Higgins

Higgins may refer to:

People

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Other

Higgins (surname)

Higgins is a surname found in England and in Ireland with several origins.

Origins in England

all then stemmed with the patronymic termination ings; meaning belonging to, or the son of.

Origin in Ireland, the name is an anglicised version of the Gaelic family Ó hUiginn, who were high status poets between the 14th and 17th centuries. Descendants of this family include Bernardo O'Higgins, the first Head of State of Chile, and Kevin O'Higgins who was Minister for Justice in the first Irish Free State government.

In politics

Higgins (dog)

Higgins (December 12, 1957 – November 11, 1975) was one of the best-known dog actors of the 1960s and 1970s. Most people remember him as the original Benji or as the uncredited dog from Petticoat Junction, two of the most popular roles he played during a 14-year career in show business.

Biography

Early life

Animal trainer Frank Inn found the famous canine at the Burbank Animal Shelter as a puppy. A fluffy black-and-tan mixed breed dog, he was marked like a Border Terrier, and Inn believed him to be a mix of Miniature Poodle, Cocker Spaniel, and Schnauzer.

Career

Higgins' career was facilitated by Frank Inn, who also trained Arnold Ziffel (the pig) and all the other animals used on the Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres sitcoms. His on-set assistant trainers included Gerry Warshauer and Karl Miller.

As an actor, Higgins first came to national attention as the uncredited dog who played the character of "Dog" on the television sitcom Petticoat Junction for six of the show's seven seasons, from 1964 to 1970 appearing in 149 episodes. He guest-appeared on the television sitcom Green Acres with Eva Gabor in 1965 and also made a guest appearance on the television sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies. He won a Patsy Award in 1967, and he was cover-featured on an issue of TV Guide magazine.

Vikings

Vikings (Norwegian and Danish: Vikinger; Swedish and Nynorsk: Vikingar; Icelandic: Víkingar), from Old Norse víkingr, were Germanic Norse seafarers, speaking the Old Norse language, who raided and traded from their Scandinavian homelands across wide areas of northern and central Europe, as well as European Russia, during the late 8th to late 11th centuries. The term is also commonly extended in modern English and other vernaculars to the inhabitants of Viking home communities during what has become known as the Viking Age. This period of Norse military, mercantile and demographic expansion constitutes an important element in the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, Ireland, France, Kievan Rus' and Sicily.

Facilitated by advanced seafaring skills, and characterised by the longship, Viking activities at times also extended into the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Following extended phases of (primarily sea- or river-borne) exploration, expansion and settlement, Viking (Norse) communities and polities were established in diverse areas of north-western Europe, European Russia, the North Atlantic islands and as far as the north-eastern coast of North America. This period of expansion witnessed the wider dissemination of Norse culture, while simultaneously introducing strong foreign cultural influences into Scandinavia itself, with profound developmental implications in both directions.

Vikings (season 1)

Vikings is a Canadian-Irish historical drama television series, written and created by Michael Hirst for the television channel History. Season 1 premiered on March 3, 2013 in the United States and Canada and concluded on April 28, 2013, consisting of 9 episodes.

Filmed in Ireland, Vikings is inspired by the tales about the Viking Ragnar Lodbrok, one of the best-known mythological Norse heroes and notorious as the scourge of France and England. It portrays Ragnar as a Viking farmer who pioneers the first daring raids into England with the support of fellow warriors, his brother Rollo, and his wife, the shieldmaiden Lagertha.

Series overview

The series is inspired by the tales of the raiding, trading, and exploring Norsemen of early medieval Scandinavia. It follows the exploits of the legendary Viking chieftain Ragnar Lodbrok and his crew and family, as notably laid down in the 13th century sagas Ragnars saga Loðbrókar and Ragnarssona þáttr, as well as in Saxo Grammaticus's 12th century work Gesta Danorum. Norse legendary sagas were partly fictional tales based in Norse oral tradition, written down about 200 to 400 years after the events they describe. Further inspiration is taken from historical sources of the period, such as records of the Viking raid on Lindisfarne depicted in the second episode, or Ahmad ibn Fadlan's 10th-century account of the Volga Vikings. The series is set at the beginning of the Viking Age, marked by the Lindisfarne raid in 793.

Vikings (season 3)

The third season of the Canadian-Irish historical drama television series Vikings premiered on February 19, 2015 on History in Canada and in the United States and concluded on April 23, 2015, consisting of 10 episodes.

Filmed in Ireland, Vikings is inspired by the tales about the Viking Ragnar Lothbrok, one of the best-known mythological Norse heroes and notorious as the scourge of France and England. It portrays Ragnar as a Viking farmer who pioneers the first daring raids into England with the support of fellow warriors, his brother Rollo, and his ex-wife, the shieldmaiden Lagertha.

Series overview

The series is inspired by the tales of the raiding, trading, and exploring Norsemen of early medieval Scandinavia. It follows the exploits of the legendary Viking chieftain Ragnar Lothbrok and his crew and family, as notably laid down in the 13th-century sagas Ragnars saga Loðbrókar and Ragnarssona þáttr, as well as in Saxo Grammaticus' 12th-century work Gesta Danorum. Norse legendary sagas were partially fictional tales based in Norse oral tradition, written down about 200 to 400 years after the events they describe. Further inspiration is taken from historical sources of the period, such as records of the Viking raid on Lindisfarne depicted in the second episode, or Ahmad ibn Fadlan's 10th-century account of the Volga Vikings. The series is set at the beginning of the Viking Age, marked by the Lindisfarne raid in 793.