Fun Fact about your hometown/state

[EricKei]

More from me for da Big Easy...

Presumably due to the constantly-shifting, rich water-soaked earth underfoot, some plants thrive here that really have no business growing in this climate at all; I wanna say that palms, bananas and plaintains are among them.

When you go to a relative's house to "visit" for more than an hour or two, there is a decent chance that you will be sent home with a paper grocery bag full of excess food (deli meats, drinks, pints of gumbo or red beans, random leftovers, etc). This chance rises with each passing hour, and goes up exponentially if it's actually a party or a situation where you brought food to begin with. The food you take home is not necessarily related to what you bring. Case in point - the haul from last night's XMAS party: 3 2-liters of cokes, some fried chicken, and a bunch of mini-muffalettas. I brought them...brownies.

We do not think it is at all odd to have musicians (especially local bands) performing in retail establishments. E.g., yesterday, Benny Grunch an' da Bunch were playing live in Walgreens, of all places, to a (politely) packed house, tho they made sure to leave room for shoppers to pass easily.

Many people here, especially in da'Burbs, are very hidebound. Or, to use the local version, they are of the "Laissez Faire" (lit, "Let It Be") persuasion. The notion of "change for the sake of change", aka "Progress when what we have works just fine", is entirely alien. They bank heavily on Tradition-with-a-capital-T.

We also tend to be somewhat xenophobic, even towards other Louisianians, to an extent. One of the most damning things a "local" can say about another person is that "he's not from here". In both politics and business, that one thing can be the one deciding factor in a choice between two candidates or potential business partners.

[Salted Grump]

General Trivia about Canada:

-We have nearly 20% of the world's oil and natural gas reserves, a large margin of which is in the Oil Sands.

-The Canadian shield is, arguably, the largest slab of Precambrian rock known to exist, with its only real competition being all of Australia.

-Sudbury, known as the 'nickel' of Ontario, is partially built into the second-largest impact crater in the world, with the Chicxulub crater (alleged to have killed the dinosaurs) being roughly 10% smaller.

- The Geographic and Magnetic north Poles are both in Canadian territory (Geographic pole is disputed with Russia).

-Alert, Nunavut, is the Northernmost settlement in the world; it has a permanent population of five (down from nearly 75 when it was an active part of the DEW system), and is less than 900 kilometers from the Geographic North Pole.

-Canada has 'samples' of practically every biome known, barring tropical biomes. Yes, British Columbia has rainforests.

-Approximately 20% of the world's Uranium supply is Canadian, which has the highest natural density of the isotope in the raw ore. (Average of 23% uranium per ton of ore in Canada, while most other uranium mines hover between 0.5 and 2%) Canadal also produces nearly 30% of the world's refined uranium. (the US produces 2.5%)

[Sapphire Silk]

6. Belle Fourche is the geographical center of the United States, designated in 1959.

I lived for a couple of years in Minot, ND (Why not Minot? Cuz Freezin's the reason!).

North Dakota has the geographical center of North America in Rugby ND (which has been mentioned in 2 Law and Order Episodes). I worked briefly at the Heart of America Medical Center in Rugby.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

And higher than the highest point in Florida. Easily. I didn't look this up, mind you. I just know how flat and low Florida is.

Britton Hill is the highest point in Florida, and paradoxically the lowest of any state's highest points. It stands at 345 feet/106 meters above sea level. It's only 2 miles south of the Alabama border up in the Panhandle.

[Seshat]

Fun facts about Australia:

* Driest continent in the world. Or largest island, depending on which you prefer to call it.

* Tiny, tiny amount of arable land compared to the size of the continent. (or island.)

* Oldest continent in the world: as in, our surface land hasn't been refreshed by volcanic or tectonic activity in more aeons than anyone else's. We don't even get much in the way of ashfall from other continents' volcanoes.

* That contributes to our lack of arable land: our topsoil's main renewal process is erosion; which is slower than vulcanism. So (in general) we have poor topsoil. (We do have pockets of good topsoil, but fewer and smaller than the other continents.)

* First/oldest provable use of human-grade communication is the migration across the Malay peninsula, the Indonesian island chain and the Torres Strait islands to the tip of Queensland. All earlier migrations were land migrations, and did not absolutely require boats. This migration did, which meant it required organisation and cooperation.

* We may have cave paintings and rock paintings older than Lascaux. (Dating is in progress; but since the Aboriginals continued to paint in the same caves as part of their culture until my ancestors came along and decimated them, dating of our paintings is a matter of some dispute.)

* We DO have the longest known upkept tradition of cave paintings: there are still tribes in the less European-accessible areas of Australia whose cave-painting culture survives to this day.

* Ayer's Rock/Uluru is ours.

* The first Europeans to find Australia were NOT the British, but the Dutch. They found the west coast, declared it uninhabitable, and ignored it.

