Unbelievable Facts

Here are outstanding facts to start you off…

• If  you are struck by lightning, your skin will be heated to 28,000 degrees Centigrade, hotter than the surface of the Sun.

• The average distance between the stars in the sky is 20 million miles.

• It would take a modern spaceship 70,000 years to get to the nearest star to earth.

• An asteroid wiped out every single dinosaur in the world, but not a single species of toad or salamander was affected.

• If you dug a well to the centre of the Earth, and dropped a brick in it, it would take 45 minutes to get to the bottom – 4,000 miles down.

• Your body sheds 10 billion flakes of skin every day.

• Honey is the only food consumed by humans that doesn’t go off.

• A donkey can sink into quicksand but a mule can’t.

• Every time you sneeze your heart stops a second.

• There are 22 miles more canals in Birmingham UK than in Venice.

• Potato crisps were invented by a Mr Crumm.

• Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in their correct order.

• Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow but none for hello.

• The word “set” has the most definitions in the English language.

• The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating its letters is uncopyrightable.

• Windmills always turn counter- clockwise.

• The “Sixth Sick Sheik’s Sixth Sheep’s Sick” is the hardest tongue-twister.

• The longest English word without a vowel is twyndyllyngs which means “twins”.

• The word “dreamt” is the only common word in the English language that ends in “mt”. Albert Einstein never wore any socks.

• The average human will eat 8 spiders while asleep in their lifetime.

• In space, astronauts cannot cry because there is no gravity.

• Hummingbirds are the only creatures that can fly backwards.

• An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

• Cockroaches can live 9 days without their heads before they starve to death.

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

• The average left-handed person lives 7 years LESS than a right-handed person.

• The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year!

• Scientists with high-speed cameras have discovered that rain drops are not tear shaped but rather look like hamburger buns.

• The first Internet domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com on March 15, 1985.

• When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone back in 1876, only six phones were sold in the first month.

• Business.com is currently the most expensive domain name sold: for $7.5 million.

• In 2001, the five most valuable brand names in order were Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE, and Nokia.

• In Canada, the most productive day of the working week is Tuesday.

• In a study by the University of Chicago in 1907, it was concluded that the easiest colour to spot is yellow. This is why John Hertz, who is the founder of the Yellow Cab Company picked cabs to be yellow.

• It takes about 63,000 trees to make the newsprint for the average Sunday edition of The New York Times.

• The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system in India, employing over 1.6 million people.

• Warner Chappel Music owns the copyright to the song “Happy Birthday.”

• They make over $1 million in royalties every year from the commercial use of the song.

• All babies are colour-blind when they are born.

• Children grow faster in the springtime than any other season during the year.

• Each nostril of a human being registers smells in a different way. Smells that are made from the right nostril are more pleasant than the left. However, smells can be detected more accurately when made by the left nostril.

• Humans are born with 350 bones in their body, however when a person reaches adulthood they only have 206 bones. This occurs because many of them join together to make a single bone.