Malaria

While malaria was virtually eliminated from the 'First' and 'Second' Worlds over 50 years ago by widespread use of DDT, in the Third World it is remained, and has been experiencing a surge in recent years because of drug-resistant strains of the disease. In parts of Zambia, for instance, at any one moment more than 1/3 of all children under 5-years old are sick with the disease, which means a severe fever, brain swelling, convulsions, and often death for the victim.
Of the half-a-billion people each year who become infected with the disease, over a million die.
( cdcfoundation.org/bednets )

National Hero

One of the points of contention between King George III and the colonists was further expansion into Indian territory. You see, it was in King George's best interest to keep colonists from building settlements further and further into native lands, since he couldn't afford a war with the Tribes and wanted to keep them happy. The settlers, however, continually wanted to push further West.

The Crown had used Easton, PA as a site for negotiating many of their treaties with the Indians, since it was at that time a "frontier town," and there had been a long history in PA of successful Indian treaties. The Rebels coming to power, however, was about to change that.

Here's what Mr. Washington wrote in 1779 in a letter to Major-General John Sullivan, whom he had ordered to stage a foray into Indian territory:
"The expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians... The immediate object is their total destruction and devastation, and the capture of as many persons of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground, and prevent their planting more... do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun, but DESTROYED."

Afterwards, General Sullivan's march through the Pocono Mountains into Iroquois territory in southern New York was described as "the Shades of Death" the purpose of which was "an undistinguished destruction and carnage."

Why macaroni?

"Yankee Doodle went to London
riding on a pony
Stuck a feather in his cap
and called it macaroni..."

But why macaroni?
It actually has nothing to do with pasta. The lyrics to Yankee Doodle are a hodgepodge of different choruses with varied origins. The first line, though, is probably a mockery by the British of the uncivilized Americans (...a mockery that the unpretentious Americans gladly took up themselves and incorporated into their own songs.)

It comes from the Italian word maccherone -- a boorish fool. Rich young men who had returned from Italy (it was fashionable at that time for young people to make a trip to Italy... much like many young Americans now undertake a EuroTrip as college students) began using the word to describe something fashionable; we might read the song as, "...Stuck a feather in his cap / and called it trendy."

The lyrics mean that the typical Yankee (the typical American) was so naïve that he thought he could be fashionable simply by putting a feather in his cap.

The word macaroni could also be used as a noun. A Macaroni (or a Dandy) was the 18th-Century equivalent of the 17th-Century Fop, a man who is overly fashion-conscious, urbane and almost effeminate. He was the forerunner of the modern Metrosexual.

The Macaroni Penguin, incidentally, also draws its name from this type of person, because penguins appear to be formally-dressed.

In 50 B.C. the Romans named a locale in the Western basin region of Germany 'Aqua Saltare' because of the bubbly, 'dancing water' that rose to the surface there. Today the region in Hessen is commonly referred to as (Nieder- & Ober-) Selters, and the ancient springs are still in use.
( http://www.oberselters.de/ )