Twenty Strange-But-True Facts???

[Warph]

Two-third of explorers who've visited both the North and South Poles developed bipolar disorder.

Teddy Roosevelt was an avid hunter. On one safari, he bagged 16 Avids.

It is physically impossible to do an impression of Rich Little.

The Q-Tip was developed after serious design flaws were found in both the O-Tip and the P-Tip.

22% of Americans say that if it were legal, they might try cannibalism.

Elastic in underwear will last twice as long if you freeze your underwear after washing.

Mr. Rogers and Teresa Heilevang were Snipers in the Vietnam war.

Before Charles DeGaulle was the French President, he was a bounty hunter.

Shania Twain is Mark Twain's great-granddaughter. 

Shishkabobs were invented when a Turkish mathematician tried to make an abacus out of meat.

The most common street name in America is 13th Street.

LarryJ is a convicted felon.

In a 1996 phone book, AT&T accidentally listed Sweet & Spicy in Howard, KS with the phone number of a funeral home in Dallas, Texas.

All pencils are painted with a bitter-tasting white primer before the top color coat goes on. This is why the bite marks always are distasteful and are white.

In 2004, Former President George H. W. Bush voted for John Kerry.

All Costco locations are closed each July 1 in celebration of Sam's Club.

In addition to Post Offices and Immigration Offices, you can renew a passport at Denny's.

In late 2012, Earth and Mars will be in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.

The only electrical equipment the Amish are allowed to use is a Panini press.

Thomas the Tank Engine has inspired County Cork in Ireland to decorate all their locomotives with faces.

The least popular song to make love to: Taps.

Osama Bin Laden had at one time ordered fleece jackets with the Al Qaeda logo.

Nolan Ryan once threw a fastball so hard it killed both the catcher and the umpire.

No one named Tony has ever won a Tony Award.

In the early 1950s, Philip Morris spent millions of dollars trying to teach dogs to smoke.

In 1987, baseball Hall of Famer George Brett was thrown out of a game for wearing argyle socks.

Like George W. Bush, in college, Jarhead was a cheerleader, in High School.

Nutritionally speaking, bananas are a wonderful source of banana peels.

Pat Sajak can't read.

As of April 1st, 2007, only 4 Segway scooters have ever been sold.

The CNN Christmas party is held at Denny's.

The average American adult weighs 250 pounds.

The original Fruit of the Loom logo included a turkey leg.

Due to a clerical error, from 1931 to 1932 Delaware had a Monkey for Governor.

The most common liquid confiscated by airport security is honey mustard.

Tom Selleck is a part owner of a bakery in Hawaii called "Magnum PIe".

Two original members of the musical group "Three Dog Night" died after eating tainted pet food.

Eric Holder once hosted "Saturday Night Live" as a duck.

Officially, if you say "Have a nice day" to someone after 5 PM, it refers to the next day.

Christopher Columbus actually had four ships: Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria and "Life's a Beach".

No one in Canada has a birthday on March 16th.

[Warph]

Fish have "dandruff" caused by their scales that flake off, and it is impossible to filter all traces of it from drinking water.

Catwoman is an accomplished studio musician, and has played trumpet and woodwinds for the likes of Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra and (most recently) Lady Gaga.

Moths are unable to fly during an earthquake.

Kjell Heilevang real name was Lydia Schiffman.

The Hyundai Elantra is China's best selling car, but "Elantra" in some dialects of Mandarin Chinese means "Violation", so the car is actually named "Guana".

"Hello Dolly" began as part of a covert propaganda campaign originally proposed by Prime Minister Tojo during World War II.

More people than you would imagine accidentally swallow their keys.

When you first open a jar of cold cream, because of the chemical reaction with air, it actually is ice cold to the touch.

Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson, is getting older, and he can no longer properly voice the characteristic "D'oh!." From the sixth season of "The Simpsons" to the present, whenever you hear "D'oh", it's either a dub from an episode originally aired in seasons 1-5, or digitally created on a Macintosh computer.

Newscaster Jim Lehrer is married to the woman who plays Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

Belt loops were invented fifty years earlier than the first belt.

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 their wives.

Owls only lose feathers during daylight hours, usually when they're sleeping.

Before coming to power, Bill O'Reilly hosted a radio talk show about women soccer.

In the weightlessness of space a frozen Dorito will explode if it comes in contact with a bud lite.

60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace owns and operates a chain of karate schools.

Satellite radio receivers (XM, Sirius) will occasionally disrupt radar guns (K-band) used by police to catch speeders.

Barbara Walters is part owner of two NHL teams. She is prohibited from attending when the teams play each other.

In many Eskimo schools, they don't teach multiplication.  Division is taught, however.

During the Civil War, America had a demand for tapioca pudding that was not met until the mid-1920s.

The wobble in the rotation of the earth is causing a shift in its magnetic field.  By the year 2327, the magnetic North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.

Silica gel, when mixed in with asphalt, makes highways that actually absorb rainfall.  A side effect is that automobile tires would last two to three times as long when used on this type pavement.  The tire industry has fought this breakthrough.

Teresa Heilevang has problems passing gas at depths of 33 feet or below while scuba diving.

A tank can only be used to hold helium for three fillings (depending on tank size) before being recycled. The very small helium atom actually leaks out of the tank - in between the molecules of the steel tank - in effect actually "eating away" the tank walls.

There is no literal translation for "boss" in Japanese, so in Tokyo, Bruce Springsteen is known as "The Supervisor".

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.

Fidel Castro's brother Raul has a large collection of Beanie Babies.

Due to a calendar mix-up, there were two years in a row identified as "1953".

