Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Monday, September 13, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
The Japanese kamikaze pilots of World War II were given privileged treatment and considered to be heroes. All volunteers, they underwent rigorous training that prepared them for their suicide missions. If they refused to stay in the corps, they were shot as traitors.
By the age of 25, he had been expelled from the army and was disgraced, despondent, without funds, apparently without a future and was suicidal. The man was Napoleon (1769-1821). One year later, he was the youngest general in the French army and began winning victories with ragged troops that were at the point of starvation.
King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, who ruled Saudi Arabia from 1932 until his death in 1953, had 300 wives.
Pirates believed that piercing ears and wearing an earring improved eyesight. This idea, scoffed at for centuries, has been re-evaluated in light of acupuncture theory. The point on the lobe where the ear was pierced corresponds to the auricular acupuncture point controlling the eyes.
George Orwell's original name was Eric Blair. Jules Verne's name was L.M. Olehewitz.
Venezuela's Angel Falls are a mile high.
Grover Cleveland is the only U.S. president to have been married in the White House.
The diameter of the star Betelgeuse is more than a quarter the size of our entire solar system.
The giant African snail Achatina achatina grows to 1 foot long and reaches weights greater than a pound.
A healthy strand of adult hair can stretch 25 percent of its length without breaking.
Flamingo tongues were a common delicacy at Roman feasts.
The Moravian Brothers, a religious sect in 15th century Bohemia, believed in nonviolence and had a great abhorrence of bloodshed. Members of this community, however, were at times unavoidably called on to execute offenders. Their merciful way of doing so was to tickle their victims to death.