Uncle John’s Facts to Annoy Your Teacher Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! (22 page)

Spain:
Gazpacho, which is a raw vegetable (mostly tomato) soup, always served ice-cold.

Canada:
Poutine, french fries covered in cheese and gravy.

Philippines:
McSpaghetti—spaghetti, tomato sauce, and hot-dog chunks.

Italy:
The Fiodiriso Salad, made of lettuce, rice, tuna, mushrooms, and ham.

Uruguay:
The McHuevo, a hamburger topped with a poached egg.

Japan:
You can order the Ebi Filet-O (a shrimp burger), the Koroke Burger (a sandwich of mashed potato, cabbage, and sauce), the Ebi-Chiki (deep-fried shrimp nuggets), or a macaroni-and-cheese sandwich…and wash it down with a green tea–flavored milk shake.

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POP QUIZ

A mother of four hungry children has only three potatoes. Without using fractions, can you figure out how she can feed all of them and still serve each child an equal amount of potatoes? (
The answer is on
page 242
.)

He who tells the truth is never wrong. —Swahili proverb

Want to grow up to be president? It’s a big job…with a big first day.

T
HE MOMENT ARRIVES

Today, presidential inaugurations take place on January 20, but it wasn’t always that way. George Washington’s first inaugural was on April 30, 1789, and subsequent inaugurations took place in March. It wasn’t until the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1933 that January 20 was chosen as inauguration day. The amendment says that a president’s term “shall end at noon on the 20th day of January.” Congress decided on the date change because it felt that swearing in presidents in March or April, when they were elected in November, made voters wait too long for their new leader. In 1937, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first president to be inaugurated on the new date.

THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT

George Washington gets the award for the shortest inaugural speech. His second address, delivered on March 4, 1793, was just 135 words long.

On the other hand, William Henry Harrison gave the longest in 1841—it ran more than 8,000 words and lasted for two hours. According to many, the speech also contributed to Harrison’s death. Speaking outdoors on that cold March day, Harrison refused to wear a hat, coat, or gloves. A result: he caught pneumonia and died a month later, making his the shortest presidency.

The average American eats 75 bananas per year.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Presidential inaugurations have been going on for more than 200 years, so it makes sense that they’ve incorporated new technology. Here are a few inauguration firsts:

•
The first floats in the inaugural parade (Martin Van Buren, 1837)

•
The first photograph of the event (James Buchanan, 1857)

•
The first motion picture (William McKinley, 1897)

•
The first use of an automobile to bring the president to the event (Warren G. Harding, 1921)

•
The first radio broadcast (Calvin Coolidge, 1925)

•
The first talking film of the event (Herbert Hoover, 1929)

•
The first televised inauguration (Harry S. Truman, 1949)

•
The first color broadcast (John F. Kennedy, 1961)

•
And the first Internet broadcast (Bill Clinton, 1997)

Poet Robert Frost worked as a schoolteacher, reporter, and chicken farmer.

AN UNWELCOME GUEST

John Wilkes Booth attended Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration. At least one person remembered seeing him there, and Booth and several of his conspirators appear in photographs taken on that day in 1865—less than two months before he assassinated Lincoln.

A NEW LEGACY

The first president sworn in while wearing long pants: John Quincy Adams on March 4, 1825. The presidents before him wore knickers and stockings, which were common in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

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DID YOU KNOW?

•
The Baby Ruth candy bar was named for President Grover Cleveland’s daughter Ruth.

•
President Zachary Taylor never actually voted in a presidential election.

Komodo dragons have been known to prey on deer, horses, and water buffalo.

Some kids might be even weirder than you are.

•
Praveen Kumar Sehrawat
, 16, can spray a stream of milk a record 12 feet. But he doesn’t do it through his mouth or even his nose. He sucks milk up through his nostrils and then shoots it out of the tear ducts in his eyes! Sehrawat, who lives in India, also holds his country’s record for eating green chilies: 170 in five minutes.

•
Students at King Edward’s School
in Edgbaston, England, collected more than 28,000 socks and 24,500 clothespins. Then they hung all the socks on a line and set the record for the world’s longest clothesline of socks: 0.8 mile.

