Artie Shaw’s many wives included Lana Turner, Betty Kern (daughter of Jerome Kern), Ava Gardner, and Evelyn Keyes.
Sir Run Run Shaw (1907-2014) was a Hong Kong entertainment mogul and philanthropist. He was one of the most influential figures in the Asian entertainment industry. While most of his work was for the Asian market, he co-produced a handful of US films, including the 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner.
George Bernard Shaw had lived to the ripe old age of 94 when he died in 1950. In WWI he wrote a treatise saying all nations were equally at fault for the war, and this angered many of his friends. After publishing that, at social functions when he appeared, people including many of his friends migrated away from him. In 1939 when WWII broke out, he publicly urged the United States to join and help.
Robert Gould Shaw, son of prominent Massachusetts abolitionists, served as a young infantry officer in the 1862 Battle of Antietam before being named to command the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers, which was largely composed of black soldiers. He was killed during the regiment’s 1863 attack on Battery Wagner near Charleston, S.C. Shaw was played by Matthew Broderick in the 1989 movie Glory.
The slogan “54 - 40 or fight!” was used by those Americans who favoured the US annexing the entire Pacific North-west coast to the boundary with the Russian Alaskan territory at 54°, 40’ North.
Instead, because of the growing risk of war with Mexico over the annexation of Texas, President Polk proposed extending the boundary between British North America and the US along the 49th parallel to the Pacific coast. The British, who had been pressing to have the boundary set along the Columbia River, agreed to that proposal rather than try to fight the US on the distant Pacific coast.
Neither the indigenous people nor the British settlers in the area were consulted.
The cataclysmic Missoula Floods at the end of the last ice age scoured the Columbia River Gorge and the Grand Coulee. To this day, glacial erratics are scattered in eastern Washington state. One readily accessible erratic is Yeager Rock: yeager rock erratic - Yahoo Image Search Results
The reservoir behind the South Fork Dam upstream from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, fell into disuse and in 1879 was sold to a group led by Henry C. Frick for use as a private resort lake. The Dam’s relief pipes had been sold for scrap, the spillway became clogged with debris from a fish screen, its frequent leaks were patched with mud and straw, but no repairs were made despite mounting concerns.
On May 30, 1889 a storm dropped an unprecedented amount of rain in the area and water levels rose. Warnings were issued to Johnstown but disregarded — “Wolf” had been cried frequently before. The next day at 3:10 p.m., the South Fork Dam collapsed and 20 million tons cascaded down the Little Conemaugh River, picking up trees, houses, animals and even railroad cars.
Over 2000 lives were lost in the Great Johnstown Flood, making it by far the deadliest flood ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere.
St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood’s unsuccessful lawsuit against Major League Baseball, trying to prevent his 1969 trade to the Phillies, eventually led to the end of the Reserve Clause, by which teams owned a player’s exclusive rights effectively in perpetuity. Free agency began shortly afterward, with pitchers Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith its first beneficiaries.
Of National League Baseball’s “classic eight” teams established in 1900, all teams continue to exist, and five play in the same city.
Boston Beaneaters > Boston Braves > Milwaukee Braves > Atlanta Braves
Brooklyn Superbas > Brooklyn Dodgers > Los Angeles Dodgers
Chicago Orphans > Chicago Cubs
Cincinnati Reds
New York Giants > San Francisco Giants
Philadelphia Phillies
Pittsburgh Pirates
St. Louis Cardinals
Roman Catholic cardinals are considered “princes of the church” and typically lead major dioceses or hold senior posts at the Vatican. They are properly referred to as “Your Eminence.” The College of Cardinals elects a new Pope when the old one dies or, most recently, resigns.
The St. Louis Cardinals never won a Super Bowl. They never even went to a Super Bowl.
The Arizona Cardinals never won a Super Bowl. They went once, but lost to the Steelers in XLIII on one of the greatest Super Bowl TD catches ever when Steelers QB Big Ben Roethlisberger hit WR Santonio Holmes in the far right corner of the end zone. Holmes made a great tip-toe catch with 35 seconds left to win the game. Holmes was the game’s MVP.
