Totally Useless Facts
- Gary Lineker's cousin runs a bar on Tenerife.
- The cost of the recommended textbook is inversely proportional to the complexity of the course.
- A splat is the name commonly given to the asterisk character "*" due to the fact that on early line printers it looked like a squashed bug.
- A banana bond is a 3 centre electron deficient bond.
- The word 'diadochy' came from Alexander The Great.
- The two raised marks on the 'F' and 'J' keys on a QWERTY keyboard are in fact for touch typists.
- The help key on WordPerfect is F3.
- Sulphuric Acid production for a particular country is proportional to the wealth of that country.
- Mount Snowdon is 3559 feet high.
- Elvis is dead.
- The capital city of Sao Tome is Sao Tome.
- Uranium emits alpha and gamma radiation.
- Naurau is a pacific island made up of a phosphate rock.
- John Major lives at No.10 Downing Street, London, England.
- Debbie Harry is Blondie.
- The Queen has 4 children: Charles, Anne, Edward and Andrew.
- Everest is the highest mountain in the world.
- The planet Mars has canals on it.
- The longest reign of a British King was George III. He ruled for 59 years.
- The movement of the mouse to give a 1 pixel screen movement is called a mickey.
- 2 + 2 = 4.
- A person once jumped off the 86th floor of the Empire State Building and the strong wind at the time blew him back onto an 83rd floor window ledge.
- Qatar is a country in the Middle East.
- W is the chemical symbol for Tungsten, from the original German name, Wolfram.
- Queen Elizabeth I owned the first wristwatch.
- The first bathtub was owned by Benjamin Franklin.
- In 19th century Britain failed suicidals were hanged.
- Pope John XII was beaten to death by a furious husband who found him making love to his wife.
- Attila The Hun died while making love.
- In 1938 Miss Phyllis Newcome spontaneously combusted while waltzing in a crowded dance hall.
- Turkey lost 13 of its 14 wars in the 19th century.
- The first international cricket match was held between the USA and Canada in 1884.
- Lewis Carroll wrote his books standing up.
- A giraffe's blood pressure is twice that of a human.
- The ancient Swedes practised euthanasia by putting people in earthen ware jars and leaving them to die.
- King George VI enjoyed sewing.
- The sepic crocodile has oblong eggs with white yokes.
- The Chinese are wild about stamp collecting.
- Possum meat tastes like veal.
- Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI did not consummate their marriage until 7 years after the wedding.
- Princess Anne drives a car with a number plate that used to belong to an Ealing milkfloat.
- For centuries, women used to rub strawberries on their breasts in the belief that it would enlarge them.
- Buttercups cause indegestion if you eat them.
- Milk from young coconuts was used succesfully as blood plasma in the World War II.
- Tonga issued a postage stamp which was shaped like a banana.
- Psalm 117 verse 2 is the middle of the bible.
- St George is also the patron saint of Portugal.
- The World's shortest frontier is that between Spain and Gibraltar.
- 845 dialects are spoken in India.
- The Government of Dubai have a snowplough to shift sand of the roads.
- In the 1956 Olympics the equestrian events were held in Stockholm while the rest of the events were held in Melbourne. This was due to the strict Australian quarantine laws.
- Canada has the longest coastline.
- During the rutting season the male deer's (stag's) antlers become erogenous.
- Prince Charles is the first heir of the throne to have ridden on the back of a killer whale.
- The Guppy was the first fish in space, in 1976.
- Alan Shepherd used a 6 iron for his round of golf on the moon.
- More first class letters posted on a Tuesday arrive the next day than letters posted on any other day.
- Butterflies fly at approx 20mph.
- In 1888 246 people were killed by hail in northen India.
- A Spanish airforce jet shot itself down when its gunfire ricochetted off a mountain.
- The silkworm has 11 brains.
- Giraffes can lick their ears.
- Cats can lick their own privates.
- There is a sport Camel Wrestling is a sport.
- There are 16 feathers on a shuttlecock.
- Joe Davis, the snooker champion, only had one eye.
- In 1976 a Pakistani cricket umpire gave a number of bad decisions. The fielding team pulled up the stumps and beat him to death with them.
- Nacre is the correct name for mother of pearl.
- Posology is the study of the quantities in which drugs should be administered.
- Paper was invented by a Chinese eunuch.
- Authentic Chilli Con Carne contains dark chocolate.
- In Tibet rancid yak butter is used in tea instead of milk.
- 'Treason' and 'Piracy With Violence' are the only crimes you can be hung for.
- Rudolf Hess was the last prisoner to be kept in the Tower of London.
- Only 6 people were killed in the fire of London.
- Houses in London were not numbered until 1764.
- The River Effra runs under the Oval cricket ground.
- The Coventry climax engine used in the Lotus Elite was developed from a fire pump.
- Shredded Wheat was invented for people with stomach disorders.
- Nancy met Ronald Reagan when she asked for his help in removing her name from a list of communist sympathisers.
- The first sign language for deaf mutes was invented in Portugal in 1749.
- Battersea Park was once a swamp, it was reclaimed using soil excavated from the Royal Victoria Docks.
- Kleenex tissues were originally developed as gas mask filters in World War I.
- The Chinese typewriter has 5,850 characters. 11 words per minute is considered fast.
- Scunthorpe was named after a Danish pirate.
- Harvey Kennedy invented the shoelace.
- Lagartijo killed 4500 bulls during his bull-fighting career.
- The graffiti phrase 'Kilroy was here' originated from James Kilroy, who was a warship inspector in the World War II. He wrote the words to prove he had inspected any particular ship.
- The Bible is the best selling book of all time.
- Mao Tse-Tung's little red book is the second best selling book of all time.
- In 1631 Charles I fined printers Barker and Lucas for leaving out a vital word in their edition of the Bible. Verse 14 Chapter 20 read "thou shalt commit adultery."
- Cherry leaves are poisionous.
- In 1818, American 4th of July celebrations were interupted by snowstorms.
- Flies take off backwards.
- At the moment there are about 1,800 thunderstorms taking place.
- Willian Caxton's assistant was called Wynkyn de Worde.
- The Queen's first Corgi was called Susan.
- Moles can swim.
- There are 5 types of yoga.
- The widest part of the face is measured between the zygomatic arches, otherwise known as the cheek bones.