Fast Facts


Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, October 26, 2005

  • There are 1,783 diamonds on the Britain's Imperial State Crown. This includes the 309-carat Star of Africa.

  • The streets of Victor, Colo., once a gold rush town, are paved with low-grade gold.

  • Johnny Carson delivered 4,531 opening monologues during his 30 years as host of "The Tonight Show."

  • The four stars on the Chicago flag represent Fort Dearborn, the Chicago fire, the World's Columbian Exposition and the Century of Progress Exposition.

  • Sharpshooter Annie Oakley's (1860-1926) first name was actually Phoebe. Anne was her middle name.

  • According to Boston University, more than 16,580 bananas are eaten each week in its dining rooms.

  • Lightning strikes the Earth 1,800 times at any moment.

  • An item must contain 92.5 percent silver to be considered sterling silver.

  • Ancient Greeks and Romans believed asparagus had medicinal qualities for helping to prevent bee stings and relieving toothaches.

  • Texas has 254 counties. Alaska, which is more than twice as large, has none.

  • Pecans vary in size, from 30 to 90 nuts per pound. No nuts are produced until the trees are at least 5 years old.

  • A polar air mass moving south from Canada may pick up more than nine times as much water from the Mississippi basin as flows out from the mouth of the river.

  • When England was a province of Rome, the city of Cheshire was noted for its fine cheese. The Romans built a wall around the town to protect it. Cheshire cheese was made in a mold shaped like a cat, later made famous as the smiling feline in Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland."

  • Elephants are covered with hair. Although it is not apparent from a distance, at close range, one can discern a thin coat of light hairs covering practically every part of an elephant's body.

  • In ancient China, abduction, armed robbery, treason and adultery were punished by castration.

  • Jason Robards, nominated for more Tony Awards than any other actor, made his New York City acting debut in 1947 as the rear end of a cow in a production of "Jack and the Beanstalk."