Random Tidbits
Benjamin Franklin once wrote an essay about on the possibility of
waterskiing.
What did Christopher Columbus look like? No one
knows - his portrait was never painted.
P.T. Barnum staged the first international
beauty contest.
Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein married their
first cousins.
Though deaf and blind, Helen Keller learned
English, French, and German.
Sigmund Freud smoked 20 cigars a day.
The word crochet is derived from the Middle
French word croc or croche, meaning hook.
Do you know why most crocheters in earlier eras
held the crochet hook in their hand like a pencil? In the 1800s, this hand
positioning was thought to be more feminine and graceful. Many crocheters now
hold their hooks in the palms of their hands (often called the "knife
hold") to reduce carpal tunnel.
The earliest written reference to crochet didn't
appear until 1812. Crochet didn't become the widely popular craft we know today
until the 1840s.
Crochet patterns have an underlying mathematical
structure and have been used to illustrate shapes in hyperbolic geometry that
are difficult to reproduce using other media or are difficult to understand
when viewed two-dimensionally.
It is believed that the earliest forms of
crochet were created using a bent finger instead of a hook.
The earliest known types of knitting by nomadic
people in the desert places of North Africa actually used circular or narrow,
oblong wooden frames.
One of the earliest known examples of knitting
(formed on two sticks by pulling loops through loops) were a pair of cotton
socks found in Egypt from the first millennium A.D.
The knitting machine was invented in 1589
(during the reign of Queen Elizabeth) by William Lee, a clergyman. After the
invention of the knitting machine, knitting was gradually taken over by
guild-organized cottage industries in the 17th and 18th centuries
Knitting first appeared in England during the
13th century in the form of felted caps that were worn by soldiers and sailors.
However, knitting did not become a popular method for creating other garments
due to the difficulty of producing quality steel needles
Early knitting needles were typically made from
bone, ivory, or tortoise shell.
Changes in fashion in the late 1980s and early
1990s, as well as the huge influx of cheap imported knitwear, led to decreased
interest in knitting. The cost of buying yarn compared unfavorably to buying
ready-made clothes.
A rooster, duck and sheep were the first living
creatures to fly in a hot-air balloon in 1783. The balloon flew on a tether,
rising to 1,500 feet and traveling two miles before being brought back to the
ground. The animals survived, though the rooster suffered a broken wing.
The tradition of serving champagne after a
hot-air balloon flight originated in the 18th century as a way of appeasing
French farmers who didn't much like balloons landing in their fields and
crushing their crops.
In 1991 Per Lindstrand
and Richard Branson become the first people to pilot a balloon across the Pacific.
Traveling 6,700 miles in 46 hours at speeds of up to 245mph, they flew from
Japan to Arctic Canada.
The first successful circumnavigation of the
world in a balloon took place in 1999. Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones left
from Switzerland and landed in Egypt just shy of 20 days later.
It was January 7, 1785 when the first English
Channel balloon crossing took place. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Francois Blanchard
and American John Jeffries completed the trip in a hydrogen balloon in
two-and-a-half hours.
Vijaypat Singhania set the world altitude record for highest
hot-air balloon flight in November when he reached 69,850ft.
The 1900 Olympic Games included croquet,
fishing, billiards and checkers. Tug-of-war was an Olympic event between 1900
and 1920.
In a 1936 Ping-Pong tournament, the players
volleyed for over two hours on the opening serve.
The first tennis balls were stuffed with human
hair.
In the 1880s waterskiing was known as plankgliding.
Boxing rings are called rings because they used
to be round.
Karate was invented in India. It was not
introduced to Japan until about 1917.
It takes .05 seconds for a human muscle to
respond to stimulus.
It takes .06 seconds for an automotive air bag
to fully inflate.
It takes .2 seconds for the International Space
Station to travel one mile.
It takes .46 seconds for a 90-mph fastball to
reach home plate.
It takes one second for a hummingbird's wings to
beat 70 times.
It takes four seconds for 3,000,000 gallons of
water to flow over Niagara Falls.
The tradition of sending Christmas cards
originated in England in 1843.
Assuming Rudolph's in front, there are 40,320
ways to arrange the eight other reindeer.
The traditional three colors of Christmas are
green, red, and gold. Green has long been a symbol of life and rebirth; red
symbolizes the blood of Christ, and gold represents light as well as wealth and
royalty.
Evergreens (from the Old English word aefie meaning "always" and gowan meaning "to
grow") have been symbols of eternal life and rebirth since ancient times.
The pagan use and worship of evergreen boughs and trees has evolved into the
Christianized Christmas tree.
All the gifts in the Twelve Days of Christmas
would equal 364 gifts.
The Germans made the first artificial Christmas
trees out of dyed goose feathers.
Who still believes in Santa? Studies say more
four-year-olds do than any other age group.
Only 10 percent of U.S. households put cookies
out for Santa on Christmas Eve.
U.S. kids leave an estimated 812 million cookies
out for Santa on Christmas Eve.
More than 25 million kids visit Santa in malls
nationwide each year.
Worldwide, Christmas has been celebrated on 135
different days of the year.
Americans send about two billion Christmas cards
every year.
The first U.S. gold rush was in North Carolina
in 1803. It started when a boy found a 17-pound nugget on his father's farm. It
supplied all the gold for the nation's mints until 1829.
