Fast Facts
January 22, 2007
At age 16, Confucius was a corn inspector.
Despite his great scientific and artistic achievement, Leonardo da Vinci was most proud of his ability to bend iron with his bare hands.
When young and impoverished, Pablo Picasso kept warm by burning his own paintings.
The universally popular Hershey’s bar was used overseas during World War II as currency.
The phrase “”the whole nine yards”” came from World War II fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their planes on the ground, the .50-caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got the whole nine yards.
Three consecutive strikes in a row are called a ‘turkey.’
The only bone that has never been broken during any ski accident is one located in the inner ear.
A forfeited game in baseball is recorded as a 9-0 score. In football, it is recorded as a 1-0 score.
In the four major professional North American sports (baseball, basketball, football and hockey) only eight teams’ nicknames do not end with “”s.”” These teams are the Miami Heat, the Utah Jazz, the Orlando Magic, the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago White Sox, the Colorado Avalanche, the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Minnesota Wild.
The two hottest months at the equator are March and September.
Astronauts in orbit around the earth can see ships’ wakes in the ocean.
