National Velvet was a 1935 novel by Enid Bagnold, about a young girl who, dressed as a man, wins the Grand National. The novel was made into a highly successful film version in 1944, starring twelve-year-old Elizabeth Taylor.
Richard Stanley Francis, better known to most people under his pen name ‘Dick Francis’, was a former steeplechase jockey. Highly successfulv in the sport, Francis was jockey to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother from 1953 to 1957, and was wearing her colours during the 1956 Grand National when his horse inexplicable stumbled and fell when close to winning the race.
After suffering injuries in another fall in 1957, he retired from racing and turned to writing with many of his novels featuring jockeys, steeplechase racing, and all the little bits and arcana of his former life. His writing career also met with huge public and critical success, and he remains the only three-time winner of the Mystery Writers of America’s “Edgar” Award for Best Novel.
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Francis the Talking Mule was a mule who became a celebrity during the 1950s as the star of seven popular Universal-International film comedies. In the original 1950 film the mule identifies himself to the commanding general as “Francis…123rd Mule Detachment…serial number M52519”. With a plot device like the later series Mister Ed , Francis would usually only talk to Peter, thus causing problems for his nominal “master”.
Francis the Talking Mule was supposedly descended from equine nobility as evidenced by one of his oaths, “By the tail of my great-aunt Regret who won the Derby,” muttered at times of extreme exasperation. Regret was a thoroughbred racehorse and in 1915 did, in fact, become the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby.
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Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson) was a ruthless British politician who would stoop at nothing to become, and then remain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the House of Cards political dark-satire trilogy by Michael Dobbs and Andrew Davies. The character was renamed Francis “Frank” Underwood in the Netflix adaptation of the show, and was played by Kevin Spacey.
Ian Fleming, best known, of course, for his series of James Bond spy novels, was born in London into a wealthy banking family in 1912. His father, a member of Parliament, was killed on the Western Front in 1917. Ian and his three brothers, Peter, Michael, and Robert, all served in various capacities in the British military during World War II. Michael Fleming died of wounds in 1940 after being captured at Normandy.
Figure skater Peggy Fleming was one of the dominant athletes in her sport in the late 1960s: she won five consecutive U.S. championships (1964-1968), a North American championship (1967), three consecutive world championships (1966-1968), and the gold medal at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France. Hers was the only gold medal won by the U.S. team in those Winter Games.
Peggy Fleming’s father was a US Marine.
Ismail Ibn Sharif, a Sultan of Morocco from 1672–1727, is believed to be the world’s most prolific father. He had four wives and over 500 concubines; in 1703 it was recorded that he had sired 525 sons and 343 daughters. His 700th son was born after his death in 1727. The Guinness Book of Records claims that he had 1042 children.
The United States Marine Corps’ current insignia is the renowned Eagle, Globe and Anchor. During the Civil War, however, the insignia was a hunting horn with a Gothic letter “M.”
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In 1987, Chrysler purchased the American Motors Company (AMC), primarily to obtain the Jeep brand and models. However, under the terms of the purchase, Chrysler was also obligated to continue to sell certain passenger car models, as well, and wanted to maintain the AMC dealer network, so Chrysler created a new automobile marque, Eagle, taking the name of a popular AMC model.
Eagle’s auto lineup was primarily a mix of rebadged autos from Renault (which had previously been part-owner of AMC) and Mitsubishi. Chrysler shut down Eagle after the 1998 model year.
Eugene the Jeep is a character in the Popeye comic strip. A mysterious animal with magical or supernatural abilities, the Jeep first appeared in the March 16, 1936, appearance of the Thimble Theatre strip. He was also present in animated versions of Popeye’s adventures, including three appearances in the Fleischer Studios shorts of the late 1930s/early 1940s.
Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”, Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”, and The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” were all recorded using the same piano, a Bechstein grand piano at Trident Studios in London.
The musical duo of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel was one of the best-selling and popular groups of the late 1960s. Their first effort, a song called Hey, Schoolgirl, was a minor hit released while they were in their teens and known as “Tom & Jerry.”
A Tom and Jerry is a variety of cocktail (a variant of egg nog), and is traditionally a Christmas drink. A Tom and Jerry is served hot, and is typically made with eggs, sugar, brandy, rum, and spices.
The drink was created by an English author in the 1820s, and is now particularly popular in Wisconsin and other states in the Upper Midwest, where the premade “batter” for the drink can be found in grocery and liquor stores during the holiday season.
In the early 1800’s, as pioneers settled the American midwest, they grew so much corn, it was cheaper and more profitable to convert corn into whiskey than transporting it to eastern markets. Between 1790 and 1810, the number of distilleries increased five-fold, to 14,000. The price of whiskey fell to twenty-five cents a gallon, making it cheaper than wine, beer, tea, coffee and even milk. By 1820, Americans were drinking 1.7 bottles of 80 proof liquor per person per week, or nearly 90 bottles a year.
Corn will always have an even number of rows on each cob. On average an ear of corn has 800 kernels in 16 rows.
Henry A. Wallace was vice president under FDR from 1941-1945; he had previously been Secretary of Agriculture. He also ran for President in 1948 under the Progressive Party banner. Prior to entering politics, Wallace headed the Hi-Bred Corn Company and developed new strains of hybrid corn.
Henry A. Wallace was replaced on the Democratic ticket in 1944, in part, because he was quite liberal, and more conservative party bosses knew that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was in poor health and might not live to serve out his fourth term. They were able to get Sen. Harry S Truman of Missouri as FDR’s running mate, and he succeeded Roosevelt as President after just 82 days as Vice President.
The Missouri Pacific Railroad, commonly referred to as MoPac, was a major (Class I) railroad, which claimed to have been the first U.S. railroad west of the Mississippi River. The MoPac served the western United States, until being purchased by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1982 (though the merger was not fully completed until 1997).