IJMC - Fascinating Facts

I think one of the most fascinating facts that this text brings up is 
that one person would spend so long doing this. Of course, when I've been 
doing the IJMC for five years, I may look back on this and cry.     -dave







Here are some very interesting facts that I have compiled for about 5 years.
 It is quite lengthy, but I hope that you will take the time to print it out
and read it.   It is a good thing to grab on the way to the shitter....Enjoy!

~A rat can go without water longer than a camel can.
~The hippopotamus has skin an inch and a half thick, so solid that most
bullets can   not penetrate it.
~The crocodile is surprisingly fast on land.  If pursued by a crocodile, a
person should run in a zigzag motion, for the crocodile has little or no
ability to make sudden changes of direction.
~The venom of the king cobra is so deadly that one gram of it can kill 150
people.  Just to handle the substance can put one in a coma.
~A completely blind chameleon will still take on the colors of its
environment.
~The Washington Monument sinks 6 inches every year.
~During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon's soldiers bivouacked in the chapel of
Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, where Leonardo's Last Supper is located.
 The soldiers used the painting in target practice, shooting at the central
figure of Christ's head.  This is why the face of Christ is almost
obliterated in the painting.
~In epuestrian statues:  traditionally when all four of the horses hooves are
on the ground, it signifies that the rider died a natural death.  One hoof in
the air indicates that he died of wounds sustained in action.  If two are
raised, it means that the rider was killed on the field of battle.
~The horns protruding from the head of the famous statue of Moses by
Michelangelo were a mistake!  It is true that the Bible describes Moses as
having horns coming from his head.  This, however, was an error on the part
of the translators.  In Hebrew the words for "horn" and "ray of light" are
spelled identically.  The translators misinterpreted "ray" for "horn" and
thus Moses is often portrayed in western art as looking like a devil.
~A fetus in the womb can hear.  Tests have shown that fetuses respond to
various sounds just as vigorously as they respond to pressures and internal
sensations.
~A survey conducted at Iowa State College in 1969 suggests that a parent's
stress at the time of conception plays a major role in determining a baby's
sex.  The child tends to be of the same sex as the parent who is under less
stress.
~Human eyes are so sensitive that on a clear night when there is no moon, a
person sitting on a mountain peak can see a match struck 50 miles away.
~The pupil of the eye expands as much as 45 percent when a person looks at
something pleasing.
~Tongue prints are as unique as finger prints.
~The men who served as guards along the Great Wall of China in the Middle
Ages were often born on the wall, grew up there, married there, died there,
and were buried within it.  Many of these guards never left the wall in their
entire lives.
~At funerals in ancient China, when the lid of the coffin was closed,
mourners took a few steps backward lest their shadows get caught in the box.
~In ancient China people committed suicide eating a pound of salt.
~Both Gerorge Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew marijuana on their
plantations.
~Those condemned to die by the axe in medieval and Renaissance England were
obliged to tip their executioner to ensure that he would complete the job in
one blow.  In some executions, notably that of Mary, Queen of Scots, it took
fifteen whacks of the blade before the head was severed.
~The Nazis used the guillotine to execute prisoners during World War II.
 Their version of the punishment had the condemned person lying on his back
with his eyes forced open so that he had to watch the blade as it descended.
~In the late 19th century, it was the fashion among many English woman to
wear gold rings through their nipples.  In an 1899 edition of the British
journal Society, fascinating details are given about this peculiar fad.  The
woman who wished to wear such ornaments, the magazine said, had holes bored
throughher nipples and thin gold rings threaded through the holes.  It was
believed that wearing such rings made the breasts fuller and rounder, and
that the rings were a stimulating sight for men when exposed.  The operation
was performed not by doctors, but by jewelers, much the way piercing is done
today.
~A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down
continually from the bottom of the glass to the top.
