One of the major engagements of the Barbary Wars with the US was when a group of raiders led by Stephen Decatur launched a daring raid to burn the ship Philadelphia, which had run aground and been captured. Decatur later became famous for his toast, "“Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!” which, slightly changed, became a catchphrase of American patriotism.
The Montreal Gazette is the oldest newspaper in Canada. It was founded by Benjamin Franklin when he came north from Philadelphia in the attempt by the new United STates to seize Quebec. Franklin founded the paper as a propaganda tool, but it survived his departure and is today the leading English-language newspaper in Montreal.
(Huzzah - get the [del]10,000[/del] 10,001 post!)
(ETA: missed it by this much)
Ben Franklin was the mayor of Nepean, Ontario, Canada from 1978 to 1997 when poor health forced his retirement. Despite receiving an artificial heart, he succumbed to heart failure in 2003. Nepean became a part of Ottawa in 2001.
Keir Dullea, star of Stanley Kubrick’s sf classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey, was born in Cleveland, Ohio but moved away with his family when he was just three years old.
Cleveland is home to the NASA Glenn Research Center which has, since 1940 contributed to a variety of advances in space flight and technology including development of the liquid hydrogen rocket engine, the Gridded Ion Thruster engine that helped power NASA’s Deep Space 1 and the Electrical Power System currently in use in the International Space Station.
At least one scene in the upcoming Joss Whedon-directed superhero movie The Avengers was filmed at NASA Glenn Research Center, which is on the edge of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, just southwest of Cleveland.
Glen Glenn Sound received a credit in nearly all US sitcoms in the 1960s and 70s, primarily because they owned the only laugh track machine. They also did sound mixing for TV and movies; an estimated 20,000 productions have used their services.
Glen Gould gave up touring because of his fanatical devotion to controlling the environment in which he played the piano, retreating to the recording studio where he had complete control, including releasing dry ice near the key board to keep it at a constant low temperature, which he believed assisted his fingers in playing.
Glen Campbell gave up touring in the 1980’s because he couldn’t control his drug and alcohol consumption. He is touring again despite suffering from alzheimers.
Prior to his solo career, Glen Campbell was a member of the legendary “Wrecking Crew”, a group of studio musicians who contributed to the recordings of just about every act that recorded in LA in the 1960’s.
The song “Rhinestone Cowboy”, written and recorded by Larry Weiss and first coverred by Neil Diamond, became a huge hit for Glen Campbell. It was also used as the basis for the flop movie Rhinestone, starring Dolly Parton and Sylvester Stallone.
David Allan Coe’s third album, and first in the country genre, was titled The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy.
Allen Sherman would take familiar tunes of the time and give them his own lyrics. Though known today almost exclusively for “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah,” his first three albums went to number on on the Billboard popular music charts.
A statue of former Ohio Gov. William Allen was booted out of the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall a few years ago by Ohio officials and replaced, after a statewide vote coordinated by the Ohio Historical Society, by one of Thomas Edison. (Allen had made some pro-slavery comments back in the day that didn’t sit well by 21st century standards). Ohio’s second statue is that of the late President James A. Garfield.
Thomas Edison nicknamed his first two children, Marian and Thomas, Jr. “Dot” and “Dash.”
Two of the four children of “Hi & Lois”, a comic strip created by Mort Walker and drawn by Dik Browne, were the fraternal twins Dot and Ditto. The other two were Chip and Trixie. Walker was better known for drawing “Beetle Bailey”, and Browne for “Hagar the Horrible”.
Hagar the Horrible is sometimes used in promotions by Cleveland State University, the teams of which are called the Vikings.
In 1959, the American Football League was founded, with teams in Dallas, New York, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis-Saint Paul. The NFL, to thwart the new rival league, put the expansion Minnesota Vikings in Minneapolis and the Cowboys in Dallas. The AFL Minnesota franchise moved to Oakland, thought the Dallas Texans fought it out with the Cowboys for a few years before moving to Kansas City. Buffalo and Boston were added before the league began play. Only one of the original members, the Denver Broncos, plays in its original city, though the New York Jets do play in the New York metropolitan area.
Bob Howsam, original owner of the Denver Broncos, attempted to organize a third major league baseball league, called the Continental League. The two existing leagues responded by granting new franchises to Los Angeles and Washington in the American League, and New York and Houston in the National League.
The Continental League was proposed by William Shea, who subsequently helped bring National League baseball back to New York and had the expansion Mets’ stadium named after him.