10 Random Facts - June 2020 Edition
This month it was my mom's birthday so I want to dedicate this post to her and her amazing (as well as hereditary) curiosity. Happy Birthday Mom, I love you! 😍
1. The Irish like their beer.
They rank 4th in the world for the highest per-capita beer consumption. In Dublin there is even one pub for every one hundred people. Ireland is also home to not only the largest brewer of stout style beer in the world, Guinness (their biggest beer brand), but they also have Sean's Bar which is the oldest bar in the world.
Bonus Fact: One of the oldest working lighthouses in the world is located in Ireland. It's called Hook Lighthouse, and it's about 800 years old.
2. Frogs have some pretty weird eating habits.
Once a week their own skin is on the menu. I know it's disgusting but frogs shed their skin every week and then eat it to recycle the nutrients stored there. Another strange habit is showcased when they swallow their prey, blinking. When they blink their eyeballs move down and it helps push the prey down their throat so they can swallow.
3. Big Ben has a lot of different names.
Technically its name has been the Elizabeth Tower since 2012 when it was renamed in honor of Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee. Before the jubilee it was named simply the Clock Tower. But the Victorians used to call it St Stephen's Tower which was a nod to St Stephen's Chapel. St Stephen's Chapel was the Westminster Palace meeting place of the House of Commons before the fire of 1834 when it was destroyed.
4. The term hashtag wasn't a thing until 2007.
The # itself has been around for a while, but it wasn't until Chris Messina tweeted a proposal for the use of our little friends as hashtags in 2007 that they started being used as such. And it didn't happen right away, people were a little hesitant about them at first. One of the main reasons being that they didn't like how they looked. Now that's #weird because we can't #live_without_hashtags.
Extra Fun Fact: Before they were hashtags they were called number signs, hash symbols, pound signs, or octothorpes.
5. June has three birthstones.
Not one, not two, but three! Pretty cool right? Pearl ,the main birthstone of June, represents purity and faith. The next is Alexandrite which can represent longevity and health. And last but not least is the Moonstone, said to bring good luck, it is also associated with love and passion.
6. The history of the chef hat's weird look is complicated.
And by that I mean there were many different theories and myths about their origins when I started researching. One of the most popular theories seems to be that a considerable amount of the current design came from a famous French chef by the name of Marie Antione Careme. Apparently he decided that chefs needed a special outfit, and that outfit included a hat. He chose white for the ensemble to represent cleanliness. For the height he chose various heights for the different ranking employees, his was of course the tallest. As for the pleats, they are thought to symbolize the different ways to cook an egg.
7. Saturn would float in water.
The reason for this is that Saturn is less dense than water, and is actually the only planet in our solar system to have this feature. So if you happen to have a giant pool you could throw one big pool party.
Another unique feature of Saturn's is it's rings. Other planets have rings as well, but none as striking as Saturn's. They are thought to have come from a broken-up moon.
8. Prince Edward Island grows a lot of potatoes.
A lot might be an understatement, Prince Edward Island actually produces a whopping 25% of Canada's taters. It actually earned a nickname due to this fact, Spud Island. And similarly the island has a few other nicknames referring not just to it's potato production but its overall fertility including the Garden of the Gulf and the Million-Acre Farm.
9. Mister Rogers named Lady Elaine for a very special person.
Lady Elaine was named after his sister, who was adopted by his parents when he was eleven years old. And his sister was not the only one he payed homage to in his show. All those nifty cardigans he wore were knitted by his mom.
Extra Fun Fact: Mister Rogers was a vegetarian, and as his reason he stated "I don't want to eat anything that has a mother."
10. It's really wet in the rainforest.
I know it speaks for itself, but you probably don't realize quite how much it rains there. In fact they aren't classified as rainforests unless they receive at least 80 inches a year in rain, although the wettest rainforests have had up to 304 inches per year. To put that number in perspective Portland, Oregon gets 40 inches of rain per year and it's the rainiest city in the US. So it's no surprise that the Amazon Basin contains one-fifth of the worlds fresh water.
