Before the decimalization of British currency on Feb. 15, 1971, the pound was divided into 20 shillings, and each shilling into 12 pence, resulting in 240 pence to the pound. Edward “Ted” Heath was British Prime Minister at the time.
“Pence” or pennies, made of silver, were the main unit of currency in England in medieval times.
With centuries of inflation, that is no longer the case.
Off-play:
Wales is part of the UK. Did you mean some other country?
“Halfpenny” was colloquially written ha’penny, and “1+1/2d” was spoken as “a penny ha’penny” or three ha’pence. “Halfpenny” is a rare example of a word in the English language that has a silent ‘f’.
True. How about Egypt and Syria?
In play: According to English with Lucy there are no words with a silent F that exist in Modern RP (RP, Received Pronunciation). But in some instances of the word fifth, there can be a silent second F.
The first four characters in the Peanuts comic strip were Charlie Brown, Patty, Shermy, and Snoopy. Snoopy was introduced on October 4, 1950, two days after the original three. The next characters were Violet Gray (introduced 2/7/51), Schroeder (5/30/51), and Lucy Van Pelt (3/3/52).
In his first appearance in Peanuts, Charlie Brown wore a solid-colored shirt. It wasn’t until December 21, 1950, that he began wearing his trademark shirt with a zig-zag design.
Initially, Peanuts was first called L’il Folks. That was back in 1947 in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Charlie Brown made his first appearance in L’il Folks, and so did an unnamed dog resembling Snoopy.
United Feature Syndicate changed the name from L’il Folks to Peanuts because there were already two comics, one named Li’l Abner and one named Little Folks. But Charles Schultz greatly disliked the name Peanuts. He said, “It’s totally ridiculous, has no meaning, is simply confusing, and has no dignity — and I think my humor has dignity.”
While Schultz was still living, all of the Peanuts TV specials, movies, and paperback collections of strips were never titled with Peanuts because Schultz hated the name so much.
Jimmy Carter grew and sold peanuts before entering politics, making very good money by the time he was elected Governor of Georgia in 1970. Already the longest-lived former President of the United States, Carter will reach his one hundredth birthday on Oct. 1, God willing.
Circus peanuts are a brand of marshmallow candy, shaped like peanuts. They date to the 19th century, when they were one of a large variety of unwrapped “penny candy” sold in such retail outlets as five-and-dime stores. In the early 1900s they were manufactured by Melster Candies Brands, and currently manufactured by the Spangler Candy Company.
Lucky Charms Cereal was invented when John Holahan, a product developer at General Mills, chopped up Circus Peanuts and added them to a bowl of sweetened toasted oats.
“Circus Circus” is a casino and hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. Originally opening in 1968, it was Vegas’s first family-oriented casino, and it features the world’s largest permanent circus.
1968 was an especially violent year in the US. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on 04 April, and then Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy was assassinated on 06 June which contributed to Richard M. Nixon becoming President that November.
Also in 1968, Helen Keller died of natural causes in her sleep on 01 June, Upton Sinclair died of natural causes on 25 November, Tallulah Bankhead died of pleural double pneumonia on 12 December, and John Steinbeck died at the age of 66 of heart disease and congestive heart failure during the 1968 flu pandemic on 20 December.
Those born in 1968 include Josh Brolin, Molly Ringwald, Cuba Gooding Jr., LL Cool J, Guy Fieri, and Mary Lou Retton, all in January 1968.
The 1968 flu pandemic, also known as the Hong Kong flu, was among the deadliest pandemics in history. It killed between one and four million people globally. The first recorded instance of the outbreak appeared on 13 July 1968 in British Hong Kong. It has been speculated that the outbreak began in mainland China before it spread to Hong Kong.
The Presidential Election of 1968 was chaotic, following the death of popular front-runner Robert Kennedy (Sr) and the unexpected withdrawal of incumbent Lyndon Johnson. Also the entry of Alabama governor George Wallace as a third-party candidate took votes away from the Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey.
The Hubert Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis was known as The Homer Dome for the Minnesota Twins. The Twins won the World Series in 1987 over the St. Louis Cardinals and 1991 over the Atlanta Braves there.
In 1985, George L. Belair ran for City Council in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Although his campaign proved unsuccessful, it was memorable to some locals in that it appears that Belair gave out Twinkies and other snacks to senior citizens as a way of influencing their votes. In May 1986, the election’s winner, incumbent Walter Dziedzic, filed a complaint against Belair, alleging Belair’s Twinkie giveaway had violated the Fair Campaign Practices Act, which The New York Times explains “prohibits candidates from providing any meat, drink or other entertainment or provisions.”
Belaire, who was indicted by a grand jury but who eventually walked free, was famously quoted as having said, ”I had no intention of bribing anybody with Twinkies and Ho Ho’s and a cup of coffee." Accordingly, when Minnesota later passed a law aimed at campaign finance reform, it became known as the “Twinkie Law.”
On November 27th, 1978, former San Francisco Supervisor Dan White shot and killed the city’s mayor, George Moscone, and Harvey Milk, a member of the Board of Supervisors.
During his trial for the murders, White’s defense team claimed that he was suffering from depression and diminished mental capacity, and that one sign of this was a change in his diet, consuming more junk food. Though his defense team did not actually claim that eating junk food was a cause of White’s mental state, the strategy was widely ridiculed in the media as the “Twinkie defense” – however, it did work, and White was convicted only on a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, rather than first-degree murder.
Harvey Milk, who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California.
The first openly gay person to be elected to public office in the United States was Kathy Kozachenko, who was elected to the Ann Arbor (Michigan) City Council in 1974.
The slogan “got milk?” was licensed to the National Milk Processor Board (MilkPEP) in 1998 to use on their celebrity print ads, which since 1995, included celebrities from the fields of sports, media and entertainment, as well as fictional characters from TV and film such as The Simpsons and Batman, posing in print advertisements sporting a “milk mustache”, employing the slogan, “Where’s your mustache?”
(Not in play: I had MilkPEP as a client for two years. They were…interesting. 
)
In play:
The “Got Milk?” advertising slogan was originally developed by the Goodby Silverstein & Partners advertising agency for the California Milk Processor Board in 1993. The insights which led to the original campaign were developed by Jon Steel, an account planner* at Goodby Silverstein, and agency partner Jeff Goodby came up with the actual slogan.
The first ad in the campaign, “Aaron Burr,” is considered to be one of the best TV ads ever made; it was directed by Michael Bay (one of his first professional directing jobs).
*- That role (now commonly called a “strategic planner”) is what I’ve been for most of my career.