Assorted Facts 21
The very first Olympic race, held in 776 BC, was won by Corubus, a chef.
In 1975 Junko Tabei from Japan became the first woman to reach the top of Everest.
Volleyball was invented by William George Morgan of Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1895.
Korfball is the only sport played with mixed teams, consisting of 4 men and 4 women.
The Major League Baseball teams use about 850,000 balls per season.
The high jump method of jumping head first and landing on the back is called the Fosbury Flop.
The first instance of global electronic communications took place in 1871 when news of the Derby winner was telegraphed from London to Calcutta in under 5 minutes.
Bill Klem served the most seasons as major league umpire - 37 years, starting in 1905. He also officated 18 World Series.
Ferenc Szisz from Romania, driving a Renault, won the first Formula One Grand Prix held at Le Mans, France in 1906.
Basketball and rugby balls are made from synthetic material. Earlier, pigs' bladders were used as rugby balls.
Gymnasiums were introduced in 900BC and Greek athletes practised in the nude to the accompaniment of music. They also performed naked at the Olympic Games.
Football (soccer) is the most attended or watched sport in the world.
The oldest continuous trophy in sports is the America's Cup. It started in 1851, with Americans winning for a straight 132 years until Australia took the Cup in 1983.
More than 100 million people hold hunting licences.
The record for the most Olympic medals ever won is held by Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina. Competing in three Olympics, between 1956 and 1964, she won 18 medals.
Golf the only sport played on the moon - on 6 February 1971 Alan Shepard hit a golf ball.
The "nine lives" attributed to cats is probably due to their having nine primary whiskers.
If a cricket were the size of Mount Rushmore, it could jump to the moon.
The first McDonald's restaurant opened for business in 1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featured the McHaggis sandwich.
Rapid deforestation has decreased the friction of the surface of the Earth, causing it to spin infinitesimally faster and thereby cool the air, combating global warming.
The only golf course on the island of Tonga has 15 holes, and there's no penalty if a monkey steals your golf ball.
Fish have "dandruff" caused by flaking skin, and it is impossible to filter all traces of it from drinking water.
The average person can fit exactly one half of their pinky finger in one of their nostrils. However, if an attempt is made to put a pinky finger in EACH nostril, only one quarter of each will fit.
Every Labrador retriever dreams about bananas.
The Australian aborigine language has over 30 words for "dust."
Customs officials have dogs that are trained to distinguish between Cuban cigars and all other cigars.
The skin needed for elbow transplants must be taken from the scrotum of a cadaver.
A team of University of Virginia researchers released a study promoting the practice of picking one's nose, claiming that the health benefits of keeping nasal passages free from infectious blockages far outweigh the negative social connotations.
The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and dodge individual raindrops in mid-flight, arriving safely back at his cave completely dry.
When in heat, female hippopotami secrete an oil with a flavor similar to strawberries. Kalahari bushmen use the oil to make flat-bread treats for children.
Napoleon's favorite type of wood was knotty chestnut.
If you tar and feather a 2×4 and place it in your yard, it will ward off bats.
A Tokyo inventor has developed a laptop computer whose battery is recharged by energy generated from the movement of the user's mouse, yet Sony lawyers have successfully blocked every attempt to produce a product using the technology.
The universal size of low interest credit cards is based entirely on the size of the 1960s US Communist Party membership card. Credit cards were designed so that they wouldn't cause the Communist Party card to stand out.
Centuries ago, purchasing real estate often required having one or more limbs amputated in order to prevent the purchaser from running away to avoid repayment of the loan. Hence an expensive purchase was said to cost "an arm and a leg."
Ballpoint pens were invented by a Michigan scientist attempting to reduce the number of birds killed for their quills.
It is physically impossible to urinate and give blood at the same time.
The Boeing 747 is capable of flying upside-down if it weren't for the fact that the wings would shear off when trying to roll it over.
