RESEARCHERS' NOTE

Official colours of the Northern Territory, Australia The colours of the Northern Territory, as shown on its flag, were first officially recognized in 1964not in June 1975 or August 1977 as reported in some sourcesalthough the territorial legislature did not vote to accept the colours until 1975. The archives of the Department of the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory include the following statement, dated April 1, 1964, by the administrator, R.L. Dean: It is hereby notified for general information that on the seventeenth day of February, 1964, His Honour the Administrator of the Northern Territory of Australia, having received the advice of the Administrator's Council, determined the colours of Red Ochre, White and Black to be the official colours for the Northern Territory of Australia. Supporting documentation is in the archives of the Flag Research Center in Winchester, Massachusetts, U.S. Audrey Hepburn's birth name Sources disagree as to the exact name Hepburn was given at birth. The names Edda, Audrey (the English form of the Dutch name Edda), and Andrey (a feminine form of Andrew, the name likely to have been used if the baby had been born a boy) appear in different biographies, but Edda is found most frequently. All sources agree that Hepburn's mother was the Dutch baroness Ella van Heemstra and that, although her British father's surname was Ruston, he often used the more aristocratic name Hepburn-Ruston, believing himself descended from James Hepburn, 4th earl of Bothwell. Translating Copernicus's De revolutionibus Translators must sometimes choose words in one language that have no exact equivalent in another or make choices between terms that are fraught with intellectual consequence. So it is with the English translation of Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi. For several reasons, we have chosen the translation Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs rather than the more popular On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (used in Britannica's Great Books of the Western World and translated in 1939). First, our inclusion of the words six books and the preposition concerning brings the English closer to the original full (and fulsome) Latin. Our choice of orbs over the conventional spheres is more to the point, for in Copernicus's day the term orb could suggest a solid entity, and recent scholarship indicates that Copernicus's struggle with the issue of the solidity of the celestial orbs may have led him to abandon Ptolemy's geocentric (Earth-centred) theory of the solar system in favour of a heliocentric (Sun-centred) theory. Humphrey Bogart's date of birth Standard reference works are divided on the question of Humphrey Bogart's date of birth, citing either January 23, 1899, or December 25, 1899. For years the January 23 date seemed the more credible, inasmuch as several biographies and reference works leveled the charge that the December 25 date was a product of studio publicity. The best evidence, however, confirms that Bogart was indeed born on Christmas Day. It is the date on his official New York City birth certificate, as well as the date cited in the 1900 census listing. In addition, the Ontario County Times lists among the birth announcements in its January 10, 1900 issue: Born: at New York, December 25, 1899, to Dr. and Mrs. Belmont DeForest Bogart, a son. Works by those closest to Bogart also confirm that the latter date is correct. In Bogart: In Search of My Father (1995), Bogart's son, Stephen Humphrey Bogart, writes that Bogart was born on Christmas Day in 1899, a circumstance which did not please him as a kid. Once, on my birthday, he said, Steve, I hope you enjoy it. I never had a birthday of my own to celebrate. I got cheated out of a birthday.' Similarly, in By Myself (1979), Lauren Bacall mentions that Bogart was an old-fashioned manlaughingly he'd referred to himself as a last-century boy, having entered the world on Christmas Day 1899. Titanic There has never been universal agreement over the number of lives lost in the sinking of the Titanic. Beginning with the first news reports of the disaster, inquirers have found it unwise to trust the original passenger and crew lists, which were rendered inaccurate by such factors as misspellings, omissions, aliases, and failure to count musicians and other contracted employees as either passengers or crew members. Agreement was made more difficult by the international nature of the disaster, essentially involving a British-registered liner under American ownership that carried more than 2,000 people of many nationalities. Immediately after the sinking, official inquiries were conducted by