Time To Unveil The Skeleton In The Closet – It’s Fasab Fact Day.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Unveiling the skeleton in the closet is just one of today’s fascinating fasab facts.

Many more interesting snippets below as well.

I hope you enjoy.

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facts 04

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Marijuana and beer have more in

common than you would think.

Beer’s hops are in the same family

of flowering plants as cannabis.

Marijuana and beer

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Lewis and Clark were trying to get 40 horses

from an Indian Tribe to cross the Rockies safely.

The negotiations were getting nowhere

until their interpreter found out

she was the Chief’s long lost sister.

The girl, Sacagawea, had been

taken as a slave as a child.

This changed the direction of the talk and

Lewis and Clark’s party got their horses.

Sacagawea with Lewis and Clark

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While Sean Connery was taking

martial arts lessons for a Bond film,

his instructor got angry and broke his wrist.

The instructor was Steven Seagal.

Steven Seagal

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Physicists at the National Autonomous

University of Mexico figured out a way

to make artificial diamonds out of tequila.

Sadly, the synthetic diamonds are too small

to be turned into jewelry, but they can be used

for an array of electronic and industrial purposes.

National Autonomous University of Mexico

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The Giza pyramids are guarded

by the Great Sphinx,

the largest monolith statue in the world.

The face of the Sphinx is generally believed

to represent the face of the Pharaoh Khafra.

Great Sphinx of Giza

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The Titanic is the only ocean liner in history

that has been sunk by an iceberg.

The Titanic

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The polar bear is an excellent swimmer

and often will swim for days.

One bear swam continuously for 9 days

in the frigid Bering Sea for 400 miles (687 km)

to reach ice far from land.

They usually swim at a speed of 10 km/h (6 mph).

polar bear is an excellent swimmer

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Because the heart has its own electrical impulse

it can continue to beat even when separated

from the body, as long has it has a supply of oxygen.

The rest of your body does not do so well

without the heart attached.

heart has its own electrical impulse

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YouTube has signed up thousands of

advertising partners, including titans of the

entertainment industry such as Disney, Univision,

Channel 4, and Channel 5 among many others.

Most of these partners are making six figures a year.

YouTube advertising partners

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The biggest on-pad explosion at Cape Canaveral

happened on March2, 1965,

when the Atlas Centaur 5 exploded,

after a fuel valve closed causing the booster engines

to lose upward thrust two seconds after liftoff

and the rocket fell back on the launch pad.

The explosion created a 200 foot high fireball

and the launch pad remained out of operation

for a year following the incident

Atlas Centaur 5 explosion

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In nineteenth-century England, the periodical

‘The Eclectic Review’ used the idiom

“Skeleton in the closet”

in reference to a family who desperately tried

to keep a son’s illness secret by hiding him

in the closet quite often,

especially when guests visited.

This is how this idiom got its start,

and today we use it to refer to when someone tries

to hide a big secret out of embarrassment and shame.

Skeleton in the closet

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J.J. Thomson won the Nobel in Physics (1906)

when he showed electrons were particles.

His son won it in 1937

for showing that electrons are waves.

J.J. Thomson won the Nobel in Physics 1906

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Because of the silly superstitions

surrounding the number 13,

there is no 13th Avenue in San Francisco,

instead Funston Avenue

is between 12th and 14th Avenues.

However, there is a 13th Street,

which is covered by the Central Skyway

making it one of the darkest and

ugliest streets in San Francisco.

Funston Avenue San Francisco

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The ‘Antquarium’, a special container

for keeping ants as pets,

sold all over the world,

was originally developed by NASA

for the purpose of research of animals in space.

Antquarium

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The average CD can hold 74 minutes’ worth of music.

That unusual length was determined by Sony’s president,

who decided that a single CD should be able to contain

the longest recorded version of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

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It’s Friday 13th!!!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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There is a lot of nonsense surrounding Friday 13th.

Many superstitious people consider it to be unlucky. So much so in fact that they spend most, if not all, of that day in their homes, afraid to venture out into the great world beyond in case something bad happens to them.

In fact it has been estimated that around a billion dollars are lost every Friday the 13th because people are scared to work and travel on this date.

The really unfortunate thing is that sometimes circumstances play right into their hands, which only serves to reinforce their superstitions.

You can find some of them below along with other facts about Friday 13th that I hope you enjoy reading.

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Friday-13th

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Every month has a 13th but no single year

has more than three Friday the 13th’s

and on average there are two.

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Months with a Friday the 13th

always begin on a Sunday.

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Folklore remedies for triskaidekaphobia

include climbing to the top of a mountain

or skyscraper and burning all the socks you own

that have holes in them.

Another is to stand on your head

and eat a piece of gristle.

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It is from the Norse goddess Frigg, or Freyja,

that we get Frigg’s Day, or Freyja’s Day

which became the English Friday.

Norse goddess Frigg

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On Friday 13 2006,

36 inches of snow fell on upstate New York.

The ensuing chaos claimed three lives

and caused $130 million worth of damage.

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On a Friday 13th in 1307.

thousands of soldier monks of the powerful

Knights Templar were massacred

by French king Louis IV.

Many people believe this is where

our fear of the date springs from.

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Friday 13 January, 1939

in Australia is known as Black Friday

because on that date bushfires

decimated 20,000 km² of land,

killing 71 people and

destroying several towns entirely.

