You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.

In the building trade a slate measuring 24 by 12 inches is called a

Federal law forbids recycling used eyeglasses in the United States.

Owls are one of the only birds that can see the color blue.

The Great Lakes are Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Superior, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

Jim Henson first coined the word "Muppet". It is a combination of "marionette" and "puppet."

Humans are the only animals that can blush.

Natural gas has no odor. The smell is added artificially so that leaks can be detected.

In 1987, Ron Hextall of the Philadelphia Flyers became the first NHL goalie to score a goal. Actually, Ron Hextall was the first NHL goalie to score a goal by shooting the puck towards the opposing team's net in 1987. Billy Smith was the first goalie credited with a goal in 1979 when his clearing pass hit an opposing skater and went into the other team's goal.

Sir Isaac Newton was only 23 years old when he discovered the law of universal gravitation.

Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in 1846.

All the proceeds earned from James M. Barrie's book "Peter Pan" were bequeathed to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for the Sick Children in London.

Did you know that 85.7% of statisics are made up?

Our sun and the surrounding planets orbit around the center of the Milky Way galaxy once every 250 million years.

There is a Massachusetts law requiring all dogs to have their hind legs tied during the month of April.

The apricot can be traced back to China at least four thousand years ago, and it first appeared in Greek mythology as the "golden apple".

The pop you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually a bubble of gas burning.

As mentioned, the first Fords used Dodge engines. Many ford vehicles now use Nissan engines, especially in Mini-vans.

Gweneth Paltrow's nickname for Steven Speilberg is "Uncle Morty."

The most expensive painting ever sold at auction was Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh. On May 15, 1990, Ryoei Saito paid $75 million for it. He followed up that spending spree by paying the second-highest price ever, $71 million for Au Moulin de la Galette by Pierre Auguste Renoir, just two days later.

McDonalds and Burger King sugar-coat their fries so they will turn golden-brown.

Goulash, a beef soup, originated in Hungary in the 9th century AD.

Research show that only 43% of homemade dinners served in the US include vegetables.

The Earths core is a ball of Iron-Nickle at 7,000 C and is 80% the size of the moon.

The biggest member of the cat family is the male lion, which weighs 528 pounds (240 kilograms).

The only continent without reptiles or snakes is Antarctica.

Attila the Hun (invader of Europe; 406-453), Felix Faure (French President; 1841-1899), and Pope Leo VIII (d 963-965) all died while having sex.

In the late 19th century, millions of human mummies were used as fuel for locomotives in Egypt where wood and coal was scarce, but mummies were plentiful.

If the goverment passed a law that all the outdoor lighting in the united states had to be provided by low pressure sodium light bulbs, then they would save enough money to pay for evey college students tuition.

Wrigley's promoted their new spearmint-flavored chewing gum in 1915 by mailing 4 sample sticks to each of the 1.5 million names listed in US telephone books.

The rosy periwinkle plant, found in Madagascar, is used to cure leukemia.

No solar eclipse can last longer than 7 minutes 58 seconds because of the speed at which the sun moves.

A Cheetah at full speed takes strides of 8 meters.

One - quarter of the world's cattle live in India.

There are ten million bricks in the Empire State Building.

More than 100 years ago, the felt hat makers of England used mercury to stabilize wool. Most of them eventually became poisoned by the fumes, as demonstrated by the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Breathing mercury's fumes over a long period of time will cause erethism, a disorder characterized by nervousness, irritability, and strange personality changes.

When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home, the stadium becomes the third largest city in the state.

Eating breakfast will help you burn from 5-20% more calories throughout the day.

The tsetse fly kills another 66,000 people annually.

Massachusetts law declares that peanuts may not be eaten in court.

If you leave a goldfish in a dark room for years, it will turn white.

The words "volt" and "voltage" are named for a member of the Italian nobility in the 1700s named Count Voltman.

The active ingredient in smelling salts is ammonia.

The Volkswagen was originally called the "Strength Through Joy Wagon".

Zebras are members of the Equus genus.

Before the 984 foot high Eiffel Tower was built in 1889, the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. was the tallest building in the world at 555 feet.

Six ounces of orange juice contains the minimum daily requirement for vitamin C.

The average adult guinea pig weighs 2 pounds.

