I know that Doctor Who began televising on the 23rd of November, 1963 in the UK at 5:16:20 yes, I know the SECONDS! and transmitted for 26 years and 13 days with no break longer than 18 months. It ended on 6th December 1989.
Can ANYONE get sadder than that?
Oh, and as for the grunts in a song thing: I could do that with Hanson. I win!
For some reason, I know that Mark Ritts (the guy who played Lester the Rat on Beakman’s World) is married to Terese Parente (the woman who played reporter Miranda VeraCruz de la Jolla Cardenal on Married with Children).
Yes, of course you’re right. I realized my error, but thought I had made such a boob of myself I was too embarrassed to post again. Thank you for doing so. I wouldn’t want anyone to think 2100 WAS a leap year, when, in fact, it isn’t. Phew!
The worlds longest burning lightbulb is at fire station #6 in Livermore CA. It’s been burning for something like 100 years
The proper orientation, as given in the U.S. Navy General Ship Specification Sect. 651b, 1991 ed., of a doughnut fryer. Longitudunally. Don’t ask me what happens if you accidentally mount it athwartships.
Your tax money at work.
I know it, too. I can also recite the climactic scene from the Miller’s Tale in Middle English… 
The first Shakespeare play printed with Shakespeare’s name on it was the 1598 quarto of Love’s Labour’s Lost.
In 1601, the Earl of Essex requested Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, to stage a performance of Richard II on the eve of his rebellion against Queen Elizabeth. The company protested, saying it was an old play that nobody would want to see, but they did it anyway. Elizabeth apparently didn’t harbor any hard feelings against the company, though – they played at court on the eve of Essex’s execution.
The Star Trek interracial kiss mentioned by SHAKES was apparently filmed in two versions – one where you actually see them kiss, and one where it fades to black before it happens.
The reason W.S. Gilbert had Nanki-Poo (in The Mikado) pose as a second trombone in his guise as a wandering minstrel was an inside joke: Sullivan wanted one in the orchestra, but there was no room. (He did, however, get his wish in 1888, for The Yeomen of the Guard.)
Actually, it never happened at all. The camera filmed them such that Shatner was directly in front of Nichols and, while their bodies were in more or less the correct position, their lips never actually touched. There were assorted studio execs standing around the sound stage to make sure there was NO ACTUAL KISS.
The two carriers of leprosy are humans and armadillos.
Now THAT’S obscure!!!
Actually, I don’t believe this is currently true.
My Turn: John F. Kennedy was the first President born in the twentieth century.
I know lots of obscure stuff (thanks mainly to my Bathroom Readers and a book I got called “The A to Z of Everything”), but I am certainly not going to list them all. it weould take too long. Here, then, are some highlights:
Blood in firelight is black, not red.
The word “mattress” originally meant “place to throw things.”
Lyle Lovett’s uncle is named Calvin Klein. (just read this one in the paper yesterday, actually)
Tomatoes were once considered an aphrodisiac.
When a kangaroo is nervous, it licks its forearms.
A pig has 44 teeth.
Why does Bret The Hitman Hart sign his autograph with four dots (’ ’ ’ ') next to “Hitman”? To signify his 4 children.
The alphabet song and Twinkle Twinkle little star have the same tune.
Heaps of wrestling stuff that makes ppl go “WOAH, you knew that right off the top of your head! I think ur making it up” then we check it out on the net and i am RIGHT GOD DAMMIT!
While this is generally true, Cecil also noted that “A few cases have been found in chimps and mangabey monkeys in Africa” in his Is it true that armadillos carry leprosy? column.
From the Arabic maTraH, from the verb TaraHa ‘to throw’ (also source of the word tare used in weights and measures, the tare is what you throw out; and of tarot from Italian tarocchio from Arabic, in a card game you throw down your cards when you play). It starts with the prefix ma- used in Arabic to make the “noun of place.”
As a result of mistranslation of the Italian word for tomato (pomodoro, literally ‘golden apple’ because the first tomatoes imported into Italy were a yellow variety); the Italian word became in French pomme d’amour ‘apple of love’.
Coat blueberries with flour before adding them to muffins to keep them from sinking to the bottom.
Correction: an adult pig has 44 teeth (6 incisors, 2 canines, and 14 molars, on each of the upper and lower jaws).
A juvenile pig, however, only has 6 molars on each of its jaws, for a total of only 28 teeth.
Armadillos, oppossums, and porcupines are the only mammals currently living in north america to have evolved in south america. There used to be many more, but all of them died out at the end of the last ice age.
South America was isolated for millions of years during the age of mammals and animals evolved there in almost complete isolation from the rest of the world. However, many of these unrelated animals resembled those in the rest of the world due to convergent evolution. There used to be marsupial saber-tooths, Toxodons that resembled hippos, Thoatheres that resembled horses, Argyrotheres that resembled rabbits, etc. There were also creatures from way out in left field, such as giant ground sloths the size of elephants, giant armadillos the size of volkswagens, and Macrauchenia a camel like creature with a trunk like a tapir.
Many of the mammals that we think of as typically south american, such as the tapir, the llama, and the jaguar came from north america and never entered south america until the panama land bridge formed a million or so years ago.
[ul]
[li]All (7) of the continents end with the same letter they begin with (not counting the north and south in the two americas).[/li][li]Maine is the only US state that is one syllable long.[/li]Lawrencium’s atomic number is 103.[/ul]
Grover Cleveland, in adition to being the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms, developed a non-malignant cancerous tumor in the soft tissue of his pallette during his second (I think) term. He had the tumor removed during a secret surgical procedure on a yacht in New York harbor, and had the hole filled with a rubber prosthesis with no ill effects.
Don’t you hate it when 15 minutes later you remember something else that you wished you had posted? Is there a word for that? There should be. Anyways…
The term “paparazzi” comes from the movie La Dolce Vita, courtesy of the character Paparazzo, the tabloid photographer friend of Marcello Mastroianni’s journalist.