Things We Learned on Bing Today: KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) Founded in 1919

Since we are a bit pressed for time today and we want to find out new information on the latest round of police crackdowns against protestors in Istanbul, Turkey, stemming from the government's decision to graze historic, scenic Gezi Park in Taksim Square, we are going to return to an old stand-by.

For these segments, we ask a major search engine a general question. Today, it was: "When was KLM founded?"

As it turns out, the Dutch carrier happens to be the world's oldest airline operating under its own name. KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) was founded in 1919; the major hub of the airline is Shiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

KLM has 136 destinations around the globe. It merged with Air France in 2004, and the Dutch airline is also a member of the SkyTeam Alliance.

Perhaps, it's time to go back and visit Amsterdam, we we did in 1993 to revisit the Vincent Van Gogh Museum!

The Netherlands is also one of the countries in which the blog receives the most amount of hits, though per capita, we think either Latvia or El Salvador might be the two countries in which we are most popular...........perhaps?!

http://www.klm.com

http://www.rnw.nl/

Virtual Postcard from Missouri- Chuck Berry Statue

Greetings from Missouri, yes we really are in the Show Me State though we are pretty far from St.Louis, where one can see this statue of the rock and roll legend Chuck Berry, who is thankfully still among the living.

Good morning to those of you in Dubai, where it is now 9:00 a.m. We're not sure if Fly Emirates has direct flights to St. Louis, but we imagine you can jump on a British Airways flight at Heathrow Airport from London to St. Louis, which was home to the now-defunct American airline TWA (1925-2001).

Missouri's largest city is also known for its baseball team the St. Louis Cardinals, the second winnigest team in Major League Baseball history.

http://www.visitmo.com/

http://explorestlouis.com/

http://www.emirates.com/

http://www.britishairways.com

Olympic Cities Destination Quiz (4 of 6)- Amsterdam to St. Louis

If one takes the quiz on the online version of "Mental Floss" asking which cities have hosted the Olympics, there is a  distinct possibility that Amsterdam, which hosted the games in 1928, and St. Louis, which hosted the Olympics in 1904, might be the ones which one might well forget.

The 1904 St. Louis Olympics were only the third Olympics; the first two were held in Athens, Greece, and Paris, France, respectively. Those games are perhaps best remembered for the story of Cuban marathon runner/postal carrier Andarin Caruajal (1875-1949) who begged on the streets to raise funds to travel to Missouri. He ended up finishing fourth!

The Netherlands hosted the games 24 years later with 46 countries participating, which was up considerably from the mere 12 countries who competed in St. Louis. Among the notable events of those games was American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller (1904-1984), who was later cinema's Tarzan, winning two gold medals in men's swimming. The 1928 Amsterdam Olympics were also the first ones sponsored by Cocal Cola.

In case you were wondering, that is a map of St. Louis (there were way too many photos of the Arch to choose from) above. The below image is of KLM, the main airline for The Netherlands/Holland.

So, we are asking just how far these two destinations are from each other, my apologies to folks in Turku, Finland, who use the Metric system, but we are going with miles here; is the answer?:

A) 4,374 miles

B) 4,474 miles

C) 4,574 miles

D) 4, 774 miles

http://www.klm.com

http://www.holland.com

www.rnw.nl

http://www.explorestlouis.com

http://www.mentalfloss.com

UPDATE: Since it has been more than 24 hours since we posted this, we'll go ahead and tell you the answer; it is A) 4,374 miles.

Things We Learned on Twitter Today- It Might Be Hard to Get to Honolulu

Many of us woke up this morning to hear that a major tsunami and earthquake struck northern Japan while most of us were sleeping. At least, 60 people are reported dead and one presumes that number is going to jump significantly. This somehow made Godzilla a trending topic on Twitter today!

The same tsunami is expected to hit Hawaii and possibly Alaska within a short period of time.

So, this tweet from Hawaiian Airlines came as no surprise:

"Anyone flying Friday on Hawaiian Airlines should check Hawaiian's web site....click on flight status before going to the airport."

Egyptian journalist Nadia El-Awady also tweeted about the possibility of massive political protests in Saudi Arabia which could possibly resemble the early stages of similar demonstrations that occurred in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

This was her tweet:

"Twitter reports of tight security in several Saudi cities. Can't wait to see developments. Lived there 3 yrs. Country truly needs change."

Being Deliberately Trendy

Since Trending Topics are the new trend in cyberspace these days, we thought we'd use some Trending Topics from yahoo.com to arbitrarily inflate our daily hits (Mondays are surprsingly good days for hits; I assume this is because of all the Dilberts stuck in their office jobs from hell).

So, here we go.....

It was reported by some tabloid gossip fodder that Nicole Kidman and Teri Hatcher met for a frappucino at an unidentified Starbucks in High Point, NC. The dynamic duo then made their way over to a nearby shopping mall where they looked at minature Jesus statues at some kitsch shop. As they were looking for some high heel shoes at the same fictional shopping mall, the two movie stars gabbed about Kim Zolchiak and Scarlett Johanssen, who turned 26 today. During this exchange, Teri shocked Nicole by revealing that she has a crush on Cleveland Browns quarterback Colt McCoy. Nicole confided that she takes a liking to Blink 182 music. While shopping at the imaginary mall in High Point, Nicole and Teri ran into Tiger Woods who was at a sporting goods store and checking out some clubs. One of the two starletts told Tiger that he 'should burn in hell,' but no one could confirm who uttered those words.

Of course, I made all of this up to merely get hits!

I am a bit surprised that terms like 'body scanners,' 'TSA' and 'pat-downs' are NOT among the trending topics of the day.

One of the early victims of the new security measures was none other than newspaper humorist Dave Barry who was told by TSA officials in Miami that he had a 'blurry groin,' a story that he shared with NPR.

I went through a full body scan at Heyder Aliyev International Airport in Baku, Azerbaijan, back in the summer of 2008, and I had a gut feeling we would soon be seeing them here in les etats unis.

Some may assume that it is only airports in major cities where air travelers have to undergo such discomforts, but the list of airports where the new measures are in place includes Omaha (Neb.), Fort Wayne (Ind.), Albany (NY), Grand Rapids (Mich.), and Albequerque (N. Mex).

There are at least four aiports in Virginia and North Carolina using the full body scanners, including Richmond, Dulles (Wash. DC), Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte.

Status Update- (A Short Entry Because We Need Some zzzzzzzzzzzzs!)

My status update for 2:45 a.m. on this Saturday night/Sunday morning is as follows:

"I need to get some freakin zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzssss! Thankfully, I am not in an airport though I'd love to go to Hong Kong for some cheap silk shirts!"