Archive for the ‘berlin’ Tag

06/10/2025 “EVERY USELESS THING”   2 comments

It’s once again time for me to justify this blog’s name. Here are twelve items of Useless Information that aren’t commonly known.

  • Although the earth is 70% water, just 1% of it is considered drinkable.
  • The first people to measure Mount Everest lied about tall it was. Their measurement was exactly 29,000 feet but they thought no one would believe it came to that exact measurement so they added two more feet to the total.
  • The animal with the longest hibernation period is a frog.
  • Every planet in the solar system could fit in the space between Earth and the moon even if you include Pluto.
  • Neil Armstrong claims that he actually said, “That’s one small step for a man” when he landed on the moon.
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger almost missed out on the title role in Terminator to none other than O.J. Simpson.

  • The mask worn by Michael Myers in the Halloween series was actually a white plastic Captain Kirk mask.
  • Bill Buckner had more career hits than Ted Williams.
  • No one has ever recorded a perfect March Madness bracket.
  • Cleopatra’s reign was closer to the date of the moon landings than the building of the pyramids.
  • The United States government once poisoned beer during prohibition.
  • The first bomb dropped by the Allies on Germany during World War II killed an elephant. It fell on the Berlin zoo.

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JUST PLAIN USELESS

01/04/2024 “ODD EUROPEAN HISTORY”   Leave a comment

I’m a lover of all things historical. I’m always on the lookout for books and reference material concerning not just the history of the United States, but of the world. Like it or not the history of the world in its entirety is much worse than this country ever has been. Here are a few examples of that history.

  • The Olympic Games of 1916, scheduled to be held in Berlin, were cancelled due to “global unpleasantness.” Thats just another world for WWI.
  • The medical officer at the Birmingham prison in 1918 recommended that any condemned men be supplied with at least a dozen cigarettes a day.
  • In 1920, King Alexander of Greece, uncle of the Duke of Edinburgh, died after being bitten by a pet monkey.
  • In 1921 in Russia, while reporting on the famine, Arthur Ransome found an old woman so desperate for food she was reduced to cooking horse dung in a broken saucepan.

  • In 1923, Coco Chanel set the trend for tanning when, on a Mediterranean cruise, she inadvertently allowed herself to go brown in the sun. The fashion world immediately assumed it was the chic thing to do.
  • In 1927 during a London run at the Little Theatre, an adaption of Dracula, caused 29 people to faint requiring a nurse to be on hand at all showings.
  • In 1936 during his brief period as king, Edward VIII once avoided an awkward interview by jumping out a window in Buckingham Palace and running away to hide in the garden.
  • In 1938 having just returned from Munich and bringing “peace for our time”, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain requested an update on the long-tailed tits nesting in the Treasury building.

BE GLAD YOUR HERE