Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday, April 1, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
The British and French armies in World War I did not advance more than 3 miles at any point on the western front in the whole year of 1915. The three miles cost the French army alone nearly 1.5 million men.
Abraham Lincoln's wife, like Lincoln himself, was born in Kentucky. During the Civil War, she was accused of being a spy for the South. Her brothers were members of the Confederate Army.
The true size of Earth was known 17 1/2 centuries before it was circumnavigated. In 230 B.C., the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes worked out its circumference of 25,000 miles by studying shadows cast by the sun at different places on the same day.
Every year, it takes the moon .002 of a second more to circle the Earth than it took in the previous year, as it slowly recedes from Earth. Long before the moon recedes to much more than its present distance, the sun will have come to the end of its existence as a normal star.
In 1991, the average bra size in the United States was 34B. Today, it's 36C.
To cater to picky consumers, Tropicana now sells 24 varieties of orange juice. Starbucks offers five kinds of milk, three kinds of sweetener and more than 19,000 variations on a cup of coffee.
Utility officials in New York City have identified 280 manhole covers, lampposts and service-box lids that are surging with live electricity - some with enough voltage to kill anyone who touches them.
Four out of five American teens do not want to grow up to be president.
A Costa Rican worker who makes baseballs earns about $2,750 a year. The average American professional baseball player earns $2,377,000.