| I'm moving in....Dave's Useless Facts Page | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| All the facts you never knew and never cared about! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The icecream sundae got it's name by a law set in Illinois in the 1800's, stating that you can't buy fountain sodas on Sunday. So the ice cream parlors got together and came up with a new invention -- the sodasyrup on ice cream minus the soda water. They sold this on Sundays and called it the ice cream sundae. The full name of the U.K. is: "The United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Berwick-upon-Tweed." The reason for this being that Berwick-upon-Tweed has historically been a disputed border town between England and Scotland, and was so constitutionally enshrined as a separate entity. Until 1987, Berwick-upon-Tweed was officially at war with Germany, due to war being declared with the full title, but desisted with only the partial one. The problem was solved, and they are now at peace, so the Germans can sleep easy! Jerry Seinfeld's apartment number is 5A. Kramer's is 5B. A "jiffy" is a unit of time: 3.3357 times 10 raised to the -11 (3.3357x10^-11) seconds. So named for the length of time it takes light to travel a cm in a vacuum. During the Manhattan Project in the early '40s, the time it took for the imploding shell of uranium to reach the center of the sphere was measured in "shakes of a lamb's tail". One shake = 1x10^-8 sec. It took about three shakes of a lambs tail to get the uranium to a critical mass and initiate spontaneous fission. The strength of early lasers was measured in Gilletts, the number of blue razor blades a given beam could puncture. The Sitka Spruce has the highest strength to weight ratio of all the hardwood trees. The Spanish abbreviation for UFO is OVNIS: "objeto volador no identificado." Kermit the Frog was named after Kermit Scott, a childhood friend of Jim Henson's, who Hawaiian words do not contain consonant clusters. For example, Kahlua is not a Hawaiian word. The ostrich yolk is the largest single cell in the world. Iolani palace in Hawaii is the only palace built for a monarchy currently on U.S. soil. Maine has no poisonous snakes. Hawaii has only two snakes. One is a sea snake rarely seen in Hawaii waters. The other is a blind snake that lives like an earthworm. The song American Pie has the lines "Drove my Chevy to the Levy, but the Levy was dry... Them good old boys were drinking whisky in Rye.." The Levy was a bar and Rye is a small city in New York. Most people think the levy is a thing that holds water back and Rye as the liquor. The abbreviation A.D. (Anno Domini, "Year of Our Lord") should be properly placed in front of the year--thus, you get 417 BC but AD 2000. The longest English word consisting entirely of consonants (and not including "y" as a vowel) is the word "crwth" which is from the fourteenth century and means crowd. The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight. Ice Cube's real name is O'Shea Jackson. The smallest fish in the world is the Trimattum Nanus the Chagos Archipelago. It measures 0.33 inches. It broke the record of the so- called "sinarapan" of Buhi, Camarines Sur, Philippines. According to the London for Visitors website, the area known as Soho used to be part of King Henry VIII's hunting grounds. When a hunter spied a deer, he yelled "Tally-Ho!", but when he found a smaller prey, the cry became "So-Ho!" As the area was developed, the name stuck. There is now an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which has a winter population of 200. The only marsupial with a pouch on its back is the bandicoot. The flag of the U.K. is properly known as the Union Flag. It is only called the Union Jack when it is flown from a ship. The speed of a computer mouse, i.e., the distance the cursor moves across the screen, as it relates to the movement of the mouse across the mouse pad, is officially rated in mickeys. The popular Fiesta Ware line of dishes sold well in the 1930s, except for the orange-colored sets. The reason? The paint used on the orange Fiesta Ware was radioactive. A large amount of boulders that have fallen off a cliff is known as talus, whereas they would be known as moraine had they been left there by a glacier. The Sitka spruce is Britain's most commonly planted tree. The Philip Morris Tobacco Company's crest has on it Caesar's famous saying "Veni, Vidi, Vici." There are more 100 dollar bills in Russia currently than there are in the United States. The extras in the the battle scenes in the movie Braveheart were reserves in the Irish army. The famous Citgo sign near Fenway Park in Boston is maintained not by Citgo, but by Boston's historical society. Roger Ebert won the 1959 Illinois High School Association State Speech competition in Radio. The main export of Jamaica is bauxite, which used in making aluminum. Will Clark hit a homerun in his first at-bat in college, the Olympics, and the Major Leagues. An ounce of platinum can be stretched to 10000 feet. The original