100 things we didn't know last year
- Posted on Thursday at 09:53 UK time
Interesting and unexpected facts can emerge from the daily news stories and the Magazine documents some of them in its weekly feature, 10 things we didn't know last week. To kick off 2009, here are some of the best of last year.
1. Victorians believed smoking cleared the lungs - and struck off Dr Thomas Allinson, who founded the bakery of the same name, for describing nicotine as a "foul poison" and advocating healthy eating.
More details2. Police are not required to clean up a crime scene once evidence has been gathered.
More details3. Octopuses need mental stimulation.
More details4. Etiquette dictates that at dinner parties, a man should always talk to the woman on his left during the first course, and right during the main course.
More details5. Both men and women find long legs in the opposite sex attractive, but not too long.
More details6. Carrots used to be purple.
More details7. Only offal-free versions of haggis are available in the United States.
More details8. A bear helped carry ammunition for Polish troops during World War II.
More details9. Swedes have a word for a man who visits prostitutes - torsk.
More details10. The age at which we are most vulnerable to depression is 44, while a 70-year-old who is physically fit is, on average, as happy and mentally healthy as a 20-year-old.
More details11. Cumbria is the safest county in England and Wales.
More details12. Every year, the world's deserts produce 1,700 million tonnes of dust.
More details11. St Kilda has no rats.
More details12. The oldest Mormon congregation in the world is in Preston, Lancashire.
More details13. A fire at a landfill site in Guernsey has been smouldering for three years.
More details14. Brain tumours can be diagnosed by a handshake.
More details15. Whales catnap.
16. If housewives got salaries at at the going rate for doing household chores, they would on average earn £30,000.
More details
More details17. For the first time in US history, more than one in every 100 American adults is behind bars.
More details
Go read the rest of these trivia (but always interesting) facts on the Beeb - where else????here.
No comments:
Post a Comment