Page 1, Position 0: "There are 1
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/Just-1411-tigers-in-India/articleshow/2777803.cms
Page 1, Position 2: The Greek for ‘left-handed’ also means ‘better’.
http://www.anythinglefthanded.co.uk/lh-info/left-handed-language.html
Page 1, Position 3: The ‘Heil Hitler’ salute is legal in Switzerland as long as it’s an expression of personal opinion.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/it-s-the-law--hitler-salute-is-not-always-a-crime/38682072
Page 1, Position 4: Qatar is the only country that begins with a Q and Iraq is the only country that ends with one.
http://www.un.org/en/members/
Page 2, Position 1: The letter Q was illegal in Turkey for 85 years.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/10/16/yasmine-seale/q-v-k/
Page 2, Position 2: Dildos are illegal in Texas.
http://www.dallascriminaldefenselawyerblog.com/2008/10/are-dildos-illegal-in-texas-ag.html
Page 2, Position 3: Snake charming is illegal in India.
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/beaten-track/news-snake-charmer-gypsy-life-awesome-performer
Page 2, Position 4: In New Zealand, snakes of any kind are illegal.
http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/media/07-09-11/snakes-dont-belong-in-nz
Page 3, Position 1: In the Second World War, the Allies had a plan to drop boxes of poisonous snakes on enemy troops.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/8701034/Revealed-sex-hormone-plan-to-feminise-Hitler.html
Page 3, Position 2: On D-Day, J. D. Salinger fought with six chapters of The Catcher in the Rye in his backpack.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/10874340/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-D-Day-landings.html
Page 3, Position 3: Charles Darwin let his children use the original manuscript of On the Origin of Species as drawing paper.
http://www.openculture.com/2013/10/charles-darwins-son-doodles-on-the-origin-of-species.html
Page 3, Position 4: Charles Dickens’s family had a cat, seven dogs, two ravens, a canary called Dick and a pony called Newman Noggs.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/04/chekhovs-mongoose-the-literary-figures-with-the-weirdest-obsessions/275302/
Page 4, Position 1: Theodore Roosevelt had guinea pigs called Admiral Dewey, Bishop Doane, Dr Johnson, Father O’Grady and Fighting Bob Evans, and a small bear called Jonathan Edwards.
http://www.nps.gov/thrb/historyculture/the-roosevelt-pets.htm
Page 4, Position 2: Anton Chekhov had a pet mongoose.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/04/chekhovs-mongoose-the-literary-figures-with-the-weirdest-obsessions/275302/
Page 4, Position 3: In 1849, the Viceroy of Egypt gave London Zoo a hippo in exchange for a greyhound.
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/pointsofview/themes/beginnings/hippo/
Page 4, Position 4: There are more plastic flamingos in the US than real flamingos.
http://www.nextnature.net/2008/05/plastic-flamingos-saved-from-extinction/
Page 5, Position 1: There are more statues of lions in the world than there are real lions.
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/07/30/show-your-lion-pride-on-world-lion-day/
Page 5, Position 2: Two-thirds of the world’s polar bears live in Canada.
http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/dec12/polar_bears3.asp
Page 5, Position 3: When Canada held a competition to design its national flag, more than 10% of the entries featured a beaver.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/50022/11-rejected-canadian-flag-designs
Page 5, Position 4: The biggest dam built by beavers is twice as long as the Hoover Dam.
http://phys.org/news192356462.html
Page 6, Position 1: There is enough concrete in the Hoover Dam to build a road across the US from coast to coast.
http://magazine.nature.org/features/watered-down.xml
Page 6, Position 2: The first motor insurance policy issued by Lloyd’s of London described the car as a ‘ship navigating on land’.
http://www.lloyds.com/lloyds/about-us/history/innovation-and-unusual-risks/pioneers-of-travel
Page 6, Position 3: The first fatal car accident in the UK was caused by a driver going at 4 mph.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10987606
Page 6, Position 4: 6% of drivers deliberately swerve to kill animals.
http://editorial.autos.msn.com/blogs/autosblogpost.aspx?post=834f6c81-3815-4856-8199-ce70f480fdd8
Page 7, Position 1: You are 20 times more likely to die in an accident at home than you are to win the National Lottery.
http://www.rospa.com/homesafety/adviceandinformation/general/facts-figures.aspx
Page 7, Position 2: In 2007, 210,000 Americans were injured by lawnmowers.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080603091342.htm
Page 7, Position 3: The lawnmower is the most dangerous item in the garden. The second most dangerous is the flowerpot.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/safety_prevent_accidents.shtml
Page 7, Position 4: When Edwin Beard Budding invented the lawnmower, he tested it at night so no one would think he was mad.
http://www.lawnmowerworld.co.uk
Page 8, Position 1: Using a petrol-driven lawnmower for one hour produces as much air pollution as a 100-mile car trip.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98532
Page 8, Position 2: It is illegal in Chicago for lawns to have weeds more than 10 inches tall.
http://www.epa.gov/greenacres/weedlaws/JMLR.html
Page 8, Position 3: Plants suffer from sexually transmitted diseases.
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/07/wildflowers-can-get-stds-and-this-app-wants-you-to-help-track-one
Page 8, Position 4: Orchids can get jet lag.
Chamovitz, Daniel, What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses of Your Garden - and Beyond (Oneworld Publications, 1 May 2012), p.23
Page 9, Position 1: In Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, there is only one flower shop.
The Week, 9 Oct 2013
Page 9, Position 2: There is only one stop sign in the whole of Paris.
http://www.thelocal.fr/20121004/paris-only-has-one-stop-sign-police
Page 9, Position 3: The name sign of the town of Lost in Aberdeenshire is the only one in Britain that is welded to its pole.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3720848.stm
Page 9, Position 4: Female strawberry poison frogs have only one way of choosing a male to mate with: which one is closest.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3665588/
Page 10, Position 1: A male capuchin monkey will have sex with any female that throws a stone at him.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0079535
Page 10, Position 2: In 2003, Morocco offered Iraq 2,000 monkeys to help them detonate mines.
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2003/03/24/Morocco-offers-US-monkeys-to-detonate-mine/UPI-14431048506179/
Page 10, Position 3: The Burmese sneezing monkey sneezes uncontrollably whenever it rains.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/cambridgeshire/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_9132000/9132410.stm
Page 10, Position 4: 5% of cats are allergic to humans.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/4763132/Pets-are-allergic-to-the-hand-that-feeds-them.html
Page 11, Position 1: Napoleon, Mussolini and Hitler were all scared of cats.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2004/nov/06/weekend.justinehankins
Page 11, Position 2: If cats don’t encounter people by the time they’re 10 weeks old, they will always be scared of them.
http://www.appliedanimalbehaviour.com/article/0168-1591(95)00603-P/abstract
Page 11, Position 3: Human beings have as many brain cells in their stomachs as cats have in their brains.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18779997
Page 11, Position 4: A cat’s brain can store 1,000 times more data than an iPad.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/computers-vs-brains/
Page 12, Position 1: The human brain has the same percentage of fat as clotted cream.
http://www.joyofbaking.com/Cream.html"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20329590
Page 12, Position 2: Camel urine is as thick as syrup.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=1012&sid=20657666
Page 12, Position 3: Whale milk has the consistency of toothpaste.
http://www.whalefacts.org/whale-milk/
Page 12, Position 4: Toothpaste is addictive for bears but toxic to dogs.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/635158539/Yum-Utah-bear-likes-toothpaste.html?pg=all"http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/dog-care/ten-steps-your-dogs-dental-health
Page 13, Position 1: New-car smell is toxic to humans.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121119173754.htm"http://web.archive.org/web/20070804042143/http://www.csiro.au/files/mediaRelease/mr2001/newcars.htm
Page 13, Position 2: The human nose can recognise over 1,000,000,000,000 different smells.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/20/human-nose-detect-1-trillion-smells-odours
Page 13, Position 3: You can tell if a duck has bird flu by smelling its droppings.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131016212439.htm
Page 13, Position 4: The smell of a man is as stressful to mice as a three-minute swim. The smell of women doesn’t bother them.
http://phys.org/news/2014-04-scent-mice-rats-stressed-male.html
Page 14, Position 1: Women have been awarded only four of the 406 George Crosses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cross
Page 14, Position 2: Until the First World War, offices for women had separate entrances and staircases, for reasons of ‘morality’.
Financial Times, 20 July 2013
Page 14, Position 3: Women weren’t allowed to serve on Royal Navy submarines until 2011.
http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/News-and-Events/Latest-News/2011/December/08/111208-HW-Submarines-Females
Page 14, Position 4: Girls in the UK have been getting higher grades than boys at school and university for nearly a century.
http://time.com/81355/girls-beat-boys-in-every-subject-and-they-have-for-a-century/
Page 15, Position 1: Female students in China outperform men to such an extent that some universities have introduced a male quota.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/world/asia/08iht-educlede08.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Page 15, Position 2: There are enough empty homes in China for everyone in the UK to have one each.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/more-than-1-in-5-homes-in-chinese-cities-are-empty-survey-says-1402484499
Page 15, Position 3: If they were countries, the Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan and Jiangsu would be among the world’s 20 most populous.
http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/08/a-surprising-map-of-the-world-shows-just-how-big-chinas-population-is/278691/
Page 15, Position 4: China gets a new skyscraper every five days.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8562782/China-to-get-new-skyscraper-every-five-days-for-three-years.html
Page 16, Position 1: China is the world’s largest consumer of red wine.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/chinese-overtake-french-as-top-red-wine-drinkers-9093682.html
Page 16, Position 2: More wine is drunk per head in Vatican City than any other country on Earth.
http://www.wineinstitute.org/files/2010_Per_Capita_Wine_Consumption_by_Country.pdf
Page 16, Position 3: The crew of the Marie Celeste left 1,700 barrels of alcohol behind them.
BBC History, Dec 2013
Page 16, Position 4: Between 1908 and 1965, Winston Churchill drank 42,000 bottles of champagne.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/virals/10304107/top-viral-stories-and-funny-virals.html
Page 17, Position 1: By the time a glass of champagne goes flat, two million bubbles will have popped.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-science-of-champagne-the-bubbling-wine-created-by-accident-20961157/
Page 17, Position 2: In Beijing, two million people live underground.
http://qz.com/75039/in-beijing-housing-is-so-expensive-that-migrant-workers-are-living-in-bomb-shelters/
Page 17, Position 3: In 1870, two million rabbits were killed every year in Australia, all descended from just 24 released in 1859.
http://www.montana.edu/kalinowski/BIOL103/Lectures/BIOE%20103%20-%2007%20-%20Population%20growth%20-%202014.pdf"http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/04/08/2538860.htm
Page 17, Position 4: The soil in your back garden is two million years old.
http://passel.unl.edu/pages/informationmodule.php?idinformationmodule=1130447038&topicorder=2&maxto=10
Page 18, Position 1: Oxford University was over 300 years old when the Aztec Empire was founded.
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1y5f2a/what_are_two_events_that_took_place_in_the_same/?limit=500
Page 18, Position 2: When Harvard University was founded, Galileo was still alive.
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/nov/06/research.highereducation
Page 18, Position 3: Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day in 1809.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-lincoln-and-darwin-shaped-the-modern-world-45447280/
Page 18, Position 4: In 1941, there were only 11 democracies in the world.
The Economist, 1 Mar 2014
Page 19, Position 1: When the Pyramids were built woolly mammoths still roamed the Earth.
http://www.heritagedaily.com/2013/11/mammoths-still-walked-the-earth-when-the-great-pyramids-were-being-built/100307
Page 19, Position 2: Sir Bruce Forsyth is four months older than sliced bread.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliced_bread"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Forsyth
Page 19, Position 3: The Radio Times is 12 days older than Nicholas Parsons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Times"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Parsons
Page 19, Position 4: Nobody knows how old the Grand Canyon is.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24941-grand-canyon-is-a-sprightly-young-6millionyearold.html
Page 20, Position 1: From 1974 to 1976, Shirley Temple was US Ambassador to Ghana.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/shirley-temple-iconic-child-star-dies-85
Page 20, Position 2: Shirley Temple always had exactly 56 curls in her hair.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/shirley-temple-iconic-child-star-dies-85
Page 20, Position 3: An acersecomic is a person who has never had a haircut.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-ace1.htm
Page 20, Position 4: Wealthy ancient Egyptians slept with neck supports rather than pillows to preserve their hairstyles.
Brunner, Bernd, The art of lying down, (Melville House, 2013)
Page 21, Position 1: The average person in Coventry sleeps for 6 hours and 5 minutes a night.
The Week, 31 Aug 2013
Page 21, Position 2: Two-thirds of parents who sing their children to sleep prefer pop music to lullabies.
The Week, 16 Nov 2013
Page 21, Position 3: People in Britain who wake in the middle of the night are most likely to do it at 3.44 a.m.
New Scientist, 30 Nov 2013
Page 21, Position 4: One o’clock in the morning is the peak time for moth activity.
New Scientist, 30 Nov 2013
Page 22, Position 1: There are 2,500 species of moth in the UK but only 60 species of butterfly.
New Scientist, 7 Sep 2013
Page 22, Position 2: The greater wax moth can hear sounds that are more high-pitched than any known animal can make.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23501-zoologger-the-moth-with-the-highestpitched-hearing.html
Page 22, Position 3: Humans speak more languages than there are species of mammal.
New Scientist, 11 Dec 2012
Page 22, Position 4: The more rivers an area has, the more languages will evolve there.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/rivers-and-mountains-directly-shape-languages-140414.htm
Page 23, Position 1: Esperanto is the only language with no irregular verbs.
http://leisureguy.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/15-facts-about-esperanto/
Page 23, Position 2: Black Americans and white Americans have different versions of American Sign Language.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sign-language-that-african-americans-use-is-different-from-that-of-whites/2012/09/17/2e897628-bbe2-11e1-8867-ecf6cb7935ef_story_2.html
Page 23, Position 3: The sign for the female sex (ÿ) represents the hand mirror of the Roman goddess Venus.
http://www.suengsoc.com/international-womens-day-2013.html
Page 23, Position 4: The inventor of roller skates first demonstrated them by hurtling into a party while playing the violin and crashing into a huge mirror.
http://www.rollerskatingmuseum.com/homework.html
Page 24, Position 1: Police cars in Dubai can go at 267 mph.
http://www.networka.com/stories/34559/dubais-bugatti-veyron-is-worlds-fastest-police-car
Page 24, Position 2: A cheetah that sprints for more than 30 seconds can suffer brain damage.
http://extraordinary-animals.com/2013/11/11/animal-record-holder-fastest-land-animal/
Page 24, Position 3: Ladybirds can fly as fast as racehorses can run.
Sunday Telegraph, 16 Mar 2014
Page 24, Position 4: When threatened, a limpet can run away at a speed of two inches an hour.
http://www.pznow.co.uk/marine/limpets.html
Page 25, Position 1: The Chilean word achaplinarse means to run about in the style of Charlie Chaplin.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UwVYtrmBIEYC&pg=PT18&lpg=PT18&dq=Achaplinarse&source=bl&ots=UbIzqjxgNI&sig=gfZIxHk2e9u9EoG_z_Wl2OXDJ9U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DC1aU6v1LaOJ7Ab2g4CwBg&ved=0CF0Q6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=Achaplinarse&f=false
Page 25, Position 2: The Chilean word for plumber is gasfiter.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bcoxAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA505&lpg=PA505&dq=The+Chilean+word+for+plumber+is+gasfiter.&source=bl&ots=hnIcA1IDwO&sig=RdZzuDxTbkqT_LrUjL9A263dEAA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=K6jsU_CcNIHZ0QWJj4CACg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=The%20Chilean%20word%20for%20plumber%20is%20gasfiter.&f=false
Page 25, Position 3: Gavisti, the Sanskrit word for ‘war’, literally translates as ‘desire for more cows’.
http://www.academia.edu/6333330/Shastra_Sabdabodho_a_discussion_on_SANSKRIT_as_a_language_By_Prof._Aloke_Kumar_in_the_Seminar_at_the_University_of_Calcutta
Page 25, Position 4: Greece is the only country in the world whose name contains none of the letters in the word ‘Olympiads’.
http://www.state.gov/misc/list/
Page 26, Position 1: George Eyser, who won three golds, two silvers and a bronze at the 1904 Olympics, had a wooden leg.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/how-a-guy-with-a-wooden-leg-won-6-olympic-medals/260988/
Page 26, Position 2: Olympic medal-winners live almost three years longer than the rest of us.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2014/01/30/want-live-three-years-longer-just-win-olympic-medal
Page 26, Position 3: Sports journalists were banned from the first modern Olympics as they were considered to be professional sportspeople.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=buIzAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA328&lpg=PA328&dq=%22PE+teachers%22+olympics+amateur&source=bl&ots=c5mNHfuAJv&sig=o7Uo6akDfHIO52oVfpntQ-Jr1VU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2OdwU4q4Goa-OcCggJgO&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22PE%20teachers%22%20olympics%20amateur&f=false
Page 26, Position 4: Michael Phelps has won more Olympic golds than India, Nigeria, North Korea, Portugal, Taiwan and Thailand combined.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/datablog/2012/aug/01/if-michael-phelps-were-a-country
Page 27, Position 1: Olympic swimmers routinely pee in the pool.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/swimming/9457088/Michael-Phelps-admits-we-do-pee-in-the-pool.html
Page 27, Position 2: In wine-tasting, a ‘cat-pee aroma’ is a compliment.
http://www.timatkin.com/corktalk?570
Page 27, Position 3: Tomcat urine smells like cheddar cheese.
http://blog.oup.com/2014/04/facts-you-never-knew-about-cheese/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=oupblog#sthash.TjvlHjTu.dpuf
Page 27, Position 4: Cheese is the most shoplifted food in the UK.
http://news.sky.com/story/892259/cheese-is-most-stolen-food-item-says-report
Page 28, Position 1: Americans eat three times as much cheese as they did in 1970.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/?p=3416#.UlU-uxYTNz8
Page 28, Position 2: Americans eat nine times more broccoli than they did in 1970.
http://www.agday.org/education/fun_facts.php
Page 28, Position 3: 1 in 8 Americans have worked at McDonald’s.
http://www.businessinsider.com/19-facts-about-mcdonalds-that-will-blow-your-mind-2012-4?op=1
Page 28, Position 4: 1 in 10 Americans think HTML is a sexually transmitted disease.
http://www.geekosystem.com/html-std/
Page 29, Position 1: In 2011, the United Nations declared that access to the Internet is a basic human right.
http://techland.time.com/2011/06/07/united-nations-report-declares-internet-access-a-human-right/
Page 29, Position 2: The original purpose of the United Nations was to win the Second World War.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-united-nations-is-born
Page 29, Position 3: The name ‘United Nations’ was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s idea. He rushed to tell Winston Churchill, who was towelling himself stark naked in his bathroom.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kzrFOhXDp5wC&pg=PA477&lpg=PA477&dq=roosevelt+churchill+%22united+nations%22+bathroom&source=bl&ots=qtLshzEOAO&sig=ZrmJa5_JwuNS_RVg05dVNKuXM1c&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EqrsU6zAKIOc0QWK44DgBA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=roosevelt%20churchill%20%22united%20nations%22%20bathroom&f=false
Page 29, Position 4: When catering staff at the UN went on strike in 2003, $10,000 worth of food and silverware was stolen.
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,449436,00.html
Page 30, Position 1: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon celebrated his election by singing ‘Ban Ki-moon Is Coming to Town’ to the tune of ‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town’.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6adcc176-9617-11db-9976-0000779e2340.html
Page 30, Position 2: ‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town’ was first sung in November 1934. By Christmas, it had sold 400,000 copies.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3RSyiTfo3QIC&pg=PA45&dq=santa+claus+coming+to+town+400,000+copies&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_-kiVK3OFuHC7gb6nICQDA&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 30, Position 3: Every Christmas Day, 400,000 Britons go out to a shop to buy batteries.
The Guardian, 21 Dec 13
Page 30, Position 4: The waste produced at Christmas each year in Britain would fill 400,000 double-decker buses.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4122729.stm
Page 31, Position 1: Little Richard was a washer-up at a bus station.
http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/men-of-the-year/home/winners-2010/gq-men-of-the-year-2010-little-richard-legend/viewall
Page 31, Position 2: Edward Elgar was the bandmaster in a lunatic asylum.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-26415111
Page 31, Position 3: Leo Fender couldn’t play the guitar.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/204186/Leo-Fender
Page 31, Position 4: Rapper Ice-T’s real name is Tracy Lauren Marrow.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001384/
Page 32, Position 1: Johnny Cash’s estate once refused permission for his hit ‘Ring of Fire’ to be used in a commercial for haemorrhoid cream.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3498749.stm
Page 32, Position 2: The original advertisement to recruit band members for the Village People read: ‘Macho types wanted: must have moustache.’
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/disco-era-greats-the-village-people-set-record-straight/story-fnb64oi6-1226499595022
Page 32, Position 3: Coldplay used to be called Starfish.
http://www.virginmedia.com/music/features/coldplay-facts.php?page=1
Page 32, Position 4: Oasis are named after a leisure centre in Swindon.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/diary/diary-liam-returns-to-the-oasis-2347709.html
Page 33, Position 1: There are more people living in mobile homes in the US than live in the whole of the Netherlands.
The Week 28 Sep 2013
Page 33, Position 2: According to Julius Caesar, the most civilised people in Britain lived in Kent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantiaci
Page 33, Position 3: A 2011 opinion poll found that 51% of Britons want the reinstatement of the death penalty.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14402195
Page 33, Position 4: 20% of the world’s CCTV is in Britain.
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2012/02/21/revealed-how-much-local-councils-spend-on-cctv
Page 34, Position 1: There are more CCTV cameras in the Shetland Islands than in San Francisco.
http://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/215388/CCTV-Britain-Why-are-we-the-most-spied-on-country-in-the-world
Page 34, Position 2: The word ‘British’ is the most common word used by people in the UK searching the Internet for porn.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/online/porn-trends-in-the-uk-pornhub-reveals-what-we-search-for-9045862.html
Page 34, Position 3: The annual awards ceremony of the UK porn industry is called the SHAFTAs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_and_Hard_Adult_Film_and_Television_Awards
Page 34, Position 4: Until 1910, film studios didn’t credit actors in case they asked for more money.
https://movies.yahoo.com/news/mary-pickford-film-found-nh-barn-restored-060155625.html
Page 35, Position 1: 71% of Oscar-winners’ tears have been shed since 1995.
http://www.livescience.com/27359-tears-flow-academy-awards-speeches.html
Page 35, Position 2: Oscar Hammerstein II is the only Oscar ever to win an Oscar.
http://www.imdb.com/news/ni56657227/
Page 35, Position 3: Harvey Weinstein of Miramax has been thanked 12 times at the Oscars – once more than God.
http://www.livescience.com/27359-tears-flow-academy-awards-speeches.html
Page 35, Position 4: Nigeria is the world’s third-largest movie-producing country but has only eight cinemas.
http://www.economist.com/node/7226009"http://impakt.nl/archive/2012/blog-2012/nollywood-vs-the-world/
Page 36, Position 1: Luxembourg is the only country in the world ruled by a Grand Duke.
http://www.royalty.nu/Europe/Luxembourg.html
Page 36, Position 2: The appropriate response to ‘How are you?’ in Luxembourgish is ‘Tip-Top’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt7luAXrmmw
Page 36, Position 3: The English word ‘squirrel’ is particularly difficult for Germans to pronounce.
http://www.livescience.com/18932-germans-squirrel.html
Page 36, Position 4: The most difficult tongue-twister in English is ‘pad kid poured curd pulled cod’.
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/12/05/mit-tongue-twister-trickiest-to-say/
Page 37, Position 1: The giant palm salamander can stick its tongue out 50 times faster than you can blink.
http://www.livescience.com/1330-world-explosive-tongue.html
Page 37, Position 2: The eyes of a giant squid are the size of basketballs.
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/15/148694025/just-how-big-are-the-eyes-of-a-giant-squid
Page 37, Position 3: 90% of all jellyfish are smaller than a human thumbnail.
http://www.discoverwildlife.com/animals/8-things-you-didnt-know-about-jellyfish
Page 37, Position 4: Jellyfish born on the Columbia space shuttle suffered from vertigo when they returned to Earth.
http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/space-born-jellyfish-hate-life-earth
Page 38, Position 1: The idea that sitting too close to the TV is bad for your eyes was started by a lamp manufacturer.
Dickson, Paul, and Goulden, Joseph, Myth-informed (Perigee, 1993)
Page 38, Position 2: René Descartes had a fetish for cross-eyed women.
http://www.britannica.com/shakespeare/article-43355
Page 38, Position 3: Reindeer have golden eyes in summer and blue eyes in winter.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/29/why-are-reindeer-eyes-golden-in-summer-but-blue-in-winter/
Page 38, Position 4: Rats get more depressed in summer than in winter.
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/longer_days_bring_winter_bluesfor_rats_not_humans
Page 39, Position 1: The smell of freshly cut grass is a plant distress call.
http://www.livescience.com/22241-sensor-could-detect-plant-distress-signals.html
Page 39, Position 2: In 2012, the fifth-oldest tree in the world was burned down by a crystal-meth addict.
http://blogs.ajc.com/news-to-me/2012/02/29/meth-user-burns-5th-oldest-tree-in-the-world/
Page 39, Position 3: The second episode of the The Muppets was called ‘Sex and Violence’.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/spout/guest-post-10-unknown-facts-about-the-muppets
Page 39, Position 4: In some parts of Germany, it is illegal to show The Life of Brian on Good Friday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23227452
Page 40, Position 1: The first Academy Award for Best Picture in 1927 featured an all-male kiss.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_(1927_film)
Page 40, Position 2: Sexmoan, a small fishing town in the Philippines, changed its name in 1991 to Sasmuan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasmuan
Page 40, Position 3: The Lego company was originally called Billund Maskinsnedkeri.
Smithsonian magazine, May 2013
Page 40, Position 4: By 2019, there will be more Lego figures on Earth than people.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financevideo/10622362/How-Lego-built-more-Lego-people-than-real-people-on-earth.html
Page 41, Position 1: There are more than 915,000,000 ways to combine six standard Lego bricks.
http://www.math.ku.dk/~eilers/LIFE5UK.pdf
Page 41, Position 2: There are about 294,000,000,000,000 leaves in the world; for every leaf there are 340 ants.
http://everything2.com/title/Number+of+Ants+in+the+world+vs.+Number+of+Leaves
Page 41, Position 3: If you feed silkworms mulberry leaves sprayed with pink fabric dye, they make pink silk.
http://www.popsci.com.au/science/scientists-color-silk-by-feeding-silkworms-fabric-dyes,380567
Page 41, Position 4: Until the 19th century, champagne was pink and had no bubbles.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/01/9-word-facts-champagne
Page 42, Position 1: UK house spiders include the Pink Prowler, the Spitting Spider and the Missing Sector Orb Weaver.
http://wiki.britishspiders.org.uk/index.php5?title=Spiders_in_the_House
Page 42, Position 2: 95% of the spiders in your house have never been outside.
http://www.burkemuseum.org/spidermyth/myths/comein.html
Page 42, Position 3: The daddy-long-legs flosses after meals by pulling each of its eight legs through its jaws.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/kids/animals-pets-kids/bugs-kids/spider-daddylonglegs-kids/
Page 42, Position 4: Frogs’ legs were eaten in Britain for 7,000 years before they were eaten in France.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-24522240
Page 43, Position 1: French toast is thousands of years older than France.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_toast
Page 43, Position 2: Lake Baikal in Russia is a thousand times older than any other lake on Earth.
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2009/dec/13/siberia-baikal-mike-carter-travel-russia?page=3
Page 43, Position 3: If the rest of the planet’s fresh water disappeared, there would be enough left in Lake Baikal to supply humanity for 50 years.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10392527/John-F-Kennedys-missing-brain-may-have-been-taken-by-younger-brother-claims-new-book.html
Page 43, Position 4: Modern humans evolved 80,000 years after javelins were invented.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131126-oldest-javelins-stone-weapons-projectiles-human-evolution-science/
Page 44, Position 1: Anne Boleyn was the only British monarch beheaded with a sword.
http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/behead.html
Page 44, Position 2: The three Russian cosmonauts whose spacecraft depressurised just before re-entry in 1971 are the only human beings to have died outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
http://www.space.com/23182-gravity-film-worst-space-disasters.html
Page 44, Position 3: In space you can cry but your tears won’t fall, they just puddle up under your eye.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/9988194/Astronaut-shows-what-happens-to-tears-in-space.html
Page 44, Position 4: If all the salt in the oceans were spread evenly over the land, it would be 500 feet deep.
http://www.savethesea.org/STS%20ocean_facts.htm
Page 45, Position 1: Eels can live inside sharks’ hearts.
http://deepseanews.com/2013/10/ill-see-your-horrifying-crab-barnacle-and-raise-you-a-heart-eel/
Page 45, Position 2: Whales’ vaginas can be large enough to walk through.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2014/06/11/getting-to-know-whale-vaginas-in-seven-steps/
Page 45, Position 3: Grey whales always mate in a threesome: two males to one female.
http://www.marinebio.net/marinescience/05nekton/GWlagoons.htm
Page 45, Position 4: Male squirrels can perform fellatio on themselves.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2010/09/28/squirrels-masturbate-to-avoid-sexually-transmitted-infections/
Page 46, Position 1: The Empress Josephine had a pet orang-utan that joined her for dinner dressed in a white cotton blouse.
http://www.apsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/APS-OPS-Ch03-Chevallier-Preprint.pdf
Page 46, Position 2: A salamander can have its brain removed, cut into slices, shuffled, minced, put back in again and still function as normal.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.129.2330&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Page 46, Position 3: As soon as they find a rock to anchor themselves to, young sea squirts eat their own brains.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/choke/201207/how-humans-learn-lessons-the-sea-squirt
Page 46, Position 4: Two-thirds of an octopus’s brain is in its limbs.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ten-curious-facts-about-octopuses-7625828/?no-ist
Page 47, Position 1: A stressed or sick octopus will sometimes bite its own limbs off.
http://www.tonmo.com/community/pages/octopus-suicide/
Page 47, Position 2: The world record holder of the longest accurate archery shot has no arms.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/913412-matt-stutzman-shatters-world-arching-record-despite-being-born-without-arms
Page 47, Position 3: In 1986, Michael Foot’s appointment as chair of a disarmament committee prompted The Times headline: ‘Foot Heads Arms Body’.
http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2010/mar/05/footnotes-life-michael-foot
Page 47, Position 4: The body of the sea otter has a pouch across the front where it keeps rocks to break open shellfish.
http://oceantoday.noaa.gov/seaottersanatomy/
Page 48, Position 1: Louis XIV’s favourite seasoning was soy sauce.
http://www.shinzen.nl/kikkoman.htm
Page 48, Position 2: The volume of soy sauce brewed in the Netherlands each year is greater than that of all the gold mined in human history.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-M5t2nXIXi4C&pg=PA2322&lpg=PA2322&dq=soy+sauce+netherlands&source=bl&ots=7IsdUdlopd&sig=aRyRGxhVaXYQR17pWA9O27YLUjA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OfciVOihAbXGsQTO6oDwCQ&ved=0CGAQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=soy%20sauce%20netherlands&f=false
Page 48, Position 3: In 2011, Australia minted a giant ‘A$1 million’ gold coin. It weighed over a ton and used gold worth A$52 million.
http://www.coinweek.com/world-coins/2012-australian-one-ton-gold-kangaroo-named-largest-most-valuable-coin-in-the-world/
Page 48, Position 4: In 1988, there were 600,000 illegal gold prospectors in Brazil.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/16/world/venezuela-s-policy-for-brazil-s-gold-miners-bullets.html
Page 49, Position 1: In Brazil, ‘Rio’ is pronounced ‘Hio’.
http://www.buuteeq.com/blog/rio-de-janeiro-travels/
Page 49, Position 2: ‘Dr Seuss’ should be pronounced ‘Dr Zoice’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/magazinemonitor/2007/04/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_20.shtml
Page 49, Position 3: The ancient Egyptian word for ‘cat’ was pronounced ‘miaow’.
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F257775773_Meow_another_name_for_Cat_Jennifer_Ball%2Ffile%2Fe0b49525d7210e60da.pdf&ei=J9LPUoOhK8nxhQfj0YGgBw&usg=AFQjCNFnXqkdbZNx6piVrzOw3NRCgjS3Ug&sig2=Gz1lbmq-2ikFhu_IyqEi7w
Page 49, Position 4: Lettuce was sacred to Min, the ancient Egyptian god of fertility, because it grew long and straight and oozed a milky substance when rubbed.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-lettuce-was-a-sacred-sex-symbol-12271795/
Page 50, Position 1: Aristotle thought small penises were better because semen got cold in large ones.
Friedman, A Mind of Its Own: A cultural history of the penis (Simon and Schuster, 4 Sep 2008)
Page 50, Position 2: Ancient Greeks declared their love for a woman by throwing an apple at her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Greek_mythology
Page 50, Position 3: Terry’s used to make a Chocolate Lemon and a Chocolate Apple.
http://www.yorkmix.com/food-drink/things-to-do-in-national-chocolate-week-2013/
Page 50, Position 4: In 1976, Ron Wayne, co-founder of Apple, sold his shares for $800; today they would be worth $35 billion.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2388674/The-unluckiest-man-world-Meet-Ron-Wayne-Apple-Incs-forgotten-founder.html
Page 51, Position 1: James and the Giant Peach was originally called James and the Giant Cherry.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jun/07/roalddahl.booksforchildrenandteenagers
Page 51, Position 2: Twister was originally called Pretzel.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/twister-inventor-dies-82-article-1.1396113
Page 51, Position 3: The Boy Scouts’ motto ‘Be prepared’ was originally followed by ‘to die for your country’.
History Today, May 2013
Page 51, Position 4: Homer’s epics were originally set to music.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24611454
Page 52, Position 1: Classical music played in restaurants increases the amount people spend on wine.
The Vegetarian, Winter 2013
Page 52, Position 2: Drinking wine before a meal makes you eat 25% more.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2014/05/15/drinking-wine-meal-makes-eat/
Page 52, Position 3: Wine drinkers pour 12% more wine into a glass they’re holding than one that’s sitting on the table.
http://www.academicwino.com/2013/09/distractions-influence-wine-pours.html/
Page 52, Position 4: ‘Response to Those who Criticise Me for Spending Money on Old Wine & Prostitutes’ is a lost work by Aristippus, a disciple of Socrates.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ADJpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA160&lpg=PA160&dq=%22Old+Wine+and+Prostitutes%22+Aristippus&source=bl&ots=yXmkRvmXwg&sig=s9okNKXiMvniv0OQ8rLRvvxpYsQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FbbsU-iDM8uy7AbnxIHYAw&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Old%20Wine%20and%20Prostitutes%22%20Aristippus&f=false
Page 53, Position 1: The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus attempted to cure a serious illness by lying in the sun covered in cow dung. He died the following day.
http://www.pantheism.net/paul/history/heraclitus.htm
Page 53, Position 2: An Egyptian cure for insanity was to eat snake meatballs under a full moon.
Brueton, Diana, Many Moons, (Fireside, 1 Oct 1992)
Page 53, Position 3: In the Himalayas, the smoke from burning millipedes is used to treat haemorrhoids.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millipede
Page 53, Position 4: Queen Elizabeth I owned two ‘unicorn horns’ that were supposed to purify water and cure sickness.
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21579429-cloisters-marks-its-75th-anniversary-celebration-unicorn-horn-plenty
Page 54, Position 1: 23 Nobel Prizes for Medicine have been won as a result of research on guinea pigs.
http://www.rds-online.org.uk/pages/page.asp?i_ToolbarID=2&i_PageID=2096
Page 54, Position 2: Eight million years ago, guinea pigs were the size of cows.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3120950.stm
Page 54, Position 3: American cows produce four times as much milk as they did in 1942.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/the-perfect-milk-machine-how-big-data-transformed-the-dairy-industry/256423/
Page 54, Position 4: British fishermen work 17 times harder than they did in the 1880s, to catch the same number of fish.
New Scientist, 16 Nov 2013
Page 55, Position 1: It’s illegal in Saudi Arabia for men to work in lingerie shops.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/9546300/Saudi-Arabia-closes-100-lingerie-shops-with-male-sales-staff.html
Page 55, Position 2: Franz Liszt was the first musician to have women’s underwear thrown at him.
http://www.cpr.org/classical/story/franz-liszt-turns-200#sthash.uR78Bcm2.dpuf
Page 55, Position 3: In 2014, a pair of underpants donated by the mayor of Brussels was stolen from the Brussels Underpants Museum.
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2014-01-22/mayor-of-brussels-underpants-stolen/
Page 55, Position 4: JFK was wearing a corset when he was shot.
History Today, Nov 13
Page 56, Position 1: Sir Alex Ferguson collects mementoes of the assassination of JFK.
London Review of Books, 9 Jan 2014
Page 56, Position 2: Hugo Chávez, former president of Venezuela, hosted the chat show Aló Presidente every Sunday from 1999 to 2012.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aló_Presidente
Page 56, Position 3: Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, the president of Turkmenistan, sacked 30 TV news staff in 2008 after a cockroach was spotted walking across the set during a bulletin.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19289547
Page 56, Position 4: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has released three pop-song albums since becoming the president of Indonesia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susilo_Bambang_Yudhoyono#Music_.2F_Discography
Page 57, Position 1: The Royal Navy uses blasts of Britney Spears’s ‘Oops! . . . I Did It Again’ to scare off Somali pirates.
The Week, 2 Nov 2103
Page 57, Position 2: 94% of terrorist campaigns fail to achieve a single one of their strategic goals.
Scientific American, Aug 2013
Page 57, Position 3: Saudi law defines atheists as terrorists.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-declares-all-atheists-are-terrorists-in-new-law-to-crack-down-on-political-dissidents-9228389.html
Page 57, Position 4: Saudi Arabia is considering stopping execution by beheading due to a shortage of official swordsmen.
http://world.time.com/2013/03/11/a-lack-of-swordsmen-may-lead-saudis-to-abolish-beheadings/
Page 58, Position 1: At his execution, Louis XVI was too fat to fit into the guillotine.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nkJqSmHcd5oC&pg=PA232&lpg=PA232&dq=louis+XVI+fat+guillotine+neck&source=bl&ots=9rsW5O6Qhp&sig=lfbBP27Y4whjOh4KBKb9DIG-OhQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=IkhBU456hcyEB7aigOAJ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=louis%20XVI%20fat%20guillotine%20neck&f=false
Page 58, Position 2: Oliver Cromwell was dug up and beheaded two years after his death.
http://www.olivercromwell.org/faqs2.htm
Page 58, Position 3: In 1944, nine US airmen were shot down over Chichi Jima. Eight of them were executed (four of whom were also eaten) and one (George H. W. Bush) went on to become president.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/1445167/George-Bushs-comrades-eaten-by-their-Japanese-PoW-guards.html
Page 58, Position 4: The Red Baron’s final word was ‘kaput’.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2vGpB3NEGlsC&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=kaputt+%22red+baron%22&source=bl&ots=emAPdDUSTO&sig=RagTwqXq4lgQ8SsEKbGNj_T8OCY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XudYU5a8DKq47AbViIHgDA&ved=0CEIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=kaputt%20%22red%20baron%22&f=false
Page 59, Position 1: The Red Arrows were originally known as the Red Pelicans.
Financial Times Weekend Magazine, 28th Sep 2013
Page 59, Position 2: More US Air Force pilots are training to fly drones than are training to fly planes.
Smithsonian Magazine, November 2013
Page 59, Position 3: Fighter pilots in stressful situations release such large amounts of hormones that they may ejaculate.
Shields, David, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, (London: Penguin, 2008)
Page 59, Position 4: 56% of British airline pilots admit to having fallen asleep on the job, and 29% say they’ve woken up to find their co-pilot asleep.
http://travel.aol.co.uk/2013/09/27/more-than-half-of-british-pilots-fall-asleep-on-the-job-says-balpa/
Page 60, Position 1: A quarter of American couples sleep in separate beds.
Page 60, Position 2: The Japanese sleep two hours a night less than the Chinese.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/24/average-daily-nightly-sleep-country-world_n_3805886.html
Page 60, Position 3: Blind people are twice as likely to smell things in their dreams as sighted people.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/26/how-the-blind-dream/
Page 60, Position 4: Blind people are four times more likely to have nightmares than sighted people.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/26/how-the-blind-dream/
Page 61, Position 1: In 2013, China’s only female Mao Zedong impersonator was divorced by her husband, who ‘got tired of feeling that he was sleeping with the Chairman’.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10464908/Chairman-Mao-ruined-my-marriage.html
Page 61, Position 2: Sleeping on your stomach is the most likely position to produce erotic dreams.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/why-sleeping-your-stomach-leads-more-erotic-dreams-241863
Page 61, Position 3: Duck-billed platypuses do not have stomachs.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/12/03/how-the-platypus-and-a-quarter-of-fishes-lost-their-stomachs/
Page 61, Position 4: The eyes of the celestial eye goldfish really are bigger than its stomach.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PTYAAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT70&lpg=PT70&dq=%22eyes+are+bigger+than+its+stomach%22&source=bl&ots=mx_LFxtSRW&sig=B0ME56S5aQbxF3rzc-M8ebN-J7w&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fAdZU77NIKe50QXpjoCACQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=%22eyes%20are%20bigger%20than%20its%20stomach%22&f=false
Page 62, Position 1: The pupils of human eyes are at their biggest as an adolescent and slowly get smaller until the age of 60.
Shields, David, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, (London: Penguin, 2008)
Page 62, Position 2: Human brains are 10% smaller than they were 20,000 years ago.
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking
Page 62, Position 3: Einstein’s brain was smaller than average.
http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/einbrain.htm
Page 62, Position 4: In 1939, the US army was smaller than the armies of Portugal or Romania and ranked 17th in the world; by 1945, it numbered 8.3 million.
http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/1415.200905.atkinson.usarmywwii.html
Page 63, Position 1: In the 1930s, the US army drew up plans to invade Mexico and Canada.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-nBz0AwHn2UC&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181&dq=1935+military+airfields+canada&source=bl&ots=o-BZO1OJde&sig=RNyJz6jFSNJOh-FfzvMYqFS32rw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=blFNUYbHCobZOYvzgdgN&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAjgU#v=onepage&q=1935%20military%20airfields%20canada&f=false
Page 63, Position 2: Alternative names proposed for Canada in 1867 were Tuponia, Borealia, Cabotia, Transatlantica, Victorialand and Superior.
Ferguson, Will, Canadian History for Dummies, (John Wiley & Sons, 15 Oct 2012)
Page 63, Position 3: When Canada’s Northwest Territories were divided in two in 1999, people voted to keep the old name. The runner-up was ‘Bob’.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~mbeaudoi/Bob.html
Page 63, Position 4: For 500 years from the 13th century, 70% of Englishmen were called Robert, John, Thomas, Richard or William.
http://public.oed.com/aspects-of-english/shapers-of-english/personal-names-and-the-development-of-english/
Page 64, Position 1: 252 people are born every minute.
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/keep-asking/how-many-people-are-born-every-minute/
Page 64, Position 2: ‘Last shake o’ the bag’ was Victorian slang for ‘youngest child’.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=byP7AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA335&dq=‘Last+shake+of’+the+bag’&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SbnsU8yDFsOp0QXYk4DwCQ&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=‘Last%20shake%20of’%20the%20bag’&f=false
Page 64, Position 3: When having their photograph taken, Victorians said ‘prunes’ rather than ‘cheese’ to make themselves look more serious.
http://www.uni.edu/fabos/seminar/readings/cheese.pdf
Page 64, Position 4: When Danes pose for photos, they say ‘orange’, the Chinese say ‘aubergine’ and the Germans say ‘ant shit’.
http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/saycheese.htm
Page 65, Position 1: There are beetles named after Darth Vader, Kate Winslet and Adolf Hitler.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18889495
Page 65, Position 2: Nachos were invented by a man named Nacho.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/15/nachos-inventor_n_1515233.html
Page 65, Position 3: Men whose initials have positive connotations, like LOV or WIN, live 4½ years longer than those with negative ones, like BAD or PIG.
http://economics-files.pomona.edu/GarySmith/badInitials.pdf
Page 65, Position 4: In 1883, a man named Jack Ferry crossed the English Channel on a floating tricycle.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/fosters-english-oddities-weird-wonderful-2240175
Page 66, Position 1: The father of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, was a unicyclist in a circus.
London Review of Books, 5 Dec 2013
Page 66, Position 2: There are 100,000 more bicycles in Amsterdam than there are people.
http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/68-amsterdam-city-of-bikes
Page 66, Position 3: In 2009, a search of Loch Ness for the Loch Ness monster located 100,000 golf balls.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/search-for-loch-ness-monster-nets-100000-golf-balls
Page 66, Position 4: At any one time there are 100,000 ships at sea.
George, Rose, Deep Sea and Foreign Going, (London: Portobello Books, 2013)
Page 67, Position 1: The world’s largest container ships can carry 746 million bananas.
George, Rose, Deep Sea and Foreign Going, (London: Portobello Books, 2013)
Page 67, Position 2: Bananas are considered unlucky on fishing boats.
http://www.snopes.com/luck/superstition/bananas.asp
Page 67, Position 3: In 1923, the sheet music for ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas’ sold 1,000 copies a day.
http://cwh.ucsc.edu/bananas/Site/Bananas%20and%20Popular%20Culture.html
Page 67, Position 4: There are more than 1,000 species of banana. We eat only one of them.
http://www.foodrepublic.com/2011/07/26/banana-problem
Page 68, Position 1: Eating 20 million bananas would give you a fatal dose of radioactivity.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15288975
Page 68, Position 2: Bananas are used to make kimonos.
http://cwh.ucsc.edu/bananas/Site/Bananas%20and%20Popular%20Culture.html
Page 68, Position 3: Queen Victoria had a novelty bustle with a music box that played ‘God Save the Queen’ when she sat down.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/c/corsets-and-bustles-1880-1890-from-over-structured-opulence-to-the-healthy-corset/
Page 68, Position 4: The ‘Masters in Lunacy’ were Victorian officials who investigated whether people claiming to be insane were faking it.
Oxford English Dictionary
Page 69, Position 1: When he enlisted in the army, J. R. R. Tolkien’s son Michael put down his father’s profession as ‘Wizard’.
http://interestingliterature.com/2014/01/03/five-fascinating-facts-about-j-r-r-tolkien/
Page 69, Position 2: New Zealand has an official National Wizard.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/8087658/Wizard-reminisces-as-he-turns-80
Page 69, Position 3: The New Zealand badminton team was nicknamed ‘the Black Cocks’, but had to drop it after complaints.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/15/nz_badminton_kerfuffle/
Page 69, Position 4: New Zealand’s 90-Mile Beach is 55 miles long.
http://www.newzealand.com/au/feature/ninety-mile-beach/
Page 70, Position 1: Over the last 10,000 years Niagara Falls has moved seven miles upstream.
http://www.niagarafallsinfo.com/history-item.php?entry_id=1268¤t_category_id=152
Page 70, Position 2: The United States doubled in size in 1983, when the Reagan administration expanded its coastal waters from three to 200 nautical miles.
National Geographic, Nov 2013
Page 70, Position 3: In 2011, scientists re-measured Norway’s beaches, islands and fjords, adding 11,000 miles to its coastline.
National Geographic, Nov 2013
Page 70, Position 4: The coastline of Norway is long enough to circle the planet 2½ times.
National Geographic, Nov 2013
Page 71, Position 1: Every year, Iceland gets wider by two centimetres.
http://www.mensfitness.com/life/travel/fit-travel-top-10-adventure-activities-in-iceland/slide/2
Page 71, Position 2: Iceland has 25 puffins for every person.
http://www.gwu.edu/~geog/ammap/pdfs/iceland-skyrkaka.pdf
Page 71, Position 3: Men outnumber women in Vatican City by 17 to 1.
National Geographic, Nov 2013
Page 71, Position 4: There are as many bacteria in two servings of yoghurt as there are people on Earth.
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/28/141800414/does-probiotic-yogurt-really-affect-digestion
Page 72, Position 1: The ice lost in Antarctica every year would be enough to give each person on Earth 1,360,000 ice cubes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27509471
Page 72, Position 2: The technical name for an ice-cream headache is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.
http://chemistry.about.com/od/howthingsworkfaqs/f/how-brain-freeze-works.htm
Page 72, Position 3: Hellenologophobia is the fear of Greek terms.
http://www.phobiasource.com/hellenologophobia-fear-of-greek-phrases-or-complex-scientific-terminology/
Page 72, Position 4: A musophobist is a person who distrusts poetry.
http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/daily-lexeme-musophobist/?_r=0
Page 73, Position 1: ‘Invictus’, Nelson Mandela’s favourite poem, was written by the man who inspired the character of Long John Silver.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ernest_Henley
Page 73, Position 2: 80% of pirates caught by the European Union’s naval police are released.
George, Rose, Deep Sea and Foreign Going, (London: Portobello Books, 2013)
Page 73, Position 3: People who pirate music also buy more legal music than those who don’t.
http://boingboing.net/2009/04/20/norwegian-p2p-downlo.html
Page 73, Position 4: Barry Manilow’s No. 1 hit ‘I Write the Songs’ wasn’t written by Barry Manilow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Manilow
Page 74, Position 1: When the Arctic Monkeys formed, none of them could play a musical instrument.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-arctic-monkeys-reinvented-their-sound-20131021
Page 74, Position 2: The real Maria von Trapp wasn’t invited to the premiere of The Sound of Music.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059742/trivia
Page 74, Position 3: The Duke of Wellington played cricket for Ireland.
http://www.cricketleinster.ie/about/history
Page 74, Position 4: The current Earl of Sandwich runs a chain of sandwich shops called Earl of Sandwich.
http://www.earlofsandwich.co.uk
Page 75, Position 1: If you ate in a different New York eatery every day for 12 years, you still wouldn’t have visited all of the city’s restaurants.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/55038/25-things-you-might-not-have-known-about-new-york-city
Page 75, Position 2: 25 November 2012 was the first day since 1960 that there was no murder or manslaughter in New York City.
Wonderpedia Magazine, Sep 2013
Page 75, Position 3: During its restoration in 1982, the Statue of Liberty’s head was accidentally installed two feet off-centre.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/northamerica/usa/newyork/10157989/Statue-of-Liberty-50-fascinating-facts.html
Page 75, Position 4: New buildings in New York must have twice as many women’s toilets as men’s.
http://www.economist.com/node/16542591
Page 76, Position 1: Toilet Duck, cellophane and the division sign (÷) were all invented in Switzerland.
http://www.muellerscience.com/ENGLISH/Swiss_Inventions_and_Discoveries.htm
Page 76, Position 2: The first sketch for the design of the Mini was drawn on a napkin in Switzerland.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/may/07/motoring-mini-cooper-ten-facts
Page 76, Position 3: Switzerland monitors its airspace around the clock but only intercepts illegal flights during office hours.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-17/invading-switzerland-try-before-8-or-after-5.html
Page 76, Position 4: In 2006, the most popular name for cows in Switzerland was Fiona.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/hope-for-lonely-rodents-rent-a-guinea-pig-service-takes-off-in-switzerland-a-787336.html
Page 77, Position 1: A cow with a name will produce 450 more pints of milk a year than one without a name.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/farming/4358115/Cows-with-names-produce-more-milk-scientists-say.html
Page 77, Position 2: The guts of 250,000 cows were used to make the balloon lining for every Zeppelin.
Nova (PBS Radio)
Page 77, Position 3: The Spanish for ‘when pigs fly’ is ‘when hens piss’.
http://nautil.us/blog/when-pigs-fly-crayfish-whistle-and-it-snows-red-snowflakes
Page 77, Position 4: In German, things don’t ‘sell like hot cakes’, they ‘go like warm rolls’.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/09/german-idioms/
Page 78, Position 1: German mothers-to-be have ‘roast dinners’ not ‘buns’ in their ‘ovens’.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/24/pregnancy-childbirth-global-traditions-baby
Page 78, Position 2: Pregnant women are 42% more likely to be in a car crash but less likely to die than men of the same age.
The Economist 17 May 2014
Page 78, Position 3: Only two countries have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Somalia and the US.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/children-s-rights/convention-on-the-rights-of-the-child
Page 78, Position 4: The US, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, Liberia and Lesotho are the only countries without mandatory maternity leave.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/career-advice/maternity-leave-basics-canada-vs-the-us/article4197679/
Page 79, Position 1: A lully-prigger was an 18th-century thief who caught children and stole their clothing.
Chambers Slang Dictionary
Page 79, Position 2: By the time they are eight children have forgotten 60% of what happened before they were three.
http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/kinderlab/birth-memory-why-kids-forget-what-happened-age-7
Page 79, Position 3: In 1922, Ernest Hemingway’s wife lost his entire life’s work by leaving it on a train.
http://lostmanuscripts.com/2010/07/31/hemingways-lost-suitcase/
Page 79, Position 4: In 1989, a Russian psychic was run over by a train and killed while attempting to prove he could stop one using the power of his mind.
http://www.aintnowaytogo.com/trainEsp.htm
Page 80, Position 1: American tank crews have a superstition that will not allow them to eat apricots, allow apricots on board or even say the word ‘apricot’.
http://www.amtrac.org/1atbn/Interest/Apricots.asp
Page 80, Position 2: The crunch of a crisp or an apple in your mouth is a mini sonic boom.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/health/mary-roach-on-studying-food-and-how-humans-eat-it.html
Page 80, Position 3: Polo mints release light when you snap them.
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/feb/27/john-mcnally-top-10-crazy-science-facts-true-or-false
Page 80, Position 4: Mice can’t see red light.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vnRpW-gI9JMC&pg=RA2-PA291&dq=red-lights+mice+dark-phase&hl=en#v=onepage&q=red-lights%20mice%20dark-phase&f=false
Page 81, Position 1: Pregreening is creeping forward while waiting for a red light to change.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pregreening"http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-08-06/news/27589386_1_new-words-vaults-english-dictionary
Page 81, Position 2: Herds of sheep moved at night must have a white light at the front and a red light at the rear.
https://www.gov.uk/rules-about-animals-47-to-58/other-animals-56-to-58
Page 81, Position 3: Coyotes in the US have learnt how traffic lights work so they can cross the road safely.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/10/06/city-folk-likely-to-see-coyotes-wolves-more.html
Page 81, Position 4: Traffic lights were introduced 18 years before the car was invented.
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/trafficlight.htm
Page 82, Position 1: In 1990, there were no roundabouts in the US; today there are more than 3,000.
The Economist, 5 Oct 2013
Page 82, Position 2: 40% of pedestrian-crossing buttons in Manchester don’t work.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23869955
Page 82, Position 3: A group of pigeons regularly boards the London Underground at Hammersmith and alights at Ladbroke Grove.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130108122724.htm
Page 82, Position 4: The average London pigeon has 1.6 feet.
http://www.londonpigeons.co.uk
Page 83, Position 1: Deliveries by pigeon post during the Second World War were 95% successful.
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/socialscience/2012/12/in-service-of-their-country-the-pigeon-manual.html
Page 83, Position 2: In 1910, the average Briton sent 116 items by post.
Garfield, Simon, Letters: Journey Through a Vanishing World, (Canongate Books, 24 Oct 2013)
Page 83, Position 3: The longest letter ever printed in The Times was 11,071 words long. Today, the whole letters page carries only 2,000 words.
The Times, 5 May 2010
Page 83, Position 4: 84% of writers to the letters page of The Times are men.
The Times, 5 May 2010
Page 84, Position 1: During his lifetime Lewis Carroll wrote 98,721 letters.
Gattegno, Jean, Lewis Carroll, (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977)
Page 84, Position 2: Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis signed off letters to each other with the word ‘bum’.
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1327895.ece
Page 84, Position 3: Chimpanzees can identify each other by looking at photographs of their bottoms.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080930-chimp-butts_2.html
Page 84, Position 4: People can recognise each other 90% of the time just from the way they walk.
New Scientist, 3 Aug 2012
Page 85, Position 1: To perfect Hercule Poirot’s walk, actor David Suchet clasped a coin between his buttocks.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2013/nov/05/hercule-poirot-david-suchet-bottom-coin-agatha-christie
Page 85, Position 2: Lizards can’t breathe and walk at the same time.
http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/walking-and-breathing/
Page 85, Position 3: Salamanders can hear with their lungs.
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=02-P13-00011&segmentID=7
Page 85, Position 4: Lobsters listen with their legs.
http://thelobsteringlife.com/2010/02/10-fun-facts-about-lobsters-and-one-dull-one/
Page 86, Position 1: A lobster’s brain is in its throat.
http://thelobsteringlife.com/2010/02/10-fun-facts-about-lobsters-and-one-dull-one/
Page 86, Position 2: The human brain cannot feel pain.
http://www.brainline.org/content/2012/07/can-the-brain-itself-feel-pain.html
Page 86, Position 3: When neuroscientist James Fallon studied the brain scans of murderers using his own scan as a control, he discovered he was a psychopath.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/
Page 86, Position 4: John F. Kennedy’s brain was removed during his autopsy and is still missing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10392527/John-F-Kennedys-missing-brain-may-have-been-taken-by-younger-brother-claims-new-book.html
Page 87, Position 1: 9,000 books are listed as missing from the British Library.
http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2009/03/18/a-tale-of-9000-mislaid-books
Page 87, Position 2: Lee Harvey Oswald still owes an overdue book – The Shark and the Sardines by Juan José Arévalo – to Dallas public library.
http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2013/11/on-top-of-everything-else-oswald-had-an-overdue-library-book.html/
Page 87, Position 3: Cleopatra wrote a book about make-up.
