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FACT-OF-THE-DAY ARCHIVE
"Our life is what our thoughts make it."
- Marcus Aurelius

MAY 2012


Previous Archives

DATEFACT OF THE DAY
5/1/12     Before 1920, it was illegal for women in the United States to vote. When women's rights advocate Susan B. Anthony tried to vote in the 1872 election, she was arrested and fined $100. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/2/12     In Kentucky, it is against the law to remarry the same man four times. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/3/12     At Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania, students with a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 30 or higher are required to take a physical education class before they are allowed to graduate. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/4/12     Harvard receives the largest financial endowments of any institution in the world at $26 billion. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/5/12     Supermoon 2012 comes on May 5. The 'supermoon' is when a full moon coincides with the moon's closest approach to Earth. The supermoon will be 16 percent brighter than a normal full moon. - Provided by Christian Science Monitor
5/6/12     The number one country of origin of foreign college students in the United States is India, followed by China and South Korea. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/7/12     The U.S. schools with the highest rates of students who graduate in four years are St. Francis Medical Center College of Nursing in Peoria, IL (100%); Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA (94%); Davidson College in Davidson, NC (92%); College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA (92%); and Haverford College in Haverford, PA (91%). - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/8/12     During 2008-2009, colleges were expected to award 731,000 associate's degrees, 1,603,000 bachelor's degrees, 649,000 master's degrees, and 61,7000 doctorate degrees. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/9/12     The majors with the best pay include Engineering, Economics, and Physics. Typically, the worst paying majors are Social Work, Theology, Elementary Education, Music, Spanish, Horticulture, Education, Fine Arts, Hospitality/Tourism, and Drama. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/10/12     eHarmony.com boasts that 236 of its members marry each day, accounting for 2% of U.S. marriages. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/11/12     The state of Wyoming is the deadliest state for drinking and driving, with just over 13 drunk-driving fatalities for every 100,000 people occurring each year. New York experiences the least amount of drunk-driving fatalities, with only 2.06 per 100,000 residents. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/12/12     A dolphin's 'sonar' or echo-location is rare in nature and is far superior to either the bat's sonar or human-made sonar. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/13/12     There were 10 million singles mothers living with children younger than 18 in 2011, up from 3.4 million in 1970. - Provided by U.S. Census Bureau
5/14/12     Gold is so rare that the world pours more steel in an hour than it has poured gold since the beginning of recorded history. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/15/12     Contrary to popular belief, suicide rates during the Christmas holiday are low. The highest rates are during the spring. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/16/12     Earth's Amazon rainforest is home to one third of the planet's land species, illustrating Earth's ability to sustain itself within a concentrated area. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/17/12     The rate of autism is growing at 14% per year around the world. In China it is growing at a rate of 20% a year. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/18/12     In Haiti, there is one hospital bed for every 10,000 inhabitants. There are only about eight doctors and 10 nurses for every 100,000 inhabitants. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/19/12     Severe drought and dust storms exacerbated the Great Depression because it dried out farmlands and forced families to leave their farms. On May 9, 1934, a dust storm carried an estimated 350 million tons of dirt 2,000 miles eastward and dumped four million tons of prairie dirt in Chicago. The drought and dust killed tens of thousands of animals. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/20/12     Cats have 32 muscles that control the outer ear (humans have only 6). A cat can independently rotate its ears 180 degrees. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/21/12     Gold is so pliable that it can be made into sewing thread. An ounce of gold can be stretched over 50 miles. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/22/12     There are more than 600 individual skeletal muscles in the human body. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/23/12     Due to its high value, most gold discovered throughout history is still in circulation. However, it is thought that 80% of the world's gold is still in the ground. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/24/12     You cannot snore and dream at the same time. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/25/12     The greatest verified age for any living organism is from a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine tree in Nevada called Prometheus that was measured by a ring count to be about 4,900 years old when it was cut down in 1964. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/26/12     Most of us dream every 90 minutes, and the longest dreams (30-45 minutes) occur in the morning. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/27/12     There are fewer people with Internet access in the entire continent of Africa than in New York City alone. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/28/12     Memorial Day was a response to the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War, in which some 620,000 soldiers on both sides died. The loss of life and its effect on communities throughout the North and South led to spontaneous commemorations of the dead. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/29/12     A dog most likely interprets a smiling person as baring their teeth, which is an act of aggression. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/30/12     Toilet paper was invented in China in the late 1300s. It was for emperors only. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
5/31/12     According to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Shakespeare wrote about one-tenth of the most quotable quotations ever written or spoken in English. - Provided by RandomHistory.com


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