Amazing Facts Post #1

Per capita, Canada has more doughnut shops than any other country.
People are marrying younger today than they did before the turn of the century. In the United States, in 1890, the average age of men at their first marriage was twenty-six years, compared with twenty-three today. For women, the corresponding figures are twenty-two then and just under twenty-one now.
Half a billion people - about one of every eight - are suffering chronic malnutrition today.
In 1993 there were an estimated 64 million cats in the United States.
On a bingo card of ninety numbers there are approximately 44 million ways to make B-I-N-G-O.
There are more television sets in the United States than there are people in Japan.
Every year, over 8800 people injure themselves with a toothpick.
In the United States, five million teeth are knocked out annually.
No one knows how many people live in the country of Bhutan. As of 1975, no census had ever been taken.
New York City has the largest black population of any city in the United States. It is followed by Chicago and Philadelphia.
More than 63 million Star Trek books, in more than 15 languages, are in print; 13 were sold every minute in the U.S. in 1995.
Burns are second only to traffic accidents as the cause of accidental loss of life in the U.S.: about 6,000 fatal burns a year.
In the famous Parker Brothers game "Monopoly," the space on which a player has the greatest statistical chance of landing is Illinois Avenue. This is followed by the B&O Railroad, Free Parking, Tennessee Avenue, New York Avenue and the Reading Railroad.
In the United States, deaf people have safer driving records than hearing people nationally.
Every minute 47 Bibles are sold or distributed throughout the world.
4 out of 5 sing in the car.
44% of men tailgate to speed up the person in front of them.
12% of men never use their car blinkers.
The average IQ is 100, while 140 is the beginning of genius IQ.
There are over 15,000 miles of lighted neon tubing in the many signs on the Strip and downtown Las Vegas.
The average life span of London residents in the middle of the 19th century was 27 years. For members of the working class, that number dropped to 22 years.
It takes an average person fifteen to twenty minutes to walk once around the Pentagon.
81.3% would tell an acquaintance to zip his pants.
54.2% of us always wash our hands after using the toilet.
30% of us refuse to sit on a public toilet seat.
Significantly more black women die from heart disease than any other group.
78% would rather die quickly than live in a retirement home.
15% regularly go to a shrink.
14% have attended a self-help meeting.
Only 30% of us know our cholesterol level.
44% have broken a bone.
4 out of 5 of us have suffered from hemorrhoids.
49% believe in ESP.
57% have had deja vu.
10% of us claim to have seen a ghost.
33% of women lie about their weight.
62% of us pop our zits.
58% of women paint their nails regularly.
53% of women will not leave the house without makeup on.
9% of women and 8% of men have had cosmetic surgery.
Nearly 1/3 of US women color their hair.
The typical shower is 101 degrees F.
22% leave the glob of toothpaste in the sink.
2/3 of us speed up at a yellow light.
45% of us consistently follow the speed limit.
71% can drive a stick-shift car.
6% propose over the phone.
1 in 5 men proposed on his knees.
The biggest cause of matrimonial fighting is money.
2 out of 5 have married their first love.
20% of women consider their parents to be their best friends.
On average, we send 38 Christmas cards every year.
51% of adults dress up for a Halloween festivity.
28% of us have skinny-dipped. 14% with the opposite sex.
53% of us would take advice from Ann Landers.
90% of us depend on alarm clocks to wake us.
16% of us have forgotten our own wedding anniversary (mostly men).
53% read their horoscopes regularly.
66% of women and 59% of men have used a mix to cook and taken credit for doing it from scratch.
57% save pretty gift paper to reuse.
44% reuse tinfoil.
40% of us have had music lessons.
20% of us have played in a band at one time in our life.
56% of women do the bills in a marriage.
53% prefer ATM machines over tellers.
37% claim to know how to use all the features on their VCR.
Less than 10% are trilingual.
71.6% of us eavesdrop.
29% of us ignore RSVP.
45% use mouthwash every day.
Only 13% brush our teeth from side to side.
14% of us eat the watermelon seeds.
22% of all restaurant meals include French fries.
66% of us eat cereal regularly.
9% of us skip breakfast daily.
22% of us skip lunch daily.
Snickers is the most popular candy.
70% of us drink orange juice daily.
85% of us will eat Spam this year.
When nobody else is around, 47% drink straight from the carton.
69% eat the cake before the frosting.
35% give to charity at least once a month.
On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
Over 50% believe in spanking - but only a child over 2 years old.
29% of us are virgins when we marry.
13% (mostly men) have spent a night in jail.
45% believe in ghosts.
82% believe in an afterlife.
10% believe in the 10 Commandments.(Only 10%?!)
90% believe in divine retribution.
50% admit they regularly sneak food into movie theaters to avoid the high prices of snack foods.
3 out of 4 of us store our dollar bills in rigid order with singles leading up to higher denominations.
85% of women wear the wrong bra size.
67.5% of men wear briefs.
40% of women have hurled footwear at a man.
Men do 29% of laundry each week. Only 7% of women trust their husbands to do it correctly.
Only 30% of us can flare our nostrils.
Pennies, plural, have value to most Americans. A penny, singular, does not. Almost half of Americans say they would not bother to bend over to pick up a penny on the street, but more than half of us report having stashes of pennies laying around the house.
During the heating months of winter, the relative humidity of the average American home is 13% nearly twice as dry as the Sahara Desert.
Nine out of 10 Americans tell pollsters they have NEVER had a professional massage.
The standard escalator moves 120 feet per minute.
Most deaths in a hospital are between the times of 4pm and 6pm, the time when the human body is at its weakest.
The chance of contracting an infection during a hospital stay in the USA is 1 in 15.
By 1995 8 million U.S. households had computers with CD-ROM drives, a 1600% increase over 1990.
68% of Americans who view computer commercials on TV that advertise a processor, such as the Pentium III, believe it speeds up your Internet connections. However, a modem does that.
A United Parcel Service delivery person typically makes up to 300 pickups or deliveries a day. That compares to someone doing 600 sets of step aerobics a day.
The Earth experiences 50,000 earthquakes a year.
Last year Americans ate more than 8.5 million pounds of tortilla chips on Super Bowl Sunday.
Dominos Pizza sales typically double on Super Bowl Sunday.
Super Bowl Monday sales of antacids increase by more than 20% over other Mondays.
In the USA - more toilets flush at the half time of the Super Bowl than at any other time of the year.
During the Christmas buying season, Visa cards alone are used an average of 5,340 times every minute in the U.S.
It rains more often in London, England, on a Thursday than any other day of the week.
You have to break a lot of eggs to serve breakfast in Las Vegas. At Caesar’s Palace alone, an average of 7,700 are prepared each day. With 2.8 million eggs delivered each year to that one resort. Caesars serves over 427 pounds of coffee each day and pours more than 3,000 ounces of orange juice every 24 hours.
There are over 15,000 miles of lighted neon tubing in the many signs on the Strip and downtown Las Vegas.
The number one reason people choose to buy a wireless phone is for safety (nearly 50% of those who own wireless phones purchased it for safety).
In the U.S., 54% of wireless phone users are men and 46% are women.
They call it puppy love: An American Animal Hospital Association poll showed that 33% of dog owners admit that they talk to their dogs on the phone or leave messages on an answering machine while away.
The most popular name given to boat-owners’ boats is "Obsession".
Conception occurs in December more than any other month.
Over 2500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right handed people.
As of 1983, an average of Three billion Christmas cards were sent annually in the United States.
In 1790, the U.S. government conducted its first head count. The total population was just under four million (3,929,625).
In 1984, 13,126 people were arrested in Federal drug cases.
There are more Barbie dolls in Italy than there are Canadians in Canada.
Portion of land in the US owned by the government: 1/3
Chances that a burglary in the US will be solved: 1 in 7.
Portion of Harvard students who graduate with honors: 4/5
The average American pays more in taxes than for food, clothing and shelter put together.
The average US worker toils for two hours and 47 minutes of each working day just to pay income tax.
55,700 people in the US are injured by jewelry each year.
56% of the video game market is adults.
The average American looks at eight houses before buying one.
75% of people wash from top to bottom in the shower.
8% of Americans twiddle their thumbs.
5,840 people with pillow related injuries checked into U.S. emergency rooms in 1992.
"Evaluation and Parameterization of Stability and Safety Performance Characteristics of Two and Three Wheeled Vehicular Toys for Riding." Title of a $230,000 research project proposed by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, to study the various ways children fall off bicycles.
According to the US Government people have tried nearly 28,000 different ways to lose weight.
40,000 Americans are injured by toilets every year.
The average person over fifty will have spent 5 years waiting in lines.
Statistically speaking, the most dangerous job in the United States is that of Sanitation Worker. Firemen and Policeman are a close second and third, followed by Leather Tanners in fourth.
Since the Lego Group began manufacturing blocks in 1949, more than 189 billion pieces in 2000 different shapes have been produced. This is enough for about 30 Lego pieces for every living person on Earth.
Since 1978, at least 37 people have died as a result of shaking vending machines, in an attempt to get free merchandise. More than 100 have been injured.
Seventy-three percent of Americans are willing to wear clothes until the clothes wear out. The poll conducted by Louis Harris and Associates also revealed: 92 percent are willing to eliminate annual model changes in automobiles; 57 percent are willing to see a national policy that would make it cheaper to live in multiple-unit apartments than in single-family homes; 91 percent are willing to eat more vegetables and less meat for protein.
Seventy percent of house dust is made up of dead skin flakes.
Half of all people who have ever smoked have now quit.
Adults spend an average of 16 times as many hours selecting clothes (145.6 hours a year) as they do on planning their retirement.
Results of a survey show that 76 percent of women make their bed every day, compared to 46 percent of men.
Police estimated that 10,000 abandoned, orphaned and runaway children were roaming the streets of New York City in 1852.
Per capita, it is safer to live in New York City than it is to live in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
In 1996, Americans bought only 12 inches of dental floss per capita.
In 1995, each American used an annual average of 731 pounds of paper, more than double the amount used in the 1980s. Contrary to predictions that computers would displace paper, consumption is growing.
In 1990 the life expectancy of the average American male was 72.7 years and 76.1 years for females. In 1900 the life expectancy was 46.6 for males and 48.7 for females.
In 1977, less than 9 percent of physicians in the U.S. were women.
In 1970 only 5 percent of the American population lived in cities.
In 1915, the average annual family income in the United States was $687 a year.