McKeown, JC, A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities, (Oxford: OUP, 2010)
Page 87, Position 4: 50,000 Korans are buried in the mountains of Pakistan, each one in a white shroud.
Battles, Matthew, Library: An unquiet history, (W. W. Norton, 17 Jun 2004)
Page 88, Position 1: 65% of Pakistani soldiers have dandruff.
Abrahams, Marc, This is Improbable Too (Oneworld Publications, 6 Mar 2014) p.87
Page 88, Position 2: 13% of Greek children have dimpled cheeks.
Abrahams, Marc, This is Improbable Too (Oneworld Publications, 6 Mar 2014) p.87
Page 88, Position 3: 85% of the exhibits in Peru’s Museum of Gold are fakes.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/peru/lima/sights/museums-galleries/museo-de-oro-del-peru#ixzz2r7muXjDD
Page 88, Position 4: 90% of the thermostats in American offices don’t work.
McRaney, David, You Are Now Less Dumb, (Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 5 Aug 2014)
Page 89, Position 1: Davy Crockett was a US congressman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett
Page 89, Position 2: Whoopi Goldberg used to be a bricklayer.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000155/bio
Page 89, Position 3: Jerry Springer was born in Highgate Tube station.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18231560
Page 89, Position 4: Phil Collins divorced his second wife by fax.
http://www.dawn.com/news/595302/entertainment-ten-things-to-know-about-walt-disney
Page 90, Position 1: Nobody knows how big Pluto is.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/mysteries_of_the_universe/2014/02/pluto_new_horizons_mission_the_dwarf_planet_explains_the_history_of_our.html
Page 90, Position 2: If you stood on the Martian equator at noon, it would feel like summer at your feet and winter at your head.
http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/01/canada-as-cold-as-mars-not-quite-eh.html
Page 90, Position 3: From 2000 bc to ad 1992, astronomers discovered three new planets. In 2014, 700 were found in a single day.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/3817/20140228/715-new-exoplanets-found-in-one-day-with-broken-kepler-telescope.htm
Page 90, Position 4: The notebooks of US astronauts were fireproofed with seaweed from the Isle of Lewis.
Crofton, Ian, A Dictionary of Scottish Phrase and Fable, (Birlinn, 2012)
Page 91, Position 1: When the Lewis Chessmen were discovered in 1831, the man who found them ran away, terrified he’d interrupted an assembly of elves.
Kingshill, Sophia, and Westwood, Jennifer, The Fabled Coast, (Random House, 28 Jun 2012)
Page 91, Position 2: Dublin is home to Ireland’s National Leprechaun Museum.
http://www.leprechaunmuseum.ie/about-us/
Page 91, Position 3: All the chickens’ eggs produced in the world each year would make an omelette the size of Northern Ireland.
http://www.bubblews.com/news/47465-the-produce-we-produce
Page 91, Position 4: Hummingbirds lay eggs the size of peas.
http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/ruby-throated_hummingbird.htm
Page 92, Position 1: Seahorses beat their fins almost as fast as hummingbirds beat their wings.
Safran Foer, Jonathan, Eating Animals, (New York: Little, Brown, 2010)
Page 92, Position 2: The Milky Way gives birth to a new star every 50 days.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/milkyway_seven.html
Page 92, Position 3: Almost 1% of American mothers claim to have been virgins when they gave birth.
http://www.livescience.com/42040-virgin-births-modern-day.html
Page 92, Position 4: The closer a woman is to the equator, the more likely she is to give birth to a girl.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-equatorial-enigma-why-are-more-girls-than-boys-born-in-the-tropics-ndash-and-what-does-it-mean-1658981.html
Page 93, Position 1: Newborn babies of both sexes can produce milk.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002483/
Page 93, Position 2: Flor de Guia cheese from the Canary Islands must only be made by women, otherwise it is not considered the genuine article.
http://blog.oup.com/2014/04/facts-you-never-knew-about-cheese
Page 93, Position 3: Britons are the most lactose-tolerant people in the world.
http://blog.oup.com/2014/04/facts-you-never-knew-about-cheese
Page 93, Position 4: ‘Cheesy’ originally meant ‘excellent’.
http://blog.oup.com/2014/04/facts-you-never-knew-about-cheese
Page 94, Position 1: The word ‘suffragette’ started out as an insult coined by the Daily Mail.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XmwCN-Bju4wC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=suffragette+insult+daily+mail&source=bl&ots=0vgo_ETYVI&sig=NsvxJEVOsO8yK2kZxrA8mCPGzO4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=N-lwU-LwL8jpPIa4gYgG&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=suffragette%20insult%20daily%20mail&f=false
Page 94, Position 2: ‘Bingo’ was first used as slang for ‘brandy’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bingo
Page 94, Position 3: Charlotte Brontë was the first person to use the terms ‘cottage-garden’, ‘raised eyebrow’, ‘Now, now!’, ‘kitchen chair’ and ‘Wild West’.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/04/charlotte-bronte-oed/
Page 94, Position 4: ‘Sexpert’, ‘cushty’, ‘freebie’ ‘makeover’, ‘comfort zone’ and ‘dream team’ all date from the 1920s.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/04/20-words-originated-1920s/
Page 95, Position 1: Broomstacking is a traditional drink taken after a game of curling; the losing team foots the bill.
http://imgur.com/Lwy6gZc
Page 95, Position 2: After the first recorded hurling match the losing team was brutally murdered.
McAlister, Peter, Manthropology
Page 95, Position 3: In 1920, Clarence Blethen retired hurt from a baseball match after biting himself on the bottom with the false teeth he kept in his back pocket.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KhApWFQw2LYC&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=Climax+Blethen&source=bl&ots=8oox4y5_yu&sig=TCMco6syxnR12IJZ8J3nxAUVhig&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cn8dUYnWLY2y0QH7yIDIAQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Climax%20Blethen&f=false
Page 95, Position 4: Louis X and Charles VIII of France both died as a result of playing tennis.
Brown, Cameron, Wimbledon Facts, Figures & Fun
Page 96, Position 1: After the Battle of Hastings, King Harold’s body was identified by the tattoo of his wife’s name over his heart.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/50761/10-historical-titans-surprising-tattoos
Page 96, Position 2: 90% of the men in Paraguay died in the War of the Triple Alliance. From 1864 to 1870 they fought Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina simultaneously.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Paraguay.pdf
Page 96, Position 3: A refereeing decision in a football match between Argentina and Peru in 1964 led to a riot in which 300 fans were killed.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/riot-erupts-at-soccer-match
Page 96, Position 4: A fight between chameleons is more likely to be started by the one with brighter stripes.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/vSVfXVG2CD0?wmode=opaque
Page 97, Position 1: The 10-spot ladybird has between 0 and 15 spots.
http://www.ladybird-survey.org/species_desc.aspx?species=6455%2059604
Page 97, Position 2: William Buckland was expelled from the shrine of St Rosalia, patron saint of Palermo, Sicily, for pointing out that her bones were actually those of a goat.
BBC History Magazine, Sep 2013
Page 97, Position 3: Vultures can turn a dead body into a skeleton in under five hours.
Abrahams, Marc, This is Improbable Too (Oneworld Publications, 6 Mar 2014) p.87
Page 97, Position 4: A walrus’s penis bone is as long as a human thigh bone.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/26231870?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Page 98, Position 1: There are at least 600 men in the world with two penises.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/03/this-man-claims-to-have-two-penises-science-confirms-it-s-possible.html
Page 98, Position 2: The penis of the Argonaut mollusc snaps off during sex: it can only mate once.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/05/18/the-argonaut-an-octopus-that-creates-its-own-ballast-tank/
Page 98, Position 3: Chinese eunuchs kept their testicles in a jar in the hope they will reattach themselves in the next world.
Finlay, Victoria, Jewels, a secret history
Page 98, Position 4: The world has two earthquakes every minute.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/eqstats.php
Page 99, Position 1: The Northern Hemisphere is 1.5ºC hotter than the Southern Hemisphere.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829145.000-ocean-pump-keeps-northern-hemisphere-hot.html#.U0PvC6WuefU
Page 99, Position 2: 90% of people live in the Northern Hemisphere.
http://www.businessinsider.com/90-of-people-live-in-the-northern-hemisphere-2012-5
Page 99, Position 3: Wherever a leaf is in the world, its internal temperature is always 21ºC.
http://www.livescience.com/2594-study-tree-leaves-built-thermostat.html
Page 99, Position 4: When it gets too hot, some cacti move underground to cool down.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101124162220.htm
Page 100, Position 1: Prisoners on Alcatraz always had hot showers so they didn’t get acclimatised to cold water and try to escape by swimming.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/03/72941
Page 100, Position 2: In Inuit languages, the closest word to ‘freedom’ is annakpok, which means ‘not caught’.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=11605
Page 100, Position 3: In the French Revolution, prisoners were taken to the guillotine on wagons used to transport manure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbrel
Page 100, Position 4: Scatomancy is telling the future by looking at turds.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/scatomancer_n_4309974.html?1384973470
Page 101, Position 1: Henry VIII’s lavatory at Hampton Court was known as ‘The Great House of Easement’.
Hart-Davis, Adam, Thunder, flush & Thomas Crapper, (Chalford, 1997)
Page 101, Position 2: Predicting the death of Henry VIII was punishable by death.
http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/123/123%20232%20Henry%20&%20edward.htm
Page 101, Position 3: The bell rung to mark the death of Ivan the Terrible’s son Dmitri was tried for treason, found guilty and exiled to Siberia.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1989/mar/16/another-russian-exile/
Page 101, Position 4: The drugs used for a lethal injection in Texas cost $83.
http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2011/02/should-the-cost-of-capital-pun.html/?nclick_check=1
Page 102, Position 1: In 2013, Detroit stopped issuing death certificates because it ran out of paper.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/05/detroit-death-certificates-paper-ran-out_n_3873008.html
Page 102, Position 2: In 2013, the Venezuelan government accused the opposition of hoarding toilet paper and causing a national shortage.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/venezuela-toilet-paper-bust-police-seize-2500-rolls_n_3363620.html
Page 102, Position 3: 12% of a sloth’s energy is used to climb up and down trees to go to the lavatory.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/01/21/can-moths-explain-why-sloths-poo-on-the-ground/
Page 102, Position 4: A single sloth can be home to 980 different beetles.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/01/21/can-moths-explain-why-sloths-poo-on-the-ground/
Page 103, Position 1: Your kitchen sink harbours 100,000 times more germs than your toilet bowl.
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/homehygiene/Pages/food-and-home-hygiene-facts.aspx
Page 103, Position 2: There are 20 million sea containers in the world. The ships’ crews have no idea what is in them.
George, Rose, Deep Sea and Foreign Going, (London: Portobello Books, 2013)
Page 103, Position 3: ‘The Just Missed It Club’ was for people who almost sailed on the Titanic. Two weeks after it sank, it had 118,337 members.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/seven-famous-people-who-missed-the-titanic-101902418/
Page 103, Position 4: Jenny, the ship’s cat on the Titanic, did not survive the sinking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_aboard_the_RMS_Titanic
Page 104, Position 1: Over 200 mice are reported in the Houses of Parliament each year, but the authorities won’t get a cat because no one can be trusted to look after it responsibly.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/12/cat-parliament-mouse_n_4949175.html
Page 104, Position 2: According to his wife Mary, Abraham Lincoln’s hobby was cats.
http://www.nps.gov/abli/planyourvisit/lincoln-pets.htm
Page 104, Position 3: Édouard Manet’s cat was eaten during the Siege of Paris in 1870.
http://matthewfraserauthor.com/paris/manets-cat-the-siege-of-paris/
Page 104, Position 4: Karl Lagerfeld’s cat has two maids who write down everything it does in a special book.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2013/nov/14/karl-lagerfeld-cat-choupette-party-animal
Page 105, Position 1: During the 1741 General Election, angry voters pelted candidates with dead cats and dogs.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140130092935.htm
Page 105, Position 2: 69% of the cocaine sold in the US contains de-worming medication.
http://sfist.com/2009/12/29/90-percent_of_all_sf_cocaine_cut_wi.php
Page 105, Position 3: During the Vietnam War, each US soldier took 40 amphetamine tablets a year.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/meth2.htm
Page 105, Position 4: The phrase ‘pipe dream’ originates from the fantasies induced by smoking opium.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pipe+dream
Page 106, Position 1: There are more marijuana dispensaries in Denver, Colorado, than there are branches of Starbucks.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/17/cannabis-colorados-budding-industry
Page 106, Position 2: Because of its Happy Meals, McDonald’s is the world’s largest distributor of toys.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/16/business/fast-food-giveaway-toys-face-rising-recalls.html
Page 106, Position 3: The first McDonald’s only sold hot dogs.
http://money.howstuffworks.com/mcdonalds1.htm
Page 106, Position 4: In 2002, the US military developed a sandwich that stays fresh for three years.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2151-us-military-creates-indestructible-sandwich.html#.UxCiwkLV9SQ
Page 107, Position 1: Human rights were invented in Iran.
http://humantouchofchemistry.com/the-history-behind-your-eraser.htm
Page 107, Position 2: Vegetarian sausages were first patented in Britain in 1918, by the future German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26935867
Page 107, Position 3: If they don’t care about something, Germans say, ‘It’s sausage to me.’
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/05/alles-wurst-german-sausage-idioms/
Page 107, Position 4: Rice Krispies in Germany go ‘Knisper! Knasper! Knusper!’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_Krispies
Page 108, Position 1: At the end of the Second World War, US censors kept the news of Germany’s unconditional surrender secret from the public for 11 hours.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/how-world-leaders-tried-to-embargo-one-of-the-biggest-stories-of-the-20th-century/371659/
Page 108, Position 2: The Hindenburg airship was almost named the Hitler.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n22/es-turner/gas-bags
Page 108, Position 3: When the Hindenburg exploded, 62 of the 97 passengers survived.
Symons, Mitchell, Numberland: The World In Numbers, (London: Michael O'Mara Books, 2013)
Page 108, Position 4: 80% of people who are struck by lightning survive.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/essd18jun99_1/
Page 109, Position 1: A single lightning bolt produces enough energy to power a family home for a month.
New Scientist, 25 Jan 2014
Page 109, Position 2: The energy released by a bolt of lightning is about the same as that stored in 30 gallons of petrol.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129531.800-big-bright-spark.html#.VCLv0FYzmag
Page 109, Position 3: The energy needed to manufacture a new car is equivalent to 260 gallons of petrol.
http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/sierra/green-life/2013/10/ask-mr-green-how-much-energy-make-new-car
Page 109, Position 4: Forest fires can be sparked by sunlight magnified by water on dried-out leaves.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100111091226.htm
Page 110, Position 1: The 45-foot long V2 rocket carried enough alcohol to make 66,130 dry martinis.
http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/vintage-space/how-many-martinis-can-you-fit-inside-v-2-missile
Page 110, Position 2: Pee Cola is a popular soft drink in Ghana.
http://www.ghanayello.com/company/26672/Pee_Cola_Ltd
Page 110, Position 3: In China, Burger King sells PooPoo Smoothies.
http://time.com/61606/burger-king-china-poopoo-smoothie/
Page 110, Position 4: The word for ‘carp’ in Montenegro is krap.
http://www.panacomp.net/montenegro?s=gastronomija_crne_gore
Page 111, Position 1: Barf is Persian for ‘snow’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barf_(soap)
Page 111, Position 2: The snow at the South Pole reflects sound so well you can hear people talking a mile away.
Wonderpedia Magazine, Jan 2014
Page 111, Position 3: The first snow goggles were made of slices of polished caribou antler.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aoa/s/snow_goggles_of_caribou_antler.aspx
Page 111, Position 4: Icebergs make a crackling sound known as ‘bergy seltzer’.
http://www2.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF4/424.html
Page 112, Position 1: The world’s largest iceberg set off from Antarctica in 2000. It was larger than Jamaica and parts of it still haven’t melted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_B-15
Page 112, Position 2: The world’s largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton is called Sue.
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/about/press/tyrannosaurus-rex-grew-twice-fast-previously-thought-rapid-growth-came-cost-slower
Page 112, Position 3: Britain’s largest pig is called Boris. He contains enough pork to make 6,000 sausages.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/farming/9933090/Revealed-key-facts-about-Britains-fattest-pigs-Boris-and-Marjorie.html
Page 112, Position 4: The largest lizard in Australia can run as fast as Usain Bolt.
http://www.arkive.org/perentie/varanus-giganteus/
Page 113, Position 1: AKB48, Japan’s largest pop group, has 89 members.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKB48
Page 113, Position 2: Japan has twice as many bank holidays as the UK, including ‘Greenery Day’ and ‘Respect for the Aged Day’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27064596
Page 113, Position 3: In 18th-century America, Thanksgiving was celebrated with a day of fasting and prayer.
Safran Foer, Jonathan, Eating Animals, (New York: Little, Brown, 2010)
Page 113, Position 4: In 2013, Hanukkah and Thanksgiving began on the same day. The next time this will happen will be in ad 79811.
http://www.businessinsider.com/hanukkah-and-thanksgiving-the-same-day-2013-10
Page 114, Position 1: In the year 20860, the Islamic and Christian calendars will finally agree.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/b6f88eb3f02dad084cbe2a2721476393/tumblr_mzfe1xio8o1qbh26io1_1280.jpg
Page 114, Position 2: According to the Mayan calendar, the next time the ‘world is going to end’ is 3 May 7138.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/b6f88eb3f02dad084cbe2a2721476393/tumblr_mzfe1xio8o1qbh26io1_1280.jpg
Page 114, Position 3: There is a 12% chance that a game of Monopoly will go on indefinitely.
Focus Magazine, Dec 2013
Page 114, Position 4: If you exposed a diamond on a sunbed, it would eventually evaporate, but you wouldn’t notice any change for 10 billion years.
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/ome/abstract.cfm?uri=ome-1-4-576
Page 115, Position 1: On 28 June 2009, Stephen Hawking hosted a party for time travellers from the future. Nobody showed up.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/07/02/stephen-hawking-time-travel_n_1643488.html
Page 115, Position 2: Black holes are not black.
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/news/archive/2008/title,21283,en.php
Page 115, Position 3: Robins’ ‘red’ breasts are orange.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Iat4Bk_YeR4C&pg=PA242&lpg=PA242&dq=robin+orange+breast+%22not+red%22&source=bl&ots=Ov1rE10EJp&sig=c9HVzWBdgVi36j1xDxj0m7ceP_4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Kd5TU4HEEsGBPfiLgMgD&ved=0CE0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=robin%20orange%20breast%20%22not%20red%22&f=false
Page 115, Position 4: Ripe limes are yellow.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AdmXdvPz07YC&pg=PT428&dq=ripe+limes+yellow&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zd1TU4noKYTd7QbRzoGwDw&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=ripe%20limes%20yellow&f=false
Page 116, Position 1: Guinness isn’t black; it’s very dark red.
http://www.guinness.com/en-row/thebeer-process-ingredients.html
Page 116, Position 2: Guinness isn’t suitable for vegetarians; it contains traces of fish bladder.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/14/guinness-fish-bladder_n_2878165.html
Page 116, Position 3: Human teeth evolved from fish scales.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/dinosaurs/teeth-prehistoric-111117.htm
Page 116, Position 4: Fish don’t need to learn how to swim in schools.
http://www.livescience.com/39712-why-fish-swim-schools.html
Page 117, Position 1: By tapping canes, stamping feet and making clicking sounds, humans can learn to echolocate like bats.
http://www.livescience.com/39231-humans-can-learn-to-echolocate.html
Page 117, Position 2: Species of bat include the wrinkle-faced bat, the thumbless bat, the Antillean ghost-faced bat, the flower-faced bat and the big-eared woolly bat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Haeckel_Chiroptera.jpg
Page 117, Position 3: Without bats there would be no tequila. It’s made from the agave plant, which is pollinated by bats.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/jun/14/natural-world-batman-of-mexico-tv-review
Page 117, Position 4: Tequila heated to 800ºC can be made into diamonds.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7725815.stm
Page 118, Position 1: Moss Cider is a drink made from apples grown in Manchester’s Moss Side.
Geographical Magazine, Jan 2014
Page 118, Position 2: Grapples are apples that taste like grapes.
http://www.grapplefruits.com/
Page 118, Position 3: Grapes are poisonous to dogs.
http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/virtual-pet-behaviorist/dog-behavior/foods-are-hazardous-dogs
Page 118, Position 4: Avocados are toxic to horses.
http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/toxic-and-non-toxic-plants/avocado
Page 119, Position 1: Philip is Greek for ‘horse-lover’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Philip
Page 119, Position 2: Falling in love costs you, on average, two close friends.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11321282
Page 119, Position 3: Valentine’s Day is banned in Iran, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.
The Economist, 15 Feb 2014
Page 119, Position 4: More than 5,000 Swedish men have the first name Love.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_(given_name)
Page 120, Position 1: There are 60 people in Venezuela whose first name is Hitler.
New York Times, 5 Sep 2007
Page 120, Position 2: The place where Hitler killed himself is now a children’s playground.
http://www.vice.com/read/the-site-of-hitlers-suicide-is-now-a-playground
Page 120, Position 3: In ancient Rome, fathers had the legal right to kill their children.
http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/family.html
Page 120, Position 4: In J. M. Barrie’s novel, Peter Pan ruthlessly ‘thinned out’ the Lost Boys when they got too old.
http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/86/peter-pan/1543/chapter-5-the-island-come-true/
Page 121, Position 1: In the winter of 1918, half the children in Berlin were suffering from rickets.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26935867
Page 121, Position 2: The population of Ireland is still smaller than it was before the Great Famine of 1845.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AOyYi3yvoVoC&pg=PA336&lpg=PA336&dq=Population+of+Ireland+never+recovered+from+the+potato+famine&source=bl&ots=yNRA4SSwpZ&sig=nc4Q8LUWc_PeW-GxcsAQUgGPMk0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=U9hcU9WzN5GX0QXSzoHIAg&ved=0CGQQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Population%20of%20Ireland%20never%20recovered%20from%20the%20potato%20famine&f=false
Page 121, Position 3: The labourers who built the Great Wall of China were were fed on sauerkraut.
http://kitchenproject.com/history/sauerkraut.htm
Page 121, Position 4: Before eating, Nikola Tesla, the ‘father of electricity’, polished each piece of cutlery with 18 napkins.
https://www.pbs.org/tesla/dis/cheney.html
Page 122, Position 1: Ancient Romans ate puppies.
Safran Foer, Jonathan, Eating Animals, (New York: Little, Brown, 2010)
Page 122, Position 2: Eating dogs is legal in 44 US states.
Safran Foer, Jonathan, Eating Animals, (New York: Little, Brown, 2010)
Page 122, Position 3: 2.8 million American dogs are on antidepressants.
The Week, 29 Mar 2014
Page 122, Position 4: Babies can hear dog whistles.
Shields, David, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, (London: Penguin, 2008)
Page 123, Position 1: Dog yawns are infectious.
Provine, Robert, Curious Behaviour, (London: Harvard University Press, 2012), p. 20
Page 123, Position 2: You can tell if someone is yawning from their eyes alone.
Provine, Robert, Curious Behaviour, (London: Harvard University Press, 2012)
Page 123, Position 3: No one knows why we yawn.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/health/14yawn.html?_r=0
Page 123, Position 4: Hamsters blink one eye at a time.
Symons, Mitchell, Numberland: The World In Numbers, (London: Michael O'Mara Books, 2013)
Page 124, Position 1: Hamsters can store half their own weight in food in their cheeks.
http://www.rspca.org.uk/allaboutanimals/pets/rodents/hamsters
Page 124, Position 2: Tomato frogs secrete a glue that causes a predator’s lips to stick together.
http://www.pet-frog.com/tomato-frog-for-sale.html
Page 124, Position 3: By the time they leave high school American children will have eaten 1,500 peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.
http://nationalpeanutboard.org/the-facts/fun-facts/
Page 124, Position 4: Alan Shepard took a peanut to the Moon. When he brought it back, Steve McQueen tried to eat it.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/13/local/me-fiondella13
Page 125, Position 1: Astronauts’ hearts become rounder in space.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140329175106.htm
Page 125, Position 2: Astronaut Harrison Schmitt is allergic to the Moon.
http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/22apr_dontinhale/
Page 125, Position 3: Astronaut John Young smuggled a corned-beef sandwich into space.
http://news.discovery.com/space/the-case-of-the-contraband-corned-beef-sandwich.htm
Page 125, Position 4: A third of British office workers have the same thing for lunch every day.
http://swns.com/news/millions-brits-lunch-day-36280/
Page 126, Position 1: British families throw away the equivalent of six meals a week.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24846612
Page 126, Position 2: Britons spend eight times as long watching television as they do cooking meals.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/27/can-cook-wont-cook-tv
Page 126, Position 3: In spite of all the cookery shows on British television, the average Briton only knows four recipes.
The Week, 5 Apr 2014
Page 126, Position 4: There is a variety of carrot beginning with every letter of the alphabet except X.
http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/atoz.html
Page 127, Position 1: Vegetables are four times healthier than fruit.
Daily Telegraph, 31 Mar 2014
Page 127, Position 2: Corn, avocados, cucumbers, peas, beans and peppers are fruits, not vegetables.
http://www.fairchildgarden.org/uploads/docs/Education/Downloadable_teaching_modules/flower%20power/Fruit_classification1.pdf
Page 127, Position 3: A quarter of all the vegetables eaten in the US are French fries.
Shields, David, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, (London: Penguin, 2008)
Page 128, Position 1: The Aztecs wore necklaces made of popcorn.
http://www.culinaryarts360.com/index.php/history-of-popcorn-28676/
Page 128, Position 2: Unpopped popcorn kernels are called ‘old maids’ or ‘spinsters’.
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-popcorn1.htm
Page 128, Position 3: A ‘singlewoman’ was medieval slang for a prostitute.
http://www.historyextra.com/news/tudors/revealed-secrets-tudor-cross-dressers
Page 128, Position 4: 88% of women routinely wear shoes that are too small for their feet.
http://www.healthyfeetstore.com/shoe-fitting-guide.html#sthash.xPIFDxzs.dpuf
Page 129, Position 1: British feet have grown by two shoe sizes in the last 40 years.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/03/british-feet-longer-wider-say-experts
Page 129, Position 2: Our little toes were much stronger before shoes became widespread.
http://casualmaxx.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/100-shoes-facts/
Page 129, Position 3: In 1967, Picoazá, Ecuador, elected a brand of foot deodorant as the town’s mayor.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/footpowder.asp
Page 129, Position 4: New research shows that, for luxury brands, the ruder the sales staff, the higher the sales.
http://news.ubc.ca/2014/04/29/snobby-staff-can-boost-luxury-retail-sales/
Page 130, Position 1: Jaguars are attracted by Calvin Klein’s Obsession for Men.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/2013/10/10/youll-never-guess-how-biologists-lure-jaguars-to-camera-traps/
Page 130, Position 2: Termites like the smell of biro ink.
http://www.termite-control.com/methods/approaches/termites-pheromones-for-control/
Page 130, Position 3: An Atlantic salmon’s sense of smell is 1,000 times better than a dog’s.
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Salmo_salar/
Page 130, Position 4: There are one billion dogs in the world.
http://blog.oup.com/2014/03/one-billion-dogs-wildlife-conservation/
Page 131, Position 1: Every day, the human body makes 300 billion new cells, three times as many as there are galaxies in the universe.
http://www.rmg.co.uk/explore/astronomy-and-time/astronomy-facts/faqs/what-is-a-galaxy-how-many-stars-in-a-galaxy-how-many-stars/galaxies-in-the-universe
Page 131, Position 2: NASA estimates that the near-Earth asteroid, Eros, contains 20 billion tons of gold.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/gold8.htm
Page 131, Position 3: The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was the first time a billion people have watched a sporting event.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/blog/2012/jul/27/4-billion-olympic-opening-ceremony
Page 131, Position 4: At the 1932 Olympics, the 3,000-metre steeplechase was run over 3,400 metres because an official lost count of the number of laps.
Barrow, John, D. Mathletics, (Random House, 20 Jun 2013)
Page 132, Position 1: Croquet was dropped as an Olympic sport after 1900 because only one spectator turned up to watch.
http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/9-peculiar-summer-olympic-sports-that-have-been-discontinued
Page 132, Position 2: The first man to swim from John O’Groats to Land’s End grew a beard to protect his face from jellyfish stings.
The Week, 16 Nov 2013
Page 132, Position 3: Each person in a swimming pool leaves behind between 8 and 20 teaspoonfuls of urine.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/chemists-decree-dont-pee-in-the-pool/359659/
Page 132, Position 4: 3,079 chemical compounds have been identified in human urine.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24023812
Page 133, Position 1: Virtually all Koreans lack the gene that produces smelly armpits.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=people-without-underarm-protection
Page 133, Position 2: The tobacco hornworm uses its terrible breath to fend off predators.
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2013/12/31/Hornworm-uses-its-tobacco-breath-to-ward-off-predators/1031388500766/
Page 133, Position 3: Enough Polo mints are produced in one year to give everyone in the UK 114 each.
http://www.dentalhealth.org/approved-products/list/Polo
Page 133, Position 4: The first commercial chewing gum was made from spruce-tree resin.
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/chewgum.htm
Page 134, Position 1: Only 1% of a tree is actually alive.
http://forestry.about.com/b/2013/08/06/how-much-of-a-tree-is-actually-alive.htm
Page 134, Position 2: The mortality rate of pop stars is 1.7 times higher than the average.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2014/04/16/study-determines-average-survival-rate-pop-stars/
Page 134, Position 3: One in nine Honduran men will be murdered.
http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/media/2014InfoG/databank/IR2a.pdf
Page 134, Position 4: Boys in Bronze Age Russia had to slay their own dogs to prove they were ready to become warriors.
http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2013/13/130514-dogs-sacrifice-initiation-rite-russia-archaeology-science/
Page 135, Position 1: There are more Internet hosts in Manhattan than there are in the whole of Africa.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/843160.stm
Page 135, Position 2: 88% of working adults in sub-Saharan Africa don’t have a bank account.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/55279/5-modern-banking-services-you-might-take-granted
Page 135, Position 3: Charitable donations of clothing to Africa have led to the collapse of its textile industry.
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1987628,00.html
Page 135, Position 4: 40 million tons of dust are blown from the Sahara to the Amazon every year.
The Times, 11 Sep 2013
Page 136, Position 1: Lebanon is the only country in Africa or the Middle East that doesn’t have a desert.
http://simplybeirut.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/the-topography-of-lebanon/
Page 136, Position 2: The only desert in Britain is Dungeness Nature Reserve in Kent.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/safariandwildlifeholidays/7744750/Dungeness-nature-reserve-Secret-life-of-Britains-only-desert.html
Page 136, Position 3: Everyone on Palmerston Island, in the middle of the Pacific, speaks with a Gloucestershire accent.
http://www.cookislands.org.uk/palmerston
Page 136, Position 4: Accents in Britain change noticeably every 25 miles.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7843058.stm
Page 137, Position 1: Scotland has the largest bog in Europe.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OvF3I6_2ZlEC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=scotland+%22largest+bog%22&source=bl&ots=XiCDWZJWhG&sig=-q7CgmOkrzXpQwrbiPFWQIFUmwg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YG0hVJDyMc6d7gaS74H4Ag&ved=0CEYQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=scotland%20%22largest%20bog%22&f=false
Page 137, Position 2: There are more stretch limos in Glasgow than in Los Angeles.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/13/kevin-mckenna-stretch-limos-rule
Page 137, Position 3: There are more Catholics in Scotland than in Northern Ireland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholicism_in_Scotland
Page 137, Position 4: In 2007, Scotland spent £125,000 devising a new national slogan. The winning entry was: ‘Welcome to Scotland.’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7114861.stm
Page 138, Position 1: In 2013, 6,000 papal medals were withdrawn by the Vatican after it was found they read ‘Lesus’ instead of ‘Jesus’.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10370809/Vatican-pulls-medals-bearing-name-of-Lesus.html
Page 138, Position 2: ‘Bird’ was originally spelled brid.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/11/pronunciation-errors-english-language
Page 138, Position 3: ‘Empty’ was originally spelled emty.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/11/pronunciation-errors-english-language
Page 138, Position 4: ‘Misspell’ is one of the most commonly misspelled words in the English language.
http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/spelling-and-word-lists/misspelled.html
Page 139, Position 1: The number ‘2’ is known by 42% of Slovenian two-year-olds but only 4% of English two-year-olds.
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/why-babies-arabic-speaking-households-learn-some-numbers-faster
Page 139, Position 2: The word ‘twelve’ is worth 12 points in Scrabble.
Ross, Greg, Futility Closet, (Futility Closet, 2013)
Page 139, Position 3: Moving each letter of the word ‘yes’ 16 places further up the alphabet produces the word ‘oui’.
Ross, Greg, Futility Closet, (Futility Closet, 2013)
Page 139, Position 4: The words ‘ace, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, jack, queen, king’ contain 52 letters.
Ross, Greg, Futility Closet, (Futility Closet, 2013)
Page 140, Position 1: The largest known prime number is 17 million digits long.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2013/feb/06/largest-prime-number-17-million-digitsa
Page 140, Position 2: The longest English word with all its letters in alphabetical order is ‘Aegilops’, a flowering grass whose name means ‘a herb liked by goats’.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-2000/longest-english-word-with-letters-arranged-in-alphabetical-order/
Page 140, Position 3: Google and Yahoo both use goats to trim their lawns.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/5297097/Google-hires-goats-to-cut-grass.html
Page 140, Position 4: Goats can’t cry.
http://www.famu.edu/cesta/main/assets/File/coop_extension/small%20ruminant/goat%20pubs/Facts%20About%20Goats.pdf
Page 141, Position 1: If you tickle a rat every day, it’ll start laughing as soon as it sees you.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/neuroscience/show/20130720/nocache/1/?tx_nakscishow_pi1[transcript]=1
Page 141, Position 2: Rats can feel regret.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/rats-are-capable-of-feeling-regret-scientists-say-9510038.html
Page 141, Position 3: Being lonely is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1298225/Loneliness-killer-Its-bad-health-alcoholism-smoking-eating-say-scientists.html#ixzz2tfjQV41B
Page 141, Position 4: There are enough viruses on Earth to fill 150 Super Bowl stadiums.
https://what-if.xkcd.com/80/
Page 142, Position 1: The first Cannes Film Festival closed after only one night due to the outbreak of the Second World War.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-cannes-film-festival
Page 142, Position 2: In the Second World War, Ribena was such an important source of vitamin C that two fake Ribena factories were built to confuse German bombers.
Buchan, Ursula, A green and pleasant land (Hutchinson, 2013)
Page 142, Position 3: During the Second World War, Lucozade was made from conkers.
Buchan, Ursula, A green and pleasant land (Hutchinson, 2013)
Page 142, Position 4: During the Second World War, the Polish army recruited a bear called Wojtek, a name that means ‘he who enjoys war’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15736812
Page 143, Position 1: In 1384, a 10-year-old Hungarian girl called Hedwig was crowned King of Poland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadwiga_of_Poland
Page 143, Position 2: Offa’s Dyke was built 200 years before King Offa was born.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-26921202
Page 143, Position 3: Cleopatra’s Needle was 1,000 years old when Cleopatra was born.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra's_Needle
Page 143, Position 4: Seven US presidents were born in log cabins.
http://www.blueridgelogcabins.com/u-s-presidents-and-log-cabins/
Page 144, Position 1: For the last three months of his life, US President James Garfield had to be fed everything through his anus.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2ZvQAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT519&lpg=PT519&dq=james+garfield+rectal+feeding&source=bl&ots=gMJ0IOdxh8&sig=Vbk77Uz67bfxZd83671M0RsU8Iw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ga2MU53xBomfO6vSgKAP&ved=0CGoQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=falseÂÂ
Page 144, Position 2: George H. W. Bush wears socks with his own face on.
http://www.today.com/news/jenna-george-bush-sr-s-selfie-socks-evidently-he-likes-2D11699364
Page 144, Position 3: The first armoured presidential car was a Cadillac that had previously belonged to Al Capone.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/gallery/2009/aug/11/classic-cars-stars
Page 144, Position 4: In 1924, half the cars in the world were Fords.
http://melbournetomoscow.com/engcar.html
Page 145, Position 1: Half the world’s cork comes from Portugal.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5362e/x5362e03.htm
Page 145, Position 2: In Sweden, a Chinese burn is known as the ‘thousand-needle prank’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_pranks
Page 145, Position 3: A man in China hired virtual assassins to kill his son’s World of Warcraft character so he’d stop playing.
http://www.businessinsider.com/father-hires-assassins-to-kill-sons-wow-avatar-2013-1
Page 145, Position 4: In 2013, police in the Maldives arrested a coconut on suspicion of vote rigging.
http://news.oneindia.in/international/bizarre-coconut-detained-over-vote-rigging-claims-in-maldives-1300944.html#infinite-scroll-1
Page 146, Position 1: In 2007, police in Iran detained 14 squirrels suspected of spying.
http://news.sky.com/story/526163/iranian-police-smash-squirrel-spy-ring
Page 146, Position 2: In 2012, the New Zealand government took legal action to prevent a couple calling their child Anal.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/newzealand/10029482/New-Zealand-says-no-to-bizarre-baby-names-4Real-Juztice-and-Lucifer.html
Page 146, Position 3: In the Norwegian town of Longyearbyen, it is illegal to die.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7501691.stm
Page 146, Position 4: In 17th-century Virginia, missing three Sunday Masses in a row carried the death penalty.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Wr_yPYvkNWwC&lpg=PP1&dq=%22soda+fountain%22&pg=PA64&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=sunday&f=false
Page 147, Position 1: In 19th-century Maryland, it was illegal to sell mineral water on a Sunday.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Wr_yPYvkNWwC&lpg=PP1&dq=%22soda+fountain%22&pg=PA64&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=sunday&f=false
Page 147, Position 2: In Singapore, it’s illegal to use a public lavatory and not flush it.
http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/aol/search/display/view.w3p;page=0;query=CompId%3Ae3c740f8-09b6-448c-a6a2-5843e9a34d8d%20ValidTime%3A20131025000000%20TransactionTime%3A20131025000000;rec=0
Page 147, Position 3: A 1571 law stated that all Englishmen must wear knitted hats on Sundays.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=soWN5njt4Y4C&pg=PA139&dq=1571+women+hats&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JyhaU8-CKufy7AbxyIAw&ved=0CE4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=1571%20women%20hats&f=false
Page 147, Position 4: In 2013, a judge in Michigan found himself in contempt of court when his mobile phone went off during a trial.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/09/hugh-clarke_n_4072981.html
Page 148, Position 1: Pasta is Spanish for ‘money’.
http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/217451/colgate-translation
Page 148, Position 2: ‘Trampoline’ comes from the Spanish for ‘diving board’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trampolining
Page 148, Position 3: It is possible to travel by zip wire from Spain to Portugal.
http://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-blog/carry-on/2013/11/15/new-zipline-connects-spain-and-portugal
Page 148, Position 4: For 14 years during the Napoleonic wars, the capital of Portugal was Rio de Janeiro.
Symons, Mitchell, Numberland: The World In Numbers, (London: Michael O'Mara Books, 2013)
Page 149, Position 1: Tempura was introduced to Japan by Portuguese missionaries in the 16th century.
http://www.jfc.eu/en/japanese-food/your-favourite-menus/tempura/
Page 149, Position 2: George Washington is worshipped as a god by Japanese Shinto priests in Hawaii.
http://eos.kokugakuin.ac.jp/modules/xwords/entry.php?entryID=342
Page 149, Position 3: Harold Wilson was so poor when he was at university that his mother sent him meat in the post.
Sandbrook, Dominic, White Heat
Page 149, Position 4: Nick Clegg once did community service for setting fire to a rare cactus collection while drunk on a school trip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Clegg
Page 150, Position 1: The world’s tallest statue, currently being built in India, is of a deputy prime minister.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/10417899/Ten-of-the-worlds-tallest-statues.html
Page 150, Position 2: A third of adults in India play chess at least once a week.
The Economist 5 Oct 2013
Page 150, Position 3: Indians read twice as much as Britons.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/55344/which-country-reads-most
Page 150, Position 4: The average Briton has read fewer than half the books they own.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26515836
Page 151, Position 1: Haile Gebrselassie, the Ethiopian distance runner, ran six miles to and from school each day. He still runs with a crook in his arm, as if he’s carrying his books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Gebrselassie
Page 151, Position 2: The Persians invented horse-riding and trousers.
http://www.iran-heritage.org/interestgroups/history-article3.htm
Page 151, Position 3: Mozart kept a fart diary.
http://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/mozart.pdf
Page 151, Position 4: 1 in 6 Google searches have never been searched for before.
https://www.tryinteract.com/blog/50-of-google-searches-have-never-been-made-before/
Page 152, Position 1: A ‘googolplex’ is a number so vast it can’t be written down: there’s not enough room in the universe for all the zeros.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googolplex
Page 152, Position 2: Google employees are encouraged to use a fifth of their time at work on their own non-Google projects.
http://www.wired.com/2013/08/20-percent-time-will-never-die/
Page 152, Position 3: Everyone has at least 50,000 thoughts a day but 95% of them are the same as the day before.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DISkyQdS9msC&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=4000+%22thoughts+per+day%22&source=bl&ots=EkMAPuA3bY&sig=6IUj73atMgEuEiS5nOFL08-Cylk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=A4VWU72rOeSR0QXspoGgBw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=4000%20%22thoughts%20per%20day%22&f=false
Page 152, Position 4: Three-quarters of Britons have a drawer at home full of miscellaneous junk.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/10129122/Old-birthday-cards-useless-gadgets-Britons-cant-part-with-their-junk.html
Page 153, Position 1: At the Vancouver Winter Olympics, the medals were made from recycled televisions and computer circuit boards.
Barrow, John, D. Mathletics, (Random House, 20 Jun 2013)
Page 153, Position 2: Azodicarbonamide is a chemical compound that makes things softer and bouncier, including yoga mats, flip-flops and the buns in Big Macs.
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bella/2012/12/mcrib_yoga_mat_fast_food.php
Page 153, Position 3: Dry cleaning was invented when someone knocked over a kerosene lamp and noticed it removed stains from their clothes.
http://home.howstuffworks.com/dry-cleaning1.htm
Page 153, Position 4: It’s impossible to set fire to a pool of petrol by throwing a lit cigarette into it.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/world/holy-smoke-a-cigarette-end-simply-can-t-set-petrol-alight-1-683783
Page 154, Position 1: The US Patent Office insisted on proof that the Ouija board worked before granting the patent in 1891.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-strange-and-mysterious-history-of-the-ouija-board-5860627/
Page 154, Position 2: To save lives, Volvo gave away the patent for its seatbelt.
http://www.arnoldclark.com/newsroom/265-why-volvo-gave-away-the-patent-for-their-most-important-invention
Page 154, Position 3: One in four people killed on British roads were not wearing seatbelts.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/transport-environment/one-in-four-road-dead-not-wearing-seatbelt-1.1008012?localLinksEnabled=false
Page 154, Position 4: You are four times more likely to drown in your bath than you are to die of food poisoning.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/scientists-calculate-odd-ways-die-282884
Page 155, Position 1: 95% of people don’t wash their hands properly before leaving a public toilet.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-06/only-5-percent-people-wash-their-hands-correctly
Page 155, Position 2: Japanese companies advertise on packs of tissues given out free at train stations, because the toilets there often don’t have loo paper.
Lonely Planet Tokyo
Page 155, Position 3: People with higher incomes generally prefer their loo paper to unravel over the roll, while those with lower incomes prefer it to go under.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/adamdavis/useless-facts
Page 155, Position 4: In the Second World War, British troops were issued with three sheets of toilet paper a day; American soldiers got 22.
Times Literary Suppliment, 21 Mar 2014
Page 156, Position 1: Jack Kerouac typed his novel On the Road on a 120-foot roll of paper in three weeks.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11709924
Page 156, Position 2: According to the India Book of Records, the longest garland made of cattle dung was 1¼ miles long.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25881705
Page 156, Position 3: Modern fishing lines can be up to 75 miles long.
Safran Foer, Jonathan, Eating Animals, (New York: Little, Brown, 2010)
Page 156, Position 4: The 3.4 million coins in the longest-ever line of coins stretched for over 40 miles.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-1000/longest-line-of-coins/
Page 157, Position 1: The first coin minted in the US bore the slogan ‘Mind Your Business’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugio_Cent
Page 157, Position 2: In the Great Depression, old tyres and fish skin were used as money in the US.
Smithsonian Magazine, Nov 2013
Page 157, Position 3: Two-thirds of all $100 bills are held outside the US.
http://www.wnyc.org/story/287390-most-100-bills-live-outside-the-us/
Page 157, Position 4: $1,200,000,000,000 of US money is in circulation, but nobody knows where 85% of it is.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/53616/mystery-missing-money
Page 158, Position 1: Most people walk 12 steps carrying a piece of litter before they drop it.
http://www.statisticbrain.com/littering-statistics/
Page 158, Position 2: 400 million gallons of raw sewage flow out of New York every year; the same as the volume of petrol Americans use every day.
http://seattletrekker.com/journal-entry/we-burned-400-million-gallons-of-gas-today
Page 158, Position 3: Mexican households generate 30% more rubbish than American households.
http://www.wisegeek.org/how-much-garbage-does-a-person-create-in-one-year.htm#slideshow
Page 158, Position 4: Sweden is so good at recycling that it has run out of rubbish and imports 80,000 tons a year from Norway.
http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/recycling/blogs/sweden-runs-out-of-garbage-forced-to-import-from-norway
Page 159, Position 1: Sweden makes biofuel from dead rabbits.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8309156.stm
Page 159, Position 2: Pope Gregory I declared rabbit foetuses were marine animals and could be eaten during Lent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurices
Page 159, Position 3: Pope Francis I used to work as a bouncer in a Buenos Aires nightclub.
http://news.sky.com/story/1177302/pope-francis-was-once-a-nightclub-bouncer
Page 159, Position 4: The Greek god Atlas had an aunt called Doris.
http://www.timelessmyths.com/classical/nymphs.html
Page 160, Position 1: Abraham Lincoln failed five times to get elected to Congress and the Senate before being elected president.
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/lincoln-hub/lincoln-ten-facts/10-facts-lincoln.html
Page 160, Position 2: In 80% of US presidential elections the taller candidate has won.
McRaney, David, You Are Now Less Dumb, (Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 5 Aug 2014)
Page 160, Position 3: The Somali word for ‘president’ also means ‘big head’, and the candidate with the biggest head usually wins.
http://somalilandpress.com/recent-study-confirms-link-between-physical-features-of-somaliland-presidential-candidates-and-success-at-the-polls-27036
Page 160, Position 4: If a Hong Kong election ends in a tie, the candidates draw from a bag of numbered ping-pong balls.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-09-04-pingpong-politics_x.htm
Page 161, Position 1: Five years before he won Wimbledon, Fred Perry was world table-tennis champion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Perry
Page 161, Position 2: Before he became a spy, John le Carré washed elephants for the Swiss National Circus.
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/cae/servlet/contentblob/364568/publicationFile/50331/ThinkGermanLeCarreEn.pdf
Page 161, Position 3: Before he became president, Bashar al-Assad was head of the Syrian Computer Club.
http://www.presidentassad.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=208:they-said-about-the-president&catid=84&Itemid=472
Page 161, Position 4: In 2013, a mobile-phone app allowing Azerbaijanis to track the presidential election reported the president’s massive victory 24 hours before the polls opened.
The Week, 19 Oct 2013
Page 162, Position 1: To be appstracted is to be distracted by an app.
http://nws.merriam-webster.com/opendictionary/newword_display_alpha.php?letter=Ap&last=40
Page 162, Position 2: The French equivalent of LOL is MDR: mort de rire – dead from laughing.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mdr
Page 162, Position 3: The 1989 article that proposed the acronym LOL also suggested using ‘H’ to mean ‘Huh?’
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/28/25-years-lol-good-bad-bits
Page 162, Position 4: The word ‘huh’ is understood in all known languages.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0078273
Page 163, Position 1: Hawaiian, Icelandic and Zulu have given more words to English than Welsh or Cornish.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4020956.ece
Page 163, Position 2: When Columbus ‘discovered’ the New World, there were at least 50 million people living in the Americas.
http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/0289.htm
Page 163, Position 3: Before humans reached Hawaii, the dominant animals there were giant ducks.
New Scientist, 1 Mar 2014
Page 163, Position 4: At the 1928 Olympics, oarsman Henry Pearce stopped to let a family of ducks cross his lane and went on to win the gold medal.
http://101olympians.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/bobby-pearce-sculler-who-stopped-for.html
Page 164, Position 1: At the 1956 Olympics, Russian rower Vyacheslav Ivanov was so excited at winning gold that he dropped his medal into the lake and it was never found.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyacheslav_Nikolayevich_Ivanov
Page 164, Position 2: Toshers were men who earned a living by searching London’s sewers for lost valuables.
Roud, Steve, London Lore
Page 164, Position 3: People in India panning for gold in sewers make four times the average wage.
http://www.geographical.co.uk/Magazine/Gutter_gold_-_May_13.html
Page 164, Position 4: ‘You have a turd in your teeth’ was a common insult in 17th-century England.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-24370981
Page 165, Position 1: The terms ‘Tory’, ‘Labour’ and ‘Prime Minister’ all began as insults.
Oxford English Dictionary
Page 165, Position 2: The House of Lords has a rifle range in the basement.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2013/jan/28/parliament-rifle-range
Page 165, Position 3: Membership of the Conservative Party has fallen by 97% since the 1950s.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10546394/Europe-is-slowly-strangling-the-life-out-of-national-democracy.html
Page 165, Position 4: The surname Cameron means ‘crooked mouth’.
The Week, 14 Sep 2013
Page 166, Position 1: The facial expressions on Lego figures have become increasingly angry over the last 30 years.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-06/are-lego-figures-getting-angrier
Page 166, Position 2: A ‘rough and tumble’ was originally a boxing bout without any rules.
http://jmanly.ejmas.com/articles/2001/jmanlyart_gorn_0401.htm
Page 166, Position 3: In the 1890s, Samoan cricket matches had teams of up to 150 a side and lasted for over a fortnight.
Clay, Jeremy, A Burgler Caught by a Skeleton, (Icon Books, 5 Sep 2013) (citing The Gloucester Citizen, June 16th 1890)
Page 166, Position 4: Clinton, Montana, holds an annual testicle festival. Known as Testy Fest, it includes Ball Eating, Miss TestyFest, Itty Bitty Titty, Mr Fun Buns and Nicest Arms.
http://testyfesty.com
Page 167, Position 1: A manatee’s nipples are in its armpits.
http://mammalssuck.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/mega-mammal-milk-analysis.html
Page 167, Position 2: Despite producing milk, neither the platypus nor the echidna have nipples.
http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/2014/05/05/specimen-of-the-week-week-134/
Page 167, Position 3: Humans are the only primates with permanent breasts.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/may/14/breast-size-evolution
Page 167, Position 4: The largest bra size is 48V.
Williams, F. Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History, (W. W. Norton & Company, 7 May 2012)
Page 168, Position 1: Male Dayak fruit bats lactate.
http://discovermagazine.com/1995/feb/fathersmilk468#.UQFgSnOLIi4
Page 168, Position 2: Breast milk is a laxative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_milk
Page 168, Position 3: Women’s breast tissue ages faster than the rest of their bodies.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24439-womens-breasts-age-faster-than-the-rest-of-their-body.html?#.UmZd1aUTPfY
Page 168, Position 4: Victorian slang for breasts was ‘Cupid’s kettledrums’.
http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Grose-VulgarTongue/k/kettledrums.html
Page 169, Position 1: People are more likely to co-operate with you if you give them something warm to hold.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2623841/Warm-hands-warm-heart-How-temperature-palms-affects-likely-cooperate-others.html
Page 169, Position 2: Koalas hug trees to keep cool.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/koalas-hug-trees-to-keep-cool-say-scientists-9482444.html
Page 169, Position 3: Spider silk conducts heat better than most metals.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120305132613.htm
Page 169, Position 4: Spiders seem bigger the more scared you are.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/spiders-appear-bigger-more-fear-239844
Page 170, Position 1: 1 in 6 Americans over seven feet tall are professional basketball players.
The Week, 14 Sep 2013
Page 170, Position 2: Joseph Goebbels was the same height as Lindsay Lohan.
http://www.celebritydetective.com/celebrity_height2.html"http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0324305/bio
Page 170, Position 3: In the 1980s, Hollywood planned a version of Doctor Who, starring Michael Jackson as the Doctor.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/doctor-who/10468029/Doctor-Who-50-things-you-didnt-know.html
Page 170, Position 4: The Daleks were based on the Nazis.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/doctor-who/10468029/Doctor-Who-50-things-you-didnt-know.html
Page 171, Position 1: In 2001, Southend-on-Sea had to redesign its new traffic-warden outfits when it was pointed out they were emblazoned with the letters ‘SS’.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1340871/Drivers-rebel-over-traffic-wardens-in-SS-uniforms.html
Page 171, Position 2: The first time Hitler and Mussolini met, Mussolini described Hitler as a ‘mad little clown’.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/when-benito-mussolini-met-adolf-hitler-1317121.html
Page 171, Position 3: The clown Joseph Grimaldi was seen by 1 in 8 people in Victorian London.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-and-psychology-of-clowns-being-scary-20394516/
Page 171, Position 4: Charles Dickens’s son Francis was a Canadian Mountie for 12 years.
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/hist/hnud-nhut/did-faire-know-savez-eng.htm
Page 172, Position 1: Canada banned baby walkers in 2004.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3609723.stm
Page 172, Position 2: Pay toilets were banned in Chicago in 1974.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America
Page 172, Position 3: Skateboards were banned in Norway between 1978 and 1989.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=blH2--rIdoEC&pg=PT5&lpg=PT5&dq=Between+1978+and+1989,+skateboards+were+banned+in+Norway.&source=bl&ots=IHvMlRjMD0&sig=L4KyArnaW5B6U6Oz0sTLkQOYdgg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cv5QU8iUHYSlPbfLgJgH&ved=0CGUQ6AEwBg
Page 172, Position 4: In 1948, a single law in Spain banned blasphemy, wood-chopping and keeping poultry.
The Week, 19 Oct 2013
Page 173, Position 1: There was a law in Sparta against having an unmanly complexion.
McKeown, JC, A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities, (Oxford: OUP, 2010)
Page 173, Position 2: King Archidamus of Sparta was fined for marrying a short wife because officials believed she would give birth to ‘kinglets’ rather than kings.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HzeJbz7ybAMC&pg=PA197&lpg=PA197&dq=King+Archidamus+kinglets&source=bl&ots=2XqIitHVdR&sig=UUGlhSxsmtTfdtyU7WhiEjGgtaw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7xlIU-7bF8e47QbyvYCYCg&ved=0CE8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=King%20Archidamus%20kinglets&f=false
Page 173, Position 3: The jockey Frankie Dettori is four inches shorter than rugby player Tom Youngs, but only half his weight.
The Week, 12 Oct 2013
Page 173, Position 4: People eating in a group of seven or more eat twice as much as people eating alone.
Focus, Dec 2013
Page 174, Position 1: A newborn blue whale puts on 14 stone every day.
http://www.wcgs.org.uk/new/scienceblog/?p=245
Page 174, Position 2: Whales can’t taste anything but salt.
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/05/whales-cant-taste-anything-salt
Page 174, Position 3: Full-fat milk contains only 3.5% fat.
http://www.milk.co.uk/page.aspx?intPageID=43
Page 174, Position 4: A one-year-old baby is 30% fat.
Shields, David, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, (London: Penguin, 2008)
Page 175, Position 1: A newborn baby sucks in air with 50 times the power of an adult.
Shields, David, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, (London: Penguin, 2008)
Page 175, Position 2: Over your life, you take 850 million breaths.
Shields, David, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, (London: Penguin, 2008)
Page 175, Position 3: Potato aphids will not have sex if they detect a drop in air pressure.
http://www.nature.com/news/amorous-insects-predict-the-weather-1.13874
Page 175, Position 4: The ‘soul-sucking’ wasp, Ampulex dementor, is named after the Dementors in Harry Potter because of the way it paralyses cockroaches.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-dementor-wasp-new-species-of-insect-that-can-turn-cockroaches-into-zombies-named-after-harry-potter-character-9331583.html
Page 176, Position 1: The oldest-known parasitic worm was found protruding from the backside of a 25-million-year-old cockroach.
Piper, Ross, Animal Earth, (Thames & Hudson, 2013)
Page 176, Position 2: A nematode worm’s brain is shaped like a doughnut.
Piper, Ross, Animal Earth, (Thames & Hudson, 2013)
Page 176, Position 3: Penis worms do not have heads (or penises).
Piper, Ross, Animal Earth, (Thames & Hudson, 2013)
Page 176, Position 4: Beetles don’t have taste buds.
http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/content/arthropods
Page 177, Position 1: Adult burying beetles punish offspring who nag for food by eating them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-23754861
Page 177, Position 2: Ancient Egyptian bakers who cheated their customers were punished by having their ear nailed to the door of the bakery.
http://www.villagebakery.co.uk/blog/bakery-blog/a-bakers-dozen/
Page 177, Position 3: The English word ‘dinner’ comes from the French word disner, meaning ‘breakfast’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=dinner
Page 177, Position 4: In Hindi, a chummery is a house shared by two or more bachelors.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chummery
Page 178, Position 1: In Geoffrey Chaucer’s time, a ‘cockney’ meant a spoiled child.
