At least two people have been hit by a meteorite. In September 1954, Mrs. Hewlett Hodges of Sylacauga, Alabama, was hit by a meteorite as she napped in her living room. The rock from space weighed about 10 pounds. In the late 1930s, a Japanese girl was also hit by a small meteorite.
C.H.U.D. stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers, in the movie of the same name.
New Jersey novelist Edward Stratemeyer created the Bobbsey Twins, under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope.
The original camel for Camel cigarettes was an Arabian dromedary named “Old Joe” that appeared in the Barnum & Bailey Circus at the turn of the century. At that time, the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company was looking for an exotic name and concept to link with its new Oriental and Turkish blend cigarette. On … Read more
Natalie Wood had a walk-on part in the 1979 pilot of husband Robert Wagner’s TV mystery “Hart to Hart” (ABC, 1979-84). She was billed in the closing credits as Natasha Gurdin, her real name.
The American Library Association awarded the first Newbery in 1922 to Hendrik Willem Van Loon for The Story of Mankind (1921).
Hiram Revels (1822-1901) of Mississippi became the first black senator on February 25, 1870. He completed the term begun by Jefferson Davis, who had resigned to become the president of the Confederacy. Aside from Blanche K. Bruce, who represented Mississippi from 1875 to 1881, there were no other black senators until 1966, when Edward Brooke, … Read more
No, the films of silent film director John Waters were not anything like those of his present-day namesake. Silent film director John Waters was responsible for formula Westerns like Nevada (1927), starring Gary Cooper and Thelma Todd. Present-day cult movie director John Waters is responsible for offbeat works like Pink Flamingos (1972) and Hairspray (1988).
Rhoda Morgenstern from the TV series Rhoda got married on October 28, 1974. Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) married Joe Gerard (David Groh). They separated early in the 1976-77 season, and eventually divorced. “Rhoda” ran from 1974 to 1978 on CBS.
The third Olympiad, held in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904 was the first Olympics held in the United States.
A World for Two was the fictitious movie where Vicki Lester (Judy Garland) win the Best Actress Oscar in A Star Is Born (1954)?.
Ragnarok is the day of doom in Norse mythology and corresponds to Gotterdammerung, the Teutonic Twilight of the Gods. On Ragnarok, a battle between good and evil results in the world’s being consumed by fire. Later, a new world, new humans, and new gods spring up around the core of a few survivors.
The recipients who receive the same letter in A Letter to Three Wives (1949) are Jeanne Crain, Linda Daniell, and Ann Sothern. The voice of the letter writer is provided by Celeste Holm.
The future U.S. president Bill Clinton was elected governor in 1978 at the age of 32, making him the youngest person to hold that office in Arkansas history. Two years later, he was voted out; he regained the governorship in 1982. Clinton became president in 1993.
Fred Waller (1886-1954) of Paramount’s special-effects department developed Cinerama. The wide-screen process used three cameras and three projectors to record and project a single expansive image. The process debuted in 1952 with This Is Cinerama, a travelogue. What was the first story feature filmed in Cinerama? How the West Was Won (1962).
The devastating march across Georgia known as Sherman’s March began in the occupied city of Atlanta on November 11, 1864, and ended with the capture of Savannah on the Atlantic Ocean on December 21. Along the way, Sherman ransacked the countryside, looting, burning, and tearing up railroads.
Captain Robert L. Crippen and John W. Young flew the space shuttle Columbia on its maiden voyage April 12-14, 1981.
“Arthur’s Theme (The Best That You Can Do)” for the movie Arthur required no fewer than four composers: Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, Peter Allen, and Christopher Cross (who sang it). The song won an Oscar.
The Bic pen is named for Baron Biche. But Biche did not invent the ballpoint pen, Hungarian Laszlo Biro did, in 1938. Biche’s French firm, Bic, took over the English company that had agreed to produce the pens. In England the pen is still known as a “biro,” in France as a “bic.”
The forty-five episodes of the TV series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” originally ran on BBC television in Great Britain from 1969 to 1974. Terry Gilliam did the animation on “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, the only American in the troupe. Gilliam has gone on to direct movies like Brazil (1985) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen … Read more
The required nine of the thirteen states ratified the Constitution between January and June 1788. But it was not until after Washington was inaugurated in 1789 that all of the states ratified it. The last stragglers were North Carolina in November 1789 and Rhode Island in May 1790.
Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida was first performed around 1602 and first published in 1609.
