Elephants cannot jump. However, they can snorkel, stomp, stampede, and trumpet.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Elephants Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
Light and fluffy as a cloud? An average cumulus cloud weighs about 1 billion, 400 million pounds.
Bees can fly higher than the height of Mount Everest.
Fathers tend to determine the height of their children, and mothers tend to determine their weight.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Parenthood And Parenting Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The unicorn is the national animal mascot of Scotland.
In 1895 in the United States state of Ohio, there were only two automobiles, and they collided.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Accidents And Safety Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
At about 4,000 kilometers from west coast to east coast, Australia is wider than the Moon’s width, or diameter, which is about 3,400 kilometers.
‘Never odd or even’ spelled backwards is ‘never odd or even.’
Active volcanoes existed on the Moon when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Dinosaurs Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The world record for continuous pogo stick jumping is 41 hours.
Sound cannot travel in space. So . . . where does it go? Does it just get stuck at the source?
Lemons float in water, but limes sink.
The Antpitta avis canis Ridgley is a species of bird that barks like dog.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Birds Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
A spacecraft would be unable to set down on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune because these planets are made of gases and have no solid surfaces.
Worcestershire sauce is really just anchovy ketchup.
Half of all crimes are committed by people under the age of 18. That is the second important reason children should be encouraged to stay in school.
Everything weighs one percent less at the Earth’s equator.
The noise that is thunder is created when the air around lightning is rapidly heated and expands at a rate faster than the speed of sound.
Ketchup was sold as a medicine in the 1830’s.
Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom became the modern military salute.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Meeting And Parting Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The sticks of ‘chalk’ used to write on chalkboards are not actually made of chalk, but are instead made of plaster of Paris. Now we’re starting to wonder if anything is really what it is said to be . . .
Real chalk is made from tiny plankton fossils.
There are more ducks swimming in water than there are fish flying in the sky.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Animals And Animal Natures Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
On 23 December 1947, Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, United States of America, held a secret demonstration of the transistor, which was the beginning of modern electronics.
Boston College is in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts . . . much to the consternation of people who arrive in Boston, expecting to find it there.
The supersonic Concorde jetplane made its first trial flight on 1 January 1969. On 20 July of that same year, the first human footprints appeared on the Moon.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read History Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The Ten Commandments contains 297 words.
The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words.
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address contains 266 words.
A recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words.
Before 1814, Congresspersons in the United States House of Representatives were paid six dollars per diem (each day) when in session. They were not paid on non-session days.
The word ‘trivia’ comes from the Latin word ‘trivium,’ meaning a place where three roads meet. At such places in the ancient world, just as at public squares today, people would gather and talk about all sorts of matters, most of which were ‘trivial.’
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Latin Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The English Channel between England and France grows about 300 millimeters wider each year. Perhaps the British are on their way to visit their relatives in America?
There is no egg in eggplant, no ham in hamburger, and neither apple nor pine in pineapple. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads are meat - and not at all sweet.
Why do the wires on power poles and telephone poles hum? Well, it is not the electricity or people’s phone conversations that produce the hum. The hum that is sometimes heard is caused by the wind passing through the wires and making them vibrate to make a sound, which varies in pitch depending upon the speed of the wind and the tightness of the wire.
Camel’s hair brushes are made of squirrel fur.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Squirrels And Chipmunks Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The very first computer ‘mouse’ was made in 1964 by a man named Doug Engelbert. The mouse was made of wood.
Mike Hayes, a man from Rochelle, Illinois, funded his education by asking 2.8 million people for one penny each. This happened in 1987, so if someone wanted to pay for his or her college education the same way today, that person would have to ask more than ten million people.
The coins thrown into the Trevi Fountain in Italy are collected for charity.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Charitable Giving And Helping Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The speed of light in a vacuum, or empty space, is 299,792,458 meters per second, or about to 671 million miles per hour.
Intelligent people are said to have more zinc and copper in their hair.
A car traveling at 80 kilometers (50 miles) per hour burns half of its fuel just to overcome wind resistance. What a drag . . . on your wallet.
The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Telephones Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The average person will consume 45,424 liters (12,000 gallons) of water in his or her lifetime.
The most common time for wakeup calls at hotels is 7:00 a.m.
The expression ‘three dog night’ originated with the Eskimos and means a very cold night - so cold that a person would have to bed down with three dogs to keep warm.
Aphesis is when unstressed vowels are skipped. Examples: Because - ’cause, amid - ’mid, especially - ’specially.
