Things You Should Know But Probably Don't

[D3n!ss3_gÜrL]

1. Money isn't made out of paper. It's made out of cotton.

2. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper.

3. The dot over the letter "I" is called a "tittle".

4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

5. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.

6. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.

7. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.

8. The 'spot' on 7-UP comes from its inventor, who had red eyes. He was albino.

9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents, daily.

10. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.

11. Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small sized dog.

12. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

13. Most lipstick contains fish scales (eeww).

14. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.

15. Ketchup was sold in the 1830's as medicine..

16. Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.

17. Leonardo Da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time hence, multitasking was invented.

18.. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

19. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

20. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before!

21. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!

22. Leonardo DaVinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.

23. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

24. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was a Captain Kirk's mask painted white.

25. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar (good to know.)

26. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand (and you thought this list was completely useless.)

27. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

28. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.

29. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It's the same with apples!

30. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!

31. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

32. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.

33. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages it. I NEED TO REMEMBER THIS.

34. George Carlin said it best about Martha Stewart. "Boy, I feel a lot safer now that she's behind bars.. OJ Simpson and Kobe Bryant are still walking around; Osama Bin Laden too, but they take the ONE woman in America willing to cook, clean, and work in the yard, and they haul her fanny off to jail."

[InFloW]

Yep I didn't know most of them :\

[chicgeek]

I knew 15.

And some of those are just not true - a lot of them are of urban legend material.

For one: while he might have practised it, it is doubtful that LDV "invented" multitasking.

For another: the inventor of 7up wasn't an albino.

[John Scott]

Q145. "What kind of paper was the Constitution written on?"

A. Urban legend is that the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights were written on hemp paper, hemp being the industrial name for the fiber of the marijuana plant. For some reason, this "fact" is touted by those who seek to legalize marijuana for recreational use. First, it is not clear why the use of hemp as a fiber should mean it should be legalized for recreational use. Second, the "fact" is not a fact.

The Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are currently housed in the National Archives. All three are written on parchment, not hemp paper. Parchment is treated animal skin, typically sheepskin. The Declaration was inked with iron gall ink. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory was commissioned to create a system to monitor the physical status of all three. The Charters of Freedom Monitoring System took digital photos of each sheet of parchment in 1987, each document divided into one-inch squares. Over time, the photos are retaken and compared to the original to look for signs of deterioration. Before the charters were recently reencased for display, a small tear in the Declaration was repaired by adding Japanese paper to the gap. This is the only paper in any of the documents. This is not to say that a copy of any of the documents was never written on hemp paper - just not the copies we see in the Archives Rotunda.

...

[John Scott]

Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.

http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/lucci.asp

Nope.

Two checked, two false.

[John Scott]

The earliest citation comes from Sir William Hope’s The Compleat Fencing-Master, second edition, 1692, page 157: "What he doth, he doth by rule of thumb, and not by art"[2]

The notion that the "rule of thumb" was a law that limited the width of a rod that a man may use to beat his wife has been partially discredited. Wife beating has been explicitly illegal in British law since the 1700s, and has never been legally sanctioned in America.[3] However, at least four judges and other legal authorities from 1782 to 1897 have referred to the bogus law in spite of the fact that it never existed.[4]The non-law gained popularity after feminist Del Martin wrote in 1976:

Our law, based upon the old English common-law doctrines, explicitly permitted wife-beating for correctional purposes. However . . . the common-law doctrine had been modified to allow the husband 'the right to whip his wife, provided that he used a switch no bigger than his thumb'--a rule of thumb, so to speak.

It is now firmly entrenched as an urban myth.[5]

...

[Cricket]

Let's go debunking
http://drastrozoom.blogspot.com/2005...unking_02.html

[chicgeek]

You could spend an entire evening on snopes.

[John Scott]

Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It's the same with apples!


True of celery. Not as true with apples. There are 15 calories in 110 grams of celery. There are 57 calories in the same amount of apple.

*Going off to buy celery.*

[Pretend]

Originally Posted by D3n!ss3_gÜrL

1. Money isn't made out of paper. It's made out of cotton.

Not entirely true. It's a blend actually. Linen, cotton, and silk fibers if I remember correctly.

[Brian]

mmmmm hemp products mmmm

[Atom]

*Going off to buy hemp.*

[Julie]

I have a Beatles sweatshirt made out of hemp. It's comfy.

[Brian]

Boston has hemp stores on every other corner... it's delightful

[Pretend]

Originally Posted by Brian

Boston has hemp stores on every other corner... it's delightful

I have hemp shoes on.. well, partially hemp. Does that count?

[kristeejo]

5. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.


ARE YOU FRIGGIN KIDDIN ME

[Pretend]

Originally Posted by kristeejo

5. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.

ARE YOU FRIGGIN KIDDIN ME

Originally Posted by John Scott

http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/lucci.asp

Nope.

Two checked, two false.

'Nuff said.