Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Strange facts you might not know! David Lim, Auckland, New Zealand

Cats do not taste sweetness.

Whales still have hip bones.

The glue used on Israeli postage stamps is kosher.

The city of Austin,TX was originally named “Waterloo”.

The 50 tallest mountains on Earth are all located in Asia.

Winston Churchill’s mother was an American born in New York.

Bagpipes weren’t invented in Scotland, but in ancient Persia.

Michelangelo died in 1564, the same year Shakespeare was born.

The human bone most often broken is the clavicle (collar bone).

Marie Osmond goes by her middle name. Her actual first name is Olive.

Contrary to the widely held belief, there are no wild tigers in Africa.

Only one U.S. state has a state flag with a green background: Washington.

Geologists believe that about half the unmined gold in the world is in South Africa.

The toilet featured in Hitchcock’s “Psycho” was the first flushing toilet to appear on-screen.

Elephants are the only animal physically unable to jump. This is because of their enormous weight.

If the tracks on a typical compact disc ran in a straight line, they would travel for about three miles.

Abraham Lincoln wasn’t the only U.S. president with a “Gettysburg Address.” Dwight Eisenhower owned a farm in the Pennsylvania town.

The Latin phrase “libra pondo” was used in ancient Rome to indicate weight, which is why today the abbreviation for “pound” is “lb.”

Leatherback sea turtles have fleshy backward-pointing spines in their throats so that jellyfish, their favorite food, can be swallowed more easily.

Plastic bags take up less landfill space than paper bags. According to one study, two plastic bags take up 72 percent less landfill space than one paper bag.

Not only are all automobile taillights in the U.S. red, they’re a specific shade of red (with a specific color wavelength and intensity) mandated by the federal government.

Bridgestone Corporation, maker of the Bridgestone tires, is a Japanese company. The title is derived from founder Shojiro Ishibashi’s last name, which translates literally to “stone bridge”.

The number “five” is important to the Pentagon in many ways. Sure, it has five sides, but the building also has five stories, and the courtyard in the center encompasses an area of five ac

The fortune cookie was invented in the early 20th century by Makato Hagiwara, who designed the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. He intended the cookie to be a snack for people walking through the garden.

Despite its 6.5 million square feet of floor space, the Pentagon in Washington was constructed in such a way that no point in the building is more than seven minutes’ walk from any other point in the building.

Built in 1889, the Eiffel Tower was lambasted by Parisians for its industrial ugliness. The only thing that saved it from being demolished in 1909 was its potential use as a radio tower during World War I. Luckily, by the end of the War, it had won over enough hearts to stay.

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