Category: Jim Holland

Bill’s time: 14m 03s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1. Dutch actress Verbeek of “Outlander” : LOTTE

Lotte Verbeek is a Dutch actress who played Pope Alexander VI’s mistress on the historical TV drama “The Borgias”, and Geillis Duncan on the excellent TV drama “Outlander”. Verbeek is quite the linguist, speaking Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and Gaelic.

Author Diana Gabaldon is best known for her “Outlander” series of novels, which were adapted into a very successful (and entertaining) television drama. The “Outlander” books are set in Scotland, and involve time travel. Gabaldon tells us that she was inspired to write her first “Outlander” book after watching an episode of “Doctor Who”.

11. “Point Break” plot, e.g. : CAPER

“Point Break” is a 1991 film about an FBI agent investigating a series of robberies, with suspicion falling on a group of surfer dudes. Famously, Patrick Swayze plays the leader of the surfers, and Keanu Reeves the rookie FBI agent. A “point break” is location where waves hit a point of land jutting out from a coastline. The film was remade in 2015 under the same title.

16. One coming out : DEB

“Deb” is short for “debutante”, which translates from French as “beginner” when referring to a female.

19. Type of eye layer : UVEAL

The uvea is the middle of the three layers that make up the eyeball. The outer layer is called the fibrous tunic, and the inner layer is the retina.

20. 348-seat Parisian body : SENAT

In French, the “Parlement français” (French parliament) is divided into the “Sénat” (Senate) and the “Assemblée nationale” (National Assembly).

22. Talkative fighter : ALI

Muhammad Ali first used his famous catchphrase “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” before his world title fight against Sonny Liston in 1964. Back then Ali still went by his birth name of Cassius Clay.

23. Red misplays? : CINCINNATI BUNGLES (from “Cincinnati Bengals”)

The NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals team was founded in 1966 as a member of the American Football League (AFL). There was an earlier team called the Bengals in the city that played from 1937 to 1941. That team used the “Bengal” name because Cincinnati Zoo was home to a very rare Bengal tiger.

26. Three sheets to the wind : LIT

A sheet is the rope that is used to control a sail on a sailing vessel. The expression “three sheets to the wind” meaning “drunk” dates back to the early 1800s. It likely derives from the notion that a sailboat with three sails, and with all three sheets slipped out of control, would behave like someone who was drunk, and vice versa.

29. Gophers and gardeners, say : ENEMIES

Gophers are burrowing rodents that are more fully referred to as “pocket gophers”. While it’s not clear how the name “goper” arose, the “pocket” reference is to the animals large cheek pouches.

31. Word from the French for “clear the table” : DESSERT

Our word “dessert” comes from the French verb “desservir” meaning “to clear the table”. The idea is that dessert is usually the the last course to be cleared from the table.

34. DDE’s domain : ETO

General Dwight D. Eisenhower (DDE) was in command of the European Theater of Operations (ETO) during WWII.

43. Hard shoe : SABOT

There is a story that disgruntled textile workers would kick their wooden shoes, called “sabots”, into the looms in order to disable them so that they didn’t have to work. This act of vandalism was named for the shoe, an act of … “sabotage”.

48. Inventory acronym : FIFO

In the world of accounting, inventory might be managed on a FIFO or LIFO basis. FIFO stands for first-in, first-out. LIFO stands for last-in, first-out.

50. Greek portico : STOA

A stoa was a covered walkway in Ancient Greece. A stoa usually consisted of columns lining the side of a building or buildings, with another row of columns defining the other side of the walkway. The columns supported a roof. Often stoae would surround marketplaces in large cities.

“Portico” is an Italian word that describes a porch or roofed walkway leading to the entrance of a building.

51. Slaughter of old baseball : ENOS

Enos Slaughter has a remarkable playing record in Major League Baseball over a 19-year career. Slaughter’s record is particularly remarkable given that he left baseball for three years to serve in the military during WWII.