* Perth is closer to the Indian cities than to any of the other Australian cities.

[Seshat]

The place I live now is Melbourne, Victoria, Australia:

* In the Goldfields (north and a bit west of Melbourne), we have one of Australia's only two serious civil 'wars': the Eureka Stockade. The Eureka Flag is one of the candidates brought up every time we consider changing our flag to one that doesn't have the Union Jack.
(The other was the Rum Rebellion, which poor Captain/Governor Bligh - yes, the Mutiny on the Bounty Captain Bligh - was our Governor during. Poor chap got mutinied on, sent to Australia to be Governor, and got stuck with a rebellion.)

* Ned Kelly was hanged in Melbourne.

* Hrm. For Famous People - well, I (briefly) had a Wikipedia page. Does that count? (It got removed for insignificance. Waaah.) (I do still have two distinct mentions in Wikipedia. Yay!)

* I used to have a doctor (specialist in CFS, Fibro etc) who worked in Moonee Ponds, where 'Dame Edna Everage' famously came from.

* At one point, Melbourne was one of the largest cities in the world: population wise. Of course, this was when world population in general was much, much smaller. (Australia cannot support a population like modern 'population-high cities' - we don't have the arable land, and it costs too much to ship high-tonnage or high-volume stuff like food.)

[Eisa]

The city where I was born is known as The City of the Crosses. And has White Sands Missile Range. It's also mentioned in The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan, which I found awesome.

[Seshat]

I grew up in Brisbane, Queensland (Australia):

* One of the modern Seven Wonders of the World: the Great Barrier Reef. As with the Grand Canyon, you don't really 'get it' until you see it. And like the Canyon, it's too large for a human to see from any single location - except space.
It's 2,600km (1,600m) long, stretching from Cape York to just north of Brisbane.

* It's a city built on a floodplain in a zone that gets occasionally hit by cyclones. (cyclone/typhoon/hurricane - similar or identical events). Unlike New Orleans, we are above sea level - mostly. But my parents very wisely chose to live on the side of a hill, and outside the main part of the river delta.
Traditional buildings in Queensland are built on stilts, both for this reason, and for cooling.

* Home of the 'Queenslander' architectural style: built on stilts, verandahs (covered porches?) on three or four sides of the house (east, north and west, and sometimes south - remember, to us, the sun is north in the sky); and a pyramid roof with the top of the pyramid chopped off, and a smaller pyramid above it. The roof design allows the heat to escape through the vent space created by the double-peak.
I can't find examples of the roof online (in a quick search): all the ones I'm seeing are the expensive, fancy houses, not the working class houses.
If you don't have electricity and need cooling but not much heating, this style works wonderfully!

* Coronation Drive in Brisbane is along the river itself. It earned its name because the Queen did a procession along there after her - gasp - Coronation. During her Australian visit.
If you look at the google-maps link I put up, near the Wesley Hospital and a small park is Land Street. Part of Coronation drive fell into the water one year, and Land Street is where they had to put the detour.

* World War II trivia:
- There's a building in Brisbane City called MacArthur Chambers. I've been told that this was the General's headquarters for part of the Pacific Theatre fighting during WWII.
- There's a notorious line called the 'Brisbane line': if all went poorly during WWII, the plan was to fall back to the Brisbane line and only defend the parts of Australia south-east of it. The line went from Brisbane to Adelaide, using the Murray/Darling and the Great Dividing Range as terrain advantage.

* Origins Trivia
- Moreton Bay (which the Brisbane River empties into) wasn't seen by Captain Cook, nor by most other white explorers, until there was a search for missing prisoners. Why anyone bothered to search this hard for them, I don't know!
Anyway, the prisoners had found what the explorers missed: that Fraser and Stradbroke islands are (a) separate from each other, and (b) islands. And behind them was a bay, and a river, and a thriving Aboriginal community.
- The area then became the Moreton Bay prison colony, a 'hard time' colony. Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) was for the toughest of tough cases, Moreton Bay (Brisbane) got the ones too tough for Botany Bay (Sydney) but not hard enough for Van Diemen's Land.
- Once the Moreton Bay colony was opened up for immigration, we got a lot of German immigrants. There are a lot of Lutheran churches or former Lutheran churches in Brisbane, though not as many as in Adelaide (the first Australian colony that was never a prison colony).



Possibly more later.....

[Greenday]

The movie Annie was mostly filmed at our local college (now Monmouth University). They have mansions that were used in the movies for filming.

New Jersey: It is the greatest Jersey (Suck it, England). More cars are stolen in Newark, NJ than any other city (You could combine NYC and LA and they still can't compete with Newark). New Jersey is home to the oldest seashore resort in the country (Cape May). Has more diners than anywhere else in the world. NJ is home to the largest seaport in the US (Elizabeth). All the properties in Monopoly were based off of Atlantic City.

