The largest living organism ever found is a honey mushroom, Armillaria ostoyae. It covers 3.4 square miles of land in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon, and it's still growing.
The largest movie theater in the world, Radio City Music Hall in New York City, opened in December, 1932. It originally had 5,945 seats.
The largest painting in the world is The Battle of Gettysburg, painted in 1883 by Paul Philippoteaux and sixteen of his assistants. The painting took two and a half years to create and is 410 feet long, 70 feet high, and weighs 11,792 pounds.
The largest pig on record was a Poland-China hog named Big Bill, who weighed 2,552 lbs.
The largest sculpture ever made are the faces of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt on Mt. Rushmore.
The largest ship in the world is the French oil tanker that is nearly 415 mts. long, almost as long as Sydney harbour bridge.
The largest single flower is the Rafflesia or "corpse flower". They are generally 3 feet in diameter with the record being 42 inches.
The largest single-ticket jackpot winner in history is Jack Whittaker Jr. of West Virginia. In December 2002 he had the sole winning ticket for a $314.9 million jackpot in the U.S. Powerball lottery.
The largest stained-glass window in the world is at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. It can be seen on the American Airlines terminal building and measures 300 feet long by 23 feet high
The largest stained-glass window in the world is at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. It can be found in the American Airlines terminal building and measures 300 feet long by 23 feet high.
The largest US city in area is Juneau, Alaska, which covers 3,108 square miles. Los Angeles covers only 458.2 square miles.
The last member of the famous Bonaparte family, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, died in 1945, of injuries sustained from tripping over his dog's leash.
The last thing to happen is the ultimate. The next-to-last is the penultimate, and the second-to-last is the antepenultimate.
The lead in a normal pencil would draw a line of 35 miles.
The leading cause of deaths for children between the ages of 1 and 4 are motor vehicle crashes.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa was built on the site of a river estuary. The land under the town has several layers of silt and soft clay. The 15,000-ton tower tilts to the south because the subsoil is too unstable.
The left lung is smaller than the right lung to make room for the heart.
The left side of your brain controls the right side of your body and vice versa.
The left testicle usually hangs lower than the right for right-handed men. The opposite is true for lefties.
The lemur of Madagascar is one of very few of the human species' ancestors that has survived unchanged down the long corridors of evolution. Having developed after the first primates, it is classified as a prosimian, meaning "before monkey," and is one of the ancestors common to both monkeys and men.
The letter "I" is used exactly 109 times in Act IV of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
The letter "W" is the only letter in the alphabet that doesn't have just one syllable – it has three.
The letter J does not appear ANYWHERE in the periodic table of elements.
The letter most in use in the English language is "E" and the letter "Q" is least used.
The letters in the abbreviation e.g. stand for exempli gratia – a Latin term meaning "for example."
The Library of Congress has approx. 327 miles of bookshelves.
The lie detector was invented by John Augustus Larson in 1921.
The light from your computer screen streams at you at almost 186,000 miles per second.
The lights of Las Vegas at night can be seen from outer space.
The linen bandages that were used to wrap Egyptian mummies averaged 1,000 yards in length.
The liquid inside coconuts can be used as blood plasma substitutes!
The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called 'mantles') are radioactive, so much so that they will set off an alarm at a nuclear reactor.
The little lump of flesh just forward of your ear canal, right next to your temple, is called a tragus.
The little overhang of bone and feathers over an eagle's eye is there to protect the sensitive eyeball from the mountain and desert sun. It's not meant to make the bird look fierce.
The Lone Ranger's "real" name is John Reid.
The longest movie ever screened was a 1970 British film that lasted 48 hours, 0 minutes. Believe it or not, its name is The Longest and Most Meaningless Movie in the World.
The longest muscle in the human body is the sartorius. This narrow muscle of the thigh passes obliquely across the front of the thigh and helps rotate the leg to the position assumed in sitting cross-legged. Its name is a derivation of the adjective "sartorial," a reference to what was the traditional cross-legged position of tailors (or "sartors") at work.
The longest name in the Bible Mahershalalbaz (Isaiah 8:1).
The longest one syllable word in he English language is "screeched".
The longest Oscar acceptance speech was made by Greer Garson for 1924's "Mrs. Miniver." It took an hour.
The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiw en uaitnatahu, a New Zealand hill.
The longest railway in the world is the Trans-Siberian Railway or Trans-Siberian Railroad, built 1891-1916, a network of railways connecting European Russia with Russian Far East provinces. It is 9,288.2 kilometres (5,787 miles) long and spans 8 time zones.
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds!
The longest recorded gloved boxing match took place in 1893. Andy Bowen and Jack Burke fought for more than 7 hours. After 110 rounds, the fight was declared a draw because both Bowen and Burke were too exhausted to continue.
The longest reign in the history of the world was that of Pepi II of the sixth Egyptian dynasty. He ruled from the age of 6 until his death at age 94.
The longest reigning monarch in history was Pepi II, who ruled Egypt for 90 years; 2566 to 2476 BC. The second longest was France's Louis XIV, who ruled for 72 years, 1643 to 1715.
The longest river in the world, the Nile, is 4,145 miles long.
The longest single-word name of a place on Earth is: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipuakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. This place is a Moari name for a hill in New Zealand and consists of 85 letters. By the way, the name means “The place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as land-eater, played on the flute to his loved one."
The longest war between two nations in history, The Hundred Years War between England and France, really lasted for 115 years(1338-1453).
The longest word in the dictionary with only one vowel is "STRENGTHS."
The longest word in the English language is 1909 letters long and it refers to a distinct part of DNA.
The longest word in the english language is pneaumonaultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis...It's a lung disease contracted from breathing in too much volcanic dust settlement.
The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters ispneumonoultra-microscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.
The longest word in the Finnish language, that isn't a compound word, is 'epaejaerjestelmaellistyttaemaettoemyydellaensaekaeaen'. In English it means 'even with their lack of ability to disorganize'.
The longest word that can be typed on the top row of letters on a "Qwerty" keyboard is TYPEWRITER.
The Looney Tunes song is actually called "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down."
The low frequency call of the humpback whale is the loudest noise made by a living creature. The call of the humpback whale is louder than Concorde and can be heard from 500 miles away.
The lowest point that a person can reach on Earth, outside of riding a submarine or going down a mine shaft, is where the Jordan River enters the Dead Sea. It's 1,290 feet below sea level.
The lowest temperature ever recorded in the world was 129 degrees below 0 at Vostok, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.
The lowest valued note in the world is the Hong Kong 1 cent note of which
The magician's words "hocus-pocus" were taken from the name of a mythological sorcerer, Ochus Bochus, who appeared in Norse folktales and legends.
The magnetic North Pole shifts by about 7 meters a day.
The magnolia tree is named after Pierre Magnol, a French scientist.
The Mai Tai cocktail was created in 1945 by Victor Bergeron, the genius of rum, also known as Trader Vic. The drink got its name when he served it to two friends from Tahiti, who exclaimed "Maitai roa ae!," which in Tahitian means "Out of this world the best!"
The main active chemical in marijuana is THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol). The membranes of certain nerve cells in the brain contain protein receptors that bind to THC. Once securely in place, THC kicks off a series of cellular reactions that ultimately lead to the high that users experience when they smoke marijuana
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, the engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
The main road in Hershey, PA (where Hershey's candy bars are made) is Chocolate Avenue.
The major side effects from abusing anabolic steroids can include liver tumors and cancer, jaundice (yellowish pigmentation of skin, tissues, and body fluids), fluid retention, high blood pressure, increases in LDL (bad cholesterol), and decreases in HDL (good cholesterol). Other side effects include kidney tumors, severe acne, and trembling.
The male gypsy moth can "smell" the virgin female gypsy moth from 1.8 miles away.
The male penguin incubates the single egg laid by his mate. During the two month period he does not eat, and will lose up to 40% of his body weight.
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the males head off.
The male scorpion fly gets other males to bring him food by imitating a female fly.
The male seahorse carries the eggs until they hatch instead of the female.
The man who commissioned the Mona Lisa refused it.
The Manta Ray is the largest of all fish.
The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white, due to low budget.
The maximum length allowed for a baseball bat in the major leagues is 42 inches.
The melting point of cocoa butter is just below the human body temperature -which is why it literally melts in your mouth.
The Mesopotamians were the first people to keep records of lunar eclipses. The earliest records show that they started sometime around 2200 B.C.
The metal instrument used in shoe stores to measure feet is called the Brannock device.
The metric system was to blame for the loss of the Mars Climate orbiter.
The Michelin man is known as Mr. Bib. His name was Bibendum in the company's first ads in 1896.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.The military salute originated during the medieval times. Knights in armor used to raise their visors to reveal their identity, and the motion later evolved into the modern-day salute.
The Mills Brothers have recorded the most songs of any artist: about 2,250.
The minarets ofthe Taj Mahal in India are angled at 88 degrees outwards so that they would not collapse into the structure should an earthquake occur
The minimum number of darts that need to be thrown to complete a single in, double out game of 501 is nine.
The Miss America Contest was created in Atlantic City in 1921 with the purpose of extending the tourist season beyond Labor Day.
The model of King Kong used in the original movie was only 18 inches tall.
The modern Olympic Games were held in the first time in 1896 at Athens and were then followed by the 1900 Paris games. The winter games were added in 1924.
The mola mola or ocean sunfish lays up to 5,000,000 eggs at one time.
The Mona Lisa, by daVinci, is 2'6" by 1'9".
The Mona-Lisa, now hanging in the Louvre museum in Paris, is valued today at $100,000,000.
The monastic hours are matins, lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers and compline.
The Montreal Canadians of the mid-1950s are the only team to win five straight Stanley Cup championships.
The Monty Python movie "The Life of Brian" was banned in Scotland.
The moon actually has mirrors on it. They were left there by astronauts who wanted to bounce laser beams off them, so that the distance to the moon can be measured.
The most abundant metal in the Earth's crust is aluminum.
The most collect calls are made on father's day.
The most common blood type in the world is Type O. The rarest, Type A-H, has been found in less than a dozen people since the type was discovered.
The most common disease in the world is tooth - decay.
The most common injury in bowling is a sore thumb.
The most common street name in the United States is Second Street. First Street isn’t first because many times the designation is replaced with the name Main Street.
The most expensive book or manuscript ever sold at an auction was The Codex Hammer, a notebook belonging to Leonardo da Vinci. It sold for $30.8 million.
The most expensive movie memorabilia ever sold at an auction was Clark Gable’s Academy Award for It Happened One Night. It sold for $607,500 on December 15, 1996.
The most expensive painting ever sold at auction was Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh. On May 15, 1990, Ryoei Saito paid $75 million for it. He followed up that spending spree by paying the second-highest price ever, $71 million for Au Moulin de la Galette by Pierre Auguste Renoir, just two days later.
The most frequently seen birds at feeders across North America last winter were the Dark-eyed Junco, House Finch and American goldfinch, along with downy woodpeckers, blue jays, mourning doves, black-capped chickadees, house sparrows, northern cardinals and european starlings.
The most searched thing on yahoo.com every year is porn.
The most snow accumulation in a one-day period was 75.8 inches at Silver Lake, Colorado, in April 1921.
The most successful X-rated movie of all time is Deep Throat. It cost less than $50,000 to make it and has earned more than $100 million.
The most used line in the movies is "Lets get out of here."
The most widely accepted legend associated to the discovery of coffee is of the goatherder named Kaldi of Ethiopia. Around the year 800-850 A.D., Kaldi was amazed as he noticed his goats behaving in a frisky manner after eating the leaves and berries of a coffee shrub. And, of course, he had to try them!
The most widely culticated fruit in the world is the Apple.The second is the Pear.
The motto for the Olympic Games is Citius Altius Fortius. Translated, it means Faster Higher Stronger.
The mouse is the most common mammal in the US.
The movie As Good As It Gets is called Mr. Cat Poop in China.
The movie Quo Vadis had 30,000 extras.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York City hung Matisse's 'Le Bateau' upside-down for 47 days before an art student noticed the error.
The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
The nail of our middle finger grows the fastest and the nail of our thumb grows slowest.
The name "Uncle Sam" for the U.S. came from a person known as Uncle Sam Wilson of Troy, NY, who supplied food for the U.S. army in the war of 1812.
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as 'Ke-kou-ke-la.' Unfortunately, the Company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means 'bite the wax tadpole' or 'female horse stuffed with wax' depending on the dialect. Coke then researched Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, 'ko-kou-ko-le,' which can be loosely translated as 'happiness in the mouth.'
The name for Oz in the Wizard of Oz was thought up when the creator Frank Baum looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z.
The name for the middle part of the nose (the part that separates the nostrils) is called a chaffanue
The name 'Intel' stems from the company's former name, 'Integrated Electronics'.
The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
The name of the dog from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" is Max.
The name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box is Bingo.
The name of the first airplane flown at Kitty Hawk by the Wright Brothers, on December 17, 1903, was Bird of Prey.
The name of the Russian space station, Mir, means "peace."
The name Santa Claus is a corruption of the Dutch dialect name for Saint Nicholas Sint Klass.
The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan". There was never a recorded Wendy before.
The name Wendy was made up for the book 'Peter Pan'. It came from the author's friends, whom he called his "fwendy" (friend)
The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy before it.
The nation of Monaco on the French Riviera, is smaller than Central Park in New York. Monaco is 370 acres and Central Park is 840 acres.
The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses.
The national dish of Scotland, haggis, is made of the heart, liver, lungs and small intestines of a calf. It's then boiled in the stomach of the animal, and seasoned with salt, pepper and onions. Oh, and don't forget to add the suet and oatmeal.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced in 1978 that it would alternate men's and women's names in the naming of hurricanes. It was seen as an attempt at fair play. Hurricanes had been named for women for years, until NOAA succumbed to pressure from women's groups who were demanding that Atlantic storms be given unisex names.
The national sport of Nauru, a small Pacific island, is lassoing flying birds.
The Navy SEALs were formed in 1962.
The Neanderthal's brain was bigger than yours is.
The nearest relative of the hippopotamus is the common pig.
The Netherlands is the lowest country in the world. An estimated 40% of its land is below sea level.
The New York City Chamber of Commerce is the oldest chamber of commerce in the United States. King George III granted a royal charter for it in 1770.
The New York phone book had 22 Hitlers listed before World War II ... and none after.
The New York Yankees have won the most champoinships (26 times) in their respected sport (MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL) for any professional sports team.
The Nile catfish swim upside down.
The number 111,111,111 multiplied by itself will result in the number 12,345,678,987,654,321.
The number 2,520 can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 without having a fractional leftover.
The number 37 will wholly divide (no decimals) into 111, 222, 333, 444, 555, 666, 777, 888, and 999.
The number of atoms in a pound of iron is nearly five trillion trillion: 4,891,500,000,000,000,000,000,000.
The number of cricket chirps you count in a fifteen-second span, plus 37, will tell you the approximate current air temperature.
The number of possible ways of playing just the first four moves on each side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
The number of times a drowning person will rise to the surface depends on how much air is in his lungs. He could rise once, twice, or five times. Or not at all. Obese people will stay afloat longer than skinny people because fat contains air molecules.
The number of triplets born in the US in 1994 (4,594) was more than triple the number born in 1971 (1,034), an increase attributed to older age of the mothers and the use of fertility-enhancing drugs and techniques.
The number of VCRs in the United States grew from 52,565,000 in 1987 to 86,825,000 in 1997, a 39.5% increase.
The numbers "172" can be found on the back of a US $5 bill, in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln memorial.
The numbers 111 222 333 444 555 666 777 888 999 are all multiples of 37.
The numbers on opposite sides of a die always add up to seven.
The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosy is a rhyme about the plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores ("Ring around the rosy..."), these sores would smell very badly so common folks would put flowers on their bodies somewhere (inconspicuously), so that it would cover the smell of the sores ("...a pocket full of posies..."), People who died from the plague would be burned so as to reduce the possible spread of the disease ("...ashes, ashes, we all fall down!")
The Oblivion ride at Alton Towers has a G-force of 5. Thats higher than the G-force of an average NASA take-off!
The occupations of the three men in a tub were butcher, baker, and candlestick maker.
The odds against a royal flush in poker are exactly 649,739 to 1.
The odds of being born male are about 51.2%, according to census.
The official definition of a desert is any land that where more water evaporates than is acquired through precipitation.
The official name of the St. Louis Gateway Arch is "The Jefferson National Expansion Monument." The Gateway Arch looks taller than it is wider, but it is exactly 630 feet by 630 feet.
The official sport for the State of Maryland is jousting.
The official state song of Georgia since 1922 has been "Georgia on My Mind".
The Ohio river forms at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela.
The oiuja board was invented by Isaac and William Fuld, and was patented July 1, 1892.
The oldest "cricket" match was played between the USA and Canada in 1844.
The oldest continuous comic strip still in existence is The Katzenjammer Kids. It first appeared in newspapers in 1897.
The oldest exposed surface on earth is New Zealand's south island.
The oldest goldfish lived for 14,795 days.
The oldest living thing in existence is not a giant redwood, but a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California, dated to be aged 4,600 years old.
The oldest man-made building of any kind still existing is the central edifice of the 4,600-year-old mastaba (a tomb for kings) built at Sakkara, Egypt. It was created to honor King Zoser, the first ruler of the Third Dynasty.
The oldest musical instrument is probably the flute. It's been discovered that primitive cave dwellers made an instrument from bamboo or some other small hollow wood.
The oldest person to live was Jeanne Louise Calment, she lived for a whopping 122 years until she died of smoking related complications. Don't Smoke!
The oldest recorded document on paper made from fibrous material was a deed of King Roger of Sicily, in the year 1102.
The oldest tennis court in the world is the one built at Hampton Court in 1530 for Henry VIII.
The oldest works of art are pictures of animals found in caves in Spain and France. They have been dates as far back as 18,000 years ago.
The olive branch in the eagle's right talon has 13 leaves.
The Olympic Games were held in St. Louis, MO. In 1904, the first time that the games were held in the United States.
The Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic, and she provided twenty-five years of service.
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable"!
The only animals that can naturally sleep on their backs are humans. No other animal actually does--apes usually sleep sitting up and leaning on something.
The only big cat that doesn't roar is a Jaguar
The only bird that can fly backwards is the hummingbird.
The only bird that cannot fly is the penguin
The only bone in the human body not connected to another is the hyoid, a V-shaped bone located at the base of the tongue between the mandible and the voice box. Its function is to support the tongue and its muscles.
The only bone not broken so far during any ski accident is one located in the inner ear.
The only continent without reptiles or snakes is Antarctica.
The only countries in the world with one syllable in their names are Chad, France, Greece, and Spain.
The only difference between brown eyes and every other colored eyes is that brown eyes have more pigment.
The only dog to ever appear in a Shakespearean play was Crab in The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
The only father and son to hit back-to-back home runs in a major league baseball game: Ken Griffey, Jr., and his father, Ken Griffey, Sr., both of the Seattle Mariners in a game against the California Angels on September 14th, 1990.
