Useless Facts
I'm not really too sure of how accurate these are, but they're fun to read anyway!
The longest word in the English language is 1909 letters long and it refers to a distinct part of DNA.
"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
Did you know you share your birthday with at least 9 other million people in the world.
The longest town name in the world has 167 letters.
Vatican City is the smallest country in the world, with a population of 1000 and a size 108.7 acres.
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.
China has more English speakers than the United States.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.
A snail can sleep for 3 years.
The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
TYPEWRITER, is one of the longest words that can be made using the letters only one row of the keyboard.
The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
No president of the United States was an only child.
The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the english language.
Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
If you keep a Goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white.
Marilyn Monroe had six toes.
Shakespeare invented the word "assassination" and "bump."
Stewardesses is one of the longest words typed with only the left hand.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
Elvis had a twin brother named Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis' middle name was spelled Aron; in honor of his brother.
A polar bear's skin is black. Its fur is not white, but actually clear.
The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar an England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.
A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair.
A cockroach can live nine days without its head before it starves to death.
The average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime at night.
The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs in it.
Elephants can't jump. Every other mammal can.
Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California.
In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.
Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.
Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.
It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
In Cleveland, Ohio, it's illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.
The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver".
No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl.
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.
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
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.
The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
Starfish don't have brains.
Physicist Murray Gell-Mann named the sub-atomic particles known as quarks for a random line in James Joyce, "Three quarks for Muster Mark!"
The allele for six fingers and toes is dominant in humans.
Velcro was invented by a Swiss man who was inspired by the way burrs attached to clothing.
Cranberry Jello is the only jello flavor that comes from real fruit, not artificial flavoring.
There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
A donkey will sink in quicksand but a mule won't.
The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."
S.O.S. didn't originally stand for "Save Our Ship" or "Save Our Souls" -- It was just chosen by an 1908 international conference on Morse Code because the letters S and O were easy to remember and just about anyone could key it and read it, S = dot dot do
Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been over mixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.
M&M's were developed so that soldiers could eat candy without getting their fingers sticky.
Moisture, not air, causes superglue to dry.
Cyano-acrylate glues (Super glues) were invented by accident. The researcher was trying to make optical coating materials, and would test their properties by putting them between two prisms and shining light through them. When he tried the cyano-acrylate,
Ever think you're hearing something in a song, but they're really singing something else? The word for mis-heard lyrics is mondegreen, and it comes from a folk song in the '50's. The singer was actually singing "They slew the Earl of Morray and laid him o
The Slinky was invented by an airplane mechanic; he was playing with engine parts and realized the possible secondary use of one of the springs.
The language Malayalam, spoken in parts of India, is the only language whose name is a palindrome.
The chemical formula for Rubidium Bromide is RbBr. It is the only chemical formula known to be a palindrome.
Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.
Montana mountain goats will butt heads so hard their hooves fall off.
The hundred billionth crayon made by Crayola was Periwinkle Blue.
Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one painting while he was alive, Red Vineyard at Arles.
The little hole in the sink that lets the water drain out, instead of flowing over the side, is called a "porcelator."
The biggest bell is the "Tsar Kolokol," cast in the Kremlin in 1733. It weighs 216 tons, but it is cracked and has never been rung.
There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
The Titanic had four smoke stacks. Only three worked, but it is good luck to have four so they built one for show.
The letter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements.
The cells which make up the antlers of a moose are the fastest growing animal cells in nature.
Jackals have one more pair of chromosomes than dogs or wolves.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.
A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average.
The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.
The billionth digit of pi is 9.
Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the deaths of their cats.
Australia is the richest source of mineral sands in the world.
A bowling pin need only tilt 7.5 degrees in order to fall down.
142857 is a cyclic number, the numbers of which always appear in the same order but rotated around when multiplied by any number from 1 to 6. 142857 * 2 = 285714; 142857 * 3 = 428571; 142857 * 4 = 571428; 142857 * 5 = 714285; 142857 * 6 = 857142
Theodore Roosevelt was the first American President to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He won for his arbitration of treaty discussions at the end of the Russo-Japanese War.
Olympus Mons on Mars is the largest volcano in our solar system.
