As a reporter in the 1950s, Brn Bradlee became close friends with then-senator John F. Kennedy, who had graduated from Harvard two years before Bradlee and lived nearby. In 1960 Bradlee toured with both Kennedy and Richard Nixon in their presidential campaigns. He later wrote a book, Conversations With Kennedy, recounting their relationship during those years. Bradlee was, at this point, Washington Bureau chief for Newsweek magazine, a position from which he helped negotiate the sale of the magazine to The Washington Post holding company. Bradlee maintained that position until being promoted to managing editor at the Post in 1965. He became executive editor in 1968.
Le Bureau, a 2006 French television show, was an adaptation of the popular British television series The Office, and part of the international Office franchise.
The bakery aboard the French Navy aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle can produce 2,000 baguettes a day.
While the round brilliant cut is considered standard for diamond, with its shape and proportions nearly constant, the choice of fancy cut is influenced heavily by fashion. For example, the step cut baguette—which accentuates a diamond’s luster, whiteness, and clarity but downplays its fire—was all the rage during the Art Deco period, whereas the mixed Princess cut—which accentuates a diamond’s fire and brilliance rather than its luster—is currently gaining popularity. Most fancy cuts can be grouped into four categories: modified brilliants, step cuts, mixed cuts, and rose cuts.
King Felipe VI of Spain, who took the throne upon the abdication of his father King Juan Carlos in 2014, has two sisters and two daughters. His eldest daughter, Leonor, Princess of Asturias, is the heiress presumptive. Now age 13, she also bears the titles Princess of Girona, Princess of Viana, Duchess of Montblanc, Countess of Cervera and Lady of Balaguer.
Mont Blanc (White Mountain) rises 15,777 feet above sea level and is the highest peak in the Alps. However, because the summit is a perennial ice-and-snow dome whose thickness varies, no exact and permanent summit elevation can be determined. The height of the summit is measured every two years.
Mont Blanc stands on the border between Italy and France; both countries claim ownership of the peak.
New Hampshire’s White Mountains are the setting for Nathaiel Hawthorne’s short stories “The Great Carbuncle,” “The Ambitious Guest”, “Sketches from Memory” and “The Great Stone Face”. The White Mountain region also figures prominently in the writings of Louisa May Alcott, including the novel Eight Cousins and its sequel, Rose in Bloom.
The post-apocalyptic alien-conquest young-adult novel series The Tripods, by John Christopher, begins with The White Mountains. The title refers to the location of the Resistance base, organizing the efforts of humans who have escaped implantation with the Tripod overlords’ mind-control device.
For almost a century after the Civil War there was an unofficial “Mountain Rule” in Vermont Republican politics that a governor from one side of the Green Mountains, which run roughly north-south through the state, would be succeeded by a governor from the other side. The state’s two U.S. senators also tended to be from different sides of the mountains.
For as long as there were still significant numbers of Confederate veterans voting in national elections, the Democratic Party, which had been closely associated with slavery and the rebel cause, was said to remind them to “Vote like you shot.” Some historians attribute the saying to the Republicans, as a means to keep the Democrats from putting it behind them by “waving the bloody shirt” to their own supporters.
Grover Cleveland of New York was the only Democrat elected President of the United States (and that, twice) between the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the election of Woodrow Wilson, who was born in Virginia but rose to political prominence in New Jersey, in 1912.
Two US Presidents had previously been college presidents: Woodrow Wilson at Princeton, and Dwight Eisenhower at Columbia. Eisenhower’s brother Milton was president of Kansas State, Penn State, and Johns Hopkins.
Nichols Hall is a building on the campus of Kansas State University. This building was originally built in 1911 and appears from the exterior as a castle with battlements. Its interior was destroyed by fire in 1968. The fire destroyed all of the band instruments and sheet music stored inside the building. By an odd coincidence, the music director, Phil Hewett, happened to have the music for the “Wabash Cannonball” in his briefcase the night of the fire. This was the only music available for the band to play in a game against Syracuse a few nights later. As a result, the song became one of the main fight songs of the university.
The University of Texas Longhorn Band plays ‘Wabash Cannonball’ at the beginning of every fourth quarter during football season. The tradition began when Texas was in the Southwest Conference and Kansas State University was in the Big 8 Conference. Then-football coach Darrell Royal was asked if he had any songs he would like to hear the Longhorn Band play. His response was that they didn’t play enough country music and that he would like to hear ‘Wabash Cannonball’. A good-natured ‘band rivalry’ has developed since both schools joined the Big 12 Conference.
The 1984 film Cannonball Run II was panned by critics; Gene Siskel’s review called it “a total ripoff, a deceptive film - that gives movies a bad name.” Roger Ebert said it was “one of the laziest insults to the intelligence of moviegoers that I can remember.” However, it was noteworthy for the final feature film appearances of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. Their appearances, with those of Sammy Davis Jr. and Shirley MacLaine, marked the final on-screen appearance of the old Rat Pack team. The film also featured Jackie Chan in one of his first Hollywood roles.
The Burt Reynolds / Hal Needham Cannonball Run films were inspired by the Cannonball Baker races, a series of no-holes-barred cross-country auto rallies organized by automotive journalist Brock Yates.
Yates, who also wrote the script for the first Cannonball Run film, had come up with the idea for the Cannonball Baker race while writing for Car and Driver magazine. The movie script was specifically inspired by the 1979 race – in that race, Yates and Needham competed in an ambulance (as Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise did in the film), with Yates’ wife posing as their patient.
The Gumball Rally (1976) was a movie about a road race across the USA. The movie was inspired by the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash run by Brock Yates, which inspired several other films, including Cannonball (1976), Cannonball Run (1981), Speed Zone (1989); as well as an actual event, the American Gumball Rally and Gumball 3000 international race.
Cannonball Run was an unofficial, unsanctioned automobile race run five times in the 1970s from New York City and Darien, Connecticut, on the East Coast to the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, California.
Way back before he was a superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber provided the soundtracks for Gumshoe (1971) and The Odessa File (1974).
Dammit, ninja’ed
Odessa is the third most populous city of Ukraine. Odessa is sometimes called the “Pearl of the Black Sea”.