Mel Blanc was very allergic to carrots. He says he tried apples and celery and all sorts of alternatives to get the sound just right, but nothing worked as well as carrots did. So he chewed carrots when he needed to, spitting them out and watching for signs of anaphylactic shock.
It’s hard to tell from the evidence if Albert Einstein was absent minded, many of the stories told about Einstein could be fabrications to perpetuate that stereotype. What we know is that he was a daydreamer as a schoolboy, so much so that his headmaster informed young Albert’s father, “It doesn’t matter what field he … Read more
Fred Astaire’s shoe size was a pretty average, 10 1/2. His height, however, sometimes caused problems. He looks tall on screen because he was very thin and angular. In reality, however, he was quite short, 5′ 8″, and sometimes needed his dancing partners to take off their high heels for dialogue scenes. Ginger Rogers, at … Read more
Alfred Hitchcock had several nicknames. His folks called him Fred. His schoolmates and friends called him kooky. He referred to himself as Hitch. Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 and he pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller film genres. Hitchcock directed over fifty feature films in a career … Read more
Turmeric is the powdered rhizome of Curcuma longa; and paprika, which is obtained from the fruits of sweet peppers, Capsicum annuum, are examples of spices used in cooking as much for their color as for flavor. The yellow colour of turmeric is caused by curcumin, which makes up around 5 percent of the dry powder. … Read more
The book “The Catcher in the Rye” was written by J. D. Salinger and published in 1951. The novel has become a classic with over 64 million copies sold to date. Even today, 250 thousand copies are sold each year and it has been translated into all major languages. Walk into any decent bookstore, and … Read more
The city of New York Uses The Most Water. Sound like a lot of water, doesn’t it?
In the 1980s, 10 million people used 500 million gallons of water a day. That works out to 50 gallons for every person. That is less than the average for the rest of the U.S.A.
Throughout our country, most people use 87 gallons per day. Only two of those gallons are for drinking and cooking. Did you know that things like food use water, too?
There certainly was. Ever since names have been around, there have been all sorts of funny ones.
In fact, some are so funny that their owners go to court to get them changed. People change their names because they don’t like the ones they’ve been given by their parents or because there is a name they’d much rather have than the one they’ve been given.
Three men on a fishing trip once checked into a hotel, where they signed their real, legal names: Mr. Hook, Mr. Fly, and Mr. Fish.
For 2,000 years, people made bottles by blowing air into a glob of molten glass through a long, thin pipe.
The hot glass expanded the same way a balloon does. It was slow, difficult work.
Then, in 1903, a glassblower from West Virginia named Michael J. Owens invented a machine that could do the same thing much faster. In the time it took a man with a pipe to blow 216 bottles, Owens’s machine could make 300,000 bottles.
You’d be pretty rich, right? After all, Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, and he became very rich. Unlike Mickey, Superman did not make his creators rich. As a matter of fact, in 1938, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who created the Red-Caped Crusader, sold all their rights to the cartoon character to Detective Comics for … Read more
R. H. Macy & Co. at 34th St. and Seventh Ave. in New York City was the world’s largest Department store in 2008.
It is more commonly known to the American public as Macy’s.
This giant department store didn’t appear overnight. It started as a tiny “hole in the wall” store on New York’s 14th St. It was Roland H. Macy’s fifth try at running a store.
Some of us are short or tall and it all has to do with the climate in which hundreds of generations of their people have spent their lives.
People who have lived in the cold climate of the Arctic need to save every bit of heat their bodies can produce. The more skin they have, the more heat they will lose.
That’s why Eskimos are normally short, with short legs and short arms. They have less body surface than most other humans and can stay warmer in their cold climate.
They do in India. Silver can be hammered till it is 150 times thinner than a page of this book.
In India, they take this very, very thin silver and decorate food to make it look pretty. They then eat the food and the decoration, too. How would you like to see a silver chicken on your dinner table?
