Strange But True

* You probably won’t be surprised to learn that it was Albert Einstein who made the following sage observation: “A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.”

* Ever wonder why blue jeans are blue? When they were first designed by Levi Strauss, the people most likely to wear them were those who did a great deal of manual labor. Strauss rightly assumed the work was likely to be dirty, so he dyed his new trousers indigo to help hide stains.

* Statistics on sporting events show that 17 of the 20 sporting events with the most attendees every year are NASCAR races.

* Before horror author Stephen King became famous for novels such as “Carrie,” “The Stand” and “The Shining,” he wrote four novels and 60 short stories that failed to be accepted for publication.

* Historians report that Napoleon Bonaparte, when he wasn’t busy conquering, enjoyed ice skating.

* Do animals grieve their own? Perhaps so — at least, some animals. When an elephant dies, other elephants in the herd will cover the body with leaves and branches and often will stay with it for days.

* You may be surprised to learn that a Boeing 747 jet is longer from wingtip to wingtip than the distance of the Wright Brothers’ first airplane flight.

* If you’re enjoying summer picnics, you might want to keep in mind the fact that there are 1,500 known species of fleas and 9,500 known species of ants. Then again, that might be a factoid you’d rather forget.

Thought for the Day

“Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.”

--H.L. Mencken

(c) 2018 King Features Synd., Inc.