Marriott, Emma, I Should Know That: Great Britain (London: Michael O'Mara Books Limited, 2013.)
Page 178, Position 2: In the Middle Ages, the word ‘comical’ meant ‘epileptic’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/51770/24-words-used-mean-something-negative"s: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=epilepsy
Page 178, Position 3: The longest bout of hiccups lasted 67 years.
Provine, Robert, Curious Behaviour, (London: Harvard University Press, 2012), p. 20
Page 178, Position 4: In the 15th century, English ‘sweating sickness’ killed thousands of people and then disappeared; nobody knows what it was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweating_sickness
Page 179, Position 1: Periwinkles are used to cure leukaemia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/health/28leprosy.html?_r=0
Page 179, Position 2: In Greece between 1920 and 1983, leprosy was grounds for divorce.
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&ved=0CGMQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fceflonline.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FGreece-Divorce.pdf&ei=0uj3Uoy-NM6AhAect4GwCA&usg=AFQjCNEu6SU4gtp0h6kcR6BqvWpw8KP-SQ&bvm=bv.60983673,d.ZG4
Page 179, Position 3: In 2013, the US Navy recorded its first case of scurvy since the Civil War.
http://www.duffelblog.com/2013/04/shore-sailor-stricken-by-navys-first-case-of-scurvy-in-150-years/
Page 179, Position 4: In Nelson’s navy, it took 2,000 mature oak trees to build a 74-gun ship.
http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-war&month=9910&week=b&msg=x1SlEXQOq5kWWS/DVaXAdA&user=&pw=
Page 180, Position 1: The modern Spanish Navy is still called the Armada.
http://www.armada.mde.es/
Page 180, Position 2: In spite of ‘women and children first’, men have been twice as likely as women to survive shipwrecks since 1852.
http://bigthink.com/Mind-Matters/in-a-shipwreck-your-heart-is-more-likely-to-go-on-if-youre-male
Page 180, Position 3: St Lucia is the only country in the world named after a woman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_named_after_people
Page 180, Position 4: Rome has 7,575 streets named after men but only 580 after women.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17203823
Page 181, Position 1: 59 of the 60 oldest living people are women.
http://www.grg.org/Adams/E.HTM
Page 181, Position 2: The oldest person in the world dies, on average, every 8 months.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-often-does-the-oldest-person-in-the-world-die-59484536/
Page 181, Position 3: The oldest you can be to go on a Club 18–30 holiday is 35.
http://www.club18-30.com/terms-and-conditions/
Page 181, Position 4: A quarter of unmarried Japanese 30-year-olds are still virgins.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15915118
Page 182, Position 1: More than 50,000 people in Japan are over 100 years old.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/14/japan-centenarian-population
Page 182, Position 2: The average Japanese farmer is 70 years old.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/07d4c8a8-7e45-11e3-b409-00144feabdc0.html
Page 182, Position 3: A common form of public apology in Japan is shaving one’s head.
http://www.examiner.com/article/pop-star-shaves-head-japanese-pop-star-s-apology-video-goes-viral
Page 182, Position 4: Most Britons say ‘sorry’ almost two million times in their lives.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6241411.stm
Page 183, Position 1: The first football rulebook in Argentina stated that a player who had been fouled could accept an apology rather than involve the referee.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LGpArsi70DgC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=first+football+rule+book+accept+apology+%22river+plate%22&source=bl&ots=wVwmpUAV85&sig=tyXN4wbn1iNEIpzg0K4814DOEzU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iFpWU9nfCfKO7Qa48oHoCA&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=first%20football%20rule%20book%20accept%20apology%20%22river%20plate%22&f=false
Page 183, Position 2: Argentinians speak Spanish with a strong Italian accent.
http://ordinarytraveler.com/articles/why-you-shouldn-t-learn-spanish-in-argentina
Page 183, Position 3: In Washington DC, the Slovakian and Slovenian embassies meet once a month to exchange wrongly addressed mail.
http://www.slovak-republic.org/slovenia/
Page 183, Position 4: Slovenian men do twice as much housework as Italian men.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/the-countries-where-men-do-the-most-housework/284276/
Page 184, Position 1: 80% of Italians aged between 18 and 30 live with their parents.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/24/dependent-generation-half-young-european-adults-live-parents
Page 184, Position 2: If Prince Charles becomes king, he will be the oldest monarch ever crowned in Britain.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/10320264/Prince-of-Wales-will-be-oldest-monarch-crowned.html
Page 184, Position 3: Prince Charles runs his car on biofuel made from wine.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1030611/Prince-Charles-converts-beloved-Aston-Martin-green-machine--run-English-wine.html
Page 184, Position 4: Wine can be ‘aged’ by passing it through an electric field for three minutes.
http://www.money.co.uk/article/1002327-new-technology-transforms-cheap-wine-into-vintage-quality-in-minutes.htm
Page 185, Position 1: A £5 bottle of wine tastes better if you’ve paid £45 for it.
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/study-90-wine-tastes-better-than-the-same-wine-at-10/
Page 185, Position 2: If food prices had risen at the same rate as house prices over the last 40 years, a loaf of bread would cost £4.87.
http://england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns/building_more_affordable_homes/price_check\
Page 185, Position 3: 33% of the bread produced in the UK is wasted, compared with 6% of the alcohol.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/oct/05/bread-dough-facts-data
Page 185, Position 4: Alcohol costs 60% more in the UK than it does in France.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/oct/05/bread-dough-facts-data
Page 186, Position 1: 20 million barrels of whisky are maturing in warehouses in Scotland.
http://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/what-we-do/facts-figures/
Page 186, Position 2: In 14th-century England, children were baptised in cider.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/herefordandworcester/culture/2002/05/bulmers.shtml
Page 186, Position 3: Wayne Rooney’s voicemail password was ‘Stella Artois’.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/phone-hacking-trial-wayne-rooney-2784217
Page 186, Position 4: 1 in 10 passwords used on the Internet are either ‘Password’, or ‘123456’ or ‘12345678’.
https://xato.net/passwords/more-top-worst-passwords/#.UqWtihZedHg
Page 187, Position 1: The least common PIN number is 8068.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/09/19/how_to_choose_a_pin_code_avoid_birth_date_1234_or_8068.html
Page 187, Position 2: Alternative names considered for Twitter were FriendStalker and Throbber.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/twitter-might-have-been-named-friendstalker/281380/
Page 187, Position 3: 85% of Twitter’s content comes from 15% of users.
http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-85-users-creating-content/236358/
Page 187, Position 4: Half of all tweets are pointless babble.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8204842.stm
Page 188, Position 1: One-third of the population of China can’t speak the country’s official language.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-23975037
Page 188, Position 2: Only a fifth of the Sahara desert is sand.
Varasdi, J. Allen, Myth Information, (Ballantine, 1989)
Page 188, Position 3: At least a tenth of the population of Mauritania are slaves.
http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2012/03/world/mauritania.slaverys.last.stronghold/index.html
Page 188, Position 4: Mississippi didn’t prohibit slavery until 1995.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/02/mississippi-officially-abolishes-slavery-ratifies-13th-amendment/
Page 189, Position 1: The Tightwad Bank serves the town of Tightwad, Missouri.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/17/AR2008081702195.html
Page 189, Position 2: Two-thirds of all bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical bills.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148
Page 189, Position 3: More than 80,000 bartenders in America have university degrees.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-17/end-u-s-student-loans-don-t-make-them-cheaper.html
Page 189, Position 4: As a nuclear-safety inspector, Homer Simpson earns $20,000 more than the average American.
http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Nuclear-Safety-Health-Physics-Technician-l-Sangamon-County,-IL.html
Page 190, Position 1: Americans today work for the equivalent of one month more each year than they did in 1976.
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/sundays-terrible-weekends-dying-80943/"http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.2564.IH:
Page 190, Position 2: There is a French law that stops people answering work emails after 6 p.m.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/shortcuts/2014/apr/09/french-6pm-labour-agreement-work-emails-out-of-office
Page 190, Position 3: Apple Inc. is worth more than Sweden, Poland or Nigeria.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17344386
Page 190, Position 4: The founders of Hewlett-Packard flipped a coin to decide which of them would come first in the company name.
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/about-hp/history/hp-garage/hp-garage-timeline.html
Page 191, Position 1: Facebook is cited in one-third of UK divorce cases.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/12/30/facebook-divorce-_n_1176480.html
Page 191, Position 2: A survey in Britain in 1943 found that the top tip for a successful marriage was ‘liking’ your partner.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24957664
Page 191, Position 3: The Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez was married for 55 years. Every day his wife Mercedes put a yellow rose on his desk.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/17/us-garciamarquez-idUSBREA3F1LY20140417
Page 191, Position 4: The first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive was a 63-year-old widow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Edson_Taylor
Page 192, Position 1: Hurricanes with female names are deadlier than ones named after men.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8782.short
Page 192, Position 2: All New Mexico whiptail lizards are female.
http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/New_Mexico/reptilewhiptaillizard.html
Page 192, Position 3: The German phrase Eierlegende Wollmilchsau, literally, ‘egg-laying wool-milk-sow’, describes a woman who can do anything.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eierlegende_Wollmilchsau
Page 192, Position 4: In Saudi Arabia, it is illegal for women to enter hospitals unaccompanied by men.
http://www.arabnews.com/news/525696
Page 193, Position 1: Saudi Arabia has an official anti-witchcraft unit.
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Saudi-Arabias-Anti-Witchcraft-Unit-breaks-another-spell
Page 193, Position 2: The last English woman tried for witchcraft was convicted in 1944.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Duncan
Page 193, Position 3: A quarter of philosophers believe in zombies.
http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/anthony-gottlieb/what-do-philosophers-believe
Page 193, Position 4: Winston Churchill was a druid.
http://www.druidry.org/druid-way/what-druidry/brief-history-druidry/history-modern-druidism
Page 194, Position 1: Jimi Hendrix was a paratrooper.
http://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/career-advice/military-transition/famous-veterans-jimi-hendrix.html
Page 194, Position 2: Madonna was sacked from Dunkin’ Donuts for squirting customers with jam.
http://money.ca.msn.com/savings-debt/gallery/17-people-who-got-fired-before-they-became-rich-and-famous?page=6
Page 194, Position 3: Sylvester Stallone was so broke before his script for Rocky was accepted that he sold his dog for $25. A few weeks later, he bought it back for $15,000.
http://www.endlesshumanpotential.com/sylvester-stallone-story.html
Page 194, Position 4: Pavarotti holds the world record for the most curtain calls: he bowed 165 times over the course of an hour.
http://www.scotsman.com/what-s-on/music/pavarotti-the-two-tenors-1-917722
Page 195, Position 1: Regardless of household income, children of authoritarian parents are a third more likely to be obese.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140319165200.htm
Page 195, Position 2: 1 in 3 children can use a tablet before they can speak.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2478328/One-kids-use-mobile-phone-tablet-speak-sentences.html
Page 195, Position 3: Toddlers who tell lies early on are more likely to do well later in life.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10119297
Page 195, Position 4: Humans are born with a sweet tooth.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/09/26/140753048/kids-sugar-cravings-might-be-biological
Page 196, Position 1: 80% of food has sugar added to it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lustig-md/sugar-toxic_b_2759564.html
Page 196, Position 2: The caffeine extracted from decaf coffee is sold to soft-drinks manufacturers.
http://www.teaandcoffee.net/0708/feature.htm
Page 196, Position 3: Sugary drinks kill 180,000 people a year.
http://www.livescience.com/28040-sugar-sweetened-beverages-deaths.html
Page 196, Position 4: East African vampire spiders drink human blood by eating mosquitoes that have just bitten humans.
http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2005/10/1011_051011_spider_vampire.html
Page 197, Position 1: Every three seconds, 50 million cells in your body die and are replaced.
The Times, 11 Sep 2013
Page 197, Position 2: A parking ticket is issued in Britain every four seconds.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2603693/Councils-issued-one-parking-ticket-FOUR-SECONDS-year-raking-255m-fines.html
Page 197, Position 3: The universe is expanding at 230 miles a second.
http://www.space.com/17884-universe-expansion-speed-hubble-constant.html
Page 197, Position 4: Clams can live for more than 400 years.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/ming-the-clam-worlds-oldest-animal-dated-as-507-years-old-after-being-accidentally-killed-by-scientists-8942102.html
Page 198, Position 1: An 80-year-old’s fingernails grow half as quickly as a 30-year-old’s.
Shields, David, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, (London: Penguin, 2008)
Page 198, Position 2: Onychophagia is the technical term for biting your nails.
Oxford English Dictionary
Page 198, Position 3: People with a rare genetic disorder known as ‘immigration delay disease’ have no fingerprints.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/08/110809-fingerprints-skin-disease-health-science-weird/
Page 198, Position 4: The expression ‘the big C’ as a euphemism for cancer was coined by John Wayne.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24985184
Page 199, Position 1: The first person to smoke in Europe was sent to prison for being possessed by the devil.
http://www.helpwithsmoking.com/history-of-smoking.php
Page 199, Position 2: Most people in the18th century only had a proper wash twice a year.
http://www.salon.com/2007/11/30/dirt_on_clean/
Page 199, Position 3: In the 19th century, circumcision was used to treat epilepsy, hernia, lunacy and paralysis.
http://dspace.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/1880/47498/1/2008_HMD_Skeldon.pdf
Page 199, Position 4: Manchester United Induced Addisonian Crisis is a rare medical condition involving heart palpitations during Man United games.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16202590
Page 200, Position 1: 1 in 4 people have a hole in their heart.
New Scientist, 26 Oct 2013
Page 200, Position 2: The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is twice the size of Europe.
http://www.livescience.com/40609-ozone-hole-biggest-for-2013.html
Page 200, Position 3: The hole in a guillotine through which you stick your neck is called a lunette.
Oxford English Dictionary
Page 200, Position 4: The rules of golf once provided that if your ball hit your opponent, he would lose the hole.
http://www.ruleshistory.com/rules1812.html#9
Page 201, Position 1: Celine Dion owns a golf course.
http://celinedion2007.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/le-mirage.html
Page 201, Position 2: Bill Murray was once pulled over by the Swedish police for driving a golf cart under the influence of alcohol.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/sep/11/bill-murray-60th-birthday-facts
Page 201, Position 3: In a 1776 version of the rules of golf, any ball falling in human excrement could be removed for a one-stroke penalty.
http://ruleshistory.com/rules1776.html
Page 201, Position 4: Golfers can get ‘golf ball liver’ from licking their balls.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/hidden-hazard-in-licking-golf-balls-1261332.html
Page 202, Position 1: Alfred Lyttelton, the first man to represent England at both cricket and football, was killed by a cricket ball.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Lyttelton
Page 202, Position 2: William Hotten, who wrote the first dictionary of English slang in 1859, died after eating too many pork chops.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/10726944/Odd-Job-Man-and-Language-by-Jonathon-Green-review.html
Page 202, Position 3: Human flesh tastes like pork but looks like beef.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/human-flesh-looks-beef-taste-more-elusive-180949562/?no-ist
Page 202, Position 4: 37-stone Les Price was made to buy two tickets for his flight from Ireland to England, only to find that the seats weren’t in the same row.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/10376714/37st-man-forced-to-pay-for-two-seats-on-jet-finds-they-are-rows-apart.html
Page 203, Position 1: Fat Man was the name of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man
Page 203, Position 2: You can burn 20% more fat by exercising in the morning on an empty stomach.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130124091425.htm
Page 203, Position 3: Taking the stairs one step at a time burns more calories than taking them two at a time.
http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/News/One-step-or-two--Research-findings/
Page 203, Position 4: Having sex uses the same number of calories as there are in one small meringue.
http://www.dailylocal.com/article/DL/20130211/LIFE01/130219999
Page 204, Position 1: Medieval peasants ate twice as many calories as we do today.
http://people.eku.edu/resorc/Medieval_peasant_diet.htm
Page 204, Position 2: Medieval English surnames included Crakpot, Halfenaked, Swetinbedde and Gyldenbollockes.
Sunday Times, 25 Aug 2013
Page 204, Position 3: Viking names included ‘desirous of beer’, ‘squat-wiggle’, ‘lust-hostage’, ‘short penis’, ‘able to fill a bay with fish by magic’, ‘the man who mixes his drinks’ and ‘the man without trousers’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2401710/New-book-reveals-UKs-bizarre-surnames.html
Page 204, Position 4: The Romans split France into ‘Trousered Gaul’ in the south and ‘Hairy Gaul’ in the north.
BBC History, Christmas 2013
Page 205, Position 1: Lewstery means ‘to bustle about like a lusty wench’.
Kacirk, Jeffrey, The Word Museum (Touchstone, 2000)
Page 205, Position 2: Leint is an old northern word meaning ‘to add urine to ale to make it stronger’.
Kacirk, Jeffrey, The Word Museum (Touchstone, 2000)
Page 205, Position 3: Leep is a Hindi word meaning ‘to wash with water and cow dung’.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=N_utAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT71&lpg=PT71&dq=Leep+is+a+Hindi+word+meaning+%27to+wash+with+water+and+cow+dung%27.&source=bl&ots=TAK1tsPrzD&sig=AY6G3IbVmV4pb9kJw1PEIn_pcvw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XKMhVJmNLMLTaMfjgZgH&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Leep%20is%20a%20Hindi%20word%20meaning%20'to%20wash%20with%20water%20and%20cow%20dung'.&f=false
Page 205, Position 4: Logodiarrhoea means ‘talking too much’.
Oxford English Dictionary
Page 206, Position 1: The human brain has enough memory to hold three million hours of television.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memory-capacity/
Page 206, Position 2: Ross from Friends celebrated his 29th birthday in three consecutive seasons.
http://friends.wikia.com/wiki/Ross_Geller#Age_and_Birthday"http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-fictional-worlds-ruined-by-real-life-math.php
Page 206, Position 3: Matt LeBlanc was down to his last $11 when he got the part of Joey in Friends.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108778/trivia
Page 206, Position 4: In most countries, the most popular programme on TV is the weather forecast.
http://www.wmo.int/pages/themes/weather/index_en.html
Page 207, Position 1: Not one of the Star Trek TV shows or films contains the words ‘Beam me up, Scotty’.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060028/trivia
Page 207, Position 2: The 1960s US TV show Lost in Space was set in 1997.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058824/trivia
Page 207, Position 3: Fewer people have ever been in space than climbed Mount Everest last year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk2Vaeg7F_c
Page 207, Position 4: For every 25 people who have reached the summit of Mount Everest, one person has died trying.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2152664/Everest-deaths-The-high-altitude-lunatic-asylum-human-compassion-sacrificed-personal-achievement.html
Page 208, Position 1: 47-year-old Mark Inglis climbed Everest in 2006, despite having no legs and one of his prostheses snapping in half at 21,000 feet.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-08-14/people/29884458_1_mount-everest-mt-everest-tallest-mountain
Page 208, Position 2: ‘Viagra’ is a combination of ‘virility’ and ‘Niagara’.
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21567330-anatomy-seminal-work-cross-bare
Page 208, Position 3: Tutankhamun was the only ancient Egyptian who was mummified with an erect penis.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/king-tutankhamun-was-mummified-with-an-erect-penis-to-quash-religious-revolution-9037709.html
Page 208, Position 4: Tutankhamun’s parents were brother and sister.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun
Page 209, Position 1: ‘Double cousins’ share all four grandparents. This happens when a pair of sisters marries a pair of brothers.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/54486/11-little-known-words-specific-family-members
Page 209, Position 2: One in five marriages in the world are between first cousins.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/faheem-younus/why-ban-cousin-marriages_b_2567162.html
Page 209, Position 3: One in 20 couples argue so much on their wedding night they fail to consummate their marriage.
The Week 19 Oct 2013
Page 209, Position 4: George IV got so drunk on his wedding night he passed out on the floor in front of the fireplace.
http://www.georgianindex.net/princewaleswedding/Prince_Wales_wedding.html
Page 210, Position 1: When Peter the Great found out his wife had had an affair, he had her lover’s head chopped off and presented to her in a jar.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-Ag2bbYzgacC&pg=PA199&lpg=PA199&dq=willem+mons+head+in+a+jar&source=bl&ots=MS-DWOiUIu&sig=yCttzHl-5Nwi3oCXPfeSnvpGP7c&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uXhyUpbTCMaIiALUuIGoBw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=willem%20mons%20head%20in%20a%20jar&f=false
Page 210, Position 2: In 2013, Al-Qaeda apologised for accidentally beheading one of their own men.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/14/world/meast/syria-beheading-mistake/
Page 210, Position 3: More than twice as many people were guillotined by the Nazis as during the French Revolution.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4730105/The-kindest-cutter-of-all.html
Page 210, Position 4: The first violence of the French Revolution took place at a luxury wallpaper factory.
Page 211, Position 1: Before having their chests cut open and their hearts pulled out, Aztec human-sacrifice victims were given a cup of hot chocolate.
http://fatpie42.livejournal.com/128831.html
Page 211, Position 2: As well as humans, the Aztecs sacrificed wolves, turtles, snakes, hummingbirds, woodpeckers and shellfish.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130617-aztec-offering-animal-tenochtitlan-templo-mayor-mexico-science-archaeology
Page 211, Position 3: In 2002, Norwegian footballer Kenneth Kristensen signed for third-division team Floey and was paid his weight in shrimps.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/news/2002/09/20/norweigan_fish_ap/
Page 211, Position 4: Louis XIV ate 400 oysters on his wedding night.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q6WcAiZ5fPkC&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=balzac+100+oysters&source=bl&ots=fxiS1z-Dc5&sig=lhQcHHG8zlYuKHjPOgQjerRFeuI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OwdZU7TNCYXuOYzWgOgP&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=balzac%20100%20oysters&f=false
Page 212, Position 1: To improve their ability to swallow hot dogs, the International Federation of Competitive Eating is studying black holes.
http://www.geekosystem.com/eating-black-holes/
Page 212, Position 2: Slum dwellings made up 20% of the houses in London in 1949.
Grindrod, John, Concretopia, (Old Street Publishing, 8 Jul 2014)
Page 212, Position 3: It is illegal in Vancouver to build a new house with doorknobs.
http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/story.html?id=9173543
Page 212, Position 4: Brass doorknobs disinfect themselves in a process known as the oligodynamic effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligodynamic_effect
Page 213, Position 1: Bacteria live for only three hours on Croatia’s currency, the kuna, but for more than a day on the Romanian leu.
New Scientist, 14 Sep 2013
Page 213, Position 2: It is as difficult for a bacterium to swim through water as it is for a human to swim through syrup.
Scientific American Sep 2013
Page 213, Position 3: The world’s oceans contain 20 million billion tons of chlorine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/science/chlorine-swimming-pool-helper-has-a-checkered-past.html?ref=science&_r=3&
Page 213, Position 4: A chemical in ships’ paint causes female snails to grow penises and explode.
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/six-years-after-chemical-ban-fewer-female-snails-are-growing-penises
Page 214, Position 1: 4% of the sand on Normandy beaches is made up of tiny metal particles from the D-Day landings.
http://www.livescience.com/20760-omaha-beach-sand-day.html
Page 214, Position 2: Half the world’s population has a genetic mutation that makes Brussels sprouts taste extremely nasty.
Focus Magazine, Dec 2013
Page 214, Position 3: As a boy, Roald Dahl taste-tested new chocolate bars for Cadbury’s.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-qBtdOS8glAC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=roald+dahl+taste+tester+cadbury&source=bl&ots=zVJWAzXmgV&sig=XmmTlXDBgWCqnzuyBzE2qtd15F8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=buBHU7irL-y07Qbn8YHoCA&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=roald%20dahl%20taste%20tester%20cadbury&f=false
Page 214, Position 4: People who try to stop thinking about chocolate eat more of it than those who don’t.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071026213538.htm
Page 215, Position 1: 1 in 5 British children think fish fingers are made of chicken.
http://metro.co.uk/2013/06/03/one-in-five-children-think-fish-fingers-are-made-from-chicken-3825959/
Page 215, Position 2: 1 in 5 kidneys donated in the US are thrown away because a suitable recipient can’t be found.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/health/transplant-experts-blame-allocation-system-for-discarding-kidneys.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Page 215, Position 3: 1 in 5 people in 2005 admitted to taking Derbisol – a drug that doesn’t exist.
http://io9.com/have-you-ever-gotten-high-on-derbisol-1520473039
Page 215, Position 4: Wamblecropt is a 17th-century word for ‘indigestion’.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/oct/09/mark-forsyth-the-horologicon-top-10-lost-words
Page 216, Position 1: In Turkey, the word for ‘turkey’ means ‘Indian bird’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=turkey
Page 216, Position 2: The Indian word for turkey means ‘Peruvian bird’.
http://blog.dictionary.com/turkey/
Page 216, Position 3: In Greece, the word for ‘turkey’ means ‘French bird’.
http://blog.dictionary.com/turkey/
Page 216, Position 4: The Malaysian word for ‘turkey’ means ‘Dutch chicken’.
http://blog.dictionary.com/turkey/
Page 217, Position 1: The world’s largest chicken nugget is twice the size of the world’s largest chicken.
http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2013/10/worlds_largest_chicken_nugget_on_display_in_secaucus.html#incart_m-rpt-1
Page 217, Position 2: The world’s largest water slide in Kansas City is taller than Niagara Falls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdKI6WS7ghE
Page 217, Position 3: The dish of the world’s largest single-aperture radio telescope is large enough to hold the contents of 357 million boxes of cornflakes.
Ross, Greg, Futility Closet, (Futility Closet, 2013)
Page 217, Position 4: The world’s smallest advert was stencilled onto a bee’s knee.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1035510.stm
Page 218, Position 1: Piranha soup is a popular aphrodisiac in Brazil.
http://soulbrasileiro.com/main/brazil/drinks-and-food/caldo-de-piranha/caldo-de-piranha/
Page 218, Position 2: Prunes were served as aphrodisiacs in Elizabethan brothels.
http://www.almanac.com/content/aphrodisiac-really-works
Page 218, Position 3: Marmalade was an aphrodisiac in 17th-century London.
http://www.historicfood.com/Quinces%20Recipe.htm
Page 218, Position 4: Frog juice, made by putting frogs in a blender, is an aphrodisiac in Peru.
http://www.betternutrition.com/natural-libido-increase/columns/askthenaturopath/1169
Page 219, Position 1: Before fridges were invented, Russians and Finns kept their milk fresh by putting live frogs in it.
http://discovermagazine.com/2014/may/27-milking-frog-skin
Page 219, Position 2: In 1998, a swarm of jellyfish in New Zealand killed 56,000 salmon in half an hour.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stung-lisa-ann-gershwin/1112822549?ean=9780226020105
Page 219, Position 3: The national bird of Peru is the Andean cock of the rock.
http://www.nhptv.org/wild/andeancockoftheRock.asp
Page 219, Position 4: The scientific name for a llama is Lama glama.
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Lama_glama/
Page 220, Position 1: The first jerky was called charqui and was made from llama.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charqui
Page 220, Position 2: Male llamas having sex make a strange gargling noise called an ‘orgle’.
http://seaworld.org/animalinfo/animal-info/animal-bytes/mammals/llama/
Page 220, Position 3: The French word for ‘sexting’ is textopornographique.
http://www.geekosystem.com/french-word-for-sexting/
Page 220, Position 4: The French for the constellation Ursa Major is ‘Le Casserole’.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=I3t6ssFSnRUC&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=French+call+the+big+dipper+the+casserole.&source=bl&ots=i8CQix8dHS&sig=oQ254AOW-l314UdVJ1IWOM1CAzs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MeZHU5eMKO7A7Abh6IEg&ved=0CFYQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=French%20call%20the%20big%20dipper%20the%20casserole.&f=false
Page 221, Position 1: The word louche is French for ‘cross-eyed’.
Oxford English Dictionary
Page 221, Position 2: The French for ‘rehearsal’ is répétition.
http://dictionary.reverso.net/french-english/r%C3%A9p%C3%A9tition
Page 221, Position 3: In French episodes of The Simpsons, Homer’s catchphrase ‘D’oh!’ is dubbed as ‘T’oh!’
http://www.todaytranslations.com/blog/simpsons-sound-like-countries/
Page 221, Position 4: French names for trenches in the First World War included ‘The Snail’, ‘Place de L’Opéra’ and ‘Headache’.
Ourednik, Patrik, Europeana (London: Dalkey Press, 2005)
Page 222, Position 1: Due to a computer error in 1989 41,000 Parisians received letters charging them with murder, extortion and prostitution instead of traffic offences.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/10483693/The-Unbelievable-Truth-can-you-sort-fact-from-fiction.html
Page 222, Position 2: In 2013, a PayPal computer error briefly made a man in Pennsylvania the richest person in the world.
http://articles.philly.com/2013-07-16/news/40592245_1_delco-man-credit-card-delaware-county-council
Page 222, Position 3: The richest man in Italy is Michele Ferrero, the maker of Ferrero Rocher.
http://www.forbes.com/profile/michele-ferrero/
Page 222, Position 4: The most common occupation for the wife of a millionaire is teacher.
http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0411/5-easy-steps-to-becoming-a-millionaire.aspx
Page 223, Position 1: The first man to pass the compulsory driving test in Britain in 1935 was Mr Beene.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8762972/A-history-of-the-driving-test.html
Page 223, Position 2: Thomas Edison invented the tattoo pen.
http://edison.rutgers.edu/pen.htm
Page 223, Position 3: The man who invented the water bed was unable to patent it because it had already appeared in science-fiction novels.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/geek-trivia-strange-waterbedfellows/
Page 223, Position 4: Titanic was the first movie made by James Cameron that didn’t include any mention of nuclear weapons.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/spenceralthouse/25-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-movie-titanic
Page 224, Position 1: Arnold Schwarzenegger earned more than £20,000 per word for his role in Terminator 2.
http://whatculture.com/film/10-insane-movie-facts-that-will-blow-your-mind.php/2
Page 224, Position 2: India’s Mars probe cost less than the movie Gravity.
http://boingboing.net/2014/02/17/india-sends-spacecraft-to-mars.html
Page 224, Position 3: The B-movie The Blob is based on a real-life police report from 1950.
http://www.fearnet.com/news/news-article/did-you-know-blob-based-true-story
Page 224, Position 4: The movie Blade Runner was based on a novel by Philip K. Dick. Director Ridley Scott never finished the book and Dick never saw the film.
http://www.neatorama.com/2014/01/30/Philip-K-Dick-Never-Saw-Blade-Runner-and-Ridley-Scott-Never-Finished-Reading-the-Novel-it-was-Based-on/#!t34Eo
Page 225, Position 1: The last film rented out by Blockbuster was the 2013 comedy This Is the End.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/nov/12/blockbuster-final-rental-this-is-the-end
Page 225, Position 2: The Domesday Book wasn’t known as the Domesday Book for a hundred years after it was written.
Marriott, Emma, I Should Know That: Great Britain (London: Michael O'Mara Books Limited, 2013.)
Page 225, Position 3: The Bible’s Book of Esther doesn’t mention God once.
Symons, Mitchell, Numberland: The World In Numbers, (London: Michael O'Mara Books, 2013)
Page 225, Position 4: There is no evidence that Geoffrey Chaucer ever visited Canterbury.
http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/Canterbury/
Page 226, Position 1: Not one of the 500 references to Geoffrey Chaucer written in his lifetime refers to him as a poet.
Times Literary Suppliment, 15 Nov 2013
Page 226, Position 2: The first collection of poetry published by the three Brontë sisters sold fewer copies than it had authors.
Dexter, Gary, Why Not Catch-21? (London: Francis Lincoln Limited, 2007)
Page 226, Position 3: Edgar Allan Poe received only $9 for the publication of The Raven.
http://www.eapoe.org/papers/psbbooks/pb19871e.htm
Page 226, Position 4: Houdini bought Edgar Allan Poe’s writing desk.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NyEumvZL1QMC&pg=PA153&lpg=PA153&dq=houdini+bought+poe+writing+desk&source=bl&ots=GJe8t5m4su&sig=xttLc-fxhOpixzLvzAxEJPeUT8k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hTBdU-CdA4SDO8m-gegP&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=houdini%20bought%20poe%20writing%20desk&f=false
Page 227, Position 1: The novelist Kurt Vonnegut ran America’s first Saab dealership.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/1726/
Page 227, Position 2: J. M. Barrie founded a celebrity cricket team with Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, Jerome K. Jerome, G. K. Chesterton, A. A. Milne, Rudyard Kipling and P. G. Wodehouse.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MquNyteI59cC&pg=PT134&lpg=PT134&dq=J.+M.+Barrie+godfather&source=bl&ots=e0re21Ymk4&sig=j4jn-YyphKGOHSLvODwjfIBRzVE&hl=en&ei=X2xBTrS7BcyhOs3QzKkJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Page 227, Position 3: Cricket was allowed under the Taliban, but applause by the crowd was banned.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/may/18/worlddispatch.rorymccarthy
Page 227, Position 4: Russell Brand’s My Booky Wook is banned from Guantanamo Bay.
http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/12/why-russell-brand-banned-gitmo
Page 228, Position 1: All glossy magazines are radioactive.
http://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/consumer%20products/magazines.htm
Page 228, Position 2: Mouse sperm is bigger than elephant sperm.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/broadband/tx/elephant/sizequiz/index_textonly.shtml
Page 228, Position 3: The amniotic fluid in the human womb renews itself completely every three hours.
http://www.steadyhealth.com/articles/My_Pregnancy__The_Second_Trimester__2nd_Trimester__a921.html
Page 228, Position 4: The last entry in the official Scrabble dictionary is ‘zzz’.
http://www.scrabblefinder.com/z-letter-words/
Page 229, Position 1: William Morton, the father of anaesthesia, first experimented on himself but kept falling asleep before he could describe the results.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Yn0jBfxnr18C&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&dq=william+morton+anesthesia+goldfish+dog+hen&source=bl&ots=HeBxGt4gmZ&sig=H0uao--8eDk3SOvPH37TFXojzhA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=M7eMU-7MMMvFPe2LgEg&ved=0CE4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 229, Position 2: To sleep for one night in every bed in Las Vegas would take 288 years.
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/nv-facts.html
Page 229, Position 3: The Bloody Mary has been scientifically proven to be the best alcoholic drink to enjoy on an aeroplane.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/10789937/Best-in-flight-tipple-The-Bloody-Mary.html
Page 229, Position 4: Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of radio, was the great-grandson of the inventor of Jameson’s Irish whiskey.
http://www.irishdistillers.ie/our-company/irish-distillers-history.html
Page 230, Position 1: It takes 700 grapes to make one bottle of wine.
http://www.winespectator.com/drvinny/show/id/5350
Page 230, Position 2: It takes a million cloud droplets to make one raindrop.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cQBh93ibpscC&pg=PA161&lpg=PA161&dq=million+cloud+droplets+to+produce+one+raindrop&source=bl&ots=K32cItnIlW&sig=SMheVbK0rkBRRKw2yXHa62fUiLs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BitdU5H8Ec7jO7XIgcgP&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=million%20cloud%20droplets%20to%20produce%20one%20raindrop&f=false
Page 230, Position 3: A planet called HD 189733b, 63 light years from Earth, is lashed by rain made of molten glass and 4,000 mph winds.
http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1312/
Page 230, Position 4: The word ‘weather’ originally just meant ‘wind’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=weather&allowed_in_frame=0
Page 231, Position 1: The Khasi Hills in India, once known as the wettest hills in the world, are now having to import water.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2977169.stm
Page 231, Position 2: Khaki is Urdu for ‘dust’.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/khaki
Page 231, Position 3: Although Australia is the driest inhabited continent, Australians use more water than anyone else.
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2009/12/07/2764044.htm
Page 231, Position 4: The busiest polling station in Australian elections is in London.
http://www.australiantimes.co.uk/news/voting-polls-are-now-open.htm
Page 232, Position 1: Nobody won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1972.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/facts/peace/
Page 232, Position 2: J. R. R. Tolkien was rejected for a Nobel Prize in Literature on the grounds of his ‘poor storytelling’.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/06/tolkien-lord-of-the-ring-nobel-prize-rejection_n_1188684.html
Page 232, Position 3: Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin adopted the ‘R. R.’ as a homage to Tolkien.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/mar/17/game-of-thrones-george-rr-martin-song-ice-fire
Page 232, Position 4: In 2012, 146 girls in the US were named Khaleesi.
http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/nation/2013/06/26/2459399/
Page 233, Position 1: In 2012, five babies in the UK were named Sherlock.
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-12-02/sherlock-enters-top-baby-name-list
Page 233, Position 2: Chinese fans of Sherlock call Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman ‘Curly Fu’ and ‘Peanut’.
http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/19/the-chinese-have-fallen-in-love-with-sherlock-and-benedict-cumberbatch-whom-they-call-curly-fu-4268744/
Page 233, Position 3: The leader of Brighton Council is called Jason Kitcat.
http://www.jasonkitcat.com
Page 233, Position 4: The original KitKat was an 18th-century mutton pie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit-Cat_Club
Page 234, Position 1: Ruth Wakefield, inventor of chocolate-chip cookies, sold her idea to Nestlé in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate.
http://www.women-inventors.com/Ruth-Wakefield.asp
Page 234, Position 2: Lava lamps were invented by an accountant whose hobby was making underwater nudist films.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-of-the-lava-lamp-21201966/
Page 234, Position 3: For inspiration, D. H. Lawrence liked to climb mulberry trees naked.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/02/reviews/ackerman-poets.html
Page 234, Position 4: The world’s oldest living tree was already 100 years old when Stonehenge was built.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_trees
Page 235, Position 1: There’s a tree in South Africa so big that a pub has been built inside its trunk.
http://www.southafrica.net/za/en/articles/entry/article-southafrica.net-sunland-baobab
Page 235, Position 2: Palm trees are a type of grass.
http://www.tampabay.com/features/homeandgarden/ask-dr-hort-defining-palms-desiring-more-desert-cassia-getting-orchid/1198543
Page 235, Position 3: A grasshopper becomes more sociable if you stroke its hind legs.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/a-brain-chemical-changes-locusts-from-harmless-grasshoppers-to-swarming-pests
Page 235, Position 4: Removing a fruit fly’s front legs makes it bisexual.
Fan, et al. Cell 154; 89-102, July 3, 2013
Page 236, Position 1: Male fruit flies given alcohol develop homosexual tendencies.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13136-randy-flies-reveal-how-booze-affects-inhibitions.html
Page 236, Position 2: Fruit flies take their time over difficult decisions.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27518484
Page 236, Position 3: After mating, a pair of love bugs can stay stuck together, even in flight, for several days.
http://www.clemson.edu/cafls/departments/esps/factsheets/household_structural/lovebugs_hs44.html
Page 236, Position 4: Male woodlice can change sex but females can’t.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v412/n6842/full/412012a0.html
Page 237, Position 1: Every leech has 18 testicles and two ovaries.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bcdbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=leech+%22eighteen+testicles%22&source=bl&ots=uM9ny5unq_&sig=8LJl9TJYdMa-EHjDNTYQp7_v0jQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=h9MZU_iCG8WShgey7oC4Dg&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=leech%20%22eighteen%20testicles%22&f=false
Page 237, Position 2: The largest-ever leech was 18 inches long and went by the name of Grandma Moses.
http://invertebrates.si.edu/Features/stories/haementeria.html
Page 237, Position 3: There is a species of leech that can survive 24 hours in liquid nitrogen.
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/leech-can-survive-24-hour-submersion-liquid-nitrogen
Page 237, Position 4: A leech can take up to 200 days to digest a meal.
Kirk, Robert, Leech (London: Reaktion, 2013)
Page 238, Position 1: ‘Email’ is a 16th-century word meaning ‘enamel’.
http://interestingliterature.com/2013/11/14/ten-modern-words-with-older-literary-connections/
Page 238, Position 2: The Dutch Crown jewels are made of fake pearls, fish scales and coloured foil.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/30/king-willem-12-things-dutch-royal-family
Page 238, Position 3: The Pantone colour chart has 104 shades of grey.
http://www.pantone.co.uk/pages/pantone/colorfinder.aspx
Page 238, Position 4: Fifty Shades of Grey was originally titled Masters of the Universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Shades_of_Grey
Page 239, Position 1: The first baseball gloves were flesh-coloured in case spectators noticed and accused players of cowardice.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-invention-of-the-baseball-mitt-12799848/?no-ist
Page 239, Position 2: According to England’s leading brain surgeon, it is more dangerous to wear a cycle helmet than not to wear one.
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-wearing-cycle-helmets/
Page 239, Position 3: St George is the patron saint of England, leprosy and syphilis.
http://www.britannia.com/history/stgeorge.html
Page 239, Position 4: The largest sperm bank in the world does not accept donations from redheads because of ‘insufficient demand’.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/nov/02/worlds-biggest-sperm-bank-denmark
Page 240, Position 1: Dormice are not mice.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/169529/dormouse
Page 240, Position 2: Fish can yawn.
Provine, Robert, Curious Behaviour, (London: Harvard University Press, 2012), p. 24
Page 240, Position 3: Elephants tickle each other.
Provine, Robert, Curious Behaviour, (London: Harvard University Press, 2012), p. 167
Page 240, Position 4: The technical term for guffawing is gargalesis.
Provine, Robert, Curious Behaviour, (London: Harvard University Press, 2012), p. 173
Page 241, Position 1: The Norwegian word for smelly feet is tåfis, which means ‘toe-fart’.
http://blogs.sweden.se/expat/2011/10/09/14-swedish-words-that-give-me-the-giggles/
Page 241, Position 2: Conversesjukan is Swedish for foot problems caused by wearing trendy trainers.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/27/google-sweden-ogooglebar
Page 241, Position 3: It is illegal to wear a bikini in Barcelona, except on the beach.
The Times, 28 August 2013
Page 241, Position 4: Miniskirts are illegal in Uganda.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/uganda-miniskirt-ban-protests-after-women-are-assaulted-and-forced-to-undress-in-public-9155773.html
Page 242, Position 1: It is illegal to take mineral water into Nigeria.
The Times, 28 August 2013
Page 242, Position 2: NEPA, the former Nigerian electric power authority, was popularly known as ‘Never Electric Power Anytime’.
http://talk.nycsubway.org/perl/read?subtalk=208763
Page 242, Position 3: From 1934 to 1948, the motto of the BBC was Quaecunque, Latin for ‘Whatever’.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n15/jeremy-harding/short-cuts
Page 242, Position 4: The original BBC licence fee cost the equivalent of 50p.
Daily Mail, 7th Sep 2013
Page 243, Position 1: The price the tooth fairy pays for a tooth went up by 42% between 2011 and 2013.
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/221784081.html
Page 243, Position 2: Queen Victoria had jewellery made out of her children’s milk teeth.
http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/microsites/vanda/MicroObject.asp?item=23&themeid=2872&object=34730&row=22&detail=about
Page 243, Position 3: The Romans used powdered mouse brains as toothpaste.
http://manchesterhistorian.com/2011/10-things-you-never-knew-about-the-romans/
Page 243, Position 4: At the 2012 London Olympics, 55% of the athletes were found to have tooth decay.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24298109
Page 244, Position 1: Lipstick in the US may legally contain lead, arsenic and mercury.
http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/lipstick.asp
Page 244, Position 2: At the court of Louis XIV women used lemons to redden their lips.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5124936/Hangover-cures-from-pickled-eyeballs-to-citrus-armpits.html
Page 244, Position 3: The Romans used lemons as mothballs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5124936/Hangover-cures-from-pickled-eyeballs-to-citrus-armpits.html
Page 244, Position 4: Casanova used half a lemon as an improvised contraceptive.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/e_options.html
Page 245, Position 1: At 21, Mussolini was homeless and living under a bridge in Switzerland.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8idketyUtbMC&pg=PA48&dq=mussolini+lived+under+bridge+switzerland&hl=en&sa=X&ei=N_wiVJKWCOySsQTcsYKIAw&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=mussolini%20lived%20under%20bridge%20switzerland&f=false
Page 245, Position 2: Waterloo Bridge is called the Ladies Bridge because it was built mainly by women.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2364712/The-forgotten-heroines-built-Waterloo-Bridge-Historian-reveals-women-drafted-construct-The-Ladies-Bridge-WWII-got-credit-deserved.html
Page 245, Position 3: Kissing was banned in England in 1439.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3i4LAQAAMAAJ&q=%22pins+in+their+mouths%22+tunnels+trains&dq=%22pins+in+their+mouths%22+tunnels+trains&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KKVLU8faI-LH7Abq5IGACA&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBA
Page 245, Position 4: It takes five people to extract semen from a vulture.
http://www.biolreprod.org/content/73/5/1039.full
Page 246, Position 1: In 1859, a moral panic swept America over young people playing too much chess.
https://medium.com/message/why-chess-will-destroy-your-mind-78ad1034521f
Page 246, Position 2: In 1937, ukuleles were banned in Japan on the grounds that they ‘weakened young people’s will’.
Sunday Times, 8 September 2013
Page 246, Position 3: In 1816, The Times warned its readers that the waltz was ‘a fatal contagion’.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/war.html
Page 246, Position 4: In 1916, New Jersey banned the Charleston because it was thought to cause broken shins.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/14/nyregion/jersey-when-nostalgia-was-worth-remembering.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Page 247, Position 1: More than a third of all sick leave is taken on Mondays.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8347332.stm
Page 247, Position 2: Vaccinations don’t work on octopuses.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/octopus-chronicles/2013/09/28/no-shots-for-the-octopus-its-immune-system-doesnt-remember/
Page 247, Position 3: Hermit crabs form gangs to steal shells from other hermit crabs.
http://www.geekosystem.com/hermit-crab-mobs/
Page 247, Position 4: The average haul per robber for a bank raid is £12,706.60.
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-103737.html
Page 248, Position 1: If you earn £20,250 a year, you’re one of the world’s richest 1%.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/04/news/economy/world_richest/
Page 248, Position 2: In 2000, it cost $3 billion to sequence a human genome. By 2014, the cost had fallen to under $1,000.
New Scientist, 25 Jan 2014
Page 248, Position 3: In 1981, there were 2,420 Britons over the age of 100. By 2012, there were 12,320.
The Week, 5 Oct 2013
Page 248, Position 4: By 2050, 70% of people will live in cities.
New Scientist, 5 Oct 2014
Page 249, Position 1: Birds living in cities start the dawn chorus five hours earlier than in the countryside.
The Week, 12 Oct 2013
Page 249, Position 2: Alligators balance twigs on their noses, to lure birds looking for nest-building materials.
New Scientist, 28 Dec 2013
Page 249, Position 3: Dogs with ADHD make the best sniffer dogs.
Wonderpedia Magazine, Jan 2014
Page 249, Position 4: Only one dog was ever registered as a Japanese prisoner of war.
http://www.frankwilliams.ca/fgw/JudyStory.htm
Page 250, Position 1: During the First World War, German and Russian troops agreed a ceasefire and joined forces to fend off attacks by wolves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_attacks#Europe
Page 250, Position 2: To make them less conspicuous, white horses in the British army in the First World War were dyed brown with food colouring.
Corrigan, Gordon, Waterloo: A New History of the Battle and its Armies
Page 250, Position 3: Aristotle advised Alexander the Great not to let his soldiers drink mint tea because it would make them think more of love than war.
Douglas Hill, Mark, The Aphrodisiac Encyclopedia
Page 250, Position 4: In the Hundred Years War, dead soldiers had their faces burned off with hot irons to prevent identification.
Geographical Magazine Nov 2013
Page 251, Position 1: London burnt down in 1077, 1087, 1132, 1136, 1203, 1212, 1220 and 1227, as well as 1666.
Howard, Rachel and Nash, Bill, Secret London: An Unusual Guide (Jonglez Publishing, 2009)
Page 251, Position 2: A search for ‘singular coincidence’ in the British Newspaper Archive brings up more than 10,000 articles.
Clay, Jeremy, A Burgler Caught by a Skeleton, (Icon Books, 5 Sep 2013)
Page 251, Position 3: On 17 April 2011, Emmanuel Mutai won the London Marathon. The next day, Geoffrey Mutai won the Boston Marathon. The two men are not related.
Barrow, John, D. Mathletics, (Random House, 20 Jun 2013)
Page 251, Position 4: In April 1971, the headmaster of a Japanese primary school found a new species of salamander in the school drains.
http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1173-advanced-newt-salamander-topics/f30-species-genus-family-discussions/f36-hynobiid-salamanders-hynobiidae/41731-i-hynobius-takedai-i.html
Page 252, Position 1: Bacteria remain eternally young.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-death-kefir-lynn-margulis/
Page 252, Position 2: In 1899, Dr Horace Emmett revealed that the secret of eternal youth was injections of ground-up squirrel testicles. He died later that year.
Donaldson, William, Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics
Page 252, Position 3: The world’s shortest snake is four inches long and often mistaken for an earthworm.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-08/worlds-smallest-snake
Page 252, Position 4: The curly part of a corkscrew is called the ‘worm’.
http://www.ehow.com/how_8212626_uncork-wine-bottle-using-corkscrew.html
Page 253, Position 1: Kiwi fruit used to be called ‘melonettes’.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/kiwifruit/page-2
Page 253, Position 2: Humans are not at the top of the food chain but near the middle, on a level with pigs and anchovies.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/science-nature/where-do-humans-really-rank-on-the-food-chain-180948053/
Page 253, Position 3: Dorothy Parker had a pet canary she called Onan because he spilled his seed on the ground.
Ross, Greg, Futility Closet, (Futility Closet, 2013)
Page 253, Position 4: Salvador Dalà had a pet anteater.
http://scienceblogs.com/thoughtfulanimal/2010/08/02/monday-pets-how-anteaters-deci/
Page 254, Position 1: Giant anteaters eat 30,000 ants a day.
http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/giant-anteater
Page 254, Position 2: There are 1.6 million people in Manhattan and 1.2 billion ants.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/symbiartic/2013/08/22/minorities-compared-to-ant-manhattan-residents/
Page 254, Position 3: The total amount of adrenaline in half a million people weighs 1∕30th of an ounce.
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2005-03/1110495260.Me.r.html
Page 254, Position 4: The richest 85 people in the world have as much money as the poorest 3.5 billion.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/20/oxfam-85-richest-people-half-of-the-world
Page 255, Position 1: Sir Francis Drake left all his money to the poor people of Plymouth.
http://www.livescience.com/42443-historic-eccentric-wills-go-online.html
Page 255, Position 2: When Handel died, he left the equivalent of £86,000 to build a monument to himself in Westminster Abbey.
http://www.livescience.com/42443-historic-eccentric-wills-go-online.html#sthash.flkcJgKE.dpuf
Page 255, Position 3: The amount of money you get at the start of Monopoly (£1,500) is the current average weekly rent in central London.
http://londonist.com/2014/01/inner-london-average-rent-is-1500-per-month.php
Page 255, Position 4: In London SW3, £100 would buy you a piece of property the size of an Oyster card.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2014/may/13/square-foot-property-price-london-map
Page 256, Position 1: One in 11 people on Earth earn their money from tourism.
National Geographic Magazine, Dec 2013
Page 256, Position 2: The Great Wall of China was funded by a state lottery.
Joel Mokyr, J. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History
Page 256, Position 3: The lottery of the Zimbabwe Banking Corporation was won in 2000 by the president of Zimbabwe.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/621895.stm
Page 256, Position 4: President Mugabe has been in power 50% longer than the lifetime of the average Zimbabwean.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/zi.html"http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/02/daily-chart-12?zid=304&ah=e5690753dc78ce91909083042ad12e30
Page 257, Position 1: Saddam Hussein’s regime destroyed 90% of Iraq’s marshes.
Scientific American, Dec 2013
Page 257, Position 2: Members of the Yazidi religion of Iraq are forbidden to eat lettuce.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8598970.stm
Page 257, Position 3: Varieties of lettuce include: Amish Deer Tongue, Drunken Woman, Midnight Ruffles and Red Leprechaun.
http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Category:Lettuce_List
Page 257, Position 4: Nero ate leeks to improve his singing voice.
Davidson, Alan, The Penguin Companion to Food.
Page 258, Position 1: Edward II employed a ‘tumbler’ who fell off his horse to amuse the king for 20 shillings a time.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eJwSAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=%22edward+II%22+tumbler&source=bl&ots=Aq1yVQ7kDP&sig=v0FuctikILZ6OIdVjrpe0qkPz_8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=IAVIU_f4M-uy7AbVv4GABw&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22edward%20II%22%20tumbler&f=false
Page 258, Position 2: King Francis I of France hung the Mona Lisa in his bathroom.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lavPTNCk2tYC&pg=PT50&lpg=PT50&dq=King+Francis+I+of+France+hung+the+Mona+Lisa+in+his+bathroom.&source=bl&ots=Xsph05u8aM&sig=rtIoTlegsyk1062dk5PUnqM53e8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EtJSUr6ZLOWT0QX8h4CAAw&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=King%20Francis%20I%20of%20France%20hung%20the%20Mona%20Lisa%20in%20his%20bathroom.&f=false
Page 258, Position 3: Queen Elizabeth II had a special shelf installed in her car so there was somewhere to put her handbag.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1258857/For-sale-Queens-car-complete-customised-handbag-holder-lambskin-rugs-corgis.html
Page 258, Position 4: King Olav V of Norway preferred to travel by public transport.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0645994/bio
Page 259, Position 1: John Lennon and George Harrison once got a bus across Liverpool to visit a man who could teach them the chord B7.
http://www.wingspan.ru/bookseng/myfn/bmiles01.html
Page 259, Position 2: Liverpudlians buy three times as many false eyelashes as the national average.
http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/beauty/news-features/TMG10100863/The-make-up-map-of-England.html
Page 259, Position 3: In the 18th century, people with facial scars filled them in with lard and painted them over with white lead.
http://graceelliot-author.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/mouse-skin-eyebrows-short-history-of.html
Page 259, Position 4: Two teaspoonfuls of Botox are enough to kill everyone in Britain.
Pain, Pus, and Poison (BBC Four Television Programme)
Page 260, Position 1: A ‘quarter pounder’ weighs less than a fifth of a pound when cooked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_Pounder
Page 260, Position 2: Mrs Beeton recommended boiling pasta for 1¾ hours.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nbGKhxnpUDkC&pg=PA123&lpg=PA123&dq=Mrs+Beeton+boiling+pasta+for+an+hour+and+three+quarters.&source=bl&ots=U2c-1pOxqO&sig=hDNVHjoCFjsYD4N__bXQAoCfbVw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=oApIU9zuN42h7Aa_oYHwBQ&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Mrs%20Beeton%20boiling%20pasta%20for%20an%20hour%20and%20three%20quarters.&f=false
Page 260, Position 3: Cornish pasties make more money each year than Tonga, Micronesia or the Cook Islands.
Western Daily Press, 6 March 14
Page 260, Position 4: Shemomedjamo is a Georgian word meaning ‘to eat past the point of fullness because the food is so delicious’.
http://www.language-museum.com/blog/2011/10/25/more-words-with-no-english-equivalent/
Page 261, Position 1: In Georgian, mama means ‘father’ and deda means ‘mother’.
http://translate.ge/
Page 261, Position 2: The Inuit word iktsuarpok means ‘to keep going outside to see if anyone’s coming’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/28315/15-wonderful-words-no-english-equivalent
Page 261, Position 3: The Japanese word tsundoku means buying books and not getting around to reading them.
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/05/17/necessary-words-and-other-news/
Page 261, Position 4: Gurkentruppe is German for ‘losers’: literally, an ‘army of cucumbers’.
Alter, Adam, Drunk Tank Pink
Page 262, Position 1: The world’s first nudist colony, founded in India in 1891, was called the Fellowship of the Naked Trust.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1465583/Naked-ambition.html
Page 262, Position 2: The expression ‘flash mob’ was first used in 1832 and meant a group of petty criminals.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/54310/12-new-words-added-oxford-english-dictionary-2013
Page 262, Position 3: Libya was the first country to issue an arrest warrant for Osama bin Laden.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/nov/10/uk.davidshayler
Page 262, Position 4: The first ever webcam was in the computer lab at Cambridge University. It was trained on the coffee pot in the corridor to save the scientists making pointless trips when it had run out.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20439301
Page 263, Position 1: Coffee beans are actually seeds.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/coffee4.htm
Page 263, Position 2: Sunflower seeds are actually fruits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunflower_seed
Page 263, Position 3: Fruits are the ovaries of plants.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/fruit-info.htm
Page 263, Position 4: In order to be light enough to fly, birds have only one ovary.
http://www.nature.com/news/exquisite-bird-fossils-reveal-egg-producing-ovary-1.12616
Page 264, Position 1: Men with smaller testicles tend to be better fathers.
New Scientist, 14 Sep 2013
Page 264, Position 2: Ramajit Raghav became the world’s oldest father at 96 years old.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9708619/Worlds-oldest-father-becomes-Peta-posterboy.html
Page 264, Position 3: At least 10% of all the adult cheetahs in the southern Serengeti have the same mother.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/11/cheetahs/smith-text
Page 264, Position 4: A male cheetah can make a female ovulate by barking at her.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/81122945.html
Page 265, Position 1: An elephant call can be heard anywhere within 100 square miles.
