Tom Slick was a backup cartoon in Jay Ward’s George of the Jungle; Tom was a race car driver, piloting his Thunderbolt Grease-Slapper (usually modified into some oddball vehicle) in various races. His arch enemy and rival was the Baron Otto Matic and his dog Clutcher.
Captain Thunderbolt (Frederick Wordsworth Ward) was the longest roaming bushranger in Australian history. For six-and-a-half years Ward robbed mailmen, travellers, inns, stores and stations across much of northern New South Wales, from the Hunter Region north to Queensland and from Tamworth nearly as far west as Bourke.
On 25 May 1870, after robbing travellers near the Big Rock, Ward was shot and killed at Kentucky Creek near Uralla, NSW.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, the 1974 movie starring Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges, was the film acting debut for Clint’s son, Kyle Eastwood. Kyle was in one scene as a kid meeting an ice cream truck vendor.
Because the then-five year old Kyle Eastwood said one word of dialogue, which was “Hi!”, this action classified him, in terms of the actor’s guild rules, as being in the dialogue category. As such he had to be paid scale, which at the time was $128.
The sole occasion since federation that there has been a double dissolution of both houses of the Commonwealth parliament and a subsequent joint sitting was on 6 and 7 August 1974.
Only one member of parliament who attended that sitting is still in parliament today: the Father of the House, Philip Ruddock, the member for Berowra (NSW) - the seat in which I lived when I first enrolled to vote.
US President Gerald Ford’s September 1974 pardon of Richard Nixon played a major role in his defeat in the 1976 presidential election against Jimmy Carter.
The famous quote concerning Ford that “Gerald Ford can’t walk and chew gum at the same time” was a sanitized version suitable for printing in the papers.
The press corps was used to having to tone down President Johnson’s language. On that occassion the original quote was that “Jerry Ford is so dumb he can’t fart and chew gum at the same time.”
Gerald Ford is the only Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts’ highest rank) to ascend to the U.S. presidency.
Being an Eagle Scout may be something of a jinx in Presidential campaigns. Michael Dukakis, Gerald Ford, Bill Bradley, Dick Gephardt, and Ross Perot were all Eagle Scouts and major candidates for the Presidency. None was elected.
Future President John F. Kennedy rose to the rank of Star Scout, two steps below Eagle, while George W. Bush was a Cub Scout but never a Boy Scout.
Scout was a family of rockets designed to place small payloads into space.
The leading characters in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird are Atticus Finch and his daughter, nicknamed Scout. With the popularity of the novel, many baby girls in the U.S. have been named Scout, though the name has never made it onto the Top 1000 List in popularity.
One of the leading characters in the TV show Just Shoot Me was named Dennis Finch. i’ve always wondered if he was the grandson of Atticus Finch…To Kill a Mockingbird, just Shoot Me.
Titus Pomponius Atticus was a banker and patron of letters in ancient Rome, best known as the close friend and correspondent of the orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero. When Cicero wrote his treatise on friendship, De Amicitia, he dedicated it to Atticus.
In the New Testament’s order of books, the Epistle to Titus is grouped at the end of the “5 Ts” - five books beginning with T: 1st & 2nd Thessalonians, 1st & 2nd Timothy, and Titus. These immediately precede Philemon and Hebrews; and then the “1 - 2 - 3” of James, 1st & 2nd Peter, and 1st, 2nd & 3rd John.
Like 2nd Timothy, Titus is considered to be Paul’s final instructions to early church leaders before his final departure.
Sergei Prokofiev completed the score and words for *Peter and the Wolf *in just four days.
Peterborough, Ontario, was formerly called Scotts Plains. In the 1800s it was renamed in honor of Peter Robinson, who coordinated the emigration of Catholic farmers from Fermoy, North Cork, Ireland. Males were required to be no older than 45 years of age. In June 1825 over 2,000 people made the coordinated relocation in an effort to populate Upper Canada.
The Honorable Peter J. Corrigan is a judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County, Ohio (the greater Cleveland area). He is one of several judges named Corrigan - not all related - in the area.
The Cuyahoga River, at times during the 20th century, was one of the most polluted rivers in the United States.
The only recorded fall of snow in Sydney occurred on 28 June 1836.
The Meuse is the world’s oldest non-intermittent river.