Archive for the ‘odd facts’ Tag
It appears today will be a slow day. Gray skies, rainy, and just chilly enough to let us know that snow is on the way soon. With that depressing thought in mind I’ll be lazy and post some little known facts you may not have heard before.
- The first soda can was developed in 1938 by the Continental Can Company for the ginger ale drink Clicquot in Massachusetts. RC Cola was the first soft drink company to nationally distribute soda in cans in 1954.
- In 1968, the Navy spent $400,00.00 in a study of Frisbees in wind tunnels, using cameras and computers. The results were never published.
- Dr. Joseph Bell inspired the character of Sherlock Holmes. In 1877 when Arthur Conan Doyle was studying to be a doctor, Bell was one of his professors. Dr. Bell had excellent deductive abilities when observing people.
- The state of Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw Indians words: “okla” meaning people and “humma” meaning red, so the state’s name literally means “red people”.
- To satisfy President Ronald Reagan more than 24 thousand pounds of jelly beans were ordered by the White House during his two terms in office.
- On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr shot and killed the Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey.
- James Madison stood only 5’4′. He was also the lightest president weighing in at just a 100 pounds.
- On April 11,1912, pinstripes appeared on the uniforms of the Highlanders, who were the forerunners of the New York Yankees.
- In 1872 the Equal Rights Party nominated Victoria Claflin Woodhall for the Presidency. This was at a time when, nationwide, women were not allowed to vote.
- Aldous Huxley published his novel Brave New World in 1933. George Orwell followed in 1949 with “1984”of a society run by the Thought Police and Big Brother.
MORE ODDITIES SOON
Here is an updated selection of rather odd and sometimes scary trivia facts. Some are good and some are not. Ten things you probably wish you don’t know. You be the final judge.
- Approximately 1.7 million violent workplace incidents occur in this country every year. 18,700 are committed by the victim’s intimate partner.
- If you swim in ocean areas that contain sharks, avoid wearing the colors yellow and orange. Apparently these colors piss off sharks. Who knew?
- Female marsupials have three vaginas. and the males have a forked penis.
- Approximately 4 million cats and dogs are euthanized each year in this country at animal shelters.
- Ten percent of Americans between eighteen and twenty-four can’t find the United States on a blank world map.
- Half of Americans believe that the President has the power to suspend the constitution (Mostly Democrats I’ll wager).
- According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimates, 1.5 million patients suffer each year because of mistakes made with medicines given in hospitals.
- Mental health concerns are one of Americans’ top reasons for seeking medical treatmernt.
- The place where you rest your hands on your desk is home to ten million bacteria at any given moment.
- A person can survive without eating for weeks, but will only survive eleven days without sleep.
KISS YOUR FAVORITE VETERAN
We are all human beings and supposedly we’re the primary predator on this planet, so far. Five years from now with the number of AI’s being created that may not be the case. Todays post will contain some of the more interesting facts about being human. Let’s see where you fit in.
- The longest reported case of hiccups lasted for sixty-eight years (Mr.Charles Osboure).
- The longest time somebody has kept one eye open without blinking was eight minutes and twenty-six seconds.
- Red heads do not usually go gray.
- You shed approximately forty thousand skin cells a minute.
- Some tumors in your body can grow hair and teeth (A teratoma tumor).
- The word “fart” is one of the oldest words in the English language.
- People who swallow a lot of air fart a lot more than people who don’t.
- The smell of a woman’s tears makes men feel less sexual aroused and reduces levels of testosterone.
- Standing up to poop is healthier than sitting (less hemorrhoids and colonic obstructions).
- People with blue eyes can can drink more before showing signs of drunkenness.
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BONUS FACT
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Did you know that “defecaloesiophobia” is the fear of having difficult bowel movements.
DON’T SWALLOW AIR NEAR ME
It seems to be a good day for another dose of Mish/Mosh. This post will include odd facts, proverbs, and quotes from well-known people.
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.” Benjamin Franklin
- The first animal to be domesticated by humans was not a dog, sheep, horse, or pig. Approximately 12,0000 BC, 14,000 years ago along the Russian/Mongolian border reindeer were lured away from migratory groups and bred domestically.
“The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.” Alfred Adler
- If you are dehydrated virtually any fluid will help hydrate you, but not sea water. Alcohol is fine and so are tea and coffee. There is no scientific basis that fluids other than water cause dehydration.
