Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts: And Bizarre Information (15 page)

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE WITH ELECTRIC LIGHTS

Date:
December 1882

Background:
The first electrically illuminated Christmas tree was installed in the New York City home of Edward H. Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison. The first commercially produced Christmas tree lamps were manufactured in nine-socket sets by the Edison General Electric Co. in 1901. Each socket took a miniature 2-candle-power carbon-filament lamp operating on 32 volts.

THE FIRST DEPARTMENT STORE

Date:
1848

Background:
Alexander Turney Stewart opened the Marble Dry Goods Palace on Broadway in New York City. Stewart had been a schoolmaster in Ireland before he emigrated in 1823 and set up his own business. At the time of its erection the Marble Dry Goods Palace was the largest shop in the world, extending the whole length of a city block. By 1876, the year of his death, Stewart’s company had annual sales of $70 million, and his personal fortune was estimated at $80 million.

THE FIRST POLICE CAR

Date:
1899

Background:
The first occasion in which a car was used in police work occurred when Sgt. McLeod of the Northamptonshire (England) County Police borrowed a Benz vehicle to pursue a man who was selling forged tickets for the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Top speed: 12 mph. The first car regularly employed in police work was a Stanley Steamer acquired by the Boston Police Department in 1903. It replaced four horses.

THE FIRST FILM ACTOR

Date:
August 28, 1895

Background:
The first motion picture to involve the use of actors was a brief costume drama titled
The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots
, which was shot by Alfred Clark in West Orange, New Jersey. The part of Mary was played by Mr. R. L. Thomas, secretary and treasurer of the Kinetoscope Company. After approaching the block and laying his head upon it, Thomas removed himself, the camera was stopped, and a dummy was substituted. The camera was then started again for the decapitation scene. This was also the first use of trick photography or special effects work in a film.

THE FIRST INCOME TAX

Date:
1451

Background:
The first income tax was the Catastro introduced in Florence, Italy, under Lorenzo de’ Medici. It was later replaced by the Scala, an income tax levied on a progressive basis, but this degenerated into a convenient means of political blackmail and, on the overthrow of the Medicis in 1492, was repealed.

Why is September 28 special? It’s Ask A Stupid Question Day. Thanks for asking!

Nine percent of Americans buy their pets’ clothing on birthdays and holidays.

Number of states that celebrate National Admit You’re Happy Day: 19.

Americans spend $1.1 billion on Valentine’s Day candy each year.

July 22 is National Rat-Catchers Day.

The ball that drops in Times Square every New Year’s Eve is named the Star of Hope.

December 29 is National Whiner’s Day.

About 15 percent of U.S. kids say they keep their Halloween candy for at least a year.

The most popular Easter egg color is blue. Next are purple and pink.

Number one holiday for telephone calls: Mother’s Day.

November 19 is Have a Bad Day Day.

In Switzerland children receive holiday eggs from the Easter cuckoo.

Mother-in-Law Day was first celebrated on March 5, 1934, in Amarillo, Texas.

Seventy-six percent of Americans celebrate New Year’s Eve in groups of fewer than 20.

Every Thanksgiving Americans consume 45 million turkeys—one for every five and a half people.

Americans send an estimated 900 million Valentine’s Day cards each year.

More collect calls are made on Father’s Day than on any other day of the year.

Beavers sometimes get crushed by the trees they gnaw down.

Reindeer milk has five times as much fat as cow milk.

There are 1,000 barbs in a single porcupine quill.

A typical porcupine has about 30,000 quills.

A wolf’s howl can be heard as far as seven miles away.

Beavers’ teeth are so sharp that Native Americans once used them as knife blades.

Some beaver dams are more than 1,000 years old.

A bison can jump as high as six feet off the ground.

If you feed a wild moose often enough, it will begin to attack people who don’t feed it.

A warthog has only four warts, all of them on its head.

Full-grown grizzly bears can bite through a half-inch of steel.

A hibernating bear can go as long as six months without a bathroom break.

Bears don’t hibernate in caves. They like hollow stumps or logs.

A brown bear can run faster than a horse at full gallop.

Some female turtles may wait as long as five years to lay their eggs after mating.

A female black bear can weigh 300 pounds, but her babies weigh only half a pound at birth.

If a female ferret goes into heat and can’t find a mate, she’ll die.

Emily Dickinson wrote 1,700 poems. Seven were published in her lifetime.

World’s top-selling fiction author: Agatha Christie, with over 2 billion copies sold.

Charles Dickens always slept facing north. He thought it improved his writing.

Jack Kerouac’s favorite pastime late in life: getting drunk and watching the
Beverly Hillbillies
.

Ernest Hemingway rewrote the final page of
A Farewell to Arms
39 times.

The first novel ever written on a typewriter was
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
.

Dr. Seuss’s first book was rejected by 23 publishers.

Ernest Hemingway’s rules for manhood: plant a tree, fight a bull, write a book, have a son.

Stephen King was 19 years old when his first story was published.

Mark Twain liked to say he only smoked once a day—“all day long.”

In 1879, while on his honeymoon, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote
Travels with a Donkey
.

First American novel to sell more than a million copies:
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
.

World’s best-selling novel: Dan Brown’s
The Da Vinci Code
—almost 40 million copies in print as of December 2005.

When the air bag in your car goes off, it expands at a rate of 150 miles per hour.

By the time you finish reading this, the earth will have traveled almost 100 miles through space.

Olympic downhill skiers reach 80 miles per hour.

Hummingbirds fly 60 miles per hour.

A greyhound can run as fast as 41 miles per hour.