The word garnet comes from the Latin word for
pomegranate. (Garnets were thought to resemble pomegranate seeds.)
From 330 B.C. to A.D. 1237, most of the world's
emeralds came from Cleopatra's mine in Egypt.
The name "turquoise" comes from the
fact that it was first brought to Europe from the Mediterranean by Levantine
traders, also known as Turks.
Ancient Greeks named amber from the word
electron, because rubbing amber gives off static electricity.
Legend says that one day Cupid cut Venus's
fingernails while she was sleeping and left the clippings scattered on the
ground. So that no part of Venus would ever disappear, the Fates turned them
into stone. The stone: onyx, Greek for "fingernail."
In the 1600s the Dutch used to cover their
mirrors with curtains when not in use, lest the reflectiveness be used up.
Ben Franklin mounted mirrors outside his
second-story window so he could secretly see who was knocking at his front
door.
The word mirror comes from the Latin mirari, meaning "to wonder at." It's also the
root word for miracle and admire.
In ancient China reflective pieces of polished
brass were placed over doorknobs so that evil spirits would scare themselves
away.
In olden days some thought that the reflection
of the body in a shiny surface or mirror was an expression of the spiritual
self, and therefore if anything happened to disturb that reflection, injury
would follow. This was the origin of the superstition that breaking a mirror
would bring seven years of bad luck.
In 1994 Russian astronauts orbiting in the Mir
spacecraft tried using mirrors to reflect sunlight into northern areas of their
country, in an attempt to lengthen the short growing season. It didn't work.
Marcel Marceau's greatest-hits album consisted
of 40 minutes of silence, followed by applause.
When he needed inspiration, Ludwig van Beethoven
poured water on himself.
Mozart wrote a piano piece that required the
player to use both hands and his nose.
The original jukeboxes came with earphones -
only one person could listen at a time.
Singer Wayne Newton is a descendant of
Pocahontas.
The musical Cats ran on Broadway for 18 years.
Superglue is so strong that a single square-inch
bond can lift a ton of weight.
Superglue doesn't stick to the bottle because it
needs moisture to set, and there is no moisture in the bottle.
Cyanoacrylate products are a $325-million-a-year
industry. Approximately 90 percent of U.S. homes have at least one tube.
During the Vietnam War tubes of superglue were
put in U.S. soldiers' first-aid kits to help seal wounds.
Special kinds of superglue are now used in
hospitals worldwide, reducing the need for sutures, stitches, and staples.
Superglue is now used in forensic detection.
When investigators open a foil packet of ethyl-gel cyanoacrylate, the fumes
settle on skin oils left behind in human fingerprints, turning the invisible
smears into visible marks.
Long before the advent of Christianity, plants
and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the
winter. Ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In
many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts,
evil spirits, and illness.
The ancient Egyptians worshiped a god called Ra,
who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun as a blazing disk in his crown. At
the solstice, when Ra began to recover from the illness, the Egyptians filled
their homes with green palm rushes which symbolized for them the triumph of
life over death.
Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast
called the Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans
knew that the solstice meant that soon farms and orchards would be green and
fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with
evergreen boughs.
Germany is credited with starting the Christmas
tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout Christians
brought decorated trees into their homes. Some built Christmas pyramids of wood
and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. It is a
widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first
added lighted candles to a tree.
Most 19th-century Americans found Christmas
trees an oddity. The first record of one being on display was in the 1830s by
the German settlers of Pennsylvania, although trees had been a tradition in
many German homes much earlier. The Pennsylvania German settlements had
community trees as early as 1747. But, as late as the 1840s Christmas trees
were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans.
By the 1890s Christmas ornaments were arriving
from Germany and Christmas tree popularity was on the rise around the U.S. It
was noted that Europeans used small trees about four feet in height, while
Americans liked their Christmas trees to reach from floor to ceiling.
Dr. Seuss coined the word nerd in his 1950 book
If I Ran the Zoo.
How did grocers get their name? They sold goods
by the gross.
How did hammocks get their name? They were first
made from the fibers of the hamack tree.
Theater spotlights used to burn lime for light. Thus the term limelight.
The lollipop was named after Lolly
Pop, one of the most famous racehorses of the early 1900s.
Police are sometimes called the fuzz because
London police once wore fuzzy helmets.
One explanation for the origin of the turkey's
name is that Christopher Columbus thought that the land he discovered was
connected to India, and believed the bird he discovered (the turkey) was a type
of peacock. He therefore called it 'tuka,' which is
'peacock' in Tamil, an Indian language.
The Native American name for turkey is 'firkee'; some say this is how turkeys got their name.
Turkeys have great hearing, but no external
ears. They can also see in color, and have excellent visual acuity and a wide
field of vision (about 270 degrees), which makes sneaking up on them difficult.
However, turkeys have a poor sense of smell, but an excellent sense of taste.
A turkey under sixteen weeks of age is called a
fryer, while a young roaster is five to seven months old.
Age is a determining factor in taste. Old, large
males are preferable to young toms (males) as tom meat is stringy. The opposite
is true for females: old hens are tougher birds.
At one time, the turkey and the bald eagle were
each considered as the national symbol of America. Benjamin Franklin was one of
those who argued passionately on behalf of the turkey. Franklin felt the
turkey, although "vain and silly", was a better choice than the bald
eagle, whom he felt was "a coward".
