A Staff Report about it: Did psychic Jeane Dixon predict JFK’s assassination? - The Straight Dope
Robert Gould Shaw, scion of a prominent Massachusetts family, abolitionist, and colonel of the famous 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, was played by Matthew Broderick in the critically-acclaimed Civil War movie Glory.
Conductor Robert Shaw was noted for his work with choirs, and was a particular favorite of Arturo Toscanini. Shaw won 14 Grammy awards, a Guggenheim fellowship and several foreign honors during his career.
Robert Shaw – an actor best known as Sam Quint in Jaws and also Red Grant in From Russian With Love – wrote the Tony nominated play The Man in the Glass Booth.
George Bernard Shaw co-founded the London School of Economics, together with two fellow members of the Fabian Society.
Mick Jagger dropped out of the London School of Economics in 1963 to pursue a musical career with flatmates Keith Richards and Brian Jones. They adopted the name Rolling Stones after their favorite Muddy Waters song.
Keith Richards’s real name is in fact Keith Richards. He adopted “Keith Richard” for a time in honor of Cliff Richard, lead singer for The Shadows.
None of the three British kings named Richard died a natural death – Richard I and Richard III died in battle, and Richard II was being murdered after being deposed (legend has it by having a red-hot fireplace poker shoved up his ass).
The 1935 film The Crusades, starring decorative ditz Loretta Young as Queen Berengaria (who never actually set foot in England), is best remembered for her encouraging line to Henry Wilcoxon as King Richard I, “But you’ve got to save Christianity, Richard! You’ve just gotta!”
In the Star Trek episode “This Side of Paradise,” Spock mentions that he has seen the dragons of Berengaria VII.
Spock’s father Sarek had three known wives in the series and movies: an unnamed Vulcan wife with whom he had a son named Sybok (played by Laurence Luckinbill [husband of Lucie Arnaz in real life]), Amanda Grayson with whom he had Spock, and Perrin, who outlived him. It is unknown if he had children with Perrin, but Picard mentioned having attended the wedding of Sarek’s son years before which would mean either Spock (as Sybok was dead before Picard’s time at Star Fleet) or a heretofore unmentioned brother.
Dr. Benjamin Spock, the best-selling author of Baby and Child Care, one of the most influential child rearing books of all time, won an Olympic gold medal in 1924 as part of the rowing team.
The Cotswold Olimpick Games, which have been held since 1612 at Whitsuntide in the town of Chipping Campden, England in the Cotswolds, have included coursing with hounds, fighting with cudgels and quarterstaffs, and sledgehammer throwing. In modern years, shin kicking, judo, piano smashing, motorcycle scramble, Morris dancing, and dwile flonking have been added.
Sledgehammer throwing has been popular in the British Isles for centuries. A 16th century drawing shows King Henry VIII throwing a blacksmith’s sledgehammer, the implement from which the event derived its name. The English standardized the event in 1875 by establishing the weight of the hammer at sixteen pounds and its length at 3 feet six inches and by requiring that it be thrown from a circle seven feet in diameter.
King Henry VIII’s wife, Katherine of Aragon, was married to his older brother Arthur before she was married to him.
Capt. Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-D and -E, was from a relatively conservative French family who tended to stay on Earth, despite opportunities to travel more widely. He was the first Picard to leave the Solar System.
Violinist Jean-Luc Ponty contributed to five of Frank Zappa’s albums – Hot Rats, Over-Nite Sensation, Piquantique, Apostrophe (’), and Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar.
The main belt asteroid 3834 Zappafrank was so named in 1994 as the result of an Internet campaign let by Arizona psychiatrist John Scialli and aided by astronomer Brian Marsden of the Minor Planet Center. Discovered by Czech Ladislav Brozek, the campaign also had the support of Czech President Vaclav Havel, in recognition of the subversive mood Zappa’s music had helped support under Communism.
John G. Roberts, current Chief Justice of the United States, was originally nominated by President George W. Bush in 2005 to the seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, but was nominated as Chief Justice instead when the incumbent, William H. Rehnquist, died after being in poor health for several years.
Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl of Kandahar, was a British commander in the late 19th century, best known for his victory over the Afghans at Kandahar in the Afghan War of 1879. “Bobs” was one of the few military commanders who was able to force the Khyber Pass. He also donated the Roberts of Kandahar Cup, given to the winner of what was the first downhill skiing competition. “The Kandahar” is still contested as a part of the alpine skiing circuit.
George C. Marshall, the top American soldier at the beginning of World War II, was promoted to the new rank of five-star General of the Army in part, rumor had it, because FDR thought it would sound silly to have a “Marshal Marshall.”