Facts About Abraham Lincoln - strangefacts

• Abraham Lincoln had a wart on his face

• Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated

• Two United States navy ships have been named after Abraham Lincoln

• Abraham Lincoln went to school for less than a year. He taught himself to read and write

• Before winning the election in 1860, Abraham Lincoln lost eight elections for various offices

• A short time before Abraham Lincoln's assassination, he dreamed he was going to die, and he related his dream to the Senate

• The Lincoln penny was the first U.S. coin to feature a historic figure. President Abraham Lincoln has been on the penny since 1909

• Abraham Lincoln's political experience before he became president was a two year term in the House of Representatives

• Abraham Lincoln's mother died when she drank the milk of a cow that grazed on poisonous snakeroot

• Abraham Lincoln created a national banking system with the National Banking Act in 1863, resulting in a standardized currency

Facts About Lightning - strangefacts

• The odds of being struck by lightning are about 600,000 to one

• Lightning travels at speed of up to 100 fps or 72 million mph

• The United States city with the highest rate of lightning strikes per capita is Clearwater

• A person that is struck by lightning has a greater chance of developing motor neurone disease

• In November 1999, two women were killed by a lightning bolt. The underwire located in their bras acted as a electrical conductors

• Green Bay Packers backup quarterback, Matt Hasselbeck, has been struck by lightning twice in his life
• Men are four times more likely to be struck by lightning than women

• Contrary to popular belief, lightning travels from the ground upwards not from the sky downwards

• A person standing under an oak tree is 16 more times liable to be hit by lightning than if he had taken refuge beneath a beech tree. The oak tree has vertical roots which provide a more direct route to ground water.

Facts About Population - strangefacts

• In Uganda half the population is under 15

• The world’s population has been increased 3.1 billion in last 40 years

• Approximately one-third of the population can't snap their fingers!

• The minority population of Los Angeles County, California (7,000,000 people) is larger than the total population of 38 states

• Loving County, Texas is the emptiest county in the United States. The population in 2004 was 52 people. Yet it still received $30,000 in anti-terrorism funds from Homeland Security

                                                     

• In 2030, almost half of the United States' population growth will be in three states: California, Florida and Texas.

• The world population of chickens is about equal to the number of people

• The world's population grows by 100 million each year. Some 950 million people in the world are malnourished

• 5% of the world population lives in the US but 22% of the world's prisons population are held in the US

• In 1800 on 50 cities on earth had a population of more than 100,000

• Medical reports show that about 18% of the population are prone to sleepwalking

Facts About Pakistan - strangefacts

• Pakistan has the world’s largest irrigation system.

• Thar desert of Pakistan is one of the largest in the world.

• Worlds largest deep sea port is located in Gwader, Baluchistan.

•  Doctors removed a kidney stone weighing 620 g (21. 87 oz) at the Nephro-Urology Chandka Medical College Hospital, Sindh,Pakistan, on June 24 2008.

• Pakistan has 7th largest collection of scientists and engineers in the world.

• Pakistan had the first woman leader of a Muslim country in modern history.

• In Pakistan, a bridegroom wears garlands of money given to him by his relatives on his wedding day.

• The heaviest weight lifted using only the ear is 73 kg (160 lb 15 oz) by Zafar Gill (Pakistan), who lifted gym weights hanging from a clamp attached to his right ear in Lahore, Pakistan, on January 3, 2009.

• The smallest published Koran book measures 1.7 cm × 1.28 cm × 0.72 cm (0.66 in × 0.50 in × 0.28 in). It is published in an unabridged, bound version, in fine print Arabic and is 571 pages long.The book was published in Cairo in 1982 and is owned by Dr. Muhammad Saeed Karim Beebani of Pakistan.

• World’s second largest salt mine can be found in Khewra Mines. 

• The white fields of Pakistan’s national flag represent minorities in the country, while the green symbolizes the Muslim majority. 

Facts About Africa - strangefacts

• An estimated 690 million people live in Africa

• Niger Africa has the world's highest fertility rate - 7.1 children per mother

• Some African tribes refer to themselves as "motherhoods" instead of families

• The first African-American to receive a Nobel Peace Prize was Ralph J. Bunche in 1950

• Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%. Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

• Guatamalan women work 11.5 hours a day, while South African men work only 4.5

• 3000 children die every day in Africa because of malaria

• African Baobab tree's circumference can reach 180 feet. If the trunk is hollow, 20 people would be able to fit inside of it

• Idi Amin, the former dictator of Uganda and the former heavyweight boxing champion of Uganda was one of Africa's most notorious dictators with an estimated 500,000 people disappeared or were killed during his eight year rule

Facts About Hurricane - strangefacts

• The odds are 1 out of 8 (11.63%) that you live in an area threatened by an Atlantic hurricane.

• The Atlantic Ocean’s hurricane season peaks from mid-August to late October and averages five to six hurricanes per year.

