250 Funnest Facts for USA's 250th Birthday - Part 5: Everything Else

There was only one night game a year. On the Fourth of July the whole sky would brighten up with fireworks, giving us just enough light for a game. We played our best there because, I guess, we all felt like the Big Leaguers under the lights of some great stadium. Benny felt like that all the time. We all knew he was gonna go on to bigger and better games, because every time we stopped to watch the sky on those nights, like regular kids, he was there to call us back. You see, for us, baseball was a game. But for Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez, baseball was life.

"Oh beaauutiful for spacious skiiees. For amber waves of grain.....

For purple mouuuuntaiinn majesties...abbboooove the fruited plaaain

Well now wait a minute!

I'm talkin about, Americcaaa, sweet America....ya know, God done shed his grace on theeEeEe

Heeeee crowned thy good, yes he diiiid, with brotherhood,

From sea. to.....shiiining sea"

Enjoy an iced beverage today (Europe doesn't use ice smh). Relax in the air conditioning. Watch your favorite baseball team. Have a burger & hot dog, have two!

Part 5...Everything else...

1). Johnny Cash was once attacked by a pet ostrich while on a walk through his property in 1981. The ostrich was taking vengeance for the death of its partner that allegedly refused to go inside for the winter that previous year. The bird took note of Cash's daily walking route, popped out, and lunged at his abdomen with its talons, severing Cash's abdomen. He broke five ribs in all, two upon talon impact and three when he fell backward landing on a large rock. Cash attributed his large belt buckle for taking the brunt of the attack and saving his life, but the painkillers prescribed afterwards led to an unfortunate relapse for the country & blues superstar.

2). The enigmatic Hall of Fame pitcher Rube Waddell of Bradford, PA spun a career 2.16 ERA, primarily for the Philadelphia Athletics, in the early 20th century which is good for 4th best all-time (min. 400 games). But his off the field stories are what make Rube one of the more interesting characters in baseball lore...
    - As a three-year old, Waddell would wander to the local fire house for days on end and would skip school to throw rocks at birds and work on mining & drilling sites
    - In his baseball career, ole Rube chased fire trucks in the middle of games on multiple occasions and would get distracted by opposing fans that would purposely bring puppies or shiny objects to games he was pitching
    - George Edward (his given name) went missing one offseason without contact until he was discovered wrestling alligators in the circus

3). Invented in 1930 by Jimmy Dewar of Schiller Park, Illinois, the original Twinkie recipe actually used banana cream filling. When nanners were rationed during World War II, Dewar and his Continental Baking Company switched to vanilla cream and never turned back. In Mexico, the treats are sold as "Submarinos" and "Tuinkys".

4). Excluding festivals, the first concert to sell at least 100,000 tickets was the Grateful Dead at Englishtown Raceway Park (Old Bridge, New Jersey) in 1977 when 107,019 loyal deadheads bought tickets to see their favorite band. Zach Bryan currently holds the record for most tickets sold in an American venue, packing 112,408 people into the Big House, Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, on September 27, 2025.

5). American climber and cancer survivor Tyler Andrews from Concord, Mass owns world records for all kinds of mountain climbing efforts. In 2022 he recorded the fastest time to go from See to Summit to Sea at Mt. Fuji in Japan; in 2023, he set the fastest pace for an ascent and descent of Mt. Kilimanjaro; and this past May, Andrews set the world record for fastest ascent and descent of Mount Everest, doing so in 9 hours & 55 minutes which was an hour faster than the previous record set by Nepali climber Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa in 2003.

6). Panama City Beach is 2.5 hours east of the Floridabama border on the Gulf but is only one time zone ahead of Juntura, Oregon which is an hour and a half west of its border with Idaho.

7). Speaking of Panama, the United States no longer controls the area around the Panama Canal but the US funded the completion of its construction which is good enough. In order to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through the Canal, you actually have to take your boat from west to east, and vice versa for sailing from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

8). Perhaps the most densely American city that no one has heard of is Whittier, Alaska, where nearly all of its 270 residents live under one roof in a single 14-story building called Begich Towers which also houses the post office, school, and medical clinic.

