Useless (but interesting) trivia

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More than 30 million viewers in Britain tuned in to watch the BBC “Royal Family” documentary in 1969, such that during the intermission, the flushing of toilets all over London caused a water shortage.

 

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The footrest in this jeep says “sand snow rivers rocks” in morse code.

 

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The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words. More than 2 billion pencils are manufactured each year in the United States. If these were laid end to end they would circle the world nine times.

 

[526 HRSE]

The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words. More than 2 billion pencils are manufactured each year in the United States. If these were laid end to end they would circle the world nine times.

Today, that same pencil will last approximately 3,782 years before it runs out.

 

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In Disney’s Fantasia, the Sorcerer’s name is “Yensid” (Disney spelled backward).

 

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[CANTWN4LSN]

In 1958, pilots Robert Timm and John Cook set the record for the longest continuous flight in a Cessna 172, staying airborne for 64 days, 22 hours, and 19 minutes without landing. They took off on December 4, 1958, and finally landed on February 7, 1959, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Wonder if they yelled "look out below" when they emptied the on board bucket?

 

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Strap-on spelled backwards is "no parts"

 

[martinjlm]

World War III almost started (and ended?) on September 26, 1983.

Shortly after the Russian downing of Korean Airlines Flight 007 the whole world was on high alert. On September 26, 1983 a Russian monitoring site received multiple warnings of missiles fired from the west coast of the US. The defense system issued “Fire Missiles” directives. The commander of the monitoring station, Stanislav Petrov, was skeptical of the validity of the reported US missile launches and had approximately 8 minutes to react. Fire missiles or not. He chose not (thankfully). Had he fired missiles, US satellites would have picked up on it and fired back and WWIII would be on.

It turns out the Soviet monitoring systems misinterpreted an anomaly in the way the sun’s rays reflected off of unusually high altitude clouds and translated it as a missile launch. Petrov’s career was ruined seeing as how he disobeyed direct orders. Many years later when this close call came to light, the Secretary General of the United Nations declared Andropov as “The man who prevented WWIII”.

 

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[Vlad Soare]

World War III almost started (and ended?) on September 26, 1983.

Shortly after the Russian downing of Korean Airlines Flight 007 the whole world was on high alert. On September 26, 1983 a Russian monitoring site received multiple warnings of missiles fired from the west coast of the US. The defense system issued “Fire Missiles” directives. The commander of the monitoring station, Stanislav Petrov, was skeptical of the validity of the reported US missile launches and had approximately 8 minutes to react. Fire missiles or not. He chose not (thankfully). Had he fired missiles, US satellites would have picked up on it and fired back and WWIII would be on.

It turns out the Soviet monitoring systems misinterpreted an anomaly in the way the sun’s rays reflected off of unusually high altitude clouds and translated it as a missile launch. Petrov’s career was ruined seeing as how he disobeyed direct orders. Many years later when this close call came to light, the Secretary General of the United Nations declared Andropov as “The man who prevented WWIII”.

I think there's also a movie on this topic. I can't remember its name, or who starred in it, but I remember seeing it a long time ago.

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