THANKSGIVING TRIVIA

Did You Know...

Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as an annual holiday to be held on the last Thursday in November, where as earlier the presidents used to make an annual proclamation to specify the day when Thanksgiving was to be held.

The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days.  

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims  in 1621.

President George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in the year 1789 and again in 1795.

The state of New York officially made Thanksgiving Day an annual custom in 1817. 

The Wampanoag Indians were the people who taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate the land. 

Californians are the largest consumers of turkey in the United States. 

Turkeys are the only breed of poultry native to the Western Hemisphere.

Sarah Josepha Hale, an editor with a magazine, started a Thanksgiving campaign in 1827 and it was result of her efforts that in 1863 Thanksgiving was observed as a day for national thanksgiving and prayer. 

The annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade tradition began in the 1920's. 

In 1941, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution making Thanksgiving Day the fourth Thursday in November rather than the last.

Thanksgiving is celebrated in Canada on the second Monday in October.  

The first Thanksgiving wad celebrated in Plymouth, Massachusetts.  

The "drink" that the Puritans brought with them on the Mayflower was beer.

TRIVIA Inspired by Mothers...

Did you know...

Highest Number of Children in Modern Times

The modern world record for giving birth is held by Leontina Albina from San Antonio, Chile. Leontina claims to be the mother of 64 children, of which only 55 of them are documented. She is listed in the 1999 Guinness World Records but dropped from later editions. 

During the third season of the Cosby Show, actress Phylicia Rashad was pregnant, and to cover it up, producers raised the counters on the kitchen set, and cut a hole in the Huxtables' bed, so that her stomach would appear level.

August is the most popular month in which to have a baby, with more than 360,000 births taking place that month in 2001.

Tuesday is the most popular day of the week in which to have a baby, with an average of more than 12,000 births taking place on Tuesdays during 2001.

In the Bible, Eve is credited with being the 'Mother of All the Living.'

In 2004, Marge Simpson was voted the UK's "Most Respected Mother" in a poll conducted by the Mothers' Union.   She beat Cherie Blair and Victoria Beckham. 

A female oyster over her lifetime may produce over 100 million young.

A mother giraffe often gives birth while standing, so the new born's first experience outside the womb is a 1.8-meter (6-foot) drop.

Rosa Parks was the mother of bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama that launched the Civil Rights Movement.

Patridge Family matriarch Shirley Jones was actually David Cassidy's stepmother.   She married actor Jack Cassidy, when David was 6. 

The ancient Greeks celebrated Mother's Day in spring, like we do. They used to honor Rhea, "mother of the gods" with honey-cakes and fine drinks and flowers at dawn. Sounds like the beginnings of the Mother's Day tradition of breakfast in bed!

Hindu scripture credits the Great Mother, Kali Ma, with the invention of writing through alphabets, pictographs and beautiful sacred images.

June Cleaver was famous for doing housework in heels and pearls, but Barbara Billingsley, the actress who played her, later said that there were practical reasons for the wardrobe-the pearls hid shadows on her neck and the heels allowed her to remain taller than her rapidly growing TV sons.

George Washington once said, "My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her."

Native American Indian women have long been honored with the name, "Life of the Nation" for their gift of motherhood to the tribes.

Marion Cunningham of Happy Days was an archeology major in college.

Native American Indian women have long been honored with the name, "Life of the Nation" for their gift of motherhood to the tribes.

9.9 million The number of single mothers living with children younger than 18 in 2010, up from 3.4 million in 1970 .

Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia began the campaign that brought about the official observance of Mother's Day in the United states. Her mother died, and Anna wanted all mothers to be remembered. She asked that white carnations be the official mother's day symbol. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed the orders that made Mother's Day a national holiday.  Just nine years later, Anna filed a lawsuit in an effort to stop the over- commercialization of Mother's Day. She lost her fight. Now, cards, letters, candy and dinners out mark Mother's Day for most families. Anna had hoped for a day of reflection and quiet prayer by families, thanking God for all that mothers had done.

