Between 1942 and 1944, Academy Awards were made of plaster.
John Madden is an accomplished ballroom dancer.
In 21 states, Wal-Mart is the single largest employer.
Jim Gordon, drummer of Derek and the Dominos ("Layla"), killed his mother with a claw hammer.
One of Hewlett Packard's first ideas was an automatic urinal flusher.
Eric Clapton did not play the very famous first riff on the song "Layla". That was Duane Allman. Clapton comes in later.
There are more cars in Southern California than there are cows in India.
The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows.
The province of Alberta, Canada is completely free of rats.
Illinois has the most personalized license plates of any state.
If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it.
Fleas can jump 130 times higher than their own height. In human terms this is equal to a 6 foot person jumping 780 feet into the air.
Snakes are true carnivores as they eat nothing but other animals. They do not eat any type of plant material.
There are no venomous snakes in Maine.
The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.
Erosion at the base of Niagara Falls (USA) undermines the shale cliffs and as a result, the falls have receded approximately 7 miles over the last 10,000 years.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
North Dakota has never had an earthquake.
Alexander Graham Bell (who invented the telephone) also set a world water-speed record of over seventy miles an hour at the age of 72.
There is enough fuel in a full tank of a jumbo jet to drive an average car four times around the world.
Hawaii is moving toward Japan 4 inches every year.
Chimps are the only animals that can recognize themselves in a mirror.
The leg bones of a bat are so thin that no bat can walk.
If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
Almonds are members of the peach family.
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
One person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
The dot that appears over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
All major league baseball umpires must wear black underwear while on the job (in case their pants split).
The Spanish word esposa means "wife." The plural, esposas, means "wives," but also "handcuffs."
If all Americans used one third less ice in their drinks the United States would become a net exporter instead of an importer of energy.
If the Nile River were stretched across the United States, it would run nearly from New York to Los Angeles.
San Francisco cable cars are the only National Monuments that move.
The Hoover Dam was built to last 2,000 years. Its concrete will not be fully cured for another 500 years.
Abraham Lincoln's dog, Fido, was assassinated too.
All of David Letterman's suits are custom made - there are no creases in his suit trousers.
Cranberry Jell-O is the only flavor that contains real fruit flavoring.
Fewer than half of the 16,200 major league baseball players have ever hit a home run.
In comic strips, the person on the left always speaks first.
Richard Versalle, a tenor performing at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, suffered a heart attack and fell 10 feet from a ladder to the stage just after singing the line "You can only live so long."
If the entire population of earth was reduced to exactly 100 people, 51% would be female, 49% male; 50% of the world's currency would be held by 6 people, one person would be nearly dead, one nearly born.
In 1920, Babe Ruth out-homered every American League team.
Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, England, but only in tropical fish stores.
Toxic house plants poison more children than household chemicals.
The original name of Bank of America was Bank of Italy.
The ant, when intoxicated, will always fall over to its right side.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles has issued six driver's licenses to six different people named Jesus Christ.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike each year than all the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
People in China and Japan die disproportionately on the 4th of each month because the words death and four sound alike, and they are represented by the same symbol.
Chicago is closer to Moscow than it is to Rio de Janeiro.
Dogs have two sets of teeth, just like humans. They first have 30 "puppy" teeth, then 42 adult teeth.
In 1950, President Harry Truman threw out the first ball twice at the opening day Washington DC baseball game; once right handed and once left handed.
A Swiss ski resort announced it would combat global warming by wrapping its mountain glaciers in aluminum foil to keep them from melting.
The chameleon has a tongue that is one and a half times the length of his body.
Beethoven dipped his head in cold water before he composed.
There once was a town named "6" in West Virginia.
Ten years ago, only 500 people in China could ski. This year, an estimated 5,000,000 Chinese will visit ski resorts.
In 1920, Babe Ruth broke the single season home run record, with 29. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 30 home runs. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 40 home runs. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 50 home runs.
A Nigerian woman was caught entering the UK with 104 kg of snails in her baggage.
Profanity is typically cut from in-flight movies to make them suitable for general audiences. Fox Searchlight Pictures has substituted "Ashcroft" for "A**hole" in the movie Sideways when dubbed for Aerolineas Argentinas flights.
Author Hunter S. Thompson, who committed suicide recently, wanted to be cremated and his ashes to be shot out of a cannon on his ranch.
Sports Illustrated magazine allows subscribers to opt out of receiving the famous swimsuit issue each year. Fewer than 1% choose this option.
There is a company that will (for $14,000) take your ashes, compress them into a synthetic diamond to be set in jewelry for a loved one.
The RIAA sued an 83 year old woman for downloading music illegally, even though a copy of her death certificate was sent to the RIAA a week before it filed the suit.
Two 1903 paintings recently sold at auction for $590,000 - the paintings were in the famous "Dogs Playing Poker" series.
Russian scientists have developed a new drug that prolongs drunkenness and enhances intoxication.
Romanian firefighters could not get their trucks close enough to a burning building, so they put out the fire by throwing snowballs at it.
A perfect SAT score is 1600 combined. Bill Gates scored 1590 on his SAT. Paul Allen, Bill's partner in Microsoft, scored a perfect 1600. Bill Cosby scored less than 500 combined.
Motorists traveling outside Salem, Oregon saw one of the "litter cleanup" signs crediting the American Nazi party. Marion County officials had no choice but to let that group into the adopt-a-road program. The $500 per sign was picked up by Oregon taxpayers. The Ku Klux Klan is also involved in the adopt-a-road program in the state of Arkansas.
Spam filters that catch the word "cialis" will not allow many work-related e-mails through because that word is embedded inside the word "specialist".
McDonald's restaurants will buy 54,000,000 pounds of fresh apples this year. Two years ago, McDonald's purchased 0 pounds of apples. This is attributed to the shift to more healthy menu options (the Apple Pie, which has been at McDonald's for years uses processed Apple Pie Filling).
The biggest dog on record was an Old English Mastiff that weighed 343 pounds. He was 8 feet, 3 inches from nose to tail.
Mailmen in Russia now carry revolvers after a recent decision by the government.
All of Queen Anne's 17 children died before she did.
There are over 87,000 Americans on waiting lists for organ transplants.
American made parts account for only 1% of the Chrysler Crossfire. 96% of the Ford F-150 Heritage Truck is American.
A Dutch court ruled that a bank robber could deduct the 2,000 Euros he paid for his pistol from the 6,600 Euros he has to return to the bank he robbed.
