... to pump up your refund, you've taken a few flights of fancy. "Can I claim a deduction for all those blood donations at the Red Cross?" Nope.

Submitted by Former Emmitsburg Mayor Ed!
 

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• Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food.
• All 17 children of Queen Anne died before she did.
• Almost a quarter of the land area of Los Angeles is taken up by automobiles.
• The African lungfish can live out of water for up to four years.
• In 1935, Jesse Owens set six track and field world records in less than one hour.
• Band-Aid bandages first appeared on the market in 1921, however, the little red string that is used to open the package did not get added until 1940.
• Gene Cernan was the last man on the moon.
• Every major league baseball team in the U.S. buys about eighteen thousand baseballs each season.
• Leonardo da Vinci spent twelve years painting the Mona Lisa's lips.
• When glass breaks, the cracks move at speeds of up to 3,000 miles per hour.
• Today’s average household in the USA contains more computer power than existed in the world before 1965.
• The average desktop computer contains 5-10 times more computing power than was used to land a man on the moon.
• The Academy Award statue is named after a librarian's uncle. One day Margaret Herrick, librarian for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, remarked that the statue looked like her Uncle Oscar--the name stuck.
• Anise is the scent on the artificial rabbit that is used in greyhound races.
• Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.
• The onion is actually a lily.
• Roses cut in the afternoon last longer than ones cut in the morning.
• The moon is one million times drier than the Gobi Desert.
• The embryos of tiger sharks fight each other while in their mother's womb, the survivor being the baby shark that is born.

Submitted by Kenneth, Shropshire, England
 

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• There are four cars and eleven light posts on the back of a $10 bill.
• The earliest known legal text was written by Ur Nammu in 2100 B.C.
• 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
• Some 160,000 people attempt suicide every year in France.
• 99% of the solar system's mass is concentrated in the sun.
• The oldest commercially marketed carbonated drink was Moxie, which became available in apothecaries as a medical tonic in 1876.
• The first time movie audiences were treated to a flushing toilet was in Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 release Psycho.
• The Union ironclad, Monitor, was the first U.S. ship to have a flush toilet.
• The average American eats 114,000 Tootsie Rolls in their lifetime.
• 27% of U.S. male college students believe life is a meaningless existential hell.
• On the average, a normal person's eye muscles move about 100,000 to 150,000 times in one day.
• Most toilets flush in E flat.
• The Ancient Egyptians trained baboons to wait at their tables.
• England is smaller than New England.
• Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
• Elephants have been known to remain standing after they die.
• Porcupines are excellent swimmers, because their quills are hollow.
• Some insects can live up to a year without their heads.

Submitted by Kenneth, Shropshire, England
 

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• Many hamsters blink one eye at a time.
• Whitby, Ontario has more donut stores per capita than any other place in the world.
• Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel with over 50,000 words, none of which containing the letter "e."
• Bulls are color blind.
• A can of Spam is opened every four seconds.
• "Babe" was played by over 48 pigs.
• Mosquitoes have 47 teeth.
• The Poison Arrow frog has enough poison to kill 2,200 people.
• The largest cabbage on record weighed 144 pounds.
• Kidney stones come in any color­from yellow to brown.
• The McDonalds at the SkyDome in Toronto, Ontario is the only one in the world that sells hot dogs.
• The first episode of "Leave it to Beaver" aired on October 4, 1957.
• The first flushing toilet seen on TV was on Leave it to Beaver. (However, only the tank was shown, not the bowl.)
• Jerry Seinfeld's apartment number (on the show) is 5A. In the old episodes it was 3A.
• The shortest commercial ever was only four frames of a second.
• Pi has been calculated to 2,260,321,363 digits. The billionth digit in Pi is 9.
• Babies are born without kneecaps. They appear when the child is 2-6 years of age.
• An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.
• A group of unicorns is called a blessing.
• A group of kangaroos is called a mob.
• A group of owls is called a parliament.
• A group of ravens is called a murder.
• Twelve or more cows is called a "flink."
• The average garden-variety caterpillar has 248 muscles in its head.
• A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
• Alfred Hitchcock had no belly button for it was eliminated during surgery.
• The average human produces 10,000 gallons of saliva in a lifetime.
• A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
• Cranberry Jell-0 is the only kind that contains real fruit.
• The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
• Every time you lick a stamp you consume 1/10 of a calorie.
• The pound sign (#) is called an octothorpe.
• Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.
• Emus can't walk backwards.
• New Jersey has a spoon museum with over 5,400 spoons from almost all the states.
• There was once a town in West Virginia called "6."
• Singapore only has one train station.
• Napoleon made his battle plans in a sandbox.
• The green stuff on the occasional freak potato chip is chlorophyll.
• If you ate too many carrots you would turn orange.
• The force of one billion people jumping at the same time is equal to 500 tons of TNT.
• Howdy Doody had 48 freckles.
• The only President to win a Pulitzer Prize was John Kennedy for "Profiles in Courage."
• The world's youngest parents were eight and nine and lived in China in 1910.
• The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable."
• "Hang on Sloopy" is the official rock song of Ohio.
• The airplane Buddy Holly died in was a Beech Bonanza.
• When opossums are "playing 'possum," they are not playing. They actually pass out from sheer terror.
• 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.
• Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them would burn their houses down­hence the expression "to get fired."
• Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th. The last signature wasn't added until five years later.
• The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are useable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
• In every episode of "Seinfeld" there is a Superman somewhere.
• The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
• No NFL team that plays its home games in a domed stadium ever won a Superbowl­until the St. Louis Rams in 2000.
• The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."

