Uncle John’s Did You Know?
Bathroom Readers’ Institute
* * *
* * *
by the
Bathroom Readers’
Institute
Bathroom Readers’Press
Ashland, Oregon
UNCLE JOHN’S
DID YOU KNOW…?
BATHROOM READER®
FOR KIDS ONLY
© 2006 by the Bathroom Readers’ Press (a division of Portable Press). All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. “Bathroom Reader,” “Bathroom Readers’ Institute,” and “Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader for Kids Only” are registered trademarks of Baker & Taylor. All rights reserved.
For information, write:
Bathroom Readers’ Institute
P.O. Box 1117, Ashland, OR 97520
www.bathroomreader.com
Interior design/illustration and cover illustration:
Patrick Merrell
(www.Patrick.merrell.org)
Cover design:
Michael Brunsfeld
(Brunsfeldo@comcast.net)
Uncle John’s Did You Know…?
Bathroom Reader For Kids Only
by the Bathroom Readers’ Institute
ISBN-13: 978-1-60710-687-6
E-book Edition: October 2012
6 7 8 9 10 14 13 12 11 10
READERS’ RAVES
Here’s what our faithful fans have to say about Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers.
“I love Bathroom Readers! They’re interesting and funny. I can’t stop reading them.”
—Kevin
“I’m a teacher, and every morning I put a factoid from your books on the board. I have kids who can’t wait to get to class to see what weird thing is on the board that day. You are a never-ending source of information and enjoyment. Thank you.”
—Elly
“I have been a fan of the Bathroom Reader for over a decade now. Maybe one day there will be a whole course on bathroom reading, and quoting your text will not only be expected and encouraged, but required!!!”
—Jessica
“Your books are awesome!! (‘Meow,’ my cat agrees.) I have two books, Uncle John’s Top Secret Bathroom Reader For Kids Only and Uncle John’s Puzzle Book. Both of them have helped improve my grades by 20%!”
—Veronica
“I really love your Bathroom Reader For Kids Only. I’m 12, and I read it everywhere (not just in the bathroom!). I like it so much.”
—Beka
THANK YOU!
The Bathroom Readers’ Institute thanks those people whose help has made this book possible.
Gordon Javna
Amy Miller
Patrick Merrell
Stephanie Spadaccini
Angie Kern
Maggie McLaughlin
Brian Boone
Thom Little
Jay Newman
Julia Papps
Lorraine Bodger
Zackery Weimer
David Battino
Claudia Bauer
Michael Brunsfeld
Connie Vazquez
Dan Schmitz
Judy Hadlock
John Dollison
Jennifer Thornton
Raincoast Books
Banta Book Group
Terri Dunkley
Sydney Stanley
JoAnn Padgett
Scarab Media
Steven Style Group
Jennifer Payne
Melinda Allman
Laurel, Mana, Dylan, and Chandra
Matthew Furber
Shobha Grace
Gideon and Sam
Porter the Wonder Dog
Thomas Crapper
* * *
While at sea, the crews of United States nuclear-powered submarines wear blue coveralls called “poopie-suits.”
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
CREATURES GREAT
On Safari
Here, Doggie
Big Cats
Elephant-itis
Gorillas
Horsing Around
House Pets
Penguins
On Safari
Planet of the Apes
Here, Doggie
The Poop on Pigs
Shark Attack!
BODY WISE
Everybody’s Body
Hair All Over
Remarkable Bodies
Everybody’s Body
The Better to Bite You With
EEEWWW!
That’s Disgusting!
Odorama
That’s More Disgusting!
That’s the Most Disgusting
AROUND THE HOUSE
The Clothes Closet
Pencil Us In
Bathroom News
WORLDLY MATTERS
Around the World
Geographical Records
Flags
All Over the Map
Official Languages
Post It
Name Power
Education
Geography
DESTINATION: EARTH
All About Earth
Volcanoes
The Himalayas
Landmarks
Precious!
Trees
Earthquake!
Extreme World
Ecology
The Seven Natural Wonders of the World
Plant You Now, Dig You Later
More About Earth
JUST WEIRD
Freaks of Nature
Loony Lawsuits
Lost & Found
Strange Museums
Loony Laws
The End
Silly World Records
WORDPLAY
English
Alphabet Soup
Word-ology
Tongue Twisters
IMAS
Palindromes
Foreign Tongue Twisters
Winning Words
Tongue Twisters
Don’t Be a Dafty!
