Dolphins sleep with one eye open.

The favorite horses of both Alexander the Great (Bucephalos) and Julius
Caesar both had atavistic mutations- extra toes.  Horses normally have
only one toe per foot, but are descended from horses with three or four
toes on each limb.

The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each
gallon of diesel that it burns.

Soap Operas are so called because they were originally used to advertise
soap powder.  In America in the early days of TV, advertisers would
write stories around the use of their soap powder.

Most people know that the legendary trumpet player Louis Armstrong was
nicknamed Satchmo.  However, did you know that Satchmo was short for
Satchel Mouth?

66% of Japan is covered in forest!

It was in 1752 when the modern world changed New Year's Day to January
1st.  It had previously been March 25th.  Before the Calendar Adjustment
Act of 1751, Great Britain and it's U.S. colonies celebrated New Year's
Day on March 25th because it is Lady Day and the Feast of Annunciation.
For some nations, New Year's has been celebrated on January 1 ever since
1752.

The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing
less than a penny.

A Tezcucan myth of why the Moon isn't bright as the Sun.  The Sun and
Moon were originally equally bright.  But the gods did not think this
was very good, so they decided to stop it at once.  One god took a hare
and threw it at the face of the moon.  The hare struck the moon, and
made a dark blotch that dimmed the Moon's brightness forever.

Heating oil creates the hottest flame of any home heating fuel.  It's
400º hotter than natural gas or propane and makes electric heat and heat
pumps shiver in comparison.  Because it's so hot, your home heats up
faster, needs less fuel, maintains your desired temperature better, and
just feels more comfortable.

Giant flying foxes that live in Indonesia have wingspans of nearly six
feet

Medieval Jewish mystics practiced rolling in the snow to purge
themselves from evil urges.  They were the first snow angels.

The tallest mountain in the world from base to summit is located on the
island of Hawaii.  The dormant volcano Mauna Kea measures over 30,000
feet tall when measured from its ocean base to summit, several hundred
feet higher than Mt. Everest in the Himalayas.

A whale's penis is called a dork.

Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always the same sex.

Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.

The "L.  L." in L. L. Bean stands for Leon Leonwood.

Recreational boaters spent about $17.7 billion on boats, motors,
trailers and accessories in 1996.

The Church regarded the knight as her defender against evil.  The dragon
was often seen as the symbol of evil, so many stories of this period
told of brave knights doing battle with dragons.

In 1938, Chester Carlson invented xerography out of two natural
phenomena already known:  materials of opposite electrical charges are
attracted, and certain materials become better conductors of electricity
when exposed to light.  By combining these phenomena in a unique way, he
was able to create a new process for making cheap, fast, good copies on
plain paper.

The famous split-fingered Vulcan salute is actually intended to
represent the first letter ("shin," pronounced "sheen") of the word
"shalom."  As a small boy, Leonard Nimoy observed his rabbi using it in
a benediction and never forgot it; eventually he was able to add it to
"Star Trek" lore.

Most people think of the Meridian Line as a solid fixed point.  However,
in reality it is simply a north/south line which would move whenever the
astronomer altered the position of his meridian telescope.  The Ordnance
Survey used Bradley's Meridian in its charts, although we are more
familiar with Airy's line.

The image of the knight in shining armor was largely a myth.  Many
knights in the crusades proved themselves to be greedy and cruel, and
the women of the Middle Ages were as tough and capable as any.

In the Brazilian jungle, women of the Apinaye tribe bite of portions of
their mates eyebrows during intercourse.

Pretoria, city in north-eastern South Africa, in Gauteng Province, on
the Apies River.  Pretoria is the administrative capital of South Africa
and a major commercial, manufacturing, transportation, and cultural
centre.  Principal products include iron and steel, processed food,
ceramics, and chemicals.

The Ramses brand condom is named after the great pharaoh Ramses II who
fathered over 160 children.

The Eiffel tower grows six inches every year.  In the summer the metal
expands to make the tower grow but also in the winter the metal
contracts to shrink the tower back down.

Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

Electrical storms will make a person dream more frequently in sleep.

Mexican free-tailed bats sometimes fly up to two miles high to feed or
to catch tail-winds that carry them over long distances at speeds of
more than 60 miles per hour.

Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.

"Flow Control" is the way your computer and your modem manage the speed
of the incoming data.  If the data comes into the modem so fast that the
computer cannot read it correctly, the computer needs a way to tell the
modem to pause, and a way to tell it to resume.  Also, if the computer
can accept data faster than it is arriving, it needs to tell the modem
that it's ok to send faster.  This mechanism is flow control.

During the Middle Ages, very few people--including the average
knight--could read or write.  Since the Church played such a large role
in medieval life, learning took place in the monasteries, where books
were written and the first libraries were kept.

Becoming a knight was no easy matter.  The process began at an early
age, as there were many things to learn--not only about arms and
welfare, but about courtesy as well.  At age 7, a boy would be sent away
to begin his training--to learn the use of arms, to practice wrestling
and leaping into the saddle in full armor.  By age 14, he became a
squire, learning good manners and the meaning of honor.  He learned
about hunting and taking care of his lord's armor, brushing it and
repairing it when necessary.  Finally, when the time came for him to be
made a knight, the squire would be ceremonially bathed and dressed in
white robes, then spend the night in prayer with his sword and armor on
the chapel altar.  The following morning, he would make an oath in
church to devote his life to the service of God and chivalry.

Moses Maimonides, 12th century physician to the Egyptian Khalif,
prescribed snow as a cure for the hot Cairo summers.

The two suspects had been apprehended and now sat in a courtroom at the
defendants table.  A witness was on the stand being asked questions by
the prosecutor.  "And ma'am you say you were robbed of your purse on the
street?"  Yes sir, the witness answered.  "And the two men who robbed
you, are they here in the courtroom today?"  Before the witness could
answer both defendants raised their hands.  The judge and jury laughed
openly.

The word calendar comes from Latin and means 'to call out.'

Pope Stephen II (March 24, 752) had the shortest reign of any pope, only
two days.  No, he did not die, he stepped down two days after the
cardinals selected him.

Sir Isaac Newton was an ordained priest in the Church of England.

Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered
blood donors.

Of the entire Hebrew scriptures, the Book of Job contains the most
references to snow.  Hence the expression, "snow Job."  .

The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland was a symbolic character for the
hat makers in towns of the late 1800's.  The large felt hats of the day
had supports made out of mercury.  The mercury caused a organic form of
psychosis (brain damage) to develop in the hat makers causing them to be
declared crazy.

GMT entered British homes by way of the BBC which broadcast the chimes
of Big Ben to greet New Year 1924.  The "pips" were the brain-child of
Frank Dyson, who discussed the idea with Frank Hope-Jones, who favoured
a "5 pip" signal.  In February 1924, Dyson broadcast to the nation,
inaugurating the service.  Later he presided over a dinner when
Hope-Jones was guest of honour.  A guest remembered Hope-Jones' link
with time signals and handed him 6 orange pips on a plate.  Hope-Jones
then made a flamboyant presentation of the 6th pip to Dyson.

Male bees will try to attract sex partners with orchid fragrance.

In a recent survey of newborn babies, researchers have determined the
most popular boys' names.  They include Michael, Matthew, Sean, Brendan,
and Brian.  Interestingly enough, for the third year in a row, the LEAST
popular boy's name was "Lumpy".

Medieval banquets were spectacular occasions announced with trumpets.
The host and chief guests sat at the high table and washed their hands
in basins of water scented with rose petals.  Lesser guests sat,
according to rank, at tables down the hall.

The typical termite colony is composed of members showing structural
characteristics that scientists use to classify the termites.  The four
groups of termites, workers, soldiers, immature individuals, and
reproductives each have particular roles in the colony.  The workers,
which are sterile, blind, and wingless, tend the eggs, feed the soldiers
and the young, and maintain the nest.  Protozoans living in the termites
digestive tract convert wood to sugars that the termites can use for
nourishment.  Without these one celled animals, the termites would
starve.  Soldiers' sole purpose in life is to defend the colony against
intruders.  The variety of these defense mechanisms that have been
evolved in different species will be discussed later.  A young
individual will develop into a winged reproductive, soldier, or a worker
depending on the current needs of the colony.  Reproductives obviously
supply the colony with new individuals.  Only one pair of active
reproductives exists in a colony.  The king and queen are usually sealed
into a chamber where they are tended by workers.  The queen also
circulates different chemicals among the workers for stimulating the
transformation of immature termites into soldiers, workers, or
"secondary" reproductives - members who will develop wings and found new
colonies.  When a worker feeds the queen, the queen immediately knows if
a particular group needs replenishing.  For example, if a large number
of soldiers were killed while repelling an enemy, the queen intercepts
this information from the chemicals transferred from a worker.  The
queen then circulates a greater amount of "soldier chemical" in the
colony by exuding the chemical from its body.  Workers tending the queen
take the chemical to other members and the young who will eventually
develop into soldiers.

Although the cast of "The Facts of Life" went from 9 girls down to 4
throughout its seven year run on television, amazingly enough, the net
weight of the cast members remained the same.

A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.

If your eyes are six feet above the surface of the ocean, the horizon
will be about three statute miles away.

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John
Hancock and Charles Thomson.  Most of the rest signed on August 2, but
the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.

Some biblical scholars believe that Aramaic, the language of the ancient
Bible, did not contain an easy way to say "many things" and used a term
which has come down to us as 40.  This means that when the bible -- in
many places -- refers to "40 days," they meant many days.

Hydroxydesoxycorticosterone and hydroxydeoxycorticosterones are the
largest anagrams.  (An anagram is a word formed by reordering the
letters in another word.)

Sailors on board a ship, even when out at sea, can feel earthquakes.

When Ronald Reagan was President and he got his first hearing aid, the
sale of hearing aids went up in the United States by 40%.

Frog-eating bats identify edible from poisonous frogs by listening to
the mating calls of male frogs.  Frogs counter by hiding and using
short, difficult to locate calls.

2 out of 5 husbands tell their wife daily that they love them.

Physicist Murray Gell-Mann named subatomic particles known as quarks for
a random line in James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, "Three quarks for Muster
Mark!"

Playing cards were issued to British pilots in World War II.  If
captured, they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for
escape.

The quantity of consonants in the English language is constant.

John Lennon was born to Julia Lennon after 30 hours of labor on October
9, 1940.

In the movie "Dances with Wolves", not one animal was injured during its
filming, although there was a horse named "Dutch" who came down with a
nasty case of the runs.

For the courtly knight and his lady, fashion was very important because
fine dress was a mark of status.  The nobility spent large sums of money
on imported cloth, such as silk from Italy and velvet from France.
Ordinary people wore simple garments, often made of rough wool, which
were designed for useful wear.  Babies were wrapped in swaddling bands
with the mistaken idea that this would give them straight limbs.

The "L.  L." in L. L. Bean stands for Leon Leonwood.

The Hawaiian Archipelago consists of over 130 scattered points of land
stretching some 1,600 miles in length from the Kure Atoll in the north
to the Island of Hawaii in the south.


In 1984, when Michael Jackson was on American TV advertising Pepsi, his
commercials were included in the TV listings and often attracted a
larger audience than the programmes they interrupted


The Astronomer Royal was supposed to make his findings known to the
scientific community.  He was often reluctant to do so and information
was sometimes forcibly taken from him.  This led to conflicts between
such luminaries as Newton & Halley.


If someone were to visit all the Smithsonian museums and read all of
their plaques for only a second each, that person could not read every
piece of information that the Smithsonian holds.

Ben and Jerry's send the waste from making ice cream to local pig
farmers to use as feed.  Pigs love the stuff, except for one flavor:
Mint Oreo.

If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but
more like 4,950.  The head picture weighs slightly more, so it ends up
on the bottom slightly more often.

Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

A new film producer was having trouble with a visual gag.  It was during
the days of silent cinema and he wanted to show a man slipping on a
banana skin.  He asked the advice of Charlie Chaplin.  "Do I show the
man first and then the banana skin, or the skin first and then the man?
Whichever way I do it, it won't be new to the audience because they've
seen it all before." before."  Chaplin thought about this for a while
and then replied, "First, show the skin, then show the man, then show
the skin once again.  Then show the man stepping over the skin and
falling down a manhole!"

Women, according to the U.S.  National Health Survey team, have more
headaches than men.

When the divorce rate goes up in the United States, toy makers say the
sale of toys also rises.

Paul McCartney wrote the song Lovely Rita, Meter Maid for the album
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band after getting a parking ticket
from a female warden in Abbey Road

The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, "Aladdin
was a little Chinese boy."

Michigan has the most registered boats in the USA - 947,601 - and
American Samoa, with 153, has the least.

At an international conference in 1884, 25 countries met to fix a
standard world meridian.  Many countries expressed their opposition to
Greenwich Meridian Line becoming the world standard, since a large
number of countries had their own lines.  Greenwich was finally chosen,
mainly because 72% of ships used charts showing the Greenwich Meridian
and the American railway system also recognised Greenwich.  Algeria, a
French dependent, made its point by insisting that GMT be expressed as
"Paris Mean Time diminished by 9mins 21secs" which amounts to GMT but
avoids use of the word Greenwich.

Midwives played a central role in female health and healing during the
Middle Ages.  Herbs were an important part of their practice.
Participating in a rich oral culture, they passed down the secrets of
herbal lore from woman to woman over hundreds of years.  The cravings of
pregnancy were very different for the medieval mother-to-be:  unlike the
modern yen for pickles and ice cream, she'd seek to have potter's earth
or chalk or coals.  Yum!  Medieval recipe for cure of acne:  "the rout
of dragons made clean and cut into thin roundels" and steeped for nine
days in white wine.

In a recent interview with 10 prominent sex therapists, the question was
posed, "What is the most important aspect in love making?"  One said
'relaxation', Three said 'honesty', and a whopping Six out of Ten said
'staying awake'.

Goethe couldn't stand the sound of barking dogs and could only write if
he had an apple rotting in the drawer of his desk.

If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon
dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.

Dr.  Miles Compound Extract of Tomato, a patent medicine, went on the
market in the 1830s - it was ketchup.

New York, Marriott Marquis hotel.  One potential reveler from upper New
York state began trying to make a reservation for New Year's Even 1999
in 1983-- before this luxury hotel was even built.  "As a boy, this
gentleman spent New Year's in New York," explains Molly Dwortzan, a
senior manager at the Marriott Marquis who declined to release the man's
name for privacy reasons.  Apparently he was so moved by his youthful
experience, he decided to spend the last New Year's of the 20th century
in the Big Apple.  To reward his sincerity, the hotel chain is giving
him a complimentary room overlooking Times Square for his entire family
on Dec. 31, 1999.


Winston Churchill, who claimed that he could remember life inside his
mother's womb, was born in the ladies toilet at a society ball.


The original nomenclature of mental deficiency should be kept in mind
when used in everyday conversation.  For instance, an "idiot" is
classified as a feeble-minded person who performs at the potential age
of 3 years; an "imbecile" displays a mental age of 3 to 7 years; a
"moron" has the potential age of between 8 to 12 years; and a "dufus"
has no specific limitations in mental capacity but is aware of the
subtle themes in "Baywatch".

The wettest spot in the world is located on the island of Kauai.  Mt.
Waialeale consistently records rainfall at the rate of nearly 500 inches
per year.

Worldwide, bats are the most important natural enemies of night-flying
insects.

A single little brown bat can catch 600 mosquitoes in just one hour.

The average person, some experts estimate, speaks about 31,500 words per
day.

SHAKESPEARE:  Although universally regarded as a genius, William
Shakespeare was the son of a globemaker and was given only an average
education.  Always intensely curious about the world around him,
Shakespeare would later rely on scenes remembered from his childhood,
common country customs and superstitions, fairs and other popular
entertainments as raw material for his plays.

Ballroom dancing is a major at Brigham Young University.

Over 355 bird species live in Alaska.  In the Inside Passage and
South-central, bald eagles follow the salmon runs.  In December, eagles
concentrate in Pasagshak and Kodiak.  Up to 3,500 bald eagles feed on
late runs of salmon in the Chilkat River near Haines.  Between May and
August, the Nome area hosts a variety of Asian birds, shore birds, and
raptors.


More than 50% of American bat species are in severe decline or already
listed as endangered.  Losses are occurring at alarming rates worldwide.

George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera, hated having his picture
taken.

Margarine was developed in the 1800s by a Frenchman who was searching
for a substitute for butter, which was costly and scarce at the time.
First called "oleomargarine," derived from the Greek word margarites
(meaning pearl) and the Latin term oleum (meaning oil), "oleomargarine"
first came to the U.S. in the late 1800s.  Today, the term oleomargarine
has been shortened by common usage to "margarine."


Between the years of 1988 and 1991, the most commonly stolen car in the
United States was the 1986 Chevrolet Camaro.  In fact, 1 out of every 5
Camaros built in the year of 1986 ended up being stolen.  This is in
sharp contrast to the least stolen car of the same period - The Dhaitsu
Shanker.  Of the 243 Shankers manufactured in that 4 year period, none
of them were stolen.  Although one was left in front of a K-mart for 5
straight hours with the engine running, and the words "Take me for a
free test drive" spray-painted in red on the hood.

"Three dog night" (attributed to Australian Aborigines) came about
because on especially cold nights these nomadic people needed three dogs
(dingos, actually) to keep from freezing.

The phrase "back to square one" (or "back at square one", which was the
original way of saying it) comes from football radio commentaries from
the 1930s.  There being no picture, these live reports would explain the
position of play by dividing the football pitch into numbered grids and
"square one" was just in front of the goal ...... so, when a ball went
out of play and resulted in a goal kick, the play was "back at square
one".


In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.

Alaska is a land of almost unimaginable scale.  Stretching across
586,000 square miles of untamed wilderness, Alaska is one-fifth the size
of the contiguous United States.  It contains the tallest mountain in
North America, Mt. McKinley, which many Alaskans simply call "the
mountain."  And of course, the Land of the Midnight Sun has longer
summer days than any other state.  This majestic landscape borders two
oceans and three seas, with a 47,300 mile coastline.  Alaska boasts over
three million lakes, 3,000 rivers, 1,800 islands, and more than 100,000
glaciers.

The "Secret Treaty of London" enabled Italy to enter World War I

Diamond is the hardest naturally occurring substance, and is also one of
the most valuable natural substances.  Diamonds are crystals formed
almost entirely of carbon.  Because of its hardness, the diamond is the
most enduring of all gemstones.  They are among the most costly jewels
in the world, partly because they are rare, Only four important diamond
fields have been found - in Africa, South America, India, and the Soviet
Union.

The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby
daughter, Ruth.

The can-can was originally performed by French prostitutes.  The idea
was that they danced with no underwear on, thereby displaying their
"wares" for potential customers.


Men working on railroad track repair groups are called "gandy dancers."

More than 5 million West Africans speaks the language of Twi-Fante.

Shakespeare's tombstone in Stratford's Holy Trinity Church bears this
inscription, said to have been written by him:  Good friend, for Jesus'
sake forbear to dig the dust enclosed here.  Blest be the man that
spares these stones, and curst be he that moves my bones.

In the U.S. there is, on average, three sex change operations per day.

With the help of a 1000 member marching band, the mayor of New York
City, Rudolph Guiliani kicked off the 1000 day countdown to the new
millennium on Sunday April 6th.  Times Square is often called the soul
of any New Year's Eve celebration.

The release of Star Wars in 1977 was beset by many problems, not the
least being lack of enthusiasm by the film's distributors.  In fact, so
sure were they that the film would not appeal to a mass audience they
wanted to split it into 20 minute segements and release it as a kids'
Saturday morning serial.

The band Duran Duran got its name from an astronaut in the 1968 Jane
Fonda movie "Barbarella."

Cleo and Caesar were the early stage names of Cher and Sonny Bono.

Ben and Jerry's sends the waste from making ice cream to local pig
farmers to use as feed.  Pigs love the stuff, except for one flavor:
mint Oreo.

The most popular name for a boat in 1996 was Serenity.


The first Asian American in the U.S.  Senate was Hawaii's Hiram Fong.
Descended from Chinese immigrants, Fong was elected to the Senate in
1959.


Alaska is so big it encompasses dozens of ecosystems.  In a place of
such enormous variety; don't be surprised to find the unusual - like a
desert of sand dunes in Kobuk Valley National Park.


The earliest Polynesians crossed over 2,000 miles of open ocean to find
Hawaii without the aid of navigational instruments.  Relying on keen
observations of nature, Polynesian navigators could direct their large
double hulled ocean canoes across the Pacific to accurate landfalls.
Polynesian voyagers were navigating long distance runs in the Pacific
almost 1,000 years before Columbus.

The Kentucky Derby Glass made its debut in 1938.  First used as a water
glass for the track restaurant, the mint julep glass has been a part of
the Derby tradition for nearly 60 years.

Experienced waitress say that married men tip better than unmarried men.

Moose are the most anti-social animal, they do not hang out with other
moose.  The procreation ritual is simple, the female moose calls out,
male moose come running, the female picks, and within a few moments they
all go on their way.

Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII.  If captured, they
could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.

It only takes a male horse 14 seconds to copulate.

Maine is the only state that borders only one state.

Choroti women, of the same area as the Siriono, are expected to spit in
their partners faces during sex.


Glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

The debate will no doubt continue, but the experts are pointing to
Caroline Island in the country of Kiribati where one can see the first
light from land (6:  05 GMT+14).  If you're out at sea, that's a whole
different story.  Caroline Island has no real population to speak of.
The next closest place with any type of civilization is London,
Christmas Island, also in Kiribati (6:  29 GMT+14).

The state fruit of New York is the apple..  The apple was adopted as the
State fruit in 1976.  Apples are sweet and crisp.  They come in many
varieties, such as Golden Delicious, McIntosh and Winesap.

In 1996, over 87 million Americans participated more than once in some
type of recreational boating activity (fishing, sailing, motorboating,
water skiing, canoeing, etc.).

Organizers of Times Square 2000 want to be the crossroads of the world
during New Year's Eve 1999.  They hope to broadcast images of people and
their cultures from each of the world's 24 times zones for 24 hours,
culminating with the dropping of the Times Square Ball.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain

The last Royal Hawaiian flag to be defended during the U.S. led coup
d'etat of 1893 was aboard a Japanese gunboat.  The Japanese Imperial
Navy gunboat Naniwa refused to strike the Royal Hawaiian flag from it's
mast during it's anchorage in Honolulu Harbor . After firmly resisting
all threats from the newly installed rebel government, the Naniwa was
finally ordered to lower the colors by the Japanese government.  The
captain of the Naniwa later went on to become the greatest naval
commander in the history of Japan.  Capt.  Heihachiro Togo is credited
with destroying the combined Russian Baltic and Pacific fleets in a
single battle during the Russo-Japanese War, thus galvanizing Japans
status as a world power in the early 20th century.


Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it
has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls
off the twentieth floor.  It supposedly takes about eight floors for the
cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself.

Dinah Washington holds the record for the longest gap between charting
records in the UK.  Her first single, September In The Rain, last
appeared in the charts in January 1962.  She charted again with Mad
About The Boy in April 1992 - an incredible 30 years later!

The word gem comes from the Latin gemma meaning bud.  The story of the
precious stones is much like that of the blooming of flowers.  Like tiny
buds that burst into beautiful blossoms, dull lumps of mineral matter
can be cut and polished into brilliantly flashing or beautifully glowing
gems.

Rubies are more valuable than sapphires because they are more rare.  The
best come from Burma.  Opals are valued for their color flashes.  The
finest opals in the world come from Australia.

Actress Sissy Spacek got so into the part of Carrie that she slept with
fake pig's blood all over her to ensure continuity.

Hawaii was originally called the Sandwich isles.  The great English
navigator Capt.  James Cook so named the islands in 1778 in honor of his
patron the Earl of Sandwich ( who is also credited with creating the
edible type sandwiches).

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

All doors exiting a public building must swing outwards.  That way if
there is a fire, or something else to cause a stampede, no one will get
crushed, by everyone else trying to get out, while they are trying to
pull the door open.

Tropical rain forests throughout the world are being cut down at the
rate of 3000 acres per hour.

Germany holds the title for most independent inventors to apply for
patents.

The average cost of having a recreational boat towed if it breaks down
on the water is $263.

Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake.  They had been overmixing the
soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float.  Customers
wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated
ever since.

More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.

Diamonds have great power to reflect light, bend rays of light, and to
break light up into all the colors of the rainbow.  But to produce the
greatest possible brilliance in a diamond, many tiny sides, or facets,
must be exactly the right size and shape and must be placed at exactly
the right angle.  Most finished diamonds have 58 facets.  The cut of the
diamond affects its value, because a stone that is not properly
proportioned does not have as much brilliance as a stone that is well
cut.  The cut also refers to the shape.  Diamonds are cut into a number
of different shapes depending on the nature of the rough stone and the
position of the inclusions.

A group of unicorns is called a blessing.  Twelve or more cows are known
as a "flink."  A group of frogs is called an army.  A group of rhinos is
called a crash.  A group of kangaroos is called a mob.  A group of
whales is called a pod.  A group of geese is called a gaggle.  A group
of ravens is called a murder.  A group of officers is called a mess.A
group of larks is called an exaltation.  A group of owls is called a
parliament.

Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.

During the California Gold Rush of 1849 miners sent their laundry to
Honolulu for washing and pressing.  Due to the extremely high costs in
California during these boom years it was deemed more feasible to send
the shirts to Hawaii for servicing.

The words for north, south, east and west are the same in English as in
Chinese and Brazil's Tupi Indians.

10 Celebrities Who Have Seen UFOs

   1.The Missing Thumb - In July 1991 Robert Lindsey was boating at a reservoir in
     Green River, Wyoming. A friend's daughter fell into the water and he dived after
     her. The boat ran over him, cutting off three of his fingers, two of where were
     found and reattached. Nearly seven months later a fisherman hooked a lake
     trout that contained a severed thumb. The count coroner was contracted. Said
     Lindsey, "As soon as I saw it, I was pretty sure it was mine." He added, "I'll
     probably just put it on a shelf to show people."

   2.Reunited - Twenty-one-year-old Tammy Harris had spent nearly a year
     searching for her biological mother, while Joyce Shultz had spent twenty years
     trying to find her daughter. The woman lived two blocks from each other and
     worked together at a convenience store. One day, Shultz overheard Harris
     talking about her quest, and said she "might know somebody who can help."
     Harris lent her a baby picture, which Schultz compared with photos of her
     daughter. After keeping quiet for three days, Shultz confided the truth to the
     store manager, and mother and daughter were ecstatically reunited.

   3.Sailfish vs. Sculpin - On May 23, 1939, the newly built submarine USS Squalus
     sank off the eastern seaboard. A sister ship, the USS Sculpin, sped to the
     rescue, and saved more than half of the fifty-six-man crew. The Squalus was
     salvaged and renamed the Sailfish. In 1943 the Sculpin was sunk by the
     Japanese who took forty-two crew members prisoner, and placed half of them
     on board the aircraft carrier Cuyo. As it approached Japan, the Cuyo was
     torpedoed by the Sailfish and went down with all hands. The crew of the
     Sailfish rejoiced at their victory - unaware that they had just killed half the
     survivors of the sub that had come to their rescue four years earlier.

   4.Writer's Intuition? - When author Norman Mailer began his novel Barbary
     Shore, there was no Russian spy in it. Over time, he added such a character in a
     minor role. As the novel progressed, the spy became the main character. After
     the book was completed, the immigration service arrested a man living one flight
     below Mailer. He was Colonel Rudolf Abel, the top Russian spy in the United
     States.

   5.Destined to Dine - As a child in school, French poet Emile Deschamps shared a
     table with a M. de Fortgibu. The man offered Emile his first taste of a novel
     dessert, plum pudding, which M. Fortgibu had acquired a taste for in England.
     Ten years later Deschamps passed a restaurant and saw a plum pudding being
     prepared inside. He entered and asked for a slice, but the pudding was being
     saved for someone - who turned out to be M. de Fortgibu. Man years later, at
     a dinner party where plum pudding was being served, Deschamps, about to
     have this dessert for the third time, told his amusing story. And lo and behold,
     Fortgibu arrived at the door! He too had been invited to dinner, to another
     apartment in the same building, and had lost his way. Said Deschamps, "My hair
     stood up on my head."

   6.Jailed by Jaws - In 1799, an American privateer, the Nancy, sailing in
     Caribbean waters, was being pursued by a British warship. Before he was
     captured, the Yankee skipper, Thomas Briggs, managed to throw the ship'
     American papers overboard and to replace them with forged Dutch papers. He
     was taken to Jamaica, where he was placed on trial for running a British
     blockade during wartime. But it appeared he would go free - the court was
     faced with having to dismiss the case for lack of evidence. During the trial,
     another British ship, the HMS Ferret, arrived in port and produced the damning
     papers. The Ferret had captured a large shark off the coast of Haiti which,
     when opened, revealed the evidence. These documents were used to convict
     Briggs and his entire crew, and are on display today in the Institute of Jamaica,
     Kingston.

   7.Mystery Twins - On February 20, 1947, two pregnant women were examined
     by their interns in a hospital in Ogden, Utah. Each doctor thought he heard
     double heartbeats - an indication of twins - and was surprised when each
     woman had a single birth, within five minutes of each other. The mothers
     remained strangers until three years later, when the Hendersons built a home
     next door to the Ritters. Within a few days, a comedy of errors was occurring -
     both sets of parents confused little Joyce with her identical three-year-old
     neighbor, Jean. The girls became friends, and found they like the same foods,
     the same sports, and the same music. Their voices sound alike, and when there
     were five, they lost their baby teeth one by one within hours of each other. Their
     teachers had trouble telling them apart, but, said one, "It doesn't matter. They
     always get the same marks anyway."

   8.A Trio of Tragedies - Abraham Lincoln's eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, had
     the singular misfortune to be at the scene of three presidential assassinations. On
     April 14, 1865, he rushed to Ford's Theater, where his father lay fatally
     wounded, In 1881 he was a President Garfield's side just seconds after the
     president was shot. Twenty years later, he was about to join President
     McKinley at the Pan American Exhibit when he learned that McKinley was the
     victim of an assassin's bullet. Lincoln might never have witnessed these tragedies
     if he himself had not been a narrow escape in this youth. While standing on a
     crowed railroad platform, he tripped and nearly fell onto the tracks. He was
     pulled to safety in the nick of time by Edwin Booth - brother of John Wilkes
     Booth.

   9.Reunion #2 - In 1975 John Starr left his wife and three-year-old son in Illinois
     and headed for the East Coast . After seventeen years of drifting using the name
     John McDaniel, he wandered into the Wayside Cross Rescue Mission in
     Aurora, Illinois, Meanwhile, his son, John Earl, had grown up and led a life
     similar to that of his father. Down on his luck, with a wife and child back in
     Texas, he wound up in the Wayside Cross Rescue Mission. One day, Mr. Starr
     stepped outside for a smoke and struck up a conversation with John Earl. Soon
     there were chatting about local acquaintances, and John Earl asked Starr if he
     know a man named John McDaniel. Starr answered, " I sure do. That's me." To
     which John Early replied, "I think you're my father." The younger man's first
     reaction was anger, but over time father and son have begun to mend fences.



  23 Prominent People Who Died of AIDS

   1.The Only President to Get Stuck in the White House Bathtub - William Howard
     Taft., U.S. president from 1909 until 1913, weighted more than 300 pounds.
     Once, after getting stuck in the White House bathtub, he ordered a new one
     installed, large enough for four men. At a dinner in the Panama Canal Zone
     engineers built him a dining room chair reinforced with steel. Jokes about Taft's
     size ere common and he took them with good humor. According to Paul L.
     Boller, Jr., in Presidential Anecdotes, Taft was swimming off Cape Ann,
     Massachusetts, when tow neighbors walked by and said, "We'd better wait.
     The president is using the ocean."

   2.The Only President to Weigh Under 100 Pounds - James Madison, the fourth
     president of the United States (1809-1817), stood five feet four inches and
     weighed ninety-eight pounds. Had he lived in the twentieth century he probably
     could not have gotten elected - although the average American male is 5 feet 9
     inches tall, the last twenty-two presidential elections have been won by a
     candidate who was taller than the average.

   3.The Only Foot Deodorant Elected to Public Office - In the early 1970s, during
     an election campaign in Ecuador, a foot deodorant manufacturer used the
     advertising slogan "Vote for any candidate, but if you want well-being and
     hygiene, vote for Pulvapies." The day before the election, the manufacturer
     distributed a leaflet reading "For Mayor: The Honorable Pulvapies." Voters in
     the coastal village of Picoaza (pop. 4,100), unimpressed with the alternatives,
     elected Pulvapies by a clear majority.

   4.The Only English Monarch Never to Set Foot in England - Berengaria, the
     daughter of King Sancho VI of Navarre, married King Richard the
     Lion-Hearted and was crowned queen - in Cyprus - I 1911. She never visited
     England and spent most of hear eight-year reign in Italy and France.

   5.The Only Bone in the Human Body Not Connected to Another - The hyoid is a
     V-shaped bone located at the base of the tongue between the mandible and the
     voice box. Its function is to support the tongue and its muscles.

   6.The Only 7-Letter Word That Contain All 5 Vowels - The word is sequoia,
     referring to the giant trees of California. The sequoia is named after the
     Cherokee Indian scholar who created a written alphabet for the Cherokee
     language.

   7.The Only Baseball Player to Get a Hit for 2 Different Teams in 2 Cities on the
     Same Day - Joel Youngblood began August 4 1982, as the starting right fielder
     for the New York Mets in their game against the Chicago, Cubs. He singled in
     the third inning, but was immediately pulled from the game and told that he had
     been trade to the Montreal Expos. Youngblood flew to Philadelphia, took a taxi
     to Veteran's Stadium, put on a Montreal uniform, and entered the game in the
     sixth inning. In his only at-bat, he singled again.

   8.The Only Nonhuman Land Animal that Commonly Mates Face to Face -
     Two-toed sloths typically mate vertically while hanging by their arms from a tree
     branch.



  9 Actresses Who Won Beauty Contests

   1.Entire World Population Except Noah and 7 Relatives (Genesis 6, 7) -
     Transgression: Violence, corruption and generalized wickedness. Method of
     execution: Flood.

   2.Entire Populations of Sodom and Gomorrah Except Lot, His Wife, and Their 2
     Daughters (Genesis 19) - Transgression: Widespread wickedness and lack of
     respect for the deity. Method of execution: Rain of fire and brimstone.

   3.Lot's Wife (Genesis 19) - Transgression: Locked back. Method of execution:
     Turned into a pillar of salt.

   4.ER (Genesis 38) - Transgression: Wickedness. Method of execution: Unknown


   5.Onan (Genesis 38) - Transgression: Refused to make love to his brother ER's
     widow. Method of Execution: Unknown.

   6.All the Firstborn of Egypt (Exodus 12) - Transgression: Egypt was cruel to the
     Jews. Method of Execution: Unknown.

   7.Pharoah and the Egyptian Army - Transgression: Pursued the Jews. Method of
     execution: Drowned.

   8.Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10) - Transgression: Offered strange fire. Method
     of Execution: fire.

   9.Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and their Families (Numbers 16) - Transgression:
     Rejected authority of Moses and started own congregation. Method of
     execution: Swallowed by earth.

  10.250 Followers of Korah (Numbers 16) - Transgression: Supported Korah.
     Method of execution: Fire.

  11.14,700 Israelites (Numbers 16) - Transgression: Murmured against Moses and
     his brother Aaron following execution of Korah and his supporters. Method of
     execution: Plague

  12.Unknown Number of Retreating Amorite Soldiers (Joshua 10) - Transgression:
     Fought the Israelites. Method of execution: Hailstones.

  13.Uzzah (2 Samuel 6) - Transgression: Touched the ark of God after oxen shook
     it while pulling it on a cart. Method of Execution: Unknown.

  14.70,000 People (2 Samuel 24) - Transgression: King David ordered a census of
     the population. Method of Execution: Plague.

  15.102 Soldiers of King Ahaziah (2 King 1) - Transgression: Tried to capture
     Elijah the Tishbite. Method of execution: Fire.

  16.Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) - Transgression: Land Fraud.. Method of
     Execution: Unknown.



  Madame Tussaud's Most Hated and Feared, Most Heroic, and Most Beautiful

   1.Among the Many Dangers of the Material World - A Brink's amored-car
     guard, Hrand Arakelian, thirty-four, of Santee, California, was crushed to death
     by $50,000 worth of quarters. Arakelian was guarding a load of
     twenty-five-pound coin boxes in the back of a truck traveling down the San
     Diego Freeway on February 3, 1986, when the driver braked suddenly to
     avoid a car that had swerved in front of him. when he pulled over to check on
     this partner, he found Arakelian completely covered by boxes of coins.

   2.Drowned at a Lifeguards' Party - On August 1, 1985, lifeguards of the New
     Orleans recreation department threw a party to celebrate their first
     downing-free season in memory. although four lifeguards were on duty at the
     party and more than half the 200 party-goers were lifeguards, when the party
     ended, one of the guests, Jerome Moody, thirty-one, was found dead on the
     bottom o the recreation department pool.

   3.Strangled by a Garden Hose - Thirty-five-year-old Richard Fresquez of Austin,
     Texas, became drunk on the night of May 7, 1983. He tripped on a garden
     hose, became tangled in it, and strangled to death while trying to break free.

   4.Fatal Cure for Hemorrhoids - Norik Hakpisan, twenty-four-year-old music
     student of Sloane Terrace, Chelsea, in London, was found dead on October 5,
     1982, after being caught in a flash fire while trying to relieve a bad case of
     hemorrhoids with gasoline, The fumes from an open bottle of petrol had been
     ignited by a hot plate. Hakpisan's brother, Hiak, said that relieving hemorrhoids
     with paraffin was an old family remedy, but that Norik had apparently used
     petrol instead.

   5.Killed by a Waterbed - Donald King, twenty-eight, of Stockton, California,
     was smothered to death by a waterbed mattress on the night of August 20,
     1983. King fell asleep next to the bed while waiting for it to fill with water. The
     mattress overfilled, burst its wood frame, and rolled on top of him.

   6.Perfect Re-creation) - On April 27, 1991, Yooket Paen, fifty-seven, of
     Angthong, Thailand, slipped in some mud, grabbed a live wire, and was
     electrocuted. Later that day, her fifty-two-year-old sister, Yooket Pan, was
     showing some neighbors how the accident happened while she slipped, grabbed
     the same live wire, and was also electrocuted.

   7.Killed by Art - In 1991 Bulgarian environmental artist Christo erected 1,760
     yellow umbrellas along southern California's Tejon Pass and another 1,340 blue
     umbrellas I Ilbaraki Prefecture north of Tokyo. Each of the umbrellas weighed
     488 pounds. On October 26, Lori Jean Keevil-Mathews, a
     thirty-three-year-old insurance agent, drove south to Interstate 5 to view the
     California umbrellas. Shortly after Keevil-Mathews and her husband got out of
     their car, a huge gust of wind tore one of the umbrellas loose from its steel
     screw anchors and blew it straight at Keevil-Mathews, crushing her against a
     boulder. Chriso immediately ordered the dismantling of all the umbrellas in both
     countries. However, on October 30, another umbrella-related death occurred
     when fifty-seven-year-old crane operator Wasaaki Nakaruma was electrocuted
     by a power line in Japan as he prepared to take down one of the umbrellas.

   8.Self-Induced Capital Punishment (Leviticus 10) - Michael Anderson Godwin
     was convicted of murder and sentenced to the electric chair, but in 1983 his
     sentence was changed to life in prison. On March 5, 1989, Godwin,
     twenty-eight years old, was trying to fix a pair of earphones connected to the
     television set in his cell at the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia, south
     Carolina. While sitting on a steel toilet, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.

   9.The Bowling Ball from Nowhere - Thomas Hart, thirty, and his wife, Linda,
     were driving home in suburban Detroit I the early morning of December 4,
     1982, when out of the darkness a fourteen-pound burgundy bowling ball
     bounced on the hood of their car, crashed through the windshield, and struck
     Hart in the head. He was pronounced dead the following day.

  10.Among the Many Dangers of the Spiritual World - John Edward Blue,
     thirty-eight, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, was being baptized in Natick's Lake
     Cochiuate o August 13, 1984, when he and the minister performing the baptism
     slipped and fell backward into deep water. The minister survived, but Blue
     drowned.

  11.The Perils of Politics - Nitaro Ito, forty-one, a pancake-shop operator in
     Higashiosaka City, Japan, concluded that he needed an extra edge in his 1979
     campaign for the House of Representatives. He decided to stage an attack ion
     himself and then draw sympathy by campaigning from a hospital bed. Ito's
     scheme was to have an employee, Kazuhiko Matsumo, punch him in the face
     on the night of September 17, after which Ito would stab himself in the leg.
     After Matsumo had carried out his part of the plan, Ito stabbed his right thigh.
     Unfortunately, he cut an artery and bled to death before he could reach his
     home fifty meters away.

  12.Killed by a Robot (Joshua 10) - Ford Motor Company's casting plant in Flat
     Rock, Michigan, employed a one-ton robot to fetch parts from a storage rack.
     When the robot malfunctioned on January 25, 1979, twenty-five-year-old
     Robert Williams was asked to climb up on the rack and get the parts. While he
     was performing the task, the robot suddenly reactivated and hit Williams in the
     head with its arm. Williams died instantly. four years later a jury ordered Unit
     Handling Systems, the manufacturer of the robot, to pay Williams's family $10
     million. Williams is believed to have been the first person killed by a robot.



  Top 15 Celebrity Q Scores

   1.John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865 - Twelve days after he assassinated Abraham
     Lincoln, Booth himself was shot to death. His body was transported to
     Washington D.C., and secretly buried under a flagstone floor in the Washington
     Arsenal Prison. Two years later it was exhumed and stored I a pine box in a
     warehouse. In 1869 President Andrew Johnson ordered the box moved to a
     funeral home, where it was claimed by Booth's brother, the famous actor Edwin
     Booth. Finally, on June 26, 1869, it was reburied in an unmarked family plot in
     Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.

   2.Pablo Casals (1876-1973), Spanish cellist - When he left Spain in 1939, as the
     Fascist dictator Francisco Franco took power, Casals swore he would return
     only when democracy was restored. He died before that happened and was
     buried in Memorial Cemetery in Caroline, Puerto Rico. His will contained the
     request that his body be buried in Spain whenever it would be possible. That
     time came with the change of government in 1979. Casal's coffin was put on
     display in Barcelona and then reburied in the church cemetery of Vendrell, the
     village where he was born and raised.

   3.Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977), British actor - Chaplin was buried in the village
     cemetery of Corsier, Switzerland. On March 1, 1978, Galtcho Ganav of
     Bulgaria and Roman Wardas of Poland dug up his grave, stole the body, and
     hid it in a field ten miles away. After the grave robbers were arrested, Chaplin's
     body was recovered and reburied - this time in a vault surrounded by cement.

   4.Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), Spanish explorer - Originally, Columbus
     was buried in the Franciscan monastery of Valladolid, Spain. A few years later
     his body was transferred to the Carthusian monastery in Las Cuevas. In 1541
     his remains were put on a ship and sent across the ocean to be buried in a
     cathedral in the Dominican Republic. However, in 1795 Spain ceded the island
     of Hispaniola to France, so Columbus was moved to Havana, Cuba. Then, in
     1898, Spain lost the Spanish-American War and had to give up its West Indian
     colonies. So Columbus's remains were shipped back across the Atlantic Ocean
     and once again enshrined, this time in a cathedral in Seville, where they rest
     today. It is worth noting, however, that 19 1877 a vault in the Cathedral of
     Santo Domingo was opened and a casket was discovered that many scholars
     believe to contain the real bones of Columbus.

   5.Arthur Conan Doyle (1854 - 1930), British author - The creator of Sherlock
     Holmes died sitting up in an armchair and was buried in the garden of his estate
     in Windlesham, Sussex. In 1955 the family sold Windlesham (which was turned
     into a hotel), and the bodies of Conan Doyle and his wife, Jean, were
     transported in a laundry van to their new resting place.

   6.F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), U.S. author - Fitzgerald had hoped to be
     buried in his family's plot in the graveyard of St. Mary's Roman Catholic church
     in, Maryland. But when he died he was refused a Catholic burial because, in the
     words of a Baltimore diocesan aide, he " had not performed his Easter duty and
     his writings were undesirable.: It was discovered that a single plot remained in
     the nondenominational Rockville Union Cemetery, and he was tnterred there
     instead. by 1975 Fitzgerald had regained his lost fame, and the authorities at St.
     Mary's had a change of heart. On November 7 Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda,
     were reburied in the Catholic cemetery.

   7.Frederick II, King of Prussia (1712 1786), German military leader - In his will,
     Frederick the Great asked to be buried beside his greyhounds on the grounds
     of the palace of Sans Souci in Potsdam. He got his wish, but it took 205 years
     and six stops along the way. When he died, his successor, Frederick Williams
     II, thought it too undignified to bury Frederick with his dogs, so he had the great
     leader entombed instead with his father, Frederick Wilhelm I (who had once
     imprisoned Frederick and whom Frederick hated), in the Garrison church of
     Potsdam. In February 1945, as Allied bombs edged closer to Potsdam, Adolf
     Hitler had the two bodies moved to the Luftwaffe bunker of Hermann Goring.
     A few weeks later there were surreptitiously transferred to a salt mine in
     Thuringia. six weeks after that, American troops found the sarcopagi and seized
     them. Frederick and his father were buried again, this time at a church in the
     town of Marburg. In 1952 Prince Louis Ferdinand had his ancestors moved to
     the crypt at the Hohenzollern castle in Hechingen and was then in Communist
     East Germany. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Louis Ferdinand saw his chance.
     On August 7, 1991, with great pomp and ceremony, not to mention antimilitarist
     protests, Frederick the Great was finally laid to rest alongside his greyhounds
     and separated at last from his father, who was interred elsewhere on the palace
     grounds.

   8.Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809), Austrian Composer -Haydn was originally
     buried in the Hundsthiron Cemetery in Vienna. When his body was exhumed in
     1820 for reburial in the Bergkirche on Prince Nicolaus Esterhazy's Eisenstadt
     estate, it was discovered that two fiends of Haydn's, Carl Rosenbaum and
     Johann Peter, had bribed the grave digger to let hem steal Haydn' head "to
     protect it from desecration." Rosenbaum produced a bogus skull, which was
     buried with Haydn's body. From 1895 to 1954, the real skull was kept in the
     museum of the Vienna Academy of music, after which it was reunited with
     Haydn's skeleton and reburied in the Bergkirch.

   9.John Paul Jones (1747 - 1792), Scottish-born U.S. naval officer - One of the
     heroes of the American Revolution, Jones died a lonely death in Paris and was
     buried in a cemetery for foreign Protestants. In 1899 the U.S. ambassador to
     France, General Horace Porter, initiated a search for Jones's grave. It was
     finally located and his body was exhumed in 1905 and carried back to the
     United States. Because of bureaucratic red tape, it was not until January 26,
     1913, that John Paul Jones's body was laid to rest in a tomb on the grounds of
     the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

  10.Imre Nagy (1896-1958), Hungarian political leader - As Hungary's premier,
     Nagy led the revolted against Stalin that prompted the Soviet Union to invade
     Hungary in 1956. Nagy was hanged as a traitor on June 16, 1958. thirty-one
     years later to the day, Nagy and four aides were exhumed from their unmarked
     graves and reburied after an emotional memorial services attended by 100,000
     people and televised live for nine hours. Also buried was a sixth empty coffin
     which symbolized the hundreds of other Hungarians who were executed for
     their part in the 1956 uprising.

  11.Zintkala Nuini (Marguerite Colby) (1890-1919), Lakota Indian - When
     soldiers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry massacred hundred of unarmed Lakota Sioux
     Indians at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota on December 29, 1902, a
     four-month-old baby girl was found alive, lying underneath the body of her dead
     mother. She was adopted by Brigadier General Leonard Colby and raised by
     Colby's suffragette wife, Clara. For a time Marguerite worked in buffalo bill
     Cody's Wild West Show. She died at the age of twenty-nine and was buried in
     Hanford, California . French-Canadian author Renee Sanson-Flood traced the
     story of Marguerite Colby, located her grave, and arranged with leaders of the
     Lakota community to have her reburied. The Lakota renamed her Zintkala
     Numi - Lost Bird - and on July 12, 1991, following a symbolic
     freeing-of-the-spirit ceremony, she was laid to rest near the mass grave at
     Wounded Knee that included the body of her mother.

  12.Eva Peron (1919 - 1952), Argentine First Lady - When she died, the popular
     second wife of President Juan Peron was embalmed, but not buried. After
     Peron was overthrown in 1955, Eva's body was kidnapped and smuggled out
     of the country. She was buried in the Musocco Cemetery in Milan under the
     name of Maria Maggi to discourage potential grave robbers. In 1971 her body
     was transferred to Madrid, where Juan Peron was living in exile. Two years
     later, Peron briefly returned to power. Upon his death, his third wife, Maria
     Estela, became president. In an attempt to link herself with Eva Peron's
     popularity, she brought Eva's body back to Argentina on November 17, 1974.
     Id didn't help. Maria Estela was deposed by a coup in March 1976. In October
     of that year, Eva was buried in an armored vault in the Recoleta Cemetery of
     Buenos Aires.

  13.Haile Selassie (1892 - 1975), Ethiopian dictator and military leader - Emperor
     Haile Selassie died mysteriously a year after being overthrown by Mengistu
     Haile Mariam, who had him buried deep in the ground under a latrine in
     Mengistu's office at the grand palace. According to Ethiopian state radio, the
     new dictator "chose this site to see that the body did not rise from the dead."
     When Mengistu himself was overthrown in May 1991 the new government
     approved plans to exhume Haile Selassie's body. It took workers three days of
     digging to reach the body. On July 23, 1992, the one hundredth anniversary of
     the emperor's birth, he received a formal burial in Trinity Church in the presence
     of family members and former supporters.

  14.James Smithson (1765 - 1829), British founder of the Smithsonian Institution -
     Smithson died in Italy and was buried in Genoa's English cemetery. By 1900 it
     became clear that nearby quarrying would require the transfer of all graves to a
     new location. British authorities, aware of American interest in Smithson, wrote
     to officials of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., asking if they
     would like to take charge of his body. In December 1903, a mission headed by
     the inventor Alexander Graham Bell arrived in Genoa and oversaw the
     disinterment of Smithson's body and its transfer by ship to the United States. If
     now rests in a tomb in the institution that bears his name.



  Bottom 9 Celebrity Q Scores

   1.Babe Ruth's Last Home Run - Ruth hit his 714th and last major-league hoe run,
     a towering out-of-the-park drive off a Pittsburgh Pirates' pitcher Guy Bush, on
     May 25, 1935. However, eleven years later the owner of the Veracruz Blues of
     the Mexican League hired the famous slugger for $10,000 to come and bat
     once in a game against the Mexico City Reds. The pitcher, Ramon Brazanak
     threw three balls and was removed from the games. A reliever was brought in
     ad threw his firsts pitch straight down the middle. The fifty-one-year-old Ruth
     hit it deep into the right-field bleachers, much to the delight of 10,000 Mexican
     fans.

   2.The Last American Killed in the Vietnam War - Kelton Rena Turner, an
     eighteen-year-old Marine from Los Angeles, was killed in action on May 15,
     1975, two weeks after the evacuation of Saigon, in what became known as the
     Mayaguez incident. His body was never recovered.

   3.The Last Victim of Smallpox - On October 26, 1977, Ali Maow Maalin, a
     hospital cook in Somalia, became the last person to contract smallpox through
     natural transmission when he chose to tend an infected child. The child died but
     Maalin survived. In September 1978, Janet Parker, an English medical
     photographer, was exposed to smallpox as the result of a laboratory accident.
     She subsequently died. The virologist in charge of the lab felt so guilty that he
     committed suicide. On May 8, 1980, the World Health Organization declared
     smallpox eradicated. However, some samples remained in laboratories in
     Atlanta and Moscow. If scientists go ahead with a plan to destroy the samples,
     the smallpox virus would become the first life form intentionally eliminated from
     the earth.

   4.The Last Playboy Club in America - The final day of business for the Lansing,
     Michigan, Playboy Club was July 30, 1988. Four clubs remained in Japan and
     one in Manila.

   5.The Last Crank Phone in the United States - On July 12, 1990, America's last
     hand-cranked, party-line telephone system was replaced by private-line,
     touch-tone technology. The system had serviced the eighteen year-round
     residents of Salmon River Canyon, near North Fork, Idaho.

   6.The Last Miss Canada - In 1991 women's groups successfully lobbied to have
     the Miss Canada contest canceled, claiming that is was degrading to women.
     The last Miss Canada, Nicole Dunsdon, completed her reign in October 1992.



When Leo Tolstoy and his brother were children, they created a club with
a peculiar, almost impossible initiation ceremony.  In order to become a
member, one had to stand in a corner for a half an hour and not think of
a white

Because of the rotation of the earth, an object can be thrown farther if
it is thrown west.

Mrs. Caroline Squires of Cincinnati filed for a divorce from her husband
in 1949 on grounds of desertion.  She testified he'd stepped out "for a
beer" on the Fourth of July, 1917, and had never come back.

The French national anthem, "La Marseillaise," derived its title from
the enthusiasm of the men of Marseilles, France, who sang it when they
marched into Paris at the outset of the French Revolution.  Rouget de
l'Isle, its composer, was an artillery officer.  According to his
account, he fell asleep at a harpsichord and dreamt the words and the
music.  Upon waking, he remembered the entire piece from his dream and
immediately wrote it down.

Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of the blue whale.

A law passed in Nebraska in 1912 really set down some hard rules of the
road.  Drivers in the country at night were required to stop every 150
yards, send up a skyrocket, then wait eight minutes for the road to
clear before proceeding cautiously, all the while blowing their horn and
shooting off flares.

Birds do not sleep in their nests.  They may occasionally nap in them,
but they actually sleep in other places.

The formula for cold cream has hardly changed at all in the 1,700 years
since it was originally made by the Roman physician Galen.

George Lumley, aged 104, married Mary Dunning, aged 10, in Nortallerton,
England on August 25, 1783.  She was the great-great granddaughter of
the woman who'd broken her engagement to Lumley, eighty years before.

Caesar salad has nothing to do with any of the Caesars.  It was first
concocted in a bar in Tiajuana, Mexico, in the 1920's.  Crocodiles and
alligators are surprisingly fast on land.  Although they are rapid, they
are not agile; so if you ever find yourself chased by one, run in a
zigzag line.  You'll lose him or her every time.  After Albert Einstein
had been at Princeton for some months, local news hounds discovered that
a twelve-year-old girl happened to stop by the Einstein home almost
every afternoon.  The girl's mother hadn't thought to ask Einstein about
the situation until the newspapers reported it, but when she got the
opportunity after that she did so.  What could her daughter and Einstein
have in common that they spent so much time together?  Einstein replied
simply, "She brings me cookies and I do her arithmetic homework."

When the French Academy was preparing its first dictionary, it defined
"crab" as, "A small red fish which walks backwards."  This definition
was sent with a number of others to the naturalist Cuvier for his
approval.  The scientist wrote back, "Your definition, gentlemen, would
be perfect, only for three exceptions.  The crab is not a fish, it is
not red and it does not walk backwards.  "Louis XV of France really was
as an unpleasant a fellow as he's been depicted.  In 1674, when he was
visiting a school at Clermont, he heard from the school's authorities
that one of the children, a nine-year-old Irish lad named Francis
Seldon, had mad a pun about the king's bald head.  Louis was furious.
He had a secret warrant drawn up for the child's arrest, and young
Seldon was thrown into solitary confinement in the Bastille.  His
parents, members of one of Europe's richest merchant families, were told
simply that the child had disappeared.  Days turned to months, months to
years, and Louis himself passed away.  But Francis spent sixty-none
years "in the hole" for making fun of the king's baldness.

