I am constantly amazed as I do my research for this blog. So many facts exist that are different and sometimes strange. It seems that the stranger facts regularly turn out to be true. Here are ten interesting facts you might enjoy.
The Puritans brought beer to America. According to Mourt’s Relation (1622), the Mayflower Pilgrims settled at Plymouth because supplies, especially beer, were running low. Beer was a dietary mainstay on long voyages because, having been boiled, it was purer than water.
Despite being made famous by Dutch paintings and Spain’s Don Quixote, windmills originated in Persia before the 10th century.
At -90°F, your breath will freeze in midair and fall to the ground.
The word “deadline” originated in Civil War prisons, where lines were drawn that prisoners passed only at the risk of being shot.
On March 15, 1985, Symbolic.com became the first registered Internet domain. Science-fiction writer William Gibson had coined the term “cyberspace” in his novel Neuromancer only the year before.
The first film version of Frankenstein was a 15-minute silent film produced by Thomas Edison.
Inventions that changed how we shop: the cash register (1884), the shopping cart (1936), and the scannable barcode (1952).
Warren Buffett, legendary investor and self-made multibillionaire, filed his first income tax return at age 13, reporting revenue from a newspaper delivery job. He claimed a $35 deduction for his bicycle.
Shakespeare coined thousands of new words, or “neologisms” in his plays and sonnets. Among these are: amaze, bedroom, excellent, fitful, majestic, radiance, and summit.
Dolly the sheep – the first cloned mammal – was named after country singer Dolly Parton. Stockmen dubbed the sheep “Dolly “because she was cloned from a mammary cell.
How many of the ten were you aware of before reading this post? I’m just a little curious. I’ll just bet the real Dolly was so proud she was popping her buttons off. LOL
The truth is sometimes strange and at other times ridiculous. These factoids are a little of both. They’re good for making a few bucks at bar bets on trivia night.
The term ” soap opera” comes from the fact that shows used to work advertisements for soap powder into the plot lines.
A champagne cork flying out of a bottle can travel as fast as 100 miles per hour.
People who fear the number 666 suffer from hexakaosioihexekontahexaphobia.
On November 21, 1980, 83 million Americans tuned in to watch the finale of the Dallas cliffhanger “Who Shot J.R.?” A few weeks earlier, 85.1 million Americans voted in the Reagan-Carter presidential election.
During a 60-year life span, an average tree will produce nearly 2 tons of leaves to be raked.
Dancing the tango was considered a sin in Paris during the early 1900s.
Those roped off areas where boxing matches take place actually used to be round, hence the term “boxing ring”.
Pope John XXI (1276-01277) had been in office less than a year before the ceiling on a new wing of his palace collapsed on him while he slept. He died six days later.
Nearly 4% of American women claim that they never wear underwear.
The Pentagon goes through more than 600 rolls of toilet paper every day.
TOO WEIRD TO BELIEVE? . . . WELL, BELIVE IT ANYWAY
I realize that most people have no real use for statistics and suspect they can be manipulated easily by politicians and others to suit whatever point they’re trying to make. I believe that as well but nonetheless I’m about to supply you with a few statistics and facts you may never have heard before. Here they are.
The number of atoms in a pound of iron is nearly 5 trillion trillion: 4,891, 500, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000.
Manhattan Island from end to end is less than 1,000,000 inches long.
Three pairs of common English rabbits were let loose in Australia, in the middle of the 19th century. Within a decade, the six rabbits multiplied into millions, menacing the country’s agriculture.
Coffee is the world’s second largest item of international commerce. Petroleum is first.
The abacus was used in the West in medieval times, and then forgotten. Interest in the accounting tool was revived when the abacus was brought to France by Lieut. Jean Victor Poncelet, when he was freed by the Russians after the Napoleons fall.
Drilling an oil well 5 miles deep require drilling night and day, seven days a week, for as long as 500 days.
In terms of the resources he will use in his lifetime and the pollution he will cause. One citizen of the United States is the equivalent of about 80 citizens of India.
During the next minute, 100 people will die in 240 will be born. The world’s population increases by 140 people per minute.
There are 2,500,000 rivets in the Eiffel Tower.
There are 11.5 psychiatrists per 100,000 population in the United States. In the nation’s capital, however, there are 56.1 per 100,000.
There you have. More totally useless information for you to clog your brain with. The more I find the more I continue to find.
Trivia . . . more trivia . . . Here’s some interesting retro trivia from those good old days that we’ve always heard so much about. You can decide if they were as good as we’ve always been told.
Two hundred years ago: For kissing his wife in public on a Sunday after just returning from a three-year voyage, a Boston ship captain was made to sit two hours in the stocks for “lewd and seemly behavior”.
The first Cadillac, which was produced in 1903, cost less than the original model T Ford. Their prices, respectively, were $750 and $875.
The bathhouse in the late medieval town became the habitat for loose women and lecherous man as family life deteriorated. The medieval word for bathhouse, “stew,” has come down in English as a synonym for brothel.
The average married woman in 17th century America gave birth to 13 children.
One-third of all automobiles in New York City, Boston, and Chicago in 1900 were electric cars, with batteries rather than gasoline engines.
In 1909, Annette Kellerman, the Australian swimming star, appeared on a Boston beach wearing a figure- fitting jersey bathing suit with sleeves shortened almost to her shoulders and trousers ending 2 inches above her knees. She was arrested for indecent exposure.
Life expectancy at birth for Americans was 34.5 years for males and 36.5 years for females when George Washington became president in 1789.
As late as 1890, nearly 75% of Americans had to fetch their mail from a post office. A community had to have at least 10,000 people to be eligible for home delivery, and most people then lived in towns or on farms.
