Trivia Today

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Jupiter takes almost 12 years to make a full orbit of the
Sun.

***

Jupiter's most distinguishing feature is “the Great Red
Spot,” an intense windstorm larger in size than Earth.

***

Jupiter is more than twice as massive as all the other
planets combined.

***

Jupiter is the fastest rotating planet and can complete one
revolution in less than ten hours.

***

Jupiter is the planet with the shortest day, slightly under
10 hours.

***

Jupiter is 370 million miles from the Earth.

 

[Dawn]

RANDOM TIDBITS (It all happened a 20 october)


1818 - The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the US-Canada border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.

***

1944 - The Soviet army and Yugoslav Partisans liberate Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia


***

1955 - Publication of The Return of the King, being the last part of The Lord of the Rings.


***

Born a 20 October:

1854 - Arthur Rimbaud, French poet
1931 - Mickey Mantle, American baseball player
1937 - Juan Marichal, Dominican baseball player
1958 - Viggo Mortensen, American actor

***

Died a 20 October:

460 - Aelia Eudocia, Byzantine Empress
1935 - Arthur Henderson, Scottish politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
1964 - Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States
1977 - Cassie Gaines, Steve Gaines and Ronnie Van Zant, members of the American rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd killed in a plane crash
1994 - Burt Lancaster, American actor

 

[Legzman]

bump

 

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS (It all happened a 20 october)


Died a 20 October:


1964 - Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States

Will "W" be Hoover II?

Obviously, Bush doesn't seem to be underestimating this crisis. Yet, will his legacy be forever further tarnished by this downturn like Hoover's was? Considering how little Bush can control the economic forces as president, I feel a bit sorry for him now.

 

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

John Adams was the first president to reside in the White
House, moving in November 1800 while the paint was still
wet. When Adams and his family moved to Washington to live
in the White House, they got lost in the woods north of the
city for several hours.

***

Thomas Jefferson wrote his own epitaph never mentioning
that he served as president. His epitaph read, "Author of
the Declaration of American Independence, Author of the
Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and the Father
of the University of Virginia."

***

John Quincy Adams regularly swam nude in the Potomac River.
The first American professional journalist, Anne Royall,
knew of Adams’ 5:00 a.m. swims. After being refused
interviews with Adams many times, she went to the river,
gathered his clothes and sat on them until she had her
interview. Before this, no female had interviewed a
president.

***

Martin Van Buren was the first U.S. president born in the
United States. The presidents preceding Van Buren were born
in colonies that later became states. Van Buren was the
first to be born after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.

***

To set a good example for the country Rutherford B. Hayes
banished liquor and wine from the White House.

***

Benjamin Harrison was the first president to use electricity
in the White House. After he got an electrical shock, his
family often refused to touch the light switches and
sometimes would go to bed with the lights on.

 

[Dawn]

RANDOM TIDBITS (It all happened a 21 October)


1512 - Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg.

1921 - President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the deep south.

1945 - Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.

1967 - Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, DC. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon and clashes with soldiers and United States Marshals protecting the facility (event lasts until October 23; 683 people were arrested). Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.

1971 - Pablo Neruda wins Nobel Prize for Literature.

2003 - Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.

*****

Born a 21 October:

1772 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, British poet.
1790 - Alphonse de Lamartine, French writer.
1833 - Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor and founder of the Nobel Prize.
1928 - Whitey Ford, American baseball player.
1929 - Ursula K. Le Guin, American author.
1949 - Mike Keenan, Canadian ice hockey coach (with Calgary Flames actually).

*****

Died a 21 October:

1805 - Horatio Nelson, British admiral.
1931 - Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian writer.
1969 - Jack Kerouac, American novelist.
1984 - François Truffaut, French film director.

 

[gunslingingbird]

RANDOM TIDBITS (It all happened a 21 October)


1512 - Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg.

1921 - President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the deep south.

1945 - Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.

1967 - Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, DC. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon and clashes with soldiers and United States Marshals protecting the facility (event lasts until October 23; 683 people were arrested). Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.

1971 - Pablo Neruda wins Nobel Prize for Literature.

