The 1st buffalo ever born in captivity was born at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo in 1884.
The 1st CMA (Country Music Association) Awards, hosted by Sonny James and Bobbie Gentry, were presented at an awards banquet and show in 1967.
The 1st comic strip was "The Yellow Kid," in the New York World in 1896. The cartoonist was Richard Felton Outcault.
The 1st feature-length animated film, released by Disney Studios in 1937, was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
The 1st inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961 were Jimmie Rodgers, Fred Rose and Hank Williams were.
The 1st interracial kiss on TV took place Nov. 22, 1968 between Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Lt.Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) on an episode of "Star Trek."
The 1st kiss in a movie was between May Irwin and John Rice in "The Widow Jones," in 1896.
The 1st live televised murder was in 1963, when Jack Ruby killed JFK's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald while millions of viewers watched.
The 1st nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, commissioned by the United States Navy in 1954, made her maiden voyage on Jan. 17, 1955.
The 1st performance of Handel's "Messiah" was on April 13, 1742 at the New Music rooms in Fishamble St., Dublin. Because of the demand for space, the men were asked not to wear their swords and the ladies not to wear hooped skirts.
The 1st personal computer, the Apple II, went on sale in 1977.
The 1st presidential news conference filmed for TV was in 1955. Eisenhower was the president.
The 1st televised presidential debate was September 26, 1960, between Nixon and Kennedy.
The 1st time the "f-word" was spoken in a movie was by Marianne Faithfull in the 1968 film, "I'll Never Forget Whatshisname." In Brian De Palma's 1984 movie, "Scarface," the word is spoken 206 times an average of once every 29 seconds.
The 1st unattended, 24-hour self-service laundromat in the United States was opened by Nelson Puett in 1949 on North Loop in Austin, Texas.
The 1st US federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. was in 1986.
The 1st US federal legislation prohibiting narcotics (opium) was enacted in 1909.
The 1st US federal penitentiary building was completed at Leavenworth, Kansas in 1906.
The 1st US Minimum Wage Law was instituted in 1938. The minimum wage was 25 cents per hour.
The 1st US Mormon temple was dedicated in Kirtland, Ohio in 1836.
The 1st US zoo was built in Philadelphia, PA, in 1876.
The 1st winner of the Academy Award for best picture, and the only silent film to achieve that honor, was the 1927 film, "Wings."
The 2,000 Arabica coffee cherries it takes to make a roasted pound of coffee are normally picked by hand as they ripen. Since each cherry contains two beans, it takes about 4,000 Arabica beans to make a pound of roasted coffee.
The 26 letters of our alphabet can make 403,290,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 different combinations.
The 3 Magi:(or Wise Men) and their gifts: Melchoir, "king of light," offered Gold, Gaspar ,"or the white one," offered frankincense, and Balthazar, "lord of treasures," offered myrrh.
The 5 oldest colleges in the U.S. are, in order, Harvard, William & Mary, Yale, Princeton, and Penn.
The 7 Dwarfs are Happy, Grumpy, Dopey (the beardless one), Doc, Bashful, Sneezy, Sleepy. They were miners.
The 772-778 Digits of pi are 9999998.
The abbreviation 'ORD' for Chicago's O'Hare airport comes from the old name 'Orchard Field.'
The Academy Award was rumored to have gotten its nickname of Oscar for its resemblance to a film librarian’s Uncle Oscar.
The act of snapping your fingers has a name: fillip.
The active ingredient in smelling salts is ammonia.
The Agen plum which would become the basis of the US prune industry was first planted in California in 1856.
The air we breathe is 78% nitrogen, 21.5% oxygen, .5% argon and other gases.
The air we breathe is comprised of 78% nitrogen, 21.5% oxygen and 0.5% argon.
The airplane, Buddy Holly died in, was the "American Pie," which is where Don McLarean got the song title from.
The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was formed in 1866.
The amount of drag or air resistance produced by putting your bicycle on top of your car is so great that on a trip from England to Scotland it would be cheaper to send it by train because of the fuel consumption to overcome the drag
The anaconda, one of the world's largest snakes, gives birth to its young instead of laying eggs.
The ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.
The ancient Egyptians trained baboons to wait on tables.
The ancient Romans built such an excellent system of roads that the saying arose "all roads lead to Rome," that is, no matter which road one starts a journey on, he will finally reach Rome if he keeps on traveling. The popular saying came to mean that all ways or methods of doing something end in the same result, no method being better than another.
The anemometer is an instrument which measures the force, velocity, or pressure of the wind.
The Angel falls in Venezuela are nearly 20 times taller than Niagara Falls.
The Angel Falls in Venezuela is the highest waterfall in the world, its waters drop from over 3,200 feet.
The animal responsible for the most human deaths world-wide is the mosquito.
The animal that tends to cling to rocks and boats are barnacles.
The animal whose brain accounts for the largest share of its body weight is the squirrel monkey. It's brain makes up about 5% of its total weight.
The animal with the largest brain in proportion to its size is the ant.
The annual Night of the Radishes is held in Oaxaca, Mexico. It's held on December 23rd of every year as part of a pre-Christmas tradition. Farmers carve figures from radishes and display them in the city's main plaza.
The annual White House Easter egg-roll was started by President Hayes in 1878.
The ant can lift 50 times its own weight.
The anti-malarial drug quinine is taken from the bark of the Andean cinchona tree.
The Apollo 11 plaque left on the Moon says, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. / WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND."
The apricot can be traced back to China at least four thousand years ago, and it first appeared in Greek mythology as the "golden apple".
The Arabica is the original coffee plant. It still grows wild in Ethiopia. The arabica coffee tree is an evergreen and in the wild will grow to a height between 14 and 20 feet.
The Arabs are generally believed to be the first to brew coffee.
The Arctic ocean is the smallest and shallowest. The Arctic Ocean is the world's smallest ocean. It is mostly covered by solid ice, ice floes, and icebergs.
The aroma and flavor derived from coffee is a result of the little beads of the oily substance called coffee essence, coffeol, or coffee oil. This is not an actual oil since it dissolves in water.
The art of knitting originated in Scotland.
The ashes of the average cremated person weigh 9 pounds.
The Atlantic Ocean has a greater salt content than the Pacific Ocean.
The Australian emu holds the land speed record for birds (31 mph).
The average 3 year-old watches about 30 hours of television a week.
The average adult guinea pig weighs 2 pounds.
The average adult has about 3,500 square inches of skin. The skin itself has roughly a billion pores or openings.
The average adult male ostrich, the world's largest living bird, weighs up to 345 pounds.
The average adult raccoon weighs 21 pounds.
The average age of an Italian barista is 48 years old. A barista is a respected job title in Italy.
The average American consumes over 28 pounds of bananas each year.
The average American spends 120 hours a month watching television, the equivalent of five complete days in front of the TV.
The average American will eat 35,000 cookies in a lifetime.
The average American woman spends 55 minutes per day getting showered, dressed, and groomed.
The average annual coffee consumption of the American adult is 26.7 gallons, or over 400 cups.
The average bank teller loses about $250 every year.
The average bra is designed to last for only 180 days of use.
The average capacity of a pelican's pouch is 12 quarts.
The average cat consumes about 127,750 calories a year, nearly 28 times its own weight in food and the same amount again in liquids.
The average chicken lays about 260 eggs a year.
The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade.
The average child will eat 1,500 PB sandwiches by high school graduation.
The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs melted into it.
The average cod deposits between 4 and 6 million eggs at a single spawning.
The average cough comes out of your mouth at 60MPH.
The average cow produces 40 glasses of milk each day.
The average cup of coffee contains more than 1000 different chemical components, none of which is tasted in isolation but only as part of the overall flavor.
The average duration of sexual intercourse for humans is 2 minutes.
The average elephant produces 50 pounds of dung each day.
The average elephant weighs less than the average blue whale's tongue
The average family will spend $250,000 (thats a quarter million dollars) on each child from the time he/she is born until he/she turns 18.
The average flea can jump up to 350 times its own length. To match that a human would have to jump 1,000 feet.
The average fox weighs 14 pounds.
The average garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.
The average healthy human being farts 16 times a day.
The average healthy porpoise lives 30 years.
The average home size in the United States is now 2,200 square feet, up from 1,400 square feet in 1970, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
The average housefly lives for only two weeks.
The average human body contains enough: iron to make a 3 inch nail,sulfur to kill all fleas on an average dog, carbon to make 900 pencils, potassium to fire a toy cannon, fat to make 7 bars of soap, phosphorous to make 2,200 match heads, and water to fill a ten-gallon tank.
The average human body has enough fat to make 7 bars of soap.
The average human breathes about 700,000 cubic inches of air every day.
The average human eats 8 spiders in his/her lifetime at night.
The average human head weighs about eight pounds.
The average human produces 10,000 gallons of saliva in a life time.
The average human produces 25,000 quarts of spit in a lifetime, enough to fill two swimming pools.
The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.
The average life expectancy of a beaver in captivity is five years.
The average life expectancy of a kangaroo in captivity is 7 years.
The average life expectancy of a leopard in captivity is 12 years.
The average life expectancy of a rhinoceros in captivity is 15 years.
The average life expectancy of a toilet is 50 years.
The average life expectancy of geese, barring all accidents, is 25 years.
The average life span of a moose is 15 to 25 years.
The average life span of a mosquito is two weeks.
The average life span of a taste bud is 10 days.
The average life span of the hedgehog is 10 years.
The average lifespan of a Major League baseball is five to seven pitches.
The average light bulb can last for about 750 to 1,000 hours.
The average litter of Mexican wolves is between four and seven pups.
The average llama weighs 375 pounds.
The average marathon runner's heart beats about 175 times per minute during a race. A typical adult's heart beats 68 times a minute at rest.
The average mature oak tree sheds approximately 700,000 leaves in the fall.
The average number of cars stolen per day in Mexico City this year is 124.
The average number of peanuts in a box of Cracker Jacks is 27.
The average per capita consumption of soap, in all of its uses, in the United States is about forty pounds per year.
The average person drinks about 16, 000 gallons of water in a lifetime.
The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
The average person grows up to 6 feet of nose hair.
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year
The average person in the United States watches 239 minutes of television per day.
The average person ingests about a ton of food and drink each year.
The average person is about a quarter of an inch taller at night.
The average person laughs about 15 times a day.The average person loses an average of 40 to 100 strands of hair a day.
The average person produces 25,000 quarts of spit in a lifetime, enough to fill two swimming pools.
The average person releases nearly a pint of intestinal gas by flatulence every day. Most is due to swallowed air. The rest is from fermentation of undigested food.
The average person swallows one liter of snot every day. This is from the MN Science Museum.
The average person uses the bathroom 6 times per day.
The average person walks the equivalent of twice around the world in a lifetime.
The average person's hair will grow approximately 590 inches in a lifetime.
The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
The average person's scalp has 100,000 hairs.
The average porcupine has more than 30,000 quills.
The average porpoise weighs 103 pounds.
The average raindrop falls at 7 miles per hour.
The average snail moves at a rate of approximately 0.000362005 miles per hour.
The average speed for a migrating duck is fifty miles per hour.
The average steer reaches sexual maturity six months after birth.
The average US male will spend 2,965 hours shaving during his lifetime.
The Aztecs of Mexico roasted and ground up the cacao bean, mixed it with water, added peppers and other spices, stirred it up to a froth and drank the pungent mixture they called "chocolatl."
The Baby Ruth candy bar was named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth, not Babe Ruth the baseball player.
The bagpipe was originally made from the whole skin of a dead sheep.
The banana is the most prolific of all food plants with as many as 300 bananas growing on the same stalk.
The banana market is controlled by five large corporations Chiquita (25%), Dole (25%), Del Monte (15%), Noboa (11%) and Fyffes (8%). Most bananas are grown on huge plantations, controlled by these corporate giants. The remaining banana production for export comes from small banana producers.
The banana plant reaches its full height of 15 to 30 feet in about one year. The trunk of a banana plant is made of sheaths of overlapping leaves, tightly wrapped around each other like celery stalks.
The bands on hats traces back to the custom on knights wearing their lady loves' scarves around the helmet.
The banjo is America's only true native musical instrument. It was first developed in the South in the 1790s.
The barn owl has one ear higher than the other. The left ear is higher and points downward to hear sounds from below it, while the right ear is lower and pointed upward to pick up sounds from above.
The base of the Great Pyramid of Egypt is large enough to cover 10 football fields.
The basis of the Macintosh computer was Apple's Lisa which was released in 1983. This was the first system to utilize a GUI or Graphical User Interface. The first Macintosh was released in 1984.
The Beatles' 1st song to hit the UK charts was "From Me to You" in June, 1963.
The Beatles song "Dear Prudence" was written about Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence, when she wouldn't come out and play with Mia and the Beatles at a religious retreat in India.
The Beatles were depicted in wax at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in London, in 1964, the first pop album stars to be honored.
The Beatles were George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr. But there were also two lesser known, previous members of the band: Pete Best and Stu Sutcliffe.
The BEAVER, is America's largest rodent and can remain underwater for 20 minutes! erm... sealions can do that as well (just something random)
The beluga whale, otherwise known as the white whale, is nicknamed the "sea canary" because of the birdlike chirping sounds it makes.
The best recorded distance for projectile vomiting is 27 feet.
The bestselling books of all time are The Bible (6billion+), Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (900million+), and The Lord of the Rings (100million+)
The Bible devotes some 500 verses on prayer, less than 500verses on faith, but over 2000 verses on money and posessions.
The Bible does not say there were three wise men; it only says there were three gifts.
The bible does not specify exactly how many wise men were sent to Bethleham.
The Bible has been translated into Klingon.
