Weird Facts

Dedicated to keeping you informed about all the interesting, strange and cool facts from around the world.

The Nobel Peace Prize medal depicts 3 naked men with their hands on each others shoulders. Verified

Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, not China! Verified

Of the 17k+ words Shakespeare used, over 1700 are recorded there for the first time. Verified

During your lifetime, the average human will grow 591 miles of hair. Unverified But hair does grows about 6 inches per year and the average head has 100,000 hairs. Take an average lifespan of 80 years. 6 x 100,000 x 80 = 48,000,000. Unfortunately hair growth is not uniform through out your lifespan, I have yet to find a formula for this.

The United States has more bagpipe bands than Scotland does. To be verified But would appear to be true since Scotland has a population of only 5,000,000, compared to the U.S. at 304,059,724

10 percent of electricity in the US comes from "dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones." Read More

In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel 1 to mobile Services (two-way radios in taxicabs, for instance) but did not Pre-number the other channel assignments. That is why your TV set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1. Verified

The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments, in the United States. False But they are a National Monument.

The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when the fire engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and soon figured out how to walk up straight staircases. Verified

On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year. To be verified

A hurricane releases more energy in 10 minutes, than all the world's nuclear weapons combined. Verified

The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. Verified

According to one study, 24% of homes with lawns have some sort of lawn ornament in their yard.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David; Clubs - Alexander the Great;Hearts-Charlemagne and Diamonds - Julius Caesar. Verified

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321 Verified

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later. False Cannot be verified 100%
.
The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the Pacific.When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards." Unverified

The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law that stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb. False

The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the General Purpose" vehicle, GP. False "GP" does not mean "General Purpose" it came from Ford production codes: G for government, and P for the 80-inch-wheelbase of the vehicle.

The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.

The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The chances of you dying on the way to get your lottery tickets is greater than your chances of winning.

If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19.You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

Statistically you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than Left-handed people do.

In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked every hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

The average human body contains enough fat to make seven bars of soap.

10% of all woman registered for computer dating are teachers.

7 in 10 Americans have some kind of fear of the dark.

More people have a phobia of frogs than rats.

More people have a phobia of vomiting than death.

The human brain only accounts for 2% of your body weight, but takes up more than 20% of your blood flow.

The human brain holds between 1 and 7 terabytes (1 and 7 million megabytes) of data.

Males sweat 40% more then females.

"Men buy an average of 3.4 pairs of underwear in a year." Read More

Testosterone in males decreases 10% every 10 years.

Deep breathing gives you health benefits similar to aerobics. Read More

Another name for putty root is "adam and eve".

The monkey flower, looks like a monkeys face.

The location of the Mars face on Mars matches the location of Stone Henge in England.

Venus's day is longer then its year.

The rotation of the Earth will eventually slow down to match the moon.

President George W. Bush was once a cheerleader!

The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad.

Sound doesn't travel in space.

The height of Mount Everest is 8.9 km (5.5 miles).

The height of Mount Olympus on Mars is 25 km (15 miles).

The diameter of the earth is 12 756 km (7 926 miles).

The diameter of Jupiter is 152 800 km (88 700 miles).

The diameter of the sun is 1 390 000 km (865 000 miles).

The average temperature of the sun is 6000 degrees C (11 000 degrees F) .

The name Adam is believed to have come from the Assyrian word adamu: "make" or "produce".

In Hebrew Adam means dirt.

The last name in the Toronto phone book is Zzyzzer.

Hot water will turn into ice faster then cold water. Read More

Assuming current population growths remain constant: by the year 3550 the total human population will have the same mass as the earth; assuming the average person is 60 kg (132 pounds).

In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow!

There are more plastic flamingos in the U.S, than real ones!

More people use blue toothbrushes, than red ones!

A sneeze will travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.!

Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe!

Recycling one glass jar, saves enough energy to watch T.V for 3 hours!

The average American/Canadian drinks about 600 sodas a year!

There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses!

"New Mexico boasts the largest concentration of Ph.D. scientists per capita in the United States." Read More

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.

On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

It takes 42 muscles in your face to frown. It only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and smack someone upside the head.

In 1843, the first Christmas card was printed in England for Sir Henry Cole. He was busy man who wanted to save time in his own Christmas letters, but was also interested in encouraging the expansion of the postal system. 1000 copies of the card were sold at one shilling each. It was not until the 1860s that the production of cards accelerated, with cheaper printing methods. Then in 1870, the Post Office introduced a half penny stamp for sending cards.

