Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
Before the Spanish conquests in South America, the Incas had no iron. They had gold in comparatively large quantities, using it not only for decoration but also for everyday objects such as nails, eating utensils, combs and eyebrow tweezers.
A parrot's beak can close with a force of 350 pounds per square inch.
Salto Alto (Angel Falls) in Venezuela is more than 20 times higher than Niagara Falls.
A scientist at Michigan State University has calculated that the production of a single hen egg requires about 120 gallons of water, a loaf of bread requires 300 gallons and a pound of beef 3,500.
The sponge filters morsels of food out of the seawater that passes through its pores. Before it can obtain enough food to gain an ounce of body weight, a sponge must filter 1 ton of water.
Hitler, hoping to isolate and demean Jews in Denmark as he had elsewhere, ordered all of them to wear a Star of David armband. However, within hours of the order, Danish citizens of all religions were wearing the armband. King Christian X declared, "I am my country's first Jew."
Roman Emperor Charles V once said, "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse."
A number of high-ranking British military officers refused to take up arms against the United States in the Revolutionary War, and there was great sympathy for the Americans throughout England.
Vincent Van Gogh started drawing when he was 27.
Ernest Hemingway gave to the Shrine of the Virgin in eastern Cuba Nobel Prize money he had won for the novel "The Old Man and the Sea." "You don't ever have a thing until you give it away," he said.