PSA-220902-Trivia

Posted on 02/09/2022 by Grumpa Joe
You’re gonna say “I didn’t know that!” at least 5 times. Really neat stuff here:
Alaska

More than half of the coastline of the entire United States is in Alaska.

Amazon

The Amazon rain forest produces more than 20% of the world’s oxygen supply
The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic Ocean that, more than one hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the river, one can dip fresh water out of the ocean. The volume of water in the Amazon river is greater than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined and three times the flow of all rivers in the United States.

Antarctica

Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country. Ninety percent of the world’s ice covers Antarctica. This ice also represents seventy percent of all the fresh water in the world. As strange as it sounds, however, Antarctica is essentially a desert; the average yearly total precipitation is about two inches. Although covered with ice (all but 0.4% of it, ice.), Antarctica is the driest place on the planet, with an absolute humidity lower than the Gobi desert.

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

Canada

Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined. Canada is an Indian word meaning ‘ Big Village’.

Chicago

Next to Warsaw, Chicago has the largestPolish population in the world.

Detroit
Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, carries the designation M-1, so named because it was the first paved road anywhere.Damascus,

Syria
Damascus, Syria, was flourishing a couple of thousand years before Rome was founded in 753 BC making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in existence.

Istanbul , Turkey
Istanbul, Turkey, is the only city in the world
located on two continents.

Los Angeles
The full name of Los Angeles is: l Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula– and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A.

New York City
The term ‘The Big Apple’ was coined by touring jazz musicians of the 1930s who used the slang expression ‘apple’ for any town or city. Therefore, to play New York City Is to play the big time – The Big Apple.

There are more Irish in New York City 
than in Dublin, Ireland;
more Italians in New York City
than in Rome, Italy;
and more Jews in New York City
than in Tel Aviv, Israel .

Ohio
There are no natural lakes in the state of Ohio, every one is man-made.

Pitcairn Island
The smallest island with country status is Pitcairn
in Polynesia, at just 1.75 sq. miles/4,53 sq Km.

Rome
The first city to reach a population of 1 million people
was Rome, Italy (in 133 B.C.)
There is a city called Rome on every continent.

Siberia
Siberia contains more than 25% of the world’s forests.

S.M.O.M.

The actual smallest sovereign entity in the world
Is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta S.M.O.M).
It is located in the city of Rome, Italy, and has an area of two tennis courts. And, as of 2001, has a population of 80, 20 less people than the Vatican.
It is a sovereign entity under international law,
just as the Vatican is.

Sahara DesertIn the Sahara Desert , there is a town named Tidikelt, Algeria, that did not receive a drop of rain for ten years. Technically, though, the driest place on Earth
is in the valleys of the Antarctic near Ross Island.
There has been no rainfall there for two million years

Spain
Spain literally means ‘the land of rabbits’.

St. Paul , Minnesota
St. Paul , Minnesota , was originally called Pig’s Eye
after a man named Pierre ‘Pig’s Eye’ Parrant who set up the first business there.

Russia
The deepest hole ever drilled by man is the Kola Superdeep Borehole, in Russia. It reached a depth of 12,261 meters (about 40,226 feet or 7.62 miles.) It was drilled for scientific research and gave up some unexpected discoveries, one of which was a huge deposit of hydrogen – so massive that the mud coming from the hole was boiling with it.

United States
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

Waterfalls
The water of Angel Falls (the world’s highest) in Venezuela drops 3,212 feet (979 meters.) They are 15 times higher than Niagara Falls.

I have always said, you should learn something new every day. Unfortunately, many of us are at that age where what we learn today, we forget tomorrow.
But, give it a shot anyway.

I am sorry for the lack of images, but most of the cute graphics for each of these facts came to me as a GIF file and I couldn’t download them into WordPress.

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PSA180924-More Useless Stuff

Posted on 24/09/2018 by Grumpa Joe
feat-3
  1. The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 BC.
  2.  When you hear a bullwhip snap, it’s because the tip is traveling faster than the speed of sound.
  3.  Hair is made from the same substance as fingernails.
  4.  The ZIP in “ZIP code” means Zoning Improvement Plan.
  5.  ‘Obsession’ is the most popular boat name.
  6.  The first toilet ever seen on television was on “Leave It to Beaver.”
  7.  Hawaii is moving toward Japan 4 inches every year.
  8. Your brain uses up about 20% of all your body’s oxygen and calories.
  9. Every year 56,000,000 people attend major league baseball games.
  10. A full 7% of the entire Irish barley crop goes to the production of Guinness beer.
  11. During your lifetime, you’ll eat about 60,000 pounds of food. That’s the weight of about 6 elephants.
  12.  The least used letter in the alphabet is Q.
  13.  26 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill,
  14. The word “lethologica” describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
  15. A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time: 1/100th of a second.
  16.  Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.
  17. The busiest shopping hour of the holiday season is between 3-4 p.m. on Christmas Eve.
  18.  Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.
  19. Al Gore’s roommate in college (Harvard, class of 1969) was Tommy Lee Jones.
  20. The average person laughs 10 times a day.
  21. Americans travel 1,144,721,000 miles by air every day.
  22. More people use blue toothbrushes than red ones.
  23. A group of frogs is called an army.
  24. The parachute was invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1515.
  25. 72% of Americans sign their pets’ names on greeting cards they send out.
  26. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
  27. All major league baseball umpires must wear black underwear while on the job in case their pants split.
  28. Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
  29. The average American butt is 14.9 inches long.
  30. A perfect SAT score is 1600 combined.
  31. Bill Gates scored 1590 on his SAT. Paul Allen, Bill’s partner at Microsoft, scored a perfect 1600.
  32. Bill Cosby scored less than 500 combined.
  33. Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than for the U.S. Treasury.
  34. Blondes have more hair than dark-haired people do.
  35. It is unlikely that a person could actually die in quicksand, since most quicksand is only a few inches deep
  36.  There are 31,557,600 seconds in a year.
  37. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.
  38. There is a company that will (for $14,000) take your ashes and compress them into a synthetic diamond to be set in jewelry for a loved one.
  39.  Goldfish can see both infrared and ultraviolet light.
  40.  A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
  41. 60 Minutes on CBS is the only TV show to not have a theme song or music.
  42. Costco is the largest wine retailer in the United States. Annual wine sales are about $700 million
  43. California consumes more bottled water than any other product.
  44.  The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’
  45. When three-letter airport codes became standard, airports that had been using two letters simply added an X.
  46. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
  47. Nintendo was founded in 1889.
  48. The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade.
  49. 1 googol is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.
  50. A rainbow can be seen only in the morning or late afternoon. It can occur only when the sun is 40 degrees or less above the horizon.
  51.  The number one tire manufacturer in the world? LEGO.
  52. President Lincoln’s dog Fido was also assassinated.
  53. The words ‘racecar’, ‘kayak’ and ‘level’ are palindromes. They read the same whether you read them left to right or right to left.
  54. A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair.
  55. The “pound” key on your keyboard (#) is called an octotrophe.
  56. Cows don’t have upper front teeth.
  57.  They have square watermelons in Japan – they stack better.
  58. Frogs don’t drink (they absorb water through their skin).
  59. Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of the blue whale.
  60. The word “Checkmate” in chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the king is dead.”
  61. Most American car horns honk in the key of F.
  62. Seven percent of Americans claim they never bathe at all.
  63. Most collect calls are made on Father’s Day.

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