Facts About Girls - strangefacts

• Girls break their arms 56% more often than they did 40 years ago and there are 106 boys born for every 100 girls

• The age limit for marriage in France was, until recently, 15 for girls, but 18 for boys. The age for girls was raised to 18 in 2006

• Boys who have unusual first names are more likely to have mental problems than boys with conventional names. Girls don't seem to have this problem

• Close to 73% of girls in Bangladesh are married by age 18

• Eighty percent of 10 year old girls in the USA go on a diet

• Girls have more tastebud than boys

• More boys than girls are born during the day; more girls are born at night

• One of the Bond girls in the James Bond movie, "For Your Eyes Only," used to be a man

• There are 106 boys born for every 100 girls

• Girls are slightly more likely than boys to use home computers for e-mail, word processing and completing school assignments than playing games

• Jacob & Emily were the most popular baby names for boys and girls, respectively, in 2004

• During the 1600's, boys and girls in England wore dresses until they were about seven years old

• In 1892, Italy raised the minimum age for marriage for girls to 12

• 52% of women obtaining abortions in the U.S. are younger than 25: Women aged 20-24 obtain 32% of all abortions; Teenagers obtain 20% and girls under 15 account for 1.2%

• Until about the age of 12, boys cry about as often as girls

• A study reported in the New York Times suggests that one in five adolescent girls become the victims of physical or sexual violence, or both, in a dating relationship

• At least 60 million girls who would otherwise be expected to be alive are "missing" from various populations, mostly in Asia, as a result of sex-selective abortions, infanticide or neglect

• Globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime

• 4 million women and girls are trafficked annually

Facts About China - strangefacts

• The three best-known western names in China: Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley

• 500 people suffer from sickening or deadly food poisoning each day in China

• One in five of world’s people live in China

• The deadliest war in history excluding World War II was a civil war in China in the 1850s in which the rebels were led by a man who thought he was the brother of Jesus Christ

• In China, people eat a bar of chocolate for every 1,000 chocolate bars eaten by the British

• Many people in parts of China eat insects

• People in parts of Western China put salt in their tea instead of sugar

• People of Ancient China believed that swinging your arms could cure a headache

• Slaves under the last emperors of China wore pigtails so they could be picked out quickly

• The tallest woman that ever lived was Zeng Jinlian who was 8 feet 2 inches tall of China. Shed died at the age of 17

• The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910

• China's labor force stands at 706 million people, almost three times that of Europe and twice that of North and South America combined

• The deadliest earthquake of the 20th century occurred in Tangshan, China where an estimated 200,000 people were killed

• Since 1979, China has had a “one-child policy.” Most families are allowed to have only one child, or risk paying steep fines to the government

• The world’s deadliest recorded earthquake occurred in 1557 in central China, more than 830,000 people were killed

• China has more English speakers than the United States

• In Northern parts of China it was once a common practice to shave pigs. When the evenings got cold the Chinese would take a pig to bed with them for warmth and found it more comfortable if the pig was clean-shaven

• In the 15th century, scholars in China compiled a set of encyclopedia that contained 11,095 volumes
• The largest numbers of immigrants arriving in Canada currently come from China, India and the Philippines

• In 2006, 155,105 people from China who had arrived since 2001 were in Canada. The corresponding figures for India and the Philippines were 129,140 and 77,88

Facts About Pyramids of Egypt - strangefacts

• The great pyramids of Egypt now stand a full 3 miles south of the spot where they were originally built

• Egypt has more than 100 pyramids that are spread all over the country 

• The three pyramids of Giza do in fact match the belt of Orion, but they did not when the pyramids were built. It seems that the Egyptians built the pyramids to resemble today's belt of Orion 

• This pyramid figure is one of the seven wonders of the worlds 

• All of the signifigant major pyramids were built over a time period of about 200 years. A new one was well underway before the previous one was completed. It amounted to keeping a more or less constant work force busy the year around for the 200 years

• Three big one’s are called the great pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) , the pyramid of Khafre (Khafra) and the pyramid of Menkaure 

• The Egyptian Pyramids were not made from cut stone. The blocks were poured in place using crushed, local limestone and a 'geopolymer' - a cement that is better than most known today. The largest was built in 20 years using an estimated 14,000 workers

• Out of all the three pyramids at Giza, only the pyramid of Khafre retains some parts of the originally polished limestone casing near its pinnacle

• The biggest Pyramid in the world is not in Egypt. It's actually about sixty miles southeast of Mexico City, Mexico. It covers more than forty acres and the largest Egyptian Pyramid, The Great Pyramid at Giza, covers about 13 acres

• To the naked eyes and laymen, the pyramid of Khafre would always look tall, but the fact is that the pyramid of Khufu is the tallest of all

• The Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt, constructed around 2500 B.C., was the tallest building in the world until the Eiffel Tower was erected in 1889

• The pyramid of Menkaure further has 3 smaller pyramids that are subsidiary to this main pyramid and are called the queens’ pyramids

• More than 14 million sandstone blocks make up the pyramids which were originally covered in limestone. Funilly enough this limestone wasn't stolen but used by the native egyptians as building material

• Some believe that his pyramid at Giza was built by slaves but this is not true. One hundred thousand people worked on it for three months of each year. This was the time of the Nile's annual flood which made it impossible to farm the land and most of the population was unemployed. He provided good food and clothing for his workers and was kindly remembered in folk tales for many centuries

