Completely Useless Information
Completely Useless Information
1. Besides AA, AAA, C and D, Batteries are also sold in A, B, J, N and 6 sizes
2. Federal regulations require that all drive-up ATM’s have Braille next to the buttons
3. The spray of saliva that sometimes accidentally fountains from a person’s mouth is called a “gleek”
4. NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain never fouled out of a game
5. Two members of the Zacchini family, known for “human cannonball” shows, accidentally hit each other in mid-air after being fired simultaneously from two separate cannons
6. The cartoon character Goofy was variously known as Dippy Dawg, Dippy the Dog, Goof and Mr. Geef between 1932 and 1934
7. The fibers on the edge of owl’s feathers are not bonded together as in most birds. This makes the animal a much quieter predator
8. Squirrels get run over a lot because they can’t judge distances well with really fast objects (like cars)
9. Before the 1870’s, most tobacco was chewed. Smoking caught on because the public thought that tobacco spit spread tuberculosis. So smoking it was considered “healthier”
10. During the Black Death, there was Latin phrase in common use, Fue citom vade longe, redetarde – it means “Flee quickly, go far, return slowly”
11. The average whaling ship in the 1840’s cost $50,000 to build and provision. They generally brought back 3,000 (31.5 gallon) barrels of oil worth $130,000 per trip – about $2 million in today’s money.
12. Plato’s real name was Aristocles – Plato is a nickname roughly meaning “a broad intellect”
13. The “stun” setting on a laser weapon won’t work. Lasers work by burning, a lesser charge would just be warm
14. Badgers are not kosher food (Leviticus 11:10)
15. Bananas put in a refrigerator quickly turn black but the fruity part stays perfectly fresh for quite some time
16. At any given moment, 80-85% of the hair on your head is growing
17. Sivain Dornon of Landes, France walked from Paris to Moscow on stilts in 58 days during the spring of 1891
18. Albatross wing bones were highly prized by sailors for use as tobacco pipe stems
19. According to legend, weasels were the only mammal that could withstand the gaze of a basilisk
20. From 1958-1961, Egypt and Syria were one country called the United Arab Republic
21. In the 1500’s the Dutch had a golf-like game called kolven that was played on the ice
22. There is absolutely no evidence that the French “Sun-King” Louis XIV said “L’Etat C’est Moi” (I am the State) – yet it continues to be in world history textbooks
23. Some things that have been taxed over the years:
Hats (mens only), gloves, almanacs, dice, perfume, wallpaper, windows and wig-powder
24. Size 5 shoelaces are exactly 75cm long
25. A group of cobblers (shoemakers) is called a “drunkship”
26. The comparitive heat of chiles is measured in Scoville Units. Bell Peppers are 0 SU’s while Habanero Peppers are 80,000-300,000 SU’s
27. 21 U.S. Presidents have been 6 ft or taller
28. The national anthem of China is called Yiyongjun Jinxingqu
29. Lamest James Bond cars:
AMC Hornet (Man With The Golden Gun)
Toyota 2000 GT (You Only Live Twice)
Citroen 2CV (For Your Eyes Only)
30. Technically it is against the law to use the U.S. Flag in any advertisement on wear it as part of a costume or uniform
31. The term for killing a wife is uxoricide. To kill a prophet is vaticide
32. If you have type B-positive blood, you can receive plasma from with type B or AB. You can get whole blood from B-positive and B-negative only
33. James Armstrong Custer’s horse was named Vic
34. The San Francisco Children’s Choir sang the National Anthem at Super Bowl XIX on January 20, 1985
35. Medium Range Ballistic Missiles can travel between 1,000-3,000 km
36. Palm readers claim that they can deduce how strong a will you have and how logical you are from the shape of your thumb
37. The explosive TNT is the abbreviation of
2,4,6-Trinitromethylbenzene
38. From 1921-2003, 70% of Miss America winners have been brunette, 24% blondes and 6% redheads
39. There are 354 steps to the crown of the Statue of Liberty
40. Gypsum is the second softest mineral on the Moh’s Scale of mineral hardness (only Talc is softer)
41. The largest-sized bottle of champagne is called a “Primat” – it holds the equivalent of 36 normal bottles
42. If you study bones to divine the future, you are practicing osteomancy
43. St. Venerius is the patron saint of lighthouse keepers
44. All terrain names on the moon Europa (Jupiter), come from Celtic mythology
45. Sushi terms:
Aoyagi – Japanese red clam
Ika – squid
Nori – dried seaweed
46. Olympic pools must be kept between 25-28 degrees Celsius for all competitions
47. James Madison is on the $5,000 bill
48. King Minrekyawswa of Thailand died when he was run over by his own elephant
49. Lake ice needs to be 7.5 inches thick before it will support the weight of an average car
50. In 1920’s slang, potatoes were known as “Murphies”
51. The Knights of the Round Table were-
Lancelot
Tristram
Lamorack
Tor
Galahad
Gawain
Palomides
Kay
Mark
Mordred
52. There are 10,200 ways to get a Straight in poker
(254-1 odds)
53. A quadridecagon has 14 sides
54. The winning word at the 1962 National Spelling Bee was esquamulose which means “smooth skin, without scales”
55. The Empire State Building has Red, Black and Green lights shining on it every Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
56. All of the Noble Gases were discovered by Sir William Ramsey except for Radon
57. A Super Middleweight boxer may weigh no more than 168 lbs.
57. The fourth row of a full orchestra is composed (from left to right) of French horns, trumpets, trombones and tubas
58. Lakshmi is the Hindu goddess of beauty and fortune
59. Three famous Belgians-
Audrey Hepburn – actress
Adolphe Sax – invented the saxophone
Pierre Culliford – created the Smurfs
60. Navajo Code talking term for a fighter plane was “humming bird” – da-he-tih-hi
61. According to Dante’s Inferno, there was a level of Hell for Thieves, they were to be eternally attacked by serpents
62. Traditional weather proverb – “Evening red and morning gray, two sure signs of a perfect day”
63. Mel Blanc was the voice for all of the following:
Bugs Bunny
Woody Woodpecker
Barney Rubble
64. In the last 100 years, the Chinese Year of the Ox have included -1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009
65. In chess, a “zugzwang” is a position whereby any move is disadvantageous
66. Your mouth contains 8 incisors, 4 canines, 8 pre-molars, 12 molars (4 are ‘wisdom teeth’)
67. 16 degrees Centigrade = 61 degrees Fahrenheit
28 degrees Centigrade = 82 degrees Fahrenheit
68. The Western Meadowlark is the state bird of Nebraska,
Montana, Kansas, North Dakota, Oregon and Wyoming
69. The radio code 10-9 means to “repeat, say again”
70. In England, a lazy person is a “skiver”
71. The game of Polo is divided into 6 “chukkas” of 7 ½ minutes
72. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs is 17th in the line of Presidential Succession
73. Pig Latin Hamlet – “Otay ebay orway otnay otay ebay: atthay isway etay estionquay”
74. A “growler” is an iceberg less than 5 meters in length and less than one meter above water
75. There have been 16 directors of the F.B.I. since it was created in 1908
76. The Titanic was provisioned with 40,000 fresh eggs on its only voyage
77. Will Somers was the Court Jester for King Henry VIII
78. Marco Polo was asked on his deathbed to admit that his stories were made up. His last words were, “ I have not told half of what I saw”
79. In 1963 the MVP’s of the National League (Sandy Koufax), the American League (Elston Howard) and the National Football League (Jim Brown) all wore number 32
80. Before the 1870’s most footballs were, in fact, inflated pig’s bladders – thus the term “pigskin”
81. A fashionably dressed woman in the Victorian period could wear over 37 lbs of clothing in the winter, of which 19 lbs were suspended from the waist
82. Swiss army knife manufacturers Victorinox makes a knife with a blade specially designed to “perform an emergency tracheotomy”
83. For many years, Betty Rubble was the only major character not represented in “Flintstone Chewable Vitamins”
84. Olive oil is one of the few types of vegetable oil that is made from the flesh of the plant, as opposed to the seeds
85. If you officially renounce your U.S. citizenship, you have to do so outside of the borders of America (and it’s a fairly complicated process)
86. The Netherlands is the only country that officially adopted “keelhauling” as a punishment
87. According to Johns Hopkins University Hospital, most people have deformed toenails (Onchogryphosis) on their little toes due to poorly fitting footwear
89. Elephants really enjoy chewing tobacco
90. Fasting is physically completely bad for your body – no beneficial side effects like “cleansing”
91. The halos around people’s heads in old paintings were actually a nimbus – this is from pagan time when gods would have a glowing source of power and is was a full body glow
92. One large piece of the U.S. space station Skylab fell on a golf course in Albany, Australia (on July 11, 1979) after an out-of-control re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere
93. Green and yellow tattoo ink are the hardest to remove
94. Russian artists Alex Melamid and Vitaly Komar have opened three elephant painting schools in Thailand. The paintings are described as “abstract”
95. The Inuit language has 24 names for snow but English has thirty
96. The was not one single day of worldwide peace in the 20th century
97. There is a universal sign language system called Getsuno, but it is not widely used
98. Early crossword puzzles in the The Times of London newspaper were often in Greek of Latin
99. In 1909, the Aurora Borealis were visible in Singapore, one degree north of the Equator
100. President Franklin Roosevelt refused to attend meetings that had 13 people. He would often have his secretary attend to make it 14.
