Useless Fact Archives

[MarcusMaximus]

Useless Fact Archives

The Economics Nobel Prize is sort of a quasi-Nobel. The endowment for the prize money was created much later than the original grant money from Alfred Nobel for the other "real" prizes.

The world's oldest active parliamentary body is the Icelandic Althing which met first before the year 1000.

There are 556 officially recognized native American tribes.

The last time American Green cards were actually green was 1964.

The pelican was adopted as a Christian symbol early on because mother pelicans would pierce their own breasts to feed their brood with blood -- seen as a sacrifice not dissimilar to that of Jesus' by the Church leaders.

The targets in both skeet and trap shooting, commonly called clay pigeons, are actually made from tar and pitch.

Delaware is the only state with part of its border defined by the arc of a compass. (Except that other state next to Delaware with the same border.)

The oldest weapon still in use in the American military arsenal is the Mameluke hilt sword carried by officers in the U.S. Marine Corps. The sword dates back to the Barbary Pirate Wars of 1801-1807. The sword was given to Lt. Presly O'Banen by the ruler of Tripoli for the aid rendered by the Marines in the Mediterranean Fleet.

The Vatican (Papal States) was the only political entity to grant recognition to the Confederate States of America during the Civil War (1861-1865).

The Greek national anthem has 158 verses.

There are 2,598,960 possible hands in a five-card poker game.

The duck most often depicted on the "Duck Stamp" is the mallard, at six times.

The blond woman in the Tic Tac yoga commercials is Mark Harmon's sister.

America's only statue of Charles Dickens graces Clark Park in Philadelphia, just off the University of Pennsylvania campus.

No matter where you are in Australia you are never more than 1000 kilometers from the ocean.

All owls lay white eggs.

It takes a week to make a jelly bean.

NASA scientists are still receiving data from Voyager even though the signal it is emitting has less energy than that emitted by a blow drier.

You can't tickle yourself.

People from Manchester, England are called Mancunians.

White cockatoos are the only parrots that can be sexed by eye color; females have a visible pupil while males have black irises.

The University of Texas system is the third-largest landowner in the United States.

Marvin Gardens in the Monopoly game is not spelled the same as the Marven Gardens outside of Atlantic City, NJ, which the board game is based on.

The Stasi collected the "smells" of their enemies so that their dogs could find them.

While drug-sniffing dogs are trained to bark like crazy, go "aggressive" at the first whiff of the right powder... Bomb-sniffing dogs are trained to go "passive" lest they set off a motion sensor or a noise sensor or any number of other things that might go kablooie.

While almost everyone knows that Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon, few know that Gene Cernan was the last man on the moon.

Lyndon Johnson's First Family all had initials LBJ. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, Linda Bird Johnson and Lucy Baines Johnson. And his dog, Little Beagle Johnson.

There are 22 stars in the Paramount movie studio logo.

Jane Wyman (Reagan) was born Sarah Jane Fulks. Nancy Davis (Reagan) was born Anne Frances Robbins.

You can't trademark surnames.

The Black Cauldron is the only PG-rated Disney animated feature.

A humpback whale's milk is 54 percent fat.

Lucy Stone of Massachusetts is thought to be the first American woman to retain her maiden name when she married. She was a sister-in-law of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to earn an M.D.

When wearing a Kimono Japanese women wear socks called "Tabi". The big toe of the sock is separated from the rest of the toes, like a thumb from a mitten.

If you were to toss the new 10p coin (Pounds Sterling), 10000 times, the average odds of it being heads/tails would not be 50/50. It would be closer to 45/55 in favor of tails because the new picture of the Queen's head is slightly larger than it used to be (she has gone a bit saggy) and so it makes the heads side heavier than the tails side, thus it has more chance of landing on tails.

The names of the two stone lions in front of the New York Public Library are Patience and Fortitude. They were named by then-mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

Lazy Susans are named after Thomas Edison's daughter. He invented it to impress a gathering of industrialists and inventors.

For a short time in 1967, the American Typers Association made a new punctuation mark that was a combination of the question mark and an exclamation point called an interrobang. It was rarely used and hasn't been seen since.

Tennessee Williams' real name was Thomas Lanier Williams.

Anise is the scent on the artificial rabbit that is used in greyhound races.

Petey, the beloved pit bull of "Our Gang" fame is buried at historic Clara Glen pet cemetery in Linwood, New Jersey.

The first European to see New Zealand was Abel Tasman in 1642; the first to set foot on the island was James Cook in 1769.

New Zealand was named after Abel Tasman's home district, Zealand, in the Netherlands.

Greater Auckland is the second largest city in the world by area, the first being greater Los Angeles.

New Zealand has the highest mountain in all of Oceania: Mt. Cook.

New Zealand was the first country to give woman the vote, in 1890.

Tide has 70 percent of the market share for detergent.

Only one satellite has been ever been destroyed by a meteor -- the European Space Agency's Olympus in 1993.

The snapping turtle eats carrion and is used by police to find dead bodies in lakes, ponds and swamps.

When Portland, Oregon changed the name of Union Avenue to Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. they lost the intersection of Union and Division Street.

The Western-most point in continental Europe is at Cabo de Rocha, Portugal.

Yellowstone was the first National Park (1872) but the first area to beset aside under federal protection was Hot Springs Reservation, Arkansas(1832.) It became Hot Springs National Park in 1921.

The official name of the St. Louis Gateway Arch is "The Jefferson National Expansion Monument."

The Gateway Arch looks taller than it is wider, but it is exactly 630 feet by 630 feet.

The Ragdoll is the largest breed of domesticated cat in the world, with adult males averaging 22-25 pounds.

