California and Florida both have an Orange County.
By coincidence, one contains Disneyland, the other Disney World.
California and Florida both have an Orange County.
By coincidence, one contains Disneyland, the other Disney World.
The Lone Ranger’s creed, devised by creator Fran Striker:
I believe:
Rudolf Charousek had been playing chess for only four years when he found himself facing this position against Jakob Wollner at Kaschau in 1893:
He found one of the most immortally pretty finishes in chess history — to discover it, read Kester Svendsen’s 1947 short story “Last Round,” which the game inspired.
Three years afterward, Charousek defeated Lasker at Nuremberg. “I shall have to play a championship match with this man someday,” the master remarked, but it was not to be — the Hungarian died of tuberculosis in 1900, at only 26.
A do-it-yourself dancing highlander, from Frank Bellew’s The Art of Amusing (1866). Cut him out, stitch him to a glove, and make little socks for your fingers.
“You move about the fingers, simulating a man dancing the Highland-fling or double-shuffle, and the result will be very curious and eminently satisfactory.”
Vincent Price and Christopher Lee have the same birthday — May 27.
The Stanley Cup travels more than 100,000 miles a year, making it the best-traveled championship trophy in the world. Misadventures:
Plus untold numbers have slept with it and urinated in it — one hopes in that order.
There’s a sculpture of Darth Vader on Washington’s National Cathedral.
During construction, a competition was held among children to suggest a carved grotesque, and Christopher Rader of Kearney, Neb., submitted a drawing of Darth Vader’s head.
It’s visible on the cathedral’s northwest tower — but you’ll need binoculars to see it.
Sarah Bernhardt slept in a coffin. “I found it quite natural to sleep every night in this little bed of white satin which was to be my last couch,” she said — until her sister’s death led to a “tragic-comic incident”:
When the undertaker’s men came to the room to take away the body they found themselves confronted with two coffins, and losing his wits, the master of ceremonies sent in haste for a second hearse. I was at that moment with my mother, who had lost consciousness, and I got back just in time to prevent the black-clothed men taking away my coffin.
“The second hearse was sent back, but the papers got hold of this incident,” she adds wearily. “I was blamed, criticised, etc.”
Take two pieces of string or tape, and round the wrists of two persons tie the string, as shown in Fig. 19. It adds to the amusement of the puzzle if one of the persons is a lady and the other a gentleman. The puzzle is for them to liberate themselves, or for any one else to release them without untying the string. To do this, B makes a loop of his string pass under either of A’s manacles, slips it over A’s hands, and both will be free. Reverse the proceeding, and the manacles are again as before.
— Cassell’s Complete Book of Sports and Pastimes, 1896
When Dr. Franklin went to France on his revolutionary mission, his eminence as a philosopher, his venerable appearance, and the cause on which he was sent, rendered him extremely popular — for all ranks and conditions of men there entered warmly into the American interest. He was, therefore, feasted and invited to all the court parties. At these he sometimes met the old Duchess of Bourbon, who being a chess-player of about his force, they were very generally played together. Happening once to put her king into prise, the Doctor took it. ‘Ah,’ says she, ‘we do not take kings so.’ ‘We do in America,’ said the Doctor.
— Sarah Randolph, The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson, 1871