Facts and Figures



401) One in ten people in the world live on an island.
402) The chance of being born on Leap Day is about 684 out of a million, or 1 in 1461. Less than 5 million people have their birthday on Leap Day.
403) The odds of being struck by lightning are about 600,000 to one.
404) About 27% of food in developed countries are wasted each year. It's simply thrown away.
405) US Post Office handles 43% of the world's mail. Its nearest competitor is Japan with 6%.
406) Since 1972, some 64 million tons of aluminum cans (about 3 trillion cans) have been produced. Placed end-to-end, they could stretch to the moon about a thousand times. Cans represent less than 1% of solid waste material.
407) More than a billion transistors are manufactured. .. every second.
408) The amount of time that people spend on travel has been consistent at 1.1 hours per person per day in all societies.
409) Traffic jams of New York, San Francisco and Paris are well known - beaten only by those in Seattle where a driver annually spends 59 hours stuck in traffic.
410) Traffic jams are nothing new. In 45 BC, Rome banned all vehicles from within the city - and in other cities vehicles, including horses, were allowed only at night... because of traffic jams.
411) The Wright Brothers tested the first aeroplane in a wind tunnel before flying it.
412) The shortest scheduled airline flight is made between the island of Westray to Papa Westray off Scotland. The flight lasts 2 minutes.
413) More than 60 million people annually visit France, a country of 60 million people.
414) About a quarter of the world still drives on the left, and the countries that do are mostly old British colonies.
415) The pilot with the most flying hours is American John Edward Long. From May 1933 to April 1977 he flew 62,654 hours, achieving a total of more than 7 years airborne.
416) The fewest aeroplane passengers killed in one year was 1 in 1993 and the most was 583 in 1977 when two Boeing 747s collided on the runway at Los Rodeos airport, Tenerife, the Canary Islands.
417) The world's oldest surviving boat is a simple 3 metre (10 feet) long dugout dated to 7400 BC. It was discovered in Pesse Holland in the Netherlands.
418) The shortest war on record took place in 1896 when Zanzibar surrendered to Britain after 38 minutes.
419) The longest war was the so-called 100-years war between Britain and France. It actually lasted 116 years, ending in 1453.
420) Since 1495, no 25-year period has been without war.
421) The very first bomb that the Allies dropped on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
422) The alligator snapping turtle fakes out its fishy prey with a small appendage on its tongue that looks like a worm.
423) A newborn gray whale drinks enough milk in one sitting to fill more than 2000 bottles.
424) Polar bears have black skin but light reflected from the porous hair on their coat makes the skin look white.
425) World's smallest mammal, the bumble bee of Thailand, weighs less than a one rupee coin.
426) Over 180 species of woodpecker are found worldwide. They all peck on an average twenty times a second.
427) The amount of energy produced in an average one day hurricane can power the United States for 3 years.
428) The hummingbird lays eggs weighing half a gram, measuring 13 mm long and 8 mm wide. They are 2000 times smaller than an ostrich egg.
429) Pi upto 115 decimals:
3.14159265358979323 8462643383279502 8841971693993751 0582097494459230 7816406286208998 6280348253421170 6798214808651328 23...
430) In a group of 23 people, at least two have the same birthday with the probability greater than 1/2.
431) Among all shapes with the same perimeter a circle has the largest area.
432) India became the world's largest producer of mangoes in 2003 with 12 million tonnes which is 51% of the world's total production.
433) When a school of baby catfish is threatened by predators, the father hides the youngsters inside his huge mouth.
434) The biggest religious building in the world is a Hindu Temple, Angkor Wat, located in Cambodia. It was built at the end of the 11th century.
435) Silk was developed in China were it was kept a secret for more than two thousands years. Anyone found trying to smuggle silkworm eggs or cocoons out of the country was immediately put to death.
436) The reason why women's dress shirt buttons are on the left and men's on the right is because when buttons were first used during the Victorian period maids used to dress the ladies, and since the maids put on their shirts the buttons were put on the servants right side, hence the women's left.
437) When the divorce rate goes up in the United States, toy makers report that the sale of toys also rise.
438) In 1989, twenty-three people were hired in Jacksonville Florida just to flush toilets so the pipes would not freeze.
439) Leather skin does not have any smell. The leather smell that you sense is actually derived from the materials used in the tanning process.
