Nebraska

HISTORY

In the early eighteenth century, France developed a regular trade with the native peoples along the Missouri River in Nebraska, and by 1719 had signed treaties with several of these peoples.

Nebraska in 1718, Guillaume de L'Isle map, with the approximate area of the future state highlighted.

In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, including present day Nebraska.

In 1819, the United States established Fort Atkinson, just east of present-day Fort Calhoun, Nebraska as the first US Army post west of the Missouri River. The army abandoned the fort eight years later as migration moved further west.

The 1848-55 California Gold Rush brought the first large numbers of non-indigenous settlers to the Nebraska area.

Omaha, Nebraska's largest city, was founded in 1854, by speculators from neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa. The settlement was founded along the Missouri River, and a crossing called Lone Tree Ferry earned the city its nickname, the "Gateway to the West".

The Kansas–Nebraska Act became law in 1854 establishing the U.S. territories of Nebraska and Kansas, and allowing settlers in those territories to determine if they would permit slavery within their boundaries.

In the 1860s, many people moved to Nebraska to take free land from the government.

Nebraska became the 37th U.S. state on March 1, 1867. On the same day, the city of Lancaster was renamed Lincoln and became the state capital.

In 1882 a rodeo sponsored by William "Buffalo Bill" Cody (1846-1917) at North Platte, Nebraska., attracted 1,000 contestants. Its success prompted Cody to open his traveling Wild West show, "Buffalo Bill's Wild West" , the following year. It was a circus-like attraction that toured annually with real cowboys and Indians.

The flag of the state of Nebraska is a blue rectangular cloth charged with the Nebraskan state seal. The current design was adopted in 1925.

Nebraska flag

Charles Lindbergh enrolled as a student at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation's flying school in Lincoln in March 1922 and flew for the first time in his life the following month, when he took to the air as a passenger in a two-seat Lincoln Standard "Tourabout" biplane trainer piloted by Otto Timm.

In May 2004, Hallam, Nebraska was struck by an F4 tornado, (part of the May 2004 tornado outbreak sequence) that broke a width record at an astounding 2.5 miles (4.0 km) wide. It killed one resident. and destroyed most of the town.

FUN NEBRASKA FACTS

Nebraska has a large agriculture sector, and is a major producer of beef, pork, corn (maize), and soybeans.

Nebraska grain bins and elevator

Most of the world's popcorn is grown in the Midwest, with Nebraska ranked number one.

As of April 2015, Nebraska's unemployment rate was 2.5%, the lowest in the United States.

Nebraska is a triply landlocked state: it touches no ocean, the states it borders touch no ocean, and the states they border touch no ocean.

Despite being a landlocked state, Nebraska does have a Navy—its honorary admirals include Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Murray and Big Bird.

A past Nebraska tourism slogan was "Where the West Begins" (currently it's "Honestly, it's not for everyone").

The First National Bank Tower, standing at 634 feet (193 meters), is the tallest building in the state of Nebraska.

In Nebraska, It is illegal for bar owners to sell beer unless they are simultaneously brewing a kettle of soup.

Barbers are not allowed to eat onions between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. in Waterloo, Nebraska.

John Mason Neale

John Mason Neale was born on January 24, 1818 to the Revd Cornelius Neale and Susanna Neale. He was named after the 17th century Puritan cleric and hymn writer John Mason, of whom his mother was a descendant.

He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where despite being said to be the best classical scholar in his year his lack of ability in mathematics prevented him taking an honours degree.

Neale was ordained in 1841 and was a leading light of the Oxford Movement, which sought to bring Catholic practices into Anglicanism, Neale was so displeased his congregations that, on various occasions, they accused him of being a Vatican 'secret agent', physically attacked him at a nun's funeral, stoned him, and threatened to burn him out of house and home.

John Mason Neale

Neale is best known as a hymn writer and, especially, translator, having enriched English hymnody with many ancient and medieval hymns translated from Latin and Greek.The English Hymnal (1906) contains 63 of his translated hymns and six original hymns by Neale. His translations include: "All Glory, Laud and Honour," "A Great and Mighty Wonder" and "O come, O come, Emmanuel."