101. There is a bit of inherent randomness in the way that fingerprints form. If you were cloned, you would still have different fingerprints from your genetically identical “twin”
102. Even today, the ability of anesthetics to kill pain is not completely understood
103. The first document to use the word “orange” to describe a color was in 1600
104. In old movies, wagon wheels often appear not to move because they are rotating at 24 spokes a second – which exactly matches the 24 frames per second that the film was shot in (sometimes they can even appear to be going backwards)
105. Mozart was never rich because there were no copyright laws to pay him for performances of his works or sales of his sheet music
106. The human nervous system generates an electric impulse that travels 100m/sec., while a Venus flytrap generates an impulse only at a sluggish 3cm/sec
108. There is no maritime law stipulating “women and children first” on a lifeboat
109. Concert pianist Christopher Seed had a left-handed piano built for him in 1999 – it cost $42,000
110. Indian McDonald’s have “Maharaja Macs” made with lamb
111. A behavioral test on chimps in West Africa found that they preferred blue or grey objects when they were stressed, hungry or the weather was bad
112. The original idea behind hanging objects from your car’s rear-view mirror was to cure motion sickness
113. U.S. patent 3580220 is for a milking machine for use on rats, mice or hamsters
114. The term “rubbing salt into the wound” come from the practice of ship’s doctors putting salt on the back of flogged sailors to prevent infection
115. In 1999, there were 966 reported emergency room cases of people injured with or choking on sponges
116. Because of a low body temperature, armadillos are the animal of choice to infect with (and hopefully treat) leprosy in lab experiments
117. You can get out of most old mazes just by keeping one hand in constant contact with one wall – though it is a very slow method (will not work with many modern designs)
118. The population of China could all fit on an island 147 mi/sq
119. One ton of computer chips contains 150g of pure gold
120. Extreme altitude mountain climbers often get “Third Man Syndrome” where they are convinced that they are climbing with someone who is, in fact, not really there
121. The US Navy has developed emergency escape suits that allow a human to ascend from submarine accidents from depths up to 600ft
122. A thyroid condition called Hashimoto’s disease causes persistent eye dryness
123. Einstien, Darwin, Poe, H.G. Wells and Queen Victoria all married their first cousins
124. Rabbits are lagomorphs, not rodents
125. Babe Ruth hit the first home run in All-Star Game history
126. Eggplants are also known as Aubergine – it is a close relative to tobacco
127. Heavyweight boxing champ Rocky Marciano had two pet turtles named “Cuff” and “Link”
128. There are two countries currently with a German-born head of state – Germany and Vatican City
129. California consumes more Jell-O than any other state
130. Robert Reed’s father character was written out of the last Brady Bunch episode
131. The Wizard of Oz’s full name is Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmanuel Ambroise Diggs (O.Z.P.I.N.H.E.A.D.)
132. Ravioli means “little turnips” in Italian
133. The baseball bat that the Mom defends herself with in the movie The Shining bears Carl Yastrzemski’s signature
134. Nickelodeon started in 1979 but was originally called Pinwheel
135. The oldest cave paintings are 32,000 yrs old (in Chauvet cave – southern France). The artists used more advanced painting techniques here than were used thousands of years later
136. A sundial designed to work in the U.S. will work just fine in the southern hemisphere, but the numbers run counter-clockwise
137. A light probe immediately inside the coin-slot of slot machines detect whether the center of the coin is missing (a washer)
138. Your chances of surviving a plane crash are significantly better if your seat is facing backwards – some troop transport planes have this type of seating
139. Large chunks of cheese are cut with a wire because the surface area of a knife causes sticking issues
140. It is estimated that around 3% of the world’s population show some signs of a psychopathic condition
141. You could get your entire recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C from potato chips but you would also get 2,750 calories and 140 g of fat
142. The world’s population should peak at 11 billion people in 2080, then slowly decline
143. On October 9, 1972, Dr. Jeff Hamilton (Warwick University – England) was teaching a class on probability, He flipped an coin and it landed on its edge in front of 40 witnesses – odds are about a billion to one against
144. It is possible to make a map of the world where no country borders another with the same color with just four colors
145. A mathematical rule called “The Law of Inconvenience” proved that there should be 2.3 women’s toilets for every one installed for men in public areas
146. Until 1900, the Kirghiz people of Central Asia used horses as their main currency, with sheep as a smaller unit of purchase
147. Your odds of buying a winning a lottery ticket: 14 million to 1
Your odds of being hit by a bus in an urban area while going to purchase a lottery ticket: 3 million to 1
148. The first snowboarding or “snurfing” competition was February 18, 1968 in Michigan
149. Teeth transplants were fairly common in the Victorian era but they had a high rate of infection and they usually failed
150. Statistically, any amputation of a limb will shorten your life expectancy by about five years
151. Simon Robinson of McLaren Vale, Australia screamed at an astounding 128 decibels (dbs) – a jackhammer or a machine gun register at 130 dbs
152. Giraffes can’t make a sound
153. Mexican President Santa Anna did not bother to attend his own inauguration
154. Before gallows were invented, criminals were hung from the tops of ladders
155. WWII GI’s called canned milk an “armored cow”
156. Pope John VIII survived being poisoned, only to be killed by a man with a hammer. Pope John XXI was killed in is sleep when a piece of the ceiling fell on him
157. The rhyme, “Baa Baa Black Sheep” is actually a complaint about high export taxes on wool during the Middle Ages
158. Charlemagne’s mother, Queen Bertrada was known as “Goosefoot” because of her pigeon-toed walk
159. “Not worth a groat (a 4 penny coin)” is the 18th century term for somebody lazy and worthless
160. One of the most successful pirates in terms of wealth and longevity was a Chinese woman named Cheng I Sao. She united most pirate gangs under her leadership in the early 1800’s
161. Umbrellas were used only for shading purposes until the 1750’s
162. Stetson cowboy hats were originally made in Philadelphia
163. Ancient Egyptians waxed off body hair with a mixture of turpentine and honey
164. At the Battle of Plum Creek (Texas, 1840), retreating Comanche Indians killed most of their hostages except Julie Watts. Her corset stopped multiple arrows fired at her from just a few feet
165. “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers” -Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943
166. Greeks thought that horseshoes were lucky because there shape resembled a new moon, a sign of fertility
167. ExLax was originally marketed under the name “Bo-Bo”
168. According to legend, to prove that his word was law, Vlad the Impaler had a golden cup placed in the center of his capital of Tirgoviste, “for thirsty travelers” –he would kill whoever took it – it remained in it’s place for six years
169. Maria Reynolds had affairs with both Alexander Hamilton (helped draft the Constitution) and Aaron Burr (the guy who killed Hamilton in a duel)
170. 16th century European women removed freckles with a combination borax and sulfur. It burns off the top layer of skin
171. Before he returned to Italy, Garibaldi lived briefly on Staten Island, working as a candle maker
172. The last country in the western hemisphere to abolish slavery was Cuba
173. The first child born on the Mayflower was named Oceanus Hopkins
174. During WWII, Vienna-based international police group Interpol was part of the Gestapo
175. Pharoah Pepe II Neferkare (2278-2184 BC) was the longest serving monarch in history – 94 years
176. Britain originally offered Kenya to the Zionists as a Jewish homeland
177. Polish king Augustus the Strong (1670-1733) had over 300 kids, only one of which was legitimate. He could also break horseshoes with his bare hands
178. President Woodrow Wilson couldn’t read until he was 9. He was the only President to have a Ph.D.
179. Abel Tasman discovered Tasmania and Fiji but never mentioned seeing Australia
180. The first woman to become a medical officer in Canada,
Miranda Stuart, did so by posing as a man
181. Charles Curtis, who became U.S. vice-president in 1929, was part Kaw Indian
182. Benjamin Harrison was the last U.S. president to have a beard
183. Jungle Book author Rudyard Kipling would only write with black ink
184. It was Samuel Prescott, not Paul Revere who finished the midnight ride
185. From the age of 30, humans gradually begin to shrink
186. In 1926, Joseph Goebbels demanded that Hitler be expelled from the Nazi Party
187. After the American Revolution, John Paul Jones (“I have not begun to fight…) served in the Russian navy
188. Harald Fairhair (850-933 AD) united Norway as part of a campaign to impress a girl
189. Annie Oakley lived long enough to teach soldiers marksmanship in WWI
190. Geronimo’s real name was Goyathlay, meaning “One Who Yawns”
191. WWII U.S. General George Patton placed fifth in the pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics
192. The throne of Ethiopia’s Menelik II was actually an electric chair imported from the U.S.
193. The last battle of WWI was fought in what is now Zambia
194. As the first country to ratify its charter, Nicaragua was the first country to join the United Nations
195. Claire Bonaparte grandnephew of Napoleon, founded the FBI
196. The Boer War (South Africa, 1898) was the first war that motorcycles were used
197. When Henry VIII’s wife Anne Boleyn was beheaded, so was her wolfhound
198. Bernardo O’Higgins was the first president of Chile
199. Before it realized he was a Communist, Wall Street gave Fidel Castro a ticker tape parade
200. Sand Beach in Acadia National Park in Maine is made almost entirely of ground sea urchin spines
201. “Tic-Tac-Toe” is called “Ecke-Mecke-Stecke” in Austria
202. Plutonium is shiny, silver and warm to the touch
203. The U.S. Navy wanted the Golden Gate Bridge painted with yellow and black stripes for maximum visibility
204. Statistically, it is safer to take an elevator than to walk any distance
205. Del Monte was the last company to switch from “catsup” to “ketchup” in the 1980’s
206. The Muzak Company was started in 1934. They originally had a service not unlike satellite radio, with three channels for subscribers in Cleveland, Ohio
207. Pacific Bell phased out phone booths in 1977 because they were not handicap accessible
208. Teddy Roosevelt did most of his daily work in a regular rectangular office. William Howard Taft moved the Presidential desk back to the Oval Office.
