Almanac chapter 1: Miscellaneous
ALMANAC 1991
Chapter 1
MISCELLANEOUS
Americans use enough toilet paper in one day to wrap around
the world 9 times. If it were on one giant roll, we would be
unrolling it at the rate of 7600 miles per hour - roughly mach 10,
ten times the speed of sound.
If you could stack up all the copies of the Guinness Book of
World Records made just in the year 1985, your pile would reach
into outer space. It would be 1006 miles high.
Try to say the alphabet without moving your lips or your
tongue. Every letter will sound exactly the same.
At one time Thoreau was a school teacher. When he was accused
by his principal of leniency, he immediately grabbed six random
kids from his class and spanked them.
There are 86,400 seconds in a day.
One out of every 144 people in America has the last name of
Smith.
Population of America: 243,000,000. If you start counting
as fast as you can, it will take you 32 years to count to this
number.
The average American will walk approximately 70,000 miles in
a lifetime, which is almost three times around the earth at the
equator.
People who have computers in their homes tend to watch 40
percent less television than average.
A NOTE ABOUT THIS DATABASE: I hope you enjoy reading this
information as much I have enjoyed collecting it! Almost all of it
is completely true! Some facts are disputable, especially
historical accounts. This is because they are based on eye-witness
accounts related to others who put them in print. They may have
lost something in the translation.
All the information in this database is reliably based on
what others have written. However, you may wish to conduct your
own research to make absolutely sure of the facts.
The smallest church in the world is in Kentucky. There is
room inside for three people.
At a wedding in Los Angeles a woman legally married a rock.
There about 1,800 thunderstorms occuring around the world at
any given moment.
60 years ago there were only half as many Americans as there
are now.
The most words on a single postage stamp is 746 (from the
country of Greece, year: 1954)
Violins have been made from wood, steel and pottery.
A devout Hindu, to demonstrate his mastery over pain, raised
his arm above his head and kept it that way for years. He held so
still that a bird built a nest in his hand.
If you have trouble getting to sleep, try thinking about
rain.
Only .00045 percent of mail handled by the post office is
reported lost, that's one letter out of 220,000 - roughly one lost
out of a quarter million letters.
If you are in a plane wreck, the chances that you will live
are 90 percent.
Statistics indicate that there is no safest place to sit on
commercial airplanes.
If your alarm clock is not loud enough, put it on a tin pie
plate.
When you have difficulty hammering small nails, you can use
an ordinary comb to hold the nails while you start them.
I found this item in the Farmer's Almanac, who found it in
the Union County Advocate from Morganfield, Kentucky:
Dear Stanley,
I write to let you know I am still alive. I am
writing slowly as I know you don't read fast.
You won't know the house when you come home - we
moved. We had trouble moving, especially the bed - the
man wouldn't let us take it in the taxi and we were
afraid we might wake your father.
Your father has a nice new job and very
responsible. He has about 500 people under him - he
cuts the grass at the cemetery.
Our neighbors, the Browns, started keeping pigs -
we got wind of it yesterday.
I got my appendix out and a dishwasher put in.
There is a washing machine in the new house here, but it
don't work too good. Last week I put 14 shirts in the
washer and pulled that chain. They whirled around real
good but then disappeared. I think something is wrong
with the machine.
Your uncle Dick drowned last week in a whiskey vat
at the distillery. Four of his work mates dived in to
save him but he fought them off bravely. We cremated his
body the next day and just got the fire out this
morning.
I went to the doctor with your father last week.
The doctor put a small glass tube in my mouth and told
me not to open it for ten minutes. You father wanted to
buy it from him.
It rained only twice last week - once for three
days and once for four days. Monday was so windy that
our chicken laid the same egg four times.
I got a letter from the undertaker this morning.
He said if we don't make up the installments on your
grandmother's grave - up she comes.
Your loving mother,
Stella
P.S. I was going to send you $10 but I had already
sealed the envelope.
