A. E. van Vogt’s novel, Empire of the Atom, is a wholesale translation of Robert Graves’s novel I, Claudius into science fiction.
Hanna-Barbera paired Atom Ant with Secret Squirrel in its original cartoon shows, but with Precious Pupp and the Hillbilly Bears in syndication. Atom was a parody of the Batman series (a parody in itself), doing all the work for the police out of his computer-equipped anthill.
Hill Street Blues was a trailblazing Eighties police drama set in a fictitious Midwestern city, although street scenes were filmed in both Los Angeles and Chicago. Creator Stephen Bochco, a native of Pittsburgh, loosely based it on stories he’d heard of his home city’s Hill Street precinct.
The first Internet emoticon, the smiley 
was typed in Pittsburg in 1982, by Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist Scott Fahlman.
Prez was a short-lived comic book featuring Prez Rickard, the first teenaged president of the US. Prez fought against the evil Boss Smiley (who had a head of a yellow smiley face) and with the help of the native American, Eagle Free. Despite some bizarre elements, the comic was played straight, with a touch of serious allegory, and was cancelled after four issues.
Prez was the creation of Joe Simon, who was also co-creator of Captain America (with Jack Kirby). Simon and Kirby also created the Newboy Legion, the Boy Commandos, Manhunter, Boys’ Ranch, Fighting American and the Fly, as well as basically creating the romance comic book.
The future U.S. Sen. Paul Simon, while serving in the Illinois legislature, wrote a book about Abraham Lincoln’s service there.
After his single term in the U.S. Congress, Lincoln was offered the governorship of Oregon Territory. He declined it because, in addition to whatever other reasons he may have had, this was two decades before the continental railroad and so the journey would have involved either weeks in a covered wagon or weeks at sea, neither of which appealed to him, especially with Mary and two small boys accompanying.
By mid-July of 1863, support for the Civil War was waning. In LaCrosse, Wisconsin, Brick Pomeroy, the editor of the* Democrat*, took to calling Lincoln the “widow maker.” Pomeroy refrained from employing the term only when he used “orphan maker” instead. He also advocated assassination if Lincoln were reelected.
Clarence Williams III played Lincoln “Linc” Hayes on “The Mod Squad”, alongside his partners Peggy Lipton as Julie Barnes and Michael Cole as Pete Cochran. The executive producers of the series were Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas. Linc’s famous “solid” and “keep the faith” were among the current-day slang used on the show, which included “pad,” “dig it” and “groovy.”
Actress Tyne Daly had an extremely bitter divorce from her husband, ROOTS star/Cuban born actor Georg Stanford Brown, that left her penniless due to settlement and legal bills, and she says because of the experience she will never marry again, but she has been in a relationship with Clarence Williams III since the 1990s.
Clarence Thomas was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President George H.W. Bush, and has since asked fewer questions during oral arguments than any other justice in the modern era.
Clarence Thomas referred to the outcry caused by allegations of sexual harassment against him by Anita Hill during televised confirmation hearings as “a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks”.
Danny Thomas’ real name was Amos Alphonsus Muzyad Yakhoob.
The Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, takes as its theme a passage from Amos which Dr King regularly mentioned: “until justice flows down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
The newborn son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge is now third in line to become British king, behind his father William and his grandfather Charles, Prince of Wales.
Terry Jones and Michael Palin of Monty Python went to Oxford, while John Cleese, Graham Chapman, and Eric Idle went to Cambridge.
Michael Palin played a good-natured, family man of a torturer in Brazil, directed by Terry Gilliam, the only American member of the Monty Python troupe.
Sarah Palin’s picture hangs in Juneau’s Alaska State Capitol Building with pictures of the other Alaska Governors. I saw it the other day during a tour of the building. When asked what most Alaskans think of her tenure as governor and what she means to the state, the docent did not want to discuss it on that floor, the floor of the Governor’s office. The docent said that the topic would be addressed later in the tour.
The topic wasn’t really discussed much, even when the docent was reminded of the earlier question.
That was enough to leave me and my family with the clear impression she is something of an embarrassment to the state.
The New Mexico state capitol building in Santa Fe is shaped like the Zia Indian sun sign, a circle with four square protrusions equally spaced, which is also featured on the state’s license plates.