Free Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Attack of the Factoids by Bathroom Readers’ Institute Page A

range in age from four (Dorothy Straight, author of How the World Began) to 102 (Alice Pollock, author of Portrait of My Victorian Youth) .
    Most historians now believe that Aesop, the Greek slave and author of fables, probably never existed.
    Author Roald Dahl was married for 30 years to actress Patricia Neal.
    Spy novel writer Ian Fleming was also a birdwatcher. He named his most famous character after a bird-guide author, ornithologist James Bond.
    *    *    *
    In 1994 Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg appeared as costumed extras in the Washington Opera’s performance of Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss.

Police & Thank You
    On average, more fast-food workers are murdered on the job than are police officers.
    U.S. police officers are exempt from federal jury duty.
    TV cops shoot their guns several times an hour, but the average for a real cop is once for every nine years of service.
    New York City’s first female police officers—dubbed “police matrons”—went to work in 1891.
    The first U.S. city to use police cars was Akron, Ohio, in 1899. The cars were electric wagons that could go 16 mph and cover 30 miles before they needed to be recharged.
    America’s most successful police dog was Trepp, a Florida golden retriever, with more than 100 arrests to his credit.
    Traffic police in South Korea are required by law to report all the bribes they receive.
    40 percent of Americans believe police shows are “fairly accurate.” Only 14 percent of real police officers agree.
    The average IQ of police officers is 104…just a little above the average of 100.

Uncle John’s Page of Lists
    4 WORDS THAT READ THE SAME UPSIDE DOWN
    1. Mow
    2. iPod!
    3. SOS
    4. Suns
    4 HOLES IN ONE
    1. Youngest: Jake Paine, 3 years old, 65 yards
    2. Oldest: Harold Stilson, 101 years old, 108 yards
    3. Longest: Robert Mitera, 444 yards
    4. Most: Norman Manley, 59
    3 BEST-SELLING ICE CREAM FLAVORS
    1. Vanilla
    2. Chocolate
    3. Butter pecan
    TOP 5 U.S. BOY BABY NAMES, 2012
    1. Jacob
    2. Mason
    3. Ethan
    4. Noah
    5. William
    TOP 5 U.S. BOY BABY NAMES, 1912
    1. John
    2. William
    3. James
    4. Robert
    5. Joseph
    6 FAMOUS REDHEADS
    1. Genghis Khan
    2. Christopher Columbus
    3. Elizabeth I
    4. Thomas Jefferson
    5. Vladimir Lenin
    6. Malcolm X
    TOP 5 U.S. GIRL BABY NAMES, 2012
    1. Sophia
    2. Emma
    3. Isabella
    4. Olivia
    5. Ava
    TOP 5 U.S. GIRL BABY NAMES, 1912
    1. Mary
    2. Helen
    3. Dorothy
    4. Margaret
    5. Ruth
    6 ACCIDENTAL INVENTIONS
    1. Velcro
    2. The Slinky
    3. Microwave ovens
    4. Superglue
    5. Teflon
    6. X-rays

State Songs
    OKLAHOMA: When the state government needed a state song, it settled on an obvious choice: “Oklahoma!” from the musical Oklahoma .
    FLORIDA: Florida’s state song is “Old Folks at Home” by Stephen Foster, but it’s not because of all the retired people who live there. The song’s famous first line mentions a major waterway that runs through the state: “Way down upon the S’wanee River…” (The river’s name is technically spelled “Suwannee.”)
    The problem with “S’wannee River” was that Foster wrote it for a 19th-century minstrel show, and the original lyrics—complete with ethnic slurs—were sung in a phony black dialect about an African American longing to go back to the plantation where he had been “happily” enslaved. That’s how the song was sung during state functions until the 1970s, when embarrassed singers started changing the lyrics to make them less offensive. In 2008 the state legislature finally made the lyric changes official.
    KENTUCKY: Another Stephen Foster tune that became a state song was “My Old Kentucky Home,” and it suffered from similar racial issues. In 1986 Kentucky legislators voted to revise “darkies,” the most objectionable word in the lyrics, to “people.”
    MARYLAND: The state’s official song,