US Army regulation AR 600-20, the “Army Command Policy,” was updated last October. In a section describing race and ethnic code definitions, under the category of “Black or African-American,” it stated, "A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. Terms such as “Haitian” or “Negro” can be used in addition to “Black” or “African American.”
The policy was quickly changed to say that “Black or African-American” are the only acceptable terms.
Black Bart (Charles Earl Bolles) was a stagecoach robber, noted for several poems he left behind after a couple of robberies.
I’ve labored long and hard for bread,
For honor, and for riches,
But on my corns too long you’ve tread,
You fine-haired sons of bitches.
—Black Bart, 1877
Here I lay me down to sleep
To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat,
And everlasting sorrow.
Let come what will, I’ll try it on,
My condition can’t be worse;
And if there’s money in that box
'Tis munny in my purse.
—Black Bart, 1878
Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles died in a 1976 car-bomb explosion linked to his investigations of Mafia activity centered on dog-track and casino ownership and concessions contracts. Bolles was the brother of Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the best-selling job-hunting book, What Color is Your Parachute?
The 1976 World Series was won by the Cincinnati Reds when they swept the New York Yankees, 4-0. The Series MVP was Johnny Bench.
This was the first World Series to allow a designated hitter. The DH was introduced in the American League three years prior to this World Series.
Four Canadian provinces have trial courts named the Queen’s Bench.
There are three types of bees in the hive – Queen, Worker and Drone. The queen bee may lay 600-800 or even 1,500 eggs each day during her 3 or 4 year lifetime. This daily egg production may equal her own weight.
The Ravens, who recorded “Be I Bumble Bee Or Not”, with its suggestive lyrics typical of the genre and time, were one of the many seminal 1940’s black R&B/Doo-wop groups that named themselves after birds. Others included The Orioles, The Larks, The Crows, The Penguins, The Robins, The Flamingos, and The Wrens.
The collective noun for a whole-buncha ravens is called a “flock”, but other words that are no longer commonly used include “unkindness” and “conspiracy.”
The ravens of the Tower of London are a group of captive common ravens which live in the Tower of London. The group of ravens at the Tower comprises at least seven individuals (six required, with a seventh in reserve). The presence of the ravens is traditionally believed to protect the Crown and the Tower; a superstition holds that “If the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it.”
Super Bowl XLVII (47, in February 2013), where the Baltimore Ravens beat my beloved San Francisco 49ers 34-31, was played in the Louisiana Superdome. The Superdome opened in 1975 and has hosted seven Super Bowls, including the Super Bowl with the most points scored by the winning team. That was in Super Bowl XXIV when Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers beat John Elway and the Denver Broncos, 55-10.
When owner Art Modell took the Cleveland Browns football team out of the city to Baltimore under the cover of darkness, renaming them the Ravens, a popular bumper sticker in northeast Ohio for several years thereafter read “Muck Fodell.”
When Modell moved the Browns from Cleveland, the city sued to keep the name “Browns.” They won and, years later when a new team could be formed in Cleveland, the new team was called the Browns. They are named after legendary football coach Paul Brown.
The Baltimore Stallions are the only American team to win the Grey Cup, on an extremely cold and windy day in Regina. The following year the Stallions moved to Montreal and became the Montreal Allouettes (second creation).
Although Sylvester Stallone made the nickname “The Italian Stallion” popular in his Rocky films, he actually stole it from U. of Alabama running back Johnny Musso.
One of Stallone’s earliest roles was that of “Subway Thug #1” in Woody Allen’s Bananas. He was unknown at the time, but later audiences always have a gasp of recognition.
In early test footage for the 1995 Pixar hit Toy Story, the Sheriff Woody doll (eventually voiced by Tom Hanks) is much larger relative to the Space Ranger action figure Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen).
The first actor to win back-to-back Best Actor Oscars was Spencer Tracy for Captains Courageous (1937) and Boys Town (1938). In 1993 and 1994, for Philadelphia and for Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks was the second actor to do so.
The Gumps was an extremely popular comic strip of the 1930s, featuring the adventures of the Gump family: Andy, his wife Minerva, and their son Chester. Later Andy’s rich uncle Bim was added to the cast; Bim looked exactly like Andy, leading to confusion and plot ideas. The creator, Sidney Smith, died at the height of the strips popularity and it quickly went downhill and is pretty much forgotten.
In Fran “The Nanny” Drescher’s first book Enter Whining, she is happily married to her childhood sweetheart Peter Marc Jacobson, has survived and reached the top of the Hollywood scene, survived a horrible home break in and rape nightmare only to give enough evidence to the police so they caught the guy and testified against him to see him sentenced to prison, becoming a lead actor in her own TV series The Nanny, and had a beloved dog named Chester,.
In her second book Cancer Schamer, she has left her husband, the TV show has been cancelled, she has battled ovarian cancer and her dog died. She got another one, named Esther.
Actress LaWanda Page, best known for playing Fred’s judgmental-Christian sister-in-law Esther on “Sanford and Son”, had been a close friend of star Redd Foxx since their childhood in St. Louis.