“Oly” beer, or Olympia beer, was founded in 1896. It was drunk in the 1967 movie, The Graduate, by Dustin Hoffman’s character Benjamin Braddock, and also in the 1974 Clint Eastwood movie, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.
Clint Eastwood is one of only two people to have been twice nominated for Best Actor and Best Director for the same film. He was nominated for the two awards for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby. The other is Warren Beatty, who was nominated for the two awards for both Heaven Can Wait and Reds.
Actors who receive Oscar nominations for playing physically disabled characters have nearly a 50 percent chance of winning, and Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby was no exception. The first was Harold Russell in 1947 for The Best Years of Our Lives, which actually earned him 2 Oscars, including 1 for being an inspiration to disabled veterans.
According to IMDB, the last time anyone was allowed to climb the Totem Pole in Monument Valley, Arizona was when Clint Eastwood filmed The Eiger Sanction (1975). Actors Eastwood and George Kennedy had a scene on top of the Totem Pole. In return for permission to film there, climbers with the production had to remove all of the pitons, which had accumulated from years of climbing, on their way down.
IMDB: The Eiger Sanction (1975) - Trivia - IMDb
Pic of Eastwood and Kennedy atop the Totem Pole, with other climbers: Eiger Sanction - can you ID the real climbers? :: SuperTopo Rock Climbing Discussion Topic
gMap, Totem Pole, just SW of John Ford Point in Monument Valley: Google Maps
ETA, comment: gMap link, it’s only 950 miles from home! (Not my current address) — https://www.google.com/maps/dir/1381+Brussels+Street,+San+Francisco,+CA/Totem+pole,+Arizona+86033/@35.7436656,-116.2278255,5z/data=!4m8!4m7!1m2!1m1!1s0x808f7f274f9f0997:0x52d6bf90baa88e4b!1m2!1m1!1s0x87373357836f5349:0xf534f43ef0ce8130!3e0
I want to go. Road trip!
In* In the Line of Fire*, Clint Eastwood played a grizzled old Secret Service agent, the last still on active field duty to have served in President John F. Kennedy’s protective detail in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Footage of a young Eastwood was digitally inserted into footage of JFK’s last day for the movie.
‘Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire’ is a common taunt used when somebody tells an untruth. There have been many stories ‘explaining’ the origin of this phrase, but most of them have been shown to be fakes, such as the purported poem by William Blake that supposedly read (Blake did not write this):
“Deceiver, dissembler
Your trousers are alight
From what pole or gallows
Shall they dangle in the night?”
Miami defense attorney Stephen Gutierrez’ pants actually did catch on fire during his closing arguments in an arson trial, claiming that the victim’s car had spontaneously combusted rather than be ignited by his client. The smoke was caused by the lithium ion batteries in some e-cigarettes he was carrying.
Some of the cool things I’ve learned since I’ve been participating in this thread!
In play:
In the 1800s, Charles Dickens ignited great interest in spontaneous human combustion by using it to kill off a character in his novel ‘Bleak House’. The character, named Krook, was an alcoholic, following the belief at the time that spontaneous human combustion was caused by excessive amounts of alcohol in the body.
Obesity Hypoventilation Syndrome (OHS), a condition related to sleep apnea, was first called Pickwickian Syndrome. It’s named after Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers because the novel features a character who has all the classic symptoms of the condition.
Apnea or apnoea is suspension of breathing. During apnea, there is no movement of the muscles of inhalation, and the volume of the lungs initially remains unchanged. During sleep in patients who are suffering from sleep apnea, these events can occur up to 20–30 times per hour, every night.
If adult human lungs were open flat they would cover the size of a tennis court.
In June of 1789, the King of France ordered the doors of the meeting hall of the Third Estate locked. The members of the Third Estate, who had begun to call themselves the National Assembly, instead met in a local indoor tennis court and took an oath “not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established”. 576 of the 577 members of the Estate took the Oath.
