Random facts
See also - Funny pictures
Anyone who has known me for some time will know that I love random trivia and useless information. So I thought I'd share some of the more unusual things I learn in life with you here. I hope that it makes an interesting read.
- Depending on when you were born, you can be 6573, 6574 or 6575 days old on your 18th birthday.
- Eating a packet of crisps each day is equivalent to drinking 5 bottles of cooking oil over the course of a year.
- The first official translation of the Bible into Swedish was made in 1541.
- Four nations have elements that are directly or indirectly named after them. They are France (Francium), Germany (Germanium), Poland (Polonium), and the United States (Americum).
- TWENTY NINE is written with as many strokes of the pen as the number itself (e.g. you need three strokes to write the "Y").
- A giraffe's heart weighs twenty four pounds.
- "Happy Birthday" was the first song to be performed in outer space, sung by the Apollo IX astronauts on March 8, 1969.
- The word "taxi" is spelled the same way in thirteen different languages: English, French, German, Swedish, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian and Portuguese.
- If you live in the UK and want to send a letter to the Queen, you will not need a stamp - since the company that delivers your letter is the Royal Mail.
- Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, rather ironically, is the scientific name for the fear of long words.
- The four suits on a pack of cards (hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades) represent the four pillars of society in the middle ages - the Church, the merchant class, agriculture and the military respectively.
- Nauru, an island state in the Pacific Ocean, is the only country in the world without an official capital.
- When church bells are rung, the tower in which they stand actually shake. In most cases this movement is only a few centimetres, but in some extreme cases it can reach half a foot (15 cm).
- Camel's milk, which is widely drunk in Arab countries, has 10 times more iron than cow's milk.
- Homer Simpson's hair is drawn as an "M" and his ear as a "G", representing the initials of Simpson's animator Matt Groening.
- The sound from the bell of Big Ben in London takes 0.1616 seconds to travel the 55 metres to the base of the clock tower. A microphone placed by the bell can relay the sound by radio to New York in just 0.0186 seconds.
- A flag expert is called a vexillologist.
- Each member of the crew of the Oxford-Cambridge boat race typically trains for 2 hours for each stroke of the race. It takes around 600 strokes to complete the course.
- On average, a cubic mile of seawater contains £60 million worth of gold, and £6 million worth of silver.
- A doubly landlocked country is a country surrounded by landlocked countries. There are only two such countries in the world - Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan.
- The number forty is the only number in the English language to have all its letters in alphabetical order.
- The glue on Israeli postage stamps is kosher.
- The billionth decimal digit of pi is 9.
- The national vegetable of Wales is a leek.
- The Libyan flag is the only one in the world to consist of a single colour - green. It represents the country's complete devotion to Islam.
- The number four is the only number in the English language to contain as many letters as the number itself.
