BUNLARI BİLİYOR MUYDUNUZ? (İngilizce metinler)

Music
To win a gold disc, an album needs to sell 100,000 copies in Britain, and 500,000 in the United States.

Melba toast is named after Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba (1861-1931).

Music was sent down a telephone line for the first time in 1876, the year the phone was invented.

The CD was developed by Philips and Sony in 1980.

About 2,4 billion CDs are sold annually. The number of recorded CDs and blank CDs sold has been about equal.

About one-third of recorded CDs are pirated.

The Star-Spangled Banner became the US national anthem in 1931. Prior to that, it was My Country ‘Tis of Thee," which had the same melody as Britian's national anthem God Save the Queen, which is based on music written by John Bull in 1619. Bull's melody has been used more than any song in national anthems.

The British anthem was performed the most times in a single performance. In 1909, while waiting for King Edward VII who was getting dressed a German band played the anthem 17 times.

Tap dancing originates from Irish clog dancing and what is called the Irish reel and jig.

It was at a concert in Minneapolis in 1954 that Al Dvorin first closed Elvis's concerts with: "Ladies and Gentleman, Elvis has left the building. Thank you and good night."

Elvis favourite collectibles were official badges. He collected police badges in almost every city he performed in.

Elvis was an avid gun collector. His collection of 40 weapons included M-16s and a Thompson submachine gun.

Duran Duran took their name from a mad scientists in the movie Barbarella.

Bob Dylan's first professional performance was as opening act for John Lee Hooker at Gerde's Folk City in New York, 1961.

Before they were known as Journey, Steve Perry called his band Golden Gate Rhythm Section.

Kenneth Edmonds was nicknamed Babyface by funk guitarist Bootsy Collins.

The world's largest disco was held at the Buffalo Convention Centre, New York, 1979. 13,000 danced a place into the Guinness Book of World Records.

In August 1983, Peter Stewart of Birmingham, UK set a world record by disco dancing for 408 hours.

Lebanon is the top movie-going country - 35,3 movies per person p.a. China is second with 12,3, followed by Georgia (5,6), India (5), Iceland (4,5), Australia is 6th at 3,9 then New Zealand and the US at just under 3,9.

The US has the most cinemas (23,662) while India [the country that produces the most movies - about 800 a year, twice as many as Hollywood] has about 9,000 cinemas and China has approximately 5,000 cinemas. - 300,000 people per cinema.

Indian comic actress Manorama has played the most leading roles of any performer in movie history. She began her career in 1958 and in 1985 had appeared in her 1,000th movie.

Ireland has won the most Eurovision song contests (7 times).

Annie Lennox holds the record for the most Brit awards (8).

The Beatles holds the top spot of album sales in the US (106 million), followed by Garth Brooks second (92 million), Led Zeppelin (83 million), Elvis Presley (77 million), and the Eagles (65 million). Worldwide The Beatles sold more than 1 billion records.

Klezmer music is derived from two Hebrew words, clay and zimmer, meaning "vessel of music."

The Ocarina, a musical wind instrument, is also known as the Sweet Potato.

The LP (long-playing) record was invented by Paul Goldmark in 1948. The LP is not dead yet: more than 10 million LPs are sold every year.

The longest song to reach number one on the Billboard charts on LP was "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" by Meatloaf, the shortest: "Stay" by Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs.

At the first Grammy Awards, held on 4 May 1959, Domenico Modugno beat out Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee for the Record of the Year, with "Volare." More

The British, the highest per capita spenders on music, buy 7,2% of the world music market.

The first pop video was Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, released in 1975.

The Beatles song "Martha My Dear" was written by Paul McCartney about his sheepdog Martha.

Jeanne Louise Calment's CD was released on her 121st birthday in 1996. Titled "Time's Mistress" it features Ms Calment reminiscing to a score of rap music and other tunes.

A grand piano can be played faster than an upright (spinet) piano.

A piano covers the full spectrum of all orchestra instruments, from below the lowest note of the double bassoon to above the top note of the piccolo.

The harmonica is the world's best-selling music instrument.

The term "disc jockey" was first used in 1937.

The last note of a keyboard is C.

Themes from movies Unforgiven, A Perfect World, The Bridges of Madison County, and Absolute Power were all written by Clint Eastwood.

The US share of the world music market is 31.3%.

The only guy without a beard in ZZTOP surname (last name) is Beard.

Since its launch in 1981 the song Memory of the musical Cats has been played on radio more than a million times.

Paul McCartney was the last bachelor Beatle when he married Linda Eastman in a civil ceremony in London, 1969. Paul's brother Mike was his best man. No other Beatle attended the wedding.

There are 6 versions of Franz Schubert's "Die Forelle" ("The Trout"), simply because when friends asked him for copies of the song, he wrote out new copies to the best he could remember at the time.