One of the movie moguls the Marx Brothers had to deal with was Irving
Thalberg of MGM. Purposefully or not, Thalberg had the annoying habit of
making people wait outside his office for extended periods of time.  One
time he kept the Marx Brothers longer than they liked.  When he finally
got around to seeing them, he discovered they were stark naked outside
his doorway, roasting potatoes in the lobby's fireplace.  It was the
last time he kept them waiting.

Abraham Lincoln had no love for favor seekers, especially when they took
his time away from the duties of the presidency during the Civil War.
On one occasion, he gathered together a number of would-be-office
holders and told them this story:  "There was once a King who wished to
go out hunting, so he asked his minister if it was going to rain.  The
minister assured him that it would not.  On the way to the woods, the
King passed a farmer who was working the land with his donkey.  The
farmer warned the King that it would rain soon, but the King just
laughed and continued on.  A few minutes later it was pouring, and the
King and his companions were soaked to their skin.  Upon return to the
castle, the King dismissed his minister and sent for the farmer.  He
asked the man how he knew it was going to rain.  ""It was not me, your
Majesty.  It was my donkey.  He always droops one ear when it is going
to rain."  "So the King bought the donkey from the farmer and gave him
the position of minister at court.  This was where the King made his
mistake."  "How was that," asked several people in the audience.
"Because ever since then," Lincoln continued, "every jackass wants an
office.  Gentlemen, leave your credentials and when the war is over
you'll hear from me."  In 1500 B.C. in Egypt a shaved head was
considered the ultimate in feminine beauty.  Egyptian women removed
every hair from their heads with special gold tweezers and polished
their scalps to a high sheen with buffing cloths.

In ancient China and certain parts of India, mouse meat was considered a
great delicacy.

In ancient Greece, where the mouse was sacred to Apollo, mice were
sometimes devoured by temple priests.

In 1400 B.C. it was the fashion among rich Egyptian women to place a
large cone of scented grease on top of their heads and keep it there all
day.  As the day wore on, the grease melted and dripped down over their
bodies, covering their skin with an oily, glistening sheen and bathing
their clothes in fragrance.In the United States, a pound of potato chips
cost two hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.

Half the foods eaten throughout the world today were developed by
farmers in the Andes Mountains.  Potatoes, maize, sweet potatoes,
squash, all varieties of beans, peanuts, manioc (manioc?), papayas,
strawberries, mulberries and many other foods were first grown in this
region.A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can.

Blue whales weigh as much as 30 elephants and are as long as 3 Greyhound
buses.

According to tests made at the Institute for the Study of Animal
Problems in Washington, D.C., dogs and cats, like people, are either
right-handed or left-handed --- that is, they favor either their right
or left paws.

A person cannot taste food unless it is mixed with saliva.  For example,
if a strong-tasting substance like salt is placed on a dry tongue, the
taste buds will not be able to taste it.  As soon as a drop of saliva is
added and the salt is dissolved, however, a definite taste sensation
results.  This is true for all foods.  Try it!

In eighteenth-century England, women's wigs were sometimes 4 feet high.
These remarkable head-dresses were dusted with flour and decorated with
stuffed birds, replicas of gardens, plates of fruit, or even model
ships.  Sometimes the wigs were so elaborate they were worn continuously
for several months.  They were matted with lard to keep them from coming
apart, which made mice and insects a constant problem.  Special pillows
had to be constructed to hold these giant creations, and rat-resistant
caps made of wire were common.  The wig craze died out quite suddenly in
1795, when a hair-powder tax made their upkeep too expensive.

In the marriage ceremony of the ancient Inca Indians of Peru, the couple
was considered officially wed when they took off their sandals and
handed them to each other.

Experiments conducted in Germany and at the University of Southampton in
England show that even mild and incidental noises cause the pupils of
the eyes to dilate.  It is believed that this is why surgeons,
watchmakers, and others who perform delicate manual operations are so
bothered by noise.  The sounds cause their pupils to change focus and
blur their vision.

The Inca Indians of Peru considered bridges to be so sacred that anyone
who tampered with one was put to death.  Among the most impressive Inca
bridges were the chacas, or rope bridges, that spanned great distances
over gorges and rivers.  They were made of braided grasses woven
together into a single cable as thick as a man's body, and they
sometimes were 175 feet long.  It took as many as a thousand people to
build such a bridge, and many of these remarkable structures lasted more
than 500 years.

According to acupuncturists, there is a point on the head that you can
press to control your appetite.  It is located in the hollow just in
front of the flap of the ear.  (Try it!)

Tibetans, Mongolians, and people in parts of western China put salt in
their tea instead of sugar.

In 1976 a Los Angeles secretary named Jannene Swift officially married a
50-pound rock.  The ceremony was witnessed by more than 20 people.

In the early 19th century the words "trousers" and "pants" were
considered obscene in England.  Woman referred to trousers as
"inexpressibles" or "a pair of dittoes."  Later in the century the taboo
was carried to such lengths that piano legs were covered up because they
reminded people of their human legs.  In 1836 Charles Dickens wrote the
following lines in Oliver Twist:

" ' I tossed off the clothes, got safely in bed, drew on a pair of
________' "

" ' Ladies present, Mr. Giles,' murmured the tinker.

" ' _________ of shoes, Sir,' said Mr. Giles, laying great emphasis on
the word."  Ninety percent of all species that have become extinct have
been birds.  There is approximately one chicken for every human being in
the world.

Sports fans in Brazil sometimes become so excited that it was necessary
to build a wide moat around the playing field of Rio's 180,000-seat
Maracarña Stadium.  The moat keeps the crowd from running onto the
field, molesting the players and attacking the referees.

According to many language experts, the most difficult kind of phrase to
create is a palindrome, a sentence or group of sentences that reads the
same backward and forward.  A few examples:

Red rum, sir, is murder.

Ma is as selfless as I am.

Nurse, I spy gypsies.  Run!

A man, a plan, a canal - Panama.

He lived as a devil, eh?

The first automobile race ever seen in the United States was held in
Chicago in 1895.  The track ran from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois.  The
winner was J. Frank Duryea, whose average speed was 7½ miles per hour.

In the memoirs of Catherine II of Russia, it is recorded that any
Russian aristocrat who displeased the queen was forced to squat in the
great antechamber of the palace and to remain in that position for
several days, mewing like a cat, clucking like a hen, and pecking his
food from the floor.

The outdoor temperature can be estimated to within several degrees by
timing the chirps of a cricket.  It is done this way:  count the number
of chirps in a 15-second period, and add 37 to the total.  The result
will be very close to the actual Fahrenheit temperature.  This formula,
however, only works in warm weather.  (Try it!)

At any given time, there are 1,800 thunderstorms in progress over the
earth's atmosphere.

Lightning strikes the earth 100 times every second.  The average lead
pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000
English words.  More than 2 billion pencils are manufactured each year
in the United States.  If these were laid end to end they would circle
the world nine times.

The Pekingese dog was considered sacred among Chinese royalty.  At the
court of Li Hsui, one of the last Manchu queens, all court Pekingese had
human wet nurses.  Each dog had its own human guard to protect it from
other dogs; some even had private palaces, complete with servants.

A rainbow can be seen only in the morning or late afternoon.  It can
occur only when the sun is 40 degrees or less above the horizon.

During a severe windstorm or rainstorm the Empire State Building may
sway several feet to either side.

In Calama, a town in the Atacama Desert of Chile, it has never rained.

An eighteenth-century German named Matthew Birchinger, known as "the
little man of Nuremberg," played four musical instruments including the
bagpipes, was an expert calligrapher, and was the most famous stage
magician of his day.  He performed tricks with the cup and balls that
have never been explained.  Yet Birchinger had no hands, legs, or
thighs, and was less than 29 inches tall!

The star Antares is 60,000 times larger than our sun.  If our sun were
the size of a softball, the star Antares would be as large as a house.

In Elizabethan England the spoon was such a novelty, such a prized
rarity, that people carried their own folding spoons to banquets.  (This
was true, however, for only the people who were invited to banquets.)

Ants stretch when they wake up.  They also appear to yawn in a very
human manner before taking up the tasks of the day.

Bees have 5 eyes.  There are 3 small eyes on the top of a bee's head and
2 larger ones in front.

In Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift described the two moons of Mars,
Phobos and Deimos, giving their exact size and speeds of rotation.  He
did this more than 100 years before either moon was discovered.  It
costs more to buy a new car today in the United States than it cost
Christopher Columbus to equip and undertake three voyages to and from
the New World.

One-fourth of the world's population lives on less than $200 a year.
Ninety million people survive on less than $75 a year.

In ancient China doctors were paid when their patients were kept well,
not when they were sick.  Believing that it was the doctor's job to
prevent disease, Chinese doctors often paid the patient if the patient
lost his health.  Further, if a patient died, a special lantern was hung
outside the doctor's house.  At each death another lantern was added.
Too many of these lanterns were certain to ensure a slow trade.

Butterflies taste with their hind feet.

Only female mosquitoes bite.

Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue twice as much as to any other
color.

If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly
go mad and sting itself to death.

Every night, wasps bite into the stem of a plant, lock their mandibles
(jaws) into position, stretch out at right angles to the stem, and, with
legs dangling, fall asleep.

During the time of Peter the Great, any Russian man who wore a beard was
required to pay a special tax.

It is illegal to hunt camels in the state of Arizona.

In the country of Turkey, in the 16th and 17th centuries, anyone caught
drinking coffee was put to death.

A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down
continually from the bottom of the glass to the top.

Celery has negative calories!  It takes more calories to eat a piece of
celery than the celery has in it to begin with.

In eighteenth-century English gambling dens, there was an employee whose
only job was to swallow the dice if there was a police raid.

There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven.

The human tongue tastes bitter things with the taste buds toward the
back.  Salty and pungent flavors are tasted in the middle of the tongue,
sweet flavors at the tip.  (Try it!)

A sneeze can travel as fast as 100 miles per hour.

It is impossible to sneeze and keep one's eyes open at the same time.
(Try it!)

A Virginia law requires all bathtubs to be kept out in the yards, not
inside the houses.

"Breath," by Samuel Beckett, was first performed in April, 1970.  The
play lasts thirty seconds, has no actors, and no dialogue.

In 1778, fashionable women of Paris never went out in blustery weather
without a lightning rod attached to their hats.

In the Balanta tribe of Africa, a bride remained married until her
wedding gown was worn out.  If she wanted a divorce after 2 weeks, all
she had to do was rip up her dress.  This was the custom until about 20
years ago,anyway.

Marie de Medici, a member of that famous Italian family and a
17th-century queen of France, had expensive tastes in clothes.  One
special dress was outfitted with 39,000 tiny pearls and 3,000 diamonds,
and cost the equivalent of twenty million dollars at the time it was
made in 1606.  She wore it once.

The eccentric and paranoid American recluse Langley Collier met his
untimely end in 1947.  While he was bringing food to his equally odd
brother Homer, who lived as a total hermit, Langley tripped on a wire to
one of his own booby traps and was crushed beneath a suitcase filled
with metal, a sewing machine, three breadboxes, and several bundles of
newspapers.  Homer starved to death, and their bodies were undiscovered
for three weeks.

Here is the literal translation of one of the standard traffic signs in
China.  It reads:  "Give large space to the festive dog that makes sport
in the roadway."

Ralph Graves entered a doughnut shop with a gun and demanded money from
the cashier.  A customer recognized him, however, when Graves lifted up
a corner of his pillowcase mask to find his way out the door.  Graves
had forgotten to cut eyeholes.

A burglar entered the home of Tom Schimmel in Tawas City, Michigan;
collected valuables; fixed himself a bowl of cereal; laid down in
Schimmel's bed and fell asleep.  When Schimmel returned to his house and
discovered the crime, he called police.  Officers investigated,
completed their reports, and departed.  When Schimmel noticed the
sleeping burglar several hours later, he summoned the police again.
They awakened the man and identified him as the thief.

In 1968, a convention of beggars in Dacca, India, passed a resolution
demanding that "the minimum amount of alms be fixed at 15 paisa (three
cents)."  The convention also demanded that the interval between when a
person hears a knock at his front door and when he offers alms should
not exceed 45 seconds.

A San Antonio wife, filing for divorce, described her husband as "a
bore."  "Just what is a bore?" asked the judge.  She thought about it,
then quoted, "A person who deprives you of solitude without providing
you with company."  The record shows the judge regarded that as
sufficient grounds and granted her the divorce.

Larry Lewis ran the 100-yard dash in 17.8 seconds in 1969, thereby
setting a new world's record for runners in the 100-years-or-older
class.  He was 101.

Yes, it's against the law to:
1. Doze off under a hair dryer in Florida
2. Slap an old friend on the back in Georgia
3. Play hopscotch on a Sunday in Missouri.


At age ninety, Peter Mustafic of Botovo, Yugoslavia, suddenly began
speaking again after a silence of 40 years.  The Yugoslavian news agency
quoted him as saying, "I just didn't want to do military service, so I
stopped speaking in 1920; then I got used to it."

Cows burp a lot, but until recently no one paid much attention.  Now
researchers at the Texas Department of Highways in Fort Worth are
sitting up and taking notice.  Each year the cow population of the
United States burps some fifty million tons of valuable hydrocarbons
into the atmosphere.  If they could only be captured and efficiently
channeled, say the researchers, the accumulated burps of ten average
cows could keep a small house adequately, if indirectly,heated and its
stove operating for a year.

California woman who was thrown in jail not long ago for disrobing in a
grocery store and sitting on some pheasant eggs in an effort to hatch
them.

Warning:  THE PRACTICIONER, a British medical journal, has determined
that bird-watching may be hazardous to your health.  The magazine, in
fact, has officially designated bird-watching a "hazardous hobby," after
documenting the death of a weekend bird-watcher who became so immersed
in his subject that he grew oblivious to his surroundings and
consequently was eaten by a crocodile.

The coastal town of Picoaza, Ecuador, was in the midst of avery boring
election campaign when a foot deodorant manufacturer came out with the
slogan "VOTE FOR ANY CANDIDATE, BUT IF YOU WANT WELL-BEING AND HYGIENE,
VOTE FOR PULVAPIES."  Then on the eve of the voting, a leaflet reading:
"FOR MAYOR:  HONORABLE PULVAPIES" was widely distributed.  In one of the
great embarrassments of democracy, the voters of Picoaza elected the
foot powder by a clear majority; Pulvapies also ran well in outlying
districts.

THE MOST UNUSUAL CANNONBALL On two occasions, Miss 'Rita Thunderbird'
remained inside the cannon despite a lot of gunpowder encouragement to
do otherwise.  She performs in a gold lamébikini and on one of the two
occasions (1977) Miss Thunderbird remained lodged in the cannon, while
her bra was shot across the River Thames.

THE NOISIEST BURGLAR.  A burglar in Paris set new standards for the
entire criminal world, when, on November 4, 1933, he attempted to rob
the home of an antique dealer.  At the time he was dressed in a
15th-century suit of armour which dramatically limited his chances both
of success and escape.  He had not been in the house many minutes before
its owner was awakened by the sound of the clanking metal.  The owner
got up and went out on to the landing where he saw the suit of armour
climbing the stairs.  He straightaway knocked the burglar off balance,
dropped a small sideboard across his breastplate, and went off to call
the police.  During police questioning a voice inside the armour
confessed to being a thief trying to pull off a daring robbery.  "I
thought I would frighten him," he said.  Unfortunately for our man, the
pressure of the sideboard had so dented his breastplate that it was
impossible to remove the armour for 24 hours, during which period he had
to be fed through the visor.

During Abraham Lincoln's campaign for the presidency, a dyed-in-the-wool
Democrat named Valentine Tapley from Pike County, Missouri, swore that
he would never shave again if Abe were elected.  Tapley kept his word
and his chin whiskers went unshorn from November 1860 until he died in
1910, attaining a length of twelve feet six inches.

For a while Frederic Chopin, the composer and pianist, wore a beard on
only one side of his face.  "It does not matter," he explained.  "My
audience sees only my right side."

1930: Photo flashbulbs replace dangerous flash powder.

1930: "Golden Age" of radio begins in U.S.

1930: Lowell Thomas begins first regular network newscast.

1930: TVs based on British mechanical system roll off factory line.

1930: Bush's differential analyzer introduces the computer.

1930: AT&T tries the picture telephone.

1931: Commercial teletype service.

1931: Electronic TV broadcasts in Los Angeles and Moscow.

1931: Exposures meters go on sale to photographers.

1931: NBC experimentally doubles transmission to 120-line screen.

1932: Disney adopts a three-color Technicolor process for cartoons.

1932: Kodak introduces 8 mm film for home movies.

1932: The "Times" of London uses its new Times Roman typeface.

1932: Stereophonic sound in a motion picture, "Napoleon."

1932: Zoom lens is invented, but a practical model is 21 years off.

1932: The light meter.

1932: NBC and CBS allow prices to be mentioned in commercials.

1933: Armstrong invents FM, but its real future is 20 years off.

1933: Multiple-flash sports photography.

1933: Singing telegrams.

1933: Phonograph records go stereo.

1934: Drive-in movie theater opens in New Jersey.

1934: Associated Press starts wirephoto service.

1934: In Germany, a mobile television truck roams the streets.

1934: In Scotland, teletypesetting sets type by phone line.

1934: Three-color Technicolor used in live action film.

1934: Communications Act of 1934 creates FCC.

1934: Half of the homes in the U.S. have radios.

1934: Mutual Radio Network begins operations.

1935: German single lens reflex roll film camera synchronized for flash bulbs.

1935: Also in Germany, audio tape recorders go on sale.

1935: IBM's electric typewriter comes off the assembly line.

1935: The Penguin paperback book sells for the price of 10 cigarettes.

1935: All-electronic VHF television comes out of the lab.

1935: Eastman-Kodak develops Kodachrome color film.

1935: Nielsen's Audimeter tracks radio audiences.

1936: Berlin Olympics are televised closed circuit.

1936: Bell Labs invents a voice recognition machine.

1936: Kodachrome film sharpens color photography.

1936: Co-axial cable connects New York to Philadelphia.

1936: Alan Turing's "On Computable Numbers" describes a general purpose
computer.

1937: Stibitz of Bell Labs invents the electrical digital calculator.

1937: Pulse Code Modulation points the way to digital transmission.

1937: NBC sends mobile TV truck onto New York streets.

1937: A recording, the Hindenburg crash, is broadcast coast to coast.

1937: Carlson invents the photocopier.

1937: Snow White is the first feature-length cartoon.

1938: Strobe lighting.

1938: Baird demonstrates live TV in color.

1938: Broadcasts can be taped and edited.

1938: Two brothers named Biro invent the ballpoint pen in Argentina.

1938: CBS "World News Roundup" ushers in modern newscasting.

1938: DuMont markets electronic television receiver for the home.

1938: Radio drama, War of the Worlds," causes national panic.

1939: Mechanical scanning system abandoned.

1939: New York World's Fair shows television to public.

1939: Regular TV broadcasts begin.

1939: Air mail service across the Atlantic.

1939: Many firsts: sports coverage, variety show, feature film, etc.

What U.S. president was assassinated after only four months in office?
James Garfield

What was the Allied code name for President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World
War II?
Cargo

What significance does Chester Arthur have in U.S. history?
Arthur was the 21st president of the United States

From what nation did Angola win its independence in 1975?
Portugal

Who became president after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated?
Andrew Johnson

To what political party did George Washington belong?
Federalist

What piece of land did 89 Native Americans occupy in 1969?
Alcatraz Island (They declared it to be their property)

Who was the first woman in space?
Valentina V. Tereshkova (USSR, 1963)

What American president once got married at Forest Lawn Cemetery?
Ronald Reagan (married Jane Wyman)

Who wrote "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to decieve"?
Sir Walter Scott (not Shakespeare)

Who was known as the man who shot Dillinger?
FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Purvis never actually shot at John Dillinger in the famous
1934 shootout, but he did direct the trap that pointed Dillinger out to other agents and
police)

Who was the first British royal baby in three centuries to be born in Scotland?
Princess Margaret (1930)

How long did it take America's
Pony Express riders to deliver the mail?
A little over a week

Orders for what two stocks set in motion the great crash of 1929?
General Motors and Kennecott Copper (two orders for 20,000 shares each)

What was the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Georgia retreat where he died?
Warm Springs

The oldest known goldfish lived to 41 years of age.  Its name was Fred.

In Kentucky, 50% of the people who get married for the first time are
teenagers.

If an orangutan belches at you, watch out.  He's warning you to stay out
of his territory.


Einstein couldn't speak fluently when he was nine.  His parents thought
he might be retarded.

In Los Angeles, there are fewer people than there are automobiles.

About a third of all Americans flush the toilet while they're still
sitting on it.

In 1984, a New Jersey man opened a summer camp for Cabbage Patch dolls.

You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day that in any
other weather.

How can you tell when a gorilla is angry?  It sticks its tongue out.

In 1976, a Los Angeles secretary formally married her 50-pound pet rock.

In 1980, the Yellow Pages accidentally listed a Texas funeral home under
frozen foods.

1,200 college students streaked at the same time in Boulder, CO in 1974.

In 1977, a 13-year-old boy discovered a tooth growing on his left foot.

In 1983, a Japanese artist made a copy of the Mona Lisa completely out
of toast.

In the early '80s, a toad was discovered that meows instead of croaking.

In 1984, a Canadian farmer began renting ad space on his cows.

About 96% of all American children can recognize Ronald McDonald.

An average person laughs about 15 times a day.

Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have
recently eaten bananas.

Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.

The most money ever paid for a cow in an auction was $1.3 million.

The average person is about a quarter of an inch taller at night.

A sneeze zooms out of your mouth at over 600 m.p.h.

Watch out for flying hockey pucks - they travel at up to 100 mph.

America's first nudist organization was founded in 1929, by 3 men.

98% of American drivers think they drive better than anyone else.

In 1681, the last dodo bird died.

A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her
coffee.

The Neanderthal's brain was bigger than yours is.

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

The average bank teller loses about $250 every year.

Howdy Doody had 48 freckles.

What color was Christopher Columbus's hair?  Blonde.

In 1980, there was only one country in the world with no telephones -
Bhutan.

The most extras ever used in a movie was 300,000, for the film Gandhi in
1981.

Every person has a unique tongue print.

Your right lung takes in more air than your left one does.

Women's hearts beat faster than men's.

When Bugs Bunny first appeared in 1935, he was called Happy Rabbit.

Pollsters say that 40% of dog and cat owners carry pictures of the pets
in their wallets.


Bubble gum contains rubber.

You can only smell 1/20th as well as a dog.

In high school, Robin Williams was voted "Least Likely to Succeed."

Only 55% of all Americans know that the sun is a star.

The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in
Jello.

Even if you cut off a cockroach's head, it can live for several weeks.

Most American car horns honk in the key of F.

The world population of chickens is about equal to the number of people.

Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over
his head.

In 75% of American households, women manage the money and pay the bills.

A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South
Bend, Indiana.

About 70% of Americans who go to college do it just to make more money.
[The rest of us are avoiding reality for four more years.]

It's against the law to catch fish with your bare hands in Kansas.

Some toothpastes contain antifreeze.

Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.

Millie the White House dog earned more than 4 times as much as Pres.
Bush in 1991.

Bird droppings are the chief export of Nauru, an island nation in the
western Pacific.

There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones.  [And most
of them are in Parma!]

Most lipstick contains fish scales.

Lee Harvey Oswald's cadaver tag sold at an auction for $6,600 in 1992.

Mosquitos have teeth.

Spotted skunks do handstands before they spray.

Hypnotism is banned by public schools in San Diego.

The three best-known western names in China:  Jesus Christ, Richard
Nixon, and Elvis Presley.

When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.

Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.

Captain Kangaroo won five Emmy awards.

27% of U.S. male college students believe life is "a meaningless
existential hell."

In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when
patients would die.

Aztec emperor Montezuma had a nephew, Cuitlahac, whose name meant
"plenty of excrement."

Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark.

"Kemo Sabe" means "soggy shrub" in Navajo.

Sting got his name because of a yellow-and-black striped shirt he wore
until it literally fell apart.

Every photograph of an American atomic bomb detonation was taken by
Harold Edgerton.

The topknot that quails have is called a hmuh.

Dr.  Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of Lincoln's
assassin John Wilkes Booth ... and whose shame created the expression
for ignominy, "His name is Mudd."

The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.

The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint -- no two lions have the same
pattern of whiskers.

There is a type of parrot in New Zealand that likes to eat the rubber
strips that line car windows.

New Zealand is also the only country that contains every type of climate
in the world.

Cockroaches' favorite food is the glue on envelopes and on the back of
postage stamps

Q and Z are the two letters not on a touch tone phone.

In 1969, the last Corvair was painted gold.

Ralph Kramden made 62 dollars a week.

The only way to stop the pain of the sting of the flathead fish is by
rubbing the slime of the belly of the same fish that you were stung by
on the wound that it inflicted upon you.

Elephants are the only animal with four knees.

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II
killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

The real name of the "I've fallen and I can't get up" lady is Edith
Fore.

Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth I's mother, had six fingers on one hand.

Ancient Romans ate flamingo tounges and considered them a delicacy.

Betsy Ross was born with a fully formed set of teeth.

Betsy Ross's other contribution to the American Revolution, beside
sewing the first American flag, was running a munitions factory in her
basement.

The only real person to be a Pez head was Betsy Ross.

Devo's original name was going to be De-evolution.  They shortened it to
Devo.

Steely Dan got their name from a sexual device depicted in the book 'The
Naked Lunch'.

Bob Dylan's real name is Robert Zimmerman, he changed it in honor of
Dylan Thomas.

Andy Warhol created the Rolling Stone's emblem depicting the big tongue.
It first appeared on the cover of the 'Sticky Fingers' album.

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were the two left-handed Beatles.

Chris Ford scored the first ever NBA three-point shot.

Maine is the only state that borders only one other US State.

Of all the East Coast States, New Hampshire has the shortest coastline,
about fourteen miles.

New Hampshire is also the only State name the has four consecutive
consonants in it (in the same word).

Ontario is the only Canadian Province that borders the Great Lakes.

Alaska has the longest border with Canada of all the fifty states.
Montana has the longest border with Canada of the lower forty-eight
States.

Montana also borders the most Canadian Provinces of all the fifty
states.  It borders three of them.

Arkansas is the only US State that begins with "a" but does not end with
"a".  All the other States that begin with "a", Arizona, Alabama and
Alaska, also end with "a".

Only three angels are mentioned by name in the Bible:  Gabriel, Michael,
and Lucifer.

Dr.  Seuss pronounced "Seuss" such that it rhymed with "rejoice."

Wilma Flinestone's maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble's
Maiden name was Betty Jean Mcbricker.

Lenny Kravitz's mother played the part of "Helen" on "The Jeffersons"?

The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic church.  When
deciding if someone should become a saint, a devil's advocate is always
appointed to give an alternative view.

Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of
how a record works.

The term "Mayday" used for signaling for help after (SOS), it comes from
the French term "M'aidez" which is pronounced "MayDay" and means, "Help
Me"

Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave.

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 did start in a barn belonging to Patrick
and Katherine O'Leary.  The O'Leary's house was one of the few that
survived the fire.  The O'Leary's house had to be guarded by soldiers
for weeks afterwards, however, because many enraged residents wanted to
burn it down.

The biggest bell is the "Tsar Kolokol" cast in the Kremlin in 1733.  It
weighs 216 tons, but alas, is cracked and has never been rung.

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

The smallest mountain range in the world is outside of Marysville,
California and is named the Sutter Buttes.

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

The Ramses brand condom is named after the great phaoroh Ramses II who
fathered over 160 children.

In the upper right-hand corner of a US dollar bill, on Washington's
side, there is a tiny spider.  The spider is in the upper left-hand
corner of the "1" encased in the "shield."

Many species of bird copulate in the air.  In general, a couple will fly
to a very high altitude, and then drop.  During their descent, the birds
mate.  Sometimes the couple gets too involved and SPLAT!

If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die, they need gravity to
swallow.

There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten
words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein":  the, there,
he, in, rein, her, here, here, ere, therein, herein.

You would have to count to one thousand to use the letter "A" in the
English language to spell a whole number.

The guards of some of the emperors of Byzantium were Vikings.

Canola oil is actually rapeseed oil but the name was changed in Canada
for marketing reasons.

The only member of the band ZZ Top to not have a beard has the last name
Beard.

Ants cannot chew their food, they move their jaws sidewards, like a
scissor, to extract the juices from the food.

The letters H I O X in the latin alphabet is the only ones that look the
same if you turn them upside down or see them from behind.

When your sink is full, the little hole that lets the water drain,
instead of flowing over the side, is called a "porcelator".

When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home, the
stadium becomes the state's third largest city.

In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again, Sam."

Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson."

Captain Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty," but he did say, "Beam me
up, Mr. Scott".

Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered
blood donors.

More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.

The metal part of a lamp that surrounds the bulb and supports the shade
is called a harp.

The metal part at the end of a pencil is twenty percent sulfur.

John Larroquette of "Night Court" and "The John Larroquette Show" was
the narrator of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

Raw cashews are poisonous and must be roasted before they can be eaten
(this is probably one reason that you can't buy cashews in the shell)

Meursault, the title character in Albert Camus' famous novel The
Stranger, had a first name, Patrice, which was mentioned only in Camus'
personal journals.

Vietnamese currency consists only of paper money; no coins.

During his entire life, zBod Van Gogh sold exactly one painting, Red
Vineyard at Arles.

The floral emblem of Western Australia is Mangles' Kangaroo Paw; the
state animal is the numbat; and the state bird is the black swan.

A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.

A pig's penis is shaped like a corkscrew.

It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.

Skin is thickest is at the back -- 1/6 of an inch.

The most sensitive finger is the forefinger.

Alaska is the most northern, western and eastern state; it also has the
highest latitude,the most eastern longitude and the most western
longitude.

Some of Beethoven's symphonies were performed in Kentucky before they
were performed in Paris, France.

Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of fur.  The story was
changed in the 1600s by a translator.

A large flawless emerald is worth more than a similarly large flawless
diamond.

The word denim comes from 'de Nimes', or from Nimes, a place in France.

Dublin comes from the Irish Dubh Linn which means Blackpool

The word brachiate means your elbows (or knees) bend the opposite to the
way human's do.

Scottish is the language called Gaelic, whereas Irish is actually called
Gaeilge.

The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the
cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life"

A penguin only has sex twice a year.

Mr. Spock's (of Star Trek) blood type was T-Negative

The Dutch town of Abcoude is the only reasonably sized town/city in the
world whose name begins with ABC.

A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

New Jersey has a spoon museum featuring over 5,400 spoons from every
state and almost every country.

Eleven square miles of southwest Kentucky (Fulton County) is cut off
from the rest of the state by the Mississippi River.  If you wish to
travel from this cut off section to the rest of the state or vice-versa,
you must first cross a bordering state.

Point Roberts in Washington State is cut off from the rest of the state
by British Columbia, Canada.  If you wish to travel from Point Roberts
to the rest of the state or vice versa, you must pass through Canada,
including Canadian and U.S. customs

There are 118 ridges on the outside of a dime.

The dot above an 'i' is called a tittle.

The only city in the United States to celebrate Halloween on the October
30 instead of October 31 is Carson City, Nevada.  October 31 is Nevada
Day and is celebrated with a large street party.

There is actually a word for a 64th note -- a hemidemisemiquaver.

Carnegie Mellon University offers bagpiping as a major.  The instuctor
is James McIntosh, who is a member of the Most Excellent Order of the
British Empire, and who began bagpiping at age 11.

A peanut is not a nut; it is a legume.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

"Evian" spelled backvards is naive.

The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.

Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.

"Bookkeeper" is the only word in the English language with three
consecutive double letters.

Paul McCartney's mother was a midwife.

Marcel Proust have had a swordfish at home.

It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella) lost at the
stairway, when the prince tried to follow her.

The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown
differently during times of peace or war.  A portion of the flag is
blue, while the other is red.  The blue portion is flown on top in time
of peace and the red portion is flown in war time.

The phrase "sleep tight" originated when mattresses were set upon ropes
woven through the bed frame.  To remedy sagging ropes, one would use a
bed key to tighten the rope.

It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up.  The frog
throws up it's stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of it's
mouth.  Then the frog uses it's forearms to dig out all of the stomach's
contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.

The A&W of root beer fame stands for Allen and Wright.

A baby eel is called an elver, a baby oyster is called a spat.

Bingo is the name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box.

The arteries and veins surrounding the brain stem called the "circle of
Willis" looks like a stick person with a large head.

Welsh mercenary bowmen in the medieval period only wore one shoe at a
time.

On a trip to the South Sea islands, French painter Paul Gauguin stopped
off briefly in Central America, where he worked as a laborer on the
Panama Canal.

Lake Nicaragua boasts the only fresh-water sharks in the entire world.

The gene for the Siamese coloration in animals such as cats, rats or
rabbits is heat sensitive.  Warmth produces a lighter color than does
cold.  Putting tape temporarily on Siamese rabbit's ear will make the
fur on that ear lighter than on the other one.

There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet.

Charles de Gaulle's final words were, "It hurts."

The words 'sacrilegious' and 'religion' do not share the same
etymological root.

"John has a long moustache" was the coded-signal used by the French
Resistance in WWII to mobilize their forces once the Allies had landed
on the Normandy beaches.

Gatorade was named for the University of Florida Gators where it was
first developed.

Brooklyn is the Dutch name for "broken valley"

There are four states where the first letter of the capital city is the
same letter as the first letter of the state:  Dover, Delaware;
Honolulu, Hawaii; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

There are four cars and ten lightposts on the back of a ten-dollar bill.

Venetian blinds were invented in Japan.

The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought at neighbouring Breed's Hill.

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.

Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they
rode past their king.  This custom has become the modern military
salute.

ABBA got their name by taking the first letter from each of their first
names (Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, Anni-frid.)

The first electric Christmas lights were created by a telephone company
PBX installer.  Back in the old days, candles were used to decorate
Christmas trees.  This was obviously very dangerous.  Telephone
employees are trained to be safety concious.  This installer took the
lights from an old switchboard, connected them together, strung them on
the tree, and hooked them to a battery.

What five digit number, when multiplied by the number 4, is the same
number with the digits in reverse order? 21978; 21978 x 4 = 87912.

A robin's (the bird) egg is blue, but if you put it in vineger for
thirty days it turns yellow.


White Out was invented by the mother of Mike Nesmith (Formerly of the
Monkees)

The "huddle" in football was formed due a deaf football player who used
sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition to
see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.

There is no such thing as naturally blue food, even blueberries are
purple.

It was illegal to sell ET dolls in France because there is a law against
selling dolls without human faces.

In the 1983 film "JAWS 3D" the shark blows up.  Some of the shark guts
were the stuffed ET dolls being sold at the time.

Walt Disney had wooden teeth.

The hundred billionth crayon made by Crayola was Perriwinkle Blue.

Montana mountain goats will butt heads so hard their hooves fall off.

Spider Monkies like banana daquiries.

The coast line around Lake Sakawea in North Dakota is longer than the
California coastline along the Pacific Ocean

Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar
with "Midnight Cowboy."  Her entire role lasted only six minutes.

Kitsap County, Washington, was originally called Slaughter County, and
the first hotel there was called the Slaughter House.

Seattle, Washington, like Rome, was built on seven hills.

Dinosaur droppings are called coprolites, and are actually fairly
common.

The legbones of a bat are so thin that no bat can walk.

The U.S.  Naval Observatory declares American time.

School busses in the United States are Chrome Yellow and used to be
Omaha Orange.

The Beatles song "Dear Prudence" was written about Mia Farrow's sister,
Prudence, when she wouldn't come out and play with Mia and the Beatles
at a religious retreat in India.

The tailless dinner jacket was invented in Tuxedo Park, New York.  Thus
it is called the "tuxedo dinner jacket" and is named after the
town...not the other way around.

The state of Maryland has no natural lakes.

Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened
cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.

Rhode Island is the smallest state with the longest name.  The official
name, used on all state documents, is Rhode Island and Providence
Plantations.

The chemical formula for Rubidium Bromide is RbBr.  It is the only
chemical formula known to be a palindrome!

St.  Paul, Minnesota was originally called Pigs Eye after a man who ran
a saloon there.

The first letters of the months July through November, in order, spell
the name JASON.

The first letters of the names of the Great Lakes spell HOMES.

The numbers '172' can be found on the back of the U.S.  $5 dollar bill
in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.

Soldiers from every country salute with their right hand.

Moisture, not air, causes superglue to dry.

Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous
transatlantic flight.

Sarsaparilla is the root that flavors root beer.

The U.S.  Mint in Denver, Colorado is the only mint that marks its
pennies.

A full moon always rises at sunset.

Goethe couldn't stand the sound of barking dogs and could only write if
he had an apple rotting in the drawer of his desk.

The "R" in Dean R. Koontz's name stands for Ray.

If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon
dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.

Moon was Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name.  (Buzz Aldrin was the
second man on the moon in 1969.)

The only two Southern state capitals not occuppied by Northern troops
during the American Civil War were Austin, Texas and Tallahasse,
Florida.

Rabbits love licorice.

Ogdensburg, New York is the only city in the United States situated on
the St.  Lawrence River.

Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by looking
at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling.

Who's that playing the piano on the "Mad About You" theme?  It's Paul
Reiser himself.  And Greg Evigan sang the "My Two Dads" theme.

Kelsey Grammar sings and plays the piano for the theme song of Fraiser.

Alan Thicke, the father in the TV show Growing Pains wrote the theme
song for The Facts of Life.

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in
the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in
the air, the person died as a result of wounds recieved in battle; if
the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural
causes.

A Macintosh LC575 has 182 speaker holes.

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.

The language Malayalam, spoken in parts of India, is the only language
whose name is a palindrome.

Panama hats come from Ecuador not Panama.

Urea is found in humna urine and dalmatian dogs and nowhere else.

Human birth control pills work on gorillas.

The Earl of Condom was a knighted personal physician to England's King
Charles II in the mid-1600's.  The Earl was requested to produce a
method to protect the King from syphillis.(Charles the II's
pleasure-loving nature was notorious.)  The result should be obvious.

There is no word in the English language that rhymes with orange.

Cheryl Ladd (of Charlie's Angels fame) played the voice, both talking
and

singing, of Joise in the 70s Saturday morning cartoon "Josie and the
Pussycats."

Lynyrd Skynard was the name of the gym teacher of the boys who went on
to form that band.  He once told them, "You boys ain't never gonna to
nothin'."

M & M's were developed so that soldiers could eat candy without getting
their fingers sticky.

Richard Nixon's favorite drink was a dry martini.

The Grateful Dead were once called The Warlocks.

The license plate number of the Volkswagon that appeared on the cover of
the Beatles Abbey Road album was 281F.

Pinocchio was made of pine.

An ant lion is neither an ant nor a lion.

Jethro Tull is not the name of the rock singer/flautist responsible for
such songs as "Aqualung" and "Thick as a Brick."  Jethro Tull is the
name of the band.  The singer is Ian Anderson.  The original Jethro Tull
was an English horticulturalist who invented the seed drill.

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.

The skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island is Jonas Grumby.  It was
mentioned once in the first episode on their radio's newscast about the
wreck.

The Professor's real name was Roy Hinkley, Mary Ann's last name was
Summers and Mrs. Howell's maiden name was Wentworth.

Neck ties were first worn in Croatia.

A banana tree is not a tree; it is an herb.

Alma mater means bountiful mother.

A Holstein's spots are like fingerprints -- no two cows have the same
pattern of spots.

Glass flutes do not expand with humidity so their owners are spared the
nuisance of tuning them.

Jersey (in the Channel Islands, UK) was the only place that the Nazi's
occupied in Great Britain during World War II.

Top English soccer club Liverpool were formed because their local
enemies, Everton, couldn't pay the rent for their stadium.  Therefore,
Liverpool took over at the stadium (Anfield) and became England's top
soccer team ever.

The male gypsy moth can "smell" the virgin female gypsy moth from 1.8
miles away.

In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.

Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII.  If captured, they
could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.

The "Hallelujah Chorus" fits into the Easter portion of Handel's
Messiah, not Christmas.

Over 30 million people in the US "suffer" from Diastima.  Diastima is
having a gap between your front teeth.

In 1976 Sarah Caldwell became the first woman to conduct the
Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a
lightning strike.

Reindeer milk has more fat than cow milk.

The "L.L." in L.L.  Bean stands for Leon Leonwood.

Libya is the only country in the world with a solid, single-colored flag
-- it's green.

Seoul, the South Korean capital, just means "the capital" in the Korean
language.

Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake.  They had been overmixing the
soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float.  Customers
wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated
ever since.

The original fifty cent piece in Australian decimal currency had around
$2.00 worth of silver in it before it was replaced with a less expensive
twelve sided coin.

"Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it
has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls
off the twentieth floor.  It supposedly takes about eight floors for the
cat to realise what is occuring, relax and correct itself.  At about
that height it hits maximum speed and when it hits the ground it's rib
cage absorbs most of the impact.  So throw your cat off a building
today!"

There are eight different sizes of champagne bottle and the largest is
called a

Nebuchadnezzar (after the Biblical king who put Daniel's three friends
into the oven).

The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti.

The female ferret is referred to as a `jill'.

The word rodent comes from the Latin word `rodere' meaning to gnaw.

Australian Rules Football was originally designed to give cricketers
something to play during the off season.

Alexander the Great was an epileptic.

Elizabeth Bacon Custer, wife of "The Boy General" is one of the few
women buried at the U.S.  Military Academy at West Point, New York.

The lead singer of The Knack, famous for "My Sharona," and Jack
Kevorkian's lead defense attorney are brothers, Doug & Jeffrey Feiger.

"Freelance" comes from a knight whose lance was free for hire, i.e. not
pledged to one master.)

The only bone not broken so far during any ski accident is one located
in the inner ear.


The name for Oz in the "Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the creator,
Frank

Blum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence "Oz."

There are ten human body parts that are only three letters long:

Eye, Ear, Leg, Arm, Jaw, Gum, Toe, Lip, Hip and Rib.

Michigan was the first state to have roadside picnic tables.

Elvis had a twin brother named Garon, who died at birth, which is why
Elvis' middle name was spelled Aron; in honor of his brother.

Fitchburg, Massachusetts is the second hillest city in the US.

During WWII the city of Leningrad underwent a seventeen month German
seige.

Unable to access the city by roads, the Russians built a railroad across
the ice on Lake


Lagoda to get food and supplies to the citizens.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and
a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

Thomas Edison got patents for a method of making concrete furniture and
a cigar which was supposed to burn forever

Elton John's real name is Reginald Dwight.  Elton comes from Elton Dean,
a

Bluesology sax player.  John comes from Long John Baldry, founder of
Blues Inc.  They were the first electric white blues band ever seen in
England--1961

Elton John's uncle was a professional soccer player.  He broke his leg
playing for Nottingham Forest in the 1959 English FA Cup Final.

The saying "it's so cold out there it could freeze the balls off a brass
monkey" came from when they had old cannons like ones used in the Civil
War.  The cannonballs were stacked in a pyramid formation, called a
brass monkey.  When it got extremely cold outside they would crack and
break off...  Thus the saying.

Horses cannot vomit.

Rabbits cannot vomit.

The word "Boondocks" comes from the Tagalog (Filipino) word "Bundok,"
which means mountain.

Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks
otherwise it will digest itself.

The "chapters" of the New Testament were not there originally.  When
monks in medieval times translated it from the Greek, they numbered the
pages in each "book."

Coca-Cola contains neither coca nor cola.

Yucatan, as in the peninsula, is from Maya "u" + "u" + "uthaan," meaning
"listen to how they speak," what the Maya said when they first heard the
Spaniards.

The term, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" is from
Ancient Rome.

The only rule during wrestling matches was, "No eye gouging."
Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be disqualified is to
poke someone's eye out.

The original plan for Disneyland included a Lilliputland.

S.O.S. doesn't stand for "Save Our Ship" or "Save Our Souls" -- It was
just chosen by an 1908 international conference on Morse Code because
the letters S and O were easy to remember and just about anyone could
key it and read it, S = dot dot dot, O = dash dash dash..

The word "moose" was originally Algonquin.

The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."

The "ZIP" in Zip Code stands for "Zone Improvement Plan."

Pocahontas appeared on the back of the $20 bill in 1875.

When a female horse and male mule mate, the offspring is called a mule,
but when a male horse and female donkey mate, the offspring is called a
hinny.

The way to get more mules is to mate a male donkey with a female horse.

A donkey will sink in quicksand but a mule won't.

Crickets hear through their knees.

Turnips turn green when sunburnt.

Pigs, walruses and light-colored horses can be sunburned.

A type of jellyfish found off the coast of England is the longest animal
in the world.

When Voyager 2 visited Neptune it saw a small irregular white cloud that
zips around

Neptune every sixteen hours or so now known as "The Scooter".

Crows have the largest cerebral hemispheres, relative to body size, of
any avian family.


Martha's Vineyard once had its own dialect of Sign Language.  One deaf
person arrived in 1692 and after that there was a relatively large
genetically deaf population that had their own particular dialect of
sign language.  From 1692-1910 nearly all hearing people on the island
were bilingual in sign language and English.

Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.

Hugh "Ward Cleaver" Beaumont was an ordained minister.

St.  Bernard is the patron saint of skiers.

The Old English word for "sneeze" is "fneosan."

John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.

Of all U.S.  Presidents, none lived to be older than John Adams, who
died at the age of 91.

The most common first name for a president is James or some variation of
it.  (In order:  James Madison, James Monroe, James Polk, James
Buchanan, James Garfield, Jimmy Carter)

All U.S.  Presidents have worn glasses, some of them just didn't like to
be seen with them in public.

Andrew Jackson was the only U.S.  President to believe that the world is
flat.

President John Quincy Adams owned a pet alligator which he kept in the
East Room of the White House.

President Taft got stuck in his bath-tub on his Inauguration Day and had
to be pried out by his attendants.

Abe Lincoln's mother died when the family dairy cow ate poisonous
mushrooms and Ms. Lincoln drank the milk.

George Washington's false teeth were made of whale bone.

Gerald Ford was the only man who held both the Presidency and the Vice-

Presidency but who was not elected to either post.

John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, Millard Fillmore and Chester Arthur did not
make Inaugural Addresses.

Gerald Ford was once a male model.

Gerald Ford was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr.

Harry Truman's middle name was just 'S.'  It isn't short for anything.
His parents could not decide between two different names beginning with
S.

James Madison lived at Montpiellier (tall mountain); Thomas Jefferson
lived at Monticello (little mountain.)

President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with
the other.

The Panama Canal was excavated from the coasts inland; the final short
segment was cleared by explosives detonated by President Woodrow Wilson,
who sent the signal by wire from New York City.

George Washington was deathly afraid of being buried alive.  After he
died, he wanted to be layed out for three days just to make sure he was
really dead.

According to the ceremonial customs of Orthodox Judaism, it is
officially sundown when you cannot tell the difference between a black
thread and a red one.

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

In Kenya they don't drive on the right or left side of the street in
particular, just on whichever side is smoother.

Woodpecker scalps, porpoise teeth and giraffe tails have all been used
as money.

The Utah State Bird is the California Seagull and the Utah State Tree is
the Colorado Spruce.

Cyano-acrylate glues (Super glues) were invented by accident.  The
researcher was trying to make optical coating materials, and would test
their properties by putting them between two prisms and shining light
through them.  When he tried the cyano-acrylate, he couldn't get the
prisms apart.

Most of the little schoolhouses in the U.S. of yesteryear were painted
red because red was the least expensive paint color.

Elizabeth I of England suffered from anthophobia, a fear of roses.

Almost half the bones in your body are in your hands and feet.

A flamingo can eat only when its head is upside down.

Dalmatian dogs are born pure white, they don't start getting spots until
they are three or four days old.

The growth rate of some bamboo plants can reach three feet (91.44 cm)
per day.

The Los Angeles Rams were the first U.S. football team to introduce
emblems on their helmets.

South America has three time zones.

The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

The average garden variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.

An elephant can be pregnant for up to two years.

The two quickest goals scored in the NHL were three seconds apart.

Certain frogs can be frozen solid then thawed, and continue living.

Dartboards are made out of horsehairs.

Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your
heart.

'Crack' gets it name because it crackles when you smoke it.

Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by Bayer.

Marijuana is Spanish for 'Mary Jane.'

One of the many Tarzans, Karmuela Searlel, was mauled to death on the
set by a raging elephant.

Slinkys were invented by an airplane mechanic; he was playing with
engine parts and realized the possible secondary use of one of the
springs.

U.S.  Interstates which go north-south are numbered sequentially
starting from the west with odd numbers, and Interstates which go
east-west are numbered sequentially starting from the south with even
numbers.

Today's cattle are descended from two species:  wild aurochs -- fierce
and agile herd animals that populated Asia, North Africa and Europe --
and eotragus -- an antelope-like, Asian forest creature.

Ballroom dancing is a major at Brigham Young University.

Professional ballerinas use about twelve pairs of toe shoes per week.

The anteater, aardvark, spiny anteater (echidna), and scaly anteater
(pangolin) are completely unrelated - in fact, the closest relatives to
anteaters are sloths and armadillos, the closest relative to the spiny
anteater is the platypus, and the aardvark is in an order all by itself.

There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.

Octopi have gardens.

The Beatles song "Martha My Dear" was written by Paul McCartney about
his sheepdog Martha.

"Ever think you're hearing something in a song, but they're really
singing something else?  The word for mis-heard lyrics is 'mondegreen,'
and it comes from a folk song in the '50's.  The singer was actually
singing "They slew the Earl of Morray and laid him on the green," but
this came off sounding like 'They slew the Earl of Morray and Lady
Mondegreen.'"

A walla-walla scene is one where extras pretend to be talking in the
background -- when they say "walla-walla" it looks like they are
actually talking.

The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which
stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your
thumb.

The youngest letters in the English language are "j," "v" and "w."

The Australian $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes are made out of plastic.

Cranberry Jello is only sold in November and December, and is the only
jello flavor that comes from real fruit, not artificial flavoring.

The oldest exposed surface on earth is New Zealand's south island.

John Lennon's assassin was carrying a copy of "The Catcher in the Rye"
when he shot the famous Beatle in 1980.

Don MacLean's song "American Pie" was written about Buddy Holly, The Big
Bopper, and Ritchie Valens.  All three were on the same plane that
crashed.

A game of pool is referred to as a "frame."

Impotence is legal grounds for divorce in 24 American states.

The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.

Some biblical scholars believe that Aramaic (the language of the ancient
Bible) did not contain an easy way to say "many things" and used a term
which has come down to us as 40.  This means that when the bible -- in
many places -- refers to "40 days," they meant many days.

101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy ) are the only two

Disney cartoon features with both parents that are present and don't die
throughout the movie.

The Soviet Sukhoi-34 is the first strike fighter with a toilet in it.

They Might Be Giants is the first modern band with an Accordion and a
Glockenspiel

Napoleon constructed his battle plans in a sandbox.

'Strengths' is the longest word in the English language with just one
vowel.

'Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed with only the left
hand.

One of the longest English words that can be typed using the top row of
a typewriter (allowing multiple uses of letters) is 'typewriter.'

When a giraffe's baby is born it falls from a height of six feet,
normally without being hurt.

Virgina Woolf wrote all her books standing.

The tango originated as a dance between two men (for partnering
practice).

Leon Trotsky, the seminal Russian Communist, was assassinated in Mexico
with an ice-pick.

The Bronx, New York got its name from explorer Henry Bronk.

The Kentucky Derby is the oldest continually held sports event in the
United States (1875); the second oldest is the Westminister Kennel Club
Dog Show (1876.)

"Video Killed the Radio Star" was the very first video ever played on
MTV.

The pitches that Babe Ruth hit for his last-ever homerun and that Joe
DiMaggio hit for his first-ever homerun where thrown by the same man.

The native tribe of Tierra del Fuego has a language so guttural it
cannot have an alphabet.

A family of six died in Oregon during WWII as a result of a Japanese
balloon bomb.

AM and PM stand for "Ante-Meridian" and "Post-Meridian," respectively,
and A.D. actually stands for "Anno Domini" rather than "After Death."

The first person to fly across the Atlantic Ocean alone in a hot air
balloon was a Stanford alumni.

The penguins that inhabit the tip of South America are called jackass
penguins.

To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement
made by swearing on their testicles.

During conscription for WWII, there were 9 documented cases of men with
3 testicles.

Benito Mussolini would ward off the evil eye by touching his testicles.

Both Hitler and Napoleon were missing one testicle

Stalin was only five feet, four inches tall.

Stalin's left foot had webbed toes, and his left arm is noticably
shorter than his right.

Scientists found a whole new phylum of animal on a lobster's lip.
(Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.  Kingdom =
Animalia, Plantae, etc.)

The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby
daughter, Ruth.

Grover Cleveland's real first name is Stephen, Grover is his middle
name.

Sergei Bubka holds the world pole vaulting record at 20' 1/4".

Every two thousand frowns is worth about one wrinkle.

During WWII, Americans tried to train bats to drop bombs!

A whale's penis is called a dork.

Some carnivores, rodents, bats and insectivores have a penis bone,
called a baculum.

Iguanas, koalas and Komodo dragons all have two penises.

Opossums have forked penises.

Some female hyenas have a pseudo-penis.

A winged penis was the city symbol of ancient Pompeii, the town
destroyed by Mt.Vesuvius' eruption.

How to tell seals and sea lions apart:  Sea lions have external ears and
testicles.

Swahili is a combination of African tribal languages, Arabic and
Portuguese and has no written component.

If you are from Glasgow, you are a Glaswegian.

An enneahedron is solid with nine faces.

Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the same
sex.

Armadillos get an average of 18.5 hours of sleep per day and can walk
underwater.

Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.

They used to call jet lag boat lag, back when they only had boats.

In 1960, Sirimauo Bandranaike of Sri Lanka became the world's first
popularly elected female head of state.

There are more beetles than any other kind of animal in the world.

Velcro was invented by a Swiss guy who was inspired by the way burrs
attached to clothing.

The hieroglyph for 100,000 is a tadpole.

The Phillips-head screwdriver was invented in Oregon.

Tomb robbers knocked Egyptian sarcophagi's noses off to trap the spirit
inside, thereby avoiding curses.

The allele for six fingers and toes in humans is a dominant one.  (Watch
out Inigo Montoya...)

Polar bears' fur is not white, it's clear.

Polar bear skin is actually black.  Their hair is hollow and acts like
fiber optics, directing sunlight to warm their skin.

Polar bears camouflage themselves more completely during a hunt by
covering their black noses with their paws.

To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its
eyeballs -- it will let you go instantly.

The amount of tropical rainforest cut down each year is an area the size
of Tennessee.

The face of a penny can hold over thirty drops of water.

The longest chapter in the bible is Psalms 119.

Medieval knights put sharkskin on their swordhandles to give them a more
secure grip; they would dig the sharp scales into their palms.

Killer whales kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from
underneath, causing the shark to explode.

The only planet without a ring is earth.

Wayne's World was filmed in two weeks.

Cleopatra used pomegranate seeds for lipstick.

Cleopatra's last name was Ptolemy, and she was Greek rather than
Egyptian.

The Red sea was originally the Reed sea.

If you feed a seagull Alka-Seltzer, its stomach will explode.

The raised reflective dots in the middle of highways are called Botts
dots.

The Amazon rainforest produces half the world's oxygen supply.

The concerti on the two Voyager probes' information discs are performed
by famed Canadian pianist Glenn Gould.

Reindeer like to eat bananas.