Diane Amberg eats 5 lbs. of pitted prunes every Thursday

To research his role in "Tootsie", Dustin Hoffman spent two years living as a woman.

In the early drafts of "Moby Dick", Moby Dick was a giant sea turtle.

In the Blackfoot Indian language, there is no translation for the name "Wilma".

Abraham Lincoln was wearing his stovepipe hat when he lost his virginity.

More than 30% of the world's salt is used to garnish margaritas.

Approximately 200,000 drivers a year are seriously burned by EZ-pass sensors.

LarryJ is on Probation but still has to wear an ankle bracelet.

[Diane Amberg]

Well, now I understand. We had planned to go out for a Chinese lunch but I had urgent business at home.

[larryJ]

Diane.............

Warph..............it was only a misdemeanor and I served no time.  I was later pardoned by President Nixon.

Larryj

[Wilma]

There is no translation in the Blackfoot Indian language for the name "Wilma" because I am of
Cherokee descent.

[sixdogsmom]

Almost skeered to comment on this thread. 

[Warph]

Surprisingly, Patriot can't count to 100. 

Waldo Gray was the first member of the mile-high club.

Teresa Heilevang was once arrested for playing golf naked.

Wilma was the first woman ever to say "does my voice really sound like that?"

Thomas Edison, among his many other inventions, also invented break dancing. 

The earliest rocking chairs only rocked forward.

The original episode of the situation comedy "One Day at a Time" was 24-hours long.

LarryJ the Satellite Guy has an illegal cable hook-up.

If you make a cow laugh hard enough, milk will come out of its nose.

Truth or Consequences, New Mexico is one of three United States towns named after a game show. The other two are Sore Piles, Arizona and Password, Nevada.

By 2025, zoologists believe that the kangaroo will have additional pouches for its iPod, iPad and iPhone.

In some parts of Wyoming, it's legal to hunt the elderly.

To ensure prompt delivery of e-mail, the post office recommends affixing a 45-cent stamp to your computer.

By 2012, Pizza Hut hopes to focus less on pizza sales and more on its hut business.

After breaking his promise not to raise taxes, Dubya used some of the money to buy a Donkey Kong machine for the White House.

Lou Ferrigno complains that years after "The Hulk" went off the air, he'd still turn green when angered.

None of the actors who play characters on the television show "All My Children" have children.

In 1983, General Mills in Battle Creek, Michigan had to stop making Cheerios due to the drill press operator strike. 

Each year, 48 customers are accidentally electrocuted at a Circuit City.

Frank Frawin is an avid body builder on the "Rosie Show." 

The first item ever patented at the United States Patent Office was the patent application form.

Yellow Hi-liter is an excellent source of Vitamin C.

According to a recently found artifact, it appears that Mary and Joseph's second choice for a name was Kjell.

The average vending machine candy bar is four-and-a-half years old.

Oscar Mayer's wife divorced him because he always came home smelling like bologna.

"Wheel of Fortune" has been rerunning the same 12 episodes since 1998.

Three out of ten doctors admit to licking the tongue depressors before using them.

Jarhead was conceived in a Radio Shack.

Gerald Ford is the only United States president to have walked on the moon.

Babe Ruth's last words were, "the money's on the dresser."

The average person burns 19 calories giving someone the finger.

To create a nurturing, non-judgmental atmosphere, many math teachers now tell children that no numbers are truly negative.

In 1983, the major league baseball all-star game was played without a ball.

Just as Larry is short for Lawrence, Gary is short for Gawrence.

Our shortest president was James Madison at 3 feet, 11 inches.

In Canada, Cool Whip is called Miracle Whip; Miracle Whip is called Caulk.

For the last ten years, SixDogsMom worked for college art classes as a nude model.

According to Diane Amberg, Delaware is the only state whose lemon law only applies to actual lemons.

[Diane Amberg]

And here I thought our lemon law was top secret! But at 5 big ones for a dollar, who cares?

[Warph]

Polar bears can drink as many as 174 cans of coke in a single sitting.

You can get blood from a stone, but only if contains at least 17 percent bauxite.

The volume of water that the Giant Sequoia tree consumes in a 24-hour period contains
enough suspended minerals to pave 16 feet of a 4-lane concrete freeway.

A Wisconsin man was beaten by an angry mob because he asked for "no cheese" on his Whopper.

King Henry VIII slept with a gigantic sultana.

In the early 70s, McDonalds briefly offered customers a choice of French fries or consomme.

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 twice that of regular water.

37% of women who apply makeup while driving have accidentally swallowed a tube of lipstick.

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 two three-hour baseball games.

Until 1978, Camel cigarettes contained small particles of real camel dung.

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

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

Labrador retrievers dream about bananas.

If you put a bee in a film canister for two hours, it will go blind.

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

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.

After you die, your tongue continues to grow.

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

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.

When immersed in liquid, a dead sparrow will make a sound like a crying baby.

The Count of Monte Cristo died from cardiac arrest after eating too many Monte Cristo sandwiches.

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

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

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

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

Contestants on the reality show "Survivor" quietly receive a case of Quaker granola bars to eat if they're really hungry.

George Washington died of a wig infection.

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

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

In 1960, a then-unknown Dan Rather auditioned for the voice of cartoon character Dudley Do-Right but was turned down by animator/director Jay Ward.

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 capitol has ever won the national championship.

[W. Gray]

Long before 911 development, mentioned above, some old timer military members might recall that the telephone number for emergencies on post or on base was 117.

Presumably, that has now changed to 911.

117 is the national emergency number in the Philippines.