Fun Facts (2)

Fun Facts


The First/The Last:

The first Valentine's Day card was sent by the imprisoned Duke of Orlean to his wife in 1415.

Richard Cadbury invented the first Valentine's Day candy box in the late 1800s.

The first novel, called The story of Genji, was written in 1007 by Japanese noble woman, Murasaki Shikibu.

The first company that Bill Gates ever ran created machines that would record the number of cars passing a given point on a street.

The first personal computer was called the Altair and was made by a company called MITS in 1974. It came in a kit and had to be assembled by the user.

The Hollywood sign was first erected in 1923. Conceived as a real estate ad, it originally read Hollywoodland.

The celebration of the new year is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago.

26 December, Boxing day, was traditionally known as St. Stephen's Day, after the first Christian martyr.

The first printed reference to Christmas trees appeared in Germany in 1531.

Great Britain was the first country to issue postage stamps, and they're the only nation today that doesn't use a national name on their stamps.

The Chinese first invented the system of zoos, and called them Parks of Intelligence.

The first striptease dance was performed in Paris, France on March 13, 1894.

The first time the color khaki was used for uniforms in a war was in 1880, during the Afghan War.

Butter was the first food product allowed by law to have artificial coloring.

The term skyscraper was first used in 1888, to describe 11-story building.

Benjamin Franklin was America's first newspaper cartoonist.

When tennis was first invented in 1874, it was called sphairistike.

When volleyball was first invented in 1895, it was called mintonette.

The first animal in space was a female dog named "Laika".

The first hard drive available for the Apple II had a capacity of 5 Megabytes.

China was the fi rst country to introduce paper money (in 812).

The first Harley Davidson motorcycle was built in 1903, and used a tomato can for a carburetor.

The first Academy Awards (or Oscar's) were presented on 16 May 1929.

Australia's first police force was a band of 12 of the most well behaved Convicts.

In 1937, the first postage stamp to commemorate Christmas was issued in Austria.

The first recorded reference to cricket dates back to 1272.

The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com in Mar 85.

The first music video was aired on August 1, 1981 "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Bugles on MTV.

The first police for ce was established in Paris 1667.

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

France became the first reigning World Cup champions who fail to win a match.

Pamela Lee-Anderson is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial anniversiary of Canada's independence.

The first city in modern history to reach 1 million people was London in 1811.

Toronto was the first city in the world with a computerized traffic signal system.

King Charles VII, assassinated in 1167, was the first Swedish king with the name of Charles. Charles I, II, III, IV, V, never existed.

The value of "pi" was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century long before the European mathematicians.

The World's first university was established in Takshila, India in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects.

The first place in the western world to give women the right to vote was an island known as "Man".

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

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The Phobias:

If you are afraid you might die laughing, you are suffering from cherophobia

Someone with an irrational fear of meat is called a carnophobic.

Unatractiphobia is the fear of ugliness or ugly people.

If you are a 'scoptophobic' , you have an intense fear of being seen.

'Mageiricophobia' is the intense fear of having to cook.

Syngenesophobia is the fear of relatives

Automatonophobia is a fear of ventriloquist' s dummies, animatronic creatures, wax statues or anything that falsly represents a sentient being

Paedophobia is a fear of children

"Hippopotomonstroses quippedaliophobi a" is the fear of long words

Phobatrivaphobia is a fear of trivia about phobias

Lyssophobia is a morbid fear of insanity

Hypnophobia is a morbid fear of sleep and falling asleep

Elizabeth I of England suffered from anthophobia, a fear of roses

Arachibutyrophobia is a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth

The fear of vegetables is called Lachanophobia! ..

Taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive!

Clinophobia is the fear of beds!

Acrophobia is the fear of heights

Claustrophobia is the fear of being closed in.

Arachnophobia is the Fear Of Spiders

Hemophobia is the fear of blood.

Hydrophobia/ Aquaphobia is the fear of water.

Fear of Beautiful women is Caligynephobia.

Fear of Men is Androphobia.

Fear of Kissing is Philemaphobia or Philematophobia

Fear of Love, sexual love is Erotophobia.

