Among all the books he’s written, Elmore Leonard counts Tishomingo Blues as his favorite.
William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, Capt. Kirk and Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek series, are both Jewish.
Pediatrician Benjamin Spock’s book *Baby and Child Care *
is an all-time best seller, having sold over 50 million copies
Spock was quite an athelete in his youth, rowing for Yale.
His crew won the 1924 US Olympic trials, and went on to
take the gold medal at the VIII Olympiad in Paris.
Franz Reichelt plummeted to his death after jumping off the Eiffel Tower in Paris when he tested his ridiculously stupid “parachute coat”.
The Eiffel Tower was originally planned to be dismantled, but public outcry saved the iconic landmark.
The Eiffel Tower has been “sold” at least once:
(scroll to Con #3 about 1/3 way down the page)
Gustave Eiffel designed his famous Tower to include a small apartment for him at the very top, where he often entertained guests.
Genesis does not identify any individual as the leader who ordered the Tower of Babel constructed, but it was traditionally said to have been Nimrod, the great-grandson of Noah through Ham. Genesis credits Nimrod with founding the cities of Babylon, Uruk, Akkadm Kalneh, Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen. There are numerous apocryphal stories about Nimrod, perhaps in part to answer critics who wondered how there would be enough people on Earth to populate several cities only two generations after the population of the entire world was 4 men and 4 women (Noah, his wife, and his sons and daughters-in-law) as even assuming they all had large families Nimrod alone built about one city for every ten people.
Phil Collins became the lead singer of Genesis after no suitable replacement was found.
The Tom Collins – the base recipe being gin and lemon soda – got its name from a practical joke of the 1870s. People would ask someone if they knew Tom Collins and that Collins was saying horrible things about them. The victim would then be sent on a wild goose chase looking for Collins. Bartender Jerry Thomas published the first recipe a year or two later.
The original of the name Mickey Finn for a drink with knockout drops is in disputer, but some think ickey Finn was a 1890’s Chicago saloo keeper who got rid of disagreeable customers by serving them such a drink. Some also think the expression “hip hip hooray” comes from Joe Hep, another 1890’s Chicago saloonkeeper.
The actor Joe Morton played a cybernetics expert who is persuaded to destroy his research to save the future in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
“Jellyroll” Morton is one of the greatest jazz musicians of all-time.
No salt salts like Morton Salt salts.
Salt was an Angelina Jolie action/adventure movie last year in which her character fights to prove that she is not a deep-undercover Russian agent.
Jennifer Salt was an actress who appeared in the movie *Midnight Cowboy *and played Eunice Tate in the sitcom Soap. In recent years she’s stopped acting in favor of behind-camera roles, and is a producer and writer for the series *Nip/Tuck * and a co-writer for the movie Eat, Pray, Love.
Midnight Cowboy was the 1st, and still only, X-rated film nominated for Best Picture.
When William McKinley died his close political ally Senator and RNC
Chairman Mark Hanna reportedly said of Teddy Roosevelt: “Now that
damn cowboy is President of the United States.”
William Hanna and Joseph Barbera’s directorial debut was a cartoon entitled Puss Gets the Boot (1940), which led to the awesome Tom and Jerry. Tom’s original name was Jasper.
Jasper, Alabama, a small town 40 miles from Birmingham, was the hometown of George “Goober” Lindsey of The Andy Griffith Show and Polly “Flo” Holiday of Alice; it was also the site of the farm and summer home of Tallulah Bankhead where she lived with relatives when her father was Speaker of the House in D.C…