a special committee of the U.S. Senate (which claimed an interest in the matter on the grounds of the American lives lost) and the British Board of Trade (under whose regulations the Titanic operated). The figures established by these hearings are as follows: U.S. Senate committee: 1,517 lives lost British Board of Trade: 1,503 lives lost Confusion over these figures was immediately aggravated by the official reports of these inquiries to the U.S. Senate and the British Parliament; these reports revised the numbers to 1,500 and 1,490, respectively. The figures have been revised, officially and unofficially, so many more times since 1912 that most researchers and historians concede that they will never know how many of the people sailing on the Titanic died. Ionesco, Eugne There has been some discrepancy regarding the date of birth of Eugne Ionesco. Several standard reliable sources give his year of birth as 1912, while others assert it was 1909. The March 29, 1994, New York Times, one source that claims the year of birth to have been 1909, offered a possible explanation for the disputed dates, saying, born in Slatina, Romania, on Nov. 26, 1909, although he took three years off his age and claimed 1912 as his birth year, presumably because he wanted to have made his name before the age of 40. Nancy Lane offers additional explanation in her book, Understanding Eugne Ionesco (1994). The first chapter of the book includes a note that discusses Ionesco's date of birth: Until 1990, 1912 was the published, universally accepted birth date. This erroneous date was inventedeither by Ionesco himself (according to [Emmanuel] Jacquart) or by Jacques Lemarchand (according to [Marie-Claude] Hubert)at the time of the premiere of The Bald Soprano (1950) in order to make Ionesco a young' playwright (that is, under forty years old). (Marie-Claude Hubert gives the correct birth date in her book on Ionesco [Eugne Ionesco, 1990] but fails to change the dates for other events in Ionesco's life, which leads to some anomalies and contradictions in the biographical information in her otherwise excellent book.) Emmanuel Jacquart published a chronology on Ionesco within the Pliade version of Ionesco's works. Maximum depth of Lake Baikal Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world, but its maximum depth has not been fully established. Among the sources reporting a depth of 5,315 feet (1,620 metres) are the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (Bolshaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya), 3rd edition (Moscow, 197078); the International Academy of Information Science, Novaya Rossiya (New Russia; Moscow, 1994); and the Russian National Tourist Office, BaikalThe Pearl of Siberia (accessed Jan. 20, 1999). A depth of 5,370 feet (1,637 metres) is reported by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Descriptions of Natural World Heritage Properties: Lake Baikal Basin (accessed Jan. 20, 1999) and the Tahoe Baikal Institute, Facts About Tahoe and Baikal (accessed Jan. 20, 1999). According to the Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World (Columbia University Press, 1961) and a table in Peter H. Gleick (ed.), Water In Crisis (1993), the deepest point is 5,712 feet (1,741 metres). Sources noting 5,715 feet (1,742 metres) include Leslie Symons (ed.), The Soviet Union: A Systematic Geography, 2nd edition (1990); Merriam-Webster's New Geographical Dictionary (1972, 1984); and Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 3rd edition (1997). 1991 U.K. census Some population counts of the 1991 census of the United Kingdom have been called into question by observers inside and outside the U.K. government who state that undercounting has occurred. Regarding the boroughs of Greater London, comparisons of the census counts of 1981 and 1991 seem to indicate little or no population growthor population declinein some areas, but this often may not be the case. Nor should it be assumed, based on comparisons between 1991 census counts and 1994 estimates, that great increases in borough populations occurred during that three-year period. According to the government's Office for National Statistics publication Key Population and Vital Statistics: Local and Health Authority Areas1994 (first published in 1997), the population estimates for mid-1994 are based upon 1991 Census results, with allowance for undernumeration, subsequent births, deaths, migration, and ageing of the population. Marian Anderson's Date of Birth Standard reference works are divided on the question of Marian Anderson's date of birth. Most give 1897, 1899, or 1902 as Anderson's birth year and either February 17 or February 27 as the month and day of her