Classmate Facts # 91 - Get Crazy

1. The global average efficiency of vehicles is 5km to a litre, Japan and Western Europe manage an average of upto 11 km.

2. More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.

3. An average human loses about 200 head hairs per day.

Classmate Facts # 90 - All For a Fact...

1. Wine is sold in tinted bottles because wine spoils when expose to light.

2. Water, water everywhere! Watermelons are 97% water, lettuce 97%, tomatoes 95%, carrots 90% and bread 30%.

3. There are about 150 million sites on the web, with more than one billion web pages.'

4. The thin fine line of cloud that forms behind an aircraft at high altitudes is called a contrail.

5. By age 65, an average American would have watched the equivalent of 9 years uninterrupted TV, viewing more than 20,000 TV commercials per year.

6. There are more than 7 million millionaires in the world.

Classmate Facts # 89 - Chattering Magpies?

1. Dieting? Carrots have zero fat content!

2. About 42,000 tennis balls are used at the Wimbledon championships, every year.

3. The very first bomg that the Allies dropped on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

4. In the 1950s some of the new words coined were aerospace, alphanumeric, brainstorming, car wash, cha-cha, digitize, do-it-yourself, ethno-history, in-house and meter maid!

5. The world's best selling musical instrument is the Harmonica.

6. Did you know that while Geese cackle, hippos bray and rhinos snort? and when its magpies that open their mouth, it's called 'Chatter!'

Classmate Facts # 88 - Gibber's and Coo's!!

1. Did you know that Elephants trumpet, Eagles scream and Apes gibber? The sounds made by Doves are Coos and Moans!

2. The word carat derives from the carob bean. Gem dealers balance their scales with carob beans because these beans all have the same weight!

3. Collective nouns anyone> A culture of bacteria, a quiver of cobras, a smack of jellyfish and a plague of locusts!

4. In 1913, the Russian airline became the first to introduce a toilet on board!

5. Botanically speaking, the banana is an herb and the tomato is a fruit!

6. In Seattle, a driver spends 59 hours per year in a traffic jam!

Classmate Facts # 87 - For the Record...

1. In september 1999 Dustin Phillips of US set a Guinness World Record by drinking a 400 ml (14-oz) bottle of tomato sauce through a straw in 33 seconds.

2. The world's largest industry is tourism affecting 240 million jobs.

3. Americans and Europeans spend over $ 17 billion per year on pet food!!

4. The word millionaire was first used by Benjamin Disraeli in his 1826 novel 'Vivian Grey'.

5. Tobacco is a $ 200 Billion industry, producing six trillion cigarettes a year - about 1,000 cigarettes for each person on the earth.

6. To make one kilo of honey, bees have to visit 4 million flowers, travelling a distance equal to 4 times around the earth.

Classmate Facts # 86 - Titanic Tidbits!

1. On board the Titanic were 13 couples, celebrating their Honeymoon!

2. The Titanic used up 14,000 gallons of drinking water and 825 tons of coal every day!

3. The price of the finest first class suite on board the titanic in 912 was US $ 4,550 for the voyage! A third class ticket was just US$ 30!

4. Did you know that cats were often brought aboard ships as a sign of good luck? They also kept rats at bay. There were no cats on the Titanic!

5.To put the magnificent ship together more than 3 million rivets were used!

6. The Titanic carried 7,500 pounds of bacon and ham, 2,200 pounds of coffee, 11,000 pounds of fresh soda, 16,000 lemons, 40 tons of potatoes and 20,000 bottles of beer!

Classmate Facts # 85 - That's Entertainment!

1. The 1981 film “Raiders of the Lost Ark” features over 7,500 boas, cobras and pythons and over 50 tarantulas!

2. Ever watched the Simpsons? Well.. the writers of the series have never revealed what state Springfield is in.

3. In Seoul, South Korea, a theater manager felt that the "Sound of Music" was too long, so he shortened it by cutting out all the songs!

4. In "Rear Window", a movie made by Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart plays a character wearing a leg cast from the waist down. In one scene, the cast switches legs, and in the other, the signature on the cast is missing.

5. A motion picture which is 2 hours long uses 10,800 feet of film. That's not including the movie previews and the commercials!

6. The creator of Muppets, Jim Henson first made Kermit from his mother's coat and two halves of a ping-pong ball!

Classmate Facts # 84 - Delightful Details!