Per a national survey, 80 percent of U.S. teachers in grades kindergarten through eighth grade have received chocolate as a gift from their students.
Per a "Newsweek" poll, 49 percent of American fathers described themselves as better parents than their dads.
Pediatricians estimate that 58 percent of their young patients go to child care or school even when ill, according to a Gallup survey. This despite the fact that 81 percent of mothers working full-time have stayed home at times to care for a sick child.
In 1990 there were about 15,000 vacuum cleaner related accidents in the U.S.
There have been several documented cases of women giving birth to twins who had different fathers, including cases where the children were of different races. To do so, the mother had to have conceived both children in close proximity. There has also been one recent case where a mother gave birth to unrelated "twins." In that instance, the mother underwent in vitro fertilization and had her own child and the embryo of another couple accidentally implanted in her.
While the average cost of air travel is about $60 per hour, using an air-phone during that plane trip can cost as much as $160 per hour.
Over 15 billion prizes have been given away in Cracker Jacks boxes.
Two out of three adults in the United States have hemorrhoids.
Hawaii is the only state in the United States where male life expectancy exceeds 70 years. Hawaii also leads all states in life expectancy in general, with an average of 73.6 years for both males and females.
Hawaii has the highest percentage of cremations of all other U.S. states, with a 60.6 percent preference over burial.
Only 3 percent of Americans ages 18 to 21 attended college in 1890.
Executives work an average 57 hours a week, but just 22 percent say their hours are a major cause of stress.
Out of the 34,000 gun deaths in the U.S. each year, fewer than 300 are listed as "justifiable homicide," the only category that could include shooting a burglar, mugger, or rapist.
Only about 30 percent of teenage males consistently apply sun protection lotion when going poolside, compared to 46 percent of female teens.
There are more telephones than people in Washington DC.
Occasionally, hot dog sales at baseball stadiums exceed attendance, but typically, hot dog sales at ballparks average 80 percent of the attendance.
Each year approximately 250,000 American husbands are physically attacked and beaten by their wives.
Canada is the largest importer of American cars.
Ninety percent of U.S. households have at lease one remote control for the television; 8 out of 10 report losing it.
More than 50 percent of adults surveyed said that children should not be paid money for getting good grades in school.
Spaghetti is the favorite pasta shape, with 38 percent favoring it over other pasta shapes. The second favorite shape is elbow macaroni, at 16 percent.
The one extra room new-home shoppers want the most is the laundry room, at 95 percent. Only 66 percent of new-home buyers request an extra room to use as an office.
Residential buildings use about 35 percent of all available electricity.
A recent Gallup survey showed that in the United States 8 percent of kissers kept their eyes open, but more than 20 percent confessed to an occasional peek. Forty-one percent said they experienced their first serious smooch when they were age thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen; 36 percent between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. The most memorable kiss in a motion picture was in "Gone With The Wind" according to 25 percent of those polled.
The population divides approximately in half between AM and PM people. But early-birds have the edge - 56 percent routinely rise early while 44 percent stay up late. Medical studies, by the way, find that people tend to work more productively in the morning.
According to a major hotel chain, approximately the same numbers of men and women are locked out of their rooms. 32 percent are less than fully dressed.
Nearly 87 percent of the 103 people polled in 1977 were unable to identify correctly an unlabeled copy of the Declaration of Independence.
By the end of the U.S. Civil War, 33 percent of all U.S. paper currency in circulation was counterfeit. This was a devastating situation for a nation struggling to recover economically from such a destructive war. On July 5, 1865, the Secret Service was created as a part of the Department of the Treasury to help suppress counterfeit currency.
Before the Chinese take-over of Tibet in 1952, 25 percent of the males in the country were Buddhist monks.
One in five American households move in a given year. The average American moves 11 times. But most of us - 61 percent - still live in the state we were born in. And big corporations report increasing resistance to transfers to new cities...with many people turning down promotions in order to stay put.
Focus group information compiled by CalComp revealed that 50 percent of computer users do not like using a mouse.
According to one U.S. study, about 25 percent of all adolescent and adult males never use deodorant.
Half of all men start to lose their hair by the time they turn 30. Everybody loses dozens of hairs a day - the key thing is whether or not they grow back. More than 40 percent of men wind up with significant hair loss.
About 10 percent of the workforce in Egypt is under 12 years of age. Although laws protecting children are on the books, they are not well enforced, partly because many poverty-stricken parents feel forced to send their children out to help support the family.
About 60 percent of all American babies are named after close relatives.
About 25 percent of all male Americans between the ages of ten and fifteen were "gainfully employed" at the turn of the century. By 1970, so few in that age bracket were employed that the U.S. Census Bureau did not bother to make inquiries about them.
About 24 percent of alcoholics die in accidents, falls, fires, and suicides.
A recent study conducted by the Shyness Clinic in Menlo Park, California, revealed that almost 90 percent of Americans label themselves as shy.
It is illegal to marry the spouse of a grandparent in Maine, Maryland, South Carolina, and Washington, DC.
Golf was banned in England in 1457 because it was considered a distraction from the serious pursuit of archery.
The murder rate in the Unted States is 200 times greater than in Japan. In Japan no private citizen can buy a handgun legally.
Impotence is grounds for divorce in 24 U.S. states.
The minimum age set in the U.S. Constitution for the President of the United States is 35.
In Milan, Italy, there is a law on the books that requires a smile on the face of all citizens at all times. Exemptions include time spent visiting patients in hospitals or attending funerals. Otherwise, the fine is $100 if they are seen in public without a smile on their face.
Talking on a cellular phone while driving is against the law in Israel.
Because of heavy traffic congestion, Julius Caesar banned all wheeled vehicles from Rome during daylight hours.
In 1968, a convention of beggars in Dacca, India, passed a resolution demanding that the minimum amount of alms be fixed at 15 paisa (three cents).
In the marriage ceremony of the ancient Inca Indians of Peru, the couple was considered officially wed when they took off their sandals and handed them to each other.
During the eighteenth century, books that were considered offensive were sometimes punished by being whipped.
The Spanish Inquisition once condemned the entire Netherlands to death for heresy.
A girl, in the Vacococha tribe of Peru, to prepare her for marriage at the age of 12, is placed in a basket in the hut of her prospective in-laws and must remain suspened over an open fire night and day for 3 months.
In the Middle Ages, the highest court in France ordered the execution of a cow for injuring a human.
Margaret Sanger was jailed for a month, in 1917, in a workhouse for founding a clinic that dispensed contraceptives.
The curtain or veil used by some Hindus and Moslems to seclude or hide their women from strangers is called a "purdah."
It is illegal to marry the spouse of a grandparent in Maine, Maryland, South Carolina, and Washington, DC.
Golf was banned in England in 1457 because it was considered a distraction from the serious pursuit of archery.
The murder rate in the Unted States is 200 times greater than in Japan. In Japan no private citizen can buy a handgun legally.
Impotence is grounds for divorce in 24 U.S. states.
The minimum age set in the U.S. Constitution for the President of the United States is 35.
In Milan, Italy, there is a law on the books that requires a smile on the face of all citizens at all times. Exemptions include time spent visiting patients in hospitals or attending funerals. Otherwise, the fine is $100 if they are seen in public without a smile on their face.
Talking on a cellular phone while driving is against the law in Israel.
Because of heavy traffic congestion, Julius Caesar banned all wheeled vehicles from Rome during daylight hours.
In 1968, a convention of beggars in Dacca, India, passed a resolution demanding that the minimum amount of alms be fixed at 15 paisa (three cents).
In the marriage ceremony of the ancient Inca Indians of Peru, the couple was considered officially wed when they took off their sandals and handed them to each other.
During the eighteenth century, books that were considered offensive were sometimes punished by being whipped.
The Spanish Inquisition once condemned the entire Netherlands to death for heresy.
A girl, in the Vacococha tribe of Peru, to prepare her for marriage at the age of 12, is placed in a basket in the hut of her prospective in-laws and must remain suspened over an open fire night and day for 3 months.
In the Middle Ages, the highest court in France ordered the execution of a cow for injuring a human.
Margaret Sanger was jailed for a month, in 1917, in a workhouse for founding a clinic that dispensed contraceptives.
The curtain or veil used by some Hindus and Moslems to seclude or hide their women from strangers is called a "purdah."
The mummified hand of a notary public, chopped off for falsely certifying a document, has been on display in the city hall of Munster, Germany, as a warning to other notaries for 400 years.
It is legal in North Dakota to shoot an Indian on horseback, provided you are in a covered wagon.
Women in Florida may be fined for falling asleep under a hair dryer, as can the salon owner.
Snoring is prohibited in Massachusetts unless all bedroom windows are closed and securely locked. It is also illegal to go to bed without first having a full bath.
Mailing an entire building has been illegal in the U.S. since 1916 when a man mailed a 40,000-ton brick house across Utah to avoid high freight rates.
In Hartford, Connecticut, you may not, under any circumstances, cross the street walking on your hands.
To pass U.S. Army basic training young female recruits must do 17 pushups in two minutes. Males must do 40 pushups in two minutes.
At the first professional baseball game, the umpire was fined 6 cents for swearing.
During the time of Peter the Great, any Russian man who wore a beard was required to pay a special tax.
During World War II, bakers in the United States were ordered to stop selling sliced bread for the duration of the war on January 18, 1943. Only whole loaves were made available to the public. It was never explained how this action helped the war effort.
During World War I, the punishment for homosexuality in the French army was execution.
Quebec and Newfoundland are the only two provinces which do not allow personalized license plates.
The ship, the Queen Elizabeth 2, should always be written as QE2. QEII is the actual queen.
In Atlanta, Georgia, it is illegal to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp.
In 1996, Christmas caroling was banned at two major malls in Pensacola, Florida. Apparently, shoppers and merchants complained the carolers were too loud and took up too much space.
In 1388, English Parliament banned waste disposal in public waterways and ditches.
In most places, when a drawbridge is open, the only land vehicle that can claim priority over boats is a truck hauling the US mail. This option is seldom if ever exercised, of course.
Found on a butane lighter: "Warning: Flame may cause fire."
Found on the handle of a hammer: "Caution: Do not use this hammer to strike any solid object."
Found on Bat Man The Animated Series Armor Set Halloween costume box: "PARENT: Please exercise caution, mask and chest plate are not protective; cape does not enable wearer to fly."
