This page contains various trivia that I've collected (and am still collecting) over the past several years. It may be in the form of lists, tables, etc. In general, it follows no theme, topic, and/or category (it's farraginous!). I plan to add to this page as time permits. I've tried to attribute each "factoid" to a reliable source, but there are a few that I can't be positive about. If you see anything that you could give a more reliable source to, please e-mail me at firstname.lastname@example.org. It will be highly appreciated. Hope you enjoy!
"Ya know, it's a little known fact that..." - Cliff Claven, fictitious postal worker
The first census in the United States was taken in 1790... only 3.9 million people! --Jeopardy!
There are 250 million people in the United States. --NBC News, c. 1990
Current population of the United States as of January 22, 1994 is 261 million. --AP News
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident
population of the United States, projected to 3 March, 2003 at 12:00 PM EST
is 290,410,651. There is one birth every 8 seconds and one death every 11
seconds. --US Census Bureau
According to the U.S.
Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United
States, projected to January 1, 2006 at 20:04 GMT is 297,826,358.
According to the U.S.
Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United
States, projected to April 5, 2007 at 01:26 GMT (EST+5) is
⚈ One birth every......................... 7 seconds
⚈ One death every......................... 13 seconds
⚈ One international migrant (net) every... 25 seconds
⚈ Net gain of one person every............ 10 seconds
As of September '94, there are 5.6 billion people on Earth. You can fit all 5.6 billion within the state of Texas, giving each individual person 1300 square feet to themselves. --CBN News (pending a more reliable source. I don't subscribe to CBN's doctrines and beliefs.)
The world population as of November 8, 2015 is 7.29 billion. The population of the United States is 321,368,864. --census.gov
Here's some trivia about the environment, Earth's water, animals, etc.:
Only 2.5% of Earth's water is freshwater - the amount needed for life to survive. --United States Geological Survey (USGS.gov)
Only a little more than 1.2% of all freshwater is surface water, which serves most of life's needs. --ibid.
If you take all of the Earth's water and contain it to only cover the lower 48 contiguous United States, the resulting flow would cover it to a depth of about 107 miles. --ibid.
If you were able to gather all of the Earth's water and form it into a perfect sphere, its diameter would only be about 860 miles (the distance from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Topeka, Kansas). --ibid.
Seventy of the world's top 100 crop species are pollinated by bees – and those foods feed 90 percent of mankind. --Huffington Post (Please reduce the usage of pesticides.)
Polar bears are in serious danger of going extinct due to global warming. The bears were the first vertebrate species to be listed by the U.S. Endangered Species Act as threatened by extinction primarily because of global warming. (causing sea ice to melt, which is part of the polar bear's habitat) --National Wildlife Federation's page - all about polar bears
Orbiting satellites have been able to track the seasonal extent of sea ice since 1979, and the trends are very disturbing for the future of the polar bear. --ibid.
Approximately 10 percent of the world's population is left-handed. --Bill Nye, The Science Guy
In 2010, ten churches in one community were burned down in one month, igniting the largest criminal investigation in East Texas history. --PBS
The large red fuel tank connected to the Space Shuttle contains two smaller tanks that contain hydrogen and oxygen. The tank that contains hydrogen is twice the size of the tank that contains oxygen. --Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium
Approximately 75% of all the stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs. --Nova, PBS series
A comet's tail can be as long as 100 million miles. --Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium
Only about 3 percent of all the Earth's water is fresh water. Only about one third of that is drinkable. The rest is found in glaciers and such. --Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium
The twin-engine Boeing 737 is the world's most popular jetliner. --The Boeing Company
The Boeing 737 is the most popular airplane in the U.S. --USA Radio News
As of April 6, 2007, the Boeing 737 is still the world's most popular, best selling commercial jet in history. Read more fascinating facts about the Boeing 737 at Boeing's official 737 website.
787 Dreamliner Surpasses 500 Customer Orders in under Three
EVERETT, Washington, April 03, 2007 - The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] today announced the 500th customer order for the 787 Dreamliner with a follow-on order from Japan Airlines Corp. (JAL). The JAL order for five 787-8 airplanes, in addition to several orders from unidentified customers, brings the 787's order total to 514 airplanes from 43 customers since its launch on April 26, 2004, making it the fastest-selling commercial airplane in history. This increases JAL's total 787 order to 35 airplanes from its previous order of 30 in December 2004. --News release from Boeing.com (Includes a nice photo of the Boeing 787.)
Leeuwenhoek invented the single lens microscope in the early 1600's. --CompuServe trivia quiz
Rodney Dangerfield was born Jacob Cohen. --Rodney Dangerfield on Suzanne Somers show
Gibson USA is among the oldest manufacturers of electric guitars in the world, founded in 1894 by Orville Gibson. --Gibson guitars
World Toilet Day is November 19 and is about the 2.4 billion people who lack access to improved sanitation. It is about the nearly 1 billion people who have to defecate in the open. --http://www.worldtoiletday.info/
The play that President Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated in Ford's theatre was "Our American Cousin." --Jeopardy!
The Netherlands has the lowest incidence of teen pregnancies, abortions and sexually transmitted diseases among Western nations. --Dateline NBC
HISTORY OF PLASTIC
The first synthetic plastic was CELLULOID, a mixture of cellulose nitrate and camphor. Invented in 1856 by Alexander Parkes, it was used initially as a substitute for ivory in billiard balls, combs, and piano keys. The high flammability of celluloid has restricted its use to products that are small in size. For years celluloid was widely used in photographic and motion picture film stock, until it was superseded by the less dangerous polymer cellulose acetate. In 1909 the second synthetic plastic, phenol-formaldehyde (also called BAKELITE), was invented by Leo Baekeland when he simply heated a mixture of phenol and formaldehyde. Shortly before World War II a number of synthetic polymers were developed, including CASEIN, NYLON, POLYESTER, polyvinyl chloride (see VINYL), polystyrene, and polyethylene. Since then the number as well as the types and qualities of plastics have greatly increased, producing superior materials such as epoxies, polycarbonate, TEFLON, silicones, and polysulfones. Two modern trends found in the development of plastic materials are of interest. One is the increased number of foamed plastics--plastics that are imbedded with gas--and the other is the specific designing of plastics to satisfy particular service requirements. The ability of chemists to tailor the properties of plastics has become powerful and dramatic. This may be illustrated by polyethylene, which is soft and waxy when used as a film, but hard and abrasion-resistant when used as a socket for an artificial hip joint. --American Academic Encyclopedia
Thursday, Feb. 23, 1995 DOW BREAKING 4,000!
NEW YORK (AP) -- The Dow Jones industrial average topped the 4,000 mark for the first time in history. The bellwether index of 30 blue-chip stocks was up 46.77 points 4,019.82 at 1:46 p.m. Advancers outpaced decliners, 1,476-645. The milestone 4,000 Dow mark was broken amid optimism generated by indications from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan that the central bank may be finished raising interest rates. --Associated Press news agency
The first telephone answering machine was invented in 1904. --Jeopardy!
Thurgood Marshall was the first black (African American) US supreme court justice. --Jeopardy!
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first US president to speak on television. --Jeopardy!
In 1899, a New York City taxi cab driver was the first person to get a traffic ticket for speeding. --Jeopardy
As of March 7, 1995, there were 11,638 taxi drivers in NYC. --New York City cab driver on the Late Show with David
As of October 1999, there are 11,787 taxi cabs in New York City. --Source unknown
As of 2012, in New York City: there are roughly 42,000 taxi cab drivers (82 Percent of whom are foreign born). There are 13,237 taxi cabs operating in New York City. --wikipedia.org
As of March 14, 2014, in New York City, there were 51,398 men and women licensed to drive medallion taxicabs. --wikipedia.org
Water to steam ratio- 1:1600 (one cup of water will make 1600 cups of steam.) --This Old House, PBS Series
Babe Ruth held the record for career strikeouts - 1,330.--BabeRuth.com
Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” --Smithsonian Magazine
Henry Ford didn't put a reverse gear in his very first car because it just wasn't thought of. --Funtrivia.com
Albert Einstein dropped out of school when he was 15. Then, when he took the entrance examination for a polytechnic school in Zurich, he flunked. (He passed the math part, but failed the botany, zoology and language sections.) --History.com
Adult bookstores outnumber McDonald's restaurants 3 to 1 in the United States. --Pastor David Moore on Focus on the Family radio show - 11/6/95 (pending a more reliable source)
11/21/95 - First time in history that the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed over 5000. --Reuters News Agency
The American Psychiatric Association estimates that 30,000 to 50,000 patients a year undergo electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). USA Today reports estimate from 50,000 to 100,000 patients a year. --Donohue, 2/21/96
In 1899, Henry Ford left the Edison Illuminating Company to help organize the Detroit Automobile Co. --Jeopardy!
"Gyroscopic inertia" is the term referring to the force that keeps a rotating wheel turning straight, the Earth from changing its angle of tilt, etc. --Source unknown, possibly Newton's Apple, PBS show
The first transcontinental airmail route was in 1920, and was from New York City to San Francisco. --Jeopardy!
