A young Andrew Jackson was briefly a prisoner of war during the American Revolution, and was struck by a British officer with a sword. He hated the British to the end of his days.
Grant Jackson, who was the winning pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the decisive Game #7 of the 1979 World Series, has the distinction of having two presidential surnames as his first and last names. Additionally, his middle name is Dwight – the first name of the man who would become the USA’s chief executive shortly after Jackson celebrated his tenth birthday.
The art for the cover of Jackson Browne’s first album contained the words “Saturate Before Using.” People mistook this for the title of the album, which was actually untitled. The record company wanted the words removed, citing this potential problem, but Browne insisted on using it and the CD was issued with the words on the spine as the name.
A Sam Browne belt is a diagonal strap running from one shoulder across the chest to a conventional belt. Named for a British cavalry officer, later a general who had been awarded the Victoria Cross, in 19th century India who came up with the design to prevent unsightly sagging from sword scabbards or gun holsters, it quickly became standard issue in the British Army, and today is still commonly part of police uniforms.
Officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the national police force of Canada, wear Sam Browne belts as part of their distinctive red dress uniforms.
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The RCMP’s Musical Ride, which showcases troopers’ formation-riding equestrian skills, originated in the 1800’s among personnel of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police who had served in British Army cavalry units, and who performed cavalry drills in their off-time for amusement. The Ride’s matched mounts, which have maple leaf designs brushed into their haunches for performances, are stabled in Rockcliffe, Ont., outside Ottawa, next to the Canada Aviation Museum.
Dudley Do-Right was an incompetent member of the RCMP who nevertheless, usually by pure chance, always managed “to get his man.” Do-Right was romantically interested in Nell Fenwick, the daughter of his superior, but she did not return his feelings.
The RCMP was called by one comedian “taxidermy’s greatest achievement.” They also provide security for the Royal Family when visiting Canada, for the Prime Minister and other Federal officials, and for visiting dignitaries.
When the first platypus body was sent to Europe in 1798, the prevailing opinion of zoologists there was that a taxidermist had attached a duck’s beak to a beaver’s pelt as a bad joke. The platypus is one of the five extant species of monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young. The others are echidnas.
The comic book Howard the Duck was considered one of the best of its era, with bizarre stories featuring Howard and Beverly Switzer facing strange enemies in Cleveland and parodying and subverting various comic book tropes. For instance, the villain Doctor Bong forces Beverly to marry him – and she decides she’s happy with the arrangement.
George Lucas produced a film version of the comic, which sent its reputation down the toilet.
According to Ed Gale, who played Bill Miller Schwartainer in the Duck movie, he was hired to work on Spaceballs because Mel Brooks had said, "Anybody who’s in Howard the Duck can be in my movie
George Lucas has included a reference to THX-1138, his first film, in virtually every subsequent movie he’s directed or produced (although apparently not Howard the Duck). THX is also the name of his trademarked high fidelity stereo film sound system.
George Lucas greatly popularized the works of mythologist Joseph Campbell. In later years Campbell’s most famous book “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” was reissued with Luke Skywalker among the hero images on the cover and Campbell was interviewed by Bill Moyers at Skywalker ranch.
From 1967 to '70, Bill Moyers served as publisher of the Long Island paper Newsday. Although he hired such writers as Pete Hamill and Saul Bellow, the increasingly left-leaning tone of the paper’s coverage of anti-Vietnam War protests caused a rift between Moyers and Newsday owner Harry Guggenheim. When Guggenheim sold the majority share of the publication to the Times-Mirror Company, Moyers made a counteroffer that was more lucrative by some $10,000,000. After Guggenheim rebuffed Moyers, Bill resigned within days.
Dorothy Schiff owned and published the New York Post for over 40 years, with an editorial stance generally supporting social welfare and unionism. For a time in the 1940’s, she was married to its chief editor, Ted Thackrey, but they broke up over whom to support in the 1948 election. When Rupert Murdoch bought the paper from Schiff in 1976, he immediately reversed its stance from leftie to rightie, but kept it just as lowbrow as it had been.
The Saturday Evening Post was one of the most popular of the general interest magazines of the 40s and 50s, and traced its origin back to Benjamin Franklin. It’s best-known today for being the major publisher of Norman Rockwell’s illustrations, whose are appeared on the cover 322 times.
Assuming that each person on Norman Rockwell’s Family Tree cover is the child of the person below them on the tree, then the little boy’s parents are 3rd cousins by most kinship charts. In Europe during the Middle Ages and early modern era, third cousin was the closest relation you could legally marry without dispensation; any relative closer than this required dispensation and a fine that escalated for the closer the relation. Since a person could easily have a thousand third cousins it’s impossible to know them all, thus a part of the posting of bans was to determine if there was too close a relationship for a couple to marry.
Queen Elizabeth II’s parents were King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, formerly Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, who were Duke and Duchess of York before he assumed the British throne. They are played by Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter in the current independent film The King’s Speech.
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam. Why’d they change it? I can’t say. Maybe they liked it better that way.
On an episode of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire the stressed-out corrupt Atlantic City treasurer, power broker and bootlegger Enoch “Nucky” Thompson (based on the real life corrupt Atlantic City treasurer, power broker and bootlegger Enoch “Nucky” Johnson) explodes because somebody telling a joke mistakenly says Peter Stuyvesant purchased the land for New Amsterdam for $24 in beads when in fact it was Peter Minuit.