52. Loser who finds a silver lining? : GRATEFUL DUD (from “Grateful Dead”)

The idiom “every cloud has a silver lining” suggests that there is something good to be found in in every bad situation. The phrase “silver lining” was coined by English poet John Milton in “Comus”, a piece of dramatic entertainment that was first performed in 1634. The relevant lines are:

Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err; there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

The Grateful Dead were a rock band from the San Francisco Bay Area that was founded in 1965. “The Dead” disbanded in 1995 following the death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia. Grateful Dead fans (the ranks of whom include my wife) refer to themselves as “Deadheads”.

55. Online marketplace : ETSY

Etsy.com is an e-commerce website where you can buy and sell the kind of items that you might find at a craft fair.

58. “__ Believer”: ’60s hit : I’M A

“I’m a Believer” was a big hit for the Monkees in 1966. The Monkees recording of “I’m a Believer” is a cover version. The song was written and originally recorded by Neil Diamond.

59. Prius producer : TOYOTA

The Toyota Prius is still the most fuel-efficient, gasoline-powered car sold in the US, according to the EPA. The name “Prius” is a Latin word meaning “ahead, leading”. In the US we pronounce the name “pree-us”, but across the Atlantic it’s pronounced “pry-us”. According to Toyota, the plural of “Prius” is “Prii”.

60. Becoming an item, maybe : DATING

An unmarried couple known to be involved with each other might appear in the gossip columns. This appearance as “an item” in the papers, led to the use of “item” to refer to such a couple, but only since the very early seventies.

65. __ Paulo : SAO

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil. It is also the city with the highest number of helicopters in the world. This is partly driven by the horrendous traffic jams in São Paulo, but also by the wealthy having a very real fear of being kidnapped on the city’s streets.

69. Major Hindu deity : RAMA

In the Hindu tradition, the god known as Vishnu has seven different avatars i.e. incarnations or manifestations. Rama is the seventh of these avatars.

70. Mysteriously-appearing debris? : RUBBLE WITHOUT A CAUSE (from “Rebel Without a Cause”)

“Rebel Without a Cause” is a 1955 drama movie starring actor James Dean, who died just before the film’s release. The title comes from a 1944 book by psychiatrist Robert M. Lindner “Rebel Without a Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath”, although the content of the book has no bearing on the movie’s storyline. The three lead actors in the movie all died tragically, and while relatively young:

• James Dean (24), in a car crash in 1955
• Sal Mineo (37), in a stabbing in 1976
• Natalie Wood (43), in a drowning in 1981

78. Mark not to play : REST

That would be musical notation.

79. Red or Black : … SEA

There are four seas named in English for colors:

• the Yellow Sea
• the Black Sea
• the Red Sea
• the White Sea.

80. Red Baron’s conflict, briefly : WWI

Manfred von Richthofen was a famous WWI fighter pilot flying for the Germans and was known as the Red Baron. Von Richthofen was credited with more kills than any other pilot fighting on either side of the conflict, recording over 80 combat victories. He didn’t survive the war though, as he was shot down near Amiens in France in 1918.

81. Berlin article : EIN

The definite article in German is der, die or das, for masculine, feminine and neuter nouns. The indefinite article is ein, eine or ein, again depending on the gender of the noun. A further complication, relative to English, is that the masculine form (and only the masculine form) of the article changes when used in the accusative case, when used with the object of a sentence. The accusative forms are “den” and “einen”.

Berlin is the capital and largest city in Germany, and is the second most populous city in the European Union (after London).

89. Annoying type : NOODGE

“Noodge” is a slang term meaning “to nag”, or as a noun meaning “a nag”. It comes into English from the Yiddish word “nudyen” meaning “to bore, be tedious”.

92. “__ du lieber!” : ACH

The German exclamation “Ach du lieber” translates as “Oh dear”.

95. Groans from a Russian egg producer? : FABERGE UGHS (from “Fabergé eggs”)

Fabergé eggs are beautiful jeweled eggs made by the House of Fabergé from 1885 to 1917. The tradition of fabricating the eggs started when Tsar Alexander III commissioned Fabergé to create a jeweled egg for his wife in 1885. After this, the House of Fabergé produced more and more elaborate designs, year after year.

97. Virginia __ : REEL

The Virginia reel is a folk dance that dates back to the 17th century.

99. End notes : CODA

In music, a coda is primarily a passage that brings a movement to a conclusion. “Coda” is Italian for “tail”.

