STUFF YOU DIDN'T KNOW

note: this is all stuff that I heard.  I can't guarantee that all of them are true.  If you know (or have strong reason to believe) that any of these are false, let me know and I'll remove them from this list.  Contact Me

RECENT ADDITIONS:

No meteor has ever struck the earth, or ever will.  That's because once meteors enter our atmosphere, they're classified as meteorites.

The first cheerleaders were from the 1870's.  The first female cheerleaders were from 1927.

Crayfish urinate through their heads.

The Sphinx is directly facing a Pizza Hut.

Termites will follow a line drawn by an ink pen.

The inventor of the frisbee's ashes were made into a frisbee.

Spiders react to coffee the same way people react to liquor.

A chip of silicon a quarter-inch square has the capacity of the original 1949 ENIAC computer, which occupied a city block.

A day on the planet Mercury is twice as long as its year. Mercury rotates very slowly but revolves around the sun in slightly less than 88 days.

A device invented as a primitive steam engine by the Greek engineer Hero, about the time of the birth of Christ, is used today as a rotating lawn sprinkler.

A dog was killed by a meteorite at Nakhla, Egypt, in 1911. The unlucky pooch is the only creature known to have been killed by a meteorite.  Only one person is known to have been struck by a meteorite, but she survived.

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time - 1/60th of a second.

A large cumulonimbus cloud can hold enough water for 500,000 baths. Only one-fifth of that water will fall as rain.

A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than the 6000 degrees centigrade found at the surface of the sun.

A male kangaroo is called a boomer, and a female is called a flyer.

A newborn baby's head accounts for about one-quarter of it's entire weight.  By adulthood, it would probably be less than one-tenth.

A perfectly clean fire produces almost no smoke. Smoke simply means that a fire is not burning properly and that bits of unburned material are escaping.

A person uses more household energy shaving with a hand razor at a sink (because of the water power, the water pump, and so on) than he would by using an electric razor.

A person who is lost in the woods and starving can obtain nourishment by chewing on his shoes. Leather has enough nutritional value to sustain life for a short time.

A picture of Rita Hayworth was stamped onto the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan.

A plastic container can resist decomposition for as long as 50,000 years.

A pulsar is a small star made up of neutrons so densely packed together that if one the size of a silver dollar landed on earth, it would weigh approximately 100 million tons.

A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top.

A space vehicle must move at a rate of at least 7 miles per second to escape the earth's gravitational pull. This is equivalent to going from New York to Philadelphia in about twenty seconds.

A species of sponge, called the red sponge, can be pushed through a piece of fabric so that it is broken into thousands of tiny pieces without dying, and then reassemble until the sponge is back to its original form.

A species of starfish known as the Linckia columbiae can reproduce its entire body--that is, grow back completely--from a single severed piece less than a half-inch long.

A thirteen-sided shape is called a triskaidekagon.

A tossed penny stands only a 49.5 % chance of coming up heads. This is because the 'heads' side weighs slightly more than the 'tails' side.

A type of lizard, the chuckwalla, escapes pursuers by crawling into a crack in a rock and inflating its body with air so that it is wedged tightly into the crack and can't be pulled out.

A whale's heart beats only nine times a minute.

A woman's arthritic pains will almost always disappear as soon as she becomes pregnant.

A young lady named Ellen Church convinced Boeing Air Transport that her nursing skills and love of flying would qualify her to assist with the passengers and emergencies. She became the first stewardess.

A-1 Steak Sauce contains both orange peels and raisins.

About 1/3 of the Earth's population is under the age of 15.

According to acupuncturists, there is a point on the head that you can press to control your appetite. It is located in the hollow just in front of the flap of the ear.

According to Aristotle, wind direction determined whether a baby would be a boy or a girl.

According to Gambler's Digest, an estimated $1 million is lost at race tracks each year by people who lose or carelessly throw away winning tickets.

According to Newton's Law of Motion, when a car going 60 miles per hour in one direction gets hit by a mosquito going one mile per hour in the opposite direction, the car will slow down one-millionth of a mile per hour.

According to one U.S. study, about 25 percent of all males never use deodorant.

According to scientists, gold exists on Mars, Mercury, and Venus.

According to the National Safety Council, coffee is not successful at sobering up a drunk person, and in many cases it may actually increase the adverse effects of alcohol.

According to the World Health Organization, there are approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day.

Actress Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia in 'Star Wars') co-wrote the screenplays to 'Lethal Weapon 3', 'So I Married An Axe Murderer', and 'Sister Act'.

After a near-fatal auto accident in 1961, Mel Blanc did his cartoon voices, including the first 65 episodes of 'The Flintstones' (he was the voice of Barney Rubble) flat on his back, with the microphone hanging over his bed.

After his death in 896, the body of Pope Formosus was dug up and tried for various crimes.

Air conditioners were invented before refrigerators.

AIRPLANES:
-A jet uses more fuel flying at 25,000 feet than 30,000 feet. The higher it flies, the thinner the atmosphere and the less atmospheric resistance it encounters.
-All pilots on international flights identify themselves in English, regardless of country of origin.
-American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.
-There are approximately 61,000 people airborn over the USA right now.
-When airplanes were still a novel invention, seat belts for pilots were installed only after the consequence of their absence was observed to be fatal - several pilots fell to their deaths while flying upside down.

Alan Thicke, the father in the TV show Growing Pains, wrote the theme songs for "The Facts of Life" and "Diff'rent Strokes".

Alanis Morrisette, as a child, was a cast member on Nickelodeon's 'You Can't Do That On Television'.

Alaska has a sand desert with dunes over 100 feet high. It is located along the flatland of the Kobuk River in the northwestern part of the state.

Albert von Tizler, who wrote and originally sang the song "Take Me Out To The Ball Game", didn't see a baseball game until 20 years after the song was written.

Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button.  It had been surgically removed.

Alice Cooper, the singer, chose that name because he claims a ouija board told him that he was the reincarnation of a 17th century witch named Alice Cooper.  Of course, it should be noted that 'Alice Cooper' was originally the name of his band, not the singer himself.  So many people assumed it was the singer's name that he finally took the name for himself.

All continents are wider in the north than in the south.  No one's sure why.

All meat-eating mammals have at least four toes on each foot.

All of the gold ever mined could be molded into a 60 foot cube.

All of the other planets in our solar system could be placed inside the planet Jupiter. However, Jupiter also has the shortest day of any planet in our solar system. It turns completely on its axis in less than ten hours, so fast that the planet actually bulges in the center.

All people dream. Those who claim to never dream simply forget their dreams more easily than others.

All polar bears are left handed.

"All the tea in China" adds up to about 508,000 metric tons (another source says 356,000 tons).

'Almost' is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

America was probably explored by the Chinese, Indians (as in from India), Irish, Norweigans, English, Africans, and Danish before Christopher Colombus 'discovered' it.

Americans eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

Americans spend more on dog and cat food than they spend on baby food.

America's first minimum wage was 25 cents an hour back in 1938.

An extinct species of kangaroo had a head the size of a Shetland pony's and reached a height of more than ten feet.

An ordinary TNT bomb involves atomic reaction, and should be called an atomic bomb. What we call an atomic bomb involves nuclear reactions and should be called a nuclear bomb.

Anthony Perkins wasn't present for the filming of the famous shower murder in 'Psycho'.  A body double was used.  The 'blood' was chocolate syrup.  

ANTS:
-Ants always fall over on their right side when intoxicated.
-Ants keep slaves. Certain species, the 'sanguinary ants' for example, raid the nests of other ant tribes, kill the queen, and kidnap many of the workers. The workers are brought back to the captors' hive, where they are coerced into performing menial tasks.
-Ants stretch when they wake up. They also appear to yawn in a very human manner before taking up the tasks of the day.
-Ants have the largest brains, in proportion to their size, of any creature on Earth.

Approximately 10% of Jewish households have Christmas trees.

April is a good month to be born if you aspire to be a television talk show host. David Frost (4/7), David Letterman (4/12), Conan O'Brien (4/18), Charles Grodin (4/21) and Jay Leno (4/28) all share April birthdays.

Arabic numerals are not Arabic; there were invented in India.

Art Carney and Audrey Meadows both won Emmy awards for "The Honeymooners", but Jackie Gleason never won any. Art Carney would hide his Emmy trophies whenever Gleason came over to visit, so that Gleason wouldn't be reminded.

As many as 50 gallons of maple sap are needed to make a single gallon of maple sugar.

Assuming Rudolph was in front, there are 40320 ways to arrange the other eight reindeer.

Astronauts will shrink slightly if in a weightless environment for long enough.

At birth, a panda is smaller than a mouse and weighs about four ounces.

At birth, baby kangaroos are only about an inch long--no bigger than a large waterbug or a queen bee.

At the height of its power, in 400 B.C., the Greek City of Sparta has 25,000 citizens and 500,000 slaves.

At the outbreak of World War I the American air force consisted of only fifty men.

Avalanches usually travel at 22 miles per hour.

Balloons released into the jet stream will take two weeks to travel completely around the globe.

Banging your head against a wall can burn up to 150 caleries per hour.

Bangkok's real name is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Bovorn Ratanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok pop Noparatratchathani Burirom Udomratchanivetmahasathan Amornpiman Avatarnsathit Sakkathattiyavisnukarmprasit.

Barbie and Ken Dolls are named after Mattel founders Ruth and Elliot Handler's son and daughter, Barbara and Ken. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts and she is from Willows, Wisconsin. First sold in 1959, Barbie wasn't given bendable legs until 1965.

Barry Manilow's hit "Mandy" was originally called "Brandy", and was about a lost dog.  It was recorded as such by Scott English (who co-wrote the song with Manilow).

BEATLES:
-John Lennon and Ringo Starr were both born during German air raids on Liverpool, England.
-Phil Collins appeared as an 'extra' in the Beatles' movie "A Hard Day's Night".  If you know where to look, you can see him clearly, though only briefly, in the concert sequence at the end.  Also, the word "Beatles" is never spoken in the entire movie.
-At the end of the Beatles' song 'A Day in the Life,' an ultrasonic whistle, audible only to dogs, was recorded by Paul McCartney for his Shetland sheepdog.  If you listen closely, you can also hear an air conditioner, a squeaking chair, and someone saying 'shhh' to whoever squeaked the chair.
-George Harrison was the first Beatle to have a solo #1 hit in the United States ("My Sweet Lord").
-John Lennon didn't have a solo #1 hit until a few weeks before his death ("Starting Over"), though a duet with Elton John ("Whatever Gets You Through The Night") was a #1 hit.
-Paul McCartney has never had a solo #1 hit in the United States (all of his #1's have been duets or with The Wings).  His only #1 hit in the U.K. was a song called "The Frog Chorus" which has never been released in the United States.
-In April of 1964, The Beatles held all five slots in the top five singles, with sixteen songs total in the top forty.  They also had the #1 and #2 albums.

Beethoven poured ice water over his head when he sat down to create music, believing it stimulated his brain.

Before 1933, the dime was legal as payment only in transactions of $10 or less. In that year Congress made the dime legal tender for all transactions.

Before he settled on the name Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens published work under the names of: Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, Sergeant Fathom, and W. Apaminondas Adrastus Blab.

Before his debut as Magnum P.I., Tom Selleck appeared twice on the Dating Game, but didn't get picked either time. One time he lost to future actor/director/comedian Steve Martin.

Before the arrival of Columbus, no native American had type B blood.

Before the 'Helter Skelter' murders took place, Charles Manson was seeking a career in music.  Neil Young and Dennis Wilson were active in trying to get Manson a recording contract, and the Beach Boys recorded a song written by Manson called "Never Learn Not To Love" on their "20/20" album (though it was falsely credited to Dennis Wilson).  Guns N Roses also covered one of his songs, "Look At Your Game, Girl", on their album "The Spaghetti Incident?"

Belgium is the only country that has never imposed censorship for adult films.

Benjamin Franklin was America's first political cartoonist. He was also the first head of the United Post Office, and he wanted the national bird to be a turkey, not an Eagle.  He also invented bifocals, swim fins, and created daylight savings time.

Between the mid-1860's and 1883, the bison population in North America was reduced from and estimated 13 million to a few hundred.

BIBLE/CHRISTIANITY:
-Name mentioned most frequently in the Bible?  David.  Jesus is second.
-Over 6 billion copies of the Bible have been sold.  Worldwide, 47 are sold every minute.
-Dismas and Gestas were the names of the two thieves crucified with Jesus, according to Christian tradition.
-Jesus Christ was probably born in 4 or 5 B.C, and probably not in December.
-The King James version of the Bible has about 50 authors, 66 books, 1,189 chapters, and 31,173 verses. The shortest verse in the Bible consists of two words: "Jesus wept" (John 11:35).
-The story of the three wise men visiting the baby Jesus in the manger in Bethlehem is not in the Bible. In the Bible, they visited Him at Joseph and Mary's home when Jesus was probably over a year old, and the Bible never says how many wise men there were.
-The most shoplifted book in the United States is the Bible.

Bill Cosby's wife, Camille, is a direct descendant of Nancy Hanks, Abraham Lincoln's mother.

