The intent of this section was to display a collection of strange but true
facts. The problem I encountered is that 90% of the ones found on the internet
are either Urban Legends or just completely made up (usually very funny). I have diveded them into five categories:
my comments are in italics
The Earth's termites outweigh the Earth's humans 10 to 1.
A cockroach can live nine days without its head before it starves to death.
The Anatomy Museum of the University of Tokyo Medical School has a collection of over 100 preserved tattooed human skins.
Most lipstick contains fish scales!
Next time you drink a glass of water think about this: the hydrogen molecules
in water are 14 billion years old, they were created at the same time as the
universe.
10 percent of television 'Snow' is caused by microwave radiation from the big
bang.
Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands!
An elephant's trunk contains more than 100,000 muscles.
Baron Cuvier, a great French naturalist, estimates that the trunk
contains 40,000 muscles. The elephant trunk has only 6 major muscle groups, that are subdivided into 100,000 muscle groups.
The composer Gioacchino Rossini, probably best known for his piece "Barber
of Seville," also composed pieces with titles such as
"Anchovies", "Radishes", and "Hors d'oeuvres".
By taste, and soon by obligation, Rossini threw himself into the genre then
fashionable: opera buffa (comic opera), but I have not found the above titles
among his works.
Between the Korean and the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army obtained cadaver legs and
heads from the Baltimore medical examiner's office for field tests. Army
experimenters used the legs, dressed in Government Issue pants, socks and
boots, to test the effects of land mines. The heads were put into newly helmets
to see if they provided adequate protection during combat.
One ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen!
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigleys gum!
No piece of square dry paper can be folded more than 7 times in half!
A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a
skein!
Over 2500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for
right handed people!
There are more than 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building!
If you counted 24 hours a day, it would take 31,688 years to reach one trillion!
A crocodile always grows new teeth to replace the old teeth!
The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth!
Porcupines float in water!
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eye"!
Pino and Occhio - hmmm pretty farfetched
The average life span of a major league baseball is 5-7 pitches!
The sloth (a mammal) moves so slowly that green algae can grow undisturbed on
it's fur!
Cat's urine glows under a black-light!
The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1!
The electric chair was invented by a dentist!
Windmills always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland!
A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average!
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet
at all times!
Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks!
A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night!
Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone!
A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside!
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny!
Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it's
known as Tennessee!
The Earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons!
Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie!
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year!
One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television!
The average American/Canadian will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year!
It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a certain church in Omaha, Nebraska!
you're born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206!
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete!
7% of Americans don't know the first 9 words of the American anthem, but know
the first 7 of the Canadian
anthem!
5% of Canadians don't know the first 7 words of the Canadian anthem, but know
the first 9 of the American
anthem!
Over 10,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows!
The state of Florida is bigger than England!
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!
Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark!
Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food!
Dolphins sleep with one eye open!
The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is over 9000 years old!
In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears
can't flow!
There are more plastic flamingos in the U.S, than real ones!
About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30!
More people use blue toothbrushes, than red ones!
A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.!
Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe!
Slugs have 4 noses!
Recycling one glass jar, saves enough energy to watch T.V for 3 hours!
Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet!
Owls are one of the only birds who can see the color blue!
The average American/Canadian drinks about 600 sodas a year!
It was once against the law to slam your car door in a city in Switzerland!
There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses!
Eskimo ice cream is neither icy, or creamy!
A jellyfish is 95 percent water!
In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals!
The katydid bug hears through holes in its hind legs!
A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate!
More Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed throughout
the world!
The starfish is one of the only animals who can turn it's stomach inside-out!
The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump!
The penguin is the only bird that can swim, but not fly!
Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of
the United States!
One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!
America once issued a 5-cent bill!
You'll eat about 35,000 cookies in a lifetime! Wow!
Here are some people with strange names. (some of these specific facts have not
be verified)
Ure A. Pigg (Portland, Oregon)!
