Weird Facts & More 9

  1. Clarabell the Clown (Bob Keeshan) with Howdy Doody  show host Buffalo Bob Smith.Better known as the original Captain Kangaroo, Bob Keeshan was also the original Clarabell the Clown on the Howdy Doody TV show (1947 - 1952. Verified
  2. Bob Keeshan was fired twice from the Howdy Doody Show.  Read More
  3. HOWDY DOODY had 48 freckles on his face, one for each state--at that time.
  4. William Shatner (of Star Trek fame) played the short-lived role of Ranger Bob in 1954 on Howdy Doody.  Source
  5. The last episode of the children's show "Howdy Doody", ends with the only words ever spoken by the clown Clarabell Hornblow: "Goodbye, kids."
  6. A software company buried a $1,000 prize deep in its Terms of Service to see if anyone actually read them. After 5 months and over 3,000 sales, someone finally asked about the prize. Source
  7. The 1st US federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. was in 1986.
  8. Samoa Air has become the world’s first airline to introduce a pricing policy which charges passengers by body weight. Time to diet. Source
  9. The 1st US federal legislation prohibiting narcotics (opium) was enacted in 1909.
  10. The 1st US federal penitentiary building was completed at Leavenworth, Kansas in 1906.
  11. The ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.
  12. The Black Death reduced the population of Europe by one third in the period from 1347 to 1351.

  13. The Colosseum has long been known as a site of Christian martyrdom. It was converted into a shrine as early as the sixth century and still serves as the venue for the Vatican's Good Friday services. However, there is no evidence that Christian persecutions ever took place in the Colosseum.
  14. A religion on a pacific island worships American soldiers and prays for their return. Source
  15. Picher, Oklahoma is considered the most toxic place in the United States. The town has been ravaged by industrial mining; so much so that a majority of it’s inhabitants have fled and it’s current population is 20. There have been numerous reports of sinkholes appearing overnight as mine shafts collapse. Often, underground water, highly acidic and concentrated with heavy metals, come bubbling into these sinks and turns them into toxic ponds. Source
  16. The dollar was established as the official currency of the US in 1785.
  17. Six thousand feral camels once attacked and completely shut down an Australian town in 2009. Source
  18. The Emperor Caracalla--a tyrant remembered for slaying his brother and building the extravagant Baths of Caracalla--was murdered by his own guards while he was relieving himself. That may be where the phrase "caught with your pants down" comes from.
  19. A castaway Japanese seaman wrote of his ordeal in a message in a bottle, which he threw into the ocean in 1784. It washed up in 1935 in the village where he was born. Source
  20. The first coin minted in the United States was a silver dollar. It was issued on October 15, 1794.
  21. The last duel in Canada was between two men who were so terrified of dueling, one fainted and the other was seized by horror. The guns were also loaded with blanks. Source
  22. All blue eyed people can be traced back to one person who lived near the Black Sea 10,000 years ago. Source
  23. A blind, bald, and near deaf man was struck by lightning and all three conditions were fixed. Source
  24. Seeing eye dogs are trained to poop on command. Their training even includes associating a verbal command with the permission to take a washroom break. The dogs are trained to adopt different stances depending on whether their peeing or pooping. The owner can feel the dog’s back to determine what their dog is doing. If the dog’s back is flat, the dog is peeing and therefore no clean-up in required. If the dog’s back is rounded, the dog is pooping and if clean-up is required, the owner can feel their way down the dog to know exactly where it is. Source
  25. In 1978, a Stanford PhD student murdered his advisor with a sledgehammer after being told that he would never get a doctorate after 19 years in graduate school. Source

 

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