• Amateur Athletic Union - governing board for athletes in U.S.
• See: Richard DuBois, James E. Sullivan, The Sullivan Award.

ABC   radio & television network

• American Broadcasting Company
• See: Ernie Anderson, Roone Arledge, Martin Bashir, Joey Bishop, Vinko Bogataj, David Brinkley, Wally Bruner, Hal Bruno, Lou Cioffi, Walt Disney, Alex Drier, Sam Donaldson, Hugh Downs, Michael Eisner, Bill Flemming, Charles Gibson, Leonard Goldenson, Keith Jackson, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, Robert Lewine, Bill Matney, Jim McKay, Edwin Noble, Paul Rand, Frank Reynolds, Max Robinson, Elton Rule, Pierre Salinger, Diane Sawyer, Chris Schenkel, Edgar Scherick, David Schoenbrun, Bill Shadel, Andy Sidaris, Joel Siegel, Carole Simpson, Howard K. Smith, Robert Trout, Lem Tucker, Fred Van Deventer, Hal Walker, Barbara Walters.

ACLU   eager advocates for the indefensible

• American Civil Liberties Union
• See: Roger Baldwin, Robert W. Dunn, Felix Frankfurter, John H. Holmes, Norman Thomas .

AFL   a federation of labor unions; associated with the CIO

• American Federation of Labor
• See: Samuel L. Gompers, Lane Kirkland, William Mahon, George Meany, John Sweeney.

AFL   now known as the AFC; one of the two conferences of the NFL

• American Football League
• See: Buck Buchanan, Joe Foss, Lamar Hunt.

AFRTS

• Armed Forces Radio and Television Service
• See: AFN (Europe), AFVN (Vietnam).

AFTRA   Union

• American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
• See: Walter Cronkite, John Randolph, Arnold Zenker.

AFVN   part of AFRTS

• American Forces Vietnam Network
• See: Adrian Cronauer.

AID

• Agency for International Development, a U.S. Government agency
• See: John Hannah, John Paul Vann.

AKS

• Alternate Keyword Spelling; acronym used in this database, followed by the alternate spellings of keywords that we hope search engines will pick up on & reference

ALCOA

• Aluminum Company of America
• See: Arthur Vining Davis.

ALS   neuro-muscular disease

• Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis; commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease
• See: Eddie Adams, Jason Becker, Emory Bellard, Ezzard Charles, Pete Demmerle, Pete Duranko, Bruce Edwards, Lou Gehrig, Stephen Hawking, Catfish Hunter, William S. Knowles, Bob McFadden, Charles McPhee, Charles Mingus, Richard Olney, Peggy Rea, Stanley Sadie, Nick Scdone, Morrie Schwartz, Steven Anthony Smith, Teresa Sterne, Orlando Thomas, Bob Waters, Charlie Wedemeyer.

AMPAS   founded in 1927

• The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the people that give out the Oscars)
• See: Wendell Corey, Cedric Gibbons, Margaret Herrick, Frederick Hope, Henry King, Frank Lloyd, Louis B. Mayer, George M. Stanley, Irving Thalberg.

AP

• the Associated Press; Association of news gathering organizations
• See: Morgan Beatty, Murray Becker, Keith Fuller, Aubrey Keel, Hugh Lytle, Seth Moseley, Charles Palmer, Joe Rosenthal, Dick Smyser, Paul Vathis, Jeff Widener.

ARPANet

• The U.S. Department of Defense's Advance Research Projects Agency Network, designed to decentralize computer communications; the beginning of what we now know as the Internet (after morphing into MILNet and NSFNet for a while)
• See: Vinton Cerf, Donald W. Davies, Robert E. Kahn, Len Kleinrock, P.V. Mockapetris, TCP/IP, Ray Tomlinson, Keith Uncapher.

ASCII   coding scheme

• acronym from American Standard Code for Information Interchange; used to represent alpha-numeric characters as a standardized binary value
• See: Robert Bemer.