Victoria Australia Black Friday fires 1939

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Retired bus conductor Bob Renphrey of North Wales

decided to spend every Friday 13 in bed

after a run of bad luck on the

fateful day during the early 1990s.

Among other misfortunes

he wrote off four cars,

got made redundant,

fell into a river,

crashed a motorcycle

and walked through a plate glass door.

When Bob died of cancer in 1998,

his widow Betty, who on previous Friday 13ths

had fallen downstairs,

been hit by falling guttering

and been hospitalized

after Bob hit her in the face

with a stick he was throwing to a dog,

decided to book his funeral for

Friday 13 March as a final tribute.

Alas, all Rhyl’s undertakers were too busy.

“Bob would have seen the funny side,”

said Mrs Renphrey.

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On Friday 13 July, 1951

in Kansas ‘The Great Flood’

left 2 million acres of land underwater,

causing $760 million and killing 24 people.

Kansas ‘The Great Flood’

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Friday 13 August, 1976

was particularly unlucky

for New York man Daz Baxter.

Having elected to stay in bed

to ward off bad luck,

the floor of his apartment block collapsed

and he fell six storeys to his death.

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Black Sabbath’s self-titled first album

was released in the UK on

Friday, February 13, 1970.

It wasn’t unlucky for them.

Black Sabbath’s self-titled first album

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Michelle and Gary Docherty had a

memorable wedding on Friday 13 August 2004.

First, a swarm of wasps attacked guests

at East Kilbride Registry Office, Lanarkshire,

as they waited for Michelle’s arrival.

Her aunt Mary Strachan

smashed an expensive digital camera

trying to swat one of the pests,

and when Michelle finally did turn up,

an insect flew up her dress,

triggering a panic attack.

After the ceremony,

two minibuses booked to transport guests

to the reception failed to turn up

and the couple lost their wedding video.

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On Friday November 13, 1970

a monster South Asian storm hit Bangladesh

killing 300,000 people in Chittagong

and creating floods that killed one million people

living on the Ganges Delta.

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Women drivers have a 64% increased chance

of death when driving on Friday the 13th.

Woman driver

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Friday 13 February, 1998

was simply business as usual for Manchester man,

John Sheridan, dubbed Britain’s unluckiest man

after once having his car stolen five times in one day,

making 16 trips to casualty in two years,

seeing eight TVs explode in six months

and losing out on a £4000 lottery win when he

put the ticket in the washing machine with his jeans.

John’s big day began when his Saab ran out of petrol.

He hitched a lift with a sympathetic policeman,

whose car broke down at the garage.

John returned to his car with a can of petrol,

got it started but lost a wheel as he turned a corner.

He returned home on a bus, which broke down.

Completing his journey on foot,

he realized he’d left his keys inside the car

and had to return in case in was stolen.

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Friday, October 13th, 1989,

the stock exchange suffered a serious crash,

the second most damaging in market history at the time

(this was in the pre-recession era). 

Brokers were in a state of shock,

as the Dow Jones Industrial Average

was down 190.58 points.

In Britain a deadly virus crashed IBM computers,

terrifying people and deleting lots of data

that could not be recovered.

This was before backup systems were used.

stock exchange crash

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A full moon on Friday February 13 1987

drove troubled Robert Bullard, 21,

to attempt suicide by putting his head in a gas oven.

Not only was his methodology flawed,

suicide by natural gassing is virtually impossible

since Britain moved from lethal coke gas

to less dangerous natural gas,

but a flicked light switch caused an explosion

which injured his mother and a policeman

and caused £35,000 of damage.

Robert was unharmed.

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On Friday the 13th, 2012,

the cruise ship Costa Concordia partially sank

killing more than 30 people.

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Friday 13 October 1972 was the date

a plane carrying Uruguayan rugby team

Montevideo Old Christians crashed

on its way from Montevideo to Santiago, Chile.

When rescuers finally found the fourteen 

survivors two months later,

it emerged that they had survived

by eating human flesh from some of the

thirty-one crew and passengers

who had perished in the crash.

In 1992, the story was filmed as

Alive, starring Ethan Hawke.

movie Alive

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On the same day, Friday October 13, 1972,

an Aeroflot Il-62 airplane carrying 176 people

took off from Paris on a commuter flight

bound for Leningrad and Moscow.

The plane landed at Leningrad

and then took off for Sheremetyevo airport,

located just outside Moscow.

The weather was bad with rain and poor visibility.

The pilots were told to descend on approach to

the airport, but for unknown reasons,

they attempted and failed to land twice.

On the third attempt to land,

the plane crashed into a large pond

about 4 miles short of the airport.

There were no survivors.

No cause of the accident was ever established.

At the time, the crash resulted in one of the worst

loss of life incidents for a single plane crash, in history.

It remains the 44th worse loss of life in

an airplane crash in aviation history.

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On Friday the 13th August, 2010

at 13 minutes after the 13th hour (1 PM),

a 13 year old boy was struck by lightning

as he was watching an air show

at Lowestoft, England.

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The Hollywood sign above Los Angeles, California,

was first unveiled by the owner

of the Los Angeles Times newspaper,

Harry Chandler,

on Friday the 13th of July, 1923.

Hollywoodland sign

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According to at least one interpretation

of the Mayan calendar the world will end

on 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0

or in the Gregorian calendar,

Friday, October 13, 4772.

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But before then,

on Friday the 13th in 2029,

Asteroid 99942 Apophis

is forecast to pass earth at a

closer distance than any of our satellites.

Crikey!

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