Archive for the ‘factoids’ Tag
It’s 7am and I’m sitting here drinking my coffee and staring out the window. It’s a sky full or gray and dark clouds and a light annoying rain. I get to top that off with another annoying doctors visit later in the day. How did I ever manage to stay alive this long before I had all these experts making me pay for the privilege?
I feel better now that I’ve gotten that whine out of the way. I think todays post should consist of a general list of interesting oddities. It’s just what the doctor ordered (no pun intended). Enjoy . . .
- In the 10th century, the Grand Viser of Persia, carried 117,000 books with him as he traveled. It took 400 camels to carry all of the volumes.
- Sportscaster Foster Hewitt is credited with being the first person to say, “He shoots! He scores!” It happened at a hockey game between 1931 and 1935.
- In 1985, 300 people who were alive in 1910 gathered to watch Haley’s Comet make its first return to Earth in 75 years.
- In 1967, the town of St. Paul, Alberta, built the world’s first UFO landing pad as a project to mark Canada’s 100th birthday.
- A typical child laughs 26.67 times more per day than the typical adult.
- Vatican City claims the honor of having both the lowest divorce rate and the lowest birth rate of anywhere in the world.
- The first snowboard was called a “snurfer” and was made with two skis attached together.
- The “Spirit of Ecstasy” is the name of the sculpture on the hood ornament of a Rolls-Royce.
- Each of your nostril’s registers smell differently. Your right nostril detects the more pleasant smells, but your left one is more accurate.
- It has been reported in Ripley’s Believe It or Not that the toe tag from the corpse of Lee Harvey Oswald, President Kennedy’s alleged assassin, sold at auction for $9500.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It is an open question whether any behavior
based on fear of eternal punishment can be
regarded as ethical or should be regarded
as merely cowardly.”
Margaret Mead
‘
These are 10 items that are truly miscellaneous. As I gather all of my trivia together there are always a few things that can’t be categorized, and I thought I’d share some of them with you today. Here they are . . .
- Charles E Weller is best known for a single sentence he created, “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.” It was invented for use as a typing exercise.
- The original name of the Girl Scouts was the “Girl Guides’.
- Robert L. Ripley was the first person inducted into the National Trivia Hall of Fame in 1980.
- Did you know that the only two letters that are not on a telephone are the Q & Z.
- The initials M. G. On the famous British automobile stand for the Morris Garage.
- It was in 153 B.C. the Romans first marked January 1st as the beginning of the new year.
- How many of you know that the group motto for the Salvation Army is “Blood & Fire”?
- The middle day of a non-leap year year is July 2nd. There’s 182 days before it, and 182 after it.
- Did you know that Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and Gen. George Patton were dyslexic?
- In 1871 the rickshaw was invented by American Baptist missionary Jonathan Goble. He had a Japanese carpenter build the original rickshaw for his invalid wife in Yokohama.
HANG ON, THE WEEKEND IS COMING
I’ve been offering up quite an assortment of trivia these last few weeks about all sorts of different topics. Today I thought I’d throw some more out there concerning our great country. Odd tidbits of forgotten American history.
- The kitchen is the scene of the greatest number of arguments in an American household.
- 1913 was the first year that motor vehicle registrations surpassed a million. There were 1,258,070 vehicles registered – 1,190,393 of them passenger cars; 67,677 of them were trucks and buses.
- In 1960 the citizens of Hot Springs New Mexico voted to rename their town in or honor of a popular radio show. It is now called Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
- Patience and Fortitude are the names given to the two lions in front of the New York Public Library thanks to Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
- The average American motorist spends approximately 6 months of his or her life waiting for red lights to turn green.
- The clock on the reverse side of the $100 bill shows Independence Hall. Time on the hall clock is 4:10.
- The state of Arkansas has towns named Athens, Carthage, Damascus, Egypt, England, Formosa, Hamburg, Havana, Holland, Jerusalem, London, Manila, Melbourne, Oxford, Palestine, Paris, Scotland, and Stuttgart.
- The first Gallup poll was taken by George Gallup in a survey to find the prettiest girl on campus at the University of Iowa, where he was editor of the student newspaper in the early 1920s. Gallup ended up marrying the winner, Ophelia Smith.
- Mount Katahdin in Maine has the unique distinction of being the first spot in the United States to be touched by the rays of the rising Sun.
- The New York City weather forecast on the day of the Great Blizzard of 1888 was “Clearing and colder, proceeded by light snow.” The city was hit with 20.9 inches of snow and a temperature of -6°F.
MORE TRIVIA IS COMING SOON
Yesterday I posted a few tidbits concerning sexual weirdness laws still being enforced here in our country. With weirdness being the operative word, I thought I would continue with a few more obscure and weird facts that you may not be aware of. It seems that the list grows longer and longer each year.
- The first step on the moon by astronaut Neil Armstrong was made with his left foot.
