Amazing Facts

I'm not so sure if these facts are true. But I did double check some of the fact such as by listening to cricket chirping, we can guess the approx air temperature. That's cool. Anyway, Enjoy!

 

• The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
• The military salute originated during the medieval times. Knights in armor used to raise their visors to reveal their identity, and the motion later evolved into the modern-day salute.
• The Mills Brothers have recorded the most songs of any artist: about 2,250.
• The minarets of the Taj Mahal in India are angled at 88 degrees outwards so that they would not collapse into the structure should an earthquake occur. Read more after the break...

• The minimum number of darts that need to be thrown to complete a single in, double out game of 501 is nine.
• The Miss America Contest was created in Atlantic City in 1921 with the purpose of extending the tourist season beyond Labor Day.
• The model of King Kong used in the original movie was only 18 inches tall.
• The modern Olympic Games were held in the first time in 1896 at Athens and were then followed by the 1900 Paris games. The winter games were added in 1924.
• The mola mola or ocean sunfish lays up to 5,000,000 eggs at one time.
• The Mona Lisa, by daVinci, is 2'6" by 1'9".
• The Mona-Lisa, now hanging in the Louvre museum in Paris, is valued today at $100,000,000.
• The monastic hours are matins, lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, vespers and compline.
• The Montreal Canadians of the mid-1950s are the only team to win five straight Stanley Cup championships.
• The Monty Python movie "The Life of Brian" was banned in Scotland.
• The moon actually has mirrors on it. They were left there by astronauts who wanted to bounce laser beams off them, so that the distance to the moon can be measured.
• The most abundant metal in the Earth's crust is aluminum.
• The most collect calls are made on father's day.
• The most common blood type in the world is Type O. The rarest, Type A-H, has been found in less than a dozen people since the type was discovered.
• The most common disease in the world is tooth - decay.
• The most common injury in bowling is a sore thumb.
• The most common street name in the United States is Second Street. First Street isn't first because many times the designation is replaced with the name Main Street.
• The most expensive book or manuscript ever sold at an auction was The Codex Hammer, a notebook belonging to Leonardo da Vinci. It sold for $30.8 million.
• The most expensive movie memorabilia ever sold at an auction was Clark Gable's Academy Award for It Happened One Night. It sold for$607,500 on December 15, 1996.
• The most expensive painting ever sold at auction was Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh. On May 15, 1990, Ryoei Saito paid $75 million for it. He followed up that spending spree by paying the second-highest price ever, $71 million for Au Moulin de la Galette by PierreAuguste Renoir, just two days later.
• The most frequently seen birds at feeders across North America last winter were the Dark-eyed Junco, House Finch and American goldfinch, along with downy woodpeckers, blue jays, mourning doves, black-capped chickadees, house sparrows, northern cardinals and european starlings. 
• The most searched thing on yahoo.com every year is porn.
• The most snow accumulation in a one-day period was 75.8 inches at Silver Lake, Colorado, in April 1921.
• The most used line in the movies is "Lets get out of here."
• The most widely accepted legend associated to the discovery of coffee is of the goatherder named Kaldi of Ethiopia. Around the year 800-850 A.D., Kaldi was amazed as he noticed his goats behaving in a frisky manner after eating the leaves and berries of a coffee shrub. And, of course, he had to try them!
• The most widely cultivated fruit in the world is the Apple.The second is the Pear.
• The motto for the Olympic Games is Citius Altius Fortius. Translated, it means Faster Higher Stronger.
• The mouse is the most common mammal in the US.
• The movie As Good As It Gets is called Mr. Cat Poop in China.
• The movie Quo Vadis had 30,000 extras.
• The Museum of Modern Art in New York City hung Matisse's 'Le Bateau' upside-down for 47 days before an art student noticed the error.
• The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
• The nail of our middle finger grows the fastest and the nail of our thumb grows slowest.
• The name "Uncle Sam" for the U.S. came from a person known as Uncle Sam Wilson of Troy, NY, who supplied food for the U.S. army in the war of 1812.
• The name for Oz in the Wizard of Oz was thought up when the creator Frank Baum looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z.
• The name for the middle part of the nose (the part that separates the nostrils) is called a chaffanu.
