This page has been wholly plagarized from another site that is no longer accessible.
The Economics Nobel Prize is sort of a quasi-Nobel. The endowment for the prize money was created much later than the original grant money from Alfred Nobel for the other "real" prizes.
The world's oldest active parliamentary body is the Icelandic Althing which met first before the year 1000.
There are 556 officially recognized native American tribes.
The last time American Green cards were actually green was 1964.
The pelican was adopted as a Christian symbol early on because mother pelicans would pierce their own breasts to feed their brood with blood -- seen as a sacrifice not dissimilar to that of Jesus' by the Church leaders.
The targets in both skeet and trap shooting, commonly called clay pigeons, are actually made from tar and pitch.
Delaware is the only state with part of its border defined by the arc of a compass. (Except that other state next to Delaware with the same border.)
The oldest weapon still in use in the American military arsenal is the Mameluke hilt sword carried by officers in the U.S. Marine Corps. The sword dates back to the Barbary Pirate Wars of 1801-1807. The sword was given to Lt. Presly O'Banen by the ruler of Tripoli for the aid rendered by the Marines in the Mediteranian Fleet.
The second is defined as being 9,192,631,770 times the time it takes for a cesium-133 atom to swap hyperfine levels in its ground state.
The Vatican (Papal States) was the only political entity to grant recognition to the Confederate States of America during the Civil War (1861-1865).
The Greek national anthem has 158 verses.
There are 2,598,960 possible hands in a five-card poker game.
The duck most often depicted on the "Duck Stamp" is the mallard, at six times.
The blond woman in the Tic Tac yoga commercials is Mark Harmon's sister.
America's only statue of Charles Dickens graces Clark Park in Philadelphia, just off the University of Pennsylvania campus.
No matter where you are in Australia you are never more than 1000 kilometers from the ocean.
All owls lay white eggs.
It takes a week to make a jelly bean.
NASA scientists are still receiving data from Voyager even though the signal it is emitting has less energy than that emitted by a blowdrier.
You can't tickle yourself.
People from Manchester, England are called Mancunians.
White cockatoos are the only parrots that can be sexed by eye color; females have a visible pupil while males have black irises.
The University of Texas system is the third-largest landowner in the United States.
Marvin Gardens in the Monopoly game is not spelled the same as the Marven Gardens outside of Atlantic City, NJ, on which the board game is based.
The Stasi collected the "smells" of their enemies so that their dogs could find them.
While drug-sniffing dogs are trained to bark like crazy, go "aggressive" at the first whiff of the right powder... Bomb-sniffing dogs are trained to go "passive" lest they set off a motion sensor or a noise sensor or any number of other things that might go kablooie.
While almost everyone knows that Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon, few know that Gene Cernan was the last man on the moon.
Lyndon Johnson's First Family all had initials LBJ. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, Linda Bird Johnson and Lucy Baines Johnson. And his dog, Little Beagle Johnson.
There are 22 stars in the Paramount movie studio logo.
Jane Wyman (Reagan) was born Sarah Jane Fulks. Nancy Davis (Reagan) was born Anne Frances Robbins.
The Muller-Lyer ( <-> >-< : Which line is longer?) illusion dosen't work on Zulus.
You can't trademark surnames.
The Black Cauldron is the only PG-rated Disney animated feature.
A humpback whale's milk is 54 percent fat.
Lucy Stone of Massachusetts is thought to be the first American woman to retain her maiden name when she married. She was a sister-in-law of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to earn an M.D.
When wearing a Kimono Japanese women wear socks called "Tabi". The big toe of the sock is separated from the rest of the toes, like a thumb from a mitten.
If you were to toss the new 10p coin (Pounds Sterling), 10000 times, the average odds of it being heads/tails would not be 50/50. It would be closer to 45/55 in favour of tails because the new picture of the Queen's head is slightly larger than it used to be (she has gone a bit saggy) and so it makes the heads side heavier than the tails side, thus it has more chance of landing on tails.
The names of the two stone lions in front of the New York Public Library are Patience and Fortitude. They were named by then-mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
Lazy Susans are named after Thomas Edison's daughter. He invented it to impress a gathering of industrialists and inventors.
For a short time in 1967, the American Typers Association made a new punctuation mark that was a combination of the question mark and an exclamation point called an interrobang. It was rarely used and hasn't been seen since.
Tennessee Williams' real name was Thomas Lanier Williams.
Anise is the scent on the artificial rabbit that is used in greyhound races.
Petey, the beloved pit bull of "Our Gang" fame is buried at historic Clara Glen pet cemetery in Linwood, New Jersey.
The first European to see New Zealand was Abel Tasman in 1642; the first to set foot on the island was James Cook in 1769. New Zealand was named after Abel Tasman's home district, Zealand, in the Netherlands.
Greater Auckland is the second largest city in the world by area, the first being greater Los Angeles.
New Zealand has the highest mountain in all of Oceania: Mt. Cook.
New Zealand was the first country to give woman the vote, in 1890.
Tide has 70 percent of the market share for detergent.
Only one satellite has been ever been destroyed by a meteor -- the European Space Agency's Olympus in 1993.
The snapping turtle eats carion and is used by police to find dead bodies in lakes, ponds and swamps.
When Portland, Oregon changed the name of Union Avenue to Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. they lost the intersection of Union and Division Street.
The Western-most point in continental Europe is at Cabo de Rocha, Portugal.
Yellowstone was the first National Park (1872) but the first area to beset aside under federal protection was Hot Springs Resevation, Arkansas (1832.) It became Hot Springs National Park in 1921.
The official name of the St. Louis Gateway Arch is "The Jefferson National Expansion Monument." The Gateway Arch looks taller than it is wider, but it is exactly 630 feet by 630 feet.
The Ragdoll is the largest breed of domesticated cat in the world, with adult males averaging 22-25 pounds.
The roaring lion in the MGM logo was named Volney and lived at the Memphis Zoo.
The roaring lion in the MGM logo's hide is now on display in theMcPherson Museum located in McPherson, Kansas.
Everybody knows that St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest city in the U.S., but not everybody knows that St. Mary's, Georgia is the second oldest.
Orson Welles is buried in an olive orchard on a ranch owned by his friend, matador Antonio Ordonez in Sevilla, Spain.
The national flower of Greenland is the Willow Herb.
Britain's shortest river is the Brun which runs through Burnley in Lancashire.
Cornell University's motto -- "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study" -- is the only motto among Ivy League schools not in Latin.
The Latin name for moose is alces alces.
1961 was the most recent year that could be written both upside-down and rightside-up and appear the same. The next year that this will be possible will be 6009!
The first atomic bomb dropped on Japan fell from the Enola Gay, named after the unit commander's mother. The second dropped from a plane known as Bock's Car.
Kermit the Frog has 11 points on his collar around his neck.
The Bronx in New York City is actually named after the Bronx River. The Bronx river is named after the first settler in the Bronx, Jonas Bronk. He settled there in 1639.
Cleveland spelled backwards is "DNA level C".
In the Mario Brothers movie, the Princess' first name is Daisy, but in Mario 64, the game, her first name is Peach. Before that, it'sPrincess Toadstool.
Tabasco sauce is made by fermenting vinegar and hot peppers in a French oak barrel which has three inches of salt on top and is aged for three years until all the salt is diffused through the barrel.
Karen Carpenter's doorbell chimed the first six notes of "We've Only Just Begun."
Certain sounds in the English language are real germ spreaders, particularly the sounds of f, p, t, d, and s.
Harvard uses "Yale" brand locks on their buildings. Yale uses "Best" brand.
Contrary to popular British folklore, cuckoo clocks do not come from Switzerland but from the Black Forest in Germany.
The Angel of Independence in Mexico City was built by Salvador Rivas Mercado. The face of the angel is a portrait of his daughter.
There are more Samoans in Los Angeles than on American Samoa.
Soccer legend Pele's real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento.
If you paint the flag of Canada, you must use these colors: "The printing ink colour is FIP red: General Printing Ink, No. 0-712; Inmont Canada Ltd., No. 4T51577; Monarch Inks, No. 62539/0; or Sinclair and Valentine, No. RL163929/0. The painting colours are FIP red No. 509-211 and white: 513-201."
Everyone is familiar with the RCA logo with Nipper the dog listening to the RCA grammaphone. But the original picture had both the dog and the grammaphone sitting on his dead masters casket. The idea being that the closest thing to his dead master's voice was the RCA grammaphone. The ad was eventually considered too morbid and they removed the casket.
A "jiffy" is a unit of time: 3.3357 times 10 raised to the -11 (3.3357x10^-11) seconds. So named for the length of time it takes light to travel a cm in a vacuum.
During the Manhattan Project in the early '40s, the time it took for the imploding shell of plutonium to reach the center of the sphere was measured in "shakes of a lamb's tail". One shake = 1x10^-8 sec. It took about three shakes of a lambs tail to get the uranium to a critical mass and initiate spontaneous fission.
The Spanish abbreviation for UFO is OVNIS: "objeto volador noidentificado."
Iolani Palace in Hawaii is the only place built for a monarchy currently on U.S. soil.
Maine has no poisonous snakes.