Submitted by Kenneth, Shropshire, England
 

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• In the Congo, one must be very careful not to utter the name of anyone who is out fishing. Certain Congolese think you put such a whammy on the named native that he won't catch anything but flies.
• There is only one animal that can completely turn its stomach inside out. The starfish.
• According to scientists, gold exists on Mars, Mercury and Venus.
• Each day 100 or more whales are killed by fishermen.
• In the 10th century, the Grand Vizier of Persia took his entire library with him wherever he went. The 117,000-volume library was carried by camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.
• More than 14 million Bic pens are sold daily in 150 countries. "Bic" is actually a shortened version of founder Marcel Bich's name.
• P. J. Tierney, father of the modern diner, died of indigestion in 1917 after eating at a diner.
• A "duffer" is Australian slang for a cattle thief.
• "Brasco" is Australian slang for "lavatory."
• The word "gazelle" comes from the Arabian term for "affectionate," and is believed to be inspired by the creature's large, gentle eyes.
• "Kemo Sabe" means "soggy shrub" in Navajo.
• "Singapore" means "City of Lions," but none have ever been seen there.
• "Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
• 100,000 cubic feet of water pours over the Niagara Falls every second.
• A "clue" originally meant a ball of thread. Hence, one "unravels" the clues of a mystery.
• A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time. It is 1/100 of a second.
• A fireplace is called a "mantelpiece" because at one time people hung their coats (or "mantles") over the fireplace to dry them.
• The name of the Internet's most popular directory, is an acronym. According to the company, the name "Yahoo" stands for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle."
• If you add together all the numbers on a roulette wheel (1 to 36) the total is the mystical number 666.
• If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
• In Albania, nodding the head means "no" and shaking the head means "yes."
• The original name for the butterfly was "flutterby."
• The phrase "a red letter day" dates back to 1704, when holy days were marked in red letters in church calendars.
• The pretzel is named from the Latin word "brachiatus" meaning "having branch-like arms."
• In the Middle English the word "minister" meant "lowly person." It was originally adopted as a term of humility for men of the church.
• Levan, Utah is "navel" spelled backwards. It is so named because it is in the middle of Utah.
• The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "shah mat," which means "the king is dead."
• The word "dreamt" is the only word in the English language that ends in "mt."
• Honey is the only food that doesn't spoil.
• Talmudists believe Adam and Eve resided in paradise a mere 12 hours before they were kicked out.
• With few exceptions, birds do not sing while on the ground. They sing during flight or while sitting on an object off the ground.
• Lewis Carroll wrote 98,721 letters in the last 37 years of his life.
• Cinderella is known as "Tuna" in Finland.
• A bear has 42 teeth.

