Joe Kapp is the only quarterback ever to have started an NCAA Rose Bowl game, a CFL Grey Cup game, and an NFL Super Bowl game.
Earl Grey was the last British Prime Minister who was dismissed by the Crown, King William IV. The dismissal didn’t take, as no-one else commanded a majority in the Commons, so William had to re-summon Grey and re-appoint him as Prime Minister.
(That Earl Grey was the grandfather of the Earl Grey who donated the Grey Cup.)
In 1962, singer Gene Chandler’s “Duke of Earl” went to #1 on the US charts. It became Chandler’s best-known song, and Chandler later proclaimed himself the Duke of Earl.
The lyrics:
*Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
As I walk through this world
Nothing can stop the Duke of Earl
And you, you are my girl
And no one can hurt you, oh no
Yes, I’m gonna love you
Come on let me hold you darlin’
'Cause I’m the Duke of Earl
And when I hold you
You will be my Duchess, Duchess of Earl
We’ll walk through my dukedom
And the paradise we will share
Yes, oh, I, I’m gonna love you
Nothing can stop me now
'Cause I’m the Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl
I’m gonna love you
Nothing can stop me now
'Cause I’m the Duke of Earl*
Saskatchewan has a Village of Love (pop 104). It has a special postmark: a teddy bear holding a heart.
Dime Box, Texas (pop. 200) has a stone monument topped by an acrylic box enclosing a giant dime.
Thanks for this. I’ve added it to my list of places to go, when I visit Saskatchewan. It’s only a 1,850-mile drive from home, through San Francisco CA, Reno NV, Pocatello ID, Helena MT, and Saskatoon SK!
Thanks for this too, and I’ve added it to my TX list. It’s only 100 miles from my sister in the hill country.
In play: Gruene, TX (say"green") is now a district in the nearby growing city of New Braunfels (“BRAWN-fells”) – Gruene is no longer a standalone town. In Gruene is Gruene Hall, opened in 1878 and it is one of Texas’ oldest dance halls.
CheshireKat, welcome to the Dope!
In 1876, a group of German businessmen organized the Galveston Garten Verein (“garden club”) as a social club for family and friends. The Garten Verein’s tiered dancing pavilion was built in 1880. The Garten Verein park was the first site in Galveston with underground wiring. This structure survived the 1900 storm:
It became a public park in 1923, and was restored in 1981 after a fire.
Thank you for the welcome!
German military policemen during World War II wore a distinctive metal plate, known as a gorget, around their necks. The gorget was a holdover from the suits of plate armor once worn by knights. George Washington also wore one as a colonel of the Virginia militia during the French and Indian War.
The distinctive spiked helmet worn by the Prussian and later German armies, as well as firefighters and police, in the 19th and early 20th centuries was called a pickelhaube. It may have been based on a similar helmet worn in the Russian army, which in turn may have been inspired by the Napoleonic cuirassier. The spike is a vestige of a formerly-functional crest that deflected sword blows.
In baseball, a rundown, informally known as a pickle, is a situation where the baserunner is stranded between two bases and is in jeopardy of being tagged out. The runner is caught “in a pickle.” The use of the term “pickle” originated with the phrase “in a pickle”, which means to be in a pickling (difficult or troubling) situation.
The phrase “double jeopardy” is not actually found in the US Constitution.
Jeopardy! was created by Merv Griffin in 1964, and the original version aired from 1964 to 1975 and was hosted by Art Fleming. Alex Trebek has hosted the show since 1984 when it became syndicated.
ETA: According to celebrityNetWorth.com, Trebek’s annual salary is $10M.
Merv Griffin wrote the tune “Think!” played during Final Jeopardy as a lullaby for his son. Its original title is “A Time for Tony.” Griffin estimates that this song earned him more than $70 million in royalties over his lifetime.
Merv Griffin was born in San Mateo, CA. (Hey! That’s right up the road from me, about 30-mins away!)
About creating Jeopardy!, he said,
Merv Griffin was only 19 when, as the lead singer for Freddie Martin and His Orchestra, he made a Top 10 hit out of the novelty song “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts”. The song is still played over the public address at Cambridge United football matches after home wins. It is also sung in the dressing room after victories by Palm Tree Cricket Club.
My dad once played mixed doubles with Merv Griffin and Merv’s young male, uh, friend.
In play:
His Royal Highness the Prince William of Wales was named Duke of Cambridge by his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, on the day of his wedding to the former Catherine Middleton.
Both “Wales” and “William” are spelt with a “g” instead of a “w” in French.
HMS Prince of Wales, scheduled to be launched in 2018, will be the second of the Royal Navy’s two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. She will be the eighth ship to bear that name. HMS Queen Elizabeth, to be launched next month at Rosyth in Scotland’s Firth of Forth, will be the first carrier to have 2 “islands” - one for the ship, one for flight operations.
A squadron of canvas-winged biplanes, the Fairey Swordfish, flying from the R.N. carrier, HMS Ark Royal, was instrumental in destroying one of the most advanced battleships of the day, the Bismarck. The Fairey Swordfish biplanes eachcarried a single torpedo, and in one attack on the Bismarck, one of torpedos hit the rudder, making the battleship unsteerable. From that point, it was just a matter of time before enough Royal Navy ships could gather to sink the crippled battleship.
The German battleship Bismarck was commissioned in August 1940 and sunk the following May. Oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard found her wreck in June 1989.