Tulip

The tulip originated in Central Asia and Turkey on the banks of the Bosphorus.

Pixabay

Cultivation of the tulip began in Persia, probably in the 10th century.

Its name comes from the Persian delband meaning "turban." The Turks called it so because they recognized a close resemblance between the shape of their turban and the flower. 

Numerous types of tulips were cultivated and bred in the Ottoman Empire. They did not come to the attention of the West until the sixteenth century, when Western diplomats to the Ottoman court observed and reported on them.

When tulips became a prized item at the court of Henry IV of France, rare bulbs commanded a high price - one was traded for a brewery worth 30,000 francs. 

Tulips were introduced into United Provinces (now the Netherlands) - from Turkey - in the sixteenth century. The Dutch then took such a fancy to them that they planted tulips all over the country, developing a wealth of new varieties. This led to the misconception that the tulip is Dutch.

The contract prices of rare tulip bulbs in the Dutch Republic kept climbing and by early 1637 they had reached the equivalent of 15 years' salary for just one bulb. 

On February 3, 1637, the contract prices of rare tulip bulbs in the Dutch Republic abruptly collapsed, leaving many traders bankrupt.

A tulip, known as "the Viceroy" (viseroij), displayed in the 1637 Dutch catalog.

It is believed the first tulips in the United States were grown by Richard Sullivan Fay in Lynn and Salem, Massachusetts in the mid 19th century. Fay imported many different plants from all parts of the world and planted them among the meadows of his estate. 

During the Second World War, a teenage Audrey Hepburn survived in occupied Utrecht, in the Netherlands on a diet of turnips and tulip bulbs.

As thanks for their assistance in World War II, the Dutch cross-bred a species of tulip to resemble the Canadian flag. They now send 20,000 of these tulips to Canada annually as a sign of gratitude for all the aid they provided.

Tulips are today popular throughout the world, both as ornamental garden plants and as cut flowers.

The tulip is today cultivated on a large scale in the Netherlands. The country produces as many as 3 billion bulbs annually, the majority for export.

Tulip cultivation in the Netherlands. By Alessandro Vecchi 

The tulip is the national flower of Afghanistan.

There are over 3,000 varieties of tulips, which are divided into fifteen groups, mostly based on the flower type, size and blooming period of the tulip.

Tug of war

Tug of war is a game played by both children and adults, using a rope. The players organize into two teams who pull on opposite ends of a rope, with the goal being to to pull the other team over a marked boundary.

Pixiebay

An Egyptian wall engraving from around 2500 BC depicts the oldest known tug-of-war contest.
There is evidence of tug of war games in ancient China as long ago as 500BC.

In Norse mythology, Loki tied one end of a rope to a goat and the other end around his testicle and began a game of tug of war.

According to The Oxford Dictionary, the phrase “tug-of-war” originally meant "the decisive contest; the real struggle or tussle; a severe contest for supremacy". It was first used for an athletic contest between two teams who haul at the opposite ends of a rope in 1893.

Tug of war was an Olympic event until after the 1920 Olympics. Multiple teams from countries were allowed, which is how the U.S. won bronze, silver, and gold in 1904.

Tug of war competition in 1904 Summer Olympics

The podium was occupied by three teams from the same country again at the 1908 Games in London, when, the London City Police took gold, the Liverpool Police silver and K Division Metropolitan Police bronze. The Americans accused the British of cheating, claiming the police boots had illegal spikes. The British promptly challenged them to a rematch in socks but the offer was turned down.

During the tug of war at the 1900 Olympics, a journalist was drafted into Scandinavia's gold medal winning team. The team from the Racing Club de France, representing France, defeated a mixed team consisting of three Danish and three Swedish athletes.

In the 1912 Olympics in Sweden, the host nation took gold, Great Britain took silver, and no one won bronze because only two teams showed up.

The Tug of War International Federation was founded in 1960 and is the international governing body for the sport of tug of war. It is based in Orfordville, Wisconsin and has 53 member nations.