Hawaii has only two snakes. One is a sea snake rarely seen in Hawaii waters. The other is a blind snake that lives like an earthworm.
The abbreviation A.D. (Anno Domini, "Year of Our Lord") should be properly placed in front of the year -- thus, you get 417 BC but AD 2000.
The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight.
Ice Cube's real name is O'Shea Jackson.
The smallest fish in the world is the Trimattum Nanus of the Chagos Archipelago. It measures 0.33 inches. It broke the record of the so- called "sinarapan" of Buhi, Camarines Sur, Philippines.
According to the London for Visitors website, the area known as Soho used to be part of King Henry VIII's hunting grounds. When a hunter spied a deer, he yelled "Tally-Ho!", but when he found a smaller prey, the cry became "So-Ho!" As the area was developed, the name stuck.
There is now an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which has a winter population of 200.
The flag of the U.K. is properly known as the Union Flag. It is only called the Union Jack when it is flown from the jack mast of a ship.
The popular Fiesta Ware line of dishes sold well in the 1930s, except for the orange-colored sets. The reason? The paint used on the orange Fiesta Ware was known to be radioactive.
A large amount of boulders that have fallen off a cliff is known as talus, whereas they would be known as moraine had they been left there by a glacier.
The Sitka spruce is Britain's most commonly planted tree.
The Philip Morris Tobacco Company's crest has on it Caesar's famous saying "Veni, Vidi, Vici."
There are more 100 dollar bills in Russia currently than there are in the United States.
The extras in the the battle scenes in the movie Braveheart were reserves in the Irish army.
The famous Citgo sign near Fenway Park in Boston is maintained not by Citgo, but by the Boston Historical Society.
Roger Ebert won the 1959 Illinois High School Association State Speech competition in Radio.
Will Clark hit a homerun in his first at-bat in college, the Olympics, and the Major Leagues.
The original Guiness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland has a six thousand year lease.
South Africa used to have two official languages. Now it has eleven.
On March 29, 1848, Niagara Falls stopped flowing for 30 hours becauseof an ice jam blocking the Niagara River.
America's largest rosary is located at the Fatima Shrine in Holliston, Massachusetts.
The first product to have a UPC bar code on its packaging was Wrigley's gum.
In Italy, it is illegal to make coffins out of anything except nutshells or wood.
Pia Zadora's first movie role was as a young child, as one of the protagonists in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
A railroad tanker car carrying propane traveled over 3,000 feet when it exploded during a train wreck in Illinois, sheering off a steel tower in its path. It's the longest flight on record for a propane explosion.
It takes eighteen minutes to cool hot chocolate into a Hershey's Kiss.
Of the twenty brightest stars in the sky, Capella is the furthest north.
Sagittarius is the furthest south of the zodiacal constellations.
Joe Friday, from Dragnet (later known as Badge 714), lived in Eagle Rock, California.
The football huddle originated at Gallaudet University -- the world's only accredited four-year liberal arts college for the deaf -- in the 19th century when the football team found that opposing teams were reading their signed messages and intercepting plays.
The shortest British monarch was Charles I, who was 4'9" and that was before he lost his head!
Mickey Mouse's ears are always turned to the front, no matter which direction his head is pointing.
The South American Electric Eel can produce almost 1 Amp of current
The smallest unit of time is the yoctosecond.
Ferrets sleep for about 20 hours a day.
The "you are here" arrow on maps is called an ideo locator.
The opening to the cave in which a bear hibernates is always on the north slope. Unless the bear lives in the southern hemisphere.
Of all the trains in the New York subway system, only one neverenters the island of Manhattan. It's the "G" train, theBrooklyn-Queens crosstown local.
The first National Park, Yellowstone, was proclaimed a national park in 1872. However, there was no National Park Serviceuntil 1916. Until then, the parks were administered by the U.S. Army. When the Park Service was formed they got their firstuniforms from the Army, hence the ranger (campaign) hats.
Since World War II, every American president to address the Canadian House of Commons in their first term of office have all been re-elected to a second term. Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton have all had the honour, while Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter, and Bush did not address the parliament.
The "J.R.R." in J.R.R.Tolkien stands for John Ronald Reuel. His son's name is Christopher.
In 1920 Ray Chapman a shortstop for theCleveland Indians, is the only player ever killed as a result of amajor league baseball game. He was hit in the temple with a pitchand died the next day.
Hong Kong has the world's largest double-decker tram fleet in the world.
Bulgaria was the only soccer team in the 1994World Cup in which all 11 players' last names ended with the letters"ov."
Of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all named after artists and/or sculptors, Donatello does not occur in the same time period as Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael.
Abdul Kassem Ismael, Grand Vizier of Persiain the tenth century, carried his library with him wherever he went.The 117,000 volumes were carried by 400 camels trained to walk inalphabetical order.
The country with the biggest percentage of female heads of household is Botswana.
In every deck of cards the King of Hearts is sticking his sword through his head. That's why he's often called the Suicide King.
In English, "four" is the only digit that has the same number of letters as its value.
Quebec and Newfoundland are the only two Canadian provinces which do not allow personalized licenseplates.
With a population of fewer than nine thousand people, Montpelier, Vermont is the smallest state capital in the U.S.
The actor who played the T-1000 in Terminator 2 (Robert Patrick) and the lead singer of Filter are brothers.
Pittsburgh and Toronto are the only two cities where all the major sports teams have the same colors: "black and gold" and "blue and white" respectively.
In the theme song from "The Flintstones", the lineafter "Let's ride with the family down the street" is "Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet."
The proceedings in the British Parliament are meant to be in private, even though they are now televised. So, if the MPs want to have a secret session, one of them points to the gallery from which the public watch, and calls "I spy strangers!", whereupon the House votes "that the strangers do withdraw."
On the London Underground, one station has a different name on two of its platforms: Bank and Monument.
Ambassadors to the United Kingdom are not called that officially, but rather Ambassadors to the Court of St. James. The Court of St. James being the palace which was the residence of the monarch before Buckingham Palace was built.
In British Monopoly sets, the most expensive property (Mayfair) is not a street, but a district of little streets near Hyde Park.
The biggest bell is the "Tsar Kolokol," cast in the Kremlin in 1733. It weighs 216 tons, but alas, it is cracked and has never been rung. The bell was being stored in a Moscow shed which caught fire. To "save" it the caretakers decided to throw water on the bell. This did not succeed -- the water hit the heated metal and a giant piece immediately cracked off, destroying the bell forever.)
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
The Ramses brand condom is named after the great phaoroh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.
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, here, ere, therein, herein.
You would have to count to one thousand to use the letter "A" in the English language to spell a whole number.
The only member of the band ZZ Top without a beard has the last name Beard.
Ants cannot chew their food, they move their jaws sidewards, like a scissor, to extract the juices from the food.
The letters H I O X in the Latin alphabet is the only ones that look the same if you turn them upside down or see them from behind.
The little hole in the sink that lets the water drain out, instead of flowing over the side, is called a "porcelator."
When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home to a sellout crowd, the stadium becomes the state's third largest city.
Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
The metal part of a lamp that surrounds the bulb and supports the shade is called a harp.
The metal part at the end of a pencil is twenty percent sulfur.
John Larroquette was the narrator of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
Meursault, the title character in Albert Camus' famous novel The Stranger, had a first name, Patrice, which was mentioned only in Camus' personal journals.
Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one painting while he was alive, Red Vineyard at Arles.
The floral emblem of Western Australia is Mangles' Kangaroo Paw; the state animal is the numbat; and the state bird is the black swan.
A pig's penis is shaped like a corkscrew.
It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
Skin is thickest is at the back -- 1/6 of an inch.
The most sensitive finger is the forefinger.
Alaska is the most northern, western and eastern state; it also has the highest latitude,the most eastern longitude and the most western longitude.
The word denim comes from 'de Nimes', or from Nimes, a place in France.
Dublin comes from the Irish Dubh Linn which means Blackpool
Scottish is the language called Gaelic, whereas Irish is actually called Gaeilge.
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".
Mr. Spock's blood type was T-Negative.
The Dutch town of Abcoude is the only reasonably sized town/city in the world whose name begins with ABC.
New Jersey has a spoon museum featuring over 5,400 spoons from every state and almost every country.
Eleven square miles of southwest Kentucky (Fulton County) is cut off from the rest of the state by the Mississippi River. If you wish to travel from this cut off section to the rest of the state or vice-versa, you must first cross a bordering state.
Point Roberts in Washington State is cut off from the rest of the state by British Columbia, Canada. If you wish to travel from Point Roberts to the rest of the state or vice versa, you must pass through Canada, including Canadian and U.S. customs.
A quarter has 119 grooves around the edge.
A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
The only city in the United States to celebrate Halloween on the October 30 instead of October 31 is Carson City, Nevada. October 31 is Nevada Day and is celebrated with a large street party.
There is actually a word for a 64th note -- a hemidemisemiquaver.
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.
No words in the English language rhyme with orange, silver or purple.
A peanut is not a nut; it is a legume.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
"Evian" spelled backvards is naive.
The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.
"Bookkeeper" and "bookkeeping" are the only words in the English language with three consecutive double letters.
