The Book of Useless Information Page 8

A family of six died in Oregon during World War II as a result of a Japanese balloon bomb.

  Corcoran jump boots (Army jump boots) have 82 stitches on the inside of the sole and 101 stitches on the outside of the sole in honor of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions’ actions during World War II.

  During conscription for World War II, there were nine documented cases of men with three testicles.

  It took the United States only four days to build a ship during World War II.

  During World War II, the Navajo language was used successfully as a code by the United States.

  W. C. Fields kept $50,000 in Germany “in case the little bastard wins.”

  World champion chess player Reuben Fine helped the United States calculate where enemy submarines might surface based on positional probability.

  During World War II, Americans tried to train bats to drop bombs.

  Escape maps, compasses, and files were inserted into Monopoly game boards and smuggled into POW camps inside Germany during World War II; real money for escapees was slipped into the packs of Monopoly money.

  “John has a long mustache” was the coded signal used by the French Resistance in World War II to mobilize their forces after the Allies had landed on the Normandy beaches.

  Kotex was first manufactured as bandages during World War II.

  Playing cards were issued to British pilots in World War II. If captured, the cards could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.

  The phrase “the whole nine yards” came from World War II fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their planes on the ground, the .50-caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly twenty-seven feet before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got the whole nine yards.

  The universally popular Hershey bar was used overseas during World War II as currency.

  The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

  The Red Baron’s real name was Manfred Von Richtofen.

  The first atomic bomb dropped on Japan fell from the Enola Gay, named after the unit commander’s mother. The second was dropped from a plane known as Bock’s Car.

  A B-25 bomber airplane crashed into the seventy-ninth floor of the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945.

  HE SHOULD HAVE USED THE PATCH

  The earliest recorded case of a man giving up smoking was on April 5, 1679, when Johan Katsu, sheriff of Turku, Finland, wrote in his diary, “I quit smoking tobacco.” He died one month later.

  SHIP OF DREAMS

  Each anchor chain link on the Titanic was about 175 pounds.

  The Titanic had four engines.

  The Titanic’s radio call sign was “MGY.”

  The Titanic was running at twenty-two knots when she hit the iceberg.

  Two dogs were among the Titanic survivors.

  When the Titanic sunk, there were seventy-five hundred pounds of ham on it.

  IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS

  In 1968, a convention of beggars in Dacca, India, passed a resolution demanding that the minimum amount of alms be fixed at fifteen paisa (three cents).

  AMERICAN HISTORY 101

  More than 150 people were tried as witches and wizards in Salem, Massachusetts, in the late 1600s.

  The $8 bill was designed and printed by Benjamin Franklin for the American Colonies.

  During the American Revolution, many brides used to wear the color red instead of white as a symbol of rebellion.

  Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States in 1789.

  John Hancock was the only one of fifty signatories of the Declaration of Independence who actually signed it in July.

  The first aerial photograph was taken from a balloon during the Civil War.

  The Civil War was the first war in which news from the front was published within hours of its occurrence.

  When John Wilkes Booth leaped on to the stage after shooting President Lincoln, he tripped on the American flag.

  Robert E. Lee, of the Confederate Army, remains the only person, to date, to have graduated from the West Point military academy without a single demerit.

  Robert E. Lee wore size 4½ shoe.

  All the officers in the Confederate Army were given copies of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo to carry with them at all times. Robert E. Lee, among others, believed the book symbolized their cause. Both revolts were defeated.

  Banks first used Scotch tape to mend torn currency during the Depression.

  If a family had two or fewer servants in the United States in 1900, census takers recorded the family as lower middle class.

  In 1954, boxers and wrestlers had to swear under oath they were not Communists before they could compete in the state of Indiana.

  When Saigon fell, the signal for all Americans to evacuate was Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” being played on the radio.

  THROUGH THE YEARS

  In 1801, 20 percent of the people in the United States were slaves.

  In 1829, two sisters in the United States, Susan and Deborah, weighed 205 and 124 pounds although they were only five and three years old, respectively.

  In 1900, the third leading cause of death was diarrhea.

  In 1917, Margaret Sanger was jailed for one month for establishing the first birth control clinic.

  In 1937, yeast sales reached $20 million a year in the United States.

  IT’S THE FASHION

  Before the 1800s, there were no separately designed shoes for right and left feet.

  Any Russian man who wore a beard was required to pay a special tax during the time of Peter the Great.

  Children in the Chinook Indian tribe were strapped between boards from head to toe so they would have fashionably flat skulls.

  Evidence of shoemaking exists as early as 10000 B.C.E.

  In 1778, fashionable women of Paris never went out in blustery weather without a lightning rod attached to their hats.

