Today's Trivia – Assorted

This week’s interesting but useless information is a little bit of this and a little bit of that...


- The accent that Mike Myers used for the character Shrek came from the accent that his mother would use when she was telling him bedtime stories when he was a child.

- In the Netherlands, there are special traffic lanes for bicycles. There are approximately 17,000 kms of cycle lanes with special bicycle traffic lights.

- It was believed by Ancient Hindus that the world was a sphere and rested on the back of four elephants, which stood on a turtle.

- Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were both epileptic.

- Every year, more than one million miles of Twizzlers licorice is made.

- A penguin swims at a speed of approximately 15 miles per hour.

- The word Thailand means "land of the free".

- A rose imprint that was fossilized in a slate was discovered in Florisant, Colorado, which is said to be thirty-five million years old.

- U.S. bills are 2.61 inches wide, 6.14 inches long, and are .0043 inches thick and weigh 1 gram. (Just in case you ever wondered...)

- The highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere is Mount Aconcagua in Argentina. It rises 22,834 feet above sea level.

- The Barn Owls hearing is so highly developed that they can hunt for their prey in total darkness.

- The average number of bridesmaids at a wedding is four. (I thought it was three.)

- Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.

- In 1876, Maria Spelterina was the first woman to ever cross Niagara Falls on a high wire.

- The temperature of lightning bolts is sometimes hotter than the surface of the sun.

- When Burger King introduced the Whopper Sandwich in 1957, it cost only thirty-seven cents. (1957? I had no idea it was that old.)

- Chopsticks originated from China approximately 4,000 years ago.

- The favorite honeymoon place is Hawaii.

- The 1960 Summer Olympics were the first Olympics to be aired on television by CBS.

- The material to build the Taj Mahal was brought in from various parts of India by a fleet of 1000 elephants.

- In proportion, if Jupiter were a basketball, then the sun would be the size of the Louisiana Super Dome.

- The Toronto Maple Leafs used to be called the Toronto Arenas, then the St. Patricks and finally the Maple Leafs.

- Next to Warsaw, Chicago has the largest Polish population in the world.

- In 1391, China began producing toilet paper for use by its Emperors.

- In the United States, the most frequent month for a tornado to occur is in May.

- There are some ice creams that are 75% air.

- In the United States, lightning hits the ground 40 million times a year.

- A mother hen turns her egg approximately 50 times in a day. This is so the yolk does not stick to the shell.

- The longest kiss on record lasted 30 hours and 45 minutes. Dror Orpaz and Carmit Tsubara recorded it on April 5, 1999 at a kissing contest held in Tel Aviv, Israel.

- Totally Hair Barbie is the best selling Barbie of all time. It sold over ten million units.

- Jellyfish have been on Earth for over 650 million years. This is before sharks and dinosaurs.

- Although white wine can be produced from both red and white grapes, red wine can only be created from red grapes.

- Shirley Temple was considered to play the role of Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz."

- Babies that wear disposable diapers are five times more likely to get a diaper rash than babies wearing a cotton diaper.

- One million cloud droplets are needed to make enough water to produce one raindrop.

- The Netherlands has the highest concentration of museums in the world. Just in Amsterdam alone there are 42 museums.

- Amongst pre-schoolers, Caillou is the fastest-ever-growing television show and is seen in close to 97% of U.S. households.

- Rice flour was used to strengthen some of the bricks that make up the Great Wall of China.

- Research has indicated that a tie that is on too tight can increase the risk of glaucoma in men.

- Each year all of the Hostess bakeries combined bake 500 million Twinkies a year. (I’ve never had one of these.)

- In 1783, the hot air balloon was invented in France.

- Lake Ontario was originally named Lake St. Louis.

- The worlds tallest free fall rollercoaster is The Giant Drop located in Australia. The drop is 120 meters which is equivalent to a 39 storey building.

- The markings that are found on dice are called “pips”.

- Joseph Gayetty is credited for inventing toilet paper in 1857. Unfortunately, his invention failed and did not catch on until ten years later.

- A newly hatched fish is called a “fry”.

- The music band UB40 got its name from an unemployment form in England.

- Every second there are 418 Kit Kat fingers eaten in the world.

- The YKK on the zipper of your Levis stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushibibaisha, the world’s largest zipper manufacturer.

- 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.