Buster Keaton was the illegitimate son of Harry Houdini.
He was born Joseph Francis Keaton in 1895. Buster’s parents, Joe and Myra, were players in the Mohawk Indian Medicine Company, a traveling vaudeville revue that also boasted the talents of escape artist Harry Houdini. Buster’s showbiz debut came early when his mother and father, absorbed in their acrobatic comedy act, didn’t notice that their son had crawled onstage, much to the audience’s delight. Buster was quickly recruited into the act.
The only real surfer in the Beach Boys was Dennis Wilson.
Dennis, the second of the three Wilson brothers—Brian was the eldest, Carl the youngest—was the only one who actually surfed. The three brothers formed the Beach Boys in 1961, along with cousin Mike Love and pal Al Jardine.
If you are struck by lightning, your socks and shoes may help prevent injury.
If you’re struck by lightning, your shoes and socks will likely be knocked off. Rapid heating, evaporation, and expansion of sweat on your skin literally blows your clothes off. If this happens, the current does not enter the body and should not cause injury.
By law, the U.S. Gold Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, may contain only gold.
Fort Knox has stored our own Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, and three volumes of the Gutenberg Bible. Valuable items for other governments have also been stored there, including the Magna Carta, not to mention the crown, sword, scepter, orb, and cape of St. Stephen, king of Hungary.
Chief Sitting Bull died in “Custer’s Last Stand” at the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Sitting Bull did not participate in the massacre—though he was blamed for it. The leader of the Lakota Sioux had a vision in 1876 that spurred 3,500 Cheyenne and Sioux to attack General Custer at Little Big Horn. Sitting Bull was hunted down, captured, and confined to Fort Buford.
Certain U.S. coins are minted with ridges on their edges for a better grip.
Called “reeding,” the ridges on the U.S. dollar, half-dollar, quarter, and dime were placed there because these coins were once made of precious metal. The reeded edges discouraged counterfeiting and fraudulent use, such as filing off the edges to recover the silver. Now, most coins are made of far less expensive nickel-clad copper. Nickels and pennies, which have smooth edges, have never contained precious metal and therefore weren’t reeded.
The actor who portrayed the “Marlboro Man” for the world’s best-selling cigarette died of lung cancer.
Actually, many models and cowboys were used in television and print ads for the Phillip Morris tobacco company, but two of them, Wayne McLaren and David McLean, died of cancers that began in their lungs. McLaren appeared in an anti-smoking ad near the end of his life in 1992, while McLean’s widow filed a wrongful death suit against Phillip Morris, Inc. a year after her husband’s death in 1996, claiming the company’s cigarettes were the cause of his cancers. A judgment in the suit is still pending.
Lebanon is the only country in the Middle East that does not have a desert.
Once part of the Fertile Crescent, which was home to the Phoenicians, Lebanon is essentially a valley set between two mountain ranges. The mountains are rough and rocky, but Lebanon is generally considered a “green” country—an astonishing anomaly compared to the rest of the Arab Middle East, which is 90% desert.
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