| # | Useless Fact | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kotex was first manufactured as bandages, during WWI. | |
| 2 | Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5pm. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize *this* was the day of the changeover. | |
| 3 | Here is every word that can be displayed by a digital clock during the day. (Using the numbers which look like letters, with 9 as "g.") zoo (2:00), S.O.S. (5:05), sob (5:08), sog (5:09), sis (5:15), boo (8:00), Bob (8:08), bog (8:09), bib (8:18), big (8:19), goo (9:00), gob (9:08), gib (9:18), gig (9:19) | |
| 4 | A broken clock is right at least twice a day. | |
| 5 | The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the General Purpose vehicle, GP. | |
| 6 | The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum. | |
| 7 | A Boeing 747's wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight. | |
| 8 | In Los Angeles, there are fewer people than there are automobiles. | |
| 9 | The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C. | |
| 10 | In 1980, there was only one country in the world with no telephones - Bhutan. | |
| 11 | Lollipop is the longest word you can type with only your right hand on the keyboard. | |
| 12 | The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns. | |
| 13 | The term 'the whole 9 yards' came from WWII 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.' | |
| 14 | The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called 'mantles') are radioactive so much so that they will set of an alarm at a nuclear reactor. | |
| 15 | Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been over mixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since. | |