Puerto Rico is in massive debt

Puerto Rico has the population of Oklahoma and an economy smaller than Kansas. It also has more debt — $70 billion — than any U.S. state government except California and New York. This fact and the reasons behind it help explain why the territory has tumbled over a fiscal cliff, and why the resulting dismay extends to investors far beyond the Caribbean island. It’s atale of financial mismanagement, Wall Street complicity and good intentions gone awry.

The Situation

After stating in 2015 that it was unable to pay its borrowings, Puerto Rico’s government began talks with creditors and turned to Washington for help. Two agencies defaulted before the commonwealth proposed avoluntary plan in February to slash the debt load almost in half by repaying 39 to 72 cents on the dollar.  Puerto Rico then upended months of negotiations by passing a debt-moratorium law that allows Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla to suspend through January 2017 payments to investors on a wide swath of bonds. The island faces a $2 billion bill for principal and interest payments on July 1. Under federal law, states can authorize bankruptcy filings by their municipalities, including public utilities, but Puerto Rico can’t. The U.S. Congress isworking on a bill that could allow Puerto Rico to restructure its debt and implement a federal oversight board that would weigh in on the commonwealth’s budgets. In March, the U.S. Supreme Courtheard arguments on whether Puerto Rico can reinstate a local law that would give its utilities additional leverage in talks with lenders; a decision is expected by June. The island’s plight affects most people with a mutual fund invested in the municipal bond market. Unlike the bonds of most states and municipalities, Puerto Rico’s are exempt from local, state and federal taxes everywhere in the U.S. As a result, they are held by about half of open-end muni funds. The competitive advantage made it easy for Puerto Rico to double its debt in 10 years by selling bonds to plug annual budget deficits and pay for operating expenses — the same combination that brought New York City to the brink of bankruptcy in the 1970s.

The Background

Wall Street smoothed the island’s path to fiscal debacle, reaping more than $900 million in fees to manage Puerto Rico’s $126.6 billion of bond sales since 2000. After the U.S. territory adopted a sales tax in 2006, investment banks worked with officials in San Juan to create new bonds backed by a portion of the proceeds. These helped the government, which employs more than a quarter of the workforce, put off cuts. Puerto Rico, ceded to the U.S. in 1898 after a war with Spain, has a special tax status that dates to 1917 and the passage by the U.S. Congress of the Jones-Shafroth Act. It has relied on tax breaks to drive economic development, attracting pharmaceutical, textile and electronics companies. The U.S. phased out the incentives from the mid-1990s to 2006, contributing to the loss of 80,000 jobs. Since 2006, the island’s economy has contracted every year except one and its poverty rate is now almost double that of Mississippi, the poorest state. The population, now about 3.5 million, is shrinking and forecast to reach a 100-year low by 2050.

Drones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gQE--6DGJc

Published on Jul 22, 2015

A viral video named "Flying Gun," which shows a functional semi-automatic handgun mounted on a drone, has led to an investigation by the US Federal Aviation Administration. The video was filmed by 18-year-old engineering student Austin Haughwout of Connecticut. We look at the video of the remote-controlled drone on the Lip News with Jo Ankier and Margaret Howell.

Quadrotor with handgun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxThXvuP4Vo&feature=youtu.be

A-10 Warthog

Warthogs first saw combat during the 1991 Gulf War, where it flew with a mission capable rate of 95.7%.

Although the A-10's principal weapon is its cannon, the plane is also typically equipped with AGM-65 Maverick air-to-surface missiles. It may also carry cluster bombs or Hydra rocket pods.

The A-10 Thunderbolt II, endearingly referred to as the Warthog for its snubbed-nose design, is set for retirement in the 2015 budget as deep cuts to military funding will go into effect.

This planned retirement is deeply unpopular. The Warthog has a tried and true track record of providing close air support to ground troops. Critics of the retirement maintain that the Air Force is simply trying to retire the plane to make way for more exciting, but unproven, future aircraft like the F-35.

The Air Force says it has no choice but to retire the aging plane. It expects that retiring the total fleet of A-10s by 2020 will save an estimated $3.7 billion.