John Mason Neale was a prolific reader and one day he  came across a long narrative German poem about Wenceslas, the Duke of Bohemia, who in 935 gained control of Bohemia and was renowned for his piety. A section in which the king walked out into the snow to rescue a poor swineherd particularly struck him. Neale adapted the poem into English and borrowed the tune to go with it from "Tempus Adest Floridum" ("Spring has unwrapped her flowers"), a 13th century spring carol. "Good King Wenceslas" was included in a 1853 publication Carols for Christmas-tide, by Neale and the Rev. Thomas Helmore (vice-Principal of St. Mark's College, Chelsea).

The story inspired much more than a carol. Neale was so touched by the quality of mercy in the tale of Wenceslas he read that he founded the Society of St Margaret, which still offers care to the poor in their homes.

Sources Daily Telegraph, my entry for Songfacts.com

Nazi Party

 HISTORY

The German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP), which would become the Nazi Party, was founded on January 5, 1919.

Hitler's membership card in the DAP

When in 1919 Adolf Hitler  joined the the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP) the predecessor of the Nazi Party, he was member number 555. However, he was only the fifty-fifth member of the party as they started counting membership at 500 to give the impression they were a much larger party.

The term National Socialist—or Nazi, for short—was added to the name of the German Workers' Party on February 24, 1920 the year after it was founded. On the day it was renamed, swiftly-rising new member Adolf Hitler outlined the party's official platform before 2,000 people, its largest audience yet.

During the Great Depression, millions of jobless voters joined the Nazi party, and in 1932 it became the largest bloc in the Reichstag.

Hitler with Nazi Party members in 1930

In the election of March 5, 1933: the Nazis received 43.9% of the popular vote and 288 seats in the Reichstag out of a total of 647 seats. It was their best ever result.

All German political parties — except the Nazi Party — were outlawed on July 14, 1933.

Hitler believed that Christianity was a religion fit only for the lowest of the low and detested its ethics. Those Protestants who were critical of the anti-Jewish totalitarian Nazi German Government were oppressed. In 1935, 700 church pastors were arrested.

There were several Nazi summer camps established across the US by the German American Bund. These camps aimed to indoctrinate young German-Americans with Nazi ideology while seemingly offering a fun summer experience with activities like swimming and crafts.

In 1939, 20,000 people attended a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Nazi Germany labor force was 25% slaves. Among the slave laborers in the occupied territories, hundreds of thousands were used by leading German corporations including Thyssen, Krupp, IG Farben, Bosch, Blaupunkt, Daimler-Benz, Demag, Henschel, Junkers, Messerschmitt, Siemens, and Volkswagen.

The defeat of Germany in World War II marked the end of the Nazi Germany era. The party was formally abolished on October 10, 1945 by the Allied Control Council.

24 Nazi leaders went on trial before an international war crimes tribunal at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg on November 20, 1945. Not included were Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbels, all of whom had committed suicide in the spring of 1945.

Defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg trials.

George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, was shot and killed in Arlington, Virginia on August 25, 1967. Hearing of his son's death, Rockwell's father said: "I am not surprised at all. I've expected it for quite some time."

FUN FACTS

When the Nazis designated the Beer Hall Putsch site as "sacred" and made it compulsory for citizens to do the Nazi salute when passing-by, as a form of passive resistance, people would take a detour alley that is nicknamed "Shirker's Lane", bypassing the beer hall completely.

High-ranking Nazi's tried for war crimes were given IQ tests. Top score was 143.

The Nazi SS uniform was designed by Hugo Boss (1885-1948). The German fashion designer was a Nazi party member from 1931.

Victor Klemperer, Professor of Literature at the Dresden University of Technology, wrote a book that analyzed how Nazis introduced a nearly Orwellian kind of German language. Examples are: "crisis" for defeat, "connection" (Anschluss) for annexation, and "enhanced interrogation" for torture.