Paul McCartney's mother was a midwife.
The phrase "sleep tight" originated when mattresses were set upon ropes woven through the bed frame. To remedy sagging ropes, one would use a bed key to tighten the rope.
The A&W of root beer fame stands for Allen and Wright.
A baby eel is called an elver, a baby oyster is called a spat.
The name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box is Bingo
The arteries and veins surrounding the brain stem called the "circle of Willis" looks like a stick person with a large head.
Welsh mercenary bowmen in the medieval period only wore one shoe at a time.
On a trip to the South Sea Islands, French painter Paul Gauguin stopped off briefly in Central America, where he worked as a laborer on the Panama Canal.
The gene for the Siamese coloration in animals such as cats, rats or rabbits is heat sensitive. Warmth produces a lighter color than does cold. Putting tape temporarily on Siamese rabbit's ear will make the fur on that ear lighter than on the other one.
There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet: a e i o u h k l m n p w
Charles de Gaulle's final words were, "It hurts."
The words 'sacrilegious' and 'religion' do not share the same etymological root.
"John has a long moustache" was the coded-signal used by the French Resistance in WWII to mobilize their forces once the Allies had landed on the Normandy beaches.
Gatorade was named for the University of Florida Gators where it was first developed.
There are four states where the first letter of the capital city is the same letter as the first letter of the state: Dover, Delaware; Honolulu, Hawaii; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
There are four cars and eleven lightposts on the back of a ten-dollar bill.
The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought at neighboring Breed's Hill.
Former U.S. 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.
Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.
ABBA got their name by taking the first letter from each of their first names (Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, Anni-frid.)
The first electric Christmas lights were created by a telephone company PBX installer. Back in the old days, candles were used to decorate Christmas trees. This was obviously very dangerous. Telephone employees are trained to be safety concious. This installer took the lights from an old switchboard, connected them together, strung them on the tree, and hooked them to a battery.
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.
A robin's egg is blue, but if you put it in vinegar for thirty days it turns yellow.
White-Out was invented by the mother of Mike Nesmith, formerly of the Monkees.
It was illegal to sell ET dolls in France because there is a law against selling dolls without human faces.
The hundred billionth crayon made by Crayola was Perriwinkle Blue.
Montana mountain goats will butt heads so hard their hooves fall off.
Spider Monkies like banana daquiries.
The coast line around Lake Sakawea in North Dakota is longer than the California coastline along the Pacific Ocean.
Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with Midnight Cowboy. Her entire role lasted only six minutes.
The legbones of a bat are so thin that no bat can walk.
Fossilized dinosaur droppings are called coprolites, and are actually fairly common.
School busses in the United States are Chrome Yellow and used to be Omaha Orange.
The Beatles song "Dear Prudence" was written about Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence, when she wouldn't come out and play with Mia and the Beatles at a religious retreat in India.
The tailless dinner jacket was invented in Tuxedo Park, New York. Thus it is called the "tuxedo dinner jacket" and is named after the town...not the other way around.
Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
Rhode Island is the smallest state with the longest name. The official name, used on all state documents, is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
The chemical formula for Rubidium Bromide is RbBr. It is the only chemical formula known to be a palindrome.
The numbers '172' can be found on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.
Soldiers from every country salute with their right hand.
Moisture, not air, causes superglue to dry.
Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous transatlantic flight.
Sarsaparilla is the root that flavors root beer.
A full moon always rises at sunset.
If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.
Moon was Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name. (Buzz Aldrin was the second man on the moon in 1969.)
The only two Southern state capitals not occupied by Northern troops during the American Civil War were Austin, Texas and Tallahasse, Florida.
Rabbits love licorice.
Ogdensburg, New York is the only city in the United States situated on the St. Lawrence River.
Who's that playing the piano on the "Mad About You" theme? It's Paul Reiser himself. And Greg Evigan sang the "My Two Dads" theme.
Kelsey Grammer sings and plays the piano for the theme song of Fraiser.
Alan Thicke, the father in the TV show Growing Pains wrote the theme songs for The Facts of Life and Diff'rent Strokes.
A Macintosh LC575 has 182 speaker holes.
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.
Panama hats come from Ecuador not Panama.
Human birth control pills work on gorillas.
Lenard Skinner was the name of the gym teacher of the boys who went on to form Lynyrd Skynyrd. He once told them, "You boys ain't never gonna amount to nothin'." Ronnie Van Zant decided to keep the name, but change the spelling, as a joke on his former teacher.
M & M's were developed so that soldiers could eat candy without getting their fingers sticky.
Richard Nixon's favorite drink was a dry martini.
The Grateful Dead were once called The Warlocks.
The license plate number of the Volkswagon that appeared on the cover of the Beatles Abbey Road album was 281F.
Pinocchio was made of pine.
The original Jethro Tull was an English horticulturalist who invented the seed drill.
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 radio's 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.
Alma mater means bountiful mother.
A Holstein's spots are like fingerprints -- no two cows have the same pattern of spots.
Glass flutes do not expand with humidity so their owners are spared the nuisance of tuning them.
Jersey,in the Channel Islands, United Kingdom, was the only place that the Nazis occupied in Great Britain during World War II.
Top English soccer club Liverpool were formed because their local enemies, Everton, couldn't pay the rent for their stadium. Therefore Liverpool took over at the stadium (Anfield) and became England's top soccer team ever.
The male gypsy moth can "smell" the virgin female gypsy moth from 1.8 miles away.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
The "Hallelujah Chorus" fits into the Easter portion of Handel's Messiah, not Christmas.
Over 30 million people in the US "suffer" from diastima. Diastima is having a gap between your front teeth.
In 1976 Sarah Caldwell became the first woman to conduct the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike.
Reindeer milk has more fat than cow milk.
The "L.L." in L.L. Bean stands for Leon Leonwood.
The "L.L." in L.L. Cool J stands for "Ladies Love."
Libya is the only country in the world with a solid, single-colored flag -- it's green.
Seoul, the South Korean capital, just means "the capital" in the Korean language.
Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been overmixing 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.
The original fifty cent piece in Australian decimal currency had around $2.00 worth of silver in it before it was replaced with a less expensive twelve-sided coin.
There are eight different sizes of champagne bottle and the largest is called a Nebuchadnezzar, after the Biblical king who put Daniel's three friends into the oven.
The female ferret is referred to as a jill.
The word rodent comes from the Latin word 'rodere' meaning to gnaw.
Australian Rules Football was originally designed to give cricketers something to play during the off season.
Alexander the Great was an epileptic.
The lead singer of The Knack, famous for "My Sharona," and Jack Kevorkian's lead defense attorney are brothers, Doug & Jeffrey Feiger.
Elizabeth Bacon Custer, wife of "The Boy General" is one of the few women buried at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.
"Freelance" comes from a knight whose lance was free for hire, i.e. not pledged to one master.
The only bone not broken so far during any ski accident is the one located in the inner ear.
Michigan was the first state to have roadside picnic tables.
Elvis had a twin brother named Jesse Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis' middle name was spelled Aron; in honor of his brother.
Fitchburg, Massachusetts is the second hilliest city in the US.
During WWII the city of Leningrad underwent a seventeen month German seige. Unable to access the city by roads, the Russians built a railroad across the ice on Lake Lagoda to get food and supplies to the citizens.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
Elton John's real name is Reginald Dwight. Elton comes from Elton Dean, a
Bluesology sax player. John comes from Long John Baldry, founder of Blues Inc.
They were the first electric white blues band ever seen in England--1961
Elton John's uncle was a professional soccer player. He broke his leg
playing for Nottingham Forest in the 1959 English FA Cup Final.
The word "boondocks" comes from the Tagalog (Filipino) word "Bundok," which means mountain.
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.
The original plan for Disneyland included a Lilliputland.
S.O.S. doesn't 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 dot, O = dash dash dash.
The word "moose" was originally Algonquin.
The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."
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 way to get more mules is to mate a male donkey with a female horse.
A donkey will sink in quicksand but a mule won't.
Turnips turn green when sunburnt.
Pigs, walruses and light-colored horses can be sunburned.
A type of jellyfish found off the coast of England is the longest animal in the world.
When Voyager 2 visited Neptune it saw a small irregular white cloud that zips around Neptune every sixteen hours or so now known as "The Scooter".
Crows have the largest cerebral hemispheres, relative to body size, of any avian family.
Martha's Vineyard once had its own dialect of Sign Language. One deaf person arrived in 1692 and after that there was a relatively large genetically deaf population that had their own particular dialect of sign language. From 1692-1910 nearly all hearing people on the island were bilingual in sign language and English.
Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
Hugh "Ward Cleaver" Beaumont was an ordained minister.
Sir Isaac Newton was an ordained priest in the Church of England.
St. Bernard is the patron saint of skiers.
The Old English word for "sneeze" is "fneosan."
John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
According to the ceremonial customs of Orthodox Judaism, it is officially sundown when you cannot tell the difference between a black thread and a red one.
Woodpecker scalps, porpoise teeth and giraffe tails have all been used as money.
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, he couldn't get the prisms apart.
