https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Sahara https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Western_Sahara#Languages_2 Classical Arabic and Spanish, the former colonial language, are the official languages of the Polisario Front, based in Tinduf, Algeria. Hassaniya-Arabic dialect is the most spoken native language in Western Sahara and in the refugee camps in Tinduf in Algeria. There is also a significant presence of Berber language speakers in the northern parts of the territory of Western Sahara. Modern Standard Arabic is the official language of Western Sahara. Both Moroccan Arabic and Hassaniya Arabic are used in Western Sahara. Hassaniya, primarily spoken at home, is dominated by the Moroccan dialect spoken in the streets, workplace, and schools. This is because the great majority of the population consists of Moroccans who settled in Western Sahara. French is also commonly used by the Moroccan administration. Spanish is common among Sahrawi people and especially among the Sahrawi diaspora, with the Sahrawi Press Service, official news service of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, being available in Spanish since 2001 and the Sahara Film Festival, Western Sahara's only film festival, showing mainly Spanish-language films. Spanish is used to document Sahrawi poetry and oral traditions and has also be used in Sahrawi literature. Despite Spanish having been used by the Sahrawi people for over a century due to Western Sahara's history as a former Spanish colony, the Cervantes Institute has denied support and Spanish-language education to Sahrawis in Western Sahara and the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. A group of Sahrawi poets known as 'Generación de la Amistad saharaui' produce Sahrawi literature in Spanish.
as for Spanish morocco as late as 1978 spanish was spoken there as much or more than french as far as I could see. sorry, looking at that map now I see I'm not quite right, but once you get out of tanger Spanish is definitely common, the locals addressed you in both about equally.
That doesn't surprise me; but that was now 37 years ago, and it was then only, what, 20 years or so from colony status? If it is still true, fine, but the list of colonies not including it-- or Florida, Louisiana, or California, made me suspicious... I had no idea that Melilla was still Spanish though.
Right; I just somehow missed hearing about any enclaves at all in 7th grade, and somehow the subject hadn't come up since...
Interesting facts about President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose 125th birthday is today: He was an expert card player, learning poker and contract bridge at West Point. He eventually stopped playing because he won so often, and people didn't like having to pay him. He had two sons. His elder son, Doud, died of scarlet fever at age three. His younger son, John, graduated from West Point on D-Day. He served with distinction in Korea, and later served as an Ambassador during Richard Nixon's presidency. John Eisenhower was the eldest living Presidential offspring for 13 years before his death in December 2013 at age 91. Eisenhower did not get the opportunity to go abroad for World War I. His unit's deployment to France was scheduled for a week after the armistice was signed, and therefore canceled. As a result, a field promotion to Lieutenant Colonel was reverted back to his then-natural rank of Captain. In the interbellum period, he served at various points under Generals Pershing, MacArthur, and Marshall. He would eventually rise to equal level with the latter two, with Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, and MacArthur as Supreme Commander in the Pacific, while Marshall ran things stateside as Chief of Staff of the Army. Eisenhower was only the third five-star general. Both Marshall and MacArthur were given five stars days before Eisenhower was conferred the rank. Eisenhower was never close to Truman. He was against the use of the atomic bomb on Japan, believing they would quickly surrender without it. Both parties courted him for President in 1948 (Truman alternately offered to support him for President, and later asked him to be his running mate in 1948), but he refused, focusing on the Army. At the time, he had no political affiliation. He didn't join the Republican Party until 1951, after again spurning the courtship of Truman to run as a Democrat in 1952. Due to perceived military/civilian conflicts, Eisenhower resigned his Army commission while President. His commission was fully reactivated by President Kennedy upon his inauguration. The term "Air Force One" as the name of whichever airplane the President was on-board was coined at the beginning of Eisenhower's presidency as the result of a near-miss between a plane he was on and another airplane in 1953. That aircraft, a Lockheed C-121A known previously as "Columbine II", is currently in private ownership and is the only former Air Force One that has not been professionally preserved. It currently resides at an airport near Tucson. In his retirement, Eisenhower owned and lived on a working farm near the Gettysburg battlefield in Pennsylvania. This put him back in the state of his ancestors. President Eisenhower was buried in a standard soldier's casket after he died in 1969. His famed short-torso jacket bore his five-star rank, but only three of his dozens of awards. He was buried next to Doud in Abilene, Kansas, with Mamie being buried next to him when she died 10 years later. John was buried at West Point when he died. I decided to take on posting this because, as President, he launched the Space Race with the formation of NASA, determined after Sputnik to improve education and missile defense.
