AMAZING FACTS A cheetah does not roar like a lion,it purrs like a cat (meow).

The original name for the butterfly was flutterby. No two zebras have stripes that are exactly alike. A person afflicted with hexadectylism has six toes or one or both hands and feet. A chameleons tongue is twice the length of its body. A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys cant. A rat can last longer without water than a camel can. About 10% of the worlds population is left-handed. A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second. A zebra is white with black stripes. The hippopotamus gives birth under water. A cow gives nearly 200,000glasses of milk in her lifetime. The worlds largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs 50 tons at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons. Dolphins sleep with one eye open. The whistle of the blue whale is the loudest sound produced by any animal (188 decibels). A cat sees about six times better than a human at night. The female lion does more than 90% of the hunting while the male simply prefers to rest. A jellyfish is 95 percent water. At birth, a panda is smaller t5han a mouse and weighs about four ounces. A human blinks over 10,000,000 times a year. Of all the words in the English language, the word set has the most definitions. The sun is 3,30,330 times larger than the earth. Dogs and cats, like humans, are either right or left handed . . . or is that paws? A giraffe can clean its ears with its long tongue. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. A cats jaws cannot move sideways, Go Is the shortest complete sentence in the English language. The vocabulary of an average person consists of 5,000 to 6,000 words. No word in the English language rhymes with month. An ostrichs eye is bigger than its brain. The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven. An average person walks the equivalent of twice around the world in a lifetime. All polar bears are left handed. Ants dont sleep. The first bicycle that was made in 1817 by Baron von Drais didnt have any pedals. People walked it along. The first steam powered train was invented by Robert Stephenson. It was called the Rocket. The Industrial Revolution in Europe first saw the beginning of air pollution, which gradually became a major global problem. Every year more than 50 million cars are added to the words road. Car making is the largest manufacturing industry in the world.

Fish cannot leave in the Dead Sea because the water has too much salt in it. The blue whale is the largest animal on earth. The heart of a blue whale is as big as a car, and its tongue is as long as an elephant. Pearls are found in oysters. The largest pearl ever found was 620 carats. A human body is made up of trillions of cells. Different parts are made of different kind of cells. There are 206 bones in a human skeleton. About half of the bones in the human body are located in the hands and feet. Muscles make up about half of the human body weight. If one were to remove the skin of an adult human, it would weigh about 2.5 kilograms. About 70% of the human body weight is water. The only 2 animals that can see behind themselves without turning their heads are the rabbit and the parrot. A whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than speed of sound. Almost is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order. Snails produce a colourless, sticky discharge that forms a protective carpet under them. They can crawl along the edge of a razor without cutting themselves. The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent. A hippopotamus can run faster than a man. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable. Electricity doesnt move through the wire but through a field around the wire. Humming birds are the only birds that can fly backwards. It is impossible to lick ones elbow. All the planets in the solar system, except Venus, rotate anticlockwise. A jiffy is an actual unit of time that is equal to 1/100th of a second. An average person laughs about 15 times a day. Probatrivaphobia is a fear of trivia about phobias. Sanskrit is the mother of all higher languages. It is precise and thus it is a suitable language for writing computer software. India invented the Number system. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta. Chess (Shataranja or Ashta Poda) was invented in India. Twenty-Four-Karat Gold is not pure gold. There is a small amount of copper in it. Absolute pure gold is so soft that it can be molded with the hands. The Romans made first popsicle. They took some ice, added flavor to it and licked it. The Sumerians, who lived in the Middle East, invented the wheel in about 3450 B.C. The Sumerians, who lived in the Middle East, invented the writing. The Chinese made the first wheelbarrow. The smallest bird in the world is the Humming bird. It weighs about 35 grams. The bird that can fly the fastest is called white. It can fly up to 150 Kilometers per hour. The human heart crates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. Its impossible to sneeze with ones eyes open. Right-handed people live on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do. The act of snapping ones fingers is called fillip.

