A Lady Writing

A Lady Writing is a 1665 painting by Johannes Vermeer.  He is particularly renowned for making masterful use of light in his work. Almost all his paintings are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his house in Delft; they show the same furniture and decorations in various arrangements and they often portray the same people, mostly women.  He died poor and not very well known, and only 35 known works are attributed to him.

Arts in the Olympics

At the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, poetry was an official event.  Modern history's first written work to win an Olympic gold medal was "Ode to Sport," a prose poem by Georges Hohrod and M. Eschbach.  There were also medals in sculpture, painting, and music.  Hilariously, Hohrod and Eschbach did not exist; they were pseudonyms for Pierre de Coubertin, the man who founded the modern Olympics.  The 1948 London Olympics were the final artistic competitions at the games.

Upper Volta

Burkina Faso gained full independence from France on August 5, 1960, as Upper Volta.  It changed its name to Burkina Faso in 1984.

Ludlow Massacre

The Ludlow Massacre was a mass killing perpetrated by anti-striker militia during the Colorado Coalfield War.  Soldiers from the Colorado National Guard and private guards employed by Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) attacked a tent colony of roughly 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Approximately 21 people were killed, including miners' wives and children.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer best known for his work Images à la sauvette ("The Decisive Moment"), and his philosophy that there is an elusive instant when, with brilliant clarity, the appearance of the subject reveals in its essence the significance of the event of which it is a part

Cassini map

The Cassini Map or Academy's Map is the first topographic and geometric map made of the Kingdom of France as a whole. It was compiled by the Cassini family, mainly César-François Cassini (Cassini III) and his son Jean-Dominique Cassini (Cassini IV) in the 1700s.  The map was, for the time, a real innovation and a decisive technical advance. It is the first map to be based on a geodesic triangulation. Four generations of the Cassini carried out the work, taking more than 6 decades to complete.  Poor Cassini IV was imprisoned by the National Assembly for being royalist, but they still availed themselves of his map.

Amish beards

The distinctive Amish chinbeard comes from a command in Leviticus 19:27, but the lack of mustache is probably derived from an intention to avoid association with the military connotations of a mustache prevalent in British and German armies of the late 19th century.

Jacques Clément

Jacques Clément was a Jacobin friar who assassinated Henry III of France in 1589 by stabbing him.  He did this in retaliation for Henry III's ordering the killing of Henri I, the Duke of Guise, by his bodyguard, the Forty-Five.

Henry Moore

Henry Moore was one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century.  He is best known for his reclining figures and his monumental works inspired by ancient Mexican carvings and African tribal masks.  His reclining figures, mother and child tableaux, and helmet head pieces remain his most recognizable works.

Highest percentage population of foreign-born residents

Vatican City has 100% foreign-born residents, but leaving that out, the countries with the highest percentage of foreign-born residents are UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait.  Immigrants account for 88% of UAE's population, as of 2017.

Miguel Indurain

Miguel Induráin is a Spanish cyclist who has won the Tour de France five times, the fourth person to do so.  He is the only person to have won the titles consecutively, 1991-1995.  His nickname is the "Big Mig."

Fanon

A fanon is a striped scarf or cape worn by Eastern bishops.  The Pope has his own Papal fanon, white with gold stripes.  It can also mean the tabs hanging down from a bishop's mitre.

The Rainbow

The Rainbow is a 1915 novel by D.H. Lawrence which tells the story of three generations of an English family in the Midlands.  It was banned in Britain for its frank treatment of sexuality.   Women in Love was a sequel to this novel.

Battle Of Lundy's Lane

The Battle of Lundy's Lane was the bloodiest battle of the War of 1813.  It took place a mile west of Niagara Falls in 1814.  Neither side won a decisive victory, but the Americans' advance into Canada was and they had to retreat to Ft. Erie.  The American general Winfield Scott was wounded.  There is a memorial in Drummond Hill Cemetery, Ontario.

The Gross Clinic

The Gross Clinic is one of the best known works by Thomas Eakins (1844-1916).  He was an American painter who was a standard bearer for the Realism movement.  In the painting is depicted Dr. Samuel D. Gross, a teacher and surgeon at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, engaged in a teaching demonstration of a surgical procedure for the medical students seated behind him.  Five other doctors operate on a patient's infected thigh.  The 1875 painting was considered extreme and controversial.

