FROM http://www.djtech.net/humor/useless_facts.htm
4. Every time you lick a stamp, you consume 1/10 of a calorie.
6. Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself.
7. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.
9. 101 Dalmatians, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, and Mulan are the only Disney cartoons where both parents are present and don’t die throughout the movie.
12. To escape the grip of a crocodile’s jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs – it will let you go instantly.
13. Reindeer like to eat bananas.
15. The word “samba” means “to rub navels together.”
22. Because of the rotation of the earth, an object can be thrown farther if it is thrown west.
23. The average person spends 6 months of their life sitting at red lights.
24. In 1912 a law passed in Nebraska where drivers in the country at night were required to stop every 150 yards, send up a skyrocket, wait eight minutes for the road to clear before proceeding cautiously, all the while blowing their horn and shooting off flares.
26. Caesar salad has nothing to do with any of the Caesars. It was first concocted in a bar in Tijuana, Mexico, in the 1920’s.
27. One quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet.
28. Crocodiles and alligators are surprisingly fast on land. Although they are rapid, they are not agile. So, if being chased by one, run in a zigzag line to lose him or her.
29. Seattle’s Fremont Bridge rises up and down more than any drawbridge in the world.
30. Right-handed people live, on average; nine years longer than left handed people.
32. In the United States, a pound of potato chips costs two hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.
33. A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel.
34. A person cannot taste food unless it is mixed with saliva. For example, if a strong-tasting substance like salt is placed on a dry tongue, the taste buds will not be able to taste it. As soon as a drop of saliva is added and the salt is dissolved, however, a definite taste sensation results. This is true for all foods.
35. Nearly 80% of all animals on earth have six legs.
36. In the marriage ceremony of the ancient Inca Indians of Peru, the couple was considered officially wed when they took off their sandals and handed them to each other.
37. Ninety percent of all species that have become extinct have been birds.
38. There is approximately one chicken for every human being in the world.
39. Most collect calls are made on father’s day.
40. The first automobile race ever seen in the United States was held in Chicago in 1895. The track ran from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois. The winner was J. Frank Duryea, whose average speed was 71/2 miles per hour.
41. Each of us generates about 3.5 pounds of trash a day, most of it paper.
42. Women manage the money and pay the bills in 75% of all Americans households.
43. A rainbow can be seen only in the morning or late afternoon. It can occur only when the sun is 40 degrees or less above the horizon.
44. It has NEVER rained in Calama, a town in the Atacama Desert of Chile.
45. It costs more to buy a new car today in the United States than it cost Christopher Columbus to equip and undertake three voyages to and from the New World.
46. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
47. An eighteenth-century German named Matthew Birchinger, known as “the little man of Nuremberg,” played four musical instruments including the bagpipes, was an expert calligrapher, and was the most famous stage magician of his day. He performed tricks with the cup and balls that have never been explained. Yet Birchinger had no hands, legs, or thighs, and was less than 29 inches tall.
48. Daylight Saving Time is not observed in most of the state of Arizona and parts of Indiana.
49. Ants closely resemble human manners: When they wake, they stretch & appear to yawn in a human manner before taking up the tasks of the day.
50. Bees have 5 eyes. There are 3 small eyes on the top of a bee’s head and 2 larger ones in front.
52. One-fourth of the world’s population lives on less than $200 a year. Ninety million people survive on less than $75 a year.
53. Butterflies taste with their hind feet.
56. It is illegal to hunt camels in the state of Arizona.
57. In eighteenth-century English gambling dens, there was an employee whose only job was to swallow the dice if there was a police raid.
61. When you sneeze, air and particles travel through the nostrils at speeds over100 mph. During this time, all bodily functions stop, including your heart, contributing to the impossibility of keeping one’s eyes open during a sneeze.
62. Annual growth of WWW traffic is 314,000%
64. In 1778, fashionable women of Paris never went out in blustery weather without a lightning rod attached to their hats.
68. The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words. More than 2 billion pencils are manufactured each year in the United States. If these were laid end to end they would circle the world nine times.
69. The pop you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually a bubble of gas burning.
70. A literal translation of a standard traffic sign in China: “Give large space to the festive dog that makes sport in the roadway.”
72. Larry Lewis ran the 100-yard dash in 17.8 seconds in 1969, thereby setting a new world’s record for runners in the 100-years-or-older class. He was 101.
