• Molecularly speaking, water is actually much drier than sand.

   

• The term "bank teller" originated in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, when banks began hiring low-paid workers to "tell" throngs of frantic depositors that their money was gone.

   

• The brand name "Jelly Belly" was created in 1982 after Nancy Reagan made a much-publicized quip about her husband's 20-pound weight gain.

   

• The Internal Revenue Service audits 87 percent of women who claim breast implants as tax deductions.

   

• Scandinavian berserkers used to cut out their eyes before battle to spare themselves the sight of the carnage they invariably wrought.

   

• Human tonsils can bounce higher than a rubber ball of similar weight and size, but only for the first 30 minutes after they've been removed.
   

Comic duo Cheech and Chong were originally known as Spic and Span before changing due to pressure from Chicano organizations.

 

The city of Slaughter, Texas (population: 11,284), has never had a homicide occur within its boundaries.

 

Rubbing Tabasco on one's upper lip before bedtime is an effective temporary cure for sleep apnea.

 

British pop singer Baby Spice is the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandniece of Archduke William Pinkley-Hogue of Standishfordshire, making her 103rd in line for the throne of England.

 

The curved shape of a hockey stick is a throwback to prehistoric use of mastodon tusks in a similar game.

 

A Native American tribe in South Dakota collects bottle caps left by campers, using them as currency. Several banks in the area now recognize the caps as legal tender. Imagine all the money you've thrown out.

 

Fish have "dandruff" caused by flaking skin, and it is impossible to filter all traces of it from drinking water.

 

Moths are unable to fly during an earthquake.

 

The first case of the common cold was diagnosed in 1611 in Stratford, England. The patient? John Common, who coincidentally gave his cold to William Shakespeare who said the new malady exacerbated his lovesickness, thereby inspiring several of his most fondly remembered sonnets.

 

"Hello Kitty" began as part of a covert propaganda campaign originally proposed by Prime Minister Tojo during World War II.

 

When in heat, female hippopotami secrete an oil with a flavor similar to strawberries. Kalahari bushmen use the oil to make flat-bread treats for children.

 

If an average human scrotum were stretched until all its wrinkles were smoothed out, it could hold a basketball.

 

 

To commemorate ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, U.S. playing card manufacturers replaced "staffs" with "hearts" as the fourth suit in the deck. The world soon followed.

 

In 1960, a then-unknown Dan Rather auditioned for the voice of cartoon character Dudley Do-Right but was turned down by animator/director Jay Ward.

 

When subjected to an electric current of at least 50 volts, a cat's tail always points toward the north.

 

If the current trend continues, by the year 2215 midgets will outnumber "normal-sized" people.

 

Scientists estimate that sleep lost due to daylight saving time reduces the average lifespan by nearly two full months.

 

In the late '90s, Microsoft secretly developed its own version of Linux, but shelved it after quality control researchers deemed it "too stable."

 

No NCAA basketball team from a school located in its state's capital has ever won the national championship.

 

The African black rhinoceros excretes its own weight in dung every 48 hours.

 

The top three names for female babies born in China last year were Huan Yue, Jia Li and -- unlikely as it seems -- Buffy.

 

Peter Maas, creator of the character Serpico, got his character's name from an ultra-expensive, highly-prized Malaysian liqueur made from fermented viper venom.

 

Shortly before his execution, Timothy McVeigh constructed a scale model of the Lincoln Memorial with soda crackers.

 

• Strains of bacteria similar to E. coli have been found in spent printer cartridges -- but only in the cyan ones. Scientists have no explanation.

   

• The four different people who, at various times, tried -- and failed -- to become the Guinness Book of World Records' "Human Milkshake Volcano" by drinking five gallons of milk and then riding the Six Flags Screaming' Eagle roller coaster all shared the same birthday: September 18, 1970.

   

• The Australian aborigine language has over 30 words for "dust."

