A fictionalized version of William Jennings Bryan appears in the play Inherit the Wind, about the Scopes Monkey Trial. The character in the play is called Matthew Harrison Brady.
In the late 1960s, there were two movies and a television series, all of them comedies about families formed by the marriages of two previously-married people who came into their new marriages with one or more children.
The movies were “Yours, Mine and Ours,” starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda, and “With Six You Get Eggroll,” starring Brian Keith and Doris Day. The TV series, of course, was “The Brady Bunch,” starring Florence Henderson and Robert Reed.
The surnames “Henderson” and “MacKendrick” are cognates, both meaning “son of Henry” in English and Gaelic, respectively.
The Henry Rifle, patented in 1860 by Benjamin Tyler Henry, is described as the first practical, lever action repeating rifle. During the Civil War, it was a favorite of Union soldiers, and is credited with helping to turn the tide in several battles. A Confederate colonel called it “that damned Yankee rifle that can be loaded on Sunday and fired all week.”
William Henry Harrison was the 9th president of the United States. He died in office and was succeeded by Vice-President John Tyler. Forty-eight years after Harrison died, his grandson Benjamin Harrison was sworn in as the 23rd president.
Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr., age 95, and Harrison Ruffin Tyler, age 91, are the two living grandsons of President John Tyler, who was born in 1790, and is by far the earliest US president to have living grandchildren.
John Tyler became president in 1841. He had eight children with his first wife, who died while he was in office. At 52, he married 22-year-old Julia Gardiner. They had seven children, for a total of 15 – the most of any president. He was 63 when son Lyon Gardiner Tyler was born, whose first wife also died. Lyon also had a very young second wife, and was 75 years old when Harrison Tyler was born in 1928.
William Henry Harrison was the first of eight US Presidents to die while in office. The others are Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy. Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy were assassinated, while the other four died of natural causes.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first President of the United States to fly in a helicopter while in office. He was initially criticized by some in the press for supposedly intending to use the helicopter only to get to and from golf courses more quickly, but the usefulness of helicopters to convey US leaders rapidly and safely soon became apparent. Although the Army and Marine Corps initially shared the responsibility for providing helicopters for White House use, it is now exclusively a Marine function. Any of the distinctive white-and-green helicopters are designated Marine One when the President is aboard.
The “Eisenhower Dollar” coin was only issued by the U.S. Mint from 1971 until 1978. It featured a profile of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower (who had died in 1969) on the obverse, and an adaptation of the Apollo 11 mission patch on the reverse. When the Mint issued special Bicentennial versions of the quarter, half-dollar, and dollar coins in 1975 and 1976, the reverse of the Eisenhower Dollar featured the Liberty Bell and the Moon.
The Eisenhower Dollar was never widely accepted nor circulated, largely due to its large size and weight. In 1978, the Mint replaced the Eisenhower Dollar with a smaller dollar coin, which featured women’s rights leader Susan B. Anthony (though that coin proved to be unpopular, as well).
The Sacagawea dollar coin (the “Sackie”), which has not been released in the US since 2012 due to general lack of interest in using dollar coins, was the only US currency in any form to include a depiction of an infant - her son, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau. His father was her captor-husband, French explorer Toussaint Charbonneau, who accompanied the Lewis and Clark expedition in the Pacific Northwest.
In the first edition of his book The Annotated Alice, a critique of Lewis Carroll’s most famous work, Martin Gardner refers to (direct quote) “Jack Kerouac’s forgettable novel ‘On The Road.’”
Jack Kerouac (1922 - 1969) was an American novelist and poet. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of the Beat Generation. The term Beat Generation was invented by Kerouac during a conversation held with fellow novelist Herbert Huncke.
Kerouac penned at least 21 novels, some of which were published after his death. Additionally, he released 3 studio albums of poetry readings.
Kerouac died at age 47 from an abdominal hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking.
Long before he was an “Easy Rider,” actor Dennis Hopper worked at a Jack in the Box restaurant in La Mesa, Calif.
“Dennis” is a modern version of the name of the Greek god Dionysus.
St. Denis is the most famous cephalophore in Christian legend, with a popular story claiming that the decapitated bishop picked up his head and walked several miles north from Montmartre while preaching a sermon on repentance. He is venerated in the Catholic Church as the patron saint of France and Paris and is accounted one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. A chapel was raised at the site of his burial by a local Christian woman; it was later expanded into an abbey and basilica, the traditional burial site of the kings of France, and around which grew up the French city of Saint-Denis, now a suburb of Paris.
In the medieval poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, a gigantic green-skinned knight on a green horse appears before King Arthur’s court during a Christmas feast. The knight issues a challenge: he will allow one man to strike him once with his axe, and he will return the blow in a year and a day. At first, Arthur accepts the challenge, but Sir Gawain takes his place. He decapitates the Green Knight, who picks up his severed head by the hair, and rides away reminding Sir Gawain to meet him the following year.
Per Wiki, Sir Gawain, also known as Gawaine or Gauwaine, among various other forms and spellings, is King Arthur’s nephew and a Knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. Under the name Gwalchmei, he appears very early in the legend’s development, being mentioned in some of the earliest Welsh Arthurian sources. Irish actor Liam Neeson played Sir Gawain in only his third screen role, in Excalibur (1981), as something of an oaf.
WKRP in Cincinnati’s “Turkeys Away” episode is considered one of the best Thanksgiving Day TV episodes ever. From Les Nessman’s commentary to Arthur Carlson’s line “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly” the episode is a TV legend.
At the University of Cincinnati, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong accepted a teaching position in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. Armstrong chose Cincinnati over other universities, including his alma mater Purdue, because Cincinnati had a small aerospace department, and said he hoped the faculty there would not be annoyed that he came straight into a professorship with only a USC master’s degree. Armstrong was considered a good teacher and a tough grader.
In 8 days from today, on July 16 at exactly 0632 PDT (0932 EDT), it will be 50 years since Apollo 11 launched from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A.
Former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly announced in February of this year that he would run for the Arizona Senate seat formerly held by the late John McCain. Kelly is married to Gabrielle Giffords, a former member of Congress from Arizona.
If Kelly were to be elected to the Senate, he would join a select group of Senators who have also flown in space. That group includes John Glenn, Harrison Schmitt, Jake Garn, and Bill Nelson.