The roaring lion in the MGM logo was named Volney and lived at the Memphis Zoo.

The roaring lion in the MGM logo's hide is now on display in the McPherson Museum located in McPherson, Kansas.

Everybody knows that St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest city in the U.S., but not everybody knows that St. Mary's, Georgia is the second oldest.

Orson Welles is buried in an olive orchard on a ranch owned by his friend, matador Antonio Ordonez in Sevilla, Spain.

The national flower of Greenland is the Willow Herb.
Britain's shortest river is the Brun which runs through Burnley in Lancashire.

Cornell University's motto -- "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study" -- is the only motto among Ivy League schools not in Latin.

The Latin name for moose is alces alces.

1961 was the most recent year that could be written both upside-down and right side-up and appear the same. The next year that this will be possible will be 6009!

The first atomic bomb dropped on Japan fell from the Enola Gay, named after the unit commander's mother. The second dropped from a plane known as Bock's Car.

Kermit the Frog has 11 points on his collar around his neck.

The Bronx in New York City is actually named after the Bronx River. The Bronx river is named after the first settler in the Bronx, Jonas Bronk. He settled there in 1639.

Cleveland spelled backwards is "DNA level C".

In the Mario Brothers movie, the Princess' first name is Daisy, but in Mario 64, the game, her first name is Peach. Before that, it's Princess Toadstool.


Tabasco sauce is made by fermenting vinegar and hot peppers in a French oak barrel which has three inches of salt on top and is aged for three years until all the salt is diffused through the barrel.

Karen Carpenter's doorbell chimed the first six notes of "We've Only Just Begun."

Certain sounds in the English language are real germ spreaders, particularly the sounds of f, p, t, d, and s.

Harvard uses "Yale" brand locks on their buildings. Yale uses "Best" brand.

Contrary to popular British folklore, cuckoo clocks do not come from Switzerland but from the Black Forest in Germany.

[MarcusMaximus]

The Angel of Independence in Mexico City was built by Salvador Rivas Mercado. The face of the angel is a portrait of his daughter.

There are more Samoans in Los Angeles than on American Samoa.

Soccer legend Pele's real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento.

If you paint the flag of Canada, you must use these colors:"The printing ink color is FIP red: General Printing Ink, No. 0-712;Inmont Canada Ltd., No. 4T51577; Monarch Inks, No. 62539/0; or Sinclair andValentine, No. RL163929/0. The painting colors are FIP red No. 509-211 and white: 513-201."

Everyone is familiar with the RCA logo with Nipper the dog listening to the RCA grammaphone. But the original picture had both the dog and the grammaphone sitting on his dead masters casket. The idea being that the closest thing to his dead master's voice was the RCA grammaphone. The ad was eventually considered too morbid and they removed the casket.

A "jiffy" is a unit of time: 3.3357 times 10 raised to the -11 (3.3357x10^-11) seconds. So named for the length of time it takes light to travel a cm in a vacuum.

During the Manhattan Project in the early '40s, the time it took for the imploding shell of plutonium to reach the center of the sphere was measured in "shakes of a lamb's tail". One shake = 1x10^-8 sec. It took about three shakes of a lambs tail to get the uranium to a critical mass and initiate spontaneous fission.

The Spanish abbreviation for UFO is OVNIS: "objeto volador noidentificado."
Thanks to Sergio Missana.

Iolani Palace in Hawaii is the only place built for a monarchy currently on U.S. soil.

Maine has no poisonous snakes.

Hawaii has only two snakes. One is a sea snake rarely seen in Hawaii waters. The other is a blind snake that lives like an earthworm.

The abbreviation A.D. (Anno Domini, "Year of Our Lord") should be properly placed in front of the year -- thus, you get 417 BC but AD 2000.

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

Ice Cube's real name is O'Shea Jackson.

The smallest fish in the world is the Trimattum Nanus of the Chagos Archipelago. It measures 0.33 inches. It broke the record of the so- called "sinarapan" of Buhi, Camarines Sur, Philippines.

According to the London for Visitors website, the area known as Soho used to be part of King Henry VIII's hunting grounds. When a hunter spied a deer, he yelled "Tally-Ho!", but when he found a smaller prey, the cry became "So-Ho!" As the area was developed, the name stuck.

There is now an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which has a winter population of 200.


The flag of the U.K. is properly known as the Union Flag. It is only called the Union Jack when it is flown from the jack mast of a ship.

The popular Fiesta Ware line of dishes sold well in the 1930s, except for the orange-colored sets. The reason? The paint used on the orange Fiesta Ware was known to be radioactive.

A large amount of boulders that have fallen off a cliff is known as talus, whereas they would be known as moraine had they been left there by a glacier.

The Sitka spruce is Britain's most commonly planted tree.

The Philip Morris Tobacco Company's crest has on it Caesar's famous saying "Veni, Vidi, Vici."

There are more 100 dollar bills in Russia currently than there are in the United States.

The extras in the the battle scenes in the movie Braveheart were reserves in the Irish army.

The famous Citgo sign near Fenway Park in Boston is maintained not by Citgo, but by the Boston Historical Society.

Roger Ebert won the 1959 Illinois High School Association State Speech competition in Radio.

Will Clark hit a homerun in his first at-bat in college, the Olympics, and the Major Leagues.

The original Guiness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland has a six thousand year lease.

South Africa used to have two official languages. Now it has eleven.

On March 29, 1848, Niagara Falls stopped flowing for 30 hours because of an ice jam blocking the Niagara River.

America's largest rosary is located at the Fatima Shrine in Holliston, Massachusetts.