2003 - Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.

*****

Born a 21 October:

1772 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, British poet.
1790 - Alphonse de Lamartine, French writer.
1833 - Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor and founder of the Nobel Prize.
1928 - Whitey Ford, American baseball player.
1929 - Ursula K. Le Guin, American author.
1949 - Mike Keenan, Canadian ice hockey coach (with Calgary Flames actually).

*****

Died a 21 October:

1805 - Horatio Nelson, British admiral.
1931 - Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian writer.
1969 - Jack Kerouac, American novelist.
1984 - François Truffaut, French film director.

Um, I think this belongs in the Today in History thread, which I believe MiniD already has covered. :hatsoff:

 

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

William McKinley was the first president to ride in an
automobile, the first to campaign by telephone, and the
third president to die from an assassin’s wound. He was shot
during the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. He died
of his wounds about a week later.

***

During Woodrow Wilson's presidency a flock of sheep was
raised on the White House lawn. The wool was used to raise
money for the Red Cross during World War I.

***

Calvin Coolidge lighted the first national Christmas tree
in 1923 on the White House lawn.

***

Harry S. Truman was the first president to travel underwater
in a submarine, and the first president to give a speech on
television.

***

Dwight D. Eisenhower played football at West Point and was
injured trying to tackle Olympic and NFL star Jim Thorpe.

***

Before becoming a politician, Lyndon B. Johnson taught
school in Texas. He was the first American president to
name an African American to his cabinet.

 

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Children's book author Dr. Seuss's real name was Theodor
Geisel. His middle name was Seuss.

***

Beatrix Potter, author of Peter Rabbit, had a real pet
rabbit named "Peter". She put Peter on a leash and walked
him through her neighborhood in London.

***

Many of Agatha Christie's stories involved people getting
poisoned. She knew so much about chemicals because she
worked in a hospital laboratory during World War II.

***

Charles Dickens had two pet ravens, both known as Grip.
Upon Grip I's demise, Dickens had his beloved bird stuffed.
These days, Grip can be seen at the Free Library of
Philadelphia's Rare Books Department, where he stands guard
over the Poe and Dickens collections.

***

During World War I, Edith Wharton traveled to the Western
Front in France, both to write about the battlefields for
American publications and to help the Red Cross create
hostels and schools for those displaced by war.

***

Flannery O'Connor had a special fondness for peacocks,
which she often used in her fiction to represent Christ.
When she returned to live on the family farm as an adult,
she raised an unusually large flock of peacocks, which she
tended to until her death in 1964.

 

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's original concept for
series was that of a "Wagon Train to the Stars", and
included the Starship Yorktown plus significantly different
characters from the ones we know today.

***

Mark Lenard, best known for his role as Sarek, Spock's
father, was the first actor to play a member of all three
of the major alien races: Vulcan, Romulan (in the episode
"Balance of Terror"), and Klingon (the commander of the
Klingon attack group at the beginning of Star Trek: The
Motion Picture (1979)).

***

Jeri Ryan turned down the role of Seven of Nine four times;
she only accepted the part after repeated lobbying by
executive producer Jeri Taylor.

***

James Doohan ("Scotty") lost his right middle finger during
WWII. Most of his scenes are shot to hide it. In scenes with
a close-up view of Scotty's hands (operating the transporter
for example) someone else's hands were always used.

***

Mae C. Jemison was the first real astronaut to appear in
any Star Trek show. She played "Lt. Palmer" in a Star Trek:
The Next Generation episode entitled "Second Chances" (May
22, 1993).

***

Walter Koenig, who wrote the episode "The Infinite Vulcan,"
became the first Star Trek actor to ever write a Star Trek
story. Over the following decades, many Trek actors would
write films, novels and comic books based upon "Star Trek",
and many more would direct TV episodes and movies.

 

[CRASHnBURN]

Nice read HL

 

[historylover]

Nice read HL

:hatsoff::hatsoff:

 

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The first known dinosaurs appeared about 230-225 million
years ago, in the Triassic Period.