Most of the little schoolhouses in the U.S. of yesteryear were painted red because red was the least expensive paint color.
Elizabeth I of England suffered from anthophobia, a fear of roses.
Almost half the bones in your body are in your hands and feet.
A flamingo can eat only when its head is upside down.
Dalmatian dogs are born pure white, they don't start getting spots until they are three or four days old.
The growth rate of some bamboo plants can reach three feet (91.44 cm) per day.
The Los Angeles Rams were the first U.S. football team to introduce emblems on their helmets.
The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
The average garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.
An elephant can be pregnant for up to two years.
The two quickest goals scored in the NHL were three seconds apart.
Dartboards are made out of horsehairs.
Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart.
'Crack' gets it name because it crackles when you smoke it.
Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by Bayer.
Marijuana is Spanish for 'Mary Jane.'
One of the many Tarzans, Karmuela Searlel, was mauled to death on the set by a raging elephant.
U.S. Interstates that run north-south are numbered sequentially starting from the west with odd numbers, and Interstates which go east-west are numbered sequentially starting from the south with even numbers.
Today's cattle are descended from two species: wild aurochs - fierce and agile herd animals that populated Asia, North Africa and Europe - and eotragus - an antelope-like, Asian forest creature.
The anteater, aardvark, spiny anteater (echidna), and scaly anteater (pangolin) are completely unrelated - in fact, the closest relatives to anteaters are sloths and armadillos, the closest relative to the spiny anteater is the platypus, and the aardvark is in an order all by itself.
There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
Octopi have gardens.
The Beatles song "Martha My Dear" was written by Paul McCartney about his sheepdog Martha.
"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 on the green," but this came off sounding like 'They slew the Earl of Morray and Lady Mondegreen.'"
A walla-walla scene is one where extras pretend to be talking in the background - when they say "walla-walla" it looks like they are actually talking.
The youngest letters in the English language are "j," "v" and "w."
The Australian $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes are made out of plastic.
Cranberry Jello is the only jello flavor that comes from real fruit, not artificial flavoring.
A game of pool is referred to as a "frame."
The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
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.
The Soviet Sukhoi-34 is the first strike fighter with a toilet in it.
The longest English word that can be typed using the top row of a typewriter (allowing multiple uses of letters) is 'typewriter.'
When a giraffe's baby is born it falls from a height of six feet, normally without being hurt.
Virgina Woolf wrote all her books standing.
The tango originated as a dance between two men (for partnering practice).
Leon Trotsky, the Russian Communist, was assassinated in Mexico City with an ice-axe. It went through his skull and he actually struggled with the assassin with the ice-ax stuck in his brain. The assassin had a hard time pulling it out for another blow.
"Video Killed the Radio Star" was the very first video ever played on MTV.
The pitches that Babe Ruth hit for his last-ever homerun and that Joe DiMaggio hit for his first-ever homerun where thrown by the same man.
A family of six died in Oregon during WWII as a result of a Japanese balloon bomb.
AM and PM stand for "Ante-Meridiem" and "Post-Meridiem," respectively, and A.D. actually stands for "Anno Domini" rather than "After Death."
To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made
by swearing on their testicles.
During conscription for WWII, there were nine documented cases of men
with three testicles.
Avocado is derived from the Spanish word 'aguacate' which is derived
from 'ahuacatl' meaning testicle.
Scientists found a whole new phylum of animal on a lobster's lip.
During WWII, Americans tried to train bats to drop bombs.
A whale's penis is called a dork.
Some carnivores, rodents, bats and insectivores have a penis bone, called a
baculum.
A barnacle has the largest penis of any other animal in the world in relation
to its size.
Iguanas, koalas and Komodo dragons all have two penises. In fact, they have a
single penis, but it is split in two (pretty much 'Y'-shaped.) This organ is
known as a hemipenes. Snakes also share this interesting feature. Apparently,
the dual penis is for ease of left-handed or right-handed mating. Also, at
least in snakes, the semen does not flow through a vessel (like in mammals),
but rather, a groove.
Some female hyenas have a pseudo-penis.
A winged penis was the city symbol of Pompeii, the ancient Roman resort
town destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius' eruption.
One way to tell seals and sea lions apart is that, sea lions have external ears
and testicles.
Swahili is a combination of African tribal languages, Arabic and Portuguese.
A person from Glasgow is called a Glaswegian.
An enneahedron is solid with nine faces.
A pound of armadillo meat contains 780 calories.
Most armadillos seen dead on the road did not get hit by the wheels. When an
armidillo is frightened it jumps straight into the air.
Armadillos can be housebroken.
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.
Armadillos can walk underwater.
Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.
Jet lag was once called boat lag, back before jets existed.
Sirimauo Bandranaike of Sri Lanka became the world's first popularly elected female head of state in 1960.
There are more beetles than any other kind of creature in the world.
Velcro was invented by a Swiss guy who was inspired by the way burrs attached to clothing.
The Egyptian hieroglyph for 100,000 is a tadpole.
The Phillips-head screwdriver was invented in Oregon.
The allele for six fingers and toes is dominant in humans. (Watch out Inigo Montoya...)
Orcas kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
Cleopatra used pomegranate seeds for lipstick.
Cleopatra's last name was Ptolemy, and she was Greek rather than Egyptian.
If you feed a seagull Alka-Seltzer, its stomach will explode.
The raised reflective dots in the middle of highways are called Botz dots.
The concerti on the two Voyager probes' information discs are performed by famed Canadian pianist Glenn Gould.
Reindeer like to eat bananas.
Between 1947 and 1959, 42 nuclear devices were detonated in the Marshall Islands.
Boris Karloff is the narrator of the seasonal television special "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."
Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
Physicist Murray Gell-Mann named the sub-atomic particles known as quarks for a line in James Joyce's Ulysses, "Three quarks for Muster Mark!"
Steve Young, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, is the great-great-grandson of Mormon leader Brigham Young.
A rhinoceros' horn is made of compacted hair.
Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
Jean Harlow was the first actress to appear on the cover of Life magazine.
Jesus Christ died at age 33.
Starfish don't have brains.
Shrimps' hearts are in their heads.
The antifungal, nystatin, which is sometime used for treating thrush, is named after New York State Institute for Health.
QANTAS, the name of the Australian national airline, is a (former) acronym, for Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service.
The world's largest four-faced clock sits atop the Allen-Bradley plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Almonds are members of the peach family.
The first video ever played on MTV Europe was "Money For Nothing" by Dire Straits.
If you add up the numbers 1-100 consecutively (1+2+3+4+5 etc) the total is 5050.
The "voice of Tony the Tiger is a man named Thurl Ravenscroft.
Revolvers cannot be silenced, due all the noisy gasses which escape the cylinder gap at the rear of the barrel.
The home team must provide the referee with 36 footballs for each National Football League game.
The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties in climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil.
If the Spaceship Earth ride at EPCOT was a golf ball, to be the proportional size to hit it, you'd be two miles tall.
On Sesame Street, Bert's goldfish were named Lyle and Talbot, presumably after the actor Lyle Talbot.
The word "hangnail" comes from Middle English: ang- (painful) + nail. Nothing to do with hanging.
Mark Twain was born on a day in 1835 when Halley's Comet came into view. When he died in 1910, Halley's Comet was again in the sky.
Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
If you were born in Los Alamos, New Mexico during the Manhattan Project your birthplace was listed as Post Office Box 1663 in Sante Fe.
Robert Kennedy was killed in the Ambassador Hotel, the same hotel that housed Marilyn Monroe's first modeling agency.
Ethernet is a registered trademark of Xerox, Unix is a registered trademark of AT&T.
The newest dog breed is the Bull Boxer, first bred in the United states in 1990-91.
South of Tucson, Arizona, all road signs are in the Metric System.
Charlie Brown's father was a barber.
The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, "Aladdin was a little Chinese boy."
The slogan on New Hampshire license plates is 'Live Free or Die.' These license plates are manufactured by prisoners in the state prison in Concord.
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
When a film is in production, the last shot of the day is the "martini shot". The next to last one is the "Abby Singer".
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.
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.
When Saigon fell the signal for all Americans to evacuate was Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" being played on the radio.
The Fort George Point in Belize City was formed by the silt runoff of Hurricane Hattie.
If you lace your shoes from the inside to the outside the fit will be snugger around your big toe.
Only one-third of the people that can twitch their ears can twitch only one at a time.
The pet ferret (Mustela putorias furo) was domesticated more than 500 years before the house cat.
The Pug dog is thought to have gotten its name from looking like the pug monkey.
Only two states' names begin with double consonants: Florida and Rhode Island.
The volume of the Earth's moon is the same as the volume of the Pacific Ocean.
"Xmas" does not begin with the Roman letter X. It begins with the Greek letter "chi," which was used in medieval manuscripts as an abbreviation for the word "Christ" (xus = christus, etc.)
The ampersand (&) is actually a stylised version of the Latin word "et," meaning "and."
The largest city in the United States with a one-syllable name is Flint, Michigan.
The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
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.
Only humans and horses have hymens.
The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only six people were injured.
"Hara kiri" is an impolite way of saying the Japanese word "seppuku" which means, literally, "belly splitting."
