Fastfacts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Monday, April 5, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
Americans in 2001 spent $25 billion on recreational watercraft. That's more than the gross domestic product of North Korea.
Sixty percent of Americans say celebrities get special treatment from the legal system because they have a lot of money. But a majority also says Martha Stewart, Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant will receive or have received fair trials.
Singapore Airlines has begun offering the longest regularly scheduled, nonstop commercial air service in history: 18 hours and 15 minutes, between Singapore and Los Angeles. The 9,298-mile flight offers movies screens for each seat, complimentary champagne, a 12-page menu and buffet.
A national survey found that 45 percent of American women contemplate cosmetic surgery. Of the women surveyed who had already had one such procedure, 87 percent said they wanted another.
Ben Jonson, the English dramatist and poet, was working as an actor and playwright in 1598 when he killed another actor in a duel. He was tried, and successfully defended himself by claiming the right of clergy.
Lord Byron, the English romantic poet, was born with a clubfoot, about which much has been written. But was it his right foot or his left? Scholars today are not sure, and literature on the disability has always been foggy.
A mosquito has 47 teeth.
During World War II, the American air force stationed at Gander, Newfoundland, found that Eskimo hunters who had never before seen a machine were top technicians.
Cavalry captured a fleet during the wars of the French Revolution. Gen. Charles Pichegru, invading Holland in the winter of 1794, found Dutch ships icebound off the coast. He led his Hussars in a charge across the frozen waters and seized the vessels.