The dot on top of the letter I is called a title. Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands when typing. In a pack of cards, the king of the hearts is the only king without a moustache. The ant can lift 50 times its own weight can pull 30 times its own weight. The flea can jump 350 times its body length that is like a human jumping in the length of a football field. Butterflies taste with their feet. Elephants are the only animals that cant jump. Cockroaches can change course as many as 25 times in one second, making them the most nimble animals known. Starfishes havent got brains. Ostriches leave about 75 years and can reproduce for 50years. Some breeds of vultures can fly at altitudes as high as 36,900 feet. The most destructive disease is malaria. More than 1.5 million people die from malaria every year. Hippopotomon stroses quippedaliophobia is the fear of long words. One thousand contains the letter A, but none of the words from one to nine hundred ninety-nine has an A. R.S.V.P. comes from the French phrase, repondez, sil vous plait, which means please reply. A mile on the ocean and a mile on the land are not the same distance. On the ocean, a nautical mile measures 6,080 feet. A land or statute mile is 5,280 feet. The bird with the largest wingspan is the Wandering Albatross. It leaves in the southern ocean. Its wings average 2.543.51m. The Australian Pelican has the longest bill measuring 34-47 cm. The Peregrine Falcon is the fastest bird and fastest of any kind of animals. It can reach speeds of at least 200 kms per hour when diving for prey in the air. Hummingbirds have the fastest wing beat (about 9 beats per second). The bird that migrates the furtherest is the Arctic Tern Strena paradisaea. It flies from the shores of Arctic to Antarctic. The largest bird eggs come from the Ostrich. The eggs measures about 15-20 cm long, in diameter and weigh about 1-1.8kg. Emperor Penguins can stay under water as long as 18 minutes. The fastest swimmer is probably the Gentoo Penguin at 27 kms per hour. The oldest living thing on earth is 12,000 years old. It is the flowering shrub called creosote bushe in the Mojave Desert. The digestive juices of crocodiles are so strong that they can digest a steel nail. The system of democracy was introduced for the very first time about 2500 years ago in Athens, Greece. Joeseph Niepce developed the worlds first photographic image in 1827. Thomas Edison and W K L Dickson introduced the film camera in 1894. Money notes are not made from paper, they are made mostly from a special blend of cotton and linen. Tea is said to have been discovered in 2737 BC by a Chinese emperor when some tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water.

The tea bag was introduced in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan of New York. If the amount of water in humans body is reduced by just 1%, he will feel thirsty. If its reduced by 10%, he will die. The earliest maps were made by the Babylonians in about 2300 B.C. Insects do not make noises with their voices, The noise of bees, mosquitoes and other buzzing insects is caused by rapid movement of their wings. The cockroach is the fastest animal on 6 legs covering a meter a second. Didaskaleinophobia is the fear of going to school. A snail can sleep for 3 years. The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start. 55% of people yawn within 5 minutes of seeing someone else yawn. The Giant Cricket of Africa enjoys eating human hair. A light year (distance traveled by light in one year) is about 9,460,800,000,000 kilometers. Male sea horses (not female sea horses) give birth to offsprings. The average human brain holds up to one hundred million nerve cells. The human stomach needs to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself. A flea can jump 130 times its own height. Children are born without knee caps, but they get formed between the age of 2 and 6. A women blinks twice as much as a man. A cockroach can live several weeks without a head. The fastest insect in the world is the dragonfly. It has been timed at upto 92 kilometers. In Iceland, tipping in a restaurant is considered to be an insult. The most common name in the world is Muhammad. Most lipsticks contain fish scales. The earth weighs around 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons. The longestwordis Neumonooultramicroscopicicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It is a type of a lung cancer. All shrimps born males but they slowly turn into females as the mature. Cows are the only mammals that urinate backwards. The longest Monopoly game ever played was 1,680 hours long, Thats 70 days straight. The word queue is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced by the same way when the last four letters are removed. What is called a French kiss in the English speaking world is known as English kiss in France. Rhythm is the longest English word without a vowel. Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in tombs pharaohs has been tested by archaeologists and found edible. Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a Friday the 13 th . Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete. The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or will write approximately 50,00 words in English.