Cream cheese was invented in 1872; Philadelphia
Cream Cheese hit the market in 1880. It wasn't until Joseph and Isaac
Breakstone began selling their Breakstone Cream Cheese brand in 1920 that New
York bagel eaters discovered it.
According to Guinness World Records, the world's
largest bagel was made by Bruegger's in Syracuse, New
York. It weighed 868 pounds, measured 6 feet in diameter and 20 inches thick,
and was blueberry flavored.
During the 2002 American League Championship
Series between the New York Yankees and Anaheim Angels, Anaheim mayor Tom Daly
bet New York mayor Michael Bloomberg a crate of oranges and chilies that the
Angels would win. Bloomberg's bet: a crate of Nathan's hot dogs and 48 H&H
bagels. Daly won.
Some historians credit a Viennese baker for
creating the bagel to commemorate the victory of Polish King Jan III Sobieski over
the Turks in 1683. The bread was formed into the shape of a buegel
or stirrup, because the liberated Austrians had clung to the king's stirrups as
he rode by.
There are numerous etiologies of the word bagel.
In Yiddish, it was beygel, from the Middle High
German bouc and Old High German boug,
both meaning a ring or bracelet. Another possible origin is from the German
word bügel, for a round loaf of bread.
In 1927, Polish baker Harry Lender came to New
Haven, Connecticut, USA, and founded the first bagel factory outside New York
City. His company is credited with being the nation's first frozen bagel
manufacturer and the first to put bagels in supermarkets.
Saturday
mail delivery in Canada was eliminated by Canada Post on February 1, 1969!
In
Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes!
There
are 18 different animal shapes in the Animal Crackers cookie zoo!
Should
there be a crash, Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same
airplane as a precaution!
Your
body is creating and killing 15 million red blood cells per second!
The
king of hearts is the only king without a moustache on a standard playing card!
There
are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos!
There
is one slot machine in Las Vegas for every eight inhabitants!
The
Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave
them off!
Every
day 20 banks are robbed. The average take is $2,500!
The
most popular first name in the world is Muhammad!
Tablecloths
were originally meant to be served as towels with which dinner guests could
wipe their hands and faces after eating!
Tourists
visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is considered an
insult!
One
car out of every 230 made was stolen last year!
The
names of Popeye's four nephews are Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and Poopeye!
Until
the nineteenth century, solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia!
The
Nobel Peace Prize medal depicts three naked men with their hands on each
other's shoulders!
When
glass breaks, the cracks move faster than 3,000 miles per hour. To photograph
the event, a camera must shoot at a millionth of a second!
A
Boeing 747 airliner holds 57,285 gallons of fuel!
A
car uses 1.6 ounces of gas idling for one minute. Half an ounce is used to
start the average automobile!
The
Philadelphia mint produces 26 million pennies per day!
A
lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than those found at the
sun's surface!
A
violin contains about 70 separate pieces of wood!
It
is estimated that 4 million "junk" telephone calls, phone
solicitations by persons or programmed machine are made every day in the United
States!
It
takes glass one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and
can be recycled an infinite amount of times!
Forest
fires move faster uphill than downhill!
Almost
half the newspapers in the world are published in the United States and Canada!
The
two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the
strips of rubber around car windows!
Most
lipstick contains fish scales!
Skepticisms
is the longest word that alternates hands when typing!
One
ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen!
It's
illegal to drink beer out of a bucket while you're sitting on a curb in St.
Louis!
The
first product to have a bar code was Wrigleys gum!
No
piece of square dry paper can be folded more than 7 times in half!
A
group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a
skein!
Over
2500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right
handed people!
There
are more than 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building!
If
you counted 24 hours a day, it would take 31,688 years to reach one trillion!
Taphephobia
is the fear of being buried alive!
A
crocodile always grows new teeth to replace the old teeth!
The
sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth!
Clinophobia
is the fear of beds!
A
'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second!
Porcupines
float in water!
Pinocchio
is Italian for "pine eye"!
The
sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter
of the alphabet!
The
average life span of a major league baseball is 5-7 pitches!
The
Mint once considered producing doughnut-shaped coins!
The
only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable"!
The
longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds!
The
sloth (a mammal) moves so slowly that green algae can grow undisturbed on its
fur!
Cat
urine glows under a black-light!
The
world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1!
The
electric chair was invented by a dentist!
Windmills
always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland!
A
hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average!
Camels
have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand!
The
placement of a donkey's eyes in its head enables it to see all four feet at all
times!
Human
teeth are almost as hard as rocks!
A
mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night!
Ancient
Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone!
A
hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside!
A
quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove!
Hummingbirds
can weigh less than a penny!!
Until
1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it's known
as Tennessee!
The
Earth weighs around 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons (5,940 billion billion metric tons)!
A
cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off - it dies from
starvation!
Every
time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie!
The
average person has over 1,460 dreams a year!
It's
against the law to pawn your dentures in Las Vegas!
One
in every 4 Americans has appeared on television!
The
average American/Canadian will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year!
It's
against the law to burp, or sneeze in a certain church in Omaha, Nebraska!
you're
born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206!
Human
thigh bones are stronger than concrete!
