Cracked Egg Trivia

The oak tree, it's pretty iconic but is there really anything interesting about it? The answer is yes, so here are a few fun facts about America's National Tree. 1. There are three main types of oaks. Let's start with the basics, the three main types of oak trees are the White Oak, Red Oak, and the Black Oak. You can identify what type of oak you're looking at in the way you'd expect, the bark of a white oak would be grayish in color, while a red oak's bark would be dark reddish brown, and black oak bark would be black. 2. The oak tree isn't only the national tree of America.  Various types of oaks are the national trees of many other countries, including England, Estonia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Jordan, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Wales. 3. Oak tree acorns are poisonous. If fed in large amounts to livestock, the acorns and leaves of oak trees are poisonous and can lead to serious side effects like kidney damage and gastroenteritis...

Julian Fellowes was born on August 17, 1949, in Cairo, Egypt. His father, Peregrine Edward Launcelot Fellowes, was a diplomat working for the British embassy at the time. And high profile careers ran in the family, his great-grandfather, John Wrightson, was the founder of the Downton Agricultural College. Fellowes childhood home was at Wetherby Place in South Kensington until he was about ten when they moved to a house in Chiddingly, East Sussex. The new house was conveniently placed as it was close to London where Julian's father now worked for Shell, an oil and gas company. Fellowes once said of his father that he was "of that last generation of men who lived in a pat of butter without knowing it. My mother put him on a train on Monday mornings and drove up to London in the afternoon. At the flat she'd be waiting in a snappy little cocktail dress with a delicious dinner and drink. Lovely, really." In the village where they lived there was another family, the Kin...

Thanksgiving is in a few days and it seems fitting to learn about one of its main staples, the turkey. Try not to feel too guilty digging in at dinner after you read it since we'll be talking about the wild turkey not the domestic turkey that most people eat on the holidays. Wild turkeys can normally be found in the forest, but they have been known to live in grasslands and even swamps. By day turkeys spend their time foraging for food. Their diet consists of seeds, berries, nuts, insects, and sometimes salamanders. By night the turkeys sleep just like us except instead of a bed they rest on low branches of trees. When it is time for a female to reproduce she mates with a male, who does not help with the raising of the chicks, and makes herself a cozy nest in the woods, normally under a bush. She then lays her eggs which can be anywhere from 4 to 17 at a time. They take about a month to hatch, and when they do they're unable to fly for two weeks, during which time the mothe...

The Odobenus rosmarus, also known as the walrus, can be found in various regions depending on which subspecies they belong to. There are Atlantic walruses and Pacific walruses. The Atlantic walruses live anywhere from northeastern Canada to Greenland, their counterparts in the Pacific live in areas from the Bering Sea to the Chukchi Sea during winter and migrate northwards towards the seas off of Alaska and Russia in the spring months. Walruses are known for their tusks, but they are there for more than show. Their tusks, which are actually canine teeth, are used to poke holes in the ice to hunt for food as well as to help them climb out of the water. The tusks grow throughout the walruses life, and can reach a length of about a meter. Males have larger tusks than females, and the males with the largest tusks tend to lead the herd. Walruses have a lifespan of about 20 to 30 years in the wild, and their life starts when they are born after a 15 to 16 month gestation period. This g...

Hannah Hoes was born on March 8, 1783, to Johannes Dircksen Hoes and Maria Quakenbush in Kinderhook, New York. She was raised in a Dutch home like her future husband Martin Van Buren, and Dutch was her first language. She received her education at a local Kinderhook school, and was taught by master Vrouw Lange. Hannah married her childhood sweetheart Martin Van Buren on February 21, 1807, in Catskill, New York at her sister and brother-in-law's home. The couple had six children together, five boys including one that died at infancy and one stillborn daughter. Hannah died of tuberculosis at the age of 35 on February 5, 1819. Angelica Singleton was born on February 13, 1816, to Richard Singleton and Rebecca Travis Coles Singleton. Angelica was first educated from 1826 to 1830 at Columbia Female Academy in South Carolina before she received further learning at Madame Grelaud's Seminary for Young Ladies in Philadelphia, there she would have learned French and a lot abou...

