Pennsylvania was first settled by a small group of Romanians who gave the state its name, which means “New Transylvania” in Romanian.
Bram Stoker was of Transylvanian descent himself, and one of his ancestors was Vlad the Impaler.
The Ford Impala was preceded by the Ford Impaler, so called because of a six-inch spike installed in the steering wheel, to encourage motorists to drive safely. Due to poor sales and numerous deaths, the line was quietly discontinued.
[Is the fact that the Impala is a Chevrolet car, not Ford, a deliberate part of the misinformation? :D]
The Impala used in the TV show Supernatural is owned by show creator Eric Kripke, and was actually part of a big inspiration for the drama. Kripke claims that he met a pair of young men with rifles in the backroads of Tennessee while driving the car. When he asked what they were hunting, one of them replied, “demons from hell.”
Visitors to Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park must sign federal consent forms stating that they will smoke daily while staying in the park.
Smokey the Bear will be redesigned this year. The new exciting look will make him slimmer, younger and wearing a shirt. The cause of the redesign is probably in order to attract the attention of teenagers, and the rise of popularity of Smokey as an icon of the gay community.
The average life expectancy in the state of Oregon is so high that one is legally considered a teenager until the age of 42.
An individual proton has a “life” of 0.0023 seconds, and yet, manages to average 2 marriages and have 3 children in that brief period of time, as well as finishing high school.
If one includes miscarriages, the average birthrate in the US is 98.6 per person.
“One,” the first big hit for Three Dog Night, was written by then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey, after his wife left him for her female golf instructor.
Female golfers have their tee box closer to the hole not because they don’t hit the ball as far as men, but because their eyesight isn’t as good as men’s, an evolutionary trait from hunting/gathering days when men had to see farther when looking for game.
Neanderthals died out because their main form of hunting was to scare the prey and then run in front of the stampeding animals to catch or hit them with clubs. This didn’t work out so well when the game was mastodons.
The New York Mastodons is a baseball franchise consisting of retired members of the Mets and the Yankees. They play exhibition games four times a year, mainly opposed by Little Leaguers.
Baseball was invented in Scotland and was originally played with a hard-baked haggis.
In Scotland, McDonald’s is simply called Donald’s.
That Scottish Donald’s restaurant offers haggis on their pound menu. (conversion: 1 pound = approx. 2 US dollars)
Pound cakes are named after comedian Paula Poundstone who is famous for her bit about eating them.
Approx. 3/5ths of Charles Dickens’ novels, including A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Great Expectations and The Mystery of Edwin Drood were actually ghost-written by Ezra Pound – who incidentally, I am not distantly related to.
Carol Channing was born Edgar Vincent Channing Jr. in Lafayette, Louisiana. She had a sex change operation and adopted the name Carol in 1959.
There was hot and steamy love scene if the first draft of A Christmas Carol. In fact, it was going to be a love story about an old geezer who falls in love with a girl named Carol