66 Interesting facts

By arjunvkp

1. 5% of Canadians don't know the first 7 words of the Canadian anthem, but
know the first 9 of the American anthem.
2. 7% of Americans don't know the first 9 words of the American anthem, but
know the first 7 of the Canadian anthem.
3. 99% of the solar systems' mass is concentrated in the sun.
4. A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.
5. A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat
evaporates before a person realizes it's there.
6. A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South
Bend, Indiana.
7. A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
8. 101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy) are the only two Disney cartoon
features with both parents that are present and don't die throughout the
movie.
9. A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her
coffee.
10. According to a British law passed in 1845, attempting to commit suicide
was a capital offense. Offenders could be hanged for trying.
11. Armoured knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode
past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.
12. Aztec emperor Montezuma had a nephew, Cuitlahac, whose name meant
"plenty of excrement."
13. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
14. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear
pants.
15. 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."
16. Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
17. Goethe couldn't stand the sound of barking dogs and could only write if he
had an apple rotting in the drawer of his desk.
18. 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.
19. If you bring a raccoon's head to the Henniker, New Hampshire town hall,
you are entitled to receive $10 from the town.
20. 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.
21. If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more
like 4,950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.
22. In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when
patients would die.
23. In 1984, a Canadian farmer began renting ad space on his cows.
24. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
25. In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons.
26. It's against the law to catch fish with your bare hands in Kansas.
27. Kotex was first manufactured as bandages, during WWI.
28. 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 original
size: "L.A."
29. Money isn't made out of paper; it's made out of cotton.
30. More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.
31. Mosquitoes have teeth.
32. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
33. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
34. On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament Building
is an American flag.
35. One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.
36. Only 55% of all Americans know that the sun is a star.
37. Over 1000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.
38. Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson."
39. 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.
40. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
41. 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.
42. The Earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
43. 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.
44. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a
chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
45. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. No one in Greece has
memorized all 158 verses.
46. 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.
47. 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.
48. 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.
49. The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."
50. 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 outside they would crack and break
off... thus the saying.
51. The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in
Jell-O.
52. The three best-known western names in China: Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon,
and Elvis Presley.
53. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II
killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
54. The worlds' oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old.
55. There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones.
56. Thomas Edison, light bulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
57. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
58. To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs -
- it will let you go instantly.
59. When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually
pass out from sheer terror.
60. When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.
61. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
62. You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day than in any other
weather.
63. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks
otherwise it will digest itself.
64. A cow produces 200 times more gas a day than a person.
65. Millie the White House dog earned more than 4 times as much as President
Bush in 1991.
66. The moon is moving away at a tiny, although measurable distance from the
earth every year. Do the math and you will clearly see that 85 million years
ago it was orbiting the earth at a distance of about 35 feet from the earth's
surface. This would explain the death of the dinosaurs; the tallest ones,
anyway.