The first product to have a UPC bar code on its packaging was Wrigley's gum.

In Italy, it is illegal to make coffins out of anything except nutshells or wood.

Pia Zadora's first movie role was as a young child, as one of the protagonists in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

A railroad tanker car carrying propane traveled over 3,000 feet when it exploded during a train wreck in Illinois, sheering off a steel tower in its path. It's the longest flight on record for a propane explosion.

It takes eighteen minutes to cool hot chocolate into a Hershey's Kiss.

Of the twenty brightest stars in the sky, Capella is the furthest north.
Sagittarius is the furthest south of the zodiacal constellations.

Joe Friday, from Dragnet (later known as Badge 714), lived in Eagle Rock, California.

The football huddle originated at Gallaudet University -- the world's only accredited four-year liberal arts college for the deaf -- in the 19th century when the football team found that opposing teams were reading their signed messages and intercepting plays.

The shortest British monarch was Charles I, who was 4'9" and that was before he lost his head!

Mickey Mouse's ears are always turned to the front, no matter which direction his head is pointing.

The South American Electric Eel can produce almost 1 Amp of current

The smallest unit of time is the yoctosecond.

Ferrets sleep for about 20 hours a day.

The "you are here" arrow on maps is called an ideo locator.

The opening to the cave in which a bear hibernates is always on the north slope. Unless the bear lives in the southern hemisphere.

Of all the trains in the New York subway system, only one never enters the island of Manhattan. It's the "G" train, the Brooklyn-Queens crosstown local.

The first National Park, Yellowstone, was proclaimed a national park in 1872. However, there was no National Park Service until 1916. Until then, the parks were administered by the U.S. Army. When the Park Service was formed they got their firstuniforms from the Army, hence the ranger (campaign)hats.

Since World War II, every American president to address the Canadian House of Commons in their firstterm of office have all been re-elected to a second term.Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton have all had the honor, while Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter, and Bush did not address the parliament.

The "J.R.R." in J.R.R.Tolkien stands for John Ronald Reuel. His son's name is Christopher.

In 1920 Ray Chapman a shortstop for the Cleveland Indians, is the only player ever killed as a result of a major league baseball game. He was hit in the temple with a pitch and died the next day.

Hong Kong has the world's largest double-decker tram fleet in the world.

Bulgaria was the only soccer team in the 1994World Cup in which all 11 players' last names ended with the letters"OV."

Of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all named after artists and/or sculptors, Donatello does not occur in the same time period as Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael.

Abdul Kassem Ismael, Grand Vizier of Persiain the tenth century, carried his library with him wherever he went.The 117,000 volumes were carried by 400 camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.

The country with the biggest percentage of female heads of household is Botswana.

In every deck of cards the King of Hearts is sticking his sword through his head. That's why he's often called the Suicide King.

In English, "four" is the only digit that has the same number of letters as its value.

Quebec and Newfoundland are the only two Canadian provinces which do not allow personalized license plates.

With a population of fewer than nine thousand people, Montpelier, Vermont is the smallest state capital in the U.S.

The actor who played the T-1000 in Terminator 2 (Robert Patrick) and the lead singer of Filter are brothers.

Pittsburgh and Toronto are the only two cities where all the major sports teams have the same colors: "black and gold" and "blue and white" respectively.

In the theme song from "The Flintstones", the line after "Let's ride with the family down the street" is "Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet."

The proceedings in the British Parliament are meant to be in private, even though they are now televised. So, if the MPs want to have a secret session, one of them points to the gallery from which the public watch, and calls "I spy strangers!", whereupon the House votes "that the strangers do withdraw."

On the London Underground, one station has a different name on two of its platforms: Bank and Monument.

Ambassadors to the United Kingdom are not called that officially, but rather Ambassadors to the Court of St. James. The Court of St. James being the palace which was the residence of the monarch before Buckingham Palace was built.

In British Monopoly sets, the most expensive property (Mayfair) is not a street, but a district of little streets near Hyde Park.

[marcell1002]

I actually read all this!

[MarcusMaximus]

and there's more to come!!!

[MarcusMaximus]

Zip code 12345 is assigned to General Electric in Schenectady, N.Y.

There is an Ides in every month, not just March.

Try dividing 99999999999 by 81. (That's 11 nines.)

The letter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements.

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

The official, neutral name of Switzerland, which has multiple official languages, is the latin "Confederation Helvetica", or the Helvetic Confederation, thus the "CH" on license plates, stickers and e-mail addresses.


There were ten Johns, out of 102 people, on the Mayflower.

Tina Turner's real name is Annie Mae Bullock.

Hydrangeas produce pink and white flowers in alkaline soil and blue ones in acidic soil.

Dallas, Texas was named after George M. Dallas, President Polk's vice-president.

Mr. Peanut was invented in 1916 by a Suffolk, Virginia schoolchild who won $5 in a design contest sponsored by Planters Peanuts.

Jackals have one more pair of chromosomes than dogs or wolves.

The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.

Basenji dogs and Australian dingoes are virtually identical.

Any number, squared, is equal to one more than the numbers on either side of it -- 4x6 is 24, 5x5 is 25.

If Brooklyn, New York became independent of New York City, it would be the third largest city in the United States, after the remainder of New York and Los Angeles.

The Yellowstone River is the longest undammed river west of the Mississippi.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

The King of Hearts is the only king without a moustache.

"Vang" is the most common surname among the Hmong people of Laos.

The London Underground station "St. John's Wood" is the only such station to not contain any of the letters of the word "Mackerel."

Susan B. Anthony's middle initial stands for Brownell.

