When Manuel Noriega sought asylum (at threat of great violence if refused) in the Vatican embassy in Panama the besieging American troops blared the Clash song I Fought the Law (among other songs) into his apartments.
“Panama” was the third single from Van Halen’s album “1984.”
The panama hat – a brimmed straw hat originally for summer use – originated in Ecuador.
President John F. Kennedy is blamed by some fashion experts for the decline of men’s dress hats in the U.S. He rarely wore one, other than the traditional top hat at his January 20, 1961 Inauguration.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/JFK-hat.jpg
On July 18, 1999, the day the news broke about John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane being missing. Yankee pitcher David Cone pitched major league baseball’s sixteenth perfect game.
Jon Gnagy was one of TV earliest stars, hosting an instructional show about how to draw. Gnagy taught that anyone could learn to draw by mastering four shapes: the cube, the cylinder, the sphere, and the cone.
Also on 18 July 1999, the musical funeral was held of Dennis Brown, the singer who took over from Bob Marley as Jamaica’s “Crown Prince of Reggae”.
Brown rose to prominence in the 1970s wave of reggae singers, that included Bob Marley. He released more than 50 albums. His first hit song was ‘No Man is an Island’, which he recorded in 1969 at the age of 12.
The dreadlocked singer, who was one of the best loved and most influential exponents of the genre, died on 1 July aged 42 from pneumonia after years of illness. Born in Kingston in 1957, he was seen as a child prodigy in the 1960s and went on to record many hits, including How Could I Leave and Here I Come. Despite a national outpouring of grief, Brown’s funeral was an event marked by music and dance.
Crowds packed into the National Arena to watch a live tribute concert. Brown’s five sons were among the performers, as well as reggae artists Maxi Priest and Shaggy. Prime Minister PJ Patterson described Brown’s music as “a sweet song and soothing balm for our nation.”
Brown became the first entertainer to be buried at Kingston’s National Heroes Park. In the two days before the funeral, more than 10,000 mourners spent hours filing past the casket where Brown lay.
When singer and “the hardest-working man in show business” James Brown died, his children became involved in a dispute over his will, to the point of blocking his permanent internment.
The December 25, 2006 edition of The (Bergen County, New Jersey) Record newspaper had the story of James Brown’s death on the front page, and an advertisement for his January concert at our local PAC on page 3!
The next day they printed an apology.
Conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh initially greeted the news that Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown was running for the U.S. Senate in 2006 by scoffing that a black woman could never be elected statewide in Ohio. Brown is a white man, and won.
So you’re saying a black woman was not elected, eh? 
Rush Limbaugh, whose nickname is Rusty within his family, turned down an offer to be Pat Buchanan’s running mate in the 1992 presidential campaign.
Comedic actor Pat Paulsen is best remembered for announcing his campaign for President on the Smothers Brothers TV show with the slogan: If selected, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.
Paulsen was paraphrasing Civil War Gen. William T. Sherman, Republican of Ohio, who was resolutely apolitical and said something similar when backers urged him to run for President. Sherman’s buddy U.S. Grant and his former subordinate James A. Garfield were both elected, though.
Garfield was shot by a rebuffed office seeker, lingering for months before dying.
One of the great political humorists of the 19th century was Robert Henry Newell, who wrote under the pseudonym “Orpheus C. Kerr,” a pun on the phrase “office seeker.” He was a favorite humoroist of Abraham Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln’s eldest son Robert Todd Lincoln, at the time of his father’s death in 1865, strongly resembled Leonard DiCaprio: http://www.historynet.com/images/roberttoddlincoln2.jpgv
Mike Todd (producer best known as one of Liz Taylor’s numerous husbands) and the American Optical Company were jointly responsible for Todd-AO, a post-production company which provides sound-related services for motion pictures and television.
Elizabeth Taylor signed a $1 million deal to star in “Cleopatra,” making her the first actress to ever be paid a million dollars for a single film.
Four members of the Taylor family recorded professionally: James, Livingstone, Kate, and Alex.
Actually FIVE members of the Taylor family have recorded professionally: James, Alex, Kate, Livingston and Hugh.
Annie-Xmas, step-relative of the Taylors.