The Happy Birthday song was originally a Good Morning song written in
the late

1800s by two sister kindergarten teachers, Mildred and Patty Hill, for
their students.

But anyone who uses the Happy Birthday song in a production has to pay
Paul McCartney, since he purchased the rights to the song.

Chia Pets are only sold in December.

Between 1947 and 1959, 42 nuclear devices were detonated in the Marshall
Islands.

The narrator of the seasonal television special "How the Grinch Stole
Christmas" is Boris Karloff.

Twelve or more cows are known as a "flink."

A group of frogs is called an army.

A group of rhinos is called a crash.

A group of kangaroos is called a mob.

A group of whales is called a pod.

A group of geese is called a gaggle.

A group of ravens is called a murder.

A group of officers is called a mess.

A group of larks is called an exaltation.

A group of owls is called a parliament.

Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them
looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

The physically smallest post office in the United States is in Ochopee,
Florida in the heart of the everglades.

Physicist Murray Gell-Mann named the sub-atomic particles known as
quarks for a random line in James Joyce, "Three quarks for Muster Mark!"

Samuel Clemens's pseudonym "Mark Twain" was the nickname of a riverboat
pilot about whom Clemens wrote a needless nasty satirical piece.
Apparently, Clemens felt guilt later and adopted the name as a nom de
plume as some sort of expiation.  The phrase does not mean measuring the
depth of the river; it means a specific depth, to wit, two fathoms
(twelve feet.)

Steve Young, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, is the
great-great-grandson of

Mormon leader Brigham Young.

Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of linen.

A rhinoceros's horn is made of hair.

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

That song "Rosanna" from the Eighties was written about Rosanna
Arquette, the actress.

Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.

Jean Harlow was the first actress to appear on the cover of Life
magazine.

Sylvia Plath was a famous poet who killed herself at age 31 by sticking
her head in an oven -- Sylvia Plath's husband was married three times,
and two of the women he married committed suicide.

Jesus Christ died at age 33.

Starfish have no brains.

Shrimps' hearts are in their heads.

Glass is actually a liquid and it flows but very slowly.  This means
that all glass windows will eventually open from the top and that very
old windows are fatter at the bottom.  (but read this note from ken
jennings:  All my life I was taught that glass is a "supercooled liquid"
and that panes will thicken at the bottom.  Then I saw an actual study
where the oldest glass in the world showed no measurable flow from
gravity.  If glass is a supercooled liquid, it's too slow to be a
remarkable "strange fact.")

Cut off the head of an attacking rattlesnake and it will continue to
attack with its headless stump which can apparently see.  If you move
the stump will follow and will actually attempt to bite.

Gently hold a toad flat between the palms of your hands; turn it over on
its back and hold it there for a minute.  Now slowly remove your upper
hand. and the toad will lie still with its feet in the air.  Although it
is now free to run away from captivity, it is apparently in a state of
catatonia induced by captivity.

Lay a 2-week chick on her side and then push her head to the ground.
while it is thus restrained draw an imaginary line on the ground across
its field of vision. now let go. it will remain in that catatonic state
transfixed on the imaginary line until moved.

Aloe vera is used to treat burns and skin abrasions and also is used to
keep skin soft and beautiful. cayenne stimulates the digestive and
circulatory system. chamomile can be used as a sedative to combat mild
insomnia, indigestion, and flatulence. cranberry may be used to acidify
the urine and prevent some types of kidney stones. it also prevents
kidney infections by e. coli.; echinacea stimulates the immune system
and can be used to fight off colds and sore throats as well as to treat
wounds. eucalyptus oil clears sinuses and soothes the mucus membranes;
garlic can be used to prevent colds and flus and other infections
diseases and to lower cholesterol; gingko dilates blood vessels and
increases circulation. it has been used to increase alertness and memory
functions. take this before your quiz; ginseng is used in Asia as a
tonic and to fight the effects of aging.

A tropical fish found off Okinawa normally live in groups of one
dominant male and several submissive females.  If a larger male comes
along, the dominant male changes into a subservient female by
restructuring its brain and genitalia.  If the bigger male leaves or
dies, the once dominant male will change back to a male.  The
restructuring process takes four days.

European fresh water eels found in mountain streams and lakes as high as
10,000 feet above sea level begin and end their lives in the ocean.
Here is their incredible story.  They begin life in the Sargaso Sea
(equatorial Atlantic ocean) where the larvae are carried by the Gulf
Stream to Europe.  During this journey the larvae grow into little
cylindrical fish.  Once they get to the mouth of a river they swim
upstream relentlessly even wriggling up waterfalls and crawling across
meadows until they get to the lakes.  Their they live for asexually for
14 to 20 years and then some other hormonal program kicks in.  They grow
big and fat and their sex organs get large; but instead of mating, they
begin another epic journey apparently to return to the Sargaso Sea for
mating.  But they don't make it back.  Down to the last eel, they all
die trying and therefore never mate.  (the population is replenished by
their american cousins who do make it back).  These eels are apparently
carrying out a life cycle program that must have worked once millions of
years ago before the continents drifted apart.

Photograph a live sponge and then grind it into a slurry.  Press the
slurry through a micropore strainer and you will get what appears to be
muddy water.  All the individual cells of the sponge have been separated
from each other.  Let it sit for a few days and the sponge will rise
like a phoenix from the muddy water.  Compare this sponge with your
photograph.  It's the same sponge.

This also works with mouse brains. you can tease apart the individual
cells of the brain of a laboratory mouse. if you let this soup stand in
a favorable environment the brain will reform and even restructure its
synapses. somehow each cell knows how to build the whole.  (many thanks
to the mouse who donated his brain to John Hopkins University school of
medicine.

Bats are blind so, to catch moths, they use sonar.  They whistle a note
above the audible range and listen for the echo.  From the patterns in
the reflected sound they can recognize and locate a moth.  In response
moths developed a sort of stealth technology - covering their body and
wings with soft, non-reflective material.  Bats responded by changing
the sound frequency to detect the soft stuff.  To counter this advance,
moths developed sonar hearing and jamming devices.  With these they can
pick up the sonar of an approaching bat, identify its location and
speed, and take evasive action and generate sound waves that will
confuse the bat.  (high speed photography show that it takes the moth
about 1/10th of a second to do all of that. is there a computer that
fast?  ). In response bats developed an erratic flight pattern to
overwhelm the moth's locator and jamming system. it must work to some
degree because bats still catch moths.

Raudive tune a radio to a frequency where there is no station. you will
get white noise. tape the white noise and play it back. what will you
hear? when raudive does that the tape contains hundreds of voices saying
clearly discernable things many of which are relevant to raudive's
circumstance. this has been checked out in many well designed
expreriments. it only works with raudive and not with other people and
it works anywhere on the dial as long as the radio produces white noise.
raudive is somehow putting those voices on the tape. but how?

You can remove the component of the genetic code that is responsible for
producing nitric oxide. laboratory mice bred in this way are violent
criminals. they rape screaming females and pick fights with normal males
often killing their rivals in a gruesome manner.

Human females ovulate once a month. the menstrual cycle often makes
conception a difficult game of musical chairs. female rabbits do not
have a menstrual cycle. they ovulate on demand. if the male is rough
with her during sex a follicle in her ovary will rupture and release an
egg.

Our eyes were designed by our atmosphere. of the spectrum of
electromagnetic energy bombarding our atmosphere most are either
deflected, reflected, or absorbed. the energy that gets thru to the
surface is mostly in the 400 to 700 nanometer range. this frequency
range contains more information about our immediate environment and the
cosmos than any other. it is no accident that we developed eyes to
respond to this specific frequency range. incidentally, what's called
'optical fiber' isn't. optical fiber transmits data in 850, 1300, or
1550 nanometers. these frequencies are below the visible range. you
can't see them.

Dissolve a tablespoon of joy dish detergent into a cup of water and
place this soapy solution into a spray bottle. now spray a fly with it
(or any other insect like a mosquito or a yellow jacket). the soapy
solution dissolves the oil in the insect's exoskeleton. the skeleton
loses its rigidity and collapses. the insect falls to the ground and
makes a desperate attempt to breathe. within seconds it dies of
asphyxiation.

Glass is opaque to flies. corollary:  their visible range must be ultra
violet or higher.  (discovered by jamal in his tireless effort to find
the truth about flies.)

Place a camera near ted serios and he will place a picture of an object
on the film just by thinking about it. for example, if he is thinking
about the sears tower you will get a photograph of the sears tower.
hundreds of experiments with serios have failed to find an explanation
that fits our current version of the universe. jamal's corollary and
conjecture:  have you seen really great photography? maybe great works
of art made with the camera does not consist solely of finding the right
subject and getting the light and exposure right. maybe this process is
not so mechanical and objective. maybe the photographer plays a
subconscious and artistic role in what actually comes out on the film?

If there are an infinity of stars out there why is the night sky not
wall to wall stars? why is the night not lit up like a christmas tree?
nobody knows for sure. it's a paradox.  'they are too far and too dim'
is not an answer because the farther out the more stars there ought to
be in the same angular displacement. marilyn savant (of 'ask marilyn')
thinks that the light from the other stars just hasn't gotten here yet.
but read this note from dennis mattison.

When Columbus came here he thought it was india. the people he found
here are still called indians and the islands in the caribbean are
called the west indies. everybody knows that but here is the rest of the
story. there is another weird connection between india and the u.s.a. in
the late 18th century the british empire had two revolts on its hands;
the revolutionary war in america and a war in india. they decided they
could not win both wars but had to pick the one they wanted to win and
forget the other. they picked india. so in a weird sort of way, india
was responsible for the creation of the united states of america.
jamal's corollary:  the revolutionary army of george washington won a
war that the british had decided to lose.  (but read chapman's comments.
according to chapman, the british did give up on the american front but
it was because they were nervous about what the french-spainsh alliance
would do to the rest of their empire while they were busy with the
american revolt.)

What Martin Luther had that huss and wycliffe did not was the printing
press. it was easier for luther to attack indulgences because the church
was using the printing press to mass produce and mass market these
things. and it was easier for luther to get the word out by using the
printing press, literally, to leaflet all of europe.  (btw, an
indulgence is an official certificate of forgiveness issued by the
church. for a fee. huss and wycliffe were reformers that predated
luther. they failed and became heretics.

For centuries after the fall of the roman empire europeans continued to
pay taxes to rome. it was in the form of tithes to the vatican.

In 1895, the royal society (in england) passed a resolution to the
effect that man's knowledge of the universe was complete and that
eveything worthwhile had been invented.

No more mix together a cup of nettles (u can buy this at your natural
good store), half a cup of chopped onions, and three cups of isopropyl
alcohol (rubbing alcohol) and let this concoction sit for a few days
until the alcohol is green. massage a tablespoon of the green liquid
into your scalp each day if you are balding. balding will cease. the
recession will be over.  (jamal's note:  not only has my recession
stopped but i am actually growing hair right in the middle of my bald
spot.)

A bunch of barley seeds were randomly assigned to plot A and plot B. two
bottles of water were drawn from the same tap each day. bottle A was
blessed by a healer and bottle B was not. plot A only received water
from bottle A and plot B only received water from bottle B. the plants
in plot A all grew faster, got taller, and produced more barley than
those in plot B.

Plants grow faster and healthier if subjected to a daily dose of Bach's
Brandenburg Concertos. try it.

In many many statistical tests it has been found that we humans prefer
one rectangle to all others; that whose sides are in the ratio of 1 to
1.618. why do you suppose? could have implications for marketing majors.

hold a metallic and a wooden object both at room temprature. the
metallic object will feel colder. condensing steam will feel hotter and
burn more severely than water at the same temperature. we cannot sense
temperature; only the rate of heat transfer.

antelopes and wild boar have horns and tusks that are similar in shape
to the dowser's forked twig. both of these species are very successful
in finding hidden water sources.

if you toss a coin many many times about half of them should come up
heads, right? wrong. it depends on who is calling them. some people can
MAKE the coin come up heads (or tails) more often than that. this has
been checked out with statistics and p-values of less than .0001 have
been observed with some people. this also works with dice.

if you connect the nerves in your tongue to the part of the brain
responsible for hearing and place a drop of vinegar on your tongue, you
will hear a loud sound. hallucinogens induce this sort of cross-sensory
perception. colors have texture and taste. taste has sound and color.
sound has color whose hue and intensity changes with frequency and
loudness. some people naturally have cross-sensory abilities. myra
allen, a montana artist, paints pictures of what wines taste like. when
she looks at these paintings she can 'taste' the wine again.

do you realize that all the while that we were building steam engines,
cars, buildings, and other large euclidean things, right under our noses
nature has been building stuff of incomparable complexity one atom at a
time? maybe we can learn to do that too. try to imagine the
implications.

you can get lenses that invert images so that everything appears upside
down. for a while. if you wear these glasses for a couple of days things
appear right side up again. if you take the glasses off things appear
upside down again for a while. then they right themselves again. ever
see the hollow face optical illusion? it looks like a face until you
stick your hand into it. then you can see that it is hollow. hollow
faces don't exist in your experience so your brain makes the image fit
your version of reality. in other words, "we perceive only what we can
conceive". kind of makes you wonder what's really out there.

put a blind chameleon in a cage. drive it to a place where it has never
been and let it out of the cage. it still changes its colors and stripes
to form a perfect camouflage with its new surroundings which it has
never seen.

flies sleep at night. usually on the ceiling. and they sleep so soundly
that you can get 'em all with a shop vac.

wire a rubber tree plant to a lie detector and burn one of its leaves
with a cigarette lighter. you will get an agitated electrical response.
next just think about burning another leaf. you will get the same
response. what makes this weirder is that plants don't have a nervous
system as we know it.

give me water within 26 days of freedom, on average, criminals who
escape from danish jails return and ask to be let back in.

diagnosis according to the santa rosa press democrat dogs can be trained
to sniff out cancerous tissue.

lab mice were randomly assigned to cages marked 'smart' and 'dumb' and
taken to mouse maze researchers. on average the 'smart' cage mice did
better. the results were statistically significant even when, unknown to
the researchers, the same mice were re-tested with the cage labels
secretly switched.

build a cardboard pyramid to exact egyptian specifications and place a
used razor blade where the crypt would be and it will be sharpened. a
dead animal will become mummified.  In 1968 a team of scientists from
the United States and from Ein Shams University in Cairo began a
million-dollar project to X-ray the pyramid of Chephren, successor to
Cheops.  They hoped to find new vaults hidden in the six million tons of
stone by placing detectors in a chamber at its base and measuring the
amount of cosmic penetration, the theory being that more rays would come
through hollow areas.  The recorders ran twenty-four hours a day for
more than a year until, in early 1969, the latest, IBM 1130, computer
was delivered to the university for analysis of the tapes.  Six months
later the scientists had to admit defeat:  the pyramid made no sense at
all.  Tapes recorded with the same equipment from the same point on
successive days showed totally different cosmic-ray patterns.  The
leader of the project, Amr Gohed, in an interview aferward said, "This
is scientifically impossible.  Call it what you will - occultism, the
curse of the pharoahs, sorcery, or magic, there is some force the defies
the laws of science at work in the pyramid."

one finds mention of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites they contain
organic matter.  It is claimed that roughly 0.1% of all matter that has
fallen on our planet from space is organic.

here's how you can get them back. the next time you see one on the back
of your hand, make a fist and she will become hopelessly stuck in your
tightened skin unable to feed or break free. on other parts of the body
simply pull the skin tight for the same effect.

the sultan of weird on late night talk radio is art bell. ufo,
roswell,crop circles, area 51, conspiracy theories, militia groups,
prophecies of catastrophic earthquakes, revisionist history, atlantis,
time travel, inter dimensional travel, and secret fantastic technologies
that the u.s. govt possesses. aliens and immortals call his show. my
favorite immortal is gabriela age 100 but looks 22. she is rich and
"very attractive".

the data transmission rate in our nervous system is relatively slow.
there is a noticeable delay between the time something touches your foot
and your awareness of it. and the bigger you are the longer it takes.
could be why you don't see too many tall jittery folks. in a giraffe it
takes 300 milliseconds for a message to get from the foot to the brain.
in the same interval a tcp packet can make the round trip from
penngrove, california to reading, england and back.

falling astronauts in the shuttle appear weightless not because they
have escaped earth's gravity (if they had they would not be in orbit)
but because they are in free fall into earth's gravitational pull. this
is elementary and you probably knew this i but meet a lot of people that
think otherwise.

mono receivers are able to receive stereo broadcasts even though the
complete message is in two different frequencies because broadcasters
send the sum and the difference of the two signals. mono receivers are
tuned to the sum. stereo receives both frequencies and computes the left
and right signals by addition and subtraction.

the earth has two motions relative to the sun, it rotates on its axis
and it revolves around the sun. but how many times does it rotate during
one revolution? if you said 365.25 you are off by one. it has to rotate
one more time to undo the rotational effect of the revolution. if it did
not rotate at all the sun would rise once a year. relative to the earth,
our moon has to rotate once per revolution to keep the same face toward
us. btw, why is the land distribution on our planet so lopsidedly
northern?

it is a matter of historical record that many severed heads in europe
have moved their eyes and their lips for half a minute. could they
actually see? were they aware of what had happened? can we ever find
out? shu di shu di huang huang the chinese herb shu di huang (radix
rehmanniae) touted to help your kidneys may actually induce acute renal
failure.

our breathing action is on automatic control. it is triggered by the co2
level in our blood. yet we are able to seize manual control and hold our
breath; or we can breathe on purpose. we can similarly take control of
other automatic processes. all we need is feedback. we can raise or
lower our pulse, blood pressure, body temperature, and so on if we are
given some kind of sensory cue on what's going on. check for yourself
the power of feedback. write with your eyes closed. or listen to your
favorite song thru your stereo headphones and sing along into a
taperecorder. now play it back. the horror. the horror.

your hair and nails will continue to grow even after you die. excuse him
did jesus christ's physical body ascend to heaven? at what speed? since
it is matter and has mass perhaps not faster than the speed of light?
then he is no more than 2000 light years away right now. and where is
heaven exactly? is it beyond our galaxy? in that case he has yet to
reach his destination... excuse me ... excuse me ...

in pre-copernican astronomy scientists took data only to refine the
aristotelian system. the kind of experiment we design, the data we take,
and the way we interpret the data are all pre-determined by our version
of reality. we may seem more refined and scientific relative to older
realities but relative to our current reality we are in the same mess.
for example in all of fisher's crop yield experiments the gardener was
not a variable because green thumbs are not part of our reality.
mystical shapes if you age burgundy wines in bordeaux bottles or
bordeaux wines in burgundy bottles they will not taste the same. barrel
aging in any shape other than a barrel-shape produces inferior wine.
(btw does anyone really understand wine aging?)

freeze live freshwater shrimp or crayfish in a bowl of water. when you
thaw them out again weeks later the shrimp will come back to life

Fat contains 9 calories per gram while protein and carbohydrates contain
only 4. All meat contains cholesterol; vegetable proteins contain no
cholesterol Meat contains no dietary fibre.  None.  Zip.  The average
man on a meat based diet has a 50% chance of dying from a heart attack;
the average vegetarian? 4%.  It takes 15 pounds of plant protein to grow
one pound of meat To supply the yearly food of one vegetarian requires
1/6 of an acre; to supply the yearly food for a meat eater requires 3
acres.  A day's production of food for one meat eater requires 4000
gallons of water; the vegetarian uses only 300 gallons. 10,000 acres of
forest is being cut down per DAY to make beef pastures.  Soybean
products provide a complete protein that contains ALL the amino acids
The combination of brown rice and beans also provides a complete protein
meal

a san francisco baker gets everything he needs to make two loaves of
sourdough bread then divides them in half. he makes one loaf in san
francisco and the other he makes in los angeles. the two loaves taste
different. apparently it's in the rising. the yeast bugs know where they
are and they prefer sf.

if we evolved from random mutations then where are all the asymmetric
varieties? if none then what is the survival value of symmetry?

from a a russian soldier fighting in chechnya:  "everyone is trading
ammunition for bread, pickles, and vodka. one hand grenade is worth a
bottle of vodka. tell me, is this normal?"  (los angeles times)

fires, explosions, and your car engine are strangley similar to our own
metabolic process. the source of their energy is an exothermic chemical
reaction that combines oxygen with hycrocarbons to produce water, carbon
dioxide, and energy. if something goes wrong our metabolism can turn to
fire and consume us in what is known as spontaneous human combustion or
shc. many cases of shc have been documented and no explanation from
mainstream science has been offered. the most well known case is that of
dr john bentley who was suddenly reduced to a little pile of ashes. shc
normally reduces the victims to about 5% of their weight. larry arnold
describes this and other shc cases in his new book 'ablaze'.  (btw:
could shc be inflicted by one person on another perhaps with some
voodoo-like technique? or perhaps even on oneself perhaps in a powerful
suicidal moment? if shc is purely biological then where are the animal
cases?)

another weird thing about shc is that the skull is not normally consumed
in the inferno but shrunken proportionately into a miniature head. also,
there appears to be a sphere of influence with a diameter of about one
meter within which everything is consumed as if by fire and outside of
which there is no evidence of fire. body parts of the victim outside
this sphere survive intact.

according to persinger's tst theory the earth is playing tricks on us.
stresses in the earth's crust produce an electromagnetic discharge which
causes a luminosity which appears to dim witted peasants as space ships.
chris rutkowski of manitoba offers a more scientific explanation of tst.

an ovum can be tricked into conception by the mere prick of a pin. the
blessed process may also be begun by injecting daddy's dna material
directly into the ovum.

the quran draws an agricultural analogy to conception. the man produces
the seed. the female provides the fertelizer.

after you drive to work i ask you to give me a count of the number of
red cars you saw on the road. yes, you do know, and under hypnosis you
will recall the exact number. the clutter and background noise of life
are filtered out of our consciousness but inexplicably stored.

words such as test, testament, testimony, and testify have testicle as
their root. in roman times apparently they reached under the tunic with
a firm grip to discourage lying.

subjects were randomly assigned to two groups. one group received a
glass of milk before bed and the other group received a cup of coffee.
the milk drinkers slept better even though the milk was laced with
caffeine.

to make a circle of radius r inches with a string you will need 2*pi*r
inches of string. to make a circle of radius (r+1) inches you will need
2*pi*(r+1) inches of string. the difference is 2*pi inches or about 6.3
inches of string regardless of r, whether a tennis ball, or the earth,
the solar system, or even the galaxy.

lobsters are related to spiders and insects. they have a common
worm-like ancestor.

we can't hear vibrations at 7hz but this infrasound can cause heart
palpitation, dizziniess, loss of balance, nausea, depression, fear, and
mood changes. the usual source of infrasound in office buildings is the
hvac system. if you suspect infrasound touch the wall. if you can feel a
vibration you probably have infrasound.

our sperm count worldwide is going downhill

the most popular family name on earth is chan. you knew that but it's
even more popular than you thought. the millions of 'khan's of south
asia too are chans. the connection is genghis khan or genghis chan who
did not have a low sprem count.

does punishment deter crime? at least for some criminals it works in
reverse. it is the risk that makes it worth doing. and the bigger the
risk the bigger the thrill.

an antibiotic-resistant strain of the tubercle bacillus is loose and on
the prowl. if the guy in the next seat is coughing up blood get off the
train.

a virus designed to kill rabbits in ebola fashion is mutating and out of
control in australia.

we are an organism, i.e., a colony of cells that reproduce and die. but
why does the colony die?

household dust consists largely of biological debris from our skin and
hair and this debris supports a sizeable population of mites

know the electrical activity in vial of semen responds to the presence
of humans in the same room and goes wild if the donor is near.

physics consists of a bunch of internally consistent principles whose
relevance to reality is an assumption. some go so far as to call it a
farce.

and what about nelya mikhailova? she and others like her have been the
subject of many carefully designed experiments by physicists. no one
doubts that nelya can move objects just by thinking and no one has the
faintest idea how she does it. is psychokinesis a glimpse of a different
physics?

you can make your body do seemingly impossible things if you put your
mind to it. in nepal semi naked monks bathe in icy lakes without any
apparent discomfort. in india sadhus chant themselves into walking on
red hot coals or lying on incredibly sharp thorns.

a scientific explanation of fire walking:  the feet absorb the heat and
cool off the coals.

In controlled experiments not only do placebo takers get better but they
actually develop the same side effects as the experimental group.

Our bodies extend beyond their physical outline. if a stranger stands
very close you will feel uncomfortable. he has entered your space. we
carry around us a space that is ours. the extent of this space can be
measured. violent individuals carry a larger space. and the discomfort
they feel is more intense.

In the south pacific there is a deep water fish that mates near the
surface. to avoid being eaten during mating they send only their
genitals to the surface where boy genital meets girl genital and they
make baby fish. during the mating season so many of these things come up
that the sea turns red. the islanders harvest them in great quantities
for a feast.

That Jack built the baby decides when to be born. it is also the embryo
that builds the womb. it does so by sending out chemical commands to
re-structure the surrounding tissue to its specifications. not unlike a
parasitic larva. and it can do this elsewhere in the body. of either
gender.

Burning a woman to death used to be a perfectly rational and socially
acceptable thing to do. witch burners thought they were doing the woman
a favor and that she was grateful for what they did because the fire
freed her from the devil.  (btw, pennsylvania was the first colony to
legalize witchcraft. in the words of william penn, "if she can ride on a
broomstick she has every right to do so.")

Was Jesus descended from David or not?  Did Jesus carry his own cross or
did simon carry it for him?  Did Jesus ascend to heaven or stay put in
his grave?  If he ascended how long was he buried?  Did he ascend to
heaven one day or one week after the resurrection? did god make the
animals first or did he make man first?  The bible is full of weird
contradictions

Miracles did not cease after jesus. the early christians are credited
with various supernatural acts and many lived for over two centuries.

Ever wonder why we have this insane desire to keep on living and to form
sexual reproductive partnerships? if you didn't your characteristics
would not survive into succeeding generations. after many generations of
such selection we would cultivate a population consisting mostly of the
insane. and that is who we are. we are not the most interesting
creatures that could be. just the survivors.

Between Denmark and Sweden is an island that has been the subject of a
territorial dispute between them. each claims that it belongs to the
other. on the other side of eurpoe greece and turkey are ready to go to
war over a 10-acre pile of uninhabited rocks in the aegean sea.

Obscenity consider two scenes in a movie. in one scene a couple is
together nude. there is love and passion between them. their genitals
are visible as they consummate their love. in another scene they are
together fully clothed. there is hatred and anger between them. he draws
a knife and attacks her in a gruesome manner. she falls screaming and
dies in a pool of blood. in america we would find this movie to be
obscene because of the first scene.

While Darwin was still figuring it out, a guy named Wallace already had
but instead of sending his thesis to the publisher he sent it to darwin.
'origin of species' was not a volcanic work in isolation. darwin simply
dotted the eyes and crossed the tees. i admire darwin not for his genius
but for his courage. that man is an animal was a heretical idea. still
is.

A three-year-old boy fell out of a third floor window onto a concrete
sidewalk and suffered nothing more than some minor cuts and bruises.
(orange county register)

Wine has lead.  So does milk and lettuce and so on.  It got there from
the soil. it got to the soil from tetraethyllead we used to put into our
gasoline for years and it is trapped in the food chain. lead in soil
goes to grass, cow eats grass. we eat burgers, we die, lead back in
soil.  (btw, children with higher lead levels in their blood are more
violent. could lead have something to do with our ability to produce
nitric acid?)

All fresh water on earth contains tiny wheel-like creatures called
rotifera which are bizarre and unearthly. if you take them out of the
water they dry up into a speck of dust that can survive indefinitely in
any condition including outer space. if the dust lands on fresh water it
turns right back into rotifera.  (lyall watson)

Whether witchcraft, voodoo, chruch, or temple, rituals provide the
visual and sensory cues that help us to achieve powerful mental states
just like those from your lover allow you to experience a mental state
of sexual release. in one such mental state some can cause people to
have a choking fit simply by telepathically suggesting suffocation.
(milan ryzl)

When it is time, mama swallow just abandons the nest. the young
eventually fly the coop. another weird thing about swallows. when they
sit on a wire all in a line there is exactly six inches between them.

The more atoms they smash the more confused they get. and the more
confused they get the more $ they need. they had finally figured out
that all matter consists of quarks. until they smashed the protons a
little harder at fermilab. now they say quarks are made up of something
even smaller. go straight to confusion, pass go, collect $200, smash
more atoms.  (btw:  scientific investigation in general has proceeded
along these lines and failed in the same manner. the harder we look the
more detail we find and there is no convergence in sight.)

Pick a playing card and stare at it while the subject guesses. random
guesses should generate 1 correct answer out of 52 on average. but many
individuals consistently score significantly higher. and their score
drops if you don't see the card. when you look at the card, you somehow
transmit the information to the subject. what's really weird is that
this also works on the telephone even long distance.  (b. yakolev)

Parenting in the famine of 1877 in china parents sold their daughters
for the equivalent of $2 to $6 each. in the famine of 1790 in india
parents killed their children and ate them.

Old wives' tales have grains of truth. vitamin a is used to manufacture
semen as well as retinene, a precursor to the photosensitive substance
in our eyes and its deficiency can indeed cause blindness.

Comet, a new comet has entered our solar system undetected by billions
of dollars of observational equipment on earth and in space that
constantly scan the heavens. it was picked up by a a guy with a pair of
binoculars.  (Yuji Hyakutake)

Albert Hoffman, the Sandoz scientist, who discovered LSD, was a very
straight laced journeyman chemist in white lab coat. after taking lsd he
was moved to write "what we commonly take as 'the' reality is by no
means the only reality. there are many realities each as real as the
others".

Pesky little blackbirds in large numbers can form a giant flying ball in
the air and this superorganism harrasses large birds of prey that might
otherwise have blackbirds for lunch.  (could this be the theoretical
basis of the 'efficient market hypothesis'? maybe the stock market is a
superorganism. kahneman, tversky, and thaler have argued that individual
investors are not rational. but maybe the superorganism is.)

In that vestry of spirituality many a husband having collected the dowry
sets his wife afire with kerosene

When you burn fossil fuels you are returning to the atmosphere the
carbon dioxide that was removed from it by photosynthesis.  (btw:  the
co2 content of atmosphere is self regulating to a degree. if it rises
there will be more vegetation which will remove co2. if it falls, so
will vegetation until a balance is reached. the earth today contains
large areas of marginally arid areas where additional vegetation could
bloom and absorb co2)

As the Japanese invasion force neared the city of hangchow the chinese
moved it 500 miles upstream. the whole town.

Explosion in 1965 a united nations report predicted that the world's
population would rise to 5.7 billion by 1995. it did.

Protein molecules produced in parallel evolutionary paths have exactly
the same structure although other structures are possible. we are part
of a cosmic pattern not random mutations. if we rewound evolution and
ran it again we would end up with us.  (lyall watson) (btw, this
hypothesis could free anthropologists from the 'out of africa' model in
describing human origins. the out-of-africa model is favoured by those
who believe that once a hominid appears the only way for others to
appear is by transfer of genetic material from the predecessor.
according to them h. sapiens evolved in africa and then migrated to the
other continents. but if lyall is right then homo erectus could have
evolved independently in africa and java and homo sapiens could have
evolved independtly in europe and africa. the weird and improbable
migration stories needed to support out-of-africa are less likely than
parallel evolution.)

Tennis if the courts too wet to practice your backhand or your spin
serve do it in your mind. imagine yourself in a perfect serve motion
again and again. your serve will improve as if you had physically
practiced.

In tennis, and in other sports i imagine, players sometimes find
themselves in a mental state called a zone. in this state their play is
effortless and perfect. unfortuantely no one knows how to induce this
supernatural state of mind at will.

Electron discharge photography, also called kirlian photography reveals
an extra-body extension of ourselves some call the 'aura'. in kp of
those that have recently lost a limb the missing part of the limb
appears as a ghostly image.  (btw, the light intensity in the kp aura is
not uniform but has bright spots and these spots exactly correspond to
the chinese acupuncture chart.)

A light flashing at the same frequency as your brain rhythm will drive
you crazy. in some it can induce an epileptic seizure especially if the
flashing light is triggered by the subject's own brain waves.

In the days following an earthquake, the incidence of heart attacks
rises to several times the normal rate.

The brain constantly produces a complex electromagentic rhythm. spectral
analysis of this signal shows four main frequencies called alpha, beta,
delta, and theta. the relative energy level of these frequencies depends
on the state of the individual. delta is prominent in deep sleep, theta
is associated with moodiness, alpha with relaxation, and beta with
analytical thinking. if you are shown a dynamic image whose shape
corresponds to your brain wave pattern you can deliberately change its
shape (and your wave pattern).

Alice and Britta are identical teenage twins. without any communication
between them they bought identical dresses in two different cities in
denmark and wore them to their sister's graduation in copenhagen. a year
ago they went on separate summer vacations one to spain and the other to
slovakia. each returned to denmark with a bottle of rum and wearing a
black blouse with white stripes. the blouses were acquired in spain and
slovakia. their signatures are identical. they carry only one bank
account and one credit card account between them.  (hanne birgitte
andersen) btw:  does anyone have a clue about the physics of twinism?
are they really two people? is there necessarily a one-to-one mapping
cardinality between bodies and persons?

(march 96) this winter, Alice and Britta bought exactly the same boots
in different cities on the same day and around the same time. after they
got home each called the other to tell her about the new boots. they had
never discussed needing new boots or that they would go shopping that
day.  (btw:  when they were born not even their mom could tell them
apart so they were labelled 'a' and 'b' and that is how they got their
names.)

Our sun is a giant fusion reactor that not only radiates energy but
sends out a constant stream of sub atomic particles that constitutes the
solar atmosphere. we are inside this atmosphere. solar activity is not
uniform. there are spots of solar activity called sunspots. the number
of active sunspots varies over time in an 11-year rhythm superimposed on
longer 45 and 90 year cycles. in addition the sun's magnetic field
oscillates with a 22 year cycle. all these activities of the sun causes
the aurora borealis and magnetic storms and high noise levels in our
electromagnetic equipment. and the sunspot cycles correlate with famine,
weather, the thickness of annual rings in trees, the number of icebergs,
great vintage years of wine, and human behavior on earth. cyclical human
behavior in turn causes cycles of economic boom and bust, war and peace,
and expansion and contraction in artistic, literary, and scientific
creativity.

For the record, the sun has a radius of 7x10^8 meters, its mass is
2x10^30 kg, its density is about 1.4 times that of water, and it
consumes 4 million tons of hydrogen per second to produce 4x10^30
megawatts of power.

A hydra-like seven-headed monster with horns rose from the sea. one of
its heads had been killed with a sword but it healed. it performed scary
miracles. it could shoot fire from the sky. another monster, this one
goat-like also with horns, came out of the ground and was just as
horrible. what they were after was people that would worship them. they
would be nice to their devotees and mean to the others. to tell them
apart the beast would put its name on the right hand and forehead of the
devotees. the beast had a name; and the name could be converted to a
number. the number is 666.  (this is from revelation chapter 13. even
the chapter number is scary. btw, 666 decimal is 1232 octal. in binary
it is 1010011010. you can play this by clapping on ones and not clapping
on zeroes. you will get a haunting beat not unlike the ancient indian
tabla rhythm called jhaptal. the binary complement of the beast's
number, 0101100101, is 357 decimal and 545 octal. one of the many bible
sites is in louisville.)

According to Ray Fowler, alien abductions (close encounters of the
fourth kind) are similar to near death experiences and to out of the
body experiences. he postulates that they are the same underlying
phenonmenon. death is the final abduction. humans are the larval form of
the aliens and death is our metamorphosis to butterfly. we are them and
they are us. he bases his theory on data obtained from abductees under
hypnosis.  (btw:  sanderson's 1969 book 'uninvited visitors' also
describes this larva model.)

You know that many animals make seasonal and carnal migrations across
thousands of miles to precise locations. there is evidence that they do
this with magnetic navigation. these critters are magnetically aware and
use geomagnetism to locate precise positions on the globe.

Apparently our military is experimenting with some fanciful schemes in
its new push into 'non lethal warfare'. the high frequency active
auroral research program or haarp will use a 33-acre array of antennas
in alaska to shoot a 3.6 megawatt focussed beam of 2.8 to 10 mhz radio
waves straight up into our ionosphere. weird military applications of
haarp include earth penetrating tomography (to 'x-ray' the earth). the
tethered satellite system may be a part of the haarp experiment with the
tether as a giant resonating antennal in the sky for extremely low
frequency radio waves.

There is a strange new virus (here is a mugshot) that is spreading in
africa. apparently you get it from eating chimpanzees. blood comes out
of your pores and you die a horrible death. the disease is highly
contagious. they thought that they had it contained in zaire. but it has
broken out anew in gabon (feb96).

A giant whirlwind with a bright light came from the north. it held an
amber colored object. four humanoids came out of this object. each
humanoid had four faces, four wings, two arms and legs, and hooves for
feet. their bodies were like light. they could be instantly at any point
in space without turning and without any detectable motion. they had
something with them that looked like wheels.  (ezekiel chapter 1) (btw:
these are the good guys and they too have hooves.)

You know that placebo can make sick people healthy. it also works the
other way around. sickly thoughts can make healthy people sick. for
example if children of patients are told that they are at risk of a
congenital disease they get sick with it even in cases where the genetic
connection is later found to be false. graphic depictions of the
symptoms and pathology of illness by advertisers of their remedies may
actually be making us sick. flip the channel to stay healthy.

Has anyone actually seen a star where a black hole is now? before it
collapsed? or is the invisible point mass of fantastic density an
artifact we need to force the data to fit our model of the universe?
(btw:  we once thought that the heavenly bodies were carried across the
sky by rotating crystal spheres. you couldn't see the spheres because
they were invisible and some planets at times went backwards because
they were attached to the crystal sphere with invisible swivel arms.
there was no other evidence of the existence of these artifacts other
than their usefulness in the crystal sphere theory of the universe.)

Do subconsciously we are constantly imitating each other. it's natures
algorithm that builds homogenious and cohesive societies and cultures.

We are a progressive society. today we expect that tomorrow will be
better and it will bring us more technology and more information.
yesterday's knowledge is old and stale and the older the staler. but it
wasn't always this way. in mediavel europe all knowledge and technology
came from the ancients. civilization went backwards. knowledge
contracted. scribes scoured ancient texts for knowledge.few could read
these texts and fewer could understand them.  "everything they knew was
old".  (james burke) (btw:  atlantis theorists hold that civilization is
a lot older than we think it is because it is not linear but cyclical
and what we think of as history is only the linear portion of this
cycle.)

Once we could think of anything but could not communicate the thought.
then we invented language. now we can only think what language will let
us but we can communicate the thought.  (we use music and art to
overcome this limitation. also there is evidence that we use direct
thought transfer with telepathy although these thoughts may or may not
be constructed with language. we of course also communicate with scent
and body language in ways that are sublime as they are mysterious.)

In train wrecks the number of passengers in damaged cars is less than
average by so much and so often that it cannot be a chance occurence.
somehow we know not to get on them.  (work done by william cox and
reported by lyall watson)

Many boxers cannot recall all the rounds of a bout just completed. many
a winning fighter has no memory at all that he fought the round in which
he knocked out his opponent.

Has this happened to you? you are reading a book but thinking about
something else. you read page after page. you did read those pages. all
those sentences. but you have no memory of what you read. how is this
possible?

You know that you have a unique fingerprint. there is no other that is
exactly like yours. you also have a unique smell. in scent too, there is
only one of you.

Some blind people can describe an object by holding their hand above it
and without touching it.

An ancient map in turkey shows the earth as it would look from space;
there is an ancient iron pillar in india that does not rust; there are
patterns in the plains of peru that are not discernable except from an
aircraft; ancient texts describe chariots with wheels of fire descending
from the sky; there are pre-historic paintings of space helmets.  (erich
von daniken)

Laboratory mice are given a choice of path 1 or path 2. in either case
the probability that food exists at the end of the path is 50% but once
they commit to path 1 they get advance information about the existence
of food. path 2 contains no information. all mice eventually choose path
1 although on average their chances of finding food is equal down either
path.

If you place a very powerful electromagnet over some germinating corn
seeds they will sprout with the roots going upward and the leaves
digging into the ground.  (dave krider)

Anthropologists think that our predecessors, homo habilus and erectus,
appeared 2.5 million years ago and we, homo sapiens, have been around
only a couple of hundred thousand years give or take. but they could be
way off. new evidence shows that we co-existed with dinos which
disappeared 65 million years ago. we may have been around here for 150
million years and undergone many boom and bust cycles of civilization
prior to this one.

Fish crawled out of the water, evolved into mammals, and then crawled
back into the water. it took land living to develop mammals because land
living is harsh. ocean living is too easy to evolve into anything more
complex than fish. this is the weird malthusian irony of evolution. if
you solve all your problems you reach an evolutionary dead end.

Was the Michelson-Morley experiment an independent verification of
einstein's special relativity or was special relativity a theory built
around the m-m results? einstein claimed he did not know about m-m when
he wrote his special relativity paper but there is evidence he did.

These are activities of some empirical researchers in science. trimming
= modifying the data to create a false sense of precision. cooking =
getting rid of data that don't fit the theory to be proven. a famous
example is the shift measurements taken during the 1922 eclipse to
support einstein's general relativity.

There is no ether and therefore no universal frame of reference, say the
physicists. any frame of reference is as good as any other. therefore
the earth is as good a frame of reference as any. we cannot know or even
care whether the planets are going around the sun or if everything is
going around the earth.  (btw:  the still earth model actually has an
advantage over other frames of reference. it renders the
michelson-morley results consistent with the existence of the ether.
another btw:  the initial reaction of the church to copernicus, that the
moving earth was a mere computational convenience and not reality is
consistent with special relativity.)

Pictures taken of the martian surface by the viking orbiters in 1976
show ruins of an ancient civilization in a plain called cydonia. these
people just vanished or they went underground (literally) or 'we' left
mars to colonize earth when it got too cold there. we know they looked
like us because part of these ruins is a human face. reagan and
gorbachev knew about this and it is this knowledge that brought about
the end of the cold war. another secret the govt is keeping from us is
that there are glass domes and grecian temples on the moon that were
photographed by Apollo 12 and 14 astronauts. he says they is evidence of
an ancient civilization. these structures and the ones on mars are
somehow related to stonehenge and to 'hyperdimensional physics'.(richard
c hoagland) (btw:  exercise caution when interpreting richard for his is
a commercial enterprise.)(btw2:  here is a copy of richard's picture of
the moon.)

In 1989, the russian phobos craft arrived in martian orbit and took
pictures and made measurements and then mysteriously died. orthodox
russian priests were invited to the phobos control center to see
pictures of mars and discuss creation.  (richard c hoagland)

Richard has invented a new physics which he says is derived from
maxwell's equations. he calls it 'hyperdimensional physics'. maxwell was
the guy that said that electricity and magnetism are two manifestations
of the same underlying phenomenon. if you move a wire across a magnet
you will get electricity in the wire. if you move a wire carrying an
electric current you will get a magnetic field. the hoagland extension
is that if a wire and a magnet are both moving in a gravitational field
you will get a current without relative motion between the wire and
magnet.

Is it possible that no one really understands the theory of relativity?
even einstein was not sure. for example is relativity an ether theory or
a no-ether theory? einstien waffled on this. in the end he wrote "i
consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on field
concepts; in which case nothing remains of relativity and gravitation
and nothing remains of modern physics".

If scotsmen could clone would they clone sheep? they can and they have.
we can now mass produce identical genetically engineered farm animals.
it is the dawning of a new age.  (btw suppose they made a clone of you.
would it be you? would you then watch yourself grow up all over
again?)(btw2:  here's how to do it. 1. take the yet unspecialized cells
from a 9-day old embryo and grow them in a petri dish. 2. from an
unfertelized ovum remove the genetic material. 3. fuse ovum and embryo
cell together with an electric current. 4. place the 'fertelized' ovum
in a surrogate mother.

Imagine this. utah and texas have seceeded from the union and
california, devastated by 9.0 earthquakes, has physically receeded from
the continent. all over the world volcanoes belch clouds of dust and
sulfurous gases. there are giant storms everywhere with winds up to 250
miles per hour. this is our future as seen by gordon michael scallion.
he says he is an 'intuitive'. he has visions. and lately his visions
have been of 'earth changes' of holocaust proportions.

Chinese herbal medicine (chm) normally prescribed for skin ailments is
thought to cause liver damage. analysis did not reveal any known toxins.
it did reveal 40 different plant species, animal parts, fungus, and
inorganic material. the common herbal ingredients in all skin ailment
preparations are dictamnus dasycarpus, paeonia sp, and rehmannia
glutinosa (st thomas hospital, london, uk) (btw:  other oriental herbs
also known to cause liver damage are kinshigan (ikeda et al) and
sho-saiko-to (kubo et al)).

On 9/23/1880, a farmer named david lang vainshed into thin air in front
of several witnesses in gallatin, tn, and was never heard from again. in
'stranger than science' frank edwards supplies a large list of
documented but unexplained weirdness

Robert Monroe of the monroe institute of virginia often finds himself
outside of his physical body. in that state robert can see his own
physical body in a motionless sleep state. he is also able to travel
instantly to any point in space or time but is invisible to others
except as a wisp of grey smoke. he says he can teach anyone to do it
using a training system consisting of numerous focus levels. a necessary
first step is focus 10, a state where the body is asleep and the mind is
awake and alert. this state can be induced with a sound harmonic that
results when you play a 100 hz tone in one ear and a 104 hz tone in the
other ear. with training and practice one can reach focus 23, the state
in which the out-of-body-experience (obe) can occur.  (btw:  how much of
our technological progress do you suppose consists of clever solutions
to imagined problems?)(btw2:  there are at least two web docs that
describe obe techniques:  one of them is referred to by its author as
the visualization method and the other is allegedly a summary of the
monreo technique.)

A quaint notion in physics is that of sir isaac newton contemplating a
falling apple to come up with the theory of gravity. in fact he stole
the idea from his buddy robert hooke. hooke analyzed kepler's 'equal
area in equal time' hypothesis of orbital paths and realized that a
force of attraction between the bodies that is inversely proportional to
distance could be used to cartesianly produce kepler's orbits. he
explained this to newton in a letter.

Old Marco probably only made it as far as constantinople, then (1271 ad)
the western frontier of kublai khan's great empire. there he came upon
arab writings about the great kingdom. marco's stories are strangley
similar to these accounts. it turns out old kublai kept a guest book and
marco is not on it.  (frances wood)

Weird mental tennis tricks that actually work.  (i) before each point
visualize how the point will be played out.  (ii) also before each point
imagine what the score will be after the next point. say this score to
yourself.  (iii) during shot preparation visualize (without looking)
where your shot will land.  (iv) after a good serve or stroke do a
pantomime imitation of yourself.

The sexuality of these lizards goes like this. there are three kinds of
males. in descending order of aggressiveness and ascending order of
intelligence they are orange males, blue males, and yellow males.
oranges keep large harems. blues keep small harems. and yellows
impersonate females to sneak into the harems for a quickie. the dumb
oranges fall for this trick but the blues don't. so the population cycle
goes like this. oranges predominate and have most of the females.
yellows impregnate the orange harems. orange population declines and
blues predominate and build harems that are protected from yellows.
oranges muscle in and take over females from blues. orange predominates.
and so on.(curt lively, indiana university, bloomington

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (bse) turns a cow's brain to sponge.
the cow becomes disoriented, foams at the mouth, and dies within days.
it is feared that the virus has jumped species and has developed a taste
for human brains. the disease is currently contained in the british
isles.

If you bring laboratory mice out of the lab into an unfamiliar
surrounding some of them will scurry around to investigate. others will
freeze and 'defecate copiously'. it's genetic. three segments of the dna
are responsible.  (jonathan flint, john radcliffe hospital, oxford

Much of the outer solar system is not empty but smoky. in some parts of
its journey galileo encountered 20,000 smoke particles per day. the
smoke might be from volcanic eruptions in jupiter's moons but we aren't
really sure.  (eberhard grun, max planck institute of physics

Life is an open thermodynamic system. it works by constant communication
of materials and information with other living things. every critter is
part of an intricate web and this web is a self-maintaining system that
is inseparable from cosmic forces and rhythms.  (lyall watson in
supernature).  And more wierdness:

A farmer named david lang vainshed into thin air in front of several
witnesses in gallatin, tn, and was never heard from again ships and
armies that vanished without leaving a trace never to be found again:
the steamboat 'iron mountain' leaving the harbor at vicksburg, va, june
1872; the danish training ship 'kobenhaven' leaving the harbor at
montevideo; an army of 4000 men marching into the foothills of the
pyrenees during the spanish war of succession; 650 french troops
marching in open country 15 miles from saigon in 1858; 2988 chinese
soldiers outside nanking in 1947

A dead humanoid creature with gills and limbs washed ashore in canvey
island in 11/1930 all 30 inhabitants of an eskimo village outside of
churchill, canada disappeared without a trace. the village was left
intact complete with dogs, food, guns, and even a needlework project in
progress.

A rock broke open in a mine to reveal a cavity full of worms. the worms
came to life. scientists were asked to examine the worms. they said it
was not possible according to their science and therefore the miners
must have been mistaken (btw:  scientists had also dismissed meteorites
found by peasants. it was only after the peasants took charge of things
following the french revolution that serious meteor research was
undertaken)

Two boys were lost in the woods for ten days. their bodies were found
when jacob dibert saw them in a recurring dream. in 1833 a boy named
adrian christian had a recurring dream that as captain of a ship he
rescued his brother from another ship that was sinking. the dream came
true in 1880. exactly as advertised. assyriologist dr herman hilprecht
deciphered the inscriptions on two small ancient agate fragments in a
dream the volacnic eruption in java in august of 1883 is the most
violent geological event in recorded history. the island of krakatoa
disintegrated, the temperature of the ocean around java rose to over 140
degf, and huge tidal waves lashed out as far away as california. the
boston globe scooped the story. the 'story' turned out to be notes on a
dream seen by reporter byron somes. in october 1872 a semi literate
printer named tom james went into a trance and wrote furiously. he said
he was taking dictation from the dead author charles dickens and soon
published the missing concluding episode of 'the mystrey of edwin
drood'.  (btw:  edwards' description of the dictation exactly matches
the muslim description of god's dictation to mohamed. mohamed as you may
know was illiterate.)

Without a trace over the bermuda triangle:  the star tiger british
airliner on 1/29/1948, the ariel british airliner on 1/17/1949, five tbm
avenger bombers of the us navy on 12/5/1945, a martin flying boat that
went to look for the avengers. in 15th century britain a peasant named
robert nixon correctly predicted that richard and henry would do battle,
that henry would win, and that he himself would be taken to henry's
castle where he would die of starvation.

Mary Reeser was consumed by spontaneous human combustion mysterious
moments of total darkness at midday that were not an eclipse of the sun:
8/19/1763 london england; 4/26/1884 preston england; 3/19/1886 oshkosh,
wisconsin; 4/2/1889 aitkin, minnesota; 12/2/1904 memphis, tennessee;

Much of the usa saw a blue sun in the 19th century financial advice from
voices inside his head made arthur stilwell of indiana a billionaire.
port arthur, tx and stilwell, ok are named after him. the voices
correctly predicted:  he would meet and marry a girl named genevieve
woods in 4 years; that his railroad venture would be profitable; that
port arthur, tx and not galveston should be the terminus of his
railroad; world war 1; the defeat of germany in ww1; the fall of the
czar of russia; and the restoration of palestine to judaism

The derivation of the word trivia comes from the Latin "tri-" + "via",
which means three streets.  This is because in ancient times, at an
intersection of three streeets in Rome (or some other Italian place),
they would have a type of kiosk where ancillary information was listed.
You might be interested in it, you might not, hence they were bits of
"trivia."


The reason Washington's army starved at Valley Forge is that
Pennsylvania farmers preferred to sell food to the British for ready
cash.

In ancient China, people committed suicide by eating a pound of salt.

The Hundred Year War actually lasted 116 years (1337 to 1453).

Sharks apparently are the only animals that never get sick.  As far as
is known, they are immune to every known disease including cancer.
Researchers are trying to determine what gives sharks their fabulous
immunity.

A completely blind chameleon will still take on the colors of its
enviornment.

One 75-watt bulb will give more light than three 25-watt bulbs.

In 1800 only fifty cities on earth had a population of more than
100,000.

Grapefruit is not related in any way to grapes but got its name because
it grows in bunches like grapes.

Corned beef has nothing to do with corn.  The word "corned" was an old
word meaning "seasoned."

Thomas Edison, though still in possession of his sight, found Braille
preferable to visual reading.

About 24% of the total ground area of Los Angles is said to be committed
to automobiles.

A contrivance as simple as the envelope did not come about until 1839.
Until then, people usually folded their letters both ways, sealed them
with wax, and wrote the address on back.

Tired of pounding the pavement looking for a job, Humphry O'Sullivan sat
down one day and invented the rubber heel.

Abraham Lincoln received U.S. patent number 6,469 for "Buoying Vessels
over Shoals," a device that would raise ships so they could pass over
bars or through shallow water.  A working model was never built.

A quarter of the horses in the U.S. died of a vast virus epidemic in
1872.  American life and industry were crippled literally because of the
diminished horsepower.

A distiller named E.C.  Booz bottled whiskey in log-cabin-shaped
containers in the mid 1800s and it is from his name we get the word
"booze."

Air-conditioning was invented in the early 1900s not to cool homes or
offices, but to control humidity in a printing plant so paper wouldn't
expand or contract.  Air conditioning didn't come to homes until after
World War II.

There's no mention in the Constitution of a "two-party system" or
political parties at all, for that matter.  Our founding fathers
considered them sinister.  It was assumed that representatives would
rally around particular causes then back to a neutral position until the
next issue came along.  In September 1796 in his last "Farewell
Address," George Washington warned against political parties and
"passionate attachments" to foreign nations.  He was ignored on both
counts.

Honey is used as a center for golf balls and in antifreeze mixtures.

The rare metal gallium melts at 86 degrees F. It is safe to touch; if
you hold a piece in your hand and wait, it will melt.

Fourty-six U.S. federal agencies have officers with the authority to
carry firearms and arrest people.

Everybody knows that February is the shortest month, but what's the
longest?  The answer is October, which is 31 days long plus the hour we
gain when daylight savings time ends.

The greatest soldier of ancient times, Alexander (356-323 B.C.) was
tutored by the greatest thinker, Aristotle.

The first automobile to cross the U.S. took fifty-two days in 1903, to
go from San Francisco to New York.

Ironically, one of the Confederacy's rallying sings in the U.S.  Civil
War, "Dixie," was written by a Northerner, Dan Emmett, of Ohio.

The female pigeon cannot lay eggs if she is alone.  In order for her
ovaries to function, she must be able to see another pigeon.  If no
other pigeon is available, her own reflection in a mirror will suffice.

In New York State it is illegal to shoot a rabbit from a moving trolly
car.

The Washington Monument sinks 6 inches each year.

The Greek national anthem has 158 verses.

It is illegal to hunt camels in the state of Arizona.

The Baby Ruth candy bar is not named after the Sultan of Swat but is
named for the first girl ever born in the White House, Ruth Cleveland,
daughter of President Grover Cleveland.

In 1929, the U.S.S.R. decreed a week of five days.  In 1932, the
U.S.S.R. decreed a week of six days.  By 1940, the seven-day week had
been restored.

In China, if you say "coca-cola" it means "bite the wax tadpole."

Not a single bank existed anywhere in the thirteen colonies before the
American Revolution.  Anyone needing money had to borrow from an
individual.

Americans spend more time at shopping malls than anywhere outside of
their homes and jobs.  Shopping malls account for about half of all
retail business.

On July 4, 1776, George III wrote in his diary, "Nothing of importance
happened today."  He had no way of knowing what had occured that day in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Egyptions trained baboons to wait tables.

