Spanish singer Julio Iglesias was recognized by the Guinness World Records in 2013 as the best-selling male Latin artist of all time.
The Julio Garavito Order of Merit in the Degree of Grand Cross, the highest distinction awarded by the national government of Colombia in the field of engineering, was established on 05 January 1965, the centenary of his birth. Julio Garavito Armero (1865 – 1920) was an astronomer from Colombia who appeared on the 20,000 colombian peso bill, with the Moon on the same side of the bill, and the Earth as viewed from the Moon’s surface on the other side. In 1892 he was appointed as head of the National Observatory of Colombia. A crater on the far side of the Moon is named the ‘Garavito crater’.
The name of a crater on the Moon is a plot point in one of the Black Widower stories, written by Isaac Asimov.
Craters of the Moon National Monument in south-central Idaho on the Snake River Plain has more than 752,000 acres covered with jagged lava rock and sagebrush. For thousands of years, people avoided the region. Settlers on the Oregon Trail did not want to stop there. But in 1920, an Explorer named Robert W. Limbert spent 17 days exploring the area. Limbert mapped and photographed the region, including Echo Crater, Vermilion Chasm, Trench Mortar Flat, and The Great Rift. Limbert recorded his explorations in a 1924 National Geographic Magazine article titled, “Among the Craters of the Moon”. In the past 15,000 years there have been at least 8 major lava eruptive periods. Most of Craters of the Moon was formed in the past 10,000 years — very recently in geologic terms.
Crater Lake in southwest Oregon lies within a 2,148-deep caldera that was formed around 7,500 years ago, following the collapse of Mount Mazama. It is the deepest lake in the United States.
The Oregon Trail is a series of educational computer games, originally created in 1971, developed to teach grade school students about the life of 19th Century American pioneers, traveling on the Oregon Trail from Missouri to Oregon.
The game has gone through numerous editions and revisions, and was widely used in American schools in the 1980s through the 2000s. A phrase from the game, “You have died of dysentery,” has become a meme.
The eastern half of the Oregon Trail was also used by travelers on the California Trail (from 1843), Mormon Trail (from 1847), and Bozeman Trail (from 1863) before turning off to their separate destinations.
The California Trail split from the Oregon Trail at Fort Hall ID, turned southwest, and terminated in the gold country of the Sierra Nevadas.
The Mormon Trail split from the Oregon Trail at South Pass WY (Continental Divide), turned southwest, and terminated in Salt Lake City UT.
The Bozeman Trail split from the Oregon Trail at a point northwest of Fort Laramie WY near the North Platte River, turned northwest, went through Bozeman Pass, and terminated in Virginia City MT.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-06 established the first overland route connecting the western boundary of the United States to the Pacific Ocean. Like the subsequent Oregon Trail, the Lewis and Clark Trail began in St Louis, MO, following the Missouri River into what is now Montana before crossing the Rocky Mountains and following the Salmon and Snake Rivers to the Columbia River Gorge, then proceeding downriver to Cape Disappointment and the Pacific. However the crossing of the Rockies at Lolo Pass was deemed inaccessible to wagons trains so a southerly route was established; settlers followed the Lewis and Clark Trail to Independence, MO, before turning west. Eventually the two trails converged on the Columbia, near The Dalles, OR.
The western border of Montana follows the Bitterroot Mountains instead of the Continental Divide as planned. This is due to Sidney Edgerton, the first Territorial Governor of Montana, who politicked to move the border with Idaho westward so that Montana would get more gold mines at the expense of Idaho.
Although Tony Randall’s character in the NBC 1981-1983 sitcom Love, Sidney was established early in the series’ run to be a closeted gay man, this was downplayed in most of the show’s plotlines.
Tony Randall served for five years with the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II, including work at Arlington Hall for the codebreaking Signal Intelligence Service. He rose to the rank of first lieutenant prior to his discharge.
In 1995, Tony Randall married his second wife, actress Heather Harlan – at the time of their wedding, Randall was 75, and Harlan was 25. The officiant at their wedding was Rudy Giuliani, who was, at the time, the mayor of New York.
Randall and Harlan had two children together, both born when Randall was in his late 70s. The couple remained married until Randall’s death in 2004.
At the time of his death, Tony Randall had appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 105 times, more often than any other celebrity had appeared.
Tony Randall brought Mandy Patinkin to the Late Show in 1994 (seven years after The Princess Bride). Tony introduced Mandy as a young actor he just discovered and was introducing him to America. Mandy then belted out Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Mandy Patinkin grew up regularly attending Synagogue and singing in the Synagogue choir.
Barbra Streisand did not give Mandy Patinkin, a talented singer, a single song to sing as costar of her Jewish-themed 1983 musical film Yentl. She gave herself nine.
Actors Mandy Patinkin and Cary Elwes had to learn fencing for their iconic dueling scene in the film The Princess Bride. They underwent three weeks of training by fight choreographer Bob Anderson and stuntman Peter Diamond, and practiced extensively together, including learning each other’s choreography as well as their own. Due to the nature of the fight, both Patinkin and Elwes had to learn how to fence both left-handed and right-handed.
The Princess Bride is a very quotable film, even now almost 40 years later. According to Cary Elwes, Wallace Shawn had it “worse than him” because any time he made a small error, like dropping his keys, people would shout “Inconceivable!” at him.
According to the American Film Institute (AFI), the number-one movie quote of all time is “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”, from Gone With The Wind. “May the Force be with you” is listed at number 8 (which I feel is too low).
The American Film Institute is the largest nonprofit film exhibitor in the world. They present first-run and auteur films year-round at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. AFI used to present these films at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. AFI was founded in 1967 by a presidential mandate announced in 1965 by the 36th POTUS, Lyndon B. Johnson.