Charles Rocket died of a slit throat, which in New World Spanish was once called Degüello*, which was the name of a Mexican army bugle tune blown to signal the final assault on the Alamo and was also the name given to a breed of work dogs now known as Perro de Presa Canario.
*Degüello is apparently an obscure word also translated as ‘beheading’ or ‘no mercy’, but usually as ‘slit throat’.
Robert Woodward revealed that “Deep Throat,” his famous source for information on the Watergate scandal, was Mark Felt, a highly placed FBI official. Felt was motivated less by idealism than by hatred of Richard Nixon, who’d bypassed Felt (a devoted protege of J. Edgar Hoover) and made L. Patrick Gray the FBI’s director.
In ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN the role of Deep Throat (then unknown) was played by Hal Holbrook, best known for the one man show of Mark Twain he has toured in for more than 50 years but recently nominated for an Oscar for his role in Into the Wild.
Session man Hal Blaine played the drums on dozens of Billboard #1 hits, including the Byrds “Mr. Tambourine Man,” the Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville” and the Beach Boys’ “Help Me Rhonda.”
Former Speaker of the House and U.S. Senator James G. Blaine ran for President but lost to Grover Cleveland. His opponents heckled him by yelling “Blaine, Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine.”
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, is the first female Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Both her father and her brother served as mayor of Baltimore.
Baltimore was the original home of the New York Yankees franchise.
Baltimore native and cult film director John Waters has a macabre collection of famous villain memorabilia that includes a piece of Hitler’s stationary with a doodle by der Führer on it, a jar of dirt from John Wayne Gacy’s basement, and some shell casings taken from the killing of Bonnie & Clyde.
John Wayne Wilson, the real-life model for “Mr. Goodbar”, became “Gary Cooper White” in Judith Rossner’s novel.
In the early 1930s, Gary Cooper’s doctor told him he had been working too hard. Cooper went to Europe and stayed a lot longer than planned. When he returned, he was told there was now a “new” Gary Cooper – an unknown actor had needed a better name for films, so the studio had reversed Gary Cooper’s initials and created a name that sounded similar: Cary Grant.
During filming of baseball scenes in “Pride of the Yankees,” to create the illusion that right-handed Gary Cooper was left-handed Lou Gehrig, Cooper wore a uniform with a backward #4 on it, and ran the bases backward. The film was then reversed.
In the 2004 American League Championship Series, the Boston Red Sox, down three games to none, rallied to win four consecutive wins over the New York Yankees, to win the AL pennant. The Yankees collapse was this worst in post-season baseball history, as no team had ever coughed up a 3 games to none lead before.
In August 2007 part of the west cooling tower of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant collapsed.
Vermont’s State House has an entire “Cedar Creek Room” dedicated to a massive painting of an 1864 Civil War battle in which many Vermont troops took part.
When Warren G. Harding died unexpectedly his VP, Calvin Coolidge, was visiting his parents in Plymouth, Vermont. Woken up in the middle of the night, he was sworn in by his father, a notary public. Once sworn in as president Silent Cal went back to bed.
William the Silent, Prince of Orange, played a role in the establishment of the first Dutch Republic.
The process of “dutching” cocoa is treating it with an alkali to reduce its acid. “Dutch cocoa” does not mean it is from Holland.
East Coast mobster Dutch Schultz was neither Dutch, no named Schultz. When he was fatally shot, his last words included a reference to French Candian bean soup.
Fictional Italian-American gangster Vito Corleone, The Godfather, was born Vito Andolini. His name was changed to Corleone by immigration officials as it was the name of the Sicilian village where he was born.
The famous “horse’s head” scene in “the Godfather” was based on long-standing, unfounded rumors that the Mafia got Frank Sinatra his role in “From Here to Eternity.”