People born in 1961 include Barack Obama, 57. US President. Princess Diana (1961-1997) Princess. Billy Ray Cyrus, 57. Country Singer. George Clooney, 58. Eddie Murphy, 58. George Lopez, 58. Stephen Hillenburg (1961-2018) Director. Michael J. Fox, 57.
And me!
Subfamily Caninae includes Tribe Vulpini (True foxes) which includes the species called raccoon dog; and Tribe Canini (True dogs) which includes species called crab-eating fox and Pampas fox.
According to The Fox Website, there are six species of foxes in North America: arctic fox, grey fox, kit fox, island fox, swift fox and red fox. Of these, the red fox is the most predominant.
The slang term “foxy” is derived from the ancient British word of Foxismonitism, meaning attractive or sexually appealing.
Comedian Redd Foxx was born John Elroy Sanford. Foxx initially gained fame as a nightclub comic in the 1950s and 1960s. He also recorded dozens of “party records,” which featured his often-raunchy nightclub comedy routines.
In the 1970s, Foxx starred in the NBC comedy series “Sanford and Son,” in which he played a curmudgeonly junkyard owner named Fred Sanford – “Fred Sanford” also happened to be the name of both Foxx’s father and older brother.
John Elway was one of a number of NFL players who were also drafted by Major League Baseball. Other notable NFL stars who were drafted by MLB include Russell Wilson, Dan Marino, Tom Brady, Deion Sanders, and Bo Jackson.
John F. Kennedy, Woodrow Wilson and Andrew Jackson were all Democrats elected President of the United States. Kennedy did not live to be elected to a second term; Wilson and Jackson both were elected to and served second terms.
The opening and closing scenes of Chariots of Fire, showing the British Olympic team running along Broadstairs Beach in Kent, were filmed on West Sands Beach, St. Andrews, 500 miles north, in Scotland.
The spoked-wheel war chariot was invented about 2100 BC, probably by the Sintashta culture north of the Aral Sea. Although solid-wheel wagons or chariots had been used as platforms for war for many centuries, the spoked-wheel horse-drawn chariot revolutionized warfare.
After Stanford suffered a lopsided 49-0 loss in the inaugural Rose Bowl in 1902, the Tournament of Roses opted for Roman-style chariot races to replace the football festivities. It wasn’t until 1916 when the action returned to the gridiron. Washington State shut down Brown’s Fritz Pollard in a 14-0 win that enabled the Rose Bowl game to become an annual New Year’s Day tradition.
The Rose Bowl was the first college bowl game, and it remained the only college bowl game until 1935. On January 1, 1935, the inaugural games of the Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, and Sun Bowl were played. Two years, the first Cotton Bowl Classic was played. By 1950, the number of bowl games had increased to eight games.
The Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. President Lincoln, his hand worn out from shaking the hands of many others for the New Year’s Day open house that day, said he did not want future generations, seeing his signature on the document, to think he was quavering in his resolve. Then he signed it with a clear, firm signature.
I am so proud and glad to post this timely bit of not-so-trivia:
Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.
Galveston TX in named for Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez (1746-1786). Gálvez is one of only eight people to have been awarded honorary United States citizenship.
While the song Galveston made #7 in this ist of songs about Texas, the song that came in at #15 was Rio by Duran Druan.
Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand
Just like that river twisting through a dusty land
And when she shines she really shows you all she can
Oh Rio, Rio dance across the Rio Grande
The Power Station was a 1980s supergroup, which came into being during a hiatus for the pop group Duran Duran. The original members of The Power Station were guitarist Andy Taylor and bassist John Taylor (no relation to one another) from Duran Duran, vocalist Robert Palmer, and drummer Tony Thompson, who had been in the disco group Chic. The band took its name from the Power Station recording studio in Manhattan, where they recorded their first album.
Duran Duran was named for “Dr. Durand Durand”, creator of a doomsday weapon, who was Milo O’Shea’s character from the 1968 Roger Vadim sci-fi film, Barbarella, starring Jane Fonda.
Jane Fonda’s mother Frances Ford Seymour, lead an incredibly tragic life: Medical records revealed that Seymour was a victim of recurrent sexual abuse in her childhood, her first marriage to millionaire attorney George Tuttle Brokaw lasted only five years, until his death. A year later she married Henry Fonda, giving birth to Jane and Peter.
She committed suicide by cutting her throat with a razor blade ten days after her 42nd birthday, while she was a patient at Craig House, a sanatorium in Beacon, New York. Her suicide came three and a half months after Fonda asked her for a divorce.
Tom Brokaw, born in 1940, is best known for being the anchor of NBC Nightly News for 22 years (1982–2004). He is the only person to have hosted all three major NBC News programs: The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and Meet the Press.
Brokaw was one of the “Big Three” news anchors in the U.S. during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. The other two were Peter Jennings of ABC and Dan Rather of CBS. All three started and retired (or died, in Jennings’ case) within a year of each other.
On October 4, 1986, while walking along Park Avenue to his apartment in Manhattan, Rather was attacked and punched from behind by a man who demanded to know “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” while a second assailant chased and beat him. As the assailant pummeled and kicked Rather, he kept repeating the question. In describing the incident, Rather said “I got mugged. Who understands these things? I didn’t and I don’t now. I didn’t make a lot of it at the time and I don’t now. I wish I knew who did it and why, but I have no idea.” Until the crime was resolved years later, Rather’s description of the bizarre crime led some to doubt the veracity of his account, although the doorman and building supervisor who rescued Rather fully confirmed his version of events.
In 1997, a TV critic writing in the New York Daily News solved the mystery, publishing a photo of the alleged assailant, William Tager, who received a 12½-to-25-year prison sentence for killing NBC stagehand Campbell Montgomery outside The Today Show studio in 1994. Rather confirmed the story: “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the person.” Tager claimed he thought television networks were beaming signals into his brain. When he murdered the stagehand, Tager was trying to force his way into an NBC studio with a weapon, in order to find out the frequency the networks were using to attack him, so that he could block it. Tager was paroled in October 2010 and is believed to be living in New York City .