I was last here over a hundred ages ago. I did something about Reagan’s assassination. How are we STILL on that? You know what? No. Not doing the assassin.
In the Inheritance Cycle, by Christopher Paolini, the dwarves elect a new King, named Orin. He succeeded his adopted father Hrothgar, who fell in battle, wielding Volund, the mighty dwarven hammer.
There. Plenty of nice, good, non-assassination related trivia you can play off.
The Battle of Seven Oaks was a confrontation in 1816 between fur traders of the North-West Company, mainly Métis, with the Governor of the Red River Colony, appointed by the Hudson Bay Company. The flashpoint was the Pemmican Proclamation, issued by the Governor of the Colony. In the battle, the Governor and 20 HBC supporters were killed, and one N-W Company trader. In French, it is known as la Victoire de la Grenouillière (“The Victory of the Frog Plain”).
Dick Celeste, a Democrat and Governor of Ohio from 1983-1991, was also appointed Director of the Peace Corps by President Jimmy Carter and ambassador to India by President Bill Clinton.
George Clinton was the first person elected as Vice-President under the 12th Amendment, the first to serve as Vice-President to two different Presidents, and the first Vice-President to die in office.
The youngest person to become US Vice President was John C. Breckinridge at 36 years of age, under President Buchanan.
The town of Breckenridge, in Summit County, Colorado, sits at an elevation of 9,600’. It was created in 1859 and, when its Post Office was built, it was the first post office between the Continental Divide and Salt Lake City, Utah (about 450 miles away). The name “Breckinridge” was chosen after John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, Vice President of the United States., but the town is spelled Breckenridge.
Breckinridge was one of the two Confederate Cabinet officials who escaped from the United States after the fall of the Confederacy, by taking an open boat to Cuba. The other was Judah Benjamin, who became a respected barrister in London, earning his Q.C. and writing a major treatise on commercial transactions which is still in print today, many editions later: Benjamin on Sale of Goods.
John Henninger Reagan was Postmaster General for the Confederacy. He was an able administrator, presiding over the only cabinet department that functioned well during the war. When President Davis asked his cabinet for the status of their departments, Reagan reported he had his up and running in only six weeks. Davis was amazed.
The postbellum careers of Confederate general James “Pete” Longstreet, one of the few former Confederates to become a Republican, included serving as Postmaster of Gainesville, GA (where he also ran a hotel) and as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey.
James Longstreet, played by Tom Berenger in the Civil War film Gettysburg, served as the top U.S. diplomat to the Ottoman Empire, not Turkey. His second wife outlived him by many years and died in 1962.
The short-lived TV series “Longstreet” featured James Franciscus as a New Orleans insurance investigator who continues his work despite being blinded by the bomb that killed his wife. Bruce Lee appeared in four episodes as Li Tsung, an antiques dealer and Jeet Kune Do expert who becomes Longstreet’s martial arts instructor.
James Franciscus starred in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, the only PotA sequel to feature Charlton Heston as Taylor and the only sequel not to feature Roddy McDowell (though his character, Cornelius, was played by another actor). The movie also featured Linda Harrison (Nova), Kim Hunter (Zira) and Maurice Evans (Zaius) from the original.
Roddy McDowell and oft-married film beauty Elizabeth Taylor were very good friends.
Elizabeth Taylor was the godmother of Paris Jackson.
Elizabeth Taylor provided the only line of dialogue ever uttered by the eternal infant Maggie Simpson, the word “Daddy,” in an episode of The Simpsons.
The only word spoken in Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie was the French “Non!”, by mime Marcel Marceau.
Mel Brooks recently received a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute.
Story here: Mel Brooks honored at star-studded AFI tribute featuring Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal, Conan O'Brien and Amy Poehler
Henry Fonda is the only actor to win a Best Actor/Actress Oscar *after *winning the Lifetime Achievement kind - it was for On Golden Pond, his only collaboration with Katherine Hepburn.
In 67 years Best Acting Tonys have been awarded to 56 African-American performers. In 85 years, Best Acting Oscars have been awaded to 13 African-American performers.
When he was 14 years old, Henry Fonda watched from his father’s upstairs downtown office in Omaha as a mob seized prisoner Will Brown, an African-American man accused of attacking and robbing a white woman, taking him from his jail cell, dragging him behind a car while he was still alive, then lynched him, burned his body, and drug the remains.