The four principal characters from the cartoon series "The Chipmunks" are Alvin, Simon, Theodore, and Dave.

The FDA allows an average of 30 or more insect fragments and one or more rodent hairs per 100 grams of peanut butter.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

A poll of 3,000 Americans found that for 41 percent, the thing they're most afraid of is speaking before a group of people. 32 percent stated they were afraid of heights.

Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Anne Archer are members of the Church of Scientology

The act of snapping your fingers has a name: fillip.

Men commit suicide three times more frequently than women do. But women attempt suicide two to three times more often than men.

In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.

A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. A quarter has 119.

In Vermont it is illegal to paint landscapes in times of war.

There is a butterfly found in Brazil that has the smell and color of a chocolate.

If you go blind in one eye, you'll only lose about one-fifth of your vision (but all your depth perception.)

The soundtrack to Oklahoma was the first album to sell one million copies on August 18, 1958.

The left side of your brain controls the right side of your body and vice versa.

Everyone knows that the U.S. gold depository is in Fort Knox, Kentucky. But nobody seems to know that the U.S. silver depository is at West Point, New York.

Salt caravans crossing the Sahara desert sometimes numbered as many as 40,000 camels.

Pregnant female polar bears will not eat for several months while resting in her den under the snow. Thanx Tony W.

Among transsexuals who choose sex-change operations, females who elect to become males are reportedly happier and better adjusted after the procedures than males who elect to become female.

The 1st annual Grammy Awards were awarded in 1959. The Record of the Year was "Volare" by Domenico Modugno, the Album of the Year was "Peter Gunn" by Henry Mancini and the winner of the best R&B performance was "Tequila" by Champs.

You can now buy a coffin which can be used as a wine rack, table, and / or bookcase before you are buried in it.

Dr. Seuss wrote "Green Eggs and Ham" after his editor dared him to write a book using fewer than 50 different words.

The largest stained-glass window in the world is at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. It can be found in the American Airlines terminal building and measures 300 feet long by 23 feet high.

Pope Adrian VI choked to death after a fly got stuck in his throat as he was taking a drink from a fountain

The deepest spot in any ocean is the Mariana Trench. It's 36,198 feet below sea level (about seven miles).

A newborn kangaroo is about 1 inch in length.

Some baby giraffes are more than six feet tall at birth.

If the sun stopped shining suddenly, it would take eight minutes for people on earth to be aware of the fact.

Apparently there's a law stating that if a Kurtatchi woman of the Soloman Islands unintentionally reveals her genitals, it can be expected and will be understood if any nearby man sexually assaults her.

Chocolate can kill dogs; it directly affects their heart and nervous system.

The average number of peanuts in a box of Cracker Jacks is 27.

Florence Nightingale Graham adopted the name Elizabeth Arden once her company became successful at the beginning of the 1900s.

No high jumper has ever been able to stay off the ground for more than one second.

China has more English speakers than the United States.

The world's first adhesive postage stamp went on sale in England in 1840. It was the Penny Black, portraying Queen Victoria.

Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes

Writing in ancient Greece "hadnospacebetweenthewords."

The metric system was to blame for the loss of the Mars Climate orbiter.

What we call the sky is merely the limit of our vision into the atmosphere. The sky, like the horizon, is always as far away as one can see.

In July 1934, Babe Ruth paid the fan who caught his 700th career home run ball $20 to get it back.

Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes located entirely within the United States.

Let us look at the possible origin of 'banana'. 'ba', in Egyptian mythology is the soul. 'Nana', as we all know, is another word for grandmother. So, is a banana, the grandmother of the soul?

Catnip can affect lions and tigers as well as house cats. It excites them because it contains a chemical that resembles an excretion of the dominant female's urine.

Only 16% of able-bodied males in the American colonies participated in the Revolutionary War.

Sweden is the largest spender on ketchup. $4 per capita. Australia is second at $2.50

There is only ONE word in the English language with THREE CONSECUTIVE SETS OF DOUBLE LETTERS.... Bookkeeper

Rubbing cocoa butter on your abdomen during pregnancy will prevent stretch marks.

Of the 3,000 islands in the Bahama chain in the Caribbean, only 20 are inhabited.

The curvature of the earth is pretty close to eight inches every mile, or 66 feet every hundred miles.

