The Blue Tail Fly
"Jimmy Crack Corn" or "Blue-Tail Fly" is an American song which first became popular during the rise of blackface minstrelsy in the 1840s through performances by the Virginia Minstrels. It regained currency as a folk song in the 1940s at the beginning of the American folk music revival and has since become a popular children's song. Over the years, several variants have appeared. Most versions include some idiomatic African American English, although General American versions now predominate. The basic narrative remains intact. On the surface, the song is a black slave's lament over his white master's death in a horse-riding accident. The song, however, is also interpreted as having a subtext of celebration about that death and of the slave having contributed to it through deliberate negligence or even deniable action.Mahar, William J. ''Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture'', pp. 234 ff. University of Illinois ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Norman, Oklahoma
Norman () is the List of municipalities in Oklahoma, 3rd most populous city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, with a population of 128,026 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the most populous city and the county seat of Cleveland County, Oklahoma, Cleveland County and the second-most populous city in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area after the state capital, Oklahoma City, 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Norman. The city was settled during the Land Run of 1889, which opened the former Unassigned Lands of Indian Territory to American pioneer settlement. It was named in honor of Abner Norman, the area's initial land surveyor, and was formally incorporated on , 1891. Norman has prominent higher education and related research industries, as it is home to the University of Oklahoma, the largest university in the state, with nearly 32,000 students. The university is well known for its sporting events by teams under the banner of the nickname "Oklahoma Sooners, So ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hominy
Hominy is a food item produced from dried maize (corn) kernels that have been treated with an alkali, in a process called nixtamalization ( is the Nahuatl word for "hominy"). "Lye hominy" is a type of hominy made with lye. History The process of nixtamalization has been fundamental to Mesoamerican cuisine since ancient times. The lime used to treat the maize can be obtained from several different materials. Among the Lacandon Maya who inhabited the tropical lowland regions of eastern Chiapas, the caustic powder was obtained by toasting freshwater shells over a fire for several hours. In the highland areas of Chiapas and throughout much of the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize River valley and Petén Basin, limestone was used to make slaked lime for steeping the shelled kernels. The Maya used nixtamal to produce beers that more resembled ''chicha'' than '' pulque''. When bacteria were introduced to nixtamal it created a type of sourdough. The process of nixtamalization spread from ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Coroner's Jury
A coroner's jury is a body convened to assist a coroner in an inquest, that is, in determining the identity of a deceased person and the cause of death. The laws on its role and function vary by jurisdiction. United Kingdom In England and Wales, all inquests were once conducted with a jury. They acted somewhat like a grand jury, determining whether a person should be committed to trial in connection to a death. Such a jury was made up of up to twenty-three men, and required the votes of twelve to render a decision. Similar to a grand jury, a coroner's jury merely accused, it did not convict. There are no coroners in Scotland, which has its own legal system. The Scottish equivalent of an inquest is a Fatal Accident Inquiry, held where there is a sudden, suspicious, accidental, or unexplained death, which is ordered by a Procurator Fiscal and presided over by a Sheriff without a jury. Since 1927, coroner's juries have rarely been used in England. Under the Coroners Act 1988, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tabanus
''Tabanus'' is a genus of biting horseflies of the family Tabanidae. Females have scissor-like mouthparts that are able to penetrate the skin of livestock animals. The horsefly can then extract and ingest the animal's blood. Horseflies of this genus are known to be potential vectors of anthrax, worms and trypanosomes. Some species, such as ''Tabanus bovinus'', prefer bovine Bovines (subfamily Bovinae) comprise a diverse group of 10 genera of medium to large-sized ungulates, including Bos, cattle, bison, African buffalo, Bubalus, water buffalos, and the four-horned and spiral-horned antelopes. The members of this gro ... animals and are less harmful to humans. The genus contains hundreds of species and many species groups. See also * List of ''Tabanus'' species References {{Taxonbar, from=Q2720956 Tabanidae Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Brachycera genera ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Blue Bottle Fly
The Calliphoridae (commonly known as blowflies, blow flies, blow-flies, carrion flies, bluebottles, or greenbottles) are a family of insects in the order Diptera, with almost 1,900 known species. The maggot larvae, often used as fishing bait, are known as gentles. The family is known to be polyphyletic, but much remains disputed regarding proper treatment of the constituent taxa, some of which are occasionally accorded family status (e.g., Bengaliidae and Helicoboscidae). Description Characteristics Calliphoridae adults are commonly shiny with metallic colouring, often with blue, green, or black thoraces and abdomens. Antennae are three-segmented and aristate. The aristae are plumose their entire length, and the second antennal segment is distinctly grooved. Members of Calliphoridae have branched Rs 2 veins, frontal sutures are present, and calypters are well developed. The characteristics and arrangements of hairlike bristles are used to differentiate among members of th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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House Slave
