The one I said “NO WAY!” on was the Jimmy Carter one. But after realizing that the 1-2 presidents both preceding and succeeding him were born in the early 1900s, it makes sense.
If coffee is the second-largest item in international commerce, what is the first?
teh pr0n
Nah, my guess would be tobacco.
It’s the July edition of …
The yo-yo was originally a weapon in the Philippines.
Every Swiss citizen is required by law to have a bomb shelter or access to a bomb shelter.
Only four countries in the world start with the letter ‘D’. They are Denmark, Dominica, Djibouti and the Dominican Republic.
Cyprus has a map on its flag. Dominica, Mexico, Zambia, Kiribati, Fiji and Egypt all have birds on their flags.
South Africa used to have two official languages, now it has eleven.
Mexico once had three presidents in one day.
If Texas were a country it’s GNP would be the fifth largest of any country on earth.
An earthquake on Dec. 16, 1811 sent the Mississippi River backwards.
The channel between England and France grows 300mm each year.
During winter in Moscow the skating rinks cover more than 250,000 square meters of land.
If you travel across the former Soviet Union you will cross seven time zones.
Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way round.
The furthest point from any ocean would be in China.
The City of Istanbul straddles two separate continents, Europe and Asia.
Canada’s national sport is lacrosse not hockey.
Canada declared that all national beauty contests to be cancelled in 1992, claiming they were degrading.
At the height of its power (400 BC) the Greek city of Sparta had 500,000 slaves and only 25,000 citizens.
In Chinese, the words ‘crisis’ and ‘opportunity’ are the same.
The pound sign is called a ‘octothorp.’
Before jets, jet lag was called boat lag.
The words racecar and kayak are spelled the same both ways.
The saying 'once in a blue moon ’ refers to the occurrence of two full moons during one calendar month.
‘Naked’ means to be unprotected. ‘Nude’ means unclothed.
Upper and lower case letters are named ‘upper’ and ‘lower’, because in the times when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the ‘upper case’ letters were stored in the case on top, and the smaller, ‘lower case’ letters on bottom.
The “You Are Here” arrow on maps is called an ideo locator.
The word ‘lethologica’ describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
In English, “four” is the only digit that has the same number of letters as its value.
Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the U.S. states.
The word “trivia” comes from the Latin “trivium” which is the place where three roads meet, a public square. People would gather and talk about all sorts of matters, most of which were trivial.
Typewriter, is the longest word that can be made using the letters in only one row of the keyboard.
“Speak of the Devil” is short for “Speak of the Devil and he shall come”. It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would attract his attention. That’s why when you’re talking about someone and they show up people say “Speak of the Devil.”
The word “checkmate” in chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means, “The King Is Dead.”
The sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” uses every letter in the English language.
The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
Canada is an Indian word meaning “Big Village.”
Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.
Max Fleischer, Betty Boop’s creator, was born in Vienna in 1889 and died in California in 1972. The voice behind Betty Boop was Mae Questel, who also played the voice for Olive Oyl and Little Audry, and it was one of the first cartoons with sound. Popeye danced the hula with Betty Boop in his first appearance in a Betty Boop short called “Popeye the Sailor.”
Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s pet name for JFK Jr. was “Mouse.” JFK Jr. and Christine Amanapour of CNN were roommates at Brown University.
Al Capone’s business card said he was a furniture dealer.
About 75% of the people in the U.S. live on 2% land.
Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of “Lorne Greene’s Animal Kingdom.”
Mr. Rogers was an ordained minister.
The “Sesame Street” characters Bert and Ernie were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the cab driver in Frank Capra’s “It’s A Wonderful Like.”
The youngest movie star to win an Academy Award was Shirly Temple who won an Oscar in 1934 at the age of 6. She received 135,000 presents on her 8th birthday.
Samual Morse, who invented the telegraph, was originally a portrait painter and didn’t give up painting to turn to inventing until he was 46 years old.
About 10,000,000 people have the same birthday as you.
Mozart sold one of his most prized pieces, Symphony No. 5 for under $20.
The airplane, Buddy Holly died in, was the “American Pie,” which is where Don McLarean got the song title from.
The name for Oz in the “Wizard of Oz” was thought up when the creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence “Oz.”
Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by looking at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling.
Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them, burnt their houses down - hence the expression “to get fired.”
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn’t added until 5 year later.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.
Elephants can not jump but can smell water 3 miles away.
