The first product ever to appear on the cover of Time magazine was Coca-Cola, on May 15, 1950. The issue featured an in-depth article about the Coca-Cola Company.
The first woman to be named Time magazine’s “Man of the Year” was Wallis Simpson, for whom King Edward VIII abdicated.
King George V, King Edward VIII and King George VI all reigned in 1936. Edward’s reign was so brief that he was never crowned.
My Man Godfrey (1936) is the only movie to receive Oscar nominations for writing, directing and all four acting awards without being nominated for Best Picture. And it lost them all.
Vice Presidents George H.W. Bush (once) and Dick Cheney (twice) both served as Acting President of the United States, consistent with the terms of the 25th Amendment, while their bosses were undergoing surgical procedures.
Who holds the record for most strikeouts in a major league baseball game? Nope, not Roger Clemens or Nolan Ryan or Sandy Koufax- it’s Tom Cheney of the old Washington Senators, who struck out 21 Baltimore Orioles in 1962.
Of course, it WAS a 16 inning game.
Bass guitarist Roger Waters was a founding member of Pink Floyd and played the clarinet in concert performances of the track Outside the Wall.
SpongeBob SquarePants’ whiny co-worker, Squidward Tentacles, is a clarinet player whose favorite musician is jazz artist Kelpy G.
The 1977 horror film Tentacles featured John Huston, Shelley Winters, and Henry Fonda, along with plenty of lesser-known thespians.
Shelley Winters won a Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a character named Roseanne in A Patch of Blue. She also played Roseanne’s grandmother (Nana Mary) on Roseanne.
Jonathan Winters single-handedly destroyed a gas station and terrorized its two attendants in the 1963 film comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
In the 1950s, publisher William Gaines was forced to shut down his most profitable war and horror comic books, due to restrictions imposed by the Comics Code. The only title he had left was the zany, satirical Mad, which he expanded to magazine format so that it would not fall under the Comics Code.
Boyd Gaines was the first man to be nominated for a Tony in each of the four acting categories:
Best Featured Actor in a Play – 1989 for The Heidi Chronicles
Best Actor in a Musical – 1994 for She Loves Me
Best Featured Actor in a Musical – 2000 for Contact (and again in 2008 for Gypsy)
Best Actor in a Play – 2007 for Journey’s End, the only one of these performances for which he did not win
James Cromwell played the world-weary and hard-drinking warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane in the movie Star Trek: First Contact.
After the Restoration, Oliver Cromwell’s body was disinterred and beheaded. The head was hung on Tyburn Gallows until the anniversary of Charles I’s execution, then stuck on a pole on top of Westminster Hall where it remained for 20 years.
Westminster Abbey has been the UK’s coronation church since 1066 and is the final resting place of seventeen monarchs.
Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were married at St. Paul’s Cathedral, but their eldest son Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, was married at Westminster Abbey to Catherine Middleton.
Bald, burly, mean-looking Bill Duke usually plays tough guys on screen, in movies like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ***Commando ***and Predator. However, he’s also an accomplished director of films like The Cemetery Club, which dealt with the lives of elderly Jewish widows.
The Mount of Olives in Israel is the oldest continually used cemetery in the world.
Of the twelve Americans to walk on the moon, eight of them are still alive, including Charlie Duke. Duke was also the youngest of the twelve when he walked on the moon.
ETA: Ninja’d!
In play: President Benjamin Harrison is buried in Indianapolis’ Crown Hilll Cemetery.