You can make ice faster with warm water.  Warm water freezes faster if
it is cooled rapidly from a relatively warm temperature than if if it is
cooled at the same rate from a lower terperature.

The story of the little Dutch boy who placed his finger in a dike to
save a town from flood is an American invention.  It was never heard of
in Holland before the twentieth century.

For several decades the well-known Belgian mystery writer George Simenon
wrote, on average, one novel every eleven days.  Besides the more than
230 novels he penned under his own name, Simenon wrote 300 other books
under a pseudonym.

An ordinary TNT bomb involves atomic reaction, and could be called an
atomic bomb.  What we call an A-bomb involves nuclear reactions and
should be called a nuclear bomb.

Man's three-pound brain is the most complex and orderly arrangement of
matter known in the universe.

Everybody knows that February is the shortest month, but what's the
longest?  The answer is October, which is 31 days long plus the hour we
gain when daylight savings time ends.

During WWI, parrots were kept on the Eiffel Tower.  Their acute hearing
would warn of approaching aircraft long before the planes were heard or
seen by human spotters.

Pope John XXIII served as a sergeant in the Italian army during World
War I.

The first automobile to cross the U.S. took fifty-two days in 1903, to
go from San Francisco to New York.

The phrase "what a guy" is a cry of derision in Great Britain and a cry
of admiration in the U.S.

A couple of royal banquets cost Queen Isabella as much as it cost to
sponsor Columbus's first expeditation to the New World.

There was rioting in England when the Gregorian calander was adopted and
September 3, 1752, became, just like that, September 14.  Many people
insisted they had been deprived of eleven days.

A hard-boiled egg will spin.  An uncooked or soft-boiled egg will not.

The albatross drinks sea water.  It has a special desalinixation
apparatus that strains out and excretes all excess salt.

An ear of corn never has an odd number of corn rows.

Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue twice as much as any other
color.

Eels have two hearts.

President Gerald Ford was once a model.

There were two cars in the state of Kansas in 1914.  They were in an
accident.

Hank Aaron was the second Brave to hit a 714th home run.  Babe Ruth
played the last year of his career for the Boston Braves.  While he was
badly out of shape and only lasted until early June, he hit his final
three home runs in one game and retired a week later.

Fungi is neither a plant or animal.

From 1890 to 1900, twenty tons of ivory were shipped every year from
Siberia to London.  All of this ivory was taken from the remains of
wooly mammoths, which have been extinct since the Ice Age.

No one went hungry or unclothed under the benevolent dictatorship of the
Inca empire.

From all levels of government, federal, state, and local, Americans get
150,000 new laws and 2 million new regulations every year.

In 1880, there were approximately 2 billion passenger pigeons in the
United States.  By 1914, the species was extinct.

President Ulysses S. Grant's wife was cross-eyed and wanted to correct
the problem.  Grant refused to let her have the operation because he
liked her that way.

Vincent Van Gogh is known to have sold only one painting.

Max Schling, New York florist, ran an advertisement in The New York
Times entirely in shorthand.  A lot of businessmen cut it out and, out
of curiosity, asked their secretaries to translate it.  The ad asked
secretaries to think of Schling when the boss wanted flowers for his
wife.

The original Bill of Rights proposed by Congress as an addition to the
U.S.  Constitution contained twelve, not ten, amendments.  The two that
failed to be ratified by the states were an amendment to set the size of
the House of Representatives and one that would have prevented
congressmen and senators From raising their own salaries.

Track star Jesse Owens beat a race horce over a 100-yard course in 1936.

Sharks can be dangerous even before they are born.  One scientist,
Stewart Springer, was bitten by a sand tiger shark embryo while he was
examining its pregnant mother.

The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic that, more than
a hundred miles at sea, off the mouth of the river, one can dip fresh
water out of the ocean and drink it.

Some dinosaurs were as small as hens.

Julius Caesar was compelled by increasing traffic congestion to ban all
wheeled vehicles in Rome during the hours of daylight.

Coal dust sprayed by aircraft over Russian fields absorbs the early
spring sunshine.  The resulting warmth melts the snow a little sooner.

It is believed that 90 percent of all scientists who have ever lived are
alive now, and that more scientific papers have been published in the
years since 1950 as were published in all the centuries before 1950.

Although freedom of the press is guarenteed by the Constitution, the
Lincoln administration not only censored the news but closed down
publication of the New York News for anti-administration editorials, in
1861 and again in 1863, for alledged spy activity.  When the New York
World satarized Lincoln in 1863, the paper was shut down and its editors
arrested on Lincoln's personal order.

From the 1850s to the 1880s, the most common reason for death among
cowboys in the American West was being dragged by a horse while caught
in the stirrups.

7000 million fog-dropplets are required to make one tablespoon of water.

A mosquito has 47 teeth.

Helped by her attourney brother Edward, Audrey Meadows was the only cast
member of the "Honeymooners" who negotiated a contract that would pay
residuals if the shows were rebroadcast.  It made her a fortune.

Alferd Packer ate five prospectors whom he was guiding over a high
Colorado plateau in 1874.  The Judge who sentenced Packer to hang
indignantly pointed out that "There was only six Democrats in all of
Hinsdale County and you ate five of them."

The Pilgrims did not build log cabins, nor did they wear black hats with
a conical crown and a hatband with a silver buckle.

Milton Reynolds marketed the first ball-point pen in the U.S. in 1945.
They sold great but were junk.  Air bubbles blocked the dye, ball
bearings malfunctioned and the dye even fermented, causing the pens to
explode.  And to the horror of bankers and attourneys, that dye tended
to disappear when exposed to light.  The Reynolds was called the only
pen that would produce eight carbons and no original.

February 29th, is Superman's Birthday.

In his early days, Picasso kept warm by burning some of his drawings.

Decreeing that the masses (peasents execepted) must be beardless was one
way that Peter the Great sought to westernize Russia in 1698.  Fashion
had already banished the beard from the rest of Europe.  Some Russians
chose to flee the country rather than shave.  Peter imposed a stiff tax
on beards; the men too poor to pay reluctantly shaved off their beards.

We hear a lot this time of year about the wind-chill factor.  This
serious-sounding number is actually a rather dubious one.  In the early
1900s a scientist went to Antarctica and placed plastic containers of
water out in various weather and wind conditioned, and measured how long
it took them to freeze.  He put together a chart based on this and that
is how they get the wind-chill factor readings that local weather people
try to impress us with.  Scientists say that when the wind-chill gets
below -25 degrees f. will freeze exposed skin and cause frostbite.
Otherwise it is a pretty useless figure.

The daughters of a mother who is colorblind and a father who has normal
vision will have normal vision.  The sons will be colorblind, however.

There are songs in all of Shakespeare's plays except "The Comedy of
Errors"

A tambourine-like instrument used in minstrel shows was made from the
jawbone of a horse or ass -- from which the instrument gets its name,
"bones."  When the bone was thuroughly dried, the teeth were so loose
they rattled and produced a sound as loud as a castanet.  Every minstrel
troupe had a "Mr.  Bones."

The fear that he might conceal a joke in it was one reason that Benjamin
Franklin was not entrusted by his peers with the assignment of writing
the Declaration of Independence.

Everyone in the Middle Ages believed -- as Aristotle had -- that the
heart was the seat of intelligence.

The top part of a key is a bow.  The hole in the pencil sharpener where
the pencil is placed is the chuck.  The disconnect button on a phone is
the plunger.  The prong of a fork is called a tang, and the
spiral-shaped part of the corkscrew is the worm.

Because air is denser in cold weather, a wind of the same speed exerts
25 percent more force during the winter than it does during the summer.

Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew marijuana on their
plantations.

Of all fifty states, the most crowded is New Jersey, which has the most
people per square mile.

The first U.S. coin to bear the words "United States of America," was a
penny piece made in 1727.  It was also inscribed with the plain-spoken
motto:  "Mind Your Own Business."

Despite being only five stories high, the Pentagon is one of the biggest
office buildings in the world.  It has more floor space than the Empire
State Building which is 102 stories.  The Pentagon has over 3 million
square feet of office space and can house about 30,000 employees.  This
was made possible by the unusual design of five rings on each of its
five sides.

W.L.  Makenzie King, who was Canada's Prime Minister 3 times, was a
fervent believer in the supernatural.  In 1930 his fortune-teller
predicted that if King called an ellection that year he would emerge
from it stronger than ever.  King lost the election, but the fortune
teller turned out to be right.  By losing the election, King avoided
being blamed for the Depression of the early 1930s.  In 1935 he led his
party back to power and held it for another 13 years.

On October 7, Chicago was hit by the latest and biggest of several fires
of an unusually dry summer and fall.  Before the blaze was extinguished,
fifteen hours later, twenty acres were destroyed and damage was
estimated at million dollars.  It was the worst fire in Chicago's
history.  That record held up for less than a day.  The next evening a
fresh load of hay caught on fire in the O'Leary barn.  The wind quickly
spread the flames, and the fire department, weary from the previous
night's marathon effort, were slow to respond.  By the time the whole
department could be mobilized, the blaze was out of control.  The
gassworks exploded a couple of hours later, and then at 7 AM hydrants
ran dry when the city waterworks caught fire.  From then on, all anybody
could do is pray for rain.  It arrived late in the evening of the ninth,
and around three the next morning the fire at last went out.  The fire
destroyed nearly 17,500 buildings in an area about 2,500 acres, leaving
90,000 people homeless and about 300 dead.  Damage was estimated at
perhaps $200 million.  However, the Chicago fire was the second-biggest
of October 8, 1871.  On that same evening, at almost the same hour as
the O'Leary's barn went up, a forest fire of unimaginable intensity
erupted near the lumber-milling town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, about 220
miles to the north.  Flamed by the same wind that had spread the Chicago
blaze, it flowed through the treetops so fast that it was useless to try
to fight it or even run away.  In ten minutes, half of Peshtigo and its
residents were incinerated.  Some saved themselves by jumping into the
Peshtigo River.  Those who were overtaken by the flames were quickly
reduced to heaps of ashes.  Although the damage was estimated at only 5
million dollars, the death toll was much higher -- around 1,200 to 1,500
and 2,000 square miles (or 1.3 million acres) were devastated.

The story of the Chicago fire lives on because it is inspiring.  The
entire modern City of Chicago stands as a monument to its great
conflagration.  The Peshtigo fire, by contrast, is simply horrifying.  A
modest plaque marks the grave of hundreds of unidentified victims.

Horatio Alger, the man whose name symbolized success, had many personal
problems and died broke.  His stories of poor boys who became rich
inspired people to a better life -- but Alger himself did not profit by
it.

Pablo Picasso's career lasted seventy-eight years, from 1895 until his
death in 1973.  He made more than 13,000 paintings over the years and
over 100,000 prints, engravings and designs.  He also did over 300
sculptures and ceramics.  Picasso used his mother's maiden name.  His
father's last name was Ruiz.

Alfred Hitchcock never won an Academy Award for directing.

Napoleon favored mathematicians and physical scientists, but excluded
humanists from his circle, believing them to be troublemakers.

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

The night sky appears full of stars, but actually only about 3,000 stars
are visible to the naked eye.

Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by looking
at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling.

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in
the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in
the air, the person died as a result of wounds recieved in battle; if
the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural
causes.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which
stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your
thumb.

Ballroom dancing is a major at Brigham Young University.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and
purple.

Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people
without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the
expression "to get fired."

Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".

There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July

4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson.  Most of the rest signed on
August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.

"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South
Pacific.  When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber
machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded
into the fuselage.  If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it
got "the whole 9 yards."

The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, "Aladdin
was a little Chinese boy."

The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fish was named Livingston.

The 'y' in signs reading "ye olde.." is properly pronounced with a 'th'
sound, not 'y'.  The "th" sound does not exist in Latin, so ancient
Roman occupied (present day) England used the rune "thorn" to represent
"th" sounds.  With the advent of the printing press the character from
the Roman alphabet which closest resembled thorn was the lower case "y".

The international telphone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.

The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called 'mantles') are
radioactive--so much so that they will set of an alarm at a nuclear
reactor.

Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots

Each unit on the Richter Scale is equivalent to a power factor of about
32.  So a 6 is 32 times more powerful than a 5!  Though it goes to 10, 9
is estimated to be the point of total tetonic destruction (2 is the
smallest that can be felt unaided.)

Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of fur.  The story was
changed in the 1600s by a translator.  It was the left shoe that
Aschenputtel (Cinderella) lost at the stairway, when the prince tried to
follow her.

Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden.
The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5pm.  All traffic
stopped as people switched sides.  This time and day were chosen to
prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and
been too sleepy to realize *this* was the day of the changeover.

Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II
killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

Dr.  Seuss pronounced "Seuss" such that it rhymed with "rejoice."

In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again, Sam."
Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson."  Captain Kirk
never said "Beam me up, Scotty," but he did say, "Beam me up, Mr.
Scott".

Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered
blood donors.

More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.

The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the
cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life"

The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown
differently during times of peace or war.  A portion of the flag is
blue, while the other is red.  The blue portion is flown on top in time
of peace and the red portion is flown in war time.

Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they
rode past their king.  This custom has become the modern military
salute.

The "huddle" in football was formed due a deaf football player who used
sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition to
see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.

Goethe couldn't stand the sound of barking dogs and could only write if
he had an apple rotting in the drawer of his desk.

If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon
dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.

Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a
lightning strike.

The term, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" is from
Ancient Rome.  The only rule during wrestling matches was, "No eye
gouging."  Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be
disqualified is to poke someone's eye out.

Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.  Sir Isaac Newton was an ordained
priest in the Church of England.

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

Certain frogs can be frozen solid then thawed, and continue living.

The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby
daughter, Ruth.

Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them
looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

Steve Young, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, is the
great-great-grandson of Mormon leader Brigham Young.

Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of linen.

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the same
sex.

Ever wondered where the phrase "two bits" came from?  Some of the coins
used in the American colonies before the Revolutionary War were Spanish
dollars, which could be cut into pieces, or bits.  Since two pieces
equaled one-fourth of a dollar, the expression "two bits" came into
being as a name for 25 cents.

Small flat icebergs have been fitted with sails and piloted more than
2,400 miles from the Antartic to Valparaiso, Chile, and to Cakkaiub,
Peru.

The lightest President of the United States was John Madison who was 5'
4" and weighed under 100 pounds.  The tallest was Lincoln at 6' 4".  The
heaviest was Howard Taft who, at times, weighed over 300 pounds.

During the Second World War the American automobile industry produced a
grand total of 139 cars.  Instead, that huge industrial capacity had
been transformed into the "arsenal of democracy," turning out, in
breathtaking volumes, the materiel that allowed the Allies to win the
war.  The Ford Motor Company alone had more military production than the
entire Italian economy in the war years.

Although people in the majority of countries of the world drive on the
right side of roads, there are some fifty nations in which people drive
on the left.  These include England and many of the former English
colonies such as Australia and New Zealand -- but not the U.S. or
Canada.  There are several non-English countries where people also drive
on the left including Japan and Finland.

Mae West did not utter her infamous line "Is that a gun in your pocket,
or are you just glad to see me?" until her last film, "Sextette."  It
had been floating around for years and has always been attributed to
her, but it's exact origins are unknown.  The line doesn't appear in any
of her films, plays or other writings.

In Turkey the color of mourning is violet.  In most Moslem countries and
in China it is white.

The U.S. constitution stipulates that, to be eligible for the
Presidency, a candidate must be a natural-born citizen, must have lived
in the United States for a minimum of 14 years and must be at least 35
years old.  There are no other legal qualifications or restrictions for
the post, so there is nothing in the law to prevent a lunatic, a
bankrupt or a convicted criminal from becoming President.

The college degree is called a "Bachelor's" degree after the original
meaning of bachelor which was a young apprentice.  Since the Bachelor's
is the first degree issued, coming before a Master's or Doctor's degree,
that first degree became known as a Bachelor's degree.

In the early days of silent films, there was blatant thievery.
Unscrupulous film companies would steal the film print, reshoot a scene
or two, and release it as a new production.  The combat this, the
Biograph company put the company's trademark initials AB somewhere in
every scene -- on a door, a wall, or window.

Fake Christmas trees have outsold real ones every year since 1991.

President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with
the other -- simultaneously!

The traditional symbol of the pawnbroker -- three golden balls -- is
thought to be derived from the coat of the arms of the Medici family,
who ruled the Italian city of Florence between the 15th and 16th
centuries.  The symbol was spread by the Lombards -- Italian bankers,
goldsmiths and moneylenders who set up businesses in medieval London.

The coastline of Alaska is longer than the entire coastline of the
lower-forty-eight states of the United States.

"Eat like a bird?"  Many birds eat twice their weight a day.

People who work at night tend to weigh more than people who don't.

Because their work was so physically demanding, slave sugar-cane cutters
were the South's most costly field hands.  At one point, their price
became so high on the New Orleans slave market that the Louisiana
planter tried to hire Irish and German immigrants instead.  This plan
backfired when the hired workers went on strike for double pay right in
the middle of the sugar harvest.

The familiar piece of wood known as a "two-by-four" is not two inches by
four inches.  Its actual size is one and one half by three and one half.
The reason it's smaller than two-by-four is a long standing custom to
measure wood before it's seasoned and planed.

A pig is a hog -- hog is a generic name for all swine -- but a hog is
not a pig.  In the terminology of hog raising, a pig is a baby hog less
than ten weeks old.

Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

Had it not been for Thomas Edison, people today would probably be
answering the telephone by saying "Ahoy" instead of "Hello."  The
telephone's inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, thought "Ahoy" was the
correct way to answer the phone.  Edison invented the word "Hello" in
the 1870s while doing research on clarity of sounds.  When the first
telephone exchanges opened around the country, Edison campaigned for
using "Hello" -- and a new word, and custom, were born.

The Italian poet Dante was inspired to write two of his finest works --
"The Divine Comedy" and "The New Life" -- by a fair haired, blue-eyed
maiden whom he never spoke to and whom he saw only twice.  The woman,
whom he called simply Beatrice, was Beatrice Portinori, who died in 1290
at the age of 24.  Dante saw her first at her parents' home in Florence
in 1274, when he was only nine and she was eight.  He spotted her again
nine years later in a street, and after her death wrote "The New Life"
in which he describes his ideal love.  The most familiar quotation from
"The Divine Comedy" is 'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.'  But it is
inaccurate.  The correct version is 'Abandon all hope, you who enter.'

Radon is a colorless, odorless, inert gas and is heavier than lead.  It
has an atomic weight of 222 and lead has a weight of 207.

Though legends and fears concerning bats are many, they may also be the
single best controller of the insect kingdom.  Bats may eat as many as
600 mosquito-size insects in an hour.  An average size bat colony may
eat a million insects in one evening.

Director John Ford and Fox Film Corp. must have had quite an eye for
talent when they cast two young actors to appear in their first
feature-film, "Up The River," in 1930.  The actors were Spencer Tracy
and Humphrey Bogart.  It was the only film they were in together
throughout their long careers.

There is no single cat called a panther.  The name is commonly applied
to the leopard, but is also used to refer to the puma and the jaguar.  A
black panther is really a black leopard.

In 1975 twice as much Monopoly money was printed in the United States as
real money.  And in most years the Monopoly output, on face value,
comfortably beats the U.S.  Treasury.  The commercial success of the
board game is unrivaled, with nearly 100 million sets sold in its first
50 years.

A man in jail received almost a million votes for president in the 1920
election.  Eugene Debs, who ran on a third-party Socialist ticket was in
the Atlanta Penitentiary, serving a ten-year sentence for violating the
Espionage Act.  He had been convicted for opposition to the U.S. entry
in World War I. Debs spent the entire campaign in prison.  Warren
Harding won the election, commuted his sentence a year later, but Debs
never regained his citizenship.

A baseball is no longer a "horsehide" nor a football a "pigskin."  Both
are now made from cow leather.

In November 1960 an American rocket launched from Cape Canaveral,
Florida, went off course and crashed in Cuba, killing a cow.  The Cuban
government gave the cow an official funeral as the victim of
'imperialist aggression.'

Although Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman were sensational together in
"Casablanca," they never made another film together during the rest of
their careers.

"Tug of War" was an Olympic event between 1900 and 1920.

The Egyptians were crippling their own economy when they buried
quantities of gold and silver with their dead leaders for, presumably,
use in the afterlife.  (Paper money did not exist.)  Grave robbers,
whatever their motives, served to keep the wheels of Egyptian society
turning by restoring the gold and silver to circulation.

Up to the age of six or seven months a child can breathe and swallow at
the same time.  An adult cannot do this.  (Try it.)

The word "democracy" appears nowhere in the U.S.  Constitution.  It
doesn't appear anywhere in the Declaration of Independence either.  And
speaking of the Declaration of Independence, the word "independence" was
left out of the title.  The full title on the top of the original copy
reads:  "In Congress, July 4, 1776, A Declaration by the Representatives
of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled."

King Alfonso of Spain, who reigned from 1886 to 1931, was so tone-deaf
that he had in his employ the Anthem Man. This man's sole duty was to
tell the king to stand up whenever the Spanish national anthem was
playing, because the monarch couldn't recognize it.

A rainbow can occur only when the sun is 40 degrees or less above the
horizon.

Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.

When spelled phonetically, Esso means stalled car in Japan.

Tigers have round pupils and yellow irises (except for the blue eyes of
white tigers).  Due to a retinal adaptation that reflects light back to
the retina, the night vision of tigers is six times better than that of
humans.

No one knows exactly why tigers are striped, but scientists think that
the stripes act as camouflage, and help tigers hide from their prey.
The Sumatran tiger has the most stripes of all the tiger subspecies, and
the Siberian tiger has the fewest stripes.  Tiger stripes are like human
fingerprints; no two tigers have the same pattern of stripes.

In 1949, forecasting the relentless march of science, Popular Mechanics
said "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."

If the Loch Ness monster exists at all, he (or she) could only be about
as big as a sixth grader.  A new study shows that there is only enough
fish in the loch to feed a 31 kg (about 67 lb) creature.  The scientists
used sonar to estimate the number of fish in the lake and came up with
an annual food supply of 93 kg.  Since a cold blooded animal like Nessie
would need to eat about three times its body weight each year, it could
only weigh about 31 kg.

Taking a weighted average of final sales and intermediate activity,
manufacturing comes to 31 percent of total economic activity.

There are more than 1,000 chemicals in a cup of coffee.  Of these, only
26 have been tested, and half caused cancer in rats.

Orville Wright was involved in the first aircraft accident.  His
passenger, a frenchman, was killed.  Orville was injured.

Your ears and nose continue to grow throughout your entire life.  The
fastest typist can type at 211 words per minute.

Born on November 3, 1718, British politician, John Montagu, the 4th Earl
of Sandwich, is credited with naming the "sandwich."  He developed a
habit of eating beef between slices of toast so he could continue to
play cards uninterrupted.

Fresca, the soft drink, had problems when it was sold in Mexico.  Fresca
is slang for lesbian.

The 1995 Guiness Book of World Records lists the largest baked pizza on
record was 37.4 meters in diameter (12,159 sq.ft.), in Norwood, South
Africa December 8th 1990.  Another notable pizza by size was a 10,000
sq.ft. pizza cooked by Lorenzo Amato, owner of Cafe di Lorenzo in
Tallahassee Florida in 1991.

The average iceberg weighs 20,000,000 tons.

TYPEWRITER, is the longest word that can be made using the letters on
only one row of the keyboard.

In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into
Schweppes Toilet Water.

The list of ingredients that make up lipstick include...fish scales.

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a
notorious porno mag.

When brushing your teeth, hold your toothbrush like how you would hold a
pen.  This makes brushing more thorough and easier on your gums.

When you eat meat and drink milk in the same meal, your body does not
absorb any of the milk's calcium.  It is best to have 2 hours between
the milk and meat intake.  (Meat from animals, not peanuts or eggs.)

In Germany, Sunbeam's Mist-Stick curling iron was translated into manure
wand.

The longest sperm ever recorded is 10,000-times longer than a human
spermatozoon and belongs to the fruitfly Drosophila bifurca.  The
typical Drosophila bifurca male sperm is approximately 60 millimeters
long, 20 times the length of the fly itself.

In Brazil, Pinto, the same name as the Ford car, is a slang term meaning
a small male appendage.

When Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John brand into French-speaking
Canada, it was translated into Gros Jos, slang for a woman with big
breasts.

Blue toothbrushes are used by people more than red toothbrushes.

The average human produces 25,000 quarts of spit in a lifetime, enough
to fill two swimming pools.

Rising sea levels caused by global warming could lead to major flooding
in Shanghai, Guangzhou and other Chinese coastal cities by the year
2050.  This could render 76 million people homeless.

Apples are more efficient than caffeine in keeping people awake in the
mornings.

Dutch engineers have developed a computerized machine that allows a cow
to milk itself.  Each cow in the herd has a computer chip in its collar.
If the computer senses that the cow has not been milked in a given
period of time, the milk-laden animal is allowed to enter the stall.
The robot sensors locate the teats, apply the vacuum devices, and the
cow is milked.  The machine costs a mere $250,000 and is said to boost
milk production by 15%.

Smelling bananas and/or green apples (smelling, not eating) can help you
lose weight.

A can of SPAM is opened every 4 seconds.

An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market
which promoted the Pope's visit.  Instead of the desired "I Saw the
Pope" in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."

Advertisers need take care ---- the "thumbs up" sign, signifying
everything is ok. and used in many ads in the United States, has an
offensive meaning in many eastern European countries.

Why Do Cats Eyes Glow In The Dark?  They possess an image-intensifying
device at the rear of their eyes.  This is a light-reflecting layer
called the "tapetum lucidum" (bright carpet), which acts like a mirror
behind the retina, reflecting light back to the retinal cells.  With
this, the cat can utilize all of the light that enters its eyes.  We
absorb far less of the light that enters our eyes.  Because of this
difference cats can make out objects and movements in the semidarkness
that would be quite invisible to us.  Cats cannot see in complete
darkness but they can navigate by sound, smell, and the sensitivity of
their whiskers.

A sneeze zooms out of your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.

Every person has a unique tongue print.

Over US $1,000,000,000,000 worth of Foreign Exchange transactions are
traded daily in the three major markets:  Tokyo, London and New York (a
figure which is larger than the GDP of most countries).

A skunk will not bite and throw its scent at the same time.

The woolly mammoth, extinct since the Ice Age, had tusks almost 16 feet
long.

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la.
Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands
of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole"
or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect.  Coke then
researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic
equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as
"happiness in the mouth."

The richest man in the United Kingdom is Paul Raymond who among other
things, owns nightclubs and publishes sex magazines.

On the stone temples of Madura in southern India, there are more than 30
million carved images of gods and goddesses.

The Twelve Days of Christmas represent the length of time that the three
wise men from the East took to reach the manger of Jesus Christ after
his birth.  Their arrival on the twelfth day was celebrated in the form
of the Feast of Epiphany in medieval France, and later in other
countries.

The 20,000 year-old expanse of Antarctic ice known as the Larsen Ice
Shelf has developed a crack 65 km long.  This, combined with the
separation of a large iceberg with a surface area of around 2,900 km and
a thickness of 200 meters (now making its way north), will require the
drafting of new maps of Antarctica.  Both changes have been attributed
to global warming.

Africanized honeybees are no more venomous than their northern cousins,
they are just meaner and more likely to swarm.  Two deaths have been
attributed to the 'killer bees" since their arrival in the U.S. in 1990.
In contrast, more than 60 people die each year as a result of the stings
of ordinary honeybees.

27% of U.S. male college students believe life is "a meaningless
existential hell."

If you're going to eat fast food, the odds are 2 out of 5 you will buy
it at McDonald's.  The odds are 1 out of 5 you will choose Burger King,
and 1 out of 10 for Hardee's and for Wendy's.

According to a market research survey done some time ago, 68% of
consumers receiving junk mail actually open the envelopes.

Head injuries occur about every 15 seconds in the United States.

If you were freeze-dried, 10% of your body weight would be from the
microorganisms on your body.

There was a prehistoric horse breed (called eohippus) that was about the
size of a housecat.

Ants do not sleep.

A bowl of Wheaties contains twice as much sodium as a bowl of potato
chips

Flying once around the moon is the equivalent with a round trip from New
York to London.  (Earth is about four times the size of the moon.)

Approximate population of Madison is 196,530. 25% of Madison's
population is elderly.

The mozzarella originally used in Italy for pizza, was made from the
milk of the water buffalo.

According to the World Health Organization, there are approximately 100
million acts of sexual intercourse each day.  (Wow!)

The Foreign Exchange market never closes - it simply follows the sun
from Tokyo to London to New York, and back to Tokyo again.

Pizza is the number 2 entree in foodservice, outpacing the growth rate
of all other food items.  It represents more than 10% of all food sales
and is expected to exceed the hamburger 1996.

Kenyan musicians are sometimes forced to play gigs while locked inside
metal cages!  Why?  Nairobi nightclub musicians often don't have enough
money to buy their instruments - the equipment is instead provided by
clubowners.  Some owners literally imprison the musicians on stage to
make sure they don't steal or damage the equipment.  (From Malm, Krister
and Wallis, Roger:  Big Sounds from Small Peoples, Constable, London,
1984.)

When rural Pakistani folksinger Zarsanga sings in public, fans routinely
mark the choruses of her most popular Peshto-language songs with mass
shotgun-firing.  (From Sweeney, Phillip:  The Virgin Directory of World
Music, Henry Holt, 1991.)

French Polynesia consists of five major island groups ...  The Australs,
The Gambiers, The Marquesas, The Tuamotus, and The Society Islands.

In all, there are 130 islands in French Polynesia.  The largest island
in the Societies, Tahiti, is the most well known among all the islands.

In Texas, it's illegal to put graffiti on someone else's cow.

According to Texas law, in some places, running a bakery is considered
to be an agricultural business.

Texas law forbids carrying around a fence cutter or a pair of pliers
that could cut fence.

More popcorn is sold in Dallas than anywhere in the U.S.

Texas is also the only state that still owns public lands.  It allows
public education in Texas to be so cheap.  (For comparision, take a look
at the tuition at other state schools.)

The "Texas Burger" contains lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayonaise.

The state song is "Texas our Texas."

Many of the animals native to Texas have gone extinct.

The total value of Texas wildlife is $94,000,000.

There are more than 3,700 rivers and streams in Texas.

The Texas state dish?  Chili!

There are actually (to date) five Texas state flowers.

There was a debate over which species of Blue Bonnet would be the state
flower.  All were chosen.

Texas has had some infamous bad guys:  Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy,
among them.

Texas was once a country.

The average smell weighs 760 nanograms report Japanese researchers.  The
researchers weighed odors by dissolving them in fat and using an
ultra-sensitive quartz crystal microbalance.  SOURCE:  "Bizarre Moments
in Science" by Dr.  Karl Kruszelnicki

One-third of black men in the US between 20 and 29 years old were in
prison, on parole or on probation.  The number increased from one-fourth
five years ago.  - The Key , April 1996

One-sixth of all Americans, an estimated 43 million people, move each
year.  (U.S.  Census Bureau)

The Czech communist government at its doctrinaire peak was so zealous in
its censorship that it once censured bubblegum singer Karel Gott for
using this lyric:  "I may as well flip a coin when I ask if you're
sincere when you say you love me."  Why?  Because they said it was an
insult to the value of the Czech currency!  (From Ramet, editor:
Rocking the State, Westview Press.)

Tornadoes are more likely to occur on May 16 than any other day of the
year, sometime after 1:  00 pm, according to a review of 304 twisters
that occurred in the US between 1950 and 1991.

The average American moves 12 times in a lifetime.  (U.S.  Census
Bureau)

Honey does not spoil.

Canadian and Japanese mathematicians have calculated the value of pi to
a new world record of almost 4,294,967,286 decimal places.  At
4,294,967,286 decimal places, a print-out of the number, expressed at
six digits per centimeter, would stretch more than 7,000 kilometers.
The calculation was completed on a HITAC S-3900/480 vector supercomputer
and took 56 hours.

The color combination with the strongest impact on people is - yellow
(?)  - Well, so say sources.

Dairy products make up 29% of all food consumed in the United States.

Don't be surprised if your students show increasing signs of aprosexia.
At this time of year it is probably normal.  The term refers to an
impaired ability to concentrate.

The earth experiences 50,000 earthquakes each year.

The poison-arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people.

Flamingos are not naturally pink - no matter what the guy sitting next
to you at the bar says.

American families drink approximately 110 million gallons of water
daily, most of which comes from the household tap.  Some contaminants
include cryptosporidium, a water-borne pathogen, and radon, which is a
naturally occurring radioactive gas found mostly in wells.  (May 7 marks
the start of National Drinking Water Week).  Questions?  Call the U.S.
EPA Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1-800-426-4791.

Ben Franklin founded a library in Philadelphia.  He founded a hospital.
He started a fire department.  He opened a college.  He was the first
mailman in Philadelphia.  He had nine brothers and sisters.  He didn't
like math.  He invented bifocal glasses.

In 1719, Eilean Donan Castle held 343 barrels of gunpowder which the
British "accidentally" set off, destroying a large part of the castle.
However, it was later rebuilt.

The Hundred Years War lasted for 116 years.

A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet
the size of a tennis court.

After eating, a housefly regurgitates its food and then eats it again.

Stopping the presses is not all that uncommon.  Major typos are the
number one reason for stopping the presses.  The last time the presses
were stopped for a late breaking story was when President Kennedy was
shot.

In Michigan, USA, a man legally owns his wife's hair.  (Huh?  No way!)

The USA bought Alaska from Russia for 2 cents an acre.

In Tennessee, USA, a man must walk in front of any car driven by a
woman, while waving a red flag as a warning.

The is a 1/4 pound of salt inevery gallon of seawater.

Roast turkey did not appear consistently on royal Christmas Day menus
until 1851 when it replaced roast swan.  The medieval dish of Boar's
head remained popular with Royals for much longer

Every year, the Queen delivers her Christmas message in a short speech,
traditionally televised at 3.00pm on Christmas Day.  The idea for a
royal Christmas radio broadcast was that of John Reith, the General
Manager of the British Broadcasting Company (later the British
Broadcasting Corporation) in 1923.  But it wasn't until 25th December,
1932, at Sandringham that King George V gave his first Christmas speech
to his subjects around the world.  The speech was first televised in
1957, and today the Queen's message is broadcast alternately by the BBC
and ITV.  It is heard by her subjects in Britain and her remaining
Empire .

Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise.  This is
because all knights used to be right-handed.  When the intruding army
would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand
which was holding the sword because of the difficulties in climbing the
stairs.  Left-handed knights would have had no troubles except
left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed
that they were descendants of the devil.

Christmas Lights - long before the first Christmas, it was customary in
northern Europe to light a candle at the winter solstice in celebration
of the rebirth of light.  Homage was paid to the sun god, Mithras, and
the sun was encouraged to reappear in the new year.  The Christian
Church adopted the custom and, throughout the Middle Ages, a large
candle was lit at Christmas time.  The light from the candle symbolised
the Star of Bethlehem and, as Christ was the 'Light of the World', the
candle flame represented his influence.  This single candle was replaced
by several over time - as many as four hundred on an 18th-century German
fir tree - and for health and safety reasons they were replaced by
electric replicas in 1882.  Christmas lights in Regent Street, London,
are traditionally switched on in mid-November each year by a celebrity.

In a century's time Islam had converted one-third of the world.

In ancient Egyptian Priests plucked every hair from their bodies,
including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

When the new favorite dance of Parisian High Culture, the polka, was
introduced in the US in 1844, it gave rise to numerous jokes about US
Presidential candidate J.K.  Polk.  And polka soon became so big in
Britain that a pudding was named after it.  (From the New Grove
Dictionary of Music & Musicians, volume 15, Macmillan 1980.


On the cartoon show 'The Jetsons,' Jane is 33 years old and her daughter
Judy is 15.

In Mel Brooks' 'Silent Movie,' mime Marcel Marceau is the only person
who has a speaking role.

Only humans and horses have hymens.

If all the ozone in the atmosphere were compressed to a pressure
corresponding to that at the earth's surface, the layer would be only 3
mm thick.

The human genome can be contained in the equivalent of a 750 megabyte
hard drive.  The human genome contains 3 billion base pairs.  Each base
pair contains 2 binary 'bits' of information.  Finally there are eight
'bits' in a byte, thus six billion bits of information in the genome.

Working people are 25% more likely to suffer back injuries on Monday
than any other day.  Similarly, the risk of having a heart attack is 33%
greater on Monday than other days.  )

Tasmania, Austrailia has the cleanest air in the inhabited world.  The
finest, most expensive wool in the world is grown in Tasmania.  Over two
thirds of the state is set aside as national or state parks.  Tasmania
has one of the lowest crime rates in the world.  Tasmania exports 60% of
its produce.  The most advanced, large catamarans in the world are
manufactured in Tasmania.  Two thirds of Australia's canned vegetables
are produced in Tasmania.  Over a quarter of the world's abalone comes
from Tasmania.

The English word "soup" comes from the Middle Ages word "sop," which
means a slice of bread over which roast drippings were poured.  The
first archaeological evidence of soup being consumed dates back to 6000
B.C., with the main ingredient being Hippopotamus bones!

Top Ten Soup Towns (ranked by consumption rate)
1) Spokane, WA
2) Salt Lake City, UT
3) Grand Rapids, MI
4) Green Bay, WI
5) Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
6) Seattle/Tacoma, WA
7) Des Moines, IA
8) Albany, NY
9) Buffalo/Rochester, NY
10) Knoxville, TN

St.  Paul, Minnesota was originally called Pigs Eye after a man who ran
a saloon there.

"Speak of the Devil" is short for "Speak of the Devil and he shall
come".  It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would
attract his attention.  That's why when you're talking about someone and
they show up people say "Speak of the Devil."

The first letters of the months July through November, in order, spell
the name JASON.

The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford
English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
The only other word with the same amount of letters is
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.

In classical Vietnamese music-theatre (Tuong), there is a 100-act play
("Von Buu Trinh Tuong") in which all of the characters are personified
medications!  The stronger the medication, the stronger the character,
and vice-versa.  Another fun fact about Tuong:  At performances, a drum
was placed in front of the stage, which audience members played in order
to criticize the performers.  The number of beats played and the pitch
of the drumbeats indicated whether the audience felt the play was good
or bad, or if perhaps they wished to discuss the performance with the
manager.  One beat on the drum, for instance, told the performers to
wind up whatever they were singing and get on to the next part!  (From
Pham Duy, Musics of Vietnam, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale,
1975.)

Mickey Mouse is known as "Topolino" in Italy.

The red giant star Betelgeuse has a diameter larger than that of the
Earth's orbit around the sun.

Sixties Czech rock band the Primitives was known for its in-concert
audience participation "celebrations" of the four elements.  Especially
attention-getting was their celebration of water, known as fishfest, in
which they hurled buckets of water into the audience and then threw live
fish over them (From Rocking the State.)

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II
killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

The letter "I" is used exactly one-hundred and nine times in Act IV of
Shakespeare's Macbeth.

The real name of the "I've fallen and I can't get up" lady is Edith
Fore.

All the dirt from the foundation to build the World Trade Center in New
York City was dumped into the Hudson River to form the community now
known as Battery City Park.

An atmospheric oxygen content approaching 35% some 290 million years ago
may have been responsible for the evolution of extraordinary creatures,
such as a dragonfly as large as a pigeon.  A subsequent drop in oxygen
content to 15% some 40 million years later may also account for the
disappearance of such giants.  Present day air is 21% oxygen.  SOURCE:
NATURE

Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth I's mother, had six fingers on one hand.

There are 18 doctors in the US called Dr.  Doctor, and one called Dr.
Surgeon.  There is also a dermatologist named Dr.  Rash, a psychiatrist
called Dr.  Couch and an anesthesiologist named Dr.  Gass.

While it not their preferred recreation activity, sheep can swim when
confronted with flooding or other water emergencies.  There swimming
style can best be described as a dog-paddle.

If we had the same mortality rate now as in 1900, more than half the
people in the world today would not be alive.

In 1990, a 64-year old Hartsville, Tennessee, woman entered a hospital
for surgery for what doctors diagnosed as a tumor on her buttocks.  What
surgeons found, however, was a four-inch pork chop bone, which they
removed.  They estimated that it had been inplace for five to ten years.
The woman could not remember sitting on it, or eating it, for that
matter.  The Book of Lists (D.Wallechinsky & A. Wallace, 1993)

One of the most studied antioxidants in vegetables and fruits thought to
protect against cancer is beta-carotene, concentrated in deep green,
yellow and orange vegetables such as carrots, sweet potatoes, and
spinach.  Fruits high in beta-carotene include apricots and cantaloupes.
In test tube studies at Harvard University in Massachusetts,
beta-carotene had a direct toxic effect on cells taken from malignant
tumors.  It also shows that beta-carotene can change in the body to
retinoic acid, a substance used in clinical trials to treat certain
cancers.  Here are some of the foods that contain cancer fighting
chemicals.

There are almost 800 different brands of bottled water for sale in the
United States.

The solid central core of the earth seems to rotate at a slightly
different rate than the rest of the earth.

Seven thousand people die from food poisoning every year in the U.S.,
and another seven million get ill from eating contaminated food.  Eggs,
unwashed produce and rotten meat are the main culprits.

One third of all cancers are sun-related.

Polls show that 75% of American adults do not know that antibiotics kill
bacteria but not viruses.

Ancient Romans ate flamingo tounges and considered them a delicacy.

ENIAC, the first electronic computer, appeared 50 years ago.  The
original ENIAC was about 80 feet long, weighed 30 tons, had 17,000
tubes.By comparison, a desktop computer today can store a million times
more information than an ENIAC, and 50,000 times faster.

Can't you just picture this conversation taking place back in 1946:
"Hey honey, I'm gonna run to the store, do you need anything?"  "Yes,
Ozzie, I made a list, it's on the ENIAC."  "I wish you wouldn't do that
Harriet!  Now I have to go all the way out to the computer building in
the back yard, just to get your grocery list."  "Sorry Ozzie, but I was
out there dusting, and I remembered a few things we needed, I didn't
have a pencil, so I just entered it into the computer."  Mumbling and
grumbling, Ozzie goes out to the computer building.  He returns ten
minutes later, obviously upset.  "Harriet, I can't get at the grocery
list!"  "Why's that Ozzie?"  Harriet asks.  "Cause it's busy calculating
ballistic trajectories, that's why!"  "Well, don't blame me Ozzie!  I'm
not the one who bought a computer incapable of multi-tasking." says
Harriet.  "They haven't invented multi-tasking yet," screams Ozzie.
"Well, that's not my fault now, is it?" answers Harriet.

Yeast is a single-cell plant.  A living organism.  Over 160 species of
yeast exist.  The strain used for baking breads, which enables them to
rise, is the same yeast used by breweries to make beer.  Before the
existence of the packets and bottles of yeast that we can buy today,
bakers use to obtain their yeast from the local brewery.  I suggest that
you buy your yeast in the small jars as it is more economical this way.
You are also able to get a more exact measure, rather than worrying
about any yeast that may have stuck to the sides of one of those little
packets.

A Turtles shell is nothing more than its ribs and spine fused together
over many years of evolution.

Bob Dylan's real name is Robert Zimmerman, he changed it in honor of
Dylan Thomas.

Andy Warhol created the Rolling Stone's emblem depicting the big tongue.
It first appeared on the cover of the 'Sticky Fingers' album.

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were the two left-handed Beatles.

Over the last three decades, civic participation in America has
decreased.  Two-thirds of all eligible voters under the age of 25 did
not vote in the last election.

The world's fastest ship weighs 112 tons and travels at 102 mph.

Driving 55 m.p.h. instead of 65 m.p.h. increases your cars mileage by
about 15%.

Airbags explode at 200 m.p.h.

The first car accident occurred in 1896.

May 9th, 1995, is the 35th anniversary of the original FDA approval for
the oral contraceptive popularly known as 'the pill'.  Used by nearly 10
million American women under age 45, the pill is the most popular method
of reversible contraception in the U.S.  Since 1960 it has become clear
that the pill also has many non-contraceptive benefits including:
prevention of benign breast diseases; prevention of some ovarian and
endometrial cancers; increased bone mineral density.

School busses in the United States are Chrome Yellow and used to be
Omaha Orange.

Under a two mile thick layer of ice at the south pole is an unfrozen
lake the size of lake Ontario.

The Beatles song "Dear Prudence" was written about Mia Farrow's sister,
Prudence, when she wouldn't come ou and play with Mia and the Beatles at
a religious retreat in India.

The tailless dinner jacket was invented in Tuxedo Park, New York.  Thus
it is called the "tuxedo dinner jacket" and is named after the
town...not the other way around.

The average person flexes the joints in their fingers 24 million times
during a lifetime.

Each person inhales about seven quarts of air every minute.

A cargo of flatulent pigs caused an international passenger jet en route
to South Africa to make an emergency landing in London.  The prize
porkers generated so much heat from their natural gases that they caused
a fire alarm to go off in the cockpit.

On average, we breathe between 12 and 18 times a minute.

Women's hearts generally beat faster than mens.

How many evolutionists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?  None.
Given enough time and random chance events, the lightbulb will screw
itself in!

There was actually a typewriter created that would type in Chinese.
Because of the sheer number of characters, a typist typing at 10-15
words per minute would be considered incredibly speedy.

The state of Maryland has no natural lakes.

Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened
cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

In the United States in 1995, KFC sold 11 pieces of chicken for every
man, woman and child in the country.

Laid head to claw, KFC chickens consumed worldwide would stretch some
275,094 miles.  They would circle the Earth at the equator 11 times or
stretch from the Earth approximately 50,094 miles past the moon.

No other animal gives us more by-products than the hog.  These
by-products include pig suede, buttons, glass, paint brushes, crayons,
chalk, and insulation to name a few.

The world's number one producer and consumer of fresh pork is China.

Hogs were first introduced to North America in 1539 when the Spanish
explorer Hernando De Soto brought them to the mainland.

The largest known kidney stone weighed 1.36 kilograms.

Kidney stones come in virtually any color; most are yellow to brown.

Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, lost the Franco-Prussian
War of 1870 due wholly or in part from impaired kidney function
resulting from kidney stone formation.

Most kidney stones are formed and excreted singly.

The practice of calling cowards "lily-livered" has an interesting
origin.  During the middle ages, it was believed that everything was
made of four elements:  Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.  It was also
believed that in humans, the Four Contraries:  hot, cold, dry, and
moist, would combine to form the Four Humors:  cholor, blood,
melancholy, and phlegm.  If someone had demonstrated that they were
cowardly, they would be thought of as not having any cholor, or yellow
bile, the humor thougt to control courage.  Since at the time people
thought an absence of cholor in the liver would leave it white, the
color of the lily, cowards would be called lily-livered.

The Mint, dedicated to domestic and foreign circulation coins, was
inaugurated in Winnipeg on April 30, 1976.

There were 107 RCMP dog teams across Canada in 1995.  An individual dog
can search a car in approximately three minutes and can work up to four
hours with rest intervals.

Firefighters take 3 to 8 minutes to respond to a call, depending on
location, giving an average response time of 5.8 minutes.

There are 22 nuclear reactors in Canada called CANDU reactors, they
supply 65% of the electricity for Ontario and 16% in total for Canada.

Napoleon Bonaparte was afraid of cats.

It would take 7 billion particles of fog to fill a teaspoon.

Every photograph of an American atomic bomb detonation was taken by
Harold Edgerton.

The topknot that quails have is called a hmuh.

Dr.  Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of Lincoln's
assassin John Wilkes Booth ... and whose shame created the expression
for ignominy, "His name is Mudd."

The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.

The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint -- no two lions have the same
pattern of whiskers.

There is a type of parrot in New Zealand that likes to eat the rubber
strips that line car windows.

New Zealand is also the only country that contains every type of climate
in the world.

Cockroaches' favorite food is the glue on envelopes and on the back of
postage stamps

Q and Z are the two letters not on a touch tone phone.

In 1969, the last Corvair was painted gold.

Way back in 1709 AD, this guy named Bart from Florence, Italy thought,
"Man, these harpsichords sound tinny and nasty!  And on top of that, you
can't control the loudness of each note!  Hmm, if only I could change
the string-plucking mechanism to something more desirable, the worries
of thousands of musicians and composers everywhere would be alleviated."
And so good old Bartolommeo Christofori created an instrument that makes
sounds by striking strings with felt-covered wooden hammers.  This
allowed the player to control the loudness of each note, so Bart called
his invention a gravicembalo col piano e forte, literally meaning a
harpsichord with loud and soft.  Eventually this was shortened to piano.

Hollowed out lemon halves were used as a primitave diaphragm in the
Middle Ages.

The capitol of Honduras is Tegucigalpa.

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in
the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in
the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if
the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural
causes.

Alexander the Great is the only argument people ever need to make in
support of gays in the military.

Lemons contain more sugar than strawberries do.

The jugular vein is an artery, not a vein.

David Prowse, was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars.  He
spoke all of Vader's lines, and didn't know that he was going to be
dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.

In Baltimore, USA, it is illegalto wash or scrub a sink, regardless of
how dirty it is.

Have you ever wondered what causes those freaky red eyes in your
family's photographs?  The light from the flash of the camera penetrates
the eyeball, bounces off of the retina (the inside back of the eyeball)
and is reflected out the front of the eye.  Because the retina has a
large grouping of arteries, the light reflected back is red.

Flush toilets date back to 2000 B.C.

The first traffic light was installed in England in 1868 in front of the
Houses of Parliment.

There are approximately 450 million chickens in the United States.

The average man sweats 2 1/2 quarts every day.

Every day in the United States, people steal $20,000 from coin-operated
machines.

Americans spend $300 million on clothes every day!

Toilet Paper dates all the way back to 1857.

The first stall in a public bathroom is least often occupied and is the
cleanest.

The largest object ever found in the Los Angeles sewer system was a
motorcycle.

Every 24 hours a leaking water faucet with an opening the size of a pin
will waste 170 gallons.

The phrase "rule of thumb" is taken from an old English law stating that
a husband could not beat his wife with anything thicker than his thumb.

The flatulation from domesticated cows produce about 30% of the methane
on this planet.

Before it blew up in 1986, the space shuttle Challenger was hit by a
flake of paint, measuring 0.2 millimeters, which damaged a window during
one of its missions.  (the dangers of lead paint)

Your brain weighs around 3 pounds.  All but ten ounces is water.

Every year, Americans dispose of 1.6 billion pens, 2 billion razors and
blades, 18 billion diapers and 30 billion steel and tin cans.  They are
all sitting in landfills somewhere.

Ogdensburg, New York is the only city in the United States situated on
the St.  Lawrence River.

Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by looking
at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling.

14th Century Crusaders defending the city of Caffa in Crimea were
horrified when the Tartars began catapulting the dead bodies of plague
victims over the city walls.  The Tartars themselves died of plague,
after which the Crusaders returned to Italy, bringing plague with them.
Within two decades the bubonic plague had wiped out 25% of the
population of Europe from Yugoslavia to Greenland.  Four-fifths of the
population of Marseilles died in this way.

The Earl of Condom was a knighted personal physician to England's King
Charles II in the mid-1600's.  The Earl was requested to produce a
method to protect the King from syphillis.(Charles the II's
pleasure-loving nature was notorious.)  The result should be obvious.

Moisture, not air, causes superglue to dry.

Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous
transatlantic flight.

Sarsaparilla is the root that flavors root beer.

The U.S.  Mint in Denver, Colorado is the only mint that marks its
pennies.

Many Japanese golfers carry "hole-in-one" insurance, because it is
traditional in Japan to share one's good luck by sending gifts to all
your friends when you get an "ace."  The price for what the Japanese
term an "albatross" can often reach $10,000.

Gold, in its pure form, never tarnishes, dulls or decomposes.  This is
why the early Egyptians used it so much in their culture (the wealthy
ruling pharaohs, not the peons, grunts & slaves).  Gold represented
stability and the eternal.

Do you think snowflakes appear out of thin air?  They don't.  They need
something to form around.  At the center of every snowflake is a single
piece of dust.

If you gave each human on earth an equal portion of dry land, (including
the uninhabitable areas) everyone would get roughly 100 sq.ft.

The birth control method of "infanticide" is still practiced in many
third world nations.  Infanticide is the killing of newborn humans.

Another recent study shows that computer users blink an average of 7
times per minute.

The average persons blinks 22 times per minute.

By 1995 8 million U.S. households had computers with CD-ROM drives, a
1600% increase over 1990.

Caviar (sturgeon roe) was a common food in California during the gold
rush days, until overharvesting led to the decline of sturgeon and its
eventual protection.  Until recently, most of the world's caviar has
come from areas bordering the Caspian Sea.  However, these countries are
now cutting exports by 80% because of short supplies.  To complete the
circle, California fish farmers have now developed a way to farm
sturgeon and are preparing to ship their first harvest.

FM Stereo has been around since 1961.

Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar
with "Midnight Cowboy."  Her entire role lasted only six minutes.

Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people
without killing them use to burn their houses down - hence the
expression "to get fired."

Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".

15% of American males are colour blind.

130 million cups of coffee are consumed every day in the United States
alone!

The average U.S. high school graduate has a vocabulary of about 60,000
words.

Fourteenth century physicians didn't know what caused the plague, but
they knew it was contagious.  As a result they wore an early kind of
bioprotective suit which included a large beaked head piece.  The beak
of the head piece, which made them look like large birds, was filled
with vinegar, sweet oils and other strong smelling compounds to
counteract the stench of the dead and dying plague victims.

The average person makes about 1,140 telephone calls each year.

On any given day, Americans spend over $33 million buying lottery
tickets.

Kitsap County, Washington, was originally called Slaughter County, and
the first hotel there was called the Slaughter House.

Seattle, Washington, like Rome, was built on seven hills.

Dinosaur droppings are called coprolites, and are actually fairly
common.

Annual growth of WWW traffic is 341,000%.

Computer Crime adds up to more than 10 billion dollars per year.

This year, engineers at The University of Pennsylvania created ENIAC on
a chip.  The chip was the size of a fingernail and could perform the
same tasks as the 30 ton ENIAC could 50 years ago.

Experts at Intel say that microprocessor speed will double every 18
months for at least 10 years.

Radiation from radio transmitting towers sometimes causes people to here
the broadcast in their plumbing & toaster.

The straw was probably invented by Egyptian brewers to taste in-process
beer without removing the fermenting ingredients which floated on the
top of the container.

The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is
necessary.  When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still
had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and
whites.

Mustard gas was invented in the McKinley Building on the American
University campus.

Additionally, preliminary work on the Manhattan Project was done in that
building.  The government used the McKinley Building because of its
unusual archticture.  If there would be any type of large explosion
inside the building, the building would implode onto itself, containing
any lethal gas or nuclear material.  The building now houses the Physics
Department.

The earth weighs 13,176,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds (13
septillion, 176 sextillion pounds.)

The earth's revolution time increases .0001 seconds annually.

If the water in the world's reservoirs were allowed passage to the
oceans, global sea level would rise 1 1/5 inches.

Because the Antarctic icecap is up to 15,700 feet thick, the continent
has the highest average elevation.

Only 2 more blue moons (the saying "only once in a blue moon" refers to
the occurence of two full moons during one calender month) are to occur
between now and 2001.  Those times are January 1999 and March 1999.

The odds against a person being struck by a celestial stone, a
meteorite, are ten trillion to one.

The density of the universe is 1 atom per 10 cubic yards.

Driving at 75 miles per hour, it would take 258 days to drive around one
of Saturn's rings.

If there was an ocean big enough to hold Saturn, it would float.

Skin temperature does not go much above 95F even on the hottest days.

314 Americans had buttock lift surgery in 1994.

New Mothers can produce 1 gallon of breast milk per day.

