PHIL BRODIE BAND'S FUN PAGE . . ENJOY
for February 2016
LOTS OF USELESS INFORMATION !!
ONE EVERY MONTH
unless PC is in a mood
If you would like to contribute
to this page I am only an email away.
You Know . . . ???
Lane, near Holborn Viaduct, London, didnt get its name due to any association
with poultry, but because it was the only street to be licensed for prostitution
in medieval times.
* Whalebone isn't
made of whale bone . . . it is in fact baleen, a substance found at the back of
a whale's mouth that filters plankton and enables it to eat. It looks like bone,
but isn't: it's actually keratin, the same stuff that makes up your hair and fingernails.
Most of Santas reindeer have male sounding names, such as Dasher, Blitzen,
Prancer, Comet, and Cupid. However, male reindeers shed their antlers before Christmas,
so ALL the reindeer pulling Santas sleigh are female.
* The sandwich wasn't invented by the
Earl of Sandwich . . . although he did provide the name - before him, it was just
called 'bread and cheese' or 'bread and meat'. But the oldest documented sandwich
was made in the 1st century BC by a rabbi called Hillel the Elder and consisted
of lamb, horseradish and chutney. Variants of the 'Hillel sandwich' are still
eaten by Jews today to celebrate the "Festival of Passover"
The tradition of bobbing for apples dates back to the Roman invasion of Britain,
when the conquering army merged their own celebrations with traditional Celtic
festivals. The Romans brought with them the apple tree, a representation of the
goddess of fruit trees, Pomona. When an apple is sliced in half, the seeds form
a pentagram-like shape, and it is thought that the manifestation of such a symbol
meant that the apple could be used to determine marriages during this time of
year. From this belief comes the game bobbing for apples.
* In whipcracking, the crack a whip makes
is produced when a section of the whip moves faster than the speed of sound creating
a sonic boom. The creation of the sonic boom was confirmed in 1958 by analyzing
the high-speed shadow photography taken in 1927. Recently, an additional, purely
geometrical factor was recognized: the tip of the whip moves twice as fast at
the loop of the whip, just like the top of a car's wheel moves twice as fast as
the car itself.
* A single Ragweed plant
produces about a billion grains of pollen per season; the pollen transported on
the wind, causes around half of all cases of pollen-associated allergic rhinitis
in North America, where ragweeds are most abundant and diverse.
You cannot work in Antarctica unless your wisdom teeth and appendix are
removed. Their are no surgeries at any of the stations in Antarctica, so you should
have your wisdom teeth and appendix removed even if they're absolutely healthy
* Automatic writing method used in the Ouija
board and similar methods of mediumistic spirit writing have been practiced in
ancient India, China, Greece, Rome, and medieval Europe. For hundreds of years
they were known as "Talking Boards". In 1890 businessman Elijah Bond
had the idea to patent his "Talking Board", and market it as a parlour
game. William Fuld took over the talking board production, and in 1901, he started
production of his own boards with the A to Z, 0-9, Yes & No, and Good Bye,
under the name "Ouija". William Fuld claimed he learned the name "Ouija"
from using the board itself, and that it was an ancient Egyptian word meaning
* The Curies, are a family of winners: Marie
Curie and her family are the recipients of five Nobel Prizes. Marie won two, her
husband, Pierre Curie, won one. Her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, won the
Chemistry Prize in 1935 with her husband. Her second daughter was also the director
of UNICEF when it won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965
The fastest convicted speeder in the UK was Daniel
Nicks, convicted of 175 mph/282 km/h, on a Honda Fireblade motorcycle in 2000.
He received six weeks in jail and was banned from driving for two full years.
The fastest UK speeder in a car was Timothy Brady, caught driving a 3.6-litre
Porsche 911 Turbo at 172 mph/277 km/h on the A420 in Oxfordshire in January 2007
and was jailed for 10 weeks and banned from driving for 3 years. The most expensive
speeding ticket ever given is believed to be the one given to Jussi Salonoja in
Helsinki, Finland, in 2003. Salonoja, the 27-year-old heir to a company in the
meat-industry, was fined 170,000 euros for driving 80 km/h in a 40 km/h zone.
Great Britain's earliest conviction of speeding, was Walter Arnold of East Peckham,
Kent, who on January 28th 1896 was fined for speeding at 8 mph/13 km/h in a 2
mph/3.2 km/h zone. He was fined 1 shilling plus costs.
