Read Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wise Up! Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wise Up! (14 page)
Early in his career, Babe Ruth wore the number 3 on his jersey because he batted third.
It takes Mercury 88 days to travel around the Sun.
U2 has won 22 Grammy Awards to date, the most of any band.
According to statistics, New Jersey has the lowest suicide rate of any state.
The state of Florida has the most golf courses in America. The fewest: Alaska.
Wisconsin leads the nation in production of paper and paper products.
Pennsylvania was the first state to display its Web site address on its license plates.
Rhode Island is the most heavily industrialized state in proportion to its size.
Because of its shape on a map, Oklahoma has been called “the nation’s largest meat cleaver.”
Only 54.3 percent of Louisiana high school students graduate, the lowest rate of any state.
On average, Hawaiian residents live longer than people in other U.S. states.
Indiana ranks first among U.S. states in both mobile-home sales…and “danger from tornadoes.”
North Dakota is the only state in the United States never to have had an earthquake.
THE 12 MOST COMMON BAD DREAMS
Falling or drowning
Being lost or trapped
Being chased or attacked
Being injured, ill, or dying
Car or other vehicle trouble
House or property loss or damage
Poor test or other poor performance
Missing a boat or other transport
Machine or telephone malfunction
Natural or man-made disasters
Being menaced by a spirit
Being naked or inappropriately dressed in public
* * *
DREAM SYMBOLS FOR FOODIES
Corn: abundance
Watermelon: fiery passion
Bread: the basic needs of life
Grapes: wealth and decadence
Gravy: failing health or business
Oranges: health and prosperity
Sandwich: pressure and stress
Apples: knowledge and prosperity
Eggs: fertility and creative potential
Vinegar: worries about a negative matter
Strawberries: sensual desires and temptation
First victim of the guillotine: a highwayman named Nicolas Pelletier, on April 25, 1792, in Paris, France.
In 1940, German spy Josef Jakobs became the last person to be executed at the Tower of London.
The first attempt on Martin Luther King Jr.’s life came in 1958, when a woman stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener.
Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv were both assassinated during their consecutive terms as prime minister of India.
In 1800, England’s King George III survived two assassination attempts…in one day.
King Charles I of England wore two shirts to his execution because it was a cold day and he didn’t want his shivering to be mistaken for fear.
Catherine the Great of Russia died from a stroke she suffered while sitting on the toilet.
At the Jonestown massacre, Jim Jones’s followers drank Flavor Aid, not Kool-Aid.
King Alexander of Greece, who reigned from 1917 to 1920, died at age 27 from the bites of two pet monkeys.
Chinese premiers Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping both died of complications from Parkinson’s disease.
French novelist Émile Zola died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a defective chimney flue.
England’s King George II fell to his death…from a toilet seat.
The 1918 flu pandemic killed 25 million people in four months…more than were killed in all of World War I.
In 1972, CREEP—the Committee to Re-elect the President—supported Richard Nixon.
When the NAACP was founded in 1909, its only African American officer was a newspaper editor.
The semiunderground Know Nothing political party formed in the 1840s. Its goal: to stop the influx of Irish immigrants to the United States. The name comes from the fact that, when asked about the party’s activities, members were instructed to say, “I know nothing.”
Founded by Union army officers, the National Rifle Association was originally established to improve marksmanship.
The ACLU began as an antimilitarism movement during World War I, headed by people who didn’t support America’s mandatory draft.
Congress once denounced Frank Sinatra and the Lone Ranger for turning American youths into delinquents.
In 1969, author Norman Mailer ran for Mayor of New York City. He wanted it to be the 51st state.
In 1676, an American colonist named Nathaniel Bacon led a tax rebellion against the governor of Virginia. The rebellion fell apart three months later when Bacon died of dysentery.
What did George Washington and Colonel Sanders have in common? They were both Freemasons.
In 2003, there were 135 people on the ballot to be governor of California.
President Harry S. Truman’s mother refused to sleep in the White House’s Lincoln Bedroom—she was a Confederate sympathizer.
Americans now eat nine times more broccoli than they did 20 years ago.
In the Middle Ages, people added carrot juice to butter to make the color more appetizing.
If you shake a can of mixed nuts, the larger nuts will rise to the top.
Because fruits ferment, virtually all fruit juices contain minute amounts of alcohol.
More people on the West Coast prefer chunky peanut butter. East Coasters like theirs creamy.
Nondairy creamer is flammable.
The first fruit eaten on the Moon was a peach.
The average American child eats 15 pounds of cereal in a year.
It takes twelve ears of corn to make a tablespoon of corn oil.
Casu marzu, a cheese from Sardinia, is ready to eat when it’s riddled with live maggots.
Paul McCartney wrote “When I’m Sixty-four” when he was 15.
Gladys Knight won first prize on
Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour
TV show when she was seven years old.
Youngest golfer ever to compete in the Ryder Cup: Sergio Garcia, at age 19.
Elton John won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 11.
Maggie Kuhn founded the senior citizens’ activist group the Gray Panthers in 1971, at the age of 65.
The piano piece “Chopsticks” was written by 16-year-old Euphemia Allen.
Drummer Julian Pavone played at a Chicago Cubs game and made a CD called
Go, Baby!
He was three.
Conductor Leopold Stokowski founded the American Symphony Orchestra when he was 80…and signed a six-year recording contract at age 94. (He died a year later.)
Mark Twain didn’t learn to ride a bicycle until he was nearly 50 years old.
Jack Kerouac wrote his first novel at the age of 11.
Youngest player ever to qualify for the PGA Tour: Ty Tryon, at age 17.