birth. Anderson herself always gave her date of birth as Feb. 17, 1902. As noted in Anderson's obituary in the New York Times on April 9, 1993, however, June Goodman, a longtime friend of [the singer], said that while going through some family papers recently, she found Miss Anderson's birth certificate, which gave the date as Feb. 27, 1897. The University of Pennsylvania Library, which houses the Marian Anderson Archive, confirms Feb. 27, 1897, as Anderson's date of birth. Falasha migration to Israel, 1980-92 There is disagreement among sources regarding the total number of Falasha that reached Israel in the 1980s and early 1990s. According to Immigration to Israel 1992, a publication of the Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel, 44,766 Ethiopians entered the country between 1980 and 1992. In contrast to the period from 1952 to 1979, when only 466 Ethiopian immigrants were registered, 12,575 entered Israel in the period 1980-84, 4,390 in 1985-89, 24,151 in 1990-91, and 3,650 in 1992. Most of the people arriving from Ethiopia were Falasha, who reached Israel through coordinated evacuation efforts. One of the larger evacuations, which later became known as Operation Moses (mid-November 1984-January 1985), was credited with the transport of more than 6,500 individuals. In Operation Solomon (May 24-25, 1991), more than 14,000 Falasha were airlifted from Addis Ababa to Tel Aviv. Number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust The exact number of Holocaust victims will never be known. Some victims were not registered upon transport to or arrival at the location of execution. Some records were intentionally destroyed by Nazis, some were lost or inadvertently damaged during hostilities, and others were captured and became fragmented among different archives (access to which may have been limited). Problems in identifying ethnic, national, or religious affiliation may result from unclear terminology in the records. Changes in national borders in the period 1933-45 may result in statistical differences between estimates of victims by country of origin, and statistics for a given country may include legal and illegal aliens and stateless refugees. At the trials conducted by the International Military Tribunal at Nrnberg in 1945-46, the U.S. chief prosecutor, Justice Robert H. Jackson, referred to 5,700,000 victims, and a figure of 6,000,000 was attributed to Adolf Eichmann. In subsequent years, a range of estimates appeared. In the article Holocaust for the Encyclopaedia Judaica (1972), Jacob Robinson provides an estimate of 5,820,960. Israel Gutman and Robert Rozett compiled a table for the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (1990) suggesting minimum and maximum figures of 5,596,029 and 5,860,129, respectively. Robinson and Rozett also refer to earlier estimates of 5,957,000 by Jacob Lestchinsky and 5,100,000 by Raul Hilberg. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has indicated that a safe compromise of available estimates is 5,658,000. John Wayne's Birth Name Most published sources refer to John Wayne's birth name as Marion Michael Morrison. Wayne's birth certificate, however, gives his original name as Marion Robert Morrison. According to Wayne's own statements, after the birth of his younger brother in 1911, Wayne's parents named the newborn Robert Emmett and changed Wayne's name from Marion Robert to Marion Michael. It has also been suggested by several of Wayne's biographers that Wayne's parents actually changed his birth name from Marion Robert to Marion Mitchell. In Duke: The Life and Times of John Wayne, (1985) Donald Shepherd and Robert Slatzer state that when Wayne's younger brother was born, the Duke's middle name was changed from Robert to Mitchell. . . . After he gained celebrity, Duke deliberately confused biographers and others by claiming Michael as his middle name, a claim that had no basis in fact. Date and place of Houdini's birth Sources are divided on the question of the date and place of Harry Houdini's birth, some giving March 24, 1874, in Budapest, Hung., some giving April 6 or 8, 1874, in Appleton, Wisc., U.S. As early as 1900, Houdini was quoted in interviews as saying he was born in April in Appleton. The magician John Mulholland, who wrote the entry Conjuring for the 14th edition of the Encyclopdia Britannica, stated in correspondence with Britannica editors in 1968: I believe it is a fact that Houdini was foreign born although he once told me, I was conceived in Budapest and born in Appleton, Wisconsin.' Mulholland based his assertion that Houdini was born in Budapest on March 24, 1874, on a photocopy of Houdini's birth certificate, which was not brought to light