Page 87 - Sex Facts

The main voice actors on The Simpsons are paid $400,000 per episode.

In comparison, Charlie Sheen (the highest-paid sitcom star) only earns $350,000 an episode! The deal includes all the lead actors: Dan Castellaneta (Homer), Julie Kavner (Marge), Nancy Cartwright (Bart), Yeardley Smith (Lisa), Hank Azaria (Moe), and Harry Shearer (Ned Flanders). Now in its 22nd season, The Simpsons is the longest running prime time entertainment series in U.S. history - 484 episodes and counting!
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The first woman ran for president nearly 50 years before women had the right to vote.

Although the name has faded into obscurity today, Victoria Woodhull was one of the most famous women of her day. She was nominated for the presidency in 1872, running for the Equal Rights Party. This party had also nominated Frederick Douglass, the first black man to vie for the presidency. Men and women like Woodhull and Douglass have paved the way for the success of modern political candidates such as Barack Obama and Sarah Palin.

As one would expect, Woodhull's campaign was even more of an uphill battle than those of modern-day women such as Palin. She was subject to vicious personal attacks by her opponents, who accused her of everything from having affairs with married men to being a prostitute!

Woodhull chose to respond by publishing a story about an affair Rev. Henry Ward Beecher had been involved in. Unfortunately, this literature was considered to be "obscene" under the Comstock Act, and she found herself in prison on Election Day. Though eventually acquitted of all charges, the ensuing lawsuits bankrupted Woodhull and cost her any potential chance of running again. More info on Victoria Woodhull.

In the original version of the fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty was raped.

Much like in many of the earliest version of our beloved children's stories, Sleeping Beauty is actually a shockingly violent narrative. The first rendering described our noble hero not as having planted a kiss on her, but instead as having ravaged her slumbering body!

Several months passed, and though still fast asleep, Sleeping Beauty gave birth to a pair of twins. The forest fairies took care of the babies, and one day while nursing, one of the children mistook Sleeping Beauty's thumb for a nipple and sucked out the poison splinter that was causing her drowsiness! What a pleasant surprise it must have been to find not only that she had been asleep for several months, but that she had been knocked up during that time as well! (Read the whole original story)

The Sleeping Beauty story that we know has been changed many times over the centuries. The basis for most modern variants on the story stem from Charles Perrault's "The Tales of Mother Goose" from 1697. His story was a cleaned-up version of the original gruesome rape story, "Sole, Luna, e Talia" from Giambattista Basile in 1634.

The menstrual cycles of women who live together tend to synchronize.

This was based on a study on 135 women in a college dorm. Women who lived in the same rooms with different menstrual cycles started syncing their cycles together. What triggers this is actually their pheromones.

Scientists tested this theory out by placing samples of women's sweat under the noses of other female test subjects. Over time, the test subjects' periods started to conform to the women who donated the sweat.

Another thing that can affect a woman's period is being around men. Being around men tends to reduce the length of each period and increase their frequency, and make them more regular.
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The first microwave oven was nearly the size of a refrigerator.

The original microwave began in 1946 as the "Speedie Weenie Project," a secret effort by Dr. Percy Spencer and Roly Hanson, a pair of engineers at the Raytheon Company. The next year, the finalized product hit the market, but was over 5 ½ feet tall and weighed over 750 pounds! At around $5000, this newfangled "luxury" did not come cheap either - especially when you factor in the cost of the plumbing needed to cool the magnetron tube after each usage!
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