Billy Joel, then 16 years old, played piano on the Shangri-La's "Leader Of The Pack".

BIRDS:
-Bird droppings are chief export of Nauru, an island nation in the Western Pacific.
-Birds played a role in aerial warfare during World War I. Because of their acute hearing, parrots were kept on the Eiffel Tower to warn of approaching aircraft long before the planes were heard or seen by human spotters.
-Birds rarely sing while on the ground. They sing during flight or while sitting on an object off the ground.
-A parrot's beak can close with a force of 350 pounds per square inch.
-Owls are the only bird to drop their upper eyelid to wink. All other birds raise their lower eyelids.
-The female pigeon cannot lay eggs if she is alone. In order for her ovaries to function, she must be able to see another pigeon. If no other pigeon is available, her own reflection in a mirror will suffice.
-The frigate bird can fly at a speed of 260 miles per hour.
-To survive, most birds must eat at least half their own weight in food each day.
-American chickens are descended from the chickens who travelled with Christopher Columbus.
-Bluebirds cannot see the color blue.
-Hummingbirds can travel 500 miles without stopping.
-Female canaries can't sing.
-Approximately 56,000 courier pigeons took part in WWII.
-It takes four hours to hardboil an ostrich egg.
-There are no turkeys in Turkey.
-Alektorophobia- the fear of chickens.
-An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
-Chickens will lay bigger and stronger eggs if you change the lighting in such a way as to make them think a day is 28 hours long.
-If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die, they need gravity to swallow.
-In 1471, a chicken in Basel, Switzerland, was accused of being 'a devil in disguise' after laying a brightly colored egg. The chicken stood trial, was found guilty, and was burned at the stake.
-In 1880 there were approximately 2 billion passenger pigeons in the United States. By 1914 the species was extinct.
-In 1950, a tornado plucked some chickens from their coop in Bedfordshire, England. It happened in more than one sense--their feathers exploded because the normal air pressure inside the quills was much higher than the low pressure air of the tornado.
-In one year, hens in America lay enough eggs to encircle the globe a hundred times.
-Migrating geese fly in a V formation to save energy. A goose's wings churn the air and leave an air current behind, making it easier for the birds behind to get a lift from the current. The flock will usually take turns as the leader.
-Ostriches don't really bury their heads in the sand.  They sometimes use their heads for digging, but their heads are never buried.
-There is approximately one chicken for every human being in the world.
-Hummingbirds can't walk

Bob Dole is ten years older than the Empire State building.

Bombyx mori, a silkworm moth, has been cultivated for so long that it can no longer exist without human care. Because it has been domesticated, it has lost the ability to fly.

Botanically, the banana is a berry.

Brazil is named after the Brazil nut.

Bruce Lee's movements when performing karate were so fast that, in his movies, they often had to slow down the film so that you could see what he was doing.  They also had to do this with Jet Li in "Lethal Weapon 4".

Buddy Holly's backup band, the Crickets, got their name by flipping through the 'Insects' section of an encyclopedia.  One of the names they rejected was 'The Beetles'.  The Beatles chose their name in honor of The Crickets.  And The Hollies chose their name in honor of Buddy Holly.  And Badfinger's original name, The Iveys, was in honor of The Hollies.

Cabbage is 91 percent water.

Camel-hair brushes aren't made from camel hair.  They're made from squirrel tails.

"Caribbean" is derived from the same root as "cannibal".

CARS:
-A car operates at maximum economy, gas-wise, at speeds between 25 and 35 miles per hour.
-A car that shifts manually gets about 2 miles more per gallon of gas than a simlar car with automatic shift.
-A car uses 1.6 ounces of gas idling for one minute. Half an ounce is used to start the average automobile.
-It costs more to buy a new car today in the United States that it cost Christopher Columbus to equip and undertake three voyages to and from the New World (not adjusting for inflation, of course).
-More Americans have died in automobile accidents than have died in all the wars ever fought by the United States.
-Most American-made car horns beep in the tone of F.

Cary Grant's real name was Archibald Leach, for whom John Cleese's character in 'A Fish Called Wanda' was named.

Cashews are not nuts.  They're the seeds of the cashew apple.

CATS:
-Cat urine glows under a black light.
-Cats have no ability to taste sweet things.
-Cats' jaws can't move sideways.
-Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs have about ten.
-Domesticated cats are the only creatures on Earth capable of holding their tails straight up while walking (wild cats can't do this).
-Cats are the only domesticated animals not mentioned in the Bible.
-Over 500,000 stray cats live in the New York City metropolitan area
-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.
-There is no single cat called the panther. The name is commonly applied to the leopard, but it is also used to refer to the puma and the jaguar. A black panther is really a black leopard.
-Cats always go to the person who like them least because there is no eye contact made with them. It makes them feel less threathened and renders the person more approachable.
-If your cat is chewing on your houseplants, just spray the plants with some lightly diluted lemon juice. Cats are repelled by the smell and taste of citrus fruits.
-Out of every 3001 Calico kittens born, 3000 are female.
-A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

Celery has negative calories--it takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.  Bell peppers also have negative calories.

Chameleon's tongues are twice the length of their bodies.

Chang Hsien-chung, a Chinese bandit, is credited with having killed 40 million people between 1643 and 1648. He completely wiped out the population of Szechwan province.

Charlie Chaplin once lost a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.

Cheetahs can accelerate from 0 to 70 km/h in 2 seconds.

Chevy Chase played drums for Steely Dan before he, or they, became popular. They called themselves "Leather Canary" at the time.

Chimneys used to be cleaned by dropping live chickens down them.

China has more English speakers than the United States.

Chocolate was once considered a temptation of the devil. In Central American mountain villages during the 18th century, no one under the age of sixty was permitted to consume it, and churchgoers who defied the rule were threatened with excommunication.

Christendom did not begin to date its history from the birth of Christ until 500 years after his death. The system was introduced in 550 by Dionysius Exigus, a monk in Rome.

Cleopatra was not Egyptian.  She was part Macedonian, part Greek, and part Iranian.

Clouds fly higher during the day than during the night.

Coffee beans aren't beans - they're fruit pits.

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF:
-The Beatles were not the first English rock band to have a #1 single in the U.S.A. An English band called the Tornadoes had a #1 hit with their song "Telstar" on December 22, 1962, over a year before the Beatles hit the mark with "I Want To Hold Your Hand".
-Tarzan never said, "Me Tarzan, you Jane" in any book or movie.
-Jimmy Cagney never said, "You dirty rat" in any movie.
-Humphrey Bogart never said, "Play it again, Sam" in "Casablanca" (or any other movie).
-Cary Grant never said, "Judy, Judy, Judy" in any movie.
-William Shatner never said, "Beam me up, Scotty" in any Star Trek TV show or movie.
-Greta Garbo never said, "I want to be alone" in any movie.
-Mae West never said, "Why don't you come on up and see me sometime?" in any movie.
-Sherlock Holmes never said, "Elementary, my dear Watson" in any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books.
-Joe Friday never said "Just the facts, ma'am" on any episode of "Dragnet".
-Sir Alec Guiness never said "May the force be with you" in any of the Star Wars movies.
-The badguys never say "Badges?  We don't need no stinkin' badges!" in Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
-The line "If you build it, they will come" does not appear in the movie Field Of Dreams.
-No one is truly double-jointed.  Those who claim to be simply have more flexible ligaments than others.
-The pilgrims did not build log cabins, nor did they wear black hats with a conical crown and a hatband with a silver buckle.
-Cooties exist!  They're a kind of body lice.
-Marilyn Monroe was not the model for Tinkerbell in the Disney "Peter Pan" movie. At the time the movie was made, she was practically unknown.  The model was a woman named Margaret Kerry.
-Ronald Reagan was never the first choice for the part of Rick Blaine in "Casablanca".  It was Bogart's role from the beginning.
-John F. Kennedy was NOT the U.S.'s youngest president. Teddy Roosevelt, at 42, was a year younger when he became president due to the assassination of William McKinley. Kennedy was, however, the youngest elected president.
-In the Apollo 13 space flight, Jim Lovell did NOT say, "Houston, we have a problem". He said, "Houston, we've had a problem."
-Stephen Spielberg's first theatrical release was not "Jaws".  It was "The Sugarland Express" starring Goldie Hawn.  His first movie altogether was a T.V. movie called "Duel".
-'The Brady Bunch' was not the first TV show to have a couple sharing a bed on TV.  Neither was it 'The Munsters'.  It was 'Mary Kay and Johnny', the first situation comedy ever made, back in 1947.
-Jackie Robinson wasn't the first black ballplayer in the National League.  That would be Moses "Fleet" Walker, who was catcher for the Toledo Mudhens in 1884.  Robinson, who joined the Dodgers in 1947, was the first black ballplayer since Walker, however.
-Possums never hang by their tails.  Their tails are too weak to allow them to do this.

Corn ears always have an even number of rows.

Cows usually give more milk when they listen to music.

CROCODILES:
-Crocodiles cannot stick their tongues out.
-Crocodiles will eat other crocodiles.
-If you're ever chased by a crocodile, run in a zig-zag pattern.  Since crocodiles can only run in a straight line, they would have trouble following you.
-If you forget to zig-zag and the crocodile catches you, push your thumbs into its eyeballs - it will let you go instantly.

Czar Nicholas II considered the construction of an electric fence around Russia and expressed interest in building a bridge across the Bering Straits.

Danny DeVito married Rhea Perlman during a lunch break while working on the show "Taxi".

David Rice Atchinson was President of the United States for exactly one day.

Dennis Wilson was the only member of the Beach Boys who surfed.

Desi Arnaz' best friend in high school was Al Capone, Jr.

Dimes have 118 grooves on their circumference.  Quarters have 119.

DISNEY:
-In every Disney animated movie, the primary child characters (even animals) have no parents, have only one parent, have a parent die, or are separated from their parents through most of the movie.
-Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he doesn't wear any pants.
-In "Fantasia", the sorcerer's name is "Yensid" (Disney spelt backwards).
-On December 30, 1997, Disney held eight of the top ten spots on the All Time Movie Video Sales Chart. The Lion King(1), Aladdin(2), Cinderella(3), Beauty and The Beast(4), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs(5), Toy Story(7), 101 Dalmatians(8), Pocahontas(10). The two non-Disney flicks to make the list - Forrest Gump(6), Jurassic Park(9).
-Walt Disney is listed as 'producer' on over 350 movies (according to the All-Movie Guide).
-Though he was the creator and original voice of Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
-Mickey Mouse's dog was named Pluto before the planet was named Pluto.

DOGS:
-Every hour, nearly 12,500 puppies are born in the United States.
-More than one million stray dogs live in the New York City metropolitan area.
-One in ten Dalmatians is born deaf.
-A dog was once nominated for an oscar for writing a screenplay.  It was for the movie "Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes".  Robert Towne wrote the script, but credited it to his dog, P.H. Vazak, because of his dissatisfaction with the movie.
-Dogs have elbows.

Dolphins never sleep.  If one of them did fall asleep, it would stop breathing and die.  Instead, the two halves of the dolphin's brain take turns sleeping.

Dr. Alice Chase, who wrote 'Nutrition for Health' and numerous books on the science of proper eating, died of malnutrition.

Dr. Seuss wrote "Green Eggs And Ham" on a dare to write a book with less than 50 individual words.

Dr. Seuss pronounced the word 'Seuss' so that it rhymed with 'rejoice'.

Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

During menstruation, the sensitivity of a woman's middle finger is reduced.

During pregnancy, the uterus expands to 500 times its normal size.

During the 1930's and 40's posters showing movie star Marlene Dietrich's legs were banned from the Paris Metro because they were considered too distracting to riders.

During the American Revolution, inflation was so great that the price of corn rose 10,000%, the price of wheat 14,000%, the price of flour 15,000%, and the price of beef 33,000%.

During the American revolution, more inhabitants of the American colonies fought for the British than for the Continental Army.

During the early 1920's, at the height of the inflation in the German Weimar Republic, one American dollar was equal to 4 trillion German marks.

During World War I the punishment of homosexuality in the French army was execution.

During World War II, the U.S. Navy had a world champion chess player, Reuben Fine, calculate - on the basis of positional probability - where enemy submarines might surface.

Each year more than 300,000 American teenagers become afflicted with some form of venereal disease.

EARTH:
-At any given time, there are 1,800 thunderstorms in progress over the earth's atmosphere. Lightning strikes the earth 100 times every second.
-If the Earth's axis was not tilted, there would be 12-hour days everywhere, and no seasons. At the poles, the Sun would always be on the horizon.
-The Earth's orbit around the Sun is not perfectly circular; it is slightly oval-shaped. In the northern hemisphere, the Earth is about 3 million miles closer to the Sun during the winter than in the summer.
-The Earth rotates on its axis more slowly in March than in September.
-The Earth weighs nearly 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons and becomes 10,000 to 100,000 tons heavier every year.
-Though the Earth isn't completely spherical, if you shrunk it to the size of the average billiard ball, it would be rounder and smoother than that billiard ball.

