Three Bits o Trivia

Irish Arms, Shark Free Waters and Lunar Orbits

In 17th century Ireland, whether you could own a gun, pistol, or sword depended upon your religion. Catholics were required to be unarmed.

If you are afraid of sharks, you can swim in the ocean safely in the hours before a hurricane arrives. Sharks can detect an approaching hurricane and will depart for the open sea before it arrives.

A billion years ago, the Moon was much closer to Earth than it will be tonight. Its tighter orbit meant it took just 20 days to make a lunar month.

Thurgood Marshall, Adobe and Calcium Deposits

Before becoming the first African-American Supreme Court Justice of the United States, Thurgood Marshall was the winning lawyer in the landmark segregation case Brown v. Board of Education.

Software giant Adobe Systems got its name from the Adobe Creek that ran behind the house of company founder John Warnock.

Stalactites are sharper than stalagmites.

Beelines, Pilgrims and St. Kilda

Although the phrase "make a beeline" mean to take a direct route, bees actually fly in wide zig-zag patterns.

The Boston Red Sox changed their name after each of their first three seasons. First, they were known as the Americans, then the Somersets, then the Pilgrims. Four years later, they became the Red Sox for good.

St. Kilda, the island chain off the coast of Scotland, isn't named after an actual saint. No "Kilda" has ever been canonized.

Odd Dates, Bugs Bunny and Lost Tribes

November 19, 1999, was the last time that all of the digits in the year, month and day were odd numbers. The next such date will be January 1, 3111.

A Wild Hare was the Warner Brothers animated short film that introduced the world to Bugs Bunny.

From 1899 to 1901, a group of British Israelites became convinced that they were a lost tribe of Israel, and that the Ark of the Covenant could be found in an ancient burial mound in Ireland. After two years of digging, they found nothing.

London Bridges, Coldwater and Mississippi Officeholders

London Bridge has fallen down at least twice. In 1014, Saxons and Norwegians pulled the wooden pilings out. In 1962, London Bridge began falling down, and it was soon after demolished and rebuilt, but the remains of the demolished bridge were sold and reconstructed in Lake Havasu City, Arizona in 1968.

Marine life is much more abundant in colder waters. Cold water holds more dissolved gases and nutrients.

Mississippi State Constitution. Article 14 ("General Provisions"), Section 265, provides that no person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in the state.

County Names, Southerners and Actresses

Q: What name did King County go by prior to its name change in 1986?
A: King County. That largest county in Washington and home to its largest city, Seattle, was named after William R. King, Franklin Pierce's vice president. In 1986, the King County Council "renamed" King County as King County, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

More than half of the population of Canada lives farther south than Seattle.

Kim Basinger, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Julia Roberts all turned down the role of Annie in Sleepless in Seattle.

Squirrels, Queens and Earthquake Clusters

The arctic ground squirrel of Alaska and northern Canada hibernates for up to nine months.

Victoria Island in British Columbia is named for Queen Victoria, the Canadian sovereign from 1867 to 1901. Nearby Prince Albert Sound is named after her prince consort.

The Cascadia subduction zone, which runs 50 miles off the Pacific coast from California to British Columbia, produces massive 9+ earthquake clusters every 300 years, on average. The last clusters occurred in 1700 and in about 1500.

Heavy Rain, Growing Glaciers and High ZIP Codes

Ketchikan has the heaviest average rainfall in North America (4th highest in the world), and measures its annual rainfall in feet, not inches. Citizens of Ketchikan refer to precipitation as "Liquid Sunshine."

While many glaciers have been receding in recent decades, the Hubbard Glacier has continued to advance for about a century. Fed by Mount Logan, Canada's highest peak, the Hubbard Glacier is North America's longest tidewater glacier.

The highest ZIP code used in the United States is 99950, assigned to post office boxes in Ketchikan. Nearby Ward Cove uses 99928, while Ketchikan's street delivery addresses use 99901.

