FACTS ABOUT USA 2
- Roughly 25% of Americans believe in reincarnation.
- More presidents have been born in Virginia than any other state.
- 1 American consumes the same amount of resources as 32 Kenyans.
- Ronald Reagan was the oldest President elected to office.
- The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia for just US$7.2 million in 1867.
- The World Trade Center's most famous survivor and president of its support group, Tania Head, was later found to be a fraud: she wasn't even in NYC on 9/11.
- The nineteenth–century London Bridge was transplanted to Lake Havasu, Arizona in 1968.
- One early American flag that pictures a coiled rattlesnake. The rattlesnake was used in early American history as a symbol of resistance against British rule.
- Kentucky has the longest cave system in the world—the Mammoth cave system has over 200 miles of caves.
- The 9/11 attacks also destroyed US$100 million in art including work from Pablo Picasso.
- Sam Houston (1793-1863) was the first president and first governor of Texas. The Cherokee, with whom he lived in Tennessee, called him “the Raven.” Though one of the most famous Texans, he was actually born in Virginia and served as governor of Tennessee. A statue of Sam Houston called a “Tribute to Courage” is the world’s largest freestanding statute of an American.
- In 1969, Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong called Houston, Texas, from the moon. The first word spoken on the moon in 1969 was “Houston".
- Each year Amarillo hosts the World’s Largest Calf Fry Cook-Off. “Calf fries” are bull testicles.
- Approximately 90% of the world’s recoverable helium is located in the ground under Amarillo, Texas.
- Austin is home to the largest bat colony in North America. Over 1.5 million bats roost beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge over Lady Bird Lake and eat between 10,000- 30,000 lbs. of insects a night.
- A $60 million treasure of gold plundered by Coronado is believed to be buried on an 80-acre pasture at the Sems Ranch near Clyde, Texas.
- Texas was the 28th state in the U.S. and was admitted into the Union on December 29, 1845. All other states except Texas entered the United States by territorial annexation. Only Texas entered by treaty.
- Charles Alderton (1857-1941), a Waco pharmacist, first created Dr Pepper in 1885. The oldest working Dr Pepper plant (since 1891) is in Dublin, 94 miles west of Waco. There is also no period after the “Dr” in Dr Pepper.
- Texas is the largest petroleum-producing state in the U.S. and if it were an independent nation, it would rank as the world’s 5th largest petroleum-producing nation. Only 34 of Texas’ 254 counties have no known natural gas within their boundaries. However, no major wells have been discovered for a half-century or more.
- Josefa “Chipita” Rodriguez (1799-1863) was the first and only woman ever legally hung in Texas. She was executed on a Friday the 13th at the age of 63, and her ghost is said to haunt the place where she died. Her last words were “No soy culpable” (I am not guilty).
Post a Comment