Archive for the ‘odd facts’ Tag
Everyone seems to love weird facts and even weirder trivia. I try to distribute as much of that nonsense as I possibly can, and today will be no different. The following facts you may know, or you may have heard of before but in general they’re a little different.
- Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson enjoyed the soft drink Fresca so much that he had a special tap installed in the White House for his use.
- The ideal knuckleball should complete less than one single rotation on its way to home plate. Its erratic path is created by the difference in air molecules traveling over the baseball seams and smooth surfaces.
- Ice skaters skate on water, not ice. At 32°F, ice has a liquid surface measuring 400 billionths of a meter thick. Below -31°F, the liquid layer becomes so thin that the skater’s blades would stick rather than glide across the ice.
- The Puritans founded America’s first college, bookstore, and newspaper.
- The percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had to do it all over again is 80%. The percentage of American women who say the same is 50%.
- There are 2,598,960 possible hands in Texas Hold’em.
- The word salary comes from the Latin “salarium” meaning “payment in salt.” Roman soldiers were paid partially in salt, a highly valuable commodity at the time.
- High quality crystal produces a clear ringing sound when struck, hence the phrase “crystal clear.”
- To actually see a rainbow, you must have your back to the sun.
- Human foreskins discarded after circumcision are sold to biomedical companies for use in artificial skin manufacture. One foreskin contains enough genetic material to grow 250,000 ft.² of new skin. They are also used as a “secret ingredient” in popular anti-wrinkle gels.
NOW YOU KNOW EVERYTHING
Unfortunately I won’t be blogging about April Fool’s Day pranks but if you must know I was a hardworking, inventive, dedicated, and persistent prankster for most of my life. Enjoy the day and prank as many people as you can. It’s just so very satisfying.
I thought I would also post a number of trivia items that you normally wouldn’t see. My feeling is the more obscure the better. Here we go . . .
- Most healthy adults can go without eating for a month or longer. But they must drink at least two quarts of water a day.
- The Romans were so fond of eating mice that the upper classes raised them domestically. The rodents were kept in specially designed cages and fed a mixture of assorted nuts.
- When tea was first introduced in the American colonies, many housewives, in their ignorance, served the tea leaves with sugar or syrup after throwing away the water in which they had been boiled.
- The modern dinner plate is a fairly recent development. Until the fifteenth century, it was customary to eat on a thick slice of stale bread, called a “trencher,” that soaked up the juice.
- At the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, Richard Blechynden, an Englishman, had a tea concession. On one very hot day none of the fairgoers were interested in hot tea. In a desperate attempt for business, he served the tea cold – and invented iced tea.
- Kernels of popcorn were found in the graves of pre-Columbian Indians.
- To celebrate in 537 AD, the dedication of the new church, Hagia Sofia – Emperor Justinian held a banquet that caused the slaughtering of more than 10,000 sheep, oxen, swine, poultry, and deer.
- To make one pound of honey, bees must collect nectar from approximately two million flowers.
HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY
Here’s a collection of peculiar trivia mixed in with some interesting quotes from somewhat interesting people. It’s a good way to start your somewhat interesting work week. Have fun . . .
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” Eleanor Roosevelt
- In the spring of 1930, the Senate almost voted to ban all dial telephones from the Senate wing of the Capital, as the technophobic older senators found them too complicated to use.
- Commercial deodorant became available in 1888. Roll-on deodorant was an invented in the 1950s, using technology from standard ballpoint pens.
- Before Popeye, Olive Oyl’s boyfriend was named Ham Gravy.
- Three presidents died on the 4th of July: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe.
- The world goes through approximately 1.75 billion candy canes every year.
“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” Vince Lombardi
- Like plants, children grow faster during spring than any other season.
- The aboriginal body consists of approximately 71 pounds of intentionally edible meat, not including organ tissue.
- British geologist William Buckland was known for his ability to eat anything, including rodents and insects. When presented with the heart of French King Louis XIV, he gobbled it up without hesitation.
- Male lions are able to make 50 or more times in a single day. Tell your husband.
- It took more than 1700 years to build the Great Wall of China.
“Carpe per diem“– means seize the check – so says Robin Williams
- In an ironic twist, Mel Blanc, best known as the voice of Bugs Bunny, had an aversion to raw carrots.