A male emperor moth can smell a female emperor moth up to 7 miles away.
A cow produces 200 times more gas a day than a person.
Ants can live completely submerged underwater for up to 2 days. The only food cockroaches won’t eat are cucumbers.
A gold fish has the memory span of about 3 seconds.
A pound of grasshoppers is three times as nutritious as a pound of beef.
An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.
When possums are “playing possum” they’re not playing - they are actually passed out from sheer terror.
Wait a minute… this information isn’t useless!!
what the fuck does that mean?
Take 2% of the land of the United States.
Cram 75% of the people into that space.
Then 25% of the people live in the other 98%, ie. a lot of room.
oooooohhhh
2% of the land
that’s originally what i thought it meant but it was grammatically incorrect.
This was the answer to a final Jeopardy! question the other night. I believe he painted a U.S. President’s portrait.
that exclamation mark just pisses me off, neil.
exclamation point?
mark?
jimmy?
Hey, don’t be mad at me.
Be mad at Merv Griffin.
Or Johnny Gilbert.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had time for this. And I actually don’t have time for it now with this new project going on, but I don’t see where I should let that take precedence over silliness.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
The combination “ough” can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: “A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.”
The distance between cities is actually the distances between city halls.
Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth … and whose shame created the expression for ignominy, “His name is Mudd.” Dr. Mudd, sentenced to life in prison, became a hero to guards and inmates of his island prison when he stopped a yellow-fever epidemic there, in 1868, after the army doctors had died. President Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, pardoned Mudd in early 1869.
Dracula is the most filmed story of all time, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is second and Oliver Twist is third.
The football huddle started at Gallaudet University (the world’s only accredited four-year liberal arts college for the deaf) in the 19th century when the football team found that opposing teams were reading their signed messages and intercepting their plays.
Ethernet is a registered trademark of Xerox, Unix is a registered trademark of AT&T.
These people were all cheerleaders: Kim Basinger, Halle Berry, Cameron Diaz, Kirsten Dunst (8th Grade), Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lauren Hill, Madonna, Priscilla Presley, Meryl Streep, Raquel Welch.
The average life span of a Major League baseball is five pitches.
To avoid long encounters with the press, President Ronald Reagan often took reporters’ questions with his helicopter roaring in the background.
The Looney Tunes song is actually called “The Merry-Go-Round is Broken Down.”
In 1964, Sandy Koufax, Elstom Howard, Jimmy Brown, Oscar Robertson, and Cookie Gilchrist were all voted MVP from their respected (MLB, NFL, NBA) leagues. Each of them wore the number 32.
The S in Harry S Truman stands for nothing.
If you take any number, double it, add 10, divide by 2, and subtract your original number, the answer will always be 5. If you take any number between 1 & 9 and multiply them by 9 the sum of the two numbers will always be 9 (ex: 7 X 9 = 63 ; 6 + 3 = 9)
Captain Kirk never said “Beam me up, Scotty,” but he did say, “Beam me up, Mr. Scott”.
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
Before 1859, baseball umpires were seated in padded chairs behind home plate.
Mary Tyler Moore was banished from the Ed Sullivan Show after her first appearance. Her crime was insisting on lip-syncing a song she was to perform; a Sullivan taboo.
Shaqielle O’Niell wears a size 22EEE shoe.
It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year’s supply of footballs.
Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his hat while playng baseball, and he used to change it every two innings.
No president of the United states was an only child.
Mata Hari, who was executed by firing squad in France in October, 1917, is probably the most famous spy of all time. Yet in fact she was not Oriental, or even a spy. Mata Hari was the stage name adopted by a plump, middle-aged Dutch divorcee named Margaretha McLeod who had left her alcoholic Scottish husband and opted to become a dancer in Europe. The evidence of her alleged espionage on behalf of the German Kaiser is based merely on her being mistaken for a known German agent, Clara Benedix, by the British in November 1916. She was arrested and released by police when they realized the mistake. She was later arrested in France and charged with having been in contact with German intelligence officers in Madrid. At her trial in Paris her lurid lifestyle was used to damning effect. It was only in 1963, when secret files relating to her case were released, that the legend was reassessed.
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
There has never been a time in Super Bowl history where a punt return resulted in a touchdown.
The Andy Griffth Show was the first spin-off in TV history. It was a spin-off of the Danny Thomas Show.
