Odd and Wonderful Facts

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Walt Disney didn't like P.L. Travers, the author of the "Mary Poppins" books. During the filming, he insisted that the music writers work with her, and listen to her complaints. He couldn't wait to wrap the film, as her input was contracted for only the filming itself. She didn't appreciate him ignoring her suggestions, and for years afterward said he was difficult to work with.

Beer is probably the oldest alcoholic beverage known to mankind. A recipe for beer was found in an ancient Egyptian tomb. It was well known before that time, possibly back to 6k BC. It is one of the constants among civilisation. Every society has had beer, of one sort or another.

Yay, beer!! !

Barkeep, another pint, if you please ! !! !

Emil Zatopek and his wife, Dana, were both born on September 19, 1922. (Emil was four hours older.)

Norris and Ross McWhirter, the twin brothers who edited the Guinness Book of World Records, were friends of Roger Bannister. Norris was also the timekeeper for Bannister's sub four-minute mile race at Iffley Road on May 6, 1954.

Bannister never medaled in the Olympic Games, coming fourth at Helsinki in 1952. His "failure" motivated him to seek the goal of running the mile in under four minutes. (The winner, Josey Barthel, was the only track gold medalist from Luxembourg. He, like Bannister, worked full time and trained in similar fashion.)

Roger Bannister became a doctor at age 25, and was made a consultant in neurology at age 33.

He is married to Swedish artist Moyra Jacobssen. They have four children and 14 grandchildren.

All of France's Olympic marathon champions were born outside of France. One was from Luxembourg and two from Algeria.

The word Whisky comes from Gaelic 'uisge beath' meaning water of life. The surname MacBeth means son of life

The name given to someone who is a collector of beer bottles is a 'Labeorphilist'
(try saying that after drinking a few bottles )

Think of beer as liquid bread.

ichiro suzuki is the only person in mlb history to have a inside the park home run in a allstar game

After Desert storm when Saddam sent engineers into Kuwait to blow up hundreds of oil wells, over the course of 7 mounths more then 1,000,000,000 barrels of oil burned.

During this time vast lakes of oil had formed, some 6' deep!

10,000,000 barrels of oil was dumped into the sea.

according to Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the oil well fires consumed more than 4 million barrels of oil a day at their height.

Iraq had 4th largest tank force on Earth.

Iraq conscript army exceeded 1,000,000 prior to op. desert storm

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has peanut butter. It'll expire in December 2009. You can buy some of their peanut butter for around $500.

Ferrari has used four wheel disc brakes on every model they've produced since 1959.

moron IQ 70-51
imbecile IQ 26-50
idiot IQ 25-1
Color or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, yellow, blue, black, etc. Color derives from the spectrum of light (distribution of light energy versus wavelength) interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors. Color categories and physical specifications of color are also associated with objects, materials, light sources, etc., based on their physical properties such as light absorption, reflection, or emission spectra.

Typically, only features of the composition of light that are detectable by humans wavelength spectrum from 400 nm to 700 nm, roughly are included, thereby objectively relating the psychological phenomenon of color to its physical specification. Because perception of color stems from the varying sensitivity of different types of cone cells in the retina to different parts of the spectrum, colors may be defined and quantified by the degree to which they stimulate these cells. These physical or physiological quantifications of color, however, do not fully explain the psychophysical perception of color appearance.

The science of color is sometimes called chromatics. It includes the perception of color by the human eye and brain, the origin of color in materials, color theory in art, and the physics of electromagnetic radiation in the visible range (that is, what we commonly refer to simply as light).

Stanley Kubrick never got the academy award for best director.

Under the right circumstances, humans can see X-rays.


The Mandated Reference Link That Nobody Seems To Bother With.

Some facts about The Wizard of Oz:


Shirley Temple was originally chosen for the part of Dorothy.

Gale Sondergaard was originally chosen for the part of the Wicked Witch of the West, but was later discarded because she was too pretty. The part then went to Margaret Hamilton.

W.C. Fields was originally chosen for the part of Professor Marvel/the Wizard, but was let go in a dispute over money.

And she'd be MUCH better choice - those who placed their hopes on miss Garland weren't disapointed by her but she was simply too OLD - I'm too lazy to check now but I guess she must have been 17 at that time and she didn't look any younger despite wearing an adult copy of child's dress and child's hairstyle.

She was actually 16 at the time - you were one year off.

The writers actually wrote the dialogue for the wizard as played by Fields. There's some disagreement, but Ol' WC was in the process of writing a script for a movie he was set to star in over at Paramount Studios at that time. He didn't turn the part down over money.

Odd fact-only the cowardly lion casting remained the same, the writers wanted Bert Lahr from the beginning.