Fast Facts
February 13, 2006
- The body has 70,000 miles of blood vessels. The heart pumps blood through this labyrinth and back again once every minute.
The first gold brought back by Christopher Columbus from the Americas was used to gild the ceiling of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. The ceiling and the gold are still there.
The Colosseum of ancient Rome was occasionally filled with water and an entire naval battle was staged there, complete with armed vessels and fights to the death.
The University of Calcutta has 175,000 students.
There is a 6-foot-high stone monument dedicated to the comic-strip character Popeye in Crystal City, Texas.
Some Chinese typewriters have 5,700 characters. The keyboard is almost 3 feet wide on some models, and the fastest typer can type on these machines is 11 words per minute.
There is only one country in the world without telephone service: Bhutan.
In the 10th century A.D., there was not one city in Europe with a population of more than 40,000.
Hawaii is the only state in the United States where male life expectancy exceeds 70 years. Hawaii also leads all states in life expectancy in general, with an average of 73.6 years for both males and females.
The U.S. Postal Service assures its customers that they will not get fat licking stamps. There is no more than one-tenth of a calorie’s worth of glue on every stamp.
Before King George IV of England ordered a set of boots made to fit each of his feet, shoes were designed to be worn on either foot.
