The 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California’s Butte County was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history.
Butte, Sunstroke, Gila, and Cactus were villains created by the computer Dominus to fight the West Coast Avengers.
The Avengers (1998) is considered one of the worst movies ever made, being nominated for 9 Razzies at the 19th Golden Raspberry Awards (winning the category for Worst Remake or Sequel). Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus reads: “A TV spinoff that lacks enough energy to spin, The Avengers is an ineptly written, woefully miscast disaster.” Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 12 out of 100, based on 19 reviews, indicating “overwhelming dislike”. Audience polling on Cinemascore gave the film an average grade of “D” on an A+ to F scale.
Wiki lists three movies called The Avengers, which were released in 1942 (a British WWII drama set in Norway), 1950 (an American swashbuckler set in 17th C. colonial Argentina) and 1998 (an American adaptation of the British spy show, costarring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman; it now holds a rating of 5% on Rotten Tomatoes).
None of these, of course, are to be confused with Marvel’s The Avengers (a 2011 superhero movie costarring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo and many others). There have also been no fewer than six movies called Avenger or The Avenger (singular),
IMDb lists three movies with identical titles: Avenging Angel, a 1985 sequel to Angel, a 1984 action-thriller about a reformed prostitute who becomes a lawyer before returning to the streets to fight crime; Avenging Angel (2007), a made-for-TV movie starring Kevin Sorbo as a preacher turned bounty hunter; The Avenging Angel (1995), also made-for-TV movie and stars Tom Berenger as “a professional Mormon commando/bodyguard who is forced to turn renegade and to question his faith as he investigates a scandal involving assassination and land speculation.”
The Los Angeles Angels are an American League baseball team, which began play in 1961. Despite being based in the Greater Los Angeles area throughout their existence, their move from the city of Los Angeles to Anaheim in 1966 has led to a number of changes of the team’s name. In chronological order, the team has been named:
- Los Angeles Angels (1961-65)
- California Angels (1966-96)
- Anaheim Angels (1997-2004)
- Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (2005-15)
- Los Angeles Angels (2016-present)
Although not identified identified until the early 1980’s, the first known United States patient with HIV was Robert Rayford who contracted it in 1966. Due to limitations on testing, he was not identified until the late 80’s as having an early form of HIV.
In the US, about 1 in 7 people with HIV don’t know they’re infected. And, HIV is spread through certain bodily fluids, including blood, semen, vaginal fluids, anal fluids, and breast milk where it can be transmitted from an infected mother to her child.
Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is a virus which compromises the immune systems of cats, not unlike HIV in humans. Like HIV, FIV is a “lentivirus” (a genus of retroviruses).
FIV is not transmissible to humans; the typical vector for its spread among cats is through deep bite wounds, incurred during fights between cats, in which infected saliva is introduced through the wounds.
The world record for Most Women To Spit Water In Someone’s Face In One Minute During A Candlelight Dinner is six, held by Anthony Carboni. He set the record at The Purple Onion in San Francisco on Nov. 11, 2011.
Anthony Scaramucci served as White House Director of Communications in the first Trump Administration from July 21-31, 2017. He has since become strongly critical of Trump, and endorsed his former boss’s Democratic opponents for President in both 2020 and 2024. The brevity of his Federal service has led to the humorous creation of “the Scaramucci” as a unit of time; that is, ten days.
Scaramouche, or Scaramuccia, is a stock clown character in the Italian commedia dell’arte theater of the 16th and 17th centuries. A version of the character later appeared in Punch and Judy puppet shows in England.
The name “Scaramouche” is one of a number of historical and theatrical references which appear in the middle, “operatic” section of Queen’s 1975 hit “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
The Kingdom of Bohemia was an Imperial State in central Europe during the Holy Roman Empire, occupying parts of modern-day Czechia and Austria. It existed from the 13th century until the early 19th century, when the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire was replaced by the Austrian Empire, and the state eventually becoming the Czechoslovak Republic.
In 19th century France, literary and artistic bohemians were associated with the roving Roma people, often pejoratively referred to as “gypsies”. Romani were called bohémiens in French because they were believed to have come to France from Bohemia.
“A Scandal in Bohemia,” published in 1891 in The Strand Magazine, was written by A. Conan Doyle and was the first short story featuring Sherlock Holmes. In it, Holmes takes as his client the King of Bohemia (although Bohemia was not actually, at that time, an independent kingdom).
New Jersey singer-songwriter Jon Bon Jovi briefly played guitar for in the American band Scandal in 1983. It is undetermined if he contributed to or participated in the making of their debut album, Warrior, and their two biggest hits: Warrior and Goodbye to You.
Patty Smyth, vocalist for the 1980s rock band Scandal, has been married to former professional tennis player John McEnroe since 1997.
In his career, John McEnroe won 7 Grand Slam singles titles, 9 Grand Slam doubles titles, and 1 Grand Slam mixed doubles title.
John F. Kennedy rarely sat still for an entire movie. He did see the James Bond movie From Russia with Love in its entirety in a private White House screening less than a week before he died, however.
Despite not being a monarchy, the Coat of Arms of Russia has the Imperial Crown, worn by the tzars, on it.
The flight speed of an adult Monarch butterfly is around 6 mph.