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they got mail service. Postal employees settled in unnamed, unincorporated towns and helped organize governments in addition to mail service. That’s what happened in the early 20th century with Sedona, Arizona, named after Sedona Schnebly, wife of the town’s first postmaster.
Most commonly reported UFO shapes: hat-shaped, oval-shaped, and cigar-shaped.
    YONKERS, NEW YORK
    One of the town’s first settlers in the 17th century was Adriaen van der Donck, a landowner who in his native Netherlands was a jonkheer (“yonk-ear”), the Dutch equivalent of “esquire” or “lord.” In the New World, “Jonkeer” became his nickname. Yonkers is a corruption of that, and the New York City suburb was named after him.
    PROVO, UTAH
    Like many cities in Utah, Provo began as a Mormon settlement. They called it Fort Utah when they arrived in 1849, but a year later the town was officially incorporated and renamed Provo, after French-Canadian trapper and trader Etienne Provost, who’d helped settle the area in 1825.
    MODESTO, CALIFORNIA
    William Chapman Ralston founded the Bank of California and helped finance much of the settlement of Northern California in the late 1800s. He was so influential that a local government council decided to name a town after him. But at the naming ceremony for “Ralston, California,” Ralston declined the offer. One of the Spanish-speaking workers there reportedly said that Ralston was “muy modesto,” or very modest, to turn down the name. So Modesto it was.
    ORLANDO, FLORIDA
    Fort Gatlin was built near what is now Orlando in order to protect white settlers from the resident Seminole Indians. Skirmishes between the natives and the Europeans resulted, culminating in several conflicts known as the Seminole Wars, the first occurring in 1817. There, it’s said, a soldier named Orlando Reeves was struck down in battle, and the city is named after him. Historians now believe that story was invented to explain the mysterious carving of the name “Orlando” into a tree as a grave marker. Or maybe it was named after Orlando Rees, a sugar mill owner who had lived nearby. A third origin story: It’s named after Orlando, the lead character in William Shakespeare’s play As You Like It . It makes sense—in the play Orlando was in love with Rosalind, and one of the city’s main streets is Rosalind Avenue.
Was Sydney called Robinia? Melbourne, Australia, was originally named Batmania.

POLI-TALKS
When walking the halls of power, remember: Walls (and reporters) have ears .
    “No sane person in the country likes a war in Vietnam, and neither does President Johnson.”
    — Hubert Humphrey
    “Sure, there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.”
    — Richard Nixon
    “Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.”
    — Charles De Gaulle
    “If I were a Democrat, I suspect I’d feel a heck of a lot more comfortable in Boston than, say, America.”
    — Rep. Dick Armey
    “What does an actor know about politics?”
    — Ronald Reagan, former actor, to SAG president Ed Asner
    “ Machismo gracias .”
    — Al Gore, thanking Hispanic students at a school
    “We see nothing but increasingly brighter clouds every month.”
    — Gerald Ford
    “I don’t understand it. Jack will spend any amount of money to buy votes but he balks at investing a thousand dollars in a beautiful painting.”
    — Jacqueline Kennedy
    “Political skill is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, and to have the ability afterward to explain why it didn’t happen.”
    — Winston Churchill
    “I tried to walk a fine line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely, but I now recognize that I did not fully accomplish that goal.”
    — Bill Clinton
    “This is a great day for France.”
    — Richard Nixon, at French president de Gaulle’s funeral
    “I’ve been subject to quite a lot of illegal leaking.”
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