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| Adams,
Nick |
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The
Rebel
Actor of Hollywood Screens
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Adams starred in the televison series, The Rebel: Johnny Yuma, during the
fifties and early sixties. His best role, however, was as Andy
Griffith's worried sidekick in No
Time For Sergeants. Johnny Cash sang the theme song
for The Rebel.
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For more information:
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| Albee,
Eleazer |
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Eleazer
Albee
Born in Rockingham, Vt.
Died in Stamstead [Quebec] Aug. 28, 1864
He went into Voluntary Banishment from his
Beloved Native Country, during the Reigning
Terror in the Third Year of the
Misrule of Abraham the First
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It's easy to forget that Abraham Lincoln
was a very unpopular president and faced considerable opposition
throughout the North and Midwest.
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For more information:
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| Alexander
the Great |
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A
tomb now suffices for him
whom the world was not enough
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Legend has it that Alexander asked to be
buried at the Ammoneion of the Libyan Oasis in modern-day Siwa, however
during the struggle for succession following his death, one of his
generals, Perdikkas, had Alexander's
mummified remains
transported to Macedon in an magnificent golden funeral cart. Ptolemy's
forces intercepted the procession and rerouted the remains to Memphis
in Egypt to display as a symbol legitimizing his rule over that part of
Alexander's former empire. Eventually, Ptolemy's son moved the
remains a final time to the new capital, Alexandria, however over the
centuries, Alexanders mummy was eventually lost.
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For more information:
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| Allen,
Gracie and George Burns |
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One of the most
popular American comedy teams ever, George Burns
and his wife, Gracie Allen, first performed together in vaudeville in
1922 and continued their act on radio and television until 1958 when
illness forced Gracie's retirement. Gracie died in 1964, but
George
continued to perform in movies and on television until his death at 100
in 1996. |
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For more
information:
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| Anthony,
Susan B. |
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Liberty, Humanity, Justice, Equality |
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For more information:
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| Arthur,
King (last
words) |
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Hic jacet
Arthurus,
rex quondam
rexque
futurus
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"Here lies Arthur, the once and future
king" per Sir Thomas Malory |
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For more information:
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| Barker,
Kate "Ma" |
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The
Perfect Night
Shall End
In Bright Day. |
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Revisionist history has again
raised its head, and today Ma Barker and her vile family of sadistic
killers are often sympathetically portrayed as poor, poverty-stricken
victims of Herbert Hoover's depression and as targets of a conspiracy
by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI.
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For more information:
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| Bean,
Judge Roy |
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Roy Bean, the
self-appointed "Law West of the Pecos," held a farcical court in a
desolate area of west Texas from his Jersey Lily Saloon in the tent
city he named Langtry in honor of his favorite performer. Legend
has it that Bean sent many a miscreant to his death, but it appears
that he fabricated his reputation as the "Hangin' Judge" by
appropriating a series of true tales about a real hanging judge, Isaac
Parker of Arkansas. While there is no doubt Bean threatened to
hang hundreds, historians have found no evidence that he ever sentenced
anyone to death.
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For more information:
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Beecher,
Henry Ward
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Beecher was
the most influential and popular American preacher in the
mid-1800s. A proponent of woman's suffrage, evolution,
temperance, and abolition, Beecher despised Catholics--especially
Irish-Catholics. He claimed that there was more "moral
superiority" in a Sharps Rifle than in the Bible, and secretly shipped
boxes of them, purchased by donations to his gigantic Plymouth Church
in Brooklyn, to Kansas to arm the Jayhawkers. Beecher railed
against "free love" from his pulpit, however he was caught in
adulterous scandal that captured headlines across the United States for
months.
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For more
information:
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| Beery,
Wallace |
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No Man Is
Indispensable
But Some Are Irreplaceable
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Beery was a remarkable movie star whose
career lasted over thirty-five years. Most famous for his roll as
Long John Silver in Treasure Island, Beery won an academy award as "The
Champ." Although his acting was superb, he apparently was a mean
and cruel man, especially when drunk. He enjoyed mistreating the
child actors who often worked with him. Jackie Cooper has called
Beery "the most sadistic person I've ever known," and crew members had
to physically protect Margaret O'Brien from Beery, who he enjoyed
viciously pinching.
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For more information:
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| Berkeley,
Busby |
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2D
LT U.S.
ARMY
WORLD WAR I
1895
1976
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Berkeley was one of the most
influential Hollywood directors and choreographers of the 1930s and is
often credited with establishing the movie musical as a film
genre. He is most famous for his over-the-top, kaleidioscopic
production numbers that used hundreds of showgirls in series of fluid
geometric patterns.
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For more information:
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| Blanc,
Mel |
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Mel Blanc first achieved fame
providing comical voices for radio programs to include The Jack Benny
Program, Burns and Allen, and The Abbott and Costello Show. He
found his true calling, though, as the voice of scores of cartoon
characters during the golden years of American animation. Blanc
characters include Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Woody Woodpecker,
Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, the Tasmanian Devil, Barney
Rubble, Dino, Cosmo G. Spacely, Secret Squirrel, and many, many
more. "That's all folks" is, of course Porky Pig's sign-off for
Warner Brothers cartoons.
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For more information:
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| Bligh,
William |
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Sacred
To The Memory Of
William Bligh, Esquire F.R.S.
Vice Admiral Of The Blue,
The Celebrated Navigator
Who First Transplanted The Breadfruit Tree
From Otahette To The West Indies,
Bravely fought The Battles Of His Country
And Died Beloved, Respected, And Lamented
On The 7th Day Of December, 1817
Aged 64
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Although Bligh, most famous a
the Captain of HMS Bounty, is often portrayed as a cruel commander,
historical records show that he was actually far more lenient than most
of his peers. He did, however, have a sarcastic and demeaning
manner which grated on his officers and seamen. Some have
attributed the muntiny on the Bounty to his leniency as well as
numerous new seaman who found a return to naval service distasteful
after spending months lollygagging in Tahiti while awaiting breadfruit
plants to mature enough to be able to survive a sea voyage.