Race car is a palindrome.
Cephalacaudal recapitulation is the reason our extremeties develop faster than the rest of us.
We will have four consecutive full moons making two blue moons in 1999 (January 2 and 31, March 2 and 31.) The only other time it happened this century was in 1915 (January 1 and 31, March 1 and 31.)
There are more bald eagles in the province of British Columbia then there are in the whole United States.
Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son.
The "second unit" films movie shots that do not require the presence of actors.
Games Slayter, a Purdue graduate, invented fiberglass.
Olympic Badminton rules say that the birdie has to have exactly fourteen feathers.
The music group Simply Red is named because of its love for the football team, Manchester United, who have a red home strip.
Richard Nixon left instructions for "California, Here I Come" to be the last piece of music played at his funeral ("softly and slowly") were he to die in office.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fish was named Livingston.
Hydrogen gas is the least dense substance in the world, at 0.08988 g/cc.
Hydrogen solid is the most dense substance in the world, at 70.6 g/cc.
The longest U.S. highway is route 6 starting in Cape Cod, Massachusetts going through 14 states, and ending in Bishop, California.
The movie "Paris, Texas" was banned in the city of Paris, Texas, shorty after its box office release.
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 wasthe lower case "y".
Pickled herrings were invented in 1375.
The number of the trash compactor in Star Wars (20th Century Fox, 1977) is 3263827.
At McDonalds in New Zealand, they serve apricot pies instead of cherry ones.
"The Siege Of Belgrade" was a poem written by Alaric Watts in 1817. It was a poem where each line (of 27) had only words beginning with each letter of the alphabet: Line 1: A-words. Line 2:B-Words. Line 26: Z-words
The "Nullarbor" in Nullarbor Desert in Western Australia is a Latin name; Null=No, Arbor=Trees.
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 Baseball All-Star Game.
The international telphone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
A full seven percent of the entire Irish barley crop goes to the production of Guinness beer.
Bank robber John Dillinger played professional baseball.
If you toss a penny 10000 times, it will not be heads 5000 times, but more like 4950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
The housefly hums in the middle octave, key of F.
Chicago is closer to Moscow than to Rio de Janeiro.
Mr. Snuffleupagas' first name was Alyoisus.
The only capital letter in the Roman alphabet with exactly one endpoint is P.
"Speak of the Devil" is short for "Speak of the Devil and he shall come." It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would attract his attention. That's why when you are talking about someone and they show up people say "Speak of the Devil."
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
Nauru is the only country in the world with no official capital. (Its government offices are all in Yaren District, but there's no official capital.)
Lucy Ricardo's maiden name was McGillicudy.
Mickey Mouse is known as "Topolino" in Italy.
The red giant star Betelgeuse has a diameter larger than that of the Earth's orbit around the sun.
If your eyes are six feet above the surface of the ocean, the horizon will be about three statute miles away.
The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, the plural form.
The longest time someone has typed on a typewriter continuously is 264 hours, set by Violet Gibson Burns.
Hydroxydesoxycorticosterone and hydroxydeoxycorticosterones are the largest anagrams.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
The oldest word in the English language is "town."
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
Gerald Ford pardoned Robert E. Lee posthumously of all crimes of treason.
The band Duran Duran got their name from an astronaut in the 1968 Jane Fonda movie Barbarella.
After human death, post-mortem rigidity starts in the head and travels to the feet, and leaves the same way it came -- head to toe.
Police dogs are trained to react to commands in a foreign language; commonly German but more recently Hungarian.
A Laforte fracture is a fracture of all facial bones.
Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.
Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt were all cousins. (FDR and Eleanor were about five times removed.)
The Earth-Moon size ratio is the largest in the our solar system, excepting Pluto-Charon.
There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs six times: Indivisibility.
The dome on Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, conceals a billiards room. In Jefferson's day, billiards were illegal in Virginia.
In most advertisments, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10 because then the arms frame the brand of the watch (and make it look like it's smiling.)
Cleo and Caesar were the early stage names of Cher and Sonny Bono.
Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button.
Pierre, South Dakota is the only example of a state and capital in the U.S. that don't share any letters.
Westmount, Quebec, was the first city in Canada to be granted a coat of arms.
The heraldic term "gules", meaning red, comes from the French word "gueules," meaning a throat.
The "D" in D-day means "Day". The French term for "D-Day" is "J-jour".
Female orcas live twice as long as male orcas. The larger numbers of female orcas in a pod are because of the female's longer lifespan, not because the males have collected a harem.
Most spiders belong to the orb weaver spider family, Family Aranidae. This is pronounced "A Rainy Day."
Genghis Khan's original name was Temujin. Genghis Khan started out as a goatherd.
The type specimen for the human species is the skull of Edward Drinker Cope, an American paleontologist of the late 1800's. A type specimen is used in paleontology as the best example of that species.
The first word spoken by an ape in the movie Planet of the Apes was "Smile".
The two lines that connect your top lip to the bottom of your nose are known as the philtrum.
The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
Hummingbirds are the only animals able to fly backwards.
All the dirt from the foundation to build the World Trade Center in New York City was dumped into the Hudson River to form the community now known as Battery City Park.
The Holland and Lincoln Tunnels under the Hudson River connecting New Jersey and New York are an engineering feat. The air circulators in the tunnels circulate fresh air completely every ninety seconds.
The dirt road that General Washington and his soldiers took to fight off General Clinton during the Battle of Monmouth was called the Burlington Path.
The only social fraternity founded during the Civil War was Theta Xi fraternity, at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York in 1864.
The Hudson River along the island of Manhattan flows in either direction depending upon the tide.
Several buildings in Manhattan have their own zip code!
Lucifer is latin for "Light Bringer". It is a translation of the Hebrew name for Satan, Halael. Satan means "adversary", devil means "liar".
A cat's jaws cannot move sideways.
Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
The smallest port in Canada is Port Williams, Nova Scotia.
Cats in Halifax, Nova Scotia, have a very high probability of having six toes.
The second longest word in the English language is "antidisestablishmenterianism".
The "wild" horses of western North America are actually feral, not wild.
Native speakers of Japanese learn Spanish much more easily than they learn English.
New Zealand kiwis lay the largest eggs with respect to their body size of any bird.
Elephants have been found swimming miles from shore in the Indian Ocean.
When two words are combined to form a single word (e.g., motor + hotel = motel, breakfast + lunch = brunch) the new word is called a "portmanteau."
Sting got his name because of a yellow-and-black striped shirt he wore until it literally fell apart.
Every photograph of an American atomic bomb detonation was taken by Harold Edgerton.
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."
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint -- no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
There is a type of parrot in New Zealand that likes to eat the rubber strips that line car windows.
In 1969, the last Corvair was painted gold.
Ralph Kramden made 62 dollars a week.
The only way to stop the pain of the flathead fish's sting is by rubbing the same fish's slime on the wound it gave you.
Wilma Flinestone's maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble's Maiden name was Betty Jean McBricker.
Lenny Kravitz's mother played the part of "Helen" on "The Jeffersons."
The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic church. When deciding if someone should be sainted, a devil's advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view.
Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works.
The term "Mayday" used for signaling for help (after SOS), it comes from the French term "M'aidez" which is pronounced "MayDay" and means, "Help Me"
There were no squirrels on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts until 1989.
Cathy Rigby is the only woman to pose nude for Sports Illustrated.
Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.
Will Clark of the Texas Rangers is a direct descendant of William Clark of Lewis and Clark.
Barbie's full name is Barbra Millicent Roberts.
Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
When ocean tides are at their highest, they are called "spring tides." When they are at their lowest, they are call "neap tides."
The last NASCAR driver to serve jail time for running moonshine was Buddy Arrington.
Many Japanese golfers carry "hole-in-one" insurance, because it is traditional in Japan to share one's good luck by sending gifts to all your friends when you get an "ace." The price for what the Japanese term an "albatross" can often reach $10,000.
The lot numbers for the cyanide-tainted Tylenol capsules scare back in 1982 were MC2880 and 1910MD.
Montpelier, Vermont is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonalds.
At latitude 60 degrees south you can sail all the way around the world.
A Chinese checkerboard has 121 holes.
The hyoid bone, in your throat, is the only bone in the body not attached to another bone.
Mice, whales, elephants, giraffes and man all have seven neck vertebra.
Sunbeams that shine down through the clouds are called crepuscular rays.
Very small clouds that look like they have been broken off of bigger clouds are called scuds.
On a dewy morning, if you look at your shadow in the grass, the dew drops shine light back to your eye creating a halo called a heilgenschein (German for halo).
The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the morning to you," is "and the rest of the day to yourself."
The straw was probably invented by Egyptian brewers to taste in-process beer without removing the fermenting ingredients which floated on the top of the container.
All porcupines float in water.
Hang On Sloopy is the official rock song of Ohio.
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 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.
Residents of the island of Lesbos are Lesbosians, rather than Lesbians. (Of course, lesbians are called lesbians because Sappho was from Lesbos.)
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."
The poisonous copperhead smells like fresh cut cucumbers.
In Disney's "Fantasia", the Sorcerer's name is "Yensid" (Disney backwards.)
