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In our latest ‘Do You Know?’ series we have lots of interesting facts for you. If you would like to read more then click here.
The King of Rock
- Elvis didn’t have naturally black hair. He was born blond and his hair became more of a sandy blond colour. He started dying it black while at high school and kept it the same colour for the rest of his life.
- New York City has its own indigenous species of ant called the ManhattAnt.
- There are an estimated 50,000 working Elvis impersonators in the world today.
- China has treatment camps for internet addicts.
- Human life expectancy has increased more in the last 50 years than in the previous 200,000 years.
‘Viva Las Vegas’
- The average visitor to Las Vegas gambles US$447.
- Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, invented underwater spectacles so he could read in the bath.
- Heartbroken after being unaware of his wife’s death for days, Samuel Morse decided to explore rapid long distance communication and ended up inventing the single-wire telegraph and the Morse Code.
- Walt Disney borrowed most of the US$1.5 million needed to make Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It took three years to complete and became the highest-grossing sound film of its time.
- There are about 500,000 detectable earthquakes in the world each year. Nearly 100,000 are felt, but only 100 cause damage.
Shockingly Striking!
- There will be a 50% increase in lightning strikes by 2100 if global warming continues, according to a scientific report.
- Indonesia is the world’s largest island country, with more than 13,000.
- Unfaithful men have lower IQs according to a scientific study.
- The world’s oldest wooden wheel is in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It is over 5,000 years old.
- The Bill Gates Foundation spends more on global health each year than the World Health Organisation.
Abandon Ship!
- At any given time, 0.7% of the world is drunk meaning 50 million people are inebriated right now.
- More people died in Auschwitz than the British and American losses of WW2 combined.
- Boys are nearly five times more likely than girls to have autism.
- Parents of new babies miss out on six months worth of sleep in the first two years of their child’s life.
- A ship abandoned off the coast of Alaska in 1931 was spotted, still adrift, in the Arctic in 1969.
That’s Bananas!
- Bananas don’t grow on trees. They are produced by herbaceous plants.
- There are more than 1,000 species of banana. We eat only one of them.
- The word “school” comes from the ancient Greek for “free time”.
- Dinosaurs lived on Earth for 150 million years. We’ve been around for just 0.1% of that time.
- People who work 11 hours or more a day are 67% more likely to have a heart attack than people with an eight-hour work day, according to a study.
- In 2008, the ashes of Fredric Baur were buried in one of the iconic Pringles cans he invented.