Did you know: Did a American soldier serve in both the Civil War and WWI‭?‬

Would you look at that! It’s August already!

The year has been zipping along rather quickly, hasn’t it? (Except in those places where it hasn’t, and we all know where those were.)

Scientists tell us that the older we get, the faster time seems to move. By my age (I’ll be 66 next month), it’s going along at near light-speed.

Slow down, already!  I want to enjoy what time I do have left! Oh, well.  Time and tide wait for no man, but trivia is always at hand.  So enjoy this week’s selection before the time zips past!

Did you know …

… you have a better chance of being hit by lightning than of getting a royal flush in a game of five-card draw poker? The odds of getting hit by lightning are one in 15,300. But you have a one in 649,740 chance of drawing a royal flush in the game of five-card draw poker. (Winning the Lottery has odds that make a royal flush look easy, though.)

… attendees at a musical concert actually produced a seismic event? On the nights of July 22 and 23, 2023, dancing attendees at Seattle, Washington concerts featuring singer Taylor Swift (born 1989) – along with the booming sound system used – caused seismic activity equivalent to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake. One attendee said she could actually feel the ground shaking beneath her feet at the concert. (So that’s why her fans are called Swifties!!)

… as of this writing, the planet Saturn has the most satellites? In 2023, astronomers cited the discovery of almost 60 new satellites of the giant ringed planet, bringing the total number of moons to 146. Jupiter is second with 95 moons. (I think we here on Earth do just fine with the one we’ve got.)

… “unfriending” someone on Facebook can be more than just a traumatic experience? In fact, at least five people have been murdered by people they unfriended on the social media site. (It’s supposed to be “unfriending,” not “unaliving.”)

… the creator of the Peanuts comic strip once explained why he did not put adults into the strip?

Charles Schulz (1922-2000) once said he didn’t like to put adults directly into the strip because they wouldn’t work with the “human” behaviors of Snoopy and Woodstock. Schulz felt adults in the strip would bring back reality. When adults were in the strip, they were either shown as only their legs or blurred faces in the distance, or with the well-loved “Blah blah blah” when they spoke. (Blah blah blah, blah blah.)

… one American soldier served in both the Civil War and World War I? Peter Conover Hains (1840-1921) was supposed to be a West Point graduate in the Class of 1862, but with the Civil War having started the previous year, his class was graduated a year early. Hains served with distinction during the war for the Union and had been brevetted to the rank of lieutenant colonel by the end of the conflict, with a regular rank of captain. Hains remained in the Army after the war, and in 1898, when the Spanish-American War began, he was a brigadier general. He reached mandatory retirement age in 1904, and in recognition of his 40 years of service was promoted to major general on the retired list in 1916. With the U.S. entrance into World War I the following year, Hains was recalled to active duty, heading the Eastern Department of the Army Corps of Engineers. Hains died at 81 in 1921, having spent his entire adult life in the military. (If anybody ever deserved a “Thank you for your service,” it has to be General Hains.)

… male mosquitoes do not bite humans? Only the females do, and then only to use the nutrients in blood to make the eggs they lay to reproduce. Male mosquitoes drink flower nectar. (There has to be a good joke in there somewhere!)

… a rumor holds that a King of England was given a lethal dose of morphine by his physician? On January 20, 1936, King George V of the United Kingdom (1865-1936) died as a result of septicemia from chronic bronchitis. A story is still told, however, that His Majesty’s physician, Lord Dawson (Bertrand E. Dawson, 1864-1945), administered a lethal dose of morphine and cocaine to speed up the King’s death. The reason was so that his death could be announced in the morning edition of The London Times, rather than in “less appropriate evening journals.” (First, do no harm, unless you want it in the evening paper.)

… an April Fool’s joke ended up honoring a murderer? In 1971, Texas legislator Tom Moore, Jr. (1918-2017) introduced a resolution in the Texas Legislature honoring Albert DeSalvo (1931-1973), a serial killer known as the “Boston Strangler.” The resolution, placed on April 1, was intended as an April Fool’s joke … but no one paid any attention to what it said, and it passed the legislature. Moore then withdrew it and said he’d only offered it to prove the point that nobody was bothering to read the bills. (That’ll teach ‘em!)

… the average person spends a total of three years of their lifetime on the toilet? (I wouldn’t touch that line with a forklift.)

… for more than 100 years, maps showed an island that does not exist? Even today, you can find maps of the South Pacific Ocean that claim the existence of “Sandy Island,” a bit of land about the size of Manhattan, off the coast of Australia. It was supposedly discovered in 1774 by Captain James Cook (1728-1779) and began to appear on maps in the early 1900s. However, when a team of Australians set out in 2012 to finally and officially map the island, they discovered something amazing – it wasn’t there. Speculation has it that Cook actually spotted a floating area of volcanic stone and gas called a “pumice raft.” (Brigadoon comes to mind.)

Now … you know!

You can reach Jack Bagely at didyouknowcolumn@gmail.com.