448 Interesting Facts for All the Fact Junkies Out There

Interesting Facts for All the Fact Junkies Out There

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Are you a fact junkie? I am. I love learning odd facts and details. Sometimes I share them, but mostly I just like to think that I’m going to be very prepared if I ever end up on an episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
  1. The moon actually has mirrors on it. They were left there by astronauts who wanted to bounce laser beams off them so that the distance to the moon can be measured.
  2. The most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust is aluminum.
  3. The most collect calls are made on Father’s day.
  4. The most common blood type in the world is Type O. The rarest, Type A-H, has been found in less than a dozen people since the type was discovered.
  5. The most common disease in the world is tooth decay.
  6. The most common injury in bowling is a sore thumb.
  7. The most common street name in the United States is Second Street. First Street isn’t first because many times the designation is replaced with the name Main Street.
  8. The most expensive book or manuscript ever sold at an auction was The Codex Hammer, a notebook belonging to Leonardo da Vinci. It sold for $30.8 million.
  9. The most expensive movie memorabilia ever sold at an auction was Clark Gable’s Academy Award for It Happened One Night. It sold for$607,500 on December 15, 1996.
  10. The most expensive painting ever sold at auction was Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh. On May 15, 1990, Ryoei Saito paid $75 million for it. He followed up that spending spree by paying the second-highest price ever, $71 million for Au Moulin de la Galette by Pierre Auguste Renoir, just two days later.
  11. The most frequently seen birds at feeders across North America last winter were the Dark-eyed Junco, House Finch, and American goldfinch, along with downy woodpeckers, blue jays, mourning doves, black-capped chickadees, house sparrows, northern cardinals and European starlings.
  12. The most searched thing on yahoo.com every year is p0rn.
  13. The most snow accumulation in a one-day period was 75.8 inches at Silver Lake, Colorado, in April 1921.
  14. The most used line in the movies is “Let’s get out of here.”
  15. The most widely accepted legend associated with the discovery of coffee is of the goat herder named Kaldi of Ethiopia. Around the year 800-850 A.D., Kaldi was amazed as he noticed his goats behaving in a frisky manner after eating the leaves and berries of a coffee shrub. And, of course, he had to try them!
  16. The most widely cultivated fruit in the world is the apple. The second is the pear.
  17. The motto for the Olympic Games is Citius Altius Fortius. Translated, it means Faster, Higher, Stronger.
  18. The mouse is the most common mammal in the US.
  19. The movie “As Good As It Gets” is called “Mr. Cat Poop” in China.
  20. The movie “Quo Vadis” had 30,000 extras.
  21. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City hung Matisse’s ‘Le Bateau’ upside-down for 47 days before an art student noticed the error.
  22. The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
  23. The nail of our middle finger grows the fastest and the nail of our thumb grows slowest.
  24. The name “Uncle Sam” for the U.S. came from a person known as Uncle Sam Wilson of Troy, NY, who supplied food for the U.S. army in the war of 1812.
  25. The name for Oz in the Wizard of Oz was thought up when the creator Frank Baum looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z.
  26. The name for the middle part of the nose (the part that separates the nostrils) is called a chaffanu.
  27. The name ‘Intel’ stems from the company’s former name, ‘Integrated Electronics’.
  28. The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
  29. The name of the dog from “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” is Max.
  30. The name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box is Bingo.
  31. The name of the first airplane flown at Kitty Hawk by the Wright Brothers, on December 17, 1903, was Bird of Prey.
  32. The name of the Russian space station, Mir, means “peace.”
  33. The name Santa Claus is a corruption of the Dutch dialect name for Saint Nicholas Sint Klass.
  34. The name Wendy was made up for the book “Peter Pan.” There was never a recorded Wendy before. It came from the author’s friends, whom he called his “fwendy” (friend)
  35. The nation of Monaco on the French Riviera, is smaller than Central Park in New York. Monaco is 370 acres and Central Park is 840 acres.
  36. The national dish of Scotland, haggis, is made of the heart, liver, lungs and small intestines of a calf. It’s then boiled in the stomach of the animal, and seasoned with salt, pepper and onions. Oh, and don’t forget to add the suet and oatmeal.
