I was posting that but Northern Piper beat me.
In play: Nunavut is the newest, largest, and northernmost territory of Canada. It was part of the Northwest Territories, but was officially separated on April 1st, 1999. It is home of the most northerly inhabited place, Alert.
Among American actor Martin Landau’s many roles were as Cmdr. John Koenig on Space: 1999, as well as appearances in North by Northwest, Ed Wood (in which he played another actor, the ailing Bela Lugosi), Mission Impossible, Tucker: The Man and His Dream and Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Martin Landau was married to Barbara Bain for almost 40 years (1957-1993), and the two of them were cast on the original “Mission: Impossible” TV show. They were two of the five recurring characters (he as actor/magician/master-of-disguise Rollin Hand, and she as the actress/model/female distraction Cinnamon Carter) that made up the core of the IMF (Impossible Missions Force) team.
They also appeared together in the British sci-fi series, “Space: 1999”.
-“BB”-
« Barbara Allen » has a long history as one of the most popular folk songs in English. It started life as a Scottish song, but has spread throughout the English speaking world.
In 1957, two years after graduating from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) with a degree in drama, model and actress Barbara Feldon appeared on the television quiz show The $64,000 Question. Feldon, who would go on to later fame for her portrayal of “Agent 99” on the 1960s comedy series Get Smart, won the grand prize; her topic area was Shakespeare.
Such Sweet Thunder was released by Duke Ellington in 1957. The album is a twelve-part suite, inspired by the works of Shakespeare. The record started in 1956, when the Ellington band was performing in Stratford, Ontario, while the Stratford Shakespeare Festival was ongoing. Ellington and Billy Strayhorn were inspired to write jazz compositions inspired by the Bard’s works.
Duke of Earl is a song first recorded by Gene Chandler and released in November of 1961. It went to #1 on the charts and held that spot for three weeks. The song was written by Chandler, Bernice Williams, and Earl Edwards.
Chandler AZ, a suburb of Phoenix, was named after Dr. Alexander John Chandler, who in 1891 was the first veterinary surgeon in Arizona Territory. He bought up 18,000 acres of land that he named Chandler Ranch.
The surname “Chandler” originally was used to describe the holder of an office in a medieval household who was responsible for the household’s candles and wax; the word was later used for the profession of making and selling candles.
A ship chandler is a dealer in supplies or equipment for ships and boats such as oil, soap, paint, and groceries.
Matthew Perry played Chandler Bing in the long-running hit sitcom Friends. Morgan Fairchild played his mother in several episodes, while Kathleen Turner played his cross-dressing father, who headlined a Vegas burlesque show, much to his mortification, called Viva Las Gaygas. In one episode, his middle name was revealed to be “Muriel.”
Kathleen Turner made her television debut in 1978 on NBC’s daytime soap The Doctors. Three years later, she made her film debut, starring as Matty Walker in the thriller Body Heat. Empire, a British film magazine, cited her work in that movie when, in 1995, it named her one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History. She also had leading roles in The Man With Two Brains, Romancing the Stone, The Jewel of the Nile, and Prizzi’s Honor. Her latest work was in the Netflix series The Kominsky Method.
(If you haven’t watched The Kominsky Method yet, I highly recommend it. There are 22 half-hour episodes, so you can easily binge it over several evenings. It’s hilarious!)
Romancing the Stone was the only produced screenplay for writer Diane Thomas. She had been working as a waitress in Malibu when producer/star Michael Douglas optioned her script for $250,000, allowing her to quit her job. Sadly, Thomas died in a car accident, while working on a new movie project with Steven Spielberg the following year. She was a passenger while her boyfriend was driving a Porsche that Douglas had bought for her as a thank you gift. The sequel to Romancing the Stone, The Jewel of the Nile was dedicated “In Memory of” Thomas.
St Thomas, called « the Twin » and « Doubting Thomas » , is known for his loyalty to Jesus, his scepticism, and for being the first to acknowledge the divinity of Jesus.
The first occurred when Jesus was going back to Nazareth, possibly a dangerous location, and Thomas said: « Let us also go, that we may die with him. »
The second occurred when he refused to believe in Jesus’s Résurrection when told by Peter and John, saying: « Except I shall see on his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. »
The third occurred when Jesus appeared to Thomas and invited Thomas to touch his wounds. Thomas fell to his knees, saying « My Lord and my God ».
According to tradition, Thomas travelled as far as India to preach the gospel. There is still an old Christian community in India called the St Thomas Christians.
Thomas & Friends (originally called Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends) is a long-running British children’s television show, about an anthropomorphized “tank engine” railroad locomotive named Thomas, and several other anthropomorphized locomotives and vehicles. The show is based on The Railway Series books, written by the Reverend W. Awdry and his son Christopher.
In the U.S., the series was repackaged as the PBS series Shining Time Station, with the inclusion of original segments filmed for the American market. In those segments, Ringo Starr (and later, George Carlin) played the role of the “Mr. Conductor” character.
The Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostock crosses seven time zones and covers more than 6,000 miles. It takes a full week to complete the trip.
Author Anton Chekhov visited Czarist penal camps on Sakhalin Island in 1890 and denounced the island as ‘‘a hell.’’ He made the 2 1/2 month trip to the Russian Far East mainly by riverboat, carriage, horseback and steamer, the year before construction on the Trans-Siberian Railway began.
Chekhov spent 3 months on the island conducting interviews and a census, and gathering material for articles and a book, Sakhalin Island, which The New Yorker called the greatest work of journalism of the 19th century. He also treated the sick; he once said “Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress.”
The two biggest islands in the United States are found in the two newest states. The largest island is Hawaii, one of the eight major islands that comprise the state of Hawaii. The next largest is Kodiak Island, which is located off the southern coast of Alaska.
When Alaska was admitted to the Union, it was largely Democratic in its political allegiances, while Hawaii was largely Republican. In the 60-some years since, the states have both moved into the other political column.
Alaska is the least densely-populated U.S. state, with a density of 1.3 residents per square mile of land area. New Jersey is the most densely-populated state, at 1218 residents per square mile.