WTF • Fun • Fact    ( /dʌb(ə)lˌju/  /ti/   /ef/ • /fʌn/ • /fækt/ )

     1. noun  A random, interesting, and overall fun fact that makes you scratch your head and think what the...

WTF Fun Fact 13050 – The Cost of Daylight Savings Time

While it may be nice to “fall back” in November and get an extra hour of sleep (if you’re lucky), the cost of daylight savings time on our health is high. Is it worth it? Most Americans don’t think so.

(Also, it’s technically called daylight saving time, with no “s” at the end.)

The high cost of daylight savings time

CBS News (cited below) gathered studies that showed that daylight savings time has been linked to
– More heart attacks and strokes
– More car crashes
– More workplace injuries
– More deer strikes
– More headaches
– More depressive episodes,
– Lower SAT scores

And there are multiple studies to show these connections. It’s just not beneficial to our health to mess around with our biological clocks.

Where did the idea of daylight saving come from?

Most people believe it was Ben Franklin who came up with the idea of daylight saving. But it wasn’t. You can “thank” an entomologist from New Zealand named George Vernon Hudson for the time changes. Believe it or not, he was interested in having more daylight for hunting bugs and originally suggested a 2-hour time change.

According to National Geographic:

“Seven years later, British builder William Willett (the great-great grandfather of Coldplay frontman Chris Martin) independently hit on the idea while out horseback riding. He proposed it to England’s Parliament as a way to prevent the nation from wasting daylight. His idea was championed by Winston Churchill and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—but was initially rejected by the British government.”

The idea came around again in 1916 when the Germans decided to pick up Britain’s idea in order to save energy.

In 1916, two years into World War I, the German government started brainstorming ways to save energy. Once they did, other countries saw the potential energy-saving benefits. In 1918, the US Congress enacted the first daylight savings law (which also formally defined US time zones as well).

While it did save energy in a coal-powered world, the US House of Representatives is trying to pass a law to end daylight saving. It’s up to the Senate to take a look at the bill now. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Not-so-fun facts about Daylight Saving Time” — CBS News

WTF Fun Fact 13049 – Missing Work for Back Pain

It’s very likely that you’ve experienced back pain (especially lower back pain) at some point in your life. And if a backache or spasm has make you call in sick, you might be interested to know that missing work for back pain is common. In fact, it’s the most common cause of missed work days.

Missing work for back pain is common

Not only is back pain the leading cause of missed work days, but according to Georgetown’s Health Policy Institute (cited below), 64% of workers with low back pain have missed at least one day of work in the past year due to some type of illness or injury. On the other hand, only 45% of those who do not suffer from back pain missed work for illness or injury.

The Health Policy Institute also reports that:
“Roughly 83 million days of work are lost per year due to back pain.
Back pain is a leading cause of work-loss days as well as work limitations.
Between 1998 and 2000 the number of back pain injuries that have involved time away from work has increased.“

The number of days of work that people with back pain miss is also higher than those without back pain.

Finally, “adults with back pain spend almost 200 million days in bed a year.”

The commonness of back pain

If you’ve ever suffered from back pain, it’s hard to believe that some adults haven’t experienced it. After all, it can be caused by sports injuries just as much as it can be caused by a sedentary lifestyle. 8 out of 10 people will experience back pain in their life.

Back pain happens to all age and ethnic groups, however it it slightly more common in people aged 18 to 44 and in those whose annual income is less than $20,000. This may be because of the types of jobs people in these groups have, or their inability to seek proper help for back pain. Without some sort of intervention, pain can become chronic and even more debilitating.

Around 25% of people with low back pain are in fair to poor physical or mental health, so it’s associated with other issues as well.

Getting help for back pain is key

Over 4 million adults in the US said they have had trouble staying employed due to back pain and earnings among back pain sufferers are lower than among those without it. All of these statistics indicate that getting help for back pain is crucial to long-term wellbeing.

Since everyone’s pain is different, there’s no one common cure. Pain relievers, physical therapy, and targeted exercise are all options. The need for surgery is rare. And the good news is that a lot of back pain can be resolved by lifestyle modifications, which are free. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Chronic Back Pain” — Georgetown Health Policy Institute

WTF Fun Fact 13048 – The Shakespeare Your Mom Joke

Did “yo momma” jokes originate with Shakespeare? Well, no. Insulting people’s mothers probably goes back much further, but the Shakespeare Your Mom joke is still one of our best and earliest examples.

Shakespeare’s humor

There’s no doubt that The Bard had some epic insults in his works. For example, in Act 2, Scene 2 of King Lear one character calls another a “base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver’d, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch; one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.”