* The Adventures of Tintin, a series of
comic albums created by Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, who wrote under the pen
name Hergé. The series first appeared in French on January 10th 1929 and
was one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. By 2007, the
centenary of Hergé's birth, Tintin had been published in more than 70 languages
with sales of more than 200 million copies. Also in the wider art world, both
Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein have claimed Hergé as one of their most
* In a study of
200,000 ostriches over a period of 80 years, no one reported a single case where
an ostrich buried its head in the sand.
in school, Bill Gates snuck into the class schedule program and altered it so
he was to be the only guy in a class full of girls
The largest animal ever known to have lived on Earth, the Blue Whale, have tongues
that can weigh as much as an elephant and their hearts as much as an automobile,
and at certain times of the year, a single adult blue whale consumes about 4 tons
of krill a day.
* For thousands of years,
until 1883, hemp was the worlds largest agricultural crop, from which the
majority of fiber, fabric, soap, lighting oil, paper, incense, and medicines were
produced. In addition, it was a primary source of essential food oil and protein
for humans and animals. Hemp seeds contain all the essential amino acids necessary
for health. The oil from hemp seeds has the highest percentage of essential fatty
acids and the lowest percentage of saturated fats. An
acre of hemp produces more paper than an acre of trees. Paper made from hemp lasts
for centuries, compared to 25-80 years for paper made from wood pulp. The US Declaration
of Independence was written on hemp paper.
* Back in the mists of time, the Celtics
celebrated New Year's Day on November 1st. This large festival lasted three days,
and the people paraded around in costumes made from the skins and heads of their
animals. It marked the end of the "Season of the Sun" and the beginning
of the "Season of Darkness and Cold". On their New Year's Eve, October
31st, it was believed that Samhain, the Lord of the Dead, summoned all the dead
people, who would take different forms, with the evil spirits taking the form
of animals, especially cats. On this night the Celtic priests would meet on a
hilltop in a sacred Oak Forest where they would light new fires, offer sacrifices
of crops and animals, and dance the night away. In the morning the Druids would
give a burning coal from their fires to each family, to start their fires that
would heat their homes in the season of darkness and protect them from the evil
spirits. The festival was named after Samhain, and honored both, the sun god and
* In 2010 a house set on fire
once every 82 seconds in the US of A and sadly 2,640 people died in those fires
Cola sells its soft drink to more countries around the world than any other company.
Currently, there are only two countries where Coca Cola cannot be bought
(well not officially anyway!), that is
Cuba, where it has been banned from selling Coca Cola since 1962 after
the Cuban Revolution, when Fidel Castro's government began seizing private assets
and in North Korea where people have not been able to buy the soft drink since
the Korean War in 1950. Notably, Cuba was one of the first countries
outside the US where it did business, opening operations there in 1906. The Coca
Cola company has never operated in North Korea.
* In ancient Egypt the cat was central to
their religion and was considered to be sacred. Many animals in Egypt were linked
to gods and goddesses, but only the cat was considered to be semi-divine in its
own right. If the household cat died, the whole family would go into mourning
and shave off their eyebrows and the cat would be mummified, wrapped in fine linen
and buried along with jewellery and other grave goods which were normally only
the preserve of wealthy people.
A human body is comprised of 100 thousand billion cells, inside
each cell there is a nucleus, in which our DNA resides. The DNA contained in the
nucleus of a human cell is two yards long. So, inside each human body there are
125 billion miles of DNA!
* The death-head
hawk moth, common in Europe and Africa, derives it's name from the fancied facsimile
of a human skull on the upper surface of the body, but this rather large moth
produces frighteningly loud chirping and squawking noises when it feels threatened.
southern Germany has 3 unusual cities ... the city of Freudenstadt is built in
form of the board game Nine Men's Morris, also it has the largest market square
in Germany; the city of Karlsruhe where the roads follow the layout of a hand-held
fan with the castle being at the juncture and the city of Mannheim with its streets
and avenues laid out in a grid pattern, just like a chessboard hence it's nickname
of Squares", and this is where the world's first bicycle was built by Karl
Freiherr von Drais in 1817.
professional baseball outfielder and pitcher, Babe Ruth, a larger-than-life figure
in the "Roaring Twenties", during games he kept a wet cabbage leaf under
his cap to keep cool. He used to change it every 2 innings.
