Total Trivia

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Comedian Jim Carrey’s middle name is Eugene.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

In Victorian England, turkeys were popular for Christmas dinners. Some of the birds were raised in Norfolk, and taken to market in London. To get them to London, the turkeys were supplied with boots made of sacking or leather. The turkeys were walked to market. The boots protected their feet from the frozen mud of the road. Boots were not used for geese: instead, their feet were protected with a covering of tar.

 

[smotherman]

Almonds are the oldest, most widely cultivated and extensively used nuts in the world.

 

[smotherman]

An ant's sense of smell is as good as a Dog's.

 

[smotherman]

After they are roasted, and when the coffee beans begin to cool, they release about 700 chemical substances that make up the vaporizing aromas.

 

[smotherman]

An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it.

 

[smotherman]

An elephant's trunk contains more than 50,000 muscles.

 

[fire_breeze]

King Ferrand of Portugal was held captive from 1213 to 1226 by the Turks. They demanded ransom, but Portugal's Queen Jeanne refused to pay for her husband's return. She had beaten him in a chess game, and he had therefore hit her on the nose with his fist. It upset her considerably.

 

[fire_breeze]

A vibrating sex toy was once mistaken for a bomb. The entire Mackay Airport in Queensland was closed down for nearly an hour because of it in 2004.

The alarm was raised by cafeteria manager Lynne Bryant, whose staff was cleaning the tables when they noticed a strange humming noise coming from a rubbish bin.

Lynne Bryant said: "It was rather disconcerning when the rubbish bin started humming furiously. We called security and the next minute everybody was being evacuated while they checked it out."

The police spokeswoman said: "Another two flights were expected to land at that stage but alternate arrangements were made for the passengers to collect their luggage away from the terminal," the spokeswoman said.

While the police was calling in bomb experts, a passenger came forwards to identify the contents of the package. The unidentified passenger forgot his bag after diner.

 

[fire_breeze]

An Archaeology student has discovered a 5000 year old piece of chewing gum. Sarah Pickin, aged 23, found the lump of birch bark tar – complete with Neolithic tooth prints – while on a dig in Finland. Neolithic people used the material as an antiseptic to treat gum infections as well as a kind of glue for repairing broken pots.

*sigh* Lucky student...

 

[Daizie]

The use of a Christmas wreath as a decoration on your front door, mantel or bay window symbolizes a sign of welcome and long life to all who enter.

 

[Daizie]

The biggest selling Christmas single of all time is Bing Crosby's White Christmas.

 

[desideratum]

Excavations of ancient monuments and the collection of antiquities have been taking place for thousands of years -- mostly for the extraction of valuable or aesthetically pleasing artefacts. It was only in the 19th century that the systematic study of the past through its physical remains began to be carried out.

Thomas Jefferson's investigative methods were ahead of his time (and have earned him the nickname of the "father of archaeology") and were possibly inspired by his experiences in Europe. He supervised the systematic excavation of an Indian burial mound on his land in Virginia in 1784. They were rather primitive by today's standards. He didn't simply dig down into the mound in the hope of "finding something"; he cut a wedge out of it in order to examine the stratigraphy.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Before deciding on the name "Sherlock," Arthur Conan Doyle had named his now famous detective – Sherrinford. The name was used in a short story Doyle wrote in 1886. Holme's sidekick in the story was called Ormond Sacker – soon to be renamed Thomas Watson.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The Food and Drug Administration advises pregnant women to avoid soft cheeses, including queso blanco, feta, Brie, Camembert, and blue-veined cheeses, such as Roquefort. Certain soft cheeses can carry the bacterium Listeria, which poses a risk to an unborn child.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The smallest visible sunspots have an area of 500 million square miles, about fifty times the size of Africa. The largest sunspots have an area of about 7,000 million square miles.

 

[fire_breeze]

The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy before.

 

[fire_breeze]

The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.

 

[smotherman]

Adult Northwestern American Grizzly Bears can bite through steel as thick as one half inch.

 

[smotherman]

More women talk dirty during sex than men.

I can't speak for other guys, but I talk dirty during sex!

 

[smotherman]

According to Hammurabi's Code, the penalty for medical malpractice was to cut off the doctor's hands.

 

[fire_breeze]

More women talk dirty during sex than men.

I can't speak for other guys, but I talk dirty during sex!

Shall we take a poll?

 

[smotherman]

Americans eat more bananas than any other fruit: a total of 11 billion a year.

 

[fire_breeze]

"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love" - Turkish Proverb

 

[fire_breeze]

Beethoven who was a coffee lover, was so particular about his coffee that he always counted 60 beans each cup when he prepared his brew.