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FACTS OF THE MONTH:
"The Blair Witch Project" earned nearly $26,000 per screen during its first weekend in general release, setting a record for movies in wide distribution.
Statistics say you are just as likely to be killed by lightning as you are by falling out of bed.
Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
One in eight men and one in seven women will have an affair within the first two years of marriage.
Within a four-year period, the Black Death had reduced the population of Europe by one-third.
Ten human body parts have names of only three letters (eye, ear, gum, lip, jaw, arm, leg, hip, rib, toe).
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class.
The nail on the middle finger grows the fastest; the nail on the thumb grows the slowest.
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
The average American will spend two weeks of their life waiting for the light to change.
It only take seven pounds of pressure to rip your ears off.
Multiply 37,037 by a single-digit number (0-9), then multiply that number by three. Every digit in the resulting number will be the same as the original single digit.
Eleven thousand Americans injure themselves every year attempting unusual sexual positions.
| from WWII
WEEK:
Draft classifications during World War II ranged
from 1A to 4F: Major Thomas Smothers, father of the comedy duo the Smothers Brothers, died a POW aboard a Japanese prison ship. John Wayne was declared 4F because of a perforated eardrum, and because of his age. Jeanette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress, and the only member to vote against U.S. entry into both World Wars. She only served two terms (elected in 1916 and 1941) and lost reelection both times because of her antiwar stance. Even though 'GI' came to stand for 'Government Issue', it was actually coined by supply clerks listing garbage cans as 'Galvanized Iron'. Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, President Harry Truman's 61st birthday. Clark 'Superman' Kent was declared 4F due to 'poor eyesight': he accidentally used his x-ray vision and read the eye chart in the next room. |
Mako sharks are cannibals before they're even born: the older embryos will eat younger embryos and eggs.
Even though smoking tobacco is hazardous, tobacco leaves contain limited nutritional value, and can thus be classified as a food.
For continuity sake (and probably because he was available), the actor who portrayed Senator Palpatine in "Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace" is the same person who played the character as the leader of the empire in "Return of the Jedi" sixteen years earlier.
The Nile is the only river whose source is near the equator and mouth is in a temperate zone. Even with today's technology, the river's source has never been accurately pinpointed.
The average American swallows eight spiders a year.
spacesandpunctuationdidnotexistuntilthecreationoftheprintingpressinthefifteenthcenturypriortothatsentenceslookedlikethis
The amount of nicotine inhaled by a pack-a-day smoker in one week would kill that person instantly if administered all at once.
In 1880 the Pittsburgh baseball team stole a player from Philadelphia. Local newspapers angrily called the Pittsburgh team "a bunch of pirates". Somehow the name stuck.
The World Trade Center uses more electricity in one evening than the entire city of Troy, New York.
Due to irregularities in the earth's rotation, solar days are slightly longer in March than in September.
In terms of size, the largest city in the United States is Jacksonville, FL.
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