When you put a seashell to your ear, the sound you hear is not the waves, but actually the echo of the blood pulsing in your own ear.

Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII and mother of Queen Elizabeth I, had an extra finger on her left hand.

Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86 degrees.

Hedgehogs have the most similar fingerprints to humans

An average human scalp has 100,00 hairs.

The feet account for one quarter of all the human bodies bones.

Mr Ennis used to be a singer for a jazz band (He's my modern history teacher)

A magic potion or charm thought to arouse sexual love, especially toward a specific person, is known as a "philter."

The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

City with the most Rolls Royces per capita: Hong Kong.

Kuwait is about 60% male (highest in the world). Latvia is about 54% female (highest in the world).

Bulls are not attracted to the color red

As of 1996, Hee Haw holds the record for the longest running weekly first-run syndicated show in the history of television. It spanned over 4 decades, from the late '60s to the early '90s, airing every Saturday night at 7:00.

For the "wrong handed" people...Over 2500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right handed people! That means DEATH to Lefties

cockroaches can change course as many as 25 times in one second

The statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capital building is 19.5 feet tall and weighs 15,000 pounds. It was created in Rome, and the ship that brought it to America ran into a storm so severe that most of the cargo had to be tossed overboard. Before the ship reached the United States, it was condemned and sold in Bermuda, where the statue was put in storage. Two years later it reached Washington, but because of the Civil War the dome wasn't finished and the statue didn't get hoisted to its proper position for another two years.

If a shark's mouth is open to long it will suffocate.

Calculating DNA length for each person, it would stretch across the diameter of the solar system. 6 000 000 000 000 basepairx 0.6 nm x 1013 cell = 3.6x1016 metres

Jupiter's moon Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System, and is larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto.

The weight of air in a milk glass is about the same as the weight of one aspirin. (But one also wonders how big a milk glass is... anyone?)

The Mills Brothers have recorded the most songs of any artist: about 2,250.

All of the roles in Shakespeare's plays were originally acted by men and boys. In England at that time, it wasn't proper for females to appear on stage.

At the beginning of the year 2001 all Canadian cigarette packaging will depict graphic images of rotting teeth and deteriorating organs.

It takes seven years for a lobster to weigh one pound.

One in every 9000 people is an albino.

Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. President to be born in a hospital.

Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind between 1926 and 1929. In her early drafts, the main character was named "Pansy O'Hara" and the O'Hara plantation we know as Tara was called "Fountenoy Hall."

One million tons of oil is equivalent to about 13,000,000,000 kilowatt hours of electricity.

The word "tip" dates back to the old London coffeehouses. Conspicuously placed brass boxes etched with the inscription, "To Insure Promptness," encouraged customers to pay for efficient service. The resulting acronym, TIP, has become a byword.

A 1,200-pound horse eats about seven times it's own weight each year.

A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her coffee.

An average person drinks about 16,000 gallons of wate during his life time.

Planet Venus is the only planet to spin counter-clockwise.

Leonard da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.

Now, where did the word 'fuck' come from? Click here to find out

The only president buried on the grounds of a state capitol: James Polk in Nashville, Tenn.

Have you ever questioned your sanity? You have good reason to. Did you know that one out of every four people has some sort of pychological 'problem'?

All the swans in England are property of the Queen.

The number of possible ways of playing just the first four moves on each side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.

The term karaoke means "empty orchestra" in Japanese, and the karaoke machine was designed originally to provide backing tracks for solo cabaret performers.

The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

George Washington's teeth were actually: carved from animal tusks, some of them were also somebody else's teeth, and some of them were from animals like deer and cales.

The Oscar statuette was designed by MGM's art director, Cedric Gibbons, in 1928. The design has remained unchanged, except for getting a higher pedestal in the 1940's.

Until 1896, drivers in Great Britain had to warn of their presence by having a person precede their car on foot, waving a red flag.

In 1932 James Markham obtained the 1st patent issued for a tree. The patent was for a peach tree.

The tiger is the largest member of the cat family.

You can tell how a rabbit is feeling (emotion-wise) through the position of its ears. If the ears are standing tall, pointing forward, the rabbit is happy and curious. If the ears are laid completely flat on its back and are pointing backwards, the rabbit is more than likely pissed off or frightened. If one ear is halfway up and somewhat cocked towards you, and the other one is standing compeltely up, but facing away from you, then the rabbit is confused, and curious as to what the heck you're doing.