Fear of falling in Love, or being in Love is Philophobia

Fear of Love play is Malaxophobia or Sarmassophobia.

Words:

There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple,and month

The real name of Jesus was Yeshua. Jesus is the Greek version of the name.

A "funambulist" is a tight-rope walker.

Ernest Vincent Wright's novel Gadsby has 50,110 words, none of which contains the letter "E".

The word encyclopaedia comes from two Greek words meaning "a circle of learning."

Carol comes from the Greek word Choraulein which referred to a dance accompanied by a flute.

The word Christmas comes from the English phrase, Christes Masse, literally Christ's mass.

The word 'puppy' comes from the French poupee', meaning doll.

When two words are combined to form a single word (motor + hotel = motel, breakfast + lunch = brunch) the new word is called a "portmanteau".

The term "hooch" for liquor comes from the Hoochinoo Indians, known for their ability to make liquor so strong it could knock someone out.

Seoul, the capital of South Korea, is a Korean word meaning "capital".

The word "tattoo" comes from the Tahitian word "tattau," which means "to mark".

The two lines that connect your top lip to the bottom of your nose are known as the philtrum

The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

The word "novel" originally derived from the Latin novus, meaning "new".

The word "gymnasium" comes from the Greek word gymnazein which means "to exercise naked".

The word Karate means, empty hand.

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

The word salary came from the word salt in Roman times. Salt was used as a trading medium - money.

The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.

Someone who is "pauciloquent" uses as few words as possible when speaking.

Poliosis is the graying of the hair. It comes from polios, the Greek word for "gray".

The word 'denim' comes from 'de Nimes', Nimes being the town.

The largest crossword puzzle ever published had 2631 clues across and 2922 clues down. It took up 16 sq. feet of space.

The phrase "honeymoon" came from the Greeks. It was customary for the bride's family to supply the groom with a month (or full moon cycle) of the wedding wine, which tasted like honey.

The word "Oral-B" is a combination of oral hygiene and the letter B, which stands for the word better.

Graffito is the little-used singular of the much used plural word graffiti.

Orange and black became Halloween colors because orange is associated with harvests and black is associated with death "Hallow" is an old word meaning holy, while "e'en" is Scottish for evening.

The word "alphabet" Comes from the first 2 letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Beta.

Canada is an Indian word meaning 'Big Village'.

The word 'Checkmate' in chess comes from the Persian phrase 'Shah Mat,' which means 'the king is dead'.

There are only four words in the English language which end in '-dous': tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

President Kennedy was the fastest random speaker in the world with upwards of 350 words per minute.

First newspaper crossword puzzle was published in a Sunday supplement to the New York World in 1913

The word "listen" contains the same letters as the word "silent".

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

"Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."

Did you know that the words 'lakh' and 'crore' do not exist in the English language? The two words are only used in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and are derivatives of the Hindi words laakh and karod.

The scientific term for nose-picking is "rhinotillexonamia".

In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word!

Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates h ands when typing!

Know what Mafia means? "Morte Allafrancia Italia Anela "Death to the French is Italy's cry!"

A fireplace is called a mantelpiece because, at one time, people hung their coats over the fireplace to dry them.

The "left bank" of a river is the left side as you look downstream

The Rx sign that pharmacists use was originally the astrological sign for Jupiter

Taresthesia is what you call it when your foot falls asleep

The original name for the butterfly was 'flutterby'

Women who wink at men are known as "nictitating" women

The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti

Hydroponics is the technique by which plants are grown in water without soil

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

The raised reflective dots in the middle of highways are called Botts dots

Sunbeams that shine down through the clouds are called crespucular rays

A "pogonip" is a heavy winter fog containing ice crystals

The thin line of cloud that forms behind an aircraft at high altitudes is called a contrail
The forward slash character on your keyboard is also known as a slant, virgule or solidus

In the Chinese written language, the ideograph for "trouble" represents two women under one roof

A misomaniac is someone who hates everything

The infinite sign is called a Lemniscate

Priests in Australia advise you to say Happy Christmas, not Merry Christmas, because Merry has connotations of getting drunk.

The act of yawning and stretching is called "pandiculation."