A quasar is another name for a quasi-stellar object. It looks like a star but emits as much radiation as an entire galaxy, with a volume far smaller than that of our Milky Way galaxy. No one knows what a quasar is; recent evidence suggests it might be a galaxy with a big black hole … Read more
Ramon Novarro played Judah Ben-Hur in the 1926 version of Ben-Hur, with Francis X. Bushman as his friend-turned-enemy Messala. Fred Niblo directed. Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd, respectively, took the roles in the 1959 remake. William Wyler directed.
In 1841, an expedition of 300 people from the Republic of Texas (independent from 1836 to 1845) traveled to Santa Fe to encourage New Mexicans to revolt against Mexico. The Texans failed to convince anyone to revolt and were imprisoned as invaders. They were only released after strong protests from the U.S. and Britain.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), directed by Jacques Demy had all the dialogue sung.
As described in Leviticus 16:1-27, part of a Hebrew ritual on the Day of Atonement involved the presentation of two male goats at the altar of the tabernacle. After lots were cast, one goat was sacrificed to the Lord; the other, the scapegoat, was set aside for Azazel, an evil spirit of the wilderness. The … Read more
President Calvin Coolidge, in a 1925 speech, said, “The business of America is business”.
It took eleven days for news of Custer’s last stand to be published in the press. The massacre of George Armstrong Custer and his Seventh Cavalry by the Sioux Indians took place on June 25, 1876, on the Little Big Horn River in Montana Territory. The news was first published by the Bozeman Times in … Read more
The Dr. Seuss book that has sold the most copies is Green Eggs and Ham, published in 1960, it has sold over 6 million copies. Another 1960 book, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, has sold nearly as many.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde didn’t exist, but there was a Scottish cabinetmaker named William Brodie who inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s story. Brodie, a respected businessman by day, wore a mask and led a gang of robbers by night. Born in 1741, Brodie was hanged in 1788. The story interested Stevenson and inspired The Strange … Read more
Forty-one people signed the Mayflower Compact, in 1620. How many signed the Declaration of Independence? Fifty-six delegates plus Secretary Charles Thomson, beginning in 1776. How many signed the U.S. Constitution? Thirty-nine delegates plus Secretary William Jackson, in 1787.
“The Andy Griffith Show” (CBS, 1960-68) was a spinoff of “The Danny Thomas Show” (ABC, CBS, 1953-64).
John F. Kennedy was the first president born in the 20th century, on May 29, 1917.
The 1950 Broadway musical Guys and Dolls by Frank Loesser was inspired by the 1933 short story “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown.” It chronicles the courtship and marriage of gambler Sky Masterson and mission worker Sarah Brown. A revival of Guys and Dolls opened on Broadway in spring 1992.
The name of the dinosaur bone lost by David Huxley was an intercostal clavicle.
Islam is Arabic for “surrender,” or “submission,” to the will of God. A Muslim is “one who surrenders.”
In The Big Easy (1987), the name of the slush fund into which police graft is being funneled is The Widows and Orphans Fund.
Despite many alternative claims, the first appearance in print links the term O.K. to a political organization that supported the reelection of President Martin Van Buren. The New York New Era of March 23, 1840, carried an article on the Democratic O.K. Club. The initials stood for Old Kinderhook, a Van Buren epithet derived from … Read more
John Ratzenberger (Cliff Clavin) of “Cheers” (NBC, 1982) was a staff person at NASA Mission Control in Houston in Superman II (1980).
The five-month Homestead strike was begun in July 1892 by workers at Andrew Carnegie’s steelworks in Homestead, Pennsylvania. It began when Carnegie refused to recognize the workers’ right to negotiate as a union. Steelworks manager Henry Clay Frick brought in 300 Pinkerton guards to break the strike, but the workers drove them off in a … Read more
Yes, Ford was the first incumbent president to agree to public debates. He gained that claim to fame in 1976 when he debated Jimmy Carter. The debates helped Ford to narrow Carter’s lead in the race, although he eventually lost the election.
The first stolen car was a Peugeot owned by Baron de Zuylen of France It was stolen in June 1896 by a mechanic from the manufacturer’s plant in Paris, where it had been taken for repairs.
William F. Buckley’s syndicated talk show “Firing Line” has been on the air since April 1966.
Michel de Notredame, aka Nostradamus (1503-1566), seems to have predicted his own death. On July 1, 1566, his assistant rose to leave him for the evening, saying, “Tomorrow, master,” to which Nostradamus said, “Tomorrow at sunrise, I shall no longer be here.” The next morning he was found dead from an attack of dropsy.