   

• Anyone convicted of animal cruelty in Sedalia, Missouri, is sentenced to a month's confinement in the county animal shelter.

   

• Fewer divorces occur in families in which the children wake their parents before 6 a.m. on Saturdays.

   

• A futuristic automobile designed by Ford for the movie Blade Runner was produced and sold in limited quantities as the "Ford Harrison."

   

• John F. Kennedy was an accomplished ventriloquist.

   

• A bad case of laryngitis forced Abraham Lincoln to lip-sync the Gettysburg Address. The speech was actually delivered by an aide hidden beneath the stage.

   

• A prominent organization of anthropologists has predicted that by the year 5000, humans will have two rectums, but only one nostril.

   

• For over a decade, the number of drive-by shootings has been directly proportional to increased gas prices.

   

• Two-thirds of all the world's coriander comes from a single valley in Italy.

   

• As the sheer volume of Internet traffic has increased, the friction of the electrons passing around the planet has increased the overall global temperature by .07 degrees.

   

• Contrary to popular belief, the white is not the healthiest part of an egg. It's actually the shell.

   

• A comprehensive multi-year study using pattern-recognition software determined that Millard Fillmore is the most common identifiable U.S. president seen in cloud formations.

   

• Baking soda and vinegar will make your scrambled eggs fluffier.

   

• The first prototype defibrillators delivered 1,200 joules of electrical energy instead of the now standard 360, occasionally causing dead bodies to sit upright momentarily as though they were still alive.

   

• Ancient Egyptians used molted cobra skins as condoms.

   

• Using its anal sphincter muscle, the Mongolian tapir is capable of creating high-pitched tones that can be heard by dogs nearly 30 miles away.

   

• Customs officials have dogs that are trained to distinguish between Cuban cigars and all other cigars.

   

• Archimedes' screw was the basis for Max Factor's invention of the twisting lipstick holder.

   

• A Tokyo inventor has developed a laptop computer whose battery is recharged by energy generated from the movement of the user's mouse, yet Sony lawyers have successfully blocked every attempt to produce a product using the technology.

   

• Female black cats can actually see their shadows at night.

   

• Ballpoint pens were invented by a Michigan scientist attempting to reduce the number of birds killed for their quills.

   

• Glamorous movie star Brad Pitt once had a summer job posting warning signs at coal mine entrances.

   

• U.S. Army medics in World War I knew of the germ-fighting properties of rodent saliva and carried hamsters in their medical bags to sterilize wounds in the field.

   

• An early draft of the Declaration of Independence included a line by Benjamin Franklin inviting King George to "kisse our collective arse."

   

• Nearly three percent of the ice in Antarctic glaciers is penguin urine.

   

• The sound made when a duck passes gas is the precise acoustic opposite of its quack; if it does both simultaneously, there's no audible sound.

   

• Contrary to their popular image as spinsters, the average librarian has 5.9 random sex partners per year.

   

• The rhesus monkey is the only animal that can be taught to hum a tune.

   

• With the exception of a small 200-square-mile section of Antarctica, every single square kilometer of dry land on the planet has been walked on by at least one human being.

   

• In the weightlessness of space a frozen pea will explode if it comes in contact with Pepsi.

   

• The increased electricity used by modern appliances is causing a shift in the Earth's magnetic field. By the year 2327, the North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.

   

• The idea for "tribbles" in "Star Trek" came from gerbils, since some gerbils are actually born pregnant.

   

• Male rhesus monkeys often hang from tree branches by their amazing prehensile penises.

   

• Johnny Plessey batted .331 for the Cleveland Spiders in 1891, even though he spent the entire season batting with a rolled-up, lacquered copy of the Toledo Post-Dispatch.

   

• Smearing a small amount of dog feces on an insect bite will relieve the itching and swelling.

   

• The Boeing 747 is capable of flying upside-down if it weren't for the fact that the wings would shear off when trying to roll it over.

