Trivia Today

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Fireworks were made in China as early as the 11th century.
The Chinese used their pyrotechnic mixtures for war rockets
and explosives.

***

Uncle Sam was first popularized during the War of 1812,
when the term appeared on supply containers. Believe it or
not, the U. S. Congress didn't adopt him as a national
symbol until 1961.

***

Not all members of the Continental Congress supported a
formal Declaration of Independence, but those who did were
passionate about it. One representative rode 80 miles by
horseback to reach Philadelphia and break a tie in support
of independence.

***

The first two versions of the Liberty Bell were defective
and had to be melted down and recast. The third version
rang every Fourth of July from 1778 to 1835, when,
according to tradition, it cracked as it was being tolled
for the death of Chief Justice John Marshall.

***

The American national anthem, the "Star-Spangled Banner,"
is set to the tune of an English drinking song ("To
Anacreon in Heaven").

***

The iron framework of the Statue of Liberty was devised by
French engineer Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, who also built
the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

[calpoon]

cool thread.

and a happy 4th!

blow some shit up and tell the government to fuck off! it's the American thing to do!

Let freedom ring!:thefinger

[historylover]

cool thread.



Thank you, calpoon.

[senob44]

Yes, very nice thread. It's always good to read some trivia. Not to mention if so many of us are celebrating US independence, we might as well know some patriotic history in honor of this day!

[gunslingingbird]

Is there a chance that this will turn into a parallel of MiniD's Today in History thread, and you give us some random trivia facts each day? :D

[Legzman]

cool thread.

and a happy 4th!

blow some shit up and tell the government to fuck off! it's the American thing to do!

Let freedom ring!:thefinger

true, true.

[historylover]

Is there a chance that this will turn into a parallel of MiniD's Today in History thread, and you give us some random trivia facts each day? :D

If y'all want, then that's my hope.

[gunslingingbird]

If y'all want, then that's my hope.

I'm all for that. :thumbsup:

[senob44]

If y'all want, then that's my hope.

Cool historylover! Sounds like a good idea to me! I look forward to it.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The telephone was not widely appreciated for the first 15
years because people did not see a use for it. In fact, in
the British parliament it was mentioned there was no need
for telephones because "we have enough messengers here."
Western Union believed that it could never replace the
telegraph. In 1876, an internal memo read: "This telephone
has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a
means of communication."

***

Irish scientist, Dr. Dionysius Lardner (1793 - 1859) didn't
believe that trains could contribute much in speedy transport.
He wrote: "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because
passengers ' would die of asphyxia' [suffocation]."

***

In 1966, Time Magazine predicted, "By 2000, the machines
will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will,
in effect, be independently wealthy." In that year too
CoCo Chanel said about miniskirts: "It's a bad joke that
won't last. Not with winter coming."

***

In the early 20th century a world market for only 4 million
automobiles was made because "the world would run out of
chauffeurs." Shortly after the end of World War II (1945),
the whole of Volkswagen, factory and patents, was offered
free to Henry Ford II. He dismissed the Volkswagen Beetle
as a bad design.

***

In 1894, the president of the Royal Society, William Thomson,
Lord Kelvin, predicted that radio had no future. The first
radio factory was opened five years later. Today, there are
more than one billion radio sets in the world, tuned to more
than 33 000 radio stations around the world. He also
predicted that heavier-than-air flying machines were
impossible. The Wright Brother's first flight covered a
distance equal to only half the length of the wingspan of
a Boeing 747.

***

In 1927, H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, asked, "Who the hell
wants to hear actors talk?" In 1936, Radio Times editor Rex
Lambert thought "Television won't matter in your lifetime
or mine."

[senob44]

Interesting stuff and also food for thought. These stories seem to indicate that perhaps embracing new ideas and technologies is the way to go. Foresight and imagination are key for inventors, pioneers and investors alike!

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

In the Middle Ages wearing spectacles signified knowledge
and learning. Painters of the time often included spectacles
when portraying famous persons even when depicting people
who lived before the known invention of spectacles. On
numerous paintings the religious teacher Sofronius Eusebius
Hieronymus (340 - 420 AD) is portrayed with a lion, a skull
and a pair of reading glasses. He is the patron saint of
spectacle makers.

***

It actually is true that eating carrots can help you see
better. Carrots contain Vitamin A, which feeds the chemicals
that the eye shafts and cones are made of. The shafts
capture black and white vision. The cones capture color
images.

***

Healthy eyes are so sensitive to light that a candle
burning in the dark can be detected a mile away. The human
eye can distinguish about 10 million different colors.
There currently is no machine that can achieve this
remarkable feat.

***

Roman tragedian Seneca is said to have read "all the books
in Rome" by peering through a glass globe of water. A
thousand years later, presbyopic monks used segments of
glass spheres that could be laid against reading material
to magnify the letters, basically a magnifying glass, called
a "reading stone." They based their invention on the
theories of the Arabic mathematician Alhazen (roughly 1000
AD). Yet, Greek philosopher Aristophanes (c. 448 BC-380 BC)
knew that glass could be used as a magnifying glass.
Nevertheless it was not until roughly 150 AD that Ptolemy
discovered the basic rules of light diffraction and wrote
extensively on the subject.

***

Venetian glass blowers, who had learned how to produce
glass for reading stones, later constructed lenses that
could be held in a frame in front of the eye instead of
directly on the reading material. It was intended for use
by one eye; the idea to frame two ground glasses using
wood or horn, making them into a single unit was born in
the 13th century.

***

In 1268 Roger Bacon made the first known scientific
commentary on lenses for vision correction. Salvino
D’Armate of Pisa and Alessandro Spina of Florence are often
credited with the invention of spectacles around 1284 but
there is no evidence to conclude this. The first mention of
actual glasses is found in a 1289 manuscript when a member
of the Popozo family wrote: "I am so debilitated by age
that without the glasses known as spectacles, I would no
longer be able to read or write." In 1306, a monk of Pisa
mentioned in a sermon: "It is not yet 20 years since the
art of making spectacles, one of the most useful arts on
earth, was discovered." But nobody mentioned the inventor.

[senob44]

Interesting! Makes me think of how difficult it must have been for presbyopic people before the invention of glasses. My eyesight is so poor I would probably get killed walking around without glasses or contacts.

[historylover]

In the interest of full disclosure, Trivia Today isn't published on weekends. Thus, I've been selecting ones from the recent past.

The one which I printed yesterday interested me because it offers splendid examples of the stagnation of business leader's thinking. An early Internet advertising banner (for me, anyway) went something like this: (From an IBM executive in the 70s), "There's a market for maybe two personal computers in the world."

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Credit was first used in Assyria, Babylon and Egypt 3000
years ago. The bill of exchange - the forerunner of
banknotes - was established in the 14th century. Debts
were settled by one-third cash and two-thirds bill of
exchange. Paper money followed only in the 17th century.

***

The first advertisement for credit was placed in 1730 by
Christopher Thornton, who offered furniture that could be
paid off weekly.

***

From the 18th century until the early part of the 20th,
tallymen sold clothes in return for small weekly payments.
They were called "tallymen" because they kept a record or
tally of what people had bought on a wooden stick. One side
of the stick was marked with notches to represent the
amount of debt and the other side was a record of payments.
In the 1920s, a shopper's plate - a "buy now, pay later"
system - was introduced in the USA. It could only be used
in the shops which issued it.

***

In 1950, Diners Club and American Express launched their
charge cards in the USA, the first "plastic money". In
1951, Diners Club issued the first credit card to 200
customers who could use it at 27 restaurants in New York.
But it was only until the establishment of standards for
the magnetic strip in 1970 that the credit card became part
of the information age.

***

The word credit comes from Latin, meaning "trust".

***

The first use of magnetic stripes on cards was in the early
1960's, when the London Transit Authority installed a
magnetic stripe system. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit
installed a paper based ticket the same size as the credit
cards in the late 1960's.


************************************************** *********

RANDOM TIDBITS

There are approximately 61,269 pizzerias in the United
States. Each man, woman and child in America eats an average
of 46 slices (23 pounds) of pizza a year.

***

Pepperoni is America's favorite topping (36 percent of all
pizza orders); we eat approximately 251,770,000 pounds per
year. Other popular pizza toppings are mushrooms, extra
cheese, sausage, green pepper and onion. Anchovies always
rank last on the list of favorite toppings.


***

Around the world, toppings vary greatly to reflect regional
preferences. In Japan, for instance, eel and squid are
favorites. In Pakistan, curry is a big seller. In Russia,
red herring is a topping of choice and Australians enjoy
shrimp and pineapple on their pies as well as barbecue
toppings. Costa Ricans favor coconut.


***

Modern pizza was born in 1889 when Queen Margherita Teresa
Giovanni, the consort of Umberto I, king of Italy, visited
Naples. Don Raffaele Esposito, who owned a tavern-like
place called Pietro Il Pizzaiolo, was asked to prepare a
special dish in honor of the Queen's visit. Esposito
developed a pizza featuring tomatoes, mozzarella cheese (a
never before used ingredient made from the milk of water
buffalo) and basil - ingredients bearing the colors red,
white and green for the Italian flag. He named it the
Margherita Pizza, after the guest of honor. Thus, the
modern-day tomato-and-cheese pizza was born.

***

Marie Antionette's sister, Marie Carolina, wife of Ferdinand
I of Sicily and Naples, had ovens built in the forest so
she could enjoy pizza while the Royal Hunting Party feasted
on wild ducklings and pigs killed in the hunt.

***

The world's largest pizza was built on October 11, 1987 by
Lorenzo Amato and Louis Piancone. The pizza covered 10,000
square feet and measured 140 feet across. It weighed in at
44,457 pounds, consisting of, among other items, 18,174
pounds of flour, 1,103 pounds of water, 6,445 pounds of
sauce, 9,375 pounds of cheese and 2,387 pounds of pepperoni.
The pie was cut into 94,248 slices and eaten by more than
30,000 spectators at the baking in Havana, Florida.

[Fresno]

Very interesting! Food for thought. Thank you

[historylover]

Very interesting! Food for thought. Thank you

:hatsoff:

[dave_rhino]

The American national anthem, the "Star-Spangled Banner,"
is set to the tune of an English drinking song ("To
Anacreon in Heaven").



Holy shit, I didn't know what.

That is fucking awesome! Extremely useful next time mentions patriotic songs.

Take that, yanks! :thefinger

[senob44]

MMM I wish I had some pizza, historylover!

That was interesting also about the credit cards. I had no clue until now when cards with the magnetic strip had been implemented.

[yaheem]

This is awesome, keep the pursuit of trivia coming.

[maildude]

Holy shit, I didn't know what.

That is fucking awesome! Extremely useful next time mentions patriotic songs.

Take that, yanks! :thefinger

What's the difference? All American country music comes from Ireland. And all of the British Invasion music from the 60s was just rockabilly and blues-inspired stuff that came from America.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The now famous tutu was first worn by Italian dancer
Virginie Zucchi in 1885 at the Imperial Theatre in St.
Petersburg, Russia. The tutu was actually designed several
years earlier by French painter Eugene Lami, in the form of
a mid-calf skirt.

***

The waltz is named for the German word "waltzen," meaning
"revolve." This dance consists of rotating, flowing motions
performed in triple time with smooth and even steps. The
variations are the rapid Viennese waltz and the slower,
dipping Boston waltz.

***

The earliest known dance marathon took place in England in
1364. These marathons, known as "derbies," reached their
height in the Depression era of the 1930s, when dancers
went to great lenghts to compete for monetary prizes. The
longest recorded marathon lasted 22 weeks, three days.

***

The fox-trot, which alternates long and short steps in
quadruple time, was developed in the US in 1912. It was
named in New York City in 1914 for music writer Harry Fox
(1882-1959).

***

Break-dancing, usually performed to rap or hip-hop music,
originated in the south Bronx, New York, in the late 1970s.
Moves such as head-spinning or moon-walking could be
performed individually or in competition.

***

The Samba is Brazil's national dance. The Carnival in Rio
de Janeiro made Samba famous throughout the world.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The human head contains 22 bones, consisting of the cranium
and the facial bones. The cranium is formed by 8 bones: the
frontal bone, two parietal bones, two temporal bones, the
occipital bone in the back, the ethmoid bone behind the
nose, and the sphenoid bone. The face consists of 14 bones
including the maxilla (upper jaw) and mandible (lower jaw).


***

The human brains consists of more than 100 billion neurons
(nerve cells) through which the brain's commands are sent
in the form of electric pulses. These pulses travel at more
than 250 mph, creating enough electricity to power a
lightbulb. The brain consumes more energy than any other
organ.

***

Humans actually do not see with our eyes - we see with our
brains. The eyes basically are the cameras of the brain.
One-quarter of the brain is used to control the eyes.


***

According to a 2001 survey by the Bristol-Myers Squibb
Company, accountants :thumbsup:get the most headaches. About 49% of
the accountants in the survey reported getting weekday
headaches. The accountants were followed by librarians
(43%), bus and truck drivers (42%) and construction workers
(38%).

***

If you go blind in one eye, you'll only lose about one-
fifth of your vision (but all of your depth perception.)

***

The average human body contains enough: iron to make a 3
inch nail, sulfur to kill all fleas on an average dog,
carbon to make 900 pencils, potassium to fire a toy cannon,
fat to make 7 bars of soap, phosphorous to make 2,200
match heads, and water to fill a ten-gallon tank.

[senob44]

Very cool stuff! Especially about the brain. Just fascinating.

[gunslingingbird]

The average human body contains enough fat to make 7 bars of soap.

Shit, I probably have enough to start a soap factory! I should try that. ;)

[devlinvelez]

Where else can I get educated in trivia and still get my porn all in one place......Thanks, HistoryLover.


Keep the tidbits..."ahem" ....coming:D

[senob44]

Shit, I probably have enough to start a soap factory! I should try that. ;)

You know, there was a show I watched once. It was an episode of Tales from the Crypt or some other anthology series like that. Basically the wife killed her husband (who was some sort of soap mogul), then she made soap out of his flesh somehow. When she washed herself with it in the shower, all the acids that were supposedly in the flesh-soap caused her skin to dissolve and she died.

Just thought I would mention for anyone (gsb) thinking of producing soap from their body. Throwing that out there as a little warning perhaps, that it may not be quite so easy or safe. :)

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Poet and novelist Jack Kerouac coined the term "Beat" in
the late 1940s, but was not until the 1950s that it would
become a slang term symbolizing a literary movement by
writers such as Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William
Burroughs. The "Beat" movement rejected the social
constraints of the 1950s and reflected a growing
disillusionment with the "establishment" and traditional
American values.

***

Ben Jonson was named the first poet laureate of England in
1616. The title, however, did not become an official royal
office until 1668, when John Dryden assumed the honored
post. Since that time, the office has been awarded for
life. The poet laureate is responsible for composing poems
for court and national occasions.

***

Maxwell Anderson, one of the most important American
playwrights of the early 20th century, wrote his plays in
verse in an attempt to return tragic poetry to the American
stage. He said that he was tired of "plays in prose that
never lifted from the ground."

***

The very first Nobel Prize in Literature (1901) was awarded
to the French poet and philosopher Sully Prudhomme, author
of Stances et Poemes (1865).

***

Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and James Weldon Johnson
were all poets of the Harlem Renaissance, an unprecedented
outburst of creative activity among African Americans in
all fields of art which occurred in New York City between
1920 and 1930.

***

Eugene O'Neill wrote three Pulitzer Prize-winning plays
during the 1920s: Beyond the Horizon (1920), Anna Christie
(1922), and Strange Interlude (1928).

[gunslingingbird]

Poet and novelist Jack Kerouac coined the term "Beat" in
the late 1940s, but was not until the 1950s that it would
become a slang term symbolizing a literary movement by
writers such as Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William
Burroughs. The "Beat" movement rejected the social
constraints of the 1950s and reflected a growing
disillusionment with the "establishment" and traditional
American values.


Is that where the Beatniks came from?

[historylover]

Is that where the Beatniks came from?

:thumbsup:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The average age of which American presidents have taken
office is 54.

***

The size of your foot is approximately the size of your
forearm.

***

The skeleton of an average 160 lb body weighs about 29 lbs.

***

The sky is falling...

In 1962, a 21 lb fragment of Soviet Sputnik IV landed at
the intersection of Park and North 8th Streets in
Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

***

Watch where you're walking...

Dodging space junk is a dangerous occupation. A 0.5 milli-
meter metal chip could puncture a space suit and kill an
astronaut walking in space. A particle as small as ten
millimeters could damage and possibly even destroy an or-
biting space vehicle.

***

That's crazy...

Before it blew up in 1986, the space shuttle Challenger
was hit by a flake of paint measuring 0.2 millimeters,
which damaged a window durin one of its missions.

[senob44]

In 1962, a 21 lb fragment of Soviet Sputnik IV landed at the intersection of Park and North 8th Streets in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

Wow! I never knew that. Gotta tell Becks about that!

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Most bottles and jars contain 25 percent recycled glass.

***

If you lined up all the polystyrene foam cups made in just
one day, they would circle the earth.

***

Every year we dispose of 24 million tons of leaves and grass
clippings, which could be composted to conserve landfill
space.

***

By recycling 1 ton of paper you save: 17 trees; 6,953 gallons
of water; 463 gallons of oil; 587 pounds of air pollution;
3.06 cubic yards of landfill space; and 4,077 Kilowatt hours
of energy.

***

Today, 62 million newspapers will be printed in the U.S.,
and 44 million will be thrown away. That means the equiva-
lent of about 500,000 trees will be dumped into landfills
this week.

***

Packaging from consumer goods comprises about one-third of
the nation's trash. Approximately 50 percent of the nation's
paper, eight percent of its steel, 75 percent of its glass,
40 percent of its aluminum, and 30 percent of its plastic are
used solely for packaging.

***

RANDOM TIDBITS

The average age of which American presidents have taken
office is 54.

***

The size of your foot is approximately the size of your
forearm.

***

The skeleton of an average 160 lb body weighs about 29 lbs.

***

The sky is falling...

In 1962, a 21 lb fragment of Soviet Sputnik IV landed at
the intersection of Park and North 8th Streets in
Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

***

Watch where you're walking...

Dodging space junk is a dangerous occupation. A 0.5 milli-
meter metal chip could puncture a space suit and kill an
astronaut walking in space. A particle as small as ten
millimeters could damage and possibly even destroy an or-
biting space vehicle.

***

That's crazy...

Before it blew up in 1986, the space shuttle Challenger
was hit by a flake of paint measuring 0.2 millimeters,
which damaged a window durin one of its missions.

[senob44]

Good recycling info. We can all help conserve in little steps. :)

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The first barbecuers may well have been prehistoric cavemen.
Anthropologists say they may have started roasting meat
some 1.4 million years ago.Language development didn't occur
until 200,000 B.C. or later.Other sources say this originated
in the Caribbean where the native Indians used wood gratings
over a slow fire to cook strips of meat.

***

Lexington, North Carolina is known as the Barbecue Capital
of the World. October is Barbecue Month there, with a month-
long Annual Barbecue Festival. The city's first barbecue
restaurant opened in 1919; there are currently over 20
barbecue restaurants.

***

People in the Northeast U.S. are the heaviest barbecuers in
the nation. The next most frequent barbecues are in the
North Central region of the U.S., followed by the South and
then the Western U.S.

***

The word "barbecue" may have come from the French phrase
"barbe a queue" (from whiskers to tail- The term refers to
the original method in which a whole animal was cooked on
a spit over an open fire), or the Taino Indian word for
their method of cooking fish over a pit of coals (barbacoa).
Another source says that roast mutton in Romanian
translates into "barbec."

***

Three out of four American households own a grill and they
use it on average of five times per month.

***

The word steak is derived from an old Saxon word, steik,
meaning meat on a stick. The Saxons and Jutes, who lived in
what is now Denmark, brought along their skills as cattlemen
when they conquered Great Britain. They favored beef cooked
on a pointed stick over a campfire.

[senob44]

Sounds delicious!
Lexington, North Carolina is known as the Barbecue Capital
of the World. October is Barbecue Month there, with a month-
long Annual Barbecue Festival. The city's first barbecue
restaurant opened in 1919; there are currently over 20
barbecue restaurants.
This, in particular I never knew about! As for the northeast, yeah we do BBQ a lot but I always figured they would BBQ more down in Texas cattle country.

[Ceska]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The first barbecuers may well have been prehistoric cavemen.
Anthropologists say they may have started roasting meat
some 1.4 million years ago.Language development didn't occur
until 200,000 B.C. or later.Other sources say this originated
in the Caribbean where the native Indians used wood gratings
over a slow fire to cook strips of meat.



Some think that language evolved earlier...but BBQ still has it beat
Language May Have Evolved Earlier Than Supposed (http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/07/13/006251.shtml)

Wonder what they talked about while waiting for dinner to be ready? :dunno:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The first vending machine was invented by Hero of Alexandria
around 215 BC. When a coin was dropped into a slot, its
weight would pull a cork out of a spigot and the machine
would dispense a trickle of water.

***

The very first projection of an image on a screen was made
by a German priest. In 1646, Athanasius Kircher used a
candle or oil lamp to project hand-painted images onto a
white screen.

***

Music was sent down a telephone line for the first time in
1876, the year the phone was invented.

***

One hour before Alexander Graham Bell registered his patent
for the telephone in 1876, Elisha Gray patented his design.
After years of litigation, the patent went to Bell.

***

During the 1860s, George Leclanche developed the dry-cell
battery, the basis for modern batteries.

***

The first electronic mail, or "email", was sent in 1972 by
Ray Tomlinson. It was also his idea to use the @ sign to
separate the name of the user from the name of the computer.

[senob44]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The first vending machine was invented by Hero of Alexandria
around 215 BC. When a coin was dropped into a slot, its
weight would pull a cork out of a spigot and the machine
would dispense a trickle of water.

And the first "slug" was invented one day later by an unknown Alexandrian. :D

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Odor Tester - Some chemist has to make sure that all of
those deodorants and anti-perspirants are operating properly
to keep their users free of funk!

***

Citrus Fruit Dyer - There are commercial farmers out there
who dye citrus fruit a more vibrant color to hide the ripe-
ness of the fruit.

***

IMAX Screen Cleaner - Someone has to make sure that huge
screen is crystal clear for our viewing pleasure.

***

Light Bender - Making neon lights seems like it would be a
relatively easy job, but it requires a lot of precision and
electrical work. If the lights don't have the proper thick-
ness and shaping, they will amount to nothing more than
broken glass.

***

Weed Farmer - Weed farmers actually grow weeds rather than
trying to get rid of them. They sell them to horticulture
schools and labs so various people can do research and
studies on them.

***

Cow Hoof Trimmer - Just like horseshoes, cows need some
hoof maintenance too. Cows can have poor milk production,
lameness, and decreased fertility if not properly groomed.

[slowhand]

RANDOM TIDBITS



Weed Farmer - Weed farmers actually grow weeds rather than
trying to get rid of them. They sell them to horticulture
schools and labs so various people can do research and
studies on them.




Nice read I think I should have become a weed farmer lots of weeds out in the world. ;)

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

In 1831, Squire George Osbaldeston rode 200 miles in eight
hours, 39 minutes. Osbaldeston used 20 horses. His
speed/distance record still stands.

***

On December 29, 1945, the record for the slowest time for
a winning horse was set by Never Mind II. During a 2-mile
steeplechase, Never Mind II refused the 4th jump and his
rider gave up and returned to the paddock. Then the rider
was told that all the other horses had fallen or been
disqualified. Immediately he "raced" Never Mind II back
to the field and finished in 11 minutes 28 seconds.

***

The Tetrarch, called by many Englishmen the fastest horse
of all time, was so swift that he couldn't control his legs.
His hind hooves cut and bruised the fetlocks and shins of
his front legs. At the end of his two-year-old season in
1913, during which he was undefeated, The Tetrarch had to
retire because his legs were so badly damaged.

***

Jockey Levi Barlingume, rode until 1932 when, at age 80, he
fell and broke his leg at Stafford, Kans., thus ending the
longest recorded career of any jockey.

***

The owners of the speedstar, Alsab, made one of the finest
deals in history. The horse they bought for $700 earned
$350,015 during its career.

***

History's greatest breeder was Darius of Persia (522-485
B.C.), who had more than 50,000 brood mares. Darius's
horses were half the size of today's.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The "invention" of language is not known except for
references in the Bible. It is not known what language Adam
and Eve spoke. The first mention of different languages is
the reference to the tower of Babel when different tongues
were bestowed.

***

The invention of writing, however, is credited to the
Sumerians of Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC. Their
descendants, the Sumero-Babylonians, developed the time
system that we use today: an hour divided into 60 minutes,
which are divided into 60 seconds.

***

Today, there are more than 2,700 different languages spoken
in the world, with more than 7,000 dialects. In Indonesia
alone, 365 different languages are spoken. More than 1,000
different languages are spoken in Africa.

***

The most difficult language to learn is Basque, which is
spoken in north-western Spain and south-western France. It
is not related to any other language in the world. Mandarin
is the most spoken language in the world, followed by
English. But as home language, Spanish is the second most
spoken in the world.

***

The youngest language in the world is Afrikaans, spoken by
South Africans. Dutch and German Protestants fled
persecution from the Roman Catholic Church in the 17th and
18th century to settle in the Dutch colony of Cape of Good
Hope on the southern point of Africa. By the early-20th
century Afrikaans had developed from Dutch, German and other
influences into a fully fledged language with its own
dictionaries.

***

The smallest country in the world is the Vatican. It also
is the only country where Latin:thumbsup: is the official language.

[gunslingingbird]

The most difficult language to learn is Basque, which is
spoken in north-western Spain and south-western France. It
is not related to any other language in the world.

I beg to differ. I had read elsewhere that Chippewa is the hardest language to learn because, to speak fluently, one must master the more than 10,000 verb tenses.

[PlasmaTwa2]

I beg to differ. I had read elsewhere that Chippewa is the hardest language to learn because, to speak fluently, one must master the more than 10,000 verb tenses.

Well, no wonder I never heard of it :1orglaugh

Historylover, I'm not too sure, but I think the whole name of the country is actually 'Vatican City'.

[historylover]

Historylover, I'm not too sure, but I think the whole name of the country is actually 'Vatican City'.

:yesyes:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Americans eat more bananas than any other fresh fruit,
averaging about 26.2 pounds/person/year.

Apples are a distant second at 16.7 pounds/person/year.

***

There are 5 million more women than men in America! The
US is 49.1 percent male and 50.9 percent female.

***

At any given moment, there are 61,000 people airborne over
the U.S.

***

OUCH!

The normal static electricity shock that zaps your finger
when you touch a doorknob in the winter is usually between
10,000 and 30,000 volts!

You get "shocked" by static charge more in the winter be-
cause it is less humid and humidity usually helps to dis-
sipate static charge.

***

Alum, Alum, Aluminum

Aluminum is the third most abundant element in the earth's
crust. However, since it's never found in a pure state the
refining process makes it one of the more expensive metals.

***

According to Mythbusters...

if you fall/jump from 160 feet, your body experiences
285 G's, or 285 times the normal force of gravity, when
you hit the water.

