Text 1960, 302 rader
Skriven 2005-05-04 22:57:44 av Bruno Barbiere (4:801/161.0)
Ärende: Did You Know? (01/10)
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                        Did You Know?

·   Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.

·   The dollar symbol ($) is a U combined with an S (U.S.)

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

·   The Statue of Liberty's tablet is two feet thick.

·   There are two credit cards for every person in the
United States.

·   The slogan on New Hampshire license plates is 'Live Free
or Die'. These license plates are manufactured by prisoners
in the state prison in Concord.

·   The straw was probably invented by Egyptian brewers to
taste in-process beer without removing the fermenting
ingredients which floated on the top of the container.

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

·   The United States government keeps its supply of silver
at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY

·   There are only thirteen blimps in the world.

·   Nine of the thirteen blimps are in the United States.

·   The existing biggest blimp is the Fuji Film blimp.

·   Naugahyde, plastic "leather" was created in Naugatuck,
Connecticut.

·   The Swiss flag is square.

·   The word 'pound' is abbreviated 'lb.' after the
constellation 'libra' because it means 'pound' in Latin, and
also 'scales'. The abbreviation for the British Pound
Sterling comes from the same source: it is an 'L' for
Libra/Lb. with a stroke through it to indicate abbreviation.

·   Sames goes for the Italian lira which uses the same
abbreviation ('lira' coming from 'libra'). So British
currency (before it went metric) was always quoted as
"pounds/shillings/pence", abbreviated "L/s/d"
(libra/solidus/denarius).

·   The three largest land-owners in England are the Queen,
the Church of England and Trinity College, Cambridge.

·   The monastic hours are matins, lauds, prime, tierce,
sext, nones, vespers and compline.

·   If you come from Manchester, you are a Mancunian.

·   No animal, once frozen solid (i.e., water solidifies and
turns to ice) survives when thawed, because the ice crystals
formed inside cells would break open the cell membranes.
However there are certain frogs that can survive the
experience of being frozen. These frogs make special proteins
which prevent the formation of ice (or at least keep the
crystals from becoming very large), so that they actually
never freeze even though their body temperature is below zero
Celsius. The water in them remains liquid: a phenomenon known
as 'supercooling.' If you disturb one of these frogs (just
touching them even), the water in them quickly freezes solid
and they die.

·   The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.

·   Madrid is the only European capital city not situated on
a river.

·   The name for fungal remains found in coal is
sclerotinite.

·   The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue,
Boston, Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a
boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under
an airplane.

·   Emus cannot walk backwards.

·   It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time
that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In
Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is shake and the
46th word from the last word is spear.

·   The shopping mall in Abbotsford, British Columbia,
Canada has the largest water clock in North America.

·   Both writer Edgar Allen Poe and LSD advocate Timothy
Leary were kicked out of West Point.

·   The word posh, which denotes luxurious rooms or
accomodations, originated when ticket agents in England
marked the tickets of travelers going by ship to the Orient.
Since there was no air conditioning in those days, it was
always better to have a cabin on the shady side of the ship
as it passed through the Mediterranean and Suez area. Since
the sun is in the south, those with money paid extra to get
cabin's on the left, or port, traveling to the Asia, and on
the right, or starboard, when returning to Europe. Hence
their tickets were marked with the initials for Port Outbound
Starboard Homebound, or POSH.

·   The top layer of a wedding cake, known as the groom's
cake, traditionally is a fruit cake. That way it will save
until the first anniversery.

·   The German Kaiser Wilhelm II had a withered arm and
often hid the fact by posing with his hand resting on a
sword, or by holding gloves.

·   The forward pass was created by the football team at
Saint Louis University.

·   In every show that Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt (The
Fantasticks) wrote, there is at least one song about rain.

·   A kind of tortoise in the Galapagos Islands has an
upturned shell at its neck so it can reach its head up to eat
cactus branches.

·   The only city whose name can be spelled completely with
vowels is Aiea, Hawaii, located approximately twelve miles
west of Honolulu.

·   Parthenogenesis is the term used to describe the process
by which certain animals are able to reproduce themselves in
successive female generations without intervention of a male
of the species. At least one species of lizard is known to do
so.