55 sec video, with the Cardinals F—ing announcers that are highly F—ing pissed off: Santonio Holmes Game-Winning Super Bowl TD Catch | Money Smith's Worst (Best) Plays in NFL History - YouTube
A great catch, one of the best you’ll ever see.
The phrase “Elementary, my dear Watson” is never uttered by Sherlock Holmes in the sixty stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. He often observes that his conclusions are “elementary”, however, and occasionally calls Watson “my dear Watson”. One of the nearest approximations of the phrase appears in “The Adventure of the Crooked Man”, when Holmes explains a deduction: "‘Excellent!’ I cried. ‘Elementary,’ said he
The Super Bowl, XLIII, where Santonio Holmes made the great catch, was the first Super Bowl in 25 years to match two previous Super Bowl winning QBs, Kurt Warner for Arizona and Ben Roethlisberger for Pittsburgh.
7 NFL teams have won two consecutive Super Bowls. The Steelers did it twice.
Green Bay Packers (I, II),
Miami Dolphins (VII, VIII),
Pittsburgh Steelers (IX, X, and XIII, XIV),
San Francisco 49ers (XXIII, XXIV),
Dallas Cowboys (XXVII, XXVIII),
Denver Broncos (XXXII, XXXIII), and
New England Patriots (XXXVIII, XXXIX).
No team has won three straight Super Bowls.
8 teams have gone to consecutive Super Bowls without winning all of them. The Cowboys did it twice.
Dallas Cowboys (lost V, won VI; and won XII, lost XIII),
Miami Dolphins (lost VI, won VII, won VIII),
Minnesota Vikings (lost VIII, lost IX),
Washington Redskins (won XVII, lost XVIII),
Denver Broncos (lost XXI, lost XXII),
Buffalo Bills (lost XXV, lost XXVI, lost XXVII, lost XXVIII),
Green Bay Packers (won XXXI, lost XXXII), and
Seattle Seahawks (won XLVIII, lost XLIX).
The Miami Dolphins (3 straight) and the Buffalo Bills (4 straight) are the only teams to appear in more than two consecutive Super Bowls.
Sherlock Holmes was a rationalist; when presented with evidence of the supernatural in “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire”, he says, “This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.”
This is in contrast to his creator; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s reputation was diminished by his support for spiritualism, his claims that he could communicate with the dead and his outspoken support for what was clearly a hoax, the supposed photographs of the “Cottingley Fairies”.
Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths both admitted in old age in the 1980s that the Cottingley Fairies were a hoax concocted with fairies cut from greeting cards, but that they were too embarrassed to admit it after Conan Doyle said it was legit and they developed such a following. Both cousins also maintained even in old age that they really had seen fairies as children. Other famous perpetrators of hoaxes who later confessed included the Fox sisters in America, who continued to have believers ask them to commune with the spirits even after one of them confessed it was a hoax brought about by their ability to make sounds snapping their muscles.
Irish Sea Water Guardians area type of fairy originating in the Isle of Man. They are water guardian fairies of small stature and are sacred to the Sea God Manann. They are said to be surrounded by a greenish blue light. They guard the Irish seas and are said to float on broken eggshells or surf on Irish seashells during storms.
The planet Neptune is not visible to the unaided eye and is the only planet in the Solar System found by mathematical prediction rather than by empirical observation. Unexpected changes in the orbit of Uranus led Alexis Bouvard to deduce that its orbit was subject to gravitational perturbation by an unknown planet. Neptune was subsequently observed with a telescope on 23 September 1846 by Johann Galle within a degree of the position predicted by Urbain Le Verrier.
The Manx cat, whose stump-like or absent tail actually comes from a genetic mutation, was supposedly the hybrid offspring of a cat and a rabbit.
Jones, an orange tabby and ship’s cat of the USCSS Nostromo and, with Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the only survivor of the starship, appears in just the first two of all the Alien movies.
Courtney Bernard Vance played Jonesey the sonar operator on the USS Dallas in the movie The Hunt for Red October.