For one year only, there was an Emmy award given out in the category “Best Western.” That award was given to James Garner’s comedy-Western series Maverick.
Best Western Motels was founded in 1946 and has grown to now be the largest hotel chain in the world.
Richard and Robert Sherman wrote the music and lyrics to “It’s a Small World”.
The sweet, well-meaning but dangerous Lenny Small is shot and killed by his friend George Milton, at the end of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.
The character Lenny Kosnowski on the show*** Laverne and Shirley*** was played by Michael McKean who is a descendant of Thomas McKean, one of the signers of the Declaration Of Independence.
Nancy Hanks Lincoln, mother of Abraham Lincoln, was the third cousin four times removed of actor Tom Hanks.
Shirley Ellis’ novelty hit, “The Name Game,” was written by her boyfriend Lincoln Chase, which is why it includes the verse “Lincoln, Lincoln, Bo Bincoln, Banana Fana Fo Fincoln, Fee Fi Mo Mincoln… Lincoln.”
Abraham Lincoln, a noted Illinois trial lawyer before his 1860 election to the Presidency, is said to have once remarked, “A lawyer’s time and advice are his stock in trade.”
Arrrest and Trial and a 90-minute TV show in the 1960s that foreshadowed the Law and Order franchise by showing the detectives investigating a crime, and the court case that ensued. While Dragnet first indicated what happened at the trial, it rarely dramatized; Arrest and Trial was the first to show both aspects of the case. The show starred Ben Gazzara and Chuck Connors.
In addition to his acting career, Chuck Connors played in the NBA for the Rochester Royals and Major League Baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers he was also drafted by the NFL Chicago Bears but never played.
The first African-American regular on a USA radio series was Eddie Anderson, who played Rochester Van Jones on The Jack Benny Program from 1937 to 1951. The show then moved to television, where it lasted until the 1964-65 season.
Jack Benny was a personal friend of Harry S. Truman and emceed the latter’s inaugural ball in 1949. When he arrived at the White House for the event, a guard pointed to his violin case and asked, “Mr. Benny, what do you have in there?” As a joke, Jack whispered back, “It’s a Thompson sub-machine gun.” The guard replied, “Oh, that’s a relief. I was afraid it was your violin.”
(He was actually a very competent violin player, although not an expert, and performed a series of benefit concerts with an orchestra. He was similarly generous with money in real life. The bad violin playing and the miserliness was just a part of his act.)
Harry S Truman was elected President of the United States by the Democratic National Committee since they knew that FDR would win a fourth term and also knew Roosevelt would not live out his fourth term.
SFC Schwartz
Harry S Truman was selected by the Democratic National Convention as FDR’s running mate in 1944, and elected Vice President that fall. Accounts differ as to just how hands-on the President was in engineering Truman’s selection.
Harry Truman was a US Army mustang who was a field artillery battery commander. His Presidential Library and Museum is located in Independence, MO.
Harry Truman (once called “The Senator from Pendergast”) got his start in politics due to Thomas Joseph Pendergast, who was convicted of income tax evasion late in Truman’s first Senate term and sent to Leavenworth Penitentiary. One of Pendergast’s fellow inmates at Leavenworth was Robert Stroud, “the Birdman of Alcatraz.” (Stroud’s nickname is misleading, since he was not allowed to keep his pets when transferred out of Leavenworth.)
50 years ago yesterday, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered Alcatraz penitentiary closed on March 21, 1963
Gilbert Kennedy, 4th Earl of Cassilis, wanted certain lands belonging to Crossraguel Abbey – Kennedy’s uncle Quintin was the last true Abbot of Crossraguel. To obtain the lands he tricked the Lay Abbot, Allan Stewart, to Dunure Castle, where, according to Wikipedia,
“For two days Gilbert left the commendator to consider his fate and because he was obstinate and refused to sign over the lands and rentals he tortured him twice, roasting and basting his feet and body over a brazier in the Black Vault of the castle, aided bizarrely by his cook, baker and pantrymen. As a result of the torture sessions of the first and seventh days of September 1570, the lands were signed over to Gilbert.”
A person having Gilbert’s syndrome is identified by elevated levels of bilirubin in the blood. The person is often jaundiced.
Irish singer-songwriter Raymond O’Sullivan scored his biggest hit with "Alone Again (Naturally), under the stage name Gilbert O’Sullivan.
People often assumed the song was autobiographical; it wasn’t. O’Sullivan’s mother was very much alive when the song topped the Billboard charts, and his father (an abusive alcoholic) had been dead for many years by that time.