People say Bless you when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heart stops for a millisecond.

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

More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.

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

If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib .

If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.

If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out. Myth: Your eyes will bulge out, but they will not pop out.

Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.

In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders. (MYTH - Deliberately concocted rumor that originated from a book on insect lore published in 1954 (In a section on "common misbeliefs") )

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients used in dynamite.

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

18 million links were shared on Facebook in August. Read More

The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.

Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.

The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."

All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.

Some US airports use falconry (hunting of game with falcons) "to scare off birds that can be hazardous for airplanes." Read More

All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill. FALSE! Only the 26 on the front of the memorial. Additionally, the Lincoln Memorial itself only has 48 states listed, since that's how many there were when it was completed.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10. This allows the company name to be displayed in the middle.

Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life."

A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. Myth Your eyelids snap shut by reflex, but you can train yourself to keep your eyes open.

In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

Mr. Rogers was an ordained minister.

The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

"Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.

"a man a plan a canal panama" spelled backwards is still "a man a plan a canal panama"

A snail can sleep for three years.

Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, includingtheir eyebrows and eyelashes.

On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.

Beelzebub, another name for the devil, is Hebrew for "Lord of the Flies", and this is where the book's title comes from.

The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic church. When deciding if someone should be sainted, a devil's advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view.

Before Prohibition, Shlitz Brewery owned more property in Chicago than anyone else, except The Catholic Church.

It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is 'shake' and the 46th word from the last word is 'spear'.

The lifespan of a taste bud is ten days.

Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

There is an average of 178 sesame seeds on a McDonald's Big Mac bun.

The Bible has been translated into Klingon.

Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.

Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
The dial tone of a normal telephone is in the key of "F".

If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.

US consumers spent $66.54 per person on Halloween in 2008, a number that's expected to drop this year. Read More

Utah now penalizes a texting driver who causes a fatality as harshly as a drunken driver who kills someone. Read More

A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before a person realizes it's there, though!

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second! I'll be there in a jiffy

A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court!

A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove!

Apples are more efficient than caffeine in keeping people awake in the mornings!

18 million links were shared on Facebook in August. Read More

82 percent of the United States lives in urban areas. Read More

Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks!

Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete!

If you counted 24 hours a day, it would take 31,688 years to reach one trillion!


No piece of square dry paper can be folded more than 7 times in half!

Nose prints are used to identify dogs, just like humans use fingerprints!

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


Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands when typing!

Smelling bananas and/or green apples (smelling, not eating) can help you lose weight!

The average ice berg weighs 20,000,000 tons!

After Israel declared independence in 1948, (not-yet-Dr.) Ruth was trained by the Israeli military as a sniper. Read More

The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year!

The Earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons!

The electric chair was invented by a dentist!

The most used letter in the English alphabet is 'E', and 'Q' is the least used!

The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven!

The IKEA Catalog is the 3rd most printed publication in the world after the Bible and Harry Potter. Read More

The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth!

10 percent of electricity in the US comes from "dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones." Read More

There are more than 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building!

Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark!

Windmills always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland!

Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!

You're born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206!

101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan are the only two Disney cartoon features with both parents that are present and don't die throughout the movie.

142857 is a cyclic number, the numbers of which always appear in the same order but rotated around when multiplied by any number from 1 to 6. 142857 * 2 = 285714 142857 * 3 = 428571 142857 * 4 = 571428 142857 * 5 = 714285 142857 * 6 = 857142

A barnacle has the largest penis of any other animal in the world in relation to its size.

Mid 70s in the bronx there were 120,000 per yr (3 fires every 2 hrs). 40% of all housing was destroyed. Read More

A fully loaded supertanker traveling at normal speed takes a least twenty minutes to stop.

"US Wireless Users Send 4.1 billion Texts Daily" Read More

A ten-gallon hat holds three-quarters of a gallon.

According to Genesis 1:20-22 the chicken came before the egg.

Actor Tommy Lee Jones and vice-president Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.

After human death, post-mortem rigidity starts in the head and travels to the feet, and leaves the same way it came -- head to toe.

Albert Brooks's real name is Albert Einstein. Read More

Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never phoned his wife or his mother. They were both deaf.

Alexander the Great was an epileptic.

Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.

