This is a nice article i found while reading the BBC site

The most 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 2008, here are some of the best of last year.

1. Coach travel is the safest form of road transport in the country.
More details

2. Saddam Hussein’s codename while in US custody in 2004/5 was “Victor”.
More details

3. Adding milk to tea negates the health-giving effects of a hot brew.
More details

4. The word “jaywalking” came from the US slang “jay”, a term popular in the early 20th Century meaning a rustic newcomer unfamiliar with city ways.
More details

5. Cloudy apple juice is healthier than clear, containing almost double the antioxidants which protect against heart disease and cancer.
More details

6. Dishcloths are purged of 99% of their bacteria during two minutes in a microwave.
More details

7. A haddock’s mating call starts as a slow knocking sound, before turning into a quicker hum similar to a small motorcycle revving its engine.
More details

8. Newcastle is the noisiest place in England.
More details

9. The people who built Stonehenge lived at an ancient village in Durrington Walls.
More details

10. Brazil nuts are seeds encased in an outer shell that weighs more than 1kg.
More details

to read them all click here

11. Astronauts wear nappies during launch and re-entry because they can’t stop what they’re doing should they need to urinate.
More details

12. Georgic is a punishment dished out to Eton pupils which involves the copying out of hundreds of lines of Latin.
More details

13. Tony Blair does not keep a personal diary.
More details

14. Antony and Cleopatra were ugly.
More details

15. 10% of university work from across the UK is plagiarised.
More details

16. Chimpanzees make their own spears for hunting.
More details

17. Two cups of spearmint tea a day is thought to control excessive hair growth for women.
More details

18. Burglar alarms, traffic wardens and crowded buses are good news for home owners, signalling an area is on the up.
More details

19. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hosts a daily radio phone-in show.
More details

20. More than half (52%) of smokers haven’t told their parents about their habit.
More detail

21. Only about half of China’s population can speak the national language, Mandarin.
More details

22. The brief flowering of the cherry blossom tree is taken so seriously in Japan that forecasts are used to plan festivals, and travel agents use them to plan tours.
More details

23. To be found attractive, women should sway their hips and men their shoulders (although researchers call this a “shoulder swagger”).
More details

24. The are 30,000 wild parakeets in London.
More details

25. Martina Navratilova has spent four years secretly working as an artist.
More details

26. Harvesting rhubarb in candlelight helps preserve its flavour.
More details

27. Drinking, drug-taking teenagers are in the decline, according to a survey by the Information Centre.
More details

28. Designer discount retailer TK Maxx is called TJ Maxx in the US.
More details

29. The average duvet is home to 20,000 live dust mites.
More details

30. Serving anything more than tea and biscuits at a political meeting is an offence called “treating” and punishable by a year in prison or an unlimited fine, under the the Representation of the People Act 1893.
More details

31. There is mobile phone reception from the summit of Mount Everest.
More details

32. Anti-Americanism began in Paris in the 18th Century.
More details

33. Female civil servants in India are questioned about their menstrual cycle as part of their appraisal.
More details

34. Kryptonite exists.
More details

35. Denmark is the happiest country in Europe; Italy the unhappiest. (The UK was 9th out of 15.)
More details

36. A water-tight denial by a politician – as opposed to one that leaves room for later manoeuvre – is known as a Sherman pledge. The other sort is called a non-denial denial.
More details

37. Spiralling obesity rates are forcing councils to upgrade their crematoria, to take wider coffins.
More details

38. Gerry Adams doesn’t own a credit card, so gets a friend to download songs from the internet.
More details

39. The secret to happiness is accepting misery.
More details

40. A new three-bedroom house must have at least 38 plug sockets.
More details

41. There are 1,200 exhumations every year in the UK, but not all of those are part of criminal cases.
More details

42. Nearly seven out of 10 (69%) of adults are still in touch with at least one childhood friend.
More details

43. Bernard Manning worked as an armed guard watching over senior Nazis locked up in Berlin’s Spandau prison.
More details

44. Europe has a vodka belt comprising Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Denmark and Sweden, although the drink is also made in countries such as Britain, France, Italy and Spain.
More details

