Between 9000 and 6000 BC, without any other means of monetary units, primitive people used cattle as money.
Because of shortages of suitable metal for coinage, the Chinese were the first people to issue paper money in 700 AD. By 1455, the paper money was withdrawn in an effort to curb inflation.
Between 1642-51, during the English Civil Wars, goldsmiths offered their safes as secure places for deposits of valuable goods. Depositors would provide written instructions to a goldsmith to pay money to a third person, with the deposited article as valued collateral. These written instructions are the originations of the modern check.
The word “dollar” comes from the Czech currency thaler which was first minted in 1519. Thaler (phonetically “tarler”) was mispronounced in England as “dollar.”
The U.S. Federal Government began printing paper currency in 1861. When they were released in 1862, the bills had to be individually signed by hand by six people who were hired to work in the attic of the Treasury building to sign, sort, and seal the notes.
Monopoly®
The official mascot of Monopoly®, originally known as Rich Uncle Pennybags, was renamed Mr. Monopoly in 1998.
Every Monopoly® set includes $15,140 of play money.
During WWII, maps, compasses, and money were smuggled to prisoners of war through Monopoly® sets.
In the 1970s, Hasbro created a Monopoly® edition in Braille for the blind, but it was never released to the general public.
In Cuba, the game once had a solid following until Fidel Castro took reign over the country and ordered all known sets destroyed.
According to The Guinness Book of World Records, the most expensive Monopoly set is made of 23-carat gold with the houses and hotels decorated in rubies and sapphires. Its value? A whopping $2,000,000.
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart was a Freemason and admitted to the lodge Zur Wohltätigkeit (“Beneficence”). He was an avid participant and took his role seriously by attending many meetings and composing Masonic music.
Mozart was composing and performing music by the age of six.
Mozart produced over 600 musical compositions before he passed away on December 5, 1791. He was only 35.
Mozart had a slightly hooked nose, possibly as a result of being punched in the face as a child by a fellow composer.
Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen named their son, Wolfgang Van Halen, after the composer.
Mummies
When examined at the Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, MI, a 2,700-year-old Egyptian mummy was found to still have red-painted fingernails.
In 1994, archaeologists in Zanjan, Iran, discovered a perfectly preserved body of a man who was buried in a salt quarry, 2,600 years prior.
The 700-year-old corpse of a Chinese man found in a tomb in the Kiangsu province of Eastern China, was so well preserved that its joints could be moved and its skin and hair remained in good condition.
The mummy museum in Guanajuanto, Mexico, is home to 108 forgotten corpses. They’re so intact that visitors can usually determine the cause of death just by looking—whether it be noose marks around the neck or a fatal tumor. The most disturbing of all is the body of a woman whom curators only know as “Ignaciam.” With her raised arms and expression of horror, the curators believe that she was buried alive.
Museums
The Nut Museum in Old Lyme, CT, exhibits nuts from all over the world—including a 35 lb double coconut.
Chincoteague, VA, boasts a museum devoted to oysters.
Until recently, there was a pretzel museum in Philadelphia, but the idea was probably too twisted.
The Spam Museum in Austin, MN, features nearly 5,000 cans of SPAM. One of the highlights includes a scale model of a SPAM plant where visitors can pretend to produce one of America’s favorite meat biproducts. The museum also organizes a SPAM Museum Jam.
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum serves as a popular spot for anyone interested in the grotesque. One can find the world’s largest colon, an OB-GYN instrument collection, thousands of fluid-preserved anatomical and pathological specimens, and a large wall dedicated entirely to swallowed objects.
Mushrooms
Officially known as Armillaria ostoyae, the honey mushroom is the largest living organism in the world. Located in the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon, it spans 3.5 miles across and covers approximately 2,200 acres. Experts estimate the fungi to be at least 2,400 years old, but it could be 7,200 years old.
Some mushrooms can produce cancer-fighting compounds. A Japanese scientist discovered that a particular community had unusually low cancer rates and many of them grew and ate Enokitake mushrooms.
In 2004, the world’s most expensive truffle at the time was sold for $50,000 to clients of a fashionable Italian restaurant in London. However, the unimaginable happened. The 850g of white truffle went bad, putrefied, and became inedible. The truffle was eventually buried with hopes that it would regenerate and produce another truffle.
