Both Fidel Castro and Mario Cuomo were scouted by professional baseball.
A young Martin Luther King Jr. sang with his church choir (his father was the pastor) at the segregated 1939 premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta.
The Titanic had a fire in one of its coal bunkers throughout its maiden voyage, extinguished only by its sinking.
Abraham Lincoln had seen John Wilkes Booth perform on stage, but most historians doubt that they ever actually met.
George Washington rode between the British and Continental lines during the 1777 Battle of Princeton, encouraging his troops. One of the general’s aides was so sure that Washington would be shot that he covered his eyes with his hat. After volleys from both lines, the aide looked and was amazed to see Washington untouched, rallying his men to an eventual victory.
Chip Taylor, who wrote a couple of hit songs, “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning,” is the brother of Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight. His real name is James Wesley Voight.
The “warp cores” for the movie Enterprise (TMP through The Search for Spock), the Enterprise-D (ST:TNG), and Voyager were all built in the same place on the same Paramount soundstage. They dug a hole in the soundstage floor to build the original set (to give the illusion that the core extended below “floor level”), and reused it for the latter two sets.
In the opening credits for The Monkees, the scenes where they’re playing around on sand dunes were shot at the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant in Los Angeles. (They probably don’t use the word sewage any more - it has negative connotations.)
The opening credits for Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (the series, not the movie) was also filmed at the plant. She got a bit more rubbernecking from the guys working at the plant than the Monkees did.
A young Phil Collins appeared in the audience in one of the concert scenes in A Hard Day’s Night.
Actor Chuck Connors (The Rifleman) was a major league baseball player for the Chicago Cubs (he’s listed as their regular first baseman in 1951, but that was because there was a revolving door of players; he only appeared in 66 games). He quite baseball to go into acting full-time.
Delaney and Bonnie and Friends On Tour with Eric Clapton had an all-star lineup of musicians, including Clapton and most of what became Derek and the Dominoes, Dave Mason of Traffic, Leon Russell, George Harrison, and Rita Coolidge. The album cover, though shows none of these big name stars, but an even bigger name that never had any connection with the group – Bob Dylan. It was a photo left over from a Dylan album shoot and they decided to use it.
Chuck Connors was also a player on the first Boston Celtics basketball team. Their first game at the Boston Arena was delayed because he broke the backboard in pregame warmups.
Pete LaCock, who played for the Cubs and Royals in the early to mid 70’s was the son of long-time Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall (who changed his stage name for obvious reasons …)
The frequency-shifting method for avoiding jamming of torpedo control systems was patented by actress Hedy Lamarr and modernist composer George Antheil. They had met by chance at a party, where Lamarr learned of Antheil’s interest in endocrinology and thought he might be able to use that knowledge to enhance her bustline. The conversation evolved from there.
