Queen Anne Cottage in the Los Angeles Arboretum is the building you see in the opening of Fantasy Island.
The current Fantasy Island (2021) TV series is filmed in Puerto Rico.
And it’s not too good.
The guest star who had the most appearances on the original Fantasy Island television series (1977-84) was Carol Lynley. Lynley appeared in 11 episodes of the series, including its pilot, playing a different role in each of those 11 episodes.
Guest stars in the TV series Modern Family include Nathan Fillion, James Marsden, Kevin Hart, Matthew Broderick, Ernie Hudson, Jennifer Tilly, Oliver Platt, Greg Kinnear, Jesse Eisenberg, Bobby Cannavale, Billy Dee Williams, Martin Short, Barbra Streisand, Kelsey Grammer, Peyton Manning, Ray Liotta, Terry Bradshaw, David Beckham, Victor Garber, Charles Barkley, Billy Crystal, Kate Burton, Edward Asner, and Kobe Bryant.
Hudson Bay has a size of 470,000 square miles and borders four Canadian provinces. The average depth is 330 feet and the deepest point is 890 feet. The bay is frozen from mid-December to mid-June.
Hudson Bay is the second-largest bay in the world, behind the Bay of Bengal.
The English explorer Henry Hudson, after whom the bay and the river were named, was cast adrift by mutineers along with his son and seven loyal or ill sailors in June 1611 from his sailing ship Discovery, and never seen again.
“Rip Van Winkle” is a short story by American author Washington Irving, set in the Catskill Mountains during the periods before and after the American Revolutionary War. In the story, the title character meets some mysterious men, drinks some of their alcohol, and then falls asleep for twenty years.
When he awakens, Van Winkle is stunned to learn that so much time has passed, and that the American colonies are now the United States. He also discovers that the mysterious men appear to have been the ghosts of Henry Hudson’s crew.
Catskill Creek is 46 miles long and drains into the Hudson River at the town of Catskill NY. Here, the Rip Van Winkle Bridge crosses the Hudson. This is the area where boxing manager and trainer Cus D’Amato ran the Empire Sporting Club at the Gramercy Gym and trained boxing champion Mike Tyson.
New York has been referred to as the “Empire State” since the 1800’s, but the original source of that nickname is unclear. Two theories credit George Washington, but they are both unproven. The most famous usage of the moniker is the Empire State Building, which was completed in 1931. It was the world’s tallest building until 1970.
George Washington, commanding general of the Continental Army, president of the Constitutional Convention and first President of the United States, has been played by, among others, Jeff Daniels, Barry Bostwick, Jon Voight, William Beery, Will Geer, Richard Basehart, Kelsey Grammer, Adam West, George Houston, Patrick O’Neal and my hands-down personal favorite, David Morse (in the HBO miniseries John Adams).
Two ancestral homes of the Washington family have been preserved in England. The first, Washington Old Hall, is a 17th-century Manor house in Tyne and Wear, near Newcastle. The building incorporates parts of the original medieval home of George Washington’s direct ancestors, who were granted the manor in 1183.
Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire is a mid-16th century Tudor house built by Lawrence Washington, the great-great-great-great grandfather of George. The Washington coat of arms, with 3 stars over 3 red and white stripes, is still visible on the front of the house.
An estuary is an area where a freshwater river or stream meets the ocean. When freshwater and seawater combine, the water becomes brackish, or slightly salty.
Among the largest estuaries in the world is the Gulf of the Saint Lawrence.
Tokyo Bay is an estuary formed where the Sumida and Arakawa rivers flow into the Pacific Ocean. Tokyo, the most populous city in the world, was originally known as Edo, which means “estuary.”
Tokyo is the de facto but not de jure capital of Japan. Traditionally, the capital was wherever the emperor resided. Japan is now the only country in the world with an emperor.
Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E♭ major, Op. 73, composed in 1809, is known as the Emperor Concerto in English-speaking countries. Beethoven dedicated the concerto to his friend, Archduke Rudolf of Austria who was 21 years old at the time, and 'ol Ludwig was 39.
It was Beethoven’s last completed piano concerto. Its first performance was in November 1811* in Leipzig, now in Saxony DEU, and it debuted in Vienna AUT in February 1812.
It is not certain why it is known as the Emperor Concerto. It may have been coined by a publisher at one time. Even though its epithet is ambiguous, musicologists are certain the concerto is in the heroic style due to its military characterists and heroic symbolism. According to British musicologist Sir Donald Tovey, Beethoven would have disliked the epithet; the feeling may be due to Beethoven’s dislike of Napoleon’s conquest.
- – the US Marine Corps, today 245 years old, was at that time only 36 years old.
YouTube; the full concerto is about 40 minutes long:
Several actors had on-screen roles in all three Star Wars series: the “Original” trilogy (1977-1983), the Prequel trilogy (1999-2005), and the Sequel trilogy (2015-2019), including:
- Ian McDiarmid (Senator/Chancellor/Emperor Palpatine)
- Anthony Daniels (C-3PO)
- Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca)
- Frank Oz (Yoda)
Frank Oz has, over the course of a long career, played a Jedi master (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and others), a Philadelphia cop (Trading Places), a guard (Inside Out) and an unappreciated but honest lawyer (Knives Out), among other roles.
The frigate Philadelphia was captured by Barbary pirates and towed to Tripoli as a prize of war. While they were repairing it, a group of US sailors led by Stephen Decatur made they way surreptitiously into Tripoli harbor and set the ship ablaze, then escaped back to safety. The exploit was lauded as a major naval achievement for the US.
The US had been in Afghanistan from 10/7/2001 to 8/15/2021, a span of 19 years, 10 months, 1 week and 1 day. This is the longest war in US history.
The US had been in Vietnam from 11/1/1955 to 4/30/1975, a span of 19 years, 5 months, 4 weeks and 1 day.