MATH

- 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
- If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.

LANGUAGE

- Stewardesses and reverberated are the two longest words (12 letters each) that can be typed using only the left hand. The longest word that can be typed using only the right hand is lollipop. Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands.
- The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The, follow- ing sentence contains them all: "A roughcoated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
- The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
- "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
- The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
- Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
- The shape of plant collenchyma cells and the shape of the bubbles in beer foam are the same - they are orthotetrachidecahedrons.
- The word 'pound' is abbreviated 'lb' after the constellation 'libra' because it means 'pound' in Latin, and also 'scales.' The abbreviation for the British Pound Sterling comes from the same source: it is an 'L' for Libra/Lb with a stroke through it to indicate abbreviation. Same goes for the Italian Lira which uses the same abbreviation ('lira' coming from 'libra'). So British currency (before it went metric) was always quoted as pounds/shillings/pence, abbreviated "L/S/D" (Libra/Solidus/Denarius).
- Where does the term "a feather in your cap" originate? It comes from the ancient custom of placing a feather in a soldier's cap for every enemy killed.
- Why are aircraft storage buildings called "hangars" when planes don't actually hang in them? The word comes from the 16th century French "angar," which is an open shed for storing plows and similar objects. The French term is derived from the Latin "angarium" for "shed" or "stable".
- How did the term "a cup of Joe" come to refer to coffee? Coffee became the strongest drink aboard ships when Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels abolished the officers' wine mess in 1913.
- Who were the original "free lancers?" Medieval knights who owed allegiance only to themselves and anyone willing to pay for their military services, i.e., their "lances."
- Where did the saying "devil to pay" come from? The "devil" on a wooden ship is the longest seam on the hull, and "pay" is the tar used for caulking. Squatting in the bilges "paying the devil" was an unpleasant task.
- The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead."
- Pinocchio is Italian for "Pine head."
- Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down -- hence the expression "to get fired."
- An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.
- The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," uses every letter in the alphabet & was developed by Western Union to test telex communications.
- The Bible has been translated into Klingon.

ANIMALS

- A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
- A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
- The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
- Polar bears are left-handed.
- The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds; that makes the catfish rank #1 for animal having the most taste buds.
- The flea can jump 350 times its body length, that is like a human jumping the length of a football field.
- A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death.
- The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
- Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
- Butterflies taste with their feet.
- Starfish haven't got brains.
- A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
- A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a skein.
- The underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. The frog peels off several times a year with new growth.
- Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
- Cats have over 100 vocal sounds, while dogs only have about 10.
- Cat's urine glows under a black light.
- Camel's milk does not curdle.
- Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.
- The names of the three wise monkeys are:
Mizaru: See no evil, Mikazari: Hear no evil, and Mazaru: Speak no evil.
- The word for "dog" in the Australian aboriginal language Mbabaran happens to be "dog."
- When opossums are playing 'possum,' they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
- All elephants walk on tip-toe because the back portion of their foot is made up of all fat and no bone.
- An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.
- The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
- All Porcupines float in water.
- Cost of raising a medium size dog to age of 11: $6400.
- There were no squirrels on Nantucket Island, Mass. until 1989.
- It's possible to lead a cow upstairs ... but not downstairs.
- If you bring a raccoon's head to the Henniker, N.H. town hall, you are entitled to receive $10 from the town.
- 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.
- Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.
- Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
- Elephants can't jump. Every other mammal can.
- Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of "Lorne Greene's Wild Kingdom."

HISTORY

- In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel 1 to mobile services (two- way radios in taxicabs, for instance) but did not renumber the other channel assignments. That is why your TV set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1.
- The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
- The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.
- Texas is the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.
- 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.
- The only nation who's name begins with an "A" but doesn't end in an "A" is Afghanistan.
- San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
- Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th - John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
- The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for black and whites.
- The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
- Pamela Anderson Lee is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence.
- The world's largest wine cask is in Heidelberg, Germany. - The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
- Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California.
- In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
- In Cleveland, Ohio, it's illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.

MUSIC-MOVIES

- Hang On Sloopy is the official rock song of Ohio.
- The first song played on Armed Forces Radio during operation Desert Shield was "Rock the Casba" by the Clash.
- The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)
- David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader's lines, and didn't know that he was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.

MISC.

- The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.
- St. Stephen is the patron saint of bricklayers.
- Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
- In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
- On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
- The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
- It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
- You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.

FOOD-DRINKS

- Coca-Cola was originally green.
- Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other country.
- Nondairy creamer is flammable.
- Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.
- Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?
- Amount the American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served first class: $40,000.
- Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
- There are an average of 178 sesame seeds on a McDonald's Big Mac bun.
- Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.
- When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles/year.
- The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.

STATITICS

- City with most Rolls Royce's per capita: Hong Kong.
- State with highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska.
- % of Africa that is wilderness: 28% --- % of America that is wilderness: 38%
- # of people airborne over US at any time: 61,000.
- Percentage of American's who have visited Disneyland/World: 70%.
- Intelligent people have more copper and zinc in their hair.
- The youngest pope was 11 years old.
- Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
- Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
- Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
- The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
- 10% of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.
- 90% of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
- In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.
- Average age of top GM executives in 1994: 49.8 years.
- Average age of the Rolling Stones: 50.6.
- If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months, and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
- If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
- The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
- Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
- Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
- Every time you lick a stamp you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
- Right Handed people live, on average, 9 years longer than left handed people.
- Did you know that your are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider?

SPORT

- No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl.
- The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-star Game.

STRIKING FACTS ABOUT LIGHTNING

- Summer's here and along with it comes lightning, a force of nature that fascinates some while terrifying others.
Lightning actually hits the Earth about 100 times/sec, or 8 million times/day. The U.S. experiences over 20 million strikes/yr. At any given time, there are nearly 2,000 thunderstorms occurring over the Earth's surface. For the US, that means 100,000 storms annually.
You can experience lightning on a clear day. Cloud-to-ground lightning can occur anywhere within a 10-mile radius of a thunderstorm. The thunder that follows lightning can be heard up to 10 miles away.
When negative charges from a high-altitude anvil cloud's base are attracted to positive charges on Earth, cloud-to-ground lightning occurs. The bolt that carries the current to the ground contains about 1 billion volts and between 10,000-20,000 amps of current. The bright flash is called the "return stroke." Lightning strokes average about 6 miles in length. Glowing air around the bolt makes it appear wider than it is. Lightning's return stroke can reach 50,000F. Pretty hot stuff when you compare it to the sun's surface which only reaches 11,000F. Because of this high temperature, the air around a lightning bolt "cooks" to between 15,000-50,000F and then explodes, producing thunder. The closer the strike the louder the bang. Rumbling thunder is the "clap" arriving at a different time due to distance of the lightning. Most of the damage caused by lightning is to sensitive electronics which suffer surge damage. Hundreds of millions of dollars in property losses are reported annually in the U.S.

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