Text 1965, 302 rader
Skriven 2005-05-04 22:57:45 av Bruno Barbiere (4:801/161.0)
Ärende: Did You Know? (06/10)
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·   Dr. Seuss pronounced "Seuss" such that it rhymed with
"rejoice."

·   Wilma Flinestone's maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and
Betty Rubble's Maiden name was Betty Jean Mcbricker.

·   Lenny Kravitz's mother played the part of "Helen" on
"The Jeffersons."

·   The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman
Catholic church. When deciding if someone should

·   become a saint, a devil's advocate is always appointed
to give an alternative view.

·   Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge,
the reverse of how a record works.

·   The term "Mayday" used for signaling for help (after
SOS), it comes from the French term "M'aidez" which is
pronounced "MayDay" and means, "Help Me"

·   Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave.

·   The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 did start in a barn
belonging to Patrick and Katherine O'Leary. The O'Leary's
house was one of the few that survived the fire. The
O'Leary's house had to be guarded by soldiers for weeks
afterwards, however, because many enraged residents wanted to
burn it down.

·   The biggest bell is the "Tsar Kolokol" cast in the
Kremlin in 1733. It weighs 216 tons, but alas, it is cracked
and has never been rung. The bell was being stored in a
Moscow shed which caught fire. To "save" it the caretakers
decided to throw water on the bell. This did not succeed in -
- the water hit the superheated metal and a giant piece
immediately cracked off, destroying the bell forever.

·   A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

·   The smallest mountain range in the world is outside of
Marysville, California and is named the Sutter Buttes.

·   The Ramses brand condom is named after the great phaoroh
Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.

·   Many species of bird copulate in the air. In general, a
couple will fly to a very high altitude, and then drop.
During their descent, the birds mate. Sometimes the couple
gets too involved and SPLAT!

·   If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die
because they need gravity to swallow.

·   There is a seven letter word in the English language
that contains ten words without rearranging any of its
letters, "therein": the, there, he, in, rein, her, here,
here, ere, therein, herein.

·   You would have to count to one thousand to use the
letter "A" in the English language to spell a whole number.

·   The only member of the band ZZ Top without a beard has
the last name Beard.

·   Ants cannot chew their food, they move their jaws
sidewards, like a scissor, to extract the juices from the
food.

·   The letters H I O X in the latin alphabet is the only
ones that look the same if you turn them upside down or see
them from behind.

·   The little hole in the sink that lets the water drain
out, instead of flowing over the side, is called a
"porcelator".

·   When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play
football at home to a sellout crowd, the stadium becomes the
state's third largest city.

·   In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it
again, Sam."

·   Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson."

·   Captain Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty," but he did
say, "Beam me up, Mr. Scott".

·   Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties
are registered blood donors.

·   More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in
air crashes.

·   The metal part of a lamp that surrounds the bulb and
supports the shade is called a harp.

·   The metal part at the end of a pencil is twenty percent
sulfur.

·   John Larroquette of "Night Court" and "The John
Larroquette Show" was the narrator of "The Texas

·   Chainsaw Massacre."

·   Vietnamese currency consists only of paper money; no
coins.

·   Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one painting while he was
alive, Red Vineyard at Arles.

·   A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.

·   A pig's penis is shaped like a corkscrew.

·   It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the
sky.

·   Skin is thickest is at the back -- 1/6 of an inch.

·   The most sensitive finger is the forefinger.

·   Alaska is the most northern, western and eastern state;
it also has the highest latitude,the most eastern longitude
and the most western longitude.

·   Some of Beethoven's symphonies were performed in
Kentucky before they were performed in Paris, France.

·   The word denim comes from 'de Nimes', or from Nimes, a
place in France.

·   Dublin comes from the Irish Dubh Linn which means
Blackpool

·   Scottish is the language called Gaelic, whereas Irish is
actually called Gaeilge.

·   The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were
named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank
Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life"

·   A penguin only has sex twice a year.

·   Mr. Spock's (of Star Trek) blood type was T-Negative

·   The Dutch town of Abcoude is the only reasonably sized
town/city in the world whose name begins with ABC.

