Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Attack of the Factoids (42 page)

The minute hand wasn't added to watches until the 1650s.

Say this ten times fast: “Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches?”

Bernd Eilts, a German artist, achieved some notoriety in his career by turning dried cow manure into clocks and wristwatches.

A self-winding watch has a tiny pendulum in it that swings back and forth when you move your arm.

How fast does the hour hand travel on a wristwatch? About 0.00000275 mph.

For a hobby, the Dalai Lama likes to repair watches.

Japan's Emperor Hirohito sported a Mickey Mouse watch. He got it at Disneyland in 1975.

River Horses

Hippos go to special aquatic “grooming” spots where fish come to groom them: Labeo carp clean the hippos' hide, garra suckerfish clean wounds, barbus specialize in foot cracks, and cichlids clean hippos' tails.

Hippos dominate Nile crocodiles, pushing them out of choice pools or sunning spots and killing them if they get too close to hippo calves.

An adult hippo eats 55 to 88 pounds of vegetation a day. That's equal to only about 1.5 percent of its total body weight. (Cows eat at least 2.5 percent of their weight per day.)

Only about 10 percent of male hippos get to mate.

All hippos can mate in the water, but only pygmy hippos can also mate on land. Copulation lasts about half an hour, with the female completely submerged. (She raises her nose out the water now and again to breathe.)

The hippo gestation period lasts just eight months. Calfs are born hind legs first, whether on land or in water.

Hippos can live to be 50 years old in the wild.

Hippos graze all night, but don't travel more than a mile from the water to find good grass.

Hippos don't have oil or sweat glands. When they get scared or excited, their skin oozes an acidic, transparent liquid (not blood) that turns orange-red and protects against water loss, sunburn, and infection.

Hippo skin is about 2½ inches thick.

The hippo's closest relatives are whales and dolphins.

Hippos are surprisingly aggressive and are considered one of Africa's most dangerous animals. They often attack humans on land or in boats without warning.

On the Streets

The intersection of Park and North Eighth Streets in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, was the first place in the U.S. to be hit by space junk. In 1962 a 21-pound piece of
Sputnik 4
landed there. (It didn't hurt anybody.)

The name “Tin Pan Alley” was coined in 1908 to describe the area around 28th Street in New York City where many music publishers had offices. In the summer, the sound of pianos wafting through open windows sounded like a metallic cacophony.

There are 6,374.6 miles of streets in New York City.

Wall Street really had a wall running along it in the 1600s, built by the Dutch to keep enemies out. It didn't last long—the British tore down the wall when they moved in.

Warsaw and Budapest both have Winnie-the-Pooh Streets.

Golf carts are street-legal in Palm Desert, California—even on highways.

The oldest street in North America is Water Street, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It was built in the early 1500s.

Second Street is the most popular street name in America. Why not First Street? A lot of towns have a Main Street instead of a First Street.

There are 300,000 streetlights in New York City alone.

In 1807 Pall Mall in London became the first street lit by gas lamps…well, half-lit anyway, because the first demonstration lit only one side of the street.

The first American pedestrian killed by a car was Henry H. Bliss, who on September 13, 1899, stepped off a streetcar at West 74th Street and Central Park West in New York City and was run over by an electric taxi.

In Caracas, Venezuela, the streets are blocked off on Christmas Day so people can roller-skate to church.

What Fur?

“Mohair” and “cashmere” are both made from goat hair.

Crabs have small, sensitive hairs on their claws and other parts of their bodies to monitor water currents.

Otters keep warm in cold water thanks to their dense fur, which traps air bubbles and keeps water away from their skin—they have about 650,000 hairs per square inch. (By contrast, a human scalp has only about 1,000 hairs per square inch.)

A “camel-hair brush” never comes from camel hair—most are made from a pony's tail or mane. High-quality ones come from the fur of oxen, goats, ferrets, or squirrels.

The only place a naked mole rat has hair is inside its mouth.

A violin bow contains about 150 hairs from a horse's tail.

Badgers nearly went extinct in the late 1800s because their hair was in high demand for shaving brushes.

The only canine that changes its fur color to suit the seasons is the arctic fox.

Juneau the Capital?

Alaska's state capital is named for Joe Juneau, who discovered gold there in 1880. That discovery helped kick off the great gold rush era and brought more than 30,000 people into the state.

Alaska is the only state whose name can be typed on a single keyboard row.

If you laid Alaska over the lower 48 states, it would extend from coast to coast. The state is bigger than Texas, California, and Montana…combined.

Largest national forest in the U.S.: the Tongass in Alaska. It's larger than West Virginia.

Largest oil field in North America: Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, covering 213,543 acres.

Russia is only two miles away from Alaska over the Bering Strait.

Valdez, Alaska, had the highest one-day snowfall ever recorded in the United States: 47.5 inches over 24 hours in January 1990.

The United States paid Russia $7.2 million, or 2¢ an acre, for Alaska in 1867. At the time, many Americans thought the government overpaid.

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline moves up to 88,000 barrels of oil per hour.

Dogsled mushing was once the primary form of transportation in Alaska. Now it's the state's official sport.

Almost a third of Alaska is within the Arctic Circle.

Alaska's Mount McKinley is the highest point in the U.S. at 20,320 feet above sea level. 17 of the 20 highest peaks in the United States are in Alaska.