In fact, in India, they coat pills and medicines with silver. Fifteen percent of the world’s entire supply of silver is owned by this large country. Much of that amount is used in the bracelets and jewelry the Indians wear.
Frank Richards wanted to find out if he had the strongest stomach muscles in the world. He decided to make his stomach as strong as he could.
He trained very hard, became a circus performer, and used his strong stomach muscles in his act.
In 1927, the great heavy weight boxing champion Jack Dempsey hit Richards’ stomach 75 times. Dempsey hit as hard as he could, but Richards barely flinched. Richards toughened his stomach muscles even more and began to allow challengers to hit him in the stomach with a heavy sledgehammer.
Still, he felt nothing.
In the mid 1920s, Clarence Birdseye went on a hunting trip to Labrador, Canada. It was winter, the weather was bitter cold, and Birdseye was fascinated by what he saw and tasted.
He saw Eskimos catch fish and hang them outside in the sub-zero temperatures to freeze them solid. Birdseye found that when this fish was eaten months later it tasted exactly as though it had just been caught. He was amazed.
For six years around the turn of the century, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid led the most successful gang in the Old West.
He didn’t wear an iron mask, he wore one of cloth. For 35 years, this man was kept a prisoner. To this day, nobody knows who the man was. He was put in prison by the king of France, who absolutely refused to answer any questions about why the prisoner was there or who he … Read more
In the nation of Malaysia. The people of Malaysia have always been fascinated by tops, and not long ago they decided to celebrate with the “Festival of the Tops.” All sorts of top contests are played. In one, there is a fighter top, and it has to knock over all the others. The winner is … Read more
The most famous case is that of Sgt. Roger Reynolds of the U. S. Army’s crack parachute team, the Golden Knights. On April 24,1974, he fell 2,000 feet when both of his parachutes failed to open during an army exhibition at Charlottesville, Virginia. He hit the ground at 85 miles an hour, broke many bones, … Read more
Yes. It was used for escaping from fires. In 1879, when Benjamin Oppenheimer patented his invention, there were many more house fires than there are now, and when houses burned, they generally burned to the ground. Houses caught on fire because of carelessness with fireplaces and wood- burning stoves, both of which were much more … Read more
They were a gang of Old West bank robbers and stagecoach hold-up men. They stashed fresh horses, provisions, and ammunition at hiding places along a trail that led from where they were going to pull a hold-up to where they wanted to hide out. This method was similar to the one used by the Pony … Read more
The Macaroni Club was formed in England around 1770 by a group of wealthy young Londoners. It started as a joke. The members wanted to make fun of the stuck-up clubs that their elders all belonged to. The group of young men had just come back from a trip to Italy, so they called their … Read more
In 1911, nobody had ever flown across America in an airplane. A motorcycle driver named Calbraith P. Rodgers decided to try to make the trip even though he had had only 70 hours training as a pilot. His airplane was owned by the manufacturer of a popular soft drink and was called the Vin Fizz. … Read more
According to a recent Gallup poll, the kids who hate school the most come from that most polite of all nations, Japan. Why do Japanese children dislike school? Psychologists reason that it is because great pressure it put on Japanese children to get high marks in school. It is said that unless you have very … Read more
In many parts of the world, man is losing his battle against the desert. Iran is one place where he is winning. Iran’s desert is twice the size of the state of Vermont. Parts of it are being sprayed with oil. The oil dries to a gray crust that works like a mulch, protecting the … Read more
Men can hit baseballs harder than women can. They can pick up heavier objects and run faster than women. But are men stronger than women? Their muscles are stronger, that’s all. Women are much stronger than men when it comes to pushing away disease and staying healthy. They are stronger when it comes to living … Read more
It took 35 years to build his tomb, and 700,000 workers were brought from every part of China to do the work. When he was finally buried in it, in 210 B.C., the tomb was covered with earth. When the job was done, a small mountain fifteen stories high had been created. They called it … Read more
His name was Big Nose George Parrott, and he was one of the Old West’s meanest outlaws. He would just as soon murder you’ as shake your hand. When Big Nose Parrott held up a stagecoach, passengers and driver were lucky to come out alive. Big Nose’s luck finally ran out one day in Rawlins, … Read more
