The first settlers of Bermuda were survivors of the Sea Venture, a ship that had been wrecked by a hurricane on their way to supply the British colony of Jamestown.
John “Bermuda” Schwartz met Weird Al Yankovic when Al was making an appearance on Dr. Demento’s radio show. Schwartz tapped out the beat to “Another One Rides the Bus” on Al’s accordion case and has been Al’s drummer ever since.
Accounts of the wreck of the Sea Venture at Bermuda are thought to have been one of the sources Shakespeare drew on in writing The Tempest.
Sherwood Schwartz was a TV producer who also created two shows, Gilligan’s Island, and The Brady Bunch. Both shows made it into the SDMB Game Room thread, Bakers Dozen, on the list tltled Favorite TV shows from your childhood which upon recent review you’ve discovered they are unwatchable.
ETA: Ninja’d! Play on Northern Piper’s play.
The Pontiac Tempest was first sold in 1961 and shared its Y platform with the Buick Skylark.
The Tempest is thought to be the last play entirely by Shakespeare. It was likely written around the same time as The Winter’s Tale, which also has themes of separation and reconciliation.
In the film My Cousin Vinny, the two actual murderers are found because they are driving a stolen metallic mint green 1963 Pontiac Tempest, with a white convertible top, Michelin Model XGV tires, size 75-R-14. As Mona Lisa Vito explained, "in the '60’s, there were only two other cars made in America that had Positraction, and independent rear suspension, and enough power to make these marks. One was the Corvette, which could *never *be confused with the Buick Skylark. The other had the same body length, height, width, weight, wheel base, and wheel track as the '64 Skylark, and that was the 1963 Pontiac Tempest. "
Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan, the last man to stand on the moon, was an alum of Purdue University as was Neil Armstrong, the first man to stand on the moon.
Purdue is a “Quarterback U:” According to ESPN.com, Purdue QBs have won (and started) more NFL games than any other school; thrown for the most touchdowns and yards in the NFL. Purdue QBs have won more League TD titles (13 through the 2011 NFL season) than any other school.
A counterexample would be Purdue QB Mike Phipps, successor to Bob Griese as Boilermaker starter. The Cleveland Browns traded perennial All-Pro wide receiver Paul Warfield to the Miami Dolphins for the right to draft Phipps with the third overall pick in the 1970 NFL draft.
Purdue has by far the largest student body of any private college in the United States.
Many state-run schools have larger enrollments, of course, but none can top Arizona State
Paul**** Warfield helped the Dolphins win back-to-back Super Bowls VII & VIII and be the second team to win two SBs in a row, and the first team to appear in three straight SBs - they lost SB VI.
ETA: Ninja’d by astorian, so I’ll prepend my post and make it this:
Purdue alum Bob Griese, with Paul Warfield, helped the Dolphins win back-to-back Super Bowls VII & VIII and be the second team to win two SBs in a row, and the first team to appear in three straight SBs - they lost SB VI.
Author and historian Gore Vidal played an erudite but out-of-touch U.S. senator from Pennsylvania in the political dark comedy Bob Roberts.
Pennsylvania is the only one of the thirteen original colonies not bordered by the Atlantic Ocean.
Of the four railroads in a standard American Monopoly board, none still do business under their original names.
The Pennsylvania railroad is now the Penn Central. The B & O Railroad is part of CSX. The Reading Railroad is part of Conrail,
“Short Line” was a general term for railroads running on short routes, and was not the name of an actual railroad company.
The historic Virginia & Truckee Railroad runs tourists on weekends between Carson City and Virginia City, NV.
Samuel Clemens first used the nom de plume Mark Twain when he was a cub reporter on the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. Once, some colleagues on the paper staged a mugging of Clemens as a joke and to give him something to write about, which he did, in Roughing It.
Most Civil War battles were fought in Virginia, more than 2,200 of the 4,000 total.
In the Billy Joel song “Only The Good Die Young,” the young woman’s name is Virginia, obviously a nod to her status as a virgin.
Richard Briers, best known as Tom Good on The Good Neighbors (The Good Life in the UK) died last week. In his later years, he moved on from TV comedy to Shakespeare, becoming part of Kenneth Branagh’s “stock company,” most notably as Polonius in Hamlet.