WTF Fun Fact 12567 – The Origin of the Countdown

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3…2…1…we have liftoff. NASA may not have stolen the words for their spaceship launches, but they did lift the idea from a sci-fi film.

Of course, countdown clocks allow everyone involved to ensure they’re on the same page at the same time, but a big part of the countdown is building suspense for those watching. And that’s why NASA decided to make the final countdown a major part of their televised launches.

But they didn’t come up with the idea on their own. Like so much technology, the concept originated in a 1929 sci-fi film titled Frau im Mond by Fritz Lang. Even more unexpected – it was a silent film!

The idea for the story came from the novel Die Frau im Mond, by Thea von Harbou (Lang’s wife at the time). According to Atlas Obscura: “The book, which follows a group of backstabbing moon prospectors, is a rollercoaster ride of love triangles, business intrigue, and lunar gunfights…” 

Lang needed the film to be a hit. The “talkie” was becoming more and more popular, so he needed a way to make his silent films just as engaging. That’s when he settled on the countdown. (Another fun fact: before Die Frau im Mond, books and movies that involved a shuttle launch usually used countUPs.)

Atlas Obscura explained further how this influenced NASA: “The film’s space advisors brought lessons they learned from the film set back with them to the Society for Space Travel, where they found that loudly timing launches to the second was not only dramatic, but helpful. When NASA launched its first successful satellite, Explorer 1, in 1958, newsreels broadcasting the event breathlessly announced, ‘the moment is at hand, the countdown reaches zero!'”

The breathless countdown worked for Lang – his was the highest-grossing film of the year in 1929. And we can’t imagine a NASA launch without the countdown (something we completely took for granted). – WTF Fun Fact

You can check out the film scene yourself (and no, that’s not the original music!):

Source: “NASA Stole the Rocket Countdown From a 1929 Fritz Lang Film” — Atlas Obscura

WTF Fun Fact 12566 – Michelangelo’s Poetic Lament

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Michelangelo didn’t have a great time painting the Sistine Chapel. The work conditions were less than stellar and his boss (Pope Julius II) enjoyed carrying around a stick to smack people with when he was upset.

While the outcome is a masterpiece, most of us can imagine the pain of spending hours looking up (he did not paint lying down) and painting with such detail – and it took him 4 years!

It was an uncomfortable job, to say the least. So uncomfortable, in fact, that Michelangelo wrote a little poem to a friend to let off some steam in 1509. He sent it to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia, and it went a little something like this:

I’ve already grown a goiter from this torture,
hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy
(or anywhere else where the stagnant water’s poison).
My stomach’s squashed under my chin, my beard’s
pointing at heaven, my brain’s crushed in a casket,
my breast twists like a harpy’s. My brush,
above me all the time, dribbles paint
so my face makes a fine floor for droppings!

My haunches are grinding into my guts,
my poor ass strains to work as a counterweight,
every gesture I make is blind and aimless.
My skin hangs loose below me, my spine’s
all knotted from folding over itself.
I’m bent taut as a Syrian bow.

Because I’m stuck like this, my thoughts
are crazy, perfidious tripe:
anyone shoots badly through a crooked blowpipe.

My painting is dead.
Defend it for me, Giovanni, protect my honor.
I am not in the right place—I am not a painter.

So, next time you feel like work is torture, just remember it could be worse! – WTF Fun Fact

Source: “‘My Poor Ass’: Michelangelo Wrote a Poem About How Much He Hated Painting the Sistine Chapel” — Mental Floss

WTF Fun Fact 12565 – The World’s Largest Waterfall

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You’ll have to travel to the place where the cold water of the Nordic Sea meets the warmer water from the Irminger Sea if you want to catch a vague glimpse of the world’s largest waterfall. The only problem is, it’s underwater.

Because the cold water is dense, it sinks below the warm water and spills over an undersea cataract all the way down to the ocean floor. It’s so big that the downward flow is estimated at over 123 million cubic feet per second. Denmark Strait cataract is around 11,500 feet long (with the next largest being Angel Falls at a mere-by-comparison 3,212 feet).

It also carries an estimated 175 million cubic feet of water per second. For perspective, that’s equivalent to around two thousand Niagaras Falls. – WTF Fun Fact

Source: “Where is Earth’s Largest Waterfall?” — NOAA

WTF Fun Fact 12564 – Flushing Facts

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Toilet paper was invented in China around the 6th century but manufactured for the first time in the area now known as Zhejiang province in the 14th century.

In fact, the Farmer’s Almanac has a hole in the top left of each copy, a nod to the time when people would nail it to the outhouse wall for reading materials (and, yes, toilet paper).

Americans had to wait until the 19th century for a civilized way to wipe, which means there’s an awful lot of time to account for when people were…well, tidying up in the toilet with whatever was available.

