I suppose there really is nothing stranger than folk when you come down to it. With the imminent arrival of our next odd day as depicted by the Gregorian calendar being Thursday 7th May 2009 and if you miss it you will have to wait until the 1st January 3111.
I must admit when I read this little piece of trivia it did make me smile and wonder what other odd things abound in our world therefore as one does I goggled and spent a good many minutes laughing and also saying to myself no way, together with now that’s interesting. I have compiled a list of the more interesting odd facts below and also included the source links as there are literally thousands out there and hopefully it will make you chuckle as much as I did..
Odd Facts
• A law passed in Nebraska in 1912 really set down some hard rules of the road. Drivers in the country at night were required to stop every 150 yards, send up a skyrocket, then wait eight minutes for the road to clear before proceeding cautiously, all the while blowing their horn and shooting off flares..
• Caesar salad has nothing to do with any of the Caesars. It was first concocted in a bar in Tijuana, Mexico on July 4, 1924 by Caesar Cardini (born Cesar) (1896-1956), an Italian hotel owner, restaurateur and chef.
• Crocodiles and alligators are surprisingly fast on land. Although they are rapid, they are not agile; so if you ever find yourself chased by one, run in a zigzag line. You'll lose him or her every time.
• After Albert Einstein had been at Princeton for some months, local news hounds discovered that a twelve-year-old girl happened to stop by the Einstein home almost every afternoon. The girl's mother hadn't thought to ask Einstein about the situation until the newspapers reported it, but when she got the opportunity after that she did so. What could her daughter and Einstein have in common that they spent so much time together? Einstein replied simply, "She brings me cookies and I do her arithmetic homework."
• Louis XIV of France really was as an unpleasant a fellow as he's been depicted. In 1674, when he was visiting a school at Clermont, he heard from the school's authorities that one of the children, a nine- year-old Irish lad named Francis Seldon, had made a pun about the king's bald head. Louis was furious. He had a secret warrant drawn up for the child's arrest, and young Seldon was thrown into solitary confinement in the Bastille. His parents, members of one of Europe's richest merchant families, were told simply that the child had disappeared. Days turned to months, months to years, and Louis himself passed away. But Francis spent sixty-nine years "in the hole" for making fun of the king's baldness.
• Abraham Lincoln had no love for favor seekers, especially when they took his time away from the duties of the presidency during the Civil War. On one occasion, he gathered together a number of would- be-office holders and told them this story: "There was once a King who wished to go out hunting, so he asked his minister if it was going to rain. The minister assured him that it would not. On the way to the woods, the King passed a farmer who was working the land with his donkey. The farmer warned the King that it would rain soon, but the King just laughed and continued on. A few minutes later it was pouring, and the King and his companions were soaked to their skin. Upon return to the castle, the King dismissed his minister and sent for the farmer. He asked the man how he knew it was going to rain. ""It was not me, your Majesty. It was my donkey. He always droops one ear when it is going to rain." "So the King bought the donkey from the farmer and gave him the position of minister at court. This was where the King made his mistake." "How was that," asked several people in the audience. "Because ever since then," Lincoln continued, "every jackass wants an office. Gentlemen, leave your credentials and when the war is over you'll hear from me."
• In the United States, a pound of potato chips costs two hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.
• According to acupuncturists, there is a point on the head that you can press to control your appetite. It is located in the hollow just in front of the flap of the ear. (Try it!)
• The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words. More than 2 billion pencils are manufactured each year in the United States. If these were laid end to end they would circle the world nine times.
• The Empire State Building is designed to serve as a lightning rod for the surrounding area. It is struck by lightning about 100 times per year. During windstorms and rainstorms, the building does not sway, but it does "give". With a wind of 110 miles an hour, the building gives 1.48 inches. Movement off center is never greater than one quarter inch, thus measurable movement is only one half inch, one quarter inch on either side.
• In Elizabethan England the spoon was such a novelty, such a prized rarity, that people carried their own folding spoons to banquets. (This was true, however, for only the people who were invited to banquets.)
• It costs more to buy a new car today in the United States than it cost Christopher Columbus to equip and undertake three voyages to and from the New World.
• One-fourth of the world's population lives on less than $200 a year. Ninety million people survive on less than $75 a year.
• In ancient China doctors were paid when their patients were kept well, not when they were sick. Believing that it was the doctor's job to prevent disease, Chinese doctors often paid the patient if the patient lost his health. Further, if a patient died, a special lantern was hung outside the doctor's house. At each death another lantern was added. Too many of these lanterns were certain to ensure a slow trade.
• It is illegal to hunt camels in the state of Arizona.
