Belo Monte Dam

The Belo Monte Dam (formerly known as Kararaô) is a proposed hydroelectric dam complex on the Xingu River in the state of Pará, Brazil. The planned installed capacity of the dam complex would be 11,233 megawatts (MW), which would make it the second-largest hydroelectric dam complex in Brazil and the world’s third-largest in installed capacity, behind the Three Gorges Dam in China and the Brazilian-Paraguayan Itaipu Dam. However, guaranteed capacity generation from the Belo Monte Dam would measure 4,571 MW, 39% of its maximum capacity.^[2]Transmission lines would connect electricity generated by the dams’ turbines to the main Brazilian power grid, which would distribute it throughout the country, both for public consumption (up to 70%) and as a dedicated power plant for industries such as mining and mineral transformation (up to 30%). However, there is opposition among the international community to the project’s potential construction; regarding its economic viability, generation inefficiency, and impacts to the region’s people and environment. In addition, critics worry that construction of the Belo Monte Dam could make the construction of other dams upstream with greater impacts more viable and possible.

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War Plan Red

Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Red, also known as the Atlantic Strategic War Plan, was a plan for the United States to make war with the British Empire (the “Red” forces). It was developed by the United States Army following the 1927 Geneva Naval Conference; and approved in May 1930 by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of Navy and updated in 1934–35. In 1939 it was decided that further planning was no longer applicable but that the plan be retained. ^[1] War Plan Red was declassified in 1974.

The war was intended to be a continental war, waged primarily on North American territory between the United States and the British Empire. The assumption was that Canada would represent the primary theater of operations.

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Emil Zátopek

Emil Zátopek (Czech pronunciation: [ˈɛmɪl ˈzaːtopɛk] ( listen)) (September 19, 1922 – November 22, 2000) was a Czech long-distance runner best known for winning three gold medals at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. He won gold in the 5000 metres and 10,000 metres runs, but his final medal came when he decided at the last minute to compete in the first marathon of his life. He was nicknamed the “Czech Locomotive” for his multiple golds.

Zátopek was the first athlete to break the 29-minute barrier in the 10 km run (in 1954). He is widely considered to be one of the greatest runners of the 20th century and was also known for his brutally tough training methods, where he would train in any weather, including snow, and would often do so while wearing heavy work boots.

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Gary Fisher

Gary Christopher Fisher (born 1950) is considered one of the inventors of the modern mountain bike. Fisher started competing in road and track races at 12. He was suspended in 1968 because race organizers cited a rule that his hair was too long. He won the TransAlp race in Europe and a Masters XC national title.

Fisher’s innovations to biking included drum brakes, motorcycle brake levers and cables, and triple chainrings, all taken from “junkers” Fisher found at bike shops. The next year, Fisher participated in the Repack downhill race, promoted by his roommate Charlie Kelly. This used a tortuous downhill route on Pine Mountain near Fairfax, California, just north of San Francisco, that riders used their coaster brakes so much that they had to repack the smoking hubs with grease after every run. Fisher holds the record time on the Repack course at 4:22.

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Troy Davis

Troy Anthony Davis (October 9, 1968 – September 21, 2011)^[1][2] was an African American convicted of and executed for the August 19, 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia. MacPhail was working as a security guard at a Burger King restaurant when he intervened to defend a man being assaulted in a nearby parking lot. During Davis’s 1991 trial, several witnesses testified they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail, and two others testified that Davis had confessed to them. Although the murder weapon was not recovered, ballistic evidence presented at trial linked bullets recovered at or near the scene to those at another shooting in which Davis was also charged. After a trial before a jury of seven blacks and five whites, in which 34 witnesses were called for the prosecution and six for the defense (including Davis), he was convicted of murder and various lesser charges, including the earlier shooting, and was sentenced to death in August 1991.

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McKim, Mead & White

McKim, Mead & White was a prominent American architectural firm at the turn of the twentieth century and in the history of American architecture. The firm was a major training ground for many other prominent architects. Their work applied the principles of Beaux-Arts architecture, the adoption of the classical Greek and Roman stylistic vocabulary as filtered through the Parisian Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and the related City Beautiful movement after 1893 or so, which aimed to clean up the visual confusion of American cities and imbue them with a sense of order and formality during America’s “Guilded Age”^. The firm designed the prominent National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., one of the firm’s last works, opening in 1964.

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Gjoa Haven

Gjoa Haven (Inuktitut: Uqsuqtuuq; Syllabics: ᐅᖅᓱᖅᑑᖅ, meaning “lots of fat”, referring to the abundance of blubbery sea mammals in the nearby waters) is a hamlet in Nunavut, above the Arctic Circle, located in the Kitikmeot Region, 1,056 km (656 mi) northeast of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. It is the only settlement on King William Island. The name Gjoa Haven (pronounced /ˌdʒoʊ ˈheɪvən/) is from the Norwegian “Gjøahavn” or “Gjøa’s Harbour”, and was named by polar explorer Roald Amundsen after his ship Gjøa.

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Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo

Franky Samuelsen (1870-1946) and George Harbo (1864-1909) were Norwegian-born Americans who in 1896, became the first people ever to row across an ocean. Their time record for rowing the North Atlantic Ocean was not broken for 114 years, though by four rowers instead of two.

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