·   A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.

·   A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

·   New Jersey has a spoon museum featuring over 5,400
spoons from every state and almost every country.

·   Eleven square miles of southwest Kentucky (Fulton
County) is cut off from the rest of the state by the

·   Mississippi River. If you wish to travel from this cut
off section to the rest of the state or vice-versa, you must
first cross a bordering state.

·   Point Roberts in Washington State is cut off from the
rest of the state by British Columbia, Canada. If you wish to
travel from Point Roberts to the rest of the state or vice
versa, you must pass through Canada, including Canadian and
U.S. customs

·   A quarter has 119 grooves around the edge.

·   A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

·   The only city in the United States to celebrate
Halloween on the October 30 instead of October 31 is

·   Carson City, Nevada. October 31 is Nevada Day and is
celebrated with a large stret party.

·   On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the
upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the

·   "shield" and a spider hidden in the front upper right-
hand corner.

·   No words in the English language rhyme with orange,
silver or purple.

·   A peanut is not a nut; it is a legume.

·   It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

·   "Evian" spelled backvards is naive.

·   The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called
aglets.

·   Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.

·   "Bookkeeper" and "bookkeeping" are the only words in the
English language with three consecutive double letters.

·   Paul McCartney's mother was a midwife.

·   The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag
that is flown differently during times of peace or war.

·   The phrase "sleep tight" originated when mattresses were
set upon ropes woven through the bed frame. To remedy sagging
ropes, one would use a bed key to tighten the rope.

·   It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can
throw up. The frog throws up it's stomach first, so the
stomach is dangling out of it's mouth. Then the frog uses
it's forearms to dig out all of the stomach's contents and
then swallows the stomach back down again.

·   The A&W of root beer fame stands for Allen and Wright.

·   A baby eel is called an elver, a baby oyster is called a
spat.

·   Bingo is the name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box.

·   The arteries and veins surrounding the brain stem called
the "circle of Willis" looks like a stick person with a large
head.

·   Welsh mercenary bowmen in the medieval period only wore
one shoe at a time.

·   On a trip to the South Sea islands, French painter Paul
Gauguin stopped off briefly in Central America, where he
worked as a laborer on the Panama Canal.

·   The Ganges River in India boasts the only genuine fresh-
water sharks in the entire world.

·   The gene for the Siamese coloration in animals such as
cats, rats or rabbits is heat sensitive. Warmth produces a
lighter color than does cold. Putting tape temporarily on
Siamese rabbit's ear will make the fur on that ear lighter
than on the other one.

·   There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet.

·   Charles de Gaulle's final words were, "It hurts."

·   The words 'sacrilegious' and 'religion' do not share the
same etymological root.

·   "John has a long moustache" was the coded-signal used by
the French Resistance in WWII to mobilize their forces once
the Allies had landed on the Normandy beaches.

·   Gatorade was named for the University of Florida Gators
where it was first developed.

·   Brooklyn is the Dutch name for "broken valley"

·   There are four states where the first letter of the
capital city is the same letter as the first letter of the
state: Dover, Delaware; Honolulu, Hawaii; Indianapolis,
Indiana; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

·   There are four cars and eleven lightposts on the back of
a ten-dollar bill.

·   Venetian blinds were invented in Japan.

·   The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought at neighbouring
Breed's Hill.

·   Former US Senator Barry Goldwater attended the opening
night ceremonies and festivities at Bugsy Siegel's famous Las
Vegas casino. They left him out of the movie Bugsy. He is
pissed.

·   Armored knights raised their visors to identify
themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has
become the modern military salute.

·   ABBA got their name by taking the first letter from each
of their first names (Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, Anni-frid.)

·   The first electric Christmas lights were created by a
telephone company PBX installer. Back in the old days,
candles were used to decorate Christmas trees. This was
obviously very dangerous. Telephone employees are trained to
be safety concious. This installer took the lights from an
old switchboard, connected them together, strung them on the
tree, and hooked them to a battery.

·   White Out was invented by the mother of Mike Nesmith
(Formerly of the Monkees)

·   The "huddle" in football was formed due a deaf football

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