–The average lifespan of a tastebud is 10 days.
–Babies are born with 300 bones, while adults have only 206.
–A quarter has 119 grooves. A dime has 118.
–Banging your head repeatedly against a wall can burn up to 150 calories in an hour.
There are 86,400 seconds in a day (actually, that one’s pretty useful, so maybe it doesn’t count).
OK, for pointless, how bout this
"When you find yourself in danger,
when you’re threatened by a stranger,
when it looks like you will take a lickin.
<bawk, bawk, bawk>
There is someone waiting who
will hurry up and rescue you,
just call for Super Chicken.
Fred, if you’re afraid you’ll have to overlook it.
Besides you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.
He will drink his Super Sauce
and throw the bad guys for a loss
and he will bring them in alive and kickin.
There is one thing you should learn
when there is no one else to turn to,
caaallll for Super Chicken.
<bawk, bawk, bawk>
Caaallll for Super Chicken!
<BAKAWWW!!!>"
Don’t know why, but it’s never given up its brain cells for something more useful.
Actually, Sunshine, that’s not the original definition. After the French revolution, when the metric system was created, the meter was defined as “one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator along a meridian passing through Paris”.
Now that’s trivial!
What height standard do anthropologists use to determine if a group of people are pygmies?
The average male adult must be less than 150 cm (59 inches) in height.
Encyclopædia Britannica
Who were the first father and son to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame?
Baseball executives Larry and Lee MacPhail, who were honored for meritorious service to the sport. Larry, who made it in 1978, ran the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers and pioneered night baseball; Lee, elected in 1998, ran the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees and served as the American League President.
Amazing Trivia Facts Calendar - Workman Publishing
Here’s a couple that drive my students crazy (I teach geography) when I ask them as extra credit questions on exams:
- Name the locations for both the United States and Russia that are nearest one another (in terms of distance):
- Big Diomede Island (Russia) and Little Diomede Island (US) - approximately 2.5 miles apart.
- Name the two locations in the United States that, traveling by car, one MUST travel through a foreign country to reach:
- Pt. Roberts, Washington
- Angle Inlet, Minnesota (located in the Northwest Angle State Forest)
Washington DC. It mostly adheres to plan. It is based off the Capitol, and has 4 quadrants (though most of SW was ceded back to VA). Numbered streets run N-S, numbered in both directions from the Capitol. Therefore you have 2 15th streets. How do you know which? they tell you NE,NW,SE...
The named streets are even more fun. A,B,C,…to W. Then 2 syllable names starting with A,B,… (Had a friend live between Benton and Calvert ) to W. Then 3 syllable names…
Then you’re out of the limits.
The Avenues with state names run diagonally, and meet at traffic circles. (Tenly, Friendship, Dupont…)
Midtown Manhattan most even # streets are one-way west, most evens one way east. Only a few run both ways. (14,23,34,42…) (and yes, I know they flipped 33rd a few years ago at Herald Sq.)
Before he was a guitar god, Jimi Hendrix was a paratrooper in the U.S Army, the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles.
How’s that for useless trivia?
DC was originally intended to be 100 sqare miles. That plan was later cut in half, and most of the land donated by Virginia was returned to that state.
Jimi Hendrix played guitar left handed, but was right handed otherwise.
Luckiest man in video poker history:
I used to work for IGT, the biggest manufacturer of video poker machines. I was told a story of a customer complaint that went as follows:
A guy was playing video poker in a liquor store in Nevada and hit a Royal Flush (odds 1 in 42,000, pays $1000 with $1.25 bet) this is not very amazing in and of itself. Since liquor stores don’t really own their slot machines, the store doesn’t pay the jackpots itself. Slot machines in small retail locations such as liquor or grocery stores are like vending machines in that a route operator owns the machine and pays all jackpots that the machine can’t pay out from its own hopper (it’s called a hand pay). While that guy was waiting for the route operator to show up with his winnings he sat down at an adjacent machine to play some more poker and hit another royal flush. Thus, when the route operator arrived he found the same man had hit two royals. Slot machine owners are a paranoid lot so he immediatly assumed foul play and called in his boss to check the machines to insure no tampering had occured. While they were checking the first two machines, you guessed it, the guy sat down at a third machine and hit another royal. Three royal flushes in under an hour. The official IGT investigation found that the machines had not been tmpered with and the guy had just gotten REALLY lucky.
