The United States has had three Unitarian Presidents: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and WIlliam Howard Taft.
When he was inaugurated as President of the United States, John Quincy Adams placed his hand on a book of constitutional law (as opposed to the traditional Bible) as he took the Oath of Office.
Jim Backus wore a rubber nose to give his voice a nasal sound. while he recorded his dialogue for cartoons featuring the nearsighted Mr. Quincy Magoo.
*Mr. Magoo’s A Christmas Carol *is one of the earliest Christmas specials, predating Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by two years. (1962 vs. 1964)
Montgomery Ward employee Robert May created Rudolph for the retailer’s 1939 Christmas promotional campaign. The song immortalizing the red-nosed reindeer was written by Johnny Marks, who was May’s brother-in-law.
No Pants Day is celebrated on the first Friday of May.
Victoria Day is a uniquely Canadian holiday, falling on the last Monday before May 25th. It is the unofficial start of summer.
The name Canada is derived from the Huron-Iroquois kanata, meaning a village or settlement.
Unique in what way? The name? The date? The concept of a holiday in honour of the reigning sovereign’s official birthday is quite common.
Damn big village, that Canada. It’s the second largest country in the world, by land mass.
Lester Pearson, Nobel-winning Prime Minister of Canada, was called “Mike” by most friends. He was given that name by a World War 1 flight instructor.
Some US recruits in World War I were from such remote areas that they did not know their birth dates and last names. The army assigned these men last names and birth dates.
WWI, specifically at Belleau Wood, is where the Germans nicknamed the US Marines as Devil Dogs (Teufel Hunden). That nickname, Devil Dogs, remains to this day.
In 1973, rotund knuckleballer Wilbur Wood of the Chicago White Sox became the last major league pitcher to win AND lose 20 games in the same season.
While Chicago hired its first policewoman – Marie Owens – in 1893, Chicago policewomen did not wear uniforms until 1956.
The 1985 Chicago Bears had one of the best NFL defenses ever. They lost only one game that entire season, to the Miami Dolphins. Those Bears remain the last Super Bowl-winning team to have 15 wins in the regular season.
Tevye the milkman must move to Brooklyn and town butcher Lazar Wulf must move to Chicago, at the end of the musical Fiddler on the Roof.
According to the NYC Department of Transportation, more than 120,000 vehicles, 4,000 pedestrians and 2,600 bicyclists cross the Brooklyn Bridge every day as of 2011.
(The wife and I walked across it twice in April of this year, along with three friends from Connecticut.)
The Brooklyn Bridge is destroyed in the movies I Am Legend (missile strike) and Cloverfield (monster attack).
The origin is disputed: Devil Dog - Wikipedia