Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, commanding officer of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-D, once makes reference to a diplomatic conference on the neutral world of Parliament.
England’s Parliament includes the House of Commons, which originated from Knights of the Shire.
Geoffrey Chaucer was elected Knight of the Shire from Kent, before the 1429 law restricting the vote to owners of land worth at least 40 shillings.
The officer commanding the Ohio National Guardsmen during the Kent State University shootings on May 4, 1970 was in plainclothes, as he did not have the opportunity to change into his uniform.
There is traditionally a distinction between a Man of Kent (from east Kent) and a Kentish Man (from west Kent).
Henry Grey, a nobleman, was named the first Duke of Kent in 1710. The incumbent, Prince Edward, is grandson of King George V and a member of the Royal Family. He is the Queen’s eldest living paternal cousin.
There have only been four Dukes of Kent. The other two were Queen Victoria’s father, and Prince George, fourth son of George V and father of the current Duke of Kent
Though there are varying stories, it’s generally recounted that when Frank Zappa heard Lowell George perform “Willin’,” he fired George from the Mothers, mostly because he knew that George was very talented and would do far better with his own band. Zappa was instrumental in getting George and his new band, Little Feat, a recording contract.
George Clooney has now been nominated for five Oscars without ever duplicating a category. He was nominated this year for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. His previous nominations were for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor and Best Director.
George Clooney’s aunt, jazz singer Rosemary Clooney, starred with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Vera-Ellen in the 1954 movie White Christmas. She was also the mother of actor Miguel Ferrer, and received a 1995 Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for an appearance on George’s show “ER”.
Oops! I got his Screenplay nominations reversed. This year was for Best Adapted Screenplay (The Descendants, based on the book of the same name by Kaui Hart Hemmings), while his previous one was for Best Original Screenplay, for Good Night, and Good Luck. But the basic fact remains the same – five nominations, five different categories
Danny Kaye was Unicef’s first ambassador-at-large.
Canada has never appointed an ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Queen Elizabeth II’s father, King George VI, was the most recent King of Canada, the last King of Pakistan and the last King-Emperor of India.
The film director with the longest career – 67 years – was King Vidor, whose first film was released in 1913 and whose last credit was in 1980. Vidor was nominated for Best Director five times, and was the uncredited director for several sequences in The Wizard of Oz.
Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated for his first term on March 4, 1913. He had beaten incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft the previous November; Taft had also actually been outpolled by his Bull Moose Party foe, former President (and former friend) Theodore Roosevelt.
William Howard Taft was severely overweight to the point that he became stuck in the bathtub in the White House several times, prompting the installation of a new bathtub capable of holding all of the men who installed it, a truth the White House denied until it was torn out years later. At 6 feet and weighing over 350 pounds, Taft was the heaviest President. (Jefferson, Lincoln, Johnson and Clinton were taller.) There is some evidence that his mother started calling him “my pudgy-wudgy boy” before his fifth birthday. This may have led to his disdain for the word “pudgy.” It was said that an aide blacked out “pudgy” from his morning newspaper.
A former judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, William Howard Taft always had his eye on the Supreme Court, and was appointed Chief Justice of the United States by President Warren G. Harding, a fellow Ohioan.
The title of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was changed to Chief Justice of the United States in 1866 by the request of Salmon P. Chase. The title is codified by 28 USC 1 which incidently sets a quorum of SCOTUS higher than a simple majority.
Quorum for the Supreme Court of Canada is 5 of the nine. The Full Court normally sits on appeals, but on occasions it sits with a panel of 5 or 7 judges. On one case in the 80s it sat with a panel of six.
Jean Terrell, who replaced Diana Ross as lead singer of The Supremes in January 1970, is the sister of the former WBA heavyweight boxing champion, Ernie Terrell, who once fought Muhammad Ali. She was not related to fellow Motown artist Tammi Terrell, whose real surname was Montgomery.
The greater Dayton, Ohio area is Montgomery County. It is named after Gen. Richard Montgomery, killed during the American Revolution while attempting to capture Quebec.