Astronauts wear underwear lined with tubes of water to keep cool.
Knight Rider
The original Knight Rider series spun off a second NBC series in the 80s called Code of Vengeance.
In South America, the show aired as El Auto Fantastico (The Fantastic Car).
KITT, the Knight Industries Two-Thousand, was a customized 1982 Pontiac Trans-Am.
Pontiac, who supplied the Trans Am for the series, found itself swamped with customer requests for black Firebird Trans Ams with T-tops, tan interiors, and red lights on the front bumper, just like the show’s car.
When dodging pursuers, K.I.T.T. rotated its license plate from KNIGHT to KNI 667. Stealth.
David Hasselhoff once described his acting as “a little more difficult than if you had a regularly well-written script—like, if I was going to be in, say, Reservoir Dogs, or The Godfather, or Dances with Wolves or Lawrence of Arabia or ER. I had to talk to a car.”
L
Languages
Aramaic, the ancient language spoken by Jesus Christ, today is spoken in only three remote villages near Damascus, Syria.
English contains the most words of any language, including 455,000 active words and 700,000 dead ones.
Reading an average Chinese newspaper requires the knowledge of 7,000 Chinese characters.
Papua New Guinea has 820 living languages, making it the country with the most languages spoken.
French was the official language of England for over 600 years.
The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses , its plural.
Laws
In Maine, it was against the law for a police officer to arrest a dead man.
In Houston, TX, it was made illegal to make a noise while moving boxes.
In Sioux Falls, SD, all hotels in the city must make sure that every room has two twin beds, which should be a minimum of at least two ft apart from each other.
In North Carolina, singing off key in public could get you arrested.
A law in Texas states that it is illegal to sell one’s eye—right or left.
Leather
Most consumers mistakenly assume that leather is merely a byproduct of the meat industry, and that buying leather clothing does not increase the number of animals slaughtered. They are actually two separate industries.
Ostrich leather is commonly available in New Zealand. It has a unique feather quill pattern, which provides added strength and durability—7 times stronger than cowhide.
Your leather shoes could save you in certain predicaments. A person who is lost or starving can eat leather and obtain enough nourishment to sustain life for a short time.
Though unusual, bullfrog skins can be used to make a diverse array of products. They are smooth, available in an assortment of colors, and have patterns/styles unlike other leathers.
Stingray, also known as “Shagreen,” often falls short in the limelight of leathers, but it is 25 times more durable than cowhide leather and has a unique supple texture. It can be textured to be bumpy or flat and can also be painted in any color. Under no threat of extinction, this fish provides a useful resource to many regions throughout Southeast Asia. They can be made into handbags, shoes, boots, and wallets.
Lightning
Rubber shoes will do nothing to protect one from lightning.
Talking on the telephone is the leading cause of lightning injuries inside the home.
Standing under a tall tree is one of the most dangerous places to take shelter.
Lightning can reach over five miles in length, raise the temperature of the air by as much as 50,000°F, and can contain a hundred million electrical volts.
Thunderstruck! Lightning is not confined just to thunderstorms. It has been visible in volcanic eruptions, extremely intense forest fires, surface nuclear detonations, heavy snowstorms, and in large hurricanes.
In the U.S., the odds of being struck by lightning in any one year is 1 in 700,000. The odds of being struck in a lifetime is 1 in 3,000. About 400 people survive lightning strikes in the U.S. each year.
Red hot…the recent discovery of Red Sprite lightning has fascinated both scientists and the general public. This new type of lightning is discharged very high in the atmosphere, a 40-mile span between the tops of severe storm clouds to the lower ionosphere “D” layer. They are predominantly red and last for a fraction of a second. Scientists are uncertain of the cause.
Lincoln, Abraham
Lincoln was a mill manager, postmaster and lawyer before becoming president.
Lincoln had a notoriously cluttered law office, which became a constant source of irritation to his partner, William Herndon. On his desk, Lincoln kept one envelope marked “When you can’t find it anywhere else, look into this.”
After the death of his son Willie, Lincoln’s wife convinced him to participate in several séances held in the White House. The President was fascinated by psychic phenomena and wanted to communicate with his dead son.
Lincoln was 6 ft 4 in and the first president to have a beard while in office.
Lincoln had a cat named “Bob,” a turkey named “Jack,” and a dog named “Jib.”