***

One of the smallest dinosaurs (Compsognathus) was about
3 feet long and weighed about 6 pounds.

***

The Pleurocoelus is the official state dinosaur of Texas.

***

Tyrannosaurus rex was the largest meat-eating dinosaur
ever to live in North America. Fossils found during the
last 20 years show that some dinosaurs were covered with
feathers.

***

Although dinosaurs' fossils have been known since 1818,
the term dinosaur (deinos = terrifying; sauros = lizard)
was coined by the English anatomist Sir Richard Owen in
1842. The only three dinosaurs known at the time were
Megalosaurus, Iguanodon, and Hylaeosaurus, very large
dinosaurs.

***

Diplodocus was an enormous dinosaur that grew as long
as 100 feet. But most of this length was taken up by
its incredibly long neck and even longer tail. Diplodocus'
body accounted for only about 13 feet of its entire
length, while its tiny head measured a relatively small
two feet.

 

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

More than 80% of the rum consumed in the U.S. comes from
Puerto Rico.

***

Vodka accounts for more than one out of every four bottles
of distilled spirits consumed in the U.S.

***

Tequila is not made from cactus, but from agave; the best
tequilas are 100% blue agave.

***

Sparkling Wines A.K.A.

Spain uses Cava, Italy calls it spumante, and South Africa
uses Cap Classique. A sparkling wine made from Muscat
grapes in Italy uses the DOCG Asti. In Germany, Sekt is a
common sparkling wine.

***

Not Champagne

While the term "champagne" is often used by makers of
sparkling wine in other parts of the world, it should
properly be used to refer only to the wines made in the
region of Champagne, France.

***

Champagne's Sugar Content

The sweetest level is doux (meaning sweet), proceeding in
order of increasing dryness to demi-sec (half-dry), sec
(dry), extra sec (extra dry), brut (almost completely dry),
and extra brut / brut nature / brut zero (no additional
sugar, sometimes ferociously dry.).

 

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Dana Plato, who would later become famous for the role of
Kimberley Drummond on "Diff'rent Strokes," was originally
offered the role of Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist.

***

Due to its shoestring budget, the prop department for
Halloween (1978) had to use the cheapest mask that they
could find in the costume store: a William Shatner mask,
from The Devil's Rain (1975). They later spray-painted the
face white, teased out the hair, and reshaped the eyeholes.

***

Not long before filming on Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
began, Colin Clive broke a leg in a horse riding accident.
Consequently, most of Dr. Frankenstein's scenes were shot
with him sitting.

***

Psycho is the first movie to show a woman (Janet Leigh) in
just a bra and slip.

***

Many of the 500 Florida frogs and 100 giant South American
toads purchased for use in The Frogs escaped during
production.

***

The mask in Scream is based on an Edvard Munch painting
entitled "The Scream."

 

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979) - The outdoor scenes of the movie
were not filmed in Amityville, Long Island, but rather Toms
River, New Jersey. Local police and ambulance workers played
extras. The volunteer fire department was used to provide
the "rain" during one of the exterior scenes. If you look
closely, you can see that it is sunny and not "raining" in
the background, the next street over.

***

POLTERGEIST (1982) - During all the horrors that proceeded
while filming, only one scene really scared Heather O'Rourke:
that in which she had to hold onto the headboard, while a
wind machine blew toys into the closet behind her. She fell
apart; Steven Spielberg stopped everything, took her in his
arms, and said that she would not have to do that scene
again.

***

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) - Director Wes Craven
claims to have named Freddy Krueger after a kid who bullied
him in school and to have based his appearance on a
disfigured hobo who scared him as a youth.

***

THE SHINING (1980) - Jack Nicholson ad-libbed the line
"Here's Johnny!" in imitation of announcer Ed McMahon's
famous introduction of Johnny Carson on U.S. network NBC-
TV's long-running late night television program "The Tonight
Show Starring Johnny Carson" (1962). Kubrick, who had been
living in England since before Carson took over "The Tonight
Show," had no clue what "Here's Johnny!" meant.