Edgar Allan Poe invented the detective story. Before the wrote "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Mystery of Marie Roget" the genre was totally unknown in English or American literature.

Elephants and humans are the only animals which can stand on their head.

Elephants are the only animals with four knees.

Elephants, lions and camels roamed Alaska 12,000 years ago.

ELVIS:
-Elvis Presley never performed outside of North America in his entire career, and only once outside of the United States (a 1957 show in Canada)
-Elvis' underpants are estimated to be worth $1,300.
-Elvis was reading a book about the Shroud of Turin when he died.

Emily Dickinson wrote more than nine hundred poems, only four of which were published during her lifetime.  In her will, she asked that all of her poems be destroyed, but her family refused to carry out this wish.

EMPIRE STATE BUILDING:
-Lightning has hit the Empire State Building in New York as frequently as 12 times in 20 minutes. The building is hit by lightning about 500 times a year.
-During a severe storm the Empire State Building may sway several feet to either side.
-On a clear day one can see five states from atop the Empire State Building: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.
-The top of the Empire State Building was originally intended as a mooring place for dirigibles (although it has never been used for that purpose).
-More than 120,000,000 people have visited the 86th floor viewing area.
-Prior to September 11, 2001 the Empire State Building was the 4th tallest building in the United States.  Now it's the second tallest.

English horns are neither English nor horns.  They're French oboes.

Errol Flynn's first job was as a sheep castrator.

Europeans originally thought the giraffe was the offspring of a camel and leopard. They called it a "Cameleopard".

Even if the stomach, the spleen, 75 percent of the liver, 80 percent of the intestines, one kidney, one lung, and virtually every organ from the pelvic and groin area are removed, the human body can still survive.

Every citizen of Kentucky is required by law to take a bath once a year.

Every day, an average of 40 people will get hurt on a trampoline.

Every three seconds an area of the South American rain forest the size of a football field is cut down.

Every queen named Jane has either been murdered, imprisoned, gone mad, died young, or been dethroned.

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

Ewan McGregor, who stars in the most recent "Star Wars" movies, is the nephew of Denis Lawson, who played 'Wedge' in the first three Star Wars movies.  Wedge was the only pilot involved in the destruction of both Death Stars.

'Facetious', 'abstemious', 'abstentious', 'arsenious' and 'arteriosus' are the only five words in the English language that contain the vowels a, e, i, o, and u in their proper order.

Felix Powell, who wrote the song "Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag And Smile, Smile, Smile", committed suicide in 1942.

Female lions do more than 90 percent of the hunting.

Female wrestlers are called "siffleuses"

Fifty-two percent of Americans say they'd rather spend a week in jail than be President.

FISH:
-Female mackerels lay 500,000 eggs at a time.
-Sailfish can swim up to 68 miles per hour.
-A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
-Ducks will lay eggs only in the early morning.
-Goldfish lose their color if they are kept in a dim light or they are placed in a body of running water, such as a stream. They remain gold when kept in a pond or in a bowl with adequate illumination.
-In 1859 a shower of fish fell from the sky in Glamorgan, Wales. The fish covered an area the size of three tennis courts.
-Marine catfish can taste with any part of their body. The female marine catfish hatches her eggs in her mouth.
-Minnows have teeth in their throat.
-Most tropical marine fish could survive in a tank filled with human blood.
-The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.

Forensic scientists can determine a person's sex, approximate age, and race by examining a single strand of hair.

Frank Lloyd Wright once designed a building that would be 528 stories tall, a mile in height.

Frederick Chopin's body is buried in France, but his heart is buried in Poland.

Frogs never drink. They absorb water from their surroundings through osmosis.

From 1840 to 1960, every president elected in a year ending in '0' died in while in office.  No presidents elected exclusively in non-0 years have ever died in office.

From the monarchs' investment of $6,000 in Columbus's first voyage, Spain had a return of $1,750,000 in gold after only one century.

Garfield the comic-strip cat is inspired by creator Jim Davis' grandather, James Garfield Davis.  Also, Jim Davis doesn't own a cat.  He's allergic to them.

Garter snakes, though reptiles, do not lay eggs. They bear young, just as mammals do.  So do anacondas.

Gasoline never freezes.  Below -180 degrees F, it just turns gummy.

George I, King of England from 1714 to 1727, could neither speak nor write the English language. He had no desire to learn the language of his new country and made no attempt to do so in the 13 years he ruled.

Gin and canasta are both descended from an ancient Chinese game, mah-jongg, which is more than a thousand years old.

Giraffes are unable to cough.

Giraffes can go without water longer than camels can.  So can rats.

Goldie Hawn's real name is Goldie Jean Studlendgehawn.

Hair grows slowest at night. It speeds up in the morning, slows in the afternoon, and grows faster again in the evening. Hair grows faster in summer than in winter.

Half of all pizzas sold have pepperoni on them.

Half of all scientists are assigned to military projects.

Halley's comet has been observed and recorded for more than 3,000 years.

"Hang On Sloopy" by the McCoys is the official rock song of the state of Ohio.

Hans Christian Anderson was so frightened of being trapped in a burning building that he always carried a rope.

Harper Lee (AKA Tanith Lee), who wrote the brilliant novel "To Kill A Mockingbird" many years ago, is still alive, yet has never written another novel.  J.D. Salinger's only published novel is "A Catcher In The Rye", though he is still alive as well.  According to rumor, Salinger writes a novel every year, but doesn't publish them.

Henry Ford was America's first billionaire.

Henry VIII's 2nd wife, Anne Boleyn, had six fingers on one hand. She wore special gloves all her life to hide her deformity. She also had three breasts.

HIPPOPOTAMUS':
-Hippos can open their mouths wide enough to accommodate a 4-foot-tall child.
-Hippos can run faster than you can.
-Hippos give birth and nurse their young underwater.
-Hippo skin is so thick that most bullets cannot penetrate it.

Homosexuals are more likely to be left-handed than heterosexuals.

Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.

Horses are unable to vomit.  So are all rodents.

Horses focus their eyes by changing the angle of their heads, not by changing the shape of the lens of their eyes, as humans do.

Hot water weighs more than cold water.

Human eyes are so sensitive that on a clear night when there is no moon, a person sitting on a mountain peak can see a match struck 50 miles away.

Humphrey Bogart and Princess Diana were 7th cousins.

"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

Idaho is the only state whose name has no meaning.  A lobbyist named George Willing suggested the name, claiming it was a native American word meaning 'gem of the mountain', but he actually made the word up himself.

If 111,111,111 is multiplied by itself, the result is all of the digits in ascending to descending order, or 12,345,678,987,654,321.

If 80 percent of your liver were to be removed, the remaining part would continue to function, and within a few months the liver would have reconstituted itself to its original size.

If a pin was heated to the same temperature as the center of the Sun, its heat would set alight everything within 60 miles of it.

If all the blood vessels in a single human body were stretched end to end, they would form a string capable of going around the world.

If an astronaut tried to land on a neutron star, he or she would be squashed by the gravity into a thin layer less than one atom thick.

If one places a small amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

If one were to capture and bottle a comet's 10,000-mile vapor trail, the amount of vapor actually present in the bottle would take up less than 1 cubic inch of space.

If you were to drive from Los Angeles, California, to Reno, Nevada, you would be heading northwest.

If something were to happen to Washington, D.C., the city of Port Angeles, WA, would become our nation's capital.

If the Nile River were stretched across the United States, it would run just about from New York to Los Angeles.

If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

If the Sun's energy output would decreased by one-tenth, the entire Earth would be covered in ice one mile thick; if the Sun's energy increased by 30 percent, all life on Earth would be burnt to a cinder.

If the world were to become totally flat and the oceans distributed themselves evenly over the earth's surface, the water would be approximately 2 miles deep at every point.

If you add together all the numbers on a Roulette Wheel (1 to 36) the total is the mystical number 666, often associated with the devil.

If you are afraid that you might die laughing - you are suffering from cherophobia.

If you are an average person:
-You fall asleep in seven minutes.
-You consume 117 pounds of potatoes, 116 pounds of beef, 100 pounds of fresh vegetables, 80 pounds of fresh fruit, 8.5 pounds of pickles, and 286 eggs per year.  In total, you eat about a ton of food each year.
-You breathe 7 quarts of air every minute, one pint with each breath if you are relaxed.
-Your head weighs 12 pounds.
-Your mouth produces a quart of saliva every day.
-Your nose cleans, warms, and humidifies over 500 cubic feet of air every day
-Your right lung takes in more air than the left.
-You hear slightly better with your right ear than with your left.
-The size of your foot is approximately the size of your forearm.
-Your skin weighs about six pounds.
-Your legs are slightly different lengths.
-You have 60,000 miles of blood-carrying vessels.
-You are .4 inches taller in the morning than you are in the evening.
-Your heart beats 100,000 times a day.  If you live to be 72, your heart will have beaten 2.5 billion times.
-Your field of vision is 180 degrees.
-You will flex your finger joints 25 million times in your lifetime.
-You believe in God and in life after death.
-Your body has 45 miles of nerves.
-You and I are related within 40 generations.
-You are descended from someone who was once a king or emperor.
-You will spend one year of your life talking on the telephone.
-You have never been below the equator.
-You will spend two weeks of your life waiting at traffic signals.
-You will spend five years of your life dreaming.
-You have seen "Star Wars" 6.7 times.
-You take 8000-10,000 steps each day.
-You drink more soda pop than water.
-You will produce 25,000 quarts of spit in your lifetime, enough to fill two swimming pools.
-You consume 9 pounds of food additives every year.
-Your ashes (if you were cremated) would weigh 9 pounds.
-You spend more on cat food than on baby food.
-You will move 11 times in your life.
-You spend 11-13 minutes in the shower.
-You live within 50 miles of your birthplace.
-You keep your old magazines for 29 weeks before throwing them away.
-You take 60 photographs a year.
-You believe your IQ is above average.
-Your feet hit the floor 7000 times a day.

If you are hedenophobic, you have a fear of pleasure.

If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on your right side. If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food on your left side.

If you attempted to count the stars in a single galaxy at a rate of one every second. It would take around 3,000 years to count them all.

If you ever need to call someone in Antarctica, the area code is 672.

If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19, but you will be unable to make exact change for a dollar.

If you laid all crayola crayons made each year end-to-end, they'd circle the Earth 4.5 times.

If you took every existing photo of Princess Diana and stuck them together on movie reels, the movie would be 36 hours long.

If you walked the entire length of the China's Great Wall, you would be walking farther than the distance between New York City and Miami, Florida.

If you were to take a working refrigerator/freezer, plug it in and stick it in the middle of an enclosed room with the refrigerator's doors open, the room will get warmer overall.

If you were watching a live baseball game on TV, you would hear the crack of the bat sooner than someone sitting in the centerfield bleachers of the actual stadium would, even if you were all of the way across the country.

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you will have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

In 1420 and 1438, wolves roamed the streets of Paris.

In 1798, a mirage of the French coast was seen from Hastings, a town in Southern England, 60 miles away. A hundred-mile stretch of the French coast from Calais to Dieppe was seen clearly for three hours.

In 18th century English gambling dens, there was an employee whose only job was to swallow the dice if there was a police raid.

In 1920, the censorship board of Ohio tried to ban the movie "Treasure Island" for fear that the film would incite children to a life of piracy.

In 1927 an actress named Norma Talmadge accidentally stepped in some drying cement outside of Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, thus beginning the tradition of actors leaving their footprints in cement at that theater.

In 1939, a shower of tiny frogs fell on the English town of Trowbridge. Strong winds had carried them aloft from streams and ponds.

In 1940, silver coins fell from the skies on to the town of Gorky, Russia. A tornado had lifted up an old money chest and dropped the coins it contained as the wind carried it long.

In 1976 a Los Angeles secretary named Jannene Swift officially married a 50-pound rock. the ceremony was witnessed by more than twenty people.

In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.

In 1981, a tornado lifted a baby from its pram in the Italian city of Ancona. The baby was carried 50 feet into the air and set down safely 300 feet away--without waking.

In 1986, a guard in an armored car was killed when $50,000 worth of quarters fell on him.

In 1995, the bestselling adult Halloween costume was the Judge Ito robe and mask.

In Alaska, waking a sleeping bear for the purpose of taking a photograph is prohibited.  But shooting them is legal.

In Alaska, it is illegal to look at a moose from the window of an airplane or any other flying vehicle.

In Albania, nodding the head means 'no' and shaking the head means 'yes'.

In ancient China, people committed suicide by eating a pound of salt.

In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

In ancient Rome, it was considered a sign of leadership to be born with a crooked nose.

In Atlanta, Georgia, it is illegal to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp.

In Australia there are more poisonous snakes than non-poisonous snakes.

In Calama, a town in the Atacama Desert of Chile, it has never rained.

In every episode of "Seinfeld," there is a Superman somewhere.

In 'Gulliver's Travels', Jonathan Swift described the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, giving their exact size and speeds of rotation. He did this more that a hundred years before either moon was discovered.

In Japan, squid is the most popular topping for Domino's pizza.

