John Glenn, the American who first orbited the Earth, was showered with 3,529 tonnes of ticker tape when he got back. (Good job a lot of it missed!)
Native American Indians used to name their children after the first thing they saw as they left their tepees subsequent to the birth. Hence such strange names as Sitting Bull and Running Water. (Imagine children here called Hospital Trolley or Green Corridor)
Catherine the First of Russia, made a rule that no man was allowed to get drunk at one of her parties before nine o'clock.
Queen Elizabeth I passed a law which forced everyone except the rich to wear a flat cap on Sundays.
The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is decapitation. (...so they'll never know if you go blind?)
The Dutch in general prefer their french fries with mayonnaise.(That's as bad as David's salad cream and honey sandwiches!)
Harry S Truman became the President of the USA on 12 April 1945. The initial S in the middle of his name doesn't in fact mean anything. Both his grandfathers had names beginning with 'S', and Truman's mother didn't want to disappoint either of them.
One of Queen Victoria's wedding gifts was a 3 metre diameter, half tonne cheese. (The stuff of nightmares?)
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never phoned his wife or his mother, they were both deaf.
In parts of Malaya, the women kept harems of men.
The childrens' nursery rhyme 'Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses' actually refers to the Black Death which killed about 30 million people in the fourteenth-century.
The word 'denim' comes from 'de Nimes', Nimes being the town the fabric was originally produced.
Useless information
Showing posts with label Useless Information. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Useless Information. Show all posts
Monday, 9 June 2008
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
Did you Know/ (And do you care?)
In Lebanon, men are legally allowed to have sex with animals, but the animals must be female. Having sexual relations with a male animal is punishable by death.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain. (I know some people like that.)
Starfish don't have brains. (I know some people like that, too)
The women of the Tiwi tribe in the South Pacific are married at birth.
When Albert Einstein died, his final words died with him. The nurse at his side didn't understand German.
St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was not Irish.
The lance ceased to be an official battle weapon in the British Army in 1927.
Sliced bread was patented by a jeweller, Otto Rohwedder, in 1928. He had been working on it for 16 years, having started in 1912.
An American aircraft in Vietnam shot itself down with one of its own missiles.
Coffee is the second largest item of international commerce in the world. The largest is petrol.
Only 1 child in 20 is born on the day predicted by the doctor.
The 'Hundred Years War' lasted 116 years.
The British did not release the body of Napoleon Bonaparte to the French until twenty days after his death. (I bet that caused a stink!)
Admiral Lord Nelson was less than 1.6 metres tall.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain. (I know some people like that.)
Starfish don't have brains. (I know some people like that, too)
The women of the Tiwi tribe in the South Pacific are married at birth.
When Albert Einstein died, his final words died with him. The nurse at his side didn't understand German.
St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was not Irish.
The lance ceased to be an official battle weapon in the British Army in 1927.
Sliced bread was patented by a jeweller, Otto Rohwedder, in 1928. He had been working on it for 16 years, having started in 1912.
An American aircraft in Vietnam shot itself down with one of its own missiles.
Coffee is the second largest item of international commerce in the world. The largest is petrol.
Only 1 child in 20 is born on the day predicted by the doctor.
The 'Hundred Years War' lasted 116 years.
The British did not release the body of Napoleon Bonaparte to the French until twenty days after his death. (I bet that caused a stink!)
Admiral Lord Nelson was less than 1.6 metres tall.
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
More things you don't care about...
The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.
The human eye blinks an average of 4,200,000 times a year.
It takes approximately 12 hours for food to entirely digest.
Erosion at the base of Niagara Falls (USA) undermines the shale cliffs and as a result, the falls have receded approximately 7 miles over the last 10,000 years.
The longest living cells in the body are brain cells which can live an entire lifetime.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
There is enough fuel in a full tank of a jumbo jet to drive an average car four times around the world.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike each year than all the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
The Spanish word esposa means "wife." The plural, esposas, means "wives," but also "handcuffs."
The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.
The human eye blinks an average of 4,200,000 times a year.
It takes approximately 12 hours for food to entirely digest.
Erosion at the base of Niagara Falls (USA) undermines the shale cliffs and as a result, the falls have receded approximately 7 miles over the last 10,000 years.
The longest living cells in the body are brain cells which can live an entire lifetime.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
There is enough fuel in a full tank of a jumbo jet to drive an average car four times around the world.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike each year than all the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
The Spanish word esposa means "wife." The plural, esposas, means "wives," but also "handcuffs."
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
More Useless Information
Donald Duck’s middle name is Fauntleroy.
Al Capone’s business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
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, ere, therein, herein.
Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
The longest place-name still in use is said to be Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwenuakitanatahu, a hill in New Zealand.
“Underground” is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters “und.”
Al Capone’s business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
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, ere, therein, herein.
Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
The longest place-name still in use is said to be Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwenuakitanatahu, a hill in New Zealand.
“Underground” is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters “und.”
Tuesday, 16 October 2007
More Useless Information
The “save” icon in Microsoft Office programs shows a floppy disk with the shutter on backwards.
Most lipstick contains fish scales.
The Three Wise Monkeys have names: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil).
About 200,000,000 M&Ms are sold each day in the United States.
There are 318,979,564,000 possible combinations of the first four moves in Chess.
Upper and lower case letters are named “upper” and “lower” because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the upper case letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the lower case letters.
Most lipstick contains fish scales.
The Three Wise Monkeys have names: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil).
About 200,000,000 M&Ms are sold each day in the United States.
There are 318,979,564,000 possible combinations of the first four moves in Chess.
Upper and lower case letters are named “upper” and “lower” because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the upper case letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the lower case letters.
Saturday, 1 September 2007
Things you didn’t need to Know
A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time - 1/100th of a second.
* * *
Babies are born without kneecaps. They have none until a child is somewhere between 2 to 6 years of age.
* * *
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have had a full moon.
* * *
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
* * *
The Hippopotamus is born underwater.
* * *
The venom of the King Cobra is so deadly that simply handling it can put one in a coma.
* * *
The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows – it was the fashion at the time to shave them off.
* * *
On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag.
* * *
A mole can dig a tunnel 100 yards long in one night.
* * *
* * *
Babies are born without kneecaps. They have none until a child is somewhere between 2 to 6 years of age.
* * *
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have had a full moon.
* * *
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
* * *
The Hippopotamus is born underwater.
* * *
The venom of the King Cobra is so deadly that simply handling it can put one in a coma.
* * *
The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows – it was the fashion at the time to shave them off.
* * *
On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag.
* * *
A mole can dig a tunnel 100 yards long in one night.
* * *
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