25 LARGEST LAKES IN THE WORLD

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

IXONIA, WISCONSIN

Ixonia is a town in Jefferson County, Wisconsin. The population was 4,385 at the 2010 census. The town of Ixonia was organized on February 12, 1841, as the town of Union. Five years later Union was divided into two new towns. The name “Ixonia” was given to one of the new towns on January 21, 1846. As the residents could not otherwise agree on a name, the name was chosen by drawing letters at random.

WORLD'S FIRST TELEVISION COMMERCIAL

On July 1, 1941, at 2:29 p.m., the first television commercial appeared on screens in the U.S. The shaky, 10-second spot for Bulova, a New York-based watch company, aired right before a Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies baseball game and cost $9.

WORLD'S LARGEST AXE

The world’s largest axe is located in Nackawic, New Brunswick, Canada. The axe stands 49 feet tall and weighs over 55 tons. The concrete stump is 33 feet in diameter. It was commissioned, designed and built in 1991 by a company in Woodstock. There is a time capsule embedded in the head of the axe. The giant axe symbolizes the importance of the forest industry, past, present and future, to the Town of Nackawic and the Province of New Brunswick.

WORLD'S LARGEST AXE IN NACKAWIC, NEW BRUNSWICK, CANADA

ATTEMPTS TO CATCH BASEBALL DROPPED FROM EXTREME HEIGHTS

YEAR	NAME	DROPPED FROM	DISTANCE	DETAILS
1884	Paul Hines	Washington Monument	542 Feet	1884 was the year that the Washington Monument was completed. The attempt was made after project superintendent bet Providence Grays outfield Hines that he could not make the catch. Three balls were dropped but none came close enough for him to make the catch. Hines was attempting to make the catch barehanded as baseball was being played barehanded in 1884.
1890	Marty Sullivan and Steve Brodie	Washington Monument	542 Feet	Sullivan and Brodie played for the Boston Beaneaters. Three balls were dropped, but none were caught.
1894	William Schriver	Washington Monument Observation Level	505 Feet	Schriver was a catcher for Chicago Colts. Initially reported that he caught ball on second attempt. Later reported that the ball hit his mitt, but he could not hold it.
1908	Charles “Gabby” Street	Washington Monument	555 Feet	Street was a catcher for the Washington Senators. He missed first two balls thrown, but made solid catch on the third one. Story subsequently circulated that the ball broke numerous bones in his hand, but it is not true. Street said that it numbed his hand momentarily. He played in a game against the Tigers that afternoon
April 1, 1930	Gabby Hartnett	Blimp Los Angeles, CA	800 Feet	Hartnett was a catcher for the Cubs, and is a HOF member. Cubs were playing their farm team in a spring training game. Hartnett caught two balls in a row. According to one report, Hartnett was wearing a suit and tie without any protective gear. (This is not a particularly well document event).
1932	Billy Sullivan	Washington Monument		Sullivan was a catcher for the White Sox. He caught 3 of 11 balls dropped.
1938	Frank Pytlak and Henry Helf	Terminal Tower Cleveland, OH	708 Feet (52 Stories)	Pytlak and Helf played for the Indians. Helf made the first catch after three attempts and Pytlak caught one three tries after Helf’s catch. Three other players participated, but did not make a catch. Reports indicate that missed balls that hit the pavement bounced 6 stories high. *
1939	Joseph Spirnz	Blimp San Francisco	800 Feet	Spirnz played for the San Francisco Seals. This was an attempt to duplicate Hartnett’s feat as he too was wearing street clothes with no protective gear. On the fifth attempt, the ball slammed his glove hand into his face with such force that he broke his upper jaw in 12 places, fractured 5 of his teeth and was rendered unconscious. Unfortunately, he also dropped the ball. *
July 2, 2012	Zach Hample	Helicopter LeLacheur Park Lowell, MA	312 Feet 562 Feet 822 Feet	Hample is a professional “baseball collector”. He claims to have collected more than 10,000 baseballs from major league stadiums. Due to his aggressiveness in going after balls he has been banned from 3 stadiums. After the third catch, the FAA halted further efforts due to high winds. There were dozens of missed balls. Balls that hit the turf were almost completely buried.
July 13, 2012	Zach Hample	Helicopter LeLacheur Park Lowell, MA	1,050 Feet	See video below.

*The accounts of catching a baseball from great heights sometimes claim the ball speed at time of the catch or impact with the ground as being as high as 154 mph. According to The Hardball Times the terminal speed of a baseball dropped at any height is about 100 mph. In the graph below, the red line represents the speed of a falling baseball without drag (air resistance), and the blue line represents actual speeds achieved over a distance of 1500 feet when it reaches its terminal velocity. 

LONGEST COMMUNITY NAMES IN THE U.S.

