Facts You Probably don’t Need

• Alexander Graham Bell used his own early version of the metal detector as a last-ditch effort to locate a bullet lodged in the chest of President James Garfield in 1881. The attempt was unsuccessful because the metal coil spring bed Garfield was lying on confused the detector.

• Teddy Roosevelt helped save football by urging rule changes to make the game safer after 19 players died during the 1905 season.

• Lions used to inhabit parts of Europe until hunting eliminated them from the continent around 1000 B.C.

•  Joseph Stalin was enrolled in seminary school in 1894 but did not complete his studies and left in 1899.
• In 2007, a dead bowhead whale was found with a harpoon embedded in its blubber that dated back to the 1800s.

• “Gotham,” as a nickname for New York City, was coined by Washington Irving in 1807 and it literally means “goat’s town.”

• The Spanish have a tradition of eating a grape with each bell strike at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

• The color orange was named after the fruit with it first being used to describe color in the early 16th century. Before then, the color was usually described as a shade of red.

            Facts by Sean McVeigh, factologist.