The base salary for a NASA astronaut is $50,000 per year.

The "number of the beast" mentioned in the Bible's book of Revelation, 666, was actually a mathematical representation of the name Caesar Nero.

Forest fires move faster uphill than downhill.

The skeleton of an average 160-pound body weighs about 29 pounds.

Soccer and water polo were the first team sports added to the Olympics. That was in 1900.

The blood of a honeybee never clots.

An "undecennial" is an 11th anniversary.

Without the benefit of modern instruments, Eratosthenes measured the radius of Earth in the third century B.C. His calculations were within one percent of the measurement determined by today's technology.

The highest lifetime yield of milk for a single cow is 465,224 pounds.

The sound produced by the high notes of a bagpipe is called a "skirl."

During the 5,000 years of recorded human history, polygamy has been much more common than monogamy.

America's first nudist organization was founded by three men in 1929.

The animal with the largest brain in proportion to its size is the ant.

Thirty-five percent of Americans feel a "unibrow" is a turn-off.

In Japan, you can rent a dog as a companion for $20 an hour.

The chair was invented in about 2,500 B.C.

"Anasteemaphilia" is an attraction to a person because of a difference in height.

About one in every 3,000 births results in a baby with both male and female genitalia.

Navajos use the same word for green, blue and purple.

Ingrown toenails are hereditary.

Roulette was invented by French mathematician Blaise Pascal. The popular game of chance was a byproduct of his experiments with perpetual motion.

All cheerleaders were male in 1898. Now, about three percent are.

The baseball home plate is 17 inches wide.

Moderate dancing burns 250 to 300 calories an hour.

The U.S. motto, E pluribus unum, means "out of many, one." It first appeared in a Roman poem as part of a recipe for making a salad.

In Latin, the word "disco" means "I learn."

Forty-two percent of American women are able to belch on command.

In scientific terminology, the Sun is considered a "Yellow G2 Dwarf."

The saying "the sky's the limit" originated in Don Quixote.

Because of outrageously high costs in California during the Gold Rush of 1849, miners sent their laundry to Hawaii for washing and pressing.

Two-thirds of the world's lawyers practice in the United States.

A cow has four stomachs: the rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum.

Before the year 1000, the word "she" did not exist in the English language.

A group of moles is called a "labor."

"Dacryphilia" is arousal from seeing tears in the eyes of a partner.

Mosquitoes hibernate.

Twinkies got their name when their inventor, James Dewar, was inspired by a billboard he saw advertising Twinkle Toe Shoes.


Originally, MCI stood for Microwave Communications, Inc.

Kangaroos can't walk.

The name Rasputin means "debauched one." Rasputin's real name was Grigory Efimovich Novykh.

Red and blue are the most popular tie colors in the U.S.

A mother kangaroo is called a "flyer."

Fingernails are made out of the same stuff as horse hooves, bird talons, bull horns, and bear claws.

In Great Britain, rummage sales are called "jumble sales."

In the opening procession of the Olympics, the team representing the host nation always marches last.

"Horripilation" is the medical term for goosebumps.

Thirty-four percent of Microsoft employees are Indian.

American electric razors hum in the key of B flat. Razors in England, however, buzz in the key of G.

The pilgrims took apart the Mayflower and used the wood to build a barn.

Forty percent of people in America have never been to see a dentist.

A cosmic year is the amount of time it takes the Sun to revolve around the center of the Milky Way. That's about 225 million years.

Major league baseball bats are made of ash.

Just about half of the people charged with homicide in the U.S. are convicted of the crime.

Toys R Us was originally the Children's Supermart.

The first portable calculator placed for sale by Texas Instruments, in 1972, weighed 2.5 pounds and cost $150.

Melba toast is named after Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba.

Sixty percent of Americans can name all Three Stooges. Just 17 percent can name three Supreme Court judges.

The back of the human hand is the "opisthenar."

Norway has won more total medals at the Winter Olympic Games than any other nation.

The official name of Rhode Island, used on all state documents, is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

Baby seals are called pups, but they're also referred to as "weaners."

The average American male has seven erections per day.

The White House, and its grounds, takes up 18 acres of land.

It takes light eight and a half minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth.

One in five people on Earth are Chinese.

In Spain, the TV drama Beverly Hills, 90210 is called Sensation of Living.

According to the official rules of baseball, no umpire may be replaced during a game unless he is injured or becomes ill.

The name for a teddy bear collector is "archtophilist."

The ferret is the third most popular companion mammal behind the dog and cat.

Captain Kangaroo was the first TV network kids show in the United States.

The egg of the typical hen has 7,000 tiny pores in its shell.

Snow White's sister's name is Rose Red.

Catnip not only has an affect on house cats. It can also affect cougars and lions.

The chocolate chip cookie was invented in 1933.

The study of lightning is called "keraunopathology."

Albert Einstein married his first cousin.

P.T. Barnum was responsible for the very first international beauty contest.

Hors d'oeuvre, translated literally, means "outside of work."

If a lobster loses an eye, it will grow a new one.