Ima Hogg (Houston, Texas)!
Ima June Bugg (Chicago, IL)!
Eura Fisch (Charlotte N.C)!
Ima Fisch (Charlotte N.C)!
menna pause (Indianapolis,indiana!
Serious Misconduct (Welwyn, England)!
General Error (Pueblo, Colorado)!
Dr. Safety First (Tulsa, Oklahoma)!
Pearl Harbor (Birmingham, Alabama)!
Honor Roll (Birmingham, Alabama)!
E. Pluribus Eubanks (San Francisco, CA)!
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different!
Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool! He changed it
every 2 innings!
Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung!
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave!
The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head!
In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs!
There are over 58 million dogs in the U.S!
In 1993 there were an estimated 64 million cats in the United States.
Dogs and cats consume over $11 billion worth of pet food a year!
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!
You blink over 10,000,000 times a year!
Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day!
In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word!
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!
The blesbok, a South African antelope, is almost the same color as grapejuice!
The average person laughs 13 times a day!
In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons.
In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees.
In 1997 Bob Levey survey for the Washington Post corporate executives listed
odd behavior at job interviews:
Eating a bag lunch
Removing footwear and applying powder
Listening to a Walkman
Blowing bubbles with bubble gum
Bringing a large dog
Taking a Polaroid picture of the interviewer
Refusing to leave at the end of the interview unless hired.
Very probable, but hard to prove.
In 1997 a bus driver in Zimbabwe was transporting 20 mental patients to a
nearby hospital. He stopped for a drink at an illegal roadside bar. When he
returned he found them gone. Not to be dismayed he offered 20 other people a
ride and took them to the hospital instead. It took the hospital 3 days to
discover what he had done.
In 1997 the toy maker Mattel Inc. had to withdraw it Cabbage Patch Snacktime
Kids dolls when the doll started to "eat" kids hair and fingers. The
doll had no power switch and had to be disassembled to release the captured
hair and fingers. Mattel gave $40 for each returned doll and luckily no child
was injured. Disappointed possibly but not injured.
A polar bear's skin is black. Its fur is not white, but actually clear.
Brad Pitt's middle name is "Arm"
The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is
necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had
segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
I don't think they would double the number of bathrooms even if they had to
segregate, but in any case there are 284 bathrooms – one for every 81
people.
Cat's urine glows under a black light.
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body.
The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
Tokyo has had 24 recorded instances of people either killed or receiving
serious skull fractures while bowing to each other with the traditional
Japanese greeting.
4 Pope's have died during sex. Leo VII (936-9) died of a heart attack, John
VII (955-64) was bludgeoned to death by the husband of the woman he was with at
the time. John XIII (965-72) was also murdered by a jealous husband. Last and
most surprising was Pope Paul II (1467-71) who allegedly died whilst being
sodomized by a page boy.
During a freak heatwave in Romania, Aug. 1994 two consecutive days of high
temperature caused multiple incidents of recently deceased corpses exploding.
Until the 1950's it was rare for coffins to be made to measure. If you were too
tall for your box, the undertaker would normally break both ankles and bend
your feet back.
The Sanskrit word for war translates as "wanting more cows"
In Lebanon it is legal to have sex with a female animal, but illegal with a
male one.
To make all the guys out there feel insignificant, an elephant has an erection
of about 5-6 feet.
To make you feel better a male gorilla can't even manage two inches fully erect.
In the USA there is a law against sending buildings by mail. A man posted a
40,000 ton brick house across the state of Utah in 1916.
In the 1700's you could purchase insurance against going to hell, in London
England.
Dueling is illegal in Uruguay unless both participants are registered blood
donors then it is encouraged.
It is illegal to own a dog in Reykjavik.
The Boston University Bridge, on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, is
one of the few places in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving
under a car driving under an airplane.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, dogs only have about ten.
David Prowse, was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of
Vader's lines, and didn't know that he was going to be dubbed over by James
Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.
