The second highest grossing film in the US was Fatal Attraction starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close. The highest grossing film in the US that year was Three Men and a Baby, directed by Leonard Nimoy.
Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome, published in 1889, became an instant success and is still in print. Its popularity was such that the number of registered Thames boats went up fifty percent in the year following its publication, and it contributed significantly to the Thames becoming a tourist attraction.
The UK’s new polar research vehicle, to replace RRS Ernest Shackleton and RRS James Clark Ross, is (allegedly) being named as the result of an online poll, whose current runaway leading entry is RRS Boaty McBoatface. In second is RRS Poppy-Mai, with other entries including RRS Its Bloody Cold Here, Usain Boat, Boatimus Prime, and I Like Big Boats & I Cannot Lie.
Ernest Shackleton departed London on his ship the Endurance for his third trip to the South Pole on August 1, 1914, the same day Germany declared war on Russia.
Ernest T. Bass is a fictional character from the American TV sitcom The Andy Griffith Show. He was played by Howard Morris. Ernest T. is an ignorant and rowdy mountain man with a penchant for troublemaking, which wreaks havoc on the otherwise sedate town of Mayberry. He is a scruffy, unkempt appearance, a maniacal laugh, and often speaks in rhyme, and has a penchant for breaking windows by throwing rocks thought them.
Although it is now 125 years old, this is the funniest book I have ever read. Its humor is fresh and up to date still, hilarious for all ages.
In play:
Ten years before the Andy Griffith show, Howard Morris appeared regularly, along with Carl Reiner, as a headliner on Sid Caesars “Your Show of Shows” (1950), a weekly montage of comedy skits.
Ron Howard was six years old when he was cast as Opie on the The Andy Griffith Show. Since then he has acted in, directed, and produced many works. The last film he acted in was in Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal: The Movie (2016).
The United States Secret Service did not begin providing around-the-clock protection to the President until after the 1901 assassination of William McKinley.
ETA: McKinley was succeeded as President by Theodore Roosevelt, who was followed by William Howard Taft.
Originally founded to combat the then-widespread counterfeiting of US currency, the United States Secret Service was created in 1865. It is one of the oldest federal law enforcement agencies in the country and ranks among the most elite in the world. In 1901, the agency was asked to begin its protective mission after the assassination of President William McKinley – the third sitting US President to be assassinated.
The first two were Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and James Garfield in 1881.
The fourth and last was John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Jackie Kennedy’s pet name for her husband, President John F. Kennedy, was “Bunny.”
WWII fighter ace Harold Comstock flew a test flight in a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt on 13 November 1942. After that flight, Republic Aviation issued a press release on 1 December 1942, claiming that he and fellow pilot, Lt. Roger Dyar had exceeded the speed of sound in a dive from 49,000’. Breaking the sound barrier was also reported in Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
Soon after the press release, the 56th Fighter Group received a telegram from Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold that “there would be no more discussion about the dive”. The actual speed attained was probably less than the speed of sound but this speed which caused the flight controls to lock up was referred to as “compressibility”. This effect was encountered by many pilots flying in combat but training and proper procedures allowed them to recover from it.
Comstock’s nickname was Bunny.
Harold Wilson was twice a Labour Prime Minister of Great Britain (1964-70 and 1974-76). There have been recurring but not widely-held conspiracy theories that he was undermined by the British military, security or intelligence services.
Wilson Sporting Goods was founded in 1913 and headquartered in Chicago. Since 1989 it has been a foreign subsidiary of a company in Finland.
In 1913, the ballet The Rite of Spring premiered in Paris, France. People rioted in reaction to it.
The music of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet, The Rite of Spring, achieved great recognition as a concert piece and is widely considered to be one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century. At the time, Stravinsky was young and a relative unknown. The Rite of Spring put him on the map.
Chevy Chase impersonated Igor Stravinsky over the phone (as a very hoarse old man) in the movie Fletch. The noted Russian composer and conductor had already been dead for 14 years at the time.
Break’s over.
In play: Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo have portrayed Clark and Ellen Griswold in four “Vacation” movies, several commercials, and one episode of “Family Guy.”
Beverly D’Angelo’s father Gene was the longtime manager of WBNS 10TV in Columbus, Ohio. I hear from a personal friend of his that he hates Al Pacino on a deeply personal level for his relationship with his baby girl - whom he sent to boarding school abroad for HS after learning how much she enjoyed the company of boys.
There are currently an estimated 20-25,000 unique protein-coding genes in the human genome. (This is on a downward trend, and may continue to shrink.)
Baron Jöns Jacob Berzelius, a Swedish scientist considered to be one of the founders of modern chemistry, coined the term “protein” (from Greek, proteios “the first quality,” from protos “first”) in 1838.