# Little known facts. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 21, 2002, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847 "2002-11-21T01:49:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/61 "2002-11-21T19:14:05Z")
Grover, huh? Tickle Me Elmo was acting VP for Truman for ten days after FDR’s death. Michael Jackson is CGI, and pretty badly done CGI, too ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/62 "2002-11-21T19:36:17Z")
NoClue, Actually Michael Jackson isn’t CGI, just the remains of a failed lab experiment. A scientist in Malibu was trying to create a life form that, instead of milk, gave strawberry daquiris. He failed, and when he threw the remains in the trash, it mutated into Jacko. ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/63 "2002-11-21T19:40:35Z")
Pi is not really an irrational number. Mathematicians invented this ruse so they could continue receiving grant money to buy more and more supercomputers – which they use to swap porn. ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/64 "2002-11-21T20:12:56Z")
**NoClueBoy** and **photopat** , didn’t I already establish that he’s a muppet??? Don’t confuse the masses! ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/65 "2002-11-21T20:24:46Z")
Wild elephants used to not have trunks - they’re a result of intentional breeding. The domesticated elephants have since bred with wild ones, and, having superior health, the dominant trunk gene has pervaded the species. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/66 "2002-11-21T20:54:35Z")
FA-18 Eagles flown by the US AirForce do not have a bathroom on board, while those flown by the Navy at least include a urinal. 17th century French trebouchets were frequently loaded with Brazil nuts. The term “passel” was originally applied to flatulance and only later became synonymous with turnips. A colorful Chrysler vehicle currently under production consideration is rumored to be called the Mini Van Gogh. Preparation H and Oil of Olay have the exact same composition with the exception of Botox. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/67 "2002-11-21T21:05:18Z")
Sheep are actually the most dangerous animals in the world. They spit a poison so toxic that it completely destroys any living material with which it comes into contact, thus leaving no trace of their victims demise. Learnt from Viv, whose got a new job, woohoo! Cheers, Keithy ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/68 "2002-11-21T22:35:10Z")
> [@](#): > > Sally Jesse Raphael is in fact Phil Donahue in drag. This is going to come as quite a shock to Marlo Thomas! :eek: 😃 “Pea green and pink”? If I did that I’d go to a doctor. 😃 Some real little-known facts: FDR, Ike, and Rutherford B Hayes all ate H. O. Oatmeal. Fielder Jones, manager of the 1906 “Hitless Wonders” White Sox, was really named Fielder by his parents. Chevy Chase sold one article to _Mad:_ a spoof of the opening to the series _Mission: Impossible._ The government of New Zealand gave the U. S. a wooden two-masted schooner during World War II; the Navy found it had certain advantages over modern naval vessels. Arkansas is the only U. S. state with a diamond mine. A man named Gerald Mayo actually sued the Devil in federal court, in PA, in 1971–and lost. George Armstrong Custer, class of 1861, graduated from West Point at the bottom of his class. The pulmonary vein, running from the lungs to the heart, carries the freshest arterial blood in the body. Even blood vessels have blood vessels. Norman Mingo, who died in 1980, was the only _Mad_ artist to have served in World War I. Alfred Hitchcock, who appeared in all his opwn movies, sensibly scheduled his appearance early on in the movie so as not to distract viewers from the story line. Al Hirschfeld, the caricaturist who hides the name of his daughter Nina in his art, did this for the first time the day Nina was born. 🙂 In Jan Harold Brunvand’s book _The Big Book of Urban Legends,_ Brunvand himself is the subject of a UL near the end of the book–and provides a facetious comment on it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/69 "2002-11-21T22:54:39Z")
The fish stick is neither fish nor a stick. It is a fungus. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/70 "2002-11-21T22:59:13Z")
dougie, At least some of those facts are real. What’s going on here? By the way, Jan Brunvand _is_ and urban legend. ---
**Author:** ![airdisc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e19adc/32.png) [@airdisc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/airdisc)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/71 "2002-11-21T23:41:06Z")
Every six months when the Earth turns on its axis, North Korea becomes South Korea and vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![Swampwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Swampwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swampwolf)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/72 "2002-11-21T23:56:23Z")
The larynx of the emu is shaped in such a way that, even if it could speak, it would be unable to pronounce the word _lasagne_ ---
**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/73 "2002-11-22T03:48:24Z")
Foosball is being considered for the Olympics. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/74 "2002-11-22T04:45:35Z")
Ruthiford B. Hayes is the only U.S. President to have admitted to eating human flesh. Sir Richard Burton, the noted adventurer, encountered, AND killed, a 3 to 4 foot tall praying mantis in the belgian congo in 1881. Although photographs of the corpse, and much of the corpse itself, were destroyed on the way back to England, a section of mandible is still kept in the archives of the Royal College of Medicine. The NATO code names for Soviet (And later Russian) fighter aircraft are all taken from lines of _The Canterbury Tales_, the code names for bombers are taken from _Howl_, by Allen Ginsberg. In the United States, there are 24 major regional accents, each with at least a dozen subtongues, with the exception of New York and Chicago. The screenplay of the original _Robocop_ was based, originally, on the story of railroad worker John Gage. The energy value of the human soul has been calculated at around 2.18 teraergs. (With an 8% margin of error, of course) The character of Gadget from the Disney animated series “Chip & Dale’s Rescue Rangers” was based on the character of Jordan Cochran from the 1985 film “real Genius.” ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/75 "2002-11-22T04:49:56Z")
the monitor lizard was originally known as the CRT lizard. 25 is the largest number allowed to be entered on the TI 5517 scientific calculator rendering it useless for almost any complex computation. NASA ordered 25 of them to replace their faulty TI 5515 calculators which answered every calculation with “a suffusion of yellow” which has 25 letters ( + or - a few letters). 25 is also the maximum number of cats the Amazing Kleege can simultaneously juggle while standing on one foot in the dark. The Amazing Kleegle’s network premeir was pre-empted by a very special “Full House” dealing with video game addiction among gay males 25 yrs old and older. ---
**Author:** ![neofishboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/neofishboy/32/444_2.png) [@neofishboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neofishboy)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/76 "2002-11-22T05:31:43Z")
It is well known among the kind of people who know these things that the character Les Nessman from _WKRP In Cincinnati_ wore some sort of bandage or cast in each episode. What is less well known is that these injuries were real - sustained during his between-taping forays into the underground world of basement bare-knuckle matches with long-time drinking buddy Randall “Tex” Cobb. and… Apparently if I kill you I **do** , in fact, become you. Strange but true. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/77 "2002-11-22T15:00:21Z")
Speaking of smurfs, MS Word’s spell checker doesn’t tag the word “smurf”. ---
**Author:** ![Legomancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/779978/32.png) [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/78 "2002-11-22T15:19:47Z")
Meg Ryan and Courtney Love are slowly switching bodies. ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/79 "2002-11-22T18:57:18Z")
Smurfette, the only female Smurf in the village, gets a lot of action … if you know what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847/80 "2002-11-22T21:32:22Z")
_The Lord of the Rings_ was actually a documentary about life in turn of the millennium England. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-known-facts/137847.md?page=5)