Page 42 - The 'X' Zone Book of Triviology

o The Thousand Year Reich lasted a mere 147 months. o Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt vanished while swimming in Part Phillip Bay. o In 1867, Canada’s federal politicians earned six dollars a day. o John Adams made it a crime to publish anything scandalous about the U.S. government. o Benjamin Disraeli was the only British prime minister of Jewish ancestry. o Nobody knows exactly where Columbus was when he allegedly discovered America. o The very last Egyptian king of ancient times was Ptolemy XV, son of Cleopatra. o For four days, Nazi Rudolf Hess became the last prisoner in the Tower of London. o Weighing 322 pounds, U.S. President William Howard Taft once trapped himself in a bathtub. o Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the U.K. was once in a rock band called Ugly Rumours. o Between the two rebellions he led against Canada, Louis Riel was a schoolteacher in Montana. o Only one person in ten is left-handed, but half of the past six Presidents have been. o In the 1980s, Prime Minister David Lange made New Zealand a nuclear-free zone. o Technically, the first American president was John Hanson of Maryland. o Winston Churchill was once a war correspondent in Cuba, India, and Sudan. o Of Canada’s 36 Fathers of Confederation, two of them were named John Hamilton Gray. o One of Canada’s “founding fathers” was an American: William P. Howland of Paulings, NY. o In 1926, Joseph Goebbels demanded that Hitler be expelled from the Nazi Party. o Hitler and Mussolini installed a fascist government in Spain that survived them both. o Technically, it was lookout Rodrigo de Triana who “discovered” America, not Columbus. o Voltaire dismissed France’s Canadian colonies as “a few acres of snow.” o Alexander Hamilton wasn’t born in the United States, but on the Caribbean island of Nevis. o Norman Schwarzkopf’s dad was a leading investigator in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. o When Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar, October 4, 1582 was followed by October 15. o The Roanoke settlers who vanished may have been massacred by Pocahontas’s father. o Pony Express couriers included Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickok. o During World War II, German U-boats sank 23 vessels in Canada’s St. Lawrence River. o The United States paid Russia just two cents an acre for Alaska. o The Union Ironclad Monitor was the first ship to have a flush toilet. o 60% of all new cars sold in the ‘80s were recalled for some defect. o Only one U.S. state is names after a president - Washington. o It takes ½ gallon of water to cook a pot of macaroni and a gallon to wash the pot. o Dirty snow melts quicker than clean snow. o Americans use more than 18 billion disposable diapers every year. o Just one part oil per million parts of water will make drinking water taste and smell funny. o 98% of Americans drivers think that they drive better than anyone else. o Michael Landon played the role of I Was a Teenage Werewolf in 1957. o In 1989, gamblers lost a record $4.43 billion in Nevada casinos. o Texas is the most expensive place in the U.S. to get a divorce. Idaho is the cheapest. o The United States paid France just three cents an acre for the Louisiana Purchase. o Robert E Lee and Ulysses S Grant served on the same side in one war…the Mexican War. o Pineapple baron Sanford Dole was the first and only President of the Republic of Hawaii. o An American, William Walker, became president of Nicaragua in 1856. o Panama declared independence from Columbia so the U.S. could build the Panama Canal. o During the War of 1812, the British took Detroit without firing a single shot.