Corncobs were a popular choice in rural areas, as was the Sears Roebuck catalog and the Farmer’s Almanac.

During the Civil War, Americans had J.C. Gayetty to thank for the first domestic toilet paper – “Gayetty’s Medicated Paper for the Water-Closet.”

Even after the advent of toilet paper, some outhouses were still stocked with a copy of the Farmer’s Almanac. It was so often hung in the structures for reading material (when it wasn’t be used…elsewhere) that the publishers designed it with a hole in the upper left-hand corner so it would be easier to tie it up to a hook for those who expected to spend some serious time out there.

Oh, and mark your calendars: May 6 is “Read Your Farmers’ Almanac in the Bathroom Day.”

– WTF Fun Fact

Source: “What Did People Do Before Toilet Paper?” — Farmer’s Almanac

WTF Fun Fact 12563 – A Royal Name Change

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The House of Hanover was on the British throne until 1901 until the ascension of King Edward VII, the son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

But the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha name was short-lived among the British royal family. That’s not because another family took over, but rather because the family decided to change its name in the wake of anti-German sentiment in 1917 during World War I. The last straw before the name change came when an aircraft called the Gotha G.IV participated in the bombing of London.

So, while today we know the British royal family as the Windsors, they are the same Saxe-Coburg and Gothas that ruled at the beginning of the 20th century.

The forced abdication of the Emperor of Russia, Nicholas II, who happened to be a cousin of British king George V, gave the monarchy even more to think about. So when they changed their name, they also abandoned or anglicized the rest of their German titles and houses.

On July 17, 1917, a royal proclamation issued by George V declared:

“Now, therefore, We, out of Our Royal Will and Authority, do hereby declare and announce that as from the date of this Our Royal Proclamation Our House and Family shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor, and that all the descendants in the male line of Our said Grandmother Queen Victoria who are subjects of these Realms, other than female descendants who may marry or may have married, shall bear the said Name of Windsor….”

Of course, the name Windsor didn’t pop out of thin air. They took the name from Windsor Castle, a royal property and the center of royal social life, in the town of Windsor, England. It is now the permanent home of Queen Elizabeth II.

The Saxe-Coburg-Gothas didn’t get off without a bit of ribbing, however. The German Emperor at the time, Wilhelm II, joked that he was looking forward to seeing “The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,” a reference to Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” – WTF Fun Fact

Source: “British royal family change their name to Windsor – archive 1917” — The Guardian

WTF Fun Fact 12562 – Dunce Caps for Intelligence

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The 13th-century Scottish philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus was a highly educated man. But that didn’t stop him from believing that a pointy hat could make him smarter.

What we now see as a mark of stupidity today, the dunce cap originated with the philosopher-priest and his followers, the Dunsemen.

While some say John Duns Scotus was inspired by the image of wizards, others claim it was the other way around – the dunce caps inspired people to depict wizards in pointy hats.

In any case, the idea is that the cap acts as a reverse funnel, drawing in knowledge and letting it melt down into the brain.

The highly analytical writings of the medieval scholar fell out of favor in the more humanistic Renaissance, so it is perhaps the case that his followers were seen as…well, remedial, as time went on. As the Dunsemen came to be seen as foolish, their hats became a marker of that, signifying someone who is a lot less intelligent than Scotus once was.

However, the word “dunce” as we use it today originated in a play in the 17th century, which referred to a “dunce table” where children and dull guests were made to sit. In 1840, Charles Dickens mentioned the dunce cap in The Old Curiosity Shop, in which he described it as a leftover relic in a classroom made of newspaper. However, his mention and lack of further explanation mean it was probably something people would have already known about.

After that, the dunce cap served as a warning to children that when they misbehaved in class, they would be forced to sit in the corner wearing it. – WTF fun facts

Source: “The Dunce Cap Wasn’t Always So Stupid” — Atlas Obscura

WTF Fun Fact 12562 – Aging Apples

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In general, the food industry does its best to keep the amount of time between harvesting food and putting it on grocery stores shelves to a minimum. But a few years back, a story went around claiming that if you bought apples out of season, you could be eating something more than a year old because apples are preserved in wax and refrigerated after harvest.

While that story isn’t 100% true, it’s pretty darn close.

Apple harvests begin in July in the U.S. and are over by mid-December, depending on location and how early the apple variety ripens. So how old is the apple you buy in May?

Well, it very well could be months old. While the apple industry and FDA have fought back against this “myth,” they still largely have to admit that there can be quite a bit of time between harvest and purchase.

AllRecipes tried to debunk the myth, but a quote by Mark Seetin, Director of Regulatory & Industry Affairs at USApple in defense of the apple industry reads:

“According to data gathered by USApple, roughly 40 percent of each year’s apple crop is marketed by December 1 of the harvest year — most of which goes from harvest to store shelf without being placed in storage. The remaining 60 percent of the crop is moved to the market over the next roughly 8 months.”

