Random Facts About… Anything!

Quick blast of education -

• Delaware has the fewest counties of any state in the U.S. with three (Newcastle, Kent, Sussex).
• Pope John Paul II was the first papal Harlem Globetrotter. The team made him an honorary member in 2000 during a visit to the Vatican.
• The Baltimore Ravens football team of the National Football League is the only team in history to be named after the title of a poem: “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was not from Baltimore, but he lived there for short periods. In 1849, he died there while visiting the city on business.
• Divorce is illegal in the Philippines.
• The first recorded use of flying the flag at half-mast as a symbol of mourning occurred in 1612 aboard the British ships Patience and Heart’s Ease after their captain was killed in the Northwest Passage.
• Since weightlessness causes the spine to expand and straighten, astronauts may measure up to two inches taller in space than they do on Earth.
• The first Ford Mustangs, built in 1964, were nothing more than Ford Falcons with different exterior sheet metal.
• When three-letter airport codes became standard in the mid-1930s, airports that had been using a two-letter identifier simply added an X to their code, which is why Los Angeles International Airport is known as LAX.
• At 6000 degrees Kelvin, the surface of the Sun is actually one of its coolest spots. Both the Sun’s interior and its corona measure in the millions of degrees Kelvin.
• The glue used on Israeli postage stamps is kosher.
• The only letter of the alphabet that does not appear in any of the U.S. territory or state’s name is “Q”.
• That baritone voice behind the Jolly Green Giant’s “ho-ho-ho” belongs to the late Elmer “Len” Dresslar Jr., a Chicago-area jazz singer.
• The original name for the starship in Star Trek was “Yorktown” not “Enterprise”.
• The bikini wax has been around for hundreds of years. Muslim brides-to-be in the Middle East and North Africa remove all their body hair before the wedding night.
• An estimated 15% to 20% of people who receive gift cards never redeem them.
• Talk about bad advice: In 1557, European doctors recommended smoking to combat bad breath and cancer.
• Artificial color additives are prohibited by law, so many farmers add marigold petals to their chicken feed as a natural color enhancer to give their egg yolks that sunny, yellow hue.
• The US, Burma and Liberia are the only countries in the world that have not officially adopted the metric system as the standard of measurement.
• Omar Knedlik of Coffeyville, Kansas, invented the Icee (also called a Slurpee, Slush or Mr. Misty) in the late 1950s. The first flavor he offered was root beer.
• During the shower scene in Psycho, what looks like blood funneling down the drain is actually Bosco chocolate syrup. Hitchcock thought it looked more real in black-and-white than the fake red stuff.
• The number 4 is the only number with the same number of letters as the meaning of its name. Amazing, considering there must be trillions of numbers!
• In 1950, Zenith created the first TV remote control called “Lazy Bones.”
• The 1983 film The Right Stuff featured an interesting stepping-stone of cast and character last names: Ed Harris played John Glenn, Scott Glenn played Alan Shepard, and Sam Shepard played Chuck Yeager.
• Although estimates vary, humans blink their eyes around five million times each year.
• During sleep, fluid in the body tends to pool in low-lying areas, which is why most of us wake up with noticeable bags under our eyes.
• Venus and Uranus rotate on their axes in a different direction than the other six planets.
• Water itself does not conduct electricity, but the impurities found in water do.

Sources:
All over the internet!!

Article by Ford

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