Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  ELECTRIC PLUGS AND SOCKETS

  Electricity was first introduced into homes in the 1880s, but every lamp or appliance had to be “hard-wired” into the wall by an electrician. That lasted until 1904, when a Connecticut inventor named Harvey Hubbell was in a penny arcade and noticed a janitor struggling to disconnect the wires of a boxing game so that he could clean behind it. Hubbell knew there had to be a better—not to mention a safer—way to detach and reattach wires to walls.

  Looney law: In Brooklyn, it’s illegal to let a dog sleep in your bathtub.

  After experimenting with metal and wood (which served as an insulator before plastic came into use), he came up with a two-pronged plug-and-socket system that isn’t all that different from the one used today. In fact, since then there have only been two major updates to his design, both safety features: 1) many plugs and sockets have a third prong that serves as a ground, and 2) one prong is wider than the other so that the plug can only be plugged into the socket one way—keeping “neutral” on the correct side.

  BINOCULARS

  In 1608 a Dutch maker of eyeglasses named Hans Lippershey noticed that when he held up two lenses and looked through both of them at a church steeple, the steeple looked bigger—it was magnified. So he made a tube, fitted a lens at each end, and tried to obtain a patent for this telescope, which he called a “looker.” The patent application was rejected by Dutch authorities because other people had noticed the same thing before he did and made their own telescopes. (To this day it is not certain who invented the very first telescope.) In addition to rejecting Lippershey’s patent, Dutch authorities complained that squinting through one eyepiece gave them eyestrain, and they asked him to join two telescopes together so that using it wouldn’t give them such a headache. He took their suggestion, and the first binoculars were invented.

  STAPLERS

  The hardest part about inventing the stapler wasn’t the device itself, it was getting all those little staples to stick together. The precursors of modern staplers were invented in the 19th century and were used by printers to bind pages of books and magazines together. These machines used rolls of wire instead of staples, which the machine cut and bent into shape as it was binding the pages together. The first machines to use pre-bent, U-shaped pieces of wire came in the 1860s, but they held only one staple at a time and had to be reloaded by hand before each use. The first stapler to hold more than one staple was invented in 1894, but it used staples set onto a wooden core that came loose easily and jammed the stapler. In 1923 Thomas Briggs, founder of the Boston Wire Stitcher Company (later shortened to Bostitch), figured out a way to glue the staples together into a long strip that could be loaded into a stapler. Bostitch still makes staplers today.

  Half the world’s population lives in temperate zones, which make up 7% of Earth’s land area.

  DIAMOND GEMS

  Why does Uncle John love baseball? It’s loaded with facts, stories, odd characters, obscure histories, and weird statistics…just like a Bathroom Reader. Even if you’re not a fan, you might like these gems.

  ONE IN A MILLION

  Ever heard of Bob Watson? He has the distinction of scoring major-league baseball’s one millionth run. It happened on May 4, 1975, while he was playing for the Houston Astros. His prize: one million Tootsie Rolls.

  THE FIRST…AND HOPEFULLY LAST

  The only major leaguer ever to be killed playing baseball was the Cleveland Indians’ shortstop Ray Chapman. On August 16, 1920, before players wore batting helmets, Chapman was beaned in the head by a pitch from Yankee’s hurler Carl Mays. He fell, slowly stood up, walked around in a daze, then collapsed again. Chapman was pronounced dead at 4:40 a.m. the next morning. Mays, who had always had a surly reputation, lamented about it after his playing days. “I won over 200 big-league games, but no one remembers that. When they think of me, I’m the guy who killed Chapman.”

  INFLATION

  After fan Sal Durante caught Roger Maris’s historic 61st home run in 1961, he tried to return the ball to the quiet Yankee, but Maris told the truck driver to keep the ball and sell it if he wanted to. Durante sold it for $5,000. Maris’ record stood for 37 years until Mark McGwire broke it in 1998, hitting 70 home runs. The 70th was caught by 26-year-old Phil Ozersky, who sold the ball for $3 million.