Minus 459.67 degrees F. (-459.67F or -273.15C) is considered "absolute zero". --Jeopardy!
Astronomers and astrophysicists estimate that the universe is comprised of 90% dark matter-- not just an empty vacuum, but actually a form of matter. --Jeopardy!
In 1988, IBM and Sears Roebuck joined forces to launch Progidy online computer services. --Jeopardy!
An inch has been defined as the combined lengths of 12 poppy seeds. --Jeopardy!
In 1967 the second was defined as 9,192,631,770 cycles of radiation of a Cesium-133 atom. --Jeopardy! (In 1997, the CIPM (International Committee for Weights and Measures) added that the preceding definition "refers to a caesium atom at rest at a temperature of 0 degrees Kelvin.)
The meter was originally intended to be 1/40,000,000th of the Earth's circumference. --Jeopardy!
There are 17 different species of penguins-- only 5 of those species live in a cold climate. Penguins have more feathers per square inch than any other bird in the world. --Jack Hanna, Columbus Zoo
Corrie Ten Boom was the first woman licensed watchmaker in Holland. --the movie, "The Hiding Place"
The chances of dying in a car are 1 in 125 - airplane 1 in 4.6 million - elevator 1 in 6 million - earthquake 1 in 11 million. --Oprah
"Jurassic Park", the movie, had a total of 7 minutes of special effects (computer blue screen, "Chromakey", etc.) "Independence Day" had 50 minutes. --Oprah
The Curtiss JN4 was nicknamed "The Jenny". --Jeopardy!
One death per day is caused by wrong prescriptions, wrong doses, etc., due to sloppy handwriting. --Paul Harvey and CBS News, 1/23/97
There were no 1983 Corvettes made. --Motor Week, PBS show, 3/3/97
A total of forty-three 1983 model Corvettes were built, but there were so many quality problems with them it was decided to halt production until they could be corrected. By the time the problems were corrected, it was so late into the model year that the car was brought out as a 1984 model which was run for a year and a half. The 1983's were never sold to the public and the only one that is known to still exist is in the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky. --Roger's Corvette trivia
Einstein's birthday is easy to remember - just think of the mathematical symbol pi ( p = 3.14 = March 14th ). --Science Friday, NPR, hosted by Ira Flatow, 3/14/97
The very first patent was given for potash. --Science Friday, NPR, hosted by Ira Flatow, 5/16/97
400 churches in the US permanently close their doors per week. --Pastor Rodger Williams
4,000 churches close their doors every single year. --Patheos.com
Americans consume about 2 billion pounds of chocolate per year. --Debbie Fields, Mrs. Fields, on her PBS cooking show, 6/28/97
A shark's skeleton is made of cartilage, not bone. --Jeopardy!
Only two percent of the world's population is truly ambidextrous. --Science Friday, NPR, hosted by Ira Flatow, 8/8/97
Statistically, there are twice as many deaths from stomach cancer than auto accidents. --Science Friday, 10/10/97
If you were able to fold a piece of paper of average thickness 100 times, the thickness would equal approximately 800 trillion times the distance between the Earth and the Sun! --Science Friday, NPR Radio program, 10/10/97
If you were able to fold in half a standard 0.0039-inch-thick (0.1mm) piece of paper 103 times, the thickness would be the distance of the entire visible universe. --Various sources (Google it)
In 1860, someone suggested to Abraham Lincoln that he grow a beard, so he did! --AP Newswire
The calendar was changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1582 - the one we use today. There are not 365.25 days per year, but instead 365.24xxxxx
(many, many digits beyond the decimal point).
Here's the "scoop":
In 45 B.C. Julius Caesar set up the Julian calendar. His rule was to have a leap year every four years, but that overestimates the year by 11 minutes. Over time, that would accumulate extra time. By the 16th century, there were 10 extra days in the calendar. So Pope Gregory convened a committee of mathematicians, and they came up with the Gregorian calendar - the one we use today. They just dropped 10 days in 1582 - October 5 through October 14 simply never existed. They then instituted a new rule to have a leap year every four years except at century boundaries. So the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 weren't leap years. But that underestimated a little, so they put the leap year back at century boundaries every 400 years. So, we'll have leap years in the year 2000, 2400, 2800, etc. --Stephen Jay Gould, author of "Questioning the Millennium", on The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder, CBS
Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to be born in a hospital. --Jeopardy!
If you took all of the people that sleep in church in the US on Sunday mornings and lay them end to end, they would sleep better. --Gary Smalley
The automatic transmission was invented (first used) in 1904. --Jeopardy!
A female cat and her offspring can produce 420,000 cats in seven years. --U.S. Humane Society
Three species disappear off the face of the Earth every day. --The X-Files, TV series - pending a more reliable source
If there are 100,000,000 different species on Earth, and the extinction rate is just 0.01% per year, then 10,000 species go extinct ever year. --World Wildlife Fund
Between 1.4 and 1.8 million species have already been scientifically identified. --World Wildlife Fund
Scientists were startled in 1980 by the discovery of a tremendous diversity of insects in tropical forests. In one study of just 19 trees in Panama, 80% of the 1,200 beetle species discovered were previously unknown to science. Surprisingly, scientists have a better understanding of how many stars there are in the galaxy than how many species there are on Earth." --World Resources Institute (WRI)
There are more nuns over the age of 90 than there are under the age of 40. --Ted Koppel, ABC News Nightline, 4/10/98
Russia refers to World War II as "The Great Patriotic War." --Top Gun Over Moscow, Nova, PBS Series
In 1887, Charles Forster began the first wooden toothpick factory in the United States. --Forster Inc.
The crocodile is able to "shrink" back its liver, enabling its lungs to have more capacity, therefore enabling it to stay submerged (under water) for up to three hours. --"Crocodile", Nova, PBS Series, 4/28/98
Number of violent acts per hour on TV: (Obviously, old info - probably from the 1990s)
Murder, She Wrote - 7
Equalizer - 21
Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show - 49
Percentage killed by Tubbs & Crockett in 18 episodes of "Miami Vice" - 43.
Percentage of people killed in 18 Shakespearean plays - 65.
--National Coalition on TV violence
By the year 2000, 50% of the Soviet Union will not be Russian. Soviets spend the same percentage on alcohol as we do on food. It's extremely dangerous to have a child
in the Soviet Union because of poor medical standards. --Walt Bodine Show, a local Kansas City radio program, when the Soviet Union still was the Soviet Union... back in the late 80's.
There are six "simple machines":
the wheel and axle
the inclined plane
One or more of these simple machines are essential to any more complex machine. --Webster's Dictionary
1/11/64 Cigarettes get warning label from Surgeon General. --KMBC TV
44 million adults in the U.S. can't read well enough to read a simple story to a child. --Junior League of Oklahoma City; U.S. Department of Education
21 million Americans can't read at all, 45 million are marginally illiterate and one-fifth of high school graduates can't read their diplomas. --U.S. Department of Education
40% of infertility problems among couples are the man's fault. --Source unknown
Men are just as likely to be infertile as women (40% of cases are attributed to men, 40% to women, and 20% to both). --WebMD
January 20, 1981 - Iran released 52 hostages held captive for 444 days, just minutes after the U.S. presidency was handed from Carter to Reagan. --Book of Facts
Number of cars stolen per minute in the U.S. - 3 --Source unknown
Number of cars stolen per hour in the U.S. - 23 --NBC Nightly News, 5/5/98
The B-2 stealth bomber costs 550 million dollars. --Nova, PBS Series, 2/6/90
The B-2 stealth bomber costs one billion dollars. --60 Minutes, CBS
Eighty percent of the world has the Bible. --British Bible Society as of 2/8/90
One billion people in the world have inadequate shelter. --Phil Collins' "Another Day In Paradise" music video
Three people die per hour in the US due to drunk drivers. --Source unknown
A STANDARD DRINK IS DEFINED AS 12 OUNCES OF BEER, 5 OUNCES OF WINE, OR 1.5 OUNCES OF DISTILLED SPIRITS, WHICH CONTAIN THE SAME AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL. --Mothers against drunk driving - madd.org
IN 2013, 10,076 PEOPLE DIED IN DRUNK DRIVING CRASHES - ONE EVERY 52 MINUTES - AND 290,000 WERE INJURED IN DRUNK DRIVING CRASHES. --Mothers against drunk driving - madd.org
EVERY DAY IN AMERICA, ANOTHER 28 PEOPLE DIE AS A RESULT OF DRUNK DRIVING CRASHES. --Mothers against drunk driving - madd.org
EVERY TWO MINUTES, A PERSON IS INJURED IN A DRUNK DRIVING CRASH. --Mothers against drunk driving - madd.org
Since the General Motors Leeds assembly plant in the Kansas City, Missouri area closed in April of '88, there have been 620 divorces and 14 suicides linked to the closing (as of February 10, 1990). --Source unknown
In the US, a person dies from AIDS every 30 minutes. --Donohue (date not recorded, old info)
Minus forty degrees (-40) is the only place that Fahrenheit and Celsius meet on the temperature scale. (40 below F is also 40 below C) --Just a fact, man!