Navy

HISTORY

The Ancient Egyptians created the first organized navy in 2300 BC.

During the 13th century the Mongolian Navy was known to be the largest Navy in the whole world.

In the 1400s, China owned the greatest seagoing fleet in the world, up to 3,500 ships at its peak.  Some vessels were six times larger than Columbus' Santa Maria. But by 1525, all of their ships had been destroyed. The reason why China destroyed its world-dominating navy was because its political elite was afraid of free trade.

The HMS Victory was launched in 1765 and is best known as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. In 1922, she was moved to a dry dock at Portsmouth, England, and preserved as a museum ship. She has been the flagship of the First Sea Lord since October 2012 and is the world's oldest naval ship still in commission.

In the 1790s, a quarter of the sailors in the British Royal Navy were black.

The Continental Congress established the Continental Navy (predecessor of the United States Navy) on October 13, 1775. With only two ships and a crew of eighty men, the main goal of the Continental Navy was to intercept shipments of British material and generally disrupt British maritime commercial operations during the Revolutionary War. 

By the end of 1775, Congress had authorized the construction of 13 new frigates. Within a decade the war had ended and Congress had disbanded the Continental Navy and sold the remaining ships.

To protect American merchant ships from Barbary pirates, Congress passed the Naval Act on March 27, 1794. It authorized the building of six frigates, which eventually became the U.S. Navy.

The Naval School (later renamed the United States Naval Academy) opened on October 10, 1845 in Annapolis, Maryland with 50 midshipman students and seven professors. The Naval School was founded by Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft, who believed that the United States needed a professional officer corps for its growing navy. 

U.S. Naval Academy in 1853

38-year-old Captain David Beatty was promoted to Rear admiral on January 1, 1910, becoming the youngest admiral in the Royal Navy (except for Royal family members), since Horatio Nelson.

The Earl Beatty while a vice admiral

The US Navy built a replica ship in the middle of New York City during World War I to boost recruitment. It was staffed by a full crew who stood guard, slept on board and manned wooden guns. It helped enlist 25,000 men.

In World War I, the German Navy took Cap Trafalgar, an ocean liner, and disguised it as Carmania, a British ship. One month later, and entirely by coincidence, it ran into the real Carmania—which led to Cap Trafalgar's destruction.

By 1943 the US Navy was larger than the combined fleets of the rest of the world, and by 1945 comprised 70% of the ships larger than 1000 tons.

The US Navy had the largest naval fleet in history with 6768 ships at the end of World War II.

Until 1948, people didn't have to know how to swim to join the U.K. Navy.

Samuel L. Gravely Jr (June 4, 1922 – October 22, 2004) was the first African American in the U.S. Navy to serve aboard a fighting ship as an officer. In 1967 he became the first African American to reach the rank of captain, and in 1971 the first to reach rear admiral

The United States Navy SEALs was established on January 1, 1962.

The Coronado US Navy Base was completed in 1970 in San Diego, California. It featured four L-shaped buildings, forming a swastika. The Navy was eventually forced to budget $600,000 in 2008 to camouflage the site after aerial images of the base from Google Earth began circulating online.

The Falklands War of 1982 was the largest naval conflict since World War II.

The US Navy set up booths outside theaters that were showing Top Gun in order to recruit moviegoers to join the Navy—and it worked.

Navy SEAL Team 6, the covert unit that killed Osama Bin Laden, was named to make US Special Forces seem more plentiful to the Soviets; only SEAL Teams 1 and 2 existed prior.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

The Royal Navy last executed one of their own Admirals, John Byng on March 14, 1757 for 'neglect of duty'. He had failed to save the British-controlled island of Minorca from attack by the French. Admiral Byng faced the firing squad with "cool courage" and was the first and last admiral sentenced to death.

The Shooting of Admiral Byng, artist unknown

American filmmaker George Lucas was rejected from joining the US Air Force because he had too many speeding tickets.