More people are allergic to cows milk than any other food. Camel has three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand. The placement of a donkeys eye in its heads enables it to see all four feet at all times. The six official languages of the United Nations are : English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish. Earth is the only planet not named after a god. Some worms will eat themselves if they cant find any food. Elephants can smell water 150 kilometers away. Like fingerprints, everyones tongue print is different. A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails. The first known transfusion of blood was performed as early as 1667 when Jean Baptiste transfused two pints of blood from a sheep to a young man. The present population of 5 billion plus people of the word is predicted to become 15 billion by 2080. The trucking company Elvis Presley worked as a young man was owned by Frank Sintra. The first McDonalds restaurant opened for business in 1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featured the McHaggis sandwich. The typewriter was invented by a Hungarian immigrant, Qwert Yuip, who left his signature on the keyboard. Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular water. At the first World Cup championship in Uruguay, 1930, the soccer balls were actually monkey skulls wrapped in a paper and leather. In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families are dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives. The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and dodge individual raindrops in mid-flight, arriving safely back at his cave completely dry. The hottest temperature ever measured on earth was 57.8 degrees Celsius at El Aziza in Libya on Sept. 13, 1922. The coldest temperature ever measured on earth was -89 degrees Celsius at Vostok in Antarctica, on July 21, 1983. The worlds highest waterfall is The Angel Falls in Venezuela which falls from a height of 3,212 feet (979 meters). The gravity on the Mars is 38% of that found on Earth at sea level. So a 100-kg person on Earth would way 38 kilograms on Mars. The Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii is the largest volcano on earth. It rises more than 15.2 kilometers above its base, which sits under the surface of the sea. The worlds deadliest recorded earthquake occurred in 1557 in central China killing an estimated 830,000 people.

A 1960 Chilean earthquake, which occurred off the coast, had a magnitude of 9.6 on Richter scale was the strongest ever recorded. Most ants are omnivorous. They eat everything, including other insects, seeds, oils and bread. Queen ants have wings at birth. They fly off to start new colonies. Then they loose their wings. The life of an eyelash is about 5 months. Iceland boasts of having worlds oldest active parliamentary body which first met in 930 A. D. The Chinese used fingerprints as a method of identification back in 700 A. D. Sound travels 15 times faster through steel than it does though air. One liter of used motor oil can ruin approximately one million liters of fresh water. A human is born with 300 bones, but by the time one becomes an adult, one has only 206 bones. A Boeing 767 airliner contains 3,100,000 parts. An owl can see a mouse moving from over 150ft away by a light no brighter than candlelight. Beethoven was extremely particular about his coffee, he always counted 60 beans per cup. In 1943, an U.S. Navy officer, Grace Hopper, had to fix a computer glitch caused by a moth, hence the term computer bug. Jupiter is large enough to contain other major 7 planets in our solar system. The water pressure inside every onion cell would be sufficient to explode a steam engine. Sunglasses were first worn by film stars, not to look mysterious, but to relieve their eyes from the dazzling glare of the studio lights. If you take any number, double it, add 10, divide by 2, and subtract your original number, the answer will always be 5. Over a 12 day period a human body generates a whole new set of taste buds. Greyhounds can reach their top speed of 45 mph in just 3 strides. There is more sugar in 1 kg of lemons than in 1 kg of strawberries. Titan Arum, a giant lily, found in the tropical rain forest of Sumatra, is probably the worlds smelliest flower, it smells like the dead carcass of an animal. A Viking tribe once raided England because they had run out of beer. Bribes full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. The dinosaur noises in Jurassic Park came from slowing down the sound of elephants, geese and horses. Until the 18 th century, India produced almost all the worlds diamonds. The ancient Egyptians thought it was good luck to enter a house left foot first. Lighting strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet of which 80% are in-cloud flashes and 20% are cloud-toground flashes. The Monumental Axis in Brazil is the worlds widest road. It is 865 feet wide. On an average women speak 7000 words per day, where as men speak just over 2000. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair. A single ounce of gold can be beaten into a thin film covering 100 square feet.

