This Page is for those of you who are interested in trivia :
Abe Lincoln and JFK Coincidences:
Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. JFK in 1946.
Lincoln was elected president
11-6-1860. JFK was elected 11-8-1960. After
their deaths they were both succeeded by
southerners named Johnson. Andrew Johnson was born
in 1808, Lyndon Johnson
in 1908. Lincoln's killer -John Wilkes Booth - was
born
in 1839, while Kennedy's killer - Lee
Harvey Oswald - was born in 1939. Both men
were southerners and both men were shot before they
could come to trial. Booth committed his
crime in a theater then ran to a warehouse. Oswald
pulled the trigger in a warehouse, then ran to a theater.
Both presidents had forebodings. Lincoln and
Kennedy were both historic civil rights campaigners
and both were shot in the back in the head, on a Friday,
with their wives. Lincoln was shot in Ford's
Theater. Kennedy was shot in a Ford by the company
Lincoln. The
names Andrew Johnson and Lyndon Johnson each contain
thirteen letters.
The names John
Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald each contain fifteen
letters. The names Lincoln
and Kennedy each contain seven letters. Kennedy had a secretary named
Lincoln, and Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy.
Both had wives with dark hair and the
wives were 24 when they married their husbands. (I've
always found this to be an extrodinary
set of coincidences)
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The term 'toddlers' originated in England. There were
impurities in the drinking water that
disallowed the water to be used for drinking. A common
alternative drink was beer (it was cheap,
plentiful and the water used to make it was treated
during the initial boiling during brewing).
Toddlers, just weaning off of mothers milk were unaccustomed
to the effects of beer. This coupled
with the fact that they were just learning how to
walk really made them toddle.
According to Archives of General Medicine, coffee
drinkers have sex more frequently and enjoy
it more than non coffee drinkers.
Six ounces of orange juice contains the minimum
daily requirement for Vitamin C.
Orange juice helps the body absorb iron more easily
when consumed with a meal.
Black and green tea drinkers reduce the risk
of esophageal cancer, according to a study in
shanghai by 50%. A study by the university of chicago
medical school showed that long-term tea
drinkers reduced their pancreatic cancer risk by 60%.
Between the time of death and the onset of rigor
mortis in a human body, the contraction of the
muscles can cause the body to turn over on its side.
The human body is comprised of 80% water
The average human being will walk 160 billion millimeters in a lifetime.
The average human body has 208 bones. Twenty-eight
of these are above the neck; 6 are in the
ears and 22 are in the skull.
If you gave each human on earth an equal portion
of dry land, (including the uninhabitable areas)
everyone would get roughly 100 square feet.
During a 24 hour period, the average human
will breathe 23,040 times; exercise 7 million brain
cells; and speak 4,800 words.
Humans are the only mammals that cry tears.
Honey bees cannot pull their barbed stingers from human
skins, and will eventually tear themselves
away leaving their stingers behind, dying soon
afterwards.
The tooth is the only part of the human body that can't repair itself.
Some of the objects visible in Hubble Space Telescope
images are nearly four billion times fainter
than the limits of human vision.
Dog saliva is an antiseptic and can help
to heal wounds. Recent studies suggest human saliva may
also have healing qualities.
The risk for developing malignant melanoma has
increased 1,800% in the US since 1930. The
cancer now claims a life every hour.
Based on a life span of 11 years, the average cost of owning a dog is $13,350.
Reported in a 1990 issue of science magazine.
If heart disease, cancer and diabetes were
eliminated, the life expectancy for both men and women
would leap to 99.2 years.
Americans are more likely to support gay rights,
drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs and
funding for research on mental illness if they think
certain behaviors are determined primarily by
heredity and genes rather than by upbringing and environment.
One million Americans, about 3,000 each
day, take up smoking each year. Most of them are
children.
Born on November 3, 1718, British politician,
John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich is
credited with naming the "sandwich." He developed
a habit of eating beef between slices of toast so
he could continue to play cards uninterrupted.
Contrary to popular belief, there was a woman who was
awarded
the Medal of Honor. The woman was Mary Walker, the
deed was nursing, and the time
was during the Civil War. Toward the end of her life
she liked to dress in men's clothing and caused
enough of a scandal that a movement was begun to strip
her of the award.
