Johnny Cash was inspired to write his signature song Folsom Prison Blues after seeing the movie Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison while serving in West Germany in the United States Air Force at Landsberg, Bavaria (itself the location of a famous prison). Cash recounted how he came up with the line “But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die”: “I sat with my pen in my hand, trying to think up the worst reason a person could have for killing another person, and that’s what came to mind.”
Cash took the melody for the song and many of the lyrics from Gordon Jenkins’s 1953 Seven Dreams concept album, specifically the song “Crescent City Blues”. Jenkins was not credited on the original record, which was issued by Sun Records. In the early 1970s, after the song became popular, Cash paid Jenkins a settlement of approximately US$75,000 following a lawsuit.
On October 12, 1810, Ludwig Karl August (who would later become King Ludwig I of Bavaria) married Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. In celebration of the marriage, the citizens of Munich were invited to enjoy several days of festivities, including a parade and horse races.
The celebration proved to be so popular that it was repeated the following year. Over the next few years, it became an annual event, and evolved into what is now known as Oktoberfest.
King Ludwig II of Bavaria was known for his lavish spending on elaborate palaces and castles. Although he spent his own private fortune on them and not state funds, this extravagance was used against him to declare him insane, and soon after he was deposed, he died age 40 under mysterious circumstances. The castles which caused his political and financial downfall have become extremely profitable tourist attractions for the Bavarian state.
King Ludwig II of Bavaria commissioned the Neuschwanstein Castle in Hohenschwangau from his personal funds, not public funds. Ludwig died when he was 40 years old and before the castle was completed.
During World War II, the Nazis used Neuschwanstein Castle as a storehouse for works of art which had been plundered from France. In early 1945, when the tide of the war had turned against Germany, the SS considered blowing up the castle, so as to not let it (and the plundered artworks) fall into Allied hands; thankfully, this plan was never carried out.
Schloß, or schloss, is the German term for a building similar to a château, palace or manor house. It is used for the Neuschwanstein, as in Schloss Neuschwanstein. Google Translate for “castle” gives you schloss in German.
Ludwig II only slept 11 mights in his Neuschwanstein.
Ludwig II, also known as “Mad” King Ludwig, built several castles. Beside’s Neuschwanstein, he also built Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee. The latter was built as a tribute to Louis XIV of France and contains many architectural similarities. It is located on a small island in Lake Chiemsee in Bavaria.
Robert Wilfred Skeffington Lutwidge was an English barrister, Commissioner in Lunacy and early photographer. He was the uncle of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll. Carroll was familiar with the conditions at asylums and visited at least one, the Surrey County Asylum, himself, which treated patients with so-called non-restraint methods and occupied them, among others, in gardening, farming and hat-making. Besides staging theatre plays, dances and other amusements, such asylums also held tea-parties.
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), writer of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was also a mathematician graduating with a ‘Double First’ degree from Christ Church, Oxford. He was also a religious Deacon in the Anglican church. A Double First degree is when a graduate earns First Class Honors in two different Parts, or graduation examination areas of study.
The famous essay One Solitary Life about the life of Jesus Christ was originally a 1926 sermon delivered by Dr. James Allan Francis and reprinted in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons.”
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Caroll) was also a photographer, controversial for his portrayal of nude children. Most of those were destroyed upon his death, but a few survived, and can easily be found online. They remain controversial to this day, despite the obvious artistic merits of the photographs.
Ninja’d by 1 freaking minute. Leaving this up, reply to the previous.
The Straight Dope on Charles Dodson’s “perversion.” While he held a divinity degree, Dodson stuttered when he talked and never gave a sermon about Jesus Christ or anyone else.
When Charles Dickens was 12 years old, his father was placed in debtor’s prison. Charles was forced to drop out of school, and work in a boot-blacking warehouse for a time. The experience influenced many of the writings of the adult Charles Dickens, which often featured struggling working-class people, and children in dire circumstances.
Most of the novels written by Charles Dickens were published in monthly or weekly installments, which pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction. Dickens was noted for cliffhanger endings in each installment, which kept readers in suspense and ensured that they would read the ensuing chapter. This format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience’s reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback.
In 1836, Charles Dickens, an ambitious 25 year old, married Catherine Hogarth, the 20 year old daughter of editor George Hogarth. Dickens was impressed by Catherine’s beauty, intelligence and family literary connections; the Hogarths were close to Sir Walter Scott. 22 years later they separated; Charles blamed Catherine for having had 10 children and gaining weight, and would not allow her to see their children. Another cause of the separation was Ellen Ternan, Charles’s mistress; the affair started when she was 17, younger than the two eldest Dickens children. and at the time of the separation she was 19.
Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe was the wife of American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The couple were first cousins and publicly married when Virginia Clemm was 13 and Poe was 27. Biographers disagree as to the nature of the couple’s relationship. Though their marriage was loving, some biographers suggest they viewed one another more like a brother and sister. In January 1842, she contracted tuberculosis, growing worse for five years until she died of the disease at the age of 24 in the family’s cottage, at that time outside New York City.
A few years after their wedding, Poe was involved in a substantial scandal involving Frances Sargent Osgood and Elizabeth F. Ellet. Rumors about amorous improprieties on her husband’s part affected Virginia Poe so much that on her deathbed she claimed that Ellet had murdered her.
Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., better known as Sargent Shriver, was married to Eunice Kennedy, sister of President John F. Kennedy. He was the founder and first Director of the Peace Corps, a position he held from 1961 to 1966. He then served as US Ambassador to France from 1968 through 1970. He was George McGovern’s running mate on the Democratic ticket in the 1972 presidential election.
The Special Olympics is a sports organization focused on providing opportunities for physical activity and exercise for people with intellectual disabilities.
The organization was founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver (sister of John and Robert Kennedy, and wife of Sargent Shriver) in 1968. Earlier in the 1960s, Kennedy Shriver had revealed to the public that her sister, Rosemary, had been born with intellectual disabilities; Eunice’s experiences with her sister were among the inspirations that led to the Special Olympics.
President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps, which is still going strong and doing much good for the U.S. around the world. He set a bold goal of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade; the Apollo program is still one of the greatest accomplishments of human history. He skillfully handled the Cuban Missile Crisis, which remains a model of modern crisis management; it could even be said that he saved human civilization. After early half-heartedness, he fully committed the U.S. Government to civil rights for the first time since Lincoln. He rebuilt U.S. conventional military capability, which had deteriorated since the end of the Korean War and had left the nation dangerously reliant on nuclear weapons. He cut taxes, faced down Big Steel and did much to spur the economic boom of the Sixties. He authorized the negotiations for and signed into law the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which has kept radioactivity out of the world’s air and water for more than half a century. His Food for Peace program has fed billions. He honored the arts and literature like no President before him, and inspired a generation to public service.
The tallest US President was Abraham Lincoln, who stood 6’4". Lincoln was a half-inch taller than Lyndon Johnson and an inch taller than Donald Trump. The shortest President was James Madison, who stood just 5’4". Benjamin Harrison and Martin Van Buren both stood 5’6".
Unsurprisingly, the lightest President was Madison, who weighed in at only 100 pounds. The most obese President was William Howard Taft, who weighed 354 pounds at the time of his inauguration in 1909.