When King Henry I lost his only surviving son, he insisted that the barons of England swear allegiance to his daughter Matilda and make her a reigning queen after his death. However, the Barons, unwilling to let a woman rule and afraid of the power of Matilda’s husband Geoffery of Anjou, asked Stephen of Blois to be king. This set up a period when supporters of Matilda and Stephen fought over who would rule. The issue was settled when Stephen agreed to make Matilda’s son, Henry Plantaganet, to be his heir.
“Waltzing Matilda”, Australia’s most famous bush ballad and its “unofficial national anthem”, was written by Banjo Patterson (music by Christina MacPherson) in 1887. The title refers to the pack carried by a “swagman” (a migrant worker), and the lyrics describe him poaching a sheep then diving into a watering hole to escape a law enforcement officer. After drowning, he continues to haunt the campsite. The song is the basis for the Waltzing Matilda Museum in Winton, Queensland.
“Advance Australia Fair,” composed in 1878 by Peter Dodds McCormick, was named the country’s official national anthem following a plebescite in 1977. The song received 43 percent of the vote, beating “Waltzing Matilda’s” 28 percent.
Mike McCormick, who surrendered Hank Aaron’s 500th career home run, also hit the 500th home run credited to a pitcher in Major League Baseball history. (Homers hit by such men as Babe Ruth are counted in the latter category only if the players hit them while in the lineup as a pitcher, as opposed to an outfielder, pinch-hitter, etc.)
John Major was serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s decision to call a Conservative leadership election in 1990. Although an early supporter of hers, he ended up succeeding her just as Great Britain was about to enter Gulf War I with its ally the United States.
Yankees manager Ralph Houk, nicknamed “the major” for his rank in the army in WWII, replaced Casey Stengel after the 1960 season and proceeded to lead the Yankees to three pennants in his first three years as a manager, a record.
The 2004 Boston Red Sox were down 3-0 to the New York Yankees in the American League Penant . They came back to win the next four games and the penant, then beat the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, winning four games straight.
This is the only time in Major League baseball history that a team has won eight straight games in post-season play.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s famous Boston monument to Robert Gould Shaw and the black troops of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry is shown in the final moments of the Oscar-winning movie Glory.
In his 1964 poem “For the Union Dead”, describing construction work on Boston Common, Robert Lowell referred to the deteriorated race relations in Boston by mentioning the memorial: “Their monument sticks like a fishbone in the city’s throat.”
When it was being built, a plan emerged to cover the Washington Monument with a newly discovered miracle metal that never rusted. However, the cost of using aluminium was far too prohibitive (as expensive as silver), so it was just used for the cap.
Frank Howard, the tall, heavy-set first baseman for the Washington Senators of the 1960’s and early 70’s, had nicknames including “The Washington Monument” and “The Capital Punisher” as well as “Hondo”.
Pal, the dog that played Sam in Hondo (1953), was a son of Lassie. In the movie, he is supposed to be vicious and ill-tempered, but the temperatures during filming were so hot, he simply panted instead of snarling when on camera. In order to overcome this, he was kept in a special air-conditioned crate while on set and only brought out for his scenes. John Wayne reportedly won him from his owner/trainer in a poker game after the movie wrapped.
June Lockhart replaced Elizabeth Taylor in the role of Priscilla for the 1945 movie Son of Lassie. Lockhart would play Ruth Martin, the mother in the TV series Lassie from 1958-1964.
Following the death of Bea Benaderet, who played Shady Rest hotel owner Kate Bradley on the sitcom Petticoat Junction, June Lockhart was hired to play Dr. Janet Craig, a physician residing at the lodging. Lockhart lasted two seasons before CBS canceled the series as part of its “Rural Purge” in 1970.
June Lockhart is the daughter of movie actor Gene Lockhart, best known today as the judge in Miracle on 34th Street (“The district attorney is a Republican.”).
Carl Lockhart, who played defensive back for the New York Giants from 1965 to '75, was nicknamed “Spider”.
Science fiction writer Spider Robinson was “overjoyed” to begin working on a seven-page 1955 novel outline by the late Robert A. Heinlein to expand it into a novel. The book, titled Variable Star, was released on September 19, 2006.
The major-league franchise representing Cleveland prior to the Indians was the National League’s Cleveland Spiders, who played from 1887 to 1899. The team had earlier been known as Forest Citys and Blues, and did not achieve success on the field until signing pitcher Cy Young. The franchise was effectively destroyed when its owners bought the new St. Louis Perfectos team (now the Cardinals) and moved most of its players and home games there.
Cardinals are considered princes of the Roman Catholic Church under the reign of their monarch, the Pope, and are properly referred to in person as “Your Eminence.” His Holiness the Pope has absolute discretion in naming cardinals, who assemble as the College of Cardinals to elect each new Pope. Cardinals over age 80 are ineligible to participate in a papal election.
When Stanford University made the decision to drop “Indians” as their teams’ nickname in 1972, a student body vote picked “Trees” as the new name. Overruled by the administration, the next choice was “Robber Barons”, in honor of founder Leland Stanford, magnate of the Central Pacific Railroad. The final ruling was for the singular name “Cardinal”, referring to the color, like the Harvard Crimson.
The cheerleading mascot is still a person wearing a tree costume, though.