Fastfacts


Arizona Daily Wildcat
Friday, January 23, 2004

Things you always never wanted to know

  • Peter the Great of Russia was almost 7 feet tall.

  • A person who smokes one pack of cigarettes per day inhales a half-cup of tar every year.

  • Babe Ruth, one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, began his career as a pitcher.

  • Of all the ore dug in diamond mines, only one carat in every 23 tons proves to be a diamond.

  • In downtown Lima, Peru, there is a large brass statue dedicated to Winnie the Pooh. Nobody knows why.

  • Dentists in medieval Japan extracted teeth by pulling them out with their fingers.

  • In 1910, football teams were penalized 15 yards for every incomplete forward pass.

  • The play "Chantecler," written in 1910 by the French playwright Edmond Rostand, features a rooster as the major character.

  • Every resident of Nome, Ala., over age 15 drinks, on average, 4 gallons of alcoholic beverages per year.

  • Before they were known as Journey, Steve Perry called his band Golden Gate Rhythm Section.

  • The Carpenters' signature song "We've Only Just Begun" was originally part of a television commercial for a California bank.