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Miscellaneous
Crap
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The following
are all of the Weekly Droppings that have appeared on
Mindless Crap, dating back to the first one posted on
October 1, 2000.
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A person's hair cannot turn white overnight because of
some terrible tragedy or frightening experience (or for
any other reason). |
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One 75-watt bulb gives more light than three 25-watt
bulbs. |
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The first appendectomy was performed in January 1885, at
St. Luke's Hospital in Denver, CO. |
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Austria was the first country to use postcards. |
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| Naval vessels of the United States
military follow uniform naming
standards. Battleships are always named after
states, cruisers after cities and destroyers after
naval heroes. |
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The powder inside of an Etch A Sketch is aluminum that's
ground so fine that it will stick to everything it
touches. Small plastic beads are added to agitate
the powder and keep it from clumping together. |
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The dollar sign is a combination of the letters P and S.
PS is the abbreviation for pesos, the principal coin in
circulation in the United States until 1794 when the
country started marketing its own dollars. |
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Undertakers report that human bodies do not deteriorate
as quickly as they used to. The reason for this,
many believe, is that the modern diet contains so many
preservatives that these chemicals tend to prevent the
body from decomposing too rapidly after death. |
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Pollen never deteriorates. It is one of the few
naturally secreted substances that lasts indefinitely. |
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The paper used to make U.S. dollar bills is composed of
linen and several types of cotton, including denim -
which gives it its unique fabric-like feel and
durability. |
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Coin banks are commonly shaped like pigs because frugal
people in the 18th century saved their money in
earthenware jars made of dense orange clay known as pygg. |
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Murder is the only crime that does not increase during
the full moon. Theft, disorderly conduct, larceny,
armed robbery, assault and battery, illegal breaking and
entering, and rape all statistically increase
dramatically during the full moon. |
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Tires
under-inflated by as little as five pounds can rob a
car owner of as much as half a gallon of gas out of
every twenty. |
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| Up
until 1830, when a bar of soap was purchased, the
grocer simply hacked off a chuck from a large block. |
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| A
manned rocket reaches the moon in less time than it
takes a stagecoach to travel the length of England. |
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| Technically
speaking, World War II isn't over. There has
never been a formal peace treaty between Germany and
the Soviet Union. |
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| The
original American Express card was purple. |
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| In
the game "Monopoly," the space on which a
player has the greatest statistical chance of landing
is Illinois Avenue. |
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| The
United States Treasury Department maintains a fund
known as "The Conscience Fund," which
accepts money sent in anonymously by taxpayers who
think they've cheated the government. The money
is used for miscellaneous expenses. |
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| Lightning
strikes the Earth 100 times every second, from the
1,800 thunderstorms in progress at any given moment. |
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| The
first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel was
Anna Edson Taylor. She made the journey on
October 24, 1901, and escaped unhurt. |
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| If
your shoes squeak, it simply means that two layers of
leather in the sole are rubbing together.
Driving a tack through the sole will often remove the
squeak. |
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| The
Statue of Liberty's mouth is three feet wide. |
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| The
search engine "Lycos" is named for Lycosidae, the Latin name for the wolf spider family.
Unlike other spiders that sit passively in their web, wolf spiders are hunters, actively stalking their prey. |
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| A
chef's hat is tall and balloons at the top so as to
counteract the intense heat in the kitchen. The
unique shape allows air to circulate around the scalp,
keeping the head cool. |
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| When
Disneyland opened in 1955, Tomorrowland represented
a city from 1986. |
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| Carpet slippers were
created by thrifty housewives who found other uses for
old, worn-out pieces of carpet. |
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| The
Leaning Tower of Pisa was built on the site of a river
estuary. The land under the town has several layers
of silt and soft clay. The 15,000-ton tower tilts to
the south because the subsoil is too unstable. |
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| Linoleum
was patented in 1860 by Frank Walton, who also made
up the name for his product. |
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| The
New York City Chamber of Commerce is the oldest chamber
of commerce in the United States. King George III granted
a royal charter for it in 1770. |
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| The
bands on hats traces back to the custom on knights wearing
their lady loves' scarves around the helmet. |
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| Pure
electricity, when photographed, shows up as a brightly
glowing liquid droplet flowing inside a tiny crystal. |
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| Gustave
Eiffel, the builder of the Eiffel Tower, also built
a dam in Russia, a church in the Philippines, locks
for the first attempt at the Panama Canal, and designed
the right arm and full steel structure supporting the
Statue of Liberty. |
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| Stanford
University engineers Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started
their company in a Palo Alto garage with $1,538. Their
first product was an audio oscillator bought by Walt
Disney studios for use in the movie Fantasia. |
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| In
1992, the best selling American-produced car in Japan
was the Honda Accord. It was built in Ohio and exported
to Japan. |
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| The
tonsillectomy is the most common surgical procedure. |
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| In
1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the only U.S. President
in history to deliver his inaugural address without
using the word “I”.
For the record, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt
and Dwight Eisenhower said “I” only once during their
speeches. |
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| In
Elizabethan and Jacobean times, the age of a person
when they marry was dependant on the person's class.
Those with a high social status were permitted to marry
at a younger age. |
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| Prior
to 1907, when the United States started mass production
of asphalt from crude oil, the roads were paved from
asphalt bought from Trinidad, which had a pitch lake
that was the world’s first large commercial source of
natural asphalt. |
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| Sears
Roebuck and Company was founded in 1892 by Richard Warren
Sears, a former railroad worker turned watch salesman,
and Alvah Roebuck, a watchmaker. |
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| Fourteen
years before the Titanic sank, novelist Morgan Robertson
published a novel called "Futility".