There is a house in Margate, New Jersey that is made in the
shape of an elephant. A home in Norman, Oklahoma is shaped like a
chicken.
There is a house in Massachusetts which is made entirely from
newspapers. The floors, walls, even the furniture is made from
newspaper.
Another house, this one in Canada, is made of 18,000
discarded glass bottles.
The population of the world grows by two percent per year.
One out of every 21 people in the world is an American.
A man named Johann Hurlinger walked from Vienna to Paris on
his hands. This could qualify as one of the world's amazing
"feats" except he used his hands.
The motto of M-G-M movie studios is "Art for Art's sake."
In New York City, there are 37 taxi drivers who are each
named Amarjit Singh.
Approximately one out of every ten people who ever lived are
alive today.
The top of the Empire State Building flexes back and forth a
few feet in heavy winds.
At one time in Spain people often brushed their teeth with
stagnant urine.
An Indian emperor was given four wives when he inherited the
throne at the age of eight.
European men used to be vain about their legs - to the point
where they knew which leg was the best looking. These men would
place their "best foot forward".
World wide there are 1,006.7 men for every 1,000 women.
If you talk on the telephone an average amount of time, and
if you could be paid minimum wage for this time, you would get
about $500 per year.
If you read the newspaper a typical amount of time, and if
you could be paid minimum wage for that, you would make just over
$1,000 per year.
In a happiness survey based upon a scale of 1 to 10, lottery
winners rated their happiness 7; paraplegics 6!
An 18-watt fluorescent light gives off as much usable light
as a 75-watt incandescent (regular) bulb. It is estimated that
replacing a single incandescent with a fluorescent will save as
much electricity as is generated by 400 pounds of coal per year.
The human race is about 2500 generations old. Electricity
and all of the inventions it has spawned, radio, tv, telephones,
electric motors, and computers were put into use less than 5
generations ago. Much less than 1 percent of all our time on earth
has been serviced by these wonderful inventions.
Chapter 1
MISCELLANEOUS
Americans use enough toilet paper in one day to wrap around
the world 9 times. If it were on one giant roll, we would be
unrolling it at the rate of 7600 miles per hour - roughly mach 10,
ten times the speed of sound.
If you could stack up all the copies of the Guinness Book of
World Records made just in the year 1985, your pile would reach
into outer space. It would be 1006 miles high.
Try to say the alphabet without moving your lips or your
tongue. Every letter will sound exactly the same.
At one time Thoreau was a school teacher. When he was accused
by his principal of leniency, he immediately grabbed six random
kids from his class and spanked them.
There are 86,400 seconds in a day.
One out of every 144 people in America has the last name of
Smith.
Population of America: 243,000,000. If you start counting
as fast as you can, it will take you 32 years to count to this
number.
The average American will walk approximately 70,000 miles in
a lifetime, which is almost three times around the earth at the
equator.
People who have computers in their homes tend to watch 40
percent less television than average.
A NOTE ABOUT THIS DATABASE: I hope you enjoy reading this
information as much I have enjoyed collecting it! Almost all of it
is completely true! Some facts are disputable, especially
historical accounts. This is because they are based on eye-witness
accounts related to others who put them in print. They may have
lost something in the translation.
All the information in this database is reliably based on
what others have written. However, you may wish to conduct your
own research to make absolutely sure of the facts.
The smallest church in the world is in Kentucky. There is
room inside for three people.
At a wedding in Los Angeles a woman legally married a rock.
There about 1,800 thunderstorms occuring around the world at
any given moment.
60 years ago there were only half as many Americans as there
are now.
The most words on a single postage stamp is 746 (from the
country of Greece, year: 1954)
Violins have been made from wood, steel and pottery.
A devout Hindu, to demonstrate his mastery over pain, raised
his arm above his head and kept it that way for years. He held so
still that a bird built a nest in his hand.
