 |
| |
Trivia is anything but. Trivial, that is. It can be amusing, baffling, astonishing and supremely enlightening. You'll find trivia that fits into all those categories here.
It is impossible to lick your elbow.
Chickens can't swallow while they are upside down.
"Paraphilia" is the technical term for sexual deviation or perversion.
A stretched out Slinky is 87 feet long.
Women blink twice as often as men do.
Sigmund Freud's first three scientific papers concerned fish.
The first issue of Playboy, in 1953, which sold for a mere fifty cents, was never dated, because Hugh Hefner assumed he'd never publish another.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the first novel to sell more than one million copies.
Apples are more effective at keeping people awake in the morning than caffeine.
A well-known jail in London was once located on Clink Street. That’s why jails are sometimes called "clinks." 
The average bed is home to more than six billion dust mites.
There is about 38 times as much salt water on Earth as fresh water.
Studies indicate that approximately 10% of adult women have not experienced an orgasm.
Japan's Tokyo Zoo closes for two months each year to give the animals a break from visitors.
The first experiments in genetics involved garden peas.
Dr. Seuss coined the word "nerd" in his 1950 book "If I Ran the Zoo"
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
There are an average of 178 sesame seeds on a McDonald's Big Mac bun.
The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.
Pound for pound (kilo for kilo), hamburgers cost more than new cars.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
Average lifespan of a major league baseball: 5 pitches.
Elephants can't jump. Every other mammal can.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
The Spanish word esposa means "wife." The plural, esposas, means "wives," but also "handcuffs."
Papaphobia is the fear of Popes.
During the many years they spent studying human sexuality, researchers Masters and Johnson observed more than 10,000 episodes of sexual activity.
In American military contracts, a pencil is called a "portable, hand-held communications inscriber."
There’s only one inanimate sign of the Zodiac, Libra.
Mexico once had three different Presidents in the space of 24 hours.
Apples are a member of the rose family.
The average pencil can write 45,000 words.
Giraffes rarely sleep more than 20 minutes a day.
Thomas Jefferson invented the coat hanger.
The only year the Academy Awards weren't held was in 1933.
Women are twice as likely as men to have panic attacks.
Snoopy, of Peanuts fame, was born at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.
The nail on the thumb grows the slowest.
It is possible to lead a cow up stairs, but not down.
Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
Hitler was a vegetarian.
Lions sleep almost 20 hours a day.
Scarlett O’Hara’s real first name was Katie.
It takes a week to make a jelly bean.
If Barbie were lifesize, her measurements would be 39-23-33.
In New Jersey, is illegal to frown at a police officer.
25% of American adults say they never exercise.
There are 2,343 exclamation points used in The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe.
The ampersand (&) was once a letter of the English alphabet.
The world’s most expensive spice is Spanish saffron it can cost more than US $2,000 per pound. 
Orangutans warn people to stay out of their territory by belching.
Public women’s restrooms are twice as germ-laden as men’s.
Seventy-three percent of Manila residents smoke.
There are more germs in the human mouth than in the anus.
Lyndon Johnson claimed to have had sex with five of his six secretaries, including one session on his desk in the Oval Office.
The maximum speed at which erotic sensations travel from skin to brain has been clocked at 156 miles per hour.
Nurses and doctors wash their hands between patients less than one-third of the time.
The Carpenters' signature song, We've Only Just Begun, was originally part of a television commercial for a California bank. Richard Carpenter saw the commercial and made it into a hit song.
When Joseph Gayetty invented toilet paper in 1857, he had his name printed on each sheet.
For several centuries, women used to rub crushed strawberries on their breasts in the belief that it would enlarge them.
L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, called his home in Hollywood "Ozcot."
TV’s Lieutenant Columbo did have a first name—Phillip.
A giraffe has a 20-inch tongue.
Napoleon Bonaparte financed his invasion of Russia with counterfeit money.
When the first duck-billed platypus arrived at the British Museum, the curators thought it was a fake and tried to pull its beak off.
In the latter part of the 18th century, Prussian surgeons treated stutterers by snipping off portions of their tongues.
Thrity-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
The number of left-handed men is double that of left-handed women.
