2015:  There have been 47 vice presidents of the United States, from John Adams to Joe Biden.  Originally, the Vice President was the person who received the second most votes for President in the Electoral College.  However, in the election of 1800, a tie in the electoral college between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr led to the selection of the President by the House of Representatives.  To prevent such an event from happening again, the Twelfth Amendment was added to the Constitution, creating the current system where electors cast a separate ballot for the vice presidency.  The Vice President's primary function is to succeed to the presidency if the President dies, resigns, or is impeached and removed from office.  Nine vice presidents have ascended to the presidency in this way:  eight through the president's death, and one, Gerald Ford, through the president's resignation.  In addition, the Vice President serves as the President of the Senate and may choose to cast a tie-breaking vote on decisions made by the Senate.  Prior to passage of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, a vacancy in the office of the Vice President could not be filled until the next election.  Such vacancies were common; sixteen occurred before the 25th Amendment was ratified–as a result of seven deaths, one resignation (John C. Calhoun, who resigned to enter Congress), and eight cases in which the vice president succeeded to the presidency.  This amendment allowed for a vacancy to be filled with appointment by the President and confirmation by both chambers of the U.S. Congress.  Since the Amendment's passage, two vice presidents have been appointed through this process, Gerald Ford of Michigan in 1973 and Nelson Rockefeller of New York in 1974.  Find a list of vice-presidents at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Vice_Presidents_of_the_United_States

The suffix FY is a root word that means make.  It is very simple and is added to countless words.  FY makes a verb, and the past tense is FIED.  Just change the y to i and add ed  http://www.english-for-students.com/fy.html  Find 125 words using FY including nutrify and dulcify at http://wordinfo.info/unit/872/s:albify   FY comes from Latin, and besides make, also can mean:  do, build, cause, produce.

The Tainter gate is a type of radial arm floodgate used in dams and canal locks to control water flow.  It is named for Wisconsin structural engineer Jeremiah Burnham Tainter.  A side view of a Tainter gate resembles a slice of pie with the curved part of the piece facing the source or upper pool of water and the tip pointing toward the destination or lower pool.  The curved face or skinplate of the gate takes the form of a wedge section of cylinder.  The straight sides of the pie shape, the trunnion arms, extend back from each end of the cylinder section and meet at a trunnion which serves as a pivot point when the gate rotates.  Pressure forces acting on a submerged body act perpendicular to the body's surface.  The design of the Tainter gate results in every pressure force acting through the centre of the imaginary circle which the gate is a section of, so that all resulting pressure force acts through the pivot point of the gate, making construction and design easier.  When a Tainter gate is closed, water bears on the convex (upstream) side.  When the gate is rotated, the rush of water passing under the gate helps to open and close the gate.  The rounded face, long radial arms and trunnion bearings allow it to close with less effort than a flat gate.  Tainter gates are usually controlled from above with a chain/gearbox/electric motor assembly.  The Tainter gate is used in water control dams and locks worldwide.  The Upper Mississippi River basin alone has 321 Tainter gates, and the Columbia River basin has 195.  A Tainter gate is also used to divert the flow of water to San Fernando Power Plant on the Los Angeles Aqueduct.  The Tainter gate was invented and first implemented in Menomonie, Wisconsin.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tainter_gate

Find useful information on states at http://state.1keydata.com/ and http://www.50states.com/nickname.htm#.VUTM9PlVhBc

Overview of James Jones’s Trilogy on World War II and Soldiering  published in World Literature   From Here to Eternity is not a combat novel; it is an army novel, arguably the finest ever written by an American. It is, in fact, dedicated to the U.S. Army, and follows three major characters, Pvt. Prewitt, Mess/Sgt. Stark and First/Sgt. Warden through the miseries of the caste-ridden, authoritarian peacetime army up to the symbolic moment it undergoes transmogrification, becoming with the Japanese attack, a completely different creature. In the words of the author:  One of the problems I came up against, with the trilogy as a whole, appeared as soon as I began The Thin Red Line in 1959.  In the original conception, first as a single novel, and then as a trilogy, the major characters such as 1st/Sgt Warden, Pvt. Prewitt and Mess/Sgt Stark were meant to continue throughout the entire work.  Unfortunately, the dramatic structure — I might even say, the spiritual content — of the first book demanded that Prewitt be killed in the end of it…. It may seem like a silly problem now.  It wasn’t then…. I could not just resurrect him.  And have him there again, in the flesh, wearing the same name…. I solved the problem by changing the names…. So in The Thin Red Line, 1st/Sgt Warden became 1st/Sgt Welsh, Pvt. Prewitt became Pvt. Witt, Mess/Sgt Stark became Mess/Sgt Storm. While remaining the same people as before. In Whistle, Welsh becomes Mart Winch, Witt becomes Bobby Prell, Storm becomes John Strange.  Jones also points out that unlike the three novels of John Dos Passos’s trilogy, USA, the three novels of his trilogy stand alone as a fully realized works.  Jones, in effect, had it both ways:  he devised a scheme that permitted him to use the same characters, and continue the same master theme, but also permitted him to write three separate narratives, each of which has its own themes, structure and mood.  https://medium.com/world-literature/overview-of-james-jones-s-trilogy-on-world-war-ii-and-soldiering-f50ede48713f

Memorial Day, an American holiday observed on the last Monday of May, honors men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military.  Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971.  The Civil War claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history, requiring the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries.  By the late 1860s Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.  http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/memorial-day-history 

Civil War songs:  Dixie, The Battle Cry of Freedom, The Bonnie Blue Flag, Battle Hymn of the Republic, Goober Peas, Marching Through Georgia,  All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight, When Johnny Comes Marching Home (sung in both Civil War and Spanish-American War).  

See also http://www.americancivilwar.com/Civil_War_Music/civil_war_music.html  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1301  May 25, 2015  On this date in 1738, a treaty between Pennsylvania and Maryland ended  the Conojocular War with settlement of a boundary dispute and exchange of prisoners.  On this date in 1878, Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore opened at the Opera Comique in London.