The old English Christmastime tradition never got as fancypants elaborate on The Rock as it did in Philadelphia. But it still included rowdy carousing by partyers in disguise – and, inevitably, some drunken mayhem and violence; as a result, for decades mummering was outlawed entirely there. But, beginning in 2009, the tradition was revived.

A petition opposed the idea. “A large-breasted white woman of impossible proportions, scantily clad in a shimmery, thigh-baring body suit with an American flag motif and knee-high boots” is not an appropriate spokeswoman for gender equity at the United Nations, the petition said.

“[He] was a World War II veteran and trained as a physicist at the University of Cambridge. But, as a black man from what was then the colony of British Guiana, he had difficulty finding work in his field in the early 1950s. ‘I was too black to be a scientist,’ he once said, ‘and too educated to be a lot of other things.'” But he became a teacher at a progressive school, where his experiences became the basis for his most famous book.

“Rare was the happy marriage or simple romance in a Hazzard book. From early stories such as ‘A Place in the Country’ to the novel Bay of Noon” – as well as her most famous nooks, The Transit of Venus and The Great Fire – “she wrote of strained and cold relationships and the inevitable search for outside comfort. True passion was often forbidden.”

The star of the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains had a heart attack while playing hockey with one of his sons.