EGGS When buying eggs, you should make sure that each egg is in the carton with the "pointed" end down. That keeps the yolk as close to the center of the egg as possible. Also, the shell is porous. That means that moisture can pass through the shell depending upon the temperature inside versus the temperature outside. That also means that bacteria can pass through. The larger the "air pocket" inside the egg, the older the egg is -- due to dehydration. (Just for the fun of it, put an egg in the back of your refrigerator for about a year of two. The "white" of the egg should evaporate, and the yolk should turn hard, causing an "empty rattling" sound -- sort of like a marble inside an empty eggshell.) When "hard boiling" an egg, start with the eggs in cold water and bring the water to a boil. Then lower the temperature until the boiling stops, but the water is still just under the boiling point. Cook the eggs for about eleven minutes, then immediately pour cold water over them. Let them soak for several minutes in the cold water-- this minimizes the outside of the yolk turning a greenish or bluish color, which is a "buildup" of ? (possibly sulfur dioxide). Store them in the refrigerator with each egg wrapped in a paper towel, minimizing the chances of moisture and bacteria passing through the shell. --Bob Porter, quality control manager, Monark Egg Corporation
There are 15 million hemorrhoid sufferers in the U.S. --Some
There are 15 million Americans that rely on different kinds of support groups. --Newsweek 2/6/90
Remember... don't drink or do drugs!
Rice is a grass - a type of aquatic cereal grass. --Webster's
Antarctica got its first ATM (automatic [bank] teller machine) in 1997. --Jeopardy!
An estimated 100 million people view the Super Bowl on television. An estimated 3.6 billion people view the World Cup soccer match. --Steve Morgan, AIA (Athletes In Action)
A full grown male tiger on average weighs about 600 pounds. A full grown female tiger weighs about 400 pounds. --an animal expert on Jay Leno, 6/23/98
Considered the greatest soccer player of all time, Pele scored six goals in the 1958 World Cup soccer tournament. He retired with a total of 1,280 goals! --ABC Sports, during the 1998 World Cup coverage
Martina Navratilova won the Wimbledon Ladies' Singles title nine times! --Chris Evert, NBC Sports, during the 1998 Wimbledon ladies' final
Yellow tennis balls were used at Wimbledon for the first time in 1986. --Official Wimbledon web site
The Greek alphabet:
alpha beta gamma delta epsilon zeta eta theta iota kappa lambda mu nu xi omicron pi rho sigma tau upsilon phi chi psi omega
Matt Groening is the creator of The Simpsons. Some of the characters are named after, but not based on, Matt's own relatives. His father and son are named Homer, his mother is Marge and he has two sisters, Lisa and Maggie. --Comics for kids, by Bob Weber Jr.
The elephant is the only mammal with four knees. --Hollywood Squares, pending a more reliable source
It took more than two million 2-ton blocks of stone to build the Great Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu). --Jeopardy!
Charlie was a chemist, Charlie is no more. What Charlie thought was H2O was H2SO4! --Ooops... that's not trivia!
The three-digit number to dial when you need help in an emergency (911) was first used in the US in 1968. --Jeopardy!
The NATO phonetic alphabet: Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf Hotel India Juliet Kilo Lima Mike November Oscar Papa Quebec Romeo Sierra Tango Uniform Victor Whiskey Xray Yankee Zulu (A very concise list of phonetic alphabets from around the world can be found at Wikipedia)
Charles Lindbergh was only 25 years old when he made the first successful transatlantic flight. --Scott Berg, Author of "Lindbergh"
Under threat of impeachment, US President Richard M. Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974. He was later pardoned by President Gerald Ford. --Associated Press News
If a person goes from a light environment to a dark environment, it takes about five to ten minutes before the cones of the eyes become adjusted. When they do, the eyes are about 100 times more sensitive to light. After about thirty minutes the rods of the eyes become adjusted to the darkness, and the eyes are now about 100,000 times more sensitive to light than they were before. Going the other way from a dark environment to a light one, it only takes a few seconds for the eyes to adjust. --"Night Flying", King Takeoff Videos
Rotating Beacons A rotating beacon is a light that sits on top of a tall tower and rotates around and helps airplane pilots find the airport. They are aimed about one to three degrees above the horizon so that it doesn't blind people on the ground. It rotates around at a constant speed.
At a lighted land airport, the beacon will be alternating green and white.
At an unlighted land airport, the beacon will be alternating white and white.
At a military land airport, the beacon will be alternating green, white, and white (green, white, white, green, white, white).
At a lighted water airport, the beacon will be alternating yellow and white.
At a lighted heliport, the beacon will be alternating green, yellow, and white.
--"Night Flying", King Takeoff Videos
In the weather phrase, "It's raining cats and dogs", cats (felines) represent precipitation and dogs (canines) symbolize wind and storm. --Jeopardy
A survey for Hebrew National found that at sixty-eight percent, mustard is the most popular hot dog topping. --Jeopardy
Cow's milk contains about five percent lactose. Human milk is slightly sweeter. --Jeopardy
On January 10, 1911, the temperature at Rapid City, South Dakota fell over 45 degrees F in only 15 minutes. --Jeopardy
The phrase, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", incorporates all of the letters of the English alphabet. It's commonly used for the purpose of practicing typing on a keyboard. --Jeopardy
There are more Barbie dolls than people in the US. --What's In The News,
Standing burns 140 calories per hour. --Popup Videos, VH1
Every day in the United States, 87 people die from gunshot wounds, and approximately four times that many people (348) are wounded from gunshots. --Rosie O'Donnell, November 4, 1999 (pending a more reliable source)
On December 4, 1963, the first "instant replay" was used in a football game between Army and Navy. --Salem Radio Network News
The approximate diameter of the moon viewed by the naked eye from Earth is one-half degree. --Science Friday, NPR, hosted by Ira Flatow, 1/7/2000
The speed limit for airplanes flying in the U.S. below 10,000 feet MSL (mean sea level) is 250 knots. This speed limit is set and regulated by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). --FAA (Federal Aviation Administration)
It costs eight-tenths of a cent to make a penny. --U.S. Mint
A total solar eclipse: The alignment of the sun, earth, and moon follows a pattern that repeats every 223 lunar months, which is about 18 years. But, because of the rotation of the earth, it takes three such cycles for a particular spot to be in position again. For example, North Carolina witnessed a total solar eclipse on March 7, 1970, and will again on April 8, 2024 and on May 11, 2078. --JC Trivia
A day on the planet Mars, as defined by the amount of time it takes to rotate once on its axis, is 24 hours, 37 minutes -- just slightly longer than Earth's day of 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds. Larger planets tend to rotate faster, so a day on Jupiter is only about 10 hours long. On the other extreme, Venus rotates so slowly that its day (243 Earth days) is actually longer than its year (224.7 Earth days)! --JC Trivia
Tecumseh was killed in a battle under the command of William Henry Harrison. Harrison died in the office of U.S. President about 30 days after taking the office. Since then, the president elected every 20 years has either been killed or died while in office until Ronald Reagan's presidency. Here's a list of the presidents: Election
1840 - W.H. Harrison (died in office)
1860 - Abraham Lincoln (assassinated)
1880 - James Garfield (assassinated)
1900 - William McKinley (assassinated)
1920 - Warren G. Harding (died in office)
1940 - Franklin D. Roosevelt (died in office)
1960 - John F. Kennedy (assassinated)
1980 - Ronald Reagan (survived his assassination attempt) --Source unknown
Mark Twain was very much into the latest technology of his time. Tom Sawyer was the first novel to be written on a typewriter. --American Experience, PBS series
Would you rather be bitten by a dog or by a human? A human has 18 different types of germs in its mouth and a dog only has 6 types of germs. --Jack Hanna, Late Show with David Letterman, 4/6/2000
There are twenty-eight bones in the human hand. --Hawkeye Pierce, M*A*S*H TV Series
The human skull contains 22 bones. --Grolier's Encyclopedia
There are 206 bones in the adult human body. Humans are born with about 300 bones, but many of them fuse together during childhood growth. --Grolier's Encyclopedia
Chess was the second sport to have a world championship. --Chessmaster 5500 tips
The first Space Shuttle launched into space was the Columbia on April 12, l98l. The first shuttle, however, was the Enterprise. (It was even mentioned in the first Star Trek movie.) But it was never sent into space. It was only used for atmospheric approach and landing tests in 1977. It was then put into storage in a warehouse where it awaits a museum to be built for it. The Columbia was the oldest active shuttle. (See next few entries) --JC Trivia
Background Information on the Columbia
Space Shuttle Mission STS-107
STS-107 Flight: January 16-February 1, 2003
Rick D. Husband (second flight),
Pilot William C. McCool (first
Payload Specialist Michael P. Anderson (second
Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla (second
Mission Specialist David M. Brown (first
Mission Specialist Laurel B. Clark (first
Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon, Israel (first flight)
flight of SPACEHAB Research Double Module; Fast Reaction Experiments
Enabling Science, Technology, Applications and Research (FREESTAR);
first Extended Duration Orbiter (EDO) mission since STS-90. This
16-day mission was dedicated to research in physical, life, and
space sciences, conducted in approximately 80 separate experiments,
comprised of hundreds of samples and test points. The seven
astronauts worked 24 hours a day, in two alternating shifts.