In 1978, 2,300 students at Harriesburg Middle School in Pennsylvania tried to set a world record for the largest tug of war game. Instead, disaster ensued. The 2,000ft long braided nylon rope snapped, recoiling several thousand pounds of stored energy. Nearly 200 students lay wounded, four with severed fingertips, hundreds more faced second degree burns.

In international competition the rope must be at least 33.5m long with a circumference between 10cm and 12.5cm.

For the various weight divisions, teams of eight are weighed together on eight-person scales.
Canadian Inuits hold a version of tug-of-war called “aarsaraq” which is played sitting down. The winner is the one who pulls his opponent over from his seated position.

February 19 is celebrated annually as International Tug of War Day.

Daily Express

Diet in Tudor England

In Tudor England cereals were the staple foodstuffs for the poor, occasionally accompanied by a few vegetables such as beans, peas and turnips and very exceptionally meat. Bread flours milled from barley, rye or wheat, were baked into loaves. 

At the main midday meal, pottage might be flavored with bacon and thickened with eggs. The pottage often made with peas might contain cabbage or spinach to give it extra nutritive value and bread would often be used as a thickener and as an accompaniment. A smaller supper was taken around 5.00 in the afternoon.

The average Englishman was better fed than his fellow European citizens were. Standard food for the middle classes included beef, mutton, pigeon and oysters sometimes cooked in pastries and puddings. English beef and mutton was believed to be the best in Europe.

William Brooke, Baron Cobham, and his family at the dining table, 1567

Due to the warmer climate after several centuries of colder weather, a greater volume of food was being produced during the Tudor period. To eat well meant to eat a lot. Greater body weight was a sign of wealth and good health during a time where famine was always a threat.

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis is a disease caused by bacteria, most often affecting the lungs. 

Wikipedia

The organism that usually causes tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, can travel through the air and spread from one person to the next. This happens when infected people cough, speak, sneeze, or spit.

Tuberculosis was formerly known as consumption because of the severe weight loss and the way the infection appeared to "consume" the patient. 

Tuberculosis only started infecting humans recently. Scientists took a chunk of a mummified bishop's lung and found, using DNA sequencing, that tuberculosis started infecting humans only 6,000 years ago

Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been found in relics from ancient Egypt, China and India.

A close up of a culture of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Wikipedia

Spinal tuberculosis, known as Pott’s disease has been detected by archaeologists in Egyptian mummies.

The earliest recorded case of tuberculous in Britain occurred at Tarrant Hinton, Dorset in 300BC.

Tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands, also known as scrofula, was once known as the king's evil in England and France because it was believed their kings could cure it simply by touching those affected.

During his reign King Charles II of England touched 92,107 sufferers from scrofula, each of whom believed the King's touch would cure them.

With urban and industrial development from the sixteenth century onwards, tuberculous became increasingly dominant in the Western world. By the eighteenth century,  900 out of every 100,000 people were dying from the disease each year.

The cause of tuberculosis was unknown until 1882 when German doctor Robert Koch discovered the bacterium causing it. At this stage, TB was killing an estimated one out of every seven people living in the United States and Europe. 

Eight years later Koch announced he had developed tuberculin, a cure for tuberculosis. Though it proved ineffective as a vaccine against the disease it is used today as a way of finding out whether a patient had experienced TB.

Administration of tuberculin

The Bacillus Calmette–Guerin vaccine against tuberculous is based on a bovine strain of the bacterium. It was developed by Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin in the 1910s and first used on humans in 1921. Today, in countries where tuberculosis is common, one dose of BCG is recommended in healthy babies as close to the time of birth as possible. 

Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, was isolated by researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey on October 19, 1943. 

The use of Streptomycin meant that tuberculosis had largely been eradicated in developed countries by the 1970s.

The US Food and Drug Administration approved Sirturo (bedaquiline), a Johnson & Johnson tuberculosis drug on December 31, 2012. It was the first new medicine to fight the infection in more than forty years.

