Day: April 13, 2025

Bill’s time: 17m 16s

Bill’s errors:

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Front-runners at the Iditarod? : LEAD DOGS

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race covers an incredible 1,161 miles, from Anchorage to Nome in Alaska. The race starts every year on the first Saturday in March, with the first race having been held in 1973. Finishing times range from over 8 days to 15 days or more. The first few races only used a northern route, but then a southern route was added to the roster every second year. It’s kind of a good thing, because when the racers take the northern route they don’t even pass through the town of Iditarod!

15 Antidepressant type, in brief : SSRI

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a category of drugs that are usually prescribed as antidepressants.

19 One end of a headphone cable : AUDIO JACK

A jack is a socket that accepts a plug, allowing a connection to some electrical circuit.

21 Peter of “The Lion in Winter” : O’TOOLE

Irish actor Peter O’Toole got his big break in the movies when he played the title role in the 1962 epic film “Lawrence of Arabia”. My favorite of O’Toole’s movies is much lighter fare, namely “How to Steal a Million” in which he stars opposite Audrey Hepburn. O’Toole never won an Oscar, but holds the record for the greatest number of Best Actor nominations without a win (8).

“The Lion in Winter” is a play by James Goldman that was first staged in 1966 on Broadway. The two lead characters in the piece are King Henry II of England and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine. The play was adapted into a very successful movie in 1968 starring Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn. There was also a 2003 television movie adaption that I’d like to see, starring Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close.

22 Namely : TO WIT

The verb “to wit” means “to know”. The verb really isn’t used anymore except in the phrase “to wit” meaning “that is to say, namely”.

23 Popcorn and pretzels at a parade? : PROCESSIONS CONCESSIONS

Pretzels originated in Europe and are especially popular in Southern Germany where a pretzel is known as “Brezel”. Pretzels were introduced into the US in the 1800s by immigrants from Germany and Switzerland who came to be known over here as the Pennsylvania Dutch.

27 Platforms for politicians, say : PODIA

“Podium” (plural “podia”) is the Latin word for “raised platform”.

28 Dr. Wilson’s department on “House” : ONCOLOGY

Oncology is that branch of medicine devoted to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The prefix “onco-” means “bulk, mass”, although these days it is used almost exclusively to mean “tumor”.

30 Fig. that never starts with 666 : SSN

A Social Security number (SSN) is divided into three parts, i.e AAA-GG-SSSS. Originally, the Area Number (AAA) was the code for the office that issued the card. Starting in 1973, the Area Number reflected the ZIP code from which the application was made. The GG in the SSN was the Group Number, and the SSSS number the Serial Number. This is all moot today. Since 2011, SSNs have been assigned randomly. Some random numbers, however, have been excluded from use, i.e. Area Numbers 000, 666 (!) and 900-999.

31 Young DC Comics sidekick with a lightning bolt on his chest : KID FLASH

Kid Flash is a junior counterpart to the DC Comics superhero known as “The Flash”. Kid Flash was one of several young superhero sidekicks who were introduced in the late fifties after the success of Batman’s faithful companion Robin.

35 Mideast grp. : PLO

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964. The PLO’s early stated goal was the liberation of Palestine, with Palestine defined as the geographic entity that existed under the terms of the British Mandate granted by the League of Nations back in 1923. The PLO was granted observer status (i.e. no voting rights) at the United Nations in 1974.

40 Farewell : ADIEU

“Adieu” is French for “goodbye, farewell”, from “à Dieu” meaning “to God” The plural of “adieu” is “adieux”.

42 Someone who might excel at a Bible trivia game? : PROTESTANT CONTESTANT

The Christian Church is the continuation of the early Christian community that adhered to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Jesus lived in Judea, a province of the pagan Roman Empire. Roman Emperor Constantine the Great legalized the practice of Christianity in 313, and it was declared the state church of the empire in 380. The Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches came into being with the East-West Schism of 1054. Augustinian friar Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 “protesting” the key points of Catholic doctrine and especially the sale of indulgences. The actions of Luther and others sparked the movement in Europe called the Protestant Reformation that led to a variety of Christian denominations referred to collectively as “Protestantism”.

