The word hamburger probably existed by the end of the Middle Ages. In 1802 the Oxford English Dictionary defined “Hamburg steak” as salt beef. Referring to ground beef as “hamburger” dates to the invention of the mechanical meat grinder during the 1860s.
The Oxford English Dictionary was established as a project in 1857; the first volume – a section covering from A-Ant was published in 1884. The book wasn’t titled “The Oxford English Dictionary” until 1895. Thus, it couldn’t have mentioned “Hamburg steak” in 1802, half a century before the project began.
The University of Oxford hosts the recipients of Rhodes Scholarships, an international postgraduate program awarded typically for two-year terms. John Marshall Harlan, Edwin Hubble, Dean Rusk, Kris Kristofferson, David Souter and Bill Clinton were all Rhodes Scholars.
Kris Kristofferson was stationed in Germany as a US Army helicopter pilot. He left the service to become a full-time songwriter after declining an appointment as a West Point instructor in English, the major in which he was summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa at Pomona.
Frank Zappa also attended Pomona College, but did not complete more than one year (probably less).
Donald Fagen attended Bard College; the song “My Old School” is about a drug bust while he was a student there.
Boston’s Tom Scholz and actor James Woods attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as did both Tom and Ray Magliozzi of NPR’s “Car Talk” and “Purple Cow” poet Gelett Burgess.
The Ace Science Fiction Specials were a series of books edited by Terry Carr featuring top writers in the field and including award winning books like Rite of Passage, The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Year of the Quiet Sun. In the 80s, Carr was asked to revive the series and established it as a imprint for first novels by upcoming authors including William Gibson (Neuromancer), Kim Stanley Robinson, Lucius Shepard, Harold Waldrop, Michael Swanwick, and Carter Scholz.
New York Yankees pitcher Ralph Terry, the goat of the 1960 World Series (he yielded the famous walkoff home run to Bill Mazeroski in Game 7) was the MVP of the 1962 World Series against the San Francisco Giants.
Every year on the anniversary of Maz’s homer, a group of Pittsburgh Pirates fans gathers at the base of the left-field wall of Forbes Field (the only remaining part of the park, now part of the Pitt campus) to listen to a tape recording of the entire game and celebrate the Bucs’ win.
“Terry and the Pirates” was a comic strip, created by Milton Caniff, originally set in China during the 1930s and 1940s. It was extremely popular during WWII, during which time the strip featured the characters’ involvement in the war (Terry became an Army pilot). The strip also contributed the term “Dragon Lady” (a powerful woman) to the American lexicon.
My parents have a bench from Forbes Field. At the last game, fans were invited by the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball club to take whatever they wanted, whether or not it was nailed down. This had been announced ahead of time; many brought tools! Forbes Field was succeeded by Three Rivers Stadium, also now razed; the Pirates now play at PNC Park.
Cleveland Municipal Stadium, now also razed, had the largest capacity of any major league baseball stadium (74,438 in its final years).
It was also one of the most spacious in terms of field dimensions. No batter ever hit a home run into Cleveland Municipal Stadium’s bleachers.
Backup first baseman Mike Laga hit a foul ball out of Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis in 1986. It was the only ball, fair or foul, ever hit out of the stadium in its 29 year existence.
British musician Mike McGear – who had a hit as a member of Scaffold – is Paul McCartney’s younger brother.
(Will have to kick my sources.)
Four of the Lincoln assassination conspirators ascended the scaffold in a Washington prison yard (now tennis courts on the grounds of Ft. McNair) on July 7, 1865 and were hanged for their crimes, among them the first woman executed by the Federal government, Mary Surratt.
Although Cleveland Stadium (its official name in its final years, as it was no longer owned by the city) had the largest capacity at the time it hosted its last game, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was used by the Dodgers in their first few years as a California-based club. The theoretical capacity was listed as 92,500 in baseball publications of the time, although many of the seats would have been rejected even by Bob “I must be in the front row” Uecker. Still, the Dodgers’ Coliseum opener drew 78,672, and a 1959 World Series game had an official attendance of 92,706. For an exhibition tilt in 2008 (long after Dodger Stadium had opened), the Red Sox and Dodgers somehow squeezed 115,300 fans into the park.
Playing off the most recent post:
Walter Reed, the doctor who helped discover the cause of yellow fever, died at Fort McNair in 1902 after contracting peritonitis from an appendectomy.
Corporal Walter “Radar” O’Reilly, played by Gary Burghoff, was the only MASH** character to appear in the movie, TV show and spinoff series played by the same actor each time.
“The Cheater” was the lone Top 40 hit for St. Louis-based Bob Kuban and the In-Men in 1966.
Kuban was actually the group’s drummer. Bringing the topic of their hit full circle, the In-Men’s lead singer, Walter Scott, was murdered by his wife’s lover (with her collusion) in 1983.