Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts: And Bizarre Information (25 page)

First movie shown in the White House:
Birth of a Nation
, in 1916. Woodrow Wilson was president.

Nanook of the North
(1922) was the first documentary film ever made.

The first movie stars to leave their hand- and footprints at Grauman’s: Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, April 30, 1927.

The Jazz Singer
(1927) was only about 25 percent talkie, and ad-libbed at that.

The first movie to premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre: Cecil B. DeMille’s
King of Kings
(1927).

The first scripted “all-talking” feature-length picture was the gangster film
Lights of New York
(1928).

The first movie shown in a drive-in theater:
Wife Beware
, in 1933.

According to a 2005 Harris Poll, America’s favorite movie stars are, in order: Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, Johnny Depp, Harrison Ford, Denzel Washington, and John Wayne (d. 1979).

Drew Barrymore was five years old when she made her first appearance in a feature film (
Altered States
, 1980).

First movie star to appear on a postage stamp: Gene Kelly.

Highest-grossing sports movie in history:
Rocky IV
, followed by
Jerry Maguire
.

The longest film ever released was Andy Warhol’s ****, aka
The 24 Hour Movie
. When it flopped, Warhol released a 90-minute version that didn’t do very well either.

Highest price ever paid for a movie prop: $275,000, for 007’s Aston Martin from
Goldfinger
.

The tiniest snowflake ever recorded: 1/500 of an inch in diameter. Largest snowflakes: 15 inches in diameter and eight inches thick. They fell in Montana in 1887.

In the United States, more snow falls in February than in any other month.

When groundhogs predict the start of spring, they’re wrong 72 percent of the time.

Coldest towns on earth: Verkyoyanks and Oymyakon, Siberia, with temperatures as low as –95°F.

Hawaii is the only state that has never recorded a temperature below 0°F.

Very thin, weak ice is known as “cat ice” because it can’t even support the weight of a cat.

On January 20, 1973, it was –16°F in Deadwood, South Dakota, but 52°F in Lead—only one and a half miles away.

When the ground temperature is below freezing, it can’t hail.

Largest 24-hour snowfall on record in the United States: Valdez, Alaska, in January 1990—47.5 inches.

Twenty-three percent of the world’s landmass is buried under snow at least part of the year.

About one third of the earth’s surface never gets snow.

The largest hailstone ever recorded was 17.5 inches in diameter—bigger than a basketball.

On average, Salt Lake City gets more snow than Fairbanks, Alaska.

PRESIDENT:
John Quincy Adams

NOTABLE FIRST:
First president interviewed in the nude.

BACKGROUND:
President Adams loved to skinny-dip. In hot weather he’d sneak out for a swim in the Potomac. One morning Anne Royall—a reporter who had been trying to interview him for months—sneaked up while he was swimming, sat on his clothes, and refused to leave until he granted her an interview. He did.

PRESIDENTS:
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison

NOTABLE FIRSTS:
The only presidents to be arrested together.

BACKGROUND:
One afternoon in the spring of 1791, future presidents Jefferson and Madison were riding in a carriage through the Virginia countryside when a rural sheriff pulled them over and arrested them on the spot. Their crime: riding in a carriage on Sunday.

PRESIDENT
: Benjamin Harrison

NOTABLE FIRST:
First president with a fear of electricity.

BACKGROUND:
President Harrison knew two things about electricity: The White House had just been wired for it, and it could kill people (the electric chair was becoming a common form of execution). That was all he needed to know—he didn’t want anything more to do with it. Throughout his entire term, he and his wife refused to turn the lights on and off themselves. They either had the servants do it or left the lights off or on all night.

PRESIDENT:
Theodore Roosevelt

NOTABLE FIRST:
First and last (that we know of) president to wear another president’s body part during his inauguration.

BACKGROUND:
The night before he was sworn into office in 1901, Roosevelt was given an unusual gift—a ring containing strands of hair that had been cut from President Abraham Lincoln’s head the night he was assassinated. Roosevelt wore the ring to his inauguration the next day.

PRESIDENT:
William Howard Taft

NOTABLE FIRST:
First president to throw out the first pitch of the baseball season.

BACKGROUND:
Weighing in at over 330 pounds, Taft handlers feared his girth might make him seem weak when he ran for office again. So, in 1910, one of them suggested to the president that he begin playing a sport to prove that he still had his youthful vigor. When Taft vetoed the idea, his aide suggested that he at least make a ceremonial appearance at a sporting event—say, to throw out the first ball of the baseball season. Taft agreed, and on April 14, 1910, he waddled out to the pitcher’s mound at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C., and pitched a ball to home plate. (It went wild.) Continuing the tradition started by Taft, subsequent presidents’ pitches were just as wild. By 1929, rather than actually pitch the ball, most presidents just threw it onto the field from their seat in the stands.

