Fast Facts


Arizona Daily Wildcat
September 7, 2005

Things you've always never wanted to know

  • Gary Burghoff who played Walter 'Radar' O'Reilly on "M*A*S*H" has a deformed left hand. If you watch closely you will see that he never reveals his left hand in the show.

  • In Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie," mime Marcel Marceau is the only person who has a speaking role.

  • In the great fire of London in 1666, half of London was burnt down but only six people were injured.

  • The most eastern part of the western world is located in Ilomantsi, Finland.

  • "Hara kiri" is an impolite way of saying the Japanese word "seppuku" which means, literally, "belly splitting."

  • The term "the Boogey Man will get you" comes from the Boogey people, who still inhabit an area of Indonesia. These people still act as pirates today and attack ships that pass. Thus the term spread: "If you don't watch out the Boogey man will get you."

  • Dartboards are made out of horsehairs.

  • Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart.

  • "Crack" cocaine gets it name because it crackles when smoked.

  • Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by Bayer.

  • One of the many Tarzans, Karmuela Searlel, was mauled to death on the set by a raging elephant.

  • Slinkys were invented by an airplane mechanic; he was playing with engine parts and realized the possible secondary use of one of the springs.

  • U.S. interstates that go north-south are numbered sequentially starting from the West with odd numbers, and interstates that go east-west are numbered sequentially starting from the South with even numbers.

  • Today's cattle are descended from two species: wild aurochs - fierce and agile herd animals that populated Asia, North Africa and Europe - and eotragus - an antelopelike, Asian forest creature.

  • "Video Killed the Radio Star" was the first video played on MTV.

  • The pitches that Babe Ruth hit for his last-ever home run and that Joe DiMaggio hit for his first-ever home run where thrown by the same man.

  • The native tribe of Tierra del Fuego has a language so guttural it cannot have an alphabet.

  • A family of six died in Oregon during World War II as a result of a Japanese balloon bomb.

  • The abbreviations "a.m." and "p.m." stand for "Ante-Meridian" and "Post-Meridian," respectively, and "A.D." actually stands for "anno Domini" rather than "after death."

  • The penguins that inhabit the tip of South America are called Jackass Penguins.