Facinating Facts

 

Hayter for December 3, 2023

"All but one, fascinating fact!"

          I heard a gentleman say recently that a college degree will soon become non-essential due to the amount of information available online, and the many advances being made by AI. Perhaps teachers will soon become obsolete.

Without question, much of what I learned in college prepared me for my job as a teacher. That’s because I had to take courses in science, math, geography, literature, handball, gymnastics, bowling… that added to way more hours than my studies in history and political science.

At the time, I was not pleased with having to take that many courses in subjects that didn’t apply to my major. However, after a couple of years, I noticed how much my “unrelated” courses aided me in acquiring a better understanding of how math, science, geography, English literature and other topics applied to any subject where people were involved. Bowling and gymnastics? Not so much.

          Even though I no longer teach, I’m constantly discovering so much important stuff online. In fact, before Kay’s relatives visited last week, I looked up some interesting facts to share for times the conversation died. – If you happened on to last week’s article, you’ll realize that there was no conversational death witnessed during the gathering.

          So, that’s the reason I’m going to share with you some facts that Kay’s family never shut up long enough to hear.

          I discovered that April 11, 1954 was the most boring day in the 20^th Century. I guessed August 3, 1923, because it was the day Calvin Coolidge was inaugurated. I missed it by 30 years and a few months.

          I read about the most boring day topic because something popped up on my computer screen that said I should. I would have never known about Belgium’s general election on April 11, 1954 or about Turkish scientist Abdullah Atalar being born on that day. Now that learned that information, I am as depressed as can be. I don’t mean to dis  Belgians or Mr. Atalar, but let’s face it, no day could be more boring than that!

          The real interest behind such research has to do with the method used in finding the most boring day. I’m here to tell you that computer scientist William Tunstall-Pedoe, developed a supercomputer search engine that came up with 300,000,000 facts concerning the most important things that happened in all countries from 1901 to 2000. Included with the program was a method of rating the importance of each happening. On April 11, 1954, Belgium and Turkey were complete losers.

          I mentioned at the beginning that I jotted down that useless information to share with Kay’s family. Unfortunately, I couldn’t read my scribblings. All I could remember was 300 million” and “boring day”, so I keyed four words into Google, and in a nanosecond up popped, “What happened on April 11, 1954?”

            To get that info, I suppose my computer sent radio waves to a tower that bounced it off another tower that then sent it to a satellite that shot down to the main headquarters. After some quick research, the info followed its path in reverse back to my computer.

          Keep in mind that the towers and satellites involved in all of this were constantly being bombarded with billions of other fact-finding missions. I do not know much at all, but one thing I know for sure is that I am going to die not knowing how all of that happened.  

The other weird facts that I gathered were in no way as technical as the one I just shared.  For example, did you know that John Smith was 28 years old when he first met Pocahontas, who at that time was 12? Did you know that Pocahontas means “Little Mischief”? To determine that, someone had to discover the Powhattan language as it was spoken in 1595. Absolutely amazing.

          Speaking of light bulbs, the first one was developed in 1840 by Warren del Rue, a British astronomer. Warren never got a patent on his invention, but in 1880 Thomas Edison got one for his light bulbs thus giving him credit for the invention. Hopefully, Warren wasn’t alive to know that.

          The story of George Washington having wooden teeth was not true. At his inauguration in 1789, he only had one tooth left in his head. Eventually, a so-called dentist made him a set of teeth that were set in lead, with uppers and lowers connected by two springs. Turns out, lead is a poor substitute for gums.

George gathered up teeth from a couple of his slaves, one of his cows, a horse, and some small pieces of bones. After some serious carving and welding, the dentist pushed the contraption into the President’s mouth and said, something like, “So, what do you think?” We don’t know his answer, but it can be readily interpreted by the fact that there is no portrait of Washington smiling. That story depressed the daylights out of me. 

          A small photo of Jason Mamoa popped up on my screen with the words “Many mourn Jason Mamoa—". Since Jill never called to tell me he died, I decided to click on the photo and the true story. What I found was the headline, “Many women mourn the fact that Jason Mamoa shaved his beard”. One can imagine my horror.

          Okay, that’s enough of this. I just wanted to share with you how many interesting things I didn’t share with relatives, nor did I find any of it in our family’s set of Compton's Encyclopedias. – Speaking of which, do any of you remember the Disney character who taught me how to spell Encyclopedia? You younger ones may need to use your cell phones for this one.

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