Look at the number four on a clock face that uses Roman numerals. If the clock is made correctly then the Roman numeral four is wrong. The standard and correct way to write the Roman numeral four is "IV," but the traditional way to show it on a clock face
"Rhythms" and "syzygy" are the longest English words without vowels.
Giraffes have no vocal chords.
The lifespan of a tastebud is ten days.
When opossums are playing opossum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan.
The record for most snowfall in a day, 78 inches, was made on February 7, 1916 in Alaska.
Rhinos are in the same family as horses, and are thought to have inspired the myth of the unicorn.
The name of the asteroid that was believed to have killed the dinosaurs was named Chixalub. (Pronounced Sheesh-uh-loob)
It takes about forty minutes to hard boil an ostrich egg.
There are 2,598,960 five-card hands possible in a 52-card deck of cards.
Pecans are the only food that astronauts do not have to treat and dehydrate when in space.
If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.
National Pi Day is March 14, at 1:59. (3/14 1:59)
Kermit the Frog is left handed.
The quartz crystal in your wristwatch vibrates 32,768 times a second.
Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61%.
A lion's roar can be heard from five miles away.
The cheetah is the only cat in the world that can't retract it's claws.
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 average sixty minute audio cassette tape has 562.5 feet of tape in it.
A group of geese on the ground is gaggle, a group of geese in the air is skein.
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its heads enables it to see all four feet at all times.
Libra, the Scales, is the only inanimate symbol in the zodiac.
The word "robot" was created by Karel Capek. It came from Czech/Slovak "robotovat," which means to work very hard.
The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.
There are only three types of snakes on the island of Tasmania and all are deadly poisonous.
Roosters can't crow if they can't fully extend their necks.
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
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.
The only 15 letter word in the english language that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
"Corduroy" comes from the French, "cord du roi" or "cloth of the king."
The permanent teeth that erupt to replace their primary predecessors (baby teeth) are called succedaneous teeth.
The name of the Vulcan's heaven is Sha Ka Ree, this is a play on the name Sean Connery who was considered for the part of Sybok, Spock's half-brother.
Spock's blood type was T-Negative.
James Doohan, who played Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott on Star Trek, is missing the entire middle finger of his right hand.
Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
October 10 is National Metric Day.
Oak trees do not have acorns until they are fifty years old or older.
There are certain frogs that can survive the experience of being frozen. These frogs make special proteins which prevent the formation of ice (or at least keep the crystals from becoming very large), so that they actually never freeze even though their bo
The word 'pound' is abbreviated 'lb.' after the constellation 'libra' because it means 'pound' in Latin, and also 'scales'.
The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.
Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
Emus have double-plumed feathers, and they lay emerald/forest green eggs.
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 United States government keeps its supply of silver at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
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.
Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
The term "the whole 9 yards" came not from football but from W.W.II fighter pilots in the 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 pi
Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired".
If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has one or both front legs 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.
In the 1940's 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.
A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
Polar bears are left-handed.
The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
Did you know that you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider?
Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.
Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burned down but only 6 people were injured.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
The first Ford cars had Dodge engines.
The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
Montpelier, Vermont is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonald's.
Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.
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.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts) is one of the few places in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead".
When a coffee seed is planted, it takes five years to yield consumable fruit.
The common goldfish is the only known animal that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light.
Tennessee and Missouri are bordered by more states than any other. Tennessee is bordered by eight states Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. Missouri is bordered by Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Ar
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eyes."
If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat it measures 87 feet long.
There are six words in the English language with the letter combination "uu." Muumuu, vacuum, continuum, duumvirate, duumvir and residuum.
Camel's milk does not curdle.
A person from the country of Nauru is called a Nauruan; this is the only palindromic nationality.
No new animals have been domesticated in the last 4000 years.
Iowa has more independent telephone companies than any other state.
Hamsters love to eat crickets.
The Greek version of the Old Testament is called the Septuagent.
All three major 1996 Presidential candidates Clinton, Dole, and Perot are left-handed.
Sheriff came from Shire Reeve. During early years of feudal rule in England, each shire had a reeve who was the law for that shire. When the term was brought to the United States it was shortened to Sheriff.
An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.
The little lump of flesh just forward of your ear canal, right next to your temple, is called a tragus.
Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.
Goat and octopus eyes have rectangular pupils.
