These facts may appear to be BS but they are not. They were researched and compiled by Shane Carley who is also obsessed with weird but true facts.
The first leader of an independent Chile was Irish.
The Hundred Years War actually lasted 116 years.
The Austrian army once mistakenly attacked itself. The Battle of Karansebes resulted in losses of up to 10,000 soldiers when one Austrian regiment mistook another for the enemy.
Surprisingly, the U.S. state closest to Africa is not Florida – it’s Maine.
President Richard Nixon had a speech prepared just in case Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin died on the moon.
The people of Loss Angeles were so accustomed to light pollution that when an earthquake caused a blackout in 1994, many citizens called observatories to ask about the weird lights in the sky. They were the stars.
Early astronaut toilets were so bad that feces sometimes floated through the space capsule.
Believe it or not as far as official records are concerned, no one has ever had sex in space.
Marijuana and the hops in your beer come from the same plant family.
You can generally tell the color of a chickens eggs by the color of its ears.
As recently as 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration permitted the production and marketing of maggots for limited use as a “medical device”.
The Declaration of Independence was written on animal skin.
Taking into consideration the upcoming holiday season. Christmas was originally banned in the American colonies.
Jackie Mitchell, the first (and only) female player in Major League Baseball, once struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in consecutive at bats.
Hall of Fame MLB pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm hit a home run in his first MLB at-bat. He never hit another home run over the remainder of his 21 year career.
I’ve been fascinated for decades about anything related to space travel. I can thank my mother for that when shortly after Sputnik made its appearance she showed up in my bedroom with paint brushes and paints. She then proceeded to turn my bedroom into a huge space mural filled with planets, stars, meteorites, and spaceships.. She knew I loved anything related to space travel because I was already a sci-fi junkie at the ripe old age of five. Today’s post contains information that I’ve picked up along the way concerning the space race and weird little factoids that you may never have heard before. I hope you enjoy them.
Our galaxy is so wide that, at the speed of light, it would take you 100,000 years to cross it.
A meteorite the size of the school bus would destroy the entire eastern seaboard of the United States.
The volume of the Earth’s moon is the same as the volume of the Pacific Ocean.
A solar flare is basically a gigantic magnetic arch-like horseshoe magnet-that attracts itself inward, back to the surface of the sun.
The famous Halley’s Comet returns to earth every 76 years. It last appeared in 1986 and will reappear here again in 2062.
A solar flare, ejected from the sun’s surface, can reach speeds of 190 miles per second or 306 kilometers per second.
It takes 3 minutes for the sunlight that is reflected from the moon to reach our eyes.
Astronauts are not permitted to eat beans before they go into space because the methane gas released while passing wind can damage spacesuit materials.
A light-year is the distance light travels in one year or 870,000,000,000 miles or 9.4 5 trillion kilometers.
A Martian day lasts 24 hours, 37 min., and 23 seconds. And Earth Day last 23 hours, 56 min., and 4 seconds.
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Here’s a salute to one of the greatest minds of all time.
Galileo Galilei
Here’s fair warning to some of you out there with outrageous or ridiculous theories. Galileo got into trouble with the Inquisition for his many theories, and spent some serious time in prison. The fact that he was correct made no difference.
Let me start by saying I hate flying. Over the last 30 years I must’ve flown 500 times while working for a number of companies. It was “white knuckle” all the way for me, every flight, every airline. I had no choice but to fly but I didn’t like it one bit and still don’t. It was not the actual flying that bothered me, only the people flying the plane. I’m too much of a control freak to be comfortable having someone else with my life in their hands and that’s never going to change. Since we’re talking about airplanes today here are a few tidbits about the history of aviation.
Twenty-one of the first twenty-three astronauts who flew on space missions were either an only child or were firstborn sons.
The first aerial photograph was taken from a balloon during the United States Civil War.
After the first moon walk, in 1969, Pan American Airlines began accepting reservations for commercial flights to the moon, dates and time unspecified. More than 80,000 requests poured in immediately.
The first coast-to-coast airplane flight in the United States from New York City to Pasadena, California, by Galbraith P. Rogers in 1911, took 49 days. Obviously, there were many, many stops.
After the Wright brothers had flown four times on that historic day in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, a gust of wind overturned and wrecked their wooden flyer. They stuffed the pieces and fabric coverings into barrels and shipped them back to their bicycle shop in Dayton Ohio.
A German inventor placed an engine on an aircraft in 1900 and flew it successfully, three years before the Wright brothers. The inventor was Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, but the aircraft was not heavier than air. Von Zeppelin had invented the dirigible – the “Zeppelin”.
The first “airmail” letter in the United States was written by President George Washington, who gave it to the Frenchman, John Pierre Blanchard, to carry with him on the first balloon flight in America.
Astronauts circling the earth may get to see 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every day.
The first freight shipped by air from Chicago was loaded under an armed guard. Handled by National Air Transport, in 1927, the item was a “ten gallon” Stetson hat to be delivered to Will Rogers, the popular comedian.
