| Fact Archive |
Fighting alongside Americans and British during the D-Day invasion of 1944 were 15,000 Canadians. And it was the Canadian troops who were the first to reach their planned objective.
Termites chew through wood twice as fast when they are listening to Rock and Roll.
The skin of the armpits can harbor up to 516,000 bacteria per square inch, while drier areas, such as the forearm, have only about 13,000 bacteria per square inch.
SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below.
Benjamin Franklin devised the first wet suit for divers, as well as a primitive version of today's flippers.
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.
Christendom did not begin to date its history from the birth of Christ until 500 years after his death. The system was introduced in 550 by Dionysius Exigus, a monk in Rome.
When Thomas Jefferson became U.S. President in 1801, 20 percent of all people in the young nation were slaves. (There were 5 million people in all.)
In the fifteenth century, the handkerchief was, for a time, allowed only to the nobility; special laws were made to enforce this. The classical heritage was rediscovered during the Renaissance.
Of all professionals in the United States, journalists are credited with having the largest vocabular – approximately 20,000 words.
The first medical use of leeches dates back to approximately 2,500 years ago. The leech's saliva contains a property that acts as an anticoagulant for human blood.
The average male adult can bench-press 88 percent of his body weight, having 70 to 80 pounds of muscle.
The average male adult can bench-press 88 percent of his body weight, having 70 to 80 pounds of muscle.
Some viewers of Gilligan’s Island apparently took the television show seriously in the 1960s. The U.S. Coast Guard received several telegrams from concerned citizens asking why they didn’t rescue the Minnow’s crew.
The hardiest of all the world's insects is the mosquito. It has been found in the coldest regions of northern Canada and Siberia, and can live quite comfortably at the North Pole. It is equally at home in equatorial jungles.
The average pool cue is 57 inches long.
Children born in the month of May are on the average 200 grams heavier at birth than children born in any other month.
The Amazon river pushes so much water into the Atlantic that, more than a hundred miles at sea, off the mouth of the river, one can dip fresh water out of the ocean and drink it.
In the vast majority of the world's languages, the word for "mother" begins with the letter M.
The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armor raised their visors to reveal their identity.
The screw-top cap on most brands of vanilla extract equals one teaspoon. When in a hurry baking something, the cap can be used to measure.
The world's first patent was granted in 1421 to architect Filippo Brunelleschi in Florence to make a barge crane to transport marble.
Roulette was invented by the great French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. It was a by product of his experiments with perpetual motion.
Located 137 miles north of Rome, San Marino is the oldest and one of the smallest republics in the world.
Victor Hugo's Les Miserables contains one of the longest sentences in the French language — 823 words without a period...
Technically speaking, crystal glass is actually a Liquid that flows very slowly.
According to the U.S. government, people have tried more than 28,000 different ways to lose weight.
A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than the 6,000 degrees centigrade found at the surface of the sun.
It takes 110 domestic silkworm cocoons to make a man's tie.
In Saudi Arabia, a woman reportedly may divorce her husband if he does not keep her supplied with coffee.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Pieces of bread were used to erase lead pencil before rubber came into use.
Not many people have heard of a glass harmonica, because there are only about 30 people in the world who can play it. It was invented in 1761 by Benjamin Franklin, and is made of up to 42 separate hand-blown glass bowls placed on a rotating spindle that the player rubs with his or her fingers.
The second national city is Port Angeles, Washington, designated by President Abraham Lincoln. That's where they would move the capital if something happened to Washington, D.C.
If the fresh water of the earth (only 1.6 percent of the water on the planet) was divided equally among all the people on earth, each one would get 40 million gallons.
According to lead Munchkin Jerry Maren, the "little people" on the set of The Wizard of Oz (1939) were paid $50 per week for a 6-day work week, while Toto received $125 per week. During filming, Toto was stepped on by one of the witch's guards, and had a double for two weeks. A second double was obtained, because it resembled Toto more closely.
Olympic badminton rules say that the shuttlecock has to have exactly 16 feathers. The best shuttles are made from the feathers from the left wing of a goose.
Chips Ahoy! cookies are baked in ovens which are as long as a football field. Over 4,000 cookies exit the oven each minute.