It’s overkill, but it’s funny.

The Shakespeares Your Mom joke

As for the early “yo momma” joke, that comes from Act 4, Scene 2 of Titus Andronicus. Chiron and Demetrius are insulting Aaron, who has slept with their mother.

Demetrius: “Villain, what hast thou done?”
Aaron: “That which thou canst not undo.”
Chiron: “Thou hast undone our mother.”
Aaron: “Villain, I have done thy mother.”

It actually gets pretty grim after that when the brothers are baked in a pie and served to that same mother. Shakespeare didn’t shy away from violence or other eye-popping acts.

“Yo momma” jokes are at least 3500 years old. But we don’t necessarily expect to see them in Shakespeare. And that’s part of what makes it all so funny.

People love their mom’s so much that insulting them is just about the worst thing someone can say.

Shakespeare’s linguistic legacy

The Shakespeare mom joke was far from his only legacy. Shakespeare also left us with some common phrases that have nothing to do with one’s mother, such as:

– “For goodness sake” – Henry VIII

– “Neither here nor there” – Othello

– “A wild goose chase” – Romeo and Juliet

– “Not slept one wink” –Cymbeline

– “Send him packing” – Henry IV

– “Vanish into thin air” – Othello

— WTF fun facts

Source: “William Shakespeare’s 450th birthday: The five best insults ever dished out by the Bard” — The Independent

WTF Fun Fact 13047 – Robert Liston’s Infamous Surgery

Robert Liston was a respected 19th-century surgeon. In fact, surgical instruments have been named in his honor. And while he might have taken great pride in amputating limbs as fast as possible, the goal was to save the patient from prolonged pain. There were no anesthetics back in that day. The faster the surgery was over, the better. But one amputation went horribly awry, killing 3 people.

The surgery with a 300% fatality rate

While there’s a chance it may be an apocryphal story, Liston’s most infamous amputation involved 3 fatalities. During a leg amputation, he cut so fast that he severed the fingers of his surgical assistant. And while he was switching instruments, he slashed the white coat of a doctor observing nearby.

Many patients died during amputations in the 19th century, so one fatality could be expected. However, the assistant ended up dying of a blood infection. To top it off, the man whose coat he had slashed wasn’t physically injured but ended up dying of shock because he thought he had been stabbed.

That makes this amputation the only one with a 300% fatality rate.

Robert Liston, showman

Liston was a show-off, but he was also a great surgeon. He also aided in the introduction of ether as an anesthetic.

During one procedure that lasted only 25 seconds, he gave the patient ether, severed the limb, and when the patient came to he asked when the surgery would take place. This greatly impressed the crowd. (In those days, surgeries took place in operating theaters with many other physicians watching.)

Robert Liston died in a sailing accident not long after that and didn’t get to see the evolution of anesthetics. However, he was remembered not only for being “the fastest knife of the West End” but for his willingness to take on the cases that other doctors would not. — WTF fun facts

Source: “‘Time Me, Gentlemen’: The Fastest Surgeon of the 19th Century” — The Atlantic

WTF Fun Fact 13046 – The Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years’ War

What’s now referred to as the Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years’ War was not really a war by modern standards. But technically it’s true that the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly (off the coast of Great Britain) were in a diplomatic state of war for 335 years. But it’s because they forgot to sign a peace treaty.

The longest “war’?

Also called the Dutch-Scilly War, the bloodless war didn’t officially end until 1986.

During the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians fought the Royalists for control of the government. When Cromwell took Cornwall, the Royalist Navy retreated from England into the Isles of Scilly.

At the time, the Dutch Navy was aligned with the Parliamentarians. They took heavy losses from the Royalist fleet. In 1651, Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp went to the Scilly Isles to demand payback for the Royalists’ attacks on their ships. But there was no agreement, and he declared war on the Isles of Scilly themselves.

How does a war last three hundred and thirty five years?

The Parliamentarians won the English Civil war, so the fact that the Dutch had declared their war on the Royalists on the Isles of Scilly meant very little after that. The Dutch left without ever firing a shot.

However, since the war was peripheral to the main event, they never declared peace either. Tromp’s declaration of war was so obscure and relatively meaningless that no one really noticed it was happening.

It wasn’t until a historian on the Isles of Scilly started researching the legend of the war that he realized it was technically still in effect. Roy Duncan wrote to the Dutch Embassy in London and that’s when everyone discovered there was no peace treaty.

As a result, Duncan invited the Dutch ambassador Jonkheer Rein Huydecoper to visit Scilly and declare peace on April 17, 1986, 335 years after the war began.

