France has won the most Nobel Prizes for Literature than any other country in the world and the second most in mathematics.
During the Napoleanic Wars, the crews of British ships which captured enemy ships were paid a portion of the value of the captured ships, which were called “prizes.”
According to British law, it’s still perfectly legal to kill any Scotsman who enters the city of York if he happens to be carrying a bow and arrow.
The New York Mets’ team colors – orange and blue – are the same colors of the flag of the Dutch East India Company when it founded the colony of New Amsterdam. This was mostly coincidence: when the team was founded, it took orange from the New York Giants’ team colors, and the blue from the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The New York City Draft Riots of July 1863 are generally considered to be the largest civil disturbance in American history. Estimates vary widely, but up to 1,000 people may have died in violent protests and race-based killings in the city after Federal conscription was first introduced.
New York state is home to 58 species of wild orchids.
The film Die Hard 2 was based on the book 58 Minutes by Walter Wager.
Hard sauce is the traditional topping for mince tarts.
“Toys for Tarts” was a 1979 sketch on Saturday Night Live, with Martin Sheen asking for donations to buy playthings for prostitutes.
Before he became a fixture with Mad Magazine, artist Don Martin had his illustrations appear in **Galaxy **and other science fiction magazines.
In 2005, Canadian prime Minister Paul Martin Jr saved his minority government from defeat on a budget vote by luring Belinda Stronach from the Conservative Party. Stronach not only defected from the Conservatives, she broke off her relationship with Peter MacKay, the deputy leader of the Conservative Party.
James Kenneth McManus is best known for hosting ABC’s Wide World of Sports from 1961 to 1998. McManus is better known by his professional name of Jim McKay.
Kenneth MacAlpine was King of the Picts and the first King of Scots.
Kenneth Branagh grew up in poverty in the shadow of a tobacco factory in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Kenneth Branagh starred in the title role in a recent National Theatre production of Macbeth, staged in a deconsecrated church in Manchester and simulcast to movie theaters worldwide.
nm - pipped at the post by Elendil’s Heir.
Macbeth was a king of the House of Dunkeld, which succeeded the House of the MacAlpines as Kings of Scots.
Dr. Gregory House of the House M.D. TV series was based on Sherlock Holmes. But Holmes, in turn, was based on a doctor whom Sir Arthur Conan Doyle knew while studying medicine, Dr. Joseph Bell, whose specialty was diagnosis.
Pope Gregory is reputed to have once seen some fair-skinned youths in a Roman slave market. On being told that they were Angles, he replied “Non Angli, sed angeli” – “They are not Angles, but angels”, and was inspired to send Augustine as head of a group of misisonaries to convert the Angles. Augustine was no so enthusiastic, stopping several times on the trip from Rome to Britain and sending messages back to Gregory, asking if he was sure. Eventually, prodded by Gregory, Augustine landed in Kent and became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.
Of his own movies, To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) was Gregory Peck’s favorite.