Found on the instruction sheet of a Conair Pro Style 1600 hair dryer: "WARNING: Do not use in shower. Never use while sleeping."
Found a box of Tampax Tampons: "Remove used tampon before inserting a new one."
Found on Axius Sno-Off Automobile Windshield cover: "Caution: Never drive with the cover on your windshield."
A local ordinance in Atwoodville, Connecticut prohibits people from playing Scrabble while waiting for a politician to speak.
In December 1997, the state of Nevada (USA) became the first state to pass legislation categorizing Y2K data disasters as "acts of God"— protecting the state from lawsuits that may potentially be brought against it by residents in the year 2000.
In Hartford Connecticut, it is illegal for a husband to kiss his wife on Sundays.
In Milan, Italy, when an operator dialed a wrong number, the phone company fined the operator.
In Italy, it is illegal to make coffins out of anything except nutshells or wood.
It is illegal to hunt camels in the state of Arizona.
In Turkey, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, anyone caught drinking coffee was put to death.
Christmas was once illegal in England.
In Utah, birds have the right of way on all highways.
During the time that the atomic bomb was being hatched by the United States at Alamogordo, New Mexico, applicants for routine jobs like janitors, were disqualified if they could read. Illiteracy was a job requirement. The reason: the authorities did not want their trash or other papers read.
In Kentucky, it is illegal to carry ice cream in your back pocket.
No building in DC may be taller than 13 floors. This is so that no matter where in the city you are, you can see the monument to our first president, Washington.
Texas is the only state that permits residents to cast absentee ballots from space. The first to exercise this right to vote while in orbit was astronaut David Wolf, who cast his vote for Houston mayor via e-mail from the Russian space station Mir in November 1997.
Hypnotism is banned by public schools in San Diego.
It was once against the law to slam your car door in a city in Switzerland.
In Pakistan, it is rude to show the soles of your feet or point a foot when you are sitting on the floor.
In Thailand, the left hand is considered unclean, so you should not eat with it. Also, pointing with one finger is considered rude and is only done when pointing to objects or animals, never humans.
Being rude to a telephone operator in Prussia was once a crime. In 1908, a respected citizen was reprimanded by the government after becoming exasperated with an operator and saying "My dear girl!"
In South America, it would be rude not to ask a man about his wife and children. In most Arab countries, it would be rude to do so.
In some smaller towns in the state of Arizona, it is illegal to wear suspenders.
In seventeenth-century Japan, no citizen was allowed to leave the country on penalty of death. Anyone caught coming or going without permission was executed on the spot.
In Pennsylvania, Ministers are forbidden from performing marriages when either the bride or groom is drunk.
In San Salvador, drunk drivers can be punished by death before a firing squad.
In Saudi Arabia, a woman reportedly may divorce her husband if he does not keep her supplied with coffee.
Women were banned by royal decree from using hotel swimming pools in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, in 1979.
Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine are the four states in the U.S. that do not allow billboards.
In New York State, it is still illegal to shoot a rabbit from a moving trolley car.
In most American states, a wedding ring is exempt by law from inclusion among the assets in a bankruptcy estate. This means that a wedding ring cannot be seized by creditors, no matter how much the bankrupt person owes.
A few years back, a Chinese soap hit it big with consumers in Asia. It was claimed in ads that users would lose weight with Seaweed Defat Scented Soap simply by washing with it. The soap was sold in violation to the Japanese Pharmaceutical Affairs Law and was banned. Reportedly, the craze for the soap was so great that Japanese tourists from China and Hong Kong brought back large quantities. The product was also in violation of customs regulations. In June and July 1999 alone, over 10,000 bars were seized.
Connecticut and Rhode Island never ratified the 18th Amendment: Prohibition.
Candy made from pieces of barrel cactus was outlawed in the U.S. in 1952 to protect the species.
By law, information collected in a U.S. census must remain confidential for 72 years.
An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing.
For hundreds of years, the Chinese zealously guarded the secret of sericulture; imperial law decreed death by torture to those who disclosed how to make silk.
The handkerchief had been used by the Romans, who ordinarily wore two handkerchiefs: one on the left wrist and one tucked in at the waist or around the neck. In the fifteenth century, the handkerchief was for a time allowed only to the nobility; special laws were made to enforce this. The classical heritage was rediscovered during the Renaissance.
Chewing gum is outlawed in Singapore because it is a means of "tainting an environment free of dirt."
Before the enactment of the 1978 law that made it mandatory for dog owners in New York City to clean up after their pets, approximately 40 million pounds of dog excrement were deposited on the streets every year.
According to law, no store is allowed to sell a toothbrush on the Sabbath in Providence, Rhode Island. Yet these same stores are allowed to sell toothpaste and mouthwash on Sundays.
In the state of Queensland, Australia, it is still constitutional law that all pubs (hotel/bar) must have a railing outside for patrons to tie up their horse.
A Venetian law decrees that all gondolas must be painted black. The only exceptions are gondolas belonging to high public officials.
It is against the law to whale hunt in Oklahoma. (Think about it...)
Every citizen of Kentucky is required by law to take a bath at least once a year.
In Idaho a citizen is forbidden by law to give another citizen a box of candy that weighs more than 50 pounds.
Lawn darts are illegal in Canada.
Anti-modem laws restrict Internet access in the country of Burma. Illegal possession of a modem can lead to a prison term.
Under the law of Mississippi, there’s no such thing as a female Peeping Tom.
Theaters in Glendale, California can show horror films only on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.
Scientists have estimated a fly ball will travel about seven feet further for every 1,000 feet of altitude. With an approximate elevation of 1,100 feet, Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix, Arizona is the second highest facility in the major baseball leagues; only Coors Field in Denver, Colorado is higher.
In the U.S., there are more then 10,000 golf courses.
Boxing champion Gene Tunney taught Shakespeare at Yale University.
The city of Denver was chosen to host and then refused the 1976 Winter Olympics.
The Miami Dolphins were the last NFL team to go through a season unbeaten.
The 1900 Olympics were held in Paris, France.
The average rikishi tips the scales at about 280 pounds, but in 1988 the heaviest sumo westler ever recorded weighed in at a thundering 560 pounds.
To bulk up, rikishi eat huge portions of protein-rich stews called chankonabe, packed with fish or meat and vegetables, plus vast quantities of less healthful foods, including fast food. They often force themselves to eat when they are full, and they have a nap after lunch, thus acquiring flab on top of their strong muscles, which helps to keep their center of gravity low.
Professional sumo wrestlers, called rikishi, must be quick on their feet and supple, but weight is vital to success as they hurl themselves at their opponents, aiming to floor them or push them outside the 15-foot fighting circle.
In 1870, British boxing champ Jim Mace and American boxer Joe Coburn fought for three hours and 48 minutes without landing one punch.
Boxing is considered the easiest sport for gamblers to fix.
Six bulls are killed in a formal bullfight.
Canada beat Denmark 47-0 at the 1949 world hockey championships.
The theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters is "Sweet Georgia Brown."
Three consective strikes in bowling is called a turkey.
Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals at the 1936 Olympics.
O.J. Simpson rushed for 2,003 yards in 1973.
The Indianapolis 500 is run on Memorial Day.
The five Olympic rings represent the continents.
Ten events make up the decathlon.
A regulation soccer games is 90 minutes.
In 1910, A baseball with a cork center was used in a World Series game for the first time. The Philadelphia Athletics (managed by Connie Mack) and the Chicago Cubs (managed by P.K. Wrigley) played for the championship.
Before 1859, baseball umpires were seated in padded chairs behind home plate.
Golf-great Billy Casper turned golf pro during the Korean War while serving in the Navy. Casper was assigned to operate and build golf driving ranges for the Navy in the San Diego area.
The United States Golf Association (USGA) was founded in 1894 as the governing body of golf in the United States.
The youngest golfer recorded to have shot a hole-in-one is Coby Orr (5 years) of Littleton, CO on the 103 yd fifth at the Riverside Golf Course, San Antonio, TX in 1975.
Two golf clubs claim to be the first established in the United States: the Foxberg Golf Club, Clarion County, PA (1887) and St. Andrews Golf Club of Yonkers, NY (1888).
The Tom Thumb golf course was the first miniature golf course in the United States. It was built it 1929 in Chattanooga, Tennessee by John Garnet Carter.
The oldest player to score his age is C. Arthur Thompson (1869-1975) of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, who scored 103 on the Uplands course of 6,215 yd, age 103 in 1973.
The youngest American female to score an ace was Shirley Kunde in August 1943 at age 13.
Americans spend more than $630 million a year on golf balls.
Before 1850, golf balls were made of leather and were stuffed with feathers.
Honey is used as a center for golf balls and in antifreeze mixtures.
In the NHL in the 1960’s, the league decided that home teams would wear white, while visiting teams would wear their dark jerseys. The reasoning behind this was that it would be more difficult to keep white uniforms clean while on the road.
Frank Mahovlich played for 3 different teams during his NHL career: Toronto, Detroit, and Montreal. For all three, he wore the number 27.
Fastest round of golf (18 holes) by a team - 9 minutes and 28 seconds. Set at Tatnuck CC in Worcester in September 9, 1996 at 10:40am.
Pittsburgh is the only city where all major sports teams have the same colors: Black and gold.
Pro golfer Wayne Levi was the first PGA pro to win a tournament using a colored (orange) ball. He did it in the Hawaiian Open in 1982.
In 1986 Danny Heep became the first player in a World Series to be a designated hitter (DH) with the initials "D.H."
Kresimir Cosic is only non-American player in NBA Hall of Fame.
Jackie Robinson was the only person to letter in four sports at UCLA. Of all of them, he supposedly liked baseball the least.
Honey is used as a center for golf balls and in antifreeze mixtures.
Superfly Jimmy Snuka was the first E.C.W. World Champ.
The silhouette on the Major League Baseball logo is Harmon Killebrew.
At 101, Larry Lewis ran the 100 yard dash in 17.8 seconds setting a new world record for runners 100 years old or older.
Rick and Paul Reuschel of the 1975 Chicago Cubs combine to pitch a shutout, the first time brothers do this.
The 1990 New York Yankee pitching staff set an all-time record with the fewest complete games, three.
Will Clark, professional baseball player, is a direct descendant of William Clark of Lewis and Clark.
Olympic Badminton rules say that the birdie has to have exactly fourteen feathers.
The home team must provide the referee with 36 footballs for each National Football League game.
