Random facts

[Emelee]

For all of you who loves to know stuff.
Post random facts about anything in "smart" areas, like history, physics, chemistry, biology, economy etc.
Use no more than 3 sentences. Keep a fact short.

 

[Emelee]

I will start:

No one knows for sure still today who sent the anthrax letters after the 9/11 attacks. The FBI only have a qualified guess: an American anthrax researcher.

 

[Daniel Avery]

President Benjamin Harrison purposely kept secret which set of paperwork he "officially" signed first when admitting North Dakota and South Dakota to the Union as states on the same day in 1889. So although ND is called the 39th state and SD the 40th, we don't know this for sure.

 

[Emelee]

The self-contradictary oxymoron is in itself an oxymoron. Oksus = sharp. Moros = dull.

 

[Daniel Avery]

You are more likely to die in a vending machine accident (1 in 112 million) than by shark attack (1 in 250 million).

 

[Emelee]

There are 43 countries in the world with a monarch as head of state. 13 in Asia, 12 in Europe, 9 in the Americas, 6 in Oceania and 3 in Africa.

 

[Crimson]

In World War I and II, ships were sometimes made of concrete due to steel shortages. The wreckage of one such ship, the S.S. Atlantus, is visible at my favorite local beach.

https://weirdnj.com/stories/mystery-history/s-s-atlantus-concrete-ship/

 

[Daniel Avery]

The term "on the throne" became a euphemism for using the toilet after Britain's George II died (of aortic dissection) while straining too hard in his "water closet".