Over
10,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows!
The
state of Florida is bigger than England!
There
are more than one million animal species on Earth!
In
Natoma, Kansas, it's illegal to throw knives at men
wearing striped suits
It
was once against the law to have a pet dog in a city in Iceland!
Your
heart beats over 100,000 times a day!
Thomas
Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark!
During
your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food, that's the weight of
about 6 elephants!
Some
ribbon worms will eat themselves if they cant
find any food!
Dolphins
sleep with one eye open!
The
worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is over 9000 years
old!
In
space, astronauts cannot cry properly, because there is no gravity, so the
tears can't flow down their faces!
There
are more plastic flamingos in the U.S, than real ones!
About
3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30!
More
people use blue toothbrushes, than red ones!
A
sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.!
Your
ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe!
In
the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons!
Slugs
have 4 noses!
Recycling one glass jar, saves enough energy to watch T.V for 3 hours!
Lightning
strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet!
Owls
are one of the only birds who can see the color blue!
The
average American/Canadian drinks about 600 sodas a year!
It
was once against the law to slam your car door in a city in Switzerland!
There
wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses!
Honeybees
have a type of hair on their eyes!
The
starfish is one of the few animals who can turn it's
stomach inside-out!
Eskimo
ice cream is neither icy, or creamy!
A
jellyfish is 95 percent water!
In
Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals!
The
katydid bug hears through holes in its hind legs!
A
company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate!
More
Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed throughout the
world!
The
elephant is one of the few mammals that can't jump!
The
penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly!
Q
is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of
the United States!
One
quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet!
America
once issued a 5-cent bill!
You'll
eat about 35,000 cookies in a lifetime! Wow!
Like
fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different!
There
are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and month!
Interesting tries from our readers: orange: door hinge, melange
(French for mix) purple: hurtle, durple?, turtle month: once, bunth?,
hunch
Babe
Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool! He changed it every 2
innings!
Fortune
cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung!
A
man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years! Wow!
A
giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!
Chewing
gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!
Here
are some interesting numbers to look at! (*1997)
166,875,000,000
pieces of mail are delivered each year in the U.S!
1,525,000,000
miles of telephone wire a strung across the U.S!
123,000,000
cars are being driven down the U.S's highways!
85,000,000
tons of paper are used each year in the U.S!
56,000,000
people go to Major League baseball each year!
Bats
always turn left when exiting a cave!
The
praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head!
In
Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs!
There
are over 58 million dogs in the U.S!
Dogs
and cats consume over $11 billion worth of pet food a year!
Fingernails
grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
Humans
blink over 10,000,000 times a year!
In
the year 2000, Pope John Paul II was named an "Honorary Harlem
Globetrotter."!
Every
second, Americans collectively eat one hundred pounds of chocolate
A
fetus develops fingerprints at eighteen weeks!
The
fear of vegetables is called Lachanophobia!.. More
fears...
There
are approximately fifty Bibles sold each minute across the world!
Every
year, kids in North America spend close to half a billion dollars on chewing gum!
An
earthquake on Dec. 16, 1811 caused parts of the Mississippi River to flow
backwards!
A
person uses approximately fifty-seven sheets of toilet paper each day!
Honolulu
is the only place in the United States that has a royal palace!
One
gallon of used motor oil can ruin approximately one million gallons of fresh
water!
More
money is spent on gardening than on any other hobby!
In
32 years. there are about 1 billion seconds!
Rice
paper does not have any rice in it!
Baby
robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day!
In
England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word!
Most
dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!
The
blesbok, a South African antelope, is almost the same color as grapejuice!
The
average person laughs 13 times a day!
Dogs
can hear sounds that you cant!
Men
are 6 times more likely to be struck by lightning than women!
It
is estimated that millions of trees in the world are accidentally planted by
squirrels who bury nuts and then forget where they hid them!
Ernest
Vincent Wright wrote a novel, "Gadsby", which contains over 50,000
words -- none of them with the letter E!
Of
all the words in the English language, the word set has the most definitions!
A
toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans!
Every
45 seconds, a house catches on fire in the United States!
The
sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth!
The
most used letter in the English alphabet is 'E', and 'Q' is the least used!
There
are more than 50,000 earthquakes throughout the world every year!
The
original name for the butterfly was 'flutterby'!
Dogs
and cats, like humans, are either right or left handed... or is that paws?!
The
opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven!
Nose
prints are used to identify dogs, just like humans use fingerprints!
Bulls
are colorblind, therefore will usually charge at a matador's waving cape no
matter what color it is -- be it red or neon yellow!
Apples
are more efficient than caffeine in keeping people awake in the mornings!
Smelling
bananas and/or green apples (smelling, not eating) can help you lose weight!
A
hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates
before a person realizes it's there, though!
The
average ice berg weighs 20,000,000 tons!
The
poison-arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people!
A
lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size
of a tennis court!
After
eating, a housefly regurgitates its food and then eats it again!
In the Middle Ages, having ants in the house was a sign of good luck.
Only pharaohs were allowed to eat mushrooms in ancient Egypt.
The Chinese used to scatter firecrackers around the house - as fire alarms.
In medieval England jurors weren't fed until they reached a decision.
In England in 1558, beards were taxed according to their length.
