IMPORTANT INFORMATION....
Because I know all you people were dying to know...
The area of Jacksonville is 874.3 square miles (2,264.5 km²). Jacksonville was originally named Cowford (oh my god) because the St. Johns River is narrow here, allowing cattlemen to herd cows across the river. The city was renamed in 1822 for the first territorial governor of Florida and the future 7th U.S. President Andrew Jackson.
In the early 1900s, Jacksonville was a center of the fledgling motion picture industry. The city's warm climate, excellent rail access, and low costs all helped to make Jacksonville the "Winter Film Capital of the World". By the early 1910s, Jacksonville hosted over 30 studios employing over 1000 actors. However, some residents objected to the hallmarks of the early movie industry, such as car chases in the streets, simulated bank robberies and fire alarms in public places, and even the occasional riot scene. In 1917, a conservative mayor was elected on the platform of taming the city's movie industry. Subsequently the film studios opted to move to a more hospitable political climate in California.
*just think...if it hadnt been for that stupid mayor, we could have been Hollywood.
Some issues the city deals with today include how to fix the school system (including violence on school buses), controversies over a public high school named for Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest, and how to solve transportation problems (The Better Jacksonville Plan).
*apparently, we have a very corrupt school system. That guy was the "Grand Wizard" of the KKK in 1866.
*Tom Hanks' character Forrest Gump states that he was named after Nathan Bedford Forrest.
ALSO:
Tycho Brahe and his Gold Nose (lapointe kids know what im talking about)
"The 10th of december 1566 there was a dance at Lucas Bacmeisters house in the connection to a wedding. Lucas Bacmeister was a professor of theology at the univeristy of Rostock where Tycho studied. Among the guests were Tycho Brahe and another danish nobleman, Manderup Parsberg. They started an argument and they separated in anger. The 27th of december this argument started again, and in the evening of the 29th of december a duel was held. It was around 7 in the evening and in darkness. Parsberg gives Tycho a cut over his nose that took away almost the front part of his nose. Tycho had an artificial nose made, not from wax, but from an alloy of gold and silver[*] and put it on so skillfully, that it looked like a real nose Wilhelm Janszoon Blaeu, who spent time with Tycho for nearly two years, also said that Tycho used to carry a small box with a paste or glue, with which he often would put on the nose."
Tycho's tomb was reopened in 1901 and his remains were examined by medical experts. The nasal opening of the skull was rimmed with green, a sign of exposure to copper. Presumably this came from the artificial nose, which supposedly had been made of silver or gold. The experts put the best face on this, as it were, saying that Tycho was an expert in metallurgy and probably wanted an alloy that was durable and skin colored. Right....
ALSO on Brahe:
Lantgrave Wilhelm of Kassel in Germany, with whom Tycho Brahe had an extensive mail correspondence and astronomical discussions, asked Tycho in a letter 1591 about an animal he had heard about called "Rix", which was faster than a deer, but with smaller horns. Tycho replied that such an animal did not exist, but maybe he meant the norwegian animal called reindeer. Tycho wrote that he would check further details about such animals and if he could perhaps send one. He wrote that he had a young moose, that he could send if the Lantgrave would like. The Lantgrave replied that he had owned reindeers before but they had died of the heat, he also had a moose, which was tame and followed him like a dog. He would gladly accept a tame moose from Tycho, and would in such case reward Tycho with a riding horse for the trouble.
Tycho replies that he would order additional moose, and he would have sent his tame one, had it not died shortly before. It had been transported to the castle of Landskrona, a city close to Hven, to entertain a nobleman there. But it had happened that during the dinner, the moose had ascended the castle stairs and drunk of the beer in such amounts, that it had fallen down the stairs, and broken a leg. Despite the best care, the moose had died shortly thereafter.
You are all now much smarter after having read this entry. I promise.