"Tell Me Something I Don't Know": Trivia & Fact Thread

[Bastet]

18 hours ago, Ancaster said:

We all (I think!) know that baby kangaroos are called joeys, but today I learnt that all marsupial babies are called joeys - koalas, wombats, etc.  Makes sense, but seems like it could be a good Jeopardy! question.

I can't find a "Marsupial babies are called this" clue in the archive, but they have acknowledged that fact on the show:  There was an entire "Joey" category once, and the correct responses were wombats, kangaroos, gliders, and bandicots (one clue didn't ask for the animal; it was about marsupial anatomy).

[Blergh]

I recall in my youth that the term 'joey'  when used for non-adult kangaroos as per the contemporary dictionaries was supposed to have been a word from an Australian Aboriginal language (but which of the 900+ known languages was not specified). Now it has 'unknown' origins so I'm wondering if perhaps the early English settlers might have asked a local Australian Aborigine what they called non-adult kangaroos and the individual responded- but whoever the first English speaker to use it might not have bothered to ask which TRIBE the Australian Aborigine informant came from.

One thing I'm sure  that EACH surviving Australian Aboriginal language has individualized terms for non-adult wombats, kangaroos, gliders and bandicots! Just like each European language has individualized terms for non-adult dogs, cats, horses, cows and sheep- instead of just terming them 'puppies'!

BTW, 'kangaroo' IS somewhat documented as having been first recorded in 1770 from a Northeast [Queensland] Australian tribe and I guess that a British mariner wrote it down and it would be used from that point on (which is better than just having them being called 'pocket-hoppers']!

[Blergh]

OK, I talked about FDR's somewhat force-of-nature mother Sara Delano Roosevelt but I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the parents of his wife Eleanor (1884-1962)- Elliott (1860-1894) and Anna Rebecca Hall Roosevelt (1863-1892). Yes, they both would die quite young when their daughter was still a child but they'd have lifelong impacts on her.

Elliott had been sent west to Texas for adventure then became one of the first US Americans to explore India and the Himalayas while Anna not only came from a prominent old family but was a stunning beauty- to the extent that many decades after her death, her daughter would describe her as 'one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen!' and their 1883 marriage was considered to be THE match of the season. Alas, they weren't to live happily ever after. For one thing, Elliot had started to develop an alcohol problem and Anna had had to somehow help her widowed mother Mary keep the family from going under after her own father's death when she just seventeen. Then, in February,1884, Elliot's mother 'Mittie' and his sister-in-law Alice Lee Roosevelt  both fell mortally ill which got the somewhat highstrung Elliot to declare to his elder brother Theodore that their house was cursed with Theodore having to run between floors to tend to his dying mother and wife -barely consoled that their daughter Alice somehow was born healthy two days before her mother's death. Neither Theodore or Elliott ever got over this double tragedy. Though Elliot seemed quite grateful when his own young wife Anna safely bore their firstborn child eight  months later and doted on her from the start. Alas, Anna seemed somewhat put out that this daughter had not inherited her beauty and early on tagged her 'Granny' because she considered the child to be 'so old-fashioned'!  Anna did care for Eleanor -urging her to become educated but even she couldn't  completely overlook her daughter's comparative plainness saying 'you certainty aren't a beauty so you'd better be smart!'. Elliott also wanted Eleanor to be well-educated but he wasn't without his own faults- including one time leaving the six-year-old girl who'd he'd taken on a walk  to wait outside a 'private club' while he was to pop in 'for a few minutes' but wound up drinking himself unconscious and only when the staff was in the process of carrying him home did they notice little Eleanor still waiting outside in the cold- six hours later  after which a doorman deposited her back home!

In 1889, Elliot severely broke a leg in an accident and would be prescribed morphine which he soon became addicted to along with the alcohol. Not surprisingly Anna became alarmed at his sudden decline and herself would develop severe migraines which Eleanor would help her mother through by messaging her temples.

After 1891, both the Roosevelt and Hall families decided that Elliott had become too unstable to be relied upon to provide for Anna and her children and fully supported Anna's decision to separate herself from him while he was exiled in the mountain resort of Abington, Virginia.

In 1892, Anna would die from complications of diphtheria at the young age of 28 leaving her children to be cared for by her mother Mary.  In the meantime, Elliott would occasionally visit Eleanor and her surviving baby brother Gracie 'Hall' Roosevelt and write letters promising a future of travel with her making a home for him (and she would consider her baby brother to be their child). While  Elliott would claim to greatly mourn Anna to Eleanor in his letters to her, he didn't mourn alone.  It turned out that he'd gotten a German-born servant  Katy Mann in the family way and she'd stay his companion the rest of his life.