Elephants are capable of swimming 20 miles in one day.

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his

Chocolate Timeline:1824: John Cadbury, an English Quaker, begins roasting and grinding chocolate beans to sell in his tea and coffee shop. In 1842 Cadbury's Chocolate Company in England creates the first chocolate bar. 1875: A Swiss chocolate maker, Daniel Peter, mixes Henri Nestle's condensed milk with chocolate and the two men found a company to manufacture the first milk chocolate. 1894: Milton Hershey adds a line of chocolate to his caramel manufacturing business. Soon he invents the Hershey Bar by experimenting with milk chocolate. Hershey's Cocoa appears next. 1896: Leonard Hershfield invents the Tootsie Roll, named after his daughter. 1897: Brownies are first mentioned in print, listed for sale in the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogue. 1940: The Mars company invents M&M's for soldiers going to World War II.

Streetcar conductors, taxi drivers, and business executives have the highest statistical chance of getting peptic ulcers.

August 9, 1173 marked the first day of construction on the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was completed sometime in 1370 after two building stoppages. In 1178, when the tower was three stories tall, construction was halted for unknown reasons. It wasn't until 1272 that construction resumed, and that lasted until 1278 (the tower was seven stories at that point). In 1360, construction of the belfry that would eventually hold seven bells began.

The movie Quo Vadis had 30,000 extras.

The yo-yo was introduced in 1929 by Donald F. Duncan. The toy was based on a weapon used by 16th-century Filipino hunters.

son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called

McDonald's "Big Mac" slogan, introduced in 1975, is: "Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, and a sesame seed bun."

If a small amount of liquor were placed on a scorpion, it would instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

During his entire lifetime, Herman Melville's timeless classic of the sea, 'Moby Dick', only sold 50 copies.

An American urologist bought Napoleon's penis for $40,000.

Michelangelo's Last Judgment, which hangs on the walls of the Sistine Chapel, drew some harsh criticism from one of the Vatican's officials because of the nudity. So Michelangelo made some changes to his work: he painted in the face of the complaining clergyman and added a donkey's ears and a snake's tail.

Regular coffee drinkers have about one-third less asthma symptoms than those non-coffee drinkers. So says a Harvard researcher who studied 20,000 people.

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.

The human heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30ft.

According to a recent survey, more Americans lose their virginity in June than any other month.

Hippopotamuses break wind through their mouths.

It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different color combinations possible on a Rubik's Cube.

Anne Boleyn had three breasts.

Cannibalism, eating human flesh, is also called anthropophagy.

Women who are housewives are, as a whole, more faithful than working women.

Johnny Depp is afraid of clowns.

It has been calculated that a single breath from a mature blue whale can inflate up to 2000 balloons.

Cheese fondue is said to have originated in the Gourmet Room of the Schweizerhof in Luzern, Switzerland.

During the mid-1800s, less than half of the newborn babies lived more than ten years. Today, over 90 percent do.

Only four countries in the world start with the letter 'D'. They are Denmark, Dominica, Djibouti and the Dominican Republic

It is illegal in Lafayette, Louisiana to play a musical instrument for the purpose of attracting attention, without a license.

Besides the genitals and the breasts, the inner nose is the only other body part that routinely swells during intercourse.

There are thirteen languages spoken by more than 100 million people. They are: Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Malay-Indonesian, French, Japanese, German, and Urdu.

The science-fiction series "Lost in Space" (set in the year 1997) premiered on CBS in 1965.

It is illegal for both sexes to flirt or respond to flirtation using the eyes and/or hands.

A full-grown pumpkin has about 15 miles of roots.

You can only smell /20th as well as a dog.

Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature.

The first city to reach a population of 1 million people was Rome, Italy in 133 B.C. London, England reached the mark in 1810 and New York, USA made it in 1875. Today, there are over 300 cities in the world that boast a population in excess of 1 million.

Seeing eye dogs are color blind but can still read stop lights by the position of the 'on' light

The Mona Lisa, by daVinci, is 2'6" by 1'9".

Elwood Edwards did the voice for the AOL sound files (i.e. "You've got Mail!"). He is heard about 27 million times a day. The recordings were done before Quantum changed its name to AOL and the program was known as "Q-Link."

