Here's your (not so) totally useless fact(s) of the day:

[phkrause]

Troll dolls were invented in the 1950s by Danish fisherman Thomas Dam, who carved them out of wood and sold them door-to-door.

James

[phkrause]

If the Gulf of Mexico was stretched across land, it would spread from Los Angeles to New York.

James

[phkrause]

Covering your mouth to yawn has several backgrounds, one being that many thought the soul was escaping and evil spirits were entering.

James

[phkrause]

There is enough gold in the Earth's core to coat its surface up to 1.5 feet.

James

[phkrause]

Every odd number contains the letter 'e' when written out.

James

[phkrause]

Paper cuts are so painful because paper is rough at a microscopic level. While knives make straight cuts, paper cuts like a saw blade, doing more damage to nerve endings and your skin cells.

James

[phkrause]

Male ladybugs can spend up to four hours mating with a dead female before they realize something's off.

So uhh, yeah.

James

[phkrause]

When you recall a past event, you’re actually remembering the last time you remembered it. Every time you remember something, your brain networks change in ways that can alter the memory.

James

[phkrause]

Nikola Tesla once paid an overdue hotel bill with a box he said contained a working model of his "death beam." He warned employees never to open it, and they hid the box. Years later the box was found, opened, and it contained nothing but old electrical parts.

James

[phkrause]

Roughly a third of people sneeze when they look at bright light, but no one knows why.

It's called photic sneeze reflex. I have it.


James

[phkrause]

Psychopaths comprise about 1% of the general population, but make up an estimated 21% of CEOs in the US.

And here's a perfect example...

Billionaire oil tycoon J. Paul Getty installed a payphone in his mansion for guests to use so that he wouldn't be charged for their calls.

James

[phkrause]

Cats often avoid consuming food or water from the sides of their bowls to prevent 'whisker fatigue'. Whiskers brushing against a bowl can trigger sensory overload, causing them pain and stress whenever eating or drinking.

James

[phkrause]

Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, and The Shawshank Redemption were all in theaters at the same time in October of 1994.

It was a good year!

James

[phkrause]

The word girl, meaning “a female child,” originally meant any “child” or “young person,” regardless of gender. Girl, for “child,” is recorded around 1250–1300.

James

[phkrause]

Raw oysters are actually alive when you eat them. Consuming dead oysters can make you very sick or even kill you.

James

[phkrause]

Arthur Guinness, founder of Guinness Beer, signed a 9,000 year lease for £45 per year at the St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin back in 1759.

James

[phkrause]

Nervous laughter, tears of joy, and wanting to squeeze something because it's too cute are examples of "dimorphous expressions". Our brain's attempt at trying to regulate an intense emotion.

James

[phkrause]

When stagecoaches were standard in the 1880s, the driver would typically assign his passenger seat to an armed partner whose duty it was to keep thieves away. Hence, the expression "riding shotgun".

James

[phkrause]

The obverse of the United States ten-dollar bill ($10) features the portrait of Alexander Hamilton, who served as the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. The $10 bill is unique in that it is the only denomination in circulation in which the portrait faces to the left. It also features one of two non-presidents on currently issued U.S. bills, the other being Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill. Hamilton is also the only person not born in the continental United States or British America (he was from the West Indies) currently depicted on U.S. paper currency.

James

[phkrause]

Eating cheese after a meal can protect your teeth. It counteracts the acid left behind by bread, sweets, citrus, and soda.

James

[phkrause]

Warner Bros. allowed Bugs Bunny to appear in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" on the condition that he only appeared alongside Mickey Mouse and that the two had the same amount of screen time. This was the only time in movie history that they had ever appeared together on-screen.

James

[phkrause]

The 27 Club is a list consisting of popular musicians, artists, or actors who died at age 27. Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison all died at the age of 27 between 1969 and 1971. At the time, the coincidence gave rise to some comment, but it was not until Kurt Cobain's 1994 death, at age 27, that the idea of a "27 Club" began to catch on in public perception. In 2011, seventeen years after Cobain's death, Amy Winehouse died at the age of 27, prompting a
renewed swell of media attention devoted to the club once again. Although the claim of a "statistical spike" for the death of musicians at that age has been repeatedly disproved by research, the “27 Club” remains a cultural phenomenon.

James

[phkrause]

In Oregon and New Jersey, it is illegal to pump your own gas.

James

 

ps:LOL I knew that! My thoughts on that are Why?? Anyone know?

[phkrause]

A 'nickelodeon' was a small type of theater where you could watch movies that cost a nickel in the early 1900s.

James

[phkrause]

When Crystal Pepsi came out, Coca-Cola released a competing product called 'Tab Clear.' But, Tab Clear was intentionally marketed poorly so it would fail and hurt Pepsi's product by association. This is the "born to die" strategy and within six months, both campaigns were dead.

James