The Extraordinary Book of Useless Information (8 page)

During the filming of the 1931 movie
Viking
, a ship explosion killed the producer and about twenty-six members of the crew while they were filming an iceberg off of Labrador.

The 1964 movie
The Fall of the Roman Empire
had the biggest outdoor movie set ever built. Its reconstruction of the Roman Forum measured 1,312 feet by 754 feet.

In the movie
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
, 532 cars were destroyed. They were flood-damaged autos donated by an insurance company.

TO BOLDLY GO . . .

Initially, NBC executives wanted to ditch the Spock character from
Star Trek
because they thought he looked satanic.

James Doohan, who played Scottie on
Star Trek
, lost his right middle finger during World War II.

Lieutenant Uhura's name means “freedom” in Swahili.

Star Trek: The Next Generation
character Geordi La Forge was named for an avid
Star Trek
fan, George La Forge, who died of muscular dystrophy in 1975.

Captain Kirk's USS
Enterprise
NCC-1701 is 953.7 feet long.

It would take the starship
Enterprise
400,000 years to cross the galaxy on impulse drive.

The
Enterprise
holds a crew of 430.

Klingons like to eat food that is still alive.

A Vulcan's heart beats several hundred times a minute, and Vulcans don't have an appendix.

BONDAGE

The only James Bond movie theme song to hit number one on the
Billboard
Hot 100 chart was “A View to a Kill,” by Duran Duran. “Live and Let Die,” by Paul McCartney and Wings, and “Nobody Does it Better,” by Carly Simon, made it to number two. “For Your Eyes Only,” by Sheena Easton, hit number five, and “Die Another Day,” by Madonna, and “Skyfall,” by Adele, both peaked at number eight.

“OH TAY!”

Alfalfa of
Our Gang
film shorts (later known as
The Little Rascals
, when they moved to television) fame was actor Carl Switzer.

Switzer was shot to death by an acquaintance in a dispute over money in 1959.

George McFarland, who played Spanky, got his nickname from a newspaper reporter who called the three-year-old actor a “spanky child,” a term at the time referring to a bright toddler.

McFarland, who was in the series from 1932 to 1942, popularized the expression “okeydokey.”

William “Billie” Thomas Jr. played Buckwheat in the series from 1934 to 1944. Originally, Buckwheat was a girl, but later she slowly morphed into a boy.

Thomas suffered from a speech impediment and is best known for the expression “O-tay!”

Thomas's family were offended by Eddie Murphy's spoof of the Buckwheat character on
Saturday Night Live
in the 1980s.

In 1990, the ABC newsmagazine TV show
20/20
did an interview with an Arizona grocery bagger that they thought was Thomas. Unfortunately, Thomas had died ten years earlier. ABC apologized and the program's producer was forced to resign.

Contrary to popular myth, Bill Cosby never bought up the rights to
Our Gang
to keep the show's racial stereotypes off TV.

A pit bull, with a black ring around its left eye, played Petey. The ring was applied by makeup artist Max Factor.

Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple both auditioned for
Our Gang
.

OFF TO A GOOD START

In 2010,
TV Guide
published a list of the top ten television credits sequences. They were, in order,
The Simpsons
,
Get Smart
,
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
,
Hawaii Five-O
(the original),
True Blood
,
The Big Bang Theory
,
Dexter
,
The Brady Bunch
,
Mad Men
, and
The Sopranos
.

BEWARE THE BLOB

In 1950, four Philadelphia policemen saw a six-foot, round, light-emitting, gelatinous mass land on the ground and begin to climb up a telephone pole. This incident became the basis for the 1958 cult classic
The Blob
, which was filmed in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

The Blob
was Steve McQueen's first starring role.

The movie's title song—“The Blob”—hit number thirty-three on the
Billboard
Hot 100 list.

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

CNN news personality Anderson Cooper sunburned his eyes in 2012, after spending several hours on the water in Portugal without sunglasses. He was blind for thirty-six hours.

SOAP DOPE

It costs about $50 million a year to produce a daytime soap opera, about 30 percent more than it costs to produce a television talk show.

In 1999, there were eleven American soap operas on television. In 2011, there were only four.

MUSICAL MOMENTS

The only three songs to hit number one on the
Billboard
Hot 100 chart after the death of the recording artist were “(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding, “Time in a Bottle” by Jim Croce, and “Me and Bobby McGee” by Janice Joplin.