April 12-14, 1981 (Crew John W. Young and Robert
28 flights 1981-2003.
STS-109, March 1-12, 2002 Hubble Space Telescope
STS 1 through 5, 1981-1982 first flight of European
Space Agency built Spacelab. STS-50, June 25-July 9, 1992, first
extended-duration Space Shuttle mission. STS-93, July 1999 placement
in orbit of Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
STS-83, April 4-8, 1997. Mission was cut short by
Shuttle managers due to a problem with fuel cell No. 2, which
displayed evidence of internal voltage degradation after the
Columbia mission page
(A Tribute to
the Crew of STS-107 - 16 Minutes from Home - can be found
surface of the Earth the gravitational force of the Moon is about
2.2 times greater than that of the Sun.
Britannica Online (www.britannica.com)
68 million Americans are sleep deprived. --TV commercial
candy was invented in Cleveland, Ohio in 1892. --Nightly
Business Report, PBS show
islands of Tierra del Fuego in Argentina are the southernmost land
outside of Antarctica. --JC
Tukey is often credited with inventing the computer term "Software."
During the dawn of the computer age, Tukey wrote in the January,
1958, issue of American Mathematical Monthly, "Today the
'software' comprising the carefully planned interpretive routines,
compilers, and other aspects of automative programming are at least
as important to the modern electronic calculator as its 'hardware'
of tubes, transistors, wires, tapes, and the like." Many
believe that to be the first mention of the term. Tukey is also
often credited with the invention of the term "bit",
probably a contraction of "binary integer", referring to
the ones and zeroes that make up computer languages. --JC
1967, the American actress Marcia Strassman attempted to launch a
singing career with the recording of Jerry Goldstein and "Lord"
Tim Hudson's "The Flower Children" song (these two people
coined the phrase "flower power"). --Internet
Movie Database (http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Strassman,+Marcia)
"smoothing" machine known as the "Zamboni" made
its debut in 1955. --CNN News factoid
more than 32,000 known species of spider in the
Chevrolet Corvette came out of the factory with four-wheel disk
brakes standard. --CNN News factoid
amount in drinking water: 4 ppm (parts per million) Average
amount in toothpaste: 1100 ppm
studies in eight different countries, both with and without
fluoridated water showed no evidence of fluoride decreasing tooth
decay. As a matter of fact, in laboratory studies, fluoride has been
linked to cancer in animals. --Newsweek, February 6, 1990
Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in late April '86. A serious
accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant about 60 miles from Kiev in
the Soviet Union spewed clouds of radiation that spread over several
European nations. --The World Almanac And Book Of Facts
approximately 8.3 minutes for the light from the sun to reach
Earth. --(I did the math - 93 million miles divided by the speed of light tells how many seconds=500. Then divided by 60=8.3.)
approximately 33 years for the light from Polaris to reach
Earth. --Brother Bob, pastor, Plaza Heights Baptist Church
US, there's 14.3 million (Southern) Baptists and 37,000 Southern
Baptist churches in the US. (as of the early 1990's) --ibid.
of three girls are sexually molested in their own home. --Power
Team, a Christian ministry
Children are most often sexually abused by someone they know and trust. Approximately three quarters of reported cases of child sexual abuse are committed by family members or other individuals who are considered part of the victim’s “circle of trust.” --U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families. (2007). - http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm05/cm05.pdf
More than 750 players hit 37,000 balls, dry off using 17,500 towels and quench their thirst with 17,850 litres of bottled water for the duration of the event (The 1999 Australian Open). --The official Australian Open website (1999)
Some space trivia!
April 12, 1961 - First manned orbital flight (the first man in space) was Yuri A. Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut.
May 5, 1961 - First American in space was Alan B. Shepard, Jr.
February 20, 1962 - First American in orbit was John H. Glenn, Jr.
--The 1991 World Almanac And Book Of Facts
The Mounds candy bar was introduced to the public in 1920. The Almond Joy was introduced in 1946. Regular M&M's candies and Cheerios cereal were introduced in 1941. --Jeopardy!
Rosewell was both the youngest and oldest man to win the Australian
Open tennis tournament-- at age 18 in 1953 and age 37 in 1972. --Ray
Hamel, New York Times Trivia Master
Australia hosted the 1956 Summer Olympic games. Since the seasons
are reversed in the Southern hemisphere, the summer games were held
in November and December, instead of July and August. There was an
animal quarantine in effect at the time, so the equestrian events
were held in Stockholm, Sweden during June. This was also the
Olympics that introduced the closing ceremonies. --JC
Fields despised Christmas. Coincidentally, he died on Christmas
19 million people suffer from panic disorder in the U.S. --Oprah
- pending a more reliable source
"nylon" derives from New York ("ny-") and London
approximately 36,000 missing children in the United States Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) computer database. --A radio
advertisement (as of 3/26/01)
average person's left hand does 56% of the typing on a standard
keyboard. --Source forgotten
marathon is 26 miles and 385 yards long. --heard on M*A*S*H
approximately 2700 species of snakes in the world. Several of these
species can actually go over a year without food! --Science
Friday, NPR, hosted by Ira Flatow, July 6, 2001
Henry VIII was the first king to be referred to as "Your
Majesty". --Hollywood Squares, pending a more reliable
"Velcro" originated from the words "velour" and
"crochet". The product was first invented in 1948. --A
friend, pending a more reliable source
trademark name "Velcro" is an arbitrary formation based on
the word "velvet". --Webster's New World Dictionary,
second college edition
was first invented in 1948. --My memory, pending a more
early 1940's, Swiss inventor George de Mestral went on a walk with
his dog. Upon his return home, he noticed that his dog's coat and
his pants were covered with cockleburrs. His inventor's curiosity
led him to study the burrs under a microscope, where he discovered
their natural hook-like shape.
This was to
become the basis for a unique, two-sided fastener - one side with
stiff "hooks" like the burrs and the other side with the
soft "loops" like the fabric of his pants. The result was
VELCRO brand hook and loop fasteners, named for the French words
"velour" and "crochet."
then became to make machinery that could produce the product in a
manner that assured consistent closure performance. After
considerable experimentation, looms and proprietary hook cutting
systems were developed, which set the standards for hook and loop
fastener performance, consistency and quality. --Velcro.com
percent (83%) of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Most
of the rest, 13 percent, have no religion. That leaves just 4
percent as adherents of all non-Christian religions combined - Jews,
Muslims, Buddhists, etc. --ABCNEWS/Beliefnet poll taken in
Horned Owl has no sense of smell. --Jim Fowler, Mutual of
Omaha's Wild Kingdom
640 muscles in the human body. --Inside Edition, pending a
more reliable source
72 muscles just to speak. --Beakman's World
first Goodyear blimp, named "The Pilgrim", made its first
flight in 1925. --Dick Enberg, CBS sports commentator, during
the 2001 U.S. Open tennis tournament
Ross, famous flagmaker, was born with a full set of
teeth. --Hollywood Squares, pending a more reliable source
world's top 25 venomous snakes, Australia has 21, including sea
snakes with venom two to ten times as deadly as a cobra's. --Cecil
Disney won a total of 32 academy awards (Oscars) in his career--
more than anyone else in show business. --Disneyworld
of all computers suffer violence and abuse at the hands of users.
One in every four computers has been physically attacked by its
owner, according to a survey. The survey, conducted by British PC
manufacturer Novatech, was intended to take a lighthearted look at
embarrassing experiences. --Wired
5 June, 2001
average adult's body contains about 10 to 12 pints of blood. Your
body continuously replaces its red cells, making new ones with iron
salvaged from old ones that have been retired. Blood transports
nutrients and defensive antibodies, cells, and clotting factors; red
blood cells deliver or release oxygen. --American
Jefferson invented the swivel chair. --Hollywood Squares,
pending a more reliable source
is technically a desert (frozen desert) since the continent gets
less than ten inches of precipitation per year. --National
famous author, Lewis Carroll, was left-handed. Four of the five
original designers of the Macintosh computer were
for a more complete list of "everything left handed"
of 1955, Arco, Idaho, with a population of one thousand, became the
first U.S. town powered by nuclear energy. The town's energy was
supplied by an experimental boiling-water reactor called the Borax
pending a more reliable source.