Mushrooms can be used as a dye by boiling wild mushrooms and soaking cloth in the resulting broth.
Mushrooms have also been known as the “vegetarians’ beefsteak” because no other vegetable comes close to having the taste and texture of meat.
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NASA
So you want to be an astronaut, huh? NASA’s application process is thorough, and the competition is fierce. Minimum requirements include a bachelor’s degree in engineering, science, or mathematics from an accredited institution. In addition, applicants should have substantial related experience and pilot astronauts must have at least 1,000 hours of experience in jet aircraft. Space cases need not apply.
For 2009, NASA’s projected budget for the fiscal year was over $7.6 billion, only 1.8% more than their 2008 projection.
Though Eisenhower was the president who signed the papers to create NASA, only Kennedy and Johnson have Space Centers named after them.
Alan Shepard is the only person to hit a golf ball on the moon. He played with a Wilson six-iron head attached to a lunar sample scoop handle. One giant leap…FORE!
The United States spent approximately $40 billion to get a spacecraft and astronauts onto the moon.
Native Americans
Native Americans (American Indians) make up less than 1% of the total U.S. population, but they represent half the languages and cultures in the nation.
Chewing gum and popcorn were both developed by Native Americans.
The Native Indians were “animists” who believed that every animal, plant, and object in nature contained a spirit to be propitiated or feared. Some of these—including the sun, the buffalo, the peyote plant, the eagle and the rattlesnake—were more powerful or more frequently helpful than others, but there was nothing mightier than the “Great Spirit,” which was frequently represented.
A general belief is that all American Indians lived in tipis but this isn’t true. In reality, only the Plains Indians lived in them. The Hope Indians lived in mud huts and the Anasazi Indians lived in cliff houses to prevent attacks from enemies.
It’s common knowledge that many words in the American language are derived from other languages. The Native Indians gave us words such as “squash,” “raccoon,” and “bayou.” Suffering succotash—and that one as well!
Neon
The word neon is derived from the Greek word neos meaning “new.”
Neon is most commonly used for lights, signs, high-voltage indicators, gas discharge lightning arrestors, and television tubes.
Neon is produced by liquefying air under high pressure at temperatures of –200°C. It takes 88,000 lbs of liquefied air to create one pound of neon.
Although neon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe, only 0.0018% of the earth’s atmosphere is neon.
Neon signs are simply glass tubes filled with neon gas. Blue neon has a few drops of mercury added to it.
Nettle
Nettle was used by the Germa
n army in WWI to make uniforms following a shortage of cotton. At the time, uniforms were found to contain 85% nettle fiber.
High in fiber, the older leaves of nettle can be used as a laxative. However, readers should always consult medical experts before consuming it.
Back in its heyday, nettle was used for contraception as a prescribed gypsy remedy. The man had to line his socks with nettle leaves and wear them for 24 hours prior to intercourse.
Competitors travel as far as Belgium, New York, and Australia to participate in the World Nettle Eating Championships held each year at the Bottle Inn in Dorset, England. The challengers have one hour to eat as many stinging nettles as possible on the condition that they do not bring their own nettles or use any mouth-numbing substances…though a swig of beer has been deemed acceptable.
The leaves of stinging nettle have been used in Europe to treat urinary tract infections. The plant acts as a mild diuretic when consumed with a substantial amount of liquid, and can be used to flush out bladder inflammation and prevent kidney stones.
New York City
When The New York Times was bought by Adolph Ochs in 1896, it was soon given its notorious slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print” was a jab at rivals such as New York World and the New York Journal American, which were known for “yellow journalism” (a type of journalism which focuses on sensational headlines rather than legitimate news to sell papers).
In 1904, The New York Times moved to 42nd street, giving the surrounding area the name, Times Square.
One of the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge is set on sand instead of bedrock.
New York City was the capital of the United States in the 1780s before the capital was moved to Philadelphia, and then Washington D.C.
36% of the current population of New York City is comprised of people who were born outside the United States.
The New York subway system is the largest mass transit system in the world with 468 stations and 842 miles (1355 km) of track. It also runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Street performers must audition to perform in the NYC Subway system. Some have even played at Carnegie Hall.
Nobel Prize
A French newspaper mistakenly ran an obituary for Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. The premature obituary reflected none of his interests in humanity, love of people, or generosity. This led him to create the Nobel Prizes that awarded individuals who did the most to advance peace, literature, and the sciences.
