Fastfacts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Monday, February 23, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
At least 19 college and high school football players died in games in 1905.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' cloakroom, in an ancient castle, after his mother prematurely delivered him while she was attending a dance there.
Charlie Chaplin once received 73,000 letters within two days on a visit to his native London.
The Romans were so fond of eating dormice that the upper classes raised them domestically. The rodents were kept in specially designed cages and were fed a mixture of nuts.
To dedicate the Hagia Sophia in 537 A.D - the supreme product of Byzantine art - the Emporer Justinian slaughtered 10,000 sheep, oxen, swine, poultry and deer for a great feast.
While fighting with the French underground during World War II, Jacques-Yves Cousteau invented the aqualung, a self-contained device that supplies pressurized air for underwater divers.
There's enough energy in 10 minutes of one hurricane to match the nuclear stockpiles of the world.
In order to become a gentleman in English society, Mohandas K. Ghandi spent hours practicing the arranging of his tie and hair and taking lessons in dance and music.
Lake Baikal in Siberia is the only lake in the world that is deep enough to have deep-sea fish.
The yellow evening primrose opens only at dusk. Its opening is so quick, the buds sound like popping soap bubbles as they burst.
After the first moonwalk in 1969, Pan American Airlines began accepting reservations for commercial flights to the moon, dates and times unspecified. More than 80,000 requests poured in immediately.
The Order of the Holy Spirit, formed in about 1160 by Guy of Montpellier, specialized in the care of abandoned infants. The order gained the support of the Pope, who was sickened by the great number of dead babies cast into the Tiber River in Rome.