A Boeing 747's wingspan is longer than the Wright brothers' first flight.

Hippopotamuses do eighty percent of their vocalizations under water.

When Patty Hearst was kidnapped, she was watching the TV Show "The Magician" starring Bill Bixby.

The oldest Whiskey distillery in the world is in Ireland and started distilling in 1657.

Whiskey in Ireland is spelled with an 'e' before the 'y.' Scottish Whiskey (or Scotch) is spelt without the 'e.'

A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average.

You can tell a girl crab from a boy crab by their stomachs. A girl has a beehive and a boy has a lighthouse.

Mongooses were brought to Hawai'i to kill rats. This plan failed because rats are nocturnal while the mongoose hunts during the day.

The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.

I, Q, and X are the only letters that don't start a city that ends in -ville in the state of Ohio. i.e. Brownsville, Zanesville, etc.

The German Bundestag, or Parliament, has 672 members and is the world's largest elected legislative body.

The billionth digit of pi is 9.

Iowa is the only state bordered on both east and west entirely by rivers - the Mississippi on the east, the Missouri and the Big Sioux on the west.

The next-to-last event is the penultimate, and the next-to-next-to-last event is the antepenultimate.

Dominica, Mexico, Zambia, Kiribati, Fiji and Egypt all have birds on their flags.

The Honey Badger can withstand hundreds of African bee stings that would kill any other animal.

Ancient Egyptians shaved their eyebrows to mourn the deaths of their cats.

Australia is the richest source of mineral sands in the world.

Shannon Hoon, the now-dead lead singer of the group Blind Melon was a back-up singer for Guns N' Roses on their Use Your Illusion 1 CD.

The province of Alberta in Canada has been completely free of rats since 1905.

Melanie Griffith's mother is actress Tippi Hedren, best known for her lead role in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.

Illinois has the most personalized liscense plates of any state.

The only commercial fishing vessels in the United States still powered by sail are the Maryland "skipjacks," sailboats that dredge for oysters. A state law requires sailpower a certain distance from shore.

Fresno County, California is the largest agriculture producing county in the United States.

The newspaper serving Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, the home of Rocky and Bullwinkle, is the Picayune Intelligence.

A bowling pin need only tilt 7.5 degrees in order to fall down.

The only person to be elected to both the baseball and football Hall of Fames is Cal Hubbard.

The movie playing at the drive-in at the beginning of "The Flintstones" was the The Monster.

You should not eat a crawfish with a straight tail. It means it was dead before it was cooked.

Mongolia is the largest landlocked country.

The last Playboy centerfold to have staples was published in 1985. Venice Kong was the model.

Jackie Robinson was the only person to letter in four sports at UCLA. Of all of them, he supposedly liked baseball the least.

The talus is the second largest bone in the foot.

The national anthem of the Netherlands "Het Wilhelmus," is an 'acrostichon.' The first letters of each of the fifteen verses represent the name "Willem Van Nassov."

The Japanese anthem has the oldest lyrics/text from the ninth century, but the music is from 1880.

[MarcusMaximus]

142857 is a cyclic number, the numbers of which always appear in the same order but rotated around when multipled by any number from 1 to 6. 142857 * 2 = 285714 142857 * 3 = 428571 142857 * 4 = 571428 142857 * 5 = 714285 142857 * 6 = 857142

Olympus Mons on Mars is the largest volcano in our solar system.

All the moons of the Solar System are named after Greek and Roman mythology, except the moons of Uranus, which are named after characters from Shakespeare.

King Kong is the first movie to have its sequel -- Son of Kong -- released the same year (1933).

Devon is the only county in Great Britain to have two coasts.

Johnny Carson was born in Corning, Iowa and grew up in Norfolk, Nebraska.

The real name of the Looney Tunes music is "The Merry-Go-Round Broken Down."

The Yale Crew team was the first college sports team, started in 1843. The Yale-Harvard crew race was the first, and the longest-running American intercollegiate sports event. The first race was held in 1852.

"Rhythms" and "syzygy" are the longest English words without vowels.

The Yuengling Brewery in Pottsville, Pennsylvania founded in 1829 is the oldest in the United States.

In a tradition dating to the beginning of the Westminster system of government, the bench in the middle of a Westminster parliament is two and a half sword lengths long. This was so the government and opposition couldn't have a go at each other if it all got a bit heated!

Pennsylvania was the first colony to legalize witchcraft.

New York City is nicknamed the Big Apple after an early swing dance that originated in a South Carolina club called The Big Apple.

Cats can hear ultrasound.

The word for "name" in Japanese is "na-ma-e," in Mongolian "nameg."

The many sights that represent the Chinese city of Beijing were built by foreigners: the Forbidden City was built by the Mongols, the Temple of Heaven by the Manchurians.

The distance between an alligator's eyes, in inches, is directly proportional to the length of the alligator, in feet.

Beaver Cleaver's locker number was #9.

The Sumatran tiger has the most stripes of all the tiger subspecies, and the Siberian tiger has the fewest.

A tiger's paw prints are called pug marks.

All Hebrew originating names that end with the letters "el" have something to do with God.

The closest relative to the manatee is the elephant, scientists think the elephant crawled back into the sea to become a manatee.

All elephants walk on tip-toe, because the back portion of their foot is made up of all fat and no bone.

George Harrison knew how to play the sitar.

"Toki doki kuruma de kayotte imasu" means "Sometimes I commute by car" in Japanese.

Paul McCartney's mother was a midwife.

The phrase "sleep tight" originated when mattresses were set upon ropes woven through the bed frame. To remedy sagging ropes, one would use a bed key to tighten the rope.

