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Sherlock Holmes quotes that Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock did and didn’t say…
Naturally, some of the best known Sherlock Holmes quotations and catchphrases come from the classic detective stories written by Sherlock’s creator, British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)....
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“Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” (and finger-eating wolverines)
On October 11, 1975, at 11:30pm Eastern Time, a new TV comedy show debuted on the NBC network. It opened with a wacky skit featuring three comic actors who were virtually unknown at the time. In the...
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As Maine goes, so goes: (a) the nation (b) Vermont . . .
In the November 1936 presidential election, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected for a second term in a landslide victory over his Republican opponent, Kansas Governor Alf Landon....
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“O Liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!”
In 1781, a young French woman named Marie-Jeanne Philippon married wealthy businessman Jean-Marie Roland, thus becoming known as Madame Roland. Madame Roland and her husband were early supporters of...
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The genesis of “the Almighty Dollar” – from Genesis to Washington Irving…
The word almighty, used in connection with God, appears 57 times in the King James Version of the Bible. Starting in the Book of Genesis, God is variously referred to as “the Almighty God,” “God...
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Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address – and Lord Buckley’s “hip translation” . . .
On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln gave a brief speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania at the dedication of a cemetery for the Union soldiers who had died in that bloody Civil War battle four...
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“Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and...
In the 1920s, Sinclair Lewis became one of the most successful writers in America. During that decade he penned a series of five hugely popular novels: Main Street, Babbitt, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry...
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I’m dreaming of a white, gay, green, brown or red Christmas…
THE FAMOUS CHRISTMAS SONG: “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas Just like the ones I used to know. Where the treetops glisten and children listen To hear sleigh bells in the snow. I’m dreaming of a...
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“Silent Night” – the origin and evolving words of the famous Christmas carol…
In 1818, during the annual Christmas Midnight Mass at the St. Nicholas Church at Oberndorf, Austria, the song we know as “Silent Night! Holy Night!” (or just “Silent Night”) was performed in public...
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“There is less in this than meets the eye.”
On January 4, 1922, the New York Times published a review of the dramatic play Aglavaine and Selysette by the paper’s witty critic Alexander Woollcott. Woollcott had attended the premiere of the play...
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“Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped.”
The publication of Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species in 1859 helped launch the modern science of evolution. It also created a firestorm of controversy, by suggesting that all species —...
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“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by the American-born British poet T.S. Eliot (Thomas Stearns Eliot), is one of the most famous poems of the 20th Century. It was first published in the June 1915...
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“It ain’t a fit night out for man or beast!”
I have a nostalgic fondness for one the most famous movie quotations uttered by the great comic actor W.C. Fields: “It ain’t a fit night out for man or beast!” As a kid growing up in Dayton, Ohio in...
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March 4th: a good day for famous presidential quotes – until 1933…
The date for the United States presidential inauguration was not specified in the original U.S. Constitution. In 1788, the Continental Congress set Inauguration Day as March 4. Then, in 1933, the...
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“Power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the...
In the decades before World War II, Stanley Baldwin was one of the most powerful politicians in the United Kingdom. He was the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party from 1923 to 1937 and served as...
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The story behind “Dixie,” the blackface minstrel song that may have been...
The American Civil War is bracketed by two songs with lyrics that are familiar to most people. The metaphorical end of that war has become associated with The Band’s 1969 song, “The Night They Drove...
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“Houston, we have a problem” — and “failure is not an option”…
On June 30, 1995, the movie Apollo 13 was released to theaters in the US. This epic film about the near-disastrous Apollo 13 lunar mission in April 1970 was directed by Ron Howard, using a screenplay...
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“The shot heard round the world”
The famous phrase “The shot heard round the world” was coined by American essayist, lecturer and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) in 1837. It’s the last line in the first verse of his poem “Hymn:...
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