“The missing link between animals and human beings is most likely ourselves.” Konrad Lorenz
- The original discovery of penicillin was from the far past where Bedouin tribesmen in North Africa made a healing ointment from the mold on donkey harnesses for more than a thousand years.
“The greatest of all inventors is accident.” Mark Twain
- The ball point pen was invented and patented in 1938 by Laszlo Biro and his brother Gyorgy. They immigrated to Argentina in 1940 to avoid the Nazis and repatented it there in 1943. One of their earliest customer was the RAF encouraged by the pens performance at high altitudes.
“A hen is only an eggs way of making another egg.” Samuel Butler
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THE WEIRDER THE BETTER
- The can opener wasn’t invented until nearly 50 years after the can itself.
- If there are twenty-three people in a room, there is a 50% chance that two of them will share a birthday. This is what statisticians call “The Birthday Paradox”.
- Human beings landed on the moon before inventing wheeled suitcases.
- A majority of Canadians live south of Seattle.
- Astroglide Lube was originally supposed to be a space shuttle coolant.
- The Cornish word for “breath” is “anal.”
- The letters in “eleven plus two” can be rearranged to spell “twelve plus one.”
- Some people are afraid of gravity. (Barophobia).
- “Phobophobia” is a real thing. It’s sufferers are afraid of fear.
- The vibrator was originally invented as a medical device. Orgasms were believed to be able to cure many medical ailments.
My Favorite
Cornflakes were originally developed to suppress the urge to masturbate. The Kellogg brothers were deeply religious and believed that the food would help their brethren suppress the urge to pleasure themselves.
GUESS AGAIN KELLOGG BROTHERS
Yesterday was a less than a spectacular day. My better-half was diagnosed with Covid after returning from her safari to the northern wilds of Maine. It effectively required that the cat and I sleep alone for a few days until she recovers. Today started off when the Maine Medical System decided to charge me an out-of-pocket charge of $117.30 to appear at their office to have my blood pressure checked. I said, “Hell No!” and immediately cancelled the appointment. I hate it when people in any organization think of me as just another revenue stream rather than a real patient. Well, I think that’s enough of my bitching and complaining for today. This post is trivia related but contains much more obscure information than my normal facts. Enjoy!
- Shaquille O’Neal wears a size 52XXXXL (extra-extra-extra-extra-long) jersey.
- 20.41 pounds is the weight of $1,000,000 worth of U.S. $100.00 dollar bills.
- It is 14 miles distance from the Batcave to Gotham City.
- There is an average of 512 plain M&M’s per pound.
- Jimy Olsen’s middle name was Bartholomew.
- The movie Roots was originally titled “Before This Anger”.
- The original family surname of John Cleese was Cheese.
- “Et one, Brute?” was the advertising slogan for Lay’s Potatoe Chips in the 60’s.
- “JoJo” is Bart Simpson’s middle name.
- Kelcy’s Bar was Archie Bunkers favorite hangout.
ONE OF MY FAVS
Manfred was the oldest of the Marx Brothers who died before his first birthday.
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ARREST THE LAWBREAKERS
It’s “Weird Facts” Day here at Everyuselessthing. I’m offering a few odd and strange truisms you’ve probably never heard of before. Just another public service for those of you interested in the unusual. Some of this information was collected from a book authored by Dan Lewis in 2013. This is my homage to him, a fellow lover of the weirdness that is the human race.
- In August 1962, American singer Bobby “Boris” Pickett released a novelty Halloween song “Monster Mash”. The song (his only hit) reached the top of the US Billboard charts in October of that year. But it took more than ten years for it to have any success in the UK. In 1962, the BBC banned the song from the airwaves, claiming it was “too morbid.” When the song was finally rereleased in 1973, the BBC saw it immediately rise to number three on the UK charts.
- The Mona Lisa is not painted on canvas, but on three pieces of wood roughly an inch and a half thick.
- Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Abbott was born without a right hand. Nevertheless, he had a ten-year career in the league, and on September 4, 1993, threw a no-hitter.
- New York City is filled with carts selling hotdogs, pretzels, cold drinks, etc., with the core products running just a few bucks, depending on location. Central Park spots can earn as much as $175,000.00 annually, says Yahoo.com, and in 2008, one vendor bid more than $600,000.00 for the exclusive rights to sell wieners outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Toilet paper is not the greatest thing since sliced bread. It can’t be, because TP predated slice bread by more than 50 years. Commercial TP was invented in 1857 by a New Yorker named Joseph Gayetty, who sold packs of 500 sheets for $.50. It’s marketing language called the product “the greatest necessity of the age,” so perhaps, sliced bread is the greatest thing since toilet paper.
HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY
How about a few strange trivia facts. After all this blog isn’t called Every-Useless-Thing for nothing. Here’s a small collection of useless things for your enjoyment.
- One pound of peanut butter can contain up to 150 bug fragments and 5 rodent hairs.
- Roughly 100 people die every year from choking on ball-point pens.
- Some scientists view love in terms of addiction. One study discovered that monogamous pairing is based in the same region of the brain as drug addiction.
- Studies show that 87 percent of people fear getting trapped in dull conversations at dinner parties.
- A retired teacher in California once admitted that he taught for 17 years without knowing how to read or write.
- There is a real neurological disorder called Alien Hand Syndrome (AHS). It causes the sufferer’s hands to move independently, without control of the action.
- The acid in your stomach is so powerful that it can dissolve a razor blade in less than a week.
- You can find 20 million microscopic animals living on a square inch of human skin.
- More than 90 percent of women have asymmetrical breasts.
- On any given day, approximately 400 million people across the globe will have sexual intercourse, which means that about 4,000 people are probably having sex right now.
THE HUMAN MIRACLE – NOT
Are you ready for another day of freaky and bizarre? Let me dig into my bag of nonsense and come up with four or five more oddities which you might find interesting. I don’t need to say anything else, here we go.
- When English writer Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) died, his heart was kept apart from his body that was cremated. The idea was to bury it in Stinsford, England, the home of his beloved childhood church and his family’s burial plot. All went according to plan until his sister’s cat leaped up on her kitchen table, snatched the heart, and ran off into the woods with it.
- Centuries ago, animals were often put on trial for crimes ranging from witchcraft to theft and murder. Throughout history, the animal that’s been prosecuted mostly is the pig. In 1547 France, for example, a mother pig and her six babies were sentenced to death for killing and eating a child. The sow was executed, but the piglets were pardoned because it was felt that they were led astray by the bad example of their mother.
- A fortune teller told businessman Kichiro Toyoda that it would be good luck to change his company’s name to Toyota and to give the company cars names beginning with the letter “C “such as Celica and Camry.
- Francesco Lentini was born in 1889 with what appeared to be a tail, but which was in fact a nearly developed foot growing from the base of his spine. Although he was treated as a disabled outcast most of his life, he found work in Italian sideshows and was quoted as having said, “I have never complained. I think life is beautiful, and I enjoy living it.” He lived to the ripe old age of 78 years.
- Investigators in Tacoma, Washington, were able to identify two generations of maggots on a body that had died from a gunshot wound. In doing so, they determined the approximate date of the corpses demise, as a maggots lifecycle lasts only about three weeks. Armed with the estimated time of death, the investigators were able to trace the disease whereabouts and eventually found the killer.
OOH MY!!!
With my better half’s spending a week with her grandson in California, I thought I’d enjoy this gray and rainy Maine day by supplying all of you with interesting, weird, freaky, and odd tidbits of facts and trivia. So, todays post (part 1) and Tuesdays post (part 2) should be interesting and just a bit weird.
- On April 21, 1997, a rocket containing the cremated remains of 24 people was launched into space. Among the remains were those of Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek series creator. The rocket was launched by Celestis, a company formed in 1996 for the expressed purpose of launching ashes into space.
- A tourist visiting San Francisco in 1964 was involved in a minor cable car accident. As a result, she sued the city of San Francisco, claiming that the incident had turned her into a nymphomaniac. She won the case and received an award of $50,000. (Only in San Francisco)
- The extreme dread of thunder is called brontophobia. For brontophobes , the boom and crash of thunder has a demonic quality. Often found in people suffering from a psychoneurosis, brontophobia can also be associated with a person, often a person in a position of authority, and the fearsome thunder is their expression of disapproval.
- During World War II a young woman in Germany, Emmie Marie Jones, gave birth to a daughter, despite the fact that she insisted she was a virgin. In 1955, scientists in England did genetic testing and discovered that Emmie and her daughter were genetically identical twins. The only explanation the scientists could offer was that the shock of the bombing caused parthenogenesis, the spontaneous splitting of an unfertilized egg.
- Queen Mary I of England and Ireland (1516-1558) was a Catholic who had Protestants tortured and killed. Her actions inspired the nickname “Bloody Mary”, which in turn later inspired the famous cocktail.
LOOKS LIKE MY HIGH SCHOOL PROM DATE
