Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest, is married to actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who sometimes uses the title “Lady Haden-Guest” when in the United Kingdom.
Lords and Ladies was a novel by Terry Pratchitt, published in 1992.
Democratic Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas defeated incumbent President George H.W. Bush, Republican of Texas, and independent candidate Ross Perot, also of Texas, in the U.S. presidential election of 1992. Although Clinton had a plurality, he did not win an outright majority.
George Clinton, funkmaster and head of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic, wrote the theme song for The Tracey Ullman Show.
The oldest known parliament in history is that of Iceland.
Previous major volcanic activity in Iceland were recorded in 1612 (five years after the settlement of Jamestown) and between 1821-1823 (when James Monroe was president of the U.S.).
The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. destroyed the villages of Pompeii and Herculaneum in Italy. It was preceeded by several strong earthquakes. The volcanic activity was observed by both Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger.
In “The Sopranos”, Artie Bucco, Tony’s longtime friend, is the owner and chef of the restaurant Nuovo Vesuvio. Tony had burned down the original Vesuvio, out of respect for Artie, to prevent Uncle Junior from staging a hit on Little Pussy Malanga there.
David Chase, creator of The Sopranos, has said that he originally wrote the show to explore his difficult relationship with his mother (who, as far as he knows, never actually put a hit on him).
Salmon P. Chase, Ohio Senator and Governor, Treasury Secretary, and Chief Justice and an ardent abolitionist, coined the Free Soil party’s slogan “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men.”
Salmon feature in a number of different mythologies, including Celtic, Welsh, & Norse, as well as Native American (Pacific coast) mythologies. In Norse mythology, the trickster god Loki transformed himself into a salmon to escape punishment from the other gods. When he leaped out of the river to avoid a net, Thor grabbed him by the tail, which is what causes salmon to have tapered tails.
Salmon flesh, like flamingo feathers, is not naturally pinkish/orange : it gets that way from pigments absorbed by the fish when eating krill and shellfish. Because consumers are iffy about buying white salmon, most farmed salmon are fed artificial dyes to achieve the same result.
The Pink Flamingo Hotel and Casino (now the Flamingo Hilton), built by gangster Bugsy Siegel, was the first major casino in Las Vegas. Both Ocean’s Eleven films were set there. The hotel was also the place Hunter Thompson and Oscar Acosta stayed in, in the sequence of events Thompson wrote about in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Clams casino is a dish made from hard shell clams, bacon and garlic cooked in butter and served in the clamshell.
Casino Royale was Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel. The first movie version of this novel was a comedy that featured David Niven, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen.
The first production of any kind of Casino Royale was a 1954 episode of the CBS series Climax!, starring Barry Nelson as American agent Jimmy “Card Sense” Bond and Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre.
Horatio, Lord Nelson, won a great victory leading the Royal Navy at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, defeating a combined French-Spanish fleet but losing his own life to a French sniper.
Lt. Horatio Caine, the police detective played by David Caruso on CSI Miami, is best known for whipping his sunglasses on and off like a windmill. Caruso previously left NYPD Blue early in its run, leading to the famous “South Park” line spoken to Ike to get him to jump from a high ledge, “Do your impersonation of David Caruso’s career!”.
In Marvel comics, the Hulk’s alter ego was Bruce Banner. When the show was adapted for TV, the network and producers thought “Bruce” wa a stereotypically gay name, so he was renamed “David” Banner.
However, in the two movies (2003 & 2008), the Hulk’s alter ego is back to being Bruce.