Random facts about whatever

Question

Honestly, what's one interesting thing you know that most people don't know. About anything, and feel free to put down as many things as you want... Tryin to get some ideas going. Most thought provoking answer wins. Thanks

Answer 1

There are over 14 TRILLION  UNUSED flyer MILES (most of us know why).

The Starbucks coffee chain is named after the first mate, Starbuck, in Herman Melville’s classic novel, ‘Moby d**k.’

The very first fast food chain to introduce a drive up service window was Jack In the Box in 1951.

On average, Americans consume 350 slices of pizza per second.

The Hundred Years War lasted 116 years.

Panama Hats are made in Ecuador.

Catgut comes from sheep and horses.

Russians celebrate the October Revolution in November.

A camel's hair brush is made of squirrel fur.

The Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean are named after dogs.

A purple finch is actually crimson.

Georgia is the only U.S. state named after a king –  England's King George II. Georgia’s nickname, The Peach State,’ may be a misnomer. Both California (#1) and South Carolina (#2) each produce more peaches annually than Georgia (#3).

The state of Wyoming is named after the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania.

The anglicized name ‘Wyoming’ is derived from the Lenni Lenape (later called the Delaware by English settlers) Indian language and their words ‘maughwau,’ meaning 'large,' and ‘wama,’ meaning 'plains.' Wyoming is also the least populous state in the U.S. ranking #50

Oklahoma earned its unusual nickname, the ‘Sooner State,’ because of the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889. When more than 50,000 people waited for the starting gun to stake their homesteading claims in the Oklahoma Territory in the Oklahoma Land Rush, some land-hungry and too eager settlers left before the starting gun, i.e., jumped the gun, and rushed in to take and claim their stake to land before everyone else. These ‘cheaters’  were quickly nicknamed ‘sooners’ in that they left ‘too soon.’ The University of Oklahoma sports teams are also nicknamed the ‘Sooners.’ Strange but true!

The MOST densely populated state in the U.S. is New Jersey with an average of 1,143.9 people per square mile.

The LEAST densely populated state in the U.S. is Alaska with an average of 1.1 people  per square mile.

Alaska has 33,904 miles of coastline.

Kaskaskia, Illinois, Illinois' first state capital, is WEST of the Mississippi River. The rest of Illinois lies EAST of the Mississippi River.

The Cincinnati, Ohio airport is in Kentucky.

Approximately 37% or almost 4 out of 10 people in the U.S. live within 100 miles of the coast.

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50% of the U.S. population who file income taxes report annual income of less than $30,000 which leads us to the next fact…..

50% of those people who pay income taxes contribute only a little over 3% of the overall revenues collected by the IRS .

.5%  (1/2 of 1 percent) of the U.S. population has adjusted gross incomes over $500,000.

The richest 1% of the people in the U.S. earn 21.2% of the total overall income of all wage earners.

Los Alamos, NM has the highest percentage of millionaires in the U.S. (9.7% of its residents are millionaires)

On an average daily basis in America alone:

88,163 Apple iPods are purchased

35,079,448 12-ounce bottles / cans of Bud Light beer are purchased

8,179,726 20-ounce bottles of Aquafina bottled water are purchased

50,051,507  12-ounce cans of Pepsi are purchased

2,400,000 Burger King Whoppers are consumed.

58,863,993 eggs are purchased

443,650 servings of Burger King large fries are consumed

93,000 jars of Ragu Old World Style spaghetti sauce are purchased

210,720  30-ounce jars of Hellmann’s Real mayonnaise are purchased

1,852,516 bars of Dove Soap are purchased

87,431 Slim-Fast multi-pack Shakes are purchased

628 Toyota Camry 4 cylinder LEs are sold

300,000 packages of Pampers are purchased

20,826 Dell notebook computers are purchased

536,000 Domino’s pepperoni pizzas are purchased

500,000 Hostess Twinkies are purchased

1,900,000 Krispy Crème original glazed donuts are purchased

125,000 Barbie Dolls are purchased

160,968 bottles of ABSOLUT vodka are purchased

978,030 bags of Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popping Corn are purchased

568,765 Titleist golf balls are purchased

110 Head Radical tennis racquets are purchased

Fed Ex delivers 6,000,000, (6 million) packages a day

New Hampshire has the highest per capita consumption of spirits - 3.6 gallons per person annually, on average.

North Dakota has the highest per capita consumption of beer.

Residents of the District of Columbia have the highest per capita consumption of wine (no surprise here).

West Virginia has the LOWEST per capita consumption of wine.

Utah, ‘Mormon Country,’ has the LOWEST per capita consumption of both spirits and beer. (no surprise here)

The United States is the third most populous country but its 300,000,000+ residents represent slightly less than 5% of the world’s 6.35 billion people.

Americans spend an average 38 hours a year sitting in traffic that wastes an estimated 26 gallons of gasoline per person – Los Angeles metropolitan drivers waste the most gas sitting in traffic for 78 hours per year.

Americans, on average, spend 18% of their income on transportation as compared to only 13% spent on food.

The wife is the sole wage earner in 4% of those married couples with children.