Stairs in the home can be one of the most dangerous places for anyone, not just
the elderly, handicapped and young children. Incidents related to stairs are only
second to automobile crashes as the major cause of unintended injuries. The two
steps at the top and the two at the bottom are the four most dangerous steps in
a stair case .
* Noke is a culinary
term used by the Maori of New Zealand to refer to earthworms, some types of native
worms are local delicacies. According to Maori legend, the trickster Maui once
transformed himself into a Noke Worm in order to crawl into the womb of the underworld
goddess and gain everlasting life.
* The average human brain weighs 3 pounds,
but it consumes 25% of bodys oxygen, 25% of the bodys nutrients, 70%
of the bodys glucose is burned up by the brain, there are 100,000 miles
of blood vessels, capillaries and other transport systems in the brain, it also
contains 100 billion neurons and there are 1 quadrillion connections in the adult
* A gaggle is the term for a
group of at least five of geese, that is NOT in flight; in flight, the group is
called a skein. A skein is the V-shaped flight formation of flights of geese,
ducks and other migratory birds. The V formation greatly boosts the efficiency
and range of flying birds, particularly over long migratory routes. Among other
things a gaggle is also a measure of salt, a gaggle of salt is equal to eight,
fifty pound bags of salt.
* The practice of dressing up in costumes
and begging door to door for treats on holidays dates back to the Middle Ages
and includes Christmas wassailing. Trick-or-treating (started USA & Canada
in the 1940s) resembles the late medieval practice of souling, when poor folk
would go door to door on Hallowmas - Nov 1st, receiving food in return for prayers
for the dead on All Souls Day - Nov 2nd. Souling originated in Ireland and Britain,
although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as
Italy. Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona
in 1593, when Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering or whining]
like a beggar at Hallowmas".The custom of wearing costumes and masks at Halloween
goes back to Celtic traditions of attempting to copy the evil spirits or placate
them, in Scotland for instance where the dead were impersonated by young men with
masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white.
the British Royal Navy, the officers' noon mess typically began with the loyal
toast, followed by a toast distinctive for the day of the week:
Our ships at sea.
Tuesday: Our sailors (formerly Our men but changed
to include women).
Wednesday: Ourselves. ("As no-one else is likely
to concern themselves with our welfare," is often the retort and not part
of the toast)
Thursday: A bloody war or a sickly season (meaning the
desire and likelihood of being promoted when many people die: during war or sickness.)
Friday: A willing foe and sea room. (meaning the payment of prize money after
a successful engagement)
Saturday: Our families (formerly Our wives
and sweethearts with the retort of "may they never meet")
* A Bastard sword,
from the French 'epee batarde', refers to a 'hand and a half sword' or 'long sword'.
The blade could be as long as a single hand sword but the tang and the grip were
long enough to accommodate two hands providing better leverage and more power,
so it could be used as a single or double handed weapon. Thus the word bastard
was given to this sword type meaning something irregular or inferior or of dubious
origin, having a misleading appearance.
A Georgia company Eternal Reefs, will mix your loved one's ashes with cement and
drop it into the ocean to form an artificial reef. The concrete reefs began as
an ecological project, said founder Don Brawley. He and some friends who are snorkelers
developed the hollow reef balls to help restore the underwater habitat. Now more
than 500,000 reef balls rest on the ocean floor off 48 countries. In 1998, Brawley's
father-in-law, Carleton Palmer, who was dying of cancer, said he'd like to be
cremated and have his remains mixed in one of the reef balls, making him the first
Eternal Reef. With more than 100 of the underwater memorials, Sarasota has become
the largest site for Eternal Reefs. Another 100 reefs are scattered along the
Gulf of Mexico and up the East Coast.
The majority of snail species are right-handed and their shells coil clockwise.
But did you know some snails are lefties, and have shells that coil counterclockwise
* To change
the death penalty for rape, in 1778 Thomas Jefferson authorised the Bill for Proportioning
Crimes and Punishments ... "Whosoever shall be guilty of Rape, Polygamy,
or Sodomy with man or woman shall be punished, if a man, by castration, if a woman,
by cutting thro' the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch diameter at
* During the 2nd World War, Chrysler built
the B-29s that bombed Japan; Mitsubishi built the Zeros that tried to shoot them
down. The two companies went on to built cars together.
* Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania
extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward
to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast
of Australia. There are a staggering 1,319 known languages in Melanesia, scattered
across a small amount of land. The proportion of 716 sq. kilometers per language
is by far the most dense rate of languages in relation to land mass in the earth,
this is almost three times as dense as in Nigeria, a country famous for its high
number of languages in a compact area.
In June of 1974, the first U.P.C. scanner was installed at a Marsh's supermarket
in Troy, Ohio. The first product to have a bar code included was a packet of Wrigley's
first company to produce bar code equipment for retail trade use (using UGPIC)
was the American company Monarch Marking in 1970, and for industrial use, the
British company Plessey Telecommunications was also first in 1970. UGPIC evolved
into the U.P.C. symbol set or Universal Product Code, which is still used in the
United States. George J. Laurer is considered the inventor of U.P.C. which was
invented in 1973.
New Year is the oldest of all holidays, it was first observed in ancient
Babylon as many as 4000 years ago. The tradition of making New Year resolution
also dates back to the early Babylonians. In Sri Lanka, New Year's Eve is celebrated
on April 13 or 14 and in Ethiopian, New Year called Enqutatash, is celebrated
on September 11 or September 12 based on the leap year. In Japan, Buddhist temples
ring their bells 108 times, in Spain they eat 12 grapes at the final countdown
and in Italy, people wear red underwear on New Year's Day as a symbol of good
luck for the upcoming year.
* In the
2000 film "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", everything in the film revolves
around a swirl, the same as in the original drawings of the book. This includes
the clouds, if you look closely at them in some of the scenes, several times the
initials "J.C.", "C.H.", and "R.H." briefly form
as the clouds move. This stands for actor Jim Carrey - The Grinch, actor Clint
Howard - Whobris, and director Ron Howard.
* There are no three legged animals; because
of the way legs evolved
and how they are used by animals they always develop in pairs. It looks like the
starfish might have 5 legs, but they are just "bits of body"; and underneath
each one it has hundreds of tiny tenticles or feet which it uses to get about..
and yes.. there is an even number of them!
The names of the four wise monkeys
are: Mizaru who sees no evil, Kikazaru who hears no evil , Iwazaru who speaks
no evil, and Shizaru
who does no evil. This Japanese proverb was made popular in the 17th century,
but it's actual origin is far far older. In China, a very similar proverb exists
in the ancient Analects of Confucius 2nd to 4th century B.C. : "Look not
at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety;
speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to
* Firearms were invented
in the 12th century in China, after the Chinese had invented gunpowder in the
9th century. The direct ancestor of the firearm is the fire lance, a gunpowder-filled
tube attached to the end of a spear and used as a flamethrower; shrapnel was sometimes
placed in the barrel so that it would fly out together with the flames. The earliest
depiction of a gun is a sculpture from a cave in Sichuan dating to the 12th century
of a figure carrying a vase-shaped bombard with flames and a cannonball coming
out of it. The oldest surviving gun, made of bronze, has been dated to 1288 because
it was discovered at a site in modern-day Acheng District where the Yuan Shi records
that battles were fought at that time
ancient language is still spoken is Aramaic, it is the language of Assyrian, Syriac,
Mandic, Soryoyo, Turyoyo, Western Aramaic, etc which are actually all dialects
of the one language. Its a tongue that
has been in constant, uninterrupted use for well over 3000 years, both as a spoken
and written language. The
first language ever written was Sumerian, followed by Egyptian, then Akkadian,
which modern Assyrian-Aramaic replaced, then Ugaritic, Hittite, Hurrian, Luwian,
Mittani, Urartian .... all dead now.
The hottest, most sultry days of summer are called "Dog Days". Northern
Hemisphere 'dog days' of summer are experienced in July and August, in the Southern
Hemisphere in January and February. The name comes from the ancient belief that
Sirius, also called the Dog Star, in close proximity to the sun was responsible
for the hot weather. The Dog Days originally were the 30ish days when Sirius rose
just before or at the same time as sunrise, (which is no longer true, owing to
precession of the equinoxes). The ancient Romans sacrificed a brown dog at the
beginning of the Dog Days to appease the rage of Sirius. The term Dog Days goes
back even earlier to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians.
