The United States Government’s efforts to deport John Lennon due to his anti-Vietnam War and anti-Nixon public comments are shown in the 2006 documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon, which got good reviews but which I haven’t seen yet.
Under UK law, John Lennon could not get rid of his middle name, Winston (which he always hated) as it was given to him at birth. So when he “changed” it to Ono after his second wife’s last name, he was legally John Winston Ono Lennon.
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, one of the most popular names for a male English Bulldog is Winston.
Other popular names for males are Tank and Brutus. For a female, popular names include Bella, Daisy, and Lucy.
Canadian stage actor Douglas Rain provided the voice of the HAL 9000 ship’s computer in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick had noticed Rain’s voice from his narration of an earlier astronomical documentary, Universe. Rain recorded his 2001 lines in just 8 1/2 hours over 2 days’ time, including singing or saying the words of the old song “Daisy” 51 times.
In the 1982 novel 2010: Odyssey Two written by Clarke, HAL is restarted by his creator, Dr. Chandra, who arrives on the Soviet spaceship Leonov. (In the film, Douglas Rain reprises his role of HAL 9000.)
Prior to leaving Earth, Dr. Chandra has also had a discussion with HAL’s twin, SAL 9000. Like HAL, SAL was created by Dr. Chandra. Whereas HAL was characterized as being “male”, SAL is characterized as being “female” (voiced by Candice Bergen in the film) and is represented by a blue camera eye instead of a red one.
Candice Bergen was credited as “Olga Mallsnerd” in providing the voice of SAL 9000 in the 1985 Peter Hyams-directed film, 2010: The Year We Make Contact.
Olga Korbut’s “Korbut Flip”, aka “Dead Loop”, a backward somersault off the top bar of the uneven bars with a re-grasp of that bar, was banned as too dangerous. Its first and only performance in competition was at the 1972 Summer Olympics.
President Richard Nixon was overwhelmingly reelected in 1972, carrying every state except Massachusetts. When the Watergate Scandal blew up over the next few years, a popular Bay State bumper sticker read, “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts!”
A bay breeze cocktail is made with vodka, cranberry juice and pineapple juice whereas a sea breeze cocktail has grapefruit juice instead of the pineapple juice.
OOP: It was legal until 1985 and performed by a few gymnasts, including a version with a twist.
Bay rum is a distillate, made from rum and the leaves and/or berries of the West Indian bay tree. It is likely to have originated in Saint Thomas in the Danish West Indies.
An American eagle tops the tomb of Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, a Virginian who remained loyal to the Union at the outbreak of the Civil War. After a highly successful military career, Thomas died in San Francisco in 1870. Largely rejected by his Virginia kinfolk, he was buried in Troy, New York, the hometown of his wife Frances.
The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad, which was originally formed in 1907 by the merger of two smaller railroads, with the primary purpose of transporting high quality “smokeless” bituminous coal from mines in southern West Virginia to the sea port at Hampton Roads, Virginia.
The Virginian operated until 1959, when it merged with the larger Norfolk and Western Railway; a large portion of The Virginian’s trackage remains in service today, used by the N&W’s successor, Norfolk Southern.
The Virginian was an American Western TV series that debuted on NBC in 1962; it ran for nine seasons, with a total of 249 episodes. It was network television’s third-longest running Western series, after Bonanza (14 seasons, 432 episodes) and Gunsmoke (20 seasons, 635 episodes).
The novel The Virginian by Owen Wister was published in 1902. It includes the quote “When you call me that, smile.” It is often misquoted as “Smile when you say that” or “Smile when you call me that.”
The mighty thoroughbred racehorse Secretariat was born in Caroline County, Virginia, which is north of Richmond VA, south of Fredericksburg VA, and close to but not alongside the Potomac River.
Caroline Kennedy, eldest child of John and Jacqueline Kennedy, served as US ambassador to Japan from 2013-2017, and to Australia from 2022-2024. She was appointed by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, respectively.
Six United States ambassadors have been killed in the line of duty.
The “Ambassadors Club” was the name for the private airport lounges operated by Trans World Airlines (TWA) for its first-class and high-status passengers. TWA maintained Ambassadors Clubs at larger U.S. and foreign airports, up until the airline was purchased by American Airlines in 2001, and ceased to operate under the TWA name.
The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-C, commanded by Capt. Rachel Garrett and seen in only one Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” was an Ambassador-class starship.
On May 18th, 1775, a British supply ship named George was captured by forces led by Colonel Benedict Arnold and renamed Enterprise; it would be the first in a long line of American ships to bear that name. Armed with 12 guns, she saw action only twice before being run aground and burned to avoid falling into British hands.