Mother Earth is also known as "Terra Firma". That title is a Latin translation of some lines from one of the Greek poet, Homer's, greatest poems.

85.4 million Estimated number of mothers in the United States in 2008.

LA FHEILE PADRAIG BREA DHIBH GO LEIR

DID YOU KNOW...

La Fheile Padraig brea dhibh go leir means have a great St. Patrick's day everyone

At. Patrick's day did not become a national holiday in Ireland in 1903 and the first parade wasn't held in Dublin until 1931

The Irish flag is green, white and orange.  Green symbolizes the people of the south, and orange the north.  The white represents the peace that brought them together as a nation.  

Leprechauns are the official shoe makers of the fairy kingdom.

The first St. Patrick's Day was celebrated in 1737 in Boston, Massachusetts.  

St. Patrick was born around 385AD

St. Patrick's true given name was Maewyn Succat

The first official St. Patrick' s day parade was held in New York City in 1766.  

According to the 2003 US Census, 34 million Americans have Irish ancestry.  Nine times the population of Ireland.

The harp is a symbol of Ireland.

Shamrock is the national flower of Ireland.

There are four places in the United States named Shamrock (West Virginia, Texas, Indiana, Oklahoma) and nine Dublin's (Dublin, California and Dublin, Ohio are most populous)

The color of green is commonly associated with Ireland, also known as "the Emerald Isle". 

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the highest number of leaves found on a clover is fourteen!

The color originally associated with St. Patrick was blue; green became associated during the 19th century

It is estimated that there are about 10,000 regular clovers for every four-leaf clover.

New York's St. Patrick's Day parade is the longest running civilian parade in the world. This year nearly three million spectators are expected to watch the spectacle and some 150,000 participants plan to march.

Legend says that each leaf of the four leaf clover means something: the first is for hope, the second for faith, the third for love and the fourth for luck.  

Traditional St Patrick’s Day food includes, Irish soda bread, corned beef and cabbage, Irish stew, and of course, Guinness.

Virtual "Green Beer" is on the house at the lounge today! :)

May the luck of the Irish be with you today!  Happy St. Patricks Day!

Happy St. Paddy's Day from the DRL Crew!

SUNDAY TRIVIA

Did You Know...

~ The peace symbol ☮ was created by Gerald Holtom in 1958. It was designed for the British "Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament". The design was created by superimposing the flag semaphore letters 'N' and 'D' (Nuclear Disarmament) onto a circle. Flag semaphore is a system of communication using two hand held flag to convey information based on what position each flag is held at. The letter 'N' in flag semaphore is created by holding both flags at an angle below the horizontal line. This forms the two angled lines on the Peace Symbol. The letter 'D' is created by holding one flag straight up and one straight down. This forms the vertical line of the Peace Symbol.

~ From 1909 through 1982, the US penny was made from 95% copper and 5% zinc. As of October 2009, the metal in one pre-1983 penny can be melted and sold for 1.8 cents. The scrap value for pennys from 1982 and earlier is more than the coin is worth as currency.

~ In botanical terms, a fruit consists of the ripened ovary and seed of a flowering plant. What most people consider the strawberry "fruit" is not technically a fruit. The strawberry is considered an "accessory fruit". The fleshy part is derived from the peg at the bottom of the hypanthium that held the ovaries, and not from the ovaries themselves which form the "seeds". So from a technical standpoint, the seeds are the actual fruits of the plant, and the flesh of the strawberry is modified receptacle tissue.

~ The modern bikini was invented by a French designer in 1946. It was named after Bikini Atoll, the site of US nuclear weapon tests a few days earlier in the Marshall Islands, on the reasoning that the burst of excitement it would cause would be like the nuclear device. 

~ Hydrogen peroxide bubbles on wounds not because it is killing germs, but because it decomposes into water and oxygen gas in the presence of enzymes from broken skin cells.

~ Ketchup has not always been made out of tomatoes. It started out as a general term for sauce, typically made of mushrooms or fish brine with herbs and spices. Mushroom ketchup is still available in some countries, such as the UK. Some popular early main ingredients include anchovy, oyster, lobster, walnut, kidney bean, cucumber, cranberry, lemon, and grape.

