Trivial Facts
=============

* Number of US states that claim test scores in their elementary schools
  are above national average:  50
* Portion of Harvard students who graduate with honors:  4/5
* 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 President to remain a bachelor:  James Buchanan
* Only first lady to carry a loaded revolver:  Eleanor Roosevelt
* Only president to win a Pulitzer:  John F. Kennedy, for  _Profiles in
  Courage_
* Only president awarded a patent:  Abe Lincoln, for a system of buoying
  vessels over shoals
* Only food that does not spoil:  honey
* Only person to win $64,000 Challenge and $64,000 Question: Dr. Joyce
  Brothers (subject is boxing)
* Only bird that can fly backwards:  Hummingbird
* Only continent without reptiles or snakes: Antarctica
* Only animal besides human that can get sunburn:  Pig
* Ostriches stick their heads in the sand to look for water.
* An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it.
* In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees.
* Polar bears are left-handed.
* Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
* Eskimos never gamble.
* The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
* 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.
* Jupiter is bigger than all the other planets combined.
* Hot water is heavier than cold.
* The parachute was invented by da Vinci in 1515.
* They have square watermelons in Japan...they stack better.
* Starfish have eight eyes--one at the end of each leg.
* Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
* First novel ever written on a typewriter was _Tom Sawyer_.
* There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of the
  year.
* 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 woman.
* Armadillos can be housebroken.
* 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
* Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinated geometry by
  looking at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling.
* 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 recieved in battle; if
  the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural
  causes.
* Ballroom dancing is a major at Brigham Young University (but you
  knew that didn't you).
* Some biblical scholars believe that Aramaic (the language of the
  ancient Bible) did not contain an easy way to say "many things" and
  used a term which has come down to us as 40.  This means that when the
  bible -- in many places -- refers to "40 days," they meant many days.
* No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
* 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."
* Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".
* There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
* Only two people signed the Decleration of Independence on July 4th,
  John Hancock and Charles Thomson.  Most of the rest signed on Augest 2,
  but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
* "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
* 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."
* The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, "Aladdin
  was a little Chinese boy."
* Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
* The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
* Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fish was named Livingston.
* The 'y' in signs reading "ye olde.." is properly pronounced with a
  'th' sound, not 'y'.  The "th" sound does not exist in Latin, so
  ancient Roman occupied (present day) England use the rune "thorn" to
  represent "th" sounds.  With the advent of the printing press the
  character from the Roman alphabet which closest resembled thorn was
  the lower case "y".
* The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."
* The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
* The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
* The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called 'mantles') are
  radioactive -- so much so that they will set of an alarm at a nuclear 
  reactor.
* Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
* Each unit on the Richter Scale is equivalent to a power factor of
  about 32.  So a 6 is 32 times more powerful than a 5!  Though it goes to
  10, 9 is estimated to be the point of total tectonic destruction (2 is
  the smallest that can be felt unaided.)
* Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of fur.  The story was
  changed in the 1600s by a translator.
* It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella) lost at the stairway,
  when the prince tried to follow her.
* 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 5pm.  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 *this* was the day of the
  changeover.
* Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.
* 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 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.
* Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears
  never stop growing.
* 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.
* Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.
* In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
* February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full
  moon.
* A Blue Moon is when there are two full moons during one month.
* Montpelier, Vermont is the only U.S. state capital without a
  McDonalds.
* The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as
  is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia
  still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for
  blacks and whites.
* The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each
  gallon of diesel that it burns.
* There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
* Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal
  category.
* Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City,
  after the Catholic Church.
* Back in the mid to late 80's, an IBM compatible computer wasn't
  considered a hundred percent compatible unless it could run
  Microsoft's Flight Simulator.
* The first Ford cars had Dodge engines.
* Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
* It takes about a half a gallon of water to cook macaroni, and about a
  gallon to clean the pot.
* In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
* Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child
  reaches 2-6 months of age.
* The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in
  Colorado.
* Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously
* 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 change for a dollar.
* The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
* Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the
  Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
* The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver".
* In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but
  only 6 people were injured.
* Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son.
* One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers
  in the 30s lobbied against hemp farmers -- they saw it as competition.
  It is not chemically addictive as is nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine.
* The only two days of the year in which there are no professional
  sports games (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, or MLS) are the day before and
  the day after the Major League All-Star Game.
* Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
* The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan".

* In Kentucky, 50 percent of the people who get married for the
  first time are teenagers.
* Kotex was first manufactured as bandages, during W.W.I.
* Einstein couldn't speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he 
  might be retarded.
* In Los Angeles, there are fewer people than there are automobiles.
* About a third of all Americans flush the toilet while they're still sitting 
  on it. (Who studied this and why?)
* You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day than in any other 
  weather.
* An average person laughs about 15 times a day.
* Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently 
  eaten bananas.
* Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.
* The average person is about a quarter of an inch taller at night.
* A sneeze zooms out of your mouth at over 600 m.p.h.
* The condom - made originally of linen - was invented in the early 1500's.
* The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 
  B.C.
* A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her 
  coffee.
* The Neanderthal's brain was bigger than yours is.
* Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
* The average bank teller loses about $250 every year.
* In 1980, there was only one country in the world with no telephones - Bhutan.
* Every person has a unique tongue print.
* Your right lung takes in more air than your left one does.
* Women's hearts beat faster than men's.
* Pollsters say that 40 percent of dog and cat owners carry pictures of the 
  pets in their wallets.
