Icebergs And Sunshine, Both Make The Fact File Today.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Another contrasting day of facts here at the fasab blog.

And what could be more of a contrast than icebergs and sunshine?

Find out more below.

Enjoy.

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did you know2

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Contrary to popular belief,

the ‘t’ at the end of Voldemort,

who features in the Harry Potter stories,

is silent.

The name comes from the French

words meaning “flight of death.”

Lord Voldemort

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In North Carolina each year there is a

Hot Sauce and Hot Chili Pepper Eating Contest,

consisting of 5 rounds in which the participants

have to eat increasingly hot chilies.

The hotness of chilies is based on Scoville Heat Units.

In the first round, each contestant starts out with a

Large Cayenne Pepper (Long Hots) (500-2,500 SU)

and those who make it all the way to the last fifth round

have to deal with The Orange Habenero (100,000-300,000 SU).

Crikey!

Hot Sauce and Hot Chili Pepper Eating Contest

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Apparently Greece Is the “Sunniest” Country in Europe

enjoying on average more than 250 days of sunshine

(three thousand hours) a year,

which also makes it one of the

most sunny countries in the world.

Greece Is the “Sunniest” Country In Europe

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Daniel Craig is able to take any

Aston Martin from the factory

for the rest of his life,

because of his time as Bond.

Daniel Craig Aston Martin deal

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Tequila is made from the blue agave,

or agave tequilana Weber.

According to WebMD, the core of the plant

contains aguamiel or “honey water,”

which is used for syrup (and tequila) production.

blue agave

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All Egyptian pyramids were built

on the west bank of the River Nile,

which as the site of the setting sun

and was associated with the realm of

the dead in Egyptian mythology.

west bank of the River Nile

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The more education you have,

the lower your risk of heart disease,

however, in spite of that, heart disease

is still the greatest threat to your health.

heart disease

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The infamous iceberg that sank the Titanic

has been floating around since about 1,000 B.C.

Titanic iceberg

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Why do people sing in shower? 

One theory is that they might simply feel

more comfortable in the shower

since it is a relaxing place

and they are by themselves.

Or it may be because the acoustics

are better in the bathroom,

so the chances of you sounding

like a great singer are higher.

sing in shower

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Although it is supposed to be in Chicago,

the McCallister´s house in the movie Home Alone

is actually located at 671 Lincoln Avenue

in the village of Winnetka, Illinois.

The three-story single-family house

was listed for sale at $2.4 million in 2011

and sold for $1.585 million in 2012.

The house is now promoted as a tourist attraction.

McCallister´s house in the movie Home Alone

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As a farmer,

George Washington grew marijuana

on his farm and promoted its growth.

George Washington grew marijuana

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The October 24, 1960 saw one of the

deadliest spare-related accidents in history,

when a Soviet R-16 rocket (an ICBM) exploded

on the launch pad during testing.

72 workers were killed.

Soviet Premier at the time, Nikita Khrushchev,

demanded it be kept secret.

Today it is known as the Nedelin Catastrophe.

Nedelin Catastrophe

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A bottle of champagne contains

90 pounds or pressure per square inch,

which is three times the pressure found in car tires.

The popped cork from a champagne bottle

travels as fast as 60 miles per hour

and can cause some serious damage.

popped cork from a champagne bottle

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Mary Allerton was an immigrant

who established a permanent residence in

Plymouth Colony, which we know today as Massachusetts.

She was one of the many passengers of on the Mayflower,

the historic ship that transported the first Pilgrims,

from Plymouth, England, to the New World.

She was only four years old when she boarded the ship

and would die almost 80 years later,

making history as the last surviving Mayflower passenger.

Mary Allerton

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The first video uploaded to YouTube,

titled “Me at the zoo,”

made its debut on April 23, 2005.

The nineteen-second video was shot by Yakov Lapitsky

and shows YouTube cofounder Jawed Karim

at the San Diego Zoo.

It also contains the first words uttered on YouTube

which were

“All right, so here we are in front of the elephants”

when Karim was trying to “charm” the camera.

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Time To Give Thanks For The Thanksgiving Quiz!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Hello and welcome to another week at the fasab blog.

This week, for obvious reason, I’m on a Thanksgiving theme, so this week’s quiz is not the usual random mixture, but all about Thanksgiving and, of course, turkeys.

As usual, if you get stuck, you can find the answers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down below, but please NO cheating!

Enjoy and good luck.

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Turkey-Holding-Quiz-Sign

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Q.  1:  When was the first Thanksgiving celebration?

            a) 1535          b) 1598          c) 1621          d) 1686          e) 1751

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Q.  2:  What are the respective names of a female and a male turkey?  (A point for each correct answer, and a bonus point if you get them both right.)

