Granny vs. Nixon
June Foray was the voice of Granny (the owner of Tweety Bird) in the Looney Tunes cartoons, Cindy Lou Who in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Magica De Spell in Duck Tales. And she was also on Richard Nixon’s Enemies List.
Category: Politics & law
Peninsula no more
Qatar has been engaged in a diplomatic crisis with its neighbours since 2017. Amid the escalating tensions, Saudi Arabia has proposed a canal stretching all the way along the border with Qatar – turning the peninsula into an island.
Culinary diplomacy
A government that employs soft power aims to coerce rather than control – to build influence with other nations through non-violent means. For the government of Thailand, this approach includes restaurants.
Samoa for the Samoans
Samoa won independence from New Zealand through a concerted campaign of non-violent resistance. The Mau movement used a wide range of clever tactics, including boycotts, beetle-breeding, and surrendering en masse – and it worked.
The elected joke
Jacob Haugaard, a Danish comedian, ran for parliament every national election from 1979 up until 1994 – as a joke, of course. But in 1994, he won.
First fingerprint
The first criminal fingerprint bureau was set up in Argentina in 1892 by police chief Juan Vucetich. That year, an officer used Vucetich’s techniques to catch the first criminal to be found guilty because of fingerprint evidence.
The fuddle duddle incident
In 1971, Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau apparently swore under his breath during a parliamentary session. He later referred to it as “fuddle duddle” – and so a minor scandal and a major pop culture phrase were born.
Murdered in parliament
In 1966, the sixth Prime Minister of South Africa was stabbed to death inside the House of Assembly.
The Generalist Academy 