9). There are six golfers that have won the modern era Grand Slam, taking home each of the Masters, US Open, PGA Championship, and The Open at least once in there career. Four of the six golfers - Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods - are from America while the other two are from bullcrap British territories/strongholds, Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland and Gary Player from the British-controlled part of South Africa that implemented apartheid. Chalk another one up for the US.

10). Shirley Temple wasn't just a child acting star, she also held roles in the government under the Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush administrations. At different times she was the United States Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia. And she didn't actually love the mocktails named in her honor, finding the combination of bubbles and grenadine a little too sweet for her palette. 

11). This suuuucks but I just learned it to be true so I feel I have to share. Apple pie was invented in England all the way back in 1381.

12). Here's our get-back though. The delicious roast beef sandwich often served with caramelized onions and a side of beef stock better known as a French Dip was actually invented in Los Angeles. Two restaurants, Cole's Pacific Electric Buffet & Philippe the Original claim to have made the first of these sandwiches with Cole saying he did it in 1908 and Philippe asserting it was his 1918 creation.

13). About 5 million years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, there were species of canines that roamed America and would be bigger than every big cat species we now know besides lions and tigers. The largest of these pups, Epicyons, had bone-crushing jaws and averaged 8 feet in length, 3 feet in height, and 250 pounds in weight. These Big Dawgs were most likely pack hunters, though, which would lead to their demise and extinction when felines of equal-enough size entered the picture and hunted the same prey with more efficient ambush-style tactics.

14). Christopher Columbus's bih-ass never took shore in the United States of America. He docked in the modern-day Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola, and Central + South America. Never came within 150 nautical miles of our shores. Give it up Italians.

15). Hawaiian-born, half-Filipino, quarter-Hungarian, quarter-Ukrainian, full-fledged American Peter Gene Hernandez, better known as Bruno Mars, has the highest number of monthly listeners on Spotify at a few ticks over 133 million. Long before he dominated streaming platforms, a five-year-old Bruno performed at halftime of the 1990 Aloha Bowl in which Syracuse shut out Arizona 28-0.

16). The dress that Marilyn Monroe wore to sing "Happy Birthday Mr. President" to JFK, which was so tight it had to be sewn onto her, is the highest priced article of clothing ever sold at auction. Ripley's Believe It Or Not purchased the gown in a November 2016 auction for 4.81 million dollars.

17). The nearest town to the geographical center of the lower 48 States is Lebanon, Kansas. Lebanon is home to just under 200 citizens, one gas station, one bank, one grocery store, one library, and two churches.

18). At 9,078 feet elevation, Telluride Regional Airport in Colorado is the highest commercial use airport in the United States. It offers daily nonstop flights to Denver & Phoenix and handles an average of 26 flights per day on its single runway. Furnace Creek Airport in Death Valley, California is the lowest airport in the country and at -208 feet elevation is the second-lowest airport in the world (Bar Yehuda Airfield in Israel, -1,266 feet elevation).

19). Mississippi is the only state that has an official state toy, passing legislation to name the Teddy Bear to that title in March 2003. There was a proposal moved forward to the Pennsylvania General Assembly on September 5, 2001 to make the Slinky the official state toy but some higher priority issues arose a week later and the bill wasn't passed.

20). Horween Leather Company based out of Chicago (since its founding in 1905) is the primary leather supplier of American professional sports equipment. Around half of pro baseball players use Horween leather gloves whether branded by Rawlings or Wilson. Horween also supplies the leather used for NBA basketballs and pebbled cowhide used for NFL footballs.

21). A small parcel of British land still exists in the United States. In 1942 the British government was gifted an acre of land on Oracoke Island in North Carolina - the same place Blackbeard died in 1718 - to honor five Royal Navy sailors that washed ashore and were buried following a German U-boat torpedo attack aimed at the HMS Bedfordshire.