When a cat died in ancient Egypt, its owners shaved off their eyebrows as a
sign of mourning.
How do you know when you're playing with an Italian deck of cards? There are no
queens.
The ancient Greeks played cards. In those days aces were known as
"dogs."
The spots on dice and dominoes are called pips.
The game Simon Says was originally called Do This, Do That.
In a standard deck of cards, the king of hearts is the only king without a
mustache.
Most frequently landed-on squares in Monopoly: Illinois Ave., GO, B&O
Railroad.
Al Capone's older brother Vince was a policeman in Nebraska.
Alexander Graham Bell refused to have a phone in his study - the ringing drove
him nuts.
The day Judy Garland died, a tornado touched down in Kansas.
Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name was Moon.
Kodak founder George Eastman hated to have his picture taken.
P.J. Tierney, father of the modern diner, died of indigestion in 1917 after
eating at a diner.
Cats cannot taste things that are sweet. The taste buds of a cat cannot detect
sugar.
Originally kitty litter was made from sand, but in 1948 it was discovered that
clay was more absorbent.
A cat's collarbone does not connect to any other bones but instead sits buried
in muscle. This makes it easier for them to squeeze through tight spots.
Cats are able to see in the dark. They see at one-sixth the light level
required for human vision.
Cats purr at the same frequency as an idling diesel engine. This is around 26
purrs per second.
Cats use whiskers to gauge whether or not they can fit through an opening.
The mask in Halloween is actually William Shatner's face. The production crew
bought the cheapest mask they could find at a Halloween store, which so
happened to be Shatner. The crew spray painted it white.
Psycho was the first movie to show a toilet flushing.
The movie Final Destination was actually based on a rejected X-Files episode.
Rachel Turner was almost 30 years old in the movie The Craft. She played a high
schooler.
Church, the cat in Pet Sematary, was actually played
by seven different cats.
Bosco Chocolate Syrup was used as blood in Night of the Living Dead.
In 1952, little Anne Odell's school restricted students to toys no bigger than
a matchbox. So her dad, an engineer, made her a tiny die-cast steamroller-the
first in a fleet of famous Matchbox cars.
Gumby wasn't originally meant as a toy. Illustrator Art Clokey
conceived Gumby as a character for an animated jazz video, but studio heads
knew his greatest fans would be kids.
The Frisbee got its name from a game popular with Yale University students, who
threw pie tins from the Frisbie Pie Bakery.
Twister began as a promotion for shoe polish.
The inventor of the Slinky, Richard James, left his wife, six children and the
Slinky fortune to join a cult in South America.
The game Operation began as a class project at the University of Illinois by
inventor John Spinello.
When Alfonso Cuarón signed on to direct the third Harry Potter movie, he asked
the trio to write a short essay on their characters. True to their roles, Emma
Watson submitted a 16-page paper, Daniel submitted a one-page essay, and Rupert
never turned his in.
At the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the credits say, "No
dragons were harmed in the making of this movie."
Throughout all eight films, Daniel Radcliffe went through roughly 160 pairs of
glasses.
Hedwig was played by three male owls in the movies. Their names were Gizmo,
Ook, and Sprout.
Emma Watson auditioned for the role of Hermione at her school gym for fun.
Casting agents went to several schools in search of actors, and Emma won the
part.
The actress who played Moaning Myrtle (Shirley Henderson) was 37 years old
during the second film. She was the oldest actress to portray a Hogwarts
student.
Wheel of Fortune's original name was "Shoppers Bazaar" and included a
wheel that was much bigger and featured carnival sound effects.
When athletes or celebrities appear on Wheel of Fortune, their winnings are
donated to a charity of their choice.
The Wheel is equipped with over 200 computerized lighting instruments capable
of up to 2 million different color choices.
There are seventy-three stainless steel pins on the Wheel that fly past three
hard rubber "flippers," giving it an unmistakable sound.
The price of a vowel hasn't changed in 30 years. It's still a bargain at $250.
On any given tape day in the studio, more than 100 staff and crew are hard at
work behind the scenes. On remote, there are over 200 local staff and crew in
addition to 160 staff and crew from Los Angeles and other cities.
Modern-day (legal) tattoos are applied with a needle, tube of ink, electric
motor and foot pedal. Ancient methods involved chisels, rakes and picks or
soot-covered thread.
Several U.S. presidents are rumored to have had tattoos, including Franklin
Pierce and Dwight Eisenhower. Theodore Roosevelt, however, is confirmed to have
had a family crest inked into his chest.
"Tattoo" derives from the Polynesian term "ta" meaning to
strike. Joseph Banks (1742-1821) brought the word Tattoo to Europe. It quickly
replaced other ways to describe a tattoo such as "pric"
or "marks".
Throughout history, the government has inspired the use of tattoos. In 1936,
after the introduction of social security cards, Americans tattooed their
numbers on their arms. In 1955, the assistant secretary of defense recommended
U.S. citizens to tattoo their blood type on their arms in case of war.
In order to achieve a tattoo, the second layer of skin (dermis) must be pierced
50 to 3,000 times a minute by a tattoo machine. Consequently, the cells in the
dermis are more stable and less likely to change throughout a person's life.
