Fast Facts


Arizona Daily Wildcat
August 24, 2005

Things you've always never wanted to know

  • Surveys show the majority of American men would rather shower than bathe, but it's a 50-50 proposition among women.

  • There are five times as many rats in Lima, Peru, as there are people.

  • The Bowie knife was not invented by James Bowie of Alamo fame. It was invented by his brother, Rezin Pleasant Bowie.

  • Jellyfish can evaporate.

  • Benjamin Franklin was the 17th child of a Boston candle maker.

  • If "beauty is only skin deep," it can't be more than 3/16 of an inch thick.

  • The grandfather of Charles Lindbergh changed the family's last name. If he hadn't, our high-flying hero would've been known as Charles Manson.

  • Llamas have extremely bad breath.

  • In the 1700s, a trapper could sell the deerskin of a buck for a dollar - hence, the term "buck."

  • A cucumber is 96 percent water.

  • A dime has 118 ridges around it.

  • Hugh Hefner was going to call his magazine Stag Party but a friend convinced him to name it Playboy.

  • It takes four hours to hard boil the 30-pound egg of an ostrich.

  • Liberace once used the stage name Walter Busterkeys.

  • The Campbell's Soup red and white label is derived from the colors of the Cornell University football team.

  • A bee uses 22 muscles to sting.