Ellis Island in Upper New York Bay, named for its former owner Sam Ellis, operated as an immigration center from 1892 to 1943. It was a detention place for deportees until 1954. In 1965 it became part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. Following restoration of its Registry Room, the point of entry for … Read more
Lulumae Barnes was Holly Golightly’s (Audrey Hepburn’s) real name in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). She was the wife of Doc Golightly (Buddy Ebsen) from Tulip, Texas.
The acute pneumonia called Legionnaires’ disease is caused by a bacterium of the genus Legionella. The disease made headlines (and got its name) when it killed 29 people at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia, July 21-24, 1976. The causative agent was found a year later.
The lion, developed before the formation of MGM, was the original trademark for the newly formed (Samuel) Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. It was the creation of a young advertising man named Howard Dietz, who was inspired by his alma mater Columbia University’s football song, “Roar, Lion, Roar!” Later on, Dietz also came up with the motto … Read more
In its earliest use, the phrase pin money did mean the money to buy pins, the primary fasteners for clothing before buttons and zippers were invented. But by the sixteenth century, the phrase came to mean the money used for incidentals.
The “Five Civilized Tribes” were the five southern American Indian tribes forced into exile in Oklahoma as a result of the Indian Removal Act of 1830: the Choctaw of Mississippi, the Creek of Alabama, the Cherokee of Georgia, the Chickasaw of Mississippi, and the Seminole of Florida. The act required all Indian tribes east of … Read more
Stradlater was the rich and conceited roommate of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye.
Television’s first teen star was Don Hastings, the teenager who played the Video Ranger, sidekick of “Captain Video” (DuMont, 1949-55).
The initial jewel in the Triple Crown known as the Kentucky Derby was first held in 1875 at Churchill Downs.
The first movie at Radio City Music Hall was The Bitter Tea of General Yen, directed by Frank Capra and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Nils Asther. It opened in January 1934. The final movie was The Promise, directed by Gilbert Cates and starring Kathleen Quinlan and Stephen Collins. The final showing was on April 25, … Read more
The plates (solid segments of the earth’s crust and upper mantle) that consist mostly of continents move at an average speed of about 2 centimeters per year. Europe and North America are moving apart at about this speed. The plates that are mostly under the oceans move faster, at an average speed of about 10 … Read more
In a triumph of odd casting, Desi Arnaz, Jr., played Marco Polo and Zero Mostel played Kublai Khan, for the musical adaptation of Marco Polo’s journey to the Orient.
According to Oklahoma history, it is in honor of the state’s first settlers. They crossed the border into Oklahoma Territory sooner than the rest and obtained the choicest pieces of land. In 1889, Oklahoma Territory was opened for settlement, and the federal government attempted to close and police the borders until a designated time when … Read more
The first movie based on a TV series was Dragnet (1954). It was based on the NBC series of the same name (NBC, 1952-59, 1967-70).
The earl ranks higher, but is by no means at the top. From highest to lowest, the line of peerage runs as follows: Duke and Duchess Marquess (or Marquis) and Marchioness Earl and Countess Viscount and Viscountess Baron and Baroness
Rob and Laura Petrie of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” had a house in New Rochelle, New York.
Jack Schaefer wrote the book Shane, which was also movie.
The freshwater and cypress swamp called Okefenokee Swamp, best known as the locale of Walt Kelly’s comic strip “Pogo,” begins near Waycross, Georgia, and extends into Florida. Its name is a variation of the Indian term “Owaquaphenoga,” or “trembling earth.”
The last viceroy of India was not Lord Mountbatten. Louis Mountbatten (1900-1979) was India’s last British viceroy, or governor general, from August 1947 to June 1948. Chakravarti Raj agopalachari (1879-1972) then served as governor-general of India’s interim government from June 1948 to January 1950, when the position was abolished.
Charles Boyer did not say, “Come with me to the Casbah” in any movie. Many people have supposed incorrectly that he said it in Algiers (1938), where he played the French ne’er-do-well Pepe Le Moko living in the Casbah. Boyer said his press agent made it up.
Leonard Nimoy appeared in the science-fiction TV series Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952) before “Star Trek” (NBC, 1966-69). Nimoy played Narab, a Martian.
It was during and just after the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1871). So called for its materialism and political corruption, the period was given its name in a satirical novel, The Gilded Age (1873), written by Mark Twain with Charles Dudley Warner.