The real name of “the” Bill Gates is William Henry Gates III. Nowadays he is known as Bill Gates (III). By converting the letters of his current name to the ASCII-values and adding his (III), you get the following:
B 66
I 73
L 76
L 76
G 71
A 65
T 84
E 69
S 83
I 1
I 1
I 1
--------------
666 !!!
In the 1983 film “JAWS 3D” the shark blows up. Some of the shark guts were the stuffed ET dolls being sold at the time.
The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It is a a pneumoconiosis caused by the inhalation of very fine silicate or quartz dust. The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.
The second longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary is “floccinaucinihilipilification,” which means “the act of estimating as worthless.”
The third longest word in the English language is “antidisestablishmenterianism”.
Oh how I’ve missed these.
THANKS BILL!!!
Wahoo!
Thanks!
I think I’m going to print of this thread and make it my bathroom reading for the next week.
what?
tmi?
hiccoughed?
I can fit five fingers in my belly button! :-/
For Neil.
A special Christmas edition of UIF:
“Hot cockles” was a popular game at Christmas in medieval times. It was a game in which the other players took turns striking the blindfolded player, who had to guess the name of the person delivering each blow. “Hot cockles” was still a Christmas pastime until the Victorian era.
“White Christmas” (1954), starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, was the first movie to be made in Vista Vision, a deep-focus process.
Christmas caroling began as an old English custom called Wassailing - toasting neighbors to a long and healthy life. “Wassail” comes from the Old Norse “ves heill”–to be of good health.
A Christmas club, a savings account in which a person deposits a fixed amount of money regularly to be used at Christmas for shopping, came about around 1905.
A traditional Christmas dinner in early England was the head of a pig prepared with mustard.
According to a 1995 survey, 7 out of 10 British dogs get Christmas gifts from their doting owners.
According to the National Christmas Tree Association, Americans buy 37.1 million real Christmas trees each year; 25 percent of them are from the nation’s 5,000 choose-and-cut farms.
After “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens wrote several other Christmas stories, one each year, but none was as successful as the original.
Alabama was the first state to recognize Christmas as an official holiday. This tradition began in 1836.
Although many believe the Friday after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day of the year, it is not. It is the fifth to tenth busiest day. The Friday and Saturday before Christmas are the two busiest shopping days of the year.
American billionaire Ross Perot tried to airlift 28 tons of medicine and Christmas gifts to American POW’s in North Vietnam in 1969.
An artificial spider and web are often included in the decorations on Ukrainian Christmas trees. A spider web found on Christmas morning is believed to bring good luck.
Animal Crackers are not really crackers, but cookies that were imported to the United States from England in the late 1800s. Barnum’s circus-like boxes were designed with a string handle so that they could be hung on a Christmas tree.
At lavish Christmas feasts in the Middle Ages, swans and peacocks were sometimes served “endored.” This meant the flesh was painted with saffron dissolved in melted butter. In addition to their painted flesh, endored birds were served wrapped in their own skin and feathers, which had been removed and set aside prior to roasting.
Before settling on the name of Tiny Tim for his character in “A Christmas Carol,” three other alliterative names were considered by Charles Dickens. They were Little Larry, Puny Pete, and Small Sam. His initial choice for Scrooge’s statement “Bah Humbug” was “Bah Christmas.”
California, Oregon, Michigan, Washington, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina are the top Christmas tree producing states. Oregon is the leading producer of Christmas trees - 8.6 million in 1998.
Christmas trees are edible. Many parts of pines, spruces, and firs can be eaten. The needles are a good source of vitamin C. Pine nuts, or pine cones, are also a good source of nutrition.
Christmas was once a moveable feast celebrated at many different times during the year. The choice of December 25, was made by Pope Julius I, in the 4th century A.D., because this coincided with the pagan rituals of Winter Solstice, or Return of the Sun. The intent was to replace the pagan celebration with the Christian one.
Cultured Christmas trees must be shaped as they grow to produce fuller foliage. To slow the upward growth and to encourage branching, they are hand-clipped in each spring. Trees grown in the wild have sparser branches, and are known in the industry as “Charlie Brown” trees.
During the ancient 12-day Christmas celebration, the log burned was called the “Yule log.” Sometimes a piece of the Yule log would be kept to kindle the fire the following winter, to ensure that the good luck carried on from year to year. The Yule log custom was handed down from the Druids.
