Friday The 13th

There is so much folklore about Friday the 13th. Below are a few fun facts about the "scary" date.

" The ill-fated Apollo 13 launched at 13:13 CST on Apr. 11, 1970. The sum of the date's digits (4-11-70) is 13 (as in 4+1+1+7+0 = 13). And the explosion that crippled
the spacecraft occurred on April 13 (not a Friday). The crew did make it back to
Earth safely, however.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt would not travel on the 13th day of any month and would never host 13 guests at a meal. Napoleon and Herbert Hoover were also
triskaidekaphobic, with an abnormal fear of the number 13.

The number 13 suffers from its position after 12, according to numerologists
who consider the latter to be a complete number - 12 months in a year, 12 signs
of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel,
12 apostles of Jesus, 12 days of Christmas and 12 eggs in a dozen. "

Here are the full 13 from yahoo.com

100 Facts About The Human Body

This is a really good read. Some interesting fun facts about the human body. Examples below but follow the link for 100!

• By the age of 60, most people will have lost about half their taste buds. Perhaps you shouldn’t trust your grandma’s cooking as much as you do. Older individuals tend to lose their ability to taste, and many find that they need much more intense flavoring in order to be able to fully appreciate a dish.
• After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp. If you’re heading to a concert or a musical after a big meal you may be doing yourself a disservice. Try eating a smaller meal if you need to keep your hearing pitch perfect.
• The aorta is nearly the diameter of a garden hose. The average adult heart is about the size of two fists, making the size of the aorta quite impressive. The artery needs to be so large as it is the main supplier of rich, oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.

Click here to read all 100.

Prison Escape Stories

Everyone loves a good prison escape story and I am here to provide some for you.

Click here to read about 10 incredible prison breaks.

19 Of The Weirdest Fish Stories You'll Ever Read

"26 dead, 297 injured and two left traumatised. Matt Clarke takes a look at 19 painful incidents involving fish."

(The second to the last one is the worst!)

Click here to read them.

The History Of Miniature Golf (In 10 Fun Facts)

I did a little digging around and created a list of facts that tell the history of the great sport of miniature golf. enjoy.

• The Ladies' Putting Club in St. Andrews, Scotland is considered the very first miniature golf course. It was built in 1867 for practical purposes as it was considered unacceptable for women to take the club back past their shoulder during this time period.
  
  
• Holes were originally 50 to 100 yards long.
  
  
• In 1916, James Barber designed Thistle Dhu, considered America's quintessential miniature golf course. It was designed with the Tuileries Garden at the Louvre in mind. Miniature golf courses were very artistic at this time and were built for their natural beauty more than sport.
  


• In 1926 the fad of building miniature golf courses on Manhattan roof tops was in full swing and by the end of that year there were nearly 150 successful courses.
  
  
• During the Great Depression, miniature golf was considered "big business" and one of the few businesses that could be successful. Over 25,000 courses were built during this period. It became the most popular entertainment for people of all ages.
  
  
• There were stories of 12-year-old boys, during the Great Depression, that for an initial investment of 90 cents would set up a miniature golf course in a vacant lot and turn a 1000% profit over the weekend.
  
  
• Six thousand Tom Thumb courses were built during the depression. They were the first "brand" of miniature golf and the beginning of the end for artistic courses. It was said a Tom Thumb courses could be built and open to the public in six days.
  


• Tom Thumb courses were considered sterile minimalist and all had very similar designs. The key attribute to this type of course was that you always had a chance to get a hole-in-one. A classic example of a sterile minimalist course hazard is the Loop-The-Loop.
  
  
• During the second half of the 20th century "crazy golf" took over. Gone were the days of flat land covered in fairly easy holes. Giant monuments such as windmills, clowns, and castle were taking over to attract as many drive-by customers as possible.
  
  
• By the 1990's corporate America had taken over. It was no longer viable to just build a miniature golf course alone. Competition brought on the need for entertainment complexes full of go-karts, arcades, and amusement rides to bring customers in.
  

The Origin Of Common Phrases

I found these and thought they were really interesting. enjoy.

LONG IN THE TOOTH
Meaning: Old.
Origin: Originally used to describe old horses. As horses age, their gums recede, giving the impression that their teeth are growing. The longer the teeth look, the older the horse.

CHARLEY HORSE
Meaning: A muscle cramp.
Origin: In 1640, Charles I of England expanded the London police force. The new recruits were nicknamed "Charleys." There wasn't enough money to provide the new police with horses so they patrolled on foot. They joked that their sore feet and legs came from riding "Charley's horse."