1. One of the actors fathers was on the show. John Bennett Perry, Matthew Perry's father, appeared as Joshua's dad in "The One with Rachel's New Dress". The show had many guest stars over the seasons like Brad Pitt (who was married to Jennifer Aniston), David Arquette (who was married to Courtney Cox), George Clooney, Robin Williams, and Bruce Willis. 2. Moey? Okay, so I don't know what their actual couple name was going to be, but Joey and Monica could've actually happened. They were originally supposed to be the series main couple , scary right? Fortunately the creators changed their mind once they saw the studio audience's extremely positive reaction to Monica and Chandler getting together, according to Kauffman. 3. Some of the people that auditioned for the main cast went on to play guest characters. Jon Favreau auditioned for the role of Chandler, but ended up playing Pete. And Hank Azaria, who went on to play David, originally auditione...

1. No two zebras look the same. Their stripes are all different, and can be used for identification almost like a persons fingerprints. Their stripes are useful too, when the herd is standing close to one another the combined stripes confuse predators and make it hard for them pick out one of the zebras to chase. Scientists also think that the stripes may help cool the zebras down. Their theory is that air moves faster over their black stripes and slows down over their white stripes, that would create a convection current around the zebra, and would cool it down. 2. They have really good eyesight. In fact, we think that their eyesight in the dark is almost as good as that of an owl. This trait comes in handy for them because even at night their predators are lurking. Herds will actually set one zebra as a watchman to guard them when they sleep. 3. Not all zebras travel in herds. Grevy's zebra stallions wander alone and establish territories, females come into their terri...

 Rachel Donelson was born on on June 15, 1767, in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. Her father, Colonel John Donelson, was a co-founder of Nashville, Tennessee. Her mother was Rachel Stockley Donelson. At the age of 12 Rachel moved with her family to Tennessee when her father led about 600 people from Fort Patrick Henry to Fort Nashborough, her family were some of the first white settlers in Tennessee. Later the family moved to Kentucky after threats to the settlers from the Indians in the area. Rachel was married to Lewis Robards on March 1, 1785, in Kentucky. Their marriage was not a happy one, Andrew Jackson and Rachel later said that she had been abused, and they separated in 1790 although they were not officially divorced until later. The divorce and the drama surrounding it would ultimately cause Rachel to be labeled an adulterer. She met Andrew Jackson after she had separated with Robards, and the two became close and soon married, but there was a problem. According to the...

1. Chris Evans wasn't the only choice for the role of Captain America. Other famous people auditioned for the role including: Dane Cook, Joe Jonas, Kevin Jonas, John Krasinski, and Sebastian Stan who went on to play Bucky. And one of them may have gotten the part since Chris Evans turned down the role three times. He was worried about what would happen to his private life after such a sudden increase in popularity. He did decide to take the role after talks with Robert Downey Jr, Joe Johnston, and the producers of the film. 2. Stan Lee made a cameo appearance in the movie. He played an old general that mixes up Captain America with a different man, and then comments "I thought he'd be taller." His cameo was the only one he ever made in a feature film adaptation of a Marvel Comics superhero character that he had no hand in originally creating. 3. A future Avenger's mother was in the film, sort of. Around 50 minutes into the movie Laura Haddock appeared as...

Louisa Catherine Johnson was born on February 12, 1775, in London. She was one of only two first ladies to be born anywhere but the United States. Her father, Joshua Johnson, and her mother, Catherine Newth, were not officially married until 1785 according to documentation, which would make Louisa the only first lady to be born out of wedlock. It is possible that documents from their first wedding were lost, and that the wedding documented was actually a second one performed for some reason. The truth is that nobody really knows, and it is unlikely we will ever find out. In 1778 Joshua moved his family to France. Louisa loved France, and considered herself to be more French than English. While she was in France she learned to play the harp and piano, and sing. She also learned to read and write French in addition to speaking it fluently, in fact when her family returned to England in 1783 she had to learn to speak English again. Back in England she continued her schooling at a boa...