Montpelier, Vermont is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonald's.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory
workers in Malaysia combined.
In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only 6
people were injured. (actually five-sixths of the City were consumed but there
were a few human casualties – see the other column for the true facts)
One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today because cotton growers in the
30's lobbied against hemp farmers-they saw it as competition.
I believe this but cannot find much on it.
The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
Did you know that you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by
a poisonous spider?
The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
Polar bears are left-handed.
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
Can anyone come up with the proof ?
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
Eggplant requires a warm climate and is grown extensively in eastern and
southern Asia and in the United States. It is native to southern and eastern
Asia, where it has been cultivated since remote antiquity for its fleshy fruit.
All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of
the $5 bill.
On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper left-hand corner
of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a spider hidden in
the front upper right-hand corner.
On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament Building is
an American flag.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
I found: born Nov. 30, 1874, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
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."
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a
chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
There is some truth here: in 1946 Dr. Percy Spencer, a self-taught engineer
with the Raytheon Corporation was testing a new vacuum tube called a magnetron
when they say he realized the chocolate bar in his pocket had melted (some say
it was on his desk).
In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their
eyebrows and eyelashes.
The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and
always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
The flea can jump 350 times its body length, that is like a human jumping the
length of 7 football fields.
101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan are the only two Disney cartoon features with both
parents that are present and don't die throughout the movie.
12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily. That's one every two
hours.
315 entries in Webster's Dictionary are misspelled.
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
Oxford English Dictionary and ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA say nothing of the
sort
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can.
A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat
evaporates before a person realizes it's there, though!
A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average.
A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.
A jellyfish is 95 percent water.
A jumbo jet uses 4,000 gallons of fuel to take off.
A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night.
A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million parts of water.
The Todas in southern India don't greet each other with a handshake, they thumb
their noses...
I found this: Polyandry is fairly common; several men, usually brothers, may
share one wife. When a Toda woman becomes pregnant one of her husbands
ceremonially presents her with a toy bow and arrow, thus proclaiming himself
the social father of her children. ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA. But nothing
about the greeting.
A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans.
Alaska could hold the 21 smallest States.
Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn
up after surgery.
All porcupines float in water.
America once issued a 5-cent bill.
An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it.
Ants stretch when they wake up in the morning.
Assuming Rudolph was in front, there are 40,320 ways to arrange the other eight
reindeer.
Can anyone come up with the proof ?
At one time in Holland it took four years to train to be a hatmaker but only
three years to train to be a surgeon...
Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
Before Prohibition, Shlitz Brewery owned more property in Chicago than anyone
else, except the Catholic church.
Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City, after the
Catholic Church.
Camel's milk does not curdle.
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without
killing them use to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get
fired."
Dogs and humans are the only animals with prostates.
Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards and are on the Australian coat of arms
for that reason.
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than for the US Treasury.
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.
Honeybees have hair on their eyes.
Hot water is heavier than cold.
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their
hands.
Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
The Italians were the first used forks in the 11th century because they wanted
to avoid staining their fingers with certain fruit. It soon spread to other
countries and by the 1600s it was introduced to England when Elizabeth I was
given a fork as a gift. She liked it so much that copies made in gold, coral
and crystal. The three pronged fork made its entrance in the 19th century while
the four prong fork is less than a hundred years old.
On Elvis Presley
Elvis had a twin brother named Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis'
middle name was spelled Aron; in honor of his dead brother. (possibly)
When he was eleven, Gladys, his mother, bought him a thirteen dollar guitar...
And when he was thirteen, she bought him an eleven dollar guitar.
Elvis didn't want to sing in the movies... More than anything else, Elvis
wanted to be a movie actor.
Elvis made thirty movies... They all made money.
"A Presely picture is the only sure thing in showbusiness" Hal
Willis, Movie Producer
In Madagascar it is illegal for pregnant women to wear hats or eat eels.