209. Michael Jordan averaged 17.7 pts a game in college (UNC)
210. Most of the rock in the mantle of the Earth is olive green
211. Thanksgiving was declared a national holiday by Congress in 1777. It was always on December 18th until Abraham Lincoln moved it to November in 1864.
212. You can’t get a score below 200 on an SAT test
213. American playing cards are messed up, they use the symbol for the French suit of “Clovers” but call it “Clubs” – from the Spanish playing cards’ suit that portrays a war club.
214. The original Indian game of chess did not have a Queen. A “Minister” stood next to the King and could only move one square at a time, and only diagonally
215. Spanish moss is not moss and not a parasite. It is an epiphyte which hangs on trees (or anything off the ground) and gets all its nourishments from the air
216. The Morse code emergency signal “SOS” actually does not stand for anything. It was chosen because it was easy to remember and transmit – three dots, three dashes and three dots
217. The 1914 sports car, the Stutz Bearcat weighed almost 5,000 lbs with an engine of 60 hp. In 1915 Erwin ‘Cannonball’ Baker crossed America in one, traveling 3,700 miles (5,953 km) at 13.7 mph (22 km/h), without proper roads.
218. An old wives’ tale stated that wearing high heels during pregnancy will cause your child to be born cross-eyed
219. The king did not sign the Magna Carta. There is some doubt whether King John could even write. It was official because his wax seal was affixed
220. According to Wyatt Earp’s biography, gunslingers often carried two guns but they always shot with one hand
221. The word democracy does not appear in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution
222. Connecticut and Rhode Island were the only states not to ratify the Eighteen Amendment (Prohibition Amendment)
223. Hemlock, the poison that killed Socrates, is in the carrot family
224. Bears do not truly hibernate. Their heart rate, breathing and temperature are not low enough to meet the criterion.
225. Turning a stove up to boil things in an open receptacle faster does not actually lower cooking time when the water is over 212F degrees
226. Generally, the longer a language has been in use, the simpler its grammer. Example – Modern English is much simpler grammatically than Old English
227. Icing on an aircraft wing bring the plane down because it alters the shape of the airfoil and decreases lift
228. After officially changing the name of Constantinople to Istanbul in 1923, Turkey refused to deliver mail with the city’s older name on it
229. Joan of Arc was born outside of France in the city of Domremy, in what was the independent Duchy of Lorraine. She also wasn’t particularly poor – her father was the richest person in that town and co-rented a chateau
230. Technically, you can only be someone’s “heir” after they die. Before that you are their “devisee”
231. “Liquor”, used to mean any liquid. “Meat” meant any type of food.
3. Nothing in U.S. law forbids a person from mutilating or destroying coins, but it is illegal to try to use them again as currency
232. The only salmon species to die after spawning is the United States Pacific Coast Salmon
233. Sap does not rise or fall in a tree – it moves from the center of the tree to the surface then back
3. Besides water, he only other natural substance that is less dense as a solid than a liquid is bismuth
234. A “nightmare” originally referred to a mara (ghost, specter) who perched on a sleeper’s chest and deprived him/her of motion and speech
235. The Panama Canal is not straight. At one point, on Gatun Lake, it runs due south
236. Smoke form burning poison ivy can be just as itchy to the skin as direct contact with the plant
237. A possum’s tail can not support its own weight
238. The only manuscript of any length in Old English to survive to the present day is one copy of Beowulf (7th-9th century), and it has charred edges from a house fire in 1722
239. The first car to be sold with an engine in the front was an 1895 Panhard-Levassor
240. The Lusitania was armed with six-inch guns that were capable of sinking a submarine
241. It will not help you lose weight to substitute margarine for butter They have the same caloric content
242. Coca-Cola’s original advertising slogan was “Sold at all founts and carbonated in bottles, 5 cents.”
243. The “miniature” of miniature portraits has nothing to do with the size of the painting. It comes from the Latin miniatus, which means to color with red lead
244. French composer Jean Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), was conducting an orchestra so vigorously that he stabbed his toe with the baton. It later became infected and killed him
245. It takes less energy to fill a tank with liquid by forcing it up through the bottom than it does to fill it from the top
246. Sitting Bull did not actually fight at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Crazy Horse took care of Custer
247. Canadian troops surrendered Hong Kong to the Japanese on December 25, 1941
248. In 1837, Boston banned bathing except for specific medical necessity. In 1871, Tucson, Arizona had 3,000 people and one bathtub
249. Greek philosopher Empedocles (490-430 BC), was the man who came up with the idea that everything was made of earth, fire, water and air
250. Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s wife’s full name was Sophia von Chotkowa und Wognin, duchess of Hohenberg. He married her for love and this caused a big scandal in his family
251. In 1947, Gerty Radnitz Cori was the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize for Medicine
252. Famous French chef Escoffier, once promoted kitchen helper Ho Chih Minh to a pastry chef
253. The winged hat worn by the Greek god Hermes is called a “pelasos”
254. Cree Indians used smoking pipes as currency
255. Alexander the Great conquered his empire in 13 years
256. There is no record of Patrick Henry actually saying, “Give me liberty or give me death”
257. At the Berlin Olympics in 1936, Jesse Owens was waved at by Hitler and he waved back after receiving one of his Olympic medals (I looked this one up twice, just to make sure)
258. Early French balloonists seriously considered harnessing a team of vultures to steer hot air balloons
259. A bridal veil in ancient Rome was also used later as a burial shroud
260. Early European jester made balloons out of animal bladders and intestines to entertain
261. Roman Emperor Nero could not have fiddled while Rome burned – they had not been invented yet
262. Thomas Jefferson was the first president to use a handshake instead of a bow on official occasions
263. The test H-bomb dropped on Bikini Atoll had a pin-up photo of actress Rita Hayworth on it
264. In 17th century America, the average woman gave birth to 13 children
265. August Rodin’s famous sculpture, The Thinker, was intended to be part of a great pair of doors
266. The Cathedral of Notre Dame’s gargoyles were added 50 years after the church was complete
267. Donald Duck was Mussolini’s favorite cartoon character
268. During WWII, the U.S. never declared war on two Axis powers, Thailand and Finland
269. Aztecs sacrificed up to 15,000 people a year to their sun god
270. Outlaw Ned Kelly wore a homemade armored suit in his last stand against Australian authorities
271. Julius Ceasar made history by crossing the Rubicon, but today we don’t know where it is
272. Hitler personally saved one Jew from the death camps – composer Richard Strauss’s daughter-in-law
273. In 1839, Maine and New Brunswick, Canada fought a bloodless “War of Pork and Beans”
274. The airfield from which Charles Lindbergh began his famous trip is now a shopping center
275. The Liberty Bell was nearly sold for scrap in 1828
276. Author Charles Dicken’s (Oliver Twist, David Copperfield) son was a Royal Canadian Mountie
277. In 1813, a British doctor turned some of King Charles I’s vertebrae into a saltshaker
278. Epitaph on a tombstone in Uniontown, PA – “Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake. Stepped on the gas instead of the brake”
279. Rolihlahla Mandela’s schoolteacher renamed him Nelson in honor of Admiral Horatio Nelson
280. After Waterloo, Napoleon tried to escape to the U.S., but was captured by a British warship
281. Apollo 13 was launched at 13:13, military time, and was aborted on Friday, April 13
282. The first black person in space was Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez on September 18, 1980
283. FDR had a 25,000-piece stamp collection worth millions of dollars
284. Before 1492, no Native-Americans had type B blood
285. In 1873, Mark Twain was granted a patent for the self-pasting scrapbook
286. The day that JFK was killed in Dallas, Richard Nixon was across town at a Pepsi convention
287. Chinese leaders, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping both died of complications from Parkinson’s disease
288. John Adam’s wife Abigail used to hang the wash in the White House East Room
289. Watergate conspirator H.R. Haldeman ended up owning a string of Sizzler restaurants in Florida
290. The de Medici family (Italian Renaissance) had a dollhouse inhabited by dwarves
291. A socialist, Francis Bellamy, wrote the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance
292. Scalping was originally a Dutch idea
293. Connecticut, Georgia and Massachusetts did not ratify the Bill of Rights until 1941
294. An army of gauchos (cowboys) helped win freedom for Uruguay in 1825
295. To pick a wife, Ivan the Terrible had 1,500 women sent to Moscow to choose from
296. As a Member of Parliament, Isaac Newton only spoke once. He asked someone to open a window
297. In 1969, Pan-Am began accepting reservations for commercial moon flights. They sold 92,000 tickets
