Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wise Up!
Page 20
In one year, Crayola produces 2 billion crayons—enough to make a giant crayon 35 feet wide and 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.
Golf illusion: red golf balls appear bigger and closer; blue golf balls appear smaller and farther away.
In 1996, TV’s Mr. Rogers named Crayola’s 100 billionth crayon color: “Blue Ribbon.”
The colors magenta, sienna, and Venetian red are all named after Italian cities.
Excited neon atoms release red light.
The green bleachers in Boston’s Fenway Park have one red seat—the spot where Ted Williams’s stadium-record 502-foot home run (allegedly) landed in 1946.
People tend to eat less when food is served on a blue plate.
Most-used crayon color: black.
According to astronomers at Johns Hopkins University, the color of the universe is beige.
Most common school colors in America: blue and white.
All the song titles on Bobby Vinton’s 1963 album Blue Velvet include the word “blue.”
Color most associated with weddings in ancient Rome: yellow.
The Boozery
In East Africa, people brew beer from bananas.
The year on a bottle of wine refers to when the grapes were picked, not when the wine was bottled.
A bottle of champagne has three times as much air pressure as a car tire.
When Guinness beer is poured into a glass, the bubbles rise to the top and then are pushed to the bottom.
In the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, 15 million gallons of wine were destroyed.
Enough beer is poured every Saturday across America to fill a football stadium.
Clint Eastwood has his own beer, Pale Rider Ale, named for his 1985 film Pale Rider.
White wine gets darker as it ages. Red wine gets lighter.
The earliest beer recipe was found on a Sumerian tablet dating from about 4000 BC.
Popular drink in Greece: white wine mixed with Coca-Cola.
The scum found on top of aged wine is called “beeswing.”
The alcohol content of a can of beer and a shot of whiskey are about the same.
Egyptian pyramid builders got three beer breaks a day.
Beer is mentioned nine times in the Bible.
According to the experts, the smaller the bubbles, the better the champagne.
Ancient Egypt had at least six known types of beer.
Worldwide, about 20 million acres are devoted to growing wine grapes.
At the Movies
The world’s longest movie: Cure for Insomnia (1987) runs for 87 hours.
First Western: The Great Train Robbery (1903).
First Western movie star: Bronco Billy Anderson. His career lasted from 1903 to 1916.
First movie made in Hollywood: In Old California 1910.
Number 1 on the AFI’s “Greatest American Movies” list: Citizen Kane (1941).
First African American actor to win an Academy Award: Sidney Poitier for Lilies of the Field (1963).
First feature-length film documentary: the Eskimo saga Nanook of the North (1922).
Best-selling DVD of 2008: Wall-E.
Armageddon (1998) was the first film in which actual NASA space suits were used.
The first copyrighted motion picture (made in 1894) is of a man sneezing.
Most-watched film in history: The Wizard of Oz. More than a billion people have seen it.
Most successful year at U.S. movie theaters: 1947, with 4.7 billion tickets sold. (Only 1.42 billion were sold in 2007.)
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First television sitcom: The Goldbergs (1949). CBS canceled the show in 1951 when one of its stars was blacklisted during the McCarthy era.
Indigenous People
The Cherokees’ name for themselves is Aniyunwiya, which means “Principal People.”
Giant noses are a mark of beauty to the San Blas Indians of Panama. Women paint black lines down the center of their noses to make them appear longer.
The 1954 film Sitting Bull was shot near Mexico City, and most of the American Indians were played by Mexican actors.
Before Europeans arrived in the New World, no American Indians had type B blood.
The oldest sandals known were made of sagebrush bark fibers about 9,500 years ago and were found in Catlow Cave in central Oregon.
The Mentawai tribe of Indonesia file their teeth into sharp points.
The ancient Indus civilization—centered mostly in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan—had a written language of more than 400 pictograph scripts. But to this day, scientists have been unable to decode the language.
Woodrow Wilson’s second wife, Edith, was a descendant of Pocahontas.
Random Facts
Pants with elastic waists were first introduced during World War II, when metal zippers were in short supply.
Richard Nixon gave away autographed golf balls as presidential gifts.
In the 15th century, the houses of York and Lancaster fought the War of the Roses to control the English monarchy. (The Lancasters won.)
The Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle and its variants have been used in more than 75 wars.
Smiley buttons were used as logos by presidential candidate George McGovern and Good Humor Ice Cream.
Playing cards were issued to some British pilots in World War II. If they were captured, the cards could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal escape maps.
In a 1946 contest in Tokyo, an abacus added more quickly than an electric calculator.
President George H. W. Bush once accidentally beaned his vice president, Dan Quayle, with a golf ball.
State beverage of Nebraska: Kool-Aid.
Having trouble hitting the high notes? According to some experts, breathing in helium before playing the clarinet will raise its pitch.
* * *
Studies show: One in seven Americans say they or someone they know has had an experience involving a UFO.
Elvis Lives!
