A flea can jump up to 13 inches which is about 200 times the length of its own body. This would equate to a 900 foot jump by a six-foot man!
The Starbucks coffee chain is named after the first mate, Starbuck, in Herman Melville’s classic novel, ‘Moby Dick.’
There are more than 87,000 possible drink combinations available at Starbucks.
Contrary to popular perception, Dunkin’ Donuts, not Starbucks, is the largest retailer of coffee by the cup, selling 1 billion cups per year, or 30 cups a second, on average.
The very first fast food chain to introduce a drive up service window was Jack In the Box in 1951.
The Hundred Years War lasted 116 years.
Panama Hats are made in Ecuador.
Catgut comes from sheep and horses.
Russians celebrate the October Revolution in November.
A camel's hair brush is made of squirrel fur.
The Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean are named after dogs.
A purple finch is actually crimson.
Georgia is the only U.S. state named after a king – England's King George II. Georgia’s nickname, ‘The Peach State,’ may be a misnomer. Both California (#1) and South Carolina (#2) each produce more peaches annually than Georgia (#3).
The MOST densely populated state in the U.S. is New Jersey with an average of 1,143.9 people per square mile.
The LEAST densely populated state in the U.S. is Alaska with an average of 1.1 people per square mile.
Alaska has 33,904 miles of coastline.
Kaskaskia, Illinois, Illinois' first state capital, is WEST of the Mississippi River. The rest of Illinois lies EAST of the Mississippi River.
The Cincinnati, Ohio airport is in Kentucky.
Approximately 37% or almost 4 out of 10 people in the U.S. live within 100 miles of the coast.
******************************************************************
50% of the U.S. population who file income taxes report annual income of less than $30,000 which leads us to the next fact…..
50% of those people who pay income taxes contribute only a little over 3% of the overall revenues collected by the IRS .
.5% (1/2 of 1 percent) of the U.S. population has adjusted gross incomes over $500,000.
The richest 1% of the people in the U.S. earn 21.2% of the total overall income of all wage earners.
Los Alamos, NM has the highest percentage of millionaires in the U.S. (9.7% of its residents are millionaires)
Fed Ex delivers 6,000,000, (6 million) packages a day
New Hampshire has the highest per capita consumption of spirits - 3.6 gallons per person annually, on average.
North Dakota has the highest per capita consumption of beer.
Residents of the District of Columbia have the highest per capita consumption of wine (no surprise here).
West Virginia has the LOWEST per capita consumption of wine.
Utah, ‘Mormon Country,’ has the LOWEST per capita consumption of both spirits and beer. (no surprise here)
Americans spend an average 38 hours a year sitting in traffic that wastes an estimated 26 gallons of gasoline per person – Los Angeles metropolitan drivers waste the most gas sitting in traffic for 78 hours per year.
Americans, on average, spend 18% of their income on transportation as compared to only 13% spent on food.
******************************************************************
SOURCE for the above section that is bracketed in asterisks: Time magazine’s ‘America by the Numbers’ issue
Seven Lego sets are sold every second by retailers worldwide.
80% of all the wine consumed in the U.S. is consumed by 11% of those people who drink alcoholic beverages.
Bourbon is the official spirit of the United States by Act of Congress. In 1964, a congressional resolution protected the term ‘bourbon’ and only since then has the product been defined. There are two general sub types of bourbon: ‘ryed’ and ‘wheated.’ Ryed bourbons are bold and spicy. Wheated bourbons are smooth, mellow and easy to drink.
Chicago, Illinois has the most bars per capita of any major city.
Every 105 minutes, on average, there is an accident with a motor vehicle and a train at a grade crossing somewhere in the world. (Driver impatience and inattention are the most frequent causes of these crashes. And, almost needless to say, you are 40 times more likely to die in an accident with a train than you are in an accident with another motor vehicle.)
According to a study by the nation's largest auto insurer, most accidents occur between 3 PM and 6 PM on Fridays.
