Quote:Leap Year Traditions, Celebrations and Superstitions

    One of the most widely practiced leap day traditions can be traced to 5th-century Ireland. At the time, it was common practice that proposals were solely a gentleman’s privilege. However, during leap day, the roles were reversed and matrimony-minded women were presented the chance to propose to their man instead. In Scotland, the tradition is still taken very seriously, requiring men who refuse a proposal to pay a fine. In the United States, this tradition inspired an American adaptation known as Sadie Hawkins dances, in which girls ask boys to be their dates.

    Known as the leap year capitol of the world, Anthony, Texas, boasts a huge four-day festival celebrating leap day in style. People travel from all over to take part in parades, hot air balloon rides and birthday dinners celebrating leap day babies.

    Many cultures believe being born either on leap day or during a leap year is bad luck. In Scotland, it’s thought that people born on Leap Day are doomed to have bad luck forever. Likewise, in Russia, Taiwan and Italy, leap day is not met with happiness. The Italians have a saying, “anno bisesto, anno funesto,” which translates to “leap year, gloomy year.”

    Those whose birthdays fall on Feb. 29 are known as “leapers” or “leaplings.” They usually celebrate their birthday on Feb. 28 or March 1 depending on their state of residence. The odds of being born on Leap Day are 1 in 1,461, although if you’re lucky enough to beat those odds, you gain exclusive membership to the Honour Society of Leap Year Day Babies. Once every four years, people born on Feb. 29 can celebrate on their actual birthday.

The Logic and Lore of Leap Day

Quote:Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly after World War II. While at the Los Alamos Laboratory, Fuchs was responsible for many significant theoretical calculations relating to the first nuclear weapons and, later, early models of the hydrogen bomb. After serving nine years in prison he then migrated to East Germany where he resumed his career as a physicist and scientific leader. He was later appointed deputy director of the Central Institute for Nuclear Physics in Dresden, where he served until he retired in 1979.

As of 2014, British official files on Fuchs were still being withheld. As of 2020, the National Archives listed one dossier on Fuchs, KV 2/1263, including the "Prosecution file. With summary of early interrogations ... and details of the scientifical/technical information passed to the Russians". The date of release of this material was not stated.[43] According to an October 2020 book review, author Nancy Thorndike Greenspan "appears to have had access to some of the Fuchs files that have been withheld at Kew, such as the AB/1 series, which has been closed for access for most human beings".

In 2022 Fuchs was the primary focus of the second season of the BBC World Service's podcast The Bomb.

He is portrayed by American actor Christopher Denham in the 2023 film Oppenheimer.

(03-02-2024, 04:24 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: While the so-called 'honey trap' is a Hollywood cliché, it is also an enduring piece of tradecraft in the real-life world of spy versus spy. Employed by virtually every intelligence service in times of war and peace, the work of femme fatales and Romeo spies have shaped policy and history through seduction, betrayal and scandal. Perhaps the most well known though least understood element of espionage, the use of honey traps can be found throughout history in religious texts, lurid headlines and pop culture mythology.

(03-02-2024, 04:24 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: Given all the spies and honey traps the past 80 years, how in the hell does the deep state MIC keep the UFO secrets, secret??? Weird.

Quote:The Service’s White Elephant
By J. M. Caiella
March 2024

Perhaps the least known of the U.S. Navy’s Civil War–era ironclads was a highly innovative, technologically advanced, high-freeboard seagoing ship built solely to battle the Royal Navy. But she was never accepted into the U.S. Navy. Excitement over her construction lasted about one year, after which the supposed British threat evaporated and focus could be maintained on producing relatively inexpensive, quickly built riverine and light-draft monitors to combat the genuine (Confederate) threat. Through it all, the Dunderberg—Swedish for “thunder mountain”—suffered an extended gestation that resulted in her being obsolete at birth.

In early 1862, just a year into the Civil War, the United States feared two external threats: European—specifically, British—recognition of Confederate independence, and military intervention in support of that recognition. The Union blockade of Southern ports that shut off England’s supply of cotton for its textile industry, along with incidents such as the Trent Affair, brought the issues to the fore. War with England had to be avoided because, as Attorney General Edward Bates stated, “for the plain reason that now we are unable to meet it.”

At the time, the U.S. Navy was ill-prepared to fight the Royal Navy. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles believed that seagoing ironclads were necessary for protection; the Navy had but one, and she, the New Ironsides, was still under construction. The press, particularly The New York Times, strongly advocated large seagoing ironclads. New York shipbuilder William Henry Webb answered the call, sending the Navy Department a model of a “Steam Battery” in April 1862. The design was for a wooden-hull, casemate ironclad of 7,000 tons.

After discussions, primarily with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox, Webb signed a contract on 3 July to build the warship for $1.25 million. The contract was extremely general with virtually no specifications. She was to be 350 feet long, with a beam of “at least” 68 feet, and a draft of no more than 20 feet, 6 inches. She was to carry two turrets atop her casemate, each armed with two XV-inch Dahlgren guns behind 11 inches of armor. Additional armament included eight XI-inch Dahlgrens within the casemate. She was to make 15 knots “in smooth water.” Completion was due within 15 months. Webb named her the Dunderberg.