If you have trouble getting to sleep, try thinking about
rain.
Only .00045 percent of mail handled by the post office is
reported lost, that's one letter out of 220,000 - roughly one lost
out of a quarter million letters.
If you are in a plane wreck, the chances that you will live
are 90 percent.
Statistics indicate that there is no safest place to sit on
commercial airplanes.
If your alarm clock is not loud enough, put it on a tin pie
plate.
When you have difficulty hammering small nails, you can use
an ordinary comb to hold the nails while you start them.
I found this item in the Farmer's Almanac, who found it in
the Union County Advocate from Morganfield, Kentucky:
Dear Stanley,
I write to let you know I am still alive. I am
writing slowly as I know you don't read fast.
You won't know the house when you come home - we
moved. We had trouble moving, especially the bed - the
man wouldn't let us take it in the taxi and we were
afraid we might wake your father.
Your father has a nice new job and very
responsible. He has about 500 people under him - he
cuts the grass at the cemetery.
Our neighbors, the Browns, started keeping pigs -
we got wind of it yesterday.
I got my appendix out and a dishwasher put in.
There is a washing machine in the new house here, but it
don't work too good. Last week I put 14 shirts in the
washer and pulled that chain. They whirled around real
good but then disappeared. I think something is wrong
with the machine.
Your uncle Dick drowned last week in a whiskey vat
at the distillery. Four of his work mates dived in to
save him but he fought them off bravely. We cremated his
body the next day and just got the fire out this
morning.
I went to the doctor with your father last week.
The doctor put a small glass tube in my mouth and told
me not to open it for ten minutes. You father wanted to
buy it from him.
It rained only twice last week - once for three
days and once for four days. Monday was so windy that
our chicken laid the same egg four times.
I got a letter from the undertaker this morning.
He said if we don't make up the installments on your
grandmother's grave - up she comes.
Your loving mother,
Stella
P.S. I was going to send you $10 but I had already
sealed the envelope.
There is a house in Margate, New Jersey that is made in the
shape of an elephant. A home in Norman, Oklahoma is shaped like a
chicken.
There is a house in Massachusetts which is made entirely from
newspapers. The floors, walls, even the furniture is made from
newspaper.
Another house, this one in Canada, is made of 18,000
discarded glass bottles.
The population of the world grows by two percent per year.
One out of every 21 people in the world is an American.
A man named Johann Hurlinger walked from Vienna to Paris on
his hands. This could qualify as one of the world's amazing
"feats" except he used his hands.
The motto of M-G-M movie studios is "Art for Art's sake."
In New York City, there are 37 taxi drivers who are each
named Amarjit Singh.
Approximately one out of every ten people who ever lived are
alive today.
The top of the Empire State Building flexes back and forth a
few feet in heavy winds.
At one time in Spain people often brushed their teeth with
stagnant urine.
An Indian emperor was given four wives when he inherited the
throne at the age of eight.
European men used to be vain about their legs - to the point
where they knew which leg was the best looking. These men would
place their "best foot forward".
World wide there are 1,006.7 men for every 1,000 women.
If you talk on the telephone an average amount of time, and
if you could be paid minimum wage for this time, you would get
about $500 per year.
If you read the newspaper a typical amount of time, and if
you could be paid minimum wage for that, you would make just over
$1,000 per year.
In a happiness survey based upon a scale of 1 to 10, lottery
winners rated their happiness 7; paraplegics 6!
An 18-watt fluorescent light gives off as much usable light
as a 75-watt incandescent (regular) bulb. It is estimated that
replacing a single incandescent with a fluorescent will save as
much electricity as is generated by 400 pounds of coal per year.
The human race is about 2500 generations old. Electricity
and all of the inventions it has spawned, radio, tv, telephones,
electric motors, and computers were put into use less than 5
generations ago. Much less than 1 percent of all our time on earth
has been serviced by these wonderful inventions.
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