Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2020 August 26

= August 26 =

English king who has to live as a villager
A while ago somebody recommended to me a novel set in middle ages England where a king wants to travel incognito and/or gets lost and has to live as an ordinary villager for a while because nobody could identify him as a king (I think the point was that royal portraits on coins didn't adequately much resemble the royals themselves). I think the novel was set in the era between Norman conquest and Black Death. There may have been a gimmick like time travel involved, but more likely I'm conflating something else. Ring a bell for anyone? 93.142.102.222 (talk) 04:54, 26 August 2020 (UTC)


 * You may be thinking of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The title Yankee, Hank Morgan, travels back in time and eventually persuades King Arthur to go incognito and see the plight of the peasantry first-hand. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:08, 26 August 2020 (UTC)


 * No, this was more serious, pretty sure it was a 20th century book. The king was also involuntarily a villager, in the style of The Prince and the Pauper. Best ignore the time travel thing, my brain is probably confusing it with Doomsday Book. 93.142.102.222 (talk) 07:01, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * There's a whole bunch of possibilities at (scroll down to the Literature section). --Viennese Waltz 08:31, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Hm, no luck with any of those. I'm pretty sure it was historical fiction, definitely not fantasy of any kind and I think the king in question was a real historical figure. 78.1.146.196 (talk) 19:26, 27 August 2020 (UTC) (OP)

Ben Hecht's birthdate
USHMM and Newberry Library say he was born in 1893, whereas EB and JVL (with reference to USHMM [sic!], Wikipedia (!), Times of Israel & Jewish Theatre News – the latter two actually do not give his birthdate, though!) claim 1894. And the New Yorker states "in 1893 (or thereabouts)" … Now what do the experts say? (Wouldn't this apparent discrepancy in fact need to be discussed as such also within the article itself, after all?)--Hildeoc (talk) 21:46, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Various documents within Ancestry.com are consistent in his assertion that he was born on Feb 28, 1893. However, Findagrave has 1894 on his headstone. Dates on headstones, while literally carved in stone, are not necessarily accurate. Nor are someone's claim as to his own birthdate. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:27, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Ancestry.com does not have a birth certificate for him, but they do have the 1900 census sheet for his family, and 1900 was the one census that asked for birth year and month, as well as age. The census sheet is dated June 7, 1900. It gives the age of "Benny" Hecht as 7, with birth month and year as Feb 1893. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:35, 27 August 2020 (UTC)