I get these in our work newsletters and I'm always finding out new things so I thought I'd start posting them for you all too! :flower:
Did You Know ...?
A compendium of Daylight Saving Time trivia you couldn't live without.
• Saving daylight was first mentioned in 1784 by Benjamin Franklin as American delegate in Paris in a humorous essay, "An Economical Project," urging Parisians to save money by getting up earlier to use morning sunlight, thereby burning fewer candles in the evening.
Franklin did not mention Daylight Saving Time — he did not propose that clock time be changed. His letter was in the spirit of his earlier proverb "Early to bed and early to rise / Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
• Daylight Saving Time (DST) was first proposed in 1907 by London builder William Willett, but he was unable to get the British government to adopt it, despite considerable lobbying.
• DST was first put into practice by a national government in Germany during World War I, between April 30, 1916 and October 1, 1916. Shortly afterward, the United Kingdom followed suit, first adopting it between May 21 and October 1, 1916.
• On June 17, 1917, Newfoundland became the first North American jurisdiction to adopt DST with the passing of the Daylight Saving Act of 1917.
• Detroit kept local time until 1900, when the City Council decreed that clocks should be put back 28 minutes to Central Standard Time. Half the city obeyed, while half refused. After considerable debate, the decision was rescinded and the city reverted to sun time. A derisive offer to erect a sundial in front of the city hall was referred to the Committee on Sewers. Then, in 1905, Central Standard Time was adopted by city vote.
• On March 19, 1918, the U.S. Congress formally established several time zones, which had been in use by railroads and most cities since 1883; at the same time it established DST from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October. The law, however, proved so unpopular, mostly because it obliged people to rise and go to bed earlier than had become
customary since the advent of electricity, that it was repealedafter 1919, when Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson's veto of the repeal.
• During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt instituted year-round Daylight Saving Time, called "War Time," from February 2, 1942 to September 30, 1945.
• A man, born just after 12:00 a.m. DST, circumvented the Vietnam War draft by using a daylight saving time loophole. When drafted, he argued that standard time, not DST, was the official time for recording births in his state of Delaware in the year of his birth. Thus, under official standard time, he was actually born on the previous day—and that day had a much higher draft lottery number, allowing him to avoid the draft.
• To keep to their published timetables, trains cannot leave a station before the scheduled time. So, when the clocks fall back one hour in October, all Amtrak trains in the U.S. that are running on time stop at 2:00 a.m. and wait one hour before resuming. Overnight passengers are often surprised to find their train at a dead stop and their travel time an hour
longer than expected. At the spring Daylight Saving Time change, trains instantaneously become an hour behind schedule at 2:00 a.m., but they just keep going and do their best to make up the time.
• Approximately 70 countries utilize Daylight Saving Time in at least a portion of the country. Japan, India, and China are the only major industrialized countries that do not observe some form of daylight saving.
Did You Know ...?
A compendium of banana trivia you couldn't live without.
• Three medium size bananas weigh approximately 1 pound.
• A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas, which are known as fingers.
• As bananas ripen, the starch in the fruit turns to sugar. Therefore, the riper the banana the sweeter it will taste.
• Banana plants are the largest plants on earth without a woody stem.
They are actually giant herbs of the same family as lilies, orchids and
palms.
• Bananas are a good source of vitamin C, potassium and dietary
fiber.
• Bananas are America's No. 1 fruit. They have no fat, cholesterol,
or sodium.
• Bananas are great for athletic and fitness activity because they
replenish necessary carbohydrates, glycogen and body fluids burned during exercise.
• Bananas are not grown commercially in the continental United States. They are grown in Latin and South America from countries like Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Honduras, Panama and Guatemala.
• Bananas are one of the few fruits that ripen best off the plant. If left on the plant, the fruit splits open and the pulp has a "cottony" texture and flavor. Even in tropical growing areas, bananas for domestic consumption are cut green and stored in moist shady places to ripen slowly.
• Bananas are perennial crops that are grown and harvested year-round. The banana plant does not grow from a seed but rather from a rhizome or bulb. Each fleshy bulb will sprout new shoots year after year.
Well, knowing IS half the battle, and all... but I'm not sure what war they're fighting with daylight savings time and bananas...
