1. Not including humans, dolphins are the only animals that seek sex for pleasure.
2. Not surprisingly, the United States is the country with the most murders.
3. Elagabalus was a bisexual emperor of Rome from 218-222. Elagabalus had a "husband" named Hierocles, who was a slave. Hierocles would violently beat Elagabalus when he caught the emperor being unfaithful.
4. As of 2002, over 75 clergymen have been convicted of child abuse in the United States since 1985. Thirty-eight of these were Roman Catholic.
5. Early Christians taught that the damned would be burned in the valley of Ge-Hinnom. Today, that valley is a public park.
6. In Huntington, West Virginia it is legal for a man to beat up his wife as long as it is done on Sunday in front of a court house.
7. Like the movie, "Gladiator", there was once a Roman emperor named Commodus who had a father named Marcus Aurelius. Unlike the movie, Marcus Aurelius died naturally. He was plauged stomach and chest problems for several years. He took a drug called theriac, which contains opium, as relief.
8. The Harappa civilization in 2500 BC developed the first sitting toilets.
9. Thailand, India and Brazil are the countries with the most child prostitutes.
10. In South Korea, police officers are required to report all bribes they recieve from motorists.
11. The Arabs were the first people to brew coffee into a drink they called "qahwa" in around 1000 AD.
12. The Byzantines had a secret weapon they called "Greek Fire." It was a liquid fire that was hurled onto enemy ships which burst into flames on contact. It was inextinguishable by water and was probably the most devastating weapon of its time. The secret "recipe" was handed down from generation to generation. I assume that the recipe was lost when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, because the composition of Greek Fire remains unknown today.
13. The plastic sheaths at the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
14. The ants in California came from Argentina in ships in the 1980s. These ants have displaced ants that are native to California. Their spread can be partly attibuted to inbreeding and multiple queens per nest.
15. Grilled meats increase free radicals in the body, which can cause cancer.
16. Not including humans, pigs are the only animals that can get sunburnt.
17. At the Comdex trade show, Bill Gates encountered the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) while demonstrating Windows 98.
18. There is a program available for download over the Internet that can customize the color of the BSOD to green or purple. This program only works for Windows 3.1, 95, 98, and ME.
19. In the 1860s a wine mixed with coca (the cocaine plant) called Vin Mariani was developed. Pope Leo XIII honored the developer of the wine as a benefactor of mankind.
20. The first recorded death from an opium overdose was in 1037.
21. The male paper nautilus (related to the octopus) reproduces by detatching a sperm-bearing tentacle from its body. The tentacle swims on its own to the female.
22. The great cannons used by the Ottoman Turks in the seige of Constantinople were built by a Hungarian engineer named Urban. Urban first offered his services to Constantiople, which couldn't afford to pay Urban's salary and provide the raw materials needed.
23. Mules do no reproduce. They are a cross between a male donkey and a female horse.
24. In Switzerland, it is illegal to flush the toilet after 10:00 PM if you live in an apartment.
25. Cows and related animals produce about 14% of the methane, a pollutant, present in the atmosphere.
26. A single share of Coca-Cola stock bought in 1919 would have been worth $92,500 in 1997.
27. The most dangerous job in the United States is sanitation worker.
28. Money is made from woven linen.
29. The belief that watching TV in a dark room is bad for peoples' eyes is a common misconception. This idea was used to promote lamp sales in the 1950s.
30. December 25th wasn't celebrated as the birthday of Jesus until after 440 AD.
31. There is a temple in Sri Lanka dedicated to a tooth of the Buddha.
32. Justinian, probably the greatest emperor to rule Byzantium, married a woman widely known as a slut.
33. Around 13,700,000 people died in battle in World War I. The highest number of casualties in war up to that point in history.
34. An average of 100 people choke on ballpoint pens every year.
35. In 1938, Adolf Hitler was Time Magazine's Man of the Year.
36. Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, had his wife's lover executed and forced her to keep his head in a jar of alcohol.
37. 50% of all people who get married, get divorced.
38. There is a direct correlation between the amount of ice cream sold and the number of murders during the months in a year.
39. A typical mayfly only lives for one day.
40. If you give a scorpion alchohol, it will go insane and sting itself to death.
41. Cleopatra was of Macedonian descent.
42. A third of the world converted to Islam in a century.
43. There is no rice in rice paper.
44. 1964 was the last time American Green cards were actually green.
45. Liposuction was invented in 1974 by an Italian gynecologist.
46. The Fourth Crusade was fought against Christians. The crusaders sacked Constantiople and installed a Latin emperor there.
47. The Pilgrims refused to eat lobsters because they thought they were really large insects.
48. Like humans, male monkeys lose the hair on the top of their heads.
49. About 11,000 Americans injure themselves every year attempting strange sexual positions.
50. A person will die after about ten days without sleep.

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