"Amazing Facts" joke

* The term "bank teller" originated in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, when banks began hiring low-paid workers to "tell" throngs of frantic depositors that their money was gone.

* Scandinavian berserkers used to cut out their eyes before battle to spare themselves the sight of the carnage they invariably wrought.

* The city of Slaughter, Texas (population: 11, 284), has never had a homicide occur within its boundaries.

* Rubbing Tabasco on one's upper lip before bedtime is an effective temporary cure for sleep apnea.

* British pop singer Baby Spice is the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandniece of Archduke William Pinkley-Hogue of Standishfordshire, making her 103rd in line for the throne of England.

* Moths are unable to fly during an earthquake.

* When in heat, female hippopotami secrete an oil with a flavor similar to strawberries. Kalahari bushmen use the oil to make flat-bread treats for children.

* Ingesting small doses of ink over an extended period of time will change your eye color slightly.

* To commemorate ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, U. S. playing card manufacturers replaced "staffs" with "hearts" as the fourth suit in the deck. The world soon followed.

* When subjected to an electric current of at least 50 volts, a cat's tail always points toward the north.

* Scientists estimate that sleep lost due to daylight saving time reduces the average lifespan by nearly two full months.

* No NCAA basketball team from a school located in its state's capital has ever won the national championship.

* Shortly before his execution, Timothy McVeigh constructed a scale model of the Lincoln Memorial with soda crackers.

* Strains of bacteria similar to E. coli have been found in spent printer cartridges -- but only in the cyan ones. Scientists have no explanation.

* The Australian aborigine language has over 30 words for "dust."

* Fewer divorces occur in families in which the children wake their parents before 6 a. m. on Saturdays.

* For over a decade, the number of drive-by shootings has been directly proportional to increased gas prices.

* Two-thirds of all the world's coriander comes from a single valley in Italy.

* Baking soda and vinegar will make your scrambled eggs fluffier.

* Ancient Egyptians used molted cobra skins as condoms.

* Customs officials have dogs that are trained to distinguish between Cuban cigars and all other cigars.

* Female black cats can actually see their shadows at night.

* The National Weather Service will pay $30 for the rights to any original photograph of lightning.

* Nearly three percent of the ice in Antarctic glaciers is penguin urine.

* With the exception of a small 200-square-mile section of Antarctica, every single square kilometer of dry land on the planet has been walked on by at least one human being.

* 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.

* 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.

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

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

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

* The Air Force's F-117 fighter uses aerodynamics discovered during research into how bumblebees fly.

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

* 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.

* King Henry VIII slept with a gigantic axe.

* 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.

* 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.

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

* Watching an hour-long soap opera burns more calories than watching a three-hour baseball game.

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

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

* 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.

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

* 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.

* Because of the curvature of the Earth, it is nearly three miles farther to fly from Amarillo, Texas to Louisville, Kentucky than it is to return from Louisville to Amarillo.

* 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.

* The Mongolian pony is the only animal other than an elephant capable of fending off an attack by a healthy adult tiger.

* Because of their unusual shape, Hershey's Kisses contain more calories per ounce than the same amount of chocolate in other forms.

* If the air in your car's tires is not completely replaced every two years, it can turn to liquid and cause severe damage.

* If you tar and feather a 2x4 and place it in your yard, it will ward off bats.

* The largest home in the United States, North Carolina's Biltmore House, was originally intended to be the official residence of a new monarchy to be established when the South rose again.

* The Toltec calendar was based on a 360-day year, with each day being about 24 hours and 20 minutes long.

* Nobody born in Kentucky has ever been elected to Congress.

* In an effort to improve the nutritional value of its "Shamrock shakes," McDonald's colors them with broccoli extract.

* Winston Churchill was born with a third nipple, which he removed himself with nail-clippers at the age of 14.

* Only a single dissenting vote prevented the death penalty in Texas from being carried out by immersing the convicted person in a nest of fire ants.

* If you place a fresh Viagra tablet in a houseplant's soil every six months, the plant will not wilt.

* The noun "sled" originates from the name of a 18th-century mountaineer from Finland, Schletz Linden, whose body was used by his climbing partner to slide down a mountain during a winter storm after he froze to death.

* If a cricket were the size of Mount Rushmore, it could jump to the moon.

* The increase in the amount of metals mined and brought to the surface of the earth in order to manufacture SUVs has caused higher tides in the Northern Hemisphere.

* Children conceived on airplanes never suffer from motion sickness.

* The life span of dogs allowed to dine in cat litter boxes is on average 18 percent longer than that of dogs restricted to commercial diets.

* Blue water in a toilet bowl causes males to urinate 7 percent more.

* The melody of the classic hymn "Amazing Grace" originated from a 12th-century pagan song celebrating masturbation.

* A 9-volt battery contains roughly the same amount of kinetic energy as a bowl of Lucky Charms.

* The Yanomami tribesmen of the Amazon basin can track game birds by the slight difference in warmth their shadows create on the forest floor as they fly by, for up to an hour after the birds have departed.

* Rapid deforestation has decreased the friction of the surface of the Earth, causing it to spin infinitesimally faster and thereby cool the air, combating global warming.

* The flush toilet was invented in Flushing, NY.

* On occasions when the sun is shining brightly on falling snowflakes, they contain enough ionic charge to stun insects. Observation of this phenomenon inspired the invention of the bug zapper.

* Over the last two decades, more Americans died of heart attacks while watching horror movies in movie theaters than died while sky-diving.

* Every common food product, with the exception of fish and veal, contains some traces of peanut enzymes.

* The number of words in the Bible divided by the number of verses equals exactly 666.

* An 18th-century law still on the books in Vermont makes it illegal for a woman to lick a stamp in a public place.

* Constipation kills nearly twice as many people as diarrhea, mainly because the former mostly afflicts the old and weak while the latter mostly affects young, strong children.

* It is physically impossible to urinate and give blood at the same time.

* If you fill a standard 750ml wine bottle with live hornets, their angry buzzing will resonate at precisely the right frequency to shatter the glass.

* During his famous "Blue Period," Pablo Picasso invented the substance that eventually became known as Play-Doh.

* Every year in the fall, Niagara Falls is shut down for maintenance for 24 hours. The flow is diverted using a massive series of pipes and spigots built for this purpose in 1837.

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