Submitted by Bill, Ardmore, Pa
 

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• Celery has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
• In eighteenth-century English gambling dens, there was an employee whose only job was to swallow the dice if there was a police raid.
• The human tongue tastes bitter things with the taste buds toward the back. Salty and pungent flavors are tasted in the middle of the tongue, sweet flavors at the tip.
• A sneeze can travel as fast as 100 miles per hour.
• It is impossible to sneeze and keep one's eyes open at the same time.
• In 1778, fashionable women of Paris never went out in blustery weather without a lightning rod attached to their hats.
• In the Balanta tribe of Africa, a bride remained married until her wedding gown was worn out. If she wanted a divorce after 2 weeks, all she had to do was rip up her dress. This was the custom until about 20 years ago, anyway.
• Marie de Medici, a member of that famous Italian family and a 17th-century queen of France, had expensive tastes in clothes. One special dress was outfitted with 39,000 tiny pearls and 3,000 diamonds, and cost the equivalent of $20 million at the time it was made in 1606. She wore it once.
• Here is the literal translation of one of the standard traffic signs in China. It reads: "Give large space to the festive dog that makes sport in the roadway."
• In 1968, a convention of beggars in Dacca, India, passed a resolution demanding that "the minimum amount of alms be fixed at 15 paisa (three cents)." The convention also demanded that the interval between when a person hears a knock at his front door and when he offers alms should not exceed 45 seconds.

Submitted by Kenneth, Shropshire, England
 

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• A law passed in Nebraska in 1912 really set down some hard rules of the road. Drivers in the country at night were required to stop every 150 yards, send up a skyrocket, then wait eight minutes for the road to clear before proceeding cautiously, all the while blowing their horn and shooting off flares.
• Crocodiles and alligators are surprisingly fast on land. Although they are rapid, they are not agile; so if you ever find yourself chased by one, run in a zigzag line. You'll lose him or her every time.
• In 1500 B.C. in Egypt a shaved head was considered the ultimate in feminine beauty. Egyptian women removed every hair from their heads with special gold tweezers and polished their scalps to a high sheen with buffing cloths.
• In ancient China and certain parts of India, mouse meat was considered a great delicacy.
• In ancient Greece, where the mouse was sacred to Apollo, mice were sometimes devoured by temple priests.
• In 1400 B.C. it was the fashion among rich Egyptian women to place a large cone of scented grease on top of their heads and keep it there all day. As the day wore on, the grease melted and dripped down over their bodies, covering their skin with an oily, glistening sheen and bathing their clothes in fragrance.
• In the United States, a pound of potato chips cost two hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.
• Half the foods eaten throughout the world today were developed by farmers in the Andes Mountains. Potatoes, maize, sweet potatoes, squash, all varieties of beans, peanuts, manioc, papayas, strawberries, mulberries and many other foods were first grown in this region.
• Blue whales weigh as much as 30 elephants and are as long as three Greyhound buses.
• According to tests made at the Institute for the Study of Animal Problems in Washington, D.C., dogs and cats, like people, are either right-handed or left-handed--that is, they favor either their right or left paws.
• A person cannot taste food unless it is mixed with saliva.
• According to acupuncturists, there is a point on the head that you can press to control your appetite. It is located in the hollow just in front of the flap of the ear.
• Tibetans, Mongolians, and people in parts of western China put salt in their tea instead of sugar.
• In 1976, a Los Angeles secretary named Jannene Swift officially married a 50-pound rock. The ceremony was witnessed by more than 20 people.
• In the early 19th century the words "trousers" and "pants" were considered obscene in England.
• There is approximately one chicken for every human being in the world.
• The first automobile race ever seen in the United States was held in Chicago in 1895. The track ran from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois. The winner was J. Frank Duryea, whose average speed was 7 miles per hour.
• In the memoirs of Catherine II of Russia, it is recorded that any Russian aristocrat who displeased the queen was forced to squat in the great antechamber of the palace and to remain in that position for several days, mewing like a cat, clucking like a hen, and pecking his food from the floor.
• The outdoor temperature can be estimated to within several degrees by timing the chirps of a cricket. It is done this way: count the number of chirps in a 15-second period, and add 37 to the total. The result will be very close to the actual Fahrenheit temperature. This formula only works in warm weather.
• During a severe windstorm or rainstorm the Empire State Building may sway several feet to either side.
• In Elizabethan England the spoon was such a novelty, such a prized rarity, that people carried their own folding spoons to banquets.
• In "Gulliver's Travels," Jonathan Swift described the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, giving their exact size and speeds of rotation. He did this more than 100 years before either moon was discovered.
• It costs more to buy a new car today in the United States than it cost Christopher Columbus to equip and undertake three voyages to and from the New World.
• One-fourth of the world's population lives on less than $200 a year. Ninety million people survive on less than $75 a year.
• Butterflies taste with their hind feet.