ATM

• acronym from Asynchronous Transfer Mode, a method of data movement over wires

ATM

• acronym from Automatic Teller Machine
• See: John Shepherd-Barron, Alfred Zipf.

ATP

• acronym for Adenosine Tri-Phosphate, a major chemical involved in cellular energy release
• See: Dr. William McElroy.

Azon

• Azimuth only steerable bomb, the first "smart bomb", employed by the U.S. Air Force at the end of World War II
• See: Frank Nelson Jr..

BASIC   computer programming language

• Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code; developed in 1964 at Dartmouth College
• See: John Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz.

BATF

• Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; U.S. Government agency
• See: David Koresh.

BBC

• the British Broadcasting Corporation
• See: Robin Day, Clarissa Dickson-Wright, Marin Esslin, Bernard Hepton, Glenda Jackson, Derek Jacobi, Magnus Magnusson, Keith Michell, Jennifer Paterson, Nyree Dawn Porter, Lord John Reith, Ned Sheverin, Molly Sugden, Michael Williams.

bit

• acronym for binary digit; eight of them make up a byte
• See: Claude Shannon.

C&FW   Railroad

• Purportedly standing for Chicago and Far Western. The fictional railroad on the Beverly Hillbillies Petticoat Junction and Green Acres tv series; it was the owner of the Hooterville Cannonball steam passenger locomotive (the line ran between Hooterville & Pixley).
• See: railroad vice president Homer Bedlow, railroad president Norman Curtis, conductor Wendall Gibbs, locomotive engineer Charley Pratt & conductor Floyd Smoot.

CBC   radio and television network

• Canadian Broadcasting System
• See: Earl Cameron, Donald Crowdis, Denny Doherty, Peter Gzowski, Bob Homme, Mr. Dressup, Knowlton Nash, John Vernon.

CBS   radio and television network

• Columbia Broadcasting System; started as the United Independent Broadcasting Co, purchased in 1928 by William S. Paley & later renamed
• See: James Aubrey, Ed Bliss, Ed Bradley, Winston Burdett, Julie Chen, Lou Cioffi, Charles Collingwood, Katie Couric, Louis Cowan, Walter Cronkite, Alan Dale, David Dick, Charlie Douglass, Harold Dow, Bill Downs, Douglas Edwards, Eddie Einhorn, Craig Ferguson, Fred Friendly, Christopher Glenn, William Golden, Dr. Peter Goldmark, George Herman, Don Hewitt, Dwayne Hickman, Robert Hite, Richard C. Hottelet, Arthur Judson, Marvin Kalb, Peter Kalischer, Alexander Kendrick, Isaac Kleinerman, Charles Kuralt, Perry Lafferty, Thomas Leahy, Ernest Leiser, William Leonard, Larry LeSueur, Robert Lewine, William MacPhail, John Madigan, Sean McManus, William Mercer, Sig Mickelson, Leslie Midgley, Jonny Lee Miller, Les Moonves, Roger Mudd, Edward R. Murrow, Robert Northshield, Johnny Olsen, Charles Osgood, William S. Paley, Ike Pappas, Laurens Pierce, Bob Pierpoint, George Polk, Dan Rather, Harry Reasoner, Andy Rooney, Hughes Rudd, César Saerchinger, Robert Schakne, Chris Schenkel, Bob Schieffer, David Schoenbrun, Daniel Schorr, Eric Sevareid, Bill Shadel, William L. Shirer, Hal Simms, Bob Simon, Howard K. Smith, Lesley Stahl, Dr. Frank Stanton, Neil Strawser, Ed Sullivan, Pat Summeral, Richard Threlkeld, Laurence Tisch, Dallas Townsend, Paul Tripp, Robert Trout, Lem Tucker, Hal Walker, Mike Wallace, Joe Wershba, Paul W. White, Robert J. Wussler, Gilbert Wyland, Thomas Wyman, Arnold Zenker.

C.E.R.N.

• Conseil Européen pur la Recherche Nucléaire (European Council for Nuclear Research), founded in 1952
• See: Tim Berners-Lee, Carlo Rubbia, Simon van der Meer.

