Frederick Ogden Nash (1902-1971) was born in Rye, New York, to Edmund Strudwick Nash and Mattie Chenault. His father was in the import-export business, but the Nash family's ancestry in North Carolina stretched back to the American Revolutionary era; the city of Nashville, Tennessee, was named in honor of an ancestor. Nash grew up in various East Coast communities and also lived in Savannah, Georgia, during his youth. He was accepted to Harvard but dropped out in 1921 after a year. Nash held a variety of jobs but none for very long. He worked on Wall Street as a bond salesperson, but sold only one bond—to his godmother—and instead spent his afternoons in movie theaters. He was a schoolteacher for a year at St. George's School, and from there he was hired as an advertising copywriter for streetcar signs. In 1925 he was hired in the marketing department of the Doubleday publishing house and did well enough that he moved on to its editorial department as a manuscript reader. Nash said that it was the poor quality of the manuscripts he read that led him to try to write. He attempted to produce serious verse in the style of the eighteenth-century Romantic poets but soon gave it up. He preferred to scribble comic verse on pages that he crumpled and tossed across the office to the desks of coworkers. This led Nash and a friend named Joseph Alger to work together to produce a 1925 children's book, The Cricket of Carador. A few years later, Nash teamed with two Doubleday coworkers to produce Born in a Beer Garden; or, She Troupes to Conquer, which made fun of classic literature. In 1930 Nash wrote a poem called "Spring Comes to Murray Hill" and submitted it to the New Yorker. The New Yorker published the poem and invited Nash to submit more; his regular appearances in the magazine led to a contract for his first work, Hard Lines, published in 1931. It was a tremendous success, going into seven printings in its first year alone. Nash soon quit his Doubleday job. He referred to himself simply as a "worsifier" instead of a "versifier." http://www.notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Nash-Ogden.html

Ogden Nash wrote the lyrics for One Touch of Venus with Kurt Weill. He wrote the verses to accompany Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals at the urging of Andre Kostelanetz who also had Nash write verses for Ravel's Mother Goose Suite and Peter and the Wolf. http://classicalmusicmayhem.freeforums.org/today-in-classical-music-history-august-t1327-45.html Seven of the Carnival of Animals verses appear on p. 26 of The New Yorker, January 7, 1950. According to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, the verses for Peter and the Wolf were written by the composer, Sergei Prokofiev, not Ogden Nash.

In 1885 Saint-Saëns wrote a witty, uncomplicated piece called Wedding Cake (1885), which to his chagrin became so popular that he gained a temporary reputation as a "light" composer. Because he wanted to be considered a composer of serious, substantial music, he suppressed Carnival of the Animals shortly after its premiere in the following year. However, this "zoological fantasy," one of the most successful examples of humourously themed music in the repertory, has become one of the composer's most popular works. Carnival of the Animals, cast as a suite of 14 short pieces, is scored for an ensemble comprising two pianos, two violins, viola, cello, double bass, flute, clarinet, and glockenspiel. http://www.answers.com/topic/the-carnival-of-the-animals

European Union countries and candidates
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In the United States presidential election of 1844, Democrat James K. Polk defeated Whig Henry Clay in a close contest that turned on foreign policy, with Polk favoring the annexation of Texas and Clay opposed. Democratic nominee James K. Polk ran on a platform that embraced American territorial expansionism, an idea soon to be referred to as Manifest Destiny. At their convention, the Democrats called for the annexation of Texas and asserted that the United States had a “clear and unquestionable” claim to “the whole” of Oregon. By informally tying the Oregon boundary dispute to the more controversial Texas debate, the Democrats appealed to both Northern expansionists (who were more adamant about the Oregon boundary) and Southern expansionists (who were more focused on annexing Texas as a slave state). (The slogan "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!” is often incorrectly regarded as being part of this president's election campaign rhetoric; it became a popular slogan in the months after the election, used by those proposing the most extreme solution to the Oregon boundary dispute). This was the last presidential election to be held on different days in different states. Starting with the presidential election of 1848, all states held the election on the same date in November. Joseph Smith, Jr., mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois and founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, ran as an independent. He proposed the redemption of slaves by selling public lands and decreasing the size and salary of the United States Congress; the closure of prisons; the annexation of Texas, Oregon, and parts of Canada; the securing of international rights on high seas; free trade; and the re-establishment of a national bank. The campaign ended when he was assassinated while in prison on June 27, 1844. James Birney ran as the anti-slavery Liberty Party candidate, garnering 2.3% of the popular vote, and over 8% of the vote in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. The votes he won were more than the difference in votes between Henry Clay and James K. Polk; some scholars have argued that Birney's support among anti-slavery Whigs in New York swung that decisive state in favor of Polk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1844

Windsor Castle is an official residence of the Queen of England and the largest occupied castle in the world. The castle was the inspiration for the Royal family's surname. William the Conqueror built the castle in 1080 and it has remained a royal palace and fortress for over 900 years. Windsor is the oldest royal home in Britain and, covering 13 acres, it's the largest castle in the world that is still lived in. Find descriptions and pictures of many British castles at: http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/castles.htm

One of the most interesting features in Chester, England is the city wall. It is one of the most complete – maybe the most complete – city walls in the UK and runs for more than 2 km around a central area of the city. In parts of the wall you can see original Roman wall foundations and stones. The Rows – two city blocks of shops that are on two levels. There are the street level shops, and then above them a level of shops that are accessed by a balcony or sort of boardwalk that run along the outside. Sort of like a modern shopping mall. http://bookwormamanda.wordpress.com/

St John the Baptist's Church, Chester is in the city of Chester, Cheshire, England. It lies outside the city walls on a cliff above the north bank of the River Dee. The church was reputedly founded by King Aethelred in 689. After the Dissolution, much of the east end of the church was demolished and some of it remains as ruins to the east of the present church. In 1468 the central tower collapsed. In 1572 the northwest tower partially collapsed and in 1574 there was a greater collapse of this tower which destroyed the western bays of the nave. While the northwest tower was being repaired in 1881 it collapsed again, this time destroying the north porch. The church is built in sandstone. At the west end is the ruined first stage of the northwest tower. The organ had been built as a temporary organ for the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838 by William Hill and Company of London. It was then rebuilt for St John's, transported to Chester by barge and installed in the west gallery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John_the_Baptist's_Church,_Chester

A New York judge on March 21 threw out one of the first of more than a dozen lawsuits around the country that accuse law schools of advertising misleading post-graduate employment statistics. http://www.scribd.com/doc/86242133/schweitzer#fullscreen. The plaintiffs, a group of nine New York Law School graduates, claimed they overpaid for their degrees, because they were led to believe, as a reasonable consumer would be, that between 90% and 92% of the school’s graduates secured full-time jobs as lawyers. But that percentage also included students in part-time jobs, as well as jobs that don’t require a law degree. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/03/21/judge-tosses-lawsuit-against-law-school-over-employment-stats/

More than 130 years ago, a pair of farmers outside of Warwick, N.Y., gave up some of their property to help establish a reservoir and pipeline for the village’s water supply. In exchange, the current owner says, the water department agreed provide water to the property in perpetuity and free of charge. Now, a federal appeals court has ruled that a lower court should examine whether the village violated the current landowner’s constitutional rights by shutting off the property’s water after a dispute. Read the story and see the summary order at: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/03/20/a-130-year-old-contract-that-may-hold-water/