Ernest Hemingway volunteered as an ambulance driver for the Italians during the first World War and was wounded by a mortar round during his service.
One of the largest mortars ever produced was the 'Little David" mortar produced by the U.S. The shell it fired weighed over 3600 pounds and had a range of six miles. It was never used in combat.
Buster Keaton posed in a gag photo with a mortar while starring in The General: http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/images/04/33/the_general.jpg
Great game idea - sorry I hadn’t seen it sooner!
A mortar is commonly used with a pestle. Few people know which is which, or why.
“The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!”
– was spoken by Danny Kaye in the film,* The Court Jester *(1956).
Michael Ironside played the character with the call sign “Jester”, a hardened veteran pilot, in Top Gun.
Raymond Burr played paralyzed detective Robert Ironside in Ironside.
The interjection “Brr” is also used by the French to indicate being cold.
“Interjections!” was a song from Schoolhouse Rock, as was “Conjunction Junction,” “Lolly, Lolly, Lolly,” and “Verb: That’s What’s Happenin’.”
Grand Junction, Colorado is the nearest city to Colorado National Monument.
John Ford filmed many of his classic Westerns in Monument Valley, Utah.
Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego, California, recognizes Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the first European to set foot on what is now the West Coast of the United States; San Diego, originally named San Miguel, went on to become the site of the first European settlement in Alta California.
*Somewhere in Time *with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour was filmed at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego.
Jane Seymour was the only one of Henry the Eighth’s six wives to give him a son.
Henry the Eighth, I Am by Herman’s Hermits was the number one song on the charts on the day esteemed Straight Dope Poster Jack Batty was born.
Henry VIII never divorced any of his wives – his marriages to Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves were annulled.
Tammy Wynette, best known for “Stand By Your Man”, had another hit country song with “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”
Tammy Wynette was married five times, her third being to singer George Jones with whom she had a daughter Georgette who played her mother on the TV series Sordid Lives.
The song “Tammy,” as recorded by Debbie Reynolds, hit number 1 on the charts in 1957.
Debbie Reynolds is the mother (by Eddie Fisher) of Carrie Fisher, best known for playing Princess Leia in the STAR WARS film and author of the memoir Wishful Drinking in which she discussed “Hollywood Inbreeding” when her daughter began dating the grandson of Eddie Fisher’s ex-wife Elizabeth Taylor.