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Robert Pershing Wadlow
Robert Pershing Wadlow (February 22, 1918 July 15, 1940), also known as the Alton Giant and the Giant of Illinois, was an American man who was the tallest person in recorded history for whom there is irrefutable evidence. He was born and raised in Alton, Illinois, a small city near St. Louis, Missouri. Wadlow's height was while his weight reached at his death at age 22. His great size and his continued growth in adulthood were due to hypertrophy of his pituitary gland, which results in an abnormally high level of human growth hormone (HGH). Even by the time of his death, there was no indication that his growth had ended. Early life Wadlow was born in Alton, Illinois, on February 22, 1918, to Harold Franklin and Addie May (Johnson) Wadlow, and was the oldest of five children. He was taller than his father by age 8, and in elementary school a special desk was made for him. By the time of his graduation from Alton High School in 1936, he was . He enrolled in Shurtleff Colleg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alton, Illinois
Alton ( ) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It is a part of the River Bend (Illinois), River Bend area in the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. It is famous for its limestone bluffs along the river north of the city, as the former location of the state penitentiary, and for its role preceding and during the American Civil War. It was the site of the last Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate in October 1858. The former state penitentiary in Alton was used during the Civil War to hold up to 12,000 Confederate prisoners of war. History Although Alton once was growing faster than the nearby city of St. Louis, a coalition of St. Louis businessmen planned to build a competing town to stop Alton's expansion and bring business to St. Louis. The resulting town was G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ringling Brothers Circus
Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows is a circus founded in Baraboo, Wisconsin, United States in 1884 by five of the seven Ringling brothers: Albert, August, Otto, Alfred T., Charles, John, and Henry. The Ringling brothers were sons of a German immigrant, August Frederick Rüngeling, who changed his name to Ringling once he settled in America. Four brothers were born in McGregor, Iowa: Alf T., Charles, John and Henry. The Ringling family lived in McGregor, Iowa, for twelve years, from 1860 until 1872. The family then lived in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and moved to Baraboo, Wisconsin, in 1875. In 1907 Ringling Bros. acquired the Barnum & Bailey Circus, merging them in 1919 to become Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, promoted as ''The Greatest Show on Earth''. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey closed on May 21, 2017, following weakening attendance and high operating costs. On Wednesday, May 18, 2022, the company announced that it will officially return, with its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infection
An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable disease, is an illness resulting from an infection. Infections can be caused by a wide range of pathogens, most prominently bacteria and viruses. Hosts can fight infections using their immune system. Mammalian hosts react to infections with an innate response, often involving inflammation, followed by an adaptive response. Specific medications used to treat infections include antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, antiprotozoals, and antihelminthics. Infectious diseases resulted in 9.2 million deaths in 2013 (about 17% of all deaths). The branch of medicine that focuses on infections is referred to as infectious disease. Types Infections are caused by infectious agents (pathogens) including: * Bacteria (e.g. '' Mycobacterium tubercul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manistee National Forest
The Manistee National Forest is a national forest located in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. It has a total area of . It was established in 1938, and combined with the Huron National Forest in 1945 for administrative purposes, creating the Huron-Manistee National Forests. However, they are two separate forest units, as they are not connected. The area is popular for hiking, fishing, camping, boating, snowmobiling, cross-country skiing and hunting. The North Country Trail passes through it, and connects with the 11-mile Manistee River Trail to form a 23-mile loop. The highest point in the lower peninsula, Briar Hill (1,706 ft), is located here. The Manistee National Forest is not one continuous mass, but is a "mosaic" broken by private property and towns. The headquarters for the forest is in Cadillac, Michigan. History Unique among National Forests in its creation, the Manistee National Forest was created from tax-forfeited lands and purchases after the logging era ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Rogan
John William "Bud" Rogan February 12 – September 11, 1905; some sources indicate 1867, 1868 and 1871 as his birth year) is recorded as the second-tallest person ever at , behind only Robert Wadlow. Biography John Rogan was born in Hendersonville, Tennessee. He was the son of the former slave William Rogan, as the fourth of twelve children. His rapid growth began at the age of 13, due to gigantism. This led to ankylosis (an abnormal rigidity of the skeletal joints). By 1882, he could not stand or walk. Although unable to perform physical labor due to his condition, Rogan made a living by selling portraits and postcards at a train station. An 1897 article in the ''Kansas City Journal'' mentions that a number of his drawings were published. He declined all offers to join carnivals and sideshows. In 1899, he was measured at , then tied with Franz Winkelmeier as the tallest person ever at the time. He weighed between and , often billed in newspapers as the "negro giant" an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freemason
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities and clients. Modern Freemasonry broadly consists of two main recognition groups: * Regular Freemasonry insists that a volume of scripture be open in a working lodge, that every member profess belief in a Supreme Being, that no women be admitted, and that the discussion of religion and politics be banned. * Continental Freemasonry consists of the jurisdictions that have removed some, or all, of these restrictions. The basic, local organisational unit of Freemasonry is the Lodge. These private Lodges are usually supervised at the regional level (usually coterminous with a state, province, or national border) by a Grand Lodge or Grand Orient. There is no international, worldwide Grand Lodge that supervises all of Freemasonry; each Grand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of DeMolay