It angered King George of England that the pesty Americans had invented the lightning rod. How could a country bumpkin like Benjamin Franklin have invented anything to do with something so complicated as electricity. In the early 1770s, just before the American Revolution, England went ahead and began to install lightning rods on those buildings … Read more
One of our most famous presidents was a smuggler. He was never caught, but he only smuggled once. In 1784, congress asked Thomas Jefferson to travel to Europe to make treaties of friendship and to see if the European nations were interested in buying such American products as tobacco, whale oil, and furs. The European … Read more
They didn’t carry guns or, at least, they weren’t supposed to. But 9-year-olds served in the army during the American Revolution. They were drummer boys. Often, the sounds of their drums were used to send signals from one part of an army to another. More often, the drummer boys beat out the rhythm of a … Read more
Did a king ever give his Toenails as gifts? Yes. One king did, and he did it more than once. King Victor Emmanuel II was the first man to rule over a united Italy and was probably also the first to give away his toenails as presents. Every year while he was king, he allowed … Read more
He was sure his enemies would try to kill him if they knew where he would spend the night. To keep them guessing, he moved from palace to palace, never spending more than one night at a time in any one. They were always kept stocked with food, and each had servants ready to provide … Read more
The present queen of England was born on April 21, 1926, but her official birthday is in June. In fact, whether England has a king or a queen in charge, and no matter what month they are really born, their official birthday is always celebrated in June. The reason is to give everybody a good … Read more
Reading is a very human activity. The act of reading is so complicated that even the most advanced computer can’t do it as well as you can. When you read, you take shortcuts, play hunches, figure things out in advance, and you make all these calculations almost instantly. You see letters in groups and the … Read more
Three of America’s Founding Fathers, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe, died on the Fourth of July. Of the three, James Monroe was the only one who fought in the American Revolution. He fought in many battles and was wounded twice, once at the Battle of Harlem Heights and once at the Battle of … Read more
In the country villages of remote areas of India, this has been going on for hundreds or thousands of years. Here it is the custom for girls to marry when they are 12 or 13. Recently, however, a law has been passed that forbids them from living with their husbands as a family until they … Read more
President Theodore Roosevelt and his family had the most pets. Many were kept at the White House, but most lived at the “Summer White House” in Long Island, New York. If you made a trip to the summer place, you might see a lion, hyena, wildcat, coyote, five bears, an eagle, an owl, a zebra, … Read more
The Queen of England has the tiny stove, and she has a working refrigerator six inches high, a one inch-high kitchen scale that actually weighs things, a five-inch vacuum cleaner that sucks up dust, and a golden, carved piano eight inches from front to back on which every black and white key plays its own … Read more
Shortly before he became king of France in 1830, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, spent some time traveling in the United States. He and his two younger brothers stopped one night at an inn in Winchester, Virginia. The innkeeper, Mr. Bush, was delighted to have such an important guests, and he gave them the best … Read more
It doesn’t get very cold in the winter in the Indian city of Calcutta. Even had they heard of ice in 1833, most of the city’s people had never seen it. So, when Frederick Tudor’s ship arrived in Calcutta harbor with a shipment of ice from the ponds of New England, it caused a great … Read more
Early American pioneers found that living in separate cabins did not offer them protection from Indians. So all the settlers who lived near one another would get together and build a fort. They would construct cabins inside the fort along one wall. Like the rooms in modern motels, these cabins were in a straight line, … Read more
She was the wife of George III, king of England during the American Revolution. Queen Charlotte was so fond of sniffing the powdered tobacco called snuff, that “Snuffy Charlotte” became her nickname. Colombus discovered natives of the New World smoking tobacco during his first voyage, but it wasn’t until 1532, forty years later, that the … Read more