·   Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only
have about ten.

·   The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian
phrase "Shah Mat", which means "the king is dead".

·   The ship, the Queen Elizabeth 2, should always be
written as QE2. QEII is the actual queen.

·   "Quisling" is the only word in the English language to
start with "quis."

·   All of the cobble stones that used to line the streets
in New York were originally weighting stones put in the hulls
of Belgian ships to keep an even keel.

·   Nepal is the only country without a rectangular flag (it
looks like two pennants glued on on top of the other)

·   Libya has the only flag which is all one color with no
writing or decoration on it

·   The only borough of New York City that isn't an island
(or part of an island) is the Bronx.

·   The 1957 Milwaukee Braves were the first baseball team
to win the World Series after being relocated.

·   The tune for the "A-B-C" song is the same as "Twinkle,
Twinkle Little Star."

·   When a coffee seed is planted, it takes five years to
yield it's first consumable fruit.

·   The common goldfish is the only animal that can see both
infra-red and ultra-violet light.

·   Linn's Stamp News is the world's largest weekly
newspaper for stamp collectors.

·   Tennessee is bordered by more states than any other. The
eight states are Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi,
Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

·   Des Moines has the highest per capita Jello consumption
in the U.S

·   The Western-most point in the contiguous United States
is Cape Alava, Washington.

·   There are only three animals with blue tongues, the
Black Bear, the Chow Chow dog and the blue-tongued lizard.

·   The first fossilized specimen of Austalopithecus
afarenisis was named Lucy after the palentologists' favorite
song, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, by the Beatles.

·   Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."

·   The geographical center of North America is near Rugby,
North Dakota.

·   The infinity sign is called a lemniscate.

·   Hacky-sack was invented in Turkey.

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

·   There are six five words in the English language with
the letter combination "uu." Muumuu, vacuum, continuum,
duumvirate and duumvir, residuum.

·   The "Calabash" pipe, most often associated with Sherlock
Holmes, was not used by him until William Gillette (an
American) portrayed Holmes onstage. Gillette needed a pipe he
could keep in his mouth while he spoke his lines.

·   Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of F.

·   Dirty Harry's badge number is 2211.

·   The pupil of an octopus' eye is rectangular.

·   The shortest French word with all five vowels is
"oiseau" meaning bird.

·   Camel's milk does not curdle.

·   "Mr. Mojo Risin" is an anagram for Jim Morrison.

·   The ball on top of a flagpole is called the truck.

·   A person from the country of Nauru is called a Nauruan;
this is the only palindromic nationality.

·   The word "modem" is a contraction of the words
"modulate, demodulate."

·   Oliver Cromwell was hanged and decapitated two years
after he had died.

·   In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been
domesticated.

·   Iowa has more independent telephone companies than any
other state.

·   Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.

·   Hamsters love to eat crickets.

·   The only "real" food that U.S. Astronauts are allowed to
take into space is pecan nuts.

·   The word "queueing" is the only English word with five
consecutive vowels.

·   The first Eagle Scout west of the Mississippi is buried
in San Marcos, Texas.

·   In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman
somewhere.

·   Roberta Flack wrote "Killing Me Softly" about singer Don
McLean.

·   The Greek version of the Old Testament is called the
Septuagint.

·   Spencer Eldon was the name of the naked baby on the
cover of Nirvana's album

·   All three major 1996 Presidential candidates, Clinton,
Dole and Perot, are left-handed.

·   The Madagascan Hissing Cockroach is one of the few
insects who give birth to live young, rather than laying
eggs.

·   The book of Esther in the Bible is the only book which
does not mention the name of God.

·   Sheriff came from Shire Reeve. During early years of
feudal rule in England, each shire had a reeve who was the
law for that shire. When the term was brought to the United
States it was shortned to Sheriff.

·   An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.

·   Dracula is the most filmed story of all time, Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde is second and Oliver Twist is third.

·   The silhouette on the NBA logo is Jerry West.

·   The silhouette on the Major League Baseball logo is
Harmon Killebrew.

·   The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the

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