In 1952, John Cage composed and presented ' 4'33" ', a composition consisting of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence.

The Carpenters signature song, We've Only Just Begun, was originally part of a television commercial for a California bank.

In 1972 Leslie Harvey of Stone the Crows died after being electrocuted onstage in England. In 1976 Keith Relf, who used to play for The Yardbirds, was electrocuted by his guitar while playing in his basement. During a mid-performance in 1994 Ramon Barrero, a Mexican musician famous for playing the world's smallest harmonica, inhaled the harmonica and choked to death.

U2 was originally known as Feedback. To date, U2 have sold more than 70 million records, grossing $1,5 billion.

In May 1997, Paul McCartney broke his own world record by obtaining his 81st gold disc.

Global sales of pre-recorded music total more than $40 billion.

The top selling singles of all time are Elton John's "Candle in the Wind ‘97", at 33 million, Bing Crosby's "White Christmas", 30 million, and Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock", 25 million.

DVD discs are the same diameter (120mm) and thickness (1.2mm) as a Compact Disc but a DVD can store 13 times or more data.

Beethoven was the first composer who never had an official court position, thus the first known freelance musician. Born in 1770, he grew up poor, but published his first work at age 12. By age 20 he was famous. He often sold the same score to six or seven different publishers simultaneously, and demanded unreasonably large fees for the simplest work. He was short, stocky, dressed badly, didn't like to bath, lived in squalor, used crude language, openly conducted affairs with married women, and had syphilis. Beethoven was deaf when he composed his Ninth Symphony.

Movies and TV
Scottish inventor John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of television in 1926 in Soho, London. Ten years later there were only 100 TV sets in the world.

Today there are more than 1,5 billion TV sets in use.

China has the most TV sets (300 million).

US citizens watch the most TV. By age 65, an American would have watched the equivalent of 9 years uninterrupted screening, viewing more than 20,000 TV commercials per year.

In the US there are more TV sets than telephones.

The first TV interview was made with Irish actress Peggy O'Neil in April 1930.

The first daily broadcast was started by the BBC in November 1936.

The first TV commercial was a 20-second ad for a Bulova clock, broadcasted by WNBT, New York during a game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies in July 1941.Bulova paid $9 for that first TV spot. Bulova also was the first watch in space.

The first regular TV soap was DuMont TV's A Woman to Remember, which began its run in February 1947.

The first televised sporting event was a Japanese elementary school baseball game, broadcast in September 1931.

The world's first TV news helicopter was introduced by KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles on 4 July 1958.

In "Father of the Bride", Annie and Bryan marry on January 6. But in the opening montage of "Father of the Bride 2" there is a framed invitation of their wedding which states that they were married on October 9.

Towards the end of the Forrest Gump, Forrest narrates that his wife died on a Saturday. When he is at her grave in the next scene, the tomb stone shows her passing on March 22, 1982, which is a Monday.
On which day of the week were you born?

STAR TREK's Captain James T. Kirk's middle name is Tiberius.

The largest movie theatre in the world, Radio City Music Hall in New York, opened in 1932 - it seats almost 6,000 people.

The longest movie in the world according to Guiness World Records is The Cure for Insomnia, directed by John Henry Timmis IV. Released in 1987, the running time is 5220 minutes (87 hours).

The first film animation was "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" made in 1906 by American J. Stuart Blacton.

In 1919, 18-year-old Walt Disney teamed up with Ub Iwerks, to produce a series of cartoons entitled "Alice in Cartoonland."

The Walt Disney company was founded in 1923, and in 1927 Walt came up with the idea for an animated mouse called Mortimer Mouse. His wife Lillian convinced him to change it to Mickey Mouse.

In 1937 Disney won a special Oscar for the first full-length animation: "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, created Tom and Jerry in 1939.

The first Best Picture Oscar for an animation was awarded in 1991 for Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

Mel Blanc, who played the voice of Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.

Jack Mercer was the voice of Popeye the Sailor for 45 years.

The video recording machine was invented by the Ampex corporation of California in 1956. The first video recorder, the Ampex VR1000, stood 1,1 m (3 ft 3 in) high and weighed as much as a small car: 665 kg (1,466 lb).

The home video recorder was introduced in 1972 by Philips of the Netherlands.

Japanese company JVC introduced the VHS system in 1976.

About 80% of VCRs are made by Japanese companies.

The first pop video was Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, released in 1975.

On average, a movie makes about 5 times more from its video sales than ticket takings.

About one quarter of movie videos sold are animations.

In the 1926 film version of Don Juan actor Lionel Barrymore set the record for the most kisses ever in a single film. Barrymore embraced Mary Astor and Estelle Taylor 127 times.

The longest kiss in a movie is in Andy Warhol's Kiss. Rufus Collins and Naomi Levine kissed for the entire 50 minutes of the movie.