Other than humans, black lemurs are the only primates that may have blue eyes.
Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have participated in every Games.
There were no squirrels on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts until 1989.
It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to be one pound.
The ridges on the sides of coins are called reeding or milling.
A quarter has 119 grooves around the edge.
A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
At latitude 60 degrees south you can sail all the way around the world.
Mice, whales, elephants, giraffes and humans all have seven neck vertebra.
The hyoid bone, in your throat, is the only bone in the body not attached to another bone.
Sunbeams that shine down through the clouds are called crepuscular rays.
The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the morning to you," is "and the rest of the day to yourself."
All porcupines float in water.
A-1 Steak Sauce contains both orange peel and raisins.
The Pentagon in Washington, D. C. has five sides, five stories, and five acres in the middle.
The Chinese ideogram for 'trouble' depicts two women living under one roof'.
In Disney's "Fantasia", the Sorcerer's name is "Yensid" (Disney backwards).
The naval rank of "Admiral" is derived from the Arabic phrase "amir al bahr," which means "lord of the sea".
The city of Mt. Vernon, Washington grows more tulips than the entire country of Holland.
The southern most city in the United States is Na'alehu, Hawaii.
Alaska was the only part of the United States actually invaded by the Japanese during WWII. The territory was the island of Adak in the Aleutian Chain.
Michigan was the first state to plow its roads and the first to adopt a yellow dividing line.
Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".
The longest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 119.
The shortest verse in the Bible is "Jesus wept."
Zaire is the world leader in cobalt mining, producing two-thirds of the world's cobalt supply.
A poem written to celebrate a wedding is called an epithalamium.
The only person ever to decline a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was Sinclair Lewis for his book Arrowsmith.
The Statue of Liberty's tablet is two feet thick.
There are almost twice as many people in Rhode Island than there are in Alaska.
There are coffee flavored PEZ.
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.
The average ear of corn has eight-hundred kernels arranged in sixteen rows.
Jelly Belly jelly beans were the first jelly beans in outer space when they went up with astronauts in the June 21, 1983 voyage of the space shuttle Challenger (the same voyage as the first American woman in space, Sally Ride).
Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.
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.
In the Wizard of Oz Dorothy's last name is Gale. It is shown on the mail box.
The letter W is the only letter in the english alphabet that doesn't have one syllable, it has three.
Only two people, John Hancock and Charles Thomson signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until five years later.
Coca-Cola was originally green.
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
Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.
Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
Number of different familial relationships for which Hallmark makes cards:105
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs, because a cow's knees can't bend properly to walk back down.
They have square watermelons in Japan...they stack better.
The parachute was invented by da Vinci in 1515.
Mark Twain didn't graduate from elementary school.
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
Antarctica is the only continent without reptiles or snakes.
Pigs are the only animal besides humans that can get sunburn.
1/3 of all ice cream sold is vanilla.
Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by looking at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling.
No word in the English language fully rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fish was named Livingston.
The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.
Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
Dr. Seuss pronounced "Seuss" such that it rhymed with "rejoice."
The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life"
The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown differently during times of peace or war. A portion of the flag is blue, while the other is red. The blue portion is flown on top in time of peace and the red portion is flown in war time
It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up it's stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of it's mouth. Then the frog uses it's forearms to dig out all of the stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach bac
Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.
The "huddle" in football was formed due to a deaf football player who used sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.
If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning before you will die of oxygen deprivation.
Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike.
The term, "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 is to poke someone's eye out.
Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
Sir Isaac Newton was an ordained priest in the Church of England.
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth.
There are nearly 3000 different spoken languages in the world. Of these only 150 have a written format.
The number of American-Irish outnumber the Irish in Ireland by about 12 to 1.
In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.
27% of U.S. college students believe life is "a meaningless existential hell."
Captain Kangaroo won five Emmy awards.
There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones.
It's against the law to catch fish with your bare hands in Kansas.
A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.
When Bugs Bunny first appeared in 1935, he was called Happy Rabbit.
Your right lung takes in more air than your left one does.
The average bank teller loses about $250 every year.
The last known dodo bird died in 1681.
The most money ever paid for a cow in an auction was $1.3 million.
Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.
Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently eaten bananas.
An average person laughs about 15 times a day.