The male gypsy moth can "smell" the virgin female gypsy moth from 1.8 miles away.

On average, a human being will have sex more than 3,000 times and spend two weeks kissing in their lifetime.

The only president buried in Washington, D.C. proper: Woodrow Wilson, who was laid to rest in the National Cathedral.

The zebra is basically a light-colored animal with black stripes.

Rabbits do in fact make sounds. When angry, upset, or frightened, a rabbit makes a sort of grunting/whimpering sound. It's actually quite interesting.

Adolf Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor.

It takes about 1.25 seconds for moonlight to reach the Earth.

At Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater, Florida, on June 26, 1985, organist Wilbur Snapp played "Three Blind Mice" following a call by umpire Keith O'Connor. The umpire was not amused, and saw to it that Mr. Snapp was ejected from the game.

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

Abdul Kassam Ismael, Grand Vizier of Persia in the tenth century, carried his library with him wherever he went. Four hundred camels carried the 117,000 volumes.

We blink eyes 25 times each minute.

The thumbnail grows the slowest; the middle nail grows the fastest.

Nevada was the first state to sanction the use of the gas chamber, and the first execution by lethal gas took place in February, 1924.

Probably the best known multiple meaning is the hebrew word "SHALOM" which means, alternately, "hello", "good-bye", and "peace"

The bagpipe was originally made from the whole skin of a dead sheep.

The Bible devotes some 500 verses on prayer, less than 500verses on faith, but over 2000 verses on money and posessions.

Cutthroat Island is the biggest movie flop in history, losing an estimated $81 million. It�s almost double the loss of the second-biggest money loser, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen ($48.1 million).

The human body has over 45 miles of nerves.

There are more than 100 million dogs and cats in the United States. Americans spend more than 5.4 billion dollars on their pets each year.

Head lice actually prefer to live on clean heads, not dirty ones.

In Massachusetts, if you get caught eating peanuts in church , you can be jailed for up to one year.

During Hell Week (the most grueling portion of training) the trainees get 4 hours of sleep.

You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day that in any other weather.

Lou Gehrig earned a total of $316,000 during his 17 year career with the New York Yankees. In 1992, a fan paid $363,000 for a Yankee jersey that Gehrig wore during the 1927 season.

The term "dog days" has nothing to do with dogs. It dates back to Roman times, when it was believed that Sirius, the Dog Star, added its heat to that of the sun from July3 to August 11, creating exceptionally high temperatures. The Romans called the period dies caniculares, or "days of the dog."

In Sumatra, workers on coffee plantations gather the world's most expensive coffee by following a gourmet marsupial who consumes only the choicest coffee beans. By picking through what he excretes, they obtain the world's most expensive coffee -'Kopi Luwak', which sells for over $100 per pound.

The town of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, is closer to the equator than it is to the North Pole.

Three-hundred-million cells die in the human body every minute.

The Ostrich people in Africa are a group of people who have only 2 toes due to inbreeding

The pigmy shrew a relative of the mole is the smallest mammal in North America. It weighs 1/14 ounce less than a dime.

The elephant, as a symbol of the US Republican Party, was originated by cartoonist Thomas Nast and first presented in 1874.

The Mona-Lisa, now hanging in the Louvre museum in Paris, is valued today at $100,000,000.

The average adult raccoon weighs 21 pounds.

The 1st US Mormon temple was dedicated in Kirtland, Ohio in 1836.

Females have a wider peripheral vision than males.

An average person laughs about 5 times a day.

Tommy McDonald, a receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles, was the last NFL player to wear a helmet without a face mask.

In Bromide, Oklahoma it is illegal for children to use towels as capes and jump from houses pretending to be superman.

Insects shiver when they're cold.

The minarets ofthe Taj Mahal in India are angled at 88 degrees outwards so that they would not collapse into the structure should an earthquake occur

Chicago has hosted the most presidential conventions with 25. Fourteen have been Republican and 11 Democratic.

Queen Victoria eased the discomfort of her menstrual cramps by having her doctor supply her with marijuana.

The electric automobile self-starter was invented to make it possible for women to drive without a companion, who was previously needed to crank the engine.

