The musical Chicago is based upon an actual Chicago murderess of the 1920s, though her name was changed.
The first Heisman Trophy winner, Jay Berwanger, played for the University of Chicago, which abolished its football program entirely a few years later.
A group of DePaul University music students formed a group called The Big Thing. When they got serious about recording, they moved to Los Angeles and changed their name to Chicago Transit Authority, later renamed Chicago.
Chicago has a statue of Lincoln in Grant Park and a statue of Grant in Lincoln Park.
Shirley Chase’s hit “The Name Game” was co-written by her boyfriend (later husband) Lincoln Chase- which is why it contains the lyric “Lincoln Lincoln Bo Bincoln Banana Fana Fo Fincoln Fee Fi Mo Mincoln, Lincoln!”
Leslie Nielsen had a long career as a dramatic actor, but suddenly became a comic actor with his role in Airplane!, including the classic exchange:
“Surely you can’t be serious?”
“I am serious…and don’t call me Shirley.”
Since 2004, the top-rated TV series according to the Nielsen television ratings has been “American Idol”.
William Broad, better known as Billy idol, was the lead singer of the British punk band Generation X.
The Idolmaker was a film about a rock manager who created a rock and roll idol, based loosely on the story of Fabian.
Billy the Kid’s real name was William Bonney.
Some biographers believe Billy the Kid was born William Bonney and was a cousin of Parley Pratt (a polygamist ancestor of Mitt Romney), while others maintain he was born Henry McCarty in the Irish slums of New York City, and most other aspects of his life (and death) have accounts that vary just as widely.
William, Duke of Normandy, won the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and was able, with the Pope’s blessing, to seize the throne of England, thereby winning the nickname “William the Conqueror.”
Just 100 miles away from the Irish slums of NYC are the Italian slums of Philadelphia, home of Fabiano Anthony Forte, who adopted the stage name “Fabian” for his appearances on American Bandstand, just as William Bonney / Henry McCarty adopted the stage name “Billy the Kid” for his bank robberies.
Whew!
The Fabian Society was a British socialist movement whose members included George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and the Woolfs, though there’s no evidence they ever played Turn Me Loose.
H.G. Wells, played by Malcolm McDowell, is the leading character in the Nick Meyer-directed 1979 time-travel thriller/romance Time After Time, in which he matches wits with Jack the Ripper on both Victorian London and Disco-era San Francisco.
Painter Jackson Pollock was nicknamed “Jack the Dripper”.
There are four state capitals named after US Presidents: Jackson, MS; Madison, WI; Lincoln, NE; Jefferson City, MO.
“The drip” is a nickname for gonnorhea because one of the disease’s classic symptoms is a discharge from the urethra.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are based in Atlanta, Ga., are a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is the world’s busiest in terms of annual passanger volume, and has been every year since 2000.
The city of Atlanta is sometimes described as “a bunch of buildings next to the Atlanta airport”.