To put this in context, the force your body experiences
in a normal car crash is 70 G's

[senob44]

Wow! very interesting hodgepodge for today! :thumbsup:

This caught my eye:
There are 5 million more women than men in America! The US is 49.1 percent male and 50.9 percent female.

Great news for all those single guys out there! :nanner:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

A diamond is the hardest natural substance on earth, but
if it is placed in an oven and the temperature is raised
to about 1405 degrees Fahrenheit, it will simply vanish,
without even ash remaining. Only a little carbon dioxide
will have been released.

***

Diamonds are formed over a period of a billion or more
years deep within earth's crust - about 90 miles deep -
and is pushed to the surface by volcanoes. Most diamonds
are found in volcanic rock, called Kimberlite, or in the
sea after having been carried away by rivers when they
were pushed to the surface.

***

A diamond is 58 times harder than the next hardest mineral
on earth, corundum, from which rubies and sapphires are
formed. It was only during the 15th century that it was
discovered that the only way to cut diamonds was with other
diamonds. Yet, diamonds are brittle. If you hit one hard
with a hammer, it will shatter.

***

The world's largest diamond was the Cullinan, found in
South Africa in 1905. It weighed 3,106.75 carats uncut. It
was cut into the Great Star of Africa, weighing 530.2
carats, the Lesser Star of Africa, which weighs 317.40
carats, and 104 other diamonds of nearly flawless color
and clarity. They now form part of the British crown jewels.

***

Not all diamonds are white. Impurities lend diamonds a
shade of blue, red, orange, yellow, green and even black.
A green diamond is the rarest. It is not the rarest
gemstone, however. That title goes to a pure red ruby.
Diamonds actually are found in fair abundance; thousands
are mined every year. 80% of them are not suitable for
jewelry - they are used in industry. Only diamonds of
higher clarity are sourced to the jewelry stores.

***
A diamond carat differs from a gold carat. The gold carat
indicates purity - pure gold being 24 carats. One diamond
carat is 0.007055 oz. The word carat derives from the carob
bean. Gem dealers used to balance their scales with carob
beans because these beans all have same weight.

[senob44]

if it is placed in an oven and the temperature is raised to about 1405 degrees Fahrenheit, it will simply vanish, without even ash remaining.

Yet, diamonds are brittle. If you hit one hard with a hammer, it will shatter.

Whoever was the first person to do each of these things must have been really, really rich to go about destroying their diamonds!

[historylover]

Whoever was the first person to do each of these things must have been really, really rich to go about destroying their diamonds!

When you're right, you're right.:glugglug:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

In English tradition, Wednesday is considered the "best
day" to marry, although Monday is for wealth and Tuesday
is for health. Saturday is considered the unluckiest
wedding day!

***

A Swedish bride puts a silver coin from her father and a
gold coin from her mother in each shoe to ensure that she'll
never do without. Moroccan women take a milk bath to purify
themselves before their wedding ceremony. For good luck,
Egyptian women pinch the bride on her wedding day.

***

Diamonds set in gold or silver became popular as betrothal
rings among wealthy Venetians toward the end of the
fifteenth century. Seventeen tons of gold are made into
wedding rings each year in the United States!

***

Queen Victoria started the Western world's white wedding
dress trend in 1840 -- before then, brides simply wore their
best dress.

***

The tradition of a wedding cake comes from ancient Rome,
where revelers broke a loaf of bread over a bride's head
for fertility's sake.

***

In many cultures around the world -- including Celtic, Hindu
and Egyptian weddings -- the hands of a bride and groom are
literally tied together to demonstrate the couple's commit-
ment to each other and their new bond as a married couple
(giving us the popular phrase "tying the knot").

[senob44]

Cool! I did not know any of that. Now it's time for Becks and I to get married!!!

[gunslingingbird]

Cool! I did not know any of that. Now it's time for Becks and I to get married!!!

Ooh! Ooh! When's that shindig going down?!? I'd LOVE to crash it! :D

[Becks...poamr]

Cool! I did not know any of that. Now it's time for Becks and I to get married!!!

Finally want to make an honest woman of me, huh?

Ooh! Ooh! When's that shindig going down?!? I'd LOVE to crash it! :D

Funny, you always struck me as the type to crash the honeymoon. :D

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Created by Pierre de Coubertin in 1914, the Olympic flag
contains five interconnected rings on a white background.
The five rings symbolize the five significant continents
and are interconnected to symbolize the friendship to be
gained from these international competitions. The rings,
from left to right, are blue, yellow, black, green, and
red. The colors were chosen because at least one of them
appeared on the flag of every country in the world. The
Olympic flag was first flown during the 1920 Olympic Games.

***

The Olympic medals are designed especially for each
individual Olympic Games by the host city's organizing
committee. Each medal must be at least three millimeters
thick and 60 millimeters in diameter. Also, the gold and
silver Olympic medals must be made out of 92.5 percent
silver, with the gold medal covered in six grams of gold.

***

During the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the
procession of athletes is always led by the Greek team,
followed by all the other teams in alphabetical order (in
the language of the hosting country), except for the last
team which is always the team of the hosting country.

***

In 1921, Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic
Games, borrowed a Latin phrase from his friend, Father
Henri Didon, for the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius
("Swifter, Higher, Stronger").

***

James B. Connolly (United States), winner of the hop, step,
and jump (the first final event in the 1896 Olympics), was
the first Olympic champion of the modern Olympic Games.

***

In 490 BCE, Pheidippides, a Greek soldier, ran from Marathon
to Athens (about 25 miles) to inform the Athenians the
outcome of the battle with invading Persians. The distance
was filled with hills and other obstacles; thus Pheidippides
arrived in Athens exhausted and with bleeding feet. After
telling the townspeople of the Greeks' success in the battle,
Pheidippides fell to the ground dead. In 1896, at the first
modern Olympic Games, held a race of approximately the same
length in commemoration of Pheidippides.

[senob44]

After telling the townspeople of the Greeks' success in the battle, Pheidippides fell to the ground dead. In 1896, at the first modern Olympic Games, held a race of approximately the same length in commemoration of Pheidippides.

Were they hoping for more dead?

I never knew the gold medal was made primarily of silver.

[gunslingingbird]

In 490 BCE, Pheidippides, a Greek soldier, ran from Marathon
to Athens (about 25 miles) to inform the Athenians the
outcome of the battle with invading Persians. The distance
was filled with hills and other obstacles; thus Pheidippides
arrived in Athens exhausted and with bleeding feet. After
telling the townspeople of the Greeks' success in the battle,
Pheidippides fell to the ground dead. In 1896, at the first
modern Olympic Games, held a race of approximately the same
length in commemoration of Pheidippides.

I used to know this one, but I forgot. Who was it that changed the length of the Marathon from ~25 miles to 26.2 miles? I know that it's the distance from one place to another, but I'm having a brain fart and I can't think of the details. :helpme:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The first frozen dessert is credited to Emperor Nero of
Rome. It was a mixture of snow (which he sent his slaves
into the mountains to retrieve) and nectar, fruit pulp and
honey. Another theory is Marco Polo, 13th century bard and
adventurer, brought with him to Europe from the Far East
recipes for water ices....said to be used in Asia for
thousands of years.

***

Italo Marchiony sold his homemade ice cream from a pushcart
on Wall Street. He reduced his overhead caused by customers
breaking or wandering off with his serving glasses by baking
edible waffle cups with sloping sides and a flat bottom. He
patented his idea in 1903.

***

In 1983, Cookies 'N Cream, made with real Oreo cookies,
became an instant hit, climbing to number five on the list
of best-selling ice cream flavors. It also holds the
distinction of being the fastest growing new flavor in the
history of the ice cream industry.

***

The biggest ice cream sundae ever made was 12 feet high and
made with 4,667 gallons of ice cream and 7,000 pounds of
toppings in Anaheim, Calif., during 1985.

***

During the stuffy Victorian period, drinking soda water was
considered improper, so some towns banned its sale on
Sundays. An enterprising druggist in Evanston, IN,
reportedly concocted a legal Sunday alternative containing
ice cream and syrup, but no soda. To show respect for the
Sabbath, he later changed the spelling to "sundae."

***

Dolly Madison created a sensation when she served ice cream
as a dessert in the White House at the second inaugural ball
in 1812.

[senob44]

The most delicious post yet! Yay for cookies & cream, one of my favorites!

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Swimming as an organized activity goes back as far as 2500
B.C. in ancient Egypt and later in ancient Greece, Rome,
and Assyria. In Rome and Greece, swimming was part of the
education of elementary age boys and the Romans built the
first swimming pools (separate from bathing pools). The
first heated swimming pool was built by Gaius Maecenas of
Rome in the first century BC.

***

Ancient civilizations left ample evidence of their swimming
abilities. Bas-relief artwork in an Egyptian tomb from
around 2,000 B.C. shows an overarm stroke like the front
crawl. The Assyrians showed an early breaststroke in their
stone carvings. The Hittites, the Minoans, and other early
civilizations left drawings of swimming and diving skills.

***

The first municipal pool in the U.S. was built in Brookline,
Mass., in 1887. Soon after that, New York City built public
facilities, then called "baths."

***

In 1928, David Armbruster first filmed swimmers under water
to study strokes. The Japanese also photographed and
studied world-class athletes, using their research to
produce a swim team that dominated the 1932 Olympic Games.
This marked the beginning of research into stroke mechanics.

***
During the Middle Ages, people feared water because they
thought it contained diseases. Swimming was not again
appreciated until the nineteenth century when it became
popular in England. People felt they could finally trust
the water to be free of disease.

***

In 1946 war rationing of material inspired the invention
of the two piece bathing suite, called a "bikini." It was
named for a U.S. nuclear testing site in the South Pacific.

***

RANDOM TIDBITS

During World War II, U.S. pilots began reporting odd balls
of light or shiny metallic spheres that could fly circles
around their planes. These UFOs came to be called Foo
Fighters. British and German pilots also reported seeing
these strange lights, and each side thought that they were
some sort of secret weapon developed by the enemy. The
phenomenon was never explained.

***

The earliest known report of a UFO sighting was by Julius
Obsequens, a Roman writer, in 100 B.C.. He claimed to have
seen "things like ships" in the sky over Italy.

***

The U.S. Air Force conducted a 22-year investigation,
based out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio,
called Project Blue Book which studied evidence for the
existence of UFOs. J. Allen Hynek, Project Blue Book's
lead investigator from 1948 to 1969, investigated hundreds
of UFO reports each year. The official conclusion of the
project was that no evidence of extraterrestrials or
extraterrestrial vehicles existed.

***

In October (some sources say January) 1969, Jimmy Carter
observed a UFO in the skies near Leary in southwestern
Georgia. This unidentified flying object, which appeared
just after dusk, was a single luminous object about 30
degrees above the horizon that Carter estimated to be about
300 to 1000 yards away. Carter and about a dozen other men
watched the object for about 10 to 12 minutes as it hovered,
changed course several times, and eventually disappeared
in the distance.

***

MUFON, or the Mutual UFO Network, was founded on May 31,
1969, shortly after the publication of the University of
Colorado "Condon Report", as a vehicle to promote the
investigation of UFO phenomena.

***

On September 24, 1235, General Yoritsume and his army
observed mysterious globes of light flying loops in the
night sky near Kyoto, Japan. The General's advisors told
him not to worry -- it was merely the wind blowing the
stars about.

[Wickedclown]

I don´t know the author´s name but you should check out the book "Britannica & Me". A lot of trivia mixed with a good story.

[senob44]

In 1946 war rationing of material inspired the invention
of the two piece bathing suite, called a "bikini." It was
named for a U.S. nuclear testing site in the South Pacific.

From rationing of material, I guess that sure does make sense! And it was named after Bikini Atoll. I always wondered if the names were related.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Edgar Degas is acknowledged as the master of drawing human
figures in motion. In the early 1870s, the female ballet
dancer became his favorite theme. He sketched from a live
model in his studio and combined poses into groupings that
depicted rehearsal and performance scenes.

***

The Dada school of art, or Dadaism, can be traced back to
Zurich and the poetry of Romanian-born Tristan Tzara. Born
out of the widespread disillusionment created by World War
I, Dada attacked conventional standards of aesthetics and
behavior and stressed absurdity and the role of the
unpredictable in artistic creation. The principles of Dada
were eventually modified to become the basis of surrealism.

***

Edvard Munch painted "The Scream" after a walk with two
friends during which he sensed an "endless scream passing
through nature". To describe this experience, he developed
an exciting, violent, and emotionally charged style that is
recognized by most critics as leading to the birth of
German Expressionism.

***

Frida Kahlo--who began painting while recovering from a
serious road accident at the age of 15--sent her early work
to the painter Diego Rivera, whom she later married. Her
works are often shocking in their stark portrayal of pain
and the harsh lives of women.

***

"Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" was the
most famous painting of Georges Seurat, founder of the 19th-
century French school of Neo-Impressionism whose technique
for portraying the play of light using tiny brushstrokes of
contrasting colors became known as Pointillism. This painting
inspired a Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim entitled
Sunday in the Park With George.

***

While studying at the Academy of Ancient Art in the Medici
Palace, Michelangelo not only developed his genius as a
sculptor, but also excited the wrath of his rival,
Torregiano, who struck him with a mallet, crushing his nose
and disfiguring him for life.

***

RANDOM TIDBITS

Between 20,000 and 60,000 bees live in a single hive. The
queen bee lays 1,500 eggs a day and lives for up to 2 years.
The drone, whose only job it is to mate with the queen bee,
has a lifespan of around 24 days - they have no stinger.
Worker bees - all sterile females - usually work themselves
to death within 40 days in summer, collecting pollen and
nectar. Worker bees fly up to 14km (9 miles) to find pollen
and nectar, flying at 24km/h (15 mph).

***

A worker bee communicates her floral findings by performing
a dance on the honeycomb. The orientation of her movements
and the frequency of her vibrations indicate the direction
and distance of the flowers.

***

Flowers are pollinated mostly by bees; up to one third of
all plant pollination on earth are by bees. In short, this
means that one in every three spoons of food you put in
your mouth was a direct result of the work done by bees.

***

Bees do not have ears, but they have an excellent sense of
smell with chemoreceptors in their antennae. Bees see
colors differently than we do. They are insensitive to red
but detects ultraviolet light which is invisible to us.

***

The worker bees defend the hive. The muscular barbed stinger
quickly saw into the skin of the invader and the venom pouch
begins to contract rhythmically to pump venom into the
intruder.

***

Bees can be used to detect landmines. Tiny radio plates the
size of a rice grain will be attached to honey bees to
detect antipersonnel landmines, of which there are about
100 million in 70 war-torn countries. The tiny radio plates
are engraved with serial numbers to keep track of the bees,
which are being conditioned to develop a preference in
addition to nectar, in this case TNT, or any other material
that releases metamphenamine. Special spectrometers that
can "smell" TNT are placed in movable beehives to indicate
landmines in specific areas. Bees that "smell" of explosives
can then be tracked to the landmine. The bees won't detonate
the landmines.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

In 1832, U.K. representative B.H. Hodson, while living in
Nepal, claimed to have seen the Abominable Snowman attack
his servants. Hodson described the creature as a "wild man
... covered in long, dark hair, and had no tail". This is
generally considered the first report of the Abominable
Snowman made by a Westerner.

***

The National Hockey League's New Jersey Devils are named
after The Jersey Devil, a legendary creature who has
reportedly been sighted by numerous New Jersey residents
for almost three centuries, but whose description has
changed dramatically over the years. Originally described
as a demonic child with hooves, bat wings, a forked tail,
and the head of a horse, the creature has since been
described as a flying lion, a green alien-like monster,
and a faceless hairy creature.

***

In the summer of 1816, while visiting the poet Lord Byron
at his villa near Lake Geneva in Switzerland, Mary Shelley
created the character of the Frankenstein monster. During
this visit, stormy weather forced the party to spend most
of their time indoors. To pass the time, some of Byron's
other guests read from a volume of ghost stories. One
evening, Byron issued a challenge -- that each of his
guests should write a ghost story of their own. Mary's
story, which was inspired by a dream, eventually became
her most famous literary work -- the novel Frankenstein.

***

Famed Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa once told of
a legendary humanoid creature that supposedly lived in
South America. Producer William Alland overheard the story,
and it became the inspiration for The Creature From the
Black Lagoon (1954). The Creature is considered by many
critics to be Universal's last great classic monster, and
it spawned several sequels including Revenge of the Creature
(1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956).

***

The Dracula legend is generally believed to have evolved
from the life of Vlad Tepes or Vlad the Impaler, a Prince
of Wallachia (in Romania) who lived from 1431 to 1476. Best
known for the cruelty of his reign, he was greatly disliked,
but he served as a sort of buffer between Europe and the
Ottoman invaders, and this made him key to the European
defense. He fulfilled this purpose well, killing so many
Turks that the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II laid siege on Vlad's
castle himself.

***

In Greek mythology, the story of Lycaon serves as one of
the earliest examples of the werewolf legend. According to
one version of the story, Lycaon was transformed into a
wolf as punishment for eating human flesh. According to
another version, he served up his own son Nyctimus, offered
the dish of human flesh to Zeus on the altar of mount
Lycaeus, and was immediately turned into a wolf by the
disgusted god. This gave rise to the legend that a man was
turned into a wolf at each annual sacrifice to Zeus Lycaeus,
but if he refrained from eating human flesh for ten years
he would regain his human form.

[senob44]

The Jersey Devil!! Woot! Woot!

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS ABOUT DINOSAURS

Although there have probably been dinosaur discoveries
dating back thousands of years -- there are, for instance,
references to "dragon bones" found in ancient China -- the
first documented dinosaur discovery took place in 1676 when
a jawbone and teeth were unearthed in Oxford, England. In
1824, famed paleontologist William Buckland (1784-1856)
finally named this first dinosaur Megalosaurus. Megalosaurus
was a large meat-eater that stood up to 30 feet tall and
weighed about 1 ton.

***

In 1877, a paleontologist named Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-
1899) discovered a new species of dinosaur with he named
Apatosaurus, meaning "deceptive lizard." Two years later,
he discovered what he believed to be another species of
dinosaur. He named this one Brontosaurus, meaning "thunder
lizard." When later paleontologists examined the two fossils,
however, they determined that both skeletons belonged to the
same animal class, one being an adult and one being a juvenile.

***

Stegosaurus means "covered lizard" in Greek. This dinosaur
had a double row of protective plates covering its back and
tail. In addition to acting as a protective covering, these
plates may have operated as a sort of cooling device -- wind
flowing between the plates would have helped lower the body
temperature of a Stegosaurus on hot days.

***

The Argentinosaurus, an herbivorous sauropod and quite
possibly the largest animal ever to walk the earth, is
believed to have reached lengths of up to 150 feet and
weighed as much as 110 tons. Only fragmentary remains have
been discovered, but using their knowledge of related
dinosaurs, scientists have been able to estimate the size
of these specimens of Argentinosaurus.

***

The Brachiosaurus, a herbivore, used its giraffe-like neck
to graze in the tops of trees. It is believed to have
reached heights of up to 42 feet, lengths of 82 feet, and
weights in excess of 90 tons. Once considered the largest
known dinosaur, it has since been surpassed by the likes
of Argintinosaurus and Sauroposeidon.

***

Dinosaurs are believed to have become extinct about 65
million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period. We
know of their existence today because of fossilized remains.
It is impossible to know for sure what caused this sudden
mass extinction, but the prevailing theory is that a massive
meteor struck the earth about that time causing drastic
climate changes and thus the extinction.

[Facetious]

At this time, what percentage of all American investment assets are not FDIC Insured ?


Highlight Answer

Approximately 40 %

source - www.clarkhoward.com

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS ABOUT LITERATURE

In 2000, Gao Xingjian, author of Soul Mountain and The
Other Shore, became the first Chinese writer to be awarded
the Nobel Prize for Literature. His novels and plays have
been banned in China since 1986.

***

Ba! Ba! Black Sheep was one of several working titles
Margaret Mitchell used for her most famous novel, Gone With
the Wind. She also considered the titles Tote the Weary
Load, Bugles Sang True, Not In Our Stars, and Tomorrow is
Another Day before finally settling on a phrase that she
had used in the critical scene where Scarlett returns to
Tara and asks, "Was Tara still standing? Or was Tara also
gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?"

***

Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis both died on November 22, 1963,
but their deaths were overshadowed by a more sensational
death that day: the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

***

Anne Sexton wrote To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960),
Transformations (1971), and The Death Notebooks (1974), as
well as Live or Die (1967) for which she won the Pulitzer
Prize. In 1974, despite a very successful writing career,
she lost her lifelong battle with depression and, at the
age of 46, committed suicide.

***

One of Tennessee Williams greatest plays, Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof, contains characters named "Big Daddy" and "Big Mama."
These roles were played in the original Broadway production
by Burl Ives and Mildred Dunnock.

***

Nikolai Gogol's most celebrated play was The Inspector
General (1836), a comedy which told the tale of a young
civil servant who finds himself stranded in a small town,
mistaken for an influential government inspector. A
masterpiece of dramatic satire, The Inspector General is
universally respected as one of the greatest plays of the
Russian theatre.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

There are many theories about the birth of our solar system.
The Tidal Theory (or Chamberlain-Moulton Theory) suggests
that a passing star pulled dust and debris from the forming
Sun, leaving a string of debris that eventually formed the
planets.

***

Mercury & Venus are the only planets in our solar system
without moons. Saturn has the most moons, with more than
twenty.

***

Discovered by James Christy in 1978, Pluto's moon is named
Charon. With a diameter of 728 miles, Charon is just under
half the size of Pluto. Due to this very small difference
in size, some scientists consider Pluto and Charon to be a
double planet.

***

Syzygy is the condition when three celestial bodies are
arranged in a straight line--as, for example, when the Sun,
Moon, and Earth are aligned during solar and lunar eclipses.

***

The Apollo program was a manned U.S. space program that
eventually put 12 men on the Moon. The first Apollo mission
to circle the Moon was Apollo 8, and the first to land was
Apollo 11. Apollo 13 never landed because of an accident en
route that required the spacecraft to return to Earth after
swinging around the far side of the Moon. The last Apollo
mission to land on the Moon was Apollo 17.

***

Comets have three main parts: the nucleus, the coma, and
the tail. The coma consists of gases and dust around the
nucleus.

***

RANDOM TIDBITS ABOUT SCIENCE

Many plants and animals are capable of producing visible
light. The scientific term for this phenomenon is
bioluminescence.

***

Sperm Whales have the heaviest brain of any living animal.
The average Sperm Whale's brain weighs more than 20 pounds
which is about 4 times heavier than the average human brain.

***

Influenza killed 43,000 American servicemen mobilized for
World War I, representing nearly 40 percent of U.S. military
casualties.
In 1983, the first genetically engineered organism, a
tobacco plant designed to be resistant to certain
herbicides, was grown in Wisconson.

***

In 2004, on the island of Flores in Indonesia, a team of
Australian and Indonesian researchers discovered the
remains of a hobbit-sized human. Remarkable, these
researchers determined that this new species of human lived
as recently as 13,000 years ago, shattering the long-held
belief that Homo sapiens have had the planet to themselves
for the past 25,000 years.

***

The idea of the atom was first introduced by Leucippus of
Miletus around 450 B.C.. Leucippus and his pupil,
Democritus, theorized that all matter was composed of
atoms, or bits of matter too small to be seen. The word
"atom" comes from a Greek word, "atomos", meaning
uncuttable.

[gunslingingbird]

Sperm Whales have the heaviest brain of any living animal.
The average Sperm Whale's brain weighs more than 20 pounds
which is about 4 times heavier than the average human brain.


Yes, but, proportionally, their brain is tiny. Sure, their brain weighs 4 times that of a human's, but how many times more than the weight of an average human does an average sperm whale weigh? ;) (By the way, I heard that that is senob's favorite kind of whale.)

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

"Great Gig in the Sky" is one of the few Pink Floyd songs
to use a female vocal. Their engineer, Alan Parsons,
brought in a singer he knew named Clare Torry who provided
the hauntingly beautiful improvised vocal on the song.
Thirty years later, she would sue Pink Floyd over rights
to the song.
***

U2's "Angel of Harlem" was written about Billie Holiday, a
Jazz singer who moved to Harlem as a teenager in 1928. She
had a difficult childhood which affected her life and
career, but she went on to play a variety of nightclubs
and became famous for her spectacular voice and ability to
move her audience to tears.

***

Although there were earlier publicity stunts involving
records sprayed with gold lacquer, the actual award
recognized today as a Gold Record was first awarded to
Perry Como in 1958 for his recording of "Catch a Falling
Star".

***

John Lennon played "I Saw Her Standing There" at Madison
Square Garden on Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1974, when
he took the stage at an Elton John concert. It was the
last song Lennon would ever perform for a paid audience.

***

The melody for Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender" is based
on "Aura Lee", a ballad written in 1861 by W.W. Fosdick
and Geo R. Poulton. RCA Records received over 1 million
pre-orders for "Love Me Tender", making it the first
single to ship as a gold record before it was released.

***

Pete Best was the original drummer for the Beatles,
performing with the band during its formative years in
the early 1960s. He was replaced by Ringo Starr only a few
days before The Beatles recorded their first hit single,
"Love Me Do."


************************************************** *********

RANDOM TIDBITS

The first TV interview was made with Irish actress Peggy
O'Neil in April 1930. The first daily broadcast was started
by the BBC in November 1936.

***

The first TV commercial was a 20-second ad for a Bulova
clock, broadcasted by WNBT, New York during a game between
the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies in July
1941. Bulova paid $9 for that first TV spot.

***

The first regular TV soap was DuMont TV's A Woman to
Remember, which began its run in February 1947.

***

The first televised sporting event was a Japanese elementary
school baseball game, broadcast in September 1931.

***

The world's first TV news helicopter was introduced by KTLA
Channel 5 in Los Angeles on 4 July 1958.

***

The video recording machine was invented by the Ampex
corporation of California in 1956. The first video recorder,
the Ampex VR1000, stood 3 feet, three inches, and weighed
as much as a small car: 1,466 pounds.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS ABOUT PEOPLE

Lady Peseshet of Ancient Egypt (2600-2100 BC) is the world's
first known female physician.

***

Adriaan van der Donck was the first and only lawyer in New
York City in 1653.

***

When Alexander Graham Bell passed away in 1922, every
telephone served by the Bell system in the USA and Canada
was silent for one minute.

***

Leonardo da Vinci could write with the one hand and draw
with the other simultaneously.

***

The 17th-century French Cardinal Mazarin never traveled
without his personal chocolate-maker. (I need to get myself
one of those!)

***

Winston Churchill was a stutterer. As a child, one of his
teachers warned, "Because of his stuttering he should be
discouraged from following in his father's political
footsteps."

[gunslingingbird]

Leonardo da Vinci could write with the one hand and draw
with the other simultaneously.


President James Garfield would often entertain his friends by taking a Biblical passage and simultaneously writing it in Latin with one hand and in Greek with the other.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

In 1812, Louis becomes blind, the result of an accident
while playing in his fathers shop.

***
Louis Braille was fifteen (1824), when he developed a
system of reading and writing by means of raised dots.

***

Braille generally consists of cells of 6 raised dots
conventionally numbered and the presence or absence of
dots gives the coding for the symbol.