  In the marriage ceremony of the ancient Inca Indians of Peru, the couple was considered officially wed when they took off their sandals and handed them to each other.

  Olive oil was used for washing the body in the ancient Mediterranean world.

  Pirates thought having an earring would improve their eyesight.

  Welsh mercenary bowmen in the medieval period only wore one shoe at a time.

  Until the Middle Ages, underwater divers near the Mediterranean coastline collected golden strands from the pen shell, which used the strands to hold itself in place. The strands were woven into a luxury textile and made into ladies’ gloves so fine that a pair could be packed into an empty walnut shell.

  In Ethiopia, both males and females of the Surma tribes shave their heads as a mark of beauty.

  A BAD DAY TO GET OUT OF BED

  The Korean War began on June 25, 1950.

  The sinking of the German vessel Wilhelm Gustloff is the greatest sea disaster of all time. Approximately eight thousand people drowned.

  In the Great Fire of London in 1666, half of London was burned down but only six people were injured.

  Influenza caused more than twenty million deaths in 1918.

  More than half a million people died as a result of the Spanish influenza epidemic.

  TGIF?

  In the nineteenth century, the British Navy attempted to dispel the superstition that Friday was an unlucky day to embark on a ship. The keel of a new ship was laid on a Friday; she was named HMS Friday, commanded by a Captain Friday, and finally went to sea on a Friday. Neither the ship nor her crew was ever heard of again.

  GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

  It has been calculated that in the last 3,500 years, there have been only 230 years of peace throughout the civilized world.

  Spain declared war on the United States in 1898.

  The Hundred Years’ War lasted 116 years.

  The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Z
anzibar surrendered after thirty-eight minutes.

  The Spanish Inquisition once condemned the entire Netherlands to death for heresy.

  Those condemned to death by the axe in medieval and Renaissance England were obliged to tip their executioner to ensure that he would complete the job in one blow. In some executions, notably that of Mary, Queen of Scots, it took fifteen whacks of the blade before the head was severed.

  To strengthen the Damascus sword, the blade was plunged into a slave.

  Oliver Cromwell was hanged and decapitated two years after his death.

  Close to seven hundred thousand land mines were dug up from the banks of the Suez Canal after the 1973 war between Egypt and Israel.

  NOBLE NOBEL

  The Nobel Prize was first awarded in 1901. It resulted from a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after his death as a propagator of violence—he invented dynamite.

  RUSSIAN ROULETTE

  Czar Paul I banished soldiers to Siberia for marching out of step.

  Russian I. M. Chisov survived a 21,980-foot plunge out of a plane with no parachute. He landed on the steep side of a snow-covered mountain.

  STUCK IN THE MIDDLE (AGES) WITH YOU

  During the Middle Ages, few people were able to read or write. The clergy were virtually the only ones who could.

  During the Middle Ages, it was widely believed that men had one less rib than women. This is because of the story in the Bible that Eve had been created out of Adam’s rib.

  Everyone believed in the Middle Ages—as Aristotle had—that the heart was the seat of intelligence.

  FIRST IN LINE

  The actors in the first English play to be performed in America were arrested, as acting was considered evil.

  Euripides was the first person on record to denounce slavery.

  Income tax was first introduced in England in 1799 by British prime minister William Pitt.

  Leif Erikson was the first European to set foot in North America, in 1000 C.E., not Columbus.

  New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote, in 1890.

  The first American in space was Alan B. Shepard Jr.

  The Wright Brothers’ first plane was called The Bird of Prey.

  Orville Wright was involved in the first aircraft accident. His passenger, a Frenchman, was killed.

  The first man ever to set foot on Antarctica was John Davis on February 7, 1821.

  The first people to arrive on Iceland were Irish explorers in 795 C.E.

  The first police force was established in Paris in 1667.

  The first telephone book ever issued contained only fifty names. It was published in New Haven, Connecticut, by the New Haven District Telephone Company, in February 1878.

  SKEWED BELIEFS

  In Puritan times, to be born on a Sunday was interpreted as a sign of great sin.

  In the 1700s in London, you could purchase insurance against going to hell.

  In Victorian times, there was an intense fear of being buried alive. So when someone died, a small hole was dug from the casket to the surface, then a string was tied around the dead person’s finger, which was then attached to a small but loud bell hung on the surface of the grave. If someone was buried alive, they could ring the bell and whoever was on duty would go and dig them up. Someone was on the duty twenty-four hours a day—hence the graveyard shift.

  Long ago, the people of Nicaragua believed that if they threw beautiful young women into a volcano it would stop erupting.

  In 1982, the last member of a group of people who believed the earth was hollow died.

