seeing as though this is a thread for information:
Lightning is created by the air around a lightning bolt is superheated to about five times the temperature of the Sun. This sudden heating causes the air to expand faster than the speed of sound, which compresses the air and forms a shock wave; we hear it as thunder.
The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television was Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
Coca-Cola was originally green.
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.
The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.
City with the most Rolls Royces per capita: Hong Kong.
State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska.
Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%
Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33 and she would be 7 feet 2 inches tall.
Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400
Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
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.
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 W.W.II 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."
Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
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 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 name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
The first NFL team that plays its home games in a domed stadium to win a Superbowl was the St. Louis Rams in 1999.
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-stars Game.
The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosy is a rhyme about the plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores ("Ring around the rosy..."😉, these sores would smell very badly so common folks would put flowers on their bodies somewhere (inconspicuously), so that it would cover the smell of the sores ("...a pocket full of posies..."😉, People who died from the plague would be burned so as to reduce the possible spread of the disease ("...ashes, ashes, we all fall down!"😉
Q. What separates "60 Minutes," on CBS from every other TV show?
A. No theme song.
Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. Their birthplace.
Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested?
A. Obsession
Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"?
A. One thousand
Q. What do bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers all have in common?
A. All invented by women.
Q. This is the only food that doesn't spoil.
A. Honey
Q. There are more collect calls on this day than any other day of the year.
A. Father's Day
Q. What trivia fact about Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) is the most ironic?
A. He was allergic to carrots.
40% of all people who come to a party snoop in your medicine cabinet.
An apple, onion, and potato all have the same taste. The differences in flavor are caused by their smell. To prove this you can pinch your nose and take a bite from each. They will all taste sweet.
The estimated number of M & M's sold each day in the United States is 200,000,000.
Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave.
Wine will spoil if exposed to light, hence tinted bottles.
A hard-boiled egg will spin. An uncooked or soft-boiled egg will not.
Domestic cats hate lemons or other citrus scents.
Every citizen of Kentucky is required by law to take a bath at least once a year.
Parker Brothers prints about 50 billion dollars worth of Monopoly money in one year. (which is more than real money printed in a year)
203 million dollars is spent on barbed wire each year in the U.S.
No word in the English language rhymes with "month".
If you put a raisin in a champagne bottle, it will rise and fall continuously.
The letter J does not appear ANYWHERE in the periodic table of elements.
In Canada, if a debt is higher than 25 cents, it is illegal to pay it with pennies.
Impotence is grounds for divorce in 24 states in the United States.
Federal law forbids recycling used eyeglasses in the United States
If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in U.S. coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
If you are hedenophobic, you have a fear of pleasure.
"Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more like 4,950.
The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom more often.
The longest word that can be typed solely with the left hand is stewardess.
There is only ONE word in the English language with THREE CONSECUTIVE SETS OF DOUBLE LETTERS.... Bookkeeper.
Cleveland spelled backwards is "DNA level C."
The # symbols is often referred to as a "number sign" or "pound sign." Its actual name is an octothorpe.
The letter "W" is the only letter in the alphabet that doesn't have just one syllable - it has three.
The letters in the abbreviation e.g. stand for exempli gratia - a Latin term meaning "for example."
Women blink nearly twice as much as men do.
This one is deep...think about the cultural impact this could have: NO WAR HAS BEEN FOUGHT WHERE BOTH COUNTRIES HAD A McDonalds.
For the "wrong handed" people...Over 2500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right handed people! That means DEATH to Lefties.
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter of the alphabet!
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable"!
A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off - it dies from starvation.
The state of Florida is bigger than England!
The youngest person to give birth was a five-yr. old tribal girl (C-Section of course
Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.
No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
Marilyn Monroe had six toes.
All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public.
Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
Pearls melt in vinegar.
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
A duck's quack doesn't echo and no one knows why.
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second was William Jefferson Clinton.
Turtles can breathe through their butts.
Butterflies taste with their feet.
In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
A snail can sleep for three years.
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
All polar bears are left handed.
In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
"Go," is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
Almost everyone who reads this email will try to lick their elbow.