Fast Facts


Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, October 5, 2005

  • Milk chocolate was invented by Daniel Peter, who sold the concept to his neighbor, Henri Nestle.

  • In 1994, Chicago artist Dwight Kalb sent David Letterman a statue of Madonna made of 180 pounds of ham.

  • About 1 billion snails are served in restaurants annually.

  • On June 21, 1913, over Los Angeles, Georgia Broadwick became the first woman to parachute from an airplane.

  • Ernest Vincent Wright's 1939 novel "Gadsby" has 50,110 words, none of which contain the letter "E."

  • In 1816, Frenchman J.R. Ronden tried to stage a play that did not contain the letter "A." The Paris audience was offended, rioted and did not allow the play to finish.

  • Boxing became a legal sport in 1901.

  • More than 100 million people hold hunting licenses.

  • About 500 small meteorites fall to Earth every year, but most fall into the sea and in unpopulated areas.

  • There is no record of a person being killed by a meteorite, but animals are occasionally hit.

  • The Dead Sea is 365 meters (1,200 feet) below sea level.

  • Traffic lights were used before the advent of the motorcar.

  • If the amount of water in your body is reduced by just 1 percent, you'll feel thirsty.

  • Hippocrates, the father of medicine, suggested that a woman could enlarge her bust line by singing loudly and often.

  • The National Security Agency wiretapping network collects 3 million faxes, cell phone conversations and Internet hits each minute.

  • Journalist Hunter S. Thompson once made a Rolling Stone writer mow his lawn before he would grant him an interview.