The only food cockroaches won't eat are cucumbers.
The only jointless bone in your body is the hyoid bone in your throat
The only loss Packers' coach Vince Lombardi ever suffered in the postseason was to the Philadelphia Eagles, 17-13, in the 1960 NFL championship game.
The only member of the British House of Commons who is not allowed to speak is the man called the Speaker of the House.
The only MLB team to have both its city's name and its team name in a foreign language is the San Diego Padres.
The only mobile national monuments in the United States are the cable cars in San Francisco.The only one of his sculptures that Michelangelo signed was the "The Pieta," completed in 1500.
The only painting by Leonardo da Vinci on permanent display in the United States hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. It's a portrait of Ginevra di Benci, the wife of a politician in Florence.
The only president buried in Washington, D.C. proper: Woodrow Wilson, who was laid to rest in the National Cathedral.
The only president buried on the grounds of a state capitol: James Polk in Nashville, Tenn.
The only President in office to weigh less than 100 pounds was James Madison.
The only President to be head of a labor union was Ronald Reagan.
The only presidents buried together: John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams are in a basement crypt in Quincy, Mass.
The only real person to be a PEZ head was Betsy Ross.
The only repealed amendment to the US Constitution deals with the prohibition of alcohol.
The only rock that floats in water is pumice.
The only state allowed to fly its flag at the same height as the U.S. flag is Texas.
The only three non-Presidents pictured on U.S. paper money are: Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill, and Salmon Chase on the $10,000 bill.
The only time the human population declined was in the years following 1347, the start of the epidemic of the plague 'Black Death' in Europe.
The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League all-stars Game
The only U.S. president to be born on the fourth of July was Calvin Coolidge.
The only way a cow can clean out its nose is to lick the gooie substance called BOOGERS out with its tongue...YUCK!!
The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven.The Oprah Winfrey Show started out as a local morning talk show called A.M. Chicago. The name was changed in September 1985 after Winfrey beat Donahue in the Chicago ratings. The show was expanded from a half and to an hour and went nationwide a year later.
The orgasms of common, barnyard pigs can last up to thirty minutes!
The origin of bananas is traced back to the Malaysian jungles of Southeast Asia, where so many varieties and names for the banana are in that area.
The origin of right-handed buttons on men's shirts stems from battles where they wore armor. With most men being right handed the armor needed to overlap so that a sword could not enter through the gap during a right-handed blow from an adversary.
The original American Express card was purple.
The original coke contained cocaine and was labeled as a "cure all miracle drug". It became the popular soda when it carbonated water was accidentally added to it. The cocaine, however, was later removed when people began to become addicted.
The original name for basketball, as invented by Dr. James Naismith, was indoor rugby. It was one of the game's first players that started calling it basketball because of the peach baskets that acted as the original goals.
The original name for butterfly was flutterby.
The original name of Los Angeles was El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles del rio Porciuncula, translating into:The Village of our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Porciuncula River.
The original purpose of a coffin was not to protect the body from prowling animals or grave robbers. It was invented to keep the dearly departed from coming back to haunt survivors.
The original purpose of the coffin was to prevent the dearly departed from coming back and haunting the survivors.
The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, "Aladdin was a little Chinese boy."
The original Volkswagen Bug Has Finally Stopped Production. The last one rolled out in brazil on July 31st 2003. The car introduced in 1946. 57 years in production. The fact is that there were more classic vw bugs produced then any other car ever. about 400 million to be exact. wow.
The origional Coca cola was so named because it did, in fact, contain cocaine. Today, however, the coke cans labeled "original" do not contain any cocaine.
The Oscar award got its name from an actress who mentioned it looks like her uncle Oscar.
The Oscar statuette was designed by MGM's art director, Cedric Gibbons, in 1928. The design has remained unchanged, except for getting a higher pedestal in the 1940's.
The Ostrich people in Africa are a group of people who have only 2 toes due to inbreeding
The Ouija board got its name from the combination of the French and German words for "yes" oui and ja.
The owner of every hotel in Hastings, Nebraska, is required to provide each guest with a clean and pressed nightshirt. No couple, even if they are married, may sleep together in the nude. Nor may they have sex unless they are wearing one of these clean, white cotton nightshirts.
The Pacific Giant Octopus, the largest octopus in the world, grows from the size of pea to a 150 pound behemoth potentially 30 feet across in only two years, its entire life-span.
The Pacific Ocean at the Isthmus of Panama is often 20 feet higher than the Atlantic Ocean.
The Pacific Ocean fills nearly a complete hemisphere of the earth's surface.
The Pacific Ocean holds 46% of the world’s water. The rest is divided up as followed: Atlantic Ocean – 23.9%, Indian Ocean – 20.3%, and the Arctic Ocean – 3.7%.
The Pacific Ocean was named by Magellen because it was calmer than the Atlantic
The painting, "American Gothic" depicts the sister and the dentist of artist Grant Wood as rural farm folk.
The Pantheon is the largest building from ancient Rome that survives intact.
The past-tense of the English word "dare" is "durst".
The patron saint of dentists is St. Apollonia. She reportedly had her teeth pulled out in 249 AD by an anti-Christian mob.
The peace symbol was created in 1958 as a nuclear disarmament symbol by the Direct Action Committee, and was first shown that year at peace marches in England. The symbol is a composite of the semaphore signals N and D, representing nuclear disarmament.
The penalty for killing a cat, 4,000 years ago in Egypt, was death.
The penguin is the only bird that can't fly but can swim.
The Pentagon in Arlington Virginia has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
The period at the end of this sentence can hold 2,000,000 hydrogen atoms.
The period between midnight and dawn is the best time to look for shooting stars. On a normal night you can see between five and ten an hour. In a desert, you can see one every eight minutes.
The permanent teeth that erupt to replace their primary predecessors (baby teeth) are called succedaneous teeth.
The Philippines consist of 2,100 islands.
The Philippines has more than 1,000 regional dialects and two official languages.
The phone number of the white house is: (202) 456-1414.
The phrase "raining cats and dogs" originated in 17th Century England. During heavy downpours of rain, many of these poor animals unfortunately drowned and their bodies would be seen floating in the rain torrents that raced through the streets. The situation gave the appearance that it had literally rained "cats and dogs" and led to the current expression.
The phrase "raining cats and dogs" originated in 17th Century England. During heavy downpours of rain, many of these poor animals unfortunately drowned and their bodies would be seen floating in the rain torrents that raced through the streets. The situation gave the appearance that it had literally rained "cats and dogs" and led to the current expression.
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
The phrase "sleep tight" originated when mattresses were set upon ropes woven through the bed frame. To remedy sagging ropes, one would use a bed key to tighten the rope.
The phrase 'going bananas' was first recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary, and is linked to the fruit's 'comic' connections with monkeys.
The pigmy shrew a relative of the mole is the smallest mammal in North America. It weighs 1/14 ounce less than a dime.
The Pillsbury Bake-off has been held every year since 1948.
The pineapple was symbol of welcome in the 1700-1800's. That is why in New England you will see so many pineapples on door knockers. An arch in Providence RI leading into the Federal Hill neighborhood has a pineapple on it for that very reason. Pineapples were brought home by seafarers as gifts.
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' head enables it to see all four feet at one time.
The plant life in the oceans make up about 85 percent of all the greenery on the Earth.
The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
The platypus and echidna are the only mammals that hatch from eggs. Both live in Australia.
The play Chantecler, written by French playwright Edmond Rostand, features a rooster as the major character.
The poison arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people.
The poisonous copperhead smells like fresh cut cucumbers.
The poisonous copperhead snake smells like fresh cut cucumbers.
The pop you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually a bubble of gas burning.
The popular name for the giant sequoia tree is Redwood.
The population of the American colonies in 1610 was 350.
The position of a donkey's eyeballs allow them to see all four of their feet
The pound cake got its name from the pound of butter it contained.
The pound sign is called a 'octothorp.'
The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head.
The precise geographical center of the North American continent is in a town called Rugby, North Dakota.
The principality of Monaco consists of only 370 acres.
The Professor on "Gilligan's Island" was named Roy Hinkley. The Skipper was named Jonas Grumby. Both names were used only once in the entire series, on the first episode.
The Professor's real name was Roy Hinkley, Mary Ann's last name was Summers and Mrs. Howell's maiden name was Wentworth.
The Prudential Life Insurance Company in USA stopped using their slogan "Own A Piece Of The Rock" after Rock Hudson died of AIDS and many jokes where made about him and the slogan.
The Puritans had such an obsessive fear of masturbation that almost any means were used to curtail the practice. For instance, some doctors recommended covering the penis with plaster of Paris.
The queen of England does not have the right to vote in any British election.
The queen of England has two birthdays.
The Queen termite can live up to 50 years and have 30,000 children every day.
The raised reflective dots in the middle of highways are called Botts
The Ramses brand condom is named after the great phaoroh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.
The rapid rate of expansion of gas is what gives steam its power. One volume of water, at normal atmospheric pressure and at the boiling point, yields 1,670 volume of steam.
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
The reason most mosquito bites itch is because mosquitoes inject saliva into the persons skin before they suck your blood. They take it out once they are done, but if they are forced to fly away, they don't get a chance to draw the saliva out. And it is their saliva that causes the itch.
The reason why the very beginning of The Wizard of Oz is black and white, is because color was not available at that point. When color was available, the writers decided to start using it in Munchkinland.
The record for the biggest one day rainfall was set on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, on March 15, 1952, where 74 inches of rain fell in 24 hours.
The record for the most weddings is held by King Mogul of Siam, who had 9000 weddings and 9000 wives.
The red capes used to taunt bulls in bullfights is the same shade of red as the bull's blood. That way you can't tell it is covered with the bull's blood by the end of the fight. Fight spectators like bullfighting, but not blood.`
The red kangaroo of Australia can jump 27 feet in one bound.
The red sea is not red.
The red spot on the 7up cans comes from it's inventor. He was an albino (albinos have red eyes).
The regular garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.
The Republic of Israel was established April 23, 1948.
The revolving door was invented August 7, 1888, by Theophilus Van Kannel, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Ribbon worm will start eating itself to avoid starvation
The ridges on the sides of coins are called reeding or milling.
The right lung is slightly larger than the left
The right side of a boat was called the starboard side due to the fact that the astronavigators used to stand out on the plank (which was on the right side) to get an unobstructed view of the stars. The left side was called the port side because that was the side that you put in on at the port.
The river Danube empties into the Black Sea.
The Romans defeated Hannibal's elephants after they found that the elephants were afraid of the smell of horse blood. On the battlefield they slit the throats of their own horses in order to cause the enemy's mounts to panic.
The Romans made condoms from the muscle tissue of warriors they defeated in battle.
The rose family of plants, in addition to flowers, gives us apples, pears, plums, cherries, almonds, peaches and apricots.
The rosy periwinkle plant, found in Madagascar, is used to cure leukemia.
The rumble that is created when a Harley's engine runs has been patented by the company
The Russian Imperial Necklace has been loaned out by Joseff jewelers of Hollywood for 1,215 different feature films.
The S in Harry S Truman stands for nothing.
The safety pin was patented in 1849 by Walter Hunt. He sold the patent rights for $400.
The Sahara Desert expands at a rate of about 1 km each month.
The Sahara desert is larger as Europe and large then the combined areas of next largest 9 deserts.
The Sahara Desert is over twice as big as the second largest desert in the world, The Australian Desert. The Sahara is 3.5 million square miles compared to the 1.47 million square miles of the Australian. This is "true" in the generic sense of the Autralian Desert. There is no Australian Desert. It is divided into many different deserts. What would be true would be to say the Sahara is bigger than the desert space in Australia (which is A LOT not sure how much as a percentage of the total land mass of australia).
The sailfish can swim faster than a horse can gallop.
The saluki is the oldest known breed of domesticated dog. Carvings of animals resembling the saluki have been found in excavations of the Sumerian Empire. They are believed to have originated from between 6,000 and 7,000 B.C.
The salute of uniform bodies (eg. army, police) originated from knights who lifted their visors to show their face to a royalty.
The same material that is used to make bulletproof glass is also used in Tupperware's Rock 'n Serve containers. The container, however, is not entirely bulletproof. Due to the lifetime warrantee on Tupperware products, the company will replace it for FREE! (Just in case you're in quick need of a shield and a Rock 'n Serve is the only thing handy)
The San Diego Zoo in California has the largest collection of animals in the world.
The sandwich is named for the Fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-92), for whom sandwiches were made so that he could stay at the gambling table without interruptions for meals.
The Santa Maria was the only one of Columbus's ships not to return to Spain. It hit a reef on December 5, 1492 and sank.
The saying 'once in a blue moon ' refers to the occurrence of two full moons during one calendar month. The last two occurred in January & March 1999. The next one isn't until the end of 2001.
The science-fiction series "Lost in Space" (set in the year 1997) premiered on CBS in 1965.
The sea contains about 1/2 of the world's known animal groups
The Sea of tranquility is found on the moon.
The SEALs have been deployed in Vietnam, Laos, Panama, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, and Colombia.
The search engine "Lycos" is named for Lycosidae, the Latin name for the wolf spider family. Unlike other spiders that sit passively in their web, wolf spiders are hunters, actively stalking their prey.
The secretary-bird swallow hen's egg whole without breaking its shell.
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter of the alphabet!
The setting sun is redder than the rising sun because the air at the end of the day is generally dustier than it is at the beginning of the day.
The seven archangels are Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Chamuel, Jophiel, and Zadkiel.
The Seven Deadly Sins are lust, pride, anger, envy, sloth, avarice and gluttony.
The seven hills of Rome are the Palatine (on which the original city was built), the Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, and Aventine.
The seven virtues are prudence, courage, temperance, justice, faith, hope and charity.
The seven wonders of the ancient world werethe Egyptian Pyramids at Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Colossus of Rhodes or huge bronze statue near the Harbor of Rhodes that honored the sun god Helios, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Lighthouse at Alexandria
The sewing machine was patented on August 12, 1851, by Isaac Singer of Pittstown, New York.The sex of crocodiles is determined by the incubation temperature. Eggs incubated at temperatures below 85 degrees become females. Those incubated above 95 degrees become males. 2. Crocodiles are the closest living relatives to birds.
The shallowest sea is the sea of Azov.It is 13 meters at its deepest.
The shape of a plants' collenchyma cells and the shape of the bubbles in beer foam are the same they are orthotetrachidecahedrons.
The shore of the Dead Sea in Israel-Jordan is 1312 feet (400 meter) below sea level.
The shortest "-ology" (study of) word is oology, the study of eggs.
The shortest British monarch was Charles I, who was 4'9".
The shortest verse in the Bible consists of two words: "Jesus wept" (John 11:35).
The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar an England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.
The shortest word in the English language with all its letters in alphabetical order is the word "almost."
The side of a hammer is a cheek.
The silhouette on the MLB logo is Harmon Killebrew.
The silkworm consumes 86000 times its own weight in 56 days.
The single highest temperature ever recorded in U.S. history was 134 degrees Fahrenheit. It was recorded in Greenland Ranch, CA on July 10, 1913. The lowest recorded temperature was minus 80 degrees on January 23, 1971 in Prospect Creek, AK.
The six most dangerous occupations in America are; football player, firefighter, race-car driver, astrnaut, police officer, and fisherman.
The size of a newly born kangaroo is 2.5 cms.
The size of a raindrop is around 0.5 mm 2.5 mm, and they fall from the sky on average 21 feet per second.
The skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island is Jonas Grumby. It was mentioned once in the first episode on their radio's newscast about the wreck.
The slanted line that divides dates, fractions, choices, etc. (6/1/04) is called a virgule.
The sloth (a mammal) moves so slowly that green algae can grow undisturbed on it's fur
The sloth moves so slowly that it's fur offers a comfortable environment for algae to grow.
The slowest trainee on the SEALs obstacle course must wear a pink T-shirt that reads, "Always a Lady".
The smallest breed of dogs are the Chihuahuas.
The smallest fish in the world is the Trimattum Nanus of the Chagos Archipelago. It is only 0.33" long.
The smallest island with country status is Pitcairn in Polynesia, at just 1.75 square miles.
The smallest known fish is the Pandaka Pygmea,about the size of an ant and almost transeparent.
The smallest number spelled with an "a" is one thousand.
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History houses the world's largest shell collection, some 15 million specimens. A smaller museum in Sanibel, Florida owns a mere 2 million shells and claims to be the worlds only museum devoted solely to mollusks.
The smoke detector was invented in 1969.
The snail mates only once in it's entire life.
The soldiers of World War I were the first people to use the modern flushing toilet. The inventor: Thomas Crapper.
The song "Happy Birthday to You" was originally written by sisters Mildred and Patty Hill as "Good Morning to You." The words were changed and it was published in 1935.
The song "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" was written by George Graff, who was German, and was never in Ireland in his life.
The song Take Me Out to the Ballgame was written by Jack Norworth and Albert von Tilzer.
The sorcerer's name in Disney's Fantasia is Yensid, which happens to be Disney backwards.
The sound of a snore (up to 69 decibels) can be almost as loud as the noise of a pneumatic drill.
The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in Jello.
The sound you hear when you macho people crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.
The sound you here when you put a seashell next to your ear is not the ocean, but blood flowing through your head.
The soundtrack to Oklahoma was the first album to sell one million copies on August 18, 1958.
The South Pole is covered with 8,850 feet of solid ice.
The South Pole was reached for the first time on 14 December 1911 by a team of explorers led by Roald Amundsen.
The Soviet Caucasus mountain actually moved a mile in 1972. Heavy rains swelled an underground river and the whole mountain salied away over the course of eight days.
The Sphinx ( famous pyramid) was carved from one piece of stone.
The standard blue U.S. Postal Service mailbox can hold approximately 4,000 letters at a time.
The Stanley Cup came from the Governor General of Canada from 1888 to 1893, Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley. Stanley was a fan of hockey and presented a trophy to be contested by the best amateur hockey team in Canada. The amateur HNA would later become to NHL in 1917.
The Star Trek theme actually has lyrics.
The starfish has an eye on the end of each arm.
The starfish is one of the only animals who can turn it's stomach inside-out. They also dont have brains. (See the connection?)
The state flower of Texas is the Bluebonnet; the state tree is a pecan.
The state law of Pennsylvania prohibits singing in the bathtub.
The state of Florida is bigger than England!The state of Utah used to be submerged under water and to this day brine shrimp can still be found in rain-filled hollows under rocks and boulders.
The states of Washington and Montana still execute prisoners by hanging.
The states with the most presidential burial sites: Ohio and Virginia (tie).
The statue by Auguste Rodin that has come to be known as The Thinker wasn't meant to be a portrait of a man in thought. It's a portrait of Dante Aligheri.
The statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capital building is 19.5 feet tall and weighs 15,000 pounds. It was created in Rome, and the ship that brought it to America ran into a storm so severe that most of the cargo had to be tossed overboard. Before the ship reached the United States, it was condemned and sold in Bermuda, where the statue was put in storage. Two years later it reached Washington, but because of the Civil War the dome wasn't finished and the statue didn't get hoisted to its proper position for another two years.
The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York City in 1885 aboard the French ship "Isere."
The Statue of Liberty weighs 225 tons.
The Statue of Liberty's mouth is 3 feet wide.
The stormtroopers in the original starwars are seen in many seen carrying long blasters. On closer inspection you can see that the blasters are actually WWII era German MG42 machine guns (modified slightly)
The strawberry is the only agricultural product that bears its seeds on the outside.
The striped billiard balls weight .1 ounces or so more than the solids
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. (Relative to size)
The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. (the heart is not a muscle)
The study of insects is called entomology.
The study of word origins is called etymology.
The Sudan is the largest country in Africa. It covers about 967,500 square miles of the continent.
The Sumatran tiger has the most stripes of all the tiger subspecies, the Siberian tiger has the least.
The sun is about three million miles closer to the earth on January 1st than it is on June 1st.
The sun weighs 330,000 times as much as the earth.
The sun's average period of rotation is 27 days.
The sun's total lifetime as a star capable of maintaining a life-bearing Earth is about 11 billion years. Nearly half that time has passed.
The supersonic Concorde jet made its first trial flight on January 1, 1969.
The surface of the Earth is about 60% water and 10% ice.
The swastika was origionaly a symbol of peace and honor and is still used by Buddhists today.
The Swiss consume more chocolate per capita than any other nation on earth. That's 22 pounds each compared to 11 pounds per person in the United States.
The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.
The symbols used on playing cards were supposed to represent the four classes of men: hearts represented the clergy; spades (from the Spanish word espada, or sword) represented the warriors; clubs were originally leaves and represented the peasants; and citizens and merchants were recognized in the diamonds.
The table fork was introduced into England in 1601. Until then people would eat with their knives, spoons or fingers. When Queen Elizabeth first used a fork, the clergy went ballistic. They felt it was an insult to God not to touch meat with one's fingers.
The Taj Mahal in India is perfectly symetrical, except for one thing. The two tombs inside are not equal in size. This is because the male tomb has to be larger than the female tomb.
The Taj Mahal was actually built for use as a tomb.
The Taj Mahal was commissioned in 1630 by Shah Jehan to honor his wife Mumtaz, who died in childbirth.
The tallest monument built in the US, the Gateway Arch, in St. Louis, Missouri, is 630 feet tall.
The telescope at the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, in California, also serves as a tomb. The 36-inch refracting telescope is mounted on a pillar that contains the remains of Jack Lick, who died in 1876. Lick was a wealthy financier and philanthropist who financed the construction of the observatory that bears his name.
The telescope on Mount Palomar, California, can see a distance of 7,038,835,200,000,000,000,000 miles.
The temperature of the earth's interior increases by one degree every 60 feet down.
The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic Church. When deciding if someone should be sainted, a devil's advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view.
The term "dog days" has nothing to do with dogs. It dates back to Roman times, when it was believed that Sirius, the Dog Star, added its heat to that of the sun from July3 to August 11, creating exceptionally high temperatures. The Romans called the period dies caniculares, or "days of the dog."
The term "dog days" has nothing to do with dogs. It dates back to Roman times, when it was believed that Sirius, the Dog Star, added its heat to that of the sun from July3 to August 11, creating exceptionally high temperatures. The Romans called the period dies caniculares, or "days of the dog."
The term "honeymoon" is derived from the Babylonians who declared mead, a honey-flavored wine, the official wedding drink, stipulating that the bride's parents be required to keep the groom supplied with the drink for the month following the wedding.
The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
The term "throw one's hat in the ring" comes from boxing, where throwing a hat into the ring once signified a challenge. Today it nearly always signifies political candidacy.
The term "white chocolate" is a misnomer. Under Fedaral Standards of Identity, real chocolate must contain chocolate liquor. "White" chocolate contains no chocolate liquor.
The term 'crack' refers to the crackling sound heard when the mixture is smoked (heated), presumably from the sodium bicarbonate.
The term 'hay fever' originated in England, where some people suffered allergic symptoms during hay pitching time when the symptoms became serve, workers often felt feverish.
The term karaoke means "empty orchestra" in Japanese, and the karaoke machine was designed originally to provide backing tracks for solo cabaret performers.
The term 'screwing' was derived from the activities of pigs. A pig's member screws.
The term Y2K was invented by David Eddie in June 1995 through the email.
The term, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" is from Ancient Rome. The only rule during wrestling matches was, "No eye gouging." Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be disqualified is to poke someone's eye out.
The term, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" is from Ancient Rome. The only rule during wrestling matches was, "No eye gouging," eveything else was allowed.
The Texas Rangers were the first U.S. state police force. They were established in 1835.
The the oldest living thing on earth is 12,000 years old. It is the flowering shrubs called creosote bushes in the Mojave Desert.
The theobromine in chocolate that stimulates the cardiac and nervous systems is too much for dogs, especially smaller pups. A chocolate bar is poisonous to dogs and can even be lethal.
The three best-known western names in China: Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley.
The three central panels on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel tell the story of Adam and Eve.
The three most common elements in the universe are 1) hydrogen; 2) helium; 3) oxygen.
The three most recently discovered planets were Uranus in 1781, Neptune in 1846, and Pluto in 1930.
The three most valuable brand names on earth Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
The Three Musketeers names are Porthos, Athos, and Aramis (D'Artagnan joins them later.)
The three primary colors are red, yellow and blue. The three secondary colors are green, orange and purple.
The Three Wise Men of the East brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus. Frankincense is a gum resin used as a base for incense. Myrrh, also a gum resin, was valued as a perfume and unguent used in embalming.
The Three Wise Monkeys have names: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil).
The three-syllable word "hideous," with the change of a single consonant, becomes a two-syllable word with no vowel sounds in common: "hideout."
The thumbnail grows the slowest; the middle nail grows the fastest.
The tiger is the largest member of the cat family.
The tiny poison arrow frog has enough poison to kill over 2200 people!
The tip of the hour hand on your watch travels at a speed of 0.00000275 miles per hour.
The tips of fingers and the soles of feet are covered by a thick, tough layer of skin called the stratum corneum.
The Cunard liner SS Slavonia was the first ship to use an SOS distress call, on 10 June 1909. It was not the Titanic, as many people believe.The title role of Dirty Harry, 1971, was originally intended for Frank Sinatra. After he refused, it was offered to John Wayne, and then Paul Newman, finally being accepted by Clint Eastwood.
The toes of mummies are wrapped individually.
The Toltecs (a 7th century tribe) used wooden swords so they wouldn't kill their enemies.
The tomato is not just a fruit, but it is a berry along with the cucumber, squash, and melon.
The tongues of chameleons are twice the length of their bodys.
The tonsillectomy is the most common surgical procedure.
The tool doctors wrap around a patient's arm to measure blood pressure is called a sphygmomanometer.
The Top 10 grossing movies of the 1990s each earned at least $500 million worldwide and brought in a combined total of over $7 billion.
The top downhill speed of the Ford Model T was 50 miles per hour.
The top selling song of all time is Elton John’s tribute to the late Princess Diana. Candle in the Wind 1997 has sold over 35 million copies worldwide
The total number of African slaves sent to all parts of the world between 1500 and 1865 was estimated to be at least 12 million. When you consider that only one in ten made the trip alive, the number of Africans who were enslaved or killed in the 350 years of the slave trade had to be no less than 120 million people.
The total number of Americans killed in the Civil War is greater than the combined total of Americans killed in all other wars.
The total surface area of a pair of human lungs is equal to that of a tennis court.
The town of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, is closer to the equator than it is to the North Pole.
The town of Idaho Falls, Idaho, forbids anyone over the age of eighty-eight to ride a motorcycle.
The town of Tidikelt in the Shara Desert once went ten years without rainfall.
The trainees are thrown into a pool with their hands and feet tied wearing snorkeling masks. They are then harassed by their instructors who knock their masks off, spin their bodies, and pull them under in an effort to disorient the student.
The training mantra of the SEALs is, 'The only easy day was yesterday.'
The Tranquilizer, Valium (sleeping piles) is the most widely used drug on earth.
The Treaty of Tordesillas divided all of South America between Spain and Portugal in 1493. Pope Alexander VI drew up the treaty following Columbus’s discovery of the New World.
The tsetse fly kills another 66,000 people annually.
The turbot fish lays approximately 14 million eggs during its lifetime.
The turkey was named for what was wrongly thought to be its country of origin.
The turtle has the lowest pulse rate of any animal: 13 beats per minute.
The two lines that connect your top lip to the bottom of your nose are known as the philtrum.
The two most popular sports in the world are Association Football (soccer) and Table Tennis (ping-pong) respectively. I guess people love their balls, regardless of size. Hehe!
The two presidents who died on the same day: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died July 4, 1826.
The two robbers crucified next to Jesus were named Dismas and Gestas.
The typical lovemaking session averages 15 minutes in length.
The U.S. Army has a stealth reconnaissance helicopter named "The Duke" in honor of John Wayne.
The U.S. bought Alaska from Russia for 2 cents an acre.
The U.S. Dow Jones' lowest figure was 41.22 was on July 8, 1932.
The U.S. Post Office handles 43 percent of the world's mail.
The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.
The underside of a horses hoof is called a frog.
The underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. The frog peels off several times a year with new growth.
The Union ironclad, Monitor, was the first U.S. ship to have a flush toilet.
The United States government keeps its supply of silver at the US Military Academy at West Point, NY.
The United States is the world's largest consumer of coffee, importing 16 to 20 million bags annually (2.5 million pounds), representing one-third of all coffee exported. More than half of the United States population consumes coffee. The typical coffee drinker has 3.4 cups of coffee per day. That translates into more than 450,000,000 cups of coffee daily.
The United States Library of Congress contains 73 millions volumes (books), arranged on 350 miles of shelves.
The United States minted a 1787 copper coin with the motto 'Mind Your Business.'
The United States nickel (five cent piece) is made of 75% copper and 25% nickel.
The United States produces 3,145,892,000,000 kilowatt hours of electricity every year. That's over three times the amount of the second-highest producing country, Russia.
The United States Treasury Department maintains a fund known as "The Conscience Fund," which accepts money sent in anonymously by taxpayers who think they've cheated the government. The money is used for miscellaneous expenses.
The universe is so vast in relation to the matter it contains that it can be compared in the following way: A building 20 miles long, 20 miles wide and 20 miles high that contains 1 grain of sand.
The US Army has a 50 caliber sniper rifle that can shoot through the engine block of a car.
The US city with the highest murder rate is Detroit, with 45.3 homicides per 100,000 people.
The US federal income tax was first enacted in 1862 to support the Union's Civil War effort. It was eliminated in 1872, revived in 1894 then declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court the following year. In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the US tax system.
The US has more personal computers than the next 7 countries combined.
The US President's Cabinet is composed of: the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Interior, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Health/Human Services, the Secretary of Housing/Urban Development, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Transportation, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Secretary of Education.
The use of the names of dead presidents to sell alcohol in Michigan is prohibited.
The USSR set off the largest nuclear explosion in history, detonating a 50 megaton bomb (2600 times the Hiroshima bomb) in an atmospheric test over the Novaya Zemla Islands, October 30 1961.
The vast majority of coffee available to consumers are blends of different beans.
The Vatican's Swiss Guard still wears a uniform designed by Michelangelo in the early 16th century.
The venom of a female black widow spider is more potent than that of a rattlesnake.
The Venus flytrap feeds primarily on ants, not flies.
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
The Vince Lombardi Trophy is awarded to the winners of the Super Bowl.
The vintage date on a bottle of wine indicates the year the grapes were picked, not the year of bottling.
The Virginia Code (1930) has a statute: "To prohibit corrupt practices or bribery by any person other than candidates."
The viscera of Japanese abalone can harbor a poisonous substance which causes a burning, stinging, prickling and itching over the entire body. It does not manifest itself until exposure to sunlight if eaten outdoors in sunlight, symptoms occur quickly and suddenly.
The vocabulary of the average person consists of 5,000 to 6,000 words.
The Volkswagen was originally called the "Strength Through Joy Wagon".
The waste produced by one chicken in its lifetime can supply enough electricity to run a 100-watt bulb for 5 hours.
The water in the Great Salt Lake of Utah is more than four times as salty as any ocean.
The way that prostitutes got the nickname "Hooker" was because of a general of the Civil War. General Hooker would keep a number of prostitutes to follow has army and keep his men's moral up. The prostitutes were referred to as "Hookers brigade."
The WD in WD-40 stands for Water Displacer.
The weddell seal, can travel underwater for seven hours without surfacing.
The weight of air in a milk glass is about the same as the weight of one aspirin. (But one also wonders how big a milk glass is... anyone?)
The wettest spot in the world is located on the island of Kauai. Mt. Waialeale consistently records rainfall at the rate of nearly 500 inches per year.
The whiskers on a catfish are called barbells.
The White House, in Washington DC, was originally gray, the color of the sandstone it was built out of. After the War of 1812, during which it had been burned by Canadian troops, the outside walls were painted white to hide the smoke stains.
The lunula is the half-moon shaped pale area at the bottom of finger nails.
The white potato originated in the Andes mountains and was probably brought to Britain by Sir Francis Drake about 1586.
The Willamette River in Oregon is the only river on earth that flows it's entire distance north.
The wind must be below one mile an hour in order for the National Weather Service to rate the weather as "calm."
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.The Wizard of Oz was a Broadway musical 37 years before the MGM movie version was made. It had 293 performances and then went on a tour that lasted 9 years.
The word "checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means, "The King Is Dead."
The word "coach" is derived from the village of Kocs, Hungary, where coaches were invented and first used.
The word "crap" came from Thomas Crapper-a famous plumber in the early days of the toilet.
The word "dude" is the name for an infected elephant butt hair.
The word "earthling" was first found in print in 1593.
The word "homosexual" was not coined until 1869 by the Hungarian physician Karoly Maria Benkert.
The word "honcho" comes from a Japanese word meaning "squad leader" and first came into usage in the English language during the American occupation of Japan following World War II.
The word "karate" means "empty hand."
The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
The word "maverick" came into use after Samuel Maverick, a Texan refused to brand his cattle. Eventually any unbranded calf became known as a Maverick.
The word "MOW" can be read the same way upside-down, hence the word ambigram. Many other words can be written differently using special characters of writing to make the word appear the same way from different points.
The word "piano" is really an abbreviation for the word "pianoforte."
The word "pure" appears on the scroll held by the Quaker pictured on the packages of Quaker Oats cereal.
The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."
The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
The word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," from the movie Mary Poppins, was added to the Oxford dictionary in 1964.
The word "tip" dates back to the old London coffeehouses. Conspicuously placed brass boxes etched with the inscription, "To Insure Promptness," encouraged customers to pay for efficient service. The resulting acronym, TIP, has become a byword.
The word "trivia" comes from the Latin "trivium" which is the place where three roads meet, a public square. People would gather and talk about all sorts of matters, most of which were trivial.
The word Assassin is derived from a Middle Eastern religious and political sect known as Hashishins. The name means 'hashish smoker'which refers to the practice of taking hashish to induce visions of ecstacy before murdering their enemies as their religious duty. They were very good at what they did.
The word 'byte' is a contraction of 'by eight.'
The word 'cappuccino' is the result of several derivations, the original of which began in 16th century. The Capuchin order of friars, established after 1525, played an important role in bringing Catholicism back to Reformation Europe. Its Italian name came from the long, pointed cowl, or cappuccino, derived from cappuccino, "hood," that was worn as part of the order's habit. The French version of cappuccino was capuchin, from which came English Capuchin. In Italian cappuccino went on to describe espresso coffee mixed or topped with steamed milk or cream, so called because the color of the coffee resembled the color of the habit of a Capuchin friar. The first use of cappuccino in English is recorded in 1948 in a work about San Francisco. There is also the story line that says that the term comes from the fact that the coffee is dark, like the monk's robe, and the cap is likened to the color of the monk's head.
The word gargoyle comes down from the Old French: gargouille, meaning throat or gullet. This is also the origin of the word gargle. The word describes the sound produced as water passes the throat and mixes with air. In early architecture, gargoyles were decorative creatures on the drains of cathedrals.
The word 'geography' is derived from the greek words geo (the Earth) and graphein (to write).
The word gymnasium comes from the Greek word gymnazein which means to exercise naked.
The word 'lethologica' describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
The word 'monosyllable' actually has five syllables in it.
The word 'news' did not come about because it was the plural of 'new.' It came from the first letters of the words North, East, West and South. This was because information was being gathered from all different directions.
The word 'pixel' is a contraction of either 'picture cell' or 'picture element'.
The word quisling comes from the name of Major Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian who collaborated with the Germans during their occupation of Norway. The word now means "traitor."
The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.
The word vaccine comes from the Latin word "vacca," which means cow. This name was chosen because the first vaccination was derived from cowpox which was given to a boy.
The words "volt" and "voltage" are named for a member of the Italian nobility in the 1700s named Count Voltman.
The words “video recording” and “videotape” were first used in the early 1950s. At the time, only television professionals used them.
The words racecar, kayak, level and Navy Van are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left, and these are called palindromes. The longest palindromes in the dictionary however are the words 'Malayalam''rotavator' 'redivider'. Now check these out. 'A man a plan a canal panama'. 'Ten animals i slam in a net'thanx seraph, mashkur, hannah b, marky and jay, jelly baby king
The words silent and listen have the same letters. Santa and Satan do too.
The work "fuck" is used 257 times in the movie Pulp Fiction.
The works of Gregor Mendel, father of the science of genetics, went undiscovered for sixteen years after his death.
The World Bank estimates that Mexico owes the most money of any country in the world. They have $165,743,000,000 in external debt. Brazil is second with $159,139,000,000 in debt.
The world population of chickens is about equal to the number of people.
The world record for balancing people on your head is 92 in one hour.
The world record frog jump is 33 feet 5.5 inches over the course of 3 consecutive leaps, achieved in May 1977 by a South African sharp-nosed frog called Santjie.
The World Rubik Cube championship was held in Budapest on June 5, 1982. Nineteen National Champions took part. Minh Thai, the US Champion, won by solving the Cube in of 22.95 seconds. The world record, in competitive conditions, grew progressively lower and now stands at 16.5 seconds.
The world smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.
The world's costliest coffee, at $130 a pound , is called Kopi Luwak. It is in the droppings of a type of marsupial that eats only the very best coffee beans. Plantation workers track them and scoop their precious poop.
The world's deadliest mushroom is the Amanita phalloides, the death cap. The five different poisons contained by the mushroom cause diarrhea and vomiting within 6 to 12 hours of ingestion. This is followed by damage to the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system and, in the majority of cases, coma and death.
The world's first adhesive postage stamp went on sale in England in 1840. It was the Penny Black, portraying Queen Victoria.