Glacier Bay, Krill and Lakes

Alaska's Glacier Bay contains 16 glaciers, 12 of which calve to deposit icebergs into the bay.

By weight, no animal is more abundant than krill.

Alaska has more than 3,000 rivers and 3 million lakes.

Prospectors, Glacier Fields and Slow Drainage

During the Klondike Gold Rush, officials in Canada would not let a prospector enter Canadian soil from Skagway unless he had at least one ton of supplies.

Alaska has more than 5,000 glaciers, but proportionately, it is only about half as glaciated as the rest of the world. Worldwide, about 10% of the land surface is covered with glaciers. In Alaska, they cover about 5% of the land surface.

Rain that falls twenty miles inland from the Pacific Coast near Skagway Alaska drains into the Yukon River basin and eventually empties into the Bering Sea, some 1,500 miles away.

Noobs, Big Cities and Remote Roads

Newcomers to Alaska are called cheechakos. Oldtimers are called sourdoughs.

Alaska's capitol city of Juneau is larger than Rhode Island.

No roads lead to Alaska's capitol, Juneau. But once you and your car get there, you can take it to the Mendenhall Glacier, world's only drive-up glacier.

State Mammals, Drifting Plates and Mountains

Alaska has two offical state mammals. The state land mammal is the moose. The state marine mammal is the bowhead whale.

At its current rate of drift, the geological plate on which Los Angeles sits will be in the Gulf of Alaska in about 76 million years.

Alaska has 17 of the 20 highest mountain peaks in the U.S.

Rain, Rivers and Mountains

In 1953, it rained in Seattle for 33 straight days.

Before it became a state, the territory of Washington was proposed to be called Columbia, after the Columbia River.

Mount Rainier is named after a British soldier who fought against the Americans in the Revolutionary War.

Glaciers, Skid Row and Highs and Lows

Washington state has more glaciers than the other 47 contiguous states combined, plus Hawaii.

Yesler Way in Seattle was the first impoverished urban spot to be called a "Skid Row." The name came from lumbermen using it as a skidway for logs. Their fondness for saloons gave rise to the association of "skid row" with drunks.

Seattle's offical lowest recorded temperate was precisely 0 degrees, on January 31, 1950, and its highest recorded temperature was exactly 100 degrees on July 20, 1994.

Strikes, Produce and Markets

The Seattle General Strike in 1919 was the first citywide general strike in the country.

Everyone knows that Washington leads the U.S. in apple production, but it is also the top producer of red raspberries, hops, sweet cherries, pears, Concord grapes and Niagara grapes.

Seattle's Pike Place Market is the longest continuously operating farmer's market in the U.S., having opened on this day 100 years ago.

Halls of Fame, Gospel Songs and Timely Births

Elvis has been inducted into three music Halls of Fame: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Only Johnny Cash is a member of as many (Cash is in the Songwriters, Country and Rock Halls of Fame).

Elvis won only three Grammy awards, all for gospel recordings.

Lisa Marie Presley was born precisely nine months after Elvis and Priscilla Presley's wedding day.

Mating Birds, the United Nations and Slogans

Cardinals (the birds) tend to mate for life and stay together year-round.

The Queens Museum of Art is the building that housed the United Nations before its present Manhattan complex was constructed.

The word "slogan" comes from sluaghairim, meaning "army shout", a celtic war cry.

Cheap Apartments, Birds and Linebackers

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, over a million apartments in East Germany were simply abandoned.

Larry Bird was drafted by the Boston Celtics with the sixth pick in the 1978 NBA draft, but played another season for Indiana State before joining the Celtics.

Dwight Eisenhower played linebacker in college.

Perseus, Saint's Tears and Comets

On the night of the Perseid meteor shower's peak, the Perseid radiant is near the double star cluster of Perseus, and is named for this proximity.

The shooting stars were traditionally called St. Lawrence's tears.