A 31-year-old airplane mechanic named Douglas Corrigan took off in his monoplane from Floyd Bennett Field in New York in July 1938, and supposedly headed towards his home in California. The next day he landed in Ireland, saying, “I guess I flew the wrong way.” He became famous, paraded down Broadway, made a movie, and earned the nickname that stuck with him from then on, “Wrong Way Corrigan”.
I’m holding an intervention for myself today concerning my lifelong addiction to all things science fiction. I’m not proud of that obsession because I’m not entirely sure that it hasn’t been a monumental waste of my time.
I was born in 1946 and was eleven years old when Sputnik made it’s famous flight on 10/04/57. My entire young life consisted of satellites, cosmonauts, astronauts, rocket ships, space travel, and the creation of NASA. Up to and including the Mercury and Apollo programs and eventually the moon landings. I was enthralled and spent a great deal of my spare time reading everything I could lay my hands on about science fiction and space travel. Over the years I’ve read hundreds of novels and scientific journals and attempted to stay up to speed with NASA, its failures, deaths, and many successes. Many years later I was finally forced to admit that sci-fi for me breaks down into two parts. Technology on one hand and space exploration on the other to include all of the craziness and misinformation on UFO’s and alien visitations. Technology continues apace and many things I read or thought about as a kid are slowing becoming commonplace. But continuing technological improvements are man-made wonders and unrelated to the science fiction that I’m interested in.
The UFO phenomenon is a sticky subject that’s been bastardized by numerous authors and movie makers. I suspect the vast majority of information contained in them is nothing more than exaggerated fiction aimed at increasing ratings and/or ticket sales. I gave up on live TV years ago and became somewhat taken with Netflix and other streaming services. That’s when I became overwhelmed with an ungodly number of videos and movies concerning UFO’s. I made a point to watch everyone I could find hoping that there might be a shred of evidence that could convince me that UFO’s were real and visitations to this planet were occurring. Sadly I found nothing at all that convinced me of anything.
It seems that a group of well funded and fervent believers reappear in most of the videos repeating their theories and suppositions. Believe me, I would love it if aliens decided to visit. But to believe the outlandish nonsense in these videos does more to convince me that it’s all so much BS and hucksterism. Most of the contributors on Facebook and other social media lead their posts with outlandish headlines to sucker us into reading further. It’s just more nonsense and half truths.
I have some serious questions about all of this UFO nonsense but the answers I’m getting are mostly silly and ridiculous. It seems highly unlikely to me that any aliens from an advanced civilization should certainly be able to fly their ships around this planet without crashing them in virtually every country. Most countries seem to have a Roswell type incident of their own and a crash sight to keep their conspiracy theorists busy. With that many crashes there’s no way any one government could retrieve and hide every single scrap of evidence. Most governments can’t operate anything without screwing it up. Why would this circumstance be any different. Why would we want their technology anyway if they can’t even keep them in the air. More silliness and nonsense.
I’ll be convinced aliens are here when I see a scene as seen in the 1950’s movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still. A giant alien ship landing on the White House lawn looking to chat with the President. Hopefully not Biden. Until then I am a disappointed unbeliever.
I have a long time friend who has slipped in and out of my life for more than thirty years. He’s just turned eighty but is as spry and active as ever. He’s a part-time researcher for the History channel and always has his head in the game. He occasionally sends me interesting tidbits of things that interest him and they’re always fun to read. Here’s one.
The following information is presented as likely topics of conversations taking place around an office water cooler circa 1955. To many of you it may seem that 1955 was a thousand years ago but chronologically speaking it wasn’t. I was nine years old in 1955 and I’m able to remember listening to my parents as they discussed many of the topics you’re about to read.
Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging 7 cents just to mail a letter?
If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store.
When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 25 cents a gallon? Guess we’d be better off leaving the car in the garage.
I’m afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying DAMN in GONE WITH THE WIND, it seems every new movie has either HELL or DAMN in it.
I read the other day where some scientist thinks it’s possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas.
Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $50,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn’t surprise me if someday they’ll be making more than the President.
I never thought I’d see the day when all of our kitchen appliances would be electric. They’re even making electric typewriters now.
It’s too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet. It won’t be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work.
I’m afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign import business.
Thank goodness I won’t live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to government.
The fast food restaurant is convenient for a quick meal, but I seriously doubt they’ll ever catch on.
There is no sense going on short trips anymore for a weekend. It costs nearly $2.00 a night to stay in a hotel.
No one can afford to be sick anymore. At $15.00 a day in the hospital, it’s too rich for my blood.
If they think I’ll pay 30 cents for a haircut, forget it.
That’s what’s now being called the “good old days”. Good in many ways, bad in others but truthfully a much simpler way of life. I’m sure there are a lot of young parents now who would prefer raising their children in that sort of atmosphere rather than the one we’re living in.
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