In the United Kingdom, a Sloanie (or occasionally a Sloane Ranger) is a stereotypical young upper-middle or upper class person who pursues a distinctive fashionable lifestyle. The term is a portmanteau of “Sloane Square”, a location in Chelsea, London famed for the wealth of residents and frequenters, and the television character The Lone Ranger.
The term dates from 1975, when aspiring writer Peter York had conversations with Ann Barr (then features editor of UK magazine Harpers & Queen) about what had become a recognisable tribe of young people living in Chelsea and parts of Kensington. This led to an article for the magazine, defining the characteristics of this slice of English society.
Female Sloanes, especially those involved in equestrian activities, were often seen in the 1970s around London wearing Hermès or Liberty silk head scarves distinctively tied just below the chin, masking part of the face, which furthered the “Lone Ranger” jest.
Initially the term “Sloane Ranger” was used mostly in reference to women, a particular archetype being Diana, Princess of Wales. However, the term now usually includes men. A male Sloane has also been referred to as a “Rah” and by the older term “Hooray Henry”.
‘Hello Hooray’ is the name of a song written by Rolf Kempf. It was recorded and performed by Alice Cooper, released in 1973 on the album Billion Dollar Babies. The single reached #6 the top 40 charts.
The first artist to record the song was Judy Collins, who released it on her 1968 album Who Knows Where the Time Goes.
Rolfing is a form of alternative medicine originally developed by Ida Rolf as “Structural Integration”. It is typically delivered as a series of ten hands-on physical manipulation sessions sometimes called “the recipe”. It is based on Rolf’s ideas about how the human body’s “energy field” can benefit when aligned with the Earth’s gravitational field. The principles of Rolfing contradict established medical knowledge and there is no good evidence Rolfing is effective for the treatment of any health condition. It is recognized as a pseudoscience and has been characterized as quackery.
Little House on the Prairie was published in 1935, when its author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, was 68. It is the third book of the popular Little House series; Little House in the Big Woods was published in 1932 and Farmer Boy appeared in 1933.
Wendy McClure’s book The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie is a fascinating read as she goes to all the places mentioned in the Little House books, sees the Little House musical at Minneapolis’s Guthrie Theater, and even makes the recipes from the Little House Cookbook.
Before Laura Ingalls Wilder began writing the Little House books, she was a columnist and later editor for a magazine called the Missouri Ruralist. She also held a paid position with the local Farm Loan Association, dispensing small loans to local farmers.
With The Apartment, Austrian native Billy Wilder became the first person to win Academy Awards as producer, director, and screenwriter for the same film. He had earlier won the Best Director and Best Screenplay Academy Awards for an adaptation of a Charles R. Jackson story, The Lost Weekend, starring Ray Milland. Wilder also co-wrote and directed Sunset Boulevard and Stalag 17.
A memorable scene in The Lost Weekend features Verdi’s opera La Traviata. Near the beginning, Ray Milland’s character is trying desperately to stay “on the wagon,” and goes to the opera. Unfortunately, La Traviata begins with “Libiamo”, Italian for “let’s drink”, one of the great drinking scenes of all time. In the Milland character’s imagination, the performers on stage turn into dancing bottles and champagne glasses.
The surreal psychoanalysis scene in Spellbound, where amnesiac Gregory Peck is being helped to remember his identity by therapist Ingrid Bergman, was directed by Salvador Dali in a film otherwise directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
There have been three warships named USS Minneapolis to serve in the United States Navy, the most recent of which was decommissioned in 2008. The fourth, a Freedom-class littoral warfare ship, is now under construction in Wisconsin. For the second time, the ship’s name will include Minneapolis’s sister city, Saint Paul.
ETA: New page! Salvador Dali never served in the U.S. Navy.
Salvador Dalí was born on May 11, 1904. His older brother, also named Salvador, was born in 1901 but died nine months before Dalí was born. When Dalí was five years old, his parents took him to his brother’s grave and told him that he was his brother’s reincarnation, a concept which he came to believe. Images of his dead brother would appear in his later works, including Portrait of My Dead Brother in 1963.
Peter Kreeft’s 1982 book Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley imagines a conversation among the three men in Purgatory following their deaths, each of which occurred on Nov. 22, 1963.
While Aldous Huxley is best known for his novel Brave New World, he wrote over 50 books, including non-fiction such as The Doors of Perception, in which he recalls his experiences taking psychedelic drugs (primarily mescaline).
Thomas Huxley, the patriarch of the Huxley family, was a biologist who first gained fame as a vigorous supporter of Darwin and his theories. His grandsons included Aldous, Julian and Andrew Huxley, all noted biologists in their own right.
The United States Virgin Islands is a group of islands in the Caribbean located 40 miles east of Puerto Rico. The islands consist of the main islands of Saint Croix, Saint John, and Saint Thomas, and many other surrounding minor islands.
Previously known as the Danish West Indies of the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway, they were sold to the United States by Denmark in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies of 1916.
While ABBA is considered a Swedish group, the redhaired Anni-Fird Lyngstad is actually the child of a Norwegian mother and a German soldier father, conceived during World War II. Whether this was a true romantic relationship or just a German Nazi soldier doing his duty by impregnating an Aryan girl is anyone’s guess.
Narvik, Norway, was an important focal point for both German and British/Allied forces in World War Two, as much of the iron ore used by Germany was shipped from there. Several battles, both naval and on-land, occurred in 1940, with the Germans ending up with control of the port (and the country of Norway) until 1945.
In 1927, the Labour Party became the largest party in Parliament and early the following year, Norway’s first Labour Party government rose to power. The party was considered to be “revolutionary” by many and the deputy prime minister at the time advised King Haakon VII against appointing Christopher Hornsrud as Prime Minister. Haakon, however, refused to abandon parliamentary convention and asked Hornsrud to form a new government. In response to some of his detractors he stated, “I am also the King of the Communists.”
King Simeon II, a minor who was the last monarch of Bulgaria, lost his throne in 1946 when a Communist-controlled referendum abolished the privileges of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. As the civilian Simeon Borisov Sakskoburggotski, he returned to power in 2001 when he was elected his country’s Prime Minister as leader of the National Movement for Stability and Progress party, becoming the only person ever to hold both positions.