Paula Poundstone once observed that Canada is like an attic.  Everyone ignores it until someone pops their head up there and says, "Gee, look at all the neat stuff up here."

If Barbie (who is 45 this year) were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall.

Franklin Pierce was the first U.S. President to have a Christmas tree in the White House.

Peter Falk, who celebrated his 80th birthday on Sept. 16, 2007, made 65 episodes of Columbo over a period of 32 years. The show and subsequent movies are still broadcast all over the world, translated into many languages. Bobbi's article about buying Peter Falk a jockstrap for a play she stage-managed in New York in 1955 has been sold to many magazines and newspapers over the years.  Falk wrote an autobiography, Just One More Thing, in 2006, in which he recounts many episodes in his life as an actor, but not the jockstrap incident!

Former U.S. President James Garfield could write with both hands at the same time, and in two different languages!

More than 2,700 different languages are spoken around the world.  

The English language has close to 540,000 words, about five times as many as existed in Shakespeare's time. But some of the words we use frequently today were invented by Shakespeare. 

The oldest word in the English language is "town". 

The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.

The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."  (a e i o u)

"Typewriter" is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

Only four words in the English language end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters mt".

"Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and "lollipop" with your right.

A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

Mandarin is the oldest and most widely-spoken language in the world.

China has 200 million students. Most of them are learning English.

“Eggcorns” is the term coined by Mark Liberman, Univ. of Pennsylvania linguist. He describes this as the confluence of creativity or logic with misunderstanding the meaning of the words in the phrase. Chris Waigi's Eggcorn Databse, www.eggcorns.lascribe.net
includes such gems as: without further adieu, wet your appetite, stark raven mad, girdle one's loins, insectuous, flaw in the ointment, spurt of the moment, financial heartship, zero-sum gain, works like a champ, and take with a grain assault.

By election day in 2008, the U.S. will be close to $10 trillion in debt. Most of this is owed to countries like China and India.

Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.

The Hawaiian alphabet only contains 12 letters.

A group of owls is called a parliament.

The first novel ever written on a typewriter was Tom Sawyer.

Using Xs at the end of a letter for kisses started in the Middle Ages when people couldn't write and used crosses as signatures.

EPONYMS are words originating from the names of people. Some examples include:          bougainvillea - Louis Bougainville; dunce - John Duns Scotus; guppy - Robert Guppy;          hooligan - Patrick Hooligan; jacuzzi - Candido Jacuzzi; praline - Count Plessis-Praslin;         melba toast - soprano Nellie Melba; peach melba - Nellie Melba

Fortune cookies were invented in 1916 by George Jung, a Los Angeles noodle maker.

In 1892, Italy raised the minimum age for marriage for girls to 12. 

During his entire lifetime, Herman Melville's timeless classic, Moby Dick, sold only 3,715 copies.

Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham because the editor bet him he could not write a book with fewer than fifty words.

A single chocolate chip provides enough energy to a human being to walk 150 feet.

James Spratt, an Ohio electrician, who had gone to England to sell lightning rods in 1860,  saw British dogs being fed old ship biscuits, and thought he could make a better biscuit. His formulation, based on guesswork, not science, succeeded and he soon had a thriving business among English gentlemen who owned sporting dogs. In 1890 the company went public and came to the US. Thus, an American lightning rod salesman started the entire pet food business.  (written by Barbara Moss,  www.barbcat.myweb.com/myweb/)

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

The pupil of the eye dilates as much as 45% when a person looks at something pleasing.

There are 292 ways to make change for a dollar.

A Greek poet named Archilochus defined two types of thinkers: foxes and hedgehogs.
"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Foxes look at the world as individual pieces, while hedgehogs tend to see the whole. Foxes break every problem down into separate components, while hedgehogs look for universal ideas.

It is claimed that the Greek scholar, Palamedes, invented the “set-up” joke, numbers, the alphabet, lighthouses, dice, and the practice of eating meals at regular intervals.

The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels.  This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.

Many animals have what appear to be human-like impulses in their brain's higher centers. Researchers have identified seven basic emotional drives common to both humans and mammals in sections of the mid-brain called the PAG (periaqueductal gray). These include basic emotions, such as fear, rage, lust, and separation-distress, but also the desire to nurture and be nurtured, the drive to play, grief, despair, sadness, and joy. Some examples include elephants, who keep vigil over the dead, and have been known to collect the scattered bones of the dead family and friends.

