Amazing Facts

- Because of the rotation of the earth, an object can be thrown farther if it is thrown west.

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

- The "ZIP" in Zip Code stands for "Zone Improvement Plan."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- I’ve put the strange and really surprising ones in bold for the numbered facts.
#1 A Goldfish's attention span is three seconds

#2 Animals that lay eggs don't have belly buttons

#3 Beavers can hold their breathe for 45 minutes under water

#4 Slugs have 4 noses

#5 Camels have 3 eyelids

#6 A honey bee can fly at 15mph

#7 A queen bee can lay 800-1500 eggs per day

#8 A bee has 5 eyes

#9 The average speed of a housefly is 4.5 mph

#10 Mosquitoes are attracted to people who just ate bananas

#11 Flamingos are pink because they eat shrimp

#12 Emus and Kangaroos cannot walk backward

#13 Cats have over 100 vocal chords

#14 Camel's milk does not curdle

#15 All porcupines float in water

#16 The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1

#17 A hummingbird weighs less then a penny

#18 A jellyfish is 95% water

#19 Children grow faster in the spring

#20 Broccoli is the only vegetable that is also a flower

#21 Almonds are part of the peach family

#22 Alaska has the highest percentage of people who walk to work

#23 The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile national monument

#24 The state of Maine has 62 lighthouses

#25 The only food that does not spoil is honey

#26 The Hawaiian alphabet only has 12 letters

#27 A ball of glass will bounce higher then a ball of rubber

#28 Chewing gum while peeling onions will prevent you from crying

#29 On average a human will spend up to 2 weeks kissing in his/her lifetime

#30 Fish have eyelids

#31 The average human will eat an average of 8 spiders while sleeping

#32 There is one million ants to every human in the world

#33 Termites eat through wood two times faster when listening to rock music!

#34 If you keep a goldfish in a dark room it will eventually turn white

#35 Elephants only sleep 2 hours a day

#36 A duck's quack doesn't echo

#37 A snail breathes through its foot

#38 Fish cough.

#39 An ant's smell is stronger then a dog's

#40 It is possible to lead a cow up stairs but not down

#41 Shrimp can only swim backward

#42 Frogs cannot swallow with their eyes open

#43 A cat's lower jaw cannot move sideways

#44 The bullfrog is the only animal that never sleeps

#45 Elephants are capable of swimming 20 miles per day

#46 Elephants are the only mammal that cannot jump

#47 Giraffes have no vocal chords

#48 Cats can hear ultrasound

#49 Despite its hump...camels has a straight spine

#50 Mosquitoes have 47 teeth

#51 There is 63,360 inches in a mile

#52 11% of people in the world are left-handed

#53 The average women consumes 6lbs of lipstick in her lifetime

#54 The average smell weighs 760 nanograms

#55 A human brain weighs about 3lbs

#56 1/4 of the bones in your body are in your feet

#57 You blink over 10,000,000 times a year

#58 A sneeze travels out of your nose at 100mph

#59 Brain waves can be used to power an electric train

#60 The tongue is the fastest healing part of the body

#61 Pigs get sunburn

#62 The lifespan of a taste bud is 10 days

#63 The average human produces 10,000 gallons of saliva in a lifetime

#64 Strawberries contain more Vitamin C then oranges

#65 A one-day weather forecast requires about 10 billion math calculations

#66 Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza a day

#67 There are 18 different animal shapes in the Animal cracker zoo

#68 The longest one syllable word is "screeched"

#69 No word in the English language rhymes with month

#70 A "jiffy" is actually 1/100 of a second

#71 There is a town called "Big Ugly" in West Virginia

#72 The average person uses 150 gallons of water per day for personal use

#73 The average person spends 2 weeks of its life waiting for a traffic light to change

#74 You share your birthday with 9 million others in the world

#75 The average person makes 1,140 phone calls per year

#76 The average person spends 2 years on the phone in his/her lifetime

#77 No piece of paper can be folded more then 7 times

#78 Alaska is the most eastern and western state in the US

#79 There are 119 grooves on the edge of a quarter

#80 About 18% of Animal owners share their bed with their pet

#81 Alaska has more caribou then people

#82 August has the highest percent of births

#83 Googol is a number (1 followed by 100 zeros)

#84 Oysters can change genders back and forth

#85 The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows

#86 Until the 19th century solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia

#87 A mile on the ocean and a mile on land are not the same distance

#88 A ten gallon hat holds less then one gallon of liquid

#89 The average American walks 18,000 steps a day

#90 The average raindrop falls at 7mph

#91 There are more telephones than people in Washington D.C.

