Mental Floss: Instant Knowledge (19 page)

(in Ethiopia?)

USEFUL FOR:
breaking stereotypes, impressing religion majors, and making it sound like you’re well versed on African history

KEYWORDS:
kosher, matzo, or Ethiopia

THE FACT:
Most of the people of the central highlands of Ethiopia, numbering more than 25 million, speak Semitic languages that are more closely related to Hebrew than they are to the other languages of sub-Saharan (“south of the Sahara”) Africa.

Sounds strange, but it’s definitely true. The central Ethiopians, moreover, began practicing Christianity roughly 1,700 years ago, much earlier than did the people of northern Europe. Until recently, Ethiopia also had a thriving Jewish community, that of the Falashas. The Falashas had long been isolated from other Jewish groups, and as a result they held only a small portion of the Jewish Holy Scriptures. A debate ensued over whether they should therefore be considered true Jews. Once the issue was decided in the affirmative, virtually the entire community migrated to Israel.

USEFUL FOR:
chatting up immigrants, impressing history teachers, and determining the number one place you’ll never want to take your family on vacation

KEYWORDS:
North Korea, dictators, and King Kong (who’s bigger than Kim Jong, but hardly badder)

THE FACT:
If you really want to escape globalization, you might try sneaking into North Korea. Of course, you’ll probably be arrested…

…and executed, and you may even be captured and eaten by villagers. (Between one and three million North Koreans have starved to death over the past decade, and incidents of cannibalism have been regularly reported.) But if you do survive the ordeal, you can bear witness to the most extravagant personality cult in history, one that makes the efforts of Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein look rather modest in comparison. Kim Il Sung, the country’s founding dictator, is still its official president—even though he died in1994. (Why be president for life when you can have the position for all eternity?) His son, Kim Jong Il, now the country’s “dear leader,” is evidently doing his best to follow in his father footsteps.

(and her high jump)

USEFUL FOR:
not freaking out whenever Scratchy tries to dive off the mantel

KEYWORDS:
cat, suicidal, or high dive

THE FACT:
Furry felines have a knack for jumping from high places and only getting the wind knocked out them (helps with the hairballs).

It helps that kitties are lightweights, and can twist around and land on all fours. Their superbalance has something to do with their inner ears, and luck (unless they’re black cats, of course). And here’s the weirdest part: Kitties actually have a better chance of surviving a fall from a higher place than a low one. When they jump off tall buildings (instead of short treehouses) they achieve what’s called a terminal velocity—the point at which they stop accelerating. Once they hit the “TV” zone, they can relax a bit, enjoy the ride, and spread their paws to make a parachute. Then again, they may just have nine lives…

USEFUL FOR:
scaring kids, scaring moms, and delighting anyone looking for some eye patch nostalgia

KEYWORDS:
bullies, nerds, or “that toy is not a weapon”

THE FACT:
Klackers were basically the definition of a mother’s warning: all fun and games until kids lost some eyes.

In the late 1960s, a toy called Klackers hit the market. The pendulum-like device was made up of two large balls or marbles attached to a string hanging from a ring or handle. The goal was to get the hanging balls to tap together by pulling up with your hand. And if you got really good at it, you could get them clacking against each other extremely fast, both above and below your hand. Klackers became wildly popular, but in 1971, the toy was yanked from store shelves after a rash of Klacker-related injuries. Apparently, kids who were not so good at the game were getting bruises and black eyes from errant balls. Other kids reported similar injuries, not from
playing
with Klackers, but having them used against them by bullies. Most injuries, however, occurred when the clacking balls (which, brilliantly enough, were sometimes made of glass) shattered and sent Klacker shrapnel into the eyes of hundreds of children.

(and the inventions it spurs)

USEFUL FOR:
chatting up inventors, making small talk in the ER, and anytime you want to make your clumsy spouse feel better

KEYWORDS:
Band-Aids, inventors, or klutz

THE FACT:
It’s like they say—behind every great man is a woman who burns herself a lot.

It all started in 1920, when Johnson & Johnson employee Earle Dickson wed his sweetheart, Josephine, and discovered that she wasn’t exactly Little Mary Homemaker. Turns out she had a rather unnerving habit of kitchen klutziness. Every day, Dickson would come home to find another cut or burn that needed dressing. He was sympathetic at first, but as time passed, the score increased to Kitchen: 500, Josephine: 0, and he grew more frustrated. Finally, Dickson came up with a way for his wife to fix her wounds without having to wait for him by taking a roll of surgical tape and spacing out squares of gauze down the length of it. To keep the tape from sticking to itself, he added a layer of removable crinoline. Forever after, when Josephine injured herself, she simply peel a length from the roll and patched it up, and thus, Band-Aids were born. No word on the final outcome of Josephine versus the Kitchen, but we’re hoping no news is good news.