* Bubble gum contains rubber.
* You can only smell 1/20th as well as a dog.
* Only 55 percent of all Americans know that the sun is a star.
* The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in Jello.
* Even if you cut off a cockroach's head, it can live for several weeks.
* Most American car horns honk in the key of F.
* The world population of chickens is about equal to the number of people.
* Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his 
  head.
* In 75% of American households, women manage the money and pay the bills.
* A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, 
  Indiana.
* About 70 percent of Americans who go to college do it just to make more money.
* It's against the law to catch fish with your bare hands in Kansas.
* Some toothpaste's contain antifreeze.
* Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.
* Millie the White House dog earned more than 4 times as much as President Bush 
  in 1991 and, rightfully so.
* Bird droppings are the chief export of Nauru, an island nation in the Western 
  Pacific.
* There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones.
* Most lipstick contains fish scales.
* Lee Harvey Oswald's cadaver tag sold at an auction for $6,600 in 1992
* Mosquitoes have teeth.
* Spotted skunks do handstands before they spray.
* Hypnotism is banned by public schools in San Diego.
* The three best-known western names in China: Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon, and 
  Elvis Presley.
* When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.
* Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.
* 27 percent of U.S. male college students believe life is "a meaningless 
  existential hell."
* In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients 
  would die.
* Aztec emperor Montezuma had a nephew, Cuitlahac, whose name meant "plenty of 
  excrement."
* Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark. (Hence, the light bulb?)
* "Kemo Sabe" means "soggy shrub" in Navajo.
* Stewardesses and reverberated are the two longest words (12 letters each) 
  that can be typed using only the left hand. 
* Alaska could hold the 21 smallest States 
* Before Prohibition, Shlitz Brewery owned more property in Chicago than anyone 
  else, except The Catholic Church. 
* If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top 
  and sinking to the bottom. 
* Kermit the Frog is left-handed. 
* Pamela Anderson Lee is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on 
  the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence. 
* Non-dairy creamer is flammable. 
* The car in the foreground on the back of a $10 bill is a 1925 Hupmobile. 
* Dr. Seuss and Kurt Vonnegut went to college together.  They were even in the 
  same fraternity, where Seuss decorated the fraternity house walls with 20 
  drawings of his characters. 
* If you can see a rainbow you must have your back to the sun.  If you don't, 
  you can't see it. 
* The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when 
  the engines were pulled by horses.  The horses were stabled on the ground 
  floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases. 
* The first song played on Armed Forces Radio during operation Desert Shield 
  was "Rock the Casbah" by the Clash. 
* It's rumored that sucking on a copper penny will cause a breath-a-lyzer to 
  read 0. 
* 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. 
* Dogs and humans are the only animals with prostates. 
* The highest scoring word in the English language game of Scrabble is 
  'Quartzy'.  This will score 164 points if played across a red triple-word 
  square with the Z on a light blue double-letter square.  It will score 162 
  points if played across two pink double-word squares with the Q and the Y on 
  those squares.  'Bezique' and 'Cazique' are next with a possible 161 points.  
  All three words score an extra 50 points for having seven letters and 
  therefore emptying the letter rack in one go. 
* The ashes of the average cremated person weigh nine pounds. 
* Assuming Rudolph was in front, there are 40,320 ways to arrange the other 
  eight reindeer. 
* The dial tone of a normal telephone is in the key of "F". 
* The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those 
  of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene. 
* In the four major US professional sports, (baseball, basketball, football, 
  and hockey), there are only seven teams whose nicknames do not end with an S:
  Basketball: The Miami Heat, The Utah Jazz, The Orlando Magic. 
  Baseball:   The Boston Red Sox, The Chicago White Sox.  
  Hockey:     The Colorado Avalanche, The Tampa Bay Lightning.  
  Football:   None. 
* Beelzebub, another name for the devil, is Hebrew for Lord of the Flies, and 
  this is where the book's title comes from. 
* 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. 
* The ship, the Queen Elizabeth 2, should always be written as QE2.  QEII is 
  the actual queen. 
* There were no squirrels on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts until 1989. 
* The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the morning to you," is, 
  "and the rest of the day to yourself." 
* The Les Nessman character on the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati wore a band-aid 
  in every episode.  Either on himself, his glasses, or his clothing. 
* A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. 
* When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home to a 
  sellout crowd, the stadium becomes the state's third largest city. 
* John Larroquette of "Night Court" and "The John Larroquette Show" was the 
  narrator of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
* Former US Senator Barry Goldwater attended the opening night ceremonies and 
  festivities at Bugsy Siegel's famous Las Vegas Casino.  They left him out of 
  the movie Bugsy.  He is pissed. 
* 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. 
* 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. 
* Ohio is listed as the 17th state in the U.S., but technically it is Number 47.  
  Until August 7, 1953, Congress forgot to vote on a resolution to admit Ohio 
  to the Union. 
* When Saigon fell, the signal for all Americans to evacuate was Bing Crosby's 
  "White Christmas" being played on the radio. 
* The pet ferret (Mustela putorias furo) was domesticated more than 500 years 
  before the house cat. 
* The dome on Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, conceals a billiards room.  
  In Jefferson's day, billiards were illegal in Virginia. 
* The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic Church.  When 20 of 
  the church's most important convene in deciding if someone should be sainted, 
  a devil's advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view.