No, but those who wanted William Henry Harrison to become president did. During the campaign of 1840, Harrison’s friends made a large paper ball and rolled it all the way from Kentucky to Baltimore, Maryland, where the convention was to be held. They carried a sign that read, “Keep the Ball Rolling.” All this might … Read more
In 1823, Captain John Cleves Symmes, a war hero, went to talk to the members of the U. S. Congress. He asked them to give him a ship and a few brave scientists for a journey to the center of the earth. He planned to sail there by going down a hole he believed existed … Read more
The man who sells more big diamonds than any other dealer in the world is forbidden to have a picture taken of his face. His name is Harry Winston, and because the police and insurance companies are afraid he will be kidnapped or robbed, what he looks like remains a mystery. In a picture, his … Read more
John II was king of France during one of the nation’s wars with England. He was captured by the English in 1356 at the Battle of Poitiers. Since he was a king, the English didn’t want to keep him in jail, they wanted to exchange him for money. They released him when he promised he … Read more
President John Quincy Adams, president from 1825 to 1829, got caught nude. He was an early riser. He was often up at 4 AM while it was still dark outside. He did this so he would have the time to write in his personal diary. However, on the mornings when it was very warm, the … Read more
His name was Robert Todd Lincoln. He was the oldest son of Abraham Lincoln, and he thought he was a jinx. He had the terrible bad luck to be present at the assassinations of three US presidents. Young Lincoln was away at college during most of the years his father was president. He returned to … Read more
There are a lot of crazy automobile drivers in this world, but it is the Japanese who take the cake. They have more accidents than anybody else, based on the size of their population. Not many people get killed in these accidents. Not many people even get injured. They just keep bumping into one another, … Read more
President Reagan liked to take a few weeks off to spend time at his ranch in California, but he worked at being president even while he is there. President Eisenhower loved to play golf and could be found on the golf course two or three times a week. But the man who liked to escape … Read more
Do you hear a lot of griping and complaining around you? Are your friends always saying this is wrong, that is terrible, and that other thing ought to be changed? Well, if you hear a lot of that here in the US, you ought to hear what’s going on in Italy and Japan. More people … Read more
Men with four-inch fingernails? During the late 1800s and even during the early 1900s, it was the custom among the ruling classes and the very wealthy of China for men to allow one fingernail to grow to a length of four or five inches. Because such a fingernail could not possibly remain on the hand … Read more
It was President Lyndon B. Johnson. He served marvelous steaks, baked potatoes, corn pudding, and pecan pie. President Johnson was a very good and fast walker. Because he didn’t like to waste time, he often called press conferences at the last minute and had the reporters ask questions while he was taking one of his … Read more
Humpback Whales are indeed social animals among humans. They are easily approachable, curious, and display many behaviors such as breaching the water. This makes the animal ideal for whale watching. The humpback whales that come to the ocean waters off the Hawaiian Islands swim alongside people and have never been known to harm anyone. They … Read more
Long before Grover Cleveland became president, he was a sheriff in Erie County, New York. As a law officer, one of his duties was to be in charge of hangings. While he was a sheriff, he had to hang two criminals. Cleveland was always a very busy man. In the course of three and a … Read more
Throughout most of the world during the 1600s, most men wore hats all the time. They would wear them inside their own home, at meals, in bed, outside, and on any important occasion. There is no exact record of the date when it began to be thought impolite to do some of these things. Ever … Read more
Except for his boots, an Eskimo’s complete winter outfit weighed only 10 pounds, yet he was able to stay warm in the very coldest weather. How? He knew the secret of using air as insulation. His cold-weather clothes consisted of two suits of trousers and shirts worn over each other, a hooded parka, and a … Read more
To make them look old, of course. Sounds silly, but it is true. If a cowboy wore a new hat, he might be taken for a “tenderfoot,” a newcomer. Even if an old-time Westerner wore a new hat, he was teased about it. The men of the Old West wanted their hats to look old … Read more
