Hugh Beaumont, who played the father on Leave It to Beaver, retired from show business in the late 1960s and launched a second career as a Christmas-tree farmer on Balgillo Island, which he owned, in northern Minnesota.
Barbara Billingsley, who played the mother on Leave it to Beaver, wore pearl necklaces to conceal what she called a “hollow” in her neck, which became a dark spot caused by its shadow. The pearl necklace would brighten the area and draw attention away from it.
Billingsley’s personal preference for the pearl necklace became standard jewelry worn by June Cleaver on the show.
Much later after her Leave It To Beaver TV run, Barbara Billingsley was cast rather against type as a jive-talking old lady in Airplane!
The first aircraft to land on a moving ship was a Sopwith Pup airplane, on August 2, 1917. It was flown by British Squadron Commander Edwin Dunning and landed on HMS Furious.
The first airplane to launch from a stationary ship was in November 1910, from the US armored cruiser USSBirmingham at Hampton Roads, VA.
The first landing on a stationary ship was on 18 January 1911. The pilot took off from the Tanforan racetrack near San Francisco (now a shopping mall, with a statue of Seabiscuit outside it) and landed on the aft of USSPennsylvania anchored at the San Francisco waterfront.
The first airplane to take off from a moving warship was on 9 May 1912, from the battleship HMSHibernia at Weymouth, England.
For years, the Smithsonian Institution recognized their member Samuel Langley as inventor of the airplane. Langley did attempt to build a model and succeeded in putting an unmanned powered model in flight, but his attempts at building a manned model failed. After the Wright Brothers succeeded, the Society modified Langley’s model and got it to fly – then claimed that it was “the first man-carrying aeroplane in the history of the world capable of sustained free flight.” Eventually, they gave up that claim.
Samuel Langley was not just a member but the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (the equivalent of an executive director in today’s parlance). He died in 1906, three years after the Wright Brothers’ historic flight at Kitty Hawk.
In the “Gunsmoke” episode “Waste”, featuring Johnny Whitaker as a boy with a prostitute mother, her madam questions Dillon as to why the law overlooks Miss Kitty Ruseell’s enterprise. It appears that bordellos could exist “at the law’s discretion” (meaning the marshal’s).
Kitty Hawk, NC is where the Wright Brothers’ first flight took place, and the first aircraft carrier in the US Navy was the USS Langley (CV-1), named after Samuel Langley.
Neither Wilbur nor Orville Wright ever received a high school diploma, and both brothers were lifelong bachelors.
Congressman Wilbur Mills, powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was brought down by his scandalous affair with a stripper named Fannie Foxx.
“Sanford and Son” was based upon the BBC series “Steptoe and Son” and starred comedian Redd Foxx, whose real name was John Elroy Sanford.
Mills College in Oakland, CA is named after Cyrus and Susan Mills.
Cadwallader Washburn, the 11th governor of Minnesota, purchased the Minneapolis Milling Company in 1857. By the 1920’s, the company joined with a group of other mills and became known as General Mills. The company owns many well-known brands such as Betty Crocker, Green Giant and Häagen-Dazs.
Jesse Ventura was the 38th governor of Minnesota, serving from 1999-2003.
Henry Hastings Sibley was the 1st governor of Minnesota, serving May 24, 1858 – January 2, 1860.
Kool-Aid was invented in 1927, in Hastings, Nebraska.
Drink up!
University of California, Hastings College of the Law (UC Hastings or Hastings) is a public law school in San Francisco, California, located in the Civic Center neighborhood.
San Francisco’s baseball team is the Giants. The Giants won the World Series in 2012 and 2010.
GO GIANTS!!!
Lou Gehrig had trouble being recognized during his heyday, mostly because he was a teammate of the larger-than-life Babe Ruth. So when Gehrig hit four home runs in a game in 1932 – the first time it was done in the modern era – his teammates congratulated him and told him now he’d be the lead story in all the sport sections that day.
He wasn’t. Long-time New York Giants manager John McGraw chose the same day to announce his retirement, pushing Gehrig to play second fiddle again.