President Andrew Jackson spent most of his adult
life with a bullet no more than two inches
away from his heart as a result of a duel he fought
before becoming President.
Triskadekaphobia, fear of the number 13, dates
back to Nordic mythology. But the combination
of Friday and the number 13 seems to have originated
with Christ, whose last supper before his
arrest seated 13 and he was crucified on a Friday.
Did you know that more presidents have
been born in Virginia then any other state? Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, William Henry
Harrison, Tyler and Wilson.
Contrary to popular belief, Shakespeare's birthday
is not known. Scholars know the date he
was baptized and assumed that he was born a few days
earlier. It was a custom back then to baptize
children a few days after birth. A holiday happened
to be one of the dates a few days before his
baptizing, so people just moved his birthday to that
date not really knowing the actual date.
Kangaroos usually have one young annually. The
young kangaroo, or joey, is born alive at a very
immature stage, when it is only about 2 cm long
and weighs less than a gram.
Cats sleep 16 to 18 hours per day.
One in four people with a science degree now living in America were born abroad.
Asia represents three quarters of the world's human population.
A woman called Mum-Zi was a grandmother when
she was 17. She was in Chief AkKiri's
Harem on the island of Calabar. She joined the harem
when she was less than eight years old,
had a baby when she was 8 years and 4 months old,
and her daughter also became a mother at 8.
The average stay in a hospital to give birth was 4.1 days in 1970. It was 2.6 days in 1993.
The world famous traditional British clothing
& department store, Marks & Spencer's was
started in the covered market in Leeds, West Yorkshire
as Marks & Spencer's Penny Bazaar, with
a slogan of 'Don't ask the price, it's a penny'.
Men can see better while women can hear better.
The world's first test tube twins were born in June 1981.
George Washington was born on February 11, 1731.
Over twenty years later in 1752, Great
Britain and its American colonies switched calendars
from Julian to Gregorian. This switch
eliminated eleven days from September of that year:
September 2 was followed by September 14.
At the same time, New Year's Day was changed from
March 25 to January 1. Since then historians
have said that Washington was born in 1732, and the
anniversary of his birth has been celebrated on
February 22.
A person who smokes one pack of cigarettes a day inhales a half cup of tar everyday.
The candy bar, Baby Ruth, is named after the daughter
of President Cleveland, not Babe Ruth,
the baseball player as most people think.
The 'sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick' is
reputed to be the most difficult tongue twister in the
English language.
The longest non medical word in the English language
is not antidisestablishmentarian,
but floccinaucinihilipilification - the act of estimating
as worthless. On the same note, the longest
word is pneumonoultramiscroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
which is an inflammatory lung disease
caused by the inhalation of fine silica dust.
Anthrax (Bacillus anthracite) was the first bacillus
ever seen and identified under the microscope.
The discovery by Robert Koch in 1876 led Louis Pasteur
to developed an attenuated anthrax
vaccine, the first such vaccine. This in turn led
him to develop the rabies vaccine. Anthrax is a highly
infectious animal disease which can be transmitted
to humans on contact.
Women dream in color more often than men.
Percentage of women who wash their hands before
leaving the rest room: 80. Percentage of men
who wash before leaving: 55.
According to a major hotel chain, approximately
the same numbers of men and women are
locked out of their rooms --- 32 percent are less
than fully dressed.
Wyoming was the first state to allow women to vote.
In 75% of American households, women manage the money and pay the bills.
The only British monarch to have been born in
a private house, with a street number, was our
present queen, Elizabeth II.
The image of the knight in shining armor was
largely a myth. Many knights in the crusades
proved themselves to be greedy and cruel, and the
women of the Middle Ages were as tough and
capable as any.
There were women in the Continental Army, even
a few who participated in combat. Probably the best
known is Mary Ludwig Hays, nicknamed 'Molly Pitcher.'
She replaced her wounded husband at his
cannon during the Battle of Monmouth in 1778.
Another wife of an artillery man, Margaret Corbin,
was badly wounded serving in her husband's gun crew
at the Battle of Harlem Heights in 1776.