53 Bonobo relative : CHIMP

The common chimpanzee is a species of great ape, i.e. a member of the Hominidae family (along with gorillas, humans and orangutans). The human and chimpanzee branches of the Hominidae family tree diverged 4-6 million years ago, making the chimp our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom. There is a common misconception that chimps are monkeys, but they aren’t …

The bonobo used to be called the pygmy chimpanzee, and is a cousin of the common chimpanzee. The bonobo is an endangered species that is now found in the wild only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa. Along with the common chimpanzee, the bonobo is the closest species to humans genetically.

56 Newcastle ninny : PRAT

Newcastle upon Tyne in the North of England used to be home to a lot of coal, and now is home to the famous Newcastle Brown Ale.

57 “The X-Files” org. : FBI

“The X-Files” is a very successful science fiction show that originally aired on the Fox network from 1993 to 2002. The stars of the show are David Duchovny (playing Fox Mulder) and the very talented Gillian Anderson (playing Dana Scully). By the time the series ended, “The X-Files” was the longest running sci-fi show in US broadcast history. An “X-Files” reboot started airing in 2016 with Duchovny and Anderson reprising their starring roles.

60 “The ___ Show” (12x platinum 2002 album) : EMINEM

Rap star Eminem’s real name is Marshall Mathers. He grew up poor in Saint Joseph, Missouri, raised by a single-mom as the family was abandoned by his father when he was 18 months old. Marshall and his mother moved around the country before settling in a suburb of Detroit. He didn’t do well at school, and dropped out at the age of 17. But in the end, he made it pretty big …

62 1982 Benjamin Hoff best seller on Eastern philosophy, with “The” : … TAO OF POOH

Author Benjamin Hoff is best known for his 1982 book “The Tao of Pooh”, and a successor title published in 1992 called “The Te of Piglet”. Both books use the “Winnie-the-Pooh” stories to illustrate Taoist beliefs.

66 Monopoly token retired in 2013 : IRON

The tokens included with a game of Monopoly have changed over the years. Two of the more interesting tokens are the battleship and cannon. These were created by Hasbro for a board game called Conflict. When Conflict failed in the market, the excess tokens were recycled and included with Monopoly.

67 Tools of the trade? : CONTRACTORS PROTRACTORS

A protractor is an instrument used to measure angles. It is a simple form of goniometer, which is a more complex instrument used to measure angles. We’ve all used protractors in school, whereas someone like a physical therapist might use a goniometer, to measure the range of motion in a person’s joints.

73 Spill the tea : GOSSIP

To spill the beans is to divulge a secret. The expression first appeared in American English, in the early 1900s. The phrase arose as an alternative to “spoil the beans” or “upset the applecart”. The similarly meaning phrase “spill the tea” is more prevalent on the other side of the Atlantic.

74 Org. that’s usually inactive in the summer : PTA

Parent-Teacher Association (PTA)

79 “Midnight Cowboy” nickname : RATSO

Enrico Salvatore “Ratso” Rizzo is one of the characters in the groundbreaking 1969 movie “Midnight Cowboy”. Rizzo is a down-and-out con man played by Dustin Hoffman.

The 1969 movie “Midnight Cowboy” is a Hollywood adaptation of a novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy. It’s a pretty depressing story about a young Texan named Joe Buck (played by Jon Voight) who heads to New York City to make money as a hustler, hiring himself out to women for sex. Pretty soon the young man ends up selling his body for sex with males as well. Prior to release the MPAA gave the movie an R-rating, but the United Artists studio took advice and decided to release it with an X-rating. When “Midnight Cowboy” won the Best Picture Academy Award in 1969, it became the only X-rated film to be so honored.

80 Motto that derives from the Latin for “always faithful” : SEMPER FI

“Semper Fidelis” (often abbreviated to “Semper Fi”) is the motto of the United States Marine Corps (USMC). The phrase is Latin and means “Always Faithful”. The US Marine Corps isn’t the only military unit using “Semper Fidelis” as a motto. It’s also used by the Portuguese Marine Corps, the Republic of China Marine Corps and the Swiss Grenadiers.