This isn’t your average trivia fact but it’s the only thing I could think of that only someone like me would know.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m actually pulling these little beauties out of the dank and dusty recesses of my memory - sad, really:
Dead Man’s Hand; aces and eights, so called because it was what James Butler (Wild Bill) Hickock was holding when he was murdered in Deadwood in 1876 by a man named Jack McCall.
That would drive me crazy too, especially since it all depends on driving from the continental US to somewhere else in the continental US. Anyone claiming to be driving to any other state from Alaska has to pass through Canada. Anyone from the 48 continental states can claim to be driving to any two places in Alaska and have the right answer.
Now here’s one more, but I’m running out of stuff:
During press conferences held by Mark McGwire the year he hit 70 home runs, he wore a gray baseball cap that said “the Abbey.” The Abbey is a restaurant owned by McGwire’s friend at Seal Beach; he wore the hat as a favor.
Some were sold, too–I have one. I can’t remember if they could be found in stores before the movie was released, however.
31 square miles, actually. Just the parts that lay on the non-Maryland sides of the Potomac. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe they were returned during Reconstruction in exchange for the Union pretty much stealing the land that became West Virginia during the Civil War. The present District of Columbia is exactly 69 square miles.
[ul][li]The highest point in DC is in Tenleytown. I believe it’s at the height of Wisconsin Avenue right near where the old Sears/Hecht’s used to be.[/li][li]Before it moved to V Street in 1996, the very popular 930 Club at 930 F St NW had bands load their gear in via an alley that John Wilkes Booth escaped down after shooting Lincoln in 1865.[/li][li]The lavish and recent memorial to FDR on the Mall is against his wishes – he wanted a memorial no larger than his desk.[/li][li]All of the border roads and waters that buffer the District between MD and VA are considered part of DC. Thus, the whole of the Potomac that lies between DC and VA, as well as Eastern, Southern, and Western Avenues are property of the District, whereas the Potomac is half-VA and half-MD above and below Washington.[/li][li]No building in DC can be higher than the top of the Washington Monument.[/li]GWU’s emergency room is named after Ronald Reagan, since that’s where he was taken after he was shot in 1981.[/ul]
Cat Urine glows under a Blacklight
There is one place where four states meet at a single point. There are many places where three stats meet at a single point. But there is one set of three states that meet in three separate and distinct points. Which states are they? And how can they do this?
I realize this isn’t trivia yet – it won’t be until I give the answer. But I had to ask it this way to see if any if you Dopers would get it.
The first Transformer to appear in the Transformers cartoon was Wheeljack. The second was Bumblebee.
In Transformers: the Movie, Unicron’s last line wasn’t delivered by Orson Welles, who had died before it could be recorded. Leonard Nimoy instead did the line.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Montfort *
**
Personal Trivia - passed by there that day (Friday, IIRC). Saw all the police cars and ambulances, thought a plane went down at National (now also named after RR). Stopped in a sandwich shop/bar, huge group gathered around the TV, I asked what was up. When I was told the Pres was shot, I asked “Did they take him to GW?” Got a lot of funny looks…
Another shooting triv - I believe the Battle of New Orleans was fought 2 weeks after the War of 1812 ended - info spread slowly in those days…no one knew…
The north/South running streets in Tulsa Oklahoma are in Alphabetical order starting with main street down town. All streets on the east side of Tulsa are named after cities on the East side of the Mississipi River. All streets in West Tulsa are named after cities West of the Mississippi.
Human babies don’t have solid kneecaps until they’re about 2 years old.
The little platic thing at the end of a shoestring is called an “aglet.”
Mike Nesmith’s (of the Monkees) mother invented Liquid Paper.
Even more personal trivia. I used to date the daughter of one of the secret service agents who was shot that day. (I believe Hinckley shot four people: Reagan, Brady, and two agents.) I walk right by the Hilton (16th and K) where the shooting took place every day and I always think of her, and also being in first grade and watching the live coverage in 1981.