298. Jockeys are strapped to their mounts with Velcro during camel races in Abu Dhabi
299. The longest kiss in the Guinness Book of World Records is 417 hours
300. If a pin was heated to the same temperature as the center of the sun, its heat would set alight everything within 60 miles of it
301. The elephant is the only nonhuman animal ever to be taught to use a sword
302. The god Thor rode in a chariot drawn by two fierce billy goats named Tanngniost (Toothgnasher) and Tanngrisnir (Toothgrinder)
303. Fourth-century French queen, Isabel of Bavaria liked to paint her face with a concoction of boars brains, wolf’s blood and crocodile glands
304. In 2005, Venetian gondoliers became subject to breathalyzer tests
305. Between 1520 and 1630, some 30,000 people were reported to the French authorities for being werewolves
306. In Japanese, tsujigiri means “trying out a sword on a chance passerby”
307. A popliteal is the hollow at the back of one’s knee
308. The Roman Emperor Augustus always carried a sealskin amulet he thought could protect him from his greatest fear – lightning strikes
309. In 1950, a four-month-old kitten followed a party of mountain climbers to the top of the Matterhorn (14,692 ft)
310. In 2006, more people were kicked to death by donkeys than died in plane crashes (worldwide)
311. The 1978 Diagram Prize (awarded for the oddest book title at the Frankfurt Book Fair) went to – Proceedings Of The Second International Workshop On Nude Mice
312. One of Leonardo da Vinci’s less well-known inventions was an alarm clock that woke the sleeper by gently rubbing his feet
313. Liechtenstein is the world’s largest exporter of false teeth
314. Wedding rings are worn on the third finger of the left hand because Romans believed that a nerve led directly from there to the heart
315. William Moulton Marston invented the polygraph (lie detector) and created the comic book character Wonder Woman
316. In 1808, two men called de Grandpre and le Pique had a duel in balloons after a dispute over a woman. Le Pique’s balloon was punctured and he crashed to his death
317. In Paris in 1740, a cow was hanged in public following its conviction for sorcery
318. The Carpenter frog has a croak that sounds like a hammer hitting a nail
319. A “jiffy” has become standardized as 1/100th of a second
320. In old English, the month of May was called Thrimilce – the season when you could milk cows three times in a day
321. Giant pandas are related to bears, lesser pandas are related to raccoons – both species bleat like a goat
322. Pablo Picasso’s full name was Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso
323. Inmates of the Dutra Ladiera Prison in Brazil run a pizza-delivery service both in and out of the jail
324. One pound of polar bear liver contains enough vitamin A to fulfill a human’s requirements for twenty years
325. There are three words in English that rhyme with purple –
Curple – a strap on a horse’s saddle
Hirple – to walk with a limp
Turple – to fall or tumble
326. St. Petersburg, Russia has a kick-boxing school for nannies. They are trained to foil kidnappers
327. Asbestos was originally thought to be the wool of a salamander
328. In 1992, J. Coleman-McGhee skipped a stone across water 38 times for a world’s record
329. Pregnant women used to avoid eating strawberries, for fear that it would give their babies a birth-mark
330. Snails can crawl across the edge of a razor blade without injury
331. According to a Univ. of Tennessee study, people that use sign language are five times more likely to suffer hand and wrist injuries than the general populace
332. Romans called soccer “pila pedalis” or foot-ball. England banned the sport twice in 1349 and 1424
333. In 1994, Edward Doughney patented a latex ladder to enable spiders to climb out of tubs
334. In 1825, railway pioneer George Stephenson assured the public that trains would never exceed 25 mph
335. In the 1600’s. Queen Christina of Sweden had a miniature cannon made to shoot tiny cannonballs at fleas
336. George Washington died with three of his own teeth. His dentures (several sets) were made from elephant tusks, lead, hippo teeth, cow teeth, human teeth and walrus tusk
337. The main tower of the castle of Coucy in France was so large it had a full sized fishpond on the roof
338. President Santa Anna of Mexico (1795-1836) had his leg amputated after a battle wound. He kept it in his house from 1838-42, when he had a ceremonial burial. It was stolen in 1844 during a riot in Mexico City
339. Canned food was invented in 1810 but a modern can opener was not invented until 1870
340. In 2001, a blue-fin tuna was auctioned at a Tokyo seafood market for $227,000 – about $511 per pound
341. Unicorns used to be described by ancient Greeks as having a white body and purple head. Its horn was 5 ft long and had a white base, black middle and red tip
342. In 1999, over 900 Americans took out insurance policies against becoming vampires or werewolves
343. Vatican City and Taiwan are the only countries that are not members of the United
Nations
345. 89% of walruses use their right flipper when eating mollusks
346. It is illegal for tourists to take a photograph of a pygmy in Zambia
347. According to Sclater’s Mammals of South Africa, Hippopotamus steak tastes a lot like pork chops
348. The last thing Elvis Presley ate was four scoops of ice cream and six chocolate chip cookies
349. Since Texas was an independent country, it may fly it’s state flag at the same height as the Stars and Stripes
350. Ireland used to be known as Greater Scotia and Scotland is believed to take its name from the Scotti tribe of Ireland
351. The smallest guitar in the world is made of silicon and is 1/20th the thickness of a human hair
352. A hatband has no functional purpose. It is a relic of ancient Egyptian headbands worn to keep hair in place while traveling
353. Lyndon Johnson is the first president to wear contact lenses
354. The Custer Battlefield monument in Montana boasts the world’s first solar-powered toilet
355. The millipede Illacme has 750 legs
356. Lobsters urinate when startled
357. John Logie Baird invented television on January 27, 1926
358. The hole in the center of a CD is the exact size of a Dutch 10-cent coin, which is no longer in use
359. Another name for a polar bear is thalassarctine – from the Greek arktos – “bear” and thalassa – “sea”
360. 50% of the world’s cork comes from Portugal
361. In 1952, “Mr. Potato Head” was the first toy advertised on television
362. If all the Egyptian pyramids were dismantled, they would provide enough stone to build a wall 10 ft. high and 5 ft. wide from Iraq to Britain
363. Only one quagga (an extinct relative of the zebra) was ever photographed alive. Five pictures were taken of one in 1870
364. The state of Queensland, Australia has 120 species of snake. 20 are “dangerous” and 16 are “likely fatal”
365. The gauge of the tracks on the British railway system is equal to the distance between the wheels of a Roman chariot
366. Discounting wind, the maximum speed of a raindrop is 18 mph
367. In 1988, The New York health department reveled that they had treated 8,064 dog bites, 1,587 bites from other people and one penguin bite
368. Natives of the South Pacific Island of Mangia had never heard of kissing until the 1700’s
369. The country of St. Kitts and Nevis consist of two islands, one shaped like a bat and one like a ball
370. Garlic is strongly attractive to leeches
371. Nearly a quarter of all your bones are in your feet
372. A male ferret is called a “hob” and a female is a “jill”. A group of ferrets is called a “business”
373. In 1998, the city of Bogota, Colombia introduced poetry reading on buses to reduce stress levels
374. Australian Fitzroy River tortoises breathe through their mouth on land and absorb oxygen through the skin on their bottom when underwater
375. The Museum of Burnt Food is located in Arlington, Massachusetts
376. An Alphonsin is a surgical appliance designed to remove a bullet
377. The butterfly stroke in swimming was invented by German Eric Rademacher in 1926
378. The first dogs to return alive from space were Belka (“Squirrel”) and Strelka (“Little Arrow”) in 1960. Strelka later had a pup that the Soviet government gave to President Kennedy
379. “Hello” was coined by Thomas Edison specifically for the phone. Before then it had generally been “hullo”
380. General Manuel Noriega, former president of Panama is prisoner number 38699-079 at the Federal Metropolitan Correctional Facility in Miami
381. On April 20, 1987, Fukashi Kazami of Japan became the first person to reach the North Pole on a motorcycle
382. Paper was invented by a Chinese eunuch named Ts’ai Lun around 105 AD.
383. The world’s first pizzeria was the Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba in Naples, Italy – it opened in 1830 and is still in business today
383. The King of Hearts is the only playing card king without a moustache
384. Popeye the sailor was the first cartoon character to have a statue erected in his honor. It was put up by Crystal City, Texas – “The spinach capital of the world”
385. If a powerful magnet is placed next to bees building a hive, they will construct it in the shape of a cylindrical cone
386. The first episode of South Park was made with paper cutouts – all the rest are computer animation
387. In 1910, Romanian Henri Coanda built a biplane powered by something much like a jet engine. The first true jet did not fly until 1936
388. The first e-mail was sent by computer engineer Ray Tomlinson in 1971. It was a test message that said “QWERTYUIOP”
389. Project Orion was a 1947 U.S. government plan to build enormous spacecraft powered by dropping a series of nuclear bombs out the back and riding the shock waves
