The Wright Brothers closely studied the research of Otto Lilienthal and Octave Chanute in developing plans for a powered, controlled aircraft, which they first successfully flew at Kitty Hawk, N.C. on Dec. 17, 1903.
The 99th Pursuit Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Corps was assembled in 1941 at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois. The squadron was eventually the first unit of the Tuskegee Airmen to be activated.
Nitpick: He was born in Denison, Texas in 1890. His family moved to Abilene two years later.
Tuskegee Institute was founded in 1881 by Lewis Adams, a former slave. Two white politicans agreed to support Adams’ dream, in exchange for his political support. The school’s first president was a black educator, Dr. Booker T. Washington who, in turn, hired George Washington Carver to teach modern farming techniques.
George Washington did indeed grow hemp, but it was a different variety from that which is smoked by many people today; his was used to make rope. Washington was very entrepreneurial, and in addition to growing many different crops at Mount Vernon, he also had a distillery for making whiskey, and arranged for large-scale fishing in the Potomac River.
Daniel Decatur Emmett, who wrote Dixie, was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio. So was comedian and longtime Hollywood Squares fixture Paul Lynde.
Stephen Decatur was probably the only person to be made a military hero for destroying his Navy’s own ship. He led a raid against the Barbary pirates in 1803, where he burned the US frigate Philadelphia, which had been captured. It was called the most bold and daring act of his age. He later was the origin of the phrase, “my country right or wrong,” from a toast he gave at a banquet: “Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!”
I wouldn’t be surprised if Daniel Decatur Emett was named in honor of Stephen Decatur.
Named for the Staley food starch company, the Staleys of Decatur, Illinois were an original NFL team but soon left for the greener pastures of Chicago, where they were renamed the Bears.
The Chicago Bears derived their name from baseball’s Chicago Cubs (with whom they shared Wrigley Field), their colors from the University of Illinois (the Bears used darker shades) and the distinctive “C” on team helmets along with the nickname “Monsters of the Midway” from the University of Chicago.
George Halas owned the Bears for the first 63 years of their existence, and was succeeded by his daughter, Virginia Halas McCaskey. They are the only “founding team” of the NFL to be under continuous control by a single family.
Chicago’s Midway Airport was actually named for the WW2 battle, not for the city’s famed Midway Plaisance, a long, narrow park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. It was the site of attractions of the type we now call “Midway amusements” at fairs and circuses, at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. These included the “Street in Cairo” with Little Egypt performing the hootchy-cootchy dance, and the original Ferris Wheel.
The USS Cairo was a Union ironclad warship sunk when it hit a Confederate “torpedo” (naval mine) in the Yazoo River in December 1862. It was the first ship thus sunk, and was raised from the bottom of the river in 1964 and placed on display in Vicksburg, Miss. by the National Park Service. Edward Bearss, NPS Historian Emeritus, wrote a book about the ship called Hardluck Ironclad.
The character of Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon was based on a criminal that Pinkerton operative Dashiell Hammett arrested for forgery in Pasco, Washington in 1920. In Hammett’s novel, the character is blatantly homosexual, but to avoid problems with the censors for the film version, this was downplayed considerably, although he is still noticeably effeminate. For instance, Cairo’s calling cards and handkerchiefs are scented with gardenias; he fusses about his clothes and becomes hysterical when blood from a scratch ruins his shirt; and he makes subtle fellating gestures with his cane during his interview with Spade. By contrast, in the novel, Cairo is referred to as “queer” and “the fairy”. The film is one of many of the era that, because of the Hays Office, could only hint at homosexuality. It is mentioned by The Celluloid Closet, a documentary about how films dealt with homosexuality.
In The Maltese Falcon, Guttman’s henchman, Wilmer, is specifically referred to as a “gunsel.” Though the word came to mean “gunman,” at the time the book (and movie) came out, it had one meaning: a young homosexual who comes “under the wing” of an older one. It’s clear that not only was Cairo gay, but Guttman and Wilmer were, too.
Wilmer Valderrama, a Miami native of Colombian and Venezuelan descent, is best known for playing Fez, a foreign exchange student of indeterminate nationality, on “That 70’s Show”. The only known fact about the character’s name is that the first five K’s in his last name are silent.
The fez was adopted in 1826 as the universal male headgear in the Ottoman Empire as part of the modernizing reforms of Sultan Mahmud II. But in Turkey, wearing it was legally banned in 1925 as part of the modernizing reforms of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The origin of the name is controversial. Some scholars have argued that it originates from Ancient or Byzantine Greece. However, the derivation of the name from Byzantine Greek iskefe (“cool”) does not hold water. The Turkish word fes may refer to the city of Fez in Morocco or the name of the crimson berry, which was imported from that country and used to dye the felt.
The medina (an area of many Arab-world cities that is typically walled and contains many narrow, labyrinthine streets) of Fez is considered to be the largest automobile-free urban area in the world. Fez’s University of Al-Karaouine enjoys the distinction (according to Guinness) of being the planet’s longest continually operating degree-granting institution.
There are approximately 140 moons orbiting the eight planets of the Solar System. Jupiter has the most, with a confirmed 63; Mercury and Venus both have none.
Pluto, which was reclassified as a “minor planet” in 2006, was definitively identified in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, an astronomer at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Pluto has three moons, Charon, Nix and Hydra. Some astronomers believe Charon may, in fact, form a binary system with Pluto, rather than being a true satellite.
Poet Amy Lowell, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her collection What’s O’Clock, was the sister of Percival Lowell, who founded the Lowell Observatory.
Anthony Burgess originally sold the movie rights to A Clockwork Orange (1971) to Mick Jagger for US$500 when he needed quick cash. Jagger intended to make it with the Rolling Stones as the droogs, but then resold the rights for a much larger amount. Ken Russell was then nominated to direct, because his style was considered well suited for the material. He would have cast Oliver Reed as Alex. Tinto Brass was another possible director. At some point, someone suggested rewriting the droogs to be girls in miniskirts or old-age pensioners. Tim Curry and Jeremy Irons turned down the role of Alex. Stanley Kubrick once said: “If Malcolm McDowell hadn’t been available, I probably wouldn’t have made the film.” Author Anthony Burgess initially distrusted Kubrick as a director but was happy with the results. He felt the film later made the book, one of his least favorite books he had written, overshadow his other work.
Ken Russell directd the initial video of the title song from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera,” starring Sarah Brightman and Steve Harley, who was considered for the title role.