“Viet Cong,” the common term used to describe the guerilla forces in South Vietnam that fought against the Saigon government, was not a label given to the group by its allies in the North. Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam and the Viet Cong’s primary target until 1963, coined the name “viet-cong”—a derogatory Vietnamese word meaning “commie.”
(The Viet Cong called themselves the National Liberation Front.)
The term actually dates back to the Fifties: Boll weevil (politics) - Wikipedia
Not quite - it was Stephen: Grover Cleveland - Wikipedia
In play: South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, seen by the U.S. Government as an intractable despot, was killed in a coup with tacit U.S. support just weeks before John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas.
The house used as the Southfork Ranch house on the Dallas TV series was an actual Texas residence, owned by Joe R Duncan, or JR Duncan. When the show became popular, tourists from all over the world visited the house day and night. The Duncan family was forced to sell the house and it is now a museum devoted to the show.
Actor Michael Clarke Duncan (12/10/1957 - 9/3/2012) was 6’ 5" tall. While trying to get his start in Hollywood he worked as a bodyguard for actors Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, and Jamie Foxx.
Redd Foxx’s real name was John Sanford, and he had a brother named Fred Sanford.
When he agreed to star in an American version of the British sitcom Steptoe and Son, he renamed his character after his brother.
Sanford and Son peaked at No. 2 in the ratings in two seasons – 1972-73 and 1974-75. In both those seasons, the No. 1 spot was held by All in the Family.
In the Canadian general election of 1972, the federal Liberals lost their majority, going from 155 seats in the 264 seat House of Commons, to 109, only two seats more than the Progressive Conservatives. Prime Minister Trudeau stayed in power through the tacit support of the New Democratic Party under David Lewis, which held 31 seats. The minority government lasted for only two years, and in 1974 Trudeau called another general election. This time the Liberals won a majority, 141 seats compared to 95 for the PCs and 16 for the NDP.
William Gladstone was the oldest Briton ever to be appointed prime minister, at age 82 years and 7 months.
The College of William and Mary is the second oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Harvard is the oldest.
Yale is the third oldest.
The oldest university (as we know it today) still in operation is the University of Bologna founded in 1088.
Ducati motorcycle company and Maserati sports car company are located in Bologna.
The Bricklin was a sports car produced briefly in New Brunswick. It is the only production vehicle with fully powered gull wing doors.
The Bricklin was founded by Malcolm Bricklin, the same guy who founded Subaru of America.
Shakespeare’s*** Macbeth ***ends with Malcolm reclaiming the throne that had belonged to his murdered father, Duncan.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District tells the story of a lonely woman in 19th century Russia, who falls in love with one of her husband’s workers and is driven to murder. It was the vehicle for a general denunciation of Shostakovich’s music by the Communist Party in early 1936, and is now better known for being an example of censorship than for being good music.
Francis Rattenbury was an English architect who designed many public buildings in British Columbia, notably the provinical Parliament Building. He retired to England, and married for the second time. He and his wife hired a young man to be their gardener, but his wife and the young worker soon began an affair. The young worker killed Rattenbury as he sat in his easy chair one evening, by ferocious blows to the head. He was convicted of murder, but the death penalty was commuted to imprisonment because he was thought to have been acting under the control of Rattenbury’s wife. She was acquitted of the murder, but a few days later committed suicide by stabbing herself several times and then throwing herself into the River Stour.
John Mortimer, author of the Rumpole series and a barrister, included the Rattenbury case in his account of notable English murder trials.
Before the Reform Act of 1832, England had 57 “rotten boroughs” (a play on Rattenbury 
) - constituencies in Parliament with few actual residents, which could be effectively bought by a wealthy person who wanted a seat in Commons with only a reasonable expense in bribes. Pocket boroughs were boroughs that could effectively be controlled by a single person who owned most of the land in the borough. As there was no secret ballot at the time, the landowner could evict residents who did not vote for the person he wanted.
The five boroughs of New York City are also counties of the state of New York. The borough of Manhattan is New York County, the borough of Brooklyn is Kings County, and the borough of Staten Island is Richmond County (the Bronx and Queens, mundanely, are just Bronx County and Queens County)
Queens County was originally not part of New York City and included about half of Long Island (including the City of Brooklyn). In 1898, it was split, with the western towns (Newtown, Jamaica, Long Island City, and Flushing) becoming the Borough (and revised county) of Queens. The towns of Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend, New Lots and New Utrecht, plus the city of Brooklyn became the borough of Brooklyn (and Kings County), while Hempstead, North Hempstead, and Oyster Bay became Nassau County.