89 Useless Facts

Lisa — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:37:57 +0000

1.) Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
2.) Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
3.) The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. No one in Greece has memorized all 158 verses.
4.) There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
5.) The average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.
6.) A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
7.) There are more chickens than people in the world.
8.) Two-thirds of the world’s eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
9.) The longest one-syllable word in the English language is “screeched.”
10.) On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament Building is an American flag.
11.) All of the clocks in the movie “Pulp Fiction” are stuck on 4:20.
12.) No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
13.) “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt.”
14.) All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
15.) Almonds are a member of the peach family.
16.) Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.
17.) Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
18.) There are only four words in the English language which end in “-dous”: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
19.) 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.”
20.) A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
21.) An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
22.) Tigers have stripped skin, not just stripped fur.
23.) In most advertisements, including newspapers,the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
24.) Al Capone’s business card said he was a usedfurniture dealer.
25.) The only real person to be a Pez head was Betsy Ross.
26.) When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home, the stadium becomes the state’s third largest city.
27.) 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.”
28.) A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
29.) A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
30.) A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
31.) 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.
32.) It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (DON’T try this at home!)
33.) The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
34.) Who’s that playing the piano on the “Mad About You” theme? Paul Reiser himself.
35.) In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
36.) 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”
37.) The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
38.) Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
39.) John Lennon’s first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
40.) There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball
41) Every day more money is printed for Monopoloy than the US Treasury.
42) It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
43) Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.
44) Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.
45) Amount American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served first class: $40,000
46) City with the most Rolls Royce’s per capita: Hong Kong.
47) State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
48) Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%.
49) Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%.
50) Barbie’s measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
51) Average number of days that a West German goes without washing his underwear: 7.
52) Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80%.
53) Percentage of American women who say they’d marry the same man: 50%.
54) Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400.
55) Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.
56) Percentage of Americans who have visited Disneyland/Disney World: 70%.
57) Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
58) Only President to win a Pulitzer: John F. Kennedy for Profiles in Courage.
59) Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
60) The world’s youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
61) The youngest pope was 11 years old.
62) Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
63) First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
64) The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
65) The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is “uncopyrightable.”
66) “Hang On Snoopy” is the official rock song of Ohio.
67) The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
68) When opossums are playing ‘possum, they are not “playing.” They actually pass out from sheer terror.
69) 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.
70) 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321.
71) 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.
72) 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.”
73) Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn’t added until 5 years later.
74) 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.”
75) Hershey’s Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it’s kissing the conveyor belt.
76) 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.
77) 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.
78) In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
79) The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the “General Purpose” vehicle, G.P.
80) 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.
81) The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
82) The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
83) Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
84) 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.
85) No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl.
86) The first toilet ever seen on television was on “Leave It To Beaver.”
87) 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.
88) Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
89) The name Wendy was made up for the book “Peter Pan.”

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1906

Lisa — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 03:47:00 +0000

The year is 1906.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!

Here are some of the U.S. statistics for the Year 1906:

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.

With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!

The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour.

The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year .

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at HOME.

Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as “substandard.”

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn’t been invented yet.

There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.”

Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.

My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings » american_flag

89 Useless Facts

1906