Britain had a Princess Sexburga, the eldest daughter of King Anna of East Anglia,
she married King Erconbert of Kent and became Queen Sexburga of Kent. Sexburga
built a religious house at Sheppey, where holy virgins could attend divine service
for her, day & night. She lived to a considerable age, dying on 6th July AD
699 and was she sainted, St Sexburga. Traveling fast-forward through the mists
of time, in honor of Queen Sexburga, the local chippy in Minster used to serve
Sexburgers until some humourless local kicked up a fuss.
of the beautiful white sand beaches of the tropical coral islands are made up
of the excrement of the parrotfish. The Parrotfish, whose teeth grow throughout
their life, eats around 5 tons of coral (mostly dead) per year and each fish excretes
roughly 1 ton of droppings every year, which washes up to the coast line as very
fine white sand.
*On 14 July 1797,
Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson sailed for the
Canaries on his flagship HMS Theseus, arriving in the vicinity of Santa Cruz,
Tenerife on 17 July. He launched his attack on Tenerife on July 23rd; the assualt
was defeated and Nelson lost the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The Spanish
suffered 30 dead and 40 injured, while the British lost 250 dead and 128 wounded.
This was the battle in which Nelson also lost his right arm, after being wounded
*The UK's death toll
from alcohol-related illness is equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every 17 days,
figures show. A new report, Feb 2012, from the British Liver Trust reveals there
were 8,664 alcohol-related deaths in 2009, over double the figure recorded in
1992. More than 80 per cent of deaths from liver disease are caused by alcohol
and experts believe the prevalence of liver disease could overtake that of stroke
and coronary heart disease within the next 10 to 20 years.
first mention of 'chips' in Britain came in an 1854 recipe book, "Shilling
Cookery", in which chef Alexis Soyer referred to a recipe with 'thin cut
potatoes cooked in oil'. In the 19th century, fish and chip fryers were social
outcasts because of the strong odour of frying stayed on their clothes. Chippies
officially remained an offensive trade until 1940, if the fat wasn't changed everyday
the shops smelt really aweful and they were mainly confined to the poorer parts
of towns; but as fish and chips became more popular, the equipment and premises
became more sophisticated.
8 mediterranean seas; Five mediterranean seas of the Atlantic Ocean - 1)The
Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea which includes the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea,
the Sea of Azov, the Aegean Sea, the Adriatic Sea, the Ligurian Sea, the Balearic
Sea, the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Ionian Sea, and the Sea of Marmara. 2) The Arctic
Mediterranean Sea or the Arctic Ocean, considered an ocean by many. 3)The American
Mediterranean Sea: the combination of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.
4) The Baltic Sea. and 5) Baffin Bay. Two mediterranean seas of the Indian Ocean
- 1) The Persian Gulf and 2) The Red Sea. Lastly the Australasian Mediterranean
Sea: the sea enclosed by the Sunda Islands and the Philippines, including the
Banda Sea, the Sulu Sea, the Sulawesi Sea, the Java Sea, etc.
custom of erecting a Christmas tree can be historically traced to 15th century
Livonia , now Estonia and Latvia and 16th century Northern Germany. According
to the first documented uses of a Christmas tree in Estonia, in 1441, 1442, and
1514 the Brotherhood of Blackheads erected a tree for the holidays in their brotherhood
house in Reval now Tallinn. At the last night of the celebrations leading up to
the holidays, the tree was taken to the Town Hall Square where the members of
the brotherhood danced around it.
shearwaters are marvellous migratory seabirds. They make a round trip of 32,000km
each year, a feat managed in only six weeks. The adults breed in Australia, arriving
there in September and leaving in April with their fledgling chicks following
a month later. The birds migrate northwards all the way to the Arctic! They are
also Australias most abundant seabird numbering over 23 million. Sadly though,
100s of 1000s of the chicks are commercially harvested for their feathers and
oil and have become known as muttonbirds
know the word "cat" is from Late Latin catus, cattus, catta meaning
"domestic cat", as opposed to feles - 'European wildcat'. But the term
puss, as in pussycat, many say comes from Dutch poes or from Low German Puuskatte,
dialectal Swedish kattepus, or Norwegian pus, pusekatt, all of which primarily
denote a woman and, by extension, a female cat.