Word Origins
Pangrams
Smart Remarks
BELIEVE IT
World Religions
Strange Superstitions
Mythology
Bible Stories
Mythical Creatures
Superstitions
BUILDING BIG
Man-Made Milestones
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
Amazing Engineering
Big Cities
The Seven Wonders of the Modern World
The Plane Truth
FILM, SCREEN & PAGES
Once Upon a Time
Sound Effects
Secret Lives of Fictional Characters
What’s on TV
The Written Word
At the Movies
Commercial Characters
Books
IT’S HISTORY
It’s Ancient History
Knights in Shining Armor
The Warriors
Kids at Work
Milestones in History
The Royals
Old-Time Occupations
Words of War
History Quiz
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Sweet Dreams
Sugary Stuff
Food & Drink
Dear Dairy
Oh, Honey!
Cooking Good
Fast Food
(Have Some) Candy
I’ll Drink to That
It’s a Corny World
C
ondiments
Junk Food
Food, Glorious Food
Got Milk?
ANIMAL ACTS
Amazing Animals
It’s a Wild World
Animal Defenses
Animal Records
Endangered Species
Animal Quiz
Animals in Captivity
Animals by the Numbers
It’s a Wild World
Knots & Skulks
Fishy Stories
Hey, Daddy-O!
Beastly Appetites
Animal Odds & Ends
Animal Geography
It’s a Wild World
GOOD SPORTS
The Ancient Olympics
Baseball Team Names
Sports by the Numbers
Hockey Team Names
Sports Nicknames
Basketball Team Names
The Modern Olympics
Football Team Names
CUSTOMS AND FADS
Games
Happy Holidaze
Make a Wish
Rockology
Amusement Parks
The Calendar
Scrabble
Weird World Holidays
I Do! I Do!
FARAWAY FRIENDS
Japanese Sayings
Oh, Canada
Whadaya Say?
Travel Tips
Places of Interest
If You Say So
Down Under
You Name It
Antarctica
Japanese Language
Animal Sounds Quiz
Going Places
Life in Japan
Souvenir Shop
TAKE A NUMBER
Every 24 Hours
Studies Show
Handy Numbers
Number Ones
Survey Says
The Average
Weights and Measures
America Numerical
ART & MUSIC
Artsy-Fartsy
Instrumental
Sing a Song
Musical Miscellany
RANDOM FACTS
Cars by the Numbers
Crime and Punishment
Open for Business
In Living Color
It’s About Time
Money Matters
Odds & Ends
Helpful Hints
In Living Color
Makes Cents
CREATURES SMALL
Creepy Quiz
Reptiles
A Visit to Microbia
The Deadliest Snakes
Antz
Watch the Birdies
Spiders
More Reptiles
You Bug Me
Another Visit to Microbia
SCIENCE MADE FUN
Adventures in Bubble-Land
Glug Glug
We’ve Got Chemistry
Lots of Energy
Re-Use It or Lose It
Evolutionary, Watson!
Robots
Space Travelers
Temperatures
Outer Space
The Moon
Building Blocks
AMERICANA
Whatchamacallit, USA
Las Vegas!
Average Americans
On the Map
American History
More Wacky Town Names
THE PEOPLE PAGES
Last Names
Not-So-Famous People
Southpaws Only
Oh, Baby!
Ladies & Gentlemen
Family Ties
Acting Human
HOW’S THE WEATHER?
The Cold Truth
Weird Weather
Stormy Weather
Lightning
GREETINGS FROM UNCLE
KNOW-IT-ALL
Okay, nobody can know everything—not even Uncle John. But it’s fun to know a little about a lot of different subjects. That’s where your faithful friends at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute come in. We love to collect fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia. Then we quiz each other: “Hey, Brian, did you know that you can hear an elephant’s stomach rumble from 200 yards away?” Or, “Hey, Patrick, did you know that only 1% of the water on Earth is drinkable?” Or, “Hey, Stephanie, did you know that spiders sometimes get trapped in their own webs?” We could go on all day (and night) doing that, couldn’t you?
Hey, what a great idea for a book!
So here it is: our kooky compendium of weird and wonderful facts—just like the encyclopedia…only fun. Use it to test your teachers, freak out your friends, mesmerize your mom, dazzle your dad, and baffle your brothers and sisters. (You may even feel yourself getting smarter.)
Happy reading and as always, Go with the Flow!
Uncle John and the Bathroom Reader Staff
MAN-MADE
MILESTONES
• Hard hats were invented and first used in the building of the Hoover Dam in 1933.
• The sandals that the Statue of Liberty is wearing are size 879. (They’re about 25 feet long.)
• The Great Wall of China stretches 1,500 miles and contains almost a billion bricks.
• On a clear day, you can see four states from the top of Chicago’s Sears Tower: Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
• The Eiffel Tower is repainted every seven years. It takes 60 tons of brown paint to do the job.