All of the officers in the Confederate army were given copies of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, to carry with them at all times. Robert E. Lee, among others, believed that the book symbolized their cause. Both revolts were defeated.


Ancient drinkers warded off the devil by clinking their cups.

Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the deaths of their cats.


Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.

Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.

Bingo is the name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box.

Blonde beards grow faster than darker beards.

Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.

In 1862 Ulysses Grant issued Gen. Order 11 order expelling the jews frm TN, MS, KY. Read More

Bob Dylan's real name is Robert Zimmerman.


Both Hitler and Napoleon were missing one testicle.

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

Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to SLOW a film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.

By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand.

Catgut comes from sheep not cats.

Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them use to burn their houses down -- hence the statement "to get fired."

Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works.

Daniel Boone detested coonskin caps. Read More

Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth, and whose shame created the statement for ignominy, "His name is Mudd."

During World War II, W.C. Fields kept US $50,000 in Germany 'in case the little bastard wins'.

Earth is the only planet not named after a God.

Elvis had a twin brother named Jesse Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis' middle name was spelled Aron; in honor of his brother.

Every photograph of an American atomic bomb detonation was taken by Harold Edgerton.

Evian (the bottled water) spelled backwards is "naive."

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

Flying from London to New York by Concord, due to the time zones crossed, you can arrive 2 hours before you leave.

From the age of thirty, humans gradually begin to shrink in size.

Hara kiri is an impolite way of saying the Japanese word "seppuku" which means, literally, "belly splitting."

Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by Bayer.

Hindu men believe(d) it to be unluckily to marry a third time. They could avoid misfortune by marrying a tree first. The tree ( his third wife ) was then burnt, freeing him to marry again.

Human birth control pills work on gorillas.

If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning before you will die of oxygen deprivation.

If you can see a rainbow you must have your back to the sun. If you don't, you can't see it.

Switching to LED lighting for signage will save Holiday Inn an estimated $4.4 Million a year. Read More

In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again, Sam." Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson." Captain Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty," but he did say, "Beam me up, Mr. Scott."

In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.

In most watch advertisements the time displayed on the watch is 10:10 because then the arms frame the brand of the watch (and make it look like it's smiling.)

In the Andes, time is often measured by how long it takes to smoke a cigarette.

In the film 'Star Trek : First Contact', when Picard shows Lilly she is orbiting Earth, Australia and Papa New Guinea are clearly visible .. but New Zealand is missing.

It takes 8.5 minutes for light to get from the sun to earth.

Jacques Cousteau invented scuba gear while in the French resistance during World War II.

Jet lag was once called boat lag, back before jets existed.

John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in a theatre and was found in a warehouse. Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was found in a theatre.

John Wilkes Booth's brother once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son.

Lady Astor once told Winston Churchill 'if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee'. His reply ' if you were my wife, I would drink it!'

Leonardo De Vinci invented the scissors.

Look at the number four on a clock face that uses Roman numerals. If the clock is made correctly then the Roman numeral four is wrong. The standard and correct way to write the Roman numeral four is "IV," but the traditional way to show it on a clock face is "IIII." Legend has it that a clock was made for a British king. When he saw the clock he mis- informedly corrected the clock maker who re-did the clock face to show a "IIII" instead of an "IV" thus not risking offending the king. Other clock makers followed suit so as not to embarrass the king. Now it is the traditional way to make clocks.

Men leave their hotel rooms cleaner than women do.

Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."

More money is printed daily for the Monopoly game than by the U.S. Treasury.

More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.

Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of F.

Mozart was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave.

Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.

Nine pennies weigh exactly one ounce.

"The bikini got it’s name from the oooh and awe resulting from a nuclear test at Bikini Atoll." Read More

Ninety eight per cent of the weight of water is made up from oxygen.

No animal, once frozen solid (i.e., water solidifies and turns to ice) survives when thawed, because the ice crystals formed inside cells would break open the cell membranes. However there are certain frogs that can survive the experience of being frozen. These frogs make special proteins, which prevent the formation of ice (or at least keep the crystals from becoming very large), so that they actually never freeze even though their body temperature is below zero Celsius. The water in them remains liquid: a phenomenon known as 'supercooling.' If you disturb one of these frogs (just touching them even), the water in them quickly freezes solid and they die.

Oak trees do not have acorns until they are fifty years old or older.

