Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Monday, October 4, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
Camp Snoopy is the largest indoor themed entertainment park in America. Located inside the Mall America in Bloomington, Minn., Camp Snoopy sits under 1.2 miles of skylights that allow 70 percent of the natural light to enter the park. Camp Snoopy is home to over 400 trees and 30,000 live plants. Over 20,000 ladybugs have been released into Camp Snoopy to allow for a natural means of pest control.
Catgut strings are not made from catgut, but from sheep intestines.
Big Ben is not a clock. It is a bell located in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament in London. It weighs 13.5 tons, is 9 feet in diameter and stands taller than a man at 7.5 feet. Nor is the bell an ancient English landmark - it was installed a little more than a hundred years ago.
The first monument constructed in India to commemorate an American was dedicated to a black man. Unveiled in Bombay in 1947, it was a statue of the famous horticulturist George Washington Carver.
In 1978 a Scottish police sergeant invented the world's first electronic bagpipe. The instrument, created by Sgt. Angus MacLellan, looks like the traditional Scottish bagpipe but is run by a battery and requires no blowing.
Goldfish lose their color if they are kept in dim light or are placed in a body of running water, such as a stream. They remain gold only when kept in a pond or in a bowl with adequate illumination.
Seeds of the leguminous plant known as the Arctic lupine, found frozen in holes in northern Canada and estimated to be 10,000 years old, have been planted and grown by scientists.
Half the foods eaten throughout the world today were developed by farmers in the Andes Mountains. Potatoes, maize, sweet potatoes, squash, all varieties of bean, peanuts, manioc, cashews, pineapples, chocolate, avocados, tomatoes, peppers, papayas, strawberries, mulberries and many other foods were first grown in this region.