Amusing Irrelevant Facts
submitted by J.I. of Long
Branch, NJ
- Einstein couldn't speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he
might be retarded.
- You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day than in any other
weather.
- Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently
eaten bananas.
- Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.
- Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
- Your right lung takes in more air than your left one does.
- Bubble gum contains rubber.
- The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in Jell-O.
- Even if you cut off a cockroach's head, it can live for several weeks.
- Most lipstick contains fish scales.
- Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark -- hence, the light bulb.
- "Kemo Sabe" means "soggy shrub" in Navajo.
- Coca-Cola was originally green.
- Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury
- Amount American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each
salad served first class: $40,000
- City with the most Rolls Royces per capita: Hong Kong
- State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
- 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: 30%
- Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of 11: $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%
- The average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
- 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.
- It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
- 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 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.
- 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; the horse has all
four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
- 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.
- An ostrich's eye is bigger that its brain.
- The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 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 cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only six inches for each gallon of
oil it burns.
- The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
- 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-star Game.
- The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
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