The Puritans, considering buttons a vanity and used only hooks and eyes.
In colonial days it was legal to smoke tobacco in Massachusetts only when the smoker was traveling and had reached a location that was 5 miles away from any town. In 1647 Connecticut passed a law forbidding social smoking and limiting the use of tobacco to once a day, and then only when the smoker was alone in his own house.
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.
I’ve been a history buff for most of my life. I would prefer to sit in a corner and read a book on history than just about any other topic except for science fiction. Unfortunately, many historical facts that were being taught in the school systems weren’t exactly accurate. Here are a few examples.
LIZZIE BORDEN
Lizzie Borden’s verdict was not guilty.
The first shots of the US Civil War were not at Fort Sumter South Carolina. On January 9, 1861, a battery of Confederate soldiers on Morris Island, South Carolina – cadets from the Citadel Military College fired 17 shots at the Star of the West, a civilian union steamship hired by the federal government to transport military supplies and reinforcements to Fort Sumter. Three months later is when the Confederate army fired on the South Carolina Fort.
The feminists did not burn their bras but wore them. The closest thing to bra burning happened at the 1968 Miss America pageant. On September 7, 1968, protesters of the pageant filled a “freedom trashcan” with bras, girdles, false eyelashes, men’s magazines, and other items they considered instruments of torture. Some people wanted to burn the items, but they were unable to obtain a burn permit.
President Lincoln’s first choice to lead the union armies was not General Grant but Robert E Lee, who rejected his offer because of his loyalty to Virginia.
President Andrew Jackson was called Old Hickory because of his walking stick.
George Washington’s false teeth were not made of wood but of hippopotamus and elephant ivory held together with gold springs. Real human teeth and bits of horse and donkey teeth were inserted into an ivory plate. By the way, his dentures are on display in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of History and Technology.
GEORGE’S TEETH
Contrary to the image of Daniel Boone popularized by actor Fess Parker on TV, the real Daniel Boone didn’t wear a coonskin hat, which he thought looked uncivilized. Instead, he wore a beaver felt hunters’ hat, a wide brimmed, Pennsylvania-style hat, which resembled the hat depicted on a box of Quaker Oats.
DANIEL BOONE
Just when I thought I had a good handle on our history I stumbled upon hundreds of items that needed clarification. I’ll send along more in the future because the more I find the more interesting they become.
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 Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, is heated by underground hot springs. Reykjavík 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.
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.
Birds do not pee.
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.
Some fish can walk.
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.
After my last two years of medical issues and treatments, I consider myself something of an expert on my own body. I thought I knew all I needed to know but once again I was mistaken. Here are a few really interesting tidbits that will blow your mind. Even you former and current medical professionals, you know who you are. Here we go . . .
On average there are approximately 75,000,000,000,000 (trillion) cells in the human body.
There are ten times as many bacteria cells living in your gut (750 trillion).
Sixty percent of the solids in your poo are made up of bacteria from your gut.
There are about 100 billion nerve cells in the adult human brain, but 10 times as many support cells to look after them.
Adults lose on average, about 100,000 nerve cells from their brain every day. Over the course of a lifetime this adds up to losing about 7% of the brain.
Your heart beats approximately 100,000 times a day without rest for an entire lifetime – that’s more than 2.5 billion beats in your life.
Laid end to end, a child’s blood vessels would stretch for over 60,000 miles: and adults for 100,000 miles – that’s four times around the Equator.
The blood of an adult male contains more than 25 trillion cells.
An average red blood cell lives for only 120 days. During this time, it will travel 300 miles on its journey round and round the body.
The average male produces 50,000 sperm per minute – that’s 72 million per day. A single male ejaculation contains 200 million sperm – theoretically enough to generate a combined population of Britain, France, and Germany.
Each sperm leaving the penis travels at 8000 body lengths per second, equivalent to a human swimming at 34,000 miles per hour.
Over the course of three years almost every cell in your body will have been replaced by new ones, making you literally a different person to who you were two years ago.
One square inch of human skin has 19 million cells, 60 hairs, 90 oil glands, 19 feet of blood vessels, and 625 sweat glands.
Fingernails grow twice to four times as fast as toenails and the nail on the middle finger grows the fastest.
If you lose a toenail, it will take approximately six months to grow back completely.
I actually love all of these bizarre facts that are available about the human body. I’m just as glad that I found out late in life about all this nonsense because it would have freaked me out a bit in my younger years. I’m just so happy that I get to share it with all of you and if you’re really lucky you might be able to win a few Trivia Night Contests at your local tavern. Have one for me while you’re there.
I thought we should post a little trivia today about our friends in the animal kingdom. As weird as people can be animals are way worse. Read and be enlightened.
A bird has to fly at a minimum speed of 11 miles per hour to be able to keep itself aloft.
More than 1000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.
Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms a day.
A whales penis is called a dork.
A humpback whales milk is 54% fat.
If the eggs spawned by all the female cod in one season survived, they would fill the oceans from seabed to surface. Cod lay between four and 5 million eggs at a time – but usually only about five survive.
Crocodiles cannot stick their tongues out.
Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of the blue whale.
Neither horses nor rabbits can vomit.
A rat can survive longer without water than a camel.
It is illegal in Alaska to give a moose an alcoholic drink.
A pig always sleeps on its right side.
A lion’s roar can be heard from 5 miles away.
Human birth control pills work on gorillas.
A cat has four rows of whiskers.
The pet ferret was domesticated more than 500 years before the house cat.
Twelve or more cows are known as a flink.
Everything you ever wanted to know about animal trivia. There’s a lot more available and you can be sure I’ll be posting it in the future.
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