In 1980 Phil Silvers played a crooked producer looking to exploit the titular heroine in The Happy Hooker Goes to Hollywood. Silvers’ character was the typical role often played by him: a fast-talking con man.
On February 22, 1980 one of the greatest (if not the greatest) sports upset occurred when the United States defeated the Soviet Union in the ice hockey medal round of the Winter Olympics - aka The Miracle on Ice.
Not in play:
My bold. This game, as noted by @Saint_Cad, was in the ‘medal round’, but it was not the gold medal game. It was a semi-final game, and a couple of days later the USA went on to play, and defeat, Finland in the finals for the gold medal.
Many, if not most people, think that the USA/USSR game was for the gold medal. I take great pleasure in correcting such folks.
Carry on.
The presence of John Anderson, Independent of Illinois, on the U.S. presidential ballot in Nov. 1980 did not significantly change the outcome of election, despite the fears of some Democrats. Former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California, the Republican, defeated the incumbent President, Jimmy Carter, Democrat of Georgia,
English singer/songwriter Jon Anderson was a founding member of the progressive rock band Yes, and was the band’s primary vocalist for nearly all of the span from 1968 until 2005.
Anderson is known for his high, countertenor singing voice, and his mystically-themed song lyrics. In addition to his longtime membership in Yes, Anderson has also been a member of several offshoot/schism Yes bands (Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, and Anderson Rabin and Wakeman), as well as collaborations with prominent non-Yes musicians (Jon and Vangelis, and the Anderson Ponty Band, with Jean-Luc Ponty).
Roger Dean is an English graphic artist who has designed almost 40 album covers for the band Yes, including several covers for band members’ solo projects and collections. He is considered one of the most prolific album artists of all time with more than 150 covers to his credit.
American singer, comedian and actor Dean Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, on June 17, 1917. He and President Abraham Lincoln’s second Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, are two of the best-known people to come from Steubenville.
Not in play: My junior high school English teacher’s husband was a cameraman at this Winter Olympics. The students were all disappointed that he didn’t cover ice hockey. (I don’t remember what he did cover.)
In play: Steuben Glass is an American art glass manufacturer, founded in the summer of 1903 by Frederick Carder and Thomas G. Hawkes in Corning, New York, which is in Steuben County, from which the company name was derived
Ira Glass and Torey Malatia developed This American Life, which won a Peabody Award within its first six months and became nationally syndicated a year later. As a child, Glass wanted to be an astronaut. While in high school he moonlighted as a magician before working at a radio station, eventually joining the local NPR affiliate in Washington, DC, while attending Brown University.
American humorist David Sedaris, according to Wiki, “was discovered in a Chicago club by radio host Ira Glass. Sedaris was reading a diary he had kept since 1977. Impressed with his work, Glass asked him to appear on his weekly local program, The Wild Room. Referring to the opportunity, Sedaris said, ‘I owe everything to Ira… My life just changed completely, like someone waved a magic wand.’ Sedaris’s success on The Wild Room led to his National Public Radio debut on December 23, 1992, when he read a radio essay on Morning Edition titled ‘Santaland Diaries,’ which described his purported experiences as an elf at Macy’s department store during Christmas in New York.”
Amy Sedaris is an American comedienne who recently appeared in several episodes of The Mandalorian as the mechanic Peli Motto. Her character has also appeared in The Book of Boba Fett, where she revealed she once dated a Jawa.
The longest-ever US President inaugural address was William Henry Harrison’s in 1841, which amounted to 8,445 words.
(Reference ➤ Length of inaugural addresses of all American Presidents from 1789 to 2021
➜ https://www.statista.com/statistics/243686/length-of-inaugural-addresses-of-us-presidents ■
)
The full text can be found here ➜ The Avalon Project : Inaugural Address of William Henry Harrison ■ In the fourth paragraph of his speech, he mentioned the American citizen.
His speech up to the word American, in that fourth paragraph, is pasted below.
Inaugural Address of William Henry Harrison
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1841
Called from a retirement which I had supposed was to continue for the residue of my life to fill the chief executive office of this great and free nation, I appear before you, fellow-citizens, to take the oaths which the Constitution prescribes as a necessary qualification for the performance of its duties; and in obedience to a custom coeval with our Government and what I believe to be your expectations I proceed to present to you a summary of the principles which will govern me in the discharge of the duties which I shall be called upon to perform.
