39 Fascinating Facts
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'Stewardesses' and 'reverberated' are the two longest words (12 letters each) that can be typed using
only the left hand.
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Alaska could hold the 21 smallest States.
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Before Prohibition, Shlitz Brewery owned more property in Chicago than anyone else, except The
Catholic Church.
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If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the
bottom.
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Kermit the Frog is left-handed.
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Pamela Anderson Lee is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial
anniversary of Canada's independence.
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Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
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The car in the foreground on the back of a $10 bill is a 1925 Hupmobile.
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Dr. Seuss and Kurt Vonnegut went to college together. They were even in the same fraternity,
where Seuss decorated the fraternity house walls with 20 drawings of his characters.
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If you can see a rainbow you must have your back to the sun. If you don't, you can't see it.
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The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled
by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight
staircases.
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The first song played on Armed Forces Radio during operation Desert Shield was Rock the Casbah by the
Clash.
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It's rumored that sucking on a copper penny will cause a breath-alyzer to read zero.
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In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel 1 to mobile services, two-way radios in
taxicabs, for instance) but did not re-number the other channel assignments. That is why your TV set
has channels 2 and up but no channel 1.
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Dogs and humans are the only animals with prostates.
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The highest scoring word in the English language game of Scrabble is 'Quartzy'. This will score
164 points if played across a red triple-word square with the Z on a light blue double-letter
square. It will score 162 points if played across two pink double-word squares with the Q and the Y
on those squares. 'Bezique' and Cazique' are next with a possible 161 points. All three words score
an extra 50 points for having seven letters and therefore emptying the letter rack in one go.
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The ashes of the average cremated person weighs nine pounds.
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Assuming Rudolph was in front, there are 40,320 ways to arrange the other eight reindeer.
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The dial tone of a normal telephone is in the key of "F".
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The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so
that they could be confused at a crime scene.
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In the four major US professional sports, (Baseball, Basketball, Football, and Hockey),
there are only seven teams whose nicknames do not end with an "S:" Basketball: The Miami Heat,
The Utah Jazz, The Orlando Magic. Baseball: The Boston Red Sox, The Chicago White Sox. Hockey:
The Colorado Avalanche, The Tampa Bay Lightning. Football: None.
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Beelzebub, another name for the devil, is Hebrew for Lord of the Flies, and this is where the
book's title comes from.
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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.
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The ship, the Queen Elizabeth 2, should always be written as QE2. QEII is the actual queen.
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There were no squirrels on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts until 1989.
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The correct response to the Irish greeting,"Top of the morning to you," is "and the rest of the day
to yourself."
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The Les Nessman character on the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati wore a band-aid in every episode.
Either on himself, his glasses, or his clothing.
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Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City, after the Catholic
Church.
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A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
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When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home to a sellout crowd, the stadium
becomes the state's third largest city.
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John Larroquette of "NightCourt" and "The John Larroquette Show" was the narrator of "The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre."
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Former US Senator Barry Goldwater attended the opening night ceremonies and festivities at Bugsy
Siegel's famous Las Vegas Casino. They left him out of the movie Bugsy. He is pissed.
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In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, "They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home
run." On July 20, 1969, a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Gaylord Perry
hit his first, and only, home run.
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Gilligan of Gilligan's Island had a first name that was only used once, on the never-aired pilot
show. His first name was Willy.
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Ohio is listed as the 17th state in the U.S., but technically it is Number 47. Until August 7, 1953,
Congress forgot to vote on a resolution to admit Ohio to the Union.
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When Saigon fell the signal for all Americans to evacuate was Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" being
played on the radio.
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The pet ferret (Mustela putorias furo) was domesticated more than 500 years before the house
cat.
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The dome on Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, conceals a billiards room. In Jefferson's day,
billiards were illegal in Virginia.
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The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic church. When 20 of the church's most
important convene in deciding if someone should be sainted, a devil's advocate is always appointed
to give an alternative view.
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