In the early '80s, a toad was discovered that meows instead of croaking.
In 1980, the Yellow Pages accidentally listed a Texas funeral home under frozen foods.
You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day than in any other weather.
Einstein couldn't speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he might have been retarded.
In 1987, a 1,400-year-old lump of still-edible cheese was unearthed in Ireland.
The oldest known goldfish lived to 41 years of age. Its name was Fred.
Most house flies buzz the note F above middle C, the same note American car horns honk.
Aluminum is the most abundant metallic element in the Earth's crust.
The world's oldest wind instrument is the flute.
The electric chair was invented by Dr. Alphonse Rockwell and was first used on William Kemmler on August 6, 1890.
In 1924 William Hollerith's Tabulating Machine Company changed it's name to International Business Machine (IBM).
The U.S. post office first instituted zip codes on July 1, 1963.
Pi was first calculated by Archimedes around 250 B.C.
UNESCO defines a book as a non-periodical literary publication containing 49 or more pages.
Three-hundred-million cells die in the human body every minute.
Bamboo is the world's fastest growing plant (up to 12 inches a day). Tying a person over cut off bamboo chutes was once a popular form of torture.
Rhazes was a 10th century physician who first recommended "fillings" as a treatment for cavities.
Poppy seeds, a common ingredient in bagels and other baked goods can cause positive drug tests.
A typical American eats 28 pigs in his/her lifetime.
In 1982 scientists concluded the the Biblical phenomenon known as the Star of Bethlehem was a super nova.
According to the American Association of College Stores the top-selling campus snack is Oreo cookies.
Peaches were the first fruit eaten on the moon.
The Earth weighs 5,500 billion tons.
In 1965 NASA bestowed upon the world the lovely powdered beverage of Tang.
The native country of the ginkgo, the oldest surviving species of tree, is China.
Honey has been used as an antiseptic treatment for cuts and burns.
Scooby-Doo was the longest-running cartoon series in network history.
X-1 is the name of the first plane to break the sound barrier.
The two most popular school colors are blue and white.
Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.
There is a difference between being an agnostic and being an atheist. Agnostics are not sure if God exists. Atheists believe that God does not exist.
Once your hair emerges from your scalp it is dead.
Solopcism is the belief that only your own consciousness can be proved to be real.
Sugar-free PEZ causes cancer.
The plastic things on the ends of shoelaces are called aglets.
Ginger has been clinically demonstrated to work twice as well as dramamine for fighting motion sickness, with no side effects.
The "myelin sheaths" of nerve fibers actually carry the information that controls healing, as DC currents in the range of a half nano-ampere, operating independently of the nerve cells. The current is carried via semi-conducting cell membranes.
Acupuncture was first used as a medical treatment in 2700 B.C. by Chinese emperor Shen-Nung.
In 1990 the average American dairy cow gave 1,703 gallons of milk.
It costs more to buy a new car today in the United States than it cost Christopher Columbus to equip and undertake three voyages to and from the New World.
One-fourth of the world's population lives on less than $200 a year.
The continents names all end with the same letter with which they start.
According to tests made at the Institute for the Study of Animal Problems in Washington, D.C., dogs and cats, like people, are either right-handed or left-handed --- that is, they favor either their right or left paws.
A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can.
Blue whales weigh as much as 30 elephants and are as long as 3 Greyhound buses.
Crocodiles and alligators are surprisingly fast on land. Although they are rapid, they are not agile; so if you ever find yourself chased by one, run in a zigzag line. You'll lose him or her every time.
Birds do not sleep in their nests. They may occasionally nap in them, but they actually sleep in other places.
Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of the blue whale.
Butterflies taste with their hind feet.
Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue twice as much as to any other color.
If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
Bees have 5 eyes. There are 3 small eyes on the top of a bee's head and 2 larger ones in front.
In the United States, a pound of potato chips cost two hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.
Caesar salad has nothing to do with any of the Caesar. It was first concocted in a bar in Tijuana, Mexico, in the 1920's.
Celery has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
On a Canadian two-dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament Building is an American flag.
All of the clocks in Pulp Fiction are stuck on 4:20.
"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
The word 'byte' is a contraction of 'by eight.'
The word 'pixel' is a contraction of either 'picture cell' or 'picture element'.