The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) once did a study that found the average airline stewardess (flight attendant) has a nose that is 5.5372 centimeters (2.18 inches) long. Did the ‘study’ help stewardesses move around in the narrow spaces inside airplanes, or help to keep the aircraft weight low to conserve fuel and increase flight distance?
A reading-machine, always wound up and going,
He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.
-James Russell Lowell (1819 - 1891): “A Fable for Critics” (1848), ‘Prologue,’ stanza 7
Fried chicken is the most popular meal ordered in full-service, or sit-down, restaurants in the United States of America. The next in popularity are roast beef, spaghetti, turkey, baked ham, and fried shrimp.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Restaurants And Eateries Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
“There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.” -Bertrand Russell (Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872 - 1970)): “In Praise of Idleness” (1932)
Classical music composer Ludwig van Beethoven was once told by a music teacher that he had no talent for music.
Though she never lived further west than Ohio, Annie Oakley (pseudonym of Phoebe Anne Moses) was famous as an expert shotgun and rifle marksman in ‘Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.’
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Elephants Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
Light and fluffy as a cloud? An average cumulus cloud weighs about 1 billion, 400 million pounds.
Bees can fly higher than the height of Mount Everest.
Fathers tend to determine the height of their children, and mothers tend to determine their weight.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Parenthood And Parenting Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The unicorn is the national animal mascot of Scotland.
In 1895 in the United States state of Ohio, there were only two automobiles, and they collided.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Accidents And Safety Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
At about 4,000 kilometers from west coast to east coast, Australia is wider than the Moon’s width, or diameter, which is about 3,400 kilometers.
‘Never odd or even’ spelled backwards is ‘never odd or even.’
Active volcanoes existed on the Moon when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Dinosaurs Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The world record for continuous pogo stick jumping is 41 hours.
Sound cannot travel in space. So . . . where does it go? Does it just get stuck at the source?
Lemons float in water, but limes sink.
The Antpitta avis canis Ridgley is a species of bird that barks like dog.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Birds Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
A spacecraft would be unable to set down on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune because these planets are made of gases and have no solid surfaces.
Worcestershire sauce is really just anchovy ketchup.
Half of all crimes are committed by people under the age of 18. That is the second important reason children should be encouraged to stay in school.
Everything weighs one percent less at the Earth’s equator.
The noise that is thunder is created when the air around lightning is rapidly heated and expands at a rate faster than the speed of sound.
Ketchup was sold as a medicine in the 1830’s.
Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom became the modern military salute.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Meeting And Parting Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The sticks of ‘chalk’ used to write on chalkboards are not actually made of chalk, but are instead made of plaster of Paris. Now we’re starting to wonder if anything is really what it is said to be . . .
Real chalk is made from tiny plankton fossils.
There are more ducks swimming in water than there are fish flying in the sky.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Animals And Animal Natures Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
On 23 December 1947, Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, United States of America, held a secret demonstration of the transistor, which was the beginning of modern electronics.
Boston College is in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts . . . much to the consternation of people who arrive in Boston, expecting to find it there.
The supersonic Concorde jetplane made its first trial flight on 1 January 1969. On 20 July of that same year, the first human footprints appeared on the Moon.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read History Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The Ten Commandments contains 297 words.
The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words.
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address contains 266 words.
A recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words.
Before 1814, Congresspersons in the United States House of Representatives were paid six dollars per diem (each day) when in session. They were not paid on non-session days.
The word ‘trivia’ comes from the Latin word ‘trivium,’ meaning a place where three roads meet. At such places in the ancient world, just as at public squares today, people would gather and talk about all sorts of matters, most of which were ‘trivial.’
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Latin Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The English Channel between England and France grows about 300 millimeters wider each year. Perhaps the British are on their way to visit their relatives in America?
There is no egg in eggplant, no ham in hamburger, and neither apple nor pine in pineapple. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads are meat - and not at all sweet.
Why do the wires on power poles and telephone poles hum? Well, it is not the electricity or people’s phone conversations that produce the hum. The hum that is sometimes heard is caused by the wind passing through the wires and making them vibrate to make a sound, which varies in pitch depending upon the speed of the wind and the tightness of the wire.
Camel’s hair brushes are made of squirrel fur.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Squirrels And Chipmunks Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The very first computer ‘mouse’ was made in 1964 by a man named Doug Engelbert. The mouse was made of wood.
