Believe It Or No: A Recap of This Week’s Fun Facts (4.23.21)
Every weekday during Middays with Adam (10am-3pm), Adam shares some facts and trivia in a fun segment called Believe it or No (the Minnesotan version, you could say, of Ripley's Believe it or Not!).
Here are this past week's fun facts and trivia from Believe it or No:
- Marvin Gardens on the Monopoly board has always been misspelled. The actual neighborhood in New Jersey is spelled M-A-R-V-E-N, but in Monopoly it's M-A-R-V-I-N. Parker Brothers apologized for the mistake in 1995. (Source: Wikipedia)
- The longest movie ever to get a wide release is . . . "Gone with the Wind". The theatrical version was three hours and 46 minutes. Any longer movie that's come out since has been clipped down for theaters. (Source: NY Post)
- "Ping pong" is actually trademarked by Parker Brothers. The generic term you're supposed to use for the game is table tennis. (Source: NY Times)
- Huey Lewis got a perfect score on the math portion of the SATs. (Source: SF Gate)
- It takes 27,000 trees to make all the toilet paper the world goes through in one day. (Source: National Geographic)
- Limping on purpose was a popular trend in the mid-1800s in the U.K. The princess of Wales had rheumatic fever that gave her a limp, and because she was a huge fashion icon and trendsetter, other women started limping too. (Source: BBC)
- Al Green's "Take Me to the River" was a big hit . . . but it made its biggest chunk of royalties from being the song that's sung by the Big Mouth Billy Bass electronic fish. (Source: Wikipedia)
- The only people who can legally bring switchblades into the U.S. are military members and people who are missing an arm. (Source: Cornell)
- A fear of the number 666 is called hexa-kosioi-hex-ekonta-hexa-phobia. Ronald Reagan had it. (Source: Wikipedia)
- There are only five cities in the world that span across two continents. The biggest one is Istanbul, Turkey . . . it's about 65% in Europe and 35% in Asia. (Source: Geography Realm)
- Nothing with less than 10% alcohol was considered an alcoholic beverage in Russia until 2011 . . . it was classified as regular food. That included almost all beer. (Source: BBC)