- Alaska was bought from Russia for about 2 cents an acre.
- The Caspian Sea is actually a lake.
Mark Gertler, born Marks Gertler, was a British painter of figure subjects, portraits and still-life.
His early life and his relationship with Dora Carrington were the inspiration for Gilbert Cannan's novel Mendel. The characters of Loerke in D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love, and Gombauld in Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow were based on him.
Cynthia Ellen Nixon is an American actress and activist. For her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series Sex and the City, she won the 2004 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She reprised the role in the films Sex and the City and Sex and the City 2. Her other film credits include Amadeus, James White, and playing Emily Dickinson in A Quiet Passion.
Nixon made her Broadway debut in the 1980 revival of The Philadelphia Story. Her other Broadway credits include The Real Thing, Hurlyburly, Indiscretions, The Women, and Wit. She won the 2006 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Rabbit Hole, the 2008 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for An Inconvenient Truth, and the 2017 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for The Little Foxes. Her other television roles include playing political figures Eleanor Roosevelt in Warm Springs, Michele Davis in Too Big to Fail, and playing Nancy Reagan in the 2016 television film Killing Reagan.
The Battle of Coronel was a First World War Imperial German Naval victory over the Royal Navy on 1 November 1914, off the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel. The East Asia Squadron of the Kaiserliche Marine led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee met and defeated a British squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock.
The engagement probably took place as a result of misunderstandings. Neither admiral expected to meet the other in full force. Once the two met, Cradock understood his orders were to fight to the end, despite the odds being heavily against him. Although Spee had an easy victory, destroying two enemy armoured cruisers for just three men injured, the engagement also cost him almost half his supply of ammunition, which was irreplaceable. Shock at the British losses led the Admiralty to send more ships, including two modern battlecruisers, which in turn destroyed Spee and the majority of his squadron on 8 December at the Battle of the Falkland Islands.