True, but Useless Facts

1. Psychiatrists say that 1 of 4 people are mentally ill. Check 3 friends. If they're OK, you're it.
2. The "pound" key on your keyboard (#) is called an octotroph.
3. The only domestic cat not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
4. The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
5. Ping pong balls have beenknown to travel off the paddle at speeds up to 160 km/hr.
6. Pepsi originally contained pepsin, thus the name.
7. The original story from "Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights" begins, "Aladdin was a little Chinese boy."
8. Nutmeg is extremly poisonous if injected intravenously.
9. Honey is the only natural food that is made without destroying any kind of life.
10. The most common name is the world is Mohommad.
11. Michael Jordan makes more money from NIKE annually thanall of the Nike factory workers in Maalaysia combined.
12. The volume of the earth's moon is the same as the volume of the Pacific Ocean.
13. Cephalacaudal recapitulation is (supposedly?) the reason our extremities develop faster than the rest of us.
14. Spiral staircases in medieval casters 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 sword. Left-handed people could never become knights.
15. Ham radio operators got the term "ham" coined from the expression "ham fisted operators," a term used to describe early raio users who sent Morse code (i.e., pounded their fist).
16. 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.
17. Chinese Crested dogs can get acne.
18. Hydrogen gas is the least dense substance in the world, at .08988g/cc.
19. Hydrogen solid is the most dense substance int he world at 70.6g/cc.
20. Each year there is one ton of cement poired for each man woman and child in the world.
21. The house fly hums in the middle octave key of F.
22. The only capital letter in the Roman alphabet with exactly one end point is P.
23. The giant red star betelguese has a diameter larger than that of the Earth's orbit around the sun.
24. The longest place name sitll in use is : Taumatawhakatangihangaoauauotameteaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanutahu - a hill in New Zealand.
25. Only 1 in 2 billion (2,000,000,000) will live to be 116 or older.
26. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
27. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
28. According to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, it is possible to go slower than light, and faster than light, but it is impossible to go the speed of light.
29. Also, there is a particle called tackyon which is supposed to go faster than light. This means if you fire a tackyon beam, it travels before you fire it.
30. Hummingbirds re the only animal that can fly backwards.
31. A cat's jaw cannot move sideways.
32. Stewardesses and reverberated are the two longest words (12 letters each) that can be typed using only the left hand.
33. The longest word that can be typed using only the right hand is lollipop.
34. Skepticism is the longest word that alternates hands.
35. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
36. 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 p, but no channel 1.
37. A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a skein.
38. The underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. The frog peels off several times a year with new growth.
39. The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments
40. The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.
41. 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."
42. The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
43. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
44. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
45. The shape of plant collenchyma cells and the shape of the bubbles in beer foam are the same - they are orthotetrachidecahedrons.
46. The word 'pound' is abbreviated 'lb.' after the constellation 'libra' because it means 'pound' in Latin, and also 'scales'. The abbreviation for the British Pound Sterling comes from the same source: it is an 'L' or Libra/Lb. with a stroke through it to indicate abbreviation. Same goes for the Italian lira which uses the same abbreviation ('lira' coming from 'libra'). So British currency (before it went metric) was always quoted as "pounds/shillings/pence", abbreviated "L/s/d" (libra/solidus/denarius).
47. Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
48. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
49. The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead".
50. Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."
51. Camel's milk does not curdle.
52. In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
53. An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.
54. Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.
55. The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.
56. Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.
57. All porcupines float in water.
58. Hang On Sloopy is the official rock song of Ohio.
59. Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?
60. The world's largest wine cask is in Heidelberg, Germany.
61. If you bring a raccoon's head to the Henniker, New Hampshire town hall, you are entitled to receive $.10 from the town.
62. St. Stephen is the patron saint of bricklayers.
63. The first song played on Armed Forces Radio during operation Desert Shield was "Rock the Casba" by the Clash.
64. 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.
65. Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
66. The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)
67. Texas is also the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.
68. The only nation who's name begins with an "A", but doesn't end in an "A" is Afghanistan.
69. The names of the three wise monkeys are: Mizaru: See no evil, Mikazaru: Hear no evil, and Mazaru: Speak no evil.
70. When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
71. 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.
72. 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.
73. When you hear the crack of a whip you hear a mini sonic boom. It actually travels faster than the speed of sound!
74. To avoid long encounters with the press, President Ronald Reagan often took reporters' questions with his helicopter roaring in the background.
75. An ostrich's eye is bigger that it's brain.
76. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
77. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
78. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
79. 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 realise what is occurring, relax and correct itself.
80. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.
81. 101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy) are the only two Disney cartoon features with both parents that are present and don't die throughout the movie.
82. Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson."
83. 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.
84. Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the deaths of their cats.
