As all of you should be aware, I am a lover of history. Not just that run-of-the-mill American history that everybody knows about and has read about in textbooks. I like quirky, odd, and obscure stories of American history. Here are a few samples of some historical notes about the United States that the majority of you never heard of.
The United States has profited greatly twice at the hands of a nation that viewed Great Britain as their enemy. In 1803, France, aware it could not hang on to the vast Louisiana Territory, sold it to the United States for 2 1/2 cents per acre rather than have it fall into Great Britain’s hands. In 1867, Russia sold the 586,400 square miles of Alaska to the United States for less than two cents an acre. The logical purchaser would have been Great Britain, whose minions in Canada bordered the land on the East, but Russia considered Great Britain to be an enemy (Britain had won the Crimean War against the Russians and sided with the Confederacy in the United States Civil War).
The Pony Express, which has lived in legend for more than a century, lived in fact for less than two years. Indian raids curtailed service on the 1966-mile route between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. The transcontinental telegraph finally replaced it in late 1861.
In 1813, Major George Armistead, command of Fort McHenry, placed an order for a flag “so large that the British would have no difficulty in seeing it from a distance.” In fulfilling the commission for that flag, subsequently celebrated as “Old Glory” and “The Star-spangled Banner,” Mary Pickersgill and members of her family sewed over 400 yards of bunting into a banner 30′ x 42′, costing $405.90. This was the flag that Francis Scott Key saw that “was still there.” It hangs today in the Smithsonian Institution.
The American Colonization Society was formed, in 1816, by the Rev. Robert Finley of New Jersey, for the purpose of establishing an Africa colony to which the 200,000 U.S. blacks freed by slaveholders or born to free parents could be sent. Prominent slaveholders like Calhoun, Clay, Randolph, and Jackson supported the Society because they feared the threat to slavery posed by free blacks. Congress was persuaded to lend aid for land purchases. In all, about 15,000 blacks left America for the colony, which came to be called Liberia. The capital is named Monrovia, for President James Monroe.
The first nation to receive foreign aid from the United States was Venezuela. In 1812, Venezuela, fighting for its independence from Spain, suffered a severe and damaging earthquake. Congress appropriated $50,000 to help the victims.
Eskimos use refrigerators to keep food from freezing.
I wish I could live seventy-five more years and then be able to read a blog similar to this explaining to the citizens of that time how weird, stupid and crazy we were. It would probably be worth a million laughs to those future citizens. The Clinton years alone could supply enough weirdness laughter and gagging for many blog postings.
I’m really not an educated weatherman but I do know one thing for sure, this rain sucks. I’m so sick of these gray and dreary days that only allow us 15 minutes of sunshine a day before the next downpour begins. It’s no wonder that all those smiling and happy folks in Seattle (sarcasm) are so much fun to be around. They have this kind crap weather on a regular basis and that’s bound to have a derogatory effect on them. With that thought in mind I thought I’d throw some additionalWeird Sh*t your way. It won’t stop the rain from continuing but it might make you smile a little.
Bacon affects the brain in the same way as cocaine and heroin, overloading pleasure centers and requiring increasing amounts to be satisfied.
New York City is estimated to have at least 8 million rats, or one rat per person.
In 2006, William Shatner was paid $25,000 from an online casino for a kidney stone he had recently passed.
Benjamin Franklin almost killed himself while trying to electrocute a turkey.
In 1799 a vigilante mob hunted down killer Micajah Harpe and placed his severed head on a pike at a crossroads in Western Kentucky still known as “Harpe’s Head”.
In South Korea, 11% of school-aged youth are considered at high risk for Internet addiction.
In the winter of 1952-53, Thompson Pass near Valdez, Alaska, got 975 inches of snow.
Women can go topless in public in New York City as long as they are not charging money for it.
In 1976, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake killed 23,000 Guatemalans.
During his 1989 appearance on the TV talk show Larry King Live, Donald Trump asked King, “Do you mind if I sit back a little bit because your breath is very bad. It really is.”
I thought for this post I would reintroduce Number Freaking. If you like statistics and far out and freaky explanations of numbers, this is it. I posted about it a number of months ago and the response was excellent. It just goes to show how many freaky people are hanging around out there reading this blog. Enjoy!
WEATHER
On average there are 40-60 flashes of lightning somewhere in the world every second. 1.58 billion lightning flashes are estimated to occur each year on this planet.
