J.K. Rowling mentioned in Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone that Albus Dumbledore had defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, leading many readers to surmise that their clash was somehow tied to the fall of Nazi Germany. Later books showed that this was not the case, although Grindelwald did have totalitarian ideas for the wizarding world.
Gellert Grindelwald attended the Durmstrang Institute for Magical Learning, a school similar to Hogwarts, but which concentrates on the Dark Arts. It is believed to be located in Scandinavia.
Barack Obama has read every Harry Potter book.
The unofficial nickname of Stoke City Football Club is “The Potters”, referring to the ceramics industry of Staffordshire. They are the second oldest professional football club in the world, after Notts County.
Notts County are the oldest professional league club in the world, having been formed in 1862. The club initially played at Park Hollow in the grounds of the old Nottingham Castle.
The Toronto Argonauts, founded in 1873, are the oldest professional sports club in North America still operating under their original name.
The Cincinnati Reds are the oldest Major League baseball team, having been founded in 1869. The team has variously been known as the Reds, the Red Stockings, and the Redlegs (the name used by the team in the 1950s during the height of anti-Communism).
The Green Bay Packers, founded 1919 (joined the NFL in 1921), is the oldest NFL franchise in continuous operation with the same name in the same location.
Only two teams currently in the NFL, the Decatur Staleys (founded in 1919, now the Chicago Bears) and the Chicago Cardinals (founded 1898, now the Arizona Cardinals), are founding members.
The Chicago White Sox baseball team was involved in a scandal in 1919 (called the “Black Sox Scandal”), where some of the players allegedly took bribes to throw the series that year, that lead to the appointment of a single Commissioner of Baseball. Federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was the first commissioner.
The Allman Brothers Band’s “Mountain Jam” is an 40-minute jam session based upon Donovan’s single “There is a Mountain.”
Chokecherry jam or jelly is made from the chokecherry, a native berry growing in Saskatchewan. It does not grow on mountains.
The Cranberry is one of the few fruits native to North America.
So is the high school football team in East Liverpool, Ohio, a town settled by many Staffordshire ceramics workers.
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The President of the United States of America is considered the de facto head of state of the country, but is not actually designated as such in the Constitution.
Each of the seven members of the Swiss Federal Council is considered a head of state of the Swiss Confederation. Each member is head of a federal executive department, but the head of state position is communal.
The Prime Minister of Canada is the de facto head of the federal executive, but does not have any independent constitutional powers or authority. The position of prime minister is only mentioned once in the Constitution, in a provision which ceased to have any effect two decades ago. The provision authorised him to call a meeting.
The position of Prime Minister is not mentioned at all in the Australian Constitution.
The Constitution of the United States defines only one crime, that of treason.
The United States Bill of Rights consists of ten amendments to the US Constitution. There were initially twelve amendments proposed, but two did not pass. One would have specifically assigned one member of the House of Representatives to every 30,000 people. The second amendment would have prohibited members of Congress from having their salaries raised during their terms in office.
This amendment was eventually revived and ratified in 1992, becoming the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – 202 years, 7 months and 12 days after its initial proposal.
The Charlottetown Accord, signed in principle by the First Ministers of Canada in 1992, consisted of a package of constitutional amendments. It was put to a national referendum and was defeated.