   

• The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man was owned by Frank Sinatra.

   

• The only golf course on the island of Tonga has 15 holes, and there's no penalty if a monkey steals your golf ball.

   

• Legislation passed during WWI making it illegal to say "gesundheit" to a sneezer was never repealed.

   

• Manatees possess vocal chords which give them the ability to speak like humans, but don't do so because they have no ears with which to hear the sound.

   

• SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below.

   

• Catfish are the only animals that naturally have an ODD number of whiskers.

   

• Replying more than 100 times to the same piece of spam e-mail will overwhelm the sender's system and interfere with their ability to send any more spam.

   

• Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.

   

• The first McDonald's restaurant opened for business in 1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featured the McHaggis sandwich.

   

• The Air Force's F-117 fighter uses aerodynamics discovered during research into how bumblebees fly.

   

• You *can* get blood from a stone, but only if contains at least 17 percent bauxite.

   

• Silly Putty was "discovered" as the residue left behind after the first latex condoms were produced. It's not widely publicized for obvious reasons.

   

• Approximately one-sixth of your life is spent on Wednesdays.

   

• The skin needed for elbow transplants must be taken from the scrotum of a cadaver.

   

• The sport of jai alai originated from a game played by Incan priests who held cats by their tails and swung at leather balls. The cats would instinctively grab at the ball with their claws, thus enabling players to catch them.

   

• A cat's purr has the same romance-enhancing frequency as the voice of singer Barry White.

   

• The typewriter was invented by Hungarian immigrant Qwert Yuiop, who left his "signature" on the keyboard.

   

• The volume of water that the Giant Sequoia tree consumes in a 24-hour period contains enough suspended minerals to pave 17.3 feet of a 4-lane concrete freeway.

   

• King Henry VIII slept with a gigantic axe.

   

• Because printed materials are being replaced by CD-ROM, microfiche and the Internet, libraries that previously sank into their foundations under the weight of their books are now in danger of collapsing in extremely high winds.

   

• In 1843, a Parisian street mime got stuck in his imaginary box and consequently died of starvation.

   

• Touch-tone telephone keypads were originally planned to have buttons for Police and Fire Departments, but they were replaced with * and # when the project was cancelled in favor of developing the 911 system.

   

• Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular water.

   

• Calvin, of the "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, was patterned after President Calvin Coolidge, who had a pet tiger as a boy.

   

• Watching an hour-long soap opera burns more calories than watching a three-hour baseball game.

   

• Until 1978, Camel cigarettes contained minute particles of real camels.

   

• You can actually sharpen the blades on a pencil sharpener by wrapping your pencils in aluminum foil before inserting them.

   

• To human taste buds, Zima is virtually indistinguishable from zebra urine.

   

• Seven out of every ten hockey-playing Canadians will lose a tooth during a game. For Canadians who don't play hockey, that figure drops to five out of ten.

   

• A dog's naked behind leaves absolutely no bacteria when pressed against carpet.

   

• A team of University of Virginia researchers released a study promoting the practice of picking one's nose, claiming that the health benefits of keeping nasal passages free from infectious blockages far outweigh the negative social connotations.

   

• Among items left behind at Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan were 27 issues of Mad Magazine. Al Qaeda members have admitted that bin Laden is reportedly an avid reader.

   

• Urine from male cape water buffaloes is so flammable that some tribes use it for lantern fuel.

   

• At the first World Cup championship in Uruguay, 1930, the soccer balls were actually monkey skulls wrapped in paper and leather.

   

• Every Labrador retriever dreams about bananas.

   

• If you put a bee in a film canister for two hours, it will go blind and leave behind its weight in honey.

   

• Due to the angle at which the optic nerve enters the brain, staring at a blue surface during sex greatly increases the intensity of orgasms.

   

• Never hold your nose and cover your mouth when sneezing, as it can blow out your eyeballs.