A stewardess, Vesna Vulovic, flying for a Yugoslav airline, fell from a height of over 31,000 feet and lived to fly again and again. On January 26, 1972, the DC-9 on which she was working blew up at 33,330 feet while flying over Czechoslovakia. When she was found, she was strapped to an airline seat … Read more
One hundred thirty miles southwest of Tokyo, Japan, in the city of Hamamatsu, men fight with kites every year during three days in early May. The combat began many centuries ago, when the ruler of the region celebrated the birth of his first son by flying kites. Two million people a year come to see … Read more
In France at the end of the 1700s, women wore their hair in the strangest fashion you can imagine. They wore wigs that rose two and a half to three feet above their heads. Some of the women were so tall they had to ride on the floor of their carriages in order to fit … Read more
Fire walkers can, and few people know how they do it. These amazing people, who live in Hawaii, India, and on certain islands of the South Pacific, actually walk on fire. A big trench is dug in the ground and is filled with fire. Eventually, it burns down to a bed of glowing, red-hot coals. … Read more
There is no proof that such a thing is possible, but there have been people who seemed to be able to foresee the future. One such person was David Goodman Croly, a successful journalist who lived between 1829 and 1889. One of the things he foresaw long before it happened was World War I. He … Read more
It is western Burma, and the women with the long necks are the tribeswomen of Padaung. Brass rings worn around the necks of the women make their necks look as though they were twelve inches long. Each of the rings is one-third of an inch in diameter. There are 36 of them, and they weigh … Read more
Such a man was Kuda Bux. Bux was a Pakistani who made his living displaying his amazing talent to paying viewers. Doctors all over the world examined and tested him, and none could ever call his remarkable ability a trick. Through the heaviest bandages, he could read books and newspapers. The bandages were often applied … Read more
That famous “hole in the ground” is the subway. England is the home of the subway. The first system, called the London Transport Executive, began to operate in 1863, while the United States was deeply involved in the Civil War. The Longest Subway System In The World is the The London Tube, with 408 km … Read more
Until the early 1960’s, headhunting was a common practice among the Ilonget tribesmen who live deep in the jungles of the island of Luzon in the Philippines. For a young man of this tribe, the taking of a human head was the way he demonstrated that he was brave and grown up. When he returned … Read more
Every joint in your body is slicker than a skate on ice. As a matter of fact, your body is so well lubricated at its joints that they have only one-third the friction of a sharp skate slicing its way over a hard-frozen pond. The human body is truly amazing. Did you know that a … Read more
Delivering fresh milk was a problem in the days before refrigeration. In small towns and cities around the world, a farmer often delivered milk to his customers in the freshest way he knew. He brought the cow with him. The customer bought what he or she needed. The cow delivered the milk right into the … Read more
The Indians of the Southwest and Mexico live in a hot, dry region. It is the kind of land where few plants can grow. Corn won’t grow there, but these original Americans had “popcorn.” They had no rubber trees, but by chewing the ends of a short plant until the sap came out and then … Read more
Recent scientific studies have proven that there is nothing as good for people as the light of the sun. That doesn’t mean sunburn, just plenty of natural light. The natural light of the sun produces certain hormones in our bodies, and these hormones tend to keep us from becoming sick. Our skin produces Vitamin D … Read more
Many people believe that Harry Houdini was the greatest escape artist of all time. And perhaps he was. He performed escapes all over the world while tied, chained, and weighted. He managed to escape from nearly every type of container. Many of his most exciting performances were escapes made while he was imprisoned underwater. Houdini … Read more
If birds and flowers can have inner clocks that tell them when to fly south or when to bloom, why can’t humans? Why can’t all animals? Scientists at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts are certain that they have found this special clock in the human brain. It tells us when to sleep and when to … Read more
SmokeJumpers jump just where you’d guess they might, into smoke. The name smoke jumper is given to a very special group of 350 forest firefighters. These man are trained to parachute from low-flying planes into parts of the forest that are hard to reach. Their job is to try to stop a forest fire before … Read more