A group of crows is called a murder

A "clue" originally meant a ball of thread. This is why one is said to unravel the clues of a mystery

In circus parlance, a "Joey" is a clown with at least five years of experience.

'Smithee' is a pseudonym that filmmakers use when they don't want their names to appear in the credits.


A collector who attempts to collect an example of every item in a particular field is called a 'completist' .


Mummies, are so called because of the wax (or 'mum' ) which is smeared on to the bandages for waterproofing


The "O" when used as a prefix in Irish surnames means "descendant of"


The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle


A 'bibliophile' is one who collects rare books.


A 'bibliopole' is a seller of rare books.


A nihilist believes in nothing


The little bits of paper left over when holes are punched in data cards or tape are called "chad"


The name "piano" is an abbreviation of Cristofori's original name for the instrument: piano et forte, or soft and loud


The loop on a belt that holds the loose-end is called a "keeper"


Blype is the skin that pee ls off after a bad sunburn


The relationship of a godparent to the real parent of a child is called 'compaternity'


A 'nullipara' is a woman who has never given birth to a child.


"Whirly Girls" is the name of the International Association of Women Helicopter Pilots.


Obsessive nose picking is referred to as rhinotillexomania


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


The chef's tall hat is called a "toque".


A building in which silence is enforced, like a library or school room, is referred to as a "silentium"


Fiat stands for Fabbrica Italiana Automobile Torino, the name of the Italian manufacturer


"Steatopygia" means an accumulation of fat in the buttocks


The little bumps on the surface of a table tennis paddle are called pips


A "quidnunc" is a person who is eager to know the latest news and gossip


The 'v' in the name of a court case does not stand for 'versus', but for 'and' (in civil proceedings) or 'against' (in criminal proceedings)


The ZIP in Zip-code stands for Zoning Improvement Plan


In genealogy, the female side of the family is called the distaff side the male side is the spear side.


If you are taking a class in pistology, you are not studying pistols, but rather, faith.


The science of determining characteristic traits by examining a person's shoes is scarpology


The study of stupidity is called 'monology'


The search for the existence of ghosts is Eidology


The study of word origins is called etymology


Synesthesia is a rare condition in which the senses are combined.


Synesthetes see words, taste colors and shapes and feel flavors.


Groaking is to watch people eating food hoping they'll offer you some.


The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P


The little hole in the sink that lets the water drain out, instead of flowing over the side, is called a "porcelator"


The 'You are here' arrow on a map is called the IDEO locator.


Th e term Cop comes from Constable on Patrol, which is a term used in England.


Colgate faced a big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries. Colgate translates into the command "go hang yourself."


The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.


A person who collects teddy bears is called an archtophilist.


The term karaoke means "empty orchestra" in Japanese.

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Sports/Games:


Most soccer players run 7 miles in a game.


Holes in a golf course must be 4.25 inches in diameter, and at least 4 inches deep.


In tennis, zero points is referred to as love, which is possibly derived from the French word for egg, l'oeuf, referring to the physical appearance of the number zero.


The Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic, and she provided twenty-five years of service.


The sport with the most number of officials with relation to players is tennis. There are 13 officials for two players.


The spots on dice are called "pips."


If you add up all the number on a roulette wheel, that is 1through 36, you get '666', the biblical number of fallen man.


The world's highest cricket ground is in Chail (HP), India, 2444 mt above sea level


The Australian term for extras in cricket are 'sundries'


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


In 1935, Jesse Owens broke 4 world records in 45 minutes


The metal instrument used in shoe stores to measure feet is called the Brannock device


Sunbeams that shine down through clouds are called crepuscular rays

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Animal Kingdom:


Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.


Sharks have no air bladders, so they must swim constantly or they'll sink.


Cockroaches can go without eating for three months, as long as they have water.


Birds are largely unaffected by spicy things, like chillies, as they are not sensitive to capsaicin, the ho t stuff in chilies.


The male penguin incubates the single egg laid by his mate. During the two month period he does not eat, and will lose up to 40% of his body weight.


"Mako sharks" show cannibalistic tendencies while still in mother's womb; older embryos will eat the younger embryos and eggs.


Dalmatians are born without spots.


