On that day of the Munich massacre, the Prime Minister of England was Edward Heath. In Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, Heath was the 6th of the 15 different Prime Ministers who served. With the year their term started, here are those 15:
1951 — Winston Churchill
1952 — Elizabeth is Queen. She was 25, Churchill was 77.
1955 — Anthony Eden
1957 — Harold Macmillan
1963 — Alec Douglas-Home
1964 — Harold Wilson
1970 — Edward Heath
1974 — Harold Wilson
1976 — James Callaghan
1979 — Margaret Thatcher
1990 — John Major
1997 — Tony Blair
2007 — Gordon Brown
2010 — David Cameron
2016 — Theresa May
2019 — Boris Johnson
2022 — Liz Truss
Elizabeth II became Queen on February 26, 1952, upon the death of her father, King George VI. At that time, Harry Truman was President of the United States. During her reign, there have been 14 US Presidents. Here is that list, along with the years each man was in office:
Harry Truman 1945-1953
Dwight Eisenhower 1953-1961
John Kennedy 1961-1963
Lyndon Johnson 1963-1969
Richard Nixon 1969-1974
Gerald Ford 1974-1977
Jimmy Carter 1977-1981
Ronald Reagan 1981-1989
George H. W. Bush 1989-1993
Bill Clinton 1993-2001
George W. Bush 2001-2009
Barak Obama 2009-2017
Donald Trump 2017-2021
Joe Biden 2021-
Queen Elizabeth attended one American college football game in her life, a 1957 game in College Park, MD between the Maryland Terrapins and the North Carolina Tar Heels. Maryland won, 21-7. Prince Philip was presented with a game ball to give to his young son, Charles.
She also once attended a baseball game between the Orioles and A’s at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore hosted by George HW Bush in 1991 (OPACY had not yet been built). She asked if everyone on the team was named “Ripken.”
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! was a 1988 comedy film, created by the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team, who had also created the films Airplane! and Top Secret!.
In the film, policeman Frank Drebin (played by Leslie Nielsen) works to foil a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II, while she is in attendance at a baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and California Angels. The assassin turns to be star Angels outfielder Reggie Jackson, who is under the influence of a post-hypnotic suggestion.
Reggie Jackson acquired the moniker of Mr. October on October 18, 1977, in the sixth game of the World Series against the Dodgers. Jackson hit home runs in 3 consecutive plate appearances, all on the first pitch. He hit his homers off three different pitchers: Burt Hooten, Elias Sosa, and Charlie Hough. The Yankees won the game and the World Series, their first world championship since 1962.
The knuckleball is a type of baseball pitch, in which the goal of the pitch is to impart as little spin to the ball as possible – this has the effect of making the ball move unpredictably, and thus, making it difficult to hit. Knuckleball pitchers typically dig their fingernails into the ball for grip, and then “push” the ball as they throw it, rather than letting it spin out of their hand when they release it.
The pitch has always been rare, with few pitchers mastering it well enough to use it regularly at the major league level. Pitchers in recent decades who were known for throwing the knuckleball include brothers Phil and Joe Niekro, Wilbur Wood, Charlie Hough, Tom Candiotti, Tim Wakefield, and R.A. Dickey. At this point in time, there are no active knuckleball pitchers in the major leagues.
Lance Niekro, son of Joe Niekro, was an infielder who bounced around the majors and minor leagues for a few years. After being sent down to the minors he tried to revive his career as a knuckleball pitcher. His uncle Phil Niekro taught him the finer arts of the pitch. He did not last very long and now he coaches in the minors.
Elizabeth met President Harry S Truman during a visit to Washington, D.C. while she was a princess, not yet the Queen. She met all of his successors except Lyndon B. Johnson.
Lyndon B. Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird Johnson, was born with the name Claudia Alta Taylor. When she was an infant, her nursemaid, Alice Tittle, remarked that she was “pretty as a ladybird” (it is unclear if the reference was to an actual bird, or to a ladybird beetle), which led to the nickname of “Lady Bird.”
The nickname largely replaced her given name throughout her life.
Lady Bird Johnson was with her husband and they were two cars behind JFK and Jackie in Dallas on 22 November 1963. When LBJ took the oath as President on Air Force One, Lady Bird was standing next to Jackie.
Lady Bird is a 2019 coming-of-age film, about a young woman in her senior year of high school, and her difficult relationship with her mother. The film, which features Saoirse Ronan in the title role, received five Academy Award nominations.
Lady Bird Johnson and her husband, Lyndon Baines Johnson, had two daughters, Lynda and Luci. Lynda’s middle name is Bird and Luci’s middle name is Baines, so their initials are both LBJ, same as their father’s initials.
Lynda and Luci are both still living; Lynda, age 78, is currently the oldest living child of a US President.
The Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil (“Squirrel”) is a single-engine light utility helicopter originally designed and manufactured in France by Aérospatiale and Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters). It has been used in high-altitude, mountaineering rescues.
On 14 May 2005, an AS350 B3 piloted by Eurocopter test pilot Didier Delsalle touched down on the top of Mount Everest, at 29,030 ft, a record that has been confirmed by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. On 29 April 2010, a stripped-down AS350 B3 rescued three Spanish alpinists, one at a time, from the slopes of Annapurna I, Nepal at an altitude of 22,640 ft; this set a new record for the highest such rescue. The record was increased to 25,590 ft, during the rescue of Sudarshan Gautam between Camps III & IV in Everest’s Yellow Band on the morning of 20 May 2013. On 2 June 2014, an AS350 B3e broke a national record in Mexico by successfully landing on the peak of Pico de Orizaba, at 18,490 ft, the nation’s tallest mountain.
Rocky and Bullwinkle (also variously known as The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, The Bullwinkle Show, and Rocky and His Friends) was an animated television series, which originally ran on American network television from 1959 through 1964.
The series featured the adventures of Rocket J. “Rocky” Squirrel, an anthropomorphic flying squirrel, and Bullwinkle J. Moose, an anthropomorphic moose. The series also featured other regular segments, including “Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties” (a dim-witted but heroic Canadian Mountie), Peabody’s Improbable History (a time-traveling genius dog, along with his pet boy Sherman), and Fractured Fairy Tales and Aesop and Son, which presented satirical versions of fairy tales and fables, respectively.
Bullwinkle the moose got his name from a car dealer in Oakland CA named Clarence Bullwinkel. Bullwinkle‘s creators lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and they thought the name was funny. Clarence Bullwinkel owned a Ford dealership on the corner of Claremont and College.
The world’s first Ford dealership was a company owned by William Hughson in San Francisco. Hughson signed the franchise deal in February of 1903. A month later, Steve Tenvoorde of St. Cloud, Minnesota, signed the second franchise deal. Tenvoorde Ford is still in business and is still owned and operated by the Tenvoorde family.
