Useless Trivia!

From The Amazing Book of Useless Information

The Chinese invented eyeglasses. Marco Polo reported seeing many pairs worn by the Chinese as early as 1275, 500 years before lens grinding became an art in the West.

The windmill originated in Iran in AD 644 and was used to grind grain.

When airplanes were still a novel invention, seat belts for pilots were installed only after the consequence of their absence was observed to be fatal - several pilots fell to their deaths while flying upside down.

Kleenex tissues were originally invented to remove makeup. Maybe that's why they're still called "facial tissues."

The first commercial vacuum cleaner was so large it was mounted on a wagon.

The first VCR, made in 1956, was the size of a piano.

Alexander Graham Bell applied for the patent on the telephone three days before he got it to work. Had Bell waited until he had a working model, Elisha Gray, who filed a patent application the same day, would have been awarded the patent. But the telephone system used today is technically more like that described in Gray's patent.

The bestselling chocolate bar in Russia is Snickers.

Per capita, the Irish eat more chocolate than Americans, Swedes, Danes, French, and Italians.

Vanilla is the extract of fermented and dried pods of several species of orchids.

Carrots have the highest vitamin A content of all vegetables.