# Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 25, 2024, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785 "2024-07-25T15:06:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 153
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3041 "2025-08-21T00:39:45Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > The 1950s was 1955 to 1963. I thought Boomers began annoying their elders and betters in the sixties. Before that, they were just kids. And using the name said more about their parents than about them. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3042 "2025-08-21T03:30:46Z")
Apologies if I already mentioned it, but “Chop Sticks”, that tune known to every household that contains both children and a piano, was actually wriitten by someone and published as sheet music. > **[Chop Sticks](https://ragpiano.com/covers/chopstik.htm)** ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2025, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3043 "2025-08-21T14:25:37Z")
I fell down an internet rabbit hole which led me to this fact. Don’t ask me how I got there. The late actor René Auberjonois, known for his roles in _Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Benson, MASH_ (the movie) and many other things, was a member of the Bonaparte family. His mother’s name was Princess Laure Louise Napoléone Eugénie Caroline Murat. His great great great grandparents were Joachim Murat one of Napoleon’s marshals and King of Naples and his wife Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s youngest sister. Unrelated to that he was a member of the original faculty of the Juilliard School’s drama division under John Housman. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3044 "2025-08-22T00:03:20Z")
Yesterday I learned that George Orwell/Eric Blair’s wife Eileen Blair (who it is argued at least came up with the idea for Animal Farm, and possibly wrote some of it) studied at Oxford University under J.R.R.Tolkien. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3045 "2025-08-22T00:32:16Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > The late actor René Auberjonois, known for his roles in _Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Benson, MASH_ (the movie) and many other things, … Whoa, how much time was there between the M\*A\*S\*H movie and DS9? He didn’t look that old… ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3046 "2025-08-22T01:14:52Z")
It’s also been argued that a dystopian poem by Eileen Blair called “End of the Century, 1984” influenced Nineteen Eighty-Four. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3047 "2025-08-22T01:54:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Whoa, how much time was there between the M_A_S\*H movie and DS9? He didn’t look that old… Born in 1940. About 30 in MASH (1970) and in his 50s for DS9 (1993-1999). Of course, in Odo makeup how much could you tell anyway? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3048 "2025-08-22T09:57:06Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > I thought Boomers began annoying their elders and betters in the sixties. Before that, they were just kids. Are you suggesting that kids are not annoying? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3049 "2025-08-22T16:16:41Z")
Part of the problem is that using the names of the decades to describe social periods and changes isn’t accurate. It also isn’t that useful to describe the people born from 1946 to 1964 as baby boomers. The baby boom isn’t something that happened to them. It’s something that happened to their parents. Their parents decided to have kids. The kids didn’t decide to be born. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3050 "2025-08-22T16:38:17Z")
So besides minutia about fashion, music, etc., what would be the biggest difference in _zeitgeist_ between people born in 1940 and people born in 1950? Especially in their teen years– mid 1950s versus mid 1960s? ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3051 "2025-08-22T17:14:26Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Are you suggesting that kids are not annoying? Not in a “they’re destroying America” kind of way. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3052 "2025-08-22T17:20:31Z")
That’s exactly what people thought in the early 1950s. There was a mass delusion about juvenile delinquents poised to bring down civilization. The chief culprits were apparently 10-year olds reading comic books. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3053 "2025-08-22T17:31:45Z")
Did it all come from ‘sparing the rod’? ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3054 "2025-08-22T17:35:49Z")
I blame New Math. And fluoridation ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3055 "2025-08-22T17:35:59Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > It also isn’t that useful to describe the people born from 1946 to 1964 as baby boomers. The baby boom isn’t something that happened to them. It’s something that happened to their parents. Their parents decided to have kids. The kids didn’t decide to be born. While that is true, another thing that happened to them was that the relatively large amount of children relative to the general population affected how the culture developed and what they did in it. It is useful to describe them as _something_, since their common experiences in contradistinction to others differentiate them. It’s just too bad that they have such a stupid name. (Before we were “Gen X,” we were sometimes described as the “Baby Bust,” which is also pretty stupid.) It’s also a problem that this leads to the sloppy reasoning that the Baby Boomers are somehow a unified cohort, marching in lockstep, and that the experience of the person born in 1946 is the same as that of the one born in 1964, but that’s a separate issue. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3056 "2025-08-22T17:44:37Z")
That rhymes with P and that stands for “pool”. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3057 "2025-08-22T18:13:05Z")
Most sociologists group the later Boomers and Early Gen X into a separate category called Generation Jones. Roughly 1955 to 1965. President Obama said that he considers himself a Joneser. We aren’t Boomers. The men were too young for Vietnam and we just missed out on the prosperity. We came of age during the bleak 70s with AIDS, crack and the worst economy in two generations. Punk rock and new wave music. Likewise, we aren’t GenX. With the exception of early adopters, we didn’t use personal computers in college or earlier. It was mostly grad school or the workplace. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3058 "2025-08-22T19:30:02Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > We aren’t Boomers. The men were too young for Vietnam and we just missed out on the prosperity. We came of age during the bleak 70s with AIDS, crack and the worst economy in two generations. Punk rock and new wave music. Likewise, we aren’t GenX. With the exception of early adopters, we didn’t use personal computers in college or earlier. It was mostly grad school or the workplace. I have frequently complained (sometimes on this Board), that people don’t properly appreciate that most Boomers were actually born circa 1955. Culturally, people associate “boomers” with the beginning of the wave. But most of us were too young to see Howdy Doody or Davy Crockett on TV, too young for Vietnam, too young to be hippies or go to Woodstock, and the wave of Yuppies preceded us. We got all that stuff second hand through the midia and reruns on TV. The DRaft stopped before I was eligible. But I don’t favor splitting generations at 1955. As I said, that was a peak in the birthrate bulge, and you don’t go splitting things at the peak. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3059 "2025-08-22T20:31:56Z")
Sheer numbers will affect a society. The U.S. never had a year in which more than 3 million babies were born until 1946, in a population of 140 million. By 1954 births had hit 4 million and stayed there until 1964. We never hit that number again until 1988, when the population was 250 million. 1946-1964 gave the population a 76 million bump, a staggering rise. That huge coincided with several other trends, in society, popular culture, and consumerism. The numbers alone would have affected the country greatly; combined with the other changes the baby boom is an epic dividing line that we’re still feeling. Remember that Clinton, Bush II, and Trump were all born in 1946. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3060 "2025-08-22T20:47:08Z")
It’s particularly noticeable that the Presidents jumped from the last people who were or could have been World War Two vets– Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr.– to boomers at least 20 years younger. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=152) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=154)