Before 1800 AD, there was no separately designed shoes for left and right feet. Paper was invented early in the second century by Chinese eunuch. The first person to receive a singing telegram was singer Rudy Valee, in honor of his 32 nd birthday, July 28 th 1933. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball. The name of Canada is believed to come from the Iroquois Indian word Kanata, meaning village or community. Dominica, Mexico, Zambia, Kiribati, Fiji and Egypt all have birds on their flags. Bees visit over 2,000 flowers and fly over 80, kilometers to produce just about half a kilogram of honey. In movies, the sound one hears when macho people crack their knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting. The WD in WD40 means water displacement. The 40 in WD40 come from the 40 attempts made before the final product was created. Beethoven dipped his head in cold water before he composed. Mice, whales, elephants, giraffes and men all have seven neck vertebra. The name Oz in the word Wizard of Oz was thought up when the creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence Oz The only food cockroaches wont eat are cucumbers. Hong Kong has the worlds largest double-decker tram fleet in the world, You can tell the sex of a turtle by the sound it makes. A male grunts, A female hisses. There are no public toilets in Peru. The pound sign is called an octothorp. Dreamt is the only word in English language to end in mt. The Queen termite can live up to 50 years and have 30,000 children every day. The term Its all fun and games until someone loses an eye is from Ancient Rome. A puff of smoke, such as when someone is smoking a cigarette or a pipe is called a lunt. The name Pinocchio is from Tuscany, Italy and means pine nut or kernel. It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cindrella) lost at the stairway, when the prince tried to follow her, It was originally the right, but the translator messed up. The magic word Abracadabra was originally intended for the specific purpose of curing hay fever. More redheads are born in Scotland, UK than in any other part of the world. The Sanskrit word for war means desire for more cows. Only female wasps, bees, and mosquitoes sting. Las Vegas means The Meadows in Spanish. John Montagu, the 4 th

Earl od Sandwich, England had a habit of eating beef between 2 slices of toast. He is credited with the origin of the modern day sandwich. Ice Hockey was first played in 1885 by British soldiers stationed in Canada. Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when the rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute. Pain travels faster than 3000 feet per second. The Coca-Cola company is the biggest consumer of sugar in the world. All major league baseball umpires in America must wear black underwear while on the job. The word gymnasium comes from the Greek word gymnazein which means to exercise naked. Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots. Francis Bacon died of hypothermia while trying to freeze a chicken by stuffing it with snow. You cant kill yourself by holding your breath. Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in jelly. In ancient China people committed suicide by eating a pound of salt. The great pharaoh of Egypt, Ramses II, fathered over 160 children. The names of three wise monkeys are : Mizaru : See no evil, Mikazaru : Hear no evil, and Mazaru : Speak no evil. The Spanish word esposa means wife. The plural esposas; means wives, but also handcuffs. In 1784 the U. S. had a state called Franklin, named after Benjamin Franklin. But four years later, it was incorporated into Tennessee. The word lethologicia describes the state of not remembering the word you want to say. The word nerd was first coined by Dr. Suess in the book If I ran to the Zoo. The word assassination was invented by William Shakespeare. It takes about 63,000 tress to make the newsprint for the average Sunday edition of the New York Times. The music band ABBA got its name by taking the first letter from each of its members name (Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, Anni-frid). Daytime dramas are called Soap Operas because they were originally used to advertise soap powder. The Red Cross is called the Red Crescent in Arab countries. Thailand used to be called Siam. The only married couple to fly together were Jan Davis and Mark Lee, who flew abroad the Endeavor space shuttle from Sept 12-20, 1992. The largest volcano known is on Mars : Olympus Mons, 370 miles wide and 79,000 feet high, is almost 3 times higher than Mount Everest. At the equator the Earth spins at about 1,660 kilometers per hour. A fetus starts to develop fingerprints at the age of eight weeks. Hair is made from the same substance as fingernails. The average human scalp has 100,000 hairs.

