# 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:** 257
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5121 "2026-07-22T14:55:11Z")
I think it behooves you to provide a cite, since you don’t have any more reliable sources for doubting **Mark\_Finn** than hallucinatory plagiarism machines. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5122 "2026-07-22T14:56:32Z")
> On May 29, 1917, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy gave birth to her second son, future president John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in an upstairs bedroom of her family home at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, MA. > **[JFK Birthplace (U.S. National Park Service)](https://www.nps.gov/places/jfk-birthplace.htm)** > > President John F. Kennedy was born May 29, 1917 in an upstairs bedroom of his family home at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, MA. > James Earl Carter Jr. was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, at the Wise Sanitarium, where his mother worked as a registered nurse. Carter was the first U.S. president born in a hospital. > **[Jimmy Carter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter)** > > James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924 – December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, Carter served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and in the Georgia State Senate from 1963 to 1967. He lived longer than any other president in U.S. history, reaching age 100. Born in Plains, Georgia, Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946 and joined the s... ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5123 "2026-07-22T14:58:00Z")
Thanks. ---
**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:** [July 22, 2026, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5124 "2026-07-22T15:41:09Z")
This is where the recent Presidents were born: 1. **Jimmy Carter** (1924): Wise Sanitarium in Plains, Georgia. 2. **Joe Biden** (1942): St. Mary’s Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania. 3. **Donald Trump** (1946): Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York. 4. **George W. Bush** (1946): Grace-New Haven Community Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. 5. **Bill Clinton** (1946): Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas. 6. **Barack Obama** (1961): Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5125 "2026-07-22T16:25:53Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > I… hallucinatory plagiarism machines. I’ll just steal this, thank you… j ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5126 "2026-07-22T17:16:04Z")
Feel free, it’s not entirely mine but a paraphrase of something I read somewhere. ---
**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:** [July 22, 2026, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5127 "2026-07-22T18:20:15Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > I’ll just steal this, thank you… Are you a plagiarism machine? ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5128 "2026-07-22T18:22:12Z")
No, he steals, mediocre people (and LLMs) copy, geniuses _steal_ ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5129 "2026-07-22T18:45:46Z")
You stole that from Picasso, QED. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5130 "2026-07-22T18:46:07Z")
Shamelessly! ---
**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:** [July 23, 2026, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5131 "2026-07-23T07:27:27Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Do you have a source for that? I always find there are far too many people who think humans have no imaginations, and that everything weird in mythology somehow comes from real-world examples (e.g. the Cyclops from elephant skulls). I don’t have a source to support the specific notion that using the fleeces to gather gold inspired the Jason myth, but evidently gold was placer mined that way IRL. I have this from Laura Spinney’s 2025 book _Proto_ on the origin and develoment of the Indo-European languages. My copy is on Audible so I can’t see the bibliography, but she may have been referencing Strabo, who described this method around the turn of the Common Era. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2026, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5132 "2026-07-23T18:25:46Z")
Did the kid cry “wah! wah!”? > **[New Jersey police officer helps deliver baby in Wawa parking lot](https://abc7chicago.com/story/new-jersey-police-officer-helps-deliver-baby-wawa-parking-lot/19557311/)** > > A routine traffic stop turned into an unexpected delivery room for a New Jersey police officer who helped a woman give birth in a Wawa parking lot. > Patrolman Dominic Hodson of the Berlin Borough Police Department had been assisting with a nearby traffic stop when dispatch directed him to a Wawa for a woman in labor. > Taylor Durham and her husband, Phil Durham, were driving to Virtua Medical Center when labor progressed rapidly. > Phil Durham said he decided to stop when he realized help was nearby. > > “I had passed an officer, somebody for whatever, for a traffic stop. OK, and I knew and in the area, the ambulance, somebody had to be close to the baby. I knew he was minutes away, so I had to stop,” he said. > > According to the family, a baby boy was born about three minutes later. Hodson arrived in time to check the newborn’s condition until emergency medical personnel reached the scene. > > “Just being on the phone with dispatch, I could sense that somebody was there, that I wasn’t alone,” Phil Durham said. > The department later presented the family with a care package of baby supplies and a department-themed onesie. Hodson said the call was his first baby delivery and that he had not known what to expect. ---
**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:** [July 23, 2026, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5133 "2026-07-23T19:43:58Z")
Well, color me stupid (and do not stay within the lines). I used the word “reg” incorrectly to describe our mountain’s dearth of snow. Something I read years ago lent me the impression that it descended from “regolith”, but apparently it is a word of Arabic-ish origin, used specifically to describe vast tracts of the Sahara (which is mostly like a proper tavern parking lot, not a sea of sand). But, there does seem to be a sort of convergence of meaning. > [@Chronos](#): > > As a general rule, if you’re ever not sure if Shakespeare was talking dirty, he was. Oh, now, you are just making too much of nothing ---
**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:** [July 23, 2026, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5134 "2026-07-23T19:50:41Z")
You speak of country matters? ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2026, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5135 "2026-07-23T20:00:03Z")
I posted this in another thread, but I’ll put it here as well. Missouri and Kentucky share a common border of about 60 miles, all of which is the Mississippi River. There no bridges over the river in that entire stretch, meaning that you cannot drive from Missouri to Kentucky without either taking a ferry or going through another state. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2026, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5136 "2026-07-23T20:05:03Z")
> [@JacobSwan](#): > > One of the earlier locations later became the Wong Kei. A legendary restaurant that claimed to have the rudest waiters in London. Having the rudest waiters in London is all well and good, but San Francisco’s legendary Sam Wo restaurant once claimed to have the _world’s_ rudest waiter. > **[Edsel Ford Fong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel_Ford_Fong)** > > Edsel Ford Fung (often spelled Fong; May 6, 1927 – April 24, 1984) was an American restaurant server from San Francisco, California. He was called the "world's rudest, worst, most insulting waiter" and worked at the Sam Wo Chinese restaurant. Fong was born and raised in San Francisco's Chinatown, as one of three sons to Fung Lok, the owner of the Sam Wo Restaurant on Washington Street. (The restaurant name means "three in peace", a reference to its founding partners.) Like his elder brothers, Fu... ---
**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:** [July 23, 2026, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5137 "2026-07-23T20:22:10Z")
I ate at Sam Wo’s many times but after Edsel has passed. They kept the tradition going. As I recall, you couldn’t ask for substitutions or modifications of anything on the menu and your choices for drinks were tap water or cans of regular Coca-Cola. Cheap prices and the best chow fun ever. It was truly a hole in the wall. ---
**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:** [July 23, 2026, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5138 "2026-07-23T20:59:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You speak of country matters? Hold that thought – just go on ahead whilst I pause to look upon the hedge. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2026, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5139 "2026-07-23T21:15:09Z")
IIRC (my dad used to travel on business quite a bit between STL and Paducah KY) you cross at Cairo IL which is at or near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. ---
**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:** [July 23, 2026, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5140 "2026-07-23T21:32:12Z")
which touches on (goes through) Illinois [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=256) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=258)