THE WORDS TO "STAR TREK"

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Alexander Courage composed the original Star Trek instrumental theme song for the pilot show in exchange for the right to receive royalties each time the music was played during the regular season and after syndication. This was regarded as a sucker's bet by most top-notch composers, as they fully expected that the show would immediately crash and burn--both because it was produced by Desilu Studios, which had a lousy record with pilots that never made it into a regular series, and because it was based on a weird science fiction premise.

Two years before the series was released, creator Gene Roddenberry (pictured above) pressured Courage into a deal where Courage would have to share the royalties with Roddenberry if Roddenberry composed lyrics for the song. A year after the show came out, Roddenberry drew up some words to the tune and become legally entitled to half of the royalties. Roddenberry never actually used and never intended to use the lyrics, but the fact that Roddenberry composed them was enough to give him an equal share of the royalties forever after.

When Courage protested that Roddenberry acted unethically and composed the lyrics for the sole purpose of screwing Courage out of half of the royalties, Roddenberry responded with "Hey, I have to get some money somewhere.  I'm sure not going to get it out of the profits of Star Trek."

Here are the lyrics to Star Trek you will probably never hear sung unless you do it yourself:

Beyond 
The rim of the star-light 
My love 
Is wand'ring in star-flight 
I know 
He'll find in star-clustered reaches 
Love, 
Strange love a star woman teaches. 
I know 
His journey ends never 
His star trek 
Will go on forever. 
But tell him 
While he wanders his starry sea 
Remember, remember me.

THE NON-GERMAN GERMAN CHOCOLATE CAKE

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The German chocolate cake has nothing to do with Germany. The chocolate used in the cake was developed by Sam German in 1852 and was originally marketed by Baker's Chocolate Company as "Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate."

The recipe for the cake itself first showed up in 1957, when it was published in a Dallas newspaper from a submission by a homemaker--a very inspired homemaker at that.

THE WORLD'S LARGEST SPERM

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The male Drosophila bifurca fruit fly produces individual sperm cells that are about 5.8 centimeters (over two inches) long. This is over 1,000 times the length of human sperm, which are generally about 55 microns. It is also twenty times the length of the animal itself (imagine a six-foot tall human with a 120-foot long sperm cell). 

If you are wondering how this is physically possible, it is because each fruit fly sperm is really, really coiled up and there are not that many of them--like maybe only 50 per fruit fly ejaculation compared to up to 1.2 billion per human.

For a view of a fruit fly sperm cell, click here.

FROM SOAP TO CHEWING GUM

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In  1891, William Wrigley, Jr. moved to Chicago to find additional markets for his father's soap business. As a promotion, he initially offered a free box of baking soda with each bar of soap. When he discovered that the baking soda was far more popular than his soap, he abandoned the soap and concentrated on selling the baking soda. He then offered free chewing gum as a further incentive to buy the baking soda. You can probably figure out what happened next.

THE TITANIC PRESCIENCE

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The novel Futility describes the tragic voyage of the "Titan," the largest ocean liner in existence at the time. The ship was described as unsinkable, but a collision with an iceberg near Newfoundland on a tragic April night laid that myth to rest.  Due to an insufficient number of lifeboats and a failure to launch many of those which were available, the loss of life was high.

Although some have labeled the book as being a thinly-disguised historical novel based on the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, they usually drop this accusation when they find out that Futility was first published in 1898 and that its description of the Titanic disaster was nothing but a remarkable coincidence.

THE BIG BANGS THEORY

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Five states in the USA have been the sites of nuclear explosions--Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Alaska, and Mississippi.

STAUFFENBERG'S NOBLE FOLLY

There are more streets in Germany named after Col. Claus von Stauffenberg than any other person. Beethoven comes in second. Stauffenberg was, of course, the Army officer who unsuccessfully tried to kill Adolf Hitler with a bomb on July 20, 1944 and who was shot for his efforts on July 21, 1944.

Approximately 5,000 individuals were executed in an orgy of retaliation and witch-hunting by the Nazis in response to the plot. One of these victims was revered Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who was permitted to commit suicide as an alternative to his family being killed. It also avoided a trial for him in hanging judge Roland Freisler's kangaroo court followed by strangulation with piano wire--a fate suffered by many of the other conspirators. Surprisingly enough, although Staffenberg's widow was sent to a concentration camp, she and her children survived the war, and she died in 2006.