until several years after the escape artist's death and has since been accepted by biographers. The assumption now is that Houdini so loved the United States that he wished to be considered an American even as to birth, Mulholland wrote. I can conceive of no other reason for his claim. Harry S. Truman's Middle Initial Some question exists as to whether Harry S. Truman's middle initial should be followed by a period. Truman himself seems to have been the source of the controversy. The Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, has issued a statement on the matter, which reads, in part: In recent years the question of whether to use a period after the S in Harry S. Truman's name has become a subject of controversy, especially among editors. The evidence provided by Mr. Truman's own practice argues strongly for the use of the period. While, as many people do, Mr. Truman often ran the letters in his signature together in a single stroke, the archives of the Harry S. Truman Library has numerous examples of the signature written at various times throughout Mr. Truman's lifetime where his use of a period after the S is very obvious. Mr. Truman apparently initiated the period controversy in 1962 when, perhaps in jest, he told newspapermen that the period should be omitted. In explanation he said that the S did not stand for any name but was a compromise between the names of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. He was later heard to say that the use of the period did not matter, but there are many examples of his using the period dated after 1962 as well as before. The posting of the theses Luther was long believed to have posted the theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, but the historicity of this event has been questioned. The issue is discussed at length in Erwin Iserloh's Luther zwischen Reform und Reformation (1966; published in English as The Theses Were Not Posted). Iserloh indicates that the first known reference to the story was made by Philipp Melanchthon in 1546 and that Luther never mentioned the posting of his theses on the church door. He suggests that, according to the best historical evidence, Luther wrote to the bishops on Oct. 31, 1517, did not receive an answer, and then circulated the theses among friends and learned acquaintances. Gallium Most standard sources report that Lecoq de Boisbaudran named the new element in honour of his native country, France (from Latin Gallia; cf. Gaul). Some, however, including the Oxford English Dictionary, suggest an alternative etymology, a punning reference to his own name (Latin gallus and French le coq, both meaning the cock). Caligula's horse This tale of the mad Caligula's affection for his horse Incitatus has a long pedigree. The Roman historian Suetonius, who according to his Britannica biography used characteristic anecdote' without exhaustive inquiry into its authenticity, reported just a generation or two after Caligula's death that besides a stall of marble, a manger of ivory, purple blankets and a collar of precious stones, he even gave this horse a house. . . . It is also said that he intended to make him Consul. By the time of the even less cautious historian Dio Cassius, the rumour had become fact: He even promised to appoint [his horse] consul, a promise that he would certainly have carried out if he had lived longer. Maxwell's date of birth Although the date of June 13 is well grounded and appears on plaques attached to the house where Maxwell was born and to the church he attended in Edinburgh, many printed sources report a different date, November 13. The original source of this error is unknown, but the likeliest vehicles for its propagation into a number of reference works are the 11th edition of the Encyclopdia Britannica (1910-11) and the Dictionary of National Biography (1921; vol. 13, p. 118). Elevation of Machu Picchu There is enormous variation in estimates of the elevation of Machu Picchu cited in various sources, some of it the result of confusion stemming from the fact that the name Machu Picchu is given both to a mountain peak and to the nearby Inca ruins. (In addition, there are a contemporary village and district called Machupicchu in the department of Cuzco.) The ruins are situated in a saddle between two peaks, Machu Picchu (Old Peak) and the higher Huayna Picchu (New Peak). Huayna Picchu, to which the ruins are closer, reaches a height of about 8,858 feet (2,700 m). As for the ruins themselves, sources report elevations from 6,200 feet (1,890 m; in Visit Machu-Picchu, from the Peruvian Official Tourist Board) to 8,000 feet (2,440 m). According to the director of the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of