Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, set in the Klondike gold rush, has a scene showing a long single line of prospectors heading toward the gold fields. This was inspired by the scene at the Chilkoot Pass during the rush.
At Xavier University of Louisiana, the men’s athletic teams are known as the Gold Rush, while the women are the Gold Nuggets.
In the Civil War movie Cold Mountain, a Keystone State infantry regiment bears a flag on which the state name is misspelled “Pennnsylvania.” So that balances out, right?
U.S. Sen. and former Gov. Huey Long was shot by Carl Weiss in the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, and died of his wounds two days later. Some recent scholarship suggests that Long’s own trigger-happy bodyguards might have hit their boss as they ventilated the assassin.
“Baton Rouge” is the French translation of the Choctaw “Itta homa”, or “red stick”. It refers to a cypress pole, upon which bloody animal carcasses were hung, which separated the hunting grounds of the Houma and Bayou Goula clans. The name was established by explorer Sieur d’Iberville, and it later came to refer to tribes that were hostile to Europeans, as opposed to “white stick” tribes that were at least cordial.
In the first adventure of the Golden Age Flash, he fights the Faultless Four: Serge Orloff, Duriel, and Sieur Satan (the fourth member is unnamed).
The 1980 film Flash Gordon the role of Dr. Hans Zarkov was played by Chaim Topol, best known for playing Tevye in the film and numerous stage productions of Fiddler on the Roof. During the scene when his memories are being scanned uses images from his most famous non-English language movie, the Israeli comedy-drama Sallah Shabati.
Joe Gordon, who played second base for the New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians in a career that lasted from 1938 to '50, was nicknamed Flash.
On “The Dukes of Hazzard”, the lazy basset hound owned by Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (played by James Best) was named Flash - whose only sign of life was barking at Boss Hogg.
The doo-wop song “Duke of Earl” was a number-one hit for Gene Chandler in 1962. The song has been covered numerous times, and referred to in numerous other songs, including Billy Joel’s “Keeping the Faith”, The Guess Who’s “Clap for the Wolfman”, and The Dead Milkmen’s “Punk Rock Girl”.
John Goodman sings Duke of Earl at the end of King Ralph (a movie that has perhaps the most impossible premise of all time not to involve the supernatural or sci-fi, the two biggest perhaps being that illegitimate issue cannot inherit the English throne in the and that it would take little short of an asteroid hit to wipe out all the legitimate known heirs to the British throne).
In British nobility, the wife of an Earl is a Countess. The British have no rank of Count, substituting the older English term for the continental one. One reason given for this substitution was that the title was too close to a well-known vulgar term (pronounced like “count” spelled without an “o”).
In British nobility, there are both royal and non-royal dukes. Current royal dukes include, among others, Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II’s husband, who holds the title Duke of Edinburgh; Prince Charles, the Queen’s eldest son, who in addition to being Prince of Wales is Duke of Cornwall in England and Duke of Rothesay in Scotland; and Prince Andrew, who is Duke of York.
The Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard, known now as a vacation haven, constitutes Dukes County, along with the Elizabeth Islands and Cuttyhunk Island.
Dukes County was originally part of the colony of New York. It was transferred to the colony of Massachusetts in 1691.
One-hit wonders The Amboy Dukes (“Journey to the Center of Your Mind”) were also know as where Ted Nugent got his start as a musician.
Ted Strickland, a Democrat, is the Governor of Ohio, now serving his first term. He is opposed in his reelection bid this year by former Congressman John Kasich, the Republican nominee, and is only slightly ahead in the most recent polls. The poor economy and very tight state budget are the major issues in the campaign.
There are no natural lakes in the state of Ohio, only dam-formed ones.
The Johnstown Flood occurred due to the failure of the South Fork Dam, owned as part of a resort area. Modifications to the dam and lack of maintenance (including blocked spillways that prevented water from leaving the reservoir if the level was too high) left it in a weakened state when a series of heavy rains passed through. The dam collapsed, killing 2200.
The fictional Charlestown Chiefs hockey team in the Paul Newman film Slap Shot, which also started the personal-appearances careers of the ex-players who portrayed the brawling Hanson Brothers, were thinly copied from the real Johnstown Chiefs of the East Coast Hockey League.
Paul Newman played an alcoholic Irish ambulance-chasing Boston lawyer who has a last chance for redemption in the drama The Verdict. James Mason, in one of his last roles, played his well-heeled, suave courtroom adversary.