Alarmingly, Elliott became so distraught  between his addictions and his painfully wonky leg that hadn't been set right that he attempted suicide at 34 by leaping out a 2nd floor window. He survived the fall but would die of a seizure the next day.

After this, his brother Theodore visited his troubled late brother's 'love nest' and,to his shock, discovered that Elliot had plastered it with photographs of his late wife- including one right over the very bed he and his mistress had slept in!

Eleanor would choose to only focus on Elliot's attentiveness to her and lessons he gave her rather than his glaring shadowside. In fact, she not only saved his letters to her but she'd take them with her on countless journeys to all corners of the world -somehow making sure they were never lost or damaged -rereading them before going to sleep almost every night for the rest of her life.

In spite of her birth parents' flaws, Eleanor WOULD have a positive maternal love from an unexpected source: from the ages of 15 to 17, Eleanor would be sent to a boarding school in England run by an aging French headmistress named Marie Souvestre (1830-1905)who not only taught her to speak fluent French but, more importantly, encouraged Eleanor to expand her intellect and gain self-confidence! Alas, against the protests of both Eleanor and Mlle. Souvestre, her maternal grandmother (and legal guardian) Mrs. Hall insisted that Eleanor return back to New York  to make her formal debut in Society (which,not surprisingly, Eleanor considered a disaster)  instead of staying the last year to complete her coursework . However, Eleanor would never forget Mlle. Souvestre's kindness and encouragement and would keep a portrait of her on her desk in her homes the rest of her own life.

 

[Blergh]

OK, here's a little translation trivia.

 

While it's well known that Coca-Cola got marketed to the People's Republic of China just two days after the United States diplomatically recognized that government in 1976, it had to overcome a language barrier.

Namely back in the 1920's through the  1940's, they'd made the mistake of phonetically translating the name to Chinese characters which, among other interpretations wound up being 'Bite the Wax Tadpole' (which somewhat guaranteed that few besides teen boys on  dares would want to attempt to consume it).

Anyway, by 1976, the company rectified their earlier mistake by simply calling it 'Drink that Makes Your Mouth Happy'! And, needless to say, it's been a big seller in that land of over 1.5 billion potential customers ever since!

[Anduin]

13 minutes ago, Blergh said:

Namely back in the 1920's through the  1940's, they'd made the mistake of phonetically translating the name to Chinese characters which, among other interpretations wound up being 'Bite the Wax Tadpole' (which somewhat guaranteed that few besides teen boys on  dares would want to attempt to consume it).

I'd heard 'Bite the Wax Tadpole', but never looked up where it came from. That is interesting.

[tearknee]

During his "Vegas years", Howard Hughes saw a commercial for Baskin-Robbins and decided to try some ice cream. An employee was dispatched to the local 31 Flavors to bring back 31 scoops — one of each current variety. Hughes sampled them all and chose Banana Nut as his favorite. Thereafter, no matter what he had as a meal, he'd be served a scoop of Banana Nut for dessert.

This went on until one day when a staffer noticed their supply was running low. A runner was sent to buy more but he reported back that Baskin-Robbins had rotated the flavor off its current list. Someone called the ice cream manufacturer and asked when it would be back. The answer was, "Sometime next year." None of Hughes' employees wanted to go in and tell the old man that they couldn't bring him the Banana Nut ice cream he loved…so they asked the company if they could make up a special batch for Mr. Hughes. The Baskin-Robbins people said they'd be glad to, but the minimum order was a thousand gallons.

Again, no one wanted to bring bad news to the billionaire…so they ordered the thousand gallons. They also rented refrigerated trucks to transport the order from the Baskin-Robbins plant in Southern California to Vegas and ordered the kitchen manager at the Desert Inn to find space in their refrigerators for a thousand gallons of ice cream. This required several days of work and the purchase and installation of several new freezers.

The caravan of trucks arrived just in time. The day it all got there was the day they served Mr. Hughes the last remaining scoop of Banana Nut ice cream from the old supply. He finished it off and announced, "That was great but it's time for a change. From now on, I want French Vanilla."

[Blergh]

Having some delicious grilled salmon as part of my T-Day largesse, it got me to thinking of what remarkable creatures they are who not only make great efforts to swim from the open ocean upstream to the very same stream or creek from which they were spawned - then use that to spawn their own eggs but also  via their postmortem contributions.