Men wear buttons on their sleeves because, during the time of Napoleon, the
solders would wipe their runny noses on their jackets. He thus
ordered all jackets to have buttons on the sleeves to discourage this habit.
Napoleon lost many of his troops because their uniforms had metal buttons. In
the Russian cold these buttons broke and the soldiers could
not close their jackets.
If a park statue of a person riding a horse has both front legs in the air, the
person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air, the
person died of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the
ground, the person died of natural causes.
The match came after the cigarette lighter.
In Columbia, South Carolina the local cable channel temporally used a local
aquarium to fill an empty channel, until their science fiction
channel came online. When they put the sci-fi channel online, the outcry was so
loud, they put the aquarium on another channel and ran it 14
hours a day.
In a deck of cards the symbols represents great kings:
Diamonds-Julius Caesar (never crowned),
Clubs-Alexander the Great (thought he was Zeus' son),
Spade-King David (paid for his indiscretions with Bathsheba)
Hearts-Charlemagne (tried to force everyone to follow his beliefs at the point
of a sword)
In 1993 the Soccer fans in a Bolivian village Ixiamas became so elated by their
3-1 victory in a World Cup qualifying game that they didn't notice that their
home were on fire. When all was said and done 40 homes were burned from the
sparks of the fireworks they were igniting.
The Nile River flows North. Almost all the Earth's rivers flow in a southern
direction.
The word Yucatan means "what did you say" in Mayan. The natives could
not understand the questions of the early Spanish and responded
with this phrase. Thus this region of Mexico was named Yucatan.
Patagonia means "big foot" in Spanish. Early Spanish explorers saw
the large snow shoes left by the natives and thought the people in this
region must have had big feet.
Sleeping Beauty.
A beautiful tale in which they all live happily ever after. Or do they?
In 1697, a French author named Charles Perrault published a classic book titled
Tales of Times Passed. Today the book is better known as Mother Goose Tales.
Seven of its eight tales have become classics for children. I'm sure that you
know some of these: "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood" (Sleeping
Beauty), "Little
Red Riding Hood", "Blue Beard", "The Master Cat: or Puss in
Boots", "Diamonds and Toads", and "Cinderella".
Perrault, however, did not write any of these stories. They were all
re-workings of stories passed from one generation to the next. These stories
were actually very cruel and downright nasty in their original form. Perrault
simply cleaned them up and let everyone live happily ever after.
The earliest known written version of Sleeping Beauty was actually published 61
years earlier by an Italian named Giambattista Basile.
Here is how the story was originally told:
A great king was forewarned by some wise (old?) men that his newborn daughter
named Talia was in great danger. It seems that a poison splinter was in the
palace's flax, and it would destroy her. The king immediately ordered a ban on
flax inside the palace walls. But, as all great fairy tales go, Talia somehow
encountered a flax-spinning wheel and got that nasty splinter in her finger.
What happened?
Talia dropped dead.
As a result, King Dad placed his daughter's body on a velvet cloth, locked the
palace gates, and left the forrest forever and ever. Enter the great nobleman,
who turned out not to be so noble. While hunting in the woods one day, he just
happened to stumble on the abandoned palace and Talia's dead body. One would
think he kissed her at this point, but no such thing happened.Instead, he raped
her. He planted the noble seed and nine months later Talia gave birth to twins,
a boy and a girl. Their names were Sun and Moon (which is the boy and which is
the girl?) and the fairies took care of them. One day, the boy was sucking on
mom's finger and sucked out the poisonous flax splinter. Talia awoke from her
death bed. Many months go by and the horny young nobleman returns to the woods
to have another encounter with the princess. To his surprise, he found her
alive and well. He confesses that he is the father of her children andthey
enjoy a hot weekend fling in the hay (Would you have a love affair with your
rapist?).