  37. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced in 1978 that it would alternate men’s and women’s names in the naming of hurricanes. It was seen as an attempt at fair play. Hurricanes had been named for women for years, until NOAA succumbed to pressure from women’s groups who were demanding that Atlantic storms be given unisex names.
  38. The national sport of Nauru, a small Pacific island, is lassoing flying birds.
  39. The Navy SEALs were formed in 1962.
  40. The nearest relative of the hippopotamus is the common pig.
  41. The Netherlands is the lowest country in the world. An estimated 40% of its land is below sea level.
  42. The New York City Chamber of Commerce is the oldest chamber of commerce in the United States. King George III granted a royal charter for it in 1770.
  43. The New York phone book had 22 Hitler’s listed before World War II. and none after.
  44. The New York Yankees have won the most championships (26 times) in their respected sport (MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL) for any professional sports team.
  45. The Nile catfish swim upside down.
  46. The number 111,111,111 multiplied by itself will result in the number 12,345,678,987,654,321.
  47. The number 2,520 can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 without having a fractional leftover.
  48. The number 37 will wholly divide (no decimals) into 111, 222, 333, 444, 555, 666, 777, 888, and 999.
  49. The number of atoms in a pound of iron is nearly five trillion trillion: 4,891,500,000,000,000,000,000,000.
  50. The number of cricket chirps you count in a fifteen-second span, plus 37, will tell you the approximate current air temperature.
  51. The number of possible ways of playing just the first four moves on each side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
  52. The number of times a drowning person will rise to the surface depends on how much air is in his lungs. He could rise once, twice, or five times. Or not at all. Overweight individuals will stay afloat longer than skinny individuals because fat contains air molecules.
  53. The number of triplets born in the US in 1994 (4,594) was more than triple the number born in 1971 (1,034), an increase attributed to older age of the mothers and the use of fertility-enhancing drugs and techniques.
  54. The number of VCRs in the United States grew from 52,565,000 in 1987 to 86,825,000 in 1997, a 39.5% increase.
  55. The numbers “172″ can be found on the back of a US $5 bill, in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln memorial.
  56. The numbers 111 222 333 444 555 666 777 888 999 are all multiples of 37.
  57. The numbers on opposite sides of a dice always add up to seven.
  58. The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosy is a rhyme about the plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores (“Ring around the rosy…”), these sores would smell very badly so common folks would put flowers on their bodies somewhere (inconspicuously), so that it would cover the smell of the sores (“…a pocket full of posies…”), People who died from the plague would be burned so as to reduce the possible spread of the disease (“…ashes, ashes, we all fall down!”)
  59. The Oblivion ride at Alton Towers has a G-force of 5. That’s higher than the G-force of an average NASA take-off!
  60. The occupations of the three men in a tub were butcher, baker, and candlestick maker.
  61. The odds against a royal flush in poker are exactly 649,739 to 1.
  62. The odds of being born male are about 51.2%, according to census.
  63. The official definition of a desert is any land that where more water evaporates than is acquired through precipitation.
  64. The official name of the St. Louis Gateway Arch is “The Jefferson National Expansion Monument.” The Gateway Arch looks taller than it is wider, but it is exactly 630 feet by 630 feet.
  65. The official sport for the State of Maryland is jousting.
  66. The official state song of Georgia since 1922 has been “Georgia on My Mind.”
  67. The Ohio river forms at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela.
  68. The ouija board was invented by Isaac and William Fuld, and was patented July 1, 1892.
  69. The oldest “cricket” match was played between the USA and Canada in 1844.
  70. The oldest continuous comic strip still in existence is The Katzenjammer Kids. It first appeared in newspapers in 1897.
  71. The oldest exposed surface on earth is New Zealand’s south island.
  72. The oldest goldfish lived for 14,795 days.
  73. The oldest living thing in existence is not a giant redwood, but a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California, dated to be aged 4,600 years old.
  74. The oldest man-made building of any kind still existing is the central edifice of the 4,600-year-old mastaba (a tomb for kings) built at Sakkara, Egypt. It was created to honor King Zoser, the first ruler of the Third Dynasty.
  75. The oldest musical instrument is probably the flute. It’s been discovered that primitive cave dwellers made an instrument from bamboo or some other small hollow wood.
  76. The oldest person to live was Jeanne Louise Calment, she lived for a whopping 122 years until she died of smoking related complications. Don’t Sm0ke!
  77. The oldest recorded document on paper made from fibrous material was a deed of King Roger of Sicily, in the year 1102.
  78. The oldest tennis court in the world is the one built at Hampton Court in 1530 for Henry VIII.
  79. The oldest works of art are pictures of animals found in caves in Spain and France. They have been dates as far back as 18,000 years ago.
  80. The olive branch in the eagle’s right talon has 13 leaves.
  81. The Olympic Games were held in St. Louis, MO. In 1904, the first time that the games were held in the United States.
  82. The Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic, and she provided twenty-five years of service.
  83. The only animals that can naturally sleep on their backs are humans. No other animal actually does–apes usually sleep sitting up and leaning on something.
  84. The only big cat that doesn’t roar is a Jaguar.
  85. The only bird that can fly backwards is the hummingbird.
  86. The only bird that cannot fly is the penguin.
  87. The only bone in the human body not connected to another is the hyoid, a V-shaped bone located at the base of the tongue between the mandible and the voice box. Its function is to support the tongue and its muscles.
  88. The only bone not broken so far during any ski accident is one located in the inner ear.
  89. The only continent without reptiles or snakes is Antarctica.
  90. The only countries in the world with one syllable in their names are Chad, France, Greece, and Spain.
  91. The only difference between brown eyes and every other colored eyes is that brown eyes have more pigment.
  92. The only dog to ever appear in a Shakespearean play was Crab in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
  93. The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
  94. The only father and son to hit back-to-back home runs in a major league baseball game: Ken Griffey, Jr., and his father, Ken Griffey, Sr., both of the Seattle Mariners in a game against the California Angels on September 14th, 1990.
  95. The only food cockroaches won’t eat are cucumbers.
  96. The only jointless bone in your body is the hyoid bone in your throat.
  97. The only loss Packers’ coach Vince Lombardi ever suffered in the postseason was to the Philadelphia Eagles, 17-13, in the 1960 NFL championship game.
  98. The only member of the British House of Commons who is not allowed to speak is the man called the Speaker of the House.
  99. The only MLB team to have both its city’s name and its team name in a foreign language is the San Diego Padres.
  100. The only mobile national monuments in the United States are the cable cars in San Francisco.
  101. The only one of his sculptures that Michelangelo signed was the “The Pieta,” completed in 1500.
  102. The only painting by Leonardo da Vinci on permanent display in the United States hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. It’s a portrait of Ginevra de’Benci, the wife of a politician in Florence.
  103. The only president buried in Washington, D.C. proper: Woodrow Wilson, who was laid to rest in the National Cathedral.
  104. The only president buried on the grounds of a state capitol: James Polk in Nashville, Tenn.
  105. The only President in office to weigh less than 100 pounds was James Madison.
  106. The only President to be head of a labor union was Ronald Reagan.
  107. The only presidents buried together: John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams are in a basement crypt in Quincy, Mass.
  108. The only real person to be a PEZ head was Betsy Ross.
  109. The only repealed amendment to the US Constitution deals with the prohibition of alcohol.
  110. The only rock that floats in water is pumice.
  111. The only state allowed to fly its flag at the same height as the U.S. flag is Texas.
  112. The only three non-Presidents pictured on U.S. paper money are: Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill, and Salmon Chase on the $10,000 bill.
  113. The only time the human population declined was in the years following 1347, the start of the epidemic of the plague ‘Black Death’ in Europe.
  114. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
  115. The military salute originated during the medieval times. Knights in armor used to raise their visors to reveal their identity, and the motion later evolved into the modern-day salute.
  116. The Mills Brothers have recorded the most songs of any artist: about 2,250.
  117. The minarets of the Taj Mahal in India are angled at 88 degrees outwards so that they would not collapse into the structure should an earthquake occur.
  118. The minimum number of darts that need to be thrown to complete a single in, double out game of 501 is nine.
  119. The Miss America Contest was created in Atlantic City in 1921 with the purpose of extending the tourist season beyond Labor Day.
  120. The model of King Kong used in the original movie was only 18 inches tall.
  121. The modern Olympic Games were held in the first time in 1896 at Athens and were then followed by the 1900 Paris games. The winter games were added in 1924.
  122. The mola mola or ocean sunfish lays up to 5,000,000 eggs at one time.
  123. The Mona Lisa, by daVinci, is 2’6″ by 1’9.″
  124. The Mona-Lisa, now hanging in the Louvre museum in Paris, is valued today at $100,000,000.
  125. The monastic hours are matins, lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers, and compline.
  126. The Montreal Canadians of the mid-1950s are the only team to win five straight Stanley Cup championships.
  127. The Monty Python movie “The Life of Brian” was banned in Scotland.
  128. 1,525,000,000 miles of telephone wire a strung across the U.S.
  129. 101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy) are the only two Disney cartoon features with both parents that are present and don’t die throughout the movie.
  130. An estimated 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
  131. 123,000,000 cars are being driven down the U.S’s highways.
  132. 160 cars can drive side by side on the Monumental Axis in Brazil, the world’s widest road.
  133. 166,875,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each year in the U.S.
  134. 27% of U.S. male college students believe life is “A meaningless existential hell.”
  135. 315 entries in Webster’s Dictionary will be misspelled.
  136. 5% of Canadians don’t know the first 7 words of the Canadian anthem, but know the first 9 of the American anthem.
  137. 56,000,000 people go to Major League baseball each year.
  138. 7% of Americans don’t know the first 9 words of the American anthem, but know the first 7 of the Canadian anthem.
  139. 85,000,000 tons of paper are used each year in the U.S.
  140. 99% of the solar system’s mass is concentrated in the sun.
  141. A 10-gallon hat barely holds 6 pints.
  142. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
  143. A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.
  144. A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate.
  145. A cow produces 200 times more gas a day than a person.
  146. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
  147. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
  148. A fully loaded supertanker travelling at normal speed takes a least twenty minutes to stop.
  149. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
  150. A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can.
  151. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
  152. A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before a person realizes it’s there.
  153. A hedgehog’s heart beats 300 times a minute on average.
  154. A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.
  155. A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
  156. A jellyfish is 95 percent water.
  157. A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
  158. A jumbo jet uses 4,000 gallons of fuel to take off.
  159. A male emperor moth can smell a female emperor moth up to 7 miles away.
  160. A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 6 years. Wow.
  161. A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night.
  162. A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.
  163. A pig’s orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
  164. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
  165. A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn’t give her coffee.
  166. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
  167. A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.
  168. A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million parts of water.
  169. A skunk can spray its stinky scent more than 10 feet.
  170. A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
  171. A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans!
  172. A walla-walla scene is one where extras pretend to be talking in the background — when they say “walla-walla” it looks like they are actually talking.
  173. A whale’s penis is called a dork.
  174. About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.
  175. About 70% of Americans who go to college do it just to make more money. [The rest of us are avoiding reality for four more years.]
  176. According to a British law passed in 1845, attempting to commit suicide was a capital offense. Offenders could be hanged for trying.
  177. Actor Tommy Lee Jones and former vice-president Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.
  178. Al Capone’s business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
  179. All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
  180. All of the clocks in the movie “Pulp Fiction” are stuck on 4:20.
  181. All porcupines float in water.
  182. Almonds are a member of the peach family.
  183. Almost a quarter of the land area of Los Angeles is taken up by automobiles.
  184. America once issued a 5-cent bill.
  185. America’s first nudist organization was founded in 1929, by 3 men.
  186. Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.
  187. An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.
  188. An average person laughs about 15 times a day.
  189. An iguana can stay underwater for 28 minutes.
  190. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
  191. Armadillos are the only animals besides humans that can get leprosy.
  192. Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the same sex.
  193. Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.
  194. Aztec emperor Montezuma had a nephew, Cuitlahac, whose name meant “plenty of excrement.”
  195. Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under is cap to keep him cool. He changed it every 2 innings.
  196. Babies are born without kneecaps. They don’t appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.
  197. Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.
  198. Back in the mid to late 1980′s, an IBM-compatible computer wasn’t considered a hundred percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft’s Flight Simulator.
  199. Bank robber John Dillinger played professional baseball.
  200. Barbie’s measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
  201. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
  202. Ben and Jerry’s sends the waste from making ice cream to local pig farmers to use as feed. Pigs love the stuff, except for one flavor: Mint Oreo.
  203. Bird droppings are the chief export of Nauru, an island nation in the Western Pacific.
  204. Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.
  205. Bubble gum contains rubber.
  206. Camel’s milk does not curdle.
  207. Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
  208. Canada is an Indian word meaning “Big Village.”
  209. The cat’s urine glows under a blacklight.
  210. Cats can produce over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs can only produce about ten.
  211. Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous transatlantic flight.
  212. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
  213. Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them use to burn their houses down – hence the expression “to get fired.”
  214. Cleo and Caesar were the early stage names of Cher and Sonny Bono.
  215. Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City, after the Catholic Church.
  216. David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader’s lines and didn’t know that he was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.
  217. Did you know that there are coffee-flavored PEZ?
  218. Dogs and cats consume almost $7 billion worth of pet food a year.
  219. Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
  220. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.
  221. Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth . . . and whose shame created the expression for ignominy, “His name is Mudd.”
  222. Dr. Seuss pronounced “Seuss” such that it rhymed with “rejoice.”
  223. “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letter “mt.”
  224. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
  225. During your lifetime, you’ll eat about 60,000 pounds of food, that’s the weight of about 6 elephants.
  226. Einstein couldn’t speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he might be retarded.
  227. Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backward and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
  228. Eskimo ice cream is neither icy, nor creamy.
  229. Even if you cut off a cockroach’s head, it can live for several weeks.
  230. Every person has a unique tongue print.
  231. Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his head.
  232. Every time you lick a stamp, you’re consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
  233. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning “containing arsenic.”
  234. February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
  235. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
  236. Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.
  237. Gilligan of Gilligan’s Island had a first name that was only used once, on the never-aired pilot show. His first name was Willy. The skipper’s real name on Gilligan’s Island is Jonas Grumby. It was mentioned once in the first episode of their radio newscast about the wreck.
  238. Giraffes have no vocal cords.
  239. Goethe couldn’t stand the sound of barking dogs and could only write if he had an apple rotting in the drawer of his desk.
  240. Hang On Sloopy is the official rock song of Ohio.
  241. Hershey’s Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it’s kissing the conveyor belt.
  242. Honeybees have hair on their eyes.
  243. Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks.
  244. Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
  245. Hydroxydesoxycorticosterone and hydroxydeoxycorticosterones are the largest anagrams.
  246. Hypnotism is banned by public schools in San Diego.
  247. “I am.” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
  248. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
  249. If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die; they need gravity to swallow.
  250. If you bring a raccoon’s head to the Henniker, New Hampshire town hall, you are entitled to receive $.10 from the town.
  251. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make a change for a dollar.
  252. If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more like 4,950. The head picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.
  253. If your eyes are six feet above the surface of the ocean, the horizon will be about three statute miles away.
  254. In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.
  255. In 1980, there was only one country in the world with no telephones – Bhutan.
  256. In 1983, a Japanese artist made a copy of the Mona Lisa completely out of toast.
  257. In 1984, a Canadian farmer began renting ad space for his cows.
  258. In 75% of American households, women manage the money and pay the bills.
  259. In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals.
  260. In England, in the 1880′s, “Pants” were considered a dirty word.
  261. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
  262. In every episode of “Seinfeld,” there is a Superman somewhere.
  263. In Kentucky, 50 percent of the people who get married for the first time are teenagers.
  264. In Los Angeles, there are fewer people than there are automobiles.
  265. In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
  266. In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears can’t flow.
  267. In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television’s Channel 1 to mobile services (two-way radios in taxicabs, for instance) but did not re-number the other channel assignments. That is why your TV set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1.
  268. In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only 6 people were injured.
  269. In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
  270. In the movie “Casablanca,” Humphrey Bogart never said, “Play it again, Sam.”
  271. In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons.
  272. In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs.
  273. Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.
  274. It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to one pound.
  275. It takes about half a gallon of water to cook macaroni, and about a gallon to clean the pot.
  276. It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up its stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of its mouth. Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all of the stomach’s contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.
  277. It was once against the law to have a pet dog in a city in Iceland.
  278. It was once against the law to slam your car door in a city in Switzerland.
  279. It’s against the law to burp, or sneeze in a certain church in Omaha, Nebraska.
  280. It’s against the law to catch fish with your bare hands in Kansas.
  281. It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
  282. Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been overmixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told me how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.
  283. John Lennon’s first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
  284. “Kemo Sabe” means “soggy shrub” in Navajo.
  285. Kotex was first manufactured as bandages, during WWI.
  286. Lee Harvey Oswald’s cadaver tag sold at an auction for $6,600 in 1992.
  287. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
  288. Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.
  289. Like fingerprints, everyone’s tongue print is different.
  290. Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright’s son.
  291. Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of “Lorne Greene’s Wild Kingdom.”
  292. Los Angeles’s full name is “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula” and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its original size: “L.A.”
  293. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
  294. Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.
  295. Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
  296. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
  297. Millie the White House dog earned more than 4 times as much as President Bush in 1991.
  298. Money isn’t made out of paper, it’s made out of cotton.
  299. Montpelier, VT is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonalds.
  300. More Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed throughout the world.
  301. More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.
  302. More people use blue toothbrushes, than red ones.
  303. Mosquitoes have teeth.
  304. Most Americans’ car horns beep in the key of F.
  305. Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.
  306. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
  307. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
  308. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
  309. Murphy’s Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.
  310. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
  311. Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
  312. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
  313. On a Canadian two-dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament Building is an American flag.
  314. On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the “1″ encased in the “shield” and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.
  315. One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.
  316. One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 1930′s lobbied against hemp farmers — they saw it as competition. It is not as chemically addictive as is nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine.
  317. One-quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet.
  318. Only 55% of all Americans know that the sun is a star.
  319. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
  320. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest were signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn’t added until 5 years later.
  321. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our noses and ears never stop growing.
  322. Over 1000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.
  323. Owls are one of the only birds that can see the color blue.
  324. Pamela Anderson Lee is Canada’s Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial anniversary of Canada’s independence.
  325. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
  326. Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.
  327. Pinocchio is Italian for “pine head.”
  328. Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If captured, they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.
  329. Polar Bears trying to blend in with the ice will sometimes cover up their black nose with their paws.
  330. Pollsters say that 40 percent of dog and cat owners carry pictures of their pets in their wallets.
  331. Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States.
  332. Recycling one glass jar saves enough energy to watch T.V for 3 hours.
  333. Reindeer like to eat bananas.
  334. Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently eaten bananas.
  335. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
  336. Sherlock Holmes never said “Elementary, my dear Watson.”
  337. Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.
  338. Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have participated in every Games.
  339. Slugs have 4 noses.
  340. Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they can’t find any food.
  341. Some toothpastes contain antifreeze.
  342. Spotted skunks do handstands before they spray.
  343. “Stewardesses” is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
  344. Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax, and correct itself.
  345. Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with “Midnight Cowboy.” Her entire role lasted only six minutes.
  346. Texas is also the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.
  347. The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the “American Pie.” (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)
  348. The average American drinks about 600 sodas a year.
  349. The average American will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year.
  350. The average bank teller loses about $250 every year.
  351. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
  352. The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.
  353. The average person is about a quarter of an inch taller at night.
  354. The average person laughs 15 times a day.
  355. The average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.
  356. The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland’s baby daughter, Ruth.
  357. The band Duran Duran got their name from an astronaut in the 1968 Jane Fonda movie “Barbarella.
  358. The blesbok, a South African antelope, is almost the same color as grape juice.
  359. The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.
  360. 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.”
  361. 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.”
  362. The company providing the liability insurance for the Republican National Convention in San Diego is the same firm that insured the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic.
  363. The condom – made originally of linen – was invented in the early 1500s.
  364. The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
  365. The Earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
  366. 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.