CIA

• Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. government spy house
• See: Salvador Allende, Tom Braden, George Bush, William Casey, Wild Bill Donovan, Jack Downey, Allen Dulles, Robert Gates, Sidney Gottlieb, Richard Helms, E. Howard Hunt, Robert Komer, Ngo Dinh Diem, Ngo Dinh Nhu, Leon Panetta, Francis Gary Power, Kermit Roosevelt, Harry Rositzke, Walter B. Smith, Ted Sorensen, Paris Theodore, Stansfield Turner, Vernon A. Walters & Richard S. Welch.

CIO   a federation of labor unions; associated with the AFL

• Congress of Industrial Organization
• See: Samuel L. Gompers, John L. Lewis, Lane Kirkland, George Meany, John Sweeney.

CNN

• Cable News Network
• See: Wolf Blitzer, Rowland Evans, John Holliman, Larry King, Robert Novak, William MacPhail, Judd Rose, Daniel Schorr, Ed Turner, Ted Turner, Robert Vito, Fareed Zakaria.

CORE

• acronym for civil rights organization that was founded in Chicago in 1942 by Farmer, Houser & Rustin; originally it stood for Committee On Racial Equality; later it was renamed the Congress Of Racial Equality
• See: James Chaney, James Farmer, Andrew Goodman, George Houser, Floyd McKissick, Bayard Rustin, Michael Schwerner.

CREEP

• Committee to Re-Elect the Preisdent; Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election committee; up to their eyeballs in Watergate
• See: Clark MacGregor, Donald Segretti, Maurice Stans.

DDT

• A chemical compound (pesticide) whose full name is dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane
  First synthesized in 1874 by German chemistry student Othmar Zeidler (d.6/26/1911?)
• See: Rachel Carson, Paul Muller, George J. Wallace.

DUI

• Driving Under the Influence (usually, alcohol)
• See: William Coors, Jennifer Lyn Jackson, Michael Phelps.

ENIAC   early electronic computer (1945)

• Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
• See: Betty Bartik, J. Presper Eckert, Herman Goldstine, Betty Holberton, John W. Mauchly.

FBI

• the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the main US government police agency, in charge of all doemstic spying
• See: W. Mark Felt, Louis J. Freeh, L. Patrick Gray, J. Edgar Hoover, Clarence M. Kelly, G. Gordon Liddy, Robert Maheu, John P. O'Neill, Robert K. Ressler, Clyde Tolson, Walter Walsh.

FCC

• Federal Communications Commission
• See: Dean Burch, Benjamin Hooks, Newton Minow, Alfred Sykes.

FDIC

• United States government agency --- the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation --- it insures bank deposits
• See: Jesse P Wolcott.

fwiw

• abbreviation for for what its worth
• See: Jack Ryan.

GE

• General Electric Corp.
• See: Thomas Edison, Chester Hall, Peter Hodgson, Charles Steinmetz, Charles E. Wilson.

GPS

• Global Positioning System; originally a military-only satellite locator system
• See: Ivan Getting, Frank McClure.

HEMA

• hydrogel poly-hydroxyethyl methacrylate hydrophilic hydrocarbon
• See: Dr. Otto Wichterle.

HEW

• United States Government cabinet department of Health, Education and Welfare
• See: Oveta Culp Hobby, Tommy Thompson.

IBM

• International Business Machine Corporation
• See: John Backus, Robert Bemer, David Bradley, Werner Buchholz, John Cocke, Edgar F. Codd, Robert Dennard, Philip Estridge, Bob O. Evans, Herman Goldstine, Herman Hollerith, George J. Laurer, Paul Rand, Alan Shugart, Arthur K. Watson, Thomas J. Watson Sr., Thomas J. Watson Jr..

IRA

• Irish Republican Army; Catholic terrorist organization in Norther Ireland
• See: Joe Cahill, Seamus Tomey.

