Running Foot
The factoids on the bottom of each page in the Bathroom Readers are called running feet. Why? ‘Cause that’s what Uncle John felt like calling them! Many of our members have requested a whole book of running feet—and we thought that in the meantime, we’d organize them by topic and display them on this page. The topic will change every month or so just to keep you on your toes!
Did You Know?
Mia Farrow was on the first cover of People magazine, March 4, 1974.
Taco is Spanish for “plug.”
Don’t blink! A 30-minute cartoon may contain over 18,000 separate drawings.
One beehive can have as many as 80,000 bees.
Winston Churchill once designed greeting cards for Hallmark.
C.S. Lewis received more than 800 rejection letters before selling his first book.
The Rolling Hills Country Club in Florida was the setting for the movie Caddyshack.
In the 1850s, Americans set their watches in as many as a hundred local times.
Run DMC was the first rap group to perform on TV’s “American Bandstand.”
Superman made his first flight in a DC comic in 1938.
The full name of the Simpsons character Krusty the Klown is Herschel Schmoeckel Krustofski.
Utah is home to the nation’s only major east-west range, the Uintas.
New College (now Harvard University) started out in 1636 with nine students and one instructor.
Robert F. Kennedy’s 11th child, Rory Elizabeth, was born six months after his death.
The first Girl Scout troop was organized in Savannah, Georgia, on March 12, 1912.
King James I cited the health hazards of smoking in his “Counterblaste to Tobacco” in 1604.
Average life expectancy for English people in the 16th and 17th centuries was 39.7 years.
Animal fact: Octopi have three hearts.
Waaaaaaaah! The average newborn baby spends 113 minutes a day crying.
Gas fact: Cockroaches fart every 15 minutes.
Cool thought: If it’s 0°F today and it’s going to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold will it be?
The first ever income tax was levied in Great Britain, to fund the wars against Napoleon.
The National Park Service manages more than 16 million acres of wetlands.
The boots eaten by Charlie Chaplin in “The Gold Rush” (1925) were made of licorice.
Flamingos build their nests with mouthfuls of mud.
Bless you! In Italian, “ah-choo” is spelled ecci ecci.
Actor Gene Hackman lied about his age to get into the Marines at age 16 in 1946.
A century is about 50 million minutes long.
The average bra is designed to last for only 180 days of use.
If a chain letter were never broken, within 15 cycles the entire world would have read it.
Pigs were introduced to North America by Christopher Columbus.
Rob Butler’s claim to fame: The only Canadian on the ‘93 Toronto Blue Jays World Series team.
England is two-thirds the size of New England
McDonald’s originally served hotdogs, not hamburgers.
In an average year, 46 million people from foreign countries visit the U.S
Odds of being injured by a toilet seat in your lifetime: 1 in 6,500
U.S. straw sizes, in order of increasing diameter: Cocktail, slim, jumbo, super jumbo, and giant
Which part of a map is the ideo locator? The part that says “YOU ARE HERE.”
