The Beatles planned to issue "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" as part of their next album, but EMI asked for a single at the beginning of 1967. The two songs were issued as a single, with "Penny Lane" as the A-side. While "Penny Lane" only reached Number Two in the British record sales chart, it reached Number One in the United States chart. (It was displaced after one week at Number One, by The Turtles, with "Happy Together".) "Strawberry Fields Forever" charted at Number Eight in the US.
In the years after Lennon's death, his cowriter and fellow Beatle Paul McCartney sometimes performed "Strawberry Fields Forever" during concerts. A section of Central Park in New York City, where Lennon lived after the Beatles disbanded, was named "Strawberry Fields" in Lennon's honour.
Lucy (Australopithecus)
Lucy is the common name of AL 288-1. This is a fossil discovery of about 40% of the skeleton of a female "Australopithecus afarensis". There are several hundred pieces of bone. The discovery was made in 1974 at Hadar in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.
This discovery gave us much scientific evidence. Lucy lived about 3.2 million years ago, and is a hominid.
The skeleton shows that Lucy had a small skull capacity, like an ape, but also that she walked upright like a human. This supported the view that bipedalism came before the increase in brain size in human evolution. Those features are true of all australopithecines.
Tom Smothers
Tom Smothers (born Thomas Bolyn Smothers III on February 2, 1937) is an American comedian, composer and musician, best known as half of the musical comedy team The Smothers Brothers, alongside his younger brother Dick.
Smothers was born on February 2, 1937 in New York City, New York. He studied at Redondo Union High School and at San José State University. He was married two times. His current marriage is to Marcy Carriker. He has two children with Carriker and one from his last marriage. He now lives in Sonoma County, California.
Dick Smothers
Richard Remick "Dick" Smothers (born November 20, 1939) is an American actor, comedian, composer and musician. He is best known for being half of the musical comedy team the Smothers Brothers, with his older brother Tom.
Smothers was born on November 20, 1939 in New York City, New York. He studied at Verdugo Hills High School, later at the Redondo Union High, and at the San José State University.
He was married to Linda Smothers from 1960 until they divorced in 1969. Then he was married to Lorraine Martin from 1986 until they divorced a few months later. Then he was married to Denby Franklin from 1997 until they divorced in 2006. He had six children. He now lives in Sarasota, Florida.
Italian Mare Nostrum
Italian Mare Nostrum was the name given during World War II, by Benito Mussolini and his fascist propaganda to the Mediterranean Sea.
The Mediterranean was called "Mare Nostrum" (Latin for "Our Sea") during the centuries of the Roman Empire, an empire that Fascism intended to recreate after the conquest of Ethiopia in 1936.
Mussolini wanted to re-establish the greatness of the Roman Empire and believed that Italy was the most powerful of the Mediterranean countries after World War I. He declared that "the twentieth century will be a century of Italian power" and created one of the most powerful navies of the world in order to control the Mediterranean Sea.
However, the nation that really dominated the Mediterranean in 1940 was the United Kingdom, as the British had strong naval bases in Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus. The British also controlled the Suez Canal, along with the French; the "French Third Republic" had a relatively powerful navy, and controlled the African Maghreb. Only after the conquest of Greece and Yugoslavia, in April 1941, Mussolini started to talk about an Italian dominated Mediterranean sea.
In 1942 Mussolini dreamed to create a "Greater Italia" in his "Mare Nostrum" and promoted the fascist project -to be realized in a future peace conference after the expected Axis victory- of an enlarged "Italian Empire", stretching from the Mediterranean shores of Egypt to the Indian Ocean shores of Somalia and eastern Kenya. All these projects disappeared with the final Italian defeat of September 1943.
Italy controlled (directly or indirectly) the seashores of these Mediterranean countries, when Mussolini spoke and boasted of an "Italian Mare Nostrum" in 1941/1942/1943:
When France collapsed in 1940, Mussolini started to expand the Italian maritime control on the central Mediterranean, attacking British possessions. The ensuing "Battle of the Mediterranean" had many changes of fortune and finished with the victory of the Allies.
There were a series of surface actions (e.g., Battle of Cape Matapan, Battle of Punta Stilo, Battle of Cape Teulada, Second Battle of Sirte, Battle of Mid-June, Battle of Mid-August ) between Allied navies and the Italian Regia Marina, during which the British, able to replace losses with warships redeployed from other theatres, finally gained the upper hand.
The "Battle of Taranto" in 1940 was a successful air attack on the Italian Navy at anchor when 21 British torpedo bombers sunk one battleship and damaged two others.The Italian Navy slowly recovered from that attack.
The Italian Navy's most successful attack, however, was when human torpedo divers planted mines on British battleships in Alexandria (Egypt) harbour (19 December 1941), and the HMS "Queen Elizabeth" and HMS "Valiant" were sunk . After these sinkings (and the contemporary destruction of the British "Force K"), the Italian Navy obtained for some months the nearly complete control of the central Mediterranean. In this way the Regia Marina was able to deliver the military supply and oil for the "Axis" victory of Tobruk and for the advance toward El Alamein in Egypt.
The Italian Regia Aeronautica entered the war with 3296 airplanes (1332 Bombers and 1160 "Caccia", as were called the Fighters in Italian) distributed in all the "Italian Empire", but only 1796 were in perfect fighting conditions. Most were old "wood" models, and could not match the British aircraft in 1940.
But in April 1941, when Italy started together with the Germans the coordinated "Axis" attack in the Mediterranean (in the Balkans and in Libya), the Italian Air Force had the new and competitive "Macchi C.202", able to fight successfully the British Spitfires. These airplanes (with the new "Reggiane Re.2002") took control of the Malta and Libyan airspace (together with the German military aircraft) during the successful campaign of General Rommel in Tobruk.
Only at the beginning of 1943 appeared the modern "Macchi C.205" and "Reggiane Re.2005", but they could not match the overwhelming superiority of the American Air Force.
One of the most renown and important branches of the Regia Aeronautica was the "torpedo bomber" group. In 1941 and 1942, Italian pilots, mostly flying the three-engined, medium bomber "Savoia-Marchetti SM.79" "Sparviero" , inflicted considerable losses to Allied shipping in the Mediterranean Sea.
The only four engine heavy bomber of the Regia Aeronautica was the "Piaggio P.108" B. In the 274th Long-Range Bombardment group these bombers made many long range bombardments of Gibraltar from Sardinia in summer 1942 and reinforced in this way the Regia Aeronautica supremacy during those of months in the Italian Mare Nostrum.
The Italian Army ("Regio Esercito") entered the war with 73 divisions (and one fascist Legion of "Blackshirts"), but only 19 were fully operational for combat in June 1940. Italy during the first years of WWII had only small and medium tanks ("Fiat M13/40" and "Fiat M15/42"), that were no match for the Allies tanks. Only in summer 1943 the Italians developed a heavy tank (the "P40 tank") , but just 5 were ready for combat when Italy signed the armistice. The Italian Army had good antitanks (like the "Semovente 75/18") and reliable armoured cars (like the "AB 41") .