86 Police interrogator or priest? : CONFESSION PROFESSION

A member of the Roman Catholic church can participate in the sacrament of confession. A penitent confesses to a priest, starting with the words, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been [time period] since my last confession …”

92 Gallup’s bailiwick : POLLS

The Gallup company is best known for its public opinion polls. The company was founded by George Gallup in 1935 as the American Institute of Public Opinion.

“Bailiwick” is a word dating back to the mid-1600s. The term originally meant “district of a bailiff”.

93 Linear algebra array : MATRIX

In mathematical terms, a matrix is a rectangular array of elements, perhaps number symbols or functions. A key quality of a matrix is that there are equal numbers of elements in each row, and equal numbers in each column. There’s more, a lot more. And, it’s way beyond me …

94 Retail magnate James Cash ___ : PENNEY

JC Penney’s department stores started out as the Golden Rule Store, founded by James Cash Penney and two partners in 1902 in Kemmerer, Wyoming. That first store is still operating today in Kemmerer. Sam Walton used to work for Penney’s in Des Moines, Iowa, before moving on to found the Walmart empire.

96 Airport alternative to MDW : ORD

The IATA airport code for O’Hare International in Chicago is ORD, which comes from Orchard Place Airport/Douglas Field (OR-D).

Midway Airport (MDW) started off with just one cinder runway in 1923, and was called Chicago Air Park. By 1927 the airport had expanded and earned the name Chicago Municipal Airport. In 1932 Midway was the world’s busiest airport, a title it held for thirty years. In 1949, in honor of the WWII Battle of Midway, the airport was renamed again to Chicago Midway Airport. Then in 1955, along came Chicago International Airport and all the major airlines started moving their operations over to the newer facility. Today, Midway is a major hub for Southwest.

97 “Groundhog Day” plot device : TIME LOOP

“Groundhog Day” is a 1993 comedy film that has already become a classic. The star of the movie is Bill Murray, with Andie MacDowell putting in a great supporting performance. “Groundhog Day” is set in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania although it was actually filmed in the town of Woodstock, Illinois.

100 Famous flautist : PAN

In Greek mythology, Pan was a lecherous god who was part-man and part-goat, and one who fell in love with Echo the mountain nymph. Echo refused Pan’s advances so that he became very angry. Pan’s anger created a “panic” (a word derived from the name “Pan”) and a group of shepherds were driven to kill Echo.

A flute is a woodwind instrument that doesn’t have a reed. Instead, sound is produced by blowing air across an opening. A flute player is often referred to as a flautist (sometimes “flutist”). Flutes have been around a long, long time. Primitive flutes found in modern-day Germany date back 43,000 to 35,000 years, which makes the flute the oldest known musical instrument.

102 Number of times lightning struck Apollo 12 on its way to the moon : TWO

The Apollo 12 mission included the second moon landing, a landing that took place just four months after Neil Armstrong became the first man to step onto the moon’s surface. The main goal for the crew of Apollo 12 was to make a more precise landing than Apollo 11. The target for the landing was close to Surveyor 3 which had been on the moon for over two years. Amazingly, the Apollo 12 lander hit the spot, allowing the astronauts to visit Surveyor 3 and bring the unmanned lander’s camera back to Earth.

108 “Bloody” queen of England : MARY I

Mary I was Queen of England and Ireland from 1553 to 1558. Mary was the only surviving child from the marriage of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Unlike her father, Mary adhered to her Roman Catholic faith and was noted for her brutal persecution of Protestants during her reign. She had almost three hundred religious dissenters burned at the stake, resulting in her gaining the nickname “Bloody Mary”. Roman Catholic rule was reversed after she died, when her half-sister Elizabeth I succeeded to the throne.

117 Many-time role for Robert Downey Jr. : TONY STARK

Iron Man is another comic book superhero, this one created by Stan Lee for Marvel Comics. The character is the alter ego of Tony Stark, and has become very famous in recent years since the appearance of the 2008 action movie “Iron Man” starring Robert Downey, Jr. in the title role. Iron Man’s love interest, Pepper Potts, is routinely played by Gwyneth Paltrow in the same series of films.

Robert Downey, Jr. is the son of the actor and director Robert Downey, Sr. Young Robert’s first on-screen role was in a movie his father directed called “Pound”, released in 1970 when he was just 5-years-old.

