Vidal’s novel Myra Breckinridge was adapted into a film in 1970. The film, which is generally considered to be one of the worst movies of all time, starred Raquel Welch as Myra (and Rex Reed as Myron). The cast also included Tom Selleck (in his first film role) and Farrah Fawcett (her second film role).
Andy Dufresne was imprisoned in Shawshank for long enough for his famous Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe posters to become outdated, and be replaced by the famous one of Raquel Welch in a fur bikini in One Million Years B.C..
One of the great unanswered Shawshank Redemption questions, in both the book and movie, is: on the night that Andy escaped through the hole in the wall, how did he reattach the poster to cover the hole?
One list of the 7 biggest unanswered questions in science includes:
- What is matter made of?
- Why is gravity so weird?
- Why does time seem to flow only in one direction?
- Where did all the antimatter go?
- What happens in the gray zone between solid and liquid?
- Can we find a unified theory of physics?
- How did life evolve from nonliving matter?
Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter that is thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe, and about a quarter of its total energy density. Its presence is implied in a variety of astrophysical observations, including gravitational effects that cannot be explained unless more matter is present than can be seen. For this reason, most experts think dark matter to be ubiquitous in the universe and to have had a strong influence on its structure and evolution.
His Dark Materials is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Sir Philip Pullman, consisting of Northern Lights, (renamed The Golden Compass by the North American publishers), The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. The trilogy alludes to concepts from physics, philosophy and theology, with the quest for Dust, mysterious elementary particles, playing a central role.
Darth Vader was described as a Dark Lord of the Sith from the earliest days of the Star Wars franchise, although the underlying concept of the Sith was not clarified until decades later as an evil Force order aligned for millennia against the good-guy Jedi Knights.
The names of the financial fraud schemes used at Enron Corporation sometimes came from Star Wars, including Chewco and JEDI (Joint Energy Development Investment Ltd.).
George Lucas came up with the idea which became Chewbacca (that of a furry co-pilot) when he looked at his Malamute dog sitting upright in the passenger seat of his car. The Malamute was named Indiana, and also thus provided inspiration for the name of the Indiana Jones character.
The Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kansas, is one of the most bizarre examples of folk art in the country. Built in the early 1900s by the very eccentric Samuel Dinsmoor, the Garden features concrete statues of Adam and Eve, the Goddess of Liberty, Father Time, and Crucified Labor, as well as many others. The Garden is open for tours, and no tour is complete without the viewing of the mummified body of Dinsmoor.
US Route 66 originally ran through 8 states, from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before ending in Santa Monica, California, near Los Angeles, covering a total of 2,448 miles. The longest distance of Route 66 in any one state was 487 miles in New Mexico. The shortest was 13 miles in Kansas.
The Santa Monica Freeway is mentioned in the song “You’re The Reason God Made Oklahoma”, a hit 1981 country single by David Frizzell and Shelly West, respectively the kid brother of country legend Lefty Frizzell and the daughter of country legend Dottie West.
Frank Lawrence “Lefty” Rosenthal was a professional sports bettor, a former Las Vegas casino executive, and an organized crime associate. Martin Scorsese’s film Casino in 1995 is based on his career in Las Vegas. Despite his frequent arrests for illegal gambling and bookmaking, Rosenthal was convicted only once, after pleading no contest in 1963 to allegedly bribing a New York University player to shave points for a college basketball game in North Carolina.
The iconic photo of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi was shot by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press. It was copied in bronze for the United States Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.
The iconic photo of the flag-raising at the remains of The World Trade Center on 9/11 was shot at a distance by Thomas Franklin of The (Bergen County, New Jersey) Record newspaper. When asked about the symbolizing, Franklin said “For a brief moment, the similarity to [Joe] Rosenthal’s picture [“Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima”] flashed through my mind and I recognized the symbolism,” said Franklin, who recalled the feeling but described working with “no concept of time that day.”
The photo has been called “a moment of hope in a day of horror.”
From the observation deck at the top of the WTC’s South Tower, it was possible to look *down *on small airplanes flying the Hudson River VFR corridor through the congested New York airspace. Guests in the Vista Hotel at its base could see signs next to their TV’s apologizing for poor reception due to being directly below the transmitters.
First-person reports, btw.
Manhattan is flanked to the west by the Hudson River, and to the east by the East River. However, despite being called “River,” the East River isn’t a river at all. It’s part of the sea, technically an estuary.
While Captain Sullenberger and his crew are recognized for their part in the Miracle on the Hudson, Sullenberger had ditched the planes near boats which facilitated rescue. NY Waterway ferries Thomas Jefferson and then Governor Thomas H. Kean both arrived within minutes] and began taking people aboard. The nearby businesses also deserve credit, provided hot drinks and food and dry clothes to the passengers.
The Airbus A320 in that incident is now on display at the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte, NC - the intended destination of USAirways Flight 1549.
On an unknown date in the year 1549, the spire of Lincoln Cathedral in England is blown down,waleaving St. Olaf’s Church, Tallinn, in Estonia as the World’s tallest structure.