Shakespeare’s Falstaff, noted for his love of eating and drinking, is described as “a huge full hogshead” and “a tun of man”. Queen Elizabeth is said to have liked Falstaff’s character so much in the Henry IV plays that she commanded Shakespeare to write another play with Falstaff, and to show him in love. This was The Merry Wives of Windsor, performed for the Queen a number of times but not a favorite of literary critics.
A butt is another unit of measure, being half a tun.
George, Duke of Clarence and brother to King Edward IV, died in the Tower of London in mysterious circumstances. One rumour, which Shakespeare used in Richard III, was that George was executed by being drowned in a butt of malmsey wine.
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra) and grandson of the reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria, is argued by some to have been Jack the Ripper, although documentation shows he was not in London at the time of the murder spree.
In 1790 at Gwernvale Manor, in Crickhowell (Crug Hywel), a town in Brecknockshire, Wales, a man was (likely*) born whose last name is pronounced “EEV-rest”. In 1830 George Everest became the Surveyor General of India. In 1843 Sir Andrew Waugh became Surveyor General of India, and when a then-unnamed (in English) mountain labeled as Peak XV was surveyed in 1852 and its height later calculated to be the highest mountain in the world, he named the mountain after his predecessor.
Everest himself objected to his name being used, as “the native of India” could not pronounce it and it could not be written in Hindi. George Everest died in 1866. He never saw the mountain that bears his name. He is buried in St Andrew’s Church, Hove, near Brighton.
Over time, the mispronunciation of EEV-rest into EVER-est took hold and became the norm.
- — Everest’s birth place is not certain. It is likely either in Crickhowell or in Greenwich, England.
Everest & Jennings International, with its plant in Earth City, Missouri, was once the dominant name in the wheelchair industry, following its introduction of its(relatively) light weight and collapsible design. Users of its products included Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Sergeant Alvin C. York and Winston Churchill.
Flat Holm Island is the southernmost point belonging to Wales, and was the site in 1897 of Marconi’s first successful transmission of wireless signals over open sea from Flat Holm to Lavernock Point near Penarth, Wales.
Connecting the last two posts…
In play:
Grand Tower Island is a river island in the Mississippi River, within the state of Missouri on its border with the state of Illinois. The island lies on the left bank of the river in a remote area between St. Louis, Missouri and Cairo, Illinois. It shares its name with the adjacent small city of Grand Tower, Illinois, as well as with the landmark Tower Rock island on the Missouri side of the river. Despite its location on the eastern side of the river and its only road which connects to Illinois, the island is part of Perry County, Missouri.
Cairo (natives pronounce it “KAY ro”), Illinois was a major river port before, during and after the Civil War. By 1865 it was one of the largest naval bases in the Western Hemisphere, sending ironclads and tinclads south to defeat the Confederacy; today only a small blue historic plaque remains to indicate that long-gone role.
Peter Lorre played Joel Cairo, a searcher for the Maltese Falcon who hires Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, in the 1941 film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s novel. Due to the Hays Code, Cairo had to be put back in the closet for the film.
The smallest national capital in the European Union by area is Valletta, Malta.
In 1942, King George VI awarded the George Cross, Britain’s highest civilian award for valour, to the “Island Fortress of Malta”, in recognition of the great fortitude displayed by the people of Malta over the course of a two year siege by Italian and German forces.
Malta played a crucial role for the British in the Mediterranean theatre, as a garrison between Gibraltar and Egypt, and also between Italy and North Africa.
The December 1989 Malta Summit between George HW Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev occurred just weeks after the Berlin Wall fell (or started to fall) on 10 November 1989. At Malta, Bush and Gorbachev declared an end to the Cold War.
Former President George H.W. Bush, who served from 1989-93, has recently apologized for what several women felt was inappropriate touching over the years.
In reference to the Charles Dickens novel, Bush would claim his nickname was “David Cop-A-Feel”.
Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush‘s Vice President, was only the second VP, as President of the Senate, to serve a full term and to not cast a tie-breaking Senate vote. Charles Fairbanks, VP to Theodore Roosevelt elected 1904, was the first.
Notorious mass murderer **Charles **Manson died on November 19, 2017. Three people claimed Manson’s estate and body; his grandson, Jason Freeman, Michael Channels, a pen pal of Manson (who purportedly had a will naming him as beneficiary), and a friend of Manson’s, Ben Gurecki, has a will dated January 2017, that gives the estate and Manson’s body to Manson’s alleged son, Matthew Roberts. On March 12, 2018, the Kern County Superior Court in California decided in favor of Freeman in regard to the body of Manson.
Singer Brian Hugh Warner adopted the stage name Marilyn Manson in homage to Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson.
NM
Warner Brothers was founded by brothers Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner. The brothers got their start in the motion picture industry by showing films in mining towns in Pennsylvania and Ohio, beginning in 1903. In 1918, they opened their first studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Their first big ‘star’ was the dog named Rin Tin Tin, who was signed to a contract that paid 1000 dollars per week. Jack nicknamed the dog ‘The Mortgage Lifter’.
Warner Brothers’ two main animated series were Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, originally produced by separate studios but merged over the course of time. The theme song of Looney Tunes was “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down”, and the theme song of Merrie Melodies was “Merrily We Roll Along”.