Hitler and Napolean both had only one testical.

Sex burns 360 calories per hour.

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.

The skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island is Jonas Grumby.  It was
mentioned once in the first episode on their radio's newscast about the
wreck.

The Professor's real name was Roy Hinkley, Mary Ann's last name was
Summers and Mrs. Howell's maiden name was Wentworth.

The phrase "sleep tight" originated when mattresses were set upon ropes
woven through the bed frame.  To remedy sagging ropes, one would use a
bed key to tighten the rope.

The average human will walk the distance of 160 billion millimeters in
his or her lifetime.

We always come across the term 'hard' or 'soft' water.  However, many
people may be aware of it, but not many people know what exactly it is.
Also, both types of water have many disadvantages.  Hard water becomes
'hard' because of the presence of carbonates, sulfates, chlorides of
calcium, magnesium, and iron.  These chemical items are what causes
water to be hard.  Though with the presence of these chemical nuisance,
hard water is not harmful to human health.  Water is also considered
hard if its calcium level is above 250ppm.  (ppm means parts per
million).  Its alkalinity must also be over 150 ppm in order to be
considered hard. pH levels are usually relatively stable in hard water,
but we can actually use acidic chlorine to achieve a normal pH balance
in water.

However, hard water ions could also form an insoluable compound.  Soft
water, on the other hand, is considered soft if its calcium carbonate
level is under 50ppm.  The alkalinity level should also be under 30ppm.
Most soft water has an unstable pH value and alkaline chlorine could
help to balance its pH value.  The most significant difference between
soft and hard water can be found in cleaning and bathing.  Soft water is
usually widely used in Asian countries, for example, Malaysia.  Hard
water is used in other countries, especially in England and the U.S.A.
To most of us, we may find that hard water would cause us to loose hair.
Besides, it will also wash off the 'hair conditioner' that we use,
although we apply a large amount during shower.

When we use soft water, it does not make our hair drop but will also
leave our hair soft after using hair conditioners.  Hard water would
also leave a lot of side effects on our washing processes.  It fades our
colored clothings, yellowing the whites and could shorten the fabric's
lifespan.  However, it is also true that the hotter the water, the
cleaner the laundry and this is especially true in hard water.  A study
from Purdue University found that fabrics tend to become washed out more
often, about 15 percent faster in hard water than in soft water.  The
study also states that hard water has a bad effect on color and white
fabrics.  Washing materials used with hard water was also believed to
clog pipes and cause excessive wear on moving parts.  The best way to
aviod fabric worn out is to use soft water.  Hard water can cause us a
lot of problems, so it is always wise to stick to using soft water.

The last Coast Guard radio navigation station still using Morse code
transmitted its last message on March 31, 1995 from Chesapeake,
Virginia.  Morse first demonstrated his telegraph to Congress in 1844,
sending the famous message from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Md.,
"What hath God wrought?"  Morse's sequence of dots and dashes resembles
the modern digital code which forms the basis of modern computer
programs.

Air pollution may contribute to two percent of all deaths in the US,
some 50,000 cases per year.  A nine-year study of US cities showed a
strong correlation between death rates and periods of significant
pollution.  SOURCE:  Study by Dr.  George Thurston, NYU Medical School,
presented at the 1995 conference of the American Thoracic Society and
American Lung Association.

Czar Paul 1 banished soldiers to Siberia for marching out of step.

Shock treatment for epilepsy was once administered by electric catfish!

Michael Tolotos, who died at the age of 80, never saw a woman.

Hairstylist Anthony Silvestri cuts hair while underwater.

Wyoming was the first state to allow women to vote.

Catherine de Medici was the first woman in Europe to use tobacco.  She
took it in a mixture of snuff.

Orthorhombic perskovite is the predominant mineral found in Earth's
lower mantle and the most abundant mineral on Earth.

The A & P was the first chain-store business to be established.  It
began in 1842.

Charles Dickens earned no more for his twenty novels than he did from
his lectures.

About one-third of American adults are at least 20 percent above their
recommended weight.

One third of 95 developing countries have a waiting period of six years
or more for a telephone connection, compared with less than a month in
developed nations.

The male scorpion fly gets other males to bring him food by imitating a
female fly.

The average talker sprays about 300 microscopic saliva droplets per
minute, about 2.5 droplets per word.

Scientists first began to study the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere
about 100 years ago.  The ozone spectrophotometer that first alerted
scientists to the ozone hole over Antarctica in the early 1980's has
changed very little since its invention by Gordon Dobson in 1927.

County sheriff's deputies in Cumberland County, North Carolina have been
instructed to conduct house-to-house searches for unvaccinated pets in
the midst of the worst rabies epidemic in the past 40 years.  SOURCE:
Wireservices

Although a good portion of their forebrains are dedicated to the sense
of smell, sharks are not the "swimming noses" they were once believed to
be.  Rather, their brains are involved with all six of their senses-
vision, hearing, lateral line and touch sense, smell, taste and
electroreception.

The state legislature of Mississippi has at last voted to ratify the
13th Amendment to the U.S.  Constitution.  The state is the last of the
36 states in the union in 1865 to ratify the amendment abolishing
slavery.

More than 35,000 leeches were sold for medical purposes in the US last
years at a cost of $6.00 for each leech.

Over the last 30 years, the availability of freshwater in Africa has
halved.  This can be attributed to a combination of climate change and
poor resource management

Chimpanzees used in AIDS vaccine studies get a pension of more than
$100,000 to pay for their care and containment for the duration of their
natural lives.  While it is possible to infect chimpanzees with HIV,
they do not appear to get AIDS.

Although banned in the developed world for more than 20 years, DDT is
still widely used in the developing world, primarily for control of
malaria.  For example, Mexico and Brazil each used nearly 1,000 tons of
DDT in 1992.  The chemical has a half-life of more than 100 years and
can be found in the tissues of almost all humans.

Some plants polenate others by making themselves look like insects, thus
attracting mating insects to polenate other flowers.

The first telephone book ever issued contained only fifty names.  It was
published in New Haven, Connecticut, by the New Haven District Telephone
Company in February, 1878.

To strengthen a Damascus sword, the blade was plunged into a slave.

WWI flying ace Jean Navarre attacked a zeppelin armed with only a
kitchen knife!

The town of Tidikelt in the Sahara Desert once went ten years without a
rainfall.

It snows more in the Grand Canyon than it does in Minneapolis,
Minnesota.

The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in
Jello.

Even if you cut off a cockroach's head, it can live for several weeks.

In 75% of American households, women manage the money and pay the bills.

A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South
Bend, Indiana.

About 70% of Americans who go to college do it just to make more money.
[The rest of us are avoiding reality for four more years.]

It's against the law to catch fish with your bare hands in Kansas.

Dr.  Seuss pronounced "Seuss" such that it rhymed with "rejoice."

Some toothpastes contain antifreeze.

Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.

Millie the White House dog earned more than 4 times as much as Pres.
Bush in 1991.

Bird droppings are the chief export of Nauru, an island nation in the
western Pacific.

In 1989 the russian phobos craft arrived in martian orbit and took
pictures and made measurements and then mysteriously died. orthodox
russian priests were invited to the phobos control center to see
pictures of mars and discuss creation.

Most lipstick contains fish scales.

Lee Harvey Oswald's cadaver tag sold at an auction for $6,600 in 1992.

Mosquitos have teeth.

When Christopher Columbus and crew landed in the New World they observed
the natives using a nose pipe to smoke a strange new herb.  The pipe was
called a 'tabaka' by the locals, hence our word tobacco.

While it is true spinach contains plenty of iron, it also contains
plenty of oxalic acid which binds to the iron, making less than five
percent of it available to your body.  Nonetheless, spinach remains a
great source of beta carotene.

In train wrecks the number of passengers in damaged cars is less than
average by so much and so often that it cannot be a chance occurence.
somehow we know not to get on them.  (work done by william cox and
reported by lyall watson)

There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet.

Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they
rode past their king.  This custom has become the modern military
salute.

ABBA got their name by taking the first letter from each of their first
names (Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, Anni-frid.)

Charles de Gaulle's final words were, "It hurts."

The words 'sacrilegious' and 'religion' do not share the same
etymological root.

"John has a long moustache" was the coded-signal used by the French
Resistance in WWII to mobilize their forces once the Allies had landed
on the Normandy beaches.

Gatorade was named for the University of Florida Gators where it was
first developed.

Michigan was the first state to have roadside picnic tables.

Elvis had a twin brother named Garon, who died at birth, which is why
Elvis' middle name was spelled Aron; in honor of his brother.

Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden.
The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5pm.  All traffic
stopped as people switched sides.  This time and day were chosen to
prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and
been too sleepy to realize that *this* was the day of the changeover.

Bulls are colorblind, therefore will usually charge at a matador's
waving cape no matter what color it is -- be it red or neon yellow.

Ancient maps of the south pole show land features now covered with ice
and only recently mapped by modern seismic cartography.

Varicella has been known as chicken pox since the 18th century.  One
theory holds that it was so named because of the mildness of the disease
compared with other poxes.  Another hypotheses is that it was so called
because the lesions resembled chick-peas.

The Centers for Disease Control sends investigators to more than 100
outbreak locations throughout the world each year.

Once the largest port of the world, the city of Antwerp has always been
of very high importance for any army operating in Northwest Europe, if
supplied overseas, and for any continental army preparing an invasion of
Britain.  In WWII it was hit by more V-1s than London (2448 against
2419), a large number of V-2s and even approx. 200 'Rheinbote' missiles.

The soldiers of World War I were the first people to use the modern
flushing toilet.  The inventor:  Thomas Crapper.

A typical bed usually houses over 6 billion dust mites.  (Not bedbugs.)

Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel, "Gadsby", which contains over
50,000 words -- none of them with the letter E .

The great revelation about Einstein's special theory of relativity WAS
NOT that everything is relative.  Everyone in science new that.  The
interesting new awareness that Einstein gave the world was that NOT
EVERYTHING is relative.  Specifically the speed of light is absolute;
i.e. the same for all observers no matter how they are moving when they
perform the measurement.

Titanium is the most corrosion resistant material suitable for boat
building.  It is stronger than steel and weighs only half as much.

Friday is often known as POETS day.  What does POETS stand for?  PUSH
OFF EARLY TOMORROW'S SATURDAY

At 1.99, who has the lowest career ERA for the Red Sox?  JOE WOOD

Who coined the phrase Future Shock ?  ALVIN TOFFLER

Who was the last person executed in Britain for witchcraft?  JENNY HORN:
BURNED ALIVE AT DORNOCH SCOTLAND IN 1722

To which series of books do On a pale Horse and For Love of Evil belong?
INCARNATIONS OF IMMORTALITY BY PIERS ANTHONY

From which film did the 1963 Oscar winning song come?  PAPA'S DELICATE
CONDITION (CALL ME IRRESPONSIBLE)

What was the only British hit for the American Band Ohio Players ?
WHO'D SHE COO IN 1976

Which former Hill Street Blues regular was credited as a Director on one
of the early episodes of Murder One ?  CHARLES HAID (RENKO) WHO DIRECTED
EPISODE 1

In the Gulf War what were MREs?  MEALS READY TO EAT (AMERICAN COMBAT
RATIONS)

What do the following have in common:  Mike Tyson, Kelsey Grammer,
Billie Holliday and Mae West?  THEY HAVE ALL SPENT TIME IN JAIL

What was the name of the Man who broke the Bank at Monte Carlo ?  JOSEPH
HOBSON JAGGER WHO WON 2 MILLION FRANCS IN 8 DAYS IN 1886

In ice hockey, what is the minimum period that a player can spend in the
sin-bin?  THERE IS NO MINIMUM PERIOD AS THE PENALTY WILL END WHEN THE
OPPONENTS SCORE.  THE MINMUM PERIOD FOR WHICH A PLAYER CAN BE SENT IS 2
MINUTES

What type of fish was caught for the first time on 22nd November 1938?
A COELACANTH

How many countries share a border with China? 16 (INCLUDING HONG KONG
AND MACAO)

When does the Union Flag become the Union Jack?  WHEN IT IS FLOWN ON A
SHIP

Name the play:  A man, living with his second wife is confronted by the
ghost of his first who has been raised by the medium Madame Arcati?
BLITHE SPIRIT BY NOEL COWARD

Who made the first parachute jump?  SEBASTAIN LENORMAND IN 1783

In his will, what did William Shakespeare leave to Anne Hathaway?  HIS
SECOND BEST BED

Who was the first Pope to abdicate?  CELESTINE V

What sentence was passed on Admiral Doenitz at the Nuremberg War Trials?
10 YEARS IN PRISON

What is Fox Mulder's apartment number? 42

In Harold Gray's comic strip "Little Orphan Annie," what was Annie's
surname at birth?  She was adopted by the Milos, and her birth name was
"Bottle."

"Is the earth round?" no

"What is the most addictive commonly available drug?" nicotine

"What is the product of Hegel's Thesis and Antithesis?" synthesis

"In what year was the Beatles' "Abbey Road" released?" 1969

"Where would are you to be at the lowest spot in the lower 48 and look
at the highest?" death valley

"Who was the wizard in Shakespeare's The Tempest?" prospero

"What is the drinking age in France?" 18

"WHO WAS ABE LINCOLN'S FIRST VICE PRESIDENT?" hannibal hamlin

"What actress starred in the movie fire started and was an actress in
the movie E.T.?" drew barrymore

"Who directed the film "Groundhog Day"?" harold ramis

"Who immortalized his name through MAKE.MONEY.FAST?" dave rhodes

"What 1970's-to-present musical group shares its name with a river in
Hell?" styx

"A new movie version of Shakespeare's Othello has just been released.
Who plays Othello ?" lawrence fishburn

"The Commonwealth of Australia has how many States?" six

"Who said "A little learning is a dangerous thing"?" alexander pope

"What is Bayleys Irish Cream colored with?" caramel

"What is the maximum -BAUD- rate that top-of-the-line, analog modems can
operate at?" 2400

"Who is the current Prime Minister of Australia?" paul keating

"What has four legs in the morning, two legs during the day, and three
legs at night, according to Emo?" donkey

"How many piano sonatas did Beethoven write?" 32

"What is the fourth ingredient in A1 steak sauce?" raisins

"Who was the first astronaut to play golf on the moon?" alan b. shepherd
jr.

"What city has Azteca Stadium as it's main sports venue" mexico city

"Who wrote Mannifeste Cannibale Dada in 1920?" francis picabia

"In CASABLANCA WHEN RICK WAS CAUGHT WITH THE SMOKING GUN, WHO DID THE
POLICE ORDER ARESTED?" the usual suspects

"Who first developed the PICK operating system in 1965?" richard pick

"What first baseman played in 2130 consecutive games?" lou gehrig

"What disease was once known as the "White Plague"?" tuberculosis

"What was Eleanor Roosevelt's maiden name?" roosevelt

"Xiphius gladii (Greek "sword", Latin "swords") is the scientific name
for what lifeform?" broadbill swordfish

"Who was the first person to INTRODUCE Elvis on prime time national
television?" charles laughton

"What Velvet Underground song contains the line "...it's my wife, it's
my life"?" heroin

"The USS Liberty was deliberately sunk by what country?" israel

"What was the date that JFK was assassinated?" november 22, 1963

"What is the name of the Silver Age Green Lantern?" alan scott

"What's the second most popular Irish bitter?" murphys

"What is the mass of the Sun in grams (use e and 3 digits, as in 1.00e3
for 1000, to express the answer)?" 1.99e33

"What are the real reasons that make soap bubbles pops (hint:  answer in
"xxxx and dxxxxxx")?" heat and dryness

"What was Hall & Oates first #1 hit (Billboard charts)?" rich girl

"Who are the two coaches who have won a national championship and an nfl
championship?" jimmy johnson and barry switzer

"What is the only state that does not have its legal system based on
English Common Law?" louisiana

"Where would you be if you were in Puchentong airport?" phnom penh,
cambodia

"What team won the last ABA title?" new york nets

"Who said, "The fucking you get isn't worth the fucking you get"?"
dorothy parker

"What is the city that is famous for running with the bulls (hint:  in
the book the Sun also Rises) (city name only)?" pamplona

"What American author recently (1992) argued that History is over - that
capitalism and liberalism have won (surname only)?" fukuyama

"In the book and film 2001, what does TMA stand for?" tycho magnetic
anomaly

"How many years was Calvin and Hobbes a syndicated cartoon?" 10

"The home-videos named after this man captured the JFK assassination
(first and last name)?" abraham zapruder

"What NASA probe circled the moon and visited the asteroid Gaspra before
being "lost and gone forever"?" clementine

"What is the name for the ducks which live close to sea water?" eider
ducks

"What was the name of the group formed by Ginger Grecht, Steve Winwood
and Eric Clapton?" blind faith

"What are otter droppings called?" spraints

"What is the process by which icebergs break off from glaciers called?"
calving

"Name the Univ. of Oklahoma Hiesman trophy winners?" billy vessels,
steve owens, and billy simms

"Who is the last basketball player to lead the NCAA in scoring and
rebounding?" kurt thomas

"Everyone knows that Nolan Ryan holds the Major League record for most
strikeouts, but who is second(first and last names)?" steve carlton

"In the TV show X-Files, what is agent Fox Mulder's middle name?"
william

"Who was Chuck Yeager's assistant on his first Mach 1 X-1 flight?" jack
ridley

"How many NCAA men's basketball championships has the University of
Kentucky won?" 5

"Where is Kloster beer brewed (country name only)?" thailand

"What Canadian company manufactured the monorail trains at Disney World
as well as the rail cars for the English Channel tunnel (hint they also
manufacture Lear Jet aircraft)?" bombardier

"On which interstate highway (just give the number) can you pass through
four states in 60 miles?" 81

"How do you get down off an elephant?" you don't, you get down off a
goose

"On what island was WWII journalist Ernie Pyle killed?" ieshima

"What was the name of the first U.S. space vehicle to land (crash) on
the moon (name only)?" ranger

"What was the name of "Our Miss Brooks'" landlady's cat?" minerva

"From what Austrian folk dance is the waltz thought to have evolved from
(1 word)?" landler

"Who was the last man to walk on the moon?" eugene cernan

"Goddard ("Father of Rockets") to the Americans as to ? to the Germans
(Last name only)?" von braun

"Ok.  You've read "The Hobbit" by J.R.R.  Tolkien.  What does J.R.R.
stand for?" john ronald reuel

"What college did Larry Bird originally attend?" indiana university

"Who wrote the Monkee hit "Daydream Believer" and the UB40 hit "Red, Red
Wine"?" neil diamond

"What city is U.S.  Boy Scout Troop 13 based in (city only)?" st joseph

"Lorraine Gary appeared in this movie and two of its sequels?" jaws

"Who is Declan Patrick McManus?" elvis costello

"What is a group of Ravens called?" unkindness

"What is Smokey the Bear's zip code?" 20252

"What company grossed the second largest sum of money world-wide (3
words)?" shell royal dutch

"During the early part of the War of 1812 who was the commander of the
Canadian forces (3 words)?" sir isaac brock

"What fine, old hotel in Tonapah NV was once a house of ill-repute?"
mizpah hotel

"Unlike a Zebra or Leopard, this animal comes in BOTH spotted and
striped varieties?" skunk

"What weapon slew the adult dragon in the movie "Dragonslayer"?"
exploding wizard

"In what novel does Parlaban, a bi-sexual monk, disrupt a college campus
in pursuit of a newly surfaced Rabelais manuscript that ends when he
murders his lover and commits suicide in an attempt to make the book
he's writing more likely to be published?" rebel angels

"Who is known as 'The Father of Frozen Foods'?" clarence birdseye

"What play has had the longest run on Broadway?" chorus line

"What book repeatedly asks the rhetorical question "Who is John Galt?"?"
atlas shrugged

"Who played the title role in the film "The Flim Flam Man"?" george c
scott

"Le Chahut is by which of the Master Painters?" seurat

"What major league baseball team traditionally plays in the season's
first game?" cincinnati reds

"Who led the first successful ascent of Pikes Peak?" stephen long

"Where would you be if you were in Santa Cruz airport (no punctuation
requried)?" bombay india

"In the film "The Wizard of Oz", what actor was first considered for the
role of the tin man, but turned out to be allergic to the silver
makeup?" buddy ebsen

"Who said "When dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity
ceases"?" robert anton wilson

"Who played the Wizard in the "Wizard Of Oz"?" frank morgan

"What is the professional name of Herbert Khaury?" tiny tim

"Who played Mary Campbell in the 1979-1981 hit T.V. show "Soap"?"
cathryn damon

"Who was the french female sculptor who inspired many of Rodin's works?"
camille claudel

"What was the name of the Hispanic hired hand on "The Real McCoys"?"
pepino

"We all know the Battle of New Orleans was fought after the war ended.
(You knew that didn't you?)  Which infamous pirate fought for the
Americans in that Battle?" jean lafitte

"What author, while high on peyote, accidentally shot his wife in the
head (and killed her) during a game of William Tell (that his wife had
suggested)?" william burroughs

"Who was the composer of The Star Spangled Banner?" john stafford smith

"Who is the last player to win the triple crown in baseball?" carl
yastrzemski

"Albert De Salvo murdered 13 women between 1962 and 1964.  What was he
better known as?" the boston strangler

"What was the home town of Colonel Potter on MASH?" hannibal mo

"The pigeon hawk is also known by which fictional character's name?"
merlin

"Which city is known for its 'Toy Train'?" darjeeling

"What was the name of the bar in The Dukes of Hazzard (use no
punctuation)?" boars nest

"In the "Star Trek:  TNG" episode entitled "Silicon Avatar", by what
designation is the Avatar better known?" crystalline entity

"Who was "Lassie", (the transvestite collie) trained by?" rudd
weatherwax

"What was the name of Paul McCartney's first solo album?" mccartney

"What was the 1835-1837 dispute between the state of Ohio and the
territory of Michigan called?" toledo war

"Whose picture is on the $5,000 U.S.  Savings bond?" paul revere

"Who was the author of "The Hobbit"?" jrr tolkien

"What was Cooter's last name on "The Dukes of Hazard"?" davenport

"Edith Pargeter (aka Ellis Peters) died Oct. 14, 1995 (may she rest in
peace).  Where was her home?" shropshire england

"In "The Jungle Book", what type of animal was Rikki-Tikki-Tavi?"
mongoose

"What is the highest number any member of the Dream Team will wear
during the Olympics?" 15

"What is the largest city in Siberia?" novosibirsk

"Unimaginative scientists in the Northern Hemisphere have claimed
manatees and seals sparked legends of mermaids.  Which Australian animal
is thought to have contributed to the legends?" dugong

"Who is the only player to have been in every National League
Championship Series in the 1990's?" rafael belliard

"What was the most profitable bank in the United States in 1995?" fifth
third bancorp

"You're in Detroit, Michigan, USA.  If you travel due south, what
foreign country will you hit first?" canada

"What fictional character did Kurt Vonnegut model after himself?"
kilgore trout

"Who was the creator of the famous dada 'sculpture', 'the bicycle
wheel'?" marcel duchamp

"What city was until 1945 sometimes called "Florence-on-Elbe"?" dresden

"Who was the Finch's maid in the book "To Kill a Mockingbird"?"
calpurnia

"The song "Stairway to Heaven" went to #9 on the Billboard chart in
September of 1960.  Who took it there?" neil sedaka

"Which king instigated the murder of Thomas a Becket?" henry ii

"In "Slaughterhouse-Five", to what planet does Vonnegut's hero travel?"
tralfamadore

"Name the essential oil that starts with pepper." peppermint oil

"In what year did the Europeans first reach the Oklahoma region?" 1541

"What theme did the car in "Dukes of Hazzard" play when it jumped over
something?"  "dixie"

"Who was Luke Skywalker's father?" anakin skywalker

"What are the names of the two critics on "The Muppets"?" statler and
waldorf

"How many Oscars has composer John Williams won?" five

"What year did "The Little Shop of Horrors" first come out?" 1960

"Name the Peter Cook/Dudley Moore film in which Raquel Welch was
typecast (brilliantly) as "Lust"." bedazzled

"What did Alfred Hitchcock use to simulate blood going down the drain in
the famous shower scene in "Psycho"?" chocolate syrup

"Which painter originated the poster, as we know it today?" henri de
toulouse-lautrec

"What was Maria Isabella Caesares's occupation?" a school teacher

"What was Pink Floyds only single?" oranges and lemons

"Where on urth is Bliss?" south-central idaho us

"Who played Auntie Em in the wizard of oz?" clara blandick

"Who is the author of the book "Dragon Song"?" anne mccaffery

"Florida is believed to be named by a Spanish explorer after which
flower?" pascua

"What They Might Be Giants song is about a nightlight?" birdhouse in
your soul

"What is the electrician's name in the new movie "Down Periscope"?"
nitro

"What is the state beverage of North Carolina?" milk

"In the Jetsons, what did Astro's original owners name him?" tralfaz

"What did Rolf Ryham invent?" rolf maneuver

"Who was the 5th governor of Colorado?" alva adams

"Who was the first woman (at least, in Europe) to dress in all white on
her wedding?" mary stuart

"Which Czechoslovakian region was annexed by the Soviet Union in the
1940's and is now part of the Ukraine?" ruthenia

"What is the capital of Macao (or Macau if you're Portuguese)?" macao

"Pittsburgh Steelers 1, Cleveland Browns none......What?" logos

"Who was the third man?" orson wells

"In 1900, Norwegian Johan Vaaler patented a common item most of us have
used.  What was it that was so great that a 22.5 foot model of one was
erected in Oslo?" paper clip

"What city is the home of Coors?" boulder colorado

"The 1956 Olympics were held in which city?" melbourne

"In which film did oscar-winner Richard Dreyfuss make his acting debut?"
the graduate


"We all know Al Pacino played Serpico in the movie (good cop, bad
system)...who played Serpico in the sort-lived TV series?" david birney

"Who was the father of monetarism ?" milton friedman

"What looks like a skunk.. smells like a skunk.. and plays dead like an
opossum?" zorilla

"In what movie did Kathy Bates play in as a "murderer"?" misery

"What are the end points of the Trans-Siberian Railroad?" moscow and
vladivostok

"Ronald Reagan was once an actor and then became a president.  Who made
his name as a world-class pianist and then became a prime minister of
his native country (Answer format:  firstname lastname country)?" ignace
paderewski poland

"This composer's daughter Cosima married Richard Wagner (2 words)."
franz liszt

"What split-personality patient of the 50's was so famous a book and a
movie were made about her?" eve

"Who's the protagonist in Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment'?"
raskolnikov

"What was Genghis Khan's original name?" temujin

"What is Sting's real name?" gordon matthew sumner

"What is the name of the particle that holds quarks together?" gluon

"Who wrote the science fiction series about the Chtorr?" david gerrold

"What is the final move in the Immortal Game of Chess (format a1a2)?"
d6e7

"She is the famous wife of Dr.  Jarvik, artificial heart inventor (3
wds)." marilyn vos savant

"Who's the CEO of Death Row Records?" suge knight

"In the anime movie Ninja Scroll (or "Wind Ninja Chronicles") what is
the main character's name?" jubei

"The prime example of this art are the Chrysler Building and the
interior of the Radio City Music Hall in New York City (2 words)." art
deco

"Who wrote the Faded Sun series?" cj cherryh

"Who was nero wolfe's sidekick?" archie goodwin

"What games were held by ancient Greeks every four years in honor of
Apollo?" pythian games

"According to the legend, who was the leader of the Nibelungs?" alberich

"Who wrote 'A Trouble of Fools'?" linda barnes

"Alphabetically first and last of the newly-formed states of the former
Soviet Union." armenia and uzbekistan

"James Gordon Bennett, founder of this newspaper sent Stanley to look
for Livingston." new york herald

"Who was the first female member of the U.S. cabinet?" frances perkins

"Count Leo Tolstoy's famous novel is always titled "War and Peace" in
English what is completely wrong because all(?) translators do not know
Old Russian orthography.  What the correct translation would be?" war
and world

"What is the "other word" in the title "Ohio State University"?"  "the"

"What fortress, built by Herod the Great, on the western edge of the
Dead Sea is known as the site of the Jews "last stand"?" masada

"What type of well is it if the water rises under pressure?" artesian

"The most famous of the orchestral solos for this instrument are found
in The Pines of Rome, The New World Symphony, and The William Tell
Overture.  Name it." english horn

"Who is the etymology of the word 'Zardoz'?" the wizard of oz

"Richard Burton's translation of"Alladin" finds our hero in what land,
outside the Middle East?" china

"What U.S.  State borders on the most other states?" missouri

"What company made Jesse Owens' shoes for the Berlin Olympics?" adidas

"I went out this morning and bought some salix discolor.  What did I
buy?" pussy willow

"Who painted Adoration of the Magi.  The one in Uffizi not the one in
Catalonia." gentile da fabriano

"Who developed in 1867 the basic rules of modern boxing?" marquess of
queensbury

"Which opera is based on the assassination of King Gustaf III of
Sweden?" un ballo in maschera

"On July 1, 1950, a speech known as "A Declaration of Conscience" was
delivered by Senator Margaret Chase Smith making her the first elected
public official to speak out against this." mccarthyism

"On the old TV series "The Danny Thomas Show" who was the actor that
married Danny's daughter, Terry?" pat harrington

"What movie?  "At least it's a dry heat."" aliens

"Who is the only current House member to have served when Republicans
last had majority ?" sidney yates

"What do you call an ornamental metal holder used to hold coffe cups?"
zarf

"A part of what fruit did an ancient Persian crown imitate?" pomegranate

"What branch of chemistry deals with fermentation as applied in wine
making, brewing etc.?" zymurgy

"This 17th/18th century man's wig was also called a periwig." peruke

"What famous actor turned down the role of Rhett Butler in "Gone With
the Wind", saying he was glad Clark Gable would be falling on his face,
not him?" gary cooper

"Which Charlie Chaplin movie contains perhaps the greatest final scene
in motion picture history?" city lights

"At the end of each "Watch Mr. Wizard" show, we learned that "Mr.
Wizard is"...who?" don herbert

"What company produces Tunnels & Trolls?" flying buffalo

"You find Hell's Gates in Idaho, British Columbia, Africa, and even New
Zealand.  What Caribbean Island has both an Upper Hell's Gate and a
Lower Hell's Gate?" saba

"What TV movie was Steven Spielburg's directorial debut?" duel

"Who was the winner of the 1995 Murphy Cup?" san jose rhinos

"What is the main ingredient in ratatouille?" eggplant

"OK computer buffs...how is the acronym COBOL derived?" common business
oriented language

"Who said, "A government big enough to give you all you want is big
enough to take it all away."?" barry goldwater

"This justification of colonialism is a title poem (1899) by a Nobel
Laureate.  Name the poem (4 words) and the author (2 words)." the white
mans burden rudyard kipling

"Steve Martin is Sgt.  Bilko...Phil Silvers was Sgt.  Bilko on TV's The
Phil Silvers Show...but what was the original name of the TV series?"
youll never get rich

"This man is considered the "Father of the American Cavalry"?" casimir
pulaski

"Name the two architects who built the St.  Basil's Cathedral in Moscow
and were then blinded by Ivan the Terrible." barma and postnik

"What American captain of industry gifted libraries to towns around the
U.S.?" andrew carnegie

"What American foreign policy, announced on 12 March 1947, pledged
American support for any country resisting Communist subjugation (two
words)?" truman doctrine

"What was the federation of France, West Germany, Belgium, Netherlands,
Italy, and Luxembourg in 1952 for the purpose of pooling coal and steel
resources called?" schuman plan

"Who created Dagney Taggert and for whom did Dagney work?" ayn rand
taggert transcontinental

"What flower, according to a Greek legend, bears the letters AI AI, a
Greek cry of sorrow?" hyacinth

"The Iconoscope was the invention that made the "boob tube"
possible...who was responsible?" vladimir zworykin

"When does Kellogg's Raisin Bran's Free Toy Trucks offer expire,
assuming supplies don't get exhausted (mmddyy)?" 043097

"The four foreigners who are honorary citizens of the US are Winston
Churchill, Marquis de Lafayette and these two of Swedish and Polish
nationalities." raoul wallenberg and tadeusz kosciusko

"Who said "Communism is the opiate of the intellectuals."?" clare booth
luce

"What is the geometrically insoluble problem of constructing a square
equal in area to a given circle called?" quadrature of the circle

"Before hacking for the Sunshine Cab Co., Judd Hirsch spent a season as
a big-city detective in L.A.  The series name was the character's
surname...what?" delvecchio

"He founded the first aerodynamics laboratory in 1912." gustave eiffel

"Name the monarch who holds the record of the longest reign in the
world's history." ramses ii

"Name the author (just surname) and his 1971 historical novel (4 words)
about the Rosenbergs (Julius and Ethel) and their children." doctorow
the book of daniel

"In Greek myth, which deity was sometimes considered the offspring of
Penelope after she coupled with all of her suitors?" pan

"The brief period immediately preceeding World War I is fondly
remembered as this in England (3 words) and this in France (3 words)."
the edwardian age and la belle epoque

"This famous Roman consul is believed to be an inventor of pizza (full
name please)." lucius lucinius lucullus

"What movie did Paul Newman win his first oscar for?" the color of money

"Paul Newman has starred in three movies bearing one-word titles
beginning with H...name them (alphabetical order)." harper hombre hud

"Baltimore has one of the world's largest....?" natural harbors

"How many calories are there in a one serving container of Yoplait Light
Yogurt Boston Cream Pie flavor?" 90

"Which Persian Dynasty dynasty ruled from 1500 to 1736?" safavid

"Sticking with the famous Roman Consul...his name is associated with a
menu item other than the pizza alluded to in a previous question.  What
is that item?" lucullus salad

"It is the only country in Africa with Spanish as an official language."
equatorial guinea

"To whom was William Makepeace Thackery married?" isabella shawe

"These two entertainers where awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor
for nonmilitary work.." bob hope and george cohan

"How did Travis come by the Busted Flush?" he won the boat in a poker
game

"Behind Rob's office desk on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" is a framed piece
of sheet music...name the song." the dairymaids

"This word originated from the Oriental game GO, a warning like CHECK in
chess.  It is now known, world wide, by game lovers everywhere...what is
the word?" atari

"Other than vegetable oil, Fritos King Size Corn Chips have only two
ingredients.  What are they?" corn and salt

"What compound, a toxic pollutant by industrial standards, is naturally
so abundant in air in an Amazonian rainforest that you may burn your
lungs in some places?" formic acid

"To conquer this country, the Russian Emperor Paul I sent a big Cossack
army under Gen.  Matvey Platov, but they never actually came there
because they had no maps.  What's this country?" india

"What is Joe Louis last name?" barrows

"What film had a scene where Tommy Lee Jones was dressed in drag?" jfk

"He was the last prisoner in the Tower of London." rudolf hess

"Who was the first African to come to America?  What year? format 3
words plus date giving us a grand total of 4 words." pedro alonzo nino
1492

"What academy award nominated actor and director appeared without credit
in the film "Swing Kids"?" kenneth branagh

"Do you suppose it would help if we begged people to check the spelling
of their answers?" on

"In 1915, a baby girl was born in Philadelphia.  She was named Eleanora
Fagan.  Who did she grow up to be?" billie holiday

"This movie is based on a small chapter of Richard Goodwin's book
"Remembering America:  A Voice from the Sixties"." quiz show

"Who is the all time NFL leader in fumbles per season?" dan pastorini

"What was Val Kilmer's first movie?" top secret

"Paul Newman played a no-account private released from the brig and
promoted to general in this 1968 wartime caper movie." the secret war of
harry frigg

"In what year was the first slinky sold?" 1945

"Who wrote the Father Brown mysteries?  Full name." gilbert keith
chesterton

"Who was the last head of the KGB when it was disbanded after the failed
coup in 1991?" vladimir kryuchkov

"What famous American actor was Queen Elizabeth II's eight cousin?"
humphrey bogart

"Who is the current Detroit Tigers baseball sportscaster?" ernie harwell

"What is the largest possible value of 4*sin 3x?" 4

"This graphic designer started working with woodcuts, then progressed to
lithography?" mc escher

"Where are Altoids made?" great britain

"This is the largest office building in the entire world." the pentagon

"What is the highest point in the West Indies?  What country?" pico
duarte dominican republic

"Who was Tommy Lee Jones roommate at Harvard?" al gore

"In what movie did Hayley Mills portray a young girl on a old fishing
boat?" the truth about spring

"What famed composer died in 1937?" george gershwin

"This was the very first state university in the United States?" chapel
hill

"What are snowballs to hot rodders?" whitewalls

"What were the names of the two Imperial Yachts of the last Russian
Tsar, Nicholas II?" polar star standart

"How many states have only one representative in the House of
Representatives?" 7

"What does the "S" in Harry S. Truman stand for?" nothing

"What is the tallest breed of dog?" great dane

"This man, along with his brother Romulus, founded the city of Rome?"
remus

"This area of the pelvis is a way of determining the sex of the
skeleton?" pubis

"How many feature length cartoon films has Disney made?" 34

"If a person's bone resorption spaces are wide, he more than likely died
of this?" abuse of alcohol

"Omar Khayyam was a mathematician, astronomer and a great poet...what
does his name mean?" omar the tentmaker

"For the sake of speed, radiotelegraphists sometimes transmit letters
instead of numbers.  What letters are used to substitute 0, 1, 2, 8 and
9, respectively?" t a u d n

"Name the famous millionaire that went down with the Titanic?" astor

"Who hit the first home run in the Astrodome?" mickey mantle

"These three good friends, who were also famous poets, all died within
the years 1820-1825, just their last names will do?" keats byron shelley

"Who is the only person that has been inducted into both the rock 'n'
roll and country music hall of fames?" johnny cash

"Who directed "Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas"?" henry selick

"In the San Francisco Giants 1996 Home Opener, three men named 'Willie'
participated in the first pitch ceremony.  What were the last names of
each of these men?" mays mccovey brown

"Against this team did Willie Mays make his famous catch against?"
cleveland indians

"This man raised the funds for and personally supervised the laying of
the first telegraph cable under the Atlantic Ocean *FULL NAME PLEASE?"
cyrus west field

"This is the term coined by Milton as a capital for hell or a polite
substitute for hell." pandemonium

"What man founded the Saturday Review?" henry canby

"What famous American poet wrote the poem "To a Young Wretch"?" robert
frost

"The square root of 48?" 692

"On Friday, January 20, CBS premiered a celebrity quiz show with a
famous television host.  The next week, the host spent the full half
hour apologizing for the show, which never re-appeared.  Name that
host?!?" jackie gleason

"This man was the only person to be on the gold medal winning U.S.
Volleyball team in both 1984 and 1988?" karch kiraly

"Who was the first American to win the Nobel in Literature?" sinclair
lewis

"What was the name of the shuttle that made the first shuttle flight
back in 1981?" columbia

"How many of the james bond movies did sean connery do?" 7

"The year that Ohio University began classes?" 1804

"What instrument did Pee Wee Russell play?" clarinet

"They are originally made from the Russian guns captured in the Crimean
War." victoria cross medals

"This is the only dog that cannot bark, but it gives a yodelling sound."
basenji

"What is the Roman name for the Greek goddess Persephone?" proserpine

"Everybody knows that Joe DiMaggio holds the major league record for
longest hitting strea at 56 games, but who holds the collegiate record?"
robin ventura

"Who was the host of the quiz show Knockout?" arte johnson

"Merv Griffin hosted a quiz show called Play Your Hunch.  Who was the
sponsor?" sealtest dairy

"HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL read the card of a man, a knight without armor in
a savage land...where would you wire Paladin?" san francisco

"Person who journeyed to California in 1849." james marshall

"What would fall faster a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?" they will
fall at the same time

"Once upon a time there was a great movie studio known as RKO...what did
RKO stand for?" radio keith orpheum

"He is the most famous victim in the IRA's 10-year guerilla operation to
drive Britain out of Northern Ireland." earl mountbatten

"What country was Mel Gibson born in?" usa

"A dog, a beaver, a bear, an eagle...  Next?" tiger

"Who owns the Red Lobster Inns?" general mills

"Every day most of us consume some trimethylxanthine.  This compound is
better known as..." caffeine

"It has four strings, 32 frets and has Chinese origins.  It is?" pipa

"Whose name did Immanuel Kant repeat many times to fall asleep quickly?"
cicero

"The British suffered severe losses during what famous action during the
Battle of Balaklava?" charge of the light brigade

"Who was baseball's first million dollar a year player?" nolan ryan

"This is the private residence of the English monarch in Scotland."
balmoral castle

"The English lyrical poet Robert Herrick is best known for this line."
gather ye rosebuds while ye may

"How long is "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie (min:  sec)?" 18:  30

"If the speed of wind is 39 to 46 mph, how is it called in the Beaufort
scale?" fresh gale


"Who was the philosopher and medium who advised Nicholas and Alexandra,
last czarist rulers of Russia?" rasputin

"What Scottish relic was placed under the coronation chair at
Westminster Abbey by Edward I?" stone of scone

"This is the world record in the 100m dash?" 980

"What city boasts the largest wooden ski jump in the world (city +
state)?" iron mountain michigan

"In the old Grape Ape cartoon, what was the name of Grape Ape's dog
frind?" beagley

"Although Lucille Ball was her real name, Lucy used another while
working as a hat model.  What was it?" diane belmont

"In photography, this is a measure of the relative aperture of a lens
set to take correct account of the lens transmittance." t number

"This Russian duo was given the title of the best Holmes/Watson pair in
the world cinema." vasily livanov and vladimir solomin

"In the old cartoon Grape Ape, what was the name of Grape Ape's dog
friend?" beagley

"In 1978, David Letterman appeared in the short-lived sketch comedy show
of what famous funny lady?" mary tyler moore

"What 20th century artist's primary form of expression was the mobile?"
alexander calder

"When he died, Romans renamed September after him, but soon turned back
to September.  Who is he?" tiberius

"What was Norm Peterson's bar tab after 11 seasons at cheers?"  $64215

"Lou Gehrig played 2130 games in a row.  Who replaced him at 1st base?"
babe dalhgren

"To describe a trend, this word was adopted by Theodore Roosevelt from
"Pilgrim's Progres which portrayed a man sweeping up filth around him
while remaining unaware of the celestial glory above his head."
muckraker

"The hero of many cliffhangers wore a rocket pack, a controller belt,
and a helmet." commando cody

"What famous 60s singer is the father of the female lead in the film
"Say Anything"?" donovan

"At what college did the core members of the Talking Heads attend and
meet?" rhode island school of design

"Who was the lead singer of the Sex Pistols?" johnny rotten

"Who was Karl Marx's co-author and co-founder of socialist thought?"
frederick engels

"The following have one TV show in common:  Pamela Rodgers, Barbara
Sharma, Patty Deutsch and Mitzi McCall...what is the show?" laugh-in

"This famous British public executioner died in 1686." jack ketch

"Sergeant Preston of the Yukon was an early syndicated TV show...the
sarg had a horse and his name was and a lead sled dog whose name was ?"
rex yukon king

"Who was called Bluff King Hal?" henry viii

"What was Jean Val Gean's prison number (Les Miserables)(numeric form)?"
24601

"Supply the two missing first names...Terry,John,Michael,Terry, and ."
eric graham

"Where is Kenyon College (Town, State)?" gambier ohio

"Sesame Street characters Bert & Ernie are named for characters from
what classic film?" its a wonderful life

"What was our only bachelor president--for his whole term, not just
part?" james buchanan

"Who is the inventor of television?" philo t farnsworth

"What is Friday April 26th this year?" arbor day

"What famous performer just left Death Row Records?" dr dre

"What did Arthur Godfrey fire from his TV show in October of 1953?"
julius larosa

"Who are two actors that have played District Attorney Harvey Dent?"
billy dee williams and tommy lee jones

"These false siblings first recorded as The Paramours in 1962." the
righteous brothers

"Which county were the All-Ireland Hurling Champions in 1968?" wexford

"In what city and country was Giorgio Armani born in?" piacenza italy

"Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley were among the literati that met at
this New York hotel in the 20s and 30s." the algonquin

"Who is keroppi's girlfriend?" keroleen

"Which 20th C. artist won a coloring contest at an early age?" grant
woods

"This 1911 invention was first produced in the Cadillac." electric self
starter

"What well-known '60s and '70s rocker was one of John Lennon's favorite
drinking buddies during the period of his estrangement from Yoko Ono?"
harry nilsson

"In addition to David Letterman, another very famous performer appeared
on the same show with the very famous lady inquired of in another recent
question...who was the other performer?" michael keaton

"What were the four movies that Kevin Spacey appeared in, in 1995
(alphabetical order)?" outbreak seven swimming with sharks the usual
suspects

"What was the name of Caligula's horse, who was named a Roman tribune ?"
incitatus

"Who could always be found with Lippy the Lion?" hardy har har

"Who had the highest PBA average for 1979?" mark roth

"He coined the phrase "nattering nabobs of negativism"." william safire

"Who photographed the last portrait of John Lennon, nude on a bed with a
fully-dressed Yoko?" annie leibovitz

"Exactly how long did Calvin Coolidges term last in seconds (numerical
form)?" 176083200

"The Pens and the Caps just played the third longest game in NHL
history.  What two teams played the longest and in what year?" detroit
red wings montreal maroons 1936

"Which piano sonata did Beethoven name as a kind of joke?" hammerklavier

"What is the name of the Tractate in the Babylonian Talmud that deal
with divorce?" gittin

"Which Jackie Chan film has Jackie playing a character of the same name,
though spelled "Yackie Chan" in the credits?" snake fist fighter

"CBS tried to compete with "The Today Show" back in the mid 1950s with
something called "The Morning Show".  Who were the threee hosts?" walter
cronkite jack paar will rogers jr

"By what name do we better know the fictional character John Reid?" the
lone ranger

"Before he became the king of flakes, Will Keith Kellogg started his
business career in his father's factory, which manufactured...?" brooms

"Seems that everybody here knows everything about baseball...  What team
won six straight championships of the Russian High Baseball League in
1990-1995?" moscow red devils

"What famous 20th century author has a butterfly (which he discovered
and described in a 1941 scientific paper) named after him and on display
at the American Museum of Natural History?" vladimir nabokov

"In 1919 at the age of 29, this person retired from the stage, owing to
a nervous breakdown which was diagnosed as schizophrenia." vaslav
nijinsky

"What Canadian Prime Minister had the shortest term in office?" joe
clark

"What was the title of the first Genesis album?" from genesis to
revelation

"What was the proffesseurs robots name in the cartoon felix the cat?"
master cylinder

"What corp. has the largest fleet of trucks in the world?" coca cola

"Its nickname is "where America's day begin"." guam

"Which two movies do Earl and Murdock watch in A Family Thing?" rocky
iii and red dawn

"Who describes the brain as an apparatus with which we think we think?"
ambrose bierce

"In the best selling fantasy series "Xanth" by Piers Anthony, what is
the name of the magician with the talent of transformation?" trent

"My name was Larushka Skikne, but what am I better known as?" laurence
harvey

"According to The Beatles, what do you do "When you find yourself in the
thick of it"?" help yourself to a bit of what is all around you

"It is believed that an eagle flying overhead dropped a tortoise on his
skull and killed him." aeschylus

"Before becoming the rock superstar we all know and love, Mickey Dolenz
of the Monkees had the lead in this television show." circus boy

"Who narrated Mel Brooks' "History of the World - Part I"?" orson welles

"What is the largest casino in the U.S. and what is the name of the
Native American tribe which runs it?" foxwoods pequot

"Who are the two artists of Silver Surfer referred to by Denzel
Washington in the submarine movie, "Crimson Tide"?" kirby and moebius

"Who originally played Danny Thomas' wife on Make Room For Daddy?" jean
hagan

"This tree, a curiosity in areas of warm climate like Florida, is so
extraordinarily shaped that an Arabian legend has it that "the devil
plucked up the tree, thrust its branches into the earth, and left its
roots in the air"." baobab

"Who is the original author of the Strategic Conquest game?" peter
merrill

"What was the name of the sixties sitcom in which two astronauts go back
in time and meet cave couple Shad and Gronk?" its about time

"In what US city is the Trivia Hall of Fame?" lincoln ne

"Aside from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who are the musicians who
played on Deja Vu(Full names...alphabetically by last names)?" jerry
garcia greg reeves john sebastian dallas taylor

"It's the furry, tasseled purse carried on a Scotsman's Belt.  Name it."
sporran

"How many shots were fired by Lucas McCain in the opening of "The
Rifleman"?" eleven

"What Nigerian writer was executed last year by the Nigerian government
despite the protests of Amnesty International?" ken saro-wiwa

"Who are the two mice that want to rule the world?" pinky and the brain

"What 1985 movie opens with shots of clocks reading six minutes to eight
(4 words) ?" back to the future

"This fictional character was teased by his playmates for being
different, and he grew up ashamed of his feelings and his human
ancestry.  Name also his father and mother." mr spock sarek amanda

"What was the name of the cat owned by the Brady Bunch Girls?" fluffy

"It is known as "Insurance City"." hartford connecticut

"In what made-for-tv movie did the protagonists made use of the
experimental finding that a black child given a choice between a black
doll and a white doll chose the white doll?  Name also the lead actor
and the true-to-life role portrayed." separate but equal sidney poitier
thurgood marshall

"Tago-Sato-Kosaka, Bennett, ?  , West and what is the common bond?"
kohoutek comets

"Who is Space Ghost's band leader on Space Ghost:  Coast to Coast?"
zorak

"Whose first solo album, released in 1971, was entitled

"If I Could Only Remember My Name"?" david crosby

"Who discovered Wild Man Fischer?" frank zappa

"What is it, according to the writer, "that knits the ravelled sleeve of
care"?" sleep

"By what name do we better know Richard Wayne Penniman?" little richard

"Identify the 1992 movie in which one of the cast got into JEOPARDY and
got a category of "Foods That Begin with the Letter Q" and the 1993
movie in w/c the lead star knew the answers to an actual JEOPARDY show."
white men cant jump groundhog day

"In Star Wars, who was Princess Leah's adopted father?" bail organa

"Taiwan's Original Name was?" formosa

"She held the title of "Miss Army Recruiting" of 1965." jane fonda

"In "The Beatles" cartoon series, who did the voices for the "Fab
Four"?" george harrison john lennon paul mccartney ringo starr

"Name the musical group in which Neil Young and Rick James played
together?" the mynah birds

"Which movie (featured on MST3K) contained the line, "Today is dedicated
to Uranus"?" hercules and the captive women

"When the Ricardos and Mertzes were taking "I Love Lucy" to Hollywood
they decided to drive...Fred bought the first car,an ancient but the
others were less than pleased and Ricky replaced it with a 19 what?"
cadillac 55 pontiac

"Who are the three people who have played The Riddler?" john astin frank
gorshin jim carrey

"What movie won Best Picture at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival?" pulp
fiction

"Who supplied the whipcrack in "Minimum Wage" by They Might Be Giants?"
roger moutenot

"Who is Nancy Drew's housekeeper?" hannah gruen

"How many states are there in Mexico?" 31

"Who won and lost the heavyweight boxing crown during 1990?" james
douglas

"What Academy Awards did Star Wars win in 1977 (a total of 6 awards, not
including Special Achievement)?" best art direction best costume design
best film editing bes

"If you caught a quahog at the seashore, what kind of animal would you
have?" clam

"Who was the composer of "The Firebird"?" igor stravinsky

"In what Christopher Pike book is a girl pushed off a balcony?" remember
me

"What was the name of the town in which Muriel grew up in, in the
Australian film 'Muriel's Wedding'?" porpoise spit

"In "Ace Ventura:  Pet Detective," who was kidnapped?" snowflake dan
marino

"In the movie A Clockwork Orange, what is the futuristic language spoken
by the main character?" nadsat

"What is the name of the machine used to scrape and recondition an ice
rink?" zamboni machine

"How many tricks must you take to score a Grand Slam in Bridge?
numerical form i. e. 1 or two whatever?" 13

"What is often hailed as "The worst film ever made"?" plan 9 from outer
space

"What was "Weird Al" Yankovic's first parody?" my bologna

"This 17th century artist did a series of allegorical paintings of Queen
Marie de Medici?" peter rubens

"What Canadian Prime Minister used to talk to his dead dog?" william
lyon mackenzie king

"Name the two people who acted as the Tate's Butler on "Soap".  First
name Benson, then name Saunders." robert guillaume roscoe lee brown

"Who wrote the music and lyrics to the Rocky Horror Picture Show?"
richard obrien

"What are the 2 official languages of Lesotho?" english and sotho

"William Windom starred in a sitcom loosely based on the works of James
Thurber...name the show." my world and welcome to it

"By what name might we better know Paul Hewson?" bono

"Who is Lisa Simpson's favorite Jazz musician?" bleeding gums murphy

"What's the name of the educational institution set up by Socrates?" the
academy

"In the movie, Pulp Fiction, what brand of cigarettes does Bruce Willis
smoke?" red apples

"What was the name of the group that started out as a trio, became a
quartet, and eventually turned into 10cc?" hotlegs

"Hollywood hunk plays reform prison warden who is not afraid to dig up
some skeletons in the southern penal system (FILM/LEAD
FIRSTNAME/LASTNAME)." brubaker robert redford

"What was the first synthetic plastic?" celluloid

"What husband and wife were both nominated for Academy Awards in 1953?"
ava gardner frank sinatra

"Who was Harold T. Stone's favorite singer?" mel torme

"What is Betty's last name in The Archies?  Reggie's?  Answer in order."
cooper mantle

"Who played Murray Slaughter's daughter on the Mary Tyler Moore Show?"
helen hunt

"In Star Wars, what is the emperor's last name?" palpatine

"On Tommy Boy where did Tommy take his supposted brother to have fun?"
cow pastor

"Who was the architect responsible for the Roman Catholic Chapel at West
Point?" christopher grant lafarge

"Who is the jazz violinist that played with Django Reinhardt?" stephane
grappelli

"What was Alanis Morissette's hit song that began mentioning the
lottery?" ironic

"What is Mr. Fantastic's real name?" reed richards

"Speaking of Canadian Prime Ministers--which one was an Olympic Hockey
player?" lester bowles pearson

"What is the only produced screenplay by Harlan Ellison?" the oscar

"Who is credited with these famous last words:  "Either this wallpaper
goes or I do"?" oscar wilde

"Which saints voices did Joan of Arc claim to hear?" st catherine st
margaret st michael


"What was Roy Orbison's first recording for Sun Records?" ooby dooby

"What was album of the year in 1965?  Who wrote it?" september of my
years frank sinatra

"Who was Gerald Ford's running mate in 1976?" bob dole

"Contrary to Mark's opinion, what is actually the worst film ever made,
an all-midget western musical?" the terror of tiny town

"According to the tv commercial how many pepsi points do you need for a
Harrier? numeric form?" 700000000

"Carrie Fisher has worked on two screenplays.  One was based on a novel
she wrote, the other she was uncredited with.  Name them." postcards
from the edge sister act

"George Washington's successful 1776 attack on Trenton boosted morale
because its target was what?" hessian mercenaries

"What was the last line of the last episode of MASH?" good-bye margaret

"4 animal secretions are used as fixatives for perfume--from a beaver, a
cat, a deer, a sperm whale.  What are they?" castor civit musk ambergris

"He wrote the theme song to Absolutely Fabulous." bob dylan

"Who are the two people who played the voice of Copper in The Fox and
the Hound?" corey feldman kurt russell

"This film from Australia in the early 80s was set largely in the Sydny
Opera House.  What film?" one night stand

"One hit wonders (Billboard) from Bilbao, Spain, this group had a tune
called Touch the Wind in English...name the song (2 words) and the group
(you figger it out)." eres tu mocedades