Birds do not sleep in their nests. They may occasionally nap in them, but they actually sleep in other places.


The owl is the only bird to drop its upper eyelid to wink. All other birds raise their lower eyelids.


"Sanguinary ants" raid the nests of other ant tribes, kill the queen, and kidnap many of the workers


Frogs do not need to drink water as they absorb the water through their skin.
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Humans, Ants and Chimpanzees are the only organisms that wage organized warfare.


The penguin is the only bird that can swim but can't fly.


Kiwis are the only birds that hunt by smell.


Ninety percent of all species that have become extinct have been birds.


The elephant is the only mammal with four knees.


Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.


Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue twice as much as any other color


There are twice as many kangaroos in Australia as there are people.


Centipedes always have an uneven pairs of walking legs.


Roosters cannot crow if they cannot extend their necks.

Male and female giraffes tend to eat from different parts of a tree to ensure that the sexes do not compete for food.


The albatross can glide on air currents for several days and can even sleep while in flight.


A crocodile always grows new teeth to replace the old teeth.


Bulls are colorblind, it is the motion of the cape which angers them.


Giraffes rarely sleep more than 20 minutes a day


Not a single new livestock animal has been domesticated in the last 4,000 years.


Honeybees navigate using the sun as a compass, even when it is hidden behind clouds


An ant can survive for up to two weeks underwater.


Eel-skin wallets have been known to demagnetize cred it cards


In the magic world of seahorses it is the male who gets pregnant and has the babies.


A blind Chameleon is still able to change colours to match its environment.


Spiders inject their victims with a chemical that dissolves them. Then the spiders drink their lunch with their mouths which are soda straw-like.


When hippos are upset, their sweat turns red.


If you cut the head off a cockroach, it will continue to live for up to many more weeks.


Male mosquitoes are vegetarians. Only female bites.


A cheetah can accelerate from 0 to 70 km/h in 2 seconds


Nine out of every 10 living things live in the ocean


Sharks never get sick, as far as is known, they are immune to every known disease including cancer


Sharks will eat anything. The only exception, is that they will not eat anything in the vicinity of where they give birth. This is because they are so stupid, this is the only way nature protects them from accidentally eating their own babies


If a drop of liquor gets on a scorpion, it will immediately commit suicide with its own stinger


The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight


Female black widow spiders eat their husbands after mating. That's how they got that name


All shrimp are born male, but slowly grow into females as they mature


Frogs never drink. They absorb water from their surroundings by osmosis


About 70% of a ll organisms in the world are Bacteria


Male bats have the highest rate of homosexuality of any mammal


Ants stretch when they wake up. They also appear to yawn in a very human manner before taking up the tasks of the day


To make half a kilo of honey, bees must collect nectar from over 2 million individual flowers


Fish that live more than 800 meters below the ocean surface don't have eyes


Tiger Snake of Australia is the most poisonous snake in the world. 1 mg of its venom is enough to kill a man


The common silkworm has eleven brains. It only uses five of them.


A newborn kangaroo is about 1 inch in length.


Cats, camels and giraffes are the only animals in the world that walk right foo t, right foot, left foot, left foot, rather than right foot, left foot


Polar bears are the only mammal with hair on the soles of its feet


A monotreme is a mammal that lays eggs but suckles its young on milk once they have hatched


Flamingos get their pink color from the shrimp they eat. The more shrimp they eat the deeper pink they become


Water based mammals like dolphins and whales swish their tails up and down. Only fish move them sideways


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


Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating


Termites eat wood twice as fast when listening to heavy metal music


Dolphins don't automatically breath; they have to tell themselves to do it


Ostriches stick their heads into the sand to find underground drinking water


Pigeons can be killed by feeding them uncooked rice, either coz their stomach can't handle the carbohydrates or it swells in their throats and chokes them


The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows!