~Honey is the only food that will not spoil.  Honey found in the tombs of
Egyptian pharaohs has been tested by archaeologists and found edible.
~In the Northern Hemisphere water goes down drains counterclockwise.  In the
Southern Hemisphere it goes down clockwise.
~A male spider's penis is located at the end of one of its legs.
~If one places a minute amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will go mad and
sting itself to death.
~Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue twice as much as any other color.
~A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.
~What is called a "French kiss" in England and America is known as an
"English kiss" in France.
~In ancient Japan public contests were held to see who in a town could break
wind loudest and longest.  Winners were awarded many prizes and received
great acclaim.
~In medieval China and parts of Africa one method of enforcing chastity was
to sew up a girl's vaginal labia as soon as she reached puberty.  The
stitches were not cut until marriage; the husband then had the option of
sewing them up again if he was called to war or on a long journey.
~When gentlemen in medieval Japan wished to seal an agreement, they urinated
together, crisscrossing their streams of urine.
~The work of an artist cannot be exhibited in the Louvre until he has been
dead for at least sixty years.
~No one knows where Mozart is buried.
~The amount of energy expended during sexual intercourse is roughly
equivalent to the amount required to climb two flights of stairs.
~The Roman emperor Commodos collected all the dwarfs, cripples, and freaks he
could find in the city of Rome and had them brought to the Colosseum, where
they were ordered to fight each other to the death with meat cleavers.
~Two out of three adults in the United States have hemorrhoids.
~A collection of mysterious and unusual physical disorders:
   Amazia--The complete absence of breasts.
   Diphallic terata--The presence of more than one penis.
   Plica polonica--The skin and nails turn spongy and black, the hair
follicles exude a gluey liquid, and the hair itself becomes painful to the
touch.  Oddly enough, this disease id found almost exclusively among Polish
people.
   Polyorchidism--The presence of more than two testicles.  This is the
opposite of the condition known as anorchidism, in which a male is born with
no testicles at all.
~At the moment of being hanged, many observers have noted, the victim, if
male, often has an erection and may even ejaculate.
~If you've ever wondered what the numbers on your Social Security card
signify, here is a breakdown of the mysterious code:
   --the first three numbers show what part of the contry you applied from.
   --the next two numbers show, in coded form, the year you applied.
   --the last four numbers indicate your citizen's number kept on file by the
government.
~In Idaho a citizen is forbidden by law to give another citizen a box of
candy that weighs more than 50 pounds.
~Every citizen of Kentucky is required by law to take a bath once a year.
~In 1970 an Arizona lawyer named Russel T. Tansie filed a $100,000 damage
suit against God.  The suit was filed on behalf of Mr. Tansie's secretary,
Betty Penrose, who accused God of negligence in His power over the weather
when He allowed a lightning bolt to strike her home.  Ms. Penrose won the
case when the defendant failed to appear in court.  Whether or not she
collected has not been recorded.
~In San Salvador drunk drivers are punished by death before a firing squad.
~Experiments conducted at several college laboratories demonstrate that hard
rock music played to colonies of termites cause the insects to enter a kind
of frenzy and to chew through wood at twice their normal rate.
~Anne Boleyn, one of the two unfortunate wives of Henry VIII sent to die in
the Tower of London, had six toes on one foot, six fingers on one hand, and
three breasts.  In medical terminology the condition of having more than two
breasts is known as polymazia.
~The amount of nicotine the average pack-a-day smoker inhales in a week--400
milligrams--would kill a person instantly if it were taken all at once.
~If all the packages of cigarettes smoked by Americans each year were laid
end to end, they would circle the earth 21 times.
~During World War II, the sale of Navajo blankets almost ceased in the United
States.  The reason for the decline was that the ancient Navajo symbol for
the sun, woven into most of the blankets, looked exactly like Hitler's
swastika.
~One ounce of LSD is enough to make doses for 300,000 people.

If you happen to have or come across any fascinating facts, please send them
my way (TatChic@aol.com).
More to come......    :)