22). London Broil didn't originate in London or even England for that matter, nor does it refer to a cut of meat. L-B, an American dish, is a method of cooking steak, most commonly flank, under a broiler then sliced against the grain. There's no real known reasoning as to why "London" entered the picture in naming, though James Beard claims it was first seen in early 20th-century Philadelphia, but it's supposed to have added a certain gravitas to an inexpensive cut of meat.

23). The northern cardinal is the most commonly shared official US State Bird, taking the crown in 7 states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia. The western meadowlark gives a run for the redbirds' money with 6 states: Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Wyoming.

24). The United States accounts for 425 of the 965 Nobel Prize laureates since 1901, almost 300 more than any other country. The first American Nobel Prize winner was Theodore Roosevelt who won the 1906 Peace Prize for negotiating an end to the Russo-Japanese War. The first American woman to win a Nobel Prize was Jane Addams of Chicago who won the 1931 Peach Prize for social work in co-founding the Hull House for accommodating settling immigrants.

25). Last year the World's largest time capsule was opened on the 4th of July in Seward, Nebraska. In 1975 Harold Davisson built a 45-ton vault that housed more than 5,000 objects from an estimated 3,000 people including a car from that year. It was unearthed last summer by Davisson's daughter Trish and there was a large gathering & celebration to honor Matty Healy's band.

26). In the 70 year history of Billboard's Hot 100 record chart, there have been two albums that supplied five different number-one singles...
    - Katy Perry's 2010 release, Teenage Dream: California Gurls (feat. Snoop Dogg) / Teenage Dream / Firework / E.T. / Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)
    - Michael Jackson's 1987 album, Bad: I Just Can't Stop Loving You / Bad / The Way You Make Me Feel / Man in the Mirror / Dirty Diana

27). Though regarded as the "Champagne of Beers," Miller High Life isn't brewed in France but rather Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the beautiful United States. The Miller High Life Theatre in downtown was the site of the famous 1912 speech that Theodore Roosevelt orated just an hour removed from surviving an assassination attempt across the street. A local bartender shot at Teddy and hit him in the chest but the bullet was slowed by his steel eyeglass case and a doubled over book, lodging the shrapnel in Theo's chest muscle. Doctors determined it was more dangerous to surgically remove the bullet than leave it so Roosevelt lived the remainder of his days with a .38 cal in his pectoral.

28). The state of Alabama has just four cities with populations above 100,000 as of the 2020 census - Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile. Bryant-Denny Stadium at the campus of the University of Alabama has a capacity of 100,077 which is more than the actual population of the city in which it resides, Tuscaloosa (99,600).

29). Americans own the Major League Baseball records for the youngest player to hit 100 home runs in his career (Mel Ott, 22 years 132 days) and player that needed the fewest games to reach 100 career homers (Ryan Howard, 325 games).

30). The National Dog Show has been held annually in Philadelphia since 1876 when it was established at what was meant to be a one-time dog show for the US Centennial celebration. Since 2000 there has only been one dog to win Best in Show more than once, Claire the Scottish Deerhound who won BIS in 2020 and 2021.

31). Nebraska's college is named the Cornhuskers, Iowa produces more corn than any other state, but it's Dublin, Ohio that has the ultimate homage to undigestible yellow vegetable. Over 100 ears of corn are erected in an Ohioan park in a public art display named "Cornhenge."

32). Tom Meents of Paxton, Illinios is considered the most accomplished monster truck driver of all time, hanging 14 World Finals titles on his mantle as a driver of three different behemoths - Monster Patrol, Goldberg, and Maximum Destruction AKA Max-D.

33). The most famous car-free town in America is Mackinac Island in Michigan, the state that boomed off of and still relies upon the automobile industry. Cars have been strictly banned on the island since 1898 in an effort to protect horses from getting spooked.

34). The title of "Colonel" is given out in Kentucky as the highest civilian honor bestowed by the Governor of the Commonwealth. It recognizes those who exemplify outstanding service to the community, state, or nation. Some notable Colonels actually born in the Bluegrass State include Jim Beam, Sturgill Simpson, and Hunter S. Thompson. And yes, Colonel Sanders was a real person.

