Things that make you go HMMMM
Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush. (eeewwwwwwwww!!)
American car horns beep in the tone of F.
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Some oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
A Boeing 747's wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.
1 in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA."
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in jelly.
Pearls melt in vinegar.
The three most valuable brand names on earth Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
Computer hard drives were once called Winchesters because technology had finally developed to the point that they could hold 30 megabytes of data and had a 30 millisecond access time. They were nick-named 30/30's
Half of a byte is a nybble. Half of a nybble is a crumb.
The LASER was developed solely to prove a scientific concept. It was once referred to as the cure waiting on a problem.
The ASCII code for the letters "BILLGATES" plus 3 for Bill Gates III adds up to 666
The US army turned down the Wright brothers proposal to fund research in manned flight because it had no military significance.
The scientists that detonated the first nuclear explosion felt there was a strong possibility that the chain reaction could carry over to the Earth's atmosphere causing global annihilation. But they detonated it anyway.
The building that was targeted by the first nuclear weapon is still standing.
Many Japanese citizens left Hiroshima after surviving the atom bomb only to experience another one in Nagasaki 3 days later. Only 13 people survived BOTH blasts.
The US only had enough nuclear material to make 3 bombs. One was used to test the device and the other two were dropped on Japan.
The atom bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki was intended for Kukura. the pilot got lost in fog and was redirected to Nagasaki after he got his bearings.
The atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki was never tested, the prototype was dropped.
If you cut a holograph in half, you will get a different view of the subject in each half, but the entire subject will be visible in both pictures.
"the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" was used to test teletype machines because it has every letter in the alphabet in it.
Most lipstick contains fish scales
One ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum
No piece of square dry paper can be folded more than 7 times in half
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second
The electric chair was invented by a dentist
Windmills always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland
Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone
Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it's known as Tennessee
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete
The state of Florida is bigger than England
The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is over 9000 years old
In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different
In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin
A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans
The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven
A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before a person realizes it's there, though
A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula"
In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (DON'T try this at home)
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
The average person falls asleep in seven minutes. (I'm certainly not average)
The urban legend that says your hair and fingernails grow for several weeks after you are dead is wrong. Hair and fingernails SEEM to grow after death, but it is actually an illusion caused by the shrinking of the corpse due to dehydration.
In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.
It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building. (This is apparently NOT true...For more information see this link. http://www.indiana.edu/~libweb/campus/libsink.html)
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. - SCARY!!
In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
Saturday mail delivery in Canada was eliminated by Canada Post on February 1, 1969
In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes
Should there be a crash, Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same airplane as a precaution
Your body is creating and killing 15 million red blood cells per second
The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache on a standard playing card
There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos
There is one slot machine in Las Vegas for every eight inhabitants
The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off
Every day 20 banks are robbed. The average take is $2,500
The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad
Tablecloths were originally meant to be served as towels with which dinner guests could wipe their hands and faces after eating
Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is considered an insult
One car out of every 230 made was stolen last year
The names of Popeye's four nephews are Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and Poopeye
Until the nineteenth century, solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia
The Nobel Peace Prize medal depicts three naked men with their hands on each other's shoulders
When glass breaks, the cracks move faster than 3,000 miles per hour. To photograph the event, a camera must shoot at a millionth of a second
A Boeing 747 airliner holds 57,285 gallons of fuel
A car uses 1.6 ounces of gas idling for one minute. Half an ounce is used to start the average automobile
The Philadelphia mint produces 26 million pennies per day
A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than those found at the sun's surface
A violin contains about 70 separate pieces of wood
It is estimated that 4 million "junk" telephone calls, phone solicitations by persons or programmed machine are made every day in the United States
It takes glass one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and can be recycled an infinite amount of times
Forest fires move faster uphill than downhill
Almost half the newspapers in the world are published in the United States and Canada!
The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows
Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands when typing
One ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen
It's illegal to drink beer out of a bucket while you're sitting on a curb in St. Louis
Over 2500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right handed people
There are more than 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building
If you counted 24 hours a day, it would take 31,688 years to reach one trillion
The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable"
The Earth weighs around 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons (5,940 billion billion metric tons)
Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year!
