Has a research experiment been going on for more than 140 years?

Time, I suppose, for me to share my annual letter to Santa Claus.  This year, it won’t be a “regular” letter.

Dear Santa:

It’s me again.  But this time, I don’t want to submit a wish list, but rather a thank you.

You see, over the past six decades or so, I’ve sent you an annual list of what I wanted each Christmas, but you have instead given me what I needed.

For that, I think you are the greatest!

Merry Christmas, Santa!

Love, Jack

What you need right now is the trivia, and I’ll play Santa and give you what you need.  Enjoy the collected trivia this week!

Did you know …

… Roman dictator Julius Caesar was once a hostage of pirates?  Caesar (100 BC–44 BC) was traveling to Rhodes to study oratory in 75 BC when he was captured by pirates operating in the Aegean Sea.  The legend has it that the 25-year-old Caesar was held for 38 days by the pirates until a ransom was paid, but during that time he was recorded as a very “unruly” captive.  (Imagine having to live up to that legend!)

… people who are afraid are also interested?  Scientists investigating human behavior have discovered that interest is the emotion most associated with fear.  Fear, they say, has two faces:  one being the wish to flee, and the other to investigate.  (Your reaction to the fear shows which face prevails.)

… dribbling has not always been a part of basketball?  When Dr. James Naismith (1861-1939) invented the game in 1891, the rules demanded that a player had to pass the ball as soon as it was caught.  It wasn’t until 1901 that the rule was amended to allow a player to bounce the ball once before passing it.  Dribbling, or bouncing the ball as the player runs along the court, was not allowed to be continuous until 1909.  (Dribbling comes easy to me, the older I get.)

… you may know a fendersmith?  While it sounds as if it could be someone who repairs car fenders (or works on Fender™ guitars), a fendersmith is actually someone who cleans and maintains fireplaces, and is responsible for building and tending to the fires in them.  (That’s some pretty hot stuff, right there.)

… an American actress and dancer was also a spy during World War II?  Josephine Baker (1906-1975), who performed in Europe in the years before World War II broke out, volunteered to spy for the Allies as the war began.  She would relay information heard from Germans and Italians at parties which she attended.  (A more modern Mata Hari?)

… one of the longest-running experiments in scientific history is going on at Michigan State University?  Every twenty years, a team of scientists goes out into the dead of night, following a “treasure map.”  They reach a certain point and dig up a bottle of seeds.  Twenty bottles of seeds were initially buried there in 1879 by botanist William James Beal (1833-1924), a pioneer in the development of hybrid corn.  Beal placed the seeds there in an attempt to determine how long the seeds could be viable.  Initially, a bottle of seeds was unearthed every five years, the seeds would be planted, and scientists would record the number that sprouted.  Later, the interval of digging up bottles was changed to every ten years, and later still to every 20 years.  The experiment will end in the year 2100 when the final bottle of seeds is unearthed.  Some of the seeds germinate, some don’t.  (Your research dollars at work, over time.)

… women have a kind of “checklist” they follow when they meet a man for the first time?  According to researchers, when a woman meets a man for the first time, she bases 55% of her impression of him on his appearance and body language, 38% on his manner of speaking, and only 7% on what he actually says.  (Which explains why I am still single, it seems.)

… an olive tree can live for more than 2,000 years?  (But does the tree enjoy spending that much time here?)

… Prohibitionists in the early 20th Century took their work seriously?  In addition to fighting for – and passing – the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, they wanted to do much more.  They tried to remove any mention of wine from school and college textbooks, including the literature of Greece and Rome.  Medicinal wines were also targeted.  But the longest reach they went for was trying to prove that Biblical praises of wine were really for unfermented grape juice.  (There’s commitment, and then there’s this.)

… the law in Massachusetts makes it illegal to deliver diapers on a Sunday?  Even if it’s an emergency, one cannot have diapers delivered on Sundays.  (The jokes sometimes write themselves, don’t they?)

… until 1914, the second-most widely spoken language in the United States was German?  It was still in that position in 1914, but that was when World War I broke out, and its use was forcibly suppressed during the war.  Use of German never really recovered after that.  (And then, twenty years later, using German really took a hit.)

… the largest equestrian statue in the world is in Mongolia?  Located in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, the statue of conqueror Genghis Khan (1162-1227) on horseback measures 131 feet tall.  The statue faces east, toward his birthplace, and was erected in 2008.  (And what faces west shows Genghis Khan’s opinion of the world.)

… the first webcam ever used watched a coffee pot?  The camera allowed researchers at Cambridge University to monitor the coffee without having to leave their desks to check on it.  (Creativity has its advantages, especially for the lazy.)

Now … you know!