The foot is the most common body part bitten by insects.

On average, four people a day call Graceland and ask for Elvis.

Dolphins jump out of the water to conserve energy. It is easier to move through air than water.

A rat can tread water for three days straight.

Collectors of dolls are called "plangonologists."

Giants baseball catcher Roger Bresnahan introduced shin guards in 1907.

It is illegal in Pacific Grove, California, to threaten or kill a butterfly.

Wonder Woman's bracelets were made of a substance called feminum.

Julio Iglesias was a lawyer before he became a music star. Comedian John Cleese is a lawyer, too.

"Tonsurphobia" is the fear of haircuts.

George Washington was the only President never to live in the District of Columbia.

Earlier penguins were capable of flight.

In drug parlance, "Baby T," "Kokomo," "Beemers," "Hotcakes," and "Bad" are all slang for crack cocaine.

The average human eye can distinguish about 500 different shades of gray.

The expressions "pipe down," "kick the bucket," "over the top," and "ticked off" were first coined by soldiers in the trenches during World War I.

The Amish never initiate lawsuits, and won't defend themselves against them.

The maximum lifespan of a goldfish in captivity is 25 years.

A group of cobras is called a "quiver."

The only continent without reptiles is Antarctica.

Manorama, a comic actress in India, has had more leading roles than any other actor or actress in the history of film. Her career started in 1958, and by 1985 had appeared in her one-thousandth movie.

Fifty-one percent of turns are right turns.

The average American eats 23 quarts of ice cream during the course of a year.

The "bumpers" on the bottom of toilet seats are called "buculets."

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is considered the most difficult national anthem on Earth to sing.

The Sumerians had a goddess of beer. Her name was Ninkasi.

In a fire station in Livermore, California, there is a light bulb that has been burning since 1901.

The only continent without a desert is Europe.

"Uranophobia" is the morbid fear of heaven.

The real name of the Tin Man in the "Wizard of Oz" books was Nick Chopper.

Tokyo was once known as Edo.

Most NASCAR teams use nitrogen in their tires instead of air.

In the eighth grade, Elvis Presley got a "C" grade in music.

About 97 percent of the water on Earth is saltwater.

Basketball is the most popular sport among college women.

Among other things, ninjas were trained to tell what time it was by looking into a cat's eye.

"Morning dew" is slang for "gonorrhea."

The highest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 136.4 degrees Fahrenheit at Al'Aziziyah, Libya, in 1922.

There are currently more than seven million millionaires in the world.

The average person will grow 590 miles of hair during their lifetime.

Singer John Denver's real name was Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.

The Bank of America started as the Bank of Italy.

In Atlanta, Georgia, it is illegal to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp.

According to the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, only about 17 percent of adult film performers use condoms.

Porphyrophobia is a morbid fear of the color purple.

Dubai is home to the first and only seven star hotel, the Burj Al-Arab.

At birth, country singer Garth Brooks was named Troyal Garth Brooks.

Shakespeare was the first to use certain words that are now common, including "hurry," "bump," "eyeball" and "anchovy."

Americans spend more on cat food every year than on baby food.

The average lifespan of a $50 bill is five years.

Cows have a total of 32 teeth.

Tornadoes happen more often in the United States than anywhere else in the world.

Shaquille O'Neal wears size 22 shoes.

There is no record that Jesus either laughed or smiled.

A female ninja is called a "kunoichi."

The jewelry industry uses about 1,000 tons of gold per year and dentistry uses 87 tons.

The first college on record to use the word "campus" to describe its grounds was Princeton. "Campus" is Latin for "field."

In the early days of motion pictures, "movies" were the people who worked on films.

The longest alphabet is Cambodian. It has 74 letters.

In Calama, a town in the Atacama Desert of Chile, it has never rained.

"E" is the most frequently used letter in the English alphabet, "Q" the least.

Maine is the only state in the United States whose name is just one syllable

A James Bond debuted in Ian Fleming's novel Casino Royale in 1952.

Ian Fleming based James Bond on Dr. John Dee, the first British secret agent.

Fleming picked the name James Bond because he was looking for a "flat, quiet" name. James Bond was the author of a book Fleming was reading, "Birds of the West Indies."

The first Bond movie, Dr. No, was made for just under a million dollars.

Ursula Andress' voice in Dr. No was not her own. It was dubbed by Monica Van der Syl.

In the early Bond films, Bond pretended to work for a company called Universal Exports.

Dr. No was titled License to Kill in Italy.

In James Bond movies, the armorer who supplies Bond with all his gadgets, is referred to as Q. The Q stands for "Quartermaster."

Desmond Llewellyn, who played gadget-master Q, appeared in 17 Bond films.

In the novel upon which Goldfinger was based, the character of Pussy Galore is a lesbian.

Director Garry Marshall made a cameo appearance in Goldfinger as one of the American gangsters who gather to hear about the plot to break into Fort Knox.

Sean Connery starred in seven Bond movies.

In his seven appearances as Bond, Sean Connery says "shaken, not stirred" only once, in Goldfinger.