names of Popeye's four nephews are Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and Poopeye
attack Jellyfish!! Scientists think that due to the climate change, jellyfish
are over populating coral reefs and it seems that nature found a way to balance
a large number of jellyfish. An amazing new discovery in Israel, in the city of
Eilat in the Red Sea, scientists caught coral sucking in a large jellyfish. "During
the survey we were amazed to notice several mushroom corals actively feeding on
the moon jellyfish" This is the first time ever reported that coral is feeding
on a large jellyfish.
sternutation cannot occur during sleep - due to REM atonia - a bodily state when
motor neurons are not stimulated and reflex signals are not relayed to the brain
... Also did you know snatiation is a medical disorder characterized by uncontrollable
bursts of sneezing brought on by fullness of the stomach, and typically observed
in sufferers immediately after a large meal. It is thought to be passed along
genetically as an autosomal dominant trait.
90% of the worlds population now kisses; kissing in Western cultures is a fairly
recent development and is rarely mentioned even in Greek literature. In the Middle
Ages it became a social gesture and was considered a sign of refinement of the
upper classes. The act of kissing was very rare among the lower and semi-civilized
races, but was fully established as instinctive in the higher societies. Yet even
among higher civilizations while the kiss seems to have been still unknown to
ancient Egypt, it was well-established in Assyria and India.
is the official Zombie Awareness Month of the Zombie Research Society. Supporters
of Zombie Awareness Month wear a gray ribbon to signify the undead shadows that
lurk behind our modern light of day. Also many films important to the evolution
of the modern Zombie are set in the month of May, from the original Night of the
Living Dead, 1968, to the Dawn of The Dead remake of 2004.
*Presently there are about 500 active volcanoes
in the world the majority following along the Pacific 'Ring of Fire'
and around 50 of these erupt each year. The United States is home to 50 active
volcanoes. There are more than 1,500 potentially active volcanoes, and an estimated
500 million people live near active volcanoes.
* The Great Barrier Reef formed around
18 million years ago, is made up of approximately 900 islands and 3000 coral reefs,
and is visited or home to 30 species of whales, 215 species of beautiful birds,
6 species of sea turtles, 125 species of sharks and stingrays, 49 species of pipefish,
17 species of sea snakes and around 1,500 types of fish! Also some of the largest
populations of Dudongs visit the Great Barrier Reef, Dudongs are classified as
marine mammals and are related to the elephants.
ancient times January and February didn't exist, since the Romans originally considered
winter a monthless period. They were added by Numa Pompilius about 713 BC. .
*Sir Winston Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD,
FRS, PC, statesman and Prime Minister was offered the Dukedom of London, but declined
in order to remain in the House of Commons.
Killer Whale, commonly referred to as the Orca, and less commonly as the blackfish,
is the largest member of the Dolphin family.
the complex internet organism has complicated name, "Yahoo" is shortcut
for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle". It was coined by PhD
candidates at Stanford University: David Filo and Jerry Yang.
pressure of the crocodile's bite is more than 5,000 pounds per square inch (30,000
kPa), compared to just 335 pounds per square inch (2,300 kPa) for a rottweiler,
400 pounds per square inch (2,800 kPa) for a large great white shark, 800 pounds
per square inch (6,000 kPa) to 1,000 pounds per square inch (7,000 kPa) for a
hyena, or 2,000 pounds per square inch (10,000 kPa) for a large alligator. However
the jaws are opened by a very weak set of muscles, therefore
be subdued for study or transport by taping their jaws.
has the most cinemas with 23,662, while India (the country that produces the most
movies - about 800 a year, twice as many as Hollywood) has about 9,000 cinemas
and China has approximately 5,000 cinemas. - 300,000 people per cinema
*All these independence milestones happened
in an August .. Singapore separated from the Federation of Malaysia and became
independent; Ecuador became an independent country; Pakistan became independent,
including East Bengal region as a whole; Korea became an independent country;
India became an independent country; Indonesia became an independent country;
Estonia regains its independence; Uruguay became independent from Brazil; Federation
of Malaya, now Malaysia, became an independent country; and Bolivia's independence
day is in August too.
