Fasab’s Fascinating Festive Facts

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Hi, and welcome to fasab’s fascinating festive facts.

Everything on my blog this week is in Christmas mode including these tidbits of information that you may be able to work into the conversation if you are at a party or two this week.

Enjoy and have a very Merry Christmas.

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The traditional three colors of Christmas

are green, red, and gold.

Green has long been a symbol of life and rebirth;

red symbolizes the blood of Christ,

and gold represents light as well as wealth and royalty.

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The first printed reference to a

Christmas tree was in 1531 in Germany.

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Apparently seven out of ten British dogs

get Christmas gifts from their doting owners.

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A lot of people don’t like it,

but the abbreviation of ‘Xmas’ for

Christmas is not irreligious.

The first letter of the word Christ in Greek is chi,

which is identical to our X.

Xmas was originally an ecclesiastical abbreviation

that was used in tables and charts.

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Electric Christmas lights

were first used in 1854.

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Some people who were born on December 25

feel hard done by because they have to

make do with one present instead of two

and share their big day celebrations with everybody else.

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island,

recognized the problem. When he died on December 4, 1894,

he willed his November 13 birthday to a friend

who disliked her own Christmas birthday

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Franklin Pierce was the first president to

decorate an official White House Christmas tree.

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Silent Night was written in 1818,

by Austrian priest Joseph Mohr.

He was told the day before Christmas

that the church organ was broken

and would not be repaired in time for Christmas Eve.

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Artificial Christmas trees

have outsold real ones since 1991.

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In the British armed forces it is traditional

that officers wait on the other ranks

and serve them their Christmas dinner.

This dates back to a custom from the Middle Ages.

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Long before mistletoe became a saucy ‘kiss encourager’,

it was considered to have magic powers.

It was said to have the ability to heal

wounds and increase fertility.

Celts hung mistletoe in their homes

in order to bring themselves good luck

and ward off evil spirits.

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Each year there are approximately 20,000

“rent-a-Santas” across the United States.

“Rent-a-Santas” usually undergo seasonal training

on how to maintain a jolly attitude

under pressure from the public.

They also receive practical advice,

such as not accepting money from parents

while children are looking and

avoiding garlic, onions, or beans for lunch.

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In Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea,

your age is measured not in years

but in how many Christmases you’ve lived through;

you’re not 20, you’re twenti krismas.

Rather less charmingly,

the Japanese expression to describe

single women over 25 years old is

kurisumasu keiki – left-over Christmas cake.

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Most of Santa’s reindeer have male-sounding names,

such as Blitzen, Comet, and Cupid.

However, male reindeers shed their antlers around Christmas,

so the reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh

are likely not male, but female –  or castrati.  

(I wonder if that is the origin of hanging balls

on a Christmas tree comes from?)

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The popular Christmas song “Jingle Bells”

was actually written for Thanksgiving.

The song was composed in 1857 by James Pierpont,

and was originally called “One Horse Open Sleigh”.

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Did You Know? – Another Round Of Fabulous Facts!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Another random bunch of facts for you today.

I think I prefer the final one the best because of its irony and the fact that it illustrates that people can sometimes delude and convince themselves into believing they saw what the really didn’t.

Anyway, here they are, so choose your own favorite, but whatever you do….

Enjoy.

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The US Constitution contains many

spelling and grammatical errors.

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The term ‘Lunatic’ is derived from the Latin word ‘luna’ meaning ‘moon’.

It originated from the belief that insanity is caused by changes in the moon.

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Thirty-three light years away there is an

exoplanet completely covered in burning ice.

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James Stephen “Steve” Fossett was an American businessman,

and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer

who, in 2002, became the first person to

fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon.

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At its peak the Roman Empire

stretched for 2.51 million square miles,

but it was only the 19th largest empire in history.

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Throughout the 1800s people were buried alive so often

that coffins included mechanisms to allow those people

to ring a bell in the graveyard.

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Homer and Langley Collyer, two compulsive hoarders,

were found buried beneath a collapsed pile of

the things they had stored in their house over the years.

