Fun, Interesting or Intriguing Random Facts

These are in no particular order, but are all ones I found entertaining. :)

1. An 1898 novel by Morgan Robertson foretold the sinking of the Titanic, 14 years before the great ship went down. In Robertson's book, the ship, which has a passenger list filled with wealthy and powerful people, is on its maiden voyage when it strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic on an April night and sinks. The Titanic was on its maiden voyage when it struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic on the night of April 12. The two ships shared many other eerie similarities as well, such as: displacement (70,000 tons to 74,000) passenger capacity (about 3,000), top speed (25 knots), length (800 ft vs. 882) and a lack of sufficient lifeboats. The name of the ship in Robertson's book: the Titan.

2. In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's."

3. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

4. Coke is used by Cops to clean Blood off the Ground!

5. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.

6. China has more English speakers than the United States.

7. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

8. According to http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/04words.htm, The top 10 looked up words online this last year are these:

1. Blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton : noun (1951) : the main body of riders in a bicycle race
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration
Terrifying Fact: #10 in this list, defenestration means "a throwing of a person or thing out of a window." Let's just hope that was an SAT word this year.

9. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

10. While in some countries the penalty for driving while intoxicated can be death (yes, death), in Uruguay intoxication is a legal excuse for having an accident while driving. "Please believe me officer, I really was drunk."