AMAZING FACTS

King Henry VIII slept with a gigantic axe.

Catfish are the only animals that naturally have an ODD number of whiskers.

Replying more than 100 times to the same piece of spam e-mail will overwhelm the
sender's system and interfere with their ability to send any more spam.

The skin needed for elbow transplants must be taken from the scrotum of a cadaver.

The Boeing 747 is capable of flying upside-down if it weren't for the fact that the wings
would shear off when trying to roll it over.

The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man was owned by Frank
Sinatra.

The only golf course on the island of Tonga has 15 holes, and there's no penalty if a
monkey steals your golf ball.

Calvin, of the "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, was patterned after President Calvin
Coolidge, who had a pet tiger as a boy.

SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below.

Because printed materials are being replaced by CD-ROM, microfiche and the Internet,
libraries that previously sank into their foundations under the weight of their books are
now in danger of collapsing in extremely high winds.

In 1843, a Parisian street mime got stuck in his imaginary box and consequently died of
starvation.

The sport of jai alai originated from a game played by Incan priests who held cats by
their tails and swung at leather balls. The cats would instinctively grab at the ball with
their claws, thus enabling players to catch them.

The idea for "tribbles" in "Star Trek" came from gerbils, since some gerbils are actually
born pregnant.
Male rhesus monkeys often hang from tree branches by their amazing prehensile penises.

Johnny Plessey batted .331 for the Cleveland Spiders in 1891, even though he spent the
entire season batting with a rolled-up, lacquered copy of the Toledo Post-Dispatch.

Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.

A cat's purr has the same romance-enhancing frequency as the voice of singer Barry
White.

The typewriter was invented by Hungarian immigrant Qwert Yuiop, who left his
"signature" on the keyboard.

The volume of water that the Giant Sequoia tree consumes in a 24-hour period contains
enough suspended minerals to pave 17.3 feet of a 4-lane concrete freeway.

In the weightlessness of space a frozen pea will explode if it comes in contact with Pepsi.

Smearing a small amount of dog feces on an insect bite will relieve the itching and
swelling.

Centuries ago, purchasing real estate often required having one or more limbs amputated
in order to prevent the purchaser from running away to avoid repayment of the loan.
Hence an expensive purchase was said to cost "an arm and a leg."

When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed five gold Krugerrands in his small
intestine.

At the first World Cup championship in Uruguay, 1930, the soccer balls were actually
monkey skulls wrapped in paper and leather.

Never hold your nose and cover your mouth when sneezing, as it can blow out your
eyeballs.

Silly Putty was "discovered" as the residue left behind after the first latex condoms were
produced. It's not widely publicized for obvious reasons.

When immersed in liquid, a dead sparrow will make a sound like a crying baby.
In WWII the US military planned to airdrop over France propaganda in the form of
Playboy magazine, with coded messages hidden in the models' turn-ons and turn-offs.
The plan was scrapped because of a staple shortage due to rationing of metal.

Although difficult, it's possible to start a fire by rapidly rubbing together two Cool Ranch
Doritos.

Napoleon's favorite type of wood was knotty chestnut.

The world's smartest pig, owned by a mathematics teacher in Madison, WI, memorized
the multiplication tables up to 12.

Due to the natural "momentum" of the ocean, saltwater fish cannot swim backwards.

In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep
them hairless throughout their lives.

It is nearly three miles farther to fly from Amarillo, Texas to Louisville, Kentucky than it
is to return from Louisville to Amarillo.

The increased electricity used by modern appliances is causing a shift in the Earth's
magnetic field. By the year 2327, the North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the
South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.

Every Labrador retriever dreams about bananas.

If you put a bee in a film canister for two hours, it will go blind and leave behind its
weight in honey.

The first McDonald's restaurant opened for business in 1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and
featured the McHaggis sandwich.

The Air Force's F-117 fighter uses aerodynamics discovered during research into how
bumblebees fly.
Approximately one-sixth of your life is spent on Wednesdays.

Touch-tone telephone keypads were originally planned to have buttons for Police and
Fire Departments, but they were replaced with * and # when the project was cancelled in
favor of developing the 911 system.

Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular water.

The "nine lives" attributed to cats is probably due to their having nine primary whiskers.

The original inspiration for Barbie dolls comes from dolls developed by German
propagandists in the late 1930s to impress young girls with the ideal notions of Aryan
features. The proportions for Barbie were actually based on those of Eva Braun.

The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and dodge individual raindrops in mid-flight,
arriving safely back at his cave completely dry.

Aardvarks are allergic to radishes, but only during summer months.

Coca-Cola was the favored drink of Pharaoh Ramses. An inscription found in his tomb,
when translated, was found to be almost identical to the recipe used today.

If you part your hair on the right side, you were born to be carnivorous. If you part it on
the left, your physical and psychological make-up is that of a vegetarian.

Due to the angle at which the optic nerve enters the brain, staring at a blue surface during
sex greatly increases the intensity of orgasms.

Legislation passed during WWI making it illegal to say "gesundheit" to a sneezer was
never repealed.

Manatees possess vocal chords which give them the ability to speak like humans, but
don't do so because they have no ears with which to hear the sound.

You *can* get blood from a stone, but only if contains at least 17 percent bauxite.
Watching an hour-long soap opera burns more calories than watching a three-hour
baseball game.

Until 1978, Camel cigarettes contained minute particles of real camels.

You can actually sharpen the blades on a pencil sharpener by wrapping your pencils in
aluminum foil before inserting them.

To human taste buds, Zima is virtually indistinguishable from zebra urine.

A dog's naked behind leaves absolutely no bacteria when pressed against carpet.

Seven out of every ten hockey-playing Canadians will lose a tooth during a game. For
Canadians who don't play hockey, that figure drops to five out of ten.

A team of University of Virginia researchers released a study promoting the practice of

picking one's nose, claiming that the health benefits of keeping nasal passages free from
infectious blockages far outweigh the negative social connotations.

Among items left behind at Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan were 27
issues of Mad Magazine. Al Qaeda members have admitted that bin Laden is reportedly
an avid reader.

Urine from male cape water buffaloes is so flammable that some tribes use it for lantern
fuel.