Shatner’s character, Capt. James Tiberius Kirk, got his middle name from an earlier Gene Roddenberry starring character, USMC Lt. William Tiberius Rice in the TV series “The Lieutenant”, set at Camp Pendleton. Rice was played by Gary Lockwood, best known as Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and, in another U.N.C.L.E. connection, his character reported to hard-assed Capt. Rambridge, played by Robert Vaughn.
US Marine veterans include baseball manager Dusty Baker, NFL hall of famer Art Donovan, former NFL player Eddie LeBaron, actors Scott Glenn, Glenn Ford, Bea Arthur, Burt Young (Rocky), Ralph Waite (The Waltons), boxing champion and hall of famer Gene Tunney, author Robert Ludlum, golfer Lee Trevino, and conductor John Phillip Sousa.
Bea Arthur did a series of wryly funny commercials for Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada in the mid-90s.
Michael Myers began performing in commercials at age two, then at age ten he made a commercial for British Columbia Hydro Electric, with Gilda Radner playing his mother. A few months later, according to Myers, his brother was teasing him about his “girlfriend being on some stupid show on Saturday”. Myers swore that one day he also would be on that show, the then-fledgling Saturday Night Live.
Mike Myers’ brother works for Sears Canada. The two brothers recently did a commercial for Sears: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/mike-myers-does-hilarious-sears-ad-his-brother-whos-worked-there-decades-161410
For Mike Myers: there is a street called Wayne’s World Drive in Draper, Utah, north of Provo and just south of SLC.
In honor of Presidents Day:
In Wayne’s World, Garth told Wayne that if Tia Carrare were a President, she’d be “Babe-raham Lincoln.”
Tia Carrere posed nude for the January 2003 issue of Playboy magazine. It was the top selling issue that year. She is of Chinese, Hawaiian, Spanish and Filipino ancestry.
The Hawaiian alphabet has only 13 letters.
On the island of Bougainville, just east of New Guinea, live a people called the Rotokas whose language has an alphabet that is the shortest in the world. It has 12 letters.
Bougainvillea is a flowering bush that is native to South America and the Caribbean but has spread all over the world and is the national flower of some Asian countries. In some former French possessions of the Americas it is known as Napoleón.
When Napoleon became emperor, he renamed the Louvre the Musee Napoleon and collected what was possibly the greatest collection of art in history – by looting works from across Europe. After he was deposed, the owners demanded their art back and the renamed Louvre, though reluctant, eventually complied with most of the demands.
The Louvre was originally a medieval fortress, adjoining the wall protecting Paris. The Great Tower in the centre of the Louvre became a symbol of royal power.
The central doors in the iconostasis are known as the *royal *doors. Only ordained clergy (bishops, priests and deacons) may use them to enter the sanctuary.
The Kansas City Royals baseball club was named after the American Royal Livestock Show held in Kansas City every year since 1899. The name is not a reference to the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues.
The first Society in Australia for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) was formed in the colony of Victoria in 1871. This was followed by Tasmania in 1872; New South Wales in 1873; South Australia in 1875; Queensland in 1883; Western Australia in 1892; Australian Capital Territory in 1955 and the Northern Territory in 1965.
All of these societies were granted the Royal Warrant in 1932 and are now known as the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).
The Kansas City Royals came oh-so-close to beating the San Francisco Giants in last year’s World Series. The Kansas City Royals’ stadium opened in 1973. It was named Royals Stadium, and it hosted that year’s All-Star game. The stadium was renamed to Kauffman Stadium (“The K”) in 1993 to honor Ewing M. Kauffman. Kauffman bought rights to the team in 1969 and that is the first year the Royals started in the Major Leagues.
The Golden Gate Bridge, one of San Francisco’s most distinctive landmarks, was destroyed in World War III in Nevil Shute’s On the Beach and badly damaged in an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine due to a Breen attack.
The Seven Wonders of the Modern World, as designated by the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) are:
► The Empire State Building, New York City, New York
► The Itaipu Dam, Brazil and Paraguay
► The CN Tower, Toronto, Ontario
► The Panama Canal, Panama
► The Channel Tunnel, France and the United Kingdom
► The North Sea protection works, including the Zuiderzee Works and Delta Works, Netherlands
► The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California
The Panama Canal was first attempted, then abandoned, by a French company. The Channel Tunnel was first attempted, then abandoned, by a British-French company, although earlier French and British proposals had been made. The beginnings of both excavation projects occurred in the 1880’s.