James MacArthur, the guy who was told “Book him, Dan-o” every week on ***Hawaii ***Five-O, was the adopted son of Oscar winning actress Helen Hayes and playwright Charles (The Front Page) MacArthur.
James T. Kirk will be born either in Riverside, Iowa or in space after the destruction of his father’s ship, depending on which Star Trek timeline you believe.
Herbert Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa- making him the first U.S. President born West of the Mississippi River.
[del]In the movie Timeline, a group of archaeological students become trapped in the past when they go there to retrieve their professor. The group must survive in 14th century France long enough to be rescued.[/del]
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in the United States and the largest of North America. About 2,320 miles (3,730 km) long, the river originates at Lake Itasca, Minnesota and terminates 95 river miles below New Orleans, Louisiana where it begins to flow to the Gulf of Mexico.
The Republic of Panama (where Scotland attempted to establish a “New Caledonia” colony in 1690), has 3730 km of paved roads.
Nit:
The longest U.S.A. river is not The Mississippi, but rather a river which begins in the Beaverhead Mountains of Western Montana, proceeds to New Orleans, and part of which is called the Mississippi.
Panama hats originated in Ecuador.
The Galapagos Islands, made famous by Darwin and by Kurt Vonnegut, are an archipelago with a human population of around 40,000 people and belonging to Ecuador.
Though he knew nothing about sports, young Kurt Vonnegut was hired as a staff writer by the newly formed Sports Illustrated magazine, in 1954. His first assignment: assigning witty captions to sports-related photographs. The first photo: a thoroughbred race horse that had thrown its rider, jumped over the racetrack fence, and taken off running.
Vonnegut stared at the photo for half an hour, typed one sentence, turned it in, and walked out forever.
The one sentence? “The horse jumped over the fucking fence.”
The road signs for the town of Fucking, Austria are a popular attraction for visitors, and they were often stolen by souvenir-hunting tourists until 2005, when they were modified to be theft-resistant.
Though set in Cicely, Alaska, the series Northern Exposure was filmed in Roslyn, Washington; because the name Roslyn was used on some visible backgrounds in the area they worked in an early 20th century town founder by that name who named the town Cicely for her lover.
NOT FOR PLAY but
I think it was pretty witty. Certainly better than most of the Beat 360 winners.
The actress Cicely Tyson has received three Emmy awards for television performances and an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
The first names of the Pigeon sisters in the play The Odd Couple were Cecily and Gwendolyn.
Despite many scenes of playing poker in the TV Series The Odd Couple, Felix is never seen playing poker.
Pope Saint Felix I led the Roman Catholic Church for just five years, from 269-274 AD. Most of the details of his life and pontificate remain unknown.
Adrian IV, also pope for 5 years (1154-1159), was born Nicholas Breakspear in Hertfordshire and is to date the only English pope.
In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen.
The New Hampshire rock formation known as “The Old Man of the Mountain” collapsed in 2003, not long after appearing on the state’s commemorative quarter.
After seeing The Old Man and the Sea (1958), Ernest Hemingway expressed his disappointment and said Spencer Tracy looked less the Cuban peasant fisherman and more the rich old actor that he was. (Tracy won an Oscar nomination for the role.)
Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn were lovers for decades, though neither of them would publically acknowledge their relationship, in part because Tracy (who was Catholic) refused to divorce his wife.
When Katharine Hepburn portrayed the title role in the 1936 film Mary of Scotland (who she referred to as “a total ninny”) the character’s real life lover and third husband (played by Fredric March) was referred to only by his first name- James- or his title- Earl of Bothwell- because his surname was Hepburn and he was a relative of Katharine’s ancestors.