- Australian toilets are designed to flush counterclockwise.
- Mr. Potato Head holds the honor of being the first toy ever featured in a television commercial.
- If you add up all the time you blink during the day, you’d have about half an hour of shut-eye.
- John Lennon was the first person to be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” Paul McCartney
SEIZE THE DAY
Being a collector of useless information and all types of odd trivia, I offer for your enjoyment today the following list of really strange occurrences and/or coincidences. I’ve firmly believed for years that there are no such things as coincidences but maybe these will prove me wrong.
- The Surete, the French precursor and modern counterpart of the FBI, was founded in 1812 by a man who was once named Public Enemy Number One. Eugene-Francois Vidocq, a thief and outlaw, evaded the police for years, turned police spy, joined the force as a detective, and used his knowledge of crime to establish a new crime fighting organization, the Surete.
- The carpenter who built the first stocks in Boston in 1634, a man named Palmer, was the first to occupy them. He was charged with over-billing the town elders for the construction, found guilty, and sentenced to spend a half-hour in the stocks he had recently completed.
- To help determine on what floor it should have its offices in one of the two World Trade Center towers, a Japanese company hired a soothsayer to throw dice.
- A Harvard student on his way home to visit his parents fell between two railroad cars in Jersey City, New Jersey, and was rescued by an actor on his way to visit his sister in Philadelphia. The student was Robert Lincoln, heading to the White House to visit his father. The actor was Edwin Booth, the brother of the man who in a few weeks would murder the student’s father.
- The celebrated seventeenth-century pirate William Kidd was a wealthy landowner in New York state.
- Mark Twain was born in 1835 when Halley’s comet appeared. He predicted he would die when Halley’s comet next returned to scare everyone – and he did, in 1910. The comet returned again in 1986.
- U.S. Congressmen expressed surprise on learning in 1977 that it takes fifteen months of instruction at the Pentagon’s School of Music to turn out a bandleader but merely thirteen months to train a jet pilot.
- Eleven days before the statute of limitations was to expire on the three-million-dollar Brink’s bank robbery in Boston in 1950, one of the robbers confessed and betrayed his fellow robbers.
- During the Gold Rush days in California, Charlie Parkhurst was a stagecoach driver, taking passengers and gold shipments along dangerous roads. Charlie smoked cigars, chewed tobacco, played cards, drank and at one time shot dead two highwaymen. On December 31, 1879, Charlie was found dead at his home. As they were dressing the body for burial it was discovered that Charlie Parkhurst was a woman.
- The slave, Henry Brown escaped from Virginia in 1858 by hiding (with a box of biscuits and a bladder of water) in a box that was shipped from Richmond to Philadelphia. There, he popped out into “the free world.” He was forever after known as “Box” Brown.
Here is a message from my new 2023 calendar that specializes in profanity laced sayings.
January 5 – CHASE YOUR BIG F*****G DREAMS
I continue to be fascinated by history. American history is my favorite especially reading stories of the Founding Fathers. I’ve gathered together a few interesting historical facts that are not commonly known about them.
- Not until 1826 were fireworks used to celebrate the Fourth of July. Coincidentally, it was the very day that two of the founding fathers died, but their demise did not interfere with the national celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It took four days for the news of John Adams death to reach Washington and two days for the capital to learn of Thomas Jefferson’s death.
- British ships in the English Channel fired a salute of 21 guns when word reached them that the countries erstwhile great adversary, President George Washington, had died in the States.
- Thomas Jefferson chose not to attend ceremonies marking the death of George Washington in 1799, nor did he write a note of condolence to Washington’s widow. This enmity stemmed from the last year of Washington’s second term as the United States President, when he suspected Jefferson of being responsible for scurrilous attacks in the press on him. Jefferson denied responsibility and Washington accepted his word, but there was a chill between them thereafter.
- Ben Franklin wanted the turkey, not the eagle, to be the United States national symbol. He considered the eagle “a bird of bad moral character” because it lives “by sharping and robbing”.
- Thomas Jefferson was a smuggler of sorts. He went into northern Italy, in 1787, to see the machines used there for cleaning rice seed and was able to filch and bring back to the United States samples of rice that he gave to planters in Georgia and South Carolina. He also picked up information about the olive tree.
