The foot is a unit of measurement who’s origins go back to Alexander the Great. It was his actual foot that set its length.
After his death Alexander’s foot was preserved in a golden cask of honey so it could be used as a reference for almost 300 years. Preserving it like this was said to have given the foot a golden hue, which added to its mystique. Even in our modern age treasure hunters have scourer Alexandria hoping to find Alexanders golden foot, but historians widely believe the honey was consumed by Julius Caesar in an attempt to gain its powers. The foot itself he gifted to the Roman senate where it was used as a door stop. We get the term “Golden Rule” from the time when the foot was used both to set the length of rulers and to keep the doors open while the senate was in session.
Of course our foot has 12 inches because Alexander had 12 toes.
Coincidentally, Jim Morrison and Robbie Krieger named their band The Doors in honor of all the doors that record companies had figuratively slammed in their faces.
Bill (“Calvin & Hobbes”) Watterson has stated he has no children and 6-year-old Calvin is based on his own memories and general observations of other children. Well, two of those children belong to Watterson’s brother, Dale: Kevin and Alvin. When the strip started, Kevin was four and supplied Bill with about five years of material. Alvin, four years younger, became the source of hilarity when he turned five. Unfortunately, the strip came to an abrupt end when Alvin turned nine and a cruel, and ironic, accident befell him: on a trip to an upscale toy store (courtesy of Uncle Bill), Alvin was suffocated when a large display of Mini-Cooper-sized Snoopy dolls collapsed and buried the tot under many pounds of plush. Dale’s last words to his younger son are rather poignant: “Alvin, are you okay? ALVIN? ALVIN!!”
In the 1981 British Parliament, a purely sarcastic motion that all mp’s be granted the privilege of jus primae noctis was seconded and actually called to a vote, before the female members present threatened to petition Queen Elizabeth to close the parliament if the vote went ahead.
Before a formal system of writing music was created, most people only listened to wind and streams. The most popular streams and windiest places gained fans in much the same way that pop stars do now. In fact, one stream in what is now northern Finland has earned a reputation as “the 2nd century’s Michael Jackson”.
Every batch of Mrs. Field’s cookies contains up to 0.26% seagull feathers, crunchy frogs, and meadowlark vomit, which accounts for their unique flavor.
“Daddy why are old movies in black and white?” “Because everything back then was in black and white. Humans invented a “color shot” in the 1950’s and all children get it now when they are born. Before that humana could only see in black and white”
:: sorry if this is already in the thread, which I am enjoying immensely so far ::
gets a bzzzt, because it is not a ridiculous lie, made up fact, or kind of true.
It is the morse code, rhythmically for “V,” and, more importantly was understood as such in Europe during WWII. My father still remembers the lift he got when it was played as a sign on/Sign off on radii broadcasts by the Allies.
But back in the old days, there was a shortage of jokes, so they had to be rinsed out and reused as often as possible until they got so worn out you could see right through them.
The name Pinot grigio comes from an obscure, now extinct Italian dialect and roughly translates to “green penis” in English. This comes from the fact that the grapes originally used in making this type of wine grew in bunches the shape of a man’s genitals.
Botanists in the United Kingdom were mystified when palm trees began growing on the southwest regions of England, Wales and Ireland in the spring of 1993. It was later deduced that Hurricane Andrew–from the previous summer–had been such a powerful storm that palm tree seeds from Florida had been carried up the Gulf Stream, deposited on those areas and nurtured by the Stream through the winter. The palms all died that winter of '93-'94 due to the brutal nature of the winter climate there. Except for the half a dozen seedlings given to Queen Elizabeth and subsequently planted in a private “tropical” refuge in a Buckingham Palace courtyard, where all six have grown to a height of between 16 to 19 feet. Her Majesty just missed a coconut-induced head injury last summer while reclining in a chaise longue on the small beach set up around the trees.
