Category: Omnibit

Count Feodor Ivanovich Tolstoy — cousin to the great author Leo — got himself a berth on the sloop Nadezhda on the First Russian Circumnavigation in 1803.

The event’s purpose was to bring prestige to the nation and advance scientific knowledge.

Tolstoy was royalty so he didn’t have an assigned role. He spent his time drinking, picking fights and playing jokes. He got the ship’s priest drunk, for instance, then glued his beard to the deck.

The final straw, though, was likely the orangutan.

During an island stop, he acquired a pet orangutan. He snuck it into the captain’s cabin, took out the logbook, put a blank sheet of paper on top and showed the ape how to cover it with ink. He left while ape went on drawing. When the captain returned, the records were ruined along with much scientific data.

Enough became enough and Tolstoy and the orangutan was marooned by the crew on the Kamchatka peninsula. From there Tolstoy made it to Aleutian islands and from there to Siberia and home.

He became known as The American due to his stay in Alaska. Nobody knows what happened to the orangutan.

Count Feodor Ivanovich Tolstoy

Lotte Lenya named in the American version of “Mack the Knife” was the wife of composer Kurt Weill who co-wrote The Threepenny Opera from which the song comes. Lotte is also known for playing the evil Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie From Russia With Love. Suky Tawdry, Lucy Brown et al were characters in the play.

Lotte Lenya William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 2-19-16

A giraffe’s tongue is 20 inches long. Yes Anthony, that means they can clean their own ear with it.

William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 2-18-16

Honiara is a city with a population of 64,000 and is the capital of the nation known as the Solomon Islands. It is built around an old Japanese airstrip on the island of Guadalcanal they called Runga Point although it was spelled with an L — really.

The United States took it from them in 1942 and renamed it Henderson Field. In February of the next year they secured the island and turned it into a major base with a sophisticated infrastructure.

And that infrastructure would become the national capital Honiara. The city’s international airport is actually at the site of Henderson Field.

William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 2-15-16 William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 2-15-16

 

The hottest pepper in the world is the Carolina Reaper with a Scoville scale measurement of 2.2 million. It is about 20 times as a hot as an habanero, which was the world’s hottest back in 1999.

It is 2,000 times hotter than a jalapeno.

William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 2-13-16

So where did Abraham Lincoln keep his bankbook? In his stovepipe hat. Really.

William Lawrence Sr. Omnibit 2-12-16

Dueling US Navy — Dueling was a serious problem in the U.S Navy back in the day. Between 1798 and the Civil War it lost two-thirds as many officers to it as to combat at sea.

William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 2-11-16

John Dunlop did not invent the pneumatic tire for a car, but for his son’s tricycle.

William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 2-10-16

45 percent of all the golf courses in the world are in the United States.

William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 2-9-16