The 2008 film, Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise as Stauffenberg, does a decent job portraying the assassination plot and its unfortunate resolution. It is worth watching.

For further information about Col. Stauffenberg, click here. 

WOODROW WILSON'S VERSION OF FREE SPEECH

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President Woodrow Wilson and his “liberal” Democratic-controlled Congress enacted The Espionage Act of 1917. This law states that any person who is privy to a government secret and discloses it to someone else (such as a reporter) is guilty of a felony. In addition, the person to whom he turns it over (I defy you to write this sentence without a dangling preposition someplace) who intentionally receives the information (such as a reporter) is also guilty of a felony. 

Wilson was not happy with this state of affairs, as he wanted even more restrictions. He wrote a senator that “Authority to exercise censorship over the press is absolutely necessary.” As a result, Congress gave him that authority in 1918 when it added the Sedition Act as part of the Espionage Act. The Sedition Act criminalized "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt." The penalty was 5 to 20 years imprisonment.

Wilson’s Justice Department successfully prosecuted and imprisoned Socialist candidate Eugene Debs under the Sedition Act for making statements opposing Wilson’s WWI policies. It also barred Debs’s newspapers from the mails, jailed a filmmaker who made a movie about the Revolutionary War (because it might have offended our British allies), and sentenced a clergyman to prison for 15 years when he asserted that Jesus was a pacifist. There were close to 2,000 prosecutions in all, including those for offhand comments made by persons nursing drinks at corner taverns.

Common sense finally prevailed. Debs was pardoned in 1921, and by the same year, the Sedition Act was no longer law.

The other provisions of the Espionage Act of 1917, however, are still on the books. These provisions had rarely been invoked (and not even once during World War II) due to the fact that they were and are obviously overbroad. Nonetheless, as of April 1, 2015, the Obama administration has brought eight prosecutions under the Espionage Act of 1917. Prior to 2009, there was a total of three prosecutions from all of the other administrations combined (not including, of course, the previously-described cases under the Sedition Act).

THE INFAMOUS KANSAS/NEBRASKA OVERPRINTS

STAMP PHOTO FROM SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION NATIONAL POSTAL MUSEUM ARAGO WEBSITE, WHICH IS COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF AND NOT ASSOCIATED WITH  "HENRY'S DAILY FACTOIDS."

The rising criminality of the Roaring Twenties was not expressed only by an increase in bank robberies; post offices were also a prime target, especially in the Midwest. In 1928, U.S. postage stamps worth over $200,000 were stolen from post offices and fenced. In an effort to make it easier to trace such thefts, the Post Office Department embarked on a scheme where all postage stamps, except for those for use in major cities, would be printed with the name of the state where they were legally issued. In 1929, the postal authorities issued a trial run of stamps in eleven different denominations for sale in Kansas and Nebraska and labelled either "Kans." or "Nebr."

The experiment was a flop. Even though a stamp marked with the name of a particular state could be legally used anywhere in the country, numerous folks thought that the postage was valid only for mail sent within Kansas or Nebraska. Many postal workers in Kansas and Nebraska did not know about the overprints and refused to accept them at all. The overprints did not appreciably assist in the investigation of post office thefts. The Post Office Department therefore quietly abandoned its plans to expand the project to the remaining 46 states.

THE DOG WILLING TO SIT DOWN WITH TAX COLLECTORS

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The Doberman Pinscher was developed in 1890 by Friedrich Louis Dobermann.  Dobermann was a tax collector for the municipality of Apolda, Germany and also managed the dog pound. He bred the canine to provide him with protection on his rounds through bandit-infested areas as well as to encourage payment from reluctant citizens. The pooch proved particularly proficient in both endeavors.

The dog today is now generally referred to merely as a "Doberman," as "Pinscher" is German for terrier, which would not be all that appropriate.

After World War II, the Doberman almost became extinct. No litters were bred for a decade in West Germany. Werner Jung saved the breed by searching through West German farms for individuals to recreate the lineage and by even smuggling one in, at the risk of his life, from East Germany. Most Dobermans today are descendants of Jung's dogs.