Thousands of other women served in Washington's army
as cooks and nurses.
President Ulysses S. Grant was once arrested
during his term of office. He was convicted of
exceeding the Washington speed limit on his horse
and was fined $20. President Franklin Pierce
was arrested while in office for running over an old
woman with his horse, but the case was
dropped for insufficient evidence in 1853.
The National Cancer Research Institute found
that women who eat meat on a daily basis are
almost 4 times more likely to get breast cancer than
those women who eat little or no meat.
On average, a woman will speak 7000 words over
the course of a day while a man will only
speak 2000 words in the same period of time.
Thirty-one percent of men and 43 percent of women regularly
suffer from some form of sexual
dysfunction, warranting recognition as a significant
public health concern, according to a new
comprehensive U.S. sex study.
Owls are the only bird with stereoscopic vision
(the ability to focus both eyes simultaneously on a
subject).
If you find that your eyes are puffy in the mornings,
it could be that your head isn't high enough
when you sleep. If your head is below or at the same
level as your heart, the blood is going to pool
and cause puffiness. Raise your pillow.
The reason you can't sneeze with your eyes open
is that your eyes could pop out.
The sneeze is similar to a tiny 'explosion' in your
body. It creates some force, and puts some
pressure on the eyes. The protective action is to
shut them,
as your body automatically tries to protect itself.
Sight accounts for 90-95% or all sensory perceptions.
The pupil of the eye expands as much as
45% when a person looks at something pleasant.
The devices that make up computer memory, in a 64 meg
computer chip are so small that up to
10,000 devices could fit in the diameter of a human
hair!
While direct eye contact is considered a sign
of sincerity in the west, it borders on being rude in
the far east.
The easiest way to tell if an animal is a carnivore
or a vegetarian is by looking at its eyes.
Carnivoress have eyes located in the front of their
heads, so they can focus in
on the prey that they are stalking. Vegetarians have
eyes on the side of their heads
so they can see hunters coming at them from
all directions.
The "redeye" effect seen in photographs is caused from
the
light from the flash of the camera penetrates the
eyeball, bounces off of the retina
and is reflected out the front of the eye. Because
the retina has a large grouping of
arteries, the light reflected back is red.
Look at the back of a one dollar bill. That pyramid
you see on itis actually the
reverse side of the Great Seal of the United
States. The pyramid represents
strength and permanence and has been left unfinished
to signify the future
growth of the country, and its pursuit of perfection.
1776 is printed along the
bottom in Roman numerals. The eye surrounded
by the sunburst represents
the Deity. The Latin translates to "He has favored
our undertakings" and
"A new order of the ages."
Next to the sun, the closest star to Earth is
Proxima Centauri, which is part of the Alpha Centauri
System 4.3 light-years from us. Unlike our Solar System,
which of consists only one star, the Alpha
Centauri System has three stars orbiting each other.
The two larger stars, Alpha Centauri A and B,
rotate around each other around every 80 years. Proxima
Centauri, a small star about one tenth the
mass of the Sun, orbits around the two larger stars
every million years. Of the stars that are within
10 light-years from the Sun, only Alpha Centauri and
Sirius are visible to the naked eye of observers
on Earth.
Did you know that the first television
couple to be seen sleeping together in the same bed were the
Munsters?
Many scientists say that the most effective sleeping
position is the fetus position. That
position allows the body to experience the best blood
circulation.
Two dogs survived the sinking of Titanic. They
escaped on early
lifeboats carrying so few people that no one objected.
Miss Margaret Hays of New York
brought her Pomeranian with her in lifeboat No. 7,
while Henry Sleeper Harper of the publishing
family boarded boat No. 3 with his Pekinese, Sun Yat
Sen.
The phrase "sleep tight" originated when mattresses
were set upon ropes woven through the bed
frame. To remedy sagging ropes, one would use a bed
key to tighten the rope.
The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
General Disclaimer:
I am unable to credit the origin for
the trivia listed above
as I collected these from several independent
sources who
were unable to supply credit. Should you notice
any particular
one and happen to know the origin, please
alert me as I wish
to give credit, where credit is due.
I will not accept
responsibility or liability for any
errors that appear herein.
