The deadliest mushroom in the world is Amanita phalloides, the death cap or death cup. Eating this mushroom, which contains five different poisons, causes diarrhea and vomiting within 6 to 12 hours. This is followed by damage to the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system, and, in the majority of cases, coma and death.
Philip Freneau (1752-1832), whose poems include “American Liberty” (1775) and “The Indian Burying Ground” (1788), is known as the “poet of the American Revolution”. He was a favorite of Thomas JefferÂson’s.
No, Peter Falk, aka Lieutenant Columbo, never appeared on the series “Mrs. Columbo” (NBC, 1979). It was never completely clear that the title character, Kate Columbo (Kate Mulgrew) was even married to the rumpled policeman. Midway through the short-lived series, the character was renamed Kate Callahan and the title became “Kate Loves a Mystery.”
Unlike an air conditioner, it does not cool the air. It actually increases the air temperature because of the heat released by the motor. What makes the room seem cooler is increased air circulation over the skin, which speeds evaporation of moisture.
William Butler Yeats’ epitaph that he wrote for himself was: “Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!” The epitaph appears on Yeats’s tombstone in Drum-cliff churchyard under a mountain called Ben Bulben in County Sligo, Ireland, just as Yeats wrote in his poem “Under Ben Bulben” (1939).
Will Rogers said, “Pictures are the only business where you can sit out front and applaud yourself”.
Henry Shrapnel of England (1761-1842), an artillery officer, invented the so-called shrapnel. It was a round projectile filled with bullets and equipped with an explosive charge to scatter the shot. In later versions, fragments of the shell casing itself were found to be more deadly than the enclosed bullets. Shrapnel today refers to those fragments.
No. Originally, Little Ricky was played by a doll wrapped in a blanket. Later, two six-month-old twins, Richard and Ronald Simmons, took the part, followed by three-year-old twins Michael and Joseph Mayer. The last child to play Little Ricky was Richard Keith, whose real name was Keith Thibodeaux.
No. “Letters of transit,” authorizing people to travel without question, were a fiction used in the movie Casablanca (1942).
Founded in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a nonpartisan organization devoted to protecting constitutional rights, has nearly 300,000 members. George Bush used the term “card-carrying member of the ACLU” to darken the name of his opponent Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential campaign.
The Harder They Fall (1956), directed by Mark Robson, was Humphrey Bogart’s last film. Humphrey Bogart died of cancer in 1957.
Only pigs have humans’ intolerance of the sun and can get sunburns.
By 1940, when the Oscars ceremony was only a dozen years old, character actor Walter Brennan (18941974) had already won three Best Supporting Actor awards for his performances in Come and Get It (1936), Kentucky (1938), and The Westerner (1940). Katharine Hepburn has won four Academy Awards, for Best Actress. Ingrid Bergman won three, two … Read more
NBC’s “Meet the Press” has been running since November 20, 1947 and is the longest-running national television series. It celebrated its 40th anniversary in 1987.
The Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin to the position of first postmaster general of the United States in 1775. In 1789, Samuel Osgood was named the first postmaster general under the new Constitution.
Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson played Marianne and Johan in the Ingmar Bergman film Scenes from a Marriage (1973).
The canine silent movie star Rin Tin Tin is buried in Cimetiere du Chiens in Paris, France. The black onyx tombstone is inscribed “The Greatest Cinema Star”.
Bellow’s friend Delmore Schwartz (1913-66), poet, fiction writer, and critic, was the model for Saul Bellow’s hard-drinking poet Von Humboldt Fleisher in the novel Humboldt’s Gift.
Fahrenheit 451 (1967) is Francois Truffaut’s only film in English.
Fingerprints provide traction for your fingers, helping you to grasp things.
The official PGA record for the longest golf drive is 406 yards by Jack L. Hamm on July 12, 1986.
A Place in the Sun is based on the book An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser.
The remark “the necessity, real or imaginary, which has been supposed to exist, of appealing to the feelings and passions of our countrymen, rather than to their reasons and their judgments”? was made by Henry Clay, leader of the Whig party, after its candidate William Henry Harrison won the 1840 presidential election with a campaign … Read more
Jessica Tandy first played Blanche DuBois in the first production of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, opposite Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski.
