Facts on Parade

If there is one thing that America learned from the Seventies, it's that everybody loves a parade--literally! Here is a parade of Very Little Known Facts to get your day started right.

• "Fortnight" is an old-timey Scottish word meaning two weeks. A "baker's fortnight" is 15 days.

• IT'S GENETIC: Every great pianist throughout history has had blue eyes.

• The proboscis, or stinger, of a mosquito is not long enough to pierce human skin in the winter--only in the summer when dead layers of skin slough off due to the heat. Thus, all mosquitoes die in the winter.

• PARADES ON PARADE: Due to the events of 9/11, New York City has restricted parade permits to four days a year: New Years, July 4, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. As an unintended consequence, St. Patrick's Day and President's Day now share a parade.

• You can never exactly convert metric measurements to English units. This is why standard and metric socket sets are slightly different sizes.

• DON'T DRINK THE WATER: "Non-potable" is Latin for "Do not drink." Water trucks with this warning on the side have deadly ethyl alcohol added to the water to ensure that construction workers do not drink it.

• Parade magazine is the oldest continually-published publication in America.