Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts: And Bizarre Information (8 page)

Congress has proposed over 10,000 amendments to the U.S. Constitution since 1789. Twenty-seven have passed.

The city of Chicago has hosted more major national political conventions than any other city in the United States.

Republican and Democrat are both towns in North Carolina.

The Oval Office in the White House is 22 feet long.

The U.S. government called the invasion of Grenada a “predawn vertical insertion.”

Thirty-two percent of all land in the United States is owned by the federal government.

In 2005 there were 281 ships in the U.S. Navy, fewer than in any year since 1939.

U.S. law requires that Yankee bean soup be served in the congressional dining room at all times.

Strom Thurmond was the only person ever elected to a U.S. Senate seat as a write-in candidate (in 1954).

Percent of the cost of a 12-ounce bottle of beer that goes to federal and state taxes: 43.

Medical term for earwax: cerumen.

Your ears secrete more earwax when you’re afraid than when you aren’t.

The easiest sound for the human ear to hear is “ah.”

The smell in your right nostril is more pleasant, but your left nostril is more accurate.

According to research, you’ll blow your nose about 250 times this year.

The droplets in a sneeze can travel 12 feet and remain in the air for as long as three hours.

Can you flare your nostrils? Only 30 percent of people can.

Vertigo is most commonly caused by a problem with the balancing mechanism in the inner ear.

If saliva can’t dissolve it, you can’t taste it.

The ability to taste sweets decreases with age.

There are nine muscles in your ear.

According to Pickle Packers International, the crunch of a pickle should be audible from 10 paces.

On average, people who have asthma hear better than people who don’t. Nobody knows why.

It’s possible to sneeze so hard that you break your ribs.

The sensors in your nose can detect as many as 10,000 different odors.

Studies show that familiar odors revive old memories more easily than familiar sights or sounds do.

The 1900 Olympic Games included croquet, fishing, billiards, and checkers. Tug-of-war was an Olympic event between 1900 and 1920.

In a 1936 Ping-Pong tournament, the players volleyed for over two hours on the opening serve.

Polo players are not allowed to play left-handed—it’s too dangerous.

Half of the members of the Rodeo Cowboys Association have never worked on a ranch.

Kayaking is a required subject in Greenland’s schools.

The first tennis balls were stuffed with human hair.

Karate was invented in India. It was not introduced to Japan until about 1917.

In the 1880s waterskiing was known as plankgliding.

Boxing rings are called rings because they used to be round.

Average number of days each year when no major league sports are played: five.

According to the California Medical Association, 87 percent of pro boxers have brain damage.

Twenty-seven people in the United States were killed by falling soccer goalposts between 1979 and 1993.

Sport played on the largest playing field (300 yards by 200 yards): polo.

In 1970, 127 runners ran the New York Marathon. In 2005, 36,562 did.

Neuroscientists have determined that motherhood makes female rats smarter, calmer, and more courageous.

On average, people between the ages of 24 and 35 worry less than adults of any other age group.

Scientists say that women are more caring than men, and old women are smarter than old men.

Only 2 percent of Americans say they’re in a good mood every day.

A study in December 2004 found that parents enjoy a visit with Santa more than their children do.

In a
Newsweek
poll, 48 percent of those surveyed thought that UFOs were real; among
National Enquirer
readers, it was 83 percent.

Thirteen percent of adults say the last day of summer is the occasion they dread the most.

Washington, D.C., has more psychiatrists per capita than any other city in the country.

Buenos Aires has more psychoanalysts per capita than any other city in the world.

Ninety percent of Americans describe themselves as shy.

Sigmund Freud charged the equivalent of $8.10 an hour for his therapy sessions.

Australian researchers found that the brain really does experience pain when a person’s heart is “breaking.”

People laugh least in the first hour after waking up in the morning.

Oldest vehicle in human history: a floating log. Second oldest: a sled.

In 1904 a cruise from New York to Great Britain was $10 (third class).

Motor vehicle with the best safety record in Europe? The moped.

How did the kerosene fungus get its name? It eats kerosene and lives in jet fuel tanks.

Why does NASA send small animals into space? Among other things, to see if they throw up.

The last U.S. train robbery took place in 1933.

In 2001 Indian railroads cited 14 million people for riding without a ticket.

Longest railway in the world: the Trans-Siberian Railway in Russia. It’s nearly 6,000 miles long.

Trying to call a ship in the eastern Atlantic? Use area code 871. Western Atlantic? Try 874.

Adolf Hitler had his own private train, complete with 15 railcars. It was named the
Amerika
.

Ancient Rome had rent-a-chariot businesses.

Men’s leather belt: 19¢

Seven-shot revolver $1.25

Alligator bag: $5

Bicycle: $20

Grand piano: $175

GIRL SCOUT COOKIES

The Girl Scouts were founded in 1912. For 20 years they raised money by selling knitted clothes, baked goods, and chickens. Then, in 1934, a Philadelphia Girl Scout leader (who was also a press agent) came up with the idea of selling a vanilla cookie in the shape of the Girl Scout seal. She contracted with a local bakery to make them.

