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#699: kalamazoo was originally called bronson because it was founded by a lad called titus bronson. the story is the he started in detroit and walked due west into the woods. he emerged 140 miles later and founded a town at his feet. there was a native tribe there but i think in typical white colonial fashion he ignored them. then when they changed the name, which derives from native american, he packed his bags and abandoned the town. or maybe thats because he stole a cherry tree. how you steal a cherry tree i dont know. actually, one source says him stealing the cherry tree was what caused them to change the name (in 1836) (and subsequently that of the township in 1837). he lost his money and wife in iowa and "died a broken man" in connecticut, where he was born.

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#630: Vaqueros were cattle herders in mexico, with traditions from the iberian peninsula. lots of stereotypical american cliches of cowboys are actually from vaquero tradition. in fact, the word "buckaroo" is thought to be a corruption of the word "vaquero" (mixed in with "buck"). lots of words like lasso, lariat, rodeo are corruptions of spanish words as well. in fact hawaiian cowboys (paniolo) is a hawaiianised pronunciation of "español"!

paniolos have an interesting history. in 1793 the kingdom was given cows as a gift from some british guy, and nobody killed them cos they were, well, a gift. eventually they got a little out of hand so they had to invite some vaqueros to show them how to round up the cows. so paniolo tradition, dress, tools, saddles, and even surnames, still bear a lot of similarities to mexico and spain.

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#371: you cannot throw fireworks by hand during holy week in mexico. idky youd want to tbh. but wait! in Bridgewater, Somerset, theres a carnival where its a tradition to hold massive fireworks above your head and parade through the street on bonfire night (guy fawkes night - november 5th)! also, Guy Fawkes himself went to St Peter's school in York, so they make a point of not celebrating his death there lol.

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#712: as mentioned yesterday, theres a secret network of hidden tunnels for staff below disneyland and disney world, called Utilitunnels. apparently theres a whole village worth of stuff down there: canteens, coffee shops, even a dry cleaner's. i like to imagine theres a species of some sort of borrower-like thing that lives in there.

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#729: ive already talked about the date of birth of jesus briefly twice before but to delve into more detail, even the gospels dont agree on his birthyear. matthew places the birth under the reign of herod, making it around 4BC at the latest, which makes sense when luke says that jesus started preaching at "about thirty". luke places the birth just after the death of herod, but this is discounted by scholars for some reason. there are arguments that herod actually died in 1BC but generally scholars think jesus was born between 6 and 4 BC. at first you would think you could pin it down by the census that made saint mary travel to bethlehem, but people dont even agree on which government collected that census.

some estimates involve reverse engineering the star of bethlehem as a comet, even though its thought to be pious exaggeration.

the date is a whole other thing: some arguments relate it to yom kippur (october), some to the spring equinox (march), and some to the mildness of mid-april/mid-september (which is to do with the shepherds' sheep grazing). and islamic teachings place it slap-bang in the middle of march, without any argument, seemingly.

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#727: the first Christmas was celebrated, and i mean that in the widest sense, in 336AD. it wasnt even a major thing until long after that (and the date is completely wrong - see FotD#359). one reason for this is that christian celebrations were primarily focussed around saints' deathdays, so easter was more of a Thing (see FotDs#465-470). in fact, even his baptism was celebrated more than his birth, in the form of the Feast of Epiphany, which celebrates the visit of the three kings/wise men ("Magi") to baby Jesus (hence the german name of Holy Three Kings' Day (of course it's one word)). the fact that Epiphany is the day after twelfth night is kinda coincidental. they just retroactively named the 12 days from christmas to epiphany Twelvetide and it happened to be very cool that it matches with the twelve apostles. or maybe they jiggled it around a bit so it worked - who knows; this is sixth century were talking.

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#728: the figures in this fact will be presented in purely british measurements. over the festive period, per year, brits get through around 3,793,000 big bens of wrapping paper, 0.84 Angels of the North of aluminium mince pie cases, 158 stonehenges of turkey, 572 million marmite servings of tinfoil for storing leftovers and 50 million sprouts for every ingredient in Heinz Worcestershire Sauce. converted for metric users: 363 thousand kilometres of paper, 175 tonnes of aluminium, 19 thousand tonnes of turkey, 4500 tonnes of tinfoil and 750 million sprouts. every single year. just the uk.

