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Useless fact of the day!

Started by Valiss, December 05, 2011, 01:28:30 PM

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Lady Renee Buchanan

The purple dye that is used to stamp the grade of meat usually somewhere on the outer layer of fat is edible.   It is made of grape skins.
A real Surf Diva
Landshark who loves water
Chieftesse Surf'n Penny of Clan O'Siodhachain,
Irish Penny Brigade
Giver of Big Hugs 
Member since the beginning of RF
All will be well. St. Julian of Norwich

MrHyde

It would be very bad if it was not edible.

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
Home Faire - Texas Renaissance Festival
Frequent - Scarborough, Four Winds, Sherwood, and Middlefaire as well.

The Rabbi

A Hippos milk is pink. Now if it was strawberry flavored I would really be impressed.
My sanity is not lost I sent it away
Proud member of FOKTOP

Bob of the Lake

Starfish have no brains.  (Hmm...maybe there's some starfish in me....)
I came, I saw, I skipped to my lou.
            - Hammy the Squirrel

MrHyde

A duck's quack does not echo, and scientists have no idea why.
Home Faire - Texas Renaissance Festival
Frequent - Scarborough, Four Winds, Sherwood, and Middlefaire as well.

Valiss


Harvard University Library has four books bound in human skin.

chainshot

When a person dies, hearing is generally the last sense to go.  The first sense lost is usually sight, then followed by taste, smell and touch.

In 16th century Europe many druggists sold medicine made from powdered mummies. Such "medicines" was considered good for gout and the inflammation of the mucus membranes and was often incorporated into products known as "mummy balm" or "egyptian salve".  In 1564 someone named Guy de la Fontaine attempted to corner the market in Alexandria, only to discover that the dealers there were selling the mummified remains of derelicts who had died from a variety of diseases.

Sir Miles Partridge once played dice with Henry VIII for the bells of St. Paul's church and won, and promptly collected the bells.

Madame de Montespan; the second wife of Louis XIV once lost 4 million francs in a half an hour at a gambling table.

Leonardo da Vinci invented the scissors.  He did it to demonstrate the principles of planes

The word "tip" meaning gratuity was originally an acronym for "To Insure Promptness.

In ancient Japan public contests were held to see who could break wind the loudest and longest.  Winners were awarded many prizes and received great acclaim.

It costs more to buy a new car today than it cost Christopher Columbus to equip and undertake three voyages to and from the New World.

America once issued a 5 cent bill.


Haydn could write music only on clean white paper.  Mozart composed while playing billiards.  Christoph Gluck would write only seated in the middle of a field.  Rossini composed most of his music when he was drubk.  Wagner found it easiest to compose when he was dressed up in historical costumes.

President James Garfield could write latin with one hand and greek with the other - simultaneously. Leonardo da Vinci could draw with one hand and write with the other simultaneously.

Hot water weighs more than cold.


chainshot

For those of you still interested, here's few more.

In medieval China it was not unusual for a mother to breast-feed a child until the child was seven years old.

The female condor lays a single egg once every two years.

Some dying words of the famous and infamous:

Ludwig Van Beethoven: "Applaud friends, the comedy is finished."
Henry David Thoreau: "Moose...Indian..."
Thomas Edison: "It's very beautiful over there."
Lady Nancy Astor: "Am I dying, or is it my birthday?"
Tallulah Bankhead: "Codeine... Bourbon"
Humphrey Bogart: "I should never have switched from scotch to martinis."
Sir Winston Churchill: "I'm bored with it all."
Queen Elizabeth I: "All my possessions for a moment of time."
Eugene O'Neill: "I Knew it, I knew it.  Born in a hotel room and god d**n it, died in a hotel room."
Francois Rabelais: "I owe much; I have nothing; the rest I leave to the poor."
Union Gen. John Sedgewick (killed in battle in the Civil War): "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."
Dylan Thomas:"I've had 18 straight whiskies, I think that's the record."
Oscar Wilde: "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."

At the moment of being hanged, many observers have noted the victim if male, often has an erection and may even ejaculate.

The story of the little dutch boy who placed his finger in a dike to save a town from a flood is an american invention.

Tuna can swim 100 miles in a single day.

Before 1863, postal service in the United States was free.

Punctuation did not come into use until the advent of printing in the fifteen century.  Before that, words written by scribes runtogetherlikethis.

In NY state, it is illegal to shoot at a rabbit from a moving trolley car.

Every citizen of Kentucky is required by law to take a bath once a year.

Tablecloths were originally meant to serve as towels with which guests could wipe their hands and faces after meals.

The Mad Hatter character in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and the phrase "Mad as a hatter" are based on a tragic episode in manufacturing history during the 18th and 19th century where hatmakers used various chemicals in their work, among them mercury used to cure the felt.


MrHyde

***Note To Self:  Don't Play Trivial Pursuit Against Chainshot***

The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
Home Faire - Texas Renaissance Festival
Frequent - Scarborough, Four Winds, Sherwood, and Middlefaire as well.

Bob of the Lake

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
I came, I saw, I skipped to my lou.
            - Hammy the Squirrel

Valiss

Norway has eaten it's entire stockpile of butter due to a dieting fad.

Merlin the Elder

Brown and serve rolls came into being in the 1930s in Little Rock, Arkansas at Meyer's Bakery.

Hot Springs Reservation was created by an act of Congress on April 20, 1832, making it the first national park among all the current National Parks System parks, however, it was not officially designated as part of the NPS until 1921. Yellowstone is the first official entry in to the NPS.

Living life in the slow lane
ROoL #116; the Jack of Daniels; AARP #7; SS# 000-00-0013
I've upped my standards. Now, up yours.
...and may all your babies be born naked...

MrHyde

The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
Home Faire - Texas Renaissance Festival
Frequent - Scarborough, Four Winds, Sherwood, and Middlefaire as well.

Valiss

Over 450 gallons of fake blood were used in the two Kill Bill movies

Elennare

You are more likely to be bitten by a New Yorker than by a shark.  And the sharks are easier to avoid. ;)

(if you can't guess, the few random facts I know come from my zoo employee husband :) )
My (infrequently updated) costume blog: http://manufactorumbrandis.wordpress.com/