The U.S. Senate used the same gavel for 165 years, from its inception until 1954, when the vice president splintered it during a heated debate on nuclear energy.
Who broke it? Richard Nixon.
Trivia
A Tremor in the Force
George Lucas originally wanted Orson Welles to provide the voice of Darth Vader.
Finally he opted for James Earl Jones, whose voice was less recognizable.
Snap, Crackle, Pop
The sound of Rice Krispies in other languages:
- Finnish: “Riks! Raks! Poks!”
- French: “Cric! Crac! Croc!”
- German: “Knisper! Knasper! Knusper!”
- Swedish: “Piff! Paff! Puff!”
- Spanish: “Pim! Pum! Pam!”
In 2002, pollster Kellyanne Conway found that most Americans could name the three elves but could not name any three of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices.
Thumbs Up
Whenever a death sentence is commuted or a death-row inmate is released, anywhere in the world, the Colosseum’s nighttime illumination is changed from white to gold.
It’s a gesture against the death penalty, which Italy abolished in 1948.
Nothing Doing
“Can’t Be Done”:
- “You can’t stand for five minutes without moving, if you are blindfolded.”
- “You can’t stand at the side of a room with both your feet lengthwise touching the wainscoting.”
- “You can’t get out of a chair without bending your body forward, or putting your feet under it; that is, if you are sitting squarely on the chair, and not on the edge of it.”
- “You can’t break a match if the match is laid across the nail of the middle finger of either hand, and passed under the first and third finger of that hand, despite its seeming so easy at first sight.”
- “You can’t stand with your heels against the wall and pick up something from the floor.”
- “Don’t try to rub your ear with your elbow, for it will be a failure.”
- “It takes a clever person to stand up when placed two feet from a wall with his hands behind his back and his head against the wall.”
— Sam Loyd’s Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles, Tricks, and Conundrums (With Answers), 1914
Barely Wet
You can float in the Dead Sea without getting your newspaper wet.
The water’s saltiness makes floating objects unusually buoyant.
Pneumonia Victims
Famous people who died of pneumonia:
- William Henry Harrison
- Leo Tolstoy
- Jim Backus
- Lawrence Welk
- Billy Wilder
- Charles Bronson
“Am I Talking Too Much?”
When It’s a Wonderful Life was released in 1946, the FBI labeled it “subversive.”
They said that its depiction of a greedy businessman was “a common trick used by communists.”
The Flynn Effect
Are we getting smarter? IQ scores around the world have been going up by about three IQ points per decade.
Suggested reasons include improved nutrition, smaller families, better education, and the stimulating modern environment, but no one really knows what’s causing it.
It’s called the Flynn effect, after New Zealand political scientist who discovered it.
SRO
Standing shoulder to shoulder, all the people in the world could fit on the Indonesian island of Bali.