In the musical On the Town, a sailor, Chip, gets into a taxi and asks to see a variety of tourist attractions in New York City, the first of which is the Hippodrome.
For a few years at the end of the 19th century, it’s said that the first man-made structure visitors saw when coming to the United States via New York by sea was the Elephantine Colossus on Coney Island. Standing from 1885 to 1896, the thirty-one room elephant-shaped building acted as a tourist attraction, hotel, concert hall, amusement bazaar and brothel.
The Roman Colosseum was called that not because of is own size, but for a large statue, a colossus, that stood outside the gates. But the Colosseum was so large, that in addition to gladiatorial events, it could be flooded for the staging of mock sea battles.
The 2003 film Elephant, directed by Gus Van Sant, is very loosely based on the Columbine High School Massacre.
The Colosseum is the largest amphitheatre ever built and could hold an estimatd 50,000 to 80,000 people. The structure is roughly equivalent in size to the Toronto Blue Jays’ baseball stadium, the SkyDome (or, Rogers Centre).
ETA: ninja’d. Play off of buddha_david.
Actually it looks like jtur88 ninja’d us both. I blame the board clock which is running three minutes slow.
OK then my play works!
In play:
In Roman times, gladiators known as *adabatae *were criminals who wore helmets with no eye apertures and so fought each other completely blind, for the comic relief of the spectators.
Gladiators is a British television entertainment series, produced by LWT for ITV, and broadcast between 10 October 1992 and 1 January 2000. It is an adaptation of the American format American Gladiators. The success of the British series spawned further adaptations in Australia and other countries.
The format of the series involves contestants battling against a ‘Gladiator’ in a number of events in order to secure points for the final event, The Eliminator. Typically, four contenders would appear in each episode, two male and two female, and each contender would compete in five or six events, depending on the series or time constraints.
The Ridley Scott-directed 2000 historical epic Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen and Richard Harris, began filming before a final shooting script was ready. There were extensive rewrites as production went on.
Among other rewrites in Gladiator, Oliver Reed- who portrayed a former gladiator turned manager- died during the filming before all of his scenes were shot. Other actors who have died during the filming of a movie that was completed anyway include Brandon Lee and, more recently, Philip Seymour Hoffman.
His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, served in the Royal Navy during World War II. He is currently an Admiral of the Fleet and now the highest-ranked Navy officer after his wife, Her Majesty the Queen, who is commander-in-chief.
The Royal St. John’s Regatta, staged on Quidi Vidi Lake in St. John’s, Newfoundland, is North America’s oldest annual sporting event with documented proof of 1816 boat races. There is credible contention that St. John’s regattas were held even earlier than 1816, likely in the 18th century. It has been annual since the 1818 race.
Secretariat (1973) still holds the track record at Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby, at 1:59.4.
The United Nations Secretariat one of the six major organs of the United Nations. The Secretariat is the United Nations’ executive arm. It has an important role in setting the agenda for the UN’s deliberative and decision making bodies of the UN (the General Assembly, Economic and Social Council, and Security Council), and the implementation of the decision of these bodies. The Secretary General, who is appointed by the General Assembly, is the head of the secretariat.
Bull Durham tobacco originated in the 1850s, and grew in popularity among soldiers on both sides in the Civil War. It was made by a company in Durham NC, hence its name. An actual player, Leon “Bull” Durham, was just winding up his 9 year career in the major leagues when the movie came out about the fictional ballplayer in 1989, a year after productiono of Bull Durham tobacco products ceased.
The largest troop surrender in North American history occurred in the parlor of the very simple log farmhouse of James and Nancy Bennett near Durham NC, when Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John C. Breckinridge surrendered 90,000 Confederate soldiers to William T. Sherman. Lee’s surrender had surrendered approximately 25,000 troops.
(Bennett Place is closed on Mondays, which coincidentally was the day of the week I was the only day of the week I was ever in Durham.)
John Cabell Breckinridge (1821–1875) was a lawyer and politician from the U.S. State of Kentucky. He represented the state in both houses of Congress and in 1857, became the 14th and youngest-ever Vice President of the United States. He remains the only Senator of the United States convicted of treason against the United States of America by the Senate.
In 2001, four Swedish teenagers (their names were not reported) were convicted of treason after they threw a cream cake at King Carl XVI Gustaf. The ringleader was fined 100 days’ income; the others were fined 80 days’ income
National jurisdictions employing day-fines include Finland (Finnish: päiväsakko), Sweden (Swedish: dagsbot), Denmark (Danish: dagbøde), Croatia, Germany (German: Tagessatz), Switzerland and Macao. They are not typically used in the United States; courts here impose financial penalties based upon a statutory range of fines and not the defendant’s daily income.