• In the country of Turkey, in the 16th and 17th centuries, anyone caught drinking coffee was put to death.
• A Virginia law requires all bathtubs to be kept out in the yards, not inside the houses.
• In eighteenth-century English gambling dens, there was an employee whose only job was to swallow the dice if there was a police raid.
• A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top.
• Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
• The eccentric and paranoid American recluse Langley Collier met his untimely end in 1947. While he was bringing food to his equally odd brother Homer, who lived as a total hermit, Langley tripped on a wire to one of his own booby traps and was crushed beneath a suitcase filled with metal, a sewing machine, three breadboxes, and several bundles of newspapers. Homer starved to death, and their bodies were undiscovered for three weeks.
• Ralph Graves entered a doughnut shop with a gun and demanded money from the cashier. A customer recognized him, however, when Graves lifted up a corner of his pillowcase mask to find his way out the door. Graves had forgotten to cut eye holes.
• A burglar entered the home of Tom Schimmel in Tawas City, Michigan;
collected valuables; fixed himself a bowl of cereal; laid down in Schimmel's bed and fell asleep. When Schimmel returned to his house and discovered the crime, he called police. Officers investigated, completed their reports, and departed. When Schimmel noticed the sleeping burglar several hours later, he summoned the police again. They awakened the man and identified him as the thief.
• Its against the law to;
Doze off under a hairdryer in Florida.
Slap an old friend on the back in Georgia.
Play hopscotch on Sunday in Missouri.
• Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Most people believe that this means "between Satan and the bottom of the ocean." However, devil, in this case, has nothing to do with the ruler of the kingdom of evil. The "devil" is a seam in a wooden ship's hull that is very difficult to access, so called "the devil to get at" when caulking.
• The childrens game "Ring Around the Rosy" and the words that accompany it ("Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posy, ashes, ashes, all fall down") derive from the medieval practice of scattering rose petals in a circle around one's bed ("ring around the rosy") and carrying small bouquets ("pocket full of posy") as protection against the aromas created by the disease and decay of the Black Plague ("all fall down").
• Barbie's measurements (if she were life-size): 39-23-33
• Coca-cola was originally green
• Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than for the US Treasury
• The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters
• First novel ever written on a typewriter was "Tom Sawyer"
• There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of the year
• Heinz Catsup leaving the bottle travels at 25 miles PER YEAR
• It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs
• Men get hiccups more often than women
• Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better
• Chances that an American lives within 50 mi of where he/she grew up: 1 in 2.
• City with the most Rolls Royce’s per capita: Hong Kong
• State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
• Chances of a white Christmas in New York: 1 in 4
• Portion of US annual rainfall that falls in April: 1/12
• Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28
• Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38
• Estimated percentage of American adults who go on a diet each year: 44
• Percentage of Americans who say that God has spoken to them: 36
• Percentage of Americans who regularly attend religious services: 43
• City with the highest per capita viewership of TV evangelists: Washington DC
• Percentage of American women who say they would marry the same man: 50
• Percentage of women who say they are happier: 85
• Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000
• Percentage of Americans who have visited Disneyland or Disney World: 70
• Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches
• Portion of ice cream sold that is vanilla: 1/3
• Portion of potatoes sold that are French-fried: 1/3
• Percentage of Americans that eat at McDonalds each day: 7
• Percentage of bird species that are monogamous: 90
• Percentage of mammal species that are: 3
• Portion of Harvard students who graduate with honors: 4/5
• Chances that a burglary in the US will be solved: 1 in 7
• Portion of land in the US owned by the government: 1/3
• Only President to remain a bachelor: James Buchanan
• Only first lady to carry a loaded revolver: Eleanor Roosevelt
• Only president to win a Pulitzer: John F. Kennedy, for "Profiles in Courage"
• Only food that does not spoil: honey
• Only bird that can fly backwards: Hummingbird
• Only continent without reptiles or snakes: Antarctica
• Only animal besides human that can get sunburn: Pig
• Ostriches stick their heads in the sand to look for water
• An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it
• In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees
• Polar bears are left-handed
• Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair
• Eskimos never gamble
• The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910
• The youngest pope was 11 years old
• Mark Twain didn't graduate from elementary school
• Proportional to their weight, men are stronger than horses
• Pilgrims ate popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner
• Your nose and ears never stop growing
• Jupiter is bigger than all the other planets combined
• The parachute was invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1515
• They have square watermelons in Japan ... they stack better
• Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation
Source Linkhttp://humour.200ok.com.au/facts.htm
http://www.telacommunications.com/misc/facts.htm