The parachute was invented by Leonardo da Vinci.
An average man on an average day excretes two and a half quarts of sweat. 
The balance beam used in Olympic gymnastic competition is four inches wide.
Florence Nightingale spent the last 40 years of her life in one room, never leaving.
In the United States, 85% of couples use the "missionary position" exclusively.
Giraffes were at one time referred to by Europeans as "cameleopards," believing giraffes were the offspring of camels and leopards.
Among the world’s recognised languages, 184 are spoken by fewer than 10 people.
Stalin holds the world record for erecting the most statues to himself.
Human birth control pills work on gorillas.
In ancient Athens, every third man worked with marble.
Yellow tennis balls were used at Wimbledon for the first time in 1986.
Mel Gibson earned $5,000 for his role in Mad Max.
Every day, 2,700 Americans are told they have gonorrhoea.
The middle stall in a public bathroom is the most contaminated. The first stall is the least contaminated.
Childbirth can spur hair loss. 
Surveys report men prefer smooth peanut butter, while women prefer crunchy.
A cockroach breaks wind every 15 minutes.
Woody Woodpecker’s hometown was Puddleburgh.
The space between your nostrils is called the "columella."
It’s estimated that the French eat an average of 200 million frogs each year.
The leaf on the Canadian flag has 11 points.
Astronaut John W. Young smuggled a corned beef sandwich aboard the five-hour Gemini 3 flight on March 23, 1965. Consumed by mission mate Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, the contraband sandwich resulted in a Congressional investigation and the first official reprimand of an astronaut.
You can get 7.5 million toothpicks out of a cord of wood.
Les Miserables , by Victor Hugo, is the novel that contains the longest sentence in literature. The sentence has 823 words.
Pandas in China have been given Viagra to help them mate.
The address of Big Bird’s nest on "Sesame Street" is 123 ½ Sesame Street.
Soldiers in the Netherlands are not required to salute officers.
The "left bank" of a river is the left side as you look downstream.
Aristotle, Sir Isaac Newton, Moses and Charles Darwin were all stutterers.
40% of people killed by falling off a horse are drunk.
The number one cause of depression in married people is being married. In unmarried people, it’s being single.
It would take just 23 hours for all the Coca-Cola ever produced to flow over Niagara Falls.
Crab was the only named dog in any Shakespearian play. The play was Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Research has proven that shoes wear out faster on the right feet than on the left.
Most experts agree Jack the Ripper was left-handed.
Every year, the equivalent of about 12% of the U.S. population is arrested.
A woodpecker can peck 20 times a second.
The fourth most used language in the U.S. is sign language.
The first sport to be filmed was boxing, in 1894. Thomas Edison himself did the filming.
One of Preparation H's main ingredients is shark liver oil. The oil not only helps shrink haemorrhoids, but will shrink any tissue.
From space, the brightest man-made place is Las Vegas, Nevada.
Waterskiing was originally called "plank-gliding" in England. 
Nepal is the only country that doesn’t have a rectangular or square flag.
The speed of an average size raindrop under normal conditions is seven miles per hour.
The most common invention of the 19th century was the washing machine. Between 1804 and 1873, at least 1,676 patents were issued by the U.S. Patent Office for various forms of this device.
Dog mushing is the state sport of Alaska.
The real name of the Riddler (of Batman fame) is E. Nigma. The "E" stands for Edward.
A flamingo can only eat when its head is upside down.
There are approximately 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building.
The term "moron" entered our vocabulary when Molière, in his play La Princesse d’Elide, gave a dim-witted character the name Moron.
About 6,000 teens lose their virginity each day in America.
The average pool cue is 57 inches long.
The childhood name of Tarzan was John Clayton, Jr.
Tennis was the first Olympic sport to include women (in Paris, 1900).
More men stutter than women.
Five hundred cubic feet of air pass through your nose every day.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’s first names were Henry and Edward, respectively.
A female African elephant can be pregnant for nearly two years.
When you sneeze, your heart stops for a millisecond.
More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
If the American government has no knowledge of aliens, then why does Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, implemented on July 16, 1969, make it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extra-terrestrials or their vehicles?
In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.
Most lipstick contains fish scales.
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
Over 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow...
|
