Jon Krakauer is also the author of Under the Banner of Heaven, an investigative look at the Fundamentalist Church of JC of LDS led by Warren Jeffs and other modern day polygamist churches in the American west and Canada.
Jon Krakauer is also the author of Into Thin Air, story of people pushed to the brink of death (and beyond) during a 1996 expedition at Mount Everest. Two famous climbers, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, lost their lives during the descent in unsuccessful efforts to save climbing clients.
The incumbent Vice President Al Gore of Tennessee and former HUD Secretary and Congressman Jack Kemp of New York were the Democratic and Republican candidates, respectively, for VP in the 1996 election.
Character actor Brian Blessed, burly English character actor best known perhaps for playing Prince Vultan (the Hawkman) in Flash Gordon or Edmund’s father in the first series of Black Adder or perhaps for his role as Augustus in I CLAUDIUS was a skilled mountain climber when he was younger; though he never reached the top of Mt. Everest he did set records for height reached on Everest for a man of his age and weight.
ETA: In 1996 (the year of Kemp and Gore as VP candidates) Blessed played Hamlet’s father in Branagh’s HAMLET.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Character actor Donald Meek appeared in over 100 films in the 30s and 40s, including classics like Stagecoach, nearly always playing a character who was just as his name implied.
Donald Trump was a relatively unknown New York City real estate developer long before he rebuilt the Wollman Skating Rink, was parodied in Doonesbury, got married a few dozen times and hosted The Apprentice.
The Doonesbury character “B.D.” was based by Gerry Trudeau on Brian Dowling, the football quarterback during his time at Yale. Until after his leg amputation while serving in the Iraq War, B.D. was always shown wearing a helmet.
The very unpleasant mom of Brian Cohen, reluctant hero of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, tells a worshipful crowd, “He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!”
The “Messiah” violin was made by Antonio Stradivari in Cremona, Italy in 1716. Apparently never played (one violinist commented ‘Then your violin is like the Messiah: one always expects him but he never appears’), it is now owned by the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford University.
J.R.R. Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University from 1925-45, and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature there from 1945-59.
(I was wondering how you were going to tie in “Lord of the Rings” or “Star Trek” to that one). 
In The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce commented on English composition style and deplored the use of inelegant monosyllabic words: “The man who writes in Saxon / Is the man to use an ax on.”
In The Devil’s Dictionary, Bierce defined “Conservative” as: (noun) A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
Bierce saw action in the Battle of Chickamaugua in the Civil War. His best-known work is “Incident at Owl Creek Bridge,” which was made into a short film that was later broadcast as a Twilight Zone episode (Serling was having budget issues, so he bought the broadcast rights – less expensive than shooting a new script). Many TZ fans think the episode was original to the show.
Led Zeppelin’s “The Crunge” was written as a parody of James Brown’s “Sex Machine,” which is why it closes with Robert Plant asking “Where’s that confounded bridge?”
The 1969 song “Badge” by Cream was titled because either Eric Clapton or Ringo Starr, depending on whose version you believe, misread George Harrison’s handwriting of “bridge” to show a contrasting section in the music.
Ringo Starr starred in a 1978 made-for-TV comedy entitled “Ringo”, in which Ringo, stressed out by the demands of being a famous rock star, trades places with an ordinary guy who looks just like him, by the name of Ognir Rrats.
That “Prince and the Pauper” concept was borrowed in the 2002 film “Bubba Ho-Tep”, in which Elvis Presley is really an old man in a nursing home under a false name, having switched places with an impersonator who died shortly afterward. He and John F. Kennedy, who turned black after being rescued from his head wound and was dumped there by power-mad LBJ, defeat the mummy terrorizing the nursing home.
An episode of the PBS TV show Wishbone, “The Prince and the Pooch” was a retelling of “The Prince and the Pauper”, with Wishbone (a Jack Russell terrier) dreaming he is in the classic story. Wishbone plays both roles: Tom Canty & Edward IV of England.
A bird’s wishbone is formed by the fusion of the two clavicles; the proper anatomical term is furcula, Latin for “little fork.”
( Wow, this thread’s still going? Awesome! )