The Bible is the best selling book of all time with approximately six billion books sold. The second-best selling book is Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung with about 800 million sales.
The Bible was written by about 40 men over a period of about 1600 years dating from 1500 BC to about 100 years after Christ.
The big differences between pythons and boa constrictors: pythons are longer and lay eggs. Boas give birth to live babies.
The Big Room at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico is 2,500 feet in length, 600 feet wide, and 250 feet high.
The biggest member of the cat family is the male lion, which weighs 528 pounds (240 kilograms).
The biggest specie of apes are the gorillas.
The biro was invented by George and Lazio Biro.
The Black Death reduced the population of Europe by one third in the period from 1347 to 1351.
The Black Hole, 1979, was Disney's first PG-rated movie.
The blood of mammals is red, the blood of insects is yellow, and the blood of lobsters is blue.
The bloodhound is the only animal whose evidence is admissible in an American court.
The blue whale has a heart the size of a small car and its blood vessal is so broad, that a person could swim through it.
The board game Monopoly was originally rejected by Parker Brothers, who claimed it had 52 fundamental errors.
The body can function without a brain. And anyone who has walked around the city on a Saturday night will know what I mean.
The body's largest internal organ is the small intestine at an average length of 20 feet
The bones of a pigeon weigh less than its feathers.
The book The Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley, was the inspiration behind Jim Morrison naming his band The Doors. The book extolls the use of hallucinogenic drugs.
The border between Canada and the U.S. is the world's longest frontier. It stretches 3,987 miles (6,416 km).
The botanical name of the chocolate plant is Theobramba cacao, which means "Food of the Gods."
The brewing of beer is recorded as far back as 6,000 years ago. Until the 12th century (when skilled experts took over), women performed the task of making beer as part of their household chores.
The bridge across the Niagra Falls began with a kite carrying a line across it.
The brightest star in history was the supernova of 1054, which formed the Crab Nebula. It was brighter than Venus and bright enough to be seen in daylight and to cast a shadow at night. We know about it through the astronomic records of China and Japan.
The Brownie box camera, introduced by Eastman Kodak, sold for $1.00 in 1900. The camera's 6-exposure film sold for 15 cents.
The bubbles in Guiness beer sink to the bottom rather than float to the top as in other beers.
The Burramundy, a fish, grows up as a male, but after 2 years or so, it turns into a female to breed. (i think papaya(papua?) trees are the same)
The Butterfinger candy bar was first produced by Chicago's Curtiss Candy Co. in 1923. As an advertising ploy, candy bars were dropped from an airplane on cities in 40 states.
The California grape and wine industries were started by Count Agoston Haraszthy de Moksa, who planted Tokay, Zinfandel, and Shiras varieties from his native Hungary in Buena Vista in 1857.
The California redwood coast redwood and giant sequoia are the tallest and largest living organism in the world.
The calories burned daily by the sled dogs running in Alaska's annual Iditarod race average 10,000. The 1,149-mile race commemorates the 1925 "Race for Life" when 20 volunteer musher relayed medicine from Anchorage to Nome to battle a children's diphtheria epidemic.
The Canadian government legalized marijuana for medicinal use in 1999. After discovering a shortage of local growers they began to import the dope from Mississippi.
The Canary Islands were not named for a bird called a canary. They were named after a breed of large dogs. The Latin name was Canariae insulae "Island of Dogs."
The candy bar, Baby Ruth, is named after President Clevelands' daughter, not Babe Ruth the baseball player.
The Cannes Film Festival was conceived in 1938 by two French journalists while they were traveling by train to the Venice Film Festival.
The canning process for herring was developed in Sardinia, which is why canned herrings are better known as sardines.
The cashew nut in its natural state contains a poisonous oil. Roasting removes the oil and makes the nuts safe to eat.
The cat lover is an ailurophile, while a cat hater is an ailurophobe.
The caterpillar has more than 2,000 muscles
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
The catgut formerly used as strings in tennis rackets and musical instruments does not come from cats. Catgut actually comes from sheep, hogs, and horses.
The Catholic Church only declared in 1992 that the earth may go round the sun.
The center of the earth is almost 4000 miles beneath our feet.
The chameleon has several cell layers beneath its transparent skin. These layers are the source of the chameleon's color change. Some of the layers contain pigments, while others just reflect light to create new colors. Several factors contribute to the color change. A popular misconception is that chameleons change color to match their environment. This isn't true. Light, temperature, and emotional state commonly bring about a chameleon's change in color. The chameleon will most often change between green, brown and gray, which coincidently, often matches the background colors of their habitat.
The chances for a mother giving birth to quadruplets (four Childs) are almost 1 in 600,000.
The chances of an exact duplication of fingerprints are about 64 billion to 1.
The channel between England and France grows 300mm each year.
The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life".
The characters of Homer, Marge, Lisa, and Maggie were given the same first names as Simpsons creator Matt Groening's real-life father, mother, and two sisters.
The Charlotte Dundas, a paddle-wheel steamboat, was the world's first steam-powered vessel, not Robert Fulton's Clermont. In 1802, five years before Fulton's famous ship took sail, The Dundas was a steam-powered tugboat in Great Britain.
The cheetah is the only cat in the world that can't retract its claws.
The chemical n-acetyl-cysteine found in raw eggs is proven to help hangovers.
The Chinese language does not require punctuation.
The Chinese were using aluminum to make things as early as 300 AD Western civilization didn't rediscover aluminum until 1827.
The Chinese, during the reign of Kublai Khan, used lions on hunting expeditions. They trained the big cats to pursue and drag down massive animals from wild bulls to bears and to stay with the kill until the hunter arrived.
The chow-chow and the Chinesse Shar-Pei are the only dogs that have a black tongue. The tongues of all other dogs are pink.
The Church of Scientology was founded in 1953, at Washington DC, by US science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. The citrus industry started in the United States in 1873 when two Riverside, CA ranchers obtained some orange saplings from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Two years earlier, the government had secured a dozen saplings from Brazil.
The City of Istanbul straddles two separate continents, Europe and Asia.
The city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is the only city where all major sports teams share the same colors (black and gold).
The city of St. Petersburg, Russia, was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great, hence the name, St. Petersburg. But it wasn't always that simple. In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, Russian leaders felt that Petersburg was too German-sounding. So they changed the name of the city to Petrograd -to make it more Russian-sounding. Then, in 1924, the country's Soviet Communist leaders wanted to honor the founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir I. Lenin. The city of Petrograd became Leningrad and was known as Leningrad until 1991 when the new Russian legislators -no longer Soviet Communists -wanted the city to reflect their change of government.
The city of Venice stands on about 120 small islands.
The Civil War in the United States elevated the popularity of coffee to new heights. Soldiers went to war with coffee beans as a primary ration.
The clock at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. will gain or lose only one second every 300 years.
The clock tower that supports the famous clock 'Big Ben' at the house of parliament in London, is 320 feet high. The bell from which the clock get it's name, weighs 13.5 tones.
The closest star to the sun, Alpha Centauri, is never visible in the sky north of about 30 degrees Northern Lattitude.
The cockroach has a high resistance to radiation and is the creature most likely to survive a nuclear war.
The cockroach is the fastest animal on 6 legs, covering a meter a second.
The Code of Hammurabi made it forbidden to randomly mistreat slaves. However, the code also stated that slaves were to be branded on the forehead and forbidden to hide or mask the mark.
The coffee filter was invented in 1908 by a German homemaker, Melitta Benz, when she lined a tin cup with blotter paper to filter the coffee grinds.
The coffee tree produces its first full crop when it is about 5 years old. Thereafter it produces consistently for 15 or 20 years.
The coldest capital city in the world is Ulaan Bator, Mongolia.
The coldest outdoor temperature ever recorded on earth was 127 below zero in Antarctica on August 24, 1960.
The color of a chile is no indication of its spiciness, but size usually is the smaller the pepper, the hotter it is.
The combination "ough" can be pronounced in 9!! different ways; Read this: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
The common goldfish is the only animal that can see both infrared and ultra-violet light.
The complete skin covering of the body measures about 20 sq. feet.
The complete title of the Statue of Liberty is Liberty Enlightening the World
The complete works of Shakespeare can be stored on 5 Megabytes.
The computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey as a tongue-in-cheek reference to IBM. The name was derived from the fact that the letters H-A-L precede the letters I-B-M in the alphabet.
The computer programming language ADA was named in honor of Augusta Ada King. The U.S. Defense Department named the language after the Countess of Lovelace and daughter of Lord Byron because she helped finance and program what is thought to be the first computer, the “analytical engine” designed by Charles Babbage.
The condensed water vapor in the sky left behind by jets is called a contrail.
The condom made originally of linen was invented in the early 1500's.
The correct name for the capital city of Thailand is rung Thep, and it's been this way for over 130 years. Foreigners persist on calling it Bangkok.
The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the morning to you," is "and the rest of the day to yourself."
The country of Losotho is completely surrounded by the country of South Africa.
The country of Tanzania has an island called Mafia.
The country of Tonga once issued a stamp shaped like a banana.
The country with the highest rate of cremations is Japan. In 1996, 98.7% of all deaths were cremated.
The creators of a new model of Chevys couldn't figure out why their car, the Nova, wasn't selling well in Hispanic countries... until someone pointed out that 'Nova' means 'No go' in Spanish.
The crew of Apollo 11 who put the first man on the moon have the same initials as the first men on earth. Armstrong : Adam Aldrin : Abel Collins : Cain
The crow is the smartest of all birds.
The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
The Cullinan Diamond is the largest gem-quality diamond ever discovered. Found in 1905, the original 3,100 carats were cut to make jewels for the British Crown Jewels and the British Royal family's collection.
The curvature of the earth is pretty close to eight inches every mile, or 66 feet every hundred miles.
The daughter of confectioner Leo Hirschfield is commemorated in the name of the sweet he invented: Although his daughter's real name was Clara, she went by the nickname Tootsie, and in her honor, her doting father named his chewy chocolate logs Tootsie Rolls.
The Death Star death ray control panel from the original is actually the control panel of Grass Valley Group GVG 300 Video (television) production switcher
The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (a variety of the marijuana plant) paper
The deepest hole ever made in the world is in Texas. It is as deep as 20 empire state buildings but only 3 inches wide. (Who made it? A petroleum company)
The deepest land point on Earth is the area around the Dead Sea in Israel. The Dead Sea is located 1,312 below sea level.
The deepest spot in any ocean is the Mariana Trench. It's 36,198 feet below sea level (about seven miles).
The designer of the Statue of Liberty, French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, used his wife as the model for the body and his mother as the model for the face.
The difference between AM and FM radio is that FM is line-of-sight, while AM bounces off the atmosphere (more accurately, the ionosphere.) AM stations have to reduce the power of their transmissions at night because the ionosphere lifts with the colder temperatures and lees solar interference.
The difference between apple juice and apple cider is that the juice is pasteurized and the cider is not.
The difference between male and female blue crabs is the design located on their belly. The male blue crab has the Washington monument and the female blue crab's belly is shaped like the U.S. capitol.
The dimensions of a regulation football field are: 360 feet long and 160 feet wide.
The dioxin 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin is 150,000 times deadlier than cyanide.
The dirt extracted to build the foundation of the World Trade Center in New York City was dumped into the Hudson River. The community of Battery City Park now resides on that dirt.
The disease-carrying mosquito, delivering encephalitis, the West Nile virus, malaria, and Dengue fever, is by far the deadliest beast in the animal world. The World Health Organization says mosquitos cause more than 2 million deaths a year worldwide. Another insect,
The distance between cities are actually the distances between city halls.
The distance between the pitcher's rubber and home plate in baseball is 60 feet, 6 inches.
The dollar was established as the official currency of the US in 1785.
The dot above an 'i' is called the tittle.
The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
The dragons and other monsters that graced the bows of the Viking ships were so fierce-looking that a law was passed in Iceland ordering the skipper of any Viking ship to remove the figurehead before entering port.
The drip pot was invented by a Frenchman around 1800.
The drug thiopentone can kill a human being in one second if it's injected directly into the blood stream.
The drummer for ZZ Top (the only one without a beard) is named Frank Beard.
The Dutch acquired Surinam in exchange for Manhattan Island in 1667.
The dye used to stamp the grade on meat is edible. It's made from grape skins.
The ear which the matador slices off the bull is his trophy.
The earliest cocoa plantations were established in 600 AD, in the Yucatan, by the Mayans.
The earliest known wholly glass objects beads were found in Egypt about 4,500 years ago. The first glass cups were also found in Egypt about 3,500 years ago.
The earliest recorded Olympic Games result was from the 180 meter sprint in the 776 B.C. The winner was a man named Coroebus.
The earliest works of art are paleolithic animal paintings discovered in prehistoric caves in southern France and northern Spain. The paintings date from 30,000 to 10,000 B.C.
The earth is 24,901 miles around at the equator.
The earth is not perfectly round. Technically, it's a triaxial ellipsoid, which is to say that it's nearly spherical, but flattened at the top and bottom.
The Earth is not round, but slightly pear-shaped.
The earth is presently inhabited by 1.4 million species of animals and 500,000 species of plants.
The earth is roughly 4600 million years old.
The earth is the most densest planet in the solar system, and is the only planet not named after a god.
The earth rotates on its axis more slowly in March than in September.
The earth weighs 6 sextillion, 588 quintillion tons.
The earth wobbles on its axis every 21-26,000 years
The Earths core is a ball of Iron-Nickle at 7,000 C and is 80% the size of the moon.
The earth's rotation is slowing down at a rate of one second per century. The gravity from the sun and moon are creating tidal friction on the earth that are acting as brakes on planet's spin.
