Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller became the first head of government in Jamaican history to formally endorse civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens during an election campaign.
Besides Roger Staubach (1963) and OJ Simpson (1968), both inducted in 1985, there are six other Heisman Trophy winners in the NFL Hall of Fame:
Year of Induction (and Heisman Trophy year)
1986: Paul Hornung (1956) and Doak Walker (1948)
1991: Earl Campbell (1977)
1994: Tony Dorsett (1976)
2003: Marcus Allen (1981)
2004: Barry Sanders (1988)
Actor George Sanders, who won an Oscar for his performance in All About Eve, killed himself in 1972. He left behind a note saying, "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck. "
The 1990s rock band Eve’s Plum is named after Eve Plumb, who played Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch.
In 2010 scientists used a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to plumb the depths of the Cayman Trench to locate the world’s deepest known hydrothermal vents about 3 miles underwater in an area named the Beebe Vent Field.
NFL player Don Beebe is well known for making one of the most memorable plays in Super Bowl history. During the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XXVII with the Dallas Cowboys leading Beebe’s Buffalo Bills 52-17, Cowboys defensive tackle Leon Lett recovered a Bills fumble. As Lett advanced the ball towards the end zone he began to celebrate prematurely by holding the ball out to his right side. A relentless Don Beebe streaked down the field and knocked the ball out of Lett’s hands just before the goal line. The loose ball went through the end zone and out of bounds, causing a touchback and preventing a Dallas touchdown (which would have given them a Super Bowl-record 58 points).
Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton, on The Honeymooners, were loyal members of the Raccoon Lodge.
Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, who were based on Ralph and Ed, belonged to the Water Buffalo Lodge.
Male raccoons are called boars, and females are called sows.
Yorkists in the Wars of the Roses did not have roses as they primary symbol. Edward IV used the “sun in splendor” (referred to by Shakespeare as “the glorious sun of York” – a pun that’s quoted as both “sun” and “son”) as his symbol, while Richard III used a boar.
The Avro York was a wartime and postwar transport airplane based on the Lancaster bomber, but with a completely different fuselage. It replaced the Lancastrian, which had the bomber fuselage with its military features removed. The best-known example of the Lancastrian was the “Star Dust”, a British South American Airways plane which disappeared in the Andes in 1947 after transmitting the mysterious word “STENDEC”.
Ann Nolan Clark’s novel Secret of the Andes beat Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White to win the Newbery Award in 1953.
People think of Argentina as a land of plains (the Pampas) and wide-open flatlands, but Argentina also contains Mount Aconcagua, which is the highest of the Andes and the highest point in both the Southern and the Western Heimisphere.
In dismissing Argentina’s self-image of importance on the world stage (prior to the Falklands War, that is), Henry Kissinger described the country as “a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica”.
About 3000 people live in Antarctica in the summer, but less than 500 stay all through the bitter winter.
The Proclaimers’ biggest hit in the USA, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” flopped upon its first release, but cracked the Billboard Top Ten after it was included on the soundtrack of Johnny Depp’s movie Benny and Joon.
Years ago in South San Francisco along Hwy 101 there was a billboard I really liked. It said, simply,
key pure ice under ode
(read it quickly, running the words together)
Rapper Vanilla Ice, model Naomi Campbell and actress Isabella Rosselini are among the people who appeared nude alongside Madonna in the best selling photo book Sex.
The best-selling song by Vanilla Ice (aka suburbanite poseur Robert Van Winkle), “Ice Ice Baby”, stole shamelessly from Queen’s and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure”. The matter was settled out of court.
Former Vanilla Fudge drummer Carmine Appice shared songwriting credit for Rod Stewart’s hits “Young Turks” and “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”
After the Jeff Beck Group broke up, Beck added Tim Bogart and Carmine Appice for his next group, Beck, Bogart and Appice.