•
New Zealand teenager
Elliot Nicholls
set a record for sending text messages while blindfolded. The previous record was a 160-letter message sent in 83 seconds. Nicholls did it in just 45 seconds.

•
Eight-year-old
Aman Rehman
of Dehra Dun, India, is the world’s youngest college lecturer. He is a computer genius who teaches digital animation classes at a local art school.

•
Tiana Walton
, 9, from Cheshire, England, broke the record for “most snails sitting on a human face.” A grand total of 25 slimed around Walton’s face for 10 seconds, outpacing the previous record of 15 snails.

Longest-running prime-time animated TV series:
The Simpsons
, which debuted in 1989.

Film directors work hard on their movies, but they still make mistakes.

•
In
Star Wars: A New Hope
, the storm troopers break into the Death Star’s control room looking for C-3PO, and one of the troopers hits his head on the door frame.

•
Look carefully at the scene in
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
when Harry fights the basilisk. There’s a safety tip on the end of his sword.

•
In
High School Musical 2
, just before the kids start singing “What Time Is It?” Troy’s boxers show above his waistband—but they change from white to a dark color a moment later.

•
When Batman interrogates the Joker in
The Dark Knight
, the camera crew’s reflection appears briefly in the two-way mirror.

•
At the beginning of
I Am Legend
, all the bridges into Manhattan are destroyed, but at the end, two characters leave the city by driving over a bridge.

Worlds End State Park isn’t at the end of the world—it’s in Pennsylvania.

How much of your school day is spent staring out the window, watching the flag wave in the wind? Here’s some history about what you’re looking at.

OLD GLORY

•
You may have heard that Betsy Ross designed the American flag—she didn’t. Her grandson spread that rumor in the 1870s. No one knows for sure who came up with the design, but many historians now believe it was a 1770s congressman from New Jersey named Francis Hopkinson.

•
Only the president or a state governor may order that the American flag be flown at half-mast. It’s usually done as a way to honor a former president, vice president, Supreme Court justice, member of Congress, or military leader who has died. But sometimes other figures and events are honored this way, too: President George W. Bush ordered that the flag be flown at half-mast in 2002 on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and again in 2005, when civil rights activist Rosa Parks died.

•
The flag flies over the White House only if the president is in Washington, D.C. If he’s away, no flag.

STATE FLAGS

•
Oregon is the only state whose flag has a different design on the back. The front shows the state seal with the words “State of Oregon,” and the year “1859,” when it became part of the United States. On the back is a beaver, the state animal.

Is your interest flagging? You might look into vexillology, the study of flags.

•
Ohio is the only state whose flag isn’t rectangular—it’s a pennant shape.

•
In 1927, the Alaska Territory held a contest to design its flag (though it didn’t become a state until 1959). The winner was 13-year-old John Benson. The design: a blue background with one large star in the upper right corner and seven smaller stars forming the Big Dipper in the middle. It’s still the state’s flag today.

•
Canada didn’t get an official national flag until 1965.

•
Washington’s state flag is the only one with a portrait of a person on it. (That person is, naturally, George Washington.)

•
Only one country in the world has a flag that’s a solid block of color—the flag of the African nation of Libya is all green.

•
In 1846, artist William Todd took on the task of designing a flag for California. He was supposed to draw a pear in the middle of a banner. (Northern California has lots of pear orchards.) But due to smeared ink on the written request (or bad handwriting), Todd thought it said “bear.” So that’s what he drew, and it’s still on the flag today.

In 2008, Rock Port, Missouri, became the first U.S. city to be powered completely by wind.

If becoming a pro athlete seems beyond your reach, don’t despair. You might be able to train your stomach for victory instead.

B
URGERS AND DOGS

In 2006, Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi of Japan won $10,000 for eating 97 hamburgers in eight minutes. He’s also put away 58 bratwursts in 10 minutes to win the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island, New York. (He’s won the contest seven times in the last eight years.)

PIZZA AND WINGS

The only man to defeat “Tsunami” at Coney Island: Joey Chestnut, who is also a world-champion pizza eater and holds the record for speed-eating chicken wings, 182 in 30 minutes.

CHILI AND PEPPERS

Rich “Locust” LeFevre, who is in his 60s, holds the world records for devouring chili (1½ gallons in 10 minutes) and pickled jalapeño peppers (247 in 8 minutes).