The nobleman then returns home to his wife. Somehow she learns about his
illegitimate children. The wife orders the capture of the children. Her cook is
then told to slash their young throats and to cook a hash with their flesh. At
dinner that night, the wife gleefully watches her husband eat his meal. When he
has finished, she announces "You are eating what is your own!". We
can be sure that the nobleman did not feel too well at that moment. But then,
he did rape a dead woman, so he deserves a little suffering. But all fairy
tales must have a happy ending, so check out this one:
It turns out that the cook had a soft heart and never slaughtered the children.
Instead, goat meat wassubstituted. The enraged wife ordered the capture of
Talia and that she be burned at the stake. But she was saved from death by her
rapist and they lived happily ever after.
Possibly a true story by Steve Silverman.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough
sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television were:
Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
Coca-Cola was originally green.
I found this: The drink Coca-Cola was originated in 1886 by an Atlanta
pharmacist, John S. Pemberton (1831-88), at his Pemberton Chemical Company; his
bookkeeper, Frank Robinson, chose the name for the drink and penned it in the
flowing script that became the Coca-Cola trademark. Pemberton originally touted
his drink as a tonic for most common ailments, basing it on cocaine from the
coca leaf and caffeine-rich extracts of the kola nut. (The cocaine was removed
from Coca-Cola's formula in 1905.
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.
The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.
Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.
The city with the most Rolls Royce's per capita: Hong Kong.
The state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska.
Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%.
Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%.
Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400.
Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
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 years later.
The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in The
South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber
machine ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the
fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the
whole 9 yards."
Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks
like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which
stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
The "rule of thumb" story is an of revisionist history that feminists
happily fell into believing. It reinforces their perspective on society, and
they tell it as a way of winning converts to their angry creed.
As it is told in the opening essay in one of the most popular textbooks in
women's studies, Women: A Feminist Perspective, "The popular expression
'rule of thumb' originated from English common law, which allowed a husband to
beat his wife with a whip or stick no bigger in diameter than his thumb. The
husband's prerogative was incorporated into American law. Several states had
statutes that essentially allowed a man to beat his wife without interference
from the courts."
The story is supposed to bring home to students the realization that they have
been born into a system that tolerates violence against women. Sheila Kuehl,
the feminist legal activist who had played a central role in launching the
"Abuse Bowl" hoax, appeared on CNN's "Sonya Live" months
after the incident, holding forth on the supposed history of the rule and
acclaiming the New Feminists for finally striking back: "I think we're
undoing thousands and thousands of years of human history. You know the phrase
'rule of thumb' that everybody thinks is the standard measure of everything? It
was a law in England that said you could beat your wife with a stick as long as
it was no thicker ... than your thumb."
Columnists and journalists writing about domestic violence were quick to pick
up on the anecdote. The colloquial phrase "rule of thumb" is
supposedly derived from the ancient right of a husband to discipline his wife
with a rod "no thicker than his thumb." (Time magazine, September 5,
1983)
A husband's right to beat his wife is included in Blackstone's 1768
codification of the common law. Husbands had the right to "physically
chastise" an errant wife so long as the stick was no bigger than their
thumb - the so-called "rule of thumb." (Washington Post, January 3,
1989)
Violence against women does not have to be the rule of thumb - an idiom from an
old English law that said a man could beat his wife if the stick was no thicker
than his thumb. (Atlanta Constitution, April 22, 1993)
The "rule of thumb," however, turns out to be an excellent example of
what may be called a feminist fiction. It is not to be found in William
Blackstone's treatise on English common law. On the contrary, British law since
the 1700s and our American laws predating the Revolution prohibit wife beating,
though there have been periods and places in which the prohibition was only
indifferently enforced.
That the phrase did not even originate in legal practice could have been
ascertained by any fact-checker who took the trouble to look it up in the
Oxford English Dictionary, which notes that the term has been used
metaphorically for at least three hundred years to refer to any method of
measurement or technique of estimation derived from experience rather than
science.
According to Canadian folklorist Philip Hiscock, "The real explanation of
'rule of thumb' is that it derives from wood workers ... who knew their trade
so well they rarely or never fell back on the use of such things as rulers.