118 Capone’s foiler : NESS

Eliot Ness was the Treasury agent charged with the task of bringing down the notorious Chicago gangster Al Capone. When Ness took on the job in 1930, Chicago law-enforcement agents were renowned for being corrupt, for being on the take. Ness handpicked 50 prohibition agents who he thought he could rely on, later reducing the group to a cadre of 15 and ultimately just 11 trusted men. That group of 11 earned the nickname “The Untouchables”, the agents who couldn’t be bought.

120 Bill Gates gave six of them between 2009 and 2015 : TED TALKS

The acronym “TED” stands for “Technology, Entertainment and Design”. TED is a set of conferences held around the world by a non-profit group called the Sapling Foundation. The conference subjects are varied, and the meetings are often led by big names such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Gates and Jane Goodall. The Sapling Foundation then makes recordings of the conferences available for free online with the intent of disseminating the ideas globally. These conferences are known as “TED Talks”. There are also TEDx events, which are locally-run talks presented under license from TED.

Bill Gates is the former CEO of Microsoft, a company that he co-founded with Paul Allen. Gates has been listed as the wealthiest man in the world on several occasions over the past two decades. He now works full-time as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, alongside his ex-wife Melinda. The Gates’ foundation is the largest transparently-operated charitable foundation in the world.

Down

2 Genre for Abba and Ace of Base : EUROPOP

Europop is a genre of pop music that is mainly associated with Sweden, but also applies to several other European countries. The most famous group associated with the genre is the Swedish sensation ABBA.

Only three members of the quartet that made up the Swedish pop group ABBA were born in Sweden. Anni-Frid Lyngstad was born in Norway just after the end of WWII, the daughter of a Norwegian mother and a father who was a German soldier and a member of the German occupying forces during the war. The father returned to Germany with the army, and in 1947, Anni-Frid was taken with her family to Sweden. They left fearing reprisals against those who dealt with the German army during the occupation.

Ace of Base is a pop group from Sweden. The band had several names before settling on “Ace of Base”, which was inspired by the Motörhead song “Ace of Spades”.

8 Heir : SCION

“Scion” comes from the old French word “sion” or “cion”, meaning “a shoot or a twig”. In botanical terms today, a scion is used in grafting two compatible plants together. In grafting, one plant is selected for its root system (the “rootstock”), and the other plant is selected for its stems, leaves and fruit (the “scion”). The term scion migrated naturally into the world of family history. A scion is simply a descendant, a son or a daughter and therefore a branching point in the family tree.

10 Rx-free : OTC

Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs don’t need a prescription (Rx).

11 Scooby-___ : DOO

“Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” is a series of cartoons produced for Hanna-Barbera Productions, first broadcast in 1969. The title character is a great Dane dog owned by a young male called Shaggy Rogers. The character’s name was inspired by the famous “doo-be-doo-be-doo” refrain in the Frank Sinatra hit “Strangers in the Night”. Shaggy was voiced by famed disk jockey Casey Kasem. Shaggy and Scooby’s friends are Velma, Fred and Daphne.

12 Solomon, to King David : SON

According to the Bible, Solomon was the son of David and a king of Israel. Notably, Solomon is described as being very wise. In the story known as “the Judgment of Solomon”, Solomon was asked to decide which of two quarreling women was the mother of a baby. He suggested that they cut the baby in two with a sword, forcing one of the women to surrender the child rather than see it die. Solomon gave the child to the woman who showed compassion.

13 Metal producer based in Pittsburgh : ALCOA

The Aluminum Corporation of America (ALCOA) is the largest producer of aluminum in the United States. The company was founded in 1888 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where its headquarters are to this day.

The Pennsylvania city of Pittsburgh was named in 1758 for British statesman and future prime minister William Pitt the Elder. Originally known as Fort Duquesne, the settlement was renamed after it was captured from the French during the Seven Years’ War. The most commonly used nicknames for Pittsburgh are “Steel City”, referring to the history of steel-related industry, and “City of Bridges”, referring to the 446 bridges in the metropolis.

