[1418] in Humor
HUMOR: Even More Stuff to Know
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Fri May 3 10:14:11 1996
From: <abennett@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 03 May 1996 10:02:21 EDT
Date: Thu, 2 May 1996 23:38:01 -0800
From: connie@interserve.com (Connie Kleinjans)
From: geri@Rational.COM
One pail of water can produce enough fog to cover 100 square miles to a
depth of fifty feet. :::: What was Frankenstein's first name? Contrary to
popular notion, Mary Shelley's monster was nameless. Frankenstein was the
creator-doctor. His first name was Victor. :::: The world's record for
running the 100-yard dash BACKWARDS was set by Bill "Bojangles" Robinson,
the black tap dancer who appeared in many Shirley Temple movies. He ran it in
13.5 seconds. :::: Dr. Sylvester Graham was a religious crusader who opposed
the use of meat, tea, coffee, tobacco, corsets, and feathers. He invented
Graham crackers, which attained success with the Puritans in the 1820's
because Graham claimed that they would reduce the sexual urges of young
girls. :::: Thomas Edison was a judge at the first "Miss America" beauty
contest in 1880. :::: Fish can get seasick if they are swirled in a pail or
kept on board a rolling ship. :::: A clever salesman is sometimes humorously
credited with the ability to sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo. Actually,
many Eskimos own refrigerators. They use them to keep foods from freezing. ::::
In 1940, accountants discovered the financial records of Benjamin Franklin at
the archives of Philadelphia's Bank of America. According to their findings,
Franklin -- the master of thrift -- was overdrawn on his account at least
three times each week. :::: One symptom of rabies is a powerful thirst. By a
cruel twist of nature, another symptom is a swollen, painful throat which
may cause convulsions if the victim tries to take a drink. :::: At least
fifteen million people are having a birthday today. :::: For all its romantic
significance in American history, the legendary Pony Express only lasted 18
months. When it went out of business, its financial backers lost $200,000.
:::: For most of human history, scientists believed that meteors did not
exist. The idea that rocks could drop out of the sky seemed absurd.
President Thomas Jefferson once denounced Yale University when one of its
professors claimed to have seen a meteor fall. :::: Which state was the 39th
to be admitted into the Union? No one knows. North and South Dakota, the 39th
and 40th states, were admitted on the same day. President Benjamin Harrison
never revealed which of the two proclamations he signed first. :::: Quarrymen
in ancient Rome sometimes rubbed wax on their marble blocks to conceal cracks
and flaws. The Roman Senate passed a law that all marble purchased by the
government must be "since cera," which means, "without wax." From this root
comes "sincere," a word we use to mean "without deception." :::: Fetuses can
get the hiccups. :::: In 1906, the horse-drawn traffic in New York City moved
along at an average speed of 11.5 miles per hour. In 1978, a survey showed
automobile traffic in New York City averaged only 7.9 miles per hour. ::::
"It was the only time I ever went into combat stoned," said American soldier
Peter Lemon, describing how he smoked marijuana one night, then fought off
two waves of Vietcong troops, dragged a wounded comrade to safety -- and won
the Congressional Medal of Honor. :::: Cadet Edgar Allen Poe was discharged
from West Point in 1831 for "gross neglect of duty." As legend has it, he
was reporting to the parade grounds where the prescribed uniform had been
"white belts and gloves." He showed up wearing a white belt and gloves --
and nothing else. :::: The flowers of wheat have a life-span of less than two
hours. :::: Frogs must close their eyes to swallow. :::: The word "kangaroo"
means "I don't know" in the language of Australian aborigines. When Captain
Cook approached natives of the Endeavor River tribe to ask what the strange
animal was, he got "kangaroo" for an answer. :::: The Harlem Globetrotters
never played in Harlem until 1968 -- forty years after the team came
together. :::: The highest and lowest points in the continental United States
are less than eighty miles apart (Mount Whitney and Death Valley,
California). :::: What kind of animal did the three wise men ride on their
journey to Bethlehem? The Bible doesn't say they rode anything. According to
Scriptures, it is entirely possible that they walked. :::: Man and the
two-toed sloth are the only land animals that typically mate face-to-face.
:::: Felix Wankel, automotive engineer and inventor of the rotary engine,
never had a driver's license. :::: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was written by
Ian Fleming, creator of the James Bond adventure novels. :::: The elephant is
the only animal that cannot jump. :::: The Arlington National Cemetary cannot
find an unknown soldier to occupy the fourth Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,
which is dedicated to the men who died in Vietnam. Military identification
- --ranging from X-rays to fingerprints to dental records -- has become so
sophisticated that there are no unknown remains that might be eligible for
the Tomb. :::: A cheetah can jump from a standstill to 45 miles per hour in
two seconds -- an acceleration rate that cannot be matched by even the
fastest dragsters. :::: Adolf Hitler owned nine thousand acres of land in
Colorado. When it was discovered in 1942 that Hitler had inherited title to
the land from relatives in Germany, it was being used by ranchers as grazing
land. :::: Harry Houdini was the first person to fly an airplane in the
continent of Australia. :::: Before the Civil War, Lincoln offered the
command of the Northern forces to Robert E. Lee. :::: In the 1840's, two New
Englanders named Pettygrove and Lovejoy acquired a large tract of land in
Oregon on which they planned to build a city. When the first settlers began
to build, they were unable to agree on a name for their city. Lovejoy wanted
Boston while Pettygrove wanted Portland. Finally, they flipped a coin.
Pettygrove won. :::: In 1818, Easter was observed on the wrong day. The
formula for calculating when Easter will fall was established nearly
seventeen centuries ago; it is the first Sunday following the first full
moon after the spring equinox. Astronomers made a mistake in their calculations
in 1818, and the Christian world celebrated Easter on the wrong Sunday. ::::
Corn is incapable of reproducing itself in the wild. :::: Wild rice is not
wild. Nor is it rice. :::: The song "You Are My Sunshine" was written by
James Davis -- who also served as Louisiana's governor for eight years. ::::
Midway Island is so named because it is the nearest body of land to the
geographic center of the Pacific. :::: Blackboard chalk is not made of chalk.
It is made from plaster of Paris -- which, incidentally, is rarely made in
Paris. :::: The five interlocking Olympic Rings are colored black, blue, red,
white, and yellow because at least one of those colors appears in every
national
flag in the world. :::: Who was conceived in the Immaculate Conception?
The Immaculate Conception does not refer to Jesus in his mother Mary, as
many think. It refers to the conception of Mary in her mother Saint Anne.
:::: A bare-breasted woman caused a ten-car collision when she drove along the
Hollywood Freeway in an open convertible. The incident was reported in a
local newspaper with the following headline: "Bares 2, Rams 10." :::: An ear
of corn will almost always contain an even number of rows -- usually twelve,
fourteen, or sixteen. An ear with an odd number of rows is rarer than a
four-leaf clover.