It turns out that soil in the Pacific Northwest of the US and Canada would be very poor and unable to support much plant life under normal conditions. However,  in addition to being great treats for bears and humans,etc., enough of their remains become part of the soil to enrich it so that it has the capacity to support a very diverse temperate rain forest! It seems having spent almost their entire adult lives in the oceans, those salmon are able to eat enough nutrients to eventually use to enrich the forests' soil!

[Blergh]

In the Grand Tetons of Wyoming, there's a unique waterway called North Two Ocean Creek that flows somewhat south at the Continental Divide but that's not what makes it unique.

In a somewhat swampy area, it abruptly divides into two channels in a spot called Parting of the Waters with one channel being called Pacific Creek and the other being called Atlantic Creek. Oh and yes, each creek's waters DO eventually flow into the namesake oceans on the opposite coasts of the US! What's also interesting is that due the Parting of the Waters being in such a swampy area at least one species of fish (the Yellowstone cutthroat trout) is believed to have actually crossed there   from the Pacific to Atlantic watersheds.

Edited December 1 by Blergh

[tearknee]

The movie that Howard Hughes famously liked to watch over and over was "Ice Station Zebra", the 1968 movie that starred Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine and Patrick McGoohan. According to one report, Hughes would run it at least three times a week and would occasionally get on a kick of watching his 16mm print over and over, back-to-back, several times a day. He had a "Graflex" brand film projector with an add-on sound system that allowed him to crank the volume up to almost deafening levels because of his poor hearing. He had a whole library of films that he ran over and over including "The Sting" and the "James Bond" films that starred Sean Connery. It is not known if he had any particular reaction to "Diamonds Are Forever", which was set in Vegas and featured the actor Jimmy Dean in the role of a Hughes-like billionaire.

The story I love about Hughes' movie watching is that he got hooked on the late-night movies being run on KLAS, which was the local CBS affiliate. Just as he'd ordered his staff to have Swanson change the contents of their TV dinners, he sometimes told them to call the station and have them run a particular movie he wanted to see. To make it easier for this to happen, he soon bought the station…and thereafter, he didn't need the 16mm projector much. He'd have his crew phone the station and tell them what movie Mr. Hughes wanted to see next…and that's what would be broadcast to all of Vegas without advance announcement or commercial interruption. Once in a while, he got bored with a movie and he'd have them stop a film in the middle and start a different one. This is very similar to what NBC did with "Celebrity Cooking Showdown".

One of the technicians who worked at the station later told the story of getting a call late one night informing him that Mr. Hughes wanted to see an episode of "Sugarfoot", the old western series starring the actor, Will Hutchins. The technician replied that he'd be glad to thread one up, but that the station didn't have any reels of "Sugarfoot" in its library. The voice on the other end of the line said, "We'll get you one." A few hours later, a film print of a episode of "Sugarfoot" arrived. It had been flown in from Los Angeles by one of the airlines that Hughes owned, probably on an otherwise-empty plane since there were then no scheduled LAX-LAS flights after midnight. Back before the domestic VCR was popular, home video could be kind of expensive :)

[Blergh]

On 12/10/2024 at 9:02 AM, tearknee said:

The movie that Howard Hughes famously liked to watch over and over was "Ice Station Zebra", the 1968 movie that starred Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine and Patrick McGoohan. According to one report, Hughes would run it at least three times a week and would occasionally get on a kick of watching his 16mm print over and over, back-to-back, several times a day. He had a "Graflex" brand film projector with an add-on sound system that allowed him to crank the volume up to almost deafening levels because of his poor hearing. He had a whole library of films that he ran over and over including "The Sting" and the "James Bond" films that starred Sean Connery. It is not known if he had any particular reaction to "Diamonds Are Forever", which was set in Vegas and featured the actor Jimmy Dean in the role of a Hughes-like billionaire.

The story I love about Hughes' movie watching is that he got hooked on the late-night movies being run on KLAS, which was the local CBS affiliate. Just as he'd ordered his staff to have Swanson change the contents of their TV dinners, he sometimes told them to call the station and have them run a particular movie he wanted to see. To make it easier for this to happen, he soon bought the station…and thereafter, he didn't need the 16mm projector much. He'd have his crew phone the station and tell them what movie Mr. Hughes wanted to see next…and that's what would be broadcast to all of Vegas without advance announcement or commercial interruption. Once in a while, he got bored with a movie and he'd have them stop a film in the middle and start a different one. This is very similar to what NBC did with "Celebrity Cooking Showdown".

