Fast facts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday, October 7, 2004
Things you always never wanted to know
In June 1963, in Britain, the British tennis player Michael Sangster served a ball that was clocked at 154 miles per hour. This is the fastest tennis serve ever recorded.
Taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive. Gephydrophobia is the fear of crossing bridges.
Theodore Roosevelt's wife and mother both died on the same day.
The amount of play money printed each year for use in the Parker Brothers game "Monopoly" totals more than the amount of real currency issued annually by the United States Government.
The jackrabbit is not a rabbit; it is a hare. A Jerusalem artichoke is not an artichoke; it is a sunflower.
Thomas Jefferson invented the dumbwaiter.
During the American Revolution, inflation was so great that the price of corn rose 10,000 percent, the price of wheat 14,000 percent, the price of flour 15,000 percent and the price of beef 33,000 percent.
Crystals grow by reproducing themselves. They come nearest to being "alive" of all members of the mineral kingdom.
During the casting of the film "Gone with the Wind," more than 1,400 candidates were interviewed for the part of Scarlett O'Hara, and more than $92,000 was spent in the search.
53 operas have been written about Faust.
On New Year's Day 1907, Theodore Roosevelt shook hands with 8,513 people.
A female condor lays a single egg once every two years.
Lemon sharks grow a new set of teeth every two weeks. They grow more than 24,000 new teeth every year.
George Washington is the only man whose birthday is a legal holiday in every state.