• The name 'Intel' stems from the company's former name, 'Integrated Electronics'.
• The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
• The name of the dog from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" is Max.
• The name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box is Bingo.
• The name of the first airplane flown at Kitty Hawk by the Wright Brothers, on December 17, 1903, was Bird of Prey.
• The name of the Russian space station, Mir, means "peace."
• The name Santa Claus is a corruption of the Dutch dialect name for Saint Nicholas Sint Klass.
• The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan". There was never a recorded Wendy before.
• The name Wendy was made up for the book 'Peter Pan'. It came from the author's friends, whom he called his "fwendy" (friend)
• The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy before it.
• The nation of Monaco on the French Riviera, is smaller than Central Park in New York. Monaco is 370 acres and Central Park is 840 acres.
• The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses.
• The national dish of Scotland, haggis, is made of the heart, liver, lungs and small intestines of a calf. It's then boiled in the stomach of the animal, and seasoned with salt, pepper and onions. Oh, and don't forget to add the suet and oatmeal.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced in 1978 that it would alternate men's and women's names in the naming of hurricanes. It was seen as an attempt at fair play. Hurricanes had been named for women for years, until NOAA succumbed to pressure from women's groups who were demanding that Atlantic storms be given unisex names.
• The national sport of Nauru, a small Pacific island, is lassoing flying birds.
• The Navy SEALs were formed in 1962.
• The Neanderthal's brain was bigger than yours is.
• The nearest relative of the hippopotamus is the common pig.
• The Netherlands is the lowest country in the world. An estimated 40% of its land is below sea level.
• The New York City Chamber of Commerce is the oldest chamber of commerce in the United States. King George III granted a royal charter for it in 1770.
• The New York phone book had 22 Hitlers listed before World War II .. and none after.
• The New York Yankees have won the most championships (26 times) in their respected sport (MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL) for any professional sports team.
• The Nile catfish swim upside down.
• The number 111,111,111 multiplied by itself will result in the number 12,345,678,987,654,321.
• The number 2,520 can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 without having a fractional leftover.
• The number 37 will wholly divide (no decimals) into 111, 222, 333, 444, 555, 666, 777, 888, and 999.
• The number of atoms in a pound of iron is nearly five trillion trillion: 4,891,500,000,000,000,000,000,000.
• The number of cricket chirps you count in a fifteen-second span, plus 37, will tell you the approximate current air temperature.
• The number of possible ways of playing just the first four moves on each side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
• The number of times a drowning person will rise to the surface depends on how much air is in his lungs. He could rise once, twice, or five times. Or not at all. Obese people will stay afloat longer than skinny people because fat contains air molecules.
• The number of triplets born in the US in 1994 (4,594) was more than triple the number born in 1971 (1,034), an increase attributed to older age of the mothers and the use of fertility-enhancing drugs and techniques.
• The number of VCRs in the United States grew from 52,565,000 in 1987 to 86,825,000 in 1997, a 39.5% increase.
• The numbers "172" can be found on the back of a US $5 bill, in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln memorial.
• The numbers 111 222 333 444 555 666 777 888 999 are all multiples of 37.
• The numbers on opposite sides of a die always add up to seven.
• The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosy is a rhyme about the plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores ("Ring around the rosy..."), these sores would smell very badly so common folks would put flowers on their bodies somewhere (inconspicuously), so that it would cover the smell of the sores ("...a pocket full of posies..."), People who died from the plague would be burned so as to reduce the possible spread of the disease ("...ashes, ashes, we all fall down!")
• The Oblivion ride at Alton Towers has a G-force of 5. That's higher than the G-force of an average NASA take-off!
• The occupations of the three men in a tub were butcher, baker, and candlestick maker.
• The odds against a royal flush in poker are exactly 649,739 to 1.
• The odds of being born male are about 51.2%, according to census.
• The official definition of a desert is any land that where more water evaporates than is acquired through precipitation.
• The official name of the St. Louis Gateway Arch is "The Jefferson National Expansion Monument." The Gateway Arch looks taller than it is wider, but it is exactly 630 feet by 630 feet.
• The official sport for the State of Maryland is jousting.
• The official state song of Georgia since 1922 has been "Georgia on My Mind".
