Uncle John’s Did You Know?

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  • L’Arbre du Ténéré (the Tree of Ténéré), an acacia tree in the Sahara desert, was once considered the most isolated tree on earth—more than 250 miles away from any other tree.

  • The average Christmas tree in an American town square is 12 feet tall.

  • “Dogwood” comes from “dagwood”—the tree’s slender, strong limbs were perfect for making “dags,” that is, daggers.

  GOING PLACES

  • Half of all journeys taken are less than two miles in distance.

  • Around the world in…how many days? The record time by car: 33 days. By bicycle: 78 days.

  • Special traffic lanes in the Netherlands are for bicycles only. They even have their own traffic lights.

  • In 1870 it took about 29 hours to travel from New York to Chicago. Today it takes less than three.

  • How fast does the average escalator travel? About .017 miles per hour.

  • Laid end to end, all the roads in the United States would circle the Earth 153 times.

  • The most miles ridden backward on a unicycle: 53.

  • The average person in Great Britain travels a total of 36 miles by taxi each year.

  • A bobsled’s top speed is about 90 miles per hour.

  • One mile per hour equals 88 feet per minute.

  • Things can get so hectic in Hong Kong that delivery times are influenced mostly by traffic conditions on elevators.

  • The Japanese travel an average of 1,230 miles by railway per year. The British average 200.

  IT’S ABOUT

  TIME

  • A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time: 1/100 of a second.

  • If you watch TV for one hour a night between the ages of 6 and 16, you’ll have spent 8 months in front of the television.

  • How long would it take to type every number from 1 to 1,000,000? It took Marva Drew of Iowa five years.

  • The science of timekeeping is called horology.

  • Back in 1878, Sir Sanford Fleming of Canada figured out that since the Earth rotates once every 24 hours and there are 360 degrees of longitude, there should be 24 worldwide time zones, each spaced 15 degrees of longitude apart. Simple, but brilliant!

  • A queen bee lays one egg per minute.

  • The part of a sundial that casts the shadow is called a gnomon, (pronounced NO-mun). Want to build a sundial? Here’s a tip: Use a compass to set the gnomon so it’s pointing north-south.

  • There are 100 years in a century, 10 years in a decade, and 5 years in a quinquennium.

  • Marching in “double time” is 180 steps per minute, “quick time” is 120 steps per minute, and “slow time” is 60 steps per minute.

  BIBLE STORIES

  • There are more than 750,000 words in the King James Bible.

  • The Bible has been translated into 349 languages.

  • Southpaws beware: There are 1,600 hostile references to left-handers in the Bible.

  • The word “girl” appears only once in the King James Bible. (It’s in Joel 3:3.)

  • According to folklore, the Adam’s apple is a reminder of man’s first sin—supposedly it’s a piece of the forbidden fruit stuck in the throat.

  • How big was Noah’s ark? It was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall.

  • The Bible contains some pretty long names, but the longest belongs to Isaiah’s son: Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

  • In the Old Testament there’s a giant—a relative of Goliath—who has six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.

  • Bibliomancy is the attempt to tell the future by opening a book (especially the Bible) to a random page and reading the first verse you see.

  • Zacharias was struck dumb by God until he agreed to name his son “John.” That’s the John who later became John the Baptist.

  ANTZ

  …and not just in your pants.

  • There are more than 12,000 species of ants in the world.

  • Ants don’t just come in black and red—they can also be green, brown, yellow, blue, or purple.

  • Most ants are omnivorous—they eat everything… including other insects.

  • Queen ants are born with wings. After they fly off to start new colonies, they lose their wings.

  • Tropical leafcutter ants are farmers…sort of. They chew leaves to a pulp, then use the decaying leaf pulp to make fungus gardens, which they harvest for food.

  • The perfect place for a picnic: There are no ants in Iceland, Greenland, or Antarctica.

  • Ants hear with their knees and smell with their antennae.