Elvis Presley once volunteered to be an FBI drug informant. (His services were refused.)
Last song Elvis performed in public: “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
At a 2007 auction, a pill bottle once used by Elvis sold for $2,460.
According to sources, in West Side Story, producer Robert Wise wanted Elvis to play Tony.
Who’s Al Dvorin? The American talent agent who first said, “Elvis has left the building.”
The most flowers sold in one day in U.S. history was the day after Elvis Presley died in 1977.
The Jordanaires have sung backup on more than 30,000 recordings, including 361 Elvis songs.
Sixty-five percent of Elvis impersonators are of Asian descent.
Elvis nearly always closed his concerts with “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
In 2007, Garth Brooks passed Elvis to become the best-selling solo artist in U.S. history.
Elvis owned a pet mynah bird that said, “Elvis! Go to hell!”
More than 100 Elvis Presley albums made the Billboard Top 40.
Elvis collected police badges from cities he performed in.
Elvis made only one commercial: a radio spot for Southern Maid Donuts in 1954.
In 1988, Director Quentin Tarantino played an Elvis impersonator on TV’s The Golden Girls.
Page of Lists
3 WOODWORKING AXIOMS
1. Measure twice; cut once.
2. Always sand with the grain.
3. You can never have too many clamps.
7 STARS IN THE BIG DIPPER
1. Dubhe
2. Merak
3. Phecda
4. Megrez
5. Alioth
6. Mizar
7. Alkaid
4 MATRIARCHS OF JUDAISM
1. Sarah
2. Rebecca
3. Leah
4. Rachel
3 LAWS OF ROBOTICS IN ISAAC ASIMOV’S SCIENCE-FICTION NOVELS
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a hum
an being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.
9 HIGHEST-PAID SPORTS STARS IN 2008
1. Tiger Woods
2. Phil Mickelson
3. LeBron James
4. Floyd Mayweather
5. Kobe Bryant
6. Shaquille O’Neal
7. Alex Rodriguez
8. Kevin Garnett
9. Peyton Manning
5 FAMOUS MILITARY HORSES
1. Traveller (Robert E. Lee)
2. Black Jack (U.S. Army)
3. Bucephalus (Alexander the Great)
4. Dandy (George Custer)
5. Little Sorrel (Stonewall Jackson)
A Way with Words
The word “daisy” comes from the Old English daegeseage, meaning “the eye of the sun.”
A “Motown” is a poker term for two jacks and two fives—jacks on fives. (Get it? Jackson Fives.)
In golf, a score of eight on a single hole is called “making a snowman.”
A lynchobite is someone who works at night and sleeps during the day.
Despite the fact that Julius Caesar was bald, his surname “Caesar” means “hairy” in Latin. (Supposedly, his family was known for their thick hair.)
The words “loosen” and “unloosen” mean the same thing; so do “flammable” and “inflammable.”
Forks originally had two tines and were called “split spoons.”
Until the 19th century, an “accident” referred to anything that happened, good or bad.
The terms “Caribbean” and “cannibal” come from the same root, Carib, a group of indigenous people from South and Central America.
Technically, juice boxes are known as “aseptic packaging.”
The all-night diner’s term for the hour when a city’s bars close: “drunk thirty.”
The investing term “blue chip” comes from the color of the highest value of poker chip…blue.
What is a bladder pipe? A bagpipe made from a hedgehog bladder.
The lead character in the 2001 movie Shrek got his name from the Yiddish word for “fear.”
All Over the Map
Eight countries have land that lies within the Arctic Circle: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Canada, the United States, Russia, Denmark, and Iceland.
Hong Kong is made up of a peninsula and 236 islands.
American Samoa is the only U.S. territory south of the equator.
More than 90 percent of Egypt is desert.
The Tonga Islands in the South Pacific move about ¾ of an inch every year.
China borders 16 other countries.
The only South American countries with no coastline: Bolivia and Paraguay.
The Cape of Good Hope is not the southernmost point of South Africa. Cape Agulhas, 100 miles to the southeast, is farther south.
Of the 700 or so islands that make up the Bahamas, only 30 are inhabited.
Hawaii is moving toward Japan at a rate of four inches per year.
More Military Miscellany
Soldiers from every country in the world salute with their right hands.
Until 1864, men drafted into the U.S. military could hire someone to take their place. Grover Cleveland did this in 1863 and was ridiculed for it by his political opponent, James Blaine…who had done the same thing himself.
During World War II, Japanese officers killed in battle were promoted to a higher rank posthumously.
Rutherford B. Hayes was a major general in the Union army in the Civil War.
The doors that cover U.S. nuclear missile silos weigh 748 tons.
In 1943, at age 19, George H. W. Bush became the youngest pilot in the U.S. Navy.
For at least five years, the U.S. Army didn’t acknowledge the fact that the Wright brothers had built a machine that could fly.
There are 92 known cases of nuclear bombs lost at sea.
The only time a soldier is not required to salute: when he is a prisoner.