Guiness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland has a six thousand year lease. The loudest sound that could be made in 1600 was that of a pipe organ. South Africa used to have two official languages. Now it has eleven. In 1848, Niagara Falls stopped flowing for 30 hours because of an ice jam blocking the Niagara River. America's largest rosary is located at the Fatima Shrine in Holliston, Massachusetts. The first product to have a UPC bar code on its packaging was Wrigley's gum. In Italy, it is illegal to make coffins out of anything except nutshells or wood. Pia Zadora's first movie role was as a young child, as one of the protagonists in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Tourism, tourist, come from the first people who ever mass travelled for pleasure, being british citizens who visited the Chateaux de la Loire in France, the capital city of which is Tours. A railroad tanker car carrying propane traveled over 3,000 feet when it exploded during a train wreck in Illinois, sheering off a steel tower in it's path. It's the longest flight on record for a propane explosion. It takes eighteen minutes to cool hot chocolate into a Hershey's Kiss. Of the twenty brightest stars in the sky, Capella is the furthest north. Sagittarius is the furthest south of the zodiacal constellations. Joe Friday, from Dragnet (later known as Badge 714), lived in Eagle Rock, California. The football huddle originated at Gallaudet University (the world's only accredited four-year liberal arts college for the deaf) in the 19th century when the football team found that opposing teams were reading their signed messages and intercepting plays. The way you can usually tell whether a chicken will lay white eggs or dark eggs: If the chicken has white ear lobes, she will lay white eggs. If the chicken has red ear lobes she will lay brown eggs. The words for the numbers "eleven" and "twelve" in English derive from the Anglo-Saxon for "one left" and "two left", respectively. "Aend-lefene" and "Twa-lefene" describe the process of counting, from left to right, your fingers and then going back one or two. The shortest British monarch was Charles I, who was 4'9" and that was before he lost his head! Mickey Mouse's ears are always turned to the front, no matter which direction his head is pointing. The South American Electric Eel can produce almost 1 Amp of current The smallest unit of time is the yoctosecond Ferrets sleep for about 20 hours a day. The "you are here" arrow on maps is called an ideo locator. The opening to the cave in which a bear hibernates is always on the north slope. Only six times in history have Time, Newsweek, and^M Sports Illustrated had the same entity on the cover in the^M same week. They are Joe Namath, Reggie Jackson, Secretariat, the ^M1980^M U.S. Ice Hockey team, Mary Lou Retton and O.J. Simpson.^M Of all the trains in the New York subway system, only one never enters the island of Manhattan. It's the "G" train, the Brooklyn-Queens crosstown local. The first national park, Yellowstone, was proclaimed a national park in 1872 however there was no National Park Service until 1916. Until then, the parks were administered by the U.S. Army. When the Park Service was formed they got their first uniforms from the Army, hence the ranger (campaign) hats. Since World War II, every American president to address the Canadian House of Commons in their first term of office have all been re-elected to a second term. Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton have all had the honour, while Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter, and Bush did not address the parliament. The "J.R.R." in J.R.R.Tolkien stands for John Ronald Reuel. His son's name is Christopher. In 1920 Ray Chapman a shortstop for the Cleveland Indians, is the only player ever killed as a result of a major league baseball game. He was hit in the temple with a pitch and died the next day. Hong Kong has the world's largest double-decker tram fleet in the world. Bulgaria was the only soccer team in the 1994 World Cup in which all 11 players' last names ended with the letters "OV." Of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all named after artists and/or sculptors, Donatello does not occur in the same time period as Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael. Abdul Kassem Ismael, Grand Vizier of Persia in the tenth century, carried his library with him wherever he went. The 117,000 volumes were carried by 400 camels which were trained to walk in alphabetical order. The country with the biggest percentage of heads of household being women is Botswana. In every deck of cards the King of Hearts is sticking his sword through his head. That's why he's often called the "Suicide King" In English, "four" is the only digit that has the same number of letters as its value. Quebec and Newfoundland are the only two Canadian provinces which do not allow personalized license plates. With a population of fewer than nine thousand people, Montpelier, Vermont is the smallest