Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s top political enforcer and the Reichsfuhrer-SS, was a chicken farmer before he rose to power in the Nazi Party. He committed suicide soon after being captured by British forces in 1945.
Karl Marx was an admirer of poet/journalist Heinrich Heine, whose influence is evident in Marx’s early writings.
Heine influenced Marx? Not as a stylist, from what I have heard.
Can anyone imagine Marx writing something as felicitous as this:
*I wish that all my love songs *
Were flowers bright and rare;
*I’d send them to my dearest *
And she might find them fair.
I wish that all my love songs
Were kisses that could speak;
*I’d send them to my dearest *
*To hang about her cheek. *
I wish that these my love songs
Were peas so firm and fat;
I’d make a nice, rich pea soup-
And she would relish that!
Danish mathematician Piet Hein, who wrote tens of thousands of short allegorical poems called “grooks” for publication during the German occupation of Denmark, had been a colleague of Niels Bohr before the war. Hein also devised the games of Hex, Tangloids, Morra, Tower, Polytaire, TacTix, Nimbi, Qrazy Qube, Pyramystery, and the Soma cube. He advocated the use of the superellipse curve in city planning, furniture making and other realms (including the Pittsburgh Steelers’ logo). He also invented a perpetual calendar called the Astro Calendar and marketed housewares based on the superellipse and Superegg.
The 1955 Pittsburgh Steelers finished with a 4-8-0 record with Jim Finks and Ted Marchiabroda at quarterback and the team had only two winning records from then until 1972. It might have been better if they had not cut a rookie Johnny Unitas that year. Unitas joined the Baltimore Colts as a walk-on in 1956 and went to the FB Hall of Fame, and is still listed among the greatest QBs of all time.
Ted Marchibroda was both the last coach of the Baltimore Colts and the first coach of the Baltimore Ravens. With the Colts, he was responsible for hiring a young gofer, fresh out of Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, son of a Naval Academy assistant coach, named Bill Belichick.
Bill Belichick was officially the coach of the New York Jets. Twice. For a total of less than five days.
The only coach ever to get the New York Jets to the Super Bowl, much less win it, was Weeb Ewbank, in the famous Super Bowl III game after the 1968 season in which quarterback Joe Namath guaranteed a victory over the Baltimore Colts. Like many other classic football games, it was played in the Orange Bowl in Miami, which has since been torn down and is being replaced by a ballpark for the Florida Marlins baseball team.
The CSS Florida was a Confederate commerce raider during the Civil War. She was captured in Brazilian waters at Bahia in 1864 by the USS Wachusett under Cmdr. Napoleon Collins, causing a major diplomatic incident.
Charles Darwin visited Bahia during the famous voyage of the Beagle in 1832.
Charlie Brown’s beagle Snoopy was originally portrayed as an ordinary dog. Only after “Peanuts” had been published for two years, in 1952, did he have his first thought balloon. Years later, Snoopy would paraphrase the Gertrude Stein expression about pigeons: “Birds in the grass, alas; beagle on the roof, aloof.” His first fantasy about being a WW1 flying ace occurred in 1965.
Robert F. Kennedy took his seat as a U.S. senator from New York in 1965. He served until his assassination in 1968, having just won the California Democratic presidential primary.
[del]World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker started a car company in 1920. The Rickenbacker was the first commercially available passenger auto to feature four-wheel brakes. Other manufacturers, fearing that the innovation would inspire demands that they abandon the traditional two-wheel system, responded by bad-mouthing Eddie’s cars. By 1927, he was forced to declare bankruptcy.[/del]
Robert Kennedy was succeeded in the Senate by Charles Goodell. Earlier, Goodell had been elected to the House of Representatives to replace the recently-deceased Daniel Reed.
Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C. is named for the army physician who led the team that traced the cause of yellow fever to a particular mosquito. Major Walter Reed died of appendicitis at the age of 51 days after returning to the states from Panama following the study.
Walter Reed, a rapper from Brooklyn, is better known as Killah Priest, Iron Sheikh from the Middle East.
Walter Reed was a military doctor who helped eradicate yellow fever in the Canal Zone, allowing the U.S. to build the Panama Canal.
Walter Reed’s namesake, pro wrestler Iron Sheik, was an Iranian named Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri. He is known for ending the near six-year World Wrestling Federation Championship reign of Bob Backlund, and for being the man Hulk Hogan defeated for his first WWF Championship. He previously worked as a bodyguard for Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family for several years.
He must’ve been the highest-ranking baby in U.S. military history!
Bob Dole appeared in ads for Pepsi and Viagra after losing the 1996 presidential race to the incumbent, Bill Clinton.
Herodotus is often referred to as The Father of History.
The most prominent events he described were the Greco-Persian
wars of the late 5th century BCE, including the famous battles
of Marathon, Thermopolae, Salmamis and Platea.
The official length of a marathon is set at 26 miles and 385 yards. This odd measurement was set in the 1908 Olympics, so that the race could begin at Windsor Castle and end in front of the royal box in White City Stadium. Prior to that, it was raced at an even 24 miles.