THE WEIGHT OF THE INTERNET

Although not as bulky as information printed on paper, data stored on computers does have a finite weight, as each electron has a mass of 9 x 10⁻³¹ kilogram. According to physicist Russel Seitz of Harvard University, the total amount of material stored on the internet in 2006 weighed slightly less than two ounces worth of electrons, or about the same mass as an average chicken egg.

Most likely, the amount of electrons required to store the current U.S. tax code and regulations would correspond at the least to the yolk of that egg.

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YOU'VE GOT TO BE SQUIDDING...

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Sannakji is a Korean dish consisting of a live octopus. Depending on the preparation (which is virtually non-existent), sometimes the cephalopod is consumed whole, and sometimes it is chopped into smaller pieces immediately prior to being eaten. In either event, the animal or its components are very active and vigorously resist being devoured. Its tentacles and suction cups thereon are quite powerful and can cause choking as they attempt to affix themselves to the mouth and throat on their way down, although the fact that the creature is extremely slimy may help make it slide through more easily. It is best not to concentrate on the fact that part of the package includes eating octopus intestines and their contents.

Despite not being fellow mammals, octopuses are fairly intelligent and sensitive to pain. Their attempts to flee indicate that they do not enjoy being eaten alive, although that obviously is a common experience in their native environment.

For a video of the eating of a whole octopus, go here. For the chopped-up alternative, try here.

OPERATION TEXAS

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"Operation Texas" refers to activities undertaken by Lyndon Baines Johnson when he was a young congressman in 1938 and 1939. Specifically, Johnson rescued approximately 400 Eastern European Jews from the Nazis by arranging for visas to be issued to them in Warsaw and setting up their unlawful immigration into the United States through the port of Galveston, Texas. These actions on the part of Johnson were illegal, were against the anti-Semitic policies of the Roosevelt administration, and could have resulted in Johnson's imprisonment and loss of office.

Johnson's family had a history of fighting bigotry against the Jews, and, at one point in 1915, LBJ hid in the cellar of his house while his adult male relatives stood guard with shotguns against a potential Ku Klux Klan retaliation for their pro-Jewish stance.

As early as 1934, Johnson provided his fiance with the gift of a book of essays outlining the potential dangers of Nazism.

In 1937, Johnson, as a freshly minted congressman, bucked the Dixiecrats and his party by voting for immigration reforms which would naturalize illegal aliens, primarily Jews, from Poland and Lithuania.

During World War II, Johnson and others arranged to send arms to Jewish underground fighters in crates marked "Texas Grapefruit."

When asked by Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin in 1967 why Johnson supported three million Israelis over 80 million Arabs, Johnson responded, "Because it is right."

For further information on Johnson's attitude towards the Jews and the nation of Israel, including his actions as President, click here.

THE MAN WHO DID NOT GET AL CAPONE

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One of the most beloved 20th Century folk heroes was Prohibition Agent Eliot Ness, who, with his handpicked band of agents called "The Untouchables," spearheaded the prosecution of Al Capone which landed Capone in the federal pen for income tax evasion. Ness has been the subject of various TV shows, movies, and books. In fact, one of the greatest television series of all time was the version of The Untouchables produced by Desilu Studios from 1959 to 1963 and starring Robert Stack, shown above, as the quintessential Eliot Ness.

Ness's personal courage cannot be gainsaid in light of his willingness to take on Al Capone. In reality, however, Eliot Ness was not the fed who was responsible for sending Capone to prison. That distinction belongs to U.S. Attorney E.Q. Johnson and Internal Revenue agents Frank Wilson and  Elmer Irey, who were the backbone of the prosecution team who put together the income tax evasion case against Capone. Ness did greatly vex Capone by seizing a lot of Capone's assets and destroying many of his breweries, but Ness had nothing to do with the tax case. Nor did he, contrary to what was represented in the 1987 film version of The Untouchables, toss mobster Frank Nitti off of the roof of the U.S. Courthouse.

