Uncle John's InfoMania Bathroom Reader For Kids Only!

WEIRD MONGOLIA: With an average of only 4.7 people per square mile, Mongolia is the world’s most sparsely populated country. It is also the only country in the world where horses outnumber people.

DYE, YOU SAXON PUNKS! When the Germanic Saxons invaded Britain 2,500 years ago, they sported colors meant to terrify. They went into battle with hair and beards dyed bright green, orange, red, and blue. They thought that made them look really scary and gave them an edge over their foes. Their scare tactics worked. (Of course, those two-handled battle-axes that could cleave a man in half probably helped.)

IN SWITZERLAND, KIDS RECEIVE HOLIDAY EGGS FROM THE EASTER CUCKOO.

WORLD HISTORY OF BIRTHDAYS

•The ancient Egyptians were the first people known to celebrate birthdays, starting around 3,000 B.C. But only the queen and male members of the royal family were honored.

•The ancient Greeks expanded the concept a little. They celebrated the birthdays of all adult males, and they kept on celebrating, even after a man had died. Women’s and children’s birthdays were considered too unimportant to observe.

•The Greeks got the idea of birthday cakes from the Persians. Then they added birthday candles to the party. (The candles symbolized moonlight and may have been used to honor Artemis, goddess of the moon.)

•In the Middle Ages, German peasants became the first to celebrate the birthdays of everyone in the family. Kinderfestes, children’s birthday parties, were especially important. They were the forerunner to the kid’s parties we have now.

EGOS ARE US

Dictators often give themselves long flowery titles that—they think—describe their amazing greatness. (All hail Uncle John, Lord of the Porcelain Throne and Grand Master of Flushery!)

•Idi Amin, President of Uganda (1977–79) had the official title, His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular and the Most Ubiquitous of all King of Scotland dictators.

•Muammar al-Gaddafi, President of Libya (1969–2011) had the official title, Brother Leader, Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

•Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, President of Zaire (1965–97) had the official title, The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake.

•Kim Jong-Il, Supreme Leader of North Korea (1994–present) is commonly called Great Leader but has many other grand titles:

—Dear Leader, who is a perfect incarnation of the appearance that a leader should have;

—Guiding Star of the 21st Century;

—Sun of the Communist Future;

—Invincible and Iron-Willed Commander;

—Shining star of Paektu Mountain; and

—Glorious General, Who Descended from Heaven.

Welcome to Sealand

What if your family owned its own country?

CROWNED PRINCE

On September 2, 1967, a former British Army major named Paddy Roy Bates moved his family to an abandoned concrete and steel anti-aircraft platform six miles off the coast of England. The British government had built the platform (and several others) in the North Sea to defend its coasts from German invaders during World War II. They built them illegally…in international waters.

Bates declared his family’s new home the country of Sealand. He crowned himself H.R.H (His Royal Highness) Prince Roy of Sealand. His wife became Princess Joan and his son, Michael, became Prince Regent. The self-made ruler created postage stamps, passports, and even money—the Sealand dollar. And he gave the new country its own motto: From the Sea, Freedom.

BOMBS AWAY

Prince Roy soon discovered that once you start your own country, you risk opposition from real-life governments. The British Royal Navy showed up. First, they dropped explosives on all of the other illegally built platforms. The massive structures blasted hundreds of feet into the air. Then the helicopters that had carried the explosives buzzed Sealand. The navy tug that had carried the demolition crew passed close to Sealand’s platform and the men aboard shouted, You’re next!

THE COURT RULES

H.R.H. Roy fired warning shots across the bow of the navy boat and it roared away. Instead of fighting it out with Bates, the British government looked to the courts to evict the family from the platform. A judge ruled that British authorities had no jurisdiction over Sealand because it was outside British territorial waters. Prince Roy ruled his strange little country for 30 years before turning it over to his son and heir.

VEGGIE BOMBS!

In 2003, an Italian woman was peeling an artichoke when it suddenly gave off a spark. Next, it spurted a little flame. And then…it exploded in a fiery cloud. Police rushed to the scene. They assumed the explodi-choke was the work of an Italian terrorist known to plant bombs in vegetables at Italian supermarkets. Not so. Testing showed no sign of explosives. Apparently it was a naturally-occuring exploding artichoke.

