WEIRD STUFF I STUMBLED UPON

By Dan Miller
October 5, 2007

I always enjoy the weird stuff that turns up while I'm surfing the internet.

Earlier this week I was browsing websites while researching the 50th anniversary of the first man-made object to orbit the earth.
That, of course, would be Sputnik 1, launched by the U.S.S.R on October 4, 1957.

For those too young to remember the news of that launch, I can tell you it was actually a scary time.
All we knew for sure was what we heard on the news..... that our feared rival in the cold war, the Soviets, had put an artificial device of some sort over our heads, circling the earth, and there was nothing we could do about it.
Our imaginations were running wild.
But it all worked out fine.

Anyhow, while surfing the internet, I happened across a few totally unrelated facts, probably not worth mentioning.... probably not verifiable.... but I'll mention 10 of them anyway.

1.) The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti

2.) The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable"

3.) Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people

4.) The cigarette lighter was invented before the match

5.) The average life of a major league baseball is 7 pitches

6.) There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous"....
tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous

7.) "Stewardesses" is the longest English word that is typed with only the left hand

8.) The most productive day of the work week is Tuesday

9.) In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II was named an Honorary Harlem Globetrotter

10.) Donkeys kill more people every year than do plane crashes

So there.... if things get dull at the dinner table tonight, you have 10 good conversation starters.

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