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Q.  3:  Which U.S. president specified that Thanksgiving would fall on the last Thursday of November?

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Q.  4:  Which U.S. President attempted to move the Thanksgiving holiday to the fourth Thursday in November to create a longer Christmas shopping season?

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Q.  5:  What are the respective sounds made by a female and a male turkey?  (A point for each correct answer, and a bonus point if you get them both right.)

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Q.  6:  What Native American tribe celebrated the first Thanksgiving with the colonists?

            a)  Lakota            b) Apache          c) Wampanoag          d) Blackfoot

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Q.  7:  Approximately what percentage of American homes eats turkey on a) Thanksgiving and b) Christmas? (A point for each correct answer, and a bonus point if you get them both right.)

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Q.  8:  A three part, and possibly three point question, a) is Thanksgiving celebrated in any country other than the United States, and b) if so where, and c) when?  (A point for each correct answer.)

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Q.  9:  Which US state produces the most turkeys annually?

            a)  Ohio          b)  Indiana          c)  Minnesota          d)  Arkansas

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Q. 10:  The name of the famous rock where the pilgrims landed?

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Q. 11:  Where was the turkey first domesticated?

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Q. 12:  The original Thanksgiving lasted for how long?

           a)  1 day          b)  3 days          c)  5 days          d)  7 days

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Q. 13:  Which vegetable did the pilgrims have available for Thanksgiving but did not use because they thought it was poisonous?

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Q. 14:  What American statesman lobbied to make the turkey the national symbol?

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Q. 15:  What was the first departmental store that held a Thanksgiving parade?

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Q. 16:  What is the name of the skin that hangs from a turkey’s neck?

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Q. 17:  What do you call the day after Thanksgiving?

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Q. 18:  The inhabitants of which state are the largest consumers of turkey in the United States?

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Q. 19:  How many pilgrims were on the Mayflower and how long was the voyage from England to the New World? (A point for each correct answer, and a bonus point if you get them both right.)

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Q. 20:  Which country consumes the most turkey per year per capita?

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ANSWERS

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Q.  1:  When was the first Thanksgiving celebration?

            a) 1535          b) 1598          c) 1621          d) 1686          e) 1751

A.  1:  The correct answer is c) 1621.

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Q.  2:  What are the respective names of a female and a male turkey?  (A point for each correct answer, and a bonus point if you get them both right.)

A.  2:  A female turkey is a ‘hen’ and a male is a ‘tom’.

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Q.  3:  Which U.S. president specified that Thanksgiving would fall on the last Thursday of November?

A.  3:  Abraham Lincoln.

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Q.  4:  Which U.S. President attempted to move the Thanksgiving holiday to the fourth Thursday in November to create a longer Christmas shopping season?

A.  4:  Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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Q.  5:  What are the respective sounds made by a female and a male turkey?  (A point for each correct answer, and a bonus point if you get them both right.)

A.  5:  A female turkey says ‘cluck’ and a male turkey says ‘gobble’.

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Q.  6:  What Native American tribe celebrated the first Thanksgiving with the colonists?

            a)  Lakota            b) Apache          c) Wampanoag          d) Blackfoot

A.  6:  the Wampanoag tribe.

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Q.  7:  Approximately what percentage of American homes eats turkey on a) Thanksgiving and b) Christmas? (A point for each correct answer, and a bonus point if you get them both right.)

A.  7:  a) 90% of American homes eats turkey on Thanksgiving and b) 50% at Christmas.

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Q.  8:  A three part, and possibly three point question, a) is Thanksgiving celebrated in any country other than the United States and b) if so where and c) when?  (A point for each correct answer.)

A.  8:  Correct answers are,  a) Yes   b) in Canada, and   c) on the second Monday of October.

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Q.  9:  Which US state produces the most turkeys annually?

            a)  Ohio          b)  Indiana          c)  Minnesota          d)  Arkansas

A.  9:  The correct answer is  c)  Minnesota.

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Q. 10:  The name of the famous rock where the pilgrims landed?

A. 10:  Plymouth Rock.

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Q. 11:  Where was the turkey first domesticated?

A. 11:  Mexico and Central America. (A point for either answer.)

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Q. 12:  The original Thanksgiving lasted for how long?

            a)  1 day          b)  3 days          c)  5 days          d)  7 days

A. 12:  The correct answer is b)  3 days.

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Q. 13:  Which vegetable did the pilgrims have available for Thanksgiving but did not use because they thought it was poisonous?

A. 13:  Potatoes.

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Q. 14:  What American statesman lobbied to make the turkey the national symbol?