PRESIDENT:
Warren G. Harding

NOTABLE FIRST:
First president to bet (and lose) White House china in poker games.

BACKGROUND:
Harding was an enthusiastic poker player; unfortunately, he wasn’t very good at it and was often short of cash. End result: When he was low on cash during poker games with his buddies, he used individual pieces of fine White House china for poker chips. It is not known how many pieces of the china were lost in this way.

We have to
polish
the
Polish
furniture.

How can he
lead
if he can’t get the
lead
out?

A skilled farmer sure can
produce
a lot of
produce
.

The dump was so full it had to
refuse refuse
.

The soldier decided to
desert
his
dessert
in the
desert
.

No time like the
present
to
present
the
present
.

A small-mouthed
bass
was painted on the big
bass
drum.

The white
dove dove
down into
Dover
.

In France it was once considered bad luck to cut your fingernails on Friday.

Ancient Romans paid their taxes with honey.

The Aztecs restricted the smelling of certain flowers to the upper classes.

Pogo sticks were first used by sacrificial dancers in Borneo.

The world has been at peace only 8 percent of the time over the last 3,500 years.

Germans once believed a pregnant woman could avoid premature delivery by carrying one of her husband’s socks.

Peanut butter sandwiches weren’t popular until the 1920s.

At last count, Minnesota had 99 lakes named Mud Lake.

Oregon has the most ghost towns of any state.

There are no natural lakes in the state of Ohio. They are all man-made.

The Great Salt Lake in Utah is six times saltier than seawater.

Michigan borders no ocean but has more lighthouses than any other state.

Most crowded state: New Jersey, with an average of 1,000 people per square mile.

If you’re anywhere in the state of Florida, you’re within 60 miles of a beach.

According to one study, 24 percent of Iowans have some sort of lawn ornament in their yard.

Tennessee got its name in 1796. Before then it was known as Franklin.

Prohibition didn’t end in Mississippi until 1966.

The state capital of Texas has been moved 15 times.

George Washington nicknamed New York the Empire State.

Alaska has the highest percentage of baby boomers. Utah has the lowest.

Arizona has official state neckwear: the bolo tie.

The only state with no straight-line boundary is Hawaii.

More roses are grown in Texas than in any country on earth.

Until 1867 Alaska was known as Russian America.

Maine is the only state with a one-syllable name.

Slogan stamped onto New Hampshire license plates by state prison inmates: “Live free or die.”

Amen
is the same in more languages than any other word.
Taxi
is second.

A group of non-English speakers chose “diarrhea” as one of the prettiest-sounding English words.

The language of Taki, spoken in parts of Guinea, consists of only 340 words.

Say it three times fast:
Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung
is German for “speed limit.”

How many languages in the world? About 5,000.

The French typing equivalent of “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” is “Take this old whiskey to the blonde judge who’s smoking a cigar.”

In England a cat is sometimes called a moggy. Noses are conks.

Number of languages spoken in India: about 845.

The German language has about 185,000 words. French has fewer than 100,000.

The English language has the most words with nearly 1 million.

Native Americans spoke more than 133 different languages.

Nine most-used words in the English language: and, be, it, of, the, will, I, have, you.

The French word for walkie-talkie is
talkie-walkie
.

There are more than 500 words for macaroni in Italian.

More than 700 different languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea.

Most popular “American” expression on earth: OK.

On any given day, half the people in the world will eat rice.

Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.

The French eat an average of 200 million frogs each year.

Peruvians eat about 65 million guinea pigs each year.

In Japan you can buy cocoa flavored with 2 percent chili-pepper sauce.

You can buy horseradish ice cream in Tokyo.

In Denmark, Danish pastries are called Vienna bread.

Best-selling candy bar in Russia: Snickers.

The average Briton drinks four cups of tea per day.

Damper is an unleavened bread made by Australian in the bush.

Germans eat more potatoes per capita than any other people, averaging 370 pounds per year.

The most popular Campbell’s soup in Hong Kong is water-cress and duck gizzard.

Domino’s Pizza sells a reindeer sausage pizza, but only in Iceland.

Tibetans drink a tea made of salted rancid yak butter.