The Turkey: Holiday Delicacy and One-time Proposed Symbol of the United States

A Broad Breasted Bronze tom (male turkey)

Fun Facts About the Turkey

 

• 

  Wild turkeys in their natural habitat

  Turkeys originated in North and Central America.

• Usually the turkeys are found in hardwood forests with grassy areas but they are capable of adapting themselves to different habitats.
• Turkeys spend the night in trees.
• You can easily see a turkey on a warm clear day or during light rain.
• Turkeys fly to the ground at first light and feed until mid-morning. Feeding resumes in mid-afternoon.
• Turkeys start gobbling before sunrise and generally continue through most of the morning.
• The field of vision of wild turkey is so good that it is about 270 degrees.
• The wild turkey has excellent hearing.
• 

  A turkey can run up to 20 mph

  A spooked turkey can run at speed up to 20 miles per hour.

• A wild turkey can run at speed of up to 25 miles per hour.
• A wild turkey can fly for short distances at up to 55 miles per hour.
• Domesticated turkeys or the farm-raised turkeys cannot fly.
• Turkeys were one of the first birds to be domesticated in the America.
• The male turkeys are called ‘tom’, the female turkeys are called ‘hen’ and the baby turkeys are called ‘poult’.
• The male turkeys gobble whereas female turkeys make a clicking noise.
• The male turkeys gobble to attract the female turkeys for mating. The gobble is a seasonal call made during the spring and fall.
• A mature turkey generally has around 3,500 feathers. The Apache Indians considered the turkey timid and wouldn’t eat it or use its feathers on their arrows.
• 

  Roast turkey is typically consumed in America during Thanksgiving and/or Christmas

  According to an estimate, during the Thanksgiving holiday more than 45 million turkeys are cooked and around 525 million pounds of turkey is eaten.

• About ninety-five percent of American families eat turkey on the Thanksgiving Day whereas fifty percent eat turkey on Christmas holiday.
• Almost fifty percent of Americans eat turkey at least once every 2 weeks.
• According to the National Turkey Federation about twenty-four percent of Americans purchase fresh turkeys for Thanksgiving and seventy percent purchase frozen turkeys.
• North Carolina is the number one producer of turkeys. It produces around 61 million turkeys per year. Minnesota and Arkansas are second and third number producers of turkey.
• The part of the turkey that is used in a good luck ritual is known as the ‘wishbone’.
• The red fleshy growth from the base of the beak that hangs down over the beak is called ‘snood’. It is very long on male turkeys.

 

Special thanks to www.thanksgivingnovember.com

Alaska: The United States’ 49th and Largest State

Alaska, 49th State of the United States

Fun Facts About Alaska

In 1867, United States Secretary of State William H. Seward offered Russia $7,200,000. How much was that per acre?

two cents.

Where does the word ‘Alaska’ come from?

An Eskimo word Alakshak meaning great lands or peninsula.

How many times could Rhode Island fit into Alaska?

425.

What is Alaska’s official state sport?

dog mushing. The Alaska Legislature adopted this in 1972.

Anchorage, AK

What is Alaska’s largest city in population?

Anchorage. Alaska’s second largest city is Fairbanks. The third is Juneau.

Secretary of State, William H. Seward circa 1860-1865

On what date did Alaska officially became the property of the United States?

October 18, 1867. The purchase of Alaska was called ‘Seward’s Folly’ by many Americans.

What is Alaska’s official state gemstone?

Jade.

Alaska State Flag

In what year did Bennie Benson design Alaska’s state flag?

1926. Bennie Benson was only 13 years old when he designed Alaska’s state flag.

Mt. Augustine

In what year did Mount Augustine erupt?

1986. Mt. Augustine is 104 miles southwest of Anchorage.

Tongass National Forest

True or False? Alaska contains the largest national forest in the United States.

True . The name of this forest is the Tongass National Forest.

Juneau, capital of Alaska

True or False? Juneau is only accessible by boat or plane.

True . It is the only capital city in the United States that is only accessible by boat or plane.

Prospect Creek Camp

What is the lowest recorded temperature for Alaska?

-80 degrees F. This temperature was recorded at Prospect Creek Camp in 1971.

The Yukon River

How many rivers does Alaska have?