In Japan there is a deadly martial art, called tessenjutsu, based solely on the use of a fan.

In medieval England, beer was often served with breakfast.

In Milan, Italy there is a law on the books that requires a smile on the face of all citizens at all times. Exemptions include time spent visiting patients in hospitals or attending funerals. Otherwise the fine is $100 if they are seen in public without a smile on their face.

In most American states, wedding rings are exempt by law from inclusion among the assets in a bankruptcy estate. This means that a wedding ring cannot be seized by creditors, no matter how much the bankrupt person owes.

In Pennsylvania, Ministers are forbidden from performing marriages when either the bride or groom is drunk.

In San Salvador, drunk drivers can be punished by death before a firing squad.

In seventeenth-century Japan, no citizen was allowed to leave the country on penalty of death. Anyone caught coming or going without permission was executed on the spot.

In South America, it would be rude not to ask a man about his wife and children. In most Arab countries, it would be rude to do so.

In the 1978 "Superman" movie, there's a scene where a young Lois Lane sees Superman running alongside the train.  The actors playing her parents were Kirk Alyn and Noel Niell, who had played Superman and Lois Lane in the 1950's.

In the 'Calvin and Hobbes' comic strip, only one character, Suzie Derkins, has a first and last name.  Calvin's parents have no names at all.

In the cartoon "Blondie", Blondie's maiden name was Boopadoop.  She was originally a gold-digger going after Dagwood, who was a millionaire playboy who played polo.  When Dagwood married Blondie, his family disowned him, which is why he is now working class.

In the Chinese written language, the ideograph that stands for "trouble" represents two women under one roof.

In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

In the "Rocky" movies, the character's real name is Robert.  This is only revealed once, on a banner saying "Welcome Robert 'Rocky' Balboa", in the second movie.  Also, Rambo wasn't given a first name (John) until his second movie.

In the vast majority of the world's languages, the word for "mother" begins with the letter M.

In Tibet, it's good manners to stick out your tongue at your guests.

In Turkey, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, anyone caught drinking coffee was put to death.

India ink is sometimes called 'Chinese ink', but it was not known until recently in either China or India.

India is the only country in the world that has a Bill of Rights for Cows.  It is also the number one movie producer in the world.

INSECTS:
-Caterpillars have 2000 muscles in their bodies.  People have 700.
-Dragonflies can travel up to 60 miles per hour.
-Mosquitos prefer children to adults.  They also prefer blondes to brunettes.
-Only male fireflies can fly.
-Termites are deaf.
-There are about a million times more insects than there are people on Earth.
-A fly can react to something it sees and change direction in 30 milliseconds (.00003 seconds).
-A male emperor moth can detect a female of his species a mile away.
-Aphids are born pregnant.
-Bees have five eyes. Most spiders have eight.
-Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts and white worms like fried pork rinds.
-Butterflies cannot fly in the early morning.
-Butterflies taste with their feet.
-Fleas are essential to the health of armadillos and hedgehogs; they provide necessary stimulation of the skin. Deloused armadillos and hedgehogs will die.
-Houseflies hum in the middle octave, key of F.
-If the head of a cockroach is removed carefully, so as to prevent it from bleeding to death, the cockroach can survive for several weeks. When it dies, it is from starvation.
-Many species of butterflies fly south for the winter.
-Only female bees work. Males remain in the hive, their only mission in life being to fertilize the queen bee on her maiden flight. After they have served their function, the males are not allowed back into the hive but are left outside, where they starve to death.
-Only female mosquitoes bite and drink blood. With some species, the females cannot reproduce unless they drink blood first.  Male mosquitoes do not bite, but feed on the nectar of flowers.
-Only full-grown male crickets can chirp.
-Scientists discover approximately 7,000 to 10,000 new insect species every year--and it is believe that there are between 1 million and 10 million species yet unfound.
-Termites will eat your house twice as fast if you play loud music.
-The hardiest of all the world's insects is the mosquito. It has been found in the coldest regions of northern Canada and Siberia and can live quite comfortably at the North Pole. It is equally at home in equatorial jungles.
-The honeybee kills more people each year world-wide than venomous snakes.
-The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
-There are more insects in one average square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth.
-To make a one-pound comb of honey, bees must collect nectar from about two million flowers.
-When a queen bee lays the fertilized eggs that will develop into new queens, only one of the newly laid queens actually survives. The first new queen that emerges from her cell destroys all other queens in their cells and, thereafter, reigns alone.
-According to the United States Deparment of Agriculture, the best time to spray household insects is 4:00 p.m. Insects are most vulnerable at this time.

Iron weighs more after it rusts.

Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every major Dewey-decimal category.

Israel is one-quarter the size of the state of Maine.

It is a comparatively recent insight that light travels from the object to the eye. Until about 400 years ago, it was widely thought that there was "something" in the eye that went out and saw the object.

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 (not counting 'selah') is spear.

It is illegal to hunt camels in the state of Arizona.

It is illegal to operate a cemetery in San Francisco.  No one has been buried (at least legally) in San Francisco since 1902.  Most burials for deceased residents take place in the nearby city of Colma.  Thus Colma has more dead residents than living ones.

It snows more in the Grand Canyon than it does in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

It takes 60-100 chinchillas to make a coat.

It takes 120 drops of water to fill a teaspoon.

It takes about a week to make a jellybean.

It takes approximately 190,400 pounds of milk to make 40,000 pounds of butter.

It takes as much heat to turn one ounce of snow to water as it does to make an ounce of soup boil at room temperature.

It takes one thousand years for a drop of ocean water to circle the planet.

It takes twelve ears of corn to make a tablespoon of corn oil.

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 again.

It's against the law to stare at the mayor of Paris.

J.R.R. Tolkein's "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy was written as a single novel, but the publisher divided it into 3 books over Tolkein's objections.  When released in the 1950's, the books didn't sell very well and there were no plans made to re-release them.  But when a bootlegged paperback version appeared in the 1960's, Tolkein's publisher flooded the market with their own paperbacks to draw sales away from the bootlegs, and the series quickly caught on and became a hit.

Jack the Ripper only killed on weekends.

James Ramsey invented a steam-driven motorboat in 1784. he ran it on the Potomac River, and the event was witnessed by George Washington.

Janet Leigh never took a shower since the filming of her murder in a shower in the movie 'Psycho'. She only took baths.

Jimmy Hoffa's middle name was Riddle.

Jimmy Stewart, the actor, joined the military during WWII, and didn't retire from it until 1968.  When he retired, he was an Air Force Brigadier General, the highest ranking entertainer ever in military service.

John Larroquette was the narrator of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"

Jousting is the state sport of Maryland.

Julius Caeser and Caeser Augustus added two months, July and August, to our calender, and both were added in the middle of the year because neither wanted to be at the beginning or end. This is why September, which should be the 7th month (A septagon has 7 sides, etc.), is the 9th month of the year, and December (deka) is the 12th instead of the 10th.

Julius Caesar suffered from epilepsy.

Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, is larger than the planet Mercury.

Kangaroos cannot jump if their tails are lifted off the ground.  They need their tails for pushing off.

"Karaoke" means "empty orchestra" in Japanese.

Keanu Reeve's first name means "cool breeze over the mountains" in the Hawaiian language.

"Kemo Sabe" means "soggy shrub" in Navajo.

Kermit the Frog is left handed.

King Kong (in the original movie) was 16 feet tall in the scenes on the Island, and 24 feet tall in the scenes in New York.  They had to make him bigger for the scenes on the Empire State Building so that he would be more visible.  Also, he was never played by a person in a gorilla suit.

King Louis XV bathed only three times in his entire life.

KISS frontman Gene Simmons was a Theology major in College.

KOALAS:
-Koalas and humans are the only animals with unique prints. Koala prints cannot be distinguished from human fingerprints.
-Eucalyptus leaves are the only food koala bears will eat.

Launched in Sputnik II, Laika, a female Samoyed, became the first animal in Space. (November 3, 1957) She died when her oxygen supply was exhausted, and her capsule incinerated on reentry to the Earth's atmosphere.

'Leave It To Beaver' was the first TV show to show a toilet, but only the tank was shown.  An episode showing an entire toilet was filmed, but never aired.

Led Zeppelin's original name was "The New Yardbirds".  Guitarist Jimmy Page had briefly been a member of the Yardbirds, and the band sprang out of an attempt to reform the band with new members.

Lee Harvey Oswald's cadaver tag sold at an auction for $6,600 in 1992.

Leeches have 32 brains.

Lemmings don't really jump off of cliffs to commit suicide.  In the Disney documentary where you see them doing this ("White Wilderness"), the crew forced them over the cliff.

Lemon sharks grow a new set of teeth every two weeks. They grow more than 24,000 new teeth every year.

Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.

Leonardo DiCaprio's acting debut was on TV's 'Romper Room'.

Light takes one-tenth of a second to travel from New York to London, 8 minutes to reach the Earth from the Sun, and 4.3 years to reach Earth from the nearest star.

Lincoln/Kennedy coincidences:
1. Both Lincoln and Kennedy were elected to Congress in '46 (1846 in Lincoln's case, 1946 in Kennedy's). Both became President in '60.
2. Both had lazy eye muscles which would cause one eye to wander.
3. Both had been skippers on boats (Lincoln on the Mississippi river boat 'Talisman' and Kennedy on the PT-109)
4. Both were the second sons in their families. Each lost a sister to death before becoming President. Both married 24-year-old brunettes who had been previously engaged to other men, and who spoke French fluently.
5. Both had a child die while living in the White House.
6. Both were related to U.S. Senators, U.S. Attorney Generals who graduated from Harvard, and ambassadors to the Court of St. James.
7. Both were acquaintances of a man named Adlai E. Stevenson who ran for either Vice-President or President, a doctor named Charles Taft and a man named William Graham.
8. Both were advised not to go to the place where they died.
9. Both Lincoln's theater box and Kennedy's car were altered for their benefit (Lincoln's theater box had a partition removed to accomodate his party, Kennedy's car had a raised rear seat)
10. Both were slain on a Friday before a major Holiday (Lincoln on the Friday before Easter, Kennedy on the Friday before Thanksgiving). Both were shot while sitting next to their wives and in the presence of another couple. Of the other couple, the man was also wounded by the assassin, but neither wife was wounded.
11. Both were shot from behind and in the head. Both of their wives cradled their husband's heads after they were shot.
12. John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln from inside a theater, and fled to a warehouse. Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from inside a warehouse and fled to a theater.
13. Lincoln was shot while inside the Ford theater, in box 7. Kennedy was shot while inside a Ford automobile, in car 7 in the motorcade.
14. Both were pronounced dead in places with the initials P.H. (Lincoln in the Peterson House, and Kennedy in Parkland Hospital)
15. Both of their assassins escaped, and were killed before going to trial.
16. Both of their assassins were privates in the military. Each was detained after the shooting by a policeman named Baker. Both were eventually killed by a Colt revolver.
17. Both Lincoln and Kennedy were succeeded by southern ex-senators named Johnson who were born in '08. Both Johnsons were in their mid-fifties when they took the office and both suffered from urethral stones (the only presidents to have them). Both Johnsons could have run for re-election in '68, but chose not to.
18.  Both "Lincoln" and "Kennedy" contain 7 letters.  Both "Lee Harvey Oswald" and "John Wilkes Booth" contain 15 letters.

Lloyd's of London, the best-known association of insurance underwriters, does not write life insurance.

Lucille Ball's favorite TV show was "M.A.S.H."

Lynyrd Skynyrd named themselves after their high school athletic coach, Leonard Skinner, who'd told them that they'd never amount to anything.

Maine is the only state in the United States whose name is just one syllable.

Male squids sometimes eat the female after mating.

Man's three-pound brain is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter known of the universe.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birth name was Michael King, Jr.

Martin Scorsese was orignally attatched to Schindler's List and Steven Spielberg was considering directing a re-make of Cape Fear. The old friends decided to swap projects, each believing the other was better suited for the material.

Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, John Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore were all "extras" in the chariot race sequence in the movie "Ben Hur".

Mauna Kea, on the island of Hawaii, is the largest mountain on the earth - though partially submerged, it is 4,000 feet taller than Mount Everest.

Max Von Sydow is the only actor to play both Jesus and satan (in 'The Greatest Story Ever Told' and 'Needful Things', respectively).

McDonalds sells "McSpaghetti" in the Philippines and "McLak" salmon burgers in Norway.

MEL BROOKS:
-Mel Brooks fought in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII.
-In Mel Brooks' 'Silent Movie,' mime Marcel Marceau is the only person who has a speaking role.
-Richard Pryor co-wrote Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles", and was the original choice to play Sheriff Bart.
-In the famous "Psycho shower scene" parody in "High Anxiety", the actor playing the psychopathic bellboy who attacked Mel Brooks in the shower with a rolled-up newspaper was a little-known screenwriter named Barry Levinson, who would later go on to fame directing movies like "Diner", "Rainman", "Good Morning Vietnam" and "Wag The Dog".

