Every once in a while I read some stuff that blows my mind.  Next time you need some idle cocktail party trivia, try these on for size:

Geographical Fun Facts:

• There’s enough water in Lake Superior to flood all of North and South America to a depth of one foot.

Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes.

• Maine is the closest U.S. state to Africa.
• New York City is further south than Rome, Italy.
(but only by 1 degree…)
• Russia has a larger surface area than Pluto.
• Alaska is simultaneously the northernmost, westernmost and easternmost state in the U.S. (A couple of the Aleutian Islands cross the 180^th meridian.)

Date data:

• Betty White is older than sliced bread.
  

  Betty White, born 1922. Bread slicer invented, 1928.

• Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barbara Walters were born in the same year. (1929)
• Cleopatra lived closer to the invention of the iPhone than she did to the building of the Great Pyramid.
• Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.
• Mammoths went extinct 1,000 years after the Egyptians finished building the Great Pyramid.
• France was still executing people with a guillotine when the first Star Wars film was released.

Some fascinating factoids about the animal kingdom:

• Saudi Arabia imports camels from Australia.
• Hippo milk is pink.
• An octopus has three hearts.
• Turtles can breathe out of their butts.
• Armadillos nearly always give birth to identical quadruplets.
• The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland.
• There are more fake flamingos in the world than real flamingos.
• The total weight of all the ants in the world is approximately the same as the total weight of all the humans on Earth.

And, finally, some really useless (but fascinating) facts:

• Vending machines are twice as likely to kill you than a shark is.

If you go to the vending machine link, there are some amusing comments posted there: “The really fascinating statistic is that 100% of the people who try swimming with a vending machine die from drowning.” … and … “this, remarkably, is the same percentage chance that you will die from shaking a shark for lost change.”)

“I ain’t gettin’ any younger . . .”

• A strawberry isn’t a berry but a banana is (as are avocados and watermelons).
• The dot over an “i” is called a “tittle.”
• If you’re a fan of the Chicago Cubs, these are painful stats (but you probably already know them). The last time the Cubs won the World Series:

–   the Ottoman Empire still existed
–   lollipops had not been invented
–   women did not have the right to vote in the U.S.
–   Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii and New Mexico had not yet achieved statehood

And, last but not least, a hopeful statistic (let’s hope it’s true):  There are more public libraries than McDonald’s in the U.S.

Happy Friday – happy Spring!

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