- More Americans choke on toothpicks than on any other item. Ballpoint pens are running a close second.
- The “gag” rule was instituted in the Senate in 1836 so the Senators would not have to accept, debate, or vote on anti-slavery petitions.
- Fingernails grow faster on your dominant hand.
- Tickling requires surprise. Since you can’t surprise yourself, you can’t tickle yourself, either.
- Fifteen million blood cells are produced and destroyed in the human body every second.
- The human body has enough fat to produce seven bars of soap.
- Investor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Warren Buffett began his illustrious career by collecting and selling lost golf balls.
- Over a lifetime, an average human being spends approximately 6 months on the toilet.
- Ironically the official motto of the state of New Hampshire, printed on its license plates, is “Live Free or Die”, and those license plates are made at a state prison.
This quote belongs to Nancy Reagan and is one of my favorites.
“I think more people would be alive
today if there were a death penalty.”
Since today is April Fools’ Day . . . HAPPY FOOLS DAY. I know Just how much all of you love celebrities and movies, so I thought some movie trivia might be interesting. Nothing too spectacular, just a few interesting factoids to get your week started.
- In The Wizard of Oz, Toto was paid $125.00 a week in salary.
- The injuries on Luke Skywalker’s face when he is attacked by the snow monster in The Empire Strikes Back were real.
- India’s Bollywood movie industry produces more movies each year that Hollywood.
- The 2006 James Bond movie, Casino Royale, was the first Bond movie permitted in China by their censors.
- The first interracial kiss in television history happened on Star Trek.
- Actor Jim Caviezel was struck by lightning while portraying Jesus in The Passion of the Christ.
- Bryan Adams’ famous song “Summer of 69” is named after the sex position, not the year.
- Nicolas Cage is named after comic book hero Luke Cage.
- The group ZZ Top performed in the movie Back to the Future 3.
- Kevin Smith’s iconic movie Clerks was filmed on a budget of less than $28,000.
- Sean Connery turned down the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings because he didn’t understand the script.
- In the post-apocalyptic classic, The Road Warrior, Mel Gibson’s (Mad Max) had just 16 lines of dialogue.
- In the Star Wars Trilogy, George Lucas’s original name for Yoda was Buffy.
- The mask that Michael Myers wears in Halloween was actually a white Captain Kirk mask.
- Yoda from Star Wars, the cookie monster from Sesame Street, and Miss Piggy from The Muppet Show were all voiced by the same person.
I am a constant collector of weird and unusual facts and information. During my travels if I see something that even looks a little bit interesting, I collected it. I have many books in my archives that I’ve not read as thoroughly as I’d like and information your see here is from one of those books. Hope you enjoy it.
- As the great Chicago fire of 1871 killed 300 people, an even deadlier fire was under way 200 miles to the north. It devastated Peshtigo, Wisconsin, killing 600 people; but somehow it never got the same attention.
- All of ReykjavÃk, the capital of Iceland, is heated by underground hot springs. ReykjavÃk is probably the cleanest capital city in the world.
- The first hydrogen bomb, tested in 1952, was as powerful as the total of all the bombs dropped on Germany and Japan during World War II, including both of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- The African climate is not always warm. The Nile River has frozen over at least twice, in 829 A.D. and in 1010.
- For amusement, it was agreed by four friends holidaying in Switzerland that each would write a ghost story. Percy B Shelley, George Byron, and Dr. John William Polidori never finished theirs. Only 18-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin did. She published it anonymously two years later, in 1818, with a preface by her husband, Shelley. Mary Shelley’s novel about Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his monstrous creation became a classic.
- Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norkay deservedly received much praise when they were the first to climb to the summit of Mount Everest. Less known is the fact that they had a roster of 12 climbers, 40 Sherpa guides, and 700 porters.
- Three pairs of common English rabbits were let loose in Australia, in the middle of the 19th century. Within a decade, the six rabbits had multiplied into millions, menacing the country’s agriculture.
- Japan did not send an ambassador to another nation until it sent Niimi Masaoki to the US for a few weeks in 1860.
- The daughters of a mother who is colorblind and a father who has normal vision will have normal vision. The sons will be colorblind, however.
- Up to 150 tons of meteorite fragments slammed into the Earth each year. As far as is known, only seven people have been struck by such rocks from space.
- By “deciphering” the Book of Revelations, a minister in Lochau in East Germany proclaimed that the world would end on October 18, 1533. When it didn’t happen, the minister, Michael Stiftel, was given a thorough thrashing by the townspeople.
I certainly hope you enjoy reading these obscure facts. It’s almost as much fun as actually collecting them. More are certain to follow because I barely scratched the surface of books I haven’t thoroughly read yet.
WHEN IN DOUBT, READ A BOOK
Everyone seems to love animals. Here are a few facts that are interesting, and some that are a bit disgusting. Read on . . .
- Squid have the largest eyes of any animal on earth.
- Giraffes sleep the least of any mammal.