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SOURCE for the above section that is bracketed in asterisks: Time magazine’s ‘America by the Numbers’ issue

Seven Lego sets are sold every second by retailers worldwide.

80% of all the wine consumed in the U.S. is consumed by 11% of those people who drink alcoholic beverages.

Bourbon is the official spirit of the United States by Act of Congress. In 1964, a congressional resolution protected the term ‘bourbon’ and only since then has the product been defined. There are two general sub types of bourbon: ‘ryed’ and ‘wheated.’ Ryed bourbons are bold and spicy. Wheated bourbons are smooth, mellow and easy to drink.

Chicago, Illinois has the most bars per capita of any major city.

Every 105 minutes, on average, there is an accident with a motor vehicle and a train at a grade crossing somewhere in the world. (Driver impatience and inattention are the most frequent causes of these crashes. And, almost needless to say, you are 40 times more likely to die in an accident with a train than you are in an accident with another motor vehicle.)

According to a study by the nation's largest auto insurer, most accidents occur between 3 PM and 6 PM on Fridays.

According to a Paul Harvey broadcast and various web sources, a study of 40 groups/occupations showed that the WORST drivers are students (#1), followed by medical doctors (#2), then lawyers (#3), architects (#4) and real estate agents (#5). The BEST drivers in this study were homemakers (#5), politicians (#4), pilots (#3), firemen (#2) and the best drivers…………….FARMERS (#1). (I agree. I can’t recall the last time I saw a head on collision that involved two tractors :) :):))

Walmart is the second largest employer is the U.S. (The U.S. Government is #1).

Annually, more steel in the U.S. is used to make bottle caps than is used in the manufacture of automobiles. (SOURCE: History Channel – Modern Marvels – STEEL)

The very first VIDEO CONFERENCE telephone call was made in 1927 by President Herbert ‘A chicken in every pot’ Hoover from his office in Washington, DC to New York City.

The most-lopsided game in the history of college football occurred on October 7, 1916 when the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets met the Cumberland College (now University) Bulldogs of Tennessee. Final score: Georgia Tech - 222   Cumberland College - 0

The very first televised football game, pro or college, took place in Triboro Stadium at Randall’s Island, New York on September 30, 1939 when the Fordham University Rams of New York defeated the Waynesburg College (now University) Yellow Jackets of Pennsylvania by a score of 34-7. The 153-pound Bobby Brooks of Waynesburg made TV sports history that day when he ran 63 yards for the very first televised touchdown.

The average length of a player’s career in the NFL is 3 ½ years.

The honeybee is the only insect that produces food for humans and is directly responsible for approximately 1/3 of our crop bearing plants.  (Honeybees, for some unknown reason, are slowly dwindling in numbers and no one knows why – yet. This is a very serious problem.)

The only venomous WATER snake in the U.S. is the cottonmouth snake that is indigenous to the deep-south. It got its name from the fact that the inside of its mouth is as ‘white as cotton.’

The official language of Brazil is Portuguese

80% of all the lead used in the USA is contained in car batteries

Chinese gooseberries are from New Zealand.

James A. Garfield, one of four U.S. Presidents who was assassinated (in 1881), often entertained his houseguests with his parlor trick of SIMULTANEOUSLY writing classic Greek with his right hand and writing in classic Latin with his left hand. (Don’t try this in your  home.)

The ‘black boxes’ in commercial airplanes are orange.

21% of all American households own FIVE pets or more (60% of households own at least one pet.)

American women, on average, spend 55 minutes a day getting showered, dressed, and groomed.

Diners Club issued the very first credit card in 1950 but it was not plastic. It was printed on heavy cardstock. BankAmerica issued the first bank credit card, BankAmericard (now VISA), in 1958.

The average American has 9 credit cards (bank, store, gas, etc.)

Out of every $100 the average American spends, $40 is charged to credit cards.

1 in every 100 American ADULTS is now in jail or prison (91% are male and 9% female)

Answer 2

When the USA was founded the colonies voted on what language would be the official language of the United States. English beat German by one vote.

Lamborghini started as a tractor compnay.

The Corvette was originally designed to be a rear engine car, but the engine was too big, so they had to move it to the front.

Most Lipstick contains fish scales.

In the 1830's ketchup was sold as medicine.

Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon with his left foot.

Honey is the only food that cannot spoil.

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

The wingspan of a 747 is longer than the Wright Brothers first flight.

Michael Jordan shaves his head on Tuesdays and Fridays.

In Finland, Donald Duck comics were banned because he doesn't wear pants.

Marilyn Monroe had six toes.

Women wink almost twice as much as men.

A snail can sleep for 3 years.

The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

Answer 3

The Golden Ratio holds the universe together mathematically, scientifically, and aesthetically. I'm writing my senior thesis on it.

Many people have a disease called trichtomania that causes them to pull out their hair, be it the hair on their head, their eyebrows or eyelashes, or anything. Sometimes they even eat it. It's not very common, but it's caused by depression and stress.

People in primitive cultures can tell the gender of a baby by the way the mother carries herself while she's pregnant.

That's all I can think of for right now.