Submitted by Kenneth, Shropshire, England
 

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• The word "Nazi" is actually an abbreviation. The party's full name was the Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartel.
• Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eyes."
• The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
• The word "toast," meaning a proposal of health, originated in Rome, where an actual bit of spiced, burned bread was dropped into wine to improve the drink's flavor, absorb its sediment, and thus make it more healthful.
• The word "bookkeeper" is the only word in the English language with three back-to-back double letter combinations.
• There is a town in Sweden called "A" and a town in France called "Y."
• What is called a "French kiss" in England and America is known as an "English kiss" in France.
• The dot on top of the letter "i" is called a "tittle." "Tittle" is Latin for something very small.
• The shortest verse in the Bible consists of two words: "Jesus wept." (John 11:35)
• The letter "o" is the oldest letter. It has not changed in shape since its adoption in the Phoenician alphabet, circa 1,300 B.C.
• The letter "b" took its present form from a symbol used in Egyptian hieroglyphics to represent a house.
• When used by an ornithologist, the word "lore" refers to the space between a bird's eye and its bill.
• The longest English word consisting entirely of consonants (and not including"y" as a vowel) is the word "crwth" which is from the fourteenth century and means crowd.
• The most common name in the world is Muhammed.
• The most common street name in the U.S. is Second Street.
• Henry Ford experimented with soy. Many of the meals served in his home consisted of his soy creations.
• The French national anthem, "La Marseillaise," derived its title from the enthusiasm of the men of Marseilles, France, who sang it when they marched into Paris at the outset of the French Revolution. Rouget de l'Isle, its composer, was an artillery officer. According to his account, he fell asleep at a harpsichord and dreamt the words and the music. Upon waking, he remembered the entire piece from his dream and immediately wrote it down.

Submitted by Kenneth, Shropshire, England
 

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• "Ping-Pong" is a registered trademark of Parker Brothers.
• Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
• All of the clocks in the movie Pulp Fiction are stuck on 4:20.
• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
• The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
• You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.
• The windiest place on earth is Mt. Washington, in New Hampshire.
• You can use pinecones to forecast the weather--the scales will close when rain is on the way.
• The red bumps on a turkey's head are called "caruncles."
• One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today because cotton growers in the '30s lobbied against hemp farmers--they saw it as competition.
• The IRS would need at least 15 3/4 miles of shelves to store the tax forms they receive each year.
• If a cow has twins, a bull and a heifer, the heifer will never be able to reproduce.
• It takes a fall of about eight building stories to kill a cat. A fall of three stories will typically break their jaw (due to a floating collar bone), but it takes a fall of five or six stories to break a leg.
• A building in Belgium was taxed if there was a street light on it...unless a statue of the Virgin Mary were place above it. Hence, there are no buildings in the city without a statue of the Virgin Mary.
• Mailing an entire building has been illegal in the U.S. since 1916 when a man mailed a 40,000-ton brick house across Utah to avoid high freight rates.
• The largest stained-glass window in the world is at Kennedy International Airport in New York City. It can be seen on the American Airlines terminal building and measures 300 feet long by 23 feet high.
• Pepsi was originally named Brad's Drink, and Kool-Aid originally went by Fruit Smack Flavored Syrup.
• According to Archives of General Medicine, coffee drinkers have sex more frequently and enjoy it more than non-coffee drinkers.
• A seagull drinks salt water because it has special glands that filter out the salt.
• Koalas never drink water. They get fluids from the eucalyptus leaves they eat.
• Sheep prefer to drink running water.

Submitted by Kenneth, Shropshire, England
 

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