FOOD AND DRINK

An English seaman's staple drink was for many years a gallon of strong beer a day. This was bulky to carry and on longer voyages it often run out, so in the eighteenth century a pint of white wine or half a pint of rum or brandy was issued instead. These quantities may seem excessive, but heavy drinking was part of everyday life for officers and men in those days. Requirements for beer were so great that in 1760 the navy's brewery in Gosport produced four million gallons of the alcoholic beverage.

A fifth-rate warship of the 1790s putting to sea with a crew of 590, was provisioned for five months. In its holds were 41 tons of biscuit, 407 barrels of beer, 23 tons of beef, 12 tons of pork, 10 tons of pease, four tons of oatmeal, two tons of butter and four tons of cheese.

A ship's biscuit—purportedly (circa 1852) the oldest in the world. By Paul A. Cziko, 

A typical English seaman's breakfast at the turn of the nineteenth century was burgoo, made of boiled oatmeal seasoned with salt, sugar and butter, and accompanied by 'Scots coffee' - made of hard-baked ships biscuits burnt to a charcoal, then crushed and mixed with hot water. Lunch was soup or stew with salt beef, pork or fish, plus dried or fresh vegetables if available.

The evening meal meant ships biscuits with butter or cheese. The biscuits were usually infested with weevils, but hungry sailors would bang them on a table to knock out any inside. All of this was washed down with around eight pints of beer a day.

FIRSTS

David Farragut became the first person to be promoted to the rank of rear admiral in the United States Navy on July 16, 1862. Before this time, the American Navy had resisted the rank of admiral, preferring the term "flag officer", to distinguish the rank from the traditions of the European navies.

Admiral David Farragut, from wet collodion glass negative

The US Naval Academy admitted women for the first time in its history with the induction of 81 females on July 6, 1976.

Lillian Elaine Fishburne was the first African-American female to hold the rank of rear admiral in the United States Navy. She was appointed to the rank of Rear Admiral (Lower Half) by President of the United States Bill Clinton and was officially promoted on February 1, 1998.

Lillian E Fishburne

THE MODERN NAVY

After Top Gun was shown in cinemas, recruitment into the Navy by young men went up by 500 percent.

The US Navy has a ship partially built using steel salvaged from the World Trade Center.

The U.S. Navy has 75 trained dolphins to detect enemy swimmers and underwater mines.

The bill for the U.S. Navy’s futuristic new ‘supership’ USS Milwaukee, commissioned on November 21, 2015, came to $362 million. Designed to be difficult to detect on radar, the ship was there for all to see when it had to be towed back to port just 20 days after coming into service, after the vessel experienced a "complete loss of propulsion."

Milwaukee off Naval Station Mayport in February 2016

The US Navy has a tradition that no submarine is ever considered lost at sea. Submarines that don't return, including 52 lost during World War II, are considered "still on patrol." Every year at Christmastime sailors manning communications hubs send holiday greetings to those listed as still on patrol.

Nebraska, the only triply landlocked state in the US, has a navy. The position of Nebraska admiral has been awarded as a joke for decades, with admirals including Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Murray, Big Bird. and David Letterman.

The landlocked country of Mongolia maintains a Navy which consists of one tugboat and seven sailors, making it the smallest in the world. The boat sails on Mongolia's largest lake and after the privatization of the Navy by the government it now supplements its income by hauling freight and tourists around.

Navy is comprised of one tugboat and seven sailors, making it the smallest in the world.

The modern Spanish Navy is still called the Armada.

Sources Daily Mail, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Native Americans in the United States

NATIVE AMERICANS IN THE PRE-COLUMBIAN ERA

The original founding population of Native Americans was about 250 people.

In the pre-Columbian era the heads of North American East Coast Indian men were generally entirely shaven, with shell or stone knives, save for a ridge, or comb, of hair along the crown of the head. Plains Indians wore two long plaits, as Indian women did generally

There were no pre-Columbian American Indians with blood type B. The American Indians are Type A or type O, and exclusively O all the way from the southern edge of the last glacier to the Horn at the southern tip of South America.

