In four separate referenda, the people of Puerto Rico have voted to remain a commonwealth of the United States of America, rather than become a state or an independent country.
Most beer sold in Puerto Rico varies in size from 7-10 ounce bottles and cans. Puerto Ricans prefer their beer extremly cold, so the portions are small in order to be consumed before it has time to warm up.
Ninkasi is the Sumerian Goddess of brewing, and a poem to her includes the earliest known recipe for brewing beer from barley.
The Sumerians invented the wheel in about 3450 BC.
According to the movie Ghostbusters, Gozer the Gozerian was a demigod worshiped by the Hittites, Mesopotamians and Sumerians. In reality, of course, Gozer was made up for the film.
The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who established an empire at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia (modern-dayTurkey) around the 18th century BC, which reached its height during the mid-14th century BC under Suppiluliuma I, encommpassing an area that included most of Asia Minor as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. After c. 1180 BC, the empire was invaded by the Sea peoples and disintegrated into several independent “Neo-Hittite” city-states, some surviving until the 8th century BC.
The final Peter Davison episode of Doctor Who, “The Caves of Androzani,” is set on the planet of Androzani Minor, in whose caves the Doctor has to go into in order to milk a bat. It was named as the best episode of the original run of the series by the readers of Doctor Who Magazine.
In the Dark Knight saga, Bruce Wayne chose the Batman persona because “Bats frighten me, Alfred. It’s time my enemies shared my dread.”
The College of Wooster is in Wooster, Ohio, county seat of Wayne County, named after “Mad Anthony” Wayne, Revolutionary War general and later victor over the Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. In the DC Comics, Gotham playboy millionaire Bruce Wayne is said to be a descendant of Gen. Wayne.
Wooster, Ohio was established in 1808 by John Bever, William Henry, and Joseph Larwill, and named after David Wooster, a general in the American Revolutionary War.
In P.G. Wodehouse’s comic stories, Bertie Wooster’s valet Jeeves actually did have a first name: Reginald.
Jeeves was an ardent reader of Spinoza.
“Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Fegoot” by Grendel Briarton was a long-running series of science fictional short short stories, all ending in a horrible pun. Briarton was actually an anagram of the real author’s name, Reginald Bretnor. The series gave rise to the term “feghoot” to describe this type of story.
John Gardner wrote Grendel, telling the story of a monster from *Beowulf *from the monster’s point of view.
Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason, was part of the legal team representing Dr. Sam Sheppard, the murder suspect who inspired the TV series The Fugitive.
When Raymond Burr, who played TV’s Perry Mason, was asked to do another series, he supposedly replied “I’ll only do another series if I can sit down on it the whole time.”
The producers created Ironside, about a cop who gets shot and paralyzed, and becomes a PI.
Spitball specialist Gaylord Perry was the first pitcher to win the Cy Young Award in both the American and National Leagues. His brother Jim won the American League Cy Young award in 1970.
In his autobiography, Me and the Spitter, Gaylord revealed that KY jelly was his favorite substance with which to doctor baseballs, as it was clear and odorless, making it hard for umpires to detect.
Burleigh Grimes threw the last legal spitball in the major leagues.
In the novel Catch-22, Major Major Major Major was never really in his office when he was officially “in,” but was always there when he was supposed to be “out.”
The future British Prime Minister John Major’s family received public assistance when he was a child. Major succeeded Margaret Thatcher, also Conservative, and was defeated by Tony Blair, the Labour Party leader.
“I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” is perhaps the best-known song from a Gilbert & Sullivan opera; it’s from Pirates of Penzance. The joke is that the Major-General knows all kinds of things, but has only basic competence when it comes to actually doing his job.