The many who doubt Shakespeare’s works were written by Shakespeare include Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Henry James and Sigmund Freud and 2 U.S. Supreme Court justices. That both of Shakespeare’s adult children seem to have been illiterate is one of many reasons for the doubts.
One of the men proposed as “the real author of Shakespeare’s works” is Sir Walter Raleigh, whose namesakes include the capital of North Carolina and a cigarette brand famous for the coupons available on every pack (video here),
Shakespeare was an English gentleman and as such was granted a coat of arms which showed a spear on a diagonal stripe. A flag bearing these arms is still flown outside his home in Stratford-upon-Avon. Nearly three million people visit the town yearly.
Shakespeare’s coat of arms had the motto “Non sanz droict.” One of the earliest pieces of evidence connecting this Shakespeare with the London theatre is a comedy by Ben Jonson in which a clown has the motto “Not without mustard.”
Within walking distance of Stratford-upon-Avon is the home of Anne Hathaway, an older woman Shakespeare courted and married, giving birth to a remarkably large premature baby just six months later. She was 26, Will just 18.
The role of Jane Hathaway, Mr. Drysdale’s cougar-wannabe man-hungry secretary on The Beverly Hillbillies, has been portrayed by two actresses- Nancy Kulp and Lily Tomlin- both of whom were openly lesbian*.
*Not when they played the role perhaps, but Kulp was by the end of her life and Lily Tomlin has come out.
Jane Smiley’s prize-winning novel “A Thousand Acres” is a re-imagining of “King Lear,” set on a Midwestern farm.
Akira Kurosawa’s last epic film, “Ran”, is a remake of “King Lear”, set in medieval Japan.
Norman Lear adapted the sitcom All in the Family from the British TV series Til Death Do Us Part.
Norman Lear provided the voice of Benjamin Franklin for an episode of South Park.
Among many of Benjamin Franklin’s inventions was the glass armonica (sometimes called “glass harmonica”), which rotated and made music when you pressed a finger to it. This was derived by the use of water glasses to produce music, an instrument quite a few 18th and 19th century composers (including Mozart, Beethoven, and C.P.E. Bach) wrote for. The glass harmonica fell out of disuse when it was believed that the vibrations from the music drove its players insane.
Benjamin Franklin was perhaps the first person to intentionally use electrocution as a means of killing or at least may be an ancestor of the taser. He wrote to a friend on Christmas Day 1750
Franklin was briefly knocked unconscious by the voltage but was not harmed.
Benjamin and Joseph were the only sons of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel.
The only son of Christoph Waltz, who this month became the first male actor to win an Academy Award for playing a Nazi (specifically Hans “The Jew Hunter” Landa), is an orthodox rabbi in Israel. (Waltz is not Jewish, but his ex-wife was a Jewish New Yorker who moved to Israel after their divorce.)
Viennese composer Johann Strauss Jr., composer of “Blue Danube” and many other dance numbers, is immortalized as “The Waltz King”.
Waltzing Matilda, an Australian folk/protest song, finished second in a national plebescite on naming the country’s official national anthem. The winner was Advance Australia Fair.
From 1135-1154 AD, Stephen de Blois battled with his cousin, the Empress Matilda (aka Maude), for the throne of England. This civil war provides the backdrop for most of Ellis Peters’ “Brother Cadfael” mystery novels.
The Empress Matilda’s son eldest son, Henry II (aka Henry Fitzempress), was played by Peter O’Toole in the films Becket and The Lion in Winter, both of them stage plays adapted for screen.
The opposite of Indian Summer (a period of warm fall weather) is Blackberry Winter (a period of cool spring weather).
Blackberry Winter is the title of a short story by Robert Penn Warren, whose most famous work is probably the novel All the King’s Men.