On 15 April 1912 the SS Titanic sunk on her maiden voyage and over 1,500 people died. Fourteen years earlier a novel was published by Morgan Robertson which seemed to foretell the disaster. The book described a ship the same size as the Titanic which crashes into an iceberg on its maiden voyage on a misty April night. The name of Robertson's fictional ship was the Titan.

On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.

One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 30s lobbied against hemp farmers -- they saw it as competition. It is not chemically addictive as is nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine.

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

Panama hats come from Ecuador not Panama.

Peanuts are used in the production of dynamite.

Pearls melt in vinegar.

Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eyes."

Pogonophobia is the fear of beards.

"The number of licenses to operate cabs in New York [City] has actually shrunk since 1937." Read More

Residents of the island of Lesbos are Lesbosians, rather than Lesbians. (Of course, lesbians are called lesbians because Sappho was from Lesbos.)

Revolvers cannot be silenced, due to all the noisy gasses which escape the cylinder gap at the rear of the barrel.

Robert E. Lee, of the Confederate Army, remains the only person, to date, to have graduated from the West Point military academy without a single demerit.

Russians generally answer the phone by saying, 'I'm listening.'

S.O.S. doesn't stand for "Save Our Ship" or "Save Our Souls" -- It was chosen by an 1908 international conference on Morse Code because the letters S and O were easy to remember and just about anyone could key it and read it, S = dot dot dot, O = dash dash dash.

Samuel Clemens's pseudonym "Mark Twain" was the nickname of a riverboat pilot about whom Clemens wrote a needless nasty satirical piece. Apparently, Clemens felt guilty later and adopted the nom de plume as some sort of expiation. The phrase "mark twain" from which the river pilot got his name does not mean two fathoms (twelve feet.)

Smithee is a pseudonym that filmmakers use when they don't want their names to appear in the credits.

Soda water does not contain soda.

Soweto in South Africa was derived from SOuth WEst TOwnship.

Spain literally means 'the land of rabbits.'

Speak of the Devil is short for "Speak of the Devil and he shall come". It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would attract his attention and he would appear.

St. Bernards, famous for their role as alpine rescue dogs, do NOT wear casks of brandy around their necks.

Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.

The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

The average scalp has 100,000 hairs. Redheads have the least at 80,000; brown and black haired persons have about 100,000; and blondes have the most at 120,000. (That is more than a thousand hairs in each square inch!)

The bat on the Bacardi symbol is there because the soil where the sugar cane grows is fertile from the excessive guano (bat droppings.)

The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.

The car manufacturer Henry Ford was awarded Hitler's Supreme Order of the German Eagle.

The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the morning to you," is "and the rest of the day to yourself."

The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.

The dome on Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, conceals a billiards room. In Jefferson's day, billiards were illegal in Virginia.

The dunce cap of schoolhouse fame originates from a paper cone that was placed on the heads of accused witches during the Middle Ages. When Joan of Arc was martyred, she was wearing one of them.

The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.

The 'Hundred Years War' lasted 116 years.

The launching mechanism of a carrier ship that helps planes to take off could throw a pickup truck over a mile.

The lifespan of a tastebud is ten days.

Aircraft windows are rounded because the square windows used in early planes concentrated stress on the corners. Read More

The longest U.S. highway is route 6 starting in Cape Cod, Massachusetts going through 14 states, and ending in Bishop, California.

The magic word "Abracadabra" was originally intended for the specific purpose of curing hay fever.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

The names of the three wise monkeys are: Mizaru: See no evil, Mikazaru: Hear no evil, and Mazaru: Speak no evil.

The national flag of Italy was designed by Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Nobel Prize resulted from a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after his death as a propagator of violence - he invented dynamite.

The numbers '172' can be found on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.

The NY phone book had 22 Hitlers before WWII. The NY phone book had 0 Hitlers after WWII.

The only member of the band ZZ Top without a beard has the last name Beard.

The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.

The Phillips-head screwdriver was invented in Oregon.

The phrase ' The 3 R's ' ( standing for 'reading, writing and arithmetic' ) was created by Sir William Curtis, who was illiterate.

The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

The province of Alberta in Canada has been almost completely free of rats since 1905. Read More

The slogan on New Hampshire license plates is 'Live Free or Die'. These license plates are manufactured by prisoners in the state prison in Concord.

The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic church. When deciding if someone should be sainted, a devil's advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view.

The term "Mayday" is used for signaling for help. It comes from the French term "M'aidez" which is pronounced "MayDay" and means, "Help Me."