The Oath was one of the first acts of formal opposition to the King, and an initial step in the French Revolution.
nitpick:
Built in Britain, not by Britain. The CSA commissioned the building of the ship by the Laird ship-building company.
The musical version of Les Misérables was originally released as a French-language concept album, the first musical-stage adaptation of was presented at the Palais des Sports in 1980.The initial three month run was not well received, and the contract was not renewed when it expired.
Producer Cameron Mackintosh received a copy of the French concept album from director Peter Farago, who had been impressed by the work and asked Mackintosh to produce an English-language version of the show. Initially reluctant, Mackintosh eventually agreed. Mackintosh, in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company, assembled a production team to adapt the French musical for a British audience. After two years in development, the English-language version opened in London October 8, 1985. The inital reviews of the show were terrible, but the public opinion differed, and “Les Miz” the longest running show in British history.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, designer, water colourist and artist, who resided in Glasgow for most of his life. His artistic approach had much in common with European Symbolism. His work, alongside that of his wife Margaret Macdonald, was influential on European design movements such as Art Nouveau and Secessionism. In his youth, he was strongly influenced by the Japanese naval personnel who came to Glasgow to see their ships being built, and brought some of their decorative style with them.
The reparations were paid by the Crown, not Laird. But it could have been worse - the initial US demand wasn’t for $15 million, but for Canada.
Clan Cameron was one of the fiercest Scottish Highland clans, as summarised by their war Song, “The March of the Cameron Men”:
In spite of that reputation, the Chief of Clan Cameron, Cameron of Lochiel, initially tried to dissuade Bonnie Prince Charlie from trying to start a rebellion after he landed in Scotland in 1745, reputedly saying, “Sir, You should go home.” Prince Charles replied “I am home.” Lichfield threw in his lot with Charlie, and Clan Cameron was the largest group of warriors when Prince Charles raised his standard at Glenfinnan. Lochiel’s support was key in persuading other Highland clans to join his rebellion, which was ultimately crushed, leading to te ascendancy of Clan Campbell, which supported the Hanoverians.
[sidebar]Yes, the British government paid reparations, because they acknowledged they should not have allowed the Alabama to sail from Britain. Still not the same as being built by Britain.
The claim for Canada never had any traction and in fact the Prime Minister of Canada was one of the British commissioners to the Washington conference, which led to the arbitration agreement. The outcome of the commission meetings actually had the opposite effect: it was seen as the United States’ de facto recognition of Canada.
The Prime Minister of Canada, currently Justin Trudeau, is entitled to the prefix “The Right Honourable,” or “His Excellency” in diplomatic correspondence. His official residence, 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, was built in 1866. It is now closed for what are anticipated to be major renovations that could cost upwards of $15 million.
Justin Trudeau has served 2 years and 153 days in office, making him Canada’s 14th longest serving PM.
His dad, Pierre, served for 15 years and 164 days, making him Canada’s third longest serving PM, after Mackenzie King and Sir John A. Macdonald. All three of them served non-consecutive terms.
Sir John Alexander Macdonald was the first Prime Minister of Canada. His two terms were 1867 to 1873, and 1878 to 1891. He first took office on July 1, 1867, which is the day that Canada became an independent country. In 1873, he resigned from office over the Pacific Scandal, in which his party took bribes from businessmen seeking the contract to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. However, he was re-elected in 1878, continuing until he died in office in 1891.
Unlike three Presidents of the United States - George Washington during the Whiskey Rebellion, James Madison during the War of 1812 and Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War - no Prime Minister of Canada has ever, to my knowledge, exercised personal command of troops in the field while holding their high office.
The last Canadian Prime Minister to have active military service is Lester Bowles “Mike” Pearson. He was PM from 1963-1968. He Served during World War I in Greece and Egypt as member of Canadian Army Medical Corps and later in the Royal Flying Corps as Pilot (1915–1918) in Britain.