- Polonium (Wikipedia)
Polonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Po and atomic number 84. A rare and highly radioactive metal (although sometimes classified as a metalloid) with no stable isotopes, polonium is a chalcogen and chemically similar to selenium and tellurium, though its metallic character resembles that of its horizontal neighbors in the periodic table: thallium, lead, and bismuth. Due to the short half-life of all its isotopes, its natural occurrence is limited to tiny traces of the fleeting polonium-210 (with a half-life of 138 days) in uranium ores, as it is the penultimate daughter of natural uranium-238. Though longer-lived isotopes exist, such as the 124 years half-life of polonium-209, they are much more difficult to produce. Today, polonium is usually produced in milligram quantities by the neutron irradiation of bismuth. Due to its intense radioactivity, which results in the radiolysis of chemical bonds and radioactive self-heating, its chemistry has mostly been investigated on the trace scale only.
- William Robert “Blanket Bill” Jarman, 1820-1912, lord of Jarman Prairie and first permanent Whatcom/Skagit settler — Part One (skagitriverjournal.com)
William “Blanket Bill” Jarman was one of those frontier characters who became famous by inventing and reinventing themselves several times over. That reinvention and redemption has become almost a cliche about the famous Western historical figures, but Bill made an art of it. His nickname is derived from one of the tall tales he loved to spin, a legacy from being a sailor in both the Atlantic and Pacific who deserted from the British Navy at least once and covered his tracks with more than one conflicting scenario. Born an Englishmen at Grave’s End on the Thames River near London, probably in 1820, he would make his mark by being one of the very first European settlers in northwestern Washington Territory and the first to live among Indians for a sustained period.