In the opening scene for the pilot of Second Chance, a 1987 television show about a dead man given the chance to go back to earth and correct all the mistakes he made in his life, as a throwaway joke, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is shown being judged after his death, with the date given as July 29, 2011. Twenty-four years later, by coincidence, Gaddafi’s death (on October 20, 2011) occurred within three months of the “predicted” date and was from the same cause (multiple gunshot wounds)
(I loved My Name is Earl - dubbed by one admirer “Touched by a Redneck” - and was sorry to see it cancelled).
In play:
The Colonel is the third-ranked piece in the board game Stratego, outranked only by the General and the Marshal. Each player has two Colonels and just one General and one Marshal apiece. The Colonel, however, IMHO has the coolest hat: http://assets.kompasiana.com/statics/crawl/55634c200423bdad018b4568.gif?t=o&v=700
Four of Canada’s Governors-General were Earls, and all four made significant contributions to the country. The Earl of Durham and the Earl of Elgin together implemented responsible government, paving the way for democratic government in Canada, while Earl Grey and the Earl of Stanley donated two of the iconic sports trophies, the Grey Cup (football) and the Stanley Cup (hockey).
Debate rages which set of contributions were more important to the development of Canada’s national character. 
My Name is Earl starred American actor, television producer, comedian and former pro skateboarder Jason Lee, who also played Syndrome in the Pixar movie The Incredibles and appeared in several films directed by Kevin Smith. Lee has a son, Pilot Inspektor, whose name was inspired by the song “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot” by rock band Grandaddy.
On April 28, 1909, Frenchman Louis Paulhan won an air race from London to Manchester, the first long-distance airplane race in England. He took a £10,000 prize offered for the flight. This prize had been offered in 1906 by the Daily Mail for the first pilot to fly from London to Manchester within 24 hours. The flight had to start and finish within five miles of the newspaper’s office in each city, with no more than two landings en route. In 1906 this seemed an impossible feat—the best European fliers then could only stay aloft for seconds.
The first men to fly heavier-than-air airplanes in both Britain and Australia were Americans. In Britain, it was Samuel Cody, proprietor of a Wild West show, and in Australia, it was magician Harry Houdini.
Dick Smith is an Australian entrepreneur, businessman, aviator, philanthropist, and political activist. One of the innumerable various and sundry things he is known for is producing and marketing Aussie made products targeted to rival popular items made by non-Aussie-owned companies. A whimsical example of such a product were Dickedheads, wooden matches offered as an alternative to Redhead matches, an erstwhile Aussie-made item that is now made in Sweden.
Ninja’ed’
The Sundry Market & Kitchen is located in the Crossroads Arts District in downtown Kansas City. It is a combination grocery store and restaurant specializing in dry goods and produce.
On September 29, 1944, British troops began their withdrawal from the Battle of Arnhem in the Netherlands, ending the Allies’ Operation Market Garden in defeat. The battle was fought in and around the towns of Arnhem, Oosterbeek, Wolfheze, and Driel from September 17 – 26, 1944, and was the largest airborne operation up to that time. Field Marshal Montgomery’s goal was to force an entry into Germany over the Lower Rhine. The failure of Market Garden ended Allied hopes of finishing the war by Christmas 1944.
Most of the extras in the June 6, 1944 D-Day landing scenes of the Steven Spielberg movie Saving Private Ryan were soldiers of the Irish Army, appropriately clad and equipped as U.S. or German troops. The movie’s opening was filmed on the Irish coast.
Ryan’s Fancy was an Irish music group, a trio of Irish immigrants to Canada, based in Newfoundland. They are credited as the inspiration for the revival of Celtic folk music in Canada’s Atlantic provinces. They were active from 1971 to 1983.
Trio was a German pop band active in the first half of the '80s. They were known for eschewing any attempt to impress critics or the audience with accomplished musicianship or lyrical complexity. They are best known for the single “Da, Da, Da”, from their first album “Trio”, released in 1981.
The full name of Trio’s “Da Da Da” (spelled without commas) was "“Da Da Da I Don’t Love You You Don’t Love Me Aha Aha Aha.” It was perhaps most notably heard when used by Volkswagen in a 1997 American commercial for the VW Golf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_s5-R_JE4c
Early Scottish golf courses were primarily laid out on “links land”, soil-covered sand dunes directly inland from beaches. This gave rise to the term “golf links”, particularly applied to seaside courses and those built on naturally sandy soil inland.
Murder on The Links is the second Poirot novel. It is notable because Christie uses it to give Hastings a love interest which takes him off to the Argentine, ending his role as Poirot’s sidekick.
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford had his staff explain a 2009 absence by saying he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail”, when he was really visiting a mistress in Argentina.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the first elected female President of Argentina, claims that women of her generation owe a debt to Eva Peron for “her example of passion and combativeness”.
Eva Peron was whispered by her Argentine political foes to have been a prostitute before meeting legendary strongman Juan Peron, whom she eventually married and championed, but that is unconfirmed. A highly fictionalized version of her life is shown in the musical and movie (starring Madonna) Evita.
On February 24, 1946, Colonel Juan Perón, founder of the political movement that became known as Peronism, was elected to his first term as President of Argentina. He was three times elected as President of Argentina, serving from June 1946 to September 1955, when he was overthrown in a coup d’état, and from October 1973 until his death on July 1, 1974, at age 78.