Nueva Guinea was given that name in 1545 by the Spanish explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez. This name might have been chosen in the hope (eventually consummated!) that, like Guinea in Africa, it would become a rich source of gold. Also named after Guinea because of the gold connection, were British pound coins minted before 1816, worth more than 20 shillings due to the rising price of gold.
1816 was known as ‘The Year Without a Summer’ due to low temperatures in the northern hemisphere (because of the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815).
Nancy Sinatra sang the duet “Summer Wine” with Lee Hazlewood but is more famous for the duet she sang with her father, “Somethin’ Stupid”.
When Ingmar Bergman won a special award at Cannes for his film Smiles of a Summer Night, he did not immediately receive a notification. His first inkling was when he picked up a Swedish newspaper to read on the toilet, seeing the headline, “Swedish Director Wins at Cannes.” He’s reported that his reaction was, “I wonder who that was.”
When filming of Casablanca began, Ingrid Berman didn’t know with which man her character, Ilsa Lund, would end up, because the final scene had not yet been written.
While Casablanca was being released to theaters, the Casablanca Conference was being held whereat Winston S. Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed on their peace offer to the Axis nations: Unconditional Surrender. Generals Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle also attended this Conference; as a show of amity each offered to be the other’s commanding officer.
In addition to seeing enemy fire in both World Wars I and II, Charles DeGaulle was the target of more than two dozen assasination attempts while he was President of France. Most of them were motivated by the issue of independence for the French department of Algeria. DeGaulle survived them all, and died of a heart attack while watching television.
Albert Camus was born in 1913 to European settlers in Algeria. The term Pied-Noir (literally, “black foot”) was used for such colonists. Among possible origins for the epithet were:
[ul]it originally applied to sailors who worked barefoot around coal furnaces, and thus had their feet blackened by soot[/ul]
[ul]it referred to the fact settlers wore black boots, as contrasted with the barefoot indigenous peoples of the region[/ul]
[ul]it reflects the stereotype of Frenchmen’s and other Europeans’ feet being discolored by the stomping of grapes in winemaking[/ul]
President Ronald Reagan took some flak when he quoted Camus in a White House speech but pronounced his name “CAME-us.”
When Carol Higgins Clark decided to have her character private investigator Regen Riley get married, she wrote a book “Deck the Halls” (with her mother Mary) where Regen’s father Luke Riley gets kidnapped and the police detective handling the case is Jack Riley, who later become her husband Jack “no relation” Riley.
Jack Ryan becomes President of the United States at the end of Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor, a remarkable rise to power from his post as a lowly CIA analyst in *The Hunt for *Red October.
The first hit single by the Buffalo Springfield was the Neil Young composition, “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing.” Richie Furay sang lead instead of Young, however. Part of that may have been the rivalry between Steven Stills and Young, with Stills not want to be upstaged by Young, but it was influenced by the record company’s belief that Young’s voice sounded “weird.”
Neil Young produced an album in 2006 which expressed dissatisfaction with the incumbent President:
…
What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees
Would New Orleans have been safer that way
Sheltered by our government’s protection
Or was someone just not home that day?
Let’s impeach the president for hijacking
Our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected
After competing at the Division I level in sports for many years, the University of New Orleans has moved to the Division II Gulf South Conference. During the current 2011-12 academic year, games against the school’s Privateers will count as D-I contests if played against Division I teams, and Division II clashes if the opponent is a D-II member. Following this transition period, UNO will be a full-fledged Division II program for 2012-13 and beyond.
The Consolidated PB4Y Privateer was the US Navy version of the B-24 Liberator bomber. It differed from the USAAF version most notably in having a single large tail instead of the twin ovals of the original Army bomber, as well as being longer. The 2002 crash of one that was being used as a firefighting air tanker near Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park led to the final grounding of the venerable type.
The British SF TV show, Blake’s 7 got its name from the fact that there were seven main characters – originally, Blake, Avon, Vila, Jenna, Gan, Calley, and Zen. All were human except Zen, who was the computer of their spaceship, the Liberator. Most of the main characters were replaced over the course of the show; only Vila and Avon remained until the end, and only Vila was in all episodes (Avon joined the crew in episode 2).
Three of the Seven Sisters of Oil were “Standard Oil” companies, once controlled by John D. Rockefeller who is widely called the richest person ever.
John D. Rockefeller in buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, not far from the tombs of President James Garfield, and Lincoln aide and later U.S. Secretary of State John Hay.
Grant’s Tomb in NYC is the largest mausoleum in the US.
(Hope I did not use this one before.)
Robert Todd Lincoln, the President’s eldest son, served briefly on the staff of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the last days of the Civil War, and was present at Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House, Va. in April 1865.