Quiz Up

Uganda

Idi Amin
Ugandan president Idi Amin Dada was a violent dictator whose regime was responsible for some of the worst atrocities in his country's history.

Samurai

kyuba no michi, "the way of the horse and bow."

Bushido wasn't written down at all until the 17th century, after samurai had been in existence for centuries.

Japan had a feudal system, in which a lord expected obedience from his vassals, who in turn received economic and military protection from the lord. 

Samurai also had a duty of vengeance. Should the honor of his master be tarnished, or his master killed, a samurai was required to seek out and kill those responsible. One of the most famous samurai stories, "The 47 Ronin," or masterless samurai, is a tale of traditional samurai vengeance. During a period of peace, their lord was ordered to commit seppuku because of an altercation with another lord. Two years later, all 47 samurai invaded the lord's castle and killed him. They were arrested and forced to commit seppuku, not because they had fulfilled their duty of vengeance (this was expected), but because they had done it with a secret attack, which was considered dishonorable.



“Do nothing that is of no use” 
― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

“A thousand days of training to develop, ten thousand days of training to polish. You must examine all this well.” 

“In the strategy of my school, keep your body and mind straight and make your opponent go through contortions and twist about. The essence is to defeat him in the moment when, in his mind, he is pivoting and twisting. You should examine this well.” 

“If you wish to control others you must first control yourself” 

“If you are not progressing along the true way, a slight twist in the mind can become a major twist. This must be pondered well.” 

“Never stray from the Way.” 

“Step by step walk the thousand-mile road.” 

“Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit settled yet unbiased. Even when your spirit is calm do not let your body relax, and when your body is relaxed do not let your spirit slacken. Do not let your spirit be influenced by your body, or your body be influenced by your spirit.” 

“When your opponent is hurrying recklessly, you must act contrarily and keep calm. You must not be influenced by the opponent.” 

“Nobody is strong and nobody is weak if he conceives of the body, from the head to the sole of the foot, as a unity in which a living mind circulates everywhere equally.” 

“No man is invincible, and therefore no man can fully understand that which would make him invincible” 

“It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing. Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things.” 
“You can only fight the way you practice” 

“Do not regret what you have done” 

“If you do not control the enemy, the enemy will control you” 

“The only reason a warrior is alive is to fight, and the only reason a warrior fights is to win” 

“from one thing, know ten thousand things” 

“When you decide to attack, keep calm and dash in quickly, forestalling the enemy...attack with a feeling of constantly crushing the enemy, from first to last.” 

“The important thing in strategy is to suppress the enemy's useful actions but allow his useless actions” 

"Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men."

“there is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.” 

“You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain” 

“All men are the same except for their belief in their own selves, regardless of what others may think of them” 

“Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help” 

Took the quiz today

Egypt = Gift Of The Nile
Dem Rep of Congo was once called Zaire
Thailand = Land Of Smiles
Saudi Arabia = Land of the Two Holy Mosques

Pirates of Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

$250 , 000, 000    total budget

136 minutes total show time

$1, 838, 235   per minute spent

if calculated per second

a total of $30,637 per second

UAV

United States Forces Korea (USFK) plan to deploy the MQ-1C Gray Eagle, a war-tested Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV), to the Korean Peninsula as early as July, the Chosun Ilbo reported Wednesday.

The Gray Eagle was first implemented by the U.S. Army unit deployed in Camp Taji, Iraq in 2010. It has retained its popularity among U.S. Army aviation units, as the Army ordered 19 additional Improved Gray Eagles from General Atomics last year.

The USFK public relations office declined to confirm or deny the deployment of the Gray Eagle, or the number of units that might be deployed.

“It seems like the Chosun Ilbo has came up with the news on the Gray Eagle after cross-checking with many other military sources such as the South Korean military’s newspaper, General Atomics’ announcement from November last year and so on. But we cannot discuss anything related to our operational capability,” the USFK told NK News.

The vehicle participated in the ROK-U.S. joint training exercise last August from Kunsan Air Base, South Korea.

During the last year’s joint training, the Gray Eagle provided streamed video and metadata directly to an AH-64 Apache helicopter. The data transmitted to the Apache was re-transmitted to the control terminal, allowing ground forces to share the view of the video captured by the helicopter, according to a previous announcement from General Atomics.

