The Dropkick Murphys are a Celtic punk rock band from Boston. While known for making over classic Irish drinking songs, such as The Auld Triangle, their biggest hit came from an unlikely place.
The song Shipping Up to Boston came from an unfinished work by folk legend Woody Guthrie. The singer’s grandson was a big fan of the Dropkicks, which inspired his mother to reach out to frontman Ken Casey. The singer got a chance to take a look at Guthrie’s archives and just happened to come across the Boston-themed lyrics.”It’s kind of ironic, I mean, it said ‘Shipping up to Boston,’ which caught my eye of all the songs". Following its inclusion in the Academy Award-winning film The Departed , the song became the band’s first and only Platinum-selling single.
The last successful drop kick executed in the NFL was done by Doug Flutie on January 1, 2006. Flutie, who at the time was 43 and the backup quarterback of the New England Patriots, converted an extra-point attempt in a game against the Miami Dolphins. This was Flutie’s last play in the NFL.
In his 1960 James Bond short story “The Hildebrand Rarity,” set in the Seychelles Islands, Ian Fleming referred to several coral and fish species, but did not mention dolphins.
While it is true that Ian Fleming wrote a James Bond novel entitled “The Spy Who Loved Me”(published in 1962), the screenplay of the 1977 movie of the same name uses absolutely no plot elements from the novel whatsoever.
President John F. Kennedy, when asked in an interview, mentioned that Ian Fleming’s 1957 James Bond novel From Russia With Love was one of his favorite books, leading to a huge spike in sales.
The villainous henchman ‘Jaws’ (played by Richard Kiel), who appeared in the James Bond movie “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977) and later reprised the role in “Moonraker” (1979), was actually first seen, metal prosthodontics and all, in the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor comedy thriller “Silver Streak” (1976). In that movie, however, he played a character identified/referred to only as ‘Reace’,
Though they starred in four movies together (Silver Streak, Stir Crazy, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Another You), Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor were supposed to costar in two other huge movies, Blazing Saddles and Trading Places. Though Gene Wilder starred in Blazing Saddles, his costar was Cleavon Little, a late replacement for Pryor. Both team ups were reportedly scuttled due to Richard Pryor’s lifetime struggles with drug addiction.
After the death of Gene Wilder in August of 2016, Mel Brooks and Burton Gilliam are the only survivors of the 14 main cast members of Blazing Saddles. Mel Brooks was one of the older cast members, being 47 at the time of filming, with only Slim Pickens and Liam Dunn being older at the time of filming; they died at age 64 and 59 respectively.
Gene’s given name was Jerome Silbermann He changed it at age 26, later explaining that the name Gene he took from the character Eugene Grant in Look Homeward Angel, and Wilder as he was a great admirer of Thornton Wilder.
He thus became Gene Wilder.
Gene Wilder first became interested in acting at age eight, when his mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever and the doctor told him to “try and make her laugh.”
Every year there are nearly 470,000 new cases of rheumatic fever across the globe. Approximately 305,000 people die every year from rheumatic heart disease, which rises from rheumatic fever. These diseases disproportionately affect indigenous Australians, including communities of Torres Strait islanders and the Māori people. These communities report some of the highest numbers of cases in the entire world. In 2018, indigenous Australian communities reported 59 cases of rheumatic fever for every 100,000 people. Non-indigenous Australian communities reported less than one case for every 100,000 people. About 94% of rheumatic fever cases in Australia occur in indigenous communities. High rates can decrease through access to healthcare, reduced overcrowding and better living conditions.
Rheumatic heart disease starts as a sore throat from a bacterium called Streptococcus pyogenes (group A streptococcus) which can pass easily from person to person in the same way as other upper respiratory tract infections. Strep infections are most common in childhood. In some people, repeated strep infections cause the immune system to react against the tissues of the body including inflaming and scarring the heart valves. This is what is referred to as rheumatic fever. Rheumatic heart disease results then from the inflammation and scarring of heart valves caused by rheumatic fever.
Preventing rheumatic heart disease is the usual reason quoted for treating sore throats with antibiotics. Most of these infections are viral and get better with time. Better doctors consider things like lymphadenopathy, absence of cough, age, temperature and the presence of tonsillar exudates, and (if justified) may order a rapid strep test before prescribing antibiotics for sore throat, which is only useful for bacterial causes.
“Deep Throat” was the codename which was given to the informant who provided Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein much of the inside information on the Nixon administration, and the Watergate scandal, which appeared in their book, All the Presidents’ Men. The nickname was given to the source by their editor, Howard Simons, to reflect the “deep” background of the source, as well as being a reference to the well-known pornographic movie of the same name.
Deep Throat’s identity was the subject of intense speculation for decades, but remained unknown to the public until 2005, when it was revealed, in a Vanity Fair article, to be Mark Felt, who was, at the time of Watergate, the Associate Director of the FBI.
On August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon became the first, and thus far the only person to resign as President of the United States.
Less than a year earlier, Nixon’s vice-President, Spiro Agnew, resigned on October 10, 1973.
Agnew was the second vice-president to resign. In 1832, John Calhoun resigned from the post with less than 3 months left in his term in order to be elected Senator by the South Carolina legislature.
The world’s largest peach cobbler is made in August of every year at the Georgia Peach Festival. It measures 11 by 5 feet and about 8 inches deep. It usually contains 90 pounds of butter and 75 pounds of peaches.
Franciscan monks introduced peaches to St. Simons and Cumberland Islands along Georgia’s coast in 1571. By the mid-1700s, peaches and plums were cultivated by the Cherokee Indians. The first peaches were planted in Georgia in the 18th century. The first commercial production did not occur until the mid-19th century.
Ty Cobb, who was nicknamed “The Georgia Peach,” was a star second baseman for the Detroit Tigers in the early part of the 20th Century, and is widely considered to be one of the best players in baseball history.
Cobb, who was a fierce competitor, had his reputation tarnished in the decades after his death, largely by biographical books and films which portrayed him as violent, and a racist; however, many of the details of those biographies have turned out to be apocryphal.
Cobb County in Georgia is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. Its county seat and largest city is Marietta. Truist Park, home of the Braves, is located within Cobb County.
Cobb County was named for Judge Thomas Willis Cobb. Legend has it that the city of Marietta was named after Cobb’s wife, Mary.
Ty Cobb was born in Banks County, Georgia, about 80 miles northeast of Cobb County.