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Interesting Facts
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A*Alaska is the northernmost, westernmost and easternmost state of the USA, and is apparently too cold for
houseflies, who cannot live there.
*Australia produces less eucalyptus oil than Portugal.
*In Cornwall, England, defacing a bridge still carries the penalty of "transportation to Australia".
*George Drever, a leading authority on life-saving apparatus in the 1800s, drowned in a shallow mud hole in
Centennial Park in Sydney.
B*Baboon: Large monkey of genus Papio.
*A baboon called "Jackie" became a private in the South African army in World War I.
*Baths were illegal in Spain until the 19th century, and they weren't in particularly widespread use
elsewhere. The first hotel equipped with bathrooms for each room opened in 1829 in Boston. However,
each bathroom was on a different floor to the bedroom.
*When Queen Victoria ascended the British throne, Buckingham Palace had no bathrooms at all. It was
not until much later that the South Eastern Gas Board encouraged British couples to bathe together to
save energy.
*Carl Stommfelder spent the last years of his life in a bath. He ate, slept and conducted his business from
his tub, and asked to be buried in it.
*Belgium held the world's first beauty contest, in 1888.
*Belgians, who drink the least alcohol and make the strongest beer in the western world, started the
modern sport of pigeon racing.
*In Geraardsbergen, Flanders, city officials swallow small living fish as part of the annual Krakelingen
Festival, which has been going for over 700 years.
*Despite vicious rumors to the contrary, there are many famous Belgians.
*Mary Queen of Scots was a skilful billiards player.
*Did you know that there are brand names such as these:
"Arses" is a pleasant red wine available in Spanish supermarkets.
"Atum Bom" is a Portuguese brand of tuna.
"Bimbo" is a Mexican brand of biscuits.
"Bonka" is a Spanish brand of coffee.
"Bum" is a German brand of toilet paper.
"Bums" is a Swedish brand of biscuits.
"Cock Drops" is a brand of cocktail bitters in Cyprus.
"Colon Plus" is a Spanish liquid detergent.
"Dribly" is an Italian lemonade.
"Foul Medames" is an English brand of tinned beans.
"Gammon" is the name of a Dutch aftershave.
"Glans" is a Dutch shampoo.
"Green Piles" is a Japanese lawn fertiliser.
"Homo Sausage" is a Japanese brand of beef jerky.
"Kevin" is a French aftershave.
"Krapp" is a Swedish brand of toilet paper.
"Last Climax" is a Japanese brand of tissues.
"Mucos" is a Japanese soft drink.
"Mukk" is an Italian yoghurt.
"Nora Knackers" is a brand of Swedish crackers.
"Pansy" is a Chinese brand of men's underwear.
"Pee Cola" is a brand of soft drink in Ghana.
"Plop's" is a German brand of savoury snacks.
"Plopsies" is the name of a French breakfast cereal.
"Poxy" is a Dutch floor surface.
"Prik" is a Dutch fizzy drink.
"Pshitt" is a French soft drink.
"Shitto" is a hot pepper sauce from Ghana.
"Skina Babe" is a Japanese baby lotion.
"Smeg" is an Italian range of kitchen appliances.
"Smut" is the name of a tool shop in Pagnacco, Italy.
"Sorbits" is a Danish brand of chewing gum.
"Trim Pecker" is a Japanese brand of trousers.
"Vaccine" is a Dutch aftershave.
"Zit" is a Greek brand of lemonade.
*50,000 amendments were proposed to the 1997 Italian budget. One woman, Maria Malevenda, proposed
45,000 of them.
C
*It used to be law in France that children's names had to be taken from an official government list. The
practice ceased following the death of Charles de Gaulle in 1970.
*Charles was once a popular name for French kings. Charlemagne's grandson Charles I (823-77) was
known as Charles the Bald. Then followed:
2.Charles the Fat (839-88),
3.Charles the Simple (879-929),
4.Charles the Fair (1294-1328),
5.Charles the Wise (1338-80),
6.Charles the Foolish (or Mad),
7.Charles VII (1403-61), and
8.Charles the Affable (1470-98), eighth, but not last, king of that name.
*Charles the Lame (c. 1254-1309) was Charles II, King of Naples. There is a Charles the Bad, but not much is known about him
*Charles II (1630-85), King of England, laid hands on almost 100,000 sufferers from scrofula (the king's
disease) who believed the King's touch would cure them. The first pressure cooker was demonstrated
during his reign.
*King Muley Hassan of Morocco used prisoners as pieces in a game of chess. Captured pieces were
beheaded on the spot.
*St. Teresa of Avila is the patron saint of chess-players.