The early Indians of North America lived in a number of different types of shelter. In the Northeast, round houses or rectangular longhouses were built from bent poles covered with deerskin. The Penobscot Indians erected wigwams covered with birch bark. The Iroquois built large longhouses covered with bark shingles. In the Southwest, certain tribes built pueblos from adobe and stone.

Cultural areas of pre-Columbian North America, according to Alfred Kroeber

Long before Christopher Columbus, American Indians wore war paints extracted from fruits, vegetables, and berries. Animal fats protected their skin from harsh weather.

The Northern Great Plains was home to many fortified Native American towns, beginning in the 800s and existing all the way until the 1880s. These towns had over a thousand residents and a plaza centric layout. These were sedentary towns where people lived year-round.

Cahkoia, a great Native American city near current day St Louis, had a population in 1250 AD bigger than London.

EUROPEAN EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION

At their peak, there were about 18 million Indians in North America and 40 million from Alaska to Argentina. It’s estimated that the population dropped by almost 90% within a few centuries after the arrival of the Europeans.

Samoset (c. 1590–1653) was the first Native American to make contact with the Mayflower Pilgrims. On March 16, 1621, the settlers were more than surprised when Samoset strolled straight through the middle of the encampment at Plymouth Colony and greeted them in English, which he had begun to learn from English fishermen frequenting the waters of what now is Maine.

"Interview of Samoset with the Pilgrims", book engraving, 1853

The word Redskin was actually invented by Native Americans to separate themselves from the "pale faces"

The phrase burying the hatchet, meaning, to end an argument or conflict, is derived from a Native American custom where a hatchet or tomahawk was buried in the ground to mark a declaration of peace.  The Burying the Hatchet ceremony happened in Nova Scotia on June 25, 1761. It ended more than seventy-five years of war between the British and the Mi'kmaq.

The Treaty of Penn with the Indians by Benjamin West painted in 1771.

The Spanish settlers first brought horses from Europe to the Southwest. Between 1650 and 1750 they spread to the plains.

After horses were brought to North America from Europe, the Plains tribes became successful mounted hunters and spent their lives following the herds.

DIET OF NATIVE INDIANS

After a mini ice age the fifteenth century brought a climate change to North America, the warmer weather allowing the Indians to move to the plains where they found plenty of buffalo to hunt. After a successful buffalo hunt an adult might consume as much as 4 lb of buffalo meat a day. They ate thin slices of raw meat from the buffalo's hump or feat on the perishable parts such as the brains, blood, kidney and liver. The meat was roasted or broiled over a campfire with the addition of just a little salt and sometimes flavourful herbs.

The meat that wasn't eaten immediately was cut into thin strips and hung up to dry. Tougher cuts were mixed with berries, melted bone fat and herbs and packed into a solid block called a "pemmican" which were kept in pouches and used by hunters and gatherers when they were away from home.

Rabbit, squirrel and deer meat was also eaten. Sometimes the Native Americans made stews to which they added a highly pungent wild onion.

Many tribes also grew crops especially maize. They held a fresh corn feast when the maize was ripe and boiled then ladled it into wooden bowls so that everyone could eat their fill. The rest of the harvest was dried and stored away. Sometimes maize, acorns, nuts, and seeds were ground, mixed with some water and salted to form a dough, and cooked like cakes in the fire.

Maize grown by Native Americans

Villagers also enjoyed meals of beans, pumpkins and squash or berries mixed with fresh blood. As a treat strawberries were eaten fresh.

SPORTS AND DANCING

American Indians had separate dances for men and for women and others in which men, women, and children took part. These dances emphasized various movements for the feet and postures for the head. Arms were not considered as important. As in many other tribal cultures, drums would beat out an accompaniment.

Secotan Indians' dance in North Carolina. Watercolor by John White, 1585

Indian children learned skills from games then as they do now. Archery, target practice, and footraces taught skills needed by the hunters.