The first porn movie was the 1908 Fench film al'Ecu d'or oula bonne auberge.

The first movie to use sound was "The Jazz Singer," released in 1927: the first words, spoken by Al Jolson, were: "Wait a minute, you ain't heard nothing yet."

The 1967 Russian movie War and Peace had 120,000 extras. The South Korean movie Monster Wang-magwi from the same year featured 157,000 extras. The 1945 German movie Kolberg had 187,000 and the movie with the most extras, the 1982 British movie Gandhi, featured 300,000 extras.

Inventions

In 1894, Lord Kelvin predicted that radio had no future; he also predicted that heavier-than-air flying machines were impossible.

The word "sneaker" was coined by Henry McKinney, an advertising agent for N.W. Ayer & Son.

Charles Macintosh invented the waterproof coat, the Mackintosh, in 1823.

Air-filled tyres were used on bicycles before they were used on motorcars.

The paperclip was invented by Norwegian Johann Vaaler.

Music was sent down a telephone line for the first time in 1876, the year the phone was invented.

The can opener was invented 48 years after cans were introduced.

Traffic lights were used before the advent of the motorcar.

Optical fibre was invented in 1966 by two British scientists called Charles Kao and George Hockham working for the British company Standard Telecommunication.

The first neon sign was made in 1923 for a Packard dealership.

The first fax process was patented in 1843.

The Monopoly game was invented by Charles Darrow in 1933. He sold the rights to George Parker in 1935, then aged 58. Parker invented more than 100 games, including Pit, Rook, Flinch, Risk and Clue.

One hour before Alexander Graham Bell registered his patent for the telephone in 1876, Elisha Gray patented his design. After years of litigation, the patent went to Bell.

The hair perm was invented in 1906 by Karl Ludwig Nessler of Germany.

The first vending machine was invented by Hero of Alexandria around 215 BC. When a coin was dropped into a slot, its weight would pull a cork out of a spigot and the machine would dispense a trickle of water.

Leonardo da Vinci never built the inventions he designed.

Thomas Edison filed 1,093 patents, including those for the light bulb, electric railways and the movie camera. When he died in 1931, he held 34 patents for the telephone, 141 for batteries, 150 for the telegraph and 389 patents for electric light and power.

Count Alessandro Volta invented the first battery in the 18th century.

During the 1860s, George Leclanche developed the dry-cell battery, the basis for modern batteries.

Joseph Niepce developed the world's first photographic image in 1827.

The very first projection of an image on a screen was made by a German priest. In 1646, Athanasius Kircher used a candle or oil lamp to project hand-painted images onto a white screen.

In 1894 Thomas Edison and W K L Dickson introduced the first film camera.

In 1895 French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiere demonstrated a projector system in Paris. In 1907 they screened the first public movie.

The first electronic mail, or "email", was sent in 1972 by Ray Tomlinson. It was also his idea to use the @ sign to separate the name of the user from the name of the computer.

In 1889, Kansas undertaker Almon B. Strowger wanted to prevent telephone operators from advising his rivals of the death of local citizens. So he invented the automatic exchange

History
Thomas Cook, the world's first travel agency in the world, was founded in 1850.

The 16th century Escorial palace of King Phillip II of Spain had 1,200 doors.

A dog was the first in space and a sheep, a duck and a rooster the first to fly in a hot air balloon.

Music was sent down a telephone line for the first time in 1876, the year the phone was invented.

Beer was the first trademarked product - British beer Bass Pale Ale received its trademark in 1876.

Playing-cards were known in Persia and India as far back as the 12th century. A pack then consisted of 48 instead of 52 cards.

Excavations from Egyptian tombs dating to 5,000 BC show that the ancient Egyptian kids played with toy hedgehogs.

Accounts from Holland and Spain suggest that during the 1500s and 1600s urine was commonly used as a tooth-cleaning agent.

Julius Caesar was the first to encode communications, using what has become known as the Caesar Cipher.

The first mention of soap was on Sumerian clay tablets dating about 2,500 BC. The soap was made of water, alkali and cassia oil.

The first animal in space was the female Samoyed husky named Laika, launched by the Soviets in 1957.

In 1958 the US sent two mice called Laska and Benjy into space.

In 1969 the US launched a male chimpanzee called Ham into space.

In 1963 the French launched a cat called Feliette into space.

Great Britain was the first county to issue postage stamps, on 1 May 1840. Hence, UK stamps are the only stamps in the world not to bear the name of the country of origin.

Napoleon's christening name was Italian: Napoleone Buonaparte. He was born on the island of Corsica one year after it became French property. As a boy, Napoleon hated the French.

John Rolfe married Pocahontas the Red Indian Princess in 1613.

Only one of the Seven Wonders of the World still survives: the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The first parachute jump from an airplane was made by Captain Berry at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1912.