  THE OTHER ROBINSON

  Jackie Robinson, as most people know, broke major-league baseball’s color barrier in 1947. But few people outside baseball have heard of Frank Robinson (they’re not related). In his Hall of Fame career, Frank Robinson won the Most Valuable Player award (in both the American and the National League), was a Triple Crown winner (led the league in homers, RBIs, and batting average), and won the All-Star Game and World Series MVP awards. But he wasn’t done yet: In 1974 he became the first African American to manage a big league ball club, and in 1989 became the first African American to be named Manager of the Year.

  Out of this world: In Sanskrit, nirvana literally translates to “going out.”

  HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

  Superstar slugger Sammy Sosa was once a shoeshine boy. At only eight years old, he gave the money he earned to his widowed mother so she could buy food for the family.

  BY THE NUMBERS

  The Baltimore Orioles’ Cal Ripken Jr. played in a record 2,632 consecutive major-league games from 1982 to 1998. During Ripken’s streak:

  • 3,695 major leaguers went on the disabled list.

  • 522 shortstops started for the other 27 teams.

  • 33 second basemen played second base next to Ripken at shortstop (including his younger brother Billy Ripken).

  Ripken also holds the record for the most consecutive innings played, with 8,243. He didn’t miss a single inning from June 5, 1982, to September 14, 1987. His potential wasn’t recognized early on, though—47 players were selected ahead of Ripken in the June 1978 draft.

  A LEAGUE OF HER OWN

  On July 31, 1935, the Cincinnati Reds oversold tickets for their night game. To avoid a potential riot, they allowed the extra fans—8,000 in all—to stand along the foul lines. It was so packed that the players had to muscle their way through the crowd to get to the field. When Reds batter Babe Herman was trying to make his way to the plate in the bottom of the eighth, a nightclub singer named Kitty Burke grabbed the bat from the surprised player and told her friends, “Hang on to him, boys, I’m going to take his turn at bat.” Sure enough, she went to the plate against Cardinal Paul “Daffy” Dean. The bewildered pitcher shrugged and lobbed a ball to the blonde bombshell. Burke swung ferociously but only hit a slow roller toward first base. Dean scooped up the ball and tagged her out (to a round of boos from the crowd). Although the at-bat didn’t officially count, it was—and still is—the only time a woman has hit in a major-league game.

  The Berlin Wall was 26.5 miles long.

  STRANGE LAWSUITS

  These days, it seems that people will sue each other over practically anything. Here are some real-life examples of unusual legal battles.

  THE PLAINTIFF: Tom Morgan, a Portland, Oregon, grocery cashier

  THE DEFENDANT: Randy Maresh, a cashier at the same store

  THE LAWSUIT: Apparently Morgan believed that Maresh lived to torment him. He sued Maresh for $100,000, claiming that his co-worker “willfully and maliciously inflicted severe mental stress and humiliation by continually, intentionally, and repeatedly passing gas directed at the plaintiff.” Maresh’s lawyer didn’t sit quietly—he argued that farting is a form of free speech and protected by the First Amendment.

  THE VERDICT: Case dismissed. The judge called the defendant’s behavior “juvenile and boorish” but conceded that there was no law against farting.

  THE PLAINTIFF: John Cage Trust

  THE DEFENDANT: Mike Batt, a British composer

  THE LAWSUIT: In 1952 composer John Cage wrote a piece he called “4'33".” It was four minutes and 33 seconds of silence. In 2002 Batt included a track called “A One Minute Silence” on an album by his rock ba
nd The Planets, crediting it to “Batt/Cage.” That’s when Cage’s estate came in—they accused Batt of copyright infringement.

  Batt’s response: “Has the world gone mad? I’m prepared to do time rather than pay out.” Besides, he said, his piece was much better than Cage’s because “I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and 33 seconds.”

  THE VERDICT: The suit ended with a six-figure out-of-court settlement. “We feel that honour has been settled,” said Nicholas Riddle, Cage’s publisher, “because the concept of a silent piece is a very valuable artistic concept.”

  Maximum lifespan of a goldfish in captivity: 25 years.

