Assorted Facts 17
Army doctor D.W. Bliss attended to two presidents after they were shot by assassins. In 1865 he was one of the 16 doctors who tried to save Abraham Lincoln. In 1881 he supervised the care of James Garfield.
The town of Modesto, California was named in honor of its founders, who were too modest to name it after themselves.
At 3,108 square miles, Juneau, Alaska has a greater land area than any other city in the Western Hemisphere, yet it can only be reached by boat or plane.
The Chinese city of Chinkiang, now 150 miles inland, was once a seaport. Silt of the Yangtze River has built up the land for that distance.
Antarctica is the only continent that does not have land areas below sea level.
If you measure a mountain from its base, the tallest is not Mount Everest; its the island of Hawaii, which is all mountain. Hawaiis tallest peak, Mauna Kea, is 13,784 feet above sea level, but it rises from a sea bottom that is 18,000 feet below sea level. From base to peak, Hawaii is over 31,000 feet. Mount Everest is 29,000 feet.
Tornados always move in an easterly direction and most often in a northeasterly direction.
Coney Island in New York got its name from rabbits. In early days it was overrun by rabbits, which were often referred to as coneys.
Pakistan was named in 1933 and is derived from the first letters of Punjab, Afghan, Kashmir, Sind, and Tan. All of these are districts or states of what is now Pakistan.
In the United States only 80 miles separate the highest point of land and the lowest point in the lower 48 states. Mount Whitney on the eastern border of Sequoia National Park in California is 14,496 feet high, and a pool called Badwater in Death Valley is 280 feet below sea level.
While sailing along the Caribbean coast of South America in 1499, the Spanish explorer Alonso de Ojedo saw Indian houses built on stilts over the water. The area reminded him of Venice, and he named it Little Venice, which in Spanish is Venezuela.
La Pax, Bolivia is a virtually fireproof city. At an altitude of about 12,000 feet above sea level, the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is barely able to support fire.
The lowest point that a person can reach on Earth, outside of riding a submarine or going down a mine shaft, is where the Jordan River enters the Dead Sea. Its 1,290 feet below sea level.
Greenland has more ice on it than Iceland does. In fact, Iceland has more grass and trees than Greenland does. Now where did they get their names from.
The Dutch acquired Surinam in exchange for Manhattan Island in 1667. Manhattan Island from end to end is less than one million inches long.
Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes located entirely within the United States.
The country of Tanzania has an island called Mafia.
Portugal is the worlds largest producer of cork.
With the exception of Antarctica, all continents are wider in the north than in the south.
Panama is the only place in the world where someone can see the sun rise on the Pacific Ocean and set on the Atlantic.
Jacksonville, Florida has the largest total area of any city in the United States. It takes up 460 square miles, almost twice the area of Los Angeles.
More than one quarter of the worlds forests are in Siberia.
There are thirteen languages spoken by more than 100 million people. They are: Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Malay-Indonesian, French, Japanese, German, and Urdu.
According to a US Navy scientific study of recorded shark attacks, men are attacked almost ten times more often than women are.
The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards.
Human birth control pills also work on gorillas.
Houseflies hum in the key of F.
Every year in the United States, four times the amount of money spent on baby food is spent on pet food.
The nearest relative of the hippopotamus is the common pig.
The number of cricket chirps you count in a fifteen-second span, plus 37, will tell you the approximate current air temperature.
The big differences between pythons and boa constrictors: pythons are longer and lay eggs. Boas give birth to live babies.
Smith is the most common last name in the United States. A little over 1% of all Americans share that last name.
The chow-chow and the Chinesse Shar-Pei are the only dogs that have a black tongue. The tongues of all other dogs are pink.
A rattlesnakes fangs fold inward when its mouth is closed so it does not bite itself.
Chang and Eng Bunker were Siamese twins. Chang was once convicted of general assault on a member of the audience during one of the twins variety acts. However, the judge in the case could not hold Eng in prison as well, so he set them both free.
Statistically in the UK, one is more likely to be killed by an asteroid than by lightning.
In World War II the American forces planned to equip Mexican free-tail bats with napalm-filled waistcoats so they could blow up Japanese towns. In testing, however, the wind changed and the bats instead flamed a US army base.
Russian forces trained dogs with bombs attached to hide under tanks in order to blow them up.
Technically there are only 46 states in the USA, because Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are commonwealths.
During World War II, the only six Americans to lose their lives on home soil did so on a church picnic in Bly, Oregon. They were killed by Japanese fugos - balloon bombs.
The Boy Scout salute is almost identical to that of the Polish army.
India has no speed limits, and every car bought there will be involved in a fatal road accident within 5 years.
According to the book of Leviticus, Jews are permitted to eat grasshoppers but not cuckoos, ferrets or camels.
Leaders of Russia have alternated between being hairy and bald.
Robert Burns never wore a kilt, since kilt-wearing was illegal at the time.
Have you ever slid down a banister? No, because people slide down the balustrade. One cannot slide down a banister, this is the name given to the vertical supports of the balustrade.
In Catalonia, there is a figure in the Christmas Nativity scene called a Caganer, which squats and defecates normally in the corner.
Champagne was invented by the English by adding bubbles to the rather cheap tasteless wine they had imported from Champagne in France, it was such a success that the rest as they say is history.
The Queen, after Christmas lunch, watches herself performing the Royal Christmas Message on television.
Christmas is celebrated on 25 December because it is the birthday of the Roman God Mithras, who bears similarities with Jesus Christ.
Using your own saliva is the cheapest way of removing blood stains from your clothes.
Rhubarb and brown sauce can be used to clean copper and silver.
Silk and spaghetti can both stick to brick walls.