  • The social life of an ant colony is a lot like ours: There are carpenters, farmers, warriors, teachers, hunters, guards, nurses, undertakers, thieves—and even beggars.

  • Ants depend on their colony for everything; a lone ant can’t survive on its own.

  • Scientists think that ants probably evolved from wasps.

  NAME POWER

  • Some American Indians have two names: a common name and a “power name,” which is kept private. Why? Because they believe that anyone who knows the private name can have power over them.

  • Children in West Africa are commonly named for the day on which they were born. Monday is Adojoa, Tuesday is Abla, Wednesday is Aku, Thursday is Awo, Friday is Afua, Saturday is Ama, and Sunday is Awushie.

  • The Ojibwa people of North America at one time considered it dangerous to speak the names of their own husbands or wives.

  • Some Inuit take on new names when they become old, hoping the new name will give them new strength.

  • Indonesians may change their names after suffering misfortune or illness. They believe a new name will confuse the evil spirits that brought them grief.

  • Ancient Hawaiians thought that names contained mana, or power, and that the power in a name could shape a person’s character, personality, and destiny.

  • Most traditional Jewish families in the U.S. name children after family members who have recently died. The parents hope that the child will have all the virtues of his or her namesake.

  RE-USE IT OR

  LOSE IT

  How much do you know about recycling?

  • It takes 20 times less energy to make an aluminum can from recycled materials than from new materials… and a can made from recycled materials creates 95% less pollution than a new one does.

  • It takes 25% less energy to create paper and glass from recycled materials than from new materials.

  • A glass bottle can be recycled an unlimited number of times.

  • Every day, American businesses use enough paper to circle the Earth over 20 times.

  • Every ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, 4,000 kilowatts of energy, and 7,000 gallons of water.

  • 84% of all household waste can be recycled.

  • Americans recycle less than 15% of their trash.

  • Stannous fluoride, the cavity fighter found in toothpaste, is made from recycled tin.

  • The amount of aluminum that Americans throw out in three months is enough to rebuild 100% of America’s commercial airplanes.

  MONEY

  MATTERS

  • In 1690 the Massachusetts Bay Colony issued the first paper money in the American colonies.

  • A portrait of Sioux chief Running Antelope appeared on the 1899 $5 silver certificate. It’s the only time a Native American has appeared on U.S. paper currency.

  • The American bison was pictured on a 1901 U.S. dollar, which was nicknamed “the buffalo bill.”

  • The four main crops of early America—corn, cotton, wheat, and tobacco—all appear on U.S. money.

  • The Secret Service was established in 1860. Their original purpose? To combat counterfeiting.

  • E Pluribus Unum—the motto inscribed on all U.S. coins—was first used in 1795 on the $5 gold piece. It means “one from many.”

  • First coins produced by the U.S. Mint: 11,178 copper cents in 1793. Value: $1
11.78, of course.

  • The map of Europe portrayed on the 1998 Italian 1,000-lira coin contained four mistakes.

  • The only piece of U.S. paper currency to ever have a portrait of a woman was an 1886 $1 silver certificate. The woman: Martha Washington.

  • India’s State Bank has the most outlets of any bank in the world, with 12,704 locations.

  • Check it out: 64% of all retail prices end in the number nine.

  • The first known check was written in Europe in the 1650s.

  • In 600 B.C. China, one type of coin was called an “ant nose.” Why? It was just the right size to plug up dead people’s noses—and keep ants out.

  • Five-cent coins are called “nickels” because they’re made of…you guessed it…nickel. When was a nickel not a nickel? During World War II—they were made with other metals because of nickel shortages.

  • Before credit cards became so common, people used to pay for things COD—cash on delivery.

  • In 2006 the second-richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, donated two-thirds of his wealth (about $30 billion) to the charitable foundation run by the first-richest man in the world, Bill Gates.

  • An easy way to check if you’ve got a counterfeit bill: Feed it into a vending machine. The government uses magnetic ink; the machine checks for magnetism.

