Fact of the day

Fact of the day

Information is the most powerful weapon.

Fact N° 1310
A candidate has won the popular vote but lost the election four times in U.S. Presidential election history.
Al Gore's 2000 loss to George Bush is only the most recent example. The first loss came in 1824, when Andrew Jackson won the popular vote but failed to get enough electoral votes; the House of Representatives picked John Quincy Adams. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won the election over Samuel Tilden despite losing the popular vote because he won enough electoral votes, and in 1888, Benjamin Harrison won the election over Grover Cleveland for the same reason.
Fact N° 1311
The first mobile phone call was placed in St. Louis in 1946.
The phone call was no accident; it was over 10 years in the making, an achievement by engineers at Bell Labs, and within just two years, people in over 100 U.S. cities had access to wireless telephone services. However, it wasn't cheap, it wasn't terribly easy to use, and the equipment needed to operate the device weighed around 80 pounds.
Fact N° 1312
The line "Annuit Coeptis" on the U.S. dollar bill means "God has favored our undertakings."
For a government based on the separation of church and state, the U.S. dollar bill has some curious symbols and language, including the eye above the pyramid and one of the two Latin phrases. According to the U.S. Treasury's web site, "the 'All-Seeing Eye' located above the pyramid suggests the importance of divine guidance in favor of the American cause. The inscription Annuit Coeptis translates as 'He (God) has favored our undertakings,' and refers to the many instances of Divine Providence during our Government's formation."
Fact N° 1313
In a five-year period, pro squash player Jahangir Khan won over 550 straight matches.
In one of the most impressive athletic displays in the history of individual sports, the Pakistani Khan began his unbeaten streak in 1981 and won 555 matches before he lost the 1986 World Open final to New Zealander Ross Norman. Considered by many to be the greatest squash player ever, Khan also won six World Open trophies and 10 straight British Open titles between 1982 and 1991, and was named Pakistan's Sportsman of the Millennium.
Fact N° 1314
The average Las Vegas showgirl is around 5 feet 11 inches tall.
Height requirements for Vegas showgirls have typically been set between 5 foot 10 and 6 feet tall, a requirement that rules out much of the adult female population, since according to the National Center for Health Statistics, the average height among women in the U.S. is just under 5 foot 4. Often they are also ballet-trained, and because of their elaborate costumes, the focus is not so much on how well they can dance, but rather on their own personal allure or mystique.
Fact N° 1315
The XXX rating was a promotional tool created by the porn industry.
According to UCLA professor Peter Reiher, the MPAA created the X rating to denote films that dealt very openly with sexuality, such as Midnight Cowboy or Last Tango in Paris. As the porn industry grew around famous films like Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door, those producers wanted to -- and did -- put an X rating on their own films, because the MPAA had not trademarked the rating. Over time, in an effort to draw in potential viewers, pornographers invented the XXX to indicate that their movie showed very explicit sex scenes.
Fact N° 1316
Public Prosecutor was the first TV series filmed in Hollywood.
The first station to begin operations in Hollywood was KTLA in early 1947, and later that year came the first filmed series ever for television: Public Prosecutor. Each 17.5-minute episode (26 were filmed in all) was a mystery: before the ending was revealed, the show would turn to a host and a 3-member panel that would try to guess who the guilty party was.

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