390. Winston Churchill suffered from periodic bouts of depression which he referred to as his “black dog”
391. The average human grows two meters of nose hair from each follicle
392. The town of Avon, Colorado used to hold an annual “Bobfest” for people named Bob
393. Buffaloes are so buoyant that their head, hump and tail are always above the water
394. A skunk can shoot its pungent spray a distance of 15 ft.
395. Charles VIII of France died in 1498 after hitting his head on a lintel above a door leading to a tennis court
396. Wayne Kusy of Evanston, Illinois made a 16 ft replica of the luxury liner Lusitania using 193,000 toothpicks
397. In 1979 the weekly magazine National Enquirer offered Dr. Christian Bernard (1st heart transplant doctor) $250,000 to transplant a human head
398. Potatoes were used as currency on the island of Tristan da Cunha until 1942
399. Only two dwarfs have ever been documented to live past the age of 100
400. The first weaving looms were started in Bristol, England by a man named Thomas Blanket
401. In 1913, South Africa exported $5,200,000 worth of ostrich feathers
402. On August 28, 1988 the Yantlee Polyclinic in Bangkok, Thailand published a claim that you can get rid of hunger by pressing lettuce seeds into your ears ten times before a meal
403. The Georgian language seems to be unrelated to any other and uses a thirty-eight letter alphabet, called Mxedruli
404. Project Twinkle and Project Grudge were both names of official U.S. government investigations into flying saucers
405. There is a type of flea that can live only on a hedgehog
406. Cats with a type of glaucoma that deposits a thick blue film over their eyes are considered good luck in Thailand and are called “diamond-eye” cats
407. In 2001, Dutch scientists found a way to use wasps to detect drugs and explosives. Their antenna more sensitive than a dogs’ nose
408. The composer Richard Wagner only wore pink underwear
409. The oldest ice core from Antarctica records 740,000 years of the Earth’s climate
410. The Great Slave Lake in northern Canada is named after a tribe that lived along the lake. The neighboring Cree tribe named them “anowak” which means slaves
411. The United States kept the 1,000 year-old royal crown of Hungary in Fort Knox from 1945 until it was returned in 1978
412. Chromium is the 21st most abundant element in the Earth’s crust
413. Woodpeckers have zygodactyl feet – two toes in front and two on the back
414. Most states require cattle branding irons have a face 3/8th’s of an inch wide and be at least four inches in length
415. According to the Book of Enoch in the Apochrypha (rejected books of the Bible), Noah was an albino
416. Roman barbers dressed cuts with spiders’ webs soaked in vinegar
417. The ancient Egyptians called Mars “Har Decher”, the Red One
418. Jacques Andre Cesar Charles launched the first hydrogen-filled balloon from Paris on Aug. 27, 1783. It came down 15 miles away where terrified peasants attacked and destroyed it.
419. The human liver performs over 500 chemical functions
420. The Manicouagan impact crater in Quebec is over 40 miles in diameter and is now a large circular lake
421. In December of 2007, Zimbabwe had an inflation rate of 66,212.3% and the unofficial exchange rate for it’s currency was 7.1 million Zimbabwe dollars for 1 U.S. dollar
422. Because of unique climatic and geologic conditions, stones at the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California move on their own across the landscape for quite some distance
423. The Vulcan “live long and prosper” hand gesture is based on a Jewish priestly blessing
424. According to tradition, the Star card in a Tarot deck can have two meanings. If it is upright, it signifies fresh hope and renewal. If it is reversed, it means lack of trust and self-doubt
425. Richard Donner, the director of “The Goonies” has a model of the ship from the movie in his office
426. The 1964 childrens toy, “Creepy Crawler Thingmaker” from Mattel, came with a series of molds, tubes of “plastigoop” and an open faced fryer, which could heat up to 310 degrees
427. Michelangelo produced the stunning blues (ultramarine) in his paintings by grinding up the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli to make the pigment
428. Chaka Khan’s biggest hit, “I Feel For You” was originally written by Prince. In that same song, Stevie Wonder did the harmonica solos, and Melle Mel of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five did the rap breaks. Hence the lyric: “Chaka Khan…Ch-ch-ch-ch-Chaka Khan.”
429. In nature, a gravitational mass larger than the planet Jupiter is needed to contain a fusion reaction
430. The oldest fossil of a large active predator is Anomalocaris, an arthropod with a circular mouth made up of 32 overlapping plates that resembles a pineapple ring. It is from the Cambrian (505 million years old)
431. The percentage of essential oils (aromatic compounds) mixed in with denatured alcohol will result in different labels on a perfume bottle:
-Perfume has 22%
-Eau de Parfume, has between 15 and 22%
-Eau de Toilette has 8 to 15%
-Eau de Cologne has 4%
432. The head of the Hitler Youth, Baldur von Schirach, had an American grandfather who was an honorary pallbearer at Abraham Lincoln’s funeral
433. The Gingko tree was thought to be extinct but a small number had been cultivated for centuries in Buddhist monasteries in China and eventually seeds were exported in 1192 AD to Japan
434. Bowler hats were originally designed to protect gamekeepers’ heads from low hanging branches while on horseback. They had previously worn top hats that were easily knocked off
435. Thirty-two tornadoes broke out from Oklahoma to Wisconsin during the winter on January 24, 1967
436. Until the 1920’s, all jigsaw puzzles were hand cut from wood – expensive to create, thus only affordable for the upper class
437. Although well known for his addiction to alcohol today, W.C. Fields rarely touch alcohol until he was in his mid-thirties. He began his career in vaudeville as a juggler – he could not afford to drink, as his acts demanded soberness in order to succeed
438. Kentucky Representative William Jordan Graves killed Maine Representative Jonathan Cilley in a pistol duel on February 24, 1838. Congress then passed a law making it illegal to duel in Washington D.C.
439. Vince Carter dunked while leaping over 7’2’’ French center Frederic Weis in the 2000 Summer Olympics. The French media dubbed it “le dunk de la mort” – “the dunk of death”
440. The band AC/DC is popularly known as “Acca Dacca” in their native Australia
441. Bacteria have the ability to take up raw DNA fragments
442. The name marmot comes from the Old French marmontaine, which means “mountain mouse”
443. Knots can lower the strength of ropes by 25-50%
434. Supernovas (or supernovae) occur about once every 50 years in a galaxy the size of the Milky Way
435. Members of the royal Habsburg family were traditionally buried with their hearts in a separate silver box
436. There are more manufacturing jobs in Los Angeles County than the entire state of Michigan
437. The individual metal fan blades in a high-pressure gas turbine jet engine are cast and cooled in such a way that they form a single crystal – this allows them to withstand a 250-degree increase in temperature from normal metal blades without melting
438. Benjamin Franklin had the habit of rising early each day and sitting naked for half an hour either reading or writing
439. The dance known as the foxtrot was invented by Harry Fox in 1914
440. The pulse of a healthy elephant is only 25 beats per minute
441. Obscure English measurements-
1 rod/perch = 16.5 ft
1 chain = 22 yds
1 furlong = 40 rods = 220 yds
1 hand = 4 inches
1 mil = 0.001 inch
442. During the Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1940, the Finns placed massive sheets of cellophane over several frozen lakes to make them look like open water from the air. Russian tanks would then avoid driving over the lakes and flank the Finnish positions
443. Seth Macfarlane (Family Guy) was given voice training by a 90-year-old couple that had also trained Frank Sinatra
444. The “Hayflick limit” states that human cells cultured in a lab can only double about 50 times before they stop reproducing and age.
445. Many of the channels of major rivers in Wyoming are older than the mountain ranges they flow through and cut paths through them as the mountains rose
446. The first Japanese baseball team, the Shinbashi Athletics was organized in 1878 by railroad engineer Hiroshi Hiraoka, an ardent Boston Red Sox fan from his days as a student in the United States
447. An adult moose eats between 40 – 60 lbs. of draws moisture from your mouth. This is why it sticks
448. There is only a 5% chance a baby will be born on its “due date” and only a 25% that it will be delivered within four days of its scheduled arrivalfood a day, but does not eat much grass
449. The high protein content of peanut butter
450. A Polish priest, Fr. Casimer Zeglin invented a bulletproof vest and contacted President McKinley to give him one for his safety. McKinley’s personal secretary expressed interest and scheduled an appointment right after the President returned from a trip to Buffalo, N.Y. – where ironically, he was fatally shot
451. Of the ten highest mountains in the world, eight are found in Nepal
452. Many former NFL players have donated their brains to Boston University Medical School. This school is studying the long-term affects of multiple concussions
453. The Grand Prairie Airhogs (a minor league baseball team) once had a stadium giveaway for a free funeral offered to a “lucky” fan
454. The ape in the original movie King Kong (1933) was 18 inches high and covered in rabbit fur
455. If a person suffers from blepharospasms, they wink uncontrollably
456. In Turkey, the turkey is called the “American bird”
457. The left hand of a skilled typist does 56% of the work
458. It is accepted by many historians that the first modern university was founded in Bologna, Italy in the eleventh century
459. Ants don’t sleep
460. The act of piracy is specifically mentioned for punishment in the U.S. Constitution. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 10 states that Congress shall have the power “to define and punish piracies committed on the high seas.”