Tuberculosis used to be easily treated and cured with antibiotics. However, the bacterium is now highly resistant to this method of fighting TB.

Tuberculosis is currently the most common major infectious disease in the world. Almost one third of the world's population are carriers of the TB bacillus and are at risk for developing active disease. Worldwide ten million people are infected annually and 1.3 million died from the disease in 2016. Most of them live in the Third World.

Source News-medical

Trumpet

A trumpet is a brass wind instrument used mainly in classical music, jazz and military bands.

Pixiebay 

Early trumpets were tubes made of wood, bamboo, or gourd. In ancient Egypt trumpet like instruments were made of silver.

An early example of a brass instrument like a trumpet is called a shofar, made from a ram's horn. The shofar is still traditionally blown in the synagogue, at Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year festival.

The first event at the Olympic Games in 396 BC was a trumpet contest: the winner played the fanfare for all the other events.

The Moche people of ancient Peru depicted trumpets in their art going back to AD 300.

Ceramic trumpet. AD 300 Larco Museum Collection Lima, Peru. Wikipedia

The modern trumpet began to evolve around 1300 with the introduction of a metal instrument with a wide flared bell and short cylindrical bore. This was the first time they were used as musical instruments rather than as signaling devices in battle or religious worship. 

In the later 14th and 15th centuries the trumpet's tubing was shaped like the letter S rather than flared forward. This shape suggested an instrument that became known as the trombone.

From the late 15th century, trumpets were primarily been constructed of brass tubing, usually wound in a loop. Throughout the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries this so-called natural trumpet - as opposed to later trumpets with valves or slides - was the norm. 

Trumpet, 17th century.

Trumpets with keys and with valves, which were capable of producing a wider range of notes and of sustaining more accurate pitch, were developed in the early 19th century, a time of transition for the instrument.  

The valves made it easier to play notes on the trumpet, bit it still is a difficult instrument to master. 

Although trumpets were built in many keys - trumpets in E flat, F, G, and A flat were not uncommon - by the end of the 19th century the standard trumpets were in the keys of B flat and C.

In old style jazz bands, the cornet was preferred to the trumpet, but from the swing era onwards, it's been largely replaced by the louder, more piercing trumpet. 

Pixiebay

The prolific jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong learned to blow on a bugle in reform school when he was 13. In 1922 he went to Chicago to play second cornet with Oliver's Creole Jazz Band then with Fletcher Henderson's big band in New York City. He switched to the trumpet on theater dates because of its brighter sound and flashier look.

The American jazzman Dizzy Gillespie was known for playing a ‘bent’ trumpet. It started after two dancers fell on it, bending the bell upwards, and Dizzy liked the change in tone that resulted.

The phrase to "blow one's own trumpet," meaning to boast about one's achievements dates back to medieval times when dignitaries had a herald to share stories of their greatness. They started with the blowing of a horn to attract people's attention. 

Source Compton's Encyclopedia

Donald Trump

EARLY LIFE 

He was born Donald John Trump in Queens, New York City on June 14, 1946. 

Donald Trump | by Gage Skidmore 

He is the son of Fred Trump, a real estate developer, and his wife, Mary Anne.

If Donald Trump's German ancestors hadn't changed their last name, his surname would currently be "Trumpf."

Donald Trump's grandmother's maiden name was Christ. Elisabeth Christ was a German-born US businesswoman who founded the Elizabeth Trump & Son real estate.

Donald was enrolled at the age of 13 in the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, after his parents discovered that he had made frequent trips into Manhattan without their permission. 

Trump in 1964 wearing the uniform of his private boarding school, New York Military Academy

Donald received an economics degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

BUSINESS CAREER 

Trump began his career at his father's real estate company, Elizabeth Trump and Son.

He was appointed president of his family's real estate business in 1971, renamed it The Trump Organization, and expanded it from Queens and Brooklyn into Manhattan. Trump managed the company until his 2017 inauguration. 

He installed goats on his New Jersey golf courses to get them designated as agricultural properties to lower his property taxes.