The United States government keeps its supply of silver at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY.

There are four cars and eleven light posts on the back of a ten-dollar bill.

There are more than 50,000 earthquakes throughout the world every year!

There are no clocks in Las Vegas casinos.

There is about 200 times more gold in the world’s oceans, than has been mined in our entire history.

Tomb robbers believed that knocking Egyptian sarcophagi's noses off would forestall curses.

U.S. Interstates which go north-south are numbered sequentially starting from the west with odd numbers, and Interstates which go east-west are numbered sequentially starting from the south with even numbers.

Until 1967, LSD was legal in California.

The New Orleans W. Closure Complex will be largest pump station on earth & pump 150,000 gallons per second Read More

When young and impoverished, Pablo Picasso kept warm by burning his own paintings.

While at Havard University, Edward Kennedy was suspended for cheating on a Spanish exam.

While performing her duties as queen, Cleopatra sometimes wore a fake beard.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

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

7% of Americans don't know the first 9 words of the American anthem, but know the first 7 of the Canadian anthem!

About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30!

Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet!

In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals!

One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!

A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years!

Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!

It is estamated that a plastic container will not decompose for as long as 50,000 years.

The only part of the human anatomy that has no blood supply is the cornea

The human skeleton weighs appx 13 kilos.

In a life time, the average human can fill an olympic swimming pool with their saliva.

The first police car was used in 1899 in England.

The first recorded car theft was in 1896 in Paris.

In 1895 Hampshire police handed out the first ever speeding ticket, fining a man for doing 6mph!

When a glass breaks, the crack travels 3,000 kph.

Take your weight divide it by 3: thats how much your leg weighs.

More babies are born in September than any other month.

Every day 1 acre of trees produce enough oxygen for 18 people.

About 8% of your total weight is blood.

The average car has 15,000 parts.

Metal shrinks when its cold, thats why the eiffel tower is 6 inches shorter in winter.

1 million seconds = 13.5 days

In 32 years. there are about 1 billion seconds!

Louis IV of France had a stomach twice as big as a normal stomach.

Google got its name from ëgoogolí, meaning the number 1 and 100 zeroes after it.

Gloucestershire airport in England used to blast Tina Turner songs on the runways to scare birds away.

If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more like 4,950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.

If you're typical, you can guess someone's sex with 95% accuracy just by smelling their breath.

If your skin is laid flat it will cover an area of 18 square feet.

Only two in one thousand diamonds are considered truly colorless.

In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs!

Pageant Models often smear Vaseline on their teeth so their lips won't stick when smiling.

Tablecloths were originally meant to be served as towels with which dinner guests could wipe their hands and faces after eating!

The can opener was invented 48 years after the can.

Until 1990, the deadly poison mercury was used in about 30% of latex paints!

Whispering is more wearing on your voice than a normal speaking tone.

For beer commercials, they add liquid detergent to the beer to make it foam more.

Babies start dreaming even before they're born.

Babies who wear disposable diapers are five times more likely to develop diaper rash than those that wear cotton diapers.

Bamboo plants can grow up to 36 inches in a day.

Blue eyes are the most sensitive to light, dark brown the least sensitive.

Contrary to popular belief, hair does not grow back darker and thicker after it has been shaved.

Diamonds mined in Brazil are harder than those found in Africa.

More than 50% of Americans fall asleep on their sides.

More than 6,000 people with pillow-related injuries check into U.S. emergency rooms every year!

New York's Central Park is nearly twice the size of the entire country of Monaco.

Ninety-nine percent of pumpkins sold in the United States are for the sole purpose of decoration.

Oak trees can live 200 or more years.

On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.

The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off!

On average, a disposable diaper can hold up to 7 pounds of liquid.

On average, the life span of an American dollar bill is eighteen months.

Paper money is not made from wood pulp but from cotton. This means that it will not disintegrate as fast if it is put in the laundry.

Pollen can travel up to 500 miles in a day.

A group of officers is called a mess.

A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans.

Club Direct, a travel insurance company in Britain, provides insurance plans for protection from falling coconuts.

Each year, there are more than 40,000 toilet related injuries in the United States.

More than ten people a year are killed by vending machines.

Stay tuned for more Fun Facts coming soon!
Weird Facts is updated daily and has been online since 1999.
We read all comments and respond to any requests.

Submit a Fact or Correct a fact