I Bet Ya Didn't Know

Over 85% of customers at independent drugstores were very satisfied with their experiences. But just 58% of chain drugstore customers were.

The Waterloo war medal awarded to all soldiers who participated in that defeat of Napoleon depicts victory seated on a pedestal, a reproduction of a Greek coin minted 2,265 years earlier.

A golden receptacle now in the Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon, Portugal, was made from the first gold brought back from India in 1498 by Vasco da Gama.

"Bastille" does not mean "prison" in French. It is a word for a strongly-fortified structure.

Told her people were starving, Marie Antionette probably did not say, "Let them eat cake." The saying had been recorded much earlier by Rousseau.

France was declared a republic in 1792, and the king and queen were later executed. Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette were guillotined in 1793.

It takes about 30 days for your body to create a new layer of skin.

The huge organ in the Church of St. Florian, Austria, serves as a memorial to composer Anton Bruckner, who began his celebrated career as a church organist on this organ..and is buried at its base.

Dodge City's first major product was buffalo hides. More than 850,000 were shipped in a three-year period.

There is enough salt in the world's seawater to cover the land with a 5,850-inch layer.

Some bacteria can produce 16,000,000 offspring in 8 hours.

Caterpillars have more than three times as many muscles as humans.

If you counted for 24 hours a day, it would take you (approx.) 31,688 years to reach a trillion.

Robert Gibson (1766-1885) of College Mound, Missouri, voted for 22 U.S. presidents, from George Washington through Grover Cleveland.

Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child is 2-6 years old.

An arctic tern tagged on July 5, 1955, in Murmansk, Russia, was recaptured on May 15,1956, in Freemantle, Australia, after a flight of 14,000 miles.

In infancy blue whales gain weight at the rate of 10 pounds an hour.

The average person over fifty will have spent 5 years waiting in line.

Toto the dog was paid $125 a week for his work in The Wizard of Oz.

Women are more likely than men to eat food that has fallen on the floor.

72% of Americans say they'd welcome a conversation with their doctor about faith or spirituality.

Armadillos are the only other mammal besides humans that can get leprosy.

Armadillos have exactly 4 offspring. All four come from a single egg that splits twice. So all four offspring are genetically the same - same sex, everything.

Dwight D. Eisenhower loved to paint but couldn't draw - so he had other artists outline on his canvas the things he wanted to paint. This led directly to the paint-by-numbers fad of the 1950s.

Dodge City owes its founding in large part to alcohol. Alcohol was prohibited at nearby Fort Dodge (built in 1865), but the military had no jurisdiction over Dodge City (founded in 1872), where thirsty cowpokes downed cheap whiskey.

The famous "Boot Hill" cemetary was named for those buried there, who weren't respectable enough for the graveyard at Fort Dodge. Most "died with their boots on," that is, violently in a brawl or by hanging.

What, in 1952, did Einstein call "the most difficult thing to understand?" Income taxes.

Augustus Hill Garland (1832-1899) of Arkansas refused a nomination to the U.S. Supreme court on the grounds that he did not have a life expectancy of 20 years for the court. He died 13 years later while arguing a case before that court.

The average number of kittens in a litter is four. The record holder is a Burmese cat who delivered nineteen kittens, of which fifteen lived.

Cats have been used in China as earthquake predictors for many years. Some theorize that cats may be even more sensitive to the earth's vibrations than even the most sophisticated equipment.

Rajah Ghiyath-ud-din (1448-1528) of Malwa, India, during an illness, was asked by his physician to drink a potion brewed from 300 ingredients, at a total cost of $40,000, The rajah, a teetotaler, spilled it on the ground when he learned that it contained 1/8 of an ounce of nutmeg, an ingredient used in India to flavor wine.

Five brothers, born together in Llanpumpsaint, Wales, in the 10th century, are the most remarkable quintuplets in history. Each became a saint.

Boomerangs, many shaped to return to the thrower, were found in Tutankhamen's tomb. The weapon associated with Australian bushmen was used ages earlier by King Tut to hunt fowl.

The first official airmail stamp, showing a biplane in flight, was printed upside-down, making it a collector's item.

In 1958, PanAm introduced transatlantic jet service.

The tower of the cathedral of Antwerp, Belgium, 400 feet above the ground, provides a view of other bell towers in 124 different localities.

Street lights in Graz, Austria, were protected in 1728 by a law that punished any person who damaged one 3 times by cutting off his right hand! It pays to be a leftie?

Mount Etna, during eruptions, emits giant rings of smoke.

What special property do these words share: Ball, Fence, Fly, Go, Spot? Each forms a common phrase when preceded by the words, "on the."

First impressions can take under thirty seconds to make but last for months or years. Body language accounts for 55% of a first impression. What you say is only 7%.