Hitler promoted Friedrich Paulus, the commanding German General at Stalingrad, to Generalfeldmarschall, with the implicit expectation that he would commit suicide rather than be captured, since no German Field Marshall had ever been captured. Paulus essentially said “Stuff that” and surrendered to the Soviets. His fate and whereabouts were unknown until he was suddenly produced by the Soviets as a witness for the prosecution in the first Nuremberg trials. Even though Nuremberg was in the US Zone, the Soviets somehow smuggled Paulus into Nuremberg without the Americans’ knowledge.
In 1471 Johannes Mueller of Königsberg built an astronomical observatory in Nuremberg and published many important astronomical charts.
Christopher Columbus visted Galway, Ireland, in hopes of finding charts, maps or logs left behind by St. Brendan the Navigator, since legends told that St. Brendan had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and found land.
Frank Herbert’s 1982 novel The White Plague, about a genetically-engineered disease that kills only women, is mostly set in Ireland.
Herbert Hoover created the game of “hooverball,” which was played with a medicine ball and had rules similar to volleyball. Hoover played it daily (weather permitting) as president; he was known for asking at the end of each session, “Did you catch that guy [Al] Capone yet?”
Frank Crowe (from Quebec) was the chief engineer of Hoover Dam. Crowe’s last dam was Northern California’s Shasta Dam. Crowe retired near that dam, in Redding, CA.
Retired Adm. William Crowe, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a splash in 1992 when he endorsed Bill Clinton, Democrat of Arkansas, for President of the United States. Crowe later served as U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James’s from 1994-97.
Splash (1984) was Director Ron Howard’s third feature film for the big screen.
Ira Levin’s third novel This Perfect Day is an obvious homage to George Orwell’s 1984.
Ira Gershwin lived for 46 more years after the death of his younger brother George. In that time, he wrote lyrics for such composers as Kurt Weill, Jerome Kern and Harold Arlen.
Jerome Kern overslept one day in 1915 and thus missed his scheduled voyage from New York to London. Any consternation he may have felt was replaced by relief when the ship (the Lusitania) was torpedoed by a U-Boat in the North Atlantic.
Admiral David Farragut was famed for his cry, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” at the Battle of Mobile Bay. But this didn’t refer to a torpedo in the modern sense, but rather what we would call “mines” today.
Five warships, all destroyers, have borne the name USS Farragut in the U.S. Navy, named after the first American admiral. The current Farragut is an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer commissioned in 2006.
The word “admiral” is ultimately derived from the Arabic phrase “amir-ar-rahl”, “chief of the transport”.
For many years, the Maytag company manufactured the Admiral brand of appliances exclusively for sale at Montgomery Ward stores. Today, Admiral is a division of Whirlpool, and its few remaining product lines are sold exclusively through Home Depot.
Actor Jesse White had his first credited role in Harvey in 1950 and went on to many roles in movies and TV. His acting career hit a snag, when he was hired to play the Maytag Repairman in a series of ads starting in 1966. He continued to play that role until 1989, when he was replaced by Gordon Jump.
Jim Parsons, known as Dr. Sheldon Cooper on “The Big Bang Theory”, starred in the 2012 Broadway revival of “Harvey”, in the role of Elwood P. Dowd most associated with Jimmy Stewart’s film.
Harvey Keitel worked as a salesman in a women’s shoestore.
Imelda Marcos had 2,700 pairs of shoes.
Because of the vagaries of the English language, sets of two shoes are referred to as “pairs of shoes”, but two game birds, once shot, are referred to as a “brace”, as in “a brace of pigeons.”