During the Christmas buying season, Visa cards alone are used an average of 5,340 times every minute in the United States.
During the Christmas/Hanukkah season, more than 1.76 billion candy canes will be made.
During World War II it was necessary for Americans to mail Christmas gifts early for the troops in Europe to receive them in time. Merchants joined in the effort to remind the public to shop and mail early and the protracted shopping season was born.
Electric Christmas tree lights were first used in 1895. The idea for using electric Christmas lights came from an American, Ralph E. Morris. The new lights proved safer than the traditional candles.
For every real Christmas tree harvested, 2 to 3 seedlings are planted in its place.
Frankincense is a sweet smelling gum resin derived from certain Boswellia trees which, at the time of Christ, grew in Arabia, India, and Ethiopia. Tradition says that it was presented to the Christ Child by Balthasar, the black king from Ethiopia or Saba. The frankincense trade was at its height during the days of the Roman Empire. At that time this resin was considered as valuable as gems or precious metals. The Romans burned frankincense on their altars and at cremations.
Frustrated at the lack of interest in his new toy invention, Charles Pajeau hired several midgets, dressed them in elf costumes, and had them play with “Tinker Toys” in a display window at a Chicago department store during the Christmas season in 1914. This publicity stunt made the construction toy an instant hit. A year later, over a million sets of Tinker Toys had been sold.
Hallmark introduced its first Christmas cards in 1915, five years after the founding of the company.
Historians have traced some of the current traditions surrounding Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, back to ancient Celtic roots. Father Christmas’s elves are the modernization of the “Nature folk” of the Pagan religions; his reindeer are associated with the “Horned God,” which was one of the Pagan deities.
In 1752, 11 days were dropped from the year when the switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar was made. The December 25, date was effectively moved 11 days backwards. Some Christian church sects, called old calendarists, still celebrate Christmas on January 7 (previously December 25 of the Julian calendar).
In 1947, Toys for Tots started making the holidays a little happier for children by organizing its first Christmas toy drive for needy youngsters.
In an effort to solicit cash to pay for a charity Christmas dinner in 1891, a large crabpot was set down on a San Francisco street, becoming the first Salvation Army collection kettle.
In America, the weeks leading up to Christmas are the biggest shopping weeks of the year. Many retailers make up to 70% of their annual revenue in the month preceding Christmas.
In Britain, eating mince pies at Christmas dates back to the 16th century. It is still believed that to eat a mince pie on each of the Twelve Days of Christmas will bring 12 happy months in the year to follow.
In the British armed forces it is traditional that officers wait on the men and serve them their Christmas dinner. This dates back to a custom from the Middle Ages.
In the Thomas Nast cartoon that first depicted Santa Claus with a sleigh and reindeer, he was delivering Christmas gifts to soldiers fighting in the U.S. Civil War. The cartoon, entitled “Santa Claus in Camp,” appeared in Harper’s Weekly on January 3, 1863.
It is estimated that 400,000 people become sick each year from eating tainted Christmas leftovers.
Jesus Christ, son of Mary, was born in a cave, not in a wooden stable. Caves were used to keep animals in because of the intense heat. A large church is now built over the cave, and people can go down inside the cave. The carpenters of Jesus’ day were really stone cutters. Wood was not used as widely as it is today. So whenever you see a Christmas nativity scene with a wooden stable – that’s the “American” version, not the Biblical one.
Long before it was used as a “kiss encourager” during the Christmas season, mistletoe had long been considered to have magic powers by Celtic and Teutonic peoples. It was said to have the ability to heal wounds and increase fertility. Celts hung mistletoe in their homes in order to bring themselves good luck and ward off evil spirits.
More diamonds are purchased at Christmas-time (31 percent) than during any other holiday or occasion during the year.
More than three billion Christmas cards are sent annually in the United States.
Myrrh is an aromatic gum resin which oozes from gashes cut in the bark of a small desert tree known as Commifera Myrrha or the dindin tree. The myrrh hardens into tear-dropped shaped chunks and is then powdered or made into ointments or perfumes. This tree is about 5-15 feet tall and 1 foot in diameter. Legend says Caspar brought the gift of myrrh from Europe or Tarsus and placed it before the Christ Child. Myrrh was an extremely valuable commodity during biblical times and was imported from India and Arabia.
