Factoid of the day!
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I keep coming across interesting little facts in classes and books. So, I thought I would share them. I will now begin sharing one fact I found interesting each day. Comments are welcome.
Edit- I should have mentioned this in the main post earlier, any factoids I post are from sources that I consider extremely credible. If I doubt something then I will fact check it before posting. Should anyone not trust me and/or my selection of sources, I encourage you to research for yourself should it be needed to satisfy your thirst for knowledge. Enjoy. :)
Daily Factoid #1 aug 1
In the USA, it was illegal to use the word "tornado" in weather forecasts until the 1950's.
Daily Factoid #2 aug 2
The word "hysteria" has the root meaning of "wandering womb". It was for thousands of years(at least into the 1950s) believed that women acting irritable, anxious, etc, was a result of their uterus moving around within their bodies.
For this reason, one of the early uses of the battery was to cause a pair of charged metal plates to move back and forth (vibrating). This device was used in a doctors office on the lower abdomen of a woman and surprise surprise, she would often leave more relaxed and calm then when she came in. The Sears catalog, which is generally attributed to the creation of home shopping, would sell a smaller home version of this machine, which led to the modern vibrator. :D
Daily Factoid #3 aug 3
If you hear in a medieval history class that people ate a type of porridge as the main part of their diet, that porridge is actually more interesting then you may have thought. It was one of the precursors to beer and contained roughly 15% alcohol by volume. People would typically consume 1-1.5 gallons of the stuff per day. That's a lot of alcohol. :shock:
Daily Factoid #4 aug 4
In medieval England, the forest laws made it illegal to hunt in the forests, as they all belonged to the king. If you were found in the woods with an animal's blood on your hands, you would be executed on sight. This is where we get the phrase "caught red handed".
Note: I don't remember if he was the one to initiate the law, but William the Conqueror, a.k.a. William the Bastard, was one such ruler that strictly enforced this law.
Daily Factoid #5 aug 5
A butt-load is an actual unit of measurement. It is roughly 450 gallons. Note that it doesn't actually have anything to do with a persons butt.
Daily Factoid #6 aug 6
In the 1920's, Utah passed a law requiring that women's skirts come up no further then three inches from the ground. Well thats no fun.
Daily Factoid #7 aug 7
In a study regarding teenage girls that took chastity pledges, 9/10 broke the pledge within 1 year. They also had an equal or greater rate of contracting an STD because they were much more likely to have anal sex (generally without a condom).
Daily Factoid #8 aug 8
Medieval houses in the Germanic world and England were typically made from the daub and wattle process, which results in a product vaguely similar to a crappy version of modern drywall(if you know the details of the process you should get that pun). Because these house walls were so easy to break, there were often problems of people smashing right through the side of someone's house, stealing and running back out the hole in the wall. Laws to deal with this is where we get the phrase "breaking an entry" or "breaking and entering"
Daily Factoid #9 aug 9
The previously mentioned daub and wattle houses generally had thatched roofs which were perfect places for rats to live. The problem of the occasional rat falling out of the ceiling while you sleep is why canopy beds were invented.
Daily Factoid #10 aug 10
AM radio can be received from farther away then normal during the night for the following reason: At night, the D and E layers of the ionosphere, which absorb AM radio waves, essentially disappear, leaving only the F layer, which reflects AM radio waves.
Daily Factoid #11 aug 11
The word barbarian actually comes from a Greek word referring to any non-Greeks. The reason was that it was hard for the Greeks to figure out the languages of people from the north(or anywhere else for that matter). The Greeks thought it sounded like they were just saying "bar bar bar bar".
Daily Factoid #12 aug 12
The air pressure at the earth's surface is approximately 14.7 pounds per square inch. Didn?t realize there was that much pressing down on ya, huh? Also, the surface air pressure at Hiroshima the moment little boy exploded was about 716 lbs per square inch.
Note: I think 14.7 is for sea level, it is likely to change slightly based on the altitude of your location.
Daily Factoid #13 aug 13
Joe McCarthy, a.k.a. "Tailgunner Joe", was never actually a tailgunner, he was an observer in some combat missions but was never really involved in any fighting. He got the "achievement" of most shots fired in the war by riding along during training flights over safe zones and firing at nothing.
Daily Factoid #14 aug 14
A lightning bolt is approximately 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5x hotter then the sun's surface), occurs in 1/10th of a second, and can strike an object 5 to 10 miles from its source. A bolt is only about the width of a pencil.
Daily Factoid #15 aug 15
In the early 1900?s, condoms and diaphragms were made from animal hides. (Sheep skin if I remember correctly)
Daily Factoid #16 aug 30
According to Buy’s Ballot Rule, if you stand with your back to the wind, turn 10-15 degrees and stick your arms strait out to your sides, your left hand will be pointing to an area of low pressure and your right to high pressure.
Daily Factoid #17 aug 31
Many believe that while the Chinese invented gunpowder, they only used them for fireworks, not weapons. In fact, they had used gunpowder to make flamethrowers, shrapnel canons and more traditional ones, land mines and bombs/grenades. All of which was long before Europeans got to it.
