LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS
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1. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

2. Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by
looking at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling.

3. 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.

4. Ballroom dancing is a major at Brigham Young University. (but you
knew that didn't you)

5. Some biblical scholars believe that Aramaic (the language of the
ancient Bible) did not contain an easy way to say 'many things' and used
a term which has come down to us as 40. This means that when the bible
in many places refers to '40 days,' they meant many days.

6. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver,
and purple. 

7. 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.'

8. Canada is an Indian word meaning 'Big Village'. 

9. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.

10. 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.

11. 'I am.' is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

12. 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.'

13. The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins,
'Aladdin was a little Chinese boy.'

14. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

15. The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

16. Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fish was named Livingston.

17. The 'y' in signs reading 'ye olde..' is properly pronounced with a
'th' sound, not 'y'. The 'th' sound does not exist in Latin, so ancient
Roman occupied (present day) England use the rune 'thorn' to represent
'th' sounds. With the advent of the printing press the character from
the Roman alphabet which closest resembled thorn was the lower case 'y'.

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

19. The international telphone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.

20. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

21. The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called 'mantles') are
radioactive so much so that they will set of an alarm at a nuclear
reactor.

22. Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.

23. Each unit on the Richter Scale is equivalent to a power factor of
about 32. So a 6 is 32 times more powerful than a 5! Though it goes to
10, 9 is estimated to be the point of total tectonic destruction (2 is
the smallest that can be felt unaided.)

24. Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of fur. The story was
changed in the 1600s by a translator.

25. It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella) lost at the
stairway, when the prince tried to follow her.

26. 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 *this* was the day of the changeover.

27. Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

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

29. Dr. Seuss pronounced 'Seuss' such that it rhymed with 'rejoice.'

30. In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never said 'Play it again, Sam.'

31. Sherlock Holmes never said 'Elementary, my dear Watson.'

32. Captain Kirk never said 'Beam me up, Scotty,' but he did say, 'Beam
me up, Mr. Scott'.

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

34. More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.

35. 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.'

36. The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown
differently during times of peace or war. A portion of the flag is blue,
while the other is red. The blue portion is flown on top in time of
peace and the red portion is flown in war time. 

37. Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they
rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.


38. The 'huddle' in football was formed due a deaf football player who
used sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the
opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.

39. Goethe couldn't stand the sound of barking dogs and could only write
if he had an apple rotting in the drawer of his desk.

40. If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of
carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen
deprivation.

41. Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by
a lightning strike.

42. 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 is to poke someone's eye out.

43. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.

44. Sir Isaac Newton was an ordained priest in the Church of England.

45. A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

46. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

47. Certain frogs can be frozen solid then thawed, and continue living.

48. 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.

49. The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's
baby daughter, Ruth.

50. Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them
looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

51. Steve Young, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, is the
great-great-grandson of Mormon leader Brigham Young.

52. Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of linen.

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

54. If you toss a penny 10000 times, it will not be heads 5000 times,
but more like 4950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the
bottom.

55. The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford
English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
The only other word with the same amount of letters is 
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.
Hydroxydesoxycorticosterone and hydroxydeoxycorticosterones are the
largest anagrams.

56. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de
los Angeles de        Porciuncula." My friend from Argentina translated
me this. It means: "The people of madam who is a Quin of los Angeles de
Porcincula."

57. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

58. An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.

59. Ben and Jerry's send the waste from making ice cream to local pig
farmers to use as feed. Pigs love the stuff, except for one flavor: Mint
Oreo.

60. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

61. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.

62. Wilma Flintstone's maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty
Rubble's Maiden name was Betty Jean Mcbricker.

63. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

64. The Ramses brand condom is named after the great pharaoh Ramses II
who fathered over 160 children.

65. If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die, they need gravity
to swallow.

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

67. A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes. 

68. 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."

69. It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The
frog throws up it's stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of
it's mouth. Then the frog uses it's forearms to dig out all of the
stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.

70. Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they
rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.

71. Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an
Oscar with "Midnight Cowboy." Her entire role lasted only six minutes.

72. Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous
transatlantic flight.

73. 101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy) are the only two Disney cartoon
features with both parents that are present and don't die throughout the
movie. (Error here, Sleeping Beauty also has both parents surviving in
the film.)

74. 'Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed with only the left
hand.

76. A whale's penis is called a dork.

77. Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the
same sex.

78. Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.

79. To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its
eyeballs -- it will let you go instantly.

80. Reindeers like to eat bananas. 

81. A group of unicorns is called a blessing. Twelve or more cows are
known as a "flink." A group of frogs is called an army. A group of
rhinos is called a crash. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. A group
of whales is called a pod. A group of geese is called a gaggle. A group
of ravens is called a murder. A group of officers is called a mess. A
group of larks is called an exaltation. A group of owls is called a
parliament.

82. Physicist Murray Gell-Mann named the sub-atomic particles known as
quarks for a random line in James Joyce, "Three quarks for Muster Mark!"

83. The phrase "sleep tight" derives from the fact that early mattresses
were filled with straw and held up with rope stretched across the
bedframe. A tight sleep was a comfortable sleep.

84. "Three dog night" (attributed to Australian Aborigines) came about
because on especially cold nights these nomadic people needed three dogs
(dingos, actually) to keep from freezing.

85. Gilligan of Gilligan's Island had a first name that was only used
once, on the never-aired pilot show. His first name was Willy. The
skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island is Jonas Grumby. It was
mentioned once in the first episode on their radio's newscast about the
wreck.

86. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.

87. Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If captured,
they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.

88. Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been overmixing the
soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers
wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated
ever since.

89. Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building
it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that
falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors
for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself.

90. The saying "it's so cold out there it could freeze the balls off a
brass monkey" came from when they had old cannons like ones used in the
Civil War. The cannonballs were stacked in a pyramid formation, called a
brass monkey. When it got extremely cold outside they would crack and
break off... Thus the saying.

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

92. The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."  Zul