“Ahoy,” the old traditional navy greeting for hailing other vessels, was originally a Viking battle cry.
Roger Staubach of Navy was the last player to win the Heisman Trophy while playing at a service academy.
No freshman has ever received the Heisman Trophy.
Two NFL teams have won a Super Bowl with two Heisman Trophy winners on their roster: the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XII (Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett) and the Los Angeles Raiders in Super Bowl XVIII (Jim Plunkett, Marcus Allen).
(It’s interesting that both teams had a QB and an RB as their Heisman Trophy winners.)
The Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Dallas is prominently featured in Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October.
All Los Angeles class submarines are named for cities with extensive Navy facilities. The only exception, and it’s a partial one, is USS City of Corpus Christi. The words “City of” were added due to concerns over naming a warship after the body of Christ.
The film The Legend of Billie Jean was partially filmed and set in Corpus Christi. Stars Helen Slater and Christian Slater played siblings, but are not related to any known degree in real life.
Tennis star Billie Jean King’s little brother Randy Moffitt was a starting pitcher for the San Francisco Giants.
Um… I think there are more exceptions than that. Consider the USS Memphis, Omaha, Cincinnati, Birmingham, Indianapolis, Dallas, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Hyman G. Rickover, Atlanta, Houston, Buffalo, Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, Albany, Topeka, Scranton, Boise, Montpelier, Toledo, Tucson and Cheyenne…
The Los Angeles-class submarine USS San Francisco was commissioned in 1981, and remains in service.
The country’s first Chinese immigrants went to San Francisco in 1848. However, it was the Japanese Hagiwara family who invented “Chinese” fortune cookies, at Golden Gate Park’s Tea Garden.
“Travis Tea” was the pseudonym of 20+ science fiction writers who worked together to create the world’s worst novel – Atlanta Nights – in order to show that a publisher who claimed to be legitimate was really a vanity press and would publish anything. The book was accepted for publication.
Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia is not named for a peach tree of any sort. Many of Atlanta’s corridors follow the paths created by the Creek and Cherokee Indian nations who inhabited the area until the early 19th century. A large Creek settlement was called Standing Pitch Tree after a tall lone tree. Over time, “pitch tree” became “peach tree.” And if it seems like you are always driving on Peachtree, that’s because Atlanta has more than 65 streets containing the word Peachtree.
Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airportis the world’s busiest passenger airport.
This airport is named for William B. Hartsfield and Maynard Jackson, two Georgian politicians.
Roy Hartsfield was the first manager of the Toronto Blue Jays.
When Bob Carpenter bought the Philadelphia Phillies in 1944, he tried to rename the team to the Philadelphia Bluejays as an attempt to change their image. The name never caught on and was dropped after 1945.
The Bob Carpenter who bought the Phillies in 1943 gave control to his son, who was known as Bob, Jr. In turn, “Junior” ceded the reins in 1972 to son Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter III, who goes by “Ruly”. Ruly stepped down from the position of president upon selling the franchise in 1981, the year after the Phillies won their first World Series crown.
Original Merucry astronaut Gordon Cooper’s real first name is Leroy; his Mercury colleague Scott Carpenter’s real first name is Malcolm.
The birth name of Malcom X was Malcom Little.
Malcolm X, who spelled his name with two "L"s, also went by El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. He was born in Omaha in 1925.