The Utterly, Completely, and Totally Useless Fact-O-Pedia

by Gary Bennett Charlotte Lowe

  Chupacabra

  The Chupacabra, a legendary cryptid from various parts of the Americas, is supposedly a heavy creature, the size of a small bear, with a row of spikes along its back. Sightings have been reported in Puerto Rico, Mexico and the US, but biologist and wildlife management officials view the Chupacabra as a contemporary legend. The name comes from the animal’s reported habit of attacking and drinking the blood of livestock, especially goats.

  In Puerto Rico in March 1995, eight sheep were discovered dead, each with three puncture wounds in the chest area and completely drained of blood.

  Puerto Rican comedian and entrepreneur Silverio Pérez is credited with coining the term “chupacabras” soon after the first incidents were reported in the press.

  In April 2006, MosNews reported that a chupacabra was spotted in Russia for the first time. The beast reportedly killed 32 turkeys and drained their blood. Reports later came from neighboring villages where 30 sheep were killed and had their blood drained.

  In July 2007, a Texan rancher named Phylis Canion claimed she had captured a chupacabra. The creature had first started snatching cats, then two dozen chickens right through a wire cage. Canion claimed that the creatures were blue-skinned, hairless, and had strange teeth. Studying the DNA, biologists at the Texas State University announced that the remains in her freezer were not that of a chupacabra but, in fact, a coyote.

  Circus

  The name “circus” was coined by an English trick-rider named Charles Hughes when he established his own ring in 1782 and called it the Royal Circus. Hughes took the ideas—which also included jugglers, trapeze artists, clowns, and animals—to Russia and there began the Moscow State Circus.

  The first building known as a circus was the Circus Maximus in Rome. It had been founded in the 6th century BC for chariot races and by the 1st century BC, Julius Caesar developed the stadium to hold 150,000 spectators. It was further extended in the 4th century AD to seat a quarter of a million people. The Circus Maximus was the largest seated stadium ever built. Only the ruins remain today.

  Vladamir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary, expressed a wish for the circus to become “the people’s art-form,” given equal status and facilities as a theatre, opera, or ballet. In 1927, the State University of Circus and Variety Arts—better known as the Moscow Circus School—was established where performers were trained using methods developed from the Soviet gymnastics program.

  Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810-April 7, 1891) was an American showman and businessman who founded the circuses that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Barnum dedicated his life “to put money in his own coffers.” He was a businessman, his profession was entertainment, and he was perhaps the first “show business” millionaire. His last reported words were “How were the circus receipts today at Madison Square Garden?”

  Chang and Eng Bunker were Siamese twins joined at the sternum by a small piece of cartilage. In 1829, they were discovered in Siam by British merchant Robert Hunter and exhibited as a curiosity during a world tour. Upon termination of their contract with their discoverer, they went into business for themselves. In 1839, the twins settled in Wilkesboro, NC, becoming naturalized United States citizens. The best-selling and multipleaward-winning 2000 novel, Chang and Eng, by Darin Strauss, was based on the life of the famous Bunker twins.

  Ringling Bros. performers were notoriously superstitious. They considered sitting on the ring curb and the color green to be bad luck.

  Clinton, Bill

  Although he assumed use of his stepfather’s surname, Clinton says he remembers his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and his half-brother, Roger, Jr.

  In 1978, he became the youngest governor in the country at age thirtytwo when he was elected Governor of Arkansas. After losing the re-election, Clinton once joked that he was the youngest ex-governor in the nation’s history.

  On October 17, 2002, Bill Clinton became the first white person to be inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.

  Clinton is the first left-handed American president to serve two terms.

  As a delegate to Boys Nation while in high school, Clinton met President Kennedy in the White House Rose Garden in 1962. The introduction led him to enter a life of public service.

  Coca-Cola®

  The predecessor of coke was an alcoholic drink called Pemberton’s French Wine Coca, which was used as a headache remedy. The temperance movement caused John Smith Pemberton to create a non-alcoholic version of French Wine Coca, which he flavored using kola nuts. In the beginning, he only sold nine drinks a day at five cents per glass. A year later, in 1888, Pemberton sold his stake to the company Asa Griggs Candler. He also quietly sold it to three other businessmen. Candler eventually got hold of all the rights for the beverage and then burnt his records. A marketing genius, he made Coca-Cola® the world’s best-selling soft drink.

  About 60mg of cocaine was used in each serving of Coke until 1903 when the company claimed to have removed the ingredient.

  The day before Martin Luther King was assassinated, he held a speech asking people to boycott Coca-Cola® and stop buying their products because of the way the company was treating black workers.