Huydecoper joked that it must have been terrifying to the residents of the island “to know we could have attacked at any moment.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “Dutch Proclaim End of War Against Britain’s Scilly Isles” — New York Times

WTF Fun Fact 13045 – The Tale of Two Lovers

One of the most popular novels of the 15th century was an erotic one. A man who later became pope wrote it. It’s called The Tale of Two Lovers.

No stranger to love

It turns out that like many early popes, Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini had an interesting life even before his rise to power. Born in October 1405 in what is now Pienza in Tuscany, Piccolomini was already a secretary to bishops and cardinals by 1435. But that’s when things got a little steamy.

In 1435, the Church sent him on a diplomatic mission to Scotland to meet with King James I. The boat trips weren’t exactly luxury cruises in those days. So when he got to shore, he vowed to walk all the way from Dunbar to Whitekirk to give thanks at the nearest shrine to the Virgin Mary. That meant trekking 8 miles – in the snow. He had leg pain for the rest of his life after that.

At some point after his arduous trek, he started having some impure thoughts. We know he fathered children in Scotland (as well as England), but that didn’t derail his religious career.

The tale of two lovers

In 1444, Piccolomini must have had some pent up lust to get out. That’s when he set about writing a steamy novel called Historia de duobus amantibus (The tale of two lovers).

The epitolary novel (one whose story is told via a series of letters between characters) is set in SIena. It’s about a married woman named Lucretia and Euryalus, a courtier of the Duke of Austria. They fall in love, realize their feeling are mutual, and begin writing erotic letters to each other.

Piccolomini is responsible for the words, but by the time the book was printed, the publisher, Ulrich Zell, also found someone to supply erotic images to go along with it.

Naturally, it became hugely popular (even if someone couldn’t read, they could still enjoy the images, after all).

While the book was set in Siena and written by an Italian priest, one of the remaining copies lies in the National Museum of Scotland (and another at the British Museum). However, it went through many printings.

Piccolomini becomes pope

Years after the novel was written, Piccolomini became a Cardinal. In another interesting turn of events, he served on a papal conclave (the meeting to select the next pope) and nominated himself for the role. No one knows precisely what goes on in these meetings, but it appears to have been a unanimous vote to crown Piccolomini over a wealthy French Cardinal who was also in the running.

The Church made the university-educated, world-traveling, dad-of-at-least-2 pope on September 3, 1458. He even chose the name Pope Pius II. — WTF fun facts

Source: “The Tale of Two Lovers” — National Library of Scotland

WTF Fun Fact 13044 – The History of Pink Lemonade

The history of lemonade is far older than we would have imagined. The same goes for the history of pink lemonade – which has its origins in the circus of all places.

The origins of lemonade

The first lemonade dates back to 1630s France and was made from sparkling water, lemons, and honey (yum!). In the U.S., that means lemonade goes back to the first immigrants in the 17th century.

The trend of harvesting ice in the 19th century made drinks like lemonade even more popular. And it makes sense that – since traveling circuses date back to around that time – it would be associated with community events.

Where does pink lemonade come from?

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below), “The earliest known mention of pink lemonade comes from an 1879 article in West Virginia’s Wheeling Register, explicitly linking the two.”

As for it’s precise origin, we can’t be sure. But it likely started at the circus.

In How the Hot Dog Got its Bun: Accidental Discoveries And Unexpected Inspirations That Shape What We Eat And Drink, author Josh Chetwynd says there are two stories that vie for the the best pink lemonade origin story.

“The first, he says, is a 1912 New York Times obituary for Henry E. Allott , a Chicago native who ran away to the circus in his early teens. Allott is believed to have ‘invented’ pink lemonade after accidentally dropping red-colored cinnamon candies in a vat of traditional lemonade. Adhering to the old circus adage ‘the show must go on,’ Allott simply sold the pink-hued beverage as is.”

That would be nice, but there’s an earlier origin story for the history of pink lemonade that isn’t so sweet. It was recounted by lion tamer George Conklin who “claims his brother Pete Conklin came up with pink lemonade in 1857 while selling lemonade at the circus. Conklin ran out of water and thinking on the fly, grabbed a tub of dirty water in which a performer had just finished wringing out her pink-colored tights. In true circus form, Conklin didn’t miss a beat. He marketed the drink as his new ‘strawberry lemonade,’ and a star was born.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “The Unusual Origins of Pink Lemonade” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 13043 – The Whiskey Empire of George Washington

George Washington spent his post-presidential years running a booming whiskey business. Seemingly not content to retire from working life altogether, at age 65 he decided to into the alcohol trade thanks to the ability to grow rye at Mount Vernon.

