“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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Yes folks, the fasab fact show is on the road again.
Another chance to load your brain up with obscure but hopefully interesting facts.
Enjoy.
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In the 1940s,
Pepsi adopted a red, white, and blue logo
to support America’s war effort.
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The American tradition of the office “coffee break” started in 1902
when the Barcolo Manufacturing Company of Buffalo, New York
offered free coffee to their employees in order to boost morale.
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The largest national park in the world
is the North-East Greenland Park in Greenland,
covering more than 375,000 square miles.
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Yahoo! is an acronym for
“Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.”
David Filo and Jerry Yang were in a trailer in Palo Alto, Calif.,
thinking of a name for their hobby!
(Bet you always wondered about that.)
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Television lost about 20 percent of its advertising revenue
immediately after tobacco ads were banned in 1971.
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Because he had bad eyesight,
Harry Truman memorized the letters on the eye chart
to get into the Army.
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“J” is the only letter of the alphabet not used
as the atomic symbol for any element.
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Dogs that bark continuously can get laryngitis, just like humans,
but not as quickly because canine vocal cords are thicker
and take longer to get irritated.
(Unlike the people who have to listen to them barking!)
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Uganda is the youth capital of the world.
More than half the people living there
are under 15 years of age.
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America’s first “Air Force” was equipped with
five hot-air balloons and fifty servicemen.
As of 2012, the service operates
5,484 aircraft, 450 ICBMs and 63 satellites.
It has a $140 billion budget with 332,854 active personnel,
185,522 civilian personnel, 71,400 reserve personnel,
and 106,700 air guard personnel.
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The most successful fighter of WWI was
Rittmeister von Richthofen
who shot down 80 planes, more than any other WWI pilot.
He died after being shot down near Amiens.
France’s René Fonck
was the Allies’ most successful fighter pilot,
shooting down 75 enemy planes.
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Kool-Aid
was originally marketed as
Fruit Smack.
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Jefferson Finis Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889)
was a United States soldier and statesman, and
President of the Confederate States of America
during the entire Civil War which was fought from 1861 to 1865.
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The original name for the starship in Star Trek
was “Yorktown,” not “Enterprise”.
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The Star of India, the largest
star sapphire in the world (at 563.35 carats),
is actually from Sri Lanka.
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The bikini wax has been around for hundreds of years.
Muslim brides-to-be in the Middle East and North Africa
remove all their body hair before the wedding night.
(Ouch!)
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Basketball and volleyball were invented
in neighboring Massachusetts YMCAs,
the former in 1891 the latter four years later.
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Lead will float in mercury,
but a lump of tungsten
will sink right to the bottom.
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Researchers believe that herring communicate
with one another by farting.
(Maybe the message is in the bubbles?)
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The “K” in Kmart stands for Kresge,
the chain’s founder is Sebastian S. Kresge.
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fasab 
Very interesting! Serious about the Herrings? Wonder how that fits into the phrase “red herring” ?? 🙂
I don’t know who figured it out, but that’s what they say. Seems like a waste of time and money to me!
Sorry to rain on your parade, but basketball was actually invented by a Canadian & they used peach baskets as the original “baskets” Someone had to climb up with a ladder to retrieve the ball everytime someone scored until they cut the bottoms out of them.
Don’t worry I always have an umbrella handy 🙂 You are absolutely correct, Basketball was indeed invented by a Canadian, James Naismith – that’s him in the middle photo – but he did it while in the US, teaching at the International YMCA Training School (now Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Wow, I didn’t know that about Michael Naismith. And thanks for providing his name, I always forget it.