The eggs from the ovaris of a pig, when shot into another animal, can sterelise it, making it impotent.
The Eiffel Tower is 984 feet high.
The Eiffel Tower is painted approximately once every 7 years and requires nearly 50 tons of paint each time.
The Eiffel Tower receives a fresh coat of 300 tons of reddish-green paint every seven years.
The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair.
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
The electric automobile self-starter was invented to make it possible for women to drive without a companion, who was previously needed to crank the engine.
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
The electric chair was invented by Dr. Alphonse Rockwell and was first used on William Kemmler on August 6, 1890.
The elephant is the only animal that has been taught to stand on its head.
The elephant, as a symbol of the US Republican Party, was originated by cartoonist Thomas Nast and first presented in 1874.
The emperor of Japan is the 125th of his line, which dates back to 660 B.C.
The Empire State Building in New York City is constructed of over 10 million bricks.
The Empire State Building in New York City weighs approximately 365,000 tons.
The emu's eyes are so similar to that of a human eye, that those studying to become eye doctors often practice surgery on them.
The English Romantic poet Lord Byron was so devastated upon the death of his beloved Newfoundland, whose name was Boatswain, that he had inscribed upon the dog's gravestone the following: "Beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices."
The English word "soup" comes from the Middle Ages word "sop," which means a slice of bread over which roast drippings were poured. The first archaeological evidence of soup being consumed dates back to 6000 B.C., with the main ingredient being Hippopotamus bones!
The English word with the most meanings is the simple 3 letter word "SET".
The entire Encyclopedia Britannica is banned because it contains a formula for making beer at home.
The entire worlds output of urine takes about 45 minutes to go over the Niagra falls.
The equatorial bulge of the earth does not rest along the equator. The highest point of the bulge is actually located 25 feet to the south.
The eraser wasn't put onto pencils until 1858 by Hyman Lipman.
The estimated number of M & M's sold each day in the United States is 200,000,000.
The estimated weight of the Great Pyramid of Egypt is 6,648,000 tons.
The Europeans first added chocolate to their coffee in the 1600's.
The expletive, "Holy Toledo," refers to Toledo, Spain, which became an outstanding Christian cultural center in 1085.
The expression "three dog night" originated with the Eskimos and means a very cold night so cold that you have to bed down with three dogs to keep warm.
The extended right arm of the Statue of Liberty is 42 feet long.
The eyeball of a human weighs approximately 28 grams.
The eyes of an Ostrich are larger than its brain.
The Falkland Isles (pop. about 2000) has over 700000 sheep (350 per person).
The famous Indian epic "Mahabharata" contains almost three million words.
The famous Pizza chain store Sabarro originated in a small corner store in my hometown of Brooklyn, NY, which actually sold fresh cut meat.
The famous Revolutionary war general Lafayette had the same first name as his wife Mary.
The famous ship "Old Ironsides" actually had wooden sides.
The fastest bird is the Spine-tailed swift, clocked at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour.
The fastest land animal is the cheetah, however the fastest animal in the world is the prerigine falcon, which can dive at 217mph
The fastest -moving land snail, the common garden snail, has a speed of 0.0313 mph.
The father of Dave Matthews was one of the original fathers of the super conductor (died of lung cancer when dave was 10 [was a non-smoker])
The FDA allows an average of 30 or more insect fragments and one or more rodent hairs per 100 grams of peanut butter.
The February of 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
The Federal Reserve printed up an extra $50 billion in small bills just in case people started hoarding money prior to the year 2000. Since nowhere near that much cash was needed, and there was a long-term storage problem, most of that money was recycled.
The feet account for one quarter of all the human bodies bones.
The female spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) has a 'penis'.
The final episode of M*A*S*H ranks as the most watched television program of any kind in United States history. An estimated 50,150,000 people tuned in on February 28, 1983. That amounted to 60.2% of all households with a television. Second on the list was the “Who Shot J.R.” episode of Dallas.
The final score in the game that Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points was Warriors 169 Knicks 147.
The fingerprints of koala bears are almost indistinguishable from those of humans, so much that they could be confused at a crime scene.
The first "official" vasectomy was performed in 1893.
The first "puck" ever used in a professional hockey game was a frozen piece of cow dung.
The first American advertisement for tobacco was published in 1789. It showed a picture of an Indian smoking a long clay pipe.
The first American satellite in orbit, Explorer I, was launched February 1, 1958.
The first animal sent to space was a female Samoyed named Laika. Laika was sent into space on November 3, 1957 aboard the Russian spacecraft Sputnik II.
The first anti-lynching law in the United States was passed in Georgia in 1893, but it only made the violation punishable by four years in prison. (11-1-04)
The first asteroid to ever be discovered is Ceres. It was discovered 1801 and is 582 miles in diameter.
The first bank in history was the Igibi. It was established in 575 B.C.
The first bar code was used on Wrigleys gum
The first baseball game was broadcast in color on August 11, 1951 (Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Boston Braves 8-1)
The first bath tub to be installed in the white house was during the time of Millard Fillmore.
The first black player in the American League was Larry Doby with the Cleveland Indians in 1947.
The first bomb the Allies dropped on Berlin in WWII killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
The first book published in the United States was Massachusetts Bay Colony: The Oath of a Free Man, in 1638.
The first brand of Wrigley's chewing gum was called "Vassar", after the New England woman's college. Next were "Lotta" and "Sweet Sixteen Orange."
The first building with an elevator was the six-story 130-foot Equitable Life Building in New York. It was built in 1870.
The first CD pressed in the U.S. was Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA.'
The first chimpanzee to travel into space was named Ham. He got the name from the lab he was raised in, the Holloman AeroMedical laboratory in Alamogordo, NM. Ham flew in a Mercury space capsule in 1961. His trip also proved that space travel was safe for humans.
The first city in America to have a TV station was: Schenectady, NY.
The first city to reach a population of 1 million people was Rome, Italy in 133 B.C. London, England reached the mark in 1810 and New York, USA made it in 1875. Today, there are over 300 cities in the world that boast a population in excess of 1 million.
The first coffee drinkers, the Arabs, flavored their coffee with spices during the brewing process.
The first coin minted in the United States was a silver dollar. It was issued on October 15, 1794.
The first comic strip was "The Yellow Kid," which ran in the New York World in 1896. The cartoonist's name was W.R. Hearst.
The first commercial espresso machine was manufactured in Italy in 1906.
The first commercial product manufactured in the United States and exported to Europe was a glass bottle made in Jamestown in 1608.
The first company that Bill Gates ever ran created machines that would record the number of cars passing a given point on a street.
The first computer, the steam-driven calculating machine, was built in 1823 by Charles Babbage. It failed to work due to poor workmanship in the intricate parts. When rebuilt by the London Museum of Science in 1991, it worked.
The first contraceptive diaphragms, centuries ago, were citrus rinds (i.e., half an orange rind). Casanova used half lemon rinds as a cervical cap and the acidic juice as a potent spremicide(something that kills sperms).
The first cookbook published in the United States was Compleat Housewife, or Accomplished Gentlewoman's Companion, printed in Williamsburg, VA in 1742.
The first Corvette rolled off the Chevrolet assembly line in Flint, MI. in 1953. That early 'Vette sold for $3,250.
The first country to abolish capital punishment was Austria in 1787.
The first cover of "Sports Illustrated," in 1954, showed National League umpire, Augie Donatelli, behind the plate with two major-league stars: catcher Wes Westrum, and batter Eddie Matthews.
The first credit card, issued in 1950, was Diner's Club. Frank X. McNamara started the company with 200 card holders.
The first daily comic strip in the U.S. was "Mutt & Jeff."
The first drive-in movie theater was built in Camden, NJ in 1932-3. It cost 25 cents per car or $1 for three or more people to watch a movie.
The first episode of "Joanie Loves Chachi" was the highest rated American program in the history of Korean television. "Chachi" is Korean for "penis."
The first film granted permission by the Chinese government to be filmed in the Forbidden City was The Last Emperor, 1987.
The first flight of the Wright Brothers was a distance less than the wing span of a Jumbo Jet.
The first footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theater (now Mann's Chinese Theater), were made by Norma Talmadge in 1927. Legend has it that she accidentally stepped in wet concrete outside the building. Since then, over 180 stars have been immortalized, along with their hands and feet and even noses (Jimmy Durante).
The first Ford cars used Dodge engines.
The first foreign fort the American flag flew over was Fort Derne in Libya, on the shores of Tripoli
The first formal rules for playing baseball required the winning team to score 21 runs.
The first fully working parachute was used in 1787 by Jacques Gernerin who dropped 3,000 feet from a balloon. This was long before the airplane was invented.
The first house rats recorded in America appeared in Boston in 1775.
The first issue of People Magazine, in 1974, cost 35 cents and featured actress Mia Farrow on the cover.
The first Kentucky Derby was run at Churchill Downs in 1875 with Aristides as winner.
The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.
The first known heart medicine was discovered in an English garden. In 1799, physician John Ferriar noted the effect of dried leaves of the common foxglove plant, digitalis purpurea, on heart action. Still used in heart medications, digitalis slows the pulse and increases the force of heart contractions and the amount of blood pumped per heartbeat.
The first losing candidate in a US presidential election was Thomas Jefferson. He lost to John Adams. George Washington had been unopposed.
The first man-made object to circle the earth was Sputnik I, launched in 1957.
The first modern Olympiad was held in Athens in 1896. 484 contestants from 13 nations participated.
The first motion picture copyrighted in the United States showed a man in the act of sneezing.
The first nation to ally with the USA during the Persian Gulf war was Canada. However, their soldiers were deemed unfit for combat and assigned to guard duty.
The first NBA player to score 38,000 points was Kareem Abdul-Jabar in 1989.
The first NFL team that plays its home games in a domed stadium to win a Superbowl was the St. Louis Rams in 1999.
The first novel ever written on a typewriter is Tom Sawyer.
The first offspring of captive-born elephant parents in the Western Hemisphere was a 150-pound Asiatic elephant born on Mother's Day in 1975 at the Los Angeles Zoo.
The first Olympics were held in Athens in 1896, with nine nations competing.
The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
The first Parisian cafe opened in 1689 to serve coffee.
The first percussion instrument introduced to an orchestra was the kettledrums, then called the timpani, in the 1600s.
The first perfect game in baseball history was achieved by John Lee Richmond on June 12, 1880.
The first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel was Anna Edson Taylor. She made the journey on October 24, 1901, and escaped unhurt.
The first personal computer was called the Altair and was made by a company called MITS in 1974. It came in a kit and had to be
The first pick (by Eagles) in the first NFL draft in 1935, was Jay Berwanger from the University of Chicago. He never played in the league
The first place in the western world to give women the right to vote was an island known as Man.
The first place winners at the first modern Olympics were awarded an olive branch and a silver medal. The runners-up received laurel sprigs and copper medals.
The first plastic ever invented was celluloid in 1868. It's still used today to make billiard balls.
The first players elected to Baseball Hall of Fame were Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson & Walter Johnson in 1936.
The first police car was an electric-powered vehicle used in Akron, OH in 1899.
The first police force was established in Paris in 1667.
The first President to ride in an automobile was William McKinley. After being shot, he was taken to the hospital in a 1901 Columbia electric ambulance.
The first prime number after 1,000,000 is 1,000,003.
The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, which Motorola got their name from.
The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
The first product of the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company now known as 3M when it was founded was sandpaper.
The first professional football team to sport an insignia on their helmets was the Los Angeles Rams in 1950, who hand painted yellow horns on their blue leather helmets.
The first public mention of a name for the United States' capital was in a letter from General George Washington in 1791, who referred to it as Federal City.
The first reference to a monetary prize in a horse race was offered by Richard I in 1195.
The first ring donuts were produced in 1847 by a 15 year old baker's apprentice, Hanson Gregory, who knocked the soggy center out of a fried doughnut.
The first Rose Bowl game was held in 1902 in Pasadena, California. The University of Michigan beat Sanford 49-0.
The first safety feature for an automobile was invented in 1908 by John O'Leary. He patented a large net, to be installed on the front fender, to scoop pedestrians out of the way before they could be run over.
The first scheduled airplane passenger service in the world was between Tampa and St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1914.
The first seeing-eye dog was presented to a blind person on April 25, 1938.
The first self-rising pancake mix was invented in 1889 by a newspaper man in Missouri (Chris L. Rutt).
The first series of commemorative stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service depicted Columbus's discovery of America. They were issued in 1893 and available in 16 denominations ranging from one cent to $5.
The first shopping bag with handles was invented in 1918 by Walter Deubener.
The first Soccer World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930 and attracted 13 competing countries.
The first suburban shopping mall was opened in 1922 by National Department Stores in Saint Louis.
The first Super Bowl was broadcasted by two networks: CBS and NBC.
The first Super Bowl was played in 1967. The Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League, 35-to-10.
The first telephone book ever issued contained only fifty names. It was published in New Haven, Connecticut, by the New Haven District Telephone Company in February, 1878.
The first toothbrush with bristles was developed in China in 1498. Bristles were taken from hogs at first, later from horses. The nylon bristles were developed in 1938 by DuPont.
The first toy product ever advertised on television was Mr. Potato Head®. Introduced in 1952.
The first translation of the English Bible was initiated by John Wycliffe and completed by John Purvey in 1388.
The first triple jump in figure skating competition was performed by Dick Button in 1952.
The first U.S. patent for an animal was issued to Harvard University in 1988 for an oncomouse, a genetically engineered mouse that's susceptible to breast cancer. It's used to test anti-cancer therapies.
The first US consumer product sold in the Soviet Union was Pepsi-Cola.
The first US Marines wore high leather collars to protect their necks from sabres, hence the name "leathernecks."