Racehorses have been known to wear out new shoes in one race.
Baseball cards have been around since 1886. Modern cards, with high-resolution color photographs on the front and player statistics on the back, date from 1953. The photos are taken in the spring, with and without team caps, just in case the player is traded to another team.
Australian Rules football was originally designed to give cricketers something to play during the off season.
Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have participated in every Games.
In 1964 for the 10th time in his major-league baseball career, Mickey Mantle hit home runs from both the left and ride sides of the plate in the same game - setting a new baseball record.
Gene Sarazen, a golfer from several generations ago, set the record for the fastest golf drive: 120 mph.
In July 1934 Babe Ruth paid a fan $20 dollars for the return of the baseball he hit for his 700th career home run.
The Iditarod dog sled race - from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska - commemorates an emergency operation in 1925 to get medical supplies to Nome following a diphtheria epidemic.
Golf was banned in England in 1457 because it was considered a distraction from the serious pursuit of archery.
Not all Golf Balls have 360 dimples. There are some as high as 420. Thereare also all different kinds of dimple patterns.
Prior to 1900, prize fights lasted up to 100 rounds.
Four men in the history of boxing have been knocked out in the first eleven seconds of the first round.
Golf-great Billy Casper turned golf pro during the Korean War while serving in the Navy. Casper was assigned to operate and build golf driving ranges for the Navy in the San Diego area.
Billiards great, Henry Lewis once sank 46 balls in a row.
We are in the middle of an ice age. Ice ages include both cold and warm periods; at the moment we are experiencing a relatively warm span of time known as an "interglacial period." Geologists believe that the warmest part of this period occurred from 1890 through 1945 and that since 1945 things have slowly begun freezing up again.
The first man-made insecticide was DDT.
The earth rotates on its axis more slowly in March than in September.
The Earth gets heavier each day by tons, as meteoric dust settles on it.
The whirling cloud, a flat cloud hovering over the peak of an extinct volcano, Mount Jirinaj in Indonesia, affected by hot air rising from the crater, spins swiftly around and around.
Because of a large orbital eccentricity, Pluto was closer to the sun than Neptune between January 1979 and March 1999.
According to experts, large caves tend to "breathe"; they inhale and exhale great quantities of air when the barometric pressure on the surface changes, and air rushes in or out seeking equilibrium.
About 500 meteorites hit the Earth each year. The largest known meteorite was found at Grootfontein in Namibia, southwest Africa, in 1920. It is 9 feet (2.75m) long and 8 feet (2.43m) wide.
A shrimp has more than a hundred pair of chromosomes in each cell nucleus.
Vineger was the strongest acid known in the ancient times.
The clock at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C., will gain or lose only one second in 300 years because it uses cesium atoms.
The densest substance on Earth is the metal "osmium."
German chemist Hennig Brand discovered phosphorus while he was examining urine.
There are five tillion trillion atoms in one pound of iron.
The pressure at the center of the Earth is 27,000 tons per square inch.
Bacteria can reproduce sexually.
A temperature of 70 million degrees Celsius was generated at Princeton University in 1978. This was during a fusionism experiment and is the highest man-made temperature ever.
Every cubic mile of seawater holds over 150 million tons of minerals.
An iceberg contains more heat than a match.
Air is denser in cold weather. A wind of the same speed can exert 25 percent more force during the winter as compared to the summer.
The Sun has a diameter of 864,000 miles.
There are 3 golf balls sitting on the moon.
The color black is produced by the complete absorption of light rays.
Sound at the right vibration can bore holes through a solid object.
Lab tests can detect traces of alcohol in urine six to 12 hours after a person has stopped drinking.
It takes a plastic container 50000 years to start decomposing.
The sun is estimated to be between 20 and 21 cosmic years old.
A car traveling at a constant speed of 60 miles per hour would take over 48 million years to reach the nearest star (other than our sun), Proxima Centauri. This is about 685,000 average human lifetimes.
Traveling at the speed of 186,000 miles per second, light take 6 hours to travel from Pluto to the earth.
To an observer standing on Pluto, the sun would appear no brighter than Venus appears in our evening sky.
Dissolved salt makes up 3.5 percent of the oceans.
Blood is 6 times thicker than water.
Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is predicted to topple over between 2010 and 2020.
The nearest galaxy to our own is Andromeda.
The speed of sound must be exceeded to produce a sonic boom.
Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system.
There are 7 stars in the Big Dipper.
Out of all the senses, smell is most closely linked to memory.
Three astronauts manned each Apollo flight.
All organic compounds contain carbon.
The first atomic bomb exploded at Trinity Site, New Mexico.
The planet Venus has the longest day.
Because of the salt content of the Dead Sea, it is difficult to dive below its surface.
Carolyn Shoemaker has discovered 32 comets and approximately 800 asteroids.
The first portable calculator placed on sale by Texas Instruments weighed only 2-1/2 pounds and cost a mere $150. (1971)
The planet Saturn has a density lower than water. If there was a bathtub large enough to hold it, Saturn would float.
The shockwave from a nitroglycerine explosion travels at 17,000 miles per hour.
The fastest moon in our solar system circles Jupiter once every seven hours - traveling at 70,400 miles per hour.
Because of the rotation of the earth, an object can be thrown farther if it is thrown west.
Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works.
Bacteria, the tiniest free-living cells, are so small that a single drop of liquid contains as many as 50 million of them.
A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top. This is because the carbonation in the drink gets pockets of air stuck in the wrinkles of the raisin, which is light enough to be raised by this air. When it reaches the surface of the champagne, the bubbles pop, and the raisin sinks back to the bottom, starting the cycle over.
On December 2, 1942, a nuclear chain reaction was achieved for the first time under the stands of the University of Chicago’s football stadium. The first reactor measured 30 feet wide, 32 feet long, and 21.5 feet high. It weighed 1,400 tons and contained 52 tons of uranium in the form of uranium metal and uranium oxide. Although the same process led to the massive energy release of the atomic bomb, the first artificially sustained nuclear reaction produced just enough energy to light a small flashlight.
Experiments conducted in Germany and at the University of Southampton in England show that even mild and incidental noises cause the pupils of the eyes to dilate. It is believed that this is why surgeons, watchmakers, and others who perform delicate manual operations are so bothered by noise. The sounds cause their pupils to change focus and blur their vision.
STASI, the East German secret police organization, devised a devilishly clever way to prevent someone from giving them the slip during the Cold War: they managed to synthesize the scent of a female dog in heat, which they applied to the shoes of the person under surveillance. Then they simply had a male dog follow the scent.
If you stand in the bottom of a well, you would be able to see the stars even in the daytime.
A "fulgerite" is fossilized lightning. It forms when a powerful lightning bolt melts the soil into a glass-like state.
Some early TV screens did emit excessive X-rays, as did computer monitors, but that was fixed long ago. Doctors suggest that at worst, sitting too close might cause some temporary eye fatigue—the same for reading with insufficient light—but no permanent damage, no matter what your mother claimed.
Dirty snow melts faster than clean.
Clouds fly higher during the day than the night.
Clothes that are dried outside DO smell better because of a process called photolysis. What happens is this: sunlight breaks down compounds in the laundry that cause odor, such as perspiration and body oils.
In 1980, Namco released PAC-MAN, the most popular video game (or arcade game) of all time. The original name was going to be PUCK MAN, but executives saw the potential for vandals to scratch out part of the P in the games marquee and labeling.
The opposite of a "vacuum" is a "plenum."
If the world were tilted one degree more either way, the planet would not be habitable because the area around the equator would be too hot and the poles would be too cold.
A bowl of lime Jell-O, when hooked up to an EEG machine, exhibited movement which is virtually identical to the brain waves of a healthy adult man or woman.
A full moon always rises at sunset.
The hardness of ice is similar to that of concrete.
The first man-made item to exceed the speed of sound is the bull whip our leather whip. When the whip is snapped, the knotted end makes a "crack" or popping noise. It is actually causing a mini sonic boom as it exceeds the speed of sound.
From the smallest microprocessor to the biggest mainframe, the average American depends on over 264 computers per day.
From bridges to rebar, rust is everywhere. According to a recent study, the annual cost of metallic corrosion in the U.S. is approximately $300 billion. The report, by Battelle, Columbus, Ohio, and the Specialty Steel Industry of North America, Washington, D.C., estimated that about one-third of that cost could be avoided through broader application of corrosion-resistant material and "best anti-corrosive practice" from design through maintenance.
ENIAC, the first electronic computer, appeared 50 years ago. The original ENIAC was about 80 feet long, weighed 30 tons, had 17,000 tubes. By comparison, a desktop computer today can store a million times more information than an ENIAC, and 50,000 times faster.
Rain contains vitamin B12.
The first U.S. census to be tallied by computer was in 1950. UNIVAC did the tallying.
A scientist at Michigan State University has calculated that the production of a single hen egg requires about 120 gallons of water, a loaf of bread requires 300 gallons, and a pound of beef, 3,500.
You know the three physical dimensions, and the fourth dimension, time. For years, people have speculated about other dimensions. Experts in theoretical physics now say the major theories about the universe make sense together - and all the math seems to work - if there are 10 dimensions.
A dog was killed by a meteor at Nakhla, Egypt, in 1911. The unlucky canine is the only creature known to have been killed by a meteor.
A day on the planet Mercury is twice as long as its year. Mercury rotates very slowly but revolves around the sun in slightly less than 88 days.
A cosmic year is the amount of time it takes the sun to revolve around the center of the Milky Way, about 225 million years.
A car traveling at a constant speed of 60 miles per hour would take over 48 million years to reach the nearest star (other than our sun), Proxima Centauri. This is about 685,000 average human lifetimes.
A bucket filled with earth would weigh about 5 time more than the same bucket filled with the substance of the sun. However, the force of gravity is so much greater on the sun that the man weighing 150 pounds on our planet would weigh 2 tons on the sun.
Traveling at the speed of 186,000 miles per second, light take 6 hours to travel from Pluto to the earth.
To an observer standing on Pluto, the sun would appear no brighter than Venus appears in our evening sky.
Tiny dust particles surround a comet. They are swept into a long tail by the solar wind, which consists of subatomic particles speeding from the sum at speed of hundred of miles per second.
Time slows down near a black hole; inside it stops completely.
The wick of a trick candle has small amounts of magnesium in them. When you light the candle, you are also lighting the magnesium. When someone tries to blow out the flame, the magnesium inside the wick continues to burn and, in just a split second (or two or three), relights the wick.
