The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church takes a “papal name” (a variety of regnal name) upon being named to the position. The most frequently used papal names, and the number of times they have been selected by a Pope, are:
Currently there are 44 Popes with singular, non-regnal names; most recently Pope Francis (2025). Among the others are:
A few years before Elvis Presley there was Fabian Anthony Forte, who performed mononymously as “Fabian.” Discovered at age 14, he was groomed for stardom in the music industry, which he achieved through teenybopper hits like “Tiger” and “Turn Me Loose.” His career trajectory in some ways followed that of Elvis: after his fame started to fizzle, he transitioned to movies. Unlike Elvis movies, which are almost universally panned as, to put it charitably, horrifyingly dull, Fabian’s films, while not Oscar-worthy, were pretty decent films. Later still, now comfortably in his 40s and long past his teen-idol peak, he transitioned to TV, doing guest spots on shows like Laverne & Shirley and The Facts of Life.
The piano takes its English name from the Italian term pianoforte, which is, itself, a contraction of the Italian phrase “gravecembalo col piano e forte” (“harpsichord with soft and loud”): the innovation of the piano is that, unlike earlier keyboard instruments like the harpsichord, the piano can produce notes of different volumes, depending on how hard the musician presses the keys.
In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Lady Catherine de Bourgh insists that Elizabeth “Lizzie” Bennet play the pianoforte to entertain her friends after dinner, despite Lizzie protesting that she’s not very good at it. Here’s the scene from the 2005 Joe Wright-directed adaptation of the 1813 novel.
The poem my grandma (a morbid woman, to be sure) used to recite to me said:
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her father forty whacks
When she saw what she had done
She gave her mother forty one
In fact, between her father and stepmother, she only delivered between 29-30 blows. It was also a hatchet (easier to wield in one hand), not an axe, but that’s splitting hairs. And also, she may not have even done it. The evidence against her is pretty thin, and the timeline doesn’t really make sense.
The Chad Mitchell Trio once recorded a folk-song entitled “Lizzie Borden”, which (humorously) retold the story of that day in Fall River, Massachusetts.
-“BB”-
Elsie the Cow is the mascot , or “spokescow”, of Borden Dairy Company. Introduced in 1936, she appeared as one of four cartoon cows (Bessie, Clara, and Mrs. Blossom). Elsie also had a cartoon mate named Elmer, who later became the mascot for Elmer’s Glue. In 2009, Elsie was named one of the top 10 advertising icons of all time.
In a 2007 top 10 list of advertising icons of the 20th century, two other animals joined Elsie: Tony the Tiger (Kellogg’s Sugar Frosted Flakes), and the Energizer Bunny (Eveready Energizer batteries). Surprisingly (to me, anyway) the #1 icon on that list was the Marlboro Man.
Thurl Ravenscroft was an American actor and singer, known for his deep bass voice. Ravenscroft regularly worked as a voice actor for animated films, from the 1940s through the 1990s, and also recorded voice work for a number of Disneyland rides and attractions.
He is best known for two roles: he voiced Tony the Tiger in advertisements for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes for fifty years, and sang the song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” for the 1966 animated television special, How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
The Haunted Mansions at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland feature Thurl Ravenscroft via the “Singing Busts” portions of the attractions. Both attractions, though decades old, continue to amaze crowds with their special effects. And though the special effects are effective, they’re not particularly special: they’re achieved through stagecraft techniques that had been around for decades, nay centuries. For example, the busts look like they’re following you with their eyes because they’re set into the walls such that their faces are actually facing away from you; the human brain fills in the rest. Similarly, the look of the ghosts, particularly in the Ballroom scene, is done via an effect known as “Pepper’s Ghost,” which had been around since c. 1858 and is remarkably simple (though I won’t tell you how it’s done because I don’t want to spoil it).
Stan Lee has said that the reason so many of the characters which populate the Marvel universe have alliterative names (Pepper Potts, Bruce Banner, Reed Richards, etc.) was because his memory was so bad at remembering names that if he could remember the first name, it would prompt him to remember that the other name also began with the same letter.
Jerry Lucas (NBA star) and Harry Lorayne wrote a bestseller, The Memory Book: The Classic Guide to Improving Your Memory at Work, at School, and at Play, published in 1974.
Chess grandmasters are oft remembered for spectacular feats of memory. For example, I read a book wherein the author, as a lad, had participated in a blindfolded simul with a dozen other players against a grandmaster. The author, being something of a prodigy himself at the time, had his adversary on the ropes but screwed up and lost. After the simul, the grandmaster went over the game with the author and pointed out where he’d gone wrong! In fact, though, such prodigious feats of memory are basically parlor tricks and, while having a good memory is a bonus, one does not have to have that type of memory to excel at chess.
The world’s current highest rated chess player is Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen of Norway.
The current world Chess Champion is Grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju of India. Dommaraju won the title in the 2024 World Chess Championship, defeating Ding Liren of China.
Dommaraju was born on 29 May 2006, so he’s just a few weeks shy of his 20th birthday. He was 18 years old when he won the world championship in December of 2024.
The next chess world championship will begin in November of this year.
Magneto is a character in Marvel Comics: a mutant with tremendous control over magentism. Going by various names over time, including Magnus, Max Eisenhardt, and Erik Lehnsherr, Magneto was originally a German Jew who survived the Holocaust, and is now determined to not allow his fellow mutants to suffer a similar fate.
The character has drawn parallels to real-world figures including Malcolm X, Menachim Begin, and Meir Kahane. He has been portayed in film by actors Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender.
Michael Fassbender was born in what was then West Germany, in 1977. When he was two his family moved to Killarney in County Kerry, Ireland (his mom was an Irish citizen). Fassbender is related to Irish statesman and revolutionary, Michael Collins, and portrayed him in a the play Allegiance, about a meeting between Collins and Winston Churchill.
In Jan. 1942, as they worked closely planning the Allied war effort against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent British Prime Minister Winston Churchill a trans-Atlantic cable reading, in part, “It is fun to be in the same decade with you.”
People born in 1942 include Aretha Franklin, Harrison Ford, and Bob Ross.
After retiring from the US Air Force, where he’d been a ball-busting Master Sergeant (a job he hated, because he was actually a gentle and calm fellow), Bob Ross and his partner traveled around the country, teaching art classes and selling art supplies. In those days they were stupid broke, clipping coupons to afford food. So broke was he that he couldn’t afford a haircut, and his hair grew into the afro that has been forever associated with him and his brand. He hated that, too, but hey, it made him rich so he cried all the way to the bank.