On the new hundred-dollar bill the time on the clock tower of Independence Hall is 4:10.
All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
If you add up the numbers 1-100 consecutively (1+2+3+4+5 etc) the total is 5050
The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.
The maximum weight for a golf ball is 1.62 Oz.
The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
Duddley DoRight's Horse's name was "Horse."
Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain was born on a day in 1835 when Haley's Comet came into view. When He died in 1910, Haley's Comet came into view again.
Of the six men who made up the Three Stooges, three of them were real brothers (Moe, Curly and Shemp.)
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.
The volume of the Earth's moon is the same as the volume of the Pacific Ocean.
On the cartoon show 'The Jetsons', Jane is 33 years old and her daughter Judy is 15.
In Mel Brooks' 'Silent Movie,' mime Marcel Marceau is the only person who has a speaking role.
The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
The state with the longest coastline in the US is Michigan.
Spot, Data's cat on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was played by six different cats.
The number of the trash compactor in Star Wars is 3263827.
"Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."
Mr. Snuffleupagas' first name was Alyoisus.
The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatan- gihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokai- whenuakitanatahu, a New Zealand hill.
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 size, "L.A."
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
After the Civil War the U.S. sued Great Britain for damages that were caused by them building ships for the Confederacy. We originally asked for $1 billion but settled on $25 Million.
There are 22 stars surrounding the mountain on the Paramount Pictures logo.
In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
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."
Wilma Flintstone's maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble's Maiden name was Betty Jean Mcbricker.
Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave.
The Ramses brand condom is named after the great phaoroh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.
A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
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.
Bingo is the name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box.
Lake Nicaragua boasts the only fresh-water sharks in the entire world.
There are four cars and ten lightposts on the back of a ten-dollar bill.
What five digit number, when multiplied by the number 4, is the same number with the digits in reverse order? 21978; 21978 x 4 = 87912.
It was illegal to sell ET dolls in France because there is a law against selling dolls without human faces.
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
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.
The Skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island is Jonas Grumby. It was mentioned once in the first episode on their radios newscast about the wreck.
The Professor's real name was Roy Hinkley, Mary Ann's last name was Summers and Mrs. Howell's maiden name was Wentworth.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
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, hence "Oz."
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 ones used in the Civil War. The cannonballs were stacked in a pyramid formation, called a brass monkey. When it got extremely cold ou
Pocahontas appeared on the back of the $20 bill in 1875.
When a female horse and male donkey mate, the offspring is called a mule, but when a male horse and female donkey mate, the offspring is called a hinny.
The Los Angeles Rams were the first U.S. football team to introduce emblems on their helmets.
When a giraffe's baby is born it falls from a height of six feet, normally without being hurt.
The pitches that Babe Ruth hit for his last-ever home run and that Joe DiMaggio hit for his first-ever home run where thrown by the same man.
Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
If you feed a seagull Alka-Seltzer, its stomach will explode.
A group of unicorns is called a blessing.
Twelve or more cows are known as a "flink."
A group of frogs is called an army.
A group of rhinos is called a crash.
A group of kangaroos is called a mob.
A group of whales is called a pod.
A group of geese is called a gaggle.
A group of ravens is called a murder.
A group of officers is called a mess.
A group of larks is called an exaltation.
A group of owls is called a parliament.
Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
More than 99.9% of all the animal species that have ever lived on earth were extinct before the coming of man.
Many birds eat twice their weight a day.
A dolphin's hearing is so acute that it can pick up an underwater sound from fifteen miles away.
Armadillos have four babies at a time, always all the same sex. They are perfect quadruplets, the fertilized cell split into quarters, resulting in four identical armadillos
Armadillos get an average of 18.5 hours of sleep per day.
The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
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
Kelsey Grammar sings and plays the piano for the theme song of Fraser.
The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.
A cesium atom in an atomic clock beats 9,192,631,770 times a second.
If you divide the Great Pyramid's perimeter by two times it's height, you get pi to the fifteenth digit.
Apples, not cafeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the moring.
Groaking is to watch people eating food hoping they'll offer you some.
Dan Aykroyd's conehead from Saturday Night Live was auctioned off at $2,200.
Donald Duck's sister is called Dumbella.
Howdy-Doody had 48 freckles.