National Geographic Magazine Jan 2014
Page 265, Position 2: Elephants can tell different human languages apart.
http://www.livescience.com/44030-elephants-identify-human-voices-languages.html?cmpid=514645_20140312_19902224
Page 265, Position 3: Elephants have more muscles in their trunks than adult humans have in their entire body.
http://www.animalcorner.co.uk/wildlife/elephants/elephant_anatomy.html
Page 265, Position 4: Over 80 international brands feature the word ‘Maasai’. Collectively worth billions, none has sought permission from the Maasai people.
National Geographic Magazine Dec 2013
Page 266, Position 1: Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ slogan was inspired by the last words of a murderer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/business/media/20adco.html
Page 266, Position 2: Six streets in London had their names changed after murders took place there.
Bondeson, Jan, Murder Houses of London
Page 266, Position 3: The villains in Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs are all based on the same man.
http://www.houseofhorrors.com/gein.htm
Page 266, Position 4: In 2002, an American bomber attempted to plant 18 bombs which, when they exploded, would form a giant smiley face.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/luke-helder-mailbox-bomb-_n_3281576.html
Page 267, Position 1: In 1552, Henry Pert died after shooting himself in the face with his own bow and arrow.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13762313
Page 267, Position 2: Head lice will die if they don’t eat six times a day.
http://www.liceworld.com/UK/biologi_levevis_fode.htm
Page 267, Position 3: Theodore Roosevelt thought it was a shame diplodocuses had died out: he’d have liked to hunt one.
http://old.post-gazette.com/magazine/19990702dippy2.asp
Page 267, Position 4: When a pope dies, his seals are defaced and his ring is split in two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope
Page 268, Position 1: Sigmund Freud treated Gustav Mahler for impotence.
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/mahler-and-freud-understanding-mahler
Page 268, Position 2: A popular way to cure impotence in the 14th century was to wear your trousers on your head for 24 hours.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_the_history_of_sexuality/summary/v020/20.2.whitney.html
Page 268, Position 3: The Duke of Wellington was kicked out of his club in 1814 for wearing trousers instead of pantaloons.
http://www.munseys.com/diskone/grnow.htm
Page 268, Position 4: ‘Extraordinary affair,’ said the Duke of Wellington after his first Cabinet meeting. ‘I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay to discuss them . . .’
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6MTNmB0SJn0C&pg=PA255&lpg=PA255&dq=Extraordinary+affair+Duke+of+Wellington+After+his+first+Cabinet+meeting.'I+gave+them+their+orders+and+they&source=bl&ots=ocuXw2qdMv&sig=Jx1B-NsOiSCpXmOGqqbvV3RpumE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9PoiVMSfEsP7sASemIBo&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Extraordinary%20affair%20Duke%20of%20Wellington%20After%20his%20first%20Cabinet%20meeting.'I%20gave%20them%20their%20orders%20and%20they&f=false
Page 269, Position 1: The Duke of Wellington’s horse, Copenhagen, died from eating too many sponge cakes, bath buns and chocolate creams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_(horse)
Page 269, Position 2: Przewalski’s horses, a rare, wild breed native to Mongolia, have never been domesticated.
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/przewalskis-horse/
Page 269, Position 3: The two pandas in Edinburgh Zoo eat £40,000 worth of food a year.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/dec/02/pandas-edinburgh-zoo
Page 269, Position 4: Pandas defecate 50 times a day.
http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/giant-panda
Page 270, Position 1: In Bolivia, llama droppings are used to purify water.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0205_0205TVllamadung.html
Page 270, Position 2: Polluted water kills children at a rate equivalent to a fully laden jumbo jet crashing every four hours.
http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/water/
Page 270, Position 3: Since 1948, 100 planes have gone missing in flight and never been recovered.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/13/plane-disappearances-brief-history
Page 270, Position 4: In the UK, one child goes missing every five minutes.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/number-of-children-missing-in-london-up-by-a-third-8322791.html
Page 271, Position 1: It’s impossible to get lost in a labyrinth: unlike mazes, labyrinths have only one possible route.
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Labyrinth_vs_Maze
Page 271, Position 2: Fearing a German invasion, in 1940 Alan Turing converted his assets into silver ingots and buried them in Buckinghamshire. He spent the rest of his life failing to find them.
http://www.mkheritage.co.uk/mkha/mkha/projects/jt/tw/docs/198.html
Page 271, Position 3: 80% of all time capsules have been lost.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Time_Capsule_Society
Page 271, Position 4: 11,000 keys are lost on London’s Tubes and buses every year.
http://www.lbc.co.uk/look-rare-glimpse-inside-tubes-lost-property-office-79710/album/a_rare_look_inside_the_london_underground_lost_property_office/2146#30622
Page 272, Position 1: The Tube ride between Leicester Square and Covent Garden is 260 metres long, costs £4.30, and is the most popular journey among tourists.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/london/9789966/London-Underground-150-fascinating-Tube-facts.html
Page 272, Position 2: Until 1900, visitors to Stonehenge were given chisels so they could chip off a souvenir.
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/458/stonehenge.html
Page 272, Position 3: Gift is German for ‘poison’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/yoursay/false_friends/german/be_careful__its_a_gift_englishgerman.shtml
Page 272, Position 4: Gift cards worth £240 million go unredeemed in Britain each year.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2228891/Stores-pocket-240-million-gift-cards-shoppers-fail-spend.html
Page 273, Position 1: The Queen’s staff get to choose their own Christmas presents, which must be worth between £20 and £25.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1095089/Queen-cuts-Christmas.html
Page 273, Position 2: The Queen took her corgi, Susan, on her honeymoon.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/queen-elizabeth-II/8463906/The-Queens-birthday-85-facts-you-should-know-about-The-Queen.html
Page 273, Position 3: 1 in 4 American dogs are overweight.
http://www.livescience.com/40298-cats-dogs-overweight.html
Page 273, Position 4: People who kiss their dogs have lower blood pressure than those who don’t.
http://www.livescience.com/40065-dog-kisses-are-more-than-just-slobber.html
Page 274, Position 1: 1 in 5 people in Wales haven’t been kissed for a year.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4020956.ece
Page 274, Position 2: People who believe in luck are luckier than those who don’t.
http://lifehacker.com/5595104/the-science-behind-having-a-bad-day-and-how-to-solve-it
Page 274, Position 3: The chances of finding a four-leaf clover are 10,000–1.
http://www.lucky-four-leaf-clover.com/what.html
Page 274, Position 4: The most leaves ever found on a clover is 12.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-1/most-leaves-on-a-clover/
Page 275, Position 1: Frank Sinatra took a shower 12 times a day.
http://www.tmz.com/2011/06/02/frank-sinatra-barbara-memoir-book-ocd-shower-clean-obsessed-my-way-blue-eyes/
Page 275, Position 2: Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a Friday the 13th.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th
Page 275, Position 3: Stan Laurel was originally called Stan Jefferson. He changed his name because it had 13 letters in it.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/919340/Laurel-and-Hardy
Page 275, Position 4: Stan Laurel once successfully cross-bred a potato with an onion, but couldn’t persuade anyone to eat one.
http://www.laurel-and-hardy.com
Page 276, Position 1: The racehorse Potoooooooo got its name from a stable-hand who couldn’t spell ‘Potato’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potoooooooo
Page 276, Position 2: One-third of British potatoes are made into chips.
Marriott, Emma, I Should Know That: Great Britain (London: Michael O'Mara Books Limited, 2013.)
Page 276, Position 3: Two-thirds of the bagged salad sold by Tesco never gets eaten.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/10393981/Tesco-food-waste-Why-half-of-your-shopping-basket-may-end-up-in-the-bin.html
Page 276, Position 4: Nicknames for stinging nettles include ‘the devil’s leaf’ and ‘naughty man’s plaything’.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/blogs/wildlife-garden/2014/05/26/be-nice-to-nettles?fromGateway=true
Page 277, Position 1: The Forme of Cury, a 14th-century English cookbook, has a recipe for porpoise haggis.
http://friendlypolymath.com/2011/medieval-history-class-2/the-black-death-the-hundred-years-war-and-porpoise-haggis-medieval-history-notes-pt-3/
Page 277, Position 2: Archibald Clark West, the inventor of Doritos, had them sprinkled on his grave.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/business/arch-west-who-helped-create-doritos-corn-chips-is-dead-at-97.html?_r=0
Page 277, Position 3: Plywood was invented by Alfred Nobel’s father
https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Alfred_Nobel.html
Page 277, Position 4: Abraham Lincoln’s wife was an opium addict.
http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Addiction_of_Mary_Todd_Lincoln.html?id=-t-vvuyQlKEC&redir_esc=y
Page 278, Position 1: Dmitri Mendeleev was working as a cheese consultant when he had the idea for the periodic table.
https://blog.oup.com/2012/08/how-exactly-did-mendeleev-discover-his-periodic-table-of-1869/
Page 278, Position 2: In 2013, nine babies born in the UK were named Cheese.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/12/cheese-baby-name-2013-babycenter-weird-names.html
Page 278, Position 3: Lady cheese is cheese made from human breast milk.
http://www.miriamsimun.com/human-cheese/
Page 278, Position 4: Cannibalism in the UK is legal.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/cannibalism
Page 279, Position 1: A 12½-stone man contains 110,000 calories.
http://what-if.xkcd.com/78/
Page 279, Position 2: People eat less in subdued lighting.
http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/eat-dining/
Page 279, Position 3: The record number of live goldfish swallowed at a single sitting is 210.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7aJVq5-ZkuEC&pg=PA213&lpg=PA213&dq=210+#v=onepage&q=210&f=false
Page 279, Position 4: The seventh most common sentence in The Hunger Games trilogy is ‘I swallowed hard.’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/10468854/The-Hunger-Games-Harry-Potter-and-Twilight-most-popular-sentences-are-revealed.html
Page 280, Position 1: The fastest swallow in nature is that of the frogfish, which sucks its prey down in 0.006 seconds.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/weirdest-frogfish
Page 280, Position 2: The International Space Station travels at five miles a second.
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/ask/282-How-fast-does-the-Space-Station-travel-
Page 280, Position 3: A day on the International Space Station is 1½ hours long.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/sleep-in-space2.htm
Page 280, Position 4: The universe is getting less blue and more red.
http://www.livescience.com/45211-the-changing-colors-of-the-universe.html
Page 281, Position 1: Martian sunsets are blue.
http://geonews.tamu.edu/latestnews/778-martian-sunsets-dusty-and-blue-not-like-earths.html
Page 281, Position 2: When humans first evolved on Earth, there was water on Mars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution"http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140425075025.htm
Page 281, Position 3: Craters on Mars under 60 kilometres in diameter are named after towns on Earth with populations under 100,000.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2579316/Mars-NOT-sale-Name-crater-scheme-against-equal-access-space-claims-Astronomical-Union.html
Page 281, Position 4: The first choice of a name for Disney’s Hannah Montana was Alexis Texas, but it was already taken by a porn star.
http://hannahmontana.wikia.com/wiki/Miley_Stewart
Page 282, Position 1: Before he started eating cookies, the Cookie Monster’s name was Sid.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/12611/43-sesame-street-facts-43rd-season
Page 282, Position 2: The name Chewbacca is from saboka, the Russian for ‘dog’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/56801/15-chewbacca-facts-honor-peter-mayhews-birthday
Page 282, Position 3: Chewbacca’s voice was created by combining the sounds of a bear, a walrus, a lion and a badger.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/56801/15-chewbacca-facts-honor-peter-mayhews-birthday
Page 282, Position 4: Disney was sued by a biologist for defaming the character of hyenas in The Lion King.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_King
Page 283, Position 1: The mayor of the city of Batman in Turkey threatened to sue Warner Bros for not asking permission to use the city’s name in the Batman movies.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ridiculous-lawsuits-against-hollywoods-a-list-2012-5?op=1
Page 283, Position 2: To kit yourself out as a real-life Batman would cost about $300 million.
http://nypost.com/2008/07/14/you-can-be-batman-for-300m/
Page 283, Position 3: Christian Bale’s father’s uncle’s cousin was the Edwardian actress Lily Langtry.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uR1dDiJH7xgC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=lily+langtry+christian+bale&source=bl&ots=JBn4W9GjBS&sig=Oa5KesgR20R5OyQhRgeBuD8Ud6U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CSZdU4u5JYiwO8vYgdAP&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=lily%20langtry%20christian%20bale&f=false
Page 283, Position 4: Clark Kent is two inches shorter than Superman; to finesse his secret identity he compresses his spine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_character_and_cast
Page 284, Position 1: When the infant Mozart first rose to prominence, some members of the Royal Society thought he was a dwarf in disguise.
http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/60/54
Page 284, Position 2: Mozart’s sister was also a musician, who sometimes took top billing as they toured Europe together.
http://www.mozartswife.com/nannerl.htm
Page 284, Position 3: As a child, Mozart was terrified of trumpets.
http://www.moderndaymozartian.com/2007/06/schachtners-trumpet.html
Page 284, Position 4: An ear trumpet is technically known as an otacousticon.
http://www.oed.com/;jsessionid=C6FA7CECF056A4B9AA1892627FCD45F0?authRejection=true&url=%2Fview%2FEntry%2F133206
Page 285, Position 1: A wheeple is an ineffectual attempt to whistle loudly.
Oxford English Dictionary
Page 285, Position 2: An ass-pipe is a musical instrument from the British Virgin Islands, made from a car exhaust and played like a tuba.
http://wiwords.com/tag/music
Page 285, Position 3: The izikhothane are a South African gang who meet in car parks, cover themselves in custard and burn wads of cash.
http://observers.france24.com/content/20130909-burning-money-there’-no-tomorrow-welcome-bizarre-world-'izikhothane'
Page 285, Position 4: ‘Bitch the pot’ was 19th-century slang for ‘pour the tea’.
http://somewhereboy.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/bitch/
Page 286, Position 1: Perfect coffee should consist of 17.42 units of water for every unit of coffee.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/how-to-make-perfect-coffee/278944/
Page 286, Position 2: Swedes drink twice as much coffee as Americans.
http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/05/30/197396/the-nordic-passion-for-coffee/
Page 286, Position 3: In 1820, the average American drank half a pint of whisky every day.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/foodinc/omnivores.php
Page 286, Position 4: The longer a whisky is aged, the longer it takes for your body to get rid of the alcohol.
New Scientist, 28 Dec 2014
Page 287, Position 1: The average Belarusian drinks 17.5 litres of alcohol a year.
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/maps-showing-the-drunkest-countries-in-the-world-2014-9
Page 287, Position 2: Belarus has the same infant-mortality rate as Birmingham.
The Week, Nov 23 2013
Page 287, Position 3: Chemicals caused female munitions workers in the First World War to give birth to yellow babies.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2561630/The-war-children-born-YELLOW-How-women-working-explosives-factories-sparked-clutch-Canary-Babies-WW1.html
Page 287, Position 4: Bananas have more trade regulations than AK-47s.
http://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/2012/06/comparing-bananas-to-the-global-arms-trade/
Page 288, Position 1: There are more species of plant on Cape Town’s Table Mountain than in the whole of the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_Mountain_National_Park
Page 288, Position 2: Five times as many Cadbury’s Creme Eggs are eaten in Britain every year as there are people.
https://www.cadburyworld.co.uk/schoolandgroups/~/media/CadburyWorld/en/Files/Pdf/factsheet-easterbrands
Page 288, Position 3: A kiwi’s egg is so large it’s equivalent to a human mother giving birth to a six-year-old.
http://extraordinary-animals.com/2014/04/20/which-bird-lays-the-largest-egg-and-other-easter-related-mini-questions/
Page 288, Position 4: Dr Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham to win a bet with his publisher that he couldn’t write a book using just 50 different words.
http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/greenegg.asp
Page 289, Position 1: The French phrase au gratin literally means ‘with scrapings’.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/au%20gratin
Page 289, Position 2: There are no mentions of salad in the Bible.
https://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/
Page 289, Position 3: You are more likely to believe a statement that is printed in bold.
Co-operative News, 5 Nov 13
Page 289, Position 4: Taking a photo of something reduces your ability to remember it.
The Week, 21 Dec 2013
Page 290, Position 1: 90% of people remember their first kiss more vividly than the first time they had sex.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jan/10/first-kiss-memory-study
Page 290, Position 2: A woman who is bitten by a cat has a 50% chance of being diagnosed with depression.
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/cat-bites-are-linked-depression
Page 290, Position 3: Chessington World of Adventures has banned animal-print onesies to stop the animals there getting confused.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-24240527
Page 290, Position 4: More than 60% of pandas born in captivity die within a week.
The Week 28 Sep 2013
Page 291, Position 1: The UK turtle-dove population has declined by 95% since 2005.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/09/decline-uk-countryside-birds
Page 291, Position 2: In 2013, 160 sheep were stolen from the Dorset village of Wool.
http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/Village-Wool-stunned-theft-160-sheep/story-20034978-detail/story.html
Page 291, Position 3: In 1557, Robert Calf was mauled to death by a cow.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13762313
Page 291, Position 4: Tupperware was invented by a chicken salesman.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VXNuZED4ibMC&pg=PT50&lpg=PT50&dq=Earl+Silas+Tupper++a+chicken+salesman.&source=bl&ots=wMXnUbGAeI&sig=SeNdCEiQ6xUaguUf7rCvuy525Io&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YMQiVOL8CKfCsAShoYDwDg&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Earl%20Silas%20Tupper%20%20a%20chicken%20salesman.&f=false
Page 292, Position 1: Colonel Sanders’s career as a lawyer came to an end when he assaulted his client in court.
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2019218,00.html
Page 292, Position 2: There is a law firm in Leeds called Godloves Solicitors.
https://twitter.com/GodlovesLegal
Page 292, Position 3: The real name of the rapper Aloe Blacc is Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloe_Blacc
Page 292, Position 4: ‘Yahoo’ is an acronym for ‘Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle’.
http://tech.ca.msn.com/the-16-strangest-tech-brand-names?page=9
Page 293, Position 1: Yoda’s first name is Minch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoda
Page 293, Position 2: Woody from Toy Story’s last name is Pride.
http://www.bigscreenanimation.com/2009/08/woodys-last-name.html
Page 293, Position 3: Matt Groening’s mother was called Marge Wiggum.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/07/entertainment/la-et-st-matt-groening-mom-marge-simpson-dies-20130507
Page 293, Position 4: The 2003 world poker champion who won $2.5 million for a $39 entry fee is called Chris Moneymaker.
http://www.chrismoneymaker.com
Page 294, Position 1: In 1910, a man called Morton Norbury was killed after an argument over who had the most handsome moustache.
BBC History Magazine, Dec 2013
Page 294, Position 2: In the 19th century, pious Spaniards grew moustaches in the shape of a cross.
BBC History Magazine, Dec 2013
Page 294, Position 3: Abraham Lincoln only had a beard for the last five years of his life.
Varasdi, J. Allen, Myth Information, (Ballantine, 1989)
Page 294, Position 4: Charles Darwin only grew his famous beard in his mid-fifties to relieve his eczema.
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Rencher.pdf
Page 295, Position 1: Beard trimming is banned by the Bible.
http://leviticusbans.tumblr.com
Page 295, Position 2: The prophet Muhammad dyed his beard with henna.
Vitale, Alice Thoms, Leaves
Page 295, Position 3: The Paris Exhibition of 1855 had a life-sized picture of Queen Victoria made of hair.
de Dobay Rifelj, Carol, Coiffures: Hair in Nineteenth-century French Literature.
Page 295, Position 4: John Constable was 39 when he sold his first landscape painting.
Montague, Trevor, A-Z of Britain and Ireland
Page 296, Position 1: Picasso painted using ordinary house paint.
http://www.livescience.com/26963-picasso-house-paint-x-rays.html
Page 296, Position 2: The US army keeps Hitler’s watercolours in a high-security warehouse in Virginia.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/inside-the-armys-spectacular-hidden-treasure-room#2bj330h
Page 296, Position 3: Until the 1960s, there was a paint called ‘Mummy Brown’. They stopped making it when the manufacturers ran out of mummies.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/smart-news/ground-mummies-were-once-ingredient-paint-180950350/
Page 296, Position 4: The ancient Egyptians mummified beef ribs, sliced duck and goat meat to eat in the afterlife.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/egyptians-mummified-the-beef-ribs-and-sliced-goat-meat-they-sent-on-with-their-rulers-to-the-afterlife-180947765/
Page 297, Position 1: The Great Pyramid of Giza was built by 100,000 people working 10 hours a day for 20 years.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/who-built-the-pyramids.html
Page 297, Position 2: The ancient Egyptians invented the will and the business handshake.
http://www.ehow.com/info_8598985_history-handshaking.html
Page 297, Position 3: Ancient Egyptian lettuce contained the same active ingredient as cocaine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactucarium
Page 297, Position 4: Old English medicines included ‘Allan’s Nipple Liniment’, ‘Grimston’s Eye Snuff’, ‘Miller’s Worm Plums’ and ‘Italian Bosom Friend’.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GFmPAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=%E2%80%98Allan%27s+Nipple+Liniment%E2%80%99,+%E2%80%98Grimston%27s+Eye+Snuff%E2%80%99,+%E2%80%98Miller%27s+Worm+Plums%E2%80%99+and+%E2%80%98Italian+Bosom+Friend%E2%80%99.&source=bl&ots=1fkHoWGi78&sig=WJ9rH8zGDNyMAE9qQoqHAkSUvVU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BMYiVMSRB8i1sQTmt4LoBQ&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%98Allan's%20Nipple%20Liniment%E2%80%99%2C%20%E2%80%98Grimston's%20Eye%20Snuff%E2%80%99%2C%20%E2%80%98Miller's%20Worm%20Plums%E2%80%99%20and%20%E2%80%98Italian%20Bosom%20Friend%E2%80%99.&f=false
Page 298, Position 1: People suffering from superior canal dehiscence syndrome can hear their own eyeballs moving.
http://vestibular.org/superior-canal-dehiscence-scd
Page 298, Position 2: An ‘eye-baby’ is the tiny reflection of yourself in someone else’s eye.
Oxford English Dictionary
Page 298, Position 3: Reflectors on pedestrians’ clothing are a legal requirement in Estonia.
http://www.visitestonia.com/en/about-estonia/traveller-information/safety-tips
Page 298, Position 4: It is against the law for anyone in Barbados to wear camouflage.
http://www.visitbarbados.org/law-enforcement.aspx
Page 299, Position 1: Until January 2013, it was illegal for women in Paris to wear trousers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9845545/Women-in-Paris-finally-allowed-to-wear-trousers.html
Page 299, Position 2: Women called Eleanor are 100 times more likely to get into Oxford University than women called Jade.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26634477
Page 299, Position 3: ‘Chopsticks’ was written by a 16-year-old girl.
Lax and Smith, The Great Song Thesaurus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984)
Page 299, Position 4: More than a million square feet of forest are used every year to make chopsticks.
http://boingboing.net/2013/03/15/eco-headline-of-the-week-disp.html
Page 300, Position 1: It is cheaper to send Scottish cod to China to be filleted and sent back again than to fillet the fish in Scotland.
George, Rose, Deep Sea and Foreign Going, (London: Portobello Books, 2013)
Page 300, Position 2: If you feed fish prawn-cocktail Skips, they turn pink.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/fish-skips-giant-gourami-addicted-3189018
Page 300, Position 3: Only six out of 22 crocodile species present any danger to humans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile
Page 300, Position 4: When Barack Obama visited Australia’s Northern Territory, he was given a $50,000 crocodile-attack insurance policy.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-15/obama-given-croc-insurance/3673476
Page 301, Position 1: People will gamble more if they are holding a crocodile.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20052606
Page 301, Position 2: Male chess players adopt riskier strategies when playing against beautiful women.
Alter, Adam, Drunk Tank Pink
Page 301, Position 3: Only 2,000 women in the world buy haute-couture dresses. It takes 2,200 seamstresses to make them.
http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG10147014/Haute-Couture-fact-file.html
Page 301, Position 4: In 13th-century France, it was illegal to sew more than 50 silver buttons onto your clothes.
http://invintaged.com/blog/2013/1/24/the-secret-lives-of-buttons
Page 302, Position 1: The Scottish Official Board of Highland Dancing says that under their kilts Scotsmen should wear dark underpants.
http://www.sobhd.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Dress-Code.pdf
Page 302, Position 2: In 1320, Scotland was excommunicated by the Pope.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/independence/features_independence_arbroath.shtml
Page 302, Position 3: There are eight million Jehovah’s Witnesses on Earth but, according to their teachings, only 144,000 people will be saved at the end of the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah's_Witnesses
Page 302, Position 4: Lloyd’s of London once offered reduced premiums for missionary ships because they had divine protection.
Marsden, Walter, The Lemming Year
Page 303, Position 1: In 2005, a Romanian murderer sued God for not doing enough to protect him from Satan.
http://en.ria.ru/world/20051018/41809986.html
Page 303, Position 2: The world’s best-selling genre of literature is self-help books.
New Scientist 01 Mar 2014
Page 303, Position 3: The most common sentence in the Harry Potter books is ‘Nothing happened.’
http://flavorwire.com/newswire/the-most-common-phrases-in-hunger-games-harry-potter-and-twilight/
Page 303, Position 4: The most common starting price of Grand National winners is 25/1.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/other-sport/horse-racing/grand-national-betting---what-6919381
Page 304, Position 1: The most commonly awarded grade at Harvard is an A.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/the-most-commonly-awarded-grade-at-harvard-is-an-a/282020/
Page 304, Position 2: The most commonly asked question at Hanna-Barbera’s head office is: ‘What did Barney Rubble do for a living?’
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-06-12/entertainment/9406110105_1_barbie-susan-stamberg-timely
Page 304, Position 3: The first-ever comic strip was published at the suggestion of Wolfgang von Goethe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodolphe_Töpffer
Page 304, Position 4: The original Popeye got his strength from rubbing a magic hen.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/54568/15-things-know-about-popeye-his-85th-anniversary
Page 305, Position 1: The DC Comics character Snowflame got his superpowers from cocaine.
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Snowflame_(New_Earth)
Page 305, Position 2: Until 1916, cocaine and heroin could be bought over the counter at Harrods.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/thereporters/markeaston/2010/12/can_we_imagine_a_britain_where.html
Page 305, Position 3: Crisp packets aren’t full of air; they’re full of nitrogen.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/51993/why-are-potato-chip-bags-always-half-empty
Page 305, Position 4: Hula Hoops are not kosher.
http://www.kosher.org.uk/documents/NoshGuide08red.pdf
Page 306, Position 1: Orthodox Jews can buy kosher sexual lubricants.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2013/jul/17/kosher-lube-oral-sex-jews-lubricant
Page 306, Position 2: The Hebrew for ‘usury’ is ribbit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loans_and_interest_in_Judaism
Page 306, Position 3: Male Darwin frogs store their tadpoles in their vocal sacs, then cough up fully formed frogs.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/14-fun-facts-about-frogs-180947089/
Page 306, Position 4: There is a drug made from the saliva of the Gila monster that stops you feeling hungry.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120515165405.htm
Page 307, Position 1: Anole lizards do press-ups to get attention.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7745699.stm
Page 307, Position 2: If you fire lasers at the brain of a fly, you can make it have sex with a ball of wax.
http://www.nature.com/news/laser-beam-makes-flies-flirt-1.14794
Page 307, Position 3: 2014 was the International Year of the Salamander, the Family, the Secretary, and the Spine.
http://www.internationalyearofthespine.com"http://www.parcplace.org/news-a-events/2014-year-of-the-salamander.html"http://www.societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk/2013/12/06/international-year-of-the-secretary-and-assistant-2014/"http://www.family2014.org/home.php
Page 307, Position 4: In its first year, the human brain grows to 75% of its full size.
Shields, David, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, (London: Penguin, 2008)
Page 308, Position 1: Blackbeard was a pirate for two years.
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/06/21/archaeologists-recover-two-more-cannons-from-blackbeards-ship/
Page 308, Position 2: Snails can sleep for three years.
The Times – 11 Sep 2013
Page 308, Position 3: The British army’s Cyclist Corps lasted four years.
http://cycleseven.org/the-army-cyclist-corps
Page 308, Position 4: Five baby girls in the US in 2012 were named Cricket.
https://github.com/hstove/gender/blob/master/names/yob2012.txt
Page 309, Position 1: Baby chickens use their right eye to look for food and their left eye to look out for predators.
New Scientist 3 Aug 2013
Page 309, Position 2: A baby porcupine is called a porcupette.
http://www.pueblozoo.org/#!Pair-of-African-Crested-Porcupettes-born-at-Pueblo-Zoo/cdhr/31C350A7-3AAA-4B2A-BFC1-1A45CD93D551
Page 309, Position 3: The genome of wheat is five times larger than the human genome.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/27/wheat-dna-cracked-by-scie_n_696801.html
Page 309, Position 4: Before the invention of electricity, human beings slept for 90 minutes longer than they do now.
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/11-innovations-that-changed-history
Page 310, Position 1: Elizabeth I always slept with another woman in her bed.
Times Literary Supplement, 20 Sep 2013
Page 310, Position 2: Elizabeth I owned 3,000 dresses and the world’s first wire coat hanger.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/may/25/biography.film
Page 310, Position 3: Elizabeth I invented gingerbread men.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19401218&id=PMspAAAAIBAJ&sjid=e_4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=7268,3020349
Page 310, Position 4: Robert Louis Stevenson dreamt the plot of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
http://www.brilliantdreams.com/product/famous-dreams.htm
Page 311, Position 1: Joseph Conrad died leaving an unfinished novel called Suspense.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2912861?uid=3738032&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21104041619043
Page 311, Position 2: It took 17 takes for E. B. White to record the death scene for the audiobook of Charlotte’s Web without breaking down.
http://www.wbur.org/npr/162735079/some-book-charlottes-web-turns-60
Page 311, Position 3: Hugh Hefner has someone preselect his potato chips so he doesn’t have to eat broken ones.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/magazine/06Hefner-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
Page 311, Position 4: Franz Kafka liked to exercise naked in front of the window.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/54417/incredible-eccentricities-20-great-writers
Page 312, Position 1: Humans are the only animals that blush.
http://www.livescience.com/15689-evolution-human-special-species.html
Page 312, Position 2: Snakes don’t have eyelids.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake
Page 312, Position 3: Whales get tan lines.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23882667
Page 312, Position 4: Ants don’t have ears.
http://www.pestworldforkids.org/ants.html
Page 313, Position 1: All the ants in the world weigh about the same as all the people.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/edward-o-wilsons-new-take-on-human-nature-160810520/
Page 313, Position 2: There are more stars in the universe than words have been spoken by all of the humans who have ever lived.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/10/08/10-sublime-wonders-of-science/
Page 313, Position 3: It would take 225 million years to walk a light year.
http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-%2526-space/article/2008-08/how-long-would-it-take-walk-light-year
Page 313, Position 4: Swinging your arms when walking makes it 12% easier.
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/why-we-swing-our-arms-when-we-walk/
Page 314, Position 1: 70% of all train journeys in England start or finish in London.
http://londonfirst.co.uk/our-focus/londons-transport-infrastructure/rail/
Page 314, Position 2: The London Underground was originally intended to terminate in Paris.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130108122724.htm
Page 314, Position 3: In 2014, a single parking space in London was sold for £400,000.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/10635036/UKs-most-expensive-parking-space-sold-for-400000.html
Page 314, Position 4: Spitalfields in London used to be known as Lolsworth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spitalfields&oldid=593224732#Toponymy
Page 315, Position 1: Archers Way in Doncaster was formerly called Butt Hole Road.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7981651/Bladder-Lane-Bent-Street-and-Butt-Hole-Road-the-street-names-that-reached-the-end-of-the-road.html
Page 315, Position 2: The first T-shirt was aimed at bachelors who couldn’t sew on buttons.
http://www.manmadediy.com/users/chris/posts/2685-the-surprisingly-fascinating-history-of-the-t-shirt
Page 315, Position 3: Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton invented underwater spectacles so he could read in the bath.
http://www.theguardian.com/life/opinion/story/0,,1275964,00.html
Page 315, Position 4: After getting out of the bath, the ancient Greeks covered themselves with olive oil.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CdLbAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=archimedes+oiled+skin&source=bl&ots=fwVP3bGHF2&sig=ZG9XhUnUZCcS5TFS5Mezg0Agjc4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=t-pPU4f_GqbB0QWpn4GAAQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=archimedes%20oiled%20skin&f=false
Page 316, Position 1: If everyone washed their hands properly with soap, it would save 600,000 lives a year.
Times Literary Supplement, 28 Mar 2013
Page 316, Position 2: Every year, around 3,000 people get bubonic plague.
The Week, 7 Sep 2013
Page 316, Position 3: Medical mistakes kill enough Americans each week to fill four 747s.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444620104578008263334441352
Page 316, Position 4: 13 Americans have died as a result of laxative overdose.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2538731/Taking-just-one-laxatives-kill-Health-watchdog-warns-counter-drugs-cause-dehydration-kidney-failure.html
Page 317, Position 1: If the US national debt were stacked in $5 bills, it would reach three-quarters of the way to the Moon.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1390090/One-giant-debt-mankind-U-S-national-deficit-reach-moon-piled-high-5-bills.html
Page 317, Position 2: If Bill Gates gave his entire fortune to the US government, it would only cover the national deficit for 15 days.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1390090/One-giant-debt-mankind-U-S-national-deficit-reach-moon-piled-high-5-bills.html
Page 317, Position 3: If you have no debts and £10 in your pocket, you are wealthier than a quarter of Americans.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/14/six-waltons-have-more-wealth-than-the-bottom-30-of-americans/
Page 317, Position 4: The Pentagon is successfully hacked 250,000 times a year, and unsuccessfully hacked 10 million times a day.
http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/20743-Pentagon-Networks-Hacked-250000-Per-Year.html
Page 318, Position 1: 28% of Americans believe a secret elite is conspiring to run the world.
http://news.msn.com/us/americans-believe-in-lizard-people-new-world-order-poll
Page 318, Position 2: 70% of the silent movies made in America have been lost.
http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/70-percent-americas-silent-films-are-gone
Page 318, Position 3: The cross-eyed silent-film comedian Ben Turpin had his eyes insured against uncrossing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd's_of_London
Page 318, Position 4: None of an octopus’s limbs knows what any of the others are doing.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829214.700-new-type-of-stem-cell-helps-your-fingers-regenerate.html#.U1I5raWuffY
Page 319, Position 1: The Lord of the Rings holds the record for the greatest number of false feet used in a single movie: 60,000.
http://www.moviemistakes.com/film1778/trivia
Page 319, Position 2: The cast of Riverdance have worn out 14,000 pairs of shoes.
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2010/oct/13/riverdance-16-years-old
Page 319, Position 3: The V&A Museum has a 1,500-year-old pair of socks designed to be worn with sandals.
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O107787/pair-of-socks-unknown/
Page 319, Position 4: The world’s first GPS shoes are activated by clicking the heels three times.
http://dominicwilcox.com/portfolio/gpsshoe/
Page 320, Position 1: Shoes with five eyelets on each side can be laced up 51,840 different ways.
http://www.qedcat.com/articles/lacing.pdf
Page 320, Position 2: There are 177,147 ways to tie a tie.
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/there-are-177147-ways-tie-tie
Page 320, Position 3: In imperial Japan, high-born women peed standing-up so as not to crease their kimonos.
http://www.researchpod.co.uk/pdf/making_a_stand_to_take_a_pee.pdf
Page 320, Position 4: Louis XIV announced his engagement from the lavatory.
Hart Davis, Adam, Thunder, flush & Thomas Crapper (Chalford, 1997)
Page 321, Position 1: At Stalin’s funeral 500 people were trampled to death.
http://stalin.narod.ru
Page 321, Position 2: Of the 142 million deaths caused by an ideology in the 20th century 94 million were due to communism.
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/20th-century-death/
Page 321, Position 3: Lenin owned nine Rolls-Royces.
Service, Robert, Lenin (London: Macmillan, 2000)
Page 321, Position 4: According to the International Trade Union Confederation, British workers have fewer rights than Albanians, Russians or Rwandans.
http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/survey_ra_2014_eng_v2.pdfÂÂ
Page 322, Position 1: The chairman of a company is four times more likely to be a psychopath than the doorman.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/25/how-to-spot-a-sociopath-hint-it-could-be-you.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet
Page 322, Position 2: Members of the Mafia are much less likely to be psychopaths than other Italian criminals.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/mafia-members-not-psychopaths/
Page 322, Position 3: Prison inmates in Chile have better mental health than the average American.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23894415
Page 322, Position 4: There are more libraries in Britain’s prisons than there are in its schools.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24397801
Page 323, Position 1: Keeping a criminal in prison costs £42,000 a year, £8,730 more than the annual school fees at Eton.
http://rethinking.org.uk/facts/rethink/procons.html"http://www.etoncollege.com/currentfees.aspx"http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/30/prison-reform-crime-numbers-ken-clarke
Page 323, Position 2: The annual cost to the UK economy of reoffending by ex-prisoners is equivalent to staging the Olympics every year.
Evening Standard, 14 Mar 2014
Page 323, Position 3: In 19th-century Britain, prisoners were let out for the day if they paid a fee of £5 (equivalent to £300 today).
http://blog.oup.com/2013/11/gentleman-tour-regency-london-prisons
Page 323, Position 4: Australia’s first police force was composed of the best-behaved convicts.
http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/about_us/history
Page 324, Position 1: Before 1902, it was illegal for Australians to swim at the beach during the day.
http://www.australiaonnet.com/sports/swimming/
Page 324, Position 2: In 1907, Australian dancer Victor Goulet had one of his Achilles tendons replaced with a wallaby’s.
http://www.improbable.com/2014/02/22/further-studies-on-wallaby-tendon/
Page 324, Position 3: Crop circles in Australia are caused by frenzied wallabies who get high in the poppy fields used to grow legal opium.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8118257.stm
Page 324, Position 4: A peppier is a waiter whose sole job is to go round with a pepper grinder.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Peppier
Page 325, Position 1: 78% of Bulgarians never do any exercise.
The Week, 5 Apr 2014
Page 325, Position 2: The average Internet user goes online 34 times a day.
The Week, 26 Oct 2013
Page 325, Position 3: A group of hackers once took down Papa John’s website because their pizza was late.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/05/22/hackers-impersonate-web-billing-firms-staff-to-spill-500000-users-passwords-and-credit-cards/
Page 325, Position 4: 90% of Britons eat pizza at least once a week.
http://metro.co.uk/2010/08/09/pizza-beats-curry-to-become-britains-favourite-dish-473685/
Page 326, Position 1: 24% of Britons eat cereal for supper at least once a week.
http://www.businessinsider.com/24-of-foodie-brits-admit-to-eating-cereal-for-dinner-at-least-once-a-week-2013-11
Page 326, Position 2: Until the 1940s, fake snow in the movies was made by painting cornflakes white.
http://life.time.com/culture/its-a-wonderful-life-rare-photos-from-the-set-of-a-holiday-classic/#1
Page 326, Position 3: It’s a Wonderful Life won just one Oscar: for Technical Achievement in developing a new kind of artificial snow.
http://life.time.com/culture/its-a-wonderful-life-rare-photos-from-the-set-of-a-holiday-classic/#1
Page 326, Position 4: Frank Capra had a lucky raven called Jimmy who appeared in all his movies between 1938 and 1946.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/trivia
Page 327, Position 1: The lapwing has more names than any other British bird, including: Pie-wipe, Chewit, Toppyup, Peasiewheep, Tee-ick, Tee-ack, Tee-o, Teewhup, Ticks Nicket, Tieve’s Nacket, Wallock, Wallop, Wallopie Wep, Horneywink, Horny Wick and Hornpie.
Oxford English Dictionary
Page 327, Position 2: ‘At sparrowsfart’ is slang for ‘very early in the morning’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=bird&searchmode=none&p=1&allowed_in_frame=0
Page 327, Position 3: The Anna’s hummingbird chirps with its bottom.
http://www.livescience.com/9581-bird-chirps-hind.html
Page 327, Position 4: The scientific name for the milk thistle is Silybum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silybum
Page 328, Position 1: There is a genus of tiny sea snails called Bittium, and a genus of even tinier ones called Ittibittium.
http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=473020
Page 328, Position 2: The Gelae genus of slime mould beetles includes Gelae baen, Gelae belae, Gelae donut, Gelae fish and Gelae rol.
http://www.curioustaxonomy.net/puns/puns.html
Page 328, Position 3: There are chemicals called arsole, urantae, fucol, dogcollarane, apatite and cummingtonite.
http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/sillymolecules/sillymols.htm
Page 328, Position 4: The largest molecule in nature is chromosome 1. All human beings have two of them, and each contains 10 billion atoms.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jan/27/20-human-body-facts-science
Page 329, Position 1: Half of all human beings have mites living in their eyelashes.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jan/27/20-human-body-facts-science
Page 329, Position 2: The California mite Paratarsotomus macropalpis can run 300 of its own body lengths per second: 20 times faster than a cheetah.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140427191124.htm
Page 329, Position 3: A cheetah can go from 0 to 40 mph in three strides.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/critters/cheetah.html
Page 329, Position 4: Lions can get hairballs the size of footballs.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/tigers-basketballsized-ha_n_3322726.html
Page 330, Position 1: 385 million years ago, fish had fingers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_(anatomy)
Page 330, Position 2: Four million years ago, rats in South America were the size of hippos.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/science/17rat_web.html
Page 330, Position 3: The world’s oldest rose bush is 1,000 years old.
http://blog.countrygardenroses.co.uk/2010/05/19/world%E2%80%99s-oldest-rose/
Page 330, Position 4: Apples, strawberries, plums and almonds are all types of rose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosaceae
Page 331, Position 1: A whole orange will float on water, but sinks if you peel it.
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/experiments/orangefloatorsink.html
Page 331, Position 2: All tardigrades live in water but none of them can swim.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280286/Meet-toughest-animal-planet-The-water-bear-survive-frozen-boiled-float-space-live-200-years.html
Page 331, Position 3: Because the Pacific island of Guam has no sand, all the roads are made of coral.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1554196
Page 331, Position 4: Coral reefs make up only 1% of the ocean floor, but are home to 25% of all ocean life.
http://www.noaa.gov/features/economic_0708/coralreefs.html
Page 332, Position 1: 95% of the underwater world is yet to be explored.
http://www.noaa.gov/ocean.html
Page 332, Position 2: If Mount Everest stood on the bottom of the Marianas Trench, there would be over a mile of water between its summit and the surface of the sea.
http://www.deepseachallenge.com/the-expedition/mariana-trench/
Page 332, Position 3: Emperor penguins can dive deeper than the height of the Empire State Building.
The Week 24 Aug 2013
Page 332, Position 4: There is more water in the Earth’s core than in all of its oceans.
http://www.startribune.com/science/253053911.html
Page 333, Position 1: If the Earth had no clouds, the sea would evaporate.
New Scientist 3 Aug 2013
Page 333, Position 2: The floods in Australia in 2010 and 2011 caused the world’s sea levels to drop by seven millimetres.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-08/24/australia-floods
Page 333, Position 3: If you removed the water from every life form on Earth, it would be enough to cover the Isle of Man to a depth of half a mile.
National Geographic Magazine, Sep 2013 (& elf calculations)
Page 333, Position 4: In the California gold rush, water cost more than gold.
http://www.investinganswers.com/investment-ideas/commodities-precious-metals/50-surprising-facts-you-never-knew-about-gold-1370
Page 334, Position 1: If you hold your breath and put your face in cold water, your heart will immediately slow down by 25%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex
Page 334, Position 2: Squirting cold water into your left ear will make you feel less optimistic.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23725596
Page 334, Position 3: You Only Live Once is Katie Price’s fourth autobiography.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/at-the-tender-age-of-35-katie-price-is-to-release-her-fifth-autobiography-8665426.html
Page 334, Position 4: 40% of humanity live in countries where it’s illegal to be homosexual.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/16/countries-where-being-gay-is-a-crime?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
Page 335, Position 1: The age boys reach puberty has dropped by 2½ months every decade since the mid-1700s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/magazine/where-have-all-the-sopranos-gone.html?ref=magazine&_r=0
Page 335, Position 2: A bite from a Russell’s pit viper can send the victim back through puberty.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2091250/The-snake-bite-reverse-effects-puberty.html
Page 335, Position 3: Frogs find their way back to their breeding grounds by following the smell of the pond’s algae.
http://www.ipcc.ie/a-to-z-peatlands/frogs/
Page 335, Position 4: Photographs of Algae, published in 1845, was the first book ever to contain photographs.
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/photographyinbooks/record.asp?RecordID=3048
Page 336, Position 1: Charles Darwin’s last book was called The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms.
Norwich, John Julius, A History of Britain in 100 Places
Page 336, Position 2: 1 in 10 Icelanders will publish a book at some time in their life.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24399599
Page 336, Position 3: It’s illegal in Iceland for parents to threaten children with fictional characters.
http://www.thjodminjasafn.is/english/for-visitors/christmas/the-yule-lads/
Page 336, Position 4: In the French Harry Potter books, Voldemort’s middle name is Elvis.
http://bookshelf.mml.ox.ac.uk/2014/05/14/lord-voldemorts-middle-name/
Page 337, Position 1: Elvis was naturally blond.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000062/bio
Page 337, Position 2: Blond footballers are 15% more likely to score in penalty shootouts than dark-haired ones.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/dirty-tackle/stephen-hawking-produces-detailed-report-to-help-england-s-world-cup-chances-180512048.html
Page 337, Position 3: Dolly Parton once lost a Dolly Parton lookalike competition to a drag artist.
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/dolly-parton-gay-rumors-losing-drag-queen-alike/story?id=17812138
Page 337, Position 4: A leading comedian in Iran was banned from acting for eight years because he looked too much like the president.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/5411908/film-star-banned-from-acting-because-he-looks-like-former-president.html
Page 338, Position 1: The president of North Korea is Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_President_of_the_Republic
Page 338, Position 2: Kim Jong-un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, is the world’s youngest head of state.
http://english.cntv.cn/program/newshour/20120718/110122.shtml
Page 338, Position 3: The film of Gone with the Wind is banned in North Korea, but virtually every adult there has read the book.
National Geographic Magazine Oct 2013
Page 338, Position 4: ‘Gangnam Style’ has been watched for four times more hours than it took to build the Great Pyramid.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/06/daily-chart-1
Page 339, Position 1: Queen Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landings than to the building of the Great Pyramid.
http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/how-long-ago-was-it/
Page 339, Position 2: The world’s oldest building is a Japanese hut built half a million years before the Great Pyramid.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/662794.stm
Page 339, Position 3: ‘Meh’ is the sound that Japanese sheep make.
http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/Personal/dabbott/animal.html
Page 339, Position 4: Sheep can see behind themselves without moving their heads.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep
Page 340, Position 1: Human beings had been keeping sheep for 7,000 years before it occurred to anyone to use their wool.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep
Page 340, Position 2: One-third of takeaway lamb curries contain meat other than lamb.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27047970
Page 340, Position 3: The average Briton passes 32 takeaways between home and work.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26546863
Page 340, Position 4: More people in the world recognise the McDonald’s symbol than the Christian cross.
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazing-facts-mcdonalds-2010-12?op=1
Page 341, Position 1: When the first McDonald’s drive-through in Kuwait opened, the queue was seven miles long.
http://www.mcspotlight.org/company/thisweek/18dec96.html
Page 341, Position 2: Usain Bolt ate 1,000 chicken nuggets during the Beijing Olympics because he didn’t like Chinese food.
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Usain-Bolt-Ate-1-000-McNuggets-At-The-Beijing-4951605.php
Page 341, Position 3: Velociraptors were the size of large chickens.
http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/dinosaurbasics/a/velofacts.htm
Page 341, Position 4: On average Britons will eat 1,126 chickens in their lifetime.
Wonderpedia Magazine, Sep 13
Page 342, Position 1: During its lifetime, the International Space Station will be hit by 100,000 meteoroids.
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/aug/meteors20things
Page 342, Position 2: There are 1,397 known asteroids capable of causing ‘major devastation’ if they hit the Earth.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/big-pic-all-asteroids-could-potentially-end-world
Page 342, Position 3: The theoretical process of knocking a meteoroid off course with a nuclear explosion is called an ‘X-ray slap’.
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/aug/meteors20things
Page 342, Position 4: In 1958, the US Air Force planned to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon to demonstrate US military supremacy.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2000/may/14/spaceexploration.theobserver
Page 343, Position 1: In 1971, 100 copies of the Bible were taken to the Moon.
http://apostlesofapollo.com/first-lunar-bible/
Page 343, Position 2: The Moon has earthquakes that last for up to 10 minutes. Because it’s so dry and dense, they make it vibrate like a tuning fork.
http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/15mar_moonquakes/
Page 343, Position 3: The dark side of the Moon is turquoise.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/10/dark-side-moon-turquoise-astronomers
Page 343, Position 4: In China, the Man in the Moon is known as the Toad in the Moon.
http://www.times-standard.com/davestancliff/ci_16673019
Page 344, Position 1: One-third of toads crossing roads are fatally run over.
http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/hwhiteman/pdf/consbioljournalvol1-bkobylarz.pdf
Page 344, Position 2: Polar bears cannot be seen by using night-vision equipment.
http://coe.berkeley.edu/engnews/fall02/3S/polarbear.html
Page 344, Position 3: Tortoises can feel it if you touch their shells.
http://www.thetortoiseshop.com/basic-tortoise-anatomy-biology
Page 344, Position 4: Only 1 in 1,000 leatherback turtles survive to adulthood.
http://torontozoo.com/adoptapond/turtle_curriculum/unit5b.pdf
Page 345, Position 1: In 1860, girls in the West reached puberty at 16½. Now they get there before they’re 10.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/oct/21/puberty-adolescence-childhood-onset
Page 345, Position 2: According to Catholic tradition, the ‘Limbo of the Children’ is a nursery on the edge of Hell for unbaptised infants.
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/
Page 345, Position 3: 70% of Americans believe in the existence of the devil.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=psychological-power-satan
Page 345, Position 4: Finnair operates a daily flight 666 to HEL.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/flight-666-goes-to-hel-on-friday-13-29576314.html
Page 346, Position 1: Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit was made by a bra manufacturer.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Neil-Armstrongs-Spacesuit-Was-Made-by-a-Bra-Manufacturer-228875531.html
Page 346, Position 2: Neil Armstrong’s boots are still floating around in space.
http://www.rd.com/slideshows/8-surprising-pieces-of-space-junk/#slideshow=slide3
Page 346, Position 3: Humans spend 13% of their lives not focusing on anything in particular.
http://www.livescience.com/33357-why-we-zone-out.html
Page 346, Position 4: 44% of women prefer reading Fifty Shades of Grey to actually having sex.
Marie Claire, 23 Aug 2013
Page 347, Position 1: Male ladybirds can spend up to four hours mating with a dead female before realising something is wrong.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14619714.300-spot-the-ladybird.html
Page 347, Position 2: Ladybird orgasms last for 30 minutes.
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/yanglu/entry/the_sex_life/
Page 347, Position 3: Smaller animals experience time as passing more slowly.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347213003060
Page 347, Position 4: ‘Time Person of the Year’ contains the first, second and third most commonly used nouns in English, in order.
Focus Magazine, Oct 2013
Page 348, Position 1: Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, has towns called Intercourse and Paradise. It takes six minutes to get from one to the other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercourse,_Pennsylvania
Page 348, Position 2: Michigan has towns called Paradise and Hell that are less than 300 miles apart.
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?1c=paradise&1s=mi&2c=hell&2s=mi
Page 348, Position 3: The world’s most expensive phone number is 666-6666. It was sold in 2006 for £1.5 million.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/23/mobile_number_sold/
Page 348, Position 4: 1 in 6 mobile phones in Britain are contaminated with faecal matter.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15284501
Page 349, Position 1: The most common bacteria found on banknotes are the ones that cause acne.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/04/23/305890574/dirty-money-a-microbial-jungle-thrives-in-your-wallet
Page 349, Position 2: There are more than £100 million worth of 1p coins in circulation in the UK.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/04/23/305890574/dirty-money-a-microbial-jungle-thrives-in-your-wallet
Page 349, Position 3: Borrowing £400 from Wonga at its standard rate for seven years would leave you owing more than Britain’s national debt.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2011/oct/16/wonga-algorithm-lending-debt-data
Page 349, Position 4: In the UK in 2013, more than 4,000 people were buried in paupers’ graves.
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Education/article1401784.ece
Page 350, Position 1: Hospital, a village in Ireland, doesn’t have a hospital.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_place_names
Page 350, Position 2: The IKEA store on Calle Me Falta un Tornillo (‘I’ve Got a Screw Loose Street’) in Valladolid, Spain, is hard to find because people keep stealing the street signs.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/11/ive_got_a_screw_loose_street/
Page 350, Position 3: Spanish police are called smurfs because they wear pale-blue hats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smurfs
Page 350, Position 4: Tipping the hat comes from the military salute, which in turn comes from men in armour lifting the visor to show their faces.
http://askandyaboutclothes.com/clothing/style-tips/hat-etiquette/
Page 351, Position 1: The long black ribbon round a funeral director’s top hat is called a weeper.
http://chwolfenbloode.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/guide-to-buying-a-top-hat/
Page 351, Position 2: The Queen Mother once turned up unannounced to watch a top-secret rehearsal of her own funeral.
Private Eye 1367
Page 351, Position 3: The ashes of one in 50 people who are cremated are never collected by relatives.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17300390
Page 351, Position 4: Cremation causes silicone breast implants to explode.
http://www.ienhance.com/articles/breast-implants-when-you-die
Page 352, Position 1: A Spartan only got his name on his tombstone if he died in battle.
Cartledge, P, After Thermopylae
Page 352, Position 2: Vikings who died in bed rather than in battle went to a special afterlife where it was always foggy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/vikings/beliefs_and_stories/
Page 352, Position 3: The oldest person in history smoked for 96 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
Page 352, Position 4: One-third of babies born in Britain in 2013 are expected to live for a century.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/26/one-third-of-2012-babies-will-live-to-100_n_1379224.html
Page 353, Position 1: Emperor Hirohito’s final speech to the Japanese nation was the first time his subjects had ever heard his voice.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/the-emperors-speech-67-years-ago-hirohito-transformed-japan-forever/261166/
Page 353, Position 2: Einstein’s last words were spoken in German to a nurse who didn’t speak German and are lost for ever.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-were-albert-einsteins-final-words.htm
Page 353, Position 3: Bing Crosby’s last words were: ‘That was a great game of golf, fellers.’
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001078/bio
Page 353, Position 4: The last words of John Le Mesurier were: ‘It’s all been rather lovely
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/apr/28/john-le-mesurier
1,342 QI Facts To Leave You Flabbergasted
Page 1, Position 1: The most distant object in the universe is 13.42 billion light years away.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2015/8/evolving-achievements-the-7-world-records-that-have-changed-significantly-since
Page 1, Position 2: To get to the nearest star at a tenth of the speed of light would take 42 years and need fuel weighing as much as the Sun.
http://www.universetoday.com/15403/how-long-would-it-take-to-travel-to-the-nearest-star/
Page 1, Position 3: The Sun gets 4 million tons lighter every second.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6mGGX6AGBTAC&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181&dq=The+Sun+gets+4+million+tons+lighter+every+second.&source=bl&ots=jP48M5PHIR&sig=ETfruoBgCzXq1of0iWiDxghG9i4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjv9JvCj_vOAhWBK8AKHdVlBFsQ6AEIOzAF#v=onepage&q=The%20Sun%20gets%204%20million%20tons%20lighter%20every%20second.&f=false
Page 1, Position 4: Ten-trillionths of your suntan comes from stars in galaxies beyond the Milky Way.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160811190751.htm
Page 2, Position 1: For a billion years, the only life on Earth was a kind of slime. Scientists call this period ‘the boring billion’.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229672-900-why-did-evolution-stall-during-the-boring-billion/
Page 2, Position 2: Scientists alive today outnumber all the scientists who ever lived up to 1980.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-new-renaissance/
Page 2, Position 3: Scientists watching paint dry in Surrey and Lyon in 2016 said the results were ‘exciting’.