104. Big Apple mongrels? : NEW YORK MUTTS (from “New York Mets”)

Apparently, the first published use of the term “Big Apple” to describe New York City dates back to 1909. Edward Martin wrote the following in his book “The Wayfarer in New York”:

Kansas is apt to see in New York a greedy city. . . . It inclines to think that the big apple gets a disproportionate share of the national sap.

Over ten years later, the term “big apple” was used as a nickname for racetracks in and around New York City. However, the concerted effort to “brand” the city as the Big Apple had to wait until the seventies and was the work of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The New York Mets baseball team was founded in 1962 as a replacement for two teams that the city had lost, namely the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. For several years the Mets played very poorly, finishing no better than second-to-last in their division. Then along came the “Miracle Mets” (aka “Amazin’ Mets”) who beat the Baltimore Orioles in 1969 to claim the World Series in a huge upset.

108. Easy mark : SAP

“Sap” is slang for “fool, someone easily scammed”. The term arose in the early 1800s in Britain when it was used in “saphead” and “sapskull”. All these words derive from “sapwood”, which is the softwood found in tree trunks between the bark and the heartwood at the center.

110. Short brew? : IPA

India pale ale (IPA) is a style of beer that originated in England. The beer was originally intended for transportation from England to India, hence the name.

111. Indian wraps : SARIS

The item of clothing called a “sari” (also “saree”) is a strip of cloth, as one might imagine, unusual perhaps in that is unstitched along the whole of its length. The strip of cloth can range from four to nine meters long (that’s a lot of material!). The sari is usually wrapped around the waist, then draped over the shoulder leaving the midriff bare. I must say, it can be a beautiful item of clothing.

119. Marshmallow-filled snack : MOON PIE

Marshmallow cream was developed in 1927. Soon after, workers in the coal mines around Chattanooga, Tennessee started dipping graham crackers in marshmallow cream as a snack. Then a local baker jumped on the idea, and came up with a sandwich made with a marshmallow filling between two round graham crackers. His young grandson remarked that the popped bubbles in the marshmallow (from baking) looked like moon craters, and the Moon Pie was born. I used to love them as a kid, although we called them “Wagon Wheels” in our part of the world.

127. Confusion about who really won an international competition? : OLYMPIC GOLD MUDDLE (from “Olympic gold medal”)

In the Ancient Olympic Games, the winner of an event was awarded an olive wreath. When the games were revived in 1896, the winners were originally given a silver medal and an olive branch, with runners-up receiving a bronze medal and a laurel branch. The tradition of giving gold, silver and bronze medals began at the 1904 Summer Olympic Games held in St. Louis, Missouri.

130. Med. lab letters : LDL

LDL (low-density lipoprotein) is one of the compounds responsible for transporting fats around the body. When LDL is combined with cholesterol it can be referred to as “bad cholesterol”. This is because LDL actually transports cholesterol into the inner walls of blood vessels leading to atherosclerosis.

132. Small-truck company : TONKA

The toy manufacturer today known as Tonka started out as a manufacturer of garden implements in Mound, Minnesota in 1946. By 1955, toys had become the main product line for the company. At that time the owners decided to change the company name and opted for “Tonka”, a Dakota Sioux word meaning “great, big”.

133. Freshwater bulrushes : TULES

Tule is a species of sedge that is found in freshwater marshes in North America. The phrase “out in the tules” used to be popular, but has largely been replaced by “out in the boondocks”. Tule is particularly common in California, so much so that it gave rise to the names of Tulare County and Tulare Lake.

134. Menu general : TSO

General Tso’s chicken is an American creation, and a dish often found on the menu of a Chinese restaurant. The name General Tso may be a reference to General Zuo Zongtang of the Qing Dynasty, but there is no clear link.

135. Pelé’s first name : EDSON

“Pelé” is the nickname of Edson de Nascimento, a soccer player who has used the name “Pelé” for most of his life. Pelé is now retired, and for my money was the world’s greatest ever player of the game. He is the only person to have been a member of three World Cup winning squads (1958, 1962 and 1970), and is a national treasure in his native Brazil. One of Pele’s nicknames is “O Rei do Futebol” (the King of Football).

