Read Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wise Up! Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
—Joseph Stalin
“There must be a world revolution which puts an end to all materialistic conditions hindering woman from performing her natural role in life and driving her to carry out man’s duties in order to be equal in rights.”
—Muammar al-Gaddafi
“The universities are available only to those who share my revolutionary beliefs.”
—Fidel Castro
“I’m quite modest. I don’t want to tell people I’m a leader.”
—Pol Pot
“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”
—Walter C. Langer
“Communists should be crushed like worms.”
—Francisco Franco
“Politics is when you say you are going to do one thing while intending to do another. Then you do neither what you said nor what you intended.”
—Saddam Hussein
“Sooner will a camel pass through a needle’s eye than a great man be ‘discovered’ by an election.”
—Adolf Hitler
“It may be necessary to use methods other than constitutional ones.”
—Robert Mugabe
“Death is the solution to all problems. No man—no problem.”
—Joseph Stalin
“It’s good to trust others, but not to do so is much better.”
—Benito Mussolini
The English alphabet is about 700 years old.
Irving Berlin could play the piano only in the key of F sharp.
Most common first letter for words in the English language:
s
.
What’s the only letter in the alphabet with more than one syllable? Answer:
w.
Japanese words almost always end with a vowel.
The dial tone of most telephones is in the key of F.
The Maltese alphabet has 29 letters but does not contain the Latin letter
y.
According to linguists, the letter
p
in “ptarmigan” has no etymological justification whatsoever.
The most common American surname initial is
S;
the least common is
X
.
The
D
in “D-Day” stands for “Day,” so June 6, 1944, was “Day-Day.”
The first letters of the months July through November spell the name “Jason.”
The only words in English with the letters
uu
are vacuum, residuum, and continuum.
Alice Cooper owns one of the original
o
’s from the “Hollywood” sign.
Houseflies hum in the key of F.
J
is the only letter that doesn’t appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements.
The word “alphabet” comes from the Greek
alphabetos
.
In the early part of his career, pianist Liberace performed under the name Walter Busterkeys.
The “real” name of the Comic Book Guy on
The Simpsons
: Jeff Albertson.
First Lady Barbara Bush was nicknamed “the Silver Fox.”
President Reagan’s Secret Service code name: Rawhide.
Musician Captain Beefheart’s real name is Don Glen Vliet.
Bluesman Bo Diddley’s real name is Ellas Otha Bates. He got his stage name from an African single-string guitar.
Farrokh Bulsara was called “Britain’s first Asian pop star.” Stage name: Freddie Mercury. (He grew up in India.)
Gary Cooper’s real name was Frank James Cooper. His agent (from Gary, Indiana) made him change it.
Former Isley Brothers guitarist Jimmy James is better known as Jimi Hendrix.
Before Herbert Khaury was known as Tiny Tim, he was billed as Larry Love, the Singing Canary.
Paul Hewson’s stage name, Bono, is short for Bono Vox, which comes from the Latin
bonavox
, meaning “good voice.”
Who are William, Saul, Jeffrey, and Michael? Axl, Slash, Izzy, and Duff of Guns ’N Roses.
Robert Cassotto picked his stage name, Bobby Darin, out of a Bronx phone book.
Bob Dylan used to go by the stage name Elston Gunn.
Ice-T’s real name: Tracy Marrow.
Confucius was also called “Master Kong.”
No two humans have the same scent.
According to zoologists, tigers’ scent markings smell like buttered popcorn.
On average, older men consider vanilla to be the most “erotic” smell.
According to scientific tests, the odors that most commonly turn women off are: barbecued meat, cherries, and men’s cologne.
The scents women like best? Pumpkin pie, lavender, cucumbers, bananas, and…Good ‘n’ Plenty candy.
Most people can guess someone’s sex correctly 95 percent of the time just by smelling his or her breath.
The scent of rosemary seems to improve long-term memory.
Leather actually has a very mild smell—its recognizable scent comes from the chemicals used in the tanning process.
A 1947 ad for Barbasol Lotion Deodorant referred to body odor as “Athletic Aroma.”
Last Major League Baseball team to integrate: Boston Red Sox (1959). Their first black player: Pumpsie Green.
First African American to win a Wimbledon title: Althea Gibson (women’s champion, 1957 and 1958).
First black male tennis player to win Wimbledon: Arthur Ashe (1975).
In 1993, Rita Dove became the first African American U.S. poet laureate.
Satchel Paige was the first Negro Leaguer inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame (1971).
The first African American to publish a volume of poetry was Phillis Wheatley (1773).
First major film musical to have an all-black cast: King Vidor’s
Hallelujah
(1929).
First African American record producer to produce a white artist: Tom Wilson, with Bob Dylan in 1964.
On September 1, 1971: the Pittsburgh Pirates fielded the first all–African American starting lineup in Major League Baseball.
First rap group to appear on TV’s
American Bandstand
: the Sugar Hill Gang, in 1981.
First African American to play in the NBA: Earl Lloyd of the Washington Capitols (1950).
First African American Grammy Award winner: Count Basie, in 1956.
First black U.S. senator: Hiram Revels from Mississippi 1870–71. There wouldn’t be another African American in the Senate until 1966, when voters in Massachusetts elected Edward Brooke.
Former New York City mayor Ed Koch once appeared as himself on
All My Children
.
Peter Frampton played lead guitar on Frankie Valli’s 1978 hit song “Grease.”
Frank Sinatra played a saloon pianist in Mike Todd’s
Around the World in 80 Days
.
The cover for the 1971 Rolling Stones album
Sticky Fingers
was designed by Andy Warhol.
Miles Davis had a cameo as a street performer in the Bill Murray movie
Scrooged
.