The title to the drug-induced stream-of-consciousness narrative Naked Lunch means a “frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork” and is repulsed by it. The title was suggested to the author William Burroughs by Jack Kerouac.
Invented by Samuel F. B. Morse and completed in 1844, the telegraph line ran from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland. The first message, telegraphed on May 24, 1844, was, “What hath God wrought!”
The Scarlett Letters were letters written to David O. Selznick by hopeful unknown actresses desiring to play Scarlett O’Hara.
Gibraltar is a limestone promontory off the southeastern coast of Spain. Connected to Spain by an isthmus, it commands the northeastern entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, which joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Gibraltar is a self-governing British colony.
Kate Chopin was born Kate O’Flaherty (1851-1904) in St. Louis, Missouri, to an Irish father and French mother. Her married name came from her husband, Oscar Chopin. Her fiction includes the novel The Awakening (1899).
The stairs in the TV show “Upstairs, Downstairs” were at 165 Eaton Place in London. The house actually filmed was No. 65, but to avoid lawsuits, the producers glued a “1” in front of the “65.”
Lady Bird Johnson’s real name was Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson (b. 1912). The wife of President Lyndon Johnson got her nickname after the family cook called her “purty as a lady bird.”
Jack Dempsey was punched through the ropes by a first-round right from Luis Firpo on September 4, 1923, at the Polo Grounds in New York City. The punch did not end the fight: Dempsey came back to win by a knockout in the second round.
SPECTRE in the James Bond movies stand for “Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion.”
Christmas Eve, December 24 was observed as Adam and Eve Day on the medieval church calendar. One element has survived from the medieval plays put on that day depicting Adam and Eve’s fall: the paradise tree, representing the tree that bore the forbidden fruit. The paradise tree, set up in many German households by 1561, … Read more
After serving in the Spanish-American War, New Jersey nurse Clara Maass volunteered in 1901 to take part in yellow fever experiments in Cuba. Dr. Walter Reed designed the experiments to see whether a mild case of the disease would render people immune. Maass allowed herself to be bitten twice by infected mosquitoes. She developed not … Read more
It was the 1927 movie It, directed by Clarence Badger and Josef von Sternberg. Clara Bow’s character was named Betty Lou.
The three most popular natural attractions in the United States are: 1. The Grand Canyon (Arizona) 2. Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming) 3. Niagara Falls (New York)
The first all-talking movie was not The Jazz Singer (1927), which only featured sound in parts, but The Lights of New York (1928), a Warner Brothers gangster movie. The New York Times called it “seven reels of speech.”
Greta Garbo was Elena the temptress in The Temptress (1926).
The Minnesota Valley Canning Company of Le Sueur, Minnesota, introduced the Jolly Green Giant as the emblem of a line of canned peas in 1926.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were three Jews who were thrown into a fiery furnace by order of King Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 3 of the Old Testament Book of Daniel, as punishment for refusing to worship a golden idol. God saved them, however, allowing them to walk through the fire unharmed.
The two young men from Chicago were fired with the idea of committing the “perfect murder”. They killed fourteen-year-old Bobbie Franks in May 1924 and were sentenced on September 10 to life imprisonment for murder and 99 years for kidnapping. Richard (“Dickie”) Loeb was slashed to death in a brawl in January 1936 in Northern … Read more
Although Wilt Chamberlain was not the first seven-foot-tall basketball player, he was the first to dispel the then common notion that big, tall men were awkward players. At 7 feet, 1 inch and 275 pounds, he signed with the Philadelphia Warriors on May 30, 1959. He scored 43 points and got 28 rebounds in his … Read more
The oldest legal code, the Code of Hammurabi was developed circa 1950 B.C. during the reign of Babylonian leader Hammurabi. It is now known for its emphasis on the law of retaliation (an eye for an eye).
The Wisconsin Idea was a plan for reform created by Wisconsin Governor Robert M. La Follette in the early 1900s. This first statewide progressive reform plan was designed to erode the corruption of political bosses and big business, particularly the railroad trust.
