Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts: And Bizarre Information (21 page)

If you could drive to the sun at 60 mph, it would take 176 years, not including pit stops.

The worst day for automobile accidents is Saturday.

Longest Main Street in the United States: the one in Island Park, Idaho. It’s more than 33 miles long.

Canada has the world’s longest street: Yonge Street stretches 1,178 miles.

Forty percent of car-theft victims left their keys in the ignition.

According to statistics, yellow cars and bright blue cars are the safest to drive.

Seventy-six percent of U.S. commuters drive to work alone.

If you’re an average American, you’ll spend about six months of your life waiting at red lights and five years stuck in traffic.

Odds of winning if you challenge a traffic ticket in court: about one in three.

Accident rates rise 10 percent in the first week of daylight saving time.

Military Intelligence

Light Heavyweight

Jumbo Shrimp

Drag Race

Friendly Fire

Criminal Justice

Genuine Imitation

Mandatory Option

Limited Nuclear War

Standard Deviation

Protective Custody

Industrial Park

Freezer Burn

Eternal Life

Pretty Ugly

Loyal Opposition

Natural Additives

Educational Television

Nonworking Mother

Full-Price Discount

Limited Immunity

Active Reserves

Student Teacher

“Superhero” has been jointly trademarked by DC Comics and Marvel comics.

The most valuable comic book in the world: Action Comics #1, which features the origin and first appearance of Superman.

In the original comic, Superman couldn’t fly.

Kryptonite made its first appearance on the Superman radio show, not in the comic book.

Muhammad Ali once appeared in a DC Comics edition. He knocked out Superman to save him from aliens.

Superman had a pet monkey named Beppo.

Superman is 6 feet 2 inches, but Clark Kent is only 5 feet 11 inches. (He slouches.)

Official DC statistics state that Batman stands 6 feet 2 inches and weighs 220 pounds.

Wonder Woman’s bulletproof bracelets were made of a metal called feminum.

Wonder Woman’s creator, William Moulton Marston, invented the polygraph.

Marvel comics put a hyphen in Spider-Man’s name so he wouldn’t be confused with Superman.

On Halloween 2004, an estimated 2.15 million U.S. children dressed up as Spider-Man, making it the year’s most popular costume.

Johnny Canuck was a Canadian cartoon in 1869 and was reinvented as a superhero in 1942.

Captain Marvel’s appearance was modeled after actor Fred MacMurray.

We taste only four things: sweet, sour, salt, and bitter. It’s the smells that really give things flavor.

Talking with your mouth full expels taste molecules and diminishes the taste of food.

Women have a keener sense of smell than men.

Like fingerprints, each of us has an odor that is unique. One result: much of the thrill of kissing comes from smelling the unique odors of another’s face.

By simply smelling a piece of clothing, most people can tell if it was worn by a woman or man.

Smells stimulate learning. Studies show that students given olfactory stimulation along with a word list retain much more information and remember it longer.

Many smells are heavier than air and can be smelled only at ground level.

We smell best if we take several short sniffs, rather than one long one.

apple of [one’s] eye

bag and baggage

bated breath

be-all and the end-all

brave new world

budge an inch

caught red-handed

cold comfort

full of sound and fury

good riddance

in a pickle

play fast and loose

There’s a 75 percent chance that a public road in Canada will be unpaved.

The United States absorbs more than 85 percent of all Canadian exports.

In its history, six flags have been flown over Canada.

Nearly one fourth of all the freshwater in the world is in Canada.

The Trans-Canada Highway is the longest national highway in the world.

The baseball glove was invented in Canada in 1883.

Other inventions by Canadians: the electric range, the electron microscope, standard time, and the zipper.

Four Canadians have been featured on U.S. postage stamps.

At the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, the audience is seated in America, and the opera is performed in Canada.

Canadian journalist Sandy Gardiner coined the term
Beatlemania
.

Some 50,000 Canadians fought in the American Civil War, including about 200 for the South.

There are some 2 million lakes in Canada, covering about 7.6 percent of the country’s landmass.

There are no skunks in Newfoundland.

In Canada if a debt is higher than 25¢, it is illegal to pay it with pennies.

Stretched in a continuous line, Canada’s coastline would circle the earth more than six times.

The Bayer Aspirin Company trademarked the brand name Heroin in 1898.

Bowing to pressure from antismoking groups, Hasbro took away Mr. Potato Head’s pipe in 1987.

At one time, tulip bulbs were traded on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

End to end, the number of Crayola crayons made in a year (3 billion) would circle the globe six times.

Denny’s restaurants used to be known as Danny’s restaurants.

Tony the Tiger turned 50 in 2005. The Jolly Green Giant turned 77.

