Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by looking at a 
 fly walk across a tiled ceiling.

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 recieved in battle; if the horse has all 
 four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated 
 that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

Ballroom dancing is a major at Brigham Young University.

Some biblical scholars believe that Aramaic (the language of the ancient Bible) 
did not contain an easy way to say "many things" and used a term which has 
come down to us as 40.  This means that when the bible -- in many places -- 
refers to "40 days," they meant many days.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.

Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without 
 killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get 
 fired."

Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".

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

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John 
 Hancock and Charles Thomson.  Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the 
 last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.

"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English  language.

The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific.
 When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo 
 belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage.  If the
 pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."

The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, "Aladdin was a 
 little Chinese boy."

The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fish was named Livingston.

The 'y' in signs reading "ye olde.."  is properly pronounced with a 'th' sound,
  not 'y'.  The "th" sound does not exist in Latin, so ancient Roman occupied 
 (present day) England used the rune "thorn" to represent "th" sounds. With the
 advent of the printing press the character from the Roman alphabet which 
 closest resembled thorn was the lower case "y".

The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."

The international telphone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.

The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called 'mantles') are radioactive--
 so much so that they will set of an alarm at a nuclear reactor.

Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots

Each unit on the Richter Scale is equivalent to a power factor of about 32. So
 a 6 is 32 times more powerful than a 5!  Though it goes to 10, 9 is estimated 
 to be the point of total tetonic destruction (2 is the smallest that can be 
 felt unaided.)

Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of fur. The story was changed in
 the 1600s by a translator.  It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella)
 lost at the stairway, when the prince tried to follow her.

Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden.  The
 conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5pm.  All traffic stopped
 as people switched sides.  This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents
 where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to 
 realize *this* was the day of the changeover.

Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed
 the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

Dr. Seuss pronounced "Seuss" such that it rhymed with  "rejoice."

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 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"

The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown differently
 during times of peace or war.  A portion of the flag is blue, while the other
 is red.  The blue portion is flown on top in time of peace and the red portion
 is flown in war time.

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

The "huddle" in football was formed due a deaf football player who used sign 
 language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition to see the 
 signals he used and in turn huddled around him.

Goethe couldn't stand the sound of barking dogs and could only write if he had
 an apple rotting in the drawer of his desk.

If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide 
 poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.

Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a 
 lightning strike.

The term, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" is from Ancient 
 Rome.  The only rule during wrestling matches was, "No eye gouging." 
 Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be disqualified is to poke 
 someone's eye out.

Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
Sir Isaac Newton was an ordained priest in the Church of England.

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

Certain frogs can be frozen solid then thawed, and continue living.

The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby 
 daughter, Ruth.

Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like
 it's kissing the conveyor belt.

Steve Young, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, is the great-great-grandson 
 of Mormon leader Brigham Young.

Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of linen.

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

Windmills always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland.

A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average.

Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.

The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all 
four feet at all times.

Ants stretch when they wake up in the morning.

Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks.

A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night.

Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.

A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.

An American quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.

A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.

Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. 
Today it is known as Tennessee.

The Earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.

A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.

The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.

One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.

The average American will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year.

It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Omaha, Nebraska.

You are born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, 
you only have 206.

Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.

7% of Americans don't know the first 9 words of the American anthem, 
but know the first 7 of the Canadian anthem.

5% of Canadians don't know the first 7 words of the Canadian anthem, 
but know the first 9 of the American anthem.

Over 1000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.

The state of Florida is bigger than England.

It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland.

Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day.

Thomas Edison, light bulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.

During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food. 
That's the weight of about 6 elephants.

Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food.

Dolphins sleep with one eye open.

The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old.

In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, 
so the tears can't flow.

There are more plastic flamingos in the U.S, than real ones.

About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.

More people use blue toothbrushes, than red ones.

A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.

Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe.

In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons.

Slugs have 4 noses.

Recycling one glass jar, saves enough energy to watch T.V for 3 hours.

Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.

Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue.

The average American drinks about 600 sodas a year.

It's against the law to slam your car door in Switzerland.

There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses.

Honeybees have hair on their eyes.

Eskimo ice cream is neither icy, nor creamy.

A jellyfish is 95 percent water.

In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals.

The katydid bug hears through holes in its hind legs.

A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, 
so you can eat your plate.

More Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed 
throughout the world.

The starfish is one of the only animals who can turn it's stomach inside-out.

The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.

The penguin is the only bird that can swim, but not fly.

One quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet.

America once issued a 5-cent bill.

You'll eat about 35,000 cookies in a lifetime. 

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.

Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under is cap to keep him cool. 
He changed it every 2 innings.

Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.

A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years. 

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.

Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

Here are some interesting numbers to look at:
166,875,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each year in the U.S.
1,525,000,000 miles of telephone wire a strung across the U.S.
123,000,000 cars are being driven down the U.S's highways.
85,000,000 tons of paper are used each year in the U.S.
56,000,000 people go to Major League baseball each year.

Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.

The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head.

In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs.

There are over 52.6 million dogs in the U.S.

Dogs and cats consume almost $7 billion worth of pet food a year.

Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.

You blink about 84,000,000 times a year.

Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.

In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word.

Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.

The blesbok, a South African antelope, is almost the same color as grape juice.

The average person laughs 15 times a day

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