Trivia

Timbeck2

Timbeck2

Final Approach
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Timbeck2
In this thread, post the things you've always wondered about but never knew. Of course, I'll go first.

Do you remember Ford's famous quote about the model T, "You can get it in any color you want, as long as its black."

The reason for this is because at the time Ford had perfected it's assembly line process to where it only took 93 minutes to build one from start to finish. The only color that dried in that amount of time was "Japan black", which is the reason you could only get one in black.
 
upload_2021-12-9_17-45-45.jpeg
upload_2021-12-9_17-46-31.jpeg
The C from National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was replaced with an S in 1958 on the hangar at Northeast Ohio’s Lewis Research Center (now Glenn Research Center).
 
Timbeck2 said:
In this thread, post the things you've always wondered about but never knew. Of course, I'll go first.

Do you remember Ford's famous quote about the model T, "You can get it in any color you want, as long as its black."

The reason for this is because at the time Ford had perfected it's assembly line process to where it only took 93 minutes to build one from start to finish. The only color that dried in that amount of time was "Japan black", which is the reason you could only get one in black.
Click to expand...

I'll continue with two more bits of Model T trivia, the first is disputed by some, the second is not.

1) Henry Ford required some of his parts vendors to ship their product to him in hardwood crates with very specific dimensions. Why?
2) What additional use was found for the sawdust and some of the scrap lumber from the Ford plants?

The answers are:
1) The long-told story is that Ford would receive the carefully-dimensioned shipping crates and disassembled them to use as the floorboards of the cars; the pieces came already cut to size (but apparently there is some debate as to whether that actually happened).
2) The man who married Ford's first cousin became an executive at Ford Motors, responsible for supplying lumber, and also for disposing of waste wood and sawdust. He had the sawdust converted into charcoal briquets. The man's name was Edward Kingsford. Yeah, that Kingsford.
 
A group of cats is a clowder... not a herd at all. Hmmm, who knew?

I love Snapple, just sayin...
 
Here's another one and because I'm not a history major, I must have fell asleep that day in class.

How is it possible that the United States has a naval base in the communist nation of Cuba?

Here's the cliff notes version.

The United States had interests in Cuba such as sugar plantations and other exports. Spain decided to take Cuba so they invaded. The United States didn't like this very much so they sent the USS Maine down there to keep an eye on things. Spain blew the Maine up which caused the Spanish American war and the US went down there and kicked Spain's butt out of Cuba. Cuba wanted to be their own nation and the US agreed with the condition that we get to keep Guantanamo Bay.
 
I used to think that the British had 13 colonies in what is today the USA when the American Revolution took place. There were actually 14.

Florida was a British colony from 1763 until 1783. Florida did not rebel against the Crown and chose not to send delegates to the First Continental Congress. During the war it became a bit of a haven for British loyalists.
 
Trivial Pursuit was invented because someones Scrabble game was missing tiles.

The game was created on December 15, 1979, in Montreal, Quebec, by Canadian Chris Haney, a photo editor for Montreal's The Gazette, and Scott Abbott, a sports editor for The Canadian Press.[1] After finding pieces of their Scrabble game missing, they decided to create their own game.[2] With the help of John Haney and Ed Werner, they completed development of the game, which was released in 1981.
 
Assuming you don’t drive like a grandma (or someone from Massachusetts), it would take you one hour to drive to space.
 
Timbeck2 said:
How is it possible that the United States has a naval base in the communist nation of Cuba?
Click to expand...

I have a follow up to this one as well:

How is it possible that the United States Navy has a submarine base in landlocked Pend Oreille lake in the Idaho panhandle?

