Beyond Gravity: The Remarkable Mind Of Sir Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton lived in England from 1642 until 1727.

After the Italian astronomer Galileo proved that it was the earth which revolved around the sun and not the other way around, Newton wanted to figure out what kept the planets and the moon in their orbits.

The apocryphal tale is that a falling apple helped Newton to conclude that a force which he called gravity was the responsible kingpin.

Newton also created the branch of mathematics known as calculus. Much of the way that our world exists is based upon Newton’s study of logarithms.

Newton developed a better telescope utilizing a mirror instead of a lens. It was an improvement and led the way to how telescopes are presently designed.

It was Newton who discovered that white light is actually a combination of the spectral colors of the rainbow.

Upon the inspection of his private Cambridge papers, British economist John Maynard Keynes noted that Sir Isaac Newton involved himself with the dark science of alchemy. Alchemists looked to prove that the creation of a philosopher’s stone had magical powers that could turn ordinary lead into gold.

Probably Newton’s biggest obsession which he worked on until his dying day was his attempt to unlock the secrets of the bible codes. He believed that the bible held mystical messages of past, present and future events which were hidden in mathematical configurations of scripture that were impossible to theorize until the advent of the computer.

According to his research, Newton wrote that the end of Earth would occur in the year of 2060.

Jim Thorpe’s Remains Remain In Jim Thorpe, PA

After a five year battle waged by some of Jim Thorpe’s descendants to have the Olympic champion’s remains returned to sacred burial ground in Oklahoma, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a final appeal so the athlete’s tomb in upstate Pennsylvania shall remain unmoved.

The towns of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk, areas which Jim Thorpe never visited, combined their two towns
to attract tourism and struck a $250,000 deal with Thorpe’s third wife to rename themselves as Jim Thorpe, PA.

A memorial to the famous indian was created in his honor.

In 2010, Thorpe’s son Jack took legal action to move his father’s remains back to the Sac and Fox nation of Oklahoma.

Other family members were opposed to the lawsuit. The high court made its final judgment in the case. Jim Thorpe stays
where he’s been since 1953.

Gutzon Borglum: Four Presidents Get Stoned

The faces of four American presidents – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln –
are carved from a granite mountainside high above the treetops of the Black Hills.

The Mount Rushmore carving took fourteen years to complete and cost $1 million, yet this Shrine to Democracy is priceless to Americans.

Visited by nearly three million people each year, this bucket list attraction is a meaningful part of vacationing in nearby Rapid City, South Dakota.

Between 1927 and 1941, Gutzon Borglum and 400 workers sculpted the 60-foot busts to represent the first 150 years of American history.

Each head is as tall as the entire Great Sphinx of Egypt and majestically perched five thousand five hundred feet above sea level.

http://www.earthcam.com/usa/southdakota/keystone/mountrushmore/?cam=rushmore_cu

Happy Trails: Roy Rogers Had Some Rough Ones

Roy Rogers was born as Leonard Franklin Slye in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 5, 1911. He lived to be 86-years-old.

Besides being a singing cowboy and famous western movie and television star, he had quite a rough life. I never realized how rough he had it until recently.

When Roy was nearly 35-years-old, he was left with two small girls and a newborn son, all under 6 years of age, when his second wife Arline died from child birth complications. He and Dale Evans met and got married and had nine total children between them. Four were adopted.

In 1950, Robin Elizabeth was born with Down’s Syndrome. She died just before turning 2-years-old. Their Korean-American daughter Debbie died at age 12 in a church bus accident on its return from a goodwill mission at an orphanage in Mexico. Their grown adopted son Sandy died in the military while based in Germany.

Roy and Dale Evans were devout Christians and I have a feeling that their strong belief in that faith helped get them through the hard times.

Roy Rogers has several stars along the Hollywood Walk of Fame and has been inducted in the Western Performers Hall of Fame in Oklahoma. His own museum was prominent first in California then it moved to Missouri before closing down in 2009.

His name and wholesome character were licensed to a chain of fast-food restaurants in 1968. He made a lot of money during his lifetime but being rich and famous couldn’t shield him from suffering some heavy tragedies during his long and illustrious career.

 

How Hollywood Got To Be Named Hollywood

A real estate developer from Toronto named Hobart Johnstone Whitley is claimed to be the original namer of Hollywood. He and his second wife, Gigi Ross, supposedly came up with the name while on their honeymoon in California.

Another story claims that a man named Harvey Wilcox from Kansas purchased property in California for the development of homes. His wife Daeida met a woman on a train who mentioned that she had named her Ohio summer home as Hollywood. Daeida liked the name so much that she applied it to these new subdivisions.

The famous hillside sign spelling out “HOLLYWOODLAND” on Mount Lee in Griffith Park was built in 1923 for the purpose of advertising the housing development with that name. It was covered with 4000 lightbulbs and was never intended to last for more than one or two years.

Over time, the sign sustained much damage and deteriorated badly. In 1949, the City of Los Angeles Parks Department took over the responsibility of repairing and rebuilding the sign. “LAND” was removed from the sign, as were the light bulbs.

In 1978, the entire sign was replaced with letters made of steel. Nine donors each gave over $27,000 to fund the $250,000 restoration project to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Hollywood.

Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Cafe on the Pacific Coast Highway

Back in the 1930’s, this spanish-styled building on the Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu was home to actress Thelma Todd. She lived in a top floor apartment overlooking the ocean and her restaurant, which she co-owned with director Roland West and his wife Jewel Carmen, was located below.