  THE PLAINTIFF: James Crangle

  THE DEFENDANT: District of Columbia, a.k.a., “Police State Leviathan”

  THE LAWSUIT: On December 22, 1989, Crangle found himself accidentally driving the wrong way down a one-way street in Washington, D.C. When the District police tried to pull him over, Crangle attempted to elude them…and ended up crashing into a utility pole. Still unwilling to give up, he climbed on top of a mailbox, claiming sanctuary. After his arrest, he filed suit against the cops, saying that local police had no authority to arrest him since he was on “federal property”—the mailbox.

  THE VERDICT: The suit was dismissed.

  THE PLAINTIFF: Kimberly M. Cloutier

  THE DEFENDANT: Costco Wholesale Corp.

  THE LAWSUIT: In 2001 Costco fired Cloutier for wearing an eyebrow ring—a violation of their dress code, which bars facial jewelry. All she had to do was remove the ring while she was at work, but she refused. Why? She considers wearing the ring an essential part of her religion, the “Church of Body Modification.” Costco managers were unwilling to accommodate the church’s view that piercings “are essential to our spiritual salvation,” so Cloutier filed a religious discrimination charge under the 1964 Civil Rights Act and sued Costco for $2 million.

  THE VERDICT: Despite voicing “grave doubts” about the viability of the case, a judge threw out an early challenge by Costco to the lawsuit. The case is still pending.

  THE PLAINTIFF: Coca-Cola Co.

  THE DEFENDANT: Frederick Coke-Is-It of Brattleboro, Vt.

  THE LAWSUIT: Born Frederick Koch, he pronounced his name “kotch,” but got fed up with people pronouncing it “Coke.” Out of frustration he had his name legally changed to Frederick “Coke-Is-It.” When the Coca-Cola Company heard about Mr. Coke-Is-It, they sued him on the grounds that he changed his name specifically to “infringe on their rights.”

  THE VERDICT: They settled out of court…and amazingly, Koch, er, Coke-Is-It, is still it—he won the right to keep his new name.

  The first Rolls-Royce sold for $600 in 1906. Today they sell for more than $200,000.

  THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT WWII

  From our Forgotten History files, here are three little-known anecdotes about the world’s worst armed conflict.

  JAPAN’S SECRET WEAPON: BALLOONS

  On May 5, 1945, a group of picnickers in Oregon fell victim to one of the oddest weapons used in World War II. The party found a 32-foot balloon in the woods. When they tried to move it, it exploded, killing six of them—the only fatalities of World War II to occur on American soil.

  In 1944, feeling intense pressure from American air raids, Japan came up with a seemingly brilliant way of striking back. Their planes couldn’t fly all the way to the States, so they started sending balloons made of rubberized silk, each carrying an explosive device. The balloons were supposed to ride high-altitude winds across the Pacific and come down to wreak havoc in the American heartland.

  The U.S. Air Force estimates that Japan launched 9,000 balloon bombs between November 1944 and April 1945. About 1,000 of those actually made it to the United States, but they inflicted only minor damage. Designed to be a weapon of mass terror, Japan’s balloon bomb campaign was a total…uh…bomb.

  But it could have been much worse: Japan conducted extensive biological warfare research during the war. Had the Japanese added “germ bombs” to their balloons, casualties might have been immense. It’s likely that they balked at such a step for fear the United States would retaliate with their own germ weapons.

  THE BROWN SCARE

  Back in the 1930s, left-wing Communists were called “Reds,” while right-wing Nazis were called “Browns” (the color of the uniforms worn by the “SA,” the street thugs who helped Hitler rise to power).

  During the Great Depression, “Browns” began to gain strength in America. One of the largest pro-Nazi organizations was the German-American Bund. Supposedly representing the interests of German immigrants, the Bund actually espoused a racist, anti-Jewish party line. By 1938 Bund membership stood at roughly 6,500 with thousands of additional sympathizers—enough to pack Madison Square Garden for a rally in February 1939.

  Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ cloakroom.

  As Europe edged closer to war, U.S. citizens became increasingly alarmed by the influence of extremist groups. President Roosevelt blasted homegrown Fascists as traitors, a theme picked up by the popular media. Congress held hearings on right-wing extremists; the FBI monitored the activities of domestic Nazis.