The first US Patent was for manufacturing potassium carbonate (used in glass and gunpowder). It was issued to Samuel Hopkins on July 31, 1970.
The first US president to both be sued for sexual misconduct and forced to give a deposition while in office was William Jefferson Clinton.
The first Wimbledon Tennis Competition took place in 1877 solely as an amateur competition. Men's singles was the only event that took place. There were 22 competitors and the championship was won by Spencer Gore.
The first woman in Congress was Jeanette Rankin of Montana, in 1917.
The first woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 was Janet Guthrie in 1977.
The first woman to run for President was Victoria Woodhull, on the Equal Rights Party ballot in 1872.
The first words that Thomas A. Edison spoke into the phonograph were, "Mary had a little lamb."
The first written account of the Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie, was made in 565AD.
The first-known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 BC.
The first-lady of the U.S. is considered a private citizen.
The fist product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
The five interlocking Olympic rings are black, blue, red, green, and yellow because at least one of these colors appears on every national flag.
The five most frequently used letters in the English alphabet are, in order, E T A I S.
The five most populated cities in the world are, in order, Tokyo-Yokohama (Japan), Mexico City (Mexico), Sao Paulo (Brazil), Seoul (South Korea), and New York (United States).
The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown differently during times of peace or war. A portion of the flag is blue, while the other is red. The blue portion is flown on top in time of peace and the red portion is flown in war time.
The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown differently during times of peace or war. A portion of the flag is blue, while the other is red. The blue portion is flown on top in time of peace and the red portion is flown in war time.
The flavor we think of as bubblegum is a combination of wintergreen, vanilla and cassia, a form of cinnamon.
The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
The fleshy projection above the bill of a turkey is called a snood.
The following is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language: "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick".
The football huddle started at Gallaudet University (the world's only accredited four-year liberal arts college for the deaf) in the 19th century when the football team found that opposing teams were reading their signed messages and intercepting their plays.
The forth railway bridge is a meter longer in summer than in winter due to thermal expansion.
The Four Freedoms by Norman Rockwell are the most widely reproduced and distributed paintings in history.
The four highest grossing movies of the 1940s were all animated motion pictures by Disney (Bambi, Pinnochio, Fantasia, and Cinderella).
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, named in the Bible's Book of Revelation, are Conquest, Slaughter, Famine, and Death.
The Four Horsemen of the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame played together for the last time in 1925, as the Irish downed Stanford in the Rose Bowl, 27-10. The Four Horsemen were Jim Crowley, Elmer Layden, Don Miller and Harry Stuhldreher.
The four principal characters from the cartoon series "The Chipmunks" are Alvin, Simon, Theodore, and Dave.
The fragrance of flowers is due to the essences of oil which they produce.
The French philosopher, Voltaire, reportedly drank fifty cups of coffee a day.
The Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, NY opened in 1948 and is the world's largest landfill. It covers 3,000 acres and receives 14,000 tons of garbage a day. It's scheduled to close in 2002.
The Fresh Kills Landfill site on Staten Island, New York, opened in 1948, is the world's largest. It covers 3,000 acres and receives up to 14,000 tons of garbage a day. It is scheduled to reach capacity and close by the year 2002.
The fruit of the Cacao tree grow directly from the trunk. They look like small melons, and the pulp inside contains 20 to 50 seeds or beans. It takes about 400 beans to make a pound of chocolate.
The full name of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin is actually Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly.
The full Spanish name of the city of Los Angeles is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de la Porciuncula." Translated, it means “The town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Little Portion.”
The fungus called truffles can cost $800 to $1,500 per pound. They are sniffed out by female pigs, which detect a compound that is in the saliva of male pigs as well. The same chemical is found in the sweat of human males.
The furthest point from any ocean would be in China.
The fuzz on a tennis ball is intentionally included as a way to give the ball some definite action when it hits the court. It also slows the flight of the ball through the air.
The game of volleyball was invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan.
The Garfish has green bones.
The gases emitted from a banana or an apple can help an orange ripen. (Not sure which fruits are concerned).
The gazelle is a kind of antelope.
The gender of Reptiles are determined not by the sex genes, but by the temperature in which the egg is incubated. A certain temperature will produce a male and vice versa for a female.
The genre of art known as Cubism derived its name from a belittling remark made by Matisse in reference to a Graque painting. Matisse said that the landscape looked as though it were wholly made up of little cubes.
The Genus and species of a gorilla are Gorilla gorilla.
The geographic center of the United States is Smith County, KS. The geographic center of North America is Pierre County, ND.
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
The giant squid is the largest creature without a backbone. It weighs up to 2.5 tons and grows up to 55 feet long. Each eye is a foot or more in diameter.
The gila monster is the only poisonous lizard in the United States.
The giraffe has a black tongue which is 14 inches long.
The giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal.
The giraffe is the only animal born with horns.
The glue on Israeli postage is certified kosher.
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
The Gothic-style Washington National Cathedral contains the remains of the only US president buried in Washington: Woodrow Wilson. William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy are buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA.
The great Gothic cathedral of Milan was started in 1386, and wasn't completed until 1805.
The Great Lakes are Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Superior, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
The Great Lakes are the most important inland waterway in North America. All the lakes, except Lake Michigan, which lies entirely in the United States, are shared by the United States and Canada and form part of the border between these countries.
The Great Lakes contain 6 quadrillion gallons of fresh water, one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water. The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world.
The Great Lakes have a combined area of 94,230 square miles larger than the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Vermont combined.
The greatest snowfall ever in a single storm was 189 inches at the Mount Shasta Ski Bowl in February, 1959.
The Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory in 1582 AD, and was adopted by Great Britain and the English colonies in 1752.
The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
The hair of man's beard are about as strong as copper wire of the same dimensions.
The hair on a polar bearis not white, but clear. They reflect light, so they appear white.
The hamburger was invented in 1900 by Louis Lassen. He ground beef, broiled it, and served it between two pieces of toast.
The harmless Whale Shark, holds the title of largest fish, with the record being a 59 footer captured in Thailand in 1919.
The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters.
The heart of a blue whale is the size of a small car. The tongue of a blue whale is as long as an elephant.
The heart of an astronaut actually gets smaller when in outer space.
The heavy tea tax imposed on the colonies in 1773, which caused the "Boston Tea Party," resulted in America switching from tea to coffee. Drinking coffee was an expression of freedom.
The height of the Eiffel Tower in France varies , depending on the temperature, by as much as 6 inches.
The herring is the most widely eaten fish in the world. Nutritionally its fuel value is that equal to that of a beefsteak.
The high jump method of jumping head first and landing on the back is called the Fosbury Flop.
The high level of unemployment in Canada makes it one of the least popular destinations for illegal immigrants.
The highest man-made temperature 70 million degrees Celsius was generated at Princeton University in a fusion-power experiment.
The highest point of the earth, with an elevation of 29,141 feet, is the top of Mt. Everest in Tibet.
The highest recorded temperature in the US was 134 Fahrenheit in Death Valley, California.
The highest temperature ever recorded in the continental US was 134 degrees on July 10, 1913 in Death Valley, California.
The highest temperature ever recorded in the world was 136.4 degrees Fahrenheit at El Azizia, Lybia, on September 13, 1922.
The highest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls in Venezuela, has a total drop of 3,121 feet.
The Himalayas are the fastest growing mountains in the world. Already the tallest, the mountain range is growing at a rate of about a half an inch each year.
The Hindu holy day begins at sunrise, the Jewish holy day begins at sunset, and the Christian holy day begins at midnight.
The Hollywood sign was first erected in 1923. Conceived as a real estate ad, it originally read Hollywoodland. The sign stands 50 feet tall, stretches 450 feet across, weighs 450,000 pounds.
The homan mouth contains more bacteria than any other orifice in the body.
The Honda Accord has the highest stolen rate in the US according to NCIB.
The honeybee kills more people world-wide than all the poisonous snakes combined.
The Hoover Dam was built to last 2,000 years. The concrete in it will not even be fully cured for another 500 years.
The horned owl is the only animal stupid enough to attack a skunk.
The horse shoe crab has blue blood which can be used to kill bacteria
The hottest chile in the world is the habanero.
The House of Lancaster, symbolized by the red rose, won England's 'War of the Roses.'
The 'huddle' in football was formed due to a deaf football player who used sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.
The human body contains enough phosphorus to make the heads of 200 matches, enough fat for seven bars of soap, and enough iron to make one nail.
The human body has enough fat to produce 7 bars of soap.
The human body has over 45 miles of nerves.
The human body has over 600 muscles, 40% of the body's weight.
The human brain is about 85% water.
The human eyes can distinguish about 17,000 different colors.
The human head weighs 7 pounds.
The human heart creates enough pressure in the bloodstream to squirt blood 30 feet.
The human heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30ft.
The human heart pumps 1.5 million gallons of blood a year.
The hummingbird is the only bird that can hover and fly straight up, down, or backward!
The hummingbird, the loon, the swift, the kingfisher, and the grebe are all birds that cannot walk.
The Hundred Year War actually lasted 116 years (1337 to 1453).
The ice cream soda was invented in 1874 by Robert Green. He was serving a mixture of syrup, sweet cream and carbonated water at a celebration in Philadelphia. He ran out of cream and substituted ice cream.
The idiom "pillar of salt" means to have a stroke, or to become paralyzed and dead.
The Iditarod Dogsled Race got its name from Iditarod, a small mining village along the race's route. The race commemorates an emergency operation in 1925 to get medical supplies to Nome, Alaska following a diphtheria epidemic.
The Imperial torte, a square chocolate cake with five thin layers of almond paste, was created by a master pastry chef at the court of Emperor Franz Joseph (1830 1916).
The infamous "Red Baron" was German World War I pilot Manfred von Richthofen.
The infinite sign is called a lemniscate.
The International Space Station weighs about 500 tons and is the same size as a football field.
The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
The internet is NOT FREE, a group of companies actually own the internet.
The Jazz Singer, 1927, was the first movie with audible dialogue.
The Jordanian city Amman was once called Philadelphia.
The Kama Sutra was written by Mallanga Vatsyayana, who was rumored to be celibate.
The kangaroo and the emu are shown supporting the shield on Australia's coat of arms.
The kangaroo rat can cover ground at a rate of 17 feet per second. It can leap as much as 18 inches straight up and can switch directions at the peak of its jump.
The katydid bug hears through holes in its hind legs.
The kilt was invented by a English gentleman who came to Scotland to open a factory because he got tired of his Scottish workers showing up in a long tunic with a belt (they couldn't afford pants). Rather than raise wages so they could afford pants he invented the kilt which is just a lot of fabric and they could afford that. The kilt did not become a symbol of clan pride until the English banned the kilt in Scotland. Then it became part of national pride to wear the newly invented clan plaids.
The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache.
The kiss that is given by the bride to the groom at the end of the wedding ceremony originates from the earliest times when the couple would actually make love for the first time under the eyes of half the village!
The kissing under the missletoe tradition originated from the Druids.
The kiwi has nostrils near the tip of its bill that allows it to sniff the ground for food.
The Kiwi, national bird of New Zealand, can't fly. It lives in a hole in the ground, is almost blind, and lays only one egg each year. Despite this, it has survived for more than 70 million years.
The Kwoma of New Guinea consider it proper for the girl to make sexual advances rather than the boy in order to help the men avoid upsetting the girl's parents.
The largest amount of money you can have without having change for a dollar is $1.19 (3 quarters, 4 dimes, and 4 pennies cannot be divided into a dollar).
The largest animal ever seen alive was a 113.5 foot, 170-ton female blue whale.The largest antique ever sold is the London Bridge. It was sold and moved Lake Havasu City, AZ in 1971.
The largest baseball card collection, 200,000 cards, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The largest bell in the world is the Tsar Kolokol in the Kremlin in Moscow. It’s 20’ 2” high and 21’ 8” in diameter. Cast in 1735, it weighs 222.56 tons and has never been wrung...it cracked before it was installed.
The largest bird egg in the world today is that of the ostrich. Ostrich eggs are from 6 to 8 inches long. Because of their size and the thickness of their shells, they take 40 minutes to hard-boil.
The largest body of fresh water in the world is Lake Superior.
The largest cell in the human body is the female ovum, or egg cell. It is about 1/180 inch in diameter. The smallest cell in the human body is the male sperm. It takes about 175,000 sperm cells to weigh as much as a single egg cell.
The largest cell in the human body is the female reproductive cell, the ovum. The smallest is the male sperm.
The largest cockroach on record is one measured at 3.81 inches in length.
The largest coffee importer center in the U.S. is located in the city of New Orleans, LA.
The largest desert in the world, the Sahara, is 3,500,000 square miles.
The largest gold nugget ever found weighed 172 lbs., 13 oz.
The largest Great White Shark ever caught measured 37 feet and weighed 24,000 pounds. It was found in a herring weir in New Brunswick in 1930.
The largest hailstone ever recorded was 17.5 inches in diameter bigger than a basketball.
The largest human organ is the liver, which weighs about 55 ounces in a person weighing 150 pounds. By some definitions, the skin is an organ, in which case skin would be the largest organ at 384 ounces.
The largest human organ is the skin, with a surface area of about 25 square feet.
The largest insect egg belongs to the Malaysian jungle nymph, a sticklike insect, and measures about 1.3 centimeters long larger than a peanut! (Some insects, mainly mantises and cockroaches, lay egg cases that are larger, but they contain about 200 individual eggs.)
The largest item on any menu in the world is probably the roast camel, sometimes served at Bedouin wedding feasts. The camel is stuffed with a sheep's carcass, which is stuffed with chickens, which are stuffed with fish, which are stuffed with eggs.