One day she heard that reporters would be interviewing actresses at a local flower show. Figuring her Girl Scout troop would get free publicity if they showed up selling cookies, she sent a contingent to the show. The troop got so much publicity and sold so many cookies that Girl Scout troops all over the country began emulating them. Within three years, more than a hundred local councils were selling the same professionally baked cookies. It was the beginning of an American institution.

MAYONNAISE

Originally brought to France by Duc de Richelieu, who tasted it while visiting Mahon, a city on the island of Minorca. It was eventually dubbed Mahonaisse by French chefs, and was considered a delicacy in Europe. In America it became known as mayonnaise, but for over a century was still regarded as suitable for only the most elegant meals. Finally, in 1912, Richard Hellman, a German immigrant, began packing it and selling it in jars from his New York deli. This transformed mayonnaise to a mass-merchandised condiment.

MACARONI AND CHEESE

During the Depression, the Kraft Company tried to market a low-priced cheddar cheese powder—but the public wouldn’t buy it. One St. Louis sales rep, looking for a way to unload his allotment of the stuff, tied individual packages of the cheese to macaroni boxes and talked grocers on his route into selling them as one item, which he called Kraft Dinners. When the company found out how well they were selling, it made the dinners an official part of its product line.

CAESAR SALAD

The name of this salad doesn’t refer to the Roman conqueror, but to the man who created it: a Tijuana restaurateur named Caesar Cardini. Here’s one account of its origin: “Cardini started several restaurants in Tijuana, Mexico, in the early 20s. He devised the salad in 1924 during the Fourth of July weekend at Caesar’s Place. He served it as finger food, arranging the garlic-scented lettuce leaves on platters. Later, he shredded the leaves into bite-sized pieces. The salad became a hit with the Hollywood movie stars who visited Tijuana, and soon was a specialty of such prestigious restaurants as Chasen’s and Romanoffs.”

KETCHUP

The Chinese invented ke-tsiap, a concoction of pickled fish and spices (but no tomatoes), in the 1690s. By the early 1700s its popularity had spread to Malaysia, where British explorers first encountered it, and by 1740 the sauce—renamed ketchup—was an English staple. But it wasn’t until the 1790s that New England colonists first mixed tomatoes into the sauce. The reason: until then, it was widely believed that tomatoes (a close relative of the toxic belladonna and nightshade plants) were poisonous.

Making tomato ketchup at home is a tedious all-day project, and American housewives hated the process. So when Henry J. Heinz introduced bottled ketchup in 1875, he promoted it as a laborsaving device. His first slogan was: “Blessed relief for Mother and the other women of the household.” By the 1980s Heinz ketchup was in one of every two households in the United States.

WHEATIES

Invented in 1921 by a Minneapolis health spa owner who fed his patients homemade bran gruel to keep them regular and help them lose weight. One day he spilled some on the stove, and it hardened into a crust. He was going to throw it out, but tasted it first. To his surprise, the flakes he scraped off the stove were better than the stuff in the pot. He made more and showed them to a friend at the Washburn Crosby Company (predecessor of General Mills). People at the company liked the flakes, too, but didn’t like the way they crumbled. So they came up with a better flake—using wheat. Then they held a company-wide contest to name the product. Jane Bausman, the wife of a company executive, suggested Wheaties.

The average American dog will cost its owner approximately $14,600 over its lifetime.

Three percent of Americans shower with their dogs.

Sixty-three percent of pet owners sleep with their pets.

In their first year of life, puppies grow 10 times faster than human infants do.

Sixty percent of pets in Great Britain have some form of health insurance.

One in three dog owners say they’ve talked to their pets on the phone.

A dog can’t hear the lowest key on a piano.

Houdini trained his dog to escape from a pair of miniature handcuffs.

In 2003, U.S. postal workers were bitten by dogs 3,423 times.

The heaviest dog on record: a Saint Bernard that weighed 310 pounds.

The basenji is the only dog breed that doesn’t bark.

Even bloodhounds can’t smell the difference between two identical twins.

Top four biting dogs: German shepherd, chow chow, collie, and Akita.

Least likely biters: Chihuahua, golden retriever, poodle, Scottish terrier, and Shetland sheepdog.

Border collies are the most intelligent breed. Afghan hounds are the dumbest.

Ten percent of all dalmatians are born deaf.

Bloodhounds are the only animals whose evidence is admissible in U.S. courts.

Dog with the best eyesight: the greyhound.

A Goliath beetle weighs about the same as a hamster.

Centipedes are carnivores, millipedes are vegetarians.

Earthworms have five hearts.

A snail breathes through its foot.

The housefly’s taste buds are in its feet.

The muscles that power a dragonfly’s wings make up 23 percent of its body weight.