Never be flippantly rude to elderly strangers in foreign hotels. They always turn out to be the King of Sweden.—Hector Hugh Munro

GOODBYE SMURFS: Belgium is the birthplace of those cute little blue guys known as Smurfs. In 2005, UNICEF, a children’s rights group, aired an ad on Belgian TV. The ad showed the entire Smurf village being wiped out by warplanes. Only one Smurf survived: a crying baby. The final line read, Don’t let war affect the lives of children.

GETTING CLOSER TO JAPAN

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude-8.9 earthquake rocked northern Japan. Two hundred and fifty miles of coast dropped two feet, and a 500-mile-per-hour tsunami (giant wave) rushed onshore. The quake happened where the Pacific and North American tectonic plates meet offshore. The rupture was huge: 290 kilometers (180 miles) long and 80 kilometers across (nearly 50 miles). The result: parts of Japan are now 13 feet closer to the U.S. than before the massive quake. The quake also tilted the Earth’s axis slightly and shortened the day by 1.8 millionths of a second.

IN 1994, THE JAPANESE METEOROLOGICAL AGENCY ENDED A 7-YEAR STUDY INTO WHETHER OR NOT EARTHQUAKES ARE CAUSED BY CATFISH WIGGLING THEIR TAILS. WHAT THEY FOUND? NO…THEY’RE NOT.

WORLD’S ODDEST FADS

•In 16th-century Europe, tooth dyeing was popular among upper-class women. In Italy, red and green were the most popular colors. Russian women favored black.

•Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) had red hair that started a hair-dyeing fad. Using a mixture of lead, quicklime, and sulfur, women dyed their hair to match the queen’s. High-ranking men dyed theirs auburn, and some male courtiers dyed their beards as well. Loyalty, however, came with side effects: nausea, headaches, nosebleeds, and, thanks to the lead, kidney failure and death.

•Believe it or not, the fad of wearing oversized, low-riding pants started in U.S. prisons. In the late 1980s, many prisons banned the wearing of belts. Because standard-issue prison pants were often too big for inmates, they sagged. The style found its way into pop culture through rap music, caught on with teens, and became a multi-billion dollar industry.

IT’S OFFICIAL: Every state has a motto, but some states have a few odder official items. Georgia has an official possum (Pogo, from the comic strip of that name); Maryland has an official exercise (walking); Texas has an official vehicle (the chuck wagon); and Washington has an official rock song (Louie Louie).

THE WOLVERINE STATE: Pound for pound, the wolverine is one of the world’s most powerful predators. A full-grown wolverine would only come up to a man’s knees, but these vicious animals can bring down a caribou or drive away an entire wolf pack. Native Americans may have been the first to compare Michigan pioneers to wolverines. To the natives, the settlers’ greed for land was like the wolverine’s bloodthirsty hunt for food. Michigan is proud of the state’s identity as the mighty Wolverine State. (By the way, wolverines are weasels. Big weasels—in fact, the biggest—but weasels all the same.)

TRUTH-QUAKE: For a long time, people have worried that one day earthquake-prone California might fall into the ocean. True? No.

Most earthquakes happen along fault lines, breaks or fractures in the ground where Earth’s tectonic plates move or shift. Geologists estimate as many as 15,000 faults in California. That’s pretty shaky ground. But most of these faults are too small to cause much damage.

Many California quakes happen along the San Andreas Fault. It runs from the Mojave Desert to the San Francisco Peninsula, and the movement is horizontal. This means that Los Angeles and San Francisco are grinding toward each other at about 46 millimeters a year (about the size of two quarters laid side-by-side).

So, someday, your great-great-great-great-great-grandkids might be able to see the Golden Gate Bridge from the Hollywood Hills, but California will never fall into the ocean.

California is a fine place to live. If you happen to be an orange.

—Fred Allen

MEET THE ODD-LAWS

•In Arizona it’s illegal for a donkey to sleep in a bathtub.

•It’s against the law to ride a merry-go-round on Sunday in Idaho.

•Cucumber littering is illegal in New Jersey.

•Drawing funny faces on window shades is against the law in Montana.

•In Tennessee it’s illegal to drive a car while sleeping.

•A dead person cannot serve on a jury in Oregon.

•In Alaska, it’s illegal to push a live moose out of a moving airplane.

PRESIDENTIAL CROOKS

Even U.S. presidents mess up sometimes. On a visit to France, Thomas Jefferson stuffed rice seeds into his pockets to take home to America. Smuggling was a capital offense in France. If caught, he could have been put to death.

On his way home from a friend’s house, Franklin Pierce