Totally Useless (or not) Fact of the Day

First topic message reminder :

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Since 1950, neither winners

nor heirs may sell their Oscar statuette
without offering to sell it back

to the Academy first for $1.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Soy milk, the liquid left after beans have been crushed in hot water and strained, is a favorite beverage in the East. In Hong Kong, soy milk is as popular as Coca-Cola is in the U.S.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Birthday today:
May 7th ... 1901
Gary [Frank James] Cooper
Academy Award-winning actor d: 1961

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
It is estimated that 4 million "junk" telephone calls – phone solicitations by persons or programmed machine – are made every day in the United States.
(I would have thought it was even MORE!)

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The United States flag has not always had thirteen stripes.
The first flag of the United States, adopted by Congress on June 14, 1777, had thirteen stripes and thirteen stars, each representing the thirteen original colonies. After Vermont became the fourteenth state in 1791 and Kentucky became the fifteenth became the fifteenth state in 1792, Congress added two more stars and two more stripes to the flag in 1795. When five more states joined the Union, Congress ruled that after July 4, 1818, the flag would revert permanently to thirteen stripes.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Today in history -- May 9, 1961 ... In a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow condemned television programming as a "vast wasteland."
(And that was BEFORE "Reality TV!")

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Happy Birthday today to:
Candice Bergen
Emmy Award-winning actress
b: 1946

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The very peak of the Washington Monument is not stone, but a 100-ounce solid aluminum pyramid, constructed as part of the monument's lightning protection system. In the 1880s, aluminum was a rare metal, selling for $1.10 per ounce and used primarily for jewelry. The pyramid at the top of the monument was the largest piece of aluminum of its day and was such a novelty that it was displayed at Tiffany's jewelry store before it was placed at the top.

Humans have between
100 trillion to 1 quadrillion
living cells in their bodies.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
No information available on bunny rabbits.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
At the tender age of 7, the multi-award-winning composer and pianist Marvin Hamlisch ("The Way We Were") was one of the youngest students ever admitted to the renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York City.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
If every OREO cookie eaten in a given year were dunked, cows would have to work overtime to produce the extra 42.2 million gallons of milk needed to accommodate the extra dunkers.

gosh !! and how much more would it be if you added all the other cookies ?

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Bulls do not charge at the color red.
Bulls are color-blind. At bullfights, they charge at the red matadors' capes not because they are provoked by the color, but because they see motion and are taunted by the darts stuck in their backs and the screams from the matadors.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The Liberty Bell did not crack on July 4, 1776, while being rung to announce the Declaration of Independence.
The State House Bell, recast from the Province Bell, was hung in the tower of the Pennsylvania State House in June 1753 and was rung to announce the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 8, 1776. A major crack first appeared in the bell on July 8, 1835, while it was being rung for the death of Chief Justice John Marshall. In 1846, the crack was intentionally widened to reduce potential damage from vibrations when the bell was rung for Washington's birthday. In the mid-1880s, abolitionists renamed the bell the Liberty Bell, referring to liberty for slaves. In 1907, a second crack appeared, extending the first crack, and the bell was retired.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Louis Chevrolet , son of a watchmaker, was born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. At eight, his family moved to France. He turned his early mechanical genius into a job repairing bicycles, sometimes finding time to race them -- winning nearly 30 races in three years of competition. Then he discovered cars, turning his mechanical genius to internal combustion engines. In 1900, Chevrolet moved to Montreal, becoming a mechanic. Some biographies even mention he found time to chauffeur while in one of Canada's most beautiful cities. A year later, he moved to New York, NY, quickly becoming known as a racer and engineer. W.C. Durant, founder of General Motors, took a shine to Chevrolet, and placed him behind the wheel of a Buick racing car. Durant and Chevrolet soon partnered to create the Chevrolet Motor Car Company in 1911.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
7-Up was originally called
'Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda'
when it was invented in 1929.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Mikey (the Life Cereal kid) did not die
because Pop Rocks exploded in his stomach.
Pop Rocks, the fruit-flavored candy introduced by General Foods in 1975, contained trapped carbon dioxide. When placed in the mouth, the candydissolved, releasing the carbonation, causing fizzing sensations on the tongue and mild popping sounds. Urban legend holds that the boy who played Mikey in TV commercials swallowed Pop Rocks, washed them down with Coke, and the resulting explosion in his stomach killed him. In truth, swallowing Pop Rocks with Coke merely produces belching. John Gilchrist, the boy who played Mikey graduated college in 1991 and works as an advertising manager for a New York radio station.
(I must have missed that urban legend.)

Hey Mikey, he likes it!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Pine, spruce, or other evergreen wood should never be used in barbecues. These woods, when burning or smoking, can add harmful tar and resins to the food. Only hardwoods should be used for smoking and grilling, such as oak, pecan, hickory, maple, cherry, alder, apple, or mesquite, depending on the type of meat being cooked.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The Statue of Liberty is not in New York City.
The Statue of Liberty stands in New Jersey on Bedloe's Island, renamed Liberty Island in 1956. Although the island sits in New York Harbor, it is within New Jersey's waters. An 1834 compact with the State of New Jersey gives the State
of New York control over the island. Sales tax charged on the island and state income taxes paid by the families who live there go to the State of New York. A Jersey City power company provides the power on the island.