Secret Societies

members of the U.S. chapter of the International Order of St. Hubertus, which was launched in 1966 by associates of the Bohemian Grove which itself was a spin-off of the Order of the Bavarian Illuminati founded in 1776 to counter both the American revolution and the emerging populist movements in Europe

“The Bavarian Illuminati’s own documents were intercepted by police many times – that’s why Encyclopedia Britannica breaks all this down – and they revealed the Illuminati was planned to take over the renaissance and the big, burgeoning liberty movement taking place in Europe and what became the United States,” Alex Jones revealed, who was the first to successfully infiltrate and film the Bohemian Grove. “So they founded the Bavarian Illuminati that later created the Jacobins of the French Revolution to not create revolutions to overthrow the corrupt monarchies and the church but to actually remove them and set themselves up as absolute rulers.”

“George Washington, in his famous anti-Illuminati letters before he died, talked about how they were trying to take over the Renaissance and the liberty movement in Europe and the U.S. and how dangerous the French Revolution became by being run by these people.

“Once they had full control, they socially engineered the public to accept a dictator on the throne of France, which they did: Napoleon Bonaparte,” he added.

And using Bonaparte, the Illuminati exploited France to invade other countries – and that’s the Illuminati model copied today by intelligence agencies and George Soros-funded groups to overthrow Eastern European and Latin American governments.

“They come in, take over grassroots revolutions like the Arab Spring, put their own people in charge and then exploit the country they dominated to take over the next country,” Jones continued. “That’s also how the communists operate because they came out of the Jacobins and the French Revolution – Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx admitted that’s where they came from and they were only codifying the Illuminati plan.”

In other words, the Illuminati model uses a false populist revolution to hijack countries from within.

Members of the Illuminati later founded Skull and Bones, the Yale University secret society, in 1832, and decades later, Skull and Bones member and eventual U.S. President William H. Taft organized the modern-day Bohemian Grove around 1900 after he took it over from American author Mark Twain, who disagreed with much of the esoteric ideology.

And the secret society that was at the resort when Scalia died grew out of the Bohemian Grove.

“This new group that we’re witnessing [the International Order of St. Hubertus] was a spin-off of Bohemian Grove, which itself was a spin-off of Skull and Bones, and which itself was a spin-off of the Bavarian Illuminati,” Jones said.

Brain Studies

amygdala where fear is processed
orbital frontal cortex or regions where decision making happens
 people with antisocial personality disorder (often linked with psychopathic behavior) have an average of 18% less volume in the brain’s frontal gyrus. In another study from the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers compared 27 psychopaths to 32 non-psychopaths and found the psychopaths had less volume in their amygdala–where empathy, fear processing and emotional regulation happens. This study also found that psychopaths have less activity in the area of the brain that processes empathy
 even though psychopathic brains don’t respond to punishment, they do respond to rewards

Total Stuff

Flugzeugabwehrkanone - Flak 
"Aircraft Defense Cannon" in German

Quiz Up Mentality

The best defense is a perfect 160 score.
If you slack off w/ your response, everything else can cascade and slack off.
If you're level 500, you can EASILY be defeated by a level 1 player if you slack off.

You need to systematically practice everyday, or you'll get soft.

#1 in America for Name The Country
#1 in America for Country Capitals
#1 in America for Star Trek
#1 in America for Geography
#1 in America for Animals
#1 in America for Plants
#1 in America for Shakespeare
#1 in America for Star Wars
#1 in America for Philosophy
#1 in America for Science



The Great White North = Canada
The Land Of The Long White Cloud = New Zealand

Capital of Bermuda = Hamilton
You mistook it and you put Belmopan, when you know that's the capital of Belize

Will you do a hang up style where you analyze a single interaction a lot OR do a HIGH MASS VOLUME STYLE where you get good by having a lot of engagements?

Tue Feb 23 2016 7:58am

You have 20 rounds that you have to do.

Nara was the capital of Japan before.
Kyoto was the capital of Japan before.
Nagoya was the capital of Japan before.
Yokohama = never the capital of Japan.

