# Tell me something I don't know **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 6, 2009, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084 "2009-07-06T15:10:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![BigGibraltar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@BigGibraltar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigGibraltar)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084/161 "2014-02-28T19:09:33Z")
> [@Elemenopy](#): > > Expectant mothers start absorbing the [DNA](http://boingboing.net/2012/01/03/cells.html) of their fetuses. Sometimes a lot. Sometimes it sticks around and makes them sick. And sometimes it sticks around and can [help](http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/05/02/151845273/fetal-attraction) the mother. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084/162 "2014-03-01T17:17:19Z")
Writer Joe Hill is the son of writers Stephen and Tabitha King. His full name is Joseph Hillstrom King. Speaking of Stephen King,Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding, the narrator of Rita Haywood and the Shawshank Redemption, was written as a a middle-aged, Irishman with graying red hair, which comes as a shock to people who have only seen Morgan Freeman play him in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084/163 "2014-03-01T18:58:23Z")
The song “Midnight Train to Georgia,” which was a #1 hit for Gladys Night & The Pips, was inspired by actors Lee Majors and Farrah Fawcett. [Cite.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farrah_Fawcett) > [@](#): > > The song “Midnight Train to Georgia” was inspired by Lee Majors & Farrah Fawcett. Songwriter Jim Weatherly phoned Majors, who was a friend, and the call was answered by Fawcett. Weatherly and Fawcett chatted briefly and she told him she was going to visit her mother and was taking “the midnight plane to Houston.” Although Majors and Fawcett were both successful by that time, Weatherly used them as “characters” in his song, about a failed actress who leaves Los Angeles and is followed by her boyfriend who can’t live without her. Eventually the genders were swapped, a train replaced the plane, and Houston was changed to Georgia. The recording by Gladys Knight & The Pips attained the number 1 position on the Billboard chart in 1973. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084/164 "2014-03-02T01:28:06Z")
Johann Sebastian Bach’s [Concerto for Four Harpsichords in A-Minor](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA1L0SsEXxU) (BWV 1065), used to great effect in the film _Dangerous Liaisons_ is almost a note-by-note “theft” of Vivaldi’s [Concerto for Four Violins in A-Minor](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MdFsZQFeyU) (RV580.) This sort of casual disregard for copyright\* and authorship was common back in Bach’s day. \*Didn’t really exist as a legal concept in 1715. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084/165 "2014-03-02T02:39:13Z")
Johann Sebastian Bach, the composer, had a grandson of the same name who was a painter. Johann the younger died at the age of 30 while studying in Rome. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084/166 "2014-03-02T15:47:15Z")
During early construction work for the Glen Canyon Dam, multi-ton heavy equipment was moved across the river on a [cableway](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Djzv-y3Qexf6qYRCG9huxdMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink). ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084/167 "2014-03-02T19:42:59Z")
During the 30’s the Texas and Oklahoma highway departments got into a squabble over the rights, tolls, and free bridge traffic crossing the Red River. Both sides barricaded the bridge entrances and Martial Law was declared (closing traffic both ways). The Texas Rangers eventually had to defend the Texas barricades against destruction by OK highway department employees. Oklahoma laid claim to both riverbanks, citing the Lousiana Purchase itself as justification. Some accounts claim potshots were taken by the opposing sides, making it the only case (that I’m aware of) of a battle on US soil between state highway departments. [Linky](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_River_Bridge_War) ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084/168 "2014-03-02T19:54:51Z")
Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager flew around the world nonstop, a feat for which they are justly famous. What you may not know is the famous thing they inadvertently started some time after landing. They were chatting with an acquaintance and Jeana casually asked Dick what he was planning to do, now that he’d accomplished his flying goal. His answer? “I’m going to Disneyland.” The acquaintance was Michael Eisner, the head of Disney at the time. He knew a good ad campaign when it was dropped in his lap. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084/169 "2014-03-02T20:01:37Z")
An [undersea communications cable](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable) was laid between the U.S. and Europe before the start of the U.S. Civil War. [Contact lenses](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_lens#History) were developed and used in the 1800s. There’s more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than in a gallon of liquid hydrogen. A car has a speed of 60 MPH. A pebble is stuck in the tread of one of the tires. When the pebble makes contact with the ground, the pebble has a speed of 0 MPH relative to the ground. 180 degrees later - when the pebble is at the highest position - the pebble has a speed of 120 MPH relative to the ground. ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084/170 "2014-03-02T20:12:44Z")
Some things: [ol] [li]The US state of Indiana was given the name because of its large Native American population. Since the population as of 2010 was 17k,it now has far fewer native Americans living in inside its borders than it did when it became a state. It also has no Indian reservations.[/li][li]Karl Donitz, the Chief Admiral of the Kreigsmarine (the German Navy during WWII) used the United States’ policy of unrestricted submarine warfare as his defense at the Nuremberg Trials. It was likely what prevented him from being executed.[/li][li]The largest mountain on Earth is not Mt. Everest, but Mauna Kea in Hawaii. It rises to almost 40,000 feet from the ocean floor, although only 13k feet of it is above the surface.[/li][li]Mon Olypmus, a stratovolcano on Mars, is so large that you cannot its summit from the surface even at a great distance. It is also so massive that if you were on the summit, its base would extend out to the horizon and would not be visible[/li][li]Until it was nationalized and abandoned by United Kingdom, the Suez Canal was the largest military base in human history.[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084/171 "2014-03-02T23:24:16Z")
The 59 Native American reservations in California are called rancherias. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084/172 "2014-03-14T01:47:18Z")
[John E. Osborne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_E._Osborne) was sworn in as governor of the state of Wyoming [wearing shoes made of human skin](http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/14910). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-something-i-dont-know/502084.md?page=8)