The first tattooing machine (the precursor to today's tattoo gun) was patented
by Samuel F. O'Reilley in 1891. It was actually just
a modification of an invention designed for autographic printing, first
patented by Thomas Edison 15 years earlier.
The first apple trees were planted by Pilgrims in Massachusetts Bay Colony.
An apple tree will start bearing fruit 8-10 years after it is planted. A dwarf
tree starts bearing in 3-6 years.
Apples are not self pollinating. They need bees topollinate the flowers to form the fruit.
Most apple blossoms are pink when they open but gradually fade to white.
Apples are a member of the rose family of plants along with pears, peaches, plums and cherries.
Twenty five percent of an apple's volume is air; that is why they can float.
Ursula was based on Madame Medusa from "The Rescuers" and cinema
drag-queen icon Divine.
The voice of Ursula was supposed to be Bea Arthur, but she dropped out of the
film due to "Golden Girls" conflicts. Pat Carroll, the woman who
voiced Ursula, played evil sister Prunella in the TV-movie adaptation of
"Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella."
Ariel's actual body model for Ariel was "Tiny Toons Adventures"
script writer Sherri Stoner, whose movements also were used for Belle in
"Beauty and the Beast."
In deleted scenes from the film, it's strongly suggested that Ursula is King
Triton's sister. In the "Little Mermaid" Broadway adaptation, this
fact is included in the storyline.
Ariel's underwater hair animation was based on a video of astronaut Sally
Ride's hair in space.
The film's famous storm sequence took a team of 10 animators an entire year to
finish the 10-minute sequence.
The first flight attendant was actually a man. A German named Mr. Heinrich Kubis was the world's first flight attendant in 1912.
The first female attendant was a registered nurse named Ellen Church in 1930.
Nurses were the preferred flight attendants in this time.
In the 1960s you could not just be a flight attendant. You had to pass the
height, weight, marital status test and not forgetting the age limitation. In
this order, you had to be at least 5-foot-2, weigh less than 130 pounds, be
single and childless and retire at the ripe old age of 32 years.
Flight attendants can be viewed as under cover
agents. Many flight attendants work in collaboration with the police to curtail
human trafficking. Flight attendants are trained on what to look for in people
they suspect and how to respond to such situations.
A newbie flight attendant is on six months probation
and is limited to wearing slightly longer skirts than seniors. After probation,
they can hem their skirts to the desired length.
A yearly training program does the world the benefit of trimming any flight
attendants who cannot pass it. There is a possibility it might involve checking
for height violators or emergency exit windows non-fits.
Any month that starts on a Sunday will have a Friday the 13th in it.
The world's first speed limit regulation was in England in 1903. It was 20 mph.
The metal instrument used in shoe stores to measure feet is called the Brannock device.
The linen bandages that were used to wrap Egyptian mummies averaged 1,000 yards
in length.
The base of the Great Pyramid of Egypt is large enough to cover 10 football
fields.
"Fortnight" is a contraction of "fourteen nights." In the
US "two weeks" is more commonly used.
The first Starbucks sold 8oz. cups of coffee. Over the years, they have dropped
the 8oz. size and have added 12oz., 16oz., 24oz. and 30oz.
One Grande coffee (320 milligrams of caffeine) has four times the amount of
caffeine than Red Bull.
Starbucks uses over 93 million gallons of milk per year, which is enough to
fill 155 Olympic sized swimming pools.
Santa Fe Springs California wins the prize for the most stores within a 25-mile
radius with a total of 560!
There are more calories in the Starbucks cinnamon chip scone than in a
McDonald's Quarter Pounder.
There are 87,000 different drink combinations available at Starbucks.
It is estimated that one eighth of the world's population lives in mountainous
zones, and that mountains cover a quarter of the world's surface.
More than half of the world's fresh water originates in mountains, and all the
world's major rivers are fed from mountain sources.
The Andes, which runs more than 4,900 miles, is the longest mountain range in
the world.
Fold mountains are the most common type of mountains. Examples of fold
mountains are the Himalayas (Asia), the Alps (Europe). They are formed due to
collision of two plates, causing folding of the Earth's crust.
Fault mountains or fault-block mountains are formed when blocks of rock
materials slide along faults in the Earth's crust.
Volcanic mountains are formed due to volcanic eruptions, for e.g.
Mount Fuji (Japan). They are formed when volcanic magma erupts and piles up on
the surface of the Earth.
Istanbul, Turkey is the only city in the world located on two continents.
The second best selling game of all time is Jenga.
Jenga is a Swahili word, meaning "to build."
The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
The Great Pyramids used to be as white as snow because they were encased in a
bright limestone that has worn off over the years.
The word "moose" comes from the native Algonquian Indian word meaning
"twig eater."
The sloth moves so slowly that green algae grows in the grooves of their hair.
Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour. That works out to about
1.5 pounds each year, so the average person will lose around 105 pounds of skin
by age 70.
Humans get a new stomach lining every three to four days. Otherwise, the strong
acids your stomach uses to digest food would also digest your stomach.
The small intestine is about four times as long as the average adult is tall.
If it weren't looped back and forth upon itself, its length of 18 to 23 feet
wouldn't fit into the abdominal cavity.
A pair of feet have 500,000 sweat glands and can produce more than a pint of
sweat a day.
Laid end to end, there are about 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human
body.
