Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Random Interesting Facts


French subway stations aren't usually used as parking places
  • Coca Cola was invented by John Pemerton in 1886. It used to be made from coca leaves and could contain traces of cocaine (from 0.1% to 0.9% depending on where grown) Though it is no longer made with cocaine.
  • The Guinness World Record for holding the most Guinness Records is set by Ashrita Furman. Ashrita has set - 303 - official Guinness Records since 1979 and currently holds - 121 (sept 2010)
  • A googol is a large number. the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros: 10,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000.
  • TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
  • The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
  • 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
  • The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottles represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.
  • There are more than 1,700 references to gems and precious stones in the King James translation of the Bible.
  • The bagpipe was originally made from the whole skin of a dead sheep.
  • No piece of normal-size paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
  • 2,520 can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 without having a fractional leftover
  • It is unknown if odd perfect numbers exist
  • A perfect number is a number whose divisors add up to itself such as 28: 1+2+4+7+14=28
  • 5% of the world population lives in the US but 22% of the world's prisons population are held in the US.
  • If you walk outside George Orwell's old house in London you are now captured on surveillance cameras 33 times.
  • Approximately 105 million bicycles are made every year. This is double the number of motor cars made every year.
  • In Chinese the words for 'crisis' and 'opportunity' are the same.
  • The Netherlands has the highest rate of cycling with an average of 2.5 Km per day per person. In the US, this rate is 0.1 Km per person. In the UK 0.2Km (cycling facts)
  • The Rhubarb Triangle is a small area in West Yorkshire between Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell. At one time, the 'Rhubarb triangle' produced 90% of the world's forced winter rhubarb. (Yorkshire Facts)
  • Everything weighs one per cent less at the equator.
  • The mosquito has killed more human beings than any other animal.
  • Birmingham(UK) has 22 more miles of canals than Venice.
  • 9 out of every 10 living thing lives in the ocean.
  • Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian Pharoahs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.
  • HThere have been over 2,00 known nuclear bomb explosions since World War Two.
  • A snail's reproductive organs are in it's head.
  • An adult giraffe´s kick is so powerful it can decapitate a lion.
  • The largest toy distributor in the world is Mcdonalds.
  • The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and Britain in 1896.Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.
  • Each king in a pack of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades-King David , Clubs-Alexander the Great ,Hearts-Charlemagne and Diamonds-Julius Caesar.

A random photo I took in Oxfordshire.

More bizarre facts try: Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts: And Bizarre Information (Bathroom Readers)

47 comments:

Anonymous said...

* John Pemberton

Anonymous said...

paper can now be folder 12 times. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britney_Gallivan

Anonymous said...

The last "fact" regarding the kings in a deck of cards isn't true.

http://www.snopes.com/history/world/cardking.asp

Anonymous said...

It was on a recent episode of QI that the 57 in the 57 varieties is a made up and arbitrary number, put there because it they just thought it looked good.

Anonymous said...

not quite sure about the chinese one. the chinese word for crisis is "wei ji", whereas the word for opportunity is "ji hui"

Anonymous said...

In Chinese the words for 'crisis' and 'opportunity' are the same

How is it the same? One is wei ji 危机 and the other is shi ji 时机

Anonymous said...

2,00 known nuclear bomb explosions

Anonymous said...

In Chinese the words for 'crisis' and 'opportunity' are the same.

Not true: http://www.pinyin.info/chinese/crisis.html

Exhibition Stands said...

MacDonalds the biggest toy distributor, target the kids so the become adult consumers

Anonymous said...

Humans kill more humans than mosquitoes.

Donne Milano said...
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Donne Milano said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

"Everything written on the internet is true"
-George Washington-

Anonymous said...

you guys are gay for actually caring enough to look that up n i caught the "2,00" too good job

Anonymous said...

Crisitunity!
- Homer Simpson

exhibition stands said...

Cool list. Never knew that fact about the kings from the pack of cards where actual people.

Anonymous said...

Best random facts lists I ever saw!