85. A bowling pin need only tilt 7.5 degrees in order to fall down.
86. A Hamlet is a Village without a church and a Town is not a City until it has a cathedral.
87. Reindeer like to eat bananas.
88. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver and purple.
89. Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
90. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
91. More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.
92. A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
93. Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
94. Bank robber John Dillinger played professional baseball.
95. 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.
96. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
97. 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.
98. Hydroxydesoxycorticosterone and hydroxydeoxycorticosterones are the largest anagrams.
99. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula."
100. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
101. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
102. Wilma Flintstone's maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble's Maiden name was Betty Jean Mcbricker.
103. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
104. If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die, they need gravity to swallow.
105. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
106. 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"
107. Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.
108. Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with "Midnight Cowboy." Her entire role lasted only six minutes.
109. Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous transatlantic flight.
110. 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.
111. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
112. 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.
113. 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.
114. The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth.
115. Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the same sex.
116. Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.
117. A group of unicorns is called a blessing.
118. Twelve or more cows are known as a "flink."
119. A group of frogs is called an army.
120. A group of rhinos is called a crash.
121. A group of kangaroos is called a mob.
122. A group of whales is called a pod.
123. A group of ravens is called a murder.
124. A group of officers is called a mess.
125. A group of larks is called an exaltation.
126. A group of owls is called a parliament.
127. Physicist Murray Gell-Mann named the sub-atomic particles known as quarks for a random line in James Joyce, "Three quarks for Muster Mark!"
128. 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.
129. In Cleveland, Ohio, it's illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.
130. Dr. Seuss coined the word "nerd" in his 1950 book "If I Ran the Zoo"
131. It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
132. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
133. There are an average of 178 sesame seeds on a McDonald's Big Mac bun.
134. The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.
135. Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.
136. The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
137. When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles per year.
138. It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
139. The Bible has been translated into Klingon.
140. Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.
141. Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.
142. Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
143. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
144. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.
145. Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California.
146. Average lifespan of a major league baseball: 5 pitches.
147. Average age of top GM executives in 1994: 49.8 years. Average age of the Rolling Stones: 50.6.
148. Elephants can't jump. Every other mammal can. (What about whales and dolphins? -- WorldChanger)
149. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
150. Five Jell-O flavors that flopped: celery, coffee, cola, apple, and chocolate.
151. According to one study, 24% of lawns have some sort of lawn ornament in their yard.
152. Internationally, Baywatch is the most popular TV show in history.
153. Bank robber John Dillinger played professional baseball.
154. 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.
155. If your eyes are six feet above the surface of the ocean, the horizon will be about three statute miles away.
156. The band Duran Duran got their name from an astronaut in the 1968 Jane Fonda movie "Barbarella".
157. Cleo and Caesar were the early stage names of Cher and Sonny Bono.
158. 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.
159. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
160. 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."
161. 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.
162. To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs -- it will let you go instantly.
163. Reindeer like to eat bananas.
164. Physicist Murray Gell-Mann named the sub-atomic particles known as quarks for a random line in James Joyce, "Three quarks for Muster Mark!"
165. "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.
166. 8% of students at the Dunkin' Donuts Training Center do not pass the six-week training course.
167. A Los Angeles taxi company can be fined up to $1,500 if its drivers are found wearing anything plaid.
168. 5,506,720 documents were classifed as "secret" or "top secret" by the U.S. Government in 1989.
169. 57% of cat owners say they confide in their cats about important matters.
170. 17 indoor miniature-golf courses were constructed in the United States in 1990.
171. The average "Brit" drinks 3.7 cups of tea daily.
172. The average American drinks 3.4 cups of coffee daily.
173. 9 people have barreled over Niagara Falls.......and survived.
174. 38,961 Americans have a lifetime subscription to "Readers Digest".
175. It is estimated that 46 Ant Farms are sold each hour.
176. 16,000,000,000 prizes have been given away in boxes of Cracker Jacks since 1912.
177. It takes an estimated 120 man hours to completely dismantel one U.S. Army tank.
178. There is a 99 in 100 chance that a deep breath inhaled today will contain a molecule from Julius Caesar's dying breath.
179. 50% of Americans believes that "there are people somewhat like ourselves living on other planets in the universe."
180. There are 260,387,000 bedrooms in the United States.
181. 200,000,000 M&M's are sold daily in the United States.
182. It would take 23 hours for all of the Coca-Cola ever sold to flow over Niagara Falls.
183. There were 20 hugs in the final episode of "Family Ties."
184. A study in 1993 found that 1/4 of Americans over the age of 18 say they would not give up TV, even for a million dollars.
185. A study in the 1980's offered four and five year olds the choice of giving up TV or their fathers. 1/3 said they would give up their fathers.