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/mediacentre/press/2016/science-watching-paint-dry-nanotech-everyday-impact
Page 2, Position 4: To avoid exciting men, early bicycles for women had a ‘cherry screen’ to hide their ankles.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/8419028/Bicycles-The-chains-that-set-women-free.html
Page 3, Position 1: No one knows why bicycles stay upright.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730370-400-how-does-a-bicycle-stay-upright/
Page 3, Position 2: No one knows how much money is in circulation.
http://www.zyen.com/Presentations/Presentations/The%20Study%20Of%20Money%20May%20Be%20The%20Root%20Of%20Much%20Madness%20-%20Long%20Finance%20Conference%20-%202015.03.03%20v1.2.pdf
Page 3, Position 3: Economists can’t explain boom or bust.
http://www.zyen.com/Presentations/Presentations/The%20Study%20Of%20Money%20May%20Be%20The%20Root%20Of%20Much%20Madness%20-%20Long%20Finance%20Conference%20-%202015.03.03%20v1.2.pdf
Page 3, Position 4: No one knows why scientists don’t have tails.
http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=4555
Page 4, Position 1: The first scientifically named dinosaur bone was called Scrotum humanum because it looked like a giant pair of human testicles.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5955550/the-first-scientific-name-ever-given-to-a-dinosaur-scrotum-humanum
Page 4, Position 2: The remains of a dinosaur named Aachenosaurus multidens turned out to be lumps of petrified wood.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-demise-of-a-wooden-dinosaur-83015356/?no-ist
Page 4, Position 3: Velociraptors were no bigger than turkeys.
http://www.livescience.com/23922-velociraptor-facts.html
Page 4, Position 4: Dinosaurs didn’t roar; they mumbled or cooed.
http://www.futurity.org/dinosaurs-closed-mouth-vocalization-1200502-2/
Page 5, Position 1: Sabre-toothed tigers never existed.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/carnivora/sabretooth.html
Page 5, Position 2: Neanderthals are shown as slouching because the first one to be reconstructed happened to have arthritis.
http://discovermagazine.com/2013/dec/22-20-things-you-didnt-know-aboutneanderthals
Page 5, Position 3: The first Neanderthal skull discovered was thought to belong to a Cossack with rickets, the pain of which had furrowed his brow.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630211.000-case-of-the-rickety-cossack-reveals-unease-about-our-fossil-past.html
Page 5, Position 4: In 2015, Spanish workers destroyed a 6,000-year-old Neolithic tomb, mistaking it for a broken picnic table. They replaced it with a ‘better’ picnic table.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/27/435203455/ancient-tomb-in-spain-destroyed-and-replaced-with-a-picnic-table
Page 6, Position 1: When spun on a table, a US ‘Lincoln Memorial’ one-cent coin will land on tails 80% of the time.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/gamblers-take-note-the-odds-in-a-coin-flip-arent-quite-5050-145465423/?no-ist
Page 6, Position 2: The surface area of a cat, including each hair of its fur, is 100 times that of its skin and is enough to cover a ping-pong table.
http://www.news.gatech.edu/2015/11/09/hairy-situation-hair-increases-surface-area-animals-100-times
Page 6, Position 3: Ping-pong balls have been made larger to make the sport better for television.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sport/tennis/654102.stm
Page 6, Position 4: After EastEnders, so many kettles are turned on that Britain has to borrow power from France.
http://www.geek.com/news/tea-time-in-britain-causes-predictable-massive-surge-in-electricity-demand-1535023/
Page 7, Position 1: In France, Germany, Austria, Spain and the Netherlands they serve beer in McDonald’s.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/mcdonalds-euro-2016-austria-free-beer-vienna-ottakringer-brewery-a7083336.html
Page 7, Position 2: McNuggets come in four official shapes: bell, bone, boot and ball.
http://www.neatorama.com/2015/04/09/Why-McDonalds-Chicken-McNuggets-Come-in-Only-4-Shapes/
Page 7, Position 3: Slit-faced bats are the only mammals in the world with a T-shaped tail.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JKTeiqPBpM4C&pg=PA128&dq=%22slit-faced%22+tail+%22t-shaped%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjuv7WNn_3PAhUCKcAKHZ49CqUQ6AEIUjAJ#v=onepage&q=%22slit-faced%22%20tail%20%22t-shaped%22&f=false
Page 7, Position 4: Batman flies through the air so fast that landing would probably kill him.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/16/batmans-superpowers-questioned-by-scientific-study-superman
Page 8, Position 1: A ‘batman’ was a unit of weight in the Ottoman Empire. Ben Affleck weighs about nine batmans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(unit) http://comicbook.com/blog/2013/08/25/ben-affleck-is-physically-the-best-choice-to-play-batman-in-a-movie-ever/
Page 8, Position 2: In the X-Men movies, the sound of Wolverine’s claws shooting out was made by tearing a turkey apart.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/75464/10-iconic-movie-sounds-and-how-they-were-made
Page 8, Position 3: In the Halloween movies, the killer wears a Captain Kirk mask, sprayed white.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077651/trivia
Page 8, Position 4: In The Empire Strikes Back, the emperor had a man’s voice, a woman’s face and a chimpanzee’s eyes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palpatine
Page 9, Position 1: In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the sound of the boulder that chased Indiana Jones was made by rolling a car down a gravel road.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/75464/10-iconic-movie-sounds-and-how-they-were-made
Page 9, Position 2: If every car in Monaco took to the roads at the same time, they wouldn’t all fit on.
The Economist Pocket World in Figures 2016
Page 9, Position 3: In 2009, the mayors of adjoining Parisian suburbs declared the same street as one-way, but in different directions.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6127669/Feuding-Paris-mayors-declare-street-one-way-in-opposite-directions.html
Page 9, Position 4: The bridge known as the ‘Gateway to Bolton’ is a one-way street leading away from Bolton.
http://9gag.com/gag/ao9RRYe/gateway-to-bolton
Page 10, Position 1: In 1845, a bridge collapsed in Great Yarmouth, killing 79 people watching a clown in a tub being pulled by geese.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-24240357
Page 10, Position 2: Mice sing like birds, but humans can’t hear them.
http://www.discovery.com/dscovrd/wildlife/mice-sing-like-birds-we-just-cant-hear-them/
Page 10, Position 3: The Elizabethans treated warts by cutting a mouse in half and applying it to the affected part.
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/15-most-bizarre-medical-treatments-ever/2
Page 10, Position 4: Georgian women worried about mice getting into their wigs at night.
https://georgianera.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/sweet-dreams-meddlesome-mice-and-1770s-big-hair/
Page 11, Position 1: The hair of Twiggy’s waxwork at Madame Tussauds was dressed by Twiggy’s hairdresser.
http://www.newyork.com/articles/attractions/secrets-of-madame-tussauds-new-york-11698/
Page 11, Position 2: A hairdresser in Madrid cuts hair using a samurai sword and a blowtorch.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/12/03/edward-scissorhands-hairdresser-swords_n_8710208.html
Page 11, Position 3: In 1942, an Italian hairdresser called ‘the Phantom Barber of Pascagoula’ broke into people’s houses and cut their hair.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/55316/strange-states-mississippis-phantom-barber-pascagoula
Page 11, Position 4: The people most likely to suffer injuries at work are hairdressers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11949017/most-dangerous-jobs-britain.html
Page 12, Position 1: The Smithsonian Museum has a framed collection of locks of hair from the first 14 presidents.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/comb-through-framed-collection-presidential-hair-180958064/
Page 12, Position 2: Benjamin Franklin had a pulley system so he could lock his bedroom door from his bed.
http://www.biography.com/news/benjamin-franklin-inventions-electricity
Page 12, Position 3: Thomas Jefferson kept a flock of geese to supply quills for his pens.
https://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Winter07/lettersSide.cfm
Page 12, Position 4: Ronald Reagan was a stand-up comedian for two weeks.
http://lasvegassun.com/news/2004/jun/07/reagans-ties-long-strong-to-lv/
Page 13, Position 1: The US Senate has never formally endorsed the title ‘President’.
http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_forsyth_what_s_a_snollygoster_a_short_lesson_in_political_speak/transcript?language=en
Page 13, Position 2: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt pronounced their surnames differently.
http://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Blog/2013/January/21-How-do-you-pronounce-Roosevelt.aspx http://www.pronouncenames.com/pronounce/Franklin%20Roosevelt
Page 13, Position 3: Benjamin Franklin and John Adams once shared a room and couldn’t agree whether to open or shut the window. Franklin won by arguing until Adams fell asleep.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/54169/time-ben-franklin-and-john-adams-shared-bed
Page 13, Position 4: Paper towels in the White House are embossed with the Presidential Seal.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/what-are-the-bathrooms-like-at-the-white-house-9155249.html
Page 14, Position 1: Wasps were making paper long before humans existed.
http://www.academia.edu/8154479/A_new_paper_wasp_from_Late_Eocene_of_France_Hymenoptera_Vespidae_Polistinae_ http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_4.htm http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1052.htm
Page 14, Position 2: 80% of the €500 notes in Spain are used for criminal purposes.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/500-euro-bin-laden-banknote-removed-from-circulation-european-central-bank-ecb-a7013621.html
Page 14, Position 3: To carry $10 million in notes you’d need a minimum of seven and a half briefcases.
#The Economist# 5/3/2016
Page 14, Position 4: For a few months in 1993, Moldova’s official currency was the cupon.
http://banknoteworld.com/moldova
Page 15, Position 1: The word ‘Czech’ is Polish.
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21697158-government-prefers-english-version-name-reminded-vaclav-havel-crawling http://www.omniglot.com/writing/czech.htm
Page 15, Position 2: The Czech phrase strcˇ prst skrz krk, meaning ‘thrust finger through neck’, contains no vowels.
http://www.archimedes-lab.org/numbers/Num1_69.html
Page 15, Position 3: There are more than 100 words in Hawaiian consisting entirely of vowels.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sUKFH6CE0fkC&q=hawaiian+language+guinness+book+of+records&dq=hawaiian+language+guinness+book+of+records&hl=en&sa=X&ei=sAyQVa6VAaKE7gbDm4KwDQ&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA
Page 15, Position 4: In ancient Hawaii, the nuts of the kukui tree were threaded on a string and lit. Each nut burned in sequence to form an early version of chaser lighting.
http://www.untamedscience.com/biodiversity/kukui-nut-tree/
Page 16, Position 1: Ancient Romans threw walnuts at the bride.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=avDXAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA497&lpg=PA497&dq=pliny+walnuts+scattered+over+brides&source=bl&ots=oU7hoAd9EZ&sig=h38YqpX_hmyLTIWc877xBBJxA8c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiE0JKn3_zKAhUCvRoKHXm7B5AQ6AEIIDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 16, Position 2: It takes five litres of water to grow a single almond.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/oct/21/almond-milk-quite-good-for-you-very-bad-for-the-planet
Page 16, Position 3: Britain’s share of the cost of funding the Large Hadron Collider each year is the same amount of money as Britons spend on peanuts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06qml0r#play
Page 16, Position 4: The cost of the extra fuel needed to carry a bag of peanuts on a plane for a year is £1.
1
Page 17, Position 1: In 2015, a Singapore Airlines freight plane made an emergency landing after farting sheep triggered the smoke alarm.
http://avherald.com/h?article=48e6ef9c
Page 17, Position 2: Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, was an airline booking agent.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/11387748/Harper-Lee-a-timeline.html
Page 17, Position 3: Woody Allen writes his film scripts on a typewriter he bought in the 1950s.
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/woody_allens_typewriter_scissor_and_stapler.html
Page 17, Position 4: On a QWERTY keyboard a typist’s fingers cover 20 miles a day; on a Dvorak keyboard it’s only one mile.
on a DVORAK keyboard it's only one mile.
Page 18, Position 1: Making all the chain mail for The Lord of the Rings wore the costume designers’ fingerprints away.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120737/trivia
Page 18, Position 2: The chants of the orc army in The Lord of the Rings were made by a stadium full of New Zealand cricket fans.
http://www.ew.com/article/2002/03/15/dish-lotr-two-towers
Page 18, Position 3: The house where Bilbo Baggins lived in The Lord of the Rings is now occupied by sheep.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7942834/Lord-of-the-Rings-sheep-take-over-The-Shire-on-New-Zealand-film-set.html
Page 18, Position 4: Alexander Graham Bell tried to breed sheep with extra nipples.
http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/07/17/science-vault-multinippled-she/
Page 19, Position 1: The longest human nipple hair was 17 centimetres long.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/longest-nipple-hair/
Page 19, Position 2: Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, thought chest hair would cease to exist in the future.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/more-weird-facts-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-orig-1635546015
Page 19, Position 3: Hippocrates used a mixture of pigeon droppings, horseradish, cumin and beetroot to treat his hair loss, but it only made the rest of his hair fall out.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/health/article1962081.ece
Page 19, Position 4: The Maori for ‘scissors’ is kutikuti.
http://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/3330
Page 20, Position 1: In Tanzania, a roundabout is a kipilefti.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hNqrAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT153&lpg=PT153&dq=In+Tanzania,+a+'roundabout'+is+kipilefti.&source=bl&ots=P7E2lwRTrF&sig=xLCQOsXmZ7eeYOr47_1p7dE1QiE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGt46LhP3OAhVeF8AKHSBrDXIQ6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=In%20Tanzania%2C%20a%20'roundabout'%20is%20kipilefti.&f=false
Page 20, Position 2: The ‘van man’ was around before the invention of the van: he used to drive wagons.
#Oxford English Dictionary#
Page 20, Position 3: Invented in 1862, the anti-garrotting cravat shot spikes into the hands of anyone attempting to strangle the wearer.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PeYgDAAAQBAJ&q=cravat#v=snippet&q=cravat&f=false
Page 20, Position 4: The inventors of Silly String were trying to make a spray-on cast for broken bones.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/dec/14/new-economics-foundation-social-value
Page 21, Position 1: Every day, skateboarding accidents land 176 American children in A&E.
https://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/child-safety-news-587/skateboarding-mishaps-send-176-u-s-kids-to-ers-every-day-710195.html
Page 21, Position 2: At one A&E in Papua New Guinea, 1 in 40 patients have been hurt by a falling coconut.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6502774?dopt=Abstract
Page 21, Position 3: The last person to be killed by a single hailstone was a pizza delivery man in Fort Worth, Texas.
https://weather.com/storms/severe/news/hail-dangers-costs-20130403
Page 21, Position 4: To avoid being hit by space junk in 2014 the International Space Station (ISS) had to change orbit three times.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0656dbj
Page 22, Position 1: The wake-up call on the Mir space station made the same sound as the emergency alarm.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/apr/18/blast-off-why-has-astronaut-helen-sharman-been-written-out-of-history
Page 22, Position 2: NASA’s tallest astronaut exceeded their maximum height limit because he grew taller in space.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/12/science/astronaut-grows-too-tall.html
Page 22, Position 3: In space, you can relieve a headache by urinating.
http://www.wired.com/2014/11/marsha-ivins/
Page 22, Position 4: When the waste disposal failed on the space shuttle Discovery, it developed a giant urine icicle.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/science/space/28nasaw.html?_r=2&hp&oref=login
Page 23, Position 1: Because their faeces glow in the dark, lemmings always defecate underground.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150513-these-animals-use-public-toilets
Page 23, Position 2: 10% of British train toilets flush directly onto the tracks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30541015
Page 23, Position 3: Before trains had corridors, ticket inspectors had to clamber along the outside of the carriage.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cksaCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA124&lpg=PA124&dq=trains+corridors+%22ticket+inspectors%22+outside&source=bl&ots=PRdWYuYMvX&sig=oNJoqGRXkfQ9hvtVb3O0GHzR0gg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6ybrS8_fNAhXJDMAKHWfTBGYQ6AEIQDAG#v=onepage&q=trains%20corridors%20%22ticket%20inspectors%22%20outside&f=false
Page 23, Position 4: More than 20% of people commuting by train to London have to stand all the way.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/10199555/More-than-a-fifth-of-London-bound-commuters-forced-to-stand-on-overcrowded-trains.html
Page 24, Position 1: In the 40 minutes it takes the average commuter in the world to get to work, the ISS travels the distance from London to Australia.
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/ask/282-How-fast-does-the-Space-Station-travel-
Page 24, Position 2: In the time it takes to listen to The Proclaimers’ ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’, the ISS travels 500 miles, then 500 more.
https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/
Page 24, Position 3: News of the Battle of Trafalgar travelled the 1,100 miles to London in 17 days.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=i-PLg2PsNd4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=A+Farewell+to+Alms+by+Gregory+Clark&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW0MDRgqXNAhVFXh4KHRZHDowQ6AEIJTAA#v=snippet&q=trafalgar&f=false
Page 24, Position 4: In the 17th century, Christmas turkeys walked from East Anglia to London in three months.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/happy-christmas-turkey-its-your-last-1526939.html
Page 25, Position 1: The Gombe War (1974–8) was fought in Tanzania between two communities of chimpanzees.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
Page 25, Position 2: In 1928, the US, the UK and Germany signed a treaty to end all war.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/kbpact.htm
Page 25, Position 3: In the Second World War, the Allies used a ‘ghost army’ of inflatable tanks to trick the Germans.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/ghost-army-the-inflatable-tanks-that-fooled-hitler/276137/y' of inflatable tanks to trick the Germans.
Page 25, Position 4: Stormtroopers from Star Wars Lego sets outnumber the planet’s real soldiers by 50 to 1.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35170829?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=facebook
Page 26, Position 1: The online encyclopaedia dedicated to Lego is called ‘Brickipedia’.
http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/LEGO_Wiki
Page 26, Position 2: Echolalia is the urge to imitate what someone has just said, in exactly the same voice.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZmQdBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA539&lpg=PA539&dq=Echolalia+%22Same+accent%22&source=bl&ots=Oc8IkhS07V&sig=EfCNX8Fqw2Zj7dOfjbKCeWxKk6M&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj23Zve7ffNAhVKDsAKHSVaAGMQ6AEIVzAI#v=onepage&q=Echolalia%20%22Same%20accent%22&f=false
Page 26, Position 3: A beauty contest held in Singapore in 1998 awarded 60% of the marks for knowledge of the Internet.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/155037.stm
Page 26, Position 4: Hundreds of victims of the Great Singapore Penis Panic of 1967 feared their penises were shrinking away; a dozen of the sufferers were women.
#The Great Singapore Penis Panic#, by Scott D. Mendelson
Page 27, Position 1: Men looking at pictures of two men and a woman produce more sperm than those looking at pictures of three women.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/opinion-the-biggest-sperm-come-in-the-smallest-packages-and-other-odd-facts-about-male-sex-cells
Page 27, Position 2: Fruit-fly sperm are 20,000 times larger than porcupine sperm.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/opinion-the-biggest-sperm-come-in-the-smallest-packages-and-other-odd-facts-about-male-sex-cells
Page 27, Position 3: The Pieza genus of fly has species called Pieza kake, Pieza pie, Pieza rhea and Pieza deresistans.
#The Naming of the Shrew# John Wright
Page 27, Position 4: Reducing the price of a pizza in France from €8 to €7.99 increases sales by 15%.
8 to &euro
Page 28, Position 1: Pizza sales shot up in Colorado after the state legalised marijuana.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/peyton-manning-credits-legal-colorado-pot-booming-papa-john-pizza-business-article-1.1944951rado saw their profits jump after the state legalised Marijuana.
Page 28, Position 2: In 1935, the mayor of New York banned the sale of artichokes to ruin a Mafia boss.
http://www.cuesa.org/food/artichokes
Page 28, Position 3: In 2010, the Great Sprout Drought increased the price per pound of Brussels sprouts in Britain almost to that of turkey.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35051540
Page 28, Position 4: The oldest living turkey in Britain is called Dinner.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/britains-oldest-turkey-called-dinner-6954804
Page 29, Position 1: After noticing that she washed up bare-handed, Margaret Thatcher sent the Queen rubber gloves for Christmas.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/happy-christmas-turkey-its-your-last-1526939.html
Page 29, Position 2: The Queen’s advisers persuaded her not to allow the Loch Ness Monster to be named Elizabethia nessiae.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1380826/Queen-found-Thatcher-a-bit-of-a-frost-and-Wilson-absurd.html
Page 29, Position 3: The Queen was keen to accept an offer to be president of the George Formby Appreciation Society, but her advisers deemed it ‘inappropriate’.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/the-queen-wanted-to-be-president-of-the-george-formby-society-but-was-told-she-was-too-important-a7069051.html
Page 29, Position 4: The Queen owns a drive-thru McDonald’s in Slough.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2210334/Queen-owns-a-McDonalds.html
Page 30, Position 1: Because Chicken McNuggets are sold in sets of 6, 9 or 20, the largest number you can’t buy is 43.
#Number freak# by Derrick Niederman (Duckworth, 2012)
Page 30, Position 2: People who are good at maths are twice as likely to be sexually active in old age.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/10/how-maths-can-boost-your-sex-life--well-into-your-80s/
Page 30, Position 3: You eat more when your kitchen is messy.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/75520/study-says-we-eat-more-when-our-kitchens-are-messy
Page 30, Position 4: Nearly half the seafood bought in the US is thrown away.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378015300340
Page 31, Position 1: More fish is eaten in China than in the following 10 countries combined.
http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v312/n4/full/scientificamerican0415-52.html?message=remove&WT.ec_id=SCIENTIFICAMERICAN-201504
Page 31, Position 2: 56 species of fish can be sold as ‘snapper’ in US restaurants.
http://www.livescience.com/51666-snapper-fish-can-be-56-different-species-names-matter-video.html
Page 31, Position 3: 50 species of microbe live inside your belly button.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/after-two-years-scientists-still-cant-solve-belly-button-mystery-continue-navel-gazing/
Page 31, Position 4: There are at least half a million species of nematode worm yet to be discovered.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/phyla/ecdysozoa/nematoda.html
Page 32, Position 1: A new fish discovered in Australia in 2015 was named ‘Blue Bastard’.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/08/blue-bastard-newly-recognised-fish-is-blue-when-adult-and-a-bastard-to-catch
Page 32, Position 2: The largest land animal that ever lived was a dinosaur named Dreadnoughtus.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/introducing-dreadnoughtus-the-newly-discovered-biggest-dinosaur-ever-9711928.html
Page 32, Position 3: After Barack Obama visited Kenya in 2015, two women named their sons Air Force One.
http://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/newborn-babies-named-airforce-one-obama-and-other-obama-names
Page 32, Position 4: The main street in the capital of Kosovo is called Bill Clinton Boulevard.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kosovo-bill-clinton-statue
Page 33, Position 1: Bulgaria has a special agency that fires anti-hail rockets into the sky.
http://bnr.bg/en/post/100699574/executive-agency-hail-suppression-over-4000-anti-hail-rockets-launched-in-bulgaria-in-may-only
Page 33, Position 2: Finland has the highest density of metal bands in the world.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/03/world-map-metal-band-population-density/329913/
Page 33, Position 3: The unhappiest country in the world is Burundi.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35824033
Page 33, Position 4: Indonesians are the world’s shortest people.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/the-tallest-and-shortest-countries-in-the-world/
Page 34, Position 1: Pakistanis have the world’s gentlest handshakes.
#The Economist# 15.5.2015
Page 34, Position 2: The US government spent $7 million promoting literacy in Pakistan with an Urdu version of Sesame Street.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18329054
Page 34, Position 3: Big Bird, Bert and Ernie are the three highest-energy neutrinos.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25410-big-bird-space-neutrino-has-highest-energy-yet-seen/
Page 34, Position 4: The world’s firmest handshakes belong to the Swedes.
#The Economist# 15.5.2015
Page 35, Position 1: In 2016, the Swedish Tourist Association ran a phone line that you could call to talk to a random Swede.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/09/world/europe/sweden-call-random-swede-number.html?_r=0
Page 35, Position 2: The UN’s official definition of a tourist is someone who stays in a country more than 24 hours but less than six months.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hVevHV-izi8C&pg=RA1-PR31&lpg=RA1-PR31&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 35, Position 3: The Longquan Buddhist temple in China has a robotic monk called Worthy Stupid Robot Monk designed to talk to tourists.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/world/asia/china-robot-monk-temple.html?_r=0
Page 35, Position 4: Items in English on menus in China include Fried Swarm, The Smell of Urine Dry Noodles, Sauce on My Grandma and The Hand that Grasps the Cowboy Bone.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/world/what-in-the-world/on-offer-in-china-fried-swarm-and-other-tasty-translations.html
Page 36, Position 1: Lifts in Singapore are fitted with urine detectors; if triggered, the lift stops and the police are called.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/absurd-laws-of-singapore-2012-6?r=US&IR=T
Page 36, Position 2: You are not allowed to travel in a lift with liquid nitrogen.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/medicalschool/msa/safety/docs/lncop.pdf
Page 36, Position 3: Fear of lifts can be overcome by eating all your meals inside one.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0005791673900086
Page 36, Position 4: Abibliophobia is the fear of running out of something to read.
http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/abibliophobia.html
Page 37, Position 1: Sciophobia is the irrational fear of shadows.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2m1UQI4QpVsC&pg=PT281&lpg=PT281&dq=Sciophobia+is+the+irrational+fear+of+shadows.&source=bl&ots=qMRDIrKVHQ&sig=ycpqHjZEuhr-o1_9_if6VK1tRdE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiV_YDfhf3OAhUaM8AKHdKtBYEQ6AEIRDAG#v=onepage&q=Sciophobia%20is%20the%20irrational%20fear%20of%20shadows.&f=false
Page 37, Position 2: Steve Jobs was scared of buttons.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/11/steve-jobss-button-phobia-has-shaped-the-modern-world/
Page 37, Position 3: MC Hammer doesn’t like hammers.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/mc-hammer-not-actually-a-fan-of-hammers-a7047581.html
Page 37, Position 4: The Dalai Lama is frightened of caterpillars.
http://www.lionsroar.com/nothing-special-the-dalai-lama-in-berkeley-a-report-and-photos-from-steve-silberman/
Page 38, Position 1: Masked birch caterpillars use ‘anal drumming’ to find friends.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160404-caterpillars-science-animals-anal-communication/
Page 38, Position 2: People with more friends have a higher tolerance for pain.
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-04-28-friends-better-morphine
Page 38, Position 3: In Japan, you can rent friends.
http://boingboing.net/2016/06/27/in-japan-you-can-rent-your-fr.html
Page 38, Position 4: Hans Christian Andersen wrecked his friendship with Charles Dickens by staying with him three weeks longer than planned.
https://goo.gl/7cWsQy
Page 39, Position 1: Charles Dickens’s father went into business with Butch Cassidy’s great-grandfather.
https://goo.gl/E3AUun
Page 39, Position 2: The detective agency that caught Butch Cassidy also worked for Coca-Cola.
https://goo.gl/Fkl7Ul
Page 39, Position 3: A can of Coke uses ingredients from all seven continents except Antarctica.
https://goo.gl/GxPuvc
Page 39, Position 4: Between 2005 and 2011, the number of visits to A&E in the US caused by energy drinks increased from under 2,000 to over 20,000.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/how-much-caffeine-before-i-end-up-in-the-er/267129/
Page 40, Position 1: The world’s largest cruise ship has a bar where all the drinks are made by robots.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/harmony-seas-water-slides-casinos-robot-bartenders-worlds-largest-cruise-ship-1560466
Page 40, Position 2: The teabag was invented 2,000 years after humans started drinking tea.
http://time.com/3996712/a-brief-history-of-the-tea-bag/ http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/26/464437173/worlds-oldest-tea-discovered-in-an-ancient-chinese-emperors-tomb
Page 40, Position 3: ‘Night starvation’ was a condition invented by Horlicks to sell more Horlicks.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/26/464437173/worlds-oldest-tea-discovered-in-an-ancient-chinese-emperors-tomb
Page 40, Position 4: Popcorn was originally marketed as Nonpareil.
http://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/popcorn-history/
Page 41, Position 1: Noggin is a protein that forms the skull.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2003/april16/skull.html
Page 41, Position 2: Bacteria have the smallest eyeballs in nature but the largest relative to their size.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/12147643/Scientists-accidentally-discover-worlds-smallest-and-oldest-eyeball.html
Page 41, Position 3: Bees know when it’s going to rain, so they put in extra work the day before.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2075606-honeybees-know-its-going-to-rain-so-work-more-before-it-starts/
Page 41, Position 4: 96% of people can tell the difference between the sound of hot and cold water being poured.
http://www.npr.org/2014/07/05/328842704/what-does-cold-sound-like
Page 42, Position 1: The Sandhill Rustic moth can stay underwater for an hour.
http://www.merseysidebiobank.org.uk/Literature/BurkmarThesisCompressed.pdf
Page 42, Position 2: Sand wasps fly backwards out of the nest to make sure they’ll remember what the way home looks like.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-12/wasps-how-they-find-their-way-home/7160082
Page 42, Position 3: Some spiders disguise themselves as ants by pretending their two front legs are antennae.
https://theconversation.com/spiders-disguise-themselves-as-ants-to-hide-and-hunt-their-prey-33953
Page 42, Position 4: Male spider mites prefer their sexual partners to be dead.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25889815
Page 43, Position 1: Research containing mathematical formulae is taken more seriously even if the formulae are meaningless.
https://plus.maths.org/content/nonsense-maths-effect
Page 43, Position 2: 12 + 3 – 4 + 5 + 67 + 8 + 9 = 100
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/top10facts/446492/Top-10-facts-about-numbers
Page 43, Position 3: 20% of British adults have forgotten how to calculate percentages.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/07/a-fifth-of-uk-adults-have-forgotten-how-to-do-fractions-or-percentages-mathematics-english-science
Page 43, Position 4: 0111010001100101011001000110 1001011011110111010101110011 is the digitisation of the word ‘tedious’.
#The Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance# by Ian Goldin and Chris Kutarna (Bloomsbury, 2016) p30
Page 44, Position 1: The mathematician Kurt Gödel lived on a diet of baby food, laxatives and butter.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/02/28/time-bandits-2
Page 44, Position 2: ‘Nutter’ is a type of butter made from nuts.
Auto, J. #The Diner's Dictionary (2 ed.)#
Page 44, Position 3: The first commercial suppositories were coated in cocoa butter.
http://pskills.pharm.ku.edu/ios/html5/html5-compoundingvideos/html5-revised-lecture-video/Suppositories/Suppositories.pdf
Page 44, Position 4: Lamas in ancient Tibet were boiled in butter before being embalmed.
http://knowledgenuts.com/2016/03/11/the-surprisingly-religious-history-of-butter/
Page 45, Position 1: The Ewok language is a combination of Tibetan and Nepali.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rUMWR1U7EVEC&pg=PA61&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 45, Position 2: The British government advises against travel to Tatooine, the Tunisian town that inspired the Star Wars planet.
http://www.ibtimes.com/tunisian-town-inspired-star-wars-tatooine-being-used-isis-report-1859980
Page 45, Position 3: The actors who played R2-D2 and C-3PO hated each other.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/05/04/he-might-as-well-be-a-bucket-a-history-of-the-feud-between-antho/
Page 45, Position 4: To build a real Death Star would cost $850 million billion.
http://www.space.com/19246-death-star-white-house-petition-response.html
Page 46, Position 1: Venomous frogs kiss their predators to death.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/venomous-frogs-that-head-butt-poison-into-potential-predators-discovered-by-scientists-10444144.html
Page 46, Position 2: A single gram of poison from Bruno’s casque-headed frog is enough to kill 80 people or 300,000 mice.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730341-300-zoologger-worlds-first-venomous-frog-has-the-kiss-of-death/
Page 46, Position 3: A dead gecko can stay stuck to the wall for half an hour.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/geckos-have-surprisingly-strong-death-grip-180953516/?no-ist
Page 46, Position 4: If an Etruscan shrew doesn’t eat for five hours, it starves to death.
http://noticing.co/on-size-and-metabolism/
Page 47, Position 1: Elephant shrews, despite weighing only a few ounces, are more closely related to elephants than to shrews.
https://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/SmallMammals/fact-seeshrew.cfm
Page 47, Position 2: Elephants use their trunks like leaf blowers to move food within reach.
http://www.discoverwildlife.com/animals/mammals/do-baby-elephants-suck-their-trunks
Page 47, Position 3: Baby elephants have to be taught how to use their trunks.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2015/11/24/study-reports-elephants-use-their-trunks-to-blow-their-food-within-reach-with-video-goodness/#.V2K4TrS4mS4
Page 47, Position 4: The last time elephants were used in battle was during the Iran–Iraq war, in 1987.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_elephant
Page 48, Position 1: Each archer at the Battle of Agincourt had three arrows in the air at any given moment.
https://next.ft.com/content/579d2a88-987e-11e5-95c7-d47aa298f769
Page 48, Position 2: The Battle of Bunker Hill in fact took place on Breed’s Hill.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-true-story-of-the-battle-of-bunker-hill-36721984/
Page 48, Position 3: The Battle of Waterloo didn’t take place in the village of Waterloo but in the nearby villages of Braine l’Alleud and Plancenoit.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/06/napoleon-waterloo-anniversary/396278/
Page 48, Position 4: Napoleon had such painful piles at the Battle of Waterloo that he couldn’t sit on his horse.
https://goo.gl/1CG8Ms
Page 49, Position 1: Ulysses S. Grant’s favourite horses were called Egypt, Cincinnati and Jeff Davis.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003004802/PP/
Page 49, Position 2: Royal Navy ships’ names have included HMS Banterer, HMS Eclair, HMS Flirt, HMS Spanker and HMS Happy Entrance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ship_names_of_the_Royal_Navy
Page 49, Position 3: Horatio Nelson’s pension continued to be paid until 1947.
https://goo.gl/Xh9RQz
Page 49, Position 4: The US Navy’s ‘navy blue’ uniform is not blue but black.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniforms_of_the_United_States_Navy http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/2015/10/09/sweeping-uniform-changes-emphasize-gender-neutrality/73602238/
Page 50, Position 1: The blue-banded bee head-bangs flowers 350 times a second to obtain pollen.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-15/australian-blue-banded-bee-is-a-head-banger/7019074
Page 50, Position 2: Pollen sticks to bees by static electricity.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/02/21/bees-can-sense-the-electric-fields-of-flowers/
Page 50, Position 3: Flea, the bassist in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, keeps over 200,000 bees.
http://www.tmz.com/2015/08/16/flea-red-hot-chili-peppers-beekeeper/
Page 50, Position 4: The lifespan of a rock star is 25 years shorter than average.
http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/blogs/music_blog/bizarre-study-reveals-that-the-pop-music-scene-is-toxic/article_da58c2be-d8f0-11e4-a97d-df1dc6ac4e9e.html
Page 51, Position 1: Mick Jones, formerly of The Clash, is a first cousin of Tory MP Grant Shapps.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/columnists/rebecca-tyrrel/rebecca-tyrrel-there-is-no-record-of-what-mick-jones-thinks-of-his-mp-cousins-squatter-plans-8092733.html
Page 51, Position 2: The average Briton has five first cousins, 28 second cousins, 175 third cousins, 1,570 fourth cousins and 17,300 fifth cousins.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/average-british-person-193000-living-5895798
Page 51, Position 3: The average Briton has 174,000 sixth cousins, enough to fill Wembley stadium twice over.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/average-british-person-193000-living-5895798
Page 51, Position 4: The average Briton has two cousins per square mile.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11719550/Is-that-stranger-opposite-you-a-distant-cousin.html
Page 52, Position 1: There is a one in 300 chance you will be related to a complete stranger.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11719550/Is-that-stranger-opposite-you-a-distant-cousin.html
Page 52, Position 2: In 16th-century Rome, there was a ban on more than two sisters from the same family joining the same convent.
#Nuns Behaving Badly# - Craig A Monson
Page 52, Position 3: Cloistered nuns can only leave their nunnery without permission in case of fire, leprosy or contagious illness.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04060a.htm
Page 52, Position 4: In 1844, French nuns began meowing like cats, and only stopped when the army threatened to whip them.
http://news.discovery.com/history/history-mass-hysteria-120206.htm
Page 53, Position 1: In 1841, Robert Browning used the word ‘twat’ in his poem ‘Pippa Passes’, thinking it was an article of clothing for nuns.
http://news.discovery.com/history/history-mass-hysteria-120206.htm
Page 53, Position 2: Latin had about 800 obscene words; English has only about 20.
English has only about 20.
Page 53, Position 3: The ancient Romans told ‘Irish’ jokes about people from Thrace.
#The Week# - 19/7/2014
Page 53, Position 4: Ancient Roman women had no first names.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SixKvaKeDpoC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=serapio+nickname+nose&source=bl&ots=yqlQa7xu4i&sig=oDl_qw4caBu1y2S_dNdjibKAf-M&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQ0rCX9v7JAhWELhoKHUmxBJgQ6AEIPjAF#v=onepage&q=serapio%20nickname%20nose&f=
Page 54, Position 1: From 1850 to 1880, over 3,000 English women died after their skirts caught fire.
http://mashable.com/2015/06/21/crinolinemania-victorian-fashion/#ma0rg.lFakqL
Page 54, Position 2: The most dangerous household item in a fire is a fridge-freezer.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3183412/Could-fridge-burn-house-t-switch-packed-inflammable-insulation-toxic-gas-s-dangerous-appliance-all.html
Page 54, Position 3: Firefighters in Dubai use jet packs to tackle blazes in high-rise buildings.
http://www.zmescience.com/research/technology/firefighter-jetpack-21112015/
Page 54, Position 4: The town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, has been on fire since 1962.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/coal-mines-in-centralia-pennsylvania-have-been-burning-since-1962-2015-7?r=US&IR=T
Page 55, Position 1: The 1962 escape from Alcatraz is still under investigation by the US Marshals Service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_1962_Alcatraz_escape
Page 55, Position 2: Before José ‘Pepe’ Mujica became president of Uruguay, he spent 14 years in prison, two of them locked in a horse trough.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/27/jose-mujica-uruguay-maverick-president
Page 55, Position 3: If the US freed all its prisoners except murderers and rapists, it would still have more people in prison per head than Germany.
#The Economist# 28/06/2015
Page 55, Position 4: 1 in 6 of the world’s population bribe a police officer every year.
https://aeon.co/essays/game-theory-s-cure-for-corruption-make-us-all-cops
Page 56, Position 1: Because of a deal struck with the Mafia, the word ‘mafia’ was never used in The Godfather.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qTwURkWIfoAC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=%22the+godfather%22+%22the+word+mafia%22+league&source=bl&ots=oXB4vUOd8h&sig=7MJT-8dXQsJTm-mcKHaXIlL4-T8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjE4_qU9_fNAhXnJ8AKHZn4BZgQ6AEINTAE#v=onepage&q=%22the%20godfather%22%20%22the%20word%20mafia%22%20league&f=false
Page 56, Position 2: Half the world’s population has seen a Bond movie.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=x9-1QY5boUsC&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 56, Position 3: Mice prefer watching violent mouse movies to erotic ones.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2077351-mice-watching-movies-on-ipods-prefer-action-to-mouse-erotica/
Page 56, Position 4: 4-year-old mice are much rarer than 100-year-old people.
http://www.ur.umich.edu/0304/Apr19_04/26.shtml
Page 57, Position 1: One of the longest domain names in the world is: iamtheproudownerofthelongestlongest longestdomainnameinthisworld.com
#Number freak# by Derrick Niederman (Duckworth, 2012)
Page 57, Position 2: The longest human pregnancy lasted a year and 10 days.
http://mom.me/pregnancy/8759-10-amazing-record-setting-moms/item/beulah-hunter-longest-pregnancy-ever
Page 57, Position 3: A million seconds is 11.6 days.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gVrE3ivu-YMC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 57, Position 4: A billion seconds is 32 years.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gVrE3ivu-YMC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 58, Position 1: 3.8 billion years ago, a day was less than 10 hours long.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=S4xDhVCxAQIC&pg=PA193&lpg=PA193&dq=days+are+getting+longer+%22billion+years+ago%22&source=bl&ots=LDP66D5x6s&sig=3IW8qe-1lkjarbt8FZi6H7uXgt0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFj7fSsPjNAhUpDsAKHTZKDHwQ6AEIQjAG#v=onepage&q=days%20are%20getting%20longer%20%22billion%20years%20ago%22&f=false
Page 58, Position 2: The Sex Pistols’ debut album is closer in time to the premiere of Rachmaninoff’s Third Symphony than it is to today.
http://punk.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sex_Pistols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._3_(Rachmaninoff)
Page 58, Position 3: The last note of The Beatles’ ‘A Day in the Life’ is so high that only dogs can hear it.
http://www.gigwise.com/news/85705/paul-mccartney-reveals-secret-sound-for-dogs-hidden-on-sgt-pepper-album
Page 58, Position 4: Wrens can sing 36 notes a second.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/winter-wren-little-bird-big-song/
Page 59, Position 1: Over its lifetime, an Arctic tern flies the equivalent of three trips to the Moon and back.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/pole-to-pole-the-extraordinary-migration-of-the-arctic-tern-1864824.html.
Page 59, Position 2: Ancient murrelets are birds that migrate 16,000 miles from Canada to Japan and back for no good reason: conditions are identical in both places.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28018-bird-flies-16000-kilometre-pacific-circuit-for-no-clear-reason/
Page 59, Position 3: Anthropologists can track human migration by examining earwax.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/29620/determining-migratory-patterns-early-humans-earwax
Page 59, Position 4: There are only 140 cases in medical history of a man having more than two testicles.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24054439
Page 60, Position 1: The last two journalists to work in Fleet Street left in 2016.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36882573
Page 60, Position 2: Betteridge’s Law of Headlines states that a headline ending in a question mark can always be answered ‘No’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
Page 60, Position 3: There is no evidence that the headline ‘Heavy Fog in Channel – Continent Cut Off’ ever ran in a British newspaper.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fog-in-channel-brexiteers-isolated-from-britains-duty-to-save-europe-7pv5k6c9b
Page 60, Position 4: A 2013 study of Fox News’s climate-science reports found that 72% were misleading.
http://guardianlv.com/2014/04/global-warming-science-often-misreported/
Page 61, Position 1: When weather forecasting started, the ship-salvage industry tried to get it banned.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/writers-in-the-storm
Page 61, Position 2: The world’s longest ship is 50% longer than the Shard is tall.
http://www.vesseltracking.net/seawise-giant/ http://www.lbc.co.uk/how-the-shard-compares-to-other-buildings-56805/album/how_does_the_shard_compare_to_other_buildings_/1769
Page 61, Position 3: London gets less rain than Rome, Venice or Nice.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fYiAAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT62&lpg=PT62&dq=London+gets+less+rain+than+Rome,+Venice,+or+Nice.&source=bl&ots=gfxwftUHxl&sig=wU8ojp7Qd6hC2ETvXOt__Mtrwho&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi0pLe5-vfNAhVkBsAKHZN6BPMQ6AEINDAD#v=onepage&q=London%20gets%20less%20rain%20than%20Rome%2C%20Venice%2C%20or%20Nice.&f=false
Page 61, Position 4: Britons spend five months of their lives complaining about the weather.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/weather/11907137/Ice-breakers-Brits-spend-5-months-of-their-lives-talking-about-weather.html
Page 62, Position 1: Plothering is a Midlands word for a heavy downpour.
http://blog.joules.com/post/as-right-as-rain/
Page 62, Position 2: Sólarfrà is Icelandic for time off given to staff to enjoy good weather.
http://icelandmag.visir.is/article/10-words-and-phrases-icelandic-dont-exist-english
Page 62, Position 3: Physiggoomai is ancient Greek for a person who is aroused by garlic.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/7936824/Tartle-bufetak-kaelling-the-foreign-words-to-which-English-has-no-answer.html
Page 62, Position 4: French has no word for ‘shrug’.
#Collins Robert French Dictionary#
Page 63, Position 1: A sciolist is someone who knows less than they pretend.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sciolist
Page 63, Position 2: To snudge is to stride around pretending to look busy.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/oct/09/mark-forsyth-the-horologicon-top-10-lost-words
Page 63, Position 3: Sinapistic means ‘consisting of mustard’.
http://www.definition-of.com/sinapistic
Page 63, Position 4: Subrident means ‘smiling’.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/subrident
Page 64, Position 1: One person produces enough urine in a lifetime to fill a swimming pool.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rMEAqTiOqnAC&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=urine+lifetime+swimming+pool&source=bl&ots=d-UKpVWyG3&sig=9pb6XGQDNca7GoyM36Bret8qXGg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_hMDyou7PAhVGnRoKHaxHCeIQ6AEIPDAF#v=onepage&q=urine%20lifetime%20swimming%20pool&f=false
Page 64, Position 2: Before becoming a Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin considered becoming a swimming teacher.
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Franklin
Page 64, Position 3: In 1958, Chairman Mao invited Khrushchev to a swimming meeting, knowing that he couldn’t swim. Khrushchev had to wear armbands.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/khrushchev-in-water-wings-on-mao-humiliation-and-the-sino-soviet-split-80852370/?no-ist
Page 64, Position 4: There are Egyptian cave paintings of people doing breaststroke.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_swimming
Page 65, Position 1: The first man to swim the English Channel later toured a show where he floated in a tank for 128 hours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Webb
Page 65, Position 2: The number of hours that Britons spent watching The One Show in 2015 is greater than the number of hours that have passed since humans first left Africa.
Calculation made by the QI Elves - #The One Show#, BBC1, 19/11/2015
Page 65, Position 3: During the launch of BBC2 in 1964, a kangaroo got stuck in a lift at Television Centre.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27033129
Page 65, Position 4: For the Queen’s coronation in 1953, people dressed up as TV sets.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_KHnu2hWfbkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=For+the+Queen's+coronation+in+1953,+people+dressed+up+as+TV+sets+@katewilliamsme&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_rdi0j_3OAhUEDMAKHSVnAcoQuwUIHzAA#v=snippet&q=dressed&f=false
Page 66, Position 1: In 1940s Britain, children’s TV was shown from 5 to 6 p.m., then transmission stopped for an hour to encourage them to go to bed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toddlers%27_Truce
Page 66, Position 2: After the introduction of colour TV, the number of people dreaming in black and white fell from 25% to 7%.
#Night School# - Richard Wiseman
Page 66, Position 3: Nightmares are more common if you sleep on your left-hand side.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sleeping-on-your-left-side-nightmares_us_5681579ce4b0b958f659ded1
Page 66, Position 4: When you sleep in a bed for the first time, half of your brain stays awake.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2085409-sleeping-away-from-home-half-your-brain-is-still-awake/
Page 67, Position 1: Women sleep half an hour longer than men.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2087231-women-sleep-half-an-hour-longer-than-men-phone-app-data-shows/
Page 67, Position 2: Netflix has created a pair of socks that pause the show you’re watching if you fall asleep.
http://makeit.netflix.com
Page 67, Position 3: 1 in 5 people wake up wearing fewer items of clothing than they went to bed in.
http://www.ergoflex.co.uk/blog/category/sleep-research/Unwashed-PJs-Bedtimes-Hidden-Hygiene-Horror
Page 67, Position 4: Follicle mites make the journey across a sleeping person’s face from nose to ear in six hours.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/08/31/everything-you-never-wanted-to-know-about-the-mites-that-eat-crawl-and-have-sex-on-your-face/#.V2Pim7S4mS4
Page 68, Position 1: The DNA in your facial mites can tell scientists where you came from.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2015/12/17/face-mites-family-heirlooms/
Page 68, Position 2: The first passport-holders had to provide written descriptions of themselves instead of photos. Nearly everyone described their noses as ‘average’.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/passports-were-once-considered-offensive-perhaps-they-still-are
Page 68, Position 3: To qualify for a Dutch passport, you have to watch a video showing beach nudity.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/11842116/ns/world_news-europe/t/film-exposes-immigrants-dutch-liberalism/#.V2KYzeaLQ0o
Page 68, Position 4: Godzilla was awarded Japanese citizenship in 2015.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-32987622
Page 69, Position 1: Prospective citizens of South Korea must sing the first four verses of the national anthem.
#Republic or Death# by Alex Marshall
Page 69, Position 2: In 2014, South Korea changed the key of its national anthem to make it easier to sing.
#Republic or Death# by Alex Marshall
Page 69, Position 3: Until 1857, all British passports were signed by the Foreign Secretary.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30988833
Page 69, Position 4: Until 1858, all British passports were written in French.
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2006/nov/17/travelnews
Page 70, Position 1: In the 1880s, the French used half as much soap as the English.
#The Economist# 19/12/2015
Page 70, Position 2: In 19th-century France, it was a symbol of free thinking to hold a sausage-eating party on Good Friday.
http://blog.oup.com/2016/03/secularism-and-sausages-france
Page 70, Position 3: In 1955, America had a ‘Sausage Queen’ beauty contest.
https://ridiculouslyinteresting.com/2012/12/27/unusual-retro-beauty-contests/
Page 70, Position 4: The man who first described Botox was a German known as ‘Sausage’ Kerner.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-two-men-and-the-one-dinner-that-uncovered-the-cau-1731627965
Page 71, Position 1: Germans who urinate in the street are known as Wildpinkler.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11449700/Hamburg-fights-back-against-urination-on-streets-with-walls-that-pee-back.html
Page 71, Position 2: The best day to find money in the streets of New York City is 18 March: the day after St Patrick’s Day.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/coin-drop
Page 71, Position 3: New York’s ants clean up the streets by eating the equivalent of 60,000 hot dogs every year.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ants-are-cleaning-up-the-streets-of-nyc/
Page 71, Position 4: In ‘Find the Lady’, the man who mixes up the cards is known as ‘the Tosser’.
https://www.pagat.com/misc/monte.html
Page 72, Position 1: If a flatworm can’t find another flatworm to mate with, it stabs itself in the head with its own penis.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2015/06/30/flatworm-hypodermic-self-insemination-by-injecting-sperm-into-their-own-heads/
Page 72, Position 2: Male nematode worms have an extra pair of brain cells, which are thought to help them to remember to have sex.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/10/14/male-nematodes-have-extra-brain-cells-to-make-them-sex-crazed/
Page 72, Position 3: Nematode worms use slugs as taxis to carry them around.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/nematode-worms-use-slugs-like-taxis-to-ferry-them-around-the-garden-study-finds-10384208.html
Page 72, Position 4: The average Bentley driver owns eight cars.
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/10/05/average-bugatti-owner-84-cars-3-jets-1-yacht-report/
Page 73, Position 1: The average Bugatti driver owns 84 cars, three jets and a yacht.
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/10/05/average-bugatti-owner-84-cars-3-jets-1-yacht-report/
Page 73, Position 2: For the last 70 years, the average price of a small car has remained the same as the cost of 20,000 Mars Bars.
http://timharford.com/2009/06/does-inflation-reflect-the-size-of-mars-bars/
Page 73, Position 3: Driving a car to Mars would emit as much carbon as there is in all the trees in Edinburgh.
http://naturalcapitalscotland.com/article/edinburgh-sets-natural-capital-example/ http://www.universetoday.com/15462/how-far-are-the-planets-from-the-sun/
Page 73, Position 4: Overdrafts, digestive biscuits and the hypodermic syringe were all invented in Edinburgh.
http://www.mcvities.co.uk/about http://www.conventionscotland.com/cs/content/mediaassets/images/UPDATED%20Cities%20Quirky.pdf http://www.nls.uk/news/archive/2014/01/special-harry-potter-edition
Page 74, Position 1: The Bank of England was founded by a Scotsman in 1694.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Paterson_(banker)
Page 74, Position 2: The Bank of Scotland was founded by an Englishman in 1695.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holland_(banker)
Page 74, Position 3: The first Nando’s opened in London in 1696.
https://goo.gl/7n5T59
Page 74, Position 4: More people live in London than in Scotland and Wales combined.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36526298
Page 75, Position 1: London has more trees than any capital city in Europe.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/47-per-cent-of-london-is-green-space-is-it-time-for-our-capital-to-become-a-national-park-9756470.html
Page 75, Position 2: Every English elm is descended from a single tree imported by the Romans.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3959561.stm
Page 75, Position 3: It would take 300 years to catalogue all the tree species in the Amazon rainforest.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-36790714
Page 75, Position 4: The world has lost 3% of its forests since 1990.
http://www.heritagedaily.com/2015/09/world-has-lost-3-percent-of-its-forests-since-1990/108277
Page 76, Position 1: A 106-acre aspen forest in Utah is made up of a single 80,000-year-old tree.
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/utah-aspen-grove-80000-years-old.html
Page 76, Position 2: No matter how large a tree is, it will break if the wind speed reaches 94 mph.
http://www.livescience.com/53622-why-trees-break-at-same-wind-speed.html
Page 76, Position 3: Trees sleep at night to rest their branches.
http://www.vox.com/2016/5/19/11700690/trees-sleep
Page 76, Position 4: Mags Thomson of Livingston, Scotland, has spent 21 years trying to visit all the branches of Wetherspoons.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34440109
Page 77, Position 1: Tony Blair was the first serving British prime minister to visit California.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/28/worlddispatch.usa
Page 77, Position 2: The California gull is the state bird of Utah.
http://onlinelibrary.utah.gov/research/utah_symbols/bird.html
Page 77, Position 3: When Memphis, Tennessee, held a ‘Dinosaurs Live’ exhibition in 1992, visitors demanded refunds because the dinosaurs weren’t alive.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19920909&id=RpEpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=44QDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2810,3689963&hl=en
Page 77, Position 4: Americans are 22 times more likely to be killed by a cow than by a shark.
http://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=13-P13-00005&segmentID=7
Page 78, Position 1: There are more gun shops in the US than Starbucks, McDonald’s and supermarkets put together.
http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/there-are-more-gun-shops-in-the-us-than-starbucks-mcdonalds-and-supermarkets-put-together--W1NPIvYg84b
Page 78, Position 2: Bosnia has one betting shop for every 1,000 people.
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bosnia-struggles-to-improve-gaming-regulation-05-12-2016
Page 78, Position 3: Rats will gamble more if a win is accompanied by flashing lights and a fanfare.
http://news.ubc.ca/2016/01/20/flashing-lights-and-music-turn-rats-into-problem-gamblers/
Page 78, Position 4: A sloth’s top speed is six centimetres a second.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20140916-the-truth-about-sloths
Page 79, Position 1: Shakespeare’s plays have seven times more roles for men than women.
http://blog.oup.com/2015/09/shakespeare-women-facts/
Page 79, Position 2: Britons apologise at least eight times a day.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/270938/Sorry-to-say-this-but-we-apologise-more-than-2-900-times-every-year
Page 79, Position 3: Chinese drivers are stuck in traffic jams for the equivalent of nine days a year.
http://gizmodo.com/heres-the-physics-behind-that-insane-chinese-traffic-ja-1735638335
Page 79, Position 4: People are 39% more likely to buy the brand of car their parents owned.
http://www.futurity.org/cars-brand-families-parents-777472/
Page 80, Position 1: In 8th-century England, it was a sin for a man to see his wife naked.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EUZ9yl8mgnIC&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=In+8th-century+England+it+was+a+sin+for+a+man+to+see+his+wife+naked.&source=bl&ots=O0laHZYkOI&sig=GwTWDOz179mkfkAjBDOuEL90o14&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwix84_2k_3OAhWHDMAKHf5RC-UQ6AEIITAB#v=onepage&q=In%208th-century%20England%20it%20was%20a%20sin%20for%20a%20man%20to%20see%20his%20wife%20naked.&f=false
Page 80, Position 2: In 1870, Windsor Baths were moved because naked men could be seen from Queen Victoria’s bedroom.
http://www.thamesweb.co.uk/windsor/windsorhistory/swimmingbaths/memorialbaths.html
Page 80, Position 3: A painting of a half-naked couple in a Sydney bathroom has been shared by more than a million people as the perfect depiction of modern marriage.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3619084/James-Needham-s-painting-wife-bathroom-highlights-realities-married-life.html
Page 80, Position 4: To take a bath with electricity running through it was a 19th-century cure for rheumatism.
http://notinthehistorybooks.com/post/122254958440/engineeringhistory-french-electric-bath-circa
Page 81, Position 1: According to a 2013 survey, 3% of Londoners regularly eat in the bath.
https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/research-report-kiwi-allergy-survey.pdf
Page 81, Position 2: If the Earl of Sandwich had got the earldom he really wanted, we’d all be eating portsmouths.
http://www.open-sandwich.co.uk/town_history/sandwich_origin.htm
Page 81, Position 3: Restaurants in New Zealand that sell cooked locusts advertise them as ‘sky prawns’.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4032143.stm
Page 81, Position 4: The first-ever skywriting message was an advert which said ‘DAILY MAIL’.
http://qz.com/624271/one-man-rules-global-skywriting-and-he-wants-to-bring-color-to-the-heavens/
Page 82, Position 1: The Wright brothers had a joint bank account.
#London Review of Books# 10-9-2015
Page 82, Position 2: The UK’s national sperm bank has just nine donors.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/31/britains-national-sperm-bank-wants-men-to-prove-their-manhood
Page 82, Position 3: In 2014, nine children in the US were named Chaos.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/number-of-us-babies-being-named-after-guns-on-the-increase-10479753.html
Page 82, Position 4: Himalayan Ascent, a Nepalese mountain-guide company, was founded by a climber called Sumit.
http://www.himalayanascent.com/about-us
Page 83, Position 1: The Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam has a urologist called Dik Kok.
#New Scientist#, 9 January 2016
Page 83, Position 2: The British judge whose report led to all cigarette packaging being green is Mr Justice Green.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/22/big-tobacco-final-fight-cigarette-branding-uk
Page 83, Position 3: A man arrested in 2015 for trespassing at the Budweiser brewery in St Louis was called Bud Weisser.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/bud-weisser-arrested-trespassing-budweiser-brewery-article-1.2455845
Page 83, Position 4: Once Brewed is a village in Northumberland also known as Twice Brewed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Brewed
Page 84, Position 1: Bouth, a village in Cumbria, is not pronounced ‘Bowth’ or ‘Booth’ but ‘Both’.