45. Domestic cats can trace their descent to the Middle East.
More details

46. Peanuts can be made into diamonds.
More details

47. The prime ministerial Jaguar is called Pegasus.
More details

48. You can be arrested for using someone’s wi-fi network without permission.
More details

49. CDs were nearly called mini-racks.
More details

50. Left-handed people are called sinistral.
More details

51. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems’ new leader, once took a road trip across the US with his friend Louis Theroux.
More details

52. There are 17 surviving versions of the Magna Carta – or 17 Magnae Cartae.
More details

53. Renowned atheist Professor Richard Dawkins likes singing Christmas carols.
More details

54. The Australian town of Eucla has its own time zone.
More details

55. Books used to be bound in human skin.
More details

56. Eddie Irvine is Britain’s wealthiest sports star – beating the Beckhams into second place by £30m.
More details

57. Sleeping on the job is tolerated in Japanese work culture, as long as you remain upright and obey certain other rules. It’s called inemuri.
More details

58. The Romans had roadmaps.
More details

59. The word Blighty comes from “bilayti”, the Urdu for homeland.
More details

60. The Queen took her corgi on honeymoon.
More details

61. Janet and John were named Alice and Jerry in the United States.
More details

62. Until the late 1990s, the RAF’s nuclear bombs could be activated using a bicycle lock key.
More details

63. Cats can be police constables.
More details

64. King Tut had buck teeth.
More details

65. The Italian Mafia have commandments.
More details

66. Gun ownership per person in Finland is the third highest in the world.
More details

67. The brain can turn down its ability to see in order to listen to complex sounds like music.
More details

68. Of the waste in UK landfills, 0.1% is plastic carrier bags.
More details

69. Dogs occasionally shoot their owners in the US.
More details

70. IP addresses will run out in 2010.
More details

71. An ai is a three-toed sloth from South America (and the word that clinched Paul Allan the title of national Scrabble champion).
More details

72. Dumbledore is gay.
More details

73. UN population projections go as far as 2300.
More details

74. Sheffield FC is the world’s oldest football club.
More details

75. CO2 emissions from shipping are twice the level of aviation.
More details

76. George Clooney and Pierce Brosnan have had Bell’s Palsy – a nerve condition that can result in paralysis on one side of the face.
More details

77. Leeches are used as treatment for cauliflower ears.
More details

78. A bdelloid rotifer is a pond-dwelling organism that has survived 80 million years without sex.
More details

79. Woodwork lessons are known as “resistant materials” in schools.
More details

80. Adults use maths skills 14 times daily on average and literacy skills 23 times a day.
More details

81. The opening bars to the theme tune of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em spelt the title of the series in Morse code.
More details

82. The children who sang on Pink Floyd’s number one hit Another Brick in the Wall (Pt 2) couldn’t appear in the video because they didn’t hold Equity cards.
More details

83. Jack Straw has intervened in alleged crimes four times, apprehending a person on three occasions.
More details

84. On average a UK commuter travels the equivalent of two-and-a-half times around the globe over a full working career.
More details

85. A 23.8lb baby was born in the US in 1879, but it only survived 11 hours.
More details

86. There is a monastery in every village in Burma.
More details

87. Relocating crocodiles doesn’t work – they come back.
More details

88. Deep-voiced men have more children.
More details

89. Being born without an ear is called microtia.
More details

90. Chickens can be diagnosed with depression.
More details

91. In Iceland, 96% of women go to university.
More details

92. Zsa Zsa Gabor is related to Paris Hilton.
More details

93. Dinosaurs had creches.
More details

94. Osama Bin Laden is known to fellow jihadists as Abu Abdullah.
More details

95. In Ethiopia the start of the year 2000 was celebrated in September.
More details

96. Bees can detect explosives.
More details

97. There have been at least two children given the name “Superman” in the UK since 1984.
More details

98. Prison officers are on average assaulted eight times a day.
More details

99. Each slug eats twice its body weight a day.
More details

100. Dogs can have two noses.
More details

Source

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2008/01/100_things_we_didnt_know_last_3.shtml

By caddy

Related Post

6 thought on “100 things we didn’t know last year”
  1. I know, well.. I know we’re no lifers but we are not gonna read through all that crab. I could stomach it only till pt. 42

  2. 42. Nearly seven out of 10 (69%) of adults are still in touch with at least one childhood friend. ??

    are you ?

  3. thats cause you are Lame-O , they are not supposed to be fun, nor interesting , they should be NEW, and NEW they are !!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *