Olivia de Havilland is the only surviving leading actress from the cast of Gone With the Wind, which was released in 1939, 76 years ago. She turned 100 last July. Leslie Howard, who played her husband in the film, was the first of the film’s leads to die, when the KLM plane he was in was shot down by German fighters over the Bay of Biscay, in 1943.
Howard University, a Historically Black College/University (HBCU) located in Washington D.C., was named after General Oliver Otis Howard, a Civil War veteran, who was both the founder of the University and, at the time, Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Howard later served as President of the university from 1869–74.
Abraham Lincoln, president during the Civil War, was once what we would call a “pro wrestler” today. He made money traveling around and wrestling local contenders, winning 299/300 bouts. He was also a licensed bartender.
The Battle of the Plains of Abraham was a decisive battle of the French and Indian War, where British forces in General James Wolfe routed a French force led by Louis de Montcalm. Both Wolfe and Montcalm died in the fighting.
Canadians tend not to use the term French and Indian War, which is an American-centric term. The war is normally referred to as the Seven Years’ War.
The Seven Sisters is an association of seven liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern US, founded in the 1800s, that were historically women’s colleges: Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Radcliffe, Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley. Radcliffe (which merged with Harvard) and Vassar (which is now coeducational) are no longer women’s colleges.
After the CIA rescued Iran’s oil from Iran’s brief foray into progressive nationalism, the “Seven Sisters of Oil” were designated to extract the oil. These sisters included the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (eventually renamed BP), Royal Dutch Shell, Gulf Oil, Texaco, and three of Rockefeller’s companies — Standard Oils of New Jersey, New York, and Ohio.
These Seven Sisters shrunk to four via mergers: Texaco, Gulf and S.O.-Cal. eventually combined to form Chevron; S.O.-New Jersey (eventually Exxon) and S.O.-New York (eventually Mobil) combined to form ExxonMobil. Three other large companies — Total (French), Eni (Italian) and ConocoPhillips are often included now to represent the seven private companies making up Big Oil.
John French, later 1st Earl of Ypres, was the general officer commanding the British Expeditionary Force in the early part of the Great War. He was eventually relieved of command, coming under criticism from above (Lord Kitchener in Britain) and below (General Haig, one of his subordinates and friends). His account of the first year of the War, 1914, has generally been criticized as inaccurate.
David Starr, Space Ranger, allegedly by Paul French, appeared in 1952; it was a science fiction novel for juveniles. Five sequels were written, published one each in each of the next five years. The sequels’ titles used the hero’s nick-name “Lucky Starr” instead of “David Starr.”
Lorne Greene’s hit (spoken) song Ringo was not about Beatle Ringo Starr, but about historical outlaw Johnny Ringo. The song was a hit, and Greene also recorded a (spoken) French version.
The lorne sausage is a traditional Scottish food usually made from ground meat, rusk and spices and is commonplace in traditional Scottish breakfasts. In 2009 there was a campaign to grant protected status to the lorne sausage, meaning it could only bear the name ‘lorne sausage’ if it was made in Scotland.
The Marquess of Lorne (later the Duke of Argyll) served as Canada’s Governor-General from 1878 to 1883. His wife, Princess Louise, was one the Queen Victoria’s daughters. Lake Louise in Alberta is named after her.
The province of Alberta in Canada is named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (1848–1939), the fourth daughter of Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Canada, and Albert, Prince Consort. Several places were named for Prince Albert after his death at age 42, but Alberta is not one of them.
In addition to Alberta, the provinces of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick are named after members of the royal family: PEI is named after Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, while New Brunswick is named after Brunswick-Lüneburg, one of the titles of the Hanoverian kings.
Franklin Mills, Ohio was re-named after it became the home of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad maintenance shops through the influence of Marvin Kent. In 1864 the town was renamed Kent in honor of and in gratitude for Marvin Kent’s efforts.
According to Superman’s creator, Joe Shuster, Clark Kent’s name was derived from movie stars Clark Gable and Kent Taylor.
Superman was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, high school students at Glenville High School in Cleveland. Panache45’s mother was a classmate of theirs, and went out with Siegel several times. She later recollected that he was “nerdy and boring”.
The word “panache” was adopted into English only after the phenomenal success of the French playwright Edmond Rostand’s 1897 “heroic comedy” “Cyrano de Bergerac.” Cyrano’s last line as he dies, in French, “Ma panache!”, is sometimes translated as “My white plume”, referring to the feathers on his hat but also to his flamboyant manner and reckless courage–the opposite of nerdy and boring.
[great story, panache45]
Cyrano de Bergerac, besides many other activities, also wrote some of the earliest science-fiction stories. *The Other World: Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon * was published in 1657 after Cyrano’s death and describes his trip to the moon and the peoples he found there. It was followed by his visit to the Sun, also published posthumously in 1662.
The 1973 musical version of Cyrano, opened on May 13, 1973 at Broadway’s Palace Theatre, where it ran for 49 performances. The cast included Christopher Plummer as Cyrano, Leigh Beery as Roxana, and Mark Lamos as Christian, with Tovah Feldshuh making her Broadway debut in two small supporting roles.
Plummer won the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance, and Beery was Tony-nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. However, the show itself was a critical and commercial failure.