This was a discovery by QI's producer Piers Fletcher
Page 84, Position 2: In 1876, a man was shot because of an argument over the correct way to pronounce ‘Newfoundland’.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-strange-tale-of-the-man-who-was-shot-point-blank-for-mispronouncing-newfoundland-in-the-old-west
Page 84, Position 3: Labradors come from Newfoundland, not Labrador.
http://www.thelabradorsite.com/the-history-of-the-labrador-retriever/
Page 84, Position 4: The ‘California roll’ was invented in Canada, not California.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/food-trends/meet-the-man-behind-the-california-roll/article4631256/
Page 85, Position 1: Oceanographers in California collect spray from whales’ blowholes using drones known as ‘snot bots’.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/snotbot-drone-aids-in-whale-research_us_55b12a0ee4b08f57d5d3ef15
Page 85, Position 2: Whales can suffocate if fish get stuck in their blowholes.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28542-two-whales-killed-by-sole-fish-stuck-in-their-blowholes/
Page 85, Position 3: Dolphins have blowhole sex.
http://www.aquaticmammalsjournal.org/share/AquaticMammalsIssueArchives/1994/Aquatic_Mammals_20_1/20-01_Renjun.pdf
Page 85, Position 4: Peacocks fake orgasm noises to trick peahens into thinking they’re more sexually active.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/26533415
Page 86, Position 1: Stick insects can be stuck together having sex for 79 days.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/stick-bugs-have-sex-for-two-months-straight-303967/?no-ist
Page 86, Position 2: Moths can remember the species of plant they first had sex on.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27100-moths-remember-their-first-time/
Page 86, Position 3: Plants are able to forget stressful experiences.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2078276-plants-have-evolved-forgetfulness-to-wipe-out-memory-of-stress/
Page 86, Position 4: The number of messages sent every two days via WhatsApp and Facebook exceeds the number of human beings who have ever lived.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/12/11415198/facebook-messenger-whatsapp-number-messages-vs-sms-f8-2016 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16870579
Page 87, Position 1: The numbers on a roulette wheel add up to 666.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roulette
Page 87, Position 2: It would take more than 65,000 tweets to write out Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/longest-novel
Page 87, Position 3: Brazil has more mobile phones than people.
http://www.pri.org/stories/2011-03-29/brazil-more-cell-phones-people
Page 87, Position 4: In 2013, a Florida law accidentally banned computers.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/09/tech/gaming-gadgets/florida-slot-machine-law/
Page 88, Position 1: You can’t write perfect French on French computer keyboards.
http://www.citylab.com/tech/2016/01/frances-computer-keyboards-are-a-mess/424833/
Page 88, Position 2: In 1861, only 2.5% of Italians could speak Italian.
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/09/most-italians-did-not-speak-italian-.html
Page 88, Position 3: 70% of Italians imagine that life is good in France, but only 43% of the French agree with them.
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21695581-europeans-have-warped-views-their-neighboursand-themselves-green-eyed-continent
Page 88, Position 4: The term nom de plume is not French.
http://www.bartleby.com/116/105.html
Page 89, Position 1: The French rire dans sa barbe (‘to laugh in one’s beard’) means ‘to chuckle quietly about a past event’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VjEBAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA85&dq=The+French+rire+dans+sa+barbe&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8jpTwlf3OAhXqAcAKHaWHA1QQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=The%20French%20rire%20dans%20sa%20barbe&f=false
Page 89, Position 2: The Croatian for ‘what goes around comes around’ is doc´e maca na vratanca – ‘the pussy cat will come to the tiny door’.
http://blog.ted.com/40-idioms-that-cant-be-translated-literally/comment-page-6/
Page 89, Position 3: The German for not seeing the blindingly obvious is Tomaten auf den Augen haben – ‘to have tomatoes on the eyes’.
http://blog.ted.com/40-idioms-that-cant-be-translated-literally/comment-page-6/
Page 89, Position 4: In Germany, it is illegal to wear a mask or take a pillow to a demonstration.
http://www.learnmoreworld.com/2016/05/top-10-weird-german-rules-and-laws.html
Page 90, Position 1: 17th-century Germans were banned from wearing very wide trousers.
http://www.historyextra.com/feature/beware-what-you-buy-goods-german-citizens-were-forbidden-consume
Page 90, Position 2: Monty Python’s Life of Brian was banned by several UK councils that didn’t have cinemas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Life_of_Brian
Page 90, Position 3: Divorce was illegal in Ireland until 1997.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteenth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland
Page 90, Position 4: In 1457, men with moustaches were banned from Dublin.
https://dralun.wordpress.com/2015/12/07/cant-stay-moustache-bans-on-facial-hair-in-medieval-ireland/
Page 91, Position 1: De befborstel is a moustache grown by Dutchmen to stimulate the clitoris.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mustache
Page 91, Position 2: The Ainu people of Japan wear wooden moustache lifters to keep their facial hair out of their food.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BqHiU-UX6OAC&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 91, Position 3: The world’s longest beard is 16 feet long and kept at the Smithsonian Museum.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/smithsonian-home-worlds-longest-beard-180953370/
Page 91, Position 4: The Kansas Barbed Wire Museum has 2,000 varieties of barbed wire.
http://www.rushcounty.org/barbedwiremuseum/bw2.html
Page 92, Position 1: The Pencil Sharpener Museum in Logan, Ohio, has 3,400 pencil sharpeners.
http://www.ohio.org/destination/logan/art-exhibitsexhibitions/paul-a-johnson-pencil-sharpener-museum
Page 92, Position 2: The Museo della Merda in Piacenza, Italy, is the world’s first museum dedicated to excrement.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3061566/Tiny-Italian-village-opens-Museum-S-t-dedicated-study-220-000-lbs-cow-excrement-architect-claims-smells-fresh-daisy.html
Page 92, Position 3: Proctologists in ancient Egypt were known as ‘shepherds of the anus’.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/medicine/ancient-egyptian-medicine.php
Page 92, Position 4: Ancient Egyptians believed the purpose of the brain was to produce snot for the nose.
http://www.egypt.swan.ac.uk/index.php/collection/169-mummification
Page 93, Position 1: Cured pork inserted into the nostrils can stop nosebleeds.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/stop-nosebleeds-pork-strips-improbable-remedy-people-glanzmann-thrombasthenia-304042
Page 93, Position 2: 85% of people use only one nostril at a time.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v402/n6757/full/402035a0.html
Page 93, Position 3: One nostril smells the world slightly differently to the other.
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/99/991103smell.html
Page 93, Position 4: Sea hares are molluscs that secrete a purple slime to block their predators’ sense of smell.
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/19/5-animals-with-stinky-defenses/
Page 94, Position 1: Puff adders can ‘switch off’ their own smell so predators can’t locate them.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/inkfish/2015/12/21/unsmellable-snake-camouflages-its-scent/#.VniR8OOyOkp
Page 94, Position 2: Orang-utans warn off predators by making kissing noises.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/5971752/Orang-utans-blow-kisses-to-ward-off-predators.html
Page 94, Position 3: Fewer than half of modern cultures practise romantic kissing.
http://www.sapiens.org/culture/is-romantic-kissing-a-human-universal/
Page 94, Position 4: The highwayman Jerry Abershawe went to the gallows with a flower in his mouth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Abershawe
Page 95, Position 1: ‘Hanging days’, when criminals were executed in Georgian London, were public holidays.
http://www.historyextra.com/blog/georgians/10-dangers-georgian-london
Page 95, Position 2: The head of the police in ancient Egypt was known as the ‘chief of the hitters’.
http://www.britannica.com/topic/police/The-history-of-policing-in-the-West#toc260917
Page 95, Position 3: British police officers are arrested for criminal behaviour at a rate of one a day.
http://boingboing.net/2015/09/26/1-in-40-london-cops-have-been.html
Page 95, Position 4: Cambodian traffic police pocket 70% of all the fines they collect.
http://time.com/3976259/cambodia-traffic-police-keep-fines-corruption/
Page 96, Position 1: The first recorded traffic casualty was a Roman pig run over by a chariot carrying an ornamental phallus.
https://romangreece.wordpress.com/tag/classical-archaeology/
Page 96, Position 2: The first police-car chase in the UK had a top speed of 15 mph.
Mark Mason, #Mail Obsession#
Page 96, Position 3: Russia has enough miles of road to go from the Earth to the Moon, circle it 15 times, and come back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Russia
Page 96, Position 4: Vodka was banned in Russia between 1914 and 1925.
http://rbth.com/opinion/2014/08/15/sobering_effect_what_happened_when_russia_banned_booze_39045.html
Page 97, Position 1: Gin was voted ‘best drink of 1873’.
http://www.swlondoner.co.uk/gin-back-fashion-spoke-beefeater-master-distiller-world-gin-day/
Page 97, Position 2: In 2013, Heineken adverts inadvertently featured a 19th-century anti-alcohol crusader.
http://www.beveragedaily.com/Markets/We-hope-he-d-be-proud-Heineken-blunders-as-teetotal-Methodist-used-to-plug-Bulmers
Page 97, Position 3: John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, cured his overeating by poking a piece of wine-soaked bread up his nose.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/53330/17-bizarre-natural-remedies-1700s
Page 97, Position 4: Winston Churchill’s doctor prescribed eight double shots of alcohol per day.
http://metro.co.uk/2016/04/13/churchill-was-prescribed-lots-of-booze-by-his-doctor-and-its-not-fair-5813242/
Page 98, Position 1: Churchill was a US citizen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_citizen_of_the_United_States
Page 98, Position 2: 12% of Americans think USB is a country in Europe.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/one-in-10-americans-think-html-is-a-sexually-transmitted-disease-study-finds-9170597.html
Page 98, Position 3: 31% of Americans believe they have made contact with the dead.
http://www.livescience.com/51387-gun-ownership-rates-us.html
Page 98, Position 4: 1 in 3 adults in the US own at least one gun.
http://www.livescience.com/51387-gun-ownership-rates-us.html
Page 99, Position 1: Utah, Arizona, Indiana, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Alaska all have official state firearms.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-new-trend-in-state-symbols-guns
Page 99, Position 2: The largest university in Texas allows handguns on campus, but not water pistols.
http://www.chron.com/news/education/article/Texas-students-can-soon-bring-guns-to-dorm-room-6572147.php
Page 99, Position 3: After arms and drugs, the third most smuggled commodity is animals.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/wildlife-trafficking-149079896/?no-ist
Page 99, Position 4: The world’s slavery trade is worth $150 billion a year, more than the GDP of Hungary.
#New Scientist# 6th Feb 2016
Page 100, Position 1: More people work for Walmart than live in Slovenia.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/06/23/the-worlds-biggest-employers-infographic/
Page 100, Position 2: Bolivia has had 190 coups or revolutions in its 191-year history.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/bolivia.html?nav=el%20
Page 100, Position 3: There is only one psychiatrist in Liberia.
http://www.mghcgh.org/stories-from-the-field/psychiatry-in-liberia/
Page 100, Position 4: Liberia declared a state of emergency in 2009 when 80 towns and villages were invaded by caterpillars.
#The Week# 5 July 2014
Page 101, Position 1: The Very Hungry Caterpillar was originally called A Week with Willie Worm.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-eric-carle24-2009apr24-story.html
Page 101, Position 2: The gum-leaf skeletoniser caterpillar of Australia wears a stack of its old moulted heads on its head.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/03/this-caterpillar-builds-a-protective-hat-from-old-heads/
Page 101, Position 3: When Donald Trump is in a bad mood, he wears a red hat.
http://theweek.com/speedreads/612758/tell-what-mood-donald-trump-based-color-hat
Page 101, Position 4: The English philosopher Herbert Spencer had an ‘angry suit’ which he wore when feeling irritable.
https://interestingliterature.com/2016/03/02/five-fascinating-facts-about-herbert-spencer/ https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xIsKdqNfVRoC&pg=PA322&lpg=PA322&dq=Herbert+Spencer+angry+suit&source=bl&ots=v2wBqi1faJ&sig=lAmxjqvxo0gZc_JBvUp9-NSj_yo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiivp3hh4bLAhWDzxQKHayODjwQ6AEIKzAD#v=onepage&q=Herbert%20Spencer%20angry%20suit&f=false
Page 102, Position 1: The phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ was coined by Herbert Spencer, not Charles Darwin.
http://www.britannica.com/topic/philosophy-of-biology#ref1114976 http://blog.oup.com/2015/05/word-evolution-etymology/
Page 102, Position 2: The repetition of a falsehood so often it becomes an urban legend is known as the Woozle Effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woozle_effect
Page 102, Position 3: WIMPs and WIMPZILLAs are theoretical particles made of theoretical ‘dark matter’.
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0005299
Page 102, Position 4: 46% of Americans feel a deep sense of wonder about the universe at least once a week.
http://licatholic.org/study-looks-at-religious-habits-of-americans/
Page 103, Position 1: Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, forgot her toothbrush and had to brush her teeth with her finger.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/first-woman-in-space-reveals-what-crucial-piece-of-kit-was-missing-on-her-1963-mission-10506688.html
Page 103, Position 2: Napoleon was born with teeth.
#Private Lives#, by Mark Bryant
Page 103, Position 3: Limpet teeth are made from the strongest biological material in nature.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31500883
Page 103, Position 4: When Monty Python toured the US and were asked to trash a hotel suite for publicity, Michael Palin obligingly went into the bathroom and broke a toothbrush.
Personal conversation between author and Michael Palin
Page 104, Position 1: Pythons kill not by suffocation, but by cutting off the blood supply and causing a heart attack.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/150722-boa-constrictors-snakes-animals-science-kill/
Page 104, Position 2: A human heart beats five times as often in a lifetime as a giraffe’s.
http://gizmodo.com/5982977/how-many-heartbeats-does-each-species-get-in-a-lifetime
Page 104, Position 3: Fatal heart attacks can be caused by joy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35710232
Page 104, Position 4: Having friendly neighbours reduces your chances of a heart attack by up to 70%.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/11041230/Friendly-neighbours-could-lower-the-risk-of-heart-attack-study-finds.html
Page 105, Position 1: In 1996, two neighbours in Devon spent a year hooting at owls, unaware they were actually hooting at each other.
http://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/286313/The-best-of-the-worst
Page 105, Position 2: ‘The Copper-Penis Owl’ is the monster used in Hungary to scare children into behaving.
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2011/10/21/the-copper-penis-owl-will-get-you/
Page 105, Position 3: Children in Hungary are told that eating carrots will help them whistle.
#How We Learn To Eat#, Bee Wilson
Page 105, Position 4: A mussel from Transylvania that lives in toilet U-bends is the UK’s most invasive species.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/science/poo-munching-alien-mussels-capable-7470021
Page 106, Position 1: A supplement made from mussels can reduce the pain in your muscles.
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Research/Mussels-for-muscles-Green-lipped-mussel-extract-may-ease-muscle-damage-during-exercise
Page 106, Position 2: The muscles in the left ventricle of a giraffe’s heart are five times stronger than those in the right.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160213-animals-science-hearts-valentines-day-giraffes/
Page 106, Position 3: There are half as many giraffes as there were 15 years ago.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/150625-giraffes-animals-science-conservation-africa-endangered/
Page 106, Position 4: The producer of Die Hard and The Matrix also invented the sport of Ultimate Frisbee.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/movies/an-accidental-sportsman-in-hollywood.html?_r=0
Page 107, Position 1: The sound of the stabbing in the shower scene in Psycho was made using melons.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/75464/10-iconic-movie-sounds-and-how-they-were-made
Page 107, Position 2: Nobody knows why the Oscars are called the Oscars.
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/a-brief-history-of-the-oscars.html
Page 107, Position 3: Cary Grant and Clark Gable met once a year to exchange unwanted monogrammed Christmas gifts.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qAhtNiAl3YsC&pg=PA292&lpg=PA292&dq=clark+gable+cary+grant+monogrammed&source=bl&ots=1IGHQjUTlO&sig=0PLe5Z4iMQALWftwBpJAoUeaTMc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2_sePz_jOAhViJsAKHYGEBPoQ6AEIPzAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 107, Position 4: Christmas-tree lights can interfere with your Wi-Fi.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-christmas-tree-lights-really-play-havoc-with-your-wi-fi/
Page 108, Position 1: Siberian Christmas trees get so cold they can turn to glass.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20141220-five-christmas-tree-secrets
Page 108, Position 2: Pine-tree needles are a good source of vitamins A and C.
http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=776
Page 108, Position 3: Pine-tree sap was used in the Second World War to fuel Japanese aircraft.
#History Today# Nov 2014
Page 108, Position 4: 85% of aircraft that crashed on British soil during the Second World War belonged to the Allies.
https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/military-aircraft-crash-sites/milaircsites.pdf/
Page 109, Position 1: Soldiers in the First World War were five times more likely to get venereal disease than trench foot.
http://www.historyextra.com/feature/sex-and-love/sex-and-first-world-war-tommies-who-visited-brothels
Page 109, Position 2: M&Ms were invented so American soldiers could eat chocolate without it melting in their hands.
http://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/the-wartime-origins-of-the-mm
Page 109, Position 3: In 2013, 70,000 tons more chocolate were consumed than the cocoa harvest produced.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/Chocolate-shortage-2020-mars-barry-callebaut/382855/
Page 109, Position 4: Cocoa trees belong to the Sterculiaceae family, which is named after the Roman god of manure.
#New Scientist# 18 July 2015
Page 110, Position 1: Sgriob is Gaelic for ‘the itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whisky’.
#Mother Tongue# - Bill Bryson
Page 110, Position 2: Cravings for chocolate and alcohol can be controlled with injections of lizard saliva.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120515165405.htm
Page 110, Position 3: Osteria Francescana, voted the world’s best restaurant in 2016, has a dish on the menu called ‘the crunchy part of the lasagna’.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/cost-eat-10-best-restaurants-world/
Page 110, Position 4: Not supplying trays in cafeterias reduces food waste by 32%.
#National Georaphic# - Mar 2016
Page 111, Position 1: In 2016, Thailand’s Buddhist monks were put on a diet after a survey revealed almost half of them were obese.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/obesity-time-bomb-prompts-dieting-regime-for-thailand-s-buddhist-monks-a6937686.html
Page 111, Position 2: In 1087, William the Conqueror got too fat to ride his horse, so he went on an alcohol-only diet and died later that year.
http://www.latimes.com/tn-dpt-0510-all-about-food-20130507-story.html
Page 111, Position 3: You get 18% more drunk if you drink spirits with a diet mixer rather than a regular one.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/science-nature/pick-your-poison-a-diet-mixer-could-make-you-get-drunk-faster-12071641/
Page 111, Position 4: Hens given alcohol lay half as many eggs.
https://archive.org/stream/antialcoholmovem00gordrich/antialcoholmovem00gordrich_djvu.txt
Page 112, Position 1: Human beings produce 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more sperm than eggs.
Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'Animal Weapons'
Page 112, Position 2: The sperm of a male seed shrimp are three times bigger than he is.
http://www.livescience.com/45574-oldest-petrified-sperm-is-huge.html
Page 112, Position 3: The oldest known sperm is worm sperm.
#New Scientist# 18 July 2016
Page 112, Position 4: A newly discovered ‘100-suckered parasitic worm’ turned out to be the genitals of the blanket octopus.
#John Wright# - Naming of the Shrew
Page 113, Position 1: Gloomy octopuses are said to have ‘no personality’.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18640-hdtv-reveals-brainy-octopus-has-no-personality
Page 113, Position 2: Octopuses prefer HDTV to ordinary television.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8573000/8573449.stm
Page 113, Position 3: Squidward Tentacles in SpongeBob SquarePants has only six tentacles – which means he is neither a squid nor an octopus.
http://www.mtv.com/news/2098210/squidward-not-squid/
Page 113, Position 4: The most remote point on Earth is called Point Nemo.
http://www.redbull.com/uk/en/adventure/stories/1331714456471/point-nemo-most-remote-place-on-planet-earth
Page 114, Position 1: The hottest place on Earth lost the title it had held for 90 years in 2012, when it was found that the man making the original measurements didn’t know how to use a thermometer.
http://www.livescience.com/23156-new-world-hottest-temperature.html
Page 114, Position 2: The Sun is white (with a hint of turquoise), not yellow.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/25-silly-myths-about-earth-space-and-physics-that-drive-me-crazy/ar-BBqzn16?ocid=MSN_UK_NL_MO35
Page 114, Position 3: Man has probed 20 billion kilometres outwards from the Earth but only 12 into it.
http://www.space.com/17688-voyager-1.html http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/01/tech/mantle-earth-drill-mission/
Page 114, Position 4: Aboard the NASA probe sent to study Pluto were the ashes of the man who discovered it.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/13/us/nasa-pluto-new-horizons-clyde-tombaugh-ashes/
Page 115, Position 1: Astronauts aboard the ISS change their underpants every four days.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/livinginspace/Astronaut_Laundry.html
Page 115, Position 2: Astronauts wear belts to stop their trousers falling up.
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Astronauts-wear-belts-in-space
Page 115, Position 3: Astronauts have to sleep near fans so they don’t suffocate in their own exhaled breath.
https://www.quora.com/Do-astronauts-on-the-ISS-need-to-sleep-with-a-fan-on-or-in-some-way-have-moving-air-around-them
Page 115, Position 4: Astronauts drink their own recycled urine.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast02nov_1/
Page 116, Position 1: In 2015, a whisky sent into space to mature was said to taste of antiseptic smoke, rubber and smoked fish.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-34168471
Page 116, Position 2: On Earth, moss grows in an unruly fashion, but in space it forms spirals.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/16jul_firemoss/
Page 116, Position 3: If you grow romaine lettuce in space, it tastes like rocket.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/10/nasa-astronauts-lettuce-vegetables-grown-space
Page 116, Position 4: There are 400,000 species of plants on Earth. 300,000 are safe to eat, but actually we only eat fewer than 200.
#New Scientist# 18 July 2015
Page 117, Position 1: In winter, garden birds need to eat a third of their own weight in food each day.
http://www.feedyourbirds.co.uk/bird-finder/getting-started
Page 117, Position 2: Paradisea apoda, the ‘legless bird of paradise’, is so named because the original specimen’s legs were cut off when it was being stuffed.
#The Naming of the Shrew#, John Wright
Page 117, Position 3: An Australian dentist has invented braces for birds with bent beaks.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-27/university-of-queensland-gatton-treat-macaws-with-birdie-braces/5976648
Page 117, Position 4: A flock of red-billed queleas may consist of over 30 million birds.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=v9YlDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT20&lpg=PT20&dq=A+flock+of+red-billed+quelea+may+consist+of+over+30+million+birds.&source=bl&ots=x0qWui7KnK&sig=nQgNClQxiBWm3e-k8O8rfFD7aUg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT4JXbnf3OAhVpCcAKHU8MD8AQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=A%20flock%20of%20red-billed%20quelea%20may%20consist%20of%20over%2030%20million%20birds.&f=false
Page 118, Position 1: Until the 1840s, rugby matches could have up to 300 players on the pitch at once.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=I4OCBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=rugby+300+players+on+the+pitch+at+once.&source=bl&ots=qId9U2dCrY&sig=QmIS0HddJKncO1VktTbTWJ-rH3Y&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiA4fX6oPjNAhWpBcAKHZMNAS8Q6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=rugby%20300%20players%20on%20the%20pitch%20at%20once.&f=false
Page 118, Position 2: Estádio Milton Corrêa, a football stadium in Brazil, has one goal in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern hemisphere.
https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/whats-special-little-stadium-brazil-200310652.html
Page 118, Position 3: The British Ladies Football Club was founded in 1895 by Nettie Honeyball.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nettie_Honeyball
Page 118, Position 4: The first black female footballer was Carrie Boustead, a Scot who played in goal in the 1890s.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-18908465
Page 119, Position 1: In 2015, Welling United signed a promising young Chelsea player called Nortei Nortey.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/33862554
Page 119, Position 2: A scientific paper published in 2016 had over 2,000 authors, including 38 Wangs, 3 Dings, 3 Dongs, a Botti and a Brest.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26799652/
Page 119, Position 3: At least 200 medical papers quote Bob Dylan in their titles.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/12/14/bob-dylan-references-in-medical-literature-have-grown-exponentially-since-1990/?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-national%3Ahomepage%2Fcard
Page 119, Position 4: Fraudulent scientific papers tend to contain more jargon.
http://news.stanford.edu/2015/11/16/fraud-science-papers-111615/
Page 120, Position 1: When walking, anxious people tend to veer to the left.
https://www.kent.ac.uk/news/society/8580/anxiety-can-impact-peoples-walking-direction
Page 120, Position 2: Penguins have a ‘slender walk’ where they pin their flippers back to wriggle through crowds.
http://www.zoopenguins.org/behaviors.html
Page 120, Position 3: Penguins prepare a warm spot on the ground to lay their eggs by excreting all over it.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/15-million-volunteers-discover-penguins-need-to-use-the-faeces-in-order-to-breed-10205199.html
Page 120, Position 4: Fat penguins fall over more often than thin ones.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/25/penguins-on-a-treadmill-study-shows-fat-ones-fall-over-more-often-than-slim-ones
Page 121, Position 1: New Zealand has more species of penguin than anywhere else.
http://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-z/penguins/
Page 121, Position 2: Jackass penguins are named after their mating cry and are sometimes known as ‘beach donkeys’.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/why-do-so-many-penguins-sound-just-like-donkeys-at-las-1732843829
Page 121, Position 3: An 18th-century name for penguins was ‘arse-feet’.
http://haggardhawksblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/10-old-animal-nicknames.html
Page 121, Position 4: The feet of tree frogs are self-cleaning.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110703132531.htm
Page 122, Position 1: For Spider-Man to climb buildings like a gecko would require size 89 feet.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/science/spider-man-would-need-size-7200767
Page 122, Position 2: Humans started wearing shoes 40,000 years ago.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/science/spider-man-would-need-size-7200767
Page 122, Position 3: Socrates had a disciple called Simon the Shoemaker.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates
Page 122, Position 4: Wellington boots were designed by Germans, named by an Irishman, manufactured by an American and first worn by French peasants.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/qi/8944718/QI-Quite-interesting-facts-about-rubber.html
Page 123, Position 1: Wearing your socks outside your shoes gives you a better grip in icy weather.
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/mar/09/improbable-research-icy-socks-over-shoes
Page 123, Position 2: The first water balloons were made out of socks.
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2049243_2048654,00.html
Page 123, Position 3: The word ‘sock’ comes from the Latin soccus, meaning ‘shoe’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GxGPLju4KEkC&pg=PA125&lpg=PA125&dq=soccus+etymology+sock&source=bl&ots=Xec9vWugph&sig=RoS6-oRZMR6W-hkvpEaI5bkziyU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDkQ6AEwBGoVChMIpbaEwMXpxwIV6inbCh2IHAVk#v=onepage&q=soccus%20etymology%20sock&f=true
Page 123, Position 4: The word ‘pants’ comes from a Greek word meaning ‘all-compassionate’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pantaloons&allowed_in_frame=0
Page 124, Position 1: The word ‘sarcasm’ comes from an ancient Greek verb meaning ‘to tear flesh’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sarcasm
Page 124, Position 2: The name Bryony comes from the Greek verb bruein, meaning ‘to be full to bursting’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3LM4CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA438&lpg=PA438&dq=bryony+means+full+bursting&source=bl&ots=YiwgsoW4N0&sig=e1K7ROxLEZ2oqyBc4epAoNtLSes&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi94tDipe7PAhWF1RoKHWy3BmkQ6AEIITAB#v=onepage&q=bryony%20means%20full%20bursting&f=false
Page 124, Position 3: Spartan elections were won by the candidate who got the loudest cheer.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Se3CBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA71&dq=Spartans+elections+cheering&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin2YW-9r3NAhULB8AKHQLJANsQuwUIHzAA#v=onepage&q=Spartans%20elections%20cheering&f=false
Page 124, Position 4: The loudest word ever shouted was ‘Quiet!’ by a primary-school teacher from Northern Ireland.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/worlds-loudest-shout-belongs-to-northern-ireland-teacher-28559417.html
Page 125, Position 1: In 2009, Jonathan Lee Riches served an injunction on Guinness World Records to stop them calling him the ‘world’s most litigious person’.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/LegalCenter/story?id=7677327
Page 125, Position 2: The record for the world’s fastest steam train was set in 1938 and has never been broken.
http://www.historyextra.com/article/feature/8-facts-about-history-railways
Page 125, Position 3: When France’s TGV broke the world train-speed record, it had to apply the brakes for 10 miles before stopping.
http://www.trainhistory.net/train-facts/facts-about-trains/
Page 125, Position 4: Japanese railways have underpasses for turtles.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japanese-rail-workers-build-special-tunnels-to-save-turtles-from-train-deaths-a6757466.html
Page 126, Position 1: Tartle is an old Scottish word for the moment of panic when you’re about to introduce someone and realise you’ve forgotten their name.
http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/people-places/scottish-word-of-the-week-tartle-1-3819473
Page 126, Position 2: In 1963, 5,529 Nigels were born in England and Wales; in 2014, there were only 10.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/11/nige-name-nigel-farage
Page 126, Position 3: Men called Nigel are twice as likely to vote for UKIP.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/people-called-nigel-are-twice-as-likely-to-vote-ukip-10169795.html
Page 126, Position 4: In a 2015 poll, 30% of Republicans and 19% of Democrats supported the bombing of Agrabah, the fictional city in Aladdin.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/18/republican-voters-bomb-agrabah-disney-aladdin-donald-trump
Page 127, Position 1: Donald Trump’s father and grandmother both had the middle name Christ.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/26/donald-trump-fred-trump-father-relationship-business-real-estate-art-of-deal
Page 127, Position 1: The 25th Amendment, allowing vice presidents to take over when the president is incapacitated, has been used only three times. In each case, the president was having a colonoscopy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Page 127, Position 2: George H. W. Bush almost chose Clint Eastwood as his running mate.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/clint-eastwood-chosen-george-h-w-bush-vice-president-1988-article-1.964613
Page 127, Position 3: The name Donald means ‘ruler of the world’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Donald
Page 128, Position 1: The parchment scroll of the Land Tax Act of 1782 is a quarter of a mile long.
Mark Mason, #Mail Obsession#
Page 128, Position 2: The Virgin Mary appears more often in the Qur’an than in the Bible.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pYPnNN8oUHIC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=Virgin+Mary+%22more+times%22+Qur%E2%80%99an+Bible+.&source=bl&ots=tbDTgivMBs&sig=aZ_v2opYUH-_rt9wNPfL79xR0FQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYqZ-Jo_jNAhViJsAKHZLxC4cQ6AEIPDAF
Page 128, Position 3: To print a single Gutenberg Bible on vellum required the hides of 170 calves.
http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/didyouknow.html
Page 128, Position 4: Parchment is made from the skin of sheep.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchment
Page 129, Position 1: MPs have been told not to stroke the statues in Parliament for luck because Churchill and Thatcher are being worn away.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/02/churchill-thatcher-statues-mps-touching
Page 129, Position 2: The first use of the word ‘twat’ in Parliament was in 1986, when Bill Cash MP described Field Marshal Lord Carver as a ‘boring old twat’.
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1986/apr/23/european-communities-amendment-bill
Page 129, Position 3: The second use of ‘twat’ in Parliament happened immediately afterwards, when another MP shouted: ‘He said twat!’
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1986/apr/23/european-communities-amendment-bill
Page 129, Position 4: According to Hansard, no MP has ever called another MP a ‘turd’.
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/search/turd
Page 130, Position 1: The man who patented the first elevator and the man who patented the first elevator brake were both called Otis.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/elevator-inventor.html
Page 130, Position 2: A statue of Nikola Tesla in Silicon Valley provides free Wi-Fi.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/63299/nikola-tesla-may-be-dead-hes-still-providing-wi-fi-silicon-valley
Page 130, Position 3: The Statue of Liberty was designed as a Muslim woman guarding the Suez Canal.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/statue-liberty-was-originally-muslim-woman-180957377/?no-ist
Page 130, Position 4: For almost 40 years, Stockton-on-Tees honoured John Walker, the inventor of the friction match, with a statue of the wrong man.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/town-officials-note-john-walker-statue-commemorates-man-with-same-name-but-is-not-a-match-with-local-a6876821.html
Page 131, Position 1: The US government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provide specific guidance for Zombie Preparedness.
http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies.htm
Page 131, Position 2: Crohn’s disease was discovered and named by Marilyn Monroe’s doctor.
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-modern-guide-to-naming-diseases
Page 131, Position 3: Because of mad cow disease Desperate Dan stopped eating cow pie.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/387517.stm
Page 131, Position 4: Until 1899, the list of official diseases of the Royal College of Physicians included nostalgia.
#Strange Medicine# by Nathan Belofsky
Page 132, Position 1: 95% of people on Earth have at least one thing wrong with them.
#New Scientist# 13th June 2015
Page 132, Position 2: A group of unicorns is called a blessing.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/blessing
Page 132, Position 3: ‘Unicorn Zombie Apocalypse’ comes with an official music video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPXv392pc9k
Page 132, Position 4: 50% of Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12084/abstract
Page 133, Position 1: In 2015, the Queen received a gift of £5,000 worth of horse semen.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/queens-birthday-weirdest-gifts-queen-elizabeth-ii-has-ever-received_uk_570e6391e4b00ed33e06b9d7
Page 133, Position 2: In 1942, half of the US’s penicillin stocks were used on just one patient.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730360-800-applied-minds-why-engineers-are-the-real-heroes/
Page 133, Position 3: According to at least two independent sets of research, man flu is real.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/health/man-flu-is-real-because-oestrogen-protects-women-from-the-influe/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/7505207/Man-flu-is-no-myth-as-scientists-prove-men-suffer-more-from-disease.html
Page 133, Position 4: In 1873, three-quarters of American horses caught flu.
http://mentalfloss.com/uk/health/30761/the-year-every-horse-in-america-caught-the-flu
Page 134, Position 1: All the photos shared on Snapchat in one hour would take 10 years to view.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/snapchat-photos-sent-per-second-2015-5
Page 134, Position 2: A champion racehorse from today would beat one from the early 1990s by seven lengths.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11693802/Racehorses-are-getting-faster-scientists-conclude.html
Page 134, Position 3: Victorian gentry ordered their horses to be shot after their deaths.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/northernengland/722527/Northumberland-Castles-knight-in-shining-armour.html
Page 134, Position 4: ‘Twitter’ was a 19th-century word for an abscess on on a horse’s foot.
http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2015/07/when-life-gives-you-lemons/
Page 135, Position 1: The average Briton is bored for six hours a week.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5868721/Britons-bored-for-more-than-two-years-of-their-lives.html
Page 135, Position 2: People who use more emoji have more sex.
http://time.com/3694763/match-com-dating-survey-emoji-sex/
Page 135, Position 3: Emoji is the fastest-growing language in history.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/32793732/uks-fastest-growing-language-is-emoji
Page 135, Position 4: 72% of 18- to 25-year-olds find it easier to express their feelings with emoji rather than words.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/32793732/uks-fastest-growing-language-is-emoji
Page 136, Position 1: Lord Baden-Powell once wrote a letter to an autograph-hunter telling him not to become an autograph-hunter. It has since been sold to an autograph-hunter.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/260540/Scout-chief-Robert-Baden-Powell-s-blunt-note-sells-for-900
Page 136, Position 2: One British child a day eats a washing-machine tablet in mistake for a sweet.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2828019/Children-eating-sweet-like-washing-tabs-one-child-day-receives-emergency-treatment-swallowing-liquid.html
Page 136, Position 3: The average Briton’s wardrobe contains 152 items, fewer than half of which are worn regularly.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3626566/Women-spend-six-months-deciding-wear-Study-finds-women-spend-17-minutes-day-trying-choose-outfit.html
Page 136, Position 4: One-third of Britons have written almost nothing by hand in the last six months.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2163175/Could-forget-WRITE-The-typical-adult-scribbled-hand-weeks.html
Page 137, Position 1: The video game Fallout 4 is set in a post-apocalyptic world where you get rewarded for returning library books.
http://www.bustle.com/articles/123234-video-game-fallout-4-has-players-returning-overdue-library-books-for-prizes
Page 137, Position 2: As a small boy, Roald Dahl made a pilgrimage to see Beatrix Potter. When he got there, all she said was: ‘Well, you’ve seen her. Now, buzz off!’
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/roald-dahl-told-buzz-off-2149840
Page 137, Position 3: The Oompa-Loompas were originally called Whipple-Scrumpets.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28980257
Page 137, Position 4: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is how the author Stieg Larsson imagined Pippi Longstocking as an adult.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/weekinreview/23ryan.html?_r=0
Page 138, Position 1: People who drink black coffee are more likely to be psychopaths.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/psychopathic-people-are-more-likely-to-prefer-bitter-foods-according-to-new-study-a6688971.html
Page 138, Position 2: In his lifetime, Edgar Allan Poe’s best-selling book was a textbook about seashells.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2015/12/14/edgar_allan_poe_s_textbook_on_seashells_was_his_only_bestseller.html
Page 138, Position 3: Ernest Hemingway held the world record for the most marlin caught in a single day.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cf1MDh4JQ-MC&pg=PA241&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 138, Position 4: Marcel Proust had opium for breakfast.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/05/daily-rituals-creative-minds-mason-currey
Page 139, Position 1: It is illegal in Tajikistan to go out for a birthday meal.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tajikistan/11825572/Tajikistan-man-fined-for-breaking-law-against-celebrating-birthdays-in-public.ht
Page 139, Position 2: Drinking coffee in the Ottoman Empire of the 17th century was punishable by death.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/01/10/144988133/drink-coffee-off-with-your-head
Page 139, Position 3: The Venetians used biological warfare against the Ottomans by smearing plague pus on fezzes.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830494-400-17th-century-plot-to-use-plague-hats-as-bioweapons-revealed/
Page 139, Position 4: The beehive hairdo was invented to fit under a fez.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1343664/Oh-beehive-Meet-woman-created-buzz-inventing-Sixties-hairdo.html
Page 140, Position 1: After the English Civil War, Quakers appeared naked in public to symbolise the shame of the Church of England.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41946859?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Page 140, Position 2: In China, it’s illegal to reincarnate without filling in a government Reincarnation Application form.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/commentary/2007/08/22/119365/Rendering-unto.htm
Page 140, Position 3: In 2011, Florida accidentally made sex illegal.
http://www.theguardian.com/law/shortcuts/2015/mar/11/drugs-prostitution-accidental-legislation
Page 140, Position 4: Until 1936, it was illegal for men in New York to be topless in public.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19821003&id=HqVVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IUANAAAAIBAJ&pg=3956,2378350&hl=en
Page 141, Position 1: When George H. W. Bush arrived in the White House, he found a note from Ronald Reagan saying: ‘Don’t let the turkeys get you down.’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-meltzer/the-presidents-greatest-s_b_807547.html
Page 141, Position 2: Keen nudists have included Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, Dr Seuss, Dame Helen Mirren and Billy Connolly.
http://flavorwire.com/265895/pop-culture-icons-who-are-also-occasional-nudists
Page 141, Position 3: America’s first streaker rose to become chief clerk of the Pension Bureau.
http://michigantoday.umich.edu/a8578/ http://web.archive.org/web/20110917133205/http:/bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000956 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaking
Page 141, Position 4: In July 1896, a man called George Bush was sent to prison for appearing naked in a first-class railway carriage.
http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000101/18960823/017/0002 Reynolds's Newspaper - Sunday 23 August 1896
Page 142, Position 1: The Royal Mail has calculated that it would cost £11,602.25 to send a letter to Mars.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/35008501
Page 142, Position 2: Ronald Reagan left a note on the White House lawn warning the squirrels to beware of George H. W. Bush’s dogs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3800013.stm
Page 142, Position 3: ‘The Catman’ plagued Ronald Reagan with threatening letters and dozens of pictures of cats.
http://nypost.com/2014/04/12/inside-the-secret-plots-to-kill-the-president/
Page 142, Position 4: Abraham Lincoln received at least one threatening letter every day of his presidency.
http://blog.oup.com/2016/03/nineteenth-century-american-letter-writing/
Page 143, Position 1: Ducklings are capable of abstract thought.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2097527-meet-the-philosopher-ducklings-that-indulge-in-abstract-thought/
Page 143, Position 2: 75% of the Earth’s population has no postal address.
http://qz.com/705273/mongolia-is-changing-all-its-addresses-to-three-word-phrases/
Page 143, Position 3: The first woman to appear on a US postage stamp was Queen Isabella of Spain.
http://blog.oup.com/2016/03/nineteenth-century-american-letter-writing/
Page 143, Position 4: The second item sent by New York’s pneumatic-tube postal system was a live black cat.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/that-time-people-sent-a-cat-through-the-mail-using-pneumatic-tubes/278629/
Page 144, Position 1: When the ancient Romans deployed lions against Germanic tribes, the tribesmen simply assumed they were large dogs.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=N2C6BAAAQBAJ&pg=PT158&lpg=PT158&dq=romans+germanic+lions+%27large+dogs%27.&source=bl&ots=ghszyVKgRa&sig=Jke51Ozwk3b5a2IB_5AL2CGlo2A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf74XPrPjNAhWGLsAKHWQTDE4Q6AEIJDAB#v=onepage&q=romans%20germanic%20lions%20'large%20dogs'.&f=false
Page 144, Position 2: Every year, British ducks are fed 3.5 million loaves of bread.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/dont-feed-bread-ducks-campaign-7550013
Page 144, Position 3: In the California Gold Rush, a slice of bread cost the equivalent of $25, or $50 if it was buttered.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gold-rush-california-was-much-more-expensive-todays-dot-com-boom-california-180956788/?no-ist
Page 144, Position 4: The ancient Romans had a special kind of bread to be eaten with oysters.
https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/about/the-history-of-bread/the-history-of-bread-roman-bread-and-greek-bread/
Page 145, Position 1: A ‘sandwich’ in the US must legally be at least 35% cooked meat.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/14/dining/field-guide-to-the-sandwich.html?_r=1
Page 145, Position 2: The first successful CPR was performed on a dog.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34351798
Page 145, Position 3: Lancashire is haunted by a ghostly dog called the ‘Radcliffe shag’.
http://www.strangehistory.net/2013/07/05/scooby-doo-shag-and-the-bleachworks/
Page 145, Position 4: 10% of vegetarian hot dogs in America contain meat.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/26/health/vegetarian-hot-dogs-contain-meat-clear-foods-feat/
Page 146, Position 1: Americans eat 20% of their meals in cars.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/multi/features/food/eating.html
Page 146, Position 2: Commercially grown tomatoes have tripled in size since the 1970s.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/whats-gone-wrong-with-our-tomatoes-2303944.html
Page 146, Position 3: In the mid-1980s, the National Giant Vegetable Championships had to move to a new venue because the pumpkins were getting too big to fit through the door.
http://www.giantveg.co.uk/index.php/en/features
Page 146, Position 4: The world’s heaviest pumpkin weighed the same as a Ford Fiesta.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/heaviest-pumpkin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Fiesta
Page 147, Position 1: Cows produce five times as much saliva as milk.
http://www.milkproduction.com/Library/Scientific-articles/Animal-health/Digestive-Physiology-of-the-Cow/ http://www.dairymoos.com/how-much-milk-do-cows-give/
Page 147, Position 2: Cucumbers are sometimes sacrificed by the Nuer people of South Sudan as a substitute for cattle.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1580783?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Page 147, Position 3: Every year, 250,000 Danes gather to watch cows being let out to pasture.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/04/20/401020408/when-danish-cows-see-fresh-spring-pasture-they-jump-for-joy
Page 147, Position 4: Until the 1950s, the rural poor in Norway warmed their feet in cowpats.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/abe0f6f6-8f0c-11e3-9cb0-00144feab7de.html#axzz4CtRBY16g
Page 148, Position 1: In 2000, Blockbuster Video turned down the chance to acquire a new video-streaming service called Netflix.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/blockbuster-ceo-passed-up-chance-to-buy-netflix-for-50-million-2015-7?r=US&IR=T
Page 148, Position 2: To stop their udders freezing Siberian cows wear bras.
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/68437/VIDEO-Cows-wear-bras-to-keep-out-cold
Page 148, Position 3: Cartoon cows in 1930s Hollywood were not allowed udders.
http://cbldf.org/2014/10/the-decade-animated-udders-went-under-wraps/
Page 148, Position 4: ‘Cowabunga!’ was used by Snoopy long before the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Etymology/cowabunga
Page 149, Position 1: Pilots never say ‘Over and out’ because ‘over’ means ‘waiting to hear more’ and ‘out’ means ‘that’s the end of the conversation’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedure_word#Over
Page 149, Position 2: The original Chill Pill was a pill that you took when you had a chill.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/need-a-chill-pill-heres-a-recipe-from-the-19th-century
Page 149, Position 3: In the 16th century, ‘to text’ meant ‘to quote texts’.
#Oxford English Dictionary#
Page 149, Position 4: In 1994, people said ‘marvellous’ 77 times as often as they do today.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11055412/Cheerio-pussy-cat-hi-there-awesome-English.html
Page 150, Position 1: ‘Dalmatian’ is from an ancient Illyrian word meaning ‘sheep’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WJbd0m6YaFkC&pg=PA749&lpg=PA749&dq=Ancient+Illyrian+Delme&source=bl&ots=szb6l7KArg&sig=jE3L1JfrGGj2G41oH6Ky7RAx0Lc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj99o_f08rNAhWgF8AKHSO7AnIQ6AEIPzAF#v=onepage&q=Ancient%20Illyrian%20Delme&f=false
Page 150, Position 2: Anyone talking on an army radio should be careful not to use the word ‘repeat’ because it means ‘fire again’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_discipline
Page 150, Position 3: In the Second World War, the group trying to ‘turn’ German spies was called the Twenty Committee, hence the ‘XX’ or ‘Double Cross’ Committee.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/releases/2003/november14/doublecross.htm
Page 150, Position 4: Major Edwin Richardson, who ran the British War Dog School, was prepared to accept any dog as long as it didn’t have a ‘gaily carried tail’.
#Weird War One# by Peter Taylor
Page 151, Position 1: President Kennedy wanted the first three men on the Moon to be white, black and Asian.
http://boingboing.net/2015/09/01/interview-with-man-picked-by-k.html
Page 151, Position 2: America’s ‘National Hero Dog’ award was won in 2015 by a cat.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/33223978
Page 151, Position 3: Galeanthropy is the belief that you have become a cat.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PCkudR8AB6QC&dq=GALEANTHROPY+-+the+belief+that+you+have+become+a+cat.&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=GALEANTHROPY+
Page 151, Position 4: In 1954, the Soviet Union applied to join NATO.
http://www.nato.int/history/nato-history-did-you-know.html
Page 152, Position 1: NASA scientists working on Mars rovers work to a Mars day, not an Earth day.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3443769/
Page 152, Position 2: The first song played on the Moon was ‘Fly Me to the Moon’.
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/18/magazine/on-q.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Page 152, Position 3: In 1966, three years before the US put a man on the Moon, a spacecraft from the USSR reached Venus.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1970-060A
Page 152, Position 4: On the anniversary of its landing on Mars, the Curiosity rover hummed ‘Happy Birthday’ to itself.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/happy-birthday-performed-on-another-planet-for-the-ve-1039693778
Page 153, Position 1: In the past 50 years, humanity has mined enough rock to fill the Grand Canyon to the brim.
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050307/full/news050307-2.html
Page 153, Position 2: In 20 million years, Mars’s moon Phobos will have disintegrated into a ring around the planet.
http://www.nature.com/news/martian-moon-set-to-form-ring-around-red-planet-1.18852
Page 153, Position 3: The Earth seen from the Moon never seems to rise or set but just hangs in the sky.
http://www.universetoday.com/115235/what-does-earth-look-like-from-the-moon/
Page 153, Position 4: When a potential meteorite turns out to be just a rock, geologists call it a ‘meteorwrong’.
http://meteorites.wustl.edu/meteorwrongs/meteorwrongs.htm
Page 154, Position 1: Wythnos, the Welsh for ‘week’, means ‘eight nights’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortnight
Page 154, Position 2: ‘Rock ’n’ roll’ originally meant the waves of fervour in US gospel churches.
#Stranger than we can Imagine# - John Higgs
Page 154, Position 3: The Church of England has four and a half times as many buildings in the UK as Tesco.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/27/church-buildings-falling-congregations
Page 154, Position 4: ‘Noon’ used to be the ninth hour of the religious day and took place at 3 p.m.
http://blog.dictionary.com/noon/
Page 155, Position 1: There is no standard day on which to celebrate World Standards Day.
http://www.improbable.com/2015/10/24/when-are-world-standards-day-2/
Page 155, Position 2: In Anglo-Saxon times, the day began at sunset.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=day&allowed_in_frame=0
Page 155, Position 3: In Saudi Arabia, the first day of the week is Saturday.
https://www-01.ibm.com/software/globalization/guidelines/c11.html
Page 155, Position 4: In Ethiopia, the millennium fell on 12 September 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6978629.stm
Page 156, Position 1: The only difference between fog and mist is visibility: if you can’t see more than 100 metres ahead, it’s fog, not mist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mist
Page 156, Position 2: World Health Day and America’s National Beer Day are both on 7 April.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Beer_Day_(United_States) http://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day/2016/en/
Page 156, Position 3: The US celebrates National Cheeseburger Day on 18 September.
http://time.com/money/4039146/national-cheeseburger-day-free-deals/
Page 156, Position 4: In the 16th century, unwanted fat was called ‘fog’.
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/72391?rskey=Tcs5r4&result=2#eid
Page 157, Position 1: There is a butterfly species called Charis matic.
#The Naming of the Shrew#, John Wright
Page 157, Position 2: ‘Thunder-plump’ is an old Scottish word for a sudden heavy rain shower.
http://blog.joules.com/post/as-right-as-rain/
Page 157, Position 3: Wabsteid, cauldpress and stoor-sooker are recent Scots words for ‘website’, ‘fridge’ and ‘vacuum cleaner’.
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/artsinscotland/scots/wordofthemonth/archive.aspx
Page 157, Position 4: Scatophagus argus is a fish whose Latin name means ‘many-eyed shit-eater’, so it’s politely called the ‘spotted scat’.
#The Naming of the Shrew#, John Wright
Page 158, Position 1: A collection of felt hats in the V&A Museum in London were made using mercury and are stored in special bags marked with a skull and crossbones.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=re4pCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=%22felt+hats%22+skull+crossbones+%22v%26a%22+museum&source=bl&ots=yrZQa6mgQX&sig=aVQog4gzKtTAY0PGTH4mEyuAgzo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQ8r7ZsfjNAhWKJcAKHbKlBmkQ6AEILDAA#v=onepage&q=%22felt%20hats%22%20skull%20crossbones%20%22v%26a%22%20museum&f=false
Page 158, Position 2: Han solo is the scientific name of a 450-million-year-old trilobite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_(trilobite)
Page 158, Position 3: Most ‘Latin’ scientific names aren’t really Latin.
#The Naming of the Shrew#, John Wright
Page 158, Position 4: Half of all museum specimens are thought to be wrongly labelled.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11998634/Half-of-worlds-museum-specimens-are-wrongly-labelled-Oxford-University-finds.html
Page 159, Position 1: When the Moon is directly overhead, its gravity pulls on clouds and makes it rain less.
#New Scientist# 6th Feb 2016
Page 159, Position 2: The whale skeleton at the Natural History Museum in London is held together by papier mâché made from 80-year-old copies of the Kent Messenger.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/10/skeleton-of-blue-whale-at-natural-history-museum-was-held-by-new/
Page 159, Position 3: The world’s only Cornish-pasty museum is in Mexico.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8887155/Worlds-first-Cornish-pasty-museum-opens-in-Mexico.html
Page 159, Position 4: Mushrooms shoot spores into the air to make it rain.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2015/11/12/how-mushrooms-can-control-the-weather/#.V22Dks5Ging
Page 160, Position 1: In one hour, the Sun produces as much energy as the world’s population uses in a year.
#The Economist# June 28 2014
Page 160, Position 2: ‘Flisk’ is an old Gloucestershire word for a light shower.
#The Folklore of the Cotswolds# by June Lewis-Jones (The History Press, 2003)
Page 160, Position 3: Scientists can tell how much it rained two billion years ago.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20590198
Page 160, Position 4: The Sun is rained on by droplets of plasma the size of Ireland.
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-sun-coronal-great.html
Page 161, Position 1: There are 13,513 airports in the US, more than the next 12 countries put together.
CIA World Factbook
Page 161, Position 2: The energy used in a year by Britons charging their phones would be enough to power Birmingham and Bradford.
#The Week# 2nd July 2016
Page 161, Position 3: In 2011, a skydiver dropped an iPhone from 13,500 feet and it still worked.
http://gizmodo.com/5822384/this-iphone-survived-a-13500-foot-fall
Page 161, Position 4: There are only five full-time skywriters on Earth.
http://qz.com/624271/one-man-rules-global-skywriting-and-he-wants-to-bring-color-to-the-heavens/
Page 162, Position 1: Marlon Brando’s mother gave Henry Fonda acting lessons.
http://www.50states.com/facts/nebraska.htm#.Vmu_UXuGRFU
Page 162, Position 2: In 2013/14, only eight passengers used the railway station at Teesside Airport.
http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/teesside-airport-railway-station-keeps-7100341
Page 162, Position 3: The French for ‘airport novel’ is roman de gare, or ‘railway station novel’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_novel
Page 162, Position 4: H. G. Wells was A. A. Milne’s maths teacher.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/A-A-Milne
Page 163, Position 1: Even before farming was invented, humans had killed over half the planet’s large mammals.
#BBC History# Oct 2014
Page 163, Position 2: Roald Dahl, Noël Coward, Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Harry Houdini and Christopher Lee all worked as spies.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/16-people-you-didn%E2%80%99t-know-were-spies/ss-BBqwMFU?ocid=MSN_UK_NL_MO35#image=1
Page 163, Position 3: Errol Flynn was a Nazi sympathiser and wrote letters to Hitler.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/16-people-you-didn%E2%80%99t-know-were-spies/ss-BBqwMFU?ocid=MSN_UK_NL_MO35#image=1
Page 163, Position 4: The average human being is significantly more dangerous than the average sociopath.
https://libertarianmoney.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/how-to-become-a-sociopath-in-one-easy-step/
Page 164, Position 1: The name of the kangaroo mouse, Microdipodops megacephalus, means ‘two small feet with a big head’.
#The Naming of the Shrew#, John Wright
Page 164, Position 2: There is no known case of an invasive species causing the extinction of a plant.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160809122125.htm
Page 164, Position 3: Species that have disappeared from Britain in the last 200 years include the black-backed meadow ant, the short-haired bumblebee, the tawny earwig and the rooting puffball.
http://speciesrecoverytrust.org.uk/Images/LL/England's%20lost%20species.pdf
Page 164, Position 4: The Morro Bay kangaroo rat of California is probably extinct. It hasn’t been seen in the wild for 30 years, and the last one in captivity died in 1993.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/cute-rodent-extinct/
Page 165, Position 1: Belgium is the world’s leading exporter of billiard balls.
http://www.expatica.com/be/about/country-facts/30-facts-about-Belgium_108729.html
Page 165, Position 2: Baby sabre-toothed cats had sabre baby teeth.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/02/saberkittens-were-double-fanged-for-11-months/
Page 165, Position 3: Slugs have approximately 27,000 teeth.
http://www.countryfile.com/countryside/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-slugs-and-snails
Page 165, Position 4: Britain has 230 slugs for every human.
http://www.somersetlive.co.uk/britain-s-wet-humid-summer-leads-slug-invasion/story-27817302-detail/story.html
Page 166, Position 1: Las Vegas hosts an awards ceremony for people who make awards.
http://awardspersonalization.org/DetailsPage/tabid/442/ArticleID/11/Awards-and-Personalization-Association-Presents-Annual-Honors.aspx
Page 166, Position 2: All the Cadbury’s Crunchies in Europe are made in Poland.
http://www.slideshare.net/CathKenny/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-cadbury-crunchie
Page 166, Position 3: More than 4,000 different varieties of potato are grown in Peru.
http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21699087-decade-long-quinoa-boom-gives-way-glut-supply-other-countries-grow
Page 166, Position 4: The US has an awards ceremony called ‘Potato Man of the Year’.
http://www.thepacker.com/topics/potato-man-year
Page 167, Position 1: Man Group, sponsors of the Booker Prize, were once responsible for supplying the Royal Navy’s rum ration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Group
Page 167, Position 2: At the first modern Olympics in 1896, the medals for winners were silver.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Summer_Olympics
Page 167, Position 3: Philip Noel-Baker MP is the only person ever to have been awarded both an Olympic medal (1920) and a Nobel Prize (1959).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Noel-Baker,_Baron_Noel-Baker
Page 167, Position 4: Princess Diana won a prize at school for Best Kept Guinea Pig.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/06/25/the-naked-and-the-dead
Page 168, Position 1: The wardrooms in Russian nuclear submarines are clad in stainless steel and have a sauna and a plunge pool.
#The Secret State# by Peter Hennessy (Penguin, 2003, revd. 2010) forwarded by Jason Hazeley.
Page 168, Position 2: During the Second World War, US Navy sailors were given detailed instructions on what to do if caught by a giant clam.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FEbzCCvIlTQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Eaten+by+a+Giant+Clam&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwibkOODg8jNAhVLBsAKHc3VDWYQuwUIKDAA#v=onepage&q=navy&f=false
Page 168, Position 3: The Royal Navy’s most advanced destroyer breaks if it sails into warm water.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3e524984-2cc4-11e6-bf8d-26294ad519fc.html
Page 168, Position 4: The Royal Navy uses a version of Windows XP called ‘Windows for Submarines’.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/16/trident-old-technology-brave-new-world-cyber-warfare
Page 169, Position 1: North Korea has eight Internet hosts; the US has 505 million.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2184rank.html
Page 169, Position 2: The wardrooms in French nuclear submarines are done out in panelled wood and have a fish tank.
#The Secret State# by Peter Hennessy (Penguin, 2003, revd. 2010) forwarded by Jason Hazeley.
Page 169, Position 3: British nuclear submarines have their wardrooms fitted out with Formica, because it’s less of a fire risk.
#The Secret State# by Peter Hennessy (Penguin, 2003, revd. 2010) forwarded by Jason Hazeley.
