A FUN FACT FOR EACH OF THE 50 US STATES (UNVERIFIED)

Although unverified, some of this stuff rings true.  In any event, it's fun!  Find your home State and see what you think.  For my readers from other than the US, learn some interesting things about the United States.






ALABAMA .................. Was the first place to have 9-1-1, started in 1968.  (Probably to get fast medical aid to injured football players and fans!)


ALASKA ..................... One out of every 64 people has a pilot's license.  (And that's probably because they couldn't pass their driver's license test on those icy roads!)


ARIZONA ................... Is the only state in the continental U.S.
that doesn't follow Daylight Savings Time.  (I wish other States would follow Arizona's lead!)


ARKANSAS ................ Has the only active diamond mine in the U.S.  (I know some women who'll move there after reading this!)


CALIFORNIA .............. Its economy is so large that if it were a
country, it would rank 7th in the entire world.  (I think California should be a separate country!)


COLORADO ................ In 1976 it became the only state to turn
down the Olympics.  (There's got to be a good reason for this, but I sure can't think of one!)


CONNECTICUT ........... The Frisbee was invented here at Yale University.  (Now who who would have thunk that!  A flying saucer, maybe, but a frisbee?)


DELAWARE .............. Has more scientists and engineers than any other state.  (The question begs to be asked:  WHY?)


FLORIDA .................At 874.3 square miles, Jacksonville is the
US's largest city.  (And, from living in Florida for many a year, I'll add "and is the birthplace of the Early Bird Dinner Special!  And is lovingly referred to as the land of the newly wed and nearly dead!")


GEORGIA .................... It was here, in 1886, that pharmacist
John Pemberton made the first vat of Coca-Cola.  (I recall reading somewhere that the original batches actually contained cocaine and were sold for medicinal purposes.  No wonder everyone liked it so much that it became the number one selling beverage in the world!) 


HAWAII ..................... Hawaiians live, on average, five years
longer than residents of any other state.  (Could it be because they get more leys than the rest of us?  Nahhh, it's got to have something to do with the weather or the volcanic ash!)


IDAHO ....................... TV was invented in Rigby, Idaho, in 1922.
(And the world went downhill from there.)


ILLINOIS ...................Has a Governor in jail, one pending jail & is perhaps the most corrupt state in the union.  (And we elected a President from that State!  Makes you wonder.)


INDIANA ...Home to Santa Claus, Indiana , which gets a half million letters to Santa every year.  (What do they do with all that unfowardable mail?)


IOWA .............Winnebago get their name from Winnebago County .  Also, it is the only state that begins with two vowels.  (Has anyone from Iowa ever won a spelling bee?)


KANSAS .................Liberal, Kansas , has an exact replica of the
house in The Wizard of Oz.  (Who lives in that house????)


KENTUCKY .............Has more than $6 billion in gold underneath Fort Knox.  (GOOD GRIEF!  Don't remind the politicians because they'll want to tax it or spend it!)


LOUISIANA .............Has parishes instead of counties because they
were originally Spanish church units.  (Only one out of 50 isn't bad.  I guess they march to the beat of a different drummer!)


MAINE ...................... It's so big, it covers as many square
miles as the other five New England states combined.  (If you look at the tiny size of the other five, that's not that big of an accomplishment!)


MARYLAND .............. The Ouija board was created in Baltimore in 1892.  ("Oui" being French for yes, and "ja" being German for yes, I would have guessed Europe!)


MASSACHUSETTS ....... The Fig Newton is named after Newton , Mass and where the first chocolate chip cookie was created.  (Is this also where Wayne Newton was born?  Probably not.)


MICHIGAN .....Fremont, home to Gerber, is the baby food capital of the world.  (One has to wonder how many babies they have fed since their inception.  I'm guessing eleventeen gazillion.)


MINNESOTA ............ Bloomington 's Mall of America is so big, if
you spent 10 minutes in each store, you'd be there nearly four days.
(In the middle of a Minnesota winter, it may take you four days to just drive there!)


MISSISSIPPI ............. President Teddy Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear here .... that's how the teddy bear got its name.  (Good for you, Mr. President!  I'm pretty much against hunting myself.)


MISSOURI ............... Is the birthplace of the ice cream cone.  (I knew there was something I really liked about this State!  Show me the cone!  A chocolate one, please.)