  When the U. S. entered the war in 1941, the Justice Department finally had a reason to take action. They indicted dozens of far-right leaders on sedition charges. Meanwhile, the Bund fell apart after its leader, Fritz Kuhn, was hustled off to jail for forgery. And that pretty much shattered the power of the “Browns.”

  In years to come, the press, public, and politicians would shift their focus and begin to attack left-wing groups in the much better-known “Red Scare” of the 1950s.

  FIGHTING IN GREENLAND

  The Nazi invasion of Denmark in 1940 put the Arctic island of Greenland in an awkward situation. As a Danish colony, technically they should have surrendered to Germany following the German occupation of Denmark. But that might have allowed the Nazis to set up bases along the island’s expansive coastline and relay information to their submarines. Eske Brun, the chief administrative officer of Greenland, would not allow it.

  Brun decided to fight. He put together an army to resist any Nazi attacks. (The “army” consisted of a grand total of nine men, traversing the snow-covered coastline on dog sledges.) Dubbed “the Sledge Patrol,” the Greenland army radioed weather data to the Allies and kept an eye out for Nazi invaders. And they soon arrived. In 1943 a small German naval detachment was sent to establish a weather base and battle the mighty Greenland army.

  The invading Nazis and the Sledge Patrol spent more time fighting snowstorms than fighting each other. But in the end, the Greenland army was triumphant and the Germans were prevented from establishing a permanent weather base.

  The Sledge Patrol still exists—they consist of one small squad under the command of the Danish Navy, performing surveillance duties along Greenland’s coast. And yes, they still use dog sleds to get around.

  Europe is the only continent without a desert.

  I THE ’80S!

  Yo, Rambo, remember the Gimme Decade? The Teflon President, and “Who Shot JR?” Relax, it’s like, totally awesome! (Part 2 on page 391.)

  1980

  • Ronald Reagan elected 40th U.S. president (defeats Jimmy Carter)

  • John Lennon assassinated

  • Mount St. Helens erupts

  • #1 movie: The Empire Strikes Back

  • U.S. hockey team wins Olympic Gold over Finland

  • Country Grammy: Willie Nelson’s “On The Road Again”

  • 1% of American homes have a PC

  1981

  • President Reagan and Pope John Paul II shot; both recover

  • Prince Charles weds Lady Diana

  • Sandra Day O’Connor becomes first woman appointed to Supreme Court

  • 52 U.S. hostages released from Iran

  • AIDS identified for the first time

  • MTV debuts

  • Best Picture Oscar: Chariots of Fir
e

  1982

  • Falklands War begins and ends

  • First issue of USA Today hits stands

  • Graceland opens to the public (adults: $6.50; kids: $4.50)

  • First permanent artificial heart transplant performed on Barney Clark

  • Time magazine man of the year: Pac-Man

  • Late Night with David Letterman debuts on NBC

  • #1 movie: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

  1983

  • U.S. invades Grenada

  • President Reagan first proposes SDI (Star Wars) program

  • Vanessa Williams becomes first black Miss America

  • America’s first poet laureate: Robert Penn Warren

  • Truck bomb in Lebanon kills 284 U.S. Marines

  • Michael Jackson’s Thriller becomes bestselling album of all time

  • M*A*S*H ends after 251 episodes

  • Terms of Endearment wins 5 Oscars

  1984

  • First photos of missing children on milk cartons

  • Bishop Desmond Tutu awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

  • Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi assassinated

  • Soviet Union boycotts summer Olympics in L.A.

  • Dan Marino (Miami Dolphins) throws single-season record 48 TD passes

  • #1 movie: Ghostbusters

  • #1 single: Prince’s “When Doves Cry”

  • Newsweek magazine dubs 1984 the “Year of the Yuppie”

  Q: On what sitcom did Nancy Reagan appear to tell kids to “Just Say No?” A: Diff’rent Strokes.

  DUMB CROOKS

  Here’s proof that crime doesn’t pay.

  REVOLVING DUMMIES

  “In August 1975 three men were on their way in to rob the Royal Bank of Scotland at Rothesay, when they got stuck in the revolving doors. They had to be helped free by the staff and, after thanking everyone, sheepishly left the building.