Fun, Weird, or Dumb Facts People Might not Know

[Aberinkula]

[COLOR="77656"]I'm reading this book that has some facts that are crazy. This book has about 2201 facts. On the front flap they have a fact that says "In 1740 a cow was fond guitly of sorcery in France and publicly hanged"! Now come on, that's funny. There was also a fact that 'to die' used to be slang for having an orgasm.

[B]So I ask you, are there some facts that you know that are weird, cool or people might not know about? Well, tell them here.[/B]
But first I have to tell you some quoted straight from the book.

"At the boment of beng hanged, many observers have noted, the victim, if male, often has an erection and may even ejaculate."

"Not able to Fornicate, was the name of a nineteenth-centruary northwestern American Indian chief."

"A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball made of rubber. A ball of solid steel will bounce higher than one made entirely of glass"

"In [I]Gulliver's Travels[/I] Jonathan Swift described the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, giving their exact size and speeds of rotation. He did this more than one hundered years [I]before [/I]either moon was discovered."

And finally,

"If one counted twenty-four hours a day, it would take 31,688 years to count to a trillion. If a trillion dollar bills were stacked one on top of the other the stack would be twice as high as Mt. Everest. A trillion doller bills laid end to end would circle the world 3,882 times."

Interesting aren't they?[/COLOR]

[Sandy]

[quote name='Gunslinger'][COLOR="77656"]There was also a fact that 'to die' used to be slang for having an orgasm.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]

An orgasm is still called "[I]petit mort[/I]" (small death) as a nickname in French-speaking countries.

[Raiha]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]I should warn you all now that be sure to check your facts against 'snopes.com' before posting them. If you posted a 'fact' that was in fact an urban legend disproved, boy your face would be red.

Cool Weird Facts?

Canaries can't swallow when hung upside down. They lack the muscles that humans have allowing such an action.

A Chinese man who lived well past 100 attributed his long existence to his diet and distinct lack of sexual activity. ...ever. [/FONT][/COLOR]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[quote name='Gunslinger'][COLOR="77656"]"At the boment of beng hanged, many observers have noted, the victim, if male, often has an erection and may even ejaculate." [/COLOR][/QUOTE]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]This completely explains this one hentai I was reading... though that one had a lot more decapitation. And heads talking >_> Sometimes the guro tag can be fun.

Facts? Fact: Another lady who lived over 100 years attributed it to a routine of sleeping 2 days and staying awake 2 days as her sleep schdule. [/COLOR]

[Circ]

[quote name='Gunslinger']"A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball made of rubber. A ball of solid steel will bounce higher than one made entirely of glass"[/QUOTE]

There are quite a few rubbers that don't bounce at all...

[quote name='Neuvoxraiha']Canaries can't swallow when hung upside down. They lack the muscles that humans have allowing such an action.[/QUOTE]

Most bird are like that, actually. But canaries are the lucky one that went into space.


The word "transformer" was only uttered once in the movie [I]Transformer[/I]: after a "earthquake" caused by the Autobots, Ron Witwicky comments that one was busted.

[Gavin]

[SIZE="1"]Care of Strangefacts.com

- Forest fires move faster uphill than downhill!

- In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes!

- There is one slot machine in Las Vegas for every eight inhabitants![/SIZE]

[Raiha]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]The poor birds... ...wait, avian flu comes from what? Nevermind, pass the chicken.

Another great fact that nobody in their right mind ever really did care about?

SARS was just a particularly nasty strain of the flu.

But here is one people should care about.

HIV is passed more effectively through the population through malaria. An unchecked mosquito population passes both diseases without bias. Millions have died from getting malaria, then HIV. Ever since the banning of DDT, Malaria cases have skyrocketed and so have casualties. Bring back DDT! I don't care about birds! I care about humans![/FONT][/COLOR]

[The Spectacular Professor]

[quote name='Circéus']The word "transformer" was only uttered once in the movie [I]Transformer[/I]: after a "earthquake" caused by the Autobots, Ron Witwicky comments that one was busted.[/QUOTE]

In that vein, the word "Venom" was never, ever uttered throughout all of the third Spider-Man movie. "Poison," yes, but not "venom."

EDIT: Ah-ha! I found my Bathroom Reader! Gunslinger, my books want to challenge you.