KGB

• Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti — Committee for State Security, USSR
• See: Lavrenti Beria, Feliks Dzerzhinski, Vitaly Fedorchuk, R.S. Krasilnikov, Vladimir Kryuchkov, Vasili Metrokhin, Vladimir Semichastny, Dmitri Volkogonov, Raoul Wallenberg.

KKK   a sorry-ass collection of murderous ignorant redneck peckerwood moron crackers

• Ku Klux Klan
• See: Samuel H. Bowers, Senator Robert Byrd, Bobby Frank Cherry, David Duke, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Edgar Ray Killen, Billy Wayne Posey, Cecil Price, Gary Rowe, James Ford Seale, Robert M. Shelton, William J. Simmons, J.B. Stoner, Harold von Braunhut.

KLM   Royal Dutch Airline

• Koninklijke Luchtvaartmaatschappij N.V. (Royal Air Transportation Company), founded 1919
• See: Albert Plesman.

LPGA

• Ladies Professional Golf Association; founded in 1950
• See: Alice Bauer, Patty Berg, Bettye Danoff, Heather Farr.

MICR

• acronym from Magnetic Ink Character Recognition; the account information found at the bottom of checks
• See: Alfred Zipf.

M.I.T.

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• See: Stephen Benton, Leo Beranek, Noam Chomsky, Weseley A. Clark, Fernando Corbató, Lee Davenport, Michael Dertouzous, Martin Deutsch, Peter A. Diamond, Lee Grodzins, Alan Guth, H. Robert Horvitz, David Huffman, H. Gobind Khorana, Steven Kirsch, Leonard Kleinrock, William Lenoir, Barbara Liskov, Edward Lorenz, Franco Modigliano, Charles Molnar, Robert Morris Jr., Philip Morrison, Reinhold Rudenberg, Arthur Ruge, Claude Shannon, Dirk Struik, Toyoichi Tanaka, George B. Thomas Jr., Joseph Weizenbaum, Frank Wilczek.

MPAA

• Motion Picture Association of America --- the movie producer's trade association
• See: Joseph Breen, Chris Dodd, Daniel Glickman, Will Hays, Eric Johnston, Geoffrey Shurlock, Jack Valenti.

MSG

• monosodium glutamate, the chemical food additive in Chinese food with toxic effects (flush, headache)
• See: Robert Byck.

NAACP   civil rights organization

• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded 1909
• See: Daisy Bates, Julian Bond, Johnnie Carr, W.E.B. DuBois, John H. Holmes, Benjamin Hooks, Kweisi Mfume, Mary Ovington, Jawn Sandifer, Arthur Spingarn, Mary Terrell, Channing H. Tobias & Roy Wilkins.

NAMbLA

• North American Man/boy Love Association
  a loose association of pedophiles dedicated to futt-bucking young males
• See: Ben Dover, Jerry Sandusky, David Thorstad.

NASA   the United States' civilian space agency; created July 29, 1958

• stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• See: Apollo Astronauts, Gemini Astronauts, Mercury Astronauts, Moon Landing, Shuttle Astronauts, Skylab Astronauts

  James Fletcher, Siegfried Hansen, John McKay, John "Shorty" Powers.

NASCAR

• National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing; founded February 1948
• See: Clifford Allison, Kurt Busch, Bill Elliot, William France, Bill France, Robbie Gordon, J.R. Hendrick, Rick Hendrick, Bobby Issac, Buckshot Jones, Alan Kulwicki, Glen Wood.

NATO

• stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the military treaty group composed of the U.S., Canada, England and most of the western European nations
• See: Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster, Paul-Henri Spaak.