22 “General” of takeout : TSO

General Tso’s chicken is an American creation, and a dish often found on the menu of a Chinese restaurant. The name General Tso may be a reference to General Zuo Zongtang of the Qing Dynasty, but there is no clear link.

24 Canon competitor : NIKON

The Japanese company Nikon was founded in 1917 with the merger of three manufacturers of various optical devices. After the merger, Nikon’s main output was lenses (including the first lenses for Canon cameras, before Canon made its own). During the war, Nikon sales grew rapidly as the company focused on (pun!) equipment for the military including periscopes and bomb sights.

32 Prefix with bel : DECI-

In the world of acoustics, one bel is equal to ten decibels (dBs). The bel is named in honor of the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell.

33 Promote excessively : FLOG

“To flog” is a slang term meaning “to sell, to promote vigorously”.

34 Suburb north of Boston : LYNN

Lynn is a city in Massachusetts located just ten miles north of downtown Boston. The city was named for the port town of King’s Lynn in Norfolk, on the east coast of England.

37 Third-largest tech hub in North America : TORONTO

Beautiful Toronto, Ontario is the largest city in Canada, and the fourth most populous city in North America (after Mexico City, New York and Los Angeles).

44 Texter’s “Not gonna lie” : TBH

To be honest (TBH)

45 Bad way something might go : TO POT

The phrase “go to pot”, meaning “fall into ruin”, has been around since the 1500s. Back then, it really meant go to (the) pot, i.e. be chopped up and boiled for food.

46 404 Not Found, e.g. : ERROR

An HTTP 404 error is one of the common errors encountered when browsing the World Wide Web. The error is returned when a user accesses a site successfully, but cannot find the page that is requested. Usually, this 404 Not Found error is encountered when clicking on a broken or dead link. As an aside, I’d appreciate it if any reader could contact me or leave a comment if a broken link is encountered on this web site. Thank you!

47 Cartoon witch with a crush on Popeye : SEA HAG

The Sea Hag is Popeye’s archenemy, and sails the seas with her pet vulture Bernard on her boat called “The Black Barnacle”.

50 Précis : RECAP

A “precis” is an abstract, a concise summary. The term comes from the French “précis” meaning “cut short”.

52 Part of a 15th-century trio : PINTA

Famously, Christopher Columbus used three ships in his first voyage across the Atlantic: the Santa Maria, the Niña and the Pinta. The Pinta was the fastest of the three, and it was from the Pinta that the New World was first spotted by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana who was a lookout on the fateful day. “Pinta” was a nickname for the ship that translated as “the painted one”. The Pinta’s real name has been lost in the mists of time.

55 Bouquet : POSY

“Poesy” was the name given to a line of verse engraved on the inner surface of a ring. The related word “posy”, for a bouquet of flowers, arose with the notion that giving a posy might be a message of love, just as a poesy inside a ring could have the same meaning.

“Bouquet” comes from the French word for “bunch” in the sense of “bunch of flowers”. In French, the term is derived from an older word describing a little wood or small grove of trees. We started using “bouquet” to mean “perfume from a wine” in the early 1800s.

57 Poet with four Pulitzers : FROST

The wonderful poet Robert Frost was a native of San Francisco, but lived most of life in New England. He also spent a few years in England, just before WWI. Frost was well recognized for his work during his lifetime, and received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He was also Vermont’s first Poet Laureate, a position that he held from 1961 until his death in 1963.

58 First name of Russia’s first president : BORIS

Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1991, at a time when Mikhail Gorbachev was President of the Soviet Union. When Gorbachev resigned, and the Soviet Union collapsed, Yeltsin emerged with his position intact. Yeltsin was re-elected in 1996, but his popularity declined in the late 1990s as the populace became discouraged with the country’s economic troubles and with political corruption.

59 Creative motivation, in online slang : INSPO

The informal term “inspo” is used to describe something inspirational or motivational.

61 Title for Marie Tussaud : MADAME

Marie Tussaud was a wax sculptor from France. Some of her early work was very gruesome as she lived through the French Revolution. She would take the decapitated heads of executed citizens and use them to make death masks which were then paraded through the streets. She eventually moved to London, taking with her a vast collection of wax models made by her and her father. She opened a museum to display the works, and Madame Tussauds wax museum is a major attraction in the city to this day.