On December 23, 1947, Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., held a secret demonstration of the transistor which marked the foundation of modern electronics.
Western Electric successfully brought sound to motion pictures and introduced systems of mobile communications which culminated in the cellular telephone.
At a glance, the Celsius scale makes more sense than the Fahrenheit scale for temperature measuring. But its creator, Anders Celsius, was an oddball scientist. When he first developed his scale, he made freezing 100 degrees and boiling 0 degrees, or upside down. No one dared point this out to him, so fellow scientists waited until Celsius died to change the scale.
An ordinary TNT bomb involves atomic reaction, and could be called an atomic bomb. What we call an A-bomb involves nuclear reactions and should be called a nuclear bomb.
A chip of silicon a quarter-inch square has the capacity of the original 1949 ENIAC computer, which occupied a city block.
A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber. A ball of solid steel will bounce higher than one made entirely of glass.
Sterling silver is not pure silver. Because pure silver is too soft to be used in most tableware it is mixed with copper in the proportion of 92.5 percent silver to 7.5 percent copper.
Starch is used as a binder in the production of paper. It is the use of a starch coating that controls ink penetration when printing. Cheaper papers do not use as much starch, and this is why your elbows get black when you are leaning over your morning paper.
On average, half of all false teeth have some form of radioactivity.
Sound travels 15 times faster through steel than through the air.
The original IBM-PCs, that had hard drives, referred to the hard drives as Winchester drives. This is due to the fact that the original Winchester drive had a model number of 3030. This is, of course, a Winchester firearm.
The radioactive substance, Americanium - 241 is used in many smoke detectors.
Plutonium - first weighed on August 20th, 1942, by University of Chicago scientists Glenn Seaborg and his colleagues - was the first man-made element.
Hot water is heavier than cold.
Every year about 98% of atoms in your body are replaced.
Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.
Outside the USA, Ireland is the largest software producing country in the world.
The final resting-place for Dr. Eugene Shoemaker - the Moon. The famed U.S. Geological Survey astronomer, trained the Apollo astronauts about craters, but never made it into space. Mr. Shoemaker had wanted to be an astronaut but was rejected because of a medical problem. His ashes were placed on board the Lunar Prospector spacecraft before it was launched on January 6, 1998. NASA crashed the probe into a crater on the moon in an attempt to learn if there is water on the moon.
Ethernet is a registered trademark of Xerox, Unix is a registered trademark of AT&T.
The Siberian larch accounts for more than 20% of all the worlds trees.
A plant in central Australia, the candlesticks of the sun, grows a candle-shaped flower once every 7 years.
The bark of a redwood tree is fireproof. Fires that occur in a redwood forest take place inside the trees.
While known as a painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer, Leonard da Vinci was the first to record that the number of rings in the cross section of a tree trunk revealed its age. He also discovered that the width between the rings indicated the annual moisture.
The fragrance of flowers is due to the essences of oil which they produce.
The primary purpose of growing rice in flooded paddies is to drown the weeds surrounding the young seedlings. Rice can, in fact, be grown in drained areas.
The slippers plant (bulbo stylis) of Haiti looks like a pair of fuzzy slippers.
The giant puffball, lycoperdon giganteum, produces 7,000,000,000,000 spores, each of which could grow into a puffball a foot in diameter and collectively cover an area of 280,000 square mile, greater than the size of Texas. Fortunately, only one of the spores actually becomes a puffball, and all the others die.
The telegraph plant of Asia has leaves that flutter constantly, even when there is no breeze.
Of the 15,000-odd known species of orchids in the world, 3,000 of them can be found in Brazil.
The tree dictated on the Lebanese flag is a Cedar.
An ear of corn averages 800 kernels in 16 rows. A pound of corn consists of approximately 1,300 kernels. 100 bushels of corn produces approximately 7,280,000 kernels. Corn is produced on every continent of the world with the exception of Antarctica.
Heroin is derived from the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, which means the poppy that brings sleep.
Pine, spruce, or other evergreen wood should never be used for barbecuing. These woods, when burning or smoking, can add harmful tar and resins to the food. Only hardwoods should be used for smoking and grilling, such as oak, pecan, hickory, maple, cherry, alder, apple, or mesquite, depending on the type of meat being cooked.
Lightning keeps plants alive. The intense heat of lightning forces nitrogen in the air to mix with oxygen, forming nitrogen oxides that are soluble in water and fall to the ground in rain. Plants need nitrates to survive, so without lightning, plants could not live.
The squirting cucumber (Ecballium elaterium), when brushed by a passerby, ejects its seeds and a stream of poisonous juice that stings the skin.
Leaves of the Sumatra breadfruit tree are notched when they first form, yet have no indentations when the leaves mature.
There are an estimated 285,000 species of flowering plants on Earth compared to 148,000 for all other plants. Flowering plants are very important because they provide food for herbivores - plant-eating animals - and for humans.
The giant sequoia, which produces millions of seeds, can take 175 to 200 years to flower. No other organism takes this long to mature sexually.
The partridge berry is a botanical Siamese twin. Each berry develops from 2 flowers.
A person standing under an oak tree is 16 more times liable to be hit by lightning than if he had taken refuge beneath a beech tree. The oak tree has vertical roots which provide a more direct route to ground water.
Oak trees do not have acorns until they are fifty years old or older.
American colonists discovered that superior candles could be made from the fruit of a squat bush growing in the sand dunes along the New England seashore. The small, grayish bayberry was picked, crushed, and boiled. It had to be skimmed several times before the pale, nearly transparent, green fat was sufficiently refined. Bayberry candles were highly prized, because so much labor and so many berries were needed to make just one candle.
The shape of plant collenchyma cells and the shape of the bubbles in beer foam are the same - they are orthotetrachidecahedrons.
Kudzu is not indigenous to the South, but in that climate it can grow up to six inches a day.
Bamboo can grow up to three feet in a 24 hour period.
A single coffee tree yields only one pound of roasted, ground coffee annually.
In ancient religions, the Norsemen considered the mistletoe a baleful plant that caused the death of Baldur, the shining god of youth.
The average ear of corn has eight-hundred kernels arranged in sixteen rows.
The Mexican Jumping Bean is not a bean. It is actually a thin-shelled section of a seed capsule containing the larva of a small gray moth called the jumping bean moth (Laspeyresia saltitans).
The Curly Redwood Lodge is one of northern California’s most unique lodges. It was built from one curly redwood tree that produced 57,000 board feet of lumber. The tree - cut down in 1952 - was 18 feet 2 inches at the trunk. Curly redwood is unique because of the curly grain of the wood, unlike typical straight grained redwood.
Orchids are grown from seed so small that it would take thirty thousand to weigh as much as one grain of wheat.
The leaves of the Victorian water lily are sometimes over six feet in diameter.
In 1764 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played for the Royal Family at Versailles in France. He was even given the honor of standing behind the Queen at dinner - Mozart was only eight years old.
At age 22, Jerry Lee Lewis married for the third time. His bride? His thirteen year old cousin.
At age 4, Mozart composed a concerto for the clavier.
At age 15, Jerry Garcia swapped his birthday accordion for an electric guitar.
John Philip Sousa enlisted in the Marines at age 13. He worked as an apprentice in the band.
The Japanese national anthem is expressed in only four lines. The Greek anthem runs 158 verses.
Vaudevillian Jack Norworth wrote "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in 1908 after seeing a sign on a bus advertising BASEBALL TODAY - POLO GROUNDS. Norworth and his friend Albert von Tilzer (who write the music) had never been to a baseball game before his song became a hit sing-along.
Mass murderer Charles Manson recorded an album called "Lie."
Elvis Presley received his U.S. army discharge on March 5, 1960.
The leading female singer in an opera is called the prima donna.
Brian Epstein managed The Beatles to superstardom.
The Beatles performed their first U.S. concert in Carnegie Hall.
The Beach Boys formed in 1961.
George Anthiel composed film scores, but earlier in his life he had been an avant garde composer. In 1924 his "Ballet mecanique" was performed at Carnegie Hall. The work was scored for a fire siren, automobile horns, and an airplane propeller. After only a few minutes of this racket, an aging gentleman in the orchestra seats tied his handkerchief to his cane and began waving a white flag.
Brian Epstein, a record store owner in London, was asked by a customer for a copy of the record, "My Bonnie", by a group known as The Silver Beatles. He didn’t have it in stock so he went to the Cavern Club to check out the group. He signed to manage them in a matter of days and renamed them The Beatles.
Montgomery is the birthplace of music great Nat King Cole, pop singers Clarence Carter and Toni Tenille, Metropolitan Opera singer Nell Rankin, and blues legend Willie Mae Big Mama Thornton.
An eighteenth-century German named Matthew Birchinger, known as the little man of Nuremberg, played four musical instruments including the bagpipes, was an expert calligrapher, and was the most famous stage magician of his day. He performed tricks with the cup and balls that have never been explained. Yet Birchinger had no hands, legs, or thighs, and was less than 29 inches tall.
In every show that Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt (The Fantasticks) did there was at least one song about rain.
Peter Batten was a deserter from the British Army at the time of the creation of the film. In the final weeks of production, he was arrested for desertion, and Paul Angelis had to finish voicing the part of George.
The Beatles appear at the end of "The Yellow Submarine" in a short live action epilogue. Their voices for the cartoon movie were done by Paul Angelis (Ringo), Peter Batten (George), John Clive (John), and Geoffrey Hughes (Paul).
Jazz began in the 20th century, when bands in New Orleans began to apply the syncopated rhythms of ragtime to a variety of other tunes. In the first days of jazz, ensemble playing was emphasized. Only gradually did jazz come to be based on improvised solos.
The Beatles played the Las Vegas Convention Center in 1964. Some 8,500 fans paid just $4 each for tickets.
Warner Communications paid $28 million for the copyright to the song "Happy Birthday".
Verdi wrote the opera Aida at the request of the khedive of Egypt to commemorate the opening of the Suez canal.
No one knows where Mozart is buried.
"Mr. Mojo Risin" is an anagram for Jim Morrison.
Brian Setzer, of the Brian Setzer Orchestra, started out in a garage band called Merengue.
Dark Side of The Moon (a Pink Floyd album) stayed on the top 200 Billboard charts for 741 weeks! That is 14 years.