were approximately 1500 antennae on top of the north tower of the
World Trade Center, ranging from television to radio to police
scanners, etc. --Science Friday, NPR, hosted by Ira Flatow
around the earth, over fifty thousand caves have been found. --"The
Secret Life Of Caves", Nova, a PBS television series, 1 Oct
greyhound dog can reach speeds of up to 45 miles per hour. --The
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
the freighter ship Al Kuwait which was carrying 6,000 live sheep
capsized and sank in Kuwait's harbor. The sunken ship with its
decomposing cargo was presenting a serious threat to the country's
water supply through its desalination processing plant. To overcome
the problem the ship had to be raised and moved to a safe place
without falling apart and dumping its poisonous contents into the
nation's water supply. Karl Kroyer, a Danish engineer working in
Kuwait came up with a novel idea. He pumped 27 million ping-pong
balls into the freighter's hull which slowly raised it to the
surface. And where did he get this idea? From a Donald Duck comic
book. Somebody sank Donald's boat and he and his feathered friends
raised it by filling it with ping-pong balls! --ACTS
International, pending a more reliable source
whales can swallow lumps of food eight feet in diameter. Entire
skeletons of sharks up to sixteen feet in length have been found in
them. In February of 1891, James Bartley, a sailor aboard the
whaling ship "Star of the East," was swallowed by a whale
in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands. He was within the whale for
more than forty-eight hours, and after he was found inside the
whale, which had been harpooned and brought aboard the whaling ship,
it took him two weeks to recover from the ordeal. Sir Francis Fox
wrote as follows about this:
affirms that he would probably have lived inside his house of flesh
until he starved, for he lost his senses through fright and not from
lack of air. He remembers the sensation of being thrown out of the
boat into the sea. He was then encompassed by a great darkness and
he felt he was slipping along a smooth passage of some sort that
seemed to move and carry him forward. The sensation lasted but a
short time and then he realized he had more room. He felt about him
and his hands came in contact with a yielding slimy substance that
seemed to shrink from his touch. It finally dawned upon him that he
had been swallowed by the whale... he could easily breathe; but the
heat was terrible. It was not of a scorching, stifling nature, but
it seemed to open the pores of his skin and draw out his vitality.
His skin where it was exposed to the action of the gastric juice -
face, neck and hands - were bleached to a deadly whiteness and took
on the appearance of parchment, (and) never recovered its natural
appearance, (though otherwise) his health did not seem affected by
his terrible experience. --Source unknown, pending a more reliable source
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 was
Wrigley's Gum. --Bar
Codes history from about.com
Dawn" was the first motion picture released with the PG-13
rating, which had been created after difficulty rating some movies
in 1984, most notably "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"
(1984). ("The Flamingo Kid" (1984) was the first film to
be *given* a PG-13 rating, but sat on the shelves for five months
before being released). --Source unknown
originally came from the Kalahari Desert region in Africa, which is
interesting because the average watermelon is 92 percent
Apples, pears, peaches, cherries, blackberries, strawberries, quinces, apricots, and raspberries are fruits of the rose family. Each
strawberry contains approximately 200 seeds. --Ask.com
the mid-1980s, world peach production totaled about 5.5 million
metric tons per year. The highest peach-producing countries were the
United States and Italy. --Source unknown
The U.S. potato harvest in 1999 yielded 21.7 million metric tons of potatoes! --Source unknown
and "incombustible" are opposites but "flammable"
and "inflammable" are synonyms. Why? The "in-"
of "incombustible" is a common prefix meaning "not,"
but the "in-" of "inflammable" is a different
prefix. "Inflammable," which dates back to 1605, descends
from the Latin "inflammare" ("to inflame"), from
"in-" (here meaning "in" or "into")
plus "flammare" ("to flame"). "Flammable"
also comes from "flammare," but didn't enter English until
1813. In the early 20th century, firefighters worried that people
might think "inflammable" meant "not able to catch
fire," so they adopted "flammable" and "nonflammable"
as official safety labels and encouraged their use to prevent
confusion. In general use, "flammable" is now the
preferred term for describing things that can catch fire, but
"inflammable" is still occasionally used with that meaning
as well. --Merriam-Webster
Bach became known worldwide for his remarkable musical talent, but
he never ceased to credit his Creator as the one who was responsible
for his ability. The pages of his musical compositions could well
have been used to satisfy a personal pride as his name appeared on
them. But he was determined to give glory to God for his
accomplishments. So he always concluded his original compositions
with the three letters INS. They stood for the Latin words meaning
In the name of Christ. At other times Bach began his score with the
letters JJ, meaning Jesus help, and then ended his composition with
the letters SDG for the Latin “Solo Deo Gloria”, meaning
“To God be the glory.” --Harold H. Lentz,
Preaching The Miracles, CSS Publishing, Lima, Ohio, 1999
is a plural noun in Italian. In English, graffiti
is far more common than the singular form graffito
and is mainly used as a singular noun in much the same way data
is. When the reference is to a particular inscription (as in "There
was a bold graffiti on the wall"), the form graffito
would be etymologically correct but might strike some readers as
pedantic outside an archaeological context. There is no substitute
for the singular use of graffiti when the word is used as a mass
noun to refer to inscriptions in general or to the related social
phenomenon. The sentence "Graffiti is a major problem for the
Transit Authority Police" cannot be reworded Graffito is...
(since graffito can refer only to a particular inscription) or
Graffiti are... (which suggests that the police problem involves
only the physical marks and not the larger issue of vandalism). In
such contexts, the use of graffiti as a singular is justified by
both utility and widespread
Franklin invented the lightning rod in 1750. --Science
Friday, NPR, hosted by Ira Flatow, August 6, 2004
1.5 billion people use cell phones worldwide. --20/20, ABC
television newsmagazine, as of March 11, 2005
Over 6,880,000,000 (6.8 billion) people use cell phones worldwide. There are about 7,012,000,000 people in the world (as of May 2016) --Wikipedia
percent of the population of Israel own and use cell
phones. --20/20, ABC television newsmagazine, as of March 11,
people go in and out of the Boston, Massachusetts area every
day. --Crossing Jordan, pending a more reliable source
point pen was invented in 1945. --New York Times Crossword
opossum is the only North American marsupial. --History
Detectives, PBS series
AOL (America Online) blocked an
average of 1.5 billion spams per day. Approximately 8 in 10
e-mails received at its gateway were blocked as junk. More
than a half-trillion junk e-mails, known as spam, were blocked by
AOL filters, slightly above 2004
levels, the company said. The number of junk e-mails reported
by AOL's 26 million members
worldwide has declined about 75 percent since 2003. --Reuters
What treat was originally filled with banana cream but switched to
vanilla cream filling due to a World War II shortage of
bananas? Answer: Twinkies --twinkies.com,
first stewardesses (flight attendants) were also registered
In Aviation, aPBS documentary
following facts/trivia is from the TV show Jeopardy:
Strawberries have more vitamin C than oranges.
California leads the U.S. in strawberry production.
The Russian space station Mir was composed of several separate
parts, the first part going into space February 1986.
The lowest place in elevation in the Western Hemisphere is a spot
in Death Valley National Park in California, which is 282 feet (86
meters) below sea level.
In 1970, McDonnell Douglas introduced the DC-10 to compete with the
Boeing 747. (I flew in one and it's like being in a flying movie
One founder of the jet engine manufacturer Pratt and Whitney
was a cousin of Eli Whitney-- the inventor of the cotton gin.
The Boeing 737 is the most popular commercial jet in the world.
Every six seconds a Boeing 737 somewhere around the world takes
Jeopardy went on the air September of 1984. (This doesn't include
the original show that aired in the 1960's with host Art Fleming.)
A bear's dormancy in the winter isn't true hibernation, as its body
temperature doesn't drop. (Hibernation, by definition, includes the
lowering of the body core temperature of the hibernating animal.)
North Carolina supplied one-fourth of the casualties to the losing
side in the Civil War.
The Christmas song, "Jingle Bells" was written in 1857.
The cosmetic company, Avon, was started in 1886.
The mass of the planet Jupiter is more than twice the mass of all other
planets combined. The planet Saturn's ring system is more than 170,000
miles in diameter, but only about a mile thick. Since its discovery in
1846, the planet Neptune has yet to complete one trip around the
Why are most taxis yellow? In 1907, car salesman John Hertz looked at his surplus of traded-in cars and decided to start a taxicab business. Since taxis need to stand out in a sea of cars, Hertz reportedly commissioned a study to determine which color was easiest to spot at a distance. The answer was yellow. His Chicago Yellow Cab Company was the first taxicab service to use that now-familiar moniker. However, these days not all Yellow Cabs are yellow cabs. In 1923, Hertz expanded his automobile empire by purchasing a car-rental business from Walter L. Jacobs. Although this particular company was acquired by General Motors a few years later, it was only the beginning for Hertz's rental cars and his affinity for yellow. In fact, when the entrepreneur established the Hertz Corporation in 1953, he used yellow in the new logo. --Ask Yahoo!
world of tennis, since the Open Era started in 1969, and the
subsequent introduction of prizemoney, the combined men's and
women's singles winners' prizepool in the Australian Open has
multiplied more than 140 times from $A11,600 to $A1,661,000 (as of
Australian Open website
more cases of slavery today than ever before in history. --Film
producer Ken Wales, January 29, 2007, guest speaker on Focus
On The Family radio program, when asked by Dr. Dobson how the
black community is receiving his movie, "Amazing
1912, chocolate manufacturer Clarence Crane (Cleveland, Ohio)
invented Life Savers as a "summer candy" that could
withstand heat better than chocolate. Since the mints looked
like miniature life preservers, he called them Life Savers. After
registering the trademark, Crane sold the rights to the peppermint
candy to Edward Noble for $2,900. Noble created tin-foil
wrappers to keep the mints fresh, instead of cardboard rolls.