It's against the law to pawn your dentures in Las Vegas
Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark
The average American/Canadian will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year
It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a certain church in Omaha, Nebraska
you're born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206
In Natoma, Kansas, it's illegal to throw knives at men wearing striped suits
It was once against the law to have a pet dog in a city in Iceland!
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day
During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food, that's the weight of about 6 elephants
About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30
More people use blue toothbrushes, than red ones
A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe
In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons
Recycling one glass jar, saves enough energy to watch T.V for 3 hours
Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet
The average American/Canadian drinks about 600 sodas a year
It was once against the law to slam your car door in a city in Switzerland
There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses!
Eskimo ice cream is neither icy, or creamy
In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals
A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate
More Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed throughout the world
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different
There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and month! Interesting tries from our readers: orange: door hinge, melange (French for mix) purple: hurtle, durple?, turtle month: once, bunth?, hunch
Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool! He changed it every 2 innings
Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung
A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years! Wow
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying
166,875,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each year in the U.S!
1,525,000,000 miles of telephone wire a strung across the U.S!
123,000,000 cars are being driven down the U.S's highways!
85,000,000 tons of paper are used each year in the U.S!
56,000,000 people go to Major League baseball each year
The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head!
In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs
There are over 58 million dogs in the U.S
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails
Humans blink over 10,000,000 times a year
In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II was named an "Honorary Harlem Globetrotter."
Every second, Americans collectively eat one hundred pounds of chocolate
A fetus develops fingerprints at eighteen weeks
The fear of vegetables is called Lachanophobia
.. .
There are approximately fifty Bibles sold each minute across the world
Every year, kids in North America spend close to half a billion dollars on chewing gum
An earthquake on Dec. 16, 1811 caused parts of the Mississippi River to flow backwards
A person uses approximately fifty-seven sheets of toilet paper each day
Honolulu is the only place in the United States that has a royal palace
One gallon of used motor oil can ruin approximately one million gallons of fresh water
More money is spent on gardening than on any other hobby
In 32 years. there are about 1 billion seconds
Rice paper does not have any rice in it
In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word
The average person laughs 13 times a day
Men are 6 times more likely to be struck by lightning than women
It is estimated that millions of trees in the world are accidentally planted by squirrels who bury nuts and then forget where they hid them
Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel, "Gadsby", which contains over 50,000 words -- none of them with the letter E
Every 45 seconds, a house catches on fire in the United States
The most used letter in the English alphabet is 'E', and 'Q' is the least used
There are more than 50,000 earthquakes throughout the world every year
Apples are more efficient than caffeine in keeping people awake in the mornings
Smelling bananas and/or green apples (smelling, not eating) can help you lose weight
The average ice berg weighs 20,000,000 tons
A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court
The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs in it.
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously (entering by way of a vein).
One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 30s lobbied against hemp farmers - they saw it as competition.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.
Sliced bread was invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder, and first sold in May 1928.
The longest word in the English language is 1909 letters long and it refers to a distinct part of DNA.
Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.
The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language.
The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
Typewriter, is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard.
The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.
No word in the English language rhymes with month.
In Sanskrit, the word for war literally translates to ‘a desire for more cows.’
SOS didn’t originally stand for ‘Save Our Ship’—it was just chosen by a 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 . . .
Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
Feb 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months; enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.
In 1789, the U.S. armed forces on active duty totaled 718. Today, active duty US military personnel total nearly 1.5 million. Of course, at the end of World War II, there were over 12 million
The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in the Christmas classic with Jimmy Stewart “Its A Wonderful Life.”
There is a place called Pathos Ridge, the only place on the planet from which the Scirocco Mobile can be seen. This object is a construct created by a now extinct nomadic tribe, and remains, to this day, one of the most obscure of anthropological mysteries.
There are more Barbie dolls in existence than there are people in the United States
Strange, but true! In Death Valley, California, rocks are seen to move by themselves! This is one of many of nature’s mysteries, which no one can unravel. They can move fair distances and leave tracks behind them in the sand. Locally they are known as the ‘racetrack rocks.’
Strange, but true! There was a bank robbery in London where two men grabbed a jewelry store manager’s briefcase and made off with it. They were unlucky, however, as all the briefcase contained was the manager’s lunch
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Right handed people live, on average; nine years longer than left handed people do.