Bill Gates started programming computers at the age of 13.
Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis first played with the New Orleans Philharmonic when he was 14.
The value of Herbert Hoover’s estate at his death at age 90 in 1964: more than $8 million.
Five most dangerous jobs in the United States: logger, pilot, asbestos worker, metalworker, electrician.
Statistically, the most productive day of the workweek is Tuesday.
Professions most likely to require work at night: police, security guard. Least likely: construction worker.
Gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. was the first employer to give workers a two-day weekend.
Before the Civil War, the average person worked 11 hours a day, six days a week.
Day of the week most Americans call in sick: Friday (18 percent). The day fewest do: Tuesday (11 percent).
In 2000, France became the first country to adopt the 35-hour workweek.
Estimated number of plumbers in the United States: 500,000.
On average, Americans miss more than three million days of work each year due to allergies.
The average American salary during the 1960s was $4,743. Today: about $40,000.
The higher his income, the more likely an American man will cheat on his wife.
Among American men, those with the highest income are the most likely to be overweight—but among American women, those with the lowest income are.
U.S. men who drink moderately earn 7 percent higher pay than nondrinkers.
About 25 percent of male employees say they take naps on the job. Only half as many women do.
TRANSPORTATION.
The most common vehicle used on the Oregon Trail—the route many 19th-century pioneers took from the East to the West Coast—was the prairie schooner, a light, covered wagon. But they also used everything from wheelbarrows to handcarts to wind-powered wagons to make the trip. One inventor even tried to come up with a way to fly settlers to Oregon. In 1849, a man named Rufus Porter advertised that he could use balloons to carry people over the mountains. About 200 people signed up for the trip, but Porter ran out of money before he could make even one flight.
DANGER, DANGER!
More than 10,000 people died traveling the Oregon Trail. The most common cause of death: disease. People caught smallpox and cholera in huge numbers, and their companions were so anxious to get moving that some of the sick were buried alive.
CHILD’S PLAY.
Many kids traveling the Oregon Trail took up an unusual game: cow dung frisbee.
VALUABLE CARGO.
In 1847, Iowan Henderson Luelling set out for Oregon with his wife, eight children, and three wagons. One was for the family and their belongings, but the other two carried about 700 young fruit trees (apple, pear, cherry, and others). People he passed on the trail thought Luelling was crazy, but when he arrived in the Willamette Valley in northwest Oregon, he planted the trees and established several orchards. Luelling was the first to introduce these fruits to Oregon, and later to California. Today, both are among the most profitable fruit-growing regions of the United States.
Shortest war in American history: the Spanish-American War, in 1898. It lasted less than four months.
More battles of the American Revolution were fought in South Carolina than in any other colony.
In the War of 1812, the British burned most of Washington, D.C., including the White House.
The only war ever fought by NATO was against Yugoslavia.
New Englanders so opposed the War of 1812 that many wanted to secede.
Buckingham Palace was bombed nine times during World War II, with one fatality.
The last battle of World War I was fought in what is now Zambia, Africa.
President James K. Polk was so involved with managing the details of the Mexican War that he even oversaw the purchase of mules.
During World War I, Germany offered Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to Mexico if the country would change sides. (It didn’t.)
Thirty-one percent of American workers skip lunch every day.
Eighty percent of the world’s population regularly eats insects.
Twenty-five percent of Americans will catch more than four colds this year.
Fifty percent of the pizzas sold in the United States have pepperoni on them.
Fifty percent of all Oreo eaters say they pull the cookies apart before eating them.
How often do NFL teams try for a first down on fourth down? Less than 1 percent of the time.
Fifty-five percent of Americans say they’ll let someone else into the bathroom with them.
Thirty percent of NBA players have tattoos.
World’s biggest consumers of music: the British, who account for 7.2 percent of global sales.
Seventy percent of Fortune 500 CEOs regularly do business on the golf course.
Seventeen percent of sales reps who golf with clients say they intentionally let the clients win.
Odds that a cosmetic surgery patient is a woman: 89 percent.
Twenty percent more antacids are sold the day after the Super Bowl than on an average day.
Heinz sells more than 50 percent of all the ketchup in the world.
A British study found that people with facial piercings are 23 percent more likely to order vegetarian pizza.
Melbourne, Australia, has an 8:00 p.m. curfew…for cats.
A Memphis, Tennessee, ordinance bans frogs from croaking after 11:00 p.m.
In Wilbur, Washington, you can be fined for riding an ugly horse.
It’s a crime to punch a bull in the nose in Washington, D.C.
In Zion, Illinois, it’s illegal to give a lit cigar to a dog, cat, or other domesticated pet.
In Fairbanks, Alaska, moose are banned from mating within city limits.
In Florida, it’s against the law to hunt deer while they’re swimming.
It’s against the law in Utah to fish from horseback.
It’s illegal to put graffiti on someone else’s cow in Texas.
Technically, you must have a hunting license to catch mice in California.
Joseph Stalin was studying to become a Russian Orthodox priest when he learned about communism.
While he was escaping, political prisoner Lev Bronstein stole his jailer’s passport…and was thereafter known as Leon Trotsky.
Before he reunited Italy in the 1870s and became a national hero, Giuseppe Garibaldi lived briefly on Staten Island, New York, and worked as a candle maker.
Ho Chi Minh, whose name means “one who enlightens,” once worked as a photo retoucher in Paris.
Later in life, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin attacked the despotism of Communist leaders.
St. Patrick wasn’t Irish. He was British but was kidnapped by Irish pirates.
Explorer John Cabot, who sailed to fame under the English flag, was really an Italian named Giovanni Caboto.