Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
There were more than a hundred distinct ethnic groups in the Soviet Union.
Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to be born in hospital.
The average issue of the Congressional Record carries more than 4 million words öö the approximate equivalent of 20 long novels. It is printed and published overnight.
One variety of bamboo, Phyllostachys bambusoides, was recorded to have flowered in the year 999 in China. Since that time, it has continued to flower and set seed every 120 years. It follows that cycle wherever it lives; plants of the same species flower simultaneously no matter where they have been transplanted.
In the year the Wright brothers first flew, for 12 seconds, it took only 12 minutes for a message to be cabled around the world.