Some grey parrots are as smart as a five-year-old child. A grey parrot who shares a birthday with Terzo (Simon Teakettle III) is Mrs. Doyle. Read about her on Terzo's blog.

On average, a 4-year-old child asks 437 questions a day. Cats and grey parrots probably have just as many questions, but can't find the words to express them!

The average person has more than 1,460 dreams every year. Animals also dream, although it's hard to tell what these contain. Simon II (Tiki), however, was a rescued feral kitten, and often had dreams that disturbed his sleep sufficiently to cause him to twitch as if he was trying to escape from something frightening. Terzo's naps, on the other hand, are always tranquil.

When an orange is shown in any of the "Godfather" movies, this means that someone is about to die or a close call is to occur.

The brand name Jelly Belly was created in 1982 after Nancy Reagan made a much-publicized quip about her husband's 20-pound weight gain.

The first novel ever written on a typewriter was Tom Sawyer.

During his entire lifetime, Herman Melville's timeless classic, Moby Dick, sold only 3,715 copies.

Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham because the editor bet him he could not write a book with fewer than fifty words.

The "heads" picture on a U.S. penny weighs just a fraction more than the "tails" side, so if you're making a bet on a penny toss, your odds are better if you call for "tails" because the "heads" side is more likely to end up on the bottom.

Hummingbirds are the only birds able to fly backwards.

Les Paul invented the 8-track, the modified electric guitar, and over-dubbing. As a kid, he punched extra holes in his mother's piano rolls and covered existing holes, just to see how it would sound. Like many geniuses, he dropped out of high school. Always open to new ideas, was playing in a country band on the radio in Chicago while spending evenings at jazz clubs. He was the first to play the guitar beyond the third fret. Other guitar players thought he was crazy until they heard the sound he was able to produce. His use of a tape recorder was the result of an auto accident which damaged his right arm. Invention often comes out of adversity.

The first email was sent out by Ray Tomlinson in 1971.

Procter & Gamble is the largest advertiser in North America.

The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.

In 1913, Thomas L. Williams mixed Vaseline and coal dust for his sister, Mabel. It became the first cake mascara for his new company, Maybelline.

Coca-Cola used "Good to the last drop" as its slogan in 1908. This famous line was later adopted by Maxwell House Coffee. 

Coupons were introduced in 1894 when Asa Candler bought the Coca-Cola formula for $2,300 and gave people coupons that he had written out to receive a free glass of Coke.

1894 was also the year the first women's pages in newspapers were created, to court female consumers.

David McConnell started the California Perfume Company (CPC) in 1886. Today the company is known as Avon, which he named after his favorite playwright, William Shakespeare, who was from Stratford on Avon. 

The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.

In 1876, Milton Hershey started a candy company in Philadelphia, but it failed six years later. At the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition, he got hooked on chocolate and bought some German candy-making machinery and had it shipped back to Pennsylvania. After much experimentation, Hershey figured out the formula for making milk chocolate-a secret process known only to the Swiss at the time. He started the Hershey Chocolate Company and the rest is history.

The first credit card was issued in 1951.

Bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers were all invented by women.

Amedeo Giannini, son of Italian immigrants to the US, started the Bank of America in a converted saloon in San Francisco 1904. Giannini changed the name to Bank of America in 1928 and remained chairman until 1963.

The first product Sony created was the rice cooker.

In 1982, sales of Reese's Pieces increased 85% after appearing in the movie E.T.

Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, says "Three components make an entrepreneur: the person, the idea, and the resources to make it happen."

Walt Disney named Mickey Mouse after Mickey Rooney, whose mother he dated for some time.

The average child sees 30,000 televisions commercials every year.

YouTube generated about $15 million in revenue in 2006.

"Beat" poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti commented that the slogan from 1960s, "Be Here Now" has evolved to "Be Somewhere Else Now."

Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were both epileptic. 

