OT: 15 Things You Might Not Know About Michigan
I thought that this little "story" on Mental Floss (one of the greatest websites there is, by the way) might be of some interest to at least a good portion of folks here. I'm not from Michigan, nor do I live there, but I find myself there often enough in the fall.
Anyway...enjoy this distraction from the playing field for a few seconds.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/59023/15-things-you-might-not-know-about…
October 8th, 2014 at 3:34 PM ^
that most of us may know, but you can dazzle your friends...(I think this may have been a Jeopardy question or something): Detroit is the only place in the CONUS you can be standing in, look South, and see Canada.
October 8th, 2014 at 3:57 PM ^
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October 8th, 2014 at 4:09 PM ^
Not true...
Detroit is the only place you can DRIVE south into Canada.
From Pt. Roberts or the San Juan Islands in Washington one can LOOK south and see Canada.
From Lubec Maine one can look south and see Grand Manan Island, and there are numerous places along the St. Croix river border where one can look (or swim) south into Canada.
From the "Northwest Angle" in Minnesota one can look south and see Canada, as well as from Voyageurs National Park, and several places in Superior National Forest.
October 8th, 2014 at 4:15 PM ^
ya learn something new every day. Thanks! EDIT: I will conced that if you look from a Southerly direction you can be in those places in the CONUS and see Canada, but Detroit is the only place that Canada is directly South of a US location. Those other places it is not directly South, but off at an angle. At least, from the maps I just found on the line.
October 8th, 2014 at 4:18 PM ^
Same goes for spots along the Western New York/Ontario border.
October 8th, 2014 at 5:07 PM ^
Yup, the first foreign country you hit going due south is Canada. If my friends happened to see that Jeopardy show I ask what the second foreign country is.
That would be Cuba.
October 8th, 2014 at 9:58 PM ^
Some others have mentioned the look south and see another country part, but that is technically a different argument. I want to specifically point to the Canada part. That isn't true, either. You can be on Drummond Island and look due south and see Canada, as well.
October 8th, 2014 at 3:37 PM ^
or some guessing game, I always nail 'em with "Name the six Great Lakes."
Gets 'em every time, since a) they're not from the Midwest and can't name them, or b) there are only five Great Lakes.
October 8th, 2014 at 3:54 PM ^
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October 8th, 2014 at 4:37 PM ^
That's like saying the Atlantic and Pacific are technically only one ocean. Michigan and Huron are separated by a strait and occupy their own individual basins, which geologically makes them separate lakes.
Now the difference in depth between the basins is pretty small and the flow between them is relatively uniform, so hydrologically, they could be considered one lake, but it's all in what definition you want to follow.
October 9th, 2014 at 9:23 AM ^
Actually three because there's nothing great about Lake Erie...
October 8th, 2014 at 3:41 PM ^
You're never more than 5 minutes from a body of water, whether that is an inland lake, Great Lake, or river.
October 8th, 2014 at 5:18 PM ^
falling-down, crawling-in-the gutter drunk? That's some good information that many of us can make good use of next time we've had a few too many.
October 8th, 2014 at 3:42 PM ^
Michigan is objectively the best state ever. No contest.
October 8th, 2014 at 3:54 PM ^
definitively the worst state ever. Coincidence?
October 8th, 2014 at 3:44 PM ^
Michigan also has more lighthouses than any state in the nation. Just saying... ;-)
October 8th, 2014 at 3:48 PM ^
And how would YOU know....oh wait....
October 8th, 2014 at 3:58 PM ^
I've never understood the illegal to buy or sell a car on Sunday. That's true in Missouri too. What would be the purpose of that?
October 8th, 2014 at 4:03 PM ^
Just stuff that's never been taken off the books from the days of blue laws.
October 8th, 2014 at 4:10 PM ^
It's like price fixing but legal.
October 8th, 2014 at 4:15 PM ^
In Texas, an automobile dealership can only be open one weekend day (but no restriction on which). It is a legacy of the blue laws.
October 8th, 2014 at 4:03 PM ^
Michigan and Ohio almost had a war for Toledo.
October 8th, 2014 at 4:04 PM ^
"Here, you have it." "No, you have it." "No, I insist.." "NO REALLY, YOU TAKE IT..."
October 8th, 2014 at 4:19 PM ^
The U.P. was definitely the better deal.