Peru (letter to Britannica, April 12, 1995), the best information puts the ruins at 7,710 feet (2,350 m). Heights of the twin peaks of the Santa Marta Mountains The world's mountains have not been surveyed as thoroughly as one might expect, and, as a consequence, sources report conflicting elevations for the highest peaks of many nations and regionsindeed, the height of Mount Everest itself is disputed. The Santa Marta Mountains (Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta) represent the highest point, or points, in Colombia. Of the formation's many summits, the highest are the neighbouring peaks of Cristbal Coln and Simn Bolvar, which are described in Encyclopdia Britannica as twin peaks of some 18,947 feet (5,775 metres), but the two may not reach the exact same height. The most reliable sources for this type of information are generally national atlases and other official reports, but even these sources are in disagreement. Some of the differences may be the result of roundinge.g., changing the metric figure from 5,775 to 5,780or of imprecise conversions from metric to English measurement, but these explanations alone cannot account for the range of discrepancies. Atlases and geographic references consulted:Miscellaneous official publications and maps: Instituto Geogrfico Agustn Codazzi, Atlas de Colombia, 4th ed. revised and enlarged (1992), shows both Cristbal Coln Peak and Simn Bolvar Peak at 5,775 metres.Instituto Geogrfico Agustn Codazzi, Atlas bsico de Colombia, 6th ed. (1989), a publication of Colombia's Ministerio de Hacienda y Crdito Pblico, pp. 47 and 291, has a map showing Cristbal Coln at 5,775 metres and Simn Bolvar with no elevation and another map showing Coln at 5,800 metres and Bolvar at 5,770 metres.Instituto Geogrfico Agustn Codazzi, Atlas bsico de Colombia (1970), pp. 1617, 7677, has 5,775 metres for both.Instituto Geogrfico Agustn Codazzi, Diccionario geogrfico de Colombia (1971), vol. 2, pp. 1219 and 1255, has 5,775 metres for both peaks, which form a fork or crotch: De los varios picos nevados que se encuentran los ms importantes son: Cristbal Coln y Simn Bolvar con una altura de 5.775 m los cuales forman La Horqueta' llamada por los indigenas Chinunda,' que representa la mxima altura del pas.Banco de la Repblica, Atlas de economa colombiana: aspectos fsicos y geogrficos (1959), map 1, identifies only Cristbal Coln (5,780 metres), but tables following have both Coln and Simn Bolvar at 5,780 metres.William M. Bueler, Mountains of the World (1970), pp. 113115, gives matching heights for the great twin peaks, provides a map of Santa Marta's main features, and notes the best vantage points from which to appreciate the massif. He also states that the peaks were first climbed in 1939.Alberto Pardo Pardo, Geografa econmica y humana de Colombia (1972), p. 49, does not discuss specific peaks but gives the elevation of Santa Marta as 5,775 metres.Alfonso Prez Preciado, Atlas y geografa de Colombia (1989), pp. 16 and 97, identifies the two peaks, Coln and Bolvar, as the highest in the country at 5,775 metres.Leon E. Seltzer (ed.), The Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World (1962), p. 465, designates Cristbal Coln Peak the nation's highest with an elevation of 18,950 feet, which is equivalent to 5,776 metres, but has no entry for Simn Bolvar.Saul Bernard Cohen (ed.), The Columbia Gazetteer of the World (1998), a revised edition of the Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World, gives 18,950 feet (5,776 metres) for Coln but still has no entry for Bolvar.Colombia Information Service, Colombia Today, vol. 12, no. 1 (1977), has 19,219 feet for Simn Bolvar Peak, which is equivalent to 5,858 metres.Instituto Nacional de los Recursos Naturales Renovables y del Ambiente, Inderena, Reservaciones (1976), p. 10, has Simn Bolvar Peak at 5,780 metres.Ministerio de Agricultura, Sistema de parques nacionales: Colombia (1977), p. 7, gives an elevation range of 0 to 5,800 metres above sea level, but it then specifies 5,879 metres (likely a typo) for Simn Bolvar Peak.Ministerio de Desarrollo Econmico, Corporacin Nacional de Turismo-Colombia, Colombia: mapa turstico de carreteras/Tourist and Road Map (1985), shows both peaks, but an elevation is provided only for Simn Bolvar Peak (5,775 metres).Colombia Information Service, Repblica de Colombia: mapa que muestra la divisin poltica, las principales ciudades, vas de comunicacin y otros datos de inters general (no date), labels both peaks but provides only the height (5,775 metres) of Simn Bolvar Peak. Gish's year of birth Standard reference works are divided on the question of Lillian Gish's birth year, some giving 1893, some 1896, and some both. Gish herself