John Keats credited the discovery of the Pacific to Cortez in his sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”. Some claim the switch was intentional “poetic license”, which is plausible if you think it is more important that the conquistador be “stout” than that the correct one be named.
Hernan Cortez (or Cortes) led the small Spanish army that, along with its Indian allies, overthrew the Aztec Empire in the early 1520s, claiming much of what is now Mexico for Spain. He took Malinche, a native woman, as his mistress.
The folk-rock group Aztec Two-Step (which has been performing regularly since 1971), took their name from a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was colonel of the 20th Maine volunteer infantry regiment when they made their fateful stand on Little Round Top during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, earning him the Medal of Honor.
The Gettysburg Address was written on the back of an envelope.
A persistent myth, but untrue: Abraham Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is inscribed on the walls of the Lincoln Monument in Washington, D.C.
The Second Inaugural Address inscribed in the Lincoln Memorial has an error: the word “Future” is inscribed as “Euture.”
The US five-dollar bill has the names of 11 states on it in tiny print, above the columns on the engraving on the Lincoln Memorial.
Many of the stadium scenes in the Robert Redford movie The Natural were filmed at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo, NY.
In the Beatles movie “Magical Mystery Tour” the band that plays during the strip tease scene was the Bonzo Dog Band. The name of the song they played was “Death Cab for Cutie.”
In the episode of Supernatural entitled “Mystery Spot,” Sam Winchester is stuck in a time loop in which he is forced to watch his brother, Dean, die over and over again.
The top three rated episodes on network TV in the US are: 1) 60 Minutes - Diane Sawyer interviews Michael Jackson (2003); 2) “Goodbye, Fairwell & Amen” (MASH* series finale, 1983); 3) “Who Done It?” aka “Who Shot J.R.?” (Dallas, 1980)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was first sold on a subscription basis: people ordered the book sight unseen before publication, a common method of the time. Later editions were sold in retail stores.
Tom Sawyer, from the 1981 album Moving Pictures, is one of the Canadian rock trio Rush’s best-known songs.
Johnny Whitaker, best known as Jodie from FAMILY AFFAIR or from SIGMUND AND THE SEA MONSTERS (and yet another child star who earned millions to find none was left when he became an adult- though in his case much of it had been spent sending his siblings on Mormon missionary work) played the lead in a movie musical based on Tom Sawyer.
Dr. Sigmund Freud helps Sherlock Holmes deal with his cocaine addiction in the Nicholas Meyer novel The Seven Percent Solution, later made into a movie, also directed by Meyer.
Russ Meyer, best known for his sexploitation films, produced, directed & wrote all his own movies. He made over 20 films & died in 2004. His epitaph reads: “King of the Nudies” - “I Was Glad to Do It”.
Russ Meyer was the first director to hire Kitten Natividad as an actress, in his movie Up! (1976).
Director Steven Spielberg has planned to film the biopic Lincoln for several years, with Liam Neeson as the 16th President and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, but the project has been repeatedly delayed.
Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf was produced by Todd Rundgren, who had hits with “Hello, It’s Me,” “I Saw the Light,” and “We Got to Get You a Woman.”