Yes, the multiple insistence on 10 digit numbers got to me too, especially when it shows a phone with the number WHitehall 4-9970. Oh! Bensalem Township, PA got a new phone number in 1953, Cornwells 1138, and the police in Elmonte, Calif's was Gilbert 8-6191 according to an article about and ad pranking the police. In the 1935 murder-mystery The House on the Roof the police number was simply 1313.

Looks like in 1970 some 40,000 calls per day to the police were made through the operator, which the Bell System promoted as the backup universal emergency code. "There will always be operator assistance available for emergency calls."

The last time I called the operator was in 1991, and last operator assisted call I did was in 1988.

"May the Fugue be with you" indeed!

Back in the 1990s, a good friend of mine from South Carolina (technically a transplant to SC) complained about Georgia's reputation as the peach state, since SC produced more peaches than GA. I never verified that fact. Finally, some 30+ years later, and at timestamp 4:55, I see that he was right.

He didn't mention that CA produced a lot more - nor about the postbellum reasons for the how Georgia got that reputation. Thanks for sharing the link!

As an avid reader of early Niven stories, I appreciate the call-out to the Gyrojet.

Needs "in the continental US" to distinguish it from San Juan, Puerto Rico. :)

Inside of Florida, we were taught a bit more of the history, including the slaves who made their way to freedom in Spanish Florida. (I'm assuming that is forbidden knowledge in modern Florida schools.) But to be honest, not much more. I certainly did not learn about Fort Mose, and wish I had visited it when I was last in St. Augustine back in 2010. Thanks for the link!

Nor is it limited to Hollywood.
"The casting call for Tegan (an airline stewardess) in Doctor Who had a minimum height requirement of 5' 4" as British Airways had that requirement. In her audition with producer John Nathan-Turner, [Janet] Fielding claimed that her height (5'2") was the minimum for Australian Airways, so she should be considered for the role. She eventually got the role and was very successful in it, and only later did in come out that she had completely made up the bit about being minimum height." - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0276148/trivia/

$1,000 just to apply? The Lunar Hilton reservations were free.

I grew up in Miami. I remember in elementary school following the line of latitude on the map and the surprise in learning we were level with the Sahara. A couple of years later I was startled to learn we were slightly west of Quito.

At some point I made a deliberate effort to remember that zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude was well off the bendy curve of Africa, since my head placed it somewhere on the Nile south of Cairo. I think that's because Egypt would be the bottom right of a map of European-centered geography, so (0,0) would be the corner.

Going to college in Tallahassee and driving to New Orleans gave me a visceral understanding of how long the panhandle it. The Central Time Zone starts shortly west of Tallahassee, but there's still a lot of Florida remaining before Alabama and Mississippi fly by.

For a Sweden quirk, it's about 1000 km from the south of Sweden to the north of Italy, while it's over 1500 km to the north of Sweden.

FWIW, the 180th meridian goes through Alaska. The International Date Line dodges around the state.

We've been watching old Square One episodes. Last night we finished off the MathNet storyline the Mystery of the Maltese Pigeon, based on (of course) the Maltese Falcon. It made me want to see the film, so I was excited to read here that it's now in the public domain.
Alas, while Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel is in the public domain, the 1941 film is not.

It was a hit in our household. The kids definitely saw it. :)