On 21 June 1913, over Los Angeles, Georgia Broadwick became the first women to parachute from an airplane.

The first written account of the Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie, was made in 565AD.

The world's first skyscraper was the 10-storey Home Insurance office, built in Chicago in 1885. (During Roman times buildings were up to 8 storeys high.)

In ancient times, it was believed that certain colours could combat the evil spirits that lingered over nurseries. Because blue was associated with the heavenly spirits, boys were clothed in that colour, boys then being considered the most valuable resource to parents. Although baby girls did not have a colour associated with them, they were mostly clothed in black. It was only in the Middle Ages when pink became associated with baby girls.

Food
Milk chocolate was invented by Daniel Peter, who sold the concept to his neighbour Henri Nestlé.

An ounce of chocolate contains about 20 mg of caffeine.

Forks, mostly being two-tined, used to known as "split spoons."

TIP is the acronym for "To Insure Promptness."

The world's oldest existing eatery opened in Kai-Feng, China in 1153.

Coffee is the seed of a cherry from the tree genus Coffea

Melba toast is named after Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba (1861-1931).

Three quarters of fish caught are eaten - the rest is used to make things such as glue, soap, margarine and fertilizer.

The world's most expensive jam (jelly) is Confiture de groselles. It is a redcurrant jam (jelly) from a 14th century recipe made in the tiny French town of Bar-Le-Duc.

In September 1999 Dustin Philips of the US set a Guinness World Record by drinking a 400 ml (14-oz) bottle of tomato sauce through a straw in 33 seconds.

To make one kilo of honey bees have to visit 4 million flowers, traveling a distance equal to 4 times around the earth.

Botanically speaking, the banana is a herb and the tomato is a fruit.

Bananas are the world's most popular fruit after tomatoes. In western countries, they could account for 3% of a grocer's total sales.

Bananas consistently are the number one compliant of grocery shoppers. Most people complain when bananas are overripe or even freckled. The fact is that spotted bananas are sweeter, with a sugar content of more than 20%, compared with 3% in a green banana.

Approximately 44 million tons of bananas are produced annually, compared to more than 60 million tomatoes. Apples are the third most popular (36 million tons), then oranges (34 million tons) and watermelons (22 million tons).

The scientific term for the common tomato is lycopersicon lycopersicum, which means "wolf peach."

There are more than 10,000 varieties of tomatoes.

The can opener was invented 48 years after cans were introduced.

Over the last 40 years food production actually increased faster than population.

The number of people who starved to death in the last 25 years of the 20th century is less than the number who starved to death in the last 25 years of the 19th century.

In the Middle Ages, sugar was a treasured luxury costing 9 times as much as milk.

Of the more than $50 billion worth of diet products sold every year, almost $20 billion are spent on imitation fats and sugar substitutes.

Over 90% of all fish caught are caught in the northern hemisphere.

In 1994, Chicago artist Dwight Kalb sent David Letterman a statue of Madonna, made of 180lb of ham.

Wine is sold in tinted bottles because wine spoils when exposed to light.

Approximately one billion snails are served in restaurants annually.

Vitamin A is known to prevent "night blindness," and carrots are loaded with Vitamin A. One carrot provides more than 200% of recommended daily intake of Vitamin A.

Carrots have zero fat content.

Maria Ann Smith introduced the Granny Smith apple in 1838.

Tea is said to have been discovered in 2737 BC by a Chinese emperor when some tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water.

The first European to encounter tea was the Portuguese Jesuit Jasper de Cruz in 1560.

Ice tea was introduced in 1904 at the World's Fair in St. Louis.

The tea bag was introduced in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan of New York.

In the 1950's some 80% of chickens in Europe and the US were free-ranging. By 1980, it was only 1%. Today, about 13% of chickens in the West are free-ranging.

An onion, apple and potato all have the same taste. The differences in flavour are caused by their smell.

Americans eat twice as much meat as Europeans, gobbling up some 50kg (110 lb) per capita.

The tall chef's hat is called a toque.

The term "soda water" was coined in 1798.

The soda fountain was patented by Samuel Fahnestock in 1819, with the first bottled soda water available in 1835.

The first ice-cream soda was sold in 1874 in the US.

The first cola-flavoured beverage was introduced in 1881.

Coca-Cola was invented in Atlanta, Georgia by Dr. John S. Pemberton in 1886.

Pepsi-Cola was invented by Caleb Bradham in 1890 as "Brad's Drink" as a digestive aid and energy booster. In was renamed as Pepsi-Cola in 1898.

In 1929, the Howdy Company introduced its "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Sodas," which became 7 Up. 7 Up was invented by Charles Leiper Grigg.

The first diet soft drink, called the "No-Cal Beverage" was launched in 1952.

Aluminum cans were introduced in 1957 and two years later the first diet cola was sold.

The pull-ring tab was invented in 1962 and the re-sealable top in 1965.