136. Snidely Whiplash look : SNEER

Dudley Do-Right appeared on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, a cartoon that appeared on television in a couple of different versions from 1959-1964. Dudley was a bungling Mountie who struggled with his nemesis, the evil Snidely Whiplash, while pursuing the romantic intentions of Nell Fenwick (who always seemed to prefer Dudley’s horse!).

137. Playoff rankings : SEEDS

A seeded player or team in a tournament is one given a preliminary ranking that is used in the initial draw. The intention is that the better competitors do are less likely to meet each other in the early rounds.

Down

2. Sheepish? : OVINE

The Latin word for “sheep” is “ovis”, giving us the adjective “ovine” meaning “like a sheep”.

6. “Catch 21” airer, initially : GSN

“Catch 21” is a game show broadcast on the Game Show Network that is based on blackjack and trivia. It originally aired from 2008 to 2011.

10. “Venerable” Eng. monk : ST BEDE

The Venerable Bede was a monk in the north of England in the eighth century AD. Saint Bede is mainly known as an author and scholar, publisher of “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People”. In his writings, Bede struggled with the two common ways of referring to dates at that time. Bede turned to the anno domini dating method that had been devised by Dionysius Exiguus in 525. Bede’s writings of circa 730 were extremely influential and helped popularize the the “anno domini” method.

11. Something in your eye : CONTACT

The concepts that underpin the technology of contact lenses date back to Leonardo Da Vinci. Although Da Vinci didn’t propose the development of the contact lens, he did write about correcting vision by submerging the eye in a bowl of water. Over a hundred years later, René Descartes made a somewhat impractical suggestion, but along the right lines, of using a glass tube filled with liquid that could be placed in contact with the eye to correct vision. The first real contact lenses were developed by German ophthalmologist Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick in 1887.

12. Mor. neighbor : ALG

Algeria is a huge country, the second largest in Africa (only Sudan is larger), and the largest country on the Mediterranean. The capital of Algeria is Algiers, and the country takes its name from the city.

The country of Morocco is located in North Africa, but lies just 9 miles south of Spain. Spain and Morocco, and hence Europe and Africa, are separated by those 9 miles across the Mediterranean Sea known as the Straits of Gibraltar.

16. “Lobster Telephone” artist : DALI

“Lobster Telephone” is a work by surrealist artist Salvador Dalí that dates back to 1936. It consists of a telephone with a plaster lobster lying across the handpiece.

17. Tahari of fashion : ELIE

Elie Tahari is an American fashion designer, although he was born in Jerusalem. Tahari immigrated to the US from Israel in 1971 and started work as an electrician in the Garment District in New York City. It was there that he became interested in fashion.

24. Regular at Sam’s bar : NORM

The character of Norm Peterson was the only customer of the bar to appear in every episode of “Cheers”, something that one couldn’t really call ironic since he loved that barstool! George Wendt played Norm, and I suppose the fact the Wendt was expelled from Notre Dame after one semester, with a 0.0 GPA, might have helped him get the role!

On the sitcom “Cheers”, barman Sam Malone was played by Ted Danson. Malone was a retired relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, and a recovering alcoholic. Great show …

30. Gloomy Gus : MOPE

The original Gloomy Gus was a pessimistic character in newspaper comics in the early 1900s, who was introduced to the public by illustrator Frederick Burr.

32. Vegan staple : TOFU

“Tofu” is a name for bean curd, and is a Japanese word meaning just that … bean that has curdled. Tofu is produced by coagulating soy milk, using either salt or something acidic. Once the protein has coagulated, the curds are pressed into the familiar blocks. Personally I love tofu, but my wife, she absolutely hates it …

41. One in a researcher’s stack : TOME

“Tome” first came into English from the Latin “tomus” which means “section of a book”. The original usage in English was for a single volume in a multi-volume work. By the late 16th century, “tome” had come to mean “large book”.

42. Title derived from “Caesar” : TSAR

The term “czar” (also “tsar”) is a Slavic word that was first used as a title by Simeon I of Bulgaria in 913 AD. “Czar” is derived from the word “Caesar”, which was synonymous with “emperor” at that time.