:D
lol, :D It was just two newsletters I saw while clearing out my work inbox. :) I'm hoping next weeks is on leprechauns!
How very interesting. Thanks Cali!
OoooooOOoooh!
Somehow I feel better knowing that it wasn't one newsletter on time and bananas. :D
So, when IS daylight savings time? (Like your travia sheet said, Japan doesn't have it and I have to set the "home" time on my watch...)
We just switched it today! Last night. This morning. SOMETHING.
It was today Bree even if most of us set it the night before...
Oh wow! Good to know! My other computer used to warn me that it was changing the time. This one seems to just do it without telling me :(
That certainly sounds better than the newsletter we get tellling us how much money is spent yearly in rolls of paper towels for the bathroom dispensers.
QuoteThat certainly sounds better than the newsletter we get tellling us how much money is spent yearly in rolls of paper towels for the bathroom dispensers.
You know, I wouldn't be surprised if I get that too... Every day I have pieces of paper on my desk full of useless information. I get charts and graphs and all kinds of stuff. In fact, I just now pulled a random one from my pile just to see what was on it...
Let's see... Sexuality. Its defining all the different classifications of sexuality. This one is far more interesting than the one about how to clip your nails properly.
What I want to know is why you get all these things on your desk? Do your coworkers hand them out? Or is it like internet spam? Sign up for one thing get five hundred other things of useless crap for FREE! *Bleh*
In my case, the spam (whether email or paper) comes from every committee and department in the agency for which I work. Each group tries to convince the other of their importance by sending out factoids of what they are doing. It gets pretty boring after a while. On Friday I received a 4.5mb newsletter from the company warehouse. Considering that we each have a 5mb limit, those were deleted pretty quickly.
I have to say though. The people in the warehouse must be PRETTY desperate to give out that much information about their dealings.
I really don't know why I get all this stuff. Maybe only 5% is actually relevant to me, and its really sad because its not by e-mail, its paper. How many trees have they wasted just to tell me what books are in the library, or health tips. I'm sure some of it is more relevant to the other teachers who have a lot more responsibility over the students than I do. But STILL. I wish they would just SAY some of this, or post it on a board somewhere rather than waste the paper.
That's one thing in this country that makes me sad - the amount of wasted paper and wood, and all the plastic packaging that comes with every little thing you buy. And very few towns have recycling programs. We just have burnable and non-burnable.
QuoteAnd very few towns have recycling programs. We just have burnable and non-burnable.
If your trying to keep me from moving to Japan Eimi, you're succeeding. No recycling, wasting paper, bad police. It's sounding less and less like a place I'd like to live in.
Don't worry, it has plenty of redeeming qualities ;) The people more than make up for it.
Daylight savings time is no fun... it made me late for work because I forgot all about it!
I do miss DST. I mean, you woudn't think one hour would make that much of a difference, but it really does. Its so depressing when the sun is setting at 8:00 in the middle of the summer.
Hawaii doesn't do daylight savings... it is sort of weird, because the number of hours ahead/behind you other places are changes...
Okay, I think our newsletter guy likes bananas a bit too much!
Did You Know ...?
A compendium of banana trivia you couldn't live without.
• Bananas were officially introduced to the American public at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Each banana was wrapped in foil and sold for 10 cents. Before that time, bananas came to America on the decks of sailing ships as sailors took a few stems home after traveling in the Caribbean.
• In Eastern Africa you can buy banana beer. This beer is brewed from bananas.
• India is by far the largest world producer of bananas, growing 16.5 million tons annually on average, followed by Brazil which annually produces 6.5 million tons. To the Indians, the flower from the banana tree is sacred. During religious and important ceremonies such
as weddings, banana flowers are tied around the head, for they
believe this will bring good luck.
• More than 96 percent of American households purchase bananas
at least once each month. The average American consumes
more than 28 pounds of bananas each year.
• Some horticulturists suspect that the banana was the earth's first
fruit. Banana plants have been in cultivation since the time of
recorded history. One of the first records of bananas dates back to
Alexander the Great's conquest of India where he first discovered
bananas in 327 B.C.
• There is no such thing as a banana tree. Bananas grow on plants. The banana plant reaches its full height of 15 to 30 feet in about one year. The trunk of a banana plant is made of sheaths of overlapping leaves, tightly wrapped around each other like celery stalks.