Young people competed in athletic sports. Athletes were highly trained for intertribal contests in this game. Intervillage footraces were held by the Pueblos, and horse racing was popular among the buffalo-hunting Plains tribes.

Shinny was a woman's game. Plains women used a small buckskin-covered ball of buffalo hair.

Modern lacrosse is derived from a fast and rough North American Indian ball game called baggataway.

Ball players from the Choctaw and Lakota tribe as painted by George Catlin in the 1830s

19TH CENTURY

The Smithsonian proclaims that 65 million Native Americans died from genocidal practices from 1492 -19th century.

The inaugural issue of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper in a Native American language, was published on February 21, 1828. The paper continued until 1834. The Cherokee Phoenix was revived in the later 20th century, and today it publishes both as a monthly broadsheet in Tahlequah, Oklahoma and internet versions.

Front page of the Cherokee Phoenix 1828

The Black Hawk War of 1832 was the last organised Indian resistance to American occupation.

Doaksville, Choctaw Nation, was the largest town in the Indian Territory in 1850.

After the Ponca people were forcibly removed from their land in 1877, Susette La Flesche (1854-19030 testified before Congress. Her work led to the Dawes Act in 1887, which was intended to help the assimilation of Native Americans into American society

The 1887 Dawes Act authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. Those who accepted allotments and lived separately from the tribe would be granted United States citizenship. Despite its good intentions, the act had a negative effect.

Susan LaFlesche Picotte was the first Native American to earn a medical degree, graduating at the top of her class on March 14, 1889, after a rigorous three-year course of study. She went on to treat whites and Indians alike—despite rampant sexism and racism.

The last major conflict between U.S. military forces and Native Americans took place at Wounded Knee, South Dakota on December 29, 1890. More than 200 Lakota Indians were killed, for the loss of 31 cavalry.

Mass grave for the dead Lakota following the Wounded Knee Massacre

20TH CENTURY

U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act into law on June 2, 1924, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.

Many Indians, even though born in the United States, were not considered citizens until the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act granted them citizenship. Before this law was passed, those who had not been granted citizenship by specific treaties were considered members of "domestic independent nations."

The United States had a Native American Vice President from 1929-1933. His name was Charles Curtis and he was part of the Kaw tribe.

So many American Indians joined the military during World War 2 that had all Americans joined at the same proportion, conscription would not have been necessary.

During World War II Joe Medicine Crow, a native American, completed all four feats required to be a war chief: touching an enemy without killing him, taking an enemy's weapon, leading a war party and stealing 50 horses from the SS, singing a Crow honor song as he rode away.

DEMOGRAPHICS

The Navajo are the largest Native American tribe in the United States with 300,000 members.

There are 311 Indian reservations in the U.S., of which the biggest — belonging to the Navajo and covering parts of New Mexico, Utah and Arizona — is the same size as the Republic of Ireland. It is so large (71,000 km2), its area exceeds at least 10 US states in size.

More than 130 Native American languages are endangered. Marie Wilcox is the last fluent speaker of the Wukchumni language.

The Navajo Native American language was once endangered, but the Navajo nation set up programs to teach the language as well as many bilingual schools. Now there are even institutes, community colleges, and technical universities with classes in the Navajo language.

FUN FACTS

26 of the 50 states of the U.S. are named after Native American tribes.

Native American words that have entered the English language include 'chocolate,' 'cannibal,' 'poncho' and 'potato.'

The stereotype of Native Americans saying "how" as a greeting comes from the Anglicization of the Lakota word "háu", which was used by men to greet other men.

The term "Native American" is falling out of favor amongst indigenous Americans, in favor of indigenous Americans, American Indian, or the name of their own tribe.

Hard Rock Cafe is entirely owned by the Native American Seminole Tribe of Florida.

Sources Compton's Encyclopedia, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

National Park

There are 58 national parks of the United States operated by the National Park Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior. National parks must be established by an act of the United States Congress. These parks combined protect more than 51,900,000 acres (210,000 km2) in twenty-seven states and two territories.