"What is the name of the muppet band in "The Muppet Movie"?" electric
mayhem

"Who provided the voice of Hong Kong Phooey in the cartoon "Hong Kong
Phooey"?" scatman crothers

"Who played Alice on "The Brady Bunch" (TV)?" ann b davis

"Who was the most famous Confederate General in thr Civil War?" robert e
lee

"Who was the Indian Princess' name on Howdy Doody?" princess
summer-fall-winter-spring

"Whose first album was called "Freak Out"?" frank zappa & the mothers

"Who wrote the book, "Flowers in the Attic" ?" vc andrews

"He invented the swivel chair." thomas jefferson

"Who was the very first person to play Batman?" lewis wilson

"The plant sometimes called "Mother-in-law's tongue" is more commonly
called..." snake plant

"What was the first movie to sweep the Academy Awards (Best Picture,
Actor, Actress, Director) and what year?" it happened one night 1934

"In what year was the United States Merchant Marine Academy founded?"
1943

"Fifty years ago this year, the first CARE package arrived in
Europe...what does the acronym CARE stand for?" cooperative for american
remittances to europe

"What famous wrestler joined the forces of G.I.  Joe?" sgt slaughter

"Who is the only actress to receive an Emmy, an Oscar, a Tony, and a
Grammy?" rita moreno

"During their heyday "The Beach Boys" released one single under Brian
Wilson's name rather than as the group...what was it ? was it?" caroline
no

"What are the two official game shows of the 1996 Summer Olympics?"
jeopardy and wheel of fortune

"What was the first film directed by Gus Van Sant Jr.?" mala noche

"According to "The Princess Bride," where is the origin of Iocane
Powder?" australia

"What WAS THE 1st N.F.L.TEAM THAT THE DALLAS COWBOYS DID NOT "lose"to?"
new york giants

"What state capital's name derives from that of a river in Afganistan?"
indianapolis

"According to Mattel, her manufacturer, Barbie's last name is?" roberts

"What famous author was the production accountant for "Return of the
Jedi"?" margaret mitchell

"What poisonous snake lives on Okinawa?" habu

"In which place did Sinbad the Sailor encounter a legendary giant bird?"
island of the roc

"What female Pope allegedly died in childbirth?" joan

"In what year was the first honorary degree granted by Harvard
University and to whom was it given to?" 1753 ben franklin

"A comedy album won the grammy for 1960.  Name it and the performer."
button down mind bob newhart

"What are the names of the original five Power Rangers (Red, Blue,
Black, Pink, Yellow)?" jason billy zack kimberly trini

"What color is Yak's Milk?" pink

"In "The Lathe of Heaven" (by Ursula LeGuin), who was the man who
claimed his dreams changed reality?" george orr

"What was the first year Don Jollio appeared in Walt Disney comics?"
1934

"What was the first film George Lucas directed?" thx-1138

"In the Muppets, what kind of creature is Gonzo?" weirdo

"If a cat is coloured in this way, we call it Siamese.  How do we call a
rabbit coloured in the same way?" himalayan

"From what is the potent stimulant and poison strychnine derived from?"
seeds of a tree

"What is the dry weight of a photon torpedo in kilograms..(star trek)?"
2475

"Who is the "worlds largest recycler of aluminum cans"?" anheuser busch

"Who is the author of The Cyberiad?" stanislaw lem

"What was Tom Hanks first movie and in what year?" he knows youre alone
1980

"What year did the first captive breeding of the Noble Macaw occur?"
1949

"Who manufactured the Air Force plane, F-105 Thunderchief?" republic
aviation

"Who was the 1st U.S. president to hold a doctorate?" woodrow wilson

"Who was the best supporting actress oscar for 1948 and in what film?"
claire trevor key largo

"In what year were M&M's introduced?" 1941

"Who founded the United Negro College Fund?" frederick douglass

"In the drink Yoo Hoo, it has an ingredient called "carrageenan gum".
What is this ingredient derived from?" seaweed

"In 1530, Girolamo Fracastoro wrote a poem titled "*** sive Morbus
Gallicus".  What is the missed first word, which is also the name of the
hero?" syphilidis

"Designers of what perfume received an Ig Nobel prize in Chemistry in
1995?" dna

"Those training for this sport are traditionally bricklayers during
their apprenticeship?" bullfighting

"In the Star Wars trilogy, who captured Han Solo and delivered him to
Jabba the Hutt and who portrayed this character?" boba fett jeremy
bulloch

"What is currently the longest running prime-time sitcom (it just
finished its tenth season)?" married with children

"Who invented vaseline?" robert chesebrough

"Superman and Magnum, P.I. both got their starts in "the soaps".  What
two soap operas started the TV careers of Christopher Reeve and Tom
Sellick?" love of life the young and the restless

"Caryn Johnson is better known as who?" whoopi goldberg

"What kind of chess features Grasshoppers, Nightriders, Wazirs and
Balloons?" fairy chess

"OK, spelling fans...here is a little exercise...name the town in
Pennsylvania where Phil the groundhog lives." punxsutawney

"The literary work told thru Quentin Compson's conversations with his
roommate is?" absalom absalom

"From where do we get the cancer drug taxol?" pacific yew

"Norbert Viener said that this man should be a saint patron of
cybernetics.  Name him." gottfried wilhelm von leibniz

"What do Russian cosmonauts use to prevent gum bleeding during long
space flights?" cognac

"Where is the home of the world's largest trivia contest?  Hint:  It's a
three day radio broadcast." stevens point wisconsin

"In Empire Strikes Back, what planet is the rebel base on, and what is
the creature that the rebels ride during patrols?" hoth tauntaun

"Who are the three actresses who played Catwoman during the 1960's tv
series and movie?" eartha kitt lee meriwether julie newmar

"Most of us are familiar with the architect I.M.  Pei(the Louvre Pyramid
among others)...what do the I and M stand for?" ieoh ming

"In Empire Strike's Back, what was the name of Boba Fett's ship?" slave
i

"Who holds the patent on the air brake?" granville t woods

"Who led the Berlin airlift 1948-49?" lucius d clay

"What literary character was the victim of intense jealousy over his
good looks?" billy budd

"A top of what mountain is the most distant point from the center of
Earth?" chimborazo

"During the War of 1812, he and his Shawnee tribe fought with the
British against the United States?" tecumseh

"What famous scientist, when visiting USA, said that American labs are
so clean that if he worked in one he'd never get his Nobel Prize?"
alexander fleming

"In 1913 the chess champion Jose Raoul Capablanca obtained a post in the
Cuban Foreign Office with the title of Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary General from the Government of Cuba to the...  To
where?" world at large

"In legal documents, what does "SS" stand for?" scilicet

"Who was the last Grand Duke of Moscow?" michel ney

"Which Belgian singer of the early 80s was dropped by his record label
after his first album, because he wanted to actually sing on the next
album?" plastic bertrand

"What animal, other than humans, can contract leprosy?" armadillo

"Who was the first king of Belgium?" leopold the 1st

"In the Mystery Science Theater:  3000 television show, what are the
four robots' names?" cambot crow gypsy tom servo

"Guernica, the subject of Picasso's painting, was a sacred city to these
people?" basques

"In the movie series "Star Wars", what 3 people contributed to the
character of Darth Vader?  (alphabetical by last name)." james earl
jones david prowse sebastian shaw

"According to Alfred William Lawson, the negative forces in our brains
that the menorgs have to fight against are called this." disorgs

"Ricky Nelson, son of Ozzie and Harriet, had a middle name that was the
maiden name of his mother...what was it?" hilliard

"Who was known as The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo (he did it
in 1891)?" charles de ville wells

"A flute breaks down into three parts...what are they?" body footjoint
headjoint

"What small Swedish town gave names to four chemical elements?" ytterby

"In "The Empire Strikes Back", there was a machine known as the AT-AT.
What does AT-AT stand for?" all terrain attack transport

"Which discovery made it possible to accurately calculate the Earth's
age?" radioactivity

"Being a Mrs Grundy means you are prudish, or disapprove of people
generally...name the work (3 words) and the author (the other 2 words)."
speed the plow thomas morton

"For what musical group (in which his father performed) was the artist
formerly known as Prince named?" prince roger trio

"OK, Russell, maybe this will engage your air brake...name the American
who invented the automatic interlock coupler used to connect railway
cars." eli hamilton janney

"How many times in a day do the minute and hour hands form right
angles?" 44

"Name the Center who played for USF and the Boston Celtics?" bill russel

"What four letters (unpunctuated in this answer) stood for The Senate
and People of Rome?" s p q r

"What are the three species of fish making together more than 50% of the
world's catch (in alphabetical order)?" cod herring tuna

"Who was Gen.  Pattons famous relative of WWII, full name ?" lewis
burwell puller

"Babe Ruth broke whose record by hitting 60 home runs?" his own

"The gait of an animal was studied closely to create the walk of the
AT-AT.  What animal?" elephant

"He made his fortune smelting metallic ores in New Mexico and Colorado?"
meyer guggenheim

"Which part of the body does not grow as the body grows?" the eyes

"Who starred as the villan in Bram Stoker's Dracula?" gary oldman

"In Star Trek, the original series who was the guest star in 'City on
the Edge of Forever'?" joan collins

"Under the Communist rule, USSR was sometimes referred as this country
"with ballistic missiles"." upper volta

"At what army outpost was Crazy Horse killed?" fort robinson

"What was the name of the tall droid bounty hunter in The Empire Strikes
Back?" ig-88

"On what television show was the title character named John Beresford
Tipton?" the millionaire

"Paleontologically speaking, what ephoch, beginning about 2.5 million
years ago, are we currently in?" pleistocene

"According to the Beatles...What was Sir Walter Raleigh?" he was such a
stupid get

"How many U.S.  Presidents have died in office?" 8

"How many U.S.  Presidents were never "elected" as President by the
electoral college?" 5

"In the late 60s, after Andy Griffith left his show, CBS managed to keep
the show alive with a new name (2 words), and a new star (also 2
words)." mayberry rfd ken berry

"What was the National Men's Champion archer in 1984?" darrell pace

"How much in Hong King dollars does it cost to buy a Big Apple Burger
with Cheddar and Bacon including service charge at The Big Apple in Hong
Kong?" 10780


"How many ships named "Enterprise" were made for Star Trek?" 5

"What is the name of Marvin the Martian's dog?" commander k-9

"Based on computer analysis, the space most often landed on in the game
Monopoly is what?" illinois avenue

"Jimmy Cagney played George M. Cohan on film, who played "George M!" on
stage?" joel grey

"Who shared iocane powder with Cary Elwes and dinner with Andre
Gregory?" wallace shawn

"The tales of P.L.  Travers were the basis for this 1964 screen
musical?" mary poppins

"Who was the diameter of the Death Star in STAR WARS(in km)?" 1200 km

"Who wrote the short story "Bobok" ?" fyodor dostoyevsky

"He was born and raised in Zanzibar (now Tanzania), his name was Farookh
Bulsara, but you know him better as...?" freddy mercury

"Each of this eight elements contributes more than 1% in the Earth crust
mass.  In your answer, indicate just symbols, alphabetically." al ca fe
k mg na o si

"What was the first land-grant university established in the U.S?"
university of georgia

"What is the trophy given to the player with the lowest stroke average
on the PGA Tour named for?" harry vardon

"In 'Star Trek 3:  The Search For Spock', who played the captain of the
merchantship destroyed by Captain Kruge?" paul sorensen

"In Empire Strikes Back, what is the name of Darth Vader's star
destroyer?" executer

"P.G.  Wodehouse is a beloved author...what does P.G. stand for?" pelham
grenville

"It means "the duck" in French:  ?" le canard

"Who was the bestselling hardcover fiction book in 1990?  By whom?" oh
the places youll go dr suess

"What very important female government official was married to the
founder of Fortune Magazine?" claire boothe luce

"This product's technology played an important role in the invention of
computers?" jacquard loom

"What was the name of the first captain of Star Trek that Gene
Roddenberry thought up?" robert april

"Who was the first African American to play in the NHL? name? team?
year?" willie oree boston bruins 1958

"Hans Castorp is the hero of what novel?  By whom?" the magic mountain
thomas mann

"Actor Albert Brooks given name at birth was...?" albert einstein

"OK...you want Trek stuff...you got Trek stuff...what is the overload
blast radius, in metres, of a type II hand phaser (numeric form)?" 135

"100 years ago, who was the most popular writer?" richard harding davis

"What is the cuter name for the first Australopithecus Afarensis found?"
lucy

"What are laminak?  They all have the same name.  What is it?" basque
fairies guillen

"Who is the only baseball player ever to win rookie of the year AND MVP
in the same season?" fred lynn

"What company recently purchased SHL (System House Limited)?" mci

"Who's the actual Prime Minister of Canada?" jean chretien

"What three actresses originally played the Bradley sisters on Petticoat
Junction?" linda kaye henning jeannine riley pat woodell

"This young woman, disguised as a man and using the name Robert
Shurtleff, fought with the Fourth Massaschusetts Regiment through three
years of the American Revolution.  Who was she?" deborah sampson

"How many port-a-jons will be in use in atlanta during the olympics?"
1800

"How many years long was the military service under the Genghis Khan
code of laws?" 56

"Is Canadian Thanks Giving before or after American Thanks Giving?"
before

"In the play "JULIUS CAESAR" what is Brutus's wife's name, and what is
one thing she does to herself?" portia she stabs herself in the thigh

"Who was the first sitting senator to be elected President of the United
States?" warren harding

"Who is the Frugal Gourmet (2 words)?" jeff smith

"What actor plays Mr. Bean?" rowan atkinson

"Who played Luke on The Real McCoys?" richard crenna

"What are the names of the four members of Queen?" freddy mercury brian
may roger taylor john deacon

"What is the name of the book from which Kyle and Judi copy questions
and answers word for word?" so you think youre good at trivia

"He is the only bodybuilder to earn a perfect score in the Mr. Universe
competition." mike mentzer

"I'll take a risk and ask about car plates...  What's the most famous
car plate from Pisa, Italy?" pi 314159

"What prolific-scoring small forward in the NBA was known as the "silent
assasin"?" alex english

"What was the real last name of Rasputin?" novykh

"What is the astronotus ocellatus more commonly known as?" oscar

"Okay, here's something not in the 24th century:  On what date did
Samuel de Champlain begin a journey up the Ottawa River?" june 4 1613

"Where was Marat when Charlotte Corday stabbed him?" in his bath

"In Star Wars, what is the planet's name that princess Leia gives Vader
for the rebel base, and what is the name of the planet they actually
destroy?" dantooine alderan

"In what year did the Era of Democracy begin?" 1776

"Who was in charge of the Rebel forces,in space, at The Battle of Endor
in RETURN OF THE JEDI?" admiral ackbar

"What drink is named for the spanish city of Jerez de la Frontera?"
sherry

"Who was Aldrich Ames better known as?" russian spy

"Okay Jeep, try and find this one in that book...What number is
divisible by any number from two to nine, and will always have one
number left for a remainder?" 2521


"One equals W on a U?" wheel on a unicycle

"As of June 6, 1996 how many books in the Library of Congress have
trivia in the title?" 331

"Tom's mother had 3 children, 2 of which were named Penny and Nickel.
What is the name of the third child?" tom

"In Empire Strike's back, what are the creatures chewing on the
Milenneum Falcon's power lines?" mynocks

"What is the name of the enzyme that catalyzes the reaction from ATP to
cAMP?" adenylate cyclase

"Who is the author of the Shannara series of books?" terry brooks

"In the years of the Cold War, Soviet secret agents in their reports
nicknamed Washington and London after these two historical cities."
carthage and sodom

"In the movie JFK, Kevin Bacon's character Willie O'Keefe is a composite
character drawn from what four real life people?" raymond broshears
david logan william morris perry russo

"Who provides the voice for The Tick?" townsend coleman

"In 1960 every man, woman, and child paid an average of $629 in federal,
state, and local taxes...what was the average in 1990?" 7592

"What was Ben Hur's 1st name?" judah

"What were the only two states lost by Franklin D.Roosevelt in the 1936
presidential election?" maine and vermont

"In Pulp Fiction, what drinks did Vince and Mia order at the
restaurant?" vanilla coke five dollar shake

"What author founded the Creacionismo movement in Spanish-American
literature?" vicente huidobro

"What is Canada's national sport?" lacrosse

"What is the main ingredient in the Indian dish called Saag?" spinach

"Who are the only three women to appear on U.S. currency?" susan b
anthony pocahontas martha washington

"If 1=Wheel on Unicycle, then what does 8=P of S in the E L?" parts of
speech in english language

"William Shakespeare wrote of this European perennial that it "riseth
best when trodden most upon."  What is it?" camomile

"Another Marvin the Martian question.  In what cartoon did Marvin make
his debut and in what year?" haredevil hare 1948

"Who was the Triple Crown winner in 1941 and who was the jockey?"
whirlaway eddie arcaro

"Divine or spiritual food is called?" manna

"How do we better recognize William Stanley Porter?" o henry

"Who is Efram Zimbalist Jr.'s mother?" alma gluck

"What percent of the earth's land area is contained in antarctica.?" 10

"Here's one for the Tolkien fans, what was Bilbo Baggins mothers name?"
belladonna took

"In 1992 the bones of a 1st Century man that may have been the remains
of the high priest who handed Jesus over to the Romans were discovered
in a ancient burial cave in Jerusalem...What was the name of the
priest...?" caiaphas

"What's Sean Connery's real name?" thomas conner

"Malcolm X's real name is...?" malcolm little

"What is John Kennedy O'Toole famous for?" a confederacy of dunces

"What state is known as the Land of Opportunity?" arkansas

"What is the color for each of the 5 levels of Bloomingdale credit
cards?" blue yellow red silver gold

"Who is Beetle Bailey's sister (first name)?" lois

"Name the Calgary Flame player named for a current Senior PGA Tour
player and name that player as well." zarley zalapski kermit zarley

"To what social fraternity did the founder of Pabst (blue ribbon)
belong?" chi psi

"Who was Jim Nantz' roommate in college?" fred couples

"Who wrote The Harp Weaver and Other poems?" edna st vincent millay

"Who are the only two people to act in every movie that Quentin
Tarantino has directed?" tim roth quentin tarantino

"What was the cost of the hula hoops during the 1958 craze(numeric
form,with decimel)?" 195

"What company did the special effects for the movie Virtuosity?" l2
communications

"According to the 1994 World Alamanac, how many US cities or towns have
apostrophes in their name (not including NY, NC and ND)?" 9

"What is purportedly the longest lived animal (152 years!)?" marions
tortoise

"According to the June 13, 1992 New York Times, the average cost of
owning a dog per year is (without dollar sign)...?" 1170

"Can you decipher this famous saying...A mass of concentrated earthly
material perennially rotating on on its axis will not accumulate an
accretion of bryophytic vegetation...?" a rolling stone gathers no moss

"How about this one as well, can you decipher it...Everything that
coruscates with effulgence is not ipso facto aurous...?" all that
glitters is not gold

"According to Hal Foster's "Small-Scale Success Story," the average size
of a Japanese home is this, or less than one half the size of an
American home...(in square feet)?" 650

"Bob Gibson's 3,000th strikeout came at the expense of this
batter...some years later, that same batter was the 3,000th strikeout
victim of Nolan Ryan as well...name the player?" cesar geronimo

"What percentage of American land is owned by the government?" 32

"Who wrote the libretto for the opera Martha by Von Flotlow?" friedrich
wilhelm riese


"What do you get when chlorine tablets are mixed with brake fluid?"
explosion

"What is the largest known plant without a woody stem or trunk?" banana
plant

"According to the Wall Street Journal (June 2, 1993), the average cost
of raising a child from birth to age 18-in 1992 dollars-was what...(not
including college)?" 128670


"ER is the second show who had win 8 Emmy Awards for his first season.
What's the first?" hill street blues

"Of all the towns and cities in the United States, this city boasts of
being the only one with an apostrophe in its name...?" couer d alene

"So you had a biochemistry question and some of you got the answer; I
recommend everybody to check what it was.  Now the reciprocal question:
what enzyme catalyzes the conversion of cAMP plus pyrophosphate to ATP?"
adenylate cyclase

"What college's football stadium is named The Rubber Bowl?" akron
university

"How many holes are there in a "Chinese Checkers" board?" 120

"What was the name of the bounty hunter that Leia posed as in Return of
the Jedi?" boussh

"Suppose a Roman family have five sons.  The first four are Marcus,
Julius, Romulus and Lucius.  What's the name of the fifth son?" quintus

"How much is 2x2, according to Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder?" four and
carthage must be destroyed

"This person starred with Dan Quayle, Jack Palance and Alex Trebeck in
commercials for what product?  Name?  Product?" elijah wood

"In what year was Elizabeth Borton de Trevino born, and where?" 1904
bakersfield california

"Tiger Woods is best known for what sport (one word)?" golf

"How many Emmy Awards did the show M*A*S*H win in it's 11 years?" 14

"The average porcupine has this many quills, according to David
Costello's "The World of the Porcupine"?" 30000

"How many pounds of potatoes does Lays use per day?" 902000

"What is the capital of kentucky ?" frankfort

"The names of The Jerky Boys are...?" johnny b and kamal

"On what date was Marilyn Monroe invited to sign her name at Grauman's
Chinese Theatre?" june 26 1953

"Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" egg

"If a cat is coloured in this way, we call it Siamese.  How do we call a
rabbit coloured in the same way?" himalayan

"What year did the first captive breeding of the Noble Macaw occur?"
1949

"What was the first film George Lucas directed?" thx-1138

"Who is the "worlds largest recycler of aluminum cans"?" anheuser busch

"What color is Yak's Milk?" pink

"Who manufactured the Air Force plane, F-105 Thunderchief?" republic
aviation

"In the Muppets, what kind of creature is Gonzo?" weirdo

"Milk is a great drink, but not everybody can drink it.  It's the same
with marriage.  Marriage is a great institution.  I have tried it, but I
cannot handle it."  So said this twice married R&B star who acknowledges
nine children by seven different women.  Name this 64-year-old Georgian,
born with the last name Robinson, who's told marriage to hit the road,
Jack.
A:  Ray CHARLES

His most recent work involved 60 rock climbers, 60 tons of polypropylene
fabric, 15 km of blue rope, and the Reichstag in Berlin.  Other works of
this artist include "Surrounded Islands," the encircling of 11 Florida
islands; "Valley Curtain," a 110 km nylon curtain strung across a
Colorado valley; the wrapping of the Australian coastline near Sydney;
the 1985 "Wrapped Pont Neuf" in Paris, and "Umbrellas".  Name this
Bulgarian-born practitioner of what he calls "public art."
A:  CHRISTO Javacheff

A type of language spoken by 15 million people worldwide, it occurs when
a pidgin language displaces the local language and develops linguistic
complexity, but before the language from which the pidgin is derived
completely takes over.  Examples include Sranantongo in Suriname, Krio
in Sierra Leone, Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea, Gullah in the U.S., and
the Haitian variety of French that shares its name with the linguistic
term.  Identify this language type, also the name of a mixed-race
French- speaking group in Louisiana.
A:  CREOLE

Patrick Bateman is a handsome Harvard grad who works at Pierce and
Pierce on Wall Street.  At 26 years old he is living his own American
dream.  Patrick is the title character of what misogynistic novel by
Bret Easton Ellis?
A:  AMERICAN PSYCHO

Prior to last year's Republican takeover, Edward Kennedy was Chairman of
the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resoures, and this Senator was
still burning because the lack of a doctorate raised faculty objections
to an appointment as Chancellor of a University.  Name the new Chair of
that Committee, the daughter of a failed presidential candidate.
A:  Nancy Landon KASSEBAUM

Its construction is modelled after a pattern revealed in the myth of
creation.  Usually it is fashioned from willow saplings, bound with
thongs and covered with blankets or skins.  Heated stones are placed in
the center and a religious leader pours water over them.  Name this type
of building and you have also named the Native American purification
ceremony that takes place inside it.
A:  SWEAT LODGE

It's not the Oort Cloud, but it is a region of comets on the edge of the
solar system, extending at least 50 astronomical units beyond the orbit
of Neptune.  The source of comets with orbital periods under 20 years,
its existence was theorized 40 years ago by the German whose name it
bears.  Name this belt recently discovered by the Hubble telescope.
A:  KUIPER Belt (I've also seen it spelled "Kuipper;" with one "p," it
would rhyme with "sniper.")

He joined the New York Giants of the NFL in 1927 and was voted the NFL's
greatest tackle for the league's first 50 years.  In 1936, he was
elevated from the triple A International League to the American League.
Name this man, the only person in both the Pro Football and Baseball
Halls of Fame.
A:  Robert Cal HUBBARD

Chu Yuan-Chang was born in 1328 in Anhwei province.  After joining a
monastery, he led insurgent forces between 1356 and 1364 that gained
control of the region north of the Yangtze.  In 1364 he was proclaimed
Prince of Wu and by 1368 had driven out the Mongols.  Chu established
what dynasty, with its capital at Nanking, which he ruled as Emperor
Hung Wu?
A:  MING

Molly Bolt is a dirt poor Southern girl who lost her virginity to her
girlfriend in the sixth grade, mesmerized the head cheerleader of Fort
Lauderdale High, and went to New York to become the greatest film maker
that ever lived.  Molly is the heroine of what novel by Rita Mae Brown?
A:  RUBYFRUIT JUNGLE

Its eight provinces function like separate countries these days; Kivu
maintains close ties to Rwanda and Burundi, while Shaba is in the
economic orbit of South Africa.  Equateur is the home of its leader, but
that didn't save the province from the Ebola virus.  Identify this
enormous African country whose dictator is Mobutu Sese Seko.
A:  ZAIRE

For hundreds of years, the Chinese have been making herbal medicine from
this plant to treat alcohol abuse in humans.  Now, Western scientists
have extracted two compounds from the plant that reduce alcohol
consumption in lab animals by fifty percent.  Name this plant that seems
to be spreading everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line.
A:  KUDZU

This diplomat and scholar won 2 Pulitzer Prizes, one in 1957 for Russia
Leaves the War and the other in 1968 for Memoirs (1925-1950) . Name this
father of containment, who sent a "long telegram" from Moscow in Febuary
1946.
A:  George F. KENNAN

In a short Ridley Scott production shown on TV only once, a young woman
bearing a sledgehammer, chased by police, races through a world of dull
mindless drones.  Her goal is a room in which these drones worship a
movie screen, on which a "big-brother" type spouts totalitarian
gibberish in the background with DOS-like commands scrolling up the
screen in the foreground.  Only footsteps ahead of the police, she lets
the sledgehammer fly into the screen, shattering it and completing a
metaphor for a revolutionary new computer.  Name this computer, whose
debut was this TV commercial during the 1984 Super Bowl.
A:  Apple MACINTOSH

Subtitled "The Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin," this novella is a satiric
success story written in mock Horatio Alger style.  FAQTP, give the
title of this Nathanael West work.
A:  A COOL MILLION

The protagonist of the only book of the Old Testament that does not
mention God, her name in Hebrew is the namesake of a Jewish women's
organization.  The Jewish wife of King Ahasuerus of Persia, she foiled a
plot to exterminate the Jews by the King's counselor Haman.  Name this
Biblical heroine whose feats are celebrated in the holiday of Purim.
A:  ESTHER (accept HADASSAH)

Brought up to treasure education by his Ukrainian immigrant father, he
majored in philosophy at the University of Ottawa.  He got his lucky
break fostered by Alan Thicke, when he became host of the game show
"Wizard of Odds," for which Thicke was a writer.  The host of the 1995
National Geography Bee, he will be forever linked with a quiz show so
popular that he portrayed himself on "Cheers".  The answer is the
successor to Art Fleming.
A:  Who is Alex TREBEK?

Unlike the other antioxidants, such as Vitamins C and E, it's not living
up to its reputation; recent studies seem to show that while carrots and
broccoli do lower the risk of cancer, this substance is not the reason.
It's still good for your eyes, however.  Identify this substance that
the human body converts into a nontoxic form of Vitamin A.
A:  BETA CAROTENE

After working on Gunnar Myrdal's study of race in America, he became the
first black professor at the City College of New York.  His books
include Dark Ghetto and King, Malcolm, Baldwin , but his most
influential work was the 1950 paper The Effect of Prejudice and
Discrimination on Personality Development , which was cited as a basis
for Brown v. Board of Education . Name this psychologist famous for his
experiment involving dolls of different races.
A:  Dr.  Kenneth B. CLARK

This very breakable sauce is made in a bowl placed over the opening of a
pan of boiling water.  It consists primarily of egg yolks and clarified
butter.  What is this sauce used in the making off Eggs Benedict?
A:  HOLLANDAISE

Their divisions called themselves the People of the Flint, People of the
Stone, People of the Mountain, People at the Landing, and Great Hill
People.  In this matrilineal society, the women stood behind the men who
they selected to speak in council and impeached those they disagreed
with, itself a concept unheard of in Europe.  Identify this Native
American nation which provided the model for the American federal system
in its constitution established by Hiawatha.
A:  League of the IROQUOIS

In order to win the 1995 National Geography Bee, you had to know that
this country's national languages are Pushtu and Dari.  Dry,
mountainous, landlocked and strategically located, this country of 17
million was known as Bactria in ancient times and Khorasan in the Middle
Ages before its modern boundaries were established as a buffer between
the British and Russian empires.  Identify this chaotic Muslim country
with the Hindu Kush mountains on its Eastern border.
A:  AFGHANISTAN

"East River from the Shelton," "Radiator Building-Night," "City Night,"
"The Shanty," "Lake George Window," "The Grey Hills," "Summer Days,"
"From the Faraway Nearby," and "Cow's Skull--Red White and Blue."  These
are the titles of paintings by what Wisconsin born artist?
A:  Georgia O'KEEFFE

He began his career in orgainized baseball at the age of 15 while
serving in the U.S.  Army in the Philippines.  After his discharge in
1915, he signed with the Indianapolis ABC's.  Only Josh Gibson
challenges his reputation as a slugger and only Cool Papa Bell is
mentioned with him as the best centerfielders of the Negro leagues.  Who
is this Hall of Famer who played with at least a dozen teams during his
35 year career?
A:  Oscar McKinley CHARLESTON

At age 18, he was sentenced from one year to life for stealing $70.00
from a gas station.  He spent the next eleven years in prison, eight and
a half of them in solitary confinement.  In 1971, at age 28, he was
charged with the murder of a guard at Soledad Prison.  Name this
eloquent Black revolutionary, an associate of Angela Davis, shot and
killed by guards at San Quentin two days before his murder trial.
A:  George L. JACKSON

A controversy is surrounding the upcoming United Nations Fourth World
Conference on Women, because the concurrent conference of women's
non-governmental organizations, or NGO's, is being held one difficult
hour by car from the main conference in another city.  Apparently the
purpose is to maintain the appearance of order, since participants in
the NGO conference often show up at the main conference to stage
protests.  Name the evidently nervous country hosting the Fourth World
Conference on Women.
A:  People's Republic of CHINA

Before his death this year, he was one of the most admired of American
poets, known for elegance, moral sensibility and the ability to
transform moments of autobiography into deeply meaningful poetry.  He
once described his writing as "chronicles of love and loss".  Name this
son of a famous stockbroker, Connecticut's first poet laureate.
A:  James MERRILL

This work is in 3 parts, 1944, 1945 and 1946-1947, and contains 153
short sections, each with its own title.  Some of these titles include,
"For Marcel Proust," "Tough Baby," "Dwarf Fruit,"
"Johnny-Head-in-the-Air," and "By This Does German Song Abide."  The
work is dedicated to Max Horkeimer, with whom the author wrote Dialectic
of Enlightenment . Name this Theodore Adorno work.
A:  MINIMA MORALIA

One of the more interesting terms in the Jargon File on the Internet is
the acronym GNU [Gah-NOO, *not* "noo"], an effort of the Free Software
Foundation to provide quality free software.  This acronym stands for
"GNU's Not Unix," making it a self-referential definition.

Give the related mathematical term which means defining an object, such
as a sequence, function or set, in terms of itself.
A:  RECURSION (accept RECURSIVE something or RECURRENCE RELATION) An
example of RECURSION is the Fibonacci [fih-boh-NAH-chee] sequence of
integers starting with 1 and 1.

For four straight years, from 1978 to 1981, the Oscar for Best
Supporting Actress was awarded to a performer with the initials M.S.
Identify these actresses who won for roles in California Suite ; Kramer
vs.  Kramer ; Melvin & Howard ; and Reds , respectively.
A:  MAGGIE SMITH, Meryl STREEP, Mary STEENBURGEN, Maureen STAPLETON

How much do you know about your neighbor to the north?  Well, you
probably know that the three largest cities in Canada are Toronto,
Montreal and Vancouver, but do you know what comes next?  Name the next
five most populous Canadian cities.
A:  OTTAWA-Hull, WINNIPEG, EDMONTON, CALGARY, QUEBEC

Identify the Supreme Court Justice from opinions that he wrote:  Flood
v. Kuhn , affirming that major league baseball is exempt from antitrust
laws.  Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority , holding
that the Tenth Amendment does not prevent the federal government from
regulating the wages and hours of state government employees.  Roe v.
Wade , legalizing abortion.
A:  Harry BLACKMUN

Insect life cycles generally fall into one of two patterns.  In some
species, such as dragonflies, the young form more or less resembles an
adult insect, except for lacking wings.  What is this form called?
A:  NYMPH

In species such as beetles and moths, the immature grub or caterpillar
looks very different than the adult and goes through three life stages.
Most College Bowlers have heard of the larva and the pupa, what is the
technical name for the adult form of these insects?
A:  IMAGO

Identify these folksingers of the 1960s.

Originally a stand-up comedian, he was recruited by a record producer to
form a trio with established singers named Travers and Yarrow.
A:  Noel Paul STOOKEY or PAUL of PETER, PAUL AND MARY

A Cree Indian adopted by a white family, her songwriting credits include
"Universal Soldier," "Cod'ine," and "Now That the Buffalo's Gone."  She
joined the cast of Sesame Street in the 1970s and came out of retirement
in 1992 with the album Coincidence and Likely Stories .
A:  Buffy SAINTE-MARIE

Probably the most overtly political singer in the folk movement, his
songs included "I Ain't Marching Anymore," "Draft Dodger Rag" and "There
But for Fortune."  He committed suicide in 1976.
A:  Phil OCHS

What actor who witnessed a lynching as a child in Nebraska went on to
star in the anti-lynching film "The Oxbow Incident"?
A:  HENRY FONDA

What investigator published, in 1929, a ten-year study on lynching
entitled Rope and Faggot:  A Biography of Judge Lynch ?
A:  Walter WHITE

James Weldon Johnson, secretary of the NAACP, succeeded in 1921 in
getting a Missouri Representative to introduce a bill to punish the
crime of lynching.  The bill passed the House but fell to filibuster in
the Senate.  What Missourian introduced the bill?
A:  L.C.  DYER

Coached by Scotty Bowman and Al Arbour, these two teams won every
Stanley Cup Final between 1976 and 1983.  Name these two NHL teams that
each won the Cup 4 years in a row.
A:  MONTREAL or CANADIENS, New York ISLANDERS

Rhea may be the most famous mother in Greek mythology, but Nyx, the
personification of Night, had her share of illustrious children as well.
Identify these children of Night.

Two important but under-mythologized gods, these brothers personified
Death and Sleep.
A:  THANATOS and HYPNOS

Also associated with sleep, these three sisters, daughters of Atlas in
some accounts, guarded Hera's garden at the edge of the world.
A:  The HESPERIDES

Another trio of sisters, they appeared to be of different ages and were
called the Moirai in Greek.
A:  The FATES (accept Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos)

An important goddess to the Romans, who sacrificed to her before leaving
for war, she personified just retribution.
A:  NEMESIS

Given the author and a brief description of a book taken from a recent
New York Times Nonfiction Best Sellers list, give the title.

Dr.  Seuss; The problems of finding your way through life, in verse and
pictures.
A:  OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

William J. Bennett; Moral stories adapted from the Greeks, the Bible,
folklore, and elsewhere.
A:  The BOOK OF VIRTUES

Jim Carroll; The coming of age of a poet and rock performer in New York
in the 1960's.
A:  The BASKETBALL DIARIES

Name the island nation from its position relative to its neighbors.

West of Mauritius and Reunion, southwest of the Seychelles, east of the
Comoros and Mozambique.
A:  MADAGASCAR

South of Guadeloupe, north of Martinique.
A:  DOMINICA

Southwest of Nauru, west of Tuvalu, northwest of Fiji, north of Vanuatu,
northeast of Australia, east and southeast of Papua New Guinea.
A:  SOLOMON Islands

Volcanic peaks form in three major ways:  From relatively quiet
eruptions of fluid magma, which form a gentle slope; from explosive
eruptions of viscous magma with high gas content, resulting in a number
of small but steep cinder cones; and a cycle of both kinds of eruption,
resulting in very tall and steep-sided peaks.  Give the names for these
3 major types of volcanoes.
A:  SHIELD; PYROCLASTIC cones; COMPOSITE or STRATOVOLCANOES

Given the name or names for a month used by Algonquin tribes, give our
name for the associated month.

Full Sturgeon Moon
A:  AUGUST

Full Flower Moon
A:  MAY

Full Buck Moon or Full Thunder Moon
A:  JULY

Full Snow Moon or Full Hunger Moon
A:  FEBRUARY

The summer Olympics includes men's and women's gymnastics, but vault and
floor exercise are the only categories, other than team and all-around,
common to both sexes.  Name the four Olympic gymnastics competitions for
men only:
A:  HORIZONTAL BAR, PARALLEL BARS, POMMEL HORSE, RINGS

Name the two events for women only.
A:  Balance BEAM, UNEVEN BARS

An intrinsically worthless or almost worthless commodity that serves the
functions of money.
A:  FIAT MONEY

A method of determining what, how and for whom goods and services are
produced, based on the authority of a ruler or ruling body.
A:  COMMAND MECHANISM

The acronym for the State Committee for Economic Planning in the USSR
that drew up the five-year plans.
A:  GOSPLAN

A curve that shows the different combinations of labor and capital
required to produce a fixed quanity of output.
A:  ISOQUANT

A situation in which real GNP stops growing or declines and inflation
accelarates.
A:  STAGFLATION

A company buys back its own stock from a suitor for more than the going
market price to avoid a hostile takeover.
A:  GREENMAIL

Provisions executives' contracts guaranteeing substantial severance
benefits if they lose their position in a corporate takeover.
A:  GOLDEN PARACHUTE

When Johnny Carson was late night talk show host, guests coveted an
invitation to "sit on the couch" and talk with Johnny in addition to
performing their act.  Who was the first female comic ever invited by
Carson to sit on Carson's couch during her first visit to the popular TV
show?

Ellen Degeneres


The popular singing group "The Beach Boys" were not always known by this
name.  What was the original name of "The Beach Boys"?

Carl and the Passions (Our answer came from the resource - People's
Magazine Entertainment 1996.  Several of our visitors sent notes about
other resources which reference "The Pendletones" as their early name.
This is said to be a name created after the popular plaid shirts worn by
West Coast Surfers.  Some other visitors say there are resources
indicating their early name was "The Surfers", having been named after
their first single "Surfin".)


What is the headgear of the guards at Buckingham Palace, made from?

Bearskin


What 2 one name states that share their names with another state?

Virginia (in West Virginia) and Kansas (in Arkansas)


What was the origination of the expression "fitting like a T"?

The expression "fitting like a T" references something being constructed
so well it might have been constructed using an engineers T-square.


When something goes wrong, a popular expression often heard is "there'll
be the devil to pay".  The devil in this expression is not Satan, and
"to pay" has nothing to do with the usual definition of the term.  What
is the origination/meaning of the term "there'll be the devil to pay"?

The "devil" is a seam on a wooden ship that is usually below the water
line and hard to reach.  "To pay" means to caulk the seam with a water
resistant preparation like hot pitch.  In order to get to the seam, a
ship often had to be careened on a shallow bottom.  When the tide went
out, the work could be done, but it had to be done quickly before the
tide came back in.  If the ship were made ready, but the crew had not
prepared the hot pitch, then they "had the devil to pay and no hot
pitch".  The expression has survived into modern day when something goes
wrong.


What city in America was the first telephone directory introduced to in
1878?

New Haven, CT


America's oldest sporting contest event, begun in 1821 in Virginia.
What was the sport?

Jousting, a contest with mounted jousters using lances to pick steel
rings off crossbars was first held at Mount Solon in Virginia in 1821.


What is the only food required by law to be served every day in one of
America's restaurant?

Yankee bean soup On a sultry summer day in 1904, Speaker of the House,
Joseph G. Cannon showed up at the House of Representatives restaurant in
Washington D.C. ready for Yankee Bean Soup.  The restaurant had decided
it was too hot that day to prepare the soup.  "Thunderation!" he
bellowed.  "I had my mouth set for bean soup.  From now on, hot or cold,
rain, snow, or shine, I want it on the menu everyday!"  A federal
mandate was passed and Yankee Bean Soup has been served every day in the
House of Representative restaurant ever since.


What popular brand named of sugar coated breakfast cereal contained so
much iron when introduced it could be picked up with a magnet?

Almost all breakfast cereals have some iron in them, some more than
others, When Kellogg Co's "Frosted Rice cereal" was introduced in 1977
the cereal contained so much iron that consumers could pick the cereal
up with a magnet.  Evenly distributing the product's sugar coating was
the cause.  Most of the iron was concentrated in the sugar coating.  The
problem was resolved when Kellogg reduced the iron content from 25% of
the FDA recommended allowance to 10%.  In a "Wall Street Journal" story,
Kellogg promised the new, improved -- and demagnetized -- version could
not be lifted with magnets"unless they were very, very strong".


What actor won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, but only appeared in
the movie for 8 minutes?

Anthony Quinn.  (source LA Times )


Saffron is a spice with a long history used to flavor luscious
Mediterranean foods.  It also flavors recipes such as risotto, paella,
bouillabaisse, as well as some cakes and breads.  Saffron is the most
expensive spice in the world.  What is the major factor making saffron
so expensive?

Saffron is the stigmas of autumn crocuses.  (These are NOT the kind of
crocus flowers that pop up in gardens each spring.)  Each of the crocus
plants that product saffron threads produce only 3 stigmas per plant.
The stigmas must be harvested by hand.  It takes more than a quarter
million stigmas to produce one pound of saffron.


As a movie end and film credits roll to the movie screen, unusual job
titles roll into view:  "Best Boy", "Gaffer", and "Grips".  Depending on
the film there may be a job title referenced as "Foley Artist" -- what
is a "Foley Artist"?

"Foley" is the process by which sound effects are recorded and added to
a film's soundtrack.  The individual who creates and adds sound is
called the "Foley Artist".  A good "Foley Artist" can be quite creative.
For example, an old sock filled with sand and beaten against a wooden
log might become, on soundtrack, the heavy blows of a fistfight.

U.S.  Currency Designs

Which portraits appear on U.S. currency?
$1......George Washington
$5......Abraham Lincoln
$10....Alexander Hamilton
$20....Andrew Jackson
$50....Ulysses S. Grant
$100..Benjamin Franklin

The following bills are still in circulation, but are no longer in print:
$500.........William McKinley
$1,000......Grover Cleveland
$5,000.......James Madison
$10,000.....Salmon P. Chase
$100,000...Woodrow Wilson


Timeline of Communication History

3500 -- 59 B.C.

3500: In Sumer, pictographs of accounts written on clay tablets.
2600: Scribes employed in Egypt.
2400: In India, engraved seals identify the writer.
2200: Date of oldest existing document written on papyrus.
1500: Phoenician alphabet.
1400: Oldest record of writing in China, on bones.
1270: Syrian scholar compiles an encyclopedia.
900: China has an organized postal service for government use.
775: Greeks develop a phonetic alphabet, written from left to right.
530: In Greece, a library.
500: Greek telegraph: trumpets, drums, shouting, beacon fires, smoke signals, mirrors.
500: Persia has a form of pony express.
500: Chinese scholars write on bamboo with reeds dipped in pigment.
400: Chinese write on silk as well as wood, bamboo.
200: Books written on parchment and vellum.
200: Tipao gazettes are circulated to Chinese officials.
59: Julius Caesar orders postings of Acta Diurna.

100 A.D. -- Present

100: Roman couriers carry government mail across the empire.
105: T'sai Lun invents paper.
175: Chinese classics are carved in stone which will later be used for rubbings.
180: In China, an elementary zoetrope.
250: Paper use spreads to central Asia.
350: In Egypt, parchment book of Psalms bound in wood covers.
450: Ink on seals is stamped on paper in China. This is true printing.
600: Books printed in China.
700: Sizing agents are used to improve paper quality.
751: Paper manufactured outside of China, in Samarkand by Chinese captured in war.