The A&W of root beer fame stands for Allen and Wright.

A baby eel is called an elver, a baby oyster is called a spat.

The name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box is Bingo.

Welsh mercenary bowmen in the medieval period only wore one shoe at a time.

On a trip to the South Sea Islands, French painter Paul Gauguin stopped off briefly in Central America, where he worked as a laborer on the Panama Canal.

Charles de Gaulle's final words were, "It hurts."

The words sacrilegious and religion do not share the same etymological root.

"John has a long moustache" was the coded-signal used by the French Resistance in WWII to mobilize their forces once the Allies had landed on the Normandy beaches.

Gatorade was named for the University of Florida Gators where it was first developed.

There are four states where the first letter of the capital city is the same letter as the first letter of the state: Dover, Delaware; Honolulu, Hawaii; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

There are four cars and eleven light posts on the back of a ten-dollar bill.

The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought at neighboring Breed's Hill.

Former U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater attended the opening night ceremonies and festivities at Bugsy Siegel's famous Las Vegas casino. They left him out of the movie Bugsy. He is pissed.

ABBA got their name by taking the first letter from each of their first names: Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, Anni-frid.

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.

A robin's egg is blue, but if you put it in vinegar for thirty days it turns yellow.

White-Out was invented by the mother of Mike Nesmith, formerly of the Monkees.

The hundred billionth crayon made by Crayola was Periwinkle Blue.

Spider Monkies like banana daquiries.

The coast line around Lake Sakawea in North Dakota is longer than the California coastline along the Pacific Ocean.

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

School buses in the United States are Chrome Yellow and used to be Omaha Orange.

The tailless dinner jacket was invented in Tuxedo Park, New York. Thus it is called the "tuxedo dinner jacket" and is named after the town...not the other way around.

Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

Rhode Island is the smallest state with the longest name. The official name, used on all state documents, is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

The chemical formula for Rubidium Bromide is RbBr. It is the only chemical formula known to be a palindrome!

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

Sarsaparilla is the root that flavors root beer.

A full moon always rises at sunset.

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

[jack schitt]

oh and here's another useless fact:
Max wears panties!!!

[MarcusMaximus]

I do not.

[marcell1002]

Yeah!!! Max has class - he wears lingerie!

[jack schitt]

lol Marcell!

[MarcusMaximus]

you know - talking about my choice in under garments is way way way off topic

((And not an entirely useless fact, I might add))

[jack schitt]

http://sea.at.cyao.com/undiesqueen.JPG
if u say so MAX

[marcell1002]

OMG!!!! Im scarred for life now!!!!

[MarcusMaximus]

Okay - okay - - now - back on topic

U V W X Y are the symmetric capital letters in the Roman alphabet.
i l o t u v w x are the symmetric lower case letters in the Roman alphabet.

Susan Sarandon's last name is from her first husband, Chris Sarandon, also known as Prince Humperdinck from The Princess Bride.

In order for a deck of cards to be mixed up enough to play with properly, it should be shuffled at least seven times.

Tweety used to be a baby bird without feathers until the censors made him have feathers because he "looked naked."

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

Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady" was written about Vince Neil of Motley Crue.

Vanilla Ice's real name is Robert Van Winkle.

When opossums are playing opossum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.

2 and 5 are the only primes that end in 2 or 5.

1 and 2 are the only numbers where they are the values of the numbers of factors they have.

Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan.

The abbrevation "PDX" (Portland International Airport) is derived from "P" standing for Portland and "DX" meaning long distance or wide reaching.

Every male over the 18 is considered part of the Arizona Militia according to state constitution.

A man named Ed Peterson is the inventor of the Egg McMuffin.

Stag beetles have stronger mandibles than humans.

The record for most snowfall in a day, 78 inches, was made on February 7, 1916 in Alaska.

In an episode of The Simpsons, Sideshow Bob's Criminal Number is 24601, the same as the Criminal number of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.

Felix the Cat is the first cartoon character to ever have been made into a balloon for a parade.

The only continent without reptiles or snakes is Antarctica.

It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs, because a cows' knees can't bend properly to walk back down.

A golden razor removed from King Tut's Tomb was still sharp enough to be used.

You can make a glass of apple cider with three apples.

All gondolas in Venice, Italy must be painted black, unless they belong to a high official.

The word "karate" means "empty hand."

A standard grave is 7'8" x 3'2" x 6'

Howdy Doody had forty-eight freckles.

Rhinos are in the same family as horses, and are thought to have inspired the myth of the unicorn.

Hudson Bay is the largest bay in the world, (larger than England) bordering only one country Canada, and only two provinces and a territory.

Four people played Darth Vader: David Prowse was his body, James Earl Jones did the voice, Sebastian Shaw was his face and a fourth person did the breathing.

The stress in Hungarian words always falls on the first syllable.

A 17th-century Swedish philologist claimed that in the Garden of Eden God spoke Swedish, Adam spoke Danish, and the serpent spoke French.

The word for "dog" in the Australian aboriginal language Mbabaran happens to be "dog."

The first Bowie knife was forged at Washington, Arkansas.

The names of the three wise monkeys are: Mizaru: See no evil, Mikazaru: Hear no evil, and Mazaru: Speak no evil.

The name of the asteroid that was believed to have killed the dinosaurs was named Chixalub. (Pronounced Sheesh-uh-loob)

John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and was found in a warehouse. Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was found in a theater.

Dismas and Gestas were the names of the two thieves crucified with Jesus.

The Red Baron's real name was Manfred Von Richtofen.