In mid-December 1935, Miss Todd, who bears a striking resemblence to present-day actress Drew Barrymore, was mysteriously found dead inside her garaged automobile just up the hill from the popular inn. She died from carbon monoxide poisoning but theories surrounding her tragic death vary from accidental to murder to suicide.

The property, allegedly still haunted by her ghostly spirit, is worth around $8 million dollars today.

Missing aviator Amelia Earhart probably captured and executed as spy by the Japanese

When famous female pilot Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan didn’t arrive at Howland Island in the Southwest Pacific in 1937, it was thought that they had run out of fuel and crashed to their demise.

Researchers have proven otherwise. Witnesses claim that they had landed off-course near the Marshall Islands and taken into captivity by the Japanese to Saipan Island.

Noonan was allegedly beheaded and Earhart either faced a firing squad or died from disease.

The two flyers were nearly completing their round-the-world trip aboard a twin-engine Lockheed Electra at the time of their disappearance.

Jackie Robinson Was A Fighter To The Very End

By joining the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in 1947, Jackie Robinson brought down the color line by becoming the first African-American player in the 20th century to play professional baseball since Cap Anson set that barrier using ugly language back in the 1880’s.

Jackie Robinson not only changed baseball but he helped change the world. He once said “A life is only as important as the impact it has on other lives” and it is truly poetic as being his own personal mission statement.

When one thinks about baseball and the color line, Robinson’s name immediately comes up. One would need to do research to
discover the first black players to enter football (Charles Follis), basketball (Earl Lloyd) or hockey (Willie O’Ree).

I don’t recall if it was teammate Duke Snider or Carl Erskine but someone once claimed that Jackie was a better ballplayer when he was angry. He took out his anger by playing harder and using that aggression to beat his opponents on the playing field.

The problem I see and feel sorry for the most with Jackie is that he never seemed to stop being angry. He understood his role in Branch Rickey’s “great experiment” and carried his race on his back throughout not only his baseball career but throughout his entire life. Some say they think his internal anger helped to kill him at the early age of 53. He suffered from diabetes but I tend to believe that Robinson never learned to take the burden he carried for his people off his shoulders.

After retiring from baseball, Robinson served as vice president of personnel with the coffee company Chock Full O’ Nuts. He tried opening a bank for blacks. He tried selling life insurance to blacks as it was difficult to get coverage. He tried his hand at franchising a Sea Host restaurant which was similar to Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips. Nothing he did outside of baseball was ever able to make up for what he did in baseball and, as sportswriter Dick Young pointed out, that was the real tragedy of being Jackie Robinson. He couldn’t give up the fight because that’s all he ever knew how to do.

He stayed quite active in civil rights. He enjoyed politics. He led picket lines. He traveled to the deep South in support of Dr.
Martin Luther King during the turbulent 1960’s. If he had nothing left to fight for, he was lost.

Adjectives that describe Jackie Robinson include courageous, dedicated and trailblazer.

Other words could be stubborn, hot-tempered and narrow-minded.

Any way that you look at it, Jackie Robinson was an original.

Jack Ruby Said LBJ Had It In For JFK

Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, killed Lee Harvey Oswald, who the Warren Commission concluded was the lone gunman in the slaying of John F. Kennedy.

In a videotaped statement, Ruby said, “When I mentioned about Adlai Stevenson, if he was Vice President there would never have been an assassination of our beloved President Kennedy.” Asked if he would explain it again Ruby continued “Well the answer is the man in office now.” – that man was Lyndon B. Johnson.

Later, in a hand-written note, Ruby wrote, “Isn’t it strange that Oswald, who hasn’t worked a lick most of his life, should be fortunate enough to get a job at the Book Building two weeks before the President himself didn’t know as to when he was to visit Dallas, now where would a jerk like Oswald get the information that the President was coming to Dallas?”

He continued on, “Only one person could have had that information, and that man was Johnson who knew weeks in advance as to what was going to happen, because he is the one who was going to arrange the trip for the President, this had been planned long before the President himself knew about, so you can figure that one out.”

He wrote further, “The only one who gained by the shooting of the President was Johnson, and he was in a car in the rear and safe when the shooting took place. What would the Russians, Castro or anyone else have to gain by eliminating the President? If Johnson was so heartbroken over Kennedy, why didn’t he do something for Robert Kennedy? All he did was snub him.”

Jacqueline Kennedy was aware of Johnson’s hatred for her husband and his brother, often referring to the pair as members of the Irish mafia.

LBJ And The Texas-Sized Turkey Shoot

Shortly after John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as his replacement.

On the morning of New Year’s Day that January, Johnson’s long-time mistress Madeleine Duncan Brown recalled LBJ telling her at Austin’s Driskell Hotel that “Texas oil and those f__king renegade bastards in Washington” (meaning the CIA) had murdered Kennedy.

In effect, he was saying that JFK was killed on his behalf. Many skeptics already believed that he had something to do with the shooting either by helping to orchestrate it or had advanced knowledge of it and agreeing to be part of the cover-up.

LBJ had assistance from the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover in obtaining secret information on John F. Kennedy and using that knowledge to force him to be his Democratic running mate in the 1960 Presidential election. Hoover had dirt on almost everybody in Washington D.C.

Johnson was the politician’s politician. He also keep close-knit political ties with Senator Nelson Rockefeller, Trenton Parker of the CIA, oil tycoon H.L. Hunt as well was other high-end land moguls and governmental types.

(Music) “The stars at night/Are big and bright/BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG/Deep in the heart of Dallas!”