64 Michigan J. , Warner Bros. character with a top hat and cane : FROG

The Warner Bros. film studio was founded by four Warner brothers, although their original family name was Wonskolaser. The brothers Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack emigrated from Poland as children with their parents, and changed their name when they landed in Baltimore, Maryland in 1889.

68 Bloods’ West Coast rival : CRIPS

The Crips are a street gang with origins in Los Angeles going back to 1969. It is believed that the Crips have up to 35,000 members today across the country, and there is even a presence in the US military both here and abroad. The main rivals of the Crips are the Bloods.

70 Zombie-to-be : CORPSE

A zombie is a corpse that has been brought back to life by some mystical means. Our modern use of the term largely stems from the undead creatures featured in the 1968 horror movie called “Night of the Living Dead”. Now that film I haven’t seen, and probably never will …

80 Show with a 50th anniversary celebration in 2025, familiarly : SNL

NBC first aired a form of “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) in 1975 under the title “NBC’s Saturday Night”. The show was actually created to give Johnny Carson some time off from “The Tonight Show”. Back then “The Tonight Show” had a weekend episode, and Carson convinced NBC to pull the Saturday or Sunday recordings off the air and hold them for subsequent weeknights in which Carson needed a break. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels and asked him to put together a variety show to fill the vacant slot, and he came up with what we now call “Saturday Night Live”.

81 Coleridge’s “The ___ of the Ancient Mariner” : RIME

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is an epic poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge that was first published in 1798. The publication of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is said to mark the beginning of the Romantic period of British literature. Perhaps the lines most often quoted from the poem are:
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where
Nor any drop to drink

82 Filly or colt : FOAL

There are lots of terms to describe horses of different ages and sexes, it seems:

• Foal: horse of either sex that is less than one year old
• Yearling: horse of either sex that is one to two years old
• Filly: female horse under the age of four
• Colt: male horse under the age of four
• Gelding: castrated male horse of any age
• Stallion: non-castrated male horse four years or older
• Mare: female horse four years or older

91 Second-largest tech hub in North America : NEW YORK

The city of New Amsterdam was taken over by the English from the Dutch in 1664. the city was promptly renamed to “New York” in honor of the Duke of York, who was destined to become King James II of England.

97 Tic follower : … TAC

Tic Tacs aren’t American candies (as I’d always mistakenly believed). Tic Tacs are made by the Italian company Ferrero, and were introduced in 1969.

98 Country that fully encloses two others : ITALY

Italy shares land borders with four countries (France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia) as well as with two microstates (Vatican City and San Marino) that are enclaves. Italy also has two territorial exclaves of its own: the communes of Campione d’Italia (within Switzerland) and Lampedusa e Linosa (in the Mediterranean, within Tunisian territorial waters).

99 Social movement of 2017 : ME TOO

The use of the #MeToo hashtag was encouraged initially by actress Alyssa Milano in 2017 to draw attention to sexual assault and sexual harassment. Milano was acting in response to the growing number of allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein. The use of the phrase “Me Too” in the context of sexual misconduct dates back to 2006. Social activist Tarana Burke started to use the phrase on the Myspace social network after a 13-year-old girl told her that she had been sexually assaulted. Apparently, Burke had no response at the time the girl confided in her, but later wished she had responded, “Me too”.

105 “i” completer : DOT

A tittle is a small diacritical mark used in writing. Examples are the cedilla and tilde used in some languages, and the dot over the lowercase letters i and j in English.

113 Never, in Nuremberg : NIE

Nürnberg (anglicized as “Nuremberg”) is a Bavarian city located north of Munich. Historically it is remembered for the huge Nazi Nuremberg rallies, and the Nuremberg trials that took place at the end of WWII. Nürnberg is sometimes confused with the city of Nürburg in the west of Germany that is famous for the Nürburgring race track.

114 Dancer Charisse of old Hollywood : CYD

Actress Cyd Charisse was famous for her dancing ability and the many roles she played opposite Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Charisse carved out a career based on dance despite the fact that she suffered from polio as a child. In fact, she took up ballet at the age of twelve to help build up her strength as she recovered from the disease.