Pep-O-Mint was the first Life Saver flavor. Since then,
many different flavors of Life Savers have been produced. The
five-flavor roll first appeared in 1935.
Savers candy was first created in 1912 by Clarence Crane, a
Cleveland chocolatier and father of the famed poet Hart Crane. Crane
was looking for a new "summer candy" to supplement his
chocolate business, which slumped in hot weather.
developed a line of hard mints, but didn't have the space or
machinery to make them. He contracted with a pill manufacturer to
press the mints into shape. The pill manufacturer, whose machinery
was malfunctioning, found that the pressing process worked much
better when the mints were stamped with a hole in the middle.
Crane called the new candy "Crane's Peppermint Life
Savers," because they looked like miniature throwable life
preservers. The ring-shaped devices were just beginning to come into
use after the Titanic disaster.
lots more Life Savers trivia.
"Eisenhower", a US aircraft carrier, has a 64 bed
from AT&T Bell Labs, PBS
many people have MS?
400,000 Americans have MS, and every week about 200 people are
diagnosed. World-wide, MS affects about 2.5 million people. Because
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not
require U.S. physicians to report new cases, and because symptoms
can be completely invisible, the numbers can only be estimated.
Multiple Sclerosis Society, as of 4/22/07
Sleep Foundation (NSF) writes that most healthy adults require
seven to nine hours of sleep each night. Adolescents need a
bit more - about 8.5 to 9.5 hours. And infants are the
"laziest" of all, needing around 14 to 15 hours of sleep
each day (including naps).
The following list of facts (in green) is from the 1993 PBS Nova quiz:
Rockets were invented in China.
The largest reflecting telescope in the world is the Keck telescope, with a diameter of
396" (that's 33 feet!).
Vision requires more brainpower than the other four senses.
There are 108 known elements.
The Xerox copier was commercially open to the public in 1959.
The opossum is the only marsupial native to North America.
A gill equals 4 ounces (1/2 cup).
The world's tallest waterfall is Angel Falls in Venezuela -- 3,212 feet high.
DDT was stopped being used in the late 1960's because it almost caused extinction of
the peregrine falcon.
The only even prime number is 2.
Vanilla is a member of the orchid family.
Peanut butter dates way back to the Aztecs and the Incas. Canadian Marcellus Gilmore Edson (1849 - 1940) of Montreal Quebec was the first to patent peanut butter, in 1884. Peanut flour already existed. His cooled product had "a consistency like that of butter, lard, or ointment" according to his patent application. He included the mixing of sugar into the paste so as to harden its consistency. Edson, a chemist (pharmacist), developed the idea of peanut paste as a delicious and nutritious staple for people who could hardly chew on solid food, a not uncommon state back in those days. Peanut paste was initially sold for six cents per pound. Edson was issued United States patent #306727 in 1884. The patent describes a process of milling roasted peanuts until the peanuts reached "a fluid or semi-fluid state".
On any given day, more than 87,000 flights are in the skies in the United States. Only one-third are commercial carriers, like American, United or Southwest. On an average day, air traffic controllers handle 28,537 commercial flights (major and regional airlines), 27,178 general aviation flights (private planes), 24,548 air taxi flights (planes for hire), 5,260 military flights and 2,148 air cargo flights (Federal Express, UPS, etc.). At any given moment, roughly 5,000 planes are in the skies above the United States. In one year, controllers handle an average of 64 million takeoffs and landings. --From the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Chris Evert is the only American women's tennis champion to have won at least one Grand Slam singles title each year for thirteen consecutive years. --Wikipedia
D-Day, Normandy, France, took place on June 6, 1944. --Wikipedia
From this point on, I haven't "HTML-ized" the remaining text yet, nor have I proofread it or given sources to all, but please be patient. I'm working on it!
The buffalo -- largest mammal in the state of Missouri -- 30
to 60 million once roamed North America. Also, they're very
unpredictable in behavior. --Source unknown
Virginia Beach, VA EMS squad - largest in US with 635 volunteer
rescue people. --Rescue 911, TV Show
Walla Walla, Washington state prison is the toughest in the US.
--"Hillside Stranglers", Movie
Every 22 minutes a person is killed by an alcohol related auto
One out of thirty children in the US are abused.
--Unsolved Mysteries, NBC series
Every 27 seconds a divorce takes place in the US.
One billion trees are used per year just for disposable diapers.
If all the disposable diapers used in the US were stacked up, in
18 months it would reach the moon! (And it would stink to "high
Peanut butter was invented in 1890 by a St. Louis physician for a
protein substitute for old folks. Americans consume 800 lbs. per
year! (The "as of" date is unknown.)
In 1862, the confederate congress passed a bill exempting anyone
owning 20 (or more) slaves from military service.
Though it originated in South America, the potato came to North
America from Ireland.
There are 332 different species of parrots, including parakeets,
cockatoos, and macaws.
The German dirigible, "Hindenburg" was almost 3 football fields
long and weighed over 200 tons, the largest rigid airship ever
constructed. It was an 804 feet long (245 meters) airship of
conventional Zeppelin design that was first launched at
Friedrichshafen, Germany, in April 1936. It had a maximum speed
of 84 mph (135 kph) and a cruising speed of 78 mph (126 kph). In
1936, the Hindenburg inaugurated commercial air service across the
North Atlantic by carrying 1,002 passengers on ten scheduled round
trips between Germany and the US. On May 6, 1937, while landing
at Lakehurst, NJ, on the first of its scheduled 1937
transatlantic crossings, the hydrogen-inflated Hindenburg burst
into flames and was completely destroyed. Thirty six of the 97
persons aboard were killed. The fire was generally attributed to
a discharge of atmospheric electricity in the vicinity of a
hydrogen gas leak from the airship, though it has also been
speculated that the dirigible was the victim of an anti-Nazi act
of sabotage. The Hindenburg disaster marked the end of the use of
rigid airships in commercial air transportation. It contained 7
million cubic feet of hydrogen.
--Encyclopaedia Britannica & World Almanac
US infant mortality rate per 1,000 births: nine white, 18 black.
Willis Carrier invented air conditioning in 1902.
--Jeopardy! (World Almanac says 1911)
IBM invented the floppy disk in 1970.
The USS Pueblo and 83-man crew seized in Sea of Japan Jan. 23,
1968 by North Koreans; 82 men released Dec. 22, 1968.
An estimated 100 trillion cells in the human body.
The Khmer Rouge killed an estimated 1 million fellow Cambodians--
possibly 2 million.
1935--the year of the dust bowl--effected Kansas, Oklahoma, and
The Sahara, the largest desert in the world, is 3,500,000 square
miles, just under the gross area of the US including land and
Cost of flying the space shuttle back to Cape Canaveral from
Edwards Air Force Base mounted on top of a 747 jet-- $1,000,000.
The Great Pyramid of Giza covers 13 acres, the equivalent of 7
blocks of Manhattan. It contains well over 2 million blocks of
stone, some weighing as much as 15 tons. It stretches 755 feet
along each of its four sides. It is so close to geometric
perfection that the difference between the longest and shortest
sides is only 7 inches. Each side is aligned with one of the true
directions of the compass. As a matter of fact, it is within a
few arc-seconds of being perfect. It rises at an angle of 52
degrees to a height of 481 feet, about the size of a 40 story
--Nova, PBS, "Pyramid"
A grizzly bear can run as fast as a horse.
There are over 2 million cases of child abuse reported every year in US.
--PBS as of 1994
23% of US children live in poverty.
Since 1980, divorce has torn 18 million families apart.
--PBS, 1994The following paragraphs are from "Nova--Aircraft Carrier"
The USS Independence has 80 planes-- a combination of fighters,
bombers, and reconnaissance aircraft-- the equivalent of a small air
force. It was commissioned in 1959. There are four catapults, steam
powered by the engine's boilers, that launch planes into the air
reaching 150 mph in just under three seconds! A plane can be launched
every 45 seconds. The ship picks up speed to create a 20-knot wind
over the flight deck, giving the heavy planes the best possible wind
speed for takeoff. A 20-ton plane landing at 120 mph is brought to a
halt in 200 feet. The "wire" that catches the hook on the plane to
stop it is used exactly 100 times at which time it is replaced. If
that wire breaks, it can easily cut through flesh, even steel, like
butter. Every landing is actually a "controlled crash". It costs 5
million dollars to train a pilot, and he/she is required to have at
least 500 flying hours before landing on a carrier.
It's one of the largest warships afloat. 5,000 men live beneath
the flight deck in 8 cramped and artificially lit decks. They are
mostly teenagers around 19 years old, maybe 20 years old that work
16-17 hours per day. The men sleep and work around the clock (in
shifts). There are three TV channels that show news, sports, and
movies. There are 3 miles of corridors and over 2,000 separate
compartments. The kitchen bakes between 1200 and 1600 loaves of bread
per day, and 800 sandwiches last only about three to four hours.