It was the remark of a Roman consul in an early period of that celebrated Republic that a most striking contrast was observable in the conduct of candidates for offices of power and trust before and after obtaining them, they seldom carrying out in the latter case the pledges and promises made in the former. However much the world may have improved in many respects in the lapse of upward of two thousand years since the remark was made by the virtuous and indignant Roman, I fear that a strict examination of the annals of some of the modern elective governments would develop similar instances of violated confidence.
Although the fiat of the people has gone forth proclaiming me the Chief Magistrate of this glorious Union, nothing upon their part remaining to be done, it may be thought that a motive may exist to keep up the delusion under which they may be supposed to have acted in relation to my principles and opinions; and perhaps there may be some in this assembly who have come here either prepared to condemn those I shall now deliver, or, approving them, to doubt the sincerity with which they are now uttered. But the lapse of a few months will confirm or dispel their fears. The outline of principles to govern and measures to be adopted by an Administration not yet begun will soon be exchanged for immutable history, and I shall stand either exonerated by my countrymen or classed with the mass of those who promised that they might deceive and flattered with the intention to betray. However strong may be my present purpose to realize the expectations of a magnanimous and confiding people, I too well understand the dangerous temptations to which I shall be exposed from the magnitude of the power which it has been the pleasure of the people to commit to my hands not to place my chief confidence upon the aid of that Almighty Power which has hitherto protected me and enabled me to bring to favorable issues other important but still greatly inferior trusts heretofore confided to me by my country.
The broad foundation upon which our Constitution rests being the people–a breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake, change, or modify it–it can be assigned to none of the great divisions of government but to that of democracy. If such is its theory, those who are called upon to administer it must recognize as its leading principle the duty of shaping their measures so as to produce the greatest good to the greatest number. But with these broad admissions, if we would compare the sovereignty acknowledged to exist in the mass of our people with the power claimed by other sovereignties, even by those which have been considered most purely democratic, we shall find a most essential difference. All others lay claim to power limited only by their own will. The majority of our citizens, on the contrary, possess a sovereignty with an amount of power precisely equal to that which has been granted to them by the parties to the national compact, and nothing beyond. We admit of no government by divine right, believing that so far as power is concerned the Beneficent Creator has made no distinction amongst men; that all are upon an equality, and that the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed. The Constitution of the United States is the instrument containing this grant of power to the several departments composing the Government. On an examination of that instrument it will be found to contain declarations of power granted and of power withheld. The latter is also susceptible of division into power which the majority had the right to grant, but which they do not think proper to intrust to their agents, and that which they could not have granted, not being possessed by themselves. In other words, there are certain rights possessed by each individual American citizen which in his compact with the others he has never surrendered.
Longest speech, leading to shortest term of office.
British actress Helena Bonham Carter played the Duchess of York, later Queen Elizabeth, wife of King George VI, in the 2010 movie The King’s Speech. Nine years later, she played Princess Margaret, younger daughter of the couple, in the TV series The Crown. IMHO she looked very little like either royal.
The title The King’s Speech is a play on both George VI’s speech impediment, and the speech which the King gives at the State Opening of Parliament to set out the legislative programme of the Government. Although the King gives the speech, it is written by the Government.
In the movie, the speech is given by George VI on Germany’s declaration of war, and rouses the British public in support of the war policy of the British Government.
In Canada, the equivalent speech in Parliament is referred to as The Speech from the Throne, and is normally given by the Governor General.
Parliament is an American brand of cigarettes, launched in 1931 and is distinctive for its recessed paper filters. It was originally used as an advertising gimmick when cigarettes did not have filters.
William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were born in March, 1931, four days apart.
William Shatner is and Leonard Nimoy was of Jewish birth, as Adam Sandler noted in “The Chanukah Song,” which he first performed on Saturday Night Live on Dec. 3, 1994.
Andy Kaufman was a popular if unpredictable guest to appear on Saturday Night Live. Eventually, Kaufman’s stint wrestling women drew the ire of then-producer Dick Ebersol. In response, Kaufman proposed an audience vote to let him stay or force him off the show. The final tally of viewers calling in to “Keep Andy” came in at 169,186, while 195,544 voted to “Dump Andy.” Whether it was another one of his audacious stunts remains to be seen, but Kaufman never appeared on SNL again following that vote.
For both President Richard M. Nixon (in the White House 1969-74) and Governor Richard F. Celeste of Ohio (in the Statehouse 1983-91), their political opponents circulated buttons which read “Dick [Lastname] before he dicks you.”