One of the technicians who worked at the station later told the story of getting a call late one night informing him that Mr. Hughes wanted to see an episode of "Sugarfoot", the old western series starring the actor, Will Hutchins. The technician replied that he'd be glad to thread one up, but that the station didn't have any reels of "Sugarfoot" in its library. The voice on the other end of the line said, "We'll get you one." A few hours later, a film print of a episode of "Sugarfoot" arrived. It had been flown in from Los Angeles by one of the airlines that Hughes owned, probably on an otherwise-empty plane since there were then no scheduled LAX-LAS flights after midnight. Back before the domestic VCR was popular, home video could be kind of expensive :)

While Mr. Hughes had a horrible self-wrought end winding up having nothing despite his billions, sometimes in his earlier life he'd actually do unexpected good.

Long short is that years after his romance with Lana Turner was over. Miss Turner had remarried and had suffered a life-threatening miscarriage which prompted her mother Mildred to fly cross country to be with her. Mrs. Turner was surprised that at the flight's speed which, it turned out broke a commercial airline speed record but as she was deplaning, she saw that none other than Mr. Hughes himself had piloted that TWA flight JUST so she could be with her daughter- and never said a word to her before they parted ways!

[Blergh]

Both Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln (1818-1882) had rather . ..complicated bonds with their respective original families. President Lincoln had grown up destitute and had been somewhat neglected after his mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln's death when he was about nine and  felt his father Thomas (1778-1851) had considered him little more than a workhorse. However, he supposedly was instantly charmed by his stepmother Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln (1788-1669). Whatever the future President's feelings were, he did not heed the summons to his father's deathbed in 1851 and, for whatever reasons, never introduced his own sons to their paternal grandfather or stepgrandmother even when they lived in Springfield, Illinois about 90 miles away from the elder Lincolns' home in Coles County.

As for Mary Todd Lincoln? She had been born into a very wealthy Lexington, Kentucky family  and one of fourteen children sired by Robert Smith Todd (1791-1849)but also had lost her own mother Elizabeth Parker Todd (1794-1825) when she was only six. Alas, she did not get along with her stepmother Elizabeth Humphries Todd  (1800-1874) who Robert married the next year and didn't always have the smoothest dealings with her many half-sibs by the 2nd Mrs. Todd. Three of Mrs. Todd's sons would join the Confederate Army and two of her daughters would marry Confederate generals while Mary was the First Lady of the United States which was at war with the Confederate States! Kentucky itself had become a Border State which meant that they technically stayed part of the Union but allowed slaveholders to legally keep their slaves- as long as they went to the nearest county courthouse and swore an Allegiance oath to the United States! Well, few of the Todd half-siblings bothered  with that.Amazingly enough President Lincoln tried to keep peace with his in-laws -including his Confederate supporting stepmother- and sibs-in-law- to the degree of even inviting Mary's half-sister Emilie Todd Hardin (1836-1930) to the White House shortly after losing her husband who'd been a Confederate general.

Of course, after President Lincoln was assassinated, Mary not only flatly refused to venture back to her home state of Kentucky but she refused to have anything more with her stepmother or those  half-sibs who'd been Confederates- believing them to have contributed to the President's death via having supported the opposing  government!

There was a popular saying about the egos of the  Kentucky Todds in the 19th century. 'God spelled His Name with one 'd' so that's why the Todds spelt their name with two d's!'

[tearknee]

Jerry Jacobson was the head of security at Simon Marketing, the company who oversaw the printing of the McDonalds Monopoly cards in America.  However, despite being under constant surveillance by McDonalds, his own firm, and an independent third party, between 1987 and 2001 he managed to steal pretty much all of the winning tickets and sell them off.

Overall, he stole over 24 million dollars' worth and netted himself a 3 million dollar cut.

The scam eventually became unstuck, and Jacobson was arrested in late August 2001.  It became worldwide news, and the McDonalds corporation was facing one of the biggest PR disasters in history.

Luckily for McDonalds something happened a few days after the news broke that wiped any mention of it off every single news outlet in the world.

[Anduin]

7 minutes ago, tearknee said:

The scam eventually became unstuck, and Jacobson was arrested in late August 2001.  It became worldwide news, and the McDonalds corporation was facing one of the biggest PR disasters in history.

Luckily for McDonalds something happened a few days after the news broke that wiped any mention of it off every single news outlet in the world.

And did the case go to trial? You can't hold back the end of the story!

[tearknee]

Frederick Barrett was a leading fireman aboard RMS Titanic. After discovering his wife's infidelity, he felt called to the sea. He joined Cunard as a stoker and served on several ships. In 1912, he signed on as leading stoker aboard the White Star Line ship Titanic, where he oversaw Boiler Room 6. Conditions in the boiler rooms were appalling, but not unique. Temperatures reached about 49°C. Each of the 163 stokers worked in shifts of four hours on and eight hours off. They were paid £6 a month for their work, which is about £850 today.