The Navy's Acoustic Research Detachment has operated out of Bayview, Idaho since WWII. Pend Oreille lake is 1250 feet deep, 42 miles long, with a deepwater channel, almost no nighttime boat traffic, and very little chance of a foreign navy being able to spy on the work done there. This makes Pend Oreille the perfect spot for advanced sonar development and testing--the Navy operates a fleet of at least seven 1/4 scale (or larger) subs in the lake.

https://spokanehistorical.org/items/show/589

875d343bb09250e09fee932aa5cb8074.jpg bb2854815847a50c18a288c92740a992.jpg
 
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Ok, if we are going to do trivia at least have some trivia on the most hated movie on PoA......AIRPLANE.!!

The "I gotta get out of here!" scene where a stewardess tries to calm down a hysterical passenger was actually improvised on the spot. The original scene, based on a scene from Zero Hour, only called for the stewardess to try to calm her and then another passenger tells the stewardess that he'll handle this and then slaps her, the joke was supposed to end there. Lee Bryant, playing the hysterical woman, suggested to the directors that the gag should be extended to bring in other annoyed passengers forming a "slap line". Although they liked the idea, they were hesitant to do it, fearing Bryant might get hurt. However, they agreed to try it and even added in props (boxing gloves, tire iron, revolver, etc.) for the passengers. After briefly rehearsing it they kept it in the film after one take. According to Bryant, Leslie Nielsons second slap was not rehearsed or expected and he really hit her, though not intentionally.

For the argument between announcers concerning the white and red zones at the airport, the producers hired the same voice artists who had made the real-world announcements at Los Angeles International Airport. At the real airport, the white zone is for loading and unloading of passengers only, and there's no stopping in the red zone (except for transit buses). They were also married to each other in real life.

Robert Hayes was in real life a licensed pilot, having completed his training in 1974. Although it was an entirely different kind of flying altogether.
 
When Ford built the Willow Run plant for production of B-24s, they put a 90-degree bend in the assembly line because the wall with the planned exit for the completed airplanes county line, and the adjoining county was looking forward to collecting taxes on every airplane that entered their county.

When Ford’s chief engineer traveled to the Consolidated factory in California to view B-24 plans and construction, he estimated that Ford could put one out the door every hour. They eventually did.
 
Peter Sides from North Carolina fought in the American Revolution against England in 1776, but lost his life 33 years later fighting in the Mexican revolution against Spain in the Battle of Medina near San Antonio.
 
During WWII, the United States built more aircraft in 1944 than Japan did during the entire war.
 
GaryM said:
I have a follow up to this one as well:

How is it possible that the United States has a submarine base in landlocked Pend Oreille lake in the Idaho panhandle?

The Navy's Acoustic Research Detachment has operated out of Bayview, Idaho since WWII. Pend Oreille lake is 1250 feet deep, 42 miles long, with a deepwater channel, almost no nighttime boat traffic, and very little chance of a foreign navy being able to spy on the work done there. This makes Pend Oreille the perfect spot for advanced sonar development and testing--the Navy operates a fleet of at least seven 1/4 scale (or larger) subs in the lake.

https://spokanehistorical.org/items/show/589

View attachment 102587 View attachment 102588
Click to expand...

During WWII, the base was called Farragut, and it was a major naval "boot camp". It's where my father did his initial training. Part of it is now a state park with a little visitor center that has photos of all the classes that went through there. I found Dad's picture!
 
Most of you probably know that the Morrill Act of 1882 established the land grant university system. Land grant universities have colleges of agriculture. What you may not know is that, when the system was established, apparently no one bothered to look at a map, because Idaho's and Washington's unintentionally ended up practically on top of each other (actually 8 miles apart). They are by far the closest together in the entire system, including in the NE where the states are small.
 
eman1200 said:
Assuming you don’t drive like a grandma (or someone from Massachusetts), it would take you one hour to drive to space.
Click to expand...

Yeah that is weird. Someone recently told me space and Dallas are the same distance from me.
 
Timbeck2 said:
In this thread, post the things you've always wondered about but never knew. Of course, I'll go first.

Do you remember Ford's famous quote about the model T, "You can get it in any color you want, as long as its black."

