Per Wiki, Belgian (not French!) private detective Hercule Poirot has been played by such actors as Austin Trevor, John Moffatt, Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm, Tony Randall, Alfred Molina, Orson Welles, David Suchet, Kenneth Branagh, Peter Dinklage and John Malkovich. My personal favorite is Albert Finney, in the 1974 all-star film adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express.
[not in play] That’s one of my favorite movies, too. It was the first movie I watched that employed an ensemble cast that wove everyone together to a satisfying culmination.
The Orient Express was a luxury train service, originally run by the Belgian company Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL). The train first ran in 1883; its traditional route crossed much of continental Europe, with terminal stations in Paris and Istanbul.
The original Orient Express ceased operation in 2009, though several private companies have since introduced, and proposed, new train services inspired by the heritage of the original.
According to Guinness, the world’s longest train ride without changing trains runs from Moscow to Pyongyang, a distance of 10,214 km, or 6,346 miles. One a train a week runs this route, which uses sections of the Trans-Siberian line. Total scheduled time is 7 days, 20 hours, and 25 minutes.
Nashville, Tenn., Corinth, Miss., Petersburg, Va. and Atlanta, Ga. were all the goals of U.S. Army campaigns during the Civil War in part because they were major train junctions. Richmond, Va. was, as well, but was more significant as the capital of both Virginia and the Confederacy.
Corinth, MS, is home of the Slugburger. Formerly called the Weeksburger, it was introduced by John Weeks, who moved from Chicago to Corinth in 1917 and sold from his eponymous hamburger stand. Made from deep-fried ground beef or pork (or a combination), with a meat filler added (cornmeal or potato flour; more recently soy flour), its name comes from the slang term for a metal disk the size of a nickel that would work in vending machines; the original price of the burger was a nickel. The annual Slugburger Festival has been held in downtown Corinth since 1988.
Michele “Slug” Signorino, a native of Mishawaka, Indiana, was a graphic artist, who specialized in what he called “humorous illustrations.” He used the nickname “Slug” – which was given to him by his grandfather – for most of his life.
As a professional illustrator, Signorino did illustrations for numerous clients over the years, including Playboy magazine, Scholastic Books, and Mother Jones Magazine, but he is still best-known (especially to us Dopers) as the illustrator for Cecil Adams’ The Straight Dope newspaper column, a role he held from 1975 until the discontinuation of the column in 2018.
Signorino continued working in graphic arts until his passing in 2024.
In the sci fi film The Last Starfighter, Alex Rogan’s younger brother Louis had a stash of Playboy magazines he was hiding from his mother.
The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter first flew in 1954.
It was the first production plane to achieve Mach 2, and the first to reach 100,000 ft altitude. It established world records for airspeed, altitude, and time-to-climb, and it was the first plane to hold all three records simultaneously.
In Marvel Comics, Lockheed is an alien “dragon” who is the companion of Kitty Pryde of the X-Men. She named him after the company which built the Blackbird, the X-Men’s jet.
Katharine “Kitty” Pryde is a character in the X-Men and related series of Marvel Comics, who was first introduced in 1980. The character was named for an art school classmate of artist/writer John Byrne, who gave Byrne permission to use her name, but later became overwhelmed by the fan attention she received.
The comic-book Pryde, whose primary mutant superpower is “phasing” (turning insubstantial) has had a number of superhero aliases over time, including Ariel, Sprite, Shadowcat, Shadowkat, Captain Kate Pryde, Red Queen, and Star-Lord.
The character has appeared in several X-Men movies, primarily portrayed by Elliot Page (as well as, in brief cameos in the first two movies, by Sumela Kay and Katie Stewart).
Amanda Blake played Miss Kitty Russell on the TV series Gunsmoke for the duration of the show. In the original radio series, Miss Kitty was a madam for prostitutes, and for a couple of seasons there were some hints at that on the television series. James Arness explained that they decided to drop those references to make the show more family friendly, and so Miss Kitty became just a lady saloon owner. Although there were hints of a romantic relationship between her and Marshall Matt Dillon, it was only a platonic friendship that was ever shown. In fact, the only woman Dillon ever kissed was Mrs Yardner, a widow played by guest star actress Michael Learned in Season 19.
William Conrad portrayed Matt Dillon on the radio version of Gunsmoke. He was a prolific radio actor and the producers thought his voice might be too familiar, but eventually changed their minds.
Conrad was not considered for the TV version because of his weight. He acted as the narrator for Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons and eventually starred in Cannon and Jake and the Fat Man.
Two of the cannon mentioned by name aboard the frigate HMS Surprise in the Napoleonic sea adventures of Patrick O’Brian were “Willful Murder” and “Sudden Death.”
The National Football League first instituted the use of a “sudden-death overtime” period for playoff games in 1941; prior to this, all games which were tied at the end of the fourth quarter ended in a tie. Under the sudden-death rules, the first team to score during the “overtime” period wins the game.
Sudden-death was only used by the NFL for playoff games until 1974, at which point it was also instituted for regular-season games. NFL playoff games cannot end in a tie; multiple sudden-death overtime periods can occur in a playoff game if the score remains tied. However, in a regular-season game, if the score is still tied at the end of one overtime period (currently 10 minutes in length), the game ends in a tie.
The longest NFL game ever played was on Christmas Day 1971, a divisional playoff game with the Miami Dolphins at the Kansas City Chiefs.
The typical NFL game lasts 60 minutes, but this one went into a second overtime and when it was over the game lasted 82 minutes and 40 seconds. The victorious Dolphins went on to play in Super Bowl VI where they lost to the Dallas Cowboys by an overwhelming score of 24-3. To date, 3 points is the lowest score of any team in the Super Bowl and that has been tied only once more, in Super Bowl LIII where the New England Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams 13-3.
After losing Super Bowl VI, the Miami Dolphins went on to win the next two Super Bowls, VII and VIII. Their victory in Super Bowl VII capped off their perfect 1972 season. To date they are the only NFL team to finish a season undefeated.
Those Dolphins were the first ever team to play in 3 successive Super Bowls. Their record was broken by the Buffalo Bills who played in 4 successive Super Bowls, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, and XXVIII.
The Buffalo Bills are the only football team in the NFL to have four straight losses in the Super Bowl. The Minnesota Vikings also have four losses, in non-consecutive years.
Popular opinion is that both of these teams are considered losers and chokers for these losses, ignoring their achievement in wins to reach the Super Bowl. There are teams which have never made it this far, let alone a few which have made the playoffs only as far as the first round, and some teams that have not played in the post season for several years, maybe decades.
Cody, Wyoming was founded by Buffalo Bill Cody. With a population of a hair over 10,000 it is Wyoming’s 11th largest city.
The US Navy has had four ships named USS Wyoming, three of which were named for the state. The other was named for the Wyoming Valley, in Pennsylvania.
With a population of just under 600k, Wyoming is the least-populated state in the USA. Vermont is second on this list, followed by Alaska, then North Dakota, and South Dakota. Each of these states has a population of less than one million.