News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
The loudest sound ever measured occurred Aug. 27, 1883 when the island of Krakatoa erupted as a volcano. Ranchers in Alice Springs, Australia 2,233 miles away heard what sounded like rifle shots. It was the volcano.
Toilets vs restrooms — American English can be confusing. Visitors must be told that what they know as toilets are called restrooms in the USA but that you can’t rest or sleep in them, and what we call toilets are only a small part of the restroom and the water in them can only be used for flushing.
The first Wild West gunfighter “quick draw” duel occurred July 21, 1865 in Springfield, Mo. between Wild Bill Hickok and Davis Tutt. Wild Bill won. It was written up in Harper’s Magazine and made him a household name.
Lord Kelvin, the grandfather of thermodynamics and an indisputably brilliant man, predicted in 1898 that the world had but 400 years of oxygen left due to man-made industry.
The original names for the atom bombs that ended World War II were Fat Man and Thin Man and came from characters created by mystery writer Dashiell Hammett. Thin Man eventually became Little Boy but Fat Man — he was the Sidney Greenstreet character in Maltese Falcon — stayed.
The Maltese Falcon was first made a movie in 1931 and starred Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade. It was made before the Motion Picture Production Code went into effect and hence is far more risque than the famous 1941 version with Humphrey Bogart.
Cortez was Jewish and from New York. His real name was Jacob Krantz. He used “Cortez” to take advantage of the Latin lover craze created by Rudolph Valentino. He eventually quit acting and went to work as a stockbroker.
Vantablack is the darkest artificial substance known. It’s a chemical made up of vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays that absorb 99.965 percent of light in the visible spectrum.
The Washington Monument was the tallest structure in the world when it was completed in 1884. It was supplanted five years later by the Eiffel Tower.
The University of Chicago basketball team won its first conference title in 1907. Its star was Edwin Hubble. A space telescope is named for him.
You don’t taxes ladies? Go naked. That’s what Lady Godiva did in response to her husband’s onerous levies when she took her famous ride through Coventry.