Trump made much of his money was made in real estate in New York City, Las Vegas, and Atlantic City.

Donald Trump filed a $5 billion lawsuit against author Timothy O'Brien who claimed Trump was a millionaire, not a billionaire. Trump lost.

In 1990, US satirical magazine Spy sent cheques for 13 cents to the world's richest people. Only two cashed them: a Saudi arms dealer and Donald Trump.

When it was revalued at $600 million in 2015, New York City's Trump Tower,  the headquarters of The Trump Organization in Midtown Manhattan, became the most expensive property owned by Donald Trump.

Trump Tower Manhattan

MEDIA CAREER 

Donald Trump was a reality TV star hosting the television show, The Apprentice, from 2003 to 2015.

From 1981, Trump frequently appeared as himself in such hit shows as the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Monk and Sex and the City. 

Donald Trump was the inspiration for the character Biff Tannen in the Back to the Future movie trilogy. 

"Bart to the Future,” a Simpsons episode that aired in 2000, was about Donald Trump's presidency causing the financial ruin of the U.S.

Trump won a Golden Raspberry Award as Worst Supporting Actor for playing himself in the 1990 film Ghosts Can't Do It, also starring Bo Derek.

He has a star on Hollywood's Walk Of Fame awarded in 2007 for hosting The Apprentice from 2004-2015.

Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Wikipedia

PRESIDENCY 

From 1987 to 1999, Donald Trump was a registered Democrat. He then switched to Independent in 1999, before re-registering as a Democrat between 2001-2009. 

In June 2015, Trump announced that he would run for President of the United States in the 2016 presidential election. He entered the 2016 presidential race as a Republican and defeated sixteen opponents in the primaries. 

The slogan of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, "Make America Great Again", was also used by Ronald Reagan in his 1980 presidential campaign. 

Trump was elected president in a surprise victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Many years previously Trump had Clinton as "smart, tough and a very nice person" and said she would make a "great president."

He was named Time magazine's Person of the Year 2016.

Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president on January 20, 2017.

Trump is sworn in as president on January 20, 2017 with his wife and children

Donald Trump was the first billionaire president of the United States.

Trump said he would donate his entire $400,000 presidential salary to charity. He donated his first-quarter presidential salary of $78,000 to the US National Parks Service in 2017 only days after announcing $2 billion in cuts to the department that funds it. 

When Donald Trump was elected U.S. president at the age of 70, he surpassed Ronald Reagan's record and became the oldest man to assume the presidency. His record was taken by his successor Joe Biden who was 78 years old when he was sworn-in as the 46th president of the United States. 

Trump became in November 2020 only the fourth elected US president in the past century to lose re-election, after Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.

LEGAL AFFAIRS

On September 24, 2019, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would begin an impeachment inquiry into Trump in the wake of a whistleblower complaint alleging abuse of power by the President. The House Judiciary Committee released a report a month later specifying criminal bribery and wire fraud charges as part of the abuse of power charge. Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on  December 18, 2019, making him the third president in American history to be impeached. The first was Andrew Johnson in 1868 and the second Bill Clinton in 1998. The Senate acquitted him of both charges on February 5, 2020.

Donald Trump was impeached for the second time by the House of Representatives on January 13, 2021. Trump's impeachment came amid his attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, with the article citing the Trump–Raffensperger phone call and allegations that he incited the storming of the United States Capitol one week prior.  He is the only U.S. president (and the only holder of any federal office) to be impeached twice. 

The Senate acquitted Trump for a second time on February 13, 2021. Seven Republican senators joined all 50 Democrats in finding him guilty of the House’s single charge of “incitement of insurrection.” But the vote fell short of the two-thirds needed to convict Trump.

Donald Trump was arraigned on April 4, 2023  on 34 charges of falsifying business records. The charges stem from an investigation into hush money payments that Trump made to two women who claimed to have had affairs with him. Trump denied the allegations and called the charges "politically motivated." 