Swiss biologists determined that stupid flies live longer than smart flies because intelligence wears out flies' brains. Canadian researchers claim that straining to recall information which seems to be “on the tip of my tongue” makes us learn mistaken guesses instead of the correct answers we may (or may not) eventually remember.  (source: Harper's)

Warren Buffett, John Kerry, Ted Turner, Tom Brokaw, New Yorker Editor (and Pulitzer Prize-winner) David Remnick, Art Garfunkel, Jann Wenner, Meredith Vieira, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy and Memorial Sloan-Kettering President Harold Varmus were all rejected by Harvard.

About New York:
           The term "The Big Apple" was coined by touring jazz musicians of the1930's who used the slang  expression "apple" for any town or city (Therefore, to play New York City is to play the big time)
           New York City was briefly the U.S. capital from 1789 to 1790.
           There are more Irish in New York City than in Dublin, Ireland; there are more Italians in New York City than in Rome, Italy; there are more Jews in New York City than in  Tel Aviv.
           The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City is the largest gothic cathedral in the world.

New Jersey has a spoon museum that has over 5,400 spoons from across the world.

Scrabble was invented in 1931 and was originally called Criss Cross. For 17 years toy makers snubbed this game, saying it was too intellectual, so the inventor Alfred Botts decided to manufacture and sell it himself. It is the world's second best selling game.

More than 200 million copies of Monopoly have been sold since it was first introduced in 1935.

The can opener wasn't invented until 48 years after cans were introduced. 

Toilet paper was introduced in the United States in perforated form in 1884. Before then, a number of outhouses in America were stocked with dried leaves.

If a statue in the park of a person on 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 as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king: 
Spades - King David
Hearts - Charlemagne
Clubs -Alexander the Great
Diamonds - Julius Caesar

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison were all 27 years old when they died.

1,400 actresses were interviewed for the part of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind.

When it was time to build the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., a contest was held to select the architect. The winner was William Thorton, a doctor and amateur architect, who received $500 and a city lot as his prize.

The Haida natives believe you are not judged by what you have, but by what you give away.

The word "sneaker" was coined by Henry McKinney, an advertising agent for N.W. Ayer & Son.

In 1894, Lord Kelvin predicted that radio had no future; he also predicted that heavier-than-air flying machines were impossible.

Charles Macintosh invented the waterproof coat, the Mackintosh, in 1823.

Ronald B. Tobias claims there are only 20 master plots in fiction. These include: Quest, Riddle, Temptation, Rivalry, Revenge, Maturation, Love, Forbidden Love, Escape, etc. His book is available at Amazon, and you can read a talk he gave to Denver writers at: www.hodrw.com/ronaldtobias.htm.

An intoxicated ant will always fall over on its right side.

Charlie Chaplin once came in third in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.

If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

The cruise liner, QE 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

Sailors began to wear a gold earring because of a superstition that it would improve their eyesight.

New Haven, Connecticut, was the first planned city in the U.S., and Yale University was the first planned campus. Yale was also the first college to have a mascot, published the first college daily newspaper, and appointed America's first professor of paleontology.

Slaves under the last emperors of China wore pigtails so they could be identified quickly.

Michaelangelo's last name was Buonarroti.

The average age of the world's greatest civilization has been two hundred years. 
These nations have progressed through this sequence: 

How much is a billion? 
        Two billion hours ago, human life appeared on the planet.
        A billion minutes ago, Christianity emerged.
        A billion seconds ago, the Beatles changed music.

What happened to those nine black students who walked bravely through an angry mob in Little Rock to enter Central High School? 
        Eight went on to college, seven graduated, three got masters' degrees, one a Ph.D.  
        Today they are:  an editor of a computer magazine, a social worker, a farmer, an assistant dean at UCLA, a talk show host, an accountant, an economics teacher, a real estate broker, and a V.P. at Shearson, Lehman. 
I wonder if the whites in that mob did half as well.  (Charles Peters)

In our world was a village of 1000 people, there would be:
        329 Christians, 174 Muslims, 131 Hindus, 61 Buddhists, 52 animists, 3 Jews
                34 members of other religions, 216 without any religion at all
In this village:
       60 persons would have half the income
       500 would be hungry
       600 would live in shantytowns (or be homeless)
       700 would be illiterate    (from The Prairie Rambler)

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