The nails that get the most exposure and are used most frequently grow the
fastest. Fingernails grow fastest on the hand that you write with and on the
longest fingers.
The name for the common cold began in the 1500s because the symptoms of this
virus were so similar to what happened when people were out in cold weather for
too long.
Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to realize that the virus was mostly
transmitted person-to-person in his 1773 "Hints Concerning What is Called
Catching Cold." Franklin's take on how to steer clear of the ever-pesky
cold? Exercise, bathing, and moderation in food and drink consumption.
Perhaps the biggest push ever made to figure out the direct cause of the common
cold-and defeat it-was made by a British doctor in 1946. Doctor David Tyrrell
formed a "collection of huts" in Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK, recruiting
volunteers to get infected with cold germs so that they could be studied.
In the United States alone, conservative estimates place the number of doctor's
visits due to the common cold at between 75-100 million.
Common colds are definitely seasonal, happening much more often in the winter and
much less in tropical areas.
Parents miss approximately 126 million work days to stay home and care for
their children in recovery; add that to the 150 million workdays that employees
miss from work for being sick themselves, and the common cold costs the US
economy $20 billion per year.
The word "smurf" was created when the
creator, Pierre Culliford (Peyo),
couldn't remember the word for salt. Instead of asking 'Passez-moi
le sel', he asked 'Passez-moi
le schtroumpf', and the name was born! Schtroumpf became "smurf"
in English.
The Smurfs are Belgian. They became very popular worldwide after Hanna-Barbera
featured them in the 1980s.
The Smurfs are specifically "three apples" tall.
Karenna Gore's Secret Service code name was Smurfette, which she has apparently
regretted ever since. In 1997, she said, "Ever since I was put on the spot
and told 'two
syllables' and 'It has to start with an S,' I have been cringing in the back
seat when identified as 'Smurfette'."
The cartoon series was created when an NBC executive spied his daughter playing
with a plush Smurf doll. After observing how much she loved the doll, he
decided that the Schtroumpfs might be a good fit for
his Saturday morning cartoon-fest. It was; it aired for nine seasons.
The white hat the Smurfs all wear have been around for ages and are called
Phrygian caps. They're often considered symbols of liberty and were once found
on the tops of Liberty Poles. You can see one on the seal of the United States
Senate as well.
The country of Bhutan issued a group of postage stamps in 1973 that were
actually phonograph records. These stamps had native folk songs recorded on one
side that could be played on a record player.
Around 1883, the U.S. witnessed early forms of product placement in the form of
a stamp. Advertising for various products was printed on the back of the
three-cent stamps.
During the Apollo 11 moon flight in 1969, the astronauts had a die of a postage
stamp, which they pulled an impression of when they touched down on the moon.
Once the die was returned to earth, it was used to produce the 10-cent airmail
stamp issued in September of 1969.
As the first country to issue stamps, Britain is the only country to have
stamps without its name printed on it.
The most popular U.S. postage stamp sold over 120 million copies. It was a 1993
stamp of rock singer Elvis Presley.
"Black on Magenta," the 1856 1 cent British Guiana stamp, is the most
rare and expensive stamp in the world. It is valued at $3 million today, but it
hasn't been sold since 1980 when it went for $1 million.
In the vacuum of space, a bubble wouldn't be able to form due to the lack of
exterior air pressure to counteract the pressure from within.
Bubbles get their color due to a phenomenon known as iridescence. As waves of
light pass through the bubble, it gets distorted by reflecting off different
layers of soap film.
A bubble's shell is composed of a layer of water molecules surrounded by two
thin layers of soap. Technically, a bubble will freeze below 32 degrees
Fahrenheit like all water. The only problem is that bubbles tend to burst after
a few seconds, so in order to see a bubble freeze, the temperature needs to
fall to a temperature that will freeze water molecules more quickly.
Bubbles aren't usually thought of as weapons, but that is exactly how the
snapping shrimp uses them. They create a cavitation bubble that immediately
collapses creating a shock wave that, for a moment, is nearly as hot as the
sun.
The liquid shell of a bubble is always pulling inward due to the phenomenon
known as surface tension. The water molecules try to minimize the surface area
of the bubble. A sphere is the shape with the least amount of surface area
while containing volume.
Anything that fractures the tenuous layer of water molecules can cause a bubble
to burst. For example, a gust of wind or an object (like your finger) will
easily cause a bubble to burst.
A Hungarian by the name of Erno Rubik invented the
Cube in the spring of 1974. He created it as a working model to help explain
three-dimensional geometry, and this led to the creation of the world's best selling toy.
At the peak of the Rubik's Cube craze, an estimated one-fifth of the world's
population had played the Cube.
Rubikcubism is an avant-garde artistic movement in
which Rubik's cubes are used as a medium to create art.
In May 2007, Thibaut Jacquinot of France became the first person to complete
the Cube in less than 10 seconds in open competition. Erik Akkersdijik
set the current world record for a single solve at the 2008 Czech Open with a
time of 7.08 seconds.
In 1981, a seven-year-old Norwegian boy named Lars-Erik Anderson was one of the
youngest Cube solvers.
Initially, Rubik considered variations of a 2 x 2 x 2 in cube, but concluded
that the simplest and most workable model was the 3 x 3 x 3 in cube.