Over 3,000. The largest of these is the Yukon, which flows for 1,980 miles into the Bering Sea.

Barrow, AK

What Alaskan city is the northernmost in the US?

Barrow. It’s only 800 miles from the North Pole. Wonder if Santa stops there first?

Libby Riddle

What is Alaskan Libby Riddles noted for?

First woman to win the Iditarod. In 1985 she won the Iditarod, Alaska’s famous 1,049-mile dogsled race. Her time, from Anchorage to Nome, was 18 days, 2 minutes, 17 seconds.

Sitka, former capital of Alaska

What was the capital of Alaska when it belonged to Russia?

Sitka.

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

Which Alaskan National Park is the nation’s largest?

Wrangell- St. Elias. It encompasses 12.4 million acres, including ten of America’s highest peaks.

What’s the meaning of the term ‘Cheechako’?

Newcomer to Alaska. Term meaning first-time Alaskan traveler or newcomer to the area.

Muktuk, an Eskimo delicacy

If you ordered muktuk, what would you be served?

Raw whale blubber. This is considered a delicacy by the Eskimos.

Juneau, AK

What is the capital of Alaska?

Juneau. Anchorage is the largest city, but Juneau is the state capital.

In Alaska the length of daylight is ___________ ?

more in the summer. The days are much shorter(darker)in the winter and, in the the summer the days are much longer(lighter). This is due to the tilt in the earth’s axis.

In 1998 which Alaskan High school won the 4A state championship for football?

Service. The Service Cougars won the state championship in 1997,1998,and 1999.

In 2002 Anchorage had a record snowfall for a 24 hour period. How much did they get?

30 inches. In the deepest spots it was inches but, the at the airport were the official depth is recorded it was 28 inches.

Mt. McKinley, US's largest mountain

North America’s largest mountain (Mt. McKinley) is in Alaska. What is the name of the national park it is in?

Denali National Park.

From what country did the U.S buy Alaska?

Russia. It was bought from Russia in 1867 at two cents an acre. At the time it was known as “Seward’s Folly”, after the Secretary of State who arranged the purchase.

The forget-me-not

The Alaskan state flower is a_____ ?

forget-me-not.

The Alaskan oil pipeline

Alaska is known for the great Alaskan pipe line. What runs through it?

Oil. The great Alaskan Pipeline carries oil from the north slope to Valdez. This is a distance of about 800 miles.

Willow Ptarmigan

What is Alaska’s state bird?

Willow ptarmigan. The origin of the word “ptarmigan” is unknown. One theory is that it comes from a Gaelic word meaning “mountaineer”. Feathered feet help this bird conserve heat and it can survive the winter by eating nothing more than willow buds. Also in the winter, the birds are camouflaged by turning completely white.

Sitka Spruce

What is the state tree?

Sitka spruce. Spruce needles are usually sharp and four-sided and emit a pungent odor when crushed. The mature cones hang down from a branch, instead of erect like the cones of a fir. Spruces are typically tall and conical, but soil and climate can change their growth pattern.

Bowhead Whale

What is the state sea animal?

Bowhead whale. Other wildlife found in Alaska are bears, moose, elk, deer, wolves, mountain goats, and many kinds of birds and fish.

What is the state fish?

King salmon. A salmon’s appearance is molded by the environment to an extraordinary degree; therefore, scientists do not know the exact number of species in the group. There are believed to be about 40 species native to North America.

Special thanks to www.funtrivia.com

Stonehenge: Ancient Monument, Astronomical Observatory or Something Else?

The Rock Pillars of Stonehenge

 

Fun Facts About Stonehenge

 

• Stonehenge is located on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England – about 137 kilometers Southwest of London.

• The origins of the name Stonehenge is taken from the combination of ‘stone’ and ‘henge’, a tribute to the biggest henge in Britain.

• Though there is no specific evidence about who built the Stonehenge. It is believed that Druids, Greeks, or Atlanteans might have built the Stonehenge.

• Stonehenge was constructed somewhere between 3100 – 1100 BCE.
• On September 21st, 1915, C.H. Chubb purchased Stonehenge for 6,600 pounds

• Stonehenge and its surroundings were added to the UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites in 1986 and is also legally protected by the Scheduled Ancient Monument.

• Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage while the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.

• The circle was aligned with the midsummer sunrise, the midwinter sunset, and the most southerly rising and northerly setting of the moon.

• The builders of Stonehenge have featured it in a way that it encompasses sophisticated mathematical and geometrical understandings of the framework and the structural engineering of the construction.

• Stonehenge has a henge, or a ditch and bank, which surround the large stone circle.

• The stones of Stonehenge were placed in such a way that they increase in size towards the centre and alternate in shape between tall, thin pillar-like stones and stones of a tapering obelisk shape.

• Two types of stone were used for the construction of Stonehenge- the ‘bluestones’ which weighed almost four tons and were brought from 240 miles away. The other type of stone used was the ‘Sarsen’ stones which had a height of about eighteen feet and weighed twenty-five tons.

• It is anticipated that more than thirty million hours of labor was required for the construction of Stonehenge.

• Stonehenge is the most well known among the nine hundred stone rings which exists in the British Isles.

• Most archaeologists believed that Stonehenge’s use had been limited to the ritual activities of different Neolithic chiefdoms before 1950. However, its use as an astronomical observatory was an equally important function of the Stonehenge.

Special thanks to www.iloveindia.com

 

The U.S. Federal Reserve: Determining Monetary Policy Since 1914

Fun Facts About the U.S. Federal Reserve

• 

  The 12 Federal Reserve Banks

  The U.S. Federal Reserve System began on November 16th, 1914
  

• The Federal Reserve is a private institution. It is owned by the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, which are each in turn owned by a combination of regional banks, commercial banks, foreign banks, and miscellaneous individuals who have inherited pieces passed down through generations. (Rockefellers, Rothschilds, etc.)

• The Federal Reserve holds a monopoly on the issuance of currency in the USA. In essence, this is the power to borrow an infinite amount of money at 0%. The dollar bill in your pocket is a 0% loan to the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve then uses these 0% loans to purchase income-producing assets. Before 2008, the assets purchased were primarily Treasury debt, which is backed by the taxation power of the US Government. In other words, we are exchanging the property rights to our valuable assets (land, labor, entrepreneurship) for little slips of green paper to buy trinkets with. The government can then tax these valuable assets to pay for our excess. The more we spend, the more the Fed owns.
• If all money created is debt and counts as principal, where does the money come from to pay interest on this debt? It comes from the money that gets printed in the future. This is why inflation is a natural result of our current monetary system.

• Prior the the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act/TARP Act of September 2008, commercial banks were required to hold 10% of deposits as reserves. This placed a limit on the potential amount of money creation at around 9x the original deposit. An obscure clause in the TARP Act changed the reserve requirement to 0%, immediately making the potential money supply infinite.
• The reason for the credit spread blowups of October/November 2008 was because in the same TARP Act the Fed was allowed to pay interest on deposits without publicly stating the interest rate. Before the TARP Act, there was around $20 billion deposited by commercial banks at the Fed. After the TARP Act, deposits immediately jumped 50x to $1 TRILLION. This resulted in a disappearance of demand for risky assets, which led to blowouts in credit spreads.
• As a result of various acts of Congress in 2008, the Federal Reserve now has the authority to buy all sorts of assets (commercial paper, corporate bonds, mortgage loans, etc.). A cynical person would say this essentially allows the Fed to seize all valuable assets in this country directly by exchanging fancy bits of green paper for them without having to go through the intermediate step of coercing the US Government into spending more money and taking on more debt.

• Much of the Fed’s activity is not made public because of the use of off-balance sheet vehicles.

• There is debate over the constitutionality of the Fed’s various awesome powers.

What does this all mean? This economic crisis will not become a depression. By employing the new tools of monetary policy that the Fed has created for itself (interest on reserves and direct asset purchases), the money supply can be jerked around as if on a string. Initially, this means we will soon experience another period of easy credit and unsustainable economic growth.

However, the end result of current policies is that the Fed will be powerless to stop the next economic crisis. Assuming no outside shocks (another big war, nuclear attack, etc.), the dollar will over time lose its status as the reserve currency, and we will experience a currency crisis followed by rampant inflation at some point down the road.

Special thanks to www.seekingalpha.com