Plastic bottles were first used for soft drinks in 1970.

The Polyethylene Terephthalate bottle was introduced in 1973.

The stay-on tab was invented in 1974.

China uses 45 billion chopsticks per year. 25 million trees are chopped down to make 'em sticks.

Chocolate is the number one foodstuff flavour in the world, beating vanilla and banana by 3-to-1.

Watermelons are 97% water, lettuce 97%, tomatoes 95%, carrots 90%, and bread 30%.

Earth and universe
The order of the planets, starting closest to the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

The one place where a flag flies all day, never goes up or comes down, and does not get saluted, is the moon.

Earth is not round; it is slightly pear-shaped. The North Pole radius is 44mm longer than the South Pole radius.

A green diamond is the rarest diamond.

The ozone layer averages about 3 millimeters (1/8 inch) thick.

A diamond will break if you hit it with a hammer.

The crawler, the machine that takes the Space Shuttle to the launching pad moves at 3km/h (2 mph).

Summer on Uranus lasts for 21 years - but so does winter.

The Sahara desert expands at about 1km per month.

Oceanography, the study of oceans, is a mixture of biology, physics, geology and chemistry.

More than 70% of earth's dryland is affected by desertification.

The US has one of the highest fire death rates in the industrialised world, with more than 2 million fires reported each year.

The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth.

The largest iceberg ever recorded was 335km (208 miles) long and 97km (60 miles) wide.

Luke Howard used Latin words to categorize clouds in 1803.

Hurricanes, tornadoes and bigger bodies of water always go clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. This directional spinning has to do with the rotation of the earth and is called the Coriolis force.

Winds that blow toward the equator curve west.

Organist William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus in 1781 with the first reflecting telescope that he built. He named it Georgium Sidium in honour of King George III of England but in 1850 it was renamed Uranus in accordance with the tradition of naming planets for Roman gods.

Planets, meaning wanderers, are named after Roman deities: Mercury, messenger of the gods; Venus, the god of love and beauty; Mars, the god of war; Jupiter, king of the gods; and Saturn, father of Jupiter and god of agriculture; Neptune, god of the sea.

During a total solar eclipse the temperature can drop by 6 degrees Celsius (about 20 degrees Fahrenheit).

The tallest waterfalls in the world are Angel Falls in Venezuela. At 979 m (3,212 ft), they are 19 times taller than the Niagara Falls, or 3 times taller than the Empire State Building.

Although the Angel Falls are much taller than the Niagara Falls, the latter are much wider, and they both pour about the same amount of water over their edges - about 2,8 billion litres (748 million gallons) per second.

There are 1040 islands around Britain, one of which is the smallest island in the world: Bishop's Rock.

All the planets in the solar system rotate anticlockwise, except Venus. It is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

Earth is the densest planet in the solar system and the only one not named after a god.

Earth orbits the sun at an average speed of 29.79 km/s (18.51 miles/sec), or about 107 000 km/h (about 67,000 miles/hour).

One year on earth is 365.26 days long. One day is 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds long. The extra day in a leap year was introduced to compensate for the discrepancy in the Georgian calendar.

Plates carrying the continents migrate over the earth's surface a few centimetres (inches) per year, about the same speed that a fingernail grows.

On average, 13,000 earthquakes are located each year.

The magnetic north pole is near Ellef Ringes Island in northern Canada.

The magnetic south pole was discovered off the coast of Wilkes Land in Antarctica.

There is zero gravity at the centre of earth.

the deepest mine in the world is Western Deep Levels near Charletonville, South Africa. It is 4,2km (2.6 miles) deep.

The deepest point in the sea: the Mariana Trench off Guam in the Pacific Ocean; it is 10,9 km (6.77 miles) below sea level.

Earth is slowing down - in a few million years there won't be a leap year.

The tail of the Great Comet of 1843 was 330 million km long. (It will return in 2356.)

There are more than 326 million trillion gallons of water on Earth.

About 500 small meteorites fall to earth every year but most fall in the sea and in unpopulated areas.

There is no record of a person being killed by a meteorite but animals are occasionally hit.

The Dead Sea is 365 m (1,200 ft) below sea level.

A storm officially becomes a hurricane when cyclone winds reach 119 km/h (74 mph).

The body
Hiccups happen when the diaphragm, the muscle that controls our breathing, becomes irritated and start to spasm and contract uncontrollably. With each contraction, air is pulled into the lungs very quickly, passes through the voice box, and then the epiglottis closes behind the rush of air, shaking the vocal chords, causing the "hic" sound. The irritation can be caused by rapid eating, emotional stress and even some diseases. The best cure? Breathing into a paper bag. This calms the diaphragm by increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in your bloodstream.

The length from your wrist to your elbow is the same as the length of your foot.

