Andries van Wezel (1514–1564), latinized as Andreas Vesalius, was an anatomist and physician who wrote De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (On the fabric of the human body in seven books), which is considered one of the most influential books on human anatomy and a major advance over the long-dominant work of Galen.  Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy.  He was born in Brussels, which was then part of the Habsburg Netherlands.  He was a professor at the University of Padua (1537–1542) and later became Imperial physician at the court of Emperor Charles V.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Vesalius    

Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, 11 miles (18 km) northeast of downtown Los Angeles.  It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley.  Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district.  Its population was 138,699 at the 2020 census, making it the 45th-largest city in California and the ninth-largest in Los Angeles County.  Pasadena was incorporated on June 19, 1886, 36 years after the city of Los Angeles but still one of the first in what is now Los Angeles County.  Pasadena is home to many scientific, educational, and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena City College, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, Fuller Theological Seminary, Theosophical Society, Parsons Corporation, Art Center College of Design, the Planetary Society, Pasadena Playhouse, the Ambassador Auditorium, the Norton Simon Museum, and the USC Pacific Asia Museum.  Pasadena hosts the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade each New Year's Day.  In 2002 David Ebershoff published the novel Pasadena.  The novel won praise for its accurate recreation of Pasadena before World War II.  The 1960s song "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" parodies a popular Southern California image of Pasadena as home to a large population of aged eccentrics.   In the song, Jan and Dean sing of an elderly lady who drives a powerful "Super Stock Dodge" muscle car and is "the terror of Colorado Boulevard".  Pasadena means "valley" in the language of the Ojibwe, a Native American tribe not local to the region.  The name was chosen by American colonists from Indiana who would later move to the area.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasadena,_California   

the Free City of Tri-Insula  Proper noun  (US, historical) A proposed city-state comprising Long Island, Manhattan, and Staten Island, put forward on January 6th, 1861, by the mayor of New York City, Fernando Wood, shortly before the beginning of the American Civil War.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Free_City_of_Tri-Insula#English   

The term Ferris wheel (Chicago Wheel) comes from the maker of one of the first examples constructed for Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. in 1893.   An earlier wheel was created for the New York State fair in 1854, created by two Erie Canal workers.  Five years earlier, in 1615, Pietro Della Valle, a Roman traveller who sent letters from Constantinople, Persia, and India, attended a Ramadan festival in Constantinople.  He describes the fireworks, floats, and great swings, then comments on riding the Great Wheel.  Similar wheels also appeared in England in the 17th century, and subsequently elsewhere around the world, including India, Romania, and Siberia.   A Frenchman, Antonio Manguino, introduced the idea to America in 1848, when he constructed a wooden pleasure wheel to attract visitors to his start-up fair in Walton Spring, Georgia.  In 1891, William Somers installed a fifty-foot wooden wheel at Atlantic City, New Jersey and later others at Asbury Park, New Jersey and Coney Island, New York.   In 1893 he was granted the first U.S. patent for a "Roundabout".   George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. rode on Somers' wheel in Atlantic City prior to designing his wheel for the World's Columbian Exposition.  In 1893 Somers filed a lawsuit against Ferris for patent infringement; however, Ferris and his lawyers successfully argued that the Ferris wheel and its technology differed greatly from Somers' wheel, and the case was dismissed.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferris_wheel#:~:text=William%20Somers'%20Wheel%2C%20installed%201892,and%20the%20case%20was%20dismissed    

Groundhog Day (Pennsylvania German:  Grund'sau dåk, Grundsaudaag, Grundsow Dawg, Murmeltiertag; Lunenburg, Nova Scotia:  Daks Day) is a tradition observed regionally in the United States and Canada on February 2 of every year.  It derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and sees its shadow, it will retreat to its den and winter will go on for six more weeks; if it does not see its shadow, spring will arrive early.  In 2026, the shadow was seen, auguring six more weeks of winter.   While the tradition remains popular in the 21st century, studies have found no consistent association between a groundhog seeing its shadow and the subsequent arrival time of spring-like weather.  The weather lore was brought from German-speaking areas where the badger (German:  Dachs) is the forecasting animal, while in Hungary for example the bear serves the same purpose, and badgers were only watched when bears were not around.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day   

February 2, 2026