The 1st CMA (Country Music Association) Awards, hosted by Sonny James and Bobbie Gentry, were presented at an awards banquet and show in 1967.
The 1st comic strip was "The Yellow Kid," in the New York World in 1896. The cartoonist was Richard Felton Outcault.
The 1st feature-length animated film, released by Disney Studios in 1937, was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
The 1st inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961 were Jimmie Rodgers, Fred Rose and Hank Williams were.
The 1st interracial kiss on TV took place Nov. 22, 1968 between Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Lt.Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) on an episode of "Star Trek."
The 1st kiss in a movie was between May Irwin and John Rice in "The Widow Jones," in 1896.
The 1st live televised murder was in 1963, when Jack Ruby killed JFK's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald while millions of viewers watched.
The 1st nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, commissioned by the United States Navy in 1954, made her maiden voyage on Jan. 17, 1955.
The 1st performance of Handel's "Messiah" was on April 13, 1742 at the New Music rooms in Fishamble St., Dublin. Because of the demand for space, the men were asked not to wear their swords and the ladies not to wear hooped skirts.
The 1st personal computer, the Apple II, went on sale in 1977.
The 1st presidential news conference filmed for TV was in 1955. Eisenhower was the president.
The 1st televised presidential debate was September 26, 1960, between Nixon and Kennedy.
The 1st time the "f-word" was spoken in a movie was by Marianne Faithfull in the 1968 film, "I'll Never Forget Whatshisname." In Brian De Palma's 1984 movie, "Scarface," the word is spoken 206 times an average of once every 29 seconds.
The 1st unattended, 24-hour self-service laundromat in the United States was opened by Nelson Puett in 1949 on North Loop in Austin, Texas.
The 1st US federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. was in 1986.
The 1st US federal legislation prohibiting narcotics (opium) was enacted in 1909.
The 1st US federal penitentiary building was completed at Leavenworth, Kansas in 1906.
The 1st US Minimum Wage Law was instituted in 1938. The minimum wage was 25 cents per hour.
The 1st US Mormon temple was dedicated in Kirtland, Ohio in 1836.
The 1st US zoo was built in Philadelphia, PA, in 1876.
The 1st winner of the Academy Award for best picture, and the only silent film to achieve that honor, was the 1927 film, "Wings."
The 2,000 Arabica coffee cherries it takes to make a roasted pound of coffee are normally picked by hand as they ripen. Since each cherry contains two beans, it takes about 4,000 Arabica beans to make a pound of roasted coffee.
The 26 letters of our alphabet can make 403,290,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 different combinations.
The 3 Magi:(or Wise Men) and their gifts: Melchoir, "king of light," offered Gold, Gaspar ,"or the white one," offered frankincense, and Balthazar, "lord of treasures," offered myrrh.
The 5 oldest colleges in the U.S. are, in order, Harvard, William & Mary, Yale, Princeton, and Penn.
The 7 Dwarfs are Happy, Grumpy, Dopey (the beardless one), Doc, Bashful, Sneezy, Sleepy. They were miners.
The 772-778 Digits of pi are 9999998.
The abbreviation 'ORD' for Chicago's O'Hare airport comes from the old name 'Orchard Field.'
The Academy Award was rumored to have gotten its nickname of Oscar for its resemblance to a film librarian’s Uncle Oscar.
The act of snapping your fingers has a name: fillip.
The active ingredient in smelling salts is ammonia.
The Agen plum which would become the basis of the US prune industry was first planted in California in 1856.
The air we breathe is 78% nitrogen, 21.5% oxygen, .5% argon and other gases.
The air we breathe is comprised of 78% nitrogen, 21.5% oxygen and 0.5% argon.
The airplane, Buddy Holly died in, was the "American Pie," which is where Don McLarean got the song title from.
The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was formed in 1866.
The amount of drag or air resistance produced by putting your bicycle on top of your car is so great that on a trip from England to Scotland it would be cheaper to send it by train because of the fuel consumption to overcome the drag
The anaconda, one of the world's largest snakes, gives birth to its young instead of laying eggs.
The ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.
The ancient Egyptians trained baboons to wait on tables.
The ancient Romans built such an excellent system of roads that the saying arose "all roads lead to Rome," that is, no matter which road one starts a journey on, he will finally reach Rome if he keeps on traveling. The popular saying came to mean that all ways or methods of doing something end in the same result, no method being better than another.
The anemometer is an instrument which measures the force, velocity, or pressure of the wind.
The Angel falls in Venezuela are nearly 20 times taller than Niagara Falls.
The Angel Falls in Venezuela is the highest waterfall in the world, its waters drop from over 3,200 feet.
The animal responsible for the most human deaths world-wide is the mosquito.
The animal that tends to cling to rocks and boats are barnacles.
The animal whose brain accounts for the largest share of its body weight is the squirrel monkey. It's brain makes up about 5% of its total weight.
The animal with the largest brain in proportion to its size is the ant.
The annual Night of the Radishes is held in Oaxaca, Mexico. It's held on December 23rd of every year as part of a pre-Christmas tradition. Farmers carve figures from radishes and display them in the city's main plaza.
The annual White House Easter egg-roll was started by President Hayes in 1878.
The ant can lift 50 times its own weight.
The anti-malarial drug quinine is taken from the bark of the Andean cinchona tree.
The Apollo 11 plaque left on the Moon says, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. / WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND."
The apricot can be traced back to China at least four thousand years ago, and it first appeared in Greek mythology as the "golden apple".
The Arabica is the original coffee plant. It still grows wild in Ethiopia. The arabica coffee tree is an evergreen and in the wild will grow to a height between 14 and 20 feet.
The Arabs are generally believed to be the first to brew coffee.
The Arctic ocean is the smallest and shallowest. The Arctic Ocean is the world's smallest ocean. It is mostly covered by solid ice, ice floes, and icebergs.
The aroma and flavor derived from coffee is a result of the little beads of the oily substance called coffee essence, coffeol, or coffee oil. This is not an actual oil since it dissolves in water.
The art of knitting originated in Scotland.
The ashes of the average cremated person weigh 9 pounds.
The Atlantic Ocean has a greater salt content than the Pacific Ocean.
The Australian emu holds the land speed record for birds (31 mph).
The average 3 year-old watches about 30 hours of television a week.
The average adult guinea pig weighs 2 pounds.
The average adult has about 3,500 square inches of skin. The skin itself has roughly a billion pores or openings.
The average adult male ostrich, the world's largest living bird, weighs up to 345 pounds.
The average adult raccoon weighs 21 pounds.
The average age of an Italian barista is 48 years old. A barista is a respected job title in Italy.
The average American consumes over 28 pounds of bananas each year.
The average American spends 120 hours a month watching television, the equivalent of five complete days in front of the TV.
The average American will eat 35,000 cookies in a lifetime.
The average American woman spends 55 minutes per day getting showered, dressed, and groomed.
The average annual coffee consumption of the American adult is 26.7 gallons, or over 400 cups.
The average bank teller loses about $250 every year.
The average bra is designed to last for only 180 days of use.
The average capacity of a pelican's pouch is 12 quarts.
The average cat consumes about 127,750 calories a year, nearly 28 times its own weight in food and the same amount again in liquids.
The average chicken lays about 260 eggs a year.
The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade.
The average child will eat 1,500 PB sandwiches by high school graduation.
The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs melted into it.
The average cod deposits between 4 and 6 million eggs at a single spawning.
The average cough comes out of your mouth at 60MPH.
The average cow produces 40 glasses of milk each day.
The average cup of coffee contains more than 1000 different chemical components, none of which is tasted in isolation but only as part of the overall flavor.
The average duration of sexual intercourse for humans is 2 minutes.
The average elephant produces 50 pounds of dung each day.
The average elephant weighs less than the average blue whale's tongue
The average family will spend $250,000 (thats a quarter million dollars) on each child from the time he/she is born until he/she turns 18.
The average flea can jump up to 350 times its own length. To match that a human would have to jump 1,000 feet.
The average fox weighs 14 pounds.
The average garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.
The average healthy human being farts 16 times a day.
The average healthy porpoise lives 30 years.
The average home size in the United States is now 2,200 square feet, up from 1,400 square feet in 1970, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
The average housefly lives for only two weeks.
The average human body contains enough: iron to make a 3 inch nail,sulfur to kill all fleas on an average dog, carbon to make 900 pencils, potassium to fire a toy cannon, fat to make 7 bars of soap, phosphorous to make 2,200 match heads, and water to fill a ten-gallon tank.
The average human body has enough fat to make 7 bars of soap.
The average human breathes about 700,000 cubic inches of air every day.
The average human eats 8 spiders in his/her lifetime at night.
The average human head weighs about eight pounds.
The average human produces 10,000 gallons of saliva in a life time.
The average human produces 25,000 quarts of spit in a lifetime, enough to fill two swimming pools.
The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.
The average life expectancy of a beaver in captivity is five years.
The average life expectancy of a kangaroo in captivity is 7 years.
The average life expectancy of a leopard in captivity is 12 years.
The average life expectancy of a rhinoceros in captivity is 15 years.
The average life expectancy of a toilet is 50 years.
The average life expectancy of geese, barring all accidents, is 25 years.
The average life span of a moose is 15 to 25 years.
The average life span of a mosquito is two weeks.
The average life span of a taste bud is 10 days.
The average life span of the hedgehog is 10 years.
The average lifespan of a Major League baseball is five to seven pitches.
The average light bulb can last for about 750 to 1,000 hours.
The average litter of Mexican wolves is between four and seven pups.
The average llama weighs 375 pounds.
The average marathon runner's heart beats about 175 times per minute during a race. A typical adult's heart beats 68 times a minute at rest.
The average mature oak tree sheds approximately 700,000 leaves in the fall.
The average number of cars stolen per day in Mexico City this year is 124.
The average number of peanuts in a box of Cracker Jacks is 27.
The average per capita consumption of soap, in all of its uses, in the United States is about forty pounds per year.
The average person drinks about 16, 000 gallons of water in a lifetime.
The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
The average person grows up to 6 feet of nose hair.
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year
The average person in the United States watches 239 minutes of television per day.
The average person ingests about a ton of food and drink each year.
The average person is about a quarter of an inch taller at night.
The average person laughs about 15 times a day.The average person loses an average of 40 to 100 strands of hair a day.
The average person produces 25,000 quarts of spit in a lifetime, enough to fill two swimming pools.
The average person releases nearly a pint of intestinal gas by flatulence every day. Most is due to swallowed air. The rest is from fermentation of undigested food.
The average person swallows one liter of snot every day. This is from the MN Science Museum.
The average person uses the bathroom 6 times per day.
The average person walks the equivalent of twice around the world in a lifetime.
The average person's hair will grow approximately 590 inches in a lifetime.
The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
The average person's scalp has 100,000 hairs.
The average porcupine has more than 30,000 quills.
The average porpoise weighs 103 pounds.
The average raindrop falls at 7 miles per hour.
The average snail moves at a rate of approximately 0.000362005 miles per hour.
The average speed for a migrating duck is fifty miles per hour.
The average steer reaches sexual maturity six months after birth.
The average US male will spend 2,965 hours shaving during his lifetime.
The Aztecs of Mexico roasted and ground up the cacao bean, mixed it with water, added peppers and other spices, stirred it up to a froth and drank the pungent mixture they called "chocolatl."
The Baby Ruth candy bar was named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth, not Babe Ruth the baseball player.
The bagpipe was originally made from the whole skin of a dead sheep.
The banana is the most prolific of all food plants with as many as 300 bananas growing on the same stalk.
The banana market is controlled by five large corporations Chiquita (25%), Dole (25%), Del Monte (15%), Noboa (11%) and Fyffes (8%). Most bananas are grown on huge plantations, controlled by these corporate giants. The remaining banana production for export comes from small banana producers.
The banana plant reaches its full height of 15 to 30 feet in about one year. The trunk of a banana plant is made of sheaths of overlapping leaves, tightly wrapped around each other like celery stalks.
The bands on hats traces back to the custom on knights wearing their lady loves' scarves around the helmet.
The banjo is America's only true native musical instrument. It was first developed in the South in the 1790s.
The barn owl has one ear higher than the other. The left ear is higher and points downward to hear sounds from below it, while the right ear is lower and pointed upward to pick up sounds from above.
The base of the Great Pyramid of Egypt is large enough to cover 10 football fields.
The basis of the Macintosh computer was Apple's Lisa which was released in 1983. This was the first system to utilize a GUI or Graphical User Interface. The first Macintosh was released in 1984.
The Beatles' 1st song to hit the UK charts was "From Me to You" in June, 1963.
The Beatles song "Dear Prudence" was written about Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence, when she wouldn't come out and play with Mia and the Beatles at a religious retreat in India.
The Beatles were depicted in wax at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in London, in 1964, the first pop album stars to be honored.
The Beatles were George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr. But there were also two lesser known, previous members of the band: Pete Best and Stu Sutcliffe.
The BEAVER, is America's largest rodent and can remain underwater for 20 minutes! erm... sealions can do that as well (just something random)
The beluga whale, otherwise known as the white whale, is nicknamed the "sea canary" because of the birdlike chirping sounds it makes.
The best recorded distance for projectile vomiting is 27 feet.
The bestselling books of all time are The Bible (6billion+), Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (900million+), and The Lord of the Rings (100million+)
The Bible devotes some 500 verses on prayer, less than 500verses on faith, but over 2000 verses on money and posessions.
The Bible does not say there were three wise men; it only says there were three gifts.
The bible does not specify exactly how many wise men were sent to Bethleham.
The Bible has been translated into Klingon.
