(Ninja’d by Chuck – PHEW!! It still works.)
The verb “to beshrew”, found in Shakespeare and used in the 1500s to mean “to deprave, pervert, corrupt,” “to curse;” or “to invoke evil upon” is supposedly derived from the reputation of the shrew as a malignant poisonous animal viewed with superstitious dread.
Shakespeare’s grave and bones lay undisturbed to this day, since 1616 when he died at age 52.
Shakespeare himself penned a curse for his grave, daring anyone to move his body from that final resting place. His epitaph was:
Good friend for Jesus’ sake forbear,
To dig the dust enclosed here:
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.
Though it was customary to dig up the bones from previous graves to make room for others, the remains in Shakespeare’s grave are still undisturbed
There are no living descendants of William Shakespeare. The only member of his family with living descendants was his sister, Joan Shakespeare.
Recently I discovered that I am one of them. 
Orson Welles drew from several Shakespeare plays in writing and directing Chimes at Midnight, a 1966 black-and-white drama in which he starred as the rotund and jolly Falstaff, an early friend of Prince Hal later cast aside when the prince repents of the wild ways of his youth and takes the English throne as King Henry V.
A recent distinguished interpreter of Shakespeare’s Falstaff is Simon Russell Beale, who has been acclaimed as the leading stage actor of his generation; however, when he played Hamlet in 2000, aged 39, a critic described him as too portly and long in the tooth for the role.
(Buddha-David, interesting! Care to share any more details?)
Seattle Seahawks NFL quarterback Russell Wilson yesterday tweeted a bible verse, from the New Testament:
#BVD “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,”
Philippians 2:3 NIV
Russell Wilson did not tweet Matthew 19:24 and explain how he is going to get his selfish ambition, vain conceit and $87-million contract through the eye of a needle.
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (1872-1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic and political activist. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, colleague G. E. Moore, and his protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century’s premier logicians.
Jarlsberg was a former countship that forms a part of today’s Vestfold county in southeastern Norway. With the exception of Oslo county, Vestfold county is the smallest in Norway by area.
Jarlsberg cheese originates from Jarlsberg Norway.
Jarl is the word for Earl in Scandinavian languages. In Sweden, members of medieval royal families, such as the House of Stenkil and House of Bjelbo, held the title of jarl before their accession to the throne. Since the early 12th century, there usually was only one holder of the title at a time, second only to the King of Sweden.
30 Rockefeller Plaza, the home of NBC, was known as the GE Building until last summer, when it assumed the name of Comcast, its new owner. The art-deco building, dating to 1933, was first known as the RCA Building, until taken over by GE in 1958…
John D. Rockefeller, founder and CEO of Standard Oil, wanted to make sure customers knew they were getting 42 gallons in a barrel of oil, so Rockefeller shipped his oil in a distinctive blue barrel. Today a barrel of oil is abbreviated “bbl,” and the first “b” stands for “blue.”
Nelson Rockefeller, son of John D. Rockefeller, served as the 41st Vice President of the United States under Gerald Ford. He was the last US Vice President, in 1974, to take the office after a vacancy. There was no VP from 09 Aug to 19 Dec 1974 due to Gerald Ford ascending to the Presidency after Nixon’s resignation.
The coincidence was unintentional, but a quote in the 1974 Angie Dickinson film Big Bad Mama, about a 1920’s mother-daughters gang of small-time criminals, gained it notoriety: “Why can’t we be right up there with Ford, Rockefeller, Capone, and all the rest of 'em?”
Gene Roddenberry’s draft script for what would become the original Star Trek episode “A Piece of the Action,” about an alien culture patterned on Chicago mobs of the 1920s, was titled “President Capone.”
Eugene Patton (1932 – 2015), was a television personality, dancer and stagehand who worked at NBC Studios in Burbank, California. Patton was the first African-American member of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, Local 33. He is most famous for his appearances on the TV show “The Gong Show” as “Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine”, who became a regular feature on the show, even showing up now and then as a panelist.
Dance in peace, Gene.
For ye to young to know of the unfiltered wackiness that was The Gong Show, here is a taste featuring the aforemention Gene: The Gong Show - Gene Gene The Dancing Machine (4) - YouTube
The word “gene” did not exist until the 1820s, when Mandel hypothesized it as the carrier of hereditary information, from one generation to another. The word “genetic” did not become more used than “hereditary” until about 1960. Hereditary came from the Greek cheros, meaning bereavement, thence through heir and then inherit.
Most European males inherited their Y-chromosome from one of two “royal families” associated with the Yamnaya culture in the 4th millenium BC.
[Nitpick: Gregor Mendel was indeed precocious if he coined “gene” in the 1820’s: he was born in 1822.]
Gregor Mendel’s birthplace, Heinzendorf bei Odrau in Silesian Moravia, is an example of the changes in European borders. In 1822 it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and populated by ethnic Germans like Mendel. Now it is known as Hynčice and part of the Czech Republic. Along the way it has been considered as part of the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia.
The word “Sudetenland” did not come into existence until the early 20th century and did not come to prominence after the First World War, when the German-dominated Austria-Hungary was dismembered and the Sudeten Germans found themselves living in the new country of Czechoslovakia. The Sudeten crisis of 1938 was provoked by the demands of Nazi Germany that the Sudetenland be annexed to Germany, which in fact took place after the Munich Agreement. When Czechoslovakia was reconstituted after World War II, the Sudeten Germans were largely expelled, and the region today is inhabited primarily by Czech speakers.