• Key West has not been directly hit by a hurricane since 1919.

• In 1281, the Mongol army of Kublai Khan tried to invade Japan but were ravaged by a hurricane that destroyed their fleet.

• Hurricanes are giant, spiraling tropical storms that can pack wind speeds of over 160 miles (257 kilometers) an hour and unleash more than 2.4 trillion gallons (9 trillion liters) of rain a day.

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced in 1978 that it would alternate men's and women's names in the naming of hurricanes. It was seen as an attempt at fair play.

• Hurricanes had been named for women for years, until NOAA succumbed to pressure from women's groups who were demanding that Atlantic storms be given unisex names.

Facts About Tornado - strangefacts

• In 1974 there were 90 tornadoes in the U.S. in one day

• Tornadoes can and do form at any time of the day and year

• Over the last 50 years in the United States, approximately 9,000 people have died as a result of tornadoes, 5,000 as the result of floods, and 4,000 as the result of hurricanes

• A tornado forms when changes in wind speed and direction create a horizontal spinning effect within a storm cell. This effect is then tipped vertical by rising air moving up through the thunderclouds.

• Today the average warning time for a tornado alert is 13 minutes.

• Violent tornadoes comprise only about two percent of all tornadoes, but they cause 70 percent of all tornado deaths and may last an hour or more.

• "Tornado Alley," a region that includes eastern South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, northern Texas, and eastern Colorado, is home to the most powerful and destructive of these storms. U.S. tornadoes cause 80 deaths and more than 1,500 injuries per year.

• The tornado in The Wizard of Oz was a 35 foot long muslin stocking

Facts About Dolphins - strangefacts

• Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.

• Dolphins are very intelligent and learn quickly. They pick up tricks faster than dogs. Dolphins rank # 2 in animal intelligence behind chimpanzees.

• Dolphin calves are born tail first and must swim to the surface of the water for air. The mother dolphin will help push her baby to the surface to get that first breath.

• The spinner dolphin spins on its tail in the air before splashing back into the water.

• The Dolphin family has 36 species. The largest is the orca, or killer whale at 23 feet long and 4.5 tons. The smallest is the Heaviside’s dolphin, only 3 1/2 feet long and 88 pounds.

• Some types of dolphins must rise to the surface to breathe every 20 to 30 seconds while others can hold their breath as long as 30 minutes.

• The Dolphin family has 36 species. The largest is the orca, or killer whale at 23 feet long and 4.5 tons. The smallest is the Heaviside’s dolphin, only 3 1/2 feet long and 88 pounds.

• The annual global by-catch mortality of small whales, dolphins and porpoises alone is estimated to be more than 300,000 individuals.

Facts About Human Body - strangefacts

• The heart pumps about 1 million barrels of blood during an average lifetime- that's enough to fill more than 3 super tankers.

• If you took all the human urine produced in the world in one day, it would take a full 20 minutes for it to flow over Niagara Falls.

• If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his lifetime.

• If you took all the approximately 60,000 miles of blood vessels out of a human body and laid them end-to-end, they would stretch around the world twice .

• There are nealy 45 miles of nerves running through our bodies .

• The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia Britannica.

• It would take a person typing 60 words per minute, eight hours a day, around 50 years to type the human genome.

• The speed of message transmission to the brain can be as high as 180 miles per hour.

• During his or her lifetime, the average human will grown 590 miles of hair.

• The average human produces a quart of saliva a day or 10,000 gallons in a lifetime.

Facts About Grasslands - strangefacts

• The animals that live in temperate grasslands have adapted to the dry, windy conditions

• The majority of grasslands are found around the tropics and the Grasslands cover one-fifth of the land on Earth

• Grassland areas have two seasons: a growing season and a dormant season. During the dormant season, no grass can grow because it is too cold

• Natural grasslands are; the savannahs of Africa, the North American prairies, and in southern USSR-the dry steppes

• Semi-natural grasslands are where the forest has been cleared and grazing, cutting or burning maintains the grass cover. Tending to be more productive most South and South-East Asian grasslands are semi-natural grasslands.

• The temperate grassland soil contains a lot of organic material (more than the tropical).

• Grasses in tropical grasslands tend to grow taller and faster than grasses in cooler regions

• Tropical grasslands are regions in the tropics where there is not enough rain half the year for trees to grow

• When rainy season arrives, many grasslands become coated with flowers, some of which can survive well into winter with the help of underground storage organs and thick stem bases

• Most tropical grasslands are scattered with bushes, shrubs and trees. In Africa, hardy broad-leaved trees such as curatella and byrsonima are typical

• Temperate grasslands, which average between 10 and 30 inches (25 and 75 centimeters) of rain per year, have shorter grasses, sometimes just a few millimeters

• No other habitat is as agriculturally useful to humans as grasslands. Soils tend to be deep and fertile, perfect for cropland or pastures