state capital in the U.S. The actor who played the T-1000 in Terminator 2 (Robert Patrick) and the lead singer of Filter are brothers. Pittsburgh is the only city where all major sports teams have the same colors: Black and gold. Pluto, the astrological sign for death, was directly above Dallas, Texas when JFK was born. In the theme song from "The Flintstones", the line after "Let's ride with the family down the street" is "Through the coutesy of Fred's two feet." The proceedings in the British Parliament are meant to be in private (even though they are televised). So, if the MPs want to have a secret session, one of them points to the gallery from which the public watch, and calls "I spy strangers!", whereupon the House votes "that the strangers do withdraw." On the London Underground, one station (Bank) has a different name on two of its platforms (where it is called Monument). There are two pairs of stations (Edgware Road and Shepherds Bush) which have the same name, but are different stations. Ambassadors to the United Kingdom are not called that officially, but rather "Ambassadors to the Court of St. James's" - the palace which was the residence of the monarch before Buckingham Palace was built. Oxford Street in London is named after the Earl of Oxford, and it is only coincidence that it is the start of the main road from London to Oxford. In British Monopoly sets, the most expensive property (Mayfair) is not a street, but a district of little streets near Hyde Park. The official name of Jesus College, Cambridge, is 'the college of the Holy Trinity and the most Blessed and Exalted Virgin, St. Rhadegund". The patron saint of Oxford is St. Frideswide, and many (female) children in Oxford are christened 'Friday' after her nickname. Zip code 12345 is assigned to General Electric in Schenectady, N.Y. There is an Ides in every month, not just March. Try dividing 81 into 99999999999. Bowerbirds of Australia and New Guinea decorate their courting grounds with everything from beetle wings to car keys. Since 1600, 109 species and subspecies of birds have become extinct. The letter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements. Rita Hayworth's real name was Margarita Casino. The cells which make up the antlers of a moose are the fastest growing animal cells in nature. The official, neutral name of Switzerland, which has multiple official languages, is the latin "Confederatio Helvetica", or the Helvetic Confederation, thus the "CH" on license plates and stickers. There were ten Johns, out of 102 people, on the Mayflower. Tina Turner's real name is Annie Mae Bullock. Hydrangeas produce pink and white flowers in alkaline soil and blue ones in acidic soil. Dallas, Texas was named after George M. Dallas, President Polk's veep. Mr. Peanut was invented in 1916 by a Suffolk, Virginia, schoolchild who won $5 in a design contest sponsored by Planters Peanuts. WACO is the only radio station in the United States that spells out it's location city. Jackals have one more pair of chromosomes than dogs or wolves. The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want. Basenji dogs and Australian dingoes are virtually identical. Any number, squared, is equal to one more than the numbers one either side of it -- 4x6 is 24, 5x5 is 25. If Brooklyn, New York became independent of New York City, it would be the third largest city in the United States, after the remainder of New York and Los Angeles. The Yellowstone River is the longest undammed river west of the Mississippi. An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain. The King of Hearts is the only king without a moustache. "Vang" is the most common surname among the Hmong people of Laos. The London Underground station "St. John's Wood" is the only such station to not contain any of the letters of the word "Mackerel. Susan B. Anthony's middle initial stands for Brownell. The longest intra-continental flight in the world is from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to Manila, Philippines. A Boeing 747's wingspan is longer than the Wright brothers' first flight. Hippopotami do eighty percent of their vocalizations under water. When Patty Hearst was kidnapped, she was watching the TV Show "The Magician" starring Bill Bixby. The oldest Whiskey distillery in the world is in Ireland and started distilling in 1657. Whiskey in Ireland is spelt with an 'e' before the 'y.' Scottish Whisky (or Scotch) is spelt without the 'e.' Mississippi is the only state that has a city named Biloxi. A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average. You can tell a girl crab from a boy crab by their stomachs. A girl has a beehive and a boy has a lighthouse. Mongooses were brought to Hawai'i to kill rats. This plan failed because rats are nocturnal and while the mongoose hunts during the day. The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny. Finnish is not a Germanic, Slavic or Romantic language. It belongs to it's own language group. The other two languages in the group are Hungarian and Estonian. The foreign city most visited by Americans is Tijuana. The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows. It would take a one kilogram weight one hour to fall to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the ocean (35,839 feet). I, Q, and X are the only letters that don't start a city that ends in -ville in the state of Ohio. i.e. Brownsville, Zanesville, etc. The German Bundestag, or Parliament, has 672 members and is the world's largest elected legislative body. The billionth digit of pi is 9. Iowa is the only state bordered on both east and west entirely by rivers. (Mississippi on the east, Missouri and Big Sioux on the west.) The next-to-last event is the penultimate, and the second-to- last event is the antepenultimate. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Useless Plant Facts! (Hey, you might need them someday.) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Q. What is the most useful plant in the world? A. The palmyra palm is emplyed for more purposes than perhaps any other plant, upward of 800 uses being recorded for its various parts. Q. What color predominates in flowers? A. Luther Burbank said that more than half of the flowers in the world are red or some shade of red. Q. What is the largest weed known? A. The kind of seaweed known as kelp is said to be the largest, or at least the longest, in the world, sometimes attaining a length of 1500 feet. Q. Does sound, such as a waterfall or dynamiting, interfere with the growth of plants? A. Sound does not affect the growth of vegetation. Q. How many kinds of roses are there? A. Most botanists recognize about 100 species of roses. The number of horticultural varieties, crosses and hybrids, however is very large, more than 3,000 varieties being listed in French catalogues, with new ones added every year. Q. Are there roses that will grow in in high altitudes? A. Swiss mountain roses are extremely hardy and thrive above elevations of 3,000 feet. An effort is being made to transplant them to the rockies. Q. How many kinds of grasses are there? A. There are about 6,000 distinct species of grasses in the world. Of these about 60 are important cultivated plants. Q. Are there any ruins to substantiate the story of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? A. All that is known of these wonderful gardens is what is stated in a few sentences by ancient writers, dealing largely with tradition. Q. Would it be possible for a vine to climb a smooth wall? A. Some vines have tiny suckers on their creepers and can cling to and climb an almost perfectly smooth wall. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Useless Physics Facts | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Q. What is the fastest thing in the world? A. The Bureau of Standards says that the electron is the fastest thing in the world. Q. What is the best conductor of electricity? A. Silver is considered the best conductor of electricity. Q. Is it true that there is an instrument that will measure the heat of a candle five miles away? A. The Bureau of Standards says the statement concerning the thermometer that will measure the heat of a candle five miles away is correct. There is in the Bureau an instrument to measure the heat of a single star, which is made so delicate that it is responsive to the heat of a candle several hundred miles away. Q. What is the likelyhood of being hit by lightning? A. It is estimated that only six or seven people in a million are struck by lightning. Q. Why does placing a silver spoon in a glass prevent boiling water, when poored into it, from breaking the glass? A. The spoon conducts heat somewhat better than the water does, and this causes the water around it to be hotter than the water at the same level. It, therefore rises and sets up a circulation in the glass, so that the water boils in the upper levels and not directly on the bottom. Q. What are the greatest known degrees of artificial heat? A. The Bureau of Standards says that the highest temperatures of artificial heat are atteained by electric arcs, with exception of instantaneous effects of condenser discharge. Tungsten arc under high pressure of inert gas has been taken to over 5000 degrees F. Q. What is it that makes colors in a flame? A. Flames may be colored, and often very brilliantly, by the presence within them of certain metallic salts, such as sodium, potassium and strontium. Q. How much warmer are houses kept now than they were 100 years ago? A. One hundred years ago 50 to 55 degrees was considered a good house temperature. Fireplaces provided the heat in those days. When stoves came into use, about 90 years ago, the temperature rose to 62 degrees. With the increasing use of furnaces, some 50 years ago, a heat of 72 degrees was quite usual. Today a temperature of 70 degrees is considered standard. Q. How much water is passed into the atmosphere from a large tree? A. The evaporation from a large oak or beech tree is from ten to twenty-five gallons in twenty-four hours.
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