There are very few 100 yard dash competitions run in international competitions any more, but the record is still maintained, and is recorded when 100 meter dashes are run. The current male world record holder is Asafa Powell, who broke the record while running a 100 meter dash. The current female world record holder is Veronica Campbell-Brown, who also set the record while running a 100 meter dash.
Colin Powell, at that time Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke at the 1993 launching of the USS Kearsarge in Pascagoula, Mississippi. He praised the warship’s historic lineage, but neglected to mention that the original steam sloop Kearsarge had, during the Civil War, sunk the celebrated Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama. Being a Yankee visitor to the Deep South might have had something to do with his omission.
The United States claimed compensation from the British government for losses from the Alabama. One initial suggestion was that Britain should cede large parts of Canada to the US. Britain rejected that proposal out of hand.
Instead, the UK and the US agreed to international arbitration. This was the first major international arbitration and a significant milestone in the development of international law. The arbitrators awarded the US $15 million. Britain paid the amount, and remaining loose-ends between the US and the UK were settled in the Treaty of Washington.
Canada’s Prime Minister, John A Macdonald, was one of the British representatives in the Treaty negotiations. That had the result of the US de facto recognising Canada as a new dominion in North America, the opposite effect of the original claim to annex Canada.
Lynyrd Skyner’s song “Sweet Home Alabama” was written as an answer to two songs, “Southern Man” and “Alabama” by Neil Young, which dealt with themes of racism and slavery in the American South, and contains the lyrics:
Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow
Drug use was rampant during the filming of the concert that formed the basis of Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz — both among many performers and Scorsese himself.
Neil Young famously performed his set with a blob of cocaine hanging out of his nostril, which was rotoscoped out of the film in post-production.
Martin Scorsese got down on the floor to direct a bedroom scene in The Wolf of Wall Street.
The Wolf of Wall Street was the first film to feature dubbing. Lawford Davidson dubbed Paul Lukas’ voice… (this was the 1929 film.)
The Wolf of Badenoch is the nickname of Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, who amongst other depredations, burnt the royal burgh of Elgin and its cathedral, nicknamed the Lantern of the North, in 1391.
Paul Lukas and Bette Davis starred in 1943’s “Watch on the Rhine”, based on a Lillian Hellman play.
Additional edit: whoa, ninjaed anyway. Let’s see if I can tie this all together.
Robert Donat (like Paul Lukas, an Oscar winner) starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Thirty-nine Steps”, based (sort of) on a John Buchan novel.
The film Blackmail, released in 1929, is Hitchcock’s first talkie. Initially begun as a silent film, it was converted to a talkie in mid-production, but both silent and talkie versions were released, because most theaters still didn’t have capabilities to run talkies at the time. The film starred Anny Ondra, as a woman who kills a man who tries to rape her. Her boyfriend, a London policeman, is assigned to the murder case and discovers that his girlfriend had committed the crime. When he attempts to cover it up, the couple is blackmailed.
Talky Tawny was an intelligent talking tiger, part of the Captain Marvel family.
John Buchan, whose novel was the basis for Hitchcock’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, served as Governor General of Canada, under his title of Lord Tweedsmuir.
Mike Muir is best known as the founder and lead singer of Suicidal Tendencies, but he has several other ongoing side projects (Los Cycos, No Mercy, and Infectious Grooves) as well as recording three solo albums under the moniker “Cyco Miko”.
“I like Ike” buttons were popular during the Fifties, “I like Mike” during the 1988 Presidential election, and “Be like Mike” during Michael Jordan’s basketball glory days.
Though Ike Turner is best known for his many years as husband and musical partner of Tina, he played a crucial role in roots rock ‘n’ role and blues. It’s his band playing on “Rocket 88,” one of many contenders for the first rock ‘n’ roll record. He also played piano on several of Howlin’ Wolf’s earliest recordings.
Turner D. Century was a Marvel supervillain who committed crimes using tropes from 1900, dressed in period costume. He is often included on lists of the worst comic book supervillains.
The Glenn Anderson Freeway (also known colloquially as the Century Freeway) is a 17.3-mile east/west spur in southern L.A. County, which was completed in 1993 at a cost of $2.2 billion – one of the final (and most expensive) freeways built from scratch in the Los Angeles freeway system. The freeway, which is signed as Interstate 105, features 3 to 6 lanes of traffic in each direction, plus an HOV lane and the Metro Green Line down the center median. While under construction, the freeway featured heavily in the Sandra Bullock / Keanu Reeves movie Speed.
The Green Party of Canada currently has one member of Parliament.
American Idiot, a musical based on the album by Green Day, was nominated for the 2010 Best Musical Tony Award, but lost to Memphis.