The world's first chocolate candy was produced in 1828 by Dutch chocolate-maker Conrad J. Van Houten. He pressed the fat from roasted cacao beans to produce cocoa butter, to which he added cocoa powder and sugar.
The World's first microprocessor was created in 1971, called the 4004 by Intel. It contained 2300 transistors.
The world's first roller coaster opened in 1884 at Coney Island, New York. It was designed by Lemarcus Thompson, a former Sunday school teacher.The world's first singing commercial aired on the radio on Christmas Eve, 1926 for Wheaties cereal. The four male singers, eventually known as the Wheaties Quartet, sang the jingle.
The world's first speed limit regulation was in England in 1903. It was 20 mph.
The world's highest mountain, even higher than Mt.Everest is Mauna Koa an underwater mountain which rises 33,476 feet and has its peak on the island of Hawaii.
The world's highest railway is in Peru. The Central Railway climbs to 15,694 feet in the Galera tunnel, 108 miles from Lima. Tourists take it to get to the ruins of Machu Picchu.
The world's largest alphabet is Cambodian, with 74 letters.
The world's largest art gallery is the Winter Palace and Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. Visitors would have to walk 15 miles to see the 322 galleries which house nearly 3 million works of art.
The world's largest art gallery is the Winter Palace and the Hermitage in Leningrad. Visitors walk fifteen miles to visit each of the 322 galleries, which house nearly 3 million works of art and archaeological remains.
The world's largest burrito weighed 4,217 lbs.
The world's largest Gothic cathedral is in new York City. It is the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street. The cathedral measures 601 feet long, 146 feet wide, and has a transept measuring 320 feet from end to end.
The world's largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs 50 tons at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons.
The world's largest palace is the Imperial palace in the heart of Peking,
The world's largest rodent is the Capybara. An Amazon water hog that looks like a guinea pig, it can weigh more than 100 pounds.
The world's longest name is: Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver
The world's longest suspension bridge opened to traffic on April 5, 1998. The 3,911-meter (12,831-feet) Akashi Kaikyo Bridge is 580 meters (1,900 feet) longer than the Humber Bridge in England, the previous record holder.
The world's most popular hobby is stamp collecting.
The world's number one producer and consumer of fresh pork is China.
The world's smallest and oldest republic is San Marino. It's 25 square miles and is located mostly on top of a mountain entirely surrounded by Italy.
The world's smallest independent state is the Vatican City, with a population of about 1,000 and a zero birthrate.
The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.
The world's smallest winged insect, the Tanzanian parasitic wasp, is smaller than the eye of a housefly.
The world's tallest grass, which has sometimes grown 130 feet or more, is bamboo.
The world's tallest mountains, the Himalayas, are also the fastest growing. Their growth about half an inch a year is caused by the pressure exerted by two of Earth's continental plates (the Eurasian plate and the Indo-Australian plate) pushing against one another.
The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
The worldwide "Spanish Flu" epidemic which broke out in 1918 killed more than 30 million people in less than a year's time.
The wristwatch was invented in 1904 by Louis Cartier.The 'y' in signs reading "ye olde.." is properly pronounced with a 'th' sound, not 'y'. The "th" sound does not exist in Latin, so ancient Roman occupied (present day) England use the rune "thorn" to represent "th" sounds. With the advent of the printing press the character from the Roman alphabet which closest resembled thorn was the lower case "y".
The 'you are here arrow' on a map is called the IDEO locator.
The youngest mother on record was a Peruvian girl named Lina Medina. She gave birth to a boy by caesarean section on May 14, 1939 (which happened to be Mother's Day), at the age of five years, seven months and 21 days.
The youngest movie star to win an Academy Award was Shirly Temple who won an Oscar in 1934 at the age of 6.
The youngest person to give birth was a five-yr. old tribal girl (C-Section of course)
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
The yo-yo was introduced in 1929 by Donald F. Duncan. The toy was based on a weapon used by 16th-century Filipino hunters.
The yo-yo was originally a weapon in the Philippines.
The zebra is basically a light-colored animal with black stripes.
The ZIP in "ZIP code" means Zoning Improvement Plan.
their wages in salt hence the word "Salary" derived.
Theodore Roosevelt was the only U.S. president to deliver an inaugural address without using the word "I". Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower tied for second place, using "I" only once in their inaugural addresses.
Ther very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
There are 1,218 peanuts in a single 28 ounce jar of Jif peanut butter.
There are 1,792 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
There are 10 million people who share your birthday.
There are 10,000,000 bricks in the Empire State Building.
There are 100 tiles in a 'Scrabble' crossword game.
There are 11 points on the collar around Kermit the Frog's neck.
There are 1189 chapters in the Bible: 929 chapters in the Old Testament and 260 chapters in the New Testament.
There are 13,678 McDonald's fast food joints in the United States.
There are 132 rooms in the US White House.
There are 170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ways to play the ten opening moves in a game of chess.
There are 2,320 Navy SEALs.
There are 2,382,500 (rounded) Smiths in the U.S.
There are 2,598,960 five-card hands possible in a 52-card deck of cards.
There are 24 known "perfect" numbers. These are numbers that equal the sum of all its divisors except itself. For instance, six the lowest of these numbers is divisible by 1, 2, or 3 and 1+2+3=6. The largest of the known "perfect" numbers has 12,003 digits.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
There are 300 distinct different types of honey.
There are 31,557,600 seconds in a year.
There are 318,979,564,000 possible ways to play the first four moves per side in a game of chess.
There are 336 dimples on a regulation size golf ball.
There are 336 dimples on a regulation US golf ball. In the UK its 330.
There are 350,000 Italians living in Toronto, Canada, a population about the same as that of Venice, Italy.
There are 38 peaks in South America higher than Mt. McKinley, which is the highest point in North America.
There are 403 steps from the foundation to the top of the torch in the Statue of Liberty.
There are 41,806 different spoken languages in the world today.
There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different color combinations possible on a Rubik's Cube.
There are 44,523,312,694,361,020,971,556,671,544,734,879,370,359,807,003,367,569,358,848,000,000,000,000 ways to order a deck of cards.
There are 45 miles of nerves in the skin of a human being.
There are 48 Gutenberg Bibles still in existence. Two of them were in Germany during World War II and are missing, but many book collectors believe them to be in private collections.
There are 49 different foods mentioned in the Bible.
There are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.
There are 63,360 inches in a mile.
There are a million ants for every person on Earth.
There are about 2 chickens for every human in the world.
There are about 30 milligrams of caffeine in the average chocolate bar, while a cup of coffee contains around 100 to 150 milligrams.
There are about 450 types of cheese in the world. 240 come from France.
There are about 5,000,000,000 years of sunlight left
There are about 7.7 million millionaires in the world (more than 1/1000th of the population).
There are approximately 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building.
There are approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day.
There are approximately 13,000 identifiable varieties of roses throughout the world.
There are approximately 2,700 different species of mosquitoes.
There are approximately 250,000 sweat glands in your feet.
There are approximately 45 billion fat cells in an average adult.
There are approximately 7,000 feathers on an eagle.
There are approximately 75,000,000 horses in the world.
There are approximately 9,000 taste buds on the tongue.
There are approximately fifty Bibles sold each minute across the world.
There are around 2,600 different species of frogs. They live on every continent except Antarctica.
There are at least two words in the English language that use all of the vowels, in the correct order, and end in the letter Y: abstemiously & facetiously.
There are four main Blood types: A, B, AB and O and each Blood type is either Rh positive or negative. Blood types in the US Type O positive 38.4%, O negative 7.7%, A positive 32.3%, A negative 6.5%, B positive 9.4%, B negative 1.7%, AB positive 3.2%, AB negative 0.7%
There are just over 7 million millionaires in the world (more than 1/1000th of the population).
There are more coffee drug addicts in the US than drug addicts of any other kind.
There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of the year.There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth.
There are more kinds of bacteria in your mouth then there are people in the world
There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones.
There are more plastic lawn flamingos in the United States than real ones.
There are more stars than all of the grains of sand on earth.
There are more statues of Sacajewa, Lewis & Clark's female Indian guide, in the United States than any other person.
There are more than 100 distinct ethnic groups in the former Soviet states.
There are more than 100 million dogs and cats in the United States. Americans spend more than 5.4 billion dollars on their pets each year.
There are more than 2,000 muscles in a caterpillar.
There are more than 40,000 characters in Chinese script.
There are more than 50,000 earthquakes throughout the world every year.
There are more than 500 varieties of banana in the world: The most common kinds are Dwarf Cavendish, Valery, and Williams Hybrid bananas. Other types of bananas include Apple and a small red banana called the Red Jamaica. A large type of banana called the plantain is hard and starchy and is almost eaten as a cooked vegetable. The Cavendish is the most common variety of bananas now imported to the United States. The Cavendish is a shorter, stubbier plant than earlier varieties. It was developed to resist plant diseases, insects and windstorms better than its predecessors. The Cavendish fruit is of medium size, has a creamier, smooth texture, and a thinner peel than earlier varieties.
There are more than 700 species of plants that grow in the United States that have been identified as dangerous if eaten. Among them are some that are commonly favored by gardeners: buttercups, daffodils, lily of the valley, sweet peas, oleander, azalea, bleeding heart, delphinium, and rhododendron.
There are more than 900,000 known species of insects in the world.
There are nine rooms on a 'Clue' game board. A forfeited baseball game is recorded as a 9-0 score.
There are no clocks or windows in any casino.
There are no female characters in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island because he was following the instructions of his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, for whom he wrote the book. Llyod wanted a story "about a map, a treasure, a mutiny and a derelict ship...No women in the story."
There are no geeze in the southern hemisphere.
There are no living descendents of William Shakespeare.
There are no public toilets in Peru.
There are no turkeys in Turkey.
There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple, or silver.
There are one million ants for every person in the world.
There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet.
There are only 4 words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
There are only 81 stable chemical elements. Rhenium was the last one to be found in 1925. Fifteen other elements have been discovered since then, but they are all radioactive.
There are only four words in the English language that end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
There are only two sequences of four consecutive letters that can be found in the English language: "rstu" and "mnop." Examples of each are understudy and gymnophobia.
There are orange peels and raisins in A-1 Steak Sauce.
There are over 3,500 bras hanging behind the bar at Hogs and Heifers, a bar in Manhattan. So many, in fact, that they caused a beam to collapse in the ceiling.
There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers. The most widely spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese. There are 885,000,000 people in China that speak that language.
There are seven suicides in the Bible: Abimelech. Samson, Saul, Saul's armor-bearer, Ahithophel, Zimri, Judas.
There are six U.S. Presidents with the first name James: Madison, Monroe, Garfield, Buchanon, Carter, Polk.
There are songs in all of Shakespeare's plays except The Comedy of Errors.
There are ten human body parts that are only three letters long: eye, hip, arm, leg, ear, toe, jaw, rib, lip, and gum.
There are ten million bricks in the Empire State Building.
There are thirteen languages spoken by more than 100 million people. They are: Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Malay-Indonesian, French, Japanese, German, and Urdu.
There are two credit cards for every person in the U.S.
There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."
There are, on average, 259 raisins in a box of Raisin Bran and 388 in a box of Premium Raisin Bran.
There has never been a time in Super Bowl history where a punt return resulted in a touchdown.
There have been about 30 films made at or about Alcatraz, the now-closed federal prison island in San Francisco Bay, including The Rock (1996), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), and Escape from Alcatraz (1979).
There have been no recorded instances of anybody being killed by a meteorite.
There have been over 600 lawsuits against Alexander Grahm Bell over rights to the patent of the telephone, the most valuable patent in U.S. history.
There is a 1 in 4 chance that New York will have a white Christmas.
There is a 6-foot tall stone monument dedicated to the cartoon character Popeye in Crystal City, TX. .
There is a butterfly found in Brazil that has the smell and color of a chocolate.
There is a flower called the Scarlet Pimpernel that can forecast the weather. If the flower is closed up, rain is coming and if it is opened up, the day will be sunny.It is a.k.a 'the poor man's weatherglass'
There is a Massachusetts law requiring all dogs to have their hind legs tied during the month of April.
There is a member of the spider family called the demodex folliculorum that lives at the root of people's eye lashes. It's harmless and normal.(so they claim) To look for them, grab a handful of your eyelashes and dunk them in warm water. They'll start swimming out. It is prevalent in nearly 100% of old people in the U.S.
There is a sea squirt (found in the seas near Japan) that digests its own brain. When the sea squirt is mature it permanently attaches itself to a rock. At this point it does not need to move anymore and has no need for a brain.
There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
There is a street in Canada that runs for a distance of nearly 1900 kms.
There is a way of writing 1 by using all ten single-digit numbers at once: 148/296 + 35/70 = 1.
There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs five times: "indivisibility."
There is about 1/4 pound of salt in every gallon of seawater.
There is about 200 times more gold in the oceans than has been mined throughout history.
There is actually no danger in swimming right after you eat, though it may feel uncomfortable.
There is air in space, but very little of it. In fact, it is equivalent to a marble in a box 5 miles wide. Most of the gas is captured by the gravitational pull of other celestial bodies.Thanx M.Lerner
There is an average of 61,000 people airborne over the US at any given moment.
There is an extra leg in the Iwo Jima memorial statue and extra hand. While the legend is that these extremedies belong to God, who is helping the Marines win, they are actually there for added support to the statue, and designed not to look like a metal rod going throught the middle of the group of Marines.
There is coffee flavored Pez.
There is cyanide in apple pits.
There is more bacteria in your mouth than the human population of U.S and Canada combined. Thanx Julie for this and a couple more
There is no alcohol left in food that's cooked with wine. The alcohol evaporates at 172 degrees Fahrenheit.
There is no difference in flavor or nutritional value between brown and white eggs. Aside form color, they are identical. Most white eggs come from White Longhorns and browns come from a commercial cross of Rhode Island Reds and Barred Plymouth Rocks.
There is no ice covering Iceland.
There is no single cat called the panther. The name is commonly applied to the leopard, but it is also used to refer to the puma and the jaguar. A black panther is really a black leopard.
There is no solid proof of who built the Taj Mahal.There is no such thing as a banana tree. Bananas grow on plants.
There is only ONE word in the English language with THREE CONSECUTIVE SETS OF DOUBLE LETTERS.... Bookkeeper
There is over 70,000,000 rats in New York, That is an average of about 9 rats per person
There is zero gravity at the center of the earth.
There really was a Cyrano de Bergerac. He lived from about 1620 to 1655, had a big nose and dueled. He was also a science fiction writer who was the first person in history to suggest that a rocket could carry someone into space.
There was no soap in the ancient Mediterranean world. Olive oil was used to wash the body in addition to cooking.
There was once a law in Salem Virginia that made it illegal to leave home without knowing where you were going.
There were 840 soldiers in the regular army when the U.S. War Department was established in 1789. Their job was to supervise public lands and guard the Indian frontier.
There's a town in New Mexico called Pie Town that consists of two restaurants and a post office. It was originally a stoppong place along a long stretch of road. It's famous for having good pies!
There's an average of of 178 sesame seeds on a Big Mac bun.
There's Arsnick(a dangerous poison) in dirt
There's enough water preassure in one onion cell to cause a steam engine to explode.
Thirteen muscles are used to make a person smile.
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
This is what the red, white, and blue on the US flag represent: The Continental Congress left no record to show why it chose the colors. However, in 1782, the Congress of the Confederation chose these same colors for the Great Seal of the United States and listed their meaning as follows: white to mean purity and innocence, red for valor and hardiness, and blue for vigilance, perseverance, and justice. According to legend, George Washington interpreted the elements of the flag this way: the stars were taken from the sky, the red from the British colors, and the white stripes signified the secession from the home country. However, there is no official designation or meaning for the colors of the flag.
This may have been true on an older $5 bill, but I just scanned in one of the new ones and took a real close look and found nothing. If anyone finds it on an old one, please send in a pic or let me know.
This one is deep...think about the cultural impact this could have: NO WAR HAS BEEN FOUGHT WHERE BOTH COUNTRIES HAD A McDonalds
This sounds feasible, but isn't true! Crapper actually invented the automatic shut-off mechanism used in the modern toilet.
Thomas Edison got patents for a method of making concrete furniture and a cigar which was supposed to burn forever.
Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark.
Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark
Thomas Jefferson invented the dumbwaiter.
Thomasville, North Carolina, prohibits airplanes from flying over the town on Sundays during the hours between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Those British are sophisticated people, in almost everything except their choice of coffee. They still drink instant ten-to-one over fresh brewed.
Those hard, plastic points on the ends of shoelaces are called aglets.
Though it goes to 10, 9 is estimated to be the point of total tectonic destruction from an earthquake (2 is the smallest that can be felt unaided.)
Thousands of people watched the Battle of Bunker Hill take place. People in the Boston area sat on rooftops, in trees, on church steeples, and in the rigging of ships in the harbor to watch the American revolutionaries battle the British.
Three chemicals are used to execute criminals by lethal injection. First, Sodium Thiopental is injected, causing the inmate to fall into a deep sleep. The second chemical agent, Pancuronium Bromide, a muscle relaxer, follows. This causes the inmate to stop breathing due to paralyses of the diaphragm and lungs. Finally, Potassium Chloride is injected, stopping the heart.
Three million people in the United States have an impairment of the back or limbs that is a direct result of an accidental fall.
Three-hundred-million cells die in the human body every minute.
Throughout his career, DeWolf Hopper recited Casey at the Bat" over 10,000 times.
Tiger Woods is the only person to hold all four major championships at one time, although it did not happen in the calendar year. He also currently holds the scoring record for all four majors.
Tiger Woods' real first name is Eldrick. His father gave him the nickname "Tiger" in honor of a South Vietnamese soldier his father had fought alongside with during the Vietnam War.
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
Tigers' paw prints are called pug marks.
Time magazine's "Man of the Year" for 1938 was Adolf Hitler.
Timmie Jean Lindsey of Houston, TX became the first person to get silicone breast implants in 1962.
Tina Turner's real name is Annie Mae Bullock.
Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, implemented on July 16, 1969, makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles.
To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.
To an observer standing on Pluto, the sun would appear no brighter than Venus appears in our evening sky.
To avoid long encounters with the press, President Ronald Reagan often took reporters' questions with his helicopter roaring in the background.
To determine the percentage of alcohol in a bottle of liquor divide the proof by two.To find out almost the exact temperature... Listen to a cricket chirping and count the number of chirps in a minute. Add fifty, divide by four then add 40.
To go one lunar day, adjust your watch to lose two minutes and five seconds every hour.
To keep your feet warm, put on a hat: 80% of all body heat escapes through the head.
To make things easier while mixing the American Graffiti sound track, George Lucas and sound designer Walter Murch labeled all of the film reels R and all of the dialogue tracks D, and then numbered each of them sequentially, starting with 1. When Murch later asked Lucas for Reel 2 Dialogue 2 or more precisely, R2 D2 Lucas liked the way it sounded so much that he made a note of the name for another project he was writing.
