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

OCT 2018


Previous Archives

DATE FACT OF THE DAY
10/1/18      The average American eats approximately 222 pounds of meat per year. This does not include seafood. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/2/18      The left breast is statistically more prone to developing cancer than the right breast. Scientists are unsure why. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/3/18      Catfish have over 27,000 taste buds. Humans have around 7,000. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/4/18      Italians suffer more earthquakes than any other Europeans. In 1693, an estimated 100,000 people died in an earthquake in Sicily. The most deadly recent quake in Italy occurred in Naples in 1980, killing 3,000 people. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/5/18      The number of reported cases of bulimia in females ages 10-39 tripled between 1988 and 1993. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/6/18      In 2001, Argentina had 5 presidents in 10 days. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/7/18      The moon's crust is thicker on the far side. Scientists are unsure why, though they speculate that the near side feels more gravity from Earth. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/8/18      Only 1/3 of spacecrafts sent to Mars have been successful, leading some scientists to wonder if there is a Martian "Bermuda triangle" or a "Great Galactic Ghoul" that likes to eat spacecraft. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/9/18      The name Alaska is derived from an Aleutian word alaxsxaq which literally means the "object toward which the action of the sea is directed." The Russians called it Alyeska. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/10/18      Urine was used in WWI in gas masks. The ammonia in urine was thought to neutralize the chlorine in chlorine gas. However, scientists later discovered that chlorine gas reacts with urine to produce toxic fumes. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/11/18      People who worked at soda fountains were called soda jerks-because of the classic jerking motion used to pump soda water. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/12/18      Filipino-American Eleanor "Connie" Concepcion Mariano was the personal physician to President Bill Clinton. She was also the youngest captain and first female to be named Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/13/18      The borders of some oriental carpets were seen to protect those sitting within its magic confines. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/14/18      Saturn isn't the only planet with rings. Jupiter has three rings, but they are very dark and cannot be seen with ordinary telescopes. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/15/18      Pennsylvania is known as the "Potato Chip Capital" of the world and leads the United States in potato chip production. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/16/18      The "squaring the circle" method of understanding pi has fascinated mathematicians because traditionally the circle represents the infinite, immeasurable, and even spiritual world while the square represents the manifest, measurable, and comprehensive world. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/17/18      A box jellyfish sting can kill a person by stopping his or her heart in about two minutes. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/18/18      The autumnal equinox is also called Harvest Home, Mabon, the Feast of the Ingathering, and Alban-Elfed (in Neo-Druid traditions). - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/19/18      Tanning can cause permanent structural damage to the skin, including wrinkling, age spots, and loss of elasticity. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/20/18      A flock of ravens is called an "unkindness" or a "conspiracy." - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/21/18      The inventor of popsicles, Frank Epperson, originally called his creation "Epsicles," which was a combination of his name and the word "icicles." His children, however, convinced him to change the name to what they called him "pop"; hence the name "popsicles." - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/22/18      "Emetophobia" is the fear of vomiting. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/23/18      Because hieroglyphs have no vowels, we will never know for sure how the ancients pronounced their words. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/24/18      Academically gifted students, especially those with high verbal aptitude, are often bullied and are more likely than less gifted students to suffer emotionally. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/25/18      After his wife died, Columbus never married his mistress Beatriz Enriquez de Arana, most likely because she was not of noble blood. For someone as status conscious as Columbus, a wife who could not appear in royal court was unthinkable. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/26/18      The Yellowstone River is the longest undammed river in the continental U.S. at 692 miles (1,114 km) long. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/27/18      The only known example of the giant sauropod Seismosaurus appears to have choked to death on a stone it was trying to swallow to use as a gastrolith. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/28/18      Smoking rates are higher among those living below the poverty level and those who have little education. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/29/18      The word "cancer" is related to the word "crab" in Latin. Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen, among others, noted the similarity of swollen tumors with veins to crabs. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/30/18      Gold is chemically inert, which also explains why it never rusts and does not cause skin irritation. If gold jewelry irritates the skin, it is likely that the gold was mixed with some other metal. - Provided by FactRetriever.com
10/31/18      The word "witch" comes from the Old English wicce, meaning "wise woman." In fact, wiccan were highly respected people at one time. According to popular belief, witches held one of their two main meetings, or sabbats, on Halloween night. - Provided by FactRetriever.com


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2011
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