In 1970, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale appeared on
The Brady Bunch
—he taught Greg how to throw a fastball.
Ella Fitzgerald auditioned for the role of the piano player in
Casablanca
. She didn’t get it.
The “play-by-play” in Meat Loaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” was by sportscaster Phil Rizzuto.
The Eagles provided the theme music for the BBC radio version of
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
.
Stillwater, the rock band in the movie
Almost Famous
, was loosely based on the Allman Brothers.
Before his career took off, Jackson Browne played with Blue Öyster Cult for two weeks.
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s “Blinded by the Light” includes the melody of “Chopsticks.”
The hillbilly singing group in the 1969 film
Paint Your Wagon
was the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
The holes in your sink and bathtub that prevent overflow are called “porcelators.”
According to British tabloids, Queen Elizabeth II has a rubber ducky that wears an inflatable crown.
The wife of Emperor Nero kept 500 female donkeys to supply milk for her baths.
The only body part that King Louis XIV of France washed was his nose.
England’s Queen Elizabeth I refused to wash her face for the last 10 years of her life.
Before 1950, Americans bathed about once a week. Most Americans now bathe daily.
In AD 300, there were more than 900 public baths in Rome.
Woody Allen won’t use a shower or bathtub if the drain is in the middle.
In ancient Egypt, the poor bathed by rubbing themselves with castor oil; the upper class used olive oil.
On an average day in the United States, someone will drown in a bathtub.
The dish that we call sauerkraut originated in China more than 2,000 years ago. It’s still popular there today, is called
suan cai
, and is made from shredded cabbage fermented in rice wine.
Sauerkraut
means “sour cabbage” in German.
At least one scientific study has found that sauerkraut is as effective as Viagra at increasing sexual function.
During World War I, when America was fighting Germany, U.S. sauerkraut makers renamed the dish “liberty cabbage.”
The Reuben, a grilled sandwich that includes sauerkraut, corned beef, swiss cheese, and Russian dressing on rye, has a feminine counterpart: the Rachel—the only difference is that the Rachel uses pastrami instead of corned beef.
At the annual Sauerkraut Cooking Contest in Phelps, New York, contestants have been known to make everything from sauerkraut fudge and salsa to sauerkraut key lime pie.
Sauerkraut can be a remedy against a hangover. The chemicals in the dish help to relieve headaches, neutralize the effects of alcoholic intoxication on the stomach, and clean the liver.
The world’s population grew from one billion to two billion between 1804 and 1927—a span of 123 years. But it took only 12 years (from 1987 to 1999) for the population to grow from five billion to six billion.
About 854 million of the world’s adults can’t read.
Three of every five people in the world are Asian.
At less than five feet tall, the pygmy tribes of India, the Philippines, and Africa are the smallest people in the world. The Watusi of Africa are the tallest: most of the men are over seven feet tall.
There are about 50,000 full-blooded Aborigines in Australia.
Worldwide, only one out of 10 adults is college-educated.
In the United States, the average adult male is 5'9" and weighs 155 pounds. The average adult female is 5'3" and weighs 125 pounds.
The 10 deadliest natural disasters in history are…
1.
Yellow River flood: China, 1931
Death toll: between 1,000,000 and 4,000,000
2.
Yellow River flood: China, 1887
Death toll: between 900,000 and 2,000,000
3.
Shaanxi earthquake: China, 1556
Death toll: 800,000
4.
Bhola cyclone: Bangladesh, 1970
Death toll: 500,000
5.
India cyclone: India, 1839
Death toll: 300,000
6.
Kaifeng flood: China, 1642
Death toll: 300,000
7.
Tangshan earthquake: China, 1976
Death toll: 242,000
8.
Banqiao dam failure: China, 1975
Death toll: 241,000
9.
Indian Ocean tsunami: Indian Ocean, 2004
Death toll: 230,000
10.
Aleppo earthquake: Syria, 1138
Death toll: about 230,000
Oliver Cromwell banned the eating of pie in England in 1644. He called it “a pagan form of pleasure.”
Monty Python’s
Life of Brian
was marketed in Sweden as “a film so funny it was banned in Norway.”
When it opened in 1959,
Some Like It Hot
was banned in Kansas City because of Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis’s love scene. And according to some reports, the cross-dressing was “too disturbing for Kansas.”
In Fairbanks, Alaska, moose are banned from mating within the city limits.
Italy banned Mickey Mouse in 1935 on the grounds that he frightened children.
In Tajikistan, state law forbids civil servants from having gold teeth.
First video banned by MTV: “Girls on Film” by Duran Duran, which featured topless mud wrestlers.
Sliced bread was banned during World War II. (The slicing machines were melted down so their metal could be used for the war effort.)
France banned all rock concerts in the early 1960s, calling the music “socially subversive.”
Prussia’s Frederick the Great tried to ban coffee; he insisted people drink alcohol instead. (They drank both.)
In 1933, the government of Syria banned yo-yos, claiming that the toys’ up-and-down action caused drought.
The book
Black Beauty
was banned in South Africa in 1955 because the word “black” was in the title.
Russell Crowe, David Duchovny, and David Arquette all knit.
Lucille Ball and Bette Davis were in drama class together.
Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, and Pablo Picasso are left-handed.
Frankie Avalon, Ricky Nelson, and Frank Sinatra have all appeared in John Wayne movies.
Pat Sajak and Big Bird have one, but Clint Eastwood and Jane Fonda don’t. What is it? A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
TV’s Mr. Rogers and golfer Arnold Palmer were high school friends.
In 1987, Paul Simon the singer and Paul Simon the senator cohosted
Saturday Night Live.
Robert De Niro and Gene Hackman were both roommates with Dustin Hoffman.