  It takes about 2.5 liters of water to produce just 1 liter of Coke at its bottling plants.

  In May 15, 1950, Coca-Cola® became the first product ever to appear on the cover of Time magazine.

  Cocaine

  Yuegang Zuo, a UMass Dartmouth chemistry professor, did a study which detected trace amounts of cocaine in 67% of the dollar bills researchers collected in Southeastern Massachusetts within a two year period.

  As late as 1938, the classic French cookbook Larousse Gastronomique published a recipe for “cocaine pudding,” a variation on zabaglione in which the traditional egg-sugar-and-wine mixture was boosted with extracts of cola and coca steeped in orange syrup. “Not only a very tasty dessert,” commented the book, “but also an excellent medicine.”

  Macadamia nuts are often used by law enforcement to simulate crack cocaine in drug stings. When chopped, the nuts resemble crack cocaine in color.

  Crack cocaine is a highly addictive and powerful stimulant that is derived from powdered cocaine using a simple conversion process. It is abused because it produces an immediate high and because it is easy and inexpensive to produce. The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse indicates that an estimated 6,222,000 U.S. residents aged 12 and older have used crack at least once in their lifetime.

  Robert Louis Stevenson was an invalid almost deranged by tuberculosis and the effects of medicinal cocaine when he spent three days re-writing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by hand. The first draft was destroyed by the author’s wife who dismissed it as a “quire full of utter nonsense.”

  Colosseum

  The construction of the Colosseum began under the Emperor Vespasian in 70 AD and ended during the reign of Emperor Titus in 80 AD. Unlike earlier amphitheaters, which were nearly all dug into hillsides for extra support, the Colosseum is a freestanding structure of stone and concrete.

  Archaeologists can’t agree on an exact number, but estimates put the seating in the Colosseum at around 45,000 people.

  The Colosseum is located around 14 degrees North, and 43 degrees East.

  For four years, the death of men were a form of entertainment for the crowds. It began with fights to the death between wild animals, but later, there would be fights between men and tamed beasts.

  During the hundred days of the opening games, over 5,000 animals were killed, including elephants, tigers, lions, elks, hyenas, hippopotamuses, and giraffes.

  Comet

  In ancient times, without interference from streetlights or urban pollution, comets could be seen by everyone. Their sudden appearance was interpreted as an omen of nature and was used by astrologers to predict flood, famine, pestilence, or the death of a king.

  Comets are composed mostly of ice and dust that grow tails when they approach the
sun. All comets have a nucleus made of hard rock/ice. As the comet approaches the sun, solar energy begins to heat the ice and vaporize it.

  The longest comet nucleus ever recorded had a measurement of 42 miles (67.6 km). The shortest comet nucleus measured 0.3 miles (0.5 km).

  The first usable photographs of a comet’s nucleus were taken by the European Space Agency’s Giotto spacecraft as it flew close to Halley ’s Comet in 1986.

  Compared to the solar system, comets are tiny. Like asteroids, they are bits of debris left over from when the Universe first started. According to one widely accepted opinion, comets are as old as the Universe and were once the blocks that produced Neptune and Uranus.

  A comet can have more than one tail. The DeCheseaux comet fanned out like a peacock and had seven.

  Common Cold & Flu

  In the United States, adults get an average of two to four colds per year, mostly between September and May.

  In November 2007, a mutated version of a common cold virus caused 10 deaths. Adenoviruses usually cause respiratory infections that aren’t considered lethal, but a new variant caused at least 140 illnesses in New York, Oregon, Washington, and Texas, according to a report issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  A cough releases an explosive charge of air that travels at speeds up to 60 mph whereas a sneeze can actually exceed the speed of 100 mph.

  With only 30 seconds’ of use, a handkerchief has been found to contain 15,000 germs.

  During the flu pandemic of 1918 (often referred to as the Spanish Flu), public gatherings were banned in some cities, and residents were required to wear masks. The epidemic killed 20-40 million people worldwide.

  Colds are caused by over 200 different viruses, and they are not the same viruses that cause the flu.

  Confucius

  Confucius translates literally as “Master Kong.”

  To ensure stability in his country, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, outlawed Confucianism and many scholars of the discipline were buried alive.

  The Confucius Aristocratic Family Genealogy, the world’s longest family tree by Guinness World Records, has documented a genealogy spanning more than 2,500 years. At last count, the total number of descendants exceeded two million people.

  On study, “To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.”

  On ego, “”I don’t worry about not having a good position; I worry about the means I use to gain position. I don’t worry about being unknown; I seek to be known in the right way.”

