Completely True Fact Archive — 2008
12/28/08 – If you removed all the blood vessels from ten fully grown adults, and laid them end-to-end, you would be remembered as one of history’s worst monsters.
12/21/08 – In Polynesian culture, it is considered good luck if a hummingbird flies beak-first into your eye.
12/14/08 – It is a myth that Mussolini “kept the trains running on time.” In truth, he ordered all trains in Italy suspended 5 meters off the ground, where they remained throughout his rule.
12/7/08 – Most antelopes are unable to discern right from wrong.
11/30/08 – Although horse racing is dubbed the “Sport of Kings,” the only monarch in recorded history to regularly compete as a jockey was King Halvard the Eerily Small, of Sweden, who was just under 5′ 1″. Halvard died in 1612 and was succeeded by his son, Valfrid the Dyspeptic, who enjoyed horse races but was too fat to ride.
11/23/08 – There are still laws in 18 states banning the use of Allan wrenches, or “hex keys,” which in the 1920s were commonly thought to be derived from witchcraft.
11/16/08 – The Swiffer was originally developed as part of a covert weapons program at Lockheed Martin. Its domestic usefulness was discovered by accident.
11/9/08 – Tito Puente had six fingers on his right hand, and was in fact William Goldman’s inspiration for Count Rugen, the Six-Fingered Man, in “The Princess Bride.”
11/2/08 – Early photocopier models made a sound like a dozen children screaming, even when not in use. Secretaries took to calling them “screamers,” a nickname that many use to this day. Can you call the help desk? The screamer’s out of toner.
10/26/08 – There is a street in Seattle where all the fire hydrants are made out of gingerbread.
10/19/08 – J. Pierpont Morgan had a dark, crippling fear of onions, and would check for them everywhere he went — behind curtains, in the glove box, in his shoes, under the mattresses of hotel rooms, anywhere onions could conceivably “lurk,” as he put it.