Tolstoy was rejected for an award in the first year of the Nobel Prize. He was nominated the following year but was rejected again.
In 1997, Robert E. Lucas won the Nobel Prize in economics for his theory of “rational expectations.” Unfortunately, he had to split the $1 million prize winnings with his ex-wife, whose divorce lawyer had included a contractual clause to cover such a possibility.
Jean Paul Sartre refused the prize ($53,000) for literature in 1964.
All in the family! Marie Curie won two Nobel Prizes: one for physics (which she shared with her husband) and one for chemistry. Her daughter, Irene, also won a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1935.
The Ig Nobel Prize is a parody which annually honors research “that cannot or should not be repeated.” In nutrition, Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence won the award for their research showing that food actually tastes better if it sounds crunchier. Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber, and Brent Jordan won the award in economics for their studies which concluded that the fertility cycle of a lap dancer affects her tipearning potential.
North Pole
Pole position! There are actually two North Poles. The north terrestrial pole is the fixed point that, along with the south terrestrial pole, forms Earth’s spinning axis. The north magnetic pole is the position where a compass needle points and moves day by day—it can shift between 6-25 miles each year.
No land exists under the ice of the North Pole. The Arctic ice cap is a floating pack of ice between 6.5 to 10 ft thick. During the winter, the ice pack can grow to the size of the U.S.; while in the summer, half of it melts.
The tiny bird called the Arctic tern has the longest migration by travelling from pole to pole. The annual journey is approximately 21,750 miles.
The North Pole is warmest in July, when the temperature rises to 32°F and coldest in February when temperatures drop to –31°F, not including the wind chills which make it much worse.
Every year, about 100,000 letters addressed to “Santa Claus, North Pole,” find their way to Alaska, which has a town named North Pole.
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Obama, Barack
“They’re going to try to say that I’m a risky guy. They’re going to try to say, well, you know, he’s got a funny name, and he doesn’t look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the $5 bills.”—Barack Obama
As an adult, Obama admitted at the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency that he had used marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol when in high school, which he described as his greatest moral failure.
He is a cigarette smoker, though he’s been trying to quit with nicorette gum.
His childhood nickname was “Barry,” though his high school friends would more likely know him as “O’Bomber” for his basketball feats.
Working at a local Baskin-Robbins as a teenager helped to cement adult Obama’s distaste for ice cream.
Love at first sight…on their first date, he took wife Michelle to see Spike Lee’s movie, Do the Right Thing.
He has won Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word Albums for the abridged audiobook versions of his books; Dreams from My Father (Feb 2006) and The Audacity of Hope (Feb 2008).
Rearranging the letters in “Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.” can create the anagram “Job: I am a Bush ransacker.”
Octopus
Sannakji is live octopus that has been cut into small pieces and seasoned with sesame and sesame oil. It’s a Korean delicacy, but eat it at your own risk. As the tentacles are still squirming, the cups of the arm pieces are still active and can stick to the mouth and throat while eating.
If an octopus is endangered and has no other alternative, it can lose an arm to escape a predator’s clutches and re-grow it without any permanent damage.
An octopus has an average life span of one year and is considered the most advanced and complex species of the mollusk family.
The octopus has many muscles in its arms and mantle. In fact, the biggest difference between the muscles of an octopus and a human being is that we have bones attached to our muscles and they do not.
Heart to heart…to heart? The octopus has three hearts…one for each gill.
An octopus will change its color to red or white when it is stressed or under threat. If that has not deterred its predator, the octopus will release a cloud of ink to escape.
Olympics
The modern Olympics first took place in Athens, Greece in 1896, but the father of the Olympic games was a Dr. William Penny Brookes who staged his version in a small English town called Much Wenlock. His idea was to revive the Olympic idea so that it would have a global impact, and his Wenlock Olympic games lead to the Olympics as we know it.
In ancient times, females were forbidden from watching the games and if caught doing so, could be put to death. Only free males were allowed to participate in the games.
The Olympic Flame represents the fire stolen from the Greek God Zeus. Months before the opening of the games, the torch is lit at the ancient site in Olympia. Eleven “priestesses” perform a ceremony in which the torch is lit by a parabolic mirror which condense the sun’s rays.
The Utterly, Completely, and Totally Useless Fact-O-Pedia Page 13