Anonymous said...

Humans are animals lol. going to reddit. thanks for facepalm

Anonymous said...

there's no "Chinese"..it's either Cantonese or Mandarin. so blah blah blah

Anonymous said...

Well, the fact says "normal-size paper," which I assume to be the 8.5"-by-11" printer paper we usually use. The young woman you speak of used a special type of toilet paper.

Anonymous said...

Heinz website states that "While riding a train in New York City in 1896, Henry Heinz saw a sign advertising 21 styles of shoes, which he thought was clever. Although Heinz was manufacturing more than 60 products at the time, Henry thought 57 was a lucky number. So, he began using the slogan "57 Varieties" in all his advertising. Today the company has more than 5,700 products around the globe, but still uses the magic number of "57.""
... these fact sites that don't show their sources...smh

Anonymous said...

"Coca cola... is no longer made with cocaine"


True, however, they do actually still use coca leaves in the recipe-- they're just "de-cocainized" or however they call it. I read that the company has special permission from the government to import massive quantities of coca leaves. Whether the cocaine is removed before, or after they get here I don't know...

Anonymous said...

Source for this?

Anonymous said...

That isn't true in the slightest. It is said that over 50% of every human that has ever lived has died from malaria, which is most commonly spread by the mosquito.

Anonymous said...

Actually, if you ***READ*** the article you refer to ALL the way through, it is true.

Anonymous said...

Chinese isn't a language.

Anne said...

Typewriter? What's that thing with the Y? Is this letter really in the row where T P W R I and E are?

Anonymous said...

They originally attempted to make the bagpipe from the whole skin of a live sheep, but the sheep complained about the noise too much.

Anonymous said...

That's what I've heard ^

Anonymous said...

That's wrong. Abraham Lincoln said it. Get your facts right.

Anonymous said...

true...

Anonymous said...

The reason the word TYPEWRITER can be written from all the letters on the top of a qwerty keyboard is that it was it was handy for early door to door sales men to give a demonstration of the speed of using one.

Anonymous said...

Yes...

Anonymous said...

The sentence of "In Chinese the words for 'crisis' and 'opportunity' are the same" is not quite true. However, they share a same Chinese character.

Anonymous said...

agreed

Anonymous said...

did you not type the word 'typewriter' .....when you typed that?

Anonymous said...

by your definition of perfect number, the only perfect number is 1. because in the example you used, you used all the divisors except one...28.

Anonymous said...

Julius Caesar was never a king..................

Anonymous said...

QI is a delightful entertainment but they occasionally get their "facts" wrong, when I was a small child Heinz advertised 57 varieties of soup, listed on a poster and seen in many grocers of the day. Mind you I can't remember if they were using "57" before then but they certainly pushed it after then.

Anonymous said...

It amuses me that the factoid is seldom stated the correct way. In fact any piece of paper can be folded in half any number of times. The factoid should be stated with the words "without unfolding". For that matter the second fold is in quarters and the third in eighths.

Anonymous said...

The one that makes my laugh the most is bagpipes made from the skin of a dead sheep, thank God they are not made from the skin of a live sheep. Surely "dead" is redundant.

Anonymous said...

Actually ji 机 can stand on it's own and mean both crisis and opportunity. When you think about it it is a an excellent philosophy.
BTW If Chinese is not a language what is it?

Anonymous said...

"typewriter" may be the longest but it is not the only 10 letter word that can be typed on one row of the keyboard, I just came up with 6 more and I could probably find more if I had the time: perpetuity, proprietor, repertoire, pepperwort, perruquier and prerequire. I like the last 2 best because I managed to use the "Q".

Anonymous said...

Actually a mosquito is not an animal. I just had this vision of a mosquito on a train with a blanket over it's head saying, "I am not an animal!".

Anonymous said...

Baaaaahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa

Seher khan said...

Really a great website

Anonymous said...

Nonsense. It's like saying in English we use the same word for textbook and bookend because both words contain the word "book". Just mythological rubbish.