When he was just 18 years old, Arthur MacArthur Jr. displayed such valor at the Civil War Battle of Missionary Ridge in 1863 that he was awarded the Medal of Honor. Although nominated twice before, his son, Douglas MacArthur, did not receive the same accolade until 1942 for his service in defense of the Philippines during World War II, this becoming the first Father-Son combination to win the Medal of Honor (Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously in 2001, equaling his son’s award during WWII).
“MacArthur Park” was written and composed by Jimmy Webb. Richard Harris was the first to record it in 1968; his version peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number four on the UK Singles Chart. “MacArthur Park” was subsequently covered by numerous artists, including a hit version in 1969 by country music singer Waylon Jennings. Among the best-known covers is Donna Summer’s disco arrangement from 1978 which topped the Billboard Hot 100.
However, it is still judged to be one of the worst songs of all time.
The Imperial battlecruiser MacArthur, commanded by Roderick, Lord Blaine, is the setting of much of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s 1974 alien first-contact novel The Mote In God’s Eye.
The second line of Mrs Cecil Alexander’s 1904 hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful” was used as the title to James Herriot’s book All Creatures Great and Small. Subsequently it became the title of the film and television series. Later Herriot used the rest of the lines of the refrain for the books that followed: All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Things Wise and Wonderful, and The Lord God Made Them All.
The Monty Python version, written by Eric Idle and John DuPrez, starts
“All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.”
Eric Idle was the author of the 2005 Broadway musical Spamalot, which was adapted from the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At the beginning of the show, a recording by Idle encourages members of the audience to “let your cellphones and pagers ring willy-nilly,” and comments that they should “be aware there are heavily armed knights on stage that may drag you on stage and impale you.”
Spamilton: An American Parody is a musical parody of the Broadway show Hamilton. Written by Gerard Alessandrini, creator of the parody revue Forbidden Broadway, Spamilton also parodies several other musicals, included Gypsy, Chicago, The King and I, Assassins, Camelot, The Book of Mormon and Sweeney Todd, and personalities, like Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Schwartz, Barbra Streisand, Bernadette Peters, Carol Channing and Liza Minnelli.
Carol Channing died on January 15, 2019, at age 97.
Milvina Dean was one of 706 people — mostly women and children — who survived the sinking of the Titanic. Her father was among the 1,517 who died. She died in 2009, age 97, the last of the survivors.
Graphic artist Roger Dean has had a long career of creating posters, album cover art, and logos for rock bands, most notably for the progressive rock bands Yes and Asia. Dean’s signature style features fantastic, otherworldly landscapes, and often include arches and floating islands.
Dean originally went to school to study architecture and industrial design, then moved into furniture design, before beginning to work with music acts.
The Dean drive was a device created and promoted by inventor Norman Lorimer Dean that he claimed to be a reactionless drive. Dean claimed that his device was able to generate a uni-directional force in free space, in violation of Newton’s third law of motion from classical physics. His claims generated notoriety because, if true, such a device would have had enormous applications, completely changing human transport, engineering, space travel and more. However, no working space ship has ever been built.
Dr. Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in 2004, is not mentioned by name in Max Brooks’s World War Z but is strongly implied to have served as Vice President to President Colin Powell in the book’s alternative timeline.
Vermont and New Hampshire are the only two states that elect governors to 2-year terms; all other states elect governors to 4-year terms. However, the two states are among the 14 states that have no gubernatorial term limits.
No premiers in Canada have term limits. (Nor terms.)
Canada is the world’s second-largest country by total area, after Russia.
The world’s most polluted city, Norilsk in Russia not only has a harsh climate with an average temperature of 15.5 F, but is so heavily polluted by heavy metals that it is economically feasible to mine the surface soil.
The music genre called Heavy Metal takes its name from a lyric in Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild”.
I like smoke and lightning
Heavy metal thunder
Racin’ with the wind
And the feelin’ that I’m under
Notable heavy metals are lead, bismuth, iron, copper and tin, and precious metals such as silver, gold and platinum.
In addition to the Burl Ives Christmas classic, songs with the title “Silver & Gold” have been released by Dolly Parton’s (written by Carl, Greg and Stan Perkins), and Neil Young (who wrote the song). .
Neil Young married actress Daryl Hannah just last year. Hannah had never before been married, but did have a long term relationship with another musician, Jackson Browne.