CIA Spymaster's Toolkit from CIA webpage

The Spymaster’s Toolkit

Long before General William Donovan recruited spies to advance the American war efforts during World War II as Director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), predecessor to the CIA, General George Washington mastered the art of intelligence as Commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

Washington was a skilled manager of intelligence. He utilized agents behind enemy lines, recruited both Tory and Patriot sources, interrogated travelers for intelligence information, and launched scores of agents on both intelligence and counterintelligence missions. He was adept at deception operations and tradecraft and was a skilled propagandist. He also practiced sound operational security. Washington fully understood the value of accurate intelligence, employing many of the same techniques later used by the OSS and CIA.

As we celebrate the 284th birthday of the first American President, we highlight some of the tradecraft employed to secure our independence from the British and offer insights on its use today. Were it not for the use of secret writing, concealment devises, propaganda, and intercepted communications, there may have been a very different outcome to the War of Independence.

* * * * *

SECRET WRITING

Revolutionary War: American agents serving abroad composed their intelligence reports using invisible ink. George Washington believed this would “not only render his communications less exposed to detection, but relieve the fears of such persons as may be entrusted in its conveyance.”

Communicating via invisible ink required the use of several chemical compositions. One mixture was used to write with disappearing ink, the other mixture was applied to the report to make it legible. Despite their invisible communications, it is estimated that the British intercepted and decrypted over half of America’s secret correspondence during the war.

CIA: The CIA has declassified several documents that provided recipes for making invisible ink. One recipe instructs: “Take a weak solution of starch, tinged with a little tincture of iodine. This bluish writing will soon fade away.” A mixture for exposing secret writing included “iodate of potassium, 5 grams, with 100 grams of water, and 2 grams of tartaric acid added” but warned, “run a hot iron over the surface being careful not to scorch the paper.”

During the Cold War, a major advancement in secret writing technology was the shift from liquid invisible inks to dry systems. The KGB was one of the first foreign intelligence services to employ a dry method. The CIA’s Office of Technical Services in the Directorate of Science and Technology spent considerable time researching Soviet systems and finally succeeded not only in “breaking” them, but in anticipating where its KGB counterpart would go next in the never-ending search for more secure systems. By the end of the Cold War, a kind of tacit convergence had emerged as both sides applied new techniques that used very small, almost undetectable quantities of chemical in secret writing messages. In the words of one CIA chemist, it was like “uniformly spreading a spoonful of sugar over an acre of land.”

CONCEALMENT DEVISES

Revolutionary War: Agents used a variety of modified objects to conceal their secret messages.  One device was a wafer-thin lead container that would sink in water, or melt in fire, thus destroying its contents. The device was small enough that an agent could swallow it if no other means of discarding were available. This was done as a last resort as ingestion was typically followed by a severe bout of lead poisoning. The lead container was eventually replaced by a silver, bullet-shaped container that could be unscrewed to hold a message and which would not poison a courier who might be forced to swallow it.

CIA:  A concealment devise can be any object used to clandestinely hide things. They are typically ordinary, every-day objects that have been hollowed out. The best concealment devises are ones that blend in with their surroundings and call no attention to themselves. They can be used to hide messages, documents, or film. Some examples of concealment devises include hollowed out coins,dead-drop spikes, shaving brushes, and makeup compacts.

PROPAGANDA

Revolutionary War: During the American Revolution, the British had a shortage of soldiers so they hired almost 30,000 German Hessian auxiliary forces to fight against the Americans. The Continental Congress devised a propaganda campaign to encourage the Hessian mercenaries to defect to America. The campaign included offering land grants to those mercenaries fighting for the British on American soil. The offers were written in German on leaflets disguised as tobacco packets. A mock-defector ran through the mercenaries’ camps encouraging others to defect as well. As part of the campaign, Benjamin Franklin forged a letter to the commander of the Hessians, “signed” by a German prince. The letter instructed the commander to let the wounded mercenaries die. This dealt a blow to the morale of the Hessians. Between 5,000 and 6,000 Hessian mercenaries deserted from the British, in part because of American propaganda.