I did a post on bumblebees last month with the hope that I wouldn't be as afraid of them after I knew more about them, it worked. But I'd like to start out this post by saying that I don't think the same will be true for wasps, I'm pretty sure I'll hate them until I die. There are many different types of wasps, about 30,000 species exist that we have identified. This list includes hornets, yellow jackets, and many others. Since there are so many we divide them into slightly smaller groups, solitary wasps or social wasps. Solitary wasps are the larger subgroup, there are only about 1,000 species of social wasps. One of the differences between the two is that solitary wasps don't form colonies, and social wasps do. Another one is that solitary wasps rely on their venom to hunt, while social wasps only use their stingers for defense. Social wasp colonies start fresh each spring. A queen that was fertilized the year before comes out of hibernation, and builds a ...

1. There were pranksters on set. Clark Gable was one of them. He reportedly ate garlic before filming kissing scenes with Vivien Leigh. Another one of his pranks was to pour actual alcohol into a decanter instead of the tea that they normally used. The victim was Hattie McDaniel, who found out about the prank only after she took a swig. Gable payed for his crimes though. Another prankster (Olivia de Havilland) had her herself fastened to the set for one of the scenes where Gable was supposed to pick her up. He almost threw his back out. 2. The movie resulted in a lot of award firsts. Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, was the first African-American to be nominated for an Oscar, and by winning it became the first African-American to win an Oscar.  Gone with the Wind was the first technicolor movie to win an Oscar in the best picture category. And Vivien Leigh's performance in the movie was the longest to ever win an Academy Award, she appeared in 2 hours, 23 minutes, and 32 s...

Elizabeth Jane Kortright was born in New York City on June 30, 1768. Her father, Lawrence Kortright, was a wealthy merchant who was also one of the founders of the New York Chamber of Commerce. Her mother was Hannah Kortright, formerly Hannah Aspinwall. Hannah died on September 6 or 7, 1777, and a few days later her 13-month old baby also died. Elizabeth was only nine years old at the time. On August 3, 1778, her family home caught on fire, and was almost destroyed. The fire at their home was a result of a larger fire that caused damage and destruction to almost fifty homes. Fortunately, no one in the family was hurt. In 1785, when James Monroe was living in New York City and serving as a member of the Continental Congress, he met Elizabeth. They were married on February 16, 1786, at her father's home by Reverend Benjamin Moore. Monroe was twenty-six at the time, Elizabeth was seventeen. They honeymooned briefly on Long Island, before returning to New York to live with her fat...

The amorphophallus titanum, titan arum, or corpse plant is a flowering plant that emits a terrible odor (similar to that of a rotting corpse) when it blooms. I know it's pretty gross, but it's also really cool. And there is a scientific reason for the smell. The corpse plant doesn't bloom very often, generally every 7-10 years, but when it does it has to make sure its species continues. To do this the plant must make sure it attracts pollinators. In order to attract the dung beetles, flesh flies, and other carnivorous insects that are its primary pollinators it needs to look, smell, and feel like rotting meat. This is the reason why the plant has it's pungent odor. It is also the reason why when it blooms the color inside the blossom is a deep burgundy, and why the corpse plant has the ability to warm up to 98 degrees Fahrenheit. I mentioned earlier that these plants don't bloom very often. Now its time to tell you why, it simply doesn't have the energy. It ...

1. We don't actually know if they ate turkey at the first Thanksgiving. Four men were sent on a "fowling" mission by William Bradford according to the journal of Edward Winlsow, who was a Pilgrim chronicler, but although there would have been a plentiful supply of wild turkey in the area we can't be sure that the men didn't bring home ducks, geese, or even swans. They ate all those birds on a regular basis. We do know that there was plenty of venison, the Wampanoag arrived with five deer to contribute to the festivities. 2. There was more than one Boston Tea Party. It happened in March of 1774, three months after the Boston Tea Party that we all know. Sixty men, in disguises, boarded a ship called Fortune, forced the crew below deck, and then dumped chests full of tea into the harbor. This incident isn't as famous as the original since only about 30 chests were dumped, compared to the 340 that were destroyed three months earlier. 3. The Declaration of ...

