3-time NBA MVP and NBA Hall of Famer Moses Malone is one of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players chosen in 1996.
The “50 most influential books of the last 50 years” include books authored by Ayn Rand, Malcolm X, Ralph Nader, Mao Tse-Tung, Joseph Heller, Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, B. F. Skinner and Douglas Adams.
A recent survey showed that only 14% of Americans read because they enjoy it. Stand tall, Dopers!
In Wikipedia’s list of literacy rates by country, six countries or principalities are 100% literate: Andorra, Greenland, Holy See (Vatican City), Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Norway.
Scrolling to the bottom of the list shows many African countries there. Also Afghanistan at 28.1%.
Afghanistan shares a border with China and crossing this border is the largest time change in the world (excluding the IDL). Afghanistan is GMT+4.5 and all of China is GMT+8 meaning that step across the border changes your watch three and a half hours.
Carl Sagan once suggested the possibility that time travelers could be here, but are disguising their existence or are not recognized as time travelers. (Source: NOVA)
Carl Furillo of the Brooklyn Dodgers was known as “Skoonj,” short for “Scungilli,” the Italian word for snails. This nickname reflected both Furillo’s Italian ancestry and his slow-footedness.
Roger Kahn’s 1972 book The Boys of Summer was a series of where-are-they-now vignettes about the 1950’s Brooklyn Dodgers he had idolized. He found Carl Furillo installing elevators in the World Trade Center.
The title characters of Ira Levin’s thriller ***The Boys From Brazil *** were clones of Adolf Hitler.
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century.
Lyricist and composer Johnny Mercer could not read musical scores and used his own notation system instead.
Legendarily, Johnny Mercer came into Hoagy Carmichael’s apartment in New York one day and saw Hoagy “snoozin’” on his couch. Mercer said, “Hoag, I’m gonna write a song called ‘Lazy Bones’.” Carmichael said, “Well, let’s get at it.” They went over to Hoagy’s piano, Johnny said the first line and Hoagy started playing a melody. The song was done in twenty minutes.
nm
Johnny Carson shared composing credit with Paul Anka for the theme music from ***The Tonight ***Show, though Carson had nothing to do with writing it. Nonetheless, according to Anka, the royalties from that theme music alone were worth about $800,000 a year by the time Carson retired from show biz.
Paul Anka has stated that the recently departed Annette Funicello was the inspiration for two of his hits: “Put Your Head On My Shoulder” and “Puppy Love”. Annette herself had a minor hit with a song called “Tall Paul”.
I read that last year! Not a bad book, but not the OMFG-this-is-a-baseball-classic-you’ve-gotta-read-it!!! that I had been told.
In play:
Paul Revere was briefly captured by British cavalry during his famous midnight ride west of Boston in April 1775.
(I thought Kahn’s book was pretty sad, showing how most former players were forced into obscurity and penury after their glorious playing days).
Paul Revere Braniff and his brother Tom created the Texas-based Braniff International Airways, which was later known for its avant-garde styling. Braniff even (officially) flew the Concorde on scheduled Dallas-Washington services, although in partnership with British Airways and Air France. Transfer of ownership took place in Washington each time Concorde flew in the U.S. Braniff actually owned the planes while on U.S. domestic service, and the planes were re-registered with temporary tape. Ownership was then re-transferred to Air France or British Airways on the trans-Atlantic leg.
Organist and restauranteur Paul Revere Dick founded a band called the Downbeats in Boise, Idaho. In 1960 they changed their name to Paul Revere and the Raiders.
Boise (pronounced "bwah-ZAY) comes from a French word meaning “wooded” or “surrounded by woods.”
Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, New Jersey. After being unseated in the 1888 presidential contest, he was returned to the White House in 1893 after residents of Boise and the rest of Idaho (which had been admitted to the Union in 1890) voted for the Chief Executive for the first time in 1892.