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The last time a cavalry charge was used on the battlefield

was during WWII when a Mongolian cavalry division

charged a German infantry division.

Two thousand Mongolians were killed

and not a single German died.

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In ancient Egypt some servants were covered in honey

to attract flies away from the pharaoh.

(I suppose it’s better than the alternative!)

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June 28, 2014 was the 100 year anniversary of the assassination

of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria,

heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne,

who was killed in Sarajevo along with his wife Duchess Sophie

by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip.

This was the incident that led to the Great War,

also now known as World War I.

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Although several notable people died on the toilet,

one of the most famous is probably Elvis Presley.

Doctors attributed his death to too many prescription drugs.

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When pizza deliveryman Brian Wells

was stopped by the police in the middle of a bank robbery

no one believed his story that he had been forced to do it

by some people he had delivered pizza to.

He kept on pleading with the officers saying that

the necklace he was wearing was a bomb.

Unfortunately for him though,

the bomb squad didn’t show up early enough.

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Almost one-seventh (840) of all the languages on Earth

are spoken in one country…

Papua New Guinea.

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When it was first built,

Disney’s Tomorrowland

was supposed to represent

the far off future year of 1986.

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A famous proponent of healthy eating and organic farming,

Jerome Irving Rodale died of a heart attack

while being interviewed on the Dick Cavett Show in 1971.

Some of his last words were that [he] would

“live to 100, unless [he was] run down by a a sugar-crazy taxi driver”.

Appearing fast asleep during the show, Dick Cavett joked

“Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?”

before discovering that his 72-year-old guest had indeed died.

Many people are convinced they saw this on TV

but the incident was never aired.

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Did You Know? Here Are The Facts – Let’s Face It Folks, Your Whole Childhood Was A Lie!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Yes indeed, here are the facts. Another random selection for your enjoyment.

I hope you find them interesting, maybe even educational.  

And, of course, you’ll find out a little later why your whole childhood was a lie.

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The chances of making two holes-in-one in a round of golf

are one in sixty-seven million, 1:67,000,000.

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Another word for hiccups is ‘singultus’.

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Airports that are at higher altitudes require

a longer airstrip due to lower air density.

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The only poisonous birds in the world are the three species of Pitohui.

The Hooded Pitohui from Papua New Guinea is the most deadly out of the three

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In 1955, only 330 Volkswagen Beetle’s were sold

at a price of $1800 each in the United States.

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The Chihuahua was named after

the Mexican state where they were discovered

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There are more than 640 muscles in the human body

(and as you get older they all start to hurt!)

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The odds of having quadruplets are 1 in 729,000

(for men the odds are much higher!)

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The destruction of the Berlin Wall began when private citizens

started to demolish entire sections of the Wall without interference

from government officials on November 9, 1989

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France is known as the perfume capital of the world

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Since its introduction in February 1935,

more than two hundred million Monopoly board games

have been sold worldwide

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It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL

with enough leather for a year’s supply of footballs.

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When former Texas Governor James Hogg was on his deathbed

he made a special request that a pecan tree

be planted at the head of his grave instead of a tombstone.

The governor passed away on March 2, 1906,

which is Texas Independence Day.

The pecan tree is now the state tree of Texas

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In 1477, the first diamond engagement ring was given to

Mary of Burgundy by Archduke Maximillian of Austria

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The smallest frog is the “Brazilian baby frog”,

which is smaller than a dime

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India used to be the richest country in the world

until the British invasion in the early 17th Century

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Marie Curie, the Nobel prize winning scientist who discovered radium,

died of radiation poisoning

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The iron disulfide (Pyrite) is considered “fool’s gold”

because it looks very similar to gold.

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In 1759, St. James’s Gate Brewery (where they brew Guinness)

was leased for to Arthur Guinness for 9,000 years for 45 pounds per year.

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A Roadrunner’s top speed is 20 mph

while coyotes can reach speeds of up to 43 mph

– so let’s face it folks, your whole childhood was a lie!

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