Useless Facts!

[shyam 0]

If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.Pearls melt in vinegar.Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet. (Developed by Western Union to test telex/two communications)The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple."I am" is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl.All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.Actor Tommy Lee Jones and vice-president Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Coca-cola was originally green.Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US TreasuryIt is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.Smartest dogs: 1) Scottish border collie; 2) Poodle; 3) Golden retriever. Dumbest: Afghan hound.Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.Chances that an American lives within 50 miles of where he or she grew up: 1 in 2Amount American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served first class: $40,000City with the most Rolls Royces per capita: Hong KongState with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: AlaskaChances of a white Christmas in New York: 1 in 4Portion of US annual rainfall that falls in April: 1/12Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%Estimated percentage of American adults who go on a diet each year: 44%Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33Average number of days a West German goes without washing his underwear: 7Percentage of Americans who say that God has spoken to them: 36%Percentage of Americans who regularly attend religious services: 43%City with the highest per capita viewership of television evangelists: Washington DCPercentage 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: 50%Percentage of American men who say they're happier after their divorce or separation: 58%Percentage of American women who say they are happier: 85%Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400Average number of people airborne over the US 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.Portion of ice cream sold that is vanilla: 1/3Portion of potatoes sold that are French fried: 1/3Percentage of Americans that eat at McDonalds each day: 7%Number of US states that claim test scores in their elementary schools are above national average: 50%Portion of Harvard students who graduate with honors: 4/5Chances that a burglary in the US will be solved: 1 in 7.Portion of land in the US owned by the government: 1/3Only President to remain a bachelor: James BuchananOnly first lady to carry a loaded revolver: Eleanor RooseveltOnly President to win a Pulitzer: John F. Kennedy for Profiles in CourageOnly food that does not spoil: honey (Ed. note -- also only food that does not need to be digested; it's already been digested in the body of the bee)Only person to win $64,000 Challenge and $64,000 Question: Dr. Joyce Brothers (subject is boxing)Only bird that can fly backwards: HummingbirdOnly continent without reptiles or snakes: AntarcticaOnly animal besides human that can get sunburn: pigOstriches stick their heads in the sand to look for water.An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it.In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees.Polar bears are left-handed.Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.Eskimos never gamble.The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.The youngest pope was 11 years old.Mark Twain didn't graduate from elementary school.Proportional to their weight, men are stronger than horses.Pilgrims ate popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner.Your nose and ears never stop growing.Jupiter is bigger than all the other planets combined.Hot water is heavier than cold.The parachute was invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1515.They have square watermelons in Japan...they stack better.Cream does not weigh as much as milk.Starfish have eight eyes--one at the end of each leg.Iceland consumes more Coca-cola per capita than any other nation.First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of the year.Heinz Ketchup leaving the bottle travels at 25 miles per year.Men get hiccups more often than woman.Armadillos can be housebroken.Stewardesses and reverberated are the two longest words (12 letters each) that can be typed using only the left hand. The longest word that can be typed using only the right hand is lollipop.Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands.A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.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.A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a skein.The underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. The frog peels off several times a year with new growth.The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National MonumentsThe "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."The shape of plant collenchyma cells and the shape of the bubbles in beer foam are the same - they are orthotetrachidecahedrons.The word 'pound' is abbreviated 'lb.' after the constellation 'libra' because it means 'pound' in Latin, and also 'scales'. The abbreviation for the British Pound Sterling comes from the same source: it is an 'L' for Libra/Lb.with a stroke through it to indicate abbreviation. Sames goes for the Italian lira which uses the same abbreviation ('lira' coming from 'libra'). So British currency (before it went metric) was always quoted as "pounds/shillings/pence", abbreviated "L/s/d" (libra/solidus/denarius).Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead". Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."Camel's milk does not curdle.In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.All porcupines float in water.Hang On Sloopy is the official rock song of Ohio.Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?The world's largest wine cask is in Heidelberg, Germany.Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of "Lorne Greene's Wild Kingdom."Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.If you bring a raccoon's head to the Henniker, New Hampshire town hall, you are entitled to receive $0.10 from the town.St. Stephen is the patron saint of bricklayers.The first song played on Armed Forces Radio during operation Desert Shield was "Rock the Casba" by the Clash.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.Non-dairy creamer is flammable.The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)Texas is also the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.The only nation who's name begins with an "A", but doesn't end in an "A" is Afghanastan.The names of the three wise monkeys are: Mizaru: See no evil, Mikazaru: Hear no evil, and Mazaru: Speak no evil.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 = 12,345,678,987,654,321If 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.No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them use to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.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."I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII 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."The most common name in the world is Mohammed.The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5pm. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize that *this* was the day of the changeover.The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.Dr. Seuss pronounced "Seuss" so that it rhymed with "rejoice."In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again, Sam."Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson."More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.The term, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" is from Ancient Rome. The only rule during wrestling matches was, "No eye gouging." Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be disqualified was to poke someone's eye out.It actually is all fun and games until someone loses an eye....than its just fun.A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.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.Let's face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.English muffins were not invented in England or french fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicks and can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So, one moose, 2 meese? One index, two indices? Is cheese the plural of choose?If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?In what language do people recite at a play, and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can the weather be hot as h*ll one day and cold as h*ll another?When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock goes off by going on.When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?Now I know why I flunked my English. It's not my fault -- the silly language doesn't quite know whether it's coming or going.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.The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.The United States government keeps its supply of silver at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY.There are only thirteen blimps in the world. Nine of the thirteen blimps are in the United States.Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.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.Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of "F.""Mr. Mojo Risin" is an anagram for Jim Morrison.The word "modem" is a contraction of the words "modulate, demodulate." (MOdulateDEModulate)Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have participated in every Games.February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to be one pound.Montpelier, Vermont is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonalds.Giraffes have no vocal cords.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.Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.Roger Ebert is the only film critic to have ever won the Pulitzer prize.Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City, after the Catholic Church.An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.Back in the mid to late 80s, an IBM compatible computer wasn't considered a hundred percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator.The first Ford cars had Dodge engines.Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.It takes about a half a gallon of water to cook macaroni, and about a gallon to clean the pot.In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intraveinously.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.Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl.The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver".In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only 6 people were injured.Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son.One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 30s lobbied against hemp farmers -- they saw it as competition.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-Star 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."Actual Newspaper or Magazine AdsSign in a gas station: Coke -- 49 cents. Two for a dollarAn actual tip from page 16 of the Health Physics "Environmental, Health & Safety Handbook for Employees.""Blink your eyelids periodically to lubricate your eyes."Illiterate? Write today for free help.Auto Repair Service. Free pick-up and delivery. Try us once, you'll never go anywhere again.Tired of cleaning yourself? Let me do it.Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children.Man wanted to work in dynamite factory. Must be willing to travel.Stock up and save. Limit: one.Mixing bowl set designed to please a cook with round bottom for efficient beating.Dinner Special -- Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00For sale: antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers.Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to take home, too.We do not tear your clothing with machinery. We do it carefully by hand.Handmade gifts for the hard-to-find person.Wanted. Man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink.Our bikinis are exciting. They are simply the tops.