They rank 4th in the world for the highest per-capita beer consumption. In Dublin there is even one pub for every one hundred people. Ireland is also home to not only the largest brewer of stout style beer in the world, Guinness (their biggest beer brand), but they also have Sean's Bar which is the oldest bar in the world.
Bonus Fact: One of the oldest working lighthouses in the world is located in Ireland. It's called Hook Lighthouse, and it's about 800 years old.
2. Frogs have some pretty weird eating habits.
Once a week their own skin is on the menu. I know it's disgusting but frogs shed their skin every week and then eat it to recycle the nutrients stored there. Another strange habit is showcased when they swallow their prey, blinking. When they blink their eyeballs move down and it helps push the prey down their throat so they can swallow.
3. Big Ben has a lot of different names.
Technically its name has been the Elizabeth Tower since 2012 when it was renamed in honor of Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee. Before the jubilee it was named simply the Clock Tower. But the Victorians used to call it St Stephen's Tower which was a nod to St Stephen's Chapel. St Stephen's Chapel was the Westminster Palace meeting place of the House of Commons before the fire of 1834 when it was destroyed.
4. The term hashtag wasn't a thing until 2007.
The # itself has been around for a while, but it wasn't until Chris Messina tweeted a proposal for the use of our little friends as hashtags in 2007 that they started being used as such. And it didn't happen right away, people were a little hesitant about them at first. One of the main reasons being that they didn't like how they looked. Now that's #weird because we can't #live_without_hashtags.
Extra Fun Fact: Before they were hashtags they were called number signs, hash symbols, pound signs, or octothorpes.
5. June has three birthstones.
Not one, not two, but three! Pretty cool right? Pearl ,the main birthstone of June, represents purity and faith. The next is Alexandrite which can represent longevity and health. And last but not least is the Moonstone, said to bring good luck, it is also associated with love and passion.
6. The history of the chef hat's weird look is complicated.
And by that I mean there were many different theories and myths about their origins when I started researching. One of the most popular theories seems to be that a considerable amount of the current design came from a famous French chef by the name of Marie Antione Careme. Apparently he decided that chefs needed a special outfit, and that outfit included a hat. He chose white for the ensemble to represent cleanliness. For the height he chose various heights for the different ranking employees, his was of course the tallest. As for the pleats, they are thought to symbolize the different ways to cook an egg.
7. Saturn would float in water.
The reason for this is that Saturn is less dense than water, and is actually the only planet in our solar system to have this feature. So if you happen to have a giant pool you could throw one big pool party.
Another unique feature of Saturn's is it's rings. Other planets have rings as well, but none as striking as Saturn's. They are thought to have come from a broken-up moon.
8. Prince Edward Island grows a lot of potatoes.
A lot might be an understatement, Prince Edward Island actually produces a whopping 25% of Canada's taters. It actually earned a nickname due to this fact, Spud Island. And similarly the island has a few other nicknames referring not just to it's potato production but its overall fertility including the Garden of the Gulf and the Million-Acre Farm.
9. Mister Rogers named Lady Elaine for a very special person.
Lady Elaine was named after his sister, who was adopted by his parents when he was eleven years old. And his sister was not the only one he payed homage to in his show. All those nifty cardigans he wore were knitted by his mom.
Extra Fun Fact: Mister Rogers was a vegetarian, and as his reason he stated "I don't want to eat anything that has a mother."
10. It's really wet in the rainforest.
I know it speaks for itself, but you probably don't realize quite how much it rains there. In fact they aren't classified as rainforests unless they receive at least 80 inches a year in rain, although the wettest rainforests have had up to 304 inches per year. To put that number in perspective Portland, Oregon gets 40 inches of rain per year and it's the rainiest city in the US. So it's no surprise that the Amazon Basin contains one-fifth of the worlds fresh water.
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