461. In September of 2008, A Swiss man named Yves Rossy became the first person to fly across the English Channel with a pair of wings and a jet engine strapped to his back
462. Marco Polo was not Italian. He was born Marko Pilic in what is now Porcula, Croatia
463. The only frogs in the world that actually sound like they are saying “ribbit” are the Pacific tree frogs that live around Hollywood. They were recorded in the 1930’s and used as background in movie jungle scenes from around the world
464. The earth technically has seven “moons”. Besides the Moon, there are 6 other “Near Earth” asteroids that follow the Earth around the Sun but are invisible to the naked eye
465. The way that asteroid belts are portrayed in movies is inaccurate. The average distance between asteroids large enough to cause damage to a space ship are about 1.25 million miles apart
466. Some trees such as oak and willows release ozone that can poison nearby vegetation
467. A rhino’s horn is made of keratin and can sometimes unravel if damaged. Asian rhinos do not charge, they bite when showing aggression
468. Charles Lindbergh created the first artificial heart. It is made of glass and now resides in a display case at Rockefeller University
469. Hippos have been observed multiple times dragging a shark out of the ocean and trampling it to death
470. Napoleon’s Chief of Staff, Alexandre Berthier bought thousands of tamed rabbits for a “hunting party” that the Emperor was hosting. When released, all the rabbits immediately ran towards the hunting party (expecting to be fed) scattering the men and humiliating Napoleon
471. Besides, being on a U.S. one dollar bill, E pluribus unum (out of the many, one) is the motto of the Portuguese football club Sport e Lisboa y Benifica
472. The first plastic artificial teeth were made out of celluloid. They tasted like ping-pong balls and tended to melt if you drank hot liquids
473. Yankee is from the 1680’s and comes from the Dutch word Janke, which means “Little John”
474. Samuel Clemens stole the name “Mark Twain” from Captain Isaiah Sellers (1802-1863) who used it as his pen name when he was a reporter for the New Orleans Picayune newspaper
475. Bangkok, Thailand is known to the locals as Grung Tape, which means “City of Angels” (the same as Los Angeles)
476. By volume, the largest single cohesive man-made thing on earth is the Fresh Kills landfill near New York City. It has more volume than the Great Wall of China
477. The coldest place in the Universe was in Helsinki, Finland. In 2003, a team from Helsinki University of Technology cooled a piece of rhodium to a tenth of a billionth of a degree from absolute zero
478. Some average human life spans through the ages:
Neanderthal – 29 years
Cro-Magnon – 32
Copper Age – 36
Bronze Age – 38
Greeks and Romans – 36
5th Century England – 30
14th Century England – 38
17th Century Netherlands – 51
18th Century France – 45
20th Century Japan – 81
479. Fiberglass was patented by John H. Thomas of Newark, Ohio on October 11, 1938. Is was known as glass wool
480. The hydrogen used to fill early dirigibles were manufactured by a slow process using sulfuric acid and iron filings
481. The Republic of Vermont declared its independence in 1777. It officially joined the United States on February 18, 1791
482. Western Union sent singing telegrams to people only by phone after 1950
483. Quincy, Massachusetts was the first school to have separate classrooms for each class (1846)
484. Herbert “Zeppo” Marx (of the Marx Brothers) invented coupling devices used to release the atomic bombs over Japan in 1945
485. Bootlegger and murderer Isaie Beausoliel was on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list from 1939 and 1953. To avoid capture, he dressed as a woman in public for 14 years and went by the name Rita Bennett
486. Baseball great Leroy “Satchel” Paige pitched three shutout innings for Kansas City in 1965 at the age of 59 – thus becoming the oldest person to ever play in a major league game
487. The French National Library processes the blood-splattered document that Robespierre (French Revolution) was writing when he was shot. He survived but was guillotined the next day – facing up
488. A human can tolerate a maximum radiation dosage of 1,000 rads. The bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans can survive a whopping 1.5 million rads or 3 million rads when frozen. It is pink and smells like rotten cabbage
489. Snake charmers depend on three things for their act:
- Cobras rear straight up when threatened and sway to sight of the musical instrument. They do not react at all to the sound
2. They usually only have to strike the instrument once to know they will be hurt and never do it again
3. Most of the cobras are defanged
490. Despite the name, violin strings were never made of catgut. All violin strings before 1750 were made of sheep’s gut. Modern strings are a combination of gut, steel and nylon
491. In 1944, RAF tailgunner – Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade jumped from his burning bomber and fell from 18,000 feet without a parachute. His fall was broken by a pinetree and then a snowdrift. He broke no bones and only suffered a sprained ankle
492. All chickens in the world are descended from a kind of pheasant called the Red Jungle Fowl (Gallus gallus gallus) found primarily in Thailand
493. Chihuahuas are not native of
Mexico but were probably brought by Spanish merchants from China
494. Atlas was condemned by Zeus to hold up the sky, not the Earth. Early illustrations have him holding a globe, but it is filled with stars
495. During WWI both Germany and Austria ran short on cotton so they made their uniforms largely from the fiber of nettles with a little cotton mixed in
496. The first animals in space were fruit flies loaded on to an American version of a German V2 rocket in 1946
497. All mammals have seven neck vertebrae except manatees and sloths
498. The first man to circumnavigate the globe was a Ferdinand Magellan’s Philippine slave and interpreter Enrique de Malaca known as “Henry the Black”. Despite Magellan freeing Enrique in his will, the second in command Juan Sebastian Elcano refused to honor his wishes. Enrique escaped but Elcano unjustly garnered fame and fortune for being the first man to circle the globe instead of the interpreter
499. Christopher Columbus learned to speak Spanish but with a marked Portuguese accent. He also wrote a diary in Greek
500. Six specially trained sea lions are employed by the U.S. navy off the coast of Iraq for mine detection
501. The man on the Quaker Oats box was painted by Haddon Sundblom in 1957. He was the artist who essentially invented the modern version of Santa Claus for Coca-cola in the 1930’s
502. Adolph Hitler was not a vegetarian because he was against eating meat. He suffered from chronic flatulence – his doctors (rather oddly) recommended a more vegetarian diet to control his gas
503. The longest animal in the world is a bootlace worm (Lineus longissimus) which reaches lengths of almost 200 feet
504. Carrots were first cultivated by humans in Afghanistan in about 3,000 B.C. – they were purple on the outside and yellow on the inside. Orange carrots come from 16th century Holland
505. Coconut husks are used by Daimler-Chrysler to make biodegradable seats for their trucks
506. Boomerangs were originally used by Aborigines to imitate hawks in order to drive game birds into nets strung between trees
507. In Charles Perrault’s original version of Cinderella written in the 17th century, her slippers are made of squirrel fur
508. Bathtub loofahs are not sponges but are the vines of a kind of gourd that are regarded a tasty snack throughout Asia
509. The average pencil can be sharpened 17 times and can draw a straight line 30-35 miles long
510. The log cabin came to America via Swedish and Finnish settlements in Delaware in the 1630’s
511. In northern China an estimated 40 million people currently live in cave homes called yaodong
512. Chameleons don’t change color to match their background. Their color shifts as a result of their different emotional states
513. “Mike the Headless Chicken” lived two years (1945-1947) after the ax he was being killed with missed the bird’s jugular vein and left enough of the brain stem to keep him alive. Mike’s owner was making $4,500 a month on tourists who came to see his chicken
514. When given unlimited access to mice, cats will kill about 15 before stopping
515. The weight of the sun’s light on the Earth’s surface is 2 lbs. per square mile
516. The common midge beats its wings 133,000 times/min
517. Sigmund Freud had morbid fear of ferns
518. An 18th century German named Matthew Birchinger played four musical instruments, including a bagpipe, despite the fact that he had no hands or legs.
519. Koala is Aboriginal for “no drink”
520. Abraham Lincoln’s mother died when the family dairy cow ate poisonous mushrooms and Mrs. Lincoln drank the milk
521. Surrealist artist Salvador Dali once arrived at an art exhibition in a limousine filled with turnips
522. At one point, the Panama Canal was going to be built across Nicaragua
513. Sunbeams that shine through clouds are called crepuscular rays
514. A modern silicon chip has more power than the 1949 computer ENIAC which occupied an entire city block
515. Poison-dart frogs bred in captivity eventually become non-toxic due to diet
516. Children between the ages two and seven color, on average, for twenty-eight minutes a day
517. In 1936, track star Jesse Owens beat a race horse in a 100 yard dash. The horse was given a head start
518. Nearly all sumo wrestlers have flat feet
519. Leonardo da Vinci invented modern scissors
520. The metal part at the end of a pencil is 20% sulfur
521. 30,000 monkeys were used in a massive three-year effort to classify the various types of polio
522. Schools of 12 ft. Pacific Humboldt squid can catch and strip a 600 lb. marlin to the bone within an hour
523. Ancient Romans believed that birds only mated on February 14th.
524. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher
525. Bruce Lee was so fast that his films actually had to be slowed down so audiences could see his moves
526. Influenza got its name because people believed that the disease was do to of the evil “influence” of the stars
527. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison were all twenty-seven years old when they died
528. The average woman consumes six pounds of lipstick in their lifetime
529. The first man to ever set foot in Antarctica was John Davis on February 7, 1821
530. To keep cool, ostriches urinate on their legs; it then evaporates like sweat
531. Charlie Chaplin once won third place in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.
532. Mario, of Super Mario Bros. Fame, first appeared in the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong. His original name was Jumpman, but that was changed to Mario to honor Nintendo of America, Inc.’s landlord, Mario Segali
533. The words assassination and bump were invented by Shakespeare
534. In England in the 1880’s, pants was considered a dirty word.
535. The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma in an emergency.
536. The yo-yo originated in the Philippines, where it was used as a hunting weapon
537. A donkey will sink in quicksand but a mule won’t.
538. In Helsinki, Finland, instead of giving parking tickets, the police usually deflate tires.
539. Tom Sawyer was the first novel written on a typewriter.
540. Four hundred McDonald’s Quarter Pounders can be made out of one cow.
541. Kittens have been clocked at thirty-one miles an hour at full speed and can cover three times their body length per leap.
542. In the nineteenth century, the British Navy attempted to dispel the superstition that Friday was an unlucky day to embark on a ship. The keel of a new ship was laid on a Friday; she was named HMS Friday, commanded by Captain Friday. The ship disappeared on her first voyage, never to be heard from again.
