The Canadian History Society’s magazine was originally named “The Beaver” in recognition of the role the beaver fur trade played in the early development of Canada. The Society recently changed the name to the blander “Canada’s History” as a result of the ambiguous connotations of the name, particularly in light of Internet searches by high school students working on their history projects.
The Chad Mitchell Trio was an early 60s folk group, best known for their satirical song “The John Birch Society.” When Chad Mitchell left the group, they remaining two members continued to perform as “The Mitchell Trio,” adding guitarist Henry John Deutschendorf. Deutschendorf later became a major recording and acting star under the name of “John Denver.”
John Denver was killed in the crash of his experimental aircraft because the fuel gauges and fuel selector valve were improperly mounted behind the pilot’s seat, making them impossible to see and difficult to reach without turning his body 90 degrees. This caused him to press against the right rudder pedal with his foot, making the plane yaw and pitch up, resulting in a total loss of control.
Denver was flying a Long-EZ, an all-composite aircraft designed by the legendary Burt Rutan. He is famous for his design of the record-breaking Voyager, which was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the sub-orbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004 for becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space twice within a two week period. He has five aircraft on display in the National Air and Space Museum: SpaceShipOne, the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, Voyager, Quickie, and the VariEze.
USS Voyager, the Federation starship featured in the Star Trek series of the same name, is an Intrepid-class Starfleet vessel commanded by Capt. Kathryn Janeway (played by Kate Mulgrew).
The role of Voyager’s captain was supposed to be played by the French-Canadian actress Genevieve Bujold, who starred opposite Richard Burton in Anne of the Thousand Days. She quit after filming a few scenes of the first episode. The role was recast with Mulgrew, and Janeway’s first name was changed from Nicole to Kathryn.
The Thousand Days’ War was a civil war in Colombia 1899-1902, sparked by a collapse in coffee prices and electoral fraud by the Conservatives. In the novel *One Hundred Years of Solitude *by Gabriel García Márquez, his protagonist, Colonel Aureliano Buendia, faces the firing squad for his involvement in the war.
You can see Bujold in the role here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SIZcDWKyw0
Harry “Breaker” Morant and Peter Handcock, Australian officers, were convicted by a British court-martial for war crimes during the Boer War and executed by firing squad in Pretoria on February 27, 1902.
Breaker is the nickname of the G.I. Joe team’s communication officer (even though he’s a corporal), who joined the Marvel Comics franchise in 1982. In the film G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, he was depicted as a former Moroccan Army officer.
In the US Navy, radio operators (now communications or IT specialists) have traditionally been addressed as “Sparks.”
In the TV series MAS*H, Radar O’Reilly addressed the radio operator at the other end as “Sparky.” The person was never heard or seen on the show.
Gary Burghoff, the actor who played Radar O’Reilly in MASH, was born with a deformed left hand. On the show, he always hid his deformity by carrying a clipboard or other such prop.
One of the operational goals of the Dieppe Raid was to gather information about a new German radar system believed to be operating shortly inland. A British radar technician was sent with the raiders to lead this task.
Because the British technician had classified knowledge of the British radar system, he was assigned a bodyguard of ten soldiers from the South Saskatchewan Regiment. Their orders were to get him to the radar station and bring him back out, with the additional condition that they could not let him fall alive into German hands.
The small team succeeded in reaching the radar station but could not see a way in through its barriers. Instead, the British technician cut the telephone wires to the station, forcing the German operators to begin transmitting by radio in clear, which was monitored by the Royal Navy. The information obtained from the radio broadcasts was sufficient for the British to assess the operational capacity of the new German radar system.
The British technician made it back alive, guarded by the Saskatchewanians, but not all of the body guard survived.
Spirit was a rock group formed in the 1960s with Mark Andes, Jay Ferguson, John Locke, Ed Cassidy, and Randy California (Cassidy’s stepson). They recorded four albums in this lineup: Fresh, The Family that Plays Together, Clear and The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus.
Jesse Unruh, the longtime and powerful speaker of the California House of Representatives, is alleged to have once joked about lobbyists, “If you can’t take their money, drink their booze, screw their whores and then vote against them, you don’t belong here.”
When Charles I entered the House of Commons in search of certain Members of Parliament he wanted to arrest, he demanded that the Speaker of the House, William Lentahll, identify the five members to him.
Lenthall fell on his knees and replied: “May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here.”
The statement is often cited in support of the privileges of the Commons and the crucial role of the Speaker in defending those privileges, but some historians have attributed the statement to Lenthall’s timourous, trimming nature, not to his courage.
The Angel of Hadley, an old man with a rusty sword who legendarily rallied the townspeople of Hadley, Massachusetts against the attacking Wampanoags in King Philip’s War, if he actually existed, was probably Puritan General William Goffe, who had escaped to the Puritan colony in America after the end of Cromwell’s rule. He was unable to obtain a pardon from Charles II, who was generous with them but refused to give them to anyone who had signed his father’s death warrant, and instead ordered each of them to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.
Or the story could be completely fabricated. With the best legends, it doesn’t really matter.
Ernest Hemingway’s wife Hadley lost a suitcase filled with his unpublished manuscripts.
Lt. Hadley, an officer regularly seen on the bridge of the Enterprise in ST: TOS, never had a spoken line and was referred to by name only once (by Scotty, in “A Piece of the Action”). He was played by actor William Blackburn.
“Watching Scotty Grow” was a sappy song written by Mac Davis but popularized by Bobby Goldsboro. The Holy Modal Rounders recorded an anti-nuke version of it titled “Watching Scotty Glow”.