The first 007 movie to be filmed in Panavision was Thunderball.

Tom Jones recorded the Thunderball theme, and fainted after singing the sustained high note at the song's climax.

The longest James Bond film was On Her Majesty's Secret Service, at 140 minutes.

George Lazenby, who starred in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, was the only one who played James Bond once.

Smirnoff is the brand of vodka used in all of James Bond's martinis.

The first 007 movie in which Bond kisses Moneypenny was On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

The evil organization Bond is often pitted against is SPECTRE. It stands for SPecial Executive for Counter Intelligence Terrorism Revenge Extortion.

Another nefarious enemy of Bond is an organization called SMERSH. It's a Russian acronym for SMERt SHpionam, meaning "Death to Spies."

The Man With the Golden Gun was the first James Bond film to be shown at the Kremlin.

Moonraker is the only Roger Moore Bond film where he does not draw his Walther PPK.

Roger Moore's contract demanded that he be provided an unlimited supply of hand-rolled Monte Cristo cigars.

Steven Spielberg was in discussions to direct For Your Eyes Only when George Lucas offered him the opportunity to direct Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Steven Seagal was the martial arts instructor for Never Say Never Again. 

The practice of using a disclaimer in movies stating "no animals were mistreated during production" got its start in Never Say Never Again. The disclaimer was the result of controversy over a horse jumping off a cliff in the film.

The villain in A View to a Kill, Max Zorin, was originally going to be played by David Bowie.

Christopher Walken was the first Academy Award-winning actor to star in a Bond film. He co-starred in A View to a Kill.

The satellite dish used at the end of Goldeneye was the same used in the film Contact.

Pierce Brosnan's contract for Goldeneye specified that he could not appear in any other film wearing a tuxedo.

Goldeneye is the nickname of Bond creator Ian Fleming's beachfront house in Jamaica where he wrote the James Bond novels.

The first James Bond film to ever be released on DVD was Goldeneye.

According to Goldeneye, Bond's parents were killed in a climbing accident.

The pre-credits action sequence in The World is Not Enough runs about 15 minutes, the longest in any Bond film to date.

"Moonraker" contains excerpts the themes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Magnificent Seven.

Among the places where James Bond has made love are on a train, in a forest, in a plane, in a submarine, on a motorized iceberg, and in a hospital.

Bond films have been nominated 10 times for Academy Awards, five times in technical categories and five times in musical categories.

A baseball has exactly 108 stitches.

Cockroaches can run up to three miles per hour.

"Hussy" originally meant "housekeeper."

The bar symbol used on slot machines is derived from a Bell Fruit Gum logo.

"Peladophobia" is the fear of becoming bald.

The average human will shed 40 pounds of skin in a lifetime.

About 26 percent of the land in Melbourne, Australia is reserved for parks.

Earth is the densest planet in our solar system.

The name Jeep came from the military abbreviation GP, short for the army's General Purpose Vehicle.

Thirty-eight percent of doctors in America are Indian.

A new car depreciates 20 to 30 percent the moment it's driven off the dealer's lot.

Thomas Jefferson died of chronic diarrhea.

Ancient Egyptians could be put to death for mistreating a cat.

Fidel Castro once worked as a Hollywood extra.

In Texas, it is illegal to curse in front of a corpse.

Pain travels through your body at 350 feet per second.

Hawaii has three interstate highways.

If a rhino has two horns, it's from India. If it has one horn, it's from Africa.

A cow can't vomit.

"Resistentialism" is the theory that inanimate objects demonstrate hostile behavior against us.

The world's termites outweigh humans 10-to-1.

The two most common surgeries are biopsies and cesarean sections.

Erect giraffe penises are about four feet long.

"Hockey" is archaic slang for "semen."

The average person spends about five years of their life eating.

The world's shortest river, the D River in Oregon, is just 121 feet long.

Protestants tend to have lower incomes than Catholics.

The bumps on a basketball are called "pebbling."

Ice covers 10 percent of the Earth's surface.

A group of ferrets is called a "business."

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

The sport that's most often the subject of movies is boxing.

Seventy percent of Americans have visited Disneyland or Disney World.

The worst traffic bottleneck in the U.S. is at the juncture of the I-10 and 405 freeways in Los Angeles.

"Allodoxaphobia" is the fear of opinions.

Stevie Nicks does most of her songwriting in the bathroom.

Denny's restaurants were originally called "Danny's."

The first Social Security check was issued by the US government on January 31, 1940 to Ida Fuller of Brattlesboro, Vermont. Her check number was 00-000-001 and it was for $22.54.

"Myomancy" is the practice of predicting the future based upon the movements of mice.

Crocodiles sometimes swallow stones to help them dive deeper.

Beaver Cleaver's locker number was 9.

The first man to distill bourbon whiskey in the United States, in 1789, was a Baptist preacher.

"Squiff it" and "pull a cluck" are euphemisms for dying.

Bolshoi (as in the Bolshoi Ballet) means "big" in Russian.