Some Thoughts on Life & Living

---

Last modified: Sunday, 14 August, 2016
 

Next

Index

 

	DID YOU KNOW?

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

2. A fully grown bear can run as fast as a horse.

3. A lion's roar can be heard from five miles away.

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

5. Assuming Rudolph was in front, there are 40,320 ways to arrange the other eight reindeer.

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

7. The right side of a boat was called the starboard side because astro navigators used to stand out on a plank, that was on the right side, to get an unobstructed view of the stars. The left side was called the port side because that was the side you put in on at port so as not to knock off the star board!

8. The Japanese word "arigato," meaning thank you, is derived from the Portuguese word "obrigado." Portugal once had a thriving trade with Japan.

9. Because of the immense pressure, Jupiter's core is metal. This metal is hydrogen.

10. 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.

11. A hamlet is a village without a church.

12. 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.

13. Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.

14. 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 found out how to walk up straight staircases.

15. The launching mechanism of a carrier ship that helps planes to take off, could throw a pickup truck over a mile.

16. 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.

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

18. The word "karate" means "empty hand."

19. Croatia was the first country to recognize the United States in 1776.

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

21. 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.

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

23. The Chinese ideogram for 'trouble' depicts two women living under one roof.

24. The Chinese words for crisis and opportunity are the same.

25. A sixty minute audio cassette tape has 562.5 feet of tape in it, nearly two football fields long.

26. The ashes of the average cremated person weigh nine pounds.

27. There are only 14 blimps in the world, and 10 of them are in the U.S.

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

29. Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of F. The US telephone dial tone is also in the key of F.

30. Lizzie Borden was acquitted.

Next

Index