Ponder
Points
The country of
Monaco? It covers only 370 acres.
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow is the only American poet to have a bust of himself on
display at Westminster Abbey in London.
I always thought
the word cooties were just something kids had made up. Wrong. It
comes from a word in the Polynesian language that means lice.
The most popular
name for a dog in the United States is “Lady”
James Audubon made
his living as a portrait painter so he could afford to study birds.
Dorothy of “The
Wizard of Oz” …..You knew that her last name was Gale, didn’t
you?
The light coming to
us from the farthest star has taken over 4 billion years to reach us
at a speed of 186,000 miles per second.
All interstate
highways that run from one coast to the other coast all end in a
“0”.
I didn’t realize
that the first television newscast occurred on August 22, 1928. It
happened in Albany, New York to announce the nomination of Alfred
Smith for President. He lost, by the way.
Bet you didn’t
know that the sport of gouging was popular in the Ohio Valley around
1800. The so-called game consisted of trying to gouge out your
opponents eye with your thumbnail. Lovely.
If you were to call
a gathering of Rooks (birds) a ‘building’….you’d be correct.
Winston Churchill
once said,…”Success is going from failure to failure without a
loss of enthusiasm.” I like that.
Human hearts weigh
different for males and females? Yep, the males average out at 11.1
ounces and the females at 9.3 ounces.
Top term of
endearment used by Americans for their spouses was “Honey”.
“Angel” and “Pumpkin” tied for 8th place.
Blue laws….those
laws that regulate what we can or can’t do on some days like
Sunday…..were called that because they were first written on blue
paper back in 1665.
Don’t laugh;
Sylvester Stallone’s first job was that of a lion-cage cleaner.
That’s not as bad
as the first one that Mick Jagger landed. He was a porter at a
mental hospital.
The blesbok is the
only purple animal…lives in South Africa.
Ever wonder why
seagulls all face in the same direction? It’s because of the way
they’re built, heavy in the front and light in the rear. They get
less wind resistance when they face into the wind.
The reason worms
come out of the ground after a rain is fairly simple. Their holes
are full of water.
Remember those old
drawing of Ben Franklin flying a kite with a key attached to it
trying to test electricity? Well, old Ben wasn’t anyone’s fool.
He was very careful. Seems the first two guys that tried this got
themselves electrocuted.
Another point about
Paul Revere…..in addition to being a silversmith, he was also a
dentist. Learned how to repair false teeth and to clean teeth from
another surgeon.
Strange…..what we
call a “French kiss” here in America is called an “English
kiss” in France.
Al Capone, the
gangster, told folks that he got the scar on his face from some
battle in World War 1. Never happened, old Scarface actually got
knifed during a fight in a bar where he was working as a bouncer.
Afternoons on Venus
can get up to 984 degrees. Better bring some good sunscreen.
The only NBA game
in which neither team scored more than 20 points happened on
November 22, 1950…the Minneapolis Lakers (now the L.A. Lakers)
beat the Fort Wayne (now Detroit) Pistons by a score of 19 to 18.
The custom of a man
tipping his hat to a lady started in the days of chivalry. Used to
be that when a knight met a lady, he would raise the visor on his
helmet to show that he intended no harm. Of course, helmets went out
of style as hats came in and so there you have it.
Just so you’ll
know…Chianti isn’t a red wine since it’s made with both red
and white grapes.
It’s been
reported that some dinosaurs were as small as hens, as in
chickens…..
There has been at
least on woman to win the Medal of Honor. President Andrew Johnson
gave Mary Walker of the 52nd Ohio Regiment the award in 1865.
Did you know that a
sneeze could travel at about 100 miles an hour. Please cover
up…..thank you.
In 1800 America did
not have a public library.
You might be
interested to know that there is a martial art called
‘tessenjutsu’ practiced in Japan. This deadly practice is based
on the expert use of a fan.
A single strand of
hair can tell forensic scientists what the person’s age, sex and
race happened to be.
The starfish is the
only animal on land or sea that can turn its stomach inside out.
Makes it easier to eat its prey.
Mr. Earl Tupper
invented Tupperware in 1942. His first product was a plastic cup.
Houseflies live for
two weeks. I don’t think this is correct. I know I’ve had one
that I can’t catch for about 6 months now.
George Washington
had the entire Continental army (all 4,000 of them) vaccinated in
1777. It was thought that this probably saved them in order to
fight.
If you were to hold
the metal Gallium in your hand…it’d melt. Does so at 86 degrees.
Not good for engagement rings.
Beethoven’s last
words were…”I shall hear in heaven.” As you know he was deaf.
The temperature of
the earth increases by one degree for every 60 feet of decent.