In 1992, Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon, better known to country music fans as singer/comedienne Minnie Pearl, was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President George Bush. In 1994, Minnie became the first woman to be inducted into the Comedy Hall of Fame. She was too frail and sick to attend the ceremony, and so good friend and comedian George Lindsey ("Goober") accepted the award for her. She died in 1996 at age 83.
The famous Russian composer Aleksandr Borodin was also a respected chemistry professor in St. Petersburg.
The song "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" was written by George Graff, who was German, and was never in Ireland in his life.
In the band KISS, Gene Simmons was "The Demon", Paul Stanley was "Star Child", Ace Frehley was "Space Man", and Peter Criss was "The Cat.
At the tender age of 7, the multi-award-winning composer and pianist Marvin Hamlisch ("The Way We Were," "The Sting") was one of the youngest students ever admitted to the renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York City.
The rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd took their name from a high school teacher named Leonard Skinner who had suspended several students for having long hair.
Most toilets flush in E flat.
The brass family of instruments include the trumpet, trombone, tuba, cornet, flügelhorn, French horn, saxhorn, and sousaphone. While they are usually made of brass today, in the past they were made of wood, horn, and glass.
According to Margaret Jones, author of a Patsy Cline biography, there are a dozen places in Virginia that could claim to be the hometown of the nomadic Cline. Her family moved 19 times before she was 15.
A person breathes 7 quarts of air every minute.
The kidneys filter about 500 gallons of blood each day.
Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by Bayer.
Human lungs are 100 times easier to blow up than a standard toy balloon. But they tend to make lousy party favors.
Electrical stimulation in certain areas of the brain can revive long lost memories.
Urine was once used as a detergent for washing.
The human kidney consists of over 1 million little tubes with a total length of about 40 miles in both kidneys.
Your hearing is less sharp if you eat too much.
Sometimes when you belch, a little bit of your stomach acids comes along. This makes for a very disgusting and burning burp.
The hardest substance in the human body is enamel.
Pain travels through the body at 350 feet per second.
When honey is swallowed, it enters the blood stream within a period of 20 minutes.
Several well documented instances have been reported of extremely obese people flushing aircraft toilets whilst still sitting on them. The vacuum action of these toilets sucked the rectum inside out.
If you squeezed out all of the bacteria from your intestines, you could almost fill up a coffee mug.
The average square inch of skin holds 650 sweat glands, 20 blood vessels, 60,000 melanocytes, and during the summer months, six or seven mosquito bites.
Each red blood cell lives an average of 4 months and travels between the lungs and other tissues 75,000 times before returning to the bone marrow to die.
You blink every 2-10 seconds. As you focus on each word in this sentence, your eyes swing back and forth 100 times a second, and every second; the retina performs 10 billion computer-like calculations.
The sense of touch: electrical impulses travel from the skin toward the spinal cord at a rate of up to 425 feet per second.
Between the ages of 30 and 70, you nose may lengthen and widen by as much as half an inch.
Skin is the largest organ of the human body.
The pupil of the eye expands as much as 45 percent when a person looks at something pleasing.
Mouth ulcers are the most common human affliction.
The most common non-contagious disease in the world is tooth decay.
The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone.
The iris membrane controls the amount of light that enters your eye.
Lacrimal fluid lubricates the eyes.
Lead poisoning is known as plumbism.
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter had an operation for hemorrhoids while he was in office.
Human blood travels 60,000 miles per day on its journey through the arteries, arterioles and capillaries and back through the venules and veins.
Hay fever is the sixth most prevalent chronic condition in the United States.
Your jaw muscle is the most powerful muscle in your body.
Despite accounting for just one-fiftieth of body weight, the brain burns as much as one-fifth of our daily caloric intake.
From the age of thirty, humans gradually begin to shrink in size.
Devoid of its cells and proteins, human blood has the same general makeup as sea water.
Scientists have identified more than 300 viruses capable of bringing fatal diseases to insects. The organisms are believed to be entirely different than those that cause disease in humans, and are thus harmless to man.
During a lifetime, one person generates more than 1,000 pounds of red blood cells.
If you lock your knees while standing long enough, you will pass out.
In 1918 and 1919, a world epidemic of simple influenza killed 20 million people in the United States and Europe.
One group, the Hunza in Northwest Kashmir, reportedly have not experienced cancer. The group is also said to have unusual longevity.
By age sixty, most people have lost half of their taste buds.
Blonde beards grow faster than darker beards.
Americans spend an estimated $500 million each year on allergy treatments.
In 1990, a 64-year old Hartsville, Tennessee, woman entered a hospital for surgery for what doctors diagnosed as a tumor on her buttocks. What surgeons found, however, was a four-inch pork chop bone, which they removed. They estimated that it had been in place for five to ten years. The woman could not remember sitting on it, or eating it for that matter.
Queen Victoria eased the discomfort of her menstrual cramps by having her doctor supply her with marijuana.
Every person has a unique tongue print.
Did you know that you can actually die from a broken heart? Studies have shown that people who had experienced great loss or sadness can develop cracks in their heart which could lead to death.
A follicle that is more oval in shape will produce curlier hair, which, when viewed under a microscope, is more "flat" in appearance than a straight hair, which is "round".
Smoking makes it almost impossible for a male to have a natural erection and it shrinks the penis. It also reduces the mobility of sperm.
A new born baby breathes five times faster than an adult man.
Brain surgery is done with the patient still awake. The brain has no nerves therefore it has no sensation. The person is put to sleep to open the skull but after that the person wakes up to see the operation be completed.
It only takes 7 lbs of pressure to rip off your ears.
There are more than one form of the Ebola virus. Different strains are named after the area they were discovered in.
Over 25% of Zaire is infected with a form of the Ebola virus that does not kill.
There have been cases of people dying from paper cuts. The paper cut gets infected, and without proper treatment you can die from the infection.
The first drug that was offered as a water-soluble tablet, was aspirin in 1900.
The little lump of flesh just forward of your ear canal, right next to your temple, is called a tragus.
Hailed as a wonder drug in the late nineteenth century, cocaine was outlawed in the United States in 1914.
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent.
A passionate kiss uses up 6.4 calories per minute.
During a kiss as many as 278 bacteria colonies are exchanged.
Captain Cook lost 41 of his 98 crew to scurvy (a lack of vitamin C) on his first voyage to the South Pacific in 1768. By 1795 the importance of eating citrus was realized, and lemon juice was issued on all British Navy ships.
Undertakers report that human bodies do not deteriorate as quickly as they used to. The reason, they believe, is that the modern diet contains so many preservatives that these chemicals tend to prevent the body from decomposition too rapidly after death.
Gold salts are sometimes injected into the muscles to relieve arthritis.
You can see a candle flame from 50 Kilometers on a clear, dark night. You can hear the tick of a watch from 6 meters in very quiet conditions. You can taste one gram of salt in 500 liters of water (.0001M). You can detect one drop of perfume diffused throughout a three-room apartment. You can detect the wing of a bee falling on your cheek from a height of one centimeter.
According to the Journal of American Medical Association, as of 1998, more than 100,000 Americans die annually from adverse reactions to prescription drugs.
If you combined all the muscles in an average human in to one muscle, the force it would be capable of producing is about 2,000 tonnes.
Dr. Maurice R. Hilleman is considered to be the godfather of the modern vaccine era. Having created nearly three dozen vaccines - more than any other scientist, Hilleman is also credited with saving more lives than any other scientist. Probably best known for his preventive vaccine for mumps, Hilleman has also developed vaccines for measles, rubella, chicken pox, bacterial meningitis, flu and hepatitis B.
A study by researcher Frank Hu and the Harvard School of Public Health found that women who snore are at an increased risk of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.
Dogs and humans are the only animals with prostates.
"Soldiers disease" is a term for morphine addiction. The Civil War produced over 400,000 morphine addicts.
Cephalacaudal recapitulation is the reason our extremities develop faster than the rest of us.
People who have never been married are seven and a half times more likely than married people to be admitted to a psychiatric facility.
Studies shown by the Psychology Department of DePaul University show that the principal reason to lie is to avoid punishment.
The short-term memory capacity for most people is between five and nine items or digits. This is one reason that phone numbers were kept to seven digits for so long.
Females have 500 more genes than males, and because of this are protected from things like color blindness and hemophilia.
There are 10 trillion living cells in the human body.
The brain requires 25 percent of all oxygen used by the body.
The right lung takes in more air than the left lung.
The substance that human blood resembles most closely in terms of chemical composition is sea water.
The storage capacity of human brain exceeds 4 Terrabytes.
Your thumb is the same length as your nose.
You lose enough dead skin cells in your lifetime to fill eight five-pound flour bags.
The average Human bladder can hold 13 ounces of liquid.
During his or her lifetime, the average human will grow 590 miles of hair.
The first known heart medicine was discovered in an English garden. In 1799, physician John Ferriar noted the effect of dried leaves of the common plant, digitalis purpurea, on heart action. Still used in heart medications, digitalis slows the pulse and increases the force of heart contractions and the amount of blood pumped per heartbeat.
It takes an interaction of 72 different muscles to produce human speech.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 18 million courses of antibiotics are prescribed for the common cold in the United States per year. Research shows that colds are caused by viruses. 50 million unnecessary antibiotics are prescribed for viral respiratory infections.
In 1977, a 13 year old child found a tooth growing out of his left foot.
The human brain stops growing at the age of 18.
The first Band-Aid Brand Adhesive Bandages were three inches wide and eighteen inches long. You made your own bandage by cutting off as much as you needed.
Men have more blood than women. Men have 1.5 gallons for men versus 0.875 gallons for women.
Sumerians (from 5000 BC) thought that the liver made blood and the heart was the center of thought.
Approximately 16 Canadians have their appendices removed, when not required, every day.
In 1815 French chemist Michael Eugene Chevreul realized the first link between diabetes and sugar metabolism when he discovered that the urine of a diabetic was identical to grape sugar.
Between 25% to 33% of the population sneeze when they are exposed to light.
People who have a tough time handling the stress of money woes are twice as likely to develop severe gum disease, a new study finds.
The adult human heart weighs about ten ounces.
The number one cause of blindness in the United States is diabetes.
In 1972, a group of scientists reported that you could cure the common cold by freezing the big toe.
No one seems to know why people blush.
The attachment of the human skin to muscles is what causes dimples.
Medical researchers contend that no disease ever identified has been completely eradicated.