***

LEGAL BLINDNESS

Having between zero and 10% of normal visual acuity in
both eyes (20/200 vision or less) and/or 20% or less of
normal peripheral vision in both eyes. In other words,
the person, while wearing glasses, can see less at 20
feet than a person with normal vision can see at 200 feet.

***

See the light

Vision and eye health problems are the second most
prevalent, chronic, health care problems in the United
States population, affecting more than 120 million people.

***

Cataracts

About 5.5 million U.S. residents have cataracts severe
enough to cause vision problems, with about 400,000 new
cases developing annually. This leads to about 1.35 million
cataract surgeries each year

************************************************** *********

RANDOM TIDBITS

Grand Cayman is the largest of the three Cayman Islands
and contains George Town, the capital.

***

The national tree is the Silver Thatch Palm and the na-
tional flower is the Wild Banana Orchid.

***

The Grand Cayman Islands are 3 islands - Grand Cayman the
largest is separated from Cayman Brac and Little Cayman
by some 80 miles.

***

British

The Cayman Islands were colonized from Jamaica by the
British during the 18th and 19th centuries. Administered
by Jamaica since 1863, they remained a British dependency
after 1962 when the former became independent.

***

What's it mean?

The name 'Cayman' derives from the Carib word for croc-
odile and appeared in the log of Sir Francis Duke , the
first English visitor to the islands, in 1586.

***

National motto: 'HE HATH FOUNDED IT UPON THE SEAS'

The national flag is blue, with the flag of the UK in the
upper hoist-side quadrant and the Caymanian coat of arms
on a white disk centered on the outer half of the flag.
The coat of arms includes a pineapple and turtle above a
shield with three stars (representing the three islands)
and a scroll at the bottom bearing the national motto.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

James Buchanan was the only bachelor president.

***

William Taft was the largest president at 6 feet 2 inches
tall and 326 pounds.

***

James Madison was the shortest president at 5 feet 4 inches.

***

Andrew Johnson #17

He was the first president to be visited by a queen. Queen
Emma of the Sandwich Islands came to America on August 14,
1866. Johnson was buried beneath a willow he had planted
himself with a shoot taken from a tree at Napolean's tomb.
His head was rested on a copy of the Constitution.

***

Woodrow Wilson #28

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1920 for his efforts in
seeking peace after World War I and supporting the League
of Nations. A flock of sheep was raised on the White House
lawn during Wilson's term. The wool was used to raise
money for the Red Cross during World War I.

***

Dwight D. Eisenhower #34

Eisenhower was the first president of all 50 states and the
first president to appear on color television. He was also
responsible for putting 'under God' into the Pledge of
Alliegence.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS ABOUT BRIDGES

The highest bridge in the world can be found in the Ladakh
valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan
mountains. The valley lies at an altitude of about 18,379
ft above sea level on the India side of Kashmir. Called the
Baily Bridge, it is only 98 ft long, and was built by the
Indian Army in August 1982.

***

The bridge that stands highest over water is the Royal
Gorge Bridge over the Arkansas River in Colorado. Built in
1929 for $350,000, it spans 1,053 ft above the water.

***

The largest bridge in the world is the 8,25 miles long
Trans Bay Bridge which links San Francisco to Oakland. It
was built in 1936 at a cost of $77 million.

***

The world's largest natural bridge is the Rainbow Bridge,
tucked away among the rugged, isolated canyons at the base
of Navajo Mountain, Utah. From its base to the top of the
arch, it reaches 290 ft - nearly the height of the Statue
of Liberty - and spans 275 ft across the river. The top of
the arch is 42 ft thick and 33 ft wide.

***

The world's busiest bridge is the Howrah bridge across the
river Hooghly in Calcutta. In addition to 57,000 vehicles
a day it carries a huge number of pedestrians across its
1,500 ft long 72 ft wide span.

***

The longest bridge in the world is the Pontchartrain bridge
in New Orleans with a total length of 24 miles. It was
completed in 1956. The most expensive bridge is the Seto-
Ohashi-Kojima bridge in Japan. At 8,21 miles long, it was
built in 1988 at a cost of $8.3 billion.

[gunslingingbird]

The largest bridge in the world is the 8,25 miles long
Trans Bay Bridge which links San Francisco to Oakland. It
was built in 1936 at a cost of $77 million.


:1orglaugh $77 million dollars to build it! CalTrans probably gets at least that much each month from the fucking $4 dollar toll that they charge to cross the fucking thing! Oh, by the way, in our neck of the woods we simply call it the Bay Bridge. ;)

[Jason z]

did u know it is illegal to have sex with a porcupine in florida? lol..

[bombardier52]

did u know it is illegal to have sex with a porcupine in florida? lol..

I bet their aren't many repeat offenders

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS ABOUT MOUNTAINS

Volcanic mountains are formed by volcanoes and shaped by
eruptions, lava flows, and collapses. Mount St. Helen in
Washington is one example of a volcanic mountain that has
been altered by eruption. On May 18, 1980, the mountain
experienced one of the most explosive eruptions ever
recorded, causing the whole north side to disintegrate, and
altering the height of the mountain by nearly 1,300 feet.

***

Dome mountains have a characteristic ‘dome’ top. In the US,
the Black Hills of South Dakota offer excellent examples of
dome topped mountains. Erosion is believed to be a major
factor in the shaping of most dome formations.

***

Another type of mountain is known as a fold mountain. The
earth has taken pieces of itself, and over time, with great
force, pushed pieces of earth upward and folded them over
onto themselves. Example of Fold Mountains includes the
Appalachian Mountains.

***

Mauna Kea, Hawaii, with an elevation of 13,796 feet, is
actually 32,000 feet tall from its start on the sea floor,
making it the world’s highest island peak from base to tip.

***

A Timberline is where timber growth no longer occurs on a
mountain, also referred to as the ‘tree line’. Depending on
the mountain range, the height of the actual timberline
varies greatly. This is partly due to the area where the
mountain is located, or the normal climate of this
surrounding area.

***

Mount Everest, part of the Himalayas, is the highest point
on earth, with a height of 29,023 feet. Mount Everest is
only one in this range of over 30 peaks that rise to over
24,000 feet. Also in this range is Kanchenjunga at 28,208
feet, Makalu at 27,766 feet, and Dhaulagiri at 26,810 feet.

RANDOM TIDBITS

Objects used for a game similar to bowling, which date from
5200 BC, were found in the tomb of a young Egyptian boy. In
the third and fourth centuries, bowling in Europe was a
religious ceremony, participants tried to hit the pin, or
kegel (hence the word kegling for bowling) in order to be
judged free of sin.

***

Dutch colonists brought bowling to America in the 17th
century. The game consisted of 9 pins set in a triangle. It
was regularly played in an area of New York City still known
as "Bowling Green".

***

The Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC) was
founded in 1916 and has grown to 3.5 million members. The
Professional Bowlers association was organized in 1958 to
promote exhibition and arrange major tournaments. Interest
in bowling, particularly in the United Slates, had its
major spurt after World War II.

***

The American Bowling Congress (ABC), founded in 1895, is
the governing body for tenpins. The ABC standardized rules
and the scoring method, and it also organized the fast U.S.
national bowling tournament, in 1901. Each year the ABC
sponsors nationals in singles, doubles and five-man team
competition for its members, whose numbers exceeds 5 million.

***

The introduction of the first automatic pinsetter in
Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1952 was responsible for much of the
increase in bowling popularity. Previously, pins were set
by young boys, and Bowling Alleys, as the establishments
were called, often had poor reputations.

***

The Italian version of bowling, Bocce, which is still played
today, is somewhat similar to "Lawn Bowling", an English
game originating over 800 years ago.

[BlueBalls]

The Italian version of bowling, Bocce, which is still played today, is somewhat similar to "Lawn Bowling", an English
game originating over 800 years ago.


Look how interesting that game is, they actually televise it on the BBC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgO-i9t3D8s&feature=related

:sleep::sleep::sleep:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Volcanoes are vents in the Earth's surface from which
molten rock, debris, and steam issue. About 1,900 volcanoes
are active today or known to have been active in historical
times.

***

Almost 90 percent of volcanoes are in the Ring of Fire, a
band of volcanoes circling the edges of the Pacific Ocean.

***

Most volcanoes occur at plate boundaries, areas where huge
slabs of rock meet in the Earth's lithosphere, or outer shell.
Volcanoes can rise in subduction zones, areas where plates
meet and one is pushed beneath another. Molten rock rises to
the surface and forms a volcano.

***

Intraplate volcanoes are caused by hot spots deep within
the Earth. Magma rises and erupts as lava through cracks
in the Earth's surface, forming volcanoes.

***

Volcanoes can erupt in a combination of ways: explosively
with hard pyroclastic material; explosively with fluid lava
(lava fountains); effusively with hard pyroclastic flows
(clouds of ash and gases); and effusively with fluid lava.

***

Although some volcanoes are considered extinct, almost any
volcano is capable of rumbling to life again. Volcanoes
provide valuable mineral deposits, fertile soils, and
geothermal energy.
RANDOM TIDBITS


La Marcus Adna Thompson is credited with conceiving and
patenting the first roller coaster in America in 1878. He
created the Switchback Railroad at Coney Island, which
opened in 1884. The oldest operating roller coaster is Leap
the Dips at Lakemont Park in Pennsylvania, built in 1902.

***

The first American roller coaster was actually a train for
moving coal down a mountain, called the Mauch Chunk
Switchback Railroad. After the train no longer needed to
transport coal, passengers began to ride this thrilling
train from the 1850s through 1929.

***

The concept for roller coasters was first conceived in 15th
century Russia, where they constructed ice slides between
seventy and eighty feet tall and hundreds of feet long that
people rode on sleds.

***

The longest steel coaster prize goes to Steel Dragon 2000,
at Nagashima Spaland in Mie, Japan. Steel Dragon, which
opened in 2000, totals 8,133 feet of track. Daidarasaurus,
at Expoland in Suita, Japan (which opened in 1970) has the
second longest track, measuring 7,677 feet. In the United
States, Beast, at Kings Island in Ohio, measures 7,359.

***

Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey
currently holds the record for fastest speed, reaching 128
miles per hour. The coaster opened in May 2005 in the jungle
themed area of Great Adventure. Placing a close second, at
123 miles per hour, is Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point,
Ohio, which opened in May 2003.

***

While many modern steel roller coasters boast a 90 degree
angle of descent, there are actually four coasters that
have a 97 degree angle – Vild-Svinet (in Denmark), Typhoon
(Belgium), Speed: No Limits (United Kingdom) and Rage
(United Kingdom). In the United States, Mystery Mine at
Dollywood and Maverick at Cedar Point both reach angles of
95 degrees.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - ORIGINS OF COMMON PHRASES


Take someone down a peg - The expression probably originally
referred to a ship’s flags. These were raised or lowered by
pegs – the higher the position of the flags, the greater the
honor. So to take someone down a peg came to mean to lower
the esteem in which that person is held.

***

Touch and go - Dates back to the days of stagecoaches,
whose drivers were often intensely competitive, seeking to
charge past one another, on narrow roads, at grave danger
to life and limb. If the vehicle’s wheels became entangled,
both would be wrecked; if they were lucky, the wheels would
only touch and the coaches could still go.

***

Doesn't ring a bell - Old-fashioned carnivals and amusement
parks featured shooting galleries, in which patrons were
invited to test their marksmanship by shooting at a target
– often with a bell at the center: if something was right
on target, it rang the bell. Similarly, to say that something
‘doesn’t ring a bells’ means that it doesn’t strike any
‘target’ (evoke any response) in your mind.

***

Put on your thinking cap - In previous centuries, it was
customary for judges to put a cap on before sentencing
criminals. Because judges were respected thinkers, it was
referred to as a “thinking cap.”

***

Paint the town red - This term probably originated on the
frontier. In the nineteenth century the section of town
where brothels and saloons were located was known as the
‘red light district.’ So a group of lusty cowhands out for
a night on the town might very well take it into their
heads to make the whole town red.”

***

Get off scot free - In the thirteenth century, scot was
the word for money you would pay at a tavern for food and
drink, or when they passed the hat to pay the entertainer.
Later, it came to mean a local tax that paid the sheriff’s
expenses. To go scot-free literally meant to be exempted
from paying this tax.

************************************************** *********

RANDOM TIDBITS

The Sun is personified in many mythologies: the Greeks
called it Helios and the Romans called it Sol.

***

The Sun is, at present, about 70% hydrogen and 28% helium
by mass everything else ("metals") amounts to less than 2%.
This changes slowly over time as the Sun converts hydrogen
to helium in its core.

***

The Sun is by far the largest object in the solar system.

***

( Kelvin (K)0 Kelvin is absolute zero; H2O melts at 273 K
(= 0° C = 32° F); H2O boils at 373 K (= 100° C = 212° F).)

Not talking beer...

The highly rarefied region above the chromosphere, called
the corona, extends millions of kilometers into space but
is visible only during a total solar eclipse (left). Temp-
eratures in the corona are over 1,000,000 K.

***

Smile...

The surface of the Sun, called the photosphere, is at a
temperature of about 5800 K. Sunspots are "cool" regions,
only 3800 K (they look dark only by comparison with the
surrounding regions).

***

Talk about old...

The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old. Since its birth
it has used up about half of the hydrogen in its core.
It will continue to radiate "peacefully" for another 5
billion years or so (although its luminosity will approx-
imately double in that time). But eventually it will run
out of hydrogen fuel. It will then be forced into radical
changes which, though commonplace by stellar standards,
will result in the total destruction of the Earth

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The Rubik's Cube has 43 quintillion different possible
configurations (or 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 to be precise)
and only ONE solution.

***

The World Rubik Cube championship was held in Budapest on
June 5, 1982. Nineteen National Champions took part. Minh
Thai, the US Champion, won by solving the Cube in of 22.95
seconds.

***

At the World Championships, held every two years, there are
also other official records to be fought for, including
solving the Cube one-handed, blindfold; even using only
bare feet!

***

The most expensive Rubik's Cube was the Masterpiece Cube,
produced by Diamond Cutters International in 1995. The
actual-size, fully functional cube features 22.5 karats of
amethyst, 34 karats of rubies, and 34 karats of emeralds,
all set in 18-karat gold. It has been valued at over 1.5
million dollars.

***

The Rubik's Cube was invented in 1974 by Hungarian Professor
Erno Rubik. Its worldwide launch took place in 1980.

***

If you made a single turn of one of the Cube's faces every
second, it would take you 1,400 million million years to go
through all the possible configurations. (In comparison,
the universe itself is only 14 thousand million years old.)

RANDOM TIDBITS

COUNTING CROWS - Comes from old English nursery rhyme which
had to do with predicting the future from the numbers of
birds seen. Originally the rhyme was about magpies, but as
people came over to America, crows were used instead. From
the song "A Murder of One" one of the versions of the rhyme
goes "one for sorrow, two for joy, three for girls, four for
boys, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret
never to be told..."

***

DEXY'S MIDNIGHT RUNNERS - named themselves after the slang
term for a pep pill called DEXEDRINE even though the band
themselves had a policy of no drink or drugs!

***

PINK FLOYD - taken from the names of two Georgia bluesmen
Pink Anderson and Floyd Council - from the early days when
the band saw itself as a blues band.

***

CHICAGO - Their first album was released as "Chicago
Transit Authority", but the city of Chicago sued them
because Chicago Transit Authority is the name of Chicago's
public transportation department so they shortened it.

***

BIG BAD VOODOO DADDY - this neo-swing band takes its name
from what legendary bluesman Albert King wrote as an
autograph for the band's leader, Scotty Morris... "To the
big bad voodoo daddy."

***

THE DOORS - Jim Morrison read poet William Blake who said
"if the doors of perception are cleansed, everything would
appear to man as it truly is, infinite." He was also
influenced by author Aldous Huxley who referred to the same
line when he titled his book on drug experimentation The
Doors of Perception.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Google - The name started as a joke boasting about the
amount of information the search-engine would be able to
search. It was originally named ‘Googol’, a word for the
number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After the
founders - Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry
Page presented their project to an angel investor - they
received a check made out to ‘Google.’

***

Intel - Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new
company ‘Moore Noyce’ but that was already trademarked by a
hotel chain so they had to settle for an acronym of
INTegrated ELectronics.

***

Motorola - Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when
his company started manufacturing radios for cars. The
popular radio company at the time was called Victrola.

***

Sony - It originated from the Latin word ’sonus’ meaning
sound, and ’sonny’ a slang used by Americans to refer to a
bright youngster.

***

Yahoo! - The word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used
in his book ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. It represents a person
who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely
human. Yahoo! Founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected
the name because they considered themselves yahoos.

***

Apple Computers - It was the favorite fruit of founder Steve
Jobs. He was three months late in filing a name for the
business, and he threatened to call his company Apple
Computers if the other colleagues didn’t suggest a better
name by 5 O’clock.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERIES

Chef George Crum made the discovery of potato chips in 1853
when - to spite a customer who complained that his fries
were cut too thick - he sliced a potato paper-thin and
fried it to a crisp.

***

Silly Putty was discovered in the 1940s by a general
electric scientist named James Wright while he was trying
to create a synthetic rubber to use for the war. He mixed
boric acid and silicon oil and got Silly Putty. Since then
it has become one of the world's most popular toys.

***

Microwave Ovens were discovered in 1946 when a magnetron
melted a candy bar in Raytheon engineer Percy Spencer's
pocket. Microwave emitters powered the Allies radar in WWII.

***

A Scottish scientist named Alexander Fleming was looking
into a cure for the flu in 1928 when he noticed that a blue-
green mold had infected one of his Petri dishes, and it had
killed the staphylococcus bacteria that had been growing in
it. The world's most effective cure was actually discovered
due to a contamination in the lab.

***

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann took the world’s first acid hit
in 1943, when he touched a smidge of lysergic acid
diethylamide (LSD), a chemical he had researched for inducing
childbirth. After the first try he attempted even a larger
dose of it and made another discovery, the bad trip.

***

X-rays were discovered in the 19th century by several
scientists toying with penetrating rays that were emitted
when electrons struck a metal target. It wasn't fully
workable until 1895 when a German scientist named Wilhelm
Rontgen tried sticking different objects in front of the
radiation and saw the bones on his hand projected onto the
wall behind him.

[senob44]

Very interesting stories of great discoveries! Thank you historylover!

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The first country to use post cards was Austria.

***

The only one-syllabled U.S. state is Maine.

***

"The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be
the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

***

Sealand not Sea World

Sealand is the only man-made country 6 miles off the coast
of UK.

Sealand was built during World War II as British outpost
to defend the mainland. After being abandoned by the British,
a family took possession of it in 1969 and filed all the
paperwork to make this outpost a sovereign country. Sealand
now has its own flag, currency, passports, and ruling Prince
and Princess!
***

To be your own boss...

Small businesses make up over half (52%) of the US Gross
Domestic Product. There are 7.73 million small and medium-
sized business, of which the majority (76%) have fewer than
10 employees.

***

Log Cabins...

The log cabin originated in Finland. Finnish settlers
arrived in Delaware in the mid-1600s and brought with
them plans for the log cabin, one of the enduring sym-
bols of the American pioneer. One of the cabins has been
preserved and is on display at the Delaware Agricultural
Museum in Dover.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

In 1933 Betty Boop's garter was banned.

***

From 1930 to 1939 Betty Boop made over 120 cartoons.

***

Betty Boop's last cartoons were made in 1939.

***


What a dog!

Betty Boop's early appearances featured her as a dog with
a human body. Her facial features were designed as cross
between Helen Kane and a poodle! Betty was originally de-
signed to be a canine girlfriend to Bimbo the dog.

***

You've been replaced

In Betty Boop's early cartoons she was featured only as
a supporting cast member with Bimbo as the main character.
Betty soon became so popular that she replaced Bimbo as
the central character in Fleischer cartoons.

***

Betty Who?

Betty Boop was first identified as "Betty Boop" in "Silly
Scandals" in 1931. Prior to that in 'The Bum Bandit'
(1931) she was Nan McGrew. in her second cartoon 'Barnacle
Bill' (1930), she was identified as 'Nancy Lee' and in her
first cartoon 'Dizzy Dishes' (1930) she was not named.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The McDonald’s at Toronto’s ‘SkyDome’ is the only McDonald’s
location that sells hot dogs.

***

The average speed of Heinz ketchup leaving the bottle is 25
miles per year.

***

In space a person cannot cry because there is no gravity to
make the tears flow.

***

The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in
every five must be straight. These straight sections are
useable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

***

There are more plastic lawn flamingos in the United States
than real ones.

***

The surface speed record on the moon is 10.56 miles per hour.
It was set in a lunar rover.

RANDOM TIDBITS

China won the most gold medals at the Beijing Games with 51.
They become the first country to crack the 50-gold mark
since the Soviet Union in 1988. The most golds ever won in
a single Olympics is 83 (United States, 1984).

***

The United States won the same amount of golds (36) that
they did in Athens, continuing a remarkable consistency
that the nation has exhibited over the past half-century.
American Olympic gold totals since 1952: 40, 32, 34, 36,
45, 33, 34, 83, 36, 37, 44, 38, 36 and 36.

***

Greece won 16 medals as the host country in 2004. Four
years later, the founders of the Olympics managed just
four -- their lowest total since 1992.

***

Six countries won their first ever Olympic medals:
Afghanistan, Bahrain, Mauritius, Sudan, Tajikistan and Togo.

***

Pakistan was the most populous country not to win an Olympic
medal (164 million residents, sixth-largest nation in the
world).
***

From 1980 to 2008, Jamaica won three Olympic golds. In a
span of six days in Beijing, Usain Bolt won three.

(Thanks to Fourth-Place Medal for these interesting tidbits!)

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

ABBA - An acronym for the first names of the band members:
Agnetha Fältskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Anderson and
Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad.

***

BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD - The band took their name from a brand
of heavy asphalt roller they saw while stuck in Los Angeles
traffic.

***

THE FOUNDATIONS - The band members came up with this name
based on their surroundings, a rehearsal space in the
basement of a coffee shop in Bayswater, England.

***

JETHRO TULL - When Ian Anderson, Glenn Cornick, Mick
Abrahams and Clive Bunker formed their new band in 1967,
they tried out a variety of names, including Navy Blue and
Bag of Blues. Their manager suggested Jethro Tull, the name
of a British barrister and farmer who, in the mid-1700s,
invented a device called the seed drill, which could sew
three rows of seeds simultaneously. The memorable name stuck
with audiences.

***

THE O'JAYS - Named after the Cleveland disc jockey Eddie
O'Jay, who helped the band out in their early days. They
were originally called the Mascots.

***

THE PIPS - It was at a family birthday party that Gladys
Knight, her brother Merald, their sister Brenda, and two
cousins - William and Elenor Guest - first sang together
as a quintet. Another cousin present, James 'Pip' Woods,
suggested they sing together professionally. Taking his
advice, they hired him as their manager and called
themselves The Pips in his honor.

RANDOM TIDBITS

Charles Lindbergh (1927) was the first, and the youngest,
person to receive the distinction. He was 25 years old.

***

In 1936, Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson, the woman whom
English King Edward VIII abdicated in order to marry, was
the first woman to receive the honor.

***

Though a number of people have received the honor twice,
U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the only person
to have been named three times: 1932, 1934, and 1941.

***

dolf Hitler, the murderous leader of Nazi Germany,
received the honor in 1938.

***

A whole generation was named in 1966 - "Twenty-five and
Under." In 1982, the computer became the first object ever
to receive the distinction.

***

There are several years where large groups of people were
nominated: the American Fighting-Man (1950), the Hungarian
Freedom Fighter (1956), U.S. Scientists (1960), Twenty-Five
and Under (1966), the Middle Americans (1968), and American
Women (1975).

[ChefChiTown]

Here are some nice little "food" facts for you...

- The world's rarest coffee is found in Indonesia and costs over $300/LB!!!
- Cabbage is 91% water
- Honey, when applied close to a wound, can help prevent scarring

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS ABOUT KOALAS

Koalas have one of the most specialized diets of any living
mammal; it feeds almost exclusively on the leaves of a small
number of species of the eucalyptus.

***

The gestation period for a marsupial is only thirty four to
thirty six days. When born the undeveloped young, called a
joey, a single offspring in the case of the koala, is smaller
than the average human's little finger.

***

The koala's hand has two opposable thumbs. The claws are
important to the koala's ability to climb and to cling to a
tree following a jump of up to ten feet.

***

The life span of the koala varies due to stress factors,
averaging from thirteen to eighteen years.

***

The koala's coat is colored gray to tawny, white on the
chin, forelimbs, and chest. The koala living in the northern
climates, has a lighter colored coat, and much shorter hair.

***

Koalas sleep as much as eighteen hours a day and have a low-
energy diet of eucalyptus leaves.

RANDOM TIDBITS

Elvis Presley was thrown out of the Grand Ole Opry in 1954.

***

Your fingers and toes are the coldest parts of your body.

***

In 1980, the Yellow Pages accidentally listed a Texas
funeral home under frozen foods.

***

Raining Cats and Dogs

Meaning: *******ial rain

In the days before garbage collection, people tossed their
trash in the gutter- including decesased house pets and it
just lay there. When it rained really hard, the garbage,
including the bodies of dead cats and doges, went floating
down the street.

***

Pie in the Sky

Meaning: An illusion, a dream, a fantasy. An unrealistic
goal.

Joe Hill, a famous labor organizer of the early 20th
century, wrote a tune called "The Preacher and the Slave,"
in which he accused the clergy of promising a better life
in Heaven while people starved on Earth. A few of the
lines: "Work and pray, live on hay, you'll get pie in the
sky when you die (That's a lie!)."


***

Hard and Fast

Meaning: Unalterable

Refers to a vessel that is stuck on the bottom, which is
hard, where it is held fast.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The word "toast," meaning a wish of good health, started
in ancient Rome, where a piece of toasted bread was dropped
into wine.

***

Bourbon takes its name from Bourbon County in Kentucky,
where it was first produced in 1789 by a Baptist minister.

***

Vikings used the skulls of their enemies as drinking vessels.

***

Misery

Anyone under the age of 21 who takes out household trash
containing even a single empty alcohol beverage container
can be charged with illegal possession of alcohol in Mis-
souri.

***

I know many people who would like THAT Thanksgiving...

While there wasn't any cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes,
sweet potatoes, or pumpkin pie to eat at the first Thanks
giving, there was beer, brandy, gin, and wine to drink.

***

FYI

The alcohol in drinks of either low alcohol content
(below 15%) or high alcohol content (over 30%) tend to
be absorbed into the body more slowly.

RANDOM TIDBITS

The size of the standard credit card is 3 3/8 by 2 1/8 in.

***

Charles Dickens was the father of 10 children.

***

Venus has a daytime temperature that is hot enough to melt
lead.

***

Unusual Talent

James Garfield, the 20th president of the U.S., could
write Greek with his left hand and Latin with his right
hand simultaneously.
***

"Grateful Dead"

It refers to when one came across a dead person who was
not buried because of a debt. The traveler would pay off
the debt, and it would be believed that the dead would
come back as an animal to help the person.

***

Always the Comedian

During the World War II, Bob Hope's plane was shot at
when he was on his way to perform for the troops. His
response to this threat was: "I have critics everywhere."

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The cornea is the size and thickness of a dime.

***

The first corneal transplant was performed in 1905.