Wild turkeys can run 30 mph and fly at speeds up to 55 miles per hour.

Raindrops can fall as fast as 22 miles per hour.

Elephants can run 20 miles per hour.

Top speed of an abalone on the move: five yards per minute.

Roadrunners run at a top speed of 15 miles per hour.

If aircraft carriers ran on gasoline, they’d get about six inches to the gallon.

The average stamp, when licked, has a tenth of a calorie.

Stamp collecting is the most popular hobby in the world.

Considered the world’s most-used public mailbox: at the intersection of Madison and Halsted streets in Chicago. It has to be emptied six times a day.

First stamp design selected by vote of the U.S. public: the 1993 Elvis Presley 29¢ stamp.

Every day the average mail carrier delivers 2,300 pieces of mail to more than 500 different addresses along his or her route.

Zip code 12345 is assigned to General Electric in Schenectady, New York.

For every post office in the United States, India has four.

The islands of Antigua and Barbuda issued Elle Macpherson postage stamps in 1999.

The U.S. Postal Service delivers more than 600 million pieces of mail a day.

The glue on Israeli stamps is certified kosher.

If you sent it before 1963, it didn’t have a zip code.

Smokey the Bear has his own zip code: 20252.

Personal letters make up only 2 percent of the mail delivered by the United States Postal Service.

Cost to mail a letter using the Pony Express: $5 per half ounce.

Cost of mailing a letter more than 400 miles in 1816 per letter sheet: 25¢.

The United States Postal Service handles about 46 percent of the world’s mail.

On September 26, 1970, John Kenmuir licked 393 stamps in four minutes.

Comedian Stan Laurel was married eight times, but had only four wives.

Marlene Dietrich played the musical saw.

Liza Minnelli, daughter of Judy Garland, married Jack Haley Jr., son of Jack Haley, who played the Tin Man in
The Wizard of Oz
.

Before appearing in
The Exorcist
, Linda Blair was in a mustard commercial on TV.

Mae West never kissed her leading men on-screen.

Paul Newman played Billy the Kid in
The Left Handed Gun
. One problem: Billy was right-handed.

Fred Astaire’s dancing shoes were size 8 1/2. His feet were insured for $650,000.

When Jerry Lewis wanted to make
The Catcher in the Rye
into a film, author J. D. Salinger said no.

Sean Connery was once selected Scotland’s Mr. Universe.

Drew Barrymore’s first acting role: a commercial for Gaines Burgers. (She was 11 months old.)

On average, Elizabeth Taylor remarries every four years, five months. She has been married eight times.

In her films, Shirley Temple always had 56 curls in her hair.

James Earl Jones (the voice of Darth Vader) and David Prowse (who played Vader on-screen) never met.

Q: HOW DOES QUICKSAND WORK?

A:
Not by pulling you down. Quicksand is nearly always found above a spring, which creates a supersaturated condition that makes the sand frictionless and unable to support weight. In addition, quicksand is airless, which creates suction as you struggle to get free. The most effective way to escape quicksand is to position yourself on top of it and ‘roll’ out. (
The Book of Answers
, by Barbara Berliner)

Q: HOW DOES ONE SWALLOW A SWORD?

A:
The main problem is learning how to relax the throat muscles and stop gagging. This takes weeks of practice . . . But it can be done. The sword doesn’t cut the sword swallower’s throat because its sides are dull. The point is usually sharp, but that’s not a problem as long as the sword swallower doesn’t swallow any swords long enough to poke him (or her) in the pit of the stomach. (
Know It All!
, by Ed Zotti)

Q: HOW ARE THE INTERSTATES NUMBERED IN THE UNITED STATES?

A:
Believe it or not, this is one government practice that is organized and logical. All east-west interstate highways are even-numbered and increase from south to north. Thus, east-west Interstate 80 is north of I-10. North/south interstates are odd-numbered and increase from west to east. City bypasses and spurs have triple digits and are numbered odd or even depending on their directional orientation. (
Thoughts for the Throne
, by Don Voorhees)

Q: IF YOU DROPPED A PENNY FROM THE TOP OF THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING, WOULD IT PIERCE A PERSON’S SKULL?

A:
Given that the Empire State Building is 1,250 feet tall and ignoring such factors as wind resistance, a penny dropped from the top
would hit the ground in approximately 8.8 seconds, having reached a speed of roughly 280 feet per second. This is not particularly fast. A low-powered .22 or .25 caliber bullet, to which a penny is vaguely comparable in terms of mass, typically has a muzzle velocity of 800 to 1,100 FPS, with maybe 75 foot-pounds of energy. On top of this we must consider that the penny would probably tumble while falling, and that the Empire State Building . . . is surrounded by strong updrafts, which would slow descent considerably. Thus, while you might conceivably inflict a fractured skull on some hapless New Yorker, the penny would certainly not go through just like that. (
The Straight Dope
, by Cecil Adams)

Q: WHY DO FEET SWELL ON AN AIRPLANE?

A:
It is a common myth that feet swell up when you ride in an airplane because of changes in atmospheric pressure due to high elevation. Feet swell up on planes, especially during long flights, for the same reason they swell up on the ground—inactivity. And it does not matter if you leave your shoes on or off; they will swell either way. If left on, they will provide external support, but will inhibit circulation a bit more and probably feel tighter during the latter part of the flight. If taken off, comfort may be increased, but the shoes are likely to be more difficult to put on once the flight is over. Podiatrists normally recommend “airplane aerobics” to help circulation—including help for swelling feet. (
The Odd Body: Mysteries of Our Weird and Wonderful Bodies Explained
, by Dr. Stephen Juan)