43. Some NCOs : SGTS

A non-commissioned officer (NCO) might be a sergeant (sgt.) or a corporal (cpl.).

45. Catfish habitat : BAYOU

A bayou is a marshy inlet or outlet of a lake or river, usually with stagnant or slow-moving water. The exact origins of the term “bayou” is uncertain, but it is thought perhaps to come from the Choctaw (a Native American people from the southeast) word “bayuk”, meaning “small stream”.

46. Nebraska native : OTO

The Otoe (also “Oto”) Native American tribe originated in the Great Lakes region as part of the Winnebago or Siouan tribes. The group that would become the Otoe broke away from the Winnebago and migrated southwestward, ending up in the Great Plains. In the plains the Otoe adopted a semi-nomadic lifestyle dependent on the horse, with the American bison becoming central to their diet.

47. Saigon holiday : TET

The full name for the New Year holiday in Vietnam is “Tet Nguyen Dan” meaning “Feast of the First Morning”, with the reference being to the arrival of the season of spring. Tet usually falls on the same day as Chinese New Year.

Hanoi (“Hà Nội” in Vietnamese) was the capital of North Vietnam, and Saigon the capital of South Vietnam. After the Vietnam War, Hanoi was made capital of the reunified state. Saigon, the larger metropolis, was renamed to Ho Chi Minh City. Hanoi is located in the delta of the Red River, and is just over 50 miles from the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea.

49. OTC drug regulator : FDA

Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs don’t need a prescription (Rx).

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has its roots in the Division of Chemistry (later “Bureau of Chemistry”) that was part of the US Department of Agriculture. President Theodore Roosevelt gave responsibility for examination of food and drugs to the Bureau of Chemistry with the signing of the Pure Food and Drug Act. The Bureau’s name was changed to the Food, Drug and Insecticide Organization in 1927, and to the Food and Drug Administration in 1930.

57. Arizona county or its seat : YUMA

The city and county of Yuma, Arizona take their name from the Quechan (aka “Yuma”) Native American tribe that inhabited the area.

62. African antelope : GNU

The gnu is also known as the wildebeest, and is an antelope native to Africa. “Wildebeest” is a Dutch meaning “wild beast”.

64. 19th Greek letter : TAU

Tau is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet, and the letter which gave rise to our Roman “T”. Both the letters tau (T) and chi (X) have long been symbolically associated with the cross.

72. Composer Bartók : BELA

Bela Bartók was a composer and a pianist. After Liszt, Bartók is perhaps considered by many to be Hungary’s greatest composer.

74. Good place for driving : TEE

In the game of golf, a “tee” is a wooden or plastic peg on which one can place a ball when “teeing off”. Also, the “teeing ground” (sometimes “tee” or “tee box”) is the area at the beginning of the hole from which the first stroke is taken, from where one tees off.

75. Some junior high students : TWEENS

The term “tween” is used to describe preadolescence, the years “between” 8 and 12 years of age.

76. Marsh plant : SEDGE

Sedges are a family of plants that resemble grasses and rushes. Sedges are more properly called Cyperaceae.

77. Word before ball or after figure : EIGHT …

Eight-ball and nine-ball are arguably the most popular variants of pool played in North America. In eight-ball, one player sinks the striped balls and the other the solid balls. The first to sink all his or her balls and then the black 8-ball, without fouling, wins the game. In nine-ball, each player must hit the lowest numbered ball on the table first with the cue ball. The first player to sink the 9-ball wins. Sinking the nine ball can happen when first hitting the lowest bowl on the table, or possibly when balls numbered 1-8 have been sunk.

Figure skating started out as a sport in which a skater demonstrated skill at carving out specific patterns into the ice (a figure-8, for example). Over time, the sport placed greater influence on free skating. Compulsory figures were dropped completely from most international competitions in the 1990, but the name “figure skating” has been retained.

82. Untouchables leader : NESS

Eliot Ness was the Treasury agent charged with the task of bringing down the notorious Chicago gangster Al Capone. When Ness took on the job in 1930, Chicago law-enforcement agents were renowned for being corrupt, for being on the take. Ness handpicked 50 prohibition agents who he thought he could rely on, later reducing the group to a cadre of 15 and ultimately just 11 trusted men. That group of 11 earned the nickname “The Untouchables”, the agents who couldn’t be bought.