~ To make Pop Rocks, the hot sugar mixture is allowed to mix with carbon dioxide gas at about 600psi. The carbon dioxide gas forms tiny, 600psi bubbles in the candy. When you put the candy in your mouth, it melts and releases the bubbles. What you are hearing and feeling is the 600psi carbon dioxide gas being released from each bubble.

~ Campbell's "Chicken Noodle" soup wasn't always one of Campbell's most popular soups, and it didn't start out as "Chicken Noodle" soup either. Introduced in 1934, it was originally called "Chicken with Noodles" and enjoyed only moderate success. Later that same year an innocent misstatement on the "Amos 'n' Andy" radio program caused sales to sky-rocket. Amos misread his copy and accidentally called the product "Chicken Noodle" soup. Suddenly the soup company started receiving large orders for their "new" product. The soup was formally renamed "Chicken Noodle" after the erroneous turn of phrase caused high demand for the soup. Today, Campbell's uses nearly a million miles of noodles in the production of their Chicken Noodle soup every year. That is enough noodles to circle the equator over 40 times.

SUNDAY TRIVIA

Did You Know...

December was the 10th month of the Roman Calendar.

The name December comes from the Latin word ‘decem’ meaning 10.

The birthstone for December is Turquoise or the mystical Blue Topaz.

The flower representing this month is Holly.

On December 18th 1977 – the movie "Saturday Night Fever" opened in New York, and the soundtrack album sold 25-million copies worldwide.

On December 3rd,  1947 —- the Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” opened on Broadway starring Jessica Tandy as Blanche and Marlon Brando as Stanley.

In December of 1803 the Louisiana Purchase took place.

The Charles Dickens classic story ‘A Christmas Carol’ was 1st published in December 6, 1843.

December 5th is National Blue Jeans Day.

December 6th is the day many people celebrate the patron Catholic saint of children  — St. Nicholas.

December 17th was know for centuries, as the beginning of the Roman/Pagan Saturnalia Festival, held in honor of the God of Agriculture.

December 21st marks the beginning of the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere of the world.

December 28th has been celebrated as Childermass, also known as ‘The Holy Innocents Day’, which commemorates King Herod’s order to kill all the male children under 2, in order to kill the Messiah.

SUNDAY TRIVIA

Did You Know...

Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have only 206 in our bodies.

There's only one city in the United States named merely "Beach." It is found in North Dakota, which is a land-locked state.

Baskin Robbins once made ketchup ice cream. This was the only vegetable flavored ice cream produced.

Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.

Fingerprints serve a function - they provide traction for the fingers to grasp things.

A typical bed usually houses over 6 billion dust mites.

Antarctica is the only continent without reptiles or snakes.

If you go blind in one eye, you'll only lose about one-fifth of your vision (but all your depth perception.)

It takes 17 muscles to smile --- 43 to frown.

An adult bedbug can survive up to one year without feeding.

SUNDAY TRIVIA

Did You Know...

An average beaver can cut down two hundred trees a year.

Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any state of the United States.

Only full-grown male crickets can chirp.

Richard M. Nixon is the only US president to have resigned.

Average number of hummingbirds required to create the weight of 1 ounce: 18.

Chocolate contains phenylethylamine (PEA), a natural substance that is reputed to stimulate the same reaction in the body as falling in love.

The human brain is about 85% water.

The honeybee kills more people world-wide than all the poisonous snakes combined.

Teeth are the only parts of the human body that can't repair themselves.

Cats average 16 hours of sleep a day, more than any other mammal.

SUNDAY TRIVIA

Did You Know...

Giraffes are the only animals born with horns. Both males and females are born with bony knobs on the forehead.

Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day

Dragonflies are one of the fastest insects, flying 50 to 60 mph.

Hawaii is the only US state that grows coffee.

On average women say 7,000 words per day. Men manage just over 2000.

