Kudo is one of the most recent words created by back-formation from another word misunderstood as a plural.  Kudos was introduced into English in the 19th century; it was used in contexts where a reader unfamiliar with Greek could not be sure whether it was singular or plural.  By the 1920s it began to appear as a plural, and about 25 years later kudo began to appear.  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kudo   

In mathematics, a Möbius strip, Möbius band, or Möbius loop is a surface that can be formed by attaching the ends of a strip of paper together with a half-twist.  As a mathematical object, it was discovered by Johann Benedict Listing and August Ferdinand Möbius in 1858, but it had already appeared in Roman mosaics from the third century CE.  The Möbius strip is a non-orientable surface, meaning that within it one cannot consistently distinguish clockwise from counterclockwise turns.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_strip   

Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician.  His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764), and his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest.  They have been published by Yale University Press in 48 volumes.  In 2017, a volume of Walpole's selected letters was published.  The youngest son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, he became the 4th and last Earl of Orford of the second creation on his nephew's death in 1791.  Walpole's lasting architectural creation is Strawberry Hill, the home he built from 1749 onward in Twickenham, southwest of London, which at the time overlooked the Thames.  Here he revived the Gothic style many decades before his Victorian successors.  This fanciful neo-Gothic concoction began a new architectural trend.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Walpole# 

Cotta noun  From Medieval Latin cotta (“clerical tunic”).  cotta (plural cottas)

A surplice, in England and America usually one shorter and less full than the ordinary surplice and with short sleeves, or sometimes none.  quotations ▼

A kind of coarse woolen blanket.

Cotta  noun  cotta (plural cottas)  Alternative form of katha (“unit of area”)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cotta   

Mount Everest is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Himalayas along the China–Nepal border.  Its summit, at 8,848.86 m (29,031.7 ft) elevation, was first reached on 29 May 1953 by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary.  The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point.  Its elevation (snow height) of 8,848.86 m (29,031 ft 8+¹⁄₂ in) was most recently established in 2020 by the Chinese and Nepali authorities.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest   

Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers.  Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared it should be May 30.  It is believed the date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.  The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.  Approximately 25 places have been named in connection with the origin of Memorial Day, many of them in the South where most of the war dead were buried.  In 1966, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, N.Y., the “birthplace” of Memorial Day.  https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/memday.pdf   

Memorial Day, as Decoration Day gradually came to be known, originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War.  This changed after World War I, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars, including World War II, The Vietnam War, The Korean War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30th, the date General Logan had selected for the first Decoration Day.  But in 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees.  The change went into effect in 1971.  The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday.  https://www.asomf.org/the-history-of-memorial-day/ 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2676  May 29, 2023