Fastfacts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday, February 5, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
In 1930, Ellen Church recruited seven other young nurses to work 5,000 feet above the earth. They were the first airline stewardesses, flying on Boeing's San Francisco to Chicago route, a trip that, in good weather, took 20 hours and made 13 stops.
Astronauts circling the earth may get to see 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every "day."
When the French literary critic Saint Beuve (1804-69) was challenged to a duel by a journalist, and was permitted the choice of weapons, he wrote his opponent, "I choose spelling. You're dead."
French author Michel de Montaigne answered the rhetorical question, "Would you, if you had to choose, burn your children or your books?" by declaring that he would burn his children.
"To prevent violence," it was at one time customary during particular phases of the moon to chain and flog inmates of England's notorious Bedlam Hospital.
Bleeding, usually by the application of leeches, was once so common in medicine that "leech" came to mean physician. George Washington was one of many who died as a result of the pernicious practice.
Immediately after the end of the American Revolution, Congress abolished the United States Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, leaving Congress as the only national governmental organization. The states feared a standing army.
People who have never married are 7 1/2 times more likely to be hospitalized in a state or community psychiatric facility than those who are married. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the rate for such admission in 1975 for Americans 14 or older was 685.2 per 100,000 singles, compared to 89.9 per 100,000 hitched couples.