83. Old MacDonald surely had one : BARN

There was an old American version of the English children’s song “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”” (E-I-E-I-O) that was around in the days of WWI. The first line of the older US version goes “Old MacDougal had a farm, in Ohio-i-o”.

84. Big name in frozen treats : ICEE

Slush Puppie and ICEE are brands of frozen, slushy drinks. Ostensibly competing brands, ICEE company now owns the Slush Puppie brand.

88. Many a CEO’s credential : MBA

Master of Business Administration (MBA)

90. 20-volume ref. : OED

Work started on what was to become the first “Oxford English Dictionary” (OED) in 1857. Several interim versions of the dictionary were published in the coming years with the first full version appearing, in ten bound volumes, in 1928. The second edition of the OED appeared in 1989 and is made up of twenty volumes. The OED was first published in electronic form in 1988 and went online in 2000. Given the modern use of computers, the publishing house responsible feels that there will never be a third print version of the famous dictionary.

91. Francine’s “For sure” : OUI

In French, an emphatic “oui” (yes) might be said as “certainement!” (certainly!).

94. __ Pérignon : DOM

Dom Pérignon is the name given to the prestige label of champagne from Moët et Chandon, the French winery. The label’s name honors the Benedictine monk, Dom Pérignon, who helped to improve the quality and production of champagne in the early 18th century. Although Dom Pérignon made major contributions to champagne production, many of the stories in which he figures are just myths. He did not “invent” champagne, nor sparkling wine in general. Nor did he say the famous words, “Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!”. That lovely line first appeared in a print advertisement in the late 1800s!

96. Part of CD-ROM : READ

“CD-ROM” stands for “compact disc read only memory”. The name indicates that you can read information from the disc (like a standard music CD for example), but you cannot write to it. You can also buy a CD-RW, which stands for “compact disc – rewritable”, with which you can read data and also write over it multiple times using a suitable CD drive.

98. With 122-Down, Eagles classic : LYIN’ …
(122. See 98-Down : … EYES )

The Eagles song “Lyin’ Eyes” was recorded in 1975. Written by band members Don Henley and Glenn Frey, the lyrics were inspired by a meeting between a man and a woman the composers witnessed in Dan Tana’s Bar & Restaurant in Los Angeles. Henley and Frey imagined a scenario of secret love, and “Lyin’ Eyes” was born.

You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you’d realize
There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes

101. Pong maker : ATARI

Do you remember the arcade video game that was like a game of tennis, with paddles moving up and down to hit what looked like a ball, over what looked like a net? Well, that was Pong. The arcade version of Pong was introduced in 1972, with Atari selling a home version through Sears for the Christmas market in 1975.

109. Salon offering : PERM

“Perm” is the common name given to a permanent wave, a chemical or thermal treatment of hair to produce waves or curls. I don’t worry about such things, as it’s a number-one all over for me …

119. Parlor purchase : MALT

Walgreens claims to have introduced the malted milkshake, back in 1922.

121. Scandinavian capital : OSLO

The Norwegian capital of Oslo is located at the northern end of a fjord known as Oslofjord. The fjord is home to 40 islands that lie within the city’s limits. Oslo also has 343 lakes.

124. Sommer of cinema : ELKE

Elke Sommer is a German-born actress who was at the height of her success on the silver screen in the sixties. Sommer won a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer Actress for her role opposite Paul Newman in 1964’s “The Prize”. She also sings and has released several albums. Now Sommer focuses on painting, producing artwork that is strongly influenced by the work of Marc Chagall.

128. Prefix with cardial : MYO-

The myocardium is the muscle that comprises the walls of the hearts. Insufficient blood supply to the myocardium can result in the diseases angina and myocardial infarction.

129. Patriotic org. : DAR

In order to be a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), an applicant has to prove that she is a descendant of someone closely associated with, and supportive of, the American Revolution. The DAR maintains an online database of Revolutionary War patriots. The database is searchable, and is known as the Patriot Index.