Uncle John’s Facts to Annoy Your Teacher Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! (14 page)

Want another treasure tale? Sail over to
page 220
to read about Blackbeard and his lost loot.

Number of Etch-A-Sketches sold every day: About 8,000.

In honor of
page 99
, here are some lists of 9s.

9 WORDS FOR “FART”

Onara
(Japanese)

Pête
(French)

Pongu
(Korean)

Pedo
(Spanish)

Pierdziec
(Polish)

Furz
(German)

Szellentés
(Hungarian)

Fasia
(Arabic)

Todt
(Thai)

HIGHEST-GROSSING MOVIES

Titanic

The Dark Knight

Star Wars: A New Hope

Shrek 2

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

Phantom Menace

Pirates of the Caribbean 2

Spider-Man

Revenge of the Sith

9 LARGEST CITIES IN THE WORLD

Tokyo, Japan

Seoul, South Korea

Mexico City

New York City

Mumbai, India

Jakarta, Indonesia

São Paulo, Brazil

Delhi, India

Osaka, Japan

9 DEADLIEST SNAKES

Inland Taipan

King Brown Snake

Malayan Krait

Coastal Taipan

Tiger Snake

Beaked Sea Snake

Saw-Scaled Viper

Coral Snake

Death Adder

9 FASTEST ANIMALS

Cheetah (70 mph)

Antelope (61 mph)

Wildebeest (50 mph)

Lion (50 mph)

Gazelle (50 mph)

Quarter horse (47 mph)

Elk (45 mph)

Cape Hunting Dog (45 mph)

Coyote (43 mph)

9 HIGHEST PAID SPORTS STARS IN 2008

Tiger Woods

Phil Mickelson

LeBron James

Floyd Mayweather

Kobe Bryant

Shaquille O’Neal

Alex Rodriguez

Kevin Garnett

Peyton Manning

Except for royalty, ancient Egyptians didn’t bother recording birth dates.

You’ve been told not to do these things because they’re “bad” for you (or others). But as it turns out, they’re all perfectly fine.

Don’t read in dim light—you’ll hurt your eyes.

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, good light makes reading easier and limits eye strain, but using poor light “causes no permanent eye damage.”

Don’t touch a baby bird—its mother will abandon it.

Whether or not a mother can detect the scent of a human depends on the animal’s sense of smell. Most birds have a poor sense of smell, and would never be able to tell if a human had touched their nest. (Still, it’s best to leave birds’ nests alone.)

Don’t crack your knuckles—it’ll make them bigger and you’ll eventually get arthritis.

Go ahead and crack them. It’s harmless.

Don’t watch TV in the dark—it’s bad for your eyes.

This is also a myth. Watching TV in a dark room doesn’t cause any eye damage at all. (Brain damage is another matter.) The idea came from an advertising executive in the 1950s named J. Robert Mendte, who spread the fiction in commercials on behalf of one of his clients—a lamp company.

Actual label on a Sears hair dryer: “Do not use while sleeping.”

Didn’t do your homework? Blame it on a faun, Menehune, or another mythological character.

M
ENEHUNE

According to the Hawaiians, the Menehune are an ancient race of pixies who live in the islands’ jungles. The Menehune are usually said to be about two feet tall, but can be as small as six inches. Legend has it that they are wary of humans but like to play tricks on them (like sneaking into houses to hide people’s shoes or car keys).

And to ensure they’re never seen, the Menehune make all their mischief at night.

They also love to eat fish and bananas, and enjoy diving from cliffs. Hawaiian parents often tell their children that splashes heard outside at night are just the Menehune having fun.

KAPPA

These are water spirits that supposedly live in lakes and rivers in Japan. They are the size of children, but have froglike bodies, the faces of monkeys, webbed hands and feet, and scaly green skin. On top of their heads is a small depression filled with a liquid that’s said to give them their mischievous powers. The kappa like to cause trouble, and Japanese children blame them when something—
anything
—goes wrong. (Did somebody fart? Nope. It was a kappa.)

In case anyone asks:
filibeg
is another word for “kilt.”

The kappa are considered devilish creatures, but they’re also curious about humans. So if you happen to see a kappa, you’re supposed to do one of two things:

•
Bow to him. The kappa will have to return your bow (it’s only polite) and, in doing so, will spill the liquid from its head. That will make him weak, and he’ll have to go back to his watery home.

•
Befriend him by offering a cucumber (the kappa’s favorite food). Once a kappa is your pal, he can be very useful. Legend says the kappa taught the Japanese how to water their crops and how to set broken bones.

FAUNS

Ancient Romans believed in genies, ancestral spirits who kept watch over different places. The genies of forests and woodlands were called fauns. From the waist down, fauns were goats, with hooves and fur; from the waist up, they were human, but had goatlike horns and whiskers. Fauns liked to play music and play games in the woods. Humans, however, were their enemy, and to protect their forests, fauns would do just about anything…including kidnapping children who wandered too far into the forest. (So be careful not to wander too far into any ancient Roman forests.)

Q: A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 die. How many sheep are left?
A. 9

Uncle John loves peanut butter and prefers his PB&JB (peanut butter and jelly bean) sandwiches toasted. Quick—read this story before he finishes the last bite
!

P
ASTY PEANUTS

People have been eating peanuts for thousands of years, but peanut butter is a fairly recent development. It didn’t appear until the late 1800s, and no one knows who deserves credit for its invention. That’s because two men in different states both came up with an idea for peanut butter around the same time.

In 1890, a doctor (his name has been lost to history) from St. Louis, Missouri, talked a local food manufacturer into making a ground peanut paste. He thought it would be a great source of protein for patients who had lost their teeth and couldn’t chew meat. About the same time, another doctor (this one was from Michigan) did something similar because he worried that his vegetarian patients weren’t getting enough protein.

English astronomer Fred Hoyle coined the term “Big Bang” in 1949.

The second doctor was John Harvey Kellogg. He never did much with the peanut butter. Instead, he went on to make a fortune in cereal. But one of his employees, Joseph Lambert, took the idea and turned it into a success. Soon he was selling hand-operated grinders to make peanut paste, and in 1899, his wife published a book that included one of the first recipes for peanut butter.

IT’S GOTTA BE SMOOOTH

Early peanut butter didn’t taste very good. That’s because Lambert used boiled peanuts (not very flavorful) instead of roasted. It was also gritty because the grinders couldn’t completely smooth out all of the tiny peanut pieces and left behind grainy bits.

In 1904, that all changed when a man named C. H. Sumner introduced peanut butter made from roasted peanuts at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Sumner sold more than $700 worth of his peanut butter at the fair—more than most people at that time made in an entire year.

Then, in 1922, a Californian figured out how to stir the peanut paste until it was creamy. The first company to buy the technology: E. K. Pond, which in 1928 renamed itself Peter Pan. By the 1950s, brands like Jif and Skippy had also been created, and peanut butter had become a staple in American diets. Today, people in the United States buy a jar of peanut butter every three seconds, about 90 million jars each year.

Time it takes a marble factory to turn out 1,000 glass marbles: 5 minutes.

Can you figure out these twisty, turny word puzzles?
(Answers are on
page 241
.)

1
.

MILL1ION

2
.

PANTS
PANTS

3
.

BILLY

4
.

5
.

T _ RN

6
.

DEATH

7
.

THUS

8
.

hijklmno

9
.