favoured the 1896 date and may have been the source of it. A register of births found in the municipal health department of Springfield, Ohio, however, records the birth of Lillian Dianna Gish on Oct. 14, 1893. Height of Mount Everest The height of Mount Everest, according to the most recent and reliable data, is 29,035 feet (8,850 metres). In 1999 an American survey, sponsored by the (U.S.) National Geographic Society and others, took precise measurements using Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment. Their finding of 29,035 feet was accepted by the society and by various specialists in the fields of geodesy and cartography. The traditionally accepted figure of 29,028 feet (8,848 metres) for the height of Mount Everest was established by the Indian government's Survey of India in 195254. This datum was used by most researchers, mapping agencies, and publishers (including the National Geographic Society) until 1999. Other attempts had been made since the 1950s to remeasure the mountain's height, but until 1999 none had found general acceptance. A Chinese survey in 1975 obtained the figure of 29,029.24 feet (8,848.11 metres), and an Italian survey, using satellite surveying techniques, obtained a value of 29,108 feet (8,872 metres) in 1987, but questions arose about the methods used. In 1986 a measurement of K2, regarded as the second highest mountain, seemed to indicate that it was higher than Everest, but this was subsequently shown to be an error. In 1992 another Italian survey, using GPS and laser measurement technology, yielded the figure 29,023 feet (8,846 metres) by subtracting from the measured height 6.5 feet (2 metres) of ice and snow on the summit, but the methodology used was again called into question. Location of Chichester's crash Chichester crashed at a place called Katsuura, but there are at least two places so named in Japan, one on the southeast coast of Chiba prefecture, not far from Yokohama, and another some 250 miles (400 km) to the southeast in Wakayama prefecture. Chichester evidently believed he was at the former, and a map in his 1936 book Ride on the Wind indicates that he crashed in Chiba; but all evidence points to Wakayama, including the fact that after the crash he was taken to a hospital in Shingu in Wakayama prefecture. Armenian massacres Statistics are disputed regarding the Armenian population in Ottoman Anatolia at the outbreak of World War I and the number of Armenians killed during deportation. The most disparate numbers have been promulgated by Turkish and Armenian sources; scholars agree that propaganda from both sides has greatly confounded the issue. No systematic census was taken in Turkey before 1927, although conflicting population statistics were variously reported by the Ottoman government, religious institutions such as the Armenian Patriarchate, and assorted European observers. In 1896 the Ottoman government recorded 1,144,000 Armenians out of a total Anatolian population of 13,241,000. In an examination of government statistics collected shortly before World War I, Justin McCarthy estimates that some 1,500,000 Armenians lived in Ottoman Anatolia in 1912 out of approximately 17,500,000 inhabitants. Various scholars cite the Armenian Patriarchate, which recorded from 1,845,000 to 2,100,000 Armenians in Anatolia prior to 1915. Other estimates range from as low as 1,000,000 to more than 3,500,000. Questions have been raised about the reliability of some local data; therefore, some preference has been given to data collected by European observers. One of the more renowned compilers of Western research, reports, and available data was Arnold J. Toynbee, who served during the war as an intelligence officer for the British Foreign Office. Toynbee calculated that some 1,800,000 Armenians had lived in Anatolia prior to the war. Taking into account the reports of Toynbee and other aforementioned sources, Britannica has taken the figure of 1,750,000 as a reasonable representation of the Armenian population in Anatolia prior to 1915. Also problematic are reports regarding the number of Armenians who died during deportation (1915-16). Estimates range widely--from 200,000 claimed by some Turkish sources to 2,000,000 claimed by some Armenians--although most scholars agree that the lack of death records makes a final determination impossible. The Turkish government repeats Talat Pasa's original claim that some 300,000 Armenians had died in deportation. As with the problem of the aforementioned population statistics, the subjectivity of some sources has caused greater value to be placed on the reports of European observers. Toynbee judges that some 600,000 Armenians died or were massacred during