#92 Fish can drown

#93 A Kangaroo can jump 30 feet

#94 Lizards communicate by doing push-ups

#95 Squids can have eyeballs the size of volleyballs ???????????????????

#96 The average American will eat 35,000 cookies in his/her lifetime

#97 A turkey can run at 20mph

#98 When the moon is directly over you, you weigh less

#99 You burn 20 calories an hour chewing gum

#100 In a year, the average person walks 4 miles making their bed

#101 About half of all Americans are on a diet at any given time

#102 A one-minute kiss burns 26 calories

#103 Frowning burns more calories then smiling

#104 There are more then 30,000 diets on public record

#105 You will burn 7% more calories walking on hard dirt then pavement

#106 You way less at the top of a mountain then sea level

#107 You burn more calories sleeping then watching TV

#108 Licking a stamp burns 10 calories

#109 Smelling apples and/or bananas can help you lose weight

#110 Frogs never drink

#111 Only male turkeys gobble

#112 At birth, a Dalmation is always pure white

#113 The fastest recorded speed of a racehorse was over 43 mph

#114 The oldest known animal was a tortoise, which lived to be 152 years old

#116 The largest fish is the whale shark - It can be over 50 feet long and weigh 2 tons

#117 The starfish is the only animal that can turn its stomach inside out

#118 Honeybees are the only insects that create a form of food for humans

#119 The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards

#120 The only continent without native reptiles or snakes is Antarctica

#121 The only bird that can swim and not fly is a penguin

#122 A duck can't walk without bobbing its head

#123 Beavers were once the size of bears

#124 Seals sleep only one and a half minutes at a time

#125 Pigeons have been trained by the U.S. Coast Guard to spot people lost at sea

#126 A pigeon's feathers are heavier than its bones

#127 A hummingbird's heart beats 1,400 times a minute

#128 Dragonflies have six legs but can't walk

#129 Mosquitos have 47 teeth

#131 Koala and humans are the only animals with unique fingerprints

#132 A crocodile cannot move its tongue

#133 Honeybees navigate by using the sun as a compass

#134 An ant can lift 50 times its own weight

#135 A single coffee tree produces only about a pound of coffee beans per year

#136 Strawberries are the only fruits whose seeds grow on the outside

#137 The city of Los Angeles has three times more automobiles than people

#138 Hawaii is the only U.S. state that grows coffee

#139 Hawaii is the only state with one school district

#140 Holland is the only country with a national dog

#141 The square dance is the official dance of the state of Washington

#142 Hawaii is the only U.S. state never to report a temperature of zero degrees F or below

#143 "Q" is the only letter in the alphabet not appearing in the name of any U.S. state

#144 Texas is the only state that permits residents to cast absentee ballots from space

#145 Lake Superior is the world's largest lake

#146 The smallest county in America is New York County, better known as Manhattan

#147 Panama is the only place in the world where you can see the sun rise on the Pacific and set on the Atlantic

#148 The tallest man was 8 ft. 11 in

#150 The first sport to be filmed was boxing in 1894

#151 The fastest served ball in tennis was clocked at 154 mph in 1963

#152 In 1985, the fastest bicyclist was clocked at 154 mph

#153 The speed limit in NYC was 8 mph in 1895

#154 Americans spend more than $630 million a year on golf balls

#155 In 1926, the first outdoor mini-golf courses were built on rooftops in NYC

#156 Swimming pools in the U.S. contain enough water to cover San Francisco

#157 The first TV soap opera debuted in 1946

#158 The first MTV video was "Video Killed the Radio Star," by the Buggles

#159 The first TV show ever to be put into reruns was "The Lone Ranger"

#160 One alternative title that had been considered for NBC's hit "Friends" was "Insomnia Cafe"

#161 The first TV network kids show in the U.S. was "Captain Kangaroo"

#162 The temperature of the sun can reach up to 15 million degrees fahrenheit

#163 The first penny had the motto "Mind your own business" ??????????????

