Portree is the largest town on the Isle of Skye. It is an Anglicised version of “Port righ”, which may refer to a royal visit from King James V. However, it may also originally have been Port Ruighe, “slope harbour”.
A Skye Terrier named Greyfriars Bobby became famous for guarding the grave of his owner in Edinburgh for fourteen years, ending his vigil only upon his own death. Although a statue was erected in his honor and books were written about his life, Greyfriars Bobby may have actually been a publicity stunt. Evidence suggests that not only was he trained to stay at his post, but that “he” was actually at least two different dogs.
The nickname for the London Metropolitan Police, “Bobbies” came from Sir Robert Peel, who created the police force.
The name of Emma Peel, Diana Rigg’s character on “The Avengers”, is a pun on “M. (male or masculine) Appeal”, what the producers considered of primary importance to the character. Emma replaced the character Cathy Gale when Honor Blackman left the show to appear in Goldfinger.
Blackman is an unincorporated community in Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States, near the city of Murfreesboro. It is almost large enough to be designated a CDP even though the area does not have a government in place other than the Rutherford County government. Approximately 5,000 to 15,000 residents live in the Blackman area. The community was founded in 1808 and celebrated its 200th birthday at the annual Blackman Barbecue at Blackman Middle School.
Ernest Rutherford was the father of nuclear physics, although his Nobel prize was in Chemistry, for work he did while at McGill University in Montreal, including the discovery of radioactive half-life, the transmutation of radioactive elements, and the nature of alpha and beta radiation.
Michael Rutherford’s novella, “The Tale and His Master,” was printed in an edition of Art Saha’s The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories: 13 despite only being published in a small press limited edition. The editor of the book, Eugene Mirabelli, later published several short stories in Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Although Vietnam War critic Sen. Eugene McCarthy lost the 1968 New Hampshire Democratic primary election to incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson, Johnson’s relatively poor showing helped convince him not to run for reelection that year.
In 1964, Eugene McCarthy met with Che Guevara in a New York apartment to discuss a possible repair of the U.S.-Cuba diplomatic breach.
Mike Tyson, who has a tattoo of Che Guevara on his rib, has descrobed him as “An incredible individual. He had so much, but sacrificed it all for the benefit of other people.”
Former heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson has cameo appearances in both Hangover movies; in the latter, he sings at a wedding reception in Thailand.
The “Iron Mike” pitching machine is machine used in Major League Baseball for batters to practice their hitting.
Although there were some exterior scenes filmed in Cleveland, the ballgame scenes in the sports comedy Major League, which chronicles the Cleveland Indians’ unlikely rise to World Series potential in a single season, were filmed in Milwaukee.
Cleveland Vann was a linebacker with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He was named MVP in the 1976 Grey Cup, which the Riders lost on the last play of the game, a tochdown pass to Tony Gabriel of the Ottawa Roughriders.
Following his death in a helicopter crash in South Vietnam in 1972, John Paul Vann, the subject of Neil Sheehan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Vann biography and Vietnam War history A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the only civilian so honored in that war.
Continental Navy hero John Paul Jones died and was initially buried in Paris, but his remains were located, disinterred and reburied at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. during the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, who spoke at the final ceremony.
Pope John Paul I, “the smiling Pope”, had one of the shortest reigns in papal history, just over one month.
General John Pope, after some initial successes in the western theater of the Civil War, was appointed to head the Army of Virginia, a new force that was Abraham Lincoln’s way of getting a more aggressive commander the George McClellan. Pope walked into a trap set by Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at the Second Battle of Manassas (Bull Run) and was soundly defeated. He was removed from command and was soon assigned to commanding forces in Minnesota.
The song “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee” is featured on the soundtrack of the 1944 Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland musical Babes on Broadway. However, it wasn’t original to the film – it had been a hit for Al Jolson some thirty years earlier.
Robert the Magnificent (Robert I, Duke of Normandy) was the father of William the Conqueror. He died while returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. William was 8 at the time.