MEN AND WOMEN:
-83% of people hit by lightning are men.
-A survey conducted at Iowa State College in 1969 suggests that a parent's stress at the time on conception plays a major role in determining a baby's sex. The child tends to be of the same sex as the parent who is under less stress.
-According to studies conducted at Northwestern University, men change their minds two to three times more than women. Women tend to take longer to make a decision, but once they do they are more likely to stick to it.
-Ten percent of men are left-handed while only eight percent of women are left-handed.
-A woman's heart generally beats faster than a man's.
-While 7 men in 100 have some form of colorblindness, only 1 woman in 1,000 suffers from it. The most common form of color blindness is a red-green deficiency.
-Men reach the peak of their sexual powers in their late teens or early twenties, and then begin to slowly decline. Women, however, do not reach their sexual peak until their late twenties or early thirties, and then remain at this level through their late fifties or early sixties.
-Women generally navigate by landmarks and visual memories. Men generally navigate by direction and distance, and tend to be better at reading maps.
-Females live longer than males in just about every species.
-If you were born during the day, chances are you're a boy.  If you were born at night, chances are you're a girl.
-If you're over 100 years old, there's an 80% chance you're a woman.
-Male hospital patients fall out of bed twice as often as female patients.
-Men get more ulcers than women.  Women get more migraines than men.
-The daughters of a mother who is colorblind and a father who has normal vision will usually have normal vision. However, the sons will usually be colorblind.
-Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.

Microsoft's startup music (a 6-second .WAV file) was written by Brian Eno.

Midgets and dwarfs almost always have normal-sized children, even if both parents are midgets or dwarfs.

Milk delivered to the store today was in the cow two days ago.

Minus 40 degrees Celsius is exactly minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the only temperature for which the readings on both scales are equal.

Montpelier, Vermont is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonald's.

Modern diets contain so many preservatives that dead human bodies do not deteriorate as quickly as they used to.

More people commit suicide on Monday than on any other day of the week.

More people have seen David Copperfield perform live than any other entertainer.

More than 100 descendants of Johann Sebastian Bach have been cathedral organists.

More than a thousand different languages are spoken on the continent of Africa. The Berbers of North Africa have no written form of their language. Somalia is the only African country in which the entire population speaks the same language, Somali.

More than half of the U.S.'s coastline is in Alaska (6640 miles in Alaska of 12,383 total for the U.S.)

Most healthy adults can go without eating anything for a month or longer. But they must drink at least two quarts of water a day.

Most people by the age of sixty have lost 50 percent of their taste buds and 40 percent of their ability to smell.

Most people know that the Wendy's fast food chain is named after the daughter of founder Dave Thomas. But most people don't know that her name isn't Wendy. Her name is Melinda Lou Thomas. Wendy is just a nickname. Also, Dave Thomas got his start working for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Most varieties of snake can go an entire year without eating a single morsel of food.

Moths have no stomaches.

Motorcycles were invented before automobiles.

Movie/TV original casting choices
-First choice for Terry Doolittle in "Jumpin' Jack Flash" was Shelly Long.  Whoopi Goldberg got the part.
-First choice for Bernie Rhodenbarr in "Burglar" was Bruce Willis.  Whoopi Goldberg got the part.
-First choice for Rita Rizzoli in "Fatal Beauty" was Cher.  Whoopi Goldberg got the part.
-First choice for Deloris Van Cartier in "Sister Act" was Bette Midler.  Whoopi Goldberg got the part.
-First choice for Joe Pendelton in "Heaven Can Wait" was Muhammad Ali.  Warren Beatty got the part.
-First choice for Archie Bunker on "All In The Family" was Mickey Rooney.  Carroll O'Connor got the part.
-First choice for the Wizard in "The Wizard of Oz" was W.C. Fields.  Frank Morgan got the part.
-First choice for the lead part in "China Syndrome" was Richard Dreyfuss.  Jane Fonda got the part.
-First choice for "Legal Eagles" were Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray.  Robert Redford and Debra Winger got the parts.
-First choice for Mr. Brady on "The Brady Bunch" was Gene Hackman.  Robert Reed got the part.
-First choice for "Lawrence of Arabia" was Albert Finney.  Peter O'Toole got the part.
-First choice for Indiana Jones in "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" was Tom Selleck.  Harrison Ford got the part.
-First choice for John Book in "Witness" was Tom Selleck.  Harrison Ford got the part.
-First choice for Sam Wheat in "Ghost" was Bruce Willis (who would have been starring opposite his then-wife Demi Moore).  Patrick Swayze got the part.
-First choice for The Joker in "Batman" was Robin Williams.  Jack Nicholson got the part.
-First choice for Mortimer Brewster in "Arsenic And Old Lace" was Bob Hope.  Cary Grant got the part.
-First choice for James Bond in "Dr. No" was Cary Grant.  Sean Connery got the part.  By the way, another actor who turned down the part was Roger Moore, who would replace Sean Connery about a decade later.
-First choice for "The Terminator" was O.J. Simpson.  Arnold Shwarzenegger got the part.
-First choice for Jessica Fletcher in "Murder, She Wrote" was Jean Stapleton.  Angela Lansbury got the part.
-First choice for "Cleopatra" was Joan Collins.  Elizabeth Taylor got the part (becoming the first actress to earn $1,000,000 for a single movie).
-First choice for Perry Smith and Dick Hickok in "In Cold Blood" were Paul Newman and Steve McQueen.  Robert Blake and Scott Wilson got the parts.
-First choice for Lucy Moderatz in "While You Were Sleeping" was Demi Moore.  Sandra Bullock got the part.
-First choice for Captain Von Trapp in "The Sound of Music" was Yul Brynner.  Christopher Plummer got the part.
-First choice for Peter Venkman in "Ghostbusters" was John Belushi.  Because of Belushi's death, Bill Murray got the part.
-Original choice for Winston Zeddemore in "Ghostbusters" was Eddie Murphy.  Ernie Hudson got the part.
-Original choice for Louis Tully (Dana's nerdy neighbor) in "Ghostbusters" was John Candy.  Rick Moranis got the part (though Candy did make an appearance in the video for the theme song).
-First choice for the voice of 'Scat Cat' in "The Aristocats" was Louis Armstrong.  Scatman Crothers got the part.
-First choice for Julian Kaye in "American Gigolo" was John Travolta.  Richard Gere got the part.
-First choice for Zack Mayo in "An Officer and a Gentleman" was John Travolta.  Richard Gere got the part.
-First choice for Rick Deckard in "Blade Runner" was Dustin Hoffman.  Harrison Ford got the part.
-First choice for Franz Liebkin (the nazi playwright) in "The Producers" was Dustin Hoffman (he backed out to star in "The Graduate").  Kenny Mars got the part.
-First choice for Leo Bloom in "The Producers" was Peter Sellers.  Gene Wilder got the part.
-First choice for Willie Wonka in "Willie Wonka And The Chocolate Factory" was Joel Gray.  Gene Wilder got the part.
-First choice for Sheriff Bart in "Blazing Saddles" was Richard Pryor.  Cleavon Little got the part.
-First choice for Rhett Butler in "Gone With The Wind" was Gary Cooper.  Clark Gable got the part.
-First choice for Axel Foley in "Beverly Hills Cop" was Sylvester Stallone.  Eddie Murphy got the part.
-First choice for Robert Wakefield in "Traffic" was Harrison Ford.  Michael Douglas got the part.
-First choice for the monster in "Frankenstein" was Bela Lugosi.  Boris Karloff got the part.
-First choice for General Stilwell in "1941" was John Wayne.  Robert Stack got the part.
-Early choices for "Superman" were Steve McQueen, Robert Redford and Paul Newman.  Christopher Reeve got the part.
-First choice for Randle McMurphy in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" was Bud Cort (of 'Harold and Maude' fame).  Jack Nickolson got the part (and his first oscar!)
-First choice for the title role in "Carrie" was Carrie Fisher.  Sissy Spacek got the part.
-Original choice for Princess Leia in "Star Wars" was Sissy Spacek.  Jodi Foster was considered at one point, as well. Carrie Fisher got the part.
-Original choice for Danny and Sandy in "Grease" were Henry Winkler and Susan Dey.  John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John got the parts.
-Original choice for Tarzan in "Tarzan the Ape Man" was Clark Gable.  Johnny Weismuller got the part.
-Original choice for Josh in "Big" was Harrison Ford.  Tom Hanks got the part.
-Original choice for "The Cable Guy" was Chris Farley.  Jim Carrey got the part.
-Original choices for the leads in "Face/Off" were Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  John Travolta and Nicholas Cage got the parts.
-Early considerations for Dr. Loomis in "Halloween" were Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.  Donald Pleasance got the part.
-Original choice for "Jerry McGuire" was Tom Hanks.  Tom Cruise got the part.
-Original choices for "Men In Black" were Chris O'Donnell and Clint Eastwood.  Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones got the parts.
-Early considerations for Meg in "Panic Room" were Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock.  Jodi Foster got the part.
-Original choice for Vega in "Pulp Fiction" was Michael Madsen, who would have been reprising his role as Vic Vega from "Reservoir Dogs".  Since he turned down the part, the role was given to John Travolta, and the character's name was changed to Vincent Vega, and Vincent is supposed to be Vic's brother.  In fact, Tarantino is working on the script for a movie in which Madsen and Travolta appear together as the Vega brothers.
-Original choice for the voice of "Shrek" was Chris Farley.  Mike Myers got the part.
-Jim Carrey auditioned for, but lost, the part of Farmer Ted in "Sixteen Candles".  Anthony Michael Hall got the part.
-Early considerations for the Green Goblin in "Spider Man" were Nicholas Cage and John Malkovich.  Willem Defoe got the part.
-Early considerations for the part of Han Solo in "Star Wars" were Christopher Walken, Nick Nolte, and Burt Reynolds.  Harrison Ford was originally a set builder on the movie, but Lucas asked him to audition, and he got the part.
-Original choice for Dorothy in "Wizard of Oz" was Shirley Temple.  Judy Garland got the part.
-First choice for Major T.J. Kong in "Dr. Strangelove" was Peter Sellers (who was already playing Dr. Strangelove, President Muffley and Captain Mandrake).  Not able to handle a fourth role due to an injury, Slim Pickens got the part.

Mozart once composed a piano piece that required a player to use two hands and a nose in order to hit all the correct notes.

"Mr. Mojo Risin'"  (a phrase used in The Doors' song "L.A. Woman") is an anagram for Jim Morrison.

Mr. P. J. Tierney, father of the modern diner, died of indigestion in 1917 after eating at a diner.

Mr. Snuffleupagas' first name was Alyoisus.

NAPOLEAN BONAPARTE
-Napolean designed the Italian flag.
-Napolean Suffered from ailurophobia, the fear of cats.
-Napolean was not born in France, nor was he of French parentage, but was on the Meditteranean island of Corsica of Italian parents.
-Napolean wasn't short.  He was five feet six inches tall, the average height for a Frenchman at the time.

Natural gas has no smell. The odor is artificially added so that people will be able to identify leaks and take measures to stop them.

Nearly one-fourth of the world's population lives on less than $200 a year. More than ninety million people survive on less than $75 a year.

New York's "Wall Street" was named after a wall 12 feet tall and 1,340 feet long build in 1653 by Dutch colonists to protect against their enemies.

New Zealand was the first country to give woman the right to vote, in 1893.

Ninety percent of all animal species that ever lived are now extinct.

NO ONE KNOWS:
-How many people live in the country of Bhutan. As of 1975, no census had ever been taken.
-Where Mozart is buried.
-Where Voltaire's body is.  Though Voltaire was given a proper burial in a marked tomb, his body was stolen and has never been recovered.
-Who built the Taj Mahal.

No words in the English language rhyme with month, orange or silver.

"Nobody But Me" by The Human Beinz has the word 'no' in it over 100 times, and the word 'nobody' 46 times, though the song is only 2 minutes and 16 seconds long.

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

Of the 3,000 islands of the Bahama chain in the Caribbean, only 20 are inhabited.

Official FDA guidelines allow whole pepper to be sold with up to 1 percent of the volume made up of rodent droppings.

On a hot afternoon, the atmosphere draws up 5,500 million gallons of water an hour from the Gulf of Mexico.

On the average, more animals are killed by motorists than by hunters with guns.

One in five American adults don't like sex.

One out of every four Americans has appeared on television.

One out of every three English males between the ages of 17 and 35 was killed in World War I.

Only about 1/4 of all American adults eat 3 meals a day

Only eight men were killed in the Battle of Lexington.

Only one of Alfred Hitchcock's films ever won an academy award, and that was for best song ('Que Sera Sera' from 'The Man Who Knew Too Much').

Opossums don't really 'play dead'. Actually, they faint from terror.

Orville Wright was the pilot during the first airplane fatality (he wasn't killed, his passenger was).

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

Over 15 billion prizes have been given away in Cracker Jacks boxes.

Over 50 billion aspirin tablets are taken worldwide each year.

Pablo Picasso was born dead. His midwife left him on a table. Picasso's uncle brought him to life with a lung full of cigar smoke.

Pain travels through your body at 350 feet per second.