- A former US vice president, Aaron Burr, was charged with treason for trying, it was said, to separate the western lands from the United States and establish his own rule in the early 1800s. He was acquitted, but his image remained tarnished.
- George Washington seldom slept more than three or four consecutive hours in any day during the Revolutionary War.
- Signing a memorial to Congress for the abolition of slavery was the last public act of Benjamin Franklin.
I have to admit that after reading the many and varied facts about the founding fathers I appreciate them even more. A group of colonists, some with education but many without, had the will and fortitude to fight for what they believed and to create this country. I wish I had the power of time travel so I can go back to the 1700’s and bring all of those gentlemen to the present day. I’m fairly certain they wouldn’t be at all happy.
WHERE ARE THE MEN OF GREAT QUALITY
It’s hard these days tell tell if what we’re being told is true. Most companies and politicians have developed lying and fake news to new levels of confusion. We spend more time trying to determine if what we’re being told is a lie while the question we originally asked never gets answered. That’s always the grand plan for prevaricators of all kinds, misdirection and the parsing of words and phrases. It’s become an ugly art form for some people. Today’s post contains “true blue” facts collected from my archives with no manipulations or fake and misleading information. Here we go.
- The telephone has been one of the most profitable inventions in the history of the United States.
- One million threads of fiber optic cable can fit a tube 1/2 inch in diameter.
- In 1956, Johnny Mathis decided to record an album instead of answering an invitation to try out for the US Olympic team as a high jumper. It turned out to be a fortuitous choice.
- One ounce of pure gold can be made into a wire 50 miles long.
- President John Quincy Adams started each summer day with an early morning skinny-dipping in the Potomac River.
- America’s modern interstate highway system was designed in the 1950s during the Eisenhower administration. It’s primary purpose was not to enhance casual driving over long distances but to provide for the efficient movement of military vehicles if and when necessary.
- The human eye blinks an average of 3.7 million times per year.
- Terminal velocity for a human being is approximately 124 mph. To reach this speed, you would have to fall from a height of at least 158 yards or about 1 1/2 football fields.
- The Bible contains 32 references to dogs, none to cats.
- The word “nerd”comes from Dr. Seuss, who first used the term in his 1950 book If I Ran the Zoo.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this information that has not been edited, exaggerated, or just plain covered in BS. Real truths are much more interesting than most of the nonsense we’re being fed by corporate American and the politicians.
Quote for the Day
“IT IS SAD TO GROW OLD BUT NICE TO RIPEN”
Brigitte Bardot
Living in Maine has given me a great appreciation for monitoring the weather. Our winter here starts in late October and extends itself to the end of April, a full six months of snow, sleet, and cold. If you’re not a lover of miserable weather, I recommend you never move here. Today’s posting contains random weather tidbits you haven’t likely heard before. Enjoy!
- Lightning strikes the earth of hundred times every second, from the 1800 thunderstorms in progress at any given moment.
- Rain contains vitamin B-12.
- Observations of increased rain after US Civil War battles led to abortive experiments with weather control. Cannon volleys were fired into the clouds in order to induce rain.
- Nearly 100 pollution-filled, weather-beaten years in New York have done more damage to Cleopatra’s Needle – a granite obelisk covered with hieroglyphics – than did 3500 arid years in Egypt.
- 17 1/2 inches in circumference and 1.67 pounds in weight: that’s the size of the largest hailstone known to have fallen in the United States. It struck during a severe storm at Coffeyville, Kansas, in September of 1970.
- In 1816, there was no summer in many areas of the world. In parts of New England, snow stayed on the ground all year. Crops there and in Europe were ruined. Volcanic dust from the corruption of Tomboro in Indonesia that blocked the rays of the sun has been blamed.
- In living memory, it was not until February 18, 1979, that snow fell on the Sahara Desert. A half-hour storm in southern Algeria stopped traffic but within a few hours all of the snow had melted away.
- Residents in a small village in Scotland schedule their television viewing according to the tides. At low tide, the nearby mudflats absorbed the broadcast “waves”. Thank God for cable.
- On June 10, 1958, a tornado was crashing through El Dorado, Kansas. The storm pulled a woman out of her house and carried her 60 feet away. She landed, relatively unharmed, next to a phonograph record titled “Stormy Weather”.