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For more information:
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| Bong,
Richard Ira |
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Bong is America's most decorated pilot,
having received both the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Flying
Cross for his service in World War II. Between December 1942 and
September 1944, Bong shot down 40 Japanese aircraft, far surpassing
Eddie Rickenbacker's total in World War I. Following Bong's
fortieth kill, he was removed from combat and returned to the states
where he served as a test pilot for new jet aircraft. Bong died
in a crash in August, 1945 while testing the Lockheed P-80 "Shooting
Star" jet fighter.
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| Boulanger,
General Georges and Marguerite de Bonnemains |
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Marguerite de Bonnemains
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Georges Boulanger
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Marguerite,
See you soon |
Could I really live
two and a
half
months without you |
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General Boulanger used the
discontent
in
France following
the Franco-Prussian War to support a near attempt to overthrow the
government.
When his mistress, Marguerite Bonnemains, died in 1891, Boulanger
personally
chose her epitaph. Two and one half months later, he returned to
her grave and shot himself in the head.
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| Brooke,
Rupert |
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If I
should die,
think only this
of me:
That there's some corner
of a foreign
field
That is for ever England. |
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Once proclaimed by
Yeats to be the most
handsome man in England, Brooke was a promising poet and had a volume
of poetry ready for publication when war broke out in 1915.
Brooke had volunteered for service and was on board ship bound for
Gallipoli when on Easter Sunday in 1915--the same day that his volume
of poetry was published--he died of blood poisoning and was buried on
the Island of Skyros in the Aegean Sea.
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For more information:
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| Burns,
Robert |
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To
the Memory of
Robert Burns the Ayrshire Bard
who was born at Doonside
On the 29th of January 1759,
and died at Dumbries
On the 22nd of July 1796 O Rabbie Burns,
the Man, the Brither
And art thou goune--and gone for ever;
And has thou crossed that unknown river,
Life's dreary bound?
Like thee, where shall we find anither
The world around?
Go to your sculptur'd tombs, ye Great,
In all the tinsel trash of state;
But by thy honest turf I'll wait,
Thou man of worth.
And weep the sweetest poet's fate,
E'er lived on earth
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Robert Burns died in bed after lying in
near delirium for several days. The cause of his death most
likely was bacterial endocarditis secondary to chronic rheumatic heart
disease. Rheumatic heart disease affects the membrane surrounding the
heart and was likely related to his having suffered from rheumatic
fever as a child.
Unfortunately, Burns first biographer, Dr. James Currie, was rather
puritanical by nature. He was put off by true stories of Burn's
bouts of drinking and womanizing and concocted a legend that his death
was caused by a combination of alcoholism and venereal disease.
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For more
information:
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| Camp,
Walter |
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The Father of
American Football |
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Walter Camp played on the Yale
varsity football team from 1877 to 1882, serving as its captain for
three of those years during which time the team compiled a 25-1-6
record. Over the next fifty years, he developed many of the rules
and standards that are integral to today's game including play from the
line of scrimmage instead of the rugby scrum, scoring, team size, the
offensive line, the backfield, and many more. He was an incessant
champion of the game and wrote hundreds of newpaper articles, magazine
features and books--both fiction and non-fiction about the sport.
He was instrumental in founding the NCAA and selected the first All
American team.
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For more information:
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| Capone,
Alphonse |
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I suspect that it was wishful
thinking on Al Capone's part to include the oft repeated phrase from
the Catholic Memorial Prayer for Suffering Souls in Purgatory on his
gravestone. By my reasoning, if there is a heaven, purgatory, and
hell, it's a safe bet that Capone--who once had his bodyguards lash
three assoicates to chairs so he could leisurely beat them to death
with a baseball bat--is in the latter. While Capone could likely
reside in several of hell's circles described by Dante, I would guess
he's most likely in the outer ring of the 7th circle, that region
reserved for the most violent souls, immersed for eternity to the top
of his head in boiling blood.
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For more information:
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| Castlereagh,
Viscount Robert Stewart |
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Posterity
will ne'er
survey
a nobler grave
than this.
Here lie the bones
of Castlereagh
Stop, traveler,
and piss.
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Castlereagh was fairly
productive and competent Anglo-Irish politician who represented the
United Kingdom at Congress of Vienna and played an influential role in
the passage of the Irish Act of Union. Despite his success and
many achievements, Castlereagh was despised by many. He began to
exhibit signs of paranoia in 1821, and confided one of his
long-standing, but unfounded worries--being blackmailed for
having homosexual contact with a soldier at a non-descript
pub--to King George IV after which the king adviced him to consult with
a physician. Instead, Castlereagh returned to his country estate
and killed himself by cutting his own throat with a letter
opener. Londoners jeered at his funeral procession, and cheered
when his casket was taken into Westminster Abbey for internment.
Lord Byron, one of Castlereagh's detractors, composed an epitaph that
unfortunately was not used.
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| Coleridge,
Samuel Taylor |
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Stop,
Christian passer-by:
Stop, child of
God,
And read, with gentle breast.
Beneath this
sod
A poet lies, or that which once
seem'd he--
O, lift one thought in prayer
for S. T. C.--
That he who many a
year
with toil of breath
Found death in life, may here
find life in
death:
Mercy for praise--to be
forgiven for fame--
He ask'd,
and hoped
through Christ.
Do thou the
same.
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For more information:
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| Copernicus,
Nicolaus |
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(Stand, Sun, move not) |
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For more information:
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