A chef's hat is tall and balloons at the top so as to counteract the intense heat in the kitchen. The unique shape allows air to circulate around the scalp, keeping the head cool.

A pole vaulter, when he lands, may absorb up to 20,000 pounds of pressure per square inch on the joints of his tubular thigh bones.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, an avid golfer, had a putting green installed on the White House lawn.

North America was called Turtle Island by the Delaware Indians.

Jimmu, the legendary first ruler of Japan, began his reign in the year 660. Akihito, the current emperor, is said to be the 125th direct descendant of Jimmu to rule Japan.

The lunula is the half-moon shaped pale area at the bottom of finger nails.

Goldfish lose their color if they are kept in dim light or are placed in a body of running water, such as a stream.

The S in Harry S Truman stands for nothing.

Bette Midler, Barry Manilow and many other famous vocalists got their start in a New York City club called The Continental Baths.

In 1947, Toys for Tots started making the holidays a little happier for children by organizing its first Christmas toy drive for needy youngsters.

A acre of coffee trees can produce up to 10,000 pounds of coffee cherries. That amounts to approximately 2000 pounds of beans after hulling or milling.

Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way round.

Scarecrows frighten birds because of the human odor emitted from the clothes they wear. Come rain and wind, this odor dissapears. (tip for people who dont bathe often)

There are ten human body parts that are only three letters long: eye, hip, arm, leg, ear, toe, jaw, rib, lip, and gum.

As late as 1820, the universe was thought to be 6,000 years old. It is now thought to be between 15 and 20 billion years old.

The entire worlds output of urine takes about 45 minutes to go over the Niagra falls.

Actress Jayne Mansfield accidentally exhaled her breast out of her dress during the telecast of the Academy Awards in 1957.

Insulin was discovered in 1922 by Sir Frederick Banting and Dr. Charles Best.

Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour about 1.5 pounds a year. By 70 years of age, an average person will have lost 105 pounds of skin.

On average women say 7,000 words per day. Men manage just over 2000.

Every ten minutes, another plant or animal life form becomes extinct.

Finnish folklore says that when Santa comes to Finland to deliver gifts, he leaves his sleigh behind and rides on a goat named Ukko instead. According to French tradition, Santa Claus has a brother named Bells Nichols, who visits homes on New Year's Eve after everyone is asleep, and if a plate is set out for him, he fills it with cookies and cakes.

The Aztecs of Mexico roasted and ground up the cacao bean, mixed it with water, added peppers and other spices, stirred it up to a froth and drank the pungent mixture they called "chocolatl."

A man and woman in Mexico city were engaged for 67 yrs and finally married at the age of 82 yrs.

It is illegal to hunt camels in the state of Arizona.

A female mackerel lays about 500,000 eggs at one time.

The clock tower that supports the famous clock 'Big Ben' at the house of parliament in London, is 320 feet high. The bell from which the clock get it's name, weighs 13.5 tones.

Due to precipitation, for a few weeks K2 was bigger than Mt Everest.

The only jointless bone in your body is the hyoid bone in your throat

The candy bar, Baby Ruth, is named after President Clevelands' daughter, not Babe Ruth the baseball player.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon with his left foot.

An ant's sense of smell is as good as a Dog's.

El Capitan in Yosemite National Park is the largest visible granite rock in the world. It's twice the size of the Rock of Gibraltar.

Aspirin went on sale as the first pharmaceutical drug in 1899, after Felix Hoffman, a German chemist at the drug company Bayer, successfully modified Salicylic Acid, a compound found in willow bark to produce Aspirin.

Five Jell-O�� flavors have flopped: celery, coffee, cola, apple and chocolate.

Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico are all a part of the Greater Antilles.

Aztec emperor Montezuma drank 50 golden goblets of hot chocolate every day. It was thick, dyed red and flavored with chili peppers.

Francis Bacon died of hypothermia while trying to freeze a chicken by stuffing it with snow.

The canning process for herring was developed in Sardinia, which is why canned herrings are better known as sardines.

In Alabama it is illegal to stab yourself to gain someone's pity.

Blaise Pascal's father was a French tax collector who had trouble keeping track of his collections. So in 1642, young Pascal designed and built a mechanical adding machine to help. It was the first mechanical calculator in history.

Scotland has more redheads than any other part of the world.

