[ back ]  Strange Facts:

  • The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
  • Coca-Cola was originally green.
  • A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
  • It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
  • Smartest dogs: 1) Scottish border collie; 2) Poodle; 3) Golden Retriever.
    Dumbest dog: Afghan hound.
  • Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.
  • Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.
  • Amount American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served first class: $40,000
  • City with the most Rolls Royce's per capita: Hong Kong
  • State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
  • Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%
    Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
  • Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33
  • Average number of days a West German goes without washing his underwear: 7
  • 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'd marry the same man: 50%
  • Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400 
  • Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.
  • Percentage of Americans who have visited Disneyland/Disney World: 70%
  • Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
  • Only President to win a Pulitzer: John F. Kennedy for Profiles in Courage. 
  • 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.
  • The youngest pope was 11 years old.
  • Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
  • First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
  • Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.
  • 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.
  • The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
  • The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable".
  • Hang On Snoopy is the official rock song of Ohio.
  • Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?
  • 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 airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)
  • When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
  • 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.
  • Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
  • 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
  • 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.
  • Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them would burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."
  • Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
  • The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the 50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
  • Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
  • The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
  • An ostrich's eye is bigger that it's brain.
  • The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
  • 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.
  • In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
  • The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
  • 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.
  • The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
  • Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
  • The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosey is a rhyme about the plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores ("Ring around the rosey..."), 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 poseys..."), 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!")
  • 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 first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver".
  • The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League all-stars Game.
  • Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
  • The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
  • "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

 received from Matthias Miller / SciFi


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