The arraignment took place in a Manhattan courtroom, where Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges. He was released on his own recognizance.

Trump was indicted on 37 counts of mishandling classified documents on June 9, 2023. The charges stem from an investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by the Justice Department in 2022 to investigate allegations that Trump had mishandled classified information while he was president. The indictment alleged that Trump took classified documents with him to his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, after he left office. The documents included information on US nuclear weapons, potential military vulnerabilities of the US and allies, and plans for US retaliation in the event of an attack.

MARRIAGES 

Trump married his first wife, Czech model Ivana Zelníčková, on April 7, 1977, at the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. 

Ivana and Donald Trump, 1985

They had three children: sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric and daughter Ivanka.

Ivanka Trump was once reported missing as a teenager while in Aspen, Colorado on a family vacation – Law enforcement found her in a hotel room with a boy.

By early 1990, Trump's troubled marriage to Ivana and affair with actress Marla Maples had been reported in the tabloid press. They were divorced in 1992. 

Trump married Marla Maples in 1993. They had one daughter together, Tiffany. The couple were separated in 1997 and later divorced in 1999.

Trump married his third wife the Slovenian-born former model Melania Knauss in 2005. When they wed among the 350 guests were TV personality Simon Cowell, rapper P Diddy and Bill and Hillary Clinton. 

Melania and Donald Trump attending Oscar de la Renta fashion show, 2006. By Boss Tweed 

In 1993, Melania Trump played the first female U.S. president in a commercial for a Slovenian clothing company.

PERSONAL LIFE

Though many speculate that Trump's hair is not real it actually is. He revealed the secret towards his lustrous golden locks is he washes it always and never exposes it to the sun.

According to Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall, when Trump appeared on the show he insisted on doing his own make-up, and wouldn't let anyone touch his hair.

Head shot of a smiling Trump in front of an American flag

A newly described moth species, Neopalpa donaldtrumpi (pictured), was so named because its yellowish head scales reminded a scientist of Donald Trump's hairstyle.

Donald Trump scotch tapes the back of his tie to the front

Trump is not known as a big reader; in August 2015 he named the Bible as his favorite piece of literature. His second favorite book?  The Art of the Deal by… Donald Trump.

Trump has a self-professed fear of germs. He has been, in the past, reluctant to shake hands for that reason and it's not just the hands he doesn't want to touch, it's everything, from doorknobs to elevator buttons. Not only this he completely avoids physical contact with children.

Trump doesn't drink alcohol and the main reason behind this is the fact that his brother Fred was an alcoholic and he lost him due to his addiction in 1982.

A lifelong New Yorker, Trump changed his primary residence from Manhattan to Palm Beach, Florida in September 2019. The first lady, Melania Trump, submitted similar documents. Taxes were likely the primary reason. Florida has no state income tax or inheritance tax.  

Trump was the first US president in more than a century not to have a pet of any kind living with him in the White House. 

Sources Daily Express, Kathmandutribune

Harry S. Truman

EARLY LIFE 

Harry S. Truman was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri. 

Harry spent most of his youth on his family's 550-acre (220 ha) farm near Independence, Missouri.

Harry S. Truman had no middle name. His parents gave him the middle initial S to honor his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. 

Harry didn't use a period after the initial. After he was elected president, the editors of the Chicago Style Manual informed Truman that omitting the period was improper grammar and a bad example for America's youth. From that moment on, the 33rd president signed his name Harry S. Truman.

Harry Truman was the last U.S. President to not have a college degree. However, he was a voracious reader and remained so all of his life.

Truman's birthplace and childhood home in Lamar, Missouri. By Kbh3rd 

PRE PRESIDENTIAL CAREER 

Harry Truman dreamed of attending West Point and becoming a career Army officer, but although he passed the written test, he was so near-sighted, he failed the eye exam and was denied entry. Undeterred from the desire to serve, in 1905 he memorized the eye chart and joined the Missouri National Guard in 1905.

Truman joined the United States Military in 1917 during World War I. and went to France, where he became a captain in the Field Artillery.

