222 Useless Facts

  1. For every human being on earth, there are about 200 million insects.
  2. The harmonica is the world's most popular instrument.
  3. The puck in ice hockey can travel at up to 118 mph (190 km/h).
  4. If you stretched all the nerves in the body from end to end, they would be about 47 miles long.
  5. Humans have more than 600 muscles in their bodies.
  6. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
  7. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
  8. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
  9. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
  10. There are more chickens than people in the world.
  11. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
  12. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
  13. All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
  14. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
  15. All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
  16. Almonds are a member of the peach family.
  17. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
  18. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
  19. The largest cabbage weighed 144 lbs.
  20. 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 size: "L.A."
  21. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
  22. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
  23. Tigers have striped skin, not just stripped fur.
  24. In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
  25. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
  26. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life."
  27. A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
  28. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
  29. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (DON'T try this at home!)
  30. The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
  31. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
  32. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
  33. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
  34. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
  35. "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
  36. Many hamsters blink one eye at a time.
  37. The inventor of the flushing toilet was Thomas Crapper.
  38. The average bed is home to over 6 billion dust mites.
  39. Plastic lawn flamingos outnumber real flamingos in the U.S.A.
  40. Starfish have no brain.
  41. Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
  42. Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel with over 50,000 words, none of which contained the letter "E".
  43. Bulls are color blind.
  44. "Babe" was played by over 48 pigs.
  45. Mosquitoes have 47 teeth.
  46. Lip stick contains fish scales.
  47. The Poison Arrow frog has enough poison to kill 2200 people.
  48. The largest known kidney stone weighed 1.36 kilograms.
  49. Women blink twice as many times as men do.
  50. A bowling pin only has to tilt 7.5 degrees in order to fall down.
  51. The life span of a taste bud is ten days.
  52. Pi has been calculated to 2,260,321,363 digits.
  53. A stretched out Slinky is 87 feet long.
  54. An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.
  55. Emus can't walk backwards.
  56. A group of unicorns is called a blessing.
  57. A group of kangaroos is called a mob.
  58. A group of whales is called a pod.
  59. A group of geese is called a gaggle.
  60. A group of owls is called a parliament.
  61. A group of ravens is called a murder.
  62. A group of bears is called a sleuth.
  63. 12 or more cows is called a flink.
  64. A baby oyster is called a spat.
  65. Chickens can't swallow while they are upside down.
  66. The average garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.
  67. Pinocchio was made of pine.
  68. The largest pumpkin weighed 1262 lbs.
  69. A mule won't sink in quicksand but a donkey will.
  70. More people are killed annually by donkeys than in airplane crashes.
  71. Alfred Hitchcock had no belly button for it was eliminated during surgery.
  72. The average human produces 10,000 gallons of saliva in a lifetime.
  73. A quarter has 119 grooves around the edge.
  74. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
  75. Cranberry Jell-0 is the only kind that contains real fruit.
  76. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
  77. Every time you lick a stamp you consume 1/10 of a calorie.
  78. The pound sign # is called anoctothorpe.
  79. Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.
  80. New Jersey has a spoon museum with over 5,400 spoons from almost all the states.
  81. There was once a town in West Virginia called "6".
  82. Napolean made his battle plans in a sandbox.
  83. Roman Emperor Caligula made his horse a senator.
  84. If you ate too many carrots you would turn orange.
  85. Pluto's orbit crosses Neptune's making Pluto the eighth planet from the sun. It has been that way since 1979 and remained that way until 1999.
  86. The earth is approx. 6,588,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
  87. The force of 1 billion people jumping at the same time is equal to 500 tons of TNT.
  88. Popeye was 5'6".
  89. The first word spoken on the moon was "Okay".
  90. Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with his left foot first.
  91. The percent of women who wash their hands after leaving a restroom is 80%.
  92. The percent of men who wash their hands after using a restroom is 55%.
  93. "Jaws" is the most common name for a goldfish.
  94. The longest time a person has been in a coma is 37 years.
  95. It takes the Where's Waldo artist one month to complete a drawing.
  96. 2500 lefties die each year using products designed for righties.
  97. A baby is born every 7 seconds.
  98. 10 tons of space dust fall on the Earth everyday.
  99. On average, a 4 year old child asks 437 questions a day.
  100. Blue and white are the most common school colors.
  101. Swimming pools in Phoenix, Arizona, pick up 20 pounds of dust a year.
  102. A baby in Florida was named: Truewilllaughinglifebuckyboomermanifestdestiny. His middle name is George James.
  103. It is illegal to ride a street car on Sunday if you have been eating garlic in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
  104. In a normal life time an American will eat 200 pounds of peanuts and 10,000 pounds of meat.
  105. America's best selling ice-cream flavour is vanilla.
  106. Every year the sun loses 360 million tons.
  107. Because of Animal Crackers, many kids until they reach the age of ten, believe a bear is as tall as a giraffe.
  108. You can tell if a skunk is about if you smell only .000 000 000 000 071 ounce of its spray.
  109. Penguins are the only bird that can leap into the air like porpoises.
  110. By some unknown means, an iguana can end its own life.
  111. Pigs can cover a mile in 7.5 minutes when running at top speed.
  112. You breathe about 10 million times a year.
  113. The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you'll have a bad dream.
  114. The first non-human to win an Oscar was Mickey Mouse.
  115. The bullseye on a dartboard must be 5 feet 8 inches off the ground.
  116. The foot is the most common body part bitten by insects.
  117. The monkey wrench was invented by Charles Moncke.
  118. There are approx. 550 hairs in the eyebrow.
  119. A squid has 10 tentacles.
  120. A snail's reproductive organs are in its head.
  121. A cow's only sweat glands are in its nose.
  122. When a horned toad is angry, it squirts blood from it's eyes.
  123. Napoleon was terrified of cats.
  124. The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger.
  125. After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp.
  126. A person swallows approximately 295 times while eating dinner.
  127. The oldest known vegetable is the pea.
  128. The letter N ends all Japanese words not ending in a vowel.
  129. The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone.
  130. The most sensitive finger on the human hand is the index finger.
  131. The left leg of a chicken in more tender than the right one.
  132. The only dog that doesn't have a pink tongue is the chow.
  133. It takes the typical person seven minutes to fall asleep.
  134. Ants stretch when they wake up in the morning.
  135. Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
  136. About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.
  137. A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 600 m.p.h.
  138. Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.
  139. Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue.
  140. A jellyfish is 95 percent water.
  141. The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.
  142. The penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly.
  143. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
  144. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
  145. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
  146. A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans.
  147. The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth.
  148. A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
  149. A cockroach will live nine days without it's head, before it starves to death.
  150. Dogs and cats, like humans, are either right of left handed... or is that pawed?
  151. The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven.
  152. Apples are more efficient than caffeine in keeping people awake in the mornings.
  153. Smelling bananas and/or green apples (smelling, not eating) can help you lose weight.
  154. Coca-Cola was originally green.
  155. A duck's quack does not echo and no one knows why.
  156. Intelligent people have more copper and zinc in their hair.
  157. The youngest pope was 11 years old.
  158. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet
  159. Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.

