Fact of the Day

[Grundy]

Fact of the Day - YAKUZA

 

Did you know... that Yubitsume is the Yakuza ritual of chopping off part of one’s pinky as either punishment or an apology ? The reason : amputation of the little finger makes a proper grip on a samurai sword impossible , weakening him in battle and forcing the person to be more reliant on his boss for protection . 

[DarkRavie]

Did you know.... that the Inagawa-kai is the third largest Yakuza family in Japan, with roughly 15,000 members divided into 313 clans. ... Rather than a stand-alone gang, the Aizukotetsu-kai is a federation of approximately 100 of Kyoto's various Yakuza groups. Its name comes from the Aizu region, "Kotetsu", a type of Japanese sword.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - MR. POTATO HEAD

 

Did you know.... that the original Mr. Potato Head was missing a head?  The original model didn't come with the familiar brown plastic potato.  In 1949, Brooklyn inventor and designer George Lerner (1922–1995) came up with a revolutionary idea: a toy that children could design themselves. His toy came bundled as a set of plastic body parts—noses, mouths, eyes—and accessories—hats, eyeglasses, a pipe—that were attached to pins.  Children would then decorate a potato or other vegetable with the pieces, inventing as they went along.  Lerner shopped his toy idea around for a year but met with resistance.  During World War II, the U.S. had suffered through food rationing and somehow using a potato as a toy seemed like a waste.  So, instead, Lerner sold his idea to a cereal company for US$5,000, who would distribute his plastic parts as prizes in cereal. 

 

In 1951, the Rhode Island Hassenfeld Brothers company was primarily a toy manufacturing and distributing company, making modeling clay and doctor and nurse kits.  When they met George Lerner, they saw great potential and paid the cereal company to stop production, buying the rights to Mr. Potato Head for $7,000.  They gave Lerner $500 in advance and 5 percent royalties for every set sold.  Those first sets had hands, feet, ears, two mouths, two pairs of eyes, and four noses; three hats, eyeglasses, a pipe, and eight pieces of felt suitable for beards and mustaches.  They came with a styrofoam head that children could use, but instructions suggested a potato or other vegetable would do as well. 

[Grundy]

Did you know... that long before Mr. Potato Head was featured on ‘'Toy Story’' , it was on television ? In fact , it was the first toy to have a TV commercial back in 1952 .

[lucaslink2]

Did you know... that the Mr. Potato Head line of toys have sold over 100 million toys

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - HIPPOPOTAMUS

 

Did you know.... that the closest living relative of cetaceans, which includes whales, porpoises and dolphins, are hippos?  They can easily outrun humans.  Think hippos are slow, lumbering mammals?  Think again. People who underestimate the hippo are shocked when they discover that the creature is capable of rampaging across the land at an impressive 40 kilometres per hour.  Even though they sometimes roam for miles out of the water, they always like to have a clear route back to their favourite pool or river.  Block this path and you might find out what it feels like to be run over by two-ton hunk of hippo.

[lucaslink2]

Did you know... that the process of surfacing and breathing is automatic, and even a hippo sleeping underwater will rise and breathe without waking... Really facinating creatures.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - OKTOBERFEST

 

Did you know... that Oktoberfest is a 204-year-old tradition that wasn't originally a beer festival.?  The first Oktoberfest was held to honour the marriage of Prince Ludwig and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen, in 1810.  Now that's what we call a wedding party!  Since 1950, each Oktoberfest begins with a parade of extravagantly decorated horses pulling kegs, as well as carriages full of waiters, staff, and tent owners.  At noon on the first Saturday, the mayor of Munich taps the first keg of special Oktoberfest brew and yells “O’zapft ist!” -- Bavarian for "it’s tapped" -- before 12 ceremonial shots are fired, signaling to tents across the fest that beer can finally be served.  Locals line up as early as 6am.  The beer is a special brew and extra strong.  One mass of Oktoberfest beer is the equivalent of eight shots of Schnapps.  It's specially brewed by Munich’s finest breweries for the occasion and is about 1.3% stronger than your average draft suds.

[Grundy]

Did you know... that  Paris Hilton is permanently banned from Oktoberfest ? Dressed in her skimpiest Bavarian ‘'dirndl’' ( the traditional Oktoberfest dress ) , the American socialite showed up to the 2006 to promote a brand of canned wine , without any sort of prior arrangement with the Oktoberfest organizers . After some sizeable and intoxicated public outrage , Paris was banished from ever returning to the party .