Truman in uniform, ca. 1918

In 1919 Truman and his war buddy Eddie Jacobson opened a clothing store in Kansas City. The name of the shop was the Truman and Jacobson Haberdashery and it was located at l2th and Baltimore, Kansas City, Missouri. The store failed two years later.

Truman joined the Democratic Party and the political machine of Tom Pendergast. He was first elected to public office as judge of Jackson County Court in 1922, and then as Senator of Missouri in 1934.

As Senator of Missouri, Truman became a member of the Interstate Commerce Committee. He was also the vice-chairman of a subcommittee on railroad safety. 

He gained national prominence as chairman of the Truman Committee, formed in March 1941, which found waste and inefficiency in Federal Government wartime contracts.

When in 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for re-election he chose Truman as his Vice President. On April 12, 1945, shortly after his fourth inauguration, Roosevelt died. Truman became president. 

Roosevelt/Truman poster from 1944

PRESIDENCY 

When Franklin D. Roosevelt died, Eleanor Roosevelt informed Harry Truman that the president had passed away. He asked if there was anything he could do for her and she replied, "Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now."

Truman had become president during the last few months of World War II. While Nazi Germany surrendered less than a month after he became president, the Japanese kept fighting. The United States made the Potsdam Declaration, telling Japan to surrender or it would face "prompt and utter destruction," but Japan did not surrender. As a result, Truman ordered the first atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945.  It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare

Harry Truman went from Senator, to Vice President, to President, to dropping the first atomic bomb in 29 weeks.

President Harry S. Truman in an official portrait

The Soviet Union, then led by Joseph Stalin, became an enemy in the Cold War. On March 12, 1947 President Harry S. Truman proclaimed the Truman Doctrine to help stem the spread of communism.

Truman was encouraged by his advisers to increase tensions with the Soviet Union while running for his second term as President in 1948 because it would help him win: "There is considerable political advantage to the administration in its battle with the Kremlin. … In times of crisis the American citizen tends to back up his President." To the detriment of everyone on our planet, Truman took this advice. 

The first televised White House address was given by President Harry S. Truman on October 5, 1947.

Truman ran for a second term as President against the heavily favored Governor of New York, Thomas Dewey, in 1948. On November 3, 1948 The Chicago Daily Tribune published the erroneous headline "Dewey Defeats Truman" in its early morning edition shortly after Truman officially upset Dewey in the presidential election.

Associated Press

On January 5, 1949, during his State of the Union address to Congress. Truman outlined his ambitious domestic reform proposals. "Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal," he stated.  This address was considered a significant moment in American history, both for the introduction of the Fair Deal program and for Truman's powerful assertion of the government's responsibility towards its citizens. His words remain a key part of his legacy and have been referenced and reinterpreted throughout the years.

Harry Truman was convinced that no one paid any attention to him when he was introduced at White House receptions as they were so overawed by his presence. He tested his theory out on one occasion by greeting all his guests with the phrase, "I killed my grandmother this morning." No one questioned his statement merely smiling and thanking him. One guest however was wise to his plan and replied, "She had it coming."

White House Police officer Leslie Coffelt was fatally shot while protecting President Truman in an assassination attempt. The armed attack took place on November 1, 1950, at Blair House, where the president was living during renovations at the White House.  Coffelt managed to kill his attacker with a headshot from 30 feet away before dying.

During the end of his term, Truman was very unpopular because thousands of Americans died in the Korean War and people were accusing many of Truman's employees of being communists. Also, allegations were raised of corruption in the Truman administration, linked to certain cabinet members and senior White House staff. All this helped account for Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower's electoral victory in the 1952 presidential election. 

Harry Truman held both the highest (at 91%) and tied for the lowest (at 22%) approval ratings since Gallup started compiling them in 1937.

PRIVATE LIFE 

Truman married Elizabeth Virginia Wallace at Trinity Episcopal Church in Independence, Missouri on June 28, 1919. She had known her future husband since they were children attending the same school in Independence. 