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
China has more English speakers than the United States.
Did you know you share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world?
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.
Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
You know that you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.
60% of the potatoes in the United States come from Idaho.
40% of McDonald’s products come from selling happy meals.
20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions are written each year.
3000 people under the age of 18 start smoking every day.
17% of all teenagers smoke.
Every day 12 newborns are given to the wrong parents in the hospital.
Earth has about 5,000,000,000 years of sunlight left.
It snowed in the Sahara Desert in February of 1979.
Sliced bread was pattened in 1954.
100% of lottery winners gain weight.
China has more English speakers than England.
’Stewardesses’ is the longest word that can be made using only your left hand when typed.
20% of women look at a man’s butt before his face.
If you are in total darkness for 3 days you become permanently blind.
Coca-Cola can be used as car oil.
In the English language ‘four’ is the only number spelled with the same number of characters as its value.
Pizza is the most served dinner in America.
Snickers is the top selling candy sold in vending machines.
There are more chickens in the world than people.
A person has 696 muscles while a caterpillar has over 4000.
7up was created in 1929.
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching tv.
The king of hearts is the only one with a moustache.
The plastic things at the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
90% of dust particles in your home are from dead skin.
The original owner of the Marlboro company died of lung cancer.
Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
Marilyn Monroe had 6 toes on her left foot.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.
According to the Guinness Book, the fastest restaraunt in the world serves the client’s food within 13 seconds after the order is made (in tables of 4.) The name of the restaraunt is Karne Garibaldi and it is located in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Because of the rotation of earth you can throw a ball farther to the west than to the east.
Loch Ness is twice as deep as the North Sea and can hold 3 times the world’s population.
The deepest spot in the ocean is the Mariana Trench at 11.7 km.
The trick to curing hiccips is to get the nerves that regulate breathing synchronized. 1)Hold your breath as long as you can then exhale very gradually. 2)Deep slow breathing. 3)Nonstop slow sipping of a glass of warm water. 4)Taking a teaspoon of granulated sugar.
The longest movie was not “24 Hours” by Andy Warhol, but was around 78 hours- a film called “Insomnia.” The film consisted of the writer’s poetry read by him with splices of a rock and roll band throughout.
An alternative was to whiten your teeth is to try eating raw lemon with salt (just brush with toothpaste afterwards.
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Queen Elizabeth the first had wooden teeth.
Pocahontas is the first Disney film to be based on the life of a real person.
Mickie Mouse has nephews named Mortie and Ferdie. (People usually just think of Donald Duck’s nephews- Huey, Dewey, and Louie.)
Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
In the 1890s a book was written about a ship named ‘Gigantic’ that conviently told the disaster of the Titanic almost to the specific passengers. (Remember, the Titanic sank in 1912.)
President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president on a Catholic Mass book, not a bible like all other presidents.
George Clooney is best known as Dr. Doug Ross on the tv show ‘ER’. In 1984 he played a medical intern named Ace on another medical program that also was set at a Chicago hospital. The shows name was ‘E/R’.
The first toilet to ever be shown on tv was on ‘Leave it to Beaver.’
There are more people alive today than have ever died.
Titanic was the first ocean liner to have a swimming pool and gym.
If you have blonde hair that goes greenish from swimming pool chlorine you can put ketchup on it because it balances the pigments out.
Tuna swim at a steady rate of nine miles per hours for an indefinite amount of time and they never stop moving. Estimates indicate that a 15 year old tuna must have traveled one million miles in its lifetime.
A fierce gust of wind blew 45 year old Vittorio Luise’s car into a river near Naples, Italy in 1983. He managed to break a window, climb out and swim to shore-- where a tree blew over and killed him.
The 57 on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.
All US presidents have worm glasses. Some just didn’t like being seen in public with them.
When you cough it comes out of your mouth at 60 mph.
In some volcanic areas such as Iceland the temperature rises beneath the surface of the earth as high as 680ºF (360ºC) that engineers can tap the geothermal energy by piping hot water from underground to warm nearby homes, offices, and factories. An outdoor swimming pool in the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik, is heated so effectively by this method that it remains open and in use all year round.
Hang On Sloopy is the official rock song of Ohio.
Alaska was purchased from Russia for 2 cents per acre.
Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the continental United States, and Zabriskie Point (in Death Valley) , the lowest point in the United States, are less than eighty miles apart.
Before Prohibition, Shlitz Brewery owned more property in Chicago than anyone else, except The Catholic Church.
In the kingdom of Bhutan, all citizens officially become a year older on New Year's Day.
Mexico's east coast is sinking into the sea at the rate of one to two inches per year.
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
In the United States there are more 2nd streets than there are 1st streets, and Main street is not the most common; Pine is.
Many people think that the clock in the tower of Londons House Of Parliment is called "Big Ben." Actually, the nickname "Big Ben" originally applied to the huge bell in the clock, not to the clock itself.
Malaysians protect their babies from disease by bathing them in beer.
The only nation whose name begins with an "A", but doesn't end in an "A" is Afghanistan.
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
"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.
Texas is also the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.
A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her coffee.
The three best-known western names in China: Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley.
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
Texas is the only state that permits residents to cast absentee ballots from space. The first to exercise this right to vote while in orbit was astronaut David Wolf, who cast his vote for Houston mayor via e-mail from the Russian space station Mir in November 1997.
In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.
The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
You can call it England, Britain, Great Britain, United Kingdom, or U.K. - however if you buy a stamp there, you won't find any name. England was the first country in the world to issue postage stamps, and they're the only nation in the world today that doesn't use a national name on their stamps.
The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.
Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City, after the Catholic Church.
Hypnotism is banned by public schools in San Diego.
Eskimos never gamble.
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
City with the most Rolls Royce's per capita: Hong Kong
State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
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
Montpelier, Vermont is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonalds.
In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only 6 people were injured
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades - King David; Clubs - Alexander the Great; Hearts - Charlemagne; and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
The Battle of New Orleans, in which Andrew Jackson's U.S. forces routed "the bloody british", was fought on Janurary 8, 1815, two weeks after the War of 1812 was officially ended by the signing of the Treaty of Ghent.
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.
The first song played on Armed Forces Radio during operation Desert Shield was "Rock the Casba" by the Clash.
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.
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt ate three chocolate-covered garlic balls every morning. Her doctor suggested this to improve her memory.
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 that *this* was the day of the changeover.
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.
The term, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" is from Ancient Rome. The only rule during wrestling matches was, "No eye gouging." Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be disqualified is to poke someone's eye out.
Only President to remain a bachelor: James Buchanon
Only first lady to carry a loaded revolver: Eleanor Roosevelt
Only President to win a Pulitzer: John F. Kennedy for "Profiles in Courage".
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'.
Only President awarded a patent: Abe Lincoln, for a system of buoying vessels over shoals .
Back in the mid to late 80's, an IBM compatible computer wasn't considered a hundred percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator.
In AngloSaxon times a man could divorce his wife on the grounds that she was too passionate.
Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.
Theodore Roosevelt was the only U.S. president to deliver an inaugural address without using the word "I". Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower tied for second place, using "I" only once in their inaugural addresses.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
The condom - made originally of linen - was invented in the early 1500s.
America's first nudist organization was founded in 1929, by 3 men.
In 1983, a Japanese artist made a copy of the Mona Lisa completely out of toast.
In 1984, a Canadian farmer began renting ad space on his cows.
The term skyscraper was first used way back in 1888 to describe an 11-story building.
The only real person to be a Pez head was Betsy Ross.
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and were still smelling pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the odor.
Baths equaled a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."
Houses had thatched roofs. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the pets - dogs, cats - and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs."
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. So, they found if they made beds with big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed that problem. Hence those beautiful big four-poster beds with canopies.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors which would get slippery in the winter when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed at the entry way, hence a "threshhold."
They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They mostly ate vegetables and didn't get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been in there for a month. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."
Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that happened. When company came over, they would bring out some bacon and hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth and that a man "could bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat." (Does this mean they were living "high on the hog"?)
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food. This happened most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes - for 400 years.
Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers - a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl.
Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off wormy trenchers, they would get "trench mouth."
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the "upper crust."
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.
They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."
England is old and small and they started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a house and reuse the grave.
In reopening these coffins, one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on their wrist and lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night to listen for the bell. Hence on the "graveyard shift" they would know that someone was "saved by the bell" or he was a "dead ringer."