• The Ohio river forms at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela.
• The Ouija board was invented by Isaac and William Fuld, and was patented July 1, 1892.
• The oldest "cricket" match was played between the USA and Canada in 1844.
• The oldest continuous comic strip still in existence is The Katzenjammer Kids. It first appeared in newspapers in 1897.
• The oldest exposed surface on earth is New Zealand's south island.
• The oldest goldfish lived for 14,795 days.
• The oldest living thing in existence is not a giant redwood, but a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California, dated to be aged 4,600 years old.
• The oldest man-made building of any kind still existing is the central edifice of the 4,600-year-old mastaba (a tomb for kings) built at Sakkara, Egypt. It was created to honor King Zoser, the first ruler of the Third Dynasty.
• The oldest musical instrument is probably the flute. It's been discovered that primitive cave dwellers made an instrument from bamboo or some other small hollow wood.
• The oldest person to live was Jeanne Louise Calment, she lived for a whopping 122 years until she died of smoking related complications. Don't Smoke! 
• The oldest recorded document on paper made from fibrous material was a deed of King Roger of Sicily, in the year 1102.
• The oldest tennis court in the world is the one built at Hampton Court in 1530 for Henry VIII.
• The oldest works of art are pictures of animals found in caves in Spain and France. They have been dates as far back as 18,000 years ago.
• The olive branch in the eagle's right talon has 13 leaves.
• The Olympic Games were held in St. Louis, MO. In 1904, the first time that the games were held in the United States. 
• The Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic, and she provided twenty-five years of service.
• The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable"!
• The only animals that can naturally sleep on their backs are humans. No other animal actually does--apes usually sleep sitting up and leaning on something.
• The only big cat that doesn't roar is a Jaguar.
• The only bird that can fly backwards is the hummingbird.
• The only bird that cannot fly is the penguin.
• The only bone in the human body not connected to another is the hyoid, a V-shaped bone located at the base of the tongue between the mandible and the voice box. Its function is to support the tongue and its muscles.
• The only bone not broken so far during any ski accident is one located in the inner ear.
• The only continent without reptiles or snakes is Antarctica.
• The only countries in the world with one syllable in their names are Chad, France, Greece, and Spain.
• The only difference between brown eyes and every other colored eyes is that brown eyes have more pigment.
• The only dog to ever appear in a Shakespearean play was Crab in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
• The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
• The only father and son to hit back-to-back home runs in a major league baseball game: Ken Griffey, Jr., and his father, Ken Griffey, Sr., both of the Seattle Mariners in a game against the California Angels on September 14th, 1990.
• The only food cockroaches won't eat are cucumbers.
• The only jointless bone in your body is the hyoid bone in your throat.
• The only loss Packers' coach Vince Lombardi ever suffered in the postseason was to the Philadelphia Eagles, 17-13, in the 1960 NFL championship game.
• The only member of the British House of Commons who is not allowed to speak is the man called the Speaker of the House.
• The only MLB team to have both its city's name and its team name in a foreign language is the San Diego Padres.
• The only mobile national monuments in the United States are the cable cars in San Francisco.
• The only one of his sculptures that Michelangelo signed was the "The Pieta," completed in 1500.
• The only painting by Leonardo da Vinci on permanent display in the United States hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. It's a portrait of Ginevra di Benci, the wife of a politician in Florence.
• The only president buried in Washington, D.C. proper: Woodrow Wilson, who was laid to rest in the National Cathedral.
• The only president buried on the grounds of a state capitol: James Polk in Nashville, Tenn.
• The only President in office to weigh less than 100 pounds was James Madison.
• The only President to be head of a labor union was Ronald Reagan.
• The only presidents buried together: John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams are in a basement crypt in Quincy, Mass.
• The only real person to be a PEZ head was Betsy Ross.
• The only repealed amendment to the US Constitution deals with the prohibition of alcohol.
• The only rock that floats in water is pumice.
• The only state allowed to fly its flag at the same height as the U.S. flag is Texas.
• The only three non-Presidents pictured on U.S. paper money are: Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill, and Salmon Chase on the $10,000 bill.
• The only time the human population declined was in the years following 1347, the start of the epidemic of the plague 'Black Death' in Europe.