Naturalist and adventurer John Muir was born 170 years ago today, in 1838.Muir was an early explorer of California (on foot, incidentally) and was the force behind the creation of Yosemite National Park. He’s also the guy on the California quarter. (As an aside, see our own cranky take on quarters and heroes.)
New profile: The Jonas Brothers, a trio of musical brothers aged 16, 18 and 20. If you haven’t heard of them yet, you will: They’re on the Disney Channel’s ‘A’ list now. Opening for Miley Cyrus on tour last fall helped push their album Jonas Brothers to platinum status, and they have a made-for-Disney Channel movie in the High School Musical mode, titled Camp Rock, due out in June.
Is it OK to borrow that name from the NFL?Sean Preston has been tapped by President Bush to be head of Housing and Urban Development… for the next eight months.
British parents spend 30 million hours a year “agonising” over baby names, according to a new survey.The current hot names? Grace, Ruby, Jack and Thomas.
“…This is a quality which most great actors have, it’s a strange sort of personal unique style that goes into everything they do — like when Albert Finney sits down in a chair and drinks a bottle of beer, and, well, it’s just great and you think ‘God, I wish I could drink a bottle of beer like that.'”That’s director Stanley Kubrick, being interviewed by Terry Southern in 1962.
Martha Stewart’s dog has passed away. Stewart has photos on her blog.
Actor William Holden would be 90 years old today. He was born in 1918, along with Nelson Mandela and former First Lady Betty Ford (both of whom survive; Holden died in 1981).
“While UN ambassador, I wrote memos to President Clinton when I thought that the normal decision-making process needed a jolt. The papers were returned with Clinton’s comments scribbled on the side of the pages; at times, I felt as if I were back in school when I looked to see what the president had to say. Often, I didn’t learn much because Clinton’s writing is so tricky to decipher.
What is the real name of actor Thomas Haden Church?Frankly, we aren’t sure.We had just updated Church’s profile to include his role in the new movie Smart People when it occurred to us to double-check the alphabetization of his last name. We have him under ‘C’ for Church, but we had the sudden thought that it could be ‘H’ for Haden Church instead.
Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Washington, D.C. today for a six visit. The Pope will celebrate masses in both Nationals Stadium and Yankee Stadium during his trip.
Who2 has 3124 profiles (at last count), but we don’t quite have everyone in the world. Yet.And every so often we discover a “gapper” — somebody you’d think should have been among the top 3124 personalities in world history, but who somehow fell through the gaps until just now.
Babe Ruth would probably have enjoyed the gag, though.
A real-life version of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine has come to Silicon Valley, says CNet.
Fans of the Amelia Earhart mystery will enjoy this FAQ entry from the Amelia Earhart Search Forum.It’s a detailed account of a 10-word radiogram message — ending “Love to mother” — that many have thought was sent by Earhart from a Japanese concentration camp in 1945. That was eight years after her 1937 disappearance.
Tiger Woods is the favorite as the annual Masters Tournament starts today in Augusta, Georgia.Golf legend Arnold Palmer hit the ceremonial opening tee shot which went “out of sight,” according to USA Today. (Fog helped.)
By the time she married Harding she’d already been abandoned by her first husband, Henry “Pete” DeWolfe, and left her baby son, Marshall, to be raised by her parents. She and Harding, a newspaper publisher in Marion, married in 1891 and Florence went to work managing his Marion Daily Star, from balancing the books to spanking the newsboys.That’s a selection from our lively new profile of Florence Kling Harding, the wife of President Warren G. Harding.
“I thought he was a tremendous satirist, and one of the darkest comics of the ’50s. People forget that, as well as Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl, Tom Lehrer was being … ghastly. His material, his attitude toward the crowd, fantastic.”
A British jury has ruled that Princess Diana was “unlawfully killed” in 1997.The verdict doesn’t equate to murder. The jury determined that Diana and her companion, Dodi Al Fayed, were killed due to the “gross negligence” of driver Henri Paul (who had been drinking) and of the paparazzi who were chasing Diana’s car at speeds over 60 MPH.
We missed this a few weeks ago. Still scary. Who played the Easter Bunny in those films — Kenny Baker?
James Garner is 80. He was born this day in 1928 in Norman, Oklahoma. The city honored him with a 10-foot-tall bronze statue in 2006.Norman is also the proud birthplace of Vince Gill and Nim Chimpsky.