Know It All

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"You can’t have your cake and it too” was included in a book of proverbs printed in 1562. English writer John Heywood (1497-1580) wrote "wolde you bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?”

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Of the people age 65 and over, there are 33 single men for every 100 single women.

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San Franciscan Jann Wenner (born 1946) founded Rolling Stone magazine in 1967. Wenner also founded Us, the celebrity entertainment magazine.

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The Broadway musical "Rent” is based on the story from the 1896 opera "La Boheme” by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924).

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The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoon characters are named after Renaissance artists: Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michaelangelo.

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The star of "Murder She Wrote” (1984-1996), Angela Lansbury (born 1925) was nominated for an Emmy Award 12 times in the category of the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She never won.

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Gunpowder was first used in China as early as the ninth century. It was used for making firecrackers.

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The Ziegfeld Follies theater productions on Broadway in New York ran from 1907 to 1931. The producer of the show, Florenz Ziegfeld (1869-1932), had a stringent requirement for someone to become a showgirl. Can you guess what the requirement was? See answer at end.

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Coco the Clown performed in England’s Bertram Mills Circus for 40 years, beginning in 1929. But he became famous around the country when he starred in a televised road safety campaign for children in the 1960s.

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Giraffes have seven vertebrae in their neck, just like people. Each adult giraffe vertebrae is about 11 inches long.

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The theme song of the television series "Frasier” (1993-2004) is sung by the show’s star Kelsey Grammar (born 1955). He also plays the piano in the song.

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Both Missouri and Tennessee are bordered by eight other states.

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Henry Wells (1805-1878) and William Fargo (1818-1881) Fargo established the Wells Fargo Stagecoach Company in San Francisco in 1852. They carried passengers and valuables. The valuables were stored underneath the driver’s seat, and an armed guard always sat next to the driver.

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Bill Gates (born 1955) purchased Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452-1519) illustrated book "The Codex Leicester” at an auction in 1998 for $30.8 million. It was the most expensive book ever sold.

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One third of Americans bite their fingernails.

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Hal Linden (born 1931) played Captain Barney Miller, in charge of New York City’s 12th Precinct police station, in the sitcom "Barney Miller” (1975-1982). Miller’s badge number was 233451.

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The drug company Pfizer Inc. sells over 500 Viagra pills every minute.

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A group of frogs is called an army.

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Yoda, the wise Jedi master from Star Wars, is modeled after Albert Einstein (1879-1955).

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The seven dwarfs in Disney’s "Snow White” (1957) were steadily employed. They worked in the mines digging for diamonds.

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A dried cranberry is called a craisin.

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Answer: Showgirls who appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies were required to have measurements of 36-26-38. Out of 200,000 showgirl applicants over the years, only 3,000 met the measurement requirements.

Know It All is by Kerry McArdle. It runs in the weekend and Wednesday editions of the Daily Journal. Questions? Comments? Email knowitall@smdailyjournal.com or call 344-5200 ext. 114.