Prior to 1953 the slogan of L&M cigarettes was “just what the doctor ordered.”

Ramses condoms are named after Ramses II, an Egyptian pharaoh who fathered more than 160 children.

Original name for the Bank of America: the Bank of Italy.

The millionth trademark issued by the U.S. Patent Office: Sweet’N Low.

Welwitschia
mirabilis
,
from the deserts of Namibia, can live for over 2,000 years, yet its central trunk never grows more than three feet in height. Instead, the energy is transmitted into its two huge leaves that never fall and continue growing throughout the plant’s life. The leaves can be as long as 20 feet.

The
banyan tree
(
Ficus benghalensis
) of India has more than one trunk. When the tree reaches a certain size, it sends down ropelike roots, which, when they reach the soil, take root and thicken to form additional trunks. The tree can spread outward almost indefinitely. A 200-year-old specimen in the Calcutta Botanic Gardens had more than 1,700 trunks. During Alexander the Great’s Indian campaign, 20,000 soldiers are said to have sheltered under a single banyan tree.

As a defense mechanism, the merest touch causes the
sensitive plant
(
Mimosa pudica
) to collapse in a tenth of a second. The wilting pose deters grazing animals from eating it. A few minutes later, when the danger passes, the plant reverts to its upright position.

Puya
Raimondii
of Bolivia can take up to 150 years to bloom. But once it flowers, it promptly dies. Although it is an herbaceous plant, it is built like a tree, with a stem strong enough to support a human adult.

The
grapple tree
(
Harpagophytum procumbens
) of South Africa produces a fruit called the Devil’s Claw. The fruit is covered in fierce hooks, which latch on to passing animals. In trying to shake the fruit off, the animal disperses the seeds but at the same time, the hooks sink deeper into the creature’s flesh. If the animal touches the fruit with its mouth, the fruit will attach itself to the animal’s jaw, inflicting great pain and preventing it from eating. Antelopes are the usual victims, but it has been known to kill a lion.

A tornado swept a toddler out of his bed and set him down safely 50 feet away without removing his blankets.

After a tornado a woman walked into her front yard to find a sturdy, 40-foot tree uprooted—even though the lawn furniture remained exactly where she had left it.

A tornado picked up a tie rack with 10 ties attached and carried it for 40 miles without removing one tie.

While a couple slept, a tornado lifted their cottage then dropped it into a nearby lake. They remembered only a loud bang before they woke up in deep water.

A tornado scooped up five horses that were hitched to a rail, then set the whole arrangement down, intact, horses uninjured, a quarter-mile away.

In 1987, in China, 12 children walking home from school were sucked up by a tornado and safely deposited 12 miles away in sand dunes.

After a tornado killed migrating ducks at a migratory bird refuge, it rained dead ducks 40 miles away.

Most common place to lose the remote control: under furniture.

Average length of time a child watches an episode of
Sesame Street
: eight minutes.

If you’re an average American, you spend four to six hours every day watching TV.

Approximately 14 percent of U.S. homes have a TV in the kitchen.

The average color TV lasts for eight years.

In 1959 former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt made a TV commercial for Good Luck margarine.

For years the globe on the
NBC Nightly News
spun in the wrong direction.

Mr. Ed’s real name was Bamboo Harvester.

Twenty percent of men say their TV has taught them more about life than their parents have.

First animated characters on TV commercials: the Ajax pixies. They sold cleanser.

An average American seven-year-old watches 20,000 commercials a year—about 55 every day.

The world’s first animated TV ad was created by Dr. Seuss in 1949, for the Ford Motor Co.

Words most frequently used in U.S. advertisements:
new and improved
.

The first time live models advertised (Playtex) bras on TV was in 1987.

Third graders with TV sets in their bedrooms score lower on standardized tests. With computers, they score higher.

RICHARD REYNOLDS

The nephew of cigarette mogul R. J. Reynolds. He spent 10 years working for his uncle’s tobacco company, then in 1912 struck out on his own. After several setbacks, he went back to his uncle and borrowed enough money to start the U.S. Foil Company—which made foil cigarette packaging for R.J. Reynolds Co. In the mid-1930s Richard learned of a new type of foil made from aluminum. Sensing the product’s potential, he built a plant to manufacture it. He began selling it as Reynolds Wrap.

WARREN AVIS

In the 1930s he was a Ford salesman. Then during World War II he joined the air force and became a combat flying officer. He found that, often, the hardest part of flying was figuring out how to get from the airport to his final destination. In 1946 he started a car rental company at Detroit’s Willow Run Airport. He talked Ford into selling him cars at a discount by convincing them that having renters “test-drive” new Fords would help the automaker sell its cars. By the time he sold Avis Rent-A-Car in 1954, the chain had expanded to 154 locations around the country.