Mike Hayes, a man from Rochelle, Illinois, funded his education by asking 2.8 million people for one penny each. This happened in 1987, so if someone wanted to pay for his or her college education the same way today, that person would have to ask more than ten million people.
The coins thrown into the Trevi Fountain in Italy are collected for charity.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Charitable Giving And Helping Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The speed of light in a vacuum, or empty space, is 299,792,458 meters per second, or about to 671 million miles per hour.
Intelligent people are said to have more zinc and copper in their hair.
A car traveling at 80 kilometers (50 miles) per hour burns half of its fuel just to overcome wind resistance. What a drag . . . on your wallet.
The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Telephones Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The average person will consume 45,424 liters (12,000 gallons) of water in his or her lifetime.
The most common time for wakeup calls at hotels is 7:00 a.m.
The expression ‘three dog night’ originated with the Eskimos and means a very cold night - so cold that a person would have to bed down with three dogs to keep warm.
Aphesis is when unstressed vowels are skipped. Examples: Because - ’cause, amid - ’mid, especially - ’specially.
The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) once did a study that found the average airline stewardess (flight attendant) has a nose that is 5.5372 centimeters (2.18 inches) long. Did the ‘study’ help stewardesses move around in the narrow spaces inside airplanes, or help to keep the aircraft weight low to conserve fuel and increase flight distance?
A reading-machine, always wound up and going,
He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.
-James Russell Lowell (1819 - 1891): “A Fable for Critics” (1848), ‘Prologue,’ stanza 7
Fried chicken is the most popular meal ordered in full-service, or sit-down, restaurants in the United States of America. The next in popularity are roast beef, spaghetti, turkey, baked ham, and fried shrimp.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Restaurants And Eateries Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
“There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.” -Bertrand Russell (Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872 - 1970)): “In Praise of Idleness” (1932)
Classical music composer Ludwig van Beethoven was once told by a music teacher that he had no talent for music.
Though she never lived further west than Ohio, Annie Oakley (pseudonym of Phoebe Anne Moses) was famous as an expert shotgun and rifle marksman in ‘Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.’
Fun fact: ‘Meow’ means ‘woof’ in cat.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Cats And Dogs Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
Why is it that when people are in the public eye they are said to be ‘in the limelight’? Invented in 1825, limelight was used in lighthouses and stage lighting by burning a cylinder of lime in an oxyhydrogen flame to produce a brilliant light. In the theatre, performers on stage ‘in the limelight’ were seen by the audience as the center of attention.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Theater And Thespians Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The world’s largest human-made hole is in Kimberly, South Africa. It has a circumference, or distance around its outer edge, of 1.6 kilometers, and a depth of 800 meters. Digging was started on it in 1871, to find buried diamonds.
Most of the vitamin C in fruits is in the skin.
The letter combination ‘ough’ can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains all of them: “A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.”
Cartoon character Sylvester the Cat’s full name is Sylvester J. Pussycat.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Domestic Cats Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
All the people on Earth could fit into a 1-kilometer cube, if done so in the manner that groups of people once stuffed themselves into telephone booths or crowds of clowns stuff all of themselves into tiny cars
Abdul Kassem Ismael, the Grand Vizier of Persia in the 10th century, could not bear to part with his 177,000-volume library when he traveled, and so he had the books carried by a caravan of 400 camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Reading And Books Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
What is ‘dry ice’? Dry ice is compressed carbon dioxide gas. It is compressed until it is liquefied; after liquefaction, it is frozen. Dry ice is used as a refrigerant, as it is a solid that changes back to a gas without ever becoming a liquid. It remains in a solid state for a longer time, and at cooler temperatures, than ordinary ice.
Phonetic ABC’s: A system used by the military and others when people need to spell out words to be precise in spoken communications. Usually this is done to avoid confusion when words or letters have similar sounds. Words are substituted for letters of the alphabet, commonly: Alpha for a, Bravo for b, Charlie for c, Delta for d, Echo for e, Foxtrot for f, Golf for g, Hotel for h, India for i, Juliet for j, Kilo for k, Lima for l, Mike for m, November for n, Oscar for o, Papa for p, Quebec for q, Romeo for r, Sierra for s, Tango for t, Uniform for u, Victor for v, Whiskey for w, X-ray for x, Yankee for y, and Zulu for z.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read The Spoken Word And Speaking Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The oldest word in the English language is ‘town.’
‘Moon trees’ were grown from seeds taken to the Moon during the Apollo 14 mission in early 1971. NASA and USFS wanted to see if being in space or in the Moon’s orbit caused the seeds to grow differently.