MONTANA .............A sapphire from Montana is in the Crown Jewels of England.  (I SAY LET'S GET THE DAMN THING BACK HOME WHERE IT BELONGS!  And any jobs that went along with it, too!)


NEBRASKA ............... More triplets are born here than in any other state.  (Good grief!  I'm glad I never lived there!)


NEW HAMPSHIRE ...... Birthplace of Tupperware, invented in 1938 by Earl Tupper.  (A true All-American invention that helped change the world and made it a better place.  Thanx Earl!)


NEW JERSEY ............ Has the most shopping malls in one area in the world.  (Guys, if you can't find your wife, mother, or daughter, try looking somewhaere in Jersey!)


NEW MEXICO ............ Smokey the Bear was rescued from a 1950 forest fire here.  (Weird.  I never knew there was a real "Smokey The Bear"!)


NEW YORK ................ Is home to the nation's oldest cattle ranch,
started in 1747 in Montauk.  (I'm sure there are tons of Texans who'd dispute this one!)


NORTH CAROLINA ..... Home of the first Krispy Kreme doughnut.  (God Bless America, and especially NC and Krispy Kreme.  Amen!)


NORTH DAKOTA ....... Rugby , North Dakota , is the exact geographic center of North America .  (Who measures this stuff?  And what kind of a ruler do they use?)


OHIO ......................... The hot dog was invented here in 1900.  (And I'm sure there are lots of New Yorkers who'd dispute this one!)


OKLAHOMA ............... The grounds of the state capital are covered by operating oil wells.  (How pretty is that!?!)


OREGON .................... Has the most ghost towns in the country.  (Now that rings spooky!)


PENNSYLVANIA ......... The smiley,  : )  was first used in 1980 by
computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University.  (Gee, is that all they could come up with?)


RHODE ISLAND ......... The nation's oldest bar, the White Horse
Tavern, opened here in 1673.  (God Bless America and especially Rhode Island and the White Horse Tavern.  Amen!)


SOUTH CAROLINA ..... Sumter County is home to the world's largest gingko farm.  (Wow!  How did I make it this far without knowing that!?!)


SOUTH DAKOTA ....... Is the only state that's never had an earthquake.  (Given the Law of Averages, watch out South Dakota!  The next rumbling you feel may not be from your neighbor's snow blower or tractor!)


TENNESSEE ................ Nashville's Grand Ole Opry is the longest
running live radio show in the world.  (And without a doubt, the best, too!)


TEXAS ....................... Dr. Pepper was invented in Waco back in
1885. The Hamburger was invented in Arlington in 1906.  (Now this tidbit of information is really strange - Dr. Pepper and hamburgers?  Two things I wouldn't immediately associate Texas with!)


UTAH ........................ The first Kentucky Fried Chicken
restaurant opened here in 1952.  (Hmmmm,  I would have guessed Kentucky!  Makes more sense to me than Utah!)


VERMONT ..............Montpelier is the only state capital without a McDonald's.  (Way to go, Montpelier!)


VIRGINIA ............Home of the world's largest office building...The Pentagon.  (I never thought of the Pentagon as an "office building" before!)


WASHINGTON...............Seattle has twice as many college graduates as any other state.  (Perhaps that's because there is absolutely nothing else to do in Washington?)


WASHINGTON D.C. .... Was the first planned capital in the world.
(And it worked.  Well, it used to work.)


WEST VIRGINIA ......... Had the world's first brick paved street,
Summers Street, laid in Charleston in 1870.  (A dubious distinction for this Blue Ridge Mountain state!)


WISCONSIN ............... The ice cream sundae was invented here
in1881 to get around Blue Laws prohibiting ice cream from being sold on Sundays.  (God bless America and especially Wisconsin and the ice cream sundae.  Amen!)


WYOMING .................Was the first state to allow women to vote.
(No comment!!!)


Note:  A special thanks to my friend MR for sending the original
e-mail to me.  I took the liberty of adding comments  in parentheses.)