A house slave was a slave who worked, and often lived, in the house of the slave-owner, performing domestic labor. House slaves performed essentially the same duties as all domestic workers throughout history, such as cooking, cleaning, serving meals, and caring for children; however, their slave status could expose them to more significant abuses, including physical punishments and use for sexual slavery. In antiquity In classical antiquity, many civilizations had house slaves. In Greece The study of slavery in Ancient Greece remains a complex subject, in part because of the many different levels of servility, from traditional chattel slavery through various forms of serfdom, such as Helots, Penestai, and several other classes of a non-citizen. Athens had various categories of slave, such as: * House-slaves, living in their master's home and working at home, on the land, or in a shop. * Freelance slaves, who didn't live with their master but worked in their master's shop o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Italian Opera
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous operas in Italian were written by foreign composers, including George Frideric Handel, Handel, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Gluck and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mozart. Works by native Italian composers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Gioachino Rossini, Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi, Verdi and Giacomo Puccini, Puccini, are amongst the most famous operas ever written and today are performed in opera houses across the world. Origins ''Dafne'' by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. Peri's works, however, did not arise out of a creative vacuum in the area of sung drama. An underlying prerequisite for the creation of opera proper was the prac ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Miss Lucy Long
"Miss Lucy Long", also known as "Lucy Long" as well as by other variants, is an American song that was popularized in the blackface minstrel show. After its introduction to the stage by the Virginia Minstrels in 1843, "Miss Lucy Long" was adopted by rival troupes. George Christy's cross-dressed interpretation standardized the portrayal of the title character and made the song a hit in the United States. "Miss Lucy Long" became the standard closing number for the minstrel show, where it was regularly expanded into a comic skit complete with dialogue. Versions were printed in more songsters and performed in more minstrel shows than any other popular song in the antebellum period. In blackface minstrelsy, the name Lucy came to signify any sexually promiscuous woman. History The first published edition of "Miss Lucy Long" is uncredited in an 1842 songster called ''Old American Songs''. Billy Whitlock of the Virginia Minstrels later claimed the song in his autobiography: "I comp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Oliver Ditson
Oliver Ditson (October 20, 1811 – December 21, 1888) was an American businessman and founder of Oliver Ditson and Company, one of the major music publishing houses of the late 19th century. Early life and career Oliver Ditson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, of Scottish ancestry, on October 20, 1811. His parents lived near the home of Paul Revere at the lower end of Hanover Street. In 1823, just out of grammar school, Oliver became an employee of Col. Samuel Hale Parker, father of J.C.D. Parker, the organist and composer. Col. Parker owned a book store on Washington street, near Franklin Street in Boston, and kept in addition to his regular stock a few pieces of music. At the time the Waverley novels were making their appearance and Col. Parker was republishing them as rapidly as they could be gotten from England. Oliver left the bookstore to master the printer's trade. About 1834, fire destroyed the store of Col. Parker. With what was saved he moved with his now indis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the most populous city in the county, the List of municipalities in Massachusetts, fourth-largest in Massachusetts behind Boston, Worcester, Massachusetts, Worcester, and Springfield, Massachusetts, Springfield, and List of cities in New England by population, ninth-most populous in New England. The city was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England, which was an important center of the Puritans, Puritan theology that was embraced by the town's founders. Harvard University, an Ivy League university founded in Cambridge in 1636, is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Lesley University, and Hult Inte ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scarborough, Dorothy
Emily Dorothy Scarborough (January 27, 1878 – November 7, 1935) was an American writer who wrote about Texas, folk culture, cotton farming, ghost stories and women's life in the Southwest. Early life Scarborough was born in Mount Carmel, Texas. At the age of four she moved to Sweetwater, Texas for her mother's health, as her mother needed the drier climate. The family soon left Sweetwater in 1887, so that the Scarborough children could get a good education at Baylor College. Academics and writing Even though Scarborough's writings are identified with Texas, she studied at University of Chicago and Oxford University and, beginning in 1916, taught literature at Columbia University. While receiving her PhD from Columbia, she wrote a dissertation, "The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction". Sylvia Ann Grider writes in a critical introduction that the dissertation "was so widely acclaimed by her professors and colleagues that it was published and it has become a basic refere ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |