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True Facts
The day after President George W. Bush was reelected, Canada's main immigration website
had 115,000 visitors. Before Bush's re-election, this site averaged about 20,000 visitors each day.
Only 30% of stolen
artwork worth more than $1,000,000 each is recovered.
The typical American child receives 70 new toys a year, most
of them during the holiday season.
Costco is the largest wine retailer in the United States. Annual wine sales are
about $700 million.
A ten year old mattress weighs double what it did when it was new, because of the -ahem- debris
which is absorbed through the years. That debris includes dust mites (their droppings and their decaying bodies), mold, millions
of dead skin cells, dandruff, animal and human hair, secretions, excretions, lint, pollen, dust, soil, sand and a lot of perspiration,
of which the average person loses a quart per day. Good night!
About 20% of gift card recipients never redeem the full
value of the card.
SUVs, pickup trucks, light trucks and minivans make up 54% of all vehicles sold in the first nine
months of 2004, up from 52% in 2003.
John Kerry's hometown newspaper, the Lowell Sun, endorsed George W. Bush for president.
Bush's hometown newspaper, the Lone Star Iconoclast, endorsed John Kerry for president.
Only 939 of the 1,400,000 high
school seniors who took the SAT in 2004 got a perfect score of 1600. Two of them are twin brothers Dillon and Jesse Smith
from Long Island, NY.
Billboard magazine has recently launched a top 20 chart of cell phone ringtones.
The US
Army is handing out $2,500 to Fallujah residents whose property was destroyed by US planes and artillery.
George W.
Bush, who presents himself as a man of faith, rarely goes to church. Yet he won nearly two out of three voters who attend
church at least once a week.
Dolly Parton is planning on having breast reduction surgery soon to relieve the pain on
her back.
A private elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia, accidentally served margaritas to its schoolchildren,
thinking it was limeade.
The Chicago Cubs are suing former Hartford Courant newspaper
carrier Mark Guthrie to get back $301,000 in pay that was intended to go to a Cubs pitcher
with the same name. The Tribune Company owns both the Hartford Courant and the Chicago Cubs.
In February 2004, a Disneyland
employee was killed when he fell from a parade float and was trapped between two float sections. OSHA termed this a serious
workplace violation, but Disney was fined only $6,300.
Even today, 90% of the continental United States is still
open space or farmland.
The second Saturday in September is usually a popular time for weddings. Not in 2004, as most
couples did not want their anniversaries on September 11.
In 2004, Virgin Atlantic Airlines introduced a double bed
for first class passengers who fly together.
The world's largest book, "Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey" is in a Chicago public
library. The book measures 5 feet tall by 7 feet wide when open. It weighs 133 pounds.
55% of Americans would continue
working even if they received a $10,000,000 lottery prize.
The company that manufactures the greatest number of women's
dresses each year is Mattel. Barbie's got to wear something.
All radios in North Korea have been rigged so listeners
can only receive a North Korean government station. The United States recently announced plans to smuggle $2,000,000
worth of small radios into the country so North Koreans can get a taste of (what their government calls) "rotten imperialist
reactionary culture".
La Paz, Bolivia is the world's most fireproof city. At 12,000 feet about sea level, the amount
of oxygen in the air barely supports a flame.
The estates of 22 dead celebrities earned over $5 million in 2004. These
celebrities include Elvis Presley, Dr. Seuss, Charles Schulz, J.R.R. Tolkien and John Lennon.
Each year, more people
are killed by teddy bears than by grizzly bears.
If you disassembled the Great Pyramid of Cheops, you would get enough
stones to encircle the earth with a brick wall twenty inches high.
Nearly one third of New York City public school
teachers send their own children to private schools.
The New York City Police Department has a $3.3 million annual
budget, larger than all but 19 of the world's armies.
CBS's fine for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in the
2004 Super Bowl show was $550,000. This could be paid with only 7.5 seconds of commercial time during the same Super Bowl
telecast.
In September 2004, a Minnesota state trooper issued a speeding ticket to a motorcyclist who was clocked at
205 mph.
Al Gore's roommate in college (Harvard, class of 1969) was Tommy Lee Jones.
In her later years, Florence
Nightingale kept a pet owl in her pocket.
The New York Jets were unable to find hotel rooms for a game in Indianapolis
recently because they had all been booked up by people attending Gencon, a gaming convention.
China is the world's
largest market for BMW's top of the line 760Li. This car sells for $200,000 in China - more than almost all people in China
make in a lifetime.
A chef's hat is shaped the way it is for a reason: its shape allows air to circulate around the
scalp, keeping the head cool in a hot kitchen.
Life expectancy for Russian men has actually gone down over the past
40 years. A Russian male born today can expect to live an average 58 years.
Each year, sixteen million gallons of oil
run off pavement into streams, rivers and eventually oceans in the United States. This is more oil than was spilled by the
Exxon Valdez.
An employee of the Alabama Department of Transportation installed spyware on his boss's computer and
proved that the boss spent 10% of his time working (20% of time checking stocks and 70% of the time playing solitaire). The
employee was fired, the boss kept his job.
In 1985, the most popular waist size for men's pants was 32. In 2003, it's
36.
Solid structures (parking lots, roads, buildings) in the United States cover an area the size of Ohio.
A
Brussels Airlines flight to Vienna was aborted because the pilot was attacked in the cockpit. The attacker was a passenger's
cat, who got out of its travel bag.
Physicists have already performed a simple type of teleportation, transferring
the quantum characteristics of one atom onto another atom at a different location.
At General Motors, the cost of health
care for employees now exceeds the cost of steel.
There is a regulation size half-court where employees can play basketball
inside the Matterhorn at Disneyland.
Television stations hung banners at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, including
Al-Jazeera, until it was noticed and taken down.
A woman was chewing what was left of her chocolate bar when she entered
a Metro station in Washington DC. She was arrested and handcuffed; eating is prohibited in Metro stations.
The New
York City subway system, in an effort to raise revenue, is considering selling sponsorships of individual stations to corporations.
Riders could soon be getting off at Nike Grand Central Station or Sony Times Square.
The Nike swoosh was designed by
a Portland State University student, and purchased by Nike for $35.
Gillette spent $1,000,000 to place razor samples
in the welcome bags handed out at the Democratic National Convention, only to have them confiscated as they were considered
a threat. This caused huge delays at all security checkpoints.
Jim Carrey voted in 2004 at the Beverly Hills City Hall.
He had an assistant wait in line for him, however.
The United States has five percent of the world's population, but
twenty-five percent of the world's prison population.
Seven percent of Americans claim they never bathe at all.
The
largest McDonald's is in Beijing, China - measuring 28,000 square feet. It has twenty nine cash registers.
A house
in Baghdad worth $15,000 before the Iraq war now sells for $120,000 to $150,000.
There are between 5,000 and 7,000
tigers kept as pets in the United States.
The chicken is one of the few things that man eats before it's born and after
it's dead.
The number of US college students studying Latin is three times the number studying Arabic.
In 2004,
one in six girls in the United States enter puberty at age 8. A hundred years ago, only one in a hundred entered puberty that
early.
If you hook Jell-O up to an EEG, it registers movements almost identical to a human adult's brain waves.
Some
dogs can predict when a child will have an epileptic seizure, and even protect the child from injury. They're not trained
to do this, they simply learn to respond after observing at least one attack.
32 out of 33 samples of well-known brands
of milk purchased in Los Angeles and Orange counties in California had trace amounts of perchlorate. Perchlorate is the explosive
component in rocket fuel.
The leading cause of on-the-job deaths in workplaces in America is homicide.
Americans
take an average of just ten days per year vacation. In France, the law guarantees everyone five weeks of vacation, and most
full-time workers get two full months vacation.
20% of Americans think that the sun orbits around the Earth.
Van
Halen singer David Lee Roth is training to be an EMT in New York City, and plans to be certified by November 2004.
The
thong accounts for 25% of the United States women's underwear market.
On average, 40% of all hotel rooms in the United
States remain empty every night.
When you hear a bullwhip snap, it's because the tip is traveling faster than the speed
of sound.
There is a new television show on a British cable called "Watching Paint Dry". Viewers watch in real-time.
Gloss, semi-gloss, matte, satin, you name it. Then viewers vote out their least favorite.
The largest ocean liners
pay a $250,000 toll for each trip through the Panama Canal. The canal generates fully one-third of Panama's entire economy.
French
author Michel Thaler published a 233 page novel which has no verbs.
The spring thaw finally allows cemeteries in Alaska
to start digging graves for those who died during the winter.
When Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen turn 18 in mid-2004,
they will take official control of a company worth more than the gross national product of Mongolia. Their earnings in 2003
topped $1 billion.
Orthodox rabbis warned that New York City drinking water might not be kosher; it contains harmless
micro-organisms that are technically shellfish.
David Bowie thinks he is being stalked by someone who is dressed like
a giant pink rabbit. Bowie has noticed the fan at several recent concerts, but he became alarmed when he got on a plane and
the bunny was on board.
A party boat filled with 60 men and women capsized in Texas after all the passengers rushed
to one side as the boat passed a nude beach.
In 1997, a woman in Bradenton, Florida lost her cat. In 2004, she got
a call from the local animal shelter. The cat turned up wandering the streets in San Francisco, California. The cat's identity
was proven with a microchip that had been implanted prior to 1997.
Almost 20% of the billions of dollars American taxpayers
are spending to rebuild Iraq are lost to theft, kickbacks and corruption.
The treasury department has more than twenty
people assigned to catching people who violate the trade and tourism embargo with Cuba. In contrast, it has only four employees
assigned to track the assets of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
There are 40,000 New York City cab drivers, who
collectively drive more than a million miles each day.
An estimated 800,000 senior citizens voluntarily give up their
driving privileges each year. The average age at which they surrender the wheel is 85.
More than 8,100 US troops are
still listed as missing in action from the Korean war.
82% of Americans made a purchase at Wal-Mart in 2002.
Oslo,
Norway is the world's most expensive city. A gallon on gas costs almost $5, and it costs $1.32 to use the public restrooms.
Villanova
University's commencement speaker this year is the actor who plays Big Bird.
In 1965, auditions were held for the "Monkees"
TV show. Some of the people who responded (but were not hired) were Stephen Stills, Harry Nilsson, and Paul Williams.
Kevin
Spacey's older brother is a professional Rod Stewart impersonator.
71% of office workers stopped on the street for
a survey agreed to give up their computer passwords in exchange for a chocolate bar.
George W. Bush and John Kerry
are 16th cousins, three times removed.
If current trends continue, Medicare costs will absorb 51% of all income tax
revenues by 2042.
The prison system is the largest supplier of mental health services in America, with 250,000 Americans
with mental illness living there.
Newest trend in the Netherlands: Tiny jewels implanted directly into the eye.
Researchers
have found that doctors who spend at least three hours a week playing video games make about 37% fewer mistakes in laparoscopic
surgery than surgeons who didn't play video games.
Before he had his own show, Jerry Seinfeld appeared on three episodes
of the TV show "Benson" as the governor's speechwriter.
There are 1,008 McDonald's franchises in France.
Hostess
Twinkies were originally filled with banana filling. The filling was changed during World War II when the United States experienced
a banana shortage.
World War II veterans are now dying at the rate of about 1,100 each day.
George W. Bush is
probably going to be the eighth president in US history to have completed a term in office without ever having issued a single
veto.
A deployed air bag adds as much as $2,000 to the cost of repairing a vehicle. That's enough for insurance companies
to often declare the car "totaled".
For the first time in history, the number of people on the planet aged 60 or over
will soon surpass those under 5.
A British gymnast survived a fall from a fourth story window because he went into
a somersault and came down on two feet.
One out of five people in the world (1.1 billion people) live on less than
$1 per day.
The Swedish pop group ABBA recently turned down an offer of $2 billion to reunite.
The New Yorker
magazine now has more subscribers in California than New York.
Five years ago, 60% of all retail purchases were made
with cash or check. Now it's 50%. By 2010, 39% of purchases will be made by cash or check.
The richest self-made American
under 40 is Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Computers. He is worth $18 billion.
Legislators in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
are considering a law that would require pets to wear seat belts when traveling in a car.
Life Savers got their shape
by a malfunctioning machine, which mistakenly punched a hole in the center of each candy.
SUV sales are up 18% in the
first quarter of 2004 vs. the same period of 2003, even though gas prices are skyrocketing. Consumer surveys show that gas
prices would have to hit $3.75 per gallon before there will be any real impact on SUV sales.
Airport security agents
at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts caught a passenger trying to sneak a severed seal head onto a plane inside a cooler.
The man said he was a biology professor and had found the dead animal on the beach.
There are 150,000,000 cell phones
in use in the United States, more than one per every two human beings in the country.
A Boeing 767 airliner is made
of 3,100,000 separate parts.
The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade.
Last
December, the House of Representatives earmarked $50,000,000 to create an indoor rain forest in Iowa.
Amusement park
attendance goes up after a fatal accident. It seems many people want to ride upon the same ride that killed someone.
Jeffrey
and Sheryl McGowen in Houston turned to vitro fertilization. Two eggs were implanted in Sheryl's womb, and both of them split.
Sheryl gave birth to two sets of identical twins at once.
For every ton of fish that is caught in all the oceans on
our planet, there are three tons of garbage dumped into the oceans.
June Foray did the voice for Rocky the Flying Squirrel
and the Chatty Cathy dolls.
Japanese and Chinese people die on the fourth of the month more often than any other dates.
The reason may be that they are "scared to death" by the number four. The words four and death sound alike in both Chinese
and Japanese.
People with initials that spell out GOD or ACE are likely to live longer than people whose initials spell
out words like APE, PIG, or RAT.
More people in the United States die during the first week of the month than during
the last, an increase that may be a result of the abuse of substances purchased with benefit checks that come at the beginning
of each month.
In the film Forrest Gump, all the still photos show Forrest with his eyes closed.
There are an
average of 18,000,000 items for sale at any time on EBay.
On EBay, there are an average of $680 worth of transactions
each second.
The New York Times reports that in February 2004, 62% of all e-mail was spam.
A Massachusetts surgeon
left a patient with an open incision for 35 minutes while he went to deposit a check.
In 1991, the average bra size
in the United States was 34B. Today it's 36C.
U.K. telecom provider Telewest Broadband is testing a device
that hooks to your PC and wafts a scent when certain e-mails arrive.
The average North Korean 7-year-old is
almost three inches shorter than the average South Korean 7-year-old.
In 1993, David McLean developed lung cancer.
He died on October 12, 1995. McLean's death made him the second Marlboro Man to die of lung cancer. Another actor, Wayne McLaren,
died in 1992 at the age of 51 from lung cancer.
There is a bar in London that sells vaporized vodka, which is inhaled
instead of sipped.
According to market research firm NPD Fashionworld, fifty percent of all lingerie purchases are
returned to the store.
The Eiffel Tower shrinks 6 inches in winter.
The first FAX machine was patented in 1843,
33 years before Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone.
72% of Americans sign their pets' names on greeting
cards they send out.
In an effort to encourage the use of nuclear energy, the United States lent highly enriched uranium
to countries all over the world between 1950 and 1988. Enough weapons-grade material to make 1,000 nuclear bombs has still
not been returned by such countries as Pakistan, Iran, Israel and South Africa.
Homing pigeons use roads where possible
to help find their way home. In fact, some pigeons followed roads so closely that they actually flew around traffic circles
before choosing the exit that led them home.
Every year, 2700 surgical patients go home from the hospital with
metal tools, sponges, and other objects left inside them. In 2000, 57 people died as a result of these mistakes.
A
snowflake can take up to a hour to fall from the cloud to the surface of the Earth.
Only 5 percent of the ocean
floor has been mapped in as much detail as the surface of Mars.
The only people whose likenesses adorn Pez dispensers
are Betsy Ross and Paul Revere.
We forget 80 percent of what we learn everyday.
Pain is measured in units of
"dols". The instrument used to measure pain is a "dolorimeter".
In a nod to astronauts, Texas is the only state that
permits residents to cast absentee ballots from space.
Eleven top executives of the Direct Marketing Association (the
telemarketers' group that is trying to kill the federal "Do Not Call" list) have registered for the list themselves.
In
2003, the Transportation Security Administration dropped a requirement that air marshals pass a marksmanship test. Some applicants
were even hired after they repeatedly shot flight attendants in mock hijacking episodes.
As of January 2004, the United
States economy now borrows 1.5 BILLION dollars a DAY from foreign investors.
A Costa Rican worker who makes baseballs
earns about $2,750 annually. The average American pro baseball player earns $2,377,000 per year.
Former keyboard player
for Jethro Tull David Palmer is now a woman named Dee Palmer. He waited until his wife died before going through with his
longtime desire for a sex change.
During Bill Clinton's entire eight year presidency, he only sent two e-mails. One
was to John Glenn when he was aboard the space shuttle, and the other was a test of the e-mail system.
The only state
with a one syllable name is Maine.
Albert Einstein never knew how to drive a car.
The UK's best selling hiking
magazine published faulty coordinates for descending Scotland's tallest peak (Ben Nevis), and recommended a route that leads
climbers off the edge of a cliff.
The Mars Rover "Spirit" is powered by six small motors the size of "C" batteries.
It has a top speed of 0.1 mph.
Zeppo Marx (the unfunny one of the Marx Brothers) had a patent for a wristwatch with
a heart monitor.
The entire town of Capena, Italy (including children as young as 2 years old) lights up cigarettes
each year in honor of St. Anthony's Day. This tradition is centuries old.
The Amish a diet high in meat, dairy, refined
sugars and calories. Yet obesity is virtually unknown among them. The difference is since they have no TVs, cars or powered
machines, they spend their time in manual labor.
Microsoft threatened 17 year old Mike Rowe with a lawsuit after the
young man launched a website named MikeRoweSoft.com.
Each frame of the Lord of the Rings trilogy requires 12.5 mb
in storage. Filmed at 24 frames per second, that amounts to more than 3 million megabytes (3 petabytes) per episode.
As
of January 1, 2004, the population of the United States increases by one person every 12 seconds. There is a birth every eight
seconds, an immigrant is added every 25 seconds, but a death every 13 seconds.
There is a Starbucks in Myungdong, South
Korea that is five stories tall.
Astronauts cannot burp in space. There is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in
their stomachs.
There has been no mail delivery in Canada on Saturday for the last thirty five years.
The weight
of air in a milk glass is about the same as the weight of an aspirin tablet.
Every megabyte sent over the Internet
takes two lumps of coal to power.
Finland has the greatest number of islands of any country in the world: 179,584.
The
world's smallest winged insect is the Tanzanian parasitic wasp. It's smaller than the eye of a housefly.
Two-thirds
of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
Plate glass is actually a very thick liquid.
The winter of
1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
If
you have three quarters, four dimes and four cents, you have $1.19. But you cannot make exact change for a dollar.
There
are more plastic flamingoes in the United States than real ones.
The chance that you will die on the way to buy your
lottery ticket is greater than the chance of you winning the big prize in most lotteries.
Winston Churchill was born
in a ladies' room during a dance.
Dolly Parton once lost a Dolly Parton Look-Alike contest.
An average of 100
people choke to death on ball point pens each year.
The National Anthem of Greece has 158 verses.
Barbie's full
name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.
The
highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
The Bible has been translated into Klingon.
Toto
was paid $125 per week while filming the "Wizard of Oz".
All polar bears are left handed.
In the early 1940s,
Heinz produced a version of Alphabetti Spaghetti especially for the German market that consisted only of little pasta swastikas.
To
help reduce budget deficits, several states have begun reducing the amount of food served to prison inmates. In Texas, the
number of daily calories served to prisoners was cut by 300, saving the state $6,000,000 per year.
The only member
of the band ZZ Top without a beard has the last name Beard.
Pope John Paul II is the world's Scrabble champion in the over-70 category.
Montpelier, Vermont is
the only state capitol without a McDonald's.
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would
never end because of the rate of reproduction.
Wearing headphones
for an hour increases the bacteria in your ear 700 times.
In 1993, the board of governors at Carl Karcher Enterprises
voted (5 to 2) to fire Carl Karcher. Carl Karcher is the founder of Carls Jr. restaurants.
The little hole in the sink
that lets the water drain out, instead of flowing over the side, is called a "porcelator."
The wingspan of a Boeing
747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight.
Ted Turner owns 5% of New Mexico.
Over 8 years,
this happened 284 times: "Cosmo" Kramer went through Jerry Seinfeld's apartment door.
The cruise liner Queen
Elizabeth 2 moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel fuel that it burns.
There are more 100 dollar bills in
Russia currently than there are in the United States.
Maine has no poisonous snakes.
It is physically
impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
65% of Elvis impersonators are of Asian descent.
More people
are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.
Burt Reynolds was originally cast to be Han Solo in the first
Star Wars film. He dropped out before filming.
Pope John Paul II was named an "Honorary Harlem Globetrotter" in 2000.
Woodward
Avenue in Detroit, Michigan carries the designation M - 1, named so because it was the first paved road anywhere.
There
are only three types of snakes on the island of Tasmania and all three are deadly poisonous.
It is believed that Shakespeare
was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word
is "shake" and the 46th word from the last word is "spear".
If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat it measures
87 feet long.
The strength of early lasers was measured in Gillettes, the number of blue razor blades a given
beam could puncture.
The drive-through line on opening day at the McDonald's restaurant in Kuwait City, Kuwait
was at times seven miles long.
Point Roberts in Washington State is cut off from the rest of the state by British Columbia,
Canada. If you wish to travel from Point Roberts to the rest of the state or vice versa, you must pass through Canada, including
both Canadian and U.S. customs.
The Pentagon in Washington, D. C. has five sides, five stories, and five acres in the
middle.
Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with "Midnight Cowboy." Her entire
role lasted only six minutes.
There is an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which has a winter population
of 200.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Newborn babies are given to the wrong mother
in the hospital 12 times a day worldwide.
The Starbucks at the highest elevation is on Main Street in Breckenridge,
Colorado.
In 1998, more fast-food employees were murdered on the job than police officers.
The lead singer of
The Knack, famous for "My Sharona," and Jack Kevorkian's lead defense attorney are brothers, Doug & Jeffrey Feiger.
Two
very popular and common objects have the same function, but one has thousands of moving parts, while the other has absolutely
no moving parts - an hourglass and a sundial.
One out of three employees who received a promotion were found to have
been using a coffee mug with the company logo on it.
If you know a millionaire who happens to be married, what is the
most likely profession of his wife? She's probably a teacher.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
The
two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows.
1
pound of lemons contain more sugar than 1 pound of strawberries.
160 cars can drive side by side on the Monumental
Axis in Brazil, the world's widest road.
The "you are here" arrow on maps is called an ideo locator.
60% of
all US potato products originate in Idaho.
61,000 people are airborne over the US at any given time.
A flamingo
can eat only when its head is upside down.
Mark Twain was born on a day in 1835 when Halley's Comet came into
view. When he died in 1910, Halley's Comet was in view again.
A blind chameleon still changes colors to match
his environment.
The Weddell seal can travel underwater for seven miles without surfacing for air.
In 1963,
baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, "They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run." On July 20, 1969, a few
hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Gaylord Perry hit his first (and only) home run.
A goldfish
has a memory span of about 3 seconds.
The longest word in the English language with only one syllable is "screeched".
Pinocchio
is Italian for "pine eye".
All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" read 4:20.
A female ferret will die
if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
A baby is born without kneecaps. They appear between age 2 and 6.
Women
blink nearly twice as much as men.
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
A snail
can have about 25,000 teeth.
A snail can also sleep for three years.
A starfish can turn its stomach inside
out.
A strand from the web of a golden spider is as strong as a steel wire of the same size.
A toothpick is
the object most often choked on by Americans.
About a third of all Americans flush the toilet while they're still sitting
on it.
According to Genesis 1:20-22 the chicken came before the egg.
Soldiers from every country salute with
their right hand.
The microwave oven was invented by mistake when an engineer testing a magnetron tube noticed
that the radiation from it melted the chocolate bar he had in his pocket.
Moisture, not air, causes super glue to dry.
Only
14% of Americans say they've skinny dipped with the opposite sex.
What separates "60 Minutes" on CBS from every other
TV show? No theme song or music.
Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace.
Most boat owners
name their boats. The most popular boat name requested is Obsession.
100% of all lottery winners gain weight.
An
average American will spend an average of 6 months during his lifetime waiting at red lights.
The five Olympic rings
are always red, black, blue, green and yellow because at least one of those colors appears on the flag of every nation on
the planet.
Cats can hear ultrasound.
In a recent survey, Americans revealed that banana was their favorite
smell.
In all three Godfather films, when you see oranges, there is a death (or a very close call) coming up soon.
The
arteries and veins surrounding the brain stem called the "circle of Willis" looks like a stick person with a large head.
If
you were to spell out numbers, you would you have to go until 1,000 until you would find the letter "A".
Bullet proof
vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers were all invented by women.
Married men change their underwear
twice as often as single men.
A kiss stimulates 29 muscles and chemicals causing relaxation. Women seem to like it
light and frequent, men like it more strenuous.
There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of
the year.
Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
40% of all people who come to a party in
your home snoop in your medicine cabinet.
3.9% of all women surveyed say they never wear underwear.
Superman
is featured on every episode of "Seinfeld", either by name or pictures on Jerry's refrigerator.
85% of the guys who
cheat on their wives die while having sex.
Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.
Every
day more money is printed for Monopoly than for the US Treasury.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating
one olive from each salad served first class.
Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28
Percentage of North
America that is wilderness: 38
Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to
do all over again: 80
Percentage of American women who say they would marry the same man: 50
Percentage of men
who say they are happier after their divorce or separation: 58
Percentage of women who say they are happier: 85
Average
life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches
Percentage of bird species that are monogamous: 90
Percentage
of mammal species that are monogamous: 3
Chances that a burglary in the US will be solved: 1 in 7
Portion of
land in the US owned by the government: 1/3
Only bird that can fly backwards: Hummingbird
Only continent without
reptiles or snakes: Antarctica
An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it.
In the Caribbean there are
oysters that can climb trees.
February 1865 was the only month in recorded history that didn't have a full moon.
Intelligent
people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
When
George Lucas was mixing the American Graffiti soundtrack, he numbered the reels of film starting with an R and numbered the
dialog starting with a D. Sound designer Walter Murch asked George for Reel 2, Dialog 2 by saying "R2D2". George liked the
way that sounded so much he integrated that into another project he was working on.
The youngest pope was 11 years
old.
Mark Twain didn't graduate from elementary school.
Proportional to their weight, men are stronger than
horses.
Pilgrims ate popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner.
Your nose and ears never stop growing.
Hot
water is heavier than cold.
They have square watermelons in Japan...they stack better.
Iceland consumes more
Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
Heinz Catsup leaving the bottle travels at 25 miles per year.
It
is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
Men get hiccups more often than women.
Armadillos can
be housebroken.
Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks.
The first Fords had engines made by Dodge.
A
mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.
Ancient
Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.
A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.
A
quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
Until
1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it is known as Tennessee.
The flashing warning
light on the cylindrical Capitol Records tower spells out HOLLYWOOD in Morse code.
Every time you lick a stamp, you're
consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.
One in every 4 Americans has appeared
on television.
The average American will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year.
You're born with 300 bones,
but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206.
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
Over 1000
birds a year die from smashing into windows.
The State of Florida is bigger than England.
Ants stretch when
they wake up in the morning.
It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland.
Your heart beats over 100,000
times a day.
Thomas Edison, light bulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
During your lifetime, you'll eat about
60,000 pounds of food. That's the weight of about 6 elephants.
Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they can't
find any food.
Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old.
In
space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow.
About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians
died by the time they were 30.
More people use blue toothbrushes than red ones.
A sneeze travels out your mouth
at over 100 m.p.h.
Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe.
In the White House,
there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons.
Slugs have 4 noses.
Recycling one glass jar saves enough energy to
watch TV for 3 hours.
Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.
Owls are the only birds
who can see the color blue.
The average American drinks about 600 sodas a year.
It's against the law to slam
your car door in Switzerland.
There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses.
Honeybees have hair
on their eyes.
A jellyfish is 95 percent water.
In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating
on their finals.
A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate.
The elephant
is the only mammal that can't jump.
The penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly.
The most common
name in the world is Mohammed.
Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the
United States.
One quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet.
America once issued a 5-cent bill.
You'll
eat about 35,000 cookies in your lifetime.
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
Babe Ruth
wore a cabbage leaf under is cap to keep him cool. He changed it every 2 innings.
Fortune cookies were actually invented
in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.
A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years.
A giraffe can
clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
The pitches
that Babe Ruth hit for his last-ever homerun and that Joe DiMaggio hit for his first-ever homerun where thrown by the same
man.
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head.
In
Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs.
There are over 52.6 million dogs in the U.S.
Dogs and cats consume almost
$7 billion worth of pet food a year.
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
Baby robins eat 14
feet of earthworms every day.
The Pentagon has twice as many restrooms as necessary. When it was built, segregation
was still in place in Virginia, so separate restrooms for blacks and whites were required by law.
In England, in the
1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
In 2003,
there were 86 days of below-freezing weather in Hell, Michigan.
The average person laughs 15 times a day.
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