Cars were first started with ignition keys in 1949.
Question: If you were to spell out each number, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter ‘a’?
Answer: One thousand.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Numbers And Counting Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
A purple finch is a type of bird. Despite its name, it is crimson, which is a shade of the color red.
American car horns beep in the tone of F.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Vehicles And Driving Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
China is believed to be the world’s oldest continuously existing human civilization. That is, if we consider humans to be ‘civilized’ . . .
The largest island in the Mediterranean Sea is Sicily.
The oldest business in the United States of America is the cymbal company Zildjian, which was originally founded in Constantinople in 1623, according to “American Heritage of Invention & Technology” (Winter 2000)
The sari or saree, the traditional dress of women on the Indian subcontinent, has been used continuously and relatively unchanged for thousands of years.
An average person consumes more than a ton of food and drink each year.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Humans And Human Nature Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
William Moulton Marston was the creator of the fictional superhero Wonder Woman. He also invented the polygraph machine, widely known as the lie detector.
Bali, an island of Indonesia, has the world’s largest variety of flora, or plant life.
The car in the foreground on the back of an American $10 bill is a 1925 Hupmobile.
The real-life name of the horse in the television show “Mister Ed” was Bamboo Harvester.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Horses And Ponies Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
England’s first great industry was wool.
Clark Gable’s middle name was Clark, and his first name was William.
An electric eel can produce a shock of up to 650 volts.
The world record for a photographic memory feat is held by a man in Burma who recited 16,000 pages of Buddhist canonical texts from memory.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Memory And Memories Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
Every year, one ton of cement is poured for each man, woman, and child on Earth. What are you going to do with yours?
Jack is the most common name in nursery rhymes.
Some people claim it takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 muscles to frown.
Two of the words in the English language that have all five vowels in alphabetical order are ‘abstemious’ and ‘facetious.’ Even more amazing is that no one really knows what these words mean.
Dreamt is the only English word that ends in ‘mt.’
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Word Spellings Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
Ninety percent or more of an iceberg is under water.
During a total solar eclipse, the temperature can drop by 6 degrees Celsius (20 degrees Fahrenheit).
About 45 percent of the world’s human population lives in China and India.
A wire clothes hanger is about 112 centimeters (44 inches) long when straightened.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Attire And Accessories Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
Halley’s Comet passes the Earth every 76 years, and the next time it will return will be 2062.
In 1896, the first comic strip, titled, “The Yellow Kid,” was published in the “New York World” newspaper. The cartoonist was named Richard Felton Outcault.
1,100 watts of electricity are needed to power a toaster.
The Sea of Tranquility on the Moon is deeper than the highest mountain on Earth.
‘Sheik’ means ‘old man’ in Arabic.
The symbol # is known as a pound sign, a hashtag, an octothorpe, and by other names. Octo means eight, and it does appear to have 8 legs. It also resembles the grid used in the game tic-tac-toe. Fascinating.
More than 500 meteorites, or rocks from outer space, hit the Earth each year.
Rubber bands last longer when kept refrigerated.
The Tower of Independence clock on the back of a U.S. $100 dollar bill shows the time as 4:10.
The first rugby club was formed in 1843.
The typical wave height from a Pacific tsunami is between 6 and 9 meters (20 and 30 feet).
In 1872, Yellowstone Park in the United States of America became the world’s first national park.
The automatic dishwasher was invented in 1889.
In the United States of America, email messages that are more than 180 days old can be read by the Federal Government without a warrant, and this includes deleted emails, which are still stored in the email system even after ‘deletion.’
Venus is the only planet in our solar system that spins clockwise.
Rhode Island is the smallest American state. Also, it is not an island.
Due to the distance between stars and Earth, humans see stars as they were more than 4,000 years ago.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Stars And Astronomy Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) invented the coat hanger.
Dolphins can hold their breath for eight to ten minutes underwater before needing to resurface to breath air.
The average person has 10,000 taste buds.
The Pyramid of Giza, one of the Great Pyramids in Egypt, is made of 2.5 million blocks of stone.
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is ‘screeched.’
The search engine Yahoo was originally called ‘Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web.’
Chinese gooseberries originate in New Zealand.
Before jets and jet lag, there were boats and boat lag.
The world’s knowledge is growing so fast that ninety percent of what we will know in 50 years’ time will be discovered in those 50 years.
The doorbell was invented in 1831.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Knock-Knock Jokes Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
‘Karoke’ means ‘empty orchestra’ in Japanese.