  WRONGFUL DEATH

  Hrand Araklein, a Brink’s car guard, was killed when $50,000 worth of quarters fell on and crushed him.

  In 1911, Bobby Beach broke nearly all the bones in his body after surviving a barrel ride over Niagara Falls. Some time later in New Zealand, he slipped on a banana and died from the fall.

  A fierce gust of wind blew forty-five-year-old Vittorio Luise’s car into a river near Naples, Italy, in 1980. He managed to break a window, climb out, and swim to shore, where a tree blew over and killed him.

  THE NEW WORLD

  It costs more to buy a car today than it cost Christopher Columbus to equip and undertake three voyages to the New World.

  It is estimated that within twenty years of Columbus discovering the New World, the Spaniards killed off 1.5 million Native Americans.

  Native Americans never actually ate turkey; killing such a timid bird was thought to indicate laziness.

  Pilgrims ate popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner.

  NATIONAL SING-A-LONGS

  The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses.

  The national anthem of the Netherlands, “Het Wilhelmus,” is an acrostichon. The first letters of each of the fifteen verses represent the name Willem Van Nassov.

  Francis Scott Key was a young lawyer who wrote the poem “The Star Spangled Banner” after being inspired by watching the Americans fight off the British attack of Baltimore during the War of 1812. The poem became the words to the national anthem.

  The Netherlands and the United States both have anthems that do not mention their countries’ names.

  The Japanese national anthem has the oldest lyrics/text, from the ninth century, but the music is from 1880.

  ADDICTED TO YOU

  In 1865, opium was grown in the state of Virginia and a product was distilled from it that yielded 4 percent morphine. In 1867, it was grown in Tennessee; six years later it was cultivated in Kentucky. During these years, opium, marijuana, and cocaine could be purchased legally over the counter from any chemist.

  One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 1930s lobbied against hemp farmers—they saw hemp as competition. It is not chemically addictive, as is nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine.

  Nicotine was introduced by Jean Nicot (French ambassador to Portugal) in France in 1560.

  ROAM IF YOU WANT TO

  ON THE ROAD AGAIN…

  One hundred sixty cars can drive side by side on the Monumental Axis in Brazil, the world’s widest road.

  The highest motorway in England is the M62 Liverpool to Hull. At its peak, it reaches 1,221 feet above sea level over the Saddleworth Moor, the burial ground of the victims of the infamous Myra Hindley, Moors Murderer.

  Built in 1697, the Frankford Avenue Bridge, which crosses Pennypack Creek in Philadelphia, is the oldest U.S. bridge in continuous use.

  The Golden Gate Bridge was first opened in 1937.

  According to the Texas Department of Transportation, one person is killed annually painting stripes on the state’s highways and roads.

  IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME

  Construction on the Leaning Tower of Pisa began on August 9, 1173. There are 296 steps to the top.

  The Hoover Dam was built to last two thousand years. The concrete in it will not even be fully cured for another five hundred years.

  In Washington, D.C., no building can be built taller than the Washington Monument.

  The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, has five sides, five stories, and five acres in the middle.

  At one point, the Circus Maximus in Rome could hold up to 250,000 people.

  Buckingham Palace has more than six hundred rooms.

  The foundations of many great European cathedrals are as deep as forty to fifty feet.

  At one point, the Panama Canal was going to be built in Nicaragua.

  In Calcutta, 79 percent of the population lives in one-room houses.

  EI-FFEL AWFUL

  The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World’s Fair. The blueprints covered more than fourteen thousand square feet of drafting paper. The Eiffel Tower has 2.5 million rivets, and its height varies as much as six inches, depending on the temperature.

  NAME GAME

  Los Angeles’s full name is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula and can be abbreviated to 6.3 percent
of its size: L.A.

  There is a place in Norway called Hell.

  There is a resort town in New Mexico called Truth or Consequences.

  There is a town in Texas called Ding Dong.

  There is an airport in Calcutta named Dum Dum Airport.

  There was once a town named 6 in West Virginia.

  There’s a cemetery town in California called Colma; its ratio of dead to living people is 750 to 1.

  If you come from Manchester, you are a Manchurian.

  Nova Scotia is Latin for “New Scotland.”

  The abbreviation ORD for Chicago’s O’Hare Airport comes from the old name Orchard Field.

  …OR MAYBE NOT

  The slogan on New Hampshire license plates is “Live Free or Die.” These license plates are manufactured by prisoners in the state prison in Concord.

  SOME STIFF FIGURES

  If a statue of a person on a horse depicts the horse with both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

  The Sphinx at Giza in Egypt is 240 feet long and carved out of limestone. Built by Pharaoh Khafre to guard the way to his pyramid, it has a lion’s body and the ruler’s head.