During the seventeenth century, American slaves did most of the heavy lifting in the U.S. South.
Most of these slaves were from West Africa and still spoke their native Bantu languages.
Tota is the Bantu word for “lifting” or “carrying.”
From these slaves and then through the plantation owners, tota entered English as tote.
The term tote bag was derived from tote and popularized around 1900.
The odds of being killed during the course of a year in any sort of transportation accident are 77 to 1.
The chance that one’s next car ride will be one’s last is 1 in 4,000,000, while the odds of being killed on a five-mile bus trip are 500,000,000 to 1.
The odds of being killed while riding a horse are six times greater than the odds of meeting one’s demise on a bus trip.
The chance of dying from a car accident during one’s lifetime is 1 in 18,585. Walking is safer.
The one-year chance of dying while a pedestrian is about 1 in 50,000.
The chance of dying in an airplane accident is 1 in 354,319.
The odds of being killed in any sort of non-transportation accident are 69 to 1.
The chance of being killed in a terrorist attack while visiting a foreign country is 1 in 650,000.
The chance of dying from parts falling off an airplane is 1 in 10,000,000.
