Fast Facts


Arizona Daily Wildcat
Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Ohio is listed as the 17th state in the United States, but technically it is No. 47. Until Aug. 7, 1953, Congress forgot to vote on a resolution to admit Ohio to the Union.

Queen Elizabeth was a mechanic in the English military as an 18-year-old.

In ancient China, doctors received their fees only if their patients stayed healthy. If their health failed, the doctor sometimes paid the patient.

The handshake is a friendly gesture today, but it originated in ancient times out of suspicion. Strangers shook hands to show that they were unarmed.

If you want to live by the lunar day, adjust your watch to lose two minutes and five seconds every hour.

Up to 150 tons of meteorite fragments slam into Earth every year. As far as we know, seven people have been struck by rocks falling from space.

President Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, never went to school. He had not learned how to write and could barely read when his wife undertook teaching him these skills.

Although the United States has less than 6 percent of the world's population, its share in the consumption of the world's resources amounts to nearly 60 percent.

The $100 bill is the largest denomination of currency now issued. Larger denominations were discontinued in 1969 because of limited use and are now being phased out of circulation.

Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie promised his mother that he'd never marry while she was alive. Carnegie's mother died when he was 51. He married a year later.

A horse can look forward with one eye and back with the other.