Interesting Facts & Trivia

Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the deaths of their
cats.

A bowling pin need only tilt 7.5 degrees in order to fall down.

The right side of a boat was called the starboard side due to the fact
that the astronavigators used to stand out on the plank (which was on the
right side) to get an unobstructed view of the stars. The left side was
called the port side because that was the side you put in on at the port.
This was so that they didn't knock off the starboard! 

The Japanese word "Arigato" meaning thank you is derived from the
Portugese word "Obrigado". Portugal once had a thriving trade with Japan. 

The bubbles in Guiness Beer sink to the bottom rather than float to the
top like all other beers. No one knows why. (Yet another reason why only
us Irish would drink the stuff!)

Jupiter's core is in fact made of a non-metal, but due to the immense
pressure inside Jupiter the core has become a metal. This metal is
hydrogen.

A fullgrown bear can run as fast as a horse.

Every male over the 18 is considered part of the Arizona Militia according
to state constitution.

The word "karate" means "empty hand."

Four people played Darth Vader: David Prowse was his body, James Earl
Jones did the voice, Sebastian Shaw was his face and a fourth person did
the breathing.

A hamlet is a village without a church and a town is not a city until it
has a cathedral.

49.6% of US residents live in Eastern time zone, 29.3% live in the Central
time zone, 5.3% live in the Mountain time zone, 15.0% live in the Pacific
time zone and .8% live in any other time zone.

If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the
top and sinking to the bottom. (Which obviously does wonders for a good
glass of champagne.  On a further note, the 'ol Pirate has it on good
faith that this trick doesn't work with a fine glass malt liquor)

Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard. (Rumour
has it that Tommy Lee Jones was a Rhodes Scholar, along with Kris
Kristofferson and Bill Clinton. Scary!)

A lion's roar can be heard from five miles away.

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.

The first song played on Armed Forces Radio during operation Desert Shield
was "Rock the Casbah" by the Clash.

The launching mechanism of a carrier ship that helps planes to take off,
could throw a pickup truck over a mile. (That'll teach that poor schmuck
not to park there again!)

If you told someone that they were one in a million, you'd be saying there
were about 1,800 of them in China.

A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.

The average sixty minute audio cassette tape has 562.5 feet of tape in it,
nearly two football fields long

The ashes of the average cremated person weigh nine pounds.

Assuming Rudolph was in front, there are 40,320 ways to arrange the other
eight reindeer.

The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those
of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.

Robert E. Lee, of the Confederate Army, remains the only person, to date,
to have graduated from the West Point military academy without a single
demerit. (At least he knew which side to sign up on!)

Croatia was the first country to recognize the United States in 1776.

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.

There are only 14 blimps in the world, and 10 of them are in the U.S.

Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eyes."

If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat it measures 87 feet long. 

Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of F. The telephone dial tone is
also in the key of F.

The Chinese ideogram for 'trouble' depicts two women living under one
roof. The Chinese words for crisis and opportunity are the same.

Ralph Lauren's original name was Ralph Lifshitz.

Lizzie Borden was acquitted.

Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal
category.