#164 The first vacuum was so large, it was brought to a house by horses

#165 Panama is the only place in the world where you can see the sun rise??????????????

#166 Before mercury, brandy was used to fill thermometers

#167 You have to play ping-pong for 12 hours to lose one pound

#168 One brow wrinkle is the result of 200,000 frowns

#169 The first human-made object to break the sound barrier was a whip

#170 In 1878, the first telephone book ever issued contained only 50 names

#171 The most sensetive parts of the body are the mouth and the fingertips

#172 The eye makes movements 50 times every second

#173 Chinese is the most spoken language in the world

#175 In 1634, tulip bulbs were a form of currency in Holland

#176 The first bike was called a hobbyhorse

#177 The first sailing boats were built in Egypt

#178 The first ballpoint pens were sold in 1945 for $12.00

#179 The first lighthouse to use electricity was the Statue of Liberty in 1886

#180 The first VCR was made in 1956 and was the size of a piano

#181 The first jukebox was located in San Francisco in 1899

#182 A rainbow can only be seen in the morning or late afternoon

#183 The Capitol building in Washington DC has 365 steps to represent every day of the year

#184 The most used letters in the English language are E, T, A, O, I and N

#185 A male kangaroo is called a Boomer

#186 A female kangaroo is called a flyer

#187 There are over 61,000 pizzerias in the U.S

#188 Antarctica is the driest, coldest, windiest, and highest continent on earth

#190 Thailand means "Land of the Free"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. The ammo belts for .50 caliber machine guns measured exactly 27 feet before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."


-111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321


-60% of the world’s population has never used a phone.


-If you drown a fly, you can bring it back to life by putting it on a pile of salt

Dirt Poor?
A bit of history

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about life in the 1500's:
====================
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot (if you were lucky) water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and 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 dogs, cats and other small animals (mice, 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. That posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) 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, so a piece of wood was placed on the floor in the entranceway. Hence the invention of the "thresh hold."

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not 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 there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth 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."

They would often use a reed full of bacon fat and burn this for light at night, but when guests came over they would light both ends for more light, thus "burning the candle at both ends." Those with money had plates made of pewter.

Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

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 "upper crust."

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. 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 the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 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 the wrist of the corpse, 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 (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."

And that's the truth...
Now, whoever said that History was boring?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by sampson@28 June 2004 - 14:49
#50 Mosquitoes have 47 teeth

...

#129 Mosquitos have 47 teeth

---

tut tut tut... ;)

i'm not feeling amazed :mellow:

i'm actually feeling quite worried because I was already away of a lot of those "facts"

Some of them facts are :shit: too!

Quote:

---

#72 The average person uses 150 gallons of water per day for personal use

---

Explanation please!

Quote:

---

#108 Licking a stamp burns 10 calories

---

but...

Quote:

---

#99 You burn 20 calories an hour chewing gum

---

I could continue... :smilie4:

At the risk of sounding like a TV drone....

Numbers 1 and 36 have been debunked by the show on the Discovery channel Mythbusters. They found that goldfish have an attention span which is longer than three seconds and that a duck's quack does indeed echo it just is hard to tell without a spectrum analyzer.

:)

#123 Beavers were once the size of bears


:blink:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by pusher@28 June 2004 - 15:23
At the risk of sounding like a TV drone....

Numbers 1 and 36 have been debunked by the show on the Discovery channel Mythbusters. They found that goldfish have an attention span which is longer than three seconds and that a duck's quack does indeed echo it just is hard to tell without a spectrum analyzer.

:)

---

yeah i saw the goldfish episode

The most unbelievable one to me was (don't remember the number)

"Hummingbirds weigh less than a penny"