Know It All

When the power goes off, food in your refrigerator will stay cold enough to be eaten safely for four to six hours if you don’t open the door. Items in a full freezer are good for about two days.

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Refrigerators are in 99.5 percent of American homes.

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Before modern refrigeration, iceboxes were used to store food. Blocks of ice were kept in wooden boxes lined with tin or zinc and insulated with various materials including cork, sawdust and seaweed. A drip pan had to be emptied daily.

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The largest collection of refrigerator magnets is owned by Louise Greenfarb of Las Vegas, Nev. She has collected 29,000 refrigerator magnets over 30 years. Clearly proud of her collection, Louise’s license plate reads MGNTLDY.

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Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), a German mathematician, was a pioneer in applying mathematics to gravitation, electricity and magnetism. In his honor, the strength of magnets is measured in units called gauss.

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A magnet contains a north-seeking pole and a south-seeking pole. Similar magnetic poles repel. Opposite magnetic poles attract.

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The city of North Pole, Alaska was established in 1953. The original idea in selecting the name of the city was to attract the toy industry to manufacture articles from the "North Pole.” They did not succeed in attracting toy manufacturers, however the town thrives with a population of 1,570.

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Middle-aged Madison Avenue advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for a spy. Aided by a beautiful blonde (Eva Marie Saint), he is pursued across the United States by spies and the government. The plot belongs to the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock movie "North by Northwest.”

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During the making of "North by Northwest,” Cary Grant charged his fans 15 cents for an autograph.

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In the 1944 movie "Lifeboat,” director Alfred Hitchcock made a cameo appearance as a fat man in a newspaper ad for reducing pills. The only other film where Hitchcock’s cameo was not as a living person was in "Dial M for Murder” (1954) where he was pictured in a reunion photo on a wall.

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The famous shower scene lasted 45 seconds in the 1960 Hitchcock movie "Psycho.” The scene had no actual nudity. Hitchcock himself held the knife for the close-ups.

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Do not give your lover a knife as a gift. Superstition says that such a gift will bring an end to the love.

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The word penknife comes from the knife’s original function in the 17th century, to shape and sharpen quill pens.

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The Swiss Army Knife, a handy pocket-sized multi-tool, was invented in 1891. Produced in Switzerland, 90 percent of the knives are exported to over 100 different countries.

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Do you know the capital of Switzerland? What about the largest city in Switzerland? See answer at end.

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The holes in Swiss cheese are called eyes.

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There are four national languages in Switzerland. German is spoken by 65 percent of the population, 18 percent speak French, 10 percent speak Italian. The fourth language is Romansch, spoken by less than 1 percent of the Swiss people.

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Answer: Berne is the capital of Switzerland. Zurich is the country’s largest city with a population of nearly 1 million.

Know It All is by Kerry McArdle. It runs in the weekend and Wednesday editions of the Daily Journal. Questions? Comments? E-mail knowitall@smdailyjournal.com or call 344-5200 x114.