Paul McCartney’s brother Mike was also a musician. Unwilling to trade on his brother’s name, he changed it to Mike McGear and he had a minor hit single with the Scaffold, with an old British drinking song, “Lily the Pink.” Scaffold is the only rock group to have its lyrics in The Oxford Book of Modern English Verse, as group member Roger McGough was a very respected poet and his poem, “Goodbat Nightman” was set to music by the Scaffold.
The British Royal Navy’s Flower-class corvettes of World War II boasted such un-macho names as HMS Bellwort, Begonia, Buttercup, Candytuft, Cowslip, Freesia, Gardenia, Honeysuckle, Lotus, Marigold, Periwinkle, Pink, Primrose, Snowdrop, Tulip, Wallflower and Zinnia.
3 Flower-class vessels ended up seeing action for the German navy in WWII. Originally ordered by France, they were seized by (or turned over to) the Kreigsmarine when France fell to Germany. All 3 ships were subsequently sunk by the RAF after the Allied invasion of France.
Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, is the rough equivalent of the American FBI and the British MI5.
Up until the 50s, the central government in Canada tended to be referred to as the Dominion government, but since then it’s become known as the federal government.
The long-fallen Federal Empire of Earth built the 30-kilometers-long “seedship,” or ecological and biological warfare starship, that is the setting of George R.R. Martin’s book Tuf Voyaging.
Prior to becoming Mad’s Maddest Artist, Don Martin did illustrations for science fiction magazines, most notably, Galaxy.
Paul Martin was one of Canada’s best Finance Ministers and least successful Prime Ministers. His failure to focus as PM led the Economist magazine to tag him “Mr Dithers”.
Dean Paul Martin was the son of Dean Martin and a member of the teen pop group Dino, Desi and Billy. Martin, a pilot in the California Air National Guard, died when the plane he was flying crashed.
Dean Martin was born in Steubenville, Ohio, and died on Christmas Day 1995.
William the Conqueror was crowned King of the English in Westminster Cathedral on Christmas Day, 1066, by Archbishop Ealdred of York. During the coronation, on the acclamation by the English and Normans in the Cathedral, a riot and fires broke out, as Normans outside the Cathedral misunderstood the shouting and thought that treachery was at hand.
William the Conqueror was a large man. So much so that when the time came to bury him, he did not fit into the coffin, especially since in the days between his death and the funeral, his body had been subjected to the August heat and became bloated. The decision was made to force the body into the sarcophagus. The result was that “the swollen bowels burst, and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the by-standers and the whole crowd.”
The funeral was quickly concluded.
The month of August was originally named “Sextilis”, because it was the sixth month of the early 10 month Roman calendar, which began in March. It was re-named “August” in honour of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus.
For many years, U.S. presidential inaugurations were on March 4. They were moved by the 20th Amendment to January 20, where they’ve remained ever since. Thus FDR’s first inauguration was on March 4, 1933, but his second was on January 20, 1937.
On January 20, 1265 Simon DeMontfort lead the first meeting of an English Parliament, it was convened without the approval King Henry III.
The British Parliament meets in the Palace of Westminster, along the River Thames. The Queen is customarily not permitted to enter the chamber of the House of Commons, but sends a royal official known as Black Rod to summon them to attend the Speech from the Throne in the House of Lords at the beginning of each session of Parliament. The door to the Commons is traditionally slammed in his face as an assertion of the Commons’s authority.
The last monarch who entered the House of Commons was Charles I. It did not end well.
The last monarch of France was Louis Phillipe whose father, also Louis Phillipe (but not a king) was beheaded – as was Charles I.
Per tradition Mary, Queen of Scots, wore red to her beheading in order for the blood to be less noticeable. The two surprises that, per story anyway, were discovered postmortem by her executioners were that her famous thick red hair was in fact a wig (under which her real hair was thin and gray) and under her gown was hidden her terrier, who refused to eat or drink after his mistress’s death.
Most accounts indicate that Margaret Dumont, best known as the recipient of Groucho Marx’s jokes in several Marx Brothers films, was bald. She wore a wig in her films; Harpo liked to steal it.