35). Jack Dempsey, an Irish/Cherokee/Jewish man from East Colorado who was baptized into the Church of Latter-day Saints, was a world heavyweight boxing champion for a full decade from 1916-1926 and is considered one of the greatest punchers of all-time. Dempsey ran away at 16, riding the underside of trains as a hobo to different mining towns to get odd jobs and in fights. He was the main draw in a 1921 fight against Georges Capentier that generated boxing's first ever million-dollar gate.

36). Eight of the 45 U.S. Presidents were left-handed: James A. Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. At 17.78% of presidents, this vastly overrepresents that general population of 10% lefties.

37). The Louisiana Purchase remains the biggest fleecing in a trade deal in the history of ever (besides getting Jaylen Brown for Paul George), with the US of A forking up $15 million to the French in exchange for 828,000 square miles of land - a rate of 3 cents per acre.

38). Colin O'Brady from Olympia, Washington is one of America's greatest modern explorers. In 2018 O'Brady completed the first solo, unsupported crossing of Antarctica, trekking 932 miles over 54 days while pulling a sled full of his goods. A year later, he served as first mate for a six-man team that accomplished the first fully man-powered crossing of the treacherous Drake Passage, traversing 700 miles across 13 days in a 30 foot boat.

39). True Wasabi root only grows in a few parts of the world, primarily exclusive to Japan, far east Russia, and the Korean Peninsula, and a majority of what we eat in restaurants is horseradish with green dye. There are three places in the United States that you can find real, pure Wasabi, though: the Oregon Coast into northern California, the Big Island of Hawaii, and the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina/Tennessee.

40). Incorporated originally as "Clark," DISH, Texas - a town an hour northwest of Dallas - gained its name in 2005 when the town of ~200 people at the time agreed to name their town DISH in exchange for Dish Network supplying every resident with 10 years of free basic cable and a digital video recorder.

41). Frankenmuth, Michigan is home to Bronner's Christmas Wonderland, the largest Christmas store in the world. The building itself covers almost 3 acres of land and garners over two million visitors per year. They sell enough garland and light cords annually to stretch from Philadelphia to New York and back...4 times.

42). The Shady Maple Smorgasbord in Blue Ball, Pennsylvania - a suburb of Lancaster - is the largest buffet restaurant in North America. What started as a farm stand under the shade of a large maple tree has evolved into a 200 foot long buffet with seating for 1,200 patrons. Cuisine from the local Pennsylvania Dutch is regularly served and in 2024 USA Today named SMS the best buffet in the country.

43). The Red Maple is the most commonly found tree in the United States of America.

44). Alaska has far and away the highest population of bald eagles in the country, but the state with the second densest population of our nation's bird is Florida which hosts 10% of breeding population in the lower 48 states.

45). Flo Rida's 2007 smash hit "Low" (featuring T-Pain) has sold over 12 million copies worldwide, while The Beatles' beloved 1868 classic single "Hey Jude" has sold just over 8 million copies worldwide. Another point for America.

46). The borders of Michigan touch every Great Lake except for Lake Ontario. And the Canadian province Ontario's borders touch every Great Lake except for Lake Michigan.

47). There is a city in the middle of Washington state amidst the Cascade Mountains that is modeled entirely after a Bavarian village. In the 1960s Leavenworth, WA saw their economy start to decline as a drying up timber town so local officials made the call to remodel the town's buildings in an effort to drum up tourism to the area.

48). German chocolate cake?? Not German. The first known recipe for the rich and decadent dessert appeared in a 1956 Dallas newspaper submitted by Daisy Pearce who got the recipe from her daughter Francis Beth.

49). The Snuggie was invented in America, hell yeah. On March 5, 2010, fans at the Cleveland Cavaliers set a world record with 22,500 people wearing the sleeved blanket at the same time. In March 2018, though, owners of the Snuggie brand were fined by the FTC for deceptive marketing.

50). The United States of America is the greatest country in the world no matter who wants to tell you what. Appreciate every day you're not living under British rule. Do your part to make things better, smile, be chill, enjoy your day.