In 1972, a Swedish man balanced himself on one foot for more than five hours, without holding onto anything for support.
Castor oil is used as a lubricant in jet airplanes.
The three most common languages in the world are Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and English.
Eleven-year-old Frank Epperson left a cup of soda with a stirring stick inside it on a windowsill overnight. It froze solid, creating the very first ‘ice pop.’
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth President of the United States of America. He is listed in the Wrestling Hall of Fame.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Abraham Lincoln Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
Possibly, every person is afraid of something, and some people are said to be afraid of everything. A fear of everything is called panophobia. A fear of nothing is called nihilophobia . . . also known as being foolhardy.
‘Almost’ is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
The largest living structure on Earth is the 2,000 kilometer (1,243 mile) long Great Barrier Reef on Australia’s coast.
“Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine equipped to work efficiently if narrowly and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position.” -Robertson Davies (William Robertson Davies (1913 - 1995))
This is MFOL! . . . where there is no such thing as an unimportant fact . . . more follows . . . with some fun . . .
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Cats And Dogs Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
Why is it that when people are in the public eye they are said to be ‘in the limelight’? Invented in 1825, limelight was used in lighthouses and stage lighting by burning a cylinder of lime in an oxyhydrogen flame to produce a brilliant light. In the theatre, performers on stage ‘in the limelight’ were seen by the audience as the center of attention.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Theater And Thespians Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The world’s largest human-made hole is in Kimberly, South Africa. It has a circumference, or distance around its outer edge, of 1.6 kilometers, and a depth of 800 meters. Digging was started on it in 1871, to find buried diamonds.
Most of the vitamin C in fruits is in the skin.
The letter combination ‘ough’ can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains all of them: “A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.”
Cartoon character Sylvester the Cat’s full name is Sylvester J. Pussycat.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Domestic Cats Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
All the people on Earth could fit into a 1-kilometer cube, if done so in the manner that groups of people once stuffed themselves into telephone booths or crowds of clowns stuff all of themselves into tiny cars
Abdul Kassem Ismael, the Grand Vizier of Persia in the 10th century, could not bear to part with his 177,000-volume library when he traveled, and so he had the books carried by a caravan of 400 camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Reading And Books Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
What is ‘dry ice’? Dry ice is compressed carbon dioxide gas. It is compressed until it is liquefied; after liquefaction, it is frozen. Dry ice is used as a refrigerant, as it is a solid that changes back to a gas without ever becoming a liquid. It remains in a solid state for a longer time, and at cooler temperatures, than ordinary ice.
Phonetic ABC’s: A system used by the military and others when people need to spell out words to be precise in spoken communications. Usually this is done to avoid confusion when words or letters have similar sounds. Words are substituted for letters of the alphabet, commonly: Alpha for a, Bravo for b, Charlie for c, Delta for d, Echo for e, Foxtrot for f, Golf for g, Hotel for h, India for i, Juliet for j, Kilo for k, Lima for l, Mike for m, November for n, Oscar for o, Papa for p, Quebec for q, Romeo for r, Sierra for s, Tango for t, Uniform for u, Victor for v, Whiskey for w, X-ray for x, Yankee for y, and Zulu for z.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read The Spoken Word And Speaking Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
The oldest word in the English language is ‘town.’
‘Moon trees’ were grown from seeds taken to the Moon during the Apollo 14 mission in early 1971. NASA and USFS wanted to see if being in space or in the Moon’s orbit caused the seeds to grow differently.
Cars were first started with ignition keys in 1949.
Question: If you were to spell out each number, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter ‘a’?
Answer: One thousand.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Numbers And Counting Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
A purple finch is a type of bird. Despite its name, it is crimson, which is a shade of the color red.
American car horns beep in the tone of F.
Continue scrolling down this website page to read the rest of the article, or click or tap on these words to read Vehicles And Driving Gathered By David Hugh Beaumont.
China is believed to be the world’s oldest continuously existing human civilization. That is, if we consider humans to be ‘civilized’ . . .
The largest island in the Mediterranean Sea is Sicily.
The oldest business in the United States of America is the cymbal company Zildjian, which was originally founded in Constantinople in 1623, according to “American Heritage of Invention & Technology” (Winter 2000)
The sari or saree, the traditional dress of women on the Indian subcontinent, has been used continuously and relatively unchanged for thousands of years.
An average person consumes more than a ton of food and drink each year.