Page 169, Position 4: North Korea has 10 times as many submarines as Britain.
http://www.shockpedia.com/29-most-powerful-armies-in-the-world/11/
Page 170, Position 1: Meerkats have competitive eating contests to establish dominance.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/welcome-meerkats-world-competitive-eating-180959217/
Page 170, Position 2: Marijuana is legal in North Korea.
http://www.destinationtips.com/destinations/asia/19-baffling-things-didnt-know-north-korea/?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=19+Baffling+Facts+about+North+Korea+You+Won%27t+Be+-+57910706&utm_campaign=OUT+DST+18222+19-baffling-things-didnt-know-north-korea&utm_term=5385393
Page 170, Position 3: Marijuana has never been illegal in Uruguay.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/uruguay/10216201/A-guide-to-the-worlds-most-libertarian-countries.html
Page 170, Position 4: Smoking marijuana increases a person’s appetite by 40%.
http://facts.randomhistory.com/2008/12/02_nutrition.html
Page 171, Position 1: In the Middle Ages, people slept with cow dung at the foot of their bed to keep bugs away.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bWDDZKG8DOMC&pg=PT237&lpg=PT237&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 171, Position 2: Feral cats in Australia eat 75 million native animals every day.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-13/greg-hunt-feral-cat-native-animals-fact-check/5858282
Page 171, Position 3: From 1840 to 1930, a pod of killer whales helped South Australian whalers kill baleen whales in return for being given their lips and tongues to eat.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/the-legend-of-old-tom-and-the-gruesome-law-of-the-tongue
Page 171, Position 4: The excrement of sperm whales is worth up to $10,000 a pound.
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-09-19/celebrity-nudists-the-stars-who-like-to-let-it-all-hang-out
Page 172, Position 1: Napoleon loved roast chicken and made sure his chefs had one on the spit at all hours.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/smart-news/napoleon-had-thing-rotisserie-chicken-180955649/
Page 172, Position 2: In the Middle Ages, bras were called ‘breastbags’.
http://www.historyextra.com/lingerie
Page 172, Position 3: A bra has been invented that doubles as a gas mask.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/6253064/Inventors-of-bra-that-turns-into-gas-mask-win-IgNobel-prize.html
Page 172, Position 4: A gas station owned by Harland Sanders was the site of the first KFC in 1930. Motorists were served fried chicken at his own dining-room table.
http://www.kfc.ca/our-story
Page 173, Position 1: Beaver tail tastes like roast beef.
https://www.americanhunter.org/articles/2011/5/31/americas-top-five-wild-game-meats
Page 173, Position 2: Meat from scared animals is tougher and less tasty.
http://atlasobscura.herokuapp.com/articles/why-scared-animals-taste-worse
Page 173, Position 3: The carnivorous harp sponge traps prey in the grille of its body, then dissolves it cell by cell.
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/absurd-creature-of-the-week-harp-sponge/
Page 173, Position 4: One bite from the lone star tick can make you allergic to red meat.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140220102727.htm
Page 174, Position 1: Tap water in Windhoek, Namibia, tastes salty because 25% of it is recycled sewage.
#Scientific American# - July 2014
Page 174, Position 2: Jellyfish contain the same number of calories as green tea.
http://www.nature.com/news/the-secret-lives-of-jellyfish-1.19613
Page 174, Position 3: Antarctic silverfish are pink. They only turn silver when they die.
#New Scientist# 8/3/2014
Page 174, Position 4: Silverfish drink by sucking moist air in through their anus.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mLupCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA258&dq
Page 175, Position 1: The inventor of sociology also invented the Body Mass Index.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_Quetelet
Page 175, Position 2: After water, the most widely consumed food or drink on Earth is tea.
http://onward.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/28/the-worlds-top-drink/
Page 175, Position 3: In the Second World War, tea was moved out of London to keep it safe.
https://www.tea.co.uk/a-social-history#war
Page 175, Position 4: The ‘WD’ in WD40 stands for ‘Water Displacement’; the ‘40’ is there because the inventor took 40 goes to get it right.
http://wd40.com/cool-stuff/history
Page 176, Position 1: Grey squirrels can digest acorns; red squirrels can’t.
red squirrels can't.
Page 176, Position 2: You’re more likely to order dessert in a restaurant if your waiter is overweight.
http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/youre-far-more-likely-to-order-dessert-if-your-waiter-is-overweight--Wk4lK7Yjsg
Page 176, Position 3: At an all-you-can-eat restaurant, men who eat with women eat twice as much as men who dine with men.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/11/18/men_eat_nearly_twice_as_much_pizza_when_they_re_eating_with_women.html
Page 176, Position 4: Voles eat 80% of their own weight every day.
http://noticing.co/on-size-and-metabolism/
Page 177, Position 1: Nuts in their shells don’t attract VAT but shelled nuts do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34649495
Page 177, Position 2: The RSPB recommends sprinkling chilli on bird food to deter squirrels because birds can’t taste it but squirrels can.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.aspx?id=tcm:9-202877
Page 177, Position 3: Squirrels pretend to hide their nuts to fool potential thieves.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3322101/Cunning-squirrels-pretend-to-bury-their-food.html
Page 177, Position 4: Jays ‘weigh’ nuts in the shell by shaking them and listening to the noise they make.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3096672/That-s-nuts-Birds-weigh-food-tell-peanuts-rotten-without-opening-shell.htmlBrazil
Page 178, Position 1: The richest 1,000 people in Britain are twice as rich as they were 10 years ago.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/rich-list-queen-slips-out-of-top-300-as-the-number-of-billionaires-in-britain-soars-10205219.html
Page 178, Position 2: VAT is payable on ornamental vegetables but not on culinary vegetables.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-notice-70114-food/vat-notice-70114-food
Page 178, Position 3: In the 18th century, Britain had a tax on wallpaper.
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/11550051/Beard-tax-A-history-of-t tax on wallpaper
Page 178, Position 4: From 1796–1847, the British responded to a tax on dog’s tails by cutting them off.
#Cox's Fragmenta#. Simon Murphy.
Page 179, Position 1: On New Year’s Eve, birds in the Netherlands fly much higher than normal to avoid the fireworks.
http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/07/09/beheco.arr102.full (
Page 179, Position 2: $1,000 invested in the cocaine trade in 2014 would have been worth $182,000 in 2015.
http://www.talkingdrugs.org/roberto-saviano-the-writer-wanted-dead-by-the-italian-mafia
Page 179, Position 3: It would cost £9 billion to buy one of everything for sale on Amazon.com.
9 billion to buy one of everything for sale on Amazon.com.
Page 179, Position 4: After Christmas, Britons return £207 million worth of unwanted gifts.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-3374668/Thank-lovely-Christmas-present-back.html
Page 180, Position 1: Babies can recognise and make all 150 sounds of the world’s 6,500 languages until they are nine months old.
https://www.verywell.com/how-do-children-learn-language-1449116
Page 180, Position 2: Police officers patrolling Istanbul on New Year’s Eve dress up as Santa to blend in.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/plainclothes-police-to-dress-as-santa-during-new-years-celebrations-in-istanbul.aspx?pageID=238&nID=93217&NewsCatID=341
Page 180, Position 3: Translated into English, the five most common Turkish surnames are Brave, Rock, Iron, Falcon and Steel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_common_surnames_in_Asia#Turkey
Page 180, Position 4: In 2012, no babies born in the UK were named Cecil, Willie, Bertha, Fanny, Gertrude, Gladys, Marjorie or Muriel.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2596522/Why-Norman-Doris-Hilda-threat-Names-placed-endangered-list.html
Page 181, Position 1: Right-handed marmosets are braver than left-handed marmosets.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/24/how-sensitive-are-you-to-unpleasantness
Page 181, Position 2: Lithuania has an annual crawling race for babies.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-lithuania-babies-race-idUSKCN0YN55D
Page 181, Position 3: Babies born in winter start crawling five weeks earlier than those born in summer.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/623122/?sc=swtn
Page 181, Position 4: Boys born in winter are more likely to be left-handed.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140703102940.htm
Page 182, Position 1: In 2014, a panda called Ai Hin pretended to be pregnant to get her own room and more buns.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/giant-panda-in-china-fakes-pregnancy-to-receive-nicer-food-and-round-the-clock-care-9693743.html
Page 182, Position 2: Asthmatic otters can be taught to use inhalers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11876800/Asthmatic-sea-otter-taught-to-use-inhaler.html
Page 182, Position 3: Baby rats are known as ‘kittens’.
http://www.nfrs.org/geninfo.html
Page 182, Position 4: There is an equivalent of Match.com for zoo animals.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/13/match-com-for-animals/
Page 183, Position 1: Eas Fors waterfall on the Isle of Mull means ‘Waterfall Waterfall’ waterfall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names
Page 183, Position 2: If the northern giant mouse lemur were scaled up to human size, its testicles would be as big as grapefruit.
http://www.livescience.com/51563-lemur-has-biggest-testes.html
Page 183, Position 3: The world’s smallest lemur and the world’s smallest chameleon live on the same island.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28030-newly-discovered-dwarf-lemurs-are-totally-unafraid-of-humans/
Page 183, Position 4: The word ‘Nile’ means ‘river’, so River Nile means ‘River River’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Nile&allowed_in_frame=0
Page 184, Position 1: The highest point of Canada was only determined in 1992.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Logan
Page 184, Position 2: Torpenhow in Cumbria means ‘Hillhillhill’.
http://www.strangehistory.net/2011/05/04/hill-hill-hill-hill/
Page 184, Position 3: The Atlas Mountains, the Appalachians and the Scottish Highlands were once all part of the same mountain range.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Pangean_Mountains
Page 184, Position 4: Compasses don’t work on the highest mountain in Mauritania.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kediet_ej_Jill
Page 185, Position 1: The distance travelled by your blood every day is equivalent to half the Earth’s circumference.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/heart/heartfacts.html
Page 185, Position 2: In 1787, the top of Mont Blanc was removed and is now in a museum in the Netherlands.
http://www.teylersmuseum.nl/nl/bezoek-het-museum/scholen-kinderen-en-groepen/scholen/basisonderwijs/programmas-basisonderwijs/naar-de-top-van-de-mont-blanc
Page 185, Position 3: When Edmund Hillary got to the top of Everest he celebrated by peeing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1575208/Sir-Edmund-Hillary.html
Page 185, Position 4: The largest and most distant body of water so far discovered is 30 billion trillion miles away, with 140 trillion times more water than Earth.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/universe20110722.html
Page 186, Position 1: The first London bus routes weren’t numbered but colour-coded.
#Move Along, Please# by Mark Mason
Page 186, Position 2: The volume of urine created by the world’s population in a year is almost identical to the UK’s annual water usage.
http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/News/PressReleases/2011/Urine.asp
Page 186, Position 3: In 2006, the words ‘cyclists dismount’ on a road sign near Cardiff were mistranslated into Welsh as ‘bladder inflammation upset’.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7702913.stm
Page 186, Position 4: The time spent waiting for a bus feels shorter if you wait in an area full of trees.
http://nexus.umn.edu/papers/TRPerceptionsEnvironment.pdf
Page 187, Position 1: The Norwegian version of the Mr Men book Mr Bump is called Herr Dumpidump.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/new-generation-mr-men-meet-8624633
Page 187, Position 2: In the 1840s, London bus drivers had straps attached to their arms that you tugged when you wanted to get off.
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/research-guide-no-14-horse-buses-in-london.pdf
Page 187, Position 3: The Maori word for London is Ranana.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/18965/rananalondon-sign
Page 187, Position 4: Texas is Norwegian slang for ‘crazy’.
http://www.neatorama.com/2015/10/21/In-Norwegian-Texas-Is-Slang-for-Crazy/
Page 188, Position 1: Project Orion was a plan to use nuclear weapons to power spacecraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
Page 188, Position 2: Every year, thousands of Norwegian children are sent to fake refugee camps so they can experience what it’s like.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4448100.htm
Page 188, Position 3: Dr Seuss wrote a film that was banned because it predicted the Manhattan Project.
http://publicdomainreview.org/2015/03/25/ignorant-armies-private-snafu-goes-to-war/
Page 188, Position 4: In 1964, the US set off nuclear bombs under Mississippi.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/27089/mushroom-clouds-mississippi-little-known-history-nuclear-testing-american-south
Page 189, Position 1: It would take 136 billion sheets of A4 to print out the Internet.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/11565810/British-student-calculates-sheet-of-paper-needed-to-print-the-internet.html
Page 189, Position 2: It’s theoretically safe to swim in a pool used to store spent nuclear fuel, as long as you stay near the surface.
http://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
Page 189, Position 3: America’s nuclear weapons are still controlled by floppy discs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36385839
Page 189, Position 4: Space-time is a billion billion billion times stiffer than steel.
Marcus Chown #Relativity on Trial#, Focus magazine, Issue 288 December 2015 p40
Page 190, Position 1: The bristlemouth fish is the most common vertebrate on the planet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/science/bristlemouth-ocean-deep-sea-cyclothone.html?smid=tw-share&_r=2
Page 190, Position 2: Smartphone users touch their phone 2,617 times a day.
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3092446/smartphones/we-touch-our-phones-2617-times-a-day-says-study.html
Page 190, Position 3: Computers cannot generate random numbers.
http://engineering.mit.edu/ask/can-computer-generate-truly-random-number
Page 190, Position 4: Manta rays are the only fish that can recognise themselves in a mirror.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22930664-400-manta-rays-are-first-fish-to-recognise-themselves-in-a-mirror/?cmpid=NLC|NSNS|2016-2403-GLOB&utm_medium=NLC&utm_source=NSNSAL
Page 191, Position 1: If a bald eagle loses a feather on one wing, it sheds the same feather on the other to maintain balance.
http://detroitzoo.org/animals/zoo-animals/bald-eagle/
Page 191, Position 2: The genitals of the male priapiumfish are under its chin.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/get-on-your-bike-phallostethus-cuulong/
Page 191, Position 3: Starfish can regrow a whole new body from a single arm.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/inkfish/2015/06/19/starfish-ruin-an-experiment-and-reveal-a-superpower/#.V2vb4M5Ging
Page 191, Position 4: An injured moon jellyfish grows new tissue to remain symmetrical.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/150615-jellyfish-symmetry-animals-science-oceans/
Page 192, Position 1: 1 in 3 children pretend to believe in Santa Claus to keep their parents happy.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/age-british-kids-stop-believing-7034592
Page 192, Position 2: Shuttlecocks used in professional badminton are made of feathers from the left wing of a goose. Feathers from the right wing make them spin the wrong way.
http://www.worldbadminton.com/commentary/shuttleConstruction.htm
Page 192, Position 3: It is illegal in the US to pick up and keep bird feathers.
http://craftingagreenworld.com/2015/05/29/found-feather-craft-illegal/
Page 192, Position 4: Orthodox Jewish couples abstain from sex on Christmas Eve. Rabbis used to advise them to pass the time tearing toilet paper instead.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/faithbased/2009/12/holy_night.html
Page 193, Position 1: Jerome Bonaparte, the last of Napoleon’s descendants in America, died after tripping over his dog’s lead.
http://www.nysun.com/on-the-town/end-of-the-line/11007/
Page 193, Position 2: Christmas presents in Greece aren’t delivered by Father Christmas but by Saint Basil.
http://www.explorecrete.com/traditions/christmas-newyear.htm
Page 193, Position 3: Saint Philip Neri, ‘The Humorous Saint’, once shaved off half his beard and always wore a cushion on his head.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-james-martin-sj/the-saints-were-yes-funny_b_2057837.html
Page 193, Position 4: In 1567, the man with the world’s longest-ever beard broke his neck and died after tripping over it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomphillips/incredibly-weird-deaths http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,794879-2,00.html
Page 194, Position 1: Charles Cruft also founded a cat show, but it didn’t catch on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Cruft_(showman)
Page 194, Position 2: Dog-owners who pretend not to see their dog defecating are employing what sociologists call ‘strategic non-knowledge’.
http://www.streetkleen.co.uk/latest-news/natural-waste-canine-companions-and-the-lure-of-inattentively-pooping-in-public
Page 194, Position 3: Prince Rupert of the Rhine trained his dog to urinate when it heard the enemy’s name.
http://www.historyextra.com/feature/anne-boleyns-lapdog-john-quincy-adamss-alligator-famous-people-history-and-their-bizarre-pets
Page 194, Position 4: Dogs and cats are 25% more likely to get injured or sick during a full moon.
http://www.livescience.com/1696-full-moon-sends-dogs-cats-emergency-room.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=most-popular
Page 195, Position 1: The ability to emit light has evolved independently at least 50 times in the animal kingdom.
http://www.livescience.com/19318-bioluminescent-light-organisms.html
Page 195, Position 2: During the Second World War, it was illegal to feed milk to cats.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=z5FyYtsQSrsC&pg=PA222&lpg=PA222&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 195, Position 3: Ninjas used the dilation of a cat’s pupils to tell the time.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Fdxk3Mbe0ckC&pg=PA99&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 195, Position 4: There is no word for ‘time’ in any Aboriginal language.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/09/history-society
Page 196, Position 1: The earliest known treatment for deafness was to fill the ears with a concoction of olive oil, red lead, ant’s eggs, bat’s wings and goat’s urine.
http://www.historytoday.com/alison-atkin/no-longer-deaf-past
Page 196, Position 2: Falling into a black hole would turn you into a hologram.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/06/25/black-hole-hologram/#.V2qblc5Ginh
Page 196, Position 3: A person who was invisible wouldn’t be able to see anything.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-problem-with-invisibility-is-the-blindness?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=06df18ba1e-Newsletter_3_14_20163_11_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-06df18ba1e-59773797&ct=t%28Newsletter_3_14_20163_11_2016%29&mc_cid=06df18ba1e&mc_eid=1968599da9
Page 196, Position 4: To cure blindness, ancient Egyptians poured mashed-up pig’s eye into the patient’s ear.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1569618/Ancient-Egypts-fantastic-and-weird-history.html
Page 197, Position 1: Nelson Mandela’s real first name was Rolihlahla, which means ‘trouble-maker’ in Xhosa.
#The Lives of the Famous and the Infamous; Everything You Need to Know About Everyone who Mattered by The Week# Foreword by Jeremy O'Grady (Ebury Press, 2014) p306
Page 197, Position 2: The first prosthesis, found on a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy, was a toe.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/the-perfect-3-000-year-old-toe-a-brief-history-of-prosthetic-limbs/281653/
Page 197, Position 3: With their eyes shut, most people can’t tell which of their toes is being prodded.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/people-cant-tell-which-their-toes-being-touched-180956718/?no-ist
Page 197, Position 4: Anomia is the inability to remember names.
#Oxford English Dictionary#
Page 198, Position 1: Australian sheep have been bred so large that farmers can’t shear them.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jun/10/supersized-sheep-are-too-big-to-shear-australian-livestock-expert-warns
Page 198, Position 2: Max Factor’s real name was Maksymilian Faktorowicz.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Factor,_Sr.
Page 198, Position 3: Names of 16th-century lipsticks include Ape’s Laugh, Smoked Ox and Dying Monkey.
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/07/27/ribbons-and-turpentine-a-brief-summary-of-lipstick
Page 198, Position 4: The world’s longest treadmill was built for wolves.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/dog-spies/why-the-world-s-longest-treadmill-was-created-for-wolves/
Page 199, Position 1: The first English teacher in Japan was called Ranald MacDonald.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2015/09/09/issues/macdonalds-first-english-school-japan-teachers-prison/#.V3Kot7S4mS4
Page 199, Position 2: The Big Sheep is the top tourist attraction in Devon.
http://www.thebigsheep.co.uk
Page 199, Position 3: Descartes believed that a drum made of sheep skin would stay quiet if struck at the same time as a drum made of wolf skin because, even in death, the sheep would be afraid of the wolf.
#History Today# https://goo.gl/JlRD5E
Page 199, Position 4: The first dog to play Lassie was called Pal.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-true-tale-of-lassie-491874.html
Page 200, Position 1: The earliest known ice cream recipe recommends flavouring it with whale faeces.
http://www.techinsider.io/first-ice-cream-recipe-ambergris-sperm-whale-intestines-2015-8
Page 200, Position 2: The first ice cream on a stick was called the Jolly Boy Sucker.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sLSDQRV3XUMC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 200, Position 3: The third most popular ice cream van jingle is the Match of the Day theme.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2013/jul/12/ice-cream-van-chimes-british-summer
Page 200, Position 4: Ice cream is solid, liquid and gas all at the same time.
http://gastropod.com/the-scoop-on-ice-cream/
Page 201, Position 1: Jeans were first worn by Genoan fishermen because they were easy to take off if they fell overboard.
http://varenne.tc.columbia.edu/class/common/blue_jeens.html
Page 201, Position 2: The earliest known book of manners advises: ‘Do not attack your enemy while he is squatting to defecate.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Civilized_Man
Page 201, Position 3: The ink from a lasered-off tattoo is later excreted by the wearer.
http://nerdist.com/how-do-lasers-remove-tattoos-by-helping-you-poop-them-out/
Page 201, Position 4: Gunmen in the Wild West didn’t wear holsters on their thighs, or call themselves ‘gunslingers’.
http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2014/7/24/what-really-happened-in-the-wild-west-the-gunslinger-myth#.VRPFsmSsWMU=
Page 202, Position 1: New Zealand’s Ninety Mile Beach is 55 miles long.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/ninety-mile-beach
Page 202, Position 2: The ancient Romans considered wearing trousers the mark of a barbarian.
http://www.romanarmy.net/coldweather.shtml
Page 202, Position 3: When the Romans first arrived in Britain, they found the British uncouth because they had so many tattoos.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/miscellanea/geography.html
Page 202, Position 4: The Maoris arrived in New Zealand in 1300.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/10/23/3616026.htm
Page 203, Position 1: Tuberculosis was brought to North America by seals.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28871719
Page 203, Position 2: 1 in 100 Kiwis are allergic to kiwis.
https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/research-report-kiwi-allergy-survey.pdf
Page 203, Position 3: Only 15% of the population of Qatar are Qatari.
#Editorial Intelligence# eiDigest 7.6.16
Page 203, Position 4: Fungi are responsible for more deaths than malaria and tuberculosis combined.
http://phys.org/news/2015-01-microbiologist-killer-fungi-threat.html#jCp
Page 204, Position 1: The first time aeroplanes were used by British police was in the search for Agatha Christie when she went missing in 1926.
#History Today# November 2015
Page 204, Position 2: There is an ethnic group in central India in which nobody ever suffers from back pain.
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/06/08/412314701/lost-posture-why-indigenous-cultures-dont-have-back-pain
Page 204, Position 3: A group of giraffes is called a tower.
https://www.reference.com/pets-animals/call-group-giraffes-f543b79e584a1ee7
Page 204, Position 4: The maximum height for cabin crew in the first tiny Ryanair planes was 5' 2" – the same as the current minimum.
https://www.gocabincrew.com/getting-selected/what-is-the-minimum-height-for-cabin-crew/ http://corporate.ryanair.com/about-us/history-of-ryanair/
Page 205, Position 1: Evelyn Waugh’s first wife’s name was Evelyn. They were known as He-Evelyn and She-Evelyn.
http://evelynwaughsociety.org/about-evelyn-waugh/
Page 205, Position 2: Sherlock Holmes cases not written up by Watson include ‘A Full Account of Ricoletti of the Club Foot and his Abominable Wife’ and ‘The Politician, the Lighthouse and the Trained Cormorant’.
http://www.bestofsherlock.com/ref/untold.htm
Page 205, Position 3: Jack London, Hugh Walpole and P. G. Wodehouse were all published by Mills & Boon.
http://blog.oup.com/2015/12/jack-london-mills-boon-first-world-war/?
Page 205, Position 4: John le Carré’s father once seduced a woman on a night train by claiming to be John le Carré.
#London Review of Books# 3 Dec 2015
Page 206, Position 1: The Nazis didn’t call themselves Nazis because Nazi is German slang for ‘country bumpkin’.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8843158/Why-Hitler-hated-being-called-a-Nazi-and-whats-really-in-humble-pie-origins-of-words-and-phrases-revealed.html
Page 206, Position 2: Hitler wrote a sequel to Mein Kampf but never published it in case it affected the sales of the original.
http://theartofpolemics.com/2013/04/17/a-brief-inquiry-into-adolf-hitlers-zweites-buch/
Page 206, Position 3: Hitler’s sister-in-law Bridget wrote a memoir called My Brother-in-Law Adolf.
http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/Census-shows-Hitlers-half-brother-married-to-an-Irishwoman-lived-in-Liverpool.html
Page 206, Position 4: During the Second World War, the Allies considered dropping glue onto Nazi troops to make them stick to the ground.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/8701034/Revealed-sex-hormone-plan-to-feminise-Hitler.html
Page 207, Position 1: The town of Ypres in Belgium has a cat festival to commemorate their former sport of tossing cats from the bell tower.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/world/what-in-the-world/belgium-cat-thrown-tower-ypres.html
Page 207, Position 2: British sailors in the Second World War wore tattoos of pigs and roosters to protect against drowning.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/12/a-visual-guide-to-sailor-tattoos/250208/#slide11
Page 207, Position 3: In the first two years of the First World War, a soldier who broke a leg had an 80% chance of dying.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zs3wpv4
Page 207, Position 4: 901 British babies born in the First World War were christened Verdun, 71 were called Ypres and there were 15 Sommes.
http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/battle-babies/?utm_source=The%20National%20Archives&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6724312_FWW%20update%20February&dm_i=MAN,404IG,664505,EGQQE,1
Page 208, Position 1: American inventor Buckminster Fuller slept for just two hours a night.
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,774680,00.html
Page 208, Position 2: Until 1993, the location of the Post Office Tower was a national secret.
http://home.bt.com/news/world-news/october-8-1965-the-bt-tower-britains-tallest-building-opens-in-london-11364009269376
Page 208, Position 3: Gustav Eiffel didn’t design the Eiffel Tower.
http://www.history.com/topics/eiffel-tower
Page 208, Position 4: Newton’s Cradle was invented by French physicist Edme Mariotte.
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~cross/PUBLICATIONS/59.%20NewtonsCradle.pdf
Page 209, Position 1: ‘Ruperts’ were dummy parachutists dropped as decoys on D-Day.
http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/d-day-june-6-1944.html?referrer=https://www.google.co.uk/
Page 209, Position 2: Thomas Edison and Henry Ford went on road trips together.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-americas-titans-industry-and-innovation-went-road-tripping-together-180957924/?no-ist
Page 209, Position 3: Leonardo da Vinci designed chairs made of cake, a giant whisk as tall as a giraffe, and a horse-powered nutcracker.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-davinci-was-a-wedding-planner?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20160718&bt_email=john_hardress_lloyd@hotmail.com&bt_ts=1468863922553
Page 209, Position 4: ‘Generator’ was a name Crimean politicians asked people to call their sons in 2015 to bring attention to the country’s power crisis.
http://bigstory.ap.org/cc177cf91f644f08bfdf0632940520d7
Page 210, Position 1: The anti-spam industry is worth more than the spam industry.
#Numeroids# by O'Brien & Weldon (BFP, 2008)
Page 210, Position 2: In 2013, 37 British babies were named Loki, after the Norse god of mischief.
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_413707.pdf
Page 210, Position 3: In 2013, Gary was a less popular baby name in the UK than either Loki or Thor.
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_413707.pdf
Page 210, Position 4: Bluetooth is named after Harald Bluetooth, the Viking king who united Norway and Denmark.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-is-bluetooth-called-bluetooth-hint-vikings-16270647/?no-ist
Page 211, Position 1: Emails in the Vatican are called inscriptio cursus electronici.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/9511929/Latin-rebirth-in-schools.html
Page 211, Position 2: Selfies kill more people than sharks.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/photography/selfies-are-killing-more-people-than-shark-attacks-10512449.html
Page 211, Position 3: Young British adults rate an Internet connection as more important than daylight.
http://harpers.org/archive/2016/06/harpers-index-383/
Page 211, Position 4: The first email had to be printed out to be read.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/what-comes-after-email/422625/
Page 212, Position 1: Catherine de’ Medici used poisoned gloves to kill her enemies.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-catherine-de-medici-made-gloves-laced-with-poison-fashionable
Page 212, Position 2: Hydrangea serratifolia means ‘with serrated leaves’. It actually has smooth leaves but the original sample had been nibbled.
#The Naming of the Shrew#, John Wright
Page 212, Position 3: Lichen aromaticus has no aroma but the original specimen arrived in a perfumed envelope.
#The Naming of the Shrew#, John Wright
Page 212, Position 4: In the 16th century, you could buy perfumed ‘sweet gloves’ to offset the fact that glove leather was softened by being steeped in dog poo.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-catherine-de-medici-made-gloves-laced-with-poison-fashionable
Page 213, Position 1: Scorpions can have 12 eyes.
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tt.html
Page 213, Position 2: The golden dart frog, the world’s most toxic amphibian, can’t produce poison if born in captivity.
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/golden-poison-dart-frog/
Page 213, Position 3: The toxic ribs of Spanish ribbed newts burst out of their sides to stab predators.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8212000/8212623.stm
Page 213, Position 4: A gram of scorpion poison costs £415.
415
Page 214, Position 1: In the 19th century, people with ‘cement delusion’ believed they were made of cement.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32625632
Page 214, Position 2: Antimatter costs £17 billion per gram.
17 billion per gram.
Page 214, Position 3: There are 568 billionaires in China.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/financephotos/the-countries-with-the-most-billionaires-revealed/ss-BBqbyet?ocid=MSN_UK_NL_MO35#image=21
Page 214, Position 4: China used more cement between 2011 and 2013 than the US did in the entire 20th century.
#The Week# 26.12.15 (quoting The Times)
Page 215, Position 1: 10 million glasses of Guinness are sold every day.
https://www.guinness-storehouse.com/content/pdf/factsheets/factsheet_pdf_10.pdf
Page 215, Position 2: Charles VII of France thought he was made of glass and wrapped himself in blankets to prevent his buttocks shattering.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32625632
Page 215, Position 3: The carbon dioxide in a bottle of champagne would fill six bottles if stored at normal pressure.
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/31/16255128-the-science-of-champagne-bubbles-up-again-for-new-years-eve
Page 215, Position 4: More Guinness is drunk in Nigeria than in Ireland.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/aug/30/9
Page 216, Position 1: In 2014, US naturalist Paul Rosalie went on the TV show Eaten Alive to be swallowed by an anaconda, but bailed out the moment the snake attached its jaws to his helmet.
http://www.latinpost.com/articles/27351/20141208/viewers-peta-disappointed-discovery-channel-tv-show-eaten-alive-man.htm
Page 216, Position 2: The apostrophe after the letter ‘O’ in Irish names was added by the British, who thought it needed a link to the rest of the name. Many Irish speakers refuse to use it.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=266&dat=20080228&id=afcrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=DG0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=5546,5601455&hl=en
Page 216, Position 3: The area round Dublin under British rule was called the Pale, hence the expression ‘beyond the pale’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7Vn_o5MQWeIC&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 216, Position 4: A ‘swearing consultant’ was hired for the BBC sitcom The Thick of It.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/jun/30/tvandradio.broadcasting
Page 217, Position 1: One in every 900 men from American Samoa play in the National Football League.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/leighsteinberg/2015/05/21/how-can-tiny-samoa-dominate-the-nfl/#2715e4857a0b2c622eee1d48
Page 217, Position 2: The BBC’s most popular export is Keeping Up Appearances.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2016/sitcom-season
Page 217, Position 3: Nine of the top 10 highest-rated TV programmes in Portuguese history were football matches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts#Portugal
Page 217, Position 4: F. Scott Fitzgerald invented the idea of offensive and defensive teams in American football.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-football-genius-of-f-scott-fitzgerald-1414166403
Page 218, Position 1: Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, changed its name from Hot Springs to get the radio quiz show Truth or Consequences to record there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_or_Consequences,_New_Mexico
Page 218, Position 2: The crowd at Seattle Seahawks games is so loud that the US Geological Survey uses the vibrations to calibrate its seismographs.
http://www.livescience.com/49407-seahawks-playoffs-earthquake-warning-system.html
Page 218, Position 3: US cities with teams that reach the Super Bowl suffer an 18% increase in deaths from flu.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/super-bowl-team-cities-see-more-flu-deaths/
Page 218, Position 4: No Creek, Kentucky, acquired its name after a surveyor was overheard saying, ‘Why, that’s no creek at all.’
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9htGAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT40&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 219, Position 1: 92% of pop songs that mention the Sun are in a major key.
http://www.metlink.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Brown_et_al-2015-Weather.pdf
Page 219, Position 2: Whorehouse Meadow in Oregon was renamed Naughty Girl Meadow in the 1960s but was changed back again by public demand.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/534650.html
Page 219, Position 3: Yakutat, Alaska, is six times the size of the state of Rhode Island but only has a population of 662.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakutat,_Alaska
Page 219, Position 4: Yuma, Arizona, is the sunniest place in the world: on any given day there is a 90% chance of sunshine.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160127-which-spot-on-earth-gets-the-most-sunlight
Page 220, Position 1: Until the 20th century, a hangover meant ‘unfinished business’.
#Oxford English Dictionary#
Page 220, Position 2: The 1956 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica described rock ’n’ roll as ‘insistent savagery’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=N82IBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT91&lpg=PT91&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 220, Position 3: Names of Japanese rock bands include Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her, Mass of the Fermenting Dregs and Abingdon Boys School.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_alternative_rock_groups
Page 220, Position 4: A Japanese person who moves to America doubles their chances of fatal heart disease.
https://myheartsisters.org/2010/07/17/heart-disease-countries/
Page 221, Position 1: Harper Lee’s friends gave her a year’s wages for Christmas 1956 so she could take time off to finish To Kill a Mockingbird.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/12165334/To-Kill-a-Mockingbird-author-Harper-Lee-dies-aged-89-reports-say-latest-news-and-reaction.html
Page 221, Position 2: Drinking water hardly helps hangovers at all.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34072712
Page 221, Position 3: Every time Alfred Hitchcock drank a cup of tea, he smashed the teacup.
http://metro.co.uk/2015/08/04/15-things-you-may-not-know-about-alfred-hitchcock-5317037/
Page 221, Position 4: Hitchcock bought up all the copies of the novel Psycho so people wouldn’t find out the ending.
http://www.wired.com/2012/11/hitchcock-psycho/
Page 222, Position 1: Every evening at 10 p.m., it’s a tradition for Swedish students to open their windows and start screaming.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/12/flogsta-scream-sweden_n_2462868.html
Page 222, Position 2: Terry Pratchett had 10 honorary doctorates and was an honorary Brownie.
http://www.lookoutmountainbookstore.com/?page=shop/disp&pid=page_Gaiman
Page 222, Position 3: After he was knighted, Sir Terry Pratchett made his own sword out of meteorites.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/when-terry-pratchett-was-knighted-he-forged-his-own-sword-out-of-meteorite-10104321.html
Page 222, Position 4: Finnish students carry a doctoral sword to their graduation ceremony.
https://www.jyu.fi/en/academic-events/degrees-ceremony/instruct/doctoral-hats-and-sword
Page 223, Position 1: In Copenhagen, there are more bicycles than people.
http://denmark.dk/en/green-living/bicycle-culture/copenhageners-love-their-bikes/
Page 223, Position 2: The 1912 Stockholm Olympics was the last time the gold medals were made from pure gold.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_medal
Page 223, Position 3: If Sweden plays Denmark, it’s abbreviated to SWE–DEN; the remaining letters spell DEN–MARK.
the remaining letters spell DEN-MARK.
Page 223, Position 4: Though Denmark is the world’s least corrupt country, 12% of Danes know someone who’s taken a bribe.
http://qz.com/173397/lithuanians-and-romanians-are-more-than-six-times-as-likely-to-be-asked-for-bribes-than-the-eu-average/
Page 224, Position 1: Evel Knievel holds the world record for most bones broken in a lifetime (433).
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-broken-bones-in-a-lifetime/
Page 224, Position 2: The Tricycle Union was founded in 1882 to distance tricyclists from bicyclists, who were considered disgraceful.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IsbmwN8-m1cC&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 224, Position 3: The first motorcycles were built in the 1860s and were powered by steam.
http://stanleymotorcarriage.com/SteamPacingBike/index.htm
Page 224, Position 4: When Evel Knievel starred in the 1977 film Viva Knievel! he used a stunt double.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/VivaKnievel
Page 225, Position 1: During the Second World War, experts claimed to be able to identify pigeons with a German accent.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YC4cBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT83&lpg=PT83&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 225, Position 2: A Japanese motorcycle that runs on animal dung has a toilet-shaped seat.
http://metro.co.uk/2012/08/24/poo-powered-toto-motorcycle-toilet-bike-neo-kicking-up-a-stink-in-japan-549656/
Page 225, Position 3: In Japan, nightingale droppings are used as a face cream.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=R_JMDkNR8xgC&pg=PA13&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 225, Position 4: In 2008, Japan and Britain (without mentioning the war) officially celebrated 150 years of friendly relations.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/little-britain-how-the-rest-of-the-world-sees-us-2043190.html
Page 226, Position 1: When James Keir Hardie, Britain’s first socialist MP, arrived at Parliament in 1892, a police officer thought he was there to mend the roof.
#The Establishment# - Owen Jones
Page 226, Position 2: In 2013, a kestrel was arrested in Turkey on suspicion of spying for Israel.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2379871/Turkey-arrests-KESTREL-spying-Israel--releases-charge-X-ray-shows-did-contain-surveillance-equipment.html
Page 226, Position 3: It takes between 60 and 80 intelligence agents to monitor a single terrorist suspect round the clock.
#The Week# 26.12.15 (quoting The Economist)
Page 226, Position 4: The UK and Iran are the only countries in the world to have unelected clerics sitting in the legislature.
#The Establishment# - Owen Jones
Page 227, Position 1: People pour 9% more white wine into a glass than red.
http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/discoveries/dont-blame-yourself-pouring-too-much-wine
Page 227, Position 2: Between 2010 and 2015, British MPs drank 625,464 cans and bottles of Coke, and ate 659,470 chocolate bars.
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21692923-mps-are-united-against-sugar-consumptionexcept-their-own-canteen-do-i-say-not-i-chew
Page 227, Position 3: Sir Kenelm Digby, inventor of the modern wine bottle, was a pirate whose father had tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b76-BO5_CCYC&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 227, Position 4: Drinking one glass of wine makes you more attractive; drinking a second undoes all the good work.
drinking a second undoes all the good work.
Page 228, Position 1: In 1946, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev became the chief designer of the Soviet missile programme. Six years earlier, he had been in a Gulag expecting to die.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/mar/13/yuri-gagarin-first-space-korolev
Page 228, Position 2: You’d need to do 60 squats to offset the weight gain caused by a large glass of red wine.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/like-glass-wine-how-many-8061339
Page 228, Position 3: In 16th-century Italy, ‘corked’ wine was thought to have been spoiled by a witch’s urine.
http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2016/05/hints-of-cherry-and-witchs-urine-1400-ad-2.html
Page 228, Position 4: The Soviet 588th Night Bomber regiment was an all-female squadron known by the Germans as the ‘Night Witches’.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/flight-of-the-night-witches-wwii-s-all-female-fighting-force
Page 229, Position 1: Walruses suffer from dandruff.
http://yucky.discovery.com/flash/body/yuckystuff/dandruff/js.index.html
Page 229, Position 2: The original ‘flying saucers’, reported in 1947, were shaped like boomerangs.
http://www.livescience.com/33351-flying-saucers-turn-64-look-back-origins-ufos.html
Page 229, Position 3: UFOs in the Large Hadron Collider are ‘Unidentified Falling Objects’.
http://www.livescience.com/17207-ufos-disrupting-search-god-particle.html
Page 229, Position 4: In April 2016, the Large Hadron Collider was shut down after a weasel fell into it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36173247
Page 230, Position 1: In the early 1700s, Lady Eleanor Glanville was declared insane because she liked collecting butterflies.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-34613505
Page 230, Position 2: Porcupines eat canoe paddles.
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/porcupine/
Page 230, Position 3: Balsa wood is mothproof.
http://www.kepu.com.cn/english/banna/trepalhyd/tre09.html
Page 230, Position 4: 85 million years before butterflies existed, there was another insect that looked and acted exactly like a butterfly.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/04/butterflies-forty-million-years-before-butterflies/
Page 231, Position 1: In 2014, two scientific journals accepted a nonsense paper from a made-up university co-authored by ‘Maggie Simpson’.
http://www.vox.com/2014/12/7/7339587/simpsons-science-paper
Page 231, Position 2: Both Saturn and Jupiter began as collections of pebbles.
http://www.heritagedaily.com/2015/08/scientists-think-planetary-pebbles-were-the-building-blocks-for-the-largest-planets/108123
Page 231, Position 3: Some archaeologists think the erection of Stonehenge was primarily a team-building exercise.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/10523016/Why-was-Stonehenge-built-The-eight-most-popular-theories.html
Page 231, Position 4: In 2015, a 10-year scientific study concluded that punching glass is dangerous.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4494506/
Page 232, Position 1: Malaysian athletes who win an Olympic gold medal are also awarded a solid gold bar.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/badminton/9454128/Gold-bar-dream-ends-for-Malaysias-Olympic-badminton-team-and-Lee-Chong-Wei-after-magnates-promise.html
Page 232, Position 2: A scientific paper looking into the spells of Harry Potter concluded they would need magic to work.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/27/scientists-test-reality-of-harry-potter-magic-university-leicester-gillyweed-skele-gro
Page 232, Position 3: The more people believe in witchcraft, the less they tend to give to charity.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/witchcraft-economy-africa-a7023081.html
Page 232, Position 4: The Bank of England only owns two gold bars.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/07/12/bank-of-england-app_n_3584746.html
Page 233, Position 1: As a penniless young actor in a tiny bedsit, Nigel Hawthorne survived mainly on sultanas.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1366346/Sir-Nigel-Hawthorne.html
Page 233, Position 2: US coins last 20 times as long as dollar bills.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4fTaCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT41&lpg=PT41#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 233, Position 3: A one-tiyin coin in Uzbekistan is worth one three-thousandth of 1p.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21572359
Page 233, Position 4: Ecstasy, cocaine and heroin are all more expensive than gold.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/18/the-most-valuable-substances-in-the-world-by-weight/heroin/
Page 234, Position 1: Dunnocks copulate 100 times a day, for a tenth of a second at a time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnock
Page 234, Position 2: Jimmy Stewart was a brigadier general in the US Air Force.
http://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/career-advice/military-transition/famous-veteran-jimmy-stewart.html
Page 234, Position 3: J. B. Priestley claimed George Bernard Shaw disliked the Grand Canyon because it was more important than he was.
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/behind-the-scenes-dramas-that-led-me-to-priestley-s-door-1-2471716
Page 234, Position 4: A peacock’s tail is 60% of its entire weight.
https://animalcorner.co.uk/animals/peafowl/
Page 235, Position 1: In China, it is illegal to post erotic banana videos online.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-36226141
Page 235, Position 2: Harris hawks stand on each other’s shoulders to get a better view.
https://www.desertmuseum.org/kids/oz/long-fact-sheets/Harris%20Hawk.php
Page 235, Position 3: Ravens get stoned by rubbing chewed-up ants on their feathers.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1966.tb03890.x/full
Page 235, Position 4: Drugs are smuggled into prison by stuffing them into dead birds and hitting them over the fence with a tennis racket.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/revealed-number-of-banned-items-thrown-into-london-prisons-up-by-more-than-400-per-cent-a3249746.html
Page 236, Position 1: A ‘nookie-bookie’ is a pimp or madam.
#Oxford English Dictionary#
Page 236, Position 2: Humans can be aroused by touching a robot’s genitals.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/04/07/study_finds_touching_robot_private_parts_is_physiologically_arousing.html
Page 236, Position 3: 30% of objects left in hotel rooms are sex toys.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sex-toys-account-massive-30-5897105
Page 236, Position 4: The happiest couples are those who have sex once a week.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/couples-who-have-sex-just-once-a-week-are-happiest/
Page 237, Position 1: South African cows wear reflective earrings at night to make them visible to drivers.
http://www.iol.co.za/motoring/industry-news/mec-moots-reflective-earrings-for-cows-2041766
Page 237, Position 2: Star Trek almost failed to get a commission because the pilot was too erotic.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZfMeCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT15&lpg=PT15&dq=star+trek+pilot+was+too+erotic.&source=bl&ots=jaOpnjvu8d&sig=7KdrUfEqPmpq9m33lMvNjI8t6kU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFp_Kyxv3NAhXoBcAKHYlwDA8Q6AEIOzAF#v=onepage&q=star%20trek%20pilot%20was%20too%20erotic.&f=false
Page 237, Position 3: Former England rugby captain Phil Vickery is a qualified cattle inseminator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Vickery_(rugby_union)
Page 237, Position 4: There are tunnels under New York that were once used to transport cattle to slaughterhouses.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2014/05/23/_99_percent_invisible_by_roman_mars_do_underground_cow_tunnels_really_exist.html
Page 238, Position 1: Newborn babies have accents.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091105-babies-cry-accents.html
Page 238, Position 2: In 2010, a Bulgarian councillor was sacked for milking virtual cows on the gaming app FarmVille during budget meetings.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/30/dimitar-kerin-fired-over-_n_518635.html
Page 238, Position 3: In the 18th century, people washed their faces and polished their shoes with asses’ milk.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eU8JAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 238, Position 4: The world’s heaviest newborn baby weighed 22 lb 8 oz.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-36387138
Page 239, Position 1: In the 2014 World Cup, Ecuadorean Enner Valencia was on the ground feigning injury four seconds after kick-off.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-world-rankings-of-flopping-1403660175
Page 239, Position 2: First-born children tend to be taller, fatter, more allergy-prone, more cautious and have a higher IQ than their younger siblings.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929330.700#.VH9Jihw0g59
Page 239, Position 3: Ukrainians are 13 times more likely to die of heart disease than the Japanese.
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/coronary-heart-disease/by-country/
Page 239, Position 4: In the 1966 World Cup, the Brazilians drank so much coffee they were worried they would be banned for doping.
#The Economist# 1st July 2016
Page 240, Position 1: In 1947, English footballers’ salaries were capped at £12 a week.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/8265851/How-footballers-wages-have-changed-over-the-years-in-numbers.html
Page 240, Position 2: Before penalty shoot-outs, Argentinian goalkeeper Sergio Goycochea would urinate on the pitch for good luck.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/4805924/Top-10-Football-superstitions-to-rival-Arsenals-Kolo-Toure.html
Page 240, Position 3: To distinguish the two sides at the first US college football game in 1869, the home team wore turbans.
http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2015/08/25/ready-for-football-remembering-the-first-game-between-princeton-and-rutgers/
Page 240, Position 4: San Marino’s national football team has only ever won one match.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/mar/16/san-marino-england-world-cup-2014
Page 241, Position 1: The word ‘anticipation’ once meant money paid as an advance on salary.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5n6lBwAAQBAJ&pg=PP1&dq#v=onepage&q=anticipation&f=false
Page 241, Position 2: An 18th-century tradesman or clerk took a year to earn what a prostitute could make in a month.
http://www.economist.com/node/14636924
Page 241, Position 3: More than a billion people in the modern world live on no more than $1 a day.
http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/briefingpapers/food/vitalstats.shtml
Page 241, Position 4: One in a million people have four kidneys, but most of them don’t know they do.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/feb/19/health
Page 242, Position 1: The word ‘wow’ was popular in Scotland for 400 years before it caught on in the rest of the Englishspeaking world.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=wow
Page 242, Position 2: 1 in 16 of the words you encounter every day is ‘the’.
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/09/the-zipf-mystery.html
Page 242, Position 3: The word ‘ushers’ contains five pronouns: us, she, he, her and hers.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/pronouns-personal-i-me-you-him-it-they-etc
Page 242, Position 4: ‘Hurkle-durkle’ is a Scottish word meaning to lounge around when you should be up and about.
http://haggardhawksblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/hurkle-durkle.html
Page 243, Position 1: The word ‘era’ is a solution in the New York Times crossword about 20 times a year.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-plagiarism-scandal-is-unfolding-in-the-crossword-world/
Page 243, Position 2: Transposing ‘a’ for ‘z’, ‘b’ for ‘y’ and so on in the word ‘wizard’ produces ‘draziw’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atbash
Page 243, Position 3: At the 2011 World Scrabble Championship, one player demanded another be strip-searched after a letter ‘G’ went missing.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/g-for-guilty-lost-letter-spells-trouble-at-world-scrabble-contest-2371616.html
Page 243, Position 4: Scrabble’s inventor assigned values to letters by counting their frequencies in the New York Times.
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/gaming/2013/01/scrabble_tile_values_why_it_s_a_mistake_to_change_the_point_value_of_the.html
Page 244, Position 1: ‘Manhattan’ is from the Algonquian manahachtanienk, meaning ‘the place we all got drunk’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenapehoking
Page 244, Position 2: The New York City Police Department has 1.2 million open arrest warrants.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/theslice/new-york-broken-windows-arrest-warrants-begin-again?src=longreads
Page 244, Position 3: Pinball is illegal in Beacon, New York.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Jackpot-Oakland-decriminalizing-pinball-machines-5565613.php
Page 244, Position 4: New York was originally called New Angoulême.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Angouleme
Page 245, Position 1: Einstein patented a fridge.
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/books/non_fiction/article1578254.ece.
Page 245, Position 2: 20% of licensed attorneys in the US have a drinking problem.
http://harpers.org/archive/2016/06/harpers-index-383/
Page 245, Position 3: Ancient Egyptians had slaves who cooled their wine with fans.
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/books/non_fiction/article1578254.ece
Page 245, Position 4: The first domestic fridge was invented by a monk to chill the monastery wine.
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/books/non_fiction/article1578254.ece.
Page 246, Position 1: Saturn’s moons have volcanoes that erupt ice.
http://www.space.com/10486-ice-volcano-saturn-moon-titan.html
Page 246, Position 2: Yoda was based on Einstein.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/02/08/stuart_freeborn_designed_yoda_based_on_himself_who_else_looks_like_their.html
Page 246, Position 3: When Einstein solved the problem of Mercury’s orbit, he had heart palpitations and couldn’t work for three days.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151104-newton-einstein-gravity-vulcan-planets-mercury-astronomy-theory-of-relativity-ngbooktalk/
Page 246, Position 4: Neptune was discovered within an hour of astronomers starting to look for it.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Urbain-Jean-Joseph-Le-Verrier
Page 247, Position 1: NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building is so big it has its own weather.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/vehicle-assembly-building
Page 247, Position 2: In the last 20 years, amateur stargazers have discovered more comets than all the astronomers in history combined.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/09/sungrazer_project_finds_its_3_000th_comet_soho_s_lasco_instrument_finds.html
Page 247, Position 3: Anyone can submit a name for a new planet.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/10248166/Public-granted-permission-to-name-planets-and-moons.html
Page 247, Position 4: In the 19th century, there were multiple sightings of a non-existent planet called Vulcan.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151104-newton-einstein-gravity-vulcan-planets-mercury-astronomy-theory-of-relativity-ngbooktalk/
Page 248, Position 1: In 1783, the eruption of an Icelandic volcano caused a deadly fog in Britain that killed 20,000 people.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8624791.stm
Page 248, Position 2: Apollo 13 nearly crashed on take-off but a second malfunction fixed the first malfunction.
http://www.universetoday.com/62362/13-things-that-saved-apollo-13-part-1-timing/
Page 248, Position 3: Because its terrain is so similar to the Moon, Apollo astronauts trained in Iceland.
http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2015/07/26/apollo_astronauts_visit_iceland/
Page 248, Position 4: Beer was illegal in Iceland until 1989.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31622038
Page 249, Position 1: The 7th time park ranger Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning happened shortly after the 22nd time he’d had to fight off a bear with his stick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Sullivan#Seven_strikes
Page 249, Position 2: In 1874, plans were drawn up to take corpses from all over Europe and cremate them in Vesuvius.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A04EED71F3FE73BBC4E52DFBF66838D669FDE
Page 249, Position 3: A taxidermist in Inverness-shire makes sporrans from roadkill.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/scots-designer-who-turns-roadkill-into-sporrans-to-die-for-1-819822
Page 249, Position 4: 121 bell-ringers were killed by lightning in Germany between 1750 and 1783, due to a belief that church bells drove away storms.
http://upvoted.com/2015/10/22/why-being-a-medieval-bell-ringer-was-one-of-the-worst-jobs-in-history/
Page 250, Position 1: You can be allergic to your own sweat.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/150784/20160417/woman-allergic-to-own-sweat-tears-signs-symptoms-treatment-for-cholinergic-urticaria.htm
Page 250, Position 2: Florida has more bear-hunters than bears.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/wildlife/permits-for-bear-hunting-in-danger-of-outnumbering-actual-bears/2240282
Page 250, Position 3: More people are killed by teddy bears than by grizzly bears.
http://www.childinjurylawyerblog.com/2010/03/are_teddy_bears_more_likely_to.html
Page 250, Position 4: A ‘bugbear’ was a hobgoblin in the shape of a bear.
oed.com
Page 251, Position 1: Families in Timbuktu descended from the Moors expelled from Granada in 1492 still have the keys to their former homes.
#In the Glow of the Phantom Palace: Travels from Granada to Timbuktu# - Michael Jacobs
Page 251, Position 2: The man who discovered why we sweat did so by getting into a sauna with a dog, a steak and an egg.
http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/experiments-and-observations-in-a-heated-room-1774/
Page 251, Position 3: The man who discovered the source of the Nile accidentally shot himself with a rifle while climbing over a stile.
#BBC History# Sep 2014
Page 251, Position 4: The first westerner to attempt to find Timbuktu died after trying to cure an attack of vomiting by drinking sulphuric acid.
http://strangeco.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/the-search-for-timbuktu.html
Page 252, Position 1: Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is an invented word meaning ‘the fear of long words’.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia
Page 252, Position 2: The name Timbuktu comes from a word meaning ‘woman with a sticking-out belly button’.
http://www.exploretimbuktu.com/culture/culture/orgines_tbt.html https://www.britannica.com/place/Timbuktu-Mali
Page 252, Position 3: Mexico Tenochtitlan, the name of the Aztecs’ capital, means ‘Navel of the Universe’.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/may/23/mexico I'm Not Hanging Noodles On Your Ears. Jag Bhalla.
Page 252, Position 4: There is a species of leech that lives in the rectums of hippopotamuses.
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/absurd-creature-of-the-week-hippo-butt-leech-placobdelloides-jaegerskioeldi/
Page 253, Position 1: A wedding of 100 guests at 10 tables has 65 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion seating possibilities.
#The Mathematics of Love#, Hannah Fry
Page 253, Position 2: The longest word in Bulgarian means ‘do not perform actions against the constitution’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_words#Bulgarian
Page 253, Position 3: ‘Semantic satiation’ is repeating a word so often it sounds like nonsense.
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/10/repeating-a-word-until-it-loses-meaning-a-thing.html
Page 253, Position 4: The word ‘bride’ is from an ancient root meaning ‘to brew or make broth’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=bride&searchmode=none
Page 254, Position 1: Fish-scaled geckos escape predators by literally jumping out of their skins.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28409-lizard-literally-jumps-out-of-its-skin-to-escape-predators-jaws/
Page 254, Position 2: From 1489 to 1493, Leonardo da Vinci was a wedding planner.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-davinci-was-a-wedding-planner
Page 254, Position 3: When women ovulate, their faces get slightly redder, but most men don’t notice.
http://www.livescience.com/51395-sign-women-ovulating-face.html
Page 254, Position 4: The thinnest skin on the human body is on the eyelids.
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tt.html
Page 255, Position 1: The smallest shark is less than 10 inches long and glows in the dark.
http://www.sdnhm.org/kids/sharks/faq.html
Page 255, Position 2: The Palmato gecko drinks water off its own eyeballs.
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/namibia/namib-naukluft-park/travel-tips-and-articles/life-as-youve-never-known-it-namibias-most-exotic-creatures
Page 255, Position 3: Sharks don’t drink at all; they absorb seawater through their gills.
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/water-h2o-life/life-in-water/surviving-in-salt-water/
Page 255, Position 4: Female sharks can store sperm in their bodies for four years before using it.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/long-term-sperm-shark-gives-birth-4-years-after-contact-with-male/
Page 256, Position 1: Mexico has a festival where Nativity scenes are carved out of radishes; in 2014, they used 12 tons of them.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/festivals-and-events/The-weirdest-Christmas-traditions/
Page 256, Position 2: Cockroaches can see in the dark.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cockroaches-accumulate-light-to-see-in-the-dark/
Page 256, Position 3: Frogs can make their skin darker to match their surroundings, but it takes about two hours.
http://www.ipcc.ie/a-to-z-peatlands/frogs/
Page 256, Position 4: Murderous frogs featured on Victorian Christmas cards, along with children being boiled in teapots and mice riding lobsters.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34988154?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=facebook
Page 257, Position 1: Wonderpedia magazine was pulled from airport shops after it ran an article on how to build weapons from things available in airports.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2575313/Magazine-showing-build-bomb-wait-flight-pulled-shelves-UK-airports.html
Page 257, Position 2: In 1494, Piero de’ Medici commissioned Michelangelo to sculpt him a snowman.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/04/gauguin-bonnard-lost-paintings-michelangelo-snowman
Page 257, Position 3: The fake snow in The Wizard of Oz and White Christmas was made of asbestos.
http://www.mesothelioma.com/asbestos-exposure/products/fake-snow/
Page 257, Position 4: London City Airport confiscates 150 souvenir snow globes from passengers every year.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3585091/London-City-Airport-reveals-unusual-items-confiscated-passengers.html
Page 258, Position 1: Algeria’s national anthem includes the line ‘Oh France, the day of reckoning is at hand.’
