To recap, then; our Irishman, Swinney, escapes John Bull’s navy for a whaling ship with famous owners.

Ten months later, Swinney was dead.  We don’t know what happened, but whaling is a dangerous business; he could have been killed in a hunt, or fallen overboard in a gale, or died of scurvy in the course of the Kent‘s voyage. Continue reading →

In FIFA rankings, the US mens team is ranked 22nd as of April 2011, right between the Ivory Coast and Paraguay and the same rank we finished with in 1993. In the ensuing years, we’ve averaged around 18th place. We got as high as fourth place in April of 2006 but finished that year at an abysmal 31st.