Fact of the day thread

[Pete]

Today’s fact. Elton John has pianos named after Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, and Diana Krall.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. The al-Qarawiyyin Library in Fez, Morocco is the oldest working library in the world.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. Morton's toe is when your second toe is longer than your big toe. It’s widespread in art, with the Statue of Liberty being one of the more famous examples.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. When Steven Spielberg re-enrolled at California State, Long Beach to earn his BA more than 30 years after dropping out, he was given three course credits in paleontology for making Jurassic Park.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. In Australia, weed whackers are called whipper snippers.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. There are approximately 200 feral cats roaming the grounds of Disneyland, where they help control the park’s rodent population. They’re all spayed or neutered, and the park’s staff provides them with both extra food and medical care.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. Viking men wore makeup.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. High schools and universities in New Zealand are allowed to keep up to a pound of uranium on the premises for educational purposes.

 

[Pete]

Great white sharks rarely survive in captivity. Experts suspect the electricity in buildings interferes with the animals' electrosensory systems—though that hasn't stopped some aquariums from trying, and failing, to display them.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. Wisconsin is known as the Badger State because the area’s lead miners used to spend winters in tunnels burrowed into hills. Like badgers.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. The wood frog can hold its pee for up to eight months.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. In the 1880s, a baboon worked as a signalman for nine years on a South African railroad. He was paid in brandy and never made a mistake.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. The national animal of Scotland is the unicorn.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. President Jefferson hated formal affairs so much that he would often greet foreign dignitaries while wearing pajamas.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. Goosebumps are actually caused by a muscle. It is called the arrector pili muscle.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. Tsundoku is the act of acquiring books or other reading materials and not reading them.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. The plural of cul-de-sac is culs-de-sac.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. The American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5 handbook classifies caffeine withdraws as a mental disorder.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. Giraffes have the highest blood pressure of any mammal, although their resting heart rate is about the same as humans.

 

[Pete]

Today’s fact. The record for the longest tire skid was set in 1964 at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.