Victor Buono played President William Howard Taft in the miniseries Backstairs at the White House.
Victor Borge, born Børge Rosenbaum, was a Danish and American comedian, conductor and pianist, with frequent PBS specials. He was affectionately known as The Clown Prince of Denmark, The Unmelancholy Dane, and The Great Dane.
Scooby Doo, the world’s most famous Great Dane, is the best friend of Norville “Shaggy” Rogers.
Deborah Norville (born August 8, 1958) is an American television anchor and journalist. Since 1995 she has been host of the syndicated American television program Inside Edition. She earlier hosted Today on NBC, substitute-anchored both the NBC Nightly News and the weekend CBS Evening News, and was a host and correspondent for two CBS News magazine programs.
She has received two Emmy Awards for her television work, the first while at NBC News for coverage of a democratic uprising in Romania, and the second for work on CBS’s 48 Hours covering floods on the Mississippi River
From 1966 onwards, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was worried about Romania’s falling population. To boost the birthrate, he instituted a ban on abortions for women under 40 (later 45), contraceptives were made increasingly hard to obtain, and married women aged under 40 (later 45) were not allowed contraceptives. Many aspects of these measures were viewed with horror abroad and they were very unpopular in Romania too. In the mid-1980s Ceausescu even established a “baby police” that subjected childless married women under 45 to harsh and humiliating gynecological tests. One result of these measures was a large number of unwanted children and a significant number were simply abandoned – hence the large number of Romanian orphans at the end of the 1980s.
Richard M. Nixon, having lost the Presidential race in 1960 and then a campaign for Governor of California in 1962, spent most of 1966 campaigning for Republican candidates around the country, building goodwill and collecting chips for his narrowly-successful run for the Presidency in 1968.
More turkeys are raised in California than in any other US state. (I guess that included Nixon too.)
In Pacific Grove, CA there is a law on the books establishing a $500 fine for molesting butterflies.
In The Muppet Movie, Doc Hopper offered Kermit the Frog $500 in advance (and a further $500 every year) to be the spokesfrog of his French Fried Frog Legs chain. Kermit chose to decline his “generous” offer, and Hopper chased Kermit all over the country trying to change his mind.
In 1865 Mark Twain wrote the short story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” It was his first great success as a writer and brought him national attention. Every year in Calaveras County (in California) there’s a frog jumping contest. There, the claimed ‘World Record’ was set in 1986 by a frog named Rosie the Ribeter. That day, Rosie jumped over 21 feet.
In 1980, Rosie Ruiz was the winner of the Boston Marathon… or, for a while, appeared to be. It turned out that she started the race, took a detour, and rode toward the finish line on the subway, and rejoined the race just in time to “win.”
“The Curse of Chico Ruiz” refers to an incident in the 1964 baseball season, where Ruiz unexpectedly broke for home from third base in sixth inning of a scoreless game. Phillies pitcher Art Mahaffey rushed his delivery and threw a wild pitch, allowing Ruiz to score the only run of the game.
The Phillies had a 6 1/2 game lead at the time, with 12 games left. The loss marked the beginning of a 10-game losing streak that put Philadelphia out of the race.
Art Mahaffey picked off the first three batters to collect big-league hits off him: St. Louis Cardinals Curt Flood and Bill White on July 30, 1960, then Jim Marshall of the San Francisco Giants the next day.
Vampire bats feed on blood; the three species of bats that feed on blood that are Common Vampire Bat, the Hairy-legged Vampire Bat, and the White-winged Vampire Bat. All three species are native to the Americas, ranging from Mexico to Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. They have a short, conical muzzle and has specialized infrared sensors on its nose which aids them in locating an area where the blood flows close to the skin. They have small ears and a short tail membrane. Their front teeth are specialized for cutting and their back teeth are much smaller than in other bats. Their digestive systems are also specialized for their liquid diet. The saliva of vampire bats contains a substance, draculin, which prevents the victim’s blood from clotting. They feed mostly on the blood of mammals and birds. They hunt during night and emit low-energy sound pulses. Vampire bats can walk and even run at speeds of up to 2.2 meters per second. They weighs 40g yet will consume over 20g (1oz) of blood in a 20 minute feed. Vampire bats live in colonies in almost completely dark places, such as caves, old wells, hollow trees, and buildings. Colonies can range from a single individual to thousands.
In 1978, Chile and Argentina fought over possession of several islands in a near-war that came to be called “the Beagle Crisis.”
Former Navy Secretary John Lehman gave a speech earlier this year in which he outlined the ways in which the U.S. secretly assisted the United Kingdom in its 1982 war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. He disclosed that the U.S. even considered leasing the USS Iwo Jima, a amphibious assault carrier, to the Royal Navy if either of the two British carriers were sunk in the South Atlantic.
Lehman Brothers was the fourth largest investment bank when it declared bankruptcy in 2008.
(I guess Lehman wasn’t too big to fail.)
Lehman College is located in the Bronx and is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York (CUNY). Famous alumni include Whoopi Goldberg, Ron Perlman, and Kevin Bacon’s brother/bandmate Michael.
The Bronx is the only one of the five NYC boroughs located on the mainland.
Notable figures such as David Farragut, Madam C. J. Walker, Nellie Bly and Duke Ellington are interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.
In the Star Trek novel Diplomatic Implausibility, Ambassador Worf visits the grave of his late significant other, K’Ehleyr, which is also at Woodlawn Cemetery.
(That ought to give the next person plenty to work with!)