Lincoln’s favorite sport was wrestling…hands down.
Abraham Lincoln was the only president to be awarded a patent—for a device that buoyed life vessels over shoals without discharging their cargo.
Locusts
There are several edible species of locusts that are important food sources in some areas, especially Africa. They can be grilled, roasted, or boiled, and also ground to a paste.
The largest swarm of locusts recorded was in 1874 in the state of California. Entomologists recorded a swarm covering 198,000 square miles with an estimated 12.5 trillion locusts.
A large swarm may eat up to 80,000 tons of grain and other vegetation in a day.
Locusts can jump 2.3 ft, which is equivalent to a human jumping 60 ft.
Locusts and grasshoppers have a similar look and habits, but locusts have shorter antennae and “sing” by rubbing their rear feet from elytra (the outer tough pair of wings), whereas grasshoppers “sing” by rubbing the elytra between them.
The locust is the first insect ever drawn by humans. A drawing was found in a 10,000-year-old bison (wisent) bone located in a French cave.
Louvre
The Louvre was not supposed to be a museum; it was intended to be a place for Henry VI’s drawings and paintings.
Three almost invisible drawings were discovered on the back of Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin and Child With Saint Anne, currently found in the Louvre.
The Musée du Louvre houses 35,000 works of art drawn from eight departments, displayed in over 60,000 square meters of exhibition space dedicated to the permanent collections.
The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris in broad daylight by an employee in 1911, but it was recovered two years later. The painting resides in its own room in the Louvre, protected in a climate-controlled environment and encased in bulletproof glass. Because the painting is considered priceless and cannot be insured, a room was built for it and cost the museum over seven million dollars.
M
Madonna
Thunder and lightning, very, very frightening me…Madge suffers from “brontophobia,” a morbid fear of thunder.
In 1989, Pepsi-Cola paid Madonna $5 million for an ad she did. Unfortunately, this happened immediately after her single “Like a Prayer” caused international controversy. The ad was pulled from circulation only after airing once.
Who’s got spirit fingers? In contrast to the provocative tough-girl image she’s nurtured over the years, Madonna was an enthusiastic cheerleader, straight A student, and helped to create a high school drama club.
Madonna allegedly rejected the female lead in Prince’s Graffiti Bridge, because the screenplay was awful. This
is coming from the same woman who gave a thumbs up to Shanghai Surprise, Swept Away, Dick Tracy, and Body of Evidence. Lest we forget, she also received Razzie awards for Worst Actress on more than one occasion.
Madonna’s first band was called The Breakfast Club.
Madonna’s father is a vintner who created limited-edition Madonna wine in the Ciccone vineyards…in Michigan.
Malcolm X
“By any means necessary.”—Malcolm X
Malcolm X befriended and ministered a boxer named Cassius Clay who eventually decided to convert to the Muslim religion and join the Nation of Islam. In February 1964, the boxer converted his name to Muhammad Ali.
Spike Lee’s film Malcolm X was the first non-documentary production to be filmed in Mecca.
Malcolm’s father was murdered, and his mother was committed to a mental hospital by the time he was 13.
Malcolm considered his surname “Little” a slave name and so then changed it to “X” which represented his lost tribal name.
On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated in the Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom by three members of the Nation of Islam.
Marmite®
Unilever, the same company that gives us Vaseline, Dove soap, and Hellman’s Mayonnaise, also owns Marmite®.
The spread is a sticky, dark brown paste made primarily with yeast extract and has a distinctive, salty and savory flavor. It contains five “B” vitamins, which are good for the nervous system, muscle tone, skin, eyes, liver, and hair.
With sales topping £23.5 million, Marmite® is one of UK’s premier savour spreads, conquering the meat and vegetable extract market. In 1995, it was consumed in 24.3% of households.
Marmite® was included in soldier’s rations for WWI and offered to prisoners of war as a dietary supplement in WWII.
The name “Marmite” comes from a French word for an earthenware pot, in which the spread was once sold. The design of the glass jar is based on the pot and an image of it is featured on the front of bottles.
Marriage
According to the Monogomy Myth by Peggy Vaughan, about 60% of men and 40% of women will have an affair at some point in their marriage.
A couple gets divorced every ten to thirteen seconds.