deportation, possibly 600,000 more survived in exile, and another 600,000 either escaped or went into hiding. By independent calculation, McCarthy has arrived at the same number of deaths, and many historians either cite Toynbee directly or provide similar estimates. Most histories of Armenia or Turkey make note of the Armenian massacres that occurred during World War I. Detailed treatments are given in the following works:Brief discussions or related data are given in numerous sources, such as those listed below: GERARD CHALIAND and YVES TERNON, The Armenians: From Genocide to Resistance (1983; originally published in French, 1980).KAMURAN GRN, The Armenian File: The Myth of Innocence Exposed (1985).JUSTIN McCARTHY, Muslims and Minorities: The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire (1983).THE PERMANENT PEOPLE'S TRIBUNAL, A Crime of Silence, ed. by GERARD LIBARIDIAN, trans. from French (1985); includes British Sources on the Armenian Massacres, 1915-1916 by Christopher J. Walker, German Eyewitness Reports of the Genocide of the Armenians, 1915-1916 by T. Hofmann, Report on the Genocide of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916 by Yves Ternon, and The Turkish Argument: The Armenian Issue in Nine Questions and Answers by the Foreign Policy Institute, Ankara.ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE (ed.), The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16 (1916).YVES TERNON, The Armenians: History of a Genocide, 2nd ed. (1990; originally published in French, 1977).CHRISTOPHER J. WALKER, Armenia: The Survival of a Nation (1980).VINCENT HENRY PENALVER CAILLARD, Turkey, The Encyclopdia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 27 (1911), p. 426.GLENN E. CURTIS (ed.), Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia: Country Studies (1995), pp. 14-15, 35.CAGLAR KEYDER, The Political Economy of Turkish Democracy, in PIRVIN C. SCHICK and ERTUGRUL AHMET TONAK (eds.), Turkey in Transition (1987), p. 31.LORD KINROSS (PATRICK BALFOUR, BARON KINROSS), The Ottoman Centuries (1977), pp. 554, 606.ANAT KURZ and ARIEL MERARI, ASALA--Irrational Terror or Political Tool (1985), pp. 11, 113.DAVID MARSHALL LANG, Armenia: Cradle of Civilization, 2nd ed., corrected (1978), p. 289.HARRIS M. LENTZ, III, Assassinations and Executions (1988), p. 45.BERNARD LEWIS, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2nd ed. (1968), p. 356.PAUL M. PITMAN, III (ed.), Turkey: A Country Study, 4th ed. (1988), pp. 37, 41.MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP (ed.), World Directory of Minorities (1990), p. 179.M. PHILIPS PRICE, A History of Turkey (1956), pp. 90-91.STANFORD SHAW and EZEL KURAL SHAW, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. 2 (1977), p. 316.PETER YOUNG (ed.), The Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of World War I, vol. 5 (1984), pp. 1322-23.ERIK J. ZRCHER, Turkey: A Modern History (1993), pp. 86-89, 119-121. Marsh, Ngaio A birth date of April 23, 1899, is frequently cited for Marsh, as she used this birth date throughout her life. However, her birth record in the New Zealand Registrar-General's Book shows quite clearly a birth year of 1895, not 1899. Elvis Presley's middle name Presley's parents decided to spell his middle name Aron so it would match the spelling of the middle name of his stillborn twin brother, Jessie Garon. Presley preferred the biblical spelling of the name, Aaron, and sometime in the year before his death he decided to legally change Aron to Aaron. Upon obtaining a copy of his birth records, Presley learned that the state of Mississippi had mistakenly spelled his middle name Aaron. Presley adopted that spelling, and it was used on his tombstone. Flag of Australia: Flags Act 1953 Many Commonwealth nations have traditionally deferred to the British sovereign for the final approval of flag designs, and the sovereign normally announces the approval to the British Parliament soon after certification is made. In the case of the Australian flag, some sources report the approval as the date of the announcement to Parliament, while others, including the Encyclopdia Britannica, report the date of the sovereign's decision. The first lines of the Australian Flags Act 1953 state the following: FLAGS. No. 1 of 1954. An Act to declare a certain Flag to be the Australian National Flag and to make other provision with respect to Flags. [Reserved for Her Majesty's pleasure, 12th December, 1953.] [Queen's Assent, 14th February, 1954.] [Queen's Assent made known to each House of the Parliament, 15th February, 1954.] Be it enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, as follows: 1. This Act may be cited as the Flags Act 1953. 