Facts to Shock - II

-Spiral staircases in medieval castles all run clockwise.
This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When
the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not
be able to use their right hand which was holding the
sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs.

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-In 1912 former president Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican,
wanted to run for the White House one more time. Denied
his party's nomination, Teddy ran as the candidate of a
progressive party built just for him: the "Bull Moose" party. An unhappy citizen, mad that Roosevelt was trying to seek a third term, walked up to him at a speaking engagement in Milwaukee and shot him in the chest. Roosevelt's speech,in his pocket, absorbed most of the blow but the bullet did enter his body. He gave his speech anyway.

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-The Museum of Modern Art in New York City once displayed a painting by Henri Matisse upside down for almost two months before anyone noticed. It was a picture of a sailboat that show the boat, and its reflection in the water below it.

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-The distinctive smell that you experience upon opening a
box of crayons actually comes from stearic acid, the formal name for processed beef fat.

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-The King Ranch in Texas is bigger than the state of Rhode
Island.

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-Polonium, the radioactive element recently used by the KGB to kill a rogue agent, is a trillion times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide.

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-Despite their finickiness, an average cat consumes about
127,750 calories a year, nearly 28 times their own weight
in food.

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-The Egyptians invented toothpaste 5,000 years ago. It was a crude mixture of wine and pumice.

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-The female wombat has a pouch that faces backwards.

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-The rare-earth element Praseodymium responds to being
magnetized by getting colder. This property was exploited
by scientists to obtain a temperature of one thousandth of a degree above absolute zero.

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-The platypus and the echidna are the only mammals that
lay eggs.

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-Koalas don't have eyelids or tails.

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-Cats cannot survive on a vegetarian diet.

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-Samarium Sulfide is a black crystaline solid; until you
scratch it. When scratched, the crystals immediately change to a golden color. The compound also then changes from a semi-conductor to a metal.

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-From the early Roman Empire until 18th-century Europe and America, urine was a main ingredient in toothpaste because the ammonia in it is an excellent cleaner. Ammonia is still a common ingredient in many types of toothpaste.

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-Elevators are the safest form of transportation. There
is less than one death for every 100 million miles in an
elevator.

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-Almost all animals walk by moving alternate legs. Only three animals walk by moving the two legs on one side
together first, then shifting to do the same on the other
side: the giraffe, the camel and the cat.

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-People have been using "bicarbonate of soda" for stomach
relief for 5,000 years. The Sumerians were the first.

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-Mickey Mouse was first named Mortimer Mouse.

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-A wild cat, known as "the fishing cat" actually swims to
catch fish. Also called the Bengali Mach-Bagral, nature
gave this cat extra-long claws, which it uses like fishhooks. The fishing cat is found in Nepal, Burma, Southern China and parts of India.

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-Boxing is the only Olympic event that has a maximum age
limit: 34. It was 32 before.

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-Walt Disney did not create the character of Mickey Mouse
by himself. He relied on his childhood friend, an animator by the name of Ubbe Irt Iwerks.

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-The average adult eyeball weighs about one ounce.

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-Tantalum Carbide, TaC, is harder than diamond and needs to be heated above 6,700 degrees Fahrenheit before it melts.

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-The ancient Greeks used sea sponges to pad their helmets
and leg armor.

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-The Capital Building in Washington D.C. has 365 steps.

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-Queen Rania of Jordan worked in marketing at both Apple
and Citibank before marrying then Prince Abdullah.

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-The Atlantic Ocean is the youngest of the world's major
oceans, at a mere 200 million years old.

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-By swinging, stretching, and doubling a fist-size lump of flour-and-water dough, a Chinese master noodle maker cancreate 2,048 strands of "long xu mian" - dragon's beard noodles - each as fine as a human hair. This Chinese delicacy is deep fried and wrapped into thin pancakes.

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-When under stress, octopuses have been known to eat their own arms.

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-A million begonia seeds weigh just one ounce.

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-In the second it takes to turn the page of a book, you will lose about 3 million red blood cells. During that same second, your bone marrow will have produced the same number of new ones.

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-Tooth enamel is the hardest substance manufactured by the human body.

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-Damascus steel was stronger and more durable than other steels because of the presence of Vanadium in the ore
used to make it. The makers of Damascus steel did not
know this and when the Vanadium-containing iron ore ran
out the strength and durability were no longer there.

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-A bumble bee flaps its wings 160 beats per second.

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-The notebooks that Marie and Pierre Curie used to record
their work with radium 100 years ago are still radioactive.

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-Ellen Burstyn received a serious spinal injury during filming of "The Exorcist". She fell on her coccyx and screamed out in pain...and this was used in the movie.

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-The elephant is the only animal with four knees.

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-The spleen serves as a vast reservoir for monocytes,
the largest of the white blood cells.

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-For "The Grinch", 90 makeup artists applied face prosthetics, wigs and makeup. Each makeup job took from 1 to 2 hours!

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-The reef heron, that feeds on shellfish on the Great Barrier Reef, flies 30 miles daily from the Australian mainland and although the tide changes vary by 45 minutes a day, the heron always arrives at the exact time that the water recedes.