Ness, however, was a great self-promoter with the press and did nothing to discourage the impression that only he and The Untouchables were responsible for the defeat of one of the most malevolent organizations of the era (well, of course, not counting that Nazi stuff going on in Germany).

Ness moved on to become the Safety Director in Cleveland from 1938 to 1942, where he was the head of the police and fire departments. Ironically encumbered by a heavy drinking problem, he drifted into various public and private jobs thereafter. He co-authored a book about The Untouchables with Oscar Fraley, which appeared a month after Ness's death from a massive heart attack at age 54 in 1957. Ness contributed a 21-page manuscript, which was fairly factual, for his share of the book; Fraley fattened up the remainder with a bunch of embellishments (also known as lies).

The real Eliot Ness is depicted below:

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THE GROTESQUE VADER

There is a gargoyle of Darth Vader on the Washington National Cathedral.  Well, actually, it technically is a grotesque, not a gargoyle.  While both gargoyles and grotesques are monstrous beings found on top of fancy buildings, a gargoyle either acts as a drainpipe or contains a drainpipe to expedite the removal of water from a building, while a grotesque is merely used as an obstacle to the water so that its flow is diverted (perhaps to a nearby gargoyle).  This particular Dark Lord of the Sith is not a drainpipe.

THE BLOODY CAREER OF CHARLES R. DREW

Dr. Charles R. Drew was instrumental in perfecting techniques in storing and preserving blood and plasma so that it could be used later for transfusions. In 1939, he established the Blood Transfer Betterment Association, which was a program where plasma could be collected in the USA and shipped to Britain for use by soldiers and civilians. This system eventually was adapted by the American Red Cross when Drew became its director. Drew's techniques saved countless numbers of lives during World War II. These results were in sharp contrast to those obtained in World War I, where millions of men bled to death because transfusing stored blood was not then an option.

Ironically, Drew himself died of exsanguination as a result of a car accident in North Carolina in 1950. According to a common myth, Drew, who was black, was refused a life-saving transfusion in a whites-only hospital. However, all actual witnesses to the event, including Drew's fellow passengers, agree that the medical staff aggressively tried to save Drew's life but could not administer a transfusion because of the nature of his injuries.

For more information about Dr. Drew, please click here.

"THE BLACK CAT"

Considering the gory and sadistic enucleation performed on the narrator's pet in Edgar Allan Poe's tale "The Black Cat," one might assume that Poe probably suffered from ailurophobia or, at the very least, simply didn't like felines. Such, however, was not the case. With the exception of Poe's wife, his most beloved companion was a tortoiseshell kitty named Catterina. Poe wrote many of his works with Catterina contentedly balanced on his shoulder.

AN INEFFICIENT MEANS OF LOSING WEIGHT

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In the 1995 Tom Hanks movie about the Apollo 13 spaceflight (which was titled, as you may suspect, Apollo 13), the zero-gravity scenes were not created by special effects or in the studio. The film crew and actors actual rode on NASA's KC-135 aircraft (more commonly known as the "Vomit Comet"), which produced the effects of weightlessness by climbing to a high altitude and then plummeting down for 23 seconds. While this might have been a fun ride for the first couple of times, the queasy participants had to take this plunge from 500 to 600 times over a thirteen-day period in order to obtain the necessary footage.

THE WRATH OF THE KIDNEY BEAN

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Kidney beans, generally regarded as nutritional gold as a result of their high protein and mineral content and low glycemic load, have a dark side. They contain a high amount of phytohaemagglutnin, which can cause extreme nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea with the ingestion of as few as four or five beans. The poisoning often requires hospitalization.

The problem usually arises when the victim eats raw beans which have been soaked but not properly cooked, such as when they have been added to a salad. Crock pots or other slow cookers may not get hot enough to destroy the poison and may actually aggravate the toxicity. Kidney beans cooked to only about 175 degrees F (about 80 degrees C) are actually about five times more toxic than their raw brethren.

Oddly enough, kidney bean poisoning is reported far more often in the United Kingdom than in the USA.

According to the Public Health Laboratory Services, Colindale, U.K., you should prepare kidney beans as follows:

1. Soak the raw beans in water for at least five hours.
2. Throw the water away.
3. Boil the beans briskly in fresh water for at least ten minutes.