Don’t Call Us

Steven Spielberg was rejected by USC’s film school — three times.

August 3, 2005October 9, 2006 | Entertainment · Trivia

All in the Family

Relationships among U.S. presidents:

James Madison was the half first cousin twice removed of George Washington.
Zachary Taylor was the second cousin of James Madison.
Grover Cleveland was the sixth cousin once removed of Ulysses S. Grant.
Theodore Roosevelt was the third cousin twice removed of Martin Van Buren.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the fourth cousin once removed of Ulysses S. Grant, the fourth cousin three times removed of Zachary Taylor, and the fifth cousin of Theodore Roosevelt (although his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, was a niece of Theodore).
Harry S. Truman was the great-great-great nephew of John Tyler.
Richard Nixon was the seventh cousin twice removed of William Howard Taft and the eighth cousin once removed of Herbert Hoover.
George H.W. Bush was the fifth cousin four times removed of Franklin Pierce, the seventh cousin three times removed of Theodore Roosevelt, the seventh cousin four times removed of Abraham Lincoln, and the eleventh cousin once removed of Gerald Ford.

August 2, 2005March 28, 2006 | History · Trivia

Paging Farrokh Bulsara

Music stars and their un-sexy real names:

David Bowie – David Robert Hayward Stenton Jones
Eric Clapton – Eric Patrick Clapp
Alice Cooper – Vincent Damon Furnier
Dido – Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong
Bob Dylan – Robert Alan Zimmerman
Jewel – Jewel Kilcher
Mama Cass – Ellen Naomi Cohen
Marilyn Manson – Brian Warner
Meat Loaf – Marvin Lee Aday
George Michael – Yorgos Panayiotou
Nelly – Carnell Haynes, Jr.
Lou Reed – Louis Firbank
Busta Rhymes – Trevor Tahiem Smith
Cliff Richard – Harry Webb
Sade – Helen Folasade Adu
Seal – Henry Olusegun Olumide Samuel
Gene Simmons – Chaim Witz
Cat Stevens – Steve Georgiou
Sly Stone – Sylvester Stewart
Ice T – Tracy Marrow
Randy Travis – Randy Bruce Traywick
Shania Twain – Eileen Regina Edwards
Frankie Valli – Frank Castelluccio
Eddie Vedder – Edward Louis Severson

Paul Revere’s real name was Paul Revere.

July 31, 2005March 28, 2006 | Entertainment · Trivia

Or Best Offer

Unusual items sold on eBay:

The right to permanently tattoo an ad on a woman’s forehead (sold to GoldenPalace.com for $10,000)
A Volkswagen Golf that had previously been registered to Josef Kardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) (sold on eBay’s German site for €188,938.88)
The first ride on Kingda Ka, the tallest roller coaster on Earth ($1,691.66)
A piece of Nutri-Grain resembling E.T. ($1,035 Australian)
A 50,000-year-old mammoth weighing 250,000 kilos (£61,000)

Unsold: a 16-year-old’s virginity and a half-eaten grilled-cheese sandwich.

July 25, 2005May 12, 2008 | Trivia

Elbow Room

The world’s population reached:

1 billion in 1802
2 billion in 1927
3 billion in 1961
4 billion in 1974
5 billion in 1987
6 billion in 1999

According to the United Nations Population Fund, the 6 billionth baby was born at 12:02 a.m. on Oct. 12, 1999, to Fatima Nevic and her husband, Jasminko, in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

The forecast, according to the U.N.’s World Population Prospects database:

2010: 6.8 billion
2020: 7.6 billion
2030: 8.2 billion
2040: 8.7 billion
2050: 9.1 billion

Better get started early on that Christmas shopping.

July 24, 2005March 29, 2006 | Society · Trivia

Mare Rides

Folk remedies to prevent nightmares:

Stop up the keyhole, place your shoes with the toes facing the door, then get into bed backward.
Put something made from steel, such as an old pair of scissors, in your bedstraw.
Urinate into a clean, new bottle, hang the bottle in the sun for three days, carry it — without saying a word — to a running stream, and throw it over your head into the stream.

Or take a small child free of sin, soak it in a bath for a couple of hours, then dry it on a goat or a sheep. The next night, sleep with the naked baby in your bed and you’ll never have nightmares again.

July 24, 2005December 14, 2010 | Trivia

Nimrod, Minnesota

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:BoringORSign_fxwb.jpg — Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Unfortunate place names:

Accident, Maryland
Big Ugly Wilderness Area, West Virginia
Difficult, Tennessee
Effort, Pennsylvania
Foulness, Essex, England
Hell For Certain, Kentucky
Hole in the Ground, Oregon
Nothing, Arizona
Pity Me, County Durham, England
Toadsuck, Texas

Niemyje-Zabki, Poland, means “He is not cleaning his teeth.”

July 23, 2005July 17, 2013 | Humor · Trivia

Red Alert

Next time you visit the circus, if the band starts playing “Stars and Stripes Forever” — run. The hymn is known as the “disaster march”; it’s played during a life-threatening emergency to organize aid and evacuate the audience without panic.

Circus bands never play it under any other circumstances.

July 21, 2005March 29, 2006 | Entertainment · Trivia