A Columbia Records (CBS) team led by Dr. Peter Goldmark invented the long-playing 33 1/3 r.p.m. record in 1948 as a successor to the 78 r.p.m. record. To compete with CBS, RCA came up with the handy 45 r.p.m. record in 1949.
The first U.S. warship to make a trip around the world was the sloop-of-war Vincennes in 1829-31, during the administration of President Andrew Jackson. Jackson used the show of force to protect American commerce in the Pacific.
Dirty Harry said he was called dirty because he does “every dirty job that comes along.” Clint Eastwood played Harry Callahan.
On Friday, September 23, 1949, President Truman announced: “We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the USSR.”
The city of Cleveland (pop. 573,822) was named for its founder Moses Cleaveland in 1836. The city was once known as the “Forest City” because of its abundance of trees.
The now legendary and defunct Burma-Shave advertisements were developed in 1926 by Allan Odell, the son of the founder of the Burma-Vita Company. Burma-Shave was a new product, the first brushless shaving cream, and in the 1920s it was difficult to sell. But when Odell saw a series of roadside signs for a filling station, … Read more
The cover of the final issue of Life magazine, December 29, 1972, features “The Year in Pictures 1972” in block letters. Life had been in publication for 36 years, beginning November 23, 1936.
Eighty men, aboard 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers, took part in Doolittle’s 1942 raid on Tokyo on April 18, 1942. Launched from the carrier USS Hornet, the planes bombed five Japanese cities: Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe, Nagoya, and Osaka. The raid rattled the Japanese and boosted American morale at a time when Japan seemed invincible.
James Mason played Tiberius, John McEnery played Caligula, Richard Kiley played Claudius, and Anthony Andrews played Nero in the miniseries “A.D.” (Anno Domini) (NBC, 1985).
The average American generates about three pounds of garbage per day, according to the Garbage Project.
Henry V (1945) was Laurence Olivier’s directorial debut.
The Great Plains Indians didn’t start riding horses until after 1540, when Spanish explorer Francisco de Coronado, traveling through Kansas, let most of his 260 horses escape. There were no horses in America until the Spanish brought them. The Great Plains Indians tamed the descendants of these horses and made them an integral part of … Read more
Arnold Ziffel’s parents on the TV series “Green Acres” (CBS, 1965-71) human parents were Fred and Doris Ziffel of Hooterville. His porcine parentage is unknown.
Yakima Canutt’s oldest son Joe was the stuntman who somersaults out of Ben-Hur’s chariot during the chariot race in Ben-Hur (1959). The younger Canutt was doubling for Charlton Heston and was accidentally tossed out of the chariot when the vehicle hit some wreckage on the racecourse. The shot was so effective that it was left … Read more
In cable TV language, a dedicated channel is a channel that offers only one kind of programming, weather, rock music, home shopping.
Jack Nicholson ordered a plain omelet, a cup of coffee, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, hold the butter, lettuce, mayonnaise, and chicken (i.e., just bring the toast), at the diner in Five Easy Pieces (1970).
Gregory Peck was exempt from service during World War II because of a spinal injury. This helped to bring him into high demand as a leading man for films such as Days of Glory (1944), The Keys of the Kingdom (1945), and Spellbound (1945).
Tapeworms range in size from about 0.04 inch to more than 50 feet in length.
Ten hours before the surprise attack on December 7, 1941, Americans intercepted a 14-part Japanese message. They deciphered it at 4:37 A.M., Washington time, just hours before the attack, but the message remained in the code room; not until three hours later was it delivered to President Roosevelt. By 11:00 A.M., the U.S. chief of … Read more
Construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica began in 1526 and was completed in 1626. It accommodates 50,000, a little less than Yankee Stadium, which seats 57,545. St. Peter’s Basilica is located within the Vatican City in Rome and has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) was not the man given credit for it, Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart). It was Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), a relic of an older, less civilized West.