Any car in Macomb, Illinois is prohbited from impersonating a Wolf.

You may not eat in a burning building in Chicago.

Brawley, California outlawed snow within city limits.

Conservative? In Hartford, Connecticut, you may not kiss your spouse on a Sunday.

Maryland law does not allow lions in a Theatre.

It is illegal to shoot anything but whales from a moving car in Tennessee.

[The13thMan]

[COLOR=DarkOrange][FONT=Century Gothic]I'm not exactly buying some of these "facts" and would like some proof. The rubber, glass, and steal ball thing... i dunno. I guess it depends on the density of the materials. And the guy naming off the moons before they were discovered. Perhaps the moons were named after the book? Who wrote Gulliver's Travels?

Anyways... let's see here... fun facts.

Rumor has it that Sir Isaac Newton died a virgin. And as he died he was quite proud of his "achievment."

This is a rumor, and not at all a fact: The MMR vaccine causes autism.

This, on the other hand, is a fact: I'm about "to die."

OMG! LOL!! ROFL! STFU!!!1!!1!!one!

A recent study suggested that people who describe themselves as moral are often times more immoral than those who do not.

Researchers estimate that one human language goes extinct every two weeks.

[/FONT][/COLOR]

[Circ]

[quote name='Neuvoxraiha'][COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]HIV is passed more effectively through the population through malaria. An unchecked mosquito population passes both diseases without bias. Millions have died from getting malaria, then HIV. Ever since the banning of DDT, Malaria cases have skyrocketed and so have casualties. Bring back DDT! I don't care about birds! I care about humans![/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE]

Actually mosquitos don't transmit HIV because what they inject never contains HIV:

[QUOTE]When mosquitoes bite a person, they do not inject the blood of a previous victim into the person they bite next. Mosquitoes do, however, inject their saliva into their victims, which may carry diseases such as dengue fever, malaria, yellow fever, or West Nile virus and can infect a bitten person with these diseases. HIV is not transmitted in this manner.[/QUOTE]

[Aberinkula]

[COLOR="77656"]Here is a weird fact abut China I read from the book, along with a couple others.

In Tales from Early Histories, the Chinese historian Ssu-ma related that the Yin Dynasty king, Chou-hsin used the following mixtures as aphrodisiacs:
[B]The Hunting Lion: [/B]the paws of bears simmered over a slow fire, and flavored with the horn of a rhinocerus and distilled human urine
[B]Celestial Thunder:[/B] The tongues of a hundred peacocks spiced with chili powder from the western provinces and flavored with the pserm of pubesant boys.
[B]Three-Day Glory:[/B] Soy beans miced with fresh ginseng, the penis of an ox, and dried human placenta.

The liver is a gland, not an organ.

What do the following towns have in common: Dayton, Atlanta, Cleveland, Philidalphia, Jacksonville, [B]Norfolk,[/B] Bangor, Hartford, New Haven, Phoenix Stamford, Urbana and Newark? They are all towns in New York State.

What's important about the third one is that Norfolk is my hometown. Cool how a small neighborhood can end up in a published book.[/COLOR]

[Raiha]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]Uh. ......mosquitos bite. They don't inject. Now that folks is a fact. Mosquitos bite. And by passes diseases, I mean that the diseases mosquitos do pass to others exacerbate preexisting conditions and leave the immune system weak and succeptible to HIV.

Women have ovaries.

Men don't.

The Majority of active players on the neopets website are people between the ages of 18-25.

......and sadly I'm one of them.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[Circ]

[quote name='Neuvoxraiha'][COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]Uh. ......mosquitos bite. They don't inject. Now that folks is a fact. Mosquitos bite. And by passes diseases, I mean that the diseases mosquitos do pass to others exacerbate preexisting conditions and leave the immune system weak and succeptible to HIV.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]

The inject their anticoagulant saliva, which is both what transmits diseases and causes itches (it's a mild allergic reaction).

Over a dozen, mostly Asian, species of maples have leaves that are not actually maple-leaf-shaped.

[Gavin]

[SIZE="1"]Why not add a few more.

- In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II was named an honorary Harlem Globetrotter!

- A fetus develops fingerprints at eighteen weeks!

- Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!

- Humans blink over 10,000,000 times a year!

