• Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and were still smelling pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the b.o.
  
• Baths equaled a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually loose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."
  
• Houses had thatched roofs. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the pets ... dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs."
  
• There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. So, they found if they made beds with big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed that problem. Hence those beautiful big 4 poster beds with canopies.
  
• The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors which would get slippery in the winter when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed at the entryway, hence a "thresh hold."
  
• They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They mostly ate vegetables and didn't get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been in there for a month. Hence the rhyme: peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.
  
• Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that happened. When company came over, they would bring out some bacon and hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth and that a man could really bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."
  
• Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food. This happened most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes ... for 400 years.
  
• Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers - a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Trencher were never washed and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off wormy trenchers, they would get "trench mouth." 
  
• Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the "upper crust."
  
• Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."
  
• England is old and small and they started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a house and reuse the grave. In reopening these coffins, one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on their wrist and lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night to listen for the bell. Hence on the "graveyard shift" they would know that someone was "saved by the bell" or he was a "dead ringer."

Submitted by Andy, Gettysburg, Pa.
 

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Submitted by Larry, Bethesda, Md.
   

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This is given out in honor of GM's fiasco in trying to market this car in Central and South America. "No va" means, of course, in Spanish, "it doesn't go".

• The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read "Are you lactating?"
• Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."
• Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."
• Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "Manure Stick."
• When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the labels of what's inside, since many people can't read.
• Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.
• An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (elPapa), the shirts read "I Saw the Potato"(la papa).
• Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave" in Chinese.
• The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Kekoukela", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "kokou kole", translating into "happiness in the mouth."
• Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."
• When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." The company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant!"
• When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally, which meant "Fly Naked" (vuela en cuero) in Spanish!

Submitted by Paul, Middleburg, Va
  

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Sky and Telescope says the predictions below should be valid for anyone living within about 100 miles of a given city though the location of the spacecraft in the sky will differ; it will generally appear lower in the sky if the viewing direction is toward the listed city, higher if the direction is away from it. DUR indicates the length of each sighting in minutes; MAX ELEV is how high MIR will get above your horizon (90° is overhead). Look for your city in the list below, or go to Sky and Telescope's Web site, www.skypub.com, for a more complete list including other countries.
  

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This will certainly change things. Each year the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin puts together list to try to give the faculty a sense of the mind set of that year's incoming freshmen.

Here is this year's list:

• The people who are starting college this fall across the nation were born in 1982.
• They have no meaningful recollection of the Reagan Era and probably did not know he had ever been shot.
• They were prepubescent when the Persian Gulf War was waged.
• Black Monday, 1987 is as significant to them as the Great Depression.
• There has been only one Pope.
• They have never feared a nuclear war.
• They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up.
• Tianamen Square means nothing to them.
• Bottle caps have always been screw off and plastic.
• The expression "you sound like a broken record" means nothing to them.
• They have never owned a record player.
• They have likely never played Pac Man and have never heard of Pong.
• They may have never heard of an 8 track.
• The CompactDisc was introduced when they were 1 year old.
• As far as they know, stamps have always cost about 33 cents.
• They have always had an answering machine.
• Most have never seen a TV set with only 13 channels, nor have they seen a black-and-white TV.
• They have always had cable.
• There have always been VCRs, but they have no idea what BETA is.
• They cannot fathom not having a remote control.
• They were born the year that Walkmen were introduced by Sony.
• Roller-skating has always meant inline for them.
• Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show.
• They have no idea when or why Jordache jeans were cool.
• Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.
• They have never seen Larry Bird play.
• They never took a swim and thought about "Jaws".
• The Vietnam War is as ancient history to them as WWI, WWII and the Civil War.
• They have no idea that Americans were ever held hostage in Iran.
• They can't imagine what hard contact lenses are.
• They don't know who Mork was or where he was from.
• They never heard: "Where's the beef?", "I'd walk a mile for a Camel", or "de plane, de plane".
• They do not care who shot J. R., and have no idea who J. R. is.
• The Titanic was found? They thought we always knew where it was. 
• Kansas, Chicago, Boston, America, and Alabama are places, not groups.
• McDonald's never came in Styrofoam containers.
• There has always been MTV.
• They don't have a clue how to use a typewriter.

Do you feel old yet?

Submitted by Andy, Gettysburg, Pa.
 

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• The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
• Coca Cola was originally green.
• Every day more money is printed for monopoly than the US Treasury.
• Men can read smaller print than women, women can hear better than men. Women can also smell better than men.
• Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33
• Cost of raising a medium sized dog to the age of 11: $6,400.
• Average number of people airborne over the U.S. during any given hour:61,000.
• The world's youngest parents were 8 & 9 and lived in China in 1910.
• The youngest Pope was 11 years old.
• First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer
• The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile national monuments.
• The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
• Coca Cola was originally green.
• Every day more money is printed for monopoly than the US Treasury.
• Men can read smaller print than women, women can hear better than men. Women can also smell better than men.
• Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33
• Cost of raising a medium sized dog to the age of 11: $6,400.
• Average number of people airborne over the U.S. during any given hour:61,000.
• The world's youngest parents were 8 & 9 and lived in China in 1910.
• The youngest Pope was 11 years old.
• First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer
• The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile national monuments.
• Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on 4 JULY: John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on 2 AUG, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
• "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
• The term "whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the 50-caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got the "whole 9 yards".
• The Interstate system was designed so that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.The Interstates official name is The National Defense Highway System.
• The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only 6" for each gallon of fuel that it burns.
• The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosey is a rhyme about the bubonic plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores (Ring around the Rosey...). These sores would smell very bad so people would hide flowers on their bodies in an attempt to mask the smell ("pocket full of posies..."). People who died from the plague would be burned to reduce the spread of the disease ("ashes, ashes, we all fall down").

Submitted by Jon, Miamisburg, OH

Go to set 2 of totally useless stuff to know

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1. The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ.
2. Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.
3. Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.
4. The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
5. The Five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.
6. The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.
7. Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit: Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.
8. The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.
9. Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-control.
10. The ten lords a-leaping were the Ten Commandments.
11. Eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.
12. Twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

So there is your history lesson for today and now you know how that strange song became a Christmas Carol!

Submitted by Tom, Gettysburg, Pa.

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Crawling on his stomach through the gunfire, the Captain reached the stricken soldier and began pulling him toward the encampment. When the Captain finally reached his own lines, he discovered it was actually a Confederate soldier, but the soldier was dead. The Captain lit a lantern and suddenly caught his breath and went numb with shock. In the dim light he saw the face of the soldier.

It was his own son!

The boy had been studying music in the South when the war broke out. Without telling his father, the boy enlisted in the Confederate Army.

The following morning, heartbroken, the father asked permission to give his son a full military burial despite his enemy status.

His request was only partially granted. The Captain had asked if he could have a group of Army band members play a funeral dirge for his son at the funeral. The request was denied since the soldier was a Confederate. But, out of respect for the father, they did say they could give him one musician.

The Captain chose a bugler. He asked the bugler to play a series of musical notes he had found on a piece of paper in the pocket of the dead youth's uniform. This wish was granted.
The haunting melody, which we now know as "Taps" used at military funerals, was born.
 

Go to set: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 

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