lesser known facts

• Coca-Cola was originally green.
• It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
• Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.
• Amount American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served first class: $40,000.
• City with the most Rolls Royce's per capita: Hong Kong.
• State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
• Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%
• Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
• Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80%
• Percentage of American women who say they'd marry the same man if they had it to do all over again: 50%
• Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400
• Average number of people airborne over the US at any given hour: 61,000
• Percentage of Americans who have visited Disneyland/Disney World: 70%
• Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches
• Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
• The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
• The youngest pope was 11 years old.
• Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
• First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
• In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel 1 to mobile services (two-way radios in taxicabs, for instance) but did not re-number the other channel assignments. That is why your TV set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1.
• The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
• The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
• Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?
• The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of old when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
• The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)
• When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
• The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
• Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history.
• • Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great,
  • Hearts - Charlemagne, and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
• 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
• If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
• Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them would burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."
• Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2nd, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
• The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target,it got "the whole 9 yards."
• Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
• The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from and old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
• An ostrich's eye is bigger that it's brain.
• The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
• The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
• David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader's lines, and didn't know that he was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.
• In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
• The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
• The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
• The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
• Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
• The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
• Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
• If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have 1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
• The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver".
• The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League all-stars Game.
• Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
• The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."

• Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
• Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
• The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses.
• • No one in Greece has memorized all 158 verses.
• There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
• The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
• A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
• There are more chickens than people in the world.
• Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
• The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
• All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
• No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
• "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
• Almonds are a member of the peach family.
• Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
• There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous" tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous.
• Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula"- and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: "L.A."
• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
• Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
• In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
• Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
• When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home, the stadium becomes the state's third largest city.
• The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life."
• A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
• A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
• On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.
• It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (DON'T try this @ home!)
• The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
• Who's that playing the piano on the "Mad About You" theme? Paul Reiser himself.
• In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
• The name for Oz in the "Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence "Oz."
• The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
• Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
• John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
• The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
• There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
• Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
• The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
• The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
• The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver."
• It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
• Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
• The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.
• On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
• It was the accepted practice in Babylon, 4,000 years ago, that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the "honeymoon."
• In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's."
• Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle," is the phrase inspired by this practice.
• In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. That's where the phrase, "goodnight, sleep tight" came from.
• The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."