The smallest mushroom's name is "Hop-low."
Anne Boleyn had six fingernails on one hand , but only five fingers on that hand. She had a small extra nail on the side of her finger that she kept hidden with longsleeves.
When angered, the ears of Tazmanian devils turn a pinkish-red.
The naval rank of "Admiral" is derived from the Arabic phrase "amir al bahr," which means "lord of the sea".
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 coat hanger is forty-four inches long if straightened.
The roads on the island of Guam are made with coral. Guam has no sand. The sand on the beaches is actually ground coral. When concrete is mixed, the coral sand is used instead of importing regular sand from thousands of miles away.
The city of Mt. Vernon, Washington grows more tulips than the entire country of Holland.
Jamie Farr (who played Klinger on M*A*S*H) was the only member of the cast who actually served as a soldier in the Korean War.
The southern most city in the United States is Na'alehu, Hawaii.
Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan carries the designation M-1, named so because it was the first paved road anywhere.
Michigan was the first state to plow its roads and the first to adopt a yellow dividing line.
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.
Little known Cathedral Caverns near Grant, Alabama has the world's largest cave opening, the world's largest stalagmite (Goliath), and the largest stalagmite forest in the World.
The only person ever to decline a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was Sinclair Lewis for his book Arrowsmith.
Maine is the only state that borders on only one state.
There are almost twice as many people in Rhode Island than there are in Alaska.
The Statue of Liberty's tablet is two feet thick.
There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
Kudzu is not indigenous to the South, but in that climate it can grow up to six inches a day.
Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?
The word 'pixel' is a contraction of either 'picture cell' or 'picture element.'
Ralph Lauren's original name was Ralph Lifshitz.
Alexander Hamilton was shot by Aaron Burr in the groin.
Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.
Roger Ebert is the only film critic to ever have won the Pulitzer prize.
A scholar who studies the Marquis de Sade is called a Sadian, not a Sadist.
Tribeca stands for TRIangle BElow CAnal street.
Soho stands for SOuth of HOuston street.
Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City, after the Catholic Church.
The world's largest wine cask is in Heidelberg, Germany.
Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of "Lorne Greene's Wild Kingdom."
Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
Seven Olympic gold medal winners eventually went on to win the Heavyweight Championship of the World.
Kerimski Church in Finland is world's biggest church made of wood.
The St. Louis Gateway Arch had a projected death toll while it was being built. No one died.
The average ear of corn has eight-hundred kernels arranged in sixteen rows.
A cat has four rows of whiskers.
Vincent Van Gogh comitted suicide while painting Wheat Field with Crows.
An iguana can stay under water for twenty-eight minutes.
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.
When the State of West Virginia was formed from Virginia in 1863, the three western counties in Virginia voted to go with West Virginia, but West Virginia didn't take them because they were poor. Instead they took three counties that voted to stay with Virginia, because they were richer and they had the B&O railroad. Those counties have since split and are five: Jefferson, Hampshire, Berkley, Mineral, and Morgan.
The car-making Dodge brothers Horace and John were Jewish, that's why the first Dodge emblem had a star of David in it.
Studebaker was the only major car company to stop manufacturing cars whilemaking a profit on them. Studebaker still exists, but is now called Worthington.
Chrysler built B-29's that bombed Japan. Mitsubishi built Zeros that tried to shoot them down. Both companies now build cars in a joint plant called Diamond Star.
The top three cork-producing countries are Spain, Portugal and Algeria. (Cork comes from trees.)
If you bring a raccoon's head to the Henniker, New Hampshire town hall, you are entitled to receive $.10 from the town.
The letter W is the only letter in the 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.
October 4, 1957 is a date to be remembered, it is the day both "Leave it to Beaver" and the Russian satellite Sputnik 1 were launched.
It takes about a half a gallon of water to cook macaroni, and about a gallon to clean the pot.
A forfeited game is baseball is recorded as a 9-0 score. In football it is 2-0.
The 772-778 digits of pi are 9999998, the greatest sum of 7 consequtive digits in the first 1,000,000 or so digits.
The San Fransisco Cable cars and the St. Charles streetcar line in New Orleans are the nation's only mobile National Monuments.
The most common name in Italy is Mario Rossi.
Both Esther and Song of Solomon do not mention the word God.
Here is every word that can be displayed by a digital clock during the day. (Using the numbers which look like letters, with 9 as "g.")
So be sure to shriek whenever it's 8:00!
Paul Revere rode on a borrowed horse that belonged to Deacon Larkin.
The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.
Roosters can't crow if they can't fully extend their necks.
There are only three types of snakes on the island of Tasmania and all are deadly poisonous.
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.
Assuming Rudolph was in front, there are 40320 ways to arrange the other eight reindeer.
Shirley Temple always had 56 curls in her hair.
All of the officers in the Confederate army were given copies of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, to carry with them at all times. Robert E. Lee, among others, believed that the book symbolized their cause. Both revolts were defeated.
The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
Hulk Hogan's real name is Terry Bollea.
Easter is the first Sunday after the first Saturday after the first full moon after the equinox. (The equinox is quite often March 21, but can also occur on the March 20 or 22.)
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.
Months that begins with a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
Emus have double-plumed feathers, and they lay emerald/forest green eggs.
Robert E. Lee, of the Confederate Army, remains the only person, to date, to have graduated from the West Point military academy without a single demerit.
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
The slash character is called a virgule, or solidus. A URL uses slash characters, not back slash characters.
"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 abbreviation "ORD" for Chicago's O'Hare airport comes from the old name "Orchard Field."
Antonia ('Tonie') Nathan, the 1972 Vice-Presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, was the first woman in American history to receive an electoral vote.
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.
There are only three world capitals that begin with the letter "O" in English: Ottawa, Canada; Oslo, Norway; and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
James Doohan, who plays Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott on Star Trek, is missing the entire middle finger of his right hand.
"Polish" is the only word in the English language that when capitalized is changed from a noun or a verb to a nationality.
Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
Beelzebub, another name for the devil, is Hebrew for Lord of the Flies, and this is where the books title comes from.
The shape of plant collenchyma cells and the shape of the bubbles in beer foam are the same -- they are orthotetrachidecahedrons.
West Virginia and Maryland have no natural lakes.
Rick and Paul Reuschel of the 1975 Chicago Cubs combine to pitch a shutout, the first time brothers do this.
The name of the dog from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is Max.
Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world.
Connecticut is the only state whose name is two words connected by a letter: "connect," "i," and "cut."
Only five countries in Europe touch only one other: Portugal, Denmark, San Marino, Vatican City, and Monaco.
October 10 is National Metric Day.
Oak trees do not have acorns until they are fifty years old or older.
South Dakota has the only state bird from Asia, the ring-necked pheasant.
Tongeren is the oldest town in Belgium.
John Augustus Sutter of Sutter's Mill and the California Gold Rush became an ardent Communist in his later years.
The original IBM punchcard is the same size as a Civil War era dollar bill.
The concave dish shape that a liquid takes on inside a glass or tube is called a meniscus.
Dalmatian dog originate from Dalmatian coast of Croatia.
Kresimir Cosic is only non-American player in NBA Hall of Fame.
Croatia was the first country to recognize the United States in 1776.
Marco Polo was born on the Croatian island of Korcula (pronounced Kor-Chu-La).
A two-bit moon is in the first quarter.
The three largest land-owners in England are the Queen, the Church of England and Trinity College, Cambridge.
The monastic hours are matins, lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers and compline.
If you come from Manchester, you are a Mancunian.
No animal, once frozen solid (i.e., water solidifies and turns to ice) survives when thawed, because the ice crystals formed inside cells would break open the cell membranes. However 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 body temperature is below zero Celsius. The water in them remains liquid: a phenomenon known as 'supercooling.' If you disturb one of these frogs (just touching them even), the water in them quickly freezes solid and they die.
The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.
The name for fungal remains found in coal is sclerotinite.
Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
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 shopping mall in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada has the largest water clock in North America.
Writer Edgar Allan Poe and LSD advocate Timothy Leary were both kicked out of West Point.
The top layer of a wedding cake, known as the groom's cake, is usually is a fruit cake so it will last until the couple's first anniversary, when they will eat it.
The German Kaiser Wilhelm II had a withered arm and often hid the fact by posing with his hand resting on a sword, or by holding gloves.
The United States government keeps its supply of silver at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.
There are fourteen blimps in the world.
Ten of the fourteen blimps are in the United States.
The existing biggest blimp is the Fuji Film blimp.
Naugahyde, plastic "leather" was created in Naugatuck, Connecticut.
In every show that Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt (The Fantasticks) wrote, there is at least one song about rain.
A kind of tortoise in the Galapagos Islands has an upturned shell at its neck so it can reach its head up to eat cactus branches.
Parthenogenesis is the term used to describe the process by which certain animals are able to reproduce themselves in successive female generations without intervention of a male of the species. At least one species of lizard is known to do so.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead".
The ship, the Queen Elizabeth 2, should always be written as QE2. QEII is the actual queen.
"Quisling" is the only word in the English language to start with "quis."
