On March 21, 1974, Princess Anne and her new husband Captain Mark Phillips were returning home from a charity event when their car was blocked by another as it attempted to drive down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace. A man, later identified as Ian Ball, jumped out of his car and pulled out a handgun, shooting the princess's chauffeur/security officer Jim Beaton, as well as a reporter who tried to intervene. The wounded Beaton attempted to shoot Ball, but his firearm jammed. Ball's plan repo

When books are adapted into feature films, casting can be determined by who is the best box office draw, or who gives the best audition. As a result, while sometimes the actor chosen to play the part really fits the book's description, other times actors who look nothing like their characters end up being cast. It's understandable that the author of the original source material will be protective of his or her creation, and that fans of the book have expectations about how the characters are po

Since Saturday Night Live debuted on NBC on October 11, 1975, the weekly late-night live sketch/variety show has had more than 150 cast members. Some of the actors have remained on the show for years - for instance, Kenan Thompson is the longest-tenured cast member in show history, having been with SNL for 17 seasons (2003-present). Others have lasted for just one season, if that. And when cast members do leave SNL, the breakup can be messy or confusing. Shane Gillis never even got to appear on

In 2017, Robert Greenhut, who was one of the producers on A League of Their Own, told ESPNW that the film was difficult to cast because they were looking for actors who could play baseball. While it might look easy when watching a game on television, the producer admitted, "We all quickly learned how hard it is to throw from first base to third to get somebody out." Director Penny Marshall told MLB.com, "There was a big tryout where [the actors] were judged on running, catching, hitting. Throwi

In the months leading up to The Sixth Sense's release in August 1999, there was little buzz around the film and no expectations that it would become a hit. Disney had so little faith in it that, even though one of their executives paid millions for the script, the studio ended up offloading the production rights to an independent film company. M. Night Shyamalan was relatively unknown at the time, and the film starred a child actor alongside Bruce Willis, who was known for making big-budget acti

To Alabamans, "a ways" is a distance that could be anything from 10 minutes to two hours in terms of travel time. "Butter my butt and call me a biscuit” is a colorful way to express delight and/or surprise. A shopping cart may be referred to as a "buggy." Alabama is in the tornado belt, so if an Alabaman says they're "goin' to the shelter," that likely means they're headed to a tornado shelter. It doesn't snow much in Alabama, so if people think a storm is coming, they'll go buy out all the

Gregory Harris mysteriously disappeared on June 26, 1971. He was found deceased in March 1972 and detectives quickly determined he perished months earlier. On March 15, Harris's brother-in-law Fred Mitchell was detained on charges of armed burglary. When he met with detectives, Mitchell said he knew who took Gregory Harris's life. He named Richard Phillips (a childhood friend of Mitchell's) and Richard Palombo (whom Mitchell had met in jail). A few days later, Phillips and Palombo were charged,

How We Usually See Him: While films like Romeo + Juliet and Titanic made him a heartthrob, DiCaprio has long been considered one of the top leading men in Hollywood. He's known for taking risks in his choice of roles, and for his range as an actor. But while he has played several characters who have dubious moral values and/or are on the wrong side of the law, he still maintains point-of-view and audience sympathy. His protagonists may be complicated - sometimes truly heroic, sometimes not so mu

Some film historians believe that Within Our Gates was an answer to D.W Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, which was released in 1915. Griffith's film portrayed Southern black men as unintelligent thugs, lusting after white women, while depicting the Ku Klux Klan in a heroic light. There were widespread protests by African Americans against the film, and the NAACP even headed an unsuccessful campaign to get it banned. Film historian J. Ronald Green claimed that Micheaux was "aware" of the "calls

The first recorded case of what would be labeled the Spanish flu came in March 1918 at an Army training facility in Fort Riley, KS. By the time the influenza pandemic came to an end in December 1920, an estimated 500 million people - more than one-quarter of the world's population at the time - had been infected. The death toll was estimated to be anywhere from 17 to 50 million, with some believing it could actually be as high as 100 million. This disease did not discriminate. It infected the y

Hal Jordan and his older brother, Jack, have a strained relationship because Jack blames Hal for the loss of their mother. Hal had promised her that he wouldn't become a test pilot like his late father but ended up breaking that promise by joining the Air Force. Jack believes their mother's constant worrying about Hal's dangerous career drover her to an early grave. Both Hal and his younger brother, Jim, assist in Jack's campaign for district attorney. After he is elected DA for Coast City, Jac

One of many strange and unexplained mysteries of the world surrounds the sudden appearance of two children (a girl and a boy) who climbed out of a wolf pit or cave just outside the English village of Woolpit sometime in the 12th century. Not only were the children literally bright green, but they also wore strange clothes and spoke a language no one in Woolpit understood. This real-life mystery, which has long been part of English folklore, has baffled and intrigued historians, folklorists, sci

When Milli Vanilli burst onto the music scene in the late 1980s, manufactured groups had been around for years. But while acts like the Monkees and the Partridge Family made it publicly known that they didn't necessarily play the instruments - or even perform the vocals, in some cases - and credited the musicians who did, the same can't be said for Milli Vanilli. Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan were presented as both the face and talent of Milli Vanilli. The duo, their producers, and others connected

To sum up the parenting style of Family Guy's Peter Griffin, look no further than the patriarch's own words: "I just hate being around the kids." Peter would rather hang out with his drinking buddies than his family, and when he is around his three kids, he's hardly a paragon of virtue. Lois Griffin, meanwhile, has admitted that she never wanted to be a mother, and often seems detached from her children's problems. The Griffins' marriage is extremely dysfunctional: Peter has a drinking problem,

In 1920, when FDR ran as the Democratic nominee for Vice President, Teddy's sister Corinne and daughter Alice campaigned for the Republican ticket, while Theodore Jr. combatted his fifth cousin politically and personally. Eleanor did not forget this public blow. In 1924, when Theodore Jr. ran for governor of New York, she followed her cousin on the campaign trail in a car with a paper mache teapot on the roof (Theodore Jr. and his brother had been implicated in the Teapot Dome bribery scandal b