[Jester]

I grew up a hop skip and a jump from the family farm of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was imprisoned in the Dry Tortugas prison for setting the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

Tie in here....Dr. Mudd was imprisoned at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, which are 70 miles off of Key West. And to get there, you basically have to come here. We have a couple of boat companies that will take you out to the Tortugas on any given day, and some people camp there for a couple days. And, while I have done much that there is to do in Key West, I have yet to go to the Tortugas.

7. Mitchell is the home of the world's only Corn Palace, built with 3,000 bushels of ear corn.

I have actually been there (as well as Rapid City), and the Corn Palace is....interesting. Very, very interesting.

[jnd4rusty]

I live in South Dakota and I have a decent list of interesting facts..
1. South Dakota has one of the largest Native American populations, with nine official tribes and some 60,000 people.

2. Home of the internationally known Sturgis Rally and Races, which now spans approximately 15 days and hosts people from all over the world, the city of Sturgis and surrounding area becomes a motorcyclists playground.

3. Carrie Ingalls lived most of her adult life in Keystone. Her family lived in DeSmet, South Dakota where they still hold Laura Ingalls Wilder days. Rose Wilder Lane was born in DeSmet.

4. The Black Hills of South Dakota holds two national caves, Wind Cave National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument, Jewel Cave is the fourth largest cave in the world.

5. The name "Black Hills" comes from the Lakota words "Paha Sapa" which means "hills that are black".

6. Belle Fourche is the geographical center of the United States, designated in 1959.

7. Mitchell is the home of the world's only Corn Palace, built with 3,000 bushels of ear corn.

8. Home of Mount Rushmore, drilling began on the four faces of Mount Rushmore National Memorial in 1927, the work stopped shortly after Gutzom Borglum died in 1941 and cost over $1 million, it was never completed as Borglum wanted to do a Hall of Records. It is called the "Shrine of Democracy" and brings in at least 2 million visitors a year.

9. Harney Peak, at an elevation of 7,242 feet is the highest point east of the Rocky Mountains.

10. South Dakota is the home of the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota tribes which make up the Sioux Nation.

11.Wind Cave contains the world's largest display of a rare formation called "boxwork".

12. The USS South Dakota was the most decorated battleship during WWII

13. It has been estimated that 90% of the women living in Deadwood SD in 1876 were prostitutes.

14. Sioux/Dakotah Indian greeting is "How Kola" which means "Hello Friend".

15.Spearfish SD holds the worlds record for the fastest temperature change. It happened in 1943 and the temp went from -4 degrees to 45 degrees in two minutes.

16. Famous South Dakotans: Tom Brokaw, Cheryl Ladd, Hubert Humphrey, Crazy Horse, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Catherine Bach, Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, Russell Means, George McGovern, Tom Daschle, Mary Hart and Adam Vinatieri, there are more but I am too tired to list them.

That is all for now, there are more interesting facts but I will post those another time because this is long enough!!

[Immortal1982]

I live in a town called olyphant. One of our most famous citizens was a baseball hall of fame umpire named Nestor Chylak. He most famously handled 3 forfeit games in the 1970's including the infamous 10 cent beer night and disco demolition night.

[Bandit]

Hometown:

Until Hurricane Katrina, it held the record of the largest peacetime evacuation of a city. It was because of a train wreck - and I remember that one.

Current:

Capitol of the country.

B

[Sapphire Silk]

Wow! What a great thread. As usual I seem to be late to the party, but I have a few to include:

My hometown, Waldorf MD, is well known for the slot machines it used to have in the 60's (not anymore, though--illegal since the 70's). Often, when I tell people in other parts of the country where I'm from, the slot machines are the first thing to pop up.

I grew up a hop skip and a jump from the family farm of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was imprisoned in the Dry Tortugas prison for setting the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. My best friend in high school was a descendant of Dr. Mudd, who had 9 kids . . . five of whom were born AFTER he was released from prison for his efforts combating yellow fever among the guards and prisoners.

The phrase "your name is mud" comes from the trial of Dr. Mudd.

The British marched through where my housing development is on their way to burn Washington DC during the War of 1812. Local legend has it a British soldier died on the march and haunts the local area.

Maryland has two rivers with the same name: Wicomico (pronounced Why-com-i-co). One is in Charles County, where I grew up. The other is in Wicomico County and runs through the city of Salisbury, where I lived for about 10 years.

There is a Hollywood, Maryland and a California, Maryland in Southern Maryland.

I also lived in Delaware for about a year. There is a border town called Delmar, that bills itself "the town too big for one state." Delaware has 3 counties: Sussex, Kent, and Newcastle. The inhabitants are very different from one another, leading to the joke that Delaware is 3 states in search of a county.

[AnaKhouri]

I saw the one in Tokyo, in Roppongi. SO GROSS!