Instead, they would measure things by, for example, the length of their
thumbs."
From Who Stole Feminism? - Christina Hoff Sommers, (Simon & Schuster, New York
1994)
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be
straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or
other emergencies.
The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for
Each gallon of diesel that it burns.
No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a
Superbowl.
The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games
(MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League
all-stars Game.
How about this.... The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosy is a rhyme about the
plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores
("Ring around the rosy..."), these sores would smell very badly so
common folks would put flowers on their bodies somewhere (inconspicuously),
so that it would cover the smell of the sores ("...a pocket full of
posies..."), People who died from the plague would be burned so as to
reduce the possible spread of the disease ("...ashes, ashes, we all fall
down!")
Q. What occurs more often in December than any other month?
A. Conception.
Q. What separates "60 Minutes," on CBS from every other TV show?
A. No theme song.
Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. Their birthplace.
Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name
requested?
A. Obsession
Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you
would find the letter "A"?
A. One thousand
Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser
printers all have in common?
A. All invented by women.
Q. This is the only food that doesn't spoil.
A. Honey
Q. There are more collect calls on this day than any other day of the year.
A. Father's Day
Q. What trivia fact about Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) is the most ironic?
A. He was allergic to carrots.
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BILL CLINTON'S FRIEND?
The following is a list of dead people connected to Bill Clinton:
JAMES MCDOUGAL - Clinton's convicted Whitewater partner died of an apparent
heart
attack, while in solitary confinement. He was a key witness in Ken Starr's
investigation.
MARY MAHONEY - A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a
Starbucks Coffee
Shop in Georgetown. The murder happened just after she was to go public with
her story of
sexual harassment in the White House.
VINCE FOSTER - Former White House counselor, and colleague of Hillary Clinton
at Little
Rock's Rose law firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide.
RON BROWN - Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman. Reported to have
died by
impact in a plane crash. A pathologist close to the investigation reported that
there was
a hole in the top of Brown's skull resembling a gunshot wound. At the time of
his death
Brown was being investigated, and spoke publicly of his willingness to cut a
deal with
prosecutors.
C. VICTOR RAISER II & MONTGOMERY RAISER - Major players in the Clinton fund
raising
organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992.
PAUL TULLEY - Democratic National Committee Political Director found dead in a
hotel
room in Little Rock, September 1992. Described by Clinton as a "dear
friend and
trusted advisor".
ED WILLEY - Clinton fund raiser, found dead November 1993 deep in the woods in
Virginia
of a gunshot would to the head. Ruled a suicide. Died on the same day his wife
Kathleen
Willey claimed Bill Clinton groped her in the oval office in the White House.
Ed Willey
was involved in several Clinton fund raising events.
JERRY PARKS - Head of Clinton's gubernatorial security team in Little Rock.
Gunned down
in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock. Park's son said his
father was
building a dossier on Clinton. He allegedly threatened to reveal this
information. After
he died the files were mysteriously removed from his house.
JAMES BUNCH - Died from a gunshot suicide. It was reported that he had a
"Black
Book" of people containing names of influential people who visited
prostitutes in
Texas and Arkansas.
JAMES WILSON - Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging suicide. He
was
reported to have ties to Whitewater.
KATHY FERGUSON - Ex-wife of Arkansas trooper Danny Ferguson died in May 1994
was found
dead in her living room with a gunshot to her head. It was ruled a
suicide
even though there were several packed suitcases, as if she was going somewhere.
Danny
Ferguson was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones lawsuit.
Kathy
Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.
BILL SHELTON - Arkansas state trooper and fiancee of Kathy Ferguson. Critical
of the
suicide ruling of his fiancée, he was found dead in June 1994 of a gunshot
wound also
ruled a suicide at the grave site of his fiancée.
GANDY BAUGH - Attorney for Clinton friend Dan Lassater died by jumping out a
window of
a tall building January 1994. His client was a convicted drug distributor.