Ketchup was once used as medicine in the United States, In the 1830s it was sold as Dr. Miles Compound Extract of Tomato. In 1917, Margaret Sanger was jailed for one month for establishing the first birth control clinic. Spartacus led the revolt of the Roman slaves and gladiators in 73 B. C. A Canadian Tour company offers a two-day course in igloo building. The company, Yoshida Kogyo Kabushibibaisha, of Japan is the words largest zipper manufacturer. It sells the zippers with the YKK brand. One billion seconds is about 32 years. The Victoria Cross is Britains military decoration. The nation of Monaco on the French Riviera, is smaller than Central Park in New York. Monaco is 370 acres and Central Park is 840 acres. Every photograph of the first American atomic bomb detonation was taken by Harold Edgerton. Julie Nixon, daughter of Richard Nixon married David Eisenhower, grandson of Dwight Eisenhower. The Taj mahal was once scheduled to be torn down in 1830s. Canada is the only country not to win a gold medal in Summer Olympic games while hosting the event. The first domain name ever registered was symbolics.com. The property values on the Monopoly game board are the same today as they were in 1935. The water displacement product, WD-40, can be found in 80% of American homes. Johnson and Johnsons BAND-AID adhesive bandages have been around over 80 years. In 1825, the first toilet was installed in the White House. Kite flying is a professional sport in Thailand. Basketball great Wilt Chamberlain never fouled out of a game. The worlds biggest bowling alley is located in Las Vegas at the Showboat hotel and has 106 lanes. Soccer legend Peles real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento. A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in a single night. The Kodiak, which is native to Alaska, is the largest bear and can measure up to eight feet and weigh as much as 1,000 kilograms. A dog by the name of Laika was launched into space aboard the Russian spacecraft Sputnik 2 in 1957. The snakehead fish can survive as long as three days on land in search of water when its water source dries up. The fastest running bird is the Ostrich, which has been clocked at 97.5 kilometers per hour. The deepest underwater penguin dive is 1,772 feet by Emperor Penguin. The sea cucumber spills its internal organs out as a defense mechanism. A species of earthworm, Megascolides australis in Australia can grow up to fifteen feet in length. Bats always turn left when exciting a cave. In 1681, the last dodo bird died. Chocolate can fatal to dogs. Chocolate contains a chemical theobromine, which is poisonous to dogs. It can take up to a month for a rattlesnake to re-supply its venom. Lachanophobia is the fear of vegetables. On August 21

st , 1911, someone stole the Mona Lisa, the most famous painting in the world, from the Louver Museum. It was recovered two years later. The artist Vincent Van Gogh sliced part of his ear off in madness. The origins of the soldier term G.I. is an abbreviation for Government Issue, which was stamped on all government kits supplied to recruits in the US Army during World War II. The term decils advocate comes from the Roman Catholic Church. Hen deciding if someone should be sainted, a devils advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view. Adolf Hitler was Times Man of the Year for 1938. The world Karate means, empty hand. There are about 6,800 languages in the world. There are approximately fifty Bibles sold each minute across the world. There was no punctuation in the English language until the 15 th century. Bill Bowerman, the co-founder of the shoe company Nike, got his first shoe idea after staring at a waffle iron. This gave him the idea of using squared spikes to make the shoes lighter. business.com is currently the most expensive domain name sold. It was sold for $7.5 million. The reason why the Canadian Arctic is called the Land of Midnight Sun is because during the summer many communities have light 24 hours of the day. Ninety-nine per cent pumpkins sold in the United States are for the sole purpose of decoration. The average person can live about a month without eating any food, but can only live about a week without water. The chocolate M&Ms stands for the last names of Forrest E. Mars Sr., the candy maker, and his associate Bruce Murrie. Mangos are valued for their reputation as an aphrodisiac in countries as Guatemala and India. Pizza Hut is the worlds largest pizza restaurant serving close to 1.7 million pizzas a day. Russian I. M. Chisov survived a 21,980 feet plunge out of a plane with no parachute. He landed on the steep side of snow-covered mountain with only a fractured pelvis and slight concussion. The average person falls asleep in about 12 to 14 minutes. The first owner of the Marlboro Company, Wayne. Died of lung cancer. The first drug to be sold in the form of a tablet is Aspirin. The cornea is the only living tissue in the human body that does not contain any blood vessels. The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B. C. The human kidneys filter over 400 gallons of blood each day. The longest bout of sneezing recorded was by Donna Griffith. It began in January 13 1981 and continued until September 16 1983 and lasted for 978 days.