Harry and Bess Truman on their wedding day,

On February 17, 1924, Bess had a baby girl and named her Mary Margaret Truman. Their only child, Margaret embarked on a career as a coloratura soprano and appeared in concerts with orchestras throughout the United States in the decade following World War II. 

In 1957 Margaret abandoned her singing career to pursue a career as a journalist and radio personality when she became the co-host with Mike Wallace of the radio program Weekday. She later became the successful author of 32 books, including biographies of both her parents and 23 mystery novels. 

On her first official appearance as First Lady, Bess Truman was trying to christen a hospital airplane with a bottle of champagne that would not smash. Finally, a mechanic cracked it open with a wrench and Mrs Truman was sprayed with bubbly. When the President teased her, she replied: "I'm sorry I didn't swing that bottle at you."

Bess Truman died on October 18, 1982, from congestive heart failure at the age of 97. She was and remains the longest-lived First Lady and Second Lady in United States history.

Truman's favorite pastime was poker.

LAST YEARS AND DEATH 

When his eight years as President of the United States ended on January 20, 1953, private citizen Harry Truman took the train home to Independence, Missouri, mingling with other passengers along the way. He had no secret service protection. 

After Harry Truman returned to his home in Missouri his only income was his old army pension. It was no more than $112.56 per month or about $982 today. He refused to join any corporate boards or do commercial endorsements after his presidency, feeling that using his position for financial gain would diminish the integrity of the office. 

Truman was so poor after his presidency that Congress had to enact the Former Presidents Act to give him a pension. Herbert Hoover, the only other living ex-president, took the pension as well, despite his wealth, to avoid embarrassing Truman.

When President Harry S. Truman visited Disneyland in 1957, he refused to come aboard the popular Dumbo attraction. Truman, a Democrat, didn’t want to be seen riding in the symbol of the Republican Party.

Truman died on December 26, 1972 in Kansas City, Missouri of multiple organ failure caused by pneumonia at the age of 88.

Source Theintercept

Trout

Trout is a ray-finned marine or freshwater fish closely related to the salmon.

Sea trout

DISTRIBUTION

The brown trout (sea trout, lake trout and river trout) is widely distributed in Europe. It extends from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlas Mountains in North Africa.

The rainbow trout is native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America.

The steelhead is a sea-run form of the coastal rainbow trout, which can spend two or three years at sea before returning to fresh water to spawn.

Wild-caught and hatchery-reared forms of rainbow trout have been transplanted and introduced for food or sport in at least 45 countries. Aquaculture of the species are major industries in Chile and Australia.

ANATOMY 

To distinguish a trout from other species, look for a second adipose fin along the back, near the tail. 

Sea trout are generally silvery and river trout olive brown, both having spotted fins and sides. 

Coloration of rainbow trout varies widely, but all adult fish are distinguished by a broad reddish stripe along the lateral line, from gills to the tail, which is most vivid in breeding males.

Typical adult rainbow trout

The rainbow trout that spend their lives in streams and rivers average between 1 and 5 lb (0.5 and 2.3 kg); others, called steelhead trout, live in the ocean or the Great Lakes for two to three years before returning to fresh water to spawn, and may reach 20 lb (9.1 kg). 

FUN TROUT FACTS 

Franz Schubert wrote a lied "Die Forelle" (The Trout) about fishing. Later Schubert's Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 was nicknamed the Trout Quintet because the fourth movement is a set of variations on the composer's earlier "Die Forelle" 

The steelhead is the official state fish of Washington.

The biggest ever trout caught by a fisherman was a 73.29-pound lake trout caught by Scott Enloe on May 5, 2023 in Blue Mesa Reservoir in Colorado. The roughly 47-inch fish had a 37-inch girth, which means it was bigger around than the angler himself. Enloe was fishing with his son, Hunter, when he caught the massive trout. The fish was so big that they both needed to work together to pull it into the boat. Enloe released the fish alive after taking measurements and weighing it. 