The Bible is the best selling book of all time with approximately six billion books sold. The second-best selling book is Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung with about 800 million sales.
The Bible was written by about 40 men over a period of about 1600 years dating from 1500 BC to about 100 years after Christ.
The big differences between pythons and boa constrictors: pythons are longer and lay eggs. Boas give birth to live babies.
The Big Room at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico is 2,500 feet in length, 600 feet wide, and 250 feet high.
The biggest member of the cat family is the male lion, which weighs 528 pounds (240 kilograms).
The biggest specie of apes are the gorillas.
The biro was invented by George and Lazio Biro.
The Black Death reduced the population of Europe by one third in the period from 1347 to 1351.
The Black Hole, 1979, was Disney's first PG-rated movie.
The blood of mammals is red, the blood of insects is yellow, and the blood of lobsters is blue.
The bloodhound is the only animal whose evidence is admissible in an American court.
The blue whale has a heart the size of a small car and its blood vessal is so broad, that a person could swim through it.
The board game Monopoly was originally rejected by Parker Brothers, who claimed it had 52 fundamental errors.
The body can function without a brain. And anyone who has walked around the city on a Saturday night will know what I mean.
The body's largest internal organ is the small intestine at an average length of 20 feet
The bones of a pigeon weigh less than its feathers.
The book The Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley, was the inspiration behind Jim Morrison naming his band The Doors. The book extolls the use of hallucinogenic drugs.
The border between Canada and the U.S. is the world's longest frontier. It stretches 3,987 miles (6,416 km).
The botanical name of the chocolate plant is Theobramba cacao, which means "Food of the Gods."
The brewing of beer is recorded as far back as 6,000 years ago. Until the 12th century (when skilled experts took over), women performed the task of making beer as part of their household chores.
The bridge across the Niagra Falls began with a kite carrying a line across it.
The brightest star in history was the supernova of 1054, which formed the Crab Nebula. It was brighter than Venus and bright enough to be seen in daylight and to cast a shadow at night. We know about it through the astronomic records of China and Japan.
The Brownie box camera, introduced by Eastman Kodak, sold for $1.00 in 1900. The camera's 6-exposure film sold for 15 cents.
The bubbles in Guiness beer sink to the bottom rather than float to the top as in other beers.
The Burramundy, a fish, grows up as a male, but after 2 years or so, it turns into a female to breed. (i think papaya(papua?) trees are the same)
The Butterfinger candy bar was first produced by Chicago's Curtiss Candy Co. in 1923. As an advertising ploy, candy bars were dropped from an airplane on cities in 40 states.
The California grape and wine industries were started by Count Agoston Haraszthy de Moksa, who planted Tokay, Zinfandel, and Shiras varieties from his native Hungary in Buena Vista in 1857.
The California redwood coast redwood and giant sequoia are the tallest and largest living organism in the world.
The calories burned daily by the sled dogs running in Alaska's annual Iditarod race average 10,000. The 1,149-mile race commemorates the 1925 "Race for Life" when 20 volunteer musher relayed medicine from Anchorage to Nome to battle a children's diphtheria epidemic.
The Canadian government legalized marijuana for medicinal use in 1999. After discovering a shortage of local growers they began to import the dope from Mississippi.
The Canary Islands were not named for a bird called a canary. They were named after a breed of large dogs. The Latin name was Canariae insulae "Island of Dogs."
The candy bar, Baby Ruth, is named after President Clevelands' daughter, not Babe Ruth the baseball player.
The Cannes Film Festival was conceived in 1938 by two French journalists while they were traveling by train to the Venice Film Festival.
The canning process for herring was developed in Sardinia, which is why canned herrings are better known as sardines.
The cashew nut in its natural state contains a poisonous oil. Roasting removes the oil and makes the nuts safe to eat.
The cat lover is an ailurophile, while a cat hater is an ailurophobe.
The caterpillar has more than 2,000 muscles
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
The catgut formerly used as strings in tennis rackets and musical instruments does not come from cats. Catgut actually comes from sheep, hogs, and horses.
The Catholic Church only declared in 1992 that the earth may go round the sun.
The center of the earth is almost 4000 miles beneath our feet.
The chameleon has several cell layers beneath its transparent skin. These layers are the source of the chameleon's color change. Some of the layers contain pigments, while others just reflect light to create new colors. Several factors contribute to the color change. A popular misconception is that chameleons change color to match their environment. This isn't true. Light, temperature, and emotional state commonly bring about a chameleon's change in color. The chameleon will most often change between green, brown and gray, which coincidently, often matches the background colors of their habitat.
The chances for a mother giving birth to quadruplets (four Childs) are almost 1 in 600,000.
The chances of an exact duplication of fingerprints are about 64 billion to 1.
The channel between England and France grows 300mm each year.
The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life".
The characters of Homer, Marge, Lisa, and Maggie were given the same first names as Simpsons creator Matt Groening's real-life father, mother, and two sisters.
The Charlotte Dundas, a paddle-wheel steamboat, was the world's first steam-powered vessel, not Robert Fulton's Clermont. In 1802, five years before Fulton's famous ship took sail, The Dundas was a steam-powered tugboat in Great Britain.
The cheetah is the only cat in the world that can't retract its claws.
The chemical n-acetyl-cysteine found in raw eggs is proven to help hangovers.
The Chinese language does not require punctuation.
The Chinese were using aluminum to make things as early as 300 AD Western civilization didn't rediscover aluminum until 1827.
The Chinese, during the reign of Kublai Khan, used lions on hunting expeditions. They trained the big cats to pursue and drag down massive animals from wild bulls to bears and to stay with the kill until the hunter arrived.
The chow-chow and the Chinesse Shar-Pei are the only dogs that have a black tongue. The tongues of all other dogs are pink.
The Church of Scientology was founded in 1953, at Washington DC, by US science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. The citrus industry started in the United States in 1873 when two Riverside, CA ranchers obtained some orange saplings from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Two years earlier, the government had secured a dozen saplings from Brazil.
The City of Istanbul straddles two separate continents, Europe and Asia.
The city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is the only city where all major sports teams share the same colors (black and gold).
The city of St. Petersburg, Russia, was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great, hence the name, St. Petersburg. But it wasn't always that simple. In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, Russian leaders felt that Petersburg was too German-sounding. So they changed the name of the city to Petrograd -to make it more Russian-sounding. Then, in 1924, the country's Soviet Communist leaders wanted to honor the founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir I. Lenin. The city of Petrograd became Leningrad and was known as Leningrad until 1991 when the new Russian legislators -no longer Soviet Communists -wanted the city to reflect their change of government.
The city of Venice stands on about 120 small islands.
The Civil War in the United States elevated the popularity of coffee to new heights. Soldiers went to war with coffee beans as a primary ration.
The clock at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. will gain or lose only one second every 300 years.
The clock tower that supports the famous clock 'Big Ben' at the house of parliament in London, is 320 feet high. The bell from which the clock get it's name, weighs 13.5 tones.
The closest star to the sun, Alpha Centauri, is never visible in the sky north of about 30 degrees Northern Lattitude.
The cockroach has a high resistance to radiation and is the creature most likely to survive a nuclear war.
The cockroach is the fastest animal on 6 legs, covering a meter a second.
The Code of Hammurabi made it forbidden to randomly mistreat slaves. However, the code also stated that slaves were to be branded on the forehead and forbidden to hide or mask the mark.
The coffee filter was invented in 1908 by a German homemaker, Melitta Benz, when she lined a tin cup with blotter paper to filter the coffee grinds.
The coffee tree produces its first full crop when it is about 5 years old. Thereafter it produces consistently for 15 or 20 years.
The coldest capital city in the world is Ulaan Bator, Mongolia.
The coldest outdoor temperature ever recorded on earth was 127 below zero in Antarctica on August 24, 1960.
The color of a chile is no indication of its spiciness, but size usually is the smaller the pepper, the hotter it is.
The combination "ough" can be pronounced in 9!! different ways; Read this: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
The common goldfish is the only animal that can see both infrared and ultra-violet light.
The complete skin covering of the body measures about 20 sq. feet.
The complete title of the Statue of Liberty is Liberty Enlightening the World
The complete works of Shakespeare can be stored on 5 Megabytes.
The computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey as a tongue-in-cheek reference to IBM. The name was derived from the fact that the letters H-A-L precede the letters I-B-M in the alphabet.
The computer programming language ADA was named in honor of Augusta Ada King. The U.S. Defense Department named the language after the Countess of Lovelace and daughter of Lord Byron because she helped finance and program what is thought to be the first computer, the “analytical engine” designed by Charles Babbage.
The condensed water vapor in the sky left behind by jets is called a contrail.
The condom made originally of linen was invented in the early 1500's.
The correct name for the capital city of Thailand is rung Thep, and it's been this way for over 130 years. Foreigners persist on calling it Bangkok.
The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the morning to you," is "and the rest of the day to yourself."
The country of Losotho is completely surrounded by the country of South Africa.
The country of Tanzania has an island called Mafia.
The country of Tonga once issued a stamp shaped like a banana.
The country with the highest rate of cremations is Japan. In 1996, 98.7% of all deaths were cremated.
The creators of a new model of Chevys couldn't figure out why their car, the Nova, wasn't selling well in Hispanic countries... until someone pointed out that 'Nova' means 'No go' in Spanish.
The crew of Apollo 11 who put the first man on the moon have the same initials as the first men on earth. Armstrong : Adam Aldrin : Abel Collins : Cain
The crow is the smartest of all birds.
The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
The Cullinan Diamond is the largest gem-quality diamond ever discovered. Found in 1905, the original 3,100 carats were cut to make jewels for the British Crown Jewels and the British Royal family's collection.
The curvature of the earth is pretty close to eight inches every mile, or 66 feet every hundred miles.
The daughter of confectioner Leo Hirschfield is commemorated in the name of the sweet he invented: Although his daughter's real name was Clara, she went by the nickname Tootsie, and in her honor, her doting father named his chewy chocolate logs Tootsie Rolls.
The Death Star death ray control panel from the original is actually the control panel of Grass Valley Group GVG 300 Video (television) production switcher
The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (a variety of the marijuana plant) paper
The deepest hole ever made in the world is in Texas. It is as deep as 20 empire state buildings but only 3 inches wide. (Who made it? A petroleum company)
The deepest land point on Earth is the area around the Dead Sea in Israel. The Dead Sea is located 1,312 below sea level.
The deepest spot in any ocean is the Mariana Trench. It's 36,198 feet below sea level (about seven miles).
The designer of the Statue of Liberty, French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, used his wife as the model for the body and his mother as the model for the face.
The difference between AM and FM radio is that FM is line-of-sight, while AM bounces off the atmosphere (more accurately, the ionosphere.) AM stations have to reduce the power of their transmissions at night because the ionosphere lifts with the colder temperatures and lees solar interference.
The difference between apple juice and apple cider is that the juice is pasteurized and the cider is not.
The difference between male and female blue crabs is the design located on their belly. The male blue crab has the Washington monument and the female blue crab's belly is shaped like the U.S. capitol.
The dimensions of a regulation football field are: 360 feet long and 160 feet wide.
The dioxin 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin is 150,000 times deadlier than cyanide.
The dirt extracted to build the foundation of the World Trade Center in New York City was dumped into the Hudson River. The community of Battery City Park now resides on that dirt.
The disease-carrying mosquito, delivering encephalitis, the West Nile virus, malaria, and Dengue fever, is by far the deadliest beast in the animal world. The World Health Organization says mosquitos cause more than 2 million deaths a year worldwide. Another insect,
The distance between cities are actually the distances between city halls.
The distance between the pitcher's rubber and home plate in baseball is 60 feet, 6 inches.
The dollar was established as the official currency of the US in 1785.
The dot above an 'i' is called the tittle.
The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
The dragons and other monsters that graced the bows of the Viking ships were so fierce-looking that a law was passed in Iceland ordering the skipper of any Viking ship to remove the figurehead before entering port.
The drip pot was invented by a Frenchman around 1800.
The drug thiopentone can kill a human being in one second if it's injected directly into the blood stream.
The drummer for ZZ Top (the only one without a beard) is named Frank Beard.
The Dutch acquired Surinam in exchange for Manhattan Island in 1667.
The dye used to stamp the grade on meat is edible. It's made from grape skins.
The ear which the matador slices off the bull is his trophy.
The earliest cocoa plantations were established in 600 AD, in the Yucatan, by the Mayans.
The earliest known wholly glass objects beads were found in Egypt about 4,500 years ago. The first glass cups were also found in Egypt about 3,500 years ago.
The earliest recorded Olympic Games result was from the 180 meter sprint in the 776 B.C. The winner was a man named Coroebus.
The earliest works of art are paleolithic animal paintings discovered in prehistoric caves in southern France and northern Spain. The paintings date from 30,000 to 10,000 B.C.
The earth is 24,901 miles around at the equator.
The earth is not perfectly round. Technically, it's a triaxial ellipsoid, which is to say that it's nearly spherical, but flattened at the top and bottom.
The Earth is not round, but slightly pear-shaped.
The earth is presently inhabited by 1.4 million species of animals and 500,000 species of plants.
The earth is roughly 4600 million years old.
The earth is the most densest planet in the solar system, and is the only planet not named after a god.
The earth rotates on its axis more slowly in March than in September.
The earth weighs 6 sextillion, 588 quintillion tons.
The earth wobbles on its axis every 21-26,000 years
The Earths core is a ball of Iron-Nickle at 7,000 C and is 80% the size of the moon.
The earth's rotation is slowing down at a rate of one second per century. The gravity from the sun and moon are creating tidal friction on the earth that are acting as brakes on planet's spin.
The eggs from the ovaris of a pig, when shot into another animal, can sterelise it, making it impotent.
The Eiffel Tower is 984 feet high.
The Eiffel Tower is painted approximately once every 7 years and requires nearly 50 tons of paint each time.
The Eiffel Tower receives a fresh coat of 300 tons of reddish-green paint every seven years.
The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair.
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
The electric automobile self-starter was invented to make it possible for women to drive without a companion, who was previously needed to crank the engine.
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
The electric chair was invented by Dr. Alphonse Rockwell and was first used on William Kemmler on August 6, 1890.
The elephant is the only animal that has been taught to stand on its head.
The elephant, as a symbol of the US Republican Party, was originated by cartoonist Thomas Nast and first presented in 1874.
The emperor of Japan is the 125th of his line, which dates back to 660 B.C.
The Empire State Building in New York City is constructed of over 10 million bricks.
The Empire State Building in New York City weighs approximately 365,000 tons.
The emu's eyes are so similar to that of a human eye, that those studying to become eye doctors often practice surgery on them.
The English Romantic poet Lord Byron was so devastated upon the death of his beloved Newfoundland, whose name was Boatswain, that he had inscribed upon the dog's gravestone the following: "Beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices."
The English word "soup" comes from the Middle Ages word "sop," which means a slice of bread over which roast drippings were poured. The first archaeological evidence of soup being consumed dates back to 6000 B.C., with the main ingredient being Hippopotamus bones!
The English word with the most meanings is the simple 3 letter word "SET".
The entire Encyclopedia Britannica is banned because it contains a formula for making beer at home.
The entire worlds output of urine takes about 45 minutes to go over the Niagra falls.
The equatorial bulge of the earth does not rest along the equator. The highest point of the bulge is actually located 25 feet to the south.
The eraser wasn't put onto pencils until 1858 by Hyman Lipman.
The estimated number of M & M's sold each day in the United States is 200,000,000.
The estimated weight of the Great Pyramid of Egypt is 6,648,000 tons.
The Europeans first added chocolate to their coffee in the 1600's.
The expletive, "Holy Toledo," refers to Toledo, Spain, which became an outstanding Christian cultural center in 1085.
The expression "three dog night" originated with the Eskimos and means a very cold night so cold that you have to bed down with three dogs to keep warm.
The extended right arm of the Statue of Liberty is 42 feet long.
The eyeball of a human weighs approximately 28 grams.
The eyes of an Ostrich are larger than its brain.
The Falkland Isles (pop. about 2000) has over 700000 sheep (350 per person).
The famous Indian epic "Mahabharata" contains almost three million words.
The famous Pizza chain store Sabarro originated in a small corner store in my hometown of Brooklyn, NY, which actually sold fresh cut meat.
The famous Revolutionary war general Lafayette had the same first name as his wife Mary.
The famous ship "Old Ironsides" actually had wooden sides.
The fastest bird is the Spine-tailed swift, clocked at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour.
The fastest land animal is the cheetah, however the fastest animal in the world is the prerigine falcon, which can dive at 217mph
The fastest -moving land snail, the common garden snail, has a speed of 0.0313 mph.
The father of Dave Matthews was one of the original fathers of the super conductor (died of lung cancer when dave was 10 [was a non-smoker])
The FDA allows an average of 30 or more insect fragments and one or more rodent hairs per 100 grams of peanut butter.
The February of 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
The Federal Reserve printed up an extra $50 billion in small bills just in case people started hoarding money prior to the year 2000. Since nowhere near that much cash was needed, and there was a long-term storage problem, most of that money was recycled.
The feet account for one quarter of all the human bodies bones.
The female spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) has a 'penis'.
The final episode of M*A*S*H ranks as the most watched television program of any kind in United States history. An estimated 50,150,000 people tuned in on February 28, 1983. That amounted to 60.2% of all households with a television. Second on the list was the “Who Shot J.R.” episode of Dallas.
The final score in the game that Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points was Warriors 169 Knicks 147.
The fingerprints of koala bears are almost indistinguishable from those of humans, so much that they could be confused at a crime scene.
The first "official" vasectomy was performed in 1893.
The first "puck" ever used in a professional hockey game was a frozen piece of cow dung.
The first American advertisement for tobacco was published in 1789. It showed a picture of an Indian smoking a long clay pipe.
The first American satellite in orbit, Explorer I, was launched February 1, 1958.
The first animal sent to space was a female Samoyed named Laika. Laika was sent into space on November 3, 1957 aboard the Russian spacecraft Sputnik II.
The first anti-lynching law in the United States was passed in Georgia in 1893, but it only made the violation punishable by four years in prison. (11-1-04)
The first asteroid to ever be discovered is Ceres. It was discovered 1801 and is 582 miles in diameter.
The first bank in history was the Igibi. It was established in 575 B.C.
The first bar code was used on Wrigleys gum
The first baseball game was broadcast in color on August 11, 1951 (Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Boston Braves 8-1)
The first bath tub to be installed in the white house was during the time of Millard Fillmore.
The first black player in the American League was Larry Doby with the Cleveland Indians in 1947.
The first bomb the Allies dropped on Berlin in WWII killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
The first book published in the United States was Massachusetts Bay Colony: The Oath of a Free Man, in 1638.
The first brand of Wrigley's chewing gum was called "Vassar", after the New England woman's college. Next were "Lotta" and "Sweet Sixteen Orange."
The first building with an elevator was the six-story 130-foot Equitable Life Building in New York. It was built in 1870.
The first CD pressed in the U.S. was Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA.'
The first chimpanzee to travel into space was named Ham. He got the name from the lab he was raised in, the Holloman AeroMedical laboratory in Alamogordo, NM. Ham flew in a Mercury space capsule in 1961. His trip also proved that space travel was safe for humans.
The first city in America to have a TV station was: Schenectady, NY.
The first city to reach a population of 1 million people was Rome, Italy in 133 B.C. London, England reached the mark in 1810 and New York, USA made it in 1875. Today, there are over 300 cities in the world that boast a population in excess of 1 million.
The first coffee drinkers, the Arabs, flavored their coffee with spices during the brewing process.
The first coin minted in the United States was a silver dollar. It was issued on October 15, 1794.
The first comic strip was "The Yellow Kid," which ran in the New York World in 1896. The cartoonist's name was W.R. Hearst.
The first commercial espresso machine was manufactured in Italy in 1906.
The first commercial product manufactured in the United States and exported to Europe was a glass bottle made in Jamestown in 1608.
The first company that Bill Gates ever ran created machines that would record the number of cars passing a given point on a street.
The first computer, the steam-driven calculating machine, was built in 1823 by Charles Babbage. It failed to work due to poor workmanship in the intricate parts. When rebuilt by the London Museum of Science in 1991, it worked.
The first contraceptive diaphragms, centuries ago, were citrus rinds (i.e., half an orange rind). Casanova used half lemon rinds as a cervical cap and the acidic juice as a potent spremicide(something that kills sperms).
The first cookbook published in the United States was Compleat Housewife, or Accomplished Gentlewoman's Companion, printed in Williamsburg, VA in 1742.
The first Corvette rolled off the Chevrolet assembly line in Flint, MI. in 1953. That early 'Vette sold for $3,250.
The first country to abolish capital punishment was Austria in 1787.
The first cover of "Sports Illustrated," in 1954, showed National League umpire, Augie Donatelli, behind the plate with two major-league stars: catcher Wes Westrum, and batter Eddie Matthews.
The first credit card, issued in 1950, was Diner's Club. Frank X. McNamara started the company with 200 card holders.
The first daily comic strip in the U.S. was "Mutt & Jeff."
The first drive-in movie theater was built in Camden, NJ in 1932-3. It cost 25 cents per car or $1 for three or more people to watch a movie.
The first episode of "Joanie Loves Chachi" was the highest rated American program in the history of Korean television. "Chachi" is Korean for "penis."
The first film granted permission by the Chinese government to be filmed in the Forbidden City was The Last Emperor, 1987.
The first flight of the Wright Brothers was a distance less than the wing span of a Jumbo Jet.
The first footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theater (now Mann's Chinese Theater), were made by Norma Talmadge in 1927. Legend has it that she accidentally stepped in wet concrete outside the building. Since then, over 180 stars have been immortalized, along with their hands and feet and even noses (Jimmy Durante).
The first Ford cars used Dodge engines.
The first foreign fort the American flag flew over was Fort Derne in Libya, on the shores of Tripoli
The first formal rules for playing baseball required the winning team to score 21 runs.
The first fully working parachute was used in 1787 by Jacques Gernerin who dropped 3,000 feet from a balloon. This was long before the airplane was invented.
The first house rats recorded in America appeared in Boston in 1775.
The first issue of People Magazine, in 1974, cost 35 cents and featured actress Mia Farrow on the cover.
The first Kentucky Derby was run at Churchill Downs in 1875 with Aristides as winner.
The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.
The first known heart medicine was discovered in an English garden. In 1799, physician John Ferriar noted the effect of dried leaves of the common foxglove plant, digitalis purpurea, on heart action. Still used in heart medications, digitalis slows the pulse and increases the force of heart contractions and the amount of blood pumped per heartbeat.
The first losing candidate in a US presidential election was Thomas Jefferson. He lost to John Adams. George Washington had been unopposed.
The first man-made object to circle the earth was Sputnik I, launched in 1957.
The first modern Olympiad was held in Athens in 1896. 484 contestants from 13 nations participated.
The first motion picture copyrighted in the United States showed a man in the act of sneezing.
The first nation to ally with the USA during the Persian Gulf war was Canada. However, their soldiers were deemed unfit for combat and assigned to guard duty.
The first NBA player to score 38,000 points was Kareem Abdul-Jabar in 1989.
The first NFL team that plays its home games in a domed stadium to win a Superbowl was the St. Louis Rams in 1999.
The first novel ever written on a typewriter is Tom Sawyer.
The first offspring of captive-born elephant parents in the Western Hemisphere was a 150-pound Asiatic elephant born on Mother's Day in 1975 at the Los Angeles Zoo.
The first Olympics were held in Athens in 1896, with nine nations competing.
The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
The first Parisian cafe opened in 1689 to serve coffee.
The first percussion instrument introduced to an orchestra was the kettledrums, then called the timpani, in the 1600s.
The first perfect game in baseball history was achieved by John Lee Richmond on June 12, 1880.
The first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel was Anna Edson Taylor. She made the journey on October 24, 1901, and escaped unhurt.
The first personal computer was called the Altair and was made by a company called MITS in 1974. It came in a kit and had to be
The first pick (by Eagles) in the first NFL draft in 1935, was Jay Berwanger from the University of Chicago. He never played in the league
The first place in the western world to give women the right to vote was an island known as Man.
The first place winners at the first modern Olympics were awarded an olive branch and a silver medal. The runners-up received laurel sprigs and copper medals.
The first plastic ever invented was celluloid in 1868. It's still used today to make billiard balls.
The first players elected to Baseball Hall of Fame were Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson & Walter Johnson in 1936.
The first police car was an electric-powered vehicle used in Akron, OH in 1899.
The first police force was established in Paris in 1667.
The first President to ride in an automobile was William McKinley. After being shot, he was taken to the hospital in a 1901 Columbia electric ambulance.
The first prime number after 1,000,000 is 1,000,003.
The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, which Motorola got their name from.
The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
The first product of the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company now known as 3M when it was founded was sandpaper.
The first professional football team to sport an insignia on their helmets was the Los Angeles Rams in 1950, who hand painted yellow horns on their blue leather helmets.
The first public mention of a name for the United States' capital was in a letter from General George Washington in 1791, who referred to it as Federal City.
The first reference to a monetary prize in a horse race was offered by Richard I in 1195.
The first ring donuts were produced in 1847 by a 15 year old baker's apprentice, Hanson Gregory, who knocked the soggy center out of a fried doughnut.
The first Rose Bowl game was held in 1902 in Pasadena, California. The University of Michigan beat Sanford 49-0.
The first safety feature for an automobile was invented in 1908 by John O'Leary. He patented a large net, to be installed on the front fender, to scoop pedestrians out of the way before they could be run over.
The first scheduled airplane passenger service in the world was between Tampa and St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1914.
The first seeing-eye dog was presented to a blind person on April 25, 1938.
The first self-rising pancake mix was invented in 1889 by a newspaper man in Missouri (Chris L. Rutt).
The first series of commemorative stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service depicted Columbus's discovery of America. They were issued in 1893 and available in 16 denominations ranging from one cent to $5.
The first shopping bag with handles was invented in 1918 by Walter Deubener.
The first Soccer World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930 and attracted 13 competing countries.
The first suburban shopping mall was opened in 1922 by National Department Stores in Saint Louis.
The first Super Bowl was broadcasted by two networks: CBS and NBC.
The first Super Bowl was played in 1967. The Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League, 35-to-10.
The first telephone book ever issued contained only fifty names. It was published in New Haven, Connecticut, by the New Haven District Telephone Company in February, 1878.
The first toothbrush with bristles was developed in China in 1498. Bristles were taken from hogs at first, later from horses. The nylon bristles were developed in 1938 by DuPont.
The first toy product ever advertised on television was Mr. Potato Head®. Introduced in 1952.
The first translation of the English Bible was initiated by John Wycliffe and completed by John Purvey in 1388.
The first triple jump in figure skating competition was performed by Dick Button in 1952.
The first U.S. patent for an animal was issued to Harvard University in 1988 for an oncomouse, a genetically engineered mouse that's susceptible to breast cancer. It's used to test anti-cancer therapies.
The first US consumer product sold in the Soviet Union was Pepsi-Cola.
The first US Marines wore high leather collars to protect their necks from sabres, hence the name "leathernecks."
