Category Archives: Celebrities and Entertainment

Barbie Doll

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Barbie Doll

“B who U want to B” – the Barbie doll slogan.

  • Barbie dolls are male and female dolls of all ages, that are popularly fashioned with clothing and accessories, targeted at girls, and are produced by Mattel, Inc., a toy company.
  • Barbie dolls were invented by Ruth Handler, a business woman from America and the wife of Mattel’s founder, due to the lack of dolls for children, that resembled adults, and they were based on the German Bild Lilli doll, a character from a German cartoon, and the rights for the doll were acquired by Mattel in 1964.
  • The Barbie doll was first launched in the United State’s New York, at the American International Toy Fair on 9 March, 1959, which is known as Barbie’s birthday, and the doll’s 50th anniversary celebrations were held in 2009.
  • Barbie dolls were named after Ruth Handler’s daughter, Barbara, who enjoyed playing with dolls, and while there are various named dolls in the Barbie brand, Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
  • Barbie dolls were among the earliest toys to use television advertisements as their main advertising medium, and the first Barbie modelled a black and white striped swimsuit, and had brown or blonde hair.

Barbie Dolls, Prince, Princess, White, Black, Girls, Small, Young, Orange, Blonde, Pink, Blue, Collection Five, Ten Random Facts

  • Barbie dolls are sold across 150 countries, with more than a billion having been produced and sold, and they have also been popularly featured in animated films, most notably Toy Story, as well as books, fashion and video games.
  • Barbie dolls are scaled at approximately one sixth the height of an adult, roughly 29.2 centimetres (11.5 inches) in height, although the dolls’ body proportions are not able to be imitated in real life, which has lead to much criticism.
  • Barbie dolls have seen a number of changes since their first production, most notably waist and eye changes, and the dolls are believed to be seriously collected by over 100,000 people around the world, with approximately nine out of ten collectors being female.
  • Barbie dolls have had their greatest competition from dolls produced by MCA Entertainment, in particular, the Bratz and Moxie Girlz lines, and the Mattel and MCA companies have been in and out of court for years regarding the Bratz branded dolls, which has resulted in the companies suing each other.
  • The most expensive Barbie doll ever sold, up until the end of 2013, was the Barbie styled by Stefano Canturi, an Australian jeweller, which was valued at more than AU $600,000, due to the rare pink diamond and other jewels found in Barbie’s jewellery, which sold for US $302,500 in October 2010, in New York, in the United States.

 

Bibliography:
Barbie, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbie
History, 2012, Barbie, http://www.barbiemedia.com/about-barbie/history.html

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The Barbie Store

Christopher Columbus

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Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus – the man who didn’t discover America.

  • Christopher Columbus was an explorer, navigator and colonist of Italian origin, who was a catholic, and although he was not the first to discover America, he is notable for bringing America to the attention of the Europeans.
  • Christopher Columbus was born in Italy, but his exact birth date is unknown, and is said to be between the 31 October, 1450, to 30 October, 1451.
  • ‘Christopher Columbus’ is spelt ‘Cristoforo Colombo’ in Italian, ‘Cristóvão Colombo’ in Portuguese and ‘Cristóbal Colón’ in Spanish.
  • According to Christopher Columbus’ texts, his first experience at sea was when he was young, between 10 to 13 years old.
  • King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, catholic monarchs of an area that became part of Spain, agreed to finance four voyages that Christopher Columbus made to and from the Americas, between the years of 1492 and 1503, although he didn’t arrive home from his last voyage until November 1504, after being stranded for a year on the island of Jamaica.

Christopher Columbus, Statue, Grey, Metal, Park, Commemorative, Ten Random Facts

Columbus Statue
Image courtesy of Accidental Hedonist/Flickr
  • Christopher Columbus was approximately 54 when he died on 20 May, 1506, in Spain, possibly from ongoing illness and arthritis.
  • Christopher Columbus is honoured by a Columbus Day, held in October each year, and is celebrated throughout Spain, and much of North and South America.
  • Christopher Columbus has been featured on many postage stamps, with two billion manufactured in 1893 for the 400th anniversary of his landing on American soil.
  • Christopher Columbus was not featured in any known primary artwork of his time, and therefore there is no accurate depiction of his appearance, though he has been the subject of many art pieces, from sculptures to paintings.
  • Christopher Columbus married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, daughter of the governor of the Portuguese island, Porto Santo, and had a son named Diego, although she is said to have died when Diego was young, and Columbus later had a son with Beatriz Enriquez de Arana, named Ferdinand.
  • Bibliography:
Christopher Columbus, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), 2014, Royal Museum Greenwich, http://www.rmg.co.uk/explore/sea-and-ships/facts/explorers-and-leaders/christopher-columbus

