The first telecast aired on ESPN was SportsCenter, which debuted at 7:00 Eastern time on September 7, 1979. Following the conclusion of SportsCenter, the network aired a men’s professional slow-pitch softball game from Lannon, Wisconsin. It was the first game of a best-of-nine World Series between the Milwaukee Schlitz and Kentucky Bourbons.
All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.
Whiskey (or whisky, in Scotland) is a spirit distilled from fermented grain mash — grain varieties include wheat, rye, barley, and corn — and then aged in wooden barrels. It is made the world over, and there is Scotch whisky, Irish whiskey, and American whiskey.
Scotch is whisky made in Scotland and is made mostly from malted barley.
Bourbon is whiskey made in the USA, generally Kentucky, and is distilled from corn. The name Bourbon comes from an area known as Old Bourbon, around what is now Bourbon County, Kentucky. Bourbon needs to be produced in America and made from 51 percent corn, and whiskey does not. To be called bourbon, the liquid needs to be distilled to no more than 160 proof and entered into the barrel at 125 proof, and it must be bottled at no less than 80 proof. This is not just common practice, it is actual bourbon law.
Again, all bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.
The Scotch brand of adhesive tapes and other products is made by the 3M Company, and the brand name was originally coined sometime around 1925.
At that time, the term “Scotch” was a common perjorative, meaning “cheap” or “stingy.” The legend says that inventor Richard Gurley Drew, who was working for 3M at that time, was testing prototypes for masking tapes. A bodyshop worker, who was unhappy with the prototype he had been asked to test, allegedly told Drew, “Take this tape back to those Scotch bosses of yours and tell them to put more adhesive on it!”
The Scotch brand was also applied to the cellophane adhesive tape that Drew developed in 1930, which became known as Scotch Tape.
Sir Hugh de Cressingham was the treasurer of the English administration in Scotland from 1296 to 1297. He was hated by the Scots and did not seem well liked even by the English. He was an adviser to John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. He suggested a full-scale attack across the bridge, which cost the English the battle and led to his death.
According to legend, his body was flayed by the Scots as he had flayed Scottish war prisoners, and William Wallace made a sword belt out of his skin. The Lanercost Chronicle described it thusly:
“of his skin William Wallace caused a broad strip to be taken from the head to the heel, to make therewith a baldrick for his sword.”
Artist James Montgomery Flagg (1877 - 1960), from New York state, studied fine art for some years in London, England. At his peak popularity he was reportedly the highest-paid magazine illustrator in the US. In 1917, at the age of 40, he created his most famous work. It was a recruiting poster for the US Army showing Uncle Sam pointing at the viewer, with the caption,
I wantYOU
for U.S. Army
Nearest Recruiting Station
One of the best-known cartoon uncles is Donald Duck’s uncle Scrooge McDuck, created in 1947 by cartoonist and painter Carl Barks.
While Ebeneezer Scrooge is most often noted for exclaiming “Bah! Humbug!” he utters this phrase only twice in the story of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. He uses the word “Humbug” on its own on seven occasions, although on the seventh we are told he “stopped at the first syllable” after realizing Marley’s ghost is real. The word is never used again after that in the book.
Charles Dickens gave public readings of his beloved A Christmas Carol 127 times. Among the many actors who have played Ebenezer Scrooge on film are Alastair Sim, Ralph Richardson, Fredric March, Basil Rathbone, Vic Damone, Jim Backus, Rich Little, Albert Finney, Patrick Stewart, Michael Caine, George C. Scott, Tim Curry, Simon Callow, Walter Matthau, Kelsey Grammer and Jim Carrey.
A Christmas Carol was turned into a stage musical with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and book by Mike Ockrent and Lynn Ahrens. The show was presented annually at New York City’s Paramount Theatre in Madison Square Garden from December 1, 1994 to December 27, 2003. In /995–96 The Ghost of Christmas Present was performed by Ben Vereen.
Ben Vereen was born Benjamin Augustus Middleton in 1946, in North Carolina. While still an infant, his family relocated to Brooklyn, where he was soon adopted by James and Pauline Vereen.
Vereen did not know he was adopted until the age of 25, when he applied for a passport to join Sammy Davis Jr. on a tour of “Golden Boy” in London.
Middletown, California is a town about 100 miles N of San Francisco (gMap). Its population is about 1,300.
It is about 50 miles NNW of Middleton, California, a very tiny town (gMap).
Middletown CA was given its name because it is halfway between Lower Lake CA and Calistoga CA. The town was severely damaged by the 2015 Valley Fire.
The “Little Three” are a trio of private, liberal arts colleges in New England:
- Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut
- Amhurst College in Amhurst, Massachussets
- Williams College in Williamstown, Massachussets
The term was coined circa 1925, as an allusion to “the Big Three,” a term for the three schools which dominated Ivy League football in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
Lieutenant General Adolph G. Schwenk, US Marine Corps, is a graduate of Wesleyan University.
And so is Bill Belichick, NFL head coach of the New England Patriots and 6-time Super Bowl winner.
The New England Patriots are tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most Super Bowl wins (six), and with the Denver Broncos for the most Super Bowl losses (five).
There are 4 NFL teams that are undefeated in the Super Bowl. These teams are the Ravens, who are 2-0 in the Super Bowl, and the Jets, Bucs, and Saints, who are all 1-0.
Four teams have never played in the Super Bowl: Lions, Texans, Jaguars, and Browns.
The Swallow Sidecar Company was founded in 1922 by two motorcycle enthusiasts, William Lyons deand William Walmsley, and originally maf motorcycle sidecars before developing bodies for passenger cars.Jaguar first appeared in September 1935 as a model name on an SS 2½-litre sports saloon. A matching open two seater sports model with a 3½-litre engine was named SS Jaguar 100.
The slogan for Jaguar cars, for many years, was “Grace, Space, Pace.”
Since 2016, Jaguar has manufactured a compact luxury crossover SUV named the F-Pace.
President Richard Nixon’s daughter Tricia and singer Grace Slick are both alumnae of Finch College, and Slick was invited to a tea party for the alumnae at the White House in 1969. She invited anarchist Abbie Hoffman to be her escort and planned to spike President Nixon’s tea with 600 micrograms of LSD, but the party had been billed as an “all ladies” event. Hoffman’s presence in the waiting line immediately aroused the suspicions of White House security personnel; he claimed to be Slick’s “bodyguard and escort,” which failed to convince the security personnel, who told him that the event was “strictly for females.” Hoffman then took out a black flag with a multicolored marijuana leaf and hung it on the White House gate. Slick declined to attend once Hoffman was denied entry, and the two ran across the street to a waiting car. Slick later speculated that she only received the invitation because it was addressed to “Grace Wing” (her maiden name), and that she never would have been invited if the Nixons had known that she was Grace Slick.
The style (verbal honorific) of a British duke or duchess is “Your Grace.” It used to be the style of an English monarch, as well, but became “Your Majesty” during the reign of King Henry VIII.
“Her Majesty” is a song by the Beatles, and is only 23 seconds long; it is the final track on their Abbey Road album.
The song was originally written by Paul McCartney to be part of the medley on Side 2 of the album, and would have appeared in between “Mean Mr. Mustard” and “Polythene Pam.” McCartney did not like how the medley flowed with the inclusion of “Her Majesty,” and asked for it to be removed, but engineers salvaged the clip, and put it at the very end of Side 2.
The song was not included on the track listings for the original releases of the album, making it a “hidden track.”