Longest Elevator Fall
In 1945, Betty Lou Oliver plunged 75 stories inside an elevator when a B-25 bomber struck the Empire State Building.
Fourteen people died in the plane crash, but Oliver survived.
“IP Over Avian Carriers”
Someone make a note, in case we ever run out of power:
In 1990 the Internet Engineering Task Force proposed a way to send Internet messages by homing pigeon.
It was used — once — to transmit a message in Bergen, Norway.
A New Theory
Why do landmasses “sag” toward the south pole, like the Sherwin-Williams paint logo?
In 1973 Ormonde de Kay Jr. published a hypothesis.
He called it “the theory of continental drip.”
Hapax Legomenon
A hapax legomenon is a word that occurs only once in a given body of text:
- NORTELRYE (“education”) was used only by Chaucer, and only once.
- AUTOGUOS, an ancient Greek word for “plow,” was used only once, in Hesiod.
- FLOTHER, a charming synonym for “snowflake,” appears only once in written English before 1900 (in a manuscript from around 1275).
- PIM, a stone weight of about a quarter ounce, appears only once in Biblical Hebrew (1 Samuel 13:20).
HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS appears only once in Shakespeare’s works (in Love’s Labour’s Lost). Probably a good thing.
Whale Song Distance
Whale songs can travel up to 1,800 miles.
Living Former Presidents
There have been only three periods when five former American presidents were alive at the same time:
- March 4, 1861-Jan. 18, 1862: Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan
- Jan. 20, 1993-April 22, 1994: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush
- Jan. 20, 2001-June 5, 2004: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton
Herbert Hoover lived for 31 years after leaving office; James Polk lasted only three months.
The “Infinite Monkey Theorem”
A monkey has one chance in 19,928,148,895,209,409,152,340,197,376 of correctly typing the first 20 letters of Hamlet (ignoring punctuation, spacing, and capitalization).
And Hamlet contains more than 130,000 letters.
Aileen Pringle
In the 1924 silent film Three Weeks, Conrad Nagel tenderly picks up Aileen Pringle to carry her into the bedroom.
Lip readers noted that she appears to be saying, “If you drop me, you bastard, I’ll break your neck.”
Riddle of the Sphinx
For most of its history, Egypt’s Great Sphinx lay buried up to its neck in sand. This photo was taken in 1867; it wasn’t fully dug out until 1925.
Strangely, we know very little about it. It’s one of the world’s largest statues, but no one knows who built it, or when, or whose likeness it bears. We’re not even sure what it is — we call it a sphinx, but we borrow that term from Greek mythology. A true sphinx would have the head of a woman.
No one knows what the ancient Egyptians called it, but its Arabic name, Abu al-Hôl, translates as “Father of Terror.” Maybe we should cover it up again.
National Statistics Per Capita
Large countries get the most attention, but the picture changes when you adjust for size:
- Highest GDP: United States
- Highest GDP per capita: Luxembourg
- Largest military: China
- Largest military per capita: Vatican City
- Most expensive military: United States
- Most expensive military per capita: Israel
- Most Olympic medals: United States
- Most Olympic medals per capita: Australia
- Most Cannes Palmes d’Or: United States
- Most Cannes Palmes d’Or per capita: Denmark
- Most Nobel Prizes: United States
- Most Nobel Prizes per capita: Iceland
- Most startup companies: United States
- Most startup companies per capita: Israel