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Benjamin Franklin

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Benjamin Franklin

‘Either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.’ – Benjamin Franklin

  • Benjamin Franklin is known as one of America’s founding fathers, and is said to be a ‘polymath’ – a person who has significant knowledge and ability in a wide variety of fields, and during Franklin’s lifetime, he was a politician, author, scientist, printer, postmaster, inventor, and more.
  • Many towns, companies, warships and the like have been named after Benjamin Franklin, and he has been featured on numerous postage stamps, and is featured on America’s $100 note.
  • Benjamin Franklin was born on 17 January, 1706, in Boston, in the United States’ Massachusetts, and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 84 years of age, on 17 April, 1790, from pleurisy.
  • Benjamin Franklin was only schooled for two years, due to being withdrawn because of his parents lack of money, and was then mostly self-educated by reading.
  • Benjamin Franklin proposed to Deborah Read in 1723, when they were both young, however her mother did not grant permission, so Deborah later married John Rogers who abandoned her, and as she was not able to divorce her first husband, she entered a common-law marriage with Franklin on 1 September, 1730.

Benjamin Franklin, Portrait, Sketch, Black and White, 1882, Ten Random Facts, Flickr

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin
Image courtesy of El Biblioteca /Flickr
  • Benjamin Franklin wrote many texts under pen names, some of which included Mrs Silence Dogood, Richard Saunders, Harry Meanwell, Timothy Turnstone and Alice Addertongue.
  • Benjamin Franklin and Deborah Read had a son who died of smallpox at age 4, and later a daughter named Sarah, and Franklin also fathered a son before his marriage to Read, although it is not known who the mother was.
  • Benjamin Franklin played the violin, harp and guitar; composed music; was a keen player of chess; and invented a lightning rod, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, and a glass armonica, among others; and is also known for his kite and lightning experiments.
  • Benjamin Franklin was the President of Pennsylvania in 1785 to 1788, and the US Minister to France and Sweden, from 1778 to 1785 and 1782 to 1783, respectively.
  • Two United States cities, Boston and Philadelphia, were beneficiaries of £1000 that Benjamin Franklin left them in his will, which was to be held in trust for 200 years, and during that time the money had built up to $5 million in the Boston trust, and $2 million in the Philadelphia one.
Bibliography:
Benjamin Franklin, 2014, History, http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/benjamin-franklin
Benjamin Franklin, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
Name that Ben, 2002, Public Broadcasting Service, http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/l3_wit_name.html

Napoleon Bonaparte

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Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte is among the best military leaders.

  • Napoleon Bonaparte was an Emperor of the French, and King of Italy, from 1804 and 1805 respectively, until 1814, and was also a leader in the French military.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte was born into a noble family on the 15 August, 1769, in Ajaccio, Corsica, an island that is part of Europe’s France, and was given the Italian name ‘Napoleone di Buonaparte’.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte married Joséphine de Beauharnais on 9 March, 1796, but later divorced her and officially married Marie Louise of Austria on 11 March, 1810 by proxy, with later civil and religious ceremonies on the 1st and 2nd of April 1810, for the purpose of bearing an heir.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte is often depicted as a man of power and intellect in politics and military respectively.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte died in Longwood, on Saint Helena Island, where he had been living in exile for more than five years, on 5 May, 1821, aged 51 years, probably due to gastric cancer and peptic ulcer.

Napoleon I, Horse, Arrival, The Arrival of Napoleon at Amsterdam, 1812-13, by Mattheus Ignatius van Bree (1773-1839), Ten Random Facts, Flickr

