Text Version: Contrary to popular belief, St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City is not the Pope’s official church nor the head of all churches in the Roman Catholic faith. In fact, it’s not even a cathedral. Although St. Peter’s Basilica may be the largest Roman Catholic church (with an area of 5.7 acres) and a lot of papal ceremonies take […]
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Text Version: One of the earliest descriptions of the casino game roulette was described in the French novel ‘La’ Roulette, Ou Le Jour’, written by Jaques Lablee. Roulette is named after a French diminutive for “little wheel.” As many of you know, players place bets on either, single numbers or a range of numbers, the colors, or whether the number […]
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Text Version: The term “Speak of the Devil” is the shortened version of “Speak of the Devil and he doth appear. ” It comes from England in the middle ages,where it wasn’t used in such a light hearted manner. Back then, the phrase went along the lines of “Talk of the Devil” and as it was considered a superstitious belief, that […]
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Text Version: The Twitter Bird’s first name is Larry, as in Larry Bird. He’s named after the hall of fame Basketball player Larry Bird, who played for Biz Stone’s (the founder of twitter) home team, the Boston Celtics.
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Text Version: Dennis Wilson was the drummer for the surf rock band ‘The Beach Boys’, formed in 1961. The band had several songs about the sport like, “Surfer Girl”,”Surfin’ Safari” and “Surfin’ USA”. However, out of all the band members comprising of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson; their cousin Mike Love; and friend Al Jardine, Dennis was the only […]
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Text Version: In 1888, Nellie Bly (aka Elizabeth Cochrane) discussed with her editor at ‘New York World’ an idea to write a story, and beat the fictitious character ‘Phileas Fogg’ in Jules Verne’s book “Around the World in 80 Days” by actually accomplishing the feat in less than 80 days. The story became so big that competing New York newspaper […]
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Text Version: In 1996, when Pete Sampras played Alex Corretja in the U.S. Open, he had a bit of a stomach bug. He actually threw up on the baseline during the fifth set. One of the referees warned Pete Sampras that he would be disqualified if he caused another delay. Pete Sampras pulled himself together and was not only able […]
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Text Version One day on Mercury (i.e -the time it takes to rotate around its axis once) lasts 176 earth days. A year on Mercury (i.e – the amount of time for Mercury to orbit the sun once) is 87.97 earth days. In that sense, it remains daytime for a full year on Mercury and it stays night for one […]
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Text Version: John C. Calhourn was the only Vice President to serve under two presidents, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. He also married his first cousin Floride Bonneau Calhoun. Together they had 10 kids over 18 years, however three of their children died in infancy.
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Text Version: Canada has over 3 million lakes, making them home to 60% of the World’s lakes. In other words, they have more lakes than all other countries combined.
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Text Version: The tentacles that stick out from the head of a snail are not its “feelers” as most people believe. On the ends of those tentacles are the snail’s eyes. Land snails have two sets of tentacles that stick out, the longer set of tentacles are the ones that have the snail’s eyes. This way they can move their […]
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Text Version: Even a nuclear war won’t get you out of paying your taxes or keep the Internal Revenue Service from coming after you. Since the 1960s, the U.S. Treasury Department, has had an Internal Revenue Manual, guiding IRS employees on how to function in the event of wars, natural disasters, pandemic influenza, terrorist attacks and yes, nuclear explosions. According […]
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Text Version: The late Michael Jackson had once approached J.K. Rowling about the possibility of doing a musical version of Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling said no to the idea. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, she said that she felt that it wouldn’t be successful. She told Oprah, “Michael Jackson wanted to do a musical. I said no to a […]
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Text Version: Giraffes spend about 80 percent of their day eating and they are said to be able to eat up to 77 pounds (35 kilograms) of food a day. Their favorite tree is the thorny acacia, which provides them all the necessary nutrients they need. The high water content in the leaves and fruit they eat even make it […]
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Text Version: According to New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries, which is in charge of Bio Security, there were and are no native land snakes in New Zealand and they would like to keep it that way. For that reason, it is against the law not only to have a snake, but even to be aware of one and […]
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Text Version: Mr. Clean made his debut in 1958. Within six months of launching the cleaner, Mr. Clean became the best selling household cleaner on the market. For the first 4 years, Mr. Clean didn’t have a first name. However in 1962, fans spoke up and Procter & Gamble listened. A promotion was started to give Mr. Clean a first […]
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Text Version: The Flintstones pilot episode came out in 1959, as a 90 second clip to draw advertisers to the show. At the time though, it was called “The Flagstones.” It was intended to be a show for adults, not kids. In fact, the first two full seasons of the show were sponsored by Winstons, a cigarette company.
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Text Version: In 1968, also known to baseball fans as “Year Of The Pitcher”, Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Redsox, won the batting title with a .301 average. He was the only player that year to have a batting average over .300. To this day, it’s still the lowest batting average to ever win a batting title in Major League […]
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