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#726: mistletoe means dung-stick. it comes from mih-stu meaning urine, apparently because its spread by the droppings of the missel-thrush (slightly dubious), and from "tan" meaning twig. in antarctica, they dont have much greenery, so the custom is for the mistletoe to be replaced by a fish head. i dont know whether id rather kiss under a stinking fish head or a stinking wee twig. they have to make the christmas tree out of whatever junk they have lying around. apparently theres another tradition to get drunk on eggnog and have a competition to give as many penguins as possible christmas hats. most penguins with a hat wins.

some conifers are actually really cold resistant. normally, the water in the cell would freeze and crystallise and shatter the cell, but instead the tree coaxes its cells into a glassy middle stage between states of matter. im not sure of the specifics but it means they can simply hibernate through -60 degree weather.

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#725: Boxing Day (today) is one of the eight bank holidays in the uk. many people know it as the second christmas, or the Day of Goodwill, or the Day of the Wren. theres a tradition in ireland and the isle of man to capture a wren and dress it up and pray to it. the origins of boxing day, and why its called so, are dubious. some say its the day the servants got their gifts, and a more reasonable explanation is that its the day that the alms box is opened, but both of these dont explain why its a bank holiday. wikipedia seems to side with the former explanation. today is also st stephens day, and the wren thing is probably more to do with that.

poorly worded fact but hey ho its christmastide ive got better things to do :P

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Week #52 (whoo!): Christmas!

#724: on 24th dec 1927, Santa Claus was given an official pilots licence and some military-grade maps! it was mostly a publicity thing, but Herbert Hoover (then secretary of commerce) promised to keep all runway lights on overnight. moreover, he was recently given permission to engage in interstate air-cargo-delivery services by the Federal Aviation Administration and got a special spaceflight licence. on that note, William P. MacCracken was the first person to get a pilots licence in the US.

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#720: today is the winter solstice, which actually occurs at an instant. this year it was 21:48 (about an hour ago) but due to the nature of leap years, it moves around, and sometimes even happens early tomorrow morning. some years, the 22nd is actually shorter than the 21st. the way they calculate the instant is interesting, and how you can do it at home is interesting, but i have bigger fish to fry and only so many characters in which to fry it.

1) what is a cholecystectomy?

2) what was the first ikea in the uk, and the first ikea in the us?

3) what is the most expensive spice by weight, and how expensive?

4) what was the first PG-13-rated film in the US?

5) what is Prince William's full name?

6) what is a hipposandal?

7) at what temperature are farenheit and celsius equal?

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1) the removal of the gallbladder.

2) Warrington, Cheshire, 1987 and Plymouth, Pennsylvania, 1985 respectively. they now have 22 and 52 stores respectively.

3) saffron goes for around $4000-$10,000/kg, depending on quantity. the myth that its worth more by weight than gold is only true if your gold is 5K or less (about 21% pure). its made from threads of crocus flowers, and there are around 150-450 thousand threads per kilo.

4) Red Dawn, 1984. the initial rating system of the US entailed G (fine for all), M (mature, but no restrictions), R (U16s required an accompanying adult) and X (no U17s). they added the PG-13 for films with a "higher level of intensity". at the same time, R was moved from 16 to 17.

5) William Arthur Philip Louis Windsor.

6) a sandal for horses, which was a predecessor to the horseshoe. it was commonplace in the roman empire and nailed horseshoes didnt appear until around the 5th century. it is thought the Gauls were the first to nail on horseshoes.

7) -40 on the dot.

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#721

1) what is the busiest airport in the world?

2) who are all the british monarchs to have reigned for over 50 years?

3) a christian allegory, what is often cited as the first novel written in english?

4) how many times has the mona lisa been stolen from the Louvre?

5) what is the worlds most translated document, and with how many translations?

6) which book holds the record for the most sales within 24 hours of release?

7) who invented the christmas cracker?

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1) the Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta, Georgia (code ATL) has been the busiest airport for decades, only briefly overtaken by Guangshou Baiyun Airport in china in 2020, with a margin of 1.9% passenger numbers.

2) victoria, edward III, henry III, george III, elizabeth II. you get half a point for james I, who ruled scotland as james VI for 57 years, 8 months and 3 days, but only had the metonymic crown of england and ireland for 22 years and 3 days.

3) the Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.

4) once, in 1911, as an act of italian patriotism. it was returned in 1914, and this is thought to have been the source of much of its popularity. it has been vandalised many times but only damaged twice. contrary to popular belief, the model has been identified as Lisa Gherardini. it has the highest insurance valuation of any painting, at around $870m.

5) the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, at 530 translations.

6) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with 8.3m in the US and 2.7m in the UK. thats about 96 per second in the US. within a year, worldwide sales were around 45m.