• There’s evidence that after the Pilgrim ship Mayflower sailed from England to America (and back), it was taken apart and made into a barn in England.
• What kind of stone is Mount Rushmore made of? Granite. It was “carved” mostly with dynamite.
• Egypt’s Great Sphinx is 260 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 65 feet tall, making it the largest stone statue in the world.
• While the rest of the world had wheels, the Aztecs had no knowledge of them.
ENGLISH
Even if you speak it, there’s still plenty to learn about it.
• Very few words in English use “en” to pluralize them. Some are: ox (oxen), brother (brethren), child (children), man (men), and woman (women).
• While many Western languages, such as Spanish, Italian, and French, are Latin-based, English isn’t—it’s mostly derived from German.
• There are 812 three-letter words in current usage in the English language, and 857 fifteen-letter words.
• The Brooklyn accent—saying “dese, dem, and dose” for “these, them, and those”—came from the Dutch accent of the original settlers. Want to hear a Brooklyn accent? Just listen to Bugs Bunny.
• In 1737 Benjamin Franklin made a list of American slang terms for drunkenness—and came up with 228 of them.
• “Pants” was a dirty word in England in the 1880s.
• “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt.”
• The North American National Scrabble Association recognizes five words worth 392 points—the most anyone can score in a single turn: OXAZEPAM, BEZIQUES, CAZIQUES, MEZQUITS, and MEZQUITE.
ALL ABOUT
EARTH
Some of the things you could tell a visiting Martian about your home planet.
• Lake Baikal in Russia is the world’s deepest lake—it’s deep enough for five Empire State Buildings to stand in it on top of each other.
• Millions of years ago, the Earth consisted of one land mass surrounded by a vast ocean. Geologists call the land Pangaea (Greek for “all land”); they call the ocean Panthalassa (“all sea”).
• Sometime between 180 and 200 million years ago, Pangaea broke into two parts: Laurasia, which consisted of what is now North America, Europe, and part of Asia; and Gondwanaland—what’s now South America, Africa, Australia, India, and Antarctica.
• Where’s the Earth’s core? Directly under your feet, 4,000 miles down.
• Tallest mountain on Earth: Not Mt. Everest—it’s Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, which rises 33,476 feet from the floor of the Pa
cific Ocean.
• Want to travel as fast as a jet plane while standing still? Stand on the equator. The Earth’s spin is greatest there, moving you at more than 1,000 miles per hour.
• What do you call the tip of a glacier? The snout.
• The way at which the Earth is tipped on its axis—at an angle of 23 ½°—is what causes the seasons.
• Scientists think the Earth’s core is hotter than the surface of the Sun.
• Take a deep breath: If air were liquid, it would form a layer over the Earth about 33 feet deep.
• Wind blowing against a mountain range can actually speed up or slow down the Earth’s rotation.
• California’s San Andreas fault is slipping about two inches a year, causing Los Angeles to move closer to San Francisco. At this rate, L.A. will be a San Francisco suburb in about 15 million years.
• 95% of all life on Earth lives in the range between 300 feet below sea level and 9,000 feet above sea level.
• It hardly moves, but it accounts for 85% of all life on Earth: It’s plankton, which consists of microscopic plants and animals that float around in the water.
• About 100 million tons of sand particles travel around the Earth every year, carried by breezes.
• Here comes the tide: The Atlantic Ocean is getting wider by an inch or more every year.
• In the last 10,000 years, Niagara Falls has moved about 10 miles upstream. That means that the falls are eroding at the rate of five feet a year.
• What’s the most abundant element in the Earth’s crust? Oxygen. (Second most abundant: silicon.)
EVERY 24
HOURS…
…without fail, here’s what happens…
• The Earth travels more than 1.5 million miles in its orbit around the Sun.
• 2.5 billion adults go to work; 1 billion kids go to school.
• Lightning strikes 8 million times.
• The bees of the world make 3,300 tons of honey.
• Crayola makes 5 million crayons.
• The world’s humans produce 2.2 billion tons of poop.
• 200,000 Americans have surgery.
• Two people in Sri Lanka die from poisonous snakebites.
• Birthdays are celebrated by 16.5 million people.
• Americans eat 15 million hamburgers.
• The chickens of the world lay 2 billion eggs.
• The Amazon River gushes 8 trillion gallons of water into the Atlantic Ocean.
• 380,000 babies are born; 145,000 people die.
IT’S ANCIENT
HISTORY
• Ancient Celtic warriors were known to fight naked. From head to toe, their skin was dyed blue.
• The Arabs didn’t invent Arabic numerals—the Hindus of India did. The numerals were introduced to Europe by way of Arab traders around the 11th century.