President-elect John Kennedy survived a failed assassination attempt in Palm Beach, Florida, when Richard Pavlick, who had hidden sticks of dynamite in his car, drove up to him while he was out walking. Pavlick decided not to blow it up because Kennedy’s wife and children were with him. He was caught before he could get another chance.
Frank Frershwaters was caught in Florida earlier this year, 56 years after escaping from prison in Ohio. He had been living quietly in Melbourne, Florida, for the past twenty years.
Joaquín “Shorty” Guzmán escaped from a maximum security prison near Toluca, about 50 miles west of Mexico City. It is believed that El Chapo, as he is popularly known, used a motorcycle to travel the 1-mile tunnel between his prison cell and the hamlet of Santa Juana. The motorcycle was found inside the tunnel after his escape.
Not quite. JFK and his family were about to be driven to church.
In play:
Mexico City was originally built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, nearly destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors.
At its peak, Tenochtitlan was the largest city in the Pre-Columbian Americas. In Illinois, near East St. Louis, the city of Cahokia was a Pre-Columbian city that was the largest city of the Mississippian culture.
The Mississippian, or Lower Carboniferous subperiod, lasting from roughly 358.9 to 323.2 million years ago, featured a sea level higher than most of North America and Europe, with only Quebec/Ontario and Scandinavia above water.
Cool trivia.
In play: The Seven Wonders of Canada was a 2007 competition sponsored by CBC TV & Radio to identify Canada’s “seven wonders” as voted by viewers and listeners.
The winning Seven Wonders of Canada are (in vote order, most to least):
Sleeping Giant, Thunder Bay Ontario
Niagara Falls, Ontario
Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick & Nova Scotia
Nahanni National Park Reserve, Northwest Territories
Northern Lights
The Rockies, Alberta & British Columbia
Cabot Trail, Nova Scotia
Sleeping Giant received more than twice the votes of Niagara Falls.
The Stanley Cup received almost 20,000 votes but failed to break into the top 7.
The New York Rangers Hockey Team had the longest drought between Stanley Cup wins: 1940 to 1994 (54 seasons). When they finally won, the New York Daily News published this sports headline:
1940
Among the current 30 NHL teams, 12 have never won the Stanley Cup, including one (the St. Louis Blues) that is among the five oldest expansion teams. St. Louis has been to three Stanley Cup finals in that time, but has lost all three. The next team to never win is the Buffalo Sabres at 44 seasons of futility.
The song “Saint Louis Blues,” composed by W. C. Handy and published in September 1914, was one of the first blues songs to succeed as a pop song and has been called “the jazzman’s Hamlet.”
The song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas was written for the movie Meet Me in St. Louis. In the movie it was sung by Judy Garland.
The song We Need A Little Christmas was written for the musical “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and has to be one of the most popular Christmas songs originating from the musical about whores. The original had four verses, but few people know any but the first and the chorus.
There have been four warships in the U.S. Navy named USS Texas. The current one is a Virginia-class nuclear attack submarine commissioned in Sept. 2006 and still on active duty.
Mame, actually. “Best Little Whorehouse” was Hard Candy Christmas.
In play: The Republic of Texas included all or large pieces of what’s now Oklahoma, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona in addition to what is now Texas.
Oklahoma!, the first musical written by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II, is based on Lynn Riggs’ 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs.
So their next Cup will be in 9410? Fine with me.
Rodgers and Hammerstein punched up their first musical together, Away We Go!, by adding the song “Oklahoma!” and renaming the show accordingly, due to its tepid reception in its Boston tryouts. The table they wrote the song on is on display at the Colonial Theatre there. It is also the official state song of, well, Oklahoma.
The Jackie Gleason Show,was the Country’s (USA) second-highest-rated television show during the 1954–55 season. Gleason amplified the show with even splashier opening dance numbers, inspired by Busby Berkeley screen dance routines and featuring the precision-choreographed June Taylor Dancers. Following the dance performance, he would do an opening monologue. Then, accompanied by “a little travelin’ music”, he would shuffle toward the wings, clapping his hands inversely and shouting, “And awaaay we go!” The phrase became one of his trademarks, along with “How sweet it is!”.
Jackie Gleason, who could not read nor write music, composed the theme song for the Jackie Gleason Show. He also produce an album of mood music that still holds the record of 153 weeks on the top-ten album charts. Thatg was before the Jackie Gleason Show appeared on TV.
Character actor James Gleason played many crusty but soft-hearted police and military officers in his long career, including Police Lieutenant Rooney in Arsenic and Old Lace. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as boxing manager Max ‘Pop’ Corkle in the 1941 film Here Comes Mr. Jordan.
The Jackie Gleason Show started out as You’re in the Picture, a game show where four celebrities would stick their head into cutouts of a picture and try to figure out the picture by asking Gleason questions. It lasted one episode and Gleason actually apologized for it the next week. To fill the remainder of the network commitment he developed The Jackie Gleason Show.
ETA: Ninja’d by seconds but it still works.