The first audio CD manufactured in the US was Bruce Springstean's 'Born in The USA.'
When you sneeze, all bodily functions stop--even you heart.
Those stars and colors you see when you close and rub your eyes are called phosphenes.
The human brain stops growing at the ages of 18.
A full-moon is nine times brighter than a half-moon.
A human has 60,000 miles of blood vessels in their body.
The Earth orbits the sun at about 18.5 miles per second.
The surface area of the Earth is 197,000,000 square miles.
It takes about 142.18 licks to reach the center of a tootsie pop.
The serial number of the first MAC ever produced was 2001.
If done perfectly, any rubix cube combination can be solved in 17 turns.
In 1946, the first TV toy commericial aired. It was for Mr. Potato head.
Mozart wrote the nusery rhyme 'twinkle, twinkle, little star' at the age of five.
There are 1,575 steps from the ground floor to the top of the Empire State building.
Australia is the only continent without an active volcano.
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. At about that height it hits maximum speed and when it hits the ground it's rib cage absorbs most of the impact.
Smartest dogs: (in order) 1) Border Collie 2) Poodle 3) Golden Retreiver.
Picasso's full name was Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso.
Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.
You are born with 300 bones but only have 206 after reaching adulthood.
The average human head weighs 10lbs.
Salt is the only rock humans can eat.
A normal raindrop falls at about 7 miles per hour.
Instead of the bald eagle, the symbol of the United States was almost a wild turkey.
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than for the US Treasury.
Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.
Only President to remain a bachelor: James Buchanon.
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.
An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it.
First novel ever written on a typewriter was Tom Sawyer.
Willard Scott was the first Ronald McDonald.
The average fingernail grows 4 times as fast as the average toenail.
Abraham Lincoln's son's life was once saved by John Wilkes Booth's brother.
Dr. Seuss coined the word "nerd" in his book If I Ran the Zoo.
The only contemporary words that end in gry are angry and hungry.
The Hundred Years War lastedfor 116 years.
Luke Skywalker's last name was changed at the last minute from Starkiller, in order to make it less violent.
A camel's backbone is just as straight as a horse's.
The dolphins that live in the Amazon River are pink.
The elephant is the only animal with four knees.
Melting an ice cube in your mouth burns about 2.3 calories.
Most raindrops are round or doughnut shaped, not "raindrop shaped".
Napoleon Bonaparte was afraid of cats.
The world's longest game of Monopoly lasted more than 660 hours.
In cooking, six drops make a dash.
Buckingham palace has over 600 rooms.
All but three of Emily Dickenson's poems were published posthumusly.
A hockey puck is one inch thick.
Despite a population of over a billion, China has only about 200 family names.
Shakespeare's most talkative character is Hamlet. None of his other characters have as many lines in a single play. (Falstaff, who appears in several plays, has more lines total).
The famous painting of "Whistler's Mother" was once bought from a pawn shop.
The most extras ever used in a movie was 300,000, for the film Gandhi in 1981.
In high school, Robin Williams was voted "Least Likely to Succeed."
Ralph Kramden made 62 dollars a week.
Only three angels are mentioned by name in the Bible: Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer.
Of all U.S. Presidents, none lived to be older than John Adams, who died at the age of 91.
All U.S. Presidents have worn glasses, some of them just didn't like to be seen with them in public.
Andrew Jackson was the only U.S. President to believe that the world is flat.
President John Quincy Adams owned a pet alligator which he kept in the East Room of the White House.
George Washington's false teeth were made of whale bone.
Gerald Ford was the only man who held both the Presidency and the Vice-Presidency but who was not elected to either post.
John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, Millard Fillmore and Chester Arthur did not make Inaugural Addresses.
Harry Truman's middle name was just 'S.' It isn't short for anything.
James Madison lived at Montpiellier (tall mountain); Thomas Jefferson lived at Monticello (little mountain.)
The little 'dent' under your nose is called the philtrum. The two vertical ridges on either side of the philtrum are called philtral ridges.
Sarsaparilla is the root that flavors root beer.
Rhode Island is the smallest state with the longest name. The official name, used on all state documents, is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella) lost at the stairway, when the prince tried to follow her.
"Bookkeeper" is the only word in the English language with three consecutive double letters.
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