***

Tears are made by the two lacrimal glands and their purpose
is to clean the cornea.

***

Red or Blue?

Colorblindness can develop as a symptom of certain di-
seases or as a side effect of some medications, but it
is usually inherited and present at birth.

***

Vision Problems

15 million people in the United States have serious
vision problems; over 500,000 people in the US are
blind. Eye injuries account for 4% of the cases of
blindness.

***

Red Eye

The choroid is a layer of tissue at the back of the eye
that contains a large number of blood vessels. "Red eye"
usually happens when a flash photograph is taken in dim
light. In dim light, the pupil is dilated and allows
plenty of light to enter the eye. "Red eye" is caused
when the choroid reflects the light of the flash.

[flim_flam]

I read in a book about the evolution of the English language that the word "butterfly" was originally "flutterby" (which, if you think about it, makes a hell of a lot more sense), but that it got twisted round over the years.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - WEIRD DRIVING LAWS

In Alaska, authorities have found it necessary to declare
it illegal to tether a dog to the roof of a car.

***

Officials in Glendale, California, no doubt, caved in to
insurance lobbyists when they inexplicably decided to make
it illegal to jump from a car at 65 mph.

***

In Topeka, Kansas, it is unlawful to transport dead poultry
along Kansas Avenue.

***

In University City, Missouri, officials have made it
illegal to honk the horn of someone else’s car.

***

Officials in Dunn, North Carolina deem it illegal to drive
on sidewalks. Residents should also take note that playing
in traffic is also against the law.

***

In Scituate, Rhode Island, it is illegal to drive with beer
in your vehicle even if it is unopened. This might pose a
problem for beer delivery drivers!

RANDOM TIDBITS

Rin Tin Tin and Lassie have stars on Hollywood's walk of
fame.

***

Owls are the only birds that can see the color blue.

***

An ant can survive for 2 weeks underwater.

***

Don't let the animals eat this...

Dr. Joel Poinsett, the 1st US ambassador to Mexico,
brought the poinsettia to US in 1828. The plant,
called "flower of the blessed night" in Mexico was
renamed in Poinsett's honor.

***

Even back then...

In Siberia, in 1994, a container full of marijuana was
discovered in the 2,000-year-old grave of a Scythian
princess and priestess, among the many other articles
buried with her.

***

Nature cures...

Willow bark, which provides the salicylic acid from
which aspirin was originally synthesized, has been
used as a pain remedy ever since the Greeks discovered
its therapeutic power nearly 2,500 years ago.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Ukraine, the largest country fully contained in Europe and
the site of the 1986 explosion of a nuclear power plant at
Chernobyl, has more than 25,000 rivers.

***

The Netherlands, whose name means "the lowlands", originated
the December tradition of a visit from Santa Claus.

***

The people of Madagascar are known as the Malagasy. The
island republic contains half the chameleon species on earth
and over 200 unique butterfly species and 40 lemur species.

***

New Zealand, one of the world's largest exporters of lamb
and dairy products, was the first country to allow women to
vote.

***

Costa Rica, whose name means "rich coast", has Central
America's highest literary rate.

***

Portugal, whose language is spoken by 200 million people in
different parts of the world, supplies 70 percent of the
cork used by all other countries.

RANDOM TIDBITS

The Pentagon has over 4,200 clocks installed.

***

Galileo Galilei is credited with inventing the pendulum-
clock concept, and he studied the motion of the pendulum
as early as 1582.

***

The wristwatch was invented by Patek Philippe at the end
of the 19th century.

***

Chrono-what?

A chronometer is a watch or clock whose movement has been
tested and certified to operate within a certain standard
of accuracy.

***

Battery Powered

The first battery-powered watch, the Hamilton Electric
500, was released in 1957 by the Hamilton Watch Company
of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

***

Horologe

This word still used in French for large clocks. It is
derived from the Greek 'hora' meaning hour and 'legein'
meaning to tell.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

After the assassination of John Kennedy in Dallas, Texas,
on November 22, l963, his Vice President, Lyndon Baines
Johnson, was sworn in aboard Air Force One by a local judge,
Sarah Hughes, as he stood next to the blood stained wife of
his predecessor. Then the plane carrying the new President
and the body of the old President returned to Washington DC.

***

In 1890, Woodrow Wilson became a professor of jurisprudence
at Princeton University which, at that time, he regarded as
the crowning success in his career. He was a popular lecturer
and a respected researcher who, in his spare time, wrote the
five-volume epic, "History of the American People."
Interesting note: He received 12,000 dollars from his editor.
In 1997, 12,000 dollars from 1902 would have been worth
225,603 dollars.

***

Before going into politics, Ronald Reagan was an actor who
starred in movies, such as Brother Rat (1938), Bedtime for
Bonzo (1951), and Knute Rockne, All American (1940), from
which came the famous line " Win one for the Gipper." During
the course of his acting career, Reagan starred in more than
fifty films.

***

Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only President to be elected
to the U.S. Presidency for four consecutive terms. After
his death, on February 22, l951, Congress passed the
Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution, which states
that a President may only run twice, unless he or she took
over from another President with more than two years of
term remaining, in which case he or she may only run once.

***

William McKinley's wife had fragile health. He doted on her,
and every afternoon at precisely 3:00 would interrupt
whatever he was doing, go to the window, and wave his
handkerchief at her as she watched from a hotel room across
the street. Likewise, when he left for work in the morning,
he would stop, remove his hat, look up at the window and bow
to her.

***

While president of New York City's Police Board, Theodore
Roosevelt prowled the streets at night in a black cape
looking for goof-off police. Because of Roosevelt's
diligence, the police chief was eventually fired. The
newspapers ate it up, giving rise to the first speculations
that Teddy Roosevelt might be Presidential material.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The first blood transfusion was performed by Cornish
physician Richard Lower in 1665. Using hollow quills, Dr.
Lower pumped blood from one dog into another. Years later
another physician, Jean-Babtiste Denis, became the first
to transfer blood from an animal to a human.

***

The liver is found only in vertebrates and is the body's
largest gland. It is also the body's own chemical plant;
carrying on a dozen important metabolic functions as well.

***

Phineas Gage became renowned when he had a metal bar go
through his head and he survived. However, his personality
changed. A man who was once content and considerate, became
a man who was moody and foul-mouthed. His injury paved the
way for an understanding into how the frontal lobe affected
personality.

***

People with the rare condition called "synesthesia" not
only taste colors, but see words and feel flavors. Each
person is unique in how they perceive the world; some smell
colors or taste shapes, while others associate colors with
sound, perceiving each note as a different hue. The
condition has been linked to less blood flow to those parts
of the brain that receive sensory stimulation.

***

The ancient Greek physicians maintained that the balance of
the humors, controlled a person's temperament. The blood
(sanguis), made a person cheerful; phlegm (pituita), meant
slow moving; Yellow bile (chole), made one hot tempered;
black bile (melanchole), caused depression. If any of the
four humors were out of balance, it reflected on the body
and mind as a whole.

***

After being shot in the abdomen, Alexis St. Martin was
treated, but the hole did not heal or close. To keep the
contents from oozing out, the wound had to be stuffed with
a cotton cloth. He allowed his surgeon, William Beaumont,
to do experiments using samples of his stomach contents.
The experiments helped in identifying the stomach acid
(hydrochloric acid), and to study the stomach's movements.

RANDOM TIDBITS

Chicago salesman named Milton Reynolds became the first
American manufacturer to market a ballpoint pen successfully.

***

L.E. Waterman, a New York City insurance salesman, designed
the first workable fountain pen.

***

BIC Pens, has a daily world wide sales figure of
14,000,000 pieces.

***

#2 Pencils?

Graphite is a form of carbon, first discovered in the
Seathwaite Valley on the side of the mountain Seathwaite
Fell in Borrowdale, near Keswick, England, about 1564 by
an unknown person.


***

Great Invention

Pencil technology came when French chemist Nicolas Conte
developed and patented the process used to make pencils
in 1795. He used a mixture of clay and graphite that was
fired before it was put in a wooden case.

***

Pencil & Pencil with eraser

The first patent for attaching an eraser to a pencil was
issued in 1858 to a man from Philadelphia named Hyman
Lipman. This patent was later held to be invalid because
it was merely the combination of two things, without a new
use.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Fish do not have eyelids and therefore cannot blink. Since
fish live in water, they have no need for the hydration of
the eyeball that an eyelid provides.

***

Australian scientists have identified some species of baby
spiders that bite off the limbs of their mothers and eat
them slowly over a period of weeks. The researchers state
the maternal sacrifice keeps the young from eating one
another.

***

A cat wags only the last two inches when it is happy. When
it wags its whole tail, it is angry.

***

Elephants are particularly fond of beer and other forms of
alcohol. They are known to seek out fermenting fruits in
Asia. In India, where elephants are regularly paraded,
onlookers occasionally offer them beer and liquor; many
times, a drunken elephant has 'run amok' and has had to be
shot in order to protect the crowd.

***

The hippopotamus is, next to the elephant, the heaviest of
all land animals. It may weigh as much as 8,000 pounds
(3,629 kg) and is also a close relative of the pig.

***

The kinkajou, a nocturnal fruit-eating mammal of South
America, has a tail twice as long as its body. Every night,
it wraps itself in its tail and uses it as a pillow. The
kinkajou is related to the racoon.

RANDOM TIDBITS

Because radio waves travel at 186,000 miles per second and
sound waves saunter at 700 miles per hour, a broadcast voice
can be heard sooner 13,000 miles away than it can be heard
at the back of the room in which it originated.

***

In ancient Rome it was considered a sign of leadership to be
born with a crooked nose.

***

The average person will spend two weeks over their lifetime
waiting for the traffic light to change.

***

Jeremy Bentham, a British philosopher who died in 1832,
left his entire estate to the London Hospital provided that
his body be allowed to preside over its board meetings. His
skeleton was clothed and fitted with a wax mask of his face.
It was present at the meeting for 92 years.

***

The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; '7' was selected
because the original containers were 7 ounces. 'UP'
indicated the direction of the bubbles.

***

The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, QE2, moves only six
inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

[CRASHnBURN]

Thanks for the nice read.

[Movingshadow1]

Great string of facts....might have to use a few to look smarter than i really am!!

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

LAST DEATH FROM SMALLPOX - In September, 1978, Janet Parker,
an English medical photographer, was exposed to smallpox as
the result of a laboratory accident. She subsequently died.
On May 8, 1980, the World health Organization declared
smallpox eradicated.

***

LAST EXECUTION IN TOWER OF LONDON - The last execution in
the Tower of London took place on Thursday, August 14, 1941,
when Josef Jakobs, a German spy, was shot by an eight-man
firing squad. Because he had suffered a broken ankle when
he had parachuted into England on the night of January 31,
1941, he could not stand before the firing squad and he was,
instead, seated in an old Windsor chair and tied up.

***

LAST PERSON BURNED AT THE STAKE - Phoebe Harrius was
convicted of coining false money, a crime of high treason
at that time, and was executed by being burned at the stake
in front of Newgate Prison in England, in 1786.

***

LAST SURVIVING SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE -
Charles Carroll was the last of the 59 men who signed the
Declaration of Independence to die. He passed away in 1832
at the age of 95.

***

LAST VIET NAM WAR DEATH - The last American soldier killed
in the Vietnam War was Kelton Rena Turner, an 18-year old
Marine. He was killed in action on May 15, 1975, two weeks
after the evacuation of Saigon, in what became known as
the Mayaguez incident.

***

LAST US PIRATE HANGING - The last person hanged in the US
for being a pirate was Capt. Nathaniel Gordon, in New York
City on March 8, 1862. Gordon had been smuggling slaves
into the US.

RANDOM TIDBITS

Bolivia holds the highest turnover of governments. Since
their independence from Spain in 1825, Bolivia has had
almost 200 governments. Since 1945, Italy saw more than 50
governments and more than 20 Prime Ministers.

***

The oldest existing governing body operates in Althing in
Iceland. It was established in 930 AD.

***

David "Screaming Lord Sutch", as leader of the Monster
Raving Loony Party, was Britain's longest serving party
leader until he hung himself in June 1999.

***

Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927) was the first woman to run
for office of US President. She and her sister were the
first women to run a Wall Street brokerage (1870).

***

The European Union was founded in 1957 as the European
Economic Community. It then became the EC (European
Community) and in 1993 the EU (European Union).

***

George Washington was the first president under the US
constitution of 1789. However, the US was an independent
nation for 13 years before the Constitution was signed. For
one year during this time John Hanson served as "President
of the US in Congress assembled."

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - LAST ANIMALS

CALIFORNIA GRIZZLY - Although it is the central figure in
the state's flag, the last grizzly in California was spotted
in the Sierras in 1924.


***

GREAT AUK - The last great auk (Pinguinus impennis) was
killed by collectors on Eldey Island in 1844.

***

MEXICAN SILVER GRIZZLY - The last Mexican Silver Grizzly
was killed in 1964 by ranchers protecting their herds.

***

WOLF - The last wolf in Great Britain was killed in
Scotland, in 1743. The wolf became extinct in England in
1486, Scotland in 1743, and Ireland in 1770.

***

CAROLINA PARAKEET - The last known Carolina parakeets were
sighted on Lake Okeechobee in 1904 by ornithologist Dr.
Frank Chapman.

***

PASSENGER PIGEON - The last passenger pigeon, named Martha,
died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. Her stuffed
body is on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution.



RANDOM TIDBITS

A horse has 10 more bones than a man.

***

A teaspoon holds 125 drops of water.

***

The average life span of a dollar bill is 18 months.

***

Facts about California

The first person to personally receive a star on the Walk
of Fame in Hollywood was actress Joanne Woodward. She re-
ceived it in 1960.

***

Castroville is known as the Artichoke Capital of the
World. In 1947 a young woman named Norma Jean was crowned
Castroville's first Artichoke Queen. She went on to be-
come actress Marilyn Monroe.

***

In 1925 a giant sequoia located in California's Kings
Canyon National Park was named the nation's national
Christmas tree. The tree is over 300 feet in height.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

There are approximately 61,269 pizzerias in the United
States.

***

Pizzerias represent 17% of all restaurants.

***

Italian food ranks as the most popular ethnic food in
America.

***

An Ode to Pizza

October is National Pizza Month, (US). It was first so
designated in 1987 and continues to be the traditional
time for celebration of one of America's most important
and popular food industries.

***

Thatz alotta cheez

Mozzarella cheese represents 30% of total cheese output.
Production of Italian cheeses such as mozzarella, provo-
lone, ricotta, parmesan and Romano by U.S. cheese makers
more than doubled between 1980 and 1992, (from 688.6
MILLION pounds per year to nearly 2 BILLION pounds per
year.)

***

Favorite World Wide Toppings

Squid and Mayo Jaga (mayonnaise, potato and bacon) in
Japan; and green peas in Brazil. In Russia, they serve
pizza covered with mockba; a combination of sardines,
tuna, mackerel, salmon and onions. In France, a popular
combo is called the Flambé, with bacon, onion and fresh
cream.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - WORST U.S. DISASTERS


March 1, 1910, Wellington, Wash.: 2 trains snowbound in
Stevens Pass in Cascade Range swept off tracks into canyon
150 ft below, killing 96.

***

1930s: Many states: longest drought of 20th century. Peak
periods were 1930, 1934, 1936, 1939, and 1940. During 1934,
dry regions stretched solidly from N.Y. and Pa. across the
Great Plains to the Calif. coast. A great “dust bowl” covered
50 million acres in the south-central plains during the winter
of 1935–1936.

***

April 16–18, 1847, Texas City, Tex.: a fire and subsequent
explosion on the French freighter Grandcamp destroyed most
of the city; 516 killed.

***

March 18, 1925, Mo., Ill., and Ind.: great “Tri-State
Tornado”; 689 dead; over 2,000 injured. Property damage
estimated at $16.5 million.

***

March 11–14, 1888, East Coast: the “Blizzard of 1888.” 400
people died; accumulation of up to 5 ft of snow. Damage
estimated at $20 million.

***

May 25, 1979, Chicago: American Airlines DC-10 crashed
seconds after takeoff, killing all 272 people aboard and 3
on the ground.

RANDOM TIDBITS

Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves
when they rode past their king. This custom has become the
modern military salute.

***

At the height of its power, in 400 BC, the Greek city of
Sparta had 25,000 citizens and 500,000 slaves.

***

Captain Cook lost 41 of his 98 crew to scurvy (a lack of
vitamin C) on his first voyage to the South Pacific in 1768.
By 1795 the importance of eating citrus was realized, and
lemon juice was issued on all British Navy ships.

***

In 1947, Toys for Tots started making the holidays a little
happier for children by organizing its first Christmas toy
drive for needy youngsters.

***

On April 12, 1938, the state of New York passed a law
requiring medical tests for marriage license applicants,
the first state to do so.

***

President George Washington created the Order of the Purple
Heart in 1782. It's a decoration to recognize merit in
enlisted men and non-commissioned officers.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The earth's surface is about 80% water. That is about
320,000,000,000,000 (363 trillion) gallons of water.

***

Over 42,000 gallons of water are needed to grow and prepare
the food for a typical Thanksgiving dinner for eight in the
United States. This is enough to fill a 30 by 50 foot
swimming pool.

***

A corn plant needs 54 gallons of water per season. A milk
cow needs 15 gallons per day or 5,475 gallons per year. A
horse needs 10 gallons per day or 3,650 gallons per year.

***

Human blood is 83% water. Human bones are 25% water.

***

Water was the first word that Helen Keller learned. Water
was the last word spoken by President Ulysses S. Grant.

***

Running the tap waiting for water to get hot or cold can
waste 5 gallons per minute.

:eek::eek::eek::eek:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Abraham Lincoln is the only US president facing right on an
American coin.

***

West Side Story is based on Romeo and Juliet.

***

The world's biggest canyons are submerged beneath our oceans.

***

The Greek-born performer and composer Yanni is self-taught.
He received no formal musical training but did get a
psychology degree from the University of Minnesota. He does
compose all his own works.

***

Substances containing high levels of protein will glow under
a black light because they're on the same ultraviolet wave-
length as the black light.

***


Color-blind bulls simply notice the waving motion and react
by snorting, stomping and charging the bullfighter. The red
flags are used because the human spectators seated can easily
spot them.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS ABOUT FEET

The largest feet in the world belong to a Mr Matthew McGrory
who lives in America whose feet are a whopping size 28½. The
7ft 4in resident of Florida has to fork out a massive $22,745
for a pair of shoes to fit his unusually large feet.

***

The record for the most feet sniffed belongs to a Madeline
Albrecht, Cincinatti, Ohio. So far, throughout her career
working for a research company testing footcare products for
Scholl, Madeline has sniffed approximately 5,600 feet.

***

The Achilles tendon located in the heel of the foot was named
after one of the most famous mythical characters from Ovid's
'Illiad'. In an attempt to immortalize her son, Thetis
(Achilles' Mother) dipped Achilles into the River Styx,
holding him by his ankle. Therefore his ankle became the
only part of his body capable of sustaining a mortal wound.
This is why he strongest tendon in the foot acquired the
name of Achilles tendon.

***

The average person walks about 10,000 steps a day. During a
lifetime it is thought that a person has walked enough steps
top have traveled around the planet more than 4 times, which
is approximately 115,000 miles!

***

It is estimated by scientists and historians that the first
shoes were created during the ice age 5000,000 years ago and
were made from animal skins.

***

The feet contain approximately 250,000 sweat glands that
excrete as much as half a pint of moisture every day.

[tunsty]

The Hippopotamus is the most dangerous animal in Africa.
It has killed more than 400 people in Africa.. more than Lions or Crocodiles.


The driest place on earth is actually Antarctica.. It has not rained there for more than 2 million years.

[Spleen]

RANDOM TIDBITS ABOUT FEET

The largest feet in the world belong to a Mr Matthew McGrory
who lives in America whose feet are a whopping size 28½. The
7ft 4in resident of Florida has to fork out a massive $22,745
for a pair of shoes to fit his unusually large feet.


At least he used to, until he died in 2005.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The sardonyx and peridot are the gems for August.

***

The poppy and gladiolus are the flowers for the month of
August.

***

Colorado became the 38th state, August 1, 1876.

***

August is the eighth month, renamed by the Romans from
Sextilis', meaning sixth, to honor their emperor, Augustus.

***

August is the height of the summer time in the temperate
zone of the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere,
August means the winter will soon be over.

***

An American bomber dropped the first atomic bomb used in
warfare, on Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Monaco has the largest number of physicians per capita,
with one doctor per 169 people. Malawi has the fewest, with
only one physician per 49,118 people.

***

The longest coma lasted 37 years and 111 days. Elaine
Esposito (1934–1978) of the US fell into a coma after being
anaesthetized for an appendectomy at age six. She became
known as "Sleeping Beauty" during her coma, and died at the
age of 43 without regaining consciousness.

***

The world's heaviest kidney stone weighed 12.5 ounces, and
measured 4.66 inches at its widest point. It belonged to
Peter Baulman of Australia.

***

Don Winfield of Canada holds the undesirable record for the
most number of kidney stones produced. As of April 16, 2003,
Winfield had produced and passed 4,504 kidney stones, and
lived in constant pain due to his condition.

***

The oldest known human disease is leprosy. Cases were
described in ancient Egypt in 1350 BC, making the disease
at least 3,356 years old.

***

Currently, the most common cause of death in children world-
wide is infectious diseases, which is responsible for 63%
of all deaths. Among adults, tobacco-related illnesses cause
the most deaths, and the World Health Organization estimates
that by 2020, these illnesses will claim more lives than
AIDS, tuberculosis, road accidents, murder, and suicide
combined.

RANDOM TIDBITS

The longest amount of time a patient had to wait on a
stretcher was 77 hours and 30 minutes. Tony Collins of the
UK came to the hospital with a viral infection, and stayed
stuck outside of the washroom of Swindon's Princess Margaret
Hospital for four days. Despite the ordeal, Collins returned
to the hospital the day after his release to thank his nurses
and give them a microwave oven.

***

Garry Turner of England holds the world record for the
stretchiest skin. In 1999, he stretched the skin of his
stomach to a distended length of 6.25 inches on the set of
Guinness World Records: Primetime in Los Angeles. Turner has
a rare medical condition called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome,
which causes collagen to become defective, and leads to a
loosening of the skin, hypermobility of the joints, and
other problems.

***

The youngest person to wear dentures is Alexander Stone of
Kentucky, who was fitted with a set at the age of four years
and 301 days. The boy suffers from dentinogenesis imperfecta,
a hereditary condition that weakens the teeth.

***

Charles Jensen of the US holds the record for the most
number of operations, having undergone 970 of them between
1954–1994. The operations were to remove facial tumors
associated with basal cell nevus syndrome, a genetic
disorder that may cause malignant tumors.

***

Cheyenne Pyle was the world's youngest heart transplant
patient, having undergone the operation when she was an hour
old. She was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a
fatal condition that stops the heart from pumping blood to
the body. Unfortunately baby Cheyenne did not recover, and
died nine weeks later.

***

The longest medical operation lasted 96 hours. The operation
took place from February 4–8, 1951 in the USA, and involved
the removal of an ovarian cyst.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

A hedgehog's heart beats 190 times a minute on average and
drops to only 20 beats per minute during hibernation.

***

An average beaver can cut down two hundred trees a year.

***

If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to
nearly 30 feet long in his lifetime.

***

On average, 42,000 balls are used and 650 matches are
played at the annual Wimbledon tennis tournament.

***

The average American woman spends 55 minutes per day getting
showered, dressed, and groomed.

***

The average cat consumes about 127,750 calories a year,
nearly 28 times its own weight in food and the same amount
again in liquids.

RANDOM TIDBITS

Tsugunobu Mitsuishi of Tokyo, Japan, set the slow cycling
record by staying stationary for 5 hours 25 minutes. This
phenomenal record, set in 1965, seems to have discouraged
competition in the sport.

***

Old-time 6-day bicycle champion Bobby Walthour, broke his
left collarborne 18 times, and his right collarbone 28 times
in competition. During his career, he amassed 46 stitches
on his legs, and 69 stitches over his face and head.

***

At an 1898 6-day "Go as You Please" race in Madison Square
Garden, Charlie Miller pedaled 2,093.4 mi. So many of his
rivals were hospitalized for exhaustion that public fury
just about put an end to the 6-day bicycle races.

***

The record for the highest speed on a bicycle was set by
Frenchman Jose Meiffret. On July 19, 1962, at Freiburg,
West Germany, Meiffret pedaled at a rate of 127.243 mph.
Meiffret was 50 years old when he set the mark.

***

Sheila Young of Detroit was the 1st woman from the U.S.
ever to win a world cycling title. In fact, her 1973
victory in San Sebastian, Spain, was the 1st cycling
championship won by any U.S. entry since 1912.

***

Six months earlier, the same Miss Young had captured the
world title in the 500-m. speed ice skating event at
Stromsund, Sweden. She was the 1st person ever to win
world championship competitions in both sports. Originally,
Miss Young took up cycling to condition her body for ice
skating.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

A cough releases an explosive charge of air that moves at
speeds up to 60 mph.

***

Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have
only 206 in our bodies.

***

Blondes have more hair than dark-haired people.

***

If only I could shed all my skin now...

Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour -
about 1.5 pounds a year. By 70 years of age, an average person
will have lost 105 pounds of skin.

***

Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha

Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the
immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a
day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.

***

*Hold Your Nose*

The average person releases nearly a pint of intestinal gas
by flatulence every day. Most is due to swallowed air. The
rest is from fermentation of undigested food.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - ALL ABOUT POLAR BEARS!

Even though a polar bears fur looks white it is actually
colorless and is made with hollow tubes that scatter light
and give a white appearance. The hollow tubes help the bear
to stay warm by channeling the sun's energy directly to the
bear's skin.

***

The polar bear is classified as a marine mammal. Its feet
are partially webbed for swimming, and its fur is water-
repellent.

***

The polar bear rivals the Kodiak bear as the largest four-
footed carnivore on Earth and can live up to 25 years.

***

Male polar bears are 8 to 11 feet long and weigh 500 to
1,100 pounds but can reach as much as 1,500 pounds.

***

Female polar bears measure 6 to 8 feet long and weigh from
350 to 600 pounds, occasionally reaching 700 pounds.

***

When a polar bear cub is born it can not see or hear for
approximately a month.

RANDOM TIDBITS

The speed limit in NYC was 8 mph in 1895.

***

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison were all 27
years old when they died.

***

Little Jackie Paper was the name of Puff the Magic
Dragon's human friend.
Happy Belated Birthday

MTV (Music Television) made its debut at 12:01 a.m. on
August 1, 1981 The first music-video shown on the
rock-video cable channel was, appropriately, "Video
Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. MTV's original
five veejays were Martha Quinn, Nina Blackwood,
Mark Goodman, J.J. Jackson and Alan Hunter.


***

And the winner is....

The "Miss America" pageant made its network TV debut on
ABC In 1954. Miss California, Lee Ann Meriwether, was
crowned the winner.

***

Designer

The Oscar statuette was designed by MGM's art director,
Cedric Gibbons, in 1928. The design has remained unchanged,
except for getting a higher pedestal in the 1940's.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

As the 20th century began, most Americans wore union suits
or “all-in-ones”—undergarments that combined pants and a top.