Two of the most famous sharpshooters of all time were Annie Oakley and Daniel Boone. Annie toured with Bufffalo Bill’s Wild West show for 17 years during the late 1800’s. She was such a crack shot that the emperor of Germany performed in her act when the show came to his country. He would put … Read more
The Continental army, the American forces of the Revolutionary War, had its share of great athletes. George Washington was himself a fine wrestler and took on all corners. He was also a champion broad jumper. The title of “strongest” probably belongs to Peter Francisco, who at age 16, stood six feet six inches and weighed … Read more
Her name was Deborah Gannett. On May 21, 1782, she disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the Continental army as a soldier under the name Robert Shurtleff. She was a very good soldier, fought in many battles, and was wounded twice. When a British musket ball was buried in her leg, an officer … Read more
Amelia Earhart was one of America’s greatest airplane pilots. In 1937, when she and her navigator, Frederick J. Noonan, were attempting to fly 27,000 miles around the world, their plane suddenly disappeared without a trace. A radio message was received that said the gas supply was running low, but they didn’t sound worried. The last … Read more
Dwight David Eisenhower, the thirty-fourth president of the United States, played semi-pro baseball for a short time between graduating from high school and attending West Point. Known by his nickname, “Ike,” he was born in Denison, Texas, but two years later his family moved to Abilene, Kansas. His family was too poor for him to … Read more
On a spring afternoon in May, 1823, a youth appeared out of nowhere, staggering along the streets of Nuremburg, Germany. He asked to be taken to the military fort, where he handed the officer in charge two letters that said his first name was Casper and that he was 13 years old. The letters requested … Read more
After fifteen years of spectacular robberies, the Wild West’s most notorious outlaw, Jesse James, was shot in the back by two members of his gang. They were out to collect a $10,000 reward for his capture, “dead or alive.” The strange thing was that when they brought his body in, they were arrested for murder … Read more
Mathew Brady was a photographer, and he became famous because he was the first American to shoot and document a war. Brady’s 3,500 photographs taken during the Civil War provided the very first such record of any American war. The pictures he took brought the real meaning of the fighting to the families at home. … Read more
Yes, it’s true. They eat not only dirt, but newspaper, wood, starch, charcoal, and lumps of clay. They don’t do it as a joke. Thy eat these non-foods because they feel they must. They have what is known as a craving for them. Nobody knows why such cravings exist or what need is filled when … Read more
They would, could, and do. It is a custom among the Brahman people of southern India that a younger son cannot marry before his older brother does. When it looks like the older son cannot find anyone to marry, and the younger son has already found a willing wife, an odd thing happens. The older … Read more
Francis Henry Egerton, the eighth Earl of Bridgewater was a British eccentric. The earl owned many dogs and dressed them in tiny, well-made leather boots. Every evening, he dined with a dozen of his dogs at his large dining room table. Since he owned more than twelve dogs, the dogs had to wait their turn … Read more
President Grant did when he visited Central City, Colorado. It was 1873, and Central City was in the middle of a gold and silver mining boom. Throughout Colorado and elsewhere, the town was known as the “richest square mile on earth.” That claim may or may not have been true, but for awhile the town … Read more
Petalesharo was the son of a Skidi Pawnee Chief whose tribe had captured a young and beautiful Comanche girl in the year 1817. For an entire year she was treated like a royal princess, unaware that she was soon to die as part of a human sacrifice ritual. At the appointed time, she was given … Read more
Blackbeard the Pirate used to put lighted matches under his hat so he could enjoy the sound and smell of his hair burning. Blackbeard’s real name was Edward Teach. He was born around 1680 in Bristol, England. From a very young age he wanted to be a pirate. In order to learn his “trade,” he … Read more
The Zulus are a tribe of people who live in Africa. When their country has been without rain for a long time, they bury their children in the earth leaving only their heads above ground. It is the Zulus’ belief that the sky will take pity on the youngsters and send down rain. When the … Read more