Fascinating Facts and Trivia

Earth’s rotation on its Axis doesn’t take 24 hours

It actually takes approximately 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds.

The International Space Station (ISS) is the most expensive object ever constructed. In 2010 the cost was expected to be $150 billion.

Since the launch of Sputnik 1 (4 October 1957), 38,000 artificial satellites have orbited the Earth. Still more than 22,000 man-made objects (10 cm/3.94 in or longer) up there. Only 5% of them are functioning satellites. 8% of them have spent rockets while the remaining 87% are fragments and inactive satellites (which is actually a big problem). NASA estimates everyday average 1 object is returning (falling) to Earth.

The Earth is 4.54 billion years old. Our galaxy, the Milky Way makes one rotation every 250 million years or so. As a result, our planet is approximately 18 galactic years old.

In 1958, Mao Zedong introduced a campaign to eradicate four pests from China (aptly named the Four Pests Campaign). One of those four pests were sparrows. All-out avian warfare commenced. People demolished nests, banged on pots and pans to keep the birds from resting on trees, and shot them out of the sky. Chinese citizens were rewarded by the government for their bird-killing prowess. Well after a couple years of systematic sparrow genocide, there weren't many birds left to take out the now flourishing locust population who were now wreaking havoc on crops. The sparrow destruction project was a contributor to the Great Chinese famine, which killed tens of millions from 1959-61.

And Merry Christmas everyone

Showing just how mad the Georgians were at Christmas they used to celebrate Twelfth Night with special cakes called Twelfth Cakes and a really ludicrously dangerous game called Snapdragon. This consisted of a dish or bowl filled with small items mostly sultanas or raisins covered with brandy(so not one for the kiddies) and then set fire to. The idea of the game was to take out as many of the items and the one with the most items wins-or perhaps the one with the most burnt fingers mad as a box of crackers!

Just found this and it would also appear some morons are playing this today!!
Snap-dragon (also known as Flap-dragon, Snapdragon, or Flapdragon) was a parlour game popular from about the 16th century. It was played during the winter, particularly on Christmas Eve. Brandy was heated and placed in a wide shallow bowl; raisins were placed in the brandy which was then set alight.

Bloody idiots, it's supposed to be a shallow dish not a deep one!

The Mona Lisa was in Napoleon Bonaparte’s bedroom for a few years.

The Bombay phenotype is a phenomenon whereby certain elements of the blood are missing. It results in a person having a mixed blood type. Only 0.0004% of the world’s population have such blood. There is even a special storage of this blood so that people who have it can have a blood transfusion if necessary. What is curious is that this unique blood type can be transfused to any person with a regular blood type.

In the high mountain forests of Nepal, there are giant bees. The length of their bodies can be up to 1.1 inches. These bees produce special honey that can cause a person to hallucinate. The Gurungs that live in that part of the Himalayas collect such hallucinogenic honey.