The Beatles were famous for their beautiful, inspired love songs dedicated to women- “Michelle”, “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”, “Eleanor Rigby”, “Julia”, “Lovely Rita”, “Lady Madonna”, “Dear Prudence”. Even other Beatles’ classics, not graced with titles using proper nouns: “She Loves You”, “She’s a Woman”, “Girl”; and of course “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, “Love Me Do”, “P.S. […]
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On this day in history, November 15th… 1859 : An attempt to revive the Olympic Games first took place in Athens, Greece. The ancient Olympic Games were a symbol of ancient Greek traditions and they were always held in Olympia until emperor Theodosius I suppressed the games in 394 AD. While there were many attempts made to revive the Olympic games in the early 19th century, […]
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Text Version: In 1888, Nellie Bly (aka Elizabeth Cochrane) discussed with her editor at ‘New York World’ an idea to write a story, and beat the fictitious character ‘Phileas Fogg’ in Jules Verne’s book “Around the World in 80 Days” by actually accomplishing the feat in less than 80 days. The story became so big that competing New York newspaper […]
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Text Version: In 1996, when Pete Sampras played Alex Corretja in the U.S. Open, he had a bit of a stomach bug. He actually threw up on the baseline during the fifth set. One of the referees warned Pete Sampras that he would be disqualified if he caused another delay. Pete Sampras pulled himself together and was not only able […]
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1) Mark Wahlberg: Wahlberg, born the youngest of nine children all living in a three bedroom apartment, dropped out of school around the age of fourteen and joined a gang. During this time, he was reportedly in trouble with the law around 20-25 times for dealing drugs and various other offenses. Things came to a head when he was 16 […]
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On this day in history, November 14th… 1851 : Harper & Brothers, New York published Herman Melville’s novel “Moby-Dick” or “The Whale” as a single volume. Inspired by real life white whale called ‘Mocha Dick’, that destroyed over 20 whaling ships and reportedly survived encounters with another 80 or so, Melville wrote the story through the eyes of a wandering sailor Ishmael […]
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Text Version One day on Mercury (i.e -the time it takes to rotate around its axis once) lasts 176 earth days. A year on Mercury (i.e – the amount of time for Mercury to orbit the sun once) is 87.97 earth days. In that sense, it remains daytime for a full year on Mercury and it stays night for one […]
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Perhaps the most popular and beloved U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln is famous for many of his great and historic deeds. As these have been frequently documented, there seems no reason to repeat them here. But few know and realize President Lincoln’s great love for animals. Like many young boys, Lincoln would sometimes do cruel things to animals, but Lincoln quickly […]
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Text Version: John C. Calhourn was the only Vice President to serve under two presidents, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. He also married his first cousin Floride Bonneau Calhoun. Together they had 10 kids over 18 years, however three of their children died in infancy.
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John asks: Why do people tell actors to “break a leg” before a performance? The term, of course, means “do well” or “have a great show” and is typically used before a stage performance, a show, or an audition. (I have never heard it used before filming a movie on any of the movies I’ve been involved with, but I […]
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Today I found out the origin of the term “jackpot”. Jackpot originally popped up around the 1870s and was from the poker game “Jacks or Better”. This is much like traditional five card draw, except in this case, if a player does not have a pair of “jacks or better” in the first round of betting, he has to pass. […]
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On this day in history, November 13th… 1927: A tunnel under the Hudson River, connecting the Island of Manhattan to New Jersey was opened. Originally known as the “Hudson River Vehicular Tunnel” or the “Canal Street Tunnel”, the Holland Tunnel (named after chief engineer, Clifford Milburn Holland) as it is known today was the first of two tunnels built under […]
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So I thought I should post this interview I did on WGN Radio last night for those of you that like to listen, rather than read. In it Bill Leff and I discuss a variety of interesting facts ranging from from Spy Kitties to Nuking the Moon.
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Text Version: Canada has over 3 million lakes, making them home to 60% of the World’s lakes. In other words, they have more lakes than all other countries combined.
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Text Version: The tentacles that stick out from the head of a snail are not its “feelers” as most people believe. On the ends of those tentacles are the snail’s eyes. Land snails have two sets of tentacles that stick out, the longer set of tentacles are the ones that have the snail’s eyes. This way they can move their […]
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