1. France, a country of about 60 million people has 60 million tourists every year!

2. Animal sounds!! Dolphins click, Peacocks scream, Tortoises grunt and Hyenas laugh!

3. Water expands by about 9% as it freezes. Hot water freezes quicker than cold water.

4. The Chinese use about 45 billion chopsticks per year. 25 million trees are chopped down to make the sticks.

5. The world's oldest surviving boat is a simple 10-foot long Dugout dated to 7400 B.C. It was discovered in Pesse, Holland.

6. Groups of Animals? A float of crocodiles, a swarm of flies, a pride of lions and a crash of rhinos!

Classmate Facts # 83 - Simple Specifics

1. Chocolate is the number one food flavouring in the world, beating vanilla and banana by 3-to-1.

2. Nuclear ships are basically steamships and are driven by steam turbines. The nuclear reactor just develops the heat to boil the water.

3. Everyday an average human being spends about 1 hour on travel!

4. The PET bottle or the Polyethylene Terephthalate bottle was introduced in 1973.

5. Mel Blanc, who played the voice of Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.

6. The world's best selling book is the bible! It is also the most shop-lifted book in the world!

Classmate Facts # 82 - Splendid Science!

1. Today's Silicon chip, a quarter-inch square, has the same capacity as the original 1949 ENIAC computer, which occupied an entire city block.

2. 98% of all the atoms in the human body are replaced every year!

3. In the production of paper, starch is used as a binder. This helps the right amount of ink to get in while printing!

4. Did you know that Uranus' orbital axis is tilted at 90 degrees?

5. Hot water is heavier than cold water!

6. A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber!

Classmate Facts # 81 - Plant Power

1. Six Feet! That's the size the leaves of the Victorian water lily can sometimes grow to!

2. 3,000 of the world's 15,000 species of orchids are found in Brazil!

3. Some trees in California are believed to be four-thousand years old or more. Trees continue to live and grow as long as the conditions are right!

4. The fastest growing plant is the bamboo. Some varieties can grow up to three feet in a day!

5. In a single year, you would get just about one pound of roasted ground coffee from one tree!

6. 200 years! Yes, that's what a Giant Sequoia could take to flower for the first time in its life!

Classmate Facts # 80 - Music Mania!

1. A Pink Floyd Album "Dark Side of the Moon" stayed on top 200 billboard charts for 741 weeks! That is 14 years!

2. A German, Geoff Graff wrote the song "When Irish Eyes are Smiling". Geoff had never been to Ireland in his life!

3. In the song Jingle Bells the horses's name is Bobtail!

4. 35 cents! That was the price of tickets for Frank Sinatra's first solo performance at the Paramount Theatre in New York City in 1942!

5. The copyright to the song "Happy Birthday" was bought over by Warner Communicaions for $ 28 Million!

Classmate Facts # 79 - 15th Century Did-You Knows...

1. 1495 - Leonardo Da Vinci begins painting The Last Supper!

2. 1450 - Johannes Gutenberg puts his printing machine to action. The first book he prints is the Bible.

3. 1429 - Not even one year old, Henry VI becomes King of England!

4. 1486 - The world's first known copyright is granted in Venice.

5. 1410 - The first English Christmas carol comes intobeing!

6. 1470 - The first printed poster is published by Peter Schoeffer! It's an advertisement for a bookseller!

Classmate Facts # 78 - It Happened in the 14th Century...

1. 1302 - Romeo and Juliet marry in Shakesphere's play! They are 14!

2. 1360 - The Leaning Tower of Pisa is finished!

3. 1314 - Soccer is banned in England because it is too violent!

4. 1380 - The Bible is translated into English by John Wycliffe! He works into the next year to finish his hand written manuscript!

5. 1350 - The Aztecs brew up the world's first drinking chocolate!

6. 1387 - Chaucer publishes his Canterbury Tales!

Classmate Facts # 77 - What's in a Myth?

1. Ancient myth has it that if you stole someone's shadow, they would turn into a vampire!

2. In Greek culture, brides carry a lump of sugar in their wedding glove. It's supposed to bring sweetness to their married life.

3. The US $ 1 Bill is considered unlucky by many a folk! It has 13 stars, 13 stripes, 13 steps, 13 arrows and an olive branch with 13 arrows on it!

4. You can't gift straw sandals in China. Associated with funerals, these footwear bring bad luck!

5. Medieval farmers looked to their pigs for signs of rain. If the pigs were to pick up sticks and walk around with them in their mouths, then the heavens would surely open up!

6. If a girl leaves her house early on Valentine's Day and the first person she meets is a man, then they will be married within three months! Now that's a myth hat needs no breaking!

Classmate Facts # 76 - Inventions Galore!

