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Congressional Presentation Sword with Scabbard of Colonel Marinus Willett (1740–1830)

Sword maker: C. Liger (French, Paris, recorded 1770–93)

Dated: hallmarked for 1785–86

Geography: Paris

Culture: French, Paris

Medium: steel, silver, gold

Measurements: sword L. 39 5/8 in. (100.6 cm); scabbard L. 33 ¼ in. (84.5 cm)

This sword is one of ten “elegant swords” awarded by the Continental Congress to various officers for meritorious action against the British during the American Revolution. Owing to lack of funds, the swords were not executed until 1785–86. They were made not by an American craftsman but by one of the finest fourbisseurs (sword retailers) in Paris.

The decoration, in part prescribed by Congress, includes the coat of arms of the United States on one side of the grip and an appropriate presentation inscription on the other. This example is inscribed “Congress to Col. Willett, Oct. 11, 1777.” These congressional swords are the first in a long tradition of specially designed presentation swords that would be awarded to America’s military leaders throughtout the next century.

Bliss (image) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bliss is the name of the default computer wallpaper of Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system. It is an image of a rolling green hill and a blue sky with cumulus and cirrus clouds. The landscape depicted is in the Los Carneros American Viticultural Area of Sonoma County, California, United States.

Former National Geographic photographer Charles O'Rear, a resident of the nearby Napa Valley, took the photo on film with a medium-format camera while on his way to visit his girlfriend in 1996. While it was widely believed later that the image was digitally manipulated or even created with software such as Adobe Photoshop, O'Rear says it never was. He sold it to Corbis for use as a stock photo. Several years later, Microsoft engineers chose a digitized version of the image and licensed it from O'Rear.