At least two carriers in our navy are deployed 365 days a year,
and another three or four are in home waters constantly practicing.
During the Gulf War, 36 planes were shot down by Iraqi missiles. The
USS Independence was deployed to govern and maintain the "no-fly"
zone over Iraq for 23 days. During that time, pilots would strap a
gun to their side, as well as a radio beacon, and a leaflet in Arabic
in case of being shot down. In the 6 months they were at sea, the
crew conducted 8,752 launches and arrested landings. In the 23 days
that the Independence operated in support of operations over Iraq,
there were 1,349 missions, an average of 58 a day.
--"Aircraft Carrier", Nova, PBS Series
Alexander Joy Cartwright, Jr., the "father of modern baseball".
...set bases 90 feet apart.
...established nine innings as game and nine players as team.
...organized the Knickerbocker Baseball Club of NY in 1845
...carried baseball to the Pacific coast and Hawaii in pioneer days.
First game was June 19, 1846, 1st match of baseball was played on the
Elysian Fields... Knickerbockers vs. the New Yorks.
In 1881, there were three US presidents: R.B. Hayes, Garfield, and
Chester A. Arthur.
Carson City, Nevada is actually west of Los Angeles, California (by
about 100 miles or so).
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died of cancer May 19, 1994 at age 64. She
suffered from a non-- Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph
system that eventually spread to her liver. She was only 31 years old
when JFK became president.
--Associated Press and CBS News
The average elevation of New Orleans, LA is 2 ft. below sea level.
--Nova (Jeopardy! says 4 ft.)May 21st in history:
1506 Christopher Columbus dies in poverty in Spain.
1845 First legislative assembly convenes in Hawaii.
1861 NC secedes, Confederacy capital moves from Montgomery to Richmond
1874 Levi Strauss markets his blue jeans with copper rivets, priced at
$13.50 A DOZEN.
1902 The United States ends its occupation of Cuba
1926 Thomas Edison says Americans prefer silent movies over talkies.
1927 At 7:40am, Lindbergh takes off from New York to cross Atlantic.
1932 Amelia Earhart leaves Newfoundland, first woman fly solo across
1939 Pan Am begins transatlantic passenger and air mail service.
1956 Atomic fusion (thermonuclear) bomb dropped from plane -
on the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.
1961 White mob attacks `Freedom Riders' in Montgomery, Alabama
1974 Russians' Soyuz 14 returns to Earth
1985 FBI arrests John A. Walker Jr, convicted of spying for the USSR.
1985 The US begins broadcasts to Cuba on Radio Marti.
May 21, 1956 (my birthday), the United States exploded the first
airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.
On May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis
near Paris, completing the first solo airplane flight across the
May 21, 1881, Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.
Every day, 20,000 letters pour into Bill Clinton's White House --
three times the mail that arrived during George Bush's term.
--US News & World Report, May 30, 1994
Only 4 nucleotides exist in DNA, and every living thing is created
out of these 4 building blocks.
--"X-Files", TV series, pending a more reliable sourceMAY 21 in History
1761 First life insurance policy in the US, issued in Philadelphia
1807 Townsend Speakman begins making and selling fruit-flavored
carbonated drinks - in Philadelphia.
1846 First steamer arrives in Hawaii
1856 Violence in Senate, SC rep Brooks uses a cane on Mass Sen Sumner.
1868 Great Train Robbery. Seven men make off with $98,000 in cash.
1939 Hitler and Mussolini sign `Pact of Steel.'
1947 First ballistic missile fired.
1947 The "Truman Doctrine" goes into effect aiding Turkey & Greece.
1963 Mickey Mantle hits a ball off Yankee Stadium's facade
1967 Egyptian president Nassar closes the Straits of Tiran to Israel.
1970 Arab terrorists kill 9 children and 3 adults on a school bus.
1972 Ceylon becomes Republic of Sri Lanka.
1981 Russians' Soyuz 40 returns to Earth
The Douglas Fir isn't a fir, but actually a member of the pine family.
Glass is an amorphous substance made by heating a mixture of such
materials as sand, soda (sodium carbonate), and limestone to a
temperature of about 1,300 deg C (2,400 deg F). Temperatures only
slightly lower than this can be achieved with a wood fire, which was
the traditional fuel for glass melting. Today glass is made
continuously in large tanks. Powdered raw materials are fed in at one
end, and a molten strip or plate of glass emerges at the other end.
The glass is heated by oil or gas flames over the melt, but since
these fuels are becoming more expensive, the electrical glass-melting
process, which employs metal electrodes in the melt to generate heat,
is becoming more widely used. Windows, containers, light bulbs,
optical instruments, and many specialty items of glass are an
essential part of modern life.
--Grolier's Academic American Encyclopedia
1742 First indoor swimming pool opens at Goodman's Fields, London.
1774 First Continental Congress convenes in Virginia.
1926 United States Customs Court created by Congress.
1929 First all color talking picture "On With The Show" exhibited, NYC
1946 First night game at Yankee stadium.
1953 Premier of first animated 3-D cartoon in Technicolor - "Melody."
1959 First animals fired into space and rescued, Cape Canaveral.
Born May 29, 1826, Ebenezer Butterick invented the tissue paper
Born May 29,1903 Leslie Townes (Bob) Hope, famous profile.
June 1, 1971 Ed Sullivan's final show.
June 2, 1835 P.T. Barnum and his circus begin their first tour
of the U.S.
June 2, 1886 First president to wed during presidency- Grover
June 2, 1910 Pygmies are discovered in Dutch New Guinea.
Americans open the refrigerator an average of 22 times per day.
June 4, 1896 -- Road test of the first Ford car is delayed an hour
because the car is wider than the door of the shed in
which it is built.
June 5, 1933 -- The United States leaves the gold standard.
June 5th in history:
In 1783, Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier publicly demonstrated
their hot-air balloon in a 10-minute flight over Annonay, France.
In 1967, war erupted in the Middle East when Israel, convinced
an Arab attack was imminent, raided Egyptian military targets. Syria,
Jordan and Iraq entered the conflict.
In 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded
just after claiming victory in California's Democratic presidential
primary. Gunman Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was immediately arrested.
--AP Online News
Born June 5, 1900 Dennis Gabor, inventor of holography (3D laser
June 6 in history:
1946 Henry Morgan is first to take off his shirt on TV.
2012 Transit of Venus (between Earth and Sun) will occur.
June 8 in history:
1786 First commercially-made ice cream sold in New York.
1869 IW McGaffey receives patent for vacuum cleaner.
1889 Cable Cars begin service in Los Angeles. LOS ANGELES!
June 9, 1869 Charles Elmer Hires sells his first Root Beer, in
There's a pyramid in Rome! The pyramid of Gaius Cestius, the only
pyramid in Rome, has a burial chamber inside.
Peppermint was the flavor of the first LifeSaver candy, introduced
The word "Buccaneer", a 17th century pirate who raided Spanish ships,
derived from the French word for "barbecuer".
To check the accuracy of an 18% photographic gray card, with the sun
out and the aperture on f/16, the shutter speed should equal the ASA
(speed) of the film.
Harry Luce, president of Time (or LIFE), is the son of a Presbyterian
The slang word "geek" derives back as far as 1611, referring to the
scorn of others' villainy.
The slang word "cool" derives back as far as 1825.
--Random House Dictionary of Slang
June 16, 1903, Ford Motor Co. was incorporated.
June 17th in history:
1885 Statue of Liberty arrives in NYC aboard the French ship `Isere.'
1953 Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas stays executions of
spies Julius & Ethel Rosenberg scheduled for the next day
because it's their 14th anniversary.
1963 Supreme Court strikes down rule requiring recitation of the
Lord's Prayer or reading of Biblical verses in public schools.
1987 NY Yankees and KC Royals Manager Dick Howser dies at 51 of
In 1979, President Carter apologized to Australia for pieces of
Skylab falling on their country.
The human small intestine is approximately 21 feet long.
In 1981, Pres. Reagan fired nearly 12,000 air traffic controllers of
the PATCO union after they called an illegal strike.
In 1993, Pres. Clinton lifted the ban that Reagan put into effect
regarding the permanent freeze of hiring ex-PATCO union workers from
any aviation related jobs.
June 18, 1812 -- War of 1812 begins - US vs. Great Britain
June 18, 1877 -- James Montgomery Flagg, illustrator, is born. He's
best known for his "I want you" Uncle Sam recruiting poster.
The blink of an eye takes approximately one fourth of a second.
According to GE, a twinkling of an eye is about 1/700th of a second.
--Brother Bob, pastor, Plaza Heights Baptist Church
Only 15% of people past age 18 get converted to Christianity.
There are over 500,000 hymns written. (as of the early 1990's)
June 23, 1868 The typewriter is patented.
--YFC BBSJune 25th in history:
1178 Five Canterbury monks report something exploding on the Moon
(only known observation). These monks had NO winery of their own.
