The slogan attributed to the French Foreign Legion, “The Legion dies but never surrenders”, actually began in reference to Napoleon’s Imperial Guard.
In AD 117, the IX Hispanica Legion was wiped out without a trace by the Picts in the wilds of Scotland. Not a single soldier from the IXth managed to return to the main Roman outpost at York.
In the 1967 Procol Harum song “Conquistador” lyricist Keith Reid noted that the warriors “did not conquer, only die.”
The Green Hornet, Britt Reid, was the grandnephew of the Lone Ranger.
When the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994, they ended a Stanley Cup drought of 54 years, the longest in the history of the Cup.
Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House - the first Republican to hold the title since the 1950s - in the Republican surge of 1994, thought by many political observers to be a direct reaction to President Bill Clinton’s missteps in his first two years in office.
“Eye of newt” was coined by William Shakespeare in MacBeth to suggest mysterious ingredients used by the play’s three witches.
The three familiars of the witches are Graymalkin (a cat), Paddock (a toad), and Harpier (a half-woman, half-bird creature generally known as a harpy).
The character named “Toad” in Super Mario Brothers is not a toad at all, but rather a humanoid mushroom.
Ginger Baker’s “Toad” – recorded with Cream – consisted of short guitar and bass introduction then a five minute drum solo, one of the first in rock (though jazz drummers soloed often). Baker expanded it to 13 minutes of solo for the live version.
Ginger was the name of the dog in Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoon about what dogs actually hear when we talk to them (“Blah blah blah Ginger!”)
Ginger Grant of Gilligan’s Island fame had roles in the following movies: Belly Dancers from Bali-Bali; The Bird People Meet the Chicken-Pluckers; The Hula Girl and the Fullback; In Our Darkest Hour When All Seems Lost, Somewhere in the Fearsome Black of Night, Let Us Search for That Shining Star Which Will Guide Us Out of Our Desolation; Mohawk Over the Moon; The Rain Dancers of Rango-Rango; San Quentin Blues’ Sing a Song of Sing-Sing; Housewives from Mars’ and Dracula’s Women
Henry Fonda’s first two collaborations with John Ford were both in 1939: Young Mr. Lincoln and Drums Along the Mohawk; both were successful but nowhere near as successful Jesse James which Fonda starred in (without Ford directing) that same year and which film was responsible for the monitoring of animal cruelty on sets due to a horse being killed during the shoot.
Motorcycle and car customizer Jesse James parlayed his role in the Discovery Channel documentary “Motorcycle Mania” into starring roles in “Monster Garage” and “Jesse James is a Dead Man”, as well as marriage to Sandra Bullock.
Jesse James (1904-77) was the longest serving Texas state treasurer, serving in that post from 1941 until his death in 1977.
Erastus Corning 2nd was one of the longest serving mayors of a large American city, first elected mayor of Albany in 1941 (and serving as mayor while fighting in WWII), and remaining mayor for 42 years. Before his death, the Erastus Corning 2 Tower at the NYS Empire State Plaza was named after him. The building – the tallest in upstate NY – has 42 stories, and though it had been built before he died, some think the number of stories is in honor of his 42 years on the job.
“42” was given by Douglas Adams in his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series as the rather puzzling answer to the question of the meaning of “life, the universe and everything.”
The universe is somewhere between 13 billion and 15 billion years old, and is expanding everywhere.
1 billion seconds is 114 days short of 32 calendar years or 31.7 years.
About 1 billion minutes ago, the Roman Empire was flourishing and Christianity was emerging (1 billion minutes is roughly 1900 years.)
About 1 billion hours ago, modern human beings and their ancestors were living in the Stone Age – more precisely, the Middle Paleolithic. (1 billion hours is roughly 114,000 years.)
The band Queens of the Stone Age was originally called Gamma Ray, but made the change when the German power metal group Gamma Ray threatened legal action.