The intent of this section was to display a collection of strange but true
facts. The problem I encountered is that 90% of the ones found on the internet
are either Urban Legends or just completely made up (usually very funny). I have diveded them into five categories:
my comments are in italics
Chocolate kills dogs!
Chocolate effects a dog's heart and nervous system, specifically it is the
drugs in chocolate, theobromine and caffeine-of the drug class
methylxanthines-, that are toxic to pets. A few ounces are enough to kill a
small sized dog. Dark chocolate is more toxic than milk.
The military called their individual transports Jeeps from the name
"General Purpose" vehicle or G.P.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
April 27, 1998 as many as 20,000 people logged in to chat with Koko the gorilla
who answered questions in what was called the first ever "interspecies chat" on
the Internet.
Koko then became an artist and displayed his art in New York in 1999 at the
Alliance of Queens Artists Gallery.
Check out his web site:
www.koko.org
Buzz Aldrin
was the first man to defecate on the moon.
I found the above one very funny but looking into it I found this interview
with Aldrin himself: How did you go to the bathroom during either of your
missions? "With great care. Seriously, we used bags and hoses and personal
wipes. The details are left to the imagination, but there's really nothing gory
in the reality. Sort of like a long camping trip, you're glad to have a hot
shower at the end".
A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove!
Woman Shops With Knife Protruding From Neck
DARBY, Pa. (Reuters) Mar. 7, 2000 - A Pennsylvania woman spent the better part
of an
hour shopping at a neighborhood grocery store without realizing that a
passerby had stuck a knife into her neck, police said on Saturday.
Darlene Jones, 62, set out from home on foot before 7 a.m. (1200 GMT) on
Friday, when a running passerby slapped her on the back of the neck or so
she thought. She kept on going, as if nothing had happened.
Jones walked to the Acme supermarket in the nearby community of Yeadon,
just outside Philadelphia, and bought a package of Oreo cookies and a
newspaper before making the half-mile (1-km) return journey to her house.
Only after she got home did her daughter notice the handle of a kitchen knife
sticking out of her mother's neck. The daughter yanked out the blade,
releasing a gush of blood, and quickly got her to the Hospital of the University
of Pennsylvania, where she was listed in fair condition on Saturday.
``Five or six people walked right past her without even noticing,'' Darby Police
Chief Robert Smythe told the Philadelphia Inquirer, while describing the
incident as a ''random, vicious attack.''
Supermarket surveillance cameras later showed the woman strolling through
the aisles of the store, past clerks and customers, with the knife handle
clearly visible.
If Barbie were life-size her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand
seven feet, two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal
human's neck.
In 1918, the most destructive flu epidemic of modern times, is estimated to
have caused over 20 million deaths worldwide.
DR. JEFFREY TAUBENBERGER, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology : The
conservative estimate is 21 million people, but people suggest that it may be
forty to fifty million people actually died worldwide. The outbreak probably
started in the United States at an army base in the Midwest and then spread to
Europe in the lungs of soldiers headed for World War I.
San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, was originally called Puerto Rico. The
island of Puerto Rico was originally called San Juan.
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Christopher Columbus never set foot on US soil, Leaf Ericson was the first
European. The Native Americans were here even earlier, sadly
we don't know the individuals name.
The guillotine was last officially used as recently as September 10,1977 by the
French.
The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has 17.5 miles of corridors 7000 electric
clock outlets, 4200 clocks installed, 250 daily lamp replacements.
I got these on their official site: www.defenselink.mil
Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
I'm not sure about Camels but horses, Dogs and Cats have what is called a Haw
The first Ford cars had Dodge engines.
In the 1890s cars were largely recreational vehicles for the wealthy.
It was thought, particularly in Europe, that the motor car followed directly on
the private carriage and called for a servant operator along the lines of the
earlier coachman; in the case of automobiles, a chauffeur ("stoker")
suggested the maintenance of some sort of heat engine. The result was that
early automobiles were very expensive to buy and operate and were placed firmly
in the realm of sport.
Most cars were essentially handmade from parts that had only short production
runs, so they were expensive to buy and costly to repair.
It was in the first decade of the 20th century that beneficial changes came
about, notably in the United States and at the hands of Henry Ford. As a
mechanic Ford had undertaken to build his own car, using methods similar to
those of his peers. The Ford Motor Company, which was organized as a
corporation in June 1903 sold its first car on the following July 23; the
company produced 1,700 cars during its first full year of business.
In 1908, however, Ford reorganized his company and his method of production. He
decided to standardize this car, producing only one or two models, painting
almost all of them black, and simplifying the parts so they were inexpensive
and easy to install. From 1908, when it was first produced, until 1927, 15
million Model T's, or "Tin Lizzies," were produced.
DODGE: Bicycles were the first vehicles produced by the Dodge brothers. In 1901
they opened a machine shop in Detroit, making stove parts and, later, auto
parts. The Dodge Brothers Company in 1910 established a large auto-parts plant
in Hamtramck, Mich. There the brothers made engines and other auto parts for
the Ford Motor Company (of which they were minor shareholders) and for Olds
Motor Works. In 1913 they began producing their own automobiles, and the first
Dodge automobile appeared on Nov.14, 1914.
In 1666 the Great Fire of London burned from September 2 to September 5 and
consumed five-sixths of the City. St. Paul's Cathedral, 87 parish churches, and
at least 13,000 dwellings were destroyed, but there were only a few human
fatalities.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
In the New Guinea highlands each number is associated with a body part, so that
the word for "three" might be the same word used to denote the middle
finger. The attachments vary across the thousands of different communities in
the area.
Among the Yupno the little finger of the left hand is one, the right big toe is
20 and the left ear is 21. When only one man is present (women are forbidden to
count in public) numbers stop at 33 for the penis. With more men present it is
possible to go to higher numbers.
Cognitive neuropsychologist Brian Butterworth, of University College London,
promoting his book The Mathematical Brain, citing evidence from diverse fields.
Los Angeles, California is East of Reno, Nevada.
The Nobel Prize was founded by Mr. Nobel, a Swedish chemist, engineer, and
industrialist who invented dynamite and other, more powerful explosives.
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
Though it would be more correct to say that almonds and peaches belong to the
same family, the Rosales. The almond tree, growing somewhat larger than the
peach and living longer, is strikingly beautiful when in flower. The tree
greatly resembles the related peach, with which it occasionally hybridizes. The
growing fruit resembles the peach until it approaches maturity; as it ripens,
the leathery outer covering, or hull, splits open, curls outward, and
discharges the nut.
In 1995 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared TB to be a global
emergency, the first such designation ever made by that organization. According
to WHO, a person becomes infected with TB every second, and every year 8
million people contract the disease.
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 name:
"L.A."
Even though it is now generally agreed that the city's correct name is El
Pueblo de la Reyna de Los Angeles - The Town of the Queen of the Angels.
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
The bee hummingbirds of Cuba weigh 7/125 oz. Guinness Book of Records.
George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach were both born in 1685.
J.S.Bach had 20 children, 7 with his first wife and 13 with his second.
A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years.
Guinness Book of Records.
Beelzebub, another name for the devil, is Hebrew for Lord of the Flies, and
this is where the book's title comes from.
Although it is classified as a Middle Atlantic state, Pennsylvania does not
touch the Atlantic Ocean at any point.
Pennsylvania's highest point is lower than Colorado's lowest point.
Mount Davis, at 3,213 feet (979 metres), is Pennsylvania's highest point. The
state of Colorado rises from about 3,500 feet (1,100 metres) in the east to
more than 14,000 feet in the Rockies.