The first US Patent was for manufacturing potassium carbonate (used in glass and gunpowder). It was issued to Samuel Hopkins on July 31, 1970.
The first US president to both be sued for sexual misconduct and forced to give a deposition while in office was William Jefferson Clinton.
The first Wimbledon Tennis Competition took place in 1877 solely as an amateur competition. Men's singles was the only event that took place. There were 22 competitors and the championship was won by Spencer Gore.
The first woman in Congress was Jeanette Rankin of Montana, in 1917.
The first woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 was Janet Guthrie in 1977.
The first woman to run for President was Victoria Woodhull, on the Equal Rights Party ballot in 1872.
The first words that Thomas A. Edison spoke into the phonograph were, "Mary had a little lamb."
The first written account of the Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie, was made in 565AD.
The first-known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 BC.
The first-lady of the U.S. is considered a private citizen.
The fist product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
The five interlocking Olympic rings are black, blue, red, green, and yellow because at least one of these colors appears on every national flag.
The five most frequently used letters in the English alphabet are, in order, E T A I S.
The five most populated cities in the world are, in order, Tokyo-Yokohama (Japan), Mexico City (Mexico), Sao Paulo (Brazil), Seoul (South Korea), and New York (United States).
The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown differently during times of peace or war. A portion of the flag is blue, while the other is red. The blue portion is flown on top in time of peace and the red portion is flown in war time.
The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown differently during times of peace or war. A portion of the flag is blue, while the other is red. The blue portion is flown on top in time of peace and the red portion is flown in war time.
The flavor we think of as bubblegum is a combination of wintergreen, vanilla and cassia, a form of cinnamon.
The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
The fleshy projection above the bill of a turkey is called a snood.
The following is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language: "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick".
The football huddle started at Gallaudet University (the world's only accredited four-year liberal arts college for the deaf) in the 19th century when the football team found that opposing teams were reading their signed messages and intercepting their plays.
The forth railway bridge is a meter longer in summer than in winter due to thermal expansion.
The Four Freedoms by Norman Rockwell are the most widely reproduced and distributed paintings in history.
The four highest grossing movies of the 1940s were all animated motion pictures by Disney (Bambi, Pinnochio, Fantasia, and Cinderella).
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, named in the Bible's Book of Revelation, are Conquest, Slaughter, Famine, and Death.
The Four Horsemen of the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame played together for the last time in 1925, as the Irish downed Stanford in the Rose Bowl, 27-10. The Four Horsemen were Jim Crowley, Elmer Layden, Don Miller and Harry Stuhldreher.
The four principal characters from the cartoon series "The Chipmunks" are Alvin, Simon, Theodore, and Dave.
The fragrance of flowers is due to the essences of oil which they produce.
The French philosopher, Voltaire, reportedly drank fifty cups of coffee a day.
The Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, NY opened in 1948 and is the world's largest landfill. It covers 3,000 acres and receives 14,000 tons of garbage a day. It's scheduled to close in 2002.
The Fresh Kills Landfill site on Staten Island, New York, opened in 1948, is the world's largest. It covers 3,000 acres and receives up to 14,000 tons of garbage a day. It is scheduled to reach capacity and close by the year 2002.
The fruit of the Cacao tree grow directly from the trunk. They look like small melons, and the pulp inside contains 20 to 50 seeds or beans. It takes about 400 beans to make a pound of chocolate.
The full name of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin is actually Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly.
The full Spanish name of the city of Los Angeles is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de la Porciuncula." Translated, it means “The town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Little Portion.”
The fungus called truffles can cost $800 to $1,500 per pound. They are sniffed out by female pigs, which detect a compound that is in the saliva of male pigs as well. The same chemical is found in the sweat of human males.
The furthest point from any ocean would be in China.
The fuzz on a tennis ball is intentionally included as a way to give the ball some definite action when it hits the court. It also slows the flight of the ball through the air.
The game of volleyball was invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan.
The Garfish has green bones.
The gases emitted from a banana or an apple can help an orange ripen. (Not sure which fruits are concerned).
The gazelle is a kind of antelope.
The gender of Reptiles are determined not by the sex genes, but by the temperature in which the egg is incubated. A certain temperature will produce a male and vice versa for a female.
The genre of art known as Cubism derived its name from a belittling remark made by Matisse in reference to a Graque painting. Matisse said that the landscape looked as though it were wholly made up of little cubes.
The Genus and species of a gorilla are Gorilla gorilla.
The geographic center of the United States is Smith County, KS. The geographic center of North America is Pierre County, ND.
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
The giant squid is the largest creature without a backbone. It weighs up to 2.5 tons and grows up to 55 feet long. Each eye is a foot or more in diameter.
The gila monster is the only poisonous lizard in the United States.
The giraffe has a black tongue which is 14 inches long.
The giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal.
The giraffe is the only animal born with horns.
The glue on Israeli postage is certified kosher.
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
The Gothic-style Washington National Cathedral contains the remains of the only US president buried in Washington: Woodrow Wilson. William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy are buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA.
The great Gothic cathedral of Milan was started in 1386, and wasn't completed until 1805.
The Great Lakes are Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Superior, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
The Great Lakes are the most important inland waterway in North America. All the lakes, except Lake Michigan, which lies entirely in the United States, are shared by the United States and Canada and form part of the border between these countries.
The Great Lakes contain 6 quadrillion gallons of fresh water, one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water. The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world.
The Great Lakes have a combined area of 94,230 square miles larger than the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Vermont combined.
The greatest snowfall ever in a single storm was 189 inches at the Mount Shasta Ski Bowl in February, 1959.
The Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory in 1582 AD, and was adopted by Great Britain and the English colonies in 1752.
The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
The hair of man's beard are about as strong as copper wire of the same dimensions.
The hair on a polar bearis not white, but clear. They reflect light, so they appear white.
The hamburger was invented in 1900 by Louis Lassen. He ground beef, broiled it, and served it between two pieces of toast.
The harmless Whale Shark, holds the title of largest fish, with the record being a 59 footer captured in Thailand in 1919.
The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters.
The heart of a blue whale is the size of a small car. The tongue of a blue whale is as long as an elephant.
The heart of an astronaut actually gets smaller when in outer space.
The heavy tea tax imposed on the colonies in 1773, which caused the "Boston Tea Party," resulted in America switching from tea to coffee. Drinking coffee was an expression of freedom.
The height of the Eiffel Tower in France varies , depending on the temperature, by as much as 6 inches.
The herring is the most widely eaten fish in the world. Nutritionally its fuel value is that equal to that of a beefsteak.
The high jump method of jumping head first and landing on the back is called the Fosbury Flop.
The high level of unemployment in Canada makes it one of the least popular destinations for illegal immigrants.
The highest man-made temperature 70 million degrees Celsius was generated at Princeton University in a fusion-power experiment.
The highest point of the earth, with an elevation of 29,141 feet, is the top of Mt. Everest in Tibet.
The highest recorded temperature in the US was 134 Fahrenheit in Death Valley, California.
The highest temperature ever recorded in the continental US was 134 degrees on July 10, 1913 in Death Valley, California.
The highest temperature ever recorded in the world was 136.4 degrees Fahrenheit at El Azizia, Lybia, on September 13, 1922.
The highest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls in Venezuela, has a total drop of 3,121 feet.
The Himalayas are the fastest growing mountains in the world. Already the tallest, the mountain range is growing at a rate of about a half an inch each year.
The Hindu holy day begins at sunrise, the Jewish holy day begins at sunset, and the Christian holy day begins at midnight.
The Hollywood sign was first erected in 1923. Conceived as a real estate ad, it originally read Hollywoodland. The sign stands 50 feet tall, stretches 450 feet across, weighs 450,000 pounds.
The homan mouth contains more bacteria than any other orifice in the body.
The Honda Accord has the highest stolen rate in the US according to NCIB.
The honeybee kills more people world-wide than all the poisonous snakes combined.
The Hoover Dam was built to last 2,000 years. The concrete in it will not even be fully cured for another 500 years.
The horned owl is the only animal stupid enough to attack a skunk.
The horse shoe crab has blue blood which can be used to kill bacteria
The hottest chile in the world is the habanero.
The House of Lancaster, symbolized by the red rose, won England's 'War of the Roses.'
The 'huddle' in football was formed due to a deaf football player who used sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.
The human body contains enough phosphorus to make the heads of 200 matches, enough fat for seven bars of soap, and enough iron to make one nail.
The human body has enough fat to produce 7 bars of soap.
The human body has over 45 miles of nerves.
The human body has over 600 muscles, 40% of the body's weight.
The human brain is about 85% water.
The human eyes can distinguish about 17,000 different colors.
The human head weighs 7 pounds.
The human heart creates enough pressure in the bloodstream to squirt blood 30 feet.
The human heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30ft.
The human heart pumps 1.5 million gallons of blood a year.
The hummingbird is the only bird that can hover and fly straight up, down, or backward!
The hummingbird, the loon, the swift, the kingfisher, and the grebe are all birds that cannot walk.
The Hundred Year War actually lasted 116 years (1337 to 1453).
The ice cream soda was invented in 1874 by Robert Green. He was serving a mixture of syrup, sweet cream and carbonated water at a celebration in Philadelphia. He ran out of cream and substituted ice cream.
The idiom "pillar of salt" means to have a stroke, or to become paralyzed and dead.
The Iditarod Dogsled Race got its name from Iditarod, a small mining village along the race's route. The race commemorates an emergency operation in 1925 to get medical supplies to Nome, Alaska following a diphtheria epidemic.
The Imperial torte, a square chocolate cake with five thin layers of almond paste, was created by a master pastry chef at the court of Emperor Franz Joseph (1830 1916).
The infamous "Red Baron" was German World War I pilot Manfred von Richthofen.
The infinite sign is called a lemniscate.
The International Space Station weighs about 500 tons and is the same size as a football field.
The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
The internet is NOT FREE, a group of companies actually own the internet.
The Jazz Singer, 1927, was the first movie with audible dialogue.
The Jordanian city Amman was once called Philadelphia.
The Kama Sutra was written by Mallanga Vatsyayana, who was rumored to be celibate.
The kangaroo and the emu are shown supporting the shield on Australia's coat of arms.
The kangaroo rat can cover ground at a rate of 17 feet per second. It can leap as much as 18 inches straight up and can switch directions at the peak of its jump.
The katydid bug hears through holes in its hind legs.
The kilt was invented by a English gentleman who came to Scotland to open a factory because he got tired of his Scottish workers showing up in a long tunic with a belt (they couldn't afford pants). Rather than raise wages so they could afford pants he invented the kilt which is just a lot of fabric and they could afford that. The kilt did not become a symbol of clan pride until the English banned the kilt in Scotland. Then it became part of national pride to wear the newly invented clan plaids.
The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache.
The kiss that is given by the bride to the groom at the end of the wedding ceremony originates from the earliest times when the couple would actually make love for the first time under the eyes of half the village!
The kissing under the missletoe tradition originated from the Druids.
The kiwi has nostrils near the tip of its bill that allows it to sniff the ground for food.
The Kiwi, national bird of New Zealand, can't fly. It lives in a hole in the ground, is almost blind, and lays only one egg each year. Despite this, it has survived for more than 70 million years.
The Kwoma of New Guinea consider it proper for the girl to make sexual advances rather than the boy in order to help the men avoid upsetting the girl's parents.
The largest amount of money you can have without having change for a dollar is $1.19 (3 quarters, 4 dimes, and 4 pennies cannot be divided into a dollar).
The largest animal ever seen alive was a 113.5 foot, 170-ton female blue whale.The largest antique ever sold is the London Bridge. It was sold and moved Lake Havasu City, AZ in 1971.
The largest baseball card collection, 200,000 cards, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The largest bell in the world is the Tsar Kolokol in the Kremlin in Moscow. It’s 20’ 2” high and 21’ 8” in diameter. Cast in 1735, it weighs 222.56 tons and has never been wrung...it cracked before it was installed.
The largest bird egg in the world today is that of the ostrich. Ostrich eggs are from 6 to 8 inches long. Because of their size and the thickness of their shells, they take 40 minutes to hard-boil.
The largest body of fresh water in the world is Lake Superior.
The largest cell in the human body is the female ovum, or egg cell. It is about 1/180 inch in diameter. The smallest cell in the human body is the male sperm. It takes about 175,000 sperm cells to weigh as much as a single egg cell.
The largest cell in the human body is the female reproductive cell, the ovum. The smallest is the male sperm.
The largest cockroach on record is one measured at 3.81 inches in length.
The largest coffee importer center in the U.S. is located in the city of New Orleans, LA.
The largest desert in the world, the Sahara, is 3,500,000 square miles.
The largest gold nugget ever found weighed 172 lbs., 13 oz.
The largest Great White Shark ever caught measured 37 feet and weighed 24,000 pounds. It was found in a herring weir in New Brunswick in 1930.
The largest hailstone ever recorded was 17.5 inches in diameter bigger than a basketball.
The largest human organ is the liver, which weighs about 55 ounces in a person weighing 150 pounds. By some definitions, the skin is an organ, in which case skin would be the largest organ at 384 ounces.
The largest human organ is the skin, with a surface area of about 25 square feet.
The largest insect egg belongs to the Malaysian jungle nymph, a sticklike insect, and measures about 1.3 centimeters long larger than a peanut! (Some insects, mainly mantises and cockroaches, lay egg cases that are larger, but they contain about 200 individual eggs.)
The largest item on any menu in the world is probably the roast camel, sometimes served at Bedouin wedding feasts. The camel is stuffed with a sheep's carcass, which is stuffed with chickens, which are stuffed with fish, which are stuffed with eggs.