The Chinese also created an auto-crossbow that would be the fastest firing projectile weapon until WWI.
note- This one is from a history channel documentary. I would like to think it is credible, but I wouldn't trust it quite as much as sources I generally go by. Such documentaries often seem to over generalize things and make small individual instances seem widespread and commonplace.
Daily Factoid #18 sep 4
Godzilla’s Japanese name, Gojira, was a mix of the Japanese words for whale and gorilla.
Daily Factoid #19 sep 5
The coriolis force of the earth’s rotation is much too weak to effect things on a small scale. The thing from the Simpsons about toilet water flushing in a different direction because of the hemisphere it is in was just bs, a lot of people believed it apparently.The coriolis force does have an impact though on large scale winds and tides.
Factoids of the Day #20-22 sep 20
#20-The meteorological term “cyclone” refers to an area of low pressure, not just tornado type occurrences as many people believe. A tornado is always a cyclone but not all cyclones include tornados.
Note: In certain parts of the world, “cyclone” does specifically refer to a hurricane/typhoon.
#21-A human egg only lives for about a day without fertilization and is the largest single cell in the human body. A sperm cell is the smallest human cell, but it typically lives for 2-3 days and in some cases been known to live for as long as 8 days!
Note-of course those numbers would be different outside of the human body.
#22-It was once believed that Ireland was the beginning of hell, which was apparently just west of it. Part of the reasoning was just the appearance of the large jagged rocks along parts of its coast.
Edit- I should have mentioned this in the main post earlier, any factoids I post are from sources that I consider extremely credible. If I doubt something then I will fact check it before posting. Should anyone not trust me and/or my selection of sources, I encourage you to research for yourself should it be needed to satisfy your thirst for knowledge. Enjoy. :)
Daily Factoid #1 aug 1
In the USA, it was illegal to use the word "tornado" in weather forecasts until the 1950's.
Daily Factoid #2 aug 2
The word "hysteria" has the root meaning of "wandering womb". It was for thousands of years(at least into the 1950s) believed that women acting irritable, anxious, etc, was a result of their uterus moving around within their bodies.
For this reason, one of the early uses of the battery was to cause a pair of charged metal plates to move back and forth (vibrating). This device was used in a doctors office on the lower abdomen of a woman and surprise surprise, she would often leave more relaxed and calm then when she came in. The Sears catalog, which is generally attributed to the creation of home shopping, would sell a smaller home version of this machine, which led to the modern vibrator. :D
Daily Factoid #3 aug 3
If you hear in a medieval history class that people ate a type of porridge as the main part of their diet, that porridge is actually more interesting then you may have thought. It was one of the precursors to beer and contained roughly 15% alcohol by volume. People would typically consume 1-1.5 gallons of the stuff per day. That's a lot of alcohol. :shock:
Daily Factoid #4 aug 4
In medieval England, the forest laws made it illegal to hunt in the forests, as they all belonged to the king. If you were found in the woods with an animal's blood on your hands, you would be executed on sight. This is where we get the phrase "caught red handed".
Note: I don't remember if he was the one to initiate the law, but William the Conqueror, a.k.a. William the Bastard, was one such ruler that strictly enforced this law.
Daily Factoid #5 aug 5
A butt-load is an actual unit of measurement. It is roughly 450 gallons. Note that it doesn't actually have anything to do with a persons butt.
Daily Factoid #6 aug 6
In the 1920's, Utah passed a law requiring that women's skirts come up no further then three inches from the ground. Well thats no fun.
Daily Factoid #7 aug 7
In a study regarding teenage girls that took chastity pledges, 9/10 broke the pledge within 1 year. They also had an equal or greater rate of contracting an STD because they were much more likely to have anal sex (generally without a condom).
Daily Factoid #8 aug 8
Medieval houses in the Germanic world and England were typically made from the daub and wattle process, which results in a product vaguely similar to a crappy version of modern drywall(if you know the details of the process you should get that pun). Because these house walls were so easy to break, there were often problems of people smashing right through the side of someone's house, stealing and running back out the hole in the wall. Laws to deal with this is where we get the phrase "breaking an entry" or "breaking and entering"
Daily Factoid #9 aug 9
The previously mentioned daub and wattle houses generally had thatched roofs which were perfect places for rats to live. The problem of the occasional rat falling out of the ceiling while you sleep is why canopy beds were invented.
Daily Factoid #10 aug 10
AM radio can be received from farther away then normal during the night for the following reason: At night, the D and E layers of the ionosphere, which absorb AM radio waves, essentially disappear, leaving only the F layer, which reflects AM radio waves.
Daily Factoid #11 aug 11
The word barbarian actually comes from a Greek word referring to any non-Greeks. The reason was that it was hard for the Greeks to figure out the languages of people from the north(or anywhere else for that matter). The Greeks thought it sounded like they were just saying "bar bar bar bar".