October 8th, 2014 at 4:42 PM ^
True story: I told some people in Ohio about the Michigan/Ohio border war and said that we got the UP and they got Toledo. Honest to God the Ohioans thought they won that trade. I was stunned by stupidity.
October 8th, 2014 at 5:29 PM ^
It's safe to drink the water in the UP.
October 8th, 2014 at 6:08 PM ^
It wasn't really a "trade"
Both Ohio and Michigan desperately wanted Toledo, because it was an economic powerhouse port city.
Michigan was still a territory at the time, and Ohio was a state... and because Ohio was a state, it was full of voters. As Congress usually does, they went with the side most likely to get them re-elected and gave Toledo to Ohio.
They THEN gifted Michigan with the UP to make up for giving Toledo to Ohio. Michigan was super pissed about being given a "worthless barren wasteland"... until they found copper and iron.
October 8th, 2014 at 6:20 PM ^
Michigan and Ohio went to war, Wisconsin lost.
October 8th, 2014 at 6:55 PM ^
we already had the eastern half of the UP when were a territory just before satehood. if you draw a line north of TC, for the most part, east of that line was Mich terr and west was Wisc terr.
October 10th, 2014 at 1:02 PM ^
Well...it wasn't exactly half. Michigan got about 2/3 of the UP in exchange for the "Toledo Strip".
Michigan also was promised statehood as part of the deal.
October 9th, 2014 at 9:25 AM ^
And if I remember correctly, it was never really officially settled until the early 1970's.
October 8th, 2014 at 4:57 PM ^
Benton Harbor
October 8th, 2014 at 5:07 PM ^
October 8th, 2014 at 8:33 PM ^
October 9th, 2014 at 9:27 AM ^
It's at Whitefish Point (really cool lighthouse there too). It has the original Edmund Fitzgerald bell (they replaced the original bell with one that has the names of all the men lost). It has a few models of ships that represent shipping on the lakes. They are in the process of restoring some of the Coast Guard rescue station things and have a replica rescue boat. It's worth the time if you are up there.
October 8th, 2014 at 5:03 PM ^
Here are some more (although these have to do with the university, not the state):
- Michigan is the only school to have won a national championship in football, basketball, baseball, and hockey.
- Michigan is one of four schools to graduate a president and Super Bowl-winning quarterback (the others are Stanford, Navy, and Miami (NTM)).
- Michigan is one of three schools with top ten programs in engineering, math, and medicine (the others are Stanford and UCLA).
October 8th, 2014 at 8:41 PM ^
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October 8th, 2014 at 5:04 PM ^
Plymouth, Michigan, holds an annual ice festival. The event features a dueling chainsaw competition, ice sculptures, and lots of winter foods.
If you are a non-resident or non-native and you're here at the right time of the year for this, the Ice Festival is a fun event, and the Plymouth-Northville area actually has some of the better sledding in the immediate Detroit region, if you want to make a day of it and there is sufficient snow. Several parks in the area have at least one or two decent runs.
October 8th, 2014 at 8:28 PM ^
October 8th, 2014 at 6:11 PM ^
I note that the article mentions an entire mastadon skeleton was found around Ann Arbor. Sigh. I just don't have the heart to make any jokes, but it's a helluva premise.
October 8th, 2014 at 6:51 PM ^
... restraint.
October 8th, 2014 at 6:50 PM ^
... just outside of Ann Arbor. Has Manball left the Big House?
October 8th, 2014 at 7:48 PM ^
Holland, MI is full of sanctimonious and hypocritical Dutch people. And Zeeland is worse. And Hudsonville worse yet.
BUT, all are good places to raise a fambly.
October 8th, 2014 at 8:30 PM ^
October 8th, 2014 at 9:07 PM ^
Expanding on 6 and 11. No. 6) You can stand anywhere in MI, complete a 360 degress turn and never be farther than 6 miles from fresh water, be it lake, river, stream, creek, tributary, you get the idea.
No. 11) Colon, pronounced like the male fragrance is the Spanish word for Columbus. Not included. Saginaw County, although it has some type of community mud hole that I never dared to take the plunge in is the only county in Michigan without a lake.October 8th, 2014 at 10:30 PM ^
Detroit is further east than Atlanta.
October 9th, 2014 at 9:33 AM ^
Michigan is also home to the only floating Zip Code.
the JW Westcott II delivers mail to ships that are passing by Detroit and has a Zip Code of 48222.
October 9th, 2014 at 10:21 AM ^
I never knew that Michigan was the home to Snurf Herding.