543. The English word soup comes from the Medieval word sop, which means a slice of bread over which roast drippings were poured
544. The characters of Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life
545. Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball
546. In 1983, a Japanese artist made a copy of the Mona Lisa completely out of toast
547. Wilma Flintstone’s maiden name was Wilma Slaghoople and Betty Rubble’s was Betty Jean McBricker
548. The old Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan “Finger-lickin’ good” came out as “Eat your fingers off” in Chinese
549. Assuming Rudolph was in front, there are 40,320 ways to rearrange the other reindeer
550. Seabirds have salt-excreting organs above their eyes that enable them to drink seawater; sea snakes have a similar organ at the base of their tongues
551. There are five trillion atoms in one pound of iron
552. George Washington had to borrow money to go to his own inauguration
553 The name of Jabba the Hutt’s pet is Salacious Crumb
554. The expression “getting someone’s goat” is based on the custom of keeping a goat in the stable with a racehorse as the horse’s companion. The goat becomes a settling influence for the Thoroughbred. If you owned a competing horse and were not above some dirty business, you could steal your rival’s goat (it’s been done) to upset the other horse and make it run a poor race
555. In a deck of cards, the nine of hearts represents love and the ace of spades symbolizes death
556. The first U.S. coin to bear the words “United States of America” was a penny made in 1727. It was also inscribed with the phrase, “Mind your own business.”
557. Most toilets flush in E flat
558. Anise (licorice) is the scent on the artificial rabbit that is used in greyhound races
559. Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the death of their cats
560. It takes a plastic container 50,000 years to start decomposing
561. In 1976, a Los Angeles secretary named Jannene Swift officially married a fifty-pound rock. The ceremony was witnessed by more than twenty people
562. The YKK on the zipper of Levi’s stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushibibaisha, the world’s largest zipper manufacturer
563. In certain parts of ancient India and China, mouse meat was considered a delicacy
564. Since the 1930’s, the town of Corona, California has lost all seventeen of the time capsules they originally buried
565. Before 1859, baseball umpires used to sit in rocking chairs behind home plate
566. Between 1902 and 1907, the same tiger killed 436 people in India
567. To survive, most birds must eat at least half their own weight in food each day
568. Pilgrims ate popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner
569. Pope Adrian VI died after a fly got stuck in his throat as he was drinking from a water fountain
570. Porcupines are excellent swimmers because their quills are hollow
571. At room temperature, the average air molecule travels at the speed of a rifle bullet
572. According to custom, a Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn’t give her coffee
573. A sheep, a duck and a rooster were the first passengers in a hot air balloon
574. The only purple animal is a South African Blesbock
575. In the late nineteenth century and the earlier years of the twentieth century, when gramophones or phonographs amplified the sound through large horns, woolen socks were often stuffed in them to cut down the noise; hence the phrase “put a sock in it”
576. Astronauts in orbit around the Earth can see the wakes of ships
577. Moisture, not air, causes superglue to dry
578. It is estimated that Americans consume ten million tons of turkey on Thanksgiving Day. Due to turkey’s high sulfur content, Americans also produce enough gas to fly a fleet of 75 Hindenburgs from Los Angeles to New York in 24 hours.
579. In Turkey, the color of mourning is violet. In most Muslim countries and in China, it is white
580. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses
581. Pirates thought that having an earring would improve their sight
582. The original name for a butterfly was the flutterby
583. You are more likely to lose your hearing than any of the other senses if hit by lightning
584. Due to precipitation, for a few weeks each year K2 is taller than Mt. Everest
585. The sixteenth-century astronomer Tycho Brahe lost his nose in a duel with one of his students over a mathematical computation. He wore a silver replacement nose for the rest of his life.
586. If you could scale-up spider silk strand to the thickness of a pencil – it could stop a Boeing 747 in flight
587. Statistically, the safest age is ten years old
588. The garfish has green bones
589. Woodpecker scalps, porpoise teeth and giraffe tails have all been used as money
590. One hundred and sixty cars can drive side by side on the Monumental Axis in Brazil, the world’s widest road
591. Plah-Doh was originally formulated as a compound to clean wallpaper
592. The number of cricket chirps you count in a fifteen-second interval, plus thirty seven, will tell you the current air temperature
593. Sunglasses date back to fifteenth-century China, where they were worn by judges to conceal their expressions while presiding over court
594. In most TV commercials and print advertisements, the hands on a watch/clock are set at 10:10
595. Cats have two sets of vocal chords
596. A recording of a camel’s moan was slowed down and used as the sound of a tornado in the movie Twister
597. The $ sign is a combination of the letters P and S, PS being the abbreviation for pesos, the principal coin in circulation in the U.S. until 1794, when we began making our own dollars
598. Wedding cake was originally thrown at the bride and groom, instead of eaten by them
599. There are approximately 1,750 O’s in every can of SpaghettiO’s
600. The man who commissioned the Mona Lisa hated it and refused to take the painting
601. Banks are commonly shaped like pigs because in the eighteenth century frugal people saved their money in earthenware jars made of dense orange clay known as pygg
602. If Jell-O is hooked up to an EEG, it registers movements virtually identical to the brain waves of a healthy adult
603. The smell of Crayola crayons has been proven to lower a person’s blood pressure
604. Juneau, Alaska is the largest city in the U.S. that cannot be reached by road
605. Tip is an acronym for “to insure promptness” and used to be given in advance for good service
606. There are estimated to be 3,000 quintillion individual living things on this planet. Of these, 75% are bacteria and 0.000000,000,000,000,000,00013% are human beings.
607. In 1971, it rained in Chile’s Atacama Desert for the first time since the 16th century
608. With enough training, an elephant can throw a baseball faster than a human
609. Goodyear once made a tire entirely made of corn
610. Kiwis are the only bird that hunts by smell
611. The children’s game Simon Says was originally called Do This, Do That
612. Mozart wrote the melody for “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” when he was five years old
613. Queen Elizabeth II was Time magazines “Man of the Year” in 1952
614. Red blood cells live for 4 months and make 75,000 trips to the lungs and back
615. Plants, like people, run fevers when they are sick
616. The Incas measured time by how long it took a potato to cook
617. Elvis had a pet monkey named Scatter
618. In 1977, New York hunters killed 83,204 deer and 7 fellow hunters
619. Broccoli was first introduced to the U.S. in the 1920’s
620. Early cowboy movie star Tom Mix had tires made with his initials imprinted on them so that he would leave a trail of “TM’s” along dirt roads
621. In 1916 Cumberland College’s football team lost to Georgia Tech 220-0
622. Columbus traveled at an average speed of 2.8 mph on his first voyage across the Atlantic
623. A giraffe can clean its ears with its tongue
624. A silver-spotted skipper caterpillar can propel its own feces five feet from its body
625. There is a replica of Bedrock, the town where the Flintstones lived, in Vail, Arizona
626. The scientific term for something that is football-shaped is a “prolate sheroid”
627. The Liberty Bell was made in England
628. Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, had six fingers on her left hand
629. Most wild birds only live 10% of their potential lifespan
630. A full human bladder is about the size of a softball
631. Mosquitos are attracted to the color blue
632. A 15 year-old was once charged with armed robbery after pointing his pet boa constrictor at a man and ordering him to hand over all of his cash
633. In some cases, ransom paid for a kidnap victim is tax-deductible
634. There is a species of butterfly in Brazil that has the color and fragrance of chocolate
635. The 1900 Olympic Games included croquet, fishing, billiards and checkers
636. The kilt originated in France
637. El Paso, Texas (pop. 612,000) is the largest U.S. city without a major league sports team
638. In a 1936 ping pong tournament, the players volleyed for over two hours on the opening serve
639. The average bank cashier loses $310 a year
640. A sygzygy occurs when three astronomical bodies line up
641. Herons have been observed “fishing” by dropping insects on the water then catching the fish that surface for the bait.
642. During the Cambrian Period, about 500 million years ago, a day was only 20.6 hours long
643. Pepsi is commonly used by wooden boat owners to clean mold from decks. It needs to be rinsed within thirty seconds or it begins to eat into the wood
644. The Old English word for sneeze is fneosam
645. Michael Jackson owned the rights to the South Carolina state anthem
646. A hailstone containing a carp fell in Essen, Germany
647. The record for the most snowfall in one day was set on February 7, 1916, in Alaska when seventy-eight inches fell
648. In 1987, a 1,400-year-old lump of still edible cheese was unearthed in Ireland
649. The first commercial vacuum cleaner was so large it was horse-drawn. People threw parties in their homes so guests could watch the device work
650. One Roman “cure” for stomachache was to wash their feet and then drink the water
651. The farthest point from any ocean is in China
652. If you drove a car from Earth at a constant speed of 100 mph, it would take about 221,000 million years reach the center of the Milky Way – which is a comparatively small galaxy
653. The first item ever sold on eBay was a broken laser printer, sold for $14 by the site’s creator
654. If one were to capture and bottle a comet’s 10,000-mile vapor trail, the amount of vapor actually present in the bottle would take up less than one cubic inch of space
655. The first land speed record in auto racing was set in 1903 by Alexander Winton – his speed was 68.18 mph
656. The largest living organism is a honey mushroom. It covers 3.4 square miles of land in eastern Oregon
657. Actor Sean Connery (1st James Bond) represented Scotland in the 1952 Mr. Universe pageant
658. The Kea, a 2 ft. long New Zealand mountain bird, has a habit of eating the strips of rubber around car windows
659. 1977 a thirteen-year-old boy found a tooth growing out of his left foot
660. It takes one ton of water to make one pound of refined sugar
661. To deliver all of his packages, Santa must deliver presents to about 823 houses a minute
662. The Earth weighs approximately 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons
663. On January 8, 1943, U.S. bread makers were forbidden from selling sliced loaves for the rest of WWII – it was never explained why
664. The first immigrant to pass through Ellis Island was 15-year-old Annie Moore in 1892. She was from County Cork, Ireland
665. Frederick the Great of Prussia tried to ban the consumption of coffee and demanded that the populace drink alcohol instead
666. The Nepalese word for the Abominable Snowman is Metohkangmi which means “the indescribably filthy man of the snow”
667. During a hundred-meter race, a top sprinter makes contact with the ground only some forty times
668. Queen Elizabeth II of England noted on a trip to Niagara Falls that, “It looks very damp”
669. Walt Disney had wooden teeth
670. The roaring lion in the MGM logo was named Volney and lived at the Memphis Zoo
671. The moon is one million times drier than the Gobi Desert
672. Liquid water was found inside a 4.5-year-old meteorite in 1999.
673. There is about 200 times more gold in the world’s oceans than has ever been mined in our entire history
674. The tallest woman ever recorded, Trijntje Cornelisdochter, was born in 1616 in Holland. She was 8 feet, 4 inches tall when she died aged 7 in 1633.
