Trivia
Here's some pieces of knowledge that you may never need to know, but are mildly interesting anyway:
When Table Mountain in South Africa is covered in cloud, the locals call it the Tablecloth. According to local tradition, a retired pirate met the devil while climbing Table Mountain. To save his soul, the pirate challenged the devil to a smoking contest and they have been at it ever since. The smoke forms the Tablecloth.
The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown differently during times of peace or war. A portion of the flag is blue, while the other is red. The blue portion is flown on top in time of peace and the red portion is flown in war time.
An albatross can sleep while it flies. It apparently dozes while cruising at 25 mph.
Until the time of Michelangelo, many sculptors colored their statues, and most from ancient Greece and Rome at one time had been painted or "polychromed." Over the course of years, rain washed the colors off the marble.
The average number of eggs laid by the female American Oyster per year is 500 million. Usually only one oyster out of the bunch reaches maturity.
Every year, surgical tools are left in approximately 1,500 patients in the USA. Fatter patients are more prone to having a surgical tool left inside of them due to the additional amount of space in their bodies.
A rat can last longer without water than a camel can.
All clams start out as males; some decide to become females at some point in their lives.
The world's smallest winged insect, the Tanzanian parasitic wasp, is smaller than the eye of a housefly.
There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth.
A "Blue Moon" is the second full moon in a calendar month (it is rarely blue).
On average women say 7,000 words per day. Men manage just over 2000.
The Hoover Dam was built to last 2,000 years. The concrete in it will not even be fully cured for another 500 years.
Strict Puritan laws had their origins from practical reasons. Smoking was banned - farmers would raise badly needed food crops instead of tobacco. Cooking was banned on Sundays - to prevent house fires during the long hours the family was at church. Young men were banned from hunting - to prevent weapons from falling into Indian hands.
In its entire lifetime, the average worker bee produces 1/12th teaspoon of honey.
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.
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.
All pet hamsters are descended from a single female wild golden hamster found with a litter of 12 young in Syria in 1930.
An adult lion's roar can be heard up to five miles away, and warns off intruders or reunites scattered members of the pride.
The size of a raindrop is around 0.5 mm - 2.5 mm, and they fall from the sky on average 7 metres per second.
The vocabulary of the average person consists of 5,000 to 6,000 words.
The longest name in the Bible Mahershalalbaz (Isaiah 8:1).
There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different color combinations possible on a Rubik's Cube.
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. The world record, in competitive conditions, grew progressively lower and now stands at 16.5 seconds.
Aztec emperor Montezuma drank 50 golden goblets of hot chocolate every day. It was thick, dyed red and flavored with chili peppers.
A typical bed usually houses over 6 billion dust mites.
A diamond will not dissolve in acid. The only thing that can destroy it is intense heat.
A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court.
Absolutely pure gold is so soft that it can be molded with the hands.
An ounce of gold can be stretched into a wire 50 miles long.
Amazon ants (red ants found in the western U.S.) steal the larvae of other ants to keep as slaves. The slave ants build homes for and feed the Amazon ants, who cannot do anything but fight. They depend completely on their slaves for survival.
Ants don't sleep.
Adjusting for inflation, Cleopatra, 1963, is the most expensive movie ever made to date (mid-1999). Its budget of $44 million is equivalent to 270 million 1999 dollars.
In 1962, the Mashed Potato, the Loco-Motion, the Frug, the Monkey, and the Funky Chicken were popular dances.
In 1969, Midnight Cowboy became the first and only X-rated production to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. (Its rating has since been changed to R.)
Canada is an American Indian word meaning 'Big Village'.
French was the official language of England for over 600 years.
Christmas became a national holiday in the US in 1890.
In England and the American colonies they year 1752 only had 354 days. In that year, the type of calendar was changed, and 11 days were lost.
In the Holocaust between 5.1 and 6 million of Europe's 10 million Jews were killed. An additional 6 million 'unwanted' people were also executed, including more than half of Poland's educated populace.
Many of Rome's most ambitious emperors idolized Alexander the Great. When Julius Caesar was a 33 year-old general in Spain, he wept when he saw a statue of Alexander, lamenting that he had accomplished nothing, while Alexander had conquered the whole world by his age. The schizophrenic emperor Caligula built a bridge of wooden boats across the Bay of Naples and rode back and forth across it on a horse, wearing armor he stole from Alexander's tomb. Emperor Caracalla set out to conquer the same eastern lands Alexander had conquered, and made a great show of visiting his grave in Alexandria, Egypt.
Theodore Roosevelt was the only U.S. president to deliver an inaugural address without using the word "I". Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower tied for second place, using "I" only once in their inaugural addresses.
Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith. He set out to invent a game to occupy students between the football and baseball seasons.
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
Colgate claims "Tooth Fairy" as a registered trademark.
A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.
If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.
Chocolate contains phenylethylamine (PEA), a natural substance that is reputed to stimulate the same reaction in the body as falling in love.
