Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wise Up! by Bathroom Readers’ Institute

the last state prisoner to be held in the Tower of London.
    Later, Hess was the only occupant of Spandau Prison in Berlin.
    Merle Haggard was in San Quentin State Prison in 1958 when Johnny Cash performed there.
    Author Hunter S. Thompson ( Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ) missed his high school graduation ceremony because he was in jail.
    Mobster Charles “Lucky” Luciano was arrested 25 times but convicted only once.
    Marie Antoinette took her bidet to prison with her.
    Jazz legend Louis Armstrong was sent to reform school for firing a shot into a New Year’s Day parade.
    The first sponsored fund-raising “walk” inside a prison occurred in an Oregon prison in 1988. The prisoners were raising money for organ transplants and walked a combined 3,400 miles.
    The first indicted bank robber in the United States: Edward Smith, in 1831. He was sentenced to five years’ hard labor on the rock pile at Sing Sing Prison in New York.

Travel Abroad
    Kyoto was the capital of Japan from 794 to 1868. Today, the capital is Tokyo.
    Sweden was a major European military power until 1709, when it lost the Battle of Poltava to Russia’s Peter the Great.
    In Asia, a black cat is considered lucky.
    Most sparsely populated country in the world: Mongolia, with 4.5 people per square mile. Most crowded country: Monaco, with an average of 42,649 people per square mile.
    Sixteen percent of all Africans live in Nigeria.
    Switzerland hasn’t gone to war with another country since 1515.
    The University of Bologna in Italy, founded in 1088, is the oldest still-operating university in the world.
    Coal miners in Wales once believed that washing coal dust from their backs weakened their spines.
    Before joining Canada, Newfoundland was technically an independent country.
    The border between Italy and Vatican City is marked by a painted white line.

Star Trek & Star Wars
    The crew of the Enterprise under Captain Kirk’s command: 430. Under Captain Jean-Luc Picard: 1,012.
    The word “Jedi” in Star Wars is derived from the Japanese words jidai geki , which means “period drama.”
    In the original draft of Star Trek , the Enterprise was called the USS Yorktown .
    Nick Nolte was originally considered for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars .
    Before he played Mr. Spock, Leonard Nimoy owned a pet store.
    David Lynch turned down the chance to direct Return of the Jedi .
    After the death of James “Scotty” Doohan at age 84 in July 2005, William Shatner, 74, became the oldest surviving cast member of the original Star Trek .
    Only one shot in The Phantom Menace included no digital effects: the moment where gas blows out of a vent into one of the meeting rooms.
    Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s fish was named Livingston.
    Before the original Star Trek series aired, publicity for the new show included photos in which Mr. Spock’s eyebrows and ears were airbrushed to be more rounded. NBC, the network that was producing the series, was afraid his pointed ears and eyebrows would offend viewers because they made Spock look like the devil.
    The character of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars (1977) was originally written as a girl.
    Only person to appear as himself in the Star Trek franchise: Stephen Hawking on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1993. (He beat Data at poker.)

Shopping
    Minnesota’s Mall of America has more visitors every year than Disney World, Graceland, and the Grand Canyon combined.
    Sixty-seven percent of consumers say they would switch to a different brand if it supported a cause they believed in.
    First major coupon campaign: Coca-Cola in 1887.
    The average supermarket shopper makes 14 impulse decisions on each visit.
    Every week, about a third of all Americans shop at a Wal-Mart store.
    If you’re average, you’ll look around a store for about 15 minutes before you buy anything.
    The most frequent “strange” customer request, according to supermarket managers: asking for a refund on food the customer bought and ate, but didn’t like.
    A new