FLORENCE MARTIN - Accountant sub-contractor for the CIA related to the Barry
Seal Mena
Airport drug smuggling case. Died of three gunshot wounds.
SUZANNE COLEMAN - Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was Arkansas
Attorney
General. Died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a suicide. Was
pregnant at
the time of her death.
PAULA GROBER - Clinton's speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978 until her
death
December 9, 1992. She died in a one car accident.
DANNY CASOLARO - Investigative reporter. Investigating Mena Airport and Arkansas
Development Finance Authority. He slit his wrists, apparent suicide in the
middle of his
investigation.
PAUL WILCHER - Attorney investigating corruption at Mena Airport with Casolaro
and the
1980 "October Surprise" was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993 in
his
Washington D.C. apartment. Had delivered a report to Janet Reno three weeks
before his
death.
JON PARNELL WALKER - Whitewater investigator for Resolution Trust Corp. Jumped
to his
death from his Arlington, VA apartment balcony August 15, 1993 was
investigating Morgan
Guarantee scandal.
BARBARA WISE - Commerce Department staffer. Worked closely with Ron Brown and
John
Huang. Cause of death unknown. Died November 29, 1996. Her bruised nude body
was found
locked in her office at the Department of Commerce.
CHARLES MEISSNER - Assistant Secretary of Commerce who gave Jon Huang special
security
clearance, died shortly thereafter in a small plane crash.
DR. STANLEY HEARD - Chairman of the National Chiropractic Health Care Advisory
Committee died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash. Dr.
Heard, in
addition to serving on Clinton's advisory council personally treated Clinton's
mother,
stepfather and brother.
BARRY SEAL - Drug running pilot out of Mena Arkansas, death was no accident.
JOHNNY LAWHORN JR. - Mechanic, found a check made out to Clinton in the trunk
of a car
left in his repair shop. Died when his car hit a utility pole.
STANLEY HUGGINS - Suicide. Investigated Madison Guarantee. His report was never
released.
HERSHELL FRIDAY - Attorney and Clinton fund raiser died march 1, 1994 when his
plane
exploded.
KEVIN IVES & DON HENRY - Known as "The Boys on the Track" case.
Reports
say the boys may have stumbled upon the Mena Arkansas airport drug operation.
Controversial case where initial report of death was due to falling asleep on
railroad
track. Later reports claim the two boys had been slain before being placed on
the tracks.
Many linked to the case died before their testimony could come before a grand
jury.
THE FOLLOWING SIX PERSONS HAD INFORMATION
ON THE IVES / HENRY CASE:
KEITH CONEY - Died when his motorcycle slammed into the back of a truck July
1998.
KEITH MCMASKLE - Died, stabbed 113 times, November 1988.
GREGORY COLLINS - Died from a gunshot wound January 1989.
JEFF RHODES - He was shot, mutilated and found burned in a trash dump in April
1989.
JAMES MILAN - Found decapitated. Coroner ruled death due to natural causes.
JORDAN KETTLESON - Was found shot to death in the front seat of his pickup
truck in June
1990.
RICHARD WINTERS - Was a suspect in the IVES/HENRY deaths. Was killed in a
set-up robbery
July 1989.
THE FOLLOWING CLINTON BODYGUARDS ARE DEAD:
MJR. WILLIAM
S.
BARKLEY, JR.
CAPT. SCOTT
J. REYNOLDS
SGT. BRIAN
HANLEY
SGT. TIM
SABEL
MJR. GEN.
WILLIAM
ROBERTSON
COL. WILLIAM
DENSBERGER
COL. ROBERT
KELLY
SPEC. GARY
RHODES
STEVE WILLIS
ROBERT
WILLIAMS
CONWAY LEBLEU
TODD MCKEEHAN
Turkey's will drown if left in the rain. They tend to hold their head up to the
rain.
A chicken once flew thirteen seconds, which is a record for them.