Americans consume 91,250 more calories per person per year than in 1990.
I Bet Ya Didn't Know
I bet ya' didn't know…. 978 items · page 2 of 25
This winter, stay healthy by keeping on the go. Moderate activity (including everything from brisk waking to heavy housework) reduced the risk of colds by 23 % over the year and 30 % in the fall.
One hundred forty years ago this month, President Lincoln issued the famous document that gave him his nickname, "the Great Emancipator." As commander in chief during the Civil War, Lincoln called the Emancipation Proclamation "a fit and necessary war measure," because slave labor helped the Confederacy continue its fight.
A running cheetah can reach a speed of 70 MPH, and at this speed, only one of the animal's four paws at a time makes contact with the ground.
Not only does a deck of playing cards contain 52 cards, but the words "Ace, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, Jack, Queen, King" add up to exactly 52 letters.
Q. What do the following have in common: awe, off, ooh, owe, oww, uff? A: They are all phonetic representations of the letters "ough" in various words: brought (awe), cough (off), through (ooh), dough (owe), bough (oww), and tough (uff).
The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."
The average American knows 290 people. What constitutes "knowing"? You must remember the person's full name and have had contact with him or her in the last two years.
San Mateo High School students set a 1999 world record for collecting 214,000 pounds of food (Dec. 6 - 20).
A prayer book still used in the Royal Chapel of Granada, Spain, was originally that of Queen Isabella, who died 476 years ago.
89.546% of all statistics quoted in statements like this are made up. (This is a joke of course!)
Nails used by ancient Roman shipbuilders pierced the wood and then wrapped themselves around it in as many as four coils.
THE FISH WITH RUNNING LIGHTS! Photostomias guerni is equipped with two rows of phosphorescent spots to light its way through the depths of the ocean.
The sunflower was officially named the Kansas state flower in 1903. Wild sunflower is so common in Kansas that it can be considered a weed.
Soybeans are grown for edible oil and are also used to make tofu and soy sauce. The oil may also be used to produce paint, ink, fertilizers and other products.
One earthworm can aerate half a pound of soil each day.
When we check the date on our calendar watches, we should realize that none other than Thomas Jefferson invented the calendar clock.
The peanut: Is it a pea or a nut? The peanut is a legume. It bears fruit in the form of pods that contain one or more seeds. The peanut is more closely related to peas than to nuts.
Georgia produces more peanuts than any other U.S. state--about 40% of the nation's annual crop. However, Asia and Africa produce about 90% of the world's peanuts. Top growers include China, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria.
The Everglades were created thousands of years ago, after the last major ice sheet melted, flooding the outlets of streams and turning the area into a swamp.
The Everglades are home to both alligators and crocodiles, the only place in the world where they co-exist.
It is estimated that a single toad may catch and eat as many as 10,000 insects in the course of a summer.
The crested parasol, a mushroom shaped like a parasol, even has a "ring" on its stem that can be slipped up and down like the one that opens and shuts a real parasol.
Only male crickets chirp.
The world record for a photographic memory feat is held by a man in Burma who recited 16,000 pages of Buddhist canonical texts from memory.
Women in Switzerland could not vote until 1971.
According to TIME magazine, the only new shoe in 300 years is the sneaker.
The city of San Juan ("Saint John" in Spanish) used to be known as Puerto Rico ("Rich Port" in Spanish), while the island of Puerto Rico was originally named San Juan.
Fry me a river. If you have a dollar and 45 seconds, the Ore-Ida french-fry machine, now available in some colleges and hospitals, can deliver a steaming bag of fries with 25% less fat than fast-food fries.
Half of us feel highly stressed during the holidays, according to a new study by Visa USA, and much of that stress is financial, yet only 38% of the Americans surveyed said they set a budget.
The first Christmas seal, a Christmas seal to raise funds to fight tuberculosis, was created by Einar Holboll, a Danish postmaster, in 1904.
If you go flying back through time and you see somebody else flying forward into the future, it's probably best to avoid eye contact.
Public speaking ranked second, behind snakes, in a recent Gallup poll of our greatest fears.
Little Orphan Annie just had a birthday. She's 81!
Khusro Khan (1612), the governor of Tatta, in what is now Pakistan, built 300 mosques to atone for once having glimpsed a neighbor's wife in her bath.
A statue of two saints, carried annually in a procession in San Cosmo, Italy, is the target of thousands of bank notes in the belief that hitting the statue with the money will assure prosperity for the thrower.
Ricimer, a German military leader of ancient Rome, 3 times refused invitations to rule Rome but personally gave the crown to 5 emperors, and then deposed each of them.
The home of the Bishop of Jebeil, in Syria, consists of spacious caves in rugged Mt. Laklouk, and its exterior design is formed by the natural fantastic shapes of rocky crags.
The tower of the Church of Ostheim, Alsace, France, surmounted by a stork's nest, was unharmed by a World War II bombing raid, although the rest of the structure was leveled. The tower and its nest still stand as a memorial to the storks of Alsace.
Three numbers, 19, 33, and 42, are considered unlucky in Japan. 19 is called juku, meaning sorrows; 33 is san zan, meaning disasters; and 42 is shi ni, which means death.