The secret code for unlocking U.S. nuclear missiles during the Cold War was 00000000.
When the president is aboard any HMX-1 Marine helicopter, it goes by the name “Marine One.”
The U.S. Air Force uses half of the fuel purchased by the government.
The U.S. Army includes Tabasco sauce in all of its ration kits.
6 Ways to Spot a Lie
1. Watch for sweating and squirming. The alleged liar may be sweating more than normal or making fidgety adjustments to his clothing. (Don’t put too much stock in this one alone, especially when the stakes are high. The higher the stakes, the more nervous almost everyone is, so you’ll want to look for multiple clues.)
2. Notice if “barriers” have been put up. Are the alleged liar’s arms crossed across his chest, or is he protecting himself by sitting behind a table or standing behind some kind of barrier, like part of a doorway?
3. Watch the eyes. Liars often avoid eye contact and blink more often than normal. They also have difficulty transmitting emotions to their eyes: If a suspected liar is smiling, watch carefully to see if his eyes are “smiling,” too. Dilated pupils can be a sign of a lie.
4. Ask for details. Often, a liar’s story will fall apart if he’s asked to explain it. A con artist, for instance, will have a story rehearsed—and look at ease while telling it—but you may be able to trip him up by interrupting and asking for details.
5. Listen for inconsistencies. Police interrogators ask suspects to repeat their stories in the hopes of uncovering contradictions.
6. Listen for giveaways. Experts have found that liars are generally less cooperative and less friendly than someone who’s telling the truth. Liars often pepper their speech with negative statements and complaints. They also inject phrases like “to be honest” in an effort to make you think they’re honest.
Creepy Crawlies
Live adult scorpions glow a greenish color when exposed to ultraviolet light.
If your bed is typical, about 6 million dust mites live in it.
Human tapeworms can grow to be 75 feet long.
Most spiders are cannibals.
Female Brazilian railroad worms have bioluminescent red and green spots.
Ribbon worms can turn themselves completely inside out.
Cockroaches have white blood.
Pill bugs are more closely related to shrimp than to insects.
There are about 650 different species of leeches in the world.
A spider sheds its skin as many as 15 times during its life.
If a cockroach touches a human, it runs to safety and cleans itself.
Foreign Words
In England, the game of checkers is called “draughts.”
Modern bowling comes from the German game of Heidenwerfen, which translates to “strike down the heathens.”
Karaoke means “empty orchestra” in Japanese.
The term “kangaroo court” was unknown in Australia until it was brought over from the United States.
In Arabic, harem means “forbidden.”
Terra incognita is Latin for “unknown territory.”
The word anthology is Greek for “a collection of flowers.”
Mafia comes from the old Arabic word for “swagger.”
In Chinese, saying “Yeeha” means you need to use the restroom.
Seersucker comes from a Persian word—shir-o-shakar—that means “milk and sugar.”
The word piccolo means “small” in Italian.
The word xylophone is Greek for “wooden sound.”
The word divot means, appropriately, “piece of turf” in Scottish.
The word guitar comes from the Greek kithara, a seven-stringed lyre.
Japanese slang for “nice shot”: Nice-su shot-o. (Really.)
Glockenspiel means “play of bells” in German.
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br /> The word alcohol comes from the Arabic al-kuhul, meaning “the kohl,” a powdered cosmetic used for darkening the eyelids.
Pencil is Latin for “little tail.”
Happy Holidays
Coloring Easter eggs dates back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who practiced the custom during their spring festivals.
Juneteenth, a multiday celebration of the emancipation of slaves, originated in Galveston, Texas.
Traditional Christmas dish in medieval England: swan.
The average adult American male receives six Christmas presents.
Americans buy approximately 165 million Easter cards every year.
President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day a national holiday in 1914.
The Easter Egg Roll, held on Easter Monday, has been a White House tradition since 1878.
Americans generate an extra 5 million tons of trash between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
Best-selling Christmas record of all time: Elvis’ Christmas Album (1957).
Cost to decorate a Christmas tree with electric lights in 1899: $300.
All Around Town
The only state capital with three words in its name: Salt Lake City (Utah).
Kansas City, Missouri, has more fountains than any city but Rome.
In Key Largo, Florida, there’s an underwater statue of Jesus called Christ of the Deep.
Two state capitals include part of the states’ names: Oklahoma City and Indianapolis.
The second-largest French-speaking city in the world: Montreal, Canada. (Paris is first.)
What do California, Idaho, Delaware, Florida, Oregon, Wyoming, Kansas, Nevada, and New Hampshire have in common? They’re all cities in Ohio.
Waterford, Pennsylvania, has a statue depicting George Washington in a British uniform.
Churchill, Manitoba, calls itself the “Polar Bear Capital of the World.”
Montpelier, Vermont, is the only state capital with no McDonald’s within its city limits.
Cincinnati was named for Cincinnatus, a politician who ruled Rome for 16 days in 458 BC.