Panama (because of a bend in the isthmus) is the only place in the world where one can see the sun rise on the Pacific Ocean and set on the Atlantic.

Panama hats are primarily made in Ecuador.

Paul Frees does the voice of Cap'n Crunch, Boris Badenov, and the Pillsbury Dough Boy.  He also did the voices of John Lennon and George Harrison in the Beatles' saturday morning cartoon.

Paul Reiser himself co-wrote and plays the piano in the "Mad About You" theme.  He also co-wrote the theme to "My Two Dads".

Peanuts are not nuts; they are legumes.

Penguins can jump over 6 feet.

Penny Marshall was the first woman film director to have a film take in more than $100 million at the box office - she accomplished this with the 1988 flick 'Big'.

People with mental disorders such as psychoses rarely yawn.

Per capita, it is safer to live in New York City than it is to live in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Perspiration is odorless. It is bacteria on the skin that creates an odor.

Peter Ostrum, the 13-year-old child actor who starred as Charlie in 'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory' (1971) has never appeared in any other movie.  Ostrum later went on to become a veteranarian in New York.  Also, Danny Lloyd, who played Danny Torrence in "The Shining", has never appeared in any other theatrical movie, just a single performance in a TV movie.

Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, is so close to its parent planet that it could not be seen by an observer standing at either of Mars poles. Phobos makes three complete orbits around Mars every day.

Poison oak is not oak, poison ivy is not ivy. Both are members of the cashew family (anacardiaceae).

Porcupines have, on average, more than 30,000 quills. Porcupines are excellent swimmers because their quills are hollow and serve as pontoons to keep them afloat.

PRESIDENTS:
-Franklin Pierce was arrested while in office for running over an old woman with his horse, but his case was dropped due to insufficient evidence in 1853.
-Howard Taft weighed 352 pounds.
-James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other--simultaneously!
-Thomas Jefferson invented the wooden coat hanger, the hideaway bed, and the dumbwaiter.  He also introduced waffles to the U.S. and designed the plumbing for the White House.
-Franklin Roosevelt was related to 5 other presidents by blood, and 6 others by marriage.  He was also related to Winston Churchill (seventh cousin, once removed).
-All U.S. Presidents have worn glasses at least occasionally.
-Andrew Jackson claimed to have been born in South Carolina in 1767.  However, some historians believe that he was actually born on a ship bound for America from Ireland in 1755.  If true, he was ineligible for the presidency.
-George Washington refused the $500 monthly salary offered when he was a commander in the Revolutionary War, offering to work 'only for expenses'.  As a result, he earned about $400,000 more than he would have had he accepted the salary.
-Gerald R. Ford, Jr. was one of the members of the Warren Commission appointed to study the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. And his birth name was Leslie Lynch King, Jr.
-Grover Cleveland is the only United States President to have been married in the White House.
-In the Declaration of Independence as first written by Thomas Jefferson, there was a clause abolishing slavery. Because of popular pressure, however, Jefferson deleted the clause.
-James Buchanan was the only president of the United states never to marry. During his term in office, his niece Harriet Lane played to role of the First Lady.
-Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to have been born in a hospital.
-John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents of the U.S., both died on July 4th, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
-Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln, was present at the assassinations of three presidents: his father's, President Garfield's, and President McKinley's. After the last shooting, he refused ever to attend a state affair again.
-Victoria Woodhall was the first woman to run for President of the US. (1872).
-The Secret Service, whose job it is to protect the President, was signed into existence by Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, just hours before he was assassinated.
-So far, every U.S. President with a beard has been a Republican.

Proxima Centauri is the closest star (other than our sun) to Earth, but it is too small to be seen without a telescope.

"Psycho" was the first movie in major release to show a toilet, and to show a woman wearing only a bra on top.

Puerto Rico used to be called San Juan.  San Juan used to be called Puerto Rico.

PYRAMIDS:
-The Egyptian pyramids are located at the intersection of the latitudes and longitudes which cover the greatest amount of land on Earth.
-The Egyptian pyramids contain enough stone and mortar to construct a wall 10 feet high and 5 feet wide running from New York City to Los Angeles.
-The Egyptian pyramids were once faced completely with marble. The Parthenon was once painted.
-The largest pyramid in the world is not in Egypt but in Cholulu de Rivadahia, Mexico. It is 177 feet tall and covers 25 acres. It was built sometime between 6 and 12 A.D.

Q-Tips were originally called Baby Gays.

Queen termites may live for as many as fifty years.

Quentin Tarantino once played an Elvis impersonator on "The Golden Girls".  He also co-wrote the movie "It's Pat", based on a Saturday Night Live skit.

Quito, a city in Ecuador, South America, is said to have the most pleasant climate in the world. It is called the 'Land of Eternal Spring.' The temperate rarely drops below 46 degrees Fahrenheit during the night, or exceed 72 degrees Fahrenheit during the day. The worst climate in the world may be at Yakutsk, in Russia. In winter, the temperature falls to -84 degrees Fahrenheit. In summer, it can reach 102 degrees Fahrenheit.

Rainbows can be seen from the ground only in the morning or late afternoon.  When viewed from the sky, they are round.

Rats can fall from a 5-story building without injury.

Reindeer like to eat bananas.

Reno, Nevada has the highest rate of alcoholism in the U.S.  Provo, Utah has the lowest.

Richard Donner, best know for directing the 'Lethal Weapon' series, got his start directing episodes of 'Gilligan's Island'.

Richard Nixon was the first president to visit all 50 states.

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

Rivers in the northern hemisphere scour their right-hand banks more severely than their left-hand banks. This effect is due to the rotation of the Earth.

Roald Dahl, the children's writer who wrote "Charlie And The Chocolate Factory" and "James And The Giant Peach", wrote the screenplay for "You Only Live Twice", the fifth James Bond Movie.

Robert DeNiro's famous "Are you talking to me?" speech in 'Taxi Driver' was completely ad-libbed.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote "The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" in only three days.  Dissatisfied with the results, he burned the original manuscript and completely rewrote it in three more days.  He claims the entire story came to him in a dream.

Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz", didn't keep birds at Alcatraz.  He only kept them at Leavenworth Prison.

Roger Ebert is the only film critic to ever have won the Pulitzer prize.

Roger McGuinn was the only member of the Byrds that actually played on their chart-topping 1965 Dylan cover "Mr. Tambourine Man"; he was backed by session musicians.

Rollerblades were invented before roller skates.

Roman emperor Nero married his male slave Scorus in a public ceremony.

Roman statues were made with detachable heads, so that one head could be removed and replaced by another.

Russian submarine designers are building military submarines out of concrete. Because concrete becomes stronger under high pressure, (C-subs) could settle down to the bottom in very deep water and wait for enemy ships to pass overhead. Concrete would not show up on sonar displays (it looks just like sand or rocks), so the passing ships would not see the sub lurking below.

Salt Lake City, Utah, gets an average of 17 inches more snow annually than Fairbanks, Alaska. Santa Fe, New Mexico, gets an average of 9 inches more snow each year than New Haven, Connecticut.

Samuel Clemens (AKA Mark Twain) never completed elementary school.

Seven percent of the entire Irish barley crop goes to the production of Guinness Beer.

Seventy percent of house dust is made up of dead skin flakes.

Shakespeare was the first to use certain words that are now common, including 'hurry', 'bump', 'eyeball', and 'anchovy'.  He also spelled his own name several different ways.

Sheep will not drink from running water. Hence the line in the Twenty-third Psalm: "He leadeth me beside the still waters."

Simon and Garfunkle first performed together in the 1950's (even making an appearance on 'American Bandstand' under the name 'Tom and Jerry' in 1958), and have performed together at least once in every decade since.

Since 1978, at least 37 people have died as a result of shaking vending machines, in an attempt to get free merchandise. More than 100 have been injured.

Sir Alec Guiness hated the movie Star Wars, and the reason Obi Wan dies in the first movie is that Guiness asked George Lucas to kill his character off so that he wouldn't be required to appear in any sequels (though he did end up appearing briefly as Obi Wan's ghost).  Also, Harrison Ford asked Lucas to kill of Han Solo in the third movie, since he didn't want to appear in any more Star Wars movies, but was rejected with the assurance that all future movies would be prequels that wouldn't require his presence.

Smokers generally eat more sugar than non-smokers.

Smokey the Bear has his own zip code, 20252.

Snails can sleep for three years.

Snails mate only once in their lifetime, but it can take up to 12 hours.

Software mogul William Henry Gates III could really be called William Henry Gates IV. Gates' father, was born William H. Gates III, but replaced the Roman numeral with "Jr."

Some Chinese typewriters have 5,700 characters. The keyboard is almost 3 feet wide on some models, and the fastest one can type on these machines is 11 words per minute.

Some deep ocean currents are moving so slowly that they will take thousands of year to reach the surface.

Some lions mate over 50 times a day.

Some neutron stars spin 600 times a second, which is as fast as a dentist's drill.

Some oysters can climb trees.

Soon after the filming of each of the three "Poltergeist" movies, one of the primary actors died (Dominique Dunn after the first, Julian Beck after the second, and Heather O'Rourke after the third)

"South Park: The Movie" holds the world record for the most forms of profanity, with 399.

Soviet Premeir Nikita Kruschev was denied permission to visit Disneyworld.

SPIDERS:
-Spiders have transparent blood.
-Spiders never spin webs in structures made of chestnut wood. That is why do many European chateaux were built with chestnut beams - spider webs on a 50-foot beamed ceiling can be difficult to clean.
-It would take 27,000 spiders, each spinning a single web, to produce a pound of web.

Squid can commit suicide by eating their own tentacles.

Squirrels can climb trees faster than they can run on the ground.

St. Francis of Assisi would remove worms from his path when he walked, so that he wouldn't step on them.

Stan Laurel (of Laurel and Hardy fame) played the Scarecrow in an early silent version of "Wizard Of Oz".

Starfish haven't got brains.

Steven Spielberg directed episodes of "Columbo", "Night Gallery", and "Marcus Welby M.D."

'Stewardesses', 'Reverberates', 'Reverberated', 'Barebreasted', 'Decerebrated', and 'Watercresses' all tie for the longest word typed with only the left hand (using the regular typing method).

Sylvester Stallone was, at one point, offered $340,000 NOT to play "Rocky".  He'd written the script and said it could not be filmed unless they agreed to let him star in it.  The studio wanted a familiar face (they were thinking Burt Reynolds, James Caan or Ryan O'Neal).  Though Stallone was desperate for money (he'd sold an earlier screenplay for a mere $500), he stuck to his guns, and the movie made him a star.

'Synesthesia' is a rare condition in which the senses are combined.  Synesthetes taste colors and shapes and feel flavors.

Ten-gallon hats hold less than a gallon of liquid.

Ten of the Amazon River's tributaries are as big as the Mississippi River.

"Terminator II: Judgment Day" made over five times as much money at the box office as the first "Terminator" movie ($204 million vs. $38 million)

That actor who was given the "Do you feel lucky?" speech at the beginning of "Dirty Harry" appeared in three other Dirty Harry movies in different roles (he was a pimp in "Magnum Force", Big Ed Mustapha in "The Enforcer" and Harry's partner in "Sudden Impact").

'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer', by Mark Twain, was the first novel written on a typewriter.

The Aerosmith hit "Walk This Way" was inspired by a gag in Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein".

The American opossum, a marsupial, bears its young just 12 to 13 days after conception. The Asiatic elephant takes 608 days, or just over 20 months.

The American woodcock, with its eyes placed toward the top of its head, can see backward and upward, and forward and upward, with binocular vision and, laterally, almost 180 degrees with each eye.

The ampersand (&) was once a letter of the English alphabet.

The Ancient Egyptians trained baboons to wait at their tables.

The Andromeda galaxy is the most distant object visible to the naked eye. It is about 12,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles away.

The average American has seen Star Wars 6.7 times.

The average American spends two weeks of his or her life waiting at traffic signals

The average sixty minute audio cassette tape has 562.5 feet of tape in it.

The average brain comprises 2 percent of a person's total body weight. yet it requires 25 percent of all oxygen used by the body, as opposed to 12 percent used by the kidneys and 7 percent by the heart.

The average take from a bank robbery is about $3,000.

The banana cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man. Further, the banana is not a tree. it is a herb, the largest known of all plants without a woody stem or solid trunk.

The band Duran Duran was named after an astronaut in the 1968 Jane Fonda movie "Barbarella."

The band Nirvana was originally called "Skid Row", the members somehow unaware of the very popular heavy metal band by that name.  When they finally heard of the band, they changed their name to "Nirvana", and were promptly sued by the members of a practically unknown sixties band that had gone by that name.

The battle hymn of the Ethiopian army used to be "The St. Louis Blues".

The Battle of New Orleans, which made Andrew Jackson a national hero, was fought two weeks after the War of 1812 had ended and more than a month before the news of the war's end had reached Louisiana.

The bloodtype of Mr. Spock in Star Trek is T-negative.

The blue whale's tongue weighs as much as an adult elephant.

The body's largest internal organ is the small intestine at an average length of 20 feet.

