All modern Thoroughbreds can trace their pedigrees to three stallions originally imported into England in the 1600s and 1700s.
England Dan, of the pop group England Dan and John Ford Coley, is the younger brother of Dash Crofts of Seals and Crofts.
Actually, he was (he died last March 25th) the younger brother of Jim Seals.
Lara Croft, the heroine of the “Tomb Raider” game series, was portrayed in film by Angelina Jolie, and by various models/actresses for official appearances and advertising, including Rhona Mitra and Nell McAndrew.
Lara Croft was English, as was Murray, the orderly of Dr. John H. Watson, who saved his life when the doctor was wounded by Afghan tribesman. Murray was referred to in only a single Conan Doyle story.
Eddie Murray was a Hall-of-Fame first baseman, primarily for the Baltimore Orioles.
Eddie Murray was also the name of an NFL placekicker, primarily with the Detroit Lions.
Murray the baseball player usually wore the uniform number 33. Murray the football player usually wore the uniform number 3.
Pope Benedict XVI is entitled on state occasions to wear a tiara with three separate crowns. There is no actual tiara in regular use, but it often appears in papal heraldry.
Paul Benedict, best known for playing the English neighbor Bentley on The Jeffersons, lived on Martha’s Vineyard and was famous to locals for his love of raccoons (they would come onto his property and eat from his hand).
Bentley University and Brandeis University are both located in Waltham, Massachusetts.
For many years, Massachusetts and Oregon were the only two states to have flags that were different on the front and back. Massachusetts changed its flag in the early 1970s to be the same on both front and back; Oregon’s is still different on the back.
The flag of Paraguay also has a different front and back. The national seal is on the front, the seal of the treasury department is on the back.
Nueva Germania is a community in Paraguay founded by Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, Friedrich’s sister, and her husband and designed to become a Utopia based on German racial purity; Josef Mengele and other Nazi war criminals would later go through there while fleeing. Today it’s few remaining “pure blood” citizens are extremely inbred.
Josef Mengele appears in both the book and the movie The Boys from Brazil, a thriller about cloning Hitler. Gregory Peck plays Mengele in the movie.
Gregory Peck has played both Capt Ahab and Ishmael in screen version of Moby Dick.
Hmm- did I play Gregory Peck & Boys from Brazil earlier? or did someone beat me to the play?
(Peck played the Nantucket preacher in the Patrick Stewart version, not Ishmael.)
Supermodel Gisele Bundchen, a Brazilian and the wife of Tom Brady, may be the only NFL wife to make more money than her husband.
Matthew Harrison Brady is the name of the character who stands in for William Jennings Bryan in the play and movie Inherit the Wind, based on the Scopes Monkey Trial.
[del]Candomble, a religion created by Brazilian slaves from Africa and their descendants, is similar to voodoo but has more influences from Native American rituals and from the Portuguese cultures, involves elaborate dancing in its rituals that have been studied by ballet instructors and dance scholars.[/del]
Henry Drummond from Inherit the Wind is based upon Clarence Darrow, who by the time of the Scopes Trial was controversial due to his defense of union leaders and the murderers Leopold & Loeb.
Leopold the First, a German, was the first king of Belgium.
Belgian neutrality – referred derisively by the Germans as “a scrap of paper” – was why the UK entered WWI once the Germans invaded Belgium. The UK was concerned that Belgium could be used as a staging area for an invasion.
Belgium, Wisconsin, a small town north of Milwaukee, was originally settled by immigrants from Luxembourg, not Belgium.
BElgium, the NEtherlands, and LUXembourg are the countries of the Benelux union.