"You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream!" It's an old saying derived from a 1927 song written by Howard Johnson, Billy Moll, and Robert A. King, and it is so true. So I took some time to scoop up some facts about the classic snack, and yes I know that was corny. 😀 First of all, flavors. I can't really tell you how many flavors there are in the world because anything could be an ice cream flavor. So lets say the number is unlimited. Don't believe me? While I was looking around online I found out that vanilla is the most popular flavor in most countries, but some people also enjoy their ice cream with anything from cold noodles to habanero peppers. I'll think I'll stick with chocolate. I also found out what causes ice cream headaches. It turns out that the blood vessels that run in between your mouth and your brain tense up when something really cold touches the roof of your mouth, trapping blood in your brain, therefore causing a headache. D...

1. They're harmless, mostly... There are only about 100 shark attacks a year, and only one-third to one-half of those are actually great whites. So in fact great whites are only responsible for about 5 to 10 attacks a year. Additionally research shows that the sharks are only "sample biting" and then letting the humans go, which is why most of these attacks aren't fatal. So that means that despite being the largest predatory fish in the world, they don't usually eat humans. 2. They don't have to work very hard for their first meal. The female develops several eggs in her womb after mating, and the baby sharks hatch inside her belly. Once they hatch they feed on unfertilized eggs in the womb while they grow and develop. And they need the food, by the time they're born (after about 12-22 months in the womb) they weigh 50 to 60 pounds. 3. Great whites aren't the largest shark . Even though they're impressively large, growing to an average of...

Dolley Payne was born on May 20, 1768, in Guilford County, North Carolina. Her parents were John Payne and Mary Coles Payne. Both her parents were Quakers, her father becoming so three years after marrying her mother in 1761. Dolley had four brothers and was the first of four girls. She grew up at her parents plantation in rural eastern Virginia after they moved there in 1769, and became close to her mother's family while she was there until her father moved them to Philadelphia when she was 15. There he started a laundry starch-making business that failed by 1791. He died a year later, and her mother started a boardinghouse, but by the next year she moved to her daughter Lucy's house in western Virginia along with her two youngest children, Mary and John. Previously Dolley had married John Todd, who was a Quaker lawyer, in the January of 1790. They lived in a three-story brick house in Philadelphia, where they had two boys (John Payne and William Temple) over the course o...

1. The Donkey Kong games were supposed to be Popeye games. Originally Nintendo wanted a game based off of Popeye characters, but they failed to obtain the rights they needed to make it, so instead Shigeru Miyamoto was hired to to create a game to fill that spot. He decided to keep the same premise of Popeye, a giant steals a man's girlfriend and the man tries to get her back. Only instead of Popeye it was Jumpman (later known as Mario), instead of Olive Oyl it was Pauline, and instead of Bluto it was DK himself. 2. Donkey Kong was also based off of another classic. The name and plot were similar to the movie King Kong , and in 1982 Universal Studios sued Nintendo because of it. Nintendo hired an American attorney to handle the case, John Kirby. Nintendo won due to the fact that Universal themselves had successfully sued RKO Pictures in 1975 by proving that the rights to  King Kong  was in fact public domain. 3. Kirby wouldn't have had his name if not for Donkey Kong. ...

Cirrus clouds form high in the atmosphere, and are made of tiny ice crystals. The word cirrus is Latin for "curl of hair", so the name is fitting for these thin, wispy clouds. Although cirrus clouds can mean that rain or snow is on the way, the clouds themselves hardly ever release precipitation, and if they do the ice crystals that they drop will evaporate before they reach the ground. Cirrus clouds mean changes in the weather. Stratus clouds are relatively low-lying. They look like fog that isn't touching the ground, and in fact sometimes they are formed from fog that has lifted. Stratus do produce light precipitation, and will often be accompanied by a drizzly rain or snow. This is more likely to happen if it is a nimbostratus cloud. Stratus clouds mean that the weather will be gloomy, even if it doesn't rain.             Cumulus clouds are also pretty low in the sky, and look like big balls of cotton. Cumulus clouds develop vertically, s...

