The weekly collection of random and fun facts. In this week’s edition: Finland’s Growing Size, Ferris Bueller, Extreme Credit Cards, The Nutella Origin, and McDonald’s Sesame Seed Buns.
While many countries either don’t change in size or get smaller, Finland is only growing larger. Finland increases its surface area by about 2.7 square miles every year. The Ice Age is the cause and the country is undergoing what is called post-glacial rebound. The incredible weight of the glaciers long ago compressed the land by hundreds of feet. When the ice sheets receded, the underlying land was released from the enormous weight and began to rise. It’s something it continues to do today, rising about 0.4 inches per year. Very slowly, land is being added to the country. Source
The John Hughes movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, took just six days to write. Hughes was the writer and director of the 80’s classics Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Weird Science, as well as the writer for Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful. For Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Hughes developed the story line on one day, pitched the idea the next day, and then wrote the entire script in less than a week. The movie made $70 million in the U.S. after its release in 1986. Source
The man with the most active credit cards is Walter Cavanagh, who is also known as “Mr. Plastic Fantastic”. He has 1,497 active credit cards, and amazingly, has no credit card debt. The line of credit on all those cards equals $1.7 million. He has held the credit card king title since 1971, and his unique hobby began in the late 1960s because of a bet. He made a bet with a friend about who could have the most credit cards by the end of the year. The winner would get a free dinner. In that one year, he procured 143 cards. His friend had 138. When the Guinness Book of World Records accepted his feat after he had acquired more cards, Cavanagh began to collect even more. In the whole time he has been getting credit cards, only one company, J.J. Newberry Co., ever denied him. At the time, they said he had too much credit. That was about 1,397 cards ago in the early 70s. Source
Nutella is the hazelnut and chocolate spread that is popular throughout the world, but it probably wouldn’t have been invented if it weren’t for World War II. An Italian pastry maker named Pietro Ferrero began adding hazelnuts to his chocolate because of the rationing of cocoa during the war. It didn’t immediately start as Nutella, however. It first began as a paste that was shaped into a loaf that could be sliced. The paste had hazelnuts, sugar, and a small amount of cocoa. Ferrero named it “Giandujot” which was a local carnival character of the time period. After the war, in 1946, the Ferrero Company was founded. The paste was later turned into a spread called SuperCrema. From there, Ferrero’s son, Michele, made improvements to the original recipe and came up with the name Nutella. Source
Sesame seeds are high in minerals and contain the vitamins B1 and E. They also have many antioxidant properties. They are found around the world and are used in various ways by different cultures, but in Mexico, about one-third of the entire sesame seed crop grown in the country is imported to the U.S. by McDonald’s to be used exclusively for their sesame seed buns. There are approximately 350 seeds on each bun. Source, Source
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