***

"Day of the Week" underpants were a craze in the 1950s. Each
pair of underpants in the set of seven was labeled with a
different day of the week.

***

Colorful Underoos hit stores in 1978. The fun underwear
secretly transformed thousands of kids into Batman and Wonder
Woman.

***

My Dream Come True

In Florence during the Renaissance, Catherine de Medici
decreed it bad manners to have a thick waist and designed
a hinged corset that narrowed the waist to 13 inches.

***

What did the DD do?

In the 1920's a Russian immigrant named Ida Rosenthal
founded the Maidenform lingerie company with her husband
William. They made bras for women of every size and in-
troduced the cup system (A, B, C, D).

***

Should have never started this trend...

The ancient Greeks were the first to wear girdles. They
called them zones. A band of linen or soft leather was
bound around a woman's waist and lower torso to shape and
control her mid-body.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

At birth, a Dalmatian is always pure white.

***

During the 16th-18th centuries, the Europeans called the
trombone a sackbut.

***

Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".

***

Hooded Pitohui:

The hooded pitohui* of New Guinea is the only documented
example of a poisonous bird (yes, a bird). In 1992 re-
searchers discovered that the feathers and skin of the
hooded pitohui contain a powerful neurotoxin called homo-
batrachotoxin, which causes numbness and tingling skin in
people who touched the birds.

***

Platypus:

Will the oddness of this creature ever stop? Adult male
platypuses have a poison gland in their hind legs. They
can eject poison out of a hollow, horny spur on their an-
kle.

***

Catfish:

The dorsal and pectoral fins of many species of catfish
are edged with poisonous spines. The spines are used for
defense and can inflict severe wounds.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - RAINFORESTS

Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth's land surface;
now they cover 6%.

***

One hundred and thirty seven plant, animal and insect
species are being lost every single day due to rainforest
deforestation.

***

The howler monkey is the loudest animal living in the
rainforests of South America.

***

More than half of the world's estimated 10 million species
of plants, animals and insects live in the tropical
rainforests.

***

One hectare of lowland rainforest in South America can
contain as many frog species as in all of North America.

***

The biggest rainforest in the world is in South America,
along the banks of the Amazon River.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year, the Day of Judgement,
the Day of Remembrance, and the Day of Shofar Blowing.

As the Day of Judgement, Jews worldwide examine their past
deeds and asks for forgiveness for their sins.

As the Day of Remembrance, Jews review the history of their
people and pray for Israel.

As the Day of Shofar Blowing, the Shofar is blown in temple
to herald the beginning of the 10 day period known as the
High Holy Days.

And of course it is New Year's Day.

***

Rosh Hashanah is observed the first and second day of the
seventh month of the Jewish calender, Tishri, which usually
falls in September.

***

In Israel, Rosh Hashanah is the only holiday kept for 2 days
as it is considered too important to be observed for only
24 hours. Both days are considered one long day of 48 hours.

***

The common greeting at this time is L'shanah tovah ("for a
good year"). This is a shortening of "L'shanah tovah tikatev
v'taihatem" (or to women, "L'shanah tovah tikatevi
v'taihatemi"), which means "May you be inscribed and sealed
for a good year."

***

On Rosh Hashanah, it is customary for families to gather
together for the holiday meal. Traditional foods sweetened
with honey, apples and carrots are served, symbolizing
sweetness, blessings, abundance and the hope for a sweet
year ahead.

***

The first night's meal begins with apple dipped in honey.
Challah, the bread usually eaten on the Sabbath (not braided
as at regular meals but instead baked in a circle - a wish
that the coming year will roll around smoothly without
unhappiness or sorrow) is also dipped in honey before
eating.

RANDOM TIDBITS


A Russian dog named Laika was the first creature to fly
in space.

***

French writer George Sand carried on an affair with
Frederic Chopin.

***

The most expensive bottle of wine sold for $300,000. It
was a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafitte claret engraved
with the initials of Thomas Jefferson.

***

A rooster will attack anything that he thinks will harm
the hens ( that includes humans ). Their spurs (located at
the back of their leg ) can cause a very painful puncture
wound.

***

Laid head to claw, KFC chickens consumed worldwide would
stretch some 275,094 miles. They would circle the Earth
at the equator 11 times or stretch from the Earth approx-
imately 50,094 miles past the moon.

***

The Ameraucana and Araucana chickens can lay eggs colored
in shades of green or blue, depending on the breed and
it's ancestry.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Until the nineteenth century, solid blocks of tea were used
as money in Siberia.

***

Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue.

***

The yo-yo was originally a weapon used in the Philippine
jungles.

***

The Nobel Peace Prize medal depicts three naked men with
their hands on each other's shoulders.

***

Millions of trees in the world are accidentally planted by
squirrels who bury nuts and then forget where they hid them.

***

The only married couple to fly together in space were Jan
Davis and Mark Lee.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The General Lee cars used in the popular show The Dukes of
Hazards were 1969 Dodge Chargers.

***

The Muppet Show was banned from TV in Saudi Arabia because
one of its stars was a pig.

***

The first music video ever played on MTV Europe was by Dire
Straits, "Money For Nothing."

***

The childhood word game Hangman was the inspiration for TV's
Wheel of Fortune.

***

The first letter Vanna White ever turned on the game show
Wheel of Fortune was the letter "T."

***

Lenny Kravitz's mother played the part of Helen on the TV
sitcom "The Jeffersons."

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Pogo sticks were first used by sacrificial dancers in Borneo.

***

The biggest tomato on record weighed 7 1/2 pounds.

***

New York City law entitles its horses to a 15 minute
"coffee break" after each two hours of work.

***

Gone Flakey...

1984 Kelloggs' Miss America commerative Corn Flakes Box
featuring Vanessa Williams is one of the most collectible
cereal boxes.

***

Better eat your Wheaties...

In the 1950's Wheaties stopped using athletes on their
boxes and started using Disney figurines. Sales went down
15%. General Mills had a meeting and decided to recall
their sports stars. The Disney boxes are valuable today.

***

Count Chocula

In 1981, General Mills featured a box with a Bela Lugosi
Dracula wearing a six-pointed star pendant. A religious
group objected to what they felt was a "Star of David"
and the box was recalled.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Fast food restaurants use yellow, red, and orange because
those are the colors that stimulate hunger.

***

Passion fruits have a tranquilizing effect on the body.

***

A one-third pound stalk of broccoli contains more vitamin C
than 204 apples.

***

It takes about three hours for food to be broken down in
the human stomach.

***

Chocolate contains the same chemical, phenylethylamine,
that your brain produces when you fall in love.

***

Blueberries have more antioxidents than any other fruit or
vegetables.

RANDOM TIDBITS

The Antpitta avis canis Ridgley is a bird species that
barks like a dog.

***

The Dalmatian dog is named for the Dalmatian Coast of
Croatia, where it is believed to have been originally bred.

***

Boxers were named after their habit of playing. At the
beginning of play with another dog, a Boxer will stand on
his hind legs and 'box' at his opponent.

***

The real name of Toto the dog in "The Wizard Of Oz" was
Terry.

***

The dog name “Fido” is from Latin and means “fidelity.”

***

Greyhounds have the best eyesight of any breed of dog.
Today the dog is widely used in racing.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - GIRAFFES

Giraffes live for 10-15 years in the wild, but average 25
years at zoos.

***

The average giraffe's blood pressure is two or three times
that of a healthy person.

***

A baby giraffe is about six feet tall at birth.

***

Thinking that its parents were a camel and a leopard, the
Europeans once called the animal a "camelopard."

***

A giraffe’s heart can pump 16 gallons of blood in one minute.

***

A giraffe is able to clean its ears with its own tongue.

[tunsty]

The track listing for U2's 'The Joshua Tree', was actually picked by singer Kirsty Macoll (RIP)

Both she and her husband, Steve Lillywhite, were good friends with the group and would often hang around whilst they were inbetween recordings.
Toward the end of the recording for the album, Kirsty asked the band if there was anything she could do, as she was bored with hanging around.
Someone suggested that she choose the track listing for the album, picking her favourite song first and then onto her second favourite.. etc

[CunningStunts]

I read today that Zebras are actually white with black markings... I always thought it was the other way around.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - All About Mars

The ancient Greeks attributed the planet of Mars to Ares,
their god of war, because of its red color.

***

The Martian surface is red due to the oxidation of iron in
the soil.

***

An object weighing 100 pounds on Earth would weigh just 38
pounds on Mars.

***

Mars has white areas at the poles that are white polar ice
caps.

***

Statistically, UFO sightings are at their greatest number
during those times when Mars is closest to Earth.

***

The Martian atmosphere is 100 times less dense than that of
Earth.

RANDOM TIDBITS

The state of Michigan claims more varieties of trees than
all of Europe.

***

The state of Tennessee was known as Franklin before 1796.

***

Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine are the four states in
the U.S. that do not allow billboards.

***

Maine produces almost all of the country's wild blueberries.

***

Texas is the only state that is allowed to fly its flag at
the same height as the U.S. flag.

***

The state that grows the most cranberries is Wisconsin.

[minidog]

good read HL

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The National Enquirer was originally a horse-racing
tip sheet.

***

Johnny Knoxville's real name is Phillip J. Clapp.

***

John Milton used 8,000 different words in his poem,
"Paradise Lost."

***

In 1999, the National Geographic Society revised the off-
icial height of Mt. Everest, raising the previous 1954
elevation figure by 7 feet as a result of more precise
global positioning and measuring devices.

***

A Harlem-born, African American bicycle messenger went
on to win a silver medal in cycling at the 1984 Olympics.
His name was Nelson "The Cheetah" Vails.


***

Barbara Bush's book about her English Springer Spaniel,
Millie's book, was on the bestseller list for 29 weeks.
Millie was the most popular "First Dog" in history.

[historylover]

good read HL

:hatsoff:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

An average person has about 6 quarts of blood running
through their body.

***

If you've got a normal head of hair, you have about 100,000
hairs on it.

***

If your sense of smell isn't working, you can't taste an
onion

***

The first jigsaw puzzle was invented to teach geography.
In, 1767, John Spilsbury, a teacher in England and formery
the apprectice to the Royal Geographer, made the first jig-
saw.

***

In 1939, Charles Magnant, along with Joe Biviano, Abe
Goldman, and Gen von Hallberg were the first to play
accordions within the hallowed walls of Carnegie Hall.
Their first selection was Bach's Toccata and Fugue in
D minor.

***

According to the National enter for Health Statistics,
between 1980 and 2000, the number of twins births in-
creased 74%. Triplet births have increased fivefold.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Sharks have upper and lower eyelids but they do not blink.

***

Some sharks swim in a figure eight when frightened.

***

Sharks have survived on earth for about 400 million years.

***

A shark bites with its lower jaw first and then its upper.

***

The hides of mature female blue sharks are more than twice
as thick as those of males.

***

A shark may grow and use over 20,000 teeth in its lifetime.

RANDOM TIDBITS

Germany is the world's second largest consumer of coffee in
terms of volume at 16 pounds per person.

***

Over 53 countries grow coffee worldwide, but all of them
lie along the equator between the tropic of Cancer and
Capricorn.

***

An acre of coffee trees can produce up to 10,000 pounds of
coffee cherries. That amounts to approximately 2,000 pounds
of beans after hulling or milling.

***

The percolator was invented in 1827 by a French man. It
would boil the coffee producing a bitter tasting brew. Today
most people use the drip or filtered method to brew their
coffee.

***

Up until the 1870s most coffee was roasted at home in a
frying pan over a charcoal fire. It wasn't until recent
times that batch roasting became popular.

***

# Each year some seven million tons of green beans are
produced world wide, most of which is hand picked.

[PlasmaTwa2]

Sharks and coffee today, I like it, they go well together. :thumbsup:

I like the one about the sharks and eyelids.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

It takes glass one million years to decompose, which means
it can be recycled an infinite amount of times.

***

The first real recycling program was introduced in New York
City in the 1890s.

***

One tree can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the
air each year.

***

Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it
in an incinerator.

***

Since 1978, the weight of a soda bottle has been reduced by
29 percent.

***

Around 45% of the paper Americans use each year is recovered
for recycling.

RANDOM TIDBITS

Walt Disney got his idea for Mickey Mouse while watching
mice play one night in a garage.

***

Disneyland and Walt Disney World amusement parks are in
counties with the same name. Disneyland is in Orange County,
California; Disney World is in Orange County, Florida.

***

H.R. Haldeman and Ron Ziegler, who helped plan the Watergate
burglary for President Nixon, both worked at Disneyland
when they were younger.

***

"EPCOT" stands for “Experimental Prototype Community of
Tomorrow”.

***

The story of Mulan had been told in China for almost 1,500
years before it was made into a movie.

***

The Swiss Family Robinson tree house in Disneyland has
300,000 fake leaves on it.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

China produces about 70 percent of the world's silk supply.

***

The ancient Chinese believed that swinging your arms could
cure a headache.

***

Rice flour was used to strengthen some of the bricks that
make up the Great Wall of China.

***

The earliest recorded human settlements in China were
discovered in the Huang He basin and date from 5000 B.C.

***

Pekingese dogs were sacred to the emperors of China for
more than 2,000 years.

***

Twenty percent of China's plants are used in medicine.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

On average, 80 people shoot at the Goodyear blimp
each year.

***

The last stagecoach holdup took place in Tennessee on
October 15, 1882.

***

The average age for first time brides is 24.5 years.
For grooms it's 26.5 years.

***

A Texan convicted of robbery worked out a deal to pay
$9600 in damages rather than serve a two-year prison
sentence. For payment, he gave the court a forged check.
He got his prison term back, plus eight more years.

***

The distance of a marathon was first standardized at 25
miles in 1896. During the 1908 London Olympics, Queen
Alexandra wanted her grandchildren to see the start of
the race. So the starting line was moved back 1 mile and
385 yards- onto the front lawn of Windsor Castle.

***

If you were a tobacco farmer in the 30's and 40's, you
wouldn't have had to fight in WW II. President Roosevelt
declared tobacco "an essential crop" at the outbreak of the
war- exempting tobacco growers from the draft.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Elvis won only three Grammy awards, but none were for his
rock or country recordings. All three were for gospel songs.

***

Elvis is the No.1 most impersonated celebrity ever.

***

Nine months to the day of Elvis and Priscilla Presley's
wedding, on February 1, 1968, the couple welcomed daughter
Lisa Marie to the world.

***

Elvis' birthplace in Tupelo, Miss. is open to the public.
The future star was born in the two-room house on January
8, 1935. The Presley family lived there until 1948, when
they moved to Memphis.

***

One hundred forty-eight different Elvis recordings have
been certified gold, platinum or multiplatinum. And with
more than 1 billion albums sold worldwide, he's the
biggest-selling solo artist ever.

***

Elvis is in three music Halls of Fame: the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and the
Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Johnny Cash is the only other
artist to be in three music Halls of Fame - the
Songwriters, Country and Rock halls.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Jupiter takes almost 12 years to make a full orbit of the
Sun.

***

Jupiter's most distinguishing feature is “the Great Red
Spot,” an intense windstorm larger in size than Earth.

***

Jupiter is more than twice as massive as all the other
planets combined.

***

Jupiter is the fastest rotating planet and can complete one
revolution in less than ten hours.

***

Jupiter is the planet with the shortest day, slightly under
10 hours.

***

Jupiter is 370 million miles from the Earth.

[Dawn]

RANDOM TIDBITS (It all happened a 20 october)


1818 - The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the US-Canada border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.

***

1944 - The Soviet army and Yugoslav Partisans liberate Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia


***

1955 - Publication of The Return of the King, being the last part of The Lord of the Rings.


***

Born a 20 October:

1854 - Arthur Rimbaud, French poet
1931 - Mickey Mantle, American baseball player
1937 - Juan Marichal, Dominican baseball player
1958 - Viggo Mortensen, American actor

***

Died a 20 October:

460 - Aelia Eudocia, Byzantine Empress
1935 - Arthur Henderson, Scottish politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
1964 - Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States
1977 - Cassie Gaines, Steve Gaines and Ronnie Van Zant, members of the American rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd killed in a plane crash
1994 - Burt Lancaster, American actor

[Legzman]

bump

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS (It all happened a 20 october)


Died a 20 October:


1964 - Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States


Will "W" be Hoover II?

Obviously, Bush doesn't seem to be underestimating this crisis. Yet, will his legacy be forever further tarnished by this downturn like Hoover's was? Considering how little Bush can control the economic forces as president, I feel a bit sorry for him now.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

John Adams was the first president to reside in the White
House, moving in November 1800 while the paint was still
wet. When Adams and his family moved to Washington to live
in the White House, they got lost in the woods north of the
city for several hours.

***

Thomas Jefferson wrote his own epitaph never mentioning
that he served as president. His epitaph read, "Author of
the Declaration of American Independence, Author of the
Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and the Father
of the University of Virginia."

***

John Quincy Adams regularly swam nude in the Potomac River.
The first American professional journalist, Anne Royall,
knew of Adams’ 5:00 a.m. swims. After being refused
interviews with Adams many times, she went to the river,
gathered his clothes and sat on them until she had her
interview. Before this, no female had interviewed a
president.

***

Martin Van Buren was the first U.S. president born in the
United States. The presidents preceding Van Buren were born
in colonies that later became states. Van Buren was the
first to be born after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.

***

To set a good example for the country Rutherford B. Hayes
banished liquor and wine from the White House.

***

Benjamin Harrison was the first president to use electricity
in the White House. After he got an electrical shock, his
family often refused to touch the light switches and
sometimes would go to bed with the lights on.

[Dawn]

RANDOM TIDBITS (It all happened a 21 October)


1512 - Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg.

1921 - President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the deep south.

1945 - Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.

1967 - Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, DC. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon and clashes with soldiers and United States Marshals protecting the facility (event lasts until October 23; 683 people were arrested). Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.

1971 - Pablo Neruda wins Nobel Prize for Literature.

2003 - Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.

*****

Born a 21 October:

1772 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, British poet.
1790 - Alphonse de Lamartine, French writer.
1833 - Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor and founder of the Nobel Prize.
1928 - Whitey Ford, American baseball player.
1929 - Ursula K. Le Guin, American author.
1949 - Mike Keenan, Canadian ice hockey coach (with Calgary Flames actually).

*****

Died a 21 October:

1805 - Horatio Nelson, British admiral.
1931 - Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian writer.
1969 - Jack Kerouac, American novelist.
1984 - François Truffaut, French film director.

[gunslingingbird]

RANDOM TIDBITS (It all happened a 21 October)


1512 - Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg.

1921 - President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the deep south.

1945 - Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.

1967 - Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, DC. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon and clashes with soldiers and United States Marshals protecting the facility (event lasts until October 23; 683 people were arrested). Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.

1971 - Pablo Neruda wins Nobel Prize for Literature.

2003 - Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.

*****

Born a 21 October:

1772 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, British poet.
1790 - Alphonse de Lamartine, French writer.
1833 - Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor and founder of the Nobel Prize.
1928 - Whitey Ford, American baseball player.
1929 - Ursula K. Le Guin, American author.
1949 - Mike Keenan, Canadian ice hockey coach (with Calgary Flames actually).

*****

Died a 21 October:

1805 - Horatio Nelson, British admiral.
1931 - Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian writer.
1969 - Jack Kerouac, American novelist.
1984 - François Truffaut, French film director.

Um, I think this belongs in the Today in History thread, which I believe MiniD already has covered. :hatsoff:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

William McKinley was the first president to ride in an
automobile, the first to campaign by telephone, and the
third president to die from an assassin’s wound. He was shot
during the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. He died
of his wounds about a week later.

***

During Woodrow Wilson's presidency a flock of sheep was
raised on the White House lawn. The wool was used to raise
money for the Red Cross during World War I.

***

Calvin Coolidge lighted the first national Christmas tree
in 1923 on the White House lawn.

***

Harry S. Truman was the first president to travel underwater
in a submarine, and the first president to give a speech on
television.

***

Dwight D. Eisenhower played football at West Point and was
injured trying to tackle Olympic and NFL star Jim Thorpe.

***

Before becoming a politician, Lyndon B. Johnson taught
school in Texas. He was the first American president to
name an African American to his cabinet.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Children's book author Dr. Seuss's real name was Theodor
Geisel. His middle name was Seuss.

***

Beatrix Potter, author of Peter Rabbit, had a real pet
rabbit named "Peter". She put Peter on a leash and walked
him through her neighborhood in London.

***

Many of Agatha Christie's stories involved people getting
poisoned. She knew so much about chemicals because she
worked in a hospital laboratory during World War II.

***

Charles Dickens had two pet ravens, both known as Grip.
Upon Grip I's demise, Dickens had his beloved bird stuffed.
These days, Grip can be seen at the Free Library of
Philadelphia's Rare Books Department, where he stands guard
over the Poe and Dickens collections.

***

During World War I, Edith Wharton traveled to the Western
Front in France, both to write about the battlefields for
American publications and to help the Red Cross create
hostels and schools for those displaced by war.

***

Flannery O'Connor had a special fondness for peacocks,
which she often used in her fiction to represent Christ.
When she returned to live on the family farm as an adult,
she raised an unusually large flock of peacocks, which she
tended to until her death in 1964.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's original concept for
series was that of a "Wagon Train to the Stars", and
included the Starship Yorktown plus significantly different
characters from the ones we know today.

***

Mark Lenard, best known for his role as Sarek, Spock's
father, was the first actor to play a member of all three
of the major alien races: Vulcan, Romulan (in the episode
"Balance of Terror"), and Klingon (the commander of the
Klingon attack group at the beginning of Star Trek: The
Motion Picture (1979)).

***

Jeri Ryan turned down the role of Seven of Nine four times;
she only accepted the part after repeated lobbying by
executive producer Jeri Taylor.

***

James Doohan ("Scotty") lost his right middle finger during
WWII. Most of his scenes are shot to hide it. In scenes with
a close-up view of Scotty's hands (operating the transporter
for example) someone else's hands were always used.

***

Mae C. Jemison was the first real astronaut to appear in
any Star Trek show. She played "Lt. Palmer" in a Star Trek:
The Next Generation episode entitled "Second Chances" (May
22, 1993).

***

Walter Koenig, who wrote the episode "The Infinite Vulcan,"
became the first Star Trek actor to ever write a Star Trek
story. Over the following decades, many Trek actors would
write films, novels and comic books based upon "Star Trek",
and many more would direct TV episodes and movies.

[CRASHnBURN]

Nice read HL :)

[historylover]

Nice read HL :)

:hatsoff::hatsoff:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The first known dinosaurs appeared about 230-225 million
years ago, in the Triassic Period.

***

One of the smallest dinosaurs (Compsognathus) was about
3 feet long and weighed about 6 pounds.

***

The Pleurocoelus is the official state dinosaur of Texas.

***

Tyrannosaurus rex was the largest meat-eating dinosaur
ever to live in North America. Fossils found during the
last 20 years show that some dinosaurs were covered with
feathers.

***

Although dinosaurs' fossils have been known since 1818,
the term dinosaur (deinos = terrifying; sauros = lizard)
was coined by the English anatomist Sir Richard Owen in
1842. The only three dinosaurs known at the time were
Megalosaurus, Iguanodon, and Hylaeosaurus, very large
dinosaurs.

***

Diplodocus was an enormous dinosaur that grew as long
as 100 feet. But most of this length was taken up by
its incredibly long neck and even longer tail. Diplodocus'
body accounted for only about 13 feet of its entire
length, while its tiny head measured a relatively small
two feet.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

More than 80% of the rum consumed in the U.S. comes from
Puerto Rico.

***

Vodka accounts for more than one out of every four bottles
of distilled spirits consumed in the U.S.

***

Tequila is not made from cactus, but from agave; the best
tequilas are 100% blue agave.

***

Sparkling Wines A.K.A.

Spain uses Cava, Italy calls it spumante, and South Africa
uses Cap Classique. A sparkling wine made from Muscat
grapes in Italy uses the DOCG Asti. In Germany, Sekt is a
common sparkling wine.

***

Not Champagne

While the term "champagne" is often used by makers of
sparkling wine in other parts of the world, it should
properly be used to refer only to the wines made in the
region of Champagne, France.

***

Champagne's Sugar Content

The sweetest level is doux (meaning sweet), proceeding in
order of increasing dryness to demi-sec (half-dry), sec
(dry), extra sec (extra dry), brut (almost completely dry),
and extra brut / brut nature / brut zero (no additional
sugar, sometimes ferociously dry.).

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Dana Plato, who would later become famous for the role of
Kimberley Drummond on "Diff'rent Strokes," was originally
offered the role of Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist.

***

Due to its shoestring budget, the prop department for
Halloween (1978) had to use the cheapest mask that they
could find in the costume store: a William Shatner mask,
from The Devil's Rain (1975). They later spray-painted the
face white, teased out the hair, and reshaped the eyeholes.

***

Not long before filming on Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
began, Colin Clive broke a leg in a horse riding accident.
Consequently, most of Dr. Frankenstein's scenes were shot
with him sitting.

***

Psycho is the first movie to show a woman (Janet Leigh) in
just a bra and slip.

***

Many of the 500 Florida frogs and 100 giant South American
toads purchased for use in The Frogs escaped during
production.

***

The mask in Scream is based on an Edvard Munch painting
entitled "The Scream."

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979) - The outdoor scenes of the movie
were not filmed in Amityville, Long Island, but rather Toms
River, New Jersey. Local police and ambulance workers played
extras. The volunteer fire department was used to provide
the "rain" during one of the exterior scenes. If you look
closely, you can see that it is sunny and not "raining" in
the background, the next street over.

***

POLTERGEIST (1982) - During all the horrors that proceeded
while filming, only one scene really scared Heather O'Rourke:
that in which she had to hold onto the headboard, while a
wind machine blew toys into the closet behind her. She fell
apart; Steven Spielberg stopped everything, took her in his
arms, and said that she would not have to do that scene
again.

***

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) - Director Wes Craven
claims to have named Freddy Krueger after a kid who bullied
him in school and to have based his appearance on a
disfigured hobo who scared him as a youth.

***

THE SHINING (1980) - Jack Nicholson ad-libbed the line
"Here's Johnny!" in imitation of announcer Ed McMahon's
famous introduction of Johnny Carson on U.S. network NBC-
TV's long-running late night television program "The Tonight
Show Starring Johnny Carson" (1962). Kubrick, who had been
living in England since before Carson took over "The Tonight
Show," had no clue what "Here's Johnny!" meant.

***

PSYCHO (1960) - The Bates house was largely modeled on an
oil painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
The canvas is called "House by the Railroad" and was painted
in 1925 by American iconic artist Edward Hopper. The
architectural details, viewpoint and austere sky is almost
identical as seen in the film.

***

THE EXORCIST (1973) - The refrigerated bedroom set was
cooled with four air conditioners and temperatures would
plunge to around 30 to 40 below zero. It was so cold that
perspiration would freeze on some of the cast and crew. On
one occasion the air was saturated with moisture resulting
in a thin layer of snow falling on the set before the crew
arrived for filming.

[don_equis]

RANDOM TIDBITS

More than 80% of the rum consumed in the U.S. comes from
Puerto Rico.

***

Vodka accounts for more than one out of every four bottles
of distilled spirits consumed in the U.S.