1. The toothbrush was invented in 1498. Do give a thought to what people were using before that!

2. Norwegian Inventor Johan Valler patented his paper clip in 1899. He had to travel to Germany to receive his patent because Norway had no Patent Laws!

3. In 1938, Teflon was discovered. Its use as a non-stick coating has bought cooking pleasure to many a housewife since!

4. The world's first VCR made in 1956 was the size of a piano!

5. The eyeglass was invented by the Chinese way back in time. In fact Marco Polo reported its use in 1275 A.D.

6. At the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, Richard Blechyden, an Englishman, found no takers for hot tea on a very hot day. So he served tea cold and Iced Tea was born!

Classmate Facts # 75 - In the 18th Century...

1. 1879 - Thomas Edison invents the incandescent lamp.

2. 1838 - The Morse Code is introduced by Samuel Morse.

3. 1853 - The first jeans are made by Levi Strauss for Califonia gold miners!

4. 1800 - World Population crosses one billion for the first time!

5. 1848 - The California Gold Rush begins!

6. 1815 - The first three verses of "Mary had a Little Lamb" are written by John Roulstone after his classmate, Mary Sawyer, who came to school followed by her pet lamb.

Classmate Facts # 74 - 200,000 Glasses of Milk?

1. The vocabulary of an average person consists of 5,000 to 6,000 words.

2. A chimpanzee can learn to recognise itself in a mirror, but monkeys can't.

3. Unprosperousness, 16 letters long, is the longest word in which each letter occurs atleast twice.

4. The average person walks equivalent of twice around the world in a lifetime.

5. A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.

6. One of the world's rarest and most sought after collector coins, the 1933 Double Eagle, was sold at Sotheby's auction house in New York on 30th July 2002 for the record sum of $ 7.59 million.

Classmate Facts # 73 - Particulars & Details!

1. An adult porcupine has approximately 30,000 quills on its body which are replaced every year.

2. The longest words that are reversed images of each other are Stressed and Desserts.

3. Among all shapes with the same perimeter a circle has the largest area.

4. The earliest gold jewellery dates from the Sumer civilisation between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Southern Iraq around 3000 B.C.

5. The world's smallest mammal is the Bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.

6. The general agreement seems to be that the origin of the word "Bonfire" was from bonefire, a fire in which bones were burnt.

Classmate Facts # 72 - The Rich and The Famous!

1. Charlie Chaplin was so popular during the 1920s and 1930s, he received over 73,000 letters in just 2 days during a visit to London.

2. The most superstitious American President was Roosevelt. He lever left home on a Friday and never sat at a table with 13 people.

3. The highest paid governor in the United States is the governor of California, he makes US $ 131,000 per year!

4. Julius Caesar definitely had one worry in his glorious lifetime - his receding hairline!

5. Andy Warhol, the acclaimed artist became famous for his painting of Campbell's soup cans!

6. Paul Cezanne, the great painter, had an admirer whom he coached! His pet parrot had been taught to say "Cezanne is a great Painter!"

Classmate Facts # 71 - Super Statistics

1. 200 babies are born across the world every minute!

2. 7 year olds have the highest ability to see ghosts!

3. Two out of every three people prefer to sleep on their sides!

4. Do you use a blue toothbrush? Well, more people use blue toothbrushes then red ones!

5. An UFO is reportedly sighted by someone or the other every three minutes!

6. The average human being has 100,000 hairs on the scalp!

Classmate Facts # 70 - The Lord God made then All...

1. Not everyone is ticklish! It just depends on how your brain interprets the signals!

2. People born in the month of January are believed to be steadfast and firm. Nothing can shake them once they have made up their minds!

3. Turtles have been on Mother Earth for more than 180 million years!

4. The Chameleon's tongue is as long as its body! It swiftly shoots out its tongue to capture insects for food!

5. All the data contained in a DNA would fill a 1000 volume encyclopaedia!

6. Crocodiles cannot tear their meat. They just hold their prey and spin around till the part twists off and then they swallow it!

Classmate Facts # 69 - Collector's Collectibles!

1. Van Gough rules! His portrait of Dr. Gachet was the most expensive painting ever sold. The masterpiece fetched US $ 82.5 Million!

2. Bill Gates bought Leonardo Da Vinci's notebook, called the Codex Hammer, in 1994 for US $ 30.8 Million.

3. US $ 946,000! That's what the Stradivari Kreutzer violin sold for in 1988.

4. The action comic with Serial No.1, published in June 1938, was sold in the 1990s for US $ 185,000.

5. A 1925 Patek Philippe watch, priced in 1925 at $ 15,000, was sold in the late 1990s for US $ 11 Million.

Classmate Facts # 68 - Can it be a Koala?

