“So Long Bannatyne” was a studio album by The Guess Who. The title came from one of the band members moving from his apartment in Bannatyne Avenue in Winnipeg to a more upscale place in the suburbs.
The Four Seasons released four singles under the pseudonym of “The Wonder Who.” They started out as just a joke recording to reduce tensions during the recording sessions, but the record company decided to release them. They couldn’t use the real name of the group or of Frankie Valli, so used an entirely new name. Their first single, Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” reached #12. Two other singles were on the charts – one credited to the Four Seasons and the other to Frankie Valli – so the group had three different singles under three different names at the same time.
The Canadian band The Guess Who started out under the name Chad Allan and the Reflections, then changed their name to Chad Allan and the Expressions. When they released a cover of the song “Shakin’ All Over” in 1965, Quality Records (which distributed their songs in the U.S.) labeled the single with the pseudonym “Guess Who?”, instead of the band’s actual name, as a publicity stunt, to generate speculation that it was recorded by a well-known British Invasion band.
The record label soon revealed that the record was by Chad Allan and the Expressions, but radio disc jockeys continued to use the “Guess Who” name, and the band wound up changing their actual name to reflect what they had become known as.
The British Royal Navy, notorious for its traditions of, as Churchill said, “rum, sodomy and the lash,” did not invent the punishment of keelhauling, in which an offending sailor would be dragged by rope underwater, along the sharp, barnacle-encrusted bottom of a sailing ship. It was, rather, the Dutch.
Keelhauling may have been introduced to the Dutch Navy by William of Orange (1650-1702). Perhaps the most graphic incident of it occurred in 1673 when Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest punished sailors who committed murder. It was an official, though rare, punishment in the Dutch navy, as shown in the painting The keel-hauling of the ship’s surgeon of Admiral Jan van Nes.
William of Orange, also known as William the Silent (or William the Taciturn), was the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs that set off the Eighty Years’ War and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1648.
Princeton University’s colors are black and orange, and its original main building was and is Nassau Hall, because William of Orange, King William III, was the English monarch at the time of the school’s founding. The colors were not officially adopted until many years later, however.
The monarch butterfly is believed to have been named in honor of King William III of England, as the butterfly’s main color is that of the king’s secondary title, Prince of Orange.
In 1958 the New York Giants moved to San Francisco and played their first season there. Their colors are orange and black.
In 1958 the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and played their first season there. Their colors are blue and white (and a little red).
When both teams vacated New York City only the New York Yankees remained.
In 1962 the New York Mets began play as a new franchise club. Their colors are orange and blue, taking the orange from the Giants and the blue from the Dodgers.
The colors of the Pittsburgh Penguins (hockey), Pirates (baseball) and Steelers (football) are each black and gold, based on the colors of the city’s coat of arms.
The Pittsburgh Pirates have the second longest World Series’ drought at 43 years, behind Cleveland Guardians (formerly Indians) with 74 years (discounting teams which have never won a World Series). The last year the Pirates won was 1979.
The 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates team, which won the World Series that year, adopted the disco song “We Are Family,” by Sister Sledge, as their theme song.
Willie Stargell led the 1979 Pirates to the World Series title, batting .400 with a record 7 extra-base hits and 25 total bases. Stargell was named the Series Most Valuable Player. Stargell was also named the MVP of the National League Championship Series, as well as the MVP of the National League that year. He remains the only person to win all three awards in the same season.
Stargell passed away in 2001, a month after his 61st birthday.
The Willie Stargell Foundation supports programs focusing on kidney disease research and has been awarding grants to organizations, medical centers, and transplant programs. The Willie Stargell 5K & 1 Mile Road Race and Willie Stargell Celebrity Invitational help support the foundation’s mission.
Abraham Polonski was a film writer and director. His Force of Evil was a minor classic about the numbers racket, but also a condemnation of capitalism where the big players can destroy small businesses. Polonski was blacklisted and did not direct another film for over 20 years with Tell Them Willie Boy is Here.
Abraham Zapruder was born in Ukraine, in Kovel’, Volyn Oblast. This is an interview with Abraham Zapruder done on 22 November 1963, the day of JFK’s assassination.
You get the gist of the discussion in the first 90 seconds from this point:
John F. Kennedy International Airport, in Queens, New York, opened in 1948 as “New York International Airport, Anderson Field,” but was commonly referred to as “Idlewild Airport” (after the name of the golf course which had previously been at that location).
The airport was renamed for Kennedy on December 24th, 1963, a little over a month after he had been assassinated.
Following the death of U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy in 1963, Cape Canaveral was renamed Cape Kennedy, but it officially reverted to its original Spanish name, which means “place of canes, or reeds,” in 1973.
Cape Canaveral lies east of Merritt Island and is separated from it by the Banana River. It became a test site for missile launches in 1949 when President Harry Truman and Congress established the Joint Long Range Proving Ground. It is a near-ideal site for launching missiles a rockets because it is close to the equator, giving a boost from the Earth’s rotation, and because it allows for launches over the Atlantic Ocean instead of over land and populations. It was formerly the Banana River Naval Air Station before it was transfered to the US Air Force in 1949.
Following the Soviet Union’s successful Sputnik 1 on 04 October 1957, the United States attempted its first launch of an artificial satellite from Cape Canaveral on 06 December 1957. However, the rocket carrying Vanguard TV3 exploded on the launch pad.
I Dream of Jeannie was a 1960s American television situation comedy, featuring Barbara Eden as Jeannie, a 2000-year-old genie with magical powers, and Larry Hagman as Jeannie’s master, Tony Nelson, a USAF officer and NASA astronaut.
The series, which ran during the height of NASA’s space program, was set on Florida’s Space Coast: Tony was stationed at Cape Kennedy/Canaveral, and he and Jeannie lived in nearby Cocoa Beach.