According to
Billboard
, Adele's
21
was the bestselling album of 2011 and 2012, selling 5.82 million copies and 4.41 million copies, respectively.

The bikini didn't really catch on until the number one hit song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” was released in 1960, by sixteen-year-old Brian Hyland.

South Korean rap star Psy's music video “Gangnam Style” is the most-watched item posted to YouTube, with more than 1.5 billion views.

A poll by UltimateClassicRock.com found that the top country rock song of all time is “Can't You See” by the Marshall Tucker Band. The rest of the top ten in order are “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Green Grass and High Tides” by the Outlaws, “Highway Song” by Blackfoot, “Long Haired Country Boy” by the Charlie Daniels Band, “Flirtin' with Disaster” by Molly Hatchet, “La Grange” by ZZ Top, “Ramblin' Man” by the Allman Brothers, “30 Days in the Hole” by Humble Pie, and “Mississippi Queen” by Mountain.

The top-earning musicians for 2012 were Dr. Dre at $110 million, Roger Waters at $88 million, Elton John at $80 million, U2 at $78 million, Take That at $69 million, Bon Jovi at $60 million, Britney Spears at $58 million, Paul McCartney at $57 million, Taylor Swift at $57 million, Justin Bieber at $55 million, and Toby Keith at $55 million.

Trumpeter Louis Armstrong used to get hard calluses on his lips, which he would remove himself every four or five years with a razor blade.

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote some 1,100 pieces of music.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart started playing the harpsichord at the age of three and composing music at the age of five.

Mozart began a three-and-a-half-year musical tour of Europe with his family when he was only six.

Mozart went on to compose enough music to fill two hundred compact discs.

BOOK CLUB

Toni Morrison is the pen name of Chloe Anthony Wofford.

George Orwell was the nom de plume of Eric Arthur Blair.

Anne Rice was named after her father—Howard Allen O'Brien. She hated the name Howard and told the nuns on her first day of kindergarten that her name was Anne. Her last name comes from her husband Stan Rice.

Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet.

Mystery writer Agatha Christie was the first known woman in Britain to take up surfing, in the 1920s.

Emily Dickinson was a recluse who didn't leave her house for more than twenty years and spoke to visitors through a closed door.

PAINTIN' PLACE

When Grant Wood was fourteen, he won third place in a national crayon drawing contest sponsored by Crayola. He credits this with sparking his interest in becoming an artist.

Michelangelo had his nose broken by a contemporary artist named Torrigiano, and was disfigured for life.

The Louvre was built in the late 1100s as a fortress.

Paul Gaugin worked as a laborer on the Panama Canal construction project. He was fired after two weeks.

In 2012, guitarist Eric Clapton sold the painting
Abstraktes Bild (809-4)
by German artist Gerhard Richter, for $34,190,756, a new record price for the work of a living painter. That's more then ten times what Clapton paid for it in 2001. The previous record was for the Jasper Johns work titled
Flags
, which sold for $28.6 million in 2010.

USA
T
oday

DEADLY DATA

The city of Chicago averages more than one murder a day.

Each day in America, 6,718 people die. That's one death every thirteen seconds. There is one birth every eight seconds.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the number of Americans who die from prescription drug overdoses is greater than that for cocaine and heroin overdoses combined. In 2008, there were 20,044 overdose deaths from prescription drugs, 14,800 of those from painkillers.

The most common cause of poisonings in America is analgesics, at 12 percent, followed by cosmetics/personal care products, household cleaners, sedatives/antipsychotics/hypnotics, and foreign bodies/toys/miscellaneous.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

For every one hundred women in the United States that is a centenarian (over one hundred years old), there are only 20.7 men.

In New Mexico, people over the age of one hundred who are not dependents pay no income tax.

INTIMATE INJURIES

Sixteen thousand American men and women seek treatment in emergency rooms every year for genital injuries.

IN THE LINE OF DUTY

In 2011, 163 American law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty. Sixty-eight died from gunfire.

INDIEPENDENCE DAY

According to a 2011 study, the deadliest day of the year on American highways is July 4, with 144 fatalities. The next five deadliest days are September 2, August 13, July 15, May 20, and November 11.

Fatal car wrecks increase by 6 percent on income tax filing day.

New Year's Day has the highest number of drunken driving–related deaths—130. It is also the day with the most pedestrians killed by vehicles, topping Halloween.

