|
|
 |
'From out of the west they dusted off their guns...to protect the world they knew and the women they loved!' One of my university professors had a copy of this amusing poster for a fictitious movie on his office wall. Check out the supporting cast! As in all westerns, the good guys wore the white hats; the bad guys wore the black hats.
Tags:
poster
Ronald
Regan
Leonid
Brezhnev
Added: 14th November 2009
Views: 4216
Rating: 
Posted By: Lava1964 |
 
|
 |
In the spring of 1944 the Allies were poised to land in German-occupied France. The only uncertainty was where and when. Tight security over the enormous operation was paramount. (One American general was demoted and sent back to the Unites States for merely speculating on an invasion date at a social gathering.) Accordingly, British Intelligence was aghast when several key code names linked to the D-Day invasion began appearing as answers in the Daily Telegraph crossword puzzles in the month before the June 6 invasion. The code names of all five beaches (Gold, Sword, Juno, Omaha, Utah), the portable harbors (Mulberry), the naval support (Neptune), and the entire operation (Overlord) appeared! Agents questioned Leonard Dawe, a 54-year-old local schoolmaster, who had submitted the puzzles. Dawe didn't know what the fuss was about. He told the agents the words simply fit the puzzles. For years the incident was regarded as a remarkable coincidence. However, in 1984, one of Dawe's former students at the Strand School shed more light on the subject. Ronald French, who was 14 in 1944, said Dawe routinely had his students fill in crossword grids as a mental exercise. Dawe kept the especially good grids, wrote accompanying clues, and submitted them to the Daily Telegraph. The boys often socialized with the Allied troops stationed nearby and likely acquired the words by overhearing their conversations. There is no evidence that Dawe was a German agent, nor is there any evidence that the Germans benefitted from this odd security breach.
Tags:
crossword
puzzle
D-Day
WWII
security
Added: 25th November 2009
Views: 4353
Rating:
Posted By: Lava1964 |
|
|
 |
Outwardly mild H.H. Holmes was actually a brutal and ruthless nineteenth-century serial killer who rightfully earned the moniker 'The Beast of Chicago.' From 1888 to 1894 Holmes killed a minimum of 27 victims and perhaps more than 200. In 1886 Holmes began working at a drugstore at the corner of South Wallace and West 63rd Street in Chicago. He eventually became the proprietor after the former owner mysteriously disappeared. The drugstore did quite well, and Holmes — who became known as Dr. Holmes — used the profits to build himself a three-story tall, city-block long, home across the street. It was Holmes' 'murder castle.'--equipped with acid vats, trap doors, secret entrances, and gas chambers. Holmes lured people to the castle, killed them, and sold their skeletons to medical professionals. He was eventually hanged, but not before being convicted of 27 murders, and suspected of at least 173 more.
Erik Larson’s award-winning 2003 book, The Devil in the White City, told Holmes’ twisted tale so well that Leonardo DiCaprio purchased the rights to the film; he’s expected to play Holmes.
Tags:
murderer
Holmes
Chicago
Added: 15th June 2011
Views: 2520
Rating:
Posted By: Lava1964 |
|
|
 |
Holmes & Yo-Yo was a disastrous, far-fetched sitcom that aired on ABC for 13 episodes during the 1976-1977 season. The series followed luckless Detective Alexander Holmes (whose partners always seem to get killed in the line of duty) and his new android partner Yo-Yo, on their adventures and misadventures. Meanwhile Holmes taught Yo-Yo how to be human while trying to keep his quirky partner's true nature a secret.
The show was produced by Leonard Stern, a former staff writer for Get Smart--which featured an android character named Hymie who was a prototype for Yo-Yo. Richard B. Shull starred as Detective Holmes. John Schuck starred as his partner Gregory "Yo-Yo" Yoyonivich. Co-stars were Andrea Howard and Bruce Kirby. Jay Leno appeared in the pilot as a gas station attendant!
The pilot episode introduced Detective Holmes as a down-on-his-luck veteran cop who constantly injures his partners. The department gives him a new partner, Gregory Yoyonivich. Yo-Yo, as he likes to be called, is good-natured, if a bit clumsy, and also surprisingly strong. During one of their first calls, Yo-Yo is shot and Holmes discovers his new partner is an android--a sophisticated new crime-fighting machine designed by the police department as their secret weapon on crime. "You're not a person!" is Holmes' stunned response.
Besides super-strength, Yo-Yo's other abilities were speed reading, and the ability to analyze clues at the scene. Yo-Yo had a built-in Polaroid camera: Each time his nose was pressed, a Polaroid photograph of his view would be taken and ejected from his shirt pocket. Yo-Yo's control panel was built into his chest, which could be opened by pulling his tie. The level of Yo-Yo's batteries was critical, because if they ran down his memory and, effectively, his being would be erased. In one episode his batteries came very close to running down completely, and he was charged by being pushed against an electric fence with his arms extended. Yo-Yo weighed 427 pounds, and his heavy build could absorb the shock of a bomb.
Much comedy was derived from Yo-Yo's constant malfunctions. Some of his common problems included uncontrollably spinning head over heels when near an electric garage door that was opening or closing; bullets causing him to break out dancing; magnets flying at him; picking up radio signals from Sweden; and repeating "Bunco Squad, Bunco Squad, Bunco Squad" over and over when his circuits blew.
Another running gag involved Yo-Yo's ability to read an entire book by simply fanning its pages; his invariable comment after doing so: "I enjoyed it!" The show premiered in September 1976 and was axed before Christmas.
Tags:
Holmes
and
Yo-Yo
sitcom
ABC
flop
Added: 30th August 2011
Views: 2487
Rating:
Posted By: Lava1964 |
|
|
 |
The longest game (by innings) in Major League Baseball's long history was a 26-inning, 1-1 tie. It was a National League game between the Boston Braves and Brooklyn Robins played at Braves Field in Boston on May 1, 1920. Amazingly, both starting pitchers--Brooklyn's Leon Cadore and Boston's Joe Oeschger--went the distance. Since night baseball didn't begin in MLB until 1935, the game was stopped by plate umpire Barry McCormick due to impending darkness. It had to be replayed in its entirety, but all the stats from the 26-inning tie counted. Remarkably, by modern standards, the game took only 3 hours and 50 minutes to play. It had started at 3:00 p.m., as was the custom in those days, and ended at 6:50 p.m. Several players unsuccessfully lobbied umpire McCormick to extend the game one more inning so they could say they played the equivalent of three nine-inning games. The press box at Braves Field did not have electric lights so reporters and telegraphers had to submit their accounts of the record-setting game using candlelight. Some trivia from the game: The score had been tied 1-1 since the sixth inning. The attendance was about 3,500.
Cadore faced 95 Boston batters. Oeschger pitched to a mere 90 Robins, but his 21 consecutive scoreless innings established a record. Braves' first baseman Walter Holke recorded the ridiculous total of 43 putouts. Boston's second baseman, Charlie Pick, set a record too, but not a positive one: His one-game total of 11 official at-bats without a hit has never been matched.
Years later Cadore remembered the aftereffects of the game. "My arm stiffened. I couldn't raise it to comb my hair for three days," he said. "After seven days of rest I was back taking my regular turn. I never had a sore arm before or after the game. I suppose the nervous energy of trying to win the game gave me the strength to keep me going."
Tags:
baseball
MLB
longest
game
26
innings
Braves
Robins
Added: 13th September 2011
Views: 3693
Rating:
Posted By: Lava1964 |
|
|
Pages: 1 2 3 4 [5] 6 7 of 7 | Random |
|
Sponsored Links
