The third Olympic–Titanic class liner in the White Star fleet was originally going to be christened Gigantic. After 15 April 1912, its name was changed to Britannic.
The White Star Line was owned in 1912 through several shell corporations but ultimately by American gazillionaire financier J.P. Morgan. He had plans to travel on the RMS Titanic during her maiden voyage, but changed his plans.
John Jacob Astor IV, who died when the forward funnel of the Titanic collapsed, was the great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, the founder of the American Fur Company and the United States’ first millionaire.
Another drowned Titanic passenger was Georgia-born, Boston-based writer Jacques Futrelle, who wrote popular short stories about Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, also known as “The Thinking Machine”. He was one of the men who forced their wives to take lifeboat seats without them. Lily Futrelle’s last view of her husband was of him smoking a cigar with John Jacob Astor.
(Sing it!) 
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,
His name is my name, too.
Whenever we go out,
The people always shout,
“There goes John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt!”
Da da da da da da da
The traditional German ditty “Mein Hut, es hat drei Eckern” is about the singer’s tricorn hat.
The tricorne or tricorn is a style of hat that was popular during the 18th century, falling out of style by 1800. At the peak of its popularity, the tricorne was worn as civilian dress and as part of military and naval uniforms. Its distinguishing characteristic was a practical one: the turned-up portions of the brim formed gutters that directed rainwater away from the wearer’s face, depositing most of it over his shoulders. Before the invention of specialized rain gear, this was a distinct advantage.
Scottish inventor Charles Macintosh marketed the first practical raincoat made of rubberized fabric in 1824. Production of rubberised coats soon spread all over the UK.
When Charles Goodyear died, in 1860, he was $200,000 in debt. Eventually, however, accumulated royalties made his family comfortable.Neither Goodyear nor his family was ever connected with the company named in his honor, today’s billion-dollar Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the world’s largest rubber business. Goodyear’s only direct descendant among modern companies is United States Rubber, which years ago absorbed a small company he once served as director.
The popular rock band Van Halen previously used the names Mammoth and Trojan Rubber Company.
Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky contains the world’s longest known cave system, with over 390 miles of passageways. Runner-up is South Dakota’s Jewel Cave, with just over 157 miles of its network discovered to date.
The Mark Harris’ baseball-based Henry Wiggen trilogy, of which the best-known novel is the second, Bang the Drum Slowly, described Wiggen’s pitching career with the New York Mammoths. In the film version of BTDS, Robert DeNiro played the dying catcher, Bruce Pearson, with Michael Moriarty as Wiggen. There had previously been a 1956 TV adaptation (on “The U.S. Steel Hour”) with Paul Newman. The film is best noted for a clubhouse rant by the manager, played by veteran character actor Vincent Gardenia, about a hand needing all five fingers working together as a team. Unfortunately I couldn’t find it on YouTube.
Robert De Niro played hard-driving billionaire financier Carl Van Loon in the 2011 Bradley Cooper thriller Limitless.
…which should have had at least three Oscar nominations IMHO.
The loon is the State Bird of Minnesota.*
*Appropriately enough.
Loons can’t walk, although they can fly, swim, and dive. (Their legs are too far back on their body.)
The Canadian $1 coin, which features a loon on the obverse, is affectionately called the looney. The $2 coin is known as the twoney.
The “Merrie Melodies” cartoon series was originally advertising for Warner Bros. films featuring singers and songs, made by Harman-Ising Pictures and then by Leon Schlesinger Productions, but licensed to Warner. When Warner bought them out, they kept the brand name but merged its characters into the existing “Looney Tunes” franchise. Warner outsourced production to DePatie-Freleng in the Sixties, but eventually brought it back in-house.
Sorry; make that reverse. HM QE II is on the obverse, of course. :smack:
Mel Blanc, the Man of 1,000 Voices, once said his favorite Looney Tunes character was Bugs Bunny. Bugs’ trademark carrot was inspired by Clark Gable eating one in the movie It Happened One Night. Ironically, Mel was allergic to carrots and hated them; he had to keep on using them in his voice work because nothing else sounded the same when he bit into it. He would spit out each bite as soon as he finished chewing it.
In WW2, the RAF officially explained Fighter Command’s success at night operations by inventing a myth that its pilots enhanced their night vision by eating carrots, not that they were being guided to German bombers by top-secret radar. The myth was further spread to encourage civilians to eat carrots to help them see better during blackouts, but really had more to do with getting people to eat a low-labor crop that they had traditionally seen as animal food.