Read Uncle John’s Did You Know? Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Uncle John’s Did You Know? (18 page)
• It takes 25% less energy to create paper and glass from recycled materials than from new materials.
• A glass bottle can be recycled an unlimited number of times.
• Every day, American businesses use enough paper to circle the Earth over 20 times.
• Every ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, 4,000 kilowatts of energy, and 7,000 gallons of water.
• 84% of all household waste can be recycled.
• Americans recycle less than 15% of their trash.
•
Stannous fluoride
, the cavity fighter found in toothpaste, is made from recycled tin.
• The amount of aluminum that Americans throw out in three months is enough to rebuild 100% of America’s commercial airplanes.
• In 1690 the Massachusetts Bay Colony issued the first paper money in the American colonies.
• A portrait of Sioux chief Running Antelope appeared on the 1899 $5 silver certificate. It’s the only time a Native American has appeared on U.S. paper currency.
• The American bison was pictured on a 1901 U.S. dollar, which was nicknamed “the buffalo bill.”
• The four main crops of early America—corn, cotton, wheat, and tobacco—all appear on U.S. money.
• The Secret Service was established in 1860. Their original purpose? To combat counterfeiting.
•
E Pluribus Unum
—the motto inscribed on all U.S. coins—was first used in 1795 on the $5 gold piece. It means “one from many.”
• First coins produced by the U.S. Mint: 11,178 copper cents in 1793. Value: $111.78, of course.
• The map of Europe portrayed on the 1998 Italian 1,000-lira coin contained four mistakes.
• The only piece of U.S. paper currency to ever have a portrait of a woman was an 1886 $1 silver certificate. The woman: Martha Washington.
• India’s State Bank has the most outlets of any bank in the world, with 12,704 locations.
• Check it out: 64% of all retail prices end in the number nine.
• The first known check was written in Europe in the 1650s.
• In 600 B.C. China, one type of coin was called an “ant nose.” Why? It was just the right size to plug up dead people’s noses—and keep ants out.
• Five-cent coins are called “nickels” because they’re made of…you guessed it…nickel. When was a nickel not a nickel? During World War II—they were made with other metals because of nickel shortages.
• Before credit cards became so common, people used to pay for things COD—cash on delivery.
• In 2006 the second-richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, donated two-thirds of his wealth (about $30 billion) to the charitable foundation run by the first-richest man in the world, Bill Gates.
• An easy way to check if you’ve got a counterfeit bill: Feed it into a vending machine. The government uses magnetic ink; the machine checks for magnetism.
• The word “cash” originally referred to a money box.
• The first credit card, issued in 1950, was a Diners Club card. The man who had the idea in the first place thought it was just a fad and sold his shares in the company for around $200,000.
• 1896: 241 athletes from 14 countries participated in the first modern Olympics in Athens, Greece. All of them were male.
• 2004: Athens again, but this time 10,625 athletes (6,296 male and 4,329 female) from 202 countries competed.
• A legendary Hawaiian surfer named Duke Kahanamoku won five medals—three of them gold—for swimming at four different Olympics. In his last Olympics, in 1924, he came in second to Johnny Weissmuller, who went on to star in 12 Tarzan movies.
• The five rings on the Olympic flag represent the five continents that participated in the first modern Games.
• Gymnast Olga Korbut of the Soviet Union was 14 years old when she scored the first perfect 10 in 1976.
• The first modern Olympic Winter Games were held in 1924 in Chamonix (sha-mo-NEE), France.
• The official Olympic motto is
Citius Altius Fortius
. That’s Latin for “faster, higher, stronger.”
• Lighting the flame at ancient Olympia and relaying the torch to the Olympic stadium was introduced in 1936 at the Berlin Games. The reason: to glorify Hitler’s Third Reich.
Astounding words and phrases that read the same backward and forward
.
• Aha!
• Toot!
• No, Jon.
• Pa’s a sap.
• Sir, I’m Iris.
• Dennis sinned.
• Roy, am I mayor?
• Enid and Edna dine.
• Harass selfless Sarah.
• Delia and Edna ailed.
• Ah, Satan sees Natasha.
• Dennis and Edna sinned.
• Won’t lovers revolt now?
• Yawn a more Roman way.
• Nurse, I spy gypsies. Run!
• Max, I stay away at six a.m.
• Did Dean aid Diana? Ed did.
• Revenge, my baby Meg? Never!
• Oh, who was it I saw? Oh, who?
• Bob: “Did Anna peep?” Anna: “Did Bob?”