Men in marriages are more likely to have good relationships with their children. 65% of young adults whose parents divorced had poor relationships with their fathers compared to 29% from non-divorced families.
Statistically, married men earn 10-40% more financially than single men with similar education backgrounds and job experiences.
The exchange of rings is a tradition that harkens back to ancient Roman times. The roundness of the ring is to represent eternity and the donning of the wedding bands signifies an eternal union. It was once believed that the vein of the ring finger on the left hand ran directly to the heart.
At a Hindu wedding, the bride’s hands are painted with an intricate henna design, which often includes the initials of the groom. The couple is then to search for the initials on a wedding night, which is meant to encourage the bride and groom to relax and feel more at ease with one another.
McDonald’s®
McDonald’s® fast food restaurant opened an official training school—Hamburger University—in Oak Brook, IL, in 1961. School’s in McSession!
McDonald’s® purchases the most beef in the world.
Space is probably one thing that cannot be super sized. The smallest McDonald’s® restaurant is located in Ginza in Tokyo, Japan, and measures a measly 492 sq ft.
The only McDonald’s restaurants that do not sell beef are located in India. As an alternative, patrons can purchase an all-lamb version of the Big Mac® called the “Maharaja Mac™.”
Israel is one of the few countries that cooks the meat over charcoal versus frying. They also have the McKebab®: two patties with Middle Eastern seasonings and stuffed into a pita bread.
Our McMates from Down Under can enjoy a cheeseburger with beetroot called a “McOz®.”
“McKroket®” is a semi-crispy shelled beefy patty with a creamy mayobased sauce served in Holland.
Mercury
Mercury, also known as quicksilver, has a silvery color, and reflective metallic nature.
Heavy metal…mercury is the heaviest known liquid element, and it’s so dense that bricks, cannonballs, lumps of lead, and iron will float in it.
Mercury is unlike other liquids in the fact that it is not actually “wet” and it can be held in the hand. However, this is strongly discouraged, as the mercury is toxic and will soak into the skin.
The main source of human exposure to mercury is through fish, which store the element in their muscles. When consumed by humans, it can cause liver, kidney, and skin damage.
Alchemists loved working with mercury as it was believed that all life was formed from the element and when it hardened, it turned to gold.
The term Mad Hatter did not derive from the popular children’s book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Milliners were called Mad Hatters in the 18th and 19th century due to their use of mercury to remove animal fur from the materials. As a result, the extensive work with mercury and the exposure to its vapours caused serious physical and mental damage.
Mexico
Sangrita is a chaser made traditionally with tomatoes, orange juice, fresh limejuice, onions, salt and hot chili peppers. Originating in the state of Jalisco, it was designed to quench the heat of homemade tequila and thus began a longstanding Mexican tradition. Typically, sangrita allows one to alternate between sipping premium tequila and the elixir.
A Mexican jumping bean is a novelty item that has been around for decades. The jumping beans are actually a type of seed in which the egg of a small moth has been laid and the moth’s larva causes the “jump.”
Fowl play? Turkeys originated in Mexico. The wild turkey was domesticated by pre-Columbian Indians way before the Spanish conquistadors arrived.
The world’s smallest volcano is located in the city of Puebla, Mexico. Standing at a mere 43 ft tall, the Cuexcomate is considered inactive now and has a spiralled staircase inside just for tourists. This brings up the age-old question, does size really matter?
Mexico City, the largest city in the world, is built over the ruins of the ancient Aztec city, Tenochtitlán. The city is actually built over a water reserve and so to provide water for the millions of citizens, the city is sinking at a rate of 6-8 in each year.
Michelin Man
Michelin’s company mascot Bibendum, also known as “Bib the Michelin Man,” was introduced to the world in 1898 and hails as one of the world’s oldest trademarks.
In Spain, the term Michelín is now used to apply to folds of fatty skin around the waist.
Cayce Pollard—the protagonist of William Gibson’s 2003 book Pattern Recognition—has a phobia of the Michelin Man.
Michelin Tire Baby Syndrome is a disease of babies born with multiple, symmetric, circumferential skin creases, or bands, on the forearms, lower legs, and neck. The creases eventually disappear as the child grows older.
Bibendum, the Michelin Man, is what some might describe as the strong silent type…especially since he does not actually speak.
Money
The Utterly, Completely, and Totally Useless Fact-O-Pedia Page 12