At any given moment there are an estimated 2000 thunderstorms occurring worldwide.
There are an estimated 5,844,000 thunderstorms that occur each year.
It is estimated that 695,000,000,000,000 (trillion) gallons of water are unleashed by thunderstorms annually. To put that into a better perspective, Lake Michigan contains 1300 trillion gallons, Lake Huron 935 trillion, and Lake Ontario 433 trillion.
TELEVISION
One of the most expensive pilot shows on American TV was Lost, costing $12 million and the plane that provided the wreckage on the beach cost the production company $200,000.
The total running time of the TV series Friends was 99 hours and 10 minutes (238 episodes). The final episode recorded 52.5 million viewers which is somewhere between the populations of South Korea and Italy.
And for those of you who love The Simpsons their total running time amounted to 139 hours and 35 minutes.
ANT INVASION
The total number of ants on earth is estimated to be in the area of 826.8 billion tons.
It is estimated that there are 300 million trillion ants on the earth (that is 300 quintillion – followed by 20 zeros).
The highest estimate of the total number of insects on earth is at six septillions. That’s 6 trillion trillion – followed by 24 zeros).
MISCELLANEOUS
Money depreciates in value over time. Allowing for inflation a dollar from 1867 was worth about $12.50 in 2005, and a dollar from 1624 at least $20.41.
In 1867 Alaska cost the United States, $7.2 million. In modern dollars this would amount to $90 million.
In 1624 the island of Manhattan was purchased from the Indians for $24. In modern dollars that would convert to $489.84.
Isn’t “Number Freaking” just the best. Its definition explains everything simply and it’s easy to understand. “Number Freaking is something we do because we have a brain, it’s jazz math, the accountancy of the absurd, forensic speculation, surreal calculation, the art of playing with numbers just because we can.”
As most of you are aware I am a lover of all things trivial and historical. I love all history but especially my own. Now it’s time for me to take you on a little trip down memory lane back to 1960. I’m going to introduce you to someone in my life who left me with vivid memories of school and a few emotional and geographical scars.
The lady in question was my eighth grade geography teacher. She was obsessed with geography to a fault. She was one of the meanest teachers I’ve ever had but also absolutely unforgettable (and not in a good way). On the first day of classes she told our group that half of our grade for the entire year would be based on our ability to memorize all the countries of the United Nations in alphabetical order and to recite it in front of the class. We spent many a day standing in front of the classroom and reciting as best we could as many of the countries as possible. Did I learn the countries, you bet I did, and at that time there were 82 of them.
All of us students agreed that she was an absolute lunatic and that was never disproven. She passed away many years ago and I actually sat in a bar that night with a close friend, another of her students, and toasted the old girl with a few stiff drinks. I didn’t attend her funeral but I was tempted to because I wanted to make sure she was really gone. This post is a something of a memorial and tribute to miss Mabel Milldollar, one of the most unforgettable persons I’ve ever met. This list of trivia items would have been something she would have loved but only if she could have used the information to create one of her memorable pop quizzes. They were brutal. Let’s get this started….
The part of the United States that the sun shines on first is the top of Mount Cadillac in Maine.
The state of Hawaii is composed of 132 Islands.
25% of the State of California is made up of deserts.
The southernmost tip of Africa is the Cape of Agulhas.
The northernmost point in the United States is the city of Point Barrow, Alaska.
The city of Timbuktu is located in Mali in Western Africa.
The Sahara desert in North Africa has an area of 3,250,000 square miles.
Western South Dakota marks the geographical center of the United States since the addition of Hawaii and Alaska.
Piccadilly Circus in London got its name from collars, called picadillo’s, that were made by a tailor name Robert Baker who created them in the area.
The highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world is Angel Falls in Venezuela. It has a 3212 foot drop.
The lowest point of dry land on the earth is the shore of the Dead Sea, between Jordan and Israel, which is approximately 1300 feet below sea level.
I hope you’re smiling up at me Miss Milldollar because you couldn’t possibly be looking down on me. Your evil brainwashing techniques would have certainly qualified you for special duty at Club Gitmo. No terrorist in the world could have stood up to that “evil eye” you were famous for. I hope you’re sitting in the corner of wherever you happen to be with a pointy dunce cap on your head and having your hand smacked with a big ass ruler.
everyuselessthing.com 