Henry Kissinger is 5’ 9” tall. He was born in Bavaria. His family surname, Kissinger, was adopted in 1817 by his great-great-grandfather Meyer Löb, after the Bavarian spa town of Bad Kissingen. In 1938, when Kissinger was 15 years old, he fled Germany with his family as a result of Nazi persecution and settled in New York. Although Kissinger assimilated quickly into American culture, he never lost his pronounced German accent.
For his actions negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam, Henry Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize under controversial circumstances, with two members of the committee resigning in protest. Kissinger later sought, unsuccessfully, to return the prize after the ceasefire failed.
October 20, 1973 was “The Saturday Night Massacre”. President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to dismiss Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson refused and resigned, along with Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Solicitor General Robert Bork, third in line at the Department of Justice, then fired Cox. The event raised calls for Nixon’s impeachment.
The Swedish Chef Muppet character was originally performed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz simultaneously, with Henson performing the head and voice and Oz performing the character’s live hands. The Swedish Chef is currently performed by Bill Barretta. His best known phrase is “Bork bork bork”.
Robert Bork, Solicitor General of the United States (the Federal government’s top appellate lawyer, #3 in the Department of Justice) and later a Court of Appeals judge, told an interviewer in 1989 that he was occasionally mistaken for U.S. Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop, even while smoking in public.
The US Surgeon General is supposed to provide Americans with the best scientific information available on how to improve health and reduce risk of illness and injury. The first Surgeon General, John Maynard Woodworth, served from 1871 - 1879.
Koop, tho well known for his anti-smoking stance, was not the first person to draw a link between cigarettes and lung cancer. We’ve known that for decades prior, but the tobacco industry was just too powerful to be stopped. It wasn’t until 1970 that cigarette ads were banned on TV, and even later that billboards and magazine ads targeted to children were banned.
Conservepedia states that “Two recent studies suggest that homosexual men and lesbians in the United States have significantly higher rates of cigarette smoking than heterosexuals.” The studies were done in 2004 and 2006.
Joe Camel (image) was the advertising mascot for Camel cigarettes from late 1987 to July 12, 1997. In 1991, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study showing that by age six nearly as many children could correctly respond that “Joe Camel” was associated with cigarettes as could respond that the Disney Channel logo was associated with Mickey Mouse, and alleged that the “Joe Camel” campaign was targeting children, despite RJ Reynolds’ contention that the campaign had been researched only among adults and was directed only at the smokers of other brands.
The American Medical Association asked R. J. Reynolds Nabisco to pull the campaign. R. J. Reynolds refused, and the Joe Camel Campaign continued.
In July 1997, under pressure from the impending Mangini trial (Mangini v. RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company, San Francisco County Superior Court No. 959516), and from Congress and other public-interest groups, RJR announced it would settle the Mangini case out of court and voluntarily end its Joe Camel campaign.
Yes, 1997.
On February 2, 1953, R. J. Reynolds research chemist and executive Claude Teague released ‘Survey of Cancer Research’, a confidential internal document for the company’s upper management. He concluded that clinical data was confirming the fact that tobacco was “an important etiologic factor in the induction of primary cancer of the lung.” He also wrote that many findings of animal studies “would seem to indicate the presence of carcinogens.”
Yes, 1953.
It was reported erroneously in 2010 that the Family Smoking and Prevention Control Act bans candy cigarettes in America.The rule only bans any form of added flavoring in tobacco cigarettes other than menthol. It does not regulate the candy industry. Popeye Cigarettes marketed using the Popeye character were sold for a while and had red tips (to look like a lit cigarette) before being renamed candy sticks and being manufactured without the red tip. Most candy cigarettes continue to be manufactured in the United States, with the largest maker of candy cigarettes, World Confections Inc, being based in New Jersey.
Phil Murphy, Governor of New Jersey, served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 2009-2013, having been appointed by President Barack Obama.
Cheers may have indirectly predicted Barack Obama’s presidency. In one episode, Cliff states that the next president, using a theory that only Cliff could come up with, would be named Yelnick McGwawa. 20 years later, a man with a similarly unlikely ethnic sounding name is elected president.
Actor John Ratzenberger, who portrayed know-it-all mail carrier Cliff Clavin on Cheers, provided the voice for Hamm, the piggy bank, in the Pixar animated film Toy Story in 1995. Since then, Ratzenberger has done voice work in every subsequent Pixar feature film.
The first known full version of the children’s rhyme “This Little Pig Went to Market” was recorded in The Famous Tommy Thumb’s Little Story-Book, published in London about 1760. The rhyme referred to “this little pig” and not “piggy” until the mid-1900s.
Pope Leo XII, soldier and noted American Revolution diarist Joseph Plumb Martin, the Japanese artist Hokusai and French astronomer Louis Godin were all born in 1760.
Holy Fucked Up My Lungs, Batman!
Saint Leo University, in central Florida, is about 50 miles NE of St. Petersburg and Tropicana Field, where the Tampa Bay Rays play baseball (ETA-1, here’s the map). The university traces its history to 1881, when former chief justice of the Arizona Territory Edmund F. Dunne gained control of 100,000 acres in Florida. He established a Roman Catholic colony in an area that is now the city of San Antonio and the town of St. Leo.
Saint Leo University alumni includes Desi Arnaz, actor (and US Marine!) Lee Marvin (Ooh-Rah!), former San Francisco Giants General Manager Brian Sabean*, and musician Steven Stills.
- – Brian Sabean, the architect of 3 World Series Championships in 5 years! Gaawd, I love that man.
ETA-2: Lee Marvin attended St. Leo University after getting expelled from other schools for bad behavior. Semper Fidelis, Marine!
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays began play as a Major League Baseball expansion team in the 1998 season. Over the course of the next 10 years, the team finished last in the AL East Division in all but one year, when they finished second-to-last. After the 2007 season, the name was changed from ‘Devil Rays’ to ‘Rays’. The name change obviously worked, as the team won the 2008 American League pennant. Alas, however, they lost the World Series to the Phillies, 4 games to 1.
The Tampa Bay Rays are the only MLB team which currently plays in a fixed-roof indoor stadium: Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.
There have been three other fixed-roof stadiums which were previously used by MLB teams: the Astrodome in Houston, the Kingdome in Seattle, and the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Those stadiums, built in the 1960s and 1970s, have all been replaced by newer venues, and all three have been either partially or completely demolished.
Six MLB teams currently play in stadiums with retractable roofs: the Arizona Diamondbacks (Chase Field), the Houston Astros (Minute Maid Park), the Miami Marlins (Marlins Park), the Milwaukee Brewers (Miller Park), the Seattle Mariners (T-Mobile Park), and the Toronto Blue Jays (Rogers Centre).
The Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field have the only Rays Touch Experience in all of Major League Baseball. In right-center field there’s a 10,000-gallon Rays Touch Tank filled with three different species of rays that were taken from Tampa Bay waters. Admission to the tank area is free for all fans attending home games, but there is a limit of 40 people in the area at any given time. The tank is open to fans about twenty minutes after the gates open and closes to the public two hours after the first pitch. Fans get to see the rays up close and get to learn educational info about them. The tank and rays are sponsored and maintained by the Florida Aquarium, and educates people about rays and other aquatic life.
It’s one of the most unique and special experiences in all of the MLB ball fields.
Another unique experience in MLB ball fields (as I’ve been to 29 of the 30 home ball fields — only the ATL Braves remain) is in Miami. At Marlins Park, out in left field, is a bar called The Clevelander with topless dancers. Seriously, not kidding.
images — Clevelander Marlins Park (barely SFW, but they indeed are SFW