Sputnik Monroe was a professional wrestler who performed mostly in the southern US for 30 years. Born Roscoe Monroe Merrick in 1928 in Dodge City, KS, he debuted in 1945 as Rock Monroe until 1957, when he adopted the nickname “Sputnik” after the Russian satellite Sputnik I. Monroe was a favorite among the Black community in Memphis, and would frequent Black bars and socialize with them. This led to numerous run-ins with the police, Monroe being arrested on vague charges (such as “mopery”). Monroe would hire a Black lawyer to represent him, and once charges were dropped he’d do the same thing again. Despite being often cast as a “heel” in the ring, Monroe enjoyed immense popularity with Blacks, and they would often outnumber the White audience members despite being segregated to either the back of auditoriums or balconies, with some being turned away for lack of seats. Monroe made this point to promoters, who understood the value of lost revenue and eventually desegregated wrestling shows. Monroe retired from wrestling in 1975, although he made a special appearance at an event in 1986.
The Dodge automobile company was originally founded as the Dodge Brothers Company machine shop in the early 1900s by brothers John and Horace Dodge. They began by making parts and supplies for Ford and other automotive factories, but in 1914 they began to make their own automobiles. Both brothers died in 1920, and the company was sold to Chrysler in 1928.
Vladimir Yazdovsky was a trainer of Laika who went into space in Sputnik 2. He knew she would die in space so to do something nice for her, the night before the launch he took her to play with his kids so she could have one last night “of being a dog”.
ETA: Ninjaed literally as I was hitting the post button. So I guess Railer13 is in play as I won’t use an out like “Laika was not born in 1914” to artificially create a link. But I’m still leaving mine as it is a cool story.
That is indeed a cool - and a bit heartbreaking - story.
In play:
British novelist John Mortimer, creator of the irascible barrister Horace Rumpole (“Rumpole of the Bailey”), was invited by an Australian bar association to visit The Land Down Under late in his career to speak to local lawyers. He was given an unlimited expense account while in town, and ate and drank so prodigiously that the association was nearly bankrupted.
Or so I’ve been told.
John Mortimer’s father was a barrister who went blind. He continued to appear in court with the assistance of his wife. His blindness was known in the legal community, but being Britain in the 30s, Was Not Talked About.
Mortimer made his father’s disability public in one of his early plays, A Voyage Round My Father.
Fantastic Voyage was a science fiction film about people who were miniatured and injected into the body of a scientist to perform surgery. The concept was created by Jerome Bixby, best known for the Twilight Zone episode "It’s a Good Life, starring Billy Mumy.
Isaac Asimov was hired to write the novelization – one of the earliest – but due to production delays, his book came out before the movie, leading people to believe it was adapted from the book.
“It’s Still a Good Life” is the thirty-first episode of the revived Twilight Zone series from 2002. The main characters of Agnes and Anthony Fremont return, played respectively by Bill Mumy and Cloris Leachman. In this world they have aged appropriately; Anthony (Bill) is now an adult with a young daughter, Audrey. The rest of Anthony’s family (and presumably, Audrey’s mother) has been cornfielded. It is assumed that Audrey did not inherit her father’s powers… or did she?
Bill Mumy is one-half of Barnes & Barnes who you may know as the group that sang Fish Heads.
“Fish Heads” is the number-one all time requested song on The Dr. Demento Show.
The Frantics are a Canadian comedy team, which has had the same four members since its founding in 1979. They performed on several Canadian radio programs in the 1980s, and continue to perform on stage; they have released several albums of their skits and songs.
Recordings of two of their best-known skits, “Last Will and Temperament” and “Ti Kwan Leep” (both of which feature the catchphrase “boot to the head”) became staples on the Dr. Demento radio show.
Joe Clark and the PCs were elected to a minority government in Canada in the spring of 1979.
They were defeated on a budget in December 1979.
Pierre Trudeau was returned to office in the general election in February 1980.
Jimmy Carter’s last full year in office was in 1980. He remains the only President to have graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Currently there are six former US presidents who have served in the Navy: JFK, LBJ, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Carter and George H.W. Bush. All served during WWII, and all saw action in the Pacific theater, with the exception of Carter who enlisted in 1946. Carter was the only President assigned to a submarine, and Bush the only pilot. JFK and Bush survived brushes with death: the former had his PT boat split in two by a Japanese Destroyer, and the latter was downed by enemy fire near Chichijima, in the Bonin Islands (near Papua New Guinea).
Not in play: I think you mean “PT boat.” A PT Cruiser is something entirely different. 
In play:
There are several men named John Kennedy who are currently involved in U.S. politics, including:
- A member of the U.S. Senate, representing Louisiana
- A member of the Georgia State Senate
- The comptroller of Suffolk County, New York
Thanks! I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself with that mistake!
Mr. Kennedy, real name Ken Anderson, was a professional wrestler in WWE whose gimmick included doing his own special ring introduction. He would go down to the ring and an old-timey wired microphone would descend from the ceiling.
Grabbing it while under a spotlight, he would say, “Now that I have everybody’s attention. I would like to remind you that I weigh in tonight at 235 pounds. I hail from Green Bay, Wisconsin. Misterrrrrrrr Kennedy!”
pause
“Kennedy!”
French explorer and trader Jean Nicolet was the first European to reach what is now the state of Wisconsin. In 1634, while exploring Lake Michigan, Nicolet traveled down the lake’s Green Bay, while searching for a path to “the Orient.” He first set foot in Wisconsin at a location which is now known as Red Banks, just northeast of the location which became the city of Green Bay.
“The Ransom of Red Chief” was a humorous 1907 short story by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), about two small-time criminals who are so worn down and frustrated by dealing with the energetic, bratty little boy they’ve kidnapped, that they end up paying his wealthy father to take him back.
Murder on the Orient Express is a novel of detective fiction written by Agatha Christie in 1934, and tells the story of a murder which occurred onboard a train bound from the Middle East to Paris. Private detective Hercule Poirot is a passenger, and he is asked to look into the matter. The novel draws from a fictional account of the Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, where Charles Lindbergh’s infant son was kidnapped and killed. The novel would be made into a 1974 movie and a 2017 remake. In the US, the title was altered to Murder on the Calais Coach, to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel Stamboul Train, published in the US as Orient Express.
Hercule Poirot appeared in 33 of Agatha Christie’s novels, including her first published book in 1920, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, as well as in more than 50 of her short stories. But Christie eventually grew tired of writing about him, noting in her diary that she found Poirot ‘insufferable’ and ‘an egocentric creep’.