The Frisbee originated in the 1950s, when Yale students started the practice of playing catch with the pie-tins put out by the Frisbie Baking Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The company went out of business in 1957, but a few of their "5 cent deposit" pie-tins remain and are being hoarded by avid Frisbee collectors.
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. [It floats in gasoline, too.]
Bubble gum contains rubber.
The world's largest coffee pot is located in Davidson, Saskatchewan. It measures 24 Feet(7.3 Meters) tall, is made of sheet metal and could hold 150,000 8 ounce cups of coffee.
The pharaohs of ancient Egypt invented and wore garments made with thin threads of beaten gold. Some fabrics had up to 500 gold threads per one inch of cloth.
The first Ford cars had Dodge engines.
Miller Reese of New York, patented the first hearing-aid. Unlike the hearing aids that we know today - this original was not portable.
The first razor with disposable blades was patented by King Camp Gillette.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
Bullet-proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers were all invented by women.
The parachute was invented by da Vinci in 1515.
Five Jell-O flavors that flopped: celery, coffee, cola, apple, and chocolate.
Henry Waterman invented the elevator in 1850. He intended it to transport barrels of flour.
John Greenwood invented the dental drill in 1790.
The corkscrew was invented by M.L. Bryn in 1860.
Electrical hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R. Hutchinson.
Dr. Jonas Salk developed the vaccine for polio in 1952.
Four wheel roller skates - James L. Plimpton in 1863.
Henry Ford, of Model T. fame operated a sawmill in the early 1900s. Hating waste, he wondered what he could do with a growing pile of scrap wood. He came up with the idea of converting the wood into charcoal powder and compressing it into the now familiar briquet shape. A relative of Ford's, E.G. Kingsford, collaborator on the project.
More than 5,000 years ago, the Chinese discovered how to make silk from silkworm cocoons. For about 3,000 years, the Chinese kept this discovery a secret. Because poor people could not afford real silk, they tried to make other cloth look silky. Women would beat on cotton with sticks to soften the fibers. Then they rubbed it against a big stone to make it shiny. The shiny cotton was called "chintz." Because chintz was a cheaper copy of silk, calling something "chintzy" means it is cheap and not of good quality.
There's no Betty Rubble in Flintstone Chewables
It's impossible to get water out of a rimless tire.
101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy) are the only two Disney cartoons that feature two-parent families in which neither parent dies during the course of the movie.
1 out of 4 Americans do not know what their astrological sign is.
The world record for cow-chip tossing (under the strict non-sphericalization and 100% organic rule of 1986) is 56.70 meters.
The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, "Aladdin was a little Chinese boy."
If we could shrink the Earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people.......with all existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look like this: There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western Hemisphere (North and South) and 8 Africans 51 would be female; 49 male 70 would be nonwhite; 30 white 70 would be non-Christian; 30 Christian 50% of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people, and all 6 would be citizens of the United States 80 would live in substandard housing 70 unable to read 50 would suffer from malnutrition 1 would be near death, 1 would be near birth Only 1 would have a college education Only one person would own a computer
In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
In 1980, there was only one country in the world with no telephones-Bhutan.
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of the year.
Early football had no halftime - they took breaks after each point.
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
There are an average of 178 sesame seeds on a McDonald's Big Mac bun.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosey is a rhyme about the plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores (Ring around the Rosey...). These sores would smell very bad so people would hide flowers on their bodies in an attempt to mask the smell ("pocket full of posies..."). People who died from the plague would be burned to reduce the spread of the disease ("ashes, ashes, we all fall down").
One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today because cotton growers in the 30's lobbied against hemp farmers --they saw it as competition. It is not chemically addictive as is nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine.
Dartboards are made out of horsehairs.
Most married couples knew each other at least 2 years prior to the wedding.
Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of fur. The story was changed in the 1600s by a translator.
It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella) lost at the stairway, when the prince tried to follow her.
The maximum weight for a golf ball is 1.62 oz.
It's a policy at Goodyear is to always say "inflate" & never "blow up".
Ingrown toenails are hereditary.
Pulp Fiction cost $8 million to make - $5 million going to actors' salaries.