LONGEST COMMUNITY NAMES IN THE U.S. WITH A HYPEN OR DASH IN THEIR NAME
Community	State	Total Characters
Winchester-on-the-Severn	Maryland	24
Linstead-on-the-Severn	Maryland	22
Lauderdale-by-the-Sea	Florida	21
Vermillion-on-the-Lake	Ohio	21
Wymberly-on-the-March	Georgia	21
Kentwood-in-the-Pines	California	21

LONGEST COMMUNITY NAMES IN THE U.S. WITHOUT A HYPHEN OR DASH IN THEIR NAME
Community	State	Total Characters
Mooselookmeguntic	Maine	17
Kleinfeltersville	Pennsylvania	17
Chickasawhatchee	Georgia	16
Chancellorsville	Virginia	16
Eichelbergertown	Pennsylvania	16

LONGEST PLACE NAME IN THE U.S. (94 Characters including spaces)

University of Rhode Island Coastal Institute on Narragansett Bay Conference and Visitor Center in Rhode Island

LIST OF OTHER LONG PLACE NAMES
Little Harbor on the Hillsboro	Florida
Pops Hammock Seminole Village	Florida
Friendly Village of Crooked Creek	Georgia
Little Diamond Island Landing	Maine
Orchard Point At Piney Orchard	Maryland
Point Field Landing on the Severn	Maryland
Riverside Village of Church Creek	Maryland
Monmouth Heights at Manalapan	New Jersey
Stafford Public Landing	New Jersey
Holly view Forest-Highland Park	North Carolina
The Landing at Plantation Point	South Carolina
Big Thicket Creekmore Village	Texas*
Kinney and Gourlays Improved City Plat	Utah
Little Cottonwood Creek Valley	Utah
West Virginia Central Junction	West Virginia

*According to the Texas Almanac, Dalworthington Gardens is the longest place name in Texas. Dalworthington Gardens is an island city surrounded by Arlington. The name is derived from its proximity to Dallas and Fort Worth.

Source: United States Board on Geographic Names

VICE PRESIDENTS WHO BECAME PRESIDENTS

VICE PRESIDENTS WHO BECAME PRESIDENTS
Number of different presidents*	44
Number who were vice presidents	14	John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush
Number who were elected president	9	John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush
Number of vice presidents who took over when the former president died	8	John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson
Number of vice presidents who took over when the former president resigned	1	Gerald Ford

*Grover Cleveland was the 22^nd and 24^th President

EAST COAST BUTTER VERSUS WEST COAST BUTTER

There is a difference between East Coast* and West Coast* butter. The difference has to do with the size and shape of the packaging rather than the makeup of the butter itself. On the East Coast sticks of butter are long and skinny, while sticks on the West Coast are shorter and fatter. Butter used to be sold in one-pound blocks, wrapped in parchment paper and packaged in a cardboard box, until 1906, when a big buyer of butter from a restaurant in New Orleans asked if the butter company could sell butter in packs of four quarter-pound sticks rather than one big lump. They obliged, and the sticks were a hit. At the time, the town of Elgin, Illinois was known as the Butter Capital of the World, home to the famous Elgin Butter Company since 1871. It was with their Elgin Butter Cutter that the East Coast butter size was determined, and that's how the name “Elgin Stick” was derived. It wasn’t until the 1960s that the West Coast really got into the butter making game. Once the West Coast finally caught up with dairy production, the Elgin-style machines were no longer available. The replacement machines packaged butter into short, fat sticks that are now known as “Western Stubbies”. Today, companies like Land O’ Lakes continue to produce butter of both sizes to satisfy the stick preferences of the respective coasts. *It appears that the actual divide today is east and west of the Rocky Mountains.

Elgin Stick (top) and Western Stubby (bottom)

VALENTINE'S DAY SPECIAL - CITIES AND TOWNS WITH THE LOVELIEST NAMES

City/Town	Population
Loveland, Colorado	76,701
Romeoville, Illinois	39,632
Love Valley, North Carolina	108
Valentine, Texas	127

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10 TALLEST CHIMNEY'S IN THE WORLD

TALLEST CHIMNEY’S IN THE WORLD
NAME	HEIGHT (feet)	YEAR	COUNTRY	REMARKS
Chimney of the Gres-2 Power Station	1,337	1987	Kazakhstan	Tallest chimney in the world
Inco Superstack	1,250	1971	Canada	Tallest chimney in the western hemisphere
4th Chimney of Homer City Generating Station	1,217	1977	U.S.	Tallest chimney in the U.S,
Kennecott Smokestack	1,215	1974	U.S.	Tallest chimney west of the Mississippi
Chimney of Berezovskaya GRES	1,214	1985	Russia	Tallest chimney in Russia
2nd Chimney of Mitchell Power Plant	1,206	1968	U.S.	Tallest chimney in the world upon completion from 1968 to 1972.
Trbovije Chimney	1,181	1976	Slovenia	Tallest chimney in Europe
Chimney of Endesa Power Station	1,168	1974	Spain
Chimney of Phoenix Copper Smelter	1,153	1974	Romania	Tallest structure in Romania
3rd Chimney of Syrdarya Power Plant	1,148	1980	Uzbekistan

TALLEST CHIMNEY IN THE WORLD - GRES 2 POWER STATION EKIBASTUZ, KAZAKHSTAN