10 on Union

by Jeremy Topping
  1. Original Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker were conjoined by a 12-centimeter ligament at their breastbone. In their later years, the twins retired to a farm in rural North Carolina and married sisters Adelaide and Sally Yates, fathering a total of 21 children. In 1874, when they were 63 years old, Chang died of pneumonia, and Eng, refusing to be separated from his brother, died hours later.
  2. When a reporter asked Mae West how she went about writing her memoirs, the legendary sex star quipped, “I do all of my best work in bed.” She wasn’t kidding. In her autobiography she describes how she and a sexual prodigy named Ted made love for 15 consecutive hours.
  3. Lincoln had smallpox when he delivered the Gettysburg Address. The only presidential speech to not include the words “I,” “me” or “myself” was exceptionally short—a mere 269 words.
  4. In 1908, the husband-and-wife team of Jack Norworth and Nora Bayes headlined the Ziegfeld Follies as “America’s Happiest Couple.” That same year during a 30-minute subway ride, Norworth penned the lyrics to Take Me Out to the Ballgame, including a reference to the Brothers Rueckheim’s new combination of peanuts, popcorn and molasses—Cracker Jacks.
  5. The first two U.S. navel orange trees came from Brazil and were planted in Riverside, Calif., in 1875. Virtually every single orange grown in the United States is an offspring of those trees. Teddy Roosevelt killed one of the two when he tried to replant it, but the other is still producing fruit in Riverside.
  6. In 2004, the number of European Union nations increased from 15 to 25. When Bulgaria and Romania join in 2007, the EU will have a population of half a billion people. Recently Italy, Finland, France and England have rekindled rivalries with some old-fashioned intra-European criticism…of each other’s cuisine.
  7. Dan Tyminski, of bluegrass band Union Station, had no reason to be A Man of Constant Sorrow in 2001. He provided the vocals (that George Clooney lip-synched) for the O Brother, Where Art Thou hit single, winning a Country Collaboration Grammy.
  8. The youngest couple ever to marry was an 11-month-old boy and a 3-month-old girl in Bangladesh in 1986. The marriage was arranged to settle a 20-year feud over a disputed piece of farmland.
  9. Immediately prior to this year’s AFL-CIO convention, four of the largest labor union leaders announced they would not attend the event. The Teamsters and the Service Employees made it clear this boycott was the first step in their secession from the 61-member union.
  10. California sea lions are the voyeurs of the animal kingdom. Watching other sea lions engage in intercourse stimulates the male harem-leader into hours of copulation with up to 15 females.

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