At 11:40 on April 14, 1912, Barrett was in Boiler Room 6 and talking to Second Engineer John Henry Hesketh, as they were due to increase speed the following day. At that moment, a red light came on and the engine telegraph ordered full stop. He shouted for his crew to close the dampers on the boilers. That's when a jet of ice-cold water burst through the hull as Titanic collided with an iceberg. The stokers continued to work to ensure the boilers were vented. Otherwise, they might have exploded in contact with the ocean water.

Barrett moved to Boiler Room 5 to help with the ultimately futile effort to pump out the water which was coming in at 7 tons a second. Around 1am, the bulkhead collapsed, accelerating the sinking. One of the engineers fell into a manhole but ordered Barrett to leave him and save himself. By the time he arrived on the boat deck, only two lifeboats were left on the rear starboard quarter. Thanks to his fortunate timing, First Officer Murdoch called for more oarsmen for Lifeboat 13 and Barrett volunteered.

As the boat hit the water, a condenser pump, which was still trying to pump out water from within the ship, discharged and forced 13 back. At that moment, Lifeboat 15 began to be lowered. 13 drifted underneath 15 and was in danger of being crushed. Shouts to stop lowering from both lifeboats weren't heard from the deck. Barrett took out a knife and feverishly cut the falls, getting the boat away with just inches to spare.

Barrett later testified at both the US Senate and British Board of Trade inquiries. As one of the few crewmembers who survived from within the bowels of the ship, his testimony proved crucial at reconstructing events following the collision. He died in 1931. 

[Blergh]

Hearkening back to President Lincoln. ..

It's well known that he was born in a tiny log cabin in Kentucky in 1809 but by the time anyone actually tried to seek it out (after his assassination), they found a ramshackle ruined cabin in a spot in the vicinity where it was believed to have stood. .so an exhibitor wasted no time dismantling that particular cabin to exhibit in the latter part of the 19th century.

Guess who else had been born in a log cabin in Kentucky? The Confederate President Jefferson Davis in 1808 in a spot about 100 miles from the US President's possible birthplace.

Anyway, it soon came to pass that someone got the idea of displaying these two cabins side by side. Since these two cabins were on tour, they had to be taken apart then put back together quite a few times but, as anyone who has ever played with Lincoln logs knows, it's not so easy to keep track of WHICH logs go into which parts of a cabin,etc.- and no one had thought to actually MARK the individual logs before taking them apart the first time.

Anyway from 1906 onward, the cabin that has been claimed as the purported birthplace of Abraham Lincoln has had a permanent home sheltered beneath a much larger  building in the style of Greek temple. The irony is that it's a virtual certainty that at least SOME of its logs came from Jefferson Davis's birthplace log cabin!

[fastiller]

Recent Lincoln-related posts by @Blergh has me thinking of Robert Todd Lincoln and his association/connection to not just the assassination of his father, but also those of Garfield and McKinley.

The younger Lincoln was at the Sixth Street Train Station when Garfield was shot (he was Garfield's Secretary of War).  He was also at the Pan-Am Expo (not in the immediate vicinity, but within the Expo's footprint) when McKinley was shot.

[Blergh]

Names can have some unexpected origins.

Take for example of the time when the Phoenicians decided to explore and set up trading ports on the Mediterranean's western most extreme landmass now known as the Iberian peninsula.

Anyway, at that time (c. 800 BC) the place was covered by a very thick and dense forest which was teeming with rabbits. So many rabbits that they termed the area 'land of rabbits'. ..which,as per most scholars would become the root for the name of the eventual nation of Spain!

[Blergh]

Deep in a remote part of the steep Peruvian jungle, there's an extraordinary body of water called Shanay-timpishka ['boiled by the heat of the sun' in the local indigenous language]which eventually flows into the main headwater stream of the Amazon River.

Anyway, it's better known by its nickname of 'The Boiling River' since the last four miles of its nine mile course, the water has temperatures up to 203 Fahrenheit or 95 Celcius which means that no fish can live there and it's deadly for anyone to fall in it!  It's also hundreds of miles from the nearest magma deposit so scientists still aren't sure WHY this section of river is so scalding hot.

Lastly, it was in such a remote spot that it was unknown to anyone besides the indigenous communities until as recently as the 2010's- yes even with all those visual and heat detecting space satellites orbiting the Earth!

Alas, the surrounded forest is in danger of being clearcut for lumber so that can't be helpful to  the riverbed's stability.

Edited 1 hour ago by Blergh