Acting dynasty founder Maurice Barrymore was born Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe in Amritsar, India, where his father surveyed for the British East India company.
Blythe CA is a city in the Palo Verde Valley region of Southern California along the Arizona state line, and is about 225 miles east of Los Angeles and 150 miles west of Phoenix. Blythe CA was named after Thomas Blythe (1822-1883), a San Francisco financier, who established primary water rights to the Colorado River in the region in 1877. Blythe CA is the largest city in the Palo Verde Valley.
David Gilmour Blythe, born in East Liverpool, Ohio, was a noted painter in Pittsburgh, Penna. just to the east around the time of the Civil War. His paintings of grungy street scenes and poor young children presaged the later Ashcan School. He was a strong admirer of Abraham Lincoln, and his painting of the President writing the Emancipation Proclamation was widely reproduced: President Lincoln, writing the Proclamation of Freedom. January 1st, 1863 / painted by [David Gilmour] Blythe ; lithogr. and printed in colors by Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co. Cincinnati, O. - digital file from original item | Library of Congress
A United States Consulate was established in Liverpool, England, in 1790 as the USA’s first overseas consulate. At that time, the city was a vital trading partner for transatlantic commerce with the new USA. Novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote The Scarlet Letter, held the post for four years from 1853-1857. The consulate finally closed after World War II.
The metropolitan area of Liverpool, UK, has a population of 2.2 million, which is the fifth-largest in the United Kingdom. The City of Liverpool is governed by three mayors: the Directly Elected Mayor of Liverpool, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, and the Metro Mayor of Liverpool City Region.
Liverpool was one of the most heavily damaged cities in England during World War II, with 4,000 deaths during the 1940-42 “Liverpool Blitz”.
The last air raid in May 1942 destroyed the house where Alois Hitler, Adolf’s half brother lived when he moved to Liverpool around 1910 and where his son Patrick Hitler was born.
Alzheimer’s Disease is named after German psychiatrist and pathologist Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915), who first described it in 1906. He identified the first published case of “presenile dementia”, which later was named Alzheimer’s Disease by a colleague of Alois Alzheimer.
Although many different forms of dementia have been identified, Alzheimer’s Disease is the most common, contributing to perhaps 70% of all cases. Worldwide, fifty million people suffer from dementia, with 10 million new cases added each year.
Lewy body dementia is the second-most common form of dementia, after Alzheimer’s Disease. Well-known people who have suffered from Lewy body dementia include comedian Robin Williams, actors Estelle Getty and Frank Bonner, baseball players Tom Seaver and Bill Buckner, radio announcer Casey Kasem, and media magnate Ted Turner.
On May 11,1977 – with the Atlanta Braves mired in a 16-game losing streak – frustrated Braves owner Ted Turner took over as his own team’s manager for one game (a 2–1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates). Afterwards, National League president Chub Feeney ordered Turner to give up the reins, citing major league rules which forbid managers or players from owning stock in a team.
Jimmy Carter, Democrat of Georgia, was sworn in for his single term as President of the United States on Jan. 20, 1977, at the U.S. Capitol. In the first words of his Inaugural Address, Carter said of his predecessor, Gerald R. Ford, Republican of Michigan, whom he had narrowly beaten in the election of the previous November, “For myself and for our nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land.” Carter and Ford later became good friends.
Gerald Wellesley, 7th Duke of Wellington was an Anglo-Irish diplomat, soldier, and architect. He was the great-grandson of the 1st Duke of Wellington, who is best known for his defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. He gained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 1939 in the service of the Grenadier Guards and fought in the Second World War between 1939–45. As a somewhat elderly officer with a spinsterish manner, he earned the nickname ‘The Iron Duchess’, a takeoff of his more famous relative’s nickname of “The Iron Duke”.
The “Thin White Duke” was a persona which was adopted by musician David Bowie in 1975 and 1976; the Thin White Duke’s appearance and character were similar to the alien character which Bowie had played in the science fiction film The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Bowie drew criticism for pro-fascist statements he made during that era, which he ascribed to being said “in character”; in later years, Bowie indicated that his behavior as the Thin White Duke was the result of heavy drug use.
David Bowie was born David Robert Jones in London in 1947. His professional career started in 1962 when he formed his first band at the age of 15. To avoid confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees, he changed his name in the mid-sixties, taking his stage name from James Bowie, the American pioneer who popularized the Bowie knife.
British rock star Phil Collins is very interested in the history of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, having been mesmerized as a boy by the 1960 John Wayne film The Alamo. Collins is donating a large quantity of his memorabilia from the 1836 Alamo siege, including what purports to be Jim Bowie’s original knife, to a new museum to be built in San Antonio, although there is some controversy as to its authenticity.
I’ve been to his diorama right across the street from the Alamo, back in (I think it was) 2009. I don’t recall seeing any Bowie knife there, but the to-scale diorama showing the phases of the siege was quite good.
Playing off Elendil_s Heir above:
In The Great Tom Collins hoax of 1874, as it became known in New York, a speaker would encourage the listener to act foolishly by reacting to patent nonsense that the hoaxer deliberately presents as reality. In particular, the speaker desired the listener to become agitated at the idea of someone talking about them to others such that the listener would rush off to find the purportedly nearby Tom Collins. Similar to the New York Zoo hoax of 1874, several newspapers propagated the very successful practical joke by printing stories containing false sightings of Tom Collins. The 1874 hoax quickly gained such notoriety that several 1874 music hall songs memorialized the event.
In 1873, Alexander Mackenzie and the Liberals defeated Prime minister Macdonald and the Conservatives in the Commons
Mackenzie was sworn in as Prime Minister.
Mackenzie then won the general election of 1874, the only time this pattern has occurred.
Although the title didn’t officially exist at the time, Robert Walpole is generally considered to be the first Prime Minister of England. Walpole held the posts of Chancellor of the Exchequer, First Lord of the Treasury, and Leader of the House of Commons. He served from 1721 through 1742, the longest tenure of any Prime Minister. The first official Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was William Pitt the Younger, who had the second-longest tenure, from 1783-1891 and again from 1804 until 1806.
Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King had the longest tenure of any Canadian Prime Minister: 21 years, 154 days.
Prime Minister Sir Charles Tupper had the shortest tenure: 66 days.
Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier had the longest continuous term: 15 years, 86 days.