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - THE ALPHABET

 

Did you know.... that About 100 languages rely on the Roman alphabet?  Used by roughly two billion people, it's the world's most popular script.  As David Sacks notes in Letter Perfect(2004), "There are variations of the Roman alphabet: For example, English employs 26 letters; Finnish, 21; Croatian, 30. But at the core are the 23 letters of ancient Rome. (The Romans lacked J, V, and W.)"  There are more than 40 distinct sounds (or phonemes) in English.  Because we have just 26 letters to represent those sounds, most letters stand for more than one sound. The consonant c, for example, is pronounced differently in the three words cook, city, and (combined with h) chop.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ALBATROSS

 

Did you know... that the unflappable albatross can travel 10,000 miles in a single journey?  Scientists believe they have finally worked out how the mighty albatross – a seabird capable of travelling 10,000 miles in a single journey and circumnavigating the globe in 46 days – manages to fly without expending almost  any energy.  People have long wondered how this master of the skies manages to stay aloft for long periods without flapping its enormous wings, which can reach up to 3.5 metres across.  Various theories were developed but researchers now believe they have cracked the problem after attaching highly sensitive GPS trackers to a group of 16 wandering albatross, one of the largest species, in the Indian Ocean.  This enabled the scientists to measure each bird’s position 10 times a second and to within a few centimetres, providing a detailed record of their flight path.  They found that albatrosses perform a “highly dynamic manoeuvre” that involves gaining height by angling their wings while flying into the wind, then turning and swooping along for up to 100 metres. They were recorded as flying at speeds as high as 67mph.  By repeatedly using this method, they can travel thousands of miles depending on the wind conditions. But they are not simply being blown along — they can actually fly much faster than the windspeed, about three times as fast in one example.  They have the longest wingspan of any bird, reaching up to 3.5m (11.5ft).  In 2005, it was found that a grey-headed albatross had flown 13,670 miles around the world in the Southern Hemisphere in 46 days.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ANIME

 

Did you know... that anime has existed in various forms since the beginning of the 20th century?  But it was only in the latter half of that century that it became a widespread form of entertainment.  It is not known when anime exactly started in Japan. One of the oldest surviving pieces of Japanese animation may be a nameless, dateless, approximately 3-second film known as “Katsudo Shashin“(literally “Action Photo“).  It simply features a boy writing the words 活動写真 katsudo shashin and then doffing his cap.  More certain and concretely date-able are several films from 1917-1918, made (separately) by Oten Shimokawa, Junichi Kouchi, and Seitaro Kitayama.

 

Developments continued over the following decades, but during the period of the Second World War much of the animation produced in Japan had a propagandizing nature. This includes “Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors,” which came out in 1945 and was the country’s first feature length anime film.  Between 1933 and 1938, “Norakuro” was a notable animated film series to come out of the war years. It told the story of a hardworking Japanese soldier characterized as a black and white dog.  The other Japanese soldiers in the story were also dogs, while soldiers from other nations were pigs.  “Norakuro” became de-politicized after the war, and in the 90s it became a mascot for the Physical Training School of Japan’s present-day military equivalent, the Japan Self Defense Force.  The propagandizing nature of anime dissipated after Japan’s 1945 surrender. In the 1960s, production of the first anime titles started which later would become known in the West.

[Grundy]

Did you know... that Sazae-san ( created in 1969 ) , is the longest running anime series with over 7300 episodes aired ? Also in 2013 Sazae-san was awarded Guinness World Record for the longest running animated television series in the world .

[lucaslink2]

Did you know... that there are more than 35k series of anime out there.

[Grundy]

Fact of the Day - BATMAN

 

Did you know... that Andy Warhol directed the first Batman movie ? Titled Batman Dracula , the first Batman movie was directed by Andy Warhol in 1964 . it was made without the permission of the DC comics and today , not many copies of the film exist .

There was an earlier theatrical screening of Batman in 1943 but that was actually a 15-chapter theatrical serial , directed by Lambert Hillyer and stars Lewis Wilson as Batman and Douglas Croft as his Robin .

[DarkRavie]

Did you know... that everybody knows Batman’s origin story.?  The murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents by a mugger named Joe Chill is a central part of the Batman mythos and explains his motivations for becoming a masked vigilante.  The story of his parents’ death, however, wasn’t created until Detective Comics #33, nearly a year after the first Batman story hit the shelves.

[lucaslink2]

Did you know... that Batman series has sold around 474 million issues, second highest in the world behind the 600 millions of superman and after the 457 million of one piece.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - BIZARRE LAWS AROUND THE WORLD

 

Did you know... that it’s illegal to whistle in Petrolia, Ontario?  A Petrolia city rep says this unusual law simply aims to limit excessive noise between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., but according to Article 3, 772.3.6 on the town’s website, “Yelling, shouting, hooting, whistling or singing is prohibited at all times.”  Keep your enthusiasm to yourself, folks.

[Grundy]

Did you know... that it’s illegal to chew gum in Singapore ? In fact , no gum is bought or sold there . The law is said to be in place to keep public spaces clean . 

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - TURTLES/TORTOISE

 

Did you know... that Chelonians can make sounds by swallowing or by forcing air out of their lungs, and some species emit unique noises.  The red-footed tortoise (Chelonoidis carbonaria), a South American species, makes a series of clucks that sound like a chicken.  Male Travancore tortoises (Indotestudo forstenii) in Southeast Asia emit a high-pitched whine that sounds like an electric motor when they're seeking mates.  The giant musk turtle (Staurotypus salvinii), which is found in Central America, is known for yelping like a dog when it's startled or being attacked.  But the weirdest sound is made by nesting female leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea), who make a distinctly unladylike noise that resembles a human belching, according to the book Turtles: An Extraordinary Natural History 245 Years in the Making.