The First Book of Factoids | Page 4

for Atlantis.
http://dmoz.org/Science/Social_Sciences/Archaeology/Alternative/Lost_C ivilizations/Atlantis/
Automatic Switchboard (Phone Exchange)
Almon B. Strowger, an undertaker in Kansas City, faced unfair competition. The wife of a competing undertaker was an operator at the local (manual) telephone exchange. She re-routed calls to her husband, even when the caller asked for Strowger.
In an effort to get rid of her, Strowger invented the first automatic, electromechanical switchboard and, together with his cousin, produced the first model in 1888. He was granted a patent in 1891.
Strowger joined forces with Joseph B. Harris and Moses A. Meyer to form "Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange" in October 1891. A year later, the first Strowger exchange was installed with great fanfare at La Porte, Indiana. It had less than 80 subscribers.
Strowger died in 1902 but his company still survives as AG Communications Systems.
http://www.roserpark.net/greenwood/strowger.html
http://www.strowger.com/history.html
http://www.agcs.com
B
Barbie
Barbie was invented by Ruth Handler in 1959. It was modelled on a minuscule German sex doll called "Lilli". Barbie was the nickname of Ruth's daughter, Barbara. Ruth proceeded to found Mattel with her husband, Elliott. It is now one of the world's largest toy manufacturers (revenues - c. $5 billion annually, a third of which in Barbie sales). More than 1 billion Barbies were sold by 1996. Mattel commemorated this event by manufacturing a "Dream Barbie".
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~tsawyer/barbie/barb.html
http://www.barbiecollectibles.com/whatshot/barbiehistory/index.asp
http://www.mattel.com/our_toys/ot_barb.asp
Bathory, Erszebet

If you think that today's serial killers are unsurpassed, try this for size:
In 1611, Countess Erszebet Bathory was tried - though, being a noblewoman, not convicted - in Hungary for slaughtering 612 young girls. The true figure may have been 40-100, though the Countess recorded in her diary more than 610 girls and 50 bodies were found in her estate when it was raided.
The girls were not killed outright. They were kept in a dungeon and repeatedly pierced, prodded, pricked, and cut. The Countess may have bitten chunks of flesh off their bodies while alive. She is said to have bathed and showered in their blood in the mistaken belief that she could thus slow down the aging process.
Her servants were executed, their bodies burnt and their ashes scattered. Being royalty, she was merely confined to her bedroom until she died in 1614.
She was married to a descendant of Vlad Dracula of Bram Stoker fame.
She was notorious as an inhuman sadist long before her hygienic fixation. She once ordered the mouth of a talkative servant sewn. It is rumoured that in her childhood she witnessed a gypsy being sewn into a horse's stomach and left to die.
For a hundred years after her death, by royal decree, mentioning her name in Hungary was a crime.
http://www.angelfire.com/realm/shades/demons/vampires/booksandmovieseb athory.htm
http://www.alienplayground.net/disgusting/idols.html
http://bathory.freehosting.net/ebathori.html
http://samvak.tripod.com/objectrelations.html
Berliner
When President John F. Kennedy sought to impress the Germans in 1961 - then besieged by the Russians - he visited Germany and famously said, in a public speech: "Ich bin ein Berliner". Alas, "Berliner" in German is also a kind of yummy doughnut with jam filling and vanilla icing. This gave rise to the fallacy - adopted even by "The Economist" - that "Berliner" is wrong usage or gaffe.
It is not. "Berliner" in German means "that which belongs to Berlin or of Berlin". The Berlin Wall is the "Berliner Mauer", for instance. Berlinerin is the female form of Berliner. Kennedy was grammatically correct to have said "Ich bin ein Berliner".
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa021700a.htm
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/berliner.htm
Bible
The Jews do not include the 27 books of New Testament in their Bible. The factoids below relate to the version of the Bible used by Christians everywhere: Old (39 books) and New Testament. Altogether 1189 chapters (929 of which are in the Old Testament), 31173 verses. The Old Testament contains 592439 words (2728100 letters), the New Testament contains 181253 words (838380 letters). Of the 27 books of the New Testament, 14 were written by St. Paul.
The Bible contains words in Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek.
The Bible is the bestseller of all times. More than 50 copies are still being sold every minute. The Bible is also the most shoplifted book in the world.
According to the Concordance - a compilation of the words and names in the Bible - cats are not mentioned at all. Christians appear only 3 times (Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Peter 4:16). The words "grandmother" and "eternity" only once each. The Bible records seven suicides and seven different Jeremiahs - but not a single "trinity".
The books of Esther and the Song of Solomon do not contain the word "God". The Jewish codifiers of the Bible almost left them out (i.e., almost declared them apocryphal).
Amen is the word that seals the Bible.
http://www.gospelcom.net/bible
http://bible.crosswalk.com/
http://unbound.biola.edu/
http://www.concordance.com/
Bioluminiscence
The bobtail squid lives in the shallow waters of the coast of Hawaii. During the day, it is buried deep in the sand. It emerges to hunt at nightfall. Moonlight is its mortal enemy: conveniently for its predators, the squid casts a black and moving shadow. To fend off these risks, the squid emits a blue glow from a "light organ". The luminosity perfectly matches the amount