1630 The Fork is introduced to American dining by Gov. Winthrop.
1835 Pueblo founded with construction of first building (start of
Yerba Buena, later to be called San Francisco).
1876 Lt. Col. Custer and 7th Cavalry are wiped out by Sioux and
1929 President Hoover authorizes construction of Boulder (Hoover) Dam.
1950 El Al airlines begins air service.
1950 North Korea invades South Korea - Korean War begins.
1951 First color TV broadcast - CBS' Arthur Godfrey from NYC. Four
cities see the show in color.
1962 Supreme Court rules use of unofficial non-denominational prayer
in New York State public schools is unconstitutional.
July 4th in history:
In 1826, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson -- the second and third
presidents of the United States -- both died, 50 years to the
day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
In 1831, the fifth president of the United States, James Monroe, died
in New York City.
In 1862, English clergyman and mathematician Charles L. Dodgson,
better known as Lewis Carroll, began inventing the story of
"Alice in Wonderland" for his friend Alice Pleasance Liddell
during a boating trip.
In 1984, The Statue of Liberty's torch, symbol of freedom to tens of
millions of new Americans for almost a century, was removed from the
statue's outstretched hand to be replaced with a new one the
July 14, 1916, Boeing Company, originally known as Pacific Aero
Products, was founded in Seattle by William Boeing.
--AP Online News
July 16, 1935 Oklahoma City becomes first in U.S. to use parking meters.
July 17, 1954 Construction begins on Disneyland ...
July 17, 1955 ... Disneyland opens its doors in rural Orange County.
July 18, 1940 First successful helicopter flight, Stratford, CT.
July 18, 1968 Intel Corporation is incorporated.
July 18, 1969 Mary Jo Kopechne and Sen Ted Kennedy plunge off bridge
in a car.
July 19, 1969, Apollo 11 and its astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Edwin
"Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins, went into orbit around the moon.
July 24, 1969, Apollo 11 returns to Earth.
--AP Online News
July 19, 1975, the Apollo and Soyuz space capsules that were linked
in orbit for two days separated.
--AP Online News
July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz"
Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. At 10:56 p.m. EDT,
Armstrong stepped onto the moon from Apollo's lunar module and
declared, "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for
--AP Online News
July 20, 1976, America's Viking One robot spacecraft made a
successful, first-ever landing on Mars.
--AP Online News
July 19, 1961 First in-flight movie is shown (on TWA.)
July 21 in history:
1873 World's first train robbery, by Jesse James.
1925 John Scopes found guilty for teaching evolution.
1959 First atomic merchant ship, Savannah, christened, Camden, NJ.
1961 Gus Grissom aboard Liberty Bell 7 is launched .
1966 Gemini X returns to Earth.
1976 "Legionnaire's Disease" kills 29 in Philadelphia, Pa.
July 25 in history:
1909 First airplane flight across the English Channel.
1946 First bikini is shown at a Paris fashion show.
1952 Puerto Rico becomes a commonwealth of the US.
The toucan is a relative of the woodpecker.
July 27 in history:
1866 Atlantic telegraph cable successfully laid (1,686 miles long.)
1940 Billboard magazine starts publishing best-seller's charts.
1953 Korean War ends.
Guyana--The Peoples' Temple--Nov. 1978--Led by Jim Jones. Ambush on
four journalists and a California congressman, plus mass suicide...
total 911 dead.
--World's Great News Photos
Three Mile Island--March of 1979
--World's Great News Photos
July 30, 1946 First rocket to attain 100-mile altitude, White Sands, NM.
Aug. 1, 1790, the first U.S. census was completed, showing a
population of nearly 4 million people.
--AP Online News
Aug. 1, 1936, the Olympic games opened in Berlin with a ceremony
presided over by Adolf Hitler.
--AP Online News
Aug. 1, 1981, the rock music video channel MTV made its debut.
--AP Online News
August 4th in history:
1693 Champagne is invented by Dom Perignon.
1777 Retired British cavalry officer Philip Astley establishes the
1790 United States Coast Guard founded.
--AP Online News
Aug. 12th in history:
1851 Isaac Singer granted a patent for his sewing machine.
1888 Bertha, wife of inventor Karl Benz, makes the first motor tour.
Without her husband's knowledge, she borrow one of his cars and
travels 180km to visit relatives for 5 days.
1934 Babe Ruth's final game at Fenway Park, 41,766 on hand.
1972 Last combat troops leave Vietnam.
1977 First test of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
--AP Online News
March 1989 -- Exxon Valdez spills 11 million gallons of crude oil.
--AP Online News
By age 65, the human heart will have beat about 2 1/2 billion times.
Rain forests get between 100 and 400 inches of rain per year, as
opposed to Missouri, which gets 33.91 yearly.
--1991 World Almanac
One US gallon of pure water is about 8.345 pounds. One inch of
rainfall over one acre of ground would equal 27,143 gallons of water.
--1991 World Almanac
Feb. 1, '68 -- famous Loan shooting of suspected Viet Cong soldier
photographed by Eddie Adams-- AP photographer.
Aug. 31, 1895 John Brailier becomes the first "professional"
football player when he receives $10 for expenses in a game
at Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
The first commercial product to use transistors was the hearing aid
in 1952. The radio used transistors two years later.
Sep. 13, 1977-- First TV viewer discretion warning used-- "Soap"
Sep. 30, 1452-- First book published, Johann Guttenberg's Bible.
Sep. 30, 1960 "The Flintstones" premieres. Yabba Dabba Doo!
--YFC BBSONE VOTE...
In 1649, one vote caused Charles I of England to be executed.
In 1776, one vote gave America the English language instead of
In 1836, one vote elected Marcus Morton governor of Massachusetts.
In 1845, one vote brought Texas into the Union.
In 1868, one vote saved President Andrew Johnson from impeachment.
In 1875, one vote changed France from a monarchy to a republic.
In 1876, one vote gave Rutherford B. Hayes the United States
In 1923, one vote gave Adolf Hitler control of the Nazi party.
In 1941, one vote saved the selective service system just 12 weeks
before Pearl Harbor.
--Chuck Swindoll quoting from some book on his radio program
As of 3-7-95, there are 11,638 taxi drivers in New York, NY.
--NYC cab driver on David Letterman
COLLATERAL ADJECTIVES (redesigned)
capric or hircine
deer family (deer, elk, moose, caribou, etc.)
rabbit and/or hare
ape or monkey
mouse or rat
COLLATERAL ADJECTIVES (continued)
(Thanks Darniece and Margot!)
crow or raven
psittacine (Thanks Martha!)
peristeronic (Thanks Martha!)
ostriches, emus, rheas, etc.
serpentine, ophidian and/or colubrine
bees, care of bees
wasp or hornet
starfish or sea urchin
having the form
of an animal
people and/or mankind
covered with fine
hairs or down
sharp, bitter, stinging,
irritating in taste or smell
bitter or sarcastic
rod (or beating with a rod)
gums (in the mouth)
lip or lips
fore part of the head,
sandy, growing in sand
sandy, living in sand
root or roots
perpetually cold location
mind or intellect
lying flat on back
excessively fond of
or submissive to a wife
dreams or dreamy
rope or cord under tension
ceremony, mating season
flashing or sudden
swollen, bloated, puffed up; bombastic, pompous
drowsiness or sluggishness
liberality or generosity
loud or loud voice
during the day
during the night
sleepiness or lethargy
period of drowsiness
clear, see through
not letting light
touch, sense of touch
an act of
study of meaning and
changes of meaning in words
earning a living
mental or genial
kiss and/or kissing
dog days of summer
color, coloring, dyeing
moon or planet
or containing blood
above the water table
extremely cold, icy
faithlessness, disloyalty, treachery
great in quantity
third in place, order,
degree, or rank
clipping or trimming
of live shrubs or trees
into decorative shapes
partly in existence,
abrupt or blunt in
manner or speech
Inclined to fight;
medicinal; cure disease; relieve pain
of little value
consisting of a confused mixture
same or equal age,
antiquity, or duration
a select group, esoteric
abundant trees, shrubs, woods
next to the last
the time just before dinner
faculty of divination,
acquired or occurring
in a hospital
full of whispering,
murmuring, rustling sounds
gushing, slobbering, sloppy (as in enthusiasm)
standing out conspicuously, prominent, of notable significance
greedy of gain, greedy
difficult to comprehend
comfortably or conveniently spacious; roomy
beginning to exist or having recently come into existence
being with child; heavy with young or eggs; pregnant
supple, marked by
existing outside of nature; unnatural, nonnatural, abnormal, unordinary
wordy, fluent or excessive talk
wordy, fluent or excessive talk
Capable of perceiving
by the senses; conscious
bank of a natural
lake or tidewater
pleasing to the ear;
or flavor; stylish
first created or developed; beginning
those who habitually
guilty of a moral offense; sinning
diminutive, short (human)
flat, dull; lacking liveliness
lack of intelligence
stubbornly persistent in wrongdoing; hardened in feelings; resistant to persuasion or softening influences