G-R-O-A-N-E-R-S-

If these don't make you groan, I recommend doubling up on your meds and asking your therapist for more weekly sessions!  :-)


Groan away:

1. The fattest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.  He acquired his size from too much pi. 2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian. 3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still. 4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption. 5. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery. 6. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering. 7. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in LinoleumBlownapart. 8. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie. 9. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it. 10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. 11. Atheism is a non-prophet organization. 12. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.' 13. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me. 14. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.' 15. The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large. 17. A backward poet writes inverse. 18. In a democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes. 19. If you jumped off the bridge in Paris, you'd be in Seine. 20. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too. 21. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says,"I've lost my electron." The other says, "Are you sure?" The first replies, "Yes, I'm positive." 22. There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh.  No pun in ten did. If these didn't solicit a groan, go ahead and moan!

SOME WORTHLESS, BUT INTERESTING, FACTS THAT YOU ACTUALLY COULD LIVE WITHOUT!

(And NO, I did not check any of this out with Snopes, the Internet Nazi!)




Q: Why do men's clothes have buttons on the right while women's clothes have buttons on the left?

A: When buttons were invented, they were very expensive and worn primarily by the rich. Since most people are right-handed, it is easier to push buttons on the right through holes on the left. Because wealthy women were dressed by maids, dressmakers put the buttons on the maid's right! And that's where women's buttons have remained since.

Q: Why do ships and aircraft use 'mayday' as their call for help?

A: This comes from the French word m'aidez -meaning 'help me' -- and is pronounced, approximately, 'mayday.'

Q: Why are zero scores in tennis called 'love'?

A: In France , where tennis became popular, round zero on the scoreboard looked like an egg and was called 'l'oeuf,' which is French for 'egg.' When tennis was introduced in the US , Americans (mis)pronounced it 'love.' (Ya gotta "love" those French!)


Q. Why do X's at the end of a letter signify kisses?

A: In the Middle Ages, when many people were unable to read or write, documents were often signed using an X. Kissing the X represented an oath to fulfil obligations specified in the document. The X and the kiss eventually became synonymous. (I wonder where the "O" for hug came from?) XOXOXOXO

Q: Why is shifting responsibility to someone else called 'passing the buck'?

A: In card games, it was once customary to pass an item, called a buck, from player to player to indicate whose turn it was to deal. If a player did not wish to assume the responsibility of dealing, he would 'pass the buck' to the next player. (I know people like this.)

Q: Why do people clink their glasses before drinking a toast?

A: It used to be common for someone to try to kill an enemy by offering him a poisoned drink. To prove to a guest that a drink was safe, it became customary for a guest to pour a small amount of his drink into the glass of the host. Both men would drink it simultaneously. When a guest trusted his host, he would only touch or clink the host's glass with his own.

Q: Why are people in the public eye said to be 'in the limelight'?

A: Invented in 1825, limelight was used in lighthouses and theatres by burning a cylinder of lime which produced a brilliant light. In the theatre, a performer 'in the limelight' was the center of attention.

Q: Why is someone who is feeling great 'on cloud nine'?

A: Types of clouds are numbered according to the altitudes they attain, with nine being the highest cloud. If someone is said to be on cloud nine, that person is floating well above worldly cares. (I know people like this, too!)

Q: In golf, where did the term 'caddie' come from?

A. When Mary, Queen of Scots went to France as a young girl, Louis, King of France , learned that she loved the Scots' game 'golf.' So he had the first course outside of Scotland built for her enjoyment. To make sure she was properly chaperoned (and guarded) while she played, Louis hired cadets from a military school to accompany her. Mary liked this a lot and when she returned to Scotland (not a very good idea in the long run), she took the practice with her. In French, the word cadet is pronounced 'ca-day' and the Scots changed it into 'caddie.'

Q: Why are many coin banks shaped like pigs?

A: Long ago, dishes and cookware in Europe were made of a dense orange clay called 'pygg'. When people saved coins in jars made of this clay, the jars became known as 'pygg banks.' When an English potter misunderstood the word, he made a container that resembled a pig and it caught on. (Leave it to the English to get i confused!)

Q: Did you ever wonder why dimes, quarters and half dollars have notches (milling), while pennies and nickels do not?

A: The US Mint began putting notches on the edges of coins containing gold and silver to discourage holders from shaving off small quantities of the precious metals. Dimes, quarters and half dollars are notched because they used to contain silver. Pennies and nickels aren't notched because the metals they contain are not valuable enough to shave.

So there! Now you know! Thrilled?