Your heart beats 101,000 times a day. During your lifetime it will beat about 3 billion times and pump about 400 million litres (800 million pints) of blood.

Your mouth produces 1 litre (1.8 pints) of saliva a day.

On average, people can hold their breath for about one minute. The world record is 15 minutes 2 seconds, by Tom Sietas..

The human head contains 22 bones. More on the head and brains

On average, you breathe 23,000 times a day.

On average, you speak almost 5,000 words a day - although almost 80% of speaking is self-talk (talking to yourself).

Einstein's brain was of average size (1375 grams - 49oz).

Over the last 150 years the average height of people in industrialised nations increased by 10 cm (4 in).

In the 19th century, American men were the tallest in the world, averaging 1,71m (5'6"). Today, the average height for American men is 1,75m (5'7"), compared to 1,77m (5'8") for Swedes, and 1,78m (5'8.5") for the Dutch.

The tallest nation in the world is the Watusis of Burundi.

If the amount of water in your body is reduced by just 1%, you'll feel thirsty.

Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, suggested that a woman could enlarge her bust line by singing loudly and often.

A person can live without food for about a month, but only about a week without water.

You'll drink about 75,000 litres (20,000 gallons) of water in your lifetime.

After a certain period of growth, hair becomes dormant. That means that it is attached to the hair follicle until replaced by new hair.

Hair on the head grows for between two and six years before being replaced. In the case of baldness, the dormant hair was not replaced with new hair.

Men loose about 40 hairs a day. Women loose about 70 hairs a day.

In the Middle Ages the length from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow was called an ell.

A person remains conscious for eight seconds after being decapitated.

The first human sex change took place in 1950 when Danish doctor Christian Hamburger operated on New Yorker George Jargensen, who became Christine Jargensen.

The muscle that lets your eye blink is the fastest muscle in your body. It allows you to blink 5 times a second. On average, you blink 15 000 times a day. Women blink twice as much as men.

A typical athlete's heart churns out 25 to 30 litres (up to 8 gallons) of blood per minute.

We have four basic tastes. The salt and sweet taste buds are at the tip of the tongue, bitter at the base, and sour along the sides.

Unless food is mixed with saliva you cannot taste it.

The liver is the largest of the body's internal organs. The skin is the body's largest organ.

Not all our taste buds are on our tongue; about 10% are on the palette and the cheeks.

On average a hiccup lasts 5 minutes.

Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.

It takes about 3 months for the transplanted hair to start growing again.

About 13% of people are left-handed. Up from 11% in the past.

In 1900, a person could expect to live to be 47. Today, the average life expectancy for men and women in developed countries is longer than 70 years.

A newborn baby's head accounts for one-quarter of its weight.

King Henry I, who ruled in the England in the 12th century, standardised the yard as the distance from the thumb of his outstretched arm to his nose.

The bones in your body are not white - they range in colour from beige to light brown. The bones you see in museums are white because they have been boiled and cleaned.

Our eyes are always the same size from birth.

Every person has a unique tongue print.

If all your DNA is stretched out, it would reach to the moon 6,000 times.

Approximately two-thirds of a person's body weight is water. Blood is 92% water. The brain is 75% water and muscles are 75% water.

The coloured part of the eye is called the iris. Behind the iris is the soft, rubbery lens which focuses the light on to a layer, called the retina, in the back of the eye. The retina contains about 125 million rods and 7 million cones. The rods pick up shades of grey and help us see in dim light. The cones work best in bright light to pick up colours.

We actually do not see with our eyes - we see with our brains. The eyes basically are the cameras of the brain. One-quarter of the brain is used to control the eyes.

Art and literature
In 1961, Matisse's Le Bateau (The Boat) hung upside-down for 2 months in the Museum of Modern Art, New York - none of the 116,000 visitors had noticed.

Picasso could draw before he could walk and his first word was the Spanish word for pencil.

Sumerians invented writing in the 4th century BC.

The first book published is thought to be the Epic of Gilgamesh, written at about 3000 BC in cuneiform, an alphabet based on symbols.

The first history book, the Great Universal History, was published by Rashid-Eddin of Persia in 1311.

The first novel, called The story of Genji, was written in 1007 by Japanese noble woman, Murasaki Shikibu.

William Shakespeare wrote his first play The Taming of the Shrew in 1593.

The German PJ Reuter started a foreign news agency in 1858. Today Reuters is one of the biggest news agencies in the world.

The oldest surviving daily newspaper is the Wiener Zeitung of Austria. It was first printed in 1703.

The Bible still is the world's best selling book.

In 1097, Trotula, a midwife of Salerno, wrote The Diseases of Women - it was used in medical schools for 600 years.

The world's longest nonfiction work is The Yongle Dadian, a 10,000-volume encyclopaedia produced by 5,000 scholars during the Ming Dynasty in China 500 years ago.

Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote Meteorologica in 350 BC - it remained the standard textbook on weather for 2,000 years.

The first illustrated book for children was published in Germany in 1658.

Barbara Cartland completed a novel every two weeks, publishing 723 novels.

The word "novel" originally derived from the Latin novus, meaning "new."

A 18th century London literary club was called Kit-Cat Club.

Ian Fleming's James Bond debuted in the novel "Casino Royale" in 1952.

Johannes Gutenberg is often credited as the inventor of the printing press in 1454. However, the Chinese actually printed from movable type in 1040 but later discarding the method. More

The Statue of Liberty is the largest hammered copper statue in the world.

The largest statue in the world is Mount Rushmore, the heads of four US Presidents carved into the Black Hills near Keystone. The heads are 18 m (60 ft) tall.

The largest horse statue in the world, the Zizkov Monument in Prague, stands 9 metres (30 ft) tall.

It is said that if a statue 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, like the Zizkov Monument, the person died of natural causes.

The words "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" were penned in the 17th century by English philospher John Locke.

To save costs, the body of Shakespeare's friend and fellow dramatist, Ben Jonson, was buried standing up in Westminister Abbey, London in 1637.

The first novel sold through a vending machine - at the Paris Metro - was Murder on the Orient Express.

Jean-Dominique Bauby, a French journalist suffering from "locked-in" syndrome, wrote the book "The Driving Bell and the Butterfly" by blinking his left eyelid - the only part of his body that could move.

When Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1912, 6 replicas were sold as the original, each at a huge price, in the 3 years before the original was recovered.

When Auguste Rodin exhibited his first important work, The Bronze Period, in 1878 it was so realistic that people thought he had sacrificed a live model inside the cast.

Rodin died of frostbite in 1917 when the French government refused him financial aid for a flat, yet they kept his statues warmly housed in museums.

Vincent van Gogh, the world's most valued painter, sold only painting in his entire life - to his brother who owned an art gallery. The painting is titled "Red Vineyard at Arles."

Ernest Vincent Wright's 1939 novel Gadsby has 50,110 words, none of which contains the letter "e." See below

In 1816, Frenchman J.R. Ronden tried to stage a play that did not contain the letter "a." The Paris audience was offended, rioted and did not allow the play to finish.

The shortest stage play is Samuel Beckett's "Breath" - 35 seconds of screams and heavy breathing.

There are more than ten billion web pages on the internet.

The world's libraries store more than a 100 million original volumes.

The largest web bookshop, Amazon.com, stores almost 3 million books.

The Library of Congress, the largest library in the world, stores 18 million books on approximately 850 km (530 miles) of bookshelves. The collections include 119 million items, 2 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4 million maps and 53 million manuscripts.

2 billion people still cannot read.

The problem of missing teeth was first discussed at length in 1728 by Pierre Fauchard in his book The Surgeon Dentist.

The first colour photograph was made in 1861 by James Maxwell. He photographed a tartan ribbon.

The first English dictionary was written by Samuel Johnson in 1755.

Noah Webster, who wrote the Webster Dictionary, was known as a short, pale, smug, boastful, humourless, yet religious man.

The first Oxford English Dictionary was published in April 1928, 50 years after it was started. It consisted of 400,000 words and phrases in 10 volumes. The latest edition fills 22,000 pages, includes 33,000 Shakespeare quotations, and is bound in 20 volumes. All of which is available on a single CD.

When Jonathan Swift published 'Gulliver's Travels' in 1726, he intended it as a satire on the ferociousness of human nature. Today it is enjoyed as a children's story.

Animals
Is a world population of 6 billion too many? Compare that with animals. There are more than a million animal species. There are 6,000 species of reptiles, 73,000 kinds of spiders, and 3,000 types of lice. For each person there is about 200 million insects. The 4,600 kinds of mammals represent a mere 0,3% of animals and the 9000 kinds of birds only 0,7%. The most numerous bird specie is the red-billed quelea of southern Africa. There are an estimated 100 trillion of them.

Mammals are the only animals with flaps around the ears.

African elephants only have four teeth to chew their food with.

There are about one billion cattle in the world of which 200 million are in India.

A house fly lives only 14 days.

A dog was the first in space and a sheep, a duck and a rooster the first to fly in a hot air balloon.

The Big Five is a group of animals of Africa: cape buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion and rhino. The term "Big Five" was coined by hunters who referred to the difficulty in hunting these wild animals because of their ferocity when cornered.

The oldest breed of dog is the Saluki.

The bee hummingbird of Cuba is the smallest bird in the world.

An ostrich can run up to 70 km/h (43mph).

An annoyed camel will spit at a person.

The world's smallest dog is the Chihuahua, which means "tiny dog in the sky."

Pea crabs (the size of a pea) are the smallest crabs in the world.

75% of wild birds die before they are 6 months old.

