(updated
Little-known facts and other trivia...
(from a forgotten Internet source)
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet (was developed by Western Union to Test telex/twx communications).
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel 1 to mobile services (two-way radios in taxicabs, for instance) but did not re-number the other channel assignments. That is why your TV set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1.
The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable".
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them look like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
An ostrich's eye is bigger that its brain.
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader's lines and didn't know that he was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.
The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl.
The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League Baseball all-star Game.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
35% of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.
The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles per year.
Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.
Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.
Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.
Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California.
Elephants can't jump. Every other mammal can.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
Internationally, Baywatch is the most popular TV show in history.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet.
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
The strongest muscle in the body is the TONGUE.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza everyday.
Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
Did you know that you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider?
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
Polar bears are left-handed.
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds, that makes the catfish rank #1 for animal having the most taste buds.
The flea can jump 350 times its body length. That is like a human jumping the length of a football field. (Do the math on this one. If the average human is something close to six feet and he or she can jump 350 times his or her body length, then it appears that a human would be able to jump seven football fields!)
A cockroach will live nine days without its head, before it starves to death.
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
Butterflies taste with their feet.
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
A cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
Starfishes haven't got brains.
Life in the 1500's...
(from a forgotten Internet source)
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and were still smelling pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the b.o. Baths equaled a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually loose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water".
Houses had thatched roofs. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the pets - dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats and bugs - lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs.".
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor". The wealthy had slate floors which would get slippery in the winter when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed at the entry way, hence a "thresh hold".
They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They mostly ate vegetables and didn't get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight, and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been in there for a month. Hence the rhyme: peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the "upper crust".
Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that happened. When company came over, they would bring out some bacon and hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth that a man "could really bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests, so they would all sit around and "chew the fat."
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food. This happened most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes... for 400 years. Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers - a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off wormy trenchers, they would get "trench mouth."
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock drinkers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and at and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake".
England is old and small and they started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a house and re-use the grave. In reopening these coffins, one out of twenty-five coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive!. So they thought they would tie a string on their wrist and lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night - "on the graveyard shift" - to listen for the bell. Some still alive were "saved by the bell". Others were "dead ringers".
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