I recently read The Outsiders for the first time, and I loved it so I decided to do some research about the woman who wrote it. Susan Eloise Hinton was born on July 22, 1948, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1965, when she was just 16 years old, she began work on her first book, The Outsiders. She was inspired to write the book by two rivaling gangs at her school, Will Rogers High School, the Greasers and the Socs. She decided to write the book from a Greaser's point of view to show empathy toward the gang in real life. The Outsiders was published by Viking in 1967, written by S.E.Hinton. She decided to use this gender-neutral moniker so that male readers wouldn't be put off by a woman writing from a boy's point of view. After the success of The Outsiders she gained a wild amount of popularity putting a lot of pressure on her, and resulting in a three-year long writers block. Her boyfriend (now her husband) helped her get past it by making her write two pages a day if she want...

Martha Skelton Jefferson was born Martha Wayles on October 30, 1748. Her father, John Wayles, worked for Farrell & Jones (who were Bristol-based merchants) as an attorney, slave trader, and business agent. He was also a prosperous planter. Her mother, Martha Eppes, was a daughter of Francis Eppes, and came from an early Virginia settlement along the James River, Bermuda Hundred. Martha Wayles became Martha Skelton at the age of 18 when she married Bathurst Skelton on November 20, 1766. They had a son named John who was born in the November of the next year. On September 30, 1768, Bathurst died after a sudden illness. And on June, 10, 1771, their son John died of a fever. Martha then married Thomas Jefferson on January 1, 1772. After their wedding they spent two weeks at Martha's father's plantation, The Forest. Then they set out for Jefferson's plantation, Monticello. They made the 100-mile journey in a two-horse carriage during one of the worst snowstorms to hit ...

The "first lady" doesn't have to be the president's wife, and throughout history there have been different kinds of first ladies. Daughters, nieces, and even daughter-in-laws have all taken on the role. This can happen for many reasons, in Buchanan's case he never married, in Thomas Jefferson's his wife died before he became president. That is where I ran into problems. Should I write about the president's wife or the woman who acted as the "first lady"? The obvious choice would be the first lady, but this series is called "Life Before the White House", and would it be right to ignore the women who played such important roles in our presidents lives before they were ever elected? I decided to honor both, and whenever there is a case like is mentioned earlier I will write about both women. The first ladies that served during the presidency, and the ones that served before.

To animals its food, and to us its something to be mowed, but grass is so much more than that. Here are three quick facts about the under appreciated grass, plus a little extra. 1. There are a lot of different kinds of grass. In total there are over 10,000 types of grass, and they all belong to the Poaceae or Graminae family. Grasses are split up into many different groups though. There are turf grasses (the grasses that grow in places like your yard, golf courses, and playgrounds), forage grasses (which are grasses used for livestock grazing), and cereals (such as wheat, barley, rye, oats, rice, and corn) among others. 2. Palm trees are a type of grass. That's right palm trees are technically classified as grasses. Grasses are monocots, which means that they have one seed and a fibrous stem, and palm trees fit those requirements. Although they are often categorized as trees because of their size. 3. Grass is used to make some alcoholic beverages. Whiskey is made with ...

Most of us have heard of Pocahontas, and some of us might have even watched the movie (it's one of my favorites). But I wanted to talk about the story behind the story, the truth about the woman behind the myth. Her real name was Amonute, although she went by Matoaka, and Pocahontas was her nickname. Pocahontas means "playful one" or "ill-behaved child". She was born sometime around 1595, and was the daughter of Powhatan. Powhatan was the ruler of over 30 Algonquian-speaking tribes who lived in the Tidewater region of Virginia, the area around the future site of Jamestown. In 1607, when Pocahontas was 11 or 12, John Smith was kidnapped by her brother and brought to meet Chief Powhatan. What happened after is the subject of an often heated debate. Smith claims that his head was placed on two stones and was about to be smashed when Pocahontas placed her head on top of his, saving his life. However some people think that he was lying since his stories about the...

1. He was  Mickey Mouse. After Mickey spoke for the first time in "The Karnival Kid", which was released in 1929, Disney decided that he didn't like the way his voice sounded, so he began voicing the iconic character himself until 1947 when he became too busy. 2. He was a father of two. He and his wife Lillian, whom he married in 1925 after a brief courtship, had two daughters. Their eldest daughter Diane was born in December 1933. They adopted their second daughter, Sharon, in December of 1936 when she was six weeks old. 3. He was in the army. He joined the Red Cross Ambulance Corps when he was 16, by forging his birth certificate to show that he was 17 which was the minimum age requirement. 4. He won a LOT of Academy Awards. In fact he holds the record for the most individual Oscar wins. He won 22, and was nominated for 59. 5. He had a secret hideout. He had an apartment above the park's Main Street Firehouse, from which he watched the opening day ...

