Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, celebrates its 1000th anniversary this year. 1010-2010.
Actor Brian Dennehy and Toronto Blue Jays manager Tim Johnson both claimed falsely to have served in combat during the Vietnam War.
Joe Haldeman, a U.S. Army combat engineer, turned his traumatic Vietnam War experiences into a science fiction classic by writing The Forever War, which many readers thought was also a critique of Robert Heinlein’s more gung-ho Starship Troopers.
Robert Heinlein graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a lieutenant in the Navy until he contracted tuberculosis. He was discharged for health reasons.
The Naval Academy was established in Annapolis, Md. in 1845, during the administration of James K. Polk. Before that time, U.S. Navy officers were educated aboard active-duty warships. During the Civil War, when the Academy was threatened by pro-Confederate Marylanders, it was temporarily relocated to Newport, R.I.
Gay bikers like to hang out at the Blue Oyster Bar, in the ***Police Academy ***movie series.
Years ago, Harve Bennett came up with the concept for a Star Trek film with the original characters as Starfleet cadets. Called Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, it was shelved when rumors circulated that it was going to resemble Police Academy.
In the Star Trek universe, the main campus of the Starfleet Academy is located near Starfleet headquarters, just across the Golden Gate from the city of San Francisco.
Theseus, Bellerophon, Hercules and the musician Orpheus were among the Argonauts who accompanied Jason on his quest for the Golden Fleece
The Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts are the oldest professional football franchise in North America. They originated as a leisure activity of the Argonaut Rowing Club, founded in 1873.
In 1924, (not yet Dr.) Benjamin Spock won an Olympic gold medal in rowing while attending Yale University.
Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care has to date been translated into at least 40 languages and has sold more than 60 million copies (many more probably- there were copyright issues in some countries), making it one of the bestselling books in history. In spite of earning tens of millions of dollars in royalties Dr. Spock died almost broke due to an extremely expensive divorce from his wife of 49 years, IRS problems, bad investments and medical expenses. (Contrary to urban legend that his kids were drug addicted basket cases, they both turned out just fine.)
To date, Ronald Reagan is the only U.S. President who has gone through a divorce.
Three presidents have married divorcees: Andrew Jackson*, Warren Harding, and Gerald Ford; two first ladies who have remarried after the death of the president: Frances Cleveland, and Jackie Kennedy.
*I know- story there.
Rutherford B. Hayes is the only U.S. President that has an entire province named after him in a country outside the US. Paraguay named one of its provinces “Presidente Hayes” after him because he ruled that the territory belonged to Paraguay (actually, the decision was made by a State Department official and Hayes just signed off on it). The city of Villa Hayes was also named for him.
The partisan and sectional bickering over the 1876 election (in which Hayes got the electoral majority and Tilden the popular majority) led to southern Democrats agreeing to support and withdraw challenges to the inauguration of Republican Hayes in exchange for an end to Reconstruction and the appointment of southern Democrats to key positions in the Hayes Administration. Though called “The Compromise of 1877” this was actually informal- no paper trail. The Jim Crow laws were born soon after this.
Bill Tilden, the world’s dominant tennis player of the 1920’s, had his career destroyed by “morals” charges due to his homosexual ephebophilia. He was fictionalized as a character in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita.
Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent early in his career before rising to be an advisor and then successor to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. He now serves as prime minister of Russia.
The surnames of Boris and Natasha, the Russian villains from Bullwinkle, are Badenov and Fatale respectively. (Boris Badenov is a pun on Boris Gudenov [or Godunov- pronounced to semi-rhyme with ‘good enough’] while Fatale is an homage to femme fatales.)
Ah-nuld’s character in the James Cameron-directed spy comedy True Lies uses the codename Boris. His wife, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, asks if her codename will be Natasha, and seems disappointed when he tells her it will be… Doris.