  A state of Confucian…The terms “Confucianism” and “Confucian,” derived from the Latinized Confucius, are western terms, coined in Europe as recently as the 18th century and bear no meaning in Chinese.

  The Lun-yü (Analects) is the most revered sacred scripture in the Confucian tradition. Likely compiled by the second generation of Confucius’ disciples, it is based primarily on his sayings and captures the Confucian spirit in the same way that the Platonic dialogues embody Socratic teachings.

  Corkscrew

  The design of the corkscrew may have derived from the gun worm, a 17th century device that was used to remove unspent charges from a musket’s barrel in a similar fashion.

  German Carl Wienke invented a single lever waiter’s type corkscrew, which is still in common use today. The corkscrew was nicknamed the “Waiter’s Friend” or “Butler’s Friend,” because it could easily remove and easily replace a cork.

  The vitual corkscrew museum at www.corkscrewmuseum.com boasts 33 “rooms” with 3,601 pages and 416 photos in the museum.

  On April 2000, Abraham Russel’s January 21, 1862 American Patent No. 34,216 corkscrew sold on eBay for $13,550.

  In August 2006, the University of California, Berkeley displayed a 1,500-item corkscrew collection at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology in Kroeber Hall, on the UC campus.

  In the movie True Romance, Christian Slater opens a bottle of wine with a Swiss Army knife corkscrew. It gets left on the floor and is later used as a weapon by Patricia Arquette.

  Cotton

  The word “cotton” is an English version of the Arabic qutun or kutun, a generic term meaning fancy fabric. Back in the day, a popular name for cotton was “vegetable wool.”

  Cotton seeds are tough enough to survive travel across oceans on the wind, which explains why similar varieties can grow thousands of miles apart.

  Elvis, Sun Records, and the Stax Museum aren’t the only things to come out of Memphis. The Cotton Museum is a historical and cultural museum that opened in March 2006 on the former trading floor of the Memphis Cotton Exchange at 65 Union Avenue in downtown Memphis.

  Cotton has been cultivated around the world for more than 5,000 years. Interestingly enough, each country managed to develop similar tools to clean, prepare, spin, and weave it.

  Cotton is also a food crop. Cottonseed oil is used in margarine, salad dressing, as well as feed for livestock and poultry.

  The cotton gin is where cotton fiber is separated from the cotton seed. The first step in the ginning process is when the cotton is vacuumed into tubes that carry it to a dryer to reduce moisture and improve the fiber quality.

  According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, U.S. paper currency is made up of 75% cotton and 25% linen.

  Cowboy

  In 1905, William Picket became the star attraction of the Wild West shows his employers, the Miller Brothers, would hold at their ranch in Oklahoma. Bill later started a horse breaking operation near Austin with his brother. He was the first Black American inducted to the National Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame in the year of 1971.

  Feet first? Contrary to popular belief, the cowboy boot did not derive from Spanish or Native American influence, but rather, it’s a direct descendant of a boot style made popular by Arthur Wellesley—the Duke of Wellington.

  The first Marlboro men weren’t limited to cowboys. In the 1920s, Marlboro was first advertised as a milder premium cigarette for women. As the company sought to re-market filtered cigarettes to men, they advertised with all types of rugged individuals who smoked their cigarettes while performing equally “manly” tasks, from fixing cars to fishing or hunting.

  Annie Oakley was probably the most famous cowgirl of them all. Born Phoebe Moses, she was known for her sharp shooting skills by the time she was six years old. In fact, her shooting skills helped her parents to sell game to local shops and pay off their mortgage. As an adult, she was a sharp shooting star who toured with Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show.

  Located in Fort Worth, TX, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame is exclusively dedicated to honoring the courageous women of the Wild West who exemplified sass and spirit in their trail blazing efforts.

  D

  Da Vinci, Leonardo

  His first commercial painting was to decorate a shield, for which his father received 100 ducats…and kept to himself.

  Though the Mona Lisa was a commissioned project, Da Vinci decided to keep the painting for himself. After his death, it was bought by the King of France and remained in royal hands for more than two centuries. When the French Revolution changed the tone of the city, the masterpiece was transferred to its current home, the Louvre. However, Napoleon Bonaparte allegedly “borrowed” it for a while to decorate his bedroom wall.

  Da Vinci is considered by many to be the godfather of modern science. Though he is more widely recognized for his paintings, he was also a dedicated engineer and architect, designing many of the chief structures and public works of Milan. His scientific notebooks are filled with studies and analyses of problems in dynamics, anatomy, physics, optics, biology, hydraulics, and even aeronautics.