Daily Factoid #12 aug 12
The air pressure at the earth's surface is approximately 14.7 pounds per square inch. Didn?t realize there was that much pressing down on ya, huh? Also, the surface air pressure at Hiroshima the moment little boy exploded was about 716 lbs per square inch.
Note: I think 14.7 is for sea level, it is likely to change slightly based on the altitude of your location.
Daily Factoid #13 aug 13
Joe McCarthy, a.k.a. "Tailgunner Joe", was never actually a tailgunner, he was an observer in some combat missions but was never really involved in any fighting. He got the "achievement" of most shots fired in the war by riding along during training flights over safe zones and firing at nothing.
Daily Factoid #14 aug 14
A lightning bolt is approximately 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5x hotter then the sun's surface), occurs in 1/10th of a second, and can strike an object 5 to 10 miles from its source. A bolt is only about the width of a pencil.
Daily Factoid #15 aug 15
In the early 1900?s, condoms and diaphragms were made from animal hides. (Sheep skin if I remember correctly)
Daily Factoid #16 aug 30
According to Buy’s Ballot Rule, if you stand with your back to the wind, turn 10-15 degrees and stick your arms strait out to your sides, your left hand will be pointing to an area of low pressure and your right to high pressure.
Daily Factoid #17 aug 31
Many believe that while the Chinese invented gunpowder, they only used them for fireworks, not weapons. In fact, they had used gunpowder to make flamethrowers, shrapnel canons and more traditional ones, land mines and bombs/grenades. All of which was long before Europeans got to it.
The Chinese also created an auto-crossbow that would be the fastest firing projectile weapon until WWI.
note- This one is from a history channel documentary. I would like to think it is credible, but I wouldn't trust it quite as much as sources I generally go by. Such documentaries often seem to over generalize things and make small individual instances seem widespread and commonplace.
Daily Factoid #18 sep 4
Godzilla’s Japanese name, Gojira, was a mix of the Japanese words for whale and gorilla.
Daily Factoid #19 sep 5
The coriolis force of the earth’s rotation is much too weak to effect things on a small scale. The thing from the Simpsons about toilet water flushing in a different direction because of the hemisphere it is in was just bs, a lot of people believed it apparently.The coriolis force does have an impact though on large scale winds and tides.
Factoids of the Day #20-22 sep 20
#20-The meteorological term “cyclone” refers to an area of low pressure, not just tornado type occurrences as many people believe. A tornado is always a cyclone but not all cyclones include tornados.
Note: In certain parts of the world, “cyclone” does specifically refer to a hurricane/typhoon.
#21-A human egg only lives for about a day without fertilization and is the largest single cell in the human body. A sperm cell is the smallest human cell, but it typically lives for 2-3 days and in some cases been known to live for as long as 8 days!
Note-of course those numbers would be different outside of the human body.
#22-It was once believed that Ireland was the beginning of hell, which was apparently just west of it. Part of the reasoning was just the appearance of the large jagged rocks along parts of its coast.
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Who would have guessed that the word 'hysteria' had such a sexual past.
Enlightenment is beautiful!
Enlightenment is beautiful!
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h_fan1773 wrote...
do you have any more factoids for all of the fakkers out thereIndeed I do. I'm putting them out 1 per day just so I don't run out. I currently have about 2 weeks worth planned, but I'm sure if I looked over some old notes I could find more and I'm always getting more from classes, books and documentaries.
Jacob wrote...
I'm enjoying this threadGlad to hear it. Its good to know my nerddom is appreciated. I'm getting my BA in history so many will be from various history classes I've taken. I'm currently also taking a meteorology course, so a number will also come from that.
(should anyone be confused, meteorology is not weather forecasting, it is just the study of the atmosphere, which may include weather forecasting. The class I'm taking is mainly about weather, specifically the troposphere)
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Well it was a cheap source of calories/nutrients. It would of been thick and lumpy, made from grains.
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This is a great thread. I always liked learning random facts like these because some are so bizzare.
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Minsc wrote...
Who would have guessed that the word 'hysteria' had such a sexual past.Enlightenment is beautiful!
Yeah man not even relevant to mass hysteria :o
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Glad to see everyone likes it so much. Hopefully I can keep it going for a long time. I would like to be able to say I contribute something so that I really deserve my newly acquired 'fakku elite' title.
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lucky..... :( I wish I was elite! Oh well. Please keep 'em coming and try to do some more facts from different eras please!
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I'm not just going around asking people for random facts or searching the internet, I figure anyone can do that. The factoids I post will all be from my own studies, so you will see a number of repeated eras/subjects.
Also as a side note, I do double check any factoids before posting them if I don't totally trust the author, professor, whatever else I got them from.
For the elite thing: Yeah, I was pretty happy about getting the title. I think I'm the first person to get it aside from the initial 3 that had it since it was implemented, but I may be mistaken.
Also as a side note, I do double check any factoids before posting them if I don't totally trust the author, professor, whatever else I got them from.
For the elite thing: Yeah, I was pretty happy about getting the title. I think I'm the first person to get it aside from the initial 3 that had it since it was implemented, but I may be mistaken.