160.   The San Francisco Cable cars are the only "mobile" National Monuments.

161.   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 learned how to walk up standard staircases.

162.   When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.

163.   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.

164.   111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

165.   Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of unwanted people (without killing them) used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."

166.   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.

167.   David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all of Vader's lines, and didn't know his voice was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.

168.   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 blacks and whites.

169.   The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel fuel that it burns.

170.   Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

171.   It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.

172.   In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.

173.   The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.

174.   On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

175.   You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.

176.   Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

177.   In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked every hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

178.   A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

179.   Butterflies taste with their feet.

180.   A cat's urine glows under a blacklight.

181.   There are more collect calls made on Father's Day than on any other day.

182.   Men can read smaller print than women, women can hear better than men.

183.   The world's youngest parents were 8 & 9 and lived in China in 1910.

184.   Honey is the only food that doesn't spoil

185.   The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosey is a rhyme about the bubonic plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores (Ring around the Rosey...). These sores would smell very bad so people would hide flowers on their bodies in an attempt to mask the smell ("pocket full of posies..."). People who died from the plague would be burned to reduce the spread of the disease ("ashes, ashes, we all fall down").

186.   The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; "7" was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. "UP" indicated the direction of the bubbles.

187.   Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.

188.   Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.

189.   The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.

190.   No piece of paper can be folded more than 7 times.

191.   Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.

192.   The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.

193.   Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

194.   Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.

195.   Timekeepers have clocked the action in a 60 minute football game to actually be around 14 minutes.

196.   The tip of a whip makes a cracking sound because it is moving faster than the speed of sound.

197.   An ear of corn almost always has an even number of rows (twelve, fourteen, or sixteen).

198.   Earthworms have five hearts.

199.   Whale vomit is used in perfume and the flavoring of dried fruit and tobacco.

200.   All Polar bears are left handed.

201.   If you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn white.

202.   Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.

203.   The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

204.   It is impossible to lick your elbow.

205.   A shrimp's heart is in its head.

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

207.   A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

208.   Rats and horses can't vomit.

209.   The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

210.   If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.

211.   Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.

212.   Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

213.   23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their buttocks.

214.   In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.

215.   On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.

216.   A snail can sleep for three years.

217.   Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

218.   The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

219.   If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall.

220.   The average fart travels over 16 feet when released.

221.   An ant can live underwater for over 14 days.

222.   In some places in Egypt it is free to use the restroom but you must bring/buy your own toilet paper.

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