The toilet was invented by an Englishman named Thomas Crapper.
Kleenex tissues were originally used as filters in gas masks.
Direct-dial, coast-to-coast telephone service began as Mayor M. Leslie Denning of Englewood, New Jersey, called his counterpart in Alameda, California.
Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972), the mother of 12 children, had good reason to improve the efficiency and convenience of household items. A pioneer in ergonomics, Gilbreth patented many devices, including an electric food mixer, and the trash can with step-on lid-opener that can be found in most households today.
You could milk about six cows per hour by hand, but with modern machinery, you can milk up to 100 cows per hour.
George Seldon received a patent in 1895 - for the automobile. Four years later, George sold the rights for $200,000.
In 1769 the British designer Edward Beran enclosed wooden slats in a frame to adjust the amount of light let into a room. These became known as venetian blinds from their early use over Italianate windows.
Rubber bands were first made by Perry and Co. of London in 1845.
The game that would become Scrabble was created by an unemployed architect, Alfred Mosher Butts in the early 1930s. He called it Lexiko, then Criss Cross Words and then sold the rights to James Brunot. In 1948 it was renamed Scrabble and was manufactured in a converted school house in Connecticut. Bruno sold the game to Selchow and Righter, who were bought out by Coleco in 1987, and in 1989 Milton Bradley bought it. More than 100 million Scrabble games have been sold worldwide.
During one four-year period, Thomas Edison obtained 300 patents, or one every five days.
The first umbrella factory in the U.S. was founded in 1928 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Two French toolmakers were the first engineers to put the engine in the front of the car. This gave the car better balance, made it easier to steer, and made it much easier to get all your luggage in.
Russian submarine designers are building military submarines out of concrete. Because concrete becomes stronger under high pressure, (C-subs) could settle down to the bottom in very deep water and wait for enemy ships to pass overhead. Concrete would not show up on sonar displays (it looks just like sand or rocks), so the passing ships would not see the sub lurking below.
The windmill originated in Iran in AD 644. It was used to grind grain.
Out of the 11 original patents made by Nikola Tessla, for the generation of hydroelectric energy, 9 are still in use, (unchanged) today.
On the first neon sign, the word neon was spelled out in red by Dr. Perley G. Nutting, 15 years before neon signs became widely used commercially.
On November 23, 1835, Henry Burden of Troy, New York, developed the first machine for manufacturing horseshoes. Burden later oversaw the production of most of the horseshoes used by the Union cavalry during the Civil War.
Dutch engineers have developed a computerized machine that allows a cow to milk itself. Each cow in the herd has a computer chip in its collar. If the computer senses that the cow has not been milked in a given period of time, the milk-laden animal is allowed to enter the stall. The robot sensors locate the teats, apply the vacuum devices, and the cow is milked. The machine costs a mere $250,000 and is said to boost milk production by 15%.
Benjamin Franklin had poor vision and needed glasses to read. He got tired of constantly taking them off and putting them back on, so he decided to figure out a way to make his glasses let him see both near and far. He had two pairs of spectacles cut in half and put half of each lens in a single frame. Today, we call them bifocals.
Thomas Edison had a collection of over 5,000 birds.
King Gilette spent 8 years trying to invent and introduce his safety razor.
Benjamin Franklin was the inventor of the rocking chair.
The Roman civilization invented the arch.
George Washington Carver invented peanut butter.
The patent number of the telephone is 174465.
Disc Jockey Alan Freed popularized the term "Rock and Roll."
It is recorded that the Babylonians were making soap around 2800 B.C. and that it was known to the Phoenicians around 600 B.C. These early references to soap and soap making were for the use of soap in the cleaning of textile fibers such as wool and cotton in preparation for weaving into cloth.
The safety pin was patented in 1849 by Walter Hunt. He sold the patent rights for $400.
According to company lore, Ole Evinrude, a Norwegian immigrant, got the idea for an outboard motor while on a picnic with his sweetheart Bessie. They were on a small island in Lake Michigan, when Bessie decided she wanted some ice cream. Ole obligingly rowed to shore to get some, but by the time he made it back the ice cream had melted. So Ole built a motor that could be attached to his rowboat, and founded the Evinrude company in 1909.
Maximum tunnel depth below ground level is 221ft (67.4m)
Maximum tunnel depth below mean sea level is 70ft (21.3m)
Average scheduled train speed (including station stops) 20.5 mph (33 kmh).
Today, the London Underground Limited (LUL) is a major business with 2.5 million passenger journeys a day, nearly 500 trains, serving over 260 stations, around 16,000 staff and vast engineering assets.
Ornithologists often use Scotch tape to cover cracks in the soft shells of fertilized pigeon eggs, allowing the eggs to hatch. Scotch tape has also been used as an anti-corrosive shield on the Goodyear Blimp.
The first coin operated machine ever designed was a holy-water dispenser that required a five-drachma piece to operate. It was the brainchild of the Greek scientist Hero in the first century AD.
Sylvan N. Goldman of Humpty Dumpty Stores and Standard Food Markets developed the shopping cart so that people could buy more in a single visit to the grocery store. He unveiled his creation in Oklahoma City on June 4, 1937.
Donald F. Duncan, the man who made the yo-yo an American tradition, is also credited with popularizing the parking meter and introducing Good Humor "ice cream on a stick.
The first lightweight luggage designed for air travel was conceived by aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart.
Self-made millionaire Cyrus Field championed the idea of a telegraph from England to Newfoundland. Britain quickly agreed to subsidize. Congress went along by a one-vote margin. That was in 1856. Laying cable was tough. It kept breaking. The first line - two years later - died almost immediately. But 10 years later, there were two working lines. Communications changed forever.
While known as a painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer, Leonardo da Vinci was the first to record that the number of rings in the cross section of a tree trunk reveal its age. He also discovered that the width between the rings indicates the annual moisture.
When using the first pay telephone, a caller did not deposit his coins in the machine. He gave them to an attendant who stood next to the telephone. Coin telephones did not appear to 1899.
The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
As of 1940, total of ninety patents had been taken out on shaving mugs.
Naugahyde, plastic "leather" was created in Naugatuck, Connecticut.
Two days before Alexander Graham Bell married Mabel Hubbard in 1877, he gave her 99 percent of his company shares as a wedding gift. He kept a mere ten for himself.
The commercial wireless phone was first introduced in Chicago in 1982 by Ameritech.
American sculptor, Alexander Calder, rigged the front door of his Paris apartment so that he could open it from his bathtub.
The wristwatch was invented in 1904 by Louis Cartier.
Fifty years ago the B. F. Goodrich Company, the American corporation known for its automobile tires, thought it was really on to something. Its engineers came up with the prototype of an atomic golf ball. The ball, with a radioactive core, would be easy to locate with a Geiger counter if hit into the rough. But the company abandoned the invention as unworkable.
Diet Coke was only invented in 1982.
The Direct Action Committee, a group pushing for nuclear disarmament, invented the peace symbol in 1958. The forked symbol is actually a composite of the semaphore signals "N" and "D," to stand for nuclear disarmament.
The horse race starting gate is a Canadian invention, designed in the early 1900s by Philip McGinnis, a racetrack reporter from Huntingdon, Quebec. The device proved popular because it prevented arguments caused when horses started prematurely.
Venetian blinds were invented in Japan.
Bavarian immigrant Charles August Fey invented the first three-reel automatic payout slot machine, the Liberty Bell, in San Francisco in 1899.
Because Napoleon believed that armies marched on their stomachs, he offered a prize in 1795 for a practical way of preserving food. The prize was won by a French inventor, Nicholas Appert. What he devised was canning. It was the beginning of the canned food industry of today.
Root Beer was invented in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1898 by Edward Adolf Barq, Sr.
George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera, hated having his picture taken.
Germany holds the title for most independent inventors to apply for patents.
The shoe string was invented in England in 1790. Until then shoes were fastened with buckles.
The Nobel Prize resulted from a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after his death as a propagator of violence - he invented dynamite.
After his death in 1937, Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the wireless telegraph was honored by broadcasters worldwide as they let the airwaves fall silent for two minutes in his memory.
Thomas Edison’s first major invention was the quadruplex telegraph. Unlike other telegraphs at the time, it could send four messages at the same time over one wire.
The hypodermic needle was invented in 1853. It was initially used for giving injections of morphine as a painkiller. Physicians mistakenly believed that morphine would not be addictive if it by-passed the digestive tract.
California police in the 1920s thought they had gotten the drop on a moonshiner. They raided what they thought was a still and found, instead, inventor Philo T. Farnsworth, working on something that was later to become television.
Because he felt such an important tool should be public property, English chemist John Walker never patented his invention — matches.
The state of Maine was once known as the "Earmuff Capital of The World". Earmuffs were invented there by Chester Greenwood in 1873.
The man who invented shorthand, John Gregg, was deaf.
Roulette was invented by the great French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. It was a by product of his experiments with perpetual motion.
The single blade window cleaning squeegee was invented in 1936 by Ettore Sceccone and is still the most common form of commercial window cleaning today.
The shoestring was invented in England in 1790, Prior to this time all shoes were fastened with buckles.
The rickshaw was invented by the Reverend Jonathan Scobie, an American Baptist minister living in Yokohama, Japan, built the first model in 1869 in order to transport his invalid wife. Today it remains a common mode of transportation in the Orient.
The power lawn mower was invented by Ransom E. Olds (of Oldsmobile fame) in 1915.
The pop top can was invented in Kettering, Ohio by Ermal Fraze.
The paper clip was patented by Norwegian inventor Johan Vaaler in 1899. Because Norway had no patent law at the time, he had to travel to Germany where he received his patent in 1900. His U.S. Patent was granted in 1901.
The monkey wrench is named after its inventor, a London blacksmith named Charles Moncke.
James Ramsey invented a steam-driven motorboat in 1784. He ran it on the Potomac River, and the event was witnessed by George Washington.
James J. Ritty, owner of a tavern in Dayton, Ohio, invented the cash register in 1879 to stop his patrons from pilfering house profits.
It was Swiss chemist Jacques Edwin Brandenberger who invented cellophane, back in 1908.
It has been determined that less than one patented invention in a hundred makes any money for the inventor.
The first VCR, made in 1956, was the size of a piano.
The first commercial vacuum cleaner was so large it was mounted on a wagon. People threw parties in their homes so guests could watch the new device do its job.