....

[Lots of design changes, problems, delays]

On 1 May, the ship was sold to France along with the veteran Civil War monitor Onondaga. Webb received $2.5 million from France for his ship and reimbursed the federal government $1.1 million. His profit, however, was significantly less once his added expenditures were deducted.

On 19 July, the Dunderberg set steam and sail for France; renamed the Rochambeau, her service life was brief. After nearly three years of trials and modifications, she was commissioned in the late summer of 1870, decommissioned and stricken on 15 April 1872, and scrapped in 1874. Reportedly, the French had “endless trouble” with the ship.

At the time of her construction, the Dunderberg was innovative. Elements of her construction, unusual and considered unimportant in her time, are today regarded as essential to any seagoing ship. Included among them are double bottoms, collision bulkheads, watertight transverse and longitudinal bulkheads extending from keel to spar deck, fully enclosed water-tight engine and boiler rooms, and air and water pumps independent of the main engines. Nevertheless, she remained the Navy’s great white elephant.

The Service’s White Elephant

• Retired from the Royal Air Force in 1948 with the rank of Air Commodore and was knighted that same year by King George VI.
  
• Became a Naval Research Professor at the United States Naval Academy in 1977 and was an Adjunct Research Professor in 1979.
  
• Wrote the “Gas Turbine Aero-Thermodynamics” textbook which is highly regarded in its field.
  
• Awarded the Order of Merit in 1986 by Queen Elizabeth II.
  
• In 2017, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio.
  
• In 2023, King Charles III broke ground on the New Whittle Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
  

Quote:Durdle Door (Resort Dorset)

• Legend has it, the rocks are approximately 140 million years old.
  
• The structure is about 200 feet tall.
  
• The first time it appeared on the Ordnance Survey Map, way back in 1811, it was called Dirdale Door.
  
• The footpath from Lulworth Cove is used by over 200,000 people each year - the busiest across the whole of the South West.
  
• It's a great spot for music videos, used by Billy Ocean and Tears for Fears. The Jurassic Coast is home to other famous music videos too.
  

Quote:A Little Cereal History:

Ferdinand Schumacher, a German immigrant, began the cereal revolution in 1854 with a hand oats grinder in the back room of a small store in Akron, Ohio. His German Mills American Oatmeal Company was the nation’s first commercial oatmeal manufacturer.  In 1877, Schumacher adopted the Quaker symbol, the first registered trademark for a breakfast cereal.

Granula, the first breakfast cereal, was invented in the United States in 1863by James Caleb Jackson, operator of Our Home on the Hillside, which was later replaced by the Jackson Sanatorium in Dansville, New York.  The cereal never became popular since it was inconvenient as the heavy bran nuggets needed soaking overnight before they were tender enough to eat.

The cereal industry rose from a combination of sincere religious beliefs and commercial interest in healthy foods. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg experimented with granola.  He boiled some wheat, rolled it into thin films, and baked the resulting flakes in the oven; he acquired a patent in 1891.  In1895 he launched Cornflakes, which overnight captured a national market.

In 1906, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg’s brother, William K. Kellogg, after working for John, broke away, bought the corn flakes rights from his brother, and set up the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company.  His signature on every package became the company trademark and insurance of quality.

Charles W. Post introduced Grape-nuts in 1898 and soon followed with Post Toasties.

Because of Kellogg and Post, the city of Battle Creek, Michigan is nicknamed the "Cereal Capital of the World."

Quote:Attached to a wall in Preble Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland, is one of the oldest and, for its time, largest artifacts from the USS Monitor. It is not particularly exciting to look upon—although it is humbling to be able to actually touch a piece of this famous ship—but this artifact is the key to picturing a distinctly different image of how the Monitor’s turret actually looked during history’s first battle between ironclads—the Monitor’s clash with the CSS Virginia on 9 March 1862, during the Battle of Hampton Roads. This relic may help prove that the well-known round turret, in fact, had a prominent flat shield attached.

The artifact is made of 1-inch-thick wrought iron, is 32½ inches wide and 20¼ inches high, and appears to be an armor plate from the famous ship. It is inscribed by Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1861 to 1866. Fox was very influential in the development of ironclad ships, especially the Monitor type. He became close friends with the Monitor’s inventor, John Ericsson, and witnessed, from the deck of the USS Minnesota, the battle between the Monitor and the Virginia. The inscription on the relic reads:

    Piece of the first Monitor, removed after her battle with the Rebel Steamer Merrimac [CSS Virginia] in Hampton Roads March 9th 1862. Presented to the  U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY by G.V Fox Asst Secty of the NAVY 1866.

It is flat, not curved like the wrought iron plating of the turret, and is pierced in six places for bolts or rivets. Weighing about 100 pounds, it has three flat sides, a clearly damaged side—and a cut-out circular area.

A New Look for an Old Icon

(03-11-2024, 09:33 AM)BIAD Wrote: I just don't see what all the ooh-hah is all about -except to appreciate the concern that the people
who steer the Public Relations of the Royal Family would have if a such a photograph didn't originate
from one of their own outlets.