• Dennis, no misfit can act if Simon sinned.
• Yo! Bottoms up! U.S. motto, boy!
• I moan, “Live on, O evil Naomi!”
• Did Hannah say as Hannah did?
• “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” and “The Alphabet Song” all have the same melody—originally from a French folk song.
• Popular country singer Dolly Parton released her first record, “Puppy Love,” on March 20, 1959. She was 13 years old.
• When Congolese musician Fidele Babindamana performed in France with the stage name “Fidele Zizi,” everyone laughed. Why? In French, “Fidèle Zizi” means “faithful wee-wee.”
• Elvis Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was quite a wheeler-dealer. In addition to grabbing an estimated 50% to 75% of Elvis’s income, he sold both “I Love Elvis” and “I Hate Elvis” buttons.
• Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday,” voted the most popular song of the 20th century, was originally called “Scrambled Eggs.” The opening line: “Scrambled eggs / Oh baby, how I love your legs.”
• “Happy Birthday” was the first song ever performed in outer space. The
Apollo IX
astronauts sang it on March 8, 1969.
• “Over the Rainbow,” the song Judy Garland sings in
The Wizard of Oz
, was ranked #1 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Greatest Songs in American Films.
Bottoms up! Here are some fascinating facts about the world’s favorite beverages
.
• Early soft drinks came in bottles. What was the first soda in a can? Clicquot Club ginger ale, in 1938.
• Every year, Dunkin’ Donuts serves an estimated 650 million cups of coffee.
• Some experimental versions of 7UP, sold outside the United States: 7UP Mint, 7UP Raspberry, and 7UP Ice (which left a cool sensation in the mouth).
• Budweiser beer is named for a town in the Czech Republic.
• Pepsi central: Pikeville, Kentucky (population 6,500) consumes the most Pepsi per capita of any American city.
• In what country do people drink the most coffee per day? Norway.
• Australians gulp down an average of 25 gallons of soda per person every year.
• Ground-up acorns were used as a coffee substitute during the Civil War.
• Sounds weird, but it’s true: A magnitude 6.0 earthquake is 10 times greater than a 5.0 earthquake.
• 500,000 earthquakes occur in the world every year. Humans can feel only about 100,000 of them, and of those only 100 cause damage to buildings or property.
• In a 2001 experiment to see if they could create an earthquake, one million British schoolchildren jumped up and down in unison for a minute. (It didn’t work.)
• Where was the strongest earthquake in American history? Probably not where you’d think. It took place in Tennessee in the winter of 1811. The quake created tidal waves on the Mississippi River and caused church bells to ring in Boston, Massachusetts…almost 1,000 miles away.
• Florida and North Dakota have the fewest earthquakes in the U.S.; Alaska has the most—as many as 4,000 a year.
• The deadliest earthquake on record—estimated at 8.0 on the Richter scale—killed approximately 830,000 people in China in 1556.
• There are more than 1,500 earthquakes a year in Japan.
• A few days before an earthquake destroyed the ancient city of Helice in 373 B.C., worms, snakes, and weasels abandoned the city for safer ground.
• The largest ocean carnivore is the sperm whale. Adult males can grow up to 60 feet long and weigh 80,000 pounds.
• When you think of a starfish, you think of a creature with 5 arms—but a basket starfish can have 50 arms or even more!
• Count ’em: A lobster has 10 legs.
• Sperm whales eat about a ton of food a day. Their favorite? Squid.
• Jellyfish have been around for a very long time. They appeared in the oceans about 650 million years ago,
before the dinosaurs
.
• Sea horses lay up to 400 eggs at a time.
• Giant tube worms can grow up to eight feet long. They live inside hard, protective, shell-like tubes that attach to rocks.
• Home Sweet Home: In order to mate and lay eggs, sea turtles will migrate thousands of miles to return to the same beach where they hatched.
• Look! A giant squid’s eye measures 15 inches across.
• How big are blue whales? Picture a whale that’s as long as three Greyhound buses and weighs as much as 30 elephants. That’s big.
• A shrimp’s heart is located in its head.
• A sperm whale’s largest teeth are an awesome 11 inches long—roughly as long as a human’s forearm.
• The bodies of jellyfish are made up of 95% water. They have no bones or cartilage, no hearts or blood, and no brains.
• A dolphin sleeps with one half of its brain at a time, and with one eye closed.
• Orcas, the largest members of the dolphin family, have the second-largest brains in the animal kingdom. Who’s got the
largest
? The sperm whale—with a brain that can weigh in at 20 pounds.