The story was about an ocean liner that struck
an iceberg on an April night.
The name of the ship in his novel was The Titan. |
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| Florence
Nightingale Graham adopted the name Elizabeth Arden
once her company became successful at the beginning
of the 1900s. |
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| Activated
charcoal made from coconut shells is the odor absorbing
agent in odor-eating shoe liners. |
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| If
you suffer from iatrophobia, you're afraid of doctors. |
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| According
to Scandinavian folklore, trolls only come out at night
because sunlight would turn them to stone. |
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| The
largest bell
in the world is the Tsar Kolokol in the Kremlin
in Moscow.
It’s 20’ 2” high and 21’ 8” in diameter.
Cast in 1735, it weighs 222.56 tons and has never
been wrung...it cracked before it was installed. |
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| The
1922 Essex was the first popularly priced car available
with a closed body. The two-door, six-cylinder sedan
was called the Essex Coach and sold for $945. |
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| Montgomery
Ward was the first company in the United States to advertise,
“Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.”
They did it in 1874, two years after company
founder Aaron Montgomery Ward launched his mail-order
catalog. |
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| Volkswagen
was the first foreign company to open a factory in the
United States. The auto plant opened in 1978 in
Pennsylvania. |
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| May
and June are the most popular months to get married.
January is the least popular. |
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| According
to the International Labor Organization, a member of
the labor force is someone between the age of 15 and
64. |
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| The
first percussion
instrument introduced to an orchestra was the kettledrums,
then called the timpani, in the 1600s. |
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| The
only mobile national monuments in the United States
are the cable cars in San Francisco. |
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Former
First
Lady Eleanor Roosevelt ate three chocolate-covered garlic
balls in the morning. Her doctor told her it would help
improve her memory. |
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| Harley
Proctor found the name "Ivory" for his soap
in the Bible. He was in church reading the line, "All
thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia,
out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee
glad." The original name of the soap was P&G
White Soap. |
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| The
Michelin man is known as Mr. Bib.
His name was Bibendum in the company's first ads in
1896. |
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| Ovaltine
was originally called Ovamaltine.
A clerical error forced the name to be changed when
the manufacturer registered the name. |
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| In
1964, University of Oregon grad student Carolyn Davidson
designed what became known as the Nike “swoosh” for
a mere $35. She
did it four years after Phil Knight and track coach
Bill Bowerman founded the company they originally called
Blue Ribbon Sports. |
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| In
1952, Mr. Potato Head became the first toy to be advertised
on television in the U.S. |
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| Plant
life could not exist without lightning. Nitrogen,
an essential food for plants, comprises 80% of the atmosphere,
but in a form that is insoluble and unusable.
It's the intense heat of lightning that forces the nitrogen
to combine with oxygen in the air, forming nitrogen
oxides that are soluble in water and fall to the earth
in rain as dilute nitric acid. This reacts with
minerals in the ground to become the nitrates on which
the plants depend. |
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| The
name Santa Claus is a corruption of the Dutch dialect
name for Saint Nicholas - Sint Klass.
Apparently,
I misspelled it...it's "Sinterklaas."
Thanks to the unnamed person from Holland who corrected
me. |
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| An
estimated $1 million is lost at race tracks each year
by people who lose or carelessly throw away winning
tickets. |
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| Everyone
knows that the U.S. gold depository is in Fort Knox,
Kentucky. But nobody seems to know that the U.S.
silver depository is at West Point, New York. |
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| The
country of Tonga once issued a stamp shaped like a banana. |
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| Pope John XXIII served
as a sergeant in the Italian army during World War I. |
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| Each year approximately
250,000 American husbands are physically attacked and
beaten by their wives. |
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| According to the U.S.
Food & Drug Administration, two out of five women
in America dye their hair. |
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| Red paint is the cheapest
color to make. |
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| Tessenjutsu is a deadly
martial art in Japan that is based solely on the use
of a fan. |
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| Every
queen named Jane has either been murdered, imprisoned,
gone mad, died young, or been dethroned. |
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| Daylight
savings time started during World War I, so Americans
could use as much natural lighting as possible and conserve
energy needed for war production. Despite the Uniform
Time Act, which Congress passed in 1966 to standardize
the time change, several states within the United States
do not observe Daylight Saving Time. They are Arizona,
Hawaii, parts of Indiana, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin
Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. |
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| Streetcar
conductors, taxi drivers, and business executives have
the highest statistical chance of getting peptic ulcers. |
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| Between
1940 and 1987, a total of 94 patents had been taken
out on shaving mugs. |
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| Sing
Sing prison in New York has a name derived from the
Indian words for "stony place." |
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| Shoe
salesmen have been using those little wooden measuring
sticks since 1657. |
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Richard
F. has pointed out possible inaccuracies with the
trivia for December 16th and January 1st. For
this reason, I have decided to pull them. |
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| The
first commercial product manufactured in the United
States and exported to Europe was a glass bottle made
in Jamestown in 1608. |
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| The
five most frequently used letters in the English alphabet
are, in order, E - T - A - I - S. |
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| According
to Hawaiian lore, the earth mother Papa mated with the
sky father Wakea to give birth to the Hawaiian Islands. |
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| Woodbury
Soap was the first product to use a picture of a nude
woman in its advertisements. In 1936, a photo by Edward
Steichen showed a rear full-length view of a woman sunbathing. |
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| Bill
Gates began his business career at the age of 14 by
forming a company called Traf-O-Data with some friends
of his. |
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| Intel
is a shortened name for Integrated Electronics.
The company's founders wanted to use the full name when
they went into business in 1968, but it was already
in use. |
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| The
first product of the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
Company - now known as 3M - when it was founded was
sandpaper. |
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