Moses Malone became the first player to go from high school straight into pro basketball in 1974. The move made him the highest salaried teenage athlete in the United States at that time. Malone was signed by the Utah Stars of the American Basketball Association.
William Henry Harrison served the shortest term of any U.S. president. He served only 32 days, from March 4 to April 4, 1841. He fell ill with pneumonia shortly after his inauguration and never recovered.
The world's first electric traffic light signal was installed 75 years ago in Cleveland, Ohio, at the intersection of Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street.
The magician's words "hocus-pocus" were taken from the name of a mythological sorcerer, Ochus Bochus, who appeared in Norse folktales and legends.
Ice is a food and like any food, it can go "bad." Every food code in the U.S. and Canada defines ice as food. We eat more ice than we do bread, nearly a hundred million tons a year or about two pounds per person per day.
The California Academy of Tauromaquia in San Diego is a world renowned school for Matadors.
In ancient Greece, courtesans wore sandals with nails studded into the sole so that their footprints would leave the message "Follow me".
One alternate title that had been considered, but then discarded, for NBC's hit Friends was Insomnia Café.
There are more than 100 million dogs and cats in the United States. Americans spend more than 5.4 billion dollars on their pets each year.
The number of centenarians – 100 years and older – has more than doubled since 1980 to about 50,000. Four in five were women.
The expression "three dog night" originated with the Eskimos and means a very cold night – so cold that you have to bed down with three dogs to keep warm.
According to a recent survey, 75 percent of people who play the car radio while driving also sing along with it.
Scientists say that people who sleep less than average (less than 6 hours a night) are more organized and efficient than everybody else
Three hundred and fourteen acres of trees are used to make the newsprint for the average Sunday edition of the New York Times. There are nearly 63,000 trees in the 314 acres.
Edgar Allen Poe was expelled from West Point for showing up for a public parade wearing only a white belt and gloves.
During World War II, sugar was sent overseas for U.S. troops, which meant there wasn't much sugar left in the States to produce candy. Because of this unusual situation, Americans ate three times as much popcorn as usual.
Architect James Horan was awarded $500 and a parcel of land in Washington, D.C. for his 1792 winning design for the President's House, now known as the White House.
By U.S. definition, a "hurricane" is any wind force exceeding 74 miles per hour; in the Western Pacific, such a phenomenon is called a "typhoon" and, near Australia, it's a "willy-willy."
According to one study, plant and animal species are becoming extinct at the rate of 17 per hour.
The raccoon derives its name from the Indian word meaning "he who scratches with his hands."
When astronauts first shaved in space, their weightless whiskers floated up to the ceiling. A special razor had to be developed which drew the whiskers in like a vacuum cleaner.
Sixty percent of big-firm executives said the cover letter is as important or more important than the résumé itself when you're looking for a new job.
In the latter part of the 18th century, Prussian surgeons treated stutterers by snipping off portions of their tongues.
The TV sitcom "Seinfeld" was originally titled "The Seinfeld Chronicals." The pilot which was broadcast in 1989 also featured a kooky neighbor named Kessler. This character later became known as Kramer
The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places. ~Author Unknown
Fireflies like to light up together. Two fireflies found near each other will eventually start lighting up at the same time.
In Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift described the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, giving their exact size and speeds of rotation. He did this more that a hundred years before either moon was discovered.
Kings of the Road: Before they became famous in the entertainment industry, these people all worked as truck drivers: Stephen J. Cannell, Robert Conrad, k.d. lang, Gregory Peck, Sidney Poitier, Desi Arnaz, and Elvis Presley. James Cameron worked as a truck driver and a school bus driver before becoming a successful film director (The Terminator, Titanic).
The biggest frog is the appropriately named Goliath frog (Conraua goliath) of Cameroon. They reach nearly 30 cm (a foot) and weigh as much as 3.3 kilograms.
Potato chips are the Number 1 selling snack in the United States. Statistics show that they accompany lunch 32 percent of the time and dinner 18 percent of the time.
Flying from London to New York by Concord, due to the time zones crossed, you can arrive 2 hours before you leave.
If the arm of King Henry I of England had been 42 inches long, the unit of measure of a "foot" today would be fourteen inches. But his arm happened to be 36 inches long and he decreed that the "standard" foot should be one-third that length: 12 inches.