Pratibha Patil

Pratibha Patil was elected President of India in 2007, becoming the first woman president, and served until 2012.  Patil’s presidency was relatively quiet, but it was not without controversy, especially for her use of government funds. She was criticized for the large number of trips she took overseas, often accompanied by relatives.

Ocarina

An ocarina is an ancient flute-like wind instrument shaped like a gourd.Its name comes from the Italian for "little goose." In America it is sometimes known as "sweet potato" or "potato flute."

Tar Heel

Tar Heel is a nickname applied to the state and inhabitants of North Carolina, as well as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's athletic teams. The origin of the name is unknown and disputed, but most experts believe its roots come from the fact that tar, pitch and turpentine created from the pine forests were one of North Carolina's most important exports early in the state's history. North Carolina was nicknamed the "Tar and Turpentine State" because of this industry.

Brazil's geography

The northernmost point of Brazil is closer to Canada than it is to its own southernmost points.  Also, Brazil's easternmost point is closer to Senegal than it is its own westernmost point.

Len Elmore

Leonard Elmore was an NBA player for five different teams 1974-84, mostly with the Indiana Pacers, later an announcer. Elmore received a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1987 and began his law career as a prosecutor, serving as an Assistant DA in Brooklyn.  Not to be confused with Elmore Leonard!

Potiphar

Potiphar is a character in Genesis.  The captain of the Egyptian guard, he becomes owner of Joseph when his brothers sell him into slavery. Potiphar makes Joseph the head of his household, but Potiphar's wife tries to seduce Joseph, fails and accuses him of rape. Potiphar casts Joseph into prison, where he comes to notice of Pharaoh through dream interpretation.

Harris Treaty

The Harris Treaty was a 1958 agreement that provided for the opening of five ports to U.S. trade, in addition to those opened in 1854 as a result of the Treaty of Kanagawa; it also exempted U.S. citizens living in the ports from the jurisdiction of Japanese law, guaranteed them religious freedom, and arranged for diplomatic representation and a tariff agreement between the United States and Japan.

Picasso's 90th birthday

In October 1971, on the occasion of Picasso's 90th birthday, a selection of works from the French public collections was presented in the Grande Galerie du Louvre.  This may mark the first time a living artist's work was displayed in the Grand Gallery, but sources are not entirely reputable.

White Night Riots

The White Night riots were a series of clashes that occurred between gay activists and citizens and the violent, homophobic San Francisco police.  After the lenient sentence given to Dan White for the assassination of Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone, gay activists marched to city hall and repulsed police trying to repel them, eventually burning several squad cars.  In retaliation and against their chief's orders, SF police went to the Castro district and attacked civilians there.

Twinkie Defense

The "Twinkie Defense" was first used by Dan White, the murderer of San Francisco politician Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone, suggesting that his diet of Coke and junk food was a symptom and evidence of his depression, which implied his irrational mind at the time, despite his clear premeditation of the attacks.  Later this phrase was used to imply a defense of a sugar high that causes irrational actions, bot stands as a symptom of depressed thinking.  White was sentenced to eight years and later killed himself.

War Of the Spanish Succession

The War of the Spanish Succession lasted from 1701 to 1714.  It arose out of the disputed succession to the throne of Spain following the death of the childless Charles II, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs. The war was primarily a struggle to determine whether the vast possessions of the Spanish Empire should pass to the House of Bourbon or to the House of Habsburg, both of which had dynastic claims, or whether they should be partitioned to preserve the balance of power in Europe.  Philip of Anjou, he grandson of Louis XIV, the king of France, was the Bourbon claimant. England, Holland, the Holy Roman Empire and Prussia decided to support Archduke Charles, the younger son of the Habsburg Emperor Leopold I.

Claudette Colvin

Claudette Colvin was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus.  This occurred nine months before the Rosa Parks case, but Colvin's wasn't widely publicized because she was an unmarried pregnant teen.  She was one of four plaintiffs in Browder vs. Gayle, which which ruled that Montgomery's segregated bus system was unconstitutional.

Svalbard

Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe.  It lies about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. No one is required to have a visa or residence permit on Svalbard. Regardless of citizenship, persons can live and work in Svalbard indefinitely. The Svalbard Treaty grants treaty nationals equal right of abode as Norwegian nationals. The sun doesn't set for five months in summer.  It is the home of the Global Seed Vault.