*The oldest known written fairy tales stem
from ancient Egypt, c. 1300 BC , eg The Tale of Two Brothers, and fairy tales
appear in written literature throughout literate cultures, as in The Golden Ass,
which includes Cupid and Psyche, Roman, 100200 AD, or the Panchatantra,
India 3rd century BCE, but it is unknown to what extent these reflect the actual
folk tales even of their own time.
*In 1937 brothers Dick and Mac McDonald
open a hamburger stand called "The Airdrome" at the airport in Monrovia,
On May 15th
1940 the McDonalds
opened their first McDonald's restaurant, on U.S. Route 66, at 14th and E St.
In 1972, The McDonald's system generated $1 billion in sales through 2200 restaurants;
1980 the 6000th McDonald's restaurant opened in Munich, Germany; by 2009 McDonalds
had 31,000+ outlets worldwide.
World Toilet Summit has been held every year since 2001; also in 2001, the World
Toilet Organization aka WTO,
declared its founding day, November 19th,
as World Toilet Day
(The venue for the 2010 World Toilet Summit has yet to be announced)
*In London on June 13th 2009 over 1,000
cyclists stripped off to take part in the World Naked Bike Ride.
The sixth annual protest against oil dependency and car culture saw riders stage
nude rallies in more than 40 locations around the world. In London, the naked
cyclists, some painted with anti-oil slogans, followed a six-mile (10km) route
from Hyde Park Corner past the Houses of Parliament and through the West End.
*In the United Kingdom, where the use of
scarecrows as a protector of crops dates from time immemorial, they are called
a Mommet in Somerset, Murmet in Devon, Hodmedod in Berkshire, Tattie bogle or
Bodach-rocais in Scotland and a Bwbach in Wales
Eddie Arcaro, who won more American Classic Races than any other jockey in history
and is the only rider to have won the U.S. Triple Crown twice, rode 250
losers before winning his first race. (In 1962, he
ended his career having competed in 24,092 races and having won 4,779 with record
setting earnings of $30,039,543.)
*Except that the word
kyanos (cyan) was used for dark blue enamel, the Ancient
Greek lacked a word for blue and Homer called the colour of the sea "wine
'Allegedly' the earliest identified
use of the exact phrase "the
whole 9 yards" dates
from 1942, in the Investigation of the National Defense Program: Hearings Before
a Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, by Admiral Emory
Scott Land, who said "You have to increase from 7.72 to 12 for the average
at the bottom of that fifth column, for the whole nine yards". This use refers
to the total output statistics for the nine new shipyards that produced "Liberty
Ships" with unprecedented speed, crucial to the course of World War II.
I don't know what gave rise to the phrase.
The most frequently quoted
explaination of the term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter
pilots in the South 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." There
are several claims for this phrase.
yard is quite an old measurement.
whole 9 yards... In early Scotland,
a gentleman wore a kilt. There were two types of kilts, one for casual wear, and
one for formal affairs. The formal one took 9 yards of tarten. The tailor would
inquire to which kilt was needed, and the reply
if it was for a formal one
was Ill take the whole 9 yards
This one could be fairly old.
*When looking at statues of a person on
a horse, if the horse has both front hooves in the air, the person died in battle.
If the horse has one front hoof in the air the person died as a result of wounds
received in battle. If the horse has all four hooves on the ground, the person
died of natural causes. This is a myth .. shame really,
I like the idea.
*Out of 268
stations, there are only two stations on the London Underground that have all
five vowels in them - Mansion House and South Ealing.
*A scallop has 35 eyes and
they are all blue. Their
eyes can't see shapes, but can detect light and motion.
*Some 30% of local residents in Shanghai
say cycling is their main means of transport and 60% of locals pedal to work every
day. With the possible exception of China, the Netherlands boasts more bicycles
per capita than any other country - at least 16-million bikes for the 16-million
Dutch. Roughly 30% of all urban trips in the Netherlands are on bicycles, compared
with 2% in the UK.
are at least 250,000 species of insects constituting the order Coleoptera or beetles,
making it the largest order in the animal kingdom. Among
the approximately 5,000 widely distributed beetles of the family Coccinellidae
is the Ladybird; the name originated in the Middle Ages, when this little beetle
was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and called "beetle of Our Lady".
*In the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill , Jack
represented the French King, Louis XVI who "Lost his Crown" in the Revolution,
while Jill who (or rather her head) came tumbling after, was Marie Antoinette