The largest movie theater in the world, Radio City Music Hall in New York City, opened in December, 1932. It originally had 5,945 seats.
The largest painting in the world is The Battle of Gettysburg, painted in 1883 by Paul Philippoteaux and sixteen of his assistants. The painting took two and a half years to create and is 410 feet long, 70 feet high, and weighs 11,792 pounds.
The largest pig on record was a Poland-China hog named Big Bill, who weighed 2,552 lbs.
The largest sculpture ever made are the faces of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt on Mt. Rushmore.
The largest ship in the world is the French oil tanker that is nearly 415 mts. long, almost as long as Sydney harbour bridge.
The largest single flower is the Rafflesia or "corpse flower". They are generally 3 feet in diameter with the record being 42 inches.
The largest single-ticket jackpot winner in history is Jack Whittaker Jr. of West Virginia. In December 2002 he had the sole winning ticket for a $314.9 million jackpot in the U.S. Powerball lottery.
The largest stained-glass window in the world is at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. It can be seen on the American Airlines terminal building and measures 300 feet long by 23 feet high
The largest stained-glass window in the world is at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. It can be found in the American Airlines terminal building and measures 300 feet long by 23 feet high.
The largest US city in area is Juneau, Alaska, which covers 3,108 square miles. Los Angeles covers only 458.2 square miles.
The last member of the famous Bonaparte family, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, died in 1945, of injuries sustained from tripping over his dog's leash.
The last thing to happen is the ultimate. The next-to-last is the penultimate, and the second-to-last is the antepenultimate.
The lead in a normal pencil would draw a line of 35 miles.
The leading cause of deaths for children between the ages of 1 and 4 are motor vehicle crashes.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa was built on the site of a river estuary. The land under the town has several layers of silt and soft clay. The 15,000-ton tower tilts to the south because the subsoil is too unstable.
The left lung is smaller than the right lung to make room for the heart.
The left side of your brain controls the right side of your body and vice versa.
The left testicle usually hangs lower than the right for right-handed men. The opposite is true for lefties.
The lemur of Madagascar is one of very few of the human species' ancestors that has survived unchanged down the long corridors of evolution. Having developed after the first primates, it is classified as a prosimian, meaning "before monkey," and is one of the ancestors common to both monkeys and men.
The letter "I" is used exactly 109 times in Act IV of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
The letter "W" is the only letter in the alphabet that doesn't have just one syllable – it has three.
The letter J does not appear ANYWHERE in the periodic table of elements.
The letter most in use in the English language is "E" and the letter "Q" is least used.
The letters in the abbreviation e.g. stand for exempli gratia – a Latin term meaning "for example."
The Library of Congress has approx. 327 miles of bookshelves.
The lie detector was invented by John Augustus Larson in 1921.
The light from your computer screen streams at you at almost 186,000 miles per second.
The lights of Las Vegas at night can be seen from outer space.
The linen bandages that were used to wrap Egyptian mummies averaged 1,000 yards in length.
The liquid inside coconuts can be used as blood plasma substitutes!
The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called 'mantles') are radioactive, so much so that they will set off an alarm at a nuclear reactor.
The little lump of flesh just forward of your ear canal, right next to your temple, is called a tragus.
The little overhang of bone and feathers over an eagle's eye is there to protect the sensitive eyeball from the mountain and desert sun. It's not meant to make the bird look fierce.
The Lone Ranger's "real" name is John Reid.
The longest movie ever screened was a 1970 British film that lasted 48 hours, 0 minutes. Believe it or not, its name is The Longest and Most Meaningless Movie in the World.
The longest muscle in the human body is the sartorius. This narrow muscle of the thigh passes obliquely across the front of the thigh and helps rotate the leg to the position assumed in sitting cross-legged. Its name is a derivation of the adjective "sartorial," a reference to what was the traditional cross-legged position of tailors (or "sartors") at work.
The longest name in the Bible Mahershalalbaz (Isaiah 8:1).
The longest one syllable word in he English language is "screeched".
The longest Oscar acceptance speech was made by Greer Garson for 1924's "Mrs. Miniver." It took an hour.
The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiw en uaitnatahu, a New Zealand hill.
The longest railway in the world is the Trans-Siberian Railway or Trans-Siberian Railroad, built 1891-1916, a network of railways connecting European Russia with Russian Far East provinces. It is 9,288.2 kilometres (5,787 miles) long and spans 8 time zones.
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds!
The longest recorded gloved boxing match took place in 1893. Andy Bowen and Jack Burke fought for more than 7 hours. After 110 rounds, the fight was declared a draw because both Bowen and Burke were too exhausted to continue.
The longest reign in the history of the world was that of Pepi II of the sixth Egyptian dynasty. He ruled from the age of 6 until his death at age 94.
The longest reigning monarch in history was Pepi II, who ruled Egypt for 90 years; 2566 to 2476 BC. The second longest was France's Louis XIV, who ruled for 72 years, 1643 to 1715.
The longest river in the world, the Nile, is 4,145 miles long.
The longest single-word name of a place on Earth is: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipuakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. This place is a Moari name for a hill in New Zealand and consists of 85 letters. By the way, the name means “The place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as land-eater, played on the flute to his loved one."
The longest war between two nations in history, The Hundred Years War between England and France, really lasted for 115 years(1338-1453).
The longest word in the dictionary with only one vowel is "STRENGTHS."
The longest word in the English language is 1909 letters long and it refers to a distinct part of DNA.
The longest word in the english language is pneaumonaultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis...It's a lung disease contracted from breathing in too much volcanic dust settlement.
The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters ispneumonoultra-microscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.
The longest word in the Finnish language, that isn't a compound word, is 'epaejaerjestelmaellistyttaemaettoemyydellaensaekaeaen'. In English it means 'even with their lack of ability to disorganize'.
The longest word that can be typed on the top row of letters on a "Qwerty" keyboard is TYPEWRITER.
The Looney Tunes song is actually called "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down."
The low frequency call of the humpback whale is the loudest noise made by a living creature. The call of the humpback whale is louder than Concorde and can be heard from 500 miles away.
The lowest point that a person can reach on Earth, outside of riding a submarine or going down a mine shaft, is where the Jordan River enters the Dead Sea. It's 1,290 feet below sea level.
The lowest temperature ever recorded in the world was 129 degrees below 0 at Vostok, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.
The lowest valued note in the world is the Hong Kong 1 cent note of which
The magician's words "hocus-pocus" were taken from the name of a mythological sorcerer, Ochus Bochus, who appeared in Norse folktales and legends.
The magnetic North Pole shifts by about 7 meters a day.
The magnolia tree is named after Pierre Magnol, a French scientist.
The Mai Tai cocktail was created in 1945 by Victor Bergeron, the genius of rum, also known as Trader Vic. The drink got its name when he served it to two friends from Tahiti, who exclaimed "Maitai roa ae!," which in Tahitian means "Out of this world the best!"
The main active chemical in marijuana is THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol). The membranes of certain nerve cells in the brain contain protein receptors that bind to THC. Once securely in place, THC kicks off a series of cellular reactions that ultimately lead to the high that users experience when they smoke marijuana
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, the engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
The main road in Hershey, PA (where Hershey's candy bars are made) is Chocolate Avenue.
The major side effects from abusing anabolic steroids can include liver tumors and cancer, jaundice (yellowish pigmentation of skin, tissues, and body fluids), fluid retention, high blood pressure, increases in LDL (bad cholesterol), and decreases in HDL (good cholesterol). Other side effects include kidney tumors, severe acne, and trembling.
The male gypsy moth can "smell" the virgin female gypsy moth from 1.8 miles away.
The male penguin incubates the single egg laid by his mate. During the two month period he does not eat, and will lose up to 40% of his body weight.
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the males head off.
The male scorpion fly gets other males to bring him food by imitating a female fly.
The male seahorse carries the eggs until they hatch instead of the female.
The man who commissioned the Mona Lisa refused it.
The Manta Ray is the largest of all fish.
The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white, due to low budget.
The maximum length allowed for a baseball bat in the major leagues is 42 inches.
The melting point of cocoa butter is just below the human body temperature -which is why it literally melts in your mouth.
The Mesopotamians were the first people to keep records of lunar eclipses. The earliest records show that they started sometime around 2200 B.C.
The metal instrument used in shoe stores to measure feet is called the Brannock device.
The metric system was to blame for the loss of the Mars Climate orbiter.
The Michelin man is known as Mr. Bib. His name was Bibendum in the company's first ads in 1896.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.The military salute originated during the medieval times. Knights in armor used to raise their visors to reveal their identity, and the motion later evolved into the modern-day salute.
The Mills Brothers have recorded the most songs of any artist: about 2,250.
The minarets ofthe Taj Mahal in India are angled at 88 degrees outwards so that they would not collapse into the structure should an earthquake occur
The minimum number of darts that need to be thrown to complete a single in, double out game of 501 is nine.
The Miss America Contest was created in Atlantic City in 1921 with the purpose of extending the tourist season beyond Labor Day.
The model of King Kong used in the original movie was only 18 inches tall.
The modern Olympic Games were held in the first time in 1896 at Athens and were then followed by the 1900 Paris games. The winter games were added in 1924.
The mola mola or ocean sunfish lays up to 5,000,000 eggs at one time.
The Mona Lisa, by daVinci, is 2'6" by 1'9".
The Mona-Lisa, now hanging in the Louvre museum in Paris, is valued today at $100,000,000.
The monastic hours are matins, lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers and compline.
The Montreal Canadians of the mid-1950s are the only team to win five straight Stanley Cup championships.
The Monty Python movie "The Life of Brian" was banned in Scotland.
The moon actually has mirrors on it. They were left there by astronauts who wanted to bounce laser beams off them, so that the distance to the moon can be measured.
The most abundant metal in the Earth's crust is aluminum.
The most collect calls are made on father's day.
The most common blood type in the world is Type O. The rarest, Type A-H, has been found in less than a dozen people since the type was discovered.
The most common disease in the world is tooth - decay.
The most common injury in bowling is a sore thumb.
The most common street name in the United States is Second Street. First Street isn’t first because many times the designation is replaced with the name Main Street.
The most expensive book or manuscript ever sold at an auction was The Codex Hammer, a notebook belonging to Leonardo da Vinci. It sold for $30.8 million.
The most expensive movie memorabilia ever sold at an auction was Clark Gable’s Academy Award for It Happened One Night. It sold for $607,500 on December 15, 1996.
The most expensive painting ever sold at auction was Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh. On May 15, 1990, Ryoei Saito paid $75 million for it. He followed up that spending spree by paying the second-highest price ever, $71 million for Au Moulin de la Galette by Pierre Auguste Renoir, just two days later.
The most frequently seen birds at feeders across North America last winter were the Dark-eyed Junco, House Finch and American goldfinch, along with downy woodpeckers, blue jays, mourning doves, black-capped chickadees, house sparrows, northern cardinals and european starlings.
The most searched thing on yahoo.com every year is porn.
The most snow accumulation in a one-day period was 75.8 inches at Silver Lake, Colorado, in April 1921.
The most successful X-rated movie of all time is Deep Throat. It cost less than $50,000 to make it and has earned more than $100 million.
The most used line in the movies is "Lets get out of here."
The most widely accepted legend associated to the discovery of coffee is of the goatherder named Kaldi of Ethiopia. Around the year 800-850 A.D., Kaldi was amazed as he noticed his goats behaving in a frisky manner after eating the leaves and berries of a coffee shrub. And, of course, he had to try them!
The most widely culticated fruit in the world is the Apple.The second is the Pear.
The motto for the Olympic Games is Citius Altius Fortius. Translated, it means Faster Higher Stronger.
The mouse is the most common mammal in the US.
The movie As Good As It Gets is called Mr. Cat Poop in China.
The movie Quo Vadis had 30,000 extras.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York City hung Matisse's 'Le Bateau' upside-down for 47 days before an art student noticed the error.
The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
The nail of our middle finger grows the fastest and the nail of our thumb grows slowest.
The name "Uncle Sam" for the U.S. came from a person known as Uncle Sam Wilson of Troy, NY, who supplied food for the U.S. army in the war of 1812.
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as 'Ke-kou-ke-la.' Unfortunately, the Company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means 'bite the wax tadpole' or 'female horse stuffed with wax' depending on the dialect. Coke then researched Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, 'ko-kou-ko-le,' which can be loosely translated as 'happiness in the mouth.'
The name for Oz in the Wizard of Oz was thought up when the creator Frank Baum looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z.
The name for the middle part of the nose (the part that separates the nostrils) is called a chaffanue
The name 'Intel' stems from the company's former name, 'Integrated Electronics'.
The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
The name of the dog from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" is Max.
The name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box is Bingo.
The name of the first airplane flown at Kitty Hawk by the Wright Brothers, on December 17, 1903, was Bird of Prey.
The name of the Russian space station, Mir, means "peace."
The name Santa Claus is a corruption of the Dutch dialect name for Saint Nicholas Sint Klass.
The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan". There was never a recorded Wendy before.
The name Wendy was made up for the book 'Peter Pan'. It came from the author's friends, whom he called his "fwendy" (friend)
The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy before it.
The nation of Monaco on the French Riviera, is smaller than Central Park in New York. Monaco is 370 acres and Central Park is 840 acres.
The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses.
The national dish of Scotland, haggis, is made of the heart, liver, lungs and small intestines of a calf. It's then boiled in the stomach of the animal, and seasoned with salt, pepper and onions. Oh, and don't forget to add the suet and oatmeal.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced in 1978 that it would alternate men's and women's names in the naming of hurricanes. It was seen as an attempt at fair play. Hurricanes had been named for women for years, until NOAA succumbed to pressure from women's groups who were demanding that Atlantic storms be given unisex names.
The national sport of Nauru, a small Pacific island, is lassoing flying birds.
The Navy SEALs were formed in 1962.
The Neanderthal's brain was bigger than yours is.
The nearest relative of the hippopotamus is the common pig.
The Netherlands is the lowest country in the world. An estimated 40% of its land is below sea level.
The New York City Chamber of Commerce is the oldest chamber of commerce in the United States. King George III granted a royal charter for it in 1770.
The New York phone book had 22 Hitlers listed before World War II ... and none after.
The New York Yankees have won the most champoinships (26 times) in their respected sport (MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL) for any professional sports team.
The Nile catfish swim upside down.
The number 111,111,111 multiplied by itself will result in the number 12,345,678,987,654,321.
The number 2,520 can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 without having a fractional leftover.
The number 37 will wholly divide (no decimals) into 111, 222, 333, 444, 555, 666, 777, 888, and 999.
The number of atoms in a pound of iron is nearly five trillion trillion: 4,891,500,000,000,000,000,000,000.
The number of cricket chirps you count in a fifteen-second span, plus 37, will tell you the approximate current air temperature.
The number of possible ways of playing just the first four moves on each side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
The number of times a drowning person will rise to the surface depends on how much air is in his lungs. He could rise once, twice, or five times. Or not at all. Obese people will stay afloat longer than skinny people because fat contains air molecules.
The number of triplets born in the US in 1994 (4,594) was more than triple the number born in 1971 (1,034), an increase attributed to older age of the mothers and the use of fertility-enhancing drugs and techniques.
The number of VCRs in the United States grew from 52,565,000 in 1987 to 86,825,000 in 1997, a 39.5% increase.
The numbers "172" can be found on the back of a US $5 bill, in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln memorial.
The numbers 111 222 333 444 555 666 777 888 999 are all multiples of 37.
The numbers on opposite sides of a die always add up to seven.
The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosy is a rhyme about the plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores ("Ring around the rosy..."), these sores would smell very badly so common folks would put flowers on their bodies somewhere (inconspicuously), so that it would cover the smell of the sores ("...a pocket full of posies..."), People who died from the plague would be burned so as to reduce the possible spread of the disease ("...ashes, ashes, we all fall down!")
The Oblivion ride at Alton Towers has a G-force of 5. Thats higher than the G-force of an average NASA take-off!
The occupations of the three men in a tub were butcher, baker, and candlestick maker.
The odds against a royal flush in poker are exactly 649,739 to 1.
The odds of being born male are about 51.2%, according to census.
The official definition of a desert is any land that where more water evaporates than is acquired through precipitation.
The official name of the St. Louis Gateway Arch is "The Jefferson National Expansion Monument." The Gateway Arch looks taller than it is wider, but it is exactly 630 feet by 630 feet.
The official sport for the State of Maryland is jousting.
The official state song of Georgia since 1922 has been "Georgia on My Mind".
The Ohio river forms at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela.
The oiuja board was invented by Isaac and William Fuld, and was patented July 1, 1892.
The oldest "cricket" match was played between the USA and Canada in 1844.
The oldest continuous comic strip still in existence is The Katzenjammer Kids. It first appeared in newspapers in 1897.
The oldest exposed surface on earth is New Zealand's south island.
The oldest goldfish lived for 14,795 days.
The oldest living thing in existence is not a giant redwood, but a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California, dated to be aged 4,600 years old.
The oldest man-made building of any kind still existing is the central edifice of the 4,600-year-old mastaba (a tomb for kings) built at Sakkara, Egypt. It was created to honor King Zoser, the first ruler of the Third Dynasty.
The oldest musical instrument is probably the flute. It's been discovered that primitive cave dwellers made an instrument from bamboo or some other small hollow wood.
The oldest person to live was Jeanne Louise Calment, she lived for a whopping 122 years until she died of smoking related complications. Don't Smoke!
The oldest recorded document on paper made from fibrous material was a deed of King Roger of Sicily, in the year 1102.
The oldest tennis court in the world is the one built at Hampton Court in 1530 for Henry VIII.
The oldest works of art are pictures of animals found in caves in Spain and France. They have been dates as far back as 18,000 years ago.
The olive branch in the eagle's right talon has 13 leaves.
The Olympic Games were held in St. Louis, MO. In 1904, the first time that the games were held in the United States.
The Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic, and she provided twenty-five years of service.
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable"!
The only animals that can naturally sleep on their backs are humans. No other animal actually does--apes usually sleep sitting up and leaning on something.
The only big cat that doesn't roar is a Jaguar
The only bird that can fly backwards is the hummingbird.
The only bird that cannot fly is the penguin
The only bone in the human body not connected to another is the hyoid, a V-shaped bone located at the base of the tongue between the mandible and the voice box. Its function is to support the tongue and its muscles.
The only bone not broken so far during any ski accident is one located in the inner ear.
The only continent without reptiles or snakes is Antarctica.
The only countries in the world with one syllable in their names are Chad, France, Greece, and Spain.
The only difference between brown eyes and every other colored eyes is that brown eyes have more pigment.
The only dog to ever appear in a Shakespearean play was Crab in The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
The only father and son to hit back-to-back home runs in a major league baseball game: Ken Griffey, Jr., and his father, Ken Griffey, Sr., both of the Seattle Mariners in a game against the California Angels on September 14th, 1990.