Ok, so it’s not a year, but it’s a lot longer than we thought. Most of us probably assume that our out-of-season apples come from somewhere outside the U.S. where they are in season. And that may be the case at times, but it’s also the case that most apples are sold out-of-season and come out of temperature-controlled, low-humidity storage. A well-preserved apple can last up to 10 months in storage.

“To slow the proverbial sands of time, some fruit distributors treat their apple bins with a gaseous compound, 1-methylcyclopropene,” TODAY quoted the USDA as stating. “It extends the fruits’ post-storage quality by blocking ethylene, a colorless gas that naturally regulates ripening and aging.”

Yum.

What’s most important here is that while it might seem disturbing at first, it’s really not a problem, health-wise. However, the nutrient content of the apple is likely to diminish over time. So we can’t guarantee that it’ll still keep the doctor away.

Want a fresh apple? Buy local and in-season. – WTF fun facts 

Source: “That apple you just bought might be a year old – but does it matter?” — TODAY

WTF Fun Fact 12561 – Maureen O’Conner’s Big Bets

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Maureen O’Connor was the first female mayor of San Diego, California, from 1986 to 1992. When her husband, Robert O. Paterson, founder of the fast-food chain Jack in the Box, passed away in 1994, she inherited his entire $50 million fortune since the couple had no children.

But O’Conner still ended up in debt. Specifically, it was gambling debt, but her addiction wasn’t something she could control.

Doctors determined that the grief brought on by her husband’s death and a brain tumor had changed her personality, allowing her to get hooked on video poker.

It turns out you can win and lose quite a bit of money by playing poker online. O’Conner’s “grief gambling” did bring her over $1 billion (yes, with a B) worth of good luck and winnings over the course of a decade. However, she lost so much that she wiped out her winnings AND her inherited fortune.

In the end, she was worth negative $13 million.

It was more than she could pay off, so O’Conner turned to money laundering and was convicted of the crime in 2013 after taking money from her late husband’s non-profit to cover the gambling debts.

She was given a deferred sentence and served no jail time under the health circumstances, but she was completely broke after paying court costs and restitution.

If you do the math, she would have needed to wager roughly $300,000 a day, seven days a week, to lose as much money as she did in such as short period of time. And yet she’s far from the biggest loser when it comes to gambling.

According to the New York Times in 2013, “Terry Watanabe, a businessman, lost more than $205 million in Las Vegas, including more than $120 million in 2007 alone. The British media mogul Robert Maxwell once lost £1.5 million, about $2.3 million, in less than three minutes at a London casino.” – WTF fun facts

Source: “San Diego Ex-Mayor Confronts $1 Billion Gambling Problem” — The New York Times

WTF Fun Fact 12560 – The First Fingerprint Conviction

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In 1910, Clarence Hiller confronted an intruder in his home, tackling him as both men fell down the stairs. Hiller was then shot, and the suspect ran away.

Paroled 6 weeks prior, Thomas Jennings was convicted of the crime. He was stopped by police when they saw he was wearing a bloody coat. But that wasn’t what got him convicted.

While investigating the scene of the break-in, police noticed that the intruder had grabbed a freshly-painted railing while boosting himself into the Hiller family’s window. They cut off the piece of the railing as evidence and presented it in court, comparing it to Jennings’ fingerprint.

Criminal justice scholars have proved that the way we use fingerprint evidence is not always in the best interests of justice, nor are fingerprints always accurately interpreted. In fact, our fingerprints even change over the course of our lifetimes, so an old fingerprint may rule out an actual criminal caught decades later.

But in 1910, this type of evidence was a first for a criminal case and the jury needed to be convinced that each person’s fingerprints are unique. Unfortunately for Jennings, that proof came from his defense attorney.

W.G Anderson rightly questioned the use of such poorly-understood evidence to convict a person, but it was his own fingerprint that would convince the jury of his client’s guilt.

Anderson challenged the forensic experts to lift his fingerprint from a piece of paper. They did. But his big plan was to solicit fingerprints from the general public to show just how shoddy the science of fingerprinting was. Alas, we do all have unique fingerprints and while there are often problems in our interpretations, this little experiment did nothing but convince the jury that fingerprint evidence was solid.

Of all the fingerprints collected, none looked like Anderson’s. The jury voted unanimously to convict Jennings, who was sentenced to hang.

In their coverage, The Decatur Herald noted that “the murderer of Hiller wrote his signature when he rested his hand upon the freshly painted railing at the Hiller home.” –  WTF fun fact

Source: “The First Criminal Trial That Used Fingerprints as Evidence” — Smithsonian Magazine