Five Random Facts for Thursday

Here are some random facts for you . . .

1.  No one’s sure exactly which place in New Orleans was the inspiration for “House of the Rising Sun”.  There are theories it’s a hotel, club, restaurant, brothel, or jail.

2.  Before the 1920s, the movie industry wasn’t in Hollywood.  They filmed in Jacksonville, Florida in the winter, and New York the rest of the year.  But Jacksonville politicians eventually kicked them out, and the whole industry moved to Los Angeles.

3.  New Zealand is named after a province in the Netherlands called Zeeland, spelled Z-E-E-L-A-N-D.  And a Dutch explorer was the first person to spot New Zealand in 1642 . . . you know, not counting all the native people who already lived there.

4.  The first animated movie ever released in England was “Animal Farm” in 1954.  It was funded by the CIA as part of a push to create more anti-communist propaganda.

5.  Mark Hamill is older now than Alec Guinness was when he played Obi-Wan in the original “Star Wars”.  Hamill is 67, Guinness was 63.

(Wikipedia / Wikipedia / Wikipedia / Wikipedia / Collider)