The Boston Braves were officially the Boston Bees from 1936-1940. The name did not catch on and they returned to becoming the Braves in 1941.
The name Braves was introduced under the ownership of James Gaffney, a member of New York’s Tammany Hall. The notorious political machine’s symbol was an actual historical Indian chief, whose more-or-less official name was Tamanend.
“(George Washington) Plunkitt of Tammany Hall”, a 19th Century state senator from New York, practiced what he called “honest graft”, saying “I seen my opportunities and I took 'em”.
Simon Cameron, who served as Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War for 10 months before resigning due to allegations of graft, is credited with saying, “An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.”
Lincoln was warned about Cameron by another Pennsylvania politician who, when asked by the President just how crooked Cameron was, said after some thought, “Well, he probably wouldn’t steal a hot stove.” Cameron was succeeded as Secretary of War by the vastly more effective Edwin Stanton.
Albert Einstein’s favorite way to explain his theory of relativity to laymen went: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT’S relativity.”
Hank Scorpio’s hammock speech on the Simpsons was not in the script, being an entire ad lib by voice over artist Albert Brooks (whose real name is Albert Einstein)
Prince Albert and Queen Victoria were first cousins. They had nine children, most of whom went on to marry other royalty and rule most of Europe.
Victoria and Albert’s oldest child, also named Victoria, married
Frederick Crown Prince of Prussia. They were the parents of the
neurotic Kaiser Wilhelm II of WW1-era fame.
Prince Frederick succeeded as King of Prussia and German Emperor,
but died of throat cancer after a reign of only 99 days. He was a political
liberal who, had he survived, might have helped create a less belligerent
Germany, reducing the chances of the conflagration which his son did
more to encourage than to avoid.
The Pennsylvania community known as King of Prussia was named after Frederick II, a member of the Hohenzollern dynasty who was officially a King in Prussia from 1740 to 1772 and a King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786.
The complex chemical compound called “Prussian blue” was one of the first synthetic pigments, having been invented in Berlin in 1796. It was the chief tint in blueprints, and permitted artists to use a deeper, more vibrant stable blue in their oils than had been available before. It also became the source of prussic acid and the cyanide compounds (“cyan” meant blue).
Cyan, magenta, yellow and black are the traditional color tones used for four-color printing, which dates back to Alois Senefelder patenting the process for zinc-plate lithography in 1801.
Zinc is the 30th element in the periodic table. A transition metal, it has five stable isotopes.
The Isotopes (“Go, 'topes!”) are the minor league baseball team of Springfield, home of the Simpson family. IRL it is also the Simpsons-inspired Pacific Coast League team of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The most storied rivalries in the glory days of the PCL, before major league expansion, were between the Los Angeles Angels and the crosstown Hollywood Stars, and between the San Francisco Seals and Oakland Oaks. All four franchises were forced out when the Dodgers and Giants moved to California in 1959.
While with the San Francisco Seals, Joe DiMaggio hit in 61 straight games during the 1933 season – a streak five contests longer than his much more storied run with the Yankees in 1941.
Joe Morton played a talented but doomed cyberneticist in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
“Morton’s Fork” refers to a dilemma imposed on taxpayers by Archbishop of Canterbury
and Cardinal John Morton, who at the time was King Henry VII’s financial advisor.
According to Morton, a taxpayer who was a big spender could obviously afford to pay
a hefty tax. On the other hand, a taxpayer who was extremely frugal must be saving
a great deal of money, and so could also afford a hefty tax. It may perhaps be assumed
that if those two extremes have a considerable tax liability, then so should everyone else.
It should come as no surprise that H7 was one of the richest Kings in Christendom by
the time he died.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is head of the Anglican Communion, a loose international association of churches which all trace their roots back to the Church of England. The Episcopal Church is the American member of the Communion. The AoC is not an “Anglican pope,” and has no control over what the various national churches do, but does try to keep everyone playing nice with one another.
Episcopalians have a reputation for being heavy drinkers, hence
the saying “Where you find four Episcopalains you will find a fifth”.
Having been raised in that church I can vouch for the accuracy of
the saying, which extends to British Anglicans as well.