440) New Jersey has a spoon museum that has over 5,400 spoons from across the world.
441) The typical lead pencil can draw a line that is thirty five miles long.
442) Paper money is not made from wood pulp but from cotton. This means that it will not disintegrate as fast if it is put in the laundry.
443) The Casino Goa located off shore near Panaji in Goa, is the only legalised casino in India.
444) Lanfairpwllgwyngyll gogerychwyrndrob wlllantysiiiogog ogoch in North Wales is the place with the longest name in the world.
445) Pisa, located at Italy, was a port in 5th century BC. Now it is 8 km away from the sea coast.
446) Chile witnessed the biggest earthquake of the century on May 22, 1960. Its magnitude was 9.5 on Ritcher scale.
447) There is about 200 times more gold in the world's oceans than that has been mined in our entire history.
448) USA has the highest expenditure in the worldfor defense with a figure of 478.2 billion US dollars.
449) The sperm whale is the mammal with the heaviest brain. It is about six times heavier than an average human.
450) Pigeons and hummingbirds' heads have tiny magnetic particles that respond to the earth's magnetic field and are used for navigation.
451) India is the largest producer in the world for milk, cashew nuts, coconuts, tea, ginger, turmeric and black pepper.
452) The black mamba snake is the deadliest snake in the world. It has enough venom in one bite to kill 200 humans.
453) Bangalore is the only city in the world to operate its both commercial and defence airport from the same strip.
454) Pakistan has shifted its capital 3 times, from Karachi in 1947 to Rawalpindi from 1958 to 1960 to Islamabad till date.
455) Bars can never walk on their feet because their bones are so thin that they could break.
456) The Tarantula Hawk Wasp lays eggs on a spider. She paralyses the spider with her sting so that her young could have fresh meat to eat.

457) Mangoes were first found in Eastern India, Burma and the Andaman Islands. The fruit gets its name from the Tamil word mangai.
458) Greenland is the largest island in the world. Nearly seven-eighths of the island is icecap.
459) Anteaters have no teeth. They use their long, sticky tongues to capture insects.
460) Abdul Ismail of Persia always took his library with him. 117000 books were carried by 400 camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.
461) The deepest valley in the world is at the foot of Dhaulagiri, Nepal which is 8172 m high. The valley is fertile and prized by farmers.
462) In Albania nodding your head means a no and shaking your head means a yes.
463) The cheetah is the only cat in the world that cant retract its claws.
464) Albatross are the world's greatest travellers. They can circle the entire world towards the South Pole in 8 days, i.e., 30000 km.
465) Prince Rogers Nelson changed his name a record 743 times. Some sources indicate he is in the process of changing it yet again to Bob.
466) The world's most massive cliffs are 2.3 km high and 600 km long. They were only recently discovered 4000 m beneath the ocean near Australia.
467) The tuatara lizard of New Zealand has three eyes, two in the center of its head and one on the top of its head.
468) The honey badger can withstand hundreds of bee stings that would otherwise kill another animal.
469) Making coffee was once regarded as an essential skill for girls in Turkey , their merits were judged based on the taste of the coffee.
470) Though the Statue of Liberty stands on a stone pedestal, the statue consists of pure copper sheeting, hung on a steel framework.
471) Candy canes have existed for nearly 340 years ever since 1670, when a chairmaster bent sugar sticks to represent a shepherds' staff.
472) Human sacrifice was important in Aztec. In 1487, 84400 prisoners were sacrificed to consecrate the Great Pyramid of Tenochtiltan.
473) The main purpose of the Platypus' tail is to store 50% of the animals fat. This provides it with an energy reserve in food scarcity.
474) The platypus uses its bill to find animals that it feeds on. Its bill can sense the tiny electric fields that their preys emit.
475) Chewing gum is not a new thing. The ancient Greeks chewed mastiche, which was a chewing gum made from the resin of the mastic tree.
476) Mexico City boasts the world's largest taxi fleet with over 60 thousand taxis running every day.
477) Camels have 3 eyelids to protect their eyes from sand.
478) From 1939 to 1942 there was an undersea post office in the Bahamas.
479) One of the steepest main streets in Canada is at St. John, New Brunswick. The street rises about 80 feet in a distance of 2 blocks.
480) Mexico City is sinking at a rate of 6 to 8 inches a year because it is built on top of an underground reservoir.