You are now reading the 500th ‘Did You Know…?’ Column!

In October of 2016, I began this column.  The story of how it came to be has been relayed here numerous times; I won’t go into it again.

That was 500 weeks ago.

This week, you are reading the 500th column in this series.  It’s a milestone I never once thought would happen.  I had actually assumed you’d all get tired of this stuff and stop reading it; far from it, you’ve asked for more.

Now, 500 columns in, I’m ready to get the next 500 underway.  I have to thank all the editors who run this silly stuff I write, sharing it with all of you; and I thank you, the readers, who spend a part of your day with this nonsense, and make me feel good about doing it.

Five.  Hundred.  Columns.

Let’s keep it going, shall we?  Read on!

Did you know …

… seven of the ten tallest statues in the world are of the same person?  If you were to list the ten tallest statues on Earth, numbers two through eight would all be of the same person – Siddhartha Gautama (563 BC-483 BC), known to his followers as the Buddha.  The tallest statue is one of Sardar Vallabhbhal Patel (1875-1950), former Deputy Prime Minister of India, in Gujarat, India.  It stands 597 feet high.  Number nine is The Motherland Calls, the tallest statue of a woman in the world at 279 feet just outside Volgograd, Russia.  And rounding out the top ten is a statue of Kannon, or Guanyin, 260-foot statue of a Buddhist goddess in Japan.

… a pirate was pardoned by a colonial governor, then returned to piracy?  Known as “Calico Jack,” John Rackham (1682-1720) was one of the most infamous pirates to operate in the Caribbean Sea.  In 1719, Rackham was given a pardon by the governor of Nassau, and he resumed his pirate ways the following year.  Additional trivia note:  Rackham was an equal opportunity pirate; he employed two women in his crew, Mary Read (1685-1721) and his lover Anne Bonny (1697-1721).  (Arrr, mateys!)

… a popular situation comedy star turned down a spot on Saturday Night Live?  In 1993, not long before filming began on the popular sitcom Friends, one of its stars – Jennifer Aniston (born 1969) – met with the creator of Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels (born 1944), in an effort to become a regular performer on the show.  Aniston says she turned down the gig because she’d heard that women were not respected on the SNL set.  Not long after that, she auditioned for Friends … and the rest, as they say, is history.  (Comedy history, anyway.)

… a baby was born in 2017 that was actually just one year younger than her mother?  Bear with me a moment; this one gets a bit complicated.  Emma Gibson was born on November 25, 2017 in Tennessee.  Emma was originally conceived on October 14, 1992, then frozen as an embryo.  More than 24 years later, she was thawed and used in an in-vitro fertilization process for Tina Gibson (born 1991).  Gibson carried the baby – who was conceived the year after she was born – to term and delivered her healthy in 2017.  This means that Emma, the baby, was actually just a year younger than her own birth mother.  Additional trivia note:  Emma isn’t the longest time between conception and birth, however.  That honor goes to her sister Molly.  Molly was conceived in 1992 as well and frozen as an embryo.  Two years after Emma’s birth, Molly was born – 27 years after being conceived.  (Mother’s Day is complicated.)

… only one unarmed soldier in U.S. history has earned the Medal of Honor?  Desmond Doss (1919-2006), a medic in the U.S Army during World War II, not only earned the country’s highest decoration but also two Bronze Star medals and three Purple Hearts – despite not carrying a weapon at any time.  Doss, who was a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist church, refused to carry a weapon but wanted desperately to serve his country during the war.  A conscientious objector, he could have been deferred, but he wanted to serve.  He became a medic even though he was working in a shipyard (an essential wartime occupation) and on the island of Okinawa in 1944 he single-handedly saved 75 men while he himself had been injured, for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor.  Doss’ exploits were the subject of the 2016 Academy Award™-winning movie Hacksaw Ridge.

… a supermassive black hole out in space has more mass than an entire galaxy?  A black hole is formed when a star collapses (or goes supernova) and what’s left behind is compressed by gravity to such a state that even light can’t escape.  With strong gravity like that, anything that comes near it is dragged in, and becomes part of the hole.  TON 618, a supermassive black hole located near the North Galactic Pole in the constellation Canes Venatici, has a mass of more than 66 billion times the mass of our Sun.  By comparison, the Triangulum Galaxy – a collection of billions of stars – has a mass of 50 billion times that of the Sun.  TON 618 is thus more massive than an entire galaxy.

… the sandwich is named after a person?  John Montagu (1718-1792), Fourth Earl of Sandwich, did not invent the sandwich but he did popularize it.  The story goes that Montagu, a prolific gambler, was so involved in a game once that he asked for his dinner to be brought to him, the meat slapped between two pieces of bread.  Even though it was not a “new” creation, the fact that someone of Montagu’s station in life ate it was impressive to others, and the name “Sandwich” became popularized for the dish.

… a popular candy was originally sold under a different name?  Starburst™ candies, the popular fruit-flavor chewy candy, were originally called Opal Fruits when they were launched in the United Kingdom in 1960.  When the candy came to America in 1967, the name was changed to Starburst.  The original Opal Fruits flavors were lemon, lime, orange, and strawberry.  (Tasty stuff!)

Now … you know!