All of the cobble stones that used to line the streets in New York were originally weighting stones put in the hulls of Belgian ships to keep an even keel.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
The only borough of New York City that isn't an island or part of an island is the Bronx.
When a coffee seed is planted, it takes five years to yield consumable fruit.
The common goldfish is the only animal that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light.
Linn's Stamp News is the world's largest weekly newspaper for stamp collectors.
Tennessee and Missouri are bordered by more states than any other. Tennesee is bordered by eight states are Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. Missouri is bordered by Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennesee, Kentucky and Illinois.
The westernmost point in the contiguous United States is Cape Alava, Washington.
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eyes."
The infinity sign is called a lemniscate.
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.
The "Calabash" pipe, most often associated with Sherlock Holmes, was not used by him until William Gillette (an American) portrayed Holmes onstage. Gillette needed a pipe he could keep in his mouth while he spoke his lines.
Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of F.
Dirty Harry's badge number is 2211.
The pupil of an octopus' eye is rectangular.
The shortest French word with all five vowels is "oiseau" meaning bird.
Camel's milk does not curdle.
"Mr. Mojo Risin" is an anagram for Jim Morrison.
The ball on top of a flagpole is called the truck.
Oliver Cromwell was hanged and decapitated two years after he had died.
In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
Iowa has more independent telephone companies than any other state.
The first prime number after 1,000,000 is 1,000,003.
Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.
Hamsters love to eat crickets.
The first Eagle Scout west of the Mississippi is buried in San Marcos, Texas.
In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
The Greek version of the Old Testament is called the Septuagent.
Spencer Eldon was the name of the naked baby on the cover of Nirvana's album Nevermind.
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.
Dracula is the most filmed story of all time, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is second and Oliver Twist is third.
The most popular sport as a topic for a film is boxing.
The silhouette on the NBA logo is Jerry West.
The silhouette on the Major League Baseball logo is Harmon Killebrew.
The little lump of flesh just forward of your ear canal, right next to your temple, is called a tragus.
Soweto in South Africa was derived from SOuth WEst TOwnship.
The Andy Griffth Show was the first spin-off in TV history. It was a spin-off of the Danny Thomas Show.
Goat's eyes have rectangular pupils.
Walt Disney's autograph bears no resemblance to the famous Disney logo.
Other than humans, black lemurs are the only primates that may have blue eyes.
The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.
Great Britain was the first county to issue postage stamps. Hence, the postage stamps of Britain are the only stamps in the world not to bear the name of the country of origin. However, every stamp carries a relief image or a silhouette of the monarch's head instead.
Images for picture stamps in the United States are commissioned by the United States Postal Service Department of Philatelic Fulfillment.
Artist Constantino Brumidi fell from the dome of the U.S. Capitol while painting a mural around the rim. He died four months later.
Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have participated in every Games.
U V W X Y are the symmetric capital letters in the Roman alphabet.
i l o t u v w x are the symmetric lower case letters in the Roman alphabet.
Susan Sarandon's last name is from her first husband, Chris Sarandon, also known as Prince Humperdinck from The Princess Bride.
In order for a deck of cards to be mixed up enough to play with properly, it should be shuffled at least seven times.
Tweety used to be a baby bird without feathers until the censors made him have feathers because he "looked naked."
The Mola Mola, or Ocean Sunfish, lays up to 5,000,000 eggs at one time.
Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady" was written about Vince Neil of Motley Crue.
Vanilla Ice's real name is Robert Van Winkle.
When opossums are playing opossum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
2 and 5 are the only primes that end in 2 or 5.
1 and 2 are the only numbers where they are the values of the numbers of factors they have.
Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan.
The abbrevation "PDX" (Portland International Airport) is derived from "P" standing for Portland and "DX" meaning long distance or wide reaching.
Every male over the 18 is considered part of the Arizona Militia according to state constitution.
A man named Ed Peterson is the inventor of the Egg McMuffin.
Stag beetles have stronger mandibles than humans.
The record for most snowfall in a day, 78 inches, was made on February 7, 1916 in Alaska.
In an episode of The Simpsons, Sideshow Bob's Criminal Number is 24601, the same as the Criminal number of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.
Felix the Cat is the first cartoon character to ever have been made into a balloon for a parade.
The only continent without reptiles or snakes is Antarctica.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs, because a cows' knees can't bend properly to walk back down.
A golden razor removed from King Tut's Tomb was still sharp enough to be used.
You can make a glass of apple cider with three apples.
All gondolas in Venice, Italy must be painted black, unless they belong to a high official.
The word "karate" means "empty hand."
A standard grave is 7'8" x 3'2" x 6'
Howdy Doody had forty-eight freckles.
Rhinos are in the same family as horses, and are thought to have inspired the myth of the unicorn.
Hudson Bay is the largest bay in the world, (larger than England) bordering only one country Canada, and only two provinces and a territory.
Four people played Darth Vader: David Prowse was his body, James Earl Jones did the voice, Sebastian Shaw was his face and a fourth person did the breathing.
The stress in Hungarian words always falls on the first syllable.
A 17th-century Swedish philologist claimed that in the Garden of Eden God spoke Swedish, Adam spoke Danish, and the serpent spoke French.
The word for "dog" in the Australian aboriginal language Mbabaran happens to be "dog."
The first Bowie knife was forged at Washington, Arkansas.
The names of the three wise monkeys are: Mizaru: See no evil, Mikazaru: Hear no evil, and Mazaru: Speak no evil.
The name of the asteroid that was believed to have killed the dinosaurs was named Chixalub. (Pronounced Sheesh-uh-loob)
John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in a theatre and was found in a warehouse. Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was found in a theatre.
Dismas and Gestas were the names of the two thieves crucified with Jesus.
The Red Baron's real name was Manfred Von Richtofen.
Santa Fe, New Mexico is the highest state capital at 7,000 feet above sea level.
Santa Fe was founded in 1607 making it the oldest continuously occupied state capital.
Skepticisms is the longest typed word that alternates hands.
Sam Spade's license number was 137596.
A hamlet is a village without a church and a town is not a city until it has a cathedral.
Nine pennies weigh exactly one ounce.
Alaska could hold the 21 smallest States.
The sport with highest ratio of officials to participants is tennis. A singles match should have 13; ten linesmen, one net, one foot-fault, plus an umpire.
49.6% of US residents live in Eastern time zone, 29.3% live in the Central time zone, 5.3% live in the Mountain time zone, 15.0% live in the Pacific time zone and .8% live in any other time zone.
Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand. It takes forty minutes to hard boil an ostrich egg.
There are 2,598,960 five-card hands possible in a 52-card deck of cards.
There are 1,929,770,126,028,800 different color combinations possible on a Rubik's Cube.
Pecans are the only food that astronauts do not have to treat and dehydrate when flying in space.
Ross Perot resigned from the General Motors Board of Directors because of the decision to purchase Hughes Aircraft Company.
Figlet, an ASCII font converter program, stands for Frank, Ian and Glenn's LETters.
The ancient Etruscans painted women white and men red in the wall paintings they used to decorate tombs.
Texas is also the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.
In 1986 Danny Heep became the first player in a World Series to be a designated hitter (DH) with the initials "D.H."
Plaster of Paris is naturally fire retardant. At about 600 degrees Farenheit the chemical water that is stored in it is released. This is also why walls are often "sweaty" after a fire.
Al Capone's famous scar (which earned him the nickname "Scarface") was from an attack. The brother of a girl he had insulted attacked him with a knife, leaving him with the three distinctive scars.
Before Prohibition, Shiltz Brewery own 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.
Dwarf Woolly Mammoths survived on Wrangel Island, Alaska as late as 4000 years ago. (So the oldest organism currently alive was 1000 years old when the last Woolly Mammoth died.)
National Pi Day is March 14, at 1:59. (3/14 1:59)
The saguaro cactus, found in the southwestern united states, does not grow branches until it is about sixty to seventy-five years old.
Kermit the Frog is left handed.
The average mousepad is eight and three quarters by seven and a half inches.
Shortest Intercontinental Commercial Flight in the world is from Gibraltar (Europe) to Tangier (Africa.) Distance 34 miles, flight time 20 minutes.
In the game Monopoly, the most money you can lose in one travel around the board (normal game rules, going to jail only once) is $26,040. The most money you can lose in one turn is $5070.
In ancient Egypt, the apricot was called the "egg of the sun."
Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
Tommy Lee Jones is one of Oliver's roommates in the movie
Love Story. He was Tom then.
Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.
A bonnet is the cap on the fire hydrant.
A canton is the blue field behind the stars.
The bread slots in a toaster are toast wells.
The side of a hammer is a cheek.
The quartz crystal in your wristwatch vibrates 32,768 times a second.
The two most common surgeries are biopsies and cesarean sections.
Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent.
Paris, France and Cedar Rapids, Iowa are the only cities in the world that have their governments on an island.
Pro golfer Wayne Levi was the first PGA pro to win a tournament using a colored (orange) ball. He did it in the Hawaiian Open in 1982.
The author of Roberts' Rules of Order, Col. Roberts of the U. S. Corps of Engineers, is also famous as the engineer in charge of designing the Seawall in Galveston, Texas. This Seawall was constructed after the famous hurricane of 1900 which hit Galveston, killing thousands.