The pig is rated the fourth most intelligent animal but are mentioned only twice in the Bible

Sheep are mentioned 45 times and goats 88 times in the Bible. Dogs are mentioned 14 times and lions 89 times, but domestic cats are not mentioned.

Pork is the world's most widely-eaten meat.

In Denmark there are twice as many pigs as people.

Dinosaurs did not eat grass: there weren't any at that time.

The coyote is a member of the dog family and its scientific name, "canis latrans" means barking dog.

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 50cm (20 in) tongue.

A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle - a group of geese in the air is a skein.

The South American giant anteater eats more than 30,000 ants a day.

It is impossible to out-swim a shark - sharks reach speeds of 70 km/h (44 mph). Humans can run about 35 km/h (21 mph).

The sailfish is the fastest swimmer, reaching 109 km/h (68 mph).

The slowest fish is the Sea Horse, which moves along at about 0.016 km/h (0.01 mph).

Dolphins can reach 60 km/h (37 mph).

Of the 650 types of leeches, only the Hirudo medicinalis is used for medical treatments.

The heart of a blue whale is the size of a small car.

The tongue of a blue whale is as long as an elephant.

The scales of a crocodile are made of ceratin, the same substance that hooves and fingernails are made of.

A crocodile's tongue is attached to the roof of its mouth and cannot move it.

A snail has two pairs of tentacles on its head. One pair is longer than the other and houses the eyes. The shorter pair is used for smelling and feeling its way around.

The heaviest crustacean ever found was a lobster weighing 19 kg (42 lb), caught in 1934.

The largest jellyfish ever caught measured 2,3 m (7'6") across the bell with a tentacle of 36 m (120 ft) long.

The largest giant squid ever recorded was captured in the North Atlantic in 1878. It weighed 4 tons. Its tentacles measured 10 m (35 ft) long.

The giant squid has the biggest eyes of any animal: its eyes measure 40 cm (16 in) in diameter.

Domestic cats purr at about 26 cycles per second, the same frequency as an idling diesel engine.

Sharks are immune to all known diseases.

Sharks and rays also share the same kind of skin: instead of scales, they have small tooth-like spikes called denticles. The spikes are so sharp that shark skin has long been used as sandpaper.

Animals also are either right-handed or left-handed. Polar bears are left-handed - and so is Kermit the Frog.

There are 701 types of pure breed dogs.

There are about 54 million dogs in the US, and Paris is said to have more dogs than people.

Some bird species, usually flightless birds, have only a lower eyelid, whereas pigeons use upper and lower lids to blink.

Fish and insects do not have eyelids - their eyes are protected by a hardened lens.

Flatfish (halibut, flounder, turbot, and sole) hatch like any other "normal" fish. As they grow, they turn sideways and one eye moves around so they have two eyes on the side that faces up.

Measured in straight flight, the spine-tailed swift is the fastest bird. It flies 170 km/h (106 mph). Second fastest is the Frigate, which reaches 150 km/h (94 mph).

Millions of trees are accidentally planted by squirrels who bury nuts and then forget where they hid them.

There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia, a nation of 17 million people.

New Zealand is home to 4 million people and 70 million sheep.

WORLD'S HIGHEST BRIDGE IS IN THE HIMALAYANS



The highest bridge in the world can be found in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan mountains. The valley lies at an altitude of about 5 602 m (18,379 ft) above sea level on the India side of Kashmir. Called the Baily Bridge, it is only 30 metres (98 ft) long, and was built by the Indian Army in August 1982.

If you were thinking of the bridge that stands highest over water, then the Royal Gorge Bridge over the Arkansas River in Colorado, US is your answer. Built in 1929 for $350,000, it spans 321 m (1,053 ft) above the water.

The largest bridge in the world is the 13,27 km (8,25 miles) long Trans Bay Bridge which links San Francisco to Oakland. It was built in 1936 at a cost of $77 million. The longest bridge in the world is the Pontchartrain bridge in New Orleans, USA with a total length of 38,6 km (24 miles). It was completed in 1956. The most expensive bridge is the Seto-Ohashi-Kojima bridge in Japan. At 13,22 km (8,21 miles) long, it was built in 1988 at a cost of $8.3 billion.

The world's largest natural bridge is the Rainbow Bridge, tucked away among the rugged, isolated canyons at the base of Navajo Mountain, Utah, USA. It is a natural wonder. From its base to the top of the arch, it reaches 88,4 m (290 ft) - nearly the height of the Statue of Liberty - and spans 83,8 m (275 ft) across the river. The top of the arch is 12,8 m (42 ft) thick and 10 m (33 ft) wide.

The World's busiest bridge is the Howrah bridge across the river Hooghly in Calcutta. In addition to 57000 vehicles a day it carries a huge number of pedestrians across its 457 m (1,500 ft) long 22 m (72 ft) wide span.