***

PSYCHO (1960) - The Bates house was largely modeled on an
oil painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
The canvas is called "House by the Railroad" and was painted
in 1925 by American iconic artist Edward Hopper. The
architectural details, viewpoint and austere sky is almost
identical as seen in the film.

***

THE EXORCIST (1973) - The refrigerated bedroom set was
cooled with four air conditioners and temperatures would
plunge to around 30 to 40 below zero. It was so cold that
perspiration would freeze on some of the cast and crew. On
one occasion the air was saturated with moisture resulting
in a thin layer of snow falling on the set before the crew
arrived for filming.

 

[don_equis]

RANDOM TIDBITS

More than 80% of the rum consumed in the U.S. comes from
Puerto Rico.

***

Vodka accounts for more than one out of every four bottles
of distilled spirits consumed in the U.S.

***

Tequila is not made from cactus, but from agave; the best
tequilas are 100% blue agave.

***

Sparkling Wines A.K.A.

Spain uses Cava, Italy calls it spumante, and South Africa
uses Cap Classique. A sparkling wine made from Muscat
grapes in Italy uses the DOCG Asti. In Germany, Sekt is a
common sparkling wine.

***

Not Champagne

While the term "champagne" is often used by makers of
sparkling wine in other parts of the world, it should
properly be used to refer only to the wines made in the
region of Champagne, France.

***

Champagne's Sugar Content

The sweetest level is doux (meaning sweet), proceeding in
order of increasing dryness to demi-sec (half-dry), sec
(dry), extra sec (extra dry), brut (almost completely dry),
and extra brut / brut nature / brut zero (no additional
sugar, sometimes ferociously dry.).

I love this thread and the fact that the rum comes from P.R. just like them hot women, i.e. Carmen Luvana!

 

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

Jack o’ lanterns originated in Ireland where people placed
candles in hollowed-out turnips to keep away spirits and
ghosts on the Samhain holiday.

***

The ancient Celts thought that spirits and ghosts roamed
the countryside on Halloween night. They began wearing masks
and costumes to avoid being recognized as human.

***

Halloween candy sales average about 2 billion dollars
annually in the United States.

***

Bobbing for apples is thought to have originated from the
roman harvest festival that honors Pamona, the goddess of
fruit trees.

***

Black cats were once believed to be witch's familiars who
protected their powers.

***

Tootsie Rolls were the first wrapped penny candy in America.

 

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The name pumpkin orginated from "pepon" – the Greek word
for "large melon."

***

The top pumpkin production states are Illinois, Ohio,
Pennsylvania and California.

***

Pumpkins are fruits. A pumpkin is a type of squash and is
a member of the gourd family (Cucurbitacae), which include
squash, cucumbers, gherkins, and melons.

***

Pumpkin seeds should be planted between the last week of
May and the middle of June. They take between 90 and 120
days to grow and are picked in October when they are bright
orange in color. Their seeds can be saved to grow new
pumpkins the next year.

***

The largest pumpkin pie ever made was over five feet in
diameter and weighed over 350 pounds. It used 80 pounds of
cooked pumpkin, 36 pounds of sugar, 12 dozen eggs and took
six hours to bake.

***

Colonists sliced off pumpkin tops; removed seeds and filled
the insides with milk, spices and honey. This was baked in
hot ashes and is the origin of pumpkin pie.

 

[historylover]

RANDOM TIDBITS

The next full moon on Halloween night will be October 31,
2020.

***

The Salem Witch trials of 1692 are known for burning so-
called witches at the stake. Actually, not one witch died
by burning; most were put to death by hanging. One
unfortunate witch was “pressed” to death and several died
in prison of natural causes.

***

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Utah, in 2004, had the
highest proportion of its total population trick-or-treating
in the 5-to-13 year old age group with Alaska following
closely behind.

***

Samhainophobia is an intense fear of Halloween.

***

Some people believe that if you see a spider on Halloween,
it is the spirit of a loved one watching over you.

***

Vampire bats really do exist, but they are not from
Transylvania. They live in Central and South America and
feed on the blood of cattle, horses and birds.