765: Picture books printed in Japan.
868: The Diamond Sutra, a block-printed book in China.
875: Amazed travelers to China see toilet paper.
950: Paper use spreads west to Spain.
950: Folded books appear in China in place of rolls.
950: Bored women in a Chinese harem invent playing cards.
1000: Mayas in Yucatan, Mexico, make writing paper from tree bark.
1035: Japanese use waste paper to make new paper.
1049: Pi Sheng fabricates movable type, using clay.
1116: Chinese sew pages to make stitched books.
1140: In Egypt, cloth is stripped from mummies to make paper.
1147: Crusader taken prisoner returns with papermaking art, according to a legend.
1200: European monasteries communicate by letter system.
1200: University of Paris starts messenger service.
1241: In Korea, metal type.
1282: In Italy, watermarks are added to paper.
1298: Marco Polo describes use of paper money in China.
1300: Wooden type found in central Asia.
1305: Taxis family begins private postal service in Europe.
1309: Paper is used in England.
1392: Koreans have a type foundry to produce bronze characters.
1423: Europeans begin Chinese method of block printing.
1450: A few newsletters begin circulating in Europe.
1451: Johnannes Gutenberg uses a press to print an old German poem.
1452: Metal plates are used in printing.
1453: Gutenberg prints the 42-line Bible.
1464: King of France establishes postal system.
1490: Printing of books on paper becomes more common in Europe.
1495: A paper mill is established in England.
1500: Arithmetic + and - symbols are used in Europe.
1500: By now approximately 35,000 books have been printed, some 10 million
copies.
1520: Spectacles balance on the noses of Europe's educated.
1533: A postmaster in England.
1545: Garamond designs his typeface.
1550: Wallpaper brought to Europe from China by traders.
1560: In Italy, the portable camera obscura allows precise tracing of an image.
1560: Legalized, regulated private postal systems grow in Europe.
1565: The pencil.
1609: First regularly published newspaper appears in Germany.
1627: France introduces registered mail.
1631: A French newspaper carries classified ads.
1639: In Boston, someone is appointed to deal with foreign mail.
1639: First printing press in the American colonies.
1640: Kirchner, a German Jesuit, builds a magic lantern.
1650: Leipzig has a daily newspaper.
1653: Parisians can put their postage-paid letters in mail boxes.
1659: Londoners get the penny post.
1661: Postal service within the colony of Virginia.
1673: Mail is delivered on a route between New York and Boston.
1689: Newspapers are printed, at first as unfolded "broadsides."
1696: By now England has 100 paper mills.
1698: Public library opens in Charleston, S.C.
1704: A newspaper in Boston prints advertising.
1710: German engraver Le Blon develops three-color printing.
1714: Henry Mill receives patent in England for a typewriter.
1719: Reaumur proposes using wood to make paper.
1725: Scottish printer develops stereotyping system.
1727: Schulze begins science of photochemistry.
1732: In Philadelphia, Ben Franklin starts a circulating library.
1755: Regular mail ship runs between England and the colonies.
1770: The eraser.
1774: Swedish chemist invents a future paper whitener.
1775: Continental Congress authorizes Post Office; Ben Franklin first Postmaster
General.
1780: Steel pen points begin to replace quill feathers.
1784: French book is made without rags, from vegetation.
1785: Stagecoaches carry the mail between towns in U.S.
1790: In England the hydraulic press is invented.
1792: Mechanical semaphore signaler built in France.
1792: In Britain, postal money orders.
1792: Postal Act gives mail regularity throughout U.S.
1794: First letter carriers appear on American city streets.
1794: Panorama, forerunner of movie theaters, opens.
1794: Signaling system connects Paris and Lille.
1798: Senefelder in Germany invents lithography.
1799: Robert in France invents a paper-making machine.
1800: Paper can be made from vegetable fibers instead of rags.
1800: Letter takes 20 days to reach Savannah from Portland, Maine.
1801: Semaphore system built along the coast of France.
1801: Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents a loom using punch cards.
1803: Fourdrinier continuous web paper-making machine.
1804: In Germany, lithography is invented.
1806: Carbon paper.
1807: Camera lucida improves image tracing.
1808: Turri of Italy builds a typewriter for a blind contessa.
1810: An electro-chemical telegraph is constructed in Germany.
1810: Postal services consolidated under uniform private contracts.
1813: Congress authorizes steam boats to carry mail.
1814: In England, a steam-powered rotary press prints The Times.
1815: 3,000 post offices in U.S.
1816: Newspapers carried for less than 2 cents postage.
1818: Stamped letter paper is sold in Sardinia.
1818: In Sweden, Berzelius isolates selenium; its electric conductivity reacts to light.
1819: Napier builds a rotary printing press.
1820: Arithmometer, forerunner of the calculator.
1821: In England, Wheatstone reproduces sound.
1823: Babbage builds a section of a calculating machine.
1823: In England, Ronalds builds a telegraph in his garden; no one is interested.
1825: Persistence of vision shown with Thaumatrope.
1827: Niépce makes a true photograph.
1827: In London, Wheatstone constructs a microphone.
1829: Daguerre joins Niépce to pursue photographic inventions.
1829: Burt gets the first U.S. patent for a typewriter.
1830: Calendered paper is produced in England.
1832: Phenakistoscope in Belgium and Stroboscope in Austria point to motion
pictures.
1833: A penny buys a New York newspaper, opening a mass market.
1833: In Germany, a telegraph running nearly two miles.
1834: Babbage conceives the analytical engine, forerunner of the computer.
1835: Bennett publishes the first of his penny press editions.
1836: Rowland Hill starts to reform British postal system.
1837: Wheatstone and Cooke patent an electric telegraph in England.
1837: Morse exhibits an electric telegraph in the U.S.
1837: Pitman publishes a book on shorthand in England.
1837: Daguerre cuts photo exposure time to 20 minutes.
1838: In England, Wheatstone's Stereoscope shows pictures in 3-D.
1838: Morse exhibits an electric telegraph in the U.S.
1838: Daguerre-Niépce method begins photography craze.
1839: Fox Talbot in England produces photographs.
1839: Herschel invents hypo fixative.
1839: In Russia, Jacobi invents electrotyping, the duplicating of printing plates.
1839: Electricity runs a printing press.
1839: Fox Talbot in England prints photographs from negatives.
1840: In Britain, first postage stamps are sold.
1841: Petzval of Austria builds an f/3.6 lens.
1841: The advertising agency is born.
1841: The first type-composing machine goes into use in London.
1842: Illustrated London News appears.
1842: Another use for paper: the Christmas card.
1843: In the U.S., the photographic enlarger.
1843: Ada, Lady Lovelace publishes her Notes explaining a computer.
1844: Morse's telegraph connects Washington and Baltimore.
1845: Postal reform bill lowers rates and regulates domestic and international service.
1845: English Channel cable.
1845: The typewriter ribbon.
1846: In Germany, Zeiss begins manufacturing lenses.
1846: Double cylinder rotary press produces 8,000 sheets an hour.
1847: A Philadelphia newspaper rolls off a rotary printing press.
1847: First use of telegraph as business tool.
1847: In England, Bakewell constructs a "copying telegraph."
1848: Forerunner of the Associated Press is founded in New York.
1849: The photographic slide.
1850: The paper bag arrives.
1851: In the U.S., paper is made from wood fiber.
1851: The Erie railroad depends on the telegraph.
1851: Cable is laid across the English Channel.
1851: Archer invents wet-plate photography process.
1851: In England, Talbot takes a flash photograph at 1/100,000 second exposure.
1851: Newspaper postage cut in half; free distribution within county.
1852: Postage stamps are widely used.
1853: Envelopes made by paper folding machine.
1854: Telegraph used in Crimean War.
1854: Wood pulp is added by paper makers.
1854: Bourseul in France builds an experimental telephone.
1854: Carte-de-visite process simplifies photography.
1854: Curved stereotype plate obviates column rules; wide ads soon.
1855: Printing telegraph invented in the U.S.
1855: Prepayment of letters made compulsory.
1855: Registered letters enter service.
1856: Poitevan starts photolithography.
1856: Blotting paper replaces sand boxes.
1856: Machine folds newspapers, paper for books.
1857: A machine to set type is demonstrated.
1857: In France, Scott's phonautograph is a forerunner of Edison's phonograph.
1858: Mail boxes appear on American streets.
1858: First effort at transatlantic telegraph service fails.
1858: Eraser is fitted to the end of a pencil.
1858: An aerial photograph is taken.
1859: Camera gets a wide-angled lens.
1860: In U.S., Sholes builds a functional typewriter.
1860: Pony Express carries mail between St. Joseph, Mo. and Sacramento.
1861: Telegraph brings Pony Express to an abrupt end.
1861: First chemical means to color photography.
1861: Oliver Wendell Holmes invents stereoscope.
1862: In Italy, Caselli sends a drawing over a wire.
1862: in U.S., paper money.
1863: Large U.S. cities get free home delivery of mail.
1863: First international postal conference held in Paris.
1864: Workers in "railway post office" sort mail on trains.
1864: Postal money orders sold in U.S; $1.3 million in 6 months.
1864: The railroad train hooks on a mail car.
1864: In Virginia, wireless electromagnetic waves are transmitted 14 miles.
1865: Atlantic cable ties Europe and U.S. for instant communication.
1866: Western Union dominates U.S. wires.
1867: In U.S., Sholes builds a functional typewriter.
1868: Writing machine is called a "Type-Writer"; so is the typist.
1869: Carbon paper is invented.
1869: Color photography, using the subtractive method.
1869: From Austria, postcards.
1870: Stock ticker comes to Wall Street.
1871: Halftone process allows newspaper printing of pictures.
1872: Simultaneous transmission from both ends of a telegraph wire.
1872: Wood pulp will be the source of paper, thanks to Swedish sulfite process.
1873: U.S. postcard debuts; costs one penny.
1873: Illustrated daily newspaper appears in New York.
1873: Maxwell publishes theory of radio waves.
1873: First color photographs.
1873: Remington starts manufacturing Sholes' typewriters.
1873: Typewriters get the QWERTY pseudo-scientific keyboard.
1873: Lord Kelvin calculates the tides with a machine.
1873: In Ireland, May uses selenium to send a signal through the Atlantic cable.
1874: Universal Postal Union formed.
1875: Edison invents the mimeograph.
1875: In the U.S., Carey designs a selenium mosaic to transmit a picture.
1876: Bell invents the telephone.
1877: In France, Charles Cros invents the phonograph.
1877: In America, Edison also invents the phonograph.
1878: Muybridge photographs a horse in motion.
1878: Cathode ray tube is invented by Crookes, English chemist.
1878: The dynamic microphone is invented in the U.S. and Germany.
1878: Telephone directories are issued.
1878: Full page newspaper ads.
1878: In France, praxinoscope, an optical toy, a step toward movies.
1878: Hughes invents the microphone.
1878: Dry-plate photography.
1879: Benday process aids newspaper production of maps, drawings.
1880: First photos in newspapers, using halftones.
1880: Edison invents the electric light.
1880: France's Leblanc theorizes transmitting a picture in segments.
1880: First parcel post.
1880: Business offices begin to look modern.
1882: In England, the first Wirephotos.
1883: Edison stumbles onto "Edison effect"; basis of broadcast tubes.
1884: In Germany, Nipkow scanning disc, early version of television.
1884: People can now make long distance phone calls.
1884: Electric tabulator is introduced.
1884: Waterman's fountain pen blots out earlier versions.
1885: Dictating machines are bought for offices.
1885: Eastman makes coated photo printing paper.
1885: U.S. Post Office offers special delivery.
1885: Trains are delivering newspapers daily.
1886: Graphophone's wax cylinder and sapphire stylus improve sound.
1886: Mergenthaler constructs a linotype machine for setting type.
1887: Celluloid film; it will replace glass plate photography.
1887: Montgomery Ward mails out a 540-page catalog.
1887: Berliner gets music from a flat disc stamped out by machine.
1887: Comptometer multi-function adding machine is manufactured.
1888: "Kodak" box camera makes picture taking simple.
1888: Heinrich Hertz proves the existence of radio waves.
1888: The coin-operated public telephone.
1888: Edison's phonograph is manufactured for sale to the public.
1889: Herman Hollerith counts the population with punch cards.
1889: Strowger, Kansas City undertaker, invents automatic telephone exchange.
1890: A.B. Dick markets the mimeograph.
1890: Typewriters are in common use in offices.
1890: In England, Friese-Greene builds the kinematograph camera and projector.
1890: In France, Branly's coherer conducts radio waves.
1891: Large press prints and folds 90,000 4-page papers an hour.
1891: Telephoto lens is attached to the camera.
1891: Edison's assistant, Dickson, builds the Kinetograph motion picture camera.
1892: Edison and Dickson invent the peep-show Kinetoscope.
1892: 4-color rotary press.
1892: Portable typewriters.
1892: Automatic telephone switchboard comes into service.
1893: Dickson builds a motion picture studio in New Jersey.
1893: Addressograph joins the office machinery.
1894: Marconi invents wireless telegraphy.
1894: Box making machines give impetus to packaging industry.
1894: Berliner's flat phonograph disc competes with the cylinder.
1895: France's Lumiere brothers build a portable movie camera.
1895: Paris audience sees movies projected.
1895: In England, Friese-Greene invents phototypesetting.
1895: Dial telephones go into Milwaukee's city hall.
1896: Underwood model permits typists to see what they are typing.
1896: The monotype sets type by machine in single characters.
1896: Electric power is used to run a paper mill.
1896: In Britain, the motion picture projector is manufactured.
1896: X-ray photography.
1896: Rural free delivery (RFD) inaugurated.
1897: In England, postmen deliver mail to every home.
1897: In Germany, Braun improves Crookes' tube with fluorescence.
1897: General Electric creates a publicity department.
1898: Photographs taken by artificial light.
1898: New York State passes a law against misleading advertising.
1899: The loudspeaker.
1899: Sound is recorded magnetically by Poulsen of Denmark.
1899: American Marconi Company incorporated; forerunner of RCA.
1900: Kodak Brownie makes photography cheaper and simpler.
1900: Pupin's loading coil reduces telephone voice distortion.
1901: Sale of phonograph disc made of hard resinous shellac.
1901: First electric typewriter, the Blickensderfer.
1901: Marconi sends a radio signal across the Atlantic.
1902: Germany's Zeiss invents the four-element Tessar camera lens.
1902: Etched zinc engravings start to replace hand-cut wood blocks.
1902: U.S. Navy installs radio telephones aboard ships.
1902: Photoelectric scanning can send and receive a picture.
1902: Trans-Pacific telephone cable connects Canada and Australia.
1903: Technical improvements in radio, telegraph, phonograph, movies and printing.
1903: London Daily Mirror illustrates only with photographs.
1904: A telephone answering machine is invented.
1904: Fleming invents the diode to improve radio communication.
1904: Offset lithography becomes a commercial reality.
1904: A photograph is transmitted by wire in Germany.
1904: Hine photographs America's underclass.
1904: The Great Train Robbery creates demand for fiction movies.
1904: The comic book.
1904: The double-sided phonograph disc.
1905: In Pittsburgh the first nickelodeon opens.
1905: Photography, printing, and post combine in the year's craze, picture postcards.
1905: In France, Pathe colors black and white films by machine.
1905: In New Zealand, the postage meter is introduced.
1905: The Yellow Pages.
1905: The juke box; 24 choices.
1906: In Britain, new process colors books cheaply.
1906: A program of voice and music is broadcast in the U.S.
1906: Lee de Forest invents the three-element vacuum tube.
1906: Dunwoody and Pickard build a crystal-and-cat's-whisker radio.
1906: An animated cartoon film is produced.
1906: Fessenden plays violin for startled ship wireless operators.
1906: An experimental sound-on-film motion picture.
1906: Strowger invents automatic dial telephone switching.
1907: Bell and Howell develop a film projection system.
1907: Lumiere brothers invent still color photography process.
1907: DeForest begins regular radio music broadcasts.
1907: In Russia, Rosing develops theory of television.
1908: In U.S., Smith introduces true color motion pictures.
1909: Radio distress signal saves 1,700 lives after ships collide.
1909: First broadcast talk; the subject: women's suffrage.
1910: Sweden's Elkstrom invents "flying spot" camera light beam.
1911: Efforts are made to bring sound to motion pictures.
1911: Rotogravure aids magazine production of photos.
1911: "Postal savings system" inaugurated.
1912: U.S. passes law to control radio stations.
1912: Motorized movie cameras replace hand cranks.
1912: Feedback and heterodyne systems usher in modern radio.
1912: First mail carried by airplane.
1913: The portable phonograph is manufactured.
1913: Type composing machines roll out of the factory.
1914: A better triode vacuum tube improves radio reception.
1914: Radio message is sent to an airplane.
1914: In Germany, the 35mm still camera, a Leica.
1914: In the U.S., Goddard begins rocket experiments.
1914: First transcontinental telephone call.
1915: Wireless radio service connects U.S. and Japan.
1915: Radio-telephone carries speech across the Atlantic.
1915: Birth of a Nation sets new movie standards.
1915: The electric loudspeaker.
1916: David Sarnoff envisions radio as "a household utility."
1916: Cameras get optical rangefinders.
1916: Radios get tuners.
1917: Photocomposition begins.
1917: Frank Conrad builds a radio station, later KDKA.
1917: Condenser microphone aids broadcasting, recording.
1918: First regular airmail service: Washington, D.C. to New York.
1919: People can now dial telephone numbers themselves.
1919: Shortwave radio is invented.
1919: Flip-flop circuit invented; will help computers to count.
1920: The first broadcasting stations are opened.
1920: First cross-country airmail flight in the U.S.
1920: Sound recording is done electrically.
1920: Post Office accepts the postage meter.
1920: KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcasts first scheduled programs.
1921: Quartz crystals keep radio signals from wandering.
1921: The word "robot" enters the language.
1921: Western Union begins wirephoto service.
1922: A commercial is broadcast, $100 for ten minutes.
1922: Technicolor introduces two-color process for movies.
1922: Germany's UFA produces a film with an optical sound track.
1922: First 3-D movie, requires spectacles with one red and one green lens.
1922: Singers desert phonograph horn mouths for acoustic studios.
1922: Nanook of the North, the first documentary.
1923: Zworykin's electronic iconoscope camera tube and kinescope display tube.
1923: People on one ship can talk to people on another.
1923: Ribbon microphone becomes the studio standard.
1923: A picture, broken into dots, is sent by wire.
1923: 16 mm nonflammable film makes its debut.
1923: Kodak introduces home movie equipment.
1923: Neon advertising signs.
1924: Low tech achievement: notebooks get spiral bindings.
1924: The Eveready Hour is the first sponsored radio program.
1924: At KDKA, Conrad sets up a short-wave radio transmitter.
1924: Daily coast-to-coast air mail service.
1924: Pictures are transmitted over telephone lines.
1924: Two and a half million radio sets in the U.S.
1925: The Leica 35 mm camera sets a new standard.
1925: Commercial picture facsimile radio service across the U.S.
1925: All-electric phonograph is built.
1925: A moving image, the blades of a model windmill, is telecast.
1925: From France, a wide-screen film.
1926: Commercial picture facsimile radio service across the Atlantic.
1926: Baird demonstrates an electro-mechanical TV system.
1926: Some radios get automatic volume control, a mixed blessing.
1926: The Book-of-the-Month Club.
1926: In U.S., first 16mm movie is shot.
1926: Goddard launches liquid-fuel rocket.
1926: Permanent radio network, NBC, is formed.
1926: Bell Telephone Labs transmit film by television.
1927: NBC begins two radio networks; CBS formed.
1927: Farnsworth assembles a complete electronic TV system.
1927: Jolson's "The Jazz Singer" is the first popular "talkie."
1927: Movietone offers newsreels in sound.
1927: U.S. Radio Act declares public ownership of the airwaves.
1927: Technicolor.
1927: Negative feedback makes hi-fi possible.
1928: Baird demonstrates color TV on electro-mechanical system.
1928: The teletype machine makes its debut.
1928: Television sets are put in three homes, programming begins.
1928: Baird invents a video disc to record television.
1928: In an experiment, television crosses the Atlantic.
1928: In Schenectady, N.Y., the first scheduled television broadcasts.
1928: Steamboat Willie introduces Mickey Mouse.
1928: A motion picture is shown in color.
1928: Times Square gets moving headlines in electric lights.
1928: IBM adopts the 80-column punched card.
1929: Experiments begin on electronic color television.
1929: Telegraph ticker sends 500 characters per minute.
1929: Ship passengers can phone relatives ashore.
1929: Brokers watch stock prices on an automated electric board.
1929: Something else new: the car radio.
1929: In Germany, magnetic sound recording on plastic tape.
1929: Television studio is built in London.
1929: Air mail flown from Miami to South America.
1929: Bell Lab transmits stills in color by mechanical scanning.
1929: Zworykin demonstrates cathode-ray tube "kinescope" receiver, 60 scan lines.
1930: Photo flashbulbs replace dangerous flash powder.
1930: "Golden Age" of radio begins in U.S.
1930: Lowell Thomas begins first regular network newscast.
1930: TVs based on British mechanical system roll off factory line.
1930: Bush's differential analyzer introduces the computer.
1930: AT&T tries the picture telephone.
1931: Commercial teletype service.
1931: Electronic TV broadcasts in Los Angeles and Moscow.
1931: Exposures meters go on sale to photographers.
1931: NBC experimentally doubles transmission to 120-line screen.
1932: Disney adopts a three-color Technicolor process for cartoons.
1932: Kodak introduces 8 mm film for home movies.
1932: The "Times" of London uses its new Times Roman typeface.
1932: Stereophonic sound in a motion picture, "Napoleon."
1932: Zoom lens is invented, but a practical model is 21 years off.
1932: The light meter.
1932: NBC and CBS allow prices to be mentioned in commercials.
1933: Armstrong invents FM, but its real future is 20 years off.
1933: Multiple-flash sports photography.
1933: Singing telegrams.
1933: Phonograph records go stereo.
1934: Drive-in movie theater opens in New Jersey.
1934: Associated Press starts wirephoto service.
1934: In Germany, a mobile television truck roams the streets.
1934: In Scotland, teletypesetting sets type by phone line.
1934: Three-color Technicolor used in live action film.
1934: Communications Act of 1934 creates FCC.
1934: Half of the homes in the U.S. have radios.
1934: Mutual Radio Network begins operations.
1935: German single lens reflex roll film camera synchronized for flash bulbs.
1935: Also in Germany, audio tape recorders go on sale.
1935: IBM's electric typewriter comes off the assembly line.
1935: The Penguin paperback book sells for the price of 10 cigarettes.
1935: All-electronic VHF television comes out of the lab.
1935: Eastman-Kodak develops Kodachrome color film.
1935: Nielsen's Audimeter tracks radio audiences.
1936: Berlin Olympics are televised closed circuit.
1936: Bell Labs invents a voice recognition machine.
1936: Kodachrome film sharpens color photography.
1936: Co-axial cable connects New York to Philadelphia.
1936: Alan Turing's "On Computable Numbers" describes a general purpose
computer.
1937: Stibitz of Bell Labs invents the electrical digital calculator.
1937: Pulse Code Modulation points the way to digital transmission.
1937: NBC sends mobile TV truck onto New York streets.
1937: A recording, the Hindenburg crash, is broadcast coast to coast.
1937: Carlson invents the photocopier.
1937: Snow White is the first feature-length cartoon.
1938: Strobe lighting.
1938: Baird demonstrates live TV in color.
1938: Broadcasts can be taped and edited.
1938: Two brothers named Biro invent the ballpoint pen in Argentina.
1938: CBS "World News Roundup" ushers in modern newscasting.
1938: DuMont markets electronic television receiver for the home.
1938: Radio drama, War of the Worlds," causes national panic.
1939: Mechanical scanning system abandoned.
1939: New York World's Fair shows television to public.
1939: Regular TV broadcasts begin.
1939: Air mail service across the Atlantic.
1939: Many firsts: sports coverage, variety show, feature film, etc.
1940: Fantasia introduces stereo sound to American public.
1941: Stereo is installed in a Moscow movie theater.
1941: FCC sets U.S. TV standards.
1941: CBS and NBC start commercial transmission; WW II intervenes.
1941: Goldmark at CBS experiments with electronic color TV.
1941: Microwave transmission.
1941: Zuse's Z3 is the first computer controlled by software.
1942: Atanasoff, Berry build the first electronic digital computer.
1942: Kodacolor process produces the color print.
1943: Repeaters on phone lines quiet long distance call noise.
1944: Harvard's Mark I, first digital computer, put in service.
1944: IBM offers a typewriter with proportional spacing.
1944: NBC presents first U.S. network newscast, a curiosity.
1945: Clarke envisions geo-synchronous communication satellites.
1945: It is estimated that 14,000 products are made from paper.
1946: Jukeboxes go into mass production.
1946: Pennsylvania's ENIAC heralds the modern electronic computer.
1946: Automobile radio telephones connect to telephone network.
1946: French engineers build a phototypesetting machine.
1947: Hungarian engineer in England invents holography.
1947: The transistor is invented, will replace vacuum tubes.
1947: The zoom lens covers baseball's world series for TV.
1947: Holography invented.
1948: The LP record arrives on a viny disk.
1948: Shannon and Weaver of Bell Labs propound information theory.
1948: Land's Polaroid camera prints pictures in a minute.
1948: Hollywood switches to nonflammable film.
1948: Public clamor for television begins; FCC freezes new licenses.
1948: Airplane re-broadcasts TV signal across nine states.
1949: Network TV in U.S.
1949: RCA offers the 45 rpm record.
1949: Community Antenna Television, forerunner to cable.
1949: Whirlwind at MIT is the first real time computer.
1949: Magnetic core computer memory is invented.
1950: Regular color television transmission.
1950: Vidicon camera tube improves television picture.
1950: Changeable typewriter typefaces in use.
1950: A.C. Nielsen's Audimeters track viewer watching.
1951: One and a half million TV sets in U.S., a tenfold jump in one year.
1951: Cinerama will briefly dazzle with a wide, curved screen and three projectors.
1951: Computers are sold commercially.
1951: Still camera get built-in flash units.
1951: Coaxial cable reaches coast to coast.
1952: 3-D movies offer thrills to the audience.
1952: Bing Crosby's company tests video recording.
1952: Wide-screen Cinerama appears; other systems soon follow.
1952: Sony offers a miniature transistor radio.
1952: EDVAC takes computer technology a giant leap forward.
1952: Univac projects the winner of the presidential election on CBS.
1952: Telephone area codes.
1952: Zenith proposes pay-TV system using punched cards.
1952: Sony offers a miniature transistor radio.
1953: NTSC color standard adopted.
1953: CATV system uses microwave to bring in distant signals.
1954: U.S.S.R. launches Sputnik.
1954: Radio sets in the world now outnumber newspapers printed daily.
1954: Regular color TV broadcasts begin.
1954: Sporting events are broadcast live in color.
1954: Radio sets in the world now outnumber daily newspapers.
1954: Transistor radios are sold.
1955: Tests begin to communicate via fiber optics.
1955: Music is recorded on tape in stereo.
1956: Ampex builds a practical videotape recorder.
1956: Bell tests the picture phone.
1956: First transatlantic telephone calls by cable.
1957: Soviet Union's Sputnik sends signals from space.
1957: FORTRAN becomes the first high-level language.
1957: A surgical operation is televised.
1957: First book to be entirely phototypeset is offset printed.
1958: Videotape delivers color.
1958: Stereo recording is introduced.
1958: Data moves over regular phone circuits.
1958: Broadcast bounced off rocket, pre-satellite communication.
1958: The laser.
1958: Cable carries FM radio stations.
1959: Local announcements, weather data and local ads go on cable.
1959: The microchip is invented.
1959: Xerox manufactures a plain paper copier.
1959: Bell Labs experiments with artificial intelligence.
1959: French SECAM and German PAL systems introduced.
1960: Echo I, a U.S. balloon in orbit, reflects radio signals to Earth.
1960: In Rhode Island, an electronic, automated post office.
1960: A movie gets Smell-O-Vision, but the public just sniffs.
1960: Zenith tests subscription TV; unsuccessful.
1961: Boxing match test shows potential of pay-TV.
1961: FCC approves FM stereo broadcasting; spurs FM development.
1961: Bell Labs tests communication by light waves.
1961: IBM introduces the "golf ball" typewriter.
1961: Letraset makes headlines simple.
1961: The time-sharing computer is developed.
1962: Cable companies import distant signals.
1962: FCC requires UHF tuners on tv sets.
1962: The minicomputer arrives.
1962: Comsat created to launch, operate global system.
1962: Telstar satellite transmits an image across the Atlantic.
1963: From Holland comes the audio cassette.
1963: Zip codes.
1963: CBS and NBC TV newscasts expand to 30 minutes in color.
1963: PDP-8 becomes the first popular minicomputer.
1963: Polaroid camera instant photography adds color.
1963: Communications satellite is placed in geo-synchronous orbit.
1963: TV news "comes of age" in reporting JFK assassination.
1964: Olympic Games in Tokyo telecast live globally by satellite.
1964: Touch Tone telephones and Picturephone service.
1964: From Japan, the videotape recorder for home use.
1964: Russian scientists bounce a signal off Jupiter.
1964: Intelsat, international satellite organization, is formed.
1965: Electronic phone exchange gives customers extra services.
1965: Satellites begin domestic TV distribution in Soviet Union.
1965: Computer time-sharing becomes popular.
1965: Color news film.
1965: Communications satellite Early Bird (Intelsat I) orbits above the Atlantic.
1965: Kodak offers Super 8 film for home movies.
1965: Cartridge audio tapes go on sale for a few years.
1965: Most broadcasts are in color.
1965: FCC rules bring structure to cable television.
1965: Solid-state equipment spreads through the cable industry.
1966: Linotron can produce 1,000 characters per second.
1966: Fiber optic cable multiplies communication channels.
1966: Xerox sells the Telecopier, a fax machine.
1967: Dolby eliminates audio hiss.
1967: Computers get the light pen.
1967: Pre-recorded movies on videotape sold for home TV sets.
1967: Cordless telephones get some calls.
1967: Approx. 200 million telephones in the world, half in U.S.
1968: FCC approves non-Bell equipment attached to phone system.
1968: Intelsat completes global communications satellite loop.
1968: Approx. 200 million TV sets in the world, 78 million in U.S.
1968: The RAM microchip reaches the market.
1969: Astronauts send live photographs from the moon.
1969: Sony's U-Matic puts videotape on a cassette.
1970: Postal Reform Bill makes U.S. Postal Service a government corporation.
1970: In Germany, a videodisc is demonstrated.
1970: U.S. Post Office and Western Union offer Mailgrams.
1970: The computer floppy disc is an instant success.
1971: Intel builds the microprocessor, "a computer on a chip."
1971: Wang 1200 is the first word processor.
1972: HBO starts pay-TV service for cable.
1972: Sony introduces 3/4 inch "U-Matic" cassette VCR.
1972: New FCC rules lead to community access channels.
1972: Polaroid camera can focus by itself.
1972: Digital television comes out of the lab.
1972: The BBC offers "Ceefax," two-way cable information system.
1972: "Open Skies": any U.S. firm can have communication satellites.
1972: Landsat I, "eye-in-the-sky" satellite, is launched.
1972: Sony's Port-a-Pak, a portable video recorder.
1972: "Pong" starts the video game craze.
1973: The microcomputer is born in France.
1973: IBM's Selectric typewriter is now "self-correcting."
1974: In England, the BBC transmits Teletext data to TV sets.
1974: Electronic News Gathering, or ENG.
1974: "Teacher-in-the-Sky" satellite begins educational mission.
1975: The microcomputer, in kit form, reaches the U.S. home market.
1975: Sony's Betamax and JVC's VHS battle for public acceptance.
1975: "Thrilla' from Manila"; substantial original cable programming.
1976: Apple I.
1976: Ted Turner delivers programming nationwide by satellite.
1976: Still cameras are controlled by microprocessors.
1976: British TV networks begin first teletext system.
1977: Columbus, Ohio, residents try 2-way cable experiment, QUBE.
1978: From Konica, the point-and-shoot camera.
1978: PBS goes to satellite for delivery, abandoning telephone lines.
1978: Electronic typewriters go on sale.
1979: Speech recognition machine has a vocabulary of 1,000 words.
1979: Videotext provides data by television on command.
1979: From Holland comes the digital videodisc read by laser.
1979: In Japan, first cellular phone network.
1979: Computerized laser printing is a boon to Chinese printers.
1980: Sony Walkman tape player starts a fad.
1980: In France, a holographic film shows a gull flying.
1980: Phototypesetting can be done by laser.
1980: Intelsat V relays 12,000 phone calls, 2 color TV channels.
1980: Public international electronic fax service, Intelpost, begins.
1980: Atlanta gets first fiber optics system.
1980: CNN 24-hour news channel.
1980: Addressable converters pinpoint individual homes.
1981: 450,000 transistors fit on a silicon chip 1/4-inch square.
1981: Hologram technology improves, now in video games.
1981: The IBM PC.
1981: The laptop computer is introduced.
1981: The first mouse pointing device.
1982: From Japan, a camera with electronic picture storage, no film.
1982: USA Today type set in regional plants by satellite command.
1982: Kodak camera uses film on a disc cassette.
1983: Cellular phone network starts in U.S.
1983: Lasers and plastics improve newspaper production.
1983: Computer chip holds 288,000 bits of memory.
1983: Time names the computer as "Man of the Year."
1983: ZIP + 4, expanded 9-digit ZIP code is introduced.
1983: AT&T forced to break up; 7 Baby Bells are born.
1983: American videotext service starts; fails in three years.
1984: Trucks used for SNG transmission.
1984: Experimental machine can translate Japanese into English.
1984: Portable compact disc player arrives.
1984: National Geographic puts a hologram on its cover.
1984: A television set can be worn on the wrist.
1984: Japanese introduce high quality facsmile.
1984: Camera and tape deck combine in the camcorder.
1984: Apple Macintosh, IBM PC AT.
1984: The 32-bit microprocessor.
1984: The one megabyte memory chip.
1984: Conus relays news feeds for stations on Ku-Band satellites.
1985: Digital image processing for editing stills bit by bit.
1985: CD-ROM can put 270,000 papers of text on a CD record.
1985: Cellular telephones go into cars.
1985: Synthetic text-to-speech computer pronounces 20,000 words.
1985: Picture, broken into dots, can be transmitted and recreated.
1985: U.S. TV networks begin satellite distribution to affiliates.
1985: At Expo, a Sony TV screen measures 40x25 meters.
1985: Sony builds a radio the size of a credit card.
1985: In Japan, 3-D television; no spectacles needed.
1985: Pay-per-view channels open for business.
1986: HBO scrambles its signals.
1986: Cable shopping networks.
1987: Half of all U.S. homes with TV are on cable.
1987: Government deregulates cable industry.
1988: Government brochure mailed to 107 million addresses.
1989: Tiananmen Square demonstrates power of media to inform the world.
1989: Pacific Link fiber optic cable opens, can carry 40,000 phone calls.
1990: Flyaway SNG aids foreign reportage.
1990: IBM sells Selectric, a sign of the typewriter's passing.
1990: Most 2-inch videotape machines are also gone.
1990: Videodisc returns in a new laser form.
1991: Beauty and the Beast, a cartoon, Oscar nominee as best picture.
1991: CNN dominates news coverage worldwide during Gulf War.
1991: Live TV news switching between world capitals during Gulf War looks simple.
1991: Denver viewers can order movies at home from list of more than 1,000 titles.
1991: Moviegoers astonished by computer morphing in Terminator 2.
1991: Baby Bells get government permission to offer information services.
1991: Collapse of Soviet anti-Gorbachev plot aided by global system called the
Internet.
1991: More than 4 billion cassette tape rentals in U.S. alone.
1991: 3 out of 4 U.S. homes own VCRs; fastest selling domestic appliance in history.
1992: Cable TV revenues reach $22 billion.
1992: At least 50 U.S. cities have competing cable services.
1992: After President Bush speaks, 25 million viewers try to phone in their opinions.
1993: Dinosaurs roam the earth in Jurassic Park.
1993: Unfounded rumors fly that cellphones cause brain cancer.
1993: Demand begins for "V-chip" to block out violent television programs.
1993: 1 in 3 Americans does some work at home instead of driving to work.
1994: After 25 years, U.S. government privatizes Internet management.
1994: Rolling Stones concert goes to 200 workstations worldwide on Internet
"MBone."
1994: To reduce Western influence, a dozen nations ban or restrict satellite dishes.
1994: Prodigy bulletin board fields 12,000 messages in one after after L.A. quake.
1995: CD-ROM disk can carry a full-length feature film.
1995: Sony demonstrates flat TV set.
1995: DBS feeds are offered nationwide.
1995: Denmark announces plan to put much of the nation on-line within 5 years.
1995: Major U.S. dailies create national on-line newspaper network.
1995: Lamar Alexander chooses the Internet to announce presidential candidacy.


Timeline of Technology

Type, movable
1447, Gutenberg, German

Jigsaw puzzle
1760 Spilsbury English

Gas lighting
1792 Murdoch Scottish

Electric battery
1800 Volta Italian

Kaleidoscope
1817 Brewster Scottish

Magnet, electro
1828 Henry American

Braille printing
1829 Braille French

Calculating machine
1833 Babbage English

Photography
1835 Daguerre French

Motor, DC
1837 Davenport American

Telegraph, magnetic
1837 Morse American

Jeans
1847 Strauss German

Pin, safety
1849 Hunt American

Turbine, gas
1849 Bourdin French

Potato chips
1853 Crum American

Spectroscope
1859 Kirchoff, Bunsen German

Storage battery, rechargeable
1859 Plante French

Telegraph, quadruplex
1864 Edison American

Typewriter
1867 Sholes, Soule, Glidden American

Stock ticker
1870 Edison American

Telephone
1876 Bell American

Microphone
1877 Berliner American

Phonograph
1877 Edison American

Cathode ray tube
1878 Crookes English

Cash register
1879 Ritty American

Lamp, incandescent
1879 Edison American

Pen, fountain
1884 Walterman American

Photo film, transparent
1884 Eastman, Goodwin American

Adding machine
1885 Burroughs American

Record, disc
1887 Bell, Tainter American

Telegraph, railroad
1887 Woods American

Camera, Kodak
1888 Eastman, Walker American

Pen, ballpoint
1888 Loud American

Kinetoscope
1889 Edison American

Zipper
1891 Judson American

Addressograph 1892
Rotheim Norwegian

Photo, color
1892 Ives American

Photo film, celluloid
1893 Reichenbach American

Movie machine
1894 Jenkins American

Photoelectric cell
1895 Elster German

Radio signals
1895 Marconi Italian

Tape recorder, magnetic
1899 Poulsen Danish

Hearing aid, battery powered
1902 Hutchison American

Radio, magnetic detector
1902 Marconi Italian

Radio tubediode
1905 Fleming English

Radio amplifier
1906 De Forest American

Radio tube triode
1906 De Forest American

Lamp, neon
1909 Claude French

Plastic (Bakelite)
1909 Baekeland American

Radio receiver, cascade tuning
1913 Alexanderson American

Radio receiver, heterodyne
1913 Fessenden American

Radio tube oscillator
1915 De Forest American

Radio crystal oscillator
1918 Nicolson American

Television, iconoscope
1923 Zworykin American

Loudspeaker, dynamic
1924 Rice, Kellogg American

Movie, talking
1927 Warner Bros. American

Television, electronic
1927 Farnsworth American

Computer, automatic sequence
1944 Aiken et al American

Record, long playing
1947 Goldmark American

Transistor
1947 Shockley, Brattain American

Camera, Polaroid Land
1948 Land American

Velcro fastener
1948 de Mestral Swiss

Movie, panoramic
1952 Waller American

Laser
1960 Maiman American

Videotape recorder
1960 Ginsberg, Anderson American

Videodisc
1978 MCA Disco Vision American

CD ROM Drives
1987 IBM American

CD
1988 Sony Japanese


Wall Street Firsts

First organized:  May 17, 1792 -- Twenty-four stock brokers signed an
agreement to trade with one another beneath a Buttonwood Tree outside 68
Wall Street.

First constitution:  March 8, 1817 -- A constitution with rules for the
conduct of business was adopted.  The organization was named the New
York Stock & Exchange Board.  The name was shortened to New York Stock
Exchange in 1863.

First incorporated:  February 18, 1971 as the New York Stock Exchange,
Inc., a not-for-profit corporation.

First NYSE members:  The 24 brokers who signed the "Buttonwood
Agreement" on May 17, 1792.

Leonard Bleecker
Hugh Smith
Armstrong & Barnewall
Samuel March
Bernard Hart
Alexander Zuntz
Andrew D. Barclay
Sutton & Hardy
Benjamin Seixas
John Henry
John A. Hardenbrook
Samuel Beebe
Benjamin Winthrop
John Ferrers
Ephraim Hart
Isaac M. Gomez
Gulian McEvers
Augustine H. Lawrence
G. N. Bleecker
John Bush
Peter Anspach
Charles McEvers, Jr.
David Reedy
Robinson & Hartshorne

Most senior member:  David Granger - elected February 4, 1926

Member with longest service:  Leonard White (member 1889 - 1959) - 69
years, 10 months.

First black member:  Joseph L. Searles III - elected February 12, 1970

First woman member:  Muriel Siebert - elected December 28, 1967

First woman member who regularly worked on the trading floor:  Alice
Jarcho - elected Oct. 14, 1976, began working on the trading floor on
October 28, 1976

Highest price paid for a membership:  $1,250,000 - in March 8, 1996

Lowest price paid for a membership:  $4,000 - in 1876 and 1878

First member firm to incorporate:  Woodcock, Hess & Co., Inc.  - 1953

First member firm to "go public" (i.e., sell its shares on the public
market):  Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette - April 9, 1970

First publicly-traded firm to be admitted as a member firm:
Institutional Equity Corporation - January 15, 1971

First member firm to be listed on NYSE:  Merrill Lynch - July 27, 1971

First black-owned member firm:  Daniels & Bell Inc.  - 1971

First listed company:  Bank of New York - first corporate stock traded
under Buttonwood tree, 1792

Longest-listed company:  Con Edison - listed in 1824 as the New York Gas
Light Company

Oldest listed company:  Dexter Corporation - founded 1767; listed 1968

Share volume - first day over:

      1 million    1886
      5 million    1928
     20 million    1968
     50 million    1978
    100 million    1982
    200 million    1984
    600 million    1995

Highest volume day:  December 15, 1995 - 652,828,674 shares

Lowest volume day:  March 16, 1830 - 31 shares

Dow Jones Industrial Average - record high:  5,642.42 - March 5, 1996

Dow Jones Industrial Average - record low:  28.48 - August 8, 1896

Dow Jones Industrial Average milestones - first close over:

     100 - January 12, 1906    (100.25)
     500 - March 12, 1956      (500.24)
   1,000 - November 14, 1972 (1,003.16)
   1,500 - December 11, 1985 (1,511.70)
   2,000 - January 8, 1987   (2,002.25)
   2,500 - July 17, 1987     (2,510.04)
   3,000 - April 17, 1991    (3,004.46)
   3,500 - May 19, 1993      (3,500.03)
   4,000 - February 23, 1995 (4,003.33)
   4,100 - March  24, 1995   (4,138.67)
   4,200 - April 4, 1995     (4,201.61)
   4,300 - April 24, 1995    (4,303.98)
   4,400 - May 10, 1995      (4,404.62)
   4,500 - June 16, 1995     (4,510.79)
   5,000 - November 21, 1995 (5,023.55)
   5,500 - February 8, 1995  (5,539.45)

First ticker, 1867
First telephones, 1878
First electro-mechanical annunciator board, 1881
First electric lights, 1883
First pneumatic tubes, 1903
Separate bond ticker system, 1919
Quotation bureau established, 1928
First automated quotation service, 1953
First optical card readers, 1962
First radio pagers, 1966
Electronic ticker display boards, 1966
Designated Order Turnaround (DOT) System, 1976
Intermarket Trading System (ITS), 1978
Facilities Ugrade Program, 1979-80
Electronic Display Book, 1983
SuperDot 250, 1984
Integrated Technology Network, 1994-1996

First home:  A rented room at 40 Wall Street in 1817.

First building:  A 5-story building opened in 1865 at 10 Broad Street,
on portion of the NYSE's current site.  It was enlarged and remodeled
during the 1870s and 1880s and was finally demolished in 1901 to make
way for the current building.

Present buildings:  18 Broad Street opened in 1903.  It is an imposing
8-story, neo-classical building designed by George B. Post.  The trading
floor featured 16 trading posts, 500 telephones, annunciator boards, a
gilded ceiling and huge window walls.

11 Wall Street opened in 1922.  Designed by Trowbridge & Livingston.  A
new trading room was called the Garage because it was added on to the
original trading floor.  The building has 23 stories of additional
office space.

20 Broad Street opened in 1956.  A third trading room, the Blue Room,
opened in 1969.  The Expanded Blue Room opened in 1988.

NYSE Chronology

1653 12-foot-high wood stockade is erected across lower Manhattan from
river to river to protect Dutch settlers from attacks by the British and
Indians.

1685 Surveyors lay out Wall Street along the line of the stockade.

1790 The federal government refinances all federal and state
Revolutionary War debt, issuing $80 million in bonds.  These become the
first major issue of publicly traded securities, marking the birth of
the U.S. investment markets.

1792 Twenty-four prominent brokers and merchants gather on Wall Street
to sign the "Buttonwood Agreement," agreeing to trade securities on a
common commission basis.  The New York Stock Exchange traces its
beginnings to this historic pact.

1817 The New York brokers establish a formal organization, the New York
Stock & Exchange Board (NYS&EB), and rent rooms at 40 Wall Street.

1819 The NYS&EB moves to Washington Hall at Broadway and Reade Street,
on the outskirts of town, to escape a yellow fever epidemic.

1825 The opening of the Erie Canal makes New York City the seaboard
gateway for the Great Lakes region.  New York State bonds, issued to
finance the canal, are traded actively on the Exchange.

1827 The NYS&EB moves to the newly completed Merchants' Exchange
building at Wall and Hanover Streets.

1830 The first railroad stock, Mohawk & Hudson, is traded on the NYS&EB.
Railroad securities will come to dominate trading for the remainder of
the century.

1835 Average daily volume on the NYS&EB reaches 8,500 shares, a 50-fold
increase in just seven years.  The Great Fire destroys over 700
buildings in lower Manhattan, including the Merchants' Exchange.  The
NYS&EB moves to temporary headquarters for one year and then rents
facilities at 43 Wall Street.

1842 The second Merchants' Exchange opens at 55 Wall Street.  The NYS&EB
rents a large hall on the second floor for $1,500 annually.

1844 The telegraph is invented, broadening market participation by
facilitating communication with brokers and investors outside New York
City.

1853 The NYS&EB strengthens its listing standards, requiring companies
to provide complete statements of shares outstanding and capital
resources.

1856 The NYS&EB moves to larger quarters at Lord's Court, 25 William
Street.

1857 Collapse of the Ohio Life Insurance & Trust Company precipitates
the Panic of 1857.

1861 At the outbreak of the Civil War, the NYS&EB suspends trading in
securities of seceding states.

1863 The New York Stock & Exchange Board changes its name to the New
York Stock Exchange.

1865 The Exchange closes for more than a week following the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

1865 The Exchange moves into its first permanent home, at 10-12 Broad
Street, just south of Wall Street.  This move, together with subsequent
purchases of adjacent land, establishes Wall and Broad as the center of
securities trading in America.

1866 The first trans-Atlantic cable is completed, providing
instantaneous communication between London and New York.

1867 The first practical stock ticker is invented by Edward A. Calahan.

1868 Membership in the NYSE becomes a "property right," enabling members
to sell their seats.

1869 To eliminate "watered" stock (shares issued by a company's officer
without authorization), the Exchange requires that all shares of listed
companies be registered at a bank or other appropriate agency.  Only
Erie Railroad refuses to comply.  Its shares are delisted from trading
for several months until it acquiesces.  The NYSE merges with the Open
Board of Stock Brokers and the Government Bond Department, making the
NYSE the undisputed leader among U.S. securities exchanges.

1871 In a major advance to foster more liquid markets, the Exchange
adopts a system of continuous trading to replace calls of stocks at set
times.  As part of the new system, brokers dealing in a particular stock
remain at one location on the trading floor, giving rise to the
specialist.

1873 Jay Cooke & Company, a prestigious Philadelphia banking firm, fails
on September 19 due to overspeculation in railroad stocks.  The NYSE
closes for ten days as a severe financial panic grips the nation.

1878 The first telephone is installed on the NYSE floor, just two years
after Alexander Graham Bell conducts successful tests in Boston.

1879 The Exchange purchases adjacent property and begins to renovate and
expand its building, selling 40 new memberships to finance the project.

1881 The first annunciator board is installed for paging members.

1886 The Exchange experiences its first million-share day on December
15.

1892 The New York Stock Exchange Clearing House is organized to
centralize and expedite the transfer of securities from broker to
broker.

1895 The Exchange recommends that all listed companies send their
shareholders annual reports with an income statement and balance sheet.

1898-99 As trading volume soars, the NYSE acquires land immediately to
the north and south of its building, thereby assembling an expanded site
on which to erect a large new structure.

1901 The NYSE completes plans to tear down its existing structure and
erect a large new building on the site.  U.S.  Steel is launched as the
first American corporation capitalized at more than $1 billion.  On
April 30, the Exchange moves to temporary quarters at the Produce
Exchange on Beaver Street, the same day trading volume reaches 3 million
shares for the first time.  In a spectacular contest between the
interests of E.H.  Harriman and those of James Hill and J.P.  Morgan,
Sr., for control of Northern Pacific Railroad, the two competing groups
bid the price from $96 per share in late April to $1,000 on May 9. A
truce is ultimately negotiated allowing the two groups to control the
road jointly and permitting short sellers of Northern Pacific to cover
their positions at $150 a share.  Annual turnover of shares on the NYSE
reaches an all-time high of 319%.

1903 On April 22, the NYSE moves into its new quarters at 18 Broad
Street.  The new trading floor, still in use today, is 60% larger than
the previous floor.

1906 The Dow Jones Industrial Average tops 100 for the first time.

1907 Rumors of financial problems at Knickerbocker Trust, a leading New
York bank, trigger a run on banks throughout the city.  Thus begins the
panic of 1907, regarded as America's most severe financial crisis to
date.  The panic is stemmed almost single-handedly by J.P.  Morgan, Sr.,
who orchestrates a massive operation to infuse cash into the banks and
shore up the stock market.

1913 The Federal Reserve System is established to control credit and
bring greater stability to the nation's banking structure.

1914 As armed conflict engulfs Europe, securities exchanges around the
world suspend operations to arrest plunging prices.  Left as "the only
market in which a world panic could vent itself," the NYSE closes its
doors on July 31.  It does not fully reopen for 4 1/2 months, the
longest shutdown in Exchange history.

1914-18 World War I is a turning point.  America emerges from the war as
a creditor rather than a debtor nation, and Wall Street assumes
supplants London as the world investment capital.  Over the next decade,
more than 1,700 foreign issues will be offered publicly in the United
States.

1917-19 More than half the adult population participates in Liberty Loan
Drives and learns the rudiments of investing.

1920 The Stock Clearing Corporation is established by the Exchange to
develop a centralized system for delivering and clearing securities
among members, banks and trust companies.

1922 The Exchange expands by completing a 23-story office tower with
additional trading space.

1923 An historic bull market gets underway in the fall.  Stock prices
will surge ahead, virtually without letup, for the next six years.

1926 The Exchange tightens its listing rules to encourage companies to
give equal voting rights to shareholders.

1928 An expanded trading room is opened to handle increased bond volume.

1929 To meet volume growth, the Exchange adds 275 memberships, builds
large new trading posts and establishes a central quote system that
provides instantaneous bid-ask prices by phone.  On September 3, the Dow
Jones Industrial Average reaches its 1929 peak of 381.17.

Stock prices fall sharply on October 24, "Black Thursday," with record
volume of nearly 13 million shares.  Five days later, the market
"crashes" on volume of over 16 million shares -- a volume level not to
be surpassed for 39 years.  In popular imagery, the "crash" has come to
mark the beginning of the Great Depression.

1930 The 500-character per minute "black box" ticker, nearly twice as
fast as previous tickers, is introduced.  The Dow Jones Industrial
Average falls 34% over the course of the year as prices continue their
tumble.

1932 The Dow finally reaches bottom in July, down 89% from its 1929
peak.

1933 Franklin Roosevelt is inaugurated as the 32nd President of the
United States, promising a "New Deal."  The Securities Act of 1933
mandates registering new issues and establishes federal disclosure
requirements.

1934 The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 establishes the Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC).

1938 Former NYSE president Richard Whitney pleads guilty to
embezzlement.

1938 The Exchange implements sweeping organization changes, acting on
recommendations of its Conway Committee.  William McChesney Martin, Jr.,
becomes the first full-time salaried president of the Exchange.

1939 The NYSE opens its trading floor gallery to the public.

1941 Continuing the reorganization begun in 1938, the NYSE constitution
is revised to centralize administrative authority in the office of the
president and his staff.  The NYSE delists securities of enemy countries
following America's entry into the war.


1942 A membership sells for $17,000, the lowest price in the twentieth
century.

1943 Women work on the Stock Exchange trading floor for the first time,
ending the men only tradition.

1945 Victorious American troops are welcomed home with ticker tape
parades.

1948 Floor employees and support personnel go on strike.  The work
stoppage lasts one month, but the market remains open.

1949 The longest bull market on record begins.  Stock prices will rise,
without significant interruption, for the next eight years.

1952 The NYSE, in its first shareowner census, finds that 6,490,000
Americans own common stocks.  Saturday trading is eliminated.  Trading
hours are set at 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

1953 Volume of 900,000 shares on October 10 marks the last daily volume
under 1 million shares.  The NYSE permits member firms to incorporate,
improving their access to permanent capital.  Woodcock, Hess & Co.
becomes the first member corporation.  The Monthly Investment Plan (MIP)
is introduced, enabling investors to purchase stock through regular
monthly payments.

1954 The NYSE launches the "Own Your Share of American Business"
education and marketing program, aimed at expanding public participation
in the stock market.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average surpasses its
1929 peak for the first time.

1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffers a heart attack on September
24, creating a large wave of selling at the NYSE.  Both the president
and the market recover quickly.  The Exchange and its specialists
receive high marks for maintaining an orderly market during the crisis.

1961 The Exchange announces plans to build a new headquarters in lower
Manhattan.  This proposal is cancelled a few years later.  Average daily
volume on the NYSE exceeds 4 million shares, nearly triple the level
immediately following the war.

1963 The assassination of President Kennedy on November 22 forces an
emergency early closing of the Exchange to avoid panic selling.

1964 The black box ticker is replaced by the "900" ticker with nearly
twice the speed.

1967 Muriel Siebert becomes the first woman member of the Exchange.

1968 As trading volume surges, member firms struggle to process
transactions on time.  Member firm back offices work around the clock to
keep up.  The "paperwork crisis" continues for months, spurring
increased automation.  The Central Certificate Service (CCS) is
established to transfer securities electronically, eliminating theneed
for physical handling for settlement purposes.  CCS is later succeeded
by Depository Trust Company.

1968-70 Over a period of two years, about 100 member firms go out of
business due to the "paperwork crisis" and a rapidly changing market
environment.  The Exchange and its members provide over $100 million in
financial assistance to customers of firms in liquidation, much of it
through the Special Trust Fund created by the Exchange.

1969 The NYSE opens a third trading area, the Blue Room, to meet the
demands of increased volume.

1970 Congress creates the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, to
protect customers of brokerage firms that fail.  Joseph L. Searles III
becomes the first black member of the Exchange.  Public ownership of
member firms is approved.  Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette is the first to
sell shares to the public.  One year later, Merrill Lynch is the first
to be listed on the NYSE.

1971 The NYSE is incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation.

1972 In an important organizational change to strengthen the role of the
public, investors and listed companies in NYSE governance, the 33-member
Board of Governors is replaced by a 21-member Board of Directors with 10
public members.  Concurrently, James J. Needham becomes the first
full-time salaried chairman of the Exchange.

1975 "Mayday:"  The Securities and Exchange Commission bans fixed
minimum commission rates, a cornerstone of the U.S. securities markets
and all other organized exchanges throughout the world.  The fully
consolidated tape is introduced, reporting trades in NYSE-listed stocks
from all markets.

1976 The fully automated Designated Order Turnaround (DOT) system is
introduced to electronically route smaller orders.  Bruno Des Forges
becomes the first non-US member of the Exchange.

1978 The Intermarket Trading System (ITS) is inaugurated, signaling the
continued rapid implementation of technology on Wall Street.  ITS
provides an electronic link between the NYSE and competing exchanges,
enabling brokers to access all markets nationwide to find the best
purchase or sale price for a security.

1979 The Exchange begins a major upgrading and modernization of its
trading floor to increase the use of technology.  Expanding into futures
trading, the NYSE forms the New York Futures Exchange.

1982 Trading in NYSE Composite Index Futures is initiated on an NYSE
subsidiary, the New York Futures Exchange (NYFE).  The NYSE registers
its first 100 million share day.

1983 Trading in options on NYSE Composite Index Futures is begun on the
NYFE.  Later in the year, trading is inaugurated in options on the NYSE
Composite Index.

1984 The NYSE experiences its first 200 million share day.  The Exchange
launches SuperDot 250, an electronic order-routing system that links
member firms to specialists' posts on the trading floor.  Today, more
than 98% of the orders through SuperDot are executed and reported back
to the originating firm within 28 seconds.

1987 The price of an NYSE seat reaches an all-time high of $1,150,000.
On October 19, the Dow Jones Industrial Average experiences its largest
one-day drop in history, 508 points.  Volume surges to an unprecedented
604 million shares.  The next day, volume reaches 608 million shares.

1988 The Individual Investor Express Delivery Service, giving individual
investors' market orders priority over all other orders, is inaugurated
by the Exchange.  The SEC approves a series of actions by the NYSE and
the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to coordinate procedures between the
equities and futures markets, including coordinated circuit breakers to
control extreme price movements and the sharing of market surveillance
data.  The NYSE opens a London office to assist European companies in
gaining access to U.S. capital markets and listing on the Exchange.

1990 Through the NYSE's initiative and industrywide cooperation, the
process by which trades are compared for accuracy is trimmed from three
days to one, reducing uncertainty and costs for the brokerage community.
More than 51 million Americans now own stocks, according to the latest
NYSE census. 70% of responding shareowners hold NYSE-listed stocks in
their portfolios.  An industrywide test demonstrates the ability to
handle volume in excess of 800 million shares a day.  As a major step in
meeting investor concerns about market volatility, the NYSE adopts new
rules requiring that index arbitrage orders -- which comprise about half
of program trading volume -- be executed in a stabilizing manner on any
day the Dow Jones Industrial Average moves up or down by 50 points or
more.  Bond volume on NYSE reaches a new high of $10.9 billion par
value.

1991 The Dow Jones Industrial Average exceeds 3,000 for the first time.
The Exchange begins two crossing (trading) sessions after the 4 p.m.
market close, beginning a process that may lead eventually to 24-hour
trading.  The NYSE experiences a record year of new listings, with 162
companies representing 4 billion shares worth $87.4 billion, joining the
Exchange.

1992 On May 17, the NYSE, one of the world's most vital and enduring
financial institutions celebrates its 2ooth anniversary.

1993 Daimler-Benz becomes the NYSE's first German-listed company.  The
NYSE completes the sale of its New York Futures Exchange subsidiary to
the New York Cotton Exchange.

1994 Richard A. Grasso is named to succeed William H. Donaldson as
chairman and chief executive officer in 1995.  He is the first to rise
to that position through the ranks of the professional staff.  The SEC
approves a uniform shareholder voting rights policy adopted by the NYSE,
the American Stock Exchange and the National Associations of Securities
Dealers.  The number of non-U.S. listed companies grows to a record 204.
The total number of listed companies also reaches a record high of
2,570.

1995 Average daily volume surpasses 346 million shares.  A total of more
than 154 billion shares valued at more than $6 trillion are listed on
the NYSE.

Q: How many letters are there in the Hawaiian alphabet?
A: 12 letters

Q: What was the very first video played on MTV?
A: Video Killed the Radio Star - The Buggles

Q: What climate, out of all the climates in the world, is missing in New Zealand?
A: Coral Reef

Q: What are the Australian $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes made from?
A: Plastic

When looking at a map of the distribution of telephone area codes for
North America, it appears that they are randomly distributed.  I am
doubtful that this is the case, however.  Does anyone know how the area
codes were/are chosen?

Originally, back in the middle 1950's when direct dialing of long
distance calls first became possible, the idea was to assign area codes
with the 'shortest' dialing time required to the larger cities.  Touch
tone dialing was very rare.  Most dialed calls were with 'rotary' dials.
Area codes like 212, 213, 312 and 313 took very little time to dial
(while waiting for the dial to return to normal) as opposed, for
example, to 809, 908, 709, etc ...  So the 'quickest to dial' area codes
were assigned to the places which would probably receive the most direct
dialed calls, i.e.  New York City got 212, Chicago got 312, Los Angeles
got 213, etc ...  Washington, DC got 202, which is a little longer to
dial than 212, but much shorter than others.  In order of size and
estimated amount of telephone traffic, the numbers got larger:  San
Francisco got 415, which is sort of in the middle, and Miami got 305,
etc.  At the other end of the spectrum came places like Hawaii (it only
got statehood as of 1959) with 808, Puerto Rico with 809, Newfoundland
with 709, etc.  The original (and still in use until about 1993) plan is
that area codes have a certain construction to the numbers:  The first
digit will be 2 through 9. The second digit will always be 0 or 1. The
third digit will be 1 through 9. Three digit numbers with two zeros will
be special codes, ie. 700, 800 or 900.  Three digit numbers with two
ones are for special local codes, i.e. 411 for local directory
assistance, 611 for repairs, etc.  Three digit codes ending in '10',
i.e. 410, 510, 610, 710, 810, 910 were 'area codes' for the AT&T (and
later on Western Union) TWX network.  This rule has been mostly
abolished, however 610 is still Canadian TWX, and 910 is still used by
Western Union TWX.  Gradually the '10' codes are being converted to
regular area codes.  We are running out of possible combinations of
numbers using the above rules, and it is estimated that beginning in
1993-94, area codes will begin looking like regular telephone prefix
codes, with numbers other than 0 or 1 as the second digit.  I hope this
gives you a basic idea.  There were other rules at one time such as not
having an area code with zero in the second digit in the same state as a
code with one in the second digit, etc .. but after the initial
assignment of numbers back almost forty years ago, some of those rules
were dropped when it became apparent they were not flexible enough.
Patrick Townson TELECOM Digest Moderator -- Patrick Townson
patrick@chinet.chi.il.us / ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu / US Mail:  60690-1570
FIDO:  115/743 / AT&T Mail:  529-6378 (!ptownson) / MCI Mail:  222-4956

Name ten body parts that are spelled with three letters.  No slang
words.

arm, ear, eye, gum, hip, jaw, leg, lip, rib, toe Not strictly body parts
or slang:  ass, box, bud, bum, fat, fin, gam, gut, lap, lid, mug, ora,
orb, ova, paw, pin, pit, pup, pus, tit, wax, yap With two letters:  os

Name some amazing coincidences.

The answer to the question, "Who wrote the Bible," is, of course,
Shakespeare.  The King James Version was published in 1611.  Shakespeare
was 46 years old then (he turned 47 later in the year).  Look up Psalm
46.  Count 46 words from the beginning of the Psalm.  You will find the
word "Shake."  Count 46 words from the end of the Psalm.  You will find
the word "Spear."  An obvious coded message.  QED.  How many inches in
the pole-to-pole diameter of the Earth?  The answer is almost exactly
500,000,000 inches.  Proof that the inch was defined by spacemen.  The
speed of light is within 0.1% of 300,000,000 meters/second.  The meter
and second were defined with respect to the size and rotation rate of
the Earth.  Proof that the Earth was built by spacemen.

How many words do the Eskimo have for snow?

Couple of weeks ago, someone named D.K.  Holm in the Boston Phoenix came
up with the list, drawn from the Inupiat Eskimo Dictionary by Webster
and Zibell, and from Thibert's English-Eskimo Eskimo-English Dictionary.
The words may remind you of generated passwords.  Eskimo English Eskimo
English ---------------------------------+----------------------------
apun snow | pukak sugar snow apingaut first snowfall | pokaktok
salt-like snow aput spread-out snow | miulik sleet kanik frost | massak
snow mixed with water kanigruak frost on a | auksalak melting snow
living surface | aniuk snow for melting ayak snow on clothes | into
water kannik snowflake | akillukkak soft snow nutagak powder snow |
milik very soft snow aniu packed snow | mitailak soft snow covering an
aniuvak snowbank | opening in an ice floe natigvik snowdrift | sillik
hard, crusty snow kimaugruk snowdrift that | kiksrukak glazed snow in a
thaw blocks something | mauya snow that can be perksertok drifting snow
| broken through akelrorak newly drifting snow | katiksunik light snow
mavsa snowdrift overhead | katiksugnik light snow deep enough and about
to fall | for walking kaiyuglak rippled surface | apuuak snow patch of
snow | sisuuk avalanche =*=

What is the pattern to this list:  Boston, MA New York, NY Philadelphia,
PA Cleveland, OH Richmond, VA Atlanta, GA Chicago, IL St.  Louis, MO
Minneapolis, MN Kansas City, MO Dallas, TX San Francisco, CA

Each of the cities is a location for a Federal Reserve.  The cities are
listed in alphabetical order based on the letter that represents each
city on a dollar bill.

What are some self-referential jokes?

Q:  What is alive, green, lives all over the world, and has seventeen
legs?  A:  Grass.  I lied about the legs.  The two rules for success
are:  1. Never tell them everything you know.  There are three kinds of
people in the world:  those who can count, and those who cannot.  Q:
Why did Douglas Hofstadter cross the road?  A:  To make this riddle
possible.  Song from the Sheri Lewis Lambchop hour:  This is the song
that doesn't end Yes it goes on and on my friend Some people starting
singing it not knowing what it was Now they'll continue singing it
forever just because (repeat) How long is the answer to this question?
Ten letters.  (There are endless variations on this theme)

When asked to name a color, many people answer "red."  What are some
other examples of this phenomenon?

What's 3 + 7?  What's 4 + 6?  What's 8 + 2?  Name a vegetable.  Carrot.
Pick a number from 1 to 10.  Multiply by 9. Subtract 5. Sum the digits,
repeat this step until you have a one digit number.  For whatever number
you have pick that letter of the alphabet.  Think of a country that
begins with that letter.  Now think of an animal that begins with the
second letter of the country.  Think of a color usually associated with
the animal.  So are you a grey elephant from Denmark?