The reason why tattoos do not vanish even though we shed our skin is because the dye is injected deeper into the dermis part of the skin. It is only the epidermis that we shed. The smoke that is produced by a fire kills more people than a burn does because of carbon monoxide and other dangerous gases. The space between your eyebrows is called the Glabella. The smallest bone in the human body is the stirrup bone, which is located in the ear. The worlds first test tube twins are Stephen and Amanda Mays born June 5, 1981. Abdul Kassam Ismael, Grand Vizar of Persia in the 10 th Century, carried his library with him wherever he went. For hundred camels carried the 117,000 volumes. After the U.S civil war, about 33%-50% of all U.S. paper currency in circulation was counterfeit. Celtic warriors sometimes fought their battles naked, their bodies dyed blue form head to toe. The best selling game in history for coin-operated machines is Pac-Man. The term mayday used for help (after SOS) comes from the French Maidez which is pronounced MAYDAYand means, Help Me. Great Britain was the first country to issue postage stamps in 1840. In 1836, Mexican General Santa Anna held an elaborate state funeral for his amputated leg. In 1982, Larry Walters tied 24 weather balloons to his lawn chair in Los Angeles and reached an altitude of 16,000 feet. In the marriage ceremony of the Ancient Inca Indians of Peru, the couple was considered officially wed when they took off their sandals and handed them to each other. The destruction of the Berlin Wall began when private citizens began to demolish entire section of Wall without interference from government officials on November 9, 1989. The Nobel Peace prize was first awarded in 1901 to Jean Henry Dunant, who was the founder of the Swiss Red Cross. The shortest war in the history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes. Ramses II, a pharaoh of Egypt died in 1225 B.C. At the time of his death, he had fathered 96 sons and 60 daughters. It is estimated that over fifty-four million people died in world war II, which was the bloodiest war in history. Since its introduction in February 1935, more than two hundred million Monopoly board games have been sold worldwide. The first modern toothbrush was invented in China. Its bristles came from hogs hair or the mane of horse that were then put into ivory handles. The first Tupperware item marketed was the seven-ounce bathroom cup in 1945.

The first box of Cryola that was ever sold had the same eight colours that are sold in the box today consisting of red, blue, yellow, green, orange, black and brown. The most popular Hot Wheels vehicle sold is the Corvette. The name Logo came from the Danish word Leg Godt, which means play well. The unique characteristics of Barbie dolls in Japan are that they have their lips closed with no teeth showing. The word checkmate in chess comes from the Persian phrase Shah-Mat, which means the king is dead. New Jersey state in USA has a spoon museum that has over 5,400 spoons from across the world. David Rice Atchinson was President of the United States for exactly one day. This happened due to a glitch in American law at the time. In Quebec, Canada, an old law states that margarine must be different color than butter. By law, information collected in a U.S census must remain confidential for seventy-two years. More than half the time spent in The United states courts is cases that involve automobiles. In Italy, Santa Claus is known by the name Babbo Natale. The parents of Albert Einstein were worried that he was mentally slow because it took him a long time to learn how to speak. The political philosopher Karl Marx used to write articles for the New York Tribune in the early 1850s. Tiger Woods real first name is Eldrick. His father gave him the nickname Tiger in honor of a South Vietnamese soldier his father had fought alongside with during the Vietnam War. Princess Anne from the British royal family competed in the 1976 Summer Olympics. Shridhar Chillai from India is known to have the record for the longest fingernails in the world, which were each at least three feet long. Karate actually originated in India, but was developed further in China. Edward Vill did not officially become the King of England as he abdicated the throne to marry an American divorcee. Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido, once pinned an opponent using only a single finger. The National sport of Japan is Sumo wrestling. Basketball was invented by Canadian James Naismith in 1891. Lightening strikes about 6,00 times per minute on this planet. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.