NBC

• National Broadcasting Company, a division of General Electric Corp.
• See: Morgan Beatty, Frank Blair, Frank Bourgholtzer,David Brinkley, Tom Brokaw, Robert Brown, Johnny Carson, John Chancellor, Al DeRogatis, Alex Drier, Ed Flesh, Reuven Frank, John Graham, Don Harris, Don Herbert, Chet Huntley, Marvin Kalb, Floyd Kalber, Douglas Kiker, Irving R. Levine, Robert Lewine, Howie Mandel, Bill Matney, Robert McFarland, Frank McGee, Al McGuire, Bill Monroe, Roger Mudd, Merrill Mueller, Roy Neal, Edward Noble, Jane Pauley, Tom Pettit, Stone Philips, Howard Reig, Richard Rogers, Tim Russert, Bob Saget, Maria Shriver, Brandon Tartikoff, Lem Tucker, Clifton Utley, Garrick Utley, Chris Wallace, Pat Weaver.

NFL   formed August 20, 1920, in Canton, Ohio as the American Professional Football Association

• National Football League; name changed to National Football League June 24, 1922; has two conferences: AFC & NFC
• See: Bert Bell, Jay Berwanger, Sam Dana, Al Davis, Pete Demmerle, Al Dorow, Roger Goodall, Red Hickey, Gary Hogeboom, Curly Lambeau Elmer Layden, Steve McNair, Joe Namath, Fritz Pollard, Pete Rozelle, Norm Schachter, Paul Tagliabue.

NOW

• National Organization for Women
• See: Betty Friedan, Patricia Ireland, Pauli Murray, Molly Yard.

NRA

• the National Rifle Association
• See: Joe Foss, Charlton Heston, Bill Shadel, Tom Washington.

NRA

• the National Raquetball Association
• See: Zyklot Blxtv.

NYC

• abbreviation for New York City
• See:

  Congressmen:

  Albert Bosch

  Cops:

  William Bratton, Thomas J. Cavanagh, Eddie Egan, Frank Serpico, Carol Shaya

  New York City Mayors:

  Abe Beame, David Dinkins, Rudolph Giuliani, W.R. Grace, Ed Koch, Fiorello LaGuardia, John V. Lindsay, William O'Dwyer, Robert Wagner, Jimmy Walker

  Others:

  Joe Adonis, Charles Berns, Dr. Burrill Crohn, Judge Crater, Margie Ferraro, Avery Fisher, Hortense Gabel, Milton Gabler, Enid Haupt, John Heisman, Suzen Johnson, John Kriendler, Hilly Kristal, Fred Lebow, R.H. Macy, Typhoid Mary, Elsa Maxwell, Dinty Moore, Robert Moses, Leo Paquin, Bridget Peixotto, Sabrina Scharf, Toots Shor, Donald Trump, Lou Walters, George Urban

  .

O.E.D.

• acronym for the Oxford English Dictionary
• See: R.W. Burchfield, David Shulman.

OPEC

• the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the big crude oil cartel; founded September 1960
• See: Juan Perez Alfonso, Sheik al-Tariki, Fuad Rouhani.

PARC   Xerox Corporation's

• Palo Alto Research Center
• See: Doug Engelbart, Jack Goldman, Alan Kay, Butler Lampson, C. Peter McCulough, Dr. George E. Pake, Gary Starkweather.

PBS

• Public Broadcasting System, the network of taxpayer supported television stations in the United States
• See: Ken Burns, Julia Child, Robert X. Cringely, Mason Daring, Arthur Vining Davis, Shelby Foote, Jim Lehrer, Robert MacNeil, Fred Roberts, Louis Rukeyser, Jeff Smith, Bob Thomson.

PETN

• explosive: penta-erythritol tetra-nitrate
• See: The Shoe-na-bomber, The Eunuch-bomber.

PGA

• Professional Golfers' Association
• See: Horton Smith.

PLO

• Palestine Liberation Organization
• See: Mahmoud Abbas, Majid al-Molqi, Yasser Arafat, Hanan Ashrawi, Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Said.

PVC

• polyvinyl chloride
• See: Waldo Semon.

Quantas   the Australian national airline, founded in 1920

• originally Queensland and Northern Territories Aerial Services, Ltd.

Radar

• short for Radio Direction and Ranging
• See: Hugo Gernsback & Robert Watson-Watt.

RCA

• Radio Corporation of America
• See: Ernst Alexanderson, Edward Nally, Norman Racusin, David Sarnoff, Robert Sarnoff.

