Useless facts

1. It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar-based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the "honeymoon".

2. In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. And that's where we get the phrase "mind your p's and q's".

3. Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase that inspired that practice.

4. In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes, the mattresses tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. That's where the phrase "Good night, sleep tight" came from.

5. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the alphabet (developed by Western Union to test telex/twx communications).

6. The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

7. When opossums are playing "possum", they are not playing. They actually pass out from sheer terror.

8. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch ever year, because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

9. The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got the whole 9 yards.

10. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

11. An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.

12. The name JEEP came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle - GP.

13. The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only 6 inches for each gallon of diesel it burns.

14. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

15. No NFL team that plays it's home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Super Bowl.

16. The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave it to Beaver".

17. Only one person in 2 billion will live to be 116 or older.

18. In Cleveland Ohio, it is illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.

19. It takes 3000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.

20. 35% of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

21. There are an average of 178 sesame seeds on a McDonald's Big Mac bun.

22. The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.

23. The 3 most valuable brand names on earth : Marlboro, Coca-Cola and Budweiser, in that order.

24. When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles per year.

25. 10% of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.

26. On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.

27. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.