• The phrase "going bananas" was first recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary, and is linked to the fruit's "comic" connections with monkeys.
• The word "banan" is Arabic for finger.
• There are more than 500 varieties of banana in the world: The most common kinds are Dwarf Cavendish, Valery, and Williams Hybrid bananas.
• The Cavendish is the most common variety of bananas now imported to the United States.
The Cavendish is a shorter, stubbier plant than earlier varieties. It was developed to resist plant diseases, insects, and windstorms better than its predecessors. The Cavendish fruit is of medium size, has a creamier, smooth texture, and a thinner peel than earlier varieties.
Those look very similar...
Quote from: "Anwen"Hawaii doesn't do daylight savings... it is sort of weird, because the number of hours ahead/behind you other places are changes...
Neither does Arizona. I got and still get so messed up when they do the whole DST thing here in Tennessee!!
I have one to add! Banana's are also an unusal fruit in that they rippen better OFF the vine rather than on it. If left on the vine they rot so they are picked green and left to rippen.
Cali's first info thing on bananas said that Eimi.
More facts you can't live without!
• All the moons of the solar system are named after Greek and Roman mythology, except the moons of Uranus, which are named after Shakespearean characters.
• Astronauts brought back about 800 pounds of lunar rock to Earth. Most of it has not been analyzed.
• In 1959, the Soviet space probe "Luna Two" became the first manmade
object to reach the moon as it crashed onto the lunar surface.
• In 1968, "Apollo Seven," the first manned Apollo mission, was launched
with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele, and R. Walter
Cunningham aboard.
• Jupiter's moon Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system, and is
larger than the planet Mercury.
• Olympus Mons on Mars is the largest volcano in the solar system.
• On a clear night in the Northern Hemisphere, the naked eye can discern some 5,000 stars.
• On February 7, 1969, a meteorite weighing more than one ton fell in Chihuahua, Mexico.
• Only 55 percent, on average, of all Americans know that the sun is a star.
• Robert Goddard a scientist and holder of 214 patents fired the first rocket using liquid propellant in 1926.
• Uranus was discovered in 1781 and is the only planet that rotates on its side.
• Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon on Sunday, July 20, 1969. Edwin Aldrin was the second. They were members of Apollo 11, and landed in the Sea of Tranquility.
• The Lunar Excursion Module was named the "Eagle." Michael Collins stayed onboard the mother ship, "Columbia."
• The Apollo 11 plaque left on the moon says: "Here men
from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July
1969, A.D. / We came in peace for all mankind."
• The first American satellite in orbit, Explorer I, was
launched on February 1, 1958.
• The first man-made object to circle the earth was Sputnik I. It was launched in 1957.
• A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court.
• Absolutely pure gold is so soft that it can be molded with the hands.
• An ounce of gold can be stretched into a wire 50 miles long.
• The largest gold nugget ever found weighed 172 pounds, 13 ounces
My random fact of the day:
Kangaroos (and wallabies) can have an in-the-pouch joey (baby) as well as an older joey that is still dependent on mom and still nursing. The really cool think is, that she can produce 2 different types of milk so that both joeys get the correct nutritional content.
Did You Know ...?
A compendium of trivial trivia you couldn't live without.
• A 1,200-pound horse eats about seven times its own weight each year.
• A bird requires more food in proportion to its size than a baby or a cat.
• A capon is a castrated rooster.
• A chameleon can move its eyes in two directions at the same time and tongue is twice the length of its body.
• A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can't.
• A Cornish game hen is really a young chicken, usually 5 to 6 weeks of age, that weighs no more than 2 pounds.
• A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in its lifetime.
• A father Emperor penguin withstands the Antarctic cold for 60 days or more to protect his eggs, which he keeps on his feet, covered with a feathered flap. During this entire time he doesn't eat a thing. Most father penguins lose about 25 pounds while they wait for their babies to hatch. Afterward, they feed the chicks a special liquid from their throats. When the mother penguins return to care for the young, the fathers go to sea to eat and rest.
• A father sea catfish keeps the eggs of his young in his mouth until they are ready to hatch. He will not eat until his young are born, which may take several weeks.
• A female mackerel lays about 500,000 eggs at one time.