- Many lipsticks contain fish scales.
- Sharks, including hammerheads, as well as mackerels have the ability to skip sleep altogether.
- Thirty-two pigeons, twenty-eight dogs, three horses, and one cat have received medals for bravery in wartime.
- 99.9% of all species that have existed on the earth are now extinct.
- An ostrich’s eye is larger than its brain.
- Hangfish can fill a gallon sized bucket with slime in less than 1 minute.
- Catfish have a better sense of taste than humans.
- Cat urine glows under a black light.
- Dogs generally prefer to eat the protein-rich poop of cats.
- Cow’s milk gives most cats a case of diarrhea.
- Fish, jellyfish, frogs, and toads have all been known to fall out of the sky.
Who knew that animals could be so bizarre? Maybe next time I’ll come up with a list of oddities from us humans. It’s likely they’ll be even stranger than the ones about animals.
NOAH’S ARK MUST HAVE BEEN A HOOT
I normally don’t like to write about politics. Years ago, that’s all I was interested in, but finally common sense prevailed. Today my post will be a little political but coming from a completely new direction. I’m going to talk today about presidents and some of the statistics and trivial facts that aren’t readily known.
- We’ve has 47 presidents (counting Grover Cleveland twice).
- The average age of our presidents at the date of Inauguration was 56.23 years.
- The average life expectancy of the presidents has been 72.2 years.
- George Washington wanted Americans to address him as “His Mightiness the President.”
- While he was president, Franklin Pierce was arrested for running down an elderly woman in his carriage. He was later found not guilty.
- President Warren G. Harding exercised regularly by playing ping-pong.
- Herbert Hoover was the first president to have a telephone in his office. Earlier, presidents who wanted to use the phone had to use the one in the hall.
- Grover Cleveland, 22nd president, was the first one to leave the country while in office. But he didn’t go far. He sailed into international waters 3 miles off the United States coast and did a little fishing and then returned.
- Andrew Jackson, known for his colorful language, apparently taught his pet parrot to curse. When Jackson died in 1845, the parrot was brought to his funeral. It swore at him through the entire service.
- It was so cold at Ulysses S. Grant’s inauguration that the canaries that were supposed to sing during the inaugural ball froze to death.
THERE’S YOUR HISTORY LESSON FOR TODAY
I’ve been an animal lover all of my life. I’ve had all sorts of pets from ferrets, snakes, dogs, cats, and the list goes on and on. Today I thought I’d share with you some odd and trivia type facts on the animal kingdom. With this started . . .
- A group of apes is called a shrewdness.
- A group of alligators is called a congregation.
- The blue whale has the largest penis of any organism on earth (8-10 ft).
- The female barkfly has a penis, which is used to extract sperm from the male barkfly’s vagina.
- A group of cockroaches is called an intrusion.
- Boars can ejaculate continuously for up to 7 min.
- A severed cockroach head can survive for hours.
- The decapitated cockroach can live for weeks before it starves to death.
- Fleas can survive for up to 100 days without a meal (without sucking your blood).
- Cats are more popular pets and dogs.
- The canine nose has more than four times as many scent receptors as the average cat nose (and more than 14 times as many as the human nose).
- A dog on average has 42 teeth, compared to 30 teeth for domestic cats.
- Each year nearly 4,000,000 cats are eaten in China as a delicacy.
- Electric eels generate enough electric charge to kill a horse or a human.
I think that’s enough for today and I’m sure you learned more than you ever cared about knowing of the weird and wonderful world of animals.
I’ve always been a lover of Nature and almost anything related to it. As a photographer I spend as much time as I can out-and-about communing with Mother Nature. I come by it honestly because as a kid growing up I spent more than half of my time in the woods with my friends. We lived on the edge of huge state park directly adjacent to the Allegheny River and knew every inch of the place. My father, a hunter, spent a lot of time explaining about local wildlife and how they lived and traveled in the wild. It was just a very cool place to grow up.
So I thought I’d share a few interesting factoids about Nature with you. Here they are.
- Every year the world’s deserts produce 1.7 billion tons of dust.
- Nature reserves and national park cover 3% of the worlds surface.
- Over 99.9% of the land on earth is not occupied by a person at a given time.
- A tenth of the world’s population relies on the Ganges for water.
- It takes one hundred years for the deep-sea clam to grow to the length of a third of an inch.
- Nearly half of the carbon dioxide emitted by humans since the beginning of the nineteenth century has been absorbed by the oceans.
- An estimated 30% of Earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production.
- Since the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago, the sun has become 25-30% hotter.
- More than 90% of the world’s rubies come from Burma (or whatever they’re calling it these days).
- Lake Baikal in Russia contains about 20% of the world’s fresh water.
That’s it for today. It’s time to turn off this computer and get to work in the yard. Winter’s coming and the garden has to be deconstructed.
ENJOY YOUR DAY OF REST
everyuselessthing.com 