CIA: Propaganda campaigns use communication to alter a population’s beliefs and views thus influencing their behavior. There are three types ofpropaganda: white, black, and grey. White propaganda openly identifies the source and uses gentle persuasion and public relations techniques to achieve a desired outcome. For example, during the Persian Gulf War, the CIA airdropped leafletsbefore some Allied bombing runs to allow civilians time to evacuate and encourage military units to surrender. Black propaganda, on the other hand, is misinformation that identifies itself with one side of a conflict, but is truly produced by the opposing side – like Franklin sending the letter “from” a German prince. Grey propaganda is the most mysterious of all because the source of the propaganda is never identified.

INTERCEPTED COMMUNICATIONS

Revolutionary War: The Continental Congress regularly received quantities of intercepted British mail. General Washington proposed to "contrive a means of opening them without breaking the seals, take copies of the contents, and then let them go on. By these means we should become masters of the whole plot."

CIA: Clandestinely opening, reading and resealing envelopes or packages without the recipient’s knowledge requires practice. ‘Flaps and seals’ opening kits were used in the 1960s. A beginner’s kit offered the basic tools for surreptitious opening of letters and packages. Once mastered, anadvanced kit with additional tools was used. Many of the tools were handmade of ivory and housed in a travel roll.

* * * * *

Washington employed the use of many other intelligence gathering techniques still in use today to secure our independence and freedom from Great Britain. Not only is he The Father of His Country, but he is heralded as a great spymaster. Upon the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, a defeated British intelligence officer is quoted as saying, “Washington did not really outfight the British. He simply out-spied us.”

Romeo and Juliet

In the streets of Verona another brawl breaks out between the servants of the feuding noble families of Capulet and Montague. Benvolio, a Montague, tries to stop the fighting, but is himself embroiled when the rash Capulet, Tybalt, arrives on the scene. After citizens outraged by the constant violence beat back the warring factions, Prince Escalus, the ruler of Verona, attempts to prevent any further conflicts between the families by decreeing death for any individual who disturbs the peace in the future.

Romeo, the son of Montague, runs into his cousin Benvolio, who had earlier seen Romeo moping in a grove of sycamores. After some prodding by Benvolio, Romeo confides that he is in love with Rosaline, a woman who does not return his affections. Benvolio counsels him to forget this woman and find another, more beautiful one, but Romeo remains despondent.

Meanwhile, Paris, a kinsman of the Prince, seeks Juliet’s hand in marriage. Her father Capulet, though happy at the match, asks Paris to wait two years, since Juliet is not yet even fourteen. Capulet dispatches a servant with a list of people to invite to a masquerade and feast he traditionally holds. He invites Paris to the feast, hoping that Paris will begin to win Juliet’s heart.

Romeo and Benvolio, still discussing Rosaline, encounter the Capulet servant bearing the list of invitations. Benvolio suggests that they attend, since that will allow Romeo to compare his beloved to other beautiful women of Verona. Romeo agrees to go with Benvolio to the feast, but only because Rosaline, whose name he reads on the list, will be there.

In Capulet’s household, young Juliet talks with her mother, Lady Capulet, and her nurse about the possibility of marrying Paris. Juliet has not yet considered marriage, but agrees to look at Paris during the feast to see if she thinks she could fall in love with him.

The feast begins. A melancholy Romeo follows Benvolio and their witty friend Mercutio to Capulet’s house. Once inside, Romeo sees Juliet from a distance and instantly falls in love with her; he forgets about Rosaline completely. As Romeo watches Juliet, entranced, a young Capulet, Tybalt, recognizes him, and is enraged that a Montague would sneak into a Capulet feast. He prepares to attack, but Capulet holds him back. Soon, Romeo speaks to Juliet, and the two experience a profound attraction. They kiss, not even knowing each other’s names. When he finds out from Juliet’s nurse that she is the daughter of Capulet—his family’s enemy—he becomes distraught. When Juliet learns that the young man she has just kissed is the son of Montague, she grows equally upset.

As Mercutio and Benvolio leave the Capulet estate, Romeo leaps over the orchard wall into the garden, unable to leave Juliet behind. From his hiding place, he sees Juliet in a window above the orchard and hears her speak his name. He calls out to her, and they exchange vows of love.

