A Collection of Strangeness
- When Leo Tolstoy and his brother were children, they created a club with a peculiar, almost impossible initiation ceremony. In order to become a member, one had to stand in a corner for a half an hour and not think of anything white.
- Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of the blue whale
- Mrs. Caroline Squires of Cincinnati filed for a divorce from her husband in 1949 on grounds of desertion. She testified he'd stepped out "for a beer" on the Fourth of July, 1917, and had never come back.
- The French national anthem, "La Marseillaise," derived its title from the enthusiasm of the men of Marseilles, France, who sang it when they marched into Paris at the outset of the French Revolution. Rouget de l'Isle, its composer, was an artillery officer. According to his account, he fell asleep at a harpsichord and dreamt the words and the music. Upon waking, he remembered the entire piece from his dream and immediately wrote it down.
- Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of the blue whale
- A law passed in Nebraska in 1912 really set down some hard rules of the road. Drivers in the country at night were required to stop every 150 yards, send up a skyrocket, then wait eight minutes for the road to clear before proceeding cautiously, all the while blowing their horn and shooting off flares..
- Birds do not sleep in their nests. They may occasionally nap in them, but they actually sleep in other places.
- The formula for cold cream has hardly changed at all in the 1,700 years since it was originally made by the Roman physician Galen.
- George Lumley, aged 104, married Mary Dunning, aged 10, in Nortallerton, England on August 25, 1783. She was the great-great granddaughter of the woman who'd broken her engagement to Lumley, eighty years before.
- Caesar salad has nothing to do with any of the Caesars. It was first concocted in a bar in Tiajuana, Mexico on July 4, 1924 by Caesar Cardini (born Cesare) (1896-1956), an Italian hotel owner, restaurateur and chef.
- Objects weigh slightly less at the equator than at the poles.
If the Earth was a non-rotating sphere, it would show equal gravitational values (values of g) at any point on its surface. However, the Earth is not spherical but elliptical, with a greater radius at the equator than at the poles. As a result, one might expect gravitational readings to be lower at the equator than at the poles. And, because the Earth is rotating, there is a tendency for objects to be thrown away from the Earth. This tendency is greatest at the equator and zero at the poles, reducing the gravitational attraction. - Crocodiles and alligators are surprisingly fast on land. Although they are rapid, they are not agile; so if you ever find yourself chased by one, run in a zigzag line. You'll lose him or her every time.
- After Albert Einstein had been at Princeton for some months, local news hounds discovered that a twelve-year-old girl happened to stop by the Einstein home almost every afternoon. The girl's mother hadn't thought to ask Einstein about the situation until the newspapers reported it, but when she got the opportunity after that she did so. What could her daughter and Einstein have in common that they spent so much time together? Einstein replied simply, "She brings me cookies and I do her arithmetic homework."
- When the French Academy was preparing its first dictionary, it defined "crab" as, "A small red fish which walks backwards." This definition was sent with a number of others to the naturalist Cuvier for his approval. The scientist wrote back, "Your definition, gentlemen, would be perfect, only for three exceptions. The crab is not a fish, it is not red and it does not walk backwards."