Where is Yalta?
The Soviet port Yalta in the Crimea (now part of Ukraine) was the site of the February 1945 meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin.
Three cities were destroyed when the volcano erupted. They were Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae, all southeast of modern Naples. When were the ruins of Pompeii discovered? Destroyed in A.D. 79, the city was not discovered until the late 1500s. Formal excavation did not begin until 1748.
Overall, the winter was fairly mild in 1777-78 when George Washington and his Continental Army were encamped at this site 22 miles northwest of Philadelphia. There was heavy snow and freezing weather in Christmas week but a thaw in January. What made conditions miserable was lack of adequate food, clothing, and shelter due to negligence…
Fans of Frank Sinatra rioted at the Paramount Theater on Columbus Day 1944, at the height of his popularity. Thirty thousand bobbysoxers rioted at the New York theater where Sinatra was performing. It was reported that cries of “Frankie, Frankie!” could be heard blocks away.
Previous handguns before the Colt revolver could fire only once before they had to be reloaded. Samuel Colt’s invention, patented in 1835, had a six-chambered cylinder that rotated with each shot, automatically readying another bullet for firing. The Colt revolver became standard equipment on America’s western frontier.
The song “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” was written in 1863 during the Civil War by Union army bandmaster Patrick S. Gilmore.
The rockets that the national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” refers to were Congreve rockets, invented by Sir Thomas Congreve and used by the British in the War of 1812. The noisy, hissing missiles, 42 inches long, were used throughout the British campaigns in Maryland in 1813-14. The rockets initially terrified the Americans but proved to…