  • The word “cash” originally referred to a money box.

  • The first credit card, issued in 1950, was a Diners Club card. The man who had the idea in the first place thought it was just a fad and sold his shares in the company for around $200,000.

  THE MODERN

  OLYMPICS

  • 1896: 241 athletes from 14 countries participated in the first modern Olympics in Athens, Greece. All of them were male.

  • 2004: Athens again, but this time 10,625 athletes (6,296 male and 4,329 female) from 202 countries competed.

  • A legendary Hawaiian surfer named Duke Kahanamoku won five medals—three of them gold—for swimming at four different Olympics. In his last Olympics, in 1924, he came in second to Johnny Weissmuller, who went on to star in 12 Tarzan movies.

  • The five rings on the Olympic flag represent the five continents that participated in the first modern Games.

  • Gymnast Olga Korbut of the Soviet Union was 14 years old when she scored the first perfect 10 in 1976.

  • The first modern Olympic Winter Games were held in 1924 in Chamonix (sha-mo-NEE), France.

  • The official Olympic motto is Citius Altius Fortius. That’s Latin for “faster, higher, stronger.”

  • Lighting the flame at ancient Olympia and relaying the torch to the Olympic stadium was introduced in 1936 at the Berlin Games. The reason: to glorify Hitler’s Third Reich.

  PALINDROMES

  Astounding words and phrases that read the same backward and forward.

  • Aha!

  • Toot!

  • No, Jon.

  • Pa’s a sap.

  • Sir, I’m Iris.

  • Dennis sinned.

  • Roy, am I mayor?

  • Enid and Edna dine.

  • Harass selfless Sarah.

  • Delia and Edna ailed.

  • Ah, Satan sees Natasha.

  • Dennis and Edna sinned.

  • Won’t lovers revolt now?

  • Yawn a more Roman way.

  • Nurse, I spy gypsies. Run!

  • Max, I stay away at six a.m.

  • Did Dean aid Diana? Ed did.

  • Revenge, my baby Meg? Never!

  • Oh, who was it I saw? Oh, who?

  • Bob: “Did Anna peep?” Anna: “Did Bob?”

  • Dennis, no misfit can act if Simon sinned.

  • Yo! Bottoms up! U.S. motto, boy!

  • I moan, “Live on, O evil Naomi!”

  • Did Hannah say as Hannah did?

  SING A SONG

  • “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” and “The Alphabet Song” all have the same melody—originally from a French folk song.

  • Popular country singer Dolly Parton released her first record, “Puppy Love,” on March 20, 1959. She was 13 years old.

  • When Congolese musician Fidele Babindamana performed in France with the stage name “Fidele Zizi,” everyone laughed. Why? In French, “Fidèle Zizi” means “faithful wee-wee.”

  • Elvis Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was quite a wheeler-dealer. In addition to grabbing an estimated 50% to 75% of Elvis’s income, he sold both “I Love Elvis” and “I Hate Elvis” buttons.

  • Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday,” voted the most popular song of the 20th century, was originally called “Scrambled Eggs.” The opening line: “Scrambled eggs / Oh baby, how I love your legs.”

  • “Happy Birthday” was the first song ever performed in outer space. The Apollo IX astronauts sang it on March 8, 1969.

  • “Over the Rainbow,” the song Judy Garland sings in The Wizard of Oz, was ranked #1 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Greatest Songs in American Films.

  I’LL DRINK

  TO THAT

  Bottoms up! Here are some fascinating facts about the world’s favorite beverages.

  • Early soft drinks came in bottles. What was the first soda in a can? Clicquot Club ginger ale, in 1938.

  • Every year, Dunkin’ Donuts serves an estimated 650 million cups of coffee.

  • Some experimental versions of 7UP, sold outside the United States: 7UP Mint, 7UP Raspberry, and 7UP Ice (which left a cool sensation in the mouth).

