Read Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wise Up! Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wise Up! (26 page)
Washington is credited with introducing the mule to America.
Washington divided his estate, covering more than 3,000 acres, into five farms named Union Farm, Dogue Run, Muddy Hole, Mansion House, and River Farm.
At 16, Washington was an enthusiastic spelunker—he loved exploring caves.
Sybil
was a 1973 best-selling book
based on the work of psychiatrist Cornelia B. Wilbur and a patient with multiple personality disorder (now called “dissociative identity disorder”). The patient’s name in the book (Sybil) was a pseudonym; her real name (Shirley Ardell Mason) wasn’t revealed until after her death in 1998. During their sessions, Wilbur discovered that her patient had 16 separate personalities:
• Sybil Isabel Dorsett: the original self.
• Vicky Scharleau: a sophisticated blonde.
• Peggy Lou Baldwin: an often angry pixie type.
• Peggy Ann Baldwin: similar to Peggy Lou but more fearful than angry.
• Mary Dorsett: a plump, little old lady type.
• Marcia Dorsett/Baldwin: a writer and painter.
• Nancy Lou Ann Baldwin: similar to the Peggys, hence the middle names Lou and Ann.
• Mike Dorsett: a boy/ carpenter with olive skin, dark hair, and brown eyes.
• Vanessa Dorsett: an intensely dramatic redhead.
• Ruthie Dorsett: a toddler.
• Sid Dorsett: a boy/carpenter with fair skin, dark hair, and blue eyes.
• Sybil Ann Dorsett: a pale and timid type.
• Clara Dorsett: an intensely religious type, highly critical of the original Sybil.
• Helen Dorsett: a fearful but determined woman with light brown hair.
• Marjorie Dorsett: a vivacious brunette.
• The Blonde: the girl Sybil would like to be.
Three top-selling towel colors: navy, burgundy, and hunter green.
Most of the villains in the Bible have red hair.
In 1976, the Rolling Stones took down their billboard for the album
Black and Blue
after feminists complained it promoted violence.
In one year, Crayola produces 2 billion crayons—enough to make a giant crayon 35 feet wide and 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.
Golf illusion: red golf balls appear bigger and closer; blue golf balls appear smaller and farther away.
In 1996, TV’s Mr. Rogers named Crayola’s 100 billionth crayon color: “Blue Ribbon.”
The colors magenta, sienna, and Venetian red are all named after Italian cities.
Excited neon atoms release red light.
The green bleachers in Boston’s Fenway Park have one red seat—the spot where Ted Williams’s stadium-record 502-foot home run (allegedly) landed in 1946.
People tend to eat less when food is served on a blue plate.
Most-used crayon color: black.
According to astronomers at Johns Hopkins University, the color of the universe is beige.
Most common school colors in America: blue and white.
All the song titles on Bobby Vinton’s 1963 album
Blue Velvet
include the word “blue.”
Color most associated with weddings in ancient Rome: yellow.
In East Africa, people brew beer from bananas.
The year on a bottle of wine refers to when the grapes were picked, not when the wine was bottled.
A bottle of champagne has three times as much air pressure as a car tire.
When Guinness beer is poured into a glass, the bubbles rise to the top and then are pushed to the bottom.
In the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, 15 million gallons of wine were destroyed.
Enough beer is poured every Saturday across America to fill a football stadium.
Clint Eastwood has his own beer, Pale Rider Ale, named for his 1985 film
Pale Rider
.
White wine gets darker as it ages. Red wine gets lighter.
The earliest beer recipe was found on a Sumerian tablet dating from about 4000 BC.
Popular drink in Greece: white wine mixed with Coca-Cola.
The scum found on top of aged wine is called “beeswing.”
The alcohol content of a can of beer and a shot of whiskey are about the same.
Egyptian pyramid builders got three beer breaks a day.
Beer is mentioned nine times in the Bible.
According to the experts, the smaller the bubbles, the better the champagne.
Ancient Egypt had at least six known types of beer.
Worldwide, about 20 million acres are devoted to growing wine grapes.
The world’s longest movie:
Cure for Insomnia
(1987) runs for 87 hours.
First Western:
The Great Train Robbery
(1903).
First Western movie star: Bronco Billy Anderson. His career lasted from 1903 to 1916.
First movie made in Hollywood:
In Old California
1910.
Number 1 on the AFI’s “Greatest American Movies” list:
Citizen Kane
(1941).
First African American actor to win an Academy Award: Sidney Poitier for
Lilies of the Field
(1963).
First feature-length film documentary: the Eskimo saga
Nanook of the North
(1922).
Best-selling DVD of 2008:
Wall-E
.
Armageddon
(1998) was the first film in which actual NASA space suits were used.
The first copyrighted motion picture (made in 1894) is of a man sneezing.
Most-watched film in history:
The Wizard of Oz
. More than a billion people have seen it.
Most successful year at U.S. movie theaters: 1947, with 4.7 billion tickets sold. (Only 1.42 billion were sold in 2007.)
* * *
First television sitcom:
The Goldbergs
(1949). CBS canceled the show in 1951 when one of its stars was blacklisted during the McCarthy era.
The Cherokees’ name for themselves is Aniyunwiya, which means “Principal People.”
Giant noses are a mark of beauty to the San Blas Indians of Panama. Women paint black lines down the center of their noses to make them appear longer.
The 1954 film
Sitting Bull
was shot near Mexico City, and most of the American Indians were played by Mexican actors.