A couple of things on that list strike me as questionable or worse? 1. To the best of my knowledge neither MacArthur nor Marshall was ever Eisenhower's subordinate. Eisenhower was "Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Forces," but this referred to the European, and African theaters, not the whole globe/war. Marshall ran the whole US Army from Washington but had no authority over Montgomery, or DeGaulle, or the Free Polish Army etc. etc. He was essentially the logistics expert for the whole U S ground and air war effort. He decided how many of what everybody got, and where and when they got them-- and who the (Army) everybody that his decisions affected were, including Ike and Mac. MacArthur was the Allied Commander in the Southwest Pacific, with authority over British, Australian and Dutch forces there-- but not the northern Pacific which "belonged" to Admiral Chester Nimitz. 2. Marshall was actually given his promotion several days before MacArthur, and MacArthur a couple of days before Ike; but the army had a tradition of retroactively dating some commissions and promotions, and it may well be that Ike's promotion was so handled as to make him MacArthur's senior or equal. Marshall was clearly his boss (and MacArthur's) outside of combat theaters, though. 3. I don't know where "He had been raised in nearby York" is coming from? He was a 1909 graduate of Abilene High School and was sponsored for West Point by his Kansas Congressman IIRC.
Misread something in my research. It was an ancestral home in Pennsylvania. As for the commander thing, that was also an assumption based on his position as "Supreme Allied Commander". Should've figured it was only for Europe, and not over the Pacific, and hence MacArthur. And Marshall was actually the Chief of Staff for the Army at the time.
Right; although I suppose when he was President Marshall was his subordinate, even though Ike had resigned his commission to take the post. Wasn't Marshall still active? (And for that matter MacArthur anyway, as his retirement could have been nullified had there been reason to recall him to service...)
Guinness World Record for longest standing ovation.... Placido Domingo in Otello. Placido Domingo holds the world record for the longest ovation ever on the operatic stage: 101 curtain calls and 80 minutes of applause, in Vienna, after singing Otello on June 30, 1991. Pavarotti and The Other Guy can eat his dust!
Thirty years ago, a spiky-haired little boy set a trap with a tuna fish sandwich, and one of the most iconic friendships in comic strip history was born. The first strip of "Calvin And Hobbes" ran on Nov. 18, 1985, introducing the world to the mischievous young Calvin (named for the 16th-century theologian) and his pet tiger Hobbes (named for the 17th-century philosopher).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident 21 years ago today, the United States and Norway almost accidentally instigated a nuclear war. On January 25, 1995, some scientists were on the northwestern coast of Norway to launch a Black Brant sounding rocket. It was aimed due north to study the aurora borealis over Svalbard. The problem: the path was very close to the path of a known ground track for what a nuclear strike from missile silos in North Dakota would take on their way to Moscow. And the Black Brant sounding rocket's four-stage design made its track similar to the three-stage Minuteman III ICBM. As a result, Russia ended up reading the sounding rocket launch as a potential incoming nuclear strike. President Boris Yeltsin was given Russia's equivalent to the "nuclear football", and had to decide whether or not to launch a retaliatory strike. Eventually, Russian observers figured out that the rocket was headed in the opposite direction, and Russia was able to stand down. As it turns out, the scientists did alert Russia, along with several other nations, of their sounding rocket launch. That info didn't make it to Russian radar techs in time.