“Pete the Pup” in the “Our Gang” comedy films was an American Staffordshire Terrier, as was “Sergeant Stubby”, the most decorated dog in US military history (and the only one to be promoted during battle). Stubby warned his fellow soldiers of gas attacks, located wounded soldiers in No Man’s Land, and listened for oncoming artillery rounds. He was also responsible for the capture of a German spy at Argonne. After his time in the war, Stubby met Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, and Warren G. Harding. He was awarded life memberships to the American Legion, the Red Cross, and the YMCA.
A Staffy named “Bud” became the first dog to drive across the country, no doubt with his tongue hanging out, when he accompanied Horatio Nelson Jackson on his 1903 ride.
Years before taking the role of Colonel Sherman Potter on the TV series MASH***, Harry Morgan had done a guest appearance on the show as an insane, racist officer with a habit of breaking out into song at the drop of a hat.
Harry Morgan’s other notable pre-MASH* roles include the judge in the motion picture adaptation of Inherit the Wind and half of the early-60s situation comedy Pete & Gladys.
Inherit the Wind was written by Robert E. Lee (not the general obviously) and Jerome Lawrence, who also collaborated on the play version of Auntie Mame and the oft performed by amateur companies The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail.
According to someone named Cecil Adams, parachutists traditionally yell “Geronimo!” when exiting their PGA’s (Perfectly Good Airplanes) because a US Army parachute test battalion in 1940 saw the Andy Devine movie Geronimo, about the Apache warrior and the cavalry the night before a mass jump.
Vesna Vulovic holds the record for surviving the longest fall without a parachute. In 1972 she fell over 33,000 feet after the plane on which she was a flight attendant exploded over Czechoslavakia in a probable bombing. Though briefly paralyzed after suffering traumatic injury, Vulovic recovered.
Opened in 1965, the Harris County Domed Stadium, popularly known as the Astrodome, was the world’s first completely enclosed, air-conditioned sports stadium.
The Roman Emperor Heliogabalus, King George II of England, Judy Garland and Elvis Presley all died on the toilet, as did Carl Harper (husband of Thelma Harper and father of Eunice Higgins) on The Family sketches from The Carol Burnett Show.
“Uncle” Jesse Katsopolis, the character played by John Stamos on the sitcom Full House, was occasionally teased by the girls of the household because his middle name was Hermes.
John Nance Gardner of Texas served as Vice President during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first two terms, from 1933-41, until his conservatism, ambition and ornery demeanor made FDR decide to drop him from the ticket. He was succeeded by Henry A. Wallace, who served from 1941-45, and Harry Truman, who held the post for only a few months in 1945 until FDR’s death.
Following a term as editor of The New Republic, Henry Wallace ran against Harry Truman for the Presidency in 1948, as the nominee of the Progressive Party, with a platform of racial equality, universal health care, and detente with the USSR. Although he had more popular votes than segregationist Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, he failed to carry a state while Thurmond carried several. Both Wallace and his father had previously served as Secretary of Agriculture.
Harry Truman and his wife Bess lived at Blair House, the U.S. Government’s diplomatic guest house, while the White House was being totally rebuilt internally in the early Fifties. He survived an assassination attempt by Puerto Rican nationalists while there; a uniformed Secret Service agent was killed in the attack.
Blair House is named for former owner Francis Preston Blair, who was a newspaper editor and member of Andrew Jackson’s “Kitchen Cabinet”. His son, Montgomery Blair, served as Lincoln’s Postmaster-General, and had a grandson named Montgomery Clift.
Preston Ridlehuber is arguably the most influential player to have played pro football: one of this three lifetime touchdowns still is affecting the game today. It happened on November 28, 1968, when Ridelhuber, playing on special teams for the Oakland Raiders against the New York Jets, he scored a touchdown with 33 seconds left that iced the game for Oakland. But no one on the east coast saw it: NBC has switched to a showing of Heidi, cutting off the end of the game. After the uproar, no TV network has ever cut away from a game before it ended.