The only food cockroaches won't eat are cucumbers.
The only jointless bone in your body is the hyoid bone in your throat
The only loss Packers' coach Vince Lombardi ever suffered in the postseason was to the Philadelphia Eagles, 17-13, in the 1960 NFL championship game.
The only member of the British House of Commons who is not allowed to speak is the man called the Speaker of the House.
The only MLB team to have both its city's name and its team name in a foreign language is the San Diego Padres.
The only mobile national monuments in the United States are the cable cars in San Francisco.The only one of his sculptures that Michelangelo signed was the "The Pieta," completed in 1500.
The only painting by Leonardo da Vinci on permanent display in the United States hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. It's a portrait of Ginevra di Benci, the wife of a politician in Florence.
The only president buried in Washington, D.C. proper: Woodrow Wilson, who was laid to rest in the National Cathedral.
The only president buried on the grounds of a state capitol: James Polk in Nashville, Tenn.
The only President in office to weigh less than 100 pounds was James Madison.
The only President to be head of a labor union was Ronald Reagan.
The only presidents buried together: John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams are in a basement crypt in Quincy, Mass.
The only real person to be a PEZ head was Betsy Ross.
The only repealed amendment to the US Constitution deals with the prohibition of alcohol.
The only rock that floats in water is pumice.
The only state allowed to fly its flag at the same height as the U.S. flag is Texas.
The only three non-Presidents pictured on U.S. paper money are: Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill, and Salmon Chase on the $10,000 bill.
The only time the human population declined was in the years following 1347, the start of the epidemic of the plague 'Black Death' in Europe.
The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League all-stars Game
The only U.S. president to be born on the fourth of July was Calvin Coolidge.
The only way a cow can clean out its nose is to lick the gooie substance called BOOGERS out with its tongue...YUCK!!
The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven.The Oprah Winfrey Show started out as a local morning talk show called A.M. Chicago. The name was changed in September 1985 after Winfrey beat Donahue in the Chicago ratings. The show was expanded from a half and to an hour and went nationwide a year later.
The orgasms of common, barnyard pigs can last up to thirty minutes!
The origin of bananas is traced back to the Malaysian jungles of Southeast Asia, where so many varieties and names for the banana are in that area.
The origin of right-handed buttons on men's shirts stems from battles where they wore armor. With most men being right handed the armor needed to overlap so that a sword could not enter through the gap during a right-handed blow from an adversary.
The original American Express card was purple.
The original coke contained cocaine and was labeled as a "cure all miracle drug". It became the popular soda when it carbonated water was accidentally added to it. The cocaine, however, was later removed when people began to become addicted.
The original name for basketball, as invented by Dr. James Naismith, was indoor rugby. It was one of the game's first players that started calling it basketball because of the peach baskets that acted as the original goals.
The original name for butterfly was flutterby.
The original name of Los Angeles was El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles del rio Porciuncula, translating into:The Village of our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Porciuncula River.
The original purpose of a coffin was not to protect the body from prowling animals or grave robbers. It was invented to keep the dearly departed from coming back to haunt survivors.
The original purpose of the coffin was to prevent the dearly departed from coming back and haunting the survivors.
The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, "Aladdin was a little Chinese boy."
The original Volkswagen Bug Has Finally Stopped Production. The last one rolled out in brazil on July 31st 2003. The car introduced in 1946. 57 years in production. The fact is that there were more classic vw bugs produced then any other car ever. about 400 million to be exact. wow.
The origional Coca cola was so named because it did, in fact, contain cocaine. Today, however, the coke cans labeled "original" do not contain any cocaine.
The Oscar award got its name from an actress who mentioned it looks like her uncle Oscar.
The Oscar statuette was designed by MGM's art director, Cedric Gibbons, in 1928. The design has remained unchanged, except for getting a higher pedestal in the 1940's.
The Ostrich people in Africa are a group of people who have only 2 toes due to inbreeding
The Ouija board got its name from the combination of the French and German words for "yes" oui and ja.
The owner of every hotel in Hastings, Nebraska, is required to provide each guest with a clean and pressed nightshirt. No couple, even if they are married, may sleep together in the nude. Nor may they have sex unless they are wearing one of these clean, white cotton nightshirts.
The Pacific Giant Octopus, the largest octopus in the world, grows from the size of pea to a 150 pound behemoth potentially 30 feet across in only two years, its entire life-span.
The Pacific Ocean at the Isthmus of Panama is often 20 feet higher than the Atlantic Ocean.
The Pacific Ocean fills nearly a complete hemisphere of the earth's surface.
The Pacific Ocean holds 46% of the world’s water. The rest is divided up as followed: Atlantic Ocean – 23.9%, Indian Ocean – 20.3%, and the Arctic Ocean – 3.7%.
The Pacific Ocean was named by Magellen because it was calmer than the Atlantic
The painting, "American Gothic" depicts the sister and the dentist of artist Grant Wood as rural farm folk.
The Pantheon is the largest building from ancient Rome that survives intact.
The past-tense of the English word "dare" is "durst".
The patron saint of dentists is St. Apollonia. She reportedly had her teeth pulled out in 249 AD by an anti-Christian mob.
The peace symbol was created in 1958 as a nuclear disarmament symbol by the Direct Action Committee, and was first shown that year at peace marches in England. The symbol is a composite of the semaphore signals N and D, representing nuclear disarmament.
The penalty for killing a cat, 4,000 years ago in Egypt, was death.
The penguin is the only bird that can't fly but can swim.
The Pentagon in Arlington Virginia has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
The period at the end of this sentence can hold 2,000,000 hydrogen atoms.
The period between midnight and dawn is the best time to look for shooting stars. On a normal night you can see between five and ten an hour. In a desert, you can see one every eight minutes.
The permanent teeth that erupt to replace their primary predecessors (baby teeth) are called succedaneous teeth.
The Philippines consist of 2,100 islands.
The Philippines has more than 1,000 regional dialects and two official languages.
The phone number of the white house is: (202) 456-1414.
The phrase "raining cats and dogs" originated in 17th Century England. During heavy downpours of rain, many of these poor animals unfortunately drowned and their bodies would be seen floating in the rain torrents that raced through the streets. The situation gave the appearance that it had literally rained "cats and dogs" and led to the current expression.
The phrase "raining cats and dogs" originated in 17th Century England. During heavy downpours of rain, many of these poor animals unfortunately drowned and their bodies would be seen floating in the rain torrents that raced through the streets. The situation gave the appearance that it had literally rained "cats and dogs" and led to the current expression.
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
The phrase "sleep tight" originated when mattresses were set upon ropes woven through the bed frame. To remedy sagging ropes, one would use a bed key to tighten the rope.
The phrase 'going bananas' was first recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary, and is linked to the fruit's 'comic' connections with monkeys.
The pigmy shrew a relative of the mole is the smallest mammal in North America. It weighs 1/14 ounce less than a dime.
The Pillsbury Bake-off has been held every year since 1948.
The pineapple was symbol of welcome in the 1700-1800's. That is why in New England you will see so many pineapples on door knockers. An arch in Providence RI leading into the Federal Hill neighborhood has a pineapple on it for that very reason. Pineapples were brought home by seafarers as gifts.
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' head enables it to see all four feet at one time.
The plant life in the oceans make up about 85 percent of all the greenery on the Earth.
The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
The platypus and echidna are the only mammals that hatch from eggs. Both live in Australia.
The play Chantecler, written by French playwright Edmond Rostand, features a rooster as the major character.
The poison arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people.
The poisonous copperhead smells like fresh cut cucumbers.
The poisonous copperhead snake smells like fresh cut cucumbers.
The pop you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually a bubble of gas burning.
The popular name for the giant sequoia tree is Redwood.
The population of the American colonies in 1610 was 350.
The position of a donkey's eyeballs allow them to see all four of their feet
The pound cake got its name from the pound of butter it contained.
The pound sign is called a 'octothorp.'
The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head.
The precise geographical center of the North American continent is in a town called Rugby, North Dakota.
The principality of Monaco consists of only 370 acres.
The Professor on "Gilligan's Island" was named Roy Hinkley. The Skipper was named Jonas Grumby. Both names were used only once in the entire series, on the first episode.
The Professor's real name was Roy Hinkley, Mary Ann's last name was Summers and Mrs. Howell's maiden name was Wentworth.
The Prudential Life Insurance Company in USA stopped using their slogan "Own A Piece Of The Rock" after Rock Hudson died of AIDS and many jokes where made about him and the slogan.
The Puritans had such an obsessive fear of masturbation that almost any means were used to curtail the practice. For instance, some doctors recommended covering the penis with plaster of Paris.
The queen of England does not have the right to vote in any British election.
The queen of England has two birthdays.
The Queen termite can live up to 50 years and have 30,000 children every day.
The raised reflective dots in the middle of highways are called Botts
The Ramses brand condom is named after the great phaoroh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.
The rapid rate of expansion of gas is what gives steam its power. One volume of water, at normal atmospheric pressure and at the boiling point, yields 1,670 volume of steam.
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
The reason most mosquito bites itch is because mosquitoes inject saliva into the persons skin before they suck your blood. They take it out once they are done, but if they are forced to fly away, they don't get a chance to draw the saliva out. And it is their saliva that causes the itch.
The reason why the very beginning of The Wizard of Oz is black and white, is because color was not available at that point. When color was available, the writers decided to start using it in Munchkinland.
The record for the biggest one day rainfall was set on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, on March 15, 1952, where 74 inches of rain fell in 24 hours.
The record for the most weddings is held by King Mogul of Siam, who had 9000 weddings and 9000 wives.
The red capes used to taunt bulls in bullfights is the same shade of red as the bull's blood. That way you can't tell it is covered with the bull's blood by the end of the fight. Fight spectators like bullfighting, but not blood.`
The red kangaroo of Australia can jump 27 feet in one bound.
The red sea is not red.
The red spot on the 7up cans comes from it's inventor. He was an albino (albinos have red eyes).
The regular garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.
The Republic of Israel was established April 23, 1948.
The revolving door was invented August 7, 1888, by Theophilus Van Kannel, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Ribbon worm will start eating itself to avoid starvation
The ridges on the sides of coins are called reeding or milling.
The right lung is slightly larger than the left
The right side of a boat was called the starboard side due to the fact that the astronavigators used to stand out on the plank (which was on the right side) to get an unobstructed view of the stars. The left side was called the port side because that was the side that you put in on at the port.
The river Danube empties into the Black Sea.
The Romans defeated Hannibal's elephants after they found that the elephants were afraid of the smell of horse blood. On the battlefield they slit the throats of their own horses in order to cause the enemy's mounts to panic.
The Romans made condoms from the muscle tissue of warriors they defeated in battle.
The rose family of plants, in addition to flowers, gives us apples, pears, plums, cherries, almonds, peaches and apricots.
The rosy periwinkle plant, found in Madagascar, is used to cure leukemia.
The rumble that is created when a Harley's engine runs has been patented by the company
The Russian Imperial Necklace has been loaned out by Joseff jewelers of Hollywood for 1,215 different feature films.
The S in Harry S Truman stands for nothing.
The safety pin was patented in 1849 by Walter Hunt. He sold the patent rights for $400.
The Sahara Desert expands at a rate of about 1 km each month.
The Sahara desert is larger as Europe and large then the combined areas of next largest 9 deserts.
The Sahara Desert is over twice as big as the second largest desert in the world, The Australian Desert. The Sahara is 3.5 million square miles compared to the 1.47 million square miles of the Australian. This is "true" in the generic sense of the Autralian Desert. There is no Australian Desert. It is divided into many different deserts. What would be true would be to say the Sahara is bigger than the desert space in Australia (which is A LOT not sure how much as a percentage of the total land mass of australia).
The sailfish can swim faster than a horse can gallop.
The saluki is the oldest known breed of domesticated dog. Carvings of animals resembling the saluki have been found in excavations of the Sumerian Empire. They are believed to have originated from between 6,000 and 7,000 B.C.
The salute of uniform bodies (eg. army, police) originated from knights who lifted their visors to show their face to a royalty.
The same material that is used to make bulletproof glass is also used in Tupperware's Rock 'n Serve containers. The container, however, is not entirely bulletproof. Due to the lifetime warrantee on Tupperware products, the company will replace it for FREE! (Just in case you're in quick need of a shield and a Rock 'n Serve is the only thing handy)
The San Diego Zoo in California has the largest collection of animals in the world.
The sandwich is named for the Fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-92), for whom sandwiches were made so that he could stay at the gambling table without interruptions for meals.
The Santa Maria was the only one of Columbus's ships not to return to Spain. It hit a reef on December 5, 1492 and sank.
The saying 'once in a blue moon ' refers to the occurrence of two full moons during one calendar month. The last two occurred in January & March 1999. The next one isn't until the end of 2001.
The science-fiction series "Lost in Space" (set in the year 1997) premiered on CBS in 1965.
The sea contains about 1/2 of the world's known animal groups
The Sea of tranquility is found on the moon.
The SEALs have been deployed in Vietnam, Laos, Panama, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, and Colombia.
The search engine "Lycos" is named for Lycosidae, the Latin name for the wolf spider family. Unlike other spiders that sit passively in their web, wolf spiders are hunters, actively stalking their prey.
The secretary-bird swallow hen's egg whole without breaking its shell.
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter of the alphabet!
The setting sun is redder than the rising sun because the air at the end of the day is generally dustier than it is at the beginning of the day.
The seven archangels are Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Chamuel, Jophiel, and Zadkiel.
The Seven Deadly Sins are lust, pride, anger, envy, sloth, avarice and gluttony.
The seven hills of Rome are the Palatine (on which the original city was built), the Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, and Aventine.
The seven virtues are prudence, courage, temperance, justice, faith, hope and charity.
The seven wonders of the ancient world werethe Egyptian Pyramids at Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Colossus of Rhodes or huge bronze statue near the Harbor of Rhodes that honored the sun god Helios, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Lighthouse at Alexandria
The sewing machine was patented on August 12, 1851, by Isaac Singer of Pittstown, New York.The sex of crocodiles is determined by the incubation temperature. Eggs incubated at temperatures below 85 degrees become females. Those incubated above 95 degrees become males. 2. Crocodiles are the closest living relatives to birds.
The shallowest sea is the sea of Azov.It is 13 meters at its deepest.
The shape of a plants' collenchyma cells and the shape of the bubbles in beer foam are the same they are orthotetrachidecahedrons.
The shore of the Dead Sea in Israel-Jordan is 1312 feet (400 meter) below sea level.
The shortest "-ology" (study of) word is oology, the study of eggs.
The shortest British monarch was Charles I, who was 4'9".
The shortest verse in the Bible consists of two words: "Jesus wept" (John 11:35).
The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar an England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.
The shortest word in the English language with all its letters in alphabetical order is the word "almost."
The side of a hammer is a cheek.
The silhouette on the MLB logo is Harmon Killebrew.
The silkworm consumes 86000 times its own weight in 56 days.
The single highest temperature ever recorded in U.S. history was 134 degrees Fahrenheit. It was recorded in Greenland Ranch, CA on July 10, 1913. The lowest recorded temperature was minus 80 degrees on January 23, 1971 in Prospect Creek, AK.
The six most dangerous occupations in America are; football player, firefighter, race-car driver, astrnaut, police officer, and fisherman.
The size of a newly born kangaroo is 2.5 cms.
The size of a raindrop is around 0.5 mm 2.5 mm, and they fall from the sky on average 21 feet per second.
The skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island is Jonas Grumby. It was mentioned once in the first episode on their radio's newscast about the wreck.
The slanted line that divides dates, fractions, choices, etc. (6/1/04) is called a virgule.
The sloth (a mammal) moves so slowly that green algae can grow undisturbed on it's fur
The sloth moves so slowly that it's fur offers a comfortable environment for algae to grow.
The slowest trainee on the SEALs obstacle course must wear a pink T-shirt that reads, "Always a Lady".
The smallest breed of dogs are the Chihuahuas.
The smallest fish in the world is the Trimattum Nanus of the Chagos Archipelago. It is only 0.33" long.
The smallest island with country status is Pitcairn in Polynesia, at just 1.75 square miles.
The smallest known fish is the Pandaka Pygmea,about the size of an ant and almost transeparent.
The smallest number spelled with an "a" is one thousand.
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History houses the world's largest shell collection, some 15 million specimens. A smaller museum in Sanibel, Florida owns a mere 2 million shells and claims to be the worlds only museum devoted solely to mollusks.
The smoke detector was invented in 1969.
The snail mates only once in it's entire life.
The soldiers of World War I were the first people to use the modern flushing toilet. The inventor: Thomas Crapper.
The song "Happy Birthday to You" was originally written by sisters Mildred and Patty Hill as "Good Morning to You." The words were changed and it was published in 1935.
The song "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" was written by George Graff, who was German, and was never in Ireland in his life.
The song Take Me Out to the Ballgame was written by Jack Norworth and Albert von Tilzer.
The sorcerer's name in Disney's Fantasia is Yensid, which happens to be Disney backwards.
The sound of a snore (up to 69 decibels) can be almost as loud as the noise of a pneumatic drill.
The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in Jello.
The sound you hear when you macho people crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.
The sound you here when you put a seashell next to your ear is not the ocean, but blood flowing through your head.
The soundtrack to Oklahoma was the first album to sell one million copies on August 18, 1958.
The South Pole is covered with 8,850 feet of solid ice.
The South Pole was reached for the first time on 14 December 1911 by a team of explorers led by Roald Amundsen.
The Soviet Caucasus mountain actually moved a mile in 1972. Heavy rains swelled an underground river and the whole mountain salied away over the course of eight days.
The Sphinx ( famous pyramid) was carved from one piece of stone.
The standard blue U.S. Postal Service mailbox can hold approximately 4,000 letters at a time.
The Stanley Cup came from the Governor General of Canada from 1888 to 1893, Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley. Stanley was a fan of hockey and presented a trophy to be contested by the best amateur hockey team in Canada. The amateur HNA would later become to NHL in 1917.
The Star Trek theme actually has lyrics.
The starfish has an eye on the end of each arm.
The starfish is one of the only animals who can turn it's stomach inside-out. They also dont have brains. (See the connection?)
The state flower of Texas is the Bluebonnet; the state tree is a pecan.
The state law of Pennsylvania prohibits singing in the bathtub.
The state of Florida is bigger than England!The state of Utah used to be submerged under water and to this day brine shrimp can still be found in rain-filled hollows under rocks and boulders.
The states of Washington and Montana still execute prisoners by hanging.
The states with the most presidential burial sites: Ohio and Virginia (tie).
The statue by Auguste Rodin that has come to be known as The Thinker wasn't meant to be a portrait of a man in thought. It's a portrait of Dante Aligheri.
The statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capital building is 19.5 feet tall and weighs 15,000 pounds. It was created in Rome, and the ship that brought it to America ran into a storm so severe that most of the cargo had to be tossed overboard. Before the ship reached the United States, it was condemned and sold in Bermuda, where the statue was put in storage. Two years later it reached Washington, but because of the Civil War the dome wasn't finished and the statue didn't get hoisted to its proper position for another two years.