***

Tequila is not made from cactus, but from agave; the best
tequilas are 100% blue agave.

***

Sparkling Wines A.K.A.

Spain uses Cava, Italy calls it spumante, and South Africa
uses Cap Classique. A sparkling wine made from Muscat
grapes in Italy uses the DOCG Asti. In Germany, Sekt is a
common sparkling wine.

***

Not Champagne

While the term "champagne" is often used by makers of
sparkling wine in other parts of the world, it should
properly be used to refer only to the wines made in the
region of Champagne, France.

***

Champagne's Sugar Content

The sweetest level is doux (meaning sweet), proceeding in
order of increasing dryness to demi-sec (half-dry), sec
(dry), extra sec (extra dry), brut (almost completely dry),
and extra brut / brut nature / brut zero (no additional
sugar, sometimes ferociously dry.).


I love this thread and the fact that the rum comes from P.R. just like them hot women, i.e. Carmen Luvana!

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Jack o’ lanterns originated in Ireland where people placed
candles in hollowed-out turnips to keep away spirits and
ghosts on the Samhain holiday.

***

The ancient Celts thought that spirits and ghosts roamed
the countryside on Halloween night. They began wearing masks
and costumes to avoid being recognized as human.

***

Halloween candy sales average about 2 billion dollars
annually in the United States.

***

Bobbing for apples is thought to have originated from the
roman harvest festival that honors Pamona, the goddess of
fruit trees.

***

Black cats were once believed to be witch's familiars who
protected their powers.

***

Tootsie Rolls were the first wrapped penny candy in America.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The name pumpkin orginated from "pepon" – the Greek word
for "large melon."

***

The top pumpkin production states are Illinois, Ohio,
Pennsylvania and California.

***

Pumpkins are fruits. A pumpkin is a type of squash and is
a member of the gourd family (Cucurbitacae), which include
squash, cucumbers, gherkins, and melons.

***

Pumpkin seeds should be planted between the last week of
May and the middle of June. They take between 90 and 120
days to grow and are picked in October when they are bright
orange in color. Their seeds can be saved to grow new
pumpkins the next year.

***

The largest pumpkin pie ever made was over five feet in
diameter and weighed over 350 pounds. It used 80 pounds of
cooked pumpkin, 36 pounds of sugar, 12 dozen eggs and took
six hours to bake.

***

Colonists sliced off pumpkin tops; removed seeds and filled
the insides with milk, spices and honey. This was baked in
hot ashes and is the origin of pumpkin pie.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The next full moon on Halloween night will be October 31,
2020.

***

The Salem Witch trials of 1692 are known for burning so-
called witches at the stake. Actually, not one witch died
by burning; most were put to death by hanging. One
unfortunate witch was “pressed” to death and several died
in prison of natural causes.

***

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Utah, in 2004, had the
highest proportion of its total population trick-or-treating
in the 5-to-13 year old age group with Alaska following
closely behind.

***

Samhainophobia is an intense fear of Halloween.

***

Some people believe that if you see a spider on Halloween,
it is the spirit of a loved one watching over you.

***

Vampire bats really do exist, but they are not from
Transylvania. They live in Central and South America and
feed on the blood of cattle, horses and birds.

[gunslingingbird]

The next full moon on Halloween night will be October 31, 2020.

Unless you believe the Mayans, in which case there will be no more Halloween nights with a full moon. :hatsoff:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

A duck's quack doesn't echo.

***

Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for
Ronald Reagan.

***

The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.

***

Stuck Together

Adhesive tape (specifically masking tape) was invented
in the 1920's by Richard Drew of Minnesota Mining and
Manufacturing, Co. Duct tape (the WWII military version)
was first created and manufactured in 1942 by the Johnson
and Johnson Permacel Division.

***

I can't hear you

The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels.
This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal
and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.

***

Falls are falling

Tremendous erosion at the base of Niagara Falls under-
mines the shale cliffs and as a result the falls have
receded approximately 7 miles over the last 10,000 years.

[gunslingingbird]

The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels.
This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal
and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.


Just to put this into perspective, at a normal rock concert the standard volume is 100 dB at front of house. The volume on stage at an AC/DC show is 120 dB. That is one loud whale! :eek:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The Death Cap, Amanita phalloides is responsible for 90%
of deaths caused by fungus poisoning world-wide.

***

Yeasts, used in making beer and bread, are a form of
fungus.

***

African termites actually cultivate a species of fungus,
Termitomyces.

***

Fruit Fungi

Mucor is the name given to a group of mold fungi, which
grow on the surface of decaying fruit, bread, horse manure,
and other organic matter.

***

Makes you better

Penicillin is made growing the appropriate species of mold
on nutrients; the active compound is then extracted from
the culture fluid and purified.

***

Producers

Most fungal species are saprophytes: they feed on remains
of dead organisms or their by-products. Most forest soil
has too much acid for bacteria to grow well, and so the
fungi are the main decay producers.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Bayer(TM) Aspirin was the first drug ever to be marketed in
tablet form. First marketed in 1899 as a powder, by 1900
aspirin was being compressed into a water-soluble tablet.

***

Aspirin went on sale as the first pharmaceutical drug in
1899, after Felix Hoffman, a German chemist at the drug
company Bayer, successfully modified Salicylic Acid, a
compound found in willow bark to produce Aspirin.

***

Cocaine was the first local anesthetic; being used as such
from about 1884 onwards.

***

Despite the fact that federal spending on the drug war
increased from $1.65 billion in 1982 to $17.7 billion in
1999, more than half of the students in the United States
in 1999 tried an illegal drug before they graduated from
high school.

***

More than 100 years ago, the felt hat makers of England used
mercury to stabilize wool. Most of them eventually became
poisoned by the fumes, as demonstrated by the Mad Hatter in
Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

***

The average cup of coffee contains more than 1000 different
chemical components, none of which is tasted in isolation
but only as part of the overall flavor.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

As the country developed, ballots known as "papers" came
into use. The word "ballot" was adopted around 1676. The
British colonies in America were the first to use a secret
ballot, which later became widespread.

***

First used in the Australian state of Victoria in 1857, the
paper ballot listing all the candidates was first known as
"the Australian ballot." In 1889, New York became the first
American state to use these ballots. Gradually, it came to
replace voting by ticket.

***

Also known as the "Myers Automatic Booth," mechanical lever
machines made their first appearance in the U.S. at Lockport,
N.Y., in 1892. Rochester, New York, used them four years
later and soon they were used across New York State. By
1930, residents of most major American cities voted on
mechanical machines.

***

Punch cards were first used in two Georgia counties for the
1964 presidential primary election. In 1996, 37% of all
voters used punch cards, including the 3.8 million
registered voters in Los Angeles County, the nation's
largest electoral jurisdiction.

***

The direct recording electronic method, DRE, uses a voting
machine with the candidates printed on a computer screen.
The voters push a button or the appropriate spot on the
surface to record their choices. Those wishing to write-in
a candidate are able to use a keyboard to type the name. In
2004, nearly 29% of voters used a DRE system.

***

Town meeting form of government, which is mainly confined
to the six New England states, decides questions of
government, including the annual operating budget, town by-
laws, or other laws with an actual show of hands. If the
vote is close, there are provisions in most towns for a
secret paper ballot. In some cases the town meeting
moderator could ask voters to stand.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Nation) and
Hawaii and the territories of Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands,
Guam, and American Samoa are the only places in the U.S.
that do not observe Daylight Saving Time but instead stay
on "standard time" all year long.

***

Most of Canada uses Daylight Saving Time. Some exceptions
include the majority of Saskatchewan and parts of
northeastern British Columbia. In the fall of 2005,
Manitoba and Ontario announced that like the United States,
they would extend daylight time starting in 2007.

***

In 1996, members of the European Union agreed to observe a
"summer-time period" from the last Sunday in March to the
last Sunday in October.

***

In the Southern Hemisphere, where summer arrives in what we
in the Northern Hemisphere consider the winter months, DST
is observed from late October to late March.

***

Three large regions in Australia do not participate in DST.
Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and Queensland
stay on standard time all year. The remaining south-central
and southeastern sections of the continent (which is where
Sydney and Melbourne are found) make the switch.

***

China, which spans five time zones, is always eight hours
ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and it does not observe DST.
In Japan, DST was implemented after World War II by the
U.S. occupation. In 1952 it was abandoned because of strong
opposition by Japanese farmers.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The Statue of Liberty (“Liberty Enlightening the World”) is
a 225-ton, steel-reinforced copper female figure, 151 ft 1
in. in height, facing the ocean from Liberty Island in New
York Harbor. The right hand holds aloft a torch, and the
left hand carries a tablet upon which is inscribed: “July
IV MDCCLXXVI.”

***

The statue was designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi of
Alsace as a gift to the United States from the people of
France to memorialize the alliance of the two countries in
the American Revolution and their abiding friendship. The
French people contributed the $250,000 cost.

***

The 150-foot pedestal was designed by Richard M. Hunt and
built by Gen. Charles P. Stone, both Americans. It contains
steel underpinnings designed by Alexander Eiffel of France
to support the statue. The $270,000 cost was borne by
popular subscription in this country. President Grover
Cleveland accepted the statue for the United States on Oct.
28, 1886.

***

The Statue of Liberty was designated a National Monument in
1924 and a World Heritage Site in 1984.

***

On Sept. 26, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon dedicated
the American Museum of Immigration, housed in structural
additions to the base of the statue. In 1984 scaffolding
went up for a major restoration and the torch was
extinguished on July 4. It was relit with much ceremony
July 4, 1986, to mark its centennial.

***

On a tablet inside the pedestal is engraved a sonnet called
The New Colossus, written by Emma Lazarus (1849–1887).

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

In India, women wear rings in their noses to show they are
married.

***

In most parts of Asia, it is taboo to touch people's heads,
especially those of children.

***

In Australia, pancakes are served at dinner rather than
breakfast.

***

In Thailand, people do not step on their doorsills. It is
believed that a spirit lives in the threshold of every home.

***

In Ethiopia, both males and females of the Surma tribes
shave their heads as a mark of beauty. The women wear lip
plates; their lower lips are pierced and stretched as ever-
larger plates are inserted over time. The larger the plate,
the more appealing the woman.

***

In Bangladesh, people use their right hand when they eat or
hand things to other people. They consider their left hand
unclean.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Ronald Reagan's last acting role before entering politics
was in the film "The Killers" (1964).

***

In the beach scene near the end of the Beatles' film "Help!"
(1965), John Lennon had an appointment and could not be present.
Another actor stood in for him.

***

New York was the first state to require the licensing of motor
vehicles. The law was adopted in 1901.

***

Parsley

Parsley is a common herb of the Mediterranean area and was
well known to the ancient Greeks. They considered it too
sacred to eat. Romans did serve it as a garnish and to
improve the taste of food. They believed it had special powers and
would keep them sober.

***

Ready,Break

The huddle formation used by football teams originated at
Gallaudet University, a liberal arts college for deaf people
in Washington, D.C., to prevent other schools from reading
their sign language.

***

What Color?

Emerson Moser, who was Crayola's senior crayon maker,
revealed upon his retirement that he was blue-green colorblind
and couldn't see all the colors. He molded more than 1.4
billion crayons in his 37-year career.

[belgianass]

wow, nice finds ...

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The brain of Neanderthal man was larger than that of
modern man.

***

John Alden is noted for the fact that he was a cooper by
trade and was asked to join the Mayflower company for
the extremely important task of caring for the Pilgrims' beer
kegs while on their New World journey.

***

Country comedienne Minnie Pearl always wore a hat with a
price tag hanging from it when she performed. The amount
ascribed on the price tag was $1.98.

***

MYTH OR LUCK

According to legend, Paris fired the arrow that hit Achilles
in the heel, his only vulnerable spot.


***

TIMOTHY GRASS

The perennial European grass timothy, widely grown in the
United States for hay, was named after Timothy Hanson, who
took the seed from New York to the Carolinas in the 1720s.

***

Cold Front

A cold front travels at a speed of about 30 miles per hour -
faster than the fastest person can run - and may overtake any
warm front ahead of it. The resulting mix of air is called
an occluded front.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

249 women have been elected or appointed to the U.S.
Congress. Jeannette Rankin, Republican from Montana, was
the first woman elected to serve in Congress. On November
9, 1916, she was elected to the House of Representatives
as Montana's Representative-at-Large to the 65th Congress;
she served from 1917–1919.

***

214 women have served in the House of Representatives. Of
these, 36 were elected to fill vacancies caused by their
husbands' deaths.

***

Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from Maine, holds the
record for the being the first woman to serve in both houses
of Congress. Originally elected in 1940 to fill the vacancy
left by her dying husband, she was then elected to the Senate
in 1948.

***

Representative Patsy Mink, a Democrat from Hawaii, was the
first Asian-American woman elected to Congress, in 1965.

***

Edith Nourse Rogers, a Republican from Massachusetts, holds
the record for the longest service by a woman in the House
of Representatives. Originally elected to fill the vacancy
caused by her husband's death, she served from June 25,
1925, until her death on September 10, 1960.

***

Shirley Chisholm, a Democrat from New York, became the
first black woman in Congress when she was elected to the
House in 1968.

[gunslingingbird]

Shirley Chisholm, a Democrat from New York, became the
first black woman in Congress when she was elected to the
House in 1968.

And she was also the first black woman to run for president in, I believe, 1972. ;)

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Armistice Day, as November 11 became known, officially
became a holiday in the United States in 1926, and a
national holiday 12 years later. On June 1, 1954, the name
was changed to Veterans Day to honor all U.S. veterans.

***

World War I officially ended on June 28, 1919, with the
signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The actual fighting
between the Allies and Germany, however, had ended seven
months earlier with the armistice, which went into effect
on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh
month in 1918.

***

Official, national ceremonies for Veterans Day center around
the Tomb of the Unknowns. To honor these men, symbolic of
all Americans who gave their lives in all wars, an Army
honor guard, the 3d U.S. Infantry (The Old Guard), keeps
day and night vigil.

***

On Memorial Day (which honors U.S. service people who died
in action) in 1958, two more unidentified American war
dead, one from World War II and the other from the Korean
War, were buried next the unknown soldier of World War I.

***

At 11 a.m. on November 11, a combined color guard
representing all military services executes "Present Arms"
at the tomb. The nation's tribute to its war dead is
symbolized by the laying of a presidential wreath and the
playing of "Taps."

***

A law was passed in 1973 providing interment of an unknown
American from the Vietnam War, but because of the improved
technology to identify the dead, it was not until 1984 that
an unidentified soldier was buried in the tomb. In 1998,
however, the Vietnam soldier was identified through DNA
tests as Michael Blassie, a 24-year-old Air Force pilot who
was shot down in May of 1972 near the Cambodian border. His
body was disinterred and reburied by his family in St. Louis,
Missouri.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Simon Sang Koon Sung of Singapore made 8,192 strings of
noodles from a single lump of dough in 59.29 seconds. That’s
a rate of 138 noodles a second.

***

In 2000, 20 people at the Millennium Done in London, England,
threw 3,312 custard pies in three minutes.

***

Harry Hurley, of North Carolina, has a green thumb—a big one.
In 1997, he grew a bean that measured 4.3 ft long.

***

At a promotional event in 1998 in Dubuque, Iowa, an ice-
cream sandwich was made that weighed 2,460 pounds.

***

In 2001, six people in London spent a total of $62,138 on
a meal in a restaurant named Petrus. Most of the money was
spent on bottles of rare wine.

***

Created in Italy in 2004, the longest sandwich measured
2,081 feet in length. It was made of 2,028 pounds of flour,
112 gallons of water and 55 pounds of salt. Packed in the
sandwich were 1,206 pounds of salami and mortadella, a type
of cheese. The super sandwich weighed 34,275 pounds and was
eaten by 19,000 people.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The War of the Oaken Bucket (Italy), 1325-37 - When a group
of soldiers from the city of Modena in northern Italy
invaded nearby Bologna to steal a brown oak bucket,
thousands of citizens were killed. Bologna became angry and
went to war with Modena to take back their bucket and
restore their pride. The two cities fought for 12 years and
thousands of lives were lost. Modena won the war; the people
of Bologna never got their bucket back.

***

The War of Jenkins' Ear (Great Britain vs. Spain), 1739-43 -
War was declared after Captain Robert Jenkins appeared in
Parliament holding the remains of his ear in his hand. He
claimed that the Spanish had cut it off after boarding his
ship in the West Indies, for they did not want English
traders doing business in their American colonies. The war
went on for four years, because of Jenkins and his ear.
There was no clear winner; it ended in a draw.

***

The War of the Fleeing Wife (Africa vs. Great Britain), 1879 -
Umblana, the wife of the Zulu chief Sitlay, left him and
hid in British territory. When the Zulus found her, they
shot her. England declared war on the Zulus for crossing
into their territory. The Zulu forces were crushed by the
British.

***

The Pig War (Austria-Hungary vs. Serbia), 1906-09 - Pigs
were not allowed to be sold by Serbia to Austria-Hungary.
Serbia wanted to become less dependent on goods from
Austria-Hungary and started trading their pigs for French
goods. As a result, Austria-Hungary got angry with Serbia
and forced Serbia to find new markets for their pigs.

***

The War of the Stray Dog (Greece vs. Bulgaria), 1925 - When
the dog of a Greek soldier wandered across the border into
Macedonia, the soldier ran after it and was shot by a
Bulgarian guard. The Greek troops became so angry that they
invaded Bulgaria. More than 50 men were killed before the
League of Nations intervened and stopped the war.

***

The Soccer War (El Salvador vs. Honduras), July 14-30, 1969 -
Tensions from a soccer match between the national teams of
El Salvador and Honduras, aggravated by the economic
inequality between the two countries, escalated into
fighting. Salvadoran immigrants were then expelled from
Honduras and the countries went to war. Some 2,000 people
were killed in 16 days. The Organization of American States
intervened to end the fighting.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Katharine Hull, 15, and Pamela Whitlock, 16, went to school
together in England. One day, while taking shelter from a
rainstorm, they decided to collaborate on a book by children,
about children, and for children. Their novel, The Far-
Distant Oxus, was published one year later, in 1937, and was
said to be a classic by critics in both Europe and the U.S.

***

Dorothy Straight of Washington, D.C., was only 4 years old
when she wrote How the World Began. Her book was published
in 1964, two years later.

***

S. E. (Susan Eloise) Hinton started her writing career in
high school, beginning the first draft of The Outsiders at
the age of 15; it took her a year and a half to complete it.
A book about youth gangs and their confrontations, it was
published in 1967, when she was 17. It has sold more than a
million copies.

***

The West Indian girl Manghanita Kempadoo wrote Letters of
Thanks, which was published in 1969, when she was 12 years
old. The book is a series of thank-you notes that parody
the gifts in the carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

***

Jamie DeWitt was 12 years old when he entered his true
adventure story “Jamie's Turn” in the 1984 Raintree Publish-
a-Book Contest. His story describes an accident on his
family's farm in Wisconsin. What is truly remarkable is
that Jamie has a learning disability that makes it
difficult for him to write down what he is thinking.

***

When Jason Gaes was stricken with Burkitt's lymphoma, a
rare form of cancer, at age 7, he decided to write My Book
for Kids with Cansur. His twin brother, Tim, and 10-year-
old brother, Adam, illustrated the book, which was
published in 1987. It provides comfort and inspiration to
people of all ages.

[senob44]

Great stuff as always, historylover!! Whenever I get a chance to read some of this thread, I always enjoy it very much. Trivia is the best!

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Longest-lasting Atlantic tropical storm:
"Ginger", 1971, which spun around the open ocean for 28
days.

***

Fastest surface wind speed: 231 miles per hour
(Mount Washington, New Hampshire; April 12, 1934)


***

Ask your kids to keep an eye on leaves. Poplar trees and
red and silver maples flip up their leaves when air pres-
sure is low and rain is imminent.

***

I'd take it every year...

The relatively mild winter of 1994-95 in the Twin Cities
allowed local street departments to use 8,000 fewer tons
of salt and 30,000 fewer tons of sand on area highways for
a savings of $750,000

***
Longest-lasting Pacific tropical storm:

"John "hung on for 31 days. Since it crossed the dateline
twice, it changed status from a hurricane to a typhoon and
back to a hurricane.

***

Hot and Cold

Heat bursts are an odd atmospheric event that occurs in
thunderstorms. Although most thunderstorms produce cool-
ing gusts, an occasional parcel of air is pushed down
from 20,000 feet to the surface, warming by compression
all the way down.

In Glasgow, MT, on September 9, 1994, the temperature at
5:02 AM was 67°F. A heat burst from a nearby storm shot
the temp up to 93°F by 5:17 AM, tying the date's record
high. By 5:40 AM, it was back to 68°F.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Michael Bolton babysat Paula Abdul when she was a child.

***

"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack
is Paula Abdul's favorite love song.

***

Paula Abdul's mom Lorraine enrolled her daughter in dance
lessons when she was nine. Abdul remembers feeling inspired
by Gene Kelly's dancing in Anchors Aweigh and Singin' in
the Rain.

***

Hoop Dreams

Abdul, a broadcasting student at California State
University at Northridge, tries out for the Los Angeles
Lakers Girls cheerleading squad. She's picked out of a
field of 700 and becomes head cheerleader within three
weeks. She quits school to go pro.

***

Five Plus One

At a Lakers game, some members of the Jackson family
notice Abdul's moves on the court and hire her to
choreograph a video for their comeback album, Victory.
The big break leads to more work choreographing videos
for Janet Jackson, Prince, George Michael, Duran Duran
and others.

***

Song and Dance

Using $35,000 of her savings, Abdul records the demos
for her debut album, Forever Your Girl. Her one-two
punch – singing and dancing – fits perfectly within the
MTV zeitgeist. Her No. 1 hit single "Straight Up" wins
four statues at the 1989 MTV VMAs, and Forever Your
Girl stays at No. 1 on the Billboard chart for 10 weeks
and sells seven million copies.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The Eiffel Tower was the tallest building in the world when
it was completed in 1889. It was built for the World's Fair
to demonstrate that iron could be as strong as stone while
being infinitely lighter.

***

In the Petronas Towers (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), the shape
of the floors is based on an eight-point star, common in
Malaysian Islamic patterns. The towers have so many windows
that window washers take a month to clean each tower!

***

In order to strengthen the John Hancock Center against
Chicago's famous winds, engineers included five enormous
diagonal braces on the exterior walls of the building.
These diagonals block the view from two windows on each
floor.

***

First Interstate World Center (Library Tower) in Los Angeles
is located just 26 miles from the San Andreas Fault and has
been designed to withstand an earthquake of 8.3 or more on
the Richter scale, with a massively reinforced central core
and lighter columns around the perimeter.

***

Called "the father of the skyscraper," the Home Insurance
Building, constructed in Chicago in1885 (and demolished in
1931), was 138 feet tall and 10 stories. It was the first
building to effectively employ a supporting skeleton of
steel beams and columns, allowing it to have many more
windows than traditional masonry structures

***

New York's Citicorp Center (915 feet tall, 59 stories, built
in 1977) was the first U.S. skyscraper to contain a tuned
mass damper in order to control the building's sway

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - ORIGIN OF STATE NAMES

Connecticut - From an Indian word (Quinnehtukqut) meaning
“beside the long tidal river.”

***

Alaska - Corruption of Aleut word meaning “great land” or
“that which the sea breaks against.”

***

Maryland - In honor of Henrietta Maria (queen of Charles I
of England).

***

Pennsylvania - In honor of Adm. Sir William Penn, father of
William Penn. It means “Penn's Woodland.”

***

Vermont - From the French “vert mont,” meaning “green
mountain.”

***

Minnesota - From a Dakota Indian word meaning “sky-tinted
water.”

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The Blue Train has run between Cape Town and Pretoria,
South Africa, since 1939 and derives its name from its blue
locomotives, railroad cars, and leather seats. It is still
considered one of the most luxurious trains running, having
been upgraded in 1997 to include televisions and phones in
all of its suites.

***

The French TGV (train a grande vitesse, or high speed train)
is an electric train system. Trains run between Paris and
several other cities, regularly traveling at speeds as high
as 186 mph. A modified TGV set a world speed record in 1990
when it hit 320 mph in trial runs.

***

Running between King's Cross station in London and Edinburgh,
Scotland, the Flying Scotsman was a luxury express train
full of amenities. It featured a hairdressing salon, a Louis
the XVI–style restaurant and bar, and, for a short time, a
cinema coach.

***

The Japanese Shinkansen, or Bullet Train, runs at speeds of
more than 100 mph over special tracks with minimal curves.
In 1997, a newer version of the Bullet Train became the
fastest scheduled train in the world, regularly reaching
speeds of up to 186 mph.

***

The highest railway in the world, the Peruvian Central
Railway is an engineering marvel, climbing 13,000 ft on its
trip from La Oroya to Lima, Peru. The railroad, which
features 66 tunnels and 59 bridges, zigzags across valleys
in order to minimize the steepness of its climb. There is
an onboard doctor who administers oxygen to passengers who
get altitude sickness.

***

Traveling between Moscow and Vladivostok, the Trans-Siberian
Express makes the longest regular train trip in the world,
covering 5,778 mi and making 91 stops over the course of
nine days. During the Cold War, Westerners could travel
only in compartments, where they were subject to Stalinist
propaganda played on loudspeakers.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The most played song on American radio during the twentieth
century was You've Lost That Loving Feeling which was
written by Barry Mann, Phil Spector, and Cynthia Weil.
Although recorded by different artists, the song is the
only one in history to be played over 8 million times on
the radio.

***

"Weird" Al Yankovic received a Bachelor's degree in
Architecture in 1981. He also served as valedictorian of
his high school at age 16.

***

The oldest business in the United States of America is the
cymbal company Zildjian which was founded in Constantinople
in 1623.

***

Janis Joplin's will called for a party for 200 people at
her favorite pub in San Alselmo, California at a cost of
$2,500.00.

***

The five most stolen items in a drugstore are batteries,
cosmetics, film, sunglasses, and Preparation H. One of
Preparation H's main ingredient is shark liver oil. The
oil not only helps shrink hemorrhoids, but will shrink any
tissue.

***

The phrase "Often a bridesmaid but never a bride" actually
comes from an advertisement for Listerine mouthwash. The
text was written by Milton Feasley and first appeared in
1925. The advertisement was so successful that it ran for
more than ten years.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

In September 1752 the Julian calendar was replaced with the
Gregorian calendar in Great Britain and its American
colonies. The Julian calendar was 11 days behind the
Gregorian calendar, so September 14 followed September 2 on
the day of the change. The result was that between September
3 and 13, absolutely nothing happened!

***

The first Roman Calendar (introduced in 535BC) had 10 months,
with 304 days in a year that began in March. January and
February were added only later. In 46BC, Julius Caesar
created "The Year of Confusion" by adding 80 days to the
year making it 445 days long to bring the calendar back in
step with the seasons. The solar year - with the value of
365 days and 6 hours - was made the basis of the calendar.
To take care of the 6 hours, every 4th year was made a 366-
day year. It was then that Caesar decreed that the year
begins with the 1st of January.

***

In 325AD Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman
emperor, introduced Sunday as a holy day in a new 7-day
week. He also introduced movable (Easter) and immovable
feasts (Christmas).