Dogs only sweat from the bottoms of their feet, the only way they can discharge
heat is by panting.
Dalmatians are born spotless: at first pure white, their spots develop as they
age.
Contrary to popular belief, dogs aren't color blind; they can see shades of
blue, yellow, green and gray. The color red registers
on a grayscale in a dog's vision.
Most domestic dogs are capable of reaching speeds up to about nineteen miles
per hour when running at full speed.
Using their swiveling ears like radar dishes, experiments have shown that dogs
can locate the source of a sound in 6/100ths of a second.
Domesticated for more than 10,000 years, the dog was one of the first animals
domesticated by humans.
Moonshine reached its popularity during the Prohibition era, but its origins
are more than a century earlier during the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 when the
federal government tried to levy taxes on farmers who made and exchanged
whiskey.
The term "moonshine" was actually brought to this country by British
settlers who used it to describe various tasks that had to be done at night. It
was adapted as a nickname for different types of illegal endeavors that were
undertaken under the cover of darkness.
Sometimes, shine is called mountain dew or white lightning. White lightning
came from the fact that real moonshine is colorless.
Mountain dew came from the fact that moonshiners would often drop their product
off at night near a stump in the greenery alongside mountain roads.
The Moonshine jug is labeled with a large "XXX." The letters indicate
that the shine has been run through the still three times, ensuring the alcohol
is of an extra high proof (120 or so).
The fact that moonshine is so potent comes down to the fact that it neither cut
nor aged. When it comes out of the still the final time it is crystal clear and
anywhere between 150 and 170 proof.
In
Texas, it's against the law for anyone to have a pair of pliers in his or her
possession.
In
Philadelphia, you can't put pretzels in bags based on an Act of 1760.
Alaska
law says that you can't look at a moose from an airplane.
In
Corpus Christie, Texas, it is illegal to raise alligators in your home.
In
Miami, it is forbidden to imitate an animal.
It
is against the law to mispronounce the name of the State of Arkansas in that
State.
In
Illinois, the law is that a car must be driven with the steering wheel.
California
law prohibits a woman from driving a car while dressed in a housecoat.
In
Memphis, Tennessee, a woman is not to drive a car unless a man warns
approaching motorists or pedestrians by walking in front of the car that is
being driven.
In
Tennessee, it is against the law to drive a car while sleeping.
In
New York, it is against the law for a blind person to drive an automobile.
In
West Virginia, only babies can ride in a baby carriage.
In
Georgia, it is against the law to slap a man on the back or front.
A
barber is not to advertise prices in the State of Georgia.
In
Louisiana, a bill was introduced years ago in the State House of
Representatives that fixed a ceiling on haircuts for bald men of 25 cents.
In
Oklahoma, no baseball team can hit the ball over the fence or out of a
ballpark.
In
Rochester, Michigan, the law is that anyone bathing in public must have the
bathing suit inspected by a police officer !
In
Kentucky, it's the law that a person must take a bath once a year.
In
Utah, birds have the right of way on any public highway.
In
Ohio, one must have a license to keep a bear.
In
Tennessee, a law exists which prohibits the sale of bologna (sandwich meat) on
Sunday.
In
Virginia, the Code of 1930 has a statute which prohibits corrupt practices or
bribery by any person other than political candidates.
In
Providence, Rhode Island, it is against the law to jump off a bridge.
In
the State of Kansas, you're not allowed to drive a buffalo through a street.
In
Florida, it is against the law to put livestock on a school bus.
In
New Jersey, cabbage can't be sold on Sunday.
In
Galveston, Texas, it is illegal to have a camel run loose in the street!
In
North Carolina, it is against the law for dogs and cats to fight.
In
Singapore, it is illegal to chew gum.
In
Cleveland, Ohio, it is unlawful to leave chewing gum in public places.
In
Virginia, chickens cannot lay eggs before 8:00 a.m., and must be done before
4:00 p.m.
In
New York, it is against the law for children to pick up or collect cigarette
and cigar butts.
In
Massachusetts, it is against the law to put tomatos
in clam chowder.
In
Washington State, you can't carry a concealed weapon that is over 6 feet in
length.
In
San Francisco, there is an ordinance, which bans the picking up and throwing of
used confetti.
In
Kentucky, it is illegal for a merchant to force a person into his place of
business for the purpose of making a sale.
It
is against the law in Connecticut for a man to write love letters to a girl
whose mother or father has forbidden the relationship.
In
Michigan, married couples must live together or be imprisoned.
In
the state of Colorado, a pet cat, if loose, must have a tail-light !
In
Phoenix, Arizona, you can't walk through a hotel lobby with spurs on.
In
California, a law created in 1925 makes it illegal to wiggle while dancing.
In
Utah, daylight must be visible between dancing couples.
In
Michigan, it is against the law for a lady to lift her skirt more than 6 inches
while walking through a mud puddle.
In
North Carolina, it is against the law for a rabbit to race down the street.
In
Georgia, it's against the law to spread a false rumor.
In
West Virginia, one can't cook sauerkraut or cabbage due to the odors and the
offence is subject to imprisonment.
In
Missouri, a man must have a permit to shave.
The
law states that more than 3000 sheep cannot be herded down Hollywood Blvd. at
any one time.
In
Texas, it is still a "hanging offense" to steal cattle.