Romeo hurries to see his friend and confessor Friar Lawrence, who, though shocked at the sudden turn of Romeo’s heart, agrees to marry the young lovers in secret since he sees in their love the possibility of ending the age-old feud between Capulet and Montague. The following day, Romeo and Juliet meet at Friar Lawrence’s cell and are married. The Nurse, who is privy to the secret, procures a ladder, which Romeo will use to climb into Juliet’s window for their wedding night.

The next day, Benvolio and Mercutio encounter Tybalt—Juliet’s cousin—who, still enraged that Romeo attended Capulet’s feast, has challenged Romeo to a duel. Romeo appears. Now Tybalt’s kinsman by marriage, Romeo begs the Capulet to hold off the duel until he understands why Romeo does not want to fight. Disgusted with this plea for peace, Mercutio says that he will fight Tybalt himself. The two begin to duel. Romeo tries to stop them by leaping between the combatants. Tybalt stabs Mercutio under Romeo’s arm, and Mercutio dies. Romeo, in a rage, kills Tybalt. Romeo flees from the scene. Soon after, the Prince declares him forever banished from Verona for his crime. Friar Lawrence arranges for Romeo to spend his wedding night with Juliet before he has to leave for Mantua the following morning.

In her room, Juliet awaits the arrival of her new husband. The Nurse enters, and, after some confusion, tells Juliet that Romeo has killed Tybalt. Distraught, Juliet suddenly finds herself married to a man who has killed her kinsman. But she resettles herself, and realizes that her duty belongs with her love: to Romeo.

Romeo sneaks into Juliet’s room that night, and at last they consummate their marriage and their love. Morning comes, and the lovers bid farewell, unsure when they will see each other again. Juliet learns that her father, affected by the recent events, now intends for her to marry Paris in just three days. Unsure of how to proceed—unable to reveal to her parents that she is married to Romeo, but unwilling to marry Paris now that she is Romeo’s wife—Juliet asks her nurse for advice. She counsels Juliet to proceed as if Romeo were dead and to marry Paris, who is a better match anyway. Disgusted with the Nurse’s disloyalty, Juliet disregards her advice and hurries to Friar Lawrence. He concocts a plan to reunite Juliet with Romeo in Mantua. The night before her wedding to Paris, Juliet must drink a potion that will make her appear to be dead. After she is laid to rest in the family’s crypt, the Friar and Romeo will secretly retrieve her, and she will be free to live with Romeo, away from their parents’ feuding.

Juliet returns home to discover the wedding has been moved ahead one day, and she is to be married tomorrow. That night, Juliet drinks the potion, and the Nurse discovers her, apparently dead, the next morning. The Capulets grieve, and Juliet is entombed according to plan. But Friar Lawrence’s message explaining the plan to Romeo never reaches Mantua. Its bearer, Friar John, gets confined to a quarantined house. Romeo hears only that Juliet is dead.

Romeo learns only of Juliet’s death and decides to kill himself rather than live without her. He buys a vial of poison from a reluctant Apothecary, then speeds back to Verona to take his own life at Juliet’s tomb. Outside the Capulet crypt, Romeo comes upon Paris, who is scattering flowers on Juliet’s grave. They fight, and Romeo kills Paris. He enters the tomb, sees Juliet’s inanimate body, drinks the poison, and dies by her side. Just then, Friar Lawrence enters and realizes that Romeo has killed Paris and himself. At the same time, Juliet awakes. Friar Lawrence hears the coming of the watch. When Juliet refuses to leave with him, he flees alone. Juliet sees her beloved Romeo and realizes he has killed himself with poison. She kisses his poisoned lips, and when that does not kill her, buries his dagger in her chest, falling dead upon his body.

The watch arrives, followed closely by the Prince, the Capulets, and Montague. Montague declares that Lady Montague has died of grief over Romeo’s exile. Seeing their children’s bodies, Capulet and Montague agree to end their long-standing feud and to raise gold statues of their children side-by-side in a newly peaceful Verona.

Source is Sparknotes
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/romeojuliet/summary.html

10 rounds as usual... Develop a system

You only have 1441 days left 'til January 2020.