***

The Chinese New Year occurs at the second new moon after
the beginning of the Northern Hemisphere winter, thus
between January 20th and February 20th.

***

The Jewish calendar began 3,760 years before the beginning
of the Christian era. The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah,
is celebrated during September or October of the Gregorian
calendar.

***

Century years can be leap years only when they are divisible
by 400 (e.g. 1600). This rule eliminates three leap years
in four centuries, making the calendar sufficiently correct
for all ordinary purposes.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

On average, 80 people shoot at the Goodyear blimp each
year.

***

The last stagecoach holdup took place in Tennessee on
October 15, 1882.

***

The average age for first time brides is 24.5 years. For
grooms it's 26.5 years.

***

SAY THE WORD

The word 'sabotage' is derived from a French word for shoe.
In France, a sabot is a kind of heavy boot or shoe worn by
workmen. During the Industrial Revolution, when machine-
driven mills were first introduced in France, workers dis-
placed from their jobs by these automata would throw their
shoes into the gear mechanisms, wrecking the engines and
thus sabotaging the business.

***

Punctuation did not come into use until the advent of
printing in the fifteenth century. Before that, words
written by scribes were runtogetherlikethis.

***

The word 'fiasco,' meaning a failure, is derived from the
ancient Italian art of glass blowing. If a Venetian glass
blower made a mistake while creating a fine, delicate
bottle, the ruined vessel was turned into an ordinary
drinking flask, which is known in Italian as a fiasco.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The thin line of cloud that forms behind an aircraft at
high altitudes is called a contrail.

***

In early France the distance a man could walk while smoking
one pipeful of tobacco was called a pipee.

***

The central shaft of a bird's feather which bears the vane
or web of the feather is called a rachis.

***

A building in which silence is enforced, like a library or
school room, is referred to as a silentium.

***

The ear-splitting sound produced by the high notes of a
bagpipe is called a skirl.

***

The tendency of the leaves or petals of certain plants to
assume a different position at night is called nyctitropism.
__________________

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The most common domesticated turkey, the Broadbreasted
White, is so heavy and large-breasted that it can't fly,
run or mate naturally. They must be artificially inseminated.

***

Long before Europeans came to America, the Aztecs had
domesticated turkeys. They used them for food, for religious
sacrifices and the feathers for decoration.

***

An estimated 271 million turkeys were raised in the United
States in 2007. The estimate for 2008 is about the same.
In 2007, the turkeys produced weighed 7.9 billion pounds
altogether and were valued at $3.7 billion.

***

The turkey industry employs between 20,000 and 25,000 people
in the United States.

***

The state game bird of Alabama is the turkey. Alabama has
one of the largest per acre populations of wild turkeys of
any state.

***

According to the National Turkey Federation, about 24% of
Americans purchase fresh turkeys for Thanksgiving, and 69%
purchase frozen turkeys.

[Jason z]

Random trivia for the day.. What was the name of the original magazine that Hugh Hefner put out before playboy? He ended up changing the name to playboy. What was the name of the Magazine?

[historylover]

Random trivia for the day.. What was the name of the original magazine that Hugh Hefner put out before playboy? He ended up changing the name to playboy. What was the name of the Magazine?

:dunno:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in
November in the United States, and celebrated on the second
Monday in October in Canada.

***

The Plymouth Pilgrims were the first to celebrate
Thanksgiving in the fall of 1621 at Plymouth, Massachusetts.

***

Sarah Josepha Hale, an editor with a magazine, started a
Thanksgiving campaign in 1827 and it was result of her
efforts that in 1863 Thanksgiving was observed as a day for
national thanksgiving and prayer.

***

President Abraham Lincoln established the original date for
our National Thanksgiving Day celebration in 1863.


***

Congress did not declare Thanksgiving a national holiday
until 1941.

***

The First Thanksgiving celebration lasted for three days.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

In 1926, when a Los Angeles restaurant owner with the all-
American name of Bob Cobb was looking for a way to use up
leftovers, he threw together some avocado, celery, tomato,
chives, watercress, hard-boiled eggs, chicken, bacon, and
Roquefort cheese, and named it after himself: Cobb salad.

***

In 1976, the first eight Jelly Belly flavors were launched:
Orange, Green Apple, Root Beer, Very Cherry, Lemon, Cream
Soda, Grape, and Licorice.

***

In 1990, Bill Carson, of Arrington, Tennessee, grew the
largest watermelon at 262 pounds that is still on the
record books according to the 1998 edition of the Guinness
Book of World Records.

***

In 1995, KFC sold 11 pieces of chicken for every man, woman
and child in the US.

***

In the United States, a pound of potato chips costs two
hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.

***

Laws forbidding the sale of sodas on Sunday prompted
William Garwood to invent the ice cream sundae in Evanston,
IL, in 1875.

***


Among the designs left by Leonardo da Vinci almost 500 years
ago, with notes written backward to be read with a mirror,
were the parachute, life jacket, water pump, swim fins,
well digger, paddle-wheel boat, horseless carriage, sprocket
chain, steam gun, water turbine, lens-grinding machine,
shrapnel, machine gun, airplane, helicopter, submarine and
mass production.

***

The cars on the freeways today would be electrics if Thomas
Edison had had his way. At the turn of the century, he
worked on an improved battery to power an electric car that
would be quiet, light, clean and odorless. By 1909, his new
battery was on the market, but it was too late. Ford's in-
ternal-combustion engine had become king of the road.

***

Jean-Francois Champollion, the French linguist who decoded
the hieroglyphics of the Rosetta Stone, had, in 1801, at
the age of eleven mastered Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Two
years later he had also learned Arabic, Syrian, Chaldean
and Coptic, the Greek-based language of the early Egyptian
Christians. In 1822, Champollion published the paper that
made him famous, "In Regard to the Alphabet of Phonetic
Hieroglyphics" the basis of decoding the story of the
ancient Egyptians.

***

A book of maps is called an atlas because the innovative
sixteenth-century Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator's
book of maps detailing various portions of Europe sported
on its cover a picture of the Greek titan Atlas holding
the world on his shoulders--and this book became known as
the atlas.

***

Ben Franklin wanted the turkey, not the eagle, to be the
U.S. national symbol. He considered the eagle "a bird of
bad moral character" because it lives "by sharping and
robbing."

***

Charles Dickens believed that a good night's sleep was
possible only if the bed was aligned from north to south.
In this manner, he thought, the magnetic currents would
flow straight through the recumbent body.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Nobody is buried in Grant's tomb. President and Mrs. Grant
are entombed there. A body is buried only when it is placed
in the ground and covered with dirt.

***

The official name of the St. Louis Gateway Arch is "The
Jefferson National Expansion Monument." The Gateway Arch
looks taller than it is wider, but it is exactly 630 feet
by 630 feet.

***

The world's largest art gallery is the Winter Palace and
Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. Visitors would have
to walk 15 miles to see the 322 galleries which house
nearly 3 million works of art.
What makes hot peppers hot?

The answer is a chemical compound called Capsaicin, which
is found in the inside wall of the pepper and in its white
lining. Capsaicin is odorless and tasteless, except for the
hot, tangy sensation it yields. The true flavor of a pepper
comes from its outer walls.

***

Rocoto (spicier than habanero): This capsicum pubescens
is a fireball of unbelievable proportions. Generally not
available outside of Latin America, since its fragile
fruit is grown only in high altitude, cool climates, it
comes in green, yellow, and red globes, about 2 x 2
inches, and has a hairy stem.

***

Red and yellow bell peppers are much sweeter than green.
Although they started out as green peppers, they were left
on the plant to ripen for a much longer period of time.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The word “wed” is derived from the ancient Greek word
for “pledge.”

***

Just before her wedding a Bulgarian bride will toss a
dish filled with wheat, coins and a raw egg over her
head. If the dish breaks it signifies good luck to come.

***

In Mexico, it is customary during the vows for a white
ribbon or for a rosary, called a “lasso,” to be draped
around the necks of the newlyweds to symbolize their
joining together.

***

Caribbean Traditions

Traditional wedding cake, the “Black Cake,” with the
recipe handed down from mother to daughter and improved
upon by each succeeding generation. The basic ingredients
of an Island wedding cake include a pound of flour, a
pound of brown sugar, a pound of butter, and a pound of
glazed cherries, raisins, prunes, currants, and a dozen
fresh eggs.

The cake is traditionally served with a Hard Rum Sauce
and all of the dried fruits are soaked in rum in a crock
pot for anywhere from two weeks to one year.

***

Traditional Lithuanian Marriage

First there is the matchmaker who puts the couple together
and arranges the dowry, then there is the wedding ceremony
itself which consists of several very specific customs,
and finally there is what is called in Lithuanian the
atgriztai, or the coming back, during which the bride and
groom return to the bride’s parent’s home, where the bride
is now welcomed as a guest rather than as a member of the
family.

***

Twelve Symbols

The twelve symbols of life important in African culture
may be administered as part of the wedding ceremony.
These are wine, wheat, pepper, salt, bitter herbs, water,
a pot and spoon, a broom, honey, a spear, a shield, and
a copy of the Bible or the Koran. Each one represents a
different aspect of the love and strength which unites
two families.

[gunslingingbird]

Rocoto (spicier than habanero): This capsicum pubescens
is a fireball of unbelievable proportions. Generally not
available outside of Latin America, since its fragile
fruit is grown only in high altitude, cool climates, it
comes in green, yellow, and red globes, about 2 x 2
inches, and has a hairy stem.


I tried a pepper in Mexico that was definitely spicier than any habanero I've ever tried, but I don't think it was the one you're talking about. The one I'm talking about was about 2x2 centimeters. They were tiny little fuckers, but just one little pepper was enough for a whole pot of soup to be nearly inedible. Oh, and the stems weren't hairy.

[belgianass]

I tried a pepper in Mexico that was definitely spicier than any habanero I've ever tried, but I don't think it was the one you're talking about. The one I'm talking about was about 2x2 centimeters. They were tiny little fuckers, but just one little pepper was enough for a whole pot of soup to be nearly inedible. Oh, and the stems weren't hairy.


I've eaten one of these in the philippines, it was called "harang" over there and yes it was fucking hot ... but totally worth it ... as they say you can get addicted to eat peppers because of something in your brains that produces some kind of things that makes you like pepper (kinda like a drug) ... yeah you can see i'm not good in scientifically mumbo-jumbo ...

[historylover]

I tried a pepper in Mexico that was definitely spicier than any habanero I've ever tried, but I don't think it was the one you're talking about. The one I'm talking about was about 2x2 centimeters. They were tiny little fuckers, but just one little pepper was enough for a whole pot of soup to be nearly inedible. Oh, and the stems weren't hairy.

Thanks for the comments, GSB.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Nairobi, Kenya, in Africa, is the world's center for
tourist safaris.

***

You can find the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka,
where Buddhists built a temple to honor Buddha's tooth.
Every year great festivals are held here.

***

The date palms in Oman, in the Mideast, are so valuable,
the country keeps a list of who owns which trees.

***

In North Korea, nursery schools run by the government are
called palaces.

***

The home of the yodel is in the Swiss Alps, where cow
herders first yodeled to call from the mountains to the
meadows. Yodelerfests are held yearly in Engelberg,
Switzerland.

***

An ancient monastery in Glastonbury, England, is said to be
the burial place of King Arthur and the sword Excalibur.

[assholebythedoor]

do you have anything on early century sailors.

[gunslingingbird]

You can find the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka,
where Buddhists built a temple to honor Buddha's tooth.
Every year great festivals are held here.


Am I the only fucking dumbass who finds it totally hilarious that the temple of the tooth is in a place called Kandy? What would a dentist say about that? :1orglaugh

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

African elephants weigh up to 14,000 pounds and can eat as
much as 600 pounds of food a day! Their trunks contain as
many as 100,000 different muscles.

***

The peregrine falcon dives at speeds of up to 200 m.p.h.
and can fly at a rate of 90 m.p.h., making it not only the
fastest bird, but also the fastest animal. Ostriches can
run as fast as 43 m.p.h.

***

The Indo-Pacific sailfish can swim at speeds of up to 68
m.p.h. The top jaw of this fish extends well beyond the
lower, forming a long spear.

***

The saltwater crocodile can grow to 23 feet long and weigh
up to 2,200 pounds. Often called “salties,” the ferocious
reptiles are found in India, Southeast Asia, and northern
Australia.

***

The blue whale is the world's biggest animal, even larger
than any known dinosaur. An average-sized adult is 80 feet
long and weighs about 120 tons. This giant is also the
loudest animal on Earth. Its call, which is louder than a
jet, can be heard for hundreds of miles.

***

The hummingbird grows to only 2.5 inches long and weighs
only 0.06 ounce. This tiny bird makes its humming sound by
quickly beating its wings.

[assholebythedoor]

I don't want to say what I have in mind.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Baseball: A wad of gum stuck on a player's hat brings good
luck.

***

Basketball: The last person to shoot a basket during the
warm-up will have a good game.

***

Bowling: The number 300, a perfect score, on your license
plate will increase your score.

***

Fishing: Don't tell anyone how many fish you've caught until
you're done or you won't catch another.

***

Golf: Carry coins in your pockets for good luck.

***

Tennis: Walk around the outside of the court when switching
sides for good luck.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Almonds are the oldest, most widely cultivated and
extensively used nuts in the world.

***

Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167
calories per hundred grams.

***

Cranberries are one of just three major fruits native to
North America. Blueberries and Concord grapes are the other
two.

***

Dr. Joel Poinsett, the 1st US ambassador to Mexico, brought
the poinsettia to US in 1828. The plant, called "flower of
the blessed night" in Mexico was renamed in Poinsett's honor.

***

Tea was so expensive when it was first brought to Europe in
the early 17th century that it was kept in locked wooden
boxes.

***

Wine grapes, oranges, figs and olives were first planted in
North America by Father Junipero Sera in 1769.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The inventor of the Barbie doll is Ruth Handler, co-founder
of Mattel. She named the doll after her daughter, Barbara.
The Ken doll made his debut two years after Barbie, in 1961
and was named after the 16 year old son of Mattel founders
Ruth and Elliot Handler.

***

The Barbie doll was first introduced at a Toy Fair in New
York by the Mattel toy company. The day was March 9,1959.
and from then on this date is also celebrated as her
official birthday.

***

Barbie's design was inspired by a German doll called Bild
Lilli. Mattel acquired the rights to the Bild Lilli doll
in 1964 and production of Lilli was stopped.

***

In Sweden, more Barbie dolls have been sold than the
country's current population. In 1980, in India, Barbie
cost 236 rupees which is $18.00 US dollars which was
equivalent to an average Indians entire months salary.

***

Barbie's full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts. She is from
Willows, Wisconsin, and went to Willows High School. Her
favorite color is pink.

***

When Barbie was first introduced she had a black and white
swim suite and her hair style was either blonde or brunette.
It was in a pony tail with bangs. The first Barbie had eyes
with white irises, blue eyeliner, and arched eyebrows.

[gunslingingbird]

Dr. Joel Poinsett, the 1st US ambassador to Mexico, brought
the poinsettia to US in 1828. The plant, called "flower of
the blessed night" in Mexico was renamed in Poinsett's honor.


Actually, we call it "noche buena", which literally means "good night." Noche Buena is what Christmas Eve is called in Spanish.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The telephone was not widely appreciated for the first 15
years because people did not see a use for it. In fact, in
the British parliament it was mentioned there was no need
for telephones because "we have enough messengers here."
Western Union believed that it could never replace the
telegraph. In 1876, an internal memo read: "This telephone
has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a
means of communication."

***

Irish scientist, Dr. Dionysius Lardner (1793 - 1859) didn't
believe that trains could contribute much in speedy transport.
He wrote: "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because
passengers ' would die of asphyxia' [suffocation]."

***

In 1966, Time Magazine predicted, "By 2000, the machines
will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will,
in effect, be independently wealthy." In that year too
CoCo Chanel said about miniskirts: "It's a bad joke that
won't last. Not with winter coming."

***

In the early 20th century a world market for only 4 million
automobiles was made because "the world would run out of
chauffeurs." Shortly after the end of World War II (1945),
the whole of Volkswagen, factory and patents, was offered
free to Henry Ford II. He dismissed the Volkswagen Beetle
as a bad design.

***

In 1894, the president of the Royal Society, William Thomson,
Lord Kelvin, predicted that radio had no future. The first
radio factory was opened five years later. Today, there are
more than one billion radio sets in the world, tuned to more
than 33 000 radio stations around the world. He also
predicted that heavier-than-air flying machines were
impossible. The Wright Brother's first flight covered a
distance equal to only half the length of the wingspan of
a Boeing 747.

***

In 1927, H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, asked, "Who the hell
wants to hear actors talk?" In 1936, Radio Times editor Rex
Lambert thought "Television won't matter in your lifetime
or mine."

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Between 20,000 and 60,000 bees live in a single hive. The
queen bee lays 1,500 eggs a day and lives for up to 2 years.
The drone, whose only job it is to mate with the queen bee,
has a lifespan of around 24 days - they have no stinger.
Worker bees - all sterile females - usually work themselves
to death within 40 days in summer, collecting pollen and
nectar. Worker bees fly up to 14km (9 miles) to find pollen
and nectar, flying at 24km/h (15 mph).

***

A worker bee communicates her floral findings by performing
a dance on the honeycomb. The orientation of her movements
and the frequency of her vibrations indicate the direction
and distance of the flowers.

***

Flowers are pollinated mostly by bees; up to one third of
all plant pollination on earth are by bees. In short, this
means that one in every three spoons of food you put in
your mouth was a direct result of the work done by bees.

***

Bees do not have ears, but they have an excellent sense of
smell with chemoreceptors in their antennae. Bees see
colors differently than we do. They are insensitive to red
but detects ultraviolet light which is invisible to us.

***

The worker bees defend the hive. The muscular barbed stinger
quickly saw into the skin of the invader and the venom pouch
begins to contract rhythmically to pump venom into the
intruder.

***

Bees can be used to detect landmines. Tiny radio plates the
size of a rice grain will be attached to honey bees to
detect antipersonnel landmines, of which there are about
100 million in 70 war-torn countries. The tiny radio plates
are engraved with serial numbers to keep track of the bees,
which are being conditioned to develop a preference in
addition to nectar, in this case TNT, or any other material
that releases metamphenamine. Special spectrometers that
can "smell" TNT are placed in movable beehives to indicate
landmines in specific areas. Bees that "smell" of explosives
can then be tracked to the landmine. The bees won't detonate
the landmines.

[Jason z]

Random trivia for the day.. What was the name of the original magazine that Hugh Hefner put out before playboy? He ended up changing the name to playboy. What was the name of the Magazine?

Sorry it took me so long to get back to. I will give a hint. It is a name of a animal.

[historylover]

Sorry it took me so long to get back to. I will give a hint. It is a name of a animal.

Bunny? Would allow me to make sense of the title "Playboy Bunny".

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

When fabric gets wet, light coming towards it refracts
within the water, dispersing the light. In addition, the
surface of the water causes incoherent light scattering.
The combination of these two effects causes less light to
reflect to your eyes and makes the wet fabric appear darker.

***

Drinking water after eating hot spicy food will not calm
your tongue. The spices in most of the hot foods that we
eat are oily, and oil and water don't mix. In this case,
the water just rolls over the oily spices. What can you do
to calm your aching tongue? Eat bread. The bread will
absorb the oily spices. A second solution is to drink milk.
Milk contains a substance called "casein" which will bind
to the spices and carry them away.

***

In ancient times, it was believed that certain colors could
combat the evil spirits that lingered over nurseries.
Because blue was associated with the heavenly spirits, boys
were clothed in that color, boys then being considered the
most valuable resource to parents. Although baby girls did
not have a color associated with them, they were mostly
clothed in black. It was only in the Middle Ages when pink
became associated with baby girls.

***

Blood is bright red in its oxygenated form and a dark red
in deoxygenated form. In simpler terms, it is bright red
when it leaves the lungs full of oxygen and dark red when
it returns to the lungs for a refill. Veins appear blue
because light penetrating the skin is absorbed and
reflected in high energy wavelengths back to the eye.
Higher energy wavelengths are blue.

***

Onions, like other plants, are made of cells. The cells
are divided into two sections separated by a membrane.
One side of the membrane contains an enzyme which helps
chemical processes occur in your body. The other side of
the membrane contains molecules that contain sulfur. When
you cut an onion, the contents on each side of the
membrane mix and cause a chemical reaction. This reaction
produces molecules such as ethylsufine which make your
eyes water.

***

Camels are called "ships of the desert" because of the way
they move, not because of their transport capabilities.
Camels sway from side to side because they move both legs
on one side at the same time, elevating that side. This is
called pacing, a ship-like motion which can make the rider
feel sick.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - Famous Firsts in Aviation

First powered balloon: Gen. Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier
developed the first propeller-driven and elliptically
shaped balloon in 1784. The crew had to crank three
propellers on a common shaft to give the craft a speed of
about three mph.

***

First balloon flight in America: In 1793, Jean Pierre
Blanchard, a French pilot, made it from Philadelphia to
near Woodbury, N.J., in just over 45 min.

***

First air transport company: In 1843 in London, William S.
Henson and John Stringfellow filed articles of incorporation
for the Aerial Transit Company (March 24). It failed.

***

First aerial photographers.: Samuel Archer King and William
Black made two photos of Boston in 1860, which are still in
existence.

***

First transatlantic attempt: In 1873, the New York Daily
Graphic sponsored the attempt with a 400,000-cubic-foot
balloon carrying a lifeboat. A rip in the bag during
inflation brought the collapse of the balloon and the
project.

***

First airplane maneuvers: In 1904, Orville Wright made
the first turn with an airplane (Sept. 15); five days later
his brother Wilbur made the first complete circle.

[Jason z]

Bunny? Would allow me to make sense of the title "Playboy Bunny".

Na, the original was stag magazine. But Hugh Hefner had to change it because of copyright enfringement. A stag being the animal... http://www.johnberryhunting.com/red_stag.jpg

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - Firsts in American Women's History


1647 - Margaret Brent appears before the Maryland assembly
demanding that women be granted the right to vote. She is
the first woman in Maryland to own property, and one of the
first known suffragists in American history.

***

1707 - Henrietta Johnston begins to work as a portrait
artist in Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina,
making her the first known professional woman artist in
America.

***

1795 - Anne Parrish establishes, in Philadelphia, the House
of Industry, the first charitable organization for women in
America.

***

1830s - Mills in industrial towns such as Lowell,
Massachusetts, are staffed almost entirely by young women.
These “mill girls” have a kind of independence their mothers
could not have imagined. They earn their own money and live
together in boardinghouses. They also take part in strikes
and other actions by organized labor.

***

1837 - Oberlin College, in Ohio, becomes the first college
to admit female students. In addition to studying, the women
have to do laundry and cook meals for the male students.

***

1853 - Antoinette Blackwell becomes the first American woman
to be ordained a minister in a recognized denomination
(Congregational).

[STDiva]

What was the name of the controversial herbicide used by the United States during the Vietnam War to defoliate jungles?

[assholebythedoor]

thc

[STDiva]

Wrong.

You are worse at trivia than you are at rapping. :crying:

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

1868 - For the first time, the "Ladies Life" class at the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts allows women to draw from
a nude model, as male artists have done for centuries.

***

1870 - In Wyoming, for the first time in U.S. history,
women are allowed to serve on a grand jury. Ada H. Kepley,
of Illinois, graduates from the Union College of Law in
Chicago. She is the first woman lawyer to graduate from a
law school.

***

1887 - Susanna Medora Salter becomes the first woman
elected mayor of an American town, in Argonia, Kansas.

***

1897 - Mrs. H.H.A. Beach's aelic Symphony?is the first
symphony by a woman performed in the United States, and
possibly the world.

***

1920 - The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago. On
August 26, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
is ratified, granting women the right to vote in national
elections.

***

1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first
female state governor. Florence Sabin, researcher of the
origin of blood cells, becomes the first woman elected to
the National Academy of Sciences. She is also the first
woman to graduate from Johns Hopkins Medical School.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

J. J. Audubon’s The Birds of America, published in 1840, is
the most valuable book in the world. It sold for $8,802,500
in March 2000—the highest price ever paid for a book.

***

Charles Dickens called the sickly character in A Christmas
Carol “Small Sam” and “Puny Pete” before settling on “Tiny
Tim.”

***

The Bible is the best-selling nonfiction book of all time.
Since 1815, more than 2.5 billion copies have been sold
worldwide. It has been translated into more than 2,200
languages and dialects.

***

A.A. Milne, the author of the Winnie the Pooh series, used
his son as inspiration for the character Christopher Robin.
His son, also named Christopher Robin, grew up hating the
stories because his schoolmates teased him about his
imaginary friends.

***

More than 220 million copies of R.L Stine's Goosebumps books
have been sold since 1992, when the first book, Welcome to
the Dead House, was published.

***

Hillary Clinton’s memoir, Living History, sold more than
200,000 copies in its first day of publication, more than
any other nonfiction title. It was published in June 2003.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Brazil’s most popular and festive holiday is Carnival. In
fact, many people consider Carnival one of the world’s
biggest celebrations. Each spring, on the Saturday before
Ash Wednesday, the streets of Brazil’s largest city, Rio de
Janeiro, come alive with wild parties, festivals and
glamorous balls.

***

At Chinese New Year celebrations, people wear red clothes,
give children “lucky money” in red envelopes and set off
firecrackers. Red symbolizes fire, which the Chinese believe
drives away bad luck. Family members gather at each other's
homes for extravagant meals. Chinese New Year ends with a
lantern festival.

***

Each April 23, Turkey celebrates Cocuk Bayrami, or
Children’s Day. Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
declared the holiday in 1920, as Turkey was becoming an
independent nation after the fall of the Ottoman Empire,
to illustrate that children were the future of the new
nation.

***

Children in England celebrate the end of winter and the
arrival of spring on May 1 each year. The festivities center
around a huge striped maypole that’s decorated with flowers
and streamers. Children hold the streamers as they dance
around the pole, weaving intricate patterns as they pass
each other. May Day dates back to ancient times, when Romans
honored Flora, the goddess of spring.

***

Every August, brothers and sisters in northern India show
their love for each other by celebrating Raksha Bandhan.
This tradition dates back more than 500 years. The girls
tie a bracelet of silk threads, called a rakhi, around
their brothers’ wrists. The boys then promise to protect
their sisters. The siblings also give each other a piece of
Indian candy, called laddu. At the end of the ceremony, the
children exchange gifts.

***

On December 13, one of the longest and darkest nights of the
winter, Swedes celebrate the festival of St. Lucia, the patron
saint of light. In many homes, a girl gets up early in the
morning and puts on a long white dress, with a red sash at
the waist, and a laurel crown decorated with four candles.
She serves her family warm lussekatt buns for breakfast. The
buns, shaped like the number eight, are usually flavored
with saffron and topped with raisins or nuts. Boys, called
star boys, wear long white shirts and pointed hats. They
help serve the buns. Children often go to school dressed in
the costumes and serve the buns to their teachers.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

In the Middle Ages wearing spectacles signified knowledge
and learning. Painters of the time often included spectacles
when portraying famous persons even when depicting people
who lived before the known invention of spectacles. On
numerous paintings the religious teacher Sofronius Eusebius
Hieronymus (340 - 420 AD) is portrayed with a lion, a skull
and a pair of reading glasses. He is the patron saint of
spectacle makers.

