George Bernard Shaw, writer of the story Pygmalion and screenwriter for the movie Pygmalion is the only person have both an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize.
Not in play: No, Al Gore does not have an Academy Award. THAT award went to Davis Guggenheim.
The NYC museum is named after Solomon Guggenheim. Solomon’s brother Benjamin died on the Titanic. He was asleep when it hit the iceberg. When woken, he cried out, “Never mind, icebergs! What is an iceberg?” His body was never found.
A well-known institution at Bondi beach is the Bondi Icebergs club. It was established in 1929 by a band of dedicated local lifesavers who wished to maintain their fitness during the winter months.
The original inventor of Life Savers candy was Clarence Crane, the father of poet Hart Crane.
The brolga is a bird in the crane family. It is native to tropical and south-eastern Australia and New Guinea. It is known for its highly intricate and ritualised mating dance.
Kelsey Grammer’s TV character Dr. Frasier Crane was originally written to last only a few episodes on “Cheers”, but became a regular character. Including his starring spinoff series “Frasier”, in which moved from Boston to Seattle, the character was on-air for twenty years.
‘Crane’ is an anagram of ‘nacre’, otherwise known as mother of pearl. It is an organic-inorganic composite material produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer; it is also what makes up the outer coating of pearls. It is strong, resilient, and iridescent.
Pearl Mesta was the rich widow of an steel manufacturer who moved to Washington DC and became involved in fundraising. Called “The Hostess with the Mostess,” she was appointed by Harry Truman to be ambassador to Luxembourg, and her story formed the basis for the Irving Berlin musical Call Me Madam.
Marie-Adélaïde, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg reigned from 1912 to 1919. She ruled through the First World War, and her perceived support for the German occupation led to unpopularity in Luxembourg as well as neighbouring France and Belgium. In 1919, on the advice of Parliament, she abdicated in favour of her younger sister Charlotte.
After abdicating, Marie-Adélaïde became a nun in Italy, before leaving due to ill health. She died of influenza in Germany in 1924.
The National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial in Kansas City opened in 2006. More than one million people have visited the museum, including Former Vice President Dick Cheney, General Colin Powell, Senator John McCain and actor Kevin Costner.
America’s last surviving WWI veteran, Frank Buckles, visited the Museum over Memorial Day weekend in 2008.
Two referenda were held in Australia during World War I (in October 1916 and December 1917) seeking voters’ approval of the Commonwealth government’s proposals for the extension of the existing universal military training for Australian men to include service overseas.
Both referenda were defeated and there was no conscription in Australia during WWI.
In WW2’s D-Day, the 06 June 1944 Normandy invasion, of the 24,000 Allied forces personnel involved Australia provided about 10% of that number: approximately 2,000 to 2,500 troops.
German casualties on D-Day were around 1,000 men. Allied casualties were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead.
Today, 6 February, is Waitangi Day, the national day of New Zealand.
Waitangi Day celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document, on 06 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and various Māori chiefs from the North Island of New Zealand. The treaty was signed in a marae in the grounds of James Busby’s house (now known as the Treaty house) at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands. The Treaty made New Zealand a part of the British Empire, guaranteed Māori rights to their land and gave Māori the rights of British subjects.
For many years, Royal Crown Cola was the third most popular brand in the US. Royal Crown was the first to put any soft drink in a can, and the first to release a diet cola.
The battleship HMS Royal Oak was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sunk inside the supposedly-secure anchorage at Scapa Flow in northern Scotland early in World War II.
The eight Royal Navy ships named Royal Oak were named after the oak tree in which Charles II hid from Parliamentary forces after the defat of the Royalists at the Battle of Worcester. Georgette Heyer tells the story in a fictionalised account, Royal Escape.
The U.S. secretly offered to lend the British Royal Navy the aircraft carrier USS Iwo Jima, if necessary, during the Falklands War of 1982. The British did not need the carrier after all.
That USS Iwo Jima mentioned by Elendil’s Heir, the USS Iwo Jima (LPH-2), was one of three ships of the United States Navy named in memory of the Battle of Iwo Jima. The LPH-2 was the lead ship of her class and type—the first ship to be designed and built from the keel up as an amphibious assault ship.
On 17 April 1970, Iwo Jima was the flagship of Task Force 130 that waited for the Apollo 13 spaceship’s astronauts after their memorable “successful failure” mission and splashdown near American Samoa. In the 1995 film Apollo 13, Iwo Jima was played by her sister ship, USS New Orleans (LPH-11). Iwo Jima’s skipper, Captain Leland E. Kirkemo, is portrayed by the film’s central protagonist, Captain Jim Lovell.
“The Catte,
The Ratte, and
Lovell our Dog,
Ruleth all England
Under the Hogg.”
Th poem was a Tudor dig at Richard III which began circulating in 1484. It referred to three of Richard’s main supporters: Sir William Catesby, Sir Richard Ratesby, and Viscount Lovell, whose heraldic emblem was a wolf.
The Hogg was Richard himself, whose heraldic emblem was a white boar.