I’ve spent a few nights recently getting reacquainted with Isaac Azimov’s Foundation series. It’s a classic creation that I’ve read a number of times over the years and it’s still a great read. Being a huge fan of Azimov I still read the story in absolute amazement much like I get when I read the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. How their minds work to write these amazing stories puzzles me but I still enjoy every minute spent reading them. Todays post will contain a group of unrelated facts collected by Azimov over the years and I thought you might enjoy them.
After the most recent North American glacier ended its southward advance about 11,000 years ago, it took more than 4,000 years for the mile-deep ice mass to melt from the present site of Hartford, Connecticut to that of St. John’s, Vermont, a distance of 190 miles.
The Earth receives only one-half of one-billionth of the sun’s radiant energy. But in just a few days it gets as much heat and light as could be produced by burning all of the oil, coal, and wood on this planet.
The first English settlement in what became New England was founded 13 years before the arrival of the Pilgrim’s. In 1607, a settlement was established at Popham Beach, Maine. After a year, its inhabitants found the climate too harsh, and departed.
During most of the Middle Ages, few people, including kings and emperors, were able to read or write. The clergy were virtually the only ones who possessed those skills.
Blue Laws became known as such because of the color of the paper on which they were printed. In 1665, Theophilus Eaton, governor of the New Haven Colony, and a friend, clergyman John Davenport, drew up the strict legal code regulating personal conduct that subsequently became known as the Blue Laws.
Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, was sentenced to life in prison for splinting the fractured leg of Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, became a hero to guards and inmates of his island prison when he stopped a yellow-fever epidemic there, in 1868, after all of the Army doctors had died. President. Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, pardoned Mudd in early 1869.
Until the “pooper-scooper law” was passed in 1978, the 500,000 dogs in New York City deposited 175 pounds of fecal matter on the streets each day. The law requires dog owners to clean up after their dogs, on penalty of fines up to $100. Most dog owners comply, and New York City is much cleaner.
President Lincoln’s only son to live to manhood – Robert Todd Lincoln – was at hand at the assassinations of three Presidents: his father’s, Garfield’s, and McKinley. He was called to the house where his father was dying; arrived only moments after Garfield was shot in the capital and McKinley was shot in Buffalo.
I like finding information in history that I’ve never heard before. Here are two samples of incidents that apparently are not common knowledge. Enjoy!
HARRY CARAY
We don’t know where or when the “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” seven-inning sing-along began, but one early claim and perhaps the one that popularized it was the result of a prank. In the 1970’s, baseball broadcaster Harry Caray, then a play-by-play announcer for the White Sox, was known to sing along to the song while in the broadcast booth, which was normally with the microphone off. Bill Veeck found out about this and one day unbeknownst to Caray he turned the broadcaster’s microphone on and piped Caray’s rendition to the fans. The fans absolutely loved it, and when Caray moved to the crosstown Chicago Cubs, he kept it going.
FORT SUMTER
Here’s a little tidbit from the Civil War era. Officially, the siege of Fort Sumter had a death toll of just two men, both Union soldiers. But those deaths weren’t at the hands of the Confederacy. Fort Sumter, low on provisions and undermanned, was unable to thwart the Confederate bombardment. Major Robert Anderson, the commander of the fort agreed to surrender after less than two days of bombardment, under the condition that his men be allowed to give a 100-gun salute when lowering the American flag. During that ceremony, some ammunition went off accidentally, killing Pvt. Edward Galloway and Daniel Hough, the only casualties.
Now that I’m laid up with this broken ankle, I thought I should delve into the medical profession for a few items of trivia. Unfortunately, most of my conversations these days are with doctors, nurses, hospitals, and those lovely insurance companies. I should mention that as a young kid I was bullied for almost a year which makes me very aware of people who bully others. I understand that medical folks are only trying to do good, but really their job is all about being gentle bullies and I tend to react badly at times. It makes me a little crazy. I’m sure that somewhere in one of the many medical computer files some well-meaning person has noted next to my name, “A-Hole“. So, sit back and enjoy some medical trivia from a proud, card-carrying A-Hole.
The Egyptian mummy was a standard drug of European pharmacology until the eighteenth century. Despite criticism within the medical profession, doctors prescribed mummy powder as a cure for internal ailments. Portions of many embalmed Egyptian dead were swallowed before science and common sense rendered the practice obsolete.
Sigmund Freud turned down a $10,000.00 fee in 1920 to spend six months in New York treating patients in the morning and lecturing in the afternoon. He calculated that he would return to Vienna poorer than when he left so he declined.
Opium was frequently used as a painkiller by Army doctors during the US Civil War. By the end of the war, according to conservative estimates 100,000 soldiers had become addicted to opium, at a time when the population of the entire country was only 40,000,000.
In the eighteenth century, there were American slaves who were physicians. They treated not only other slaves and free blacks and whites as well, until restricted by law to serving only the black community.
Approximately 3500 men were practicing medicine at the time of the American Revolution. Only about 400 had an actual medical degree. Of the much larger number of women who practiced, even a smaller number had any formal training.
I’m already getting a little bored with Christmas so here’s my change of pace. Mish Mosh is always interesting and it will help to get me out of this holly, jolly, mindset I’ve fallen into. Weird and strange facts which someone (maybe even you) will find interesting.
Women tend to shave approximately 412 square inches of their bodies, while men shave only 48.
Tap water in New York City is considered non-kosher, as it has been found to contain microorganisms that qualify as shellfish.
December is the most common month for children to be conceived.
Fingerprints are unique to each individual, of course, but the same goes for tongue prints and lip prints.
A pound of peanut butter is made up of 720 peanuts.
During his nine-year reign as pope (beginning in 955), John XII was charged with multiple sexual acts and toasting the devil with wine. He was allegedly killed by a jealous husband.
Confederate volunteers in the Civil War were paid $11 per month in 1861. Their pay was increased to $18 per month by 1864, but by then the currency was almost worthless.
As General George Patton crossed a bridge over the Rhine River into Germany during World War II, he stopped in the middle and urinated into the river.
The working title of the Beatles hit “With a Little Help from My Friends” was “Bad Finger Boogie”
The human heart produces enough pressure to squirt blood more than 30 feet.
I already feel better since ridding my brain of all this holiday insanity, if only for just a few minutes. I’m afraid that I’ll be back at posting about the holidays and Santa and reindeer and mistletoe and snow and Christmas cards and OMG please stop me now.
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