Amazing Trivia

From The Amazing Book of Useless Information

At the deepest point (6.8 miles), an iron ball would take more than an hour to sink to the ocean floor.

Over the years, the Niagara Falls have moved more than 7 miles from their original site.

The background radiation in Aberdeen is twice that of the rest of Great Britain.
(Sarai did not know what background radiation was, so she looked it up on Wikipedia: Background radiation is constantly present in the environment and is emitted from a variety of natural and artificial sources. Primary contributions come from:
* Sources in the earth. These include sources in food and water, which are incorporated in the body, and in building materials and other products that incorporate those radioactive sources;
* Sources from space, in the form of cosmic rays;
* Sources in the atmosphere. One significant contribution comes from the radon gas that is released from the Earth's crust and subsequently decays into radioactive atoms that become attached to airborne dust and particulates. Another contribution arises from the radioactive atoms produced in the bombardment of atoms in the upper atmosphere by high-energy cosmic rays.
-Which begs the question - What's up with Aberdeen???)

Numbering houses in London streets only began in 1764.

Within a few years of Columbus's discovery of America, the Spaniards had killed 1.5 million Indians.

In the Andes, time is often measured by how long it takes to smoke a cigarette.

The Scandinavian capital of Stockholm is built on nine islands connected by bridges.

The Tokyo World Lanes Bowling Center is the largest bowling establishment in the world, with 252 lanes.

The heaviest man recorded was Brower Minnoch of Bainbridge, Oregon, who was admitted to the hospital in Seattle saturated with fluid and suffering from heart and respiratory failure, and weighing more than 1,400 pounds. After 16 months in the hospital, he was discharged at 476 pounds, but was readmitted two years later after regaining almost 200 pounds. When he died in 1983, he weighed more than 798 pounds.

The cheetah is the fastest mammal on earth, and can accelerate from 0 to 45 miles per hour in two seconds. Top speeds of 71 miles per hour can be maintained for up to 300 yards. The fastest cheetahs have been clocked at over 90 miles an hour.