Black is the color of mourning today because in ancient times, it was believed that the spirits of the dead could repossess the bodies of the living. So, to disguise themselves from evil spirits, mourners painted their bodies black. Later societies translated this custom into wearing black clothes and veils.
The first publicly televised sporting event was a Japanese baseball game, broadcast on September 27, 1931. The Ushigome and Awazi Shichiku Higher Elementary Schools battled it out on the Tozuka Baseball Ground, watched by viewers on 8-by-5-inch screens.
Archie and Edith Bunker of “All in the Family” (CBS, 1971-79) lived at 704 Houser Street in Queens, New York.
Just before reporter Edison Carter (Matt Frewer) crashed a motorcycle, he saw the words, “Max Headroom, 2.3 m.” on the TV series “Max Headroom” (ABC, 1987). His memory impulses create a new character, Max Headroom.
At its surface, the sun is about 7,640 degrees Fahrenheit. In other words, very hot. In the sun’s interior, temperatures can range above 18 million degrees Fahrenheit.
It is not “Till Death Do Us Part,” but “Till Death Us Do Part” (BBC, 1966-68, 1972-74), was British series which was the basis for “All in the Family” (CBS, 1971-79), starring Warren Mitchell as bigot Alf Garnett.
Cartoonist and illustrator Thomas Nast (1840-1902) popularized both symbols but invented only one of them. Democrat Andrew Jackson first used the donkey as a symbol for his party after his opponents in the 1828 presidential election called him a “jackass”; Nast’s cartoons later helped to make the symbol famous. Nast himself introduced the Republican elephant … Read more
Four directors worked on Twilight Zone The Movie (1983): John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, and George Miller.
Kate Jackson as Sabrina Duncan, Farrah Fawcett as Jill Munroe, Cheryl Ladd as Kris Munroe, Jaclyn Smith as Kelly Garrett, Shelley Hack as Tiffany Welles, and Tanya Roberts as Julie Rogers were the names of “Charlie’s Angels” on the TV series (ABC, 1976-81).
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was set in 1936. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) was set in 1935. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) opens in 1912, then shifts to 1938.
Yes and no, the U.S. and France almost went to war with each other. From 1798 to 1800, the U.S. and France clashed in a series of naval hostilities but never formally declared war. At issue was France’s resentment at what it viewed as American partiality to France’s enemy Britain. The U.S. was angry because … Read more
Shakespeare’s Sonnets , (1609) contains 154 sonnets. The poems fall into two main groups: Numbers 1 to 126 are addressed to a young male friend; numbers 127 to 152 are addressed to a mysterious “dark lady.” Sonnets 153 and 154, adaptations of a Greek epigram, don’t fit into either of the two categories.
The Battle of Bunker Hill took place not on Bunker Hill but on Breed’s Hill, on June 17, 1775. The opposing forces were supposed to engage on Bunker Hill, but for unknown reasons the soldiers dug in on the smaller site, about 2,000 feet away. To straighten things out for visitors, Breed’s Hill was later … Read more
There are no fixed rules that only royalty or noted public leaders may be interred in Westminster Abbey. The decision rests solely in the hands of the deans of the Abbey.
In 1843, a Congressional committee put forth a resolution of impeachment against President John Tyler, for abusing the power of the veto. The resolution was defeated 127 to 83, and Tyler was not impeached.
“Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don’t be stingy, baby.” were Greta Garbo’s first spoken words on film. She said them in Anna Christie (1930).
The orbit of the moon around the earth is tilted at an angle of about 6 degrees from the plane of the earth’s orbit around the sun. As a result, the moon is usually above or below the line between the earth and the sun, except on certain predictable occasions.
The symbol © a circled U on kosher food represents the approval of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur (1735-1813), also known as J. Hector St. John, was born in France, emigrated to Canada, and in 1759, moved to New York. He settled in Orange County, New York, where his years as a farmer led to his book, Letters from an American Farmer (1787). He fled back to Europe … Read more
“The Phil Silvers Show” (CBS, 1955-59)–Camp Fremont Army Base, Fort Baxter, Roseville, Kansas “Leave It To Beaver” (CBS/ABC, 1957-63)—Mayfield, USA “The Andy Griffith Show” (CBS, 1960-68)—Mayberry, North Carolina “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (CBS, 1961-66)—New Rochelle, New York “Bewitched” (ABC, 1964-72)—Westport, Connecticut “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (CBS, 1970-77)—Minneapolis, Minnesota “All in the Family” (CBS, … Read more
Red stands for the blood of the dead. Black represents pride in the color of the skin. Green is for the promise of a new and better life in Africa.