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William Moulton Marston was the creator of the fictional superhero Wonder Woman. He also invented the polygraph machine, widely known as the lie detector.
Bali, an island of Indonesia, has the world’s largest variety of flora, or plant life.
The car in the foreground on the back of an American $10 bill is a 1925 Hupmobile.
The real-life name of the horse in the television show “Mister Ed” was Bamboo Harvester.
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England’s first great industry was wool.
Clark Gable’s middle name was Clark, and his first name was William.
An electric eel can produce a shock of up to 650 volts.
The world record for a photographic memory feat is held by a man in Burma who recited 16,000 pages of Buddhist canonical texts from memory.
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Every year, one ton of cement is poured for each man, woman, and child on Earth. What are you going to do with yours?
Jack is the most common name in nursery rhymes.
Some people claim it takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 muscles to frown.
Two of the words in the English language that have all five vowels in alphabetical order are ‘abstemious’ and ‘facetious.’ Even more amazing is that no one really knows what these words mean.
Dreamt is the only English word that ends in ‘mt.’
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Ninety percent or more of an iceberg is under water.
During a total solar eclipse, the temperature can drop by 6 degrees Celsius (20 degrees Fahrenheit).
About 45 percent of the world’s human population lives in China and India.
A wire clothes hanger is about 112 centimeters (44 inches) long when straightened.
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Halley’s Comet passes the Earth every 76 years, and the next time it will return will be 2062.
In 1896, the first comic strip, titled, “The Yellow Kid,” was published in the “New York World” newspaper. The cartoonist was named Richard Felton Outcault.
1,100 watts of electricity are needed to power a toaster.
The Sea of Tranquility on the Moon is deeper than the highest mountain on Earth.
‘Sheik’ means ‘old man’ in Arabic.
The symbol # is known as a pound sign, a hashtag, an octothorpe, and by other names. Octo means eight, and it does appear to have 8 legs. It also resembles the grid used in the game tic-tac-toe. Fascinating.
More than 500 meteorites, or rocks from outer space, hit the Earth each year.
Rubber bands last longer when kept refrigerated.
The Tower of Independence clock on the back of a U.S. $100 dollar bill shows the time as 4:10.
The first rugby club was formed in 1843.
The typical wave height from a Pacific tsunami is between 6 and 9 meters (20 and 30 feet).
In 1872, Yellowstone Park in the United States of America became the world’s first national park.
The automatic dishwasher was invented in 1889.
In the United States of America, email messages that are more than 180 days old can be read by the Federal Government without a warrant, and this includes deleted emails, which are still stored in the email system even after ‘deletion.’
Venus is the only planet in our solar system that spins clockwise.
Rhode Island is the smallest American state. Also, it is not an island.
Due to the distance between stars and Earth, humans see stars as they were more than 4,000 years ago.
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Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) invented the coat hanger.
Dolphins can hold their breath for eight to ten minutes underwater before needing to resurface to breath air.
The average person has 10,000 taste buds.
The Pyramid of Giza, one of the Great Pyramids in Egypt, is made of 2.5 million blocks of stone.
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is ‘screeched.’
The search engine Yahoo was originally called ‘Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web.’
Chinese gooseberries originate in New Zealand.
Before jets and jet lag, there were boats and boat lag.
The world’s knowledge is growing so fast that ninety percent of what we will know in 50 years’ time will be discovered in those 50 years.
The doorbell was invented in 1831.
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‘Karoke’ means ‘empty orchestra’ in Japanese.
In 1972, a Swedish man balanced himself on one foot for more than five hours, without holding onto anything for support.
Castor oil is used as a lubricant in jet airplanes.
The three most common languages in the world are Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and English.
Eleven-year-old Frank Epperson left a cup of soda with a stirring stick inside it on a windowsill overnight. It froze solid, creating the very first ‘ice pop.’
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth President of the United States of America. He is listed in the Wrestling Hall of Fame.
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Possibly, every person is afraid of something, and some people are said to be afraid of everything. A fear of everything is called panophobia. A fear of nothing is called nihilophobia . . . also known as being foolhardy.
‘Almost’ is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
The largest living structure on Earth is the 2,000 kilometer (1,243 mile) long Great Barrier Reef on Australia’s coast.
“Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine equipped to work efficiently if narrowly and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position.” -Robertson Davies (William Robertson Davies (1913 - 1995))
This is MFOL! . . . where there is no such thing as an unimportant fact . . . more follows . . . with some fun . . .
