In George R.R. Martin’s epic Game of Thrones books, King of Westeros Robert Baratheon is succeeded by his sons Joffrey and then Tommen, although questions persist as to their parentage.
Many choreographers have worked with the Chicago-based Joffrey Ballet including Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, George Balanchine, and founders Gerald Arpino and Robert Joffrey. They were the first dance company to perform at the White House, the first to appear on American television, the first classical dance company to use multi-media, the first to create a ballet set to rock music, the first to appear on the cover of Time magazine, and the first company to have had a major motion picture based on it, Robert Altman’s The Company.
Dr Hook and the Medicine Show did eventually make the cover of Rolling Stone, albeit in caricature and with the headline: “What’s-Their-Name Make the Cover.”
Each of us could see ourself in a mirror on the cover of Time’s 2006 Person of the Year issue, where they selected You.
Queen Elizabeth I was an excellent linguist. As an 11 year old she presented her stepmother Queen Katherine with two volumes of prayers and verse that she had translated herself:
- The Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful Soul, translated from the French;
- Prayers of Queen Katherine Parr, translated from English into French, Latin and Italian.
The six wives of Henry VIII are
1509-1533: Catherine of Aragon
1533-1536: Anne Boleyn
1536-1537: Jane Seymour
1540-1540: Anne of Cleves
1540-1541: Catherine Howard
1543-1547: Catherine Parr
Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were first cousins: both were granddaughters of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk.
None of the six wives of Henry VIII have any living descendants.
While none of Henry VIII’s legtimate children are officially known to have had children, suspicion centers on the alleged Virgin, her lover Robert Dudley (Earl Leicester), and especially late 1561 when Queen Elizabeth was known to be bedridden with a swollen abdomen (and some of the Queen’s ladies were reporting pregnancies, perhaps to provide cover). If there were a secret child, he/she would have been turned over to trusted friends to be raised.
Candidates proposed for a possible 1561-born love-child of the Virgin Queen include a man who presented himself in Spain as Arthur Dudley, with much collaborating evidence; and John Harington, the Queen’s ‘Saucy Godson’, courtier, poet, and inventor of the flush toilet.
The footage of QE1’s speech on horseback to the English troops at Tilbury awaiting the invasion by the Spanish Armada in Alexander Korda’s film Fire Over England, the first pairing of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, was reused in his propaganda homage to the RAF, The Lion Has Wings, preparing the nation for the upcoming Battle of Britain.
Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh were married to other people in Fire Over England, he to Jill Esmond, and she to Herbert Holman.
The Czech-born, British actor Herbert Lom was perhaps best known for his portrayal of Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus, Inspector Clouseau’s long-suffering superior in several of Blake Edwards’ Pink Panther films.
Blake Edwards was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. During WWII he was in the US Coast Guard.
On November 1, 1948, Julie Andrews (then aged 13, later Mrs. Blake Edwards) became the youngest solo performer ever to be seen in a Royal Command Variety Performance, at the London Palladium, where she performed along with Danny Kaye, the Nicholas Brothers and the comedy team George and Bert Bernard for members of King George VI’s family.
Petula Clark broke into show biz at the age of 9, while attending a 1942 BBC Radio show for the troops overseas, of which her uncle was one. The audience was stuck in the theatre by an air raid alarm, and the producer asked for help keeping calm and carrying on. The eager Petula ran to the stage, began singing “Mighty Lak a Rose”, the band started in, and she was asked back repeatedly to perform on later broadcasts. She toured the UK with fellow child star Julie Andrews, performing for King George VI, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and General Bernard Montgomery among others.
Winston Churchill had expensive tastes and several times came close to losing his beloved country home, Chartwell, due to its high upkeep costs. Wealthy friends bought it after World War II and rented it to him for a nominal fee, with the understanding that it would be given to the National Trust after his and his wife Clementine’s deaths, which is just what happened.
John Ford’s film My Darling Clementine, about the shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, featured in an episode of “MAS*H”. Col. Potter showed it to the 4077th on Movie Night, claiming it had the three things that make a movie great: Horses, Cowboys, and Horses.
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral lasted all of thirty seconds and did not actually take place at the O.K. Corral.
The Darling Downs is a farming region on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range in southern Queensland. The region was named for the then Governor of New South Wales, General Sir Ralph Darling.
The region’s largest city and commercial centre is Toowoomba.
Justice Darling and Justice Lush were two English judges.
The primary functions of a Justice of the Peace (JP) in NSW are to:
- witness a person making a statutory declaration;
- witness a person making an affidavit;
- certify that a copy of an original document is a true and accurate copy.
Most local libraries have JPs available to assist members of the public.