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid. (Not surprisingly, another record was set that winter: most deaths from going over the falls in a barrel)
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 pop you get when you crack your knuckles is actually a bubble of gas bursting.
Wet sand - for some reason - weighs LESS than dry sand.
Scientists have actually performed Brain surgery on cockroaches.
Every 10 minutes, another plant or animal life form becomes extinct.
Gershon Legman, the American sexologist and author of such erotica reference works as "Rationale of the Dirty Joke" and "Oragenitalism" once calculated that there are 14,288,400 possible positions for sexual intercourse.
Every year, parks in London alone are doused in one million gallons of dog urine.
The germs present in human feces can pass through up to ten layers of toilet paper.
The best recorded distance for projectile vomiting is 27 feet.
The shape of plant collenchyma cells and the shape of the bubbles in beer foam are the same - they are orthotetrachidecahedrons.
Researchers in Denmark found that beer tastes best when drunk to the accompaniment of a certain musical tone. The optimal frequency is different for each beer, they reported. The correct harmonious tone for Carlsberg Lager, for example, is 510-520 cycles per second.
"Evaluation and Parameterization of Stability and Safety Performance Characteristics of Two and Three Wheeled Vehicular Toys for Riding." Title of a $230,000 research project proposed by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, to study the various ways children fall off bicycles.
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.
Of the 206 bones in the average human adult's body, 106 are in the hands and feet. (54 in the hands and 52 in the feet)
The diameter of the wire in a standard paper clip is 1 millimeter - or about 0.04 inch.
10 percent of television 'Snow' is caused by microwave radiation.
Several varieties of lightning have been identified by meteorologists. In the so-called "Positive Giant" type, the temperature of the lightning bolt reaches 30,000 degrees C. Over five times hotter than the surface of the sun.
According to the records, the only bone not broken so far during any ski accident is one located in the inner ear.
If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.
The lifespan of a tastebud is ten days.
The ashes of the average cremated person weighs nine pounds.
The dial tone of a normal telephone is in the key of "F".
If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.
The tip of a bullwhip moves so fast that it breaks the sound barrier. The "crack" of a whip is actually a tiny sonic boom.
The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.
Each unit on the Richter Scale is equivalent to a power factor of about 32. So a 6 is 32 times more powerful than a 5. Though it goes to 10, 9 is estimated to be the point of total tetonic destruction (2 is the smallest that can be felt unaided.)
The heart of an astronaut actually gets smaller when in outer space.
An 8oz glass of water weighs 1/2 a pound, an 8oz glass of gas from the center of the sun would weigh about 75 pounds.
Next time you drink a glass of water think about this: the hydrogen molecules in water are 14 billion years old, they were created at the same time as the universe.
What is one of the most difficult items for sewage works to handle, as it is insoluble, yet fine enough to pass through most filtration systems? (Every month Thames Water removes over a ton of this substance from its water treatment plants, whereupon it is taken away to a landfill site and buried) You guessed it - pubic hair.
Parasites count for 0.01% of your body weight.
Every person has a unique thermal face print.
Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
Contrary to popular belief, if you swallow chewing gum it does not stay in the gut. Usually it will pass through the system and be excreted without incident. However, several cases have been reported where the gum has stuck in the rectum, causing the unfortunate sufferer to excrete long sticky trails of gum, like a pink spider's web.
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.
Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.
You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day that in any other weather.
The sky is shrinking and has been doing so for the past 40 years, scientists have discovered. About five miles of sky have been lost since 1958, and that figure may double over the next century. Researchers studying the Earth's upper atmosphere, 56 miles up, said the contraction is probably a result of the greenhouse effect.
Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.
The Neanderthal's brain was bigger than yours is.
Your right lung takes in more air than your left one does.
June 1, 1999 General Motors Corp. has a device in many of its new cars that functions like the black box recorder in airplanes: It collects data as a car crashes.
A full-grown pumpkin has about 15 miles of roots.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
The longest recorded tapeworm found in the human body was 33 meters in length.
Among hypochondriacs, there are many more men than women.
It is possible to cough your guts up.
If your body's natural defenses failed, the bacteria in your gut would consume you within 48 hours, literally eating you from the inside out.
Proportional to their weight, men are stronger than horses.
Jupiter is bigger than all the other planets in our solar system combined.
Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.