Over 5% of the entire U.S. potato crop goes to make McDonald’s french fries.
David Cassidy and Elton John stayed at the same hotel in Auckland, New Zealand in 1974.
Minamata disease is a form of mercury poisoning first recognized in Japan in 1956. It was caused by the release of methylmercury in industrial wastewater. Cats who became affected by it would wobble and tilt, often falling into the sea to their deaths, so it was nicknamed “dancing cat fever.”
After writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, starting in 1906, L. Frank Baum wrote a young adult series for girls called Aunt Jane’s Nieces using the pen name Edith Van Dyne.
For most of two centuries, until 60 years ago, the U.S. population was the tallest in the world. Now the average American man is three inches shorter than the Dutch man, who averages six-foot-one. Japanese averages are also gaining on Americans’. Anthropologists tie these recent changes primarily to diet and lifestyle, as we’ve turned habitable wilderness into excess.
This article appears in October 18 • 2013.