Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Attack of the Factoids (22 page)

That triumph and the new viewing rooms spurred actual broadcasts. Most were upbeat films, but there were also variety shows, music and dance performances, and the occasional interview with party officials as the war progressed. Since so few people could actually watch the broadcasts, though, Nazi propaganda chief Paul Goebbels didn't bother dictating too much of the content. As interested as he was in television, he still preferred radio as the mass medium for party propaganda.

NOT-SEE TV

The Nazis' broadcast service began unraveling in late 1943. On November 23, Allied bombers destroyed its transmitter and knocked it off the air. Finally, on May 2, 1945, the Soviet army took over the German TV studios and “the world's first broadcasting service” was gone for good.

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DID YOU KNOW?

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In California, it's illegal to shoot game from a moving vehicle…unless the target is a whale.

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Historically, teachers were paid in goods and services by cash-strapped townsfolk. For cash, teachers often worked nighttime jobs like bartending, choir leading, and grave digging.

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You can pick up FM radio stations on the Moon. FM signals travel in a straight line through the atmosphere and into space, so whatever Earth stations are right below the Moon at any given time will be available. AM radio waves, on the other hand, bounce around in the atmosphere and cover more of Earth's territory, but don't reach the Moon.

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American dentists use about 13 tons of gold each year for fillings, crowns, and inlays.

Food News

A pound of armadillo meat has around 780 calories, about the same as lean beef.

The meat from giant squids tastes a lot like ammonia. Scientists believe that the ammonia inside their tissue, less dense than seawater, keeps the animals from sinking.

At least one study has shown that vegetarians have higher IQs than meat eaters.

Only two primates are carnivores: chimps and humans.

What's a flexitarian? A person who eats meat only once or twice a week.

One online company once sold laser-etched edible business cards printed on beef jerky…for $7.50 per card.

Weighing more than 440 pounds, one giant clam can provide enough meat for about 100 gallons of chowder.

It takes 300 gallons of water to produce a loaf of bread. A pound of beef? 2,500 gallons.

The average American eats about five cows' worth of ground beef in a lifetime.

For the Love of Beer

An early beer ad claimed that the drink was really good for putting kids to sleep.

Officially, a nip of beer is a half-pint (8 oz.) or less. A flagon is a quart. An anker is 10 gallons. A barrel, 36 gallons. And a tun, 216 gallons.

World's first trademark: the Bass Beer symbol, a red triangle.

The Pilgrims were supposed to land farther south than Massachusetts, but as one passenger put it, “We could not now take time for further search, our victuals being much spent, especially our beere.”

The oldest known beer recipe appears on a Sumerian clay tablet dating from about 1800 BC.

Brewing magnate John Carling never drank beer—it disagreed with his system.

In the 1700s, British soldiers stationed in Canada were entitled to six pints of beer a day.

Beer steins have covers because a 16th-century German law required them as a way to prevent diseases that might come from swallowing flies.

A person who collects beer cans is called a can-ologist.

Roasted malt makes dark beer dark. For pale beer, the malt is left unroasted.

Malt liquor is stronger than beer because brewers add another dollop of sugar, giving an extra jolt to the alcohol-excreting yeast.

If people say you're
gambrinous
, they're accusing you of being full of beer.

The Portland, Oregon, metro area has more breweries—68—than any other city in the world.

If a young Tiriki man from Kenya offers beer to a woman and she spits some of it into his mouth, they are officially engaged.

Neither Pine Nor Apple

Dole Pineapple Juice, introduced in 1933, was initially promoted as a mixer for gin.

In a can of fruit cocktail, pineapple lands firmly in the middle: fewer pieces of it than peaches and pears, more than grapes and cherries.

Some wild pineapple plants have flowers that open only in the dark of night because they're pollinated by bats.

Pulped pineapple leaves can be woven into a fabric called
piña
, commonly used in the Philippines.

Although we associate the pineapple with the Polynesian islands, the fruit originated in Southern Brazil and Paraguay. The Aztecs and Incas cultivated them throughout Mexico and south America, Columbus brought some pineapples back to Spain, and the Spaniards planted them in Hawaii and the Philippines.

A pineapple is not closely related to either a pine or an apple. It's not even a fruit, per se—technically, it's up to 200 berries stuck together.

Pineapples stop ripening when they're picked.

Blame pineapple growers for laws against importing hummingbirds into Hawaii. Hummingbirds pollinate pineapple flowers, creating seeds. But growers and consumers want seedless pineapples—so no hummingbirds.

Pineapple has an enzyme that breaks down protein, making it a good meat tenderizer.

For about half a century, pineapple juice appeared on supermarket shelves in cans only. The acid in the juice dissolved some of the metal, though, so Americans were used to a tinny taste and often rejected fresh pineapple juice as “tasting funny.”

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

About 50 percent of U.S. marriages end in divorce. But in India, where arranged marriages are common and there's lots of pressure from families for couples to stay together, the rate is 1 percent.