The bat on the Bacardi symbol is there because the soil where the sugar cane grows is fertile from the excessive guano (bat droppings.)
The cheetah is the only cat in the world that can't retract its claws.
The Toronto Maple leafs used to be called the Toronto Arenas, then the St. Patricks and finally the Maple Leafs.
A female swine, or a sow, will always have a even number of teats or nipples, usually twelve.
Although Sherlock Holmes above all is considered as an inhabitant of Victorian London, not less than seven stories take place after the death of the late queen. They are:
Only two stories have Sherlock himself as the narrator. They are: The Blanched Soldier (1903) and The Lion's Mane (1907.)
It is commonly thought that Conan Doyle got his knighthood because of his stories about Sherlock Holmes. He didn't. In fact he got his honour because of his defence (in pamphlets and newspaper articles) of the British concentration camps during the Boer War.
The hammer throw is illegal as a high school sport in all states except Rhode Island.
Grand Rapids, Michigan was the first city in the U.S. to put flouride in their water.
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.
St. Stephen is the patron saint of bricklayers.
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 breathalyzer to read 0.
Worcestershire Sauce is basically an Anchovy ketchup.
If you told someone that they were one in a million, you'd be saying there were about 1,800 of them in China.
In Psycho, the color of Mrs. Bates' dress was periwinkle blue.
The Roman numerals for 1666 are as follows: MDCLXVI (1000+500+100+50+10+5+1.) This year is famous as being the one time in history when the date is written with all of the Roman numerals from highest value to the lowest value.
Until at least 1980 the country of Bhutan had no telephones.
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.
A group of geese on the ground is gaggle, a group of geese in the air is skein.
The smallest 'country' in the world to have its own top-level domain name is Norfolk Island, off the coast of Australia.
Napoleon Bonaparte's mother's name was Laticia.
The 16th century astronomer Tycho Brahe lost his nose in a duel with one of his students over a mathematical computation. He wore a silver replacement nose for the rest of his life.
Prince Harry and Prince William are uncircumcised.
Dogs and humans are the only animals with prostates.
The ashes of the average cremated person weigh nine pounds.
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times.
The only word that consists of two letters, each used three times is the word "deeded."
Walt Disney named Mickey Mouse after Mickey Rooney, whose mother he dated for some time.
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 underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. The frog peels off several times a year with new growth.
Zip code 12345 is assigned to General Electric in Schenectady, N.Y.
There is an Ides in every month, not just March.
Try dividing 99999999999 by 81. (That's 11 nines.)
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.
The official, neutral name of Switzerland, which has multiple official languages, is the latin "Confederation Helvetica", or the Helvetic Confederation, thus the "CH" on license plates, stickers and e-mail addresses.
There were ten Johns, out of 102 people, on the Mayflower.
Tina Turner's real name is Annie Mae Bullock.
Hydrangeas produce pink and white flowers in alkaline soil and blue ones in acidic soil.
Dallas, Texas was named after George M. Dallas, President Polk's vice-president.
Mr. Peanut was invented in 1916 by a Suffolk, Virginia schoolchild who won $5 in a design contest sponsored by Planters Peanuts.
Jackals have one more pair of chromosomes than dogs or wolves.
The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
Basenji dogs and Australian dingoes are virtually identical.
Any number, squared, is equal to one more than the numbers on either side of it -- 4x6 is 24, 5x5 is 25.
If Brooklyn, New York became independent of New York City, it would be the third largest city in the United States, after the remainder of New York and Los Angeles.
The Yellowstone River is the longest undammed river west of the Mississippi.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
The King of Hearts is the only king without a moustache.
"Vang" is the most common surname among the Hmong people of Laos.
The London Underground station "St. John's Wood" is the only such station to not contain any of the letters of the word "Mackerel."
Susan B. Anthony's middle initial stands for Brownell.
A Boeing 747's wingspan is longer than the Wright brothers' first flight.
Hippopotamuses do eighty percent of their vocalizations under water.
When Patty Hearst was kidnapped, she was watching the TV Show "The Magician" starring Bill Bixby.
The oldest Whiskey distillery in the world is in Ireland and started distilling in 1657.
Whiskey in Ireland is spelled with an 'e' before the 'y.' Scottish Whisky (or Scotch) is spelt without the 'e.'
A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average.
You can tell a girl crab from a boy crab by their stomachs. A girl has a beehive and a boy has a lighthouse.
Mongooses were brought to Hawai'i to kill rats. This plan failed because rats are nocturnal while the mongoose hunts during the day.
The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.
I, Q, and X are the only letters that don't start a city that ends in -ville in the state of Ohio. i.e. Brownsville, Zanesville, etc.
The German Bundestag, or Parliament, has 672 members and is the world's largest elected legislative body.
The billionth digit of pi is 9.
Iowa is the only state bordered on both east and west entirely by rivers - the Mississippi on the east, the Missouri and the Big Sioux on the west.
The next-to-last event is the penultimate, and the next-to-next-to-last event is the antepenultimate.
Dominica, Mexico, Zambia, Kiribati, Fiji and Egypt all have birds on their flags.
The Honey Badger can withstand hundreds of African bee stings that would kill any other animal.
Ancient Egyptians shaved their eyebrows to mourn the deaths of their cats.
Australia is the richest source of mineral sands in the world.
Shannon Hoon, the now-dead lead singer of the group Blind Melon was a back-up singer for Guns N' Roses on their Use Your Illusion 1 CD.
The province of Alberta in Canada has been completely free of rats since 1905.
Melanie Griffith's mother is actress Tippi Hedren, best known for her lead role in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.
Illinois has the most personalized liscense plates of any state.
The only commercial fishing vessels in the United States still powered by sail are the Maryland "skipjacks," sailboats that dredge for oysters. A state law requires sailpower a certain distance from shore.
Fresno County, California is the largest agriculture producing county in the United States.
The newspaper serving Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, the home of Rocky and Bullwinkle, is the Picayune Intellegence.
A bowling pin need only tilt 7.5 degrees in order to fall down.
The only person to be elected to both the baseball and football Hall of Fames is Cal Hubbard.
The movie playing at the drive-in at the beginning of "The Flintstones" was the The Monster.
You should not eat a crawfish with a straight tail. It was dead before it was cooked.
Mongolia is the largest landlocked country.
The last Playboy centerfold to have staples was published in 1985. Venice Kong was the model.
Jackie Robinson was the only person to letter in four sports at UCLA. Of all of them, he supposedly liked baseball the least.
The talus is the second largest bone in the foot.
The national anthem of the Netherlands "Het Wilhelmus," is an 'acrostichon.' The first letters of each of the fifteen verses represent the name "Willem Van Nassov."
The Japanese anthem has the oldest lyrics/text from the ninth century, but the music is from 1880.
142857 is a cyclic number, the numbers of which always appear in the same order but rotated around when multipled by any number from 1 to 6. 142857 * 2 = 285714 142857 * 3 = 428571 142857 * 4 = 571428 142857 * 5 = 714285 142857 * 6 = 857142
Olympus Mons on Mars is the largest volcano in our solar system.
All the moons of the Solar System are named after Greek and Roman mythology, except the moons of Uranus, which are named after characters from Shakespeare.
King Kong is the first movie to have its sequel -- Son of Kong -- released the same year (1933).
Devon is the only county in Great Britain to have two coasts.
Johnny Carson was born in Corning, Iowa and grew up in Norfolk, Nebraska.
The real name of the Looney Tunes music is "The Merry-Go-Round Broken Down."
The Yale Crew team was the first college sports team, started in 1843. The Yale-Harvard crew race was the first, and the longest-running American intercollegiate sports event. The first race was held in 1852.
"Rhythms" and "syzygy" are the longest English words without vowels.
The Yuengling Brewery in Pottsville, Pennsylvania founded in 1829 is the oldest in the United States.
In a tradition dating to the begining of the Westminster system of government, the bench in the middle of a Westminster parliarment is two and a half sword lengths long. This was so the government and oppositon couldn't have a go at each other if it all got a bit heated!
Pennsylvania was the first colony to legalize witchcraft.
New York City is nicknamed the Big Apple after an early swing dance that originated in a South Carolina club called The Big Apple.
Cats can hear ultrasound.
The word for "name" in Japanese is "na-ma-e," in Mongolian "nameg."
The many sights that represent the Chinese city of Beijing were built by foreigners: the Forbidden City was built by the Mongols, the Temple of Heaven by the Manchurians.
The distance between an alligator's eyes, in inches, is directly proportional to the length of the alligator, in feet.
Beaver Cleaver's locker number was #9.
The Sumatran tiger has the most stripes of all the tiger subspecies, and the Siberian tiger has the fewest.
A tiger's paw prints are called pug marks.
All Hebrew orignating names that end with the letters "el" have something to do with God.
The closest relative to the manatee is the elephant, scientists think the elephant crawled back into the sea to become a manatee.
All elephants walk on tip-toe, because the back portion of their foot is made up of all fat and no bone.
George Harrison knows how to play the sitar.
"Toki doki kuruma de kayotte imasu" means "Sometimes I commute by car" in Japanese.