- Due to friction with the surface of the planet, the wind retards or accelerates the spin of the Earth very slightly. A peak in the seasonal slowing of the planet is most evident during the northern winter.
C’MON WINTER
Yesterday’s posting involved bad poetry so today I’ll be moving on to a few usual truths. If you’re lucky you might win a few bar bets using these tidbits of trivia. If you only win one drink, then your efforts in reading this post will have been worth it.
- The custom of men buttoning their clothes from the right and women from the left comes from the fact that men traditionally dressed themselves and were typically right-handed. Women were more often addressed by maids, who preferred to work from their right – the wearer’s left.
- The phrase “last laugh” is derived from the laugh-like sound a bullet shot through the heart sometimes causes an innocent victim to make before death.
- You can form the number 12, 345, 678, 987, 654, 321 by multiplying 111, 111, 111 by 111, 111, 111.
- The “WD” in WD-40 stands for Water Displacement. The “40” came about because it took the creators that many attempts to get the formula correct.
- According to Hollywood lore, silent film actress Norma Talmage started the tradition of stars putting their footprints in the cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theater when she accidentally stumbled onto the freshly laid sidewalk in front of it in 1927.
- Pepsi-Cola was the first foreign consumer product sold in the former Soviet Union.
- Kissing was once a crime in England. In the mid-1400s, King Henry VI declared it was a disease spreader.
- The San Andreas Fault is slipping about 2 inches per year, which means that Los Angeles will be a suburb of San Francisco in 15 million years.
- The shortest reign of a Portuguese king was 20 minutes. When the royal family was ambushed in February 1908, the king died immediately and his heir, Luis Filipe, died 20 minutes later.
- On Christopher Columbus’s fourth voyage to the New World, he saved the lives of his crew by convincing Jamaican natives that he made the moon disappear during a lunar eclipse in 1504.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it.”
Napolean Bonaparte
- When Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, she was condemned for two crimes: witchcraft and wearing men’s clothing.
- Two dozen American states considered impotence legal grounds for divorce.
- At any time, .7 percent of the world’s population is drunk.
- The King of Diamonds in a standard card deck was designed after Julius Caesar. King of Spades for King David, King of Clubs for Alexander the Great, and King of Hearts for Charlemagne.
- A flink is a group of 12 or more cows.
- In a single day, one cow discharges enough methane to fill 400 one-liter bottles.
- A standard pencil could draw a 35-mile-long line before it runs out of lead (graphite).
- The average life span of a goldfish living in the wild is 25 years.
- Approximately 500 pounds of Silly Putty are produced every day.
- The Guinness World Records book is considered the most commonly stolen volume from libraries around the world. In the United States the Bible is the most shoplifted book.
And here is my quote of the day:
“It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen.”
Bridgette Bardot
I feel the need to distribute a little more useless information today. There seems to a never-ending supply which I will happily make available to as many people as possible. Some of this information was also supplied by my all-time favorite writer, Isaac Azimov.
- The foundations of the great European cathedrals go down as far as 40 or 50 feet. In some instances, they form a mass of stone as great as that of the visible building above the ground.
- While Columbus was seeking new worlds to the West, Italian engineers were rebuilding the Kremlin in Moscow.
- The number of possible ways of playing just the first four movies on each side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
- There were more than 100 distinct ethnic groups in the old Soviet Union.
- The Pacific Ocean fills nearly a complete hemisphere of the Earth’s surface.
- Because of the story in Genesis that Eve had been created out of Adam’s rib, it was widely believed during the Middle Ages that men had one fewer rib than women.
- Immediately after the end of the American Revolution, Congress abolished the United States Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, leaving the Congress itself as the only national government organization. They feared a standing army.
- When Thomas Jefferson became president, in 1801, 20% of the people in the United States were slaves. There were 5 million people in all.
- It was only in 1968 – 43 years after the Scopes “monkey trial” – that the state of Tennessee abolished its anti-evolution law and accepted the doctrine of evolution.
- “Red Tape” the rigid application of regulations and routine, resulting in the delay in getting business done, got its name from the color of the tape that was commonly used to tie official papers. The term was in use as early as 1658.
Well, for all of you trivia lovers out there you’ve just received your daily fix of totally useless information. My supply never seems to run low and more will definitely follow.
ENJOY YOUR WEEK
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