January is the month when the most couples file for divorce. It is also the month when the fewest couples marry.

According to researchers, an American couple with a first-born daughter is 5 percent more likely to get divorced than those with a first-born son.

Ronald Reagan was the only president to have been divorced.

In less complicated days, a Pueblo woman could divorce her husband by leaving his moccasins on the doorstep.

Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the U.S.

Divorce was illegal in Ireland until 1997.

The only two countries that still don't allow divorce are the Philippines and Vatican City.

Eight years is the average length for a first marriage to end in divorce.

Before no-fault divorce became the norm in the United States, one partner had to prove that the other was guilty of a serious offense to the marriage. “Grounds for divorce” included things like adultery, abandonment, desertion, or cruelty.

95 percent of American divorces are uncontested, which means that the parties and their lawyers come to an agreement without a trial.

The median time between a divorce and a second marriage is 3½ years.

Couples of different religious faiths are three times more likely to divorce than couples who share a religion.

Teeeeth!

For several years after the Civil War, the best dentures were advertised as containing teeth yanked out of the bodies of healthy young soldiers who had been killed in battle.

When George Washington was inaugurated, he had only one of his original teeth. His four sets of dentures were made of hippo ivory, elephant ivory, and real teeth from cows and humans. He eventually lost his last tooth by the time he was 60.

In George Washington's time, you took out your false teeth to eat. They weren't designed for eating—they were just there to look good.

In England in the 19th and early 20th century, it was fashionable to give children a full extraction and a new set of false teeth for their 21st birthday.

In the United States, brushing one's teeth didn't become common until World War II when the army issued toothbrushes to all soldiers.

Italian dentists discovered the anticavity effects of fluoride in 1802. They noticed that the citizens of Naples—a town naturally rich in fluoride—had few cavities and started adding it to water in other places.

Ads Infinitum

“The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.”

—Bill Cosby

“The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.”

—William Bernbach

“Asked about the power of advertising in research surveys, most agree that it works, but not on them.”

—Eric Clark

“You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough.”

—Joseph E. Levine

“Advertising is the poetry of capitalism.”

—Martin Puchner

“Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.”

—Leo Burnett

“Bad advertising can unsell a product.”

—David Ogilvy

“You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.”

—Norman Douglas

You Gotta Have Heart…Literally

The human heart beats about 3,600 times an hour. For an adult, that's 31,536,000 beats since this time last year.

Your heart is about the size of two fists, but a blue whale's heart is as big as a car.

Generally, the bigger an animal, the slower its heart rate: A gray whale has a pulse of about nine beats per minute…an adult human, 60 to 100…and a hummingbird, up to 12,000.

The human heart completely circulates blood through the body about three times a minute.

In a normal lifetime, a human heart will pump enough blood to fill three supertankers.

People who exercise regularly have a much lower heart rate than sedentary types.

To make room for your heart, your left lung is smaller than your right.

That “thump-thump” a heart makes when it beats is the sound of its valves closing. They open and close with each beat to let blood into each heart chamber and then push it out.

An octopus has three hearts. A slime eel has four.

During soccer's 2006 World Cup, hospitals discovered that Germany's heart attack rate tripled on days the German team played.

The Egyptians considered the heart the seat of all thought. Although they often removed the other organs (including the brain) for mummification, they always left the heart in the body.

Roughly one in every 120 babies is born with some kind of heart problem, making it the part of the body most likely to be affected by birth defects.

Seeing the color red can make a heart beat faster.

You Are Here

The African country of Mali gets its name from the Bambara word for hippopotamus. Its capital is Bamako, which means “place of crocodiles” in the same language.

In 1535 explorer Jacques Cartier landed in what's now Canada and asked an Iroquois man, “What do you call this place?” Thinking Cartier meant the immediate community, the man said
kanata
, meaning “village.” But Cartier, believing that he had just been told the name of the entire landmass, dutifully wrote the word on his map.

A spot just north of Lebanon, Kansas, marks the exact center point of the contiguous United States.

About 25 percent of the Netherlands is below sea level.

Montana, Nevada, Illinois, and Kansas each contain a town called Manhattan.

31 American towns have the word “liberty” in them.

Chicago is closer to Moscow than it is to Rio de Janeiro.

The world's longest nonmilitarized international border runs between Canada and the United States: a total of 5,525 miles.

The U.S. lake with the longest name is Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in Massachusetts.

The World's Longest… (Animal Style)

…
Horse mane:
18 feet, grown by a California mare named Maude. The longest horse tail: 22 feet on an American palomino named Chinook.

…
Bug:
Chan's megastick, an insect that, not unexpectedly, looks like a large stick as long as 22 inches. (Oddly, it wasn't discovered until 2008.)

…
Beak (on a bird):
The Australian pelican's bill can grow to 19 inches.

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Alligator:
19'2", found in Louisiana in 1890.

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Migration route (bird):
The arctic tern, which flies from the Arctic to Antarctic and back again every year, travels about 24,980 miles.