Night~
When Table Mountain in South Africa is covered in cloud, the locals call it the Tablecloth. According to local tradition, a retired pirate met the devil while climbing Table Mountain. To save his soul, the pirate challenged the devil to a smoking contest and they have been at it ever since. The smoke forms the Tablecloth.
The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown differently during times of peace or war. A portion of the flag is blue, while the other is red. The blue portion is flown on top in time of peace and the red portion is flown in war time.
An albatross can sleep while it flies. It apparently dozes while cruising at 25 mph.
Until the time of Michelangelo, many sculptors colored their statues, and most from ancient Greece and Rome at one time had been painted or "polychromed." Over the course of years, rain washed the colors off the marble.
The average number of eggs laid by the female American Oyster per year is 500 million. Usually only one oyster out of the bunch reaches maturity.
Every year, surgical tools are left in approximately 1,500 patients in the USA. Fatter patients are more prone to having a surgical tool left inside of them due to the additional amount of space in their bodies.
A rat can last longer without water than a camel can.
All clams start out as males; some decide to become females at some point in their lives.
The world's smallest winged insect, the Tanzanian parasitic wasp, is smaller than the eye of a housefly.
There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth.
A "Blue Moon" is the second full moon in a calendar month (it is rarely blue).
On average women say 7,000 words per day. Men manage just over 2000.
The Hoover Dam was built to last 2,000 years. The concrete in it will not even be fully cured for another 500 years.
Strict Puritan laws had their origins from practical reasons. Smoking was banned - farmers would raise badly needed food crops instead of tobacco. Cooking was banned on Sundays - to prevent house fires during the long hours the family was at church. Young men were banned from hunting - to prevent weapons from falling into Indian hands.
In its entire lifetime, the average worker bee produces 1/12th teaspoon of honey.
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.
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.
All pet hamsters are descended from a single female wild golden hamster found with a litter of 12 young in Syria in 1930.
An adult lion's roar can be heard up to five miles away, and warns off intruders or reunites scattered members of the pride.
The size of a raindrop is around 0.5 mm - 2.5 mm, and they fall from the sky on average 7 metres per second.
The vocabulary of the average person consists of 5,000 to 6,000 words.
The longest name in the Bible Mahershalalbaz (Isaiah 8:1).
There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different color combinations possible on a Rubik's Cube.
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. The world record, in competitive conditions, grew progressively lower and now stands at 16.5 seconds.
Aztec emperor Montezuma drank 50 golden goblets of hot chocolate every day. It was thick, dyed red and flavored with chili peppers.
A typical bed usually houses over 6 billion dust mites.
A diamond will not dissolve in acid. The only thing that can destroy it is intense heat.
A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court.
Absolutely pure gold is so soft that it can be molded with the hands.
An ounce of gold can be stretched into a wire 50 miles long.
Amazon ants (red ants found in the western U.S.) steal the larvae of other ants to keep as slaves. The slave ants build homes for and feed the Amazon ants, who cannot do anything but fight. They depend completely on their slaves for survival.
Ants don't sleep.
Adjusting for inflation, Cleopatra, 1963, is the most expensive movie ever made to date (mid-1999). Its budget of $44 million is equivalent to 270 million 1999 dollars.
In 1962, the Mashed Potato, the Loco-Motion, the Frug, the Monkey, and the Funky Chicken were popular dances.
In 1969, Midnight Cowboy became the first and only X-rated production to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. (Its rating has since been changed to R.)
Canada is an American Indian word meaning 'Big Village'.
French was the official language of England for over 600 years.
Christmas became a national holiday in the US in 1890.
In England and the American colonies they year 1752 only had 354 days. In that year, the type of calendar was changed, and 11 days were lost.
In the Holocaust between 5.1 and 6 million of Europe's 10 million Jews were killed. An additional 6 million 'unwanted' people were also executed, including more than half of Poland's educated populace.
Many of Rome's most ambitious emperors idolized Alexander the Great. When Julius Caesar was a 33 year-old general in Spain, he wept when he saw a statue of Alexander, lamenting that he had accomplished nothing, while Alexander had conquered the whole world by his age. The schizophrenic emperor Caligula built a bridge of wooden boats across the Bay of Naples and rode back and forth across it on a horse, wearing armor he stole from Alexander's tomb. Emperor Caracalla set out to conquer the same eastern lands Alexander had conquered, and made a great show of visiting his grave in Alexandria, Egypt.
Theodore Roosevelt was the only U.S. president to deliver an inaugural address without using the word "I". Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower tied for second place, using "I" only once in their inaugural addresses.
Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith. He set out to invent a game to occupy students between the football and baseball seasons.
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
Colgate claims "Tooth Fairy" as a registered trademark.
A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.
If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.
Chocolate contains phenylethylamine (PEA), a natural substance that is reputed to stimulate the same reaction in the body as falling in love.
Night~
posted by David | 12:57 am
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