The Boeing Commercial Airplane factory in Everett, Washington, is the largest building in the world. The entire Disneyland amusement park, including its parking lots, could fit inside of it.

The brain has no feeling.  If your brain itself was to be cut, you wouldn't feel a thing.  Only the membrane surrounding it has feeling.

The cells which make up the antlers of a moose are the fastest growing animal cells in nature.

The Chinese invented eyeglasses. Marco Polo reported seeing many pairs worn by the Chinese as early as 1275, five hundred years before lens grinding became an art in the West.

The company that insured the 1996 Republican National Convention also insured the "Titanic"

The country of Monaco is only half the size of New York City's Central Park.

The country of Togo has the lowest crime rate in the world, with an average of just 11 reported crimes annually for every 100,000 of the population.

The country of Yemen has the worlds highest fertility rate among women at 7.6, the worlds lowest - Switzerland at 1.5.

The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The cubit is the oldest known measurement, appearing in the Bible when God gives Noah instructions for the ark. Described as a 'royal cubit', it was measured from the elbow to the thumb knuckle. It was a means of insuring that the nobility got a larger share at the market place.

The custom of serving a slice of lemon with fish dates back to the Middle Ages. It was believed that if a person accidentally swallowed a fish bone, the lemon juice would dissolve it.

The death rate from cardiovascular diseases - heart attack, hardening of the arteries, and so on - has decreased in the United States since 1950.

The District of Columbia has 1 lawyer for every 19 residents.  It also has the greatest number of psychiatrists per capita.

The duckbilled platypus and the shrew are the only venomous mammal.

The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

The energy released by a hurricane each day would, if converted to electricity, keep the entire United States supplied with electrical power for up to three years.

The farmhouse in the "American Gothic" painting was once a bordello.

The federal government owns about 20% of the land in America.

The Federal Income Tax was imposed in WWII to raise war effort revenue and was to be desolved when Germany and Japan surrendered.  Germany finally formally surrendered in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell and Germany was finally reunited. And nobody has stepped forward to present this information to the Supreme Court.

The fingernails grow faster on the hand you favor. If you are right-handed your right fingernails will grow faster, etc. The middle fingernail grows faster than all other nails. Your thumbnail grows slowest.

The first automobile to cross the United States took fifty two days in 1903 to go from San Francisco to New York.

The first ballpoint pens sold in 1945 were priced at $12.00 a piece.

The first CD pressed in the U.S. - for commercial release - was Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA'.

The first city to reach a population of 1 million people was Rome, Italy in 133BC. London, England reached the mark in 1810 and New York, USA made it in 1875. Today there are over 300 cities in the world that boast a population in excess of 1 million.

The first jukebox was installed at the Palais Royal Hotel in San Francisco on November 23, 1899.

The first motion picture copyrighted in the United States showed a man in the act of sneezing. (The year was 1894.)

The first operators employed by the Bell Telephone Company were young boys who worked standing up. Only after several years did it occur to anybody to provide them with chairs.

The first passenger in Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis" was Henry Ford.

The first person known to make snow cones was Emperor Nero in the 1st century.

The first U.S. Chief Justice, John Jay, bought slaves in order to free them.

The first VCR, made in 1956, was the size of a piano.

The food most frequently craved by pregnant women?  Nachos.

The footprints left by the Apollo astronauts will not erode for at least 10 million years since there is no wind or water on the Moon.

The fortune cookie was invented in 1916 by George Jung, a Los Angeles noodlemaker.

The giraffe's heart is huge; it weighs twenty-five pounds, is two feet long, and has walls up to three inches thick.

The gorilla's scientific name is "Gorilla gorilla gorilla".

The Grateful dead played 2,314 concerts in their career.

The Great Lakes contain 6 quadrillion gallons of fresh water, one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water. The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world.  They have a combined surface area of 94,230 square miles - larger than the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Vermont combined.

The hair of an adult man or woman can stretch 25 percent of its length without breaking. If it is less elastic, it is not healthy.

The heart beats faster during a brisk walk or heated argument than during sexual intercourse.

The heaviest known meteorite to fall to Earth - the Hoba West meteorite - lies where it fell in Africa. Weighing about sixty tons, it is not likely to be moved.

The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.

The human nose can detect the odor of artificial musk in such low concentrations as one part musk to 32 billion parts of air.

The human tongue tastes bitter things with the taste buds toward the back. Salty and pungent flavors are tasted the middle of the tongue, sweet flavors at the tip.

The hump of a really famished camel may flop over and hang down the side of the body as the fat is used up.

The Incas and certain other pre-Columbian tribes in Peru developed the decimal system hundreds of years before it was used in Europe.

The Jerusalem artichoke is neither from Jerusalem nor is an artichoke. It's the knobby nut-brown tuber of a sunflower.

The jet streams blow from the west with such a power that eastbound airliners fly across North America about on hour faster than airliners flying westward.

The King Ranch in Texas is bigger than the state of Rhode Island. It comprises 1.25 million acres and was the first ranch in the world to be completely fenced in. At one time its borders were guarded by armed patrol.

The Knack's lead singer, Doug Fieger, is the brother of Geoffrey Fieger, the attorney for Dr. Kevorkian and one-time Michigan gubernatorial candidate.

The Ku Klux Klan has applied to sponsor more than 16 miles of U.S. roadway under state adopt-a-highway programs.

The language of Taki, spoken in parts of French Guinea, consists of only 340 words.

The largest cell in the human body is the female ovum, or egg cell. It is about 1/180 inch in diameter. The smallest cell in the human body is the male sperm. It takes about 175,000 sperm cells to weigh as much as a single egg cell.

The largest painting measures 92,419 square feet and was completed by ID Cultur in Amsterdam, Netherlands on August 14, 1996.

The Liberty Bell was so little regarded in its day that Philadelphia tried to sell it for scrap metal but nobody wanted it.

The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma in an emergency. This was discovered by Doctors in Fiji during World War II.

The liver is a gland, not an organ.

The longest alphabet is Cambodian. It has 74 letters compared with the 26 in English.

The longest animal ever recorded is the ribbon worm (also known as Lineus longissimus). This creature has been measured at 180 feet when it was washed ashore in Scotland in the late 1800's.

The longest English word consisting entirely of consonants (and not including"y" as a vowel) is the word"crwth" which is from the fourteenth century and means crowd.

The longest one-syllable English words are "screeched" and "strengths".

The lyricist of the song "Keep the Home Fires Burning," Lena Gilbert Ford, burned to death in her home.

The magician's words "hocus-pocus" are taken from the name of a mythological sorcerer, Ochus Bochus, who appears in Norse folktales and legends.

The man who created the Thighmaster was once a Buddhist monk.

The medal which is presented to Nobel Peace Prize winners depicts three naked men with their hands on each other's shoulders.

The Medical profession was so bad at their job during the Civil War that a wounded soldier stood a better chance of surviving if he didn't seek medical help.

The men who served as guards along the Great Wall of China in the Middle Ages were often born on the wall, grew up there, married there, died there, and were buried within it. Many of these guards never left the wall in their entire lives.

The mistral wind of southern France once blew a string of locomotive cars from Arles to Port-St.-Louis 25 miles away before the cars could be stopped.

The Mojave ground squirrel, found mainly in the American West, hibernates for two-thirds of every year.

The Mola Mola, or Ocean Sunfish, lays up to 5,000,000 eggs at one time.

The Monumental Axis, a road in Brazil, is so wide that 160 cars can drive side by side on it.

The Moon is slowly moving away from Earth.  It's moved three feet and nine inches away in the last thirty years.

The more money a man makes, the more likely he is to cheat on his wife.

The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

The most popular euphemism for vomiting in Denmark is "talking into the big phone".

The mouse is the most common mammal in the United States.

The movie "Tootsie" was originally called "Would I Lie To You?"  Dustin Hoffman himself suggested the title "Tootsie", since that had been his nickname as a child.

The movie "What Lies Beneath" was inspired by a short story written by Steven Spielberg.

The movies 'The Turning Point' (1977) and 'The Color Purple' (1985) both share the record of the most Oscar nominations (11) with no Oscar wins.

The name of the Pilgrim's second ship that was to accompany the Mayflower to the "New World" was The "Speedwell". It had to turn back because it wasn't seaworthy.

The name 'Oz', in The Wizard of Oz, was thought up when the creator, L. Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z.

The name 'Wendy' was made up for the book 'Peter Pan'.  It was suggested to Mr. Barrie by a child friend's use of the nonsense phrase "friendy-wendy" for friend.

The names Ashley, Stacy, Courtney, Kelly and Madison were all originally boys' names.

The Navajo Indian language was used successfully as a code by the U.S. in World War II.

The New York phone book had 22 Hitlers before WWII, but none since.

The number of possible ways of playing just the first four moves on each side in a chess game is 318,979,564,000. As for the first ten movies, the number of possible ways to play it is approximately 170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

The odds of the average golfer making a hole-in-one is 33,676 to 1.

The onion is a lily, botanically.

The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is 'uncopyrightable'.

The only commonly-used English word which has a syllable without a vowel or an apostrophe is "Rhythm".

The only part of the human body that has no blood supply is the cornea. It take its oxygen directly from the air.

The orchid is named after the male genitalia. Its botanical family name, Orchidaceae, means "testicles" in Greek and may derive from an early notion that the orchid possessed aphrodisiac qualities.

The original "Cinderella" was Egyptian and wore fur slippers.

The original Hollywood sign read 'Hollywoodland' and was lit up by 4,000 lights. A 400-ft (120m) high replacement was erected in 1978, Hollywood's 75th anniversary. In 1932, an actress named Peg Entwistle committed suicide by jumping from the 'H'.

The original "Marlboro Man" died of lung cancer.

The "Oscar" statuette is 90% tin.

The Pacific Ocean covers more of the earth's surface than all land combined.

The palms of the hands and soles of the feet contain more sweat glands than any other part of the body.

The penculine titmouse of Africa builds its home in such a sturdy manner that Masai tribesman use their nests for purses and carrying cases.

The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as necessary. When it was built in the 1940's, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.  Also, it has five sides, is five stories tall, and has five acres in the middle.

The Pentagon spends $8,612 per second.

The plastic covering on the end of a shoelace is called an 'aglet'.

The "Pledge of Allegiance" didn't have the phrase 'under God' in it until more than 60 years after it was written. It was written in 1892 and 'under God' was added in 1954.

The Popsicle was invented by eleven-year-old Frank Epperson in 1905. He left a container of soda and a stirrer outside overnight and in the morning discovered them frozen together.

The population of the entire world in 5000 B.C. was 5 million.

The potato was not known in Europe until the 17th century, when it was introduced by returning Spanish Conquistadors.

The practice of naming hurricanes began early this century when an Australian weather forecaster decided to insult politicians he didn't like by naming devastating tropical storms after them.

The Professor on 'Gilligan's Island' was named Roy Hinkley. The Skipper was named Jonas Grumby. Both names were used only once in the entire series. Gilligan's full name was never revealed (even Bob Denver, who played Gilligan, was never told his full name, nor was he sure if Gilligan was his first or last name), though some insiders claim his name was supposed to be Willy Gilligan.  And Mary Ann's last name was Summers, and Mrs. Howell's maiden name was Wentworth.

The pupil of the eye expands as much as 45 percent when a person looks at something pleasing.

The real name of the "I've fallen and I can't get up" lady is Edith Fore.

The reason "Dr. Strangelove" was filmed in black and white was so that director Stanley Kubrick could mix in cold war footage, which was in black and white.

The reason "I Dream Of Jeannie" was originally filmed in black and white is that the network was so certain it would be a flop that they didn't want to waste pricey color film on it.

The rickshaw was invented by the Reverend Jonathan Scobie, an American Baptist minister living in Yokohama, Japan, built the first model in 1869 in order to transport his invalid wife. Today it remains a common mode of transportation in the Orient.

The rock band which has survived the longest with at least half of their original membership intact is The Kinks, who formed in 1963 and are still together today, almost 40 years later, with 2 of their original 4 members (though they haven't recorded an album of original music since 1993).  Some claim that the Rolling Stones beat The Kinks for this record, but they only have 2 of their original 5 members (Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are the only original members - drummer Charlie Watts, though he joined the band early on, was not an original member).  The Australian band INXS survived almost 20 years with all six of their original members still in the band, before vocalist Mike Hutchence committed suicide.

The Rolling Stones American TV debut was on "The Red Skelton Show".

The Roman Emperor Commodos collected al the dwarfs, cripples, and freaks he could find in the city of Rome and had them brought to the Collosseum, where they were ordered to fight each other to the death with meat cleavers.

The rush of air produced by a cough moves at a speed approaching 600 miles per hour.

The Sahara Desert comprises an area as large as Europe. Its total land mass is some 3,565,565 square miles.

The San Francisco cable cars are the only mobile national monuments.

The sensitivity of the human eye is so keen that on a clear, moonless night a person standing on a mountain can see a match being struck as far as 50 miles away. Much to their amazement, astronauts in orbit were able to see the wakes of ships.

The shortest commercial flight in the world is between two Islands in Orkney. The whole flight is shorter than the runway at Heathrow.

