fascinating facts

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Here are some things I've learned today from my recently-acquired (free at a garage sale!) copy of The People's Almanac, a totally great and huge reference book from the '70s by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace, the Book of Lists people. What a great book.
- Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1932) slept in a coffin lined wiht letters from her innumerable lovers! (great quote from critic Jules Lemaître: "She could enter a convent, discover the North Pole, have herself inoculated with rabies, assassinate an emperor or marry a Negro king without astonishing me")
- Several miles north of the Panama Canal lies a valley where due to some then-unknown factor, all the trees have rectangular trunks!
- Sixty-five airplanes were hijacked in 1969!
- Roadside Burma Shave ad from 1930:
HINKY DINKY
PARLEY VOO
CHEER UP FACE
THE WAR IS THROUGH
BURMA-SHAVE
(OK not a fact but amusing nonetheless)

- Flying fish can stay airborne for 1,000 feet!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 9 June 2003 03:20 (twenty-two years ago)

urgh

Didn't mean to italicize that whole thing.

But this is the thread where you post your own fascinating facts.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 9 June 2003 03:21 (twenty-two years ago)

So I went to check my copies of the People's Almanac 1& 2, and I found a clipping of Catherine Deneuve in a Chanel No 5 ad.

― rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 9 June 2003 03:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, fuck me.

― jm (jtm), Monday, 9 June 2003 03:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I bought a copy of a book by TE Lawrence book at a book fair a couple years ago and found a clipping of his obituary in it.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 9 June 2003 04:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, I once bought a couple of Kennedy books at a library book sale, and they were full of newspaper and magazine clippings. There was even a photocopy of a letter from RFK to the books' previous owner!

― rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 9 June 2003 04:17 (twenty-two years ago)

That's crazy. This doesn't match that, but once I bought a paperback of The 10th Victim, which was made into a movie with Marcello Mastroianni, and there was a funny little clipping of a newspaper photo of him in it. It's on my wall. Also, a friend of mine once bought a Nabokov book and inside there was a little picture of him, clipped from a magazine, with the caption, "Hectoring and cajoling: Nabokov".

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 9 June 2003 05:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I once bought a book (can't remember what it was) and found three "Peanuts" strips from 1969, clipped for no apparent reason, tucked inside the cover.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 9 June 2003 06:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Several miles north of the Panama Canal lies a valley where due to some then-unknown factor, all the trees have rectangular trunks!

This implies the factor is known now. If so, what's the reason?

― nickn (nickn), Monday, 9 June 2003 06:02 (twenty-two years ago)

This is turned into a complete different thread, which is okay with me. I must've been really bored when I started this--"oooh, fascinating facts! yeah, that's a great idea for a thread! it's fascinating and all!"

So let's keep talking about things we found in used books.

(crosspost!) nickn, I just said "then-unknown" because the book was published in the '70s. It might be still unknown.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 9 June 2003 06:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Jesus was friends with Mary Magdalen, the whore. Elvis presley knew many whores.

That fact was in a book, apparently. I never read it. Makes you think, though. Hmmm.

― ChristineSH (chrissie1068), Monday, 9 June 2003 14:44 (twenty-two years ago)

A few weeks ago, after borrowing a book on Pontius Pilate from the (semi)local library, I found a page of a love letter (at least, I think it was) tucked in the back cover. No names, but I didn't think people wrote that kind of language down, anymore;>

I was looking for an address, then I would have (anonymously) mailed it back to them.

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Monday, 9 June 2003 14:55 (twenty-two years ago)

The American Civil War started and finished on the same (virginia?) farm.

― kephm, Monday, 9 June 2003 17:16 (twenty-two years ago)

This exciting newspaper article reports that Some of the youths spit, too.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Monday, 9 June 2003 17:25 (twenty-two years ago)

The American Civil War started and finished on the same (virginia?) farm.

what is your source for this outlandish claim? the American Civil War is usually held to have started when the Confederates shelled Fort Sumter, and ended when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House (although Johnston in North Carolina & some western units didn't surrender for a bit longer).

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 11 June 2003 11:31 (twenty-two years ago)

sixteen years pass...

Geography trivia: France shares its longest border with Brazil. Source: https://t.co/86M3PXFAtT pic.twitter.com/rbktgtfA3R
— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) June 3, 2020

― calzino, Wednesday, 3 June 2020 23:41 (five years ago)

Wow

― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 3 June 2020 23:45 (five years ago)

I would've thought that French Guiana could be more accurately described as "a French Possession" than as "France", but wikipedia corrected me:

French Guiana is an overseas department and region of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. It borders Brazil to the east and south and Suriname to the west. French Guiana is the only territory of the mainland Americas to have full integration in a European country.

― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 4 June 2020 00:56 (five years ago)

Whaaaaaaaaaaattttt

― paolo, Friday, 5 June 2020 08:50 (five years ago)

I fucking love a good geography fact. The northernmost point of California is further north than the southernmost point of Canada.

― paolo, Friday, 5 June 2020 08:51 (five years ago)

China and India could both lose a billion people and they'd still be the two countries with the highest populations in the world.

― paolo, Friday, 5 June 2020 08:52 (five years ago)

The northernmost point of California is further north than the southernmost point of Canada

It gets crazier. No fewer than 25 states have territory north of the southernmost point of Canada.

― Josefa, Friday, 5 June 2020 13:51 (five years ago)

Ermahgerd

― paolo, Friday, 5 June 2020 15:01 (five years ago)

I fucking love a good geography fact.

A favourite of mine: Loch Ness contains more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined. Plenty of room for Nessie to be hiding, in other words.

― Captain Beeftweet (Tom D.), Friday, 5 June 2020 15:13 (five years ago)

Or does she just make it seem like more water by being in it. EH?

― nashwan, Friday, 5 June 2020 15:15 (five years ago)

the northernmost tip of Ireland is in the republic, not exactly mindblowing but I didn't know it until recently.

― calzino, Friday, 5 June 2020 15:22 (five years ago)

I think there's more water in Loch Lomond than Loch Ness, so in your face England and Wales

― paolo, Saturday, 6 June 2020 09:28 (five years ago)

and you can stick your chalk + limestone aquifers up your arse, englishers!

― calzino, Saturday, 6 June 2020 10:01 (five years ago)

Loch Lomond is the largest by surface area but Loch Ness has the greatest volume of water - I told you, Nessie needs plenty of room to stay hidden.

― Captain Beeftweet (Tom D.), Saturday, 6 June 2020 10:25 (five years ago)

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