Alaska got its name from the Eskimo word
Alakshak
, which means either “great lands” or “not an island.”

Of all the states, Alaska has the lowest percentage of senior citizens, but the highest percentage of people who walk to work.

Burgers

The oldest hamburger chain is White Castle, founded in 1921. Cofounder Walter Anderson is also credited with creating the modern hamburger bun in 1916.

A Burger King in Kalamazoo, Michigan, was the site of the first “Elvis sighting” shortly after Presley died. The King was supposedly driving a red Ferrari.

Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's in 1955 in Des Plaines, Illinois. Original burger price: 15¢.

The Fatburger fast-food chain sells “Hypocrites”—veggie burgers topped with bacon.

Australian McDonald's restaurants used to offer the McOz, a cheeseburger with beets.

The “cheeseburger in a can,” made by a European camping-supply company called Trek'n Eat, costs about $6 and comes in a tin a little taller than a tuna can. It's got a one-year shelf life and can be heated by dropping the can into hot water.

In 2012 a McDonald's restaurant in Japan released several Big America Burgers, including a “Broadway Burger” with pastrami and cream cheese sauce, and a “Beverly Hills Burger” topped with avocado sauce and Caesar salad sauce.

The Heart Attack Grill of Las Vegas offers a “Quadruple Bypass Burger”: four half-pound patties, tomato, six slices of cheese, 20 slices of bacon, and a bun…offering up 9,982 calories.

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BUTTERFLY HAIR

Around 50 million years ago, butterflies were much hairier than they are now. The fur made them more likely to stick fatally to spider webs, though, so over time, they lost the hair.

Arabic Words

Hundreds of English words come from Arabic.
Al
means “the” in that language, so it's not surprising that English speakers heard a phrase and thought
al
was part of the word. Here are some examples, and what they mean in Arabic.

• Albacore:
“The young camel” or “the milk cow.”

Albacore is so called because it's one of the smaller species of tuna.

• Albatross:
“The diver” or “sea eagle” (a pelican).

• Alchemy:
“That which is poured out.”

• Alcohol:
“The fine powder.” Alchemists in Europe took this definition and transformed it to mean any processed/purified/distilled material. Eventually, the last meaning took over completely.

• Alcove:
“The vault.”

• Alhambra:
“The red castle.” It became the name for a giant fortress in Grenada, Spain.

• Alkali:
“The saltwort,” which was a plant that grew in alkali soil and was used in making glass and soap.

• Allah:
“The god.”

Lady Liberty

The Statue of Liberty's official name is
La Liberté éclairant le Monde
(French for “Liberty Enlightening the World”)

The statue represents Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom often worshipped by Rome's slaves and former slaves.

Sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi used his mother as the model for Liberty's face and his girlfriend as the model for her body.

The iron framework inside Lady Liberty was created by Gustave Eiffel, the French engineer who later built the Eiffel Tower.

In 1885 the Statue of Liberty was shipped to New York in 350 pieces packed into 214 crates.

Liberty's torch-holding arm stood on display in Madison Square Park from 1876 to 1882, while the U.S. raised enough money to complete her pedestal.

Each year, maintenance crews at the Statue of Liberty scrape up 39 gallons of chewing gum.

The Statue of Liberty is made of copper but looks blue-green because that's the color of patina, the thin layer of copper rust that protects the metal.

The Statue of Liberty is 111 feet tall, 20 times taller than the average woman. She also weighs 450,000 pounds.

In 50 mph winds, the Statue of Liberty sways as much as three inches in either direction. Her torch sways six inches.

Only 240 people a day are allowed to climb the stairs to the crown, and visitors can make reservations a year in advance.

Fund-raising for the pedestal stalled until publisher Joseph Pulitzer encouraged ordinary Americans to send whatever little they could, promising to publish their names in his newspapers. That opened the floodgates. More than 120,000 Americans responded, most sending less than a dollar (worth about $25 in today's money). Many schoolkids sent pennies (25¢ today).

The Best Policy

Insurance first appeared in ancient Greece around 600 BC, when people paid premiums throughout their lives to provide themselves a proper burial.

Lloyd's of London is famous for insuring goofy things like Betty Grable's legs, but it was also one of the few insurance companies that promptly paid off all claims after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

The only U.S. state that doesn't require car insurance is New Hampshire.

Hungarian food critic Egon Ronay took out a $400,000 insurance policy on his taste buds.

The St. Lawrence Insurance Agency offers UFO abduction insurance…with double indemnity if the abduction results in an alien baby.

Travelers Insurance issued the very first car insurance policy on February 1, 1898. It covered liability costs if drivers collided with a horse or horse-drawn vehicle.

Hartford, Connecticut—home to Travelers and many similar companies—bills itself as the Insurance Capital of the World.

The
Mona Lisa
is not insured. Its value is inestimable.

Blue Cross was open only to schoolteachers in 1929. A premium of just $6 per year covered hospital fees for up to three weeks.

How much is hair from Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley worth?

John Reznikoff of Stamford, Connecticut, insured the largest historical hair collection in the world for $1 million.

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Average number of pucks used during a single NHL game: 35.

The First U.S. President…

…born west of the Mississippi River:
Herbert Hoover, in Iowa.

…photographed at his inauguration:
Abraham Lincoln, 1861. However, the earliest president ever photographed was John Quincy Adams. He went before a camera in 1843, 14 years after he left office.