DeMolay International is an international fraternal organization for young men ages 12 to 21. It was founded in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1919 and named for Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar. DeMolay was incorporated in the 1990s and is classified by the IRS as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. DeMolay is open for membership to young men between the ages of 12 and 21 who acknowledge a higher spiritual power. It has about 15,000 active members spread throughout every continent except for Antarctica. There are active chapters in Canada, Germany, Australia, Japan, Philippines, Argentina, Aruba, French Guiana, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador (affiliated to Peru jurisdiction), Italy, Romania, Greece (affiliated to Romania jurisdiction), France, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia (affiliated to Serbia jurisdiction), Bulgaria and the United States. Although young women are not permitted to join DeMolay, chapters are permitted to ele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freak
A freak is a person who is physically deformed or transformed due to an extraordinary medical condition or body modification. This definition was first attested with this meaning in the 1880s as a shorter form of the phrase " freak of nature", itself a broader term meaning " whimsy or caprice of nature", attributed at least as far back as 1847. The term's original neutral connotation became entirely negative during the 20th century; therefore, ''freak'' with its literal meaning of "abnormally developed individual" is viewed purely as a pejorative today. However, the term is also recently used playfully to refer to an enthusiast or obsessive person. Usage Freak saw usage as jargon by promoters and performers of freak shows, though its use in this sense has decreased along with the popularity of freak shows. One well-known example of this word was in reference to Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man." As a jargon, side-show freaks were classified into two groups: ''natural freaks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Shoe Company
Furniture Brands International, Inc., was a Clayton, Missouri-based home furnishings company. Some of the brands it owned in the furniture industry included Broyhill, Lane, Thomasville, Drexel Heritage, Henredon, Hickory Chair, Pearson, Laneventure, and Maitland-Smith. The company began in 1911 as International Shoe Company with the merger of Roberts, Johnson & Rand Shoe Company and Peters Shoe Company. In 1966 the company changed its name to Interco as the result of diversification, and once the company exited the shoe business, adopted the name Furniture Brands International. Some of the brands it owned in the furniture industry included Broyhill, Thomasville, Drexel Heritage, Henredon, Hickory Chair, Pearson, Laneventure, and Maitland-Smith. In 2013, Furniture Brands filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced plans to sell most of its divisions. New owner KPS Capital Partners announced the formation of Heritage Home Group on November 25 of that year. History Internation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tailcoat
A tailcoat is a knee-length coat characterised by a rear section of the skirt, known as the ''tails'', with the front of the skirt cut away. The tailcoat shares its historical origins in clothes cut for convenient horse riding in the Early Modern era. Ever since the 18th century, however, tailcoats evolved into general forms of day and evening formal wear, in parallel to how the lounge suit succeeded the frock coat (19th century) and the justacorps (18th century). Thus, in 21st-century Western dress codes for men, mainly two types of tailcoats have survived: #Dress coat, an evening wear with a squarely cut away front, worn for formal white tie #Morning coat (or ''cutaway'' in American English), a day wear with a gradually tapered front cut away, worn for formal morning dress In colloquial language without further specification, "tailcoat" typically designates the former, that is the evening (1) dress coat for white tie. History Shadbelly In equestrianism, a variant cal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Top Hat
A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally made of black silk or sometimes grey, the top hat emerged in Western fashion by the end of the 18th century. Although it declined by the time of the counterculture of the 1960s, it remains a formal fashion accessory. A collapsible variant of a top hat, developed in the 19th century, is known as an opera hat. Perhaps inspired by the Early Modern era capotain, higher crowned dark felt hats with wide brims emerged as a country leisurewear fashion along with the Age of Revolution around the 1770s. Around the 1780s, the justaucorps was replaced by the previously casual frocks and dress coats. At the same time, the tricorne and bicorne hats were replaced by what became known as the top hat. By the 1790s, the directoire style dress coat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Press Of Kentucky
The University Press of Kentucky (UPK) is the scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and was organized in 1969 as successor to the University of Kentucky Press. The university had sponsored scholarly publication since 1943. In 1949, the press was established as a separate academic agency under the university president, and the following year Bruce F. Denbo, then of Louisiana State University Press, was appointed as the first full-time professional director. Denbo served as director of UPK until his retirement in 1978, building a small but distinguished list of scholarly books with emphasis on American history and literary criticism. Since its reorganization, the Press has represented a consortium that now includes all of Kentucky's state universities, seven of its private colleges, and two historical societies. UPK joined the Association of University Presses in 1947. The press is supported by the Thomas D. Clark Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation establ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