In 1889, the first coin-operated telephone, patented by Hartford, Connecticut inventor William Gray, was installed in the Hartford Bank. Soon, "pay phones" were installed in stores, hotels, saloons, and restaurants, and their use soared. Local calls using a coin-operated phone in the U.S. cost only 5 cents everywhere until 1951.
Ferdinand Porsche, who later went on to build sports cars bearing his own name, designed the original 1936 Volkswagen.
The coffee filter was invented by Melissa Bentz, in Germany in 1908. She pierced holes in a tin container, put a circular piece of absorbent paper in the bottom of it and put her creation over a coffee pot.
The classic toy wagon was designed by Antonio Pasin, who founded his company in 1918. Pasin wanted to give his wagons a modern flair, and chose the word "radio" for what was then a new form of communication, and "flyer" for the wonder of flight — hence, "Radio Flyer."
The Chinese invented eyeglasses. Marco Polo reported seeing many pairs worn by the Chinese as early as 1275, 500 years before lens grinding became an art in the West.
The British import Spirograph was introduced in the United States in 1967 by Kenner and has racked up millions of dollars in sales. It was invented by a British electronics engineer, Denys Fisher, who was inspired to create the toy while doing research on a new design for bomb detonators for NATO.
Eli Whitney made no money from the cotton gin because he did not have a valid patent on it.
Electrical hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R. Hutchinson.
Dr. John Gorrie of Appalachicola, Florida, invented mechanical refrigeration in 1851. He patented his device on May 6, 1851. There is a statue which honors this "Father of Modern Day Air Conditioning" in the Statuary Hall of the Capitol building in Washington, DC.
In 1966, Elliot Handler, one of the co-founders of Mattel, Inc. and part of the Barbie doll empire, was the inventor of Hot Wheels®. Handler experimented with axles and rotating wheels being attached to tiny model cars. The innovative gravity-powered car he developed had special low-friction styrene wheels. Hot Wheels® have been clocked at speeds of up to 300 miles per hour.
Bavarian immigrant Charles August Fey invented the first three-reel automatic payout slot machine, the Liberty Bell, in San Francisco in 1899.
According to U.S. law, a patent may not be granted on a useless invention, on a method of doing business, on mere printed matter, or on a device or machine that will not operate. Even if an invention is novel or new, a patent may not be obtained if the invention would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the same area at the time of the invention.
Fifteen years after its invention in 1876, there were five million phones in America. Fifteen years after its invention, more than 33 million wireless phones were in the U.S.
Phone service was established at the White House one year after its invention. President Rutherford B. Hayes was the first to have phone service (1877-81).
Western Electric invented the loudspeaker which was initially called "loud-speaking telephone."
Carbonated beverages became popular in 1832 after John Mathews invented an apparatus for charging water with carbon dioxide gas.
Alfred Nobel used a cellulose adhesive (nitrocellulose) as the chemical binder for nitroglycerin, which he used in his invention of dynamite.
Teflon was discovered in 1938.
Games Slayter, a Purdue graduate, invented fiberglass.
A machine has been invented that can read printed English books aloud to the blind, and it can do so at speed half again as fast as normal speech.
A device invented as a primitive steam engine by the Greek engineer Hero, about the time of the birth of Christ, is used today as a rotating lawn sprinkler.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
The guillotine was originally called a louisette. Named for Antoine Louis, the French surgeon who invented it. It became known as the guillotine for Joseph Ignace Guillotin, the French physician who advocated it as a more merciful means of execution than the noose or ax.
The parachute was invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1515.
The same man who led the attack on the Alamo, Mexican Military General, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, is also credited with the invention of chewing gum.
In 1916, Jones Wister of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania invented a rifle for shooting around corners. It had a curved barrel and periscopic sights.
Craven Walker invented the lava lamp, and its contents are colored wax and water.
The alarm clock was not invented by the Marquis de Sade, as some suspect, but rather by a man named Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire, in 1787. Perversity, though, characterized his invention from the beginning. The alarm on his clock could ring only at 4 am. Rumor has it that Hutchins was murdered by his wife at 4:05 am on a very dark and deeply cold New England morning.
The waffle iron was invented August 24, 1869.
The toothbrush was invented in 1498.
In the early 1800s, a French silk weaver called Joseph-Marie Jacquard invented a way of automatically controlling the warp and weft threads on a silk loom by recording patterns of holes in a string of cards.
The first words that Thomas A. Edison spoke into the phonograph were, "Mary had a little lamb."
Four wheel roller skates were invented by James L. Plimpton in 1863. Can you guess where?
Dr. Jonas Salk developed the vaccine for polio in 1952, in New York (aaah!).
Electrical hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R. Hutchinson, who was (you guessed it) from New York.
The corkscrew was invented by M.L. Bryn, also of New York, in 1860.
John Greenwood, also of New York invented the dental drill in 1790.
Henry Waterman, of New York, invented the elevator in 1850. He intended it to transport barrels of flour.
Karl Marx was targeted for assassination when he met with two Prussian officers in his house in Cologne in 1848. Marx had friends among the German labor unions, and he was considered a threat to the autocrats. Dressed in his bathrobe, he forced the officers out at the point of a revolver, which, it turned out, was not loaded.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the fathers of communism, wrote 500 articles for the "New York Tribune" from 1851 to 1862.
Early Egyptians wore sandals made from woven papyrus leaves.
When Thomas Jefferson became U.S. President in 1801, 20 percent of all people in the young nation were slaves.
If the arm of King Henry I of England had been 42 inches long, the unit of measure of a "foot" today would be fourteen inches. But his arm happened to be 36 inches long and he decreed that the "standard" foot should be one-third that length: 12 inches.
Jahangir, a 17th-century Indian Mughal ruler, had 5,000 women in his harem and 1,000 young boys. He also owned 12,000 elephants.
When he resigned in 1923 because of illegal behavior in the Teapot Dome Affair, Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall was offered an appointment to the Supreme Court by President Harding. In 1931, Fall was tried and found guilty of conspiracy to defraud.
Napoleon, the famous French general, was not born in France. He was born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica of Italian parents.
When Elizabeth I of Russia died in 1762, 15,000 dresses were found in her closets. She used to change what she was wearing two and even three times an evening.
Today the painting hangs in the Musee du Louvre, Paris, France.
Leonardo DaVinci painted the Mona Lisa on a piece of pinewood, 77 x 53 cm (30 x 20 7/8 in) in the year 1506.
The Fish Bowl was invented by Countess Dubarry, Mistress of King Louis XV (Born 1710 Died 1774)
It is estimated that a few years after Columbus discovered the New World, the Spaniards killed off 1.5 million Indians.
Dinner guests during the medieval times in England were expected to bring their own knives to the table.
Slaves under the last emperors of China wore pigtails so they could be picked out quickly.
In 1801, 20 percent of the people in the U.S. were slaves.
Olive oil was used for washing the body in the ancient Mediterranean world.
The first aerial photograph was taken from a balloon during the U.S. civil war.
It was only after 440 A.D. that December 25 was celebrated as the birth date of Jesus Christ.
There was a "pony express" in Persia many centuries before Christ. Riders on this ancient circuit, wearing special colored headbands, delivered the mails across the vast stretch of Asia Minor, sometimes riding for hundreds of miles without a break.
High-wire acts have been enjoyed since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Antique medals have been excavated from Greek islands depicting men ascending inclined cords and walking across ropes stretched between cliffs. The Greeks called these high-wire performers neurobates or oribates. In the Roman city of Herculaneum there is a fresco representing an aerialist high on a rope, dancing and playing a flute. Sometimes Roman tightrope walkers stretched cables between the tops of two neighboring hills and performed comic dances and pantomimes while crossing.
The Roman emperor Commodos collected all the dwarfs, cripples, and freaks he could find in the city of Rome and had them brought to the Coliseum, where they were ordered to fight each other to the death with meat cleavers.
In 1865 opium was grown in the state of Virginia and a product was distilled from it that yielded 4 percent morphine. In 1867 it was grown in Tennessee: six years later it was cultivated in Kentucky. During these years opium, marijuana and cocaine could be purchased legally over the counter from any druggist.
During World War II, the U.S. Navy had a world champion chess player, Reuben Fine, calculate - on the basis of positional probability - where enemy submarines might surface.
During World War II the original copies of the U. S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence was taken from the Library of Congress and kept at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
During the Spanish American War in 1898 there were 45 stars on the American flag.
During the Renaissance, fashionable aristocratic Italian women shaved their hair several inches back from their natural hairlines.
During the Renaissance blond hair became so much de rigueur in Venice that a brunette was not to be seen except among the working classes. Venetian women spent hours dyeing and burnishing their hair until they achieved the harsh metallic glitter that was considered a necessity.
During the Crimean War, the British Army lost ten times more troops to dysentery than to battle wounds.
During the American revolution, more inhabitants of the American colonies fought for the British than for the Continental Army.
General Henry Heth (1825-1888) leading a confederate division in the Battle of Gettysburg, was hit in the head by a Union bullet, but his life was saved because he was wearing a hat two sizes too large, with newspaper folded inside the sweatband. The paper deflected the bullet, and the general, unconscious for 30 hours, recovered and lived another 25 years.
The first known item made from aluminum was a rattle—made for Napoleon III in the 1850s. Napoleon also provided his most honored guests with knives and forks made of pure aluminum. At the time the newly discovered metal was so rare, it was considered more valuable than gold.
After the great fire of Rome in A.D. 64, the emperor Nero ostensibly decided to lay the blame on Christians residing in the city of Rome. These he gathered together, crucified, covered in pitch (tar), and burnt alive. He walked around his gardens admiring the view.
India tested its first nuclear bomb in 1974.
A B-25 bomber airplane crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945.
The Korean War began on June 25, 1950.
Socrates committed suicide by drinking poison hemlock.
There were 57 countries involved in World War II.
Seat belts became mandatory on U.S. cars on March 1, 1968.
Spartacus led the revolt of the Roman slaves and gladiators in 73 A.D.
Ishi had made it very clear before he died that he did not want to be autopsied. However, his wishes were ignored and his body was autopsied and the brain removed and sent to the Smithsonian, where scientists were collecting brains for a study of brain size and race. After 83 years, the Smithsonian is finally returning the brain of Ishi to his closest relatives so they can bury his remains.
In the 15th century, scholars in China compiled a set of encyclopedia that contained 11,095 volumes.
Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it is known as Tennessee.