To make just one pound of honey, bees must collect nectar from over two million seperate flowers


Cuban bee hummingbird is the smallest hummingbird, only 57 mm (2¼ in) long and half of this is tail and bill. It weighs less than 2 g and is the smallest warm-blooded animal


The color white in the animal kingdom means 'danger' or 'caution'. On safari in Africa it is recommended not to wear white because it can scare away the animals


Cockroach can detect movement as small as 2,000 times the diameter of a hydrogen atom


The cockroach is the fastest animal on 6 legs, covering a meter a second


The cockroach has a high resistance to radiation and is the creature most likely to survive a nuclear war


The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning it's head are the rabbit and the parrot


Did you know that a giraffe can kill a lion with one kick


A sea urchin walks on the tips of its teeth


Humans are the only animals to sleep on their backs


Perfume is frequently made from - among other things- a slippery, musky substance called Ambergris which is vomited up by certain species of whales from time to time


The female angler-fish weights up to half a ton. The male, however, is only a few millimeters long, and spends his whole life attached to her nose


The Panda bear is expected to become extinct by about 2040, barring a drastic change of events


Hummingbirds are the only animal that can fly backwards


Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants


It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky


Elephants have been known to remain standing after they die


The embryos of tiger sharks fight each other while in their mother's womb, the survivor being the baby shark that is born


A crocodile can't move its tongue and ca nnot chew. Its digestive juices are so strong that it can digest a steel nail.


The heart of a blue whale is the size of a small car. The tongue of a blue whale is as long as an elephant


A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes


Giraffes are unable to cough


Dolphins swim in circles while they sleep with the eye on the outside of the circle open to keep watch for predators. After a certain amount of time they reverse and swim in the opposite direction with the opposite eye open


A newborn turkey chick has to be taught to eat, or it will starve


Owls are the only birds that can see the color blue.


A hippopotamus can run faster than a man.


It would take 27,000 spiders, each sp inning a single web, to produce a pound of web


A chameleon's tongue is twice the length of its body


A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second


Ants don't sleep


Aphids are born pregnant without the benefit of sex. Aphids can give birth 10 days after being born themselves


Camel milk does not curdle.


Each day in the US, animal shelters are forced to destroy 30,000 dogs and cats


German Shepherds bite humans more than any other breed of dogs.


Large kangaroos cover more than 30 feet with each jump


It takes forty minutes to hard boil an ostrich egg


It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to be one pound

No two spider webs are the same
It takes 35 to 65 minks to produce the average mink coat. The numbers for other types of fur coats are: beaver - 15; fox - 15 to 25; ermine - 150; chinchilla - 60 to 100


In its entire lifetime, the average worker bee produces 1/12th teaspoon of honey.


The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat


The Pacific Giant Octopus, the largest octopus in the world, grows from the size of pea to a 150 pound behemoth potentially 30 feet across in only two years, its entire life-span.


The penalty for killing a cat, 4,000 years ago in Egypt, was death.


The fastest -moving land snail, the common garden snail, has a speed of 0.0313 mph.


Swans are the only birds with penises


Snails produce a colorless, sticky discharge that forms a protective carpet under them as they travel along. The discharge is so effective that they can crawl along the edge of a razor without cutting themselves


The animal responsible for the most human deaths world-wide is the mosquito.


The dachshund is one of the oldest dog breeds in history (dating back to ancient Egypt.) The name comes from one of its earliest uses - hunting badgers. In German, Dachs means "badger," Hund is "hound."


A zebra is white with black stripes


The turkey was named for what was wrongly thought to be its country of origin


The venom of a female black widow spider is more potent than that of a rattlesnake


The world's largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs 50 tons at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons


There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth


When a female horse and male donkey mate, the offspring is called a mule, but when a male horse and female donkey mate, the offspring is called a hinny


When a queen bee lays the fertilized eggs that will develop into new queens, only one of the newly laid queens actually survives. The first new queen that emerges from her cell destroys all other queens in their cells and, thereafter, reigns alone


When ants find food, they lay down a chemical trail, called a pheromone, so that other ants can find their way from the nest to the food source


If an octopus is hungry enough, it will eat its own arms.

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Insects consume 10% of the world's food supply every year


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


The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds!


Cat's urine glows under a black-light!


The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1


Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently eaten bananas.


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


Over 10000 birds a year die from smashing into windows


The Puffer Fish contains a poison that is 500 times deadlier than cyanide, yet it's a delicacy in Japan.


India has no rabbits in the wild – only hares