Yellowstone National Park was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872.  It spans an area of 3,468.4 square miles (8,983 km2), comprising lakes, canyons, rivers, and mountain ranges

Detailed pictorial map from 1904

Although Yellowstone was not officially termed a "national park" in its establishing law, it was always termed such in practice and is widely held to be the first and oldest national park in the world.

The first area to use "national park" in its creation legislation was the US's Mackinac Island, in 1875.

At the urging of preservationist John Muir and editor of Century Magazine, Robert Underwood Johnson, the United States Congress established Yosemite National Park in California on October 1, 1890. The park reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

View of Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View in Yosemite National Park,. By Diliff 

During his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the creation of five National Parks.

Parks Canada, the world's first national park service, was established on May 19, 1911 under the Canadian Department of the Interior. Since its creation, its name has changed, known variously as the Dominion Parks Branch, National Parks Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada - Parks Branch, and the Canadian Parks Service, before a return to Parks Canada in 1998.

President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the National Park Service on August 25, 1916. It was established to manage all the national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties around the United States.

President Wilson signed an act of the U.S. Congress in 1919 establishing most of the Grand Canyon as a United States National Park.

Grand Canyon

President Calvin Coolidge signed an Executive Order in 1929 establishing the 96,000 acre Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

The Peak District was designated the UK’s first National Park on April 17, 1951.

Peak District

The newest U.S. national park is Great Sand Dunes, established in 2004, which like many other national parks was previously a national monument.

Donald Trump 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.

There are 113,000 National Parks in the world covering six per cent of the Earth’s land surface.

England’s 10 National Parks cover more than nine per cent of the country.

Northeast Greenland National Park is the world's national park. Established in 1974 and expanded to its present size in 1988, it protects 972,001 km2 (375,000 sq mi of the interior and northeastern coast of Greenland. The park is bigger than all but 29 countries in the world and features 5000 - 15,000 Musk Oxen with no permanent human population. It is overseen by the Greenland Department of Environment and Nature.

Zackenberg Station, Northeast Greenland National Park

The Great Smoky Mountains, straddling Tennessee and North Carolina, was the most visited national park in the U.S. in 2015 with 10,712,674 visitors.

The US's biggest park is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska. It was established in 1980 and it contains 13.2 million acres.

The least-visited national park in the U.S. is the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve in Alaska, which lies entirely north of the Arctic Circle and has "no established roads, trails, visitor facilities, or campgrounds."

The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota is the only American national park named directly after a single person.

The Brasília National Park is a national park located 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the centre of the Brazilian capital city of Brasília. The park covers an area of 423.83 square kilometres (163.64 sq mi), with territory spanning the suburbs of Brasilia, Brazlândia and Sobradinho and the municipality of Padre Bernardo. It is the largest park in the world which is situated in an urbanized area.

"Moyenne Island" is a small uninhabited island in Seychelles which a certain Brendon Grimshaw bought for £8,000 in 1962. With help from a partner, Rene Antoine Lafortune, Grimshaw transported and bred roughly 120 tortoises onto the island which is now the world's smallest national park

The Miami area is the only metropolitan area surrounded by two national parks — Everglades to the west, Biscayne to the east.

In October 1999 Jan Davis, who protested the banning of BASE jumping at national parks due to safety concerns, by BASE jumping off El Capitan in Yosemite National Park . Her parachute failed to open and she died.

National Anthem

The first national anthem to be composed was the Dutch national anthem "Wilhelmus" (William), which was written between 1568 and 1572.

There is an acrostic secreted in "Wilhelmus". The first letters of its fifteen stanzas spell WILLEM VAN NASSOV. This was one of the hereditary titles of William of Orange (William the Silent), who introduced himself in the poem to the Dutch people.

Early version of the Wilhelmus as preserved in a manuscript from 1617

The first anthem to be officially adopted as such was the Spanish anthem "Marcha Real" in 1770.

