Total Trivia

[fire_breeze]

The earliest European Cinderella tale is "La Gatta Cenerentola" or "The Hearth Cat" which appears in the book "Il Pentamerone" by the Italian fairy-tale collector Giambattista Basile in 1634. This version formed the basis of later versions published by the French author Charles Perrault and the German Brothers Grimm. (Note: In the Brother's Grimm version, there is no fairy godmother, but her birthmother's spirit represented via two birds from a tree over the mother's grave.)

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

A winkle is an edible sea snail.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

After more than a century as a dessert for royalty alone, ice cream was made available to the general public for the first time at Café Procope, the first café in Paris, in 1670.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

In 1974, Lauren Hutton earned $100,000 as the first model to sign an exclusive contract with the Revlon cosmetic company.

 

[LittlePenisInPA]

Porn star Marilyn Chambers was once pictured on the Ivory Snow box.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The first computer bug was a real insect.
In 1947, at Harvard University, the US Navy's Mark II computer, housed in a large un-air-conditioned room , was brought to a standstill by a moth getting itself jammed in a relay switch.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Only 19 US states have banned private ownership of tigers, 15 require only a licence and 16 have no regulations at all. There are now though to be more tigers in captivity in the USA (12,000) than exist in the wild in India (3,500 - 4,700).

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Mike Tyson personally owns four tigers.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

A domestic cat is about 1% the size of a tiger.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Tigers cannot abide the smell of alcohol. They will savage anyone who has been drinking.

 

[smotherman]

An average american sends 1,742 text messages each month. That's an average of over 50 each day.

 

[smotherman]

Nearly every astronaut experiences trouble locating their own arms and legs while in space.

 

[smotherman]

Women with breast implants have a 73% higher suicide rate than the general population.

 

[smotherman]

The average person walks 115,000 miles in a lifetime. This equals five times around the world.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Here's a tricky one to grasp...

Light is invisible. You cannot see light itself, only the objects it bounces off. If light was visible then there would be a kind of 'fog' between us and everything we look at.

 

[kindtemptress]

In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
And I thought waxing was painful!

lol ya, try plucking hair from the crotch area

 

[kindtemptress]

Orgasm, stressing the body in various ways, has been known to produce some dire consequences. Kinsey again - "At orgasm some individuals may remain unconscious for a matter of seconds or even for some minutes". Kinsey also notes more than a dozen authorities - from Roubaud (1876) to Brown and Kempton (1950) - who recorded "loss of sensory capacity or even of consciousness during extreme emotion or sexual arousal". And orgasm has been known to accompany a variety of forms of damage to the body including lesions and ruptures of various organs. Death has also occurred from time to time!

ahh but what a way to go

 

[kindtemptress]

During an average-length life, we have sex 4,239 times (but who's counting?)

i have some catching up to do

 

[mrtnmoon]

An average american sends 1,742 text messages each month. That's an average of over 50 each day.

some people are doing way more than their share, then, because I don't send any.

 

[fire_breeze]

An old wives' tale says that bread baked on Christmas Eve will never go mouldy.

The Christmas turkey was imported to France by the Jesuits and it is still known in some French dialects as a 'Jesuite'.

 

[fire_breeze]

Christmas is traditionally celebrated to commemorate the birth of Jesus. December 25th was not celebrated as the birthday of Christ until the year 440 CE. While December 25th was originally the date of a pre-Christian holiday, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the birthday of the unconquered Sun, it isn't an ancient feast as some assume. Emperor Elagabalus (218–222 CE) introduced the festival, and it reached the height of its popularity under Aurelian, who promoted it as an empire-wide holiday.

So, if Christmas was not celebrated on December 25th until c 440CE, when was it? Around 200 CE, Clement of Alexandria wrote that a group in Egypt celebrated the nativity on Pachon 25, which corresponds to May 20. In Chronographai, a reference work published in 221, Sextus Julius Africanus suggested that Jesus was conceived on the spring equinox, March 25 on the Roman calendar. Tertullian (d. 220) does not mention Christmas as a major feast day in the Church of Roman Africa. It was eventually established in the East and West on December 25th, possibly to coincide with various pre-Christian feasts, all which celebrates the birth of the light.

 

[fire_breeze]

In 1647, the English parliament passed a law that made Christmas illegal. Christmas festivities were banned by Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell, who considered feasting and revelry on what was supposed to be a holy day to be immoral. Anybody caught celebrating Christmas was arrested. The ban was lifted only when the Puritans lost power in 1660.

 

[fire_breeze]

Christmas crackers were invented by Thomas Smith. He had imported some French novelties to sell as Christmas gifts, but these were not popular until he wrapped them up and added a snapper.

 

[fire_breeze]

In Mexico, wearing red underwear on New Year's Eve is said to bring new love in the upcoming year.

Hmmm

 

[artlover637]

In Mexico, wearing red underwear on New Year's Eve is said to bring new love in the upcoming year.

Hmmm

I need to rush right out and get some. Which shall it be, boxers or briefs?