Santa Fe, New Mexico is the highest state capital at 7,000 feet above sea level.

Santa Fe was founded in 1607 making it the oldest continuously occupied state capital.

Skepticisms is the longest typed word that alternates hands.

Sam Spade's license number was 137596.

A hamlet is a village without a church and a town is not a city until it has a cathedral.

Nine pennies weigh exactly one ounce.

Alaska could hold the 21 smallest States.

The sport with highest ratio of officials to participants is tennis. A singles match should have 13; ten linesmen, one net, one foot-fault, plus an umpire.

49.6% of US residents live in Eastern time zone, 29.3% live in the Central time zone, 5.3% live in the Mountain time zone, 15.0% live in the Pacific time zone and .8% live in any other time zone.

Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.

It takes forty minutes to hard boil an ostrich egg.

There are 2,598,960 five-card hands possible in a 52-card deck of cards.

There are 1,929,770,126,028,800 different color combinations possible on a Rubik's Cube.

Pecans are the only food that astronauts do not have to treat and dehydrate when flying in space.

Ross Perot resigned from the General Motors Board of Directors because of the decision to purchase Hughes Aircraft Company.

Figlet, an ASCII font converter program, stands for Frank, Ian and Glenn's LETters.

The ancient Etruscans painted women white and men red in the wall paintings they used to decorate tombs.

Texas is also the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.

In 1986 Danny Heep became the first player in a World Series to be a designated hitter (DH) with the initials "D.H."

Plaster of Paris is naturally fire retardant. At about 600 degrees Farenheit the chemical water that is stored in it is released. This is also why walls are often "sweaty" after a fire.

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Al Capone's famous scar (which earned him the nickname "Scarface") was from an attack. The brother of a girl he had insulted attacked him with a knife, leaving him with the three distinctive scars.

Before Prohibition, Shiltz Brewery own more property in Chicago than anyone else, except The Catholic Church.

If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.

Dwarf Woolly Mammoths survived on Wrangel Island, Alaska as late as 4000 years ago. (So the oldest organism currently alive was 1000 years old when the last Woolly Mammoth died.)

National Pi Day is March 14, at 1:59. (3/14 1:59)

The saguaro cactus, found in the southwestern united states, does not grow branches until it is about sixty to seventy-five years old.

Kermit the Frog is left handed.

The average mousepad is eight and three quarters by seven and a half inches.

Shortest Intercontinental Commercial Flight in the world is from Gibraltar (Europe) to Tangier (Africa.) Distance 34 miles, flight time 20 minutes.

In the game Monopoly, the most money you can lose in one travel around the board (normal game rules, going to jail only once) is $26,040. The most money you can lose in one turn is $5070.

In ancient Egypt, the apricot was called the "egg of the sun."

Non-dairy creamer is flammable.

Tommy Lee Jones Useless Facts: Tommy Lee Jones is one of Oliver's roommates in the movie Love Story. He was Tom then. Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.

A bonnet is the cap on the fire hydrant.

A canton is the blue field behind the stars.

The bread slots in a toaster are toast wells.

The side of a hammer is a cheek.

The quartz crystal in your wristwatch vibrates 32,768 times a second.

The two most common surgeries are biopsies and cesarean sections.

Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent.

Paris, France and Cedar Rapids, Iowa are the only cities in the world that have their governments on an island.

Pro golfer Wayne Levi was the first PGA pro to win a tournament using a colored (orange) ball. He did it in the Hawaiian Open in 1982.

The author of Roberts' Rules of Order, Col. Roberts of the U. S. Corps of Engineers, is also famous as the engineer in charge of designing the Seawall in Galveston, Texas. This Seawall was constructed after the famous hurricane of 1900 which hit Galveston, killing thousands.

The bat on the Bacardi symbol is there because the soil where the sugar cane grows is fertile from the excessive guano (bat droppings.)

The cheetah is the only cat in the world that can't retract its claws.

The Toronto Maple leafs used to be called the Toronto Arenas, then the St. Patricks and finally the Maple Leafs.

A female swine, or a sow, will always have a even number of teats or nipples, usually twelve.

Although Sherlock Holmes above all is considered as an inhabitant of Victorian London, not less than seven stories take place after the death of the late queen. They are: The Priory School (early 20th C), The Three Garridebs (1902), The Blanced Soldier (1903), The Illustrious Client (1903), The Creeping Man (1903), The Lion's Mane (1907), His Last Bow (1914.)

Only two stories have Sherlock himself as the narrator. They are: The Blanched Soldier (1903) and The Lion's Mane (1907.)

It is commonly thought that Conan Doyle got his knighthood because of his stories about Sherlock Holmes. He didn't. In fact he got his honor because of his defense (in pamphlets and newspaper articles) of the British concentration camps during the Boer War.

The hammer throw is illegal as a high school sport in all states except Rhode Island.

Grand Rapids, Michigan was the first city in the U.S. to put fluoride in their water.

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.

St. Stephen is the patron saint of bricklayers.

The first song played on Armed Forces Radio during operation Desert Shield was "Rock the Casbah" by the Clash.

It's rumored that sucking on a copper penny will cause a breathalyzer to read 0.

Fabrics and their Origins:
Calico --- Calicut, India
Cambric --- Cambrai, France
Chambray --- Cambrai, France
Damask --- Damascus, Syria
Denim --- Nimes, France
Gauze --- Gaza, Palestine
Jersey --- Jersey Islamd, U.K.
Lisle --- Lille, France
Madras --- Madras, India
Oxford Cloth --- Oxford, U.K.
Tweed --- Tweed River Valley, U.K.

Worcestershire Sauce is basically an Anchovy ketchup.