And the most dangerous day of the week to drive to work is . . . Friday.

The number of traffic and workplace accidents increase the day after daylight saving time begins. Heart attacks also increase by 20 percent.

One-half of those injured while wearing headphones are struck by trains.

CLICK IT OR TICKET

People in the West wear seat belts more than folks in other parts of America—94 percent. Those in the Northeast are least likely to buckle up—80 percent.

Drivers buckle up more on weekends and when in heavy traffic.

Seat belt usage reduces the risk of dying in a fatal accident by 45 percent for front seat occupants. It is estimated that seat belts saved 12,546 U.S. lives in 2010.

PILL POPPERS

People in the Eastern United States are more likely to use antibiotics than are those on the West Coast.

West Virginia had the highest rate of antibiotic use from 1999 to 2007—1,222 prescriptions per one thousand people, more than double the rate in Alaska—546 prescriptions per one thousand people—during the same time period.

The rate of antibiotic use in Scandinavia is much lower than Alaska's, as doctors there are trained not to prescribe the drugs for things they are useless against, such as viruses.

STAMP OUT HUNGER

Fifteen percent of the American population is on food stamps.

COLLEGE CONFIDENTIAL

In 2010, there were 723,277 foreign students enrolled in U.S. colleges. That's about 4 percent of overall American university enrollment.

China led the way with the highest number of students enrolled—158,000—followed by India, South Korea, Canada, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Vietnam, Mexico, and Turkey.

The University of Southern California led the nation in the number of foreign students enrolled in 2011, which it had done for the previous ten years.

In 2009, 19.2 percent of Hispanics in America had college degrees, as did 29.4 percent of blacks, 48.7 percent of whites, and 69.1 percent of Asians.

About 79 percent of American university faculty members are white.

Just 56 percent of American college students complete a four-year degree within six years. College dropouts tend to be male.

The publicly funded four-year colleges with the worst graduation rates are as follows: Southern University at New Orleans, Louisiana, graduates 4 percent; University of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, 7.7 percent; Kent State University-East Liverpool, Ohio, 8.9 percent; Rogers State University, Claremore, Oklahoma, 11.5 percent; Texas Southern University, Houston, Texas, 13.3 percent; Ohio University Southern Campus, Ironton, Ohio, 13.7 percent; Kent State University-Tuscarawas, Ohio, 13.9 percent; Purdue University North Central, Indiana, 14 percent; Cameron University, Lawton, Oklahoma, 14.1 percent; and Ohio University at Chillicothe, Ohio, 15.6 percent.

The University of Pennsylvania was America's first nonreligious university.

About 96 percent of Ivy League professors who donated money in 2012 gave to Barack Obama in the presidential election.

LOCK AND LOAD

Colleges in five states permit students to carry guns on campus—Colorado, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah, and Wisconsin.

MAKE ROOM FOR THE TURKEY

November 15 is National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day.

CHANGE FOR THE BETTER

There is a custom among Italian-Americans in the New York/North Jersey area to throw change on the floor of a new car for good luck.

PETITE PARKS

At just 0.02 acres in size, the smallest site in the National Park Service is the Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial in Philadelphia, which honors the American Revolutionary War hero.

Another little known National Park Service site is the African Burial Ground in Manhattan. Here, the remains of seventeenth– and eighteenth-century slaves that were unearthed accidentally during a construction project in 1991 are commemorated with a monument and visitor center.

The Nicodemus National Historical Park in Nicodemus, Kansas, is the only remaining all-black town established west of the Mississippi. This town was used as an outpost for ex-slaves moving westward after the Civil War.

JOBS REPORT

Steve Jobs dropped out of school after one semester at Reed College in Oregon. He later went back to audit a course in calligraphy, which he credited with the simple design and elegance of Apple products.

After leaving college, Jobs backpacked across India while eating psychedelic mushrooms. He said this experience helped crystallize his vision and creativity.

He was fired by the Apple board of directors in 1985 for being too much of a perfectionist and a control freak. The company faltered during his absence and they rehired him in 1997.

Steve Jobs occasionally manned Apple's customer service phones and was known to have personally called a customer who had emailed him with a complaint about getting his laptop repaired.

Jobs would lease a different silver Mercedes SL55 AMG every six months. Because anyone with a new car in California has six months to affix a license plate, his cars never had one.

Per square foot of floor space, the most profitable stores in the world are Apple Retail Stores. They generate twice the income, per square foot, of Tiffany's.