In 1960, a then-unknown Dan Rather auditioned for the voice of cartoon character Dudley Do-Right but was turned down by animator/director Jay Ward.
The increase in the amount of metals mined and brought to the surface of the earth in order to manufacture SUVs has caused higher tides in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Federal Department of Online Commerce has been compiling a list of US-based e-mail addresses. Once 100 million addresses have been collected, the list will be sold to online marketers as part of President Bush's plan to reduce the deficit.
The ancient Arabic word "jorgbushii" translates roughly to "evil one who comes disguised in peace to drink Earth's black blood."
The number of words in the Bible divided by the number of verses equals exactly 666.
A bad case of laryngitis forced Abraham Lincoln to lip-sync the Gettysburg Address. The speech was actually delivered by an aide hidden beneath the stage.
Comic duo Cheech and Chong were originally known as Spic and Span before changing due to pressure from Chicano organizations.
In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives.
The first prototype defibrillators delivered 1,200 joules of electrical energy instead of the now standard 360, occasionally causing dead bodies to sit upright momentarily as though they were still alive.
Approximately one-sixth of your life is spent on Wednesdays.
When subjected to an electric current of at least 50 volts, a cat's tail always points toward the north.
A common misconception is that the term "salsa dancing" derives from the food condiment called salsa. Actually, the dance was invented in the 1930s by a dance teacher named Frankie Salsa.
Scientists estimate that sleep lost due to daylight saving time reduces the average lifespan by nearly two full months.
Catfish are the only animals that naturally have an ODD number of whiskers.
In Finland, "Sintter Klaas" brings bad children a small bag of old toenail clippings.
In WWII the US military planned to airdrop over France propaganda in the form of Playboy magazine, with coded messages hidden in the models' turn-ons and turn-offs. The plan was scrapped because of a staple shortage due to rationing of metal.
Over the last two decades, more Americans died of heart attacks while watching horror movies in movie theaters than died while sky-diving.
The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man was owned by Frank Sinatra.
Female black cats can actually see their shadows at night.
The practice of putting a letter "e" in front of words to mean "web-based" (e.g., eBusiness, eLearning, etc.) was patented by Microsoft in 1992. They are waiting until their anti-trust trial has been officially completed to begin enforcing it.
If you put a bee in a film canister for two hours, it will go blind and leave behind its weight in honey.
Winston Churchill was born with a third nipple, which he removed himself with nail-clippers at the age of 14.
A cat's purr has the same romance-enhancing frequency as the voice of singer Barry White.
Because printed materials are being replaced by CD-ROM, microfiche and the Internet, libraries that previously sank into their foundations under the weight of their books are now in danger of collapsing in extremely high winds.
Blue water in a toilet bowl causes males to urinate 7 percent more.
Two-thirds of all the world's coriander comes from a single valley in Italy.
Every year in the fall, Niagara Falls is shut down for maintenance for 24 hours. The flow is diverted using a massive series of pipes and spigots built for this purpose in 1837.
To commemorate ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, U.S. playing card manufacturers replaced "staffs" with "hearts" as the fourth suit in the deck. The world soon followed.
Baking soda and vinegar will make your scrambled eggs fluffier.
The top three names for female babies born in China last year were Huan Yue, Jia Li and - unlikely as it seems - Buffy.
"Hello Kitty" began as part of a covert propaganda campaign originally proposed by Prime Minister Tojo during World War II.
U.S. Army medics in World War I knew of the germ-fighting properties of rodent saliva and carried hamsters in their medical bags to sterilize wounds in the field.
Legislation passed during WWI making it illegal to say "gesundheit" to a sneezer was never repealed.
Due to the natural "momentum" of the ocean, saltwater fish cannot swim backwards.
The increased electricity used by modern appliances is causing a shift in the Earth's magnetic field. By the year 2327, the North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.
Ingesting small doses of ink over an extended period of time will change your eye color slightly.