wonderful fatcs part 2
(Najamuddin Ghanghro, Karachi (original from Larkana))
•A cough releases an explosive
charge of air that can move at speeds of up to 60mph.
•From the 1500’s to the 1700’s tobacco was prescribed by doctors to treat a
variety of ailments including headaches, arthritis, toothache and bad breath.
•A jiffy is an actual unit of time for 1/100 of a second.
•Absolutely pure gold is so soft it can be moulded with the hands. A lump of
pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a
tennis court. An ounce of gold can be stretched into a wire 50 miles long.
•Barbers at one time combined shaving and haircutting with bloodletting and
pulling teeth. The white stripes on a field of red that spiral down a barber
pole represent the bandages used in bloodletting.
•Money isn’t made out of paper, its made out of linen.
•In 1945 a computer in Harvard malfunctioned and Grace Hopper, who was working
on the computer, investigated, found and moth in one of the circuits and removed
it. Ever since, when something goes wrong with a computer it is said
to have a bug in it.
•The sandwich is named for the Fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-92) for whom
sandwiches were made so that he could stay at the gambling table without
interruptions for meals.
•The first safety feature for an automobile was invented in 1908 by John
O’Leary. He patented a large net, to be installed on the front bumper, to scoop
pedestrians out of the way before they could be run over.
•Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:
Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, Diamonds
- Julius Caesar.
•The worlds costliest coffee, at $130 a pound, is called kopi luwak. It is found
in the droppings of a type of marsupial that eats only the best coffee beans.
Plantation workers track them and scoop their precious poop.
•Offered a new pen to write with 97% of all people will write their own name.
•The phrase ‘sleep tight’ originated when mattresses were set upon ropes woven
through the bed frame. To remedy sagging ropes, one would use a bed key to
tighten the rope.