The Persied meteors are the remains of previous orbital passes by the comet Swift-Tuttle, which was identified and named in 1862 and then not seen again until 1992.

Readers, Radicals and Ratification

Boston and Philadelphia both claim to be home to the first library in America.

According to the FBI, terrorists use "tourism", "smelling fresh air" and playing football or soccer as euphemisms for waging jihad.

Rhode Island was the last of the thirteen colonies to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

Wolves, Polyandry and Whale Tails

Wolves have been known to grow as large as 175 pounds.

A marriage of one woman to many men is called polyandry.

A humpback whale's tail is unique, like fingerprints.

Singing Whales, Tsunamis and Singing Whales

Only the male humpback whales sing.

In 1946, an Aleutian earthquake sent 100 foot tsunami waves onto Unimak Island.

A beluga whale is also known as a sea canary, for its varied voice.

Dodger Coaches, Manson Targets and Eels

Babe Ruth once coached the Dodgers.

The Manson family's first targets were Doris Day's son Terry Melcher and his girlfriend, Candice Bergen. Charles Manson had sought a recording deal from Melcher and been scorned. When the clan members got to the Melcher home on August 9, 1969, they found Sharon Tate and others instead.

Q: What kind of eel is a congo eel.
A: Actually, it isn't an eel. It's a salamander.

Patron Saints, Devils and Accidents

The patron saint of athletes is St. Sebastian.

Q: What do Al Downing and Michael Bacsik have in common?
A: Each gave up home run pitches that set new MLB career HR records (Downing to Aaron for #715, Bacsik to Bonds for #756).

Barry Bonds hit 311 of his 756 home runs after the age of 35.

Base 12 Days, Tooth Gaps and a Second Moon

Egyptians used a base twelve system of counting, which is thought by some scholars to be the source of our 24 hour day.

The gap between the front two teeth is called the diastima.

An asteroid named Cruithne orbits the Earth.

Big Bases, Orphans and Ship Names

Camp Pendleton is 125,000 acres large.

2,000,000 Ugandan children have lost at least one parent to AIDS or civil war.

The RMS Titanic and her two sister ships - RMS Olympic and HMHS Gigantic (later renamed the Britannic) - were named after the Greek mythological races, the Titans, Olympians and Giants.

Moths, Bollywood and the Emmy

Some species of moth have such short life spans that they never need to eat.

Hollywood produces about 400 films per year. Bollywood (India's film industry) releases about 800.

The "Emmy" Award was originally called the "Immy," a term commonly used for the early image orthicon camera.

Champagne, World Cups and Big Macs

Dom Perignon invented champagne on this day in 1693.

Mexico was the first nation to host the World Cup twice.

Your Big Mac has fewer calories than your large order of fries, but it does have about 40 more calories than your corn muffin.

English Brides, Persia and California

In England between 1500 and 1700 the median age of first marriage for women was twenty-six.

Persians have always called their nation Iran or the "Land of the Ayrans." For over 2,500 years, Westerners called it Persia, after a southern region of the country. In 1935, they formally requested that the rest of the world start calling them by their proper name, Iran.

California was named after Calafia, a female ruler in a popular Spanish novel.

Christ the Redeemer, Nazis and Credit Cards

Corcovado is the name of the mountain from which Christ the Redeemer statue overlooks Rio de Janeiro.

The Nazis sterilized those with congenital mental defects, schizophrenia, manic-depressive illness, hereditary epilepsy or severe alcoholism. They also sterilized the blind and the deaf, sometimes even if they had become so due to illnesses or accidents.

Diner's Club was the first credit card.

Honorees, Beetle Names and Macropods

In October 1990, Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez declared a Yahweh Ben Yahweh Day. A month later, Yahweh Ben Yahweh was indicted on federal racketeering and conspiracy charges.

Agathidium bushi, A. cheneyi and A. rumsfeldi, are all scientific names for types of slime mold beetles.

A long-legged person would be considered macropodous.