Painting: The Arrival of Napoleon at Amsterdam
Image courtesy of Dennis Jarvis/Flickr
  • Napoleon Bonaparte is sometimes referred to as ‘Napoleon I’, or simply as ‘Napoleon’, and he began using the French spelling of his name ‘Napoléon Bonaparte’ early in his adulthood.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte is known as a military expert, an initiator of reforms, and the creator of the still used Napoleonic Code which forms the basis for law in France, a number of other European countries, as well as Latin America.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte sold the previously French owned territory, Louisiana, to the United States in 1803, and as a result it doubled the size of the US at the time, and it funded Napoleon’s future military needs.
  • The decline of Napoleon Bonaparte’s power occurred between 1810 and 1814, after an unsuccessful attack on the Russians that came about because Russia refused to comply with Bonaparte’s requests, and further attacks by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, as well as Portugal, Spain and Britain, resulted in the eventual capture of Paris, and led to Bonaparte abdicating his position as emperor.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, Marie Louise bore him a son a year after they were married, and he became known as ‘Napoleon II’ and ‘King of Rome’.
Bibliography:
Napoleon, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte, 2014, History, http://www.history.com/topics/napoleon
The Symbols of Empire, 2008, Napoleon.org, http://www.napoleon.org:81/en/essential_napoleon/symbols/

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Scrabble

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Scrabble

“Every word’s a winner.” – slogan of Scrabble.

  • Scrabble is a 2 to 4 player game revolving around words, requiring orthographic, strategy and probability skills.
  • ‘Scrabble’, meaning to ‘scratch’, ‘scramble’ or ‘struggle’, is played by placing tiles to make interconnecting words, in a way that scores points, left to right or downwards, on a board.
  • Since 1999, Scrabble has been produced by Hasbro Inc, in the United States and Canada, and it is manufactured by Mattel in all other countries.
  • Scrabble is sold in many countries and languages, 121 and 29 respectively, but the game cannot be played in Chinese or Japanese.
  • The square tiles used in Scrabble are typically made of wood or plastic, and are 0.4 cm  (0.16 in) high and 1.9 centimetres (0.75 inches) square,

Scrabble, Old, Original, Started, same, Play, Words, Wooden Tiles, Board, Ten Random facts

  • In 1938, Alfred Mosher Butts, an architect and artist from New York in the United States, invented Scrabble, originally known as ‘Lexico’ and then ‘Criss-Crosswords’, but the game did not start becoming popular until the 1950s.
  • Scrabble typically contains 100 tiles in the English version, and the words accepted in the game are generally those found in standard dictionaries or word game dictionaries.
  • Major tournaments for Scrabble include the World Championships, National Championships and the Brand’s Crossword Game King’s Cup.
  • There are many variations of the game Scrabble, that can be played, including online or digital versions that can be played by two players or one player.
  • It is estimated that 150 million Scrabble sets have been sold in the world, since its invention.

 

Bibliography:
Scrabble, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrabble
Scrabble History, n.d, Hasbro Gaming, http://www.hasbro.com/scrabble/en_US/discover/history.cfm

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a musician that helped shape the classical music era, and is commonly referred to as ‘Mozart’.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born as the youngest of seven children, on 27 January, 1756, in Austria’s Salzburg, in Europe, to Leopold Mozart, a violinist, and Anna Maria Pertl, although Mozart was only one of their two children to survive past their first year.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptised in the St. Rupert’s Cathedral, a Catholic church, as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, and was commonly called by various names throughout his life, and had a preference for the Latin word Amadeus, meaning ‘to love God’, as his middle name, rather than the Greek word ‘Theophilus’, that had the same meaning.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was originally educated only by his father, and was skilled on the piano and violin and composing at five years of age.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s first performance was in Munich, Germany, in the Prince-elector Maximilian III’s court at age six.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Portrait, Red, Coat, White, Grey, Old, Ten Random Facts, Flickr, Joseph Hickel

Portrait of Mozart by Joseph Hickel
Image courtesy of WCFsymphony/Flickr
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the official musician of the Salzburg Prince-Archbishop of the time, Hieronymus Colloredo, from 1773 to 1777, and later moved to Vienna, in Austria, in 1781.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart married Constanze Weber on 4 August, 1782, and had six children; although only two survived past the age of one year.
  • At 35 years old, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died on 5 December 1791 in Vienna, Austria, after a period of illness, with his death cause unconfirmed.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart significantly influenced the great classical musician Ludwig van Beethoven, although it is uncertain as to whether they met, and Mozart’s music has long been studied by musicians around the world, having influenced many.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is said to have learnt 15 languages as the result of much travelling, and produced more than 600 works of music, in every genre of the day.
Bibliography:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 2014, Encyclopaedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/395455/Wolfgang-Amadeus-Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart
 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer, 2014, DSO Kids, http://www.dsokids.com/listen/by-composer/wolfgang-amadeus-mozart.aspx

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                        Mozart’s Music

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