Ponder
Points
Bet you didn’t know that Pandemonium was the
name of the main city in Hell in John Milton’s work called “Paradise
Lost”.
Wasn’t until May of 1970 that a woman rode a
horse in the Kentucky Derby…lady by the name of Diane Crump.
Bet you were wondering who invented the left
hook in boxing, weren’t you? Gentleman Jim Corbett in 1889 was
responsible for doing this…….
Williard Scott, the Today Show weatherman…..
His first television job was as Bozo the clown in 1959….got his
start in Washington D.C.
How much do you think ballpoint pens cost when
they came out in 1945? $12 each…..I don’t think I bought one at that
price.
The name Joseph Gayetty…mean anything to
you….drawing a blank? Well, in 1857 he invented toilet paper….Good
for him….
Only one time zone in China…..All clocks have
to be coordinated to the time in Beijing.
Want to raft down the Volga River in Europe? Be
prepared to hang in for a good period of time….it runs 2,293 miles
long…starts in Russia.
Talk about a mistake…fellow named George
Harrison (not the Beatle) sold the rights to the Rand for $50 in
1886. The Rand, in case you didn’t know, is the world’s largest
source of gold……
Jonas Hanaway, doesn’t ring a bell does it?
Anyway, he was the first man in England to carry an umbrella in
public..Caused quite a stir in 1750, only women had carried them up
until that point……
If you were a logger and someone was talking to
you about a ‘jackpot’….what were they referring to? It was used to
describe a large, messy pile of logs.
While we’re on technical terms…..If you were
driving a truck and someone was talking about a ‘bumper
sticker’…..What would they be talking about? Someone who tailgates
too closely.
Cherrioats……that’s what Cherrio’s were first
called when they came on the market 50 years ago.
Bet you didn’t know it takes 9.86 quarts of
milk to make a pound of butter.
In the early 1800’s you could buy “Dr. Miles
Compound Extract of Tomato” …..Was a medicine….today we call it
ketchup.
So, your son comes in and says he want to go to
college and study to be a ‘vexillologist’. What will he be
interested in? The study of flags…
Old Fido, your faithful dog…ever wonder where
the name came from? Came from the Latin word ‘fidus’…which means
faithful….
If you were in the emergency room and someone
yelled out that “This guys a GOMER” …what do they mean? Someone who
comes into the emergency room with some minor problem….It’s a
acronym for…’Get out of my emergency room”
So how do you measure luminance? Measured in
something called a nit……One nit is a unit of brightness equal to one
candela per square meter.
If someone running for political office is
called ‘Drab’…what’s that refer to? Stands for ‘doesn’t rock any
boats’.
I didn’t know this…the Packard automobile was
the first car to have air-conditioning in 1939.
Costs the government about 2 ½ cents to make a
quarter……
Plymouth Rock weighs 4 and ½ tons…..How do they
know this stuff? Did someone pick it up?
So, how many islands are actually in the
Hawaiian Islands? Actually there are 8 big ones and 124 small ones
for a total of 132.
You knew Judge Roy Bean was famous as the ‘law
west of the Pecos’…….bet you don’t know what his brother Josh
did…..Give up? First Mayor of San Diego, California.
I always thought the powder used to keep the
founding fathers wigs white was flour…now I learn it was actually
ground rice.
Neil Armstrong…first man on the moon…what was
his annual salary when he was working for NASA in 1969? …Just over
$30,000 a year.
The goat is the most common domestic animal in
Africa.
The term ‘passing the buck’…..Where’d that come
from? It referred to a practice in a card game when someone didn’t
want to deal…..A big buckknife would be passed from one player to
another.
So how did oranges get to Florida in the first
place? Thanks to Spain….all ship captains were required to carry 100
orange seeds with them on every voyage. Don’t know if they had to
plant them or not….
Pushtu is a language spoken where? In
Afghanistan, you knew that……
Only one continent doesn’t have any
glaciers…which one is it? Australia, of course.
The diameter of the earth is 7,926 miles at the
equator…….
Here’s a weird one for you…Ludwig I, the King
of Bavaria from 1825 until 1848…..Stuffed his mattresses with the
beards and mustaches from soldiers serving in his father’s military
regiment. Why?
Highest tides in the world are in the Bay of
Fundy…sometimes go 70 feet or more….tough to tie up boats there…
In ancient Rome the cat was the symbol for
liberty…..
If you lived in a city and were called a
‘Cariocas’……where would you be? You’d be a citizen of Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil.
Greatest number of collect calls are made on
Fathers day…….guess they use their own money on Mothers Day…..
That single oar used by the guys on the
gondoliers in Venice…each is over 14 feet long…..
The florin….was a coin minted in Florence,
Italy starting in 1252…..The word means ‘little flower’. Florence
was the first city to make their own coins.
Name the only place where crocodiles and
alligators exist together…..Florida….no where else.
The famous ship…the Cutty Sark….made it’s first
voyage in 1869…what was it’s cargo? Tea from China.
Here’s something original…The famous
revolutionary hero …Pancho Villa…..Reported that his final words
were….”Don’t let it end this way…tell them I said something.” You’d
have thought he could do it on his own.
If you were earning minimum wage in 1938…how
much were you getting? A whopping 25 cents an hour.
So what state capital is actually located on
the Delaware River? New Jersey has it’s capital in Trenton…
Not sure this is very flattering….Queen Anne of
England was bowlegged….this was the inspiration for the furniture
called by the same name….
Finally for today…Sweden has the most phones
per capita of any country in the world.
