Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, April 7, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
From his own pocket, Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris met the Army's demobilization pay in 1783. He was later thrown into debtors' prison, financially ruined in land speculations.
Both Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were accused of performing dissection on living people in pursuit of their anatomical studies. For that reason, Pope Leo X denied da Vinci permission to study anatomy at the hospital in Rome.
Vincent van Gogh is known to have sold only one painting in his lifetime.
In January 1781, more than 1,000 soldiers "resigned" from the small, already depleted Army because they had not been paid.
The New Yorker has more subscribers in California than in New York.
As much as $3.5 billion is wagered illegally on the NCAA college basketball tournament each year, the FBI estimates.
Actress Morgan Fairchild, who once dated John Kerry, contributed to other Democratic presidential campaigns: $250 to former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, $600 to Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt and $500 to North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. So far, she's given nothing to Kerry.
"Burning Down My Master's House," Jayson Blair's memoir of his discredited career at The New York Times, has sold only 1,400 copies. The publisher, New Millennium Press, had a first printing of 250,000 copies.
Seventy-four percent of Americans read a newspaper while they're watching TV, and 66.2 percent watch TV while on the Internet.
Santa Fe, N.M., legislators are considering a law that would require pets to wear seat belts in the car. The law would require that cats, dogs and ferrets "be tethered or restrained enough so the animals can't fly out the window."
The Web site of Southern Living magazine has put out a warning to readers not to make the "ice box rolls" described in its latest issue: "Combining the water and shortening as described in the recipe," as the recipe instructs, "may cause the mixture to ignite."