The Mega Book of Useless Information. Noel Botham

      

      As always, to my wife, Lesley Lewis, with love

      CONTENTS

      Title Page

      Dedication

      1 The World and Its People

      2 The Animal World

      3 Arts and Entertainment

      4 The Things People Say

      5 Elvis

      6 Royalty

      7 Insults

      8 History

      9 Science and Nature

      10 Religion

      11 Customs and Traditions

      12 Laws – Old and New

      13 Sports and Games

      14 Language and Literature

      15 Food and Drink

      16 Rude Facts

      17 America and Americans

      18 Shakespeare

      19 Miscellaneous

      20 Marriage

      21 Politics

      22 News Headlines

      23 Illness and Injuries

      24 The Human Body

      25 Reality Television

      26 Business and Commerce

      Copyright

       1

       THE WORLD AND ITS PEOPLE

      • Kemo Sabe means ‘soggy shrub’ in Navajo.

      • Napoleon carried chocolate on all his military campaigns.

      • In 1973, Swedish confectionery salesman Roland Ohisson was buried in a coffin made entirely of chocolate.

      • Someone’s gender can be guessed with 95 per cent accuracy just by smelling his or her breath.

      • On average, Elizabeth Taylor has remarried every four years and five months.

      • Pontius Pilate was born in Scotland.

      • When he was young, Leonardo da Vinci drew a picture of a horrible monster and placed it near a window in order to surprise his father. The drawing was so convincing that, upon seeing it, his father believed it to be real and set out to protect his family until the boy showed him it was just a picture. Da Vinci’s father then enrolled his son in an art class.

      • Ten per cent of Star Trek fans replace the lenses on their glasses every five years, whether they need to or not.

      • Ancient Romans at one time used human urine as an ingredient in their toothpaste.

      • People who are lying to you tend to look up and to the left.

      • The middle name of Jimmy Hoffa is Riddle. The legendary American union figure disappeared without trace on 30 July 1975.

      • Boys who have unusual first names are more likely to have mental health problems than boys with conventional names.

      • One in three consumers pays off his or her credit card bill every month.

      • Pop star Justin Timberlake’s half-eaten French toast sold for over $3,000 on eBay.

      • One in three snakebite victims is drunk. One in five is tattooed.

      • Michelangelo was harshly criticized by a Vatican official for the nudity in his fresco The Last Judgement, which hangs on the walls of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In retaliation, the artist made some changes to his work: he painted in the face of the complaining clergyman and added donkey’s ears and a snake’s tail.

      • More than 50 per cent of lottery players go back to work after winning the jackpot.

      • Children who are breast-fed tend to have an IQ seven points higher than children who are not.

      • Male hospital patients fall out of bed twice as often as female hospital patients.

      • Fewer than ten per cent of criminals commit about 67 per cent of all crime.

      • We inhale about 700,000 of our own skin flakes each day.

      • A pickled snake bit Li of Suzhou, China, when he opened a bottle of rice wine.

      • As his body was never found, a German court officially declared Hitler dead as recently as 1956.

      • More than 50 per cent of the world’s population have never made or received a telephone call.

      • The average human eats eight spiders at night during their lifetime.

      • All the chemicals in the human body have a combined value of approximately £4.

      • Smokers eat more sugar than non-smokers.

      • In ancient Sparta, Greece, married men were not allowed to live with their wives until they turned 30.

      • Dorothy Parker wanted ‘This is on me’ inscribed on her tombstone.

      • Half the world’s population is under 25 years of age.

      • In 1994, Chicago artist Dwight Kalb sent US talk-show host David Letterman a statue of Madonna, made of 180lb (82kg) of ham.

      • The people killed most often during bank robberies are the robbers.

      • An exocannibal eats only enemies, while an indocannibal eats only friends.

      • Howard Hughes, the American billionaire businessman, aviator and film producer, never once attended a board of directors meeting, or any sort of meeting, at any of the companies he owned.

      • Although Howard Hughes had 15 personal attendants and three doctors on full-time duty, he died of neglect and malnutrition, caused by his intense desire to be left alone.

      • King Louis XIV of France established in his court the position of ‘Royal Chocolate Maker to the King’.

      • The Nestlés haven’t run Nestlé since 1875.

      • Astronauts get taller when they are in space.

      • When a person is wide awake, alert, and mentally active, they are still only 25 per cent aware of what various parts of their body are doing.

      • It has been estimated that men have been riding horses for over 3,000 years.

      • The make-up entrepreneur Elizabeth Arden’s real name was Florence Nightingale Graham, but she changed it once her company became successful at the beginning of the 1900s.

      • Heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman has five sons named George; George Jnr, George III, George IV, George V and George VI.

      • A five-and-a-half-year-old weighing 250lb (113kg) was exhibited at a meeting of the Physical Society of Vienna on 4 December 1894. She ate a normal diet and was otherwise in good health but she wasn’t able to sweat.

      • People who have computers in their homes tend to watch 40 per cent less television than average.

      • A German soldier