7) Tom Smith in 1847, famed for introducing the uk to the french bon bon sweet. once he wrapped them in "bangs of expectation" for the christmas period, and wrote love notes in them

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#723: the ikea effect is the cognitive bias that disproportionately favours products that the user partially created. ie, a consumer is likelier to buy something they put effort into. this can be seen from the cake mixes that call for milk even though they already contain milk (there's probably a matpat video on that), to the eponymous flat-packed furniture sets, to home renovations: you may overprice your home when selling it because you put work into it, even though the buyer might see nothing but a shoddy job. one study from 2011 shows that people are willing to pay 63% more for furniture that they had to construct. however, an article in psychology today argues that this is a good thing: you get a sense of satisfaction from putting something together, and in that sense, you are getting more value. the ikea effect is comparable to effort justification.

make sure to get an early night tonight!! the sooner you sleep, the sooner Santa will come :)

unless he's already come

I say that but it's nearly half 11 lol

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#722

1) which country has the most active volcanoes?

2) who invented school as we know it?

3) on what date was William I (the Conqueror) crowned?

4) what is the smallest species of monkey?

5) which city has the highest cost of living?

6) how many F1 championships does lewis hamilton have?

7) which version of windows first saw solitaire, and in what year?

how well did you do? let me know your score out of 42!

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1) Indonesia, at 127. an estimated 5m people live in danger zones.

2) Horace Mann. he was a pivotal educational reformer in massachusetts during the 1830s and 40s and changed the ways schools were thought about in many ways, for example secularising them and feminising them. he was also an abolitionist.

3) christmas day. rather festive.

4) the pygmy marmoset, at 12-15cm.

5) Singapore, although measures differ.

6) 7 to date. the latest two went to max verstappen, his first and only two wins.

7) Windows 3.0 in 1990. it included klondike (the famous one), spider, freecell, pyramid and tripeaks. it was coded by an intern in one summer.

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#719

1) what is the name of the Coco Pops mascot?

2) when did the Ussher Chronology claim the world was created?

3) what is the weakest muscle in your body?

4) what is the philtrum?

5) what is the most common flag colour combo, and how many national flags have it?

6) how many languages has Harry Potter (and the philosophers stone) been translated into?

7) how many rooms are there in the palace of versailles?

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1) Coco [the Monkey]

2) 4004BC. bonus points if you said "near nightfall" on october 23rd (i dont know how there can be nightfall without earth or sun...).

3) the stapedius muscle, in your middle ear. its job is to stabilise your stapes, which is the smallest bone in your body.

4) the funny line between your nose and upper lip. also known as the infranasal depression.

5) 29 national flags are almost entirely comprised of red, white and blue, and 22 are solely comprised of them. 18 countries have just red and white flags. only two (or three depending on whether you count libya) flags dont have red white or blue.

6) 79. the ancient greek version is the longest ancient greek text written since the novels of Heliodorus of Emesa in the 3rd century.

7) 2300, according to their website. i wonder how precise that count is. it has an area of 1070 hectares. around 15 million people visit the estate every year.

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Week #51: pub quiz!! for the penultimate week, imma try something a tad different. each day theres going to be seven facts presented in the form of a quiz question. you can test yourself, or even host your own 42-question quiz based off these! questions in the first post, answers below, along with further information. dont worry - youre still getting more than your daily quota of useless fact content!

#717

1) when was the lego brick invented?

2) in Harry Potter, where does Vernon Dursley work?

3) when was rome founded?

4) what is the arbroath smokie?

5) how many flavours of jelly bean are there?

6) which film won the first oscar?

7) how long is the grand national race?

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1) the current iteration was patented in denmark on the 28th of january, 1958, and all bricks since then are completely compatible with current bricks. in 2011, 13 lego kits were brought to the ISS, where the astronauts had fun and passed it off as Science™️. minifigures have been around since 1978, and duplo since 1969.

2) he is the director of Grunnings, a drill manufacturer.

3) 753BC. however, the area has been inhabited for many more years, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in europe.

4) smoked haddock. theres a story about how it was invented: one day a terrible fire burned down the food stores in Auchmithie (near Arbroath, Angus, Scotland) but it was ok because the fish that were left tasted nice. wikipedia says the story is [dubious - discuss] and says [citation needed].

5) 50. i wont list them for you. ronald reagan said his favourite sweet was jelly beans.

6) Wings, in 1929. it was the only academy awards ceremony not to be broadcasted, as a radio broadcast was introduced for the second awards.

7) 4 miles, 514 yards, or 6.907 km. there are 30 fences and two laps. you could get half a point for the common definition of "about 4 miles and 2 and a half furlongs", a furlong being 40 rods, 220 yards, or 201.168m.