1. Their fur isn't really white. A polar bear's fur is actually translucent, but light reflects off of it making it look white. Sometimes the bear will even look yellow because of the oils they get on them from eating seals. 2. Although polar bears mate in the spring, the fertile eggs don't implant until fall. This is due to a process called delayed implantation. Not only will the eggs not implant until fall, but they also won't do it unless the mother has enough fat to sustain her and her cubs through the denning season. 3. They have excellent hygiene. Polar bears don't like to be dirty, but its not just because of the smell. Their fur helps insulate them so they won't freeze to death in the cold climate they live in, but the fur isn't as effective if its wet and matted. In the summer months they take a fifteen minute bath in the open water, licking their paws, chests, and muzzles. When they're done, they shake and rub their fur in the snow...

Abigail Smith was born on November 11, 1744, in Weymouth Massachusetts to William Smith, a minister and farmer, and Elizabeth Smith, who was formally a Quincy. The Quincys were a well known political family in the Massachusetts colony. Abigail was often sick as a child, and this was one of the reasons she didn't attend school although later in life she stated that it was also because of the fact that girls at that time were rarely given the opportunity to receive a formal education. She was educated at home though by her mother who taught her and her sisters to write, read, and cipher. Abigail also liked to read, studying French and English literature through her families extensive collection of books, and studying works by people like William Shakespeare and John Milton. When Abigail was 11 years old, she and her sisters began being tutored by Richard Cranch, whom Abigail's older sister, Mary, later married. In 1762 Richard Cranch brought a friend by the name of John Adam...

WARNING: I do not suggest reading this if you're planning on eating anytime soon. Having said that, lets dive right in. In ancient times the methods people used to dispose of their waste varied. In Rome and Greece they sometimes used running water in their bath houses. Although chamber pots were also commonly used, they even brought them to meals and drinking sessions. The pots were then emptied into receptacles on the streets if you lived in large cities like Rome or Pompeii. One fun fact is that workers, called fullers, collected and used the urine from the receptacles to eliminate impurities from cloth. In ancient China during the Han dynasty they used pig toilets, which was an outhouse with either a chute or a hole that deposited the waste into a pigsty where the pigs then ate it. In the Middle Ages garderobes were used, mostly in upper class dwellings. Garderobes were basically slabs of wood or stone with one or more holes to sit on, connected to a chute or pipe tha...

Just the other day I saw a bumblebee while trying to get a picture of a flower, I tried to avoid it because I'm scared of bugs. However they are pretty cute (from a distance) so I decided to learn about them, and there's a lot to know. Bumblebees have a pretty short life span, but they make the most of it. The cycle starts in early spring when the queen comes out of hibernation. She immediately starts to find food and a place to nest, normally someplace close to the ground like under piles of wood or dead leaves, but they've even been known to nest underground in abandoned rodent tunnels. After she finds the perfect spot she lays her eggs, and sits on them to keep them warm for about two weeks. After they hatch she feeds them for another two weeks until they cocoon themselves, they stay cocooned until they're adults. After that all the queen does is lay eggs, and the worker bees take care of everything else. Among the new bees there are drones (male bees), and the fut...

1. Pac-Man was designed to be endless, but its not. The game was designed to go on forever as long as the player was good enough to keep at least one life. However at Level 256 a bug prevents you from being able to defeat the level, therefore making Level 256 the final round of Pac-Man. 2. You can only ever earn a certain amount of points. Since you can only reach Level 256, there is a maximum amount of points you can get in the game, 3,333,360. You can achieve this score by eating every dot, power pellet, ghost, and fruit, while never losing a life, and then using those lives to get as many points as possible in the final round. 3. Those dots that Pac-Man eats, weren't always dots. I know that's hard to swallow :P, but originally they were going to be cookies. 4. The ghosts that Pac-Man eats, weren't always ghosts. They were actually referred to as monsters on the original arcade cabinets. 5. The ghosts have their own personalities. The red ghost chases P...