The reason for this is because at the time Ford had perfected it's assembly line process to where it only took 93 minutes to build one from start to finish. The only color that dried in that amount of time was "Japan black", which is the reason you could only get one in black.
Click to expand...
While the quote is accurate, the reason is NOT. Ford directly contradicts it in his autobiography. It was done because he specifically wanted only one color and very little differentiation in what was offered for cost efficiency.
 
GaryM said:
2) The man who married Ford's first cousin became an executive at Ford Motors, responsible for supplying lumber, and also for disposing of waste wood and sawdust. He had the sawdust converted into charcoal briquets. The man's name was Edward Kingsford. Yeah, that Kingsford.
Click to expand...

Not too surprising. The charcoal industry has always consumed wood scrap from other manufacturing. The stuff you get today is pretty much all hardwood floor manufacturing remnant.
 
Zeldman said:
Ok, if we are going to do trivia at least have some trivia on the most hated movie on PoA......AIRPLANE.!!
Click to expand...

Lee Bryant was also the woman in the original Yuban coffee commercials (Jim never has a second cup). Apparently, Abrahams and Zucker were unaware of that when they wrote that joke into the movie.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Here's another one and because I'm not a history major, I must have fell asleep that day in class.

How is it possible that the United States has a naval base in the communist nation of Cuba?

Here's the cliff notes version.

The United States had interests in Cuba such as sugar plantations and other exports. Spain decided to take Cuba so they invaded. The United States didn't like this very much so they sent the USS Maine down there to keep an eye on things. Spain blew the Maine up which caused the Spanish American war and the US went down there and kicked Spain's butt out of Cuba. Cuba wanted to be their own nation and the US agreed with the condition that we get to keep Guantanamo Bay.
Click to expand...

It's really a fairly illogical place to put navy base. It's split in two by a harbor, and adjoins a less than hospitable government. They closed Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico in 2004. That was a much larger, far more capable base that Gitmo. There was no real reason to keep Gitmo after the cold war was over.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Here's another one and because I'm not a history major, I must have fell asleep that day in class.

How is it possible that the United States has a naval base in the communist nation of Cuba?

Here's the cliff notes version.

The United States had interests in Cuba such as sugar plantations and other exports. Spain decided to take Cuba so they invaded. The United States didn't like this very much so they sent the USS Maine down there to keep an eye on things. Spain blew the Maine up which caused the Spanish American war and the US went down there and kicked Spain's butt out of Cuba. Cuba wanted to be their own nation and the US agreed with the condition that we get to keep Guantanamo Bay.
Click to expand...
USS Maine wasn't blownup by the Spanish, that's just an example of "Yellow Journalism" which promotes sensationalism over facts. The US was looking for an excuse to go kick Spain's butt and that was it. The USS Maine's boiler exploded not from external sources.
 
Oliver Smoot (MIT '62) was used by his Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity brothers to measure the length of the Harvard (Mass Ave) bridge across the Charles River, connecting Back Bay Boston and MIT. The rumor is that he was stiff drunk! The bridge is 364.4 smoots + 1 ear long.
 
judypilot said:
Oliver Smoot (MIT '62) was used by his Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity brothers to measure the length of the Harvard (Mass Ave) bridge across the Charles River, connecting Back Bay Boston and MIT. The rumor is that he was stiff drunk! The bridge is 364.4 smoots + 1 ear long.
Click to expand...
Google Earth allows one to choose the Smoot as a unit of measurement.
 
Timbeck2 said:
H

How is it possible that the United States has a naval base in the communist nation of Cuba?
Click to expand...
Cuba (along with Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam) was part of the US after the Spanish-American war.

One of my favorite lines is from Kaufman and Hart's play "You Can't Take it With You." An agent of the IRS is trying to convince the protagonist that he should be paying taxes. He points out that the government needs the money for defense, things like battleships:

"The last time we used battleships was during the Spanish-American War. And what did we get out of that? Cuba! And we gave that back."
 
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