Before Europeans arrived in the New World, no American Indians had type B blood.
The oldest sandals known were made of sagebrush bark fibers about 9,500 years ago and were found in Catlow Cave in central Oregon.
The Mentawai tribe of Indonesia file their teeth into sharp points.
The ancient Indus civilization—centered mostly in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan—had a written language of more than 400 pictograph scripts. But to this day, scientists have been unable to decode the language.
Woodrow Wilson’s second wife, Edith, was a descendant of Pocahontas.
Pants with elastic waists were first introduced during World War II, when metal zippers were in short supply.
Richard Nixon gave away autographed golf balls as presidential gifts.
In the 15th century, the houses of York and Lancaster fought the War of the Roses to control the English monarchy. (The Lancasters won.)
The Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle and its variants have been used in more than 75 wars.
Smiley buttons were used as logos by presidential candidate George McGovern and Good Humor Ice Cream.
Playing cards were issued to some British pilots in World War II. If they were captured, the cards could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal escape maps.
In a 1946 contest in Tokyo, an abacus added more quickly than an electric calculator.
President George H. W. Bush once accidentally beaned his vice president, Dan Quayle, with a golf ball.
State beverage of Nebraska: Kool-Aid.
Having trouble hitting the high notes? According to some experts, breathing in helium before playing the clarinet will raise its pitch.
* * *
Studies show:
One in seven Americans say they or someone they know has had an experience involving a UFO.
Elvis Presley once volunteered to be an FBI drug informant. (His services were refused.)
Last song Elvis performed in public: “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
At a 2007 auction, a pill bottle once used by Elvis sold for $2,460.
According to sources, in
West Side Story
, producer Robert Wise wanted Elvis to play Tony.
Who’s Al Dvorin? The American talent agent who first said, “Elvis has left the building.”
The most flowers sold in one day in U.S. history was the day after Elvis Presley died in 1977.
The Jordanaires have sung backup on more than 30,000 recordings, including 361 Elvis songs.
Sixty-five percent of Elvis impersonators are of Asian descent.
Elvis nearly always closed his concerts with “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
In 2007, Garth Brooks passed Elvis to become the best-selling solo artist in U.S. history.
Elvis owned a pet mynah bird that said, “Elvis! Go to hell!”
More than 100 Elvis Presley albums made the
Billboard
Top 40.
Elvis collected police badges from cities he performed in.
Elvis made only one commercial: a radio spot for Southern Maid Donuts in 1954.
In 1988, Director Quentin Tarantino played an Elvis impersonator on TV’s
The Golden Girls
.
3 W
OODWORKING
A
XIOMS
1.
Measure twice; cut once.
2.
Always sand with the grain.
3.
You can never have too many clamps.
7 S
TARS IN THE
B
IG DIPPER
1. Dubhe
2. Merak
3. Phecda
4. Megrez
5. Alioth
6. Mizar
7. Alkaid
4 M
ATRIARCHS OF
J
UDAISM
1
. Sarah
2.
Rebecca
3.
Leah
4.
Rachel
3
L
AWS OF
R
OBOTICS IN
I
SAAC
A
SIMOV
’
S
S
CIENCE
-F
ICTION
N
OVELS
1.
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2.
A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law.
3.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.
9 H
IGHEST
-P
AID
S
PORTS
S
TARS IN
2008
1.
Tiger Woods
2.
Phil Mickelson
3.
LeBron James
4.
Floyd Mayweather
5.
Kobe Bryant
6.
Shaquille O’Neal
7.
Alex Rodriguez
8.
Kevin Garnett
9.
Peyton Manning
5 F
AMOUS
M
ILITARY
H
ORSES
1.
Traveller (Robert E. Lee)
2.
Black Jack (U.S. Army)
3.
Bucephalus (Alexander the Great)
4.
Dandy (George Custer)
5.
Little Sorrel (Stonewall Jackson)
The word “daisy” comes from the Old English
daegeseage
, meaning “the eye of the sun.”
A “Motown” is a poker term for two jacks and two fives—jacks on fives. (Get it? Jackson Fives.)
In golf, a score of eight on a single hole is called “making a snowman.”
A lynchobite is someone who works at night and sleeps during the day.
Despite the fact that Julius Caesar was bald, his surname “Caesar” means “hairy” in Latin. (Supposedly, his family was known for their thick hair.)
The words “loosen” and “unloosen” mean the same thing; so do “flammable” and “inflammable.”
Forks originally had two tines and were called “split spoons.”
Until the 19th century, an “accident” referred to anything that happened, good or bad.
The terms “Caribbean” and “cannibal” come from the same root,
Carib
, a group of indigenous people from South and Central America.
Technically, juice boxes are known as “aseptic packaging.”
The all-night diner’s term for the hour when a city’s bars close: “drunk thirty.”
The investing term “blue chip” comes from the color of the highest value of poker chip…blue.
What is a bladder pipe? A bagpipe made from a hedgehog bladder.
The lead character in the 2001 movie
Shrek
got his name from the Yiddish word for “fear.”
Eight countries have land that lies within the Arctic Circle: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Canada, the United States, Russia, Denmark, and Iceland.
Hong Kong is made up of a peninsula and 236 islands.
American Samoa is the only U.S. territory south of the equator.
More than 90 percent of Egypt is desert.
The Tonga Islands in the South Pacific move about ¾ of an inch every year.