The French anthem "La Marseillaise" was written soon after in 1792 and adopted in 1795.

"Il Canto degli Italiani," also known as "Fratelli d'Italia" (Brothers of Italy), the Italian national anthem, made its public debut in Genoa on December 10, 1847. The anthem's lyrics were penned by Goffredo Mameli, a young patriot, and the music was composed by Michele Novaro. 

"Il Canto degli Italiani" quickly gained popularity among Italian nationalists during the Risorgimento, the movement for Italian unification. It was adopted as the provisional national anthem on October 12, 1946, after the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Italian Republic.

Despite its widespread use and popularity, "Il Canto degli Italiani" remained the provisional anthem for many decades. It wasn't until December 4, 2017, that the song gained official legal status as the national anthem of Italy.

The first performance of "O Canada," the song that would become the national anthem of Canada, took place in Quebec City, Quebec in 1880, during a Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day banquet.

Francis Scott Key's poem about the bombardment of Fort McHenry by British ships in 1814, was later set to music and became known as "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The "Cup of Solid Gold" was adopted by the Qing dynasty on October 4, 1911, as the first official national anthem of China. Six days after the anthem was adopted, the Wuchang Uprising took place and quickly led to the fall of the Qing. The "Cup of Solid Gold" was never performed publicly.

"The Star Spangled Banner" was recognized for official use by the United States Navy in 1889 and the White House in 1916. It became the United States' national anthem on March 4, 1931.

In the United States, it is against the law to use "The Star Spangled Banner" as dance music in Massachusetts.

Algerian nationalist poet Moufdi Zakaria penned the words to his country's national anthem in prison in April 1955. Since he did not have access to paper or writing instruments while incarcerated in Barberousse Prison, Zakaria reportedly wrote the lyrics with his own blood on the walls of his jail cell.

The New Zealand national anthem "God Defend New Zealand" is traditionally sung with the first verse in Māori and the second in English.

South Africa's national anthem is unique in that five of the eleven official languages are used in the same anthem, in which each language comprises a stanza.

The tune for "God Save the Queen" has been used in many countries as a national anthem. Apart from several German states, many of which were linked to Great Britain by marriage, Liechtenstein and Switzerland also used the same the same melody. Switzerland changed to a different tune in the 1960s. Liechtenstein still uses the same one for their national anthem, Oben am jungen Rhein ("Up above the Young Rhine"). In the United States, the melody is used for the patriotic song "My Country, 'Tis of Thee".

Publication of an early version in The Gentleman's Magazine, 15 October 1745

Mexican Racing driver Pedro Rodríguez always traveled with a Mexican flag and a record of the national anthem, because when he won the 1967 South African Grand Prix the organizers did not have the Mexican anthem, and instead played the Mexican hat dance.

"Advance Australia Fair" was adopted as Australia's national anthem on April 19, 1984, replacing "God Save the Queen," which had been used as the national anthem since 1788. Scottish-born composer Peter Dodds McCormick wrote the song in 1878 and it gradually gained popularity across Australia over the years. After several attempts to find a new national anthem, a plebiscite was held in 1977 to choose a new national anthem and "Advance Australia Fair" emerged as the winner. However, it was not until 1984 that it was officially adopted as the national anthem by the Australian government.

When Czechoslovakia split, the Czech Republic and Slovakia also split the national anthem - each country got one verse.

Between 1996 and 2001, Afghanistan had no national anthem because the Taliban had banned music altogether.

The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses.

The Spanish national anthem has no words. It has no official lyrics because they could not find an agreement on which ones to use.

Other countries with wordless national anthems include Bosnia, San Marino and Kosovo.

Finland doesn't have any official national anthem. Their unofficial one has lyrics in Swedish and the same music as the Estonian official national anthem.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra recorded 205 national anthems ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games. After completing the 50-hour recording marathon, conductor Philip Sheppard said: "I’ll be perfectly happy not to hear another anthem for a long time."

Source Daily Mail