  • Budweiser beer is named for a town in the Czech Republic.

  • Pepsi central: Pikeville, Kentucky (population 6,500) consumes the most Pepsi per capita of any American city.

  • In what country do people drink the most coffee per day? Norway.

  • Australians gulp down an average of 25 gallons of soda per person every year.

  • Ground-up acorns were used as a coffee substitute during the Civil War.

  EARTHQUAKE!

  • Sounds weird, but it’s true: A magnitude 6.0 earthquake is 10 times greater than a 5.0 earthquake.

  • 500,000 earthquakes occur in the world every year. Humans can feel only about 100,000 of them, and of those only 100 cause damage to buildings or property.

  • In a 2001 experiment to see if they could create an earthquake, one million British schoolchildren jumped up and down in unison for a minute. (It didn’t work.)

  • Where was the strongest earthquake in American history? Probably not where you’d think. It took place in Tennessee in the winter of 1811. The quake created tidal waves on the Mississippi River and caused church bells to ring in Boston, Massachusetts…almost 1,000 miles away.

  • Florida and North Dakota have the fewest earthquakes in the U.S.; Alaska has the most—as many as 4,000 a year.

  • The deadliest earthquake on record—estimated at 8.0 on the Richter scale—killed approximately 830,000 people in China in 1556.

  • There are more than 1,500 earthquakes a year in Japan.

  • A few days before an earthquake destroyed the ancient city of Helice in 373 B.C., worms, snakes, and weasels abandoned the city for safer ground.

  FISHY STORIES

  • The largest ocean carnivore is the sperm whale. Adult males can grow up to 60 feet long and weigh 80,000 pounds.

  • When you think of a starfish, you think of a creature with 5 arms—but a basket starfish can have 50 arms or even more!

  • Count ’em: A lobster has 10 legs.

  • Sperm whales eat about a ton of food a day. Their favorite? Squid.

  • Jellyfish have been around for a very long time. They appeared in the oceans about 650 million years ago, before the dinosaurs.

  • Sea horses lay up to 400 eggs at a time.

  • Giant tube worms can grow up to eight feet long. They live inside hard, protective, shell-like tubes that attach to rocks.

  • Home Sweet Home: In order to mate and lay
eggs, sea turtles will migrate thousands of miles to return to the same beach where they hatched.

  • Look! A giant squid’s eye measures 15 inches across.

  • How big are blue whales? Picture a whale that’s as long as three Greyhound buses and weighs as much as 30 elephants. That’s big.

  • A shrimp’s heart is located in its head.

  • A sperm whale’s largest teeth are an awesome 11 inches long—roughly as long as a human’s forearm.

  • The bodies of jellyfish are made up of 95% water. They have no bones or cartilage, no hearts or blood, and no brains.

  • A dolphin sleeps with one half of its brain at a time, and with one eye closed.

  • Orcas, the largest members of the dolphin family, have the second-largest brains in the animal kingdom. Who’s got the largest? The sperm whale—with a brain that can weigh in at 20 pounds.

  • The world’s deepest-dwelling fish, Abyssobrotula galatheae, was found near Puerto Rico at a depth of 8,372 meters—that’s more than five miles down! Its eyes are virtually nonexistent. (Since it’s so dark at that depth, eyes have become unnecessary and useless.)

  AVERAGE

  AMERICANS

  • The average American watches 28 hours of TV each week.

  • The average American spends 27 minutes per day reading the newspaper and 17 minutes reading books.

  • The average American home contains six radios.

  • The average American opens the refrigerator 22 times a day.

  • On average, Americans spend $1,300 on utility bills each year.

  • While shopping for groceries in a supermarket, the average American will make 14 impulse purchases. Examples: chewing gum, cold soda, cookies, tabloid newspapers, an eyeglass-repair kit, lottery tickets, or anything marked “NEW!”

  • In an average year, an average American will spend five times longer in their car than they’ll spend on vacation.