Classmate Facts # 133 - Did you Know?

1. What is the hottest place on Earth? A. Count one wrong if you guessed Death Valley in California. True enough on many days. But Azizia in Libya recorded a temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 degree Celsius) on Sept. 13 1922, the hottest ever measured. In Death Valley, it got up to 134 degrees Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913.

2. And the Coldest place around here? A. Far and Away, the coldest temperature ever measured on Earth was -129 degrees Fahrenheit (-89 degree Celsius) at Vostok, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.

3. What makes thunder? A. If you thought, “Lightning”, then hats off to you. The air around a lightning bolt is superheated to about five times the temperature of the Sun. This sudden heating causes the air to expand faster than the speed of sound, which compresses the air and forms a shock wave; we hear it as thunder.

Classmate Facts # 132 - Believe Or Not!

1. Bees visit over 2000 flowers and fly over 55,000 miles to produce just 1 lb. of honey.

2. Four out of every ten people who come to a party in your home will look in your bathroom cabinet.

3. The taboo against whistling backstage comes from the pre-electricity era when a whistle was the signal for the curtains and the scenery to drop. An unexpected whistle could cause an unexpected scene change!

Classmate Facts # 131 - Believe Or Not!

1. The distance between cities are actually the distance between city halls. When you see a sign “Sheffield – 40 miles” it means it is 40 miles to the city hall of that city sign (and I expect town halls too!!)

2. The name Canada is believed to come from the Iroquois Indian word “Kanata”, meaning “village” or “community”. The word Canada was first used in a 1534 text written by Jacques Cartier describing the Indian Village of Stadacona.

3. The longest non-medical word in the English language is floccipausinihilipilification (29 letters), which means “The act of estimating as worthless.”

4. Dominica, Mexico, Zambia, Kiribati, Fiji and Egypt all have birds on their flags.

Classmate Facts # 130 - Believe Or Not!

1. The word “Trivia” comes from the Latin “Trivium”, which is the place where three roads meet. People would gather and talk about all sorts of matters. Also in medieval universities, the trivium comprised the three subjects taught first – Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric, and the Roman Goddess, Trivia, is the goddess of crossroads, witchcraft and harvest moon.

2. In 1935, the police in Atlantic City, New Jersey, arrested 42 men on the beach. They were cracking down on topless bathing suits wore by men.

3. During lunch breaks in Carlsbad, New Mexico, no couple should engage in an ‘act’ while parked in their vehicle, unless their car has curtains.

Classmate Facts # 129 - Believe Or Not!

1. There are 36 dimples on a regulation golf ball.

2. A 75 year old male driver received ten traffic tickets, drove on the wrong side of the road four times, committed four hit-and-run offenses and caused 6 accidents, all within 20 minutes in McKinney, TX on 15 October 1966. [Worst Driver: G.B. of Records]

3. The Term “The whole 9 yards” came from WW II fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got “the whole 9 yards.”

4. Wilma Flintstone’s maiden name was Shaghoopal.

Classmate Facts # 128 - Amazing Animals!

1. On an average, gorillas sleep as much as fourteen hours per day!

2. Did you know that sharks and rays are the only animals that don’t get any form of cancer? Scientists believe that is because they don’t have bones, only cartilage!

3. Skunks, known for their smelly defense, can accurately spray the fluid as far as ten feet!

4. A Sloth can take two weeks to digest its food!

5. In a pride of lions, it is the females that do ninety percent of the hunting!

6. The duck-billed platypus stores as many as six hundred worms in the pouches of its cheeks!

Classmate Facts # 127 - And That's a Record?

1. The world’s largest weather vane sits on the shores of White Lake in Montague, Michigan. It is 48 feet tall with a 26 foot wind arrow and adorned with a 14 foot replica of a 19^th Century Great Lakes schooner!

2. The largest bowling center in the world is the Tokyo World Lanes Bowling Center with 252 bowling lanes!

3. One of the longest sentences is in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserable, 823 words without a period!

4. The biggest swimming pool in the world opened in Toronto, Ontario in 1925! 300 feet by 75 feet it can hold 2000 swimmers and is still in operation!

5. The longest Monopoly game ever played was 1,680 hours long, that’s 70 straight days!

6. A tennis ball was volleyed back and forth 2001 times by Howard Kinsey and Mrs. R. Roark!