The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York City in 1885 aboard the French ship "Isere."
The Statue of Liberty weighs 225 tons.
The Statue of Liberty's mouth is 3 feet wide.
The stormtroopers in the original starwars are seen in many seen carrying long blasters. On closer inspection you can see that the blasters are actually WWII era German MG42 machine guns (modified slightly)
The strawberry is the only agricultural product that bears its seeds on the outside.
The striped billiard balls weight .1 ounces or so more than the solids
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. (Relative to size)
The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. (the heart is not a muscle)
The study of insects is called entomology.
The study of word origins is called etymology.
The Sudan is the largest country in Africa. It covers about 967,500 square miles of the continent.
The Sumatran tiger has the most stripes of all the tiger subspecies, the Siberian tiger has the least.
The sun is about three million miles closer to the earth on January 1st than it is on June 1st.
The sun weighs 330,000 times as much as the earth.
The sun's average period of rotation is 27 days.
The sun's total lifetime as a star capable of maintaining a life-bearing Earth is about 11 billion years. Nearly half that time has passed.
The supersonic Concorde jet made its first trial flight on January 1, 1969.
The surface of the Earth is about 60% water and 10% ice.
The swastika was origionaly a symbol of peace and honor and is still used by Buddhists today.
The Swiss consume more chocolate per capita than any other nation on earth. That's 22 pounds each compared to 11 pounds per person in the United States.
The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.
The symbols used on playing cards were supposed to represent the four classes of men: hearts represented the clergy; spades (from the Spanish word espada, or sword) represented the warriors; clubs were originally leaves and represented the peasants; and citizens and merchants were recognized in the diamonds.
The table fork was introduced into England in 1601. Until then people would eat with their knives, spoons or fingers. When Queen Elizabeth first used a fork, the clergy went ballistic. They felt it was an insult to God not to touch meat with one's fingers.
The Taj Mahal in India is perfectly symetrical, except for one thing. The two tombs inside are not equal in size. This is because the male tomb has to be larger than the female tomb.
The Taj Mahal was actually built for use as a tomb.
The Taj Mahal was commissioned in 1630 by Shah Jehan to honor his wife Mumtaz, who died in childbirth.
The tallest monument built in the US, the Gateway Arch, in St. Louis, Missouri, is 630 feet tall.
The telescope at the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, in California, also serves as a tomb. The 36-inch refracting telescope is mounted on a pillar that contains the remains of Jack Lick, who died in 1876. Lick was a wealthy financier and philanthropist who financed the construction of the observatory that bears his name.
The telescope on Mount Palomar, California, can see a distance of 7,038,835,200,000,000,000,000 miles.
The temperature of the earth's interior increases by one degree every 60 feet down.
The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic Church. When deciding if someone should be sainted, a devil's advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view.
The term "dog days" has nothing to do with dogs. It dates back to Roman times, when it was believed that Sirius, the Dog Star, added its heat to that of the sun from July3 to August 11, creating exceptionally high temperatures. The Romans called the period dies caniculares, or "days of the dog."
The term "dog days" has nothing to do with dogs. It dates back to Roman times, when it was believed that Sirius, the Dog Star, added its heat to that of the sun from July3 to August 11, creating exceptionally high temperatures. The Romans called the period dies caniculares, or "days of the dog."
The term "honeymoon" is derived from the Babylonians who declared mead, a honey-flavored wine, the official wedding drink, stipulating that the bride's parents be required to keep the groom supplied with the drink for the month following the wedding.
The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
The term "throw one's hat in the ring" comes from boxing, where throwing a hat into the ring once signified a challenge. Today it nearly always signifies political candidacy.
The term "white chocolate" is a misnomer. Under Fedaral Standards of Identity, real chocolate must contain chocolate liquor. "White" chocolate contains no chocolate liquor.
The term 'crack' refers to the crackling sound heard when the mixture is smoked (heated), presumably from the sodium bicarbonate.
The term 'hay fever' originated in England, where some people suffered allergic symptoms during hay pitching time when the symptoms became serve, workers often felt feverish.
The term karaoke means "empty orchestra" in Japanese, and the karaoke machine was designed originally to provide backing tracks for solo cabaret performers.
The term 'screwing' was derived from the activities of pigs. A pig's member screws.
The term Y2K was invented by David Eddie in June 1995 through the email.
The term, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" is from Ancient Rome. The only rule during wrestling matches was, "No eye gouging." Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be disqualified is to poke someone's eye out.
The term, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" is from Ancient Rome. The only rule during wrestling matches was, "No eye gouging," eveything else was allowed.
The Texas Rangers were the first U.S. state police force. They were established in 1835.
The the oldest living thing on earth is 12,000 years old. It is the flowering shrubs called creosote bushes in the Mojave Desert.
The theobromine in chocolate that stimulates the cardiac and nervous systems is too much for dogs, especially smaller pups. A chocolate bar is poisonous to dogs and can even be lethal.
The three best-known western names in China: Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley.
The three central panels on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel tell the story of Adam and Eve.
The three most common elements in the universe are 1) hydrogen; 2) helium; 3) oxygen.
The three most recently discovered planets were Uranus in 1781, Neptune in 1846, and Pluto in 1930.
The three most valuable brand names on earth Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
The Three Musketeers names are Porthos, Athos, and Aramis (D'Artagnan joins them later.)
The three primary colors are red, yellow and blue. The three secondary colors are green, orange and purple.
The Three Wise Men of the East brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus. Frankincense is a gum resin used as a base for incense. Myrrh, also a gum resin, was valued as a perfume and unguent used in embalming.
The Three Wise Monkeys have names: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil).
The three-syllable word "hideous," with the change of a single consonant, becomes a two-syllable word with no vowel sounds in common: "hideout."
The thumbnail grows the slowest; the middle nail grows the fastest.
The tiger is the largest member of the cat family.
The tiny poison arrow frog has enough poison to kill over 2200 people!
The tip of the hour hand on your watch travels at a speed of 0.00000275 miles per hour.
The tips of fingers and the soles of feet are covered by a thick, tough layer of skin called the stratum corneum.
The Cunard liner SS Slavonia was the first ship to use an SOS distress call, on 10 June 1909. It was not the Titanic, as many people believe.The title role of Dirty Harry, 1971, was originally intended for Frank Sinatra. After he refused, it was offered to John Wayne, and then Paul Newman, finally being accepted by Clint Eastwood.
The toes of mummies are wrapped individually.
The Toltecs (a 7th century tribe) used wooden swords so they wouldn't kill their enemies.
The tomato is not just a fruit, but it is a berry along with the cucumber, squash, and melon.
The tongues of chameleons are twice the length of their bodys.
The tonsillectomy is the most common surgical procedure.
The tool doctors wrap around a patient's arm to measure blood pressure is called a sphygmomanometer.
The Top 10 grossing movies of the 1990s each earned at least $500 million worldwide and brought in a combined total of over $7 billion.
The top downhill speed of the Ford Model T was 50 miles per hour.
The top selling song of all time is Elton John’s tribute to the late Princess Diana. Candle in the Wind 1997 has sold over 35 million copies worldwide
The total number of African slaves sent to all parts of the world between 1500 and 1865 was estimated to be at least 12 million. When you consider that only one in ten made the trip alive, the number of Africans who were enslaved or killed in the 350 years of the slave trade had to be no less than 120 million people.
The total number of Americans killed in the Civil War is greater than the combined total of Americans killed in all other wars.
The total surface area of a pair of human lungs is equal to that of a tennis court.
The town of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, is closer to the equator than it is to the North Pole.
The town of Idaho Falls, Idaho, forbids anyone over the age of eighty-eight to ride a motorcycle.
The town of Tidikelt in the Shara Desert once went ten years without rainfall.
The trainees are thrown into a pool with their hands and feet tied wearing snorkeling masks. They are then harassed by their instructors who knock their masks off, spin their bodies, and pull them under in an effort to disorient the student.
The training mantra of the SEALs is, 'The only easy day was yesterday.'
The Tranquilizer, Valium (sleeping piles) is the most widely used drug on earth.
The Treaty of Tordesillas divided all of South America between Spain and Portugal in 1493. Pope Alexander VI drew up the treaty following Columbus’s discovery of the New World.
The tsetse fly kills another 66,000 people annually.
The turbot fish lays approximately 14 million eggs during its lifetime.
The turkey was named for what was wrongly thought to be its country of origin.
The turtle has the lowest pulse rate of any animal: 13 beats per minute.
The two lines that connect your top lip to the bottom of your nose are known as the philtrum.
The two most popular sports in the world are Association Football (soccer) and Table Tennis (ping-pong) respectively. I guess people love their balls, regardless of size. Hehe!
The two presidents who died on the same day: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died July 4, 1826.
The two robbers crucified next to Jesus were named Dismas and Gestas.
The typical lovemaking session averages 15 minutes in length.
The U.S. Army has a stealth reconnaissance helicopter named "The Duke" in honor of John Wayne.
The U.S. bought Alaska from Russia for 2 cents an acre.
The U.S. Dow Jones' lowest figure was 41.22 was on July 8, 1932.
The U.S. Post Office handles 43 percent of the world's mail.
The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.
The underside of a horses hoof is called a frog.
The underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. The frog peels off several times a year with new growth.
The Union ironclad, Monitor, was the first U.S. ship to have a flush toilet.
The United States government keeps its supply of silver at the US Military Academy at West Point, NY.
The United States is the world's largest consumer of coffee, importing 16 to 20 million bags annually (2.5 million pounds), representing one-third of all coffee exported. More than half of the United States population consumes coffee. The typical coffee drinker has 3.4 cups of coffee per day. That translates into more than 450,000,000 cups of coffee daily.
The United States Library of Congress contains 73 millions volumes (books), arranged on 350 miles of shelves.
The United States minted a 1787 copper coin with the motto 'Mind Your Business.'
The United States nickel (five cent piece) is made of 75% copper and 25% nickel.
The United States produces 3,145,892,000,000 kilowatt hours of electricity every year. That's over three times the amount of the second-highest producing country, Russia.
The United States Treasury Department maintains a fund known as "The Conscience Fund," which accepts money sent in anonymously by taxpayers who think they've cheated the government. The money is used for miscellaneous expenses.
The universe is so vast in relation to the matter it contains that it can be compared in the following way: A building 20 miles long, 20 miles wide and 20 miles high that contains 1 grain of sand.
The US Army has a 50 caliber sniper rifle that can shoot through the engine block of a car.
The US city with the highest murder rate is Detroit, with 45.3 homicides per 100,000 people.
The US federal income tax was first enacted in 1862 to support the Union's Civil War effort. It was eliminated in 1872, revived in 1894 then declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court the following year. In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the US tax system.
The US has more personal computers than the next 7 countries combined.
The US President's Cabinet is composed of: the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Interior, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Health/Human Services, the Secretary of Housing/Urban Development, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Transportation, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Secretary of Education.
The use of the names of dead presidents to sell alcohol in Michigan is prohibited.
The USSR set off the largest nuclear explosion in history, detonating a 50 megaton bomb (2600 times the Hiroshima bomb) in an atmospheric test over the Novaya Zemla Islands, October 30 1961.
The vast majority of coffee available to consumers are blends of different beans.
The Vatican's Swiss Guard still wears a uniform designed by Michelangelo in the early 16th century.
The venom of a female black widow spider is more potent than that of a rattlesnake.
The Venus flytrap feeds primarily on ants, not flies.
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
The Vince Lombardi Trophy is awarded to the winners of the Super Bowl.
The vintage date on a bottle of wine indicates the year the grapes were picked, not the year of bottling.
The Virginia Code (1930) has a statute: "To prohibit corrupt practices or bribery by any person other than candidates."
The viscera of Japanese abalone can harbor a poisonous substance which causes a burning, stinging, prickling and itching over the entire body. It does not manifest itself until exposure to sunlight if eaten outdoors in sunlight, symptoms occur quickly and suddenly.
The vocabulary of the average person consists of 5,000 to 6,000 words.
The Volkswagen was originally called the "Strength Through Joy Wagon".
The waste produced by one chicken in its lifetime can supply enough electricity to run a 100-watt bulb for 5 hours.
The water in the Great Salt Lake of Utah is more than four times as salty as any ocean.
The way that prostitutes got the nickname "Hooker" was because of a general of the Civil War. General Hooker would keep a number of prostitutes to follow has army and keep his men's moral up. The prostitutes were referred to as "Hookers brigade."
The WD in WD-40 stands for Water Displacer.
The weddell seal, can travel underwater for seven hours without surfacing.
The weight of air in a milk glass is about the same as the weight of one aspirin. (But one also wonders how big a milk glass is... anyone?)
The wettest spot in the world is located on the island of Kauai. Mt. Waialeale consistently records rainfall at the rate of nearly 500 inches per year.
The whiskers on a catfish are called barbells.
The White House, in Washington DC, was originally gray, the color of the sandstone it was built out of. After the War of 1812, during which it had been burned by Canadian troops, the outside walls were painted white to hide the smoke stains.
The lunula is the half-moon shaped pale area at the bottom of finger nails.
The white potato originated in the Andes mountains and was probably brought to Britain by Sir Francis Drake about 1586.
The Willamette River in Oregon is the only river on earth that flows it's entire distance north.
The wind must be below one mile an hour in order for the National Weather Service to rate the weather as "calm."
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.The Wizard of Oz was a Broadway musical 37 years before the MGM movie version was made. It had 293 performances and then went on a tour that lasted 9 years.
The word "checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means, "The King Is Dead."
The word "coach" is derived from the village of Kocs, Hungary, where coaches were invented and first used.
The word "crap" came from Thomas Crapper-a famous plumber in the early days of the toilet.
The word "dude" is the name for an infected elephant butt hair.
The word "earthling" was first found in print in 1593.
The word "homosexual" was not coined until 1869 by the Hungarian physician Karoly Maria Benkert.
The word "honcho" comes from a Japanese word meaning "squad leader" and first came into usage in the English language during the American occupation of Japan following World War II.
The word "karate" means "empty hand."
The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
The word "maverick" came into use after Samuel Maverick, a Texan refused to brand his cattle. Eventually any unbranded calf became known as a Maverick.
The word "MOW" can be read the same way upside-down, hence the word ambigram. Many other words can be written differently using special characters of writing to make the word appear the same way from different points.
The word "piano" is really an abbreviation for the word "pianoforte."
The word "pure" appears on the scroll held by the Quaker pictured on the packages of Quaker Oats cereal.
The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."
The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
The word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," from the movie Mary Poppins, was added to the Oxford dictionary in 1964.
The word "tip" dates back to the old London coffeehouses. Conspicuously placed brass boxes etched with the inscription, "To Insure Promptness," encouraged customers to pay for efficient service. The resulting acronym, TIP, has become a byword.
The word "trivia" comes from the Latin "trivium" which is the place where three roads meet, a public square. People would gather and talk about all sorts of matters, most of which were trivial.
The word Assassin is derived from a Middle Eastern religious and political sect known as Hashishins. The name means 'hashish smoker'which refers to the practice of taking hashish to induce visions of ecstacy before murdering their enemies as their religious duty. They were very good at what they did.
The word 'byte' is a contraction of 'by eight.'
The word 'cappuccino' is the result of several derivations, the original of which began in 16th century. The Capuchin order of friars, established after 1525, played an important role in bringing Catholicism back to Reformation Europe. Its Italian name came from the long, pointed cowl, or cappuccino, derived from cappuccino, "hood," that was worn as part of the order's habit. The French version of cappuccino was capuchin, from which came English Capuchin. In Italian cappuccino went on to describe espresso coffee mixed or topped with steamed milk or cream, so called because the color of the coffee resembled the color of the habit of a Capuchin friar. The first use of cappuccino in English is recorded in 1948 in a work about San Francisco. There is also the story line that says that the term comes from the fact that the coffee is dark, like the monk's robe, and the cap is likened to the color of the monk's head.
The word gargoyle comes down from the Old French: gargouille, meaning throat or gullet. This is also the origin of the word gargle. The word describes the sound produced as water passes the throat and mixes with air. In early architecture, gargoyles were decorative creatures on the drains of cathedrals.
The word 'geography' is derived from the greek words geo (the Earth) and graphein (to write).
The word gymnasium comes from the Greek word gymnazein which means to exercise naked.
The word 'lethologica' describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
The word 'monosyllable' actually has five syllables in it.
The word 'news' did not come about because it was the plural of 'new.' It came from the first letters of the words North, East, West and South. This was because information was being gathered from all different directions.
The word 'pixel' is a contraction of either 'picture cell' or 'picture element'.
The word quisling comes from the name of Major Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian who collaborated with the Germans during their occupation of Norway. The word now means "traitor."
The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.
The word vaccine comes from the Latin word "vacca," which means cow. This name was chosen because the first vaccination was derived from cowpox which was given to a boy.
The words "volt" and "voltage" are named for a member of the Italian nobility in the 1700s named Count Voltman.
The words “video recording” and “videotape” were first used in the early 1950s. At the time, only television professionals used them.
The words racecar, kayak, level and Navy Van are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left, and these are called palindromes. The longest palindromes in the dictionary however are the words 'Malayalam''rotavator' 'redivider'. Now check these out. 'A man a plan a canal panama'. 'Ten animals i slam in a net'thanx seraph, mashkur, hannah b, marky and jay, jelly baby king
The words silent and listen have the same letters. Santa and Satan do too.
The work "fuck" is used 257 times in the movie Pulp Fiction.
The works of Gregor Mendel, father of the science of genetics, went undiscovered for sixteen years after his death.
The World Bank estimates that Mexico owes the most money of any country in the world. They have $165,743,000,000 in external debt. Brazil is second with $159,139,000,000 in debt.
The world population of chickens is about equal to the number of people.
The world record for balancing people on your head is 92 in one hour.
The world record frog jump is 33 feet 5.5 inches over the course of 3 consecutive leaps, achieved in May 1977 by a South African sharp-nosed frog called Santjie.
The World Rubik Cube championship was held in Budapest on June 5, 1982. Nineteen National Champions took part. Minh Thai, the US Champion, won by solving the Cube in of 22.95 seconds. The world record, in competitive conditions, grew progressively lower and now stands at 16.5 seconds.
The world smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.
The world's costliest coffee, at $130 a pound , is called Kopi Luwak. It is in the droppings of a type of marsupial that eats only the very best coffee beans. Plantation workers track them and scoop their precious poop.
The world's deadliest mushroom is the Amanita phalloides, the death cap. The five different poisons contained by the mushroom cause diarrhea and vomiting within 6 to 12 hours of ingestion. This is followed by damage to the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system and, in the majority of cases, coma and death.
The world's first adhesive postage stamp went on sale in England in 1840. It was the Penny Black, portraying Queen Victoria.