  367. The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
  368. The elephant is the only mammal that can’t jump.
  369. The first Ford cars had Dodge engines.
  370. The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.
  371. The first toilet ever seen on television was on “Leave It To Beaver.”
  372. The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
  373. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
  374. The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
  375. The housefly hums in the middle octave, key of F.
  376. The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
  377. The katydid bug hears through holes in its hind legs.
  378. The “L.L.” in L.L. Bean stands for Leon Leonwood.
  379. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is “screeched.”
  380. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
  381. The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.
  382. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
  383. The moon is moving away at a tiny, although measurable distance from the Earth every year. Do the math and you will see that 85 million years ago it was orbiting the earth at a distance of about 35 feet from the earth’s surface. This would explain the death of the dinosaurs; the tallest ones, anyway.
  384. The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
  385. The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the “General Purpose” vehicle, G.P.
  386. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. No one in Greece has memorized all 158 verses.
  387. The Neanderthal’s brain was bigger than yours.
  388. The oldest known goldfish lived to 41 years of age. Its name was Fred.
  389. The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
  390. The only nation whose name begins with an “A” but doesn’t end with an “A” is Afghanistan.
  391. The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star Game.
  392. The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
  393. The phrase, “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye” is from Ancient Rome. The only rule during wrestling matches was, “No eye gouging.” Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be disqualified was to poke someone’s eye out.
  394. The phrase “rule of thumb” is derived from an old English law that stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
  395. The placement of a donkey’s eyes in its head enables it to see all four feet at all times.
  396. The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head.
  397. The Ramses brand condom is named after the great pharaoh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.
  398. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
  399. The Sanskrit word for “war” means “desire for more cows.”
  400. The “save” icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backward.
  401. The saying “It’s so cold out there it could freeze the balls off a brass monkey” came from when they had old cannons like the ones used in the Civil War. The cannonballs were stacked in a pyramid formation, called a brass monkey. When it got extremely cold outside they would crack and break off… thus the saying.
  402. The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in Jello.
  403. The starfish is one of the only animals that can turn its stomach inside out.
  404. The state of Florida is bigger than England.
  405. The term “the whole 9 yards” came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got “the whole 9 yards.”
  406. The three best-known Western names in China are Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley.
  407. The United States Government keeps its supply of silver at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York.
  408. The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.
  409. The verb “cleave” is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
  410. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
  411. The word “Checkmate” in chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the king is dead.”
  412. The word “modem” is a contraction of the words “modulate, demodulate.” (MOdulate DEModulate)
  413. The word “samba” means “to rub navels together.”
  414. The world population of chickens is about equal to the number of people.
  415. The world’s oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old.
  416. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
  417. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
  418. There are over 52.6 million dogs in the U.S.
  419. There are more chickens than people in the world.
  420. There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones.
  421. There are only four words in the English language that end in “-dous”: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
  422. There are only thirteen blimps in the world. Nine of them are in the United States.
  423. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
  424. There is a town in Newfoundland, Canada called Dildo.
  425. There wasn’t a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses.
  426. Thomas Edison, the lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
  427. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
  428. To escape the grip of a crocodile’s jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs — it will let you go instantly.
  429. Two-thirds of the world’s eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
  430. Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it is known as Tennessee.
  431. Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5 pm. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize that this was the day of the changeover.
  432. When opossums are playing ‘possum, they are not “playing.” They actually pass out from sheer terror.
  433. When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home, the stadium becomes the state’s third-largest city.
  434. White Out was invented by the mother of Mike Nesmith (formerly of the Monkees).
  435. Who’s that playing the piano on the “Mad About You” theme? Paul Reiser himself.
  436. Wilma Flintstone’s maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble’s Maiden name was Betty Jean Mcbricker.
  437. Windmills always turn counterclockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland.
  438. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.
  439. Women’s hearts beat faster than men’s.
  440. You blink over 20,000,000 times a year.
  441. You can only smell 1/20th as well as a dog.
  442. You’ll eat about 35,000 cookies in a lifetime.
  443. You’re born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206.
  444. You’re more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day than in any other weather.
  445. Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day.
  446. Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe.
  447. Your right lung takes in more air than your left one does.
  448. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.
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