73. In a lifetime the average human produces enough quarts of spit to fill 2 swimming pools.
74. It’s against the law to doze off under a hair dryer in Florida/against the law to slap an old friend on the back in Georgia/against the law to Play hopscotch on a Sunday in Missouri.
77. One third of all cancers are sun related.
79. It has been estimated that humans use only 10% of their brain.
80. Valentine Tapley from Pike County, Missouri grew chin whiskers attaining a length of twelve feet six inches from 1860 until his death 1910, protesting Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency.
81. Most Egyptians died by the time they were 30 about 300 years ago.
82. For some time Frederic Chopin, the composer and pianist, wore a beard on only one side of his face, explaining: “It does not matter, my audience sees only my right side.”
83. 1 in every 4 Americans has appeared someway or another on television.
84. 1 in 8 Americans has worked at a McDonalds restaurant.
90. If you go blind in one eye you only lose about one fifth of your vision but all your sense of depth.
92. The strongest muscle (Relative to size) in the body is the tongue.
96. A palindrome is a sentence or group of sentences that reads the same backwards as it does forward: Ex: ‘Red rum, sir, is murder.’ ‘Ma is as selfless as I am.’ ‘Nurse, I spy gypsies. Run!’ ‘A man, a plan, a canal – Panama.’ ‘He lived as a devil, eh?’
97. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’
98. In 1986 Congress & President Ronald Reagan signed Public Law 99-359, which changed Daylight Saving Time from the last Sunday in April to the first Sunday in April. It was estimated to save the nation about 300,000 barrels of oil each year by adding most of the month April to D.S.T.
99. The thumbnail grows the slowest, the middle nail the fastest, nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
101. The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottles represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.
102. Tom Sawyer was the first novel written on a typewriter.
103. If Texas were a country, its GNP would be the fifth largest of any country in the world.
104. There are 1 million ants for every human in the world.
105. Odds of being killed by lightening? 1 in 2million/killed in a car crash? 1 in 5,000/killed by falling out of bed? 1 in 2million/killed in a plane crash? 1 in 25 million.
108. The ‘Golden Arches’ of fast food chain McDonalds is more recognized worldwide than the religious cross of Christianity.
109. Former basketball superstar Michael Jordan is the most recognized face in the world, more than the pope himself.
110. The average talker sprays about 300 microscopic saliva droplets per minute, about 2.5 droplets Per word.
111. The Earth experiences 50,000 Earth quakes per year and is hit by Lightning 100 times a second.
113. If we had the same mortality rate now as in 1900, more than half the people in the world today would not be alive.
115. Researchers at the Texas Department of Highways in Fort Worth determined the cow population of the U.S. burps some 50 million tons of valuable hydrocarbons into the atmosphere each year. The accumulated burps of ten average cows could keep a small house adequately heated and its stove operating for a year.
117. In the last 3,500 years, there have been approximately 230 years of peace throughout the civilized world.
119. The average person spends about two years on the phone in a lifetime.
120. Length of beard an average man would grow if he never shaved 27.5 feet
121. Over 60% of all those who marry get divorced.
122. 400-quarter pounders can be made from 1 cow.
123. A full-loaded supertanker traveling at normal speed takes at least 20 minutes to stop.
126. Hong Kong holds the most Rolls Royce’s per capita.
127. Average number of days a West German goes without washing his underwear: 7
129. Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.
131. Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
133. The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
135. 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.
142. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
143. The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight in case of war or emergency, they could be used as airstrips.
145. The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary, because when it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
146. The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
147. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19, the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
148. In Aspen Colorado, you can have a maximum income of $104,000 and still receive government subsidized housing.
157. When a Hawaiian woman wears a flower over her left ear, it means that she is not available.
158. The “save” icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk with the shutter on backwards.
159. The only nation whose name begins with an “A”, but doesn’t end in an “A” is Afghanistan.
160. The following sentence: ‘A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.’ Contains the nine different pronunciations of “ough” in the English Language.
161. The verb “cleave” is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
162. The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
163. The shape of plant collenchyma’s cells and the shape of the bubbles in beer foam are the same – they are orthotetrachidecahedrons.
164. Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
168. The first song played on Armed Forces Radio during operation Desert Shield was “Rock the Casba” by the Clash.
169. Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
172. Golf courses cover 4% of North America.
174. Until 1994, world maps and globes sold in Albania only had Albania on them.
175. The value of Pi was officially “rounded down” to 3.14 from 3.14159265359… on December 31, 1999.
176. The Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure visible from space.
177. A piece of paper can be folded no more then 9 times.
178. The amount of computer Memory required to run WordPerfect for Win95 is 8 times the amount needed aboard the space shuttle.
179. The average North American will eat 35,000 cookies during their life span.
180. Between 25% and 33% of the population sneeze when exposed to light.
181. The most common name in world is Mohammed.
182. Mount Olympus Mons on Mars is three times the size of Mount Everest.
183. Most toilets flush in E flat.
185. Each month, there is at least one report of UFOs from each province of Canada.
187. You can be fined up to $1,000 for whistling on Sunday in Salt Lake City, Utah.
188. It takes about 142.18 licks to reach the center of a Tootsie pop.
189. The serial number of the first MAC ever produced was 2001.
190. It is illegal to eat oranges while bathing in California.
191. If done perfectly, a rubix cube combination can be solved in 17 turns.
193. More bullets were fired in ‘Starship Troopers’ than any other movie ever made.
194. 60% of electrocutions occur while talking on the telephone during a thunderstorm.
195. The name of the girl on the statue of liberty is Mother of Exiles.
196. 3.6 cans of Spam are consumed each second
197. There’s a systematic lull in conversation every 7 minutes.
198. The buzz from an electric razor in America plays in the key of B flat; Key of G in England.
199. There are 1,575 steps from the ground floor to the top of the Empire State building.
200. The world’s record for keeping a Lifesaver in the mouth with the hole intact is 7 hrs 10 min.
205. Texas is also the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.
206. The three most recognized Western names in China are Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley.
208. 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.
209. All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
210. In space, astronauts are unable to cry, because there is no gravity and the tears won’t flow.
213. The crack of a whip is actually a tiny sonic boom, since the tip breaks the sound barrier.
214. Jupiter is bigger than all the other planets in our solar system combined
215. Hot water is heavier than cold.
216. The common idea that only 10% of the brain is used it not true as it is impossible to determine the actual percentage because of the complexity of the brain.
217. Lawn darts are illegal in Canada.
221. The average woman consumes 6 lbs of lipstick in her lifetime.
222. Some individuals express concern sharing their soap, rightly so, considering 75% of all people wash from top to bottom.
226. ‘Obsession’ is the most popular boat name.
227. On average, Americans’ favorite smell is banana.
228. If one spells out numbers, they would have to count to One Thousand before coming across the letter “A”.
231. This common everyday occurrence composed of 59% nitrogen, 21% hydrogen, and 9% dioxide is called a ‘fart’.
232. “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.
234. Meteorologists claim they’re right 85% of the time (think about that one!)
235. In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.
236. Los Angeles’ full name ‘El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula’ is reduced to 3.63% of its size in the abbreviation ‘L.A.’.
237. If you went out into space, you would explode before you suffocated because there’s no air pressure.
239. Mike Neismith’s (the guitarist of The Monkeys) mom invented White Out.
240. Only 6 people in the whole world have died from moshing.
241. In a test performed by Canadian scientists, using various different styles of music, it was determined that chickens lay the most eggs when pop music was played.
242. The storage capacity of human brain exceeds 4 Terabytes.
243. In Vermont, the ratio of cows to people is 10:1
244. Any free-moving liquid in outer space will form itself into a sphere, because of its surface tension.
245. The average American looks at eight houses before buying one.
246. In the average lifetime, a person will walk the equivalent of 5 times around the equator.
247. Koala is Aboriginal for “no drink”.
248. Shakespeare spelled his OWN name several different ways.
251. Arnold Schonberg suffered from triskaidecaphobia, the fear of the number 13. He died at 13 minutes from midnight on Friday the 13th.
252. Mozart wrote the nursery rhyme ‘twinkle, twinkle, little star’ at the age of 5.
253. Weatherman Willard Scott was the first original Ronald McDonald.
254. Virginia Woolf wrote all her books standing.
255. Einstein couldn’t speak fluently until after his ninth birthday. His parents thought he was mentally retarded.
259. Thomas Edison, acclaimed inventor of the light bulb, was afraid of the dark.
261. You can sail all the way around the world at latitude 60 degrees south.
262. The earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
266. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
271. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.
272. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
274. Tigers not only have striped fur, they have striped skin!
276. On the ground, a group of geese is a gaggle, in the sky it is a skein.
278. When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home, the stadium becomes the state’s third largest city.
281. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
285. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
286. John Lennon’s first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
287. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
288. The scene where Indiana Jones shoots the swordsman in Raider’s of the Lost Ark was Harrison Ford’s idea so that he could take a bathroom break.
294. February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
296. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you will have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
297. In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
299. The word “set” has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
300. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
309. The longest word comprised of one row on the keyboard is: TYPEWRITER
310. You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath.
311. The average person spends 12 weeks a year ‘looking for things’.
312. The symbol on the “pound” key (#) is called an octothorpe..
313. The dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a tittle.
314. Ingrown toenails are hereditary.
315. “Underground” is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters “und”.
316. The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis..
317. The longest place-name still in use is: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiakitnatahu, a New Zealand hill.
319. Alfred Hitchcock didn’t have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.
320. Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays.
321. Donald Duck’s middle name is Fauntleroy.
325. 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.
326. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
327. Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.
330. The word “dexter” is typed with only the left hand, whose meaning refers to the right hand.
336. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. No one in Greece has memorized all 158 verses.
337. Two-thirds of the world’s eggplants are grown in New Jersey.
339. Giraffes have no vocal cords.
340. The pupils of a goat’s eyes are square.
341. Van Gogh only sold one painting when he was alive.
342. A standard slinky measures 87 feet when stretched out.
343. The highest per capita Jell-O comsumption in the US is Des Moines.
344. If a rooster can’t fully extend its neck, it can’t crow.
345. There were always 56 curls in Shirley Temple’s hair.
346. The eyes of a donkey are positioned so that it can see all four feet at all times.
347. Worcestershire sauce in essentially an Anchovy Ketchup.
348. Rhode Island is the only state which the hammer throw is a legal high school sport.
349. The average lifespan of an eyelash is five months.
350. A spider has transparent blood.
352. Prince Charles is an avid collecter of toilet seats.
353. The most common street name in the U.S. is Second Street.
354. Tehran is the most expensive city on earth.
355. The sweat drops drawn in cartoon comic strips are called pleuts.
356. Babies are most likely to be born on Tuesdays.
357. The HyperMart outside of Garland Texas has 58 check-outs.
358. The Minneapolis phone book has 21 pages of Andersons.
359. In the 1980’s American migraines increased by 60%.
360. Poland is the “stolen car capital of the world”.
361. Jefferson invented the dumbwaiter, the monetary system, and the folding attic ladder.
362. The S in Harry S. Truman did not stand for anything.
363. In Miconesia, coins are 12 feet across.
364. A horse can look forward with one eye and back with the other.
365. Shakespeare is quoted 33,150 times in the Oxford English dictionary.
366. The word Pennsylvania is misspelled on the Liberty Bell.
367. NBA superstar Michael Jordan was originally cut from his high school basketball team.
368. You spend 7 years of your life in the bathroom.
369. A family of 26 could go to the movies in Mexico city for the price of one in Tokyo.
370. 10,000 Dutch cows pass through the Amsterdam airport each year.
381. Simplistic passwords contribute to over 80% of all computer password break-ins.
382. The top 3 health-related searches on the Internet are (in this order): Depression, Allergies, & Cancer.
386. Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
391. The site with the highest number of women visitors between the age of 35 and 44 years old: Alka-Seltzer.com
393. Pearls melt in vinegar.
400. The mask worn by Michael Myers in the original “Halloween” was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
402. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
403. When the French Academy was preparing its first dictionary, it defined “crab” as, “A small red fish, which walks backwards.” This definition was sent with a number of others to the naturalist Cuvier for his approval. The scientist wrote back, “Your definition, gentlemen, would be perfect, only for three exceptions. The crab is not a fish, it is not red and it does not walk backwards.”
404. Dr. Jack Kevorkian first patient has Alzheimer’s disease.
405. Fictional/horror writer Stephen King sleeps with a nearby light on to calm his fear of the dark.
407. It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up its stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of its mouth. Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all of the stomach’s contents and then swallows the stomach back down.
408. The very first song played on MTV was ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ by the Buggles.
409. William Marston engineered one of the earliest forms of the polygraph in the early 1900’s. Later he went on to create the comic strip Wonder Woman, a story about a displaced Amazon princess who forces anyone caught in her magic lasso to tell the truth.
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