REM

• Rapid-Eye-Movement sleep
• See: Nathaniel Kleitman.

REMF   pronounced "remph"

• derogatory expletive; sanitized version: Rear Echelon Maintenance Force; original version: Rear Echelon Mother-F**ker: a soldier in name only ... usually found at the antipodes of any conflict
• See: Harold G. Bowen, Al Gore Jr..

RTNDA

• acronym: Radio Television News Directors' Association
• See: Rob Downey, Sig Mickelson.

SAC

• Strategic Air Command, the United States Air Force's nuclear delivery branch
• See: Sterling Hayden, Gen. Curtis LeMay.

SCTV   Second City Television

• Chicago comedy troupe; they had a short-run series on NBC in the 1970s
• See: John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Catherine O'Hara, Dave Thomas.

scuba

• self-contained underwater breathing apparatus
• See: Christian J. Lambertsen.

SI

• Sports Illustrated magazine
• See: Tyra Banks, Frank DeFord, Yamila Diaz-Rahi, Sidney James, William MacPhail.

SNCC

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
• See: H. Rap Brown, James Forman, John Lewis, Ruby Robinson.

SNL

• "Saturday Night Live" television program
• See: Dan Aykroyd, Anne Beatts, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Tom Davis, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Will Forte, Marjorie Gross, Darrell Hammond, Tim Kazurinski, Norm MacDonald, Tim Meadows, Lorne Michaels, Dennis Miller, Kevin Nealon, Laraine Newman, Don Novello, Michael O'Donoghue, Don Pardo, Gilda Radner, Chris Rock, Charles Rocket, Andy Samberg, Horatio Sanz, Rosie Schuster, Molly Shannon, Jason Sudeikis, Danitra Vance, Alan Zweibel.

THC

• tetrahydrocanabinol, the active chemical agent in marijuana
• See: Robert Byck.

TMZ   website & tabloid tv show

• stands for the Thirty Mile Zone around Hollywood (Ground Zero for the stalkeratzie)
• See: Harvey Levin.

TVA

• Tennessee Valley Authority
• See: Arthur E. Morgan, John E. Rankin.

UAW

• United Automobile Workers union
• See: Warren Homer Martin, Douglas Fraser, Walter Reuther, Rolland Thomas and Leonard Woodcock, Owen Bieber, Stephen Yokich.

UFO

• Unidentified Flying Object
• See: Marshall Applewhite, ">Kenneth Arnold, Art Bell, Billy Booth, Mack Brazel, Amelia Earhart, J. Alan Hynek, Major Donald Keyhoe, Philip Klass, Robert Park, Athelstan Spilhaus.

Unabom

• acronym of formerly-anonymous terrorist; University Airline Bomber
• See: Ted Kaczynski, Dr. Charles Epstein, David Gelertner.

U.N.C.L.E.   fictional law enforcement organization headed by Alexander Waverly

• United Network Command for Law and Enforcement
• See: Leo G. Carroll, David McCallum, Robert Vaughn, Norman Felton.

UPC

• Universal Product Code — the bar codes we all know and love
• See: Volker Dolch, Alan Haberman, George J. Laurer, John L. Strubbe.

UPI

• United Press International; news wire service
• See: Roderick Beaton, Karl Bickel, Lucien Carr, Oscar Fraley, Cliff Sessions, Vernon Scott, Helen Thomas.

USIA

• United States Information Agency
• See: Edward R. Murrow.

WWF   now the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)

• World Wrestling Federation
• See: Rodney Anoia, Hunter Hearst-Helmsley, Christy Hemme, Maria Kanellis, Joanie Laurer, Ashley Massaro, Vince McMahon, Rena Mero, Torrie Wilson.

YMCA

• Young Men's Christian Association
• See: Channing H. Tobias.

ZOWIE   fictional quasi-governmental organization headed by Lloyd C. Cramden

• Zonal Organization (for) World Intelligence (and) Espionage
• See: Lee J. Cobb, James Coburn.