Originally, Christmas decorations were home-made paper flowers, or apples, biscuits, and sweets. The earliest decorations to be bought came from Nuremburg in Germany, a city famous for the manufacture of toys. Lauscha in Germany is famous for its glass ornaments. In 1880, America discovered Lauscha and F.W. Woolworth went there and bought a few glass Christmas tree ornaments. Within a day he had sold out so next year he bought more and within a week they, too, had sold. The year after that be bought 200,000 Lauscha ornaments. During the First World War supplies of ornaments from Lauscha ceased, so American manufacturers began to make their own ornaments, developing new techniques that allowed them to turn out as many ornaments in a minute as could be made in a whole day at Lauscha.
Right behind Christmas and Thanksgiving, Super Bowl Sunday ranks as the third-largest occasion for Americans to consume food, according to the National Football League.
Santa’s Reindeers are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen.
Silent Night was written in 1818, by an Austrian priest Joseph Mohr. He was told the day before Christmas that the church organ was broken and would not be prepared in time for Christmas Eve. He was saddened by this and could not think of Christmas without music, so he wanted to write a carol that could be sung by choir to guitar music. He sat down and wrote three stanzas. Later that night the people in the little Austrian Church sang “Stille Nacht” for the first time.
St. Nicholas was bishop of the Turkish town of Myra in the early fourth century. It was the Dutch who first made him into a Christmas gift-giver, and Dutch settlers brought him to America where his name eventually became the familiar Santa Claus.
The “Twelve Days of Christmas” was originally written to help Catholic children, in England, remember different articles of faith during the persecution by Protestant Monarchs. The “true love” represented God, and the gifts all different ideas:
The “Partridge in a pear tree” was Christ.
2 Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments
3 French Hens = Faith, Hope and Charity-- the Theological Virtues
4 Calling Birds = the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
5 Golden Rings = The first Five Books of the Old Testament, the “Pentateuch”, which relays the history of man’s fall from grace.
6 Geese A-laying = the six days of Creation
7 Swans A-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments
8 Maids A-milking = the eight beatitudes
9 Ladies Dancing = the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
10 Lords A-leaping = the ten commandments
11 Pipers Piping = the eleven faithful apostles
12 Drummers Drumming = the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed.
The abbreviation of Xmas for Christmas is not irreligious. The first letter of the word Christ in Greek is chi, which is identical to our X. Xmas was originally an ecclesiastical abbreviation that was used in tables and charts.
The actual gift givers are different in various countries:
England: Father Christmas
France: Pere Noel (Father Christmas)
Germany: Christkind (angelic messenger from Jesus) She is a beautiful fair haired girl with a shining crown of candles.
Holland: St Nicholas.
Italy: La Befana (a kindly old witch)
Spain and South America: The Three Kings
Russia: In some parts - Babouschka (a grandmotherly figure) in other parts it is Grandfather Frost.
Scandinavia: a variety of Christmas gnomes. One is called Julenisse.
The Canadian province of Nova Scotia leads the world in exporting lobster, wild blueberries, and Christmas trees.
The first Christmas card was created in England on December 9, 1842. The first printed reference to Christmas trees appeared in Germany in 1531.
The four ghosts in Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” were the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Yet to Come, and the ghost of Jacob Marley.
The movie “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (2000) features more than 52,000 Christmas lights, about 8,200 Christmas ornaments, and nearly 2,000 candy canes.
The modern Christmas custom of displaying a wreath on the front door of one’s house, is borrowed from ancient Rome’s New Year’s celebrations. Romans wished each other “good health” by exchanging branches of evergreens. They called these gifts strenae after Strenia, the goddess of health. It became the custom to bend these branches into a ring and display them on doorways.
The poem commonly referred to as “The Night Before Christmas” was originally titled “A Visit From Saint Nicholas.” This poem was written by Clement Moore for his children and some guests, one of whom anonymously sent the poem to a New York newspaper for publication.
The poinsettia, traditionally an American Christmas flower, originally grew in Mexico; where it was known as the “Flower of the Holy Night”. It was first brought to America by Joel Poinsett in 1829.
The popular Christmas song “Jingle Bells” was composed in 1857 by James Pierpont, and was originally called “One-Horse Open Sleigh.”
Yuletide-named towns in the United States include Santa Claus, located in Arizona and Indiana, Noel in Missouri, and Christmas in both Arizona and Florida.
Wahoo!!
Thanks Bill!
Love these, thanks Fone!