Fishing lakes in remote areas of California are stocked by throwing baby trout out of planes flying over the water at 200 mph.

Trousers or pants

Trousers are a kind of clothing that are worn on the lower part of the body to cover both legs (instead of cloth stretching across both as in skirts and dresses). They are known as pants in Canada, South Africa and the United States.

Trousers are thought to have originated as a comfortable garment to wear when horse-riding. Asiatic riders realized that when they were clad in leggings, their movement was much less impeded than when they were wrapped in their traditional flowing garment.

A 3,300-year-old discovery in China was announced in June 2014 as the world's oldest trousers. They were found at the Yanghai cemetery in Turpan, Xinjiang, western China. Made of wool, the trousers had straight legs and wide crotches, and were likely made for horseback riding.

The Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras was one of his first countrymen to start wearing trousers instead of the usual skirt. However, most of the ancient Greeks didn't wear trousers because they found them "ridiculous". using the word "thulakoi", ("sack"), as a slang term for the loose trousers of Persians and other Middle Easterners. 

The Romans didn't wear trousers because it was seen as uncivilized and only Barbarians wore pants.

Germanic trousers of the 4th century found in the Thorsberg moor, Germany. By PBullenwächter

Instead of trousers, medieval men often wore long hosen or stockings, on their legs. In the British Isles, where Celts and Saxons had long worn pants called braies or braccae, these hosen were first popularized by the Norman invaders of 1066. 

Hosen were typically made of wool, although some examples appear to have been made of linen (these may have been more popular in warmer climates, like Italy). 

Shakespeare's only reference to trousers is when he talks about "strait strossers" in Henry V.

The word 'trousers' was first recorded in English in 1625. Slightly earlier, the terms 'trouse', 'trews' or 'strossers' were occasionally seen.

Pants and trousers are called pairs because they used to be separate. As early as the 16th century, you'd feed one leg in, tie the top around your waist and do the same with the other leg. The name stayed even when they started being made as a single item.

During the French Revolution, rebels in Paris identified themselves by wearing trousers instead of the knee-length ‘ culottes' of the bourgeoisie. Women rebels demanded the right to wear trousers as well, but were forbidden from doing so. France finally revoked the 214-year-old ban on Parisian women wearing trousers in 2013. 

Early use of trousers in France: a sans-culotte by Louis-Léopold Boilly

In England, loose-fitting breeches were worn in preference to trousers until the 1810s after London resident George Bryan "Beau" Brummell began promoting the wearing of tailored trousers. 

The fashion for longer trousers was not welcomed by all. In 1812, two Cambridge University colleges ordered that students appearing in pantaloons or trousers should be considered as absent, while the clergy of Sheffield were warned that any preacher who wore trousers would not be allowed to occupy a pulpit.

Levi Strauss received US patent No. 139,121 for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings" in 1873. Levi Strauss & Co. began manufacturing the first of the famous Levi's brand of jeans in San Francisco.

In Victorian Britain, trousers were known as ‘inexpressibles' or ‘nether integuments'.

The French novelist George Sand (1804-1876) was notorious for wearing trousers. Her refusal to act like a "real woman" made her popular among the artists and intelligentsia of her time and helped ignite the woman's revolution.

The first woman to be recorded wearing trousers as an article of fashion in a photograph was French actress Sarah Bernhardt in 1876.

During the 1920s and 1930s there was a widespread adoption of trousers by women. The bloomers of the preceding century evolved into lounging pajamas between the two World Wars. From the 1930s, slacks were worn for many leisure activities. 

Joan Crawford

Pat Nixon was the first First Lady to wear pants in public.

Women were not allowed to wear trousers on the US Senate floor until 1993 when two senators defied the ban. Later that year the rule was amended to allow women to wear trousers.

According to a survey in 2010, men wear trouser waists at their highest points, just seven inches below the armpit, at the age of 57. 

Sources Europress Encyclopedia, Comptons Encyclopedia, Daily Express, Daily Mail