A. 14:  Benjamin Franklin.

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Q. 15:  What was the first departmental store that held a Thanksgiving parade?

A. 15:  It was Gimbel’s Department Store in Philadelphia, in 1920.

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Q. 16:  What is the name of the skin that hangs from a turkey’s neck?

A. 16:  It is called a ‘wattle’.

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Q. 17:  What do you call the day after Thanksgiving?

A. 17:  It is known as ‘Black Friday’.

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Q. 18:  The inhabitants of which state are the largest consumers of turkey in the United States?

A. 18:  Californians are the largest consumers of turkey in the United States.

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Q. 19:  How many pilgrims were on the Mayflower and how long was the voyage from England to the New World? (A point for each correct answer, and a bonus point if you get them both right.)

A. 19:  102 Pilgrims made the journey and it took them 66 days.

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Q. 20:  Which country consumes the most turkey per year per capita?

A. 20:  Israel.

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Let’s Not Have A Barney About These Facts.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Hi, and welcome to the fasab blog.

Today is fact day with another random selection of hopefully interesting things to learn.

Enjoy

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did you know1

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In gangster slang, a boxing match

that is fixed is called a ‘barney’.

boxers

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In 2009, one of the twelve surviving copies of

Edgar Allen Poe’s first book ‘Tamerlane and Other Poems’

was sold at Christie’s Auction House for $662,500,

a record price paid for a work of American literature.

Tamerlane and Other Poems

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Isaac Smith was a commissioned officer in

the Royal Navy and the cousin of Captain Cook,

with whom he explored the then-New World.

Smith also became the first European to arrive in eastern Australia

and the first man to create survey maps of various Pacific islands and coastlines,

including Tierra del Fuego in South America.

Despite all his pioneering in the world of exploration

he is best remembered as the last survivor

of James Cook’s first voyage in the South Pacific Ocean

aboard the HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771.

Midshipman_Isaac_Smith

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Research suggests that dark chocolate boosts memory,

attention span, reaction time, and problem-solving skills

by increasing blood flow to the brain.

Dark chocolate can also improve the ability

to see in low-contrast situations (such as poor weather)

and promote lower blood pressure.

Yum!

dark chocolate

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On average, 35 meters of hair fiber

is produced on the adult scalp.

Really???

shaved_head

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Ant colonies range greatly in size from

a few dozen individuals to many millions of ants.

The largest ant colonies are called ‘supercolonies’ that create

giant ant hills sometimes thousands of miles long.

The largest supercolony covers over 3,700 miles,

and has over 1 billion ants.

african_ant_hill

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Most toilets flush in E flat.

toilet

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The largest building in the world by volume

is The Boeing Everett Factory, in Everett, Washington,

which was originally built for the construction of the Boeing 747.

It has a volume of 472,370,319 cubic feet (1.7495e+7yd³)

and an area of almost 100 acres (40 ha 4685.6m2).

The Boeing Everett Factory

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Oak trees can live 200 years or more.

angel-oak-tree-l

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Astronaut John Glenn is a decorated World War II veteran,

one of the first American astronauts in history,

and one of the epic Mercury Seven.

Glenn was also the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth

and the fifth astronaut in history to go into space.

At the age of 93 he’s the last remaining astronaut of the Mercury Seven

and one of the very few surviving astronauts (American or Soviet)

of the Space Age that began in the late 1950s.

John Glenn

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A less successful astronaut was a Chinese man called Wan Hu,

a sixteenth-century local government official during the Ming Dynasty,

who had ambitions to travel to the Moon by means of a

special chair he designed with 47 attached rockets.

After lighting the rockets,

instead of shooting the ambitious government official into the air,

the rockets exploded, killing him.

Wan Hu

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When Pluto was first located by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930

it was just given the generic name Planet X.

It was named ‘Pluto’ by an 11-year-old girl,

Venetia Burney of Oxford, England.

Venetia Burney of Oxford, England

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Want somewhere quiet to eat?

Then try Nicholas Nauman’s restaurant called ‘Eat’

in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York,

which features nothing special except for the fact

that you cannot speak while dining there.

Apparently it was inspired by his life-changing stay

at a Buddhist monastery in India,

which made him want to create a place

where people could enjoy silence.

The silent dinners became so popular that nowadays,

people have to book their tables in advance.

restaurant called ‘Eat’

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The first toilet stall in a public washroom is the least likely to be used

and therefore also likely to be the cleanest.

first toilet stall in a public washroom

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The character of Michael Myers

was named after the European distributor of

John Carpenter’s previous film,

Assault on Precinct 13,

and apparently this was the director’s way of

saying a kind of weird “thank you” for the

film’s incredible success throughout most of Europe.

Michael_Myers

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