   

• Centuries ago, purchasing real estate often required having one or more limbs amputated in order to prevent the purchaser from running away to avoid repayment of the loan. Hence an expensive purchase was said to cost "an arm and a leg."

   

• When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed five gold Krugerrands in his small intestine.

   

• Aardvarks are allergic to radishes, but only during summer months.

   

• Coca-Cola was the favored drink of Pharaoh Ramses. An inscription found in his tomb, when translated, was found to be almost identical to the recipe used today.

   

• If you part your hair on the right side, you were born to be carnivorous. If you part it on the left, your physical and psychological make-up is that of a vegetarian.

   

• When immersed in liquid, a dead sparrow will make a sound like a crying baby.

   

• In WWII the US military planned to airdrop over France propaganda in the form of Playboy magazine, with coded messages hidden in the models' turn-ons and turn-offs. The plan was scrapped because of a staple shortage due to rationing of metal.

   

• Although difficult, it's possible to start a fire by rapidly rubbing together two Cool Ranch Doritos.

   

• Napoleon's favorite type of wood was knotty chestnut.

   

• The world's smartest pig, owned by a mathematics teacher in Madison, WI, memorized the multiplication tables up to 12.

   

• Due to the natural "momentum" of the ocean, saltwater fish cannot swim backwards.

   

• In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives.

   

• It is nearly three miles farther to fly from Amarillo, Texas to Louisville, Kentucky than it is to return from Louisville to Amarillo.

   

• The "nine lives" attributed to cats is probably due to their having nine primary whiskers.

   

• The original inspiration for Barbie dolls comes from dolls developed by German propagandists in the late 1930s to impress young girls with the ideal notions of Aryan features. The proportions for Barbie were actually based on those of Eva Braun.

   

• The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and dodge individual raindrops in mid-flight, arriving safely back at his cave completely dry.

   

• The Mongolian pony is the only animal other than an elephant capable of fending off an attack by a healthy adult tiger.

   

• Because of their unusual shape, Hershey's Kisses contain more calories per ounce than the same amount of chocolate in other forms.

   

• The French language has seventeen different words for "surrender."

   

• The average person can fit exactly one half of their pinky finger in one of their nostrils. However, if an attempt is made to put a pinky finger in EACH nostril, only one quarter of each will fit.

   

• Showing off at a party one evening, Chopin played the entire "Minute Waltz" in under 10 seconds.

   

• If the air in your car's tires is not completely replaced every two years, it can turn to liquid and cause severe damage.

   

• If you tar and feather a 2x4 and place it in your yard, it will ward off bats.

   

• The largest home in the United States, North Carolina's Biltmore House, was originally intended to be the official residence of a new monarchy to be established when the South rose again.

   

• The Toltec calendar was based on a 360-day year, with each day being about 24 hours and 20 minutes long.

   

• The universal size of the credit card is based entirely on the size of the 1960s US Communist Party membership card. Credit cards were designed so that they wouldn't cause the Communist Party card to stand out.

   

• Nobody born in Kentucky has ever been elected to Congress.

   

• In an effort to improve the nutritional value of its "Shamrock shakes," McDonald's colors them with broccoli extract.

   

• Winston Churchill was born with a third nipple, which he removed himself with nail-clippers at the age of 14.

   

• Only a single dissenting vote prevented the death penalty in Texas from being carried out by immersing the convicted person in a nest of fire ants.

   

• If you place a fresh Viagra tablet in a houseplant's soil every six months, the plant will not wilt.

   

• The ancient Arabic word "jorgbushii" translates roughly to "evil one who comes disguised in peace to drink Earth's black blood."

   

• In Finland, "Sintter Klaas" brings bad children a small bag of old toenail clippings.

   

• The practice of putting a letter "e" in front of words to mean "web-based" (e.g., eBusiness, eLearning, etc.) was patented by Microsoft in 1992. They are waiting until their anti-trust trial has been officially completed to begin enforcing it.

