This is from an e-mail I received. Some of these are really interesting! :-)

Forty-four (44) things you didn't know you needed to know:

1.The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet. (Developed by Western Union to Test telex/twx communications)

2. In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.

3. Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.

4. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.

5. The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable".

6. Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?

7. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

8. The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus, the name of the Don McLean song.)

9. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades - King David; Clubs - Alexander the Great; Hearts -Charlemagne; and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.

10. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

11. Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."

12. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.

13. The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."

14. Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

15. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

16. An ostrich's eye is bigger that it's brain.

17. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.

18. The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

19. The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.

20. The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.

21. Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.

22. The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.

23. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

24. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.

25. No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Superbowl.

26. The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver".

27. The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star game.

28. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

29. The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."

30. In Cleveland, Ohio, it's illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.

31. It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.

32. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

33. Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.

34. The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.

35. It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.

36. Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.

37. Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.

38. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.

39. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.

40. Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California.

41. Average age of top GM executives in 1994: 49.8 years. Average age of the Rolling Stones: 50.6.

42. Elephants can't jump. Every other mammal can.

43. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

44. Five Jell-O flavors that flopped: celery, coffee, cola, apple, and chocolate.

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), August 09, 1999

Answers

Why would anyone put cow's urine under a blacklight? Who cares? I'll bet the government did a study.hehehehehe.

-- Linda A. (adahi@muhlon.com), August 09, 1999.

Two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights DO make a left... ;-)

An ever so slightly twisted...

-- OddOne (mocklamer_1999@yahoo.com), August 09, 1999.

# 18 is the only one we need to know.

-- R. Wright (blaklodg@hotmail.com), August 10, 1999.

I'm gonna get a duck and do a test;I'll be back.

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), August 10, 1999.

"The whole 9 yards" came from Highlander regimental practice of issuing 9 yards of wool tartan to officers, 4.5 yards to dragoons. Oh well.

-- Spidey (in@jam.com), August 10, 1999.

Gayla, thanks for these bits of trivia. I like this stuff so much I even collect books about how things came to be named, interesting phrases and such other stuff.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), August 10, 1999.

So Gilda - how many shelf-inches of trivia books do you have? Do we count tall ones more than short ones?

Came in second once in a trivial pursuit game; it still irritates me to have lost that one .... oh well.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 10, 1999.