Facts About Water - strangefacts

• The odds are 1 out of 230,000,000 (.000000435%) that you're allergic to water

• Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his head

• An average human drinks about 16,000 gallons of water in a lifetime

• The average human body contains enough enough water to fill a ten-gallon tank

• The human body is comprised of 80% water

• The daily heat output of the human body is enough to boil eight gallons of freezing water

• A British woman gave birth to her daughter less than two minutes after her water broke

• The amount of heat generated by an average adult each day could boil eight gallons of water

• The average person can live 11 days without water

• About 30% of Canadians rely on getting their water from the ground for their domestic use

• In 1978, the World Water Speed record was made by Ken Warby from Australia. His average speed was 317.6 mph, on a jet-powered hydroplane

• In Australia, the average person uses 876 gallons of water daily

• In Switzerland the average person uses only 77 gallons of water per person daily

• Most of the world's people must walk at least 3 hours to fetch water

• People drank gold powder mixed in with water in medieval Europe to relieve pain from sore limbs

• Carbonated beverages became popular in 1832 after John Mathews invented an apparatus for charging water with carbon dioxide gas

• In 1832 the Scottish surgeon Neil Arnott devised water beds as a way of improving patients' comfort

• Craven Walker invented the lava lamp, and its contents are colored wax and water

• Every year, the average Briton uses 10,000 gallons of water, 500 percent more than the average Indian

• Approximately two-thirds of a person’s body weight is water. Blood is 92% water. The brain is 75% water and muscles are 75% water

Facts About Valentine's Day - strangefacts

• Japanese celebrate Christmas, but it is more like Valentine's day in the western world

• In the United States, the average couple spends 120$ on Valentine’s Day gifts

• In the US, nine million people buy Valentine’s Day gifts for their pets

• Some years ago, George Clooney spent $30,000 on a hotel room for Valentine’s Day

• Nearly 1 billion greeting cards are sent on Valentine’s Day, a number that is only exceeded at Christmas

• Only about 26% of the population celebrate Valentine's Day

• Most people spend at least $100 per person on their romantic Valentine’s dinner

• Most people who are choosing to share a romantic dinner with someone on Valentine's Day are choosing the same kind of cuisine. In fact, the most popular choice on this holiday is French cuisine

• Youtube domain was registered on Valentines Day

• Verona, the Italian city where Shakespeare's play lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters every year sent to Juliet on Valentine's Day

• More people drink wine with their Valentine’s Day dinner than drink champagne

• 85% of all Valentine's Day cards are purchased by women

• The first commercial Valentine cards, trimmed with imported lace, were made by Esther Howland in Worcester, Massachusetts

• Every year around 1 billion Valentine cards are sent across. After Christmas it's a single largest seasonal card-sending occasion

• Amongst the earliest Valentine's Day gifts were candies. The most common were chocolates in heart shaped boxes

• On February 14th wooden love spoons were carved and given as gifts on Valentine's Day in Wales. Hearts, keys and keyholes were favorite Valentine decorations on the wooden spoons. This Valentine decoration meant, "You unlock my heart!"

Facts About Coffee - strangefacts

• The odds are 8 out of 10 (80%) that you are dependent on coffee or soda for that caffeine every day

• A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her coffee

• President Theodore Roosevelt was the first to announce to the world that Maxwell House coffee is "Good to the last drop."

• A person would have to drink more than 12 cups of hot cocoa to equal the amount of caffeine found in one cup of coffee

• If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee

• The world's most expensive coffee is called Kopi Luwak. It costs $130 a pound

• Seniors who drink a cup of coffee before a memory test score higher than those who drink a cup of decaffeinated coffee

• Women who drink more than two cups of coffee a day have a higher chance of developing osteoporosis

• Americans drink over a billion pounds of coffee every year and around five million bottles of soda

• Chinese President Hu Jintao loves Starbucks coffee

• Australians consume 60% more coffee than tea

• Over 5 million people in Brazil are employed by the coffee trade. Most of those are involved with the cultivation and harvesting of more than 3 billion coffee plants

• The coffee filter was invented in 1908 by a German homemaker, Melitta Benz, when she lined a tin cup with blotter paper to filter the coffee grinds

• Caesars Palace serves over 427 pounds of coffee each day and pours more than 3,000 ounces of orange juice every 24 hours

• Hawaii is the only state that grows coffee and voltaire drank between 50 and 65 cups of coffee every day

• Centuries ago, men were told that effects of coffee wold make them sterile

Facts About Dreams - strangefacts

• The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year 

• Most dreams last only 5 to 20 minutes

• Japanese researchers have successfully developed a technology that can put thoughts on a screen and may soon be able to screen people's dreams

• What you smell when asleep has power to influence dreams,says research presented at the '08 American Academy of Otolaryngology

• People who have been blind from birth have dreams that are formed from their other senses (e.g., touch, smell, sound)

• The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year

• Everyone dreams. Just because you don’t remember your dreams doesn’t mean you don’t dream. Everyone dreams
• Most people dream about 1-2 hours a night and have an average of 4-7 dreams each night

• Five minutes after a dream, half of the dream is forgotten. Ten minutes after a dream, over 90% is forgotten. Write down your dreams immediately if you want to remember them  

• While you sleep, your body produces a hormone that may prevent you from acting out your dreams, leaving you virtually paralyzed

• Dreams almost never represent what they actually are. The unconscious mind strives to make connections with concepts you will understand, so dreams are largely symbolic representations