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Fast facts


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Illustration by Holly Randall
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Monday, May 2, 2005
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  • The ball on top of a flagpole is called the truck.

  • Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.

  • In every episode of "Seinfeld," there is a Superman somewhere.

  • Parrots have a particularly keen sense of hearing. During World War I, a group of them were kept on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris to hear the sound of planes and warn of the approaching aircraft.

  • In days of long ago, when railroad men patronized brothels, they left their red lamps outside - such was the derivation of the "red-light district."

  • Sunbeams that shine through the clouds are called crespucular rays.

  • Because she wrote for up to 14 hours a day, "Little Women" author Louisa May Alcott alternated writing with her right and left hand to avoid writer's cramp.

  • The Suez Canal was originally slated to be the site for the Statue of Liberty.

  • Smith is the most common last name in the United States. Rounding out the top 10, in order from most to least common, are Johnson, Williams, Brown, Jones, Miller, Davis, Wilson, Anderson and Taylor.

  • It cost a penny for a man to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge when it opened May 21, 1883. There was a 2-cent charge for sheep.

  • The "Y" in signs reading "ye olde" is properly pronounced with a "th" sound, not "Y." The "th" sound does not exist in Latin, so ancient Romans who occupied (present day) England used the rune "thorn" to represent "th" sounds. With the advent of the printing press, the character from the Roman alphabet that most resembled thorn was the lower case "Y."

  • The international dialing code for Antarctica is 672.


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