675. During the winter months, Romans drank hot wine
676. The Tokyo World Lanes Bowling Center is currently the largest bowling establishment, with 252 lanes
678. Marilyn Monroe’s ex-husband, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, had fresh roses put by her crypt three days a week for twenty years after her death
679. Your right lung takes in more air than your left lung
680. A Bedouin Arab wedding dish is roast camel, stuffed with a sheep, which is stuffed with chickens, which are stuffed with fish, which are stuffed with eggs
681. The smallest visible sunspots are about fifty times the size of Africa
682. On average, a cow experiences flatulence 16 times a day and produces 65 lbs. of manure
683. Mt. Everest used to be named “Peak 15”
684. A cat is 30% more likely to survive falling from the 16th floor than the 7th floor of a building. It takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is happening and correct its body to land correctly
685. A typical galaxy of one hundred billion stars produces less energy than a single quasar
686. The largest wave ever recorded was near the Japanese island of Ishigaki in 1971 – It was 279 feet high
687. The first diabetic to be injected with insulin was a 14-year-old boy named Leonard Thompson from Toronto, Canada in 1922
688. A magic potion or charm meant to make a specific person love you is known as a “philter”
689. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are Conquest, Slaughter, Famine and Death
690. A mile on land is 5,280 feet. A nautical mile is 6,080 feet
691. 1,274,953,680 uses all the digits from 0 through 9 and can be divided exactly by any number from 1 to 16
692. The first woman to run for President was Victoria Woodhall in 1872 – 48 years before women were granted the right to vote
693. The longest recorded lifespan of a slug is eighteen months
694. Cats in Halifax, Nova Scotia are much more likely to have six toes than any other place in Canada
695. Without an atmosphere, the surface temperature on the equator of the earth would be 176 F by day and -220 F at night
696. Raindrops are not shaped like tears, they are rounded on the top and flat at the bottom
697. The billionth decimal digit of the numerical value of pi is nine
698. Charles Dickens named the character Tiny Tim from the story A Christmas Carol only after trying the names Puny Pete, Little Larry and Small Sam
699. The word robot comes from the Czech word robotovat which means “to work very hard”
700. The largest cabbage ever grown weighed 144 pounds
701. Famed 17th century mathematician and scientist Blaise Pascal invented both the roulette wheel and built (when he was 18) a mechanical computing device called a Pascaline
702. The modern zipper was invented in 1913 but didn’t really catch on until the 1930’s
703. Edgar Allen Poe married his 13-year-old cousin
704. The first VCR was made in 1956 and was the size of a piano
705. Tobacconists used to put carrots in their tobacco bins to keep their product from drying out
706. Owls are the only birds that can see the color blue
707. President James Madison was 5’4’’ tall and weighed 98 pounds
708. A lump of cheese can be chopped into a maximum if 93 pieces with eight straight cuts
709. “Long in the tooth”, meaning “old” comes from aging horses. As they get older, their gums recede thus their teeth appear to grow.
710. The little lump of flesh just forward of your ear canal is called a tragus
711. There are 450 hairs in the average human eyebrow
712. Tic Tacs contain carnuba wax – the same ingredient found in many car waxes
713. Armadillos can be housebroken
714. The sloth can starve to death if the Sun’s heat does not raise the temperature of the digestive bacteria in its stomach. They are unable to digest food in the dark or cold weather
715. No new animals have been domesticated in the last 3,000 years
716. In the early episodes of Star Trek, Dr. McCoy’s medical scanner was an ordinary salt shaker
717. All the characters in the Flintstones have four fingers and three toes
718. Australia is the only continent without an active volcano
719. On November 29, 2000, Pope John Paul II was made an honorary Harlem Globetrotter
720. You burn more calories sleeping than watching TV
721. One human hair can support more than 6 ½ pounds
722. The actor Richard Gere’s middle name is Tiffany
723. The sirloin was introduced when King
James I knighted a joint of beef (a loin), which was particularly tasty
724. Baby robins eat fourteen feet of earthworms a day
725. Every night the parrot fish sleeps inside of a mucus cocoon, which it constructs daily to block its body smell from predators
726. Whisker patterns on a lions’ muzzle are a distinctive as fingerprints are for a human
727. Gentlemen in the 18th century used cork pads called “plumpers”, to fill out hollows in their cheeks left by the loss of rotten teeth
728. It would take seven billion particles of fog to fill a teaspoon
729. An infinity sign is called a lemniscate
730. Pearls melt in vinegar
731. “The world is more like it is now than it ever was before” – Quote from President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953
732. Edgar Allen Poe was expelled from West Point Military Academy after showing up to a public parade wearing only his white belt and gloves
733. The highest-scoring three-letter word in Scrabble is zax, a tool for cutting and trimming roof slates
735. President Lyndon Johnson had a soda fountain installed in the Oval Office that dispensed Fresca. He could remotely operate the fountain from a button on his desk chair
736. More people play the bagpipes today than at any other time in history
737. Harry Houdini actually trained his pet dog to escape from a miniature set of handcuffs
738. The Nullarbor Plain in southwest Australia gets its name from the Latin nullus arbor – “no tree”
739. Butter was the first product allowed by law to have artificial coloring. It is naturally white
740. Ingrown toenails are hereditary
741. Jumping spiders have been found alive on mountains as high as 22,000 feet
742. Dogs like squeeze-toys because they sound like animals in distress
743. The Dominican Republic, Egypt, Mexico, Kiribati, Zambia and Fiji all have birds on their flags
744. St. Paul, Minnesota, was originally called “Pig’s Eye” after a man who ran a saloon there
745. Bowling was originally known in Dark age Germany as Heidenwerfen, which means “strike down the heathens”
746. In Japan, Christmas Eve is the time to eat strawberry shortcake and fried chicken
747. You cannot taste food unless it is mixed with saliva. This is true for all foods
748. According to British government statistics, 40% of all Scottish women have legs that are different lengths
749. Banging your head against the wall burns 150 calories per hour
750. Humans and black lemurs are the only primates that can have blue eyes
751. In a single night a mole can tunnel 220 feet
752. For over forty years, Herbert Hoover gave all of his political earnings to charity, including his wages and pension as President
753. Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of a blue whale
754. There are at least 100,000 chemical reactions going on in a human brain every second
755. Theodore Roosevelt shot 296 animals the year after his presidency
756. The U.S. Marine Corps first recruiting station was in a bar
757. 16th century Europeans blamed potatoes for leprosy, syphilis and a shortened life span.
758. The heaviest man recorded was Brower Minnoch of Bainbridge, Oregon. He weighed more than 1,400 lbs
759. The Mayflower usually transported alcohol between England and Spain
760. The number 172 can be found on the back of a five-dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial
761. The world’s largest alphabet is Cambodian, with 74 letters
762. If the eggs spawned by all the female cod in one season survived, they would fill the oceans from seabed to surface. Usually only 5 in 5,000,000,000 survive
763. The average human produces 50,000 pints of spit in their lifetime
764. Porcupines are one of only a few animals (including humans) to kiss one another on the lips
765. A tiger’s paw prints are called pug marks
766. In 1872 locals in North Yorkshire, England recorded that a swarm of ladybugs took three days to pass
767. Child actress Shirley Temple always had 56 curls in her hair
768. The first woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel was Annie Taylor in 1901. She was 64 years old at the time
769. 1 divided by 37 equals 0.027027027
1 divided by 27 equals 0.037037037
770. Less than 1% of all Caribbean islands are inhabited
771. Lee Harvey Oswald (Pres. Kennedy’s assassin) was dyslexic
772. Wrigley gum originally was only available if you bought baking powder from William Wrigley – he threw in the pack for free
773. When you hit a tennis ball it spends only 4/1000 of a second in contact with the racquet
774. King Louis XIV of France owned 413 beds
775. Singapore is the only country with exactly one train station
776. U.S. Air Force Captain Joseph W. Kittenger Jr. survived a parachute jump from 102,800 ft. in 1960 – he is only human to ever exceed the speed of sound without using a machine of any kind
777. A bird has to fly at a minimum speed of 11 mph to stay aloft
778. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt both slept with pistols under their pillows
779. In 1946, Ismaili Muslim leader Aga Khan was given his weight in diamonds by his followers. He weighed 243 lbs
780. There was room for 150 knights at King Arthur’s Round Table
781. Cat urine glows in black light
782. For every kilogram carried on a space flight, 530 grams of extra fuel are needed at liftoff
madduxtrivia 