*According to Pope Innocent III, it was not a crime to kill someone after a game of chess.
*Readers interested in chess trivia should enjoy this excellent collection from Bill Wall.
*The cockroach has a high resistance to radiation and is the creature most likely to survive a nuclear war.
*It can cover a meter a second, making it the fastest thing on six legs. This talent must have been useful in
Rio de Janeiro in 1997, where 100 grams of cockroaches fetched 25 dollars on the streets. They were
needed for scientific experiments.
*Cows are not sacred in France. In 1740, one was found guilty of witchcraft and hanged. A bull who killed
a man at Moisey in 1314 got off lightly - he was merely jailed.
*A New Zealand cow was sentenced to two days in jail for eating the grass in front of a city courthouse.
*"Cow" is a Japanese brand of shaving foam. A "why" is a breed of cow.
*Cows sweat through their nostrils, and apparently never sleep.
D*King Henry I died of a surfeit of lampreys.
*New York has a delicatessen which caters for pampered dogs who ride up to the private dining room in
chauffeured limousines.
*Congo witch doctors treat stomach aches by pouring medicine into a hole in a figurine.
*The Persian doctor Manichaeus was skinned alive and fed to the dogs when he failed to cure the king's
son.
*Dr James Barry, a General in the British Army Medical Corps, was a woman. This was not discovered
until her death. In 1889, Anthony Koharry, a Hungarian Princess, was officially designated a man as she
was the last of her line.
*Dominique Larrey, Napoleon's chief surgeon, could amputate a leg in 13 seconds. Sir Arthur Aston, a
Royalist commander during the English Civil War, was beaten to death with his own wooden leg.
*At the battle of Crecy, the English soldiers suffered badly from dysentery. The French waited for them to
be taken short, then killed them while they were squatting and helpless.
E
*In 1726, Charles Sauson inherited the post of official executioner from his father at the tender age of
seven. In the 18th century, it was customary for a nobleman to tip the executioner between 7 and 10
pounds before the latter chopped off his head.
*In 1386, a pig was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child.
*Who said that there's no such thing as a famous Belgian? Surely you've all heard of these luminaries:
Adienne Cuyot was engaged 652 times and married 53 times over a 23 period.
Baron Edouard Empain built a house for himself in Heliopolis, just outside Cairo. It was erected on a turntable so that it always faced the sun.
Joseph Merlin, a musical instrument maker, invented roller skates in 1760.
Roelandt Savery was the only artist to sketch a live dodo. The word dodo derives from the Portuguese doudo, stupid.
*Lady Anne, a wealthy British aristocrat, slept with cows tethered in such a way that she could inhale the
gas emitted as they broke wind. She believed this would prolong her life.
*A fly was responsible for the death of Pope Adrian VI, successor to Leo X. He choked to death after one
got stuck in his throat as he was taking a drink from a fountain.
*Flies taste with their feet.
*Everyone knows that pigs don't fly. But cows do!
*In 1997, a Japanese fishing boat was sunk by a herd of cows falling from the sky. The insurance company
initiated fraud investigations against the crew, but it turned out that Russian soldiers in Sakhalin had been
rustling cows in a military plane. Fearing a stampede they opened the doors and the cows plummeted into
the sea of Okhotsk.
*Amazingly, this was not the first such incident reported in the press. In 1995, a USAF transport on a
famine relief mission jettisoned a Friesian heifer which had gone berserk at 1,000 metres. Inevitably, the
poor cow collided with a fishing boat in the Caspian Sea, sinking it. The Russian fisherman narrowly
escaped with his life. The underwriters didn't believe his tale until the American ambassador came clean.
*An American cow called Fawn was not afraid of flying. In May 1963, she was swept up by a tornado and
carried half a mile, only to land safely in another farmer's field. Five years later, another tornado carried
her over a bus. She survived this too, and lived to the ripe old age of 25.
*A pilot of a light aircraft made an emergency landing on a toll road in Illinois. He was promptly given a
ticket for "entering at the wrong junction" and for failing to pay a 30 cent toll.
*A Canadian man was so incensed at having his pilot's license revoked that he bombed Calgary with
hundreds of pounds of pig manure.
*Bees have to fly approximately 175,000 kilometers to make one kilogram of honey. It is one of the
mysteries of aeronautical science that bumblebees can fly at all.
G
*Gabon, a country on the west coast of Africa, has banned both the Salvation Army and the Jehovah's
Witnesses.
*Giraffes have the same number of vertebrae in their necks as humans. Their lips are prehensile, their
tongues are 45 centimeters long, and they cannot cough.
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