According to a Paul Harvey broadcast and various web sources, a study of 40 groups/occupations showed that the WORST drivers are students (#1), followed by medical doctors (#2), then lawyers (#3), architects (#4) and real estate agents (#5). The BEST drivers in this study were homemakers (#5), politicians (#4), pilots (#3), firemen (#2) and the best drivers…………….FARMERS (#1). (I agree. I can’t recall the last time I saw a head on collision that involved two tractors :) :):))
Walmart is the second largest employer is the U.S. (The U.S. Government is #1).
Annually, more steel in the U.S. is used to make bottle caps than is used in the manufacture of automobiles. (SOURCE: History Channel – Modern Marvels – STEEL)
The very first VIDEO CONFERENCE telephone call was made in 1927 by President Herbert ‘A chicken in every pot’ Hoover from his office in Washington, DC to New York City.
The most-lopsided game in the history of college football occurred on October 7, 1916 when the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets met the Cumberland College (now University) Bulldogs of Tennessee. Final score: Georgia Tech - 222 Cumberland College - 0
The very first televised football game, pro or college, took place in Triboro Stadium at Randall’s Island, New York on September 30, 1939 when the Fordham University Rams of New York defeated the Waynesburg College (now University) Yellow Jackets of Pennsylvania by a score of 34-7. The 153-pound Bobby Brooks of Waynesburg made TV sports history that day when he ran 63 yards for the very first televised touchdown.
The average length of a player’s career in the NFL is 3 ½ years.
The honeybee is the only insect that produces food for humans and is directly responsible for approximately 1/3 of our crop bearing plants. (Honeybees, for some unknown reason, are slowly dwindling in numbers and no one knows why – yet. This is a very serious problem.)
The only venomous WATER snake in the U.S. is the cottonmouth snake that is indigenous to the deep-south. It got its name from the fact that the inside of its mouth is as ‘white as cotton.’
The official language of Brazil is Portuguese
80% of all the lead used in the USA is contained in car batteries
Chinese gooseberries are from New Zealand.
James A. Garfield, one of four U.S. Presidents who was assassinated (in 1881), often entertained his houseguests with his parlor trick of SIMULTANEOUSLY writing classic Greek with his right hand and writing in classic Latin with his left hand. (Don’t try this in your home.)
The ‘black boxes’ in commercial airplanes are orange.
21% of all American households own FIVE pets or more (60% of households own at least one pet.)
American women, on average, spend 55 minutes a day getting showered, dressed, and groomed.
Diners Club issued the very first credit card in 1950 but it was not plastic. It was printed on heavy cardstock. BankAmerica issued the first bank credit card, BankAmericard (now VISA), in 1958.
The average American has 9 credit cards (bank, store, gas, etc.)
Out of every $100 the average American spends, $40 is charged to credit cards.
1 in every 100 American ADULTS is now in jail or prison (91% are male and 9% female)
Although this last one is lengthy, it relates to something that most of us have one or more of in our homes or apartments and something that you have given little thought to…….
The BICYCLE® Rider Back playing cards we have all played with have been the best selling playing card brand in the world for more than 100 years. You probably have NEVER wondered why the brand name of these cards is ‘Bicycle’ and why they have pictures of bicycles with riders on the card backs. The reason for this dates to their introduction in 1885. Much like hula-hoops were the fad and rage that had spread across the country in the 1950s, the fad and rage that was spreading across the country in the 1880s and what most everyone was doing, was riding bicycles for fun and pleasure, both the standard size as well as ‘high wheelers,’ the bikes that had the HUGE front wheels and small rear wheels. The U.S. Playing Card Company, then known as Russell and Morgan Factories, simply played off the popularity of bicycles during this time and chose the word ‘Bicycle’ as the brand name for the playing cards and used pictures of bicycles with riders on the card backs and some jokers. This Bicycle Rider Back design has remained unchanged since the very first deck of Rider Back cards was printed in 1885.