Fast facts


Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, June 29, 2005

taken weekly with a grain of salt

  • Arizona observes Mountain Standard Time on a year-round basis. The one exception is the Navajo Nation, located in the northeast corner of the state, which observes the daylight savings time change.

  • Phoenix originated as a hay camp to supply Camp McDowell.

  • Mel Blanc, who provided the voice for Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.

  • Half the world's population is under age 25.

  • People in the United States buy about 280 million turkeys during the Thanksgiving season.

  • There are 1040 islands around Britain, one of which is the smallest island in the world: Bishop's Rock.

  • The first movie to use sound was "The Jazz Singer," released in 1927: the first words, spoken by Al Jolson, were: "Wait a minute, you ain't heard nothing yet."

  • Queen Isabella of Castile, who dispatched Christopher Columbus to find the Americas, boasted that she had only two baths in her life - at her birth and just before she got married.

  • There is no history of a person being killed by a meteorite. However, animals have been reportedly hit on occasion.

  • The tail of the Great Comet of 1843 was 330 million km long. (It will return in 2356.)

  • The longest kiss in a movie is in Andy Warhol's Kiss. Rufus Collins and Naomi Levine kissed for the entire 50 minutes of the movie.

  • King Louis XIV of France established in his court the position of "Royal Chocolate Maker to the King."

  • Chemical and biological warfare have been used long before World War 1. During the Peloponnesian War in the 5th century BC, Spartans used sulphur and pitch to overcome the enemy. During ancient and medieval times, soldiers sometimes threw bodies of plague victims over the walls of besieged cities, or into water wells. During the French and Indian wars in North America (1689-1763), blankets used by smallpox victims were given to American Indians in the hope they would carry the disease.