Botticelli’s real name was Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi (c. 1444-1510).
The Florentine painter’s nickname, Botticelli, meant “little barrel” and was presumably a reference to his girth.
Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Florentine school during the Early Renaissance and was famous for the masterworks Primavera (c. 1482) and The Birth of Venus (c. 1485).
The television series Howdy Doody ran from 1947 to 1960.
Wheat, the food base of Western civilization, is by far the most widely grown plant. It has been cultivated for more than 7,000 years in every continent except Antarctica.
At least six actors have played Al Capone: Paul Muni, Rod Steiger, Neville Brand, Jason Robards, Ben Gazzara, and Robert DeNiro. Brand played him twice: in The Scarface Mob (1959) and Spin of a Coin (1962).
There are more physicians in the USSR than anywhere else. The United States holds top honors for psychiatrists, psychologists, and dentists.
Shakespeare used the word in King Lear to describe a devil, and Sir Walter Scott used it in Kenilworth to describe a young rascal. But the meaning Rodgers and Hammerstein intended, a talkative or dizzy person, arose in 1549, in a sermon by Bishop Hugh Latimer for King Edward VI. Latimer spelled the word flybbertgybe.
Geishas are not necessarily prostitutes. A geisha is a member of a professional class of Japanese women who provide entertaining company for men, particularly businessmen. Some geishas sing, dance, or play instruments; most are skilled only at conversation.