Lee Falk created both Mandrake the Magician and The Phantom for King Features Syndicate prior to the start of WWII. Falk continued writing storylines for The Phantom up to his death in 1999.
The mandrake root has long been associated with magic and folklore in Europe, likely due to its hallucenogenic properties. One folk legend is that if the mandrake root is pulled from the ground, it will scream, killing the person uprooting it.
Mandrakes’ screaming was a minor plot point in both the Arthurian legend epic Excalibur and the Hogwarts adventure Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, RAF was, through the officer exchange program, the XO to General Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove.
In the movie Dr. Strangelove, General Ripper claimed that water fluoridation was destroying “our precious bodily fluids”—a reference to the claim that water fluoridation was a conspiracy designed to weaken US willpower and make the country susceptible to a Communist takeover. Although there were occasional references to a Communist conspiracy in the antifluoridation movement in the United States and Canada, this was not a common feature of the debate. More commonly, opponents believed that they should not have to take medicine against their will. Much of the opposition focused on the possible health risks.
Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper, USAF, was played in Dr. Strangelove by Sterling Hayden, better known before then for tough-guy Western and noir roles. Early in his Hollywood career, Paramount billed him as “The Most Beautiful Man in the Movies” and “The Beautiful Blond Viking God.” Hayden was a decorated U.S. Marine captain and served during World War II in the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Sterling Hayden enlisted in the Army before joining the Marine Corps. In the Marines he served for a brief time as a Boot Camp Drill Instructor before going to OCS, Officer Candidate School, at Quantico VA.
Sterling silver is an alloy composed by weight of 92.5% silver and 7.5% other metals, usually copper. Pure silver - like pure gold - is very soft and malleable, so other metals are added to it to make it less pliable for things like dinnerware and jewelry.
H. Jon Benjamin voices hard-drinking, woman-chasing international spy Sterling Archer, codename DUCHESS, in the FX animated comedy Archer. Past seasons have been done in the style of Sunset Boulevard, Alien and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
H. Jon Benjamin also voices Bob in Bob’s Burgers. In an episode of Archer he finds himself in a burger restaurant with Linda and the kids.
American scientist, writer, printer, statesman and diplomat Benjamin Franklin invented, among many other things, the glass harmonica. Mozart was one of the composers who wrote music for it, although it is rare today.
Mozart had a certain fondness for scatological humor – that is to say, Mozart thought toilet jokes were funny. Often, his letters to his family included crude jokes and it seems his family shared the same sense of humor.
Mozart wrote several canons with lyrics described as “robust language”, referring to breaking wind, bowel movements, and, most frequently, arse-licking. According to scholar Michael Quinn, Mozart “clearly relished the incongruity resulting from ribald verse set as a canon, traditionally regarded as the most learned of all compositional techniques.”
Some writers have noted that this type of humor was common in Mozart’s time; others have seen it as evidence of his psychological imbalance.
Mozart’s middle name, Amadeus, is derived from the Latin words ‘amare’ (to love) and ‘deus’ (god). The name can thus be taken to mean ‘the love of God’, or ‘one who loves God’.
Mozart was baptized at St. Rupert’s Cathedral in Salzburg. His baptismal record shows his full name as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.
The St. Peter Stiftskulinarium (known as the Stiftskeller St. Peter until 2017) is a restaurant located within the St. Peter’s Abbey in Salzburg, Austria. It claims to be the oldest existing restaurant in the world, as it is mentioned in the Carmina anthology, issued by English scholar Alcuin of York in 803 CE. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Christopher Columbus, and Johann Georg Faust are all known to have eaten there.
Columbus’ “discovery” of the new world led to the introduction of potatoes to Europe.
Technically this is correct, but it was the Spanish conquistadors who brought the potato from South America back with them to Europe.
In play:
Poutine is a Canadian dish, consisting of French-fried potatoes and cheese curds topped with a brown gravy. The dish is believed to have first appeared in Quebec in the mid-1950s. Today, there are annual Poutine celebrations in Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, and Ottawa, among others.
Note: I tried Poutine for the first time last month while in Toronto. Utterly delicious!
Hernán Cortés was one of the more successful Conquistadores, conquering the very advanced Aztec Empire of Montezuma. Within one generation, the Aztec religion was all but dead and most of the population converted to Catholicism. Cortés was quite likely to have fathered the first Metizo child with his mistress Dona Marina, a Nahua woman who was his translator.
The Aztec Empire fell on August 13, 1521 (OS) when the capital of Tenochtitlan was surrendered to Cortés.