   

• The noun "sled" originates from the name of a 18th-century mountaineer from Finland, Schletz Linden, whose body was used by his climbing partner to slide down a mountain during a winter storm after he froze to death.

   

• If a cricket were the size of Mount Rushmore, it could jump to the moon.

   

• The increase in the amount of metals mined and brought to the surface of the earth in order to manufacture SUVs has caused higher tides in the Northern Hemisphere.

   

• Children conceived on airplanes never suffer from motion sickness.

   

• The life span of dogs allowed to dine in cat litter boxes is on average 18 percent longer than that of dogs restricted to commercial diets.

   

• Charles Darwin once attempted to breed flying monkeys by crossing chimpanzees with vultures.

  Dog Mix Monkey?

   

• The steady, rhythmic sound produced by dripping water increases the capacity for sleeping males to experience lucid sexual dreams.

   

• Blue water in a toilet bowl causes males to urinate 7 percent more.

   

• Women who use chewing tobacco are three times LESS likely to accidentally swallow it while they are pregnant.

   

• The melody of the classic hymn "Amazing Grace" originated from a 12th-century pagan song celebrating masturbation.

   

• The Federal Department of Online Commerce has been compiling a list of US-based e-mail addresses. Once 100 million addresses have been collected, the list will be sold to online marketers as part of President Bush's plan to reduce the deficit.

   

• A 9-volt battery contains roughly the same amount of kinetic energy as a bowl of Lucky Charms.

   

• The Yanomami tribesmen of the Amazon basin can track game birds by the slight difference in warmth their shadows create on the forest floor as they fly by, for up to an hour after the birds have departed.

   

• Contrary to the popular saying, 99 percent of the time you lead a horse to water, it'll drink on its own.

   

• The first Ford Excursion was actually designed and built in 1951. It was never marketed because the then-current braking technology required a drum 3 feet wide on each wheel.

   

• Rapid deforestation has decreased the friction of the surface of the Earth, causing it to spin infinitesimally faster and thereby cool the air, combating global warming.

   

• The flush toilet was invented in Flushing, NY.

   

• The inner core of most standard golf balls is made of nougat, which helps the balls remain aloft longer.

   

• On occasions when the sun is shining brightly on falling snowflakes, they contain enough ionic charge to stun insects. Observation of this phenomenon inspired the invention of the bug zapper.

   

• Over the last two decades, more Americans died of heart attacks while watching horror movies in movie theaters than died while sky-diving.

   

• A common misconception is that the term "salsa dancing" derives from the food condiment called salsa. Actually, the dance was invented in the 1930s by a dance teacher named Frankie Salsa.

   

• Every common food product, with the exception of fish and veal, contains some traces of peanut enzymes.

   

• The number of words in the Bible divided by the number of verses equals exactly 666.

   

• An 18th-century law still on the books in Vermont makes it illegal for a woman to lick a stamp in a public place.

   

• Anthropologists have discovered a tribe of South American monkeys with a rudimentary system of government analogous to our own three-branch form of government.

   

• Constipation kills nearly twice as many people as diarrhea, mainly because the former mostly afflicts the old and weak while the latter mostly affects young, strong children.

   

• It is physically impossible to urinate and give blood at the same time.

   

• If you fill a standard 750ml wine bottle with live hornets, their angry buzzing will resonate at precisely the right frequency to shatter the glass.

   

• During his famous "Blue Period," Pablo Picasso invented the substance that eventually became known as Play-Doh.

   

• Every year in the fall, Niagara Falls is shut down for maintenance for 24 hours. The flow is diverted using a massive series of pipes and spigots built for this purpose in 1837.

   

• The rare Chilean hummingbird has been known to suck blood from animals like a giant mosquito.

   

• Tap dancers frequently forget to breathe normally during difficult routines, resulting in an average of 200 tap dancing-related tragedies per year.

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