA Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope). They held story conferences and, by late November 1977, Lucas had produced a handwritten treatment called The Empire Strikes Back. The treatment is similar to the final film, except that the villain Darth Vader does not reveal he is the father of hero Luke Skywalker. In the first draft written by Brackett, Luke's father appears as a ghost to instruct Luke.
Brackett finished her first draft in early 1978. Lucas has said he was disappointed with it, but before he could discuss it with her, she died of cancer. With no writer available, Lucas had to write the second draft himself. It was this draft in which Lucas first made use of the "Episode" numbering for the films; The Empire Strikes Back was listed as Episode II.
The second draft also made use of a new plot twist, in which Darth Vader claims to be Luke's father. According to Lucas, he found this draft enjoyable to write, as opposed to the yearlong struggles writing the first film, and quickly wrote two more drafts, both in April 1978. He also took the script to a darker extreme by having Han Solo imprisoned in carbonite and left in limbo.
This new story point of Darth Vader being Luke's father had drastic effects on the series. Witer and filmmaker Michael Kaminski argues in his book The Secret History of Star Wars that it is unlikely that the plot point had ever seriously been considered or even conceived of before 1978, and that the first film was clearly operating under an alternate storyline where Vader was separate from Luke's father.
After writing the second and third drafts of the film, Lucas reviewed the new backstory he had created: Anakin Skywalker was Ben Kenobi's brilliant student and had a child named Luke, but was swayed to the dark side by The Emperor (who was really a Sith Lord and not simply just a politician). Anakin battled Ben Kenobi on the side of a volcano and was wounded, but then resurrected as Darth Vader. Meanwhile, Kenobi hid Luke on Tatooine while the Republic became the Empire and Vader systematically hunted down the Jedi. These plot points introduced in Lucas's treatment for The Empire Strikes Back would later be fleshed out in his 2005 "prequel" film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith, as well as subsequent works.

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The Outlaw Josey Wales is a 1976 American revisionist Western DeLuxe Color and Panavision film set during and after the American Civil War. It was directed by and starred Clint Eastwood (as the eponymous Josey Wales), with Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke, Sam Bottoms, and Geraldine Keams. The film tells the story of Josey Wales, a Missouri farmer whose family is murdered by Union militants during the Civil War. Driven to revenge, Wales joins a Confederate guerrilla band and fights in the Civil War. After the war, all the fighters in Wales' group except for Wales surrender to Union officers, but they end up being massacred. Wales becomes an outlaw and is pursued by bounty hunters and Union soldiers.
The film was adapted by Sonia Chernus and Philip Kaufman from author Forrest Carter's 1972 novel The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales (republished, as shown in the movie's opening credits, as Gone to Texas). The film was a commercial success, earning $31.8 million against a $3.7 million budget. In 1996, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

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Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 American black-and-white 3D monster horror film from Universal-International, produced by William Alland, directed by Jack Arnold, that stars Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, and Whit Bissell. The Creature was played by Ben Chapman on land and by Ricou Browning underwater. The film premiered in Detroit on February 12 and was released on a regional basis, opening on various dates.
Creature from the Black Lagoon was filmed in 3D and originally projected by the polarized light method. The audience wore viewers with gray polarizing filters, similar to the viewers most commonly used today. Because the brief 1950s 3D film fad had peaked in mid-1953 and was fading fast in early 1954, many audiences actually saw the film "flat", in 2D. Typically, the film was shown in 3D in large downtown theaters and flat in smaller neighborhood theaters. In 1975 Creature from the Black Lagoon was re-released to theaters in the inferior red-and-blue-glasses anaglyph 3D format, which was also used for a 1980 home video release on Beta and VHS videocassettes.
For marketing reasons, a comedic short TV special was aired prior to film's release titled Abbott and Costello Meet the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Ben Chapman reprised his role as the Gill-Man for the program.
Creature from the Black Lagoon generated two sequels: Revenge of the Creature (1955), which was also filmed and released in 3D in hopes of reviving the format, and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956), filmed in 2D. The creature, also known as the Gill-man, is usually counted among the classic Universal Monsters.

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Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. He was widely noted for his soft baritone voice, performing in big band and jazz genres, and was a major force in popular music for three decades. Cole was one of the first African Americans to host a national television variety show, The Nat King Cole Show. His recordings remained popular worldwide after his death from lung cancer in February 1965.

David M Mallon |

The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance (Aliança Luso-Britânica), ratified by John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, and King John I of Portugal at the Treaty of Windsor in 1386, between England (succeeded by the United Kingdom) and Portugal is the oldest alliance in the world that is still in force – with the earliest treaty dating back to the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373. With the Anglo-Portuguese victory at the Battle of Aljubarrot in 1385, John I was recognized as the undisputed King of Portugal, putting an end to the interregnum of the 1383–1385 Crisis, with the Treaty of Windsor establishing a pact of mutual support between the two countries.
The Iberian Union (1580–1640), a 60-year dynastic union between Portugal and Spain, interrupted the alliance. Portuguese foreign policy became tied to Spanish hostility to England. As a result, Portugal and England were on opposite sides of the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) and the Dutch–Portuguese War. The alliance was reconfirmed after the Portuguese Restoration War and the English Restoration.
Since then, the Portuguese and the British have supported each other through numerous conficts, including the Seven Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, The First and Second World Wars, and the Falklands War. In 1960, Portugal and the United Kingdom were two of the seven founding member nations of the European Free Trade Association (though they have both since withdrawn), as well as two of the twelve founding member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Portugal and the United Kingdom were two of the earliest members of the European Union under the Treaty of Rome (in 1986 and 1973, respectively).

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BlackBerry is a line of smartphones, tablets, and services originally designed and marketed by Canadian company BlackBerry Limited (formerly known as Research In Motion Limited). These are currently designed, manufactured, and marketed by TCL Communication (BlackBerry Mobile), BB Merah Putih, and Optiemus for the global, Indonesian, and Indian markets, respectively, continuously using the BlackBerry brand.
BlackBerry was considered one of the most prominent smartphone vendors in the world, specializing in secure communications and mobile productivity. At its peak in September 2013, there were 85 million BlackBerry subscribers worldwide. However, BlackBerry has since lost its dominant position in the market due to the success of the Android and iOS platforms; the same numbers had fallen to 23 million in March 2016.
The BlackBerry line traditionally uses a proprietary operating system developed by BlackBerry Limited known as BlackBerry OS. In 2013, BlackBerry introduced BlackBerry 10, a major revamp of the platform based on QNX operating system. BlackBerry 10 was meant to replace the aging BlackBerry OS platform with a new system that was more in line with the user experiences of modern smartphone operating systems. The first BB10 powered device was the BlackBerry Z10, which was followed by other all-touch and keyboard-equipped models; including the BlackBerry Q10, BlackBerry Classic, BlackBerry Passport, and the BlackBerry Leap.
In 2015, BlackBerry re-focused its business strategy and began to release Android-based smartphones, beginning with the BlackBerry Priv slider and then the BlackBerry DTEK50. On September 28, 2016, Blackberry announced it would cease designing its own phones in favour of licensing to partners.