Germany deployed Zeppelins during WW1
During "Christmas Truce" of 1914, soldiers from each side played games of Soccer
2010, Germany finally paid of WW1 reparations
The Treaty of Versailles limited the Germany army to 100,000 men
April 1917, the month in which USA declared war on Germany
Peter Ustinov - Father fought as WW1 figher pilot in Germany
Ireland - Lusitania sunk off the coast of Ireland

World War 2
After seizing the French archives, Nazis destroyed master copy of Treaty of Versailles
Highest award for bravery in the US, is the Medal Of Honor
Operation Overlord - code name for the Invasion of Normandy by the Allies
Jean-Louis Darlan - French Admiral & commander of the Vichy fleet
Marianas Turkey Shoot - Battle Of the Philippine Sea
Romania - joined Tripartite Pact in late Nov 1940
Appeasement - Britain & France's policy towards Germany in the lead up to WW2

Star Wars
Luke Skywalker grew up on Tatooine
"Join me and I will complete your training"
In "A New Hope" what happens to Luke's Aunt and Uncle after Luke finds Obi-Wan = killed by Storm Troopers
Yoda lifts his X-Wing from the swamp in "The Empire Strikes Back" that shocks Luke
Reek is what Anakin rode in "Attack Of The Clones"
Episode 3 - Anakin returns to what news from Padme - "That she is Pregnant"
Imperial Center - official name of planet wide City Coruscant during Galactic Empire, Star Wars

Star Trek
Jeffrey Combs - Thylek Shran in Enterprise
Denobulan - Dr. Phlox in Enterprise
Vorta - Weyoun in Deep Space Nine
Leonard Nimoy - Mr. Spock in original series
178 - episodes, "Star Trek: The Next Generation"
George Takei - Mr. Sulu in original series
Mr. Woof - In Star Trek: The Next Generation what Mrs. Troi calls Woof

Shakespeare
Juliet belongs to Capulet house
154 Sonnets written by Shakespeare
Hamlet is set in Denmark, by Shakespeare
Elizabeth I was British monarch when Shakespeare was born
Enobarbus provides a poetic description of Cleopatra's barge
Virgillia is the name of the title character's wife in "Coriolanus"
Julius Caesar - an anachronistic Shakespeare play which depicts the tolling of a clock, centuries before such clocks were invented

Boxing -
WBA - A is for Association
Robert De Niro - is Jake LaMotta in the film "Raging Bull"
1986 - Mike Tyson became youngest World Heavyweight Champion
Dempsey VS Tunney - two boxers were involved in "Battle of the Long Count" in 1927
Ukraine - Klitschko brothers originated from Ukraine

Golf - 7
Dog - A hole with a fairway that bends is usually described with reference to which animal
Green - color jacket that winer of Masters golf tournament traditionally wears
Red - Tiger Woods traditionally wears on the last day of a golf tournament
Golf - Eugenio Saraceni changed his name to Gene Sarazen and became a legend in golf
Fuzzy Zoeller -  defeated Greg Norman in a play off to win 1984 US Open
Hootie Johnson - former Chairman of Augusta National was known for his battle w/ militant feminist Martha Burk
He wears two golf gloves - American golfer Tommy Gainey is known for this unusual custom

Baseball
Carlos May's bday is May 17, wore #17 Jersey
Philadelphia Phillies, only MLB team with a bell in its logo
42 - Mariano Rivera was last active major leaguer to wear what  number
Mel Ott - first Giant to hit 30  home runs in a season
Jessie Orosco - entering 2014, holds the record for most games pitched
Bob Gibson - in 1968, threw 13 shutouts and set a record with an ERA of just 1.12
Ty Cobb - 1909, lead the American league with all of 9 home runs all of them inside-the-park

Animals
Indian Cobra does not have feathers
Tigress is the female ver of Tiger
Lion is the only cat with a mane
Elephants were often used in War
Llama is the domesticated ver of the guanaco
Leveret is a young hare in its first year

Geography
Red, white, green Italian flag
Himalayas, mountain range that stretches 2400km westward from a peak called Nanga Parbat to one called Namcha Barwa

Burj Al Arab is in Dubai
Germany has The Black Forest
Hong Kong, Disney opened a theme park on Sept 12 2005
Georgia is named after St. George
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The only Allied country who won but paid compensation was the USA, to Japan. In 1988, under the Civil Liberties Act, U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, apologized to the Japanese-Americans interned in camps during World War II and agreed to pay $20,000 to each surviving former detainee.