1. The Koala only eats Eucalyptus leaves and it eats so many leaves, it smells like them, too!

2. Did you know that Koalas aren't like Bears? They are related to kangaroos and wombats!

3. Across the continent of Australia, the fur of koalas has a different texture in different parts!

4. A new born koala is about three quarters of an inch long and weighs one fifth of an ounce!

5. Over 2 million Koalas were killed between 1908 and 1927! Today only about 8,000 survive!

6. Koalas communicate with each other with each other by making a noise like a snore and then a belch, known as a "bellow"!

Classmate Facts # 67 - Matter of Fact!

1. The word 'set' has more definitions than any other word in the English Language.

2. The longest one-syllable word in the English Language is "Screeched".

3. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is 'Uncopyrightable'.

4. There are only four words in the English Language which end in "dous" - tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous.

5. The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle!

6. Ever visited Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwe-nuakit natahu? That's a hill in New Zealand with the longest place name!

Classmate Facts # 66 - Money, Money, Money!

1. Seen a millionaire? Well, there are over 7 million millionaires all across the globe!

2. If a million dollars were stacked in US $ 1 bills, the stack would be 110 m high!

3. Money sounds good but good sound makes money! Music sales all across the globe total more than US $ 40 Billion!

4. Countries around the world spend about US $ 80 Billion on education in a single year!

5. What makes money notes? Not paper, but mostly a blend of cotton and linen fibres!

6. Americans and Europeans spend US $ 17 Billion per year on food for their pets!

Classmate Facts # 65 - Priceless Art and Literature Facts!

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

2. The world's best-selling book is the Holy Bible.

3. Greek philosopher Aristotle write Meteorologica in 350 B.C. - it remained the standard textbook on weather for 2,000 years.

4. Barbara Cartland completed a novel every two weeks, publishing 723 novels.

5. In 1961, a Matisse masterpiece titled 'The Boat' hung upside-down in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, for 2 months. None of the 116,000 visitors who admired the painting noticed.

Classmate Facts # 64 - Seen and Heard it all?

1. The Gorilla weighs at least three or four times as much as a human being, but the human brain is at least ten times larger than a gorilla's!!

2. People born in the month of December are destined to be prosperous, come what may. At least more prosperous than the rest!

3. Candy was made and enjoyed in ancient Egypt over 4,000 years ago! Honey, figs and dates were the chief sweeteners!

4. The monkey has two brains, one to control its body, the other to control its tail!

5. The trumpets used by the Lamas in Bhutan in certain religious services are made from human thigh bones.

Classmate Facts # 63 - Isn't it Amazing...

1. Each time a pole vaulter lands, he absorbs up to 20,000 pounds of pressure per square inch on the joints of his tubular thighbones!

2. The world's largest flower is the Rafflesia. A single bloom can measure 3 feet across. They have no stems or leaves and are parasites on other plants.

3. If all the blood vessels in the body were straightened out and placed end-to-nd, they would be 100,000 miles long!'

4. The Chinese guarded the secret of making silk for 3,000 years. Anyone found revealing the truth would be put to death as a traitor!

5. Piranhas are Fish known for their ferocity. Did you know that the South American natives use their sharp teeth as arrowheads?

The Month ends on a note!

Ahoy there readers!

Enjoying the facts that you read behind the classmate notebooks? Well, there are a more to come!!! We will be continuing the Classmate Facts series till the new year and beyond!! The month of October saw another 200 facts!!!! The Factorium has surely kept up with its promise of "A Fact a Day"!

Some of the facts posted under the series may not be factually correct, and their authenticity is doubted, but I am still posting them so as to not modify the actual Classmate page. Again, I want this series to be one of the biggest projects that the Factorium has undertaken after the FactBook... that of putting all the classmate facts online @ a page a day!!

With October done, let us head on to the lovely winter month of November!

Classmate Facts # 62 - Veggie Facts!

1. The Mexican jumping bean is not a bean! It is actually a thin shelled section of a seed capsule containing larva of a small grey moth called the Jumping Bean moth!

2. If you dream of a cucumber in a night, a new romance will blossom soon in your life!

3. Did you know that some people have the fear of Vegetables! And it is called Lahnaphobia!

4. An average ear of corn has 800 kernels arranged in sixteen rows!

5. In ancient Greece and Rome, people put parsley on the graves of their dead. The parsley was supposed to ward off the devil!

6. The Hindus consider the Basil Plant or "Tulsi" as sacred. The plant is worshipped as Lord Vishnu's wife!