***

It actually is true that eating carrots can help you see
better. Carrots contain Vitamin A, which feeds the chemicals
that the eye shafts and cones are made of. The shafts
capture black and white vision. The cones capture color
images.

***

Healthy eyes are so sensitive to light that a candle
burning in the dark can be detected a mile away. The human
eye can distinguish about 10 million different colors.
There currently is no machine that can achieve this
remarkable feat.

***

Roman tragedian Seneca is said to have read "all the books
in Rome" by peering through a glass globe of water. A
thousand years later, presbyopic monks used segments of
glass spheres that could be laid against reading material
to magnify the letters, basically a magnifying glass, called
a "reading stone." They based their invention on the
theories of the Arabic mathematician Alhazen (roughly 1000
AD). Yet, Greek philosopher Aristophanes (c. 448 BC-380 BC)
knew that glass could be used as a magnifying glass.
Nevertheless it was not until roughly 150 AD that Ptolemy
discovered the basic rules of light diffraction and wrote
extensively on the subject.

***

Venetian glass blowers, who had learned how to produce
glass for reading stones, later constructed lenses that
could be held in a frame in front of the eye instead of
directly on the reading material. It was intended for use
by one eye; the idea to frame two ground glasses using
wood or horn, making them into a single unit was born in
the 13th century.

***

In 1268 Roger Bacon made the first known scientific
commentary on lenses for vision correction. Salvino
D’Armate of Pisa and Alessandro Spina of Florence are often
credited with the invention of spectacles around 1284 but
there is no evidence to conclude this. The first mention of
actual glasses is found in a 1289 manuscript when a member
of the Popozo family wrote: "I am so debilitated by age
that without the glasses known as spectacles, I would no
longer be able to read or write." In 1306, a monk of Pisa
mentioned in a sermon: "It is not yet 20 years since the
art of making spectacles, one of the most useful arts on
earth, was discovered." But nobody mentioned the inventor.

[Blue Countach]

Great thread

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - Fashion Firsts

1470 - To hide her pregnancy, Queen Juana of Portugal wore
the first hoop skirt.

***

1874 - Levi Strauss begins selling blue jeans for $13.50
per dozen.

***

1913 - Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel opens a boutique in Deauville,
France. Her chic and comfortable knit suits usher in the
modern era of women's fashion.

***

1916 - Sneakers are first made in America by the U.S. Rubber
Company. They were called Keds.

***

1923 - The U.S. attorney general declares it is legal for
women to wear pants.

***

1930 - Tennis star Rene Lacoste manufactures a tennis shirt
that features an embroidered crocodile. It's believed to be
the first time a designer logo appears on clothing.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - History of Jeans


18th century - American mills begin producing their own
jean. Laborers wear the durable clothing.

***

19th Century - San Francisco dry goods merchant Levi Strauss
produces “waist overalls”—the early name for jeans. They
become a hit with gold miners eager to strike it rich in
California.

In 1886, Strauss adds a brown leather patch on the back of
his waist overalls. The label, which shows a pair of jeans
being pulled between two horses, is still affixed to Levi’s
jeans.

***

1940s - American troops pack their waist overalls when they
travel overseas to fight in World War II. The trend catches
on in Europe. Lee and Wrangler make their own jeans to
compete with Levi’s.

***

1950s - Jeans, no longer called waist overalls, became a
symbol of the teenage rebel, particularly after James Dean
wears them in the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. Some
schools ban jeans.

***

1960s - Jeans dominate college campuses. Students began to
personalize their jeans with paint, embroidery and patches.

***

1980s - Designer jeans, such as Sassoon, Jordache and
Calvin Klein, emerge. Straight-leg, tight-fitting styles
give jeans a new look.

[historylover]

The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality and must live with a character: Peter De Vries.


RANDOM TIDBITS - Marriage Throughout the Ages

In ancient Egypt, a woman's rights and privileges were
equal to that of her husband. After marriage, women held
control of their independence, property and wealth, and
either person could easily get a divorce. For two people to
be considered married, all they had to do was move in with
each other.

***

Marriages in ancient Greece were arranged by parents and
approved by the gods. Women in their early teens were
married to men in their mid-thirties, and a husband had to
buy his new wife from her father. Many couples did not see
each other until after the ceremony, when the bridal veil
was removed. On the night before the wedding, the girl's
hair was cut off and she was bathed in holy water from a
sacred fountain.


***

The Spartans believed that a person's athletic ability
matched their fitness for marriage. Before marrying, a
couple was required to wrestle in public to show their
compatibility. The groom's father chose a bride for his
son. Twelve months after the selection, the couple was
married. During the marriage ceremony, the bride wore a
white robe, a veil, and jewelry given to her by her new
husband's family.

***

Roman brides wore white tunics with orange veils and orange
slippers. Following the ceremony, the groom carried his
bride over the threshold of their new home to symbolize his
ownership of her.

***

Christian church marriages were thought to be made in heaven
and therefore could never be broken. The father of the bride
gave a dowry of land or money to the groom. If the marriage
was unsuccessful, the wife and the dowry were returned to
the father's home, but neither partner was allowed to remarry.

***

Until the 1400s, married couples did not live together in
Japan. They stayed in separate homes, meeting only at night.
The old Japanese word for marriage meant, “slip into the
house by night.”

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - Firsts in America

The first bank established: The Bank of North America,
Philadelphia, 1781.

***

The first cartoon, colored: “The Yellow Kid,” by Richard
Outcault, in New York World, 1895.

***

The first Five and Dime store: Founded by Frank Woolworth,
Utica, N.Y., 1879 (moved to Lancaster, Pa., same year).

***

The first newspaper published over a continuous period: The
Boston News-Letter, April 1704.

***

The first public school: Boston Latin School, Boston, 1635.

***

The first radio station licensed: KDKA, Pittsburgh, Pa.,
Oct. 27, 1920.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Some Native Americans have two names, one of which is never
made public because of the power it would give another
person over them.

***

It is common in parts of West Africa for people to name
their children for the day on which they were born. Sunday
is Awushie, Monday is Adojoa, Tuesday is Abla, Wednesday
is Aku, Thursday is Awo, Friday is Afua, and Saturday is
Ama.

***

In seventeenth-century Europe people made anagrams from
names and believed these words formed from rearranging the
letters would give a clue to a person's characteristics.
Teresa is a teaser, Pat is apt, Greta is great, Mona likes
to moan, and Dora travels on the road.

***

There were tribes in the mountains of northwest Africa
known as anonymi, or people without names. These small,
isolated groups of people were described by Pliny, an
ancient Roman historian.

***

The Ojibway Indians of North America once considered it
dangerous to speak the names of their own husbands and
wives.

***

The people of Indonesia may change their names after they
have suffered some misfortune or have had a serious illness.
They believe a new name will confuse the evil spirits that
brought them grief.

[climactic1]

Historylover, you should change your screen name to Cliff Claven. LoL)

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

There are more than 600 million telephone lines, yet almost
half the world's population has never made a phone call on
a land line. However, more than half the world's population
has made a cell phone call. There are more than 2 billion
cell phones in use.

***

The chance of being born on Leap Day is about 684 out of a
million, or 1 in 1461. Less than 5 million people have
their birthday on Leap Day.

***

Since 1972, some 64 million tons of aluminum cans (about 3
trillion cans) have been produced. Placed end-to-end, they
could stretch to the moon about a thousand times.

***

The world's average school year is 200 days per year. In
the US, it is 180 days; in Sweden 170 days, in Japan it is
243 days.

***

One in ten people in the world live on an island.

***

According to the US Weather Service, their one day forecasts
are accurate more than 75% of the time. They send out 2
million forecasts a year.

[historylover]

Historylover, you should change your screen name to Cliff Claven. LoL)

Useless or useful, they are knowledge.

If I did not know useless movie trivia, I would know very little.
:wave2:

[gunslingingbird]

Until the 1400s, married couples did not live together in
Japan. They stayed in separate homes, meeting only at night.
The old Japanese word for marriage meant, “slip into the
house by night.”
There is a tribe in southwestern China that still does this. They call it a "walking marriage", and the father is not really a factor in raising his own children, which live in the mother's house, with all her family, for the rest of their lives.

Some Native Americans have two names, one of which is never
made public because of the power it would give another
person over them.


Native American identity theft? :dunno:

[historylover]

The safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket: Frank McKinney Hubbard

RANDOM TIDBITS

Coin-operated gaming devices in the late 1800s included
games with large revolving wheels divided into color
segments. Players wagered on which color the wheel would
stop. They're considered the forerunners of modern slot
machines, even though they didn't have reels. The first
recognizably modern three-reel slot was the Liberty Bell,
invented by Charles Fey in San Francisco in 1899. The
machine was so popular that for many years all slot
machines were referred to as bell machines.

***

The bar symbol used on modern slot machines is derived
from a Bell Fruit Gum logo. The gum was dispensed in slots
designed by Herbert Mills in Chicago in 1910, and other
fruit symbols on slots were derived from the gum flavors.

***

Among the most popular early slots were poker games,
although the machines did not usually pay out coins.
Payoffs had to come from the operator. After the intro-
duction of the Liberty Bell, poker-based slots waned in
popularity, until the invention of video poker in the 1970s.

***

The game of 21 got its common nickname, blackjack, from a
practice in illegal casinos in the early 1900s. Some
casinos paid a bonus if a two-card 21 was made up of an
ace and jack of spades. Others paid bonuses if an ace of
spades was accompanied by a jack of either clubs or spades.
The black jack was the key to the bonus, and became the
name of the game.

***

Horizontal gaming wheels, such as those used in roulette,
were invented in England in 1720 for a game called roly-
poly. Roly-poly was similar to roulette, except there were
no numbers on the wheel. There were alternating white
spaces and black spaces, along with a "bar black" space
and a "bar white" space. The "bar" spaces were the
equivalents of zero and double-zero -- if the ball landed
in either space, bets on black or white lost. Roly-poly
was banned in England in 1745, but the horizontal wheel
traveled well. By 1796, modern roulette was being played
in France.

***

The kings in decks of playing cards represent real leaders
and conquerors from history, although not all had the title
of king. The deck we use today is based on cards designed
in 15th-century France. The king of spades represents the
Biblical King David, the king of clubs represents Alexander
the Great, the king of hearts represents Charlemagne and
the king of diamonds represents Julius Caesar.

[hiropro]

The energy in an average one day hurricane could power the United States for three years.




The fastest wind speed ever recorded is 318 mph in one of the May 3, 1999 tornadoes to hit Oklahoma.



Eighty-five percent of the people killed by lightning are male.



The longest official city name in the world is: Krungthep Mahanakhon Amorn Rattanakosin Mahintara Yudthaya Mahadilok Pohp Noparat Rajathanee Bureerom Udomrajniwes Mahasatarn Amorn Pimarn Avaltarnsatit Sakatattiya Visanukram Prasit. It is the official name of Bangkok, Thailand.

[hiropro]

The saying 'Mind your P's and Q's' comes from the time when alcoholic beverages were served/sold in Pints and Quarts. Thus, to mind your P's and Q's meant to be careful how much you drank.


When reading horizontally from Shakespeare's original published copy of Hamlet, the furthest left hand side reads 'I am a homosexual' in the last 14 lines of the book.



Lip stick was said to have been invented in the Eygptian times for women that specialized in oral sex. They wanted their lips to look more inviting.



In Michigan, it is illegal to chain an alligator to a fire hydrant.

[assholebythedoor]

There is an Estimated 500 Billion tons of gold to still be in the ocean.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS - Remote Places

The Badlands is a rugged and barren region in southwestern
South Dakota and northwestern Nebraska. The soil there is
too poor to farm.

***

The high seas is the area beyond three miles from any
nation's territory, where no country has authority. Modern
pirates still sail on these waters.

***

The entire region of gold fields in northwestern Canada
extending to Alaska is the Klondike. Gold was discovered
there in the 1890s.

***

Reindeer roam in a region known as Lapland above the Arctic
Circle that extends through the northern parts of Sweden,
Norway, and Finland.

***

Pole of Inaccessibility: This point on Antarctica is the
farthest inland from all the seas that surround the
continent.

***

Siberia is a vast area of northern Asia. Parts of Siberia are
permanently frozen, and the average winter temperature is
–50°F. It has long been a place for outcast, exiles, and
Russian and Soviet prisoners.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

According to the National Christmas Tree Association,
Americans buy 37.1 million real Christmas trees each year;
25 percent of them are from the nation's 5,000 choose-and-
cut farms.

***

Candy canes began as straight white sticks of sugar candy
used to decorated the Christmas trees. A choirmaster at
Cologne Cathedral decided have the ends bent to depict a
shepherd's crook and he would pass them out to the children
to keep them quiet during the services. It wasn't until
about the 20th century that candy canes acquired their red
stripes.

***

Child singer Jimmy Boyd was 12 years and 11 months old when
he sang the Christmas favorite, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa
Claus." The song hit the top of the pop charts.

***

Electric Christmas tree lights were first used in 1895. The
idea for using electric Christmas lights came from an
American, Ralph E. Morris. The new lights proved safer than
the traditional candles.

***

Frustrated at the lack of interest in his new toy invention,
Charles Pajeau hired several midgets, dressed them in elf
costumes, and had them play with "Tinker Toys" in a display
window at a Chicago department store during the Christmas
season in 1914. This publicity stunt made the construction
toy an instant hit. A year later, over a million sets of
Tinker Toys had been sold.

***

The real St. Nicholas lived in Turkey, where he was bishop
of the town of Myra, in the early 4th century. It was the
Dutch who first made him into a Christmas gift-giver, and
Dutch settlers brought him to America where his name
eventually became the familiar Santa Claus.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

There are two kinds of water; salt water and freshwater.
Salt water contains great amounts of salt, whereas fresh-
water has a dissolved salt concentration of less than 1%.
Only freshwater can be applied as drinking water.

***

In a 100-year period, a water molecule spends 98 years in
the ocean, 20 months as ice, about 2 weeks in lakes and
rivers, and less than a week in the atmosphere.

***

If water changes phase its physical appearance changes due
to parting of water molecules. In the solid phase the water
molecules are close together and in the gaseous phase they
are the furthest apart.

***

Frozen water is 9% lighter than water, which is why ice
floats on water.

***

It doesn't take much salt to make water "salty." If one-
thousandth (or more) of the weight of water is from salt,
then the water is "saline."

***

A person can live about a month without food, but only
about a week without water. If a human does not absorb
enough water dehydration is the result.

[historylover]

War does not determine who is right - only who is left.: Bertrand Russell

RANDOM TIDBITS

Japan and China were already engaged in a war before the
outbreak of World War II. China was also involved in a
civil war and spent most of World War II dealing with
internal conflicts and repelling the advances of the
Japanese.

***

Lasting from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945,
the Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous
battle of World War II. It pitted Nazi U-boats against
North American convoys as Germany attempted to cut off
Britain's vital lifeline to North America.

***

Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp, and was
formed from an empty munitions factory in March 1933.
According to a report made by the International Tracing
Service at Arolson, Germany in 1977, there were 31,951
deaths at the main Dachau camp during its twelve year
existence. Estimates for the number of deaths at Dachau,
however, vary widely.

***

Having risen to power with the support of Italy and Germany,
the Franco government of Spain decided to send "volunteers"
to aid Germany in its attack on the Soviet Union in the
form of Division Azul (Blue Division). Spain, however, did
not become directly involved in the war and remained a
neutral power until the 1980s.

***

After World War II, Germany was divided into four zones of
occupation. The American, British and French zones were
grouped together as West Germany, and the Soviet zone became
East Germany.

***

With approximately 27 million total fatalities (both
military and civilian), the Soviet Union lost the most
lives during World War II. China was next with approximately
11 million total fatalities, followed by Germany with
approximately 7 million total fatalities.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

There are close to 4,000 known species of frogs, including
toads. They range in size from less than half an inch to
nearly a foot long and come in a rainbow of colors and
patterns.

***

Adult frogs are carnivorous and will eat just about anything
smaller than themselves, including insects, worms and even
other frogs.

***

The earliest known frog (Vieraella herbsti) appeared during
the late Jurassic period, about 190 million years ago. The
specimens that have been found in Arizona shows that the
skeletal shape and body plan of the frog has remained
almost unchanged.

***

The biggest frog is the appropriately named Goliath frog
(Conraua goliath) of Cameroon. They reach nearly a foot and
weigh as much as 7 lbs. The smallest frog is the Gold frog
(Psyllophryne Didactyla) of Brazil. They grow to only 3/8
inch.

***

Equally small is the Eleutherodactylus iberia discovered
only in 1996 in Monte Iberia, Cuba. (It doesn't even have
a common name yet.) Other small frogs are poison frogs.
They measure less than 1/2 inch.

***

Recently scientists have noticed a marked decline in the
numbers of frogs and other amphibians around the world.
Some species are believed to have become extinct within
the past fifty years. Causes for the decline include ozone
depletion, pollution, habitat loss, introduction of new
predators, disease and even a fungus.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Beer has been a popular beverage for a long time. Babylonian
clay tablets show detailed recipes of beer making in 4300
BC. Beer was also brewed by the ancient Chinese, Assyrians
and Incas. An Egyptian text of 1600 BC gives 100 medical
prescriptions using beer. A few years ago, the New Castle
Brewery in England brewed 1,000 bottles of Tutankhamun Ale
from a 3,200-year old recipe found in the sun temple of
Queen Nefertiti.

***

Brewing is the process of changing water and grain into
beer through a yeast catalyst. The quality of the water is
extremely important. Hard water produce a bitter ale, soft
water produce bitter lager. Barley or hops, or a combination
of them, is used for the grain. Getting dry grain ready for
fermentation is called malting. The grain is steeped in
water until it sprouts. The sprouting or germination is not
allowed to end naturally but is interrupted either by drying
or roasting in kilns.

***

The best taste usually is acquired at an alcohol contents of
4.7% ethanol per volume. Less than that results in a beer
with a bland taste. More than that and the higher alcohols
(butanol, pentanol etc) become overpowering and spoils the
taste. The strongest beer type by alcohol content is
doppelbock, which is usually 8%-10% ethanol by its volume
content. The strongest beer brand in production is German
"Eisbock", with some 14% ethanol by volume.

***

The oldest brewery in Munich, the Augustiner brewery, was
founded in 1294, when, on the order of the bishop of
Freising, an Augustinian monastery was established at the
Haberfeld, just outside the gates of the city. Munich was
famous for its breweries operated by monks.

***

Ice beer is produced by freezing the brew and filtering the
ice crystals, increasing the alcohol content. This process
was already known in the Middle Ages to "cold-distil"
brandy from wine, and the ancient Chinese produced rice
hooch that way. The Canadians adopted the cold-distillation
method for ice beer.

***

Commercial beer making was established in 1200 AD in
present-day Germany. In 1506, the German Purity Law is
issued, specifying that beer ingredients must only be
water, barley, wheat and hops. Bottling of beer started
in 1605. Currently worldwide, 20,000 brands of beer are
brewed in 180 styles, from ales, lagers, pilsner and stouts
to bitters, cream ales and iced beer.

[flim_flam]

Here's something trivial: this is my 500th post on Freeones!

[historylover]

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved: Franklin D. Roosevelt


RANDOM TIDBITS

Fireworks were made in China as early as the 11th century.
The Chinese used their pyrotechnic mixtures for war rockets
and explosives.

***

Uncle Sam was first popularized during the War of 1812,
when the term appeared on supply containers. Believe it or
not, the U. S. Congress didn't adopt him as a national
symbol until 1961.

***

Not all members of the Continental Congress supported a
formal Declaration of Independence, but those who did were
passionate about it. One representative rode 80 miles by
horseback to reach Philadelphia and break a tie in support
of independence.

***

The first two versions of the Liberty Bell were defective
and had to be melted down and recast. The third version
rang every Fourth of July from 1778 to 1835, when,
according to tradition, it cracked as it was being tolled
for the death of Chief Justice John Marshall.

***

The American national anthem, the "Star-Spangled Banner,"
is set to the tune of an English drinking song ("To
Anacreon in Heaven").

***

The iron framework of the Statue of Liberty was devised by
French engineer Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, who also built
the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Kids ages 6 and under spend as much time in front of a TV
or computer screen as they do outside.

***

The average American child sees about 200,000 acts of
violence on TV by age 18.

***

On average, girls ages 12 to 17 watch 19 hours, 49 minutes
of TV each week. Boys watch 20 hours, 14 minutes.

***

The average household has 2.4 TV sets. 98% of all U.S.
households own at least one set. 79% have more than one TV
set.

***

56% of children ages 8 to 16 have a TV in their bedroom;
36% of kids ages 6 and under do.

***

40% of Americans always or often watch television while
eating dinner.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The celebration of the new year is the oldest of all
holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about
4000 years ago. In the years around 2000 BC, the Babylonian
New Year began with the first New Moon (actually the first
visible cresent) after the Vernal Equinox (first day of
spring).

***

The tradition of making New Year's resolutions dates back
to the early Babylonians. Their most popular resolution was
to return borrowed farm equipment.

***

The tradition of using a baby to signify the new year was
begun in Greece around 600 BC. It was their tradition at
that time to celebrate their god of wine, Dionysus, by
parading a baby in a basket, representing the annual
rebirth of that god as the spirit of fertility. Early
Egyptians also used a baby as a symbol of rebirth.

***

Traditionally, it was thought that one could affect the
luck they would have throughout the coming year by what
they did or ate on the first day of the year. For that
reason, it has become common for folks to celebrate the
first few minutes of a brand new year in the company of
family and friends.

***

Traditional New Year foods are also thought to bring luck.
Many cultures believe that anything in the shape of a ring
is good luck, because it symbolizes "coming full circle,"
completing a year's cycle. For that reason, the Dutch
believe that eating donuts on New Year's Day will bring
good fortune.

***

The old Scotch tune often sung at midnight, "Auld Lang
Syne," literally means "old long ago," or simply, "the
good old days. It was written by Robert Burns in the 1700's,
and was first published in 1796 after Burns' death. Early
variations of the song were sung prior to 1700 and inspired
Burns to produce the modern rendition.

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The now famous tutu was first worn by Italian dancer
Virginie Zucchi in 1885 at the Imperial Theatre in St.
Petersburg, Russia. The tutu was actually designed several
years earlier by French painter Eugene Lami, in the form of
a mid-calf skirt.

***

The waltz is named for the German word "waltzen," meaning
"revolve." This dance consists of rotating, flowing motions
performed in triple time with smooth and even steps. The
variations are the rapid Viennese waltz and the slower,
dipping Boston waltz.

***

The earliest known dance marathon took place in England in
1364. These marathons, known as "derbies," reached their
height in the Depression era of the 1930s, when dancers
went to great lenghts to compete for monetary prizes. The
longest recorded marathon lasted 22 weeks, three days.

***

The fox-trot, which alternates long and short steps in
quadruple time, was developed in the US in 1912. It was
named in New York City in 1914 for music writer Harry Fox
(1882-1959).

***

Break-dancing, usually performed to rap or hip-hop music,
originated in the south Bronx, New York, in the late 1970s.
Moves such as head-spinning or moon-walking could be
performed individually or in competition.

***

The Samba is Brazil's national dance. The Carnival in Rio
de Janeiro made Samba famous throughout the world.

[historylover]

It isn't enough for your heart to break because everybody's heart is broken now: Allen Ginsberg

RANDOM TIDBITS

Poet and novelist Jack Kerouac coined the term "Beat" in
the late 1940s, but was not until the 1950s that it would
become a slang term symbolizing a literary movement by
writers such as Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William
Burroughs. The "Beat" movement rejected the social
constraints of the 1950s and reflected a growing
disillusionment with the "establishment" and traditional
American values.

***

Ben Jonson was named the first poet laureate of England in
1616. The title, however, did not become an official royal
office until 1668, when John Dryden assumed the honored
post. Since that time, the office has been awarded for
life. The poet laureate is responsible for composing poems
for court and national occasions.

***

Maxwell Anderson, one of the most important American
playwrights of the early 20th century, wrote his plays in
verse in an attempt to return tragic poetry to the American
stage. He said that he was tired of "plays in prose that
never lifted from the ground."

***

The very first Nobel Prize in Literature (1901) was awarded
to the French poet and philosopher Sully Prudhomme, author
of Stances et Poemes (1865).

***

Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and James Weldon Johnson
were all poets of the Harlem Renaissance, an unprecedented
outburst of creative activity among African Americans in
all fields of art which occurred in New York City between
1920 and 1930.

***

Eugene O'Neill wrote three Pulitzer Prize-winning plays
during the 1920s: Beyond the Horizon (1920), Anna Christie
(1922), and Strange Interlude (1928).

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The first barbecuers may well have been prehistoric cavemen.
Anthropologists say they may have started roasting meat
some 1.4 million years ago.Language development didn't occur
until 200,000 B.C. or later.Other sources say this originated
in the Caribbean where the native Indians used wood gratings
over a slow fire to cook strips of meat.

***

Lexington, North Carolina is known as the Barbecue Capital
of the World. October is Barbecue Month there, with a month-
long Annual Barbecue Festival. The city's first barbecue
restaurant opened in 1919; there are currently over 20
barbecue restaurants.

***

People in the Northeast U.S. are the heaviest barbecuers in
the nation. The next most frequent barbecues are in the
North Central region of the U.S., followed by the South and
then the Western U.S.

***

The word "barbecue" may have come from the French phrase
"barbe a queue" (from whiskers to tail- The term refers to
the original method in which a whole animal was cooked on
a spit over an open fire), or the Taino Indian word for
their method of cooking fish over a pit of coals (barbacoa).
Another source says that roast mutton in Romanian
translates into "barbec."

***

Three out of four American households own a grill and they
use it on average of five times per month.

***

The word steak is derived from an old Saxon word, steik,
meaning meat on a stick. The Saxons and Jutes, who lived in
what is now Denmark, brought along their skills as cattlemen
when they conquered Great Britain. They favored beef cooked
on a pointed stick over a campfire.

[historylover]

Folks are looking at their closets as a source of revenue - LIZ PIERCE, a senior analyst with Roth Capital Partners, on resale and thrift stores profiting from the recession.


RANDOM TIDBITS - Railroads

In 1797, the steam locomotive is invented in England. Also
in England, in 1823, the first public railway in the world
opens.

***

In 1833, Andrew Jackson travels from Baltimore to Ellicott's
Mills, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to ride the
rails.

***

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signs the Pacific
Railroad Act for the construction of the transcontinental
railroad that will ultimately link California with the rest
of the nation.

***

In 1865, the “golden age” of railroads begins. For nearly
half a century, no other mode of transportation challenges
railroads. During these years, the rail network grows from
35,000 to a peak of 254,000 miles in 1916.

***

In 1869, on May 10, at Promontory, in the Utah Territory,
the “Golden Spike” joins the Union Pacific and Central
Pacific railroads, marking completion of the first
transcontinental railroad.

***

Between 1900–1940, by the eve of World War II, automobiles,
large buses, trucks, planes, and pipelines—supported by
government subsidies and less burdened by regulation than
railroads—have become full-fledged competitors to railroads.