Parker Brothers was founded by George Swinerton Parker, 18, in 1885. The first game produced was 'Banking,' in which the player who amasses the most wealth is the winner.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced in 1978 that it would alternate men's and women's names in the naming of hurricanes. It was seen as an attempt at fair play. Hurricanes had been named for women for years, until NOAA succumbed to pressure from women's groups who were demanding that Atlantic storms be given unisex names.

A human has a bone just after the spine ends, which helps proves that humans once had tails (possibly).

The modern Olympic Games were held in the first time in 1896 at Athens and were then followed by the 1900 Paris games. The winter games were added in 1924.

The Black Hole, 1979, was Disney's first PG-rated movie.

The original purpose of a coffin was not to protect the body from prowling animals or grave robbers. It was invented to keep the dearly departed from coming back to haunt survivors.

Pope Leo VII (936-9) died of a heart attack during sex, Pope John VII (955-64) and John XIII (965-72) were bludgeoned to death by the husband of the woman he was with at the time, and Pope Paul II (1467-71) allegedly died while being sodomized by a page boy.

Ants can live completely submerged underwater for up to 2 days.

You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.

In Billings, Montana it is illegal for employees of the city's communications center to program their phones with speed dial.

It is impossible to land on planet Jupiter, because, scientists believe that below all the gases and liguid there is a center [core] which is made up of small ball of pressurized iron, but it is impossible to tell for sutre.

Betsy Ross was born with a fully formed set of teeth.

A pied-billed grebe is called a peebeegeebee by birdwatchers.

An old law in Bellingham, Washington made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa was built on the site of a river estuary. The land under the town has several layers of silt and soft clay. The 15,000-ton tower tilts to the south because the subsoil is too unstable.

The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.

Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones were once roommates.

Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous transatlantic flight.

Robert Goddard a scientist and holder of 214 patents fired the first rocket using liquid propellant in 1926.

Anyone could come to Andrew Jackson's public parties at the White House. At his last one, a wheel of cheese weighing 1,400 lbs. was eaten in two hours. The White House smelled of cheese for weeks.

Deer sleep only 5 minutes a day.

Don Mac Lean's song "American Pie" was written about Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper), who all died in the same plane crash.

The secretary-bird swallow hen's egg whole without breaking its shell.

Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark.

The following is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language: "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick".

The first black player in the American League was Larry Doby with the Cleveland Indians in 1947.

To find out almost the exact temperature... Listen to a cricket chirping and count the number of chirps in a minute. Add fifty, divide by four then add 40.

If all numbers are arranged in alphabetical order, "eight" would be the first number. "Zero" would be the last number.

Animals that lay eggs don't have belly buttons.

Lake Pontchartrain Causeway at New Orleans, Louisiana, is the world's largest bridge. It is almost 24 miles (about 38 kilometers) long.

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were the two left-handed Beatles.

Catholic Popes who died during sex: Leo VII (936-9) died of a heart attack, John VII (955-64) was bludgeoned to death by the husband of the woman he was with at the time, John XIII (965-72) was also murdered by a jealous husband, Pope Paul II (1467-71) allegedly died while being sodomized by a page boy.

Cheetahs were originally called Leopards

The plant life in the oceans make up about 85 percent of all the greenery on the Earth.

The six most dangerous occupations in America are; football player, firefighter, race-car driver, astrnaut, police officer, and fisherman.

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

One ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen.

One plain milk chocolate candy bar has more protein than a banana.

Neil Young was once roommates with Rick James.

In the 14th century, the Arabs started to cultivate coffee plants. The first commercially grown and harvested coffee originated in the Arabian Peninsula near the port of Mocha.

By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.

Found in Egypt, this illustration is over 3,000 years old.

When Henry Aaron hit his 715th Home Run, breaking Babe Ruth's record, the pitcher who served it up was Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers. They were both wearing number 44.

The deepest hole ever made in the world is in Texas. It is as deep as 20 empire state buildings but only 3 inches wide. (Who made it? A petroleum company)

The world's most popular hobby is stamp collecting.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York City hung Matisse's 'Le Bateau' upside-down for 47 days before an art student noticed the error.

According to Hawaiian lore, the earth mother Papa mated with the sky father Wakea to give birth to the Hawaiian Islands.