If you told someone that they were one in a million, you'd be saying there were about 1,800 of them in China.

In Psycho, the color of Mrs. Bates' dress was periwinkle blue.

The Roman numerals for 1666 are as follows: MDCLXVI (1000+500+100+50+10+5+1.) This year is famous as being the one time in history when the date is written with all of the Roman numerals from highest value to the lowest value.

Until at least 1980 the country of Bhutan had no telephones.

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 gaggle, a group of geese in the air is skein.

The smallest 'country' in the world to have its own top-level domain name is Norfolk Island, off the coast of Australia.
Thanks to Emma Osman (eosman@cybergraphic.com.au) of Melbourne, Australia.

Napoleon Bonaparte's mother's name was Laticia.

The 16th century astronomer Tycho Brahe lost his nose in a duel with one of his students over a mathematical computation. He wore a silver replacement nose for the rest of his life.

Prince Harry and Prince William are uncircumcised.

Dogs and humans are the only animals with prostates.

The ashes of the average cremated person weigh nine pounds.

The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times

The only word that consists of two letters, each used three times is the word "deeded."

Walt Disney named Mickey Mouse after Mickey Rooney, whose mother he dated for some time.

Libra, the Scales, is the only inanimate symbol in the zodiac.

The word "robot" was created by Karel Capek. It came from Czech/Slovak "robotovat," which means to work very hard.

The underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. The frog peels off several times a year with new growth.

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A forfeited game is baseball is recorded as a 9-0 score. In football it is 2-0.
The 772-778 digits of pi are 9999998, the greatest sum of 7 consecutive digits in the first 1,000,000 or so digits.

The San Fransisco Cable cars and the St. Charles streetcar line in New Orleans are the nation's only mobile National Monuments.
The most common name in Italy is Mario Rossi.

Both Esther and Song of Solomon do not mention the word God.
Here is every word that can be displayed by a digital clock during the day. (Using the numbers which look like letters, with 9 as "g.")
zoo (2:00), S.O.S. (5:05), sob (5:08), sog (5:09),
sis (5:15), boo (8:00), Bob (8:08), bog (8:09),
bib (8:18), big (8:19), goo (9:00), gob (9:08),
gib (9:18), gig (9:19)

So be sure to shriek whenever it's 8:00!

Paul Revere rode on a borrowed horse that belonged to Deacon Larkin.

The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.

Roosters can't crow if they can't fully extend their necks.
There are only three types of snakes on the island of Tasmania and all are deadly poisonous.

The highest scoring word in the English language game of Scrabble is 'Quartzy'. This will score 164 points if played across a red triple-word square with the Z on a light blue double-letter square. It will score 162 points if played across two pink double-word squares with the Q and the Y on those squares. 'Bezique' and 'Cazique' are next with a possible 161 points. All three words score an extra 50 points for having seven letters and therefore emptying the letter rack in one go.

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

Shirley Temple always had 56 curls in her hair.

All of the officers in the Confederate army were given copies of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, to carry with them at all times. Robert E. Lee, among others, believed that the book symbolized their cause. Both revolts were defeated.

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."

Hulk Hogan's real name is Terry Bollea.

Easter is the first Sunday after the first Saturday after the first full moon after the equinox. (The equinox is quite often March 21, but can also occur on the March 20 or 22.)

The dial tone of a normal telephone is in the key of "F".

The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.

Months that begins with a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."

Emus have double-plumed feathers, and they lay emerald/forest green eggs.

Robert E. Lee, of the Confederate Army, remains the only person, to date, to have graduated from the West Point military academy without a single demerit.

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

The slash character is called a virgule, or solidus. A URL uses slash characters, not back slash characters.

"Corduroy" comes from the French, "cord du roi" or "cloth of the king."

The permanent teeth that erupt to replace their primary predecessors (baby teeth) are called succedaneous teeth.

The abbreviation "ORD" for Chicago's O'Hare airport comes from the old name "Orchard Field."

Antonia ('Tonie') Nathan, the 1972 Vice-Presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, was the first woman in American history to receive an electoral vote.

In the four major US professional sports, (Baseball, Basketball, Football, and Hockey) there are only seven teams whose nicknames do not end with an "S."
Basketball: The Miami Heat, The Utah Jazz, The Orlando Magic.
Baseball: The Boston Red Sox, The Chicago White Sox.
Hockey: The Colorado Avalanche, The Tampa Bay Lightning.
Football: None.

There are only three world capitals that begin with the letter "O" in English: Ottawa, Canada; Oslo, Norway; and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

James Doohan, who plays Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott on Star Trek, is missing the entire middle finger of his right hand.

"Polish" is the only word in the English language that when capitalized is changed from a noun or a verb to a nationality.

Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
Beelzebub, another name for the devil, is Hebrew for Lord of the Flies, and this is where the books title comes from.

The shape of plant collenchyma cells and the shape of the bubbles in beer foam are the same -- they are orthotetrachidecahedrons.

West Virginia and Maryland have no natural lakes.
Rick and Paul Reuschel of the 1975 Chicago Cubs combine to pitch a shutout, the first time brothers do this.

The name of the dog from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is Max.

Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world.
Connecticut is the only state whose name is two words connected by a letter: "connect," "i," and "cut."

Only five countries in Europe touch only one other: Portugal, Denmark, San Marino, Vatican City, and Monaco.

October 10 is National Metric Day.

Oak trees do not have acorns until they are fifty years old or older.

South Dakota has the only state bird from Asia, the ring-necked pheasant.

Tongeren is the oldest town in Belgium.