A LITTLE FACE TIME

Just as fellow tech guru Steve Jobs did, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wears the same thing every day. The billionaire claims to have one drawer with twenty identical gray T-shirts that make up his shirt wardrobe.

Zuckerberg announced that he only eats meat from animals that he has personally killed. The dead animals, which include goats, pigs, and chickens, are sent out for butchering.

When the share price of Facebook stock tumbled after being issued in 2012, Zuckerberg lost $8.1 billion in net worth by the end of the year.

'TIS BETTER TO GIVE . . .

The Americans who gave the most money to charity in 2011 were deceased agribusiness heiress Margaret Cargill, whose estate of $6 billion was left to a charitable trust; steel executive William Dietrich II, who gave away $500 million; Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, who donated $373 million; financier George Soros, who doled out $335 million; and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who gave away $311 million.

In 2012, Mark Zuckerberg gave $500 million in Facebook stock to a charitable foundation.

LUAU LARRY

Oracle CEO and billionaire Larry Ellison bought the sixth-largest Hawaiian Island in 2012. He now owns 98 percent of Lanai, and the state owns the other 2 percent.

DEER ME!

There were 13.7 million American hunters in 2011.

The majority of American deer hunters who get injured in the field do so by falling out of their tree stands.

MILITARY MATTERS

There were 167,000 women in the U.S. armed forces in 2010.

The U.S. military spent $700 billion on defense in 2011. That's more than the next seventeen highest-defense-spending countries combined.

The last living American veteran of World War I, Frank Buckles, died in 2011 at the age of 110.

Albert Woolson, the oldest living veteran of the Civil War, died in 1956 at the age of 109.

The oldest documented veteran of the American Revolution was one Lemuel Cook, who died in 1866 at age 106.

In 2010, there were 144,842 homeless veterans in the United States.

One in 150 veterans is homeless.

Apporximately 9.5 percent of adult Americans are veterans.

ROCK STARS

The huge sculptures of Confederates Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson carved into the side of Stone Mountain, Georgia, relied on major funding from the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum, the sculptor behind Mount Rushmore and Stone Mountain, was a member of the KKK.

TAKING ITS TOLL

The state of Texas has the most toll facilities—fifty-one. New Jersey has the second most, with forty, followed by New York with thirty-seven, Florida with thirty-four, and California with eighteen.

TAKE ME HOME

West Virginia has the nation's highest home ownership rate at 73 percent. New York State has the lowest rate, with 53 percent.

LOTTO FEVER

Lotteries in America paid out $40 billion in 2011, but $800 million in prize money remained unclaimed.

WEATHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

2011 was the twenty-third warmest year on record in the United States.

In 2011, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania had their wettest year since records were first kept in 1895. Texas had its driest year on record.

More than five hundred people died from tornadoes in the United States in 2011, compared to only twenty-six who were killed by lightning. In the 1940s, an average of about four hundred people died from lightning strikes each year.

About 10 percent of people struck by lightning actually die.

December is the month with the fewest thunderstorms in the United States.

2012 set an all-time record low for the number of tornadoes in the United States—about 1,072 reported and 919 confirmed. There were about 1,500 in 2011. The average year has about 1,200 twisters.

The record low temperature for the lower forty-eight states is –33°F at Soda Butte, Wyoming, on October 29, 1917.

Roughly 60 percent of the storms that enter the United States do so through the Pacific Northwest.

UNITED STOUTS OF AMERICA

West Virginia is the state with the highest obesity rate in the country—34.3 percent—followed closely by Delaware and Mississippi.

Colorado had the lowest obesity rate—20.1 percent—followed by Utah and Connecticut.

One in three American homeless people is obese.

ONE FOR THE ROAD

One in six American adults is a binge drinker, consuming an average of eight drinks per session, and doing so four times a month. Most drunk drivers are binge drinkers.

Some 23 percent of men binge drink, as compared to 11.4 percent of women.

Most binge drinkers are not alcoholics.

HOT WHEELS

The most-stolen cars in America are, in order, the Honda Accord, Honda Civic, Toyota Camry, Acura Integra, and Cadillac Escalade.

KNOT FOR EVERYONE

In 2011, 51 percent of American adults were married. That compares to 72 percent in 1960.

Just 20 percent of Americans aged eighteen to twenty-nine were married in 2011, compared with 59 percent in 1960.