Just The Facts - a Blog Post by sexyldy1000

10180 posts
10/19/2018 12:32 am

Just The Facts

I would like to post more often but have hit the proverbial 'brick wall' trying to think of new story ideas. Being the curious type, weird, whacky facts and trivia have always interested me. Perhaps you are the same and will enjoy these tidbits of information which were posted online by Reader's Digest:

Flamingos bend their legs at the ankle, not the knee
They essentially stand on tip-toe. Their knees are closer to the body and are covered by feathers.

Roller coasters were invented to distract Americans from sin
In the 1880s, hosiery businessman LaMarcus Thompson hated that Americans were tempted by hedonistic places like saloons and brothels. So he set out to straighten up one of the most immoral places he could think of: Coney Island in New York. There, he built America’s first roller coaster to give New Yorkers some good, clean fun.

Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins can
By slowing their heart rates, sloths can hold their breath for up to 40 minutes. Dolphins need to come up for air after about 10 minutes.

Supermarket apples can be a year old
Those fresh apples aren’t all that fresh, per say. They’re usually picked between August and November, covered in wax, hot-air dried, and sent into cold storage. After six to 12 months, they finally land on your grocery store shelves.

It’s impossible to hum while holding your nose
You just tested it, didn’t you? Normally, when you hum, the air is able to escape through your nose to create the sound, and of course, it can’t do that when you’re holding it shut.

Octopuses have three hearts
Squids do too. One pumps blood to their whole systems, and two are dedicated just to the gills.

In the Philippines, McDonald’s serves spaghetti
The pasta comes with a beef tomato sauce and a piece of “McDo” fried chicken.

Lobsters taste with their feet
Tiny bristles inside a lobster’s little pincers are their equivalent to human taste buds. Meanwhile, lobsters’ teeth are in one of their three stomachs.

3 Musketeers bars got their name because they used to come with three flavours
The original 3 Musketeers bars of the 1930s came in three-packs, with a different nougat flavour in each: vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry. World War II rations made that triple threat expensive, so the company cut down to one.

The shortest war in history lasted 38 minutes
When the sultan of British-protected Zanzibar died and a new one took over without British approval in 1896, the Brits were not happy. Tension escalated when Sultan Khalid bin Barghash refused to step down, but the British warships spent less than 40 minutes bombarding the palace before Khalid fled, marking the (very quick) end of the Anglo-Zanzibar War.

The world’s largest waterfall is underwater
Yes, there are waterfalls under the ocean. At the Denmark Straight, the cold water from the Nordic Sea is denser than the Irminger Sea’s warm water, making it drop almost two miles down at 123 million cubic feet per second.

Strawberries aren’t berries
Neither are raspberries and blackberries, according to botanists. True berries stem from one single-ovary flower and have two or more seeds. Strawberries don’t fit that bill, but bananas, kiwis, and watermelon do.

The U.S. treasury once printed $100,000 bills
Between December 18, 1934, and January 9, 1935, the notes with Woodrow Wilson’s face were issued to Federal Reserve Banks but never went out to the general public.

A flock of ravens is called an “unkindness”
They’re also known as a “conspiracy,” which is equally<b> creepy.

</font></b>Before toilet paper was invented, Americans used to use corn cobs
Alternatively, they’d use periodicals like the Farmers Almanac, which was designed with a hole so it could hang in outhouses.

William McKinley was shot right after giving away his good-luck charm
President McKinley always wore a red carnation for good luck but sometimes gave it out as a memento. When greeting the crowd in 1901, he handed a 12-year-old girl, Myrtle, the bloom off his lapel, saying “I must give this flower to another little flower.” Minutes later, he was fatally shot by a man in the crowd.

So......did you learn something new?