John Augustus Sutter of Sutter's Mill and the California Gold Rush became an ardent Communist in his later years.
The original IBM punchcard is the same size as a Civil War era dollar bill.

The concave dish shape that a liquid takes on inside a glass or tube is called a meniscus.

Croatia Useless Facts
Dalmatian dog originate from Dalmatian coast of Croatia.
Kresimir Cosic is only non-American player in NBA Hall of Fame.
Croatia was the first country to recognize the United States in 1776.

Marco Polo was born on the Croatian island of Korcula (pronounced Kor-Chu-La).

A two-bit moon is in the first quarter.

The three largest land-owners in England are the Queen, the Church of England and Trinity College, Cambridge.

The monastic hours are matins, lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers and compline.

If you come from Manchester, you are a Mancunian.

No animal, once frozen solid (i.e., water solidifies and turns to ice) survives when thawed, because the ice crystals formed inside cells would break open the cell membranes. However there are certain frogs that can survive the experience of being frozen. These frogs make special proteins which prevent the formation of ice (or at least keep the crystals from becoming very large), so that they actually never freeze even though their body temperature is below zero Celsius. The water in them remains liquid: a phenomenon known as 'supercooling.' If you disturb one of these frogs (just touching them even), the water in them quickly freezes solid and they die.

The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.

The name for fungal remains found in coal is sclerotinite.

Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.

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 is spear.

The shopping mall in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada has the largest water clock in North America.

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Writer Edgar Allan Poe and LSD advocate Timothy Leary were both kicked out of West Point.

The top layer of a wedding cake, known as the groom's cake, is usually is a fruit cake so it will last until the couple's first anniversary, when they will eat it.

The German Kaiser Wilhelm II had a withered arm and often hid the fact by posing with his hand resting on a sword, or by holding gloves.

The United States government keeps its supply of silver at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

Blimp Useless Facts
There are fourteen blimps in the world.
Ten of the fourteen blimps are in the United States.
The existing biggest blimp is the Fuji Film blimp.

Naugahyde, plastic "leather" was created in Naugatuck, Connecticut.

In every show that Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt (The Fantasticks) wrote, there is at least one song about rain.

A kind of tortoise in the Galapagos Islands has an upturned shell at its neck so it can reach its head up to eat cactus branches.

Parthenogenesis is the term used to describe the process by which certain animals are able to reproduce themselves in successive female generations without intervention of a male of the species. At least one species of lizard is known to do so.

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".

The ship, the Queen Elizabeth 2, should always be written as QE2. QEII is the actual queen.
"Quisling" is the only word in the English language to start with "quis."
All of the cobble stones that used to line the streets in New York were originally weighting stones put in the hulls of Belgian ships to keep an even keel.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
The only borough of New York City that isn't an island or part of an island is the Bronx.

When a coffee seed is planted, it takes five years to yield consumable fruit.

The common goldfish is the only animal that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light.

Linn's Stamp News is the world's largest weekly newspaper for stamp collectors.

Tennessee and Missouri are bordered by more states than any other. Tennesee is bordered by eight states are Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. Missouri is bordered by Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennesee, Kentucky and Illinois.
The westernmost point in the contiguous United States is Cape Alava, Washington.
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eyes."

The infinity sign is called a lemniscate.

If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat it measures 87 feet long.

There are six words in the English language with the letter combination "uu." Muumuu, vacuum, continuum, duumvirate, duumvir and residuum.
The "Calabash" pipe, most often associated with Sherlock Holmes, was not used by him until William Gillette (an American) portrayed Holmes onstage. Gillette needed a pipe he could keep in his mouth while he spoke his lines.

Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of F.

Dirty Harry's badge number is 2211.

The pupil of an octopus' eye is rectangular.

The shortest French word with all five vowels is "oiseau" meaning bird.

Camel's milk does not curdle.
"Mr. Mojo Risin" is an anagram for Jim Morrison.

The ball on top of a flagpole is called the truck.
Oliver Cromwell was hanged and decapitated two years after he had died.
In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

Iowa has more independent telephone companies than any other state.

The first prime number after 1,000,000 is 1,000,003.

Hamster Useless Facts
Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.
Hamsters love to eat crickets.
The first Eagle Scout west of the Mississippi is buried in San Marcos, Texas.

In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.

The Greek version of the Old Testament is called the Septuagent.

Spencer Eldon was the name of the naked baby on the cover of Nirvana's album Nevermind.

Sheriff came from Shire Reeve. During early years of feudal rule in England, each shire had a reeve who was the law for that shire. When the term was brought to the United States it was shortened to Sheriff.
An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.

Dracula is the most filmed story of all time, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is second and Oliver Twist is third.
The most popular sport as a topic for a film is boxing.
The silhouette on the NBA logo is Jerry West.
The silhouette on the Major League Baseball logo is Harmon Killebrew.

The little lump of flesh just forward of your ear canal, right next to your temple, is called a tragus.

Soweto in South Africa was derived from SOuth WEst TOwnship.
Goat's eyes have rectangular pupils.

Walt Disney's autograph bears no resemblance to the famous Disney logo.

Other than humans, black lemurs are the only primates that may have blue eyes.

The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.

Great Britain was the first county to issue postage stamps. Hence, the postage stamps of Britain are the only stamps in the world not to bear the name of the country of origin. However, every stamp carries a relief image or a silhouette of the monarch's head instead.
Images for picture stamps in the United States are commissioned by the United States Postal Service Department of Philatelic Fulfillment.

Artist Constantino Brumidi fell from the dome of the U.S. Capitol while painting a mural around the rim. He died four months later.

Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have participated in every Games.