At the conference on German External Debts, in London, 1952, Germany's post-war debts were written down to just under 7 billion deutschemarks (worth about $3 billion at today's currency rates) from 16.2 billion deutschemarks, whilst its pre-war debts were reduced to 7.3 billion deutschemarks,

Additionally, Germany had to relinquish the country's power and divide itself initially into four Allied-owned zones, which were demilitarized and removed of their weaponry.

On January 14th 1946, in Paris, two forms of reparation were set up for the allies, in forms of shares: all reparations including funds, and those in the form of 'industrial and other capital equipment'. The U.K., U.S., France and Yugoslavia were the biggest shareholders.

On top of that, Germany signed an agreement on September 10th 1952, confirming that West Germany would agree to pay 3 billion deutschemarks to Israel in instalments and 450 million deutschemarks to the World Jewish Congress, a federation which represents Jewish communities, over 12 years.

Similar to the situation with Greece, Israel's finance minister, Yuval Steinitz, announced in 2009 that he wanted Germany to pay between 450 million to 1 billion euros in reparations for Jews forced into slave labor during the Holocaust – despite the fact that Germany had paid off their allocated debt to Israel.

While it remains unclear on how much Germany originally owed and how much it has to pay back now – given interest on top of the original loan and countries claiming they haven't been paid enough – one writer has hazarded an estimate. According to Pablo De Grieff, author of "The Handbook of Reparations", by September 30th 1965, Germany had paid $4.5 billion, which rose to a total of more than $38.6 billion by 2000.

Japan

For Japan, paying back its WWII reparations were more complicated. After WWII, it was estimated that by the Allies that Japan had lost 42 percent of its national wealth. Therefore in 1951, Japan signed a treaty to which would work for both sides.

Signed in San Francisco 1951, the 'Treaty of Peace with Japan', meant that "Japan will transfer its assets and those of its nationals in countries which were neutral during the war, or which were at war with any of the Allied Powers, or, at its option, the equivalent of such assets, to the International Committee of the Red Cross which shall liquidate such assets and distribute the resultant fund to appropriate national agencies."

In total, Japan's government agreed to make a payment of $6.67million to the International Red Cross, as compensation to former prisoners of war.

Yuirko Nakao | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Christopher Gerteis, Senior Lecturer in the History of Contemporary Japan, at the SOAS, University of London, told CNBC via email, that "the amounts paid, though seemingly small, were negotiated and paid during the 1950s. Indeed, most East and Southeast Asian governments consider the matter of reparations closed.

"What is important to note here is that an significant minority of South Koreans and Chinese do not accept these reparations as adequate – no matter what agreements have been signed. It is a complex issue, fraught with legal, moral, and historical concerns that strike deep at those who choose to think about it."

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Who else?

There are other countries that had to pay reparations as part of the Paris Peace Treaties agreement in 1947.

Italy ($360 million)

Italy was one of the main Axis Powers alongside Germany and Japan. Under a peace treaty, it was required to pay $125 million to Yugoslavia, $105m to Greece, $100m to the Soviet Union, $25m to Ethiopia and $5m to Albania.

Finland ($300 million)

Out of all the countries that were required to pay reparations from World War II, Finland is the only one known to have paid its bill in full when it sent $300 million to the Soviet Union in 1952.

Hungary ($300 million)

Under a peace treaty, Hungary was required to pay $200 million to the Soviet Union, and $100m to Czechslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Romania ($300 million)

Under a peace treaty, Romania had to pay $300 million to the Soviet Union, for the damage it caused with its "military operations". According to the treaty, it was to be made "payable over eight years from September 12, 1944, in commodities."

Bulgaria ($70 million)

Bulgaria was asked to pay $45 million to Greece, and $25m to Yugoslavia. For the full $70 million, the treaty said it was to be made "payable in kind from the products of manufacturing and extractive industries and agriculture over eight years."