Total Trivia

[Gaia_Lorraine]

You can call it Britain, Great Britain, United Kingdom, or U.K. – however, if you purchase a stamp there, you won't find any name. Great Britain was the first country in the world to issue postage stamps, and they're the only nation in the world today that doesn't use a national name on their stamps.

 

[smotherman]

Hot dogs can last more than 20 years in a landfill!!!


Never will I eat hotdogs!

 

[smotherman]

A baking company created a chocoalte chip cookie that weighed as much as four elephants!

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Good King Wenceslas was actually only Duke of Bohemia, not a king. He lived in the tenth century.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

In 1962, University of Utah student Nolan Bushnell received his first exposure to video games, playing Spacewar in the University's computer lab. Bushnell spent the next 7 years trying to reproduce Spacewar on a smaller, less expensive computer. When it was finally completed in 1971, Bushnell's Spacewar variation (dubbed "Computer Space"), bombed. People found it too complicated. Bushnell gave up on it, quit his job at Ampex, and founded Atari in 1972. Bushnell originally wanted to name the company Syzygy, but the name was already taken by a roofing company. That same year, Magnavox quietly released the Odyssey, the first home video game system. It had a game similar to Pong, and Magnavox later sued Atari (successfully) for "copying" it.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Pocahontas and her husband John Rolfe had one son named Thomas who was born and educated in England, but settled in Virginia.

 

[fire_breeze]

The American Federal Government started printing paper currency only in 1861. People had hoarded the coins during the Civil War, and it soon wiped out money in circulation. Congress authorized the Treasury Department to create paper currency. They were called “greenbacks” after the color ink used on one side, and Lincoln, then president, was pictured on them. It required that the money be signed by the Treasurer or anyone designated by him. When it came out in 1862, it had to be signed by hand. Six people worked in the attic of the Treasury building every day, signing, sorting and sealing them.

 

[fire_breeze]

Most people think the symbol for the US dollar is derived from the initials U and S superimposed on each other. Well this is false. It’s from the Spanish dollar sign. The US decided in 1782 that its basic unit of currency would be the Spanish dollar or peso. Its symbol was even then written as $, which was supposedly an ancient Phoenician sign indicating strength and sovereignty.

 

[fire_breeze]

The Moon is moving away from us. Each year, the Moon steals some of Earth's rotational energy, and uses it to propel itself about 3.8 centimeters higher in its orbit. Researchers say that when it formed, the Moon was about 14,000 miles (22,530 kilometers) from Earth. It's now more than 280,000 miles, or 450,000 kilometers away.

 

[fire_breeze]

We all know that tides on Earth are caused mostly by the Moon (the Sun has a smaller effect). Here's how it works:

The Moon's gravity pulls on Earth's oceans. High tide aligns with the Moon as Earth spins underneath. Another high tide occurs on the opposite side of the planet because gravity pulls Earth toward the Moon more than it pulls the water.

At full Moon and new Moon, the Sun, Earth and Moon are lined up, producing the higher than normal tides (called spring tides, for the way they spring up). When the Moon is at first or last quarter, smaller neap tides form. The Moon's 29.5-day orbit around Earth is not quite circular. When the Moon is closest to Earth (called its perigee), spring tides are even higher, and they're called perigean spring tides.

All this tugging has another interesting effect: Some of Earth's rotational energy is stolen by the Moon, causing our planet to slow down by about 1.5 milliseconds every century.

Maybe we should slow down as well?

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The first Christmas card was created in England on December 9, 1842.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The acronym "U.N.C.L.E." on the TV spy series stood for United Network Command for Law Enforcement.

 

[someoneyouknow]

The interior of each elevator in the Chrysler Building in New York City is different from the other.

 

[someoneyouknow]

When a baby giraffe is born, it has to fall roughly six feet to the ground

 

[someoneyouknow]

Giraffes and human share one identical feature. Both have seven bones in their necks.

 

[NymphGoddess]

there is one difference between a buffalo and a bison...what is it?

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

there is one difference between a buffalo and a bison...what is it?

They are spelt differently?

 

[TheProfessorX]

there is one difference between a buffalo and a bison...what is it?

Buffaloes are only native to Asia and Africa, while Bison, mainly what we think of as Buffalo, habit in North America. They are from the same family, but are two different animals

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

As CEO and chair of Harpo Entertainment Group, Oprah Winfrey is the first black female and the third female ever, behind Mary Pickford and Lucille Ball, to own her own TV- and film-production studio. Harpo Productions, her $20 million, 100,000-square-foot facility, has mushroomed from just five employees to 135 since 1985. In 1994, Winfrey's sales reached an astounding $115 million.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The streets of London were lit by gaslights for the first time in 1807. Before that, torches were used.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Sir George Cayley (1773-1857), a British nobleman, made the first serious attempts to invent the airplane. He built the first successful gliders.

 

[fire_breeze]

The first report of a parachute-like device comes from 9th century Islamic Spain (al-Andalus). The inventor Abbas Ibn Firnas (known by Europeans as Armen Firnas) reportedly jumped off a tower in Córdoba, using a "huge wing-like cloak" to slow his fall:
"Among other very curious experiments which he made, one is his trying to fly. He covered himself with feathers for the purpose, attached a couple of wings to his body, and, getting on an eminence, flung himself down into the air, when according to the testimony of several trustworthy writers who witnessed the performance, he flew a considerable distance, as if he had been a bird, but, in alighting again on the place whence he had started, his back was very much hurt, for not knowing that birds when they alight come down upon their tails, he forgot to provide himself with one.

 

[water_side]

Full of wind

Relative to its area, Britain has the highest number of reported tornados per year in the world. But it must be said that the British (or the English in particular) are obsessively fixated upon the weather, which may go some way to explain the number of tornado reports.

 

[fire_breeze]

Some more tornado facts, courtesy of the National Geographic

Tornadoes are vertical funnels of rapidly spinning air. Their winds may top 250 miles (400 kilometers) an hour and can clear-cut a pathway a mile (1.6 kilometers) wide and 50 miles (80 kilometers) long.

Twisters are born in thunderstorms and are often accompanied by hail. Giant, persistent thunderstorms called supercells spawn the most destructive tornadoes.

These violent storms occur around the world, but the United States is a major hotspot with about a thousand tornadoes every year. "Tornado Alley," a region that includes eastern South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, northern Texas, and eastern Colorado, is home to the most powerful and destructive of these storms. U.S. tornadoes cause 80 deaths and more than 1,500 injuries per year.

 

[NymphGoddess]

the consistency of camel urine is?