Little-known facts

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  1. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

  2. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

  3. Ballroom dancing is a major at Brigham Young University.

  4. 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.

  5. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.

  6. 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.'

  7. Canada is an Indian word meaning 'Big Village'.

  8. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States. 9. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.

  9. 'I am.' is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
    Not quite. ‘Be.’ is a complete sentence; in an imperative statement, the subject ‘you’ is understood.

  10. The term 'the whole 9 yards' came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the uselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got 'the whole 9 yards.'

  11. The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, 'Aladdin was a little Chinese boy.'

  12. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

  13. The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

  14. 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 was the lower case 'y'.

  15. The international telphone area code for Antarctica is 672.

  16. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

  17. The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called 'mantles') are radioactive so much so that they will set off an alarm at a nuclear reactor.

  18. Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.

  19. Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of fur. The story was changed in the 1600s by a translator.

  20. It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella) lost at the stairway, when the prince tried to follow her.

  21. Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5pm. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize *this* was the day of the changeover.

  22. Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

  23. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

  24. Dr. Seuss pronounced 'Seuss' such that it rhymed with 'rejoice.'

  25. In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never said 'Play it again, Sam.'

  26. Sherlock Holmes never said 'Elementary, my dear Watson.'

  27. Captain Kirk never said 'Beam me up, Scotty,' but he did say, 'Beam me up, Mr. Scott'.

  28. Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

  29. More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.

  30. 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.'

  31. The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown differently during times of peace or war. A portion of the flag is blue, while the other is red. The blue portion is flown on top in time of peace and the red portion is flown in war time.

  32. Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.

  33. The 'huddle' in football was formed due a deaf football player who used sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.

  34. If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.

  35. Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike.

  36. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.

  37. Sir Isaac Newton was an ordained priest in the Church of England.

  38. A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
    see #78 for another timely fact.

  39. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

  40. Certain frogs can be frozen solid then thawed, and continue living.

  41. The phrase 'rule of thumb' is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

  42. The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth.

  43. Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

  44. Steve Young, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, is the great-great-grandson of Mormon leader Brigham Young.

  45. Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of linen.

  46. Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

  47. 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, its plural. Hydroxydesoxycorticosterone and hydroxydeoxycorticosterones are the largest anagrams.

  48. Los Angeles's full name is 'El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula.' It means: 'The city of our lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porcincula.'

  49. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

  50. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

  51. Ben and Jerry's send the waste from making ice cream to local pig farmers to use as feed. Pigs love the stuff, except for one flavor: Mint Oreo.

  52. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

  53. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.

  54. Wilma Flintstone's maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble's Maiden name was Betty Jean Mcbricker.

  55. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

  56. The Ramses brand condom is named after the great pharaoh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.

  57. If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die. They need gravity to swallow.

  58. It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up its stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of its mouth. Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all of the stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.

  59. Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with 'Midnight Cowboy.' Her entire role lasted only six minutes.

  60. Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous transatlantic flight.

  61. 'Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.

  62. A whale's penis is called a dork.

  63. Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the same sex.

  64. Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.

  65. To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs -- it will let you go instantly.

  66. Reindeer like to eat bananas.

  67. A group of unicorns is called a blessing. Twelve or more cows are known as a 'flink.' A group of frogs is called an army. A group of rhinos is called a crash. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. A group of whales is called a pod. A group of geese is called a gaggle. A group of ravens is called a murder. A group of officers is called a mess. A group of larks is called an exaltation. A group of owls is called a parliament.

  68. The phrase 'sleep tight' derives from the fact that early mattresses were filled with straw and held up with rope stretched across the bedframe. A tight sleep was a comfortable sleep.

  69. 'Three dog night' (attributed to Australian Aborigines) came about because on especially cold nights these nomadic people needed three dogs (dingos, actually) to keep from freezing.

  70. 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.

  71. In England, the Speaker of the House is the only member of Parliament not allowed to make speeches.

  72. Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If captured, they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.

  73. 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.

  74. Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself.

  75. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.

  76. The Sanskrit word for 'war' means 'desire for more cows.'

  77. The 'shake' is a defined unit of time. Scientists working on the Manhattan project (to build the first atomic bomb) found that the detonation cycle for the 'device' lasted 30 billionths of a second, or 30 nanoseconds. A shake was defined as 10 nanoseconds so the detonation cycle of the atomic bomb could be said to take 'three shakes of a lamb's tail.'

  78. Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.

  79. Pearls melt in vinegar

  80. It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.

  81. Thirty-Five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

  82. The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: MARLBORO, COCA-COLA, & BUDWEISER, in that order.

  83. It's possible to lead a cow upstairs. . .but not downstairs.

  84. Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.

  85. Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.

  86. The sentence 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.' uses every letter in the alphabet. (Developed by Western Union to Test telex/two communications)

  87. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

  88. Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.

  89. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.

  90. 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.

  91. The airplane in which Buddy Holly died was named the 'American Pie.' (thus the name of the Don McLean song)

  92. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:
    • Spades - King David
    • Hearts - Charlemagne
    • Clubs - Alexander the Great
    • Diamonds - Julius Caesar

  93. The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for 'General Purpose' vehicle, G.P.

  94. The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.

  95. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

  96. 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.

  97. No NFL team that plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Super bowl.

  98. The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star Game.

  99. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original 'Halloween' movie was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.

  100. If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.

  101. Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating.

  102. Actor Tommy Lee Jones and vice-president AL Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.

  103. The fingerprints of Koalas are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.

  104. Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a 'Friday the 13th.'

  105. James Doohan, who plays Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott (Scotty) on Star Trek, is missing the entire middle finger on his right hand lost it on D-Day.

  106. The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

  107. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

  108. All of the clocks in the movie 'Pulp Fiction' are stuck on 4:20.

    Little known facts about beer:

  109. It was the accepted practice in Babylonia 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the 'honey month' - or what we know today as the 'honeymoon'.

  110. Before thermometers were invented, brewers would dip a thumb or finger into the mix to find the right temperature for adding yeast. Too cold, and the yeast wouldn't grow. Too hot, and the yeast would die. This thumb in the beer is where we get the phrase 'rule of thumb'.

    You decide which 'rule of thumb' is accurate!

  111. In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts; so in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase 'mind your P's and Q's'.

  112. Beer was the reason the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. It's clear from the Mayflower's log that the crew didn't want to waste beer looking for a better site. The log goes on to state that the passengers 'were hasted ashore and made to drink water that the seamen might have the more beer'.

  113. After consuming a bucket or two of vibrant brew they called aul, or ale, the Vikings would head fearlessly into battle often without armor or even shirts. In fact, the term 'berserk' means 'bare shirt' in Norse, and eventually took on the meaning of their wild battles.

  114. In 1740 Admiral Vernon of the British fleet decided to water down the navy's rum. Needless to say, the sailors weren't too pleased and called Admiral Vernon, Old Grog, after the stiff wool grogram coats he wore. The term 'grog' soon began to mean the watered down drink itself. When you were drunk on this grog, you were 'groggy', a word still in use today.

  115. Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. 'Wet your whistle', is the phrase inspired by this practice.

  116. In the middle ages, 'nunchion' was the word for liquid lunches. It was a combination of the words 'noon scheken', or noon drinking. In those days, a large chunk of bread was called lunch. So if you ate bread with your nunchion, you had what we still today call a luncheon.

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