BEAT AROUND THE BUSH
Meaning: Go about things in a circuitous manner, go around an issue rather than deal with it directly.
Origin: In the Middle Ages, people caught birds by dropping a net over a bush and clubbing the ground around it to scare the birds into flying into the net. Once a bird was caught, you could stop beating around the bush and start eating.

PULL SOMEONE'S LEG
Meaning: Fool someone.
Origin: Years ago back-alley thieves worked in pairs. One thief, known as a "tripper up," would use a cane, rope, or piece of wire to trip a pedestrian, knocking them to the ground. While the victim was down, the second thief would rob them. Pulling your leg originally referred to the way the "tripper up" tried to make someone stumble. Today it only refers to tripping someone figuratively.

SECOND STRING
Meaning: Replacement or backup.
Origin: You might have caught William Tell without an apple, but not without a second string. In medieval times, an archer always carried a second string in case the one on his bow broke.

MEET A DEADLINE
Meaning: Finish a project by an appointed time.
Origin: The phrase was born in prisoner-of-war camps during the Civil War. Because resources were scarce, the prison camps were sometimes nothing more than a plot of land surrounded by a marked line. If a prisoner tried to cross the line, he would be shot. So it became known as the "deadline."

SON OF A GUN
Meaning: An epithet.
Origin: In the 1800s, British sailors took women along on extended voyages. When babies were born at sea, the mothers delivered them in a partitioned section of the gundeck. Because no one could be sure who the true fathers were, each of these "gunnery" babies was jokingly called a "son of a gun."

I'VE GOT A FROG IN MY THROAT
Meaning: I'm hoarse from a cold.
Origin: Surprisingly, this wasn't inspired by the croaking sound of a cold-sufferer's voice, but by a weird medical practice. "In the Middle Ages," says Christine Ammer in It's Raining Cats and Dogs, "infections such as thrush were sometimes treated by putting a live frog head first into the patient's mouth; by inhaling, the frog was believed to draw the patient's infection into its own body. The treatment is happily obsolete, but its memory survives in the 19th century term frog in one's throat."

CHEW THE FAT
Meaning: Chat; engage in idle conversation.
Origin: Originally a sailor's term. Before refrigeration, ships carried food that wouldn't spoil. One of them was salted pork skin, a practically inedible morsel that consisted largely of fat. Sailors would only eat it if all other food was gone... and they often complained as they did. This (and other) idle chatter eventually became known as "chewing the fat."

PAY THROUGH THE NOSE
Meaning: To pay a high price; to pay dearly.
Origin: Comes from the ninth-century Ireland. When the Danes conquered the Irish, they imposed an exorbitant Nose Tax on the island's inhabitants. They took a census (by counting noses) and levied oppressive sums on their victims, forcing them to pay by threatening to have their noses actually slit. Paying the tax was "paying trough the nose."

Interactive Olympic Medal Counts

I found this on the New York Times website. It graphically shows the medal counts of the countries that competed in each of the Olympic games. The most interesting part is how countries come and go as you click through the years. enjoy.

Click here to see the interactive Olympic medal history.

Top 7 Presidential Fun Facts

With the election drawing near, here are my favorite interesting facts involving the "leader of the free world".

7. Fourteen Presidents served as vice presidents: J. Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, A. Johnson, Arthur, T. Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, Nixon, L. Johnson, Ford, and George Bush.

6. The tallest president was Lincoln at 6'4"; at 5'4", Madison was the shortest.

5. The ancestry of all 43 presidents is limited to the following seven heritages, or some combination thereof: Dutch, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Swiss, or German.

4. Jame Buchanan was the only president never to marry. Five presidents remarried after the death of their first wives——two of whom, Tyler and Wilson, remarried while in the White House. Reagan was the only divorced president. Six presidents had no children. Tyler——father of fifteen——had the most.

3. Presidents Adams, Jefferson, and Monroe all died on the 4th of July; Coolidge was born on that day.

2. For two years out country was run by two people who were not elected. After Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned in 1973, President Nixon appointed Gerald Ford as vice president. Nixon resigned the following year, which left Ford as president, and Ford's appointed vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, as second in line.

1. 23% of presidents have had assassination attempts made against them, 40% of those were successful (I don't like those odds). Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy were assassinated in office. Assassination attempts were made on the lives of Jackson, T. Roosevelt, F. Roosevelt, Truman, Ford, and Reagan.

Above info based on http://www.littleknownfactsshow.com/presidents.html