The shortest known sentence to contain every letter of the alphabet is, "Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex bud".  Only the letters 'i' and 'u' are repeated.

The shortest war, between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896, lasted just 38 minutes.

The slipper-shelled snail starts life as a male and gradually turns female as it grows up.

The smell of a skunk can be detected by a human a mile away.

The snail mates only once in its entire life. When it does mate, however, it may take as long as 12 hours to consummate the act.

The song "Dixie", which was the favorite song of Southern troops during the Civil War, was written by a Northerner (Dan Emmett).  "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", which was the favorite song of the Northern troops, was written by a Southerner (William Steffe).

The sound heard by a listener when holding a seashell to his ear does NOT come from the shell itself. It is the echo of the blood pulsing in the listeners own ear.

'The Spin Doctors' first album sold about four million copies.  Their third sold only about forty thousand copies, a 99% drop in sales.  Their label dropped them after that album.

The star Zeta Thaun, a supernova, was so bright when it exploded in 1054 that it could be seen during the day.

The State of Michigan once threatened to sue some beavers for $10,000 for failing to remove a dam.

The State of Michigan's shoreline is longer than the entire eastern seaboard from Maine to the tip of Florida.

The states of Arizona, Indiana and Hawaii have never adopted Daylight Savings Time. Neither has Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, or American Samoa.  Arizona tried it once (in the late 80's or early 90's), which resulted in it being daylight until 10:00 pm.  They gave it up after a week.

The statue by Auguste Rodin that has come to be called "The Thinker" was a portrait of the poet Dante.

The Statue of Liberty's fingernails each weigh about 100 pounds.

The story that Columbus discovered that the world was round was invented by Washington Irving.

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

The sun isn't round. It is flattened on the top and the bottom.

The Sun's energy production each second is enough to supply the electrical need of the U.S. for 50 million years at current rate of consumption.

The tails of comets generally point away from the sun whether the comet is approaching the sun or receding.

The Tarantula nebula is thought to contain a huge star of over 1,000 times the mass of the Sun, ten times more massive than any star in the he Milky Way.

The tax imposed on tea that triggered the Boston Tea Party in 1773 was 3 cents per pound.

The telescope on Mount Palomar, California, can see a distance of 7,038,835,200,000,000,000,000 miles.

The television show "The Untouchables" was boycotted by mobsters over what they felt was unfair treatment.

The temperature of the Earth's interior increases by 1 degree every 60 feet down.

The Titanic was the first boat ever to send out an 'S.O.S.'

The toe of the metal statue of St. Peter in St. Peter's Cathedral, Rome, is worn down almost to a nub by the great number of pilgrims who have kissed it through the centuries.

The total area of Denver International Airport is 53 square miles, twice the size of Manhattan Island, New York, and larger than the city boundary of Boston, Miami or San Francisco.

The Tower of London, for which construction was begun in 1078 by William the Conqueror, once housed a zoo. It also has served as an observatory, a mint, a prison, a royal palace, and (at present) the home of the Crown Jewels.

The United Nations was originally located in San Francisco. It was moved to New York City because many European nations believed San Francisco was too far to travel.

The U.S. interstate highway system requires that 1 mile in every 5 must be straight. These sections can be used as airstrips in a time of war or other emergencies.

The 'V-for-victory' sign is an obscene gesture in Australia, similar to 'flipping the bird'. President George Bush (Sr.) found this out the hard way, giving this gesture to protesters in Canberra, Australia in January of 1992.  The protesters gave it back.

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

The weasel and the ermine are the same animal. This mammal's coat changes with the season--in its white winter coat it is known as an ermine, in its brown coat it is a weasel.

The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.

The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight.

The word 'bookkeeper' is the only word in the English language with 3 back-to-back double letter combinations.

The word 'checkmate' in chess comes from the Persian phrase 'Shah Mat', which means 'the king is dead'.

The word 'dude' was coined by Oscar Wilde and his friends. It is a combination of the words 'duds' and 'attitude'.

The word 'samba' means 'to rub navels together'.

The word 'tip', meaning a gratuity, was originally an acronym standing for 'To Insure Promptness.'

There are 293 different ways to make change for a dollar.

There are 20,000 television commercials made each year that are aimed exclusively at children. Of these, 7,000 are for sugared breakfast cereals.

There are an average of 178 sesame seeds on a McDonald's Big Mac bun.

There are free-roaming buffalo in Poland.

There are more bagpipe bands in the U.S. than in Scotland.

There are more Irish in New York City than in Dublin, Ireland; more Italians in New York City than in Rome, Italy; and more Jews in New York City than in Tel Aviv, Israel. And there are more people in New York City than there are in the states of Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming, South Dakota, New Hampshire, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Hawaii, Delaware, and New Mexico combined.

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

There are more than 1,750 "O's" in a 15-ounce can of SpaghettiOs.

There are more than 15,000 different kind of rice.

There are more than 50,000 earthquakes throughout the world every year.

There are no living descendants of William Shakespeare or George Washington.

There are no recorded human deaths from tarantulas, piranhas or wolves.

There are no technical definitions for what makes a body of water a pond, lake, sea, or ocean.

There are professional tea tasters as well as wine tasters.

There is a barn in Old Jordans, Bucks, UK, which is built from the wood from The Mayflower.

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, here, ere, therein, herein.

There is a town in Sweden called "A" and a town in France called "Y".

There is about 1/4 pound of salt in every gallon of seawater.

There is absolutely no documented proof that Betsy Ross designed the American flag.

There is no way to tell a moth from a butterfly. Though there are differences of physiology and habit between then, it is almost impossible to isolate a single differentiating characteristic that applies uniformly to both species.

There was no punctuation until the 15th century.

There was once a brothel on the White House grounds.

Thirty million gallons of wine were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Thirty thousand Americans are injured every year by exercise equipment.

Thomas Edison invented the talking doll.

Thomas Edison was the father of horror movies.  He made the first one with a 1910 version of "Frankenstein".  Only one copy of the movie exists, but it's in a private collection.

Though "Striptease", starring Demi Moore, flopped in the U.S.A., it was a huge hit in Mexico, Italy, and Germany. It made $70,000,000 it its first ten weeks abroad.

Though this is unconfirmed, it is rumored that Bruce Willis, Adam Sandler, and Harrison Ford have very brief cameos in the movie "Titanic".  Also, all of Jack's drawings were done by none other than director James Cameron (that's even his hand you see drawing the nude picture of Rose in one scene).

Three mile island is 2.5 miles long.

Tigers have striped skin under their fur.

To help create her sexy walk, Marilyn Monroe sawed off part of the heel of one shoe.

"To prevent violence," it was at one time customary at certain phases of the moon to chain and flog inmates of England's notorious Bedlam Hospital.

Tongue prints are as unique as fingerprints.

TREES:
-Although Redwood trees are the largest trees on Earth (often 350 feet high with bark a foot thick), the seed of the redwood trees are so small that 123,000 of them weigh scarcely a pound.
-An orange tree may bear oranges for more than 100 years. The famous "Constable Tree," an orange tree brought to France in 1421, lived and bore fruit for 473 years.
-Christmas trees are edible. Many parts of pines, spruces, and firs can be eaten. The needles are a good source of Vitamin C. Pine nuts, or pine cones, are also a good source of nutrition.
-Millions of trees in the world are accidentally planted by squirrels who bury nuts and then forget where they hid them.
-The African boabab tree can have a circumference as large as 100 ft, often as wide as it is tall. One such tree in Zimbabwe is so wide that the hollowed out trunk serves as a shelter at a bus stop with a capacity to hold as many as 40 people.
-Oak trees are struck by lightning more often than any other tree. The ancient Greeks considered Oak trees sacred to Zeus, god of thunder and lightning.
-The bark of the redwood tree is fireproof. Fires in redwood forests take place inside the trees.
-The General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park, California, is the largest tree in the world. It weighs more than 6,000 tons.

Twins are born less frequently born in the eastern part of the world than in the western.

Two rats can become the progenitors of 15,000 rats in less than a year.  Two flies can become the progenitors of 190,000,000,000,000,000,000 flies in only four months.

'Typewriter', 'Repertoire', 'Perpetuity', 'Proprietor', 'Prototropy', and 'Peppertree' all tie for the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the typewriter.  All of them are made using the top row.  The reason for this is that the top row has more letters than the lower rows (it has 10 while the middle row has 9 and the bottom row has 7).

Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called 'Franklin'. Today it is known as Tennessee.

Until September 3rd, 1967 at 5 a.m. people drove on the left-hand side of the road in Sweden.  At that exact time, people started driving on the right-hand side.

Up to the age of six or seven months a child can breathe and swallow at the same time. An adult cannot do this.

Upon completion of the 1938 movie 'Robin Hood' featuring Errol Flynn, the horse that Maid Marion rode was sold to Roy Rogers - who renamed it Trigger.

U.S. vice-president Al Gore and actor Tommy Lee Jones were roommates at Harvard.  They were also both good friends of Erich Segal, who based the male lead in the novel "Love Story" to some extent on both of them.

Vampire bats do not suck blood. They bite, then lick up the flow.

Venezuela's Angel Falls are a kilometer high. They were originally discovered from an airplane.

Venus' days are longer than its years. The days are 243 Earth days, and the years are 224 Earth days.  It's also the only planet to rotate clockwise.

Very few people know the identity of the lead singer on the hit song "Incense And Peppermints" by Strawberry Alarm Clock.  The lead vocalist was a friend of a band member who'd stopped by to assist in harmony vocals, and his identity was never made public.

Warren Beatty and Shirley McLaine are brother and sister.

Warren Beatty's first job was as a rat-catcher.

"Weird Al" Yankovic was his school's Valedictorian when he graduated at the age of sixteen.

What do Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, Kris Kristofferson, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Marvin Gaye, Michael Nesmith (of The Monkees), Bill Wyman (of The Rolling Stones), The Everly Brothers, and Gene Vincent all have in common?  They all served in the military.

What five digit number, when multiplied by the number 4, is the same number with the digits in reverse order? 21978; 21978 x 4 = 87912.

What is called a "French kiss" in England and America is known as an "English kiss" in France.

When a man died in ancient Egypt, the females in his family would smear their heads and faces with mud and wander through the city beating themselves and tearing off their clothes.

When a piece of glass cracks, the crack travels at over 3000 miles per hour.

When an Irishman says "Top of the morning to you", you're supposed to respond, "And the rest of the day to yourself."

When Spain declared war on the U.S. in 1898, the U.S. in turn declared war on Spain but backdated the declaration by three days so it would look more heroic to have declared war first.

When the Titanic sank, 15,000 pounds of ham went down with it.

When we look at the farthest visible star we are looking 4 billion years into the past - the light from that star, traveling at 186,000 miles a second, has taken many years to reach us.

While fighting with the French underground during World War II, Jacques Yves Cousteau invented the aqualung, the self-contained device that supplies air pressure for underwater divers.

While reading a page of print the eyes do not move continually across the page. They move in a series of jumps, called "fixations," from one clump of words to the next.

Whips make a cracking sound because their tips move faster than the speed of sound.

Whispering is more wearing on your voice than a normal speaking tone.

'White-Out' was created by the mother of Michael Nesmith of the band 'The Monkees'.  Her name was Bette Nesmith. In 1979 she sold the rights to the Gillette Company for $47.5 million.

Who is on the $20 bill?  Only 17% of Americans know that it's Andrew Jackson (now you do, too!)

Willard Scott, the newsman, was the original Ronald McDonald.  He started playing the famous clown in 1963.

Winds on Saturn can reach speeds of 1,100 miles per hour.

Winona Ryder's godfather was Timothy Leary.

Without using precision instruments, Eratosthenes measured the radius of the Earth in the 3rd century B.C. and came within 1% of the value determined by today's technology.

Woodchucks breathe only ten times per hour while hibernating, while an active Woodchuck breathes 2,100 times an hour.

Wrigley's gum was the first product to have a bar code.

X-rays of the Mona Lisa show that there are three completely different version of the same subject, all painted by Leonardo, under the final portrait.

You are more likely to be killed by a Champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.

You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.  If you were to try, you would pass out and your breathing reflex would kick in, saving your life.

Your brain is more active sleeping than it is watching TV.

Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.

You're just as likely to die by falling out of bed as you are to get struck by lightning, each is a 1 in 2,000,000 chance. You have a 1 in 3,000,000 chance of getting killed by a snake.

Zebras are white with black stripes.

Zeppo Marx of Marx Brothers fame owned a patent for a wrist watch with a heart monitor

Stuff you didn't know because it's probably not true

Here's a list of items I removed from this page upon discovering that they are likely false:

The Macrozamia trees of Australia are the oldest living trees in the world. They live 5,000 to 7,000 years and, some claim, may even reach 15,000 years. (a reader pointed out that researchers agree that the Bristlecone pine is the longest-lived tree in the world, the oldest being about 4800 years old.)

No word in the English language rhymes with "purple" (someone brought up 'hirple', which means 'to walk with a limp')

The bottom part of your nose, between the nostrils, is called the columella nasi. (someone