Jasper was the name of the man shot by Waylon Smithers, Jr. in an episode of the Simpsons.
Country music legend Waylon Jennings, who died in 2002, was a good friend of Willie Nelson, with whom he released several albums. Jennings also sang the theme song for The Dukes of Hazzard TV show.
SF author James Tiptree, Jr. was often praised for his portrayal of female characters, until it was finally revealed after a decade of publications that the name was a pseudonym for Alice Sheldon. Prior to the fact being revealed, Robert Silverberg wrote in an introduction to her stories that he couldn’t imagine the work being written by a woman (it was always believed to be a pseudonym). In general, people writing about Tiptree’s career try to avoid using any gender-indicating pronouns to describe the writer.
Tiptree died in 1987, killing her husband and herself in a murder/suicide pact. One of her last published stories was about a man who committed suicide and ended up in a heaven-like afterlife.
Billy Lee Tipton was an American jazz musician and bandleader who lived as a man for nearly fifty years. It was only after his death that it was discovered Tipton was born the female Dorothy Lucille Tipton. Tipton married three women, had sex with them and adopted three sons.
Billy Carter, President Jimmy Carter’s suds-loving younger brother, inspired the novelty drink Billy Beer, which was briefly produced by four different breweries beginning in July 1976. A can of the beer later turned up in Homer’s jacket pocket in an episode of The Simpsons.
In 1976, Billy Carter lost the election for mayor of Plains, Georgia, even as brother Jimmy was defeating incumbent Gerald Ford in the race for the White House.
Gerald Ford, a College Football All-Star, might have been the best athlete
of all US Presidents.
His athletic carrer backfired on him a bit when someone (I think it was LBJ)
said: *“Jerry Ford used to play football without his helmet”. *
Her certainly suffered from a moment of cognitive breakdown when during
the 1976 Presidential debates he asserted that “Poland is not dominated
by the Soviet Union”.
Byron “Whizzer” White was an All-American football player for the University of Colorado. He won a Rhodes Scholarship but elected to play pro football for Pittsbuurgh, where, as a rookie, he was the highest-paid player in the NFL. After a year as a pro, he attended Oxford University, then returned to play two more seasons in the NFL before World War II. He later served as a Supreme Court justice, appointed by John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Pittsburgh’s municipal coat of arms is mostly black and yellow; the Pirates baseball team, Penguins hockey team and Steelers football team all use the same colors.
Most of the unexpected hit March of the Penguins involves the elaborate reproductive cycle of the Emperor Penguins. The pregnant female and her male partner practice a dance to relay the egg from her feet to his, then she passes the egg to him shortly after laying it, then the female immediately goes to feed to replace the huge percent of body mass she lost in giving birth while the males remain behind and protect the eggs until they hatch. When the females return they care for the hatchlings while the males leave to feed.
Morgan Freeman narrated March of the Penguins
He did for the English-language version. We have the original French.
Although all penguin species are native to the Southern Hemisphere, they are not found only in cold climates, such as Antarctica. In fact, only a few species of penguin live so far south. Several species are found in the temperate zone, and one species, the Galapagos Penguin, lives near the equator.
The aforementioned Galapagos penguin is the rarest penguin on the planet with a population of around 1500. The Yellow-eyed Penguin is often claimed to be the rarest penguin with a population of 4000.
I’m pretty sure that this is because the Galapagos Penguin is closely related to the Humboldt Penguin. I’ve seen all 3!
Oswald Cobblepot is better known in Batman mythology as the Penguin. His original gimmicks involved umbrellas and birds (much like Two-face used the number two and Catwoman used cats and words with “cat” in them).
The first real killing to be shown live on national television was the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby.
“Ruby the heartbreaker” could be the underaged prostitute that brings down Silvio Berlusconi.
In his memoir A Journey, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair praised Silvio Berlusconi for being the opposite of most politicians in that he underpromised and overdelivered, especially in assisting London behind the scenes in its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games.
Rome was scheduled to host the 1908 Olympics, but London stepped in after an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1906 devastated Naples and led the Italian government to divert funds apportioned for the Games to help the Neapolitans recover from the disaster.
The tune of Tarantella Napoli, a folk song traditionally associated with Naples, is far more familiar than the name as it is often used in commercials and movies with Italian themes.
Naples, on the southwestern Florida coast, was named by promoters who, in the 1880s, wanted to liken its climate and appearance to the popular Italian city of the same name.