Union College’s swimming pool for many years was named “The Foot Pool,” not because of anyone named “Foot,” but rather because it was a foot over regulation size. Competitive swimming in them was a challenge. It has since been replaced.
The headline “Foot Heads Arms Body” is not apocryphal, but rather actually did appear in a 1986 Times story about Michael Foot.
Republicans lost control of the U.S. Senate in the 1986 elections at the same time as the Iran-Contra affair was revealed, badly damaging President Reagan’s prospects for the last two years of his second term.
Supporters of Lyndon LaRouche ran in the 1986 Illinois Democratic primary and won the nomination for Lietenant Governor and Secretary of State. The Democratic nominee for Governor, Adlai Stevenson III then repudiated his own party, instead forming the Solidarity Party, which lost badly in the general election.
Robert Caro’s fourth sequential biography of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Passage of Power, is being released today. Caro has been writing about LBJ for more than thirty years.
Lady Bird Johnson, wife of 36th president Lyndon B. Johnson, was born Claudia Alta Taylor. When she was a baby, her nurse said that she was as “purty as a ladybird,” The nickname virtually replaced her actual first name for the rest of her life.
Alan Nourse was a science fiction author with several books to his credit. His most famous title was The Bladerunner, after Ridley Scott bought the rights to the name for his movie adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Nourse was also an M.D. Since his name was pronounced “nurse,” it led to some jokes as people thought it funny to call him “Doctor Nurse.”
Bob Newhart played Maj. Major Major in the 1970 movie of Joseph Heller’s novel Catch 22.
The insignia of a major in the U.S. Army is a brass oak leaf. The insignia of a lieutenant colonel, one rank higher, is the same, but in silver.
The Silver Oak tree is native to Australia but is found in many countries today. It is used as a shade tree for tea India and Sri Lanka and for coffee in Hawaii.
In Support Your Local Sheriff!, James Garner plays a gunslinger who had little interest in fighting and is just passing through on his way to move to Australia.
Tom Selleck played an American in Australia in the movie Quigley Down Under. Selleck also played a PI named Lance White opposite James Garner in two episodes of The Rockford Files.
Heatter-Quigley Productions, founded by television writers Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley, was responsible for such game shows as Hollywood Squares, Gambit, High Rollers, and The Magnificent Marble Machine.
Peter Marshall, the original host of The Hollywood Squares, took his stage name from Marshall College, (which became Marshall University in 1961), in his hometown of Huntington, West Virginia.
Pete LaCock was an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals. He is the son of Peter Marshall of the* Hollywood Squares*; Marshall took on a stage name for obvious reasons.
Peter Marshall’s real name is Ralph Pierre LaCock. His son, Ralph Pierre LaCok, a professional ball player, had the balls (ha! ha!) to use his original surname, playing under the name Pete Lacock.
When he was 16 years old, the family of Ralph Lifshitz legally changed their name to Lauren.
Ilya and Evegny Lifshitz were brothers and both were well known Russian physicists.
Jacob’s Well is a deep well in Israel, traditionally associated with the patriarch Jacob, and also with Jesus, who while resting at the well, had a discussion with a Samaritan woman in which he announced that he was the Messiah.
It is estimated that there were more than a million Samaritans in the late Roman period - today, by their own estimate 745 remain primarily in two cities - Nablus, West Bank and Holon, Israel.