The world's first chocolate candy was produced in 1828 by Dutch chocolate-maker Conrad J. Van Houten. He pressed the fat from roasted cacao beans to produce cocoa butter, to which he added cocoa powder and sugar.
The World's first microprocessor was created in 1971, called the 4004 by Intel. It contained 2300 transistors.
The world's first roller coaster opened in 1884 at Coney Island, New York. It was designed by Lemarcus Thompson, a former Sunday school teacher.The world's first singing commercial aired on the radio on Christmas Eve, 1926 for Wheaties cereal. The four male singers, eventually known as the Wheaties Quartet, sang the jingle.
The world's first speed limit regulation was in England in 1903. It was 20 mph.
The world's highest mountain, even higher than Mt.Everest is Mauna Koa an underwater mountain which rises 33,476 feet and has its peak on the island of Hawaii.
The world's highest railway is in Peru. The Central Railway climbs to 15,694 feet in the Galera tunnel, 108 miles from Lima. Tourists take it to get to the ruins of Machu Picchu.
The world's largest alphabet is Cambodian, with 74 letters.
The world's largest art gallery is the Winter Palace and Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. Visitors would have to walk 15 miles to see the 322 galleries which house nearly 3 million works of art.
The world's largest art gallery is the Winter Palace and the Hermitage in Leningrad. Visitors walk fifteen miles to visit each of the 322 galleries, which house nearly 3 million works of art and archaeological remains.
The world's largest burrito weighed 4,217 lbs.
The world's largest Gothic cathedral is in new York City. It is the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street. The cathedral measures 601 feet long, 146 feet wide, and has a transept measuring 320 feet from end to end.
The world's largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs 50 tons at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons.
The world's largest palace is the Imperial palace in the heart of Peking,
The world's largest rodent is the Capybara. An Amazon water hog that looks like a guinea pig, it can weigh more than 100 pounds.
The world's longest name is: Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver
The world's longest suspension bridge opened to traffic on April 5, 1998. The 3,911-meter (12,831-feet) Akashi Kaikyo Bridge is 580 meters (1,900 feet) longer than the Humber Bridge in England, the previous record holder.
The world's most popular hobby is stamp collecting.
The world's number one producer and consumer of fresh pork is China.
The world's smallest and oldest republic is San Marino. It's 25 square miles and is located mostly on top of a mountain entirely surrounded by Italy.
The world's smallest independent state is the Vatican City, with a population of about 1,000 and a zero birthrate.
The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.
The world's smallest winged insect, the Tanzanian parasitic wasp, is smaller than the eye of a housefly.
The world's tallest grass, which has sometimes grown 130 feet or more, is bamboo.
The world's tallest mountains, the Himalayas, are also the fastest growing. Their growth about half an inch a year is caused by the pressure exerted by two of Earth's continental plates (the Eurasian plate and the Indo-Australian plate) pushing against one another.
The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
The worldwide "Spanish Flu" epidemic which broke out in 1918 killed more than 30 million people in less than a year's time.
The wristwatch was invented in 1904 by Louis Cartier.The 'y' in signs reading "ye olde.." is properly pronounced with a 'th' sound, not 'y'. The "th" sound does not exist in Latin, so ancient Roman occupied (present day) England use the rune "thorn" to represent "th" sounds. With the advent of the printing press the character from the Roman alphabet which closest resembled thorn was the lower case "y".
The 'you are here arrow' on a map is called the IDEO locator.
The youngest mother on record was a Peruvian girl named Lina Medina. She gave birth to a boy by caesarean section on May 14, 1939 (which happened to be Mother's Day), at the age of five years, seven months and 21 days.
The youngest movie star to win an Academy Award was Shirly Temple who won an Oscar in 1934 at the age of 6.
The youngest person to give birth was a five-yr. old tribal girl (C-Section of course)
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
The yo-yo was introduced in 1929 by Donald F. Duncan. The toy was based on a weapon used by 16th-century Filipino hunters.
The yo-yo was originally a weapon in the Philippines.
The zebra is basically a light-colored animal with black stripes.
The ZIP in "ZIP code" means Zoning Improvement Plan.
their wages in salt hence the word "Salary" derived.
Theodore Roosevelt was the only U.S. president to deliver an inaugural address without using the word "I". Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower tied for second place, using "I" only once in their inaugural addresses.
Ther very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
There are 1,218 peanuts in a single 28 ounce jar of Jif peanut butter.
There are 1,792 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
There are 10 million people who share your birthday.
There are 10,000,000 bricks in the Empire State Building.
There are 100 tiles in a 'Scrabble' crossword game.
There are 11 points on the collar around Kermit the Frog's neck.
There are 1189 chapters in the Bible: 929 chapters in the Old Testament and 260 chapters in the New Testament.
There are 13,678 McDonald's fast food joints in the United States.
There are 132 rooms in the US White House.
There are 170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ways to play the ten opening moves in a game of chess.
There are 2,320 Navy SEALs.
There are 2,382,500 (rounded) Smiths in the U.S.
There are 2,598,960 five-card hands possible in a 52-card deck of cards.
There are 24 known "perfect" numbers. These are numbers that equal the sum of all its divisors except itself. For instance, six the lowest of these numbers is divisible by 1, 2, or 3 and 1+2+3=6. The largest of the known "perfect" numbers has 12,003 digits.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
There are 300 distinct different types of honey.
There are 31,557,600 seconds in a year.
There are 318,979,564,000 possible ways to play the first four moves per side in a game of chess.
There are 336 dimples on a regulation size golf ball.
There are 336 dimples on a regulation US golf ball. In the UK its 330.
There are 350,000 Italians living in Toronto, Canada, a population about the same as that of Venice, Italy.
There are 38 peaks in South America higher than Mt. McKinley, which is the highest point in North America.
There are 403 steps from the foundation to the top of the torch in the Statue of Liberty.
There are 41,806 different spoken languages in the world today.
There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different color combinations possible on a Rubik's Cube.
There are 44,523,312,694,361,020,971,556,671,544,734,879,370,359,807,003,367,569,358,848,000,000,000,000 ways to order a deck of cards.
There are 45 miles of nerves in the skin of a human being.
There are 48 Gutenberg Bibles still in existence. Two of them were in Germany during World War II and are missing, but many book collectors believe them to be in private collections.
There are 49 different foods mentioned in the Bible.
There are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.
There are 63,360 inches in a mile.
There are a million ants for every person on Earth.
There are about 2 chickens for every human in the world.
There are about 30 milligrams of caffeine in the average chocolate bar, while a cup of coffee contains around 100 to 150 milligrams.
There are about 450 types of cheese in the world. 240 come from France.
There are about 5,000,000,000 years of sunlight left
There are about 7.7 million millionaires in the world (more than 1/1000th of the population).
There are approximately 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building.
There are approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day.
There are approximately 13,000 identifiable varieties of roses throughout the world.
There are approximately 2,700 different species of mosquitoes.
There are approximately 250,000 sweat glands in your feet.
There are approximately 45 billion fat cells in an average adult.
There are approximately 7,000 feathers on an eagle.
There are approximately 75,000,000 horses in the world.
There are approximately 9,000 taste buds on the tongue.
There are approximately fifty Bibles sold each minute across the world.
There are around 2,600 different species of frogs. They live on every continent except Antarctica.
There are at least two words in the English language that use all of the vowels, in the correct order, and end in the letter Y: abstemiously & facetiously.
There are four main Blood types: A, B, AB and O and each Blood type is either Rh positive or negative. Blood types in the US Type O positive 38.4%, O negative 7.7%, A positive 32.3%, A negative 6.5%, B positive 9.4%, B negative 1.7%, AB positive 3.2%, AB negative 0.7%
There are just over 7 million millionaires in the world (more than 1/1000th of the population).
There are more coffee drug addicts in the US than drug addicts of any other kind.
There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of the year.There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth.
There are more kinds of bacteria in your mouth then there are people in the world
There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones.
There are more plastic lawn flamingos in the United States than real ones.
There are more stars than all of the grains of sand on earth.
There are more statues of Sacajewa, Lewis & Clark's female Indian guide, in the United States than any other person.
There are more than 100 distinct ethnic groups in the former Soviet states.
There are more than 100 million dogs and cats in the United States. Americans spend more than 5.4 billion dollars on their pets each year.
There are more than 2,000 muscles in a caterpillar.
There are more than 40,000 characters in Chinese script.
There are more than 50,000 earthquakes throughout the world every year.
There are more than 500 varieties of banana in the world: The most common kinds are Dwarf Cavendish, Valery, and Williams Hybrid bananas. Other types of bananas include Apple and a small red banana called the Red Jamaica. A large type of banana called the plantain is hard and starchy and is almost eaten as a cooked vegetable. The Cavendish is the most common variety of bananas now imported to the United States. The Cavendish is a shorter, stubbier plant than earlier varieties. It was developed to resist plant diseases, insects and windstorms better than its predecessors. The Cavendish fruit is of medium size, has a creamier, smooth texture, and a thinner peel than earlier varieties.
There are more than 700 species of plants that grow in the United States that have been identified as dangerous if eaten. Among them are some that are commonly favored by gardeners: buttercups, daffodils, lily of the valley, sweet peas, oleander, azalea, bleeding heart, delphinium, and rhododendron.
There are more than 900,000 known species of insects in the world.
There are nine rooms on a 'Clue' game board. A forfeited baseball game is recorded as a 9-0 score.
There are no clocks or windows in any casino.
There are no female characters in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island because he was following the instructions of his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, for whom he wrote the book. Llyod wanted a story "about a map, a treasure, a mutiny and a derelict ship...No women in the story."
There are no geeze in the southern hemisphere.
There are no living descendents of William Shakespeare.
There are no public toilets in Peru.
There are no turkeys in Turkey.
There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple, or silver.
There are one million ants for every person in the world.
There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet.
There are only 4 words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
There are only 81 stable chemical elements. Rhenium was the last one to be found in 1925. Fifteen other elements have been discovered since then, but they are all radioactive.
There are only four words in the English language that end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
There are only two sequences of four consecutive letters that can be found in the English language: "rstu" and "mnop." Examples of each are understudy and gymnophobia.
There are orange peels and raisins in A-1 Steak Sauce.
There are over 3,500 bras hanging behind the bar at Hogs and Heifers, a bar in Manhattan. So many, in fact, that they caused a beam to collapse in the ceiling.
There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers. The most widely spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese. There are 885,000,000 people in China that speak that language.
There are seven suicides in the Bible: Abimelech. Samson, Saul, Saul's armor-bearer, Ahithophel, Zimri, Judas.
There are six U.S. Presidents with the first name James: Madison, Monroe, Garfield, Buchanon, Carter, Polk.
There are songs in all of Shakespeare's plays except The Comedy of Errors.
There are ten human body parts that are only three letters long: eye, hip, arm, leg, ear, toe, jaw, rib, lip, and gum.
There are ten million bricks in the Empire State Building.
There are thirteen languages spoken by more than 100 million people. They are: Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Malay-Indonesian, French, Japanese, German, and Urdu.
There are two credit cards for every person in the U.S.
There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."
There are, on average, 259 raisins in a box of Raisin Bran and 388 in a box of Premium Raisin Bran.
There has never been a time in Super Bowl history where a punt return resulted in a touchdown.
There have been about 30 films made at or about Alcatraz, the now-closed federal prison island in San Francisco Bay, including The Rock (1996), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), and Escape from Alcatraz (1979).
There have been no recorded instances of anybody being killed by a meteorite.
There have been over 600 lawsuits against Alexander Grahm Bell over rights to the patent of the telephone, the most valuable patent in U.S. history.
There is a 1 in 4 chance that New York will have a white Christmas.
There is a 6-foot tall stone monument dedicated to the cartoon character Popeye in Crystal City, TX. .
There is a butterfly found in Brazil that has the smell and color of a chocolate.
There is a flower called the Scarlet Pimpernel that can forecast the weather. If the flower is closed up, rain is coming and if it is opened up, the day will be sunny.It is a.k.a 'the poor man's weatherglass'
There is a Massachusetts law requiring all dogs to have their hind legs tied during the month of April.
There is a member of the spider family called the demodex folliculorum that lives at the root of people's eye lashes. It's harmless and normal.(so they claim) To look for them, grab a handful of your eyelashes and dunk them in warm water. They'll start swimming out. It is prevalent in nearly 100% of old people in the U.S.
There is a sea squirt (found in the seas near Japan) that digests its own brain. When the sea squirt is mature it permanently attaches itself to a rock. At this point it does not need to move anymore and has no need for a brain.
There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
There is a street in Canada that runs for a distance of nearly 1900 kms.
There is a way of writing 1 by using all ten single-digit numbers at once: 148/296 + 35/70 = 1.
There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs five times: "indivisibility."
There is about 1/4 pound of salt in every gallon of seawater.
There is about 200 times more gold in the oceans than has been mined throughout history.
There is actually no danger in swimming right after you eat, though it may feel uncomfortable.
There is air in space, but very little of it. In fact, it is equivalent to a marble in a box 5 miles wide. Most of the gas is captured by the gravitational pull of other celestial bodies.Thanx M.Lerner
There is an average of 61,000 people airborne over the US at any given moment.
There is an extra leg in the Iwo Jima memorial statue and extra hand. While the legend is that these extremedies belong to God, who is helping the Marines win, they are actually there for added support to the statue, and designed not to look like a metal rod going throught the middle of the group of Marines.
There is coffee flavored Pez.
There is cyanide in apple pits.
There is more bacteria in your mouth than the human population of U.S and Canada combined. Thanx Julie for this and a couple more
There is no alcohol left in food that's cooked with wine. The alcohol evaporates at 172 degrees Fahrenheit.
There is no difference in flavor or nutritional value between brown and white eggs. Aside form color, they are identical. Most white eggs come from White Longhorns and browns come from a commercial cross of Rhode Island Reds and Barred Plymouth Rocks.
There is no ice covering Iceland.
There is no single cat called the panther. The name is commonly applied to the leopard, but it is also used to refer to the puma and the jaguar. A black panther is really a black leopard.
There is no solid proof of who built the Taj Mahal.There is no such thing as a banana tree. Bananas grow on plants.
There is only ONE word in the English language with THREE CONSECUTIVE SETS OF DOUBLE LETTERS.... Bookkeeper
There is over 70,000,000 rats in New York, That is an average of about 9 rats per person
There is zero gravity at the center of the earth.
There really was a Cyrano de Bergerac. He lived from about 1620 to 1655, had a big nose and dueled. He was also a science fiction writer who was the first person in history to suggest that a rocket could carry someone into space.
There was no soap in the ancient Mediterranean world. Olive oil was used to wash the body in addition to cooking.
There was once a law in Salem Virginia that made it illegal to leave home without knowing where you were going.
There were 840 soldiers in the regular army when the U.S. War Department was established in 1789. Their job was to supervise public lands and guard the Indian frontier.
There's a town in New Mexico called Pie Town that consists of two restaurants and a post office. It was originally a stoppong place along a long stretch of road. It's famous for having good pies!
There's an average of of 178 sesame seeds on a Big Mac bun.
There's Arsnick(a dangerous poison) in dirt
There's enough water preassure in one onion cell to cause a steam engine to explode.
Thirteen muscles are used to make a person smile.
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
This is what the red, white, and blue on the US flag represent: The Continental Congress left no record to show why it chose the colors. However, in 1782, the Congress of the Confederation chose these same colors for the Great Seal of the United States and listed their meaning as follows: white to mean purity and innocence, red for valor and hardiness, and blue for vigilance, perseverance, and justice. According to legend, George Washington interpreted the elements of the flag this way: the stars were taken from the sky, the red from the British colors, and the white stripes signified the secession from the home country. However, there is no official designation or meaning for the colors of the flag.
This may have been true on an older $5 bill, but I just scanned in one of the new ones and took a real close look and found nothing. If anyone finds it on an old one, please send in a pic or let me know.
This one is deep...think about the cultural impact this could have: NO WAR HAS BEEN FOUGHT WHERE BOTH COUNTRIES HAD A McDonalds
This sounds feasible, but isn't true! Crapper actually invented the automatic shut-off mechanism used in the modern toilet.
Thomas Edison got patents for a method of making concrete furniture and a cigar which was supposed to burn forever.
Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark.
Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark
Thomas Jefferson invented the dumbwaiter.
Thomasville, North Carolina, prohibits airplanes from flying over the town on Sundays during the hours between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Those British are sophisticated people, in almost everything except their choice of coffee. They still drink instant ten-to-one over fresh brewed.
Those hard, plastic points on the ends of shoelaces are called aglets.
Though it goes to 10, 9 is estimated to be the point of total tectonic destruction from an earthquake (2 is the smallest that can be felt unaided.)
Thousands of people watched the Battle of Bunker Hill take place. People in the Boston area sat on rooftops, in trees, on church steeples, and in the rigging of ships in the harbor to watch the American revolutionaries battle the British.
Three chemicals are used to execute criminals by lethal injection. First, Sodium Thiopental is injected, causing the inmate to fall into a deep sleep. The second chemical agent, Pancuronium Bromide, a muscle relaxer, follows. This causes the inmate to stop breathing due to paralyses of the diaphragm and lungs. Finally, Potassium Chloride is injected, stopping the heart.
Three million people in the United States have an impairment of the back or limbs that is a direct result of an accidental fall.
Three-hundred-million cells die in the human body every minute.
Throughout his career, DeWolf Hopper recited Casey at the Bat" over 10,000 times.
Tiger Woods is the only person to hold all four major championships at one time, although it did not happen in the calendar year. He also currently holds the scoring record for all four majors.
Tiger Woods' real first name is Eldrick. His father gave him the nickname "Tiger" in honor of a South Vietnamese soldier his father had fought alongside with during the Vietnam War.
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
Tigers' paw prints are called pug marks.
Time magazine's "Man of the Year" for 1938 was Adolf Hitler.
Timmie Jean Lindsey of Houston, TX became the first person to get silicone breast implants in 1962.
Tina Turner's real name is Annie Mae Bullock.
Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, implemented on July 16, 1969, makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles.
To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.
To an observer standing on Pluto, the sun would appear no brighter than Venus appears in our evening sky.
To avoid long encounters with the press, President Ronald Reagan often took reporters' questions with his helicopter roaring in the background.
To determine the percentage of alcohol in a bottle of liquor divide the proof by two.To find out almost the exact temperature... Listen to a cricket chirping and count the number of chirps in a minute. Add fifty, divide by four then add 40.
To go one lunar day, adjust your watch to lose two minutes and five seconds every hour.
To keep your feet warm, put on a hat: 80% of all body heat escapes through the head.
To make things easier while mixing the American Graffiti sound track, George Lucas and sound designer Walter Murch labeled all of the film reels R and all of the dialogue tracks D, and then numbered each of them sequentially, starting with 1. When Murch later asked Lucas for Reel 2 Dialogue 2 or more precisely, R2 D2 Lucas liked the way it sounded so much that he made a note of the name for another project he was writing.