Fun facts about anything

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Sat Aug 14, 2010 8:48 pm

In 1939 Irving Berlin composed a Christmas song but thought so little of it that he never showed it to anybody. He just tossed it into a trunk and didn't see fit to retrieve it until he needed it for a Bing Crosby-Fred Astaire movie, HOLIDAY INN 10 years later.
Bing Crosby was a staunch Catholic and at first refused to sing the song because he felt it tended to commercialize Christmas. He finally agreed, took eighteen minutes to make the recording, and then the "throw-away" song become an all-time hit.
Crosby's version has sold over 40 million copies. All together, this song has appeared in 750 versions, selling 6 million copies of sheet music and 90,000,000 recordings ,just in the United States and Canada.
You might not recognize the song from the movie HOLIDAY INN...or from the composer's name of Irving Berlin. But you're bound to know it because it's on everyone's list of Christmas favorites: WHITE CHRISTMAS.

Admin Number of posts : 457 Registration date : 2008-02-01

If you rearrange the letters in Vin Diesel it reveals his credo: “I End Lives.”

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Sun Aug 15, 2010 9:56 pm

In the early 1800s, a French silk weaver called Joseph-Marie Jacquard invented a way of automatically controlling the warp and weft threads on a silk loom by recording patterns of holes in a string of cards.

In 1843, a mathematician, Ada Byron, published the first computer programs. She based them on Jacquard's punch-card idea. Her programs were for the first general-purpose mechanical digital computer, that was just invented by Charles Babbage.

Admin Number of posts : 457 Registration date : 2008-02-01

This one is for Bill

The Hubble Space Telescope weighs 12 tons (10,896 kilograms), is 43 feet (13.1 meters) long, and cost $2.1 billion to originally build.

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Mon Aug 16, 2010 9:50 pm

The first man to distill bourbon whiskey in the United States was a Baptist preacher, in 1789.

Admin Number of posts : 457 Registration date : 2008-02-01

Rapper Ice Cube’s real name is O’Shea Jackson.

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Tue Aug 17, 2010 10:32 pm

Honeybees have hair on their eyes.

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Wed Aug 18, 2010 7:02 pm

The number one cause of blindness in the United States is diabetes.

Admin Number of posts : 457 Registration date : 2008-02-01

Your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end.

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:32 pm

The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful plough man strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Sat Aug 21, 2010 2:54 am

In Redondo Beach, Calif., a police officer arrested a driver after a short chase and charged him with drunk driving. Officer Joseph Fonteno's suspicions were aroused when he saw the white Mazda MX-7 rolling down Pacific Coast Highway with half of a traffic-light pole, including the lights, lying across its hood. The driver had hit the pole on a median strip and simply kept driving. According to Fonteno, when the driver was asked about the pole, he said, "It came with the car when I bought it."

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Sat Aug 21, 2010 11:10 am

The common goldfish is the only animal that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light.

Admin Number of posts : 457 Registration date : 2008-02-01

In Cleveland, Ohio it is illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Sun Aug 22, 2010 3:23 am

More than 5,000 years ago, the Chinese discovered how to make silk from silkworm cocoons. For about 3,000 years, the Chinese kept this discovery a secret. Because poor people could not afford real silk, they tried to make other cloth look silky. Women would beat on cotton with sticks to soften the fibers. Then they rubbed it against a big stone to make it shiny. The shiny cotton was called "chintz." Because chintz was a cheaper copy of silk, calling something "chintzy" means it is cheap and not of good quality.

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Sun Aug 22, 2010 9:53 pm

The human eye blinks an average of 4,200,000 times a year.

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Mon Aug 23, 2010 8:44 pm

"Catch 22" has come to mean a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem. The original "Catch-22," in Joseph Heller's 1961 novel of the same name, is the catch that prevents a US Air Force pilot in World War II from asking to be grounded on the basis of insanity. The pilot knows that military regulations permit insane pilots to be grounded and not forced to fly further dangerous bombing missions. However, the regulation prevents airmen from escaping bombing missions by pleading insanity by stating that any airman rational enough to WANT to be grounded cannot possibly be insane and therefore is fit to fly. From the novel: a man "would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to: but if he didn't he was sane and had to."

Admin Number of posts : 457 Registration date : 2008-02-01

with some countries elections comeing up i thought this a great spot for this little fact 'Politics: “Poli” a Latin word meaning "many" and "tics" meaning "bloodsucking creatures"'. - Robin Williams

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Wed Aug 25, 2010 3:00 am

I so agree Angel.

The fortune cookie was invented in 1916 by George Jung, a Los Angeles noodle maker.

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Thu Aug 26, 2010 2:48 am

Victor Hugo's Les Miserables contains one of the longest sentences in the French language—823 words without a period.

Admin Number of posts : 457 Registration date : 2008-02-01

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

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Fri Aug 27, 2010 2:31 am

When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in December 1791 at the age of 35, the cause was officially listed as "severe miliary fever". Modern medicine can not determine from this information the exact cause and has compiled a possible list of 118 diagnosis's , including trichinosis, influenza, mercury poisoning, and a rare kidney ailment. Most widely accepted theory is acute rheumatic fever. He began composing at the age of 5.

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Sat Aug 28, 2010 3:19 am

The brass family of instruments include the trumpet, trombone, tuba, cornet, flügelhorn, French horn, saxhorn, and sousaphone. While they are usually made of brass today, in the past they were made of wood, horn, and glass.

Admin Number of posts : 457 Registration date : 2008-02-01

Anyone under the age of 21 who takes out household trash containing even a single empty alcohol beverage container can be charged with illegal possession of alcohol in Missouri.

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Sat Aug 28, 2010 9:21 pm

The human brain stops growing at the age of 18.

Subject: Re: Fun facts about anything Mon Aug 30, 2010 2:37 am

The short-term memory capacity for most people is between five and nine items or digits. This is one reason that phone numbers were kept to seven digits for so long.