George Washington’s whiskey

In 1797, Washington returned to Mount Vernon. When he hired a Scottish plantation manager who had moved to Virginia a few years earlier, the man – James Anderson – noticed that the estate could be used to grow rye as a cover crop.

Rye not being a very popular grain for eating, Anderson pitched the idea of turning it into whiskey. Washington ran the idea past a friend who was a rum maker and presumably got the thumbs up.

Using just two stills, Anderson’s first whiskey was so appealing to Washington that he greenlit the construction of a full distillery with five stills.

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below), by 1799, Washington’s distillery was the largest in the U.S. and “produced 11,000 gallons of clear, un-aged whiskey, which Washington sold for a total of $1,800 ($120,000 by today’s standards).”

What happened to Washington’s whiskey empire?

Of course, Washington also died in 1799, and he left the distillery to his nephew. Lawrence Lewis wasn’t able to keep things running. And when a fire destroyed the operation in 1814, he didn’t have it rebuilt,

The state of Virginia purchased the site of the former distillery in the 1930s. But turning it back into an alcohol producer was thwarted by Prohibition and the Depression.

It wasn’t until 1997 that archaeologists found the site of the distillery. They used imaging technology to reconstruct what it would have looked like.

Smithsonian notes that “after securing key funding from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) in 2001, a group of archaeologists, historians, and distillers …carefully searched records for hints about how the distillery functioned on an industrial level…” And by 2007, the distillery was reconstructed and opened to the public.

Today, they do distillation twice a year, just as Anderson did for Washington. And they also make peach brandy. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Long Before Jack Daniels, George Washington Was a Whiskey Tycoon” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 13042 – The World’s Oldest Tattoos

Right now, the world’s oldest tattoos date to around 3300 BCE. But dating isn’t an exact science. In addition, one tattooed body was found in the deserts of Egypt, while the other was encased in ice in the Alps. While that makes it harder to piece apart the details, it does tell us that tattooing is at least 5000 years old – and by that time, it was already being practiced on two continents!

The first discovery of the oldest tattoo

We know that the ancient Greeks and Romans used tattoos to brand enslaved people or signal a person of a particular profession (like prostitutes). But the practice appears to have been initially related to art, medicine, or spirituality. Without more evidence, we can only guess.

The “Iceman” known as Ötzi was discovered naturally mummified by ice in 1991 in the Alps between Austria and Italy. He was found with many wounds and is believed to have been murdered.

For two decades, Ötzi was our oldest example of a person with a tattoo. He had 61 of them, divided into 19 groups of black parallel lines grouped together. The tattoos can be found along his lumbar, behind his right knee, right ankle, along his legs, and on his left wrist. The “ink” appears to have been made from fire ash.

Since age and strain-induced degeneration have been discovered in those same areas, some researchers believe the tattoos were for healing purposes. Nearly half are located along what is currently known as acupuncture lines. However, the body dates to 2000 years before the use of this practice in China.

While Ötzi is fascinating, he may no longer be the oldest tattooed body.

Pushing back the dates for the world’s oldest tattoos

In 2018, two mummies dating from around the same time as Ötzi were found with tattoos – on a different continent. These mummies were in Egypt, and it took years for researchers to even notice the tattoos.

Multispectral techniques were used to reveal these tattoos – and at least one of the bodies may be older than Ötzi’s.

The British Museum’s blog notes that a male mummy known as “Gebelein Man A,” had a tattoo on his bicep:

“Dark smudges on his arm, appearing as faint markings under natural light, had remained unexamined. Infrared photography recently revealed that these smudges were in fact tattoos of two slightly overlapping horned animals. The horned animals have been tentatively identified as a wild bull (long tail, elaborate horns) and a Barbary sheep (curving horns, humped shoulder). Both animals are well known in Predynastic Egyptian art. The designs are not superficial and have been applied to the dermis layer of the skin, the pigment was carbon-based, possibly some kind of soot.“

A female mummy from a few hundred years later also had tattoos. That means it was not just a practice among men. It turns out the world’s oldest tattoos are a puzzle for the ages.

As Open Culture (cited below) notes: “In Middle Kingdom tattooing practices, a series of marks seemed to provide protection, especially in fertility and childbirth rites, functioning as permanent amulets or a kind of practical magic…And it does seem clear that tattooing was important to ancient, Predynastic men and women, maybe for similar reasons.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “The Oldest Tattoos Ever Discovered on an Egyptian Mummy Date Back 5,000 Years” — Open Culture