In the United States, the first.  . . . .

RADIO BROADCAST DEMONSTRATION was made by Nathan B. Stubblefield in
1892.  He was the first person to transmit the voice by air without the
aid of wires.  He gave a public exhibition of his invention on January
1, 1902, and on May 30, 1902, in Fairmont Park, Philadelphia, Pa., his
voice was heard a mile away from the transmitter.  He obtained patent
number 887,357, on May 12, 1908, but because of his idiosyncrasies he
did not permit knowledge of his invention to be spread abroad.
Inability to obtain a fabulous sum for his invention, as well as fear of
imparting his secret before the patent was granted, deprived him of the
fame which by right of priority should have been his.

RADIO PROGRAM BROADCAST was sent by Professor Reginald Aubrey Fessenden
on December 24, 1906, from Brant Rock, Mass.  The general call "CQ" was
heard, followed by a song, the reading of verse, a violin solo, a
speech, and an invitation to report on the kind of reception.  A 40 h.p.
steam engine driving a 35-kilowatt 125-cycle alternator, with rotary
spark at a frequency of 250 per second, was used.  The antenna consisted
of a single straight tube, 36 inches outside diameter, 429 feet high, in
8-foot sections bolted together.  (Gleason Leonard Archer, History of
Radio to 1926.)

SINGER TO BROADCAST was Eugenia H. Farrar, whose voice was broadcast by
Lee De Forest December 16, 1907, from Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.
Y., on the occasion of the departure of Admiral Robley Dunglison Evans
("Fighting Bob Evans") on a cruise with the fleet.

RADIO LICENSE issued in the United States was granted George Hill Lewis
of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1911.

EXPERIMENTAL RADIO LICENSE issued by the Department of Commerce
following the International Radio Convention and Radio Act of 1912 (37
stat. l. 302), August 13, 1912, was serial number 1, granted St.
Joseph's College, Philadelphia, Pa.  (3XJ, 2 kilowatts).

COMMERCIAL RADIO STATION was 8MK licensed August 20, 1920, now WWJ,
Detroit, Mich., which instituted daily service on August 20, 1920, with
a program "Tonight's Dinner."  Local election returns were broadcast
August 31, 1920.  KDKA, Pittsburgh, Pa., offered a semi-weekly broadcast
from November 2, 1920, to December 1, 1920.  KDKA was licensed October
27, 1920.

ELECTION RETURNS BROADCAST took place on August 31, 1920, when WWJ of
Detroit, Mich., broadcast the results of congressional and county
primaries.  On November 2, 1920, Leo H. Rosenberg of KDKA in Pittsburgh,
Pa., broadcast the results of the Harding-Cox presidential election.
(An experimental station, the De Forest Radio Laboratory, in the
Highbridge section of the Bronx, New York City, broadcast bulletins from
the New York American on the results of the Wilson-Hughes election for
approximately six hours beginning after dark on November 7, 1916.  The
broadcasters signed off about 11 p.m., with the announcement that Hughes
had been elected.)

NEWSPAPER TO OPERATE A RADIO STATION was the News, of Detroit, Mich.,
which operated station WWJ, Detroit (as 8MK), began operating on August
20, 1920.

NEWS PROGRAM was broadcast August 31, 1920, by Station 8MK, owned by the
Detroit, Mich., News.  The call letters were changed later to WWJ.  The
station had begun operating on August 20, 1920.

RADIO STATION LICENSED was KDKA, Pittsburgh, Pa., licensed October 27,
1920.  At that time broadcasting was not recognized as such.  When
broadcasting stations received licenses, WBZ, of the Westinghouse
Electric & Manufacturing Co., Springfield, Mass., a 1500-watt station
operating on 360 meters, was awarded license No. 224 on September 15,
1921, by the Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce.

MUNICIPAL RADIO STATION was WRR, Dallas, Tex.  (50 watts), established
in 1920 to broadcast fire alarms.  So that owners of radio receivers
could check to determine whether they were tuned to the station,
phonograph records were played.  In 1925 the station began selling time
to sponsors.

COLLEGE RADIO STATION was WRUC, Union College, Schenectady, N. Y., which
went on the air October 14, 1920.  It instituted a series of weekly
programs on October 15, 1920, consisting of vocal and instrumental
phonograph records.  The programs were broadcast from 8 p.m. to 8:  30
p.m. with a three-minute interval.  They were initially heard within a
50-mile radius; this increased under favorable weather conditions.  A 5
50-watt U-2 transmitter was used.  Frederick L. Ganter was President of
the Radio Club of Union College; Wendell W. Key, the chief engineer, and
Francis J. Candle, the chief operator.  The station was owned by the
trustees of the college.

EDUCATIONAL RADIO STATION LICENSED was WOI, Iowa State College of
Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, which received the call letters 9Y1
(375 meters frequency, using 100 watts) on November 21, 1921.  On April
28, 1922, the station was granted a license to broadcast on 360 meters
(834 kc.) using 1000 watts.

PRIZE FIGHT BROADCAST was the Jack Dempsey-Billy Miske fight in Benton
Harbor, Mich., broadcast September 6, 1920, by WWJ, Detroit, Mich.
Miske was knocked out in the third round of the scheduled ten-round
fight.

PRIZE FIGHT BROADCAST FROM THE RINGSIDE was presented December 22, 1920,
from Madison Square Garden, New York City.  Joe Lynch of New York City
defended his bantamweight title against Peter Herman of New Orleans in a
15-round fight.

FOOTBALL GAME (COLLEGIATE) BROADCAST was presented November 25, 1920, by
WTAW of College Station, Tex.  The game was played on Thanksgiving Day
between Texas University and the Agricultural and Mechanical College of
Texas at College Station.  At that time the station was operating under
an experimental license and had the call letters 5XB.  A spark
transmitter was used and the transmission was in code.  This was the
first play-by-play broadcast of a football game.

RELIGIOUS SERVICE BROADCAST was made January 2, 1921, when the Calvary
Episcopal Church at Pittsburgh, Pa., broadcast its services through
KDKA.  The preacher was the Rev.  Edwin Jan Van Etten.

BASEBALL GAME BROADCAST WITH A PLAY-BY-PLAY DESCRIPTION was aired August
5, 1921, by KDKA, Pittsburgh, Pa., the field being connected by wire to
the broadcasting station.  The National League Pittsburgh Corsairs
defeated Philadelphia, 8-5, at Pittsburgh, for their third straight
victory.

ADVERTISING OR COMMERCIAL RADIO BROADCAST was sponsored by the
Queensboro Realty Corporation, Jackson Heights, New York City, on August
28, 1922, over station WEAF, the experimental station of the American
Telephone & Telegraph Co., New York City.  The commercial rate was $100
for 10 minutes.  H. M. Blackwell spoke for 10 minutes about Hawthorne
Court, a dwelling in Jackson Heights.

NETWORK SPONSORED BROADCAST was "The Eveready Hour," broadcast February
12, 1924, from station WEAF, New York City, to WCAP, Washington, D. C.,
WJAR, Providence, R. I., under the sponsorship of the National Carbon
Company.

NEWS PROGRAM (DAILY) was broadcast September 1, 1922, by WBAY, American
Telegraph & Telephone Co., New York City, between 4:  30 p.m. and 5:  30
p.m.  It was known as "The Radio Digest," and was edited by George F.
Thompson.  Questions and answers concerning radio were also broadcast.

CHAIN BROADCAST was accomplished October 7, 1922, when WJZ and WGY
transmitted a World Series game from the field.  Ordinary telegraph
lines from Newark, N. J., and Schenectady, N. Y., were connected with
the Polo Grounds, New York City, where a single microphone connected to
these lines completed the requirements.  It was not possible to transmit
highest and lowest frequencies.  Graham McNamee was the announcer.  On
January 4, 1923, WEAF of New York City and WNAC of Boston, Mass., had
repeater points, and amplifiers were provided for faithful reproduction
and transmission of both music and speech.

ELECTION CAMPAIGN USING RADIO was undertaken by Senator Harry Stewart
New, Republican, of Indiana, who waged an unsuccessful campaign for
reelection in 1922.  He used radio the last five days of the campaign,
from October 27 to November 2, 1922, and hired several halls in which
loud speakers were placed.  He was defeated November 7, 1922, by Samuel
Moffett Ralston, the Democratic candidate.

PRESIDENT TO BROADCAST BY RADIO was Warren Gamaliel Harding, 29th
president (1921-1923).  The speech at the dedication of the Francis
Scott Key Memorial, at Ft.  McHenry, Baltimore, Md., on June 14, 1922,
was broadcast by WEAR (now WFBR), Baltimore, Md. His voice was carried
over telephone lines to the studio and broadcast from there.  His World
Court speech on June 21, 1923, at St.  Louis, Mo., was transmitted over
KSD, St.  Louis, and WEAF, New York City.  On November 5, 1921, a
message from President Harding had been broadcast from Washington, D.
C., to 28 countries.  It was sent in code over the 25,000-volt RCA
station at Rocky Point (near Port Jefferson), L. I., N. Y.

PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGE TO BE BROADCAST was heard on December 6, 1923, when
President Calvin Coolidge delivered his message to a joint session of
Congress held in the House of Representatives, Washington, D. C., was
broadcast by KSD, St.  Louis, Mo.; WCAP, Washington, D. C.; WDAF, Kansas
City, Mo.; WEAF, New York City; WFAA, Dallas, Tex.; and WJAR,
Providence, R. I. His voice was received over telephone wires.  On March
4, 1925, he broadcast his inaugural address.

PRESIDENT TO BROADCAST FROM THE WHITE HOUSE was Calvin Coolidge, whose
address on George Washington's Birthday, transmitted from his study in
the White House, Washington, D. C., on February 22, 1924, was heard on
42 stations from coast to coast.

RADIO STATION OPERATING A 50-KILOWATT TRANSMITTER was 2XAG, Schenectady,
N. Y., using the 379.5 meter wave band, the same length as WGY,
Schenectady, N. Y. The station was tested July 25, 1925, and placed in
operation July 29, 1925.

RADIO STATION OPERATING A 100-KILOWATT TRANSMITTER was 2XAG,
Schenectady, N. Y., which was granted a 30-day permit to operate between
the hours of 1 and 2 a.m.  It went on the air August 4, 1927.  Harry
Hadenwater was in charge of broadcasting.

RADIO STATION WITH 500,000-WATT POWER was KDKA, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Authorized to use call letters W8XAR from June 12, 1936, to May 1, 1938,
to test high-power equipment (50 kw to 500 kw), from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. on
an experimental basis.

INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING LICENSE issued by the Federal Communications
Commission was granted October 15, 1927, to the Experimenter Publishing
Co., New York City.  The frequency was 9,700 kilocycles and the power
500 watts.  The station was taken over in 1929 and subsequently moved to
Boston, Mass., where it was operated as W1XAL by the World Wide
Broadcasting Corporation.

TELEVISION LICENSE was issued February 25, 1928, by the Federal Radio
Commission to the (Charles Francis) Jenkins Laboratories for the
operation of a television broadcast station at 1519 Connecticut Avenue,
N. W., Washington, D. C. using the call letters W3XK.  In 1929 the
station was authorized to move its transmitter to a location between
Silver Spring and Wheaton Md. The station ceased to operate on October
31, 19xx.

FREQUENCY MODULATION (FM) CONSTRUCTION PERMIT was granted August 18,
1937, to W1XOJ, the Yankee Network, Inc., Paxton, Mass.  It went on the
air with scheduled programs in May 1939 and subsequently operated with
the highest output power (50 kilowatts) granted previous to World War
II.  Call letters wee changed to W43B, and later to WGTR.  The programs
were fed from the studios in Boston, Mass., by FM circuit.

MUNICIPAL SCHOOL-OWNED ULTRA-HIGH-FREQUENCY RADIO STATION to receive a
license from the Federal Communications Commission was station WBOE,
Cleveland, Ohio, granted license No. 1 November 21, 1938, to operate
(500 watts, 41,500 kilocycles).  Regular classroom lessons and music
were broadcast Monday through Friday from 8:  30 a.m. to 4:  30 p.m.
The station became an FM station in February 1941.

FREQUENCY MODULATION TRANSMITTER TO RECEIVE A COMMERCIAL LICENSE was
W47NV, Nashville, Tenn., which operated on a frequency of 44,700
kilocycles with a power of 20,000 watts, licensed to cover a
16,000-square-mile radius.  It began operations March 1, 1941, with full
commercial status and presented the commercial of Standard Candy
Company, Nashville, Tenn.

FACSIMILE BROADCAST IN ULTRA-HIGH FREQUENCIES was made December 19,
1933, by station W9XAF, Milwaukee, Wis., on frequencies of 42,000-56,000
kilocycles and 60,000-86,000 kilocycles.

RADIO FACSIMILE BROADCASTING ON THE REGULAR BROADCAST BAND was
instituted February 4, 1938, by WHO (Central Broadcasting Co.), Des
Moines, Iowa.  The facsimile was on 1,000 kilocycles from 12:  00
midnight to 12:  36 a.m.

RADIO ADVERTISING CONTRACT FOR FREQUENCY MODULATION BROADCASTS was
signed December 8, 1940, by the Longines Watch Company and provided for
the broadcasting of Longines time signals by W2XOR, New York, for 26
weeks beginning January 1, 1941.  On April 1, 1941, the experimental
license was replaced with commercial license W71NY, and the station was
operating from 8:  30 a.m. until 11:  30 p.m. on a frequency of 47,100
kilocycles.

COMMERCIAL TELEVISION LICENSES were granted to 10 stations, May 2, 1941,
by the Federal Communications Commission, operations to begin on July 1,
1941.  The first license, No. 1, was issued to W2XBS, NBC, which
telecast from the Empire State Building using Channel 1. Four sponsors
used the services:  Lever Brothers., for Spry; Proctor and Gamble, for
Ivory Soap; the Sun Oil Company; and the Bulova Watch Company.

CONSTRUCTION PERMIT for a commercial television station was granted June
17, 1941, to WNBT of the National Broadcasting Company, New York City,
to operate on 50,000-56,000 kilocycles.  A license to cover this
construction permit was also granted June 17, 1941, effective July 1,
1941.

ALL-NEWS RADIO STATION was WINS, New York City, which broadcast news
around-the-clock on April 19, 1965, on 1010 AM.  Previously, it had
broadcast rock 'n' roll.


According to National Geographic, scientists have settled the old
dispute over which came first -- the chicken or the egg.  They say that
reptiles were laying eggs thousands of years before chickens appeared,
and the first chicken came from an egg laid by a bird that was not quite
a chicken.  That seems to answer the question.  The egg came first.

Coca-Cola contains neither coca nor cola.

Pepsi originally contained pepsin, therefore the name.

An enneahedron is solid with nine faces.

Sunbeams that shine down through the clouds are called crespucular rays.

In Evanston, Il. a man was pulled over and the cops found 13 grams of
crack between his cheeks.  That is the most crack ever held in a
person's mouth before.

Stewardesses is the longest word that can be typed using only the left
hand.

0.3% of all road accidents in Canada involve a moose.

The one-hundred eleventh element is known as "unnilenilenium"

Each unit on the Richter Scale is equivalent to a power factor of about
32.  So a 6 is 32 times more powerful than a 5!  Though it goes to 10, 9
is estimated to be the pointof total tetonic destruction. 2 is the
smallest that can be felt unaided.

In the movie Cujo they had to use 5 St.  Bernards, plus a head, and a
man in a body suit.

They had to use around nine '58 Plymouth Furys for Christine.  Only one
survived the whole movie.

The book Dennis pulls out in the library in Christine is the book
Christine by Stephen King.

In order for the St.  Bernards to claw at the car and jump on it in
Cujo, they took the dog's favorite toys and put them in speical places.
The dogs tried to get them by clawing at the car.

Jack Nicholsen had to excercise for the scence in which he chops open
the door in The Shining.

Drew Barrymore was in two Stephen King films:  Firestarter and Cat's
Eyes.

During the filming of Jurassic Park, Michael Crithon and Steven
Spielburg were constantly reminded that the Velociraptor was not as tall
as it was in the movie.  The common Velociraptor was 4 feet tall.  But
during the fiming palentologists found a "raptor" dinosaur in Utah.  It
was the size of the Velociraptors in the movie, so Speilburg and
Critchon got off.  They named the dinosaur Utahraptor.

The longest word in the English language that has only one vowel is
"strengths" (nine letters).

What number when multiplied by 4 is the same number but with the digits
in reverse order?  A. 21978

Through a system of canals, the inland city of Moscow is a port for five
seas:  the White, the Baltic, the Azov, the Black, and the Caspian.

A companion tomb was originally to have been built facing the Taj Mahal.
The companion would have been identical to the Taj Mahal in every way
but its black colour.

If electrodes are inserted at opposite ends of a pickle, and electricity
is passed through, the pickle will glow.

Mozart's real name was Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus
Mozart .

Another recent study shows that computer users blink an average of 7
times per minute.

The average persons blinks 22 times per minute.

It has been proven that when a salesperson wears a tie, there is a great
statistical difference between making a sale and not making a sale.

If you stretch your veins out in one line, they go 96000 kilometres.

In Turkey the color of mourning is violet.  In most Moslem countries and
in China it is white.

In 1897 the federal government of the U.S. recalled $26 million dollars
worth of one hundred-dollar bills when a counterfeit bill appeared that
was so accurate it almost couldn't be distinguished from the real thing.
This was the only time in history that fake money was so well desgined
that legitimate currency had to be withdrawn.

Catherine the Great, one of Russia's most famous rulers wasn't Russian.
She was German, and her real name was Sophia, not Catherine.

A full moon always rises at sunset.

The strawberry is technically not a fruit at all.  In botanical terms,
fruits are seed-bearing structures which grow from a flower's ovaries,
and a strawberry is merely the swollen base of the strawberry flower.
The plant's true fruits are the small, hard, nut-like pips embedded on
the outside of the flesh.  The seeds are contained in the pips.

Although there is some evidence that wild strawberries were eaten in
prehistoric times, it was not until the 19th century that the popular
fruit became widely available.

Although the Pony Express was one of the most famous stories of American
History, it lasted only nineteen months, from April 1860 to October
1861.  It was a complete financial failure.

The biggest Pyramid in the world is not in Egypt.  It's actually about
sixty miles southeast of Mexico City, Mexico.  It covers more than forty
acres and the largest Egyptian Pyramid, The Great Pyramid at Giza,
covers about 13 acres.

The world`s first test-tube twins were born in June 1981.

The YKK on the zipper of your Levis stands for Yoshida Kogyo
Kabushibibaisha, the worlds largest zipper manufacturer.

Jessie, an Indian elephant, died in Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia, in
1939 at the age of 77.

An average human scalp has 100,000 hairs.

There are 45 miles of nerves in the skin of a human being.

The horn of the rhinoceros is not bone, it is hair.

Artificial Christmas trees have outsold real ones every year since 1991.

In 1963, two years into his Presedency, John F. Kennedy`s popularity in
the USA was rated in a Gallup Poll at 76 per cent.  A few months later,
he was assassinated.

Eagles can live in captivity for up to 46 years.

Forty-five different kinds of antelope can be found in Africa.

In a year, a person`s heart beats 40,000,000 times.

Centipedes have between 28 and 354 legs.

A person uses more household energy shaving with a hand razor at a sink
(because of the water power, the water pump and so on) than he would by
using an electric razor.

In some volcanic areas such as Iceland, the temperature rises beneath
the surface of the earth as high as 680 degrees F (360 degrees C) that
engineers can tap the geothermal energy by piping hot water from
underground to warm nearby homes, offices and factories.  An outdoor
swimming pool in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik is heated so
effectively by this method that it remains open and in use all year
round.

Disney`s Donald Duck was originally called Donald Drake.

Most people blink about 25 times a minute.

A single sheeps fleece might well contain as many as 26 million fibres.

We usually think of Montreal, Canada as a cold weather city, and Paris,
France as a much warmer city than Montreal, but the fact is that
Montreal is south of Paris.

King George I of England could not speak English.  He was born and
raised in Germany and never learned to speak English even though he was
King from 1714 to 1727.  He left the running of the country to his
ministers thereby creating the first government cabinet.

Although people in the majority of countries of the world drive on the
right side of roads, there are some fifty nations in which people drive
on the left.  These include England and many of the former English
colonies such as Australia and New Zealand -- but not the U.S. or
Canada.  There are several non-English countries where people also drive
on the left including Japan.

Napoleon, the famous French general, was not born in France.  He was
born on the Meditteranean island of Corsica of Italian parents.

There are about 5,000 different languages spoken on Earth.

The Inca tribe in Peru created the decimal system hundreds of years
before it was introduced in Europe.

Ancient Egyptian religion divided the human body into 36 parts and each
part came under the protection of a god or goddess.

The first U.S. coin to bear the words "United States of America," was a
penny piece made in 1727.  It was also inscribed with the plain-spoken
motto:  "Mind Your Own Business."

97% of all paper money in the US contains traces of cocaine.

Among the first known "dentists" of the world were the Etruscans.  In
700 BC they carved false teeth from the teeth of various mammals and
produced partial bridgework good enough to eat with.

Enough exciting pieces of evidence exist to show that map making
actually began in the Stone Age.

Cleopatra was more noted for her cunning than her looks, which were
plain at best.  Legend has it that she actually arranged for herself to
meet Julius Caesar by being rolled up inside an oriental rug that she
had presented to him as a gift.

Before 1941 fingerprints were not accepted as evidence in court.  Up to
that time it was not an established fact that no two fingerprints are
alike.  Today, the only time in which fingerprints will not be allowed
as evidence is if the defense can prove that there are in fact two
identical sets of fingerprints. 2201 Fascinating Facts

The Pacific Ocean fills nearly a complete hemisphere of the Earth's
surface.

Caligula, the demented Roman Emperor from A.D. 37-41, appointed his
favorite horse as consul and co-regent of Rome.

During the time that the atomic bomb was being hatched by the United
States at Alamogordo, New Mexico, applicants for routine jobs like
janitor were disqualified if they could read.  Illiteracy; in other
words, was a job requirement.  The reason:  The authorities didn't want
their trash or other papers read.

In 1875 the Director of the United States Patent Office sent in his
resignation, and advised the administration that his department be
eliminated, because he was convinced there was nothing left to invent.

The first contact lens was actually conceived by Leonardo Da Vinci in
the 15th century.

In Venice in the 16th and 17th centuries prostitutes believed that the
higher the heel on their shoe the more men would pay for their services.
Consequently a law was passed banning the wearing of high heels because
they began to trip in the dark and fall into the canals and die.

In ancient Egypt women had more legal rights than those in some
countries today.  Even when a couple divorced it was understood that the
woman was entitled to up to one-half of the estate.

When the Mayflower, which took the pilgrims to America, had eventually
outlived her usefulness she was dismantled and then reconstructed as a
barn.

The closest relative to the manatee is the elephant, scientists think
the elephant crawled back into the sea to become a manatee.

A personal "first aid kit" was found in King Tut's tomb, which included
a finger sling and bandages.

Ophthalmic surgery was one of the most advanced areas of medicine in the
ancient world.  Detailed descriptions of delicate cataract surgery with
sophisticated needle syringes is contained in the medical writings of
Celsus (A.D. 14-37)

The bark of the redwood tree is fireproof.  Fires in redwood forests
take place inside the trees.

If Benjamin Franklin had had his way, the Eagle would not be the symbol
of the United States.  In 1789 he proposed that it be replaced by the
turkey.

The Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt, constructed around 2500 B.C., was
the tallest building in the world until the Eiffel Tower was erected in
1889.

Egyptian medical writings contain prescriptions for female
contraceptives made from crocodile dung.  I guess you could see how this
worked!

Between A.D. 1400 and 1520 the Inca emperors of South America built more
than 15,000 miles of roads from sea level to high into the Andes
Mountains.

A bowl of Wheaties contains twice as much sodium as a bowl of potato
chips.

The first odometer?  Writing in the 1st century B.C., the Roman
architect Vitruvius introduced the "hodometer" as a device which
enables...a carriage on the road...to know how many miles of a journey
it accomplished'.  Though he recorded detailed designs and descriptions
of his invention it was impractical and never built.  Centuries later,
even Leonardo Da Vinci attempted to reconstruct this device from these
plans without success.

One of the preposterous cures for the Black Plague in the 14th century
was to place a pig next to the dying person.

Three of the first five U.S.  Presidents all died on July 4th.  They
were John Adams, the second President; Thomas Jefferson, the third
President, who died the same day as Adams; and James Monroe, the fifth
President, who died five years later in 1831.

The famous battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revlutionary War was
not fought on Bunker Hill but actually on nearby Breed's Hill instead.

The world's worst earthquake occured in 1556 in China killing
approximately 830,000 people.

In the 3rd to 2nd century B.C, Eratosthenes measured the radius of the
earth without the use of precision instruments and came within
one-percent of the actual value determined by today's space craft
technology.

Aramadillo babies are identical quads.  (clones that is)

The hardest word for any lexicographer to define briefly is the Fuegian
word "mamihlapinatapai".  It means "looking at each other hoping that
either will offer to do something which both parties desire but are
unwilling to do."

Ancestors of both common short-haired and long-haired domestic cats were
not indigenous to the United States and were imported from foreign
countries, so I proably have royal bloodlines.

The average house cat weighs in at 11 pounds.

Tylenol and chocolate are both poisionous to cats.

The ancestor of all domestic cats is the African Wild Cat which still
exists today.

In ancient Egypt, killing a cat was a crime punishable by death.

In ancient Egypt, mummies were made of cats, and embalmed mice were
placed with them in their tombs.  In one ancient city, over 300,000 cat
mummies were found.

In the Middle Ages, during the Festival of Saint John, cats were burned
alive in town squares.

The first cat show was in 1871 at the Crystal Palace in London.

Today there are about 100 distinct breeds of the domestic cat.

Genetic mutation created the domestic cat which is tame from birth.

Like birds, cats have a homing ability that uses its biological clock,
the angle of the sun, and the Earth's magnetic field.  A cat taken far
from its home can return to it.  But if a cat's owners move far from its
home, the cat can't find them.

Hunting is not instinctive for cats.  Kittens born to non-hunting
mothers may never learn to hunt.

Cats bury their feces to cover their trails from predators.

Mother cats teach their kittens to use the litter box.

Among other tasks, cats can be taught to use a toilet, come, sit, beg,
eat with their paws, heel, jump through a hoop, play a piano, play dead,
roll over, open a door, hide food in boxes, shake, and fetch.

Cats sleep 16 to 18 hours per day.

When cats are asleep, they are still alert to incoming stimuli.  If you
poke the tail of a sleeping cat, it will respond accordingly.

In Great Britain, black cats are thought to bring good luck.

Besides smelling with their nose, cats can smell with an additional
organ called the Jacobson's organ, located in the upper surface of the
mouth.

Cats can't taste sweets.

The chlorine in fresh tap water irritates sensitive parts of the cat's
nose.  Let tap water sit for 24 hours before giving it to a cat.

The average cat food meal is the equivalent to about five mice.

The catgut formerly used as strings in tennis rackets and musical
instruments does not come from cats.  Catgut actually comes from sheep,
hogs, and horses.

A large majority of white cats with blue eyes are deaf.  White cats with
only one blue eye are deaf only in the ear closest to the blue eye.
White cats with orange eyes do not have this disability.

Neutering a cat extends its life span by two or three years.

Pregnant women are advised not to come in contact with cat feces,
because it can contain an organism which can affect the unborn child and
even cause miscarriage.

Ten human years translate to about 60 cat years.  A one year old cat is
similar in age to an 18 year old human.

The real name of "the" Bill Gates is William Henry Gates III.  Nowadays
he is known as Bill Gates (III).  By converting the letters of his
current name to the ASCII-values and adding his (III), you get the
following:

B 66 I 73 L 76 L 76

G 71 A 65 T 84 E 69 S 83 I 1 I 1 I 1 -------------- = 666

Consider the following:

M S - D O S 6 . 3 1 77+83+45+68+79+83+32+54+46+50+49 = 666

W I N D O W S 9 5 87+73+78+68+79+87+83+57+53+1 = 666

The cave of Lascaux, painted 17,000 years ago, was discovered by Marcel
David, 17 years old.

The Flood started on the 17th.  Noah's Ark landed on the Mount Ararat
(alt. 17,000 feet) on the 17th.

The Bible contains 17 (minus 1) references to the number 17.  The 17th
book is the shortest.

Someone has spent 17 years looking for the exact middle point of the
Bible.

It's the psalm 117 which is the shortest.  The longest one is the psalm
119 (divisible by 17).

The mummy of King Tutankhamen was wrapped in 17 sheets.

The Parthenon is 17 columns long.

The Chinese had a bureaucratic constitution with 17 articles.

The Alhambra, a beautiful Moorish palace which inspired Escher, is
composed of 17 kinds of mosaics (in fact, all of the possible ones).

Henry VIII's first wife had 17 children who died before their first
birthday.

Shakespeare wrote 17 plays in the 17th century.  Hamlet reigned for 17
years.  His 17th play (Much ado about nothing) is the only one with a
number in its title.

Beethoven wrote 17 string quartets.  The first of Haendel's Water Music
took place on July 17, 1717 (the yellow pigs day!).  Domenico Zipoli
sailed for South-America in 1717 and landed in July 1717.

Gossec wrote a symphony in 17 parts.

Fermat had been working as an agent for 17 years.  Then he became a
councillor at the Parliament of Toulouse, where he had been working for
17 years.

There is a famous passage in Plato's Theaetetus in which it is stated
that Theodorus (Plato's teacher) proved the irrationality of sqrt(3),
sqrt(5), ...  `taking all the separate cases up to the root of 17 square
feet, at which point, for some reason, he stopped'.

Marconi used of 17 Tesla's patents (cf ST-Magazine 75, p 54).

On the Atari ST, just after the computer is switched on, 17 files at the
maximum can be simultaneously displayed in the desk windows, in text
display.

Try to catch a cockroach and it seems very elusive.  They are among the
fastest runners,reaching 30 cm per second, but this is only 1.88 KIT /h.
But, they lack endurance.  The centipede("thousand legger") can move at
50 centimeters a second, 24 miles per hour.

A German cockroach can survive a month or more without food, but less
than two weeks without water.

A tiny biting midge, or "no-seeum," Forcipomyia, beats its hairy wings
62,760 times a minute.

When provoked, a bombardier beetle swivels the tip of its abdomen and
shoots a jet of boiling chemicals at its attacker.  The chemicals are
produced in a "reaction chamber" with an explosion you can hear.  The
spray of foul-smelling, burning vapor is a result of rapid firing.  It
shoots out at 500-1,000 pulses per second at a temperature of 100°C.

The stings of ants, bees and wasps are modified (egg laying tools), used
to inject poison in defense or to paralyze prey.  More than 50 different
chemicals have been identified from various species.  Some cause
itching, pain, swelling and redness; others destroy cells and spread
poison.  Honey bees cannot pull their barbed stingers from human skins,
and will eventually tear themselves away leaving their stingers behind,
dying soon afterwards.

Never squash a yellowjacket wasp near the nest.  A dying yellowjacket
releases an alarm pheromone that alerts its comrades.  In less than 15
seconds, yellowjackets within a 15-foot radius will rally to the
victim's aid.

Butterfly wings are covered with tiny over-lapping scales.  The
beautiful, iridescent colors are the result from the way some scales
reflect light, and depend on structure, not pigment.

The largest known butterfly is Queen Alexandra's Birdwing from New
Guinea which has a wingspan of approximately 11 inches; the smallest
butterfly, the Dwarf Blue from Africa has a wingspan of only one-half
inch.

Most Monarch butterflies spend the winter in Mexico.  Only one roost is
known, and more than 14 million Monarchs cluster on branches and trunks
of an area that only measures 140 yards wide.  Incidentally, the two-way
flight averages 2,500 rniles.

Under optimum conditions, one female cockroach can produce two million
offspring in one year.  Average breeding session produces 35,0000
offspring.

Each day some forty-five thousand thunderstorms occur worldwide,
resulting in as many as one hundred lightning strikes every second.

Lightning strikes the earth somewhere more than seventeen million times
every day, or about two hundred times every second.

A bolt of lightning travels at speeds of up to one hundred million feet
per second, or seventy-two million miles per hour.

A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than those
found at the sun's surface.  R Brown, Chicago

The arteries and veins surrounding the brain stem called the "circle of
Willis" looks like a stick person with a large head.

Each square inch of human skin consists of twenty feet of blood vessels.

Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per
hour.

Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks
otherwise it will digest itself.

Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your
heart.

You use an average of 43 muscles for a frown.

You use an average of 17 muscles for a smile.

Every two thousand frowns creates one wrinkle.

The average human blinks his eyes 6,205,000 times each year.

The average human produces a quart of saliva a day or 10,000 gallons in
a lifetime.

The average human's heart will beat 3000 million times in their
lifetime.

The average human will pump 48 million gallons of blood in their
lifetime.

You burn 26 calories in a one minute kiss.

The average human body contains enough:  Sulphur to kill all fleas on an
average dog, Carbon to make 900 pencils, Potassium to fire a toy cannon,
Fat to make 7 bars of soap, Phosphorus to make 2,200 match heads, and
Water to fill a ten gallon tank.

A person weighs less at high tide.

This sentence ends with a period.

It is impossible to keep ones eyes open when ones sneezes.

Colgate faced a big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking
countries.  Colgate translates into the command "go hang yourself."

"Bookkeeper" is the only word in English language with three consecutive
double letters.

Detroit, Michigan is the world's largest border city.

The shock waves from earthquakes travel faster in a north-south
direction through the Earth's inner core than they do east-west.  The
effect is called anisotropy.

In order to build up an immunity to bad humors generally, some Europeans
during the Black Death spent an hour a day sniffing in a latrine.

Kitchen dishcloths and sponges, notorious for harboring bacteria which
can cause foodborne illnesses, can be sanitized by using a household
microwave oven.  Researchers at the University of Wisconsin and the
University of California-Davis eliminated E coli 0157:  H7 and
Staphylococcus and other bacteria by exposing cotton dishcloths and
cellulose sponges to microwaves for one minute at the highest setting.

Downtown Oshawa, Ont. is built upon quicksand.  Special support posts
were placed under buildings when constructed because there is no solid
bedrock.

The largest US state, east of the Mississippi River is Georgia.

The U.S. city with the highest rate of lightning strikes per capita is
Clearwater, Florida.


There are more Barbie dolls in Italy than there are Canadians in Canada.

In cooking, six drops make a dash.

Yak's milk is pink.

The blood depicted in the shower scene of the movie "psycho" (you know,
that alfred hitchcock flick--) was really chocolate syrup.

The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five
must be straight.  These straight sections are usable as airstrips in
times of war or other emergencies.

The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston,
Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a boat can sail
under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.

Emus cannot walk backwards.

The United States government keeps its supply of silver at the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point, NY.

There are only thirteen blimps in the world.  Nine of the thirteen
blimps are in the United States.

John Wilkes Booth's original plan was to kidnap Abraham Lincoln and
probably was going to hold him for ransom.

Lincoln once had a dream right before the fall of Richmond that he would
die.  He dreamt that he was in the White House, he heard crying and when
he found the room it was coming from he asked who had died.  The man
said the President.  He looked in the coffin and saw his own face.  A
week later Lincoln died.

Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865 on Good Friday and in 1995 Good
Friday was also on April 14.  When Booth shot Lincoln, some people
thought it was part of the play.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe all died on July 4th.
Jefferson and Adams died at practically the same minute of the same day.

The first coin minted in the United States was a silver dollar.  It was
issued on October 15, 1794.

There is absolutely no documented proof that Betsy Ross designed the
American Flag.


Atila the Hun was a dwarf.  Pepin the Short, Aesop, Gregory the Tours,
Charles 3 of Naples, and the Pasha Hussain were all less than 3.5 feet
tall.

President Grover Cleveland was a draft dodger.  He hired someone to
enter the service in his place, for which he was ridiculed by his
political opponent, James G. Blaine.  It was soon discovered, however,
that Blaine had done the same thing himself.

President John Tyler had fifteen children.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe all died on July 4th.
Jefferson and Adams died at practically the same minute of the same day.

The first coin minted in the United States was a silver dollar.  It was
issued on October 15, 1794.

There is absolutely no documented proof that Betsy Ross designed the
American Flag.


George Washington was not the first president of the United States.  The
first president was John Hanson, Maryland's representative at the
Continental Congress.  On November 5,1781, Hanson was elected by the
Constitutional Congress to the office of "President of the United States
in Congress Assembled."  He served for one year.

George Washington left no direct descendants.  Though his wife Martha
had four children by a previous marriage, Washington never sired a child
to continue his line.

James Buchanan was the only United States president never to marry.
During his term in office, his niece Harriet Lane played the role of
First Lady.

President Ulysses S. Grant was once arrested during his term of office.
He was convicted of exceeding the Washington speed limit on his horse
and was fined $20.  President Franklin Pierce was Arrested while in
office for running over an old woman with his horse, but the case was
dropped for insufficient evidence in 1853.

Andrew Jackson was the first President to be the object of an
assassination attempt.  Jackson had attended a funeral, and a man named
Richard Lawrence came up to him and fired a pistol at point-blank range.
The pistol misfired, and before anyone could react, Lawrence pulled
another pistol and it too misfired!  Instead of running or taking cover,
President Jackson preceded to beat the man over the head with his cane.
The odds were astronomical that two pistols would misfire.

David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars.  He spoke
all of Vader's lines, and didn't know that he was going to be dubbed
over by James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie.

Camel's milk does not curdle.

"Mr.  Mojo Risin" is an anagram for Jim Morrison.

The word "modem" is a contraction of the words "modulate, demodulate."
(MOdulateDEModulate)

Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.

In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.

The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the
"General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.

Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and
Australia have participated in every Games.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full
moon.

It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to be one pound.

Montpelier, Vermont is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonalds.

No word in the English language rhymes with month.

There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.

Roger Ebert is the only film critic to have ever won the Pulitzer prize.

Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York

City, after the Catholic Church.

An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.

The first Ford cars had Dodge engines.

Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.

It takes about a half a gallon of water to cook macaroni, and about a
gallon to clean the pot.

In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in
Colorado.

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.  It's also a
potent hallucigen.

If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have

$1.19.  You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being
able to make change for a dollar.

Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike
factory workers in Malaysia combined.

Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son.

The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports
games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the
Major League All-Star Game.

Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."

The word accordion comes from the German word "akkord," which means
"agreement, harmony."

"A pound of termites has more nutrients than a pound of beef or pork,"
says Frank French of Georgia Southern University.  He teaches his
students that there are more food sources around them than they think.
Students are urged to create new recipes using foods such as wild
plants, but more points are given if the students use bugs.  The catch:
students have to eat their creations as part of their assignment.
French doesn't shirk his responsibilities:  he eats them too.  He notes
that roast crickets, for instance, "taste like a fat-laden hors
d'oeuvre."  However, "the legs aren't very palatable, and the heads are
quite objectionable."  (AP) ...Mostly, the students learn that the
"mystery meat" in the cafeteria may not be so bad after all.

It is illegal to have sex in the nude in your back yard or front yard
for that matter.  However, it is legal if you're wearing a pair of socks
or any other piece of clothing.

Wayne's World was filmed in two weeks.

Ratio of number of breast enhancements each year in Los Angeles compared
with number performed in the Eastern U.S.:  4 to 1. Ratio of faces lifts
each in L.A. to number in New York:  2 to 1.

The first submarine to sink a ship in combat was the Hunley in 1862.  It
sailed for the Confederate States of America (the south in the Civil
War) and was made from an old steam engine boiler.  It sank one of the
ships blockading Charleston, SC harbor.  Incidently, the Hunley *also*
sank and is currently being raised by a historical group with the help
of the U.S.  Navy.

The central phenomenon which enables *all* vacuum tubes (or valves to
the British) to work is the "boiling" off of electrons from the cathode
when the cathode is heated to about 300 degrees Fahrenheit.  This
phenomenon was discovered and pattened by Thomas Edison, and he named it
the Edison effect.  (The picture tube in your computer monitor uses the
Edison effect to operate.)

The state flower of Texas is the Bluebonnet.  The state tree of Texas is
the pecan.

The laws about carrying wirecutters in your back pocket and shooting
buffalo from a moving train have been repealed (I think...check it out.)

In Malaysia, where barn owls were introduced to control plagues of rats,
each barn owl family killed about 1,300 rats a year!

Tom Cruise's name was Thomas Mapother, before he changed it

The longest place-name still in use is
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaunga-horonukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu,
a New Zealand hill.

Every year has at least one Friday the 13th

The Romans took the Greek Perzoma, the first constructed underwear, and
the Etruscan succinta, a belt, and created the bikini for athletic use.

In a lifetime we replace our skin approximately 1000 times.

Ironically, for their first year (1979) nuclear polka band Brave Combo
didn't have an accordionist.  Then, in 1980 because of Joe King Carrasco
and Joe Nick Patoski, the band got a gig in New York.  Three weeks
before they were to play there, keyboard player Carl Finch decided to
trade in his Fender Rhodes for a beginner's accordion.

As Finch puts it, just the sight of the accordion was enough to win over
the crowd and national press.  Since then, Finch says that watching the
transformation of peoples' attitidues toward accordions has been one of
his most rewarding experiences; the band has even seen accordion
ensembles in Japan.  He also says that one of his favorite aspects about
the instrument is that it's so physical and responsive to a player's
emotions.  Finch, who led the accordion parade scene in David Byrne's
movie "True Stories," adds that Byrne is a charter member of the Dallas
chapter of the Texas Accordionists Association.

It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.

The volume of the Earth's moon is the same as the volume of the Pacific
Ocean.

Spam was invented in 1937.

Penguins are found in the Antarctic, not Arctic.

CD-ROMs have a maximum capacity of 650Mb, but it's safer to just put
600Mb on them.

RAM - Random Access Memory

Researchers at the University of Oklahoma have started a study of the
way tornados carry debris away from the ground.  Historical reports show
that pap er can be carried more than 200 miles before settling back to
earth.  But records of such events are sparse, and those they have found
"you have to take with a grain of salt," one researcher said.  So why
bother?  They want to create a model "that would be of use to
forecasters if a tornado were to hit a hazardous waste site," she said.
They have compiled a number of interesting reports so far.  A cow was
thrown 10 miles in 1878, a pillow went 20 miles in 1913, a jar of
pickles travelled 18 miles in 1917, and, in one 1953 storm, trousers
went 30 miles and a wedding gown a full 50 miles.  (AP) ...Yes, but they
had a head start since they were thrown, not just carried off.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

The Saginaw River in Michigan is the shortest river in the world.

Most published species of dinosaurs have been published within the last
20 years.

In 1822, Mary Ann Mantell of Sussex, England became the first person in
history to discover a dinosaur fossil while correctly identifying it as
something that was a part of a large reptile; earlier discoveries were
identified as giant men, dragons, and other such large, dead things.
However, her husband, Dr.  Gideon Mantell, took credit for the discovery
and identified the teeth that she found as part of an Iguanodon.  Later,
he wrongfully identified a body part as a horn, which turned out to be
part of the creature's thumb.

One of the lenses at the University of Texas' McDonald Observatory has a
nick in it because a worker there got mad at something and shot at it.

In France there's a place called Y.

In Japan there's a place called O.

Four fire ant species are found in Texas, three of which are native to
the state.  The tropical Solenopsis geminata Fabricus and southern
Solenopsis xyloni McCook are the most common.

Side oats grama is the official state grass of Texas.

According to the ancient Chinese, swinging your arms cures headache
pain.

The human aura cannot be photographed through polyester.

The worlds largest crossword-puzzel contained 82951 cells

The phone number for the White house is 202-456-1414

Normally there are born 94 females to 100 males.  But among quadruplets
there are 156 females for evrey 100 males.

Guam has seven public elementary schools.

Length of beard an average man would grow if he never shaved:  27.5
feet.  Amount of time an average man spends shaving:  3350 hours.
Number of whiskers on the face of the average man:  30,000.  Number of
inches whiskers grown per year 5.5.

Clouds fly higher during the day than the night.

7'1" Basketball star WiltChamberlain's parents were 5'8".

The average person looks at 8 houses before actually buying one.

The A & P was the first chain-store business to be established.  It
began in 1842.

A Canadian marine biologist claims to have cultured the world's biggest
abalone pearl.  Measuring 27 millimetres (just over one inch) across its
base, the pearl is approximately five millimetres bigger than its
next-largest known counterpart which was cultured in Japan.

The Grand Canyon was not seen by a white man until after the Civil War.
It was first entered on May 29,1869, by the geologist John Wesley
Powell.

Wyoming was the first state to allow women to vote.

Border collies are the most intelligentbreed of dog.

The average child will eat 15 pounds of cereal in a year.

The average college student produces 640 pounds of solid waste each
year, including 500 disposable cups and 320 pounds of paper.

There were 5,345 landfills in the U.S. and its terrorities in 1992.

A total of 67% of waste was landfilled in 1992, compared to 81% in 1980
and 62% in 1960.

More than 15 million tons of waste destined for landfills had to cross a
state line to get there.  This may change dramatically depending on how
the U.S.  Supreme Court resolves its upcoming flow control cases.  At
least 27 states currently have flow control laws.

At the current pace, we'll be generating 222 million tons of waste by
the year 2000.  Currently about 130 million tons of MSW ends up in
landfills each year (NSWMA).

In a recent survey of World Wastes subscribers, of those owning
landfills, 53% expect their site to remain open 10+ years;

12% said 5 to 9 years; 7% reported 3 to 4 years and a whopping 26% said
less than 3 years.

Subtitle D regulations will provide minimum standards for the nation's
public and private landfills.  It involves the use of composite liners
and having an elaborate monitoring system.  The costs of the regs. will
result in a regionalized approach for volume-based business and a
dramatic decrease of publicly owned facilities.  Also specifies that
landfill obtain an amount sufficient to close and cap the site and
perform care and maintenance for 30 years after closure.

The equivalent of ten city blocks of rainforest is destroyed every
minute, that's an area the size of Pennsylvania lost every year.

7% of the earth's dry land surface is rainforest, home to more than 50%
of the world's plants and animals.

A bulldozer must remove 60 rainforest trees to reach one mahogany tree.

There are 100 different species of large trees in a single acre of
rainforest.

"The Chief" in BC,Canada is the worlds second largest rock.

The National Cancer Research Institute found that women who eat meat on
a daily basis are almost 4 times more likely to get breast cancer than
those women who eat little or no meat.

Oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface - 360 million square km

The average depth of the ocean is 4 km

The area of the Pacific Ocean exceeds that of all the land

The world's oceans contain 328 million cubic miles of sea water

The deepest spot in the ocean is in the Mariana Trench at 11.7 km

There may be as many as 6 million diatoms, tiny floating plants in a
cubic foot of sea water

86% of fish landings in 1989 were marine

15 of the world's 17 largest fisheries are overfished or in trouble

Less than 30% of the coral reefs in Japan, Philippines and Costa Rica
are in good or excellent condition

People who regularly start each day eating a bowl of cold breakfast
cereal tend to consume more fiber and calcium -- but less fat -- than
people who breakfast on other foods.

An African elephant possesses such "manual" dexterity in his/her trunk
tip that he/she can actually turn the pages of a book with it.

Elephants are particularly fond of beer and other forms of alcohol; they
are known to seek out fermenting durian fruits in

S.E.  Asia.  In parts of the world such as India where elephants are
regularly paraded, well-intentioned (and usually foreign)

Onlookers will occasionally offer a quart or two of hard liquor to an
elephant.  Often, the drunken elephant will "run amok" and end up
getting shot in order to protect the crowd.

The snow goose completes its 3,000 mile return to its Arctic home at an
altitude of 3,000 feet and an average speed of 50 miles per hour.  It
achieves this task on a diet of grass, bulbs, berries and slugs.

The risk for developing malignant melanoma has increased 1,800% in the
US since 1930.  The cancer now claims a life every hour.

The ongoing Australian campaign to eliminate its non-native rabbit
population by spreading a bunny-killing virus may be working too well.
The public is now being warned to be on the alert for hungry eagles
attacking motorists on some highways.

Bubonic plague killed millions of people throughout Europe in the Dark
Ages.  In 1996, five cases of plague were reported in the U.S.

Percentage of high school seniors with an A average who smoke cigarettes
daily:  7.

Percentage of seniors with a D average who smoke daily:  46.

Researchers have found the fossilized remains of what may be the first
vertebrate to fly.  Born 250 million years ago, Coelurosauravus jaekeli,
was a one-foot long lizard with strange detached rod-like bones in wing
area.

"X" goes first in Tic-Tac-Toe

Jeff Norton's the only Edmonton Oiler who doesn't wear socks under his
skates.

Ants are social insects and live in colonies which may have as many as
500,000 individuals.

Tiny ants can lift objects that weigh more than they do.  Ants also have
remarkably strong jaws and can give a painful nip.  When some species
bite, they are able to squirt formic acid from the end of their abdomen
into the wound -- making it doubly painful.

When ants find food, they lay down a chemical trail, called a pheromone,
so that other ants can find their way from the nest to the food source.

Worker ants may live seven years and the queen may live as long as 15
years.

Traditionally, a jury's decision must be unanimous, although it is legal
for a state to allow a majority vote in designated cases.  When a jury's
member can't agree, it is called a hung jury.  When jurors notify a
judge that they are deadlocked, the judge usually ends the trial.  A new
trial is held later with new jurors.

The Constitution requires 12 members for juries in Federal courts.
While 12 is the traditional number of jurors, some state courts
occasionally have fewer than 12 persons on a jury.

North Carolina's Mount Mitchell, at 6,684 feet, is the tallest mountain
in the East.  When first measured in 1835, it was the highest point in
what was then the United States.  The nation's highest peak now is
Alaska's Mount McKinley, which stands 20,320 feet.

An estimated 25 million Americans travel in the nation's 9 million RVs.
Over half of likely RV buyers are age 30 to 49.

Athletic shoe industry leader Nike spent an estimated $120 million on
advertising in 1994.  Number two Reebok spent $70 million.

The world's largest single mineral hot spring is located in Wyoming's
Hot Springs State Park.  Millions of gallons of water containing at
least 27 different minerals flow through the spring every 24 hours,
always at a constant temperature of 135 degrees Fahrenheit.

70% of all boats sold are used in fishing.

A body of water was the favorite destination of those responding to last
year's Recreation Roundtable survey.  An ocean, lake, reservoir or river
was the choice for about 40% of the respondents.

Fiberglass proved the most popular hull material in a majority of
states, with 5.5 million fiberglass boats registered overall.

Metal boats came second with 4 million registrations.  Wooden boats
numbered 279,530.  Inflatable craft registrations numbered 65,807.

62,955 commercial passengers went whitewater rafting in Maine in 1994, a
4.3% increase over the previous year.

Americans are accorded about 130 leisure days per year.  In comparison,
first-century Romans had only 66 free days per year, while three
centuries later their imperial descendants enjoyed 175.Englishmen of the
early 16th century had over 200 days off, but the Khmer Rouge allowed
Cambodians fewer than 40 work-free days per year in the 1970s.

The Finlandia Vodka Clean Water Challenge is the world's longest
endurance kayak race and the biggest purse in paddlesports.  The race,
which kicks off in Chicago on July 11 and finishes in New York City on
August 10, will cover approximately 800 miles of waterways.  The total
purse is $75,000.

A few Wright flyers were equipped with radiotelegraphs.  This early
avionics system required a radio operator to ride along just to operate
the radio.

Many of today's small planes are better equipped electronically than the
airliners of the 1950s.  A typical four place aircraft can be equipped
with satellite navigation, dual 760 channel communication radios, an
electronic moving map system, weather radar, an autopilot, and more.

The Boeing 777 relies completely on its avionics systems.  The triple-
redundant flight control system is completely "fly-by-wire."  In other
words, this airliner has no control cables or hydraulics attached
between the control surfaces and the control wheel; when the pilot moves
the control wheel, a computer comunicates with another and moves the
control surface.

All of the avionics systems aboard this aircraft use built in test
equipment (BITE) that automatically troubleshoots faults.

Mrs. Karen Creamo was the original creator of mayonnaise.  On Monday, 16
May 1927, Mrs. C. was trying to create a special treat for her family.
She decided to create a sauce to put on the roast beef that she was
roasting in the oven, and her creation, mayonnaise, has become loved by
millions.

Mayonnaise is being studied as a substitute for silicon in breast
implants.

A typical WWW user has a college education and income in the
$50-80K/year range.


Turtles possess the ability to absorb oxygen directly from the water in
which they swim (kind of like fish).

Turtles have special sacs (or bursae) located in the cloaca, a pouch
near the tail which contains the rectal and urogenital openings.  These
bursae are covered with thousands of tiny, fingerlike projections called
villi, each filled with tiny blood vessels which absorb oxygen.  By
drawing water into and out of the cloaca, the turtle can absorb more
than enough oxygen to survive.  This is how most turtles breathe
underwater.  Natureboy

The ball of food that your tounge creates during chewing is called a
"bolus"

The Panama Canal actully runs North/South.

Packard Bell's Tech Support number is 1-800-733-4411

The free "Hair Club for Men" Video is actully 11:  22 min. long.

Number of human beings who could be fed by the grain and soybeans eaten
by U.S. livestock:  1,300,000,000

Number of people who will starve to death this year:  20,000,000

A mere ounce of dioxin could kill 10 million people

Less than 1 out of every quarter million slaughtered animals is tested
for toxic chemical residues.

Ice Cream was invented in China in about 200 B.C., when a soft, milk &
rice mixture was further solidified by packing it in snow.

Roman emperors are alleged to have sent slaves to mountain tops to bring
back fresh snow which was then flavored and served as part of their
famous food orgies.

The first hand-crank ice cream freezer was invented in 1846 by Nancy
Johnson.

In 1851, Jacob Fussell, a milk dealer in Baltimore, converted his milk
plant into the first ice cream plant in the United States.

In 1921, the comissioner of Ellis Island made the decision to treat all
incoming immigrants to a taste of something truly American, by serving
them ice cream as part of their first meal.

In 1943, Brigham's ice cream parlours offered three flavors of ice
cream--vanilla, chocolate, and coffee--and sold hot fudge sundaes for
20-cents, or 25-cents with nuts.

On August 7, 1977, Dennett D'Angelo set a world record for eating 3
pounds, 6 ounces of ice cream in 90 seconds.

In 1994, Brigham's used 1,400,000 pounds of sugar to make its delicious
ice cream and frozen yogurt products.

New Englanders enjoy a hearty 39 pints of ice cream annually, or about
14 pints more per year than the average American.

The average medium size piano has about 230 strings .

The total string tension in a concert grand is close to Thirty Tons.

There are over 10 MILLION pianos in American homes, businesses, and
institutions.

The first practical piano with an escapement mechanism for the hammers
and capable of being played softly and loudly was built in 1726 by an
Italian, Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731).

During the past 100 years there have been approximately 5000 Brands of
pianos placed on the market.  Most are still on display in homes or
elsewhere.

Pianos are made of thousands of pieces of wood glued together to form
various parts of the playing mechanism as well as the cabinet.  Felt,
buckskin, paper, steel, iron, copper, and other materials are also used.

Yamaha, established in 1887 was the first piano manufacturer in Japan.

Independent studies show that children who learn piano tend to do better
in school.  This is attributed to the discipline, eye-hand coordination,
social skills building, learning a new language (music) and the pleasure
derived from making your own music

Buckingham palace has over 600 rooms

Some birds use stars to orientate themselves during migration.

In the Renaissance, two armies clashed in The Battle of Grandson.  The
victors completely killed the opposing army, but woke the next morning
freezing cold.  They pulled the clothes from the dead army and tried to
put them on over their own.  The clothes didn't fit, so t