Wanna see a "real life Simpson's house?" ...
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The Earth is not closest to the Sun in summer.
The Earth is closest to the Sun around January 1 and farthest from the Sun in July. The seasons are caused by the tilt of the Earth's axis, not by the Earth's distance from the Sun. The tilt of ther Earth's axisgives the Northern Hemisphere the most direct sunlight (longer daylight hours) between March and September, while the Southern Hemisphere receives the most direct sunlight in the other half of the year. The more direct sunlight, the hotter the temperature. That's why when it's summer above the equator, it's winter below the equator.

In 1949, "Crusader Rabbit" debuted
as the first made-for-TV animated cartoon.

Pornography is a $4 billion business in the U.S. annually
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
A bumble bee flaps its wings 160 beats per second.

Since 1950, the three most recorded songs in the United States have been "St. Louis Blues," "Tea for Two," and "Body and Soul."
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The 1988 blockbuster movie Titanic lasts
3 hours and 14 minutes. The actual ship took
2 hours and 40 minutes to sink after hitting an iceberg.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The crocodile is surprisingly fast on land. If pursued by a crocodile, a person should run in a zigzag motion, for the crocodile has little or no ability to make sudden changes of direction.
Make sure you write that down in your little book of "Important Things To Remember."

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
A pig is a hog — but a hog is not a pig.
"Hog" is a generic name for all swine.
Per hog-raising terminology, a pig
is a baby hog less than ten weeks old.
"oink, oink!"

By the numbers: Three (3)

- Minimum number of people necessary for a riot,
according to criminal law
- Number of basketballs prepared by the referees
for each NBA game
- Number of hearts that an octopus has

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Mr. Clean has a seldom-used first name--"Veritably."
That came from a "Give Mr. Clean a First Name"
promotion in 1962.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
When ordering coffee on U.S. flights,
for the EastCoast, "regular" is with milk and sugar;
on the West Coast, "regular" coffee is black.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
As a child, Queen Victoria was trained to keep her chin up.
A sprig of holly was placed beneath her collar.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The layer of gas that spreads out from a nova explosion
can be traveling at speeds of 5 million miles per hour.
(Wow! That's faster than the Roadrunner!) *beep beep!*
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Henry E. Allott - a circus man and theatrical promoter - invented pink lemonade in the early 1870s when he accidentally dropped cinnamon candies in a batch of the
original drink.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
By the numbers ... 1/9
Approximate fraction of an iceberg that appears above the water line, regardless of its size.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
According to a Motorcycle Industry Council survey conducted in 1994, the average motorcyclist is male, age 32.5 years (up from the average in the 1980s of 27.5 years), married, and has some college education; his annual income averages $33,200.

Quote for today:
Author Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) once commented, "Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked."
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

By the numbers: 6
Minimum number of rings
that a telephone caller should wait before hanging up, according to the 15th edition of Emily Post's Etiquette.
Number of U.S. States with
geographic regions called "panhandles"...
Alaska, Florida, Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia.

Remember these?
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
May 20, 1830 ...
H.D. Hyde of Reading, Pennsylvania
patented the fountain pen.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Heavily cultivated, though it may have been in England,
the leek is the national emblem of Wales.

JackRabbit wrote:By the numbers: Three (3)

- Minimum number of people necessary for a riot,
according to criminal law
- Number of basketballs prepared by the referees
for each NBA game
- Number of hearts that an octopus has

does that mean an octopus is three times more loving than we are ? definately they are eight times more affectionate !!

By the numbers:
Eight - 8 -
- Number of ribs on a standard umbrella.
- Number of stories in the Leaning Tower of Pisa

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Bavarian immigrant Charles August Fey
invented the first three-reel automatic payout slot machine, the Liberty Bell, in San Francisco in 1899.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
A wry observation from journalist Linda Ellerbee:
"I've seen Bill Gates, and money can buy you many things, but it doesn't necessarily buy a decent haircut."

By the numbers: 12
- Number of astronauts (all Americans)
who have walked on the moon.
- Number of flowers depicted
on each side of Oreo cookies.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The average American's diet today
consists of 55 percent junk food.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The most important building in Marburg, Germany, is the Elisabethkirche, about 80 km to the north of Frankfurt. The first Gothic church in Germany, it was erected to house the remains of Saint Elisabeth, who died there in 1231. Inside, the church is like a museum of German religious art, full of beautiful statues and frescoes.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
$9.00 was the cost of the first TV commercial,
for the Bulova Watch Company.
It aired on July 01, 1941,
during a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball game.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Several poison-dart frog species are bred at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. There, researchers gauge the toxicity of poisonous species by taste. No danger is posed, because frogs caught in the wild gradually become less poisonous, and captive offspring are nontoxic. The change may be due to diet. The frog's natural menu — mostly tropical ants and springtails — cannot be duplicated in a terrarium.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
After his death in 896,
the body of Pope Formosus
was dug up and tried for various crimes.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
8.34 pounds
The weight of one gallon of water.