Baltimore (Irish: Dún na Séad, translated as the “Fort of the Jewels”) is a village in western County Cork, Ireland. It is the main village in the parish of Rathmore and the Islands, the southernmost parish in Ireland. It is the main ferry port to Sherkin Island, Cape Clear Island and the eastern side of Roaring Water Bay (Loch Trasna) and Carbery’s Hundred Isles. read more…
Johns Hopkins University is an American privateresearch university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, the university was named for its first benefactor, the American entrepreneur, abolitionist, and philanthropist Johns Hopkins. His $7 million bequest (~$150 million in 2017 dollars)—of which half financed the establishment of Johns Hopkins Hospital—was the largest philanthropic gift in the history of the United States at that time. Daniel Coit Gilman, who was inaugurated as the institution’s first president on February 22, 1876, led the university to revolutionize higher education in the U.S. by integrating teaching and research. Adopting the concept of a graduate school from Germany‘s ancient Heidelberg University, Johns Hopkins University is considered the first research university in the United States. read more…
USS Constellation, constructed in 1854, is a sloop-of-war/corvette and the second United States Navy ship to carry the name. According to the U.S. Naval Registry the original frigate was disassembled on 25 June 1853 in Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk and the sloop-of-war/corvette was constructed in the same yard using material salvaged from the earlier ship. Constellation is the last sail-only warship designed and built by the Navy. Despite being a single-gundeck “sloop,” she is actually larger than her frigate namesake, and more powerfully armed with fewer but much more potent shell-firing guns. The sloop was launched on 26 August 1854 and commissioned on 28 July 1855 with Captain Charles H. Bell in command. She remained in service for close to a century before finally being retired in 1954, and preserved as a museum ship in Baltimore, where she remains today. read more…
Fort McHenry, in Baltimore in Maryland, is a coastal star-shaped fort best known for its role in the War of 1812, when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack by the British navy in Chesapeake Bay September 13–14, 1814. It was during the bombardment of the fort that Francis Scott Key was inspired to write The Star-Spangled Banner, the poem that would eventually be set to the tune of To Anacreon in Heaven and become the national anthem of the United States. read more…