2. This Act extends to all the Territories of the Commonwealth. 3. The flag described in the First Schedule to this Act, being the flag a reproduction of which is set out in Part I. of the Second Schedule to this Act, is declared to be the Australian National Flag. The Stars and Stripes over Cuba In accordance with the peace treaty ending the Spanish-American War, the United States began to administer Cuba on December 10, 1898, but the U.S. flag was not hoisted there until January 1, 1899. It was officially lowered on May 20, 1902, in a grand ceremony of state, whereupon the Cuban flag took its place entre aplausos y vivasque casi ahogaban los sones del Himno de Bayamo (amid applause and hurrahsthat nearly drowned out the sounds of the Bayamo [Cuban national] anthem). Source: Bandera, himno y escudo de Cuba: notas histricas, disposiciones legales, usos (1950), a publication of the Cuban Ministry of State, pages 1819. South Australian flag of 18781904 A new badge appeared on the flag of South Australia on November 28, 1878. Some texts inaccurately report that the badge was introduced on March 24, 1876, but that is merely the date of a letter written by the governor of South Australia to London in regard to changing the existing badge. Ralph Kelly's Australian State Flags (18651904), which is often cited as the source of that 1876 date, is ambiguous in its wording. John Vaughan's Flags of Australia chart (1983) has the badge proclaimed in November 1878, and C. Forbes's Australian Flags (1932) cites the following proclamation of Sir William F.D. Jervois, as recorded in the South Australian Government Gazette issue of November 28, 1878: that the flag known as the Union Jack having the badge of the province emblazoned in the centre thereof on a white shield surrounded with a green garland shall be the distinctive flag of the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Province of South Australia.essels belonging to or permanently in the service of the [provincial] Government shall wear the said Blue Ensign with the said badge in the fly thereof. Copies of these sources are in the archives of the Flag Research Center in Winchester, Massachusetts, U.S. Tegucigalpa: Two capitals in one For all practical purposes the capital of Honduras is Tegucigalpa, but some sources note that two cities share that designation. Chapter 1, Article 8, of the Honduran constitution states (translated), "The cities of Tegucigalpa and Comayagela, jointly, constitute the Capital of the Republic." Chapter 11, Article 295, translates, "The Central District consists of a single municipality made up of the former municipalities of Tegucigalpa and Comayagela"; however, municipalities are defined in Honduras as political entities similar to counties, and they may contain one or more cities. In a decree of October 30, 1880, President Marco Aurelio Soto established a permanent seat of government in Tegucigalpa, and in 1907 the episcopal (now archiepiscopal) see was translated there. On March 15, 1938, General Tiburcio Caras Andino and the National Congress declared that Comayagela was a barrio ("neighbourhood") of Tegucigalpa, the national capital. Today some government offices are listed with Comayagela addresses, but the area is considered a part of Tegucigalpa. The name Comayagela means Little Comayagua, in reference to the west-central Honduran city of Comayagua, which was the traditional capital of the republic. The political and economic rivalry between Tegucigalpa and Comayagua was a recurring theme in Honduran history, with the seat of government alternating between the two cities for much of the 19th century. Sources: Constitucin de la Repblica de Honduras, Decree Number 131 (January 11, 1982).Ministry of the Economy of Honduras, Honduras: histrica-geogrfica (1980), pages 121125.Kenneth V. Finney, Tegucigalpa, in Barbara A. Tenenbaum (ed.), Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (1996).Tim L. Merrill (ed.), Honduras: A Country Study, 3rd ed. (1995), pages xv and 167.Will G. Ochoa, Estudios sociales: Honduras en mapas, 13th ed. (1995), page 32.Ralph Lee Woodward, correspondence with Encyclopdia Britannica editors, November 1216, 1999. Poitier, Sidney Sources consulted about Sidney Poitier's birth date are not in agreement. A fewincluding Poitier's autobiography, This Life (1980)give the year 1927 as his birth; many others, in fact most of the standard, reliable sources, give the year 1924. Researchers at Encyclopdia Britannica were unable to obtain definitive documentation, and requests to Poitier to supply verification went unanswered. For this reason, Britannica treats this information as unverified, thus the presence of a question mark after the date of birth.