A.P. Holiday - Hmm...I Did Not Know That, 1,000 random & interesting facts on a variety of subjects

Hmm...I Did Not Know That

1,000 random & interesting facts on a variety of subjects

By A.P. Holiday

Haymaker Book Company

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Hmm...I Did Not Know That

Copyright 2011 A.P. Holiday

Published by Haymaker Book Company

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted without the written permission of the publisher.

Note: Facts are uncategorized and appear in random order. Hopefully each fact is as fresh and interesting as the one before.

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Hmm...I Did Not Know That

1. An estimated one million earthworms live in one acre of soil.

2. Assassin John Wilkes Booth timed the shooting of Abraham Lincoln with a particularly humorous line in the play Our American Cousin , in the hope that the laughter of the audience would help mask the sound of the gunshot.

3. Monkeys are trained and employed as harvesters on large coconut plantations in Malaysia and Thailand.

4. Over a million cars are stolen each year in the United States.

5. A total of 438 people are killed in the course of the four Rambo movies.

6. The highest elevation in the Maldives is 7 feet, 7 inches above sea level, the lowest high point of any nation in the world.

7. Captive raccoons will often take food and dip it into water to wash it before eating.

8. After punching President Andrew Jackson in Virginia in 1833, a man named Robert B. Randolph was apprehended by a group of people that included "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" author Washington Irving.

9. About six billion gallons of beer are brewed commercially in the U.S. every year.

10. Buzkashi, a sport popular in central Asia, is played by two teams mounted on horseback. The goal of the game is to transport a headless goat or calf carcass across a goal line.

11. The Beatles were once known as Johnny and the Moondogs.

12. It is estimated that Alan Rufus, an 11th century British statesman, amassed a fortune that would have been the modern equivalent of 162 billion dollars during his lifetime.

13. The term smart alec is believed to be derived from the nickname of a famous New York City pimp of the 1840s named Alec Hoag.

14. U.S. bombers dropped approximately 260 million bombs on the nation of Laos during the Vietnam War.

15. It is estimated that 14 new words are added to the English language every day.

16. Only 18 of the original 237 men who sailed out with Ferdinand Magellans expedition to circumnavigate the globe actually completed the voyage.

17. Michael Cresta scored a record 830 points playing Scrabble during a tournament in 2006.

18. The equator lies across 14 different nations.

19. The average person uses an estimated 80-90 profanities each day.

20. Tabasco sauce was originally distributed in recycled glass cologne bottles.

21. Las Vegas casinos rake in an average of 9 billion dollars every year.

22. Peppercorns were found stuffed up the nose of the mummified body of Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II.

23. R.J. Reynolds introduced the worlds first packaged cigarettes, Camels, in 1913.

24. Guinness Book of World Records co-founder Ross McWhirter was assassinated by the IRA in 1975.

25. Badgers and coyotes have been known to cooperate with one another in concerted hunting trips.

26. Over 250,000 home runs have been hit in the history of Major League Baseball.

27. The Russian military used explosive-laden dogs to destroy German tanks during World War II.

28. The first paved road in the U.S. opened in 1795 and connected Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia.

29. Both the White Castle and Pizza Hut restaurant chains were founded in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921 and 1958, respectively.

30. The widely used red food dye carmine is made from an acid produced by boiling a dried insect called the Cochineal.

31. An estimated 22 million people use marijuana on a daily basis.

32. The citizens of ancient Rome were the first to use a taxi service for transportation.

33. In 2009, more banks were robbed on Friday than any other day of the week.

34. It is estimated that there are over 6.8 billion people presently living on earth.

35. Frank Sinatra was thrown out of high school for bad behavior only 47 days after enrolling.

36. Employees of IBM have been the recipients of four Nobel Prizes.

37. The Boston Terrier can trace its roots back to a single dog known as Hoopers Judge, which was purchased by a Bostonian in 1870.

38. Bill Lear, founder of Lear Jets, helped invent the eight-track audio tape system.

39. 80% of the buildings in Warsaw, Poland, were destroyed during World War II.

40. There are more than 150 million water buffaloes living on earth.

41. In 1983, Donald Davis ran backwards for a mile in a time of 6 minutes and 7.1 seconds, a world record for the backwards mile.

42. The main ingredient of the Polish soup czernina is duck blood.

43. Point Barrow, Alaska, is the northernmost point in the United States.

44. Early European shower systems allowed the same water to be used over and over again for multiple bathers.

45. The athletic teams at Illinois Freeport High School are known as The Pretzels.

46. The Snickers bar was first sold as the Gooey Chocolatey Peanut Buttery Fun Bar.

47. Five of the seven poorest per-capita counties in the United States are located in South Dakota.

48. The word poppycock descends from a Dutch word meaning soft feces.

49. The South Korean national junior hockey team defeated the Thai team 92-0 during a tournament game in 1998.

50. About 70% of the people bitten by rattlesnakes are male.

51. The largest hailstone ever measured fell in Vivian, South Dakota, in 2010. It was 18 inches in diameter and weighed nearly two pounds.

52. Slavery in the United States began upon the arrival of a ship bearing 20 African captives in Virginia in 1619.

53. A weapon called the Apache revolver, which became popular with French criminals in the early 20th century, was a combination pistol, brass knuckles and knife.

54. Peanuts character Snoopy was originally to be called Sniffy.

55. The Seawise Giant, at over 1,500 feet in length, and with a capacity of over 642,000 tons, was the largest ship ever built.

56. In Romanian, the name Dracula means son of the dragon.

57. Thirty-two carrier pigeons were awarded medals by the United Kingdom for their service in World Wars I and II.

58. Slavery was outlawed in Rhode Island in 1652.

59. The Bullenbeisser breed of German Bulldog, which was bred with the English Bulldog to form the Boxer breed, is now extinct.

60. The Georgia Tech football team racked up 1,620 rushing yards in its 222-0 destruction of Cumberland College in 1916.

61. Mosquitoes infect more than 700 million people with various diseases each year.

62. A butler, trained at one of a small number of specialized butlering schools, can expect to earn a starting salary of $50,000-60,000 per year upon graduation.

63. The tallest man-made structure in the United States is the 2,063-foot tall KVLY/KTHI TV tower located near Blanchard, North Dakota.

64. The corpse of Pope Formusus was dug up and put on trial by Pope Stephen VI (VII) for crimes committed while Formusus was still alive. The corpse was found guilty and thrown into the Tiber River.

65. The first Big Mac was served in a Pittsburgh area McDonalds in 1968.

66. Cornelius Vanderbilt never set foot on the campus of the Nashville university which bears his name, and which was endowed by his one million dollar gift in 1873.