Secretariat the horse raced for only 16 months in 1972 and 1973. In that time the chestnut stallion became the first horse in 25 years to win the Triple Crown, set record times in the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, and won 16 of his 31 races. He was retired to stud in November … Read more
The Society of Arts and Sciences gave the O. Henry Prize three times to Stephen Vincent Benet, for “An End to Dreams” (1932), “The Devil and Daniel Webster” (1937), and “Freedom’s a Hard-Bought Thing” (1940). Benet was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for John Brown’s Body in 1929.
Jacqueline Susann (1918-74) said, “I don’t think any novelist should be concerned with literature”. She was the immensely successful author of such fiction bestsellers as Valley of the Dolls (1966), The Love Machine (1969), and Once Is Not Enough (1973).
Miss Jean Brodie’s (Maggie Smith’s) pupils were the “crime de la creme” in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969).
At least 1,547 people were killed when the boiler of the side-wheeler Sultana exploded on April 27, 1865, on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee, making it the worst marine disaster in U.S. history. Many of those killed in the blaze were Union soldiers who had recently been freed from Confederate prison camps. The most … Read more
World War II general Douglas MacArthur was ranked first of 93 in the class of 1903 at West Point. How highly ranked was Civil War officer George Armstrong Custer? He was 35th of 35 in the class of 1861.
Officially known as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the G.I. Bill gave a variety of benefits to World War II veterans. The benefits included medical care in veterans’ hospitals, low interest mortgages, grants for higher education, unemployment compensation, and vocational rehabilitation.
Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) was portrayed in newspapers as “Cinderella Man”. The newspaper reporter writing about (and falling in love with) him was Babe Bennett (Jean Arthur).
It was late 19th-century cold cereal developer C. W. Post, whose creations included Grape-Nuts who said, “All I have I owe to advertising”.
From 1925 to 1939, the Yankee first baseman appeared in 2,130 consecutive baseball games, an unmatched record.
The athlete’s father was part Sac and Fox; his mother was part Potawatomi. Born at a Sac and Fox village in Oklahoma, Thorpe (1888-1953) won the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Olympics and went on to play professional football and baseball. Although Thorpe was stripped of his gold medals for playing professional baseball before … Read more
Visa began in 1965 as the Bank of America’s BankAmericard, backed by a group of banks able to exchange funds nationally. It received its current name, Visa, in 1977, to promote its international image and acknowledge the cooperation of banks in other countries. MasterCard began in 1966 as the Interbank card issued by another consortium … Read more
They were a group of Hollywood writers and artists who were blacklisted after their appearances before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 and 1948. HUAC was set up to investigate “the extent of Communist infiltration in the Hollywood motion picture industry.” It cited the following artists for contempt of Congress for their political … Read more
James Dean was born on February 8, 1931, and died in a car crash on September 30, 1955.
A Remington electric shaver could shave “the short, close fuzz of a peach without harming its tender skin”, in 1954, long before Victor Kiam bought the company.
The director’s mother, Susanna Pasolini, played Mary in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1966).
The founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) Samuel Gompers was, like his father, a cigar maker. The English immigrant reshaped the Cigar Makers International Union before founding the AFL in 1886.
Sinbad the Sailor was an Iraqi, a merchant shipwrecked after setting sail from Basra, now Iraq. The story of his seven voyages is told in The Thousand and One Nights.
The Latin translation of the Bible was written mostly by St. Jerome in 382-384 A.D. The term comes from Latin editio vulgata, “spread among the people.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky translated Eugenie Grandet (1833) into Russian. Dostoyevsky’s 1844 translation was his first publication.
The cartoon character Mabel first appeared in 1954 advertising Carling Black Label Beer.
Ted Turner owns three film libraries: those of RKO, MGM/UA, and Warner Brothers.
No, the 1931 hit by “As Time Goes By” Herman Hupfeld was first performed by Frances Williams in Everybody’s Welcome. Rudy Vallee recorded a hit version of the song, but its greatest popularity came from Casablanca.
The letters D or P on American coins are mint marks, indicating the city in which the coin is pressed. The letter D indicates that the coin was made in Denver; P denotes Philadelphia. Pennies no longer carry mint marks.