After the success of the 2003 Broadway musical Wicked, Gregory Maguire followed his 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West with three sequels: Son of a Witch (2005), A Lion Among Men (2008), and Out of Oz (2011).
While many people think that The Wizard of Oz was Frank Baum’s only book on the subject, there were in fact 14 different Oz books written by him (others were written by different authors after his death). I read them all as a youngster.
John Ritter and Annette O’Toole played husband and wife Frank & Maud Baum in the 1990 TV movie The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story and is a 1990 made-for-television biographical film and also played a couple in It, the TV miniseries based on the Stephen King novel.
Frank Baum became the publisher/owner of the Aberdeen Daily News in SD around 1915, about 10 years after my grandfather owned it. I’ve had an interest in his life story, especially how he was so generous giving to needy friends that he went bankrupt four times. The only black mark was an editorial he ran suggesting that the genocide of Native Americans would be good for everyone.
After returning from World War I, Harry S Truman opened a haberdasher shop in 1919 with an associate Eddie Jacobson. The business failed in 1922, with Truman owing $20,000 to creditors. He refused to accept bankruptcy and insisted on paying back all the money he borrowed, which took more than 15 years.
Harry Truman’s haberdashery was in Independence, Missouri. Independence is the furthest west point which is navigable by trading boats on the Missouri River, and thus became the jumping off point for further westward travel, first by fur traders, and then by wagon trains. It was officially designated by Congress as the starting point of the Oregon Trail.
The Missouri Breaks of Montana was first identified by the Lewis and Clarke expedition. It’s a series of badland areas containing rocky outcroppings and steep bluffs. The area is officially designated as the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument.
Montana is the only state in the United States from which waters flow to Hudson Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific Ocean.
The USS Montana was a fictional Ohio-class Trident ballistic missile submarine in two movies, The Abyss and The Fifth Missile. The Virginia-class fast attack submarine USS Montana is now under construction and expected to be commissioned in 2020. It will be only the second commissioned warship to bear the state’s name.
On February 27, 1944, the Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, exploded. Of the 77 men working that day, only three got out of the mine alive, and one of the rescue workers died soon afterwards. The explosion was attributed to a build-up of methane gas in the mine. The cause of detonation is unknown, but various reports note that men were allowed to smoke in the mine, and that fuses for blasting were lit with matches.
“Oh My Darling Clementine” is an American western folk ballad, usually credited to Percy Montrose (1887) but sometimes to Barker Bradford (1885). The song is believed to have been based on another song called “Down by the River Liv’d a Maiden” by H. S. Thompson (1863) The song refers to the California Gold Rush; Clementine’s father is described as
“Excavating for a mine
Dwelt a miner forty niner”
Clementine Ogilvy Spencer-Churchill, Baroness Spencer-Churchill was the wife of Sir Winston Churchill. Although legally the daughter of Henry Montague Hozier and Lady Blanche Hozier, Lady Blanche maintained that Clementine’s biological father was Capt. William George “Bay” Middleton, a noted horseman.
Winston Churchill was the first Prime Minister with whom Queen Elizabeth II worked. Almost everyone in the world with a radio knew King George VI had died and she had become Queen before she herself did. Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip were in Kenya on a goodwill tour of the Commonwealth, staying in the Treetops Hotel, which offered a great view of wildlife but, alas, no telephone service at the time.
Jenny Jerome was an American-born British socialite, the mother of British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. She lived in New York City prior to her marriage. Her father, Leonard Jerome, made and lost several fortunes, and was known as “The King of Wall Street.” He held interests in several railroad companies and was often a partner in the deals of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
After his Conservative Party’s 1945 election defeat, Winston Churchill was offered the unprecedented title of Duke of London, but turned it down.
Winston cigarettes are a product of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. Winston was one of the original sponsors of The Flintstones from 1960 to 1962. In the commercials, Flintstones characters Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble were seen promoting Winston, and every episode ended with Fred lighting a Winston for his wife Wilma while singing the product’s jingle.
One of the funniest episodes of the TV show “Barney Miller”, came when Detective Wojciehowicz girlfriend made brownies laced with hashish that were eaten by the Detectives.
If you’ve never seen the show: - YouTube
“Barney and Friends” appeared on TV Guide Magazine’s 2002 list of “The Worst TV Shows Ever”, at # 50 out of 50. It was the only PBS show on the list.
Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Byng on Friends, is a dual Canadian-American citizen. He grew up in Ottawa, and says that while in elementary school, he beat up a younger boy, Justin Trudeau.
Matthew Perry starred as Chaz Russell on the short-live sitcom Second Chance.In the opening scene for the pilot, 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 bizarre 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).