Roughly 80% of all human beings on earth have one or more internal parasite infestations. For america, the estimate is 95%. Almost all human beings will suffer from internal or external parasites at least once in their lifespan and may never even know it.

Mosquitoes prefer children to adults, and blondes to brunettes.

Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature.

Over 96% of American households purchase bananas at least once each month.

In Hershey, Pennsylvania, the streetlights along "Chocolate Avenue" are in the shape of Hershey Kisses.

SUNDAY TRIVIA

Did You Know...

The only active diamond mine in the United States is in Arkansas.

The leap of an average flea is equivalent to a 100 pound man leaping 1,000 and enduring a g-force of 20,000 pounds with an acceleration greater than that of a space shuttle.

The only lizard that has a voice is the Gecko.

The sound of a snore (up to 69 decibels) can be almost as loud as the noise of a pneumatic drill.

Women's hearts beat faster than men's.

The average duration of sexual intercourse for humans is 2 minutes.

Worker ants may live seven years and the queen may live as long as 15 years.

The average elephant produces 50 pounds of dung each day.

The brain is soft and gelatinous - its consistency is something between jelly and cooked pasta.

The only one of his sculptures that Michelangelo signed was the "The Pieta," completed in 1500.

SUNDAY TRIVIA

Did You Know...

The only repealed amendment to the US Constitution deals with the prohibition of alcohol.

The pecan tree is the only naturally growing nut tree in North American. It is native to the Texas, Mississippi and Mexico River Valleys.

The average human body contains enough:
iron to make a 3 inch nail, 
sulfur to kill all fleas on an average dog, 
carbon to make 900 pencils, 
potassium to fire a toy cannon,
fat to make 7 bars of soap,
phosphorous to make 2,200 match heads, and 
water to fill a ten-gallon tank.

The vocabulary of the average person consists of 5,000 to 6,000 words.

A hedgehog's heart beats 190 times a minute on average and drops to only 20 beats per minute during hibernation.

Every square inch of the human body has an average of 32 million bacteria on it.

It takes a lobster approximately 7 years to grow to be one pound.

American and Russian space flights have always included chocolate.

SUNDAY TRIVIA

Did You Know...

A cough releases an explosive charge of air that moves at speeds up to 60 mph.

A fingernail or toenail takes about 6 months to grow from base to tip.

Elvis Presley made only one television commercial - an ad for "Southern Maid Doughnuts" that ran in 1954.

A cockroach can live for up to a week without a head.

Columbus brought cacao (chocolate) beans back to Spain on his fourth voyage in 1502.

The penguin is the only bird that can swim, but not fly. It is also the only bird that walks upright.

A sneeze can exceed the speed of 100 mph.

After spending hours working at a computer display, look at a blank piece of white paper. It will probably appear pink.

An individual blood cell takes about 60 seconds to make a complete circuit of the body.

As bananas ripen, the starch in the fruit turns to sugar. Therefore, the riper the banana the sweeter it will taste.

SUNDAY TRIVIA

Did you know...

Chocolate manufacturers currently use 40 percent of the world's almonds and 20 percent of the world's peanuts.

"Video Killed the Radio Star" was the very first video ever played on MTV.

The average age of an Italian barista is 48 years old. A barista is a respected job title in Italy.

Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith. He set out to invent a game to occupy students between the football and baseball seasons.

Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been over mixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.

Casey Kasem is the voice of Shaggy on "Scooby-Doo.

More money is printed daily for the Monopoly game than by the U.S. Treasury.

Anteaters prefer termites to ants.

Cheryl Ladd (of Charlie's Angels fame) played the voice, both talking and singing, of Josie in the 70s Saturday morning cartoon "Josie and the Pussycats.

If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.

There are only three cities that are named exactly after the state they are located in: Maine, ME; New York, NY; and Wyoming, WY.

The first time the word "hell" was spoken on TV was in an original "STAR TREK" episode entitled "City on the Edge of Forever". The exact quote was "...let's get the hell out of here...", spoken by William Shatner.

Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic church. When deciding if someone should be sainted, a devil's advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view.