GregR
Footballguy
A collection of mostly useless but sometimes interesting things I've come across.
Links to previous Useless Trivia:
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1) Charles Dunbar Burgess King was a politician, and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the winner who holds this record.
2) "The May 15 Incident" was an attempted coup in Japan on May 15, 1932. Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was shot and killed by eleven young naval officers. They had also planned to kill a foreign visiting celebrity who had arrived the day before, in an attempt to facilitate a war with the United States. The visitor was away watching a sumo match which probably saved his life. Who was the visitor?
3) McDonald's considered getting rid of their Golden Arches logo in the 1960s, but decided to retain them in part because of the work of marketing innovator Louis Cheskin who argued they were great marketing assets that appealed because they resembled these.
4) During filming of one of the Star Wars movies, a cast member was warned to be careful about leaving the filming area for fear he could accidentally be shot by someone mistaking him for this.
5) Why do airlines have problems serving food that customers find tasty?
6) What is the largest country in the world without a river in it?
7) A facebook group dedicated to photographing the aurora borealis discovered a repeating strip of light stretching all the way from Hudson Bay to British Columbia that is not part of the aurora. Scientists investigating it found it to be a strip of ionized gas moving through the air at 4 miles per second, with temperatures as high as 10,800 F, as hot as the earth's core. By what name is this phenomenen known?
8) By what name is the Vietnam War known in Vietnam?
9) The United States has declared war 11 times, on 10 nations. Name at least 8 of the 10.
10) Corned beef doesn't contain any visible signs of corn. What role does the corn play?
Links to previous Useless Trivia:
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#3
#4
#5
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#7
#8
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#10
#11
#12
#13
#14
#15
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1) Charles Dunbar Burgess King was a politician, and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the winner who holds this record.
Winner of the most fraudulent election in history. King won Liberia's 1927 presidential election with 234,000 votes. The country had 15,000 registered voters at the time.
2) "The May 15 Incident" was an attempted coup in Japan on May 15, 1932. Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was shot and killed by eleven young naval officers. They had also planned to kill a foreign visiting celebrity who had arrived the day before, in an attempt to facilitate a war with the United States. The visitor was away watching a sumo match which probably saved his life. Who was the visitor?
Actor Charlie Chaplin. The conspirators received extremely light sentences in the face of public support for them, and the incident furthered the rise of Japanese militarism.
3) McDonald's considered getting rid of their Golden Arches logo in the 1960s, but decided to retain them in part because of the work of marketing innovator Louis Cheskin who argued they were great marketing assets that appealed because they resembled these.
He said they resembled breasts. He likened them to "mother McDonald's breasts".
4) During filming of one of the Star Wars movies, a cast member was warned to be careful about leaving the filming area for fear he could accidentally be shot by someone mistaking him for this.
Bigfoot. During the filming of the Endor scenes in Return of the Jedi, the crew warned Peter Mayhew not to wander away from the shooting area in the woods while wearing his Chewbacca outfit, for fear hunters would shoot him mistaking him for Bigfoot.
5) Why do airlines have problems serving food that customers find tasty?
Because our senses of smell and taste decrease in the environment of a pressurized airplane cabin at altitude. The combination of dryness and low pressure reduces the sensitivity of your taste buds to sweet and salty foods by around 30%, according to a 2010 study conducted by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics, commissioned by German airline Lufthansa.
6) What is the largest country in the world without a river in it?
Saudi Arabia.
7) A facebook group dedicated to photographing the aurora borealis discovered a repeating strip of light stretching all the way from Hudson Bay to British Columbia that is not part of the aurora. Scientists investigating it found it to be a strip of ionized gas moving through the air at 4 miles per second, with temperatures as high as 10,800 F, as hot as the earth's core. By what name is this phenomenen known?
Steve. The facebook group named it Steve, after a scene from the movie "Over the Hedge", where forest animals faced with the sudden appearance of a towering row of shrubs decided it would be much less scary if they just knew what to call it. So they called it Steve. Scientists are still working on why Steve exists.
8) By what name is the Vietnam War known in Vietnam?
It is known as the American War. Or more formally, the Resistance War Against America.
9) The United States has declared war 11 times, on 10 nations. Name at least 8 of the 10.
Great Britain (1812), Mexico (1846), Spain (1898), Germany (1917, 1941), Austria-Hungary (1917), Japan (1941), Italy (1941), Bulgaria (1942), Hungary (1942), Rumania (1942)
10) Corned beef doesn't contain any visible signs of corn. What role does the corn play?
Corned beef is salt-cured beef. The large grains of rock salt that are used are also known as "corns". So corned refers to the salt used to cure the beef, not to the plant.
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Thanks, Greg! 
