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FACTS OF THE MONTH:
April comes from the Latin word Aperio (to open), because this is the month plants start to bloom.
A Boeing 747's wingspan is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight.
When flying from London to New York on the Concorde, the change in time zones results in the fact that you arrive two hours before you left.
| FROM No movie had ever grossed over $20 million at the box office for more than three consecutive weeks. Titanic did it ten weeks in a row. The sketch that Jack made of Rose, as well as all of the pictures in Jack's sketchbook, were drawn by director James Cameron. It is his hand we see making the sketch, an image that had to be flipped for the movie because Cameron is left-handed while Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) is right-handed. A 90% scale model of the starboard half of the Titanic was built on a Mexico beach. Because the port side of the ship was docked at Southampton, all of the docked scenes were filmed in reverse, meaning that all signs, costumes and hairstyles had to be backwards in order for the finished product to look correct. Margaret Brown never went by the name "Molly." She didn't receive that nickname until well after her death. Jack Dawson was obviously a man ahead of his time. He said he went ice fishing on Lake Wissota, a man-made lake created five years after Titanic sank. He also claims to have visited a Santa Monica Pier that did not begin construction until 1916, four years after the sinking. At the end of the movie, Rose sees a refurbished Statue of Liberty (the facelift it was given in the 80s) from a ship that would have had to have been sitting on the island for her to have seen it from that angle. The almost-full-scale model of the Titanic built for the movie cost more than the original ship. |
The mathematician Cardano was sent to prison for doing Jesus Christ's horoscope.
Three out of every four women wear the wrong size bra.
Twenty-four percent of Los Angeles is paved.
Of the four artists the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were named after, Donatello did not live in the same time period as Michaelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael.
There is no Eskimo word for "headache".
Spiders have transparent blood.
The Chinese ideogram for 'trouble' resembles two women living under one roof.
The Dutch alphabet and the English alphabet have no common letters.
| from SON
OF GAME SHOW WEEK:
In the fifteen years Vanna White has turned and/or lit letters on "Wheel of Fortune", she has worn over 4700 different outfits. With 61 'answers' per show, "Jeopardy" goes through over 14,000 answers every year. After fourteen years on the air with Alex Trebek, and a previous twelve years with Art Fleming, that amounts to over 360,000 different answers since the show first debuted. A year before she became the letter-turner on "Wheel of Fortune", Vanna White was a contestant on "The Price Is Right". To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the radio debut of "Truth or Consequences", host Ralph Edwards said he would broadcast the anniversary show from any town willing to change its name to that of the show. On March 31, 1950 the town of Hot Springs, New Mexico officially changed its name to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. During his several decades on the air, Bill Cullen hosted twenty-one different game shows, was the assistant on a 22nd and the announcer on a 23rd. By comparison, Bob Barker has only hosted four different game shows. In 1961 Jackie Gleason returned to television after two years to host the game show "You're In the Picture". It was the only game show Gleason ever hosted, with good reason: the show was so bad it was cancelled after that one airing. In the time slot the following week Gleason sat in a chair on an empty stage and apologized. Bob Cobert, composer of the theme songs for "Password", "The $10/20/25/50/100,000 Pyramid" and "To Tell the Truth", also wrote the themes to "Dark Shadows" and "The Winds of War". |
The human body contains enough fat to make seven bars of soap.
The flag of the United Kingdom is more properly called the Union Flag. It is only known as the Union Jack when being flown from a ship.
The world's largest K-Mart is on the island of Guam.
Charlie Chaplin's cane was made of bamboo.
Sea otters have two coats of fur.