And my new favourite:

- In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word![/SIZE]

[The Spectacular Professor]

Close examination reveals easter eggs in the background of the Rocky Horror Picture Show sets. This is due to an easter egg hunt the cast had on the set. Apparently, some eggs were not found.

[Circ]

[quote name='Gavin'][SIZE="1"]- In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word![/SIZE][/QUOTE]

I dunno if it would be considered "dirty", but in many parts of England, the word still means "underwear".

[BlueYoshi]

[color=darkred]My favourite fact, one that a lot of people don't know (a lot of "young" people to be correct), is that Elvis Presley had a twin brother who was stillborn.[/color]

[Aberinkula]

[COLOR="77656"]WTF does stillborn mean? I'm pretty clueless. >_>[/COLOR]

[Nerdsy]

[quote name='Gunslinger'][COLOR="77656"]WTF does stillborn mean? I'm pretty clueless. >_>[/COLOR][/QUOTE]

[URL="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stillborn"]Dictionaries are your friend.[/URL]

[Raiha]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]Oh Nerdsy, you stole my quote. Remember when I used it years ago? Only I'm sure I said dictionary.com. Go there. It is your friend. Or something cool and witty like that.

But seriously, context clues should give you a vague understanding of what stillborn means. Notice how nobody knows about Elvis's brother..... *spooky music*

In Chinese Culture, sticking your chopsticks point down, vertically, into your bowl is considered extremely rude behavior as well as obscenely bad luck. Never do it.

In Victorian times, the word 'stomach' was also considered a dirty word. One woman actually died because she kept on telling her doctor her knees hurt when in fact it was her stomach. Odds are it was cancer, or something cool like that.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[Sangome]

[size=1]Well, my school agenda has some pretty nifty things...mainly weird laws.

Some of which are the following:

"In 2002, the Greek government passed a flawed law that accidentally banned all electronic games."

"In Acworth, Georgia, all citizens must own a rake."

There's also junk like...

"Peanuts can be used as one of the ingredients in dynamite."

And

"Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, was afraid of the dark."[/size]

[Circ]

[quote name='Neuvoxraiha']In Chinese Culture, sticking your chopsticks point down, vertically, into your bowl is considered extremely rude behavior as well as obscenely bad luck. Never do it.[/QUOTE]

For the record, that's because this is the way offerings to the dead are presented.

Painter Cornelius Krighoff was involved with the foundation of the first Entomological Society of in Quebec.

[Vicky]

[SIZE=1]I don't know if these are true but they're some great facts/rumours I picked up:

[LIST]
[*]A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
[*]Banging your head against a wall loses 150 calories an hour. And probably a lot of brain functions.
[*]An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
[*]Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
[*]Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, England, but only in tropical fish stores.
[*]Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
[*]The ten most generous countries are all in Europe (I had to put that in, because I'm horrible ^_^ )
[*]The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from and old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
[*]The youngest pope was 11 years old.
[*]American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.
[*]You can't kill yourself holding your breath.
[/LIST][/size]

[Whiteblaze]

[FONT="Arial"]Some of these I find more interesting than others. Also, I bolded some words because I felt like it.

The dot over the letter "i" is called a [B]tittle[/B].

The [B]average[/B] French citizen eats 500 snails per year.

From age 30, humans gradually begin to [B]shrink[/B] in size.

Car accidents [B]rise[/B] 10% during the first week of daylight savings time.

The [B]typical[/B] person swallows 295 times during dinner.

The name Wendy was [B]made up[/B] for the book [I]Peter Pan[/I].

The word "[B]nerd[/B]" was first coined by Dr. Seuss in "If I Ran the Zoo."

[B]Most[/B] productive day of the workweek: Tuesday.

People with [B]blue[/B] eyes are better able to see in the dark.

First product to have a [B]bar code[/B] was Wrigley's gum.

If you sleep in a [B]cold[/B] room, you are more likely to have a bad dream.

[B]More[/B] than half of Kenya's population is under the age of 15.[/FONT]

[Circ]

[quote name='Whiteblaze'][FONT="Arial"]The [B]average[/B] French citizen eats 500 snails per year.[/FONT][/QUOTE]

I'll call ******** on that one. I doubt enough snails are produced commercially for this to be realistic.

Montreal is the world's second largest French-speaking metropolitan area, and accounts for roughly half the population of Quebec.