#Republic or Death# - Alex Marshall
Page 258, Position 2: Flights from JFK Airport in New York are sometimes delayed so that turtles can be moved off the runways.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/30/turtle-chaos-delays-flights-jfk
Page 258, Position 3: Vancouver Airport has a bathroom for dogs.
http://www.akc.org/news/airports-install-pet-bathrooms-to-ease-dog-travel/
Page 258, Position 4: Vanuatu’s national anthem is ‘Yumi! Yumi! Yumi!’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yumi,_Yumi,_Yumi
Page 259, Position 1: It is illegal in Japan to make a human pyramid more than five tiers high.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/02/09/national/human-pyramid-guidelines-to-be-drafted-for-japanese-schools/#.V9LbvTu4mS4
Page 259, Position 2: Western Sahara’s national anthem urges its people to ‘cut off the head of the invader’.
#Republic or Death# - Alex Marshall
Page 259, Position 3: From 1919 to 1948, Korea’s national anthem was sung to the tune of ‘Auld Lang Syne’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25402099
Page 259, Position 4: Japanese department stores play ‘Auld Lang Syne’ to tell shoppers it’s closing time.
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-06-19/why-do-japanese-stores-play-auld-lang-syne-when-they-close-answer-wont-shock-or
Page 260, Position 1: The weight of Greenland’s ice sheet has made the country bowl-shaped.
http://water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycleice.html
Page 260, Position 2: By the end of the 19th century, most Samurai had desk jobs.
https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/
Page 260, Position 3: 46% of Japan’s population hide when someone rings the doorbell.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/almost-half-of-japanese-people-hide-when-doorbell-rings-survey
Page 260, Position 4: A gram of silver can be extruded into a wire over a mile long.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=j-Xu07p3cKwC&pg=PA396&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 261, Position 1: When it gets hot, bees squirt water at each other.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2098161-bees-spew-water-at-their-hive-mates-when-the-temperature-rises/
Page 261, Position 2: Nitrogen tri-iodide is so volatile that it will explode if a mosquito lands on it.
http://boingboing.net/2015/08/28/nitrogen-triiodide-so-volat.html
Page 261, Position 3: An ‘Insect of the Month’ calendar wouldn’t have to repeat a species for more than 80,000 years.
https://www.ted.com/talks/marlene_zuk_what_we_learn_from_insects_kinky_sex_lives/transcript?language=en
Page 261, Position 4: British wasps eat 14 million kilos of British insects every year.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/10/catch-the-first-wasp-to-avoid-an-attack-by-whole-swarm-scientist/
Page 262, Position 1: The world’s first robot pizza-delivery service opened in Brisbane in 2016.
http://qz.com/642666/dominos-has-announced-the-worlds-first-pizza-delivery-robot/
Page 262, Position 2: The bombardier beetle defends itself by shooting a noxious mixture of boiling chemicals out of its bottom.
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/absurd-creature-of-the-week-bombardier-beetle/
Page 262, Position 3: Only 10% of dung beetles roll dung.
http://www.improbable.com/2015/04/25/cant-get-enough-of-the-poo/
Page 262, Position 4: The world’s first flying subterranean insect was discovered in Croatia in 2016.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/worlds-first-flying-cavedwelling-insect-discovered-in-one-of-the-worlds-deepest-caves
Page 263, Position 1: The World Health Organization’s guidelines for avoiding Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) include not drinking camel urine.
http://www.who.int/csr/don/06-june-2015-mers-korea/en/
Page 263, Position 2: The first use of the word ‘snowmageddon’ was in a press release that went on to apologise for using it.
http://www.wired.com/2008/12/snowmaggedon-en/
Page 263, Position 3: The world’s first tornado forecast took place in 1948.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/until-1950-us-weathermen-were-forbidden-from-talking-about-tornados?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=4b908673ed-Newsletter_12_12_20162_11_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-4b908673ed-59773797&ct=t%28Newsletter_12_12_20162_11_2016%29&mc_cid=4b908673ed&mc_eid=1968599da9
Page 263, Position 4: US weather forecasters were forbidden to mention tornadoes between 1887 and 1950.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/until-1950-us-weathermen-were-forbidden-from-talking-about-tornados?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=4b908673ed-Newsletter_12_12_20162_11_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-4b908673ed-59773797&ct=t%28Newsletter_12_12_20162_11_2016%29&mc_cid=4b908673ed&mc_eid=1968599da9
Page 264, Position 1: In Venezuela, condoms cost more than $20 each.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-04/the-755-condom-is-the-latest-indignity-in-venezuela
Page 264, Position 2: The froth from a camel’s mouth was once used as a contraceptive.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uRJt7QqA7GEC&pg=PA261&lpg=PA261&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 264, Position 3: Ancient Egyptians used onion juice as a contraceptive.
http://www.doctorsreview.com/history/contraception-silly-sensational/
Page 264, Position 4: In ancient Japan, condoms were made from tortoise shells or animal horns.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DAc2vqmcjTYC&pg=PA122&dq
Page 265, Position 1: In the First World War, nicknames for tanks included land creepers, whippets, wibble-wobbles and willies.
#Weird War One# by Peter Taylor
Page 265, Position 2: Google searches for ‘How to put on a condom’ peak at 10.28 p.m.
http://www.today.com/money/google-results-reveal-when-what-we-search-t30476
Page 265, Position 3: Retired Google engineer Chade-Meng Tan had the official job title ‘Jolly Good Fellow (Which nobody can deny)’.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-jolly-good-fellow-chade-meng-tan-2015-9
Page 265, Position 4: Lord Byron’s nickname for William Wordsworth was William Turdsworth.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/sep/27/lord-byron-letters-sothebys-auction
Page 266, Position 1: 750,000 tons of cigarette butts are dropped on the ground around the world each year.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229750-200-time-to-kick-cigarette-butts-theyre-toxic-trash/
Page 266, Position 2: The first tank ever built was called Little Willie.
#Weird War One# by Peter Taylor
Page 266, Position 3: Tanks are exempt from London’s congestion charge.
http://www.gocompare.com/covered/2011/02/heavy-metal-could-a-road-legal-tank-be-the-perfect-vehicle-for-the-age-of-austerity/
Page 266, Position 4: NASCAR driver Dick Trickle drilled a hole in his helmet so he could smoke while driving.
http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2013/7/30/4567960/dick-trickle-suicide-nascar-profile
Page 267, Position 1: The ‘Badlands’ of the Queensland outback is the second-hottest place on the planet.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/photos/10-of-the-hottest-places-on-earth/australias-badlands
Page 267, Position 2: Mount Etna sometimes blows smoke rings.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/131114-mount-etna-blows-smoke-rings-volcano-italy-science/
Page 267, Position 3: The ‘Door to Hell’ is a crater in Turkmenistan which has been burning for more than 40 years.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/giant-hole-ground-has-been-fire-more-40-years-180951247/?no-ist
Page 267, Position 4: Colonel Sanders’s first restaurant was in Hell’s Half Acre, Kentucky.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-devilishly-detailed-map-of-the-most-hellish-places-in-america?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=37faf3f962-Newsletter_4_28_20164_27_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-37faf3f962-59773797&ct=t%28Newsletter_4_28_20164_27_2016%29&mc_cid=37faf3f962&mc_eid=1968599da9
Page 268, Position 1: The town of Spa in Belgium is where the word ‘spa’ comes from.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spa
Page 268, Position 2: Australians take four days off work each year due to heat stress.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27458-severe-heat-costs-the-australian-economy-us6-2-billion-a-year/
Page 268, Position 3: There’s an Australian wasp with the scientific name Aha ha.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aha_ha
Page 268, Position 4: Towns in Australia are plagued by a tumbleweed called Hairy Panic.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/18/fast-growing-tumbleweed-called-hairy-panic-blows-into-australian-city
Page 269, Position 1: Babies in Laos are fed rice that has been pre-chewed by their mothers. It’s called ‘kiss-feeding’.
#How We Learn To Eat#, Bee Wilson
Page 269, Position 2: In the 12th century, Kaifeng, the capital of China, was home to a million people.
#The Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance# by Ian Goldin and Chris Kutarna (Bloomsbury, 2016) p11
Page 269, Position 3: The Great Wall of China was held together with sticky rice.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/great-wall-china-series-overlapping-fortifications-held-together-sticky-rice-1477350
Page 269, Position 4: Chinese children are three inches taller than they were 40 years ago.
http://www.china.org.cn/china/2016-06/09/content_38634148.htm
Page 270, Position 1: In the movie Predator, the monster’s blood was made from the inside of a glow-stick mixed with KY Jelly.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093773/trivia
Page 270, Position 2: Baby bats babble before they learn to communicate properly.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/baby-bats-babble-through-childhood-like-we-do
Page 270, Position 3: Female vampire bats regurgitate blood to feed hungry neighbours.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151117-vampire-bats-blood-food-science-animals/
Page 270, Position 4: Watching horror films makes your blood thicken.
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/627647/Horror-movies-scary-curdle-blood
Page 271, Position 1: In 1831, protestors in Merthyr Tydfil first raised the red flag as a symbol of resistance.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qps14mSlghcC&pg=PA431&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 271, Position 2: The film Poltergeist used real human skeletons as props, because they were cheaper than plastic ones.
http://tv.ark.com/transcript/the_e!_true_hollywood_story-(curse_of_the_poltergeist)/6834/EP/Friday_October_30_2009/103068/
Page 271, Position 3: ‘Morgue hotels’ in Japan store bodies in their own air-conditioned rooms until a space at a crematorium becomes available.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/29/japans-corpse-hotels-upset-some-of-the-neighbours/
Page 271, Position 4: In 2016, protestors in South Korea created a march made entirely of holograms.
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/02/24/467957260/ghost-protest-in-seoul-uses-holograms-not-people
Page 272, Position 1: In 2015, a rare Greek papyrus containing the Gospel of John was discovered on eBay.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/books/greek-new-testament-papyrus-is-discovered-on-ebay.html?_r=0
Page 272, Position 2: In 1511, protestors in Brussels demonstrated against the government by filling the city with dozens of pornographic snowmen.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/winters-effigies-the-deviant-history-of-the-snowman
Page 272, Position 3: Men who watch a lot of porn have smaller-than-average brains.
http://www.livescience.com/46006-can-porn-shrink-brain.html
Page 272, Position 4: Ancient Egyptian mummies were given fake penises so they could have sex after death.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=j_xiMN3rBhoC&pg=PT87&dq=Ancient+Egyptian+mummies+were+given+fake+penises+so+they+could+have+sex+after+death.&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjRv5S_1ILPAhVILsAKHeruCcoQuwUIIjAB#v=onepage&q=Ancient%20Egyptian%20mummies%20were%20given%20fake%20penises%20so%20they%20could%20have%20sex%20after%20death.&f=false
Page 273, Position 1: The most common time for people to misspell ‘Facebook’ as ‘Facbook’ is 3:08 a.m.
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/google-searches-time-of-day
Page 273, Position 2: At the Lost Property Office in ancient Jerusalem, people shouted about the thing they’d lost, in the hope somebody else might have found it.
http://www.livescience.com/52039-ancient-jerusalem-podium-unearthed.html
Page 273, Position 3: Kent Police no longer accept lost property; instead they direct enquiries to Twitter or Facebook.
instead they direct enquiries to Twitter or Facebook.
Page 273, Position 4: Over 50% of people on Facebook use ‘haha’ if something’s funny; only 1.9% use ‘lol’.
#New Scientist# August 15 2015
Page 274, Position 1: The westernmost point of the island of Misima in Papua New Guinea is called ‘Cape Ebola’.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pgZtaB-qOmYC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=%22Cape+ebola%22+misima&source=bl&ots=E5f71NgNzw&sig=BVL93EFd9p7nlkdMPQSuGK8OGVM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rd1sVPb4FbiJsQTj1IGQDQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22Cape%20ebola%22%20misima&f=false
Page 274, Position 2: In 2008, Chile issued 1.5 million 50-peso coins from ‘Chiie’. It was a year before anyone noticed.
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2010/feb/12/is-it-chiie-or-chile-mint-issues-bad-coins/
Page 274, Position 3: In 1992, the president of Sri Lanka changed the country’s name to Shri Lanka for good luck. He was assassinated the following year.
#The Economist# 17.10.2016
Page 274, Position 4: The remote Russian island Ð¯Ñ (Ya Ya) was discovered in 2013 by a cargo helicopter. The crew shouted ‘Я, Ñ!’ – ‘Me, me!’ (‘I saw it first, I saw it first!’) – and the name stuck.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaya_Island
Page 275, Position 1: Red velvet cake was invented by a food-colouring manufacturer to sell red food dye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_Extract
Page 275, Position 2: The only inhabitants of Big Major Cay island, the Bahamas, are feral pigs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Beach
Page 275, Position 3: During the mating season, crabs on Christmas Island outnumber humans by 20,000 to 1.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2855889/Parting-red-sea-Spectacular-moment-120-million-crimson-coloured-crabs-emerge-jungle-head-warm-waters-Indian-Ocean.html#ixzz3Vhmzik9n
Page 275, Position 4: Boxing Day in Scotland used to be called ‘Sweetie Scone Day’.
http://www.northcountyscots.com/Newsletters/NCS12.11.pdf
Page 276, Position 1: Pugs were the official dogs of the House of Orange.
http://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/pug/detail/#history
Page 276, Position 2: Shoppers are more likely to buy a banana if it matches the Pantone colour 12-0752 known as ‘Buttercup’.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=17op5NDsZBMC&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=Pantone+color+12-0752+bananas&source=bl&ots=J1XAY7bs3d&sig=k-
Page 276, Position 3: Insect droppings are turning the Taj Mahal green.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/24/insect-poo-turning-the-taj-mahal-green
Page 276, Position 4: Homer describes honey as being green, sheep as being violet and Hector’s hair as dark blue.
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/02/10/one-wine-two-wine-red-wine-blue-wine/
Page 277, Position 1: When Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition got stuck in the ice in 1915, they had to use the Encyclopaedia Britannica as toilet paper, but the ship’s doctor saved the entry on scurvy.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/ernest-shackleton-used-encyclopedias-as-toilet-paper-in-antarctic/news-story/7d79f691fc6fb95d6b5a1cb034319939
Page 277, Position 2: Short-legged dogs were bred so that owners on foot could keep up with them on hunts.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-the-point-of-a-pugand-19-other-dog-breeds?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=93e455c74b-Newsletter_10_16_201510_15_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-93e455c74b-59773797&ct=t%28Newsletter_10_16_201510_15_2015%29&mc_cid=93e455c74b&mc_eid=1968599da9
Page 277, Position 3: Dogfish are called dogfish because they like to hunt in packs.
http://web.uconn.edu/seagrant/publications/magazines/wracklines/springsummer11/sharks.pdf
Page 277, Position 4: Ernest Shackleton had dogs called Slobbers, Saint, Satan, Painful, Swanker, Fluffy, Bummer and Bob.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zfgpBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=Hackenschmidt,+Slobbers,+Saint,+Satan,+Painful,+Swanker,+Chirgwin,+Fluffy,+Bummer+and+Bob.&source=bl&ots=xHmwE4JSzg&sig=RJ0t7rkImcYpA_9fU17zNsIivZQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAWoVChMI0Pbfz52SyQIVjGsUCh0C7wH6#v=onepage&q=Hackenschmidt%2C%20Slobbers%2C%20Saint%2C%20Satan%2C%20Painful%2C%20Swanker%2C%20Chirgwin%2C%20Fluffy%2C%20Bummer%20and%20Bob.&f=false
Page 278, Position 1: Alexander Fleming’s neighbours foiled a burglary at his house and were rewarded with some of his special mould.
http://www.paulfrasercollectibles.com/news/memorabilia/alexander-flemings-penicillin-mould-valued-at-9-000/19617.page
Page 278, Position 2: Woody Harrelson’s father was a door-to-door Encyclopaedia Britannica salesman before becoming a contract killer.
#The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue#, by Francis Grose.
Page 278, Position 3: Scurryfunge is the hurried tidying of a house after seeing someone about to arrive at your door.
https://www.englishrules.com/2007/favorite-forgotten-words/
Page 278, Position 4: Neidbau is German for a building constructed for the sole purpose of annoying a neighbour.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Jztkfu72eW4C&pg=PA177&dq=neidbau+german&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiur93gvs3NAhVhIcAKHY14DgcQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=neidbau%20german&f=false
Page 279, Position 1: Dolphins can’t smell anything at all.
https://www.behance.net/gallery/14492773/Evolution-Book http://www.dolphin-institute.org/resource_guide/dolphin_perception.htm
Page 279, Position 2: A smellfungus is someone who always manages to find fault.
http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/smellfungus
Page 279, Position 3: Deodorant makes men smell more manly, but it doesn’t work for men who are already manly.
http://www.health.com/sex/deodorant-makes-men-smell-manlier
Page 279, Position 4: Ants can smell the difference between friends and foes.
http://www.livescience.com/51843-ants-can-outsniff-humans.html
Page 280, Position 1: In the 18th and 19th century, nightgowns were worn in the daytime.
http://blog.fidmmuseum.org/museum/2010/08/nightgowns.html
Page 280, Position 2: The four-eyed fish has split pupils so it can see above and below the water at the same time.
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/blog/articles/weird-fish-of-the-week-four-eyed-fish
Page 280, Position 3: African tigerfish are the only fish known to leap out of the water and pluck birds out of the air.
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/african-fish-can-catch-and-eat-flying-birds
Page 280, Position 4: Parrotfish coat themselves in protective mucous pyjamas at night and eat them for breakfast each morning.
http://www.wired.com/2014/08/absurd-creature-of-the-week-parrotfish/
Page 281, Position 1: Uhtceare is an Old English word for lying awake before dawn and worrying.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/53027/10-old-english-words-you-need-be-using
Page 281, Position 2: In mid-20th-century America, a negligee was a shroud for a corpse.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=negligee&allowed_in_frame=0
Page 281, Position 3: Nobody knows why we sleep.
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2009/08/26/why_we_sleep_is_a_mystery
Page 281, Position 4: Eosophobia is a dread of the dawn.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/eosophobia
Page 282, Position 1: French queens gave birth in public to prove the baby was theirs.
http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2015/06/childbirth-as-a-spectator-sport.html
Page 282, Position 2: Rammist is being irritable after waking up too early.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/rammist
Page 282, Position 3: Your brain is at its biggest in the morning and gradually shrinks as the day goes on.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2015/06/08/brain-bigger-in-the-morning/
Page 282, Position 4: An embryo has 200 billion neurons in its brain, but loses half of them before it is born.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5RlDm8d_2AsC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=fetal+brain+neurons+%22200+billion%22&source=bl&ots=BJ0aOMBmHl&sig=idzfyn7VIy6bqbizC36moRgDNDc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGhczvsMPOAhWJC8AKHam1AckQ6AEIKDAB#v=onepage&q=fetal%20brain%20neurons%20%22200%20billion%22&f=false
Page 283, Position 1: When the New York Jets played at Wembley in 2015, they brought their own toilet paper as they thought the British stuff was too thin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/sports/football/jets-head-to-london-with-a-detailed-game-plan-and-thats-just-for-their-laundry.html?_r=1
Page 283, Position 2: Women at the court of Louis XVI drew blue veins on their necks and shoulders to emphasise their noble birth.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Fa0WAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=louis+xvi+women+blue+veins&source=bl&ots=Ju6GHfHNEq&sig=d3JKe2y6EjTyxSn8c1Wcai6xoD4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwit3omE5srNAhXqKMAKHWsFBkwQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=louis%20xvi%20women%20blue%20veins&f=false
Page 283, Position 3: In 1764, the Palace of Versailles was described as a cesspool of dead cats, urine, excrement, slaughtered pigs, standing water and mosquitoes.
http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/froth-and-folly-nobility-and-perfumery-at-the-court-of-versailles/
Page 283, Position 4: The world’s most expensive toilet paper is £825,000 a roll; it’s hand-delivered with a bottle of champagne.
http://www.toiletpaper.com.au/24-carat-gold-toilet-paper-1-roll/
Page 284, Position 1: There is a holy theme park in Buenos Aires where nuns get in free.
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2012/apr/05/easter-religious-theme-park-buenos-aires
Page 284, Position 2: Dogs relieving themselves on streetlights can corrode them to the point of collapse.
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Dog-Urine-Contributes-lamp-post-corroded-downtown-san-diego-326839961.html
Page 284, Position 3: People who desperately need a pee tell more convincing lies.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28199-the-lies-we-tell-are-more-convincing-when-we-need-to-pee/
Page 284, Position 4: In 1630, 1 in 7 people in Bologna were nuns.
#Nuns Behaving Badly# - Craig A Monson
Page 285, Position 1: One of the founding members of the New York Stock Exchange was a man called Preserved Fish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preserved_Fish
Page 285, Position 2: In the 1960s and ’70s, nuns’ urine was used by pharmaceutical companies to make fertility drugs.
http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/13/the-strange-world-of-drug-origins-nuns-urine-yew-trees-and-rooster-combs/
Page 285, Position 3: Sticklebacks lose the ability to urinate when building their nests.
http://io9.com/though-this-fish-cant-pee-it-can-be-used-to-test-for-d-1729965846
Page 285, Position 4: Fishing snakes don’t fish and no one knows how they got the name.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/151221-fishing-snakes-animals-science-reptiles-south-america/
Page 286, Position 1: Over the last 10 years, the market for burial plots has outperformed the overall UK property market by three to one.
http://www.ted.com/talks/alison_killing_what_happens_when_a_city_runs_out_of_room_for_its_dead/transcript?language=en
Page 286, Position 2: In March 2003, the Ocean Journey aquarium in Denver, Colorado, was bought by a seafood restaurant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Aquarium,_Denver
Page 286, Position 3: Whales mourn their dead.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/07/whales-death-grief-animals-science/
Page 286, Position 4: Shakespeare’s skull is missing from his grave.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-shakespeare-idUSKCN0WQ192
Page 287, Position 1: Broccoli used to be known as the ‘five green fingers of Jupiter’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZfSmSmC0WhMC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 287, Position 2: The death adder was originally the deaf adder because it never ran away from humans.
http://www.livescience.com/54227-adder-facts.html
Page 287, Position 3: In China, it is bad luck to give clocks as presents because in Chinese ‘giving a clock’ sounds like ‘going to a funeral’.
http://www.chinahighlights.com/festivals/things-not-give-chinese-new-year.htm
Page 287, Position 4: The first US alarm clock, patented in 1787, only rang at 4 a.m.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/new-hampshire-history-and-heritage-176227100/?no-ist
Page 288, Position 1: In 1943, the crew of a Halifax bomber downed in the Atlantic survived 11 days in a dinghy by catching fish with their underpants.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12197009/Incredible-story-of-how-six-WW2-airmen-survived-at-sea-by-using-their-underpants-as-a-fishing-net.html
Page 288, Position 2: In 1862, Prince William of Denmark became king of Greece after a referendum in which he got six votes.
http://gutenberg.us/articles/Greek_head_of_state_referendum,_1862
Page 288, Position 3: A lobster can squirt urine seven times the length of its body.
http://jezebel.com/lobsters-have-the-craziest-sex-youve-never-heard-of-an-1758129911
Page 288, Position 4: In 1325, Bologna went to war with Modena over a stolen bucket.
#Stupid History#. Leland Gregory.
Page 289, Position 1: Ravens will dig up and rebury food if they were seen hiding it by a bird they consider untrustworthy.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=She5BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 289, Position 2: In 2011, a man was stopped at Los Angeles Airport after his four checked-in bags were found to be full of water containing 240 live fish.
http://blog.tsa.gov/2012/01/tsa-top-10-good-catches-of-2011.html
Page 289, Position 3: In 2005, there were plans to make a 50-foot-tall robot of Michael Jackson that would roam the Nevada desert.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/aug/20/michael-jackson-robot-las-vegas
Page 289, Position 4: Michael Jackson regularly made prank calls to Russell Crowe.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/29/the-trials-of-russell-crowe-pranked-by-jacko-goaded-by-paparazzi-threatened-by-al-qaida
Page 290, Position 1: On 1 July 1937, a Mrs Beard became the first person to dial 999.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18520121
Page 290, Position 2: Woodpeckers have a third eyelid which stops their eyes popping out when drilling into wood.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/30731/why-dont-woodpeckers-get-brain-damage
Page 290, Position 3: In the 1890s, Eugene Schieffelin set out to introduce every bird mentioned by Shakespeare into North America. The US is now overrun by 200 million starlings.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/call-of-the-reviled/
Page 290, Position 4: Bearded tits don’t have beards and aren’t tits.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/placestovisit/leightonmoss/b/leightonmoss-blog/archive/2014/04/25/bearded-tits-are-just-brilliant.aspx
Page 291, Position 1: When food is scarce, baby pea aphids climb onto their mother’s back and suck her blood.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24513-zoologger-baby-vampire-aphids-drink-parents-blood.html#.Und7WnC8Cy4?
Page 291, Position 2: Early 999 calls set off a klaxon and a flashing red light to make sure operators knew an emergency call was coming in.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18520121
Page 291, Position 3: The oldest surviving telephone directory is from New Haven, Connecticut, in 1878. It listed the names of all the people with phones but not their numbers.
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/books-manuscripts/the-telephone-directory-volume-1-number-1-5084352-details.aspx
Page 291, Position 4: A quarter of worker ants never actually do any work.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/most-worker-ants-are-slackers
Page 292, Position 1: The space shuttle did 0–100 mph in 8 seconds, the same as a 1968 Ford GT.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/basics/launch.html http://www.insiderauto.net/id2655-1968-ford-gt40-mk1-gulf.html
Page 292, Position 2: The beaded lacewing stuns its prey by farting on it.
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/silent-deadly-fatal-farts-immobilize-prey/
Page 292, Position 3: The sea squirt is the only animal that eats its own brain.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-brainless-life-of-the-sea-squirt?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=43c39c7c68-Newsletter_3_18_20163_17_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-43c39c7c68-59773797&ct=t%28Newsletter_3_18_20163_17_2016%29&mc_cid=43c39c7c68&mc_eid=1968599da9
Page 292, Position 4: Messages travel through the brain faster than an F1 racing car.
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/whoami/findoutmore/yourbrain/howdoesyourbrainwork/howdoesyournervoussystemwork/whatarenerveimpulses
Page 293, Position 1: Killington, Smuggler’s Notch, Suicide Six and Mad River Glen are ski resorts in Vermont.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont
Page 293, Position 2: On 9 October 2013, NASA’s Juno spacecraft travelled round the Earth at 50 times the speed of a bullet.
http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/wsk/kurth-bio.html http://www.space.com/23139-juno-jupiter-spacecraft-earth-flyby.html
Page 293, Position 3: The bullet was invented thousands of years before the gun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet
Page 293, Position 4: In 17th-century Vermont, it was illegal to go to church without a gun.
http://www.claytoncramer.com/popular/PraiseTheLordAndPassTheAmmunition.PDF
Page 294, Position 1: The boiling point of lithium in degrees Celsius is 1,342.
http://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/3/lithium
Page 294, Position 2: Scots has 421 words for snow.
http://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_424233_en.html
Page 294, Position 3: The ground beneath the Antarctic ice is hotter than under 99% of the rest of the planet.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/high-heat-measured-under-antarctica-could-support-substantial-life/
Page 294, Position 4: Anders Celsius’s scale originally had the freezing point of water at 100 degrees and the boiling point at zero.
#Naming of the Shrew#, John Wright
Page 295, Position 1: The original Humpty Dumpty was a drink made by boiling ale with brandy.
#Oxford English Dictionary#
Page 295, Position 2: In 2015, Professor Colin Raston won an Ig Nobel prize for unboiling an egg.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2015/09/chemistry-ig-nobel-2015-unboiled-egg
Page 295, Position 3: In the 18th century, chickens were known as ‘cacklers’ and eggs were ‘cackling farts’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vUgMWQv0CywC&pg=PT31&lpg=PT31&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 295, Position 4: Until the 20th century, ‘yolk’ was often written (and pronounced) ‘yelk’.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yelk
Page 296, Position 1: Yellow mealworms eat Styrofoam.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/scientists-find-ultimate-weapon-fight-6826695
Page 296, Position 2: The earliest woodcut of Jack and Jill showed two boys called Jack and Gill.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_and_Jill_(nursery_rhyme)#
Page 296, Position 3: Only female hops are used to make beer.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11974928/London-bar-to-sell-worlds-first-transgender-beer-brewed-from-hermaphrodite-hops.html
Page 296, Position 4: Male crucifix toads glue themselves to females during sex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifix_toad
Page 297, Position 1: 100 Americans die each year by choking on pen lids.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/why-do-bic-pens-have-a-hole-in-their-lid-to-stop-choking-a6856061.html
Page 297, Position 2: Chewing can help stop earworms.
https://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR631000.aspx
Page 297, Position 3: Bubblegum was once prescribed as a remedy for polio.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ddNgjwUVF5QC&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=Bubblegum+polio&source=bl&ots=wTQ1_Z6ybF&sig=O2rlTgUvtZ__3_66SX7JOKtfFvs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwipnK2Gzu7PAhUHHxoKHUwlBM8Q6AEIJTAC#v=onepage&q=Bubblegum%20polio&f=false
Page 297, Position 4: The placebo effect accounts for up to 60% of a painkiller’s effectiveness.
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/6/218/218ra5.short
Page 298, Position 1: In France, Homer Simpson says ‘T’oh’; in Spain, he says ‘Ouch!’
http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/50-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-simpsons
Page 298, Position 2: The lives of Cher, Elizabeth Taylor and Ronald Reagan were all saved by the Heimlich manoeuvre.
https://newrepublic.com/article/119132/profile-henry-heimlich-creator-anti-choking-maneuver
Page 298, Position 3: When Reagan became president in 1981, he had all the solar panels removed from the White House.
#Stranger than we can Imagine# - John Higgs
Page 298, Position 4: ‘D’oh!’ is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘expressing frustration at the realisation that things have turned out badly or not as planned’.
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/249869?rskey=RY9rkB&result=2&isAdvanced=false#eid
Page 299, Position 1: The land that once connected Great Britain to continental Europe was called Doggerland.
http://nationalgeographic.org/maps/doggerland/
Page 299, Position 2: A ‘natural’ used to mean an ‘idiot’.
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/125332?rskey=qGgAWL&result=1&isAdvanced=false#eid
Page 299, Position 3: ‘A rumbling stomach’ is actually a rumbling of the small intestine.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/gut/giulia-enders/david-shaw/9781925228601
Page 299, Position 4: The phrase ‘No Man’s Land’ was first used in the Domesday Book.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34319540
Page 300, Position 1: In 1931, both Hitler and Churchill were hit by cars.
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/support?catid=0&id=1464
Page 300, Position 2: Never Never Land was an old name for the sparsely populated parts of Australia.
https://goo.gl/t5GBn0
Page 300, Position 3: Narnia (now called Narni) is a real place in Italy. C. S. Lewis saw the name on an old Roman map.
http://www.italymagazine.com/italy/places/real-life-narnia-inspired-author
Page 300, Position 4: After their first meeting, C. S. Lewis wrote of J. R. R. Tolkien: ‘No harm in him, only needs a smack or so.’
http://www.theplaceofthelion.com/excerpt.pdf
Page 301, Position 1: Snakes hear with their jawbones.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/A8A0FD9F-9AB0-7EDA-0EFCDBFB6244702B/
Page 301, Position 2: US boxer Daniel Caruso was psyching himself up for a match by punching himself in the face when he broke his own nose and was ruled unfit to compete.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/news-of-the-weird/Content?oid=880193
Page 301, Position 3: Backpfeifengesicht is German for a ‘face that needs hitting’.
https://theconversation.com/why-the-german-language-has-so-many-great-words-55554
Page 301, Position 4: Sneezes can travel up to 200 feet.
http://www.slate.com/articles/video/video/2014/04/mit_sneeze_study_new_research_shows_sneezes_can_travel_up_to_200_feet.html
Page 302, Position 1: Cauliflowers grow so fast you can hear them doing it.
http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/Mysterious-creaking-noises-Lincolnshire-growing/story-26773269-detail/story.html
Page 302, Position 2: A balloon’s pop is caused by the rubber shrinking faster than the speed of sound.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18324553-100-bursting-balloons-break-sound-barrier/
Page 302, Position 3: The equipment for the 2016 Rolling Stones concert in Havana filled 61 sea containers and a Boeing 747.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/03/25/stones-roll-into-havana-for-free-gig.html?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition
Page 302, Position 4: Hummingbirds ‘sing’ with their tail feathers.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/09/08/hummingbirds-dive-to-sing-with-their-tails/#.V3OhVOsrLnA
Page 303, Position 1: Napoleon had 50 identical beaver-skin hats.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-3111441/So-really-defeated-Napoleon-British-pluck-PILES-story-France-s-greatest-national-hero.html
Page 303, Position 2: Cicadas can ‘switch off’ their ears to avoid being deafened by their own singing.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=19700728&id=nH0sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wMwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7465,4416231&hl=en
Page 303, Position 3: New Forest cicadas are inaudible to humans, so nobody knows if there are any left in the UK.
http://www.newforestcicada.info/
Page 303, Position 4: The only wild beavers in the UK live on the River Otter.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36386263
Page 304, Position 1: Charlotte Brontë’s school report said she ‘writes indifferently’ and ‘knows nothing of grammar, geography, history or accomplishments’.
http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/school-report-on-the-bront-sisters#
Page 304, Position 2: Genghis Khan’s earliest known ancestor was a woman called Alan the Fair.
https://goo.gl/XNqqpk
Page 304, Position 3: Nell Gwyn’s name for Charles II was Charles III because she’d already had two lovers called Charles.
http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/birth-nell-gwynne
Page 304, Position 4: Charles Dickens helped stop P. T. Barnum from moving Shakespeare’s house, brick by brick, to New York.
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/shakespeares-birthplace-barnum-brian-conley-9663050
Page 305, Position 1: The illustrator of the first-ever nursery-rhyme book was later sued for selling porn.
http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/tommy-thumbs-pretty-song-book
Page 305, Position 2: In the seven years Wordsworth was Poet Laureate, he didn’t write a single line of poetry.
http://www.biographyonline.net/poets/william-wordsworth.html
Page 305, Position 3: Pope John Paul II drew his own comic books.
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Pope-John-comic-Issue/dp/B000XSXN5I
Page 305, Position 4: Retired characters from the Beano include Little Dead-Eye Dick, Cocky Dick, Sticky Willie, Wandering Willie, and Polly Wolly Doodle and her Great Big Poodle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Beano_comic_strips
Page 306, Position 1: Pope Innocent VIII was nicknamed ‘The Honest’ because he was the first pope to admit he had illegitimate children.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JhszdEXB2EwC&pg=PA143&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 306, Position 2: In 2016, ‘porn’ was briefly overtaken by ‘Brexit’ as the most searched-for term on the Internet.
http://www.inquisitr.com/3306997/pokemon-go-porn-searches-for-app-outnumber-those-looking-for-porn-online/
Page 306, Position 3: In the 1960s, Internet was the brand name for a transistor radio.
http://www.markhillpublishing.com/the-internet-transistor-radio/
Page 306, Position 4: Pope Francis has never used the Internet and hasn’t watched TV since 1990.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150807-Robert-Draper-Pope-Francis-Video-Interview/
Page 307, Position 1: The Russians have landed 10 times as many probes on Venus as NASA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observations_and_explorations_of_Venus
Page 307, Position 2: Pope John II was the first pope to change his name. He was originally called Mercurius after the pagan god Mercury.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_II
Page 307, Position 3: Mercury is shrinking.
http://www.space.com/25102-planet-mercury-shrinking-fast.html
Page 307, Position 4: Russian rocket boosters are blessed by an Orthodox priest before they are ignited.
http://metro.co.uk/2015/12/15/some-odd-traditions-surround-astronaut-tim-peakes-voyage-to-space-5566059/
Page 308, Position 1: The oldest known dialect of Spanish is spoken in the US state of New Mexico.
https://lujan.house.gov/3rd-district
Page 308, Position 2: Earth has eight times as many trees as scientists previously thought.
http://www.newsweek.com/3-trillion-trees-earth-eight-times-what-we-previously-thought-cut-down-half-368361
Page 308, Position 3: Four times as many Lebanese live outside Lebanon as inside it.
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21573584-business-people-lebanon-fare-better-abroad-home-tale-two-traders
Page 308, Position 4: There are more native Spanish speakers in the US than in Spain.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/29/us-second-biggest-spanish-speaking-country
Page 309, Position 1: Canada only gained independence from Britain in 1982.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s
Page 309, Position 2: Caliche is Latin American Spanish for a crust of whitewash that flakes off a wall.
#Collins Spanish Dictionary#
Page 309, Position 3: 41% of Americans support the idea of building a wall along the Canadian border.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-09-24/oh-canada-four-in-ten-americans-want-wall-on-northern-border
Page 309, Position 4: 38% of the US is north of the southernmost point of Canada.
http://www.prooffreader.com/2013/11/canada-strong-and-free-but-maybe-not-as.html
Page 310, Position 1: The blood of the Antarctic notothenioid fish contains antifreeze.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/origins/antarctica/ideas/fish.html
Page 310, Position 2: The 1976 Montreal Olympics is the only one in history where the host country failed to win a single gold medal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_at_the_1976_Summer_Olympics
Page 310, Position 3: The coldest temperature ever recorded in Canada is –63ºC, the same as the average temperature on Mars.
http://www.space.com/16907-what-is-the-temperature-of-mars.html
Page 310, Position 4: In 2015, cold homes caused the deaths of 9,000 Britons.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35862763
Page 311, Position 1: Iggy Pop has a cockatoo called Biggy Pop.
http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/iggy-pop-has-a-pet-bird-called-biggy-pop-and-its-absolutely-adorable
Page 311, Position 2: The film Frozen took 3 million hours to complete.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/trivia
Page 311, Position 3: Frozen food was invented by Clarence Birdseye, after watching the Inuit in Canada catch and freeze fish.
https://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/frozenfood.html
Page 311, Position 4: The actor who plays Captain Birdseye suffers from seasickness.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/30/new-captain-birdseye-suffers-from-seasickness/
Page 312, Position 1: Butchers in ancient Egypt wore high heels to keep blood off their feet.
https://people.rit.edu/~mrw1001/320/project2/history.html
Page 312, Position 2: Baron Rothschild tried to impress Napoleon III by by disguising his parrots as pheasants. When shot, they would cry, ‘Vive l’empereur!’
http://www.pressreader.com/uk/scottish-daily-mail/20150908/281913066885189/TextView
Page 312, Position 3: The Greeks painted eyes on the bottom of glasses to make it look like the drinker was wearing a mask.
https://emajartjournal.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/andrew.pdf
Page 312, Position 4: There are more mask shops in Venice than butchers or greengrocers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/italy/venice/10618698/Venice-carnival-guide.html
Page 313, Position 1: The man who set the record time for swimming the Panama Canal in 1959 was declared an honorary ship.
https://archive.org/stream/panamacanalrevieaug16pana/panamacanalrevieaug16pana_djvu.txt
Page 313, Position 2: 1 in 5 women cut the labels off their clothes to hide the size.
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/sep/04/minimum-bmi-checks-uk-models-womens-equality-party
Page 313, Position 3: The owner of Zara is one of the two richest people in the world.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/financephotos/the-countries-with-the-most-billionaires-revealed/ss-BBqbyet?ocid=MSN_UK_NL_MO35#image=4
Page 313, Position 4: A set of four car tyres, encrusted with gold and diamonds, broke the world record when they were sold in 2016 for $600,000.
http://mashable.com/2016/06/16/worlds-most-expensive-tyres/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link#xD3hOAVWDqq8
Page 314, Position 1: Captain Scott’s Antarctic expedition team hated the taste of seal, so they overcooked it, inadvertently destroying all its vitamin C.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/south_approaches_01.shtml
Page 314, Position 2: The ancient Egyptians built the first Suez Canal in the 6th century bc.
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1257.htm
Page 314, Position 3: Canals have plugs.
http://www.worksopguardian.co.uk/news/local/memories-of-pulling-the-plug-on-canal-1-624620
Page 314, Position 4: Baby sharks are called pups.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2390000/Hammerhead-shark-stuns-fisherman-giving-birth-litter-pups-hauled-packed-Florida-beach.html
Page 315, Position 1: People who regularly eat chocolate are slightly thinner than those who don’t.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17511011
Page 315, Position 2: Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition found a stowaway onboard who was allowed to stay on condition he’d be the first to be eaten in an emergency.
https://goo.gl/HP8Zon
Page 315, Position 3: Some germs thrive on soap dispensers because they like to eat soap.
http://aem.asm.org/content/77/9/2898.full
Page 315, Position 4: The first ATM was based on a chocolate-bar dispenser.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6230194.stm
Page 316, Position 1: The Colosseum has banned people dressed as Roman centurions.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/smart-news/rome-just-banned-centurions-180957410/
Page 316, Position 2: Obese people see objects as 10% further away than those of average weight.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/14/for-obese-people-distances-really-do-look-further-study-finds
Page 316, Position 3: Lesbians earn more than straight women.
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21692938-lesbians-tend-earn-more-heterosexual-women-girl-power
Page 316, Position 4: Only seven women in the world may wear white to meet the Pope.
http://www.people.com/people/package/article/0,,20395222_20980303,00.html
Page 317, Position 1: Do You Trust Your Wife? was a 1950s US TV game show sponsored by a tobacco company. It made one contestant change her star sign from Cancer to Aries.
https://goo.gl/uOBJuY
Page 317, Position 2: The names Linda, Alice, Lauren and Elaine are banned in Saudi Arabia.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/is-your-name-now-banned-in-saudi-arabia-9192298.html
Page 317, Position 3: It is illegal for a wife to take her husband’s name in Quebec, but obligatory in Japan.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/16/japanese-court-rules-married-women-cannot-keep-their-surnames http://time.com/3940094/maiden-married-names-countries/
Page 317, Position 4: In 12th-century Ireland, same-sex marriages were performed in church.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2142905/Civil-partnership-medieval-style-In-days-sex-marriage-Christian-rite.html?utm_source=StandFirm&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=link
Page 318, Position 1: 31% of American teenagers think they’ll be famous one day.
http://www.teenvogue.com/story/celebrity-fame-obsession
Page 318, Position 2: Camel cigarettes sponsored a 1940s TV news show called The Camel News Caravan. No one was allowed to be shown smoking a cigar except Winston Churchill.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=snwnEXJvVZkC&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq=camel+news+caravan+first&source=bl&ots=Z_GGsuLlXm&sig=99u8VcQXhpTFd8yQ2A4sikrzNdM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGqr38sP_KAhWBBBoKHRlXDekQ6AEISjAL#v=onepage&q=churchill&f=false
Page 318, Position 3: Churchill looks grumpy on the £5 note because the photographer who took the picture had just removed his cigar.
5 note because the photographer who took the picture had just removed his cigar.
Page 318, Position 4: More British teenagers smoke e-cigarettes than ordinary cigarettes.
https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/infographics/teens-e-cigarettes
Page 319, Position 1: Books containing the word ‘wine’ and the names of foreign pets are banned in Iran.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-bans-use-of-the-word-wine-and-foreign-animal-names-in-books-a6822461.html
Page 319, Position 2: Three of the top 10 Amazon best-sellers in the US in 2015 were colouring books for adults.
http://harpers.org/archive/2016/06/harpers-index-383/
Page 319, Position 3: Harvard has a library of rare colours.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3058058/the-harvard-vault-that-protects-the-worlds-rarest-colors
Page 319, Position 4: There’s a bookshop in Tokyo that only stocks one book at a time.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/23/japanese-bookshop-stocks-only-one-book-at-a-time
Page 320, Position 1: The BBC’s first outside broadcast was a duet between a cellist and a nightingale.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-22711460
Page 320, Position 2: ‘Stereotype’ and ‘cliché’ were both originally printing terms.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=stereotype http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cliche&allowed_in_frame=0
Page 320, Position 3: The tune to ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ was written by Mendelssohn to commemorate the invention of the printing press.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rsO9147YgV4C&pg=PA68&dq=hark+the+herald+angels+sing+printing+press&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGh9-XgM3NAhVKLsAKHbnPBsMQ6AEIMDAC#v=onepage&q=hark%20the%20herald%20angels%20sing%20printing%20press&f=false
Page 320, Position 4: The tune of ‘God Save the Queen’ was once the best-known tune in the world and the national anthem for 20 countries.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XX2sAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA338&dq=god+save+the+king+best+known+tune+20+countries&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=god%20save%20the%20king%20best%20known%20tune%2020%20countries&f=false
Page 321, Position 1: According to anthropologist Kate Fox, England’s national catchphrase is ‘Typical!’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11145104/Typical-theres-a-word-to-sum-up-the-English.html
Page 321, Position 2: Nightingales frequently break EU health and safety regulations on noise pollution.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4964-urban-nightingales-songs-are-illegally-loud/
Page 321, Position 3: In 2016, the Swiss city of Lausanne banned silent discos for being too noisy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-35501473
Page 321, Position 4: In 1936, Leicester was the second-richest city in Europe.
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21698271-there-are-lessons-learn-city-much-football-club-foxes-and-tigers
Page 322, Position 1: The king of the Belgians is automatically godfather to all the seventh sons in his country.
http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.2600731
Page 322, Position 2: Obsolete English words dropped by the Oxford English Dictionary include ‘growlery’ (a room to growl in), ‘brabble’ (to quarrel) and ‘cassette-player’.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2011/08/19/concise_oxford_english_dictionary_what_words_got_dropped_to_make.html
Page 322, Position 3: Clatterfart, blabberer, bablatrice and nimble-chops all mean ‘chatterbox’.
#Oxford English Dictionary#
Page 322, Position 4: A ‘gossip’ was originally a ‘god-sibling’ or godparent.
https://goo.gl/gwYacS
Page 323, Position 1: Carlsberg gave Niels Bohr a house with free beer on tap as a thank-you for winning the Nobel Prize in physics.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/11/28/for-winning-the-nobel-prize-niels-bohr-got-a-house-with-free-beer/#25095cdb4fb7
Page 323, Position 2: The Belgian city of Bruges has an underground beer pipeline.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/15/travel/bruges-beer-pipeline/
Page 323, Position 3: The Rarámuri of Mexico christen their babies with beer.
http://anthronow.com/print/beer-through-the-ages-the-role-of-beer-in-shaping-our-past-and-current-worlds
Page 323, Position 4: Venezuela is running out of beer.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/05/31/480126445/venezuela-is-running-out-of-beer-amid-severe-economic-crisis
Page 324, Position 1: When rock ’n’ roll music was banned by the USSR in the 1950s, Russians pressed bootleg copies onto discarded X-rays and called it ‘bone music’.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/29/bone-music-soviet-bootleg-records-pressed-on-xrays
Page 324, Position 2: In 1855, James Harrison, a Scot living in Australia, patented a beer cooler that was the size of a house.
http://www.scotlandnow.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/man-who-cooled-world-forgotten-6261944
Page 324, Position 3: Wilhelm Röntgen refused to patent the X-ray machine he’d invented so that everyone could benefit from it.
https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200111/history.cfm
Page 324, Position 4: A new musical instrument was invented and a new concert hall built for the premiere of Wagner’s Ring cycle.
#The Economist# 25 June 2016
Page 325, Position 1: Mike Rowe’s domain name MikeRoweSoft.com caused a legal dispute with Microsoft.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3429485.stm
Page 325, Position 2: The first full-length porn movie filmed by drones was called Drone Boning.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-first-drone-shot-porn-is-beautiful-nsfw
Page 325, Position 3: Mark Twain invented and patented the bra-strap clasp.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/30/mark-twain-trivia_n_6220484.html
Page 325, Position 4: Microsoft was founded closer in time to the invention of the ballpoint pen than to today.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/01/bob-dylan-and-the-illusion-of-modern-times/
Page 326, Position 1: Painting a male barn owl’s chest a darker colour makes him more desirable to females.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Supernormal-Stimuli-Overran-Evolutionary-Purpose/dp/039306848
Page 326, Position 2: The legal concept of negligence was established in 1932, when a woman found a snail in her ginger beer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8367223.stm
Page 326, Position 3: The 18th-century dentist Pierre Fauchard recommended using urine as a mouthwash.
https://www.bda.org/dentists/policy-campaigns/research/bda-policy/consultation/education-workforce/2011/pierre-fauchard-father-of-modern-dentistry
Page 326, Position 4: The 18th-century painter Johan Zoffany was shipwrecked in the Andaman Islands and ate a sailor.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/9119353/Johan-Zoffany-The-lovable-artist-who-ate-a-sailor.html
Page 327, Position 1: It’s against the law to bring potato seeds into the UK.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/531618/Bringing_fruit__veg_and_plants_into_the_UK_leaflet.pdf
Page 327, Position 2: Great reed warblers spend winter practising their summer songs.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2075638-europes-song-birds-perfect-their-tunes-when-wintering-in-africa/
Page 327, Position 3: Racing pigeons speed up when flying through polluted air.
http://www.livescience.com/53418-pollution-makes-pigeons-faster.html
Page 327, Position 4: By eating and excreting doves, a single cougar can plant 94,000 seeds a year.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-one-cougar-can-plant-94000-seeds-a-year?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=5e86c4b93a-Newsletter_4_21_20164_20_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-5e86c4b93a-59773797&ct=t%28Newsletter_4_21_20164_20_2016%29&mc_cid=5e86c4b93a&mc_eid=1968599da9
Page 328, Position 1: In the Second World War, the Bank of England’s canteen was moved to the vault.
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160419-the-city-with-248-billion-beneath-its-pavement
Page 328, Position 2: There are over 700 British cheeses, but most Britons can only name four.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/must-cheddar-study-finds-most-6820191
Page 328, Position 3: Shropshire Blue cheese was invented in Inverness.
http://www.cheese.com/shropshire-blue/
Page 328, Position 4: You can buy bonds backed by Parmesan cheese.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-italy-bonds-parmesan-idUKKCN0VB1QZ
Page 329, Position 1: Manchester United has spent more money on players in the last three years than Leicester City has in the 132 years since it was founded.
http://www.skysports.com/football/news/12038/10268088/martin-tylers-leicester-stats-numbers-behind-fairytale-premier-league-title
Page 329, Position 2: MasterCard’s New York headquarters are on Purchase Street.
https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/about-mastercard/who-we-are/global-locations.html
Page 329, Position 3: A 2015 study found that banks give better deals on loans immediately after a robbery.
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21664151-after-armed-robberies-banks-give-out-loans-better-terms-crime-and-leniency
Page 329, Position 4: The most expensive transfer fee in British women’s football was for a fifth of what Wayne Rooney earns in a single week.
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-5a6b-Womens-Football-Kirby-not-worried-about-record-transfer-fee#.V45FsZMrJEI
Page 330, Position 1: JFK once wrote a letter to his mother asking her not to contact Nikita Khrushchev without his permission.
http://archiveblog.jfklibrary.org/2013/05/a-mothers-day-tale-rose-kennedys-signature-collection/
Page 330, Position 2: The first performance-enhancing drug used in baseball was pulverised guinea-pig testicles.
https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/throwback-thursday-crushed-testicles-and-the-birth-of-sports-doping
Page 330, Position 3: The owners of Leicester City FC also own the world champion elephant polo team.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/04/09/how-leicester-city-owners-laid-down-template-for-premier-league/
Page 330, Position 4: The king of Thailand offered elephants as a gift to President Lincoln, but he declined.
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/lincoln-rejects-the-king-of.html?
Page 331, Position 1: At Queen Victoria’s coronation they accidentally missed out a page of the ceremony and had to call her back.
http://martinmeenagh.blogspot.co.uk/2009_01_01_archive.html
Page 331, Position 2: Until the assassination of JFK, it was not a federal crime to to murder a US president.
http://crimeinthesuites.com/why-is-an-assault-on-congress-member-a-federal-crime/
Page 331, Position 3: In 1954, President Eisenhower’s motorcade gave a lift to two hitch-hikers.
http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/that-time-eisenhowers-presidential-motorcade-picked-up-1758787476
Page 331, Position 4: President Obama is the only person outside HBO allowed to watch advance screenings of Game of Thrones.
http://www.gq.com/story/advance-game-of-thrones-season-6-obama
Page 332, Position 2: Queen Victoria’s first name was Alexandrina.
http://www.regencyhistory.net/2013/10/the-christening-of-queen-victoria-24.html
Page 332, Position 3: Names of other European monarchs include Alfonso the Slobberer, Albert with the Pigtail, and Ivaylo the Cabbage.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/58623/60-historys-strangest-royal-epithets
Page 332, Position 4: Krill smells like boiled cabbage.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8844000/8844443.stm
Page 333, Position 1: According to the British Medical Journal, farting on a Petri dish from 5 cm away only results in bacterial growth if the farter is naked.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121900/
Page 333, Position 2: Each person is surrounded by their own unique cloud of bacteria.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/11883473/People-emit-a-germ-cloud-of-bacteria-as-unique-as-a-fingerprint-study-finds.html
Page 333, Position 3: Bacteria invented the wheel.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/sifter/bacterial-wheels-imaged-first-time
Page 333, Position 4: Cave paintings of horses often have five legs; when lit by fire, this creates the illusion of movement.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xYhPAAAAMAAJ&q=horses+cave+five+legs&dq=horses+cave+five+legs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiKy5exjsvNAhXlLsAKHacWB3AQ6AEIHDAA
Page 334, Position 1: Kubla Khan’s niece agreed to marry any man who beat her at wrestling, but demanded payment in horses if she were to win. She died unmarried with 100,000 horses.
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/wrestler-princess
Page 334, Position 2: The deaths of two-thirds of people in the world go unrecorded.
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/7999/
Page 334, Position 3: According to Isaac Newton, the world will end in 2060.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/the-world-will-end-in-2060-according-to-newton-7254673.html
Page 334, Position 4: The last census in Lebanon took place in 1932.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Lebanon
Page 335, Position 1: The last words of Franklin D. Roosevelt were: ‘I have a terrific headache.’
http://mentalfloss.com/article/51449/last-words-and-final-moments-38-presidents
Page 335, Position 2: When Henrik Ibsen’s nurse told him he was looking better, he said, ‘On the contrary,’ and died the next day.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/quotes/last-words/henrik-ibsen.html
Page 335, Position 3: According to psychics, the best place in Britain to contact the dead is Eastbourne.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/britains-most-psychic-towns-revealed-6821489
Page 335, Position 4: Art is older than humanity.
http://www.nature.com/news/homo-erectus-made-world-s-oldest-doodle-500-000-years-ago-1.16477
Page 336, Position 1: Since the first crew left for the ISS on 31 October 2000, there has not been a single day when the entire human race has been on Earth.
http://www.universetoday.com/38125/how-long-have-humans-been-on-earth/
Page 336, Position 2: In the last 50 years, insects’ footsteps have become quieter.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151006-nature-sounds-science-animals-music/ http://www.anantaraelephantpolo.com/news/king-power-clinches-royal-cup-in-nail-biting-final-at-elephant-polo-2016.html
Page 336, Position 3: The Lord of the Rings ends in the year
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aWZzLPhY4o0C&q=1342#v=snippet&q=1342&f=false
1,423 QI Facts To Bowl You Over
Page 1, Position 0: "1
Page 1, Position 2: 1 in 4 Americans didn’t read a book last year.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/one-four-americans-didnt-read-book-last-year-180960340/
Page 1, Position 3: A book by George H. W. Bush’s dog spent 23 weeks on the US bestseller list.
https://www.amazon.com/Millies-Book-Dictated-Barbara-Bush/dp/0688040330
Page 1, Position 4: Theresa May owns more than 100 cookbooks.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/theresa-may-who-is-the-woman-bidding-to-be-the-next-tory-leader/
Page 2, Position 1: John Bercow MP , Speaker of the House of Commons, has a cat called Order.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/02/why-john-bercow-row-really-about-parliament-itself
Page 2, Position 2: There are 125,000 stray cats in Istanbul.
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21718417-turkish-affection-street-cats-and-dogs-has-blossomed-onlineand-occasionally-pits-local?fsrc=gnews
Page 2, Position 3: The average Australian cat eats more fish per year than the average Australian.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/cats-eating-into-world-fish-stocks-20080825-425x.html
Page 2, Position 4: Cuttlefish have three hearts.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/weird-animal-hearts?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f61668c58b-Newsletter_2_15_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f36db9c480-f61668c58b-63261525&ct=t(Newsletter_2_15_17)&mc_cid=f61668c58b&mc_eid=1968599da9
Page 3, Position 1: The North American mosquito fish can count up to four.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/3326801/Fish-can-count-to-four-but-no-higher.html
Page 3, Position 2: Fish can see 70 times further in air than in water.
https://phys.org/news/2017-03-vision-limbs-fish-million-years.html
Page 3, Position 3: Golden-winged warblers can detect tornadoes from 560 miles away.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/18/birds-storm-infrasound-warblers
Page 3, Position 4: 35 tornadoes are reported in Britain each year.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1a15c0b0-39ab-11e7-8c42-97760aa22c36
Page 4, Position 1: In 1973, the entire Internet consisted of only 43 computers.
http://qz.com/860873/a-1973-map-of-the-internet-charted-by-darpa/
Page 4, Position 2: iPhones in Venezuela cost the equivalent of £80,000 each.
https://www.theatlas.com/charts/rJwXTv98g
Page 4, Position 3: Indonesia has a volcano that emits blue flames.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140130-kawah-ijen-blue-flame-volcanoes-sulfur-indonesia-pictures/
Page 4, Position 4: Iceland has more volcanoes than footballers.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/england-vs-iceland-gary-lineker-euro-2016-defeat-worst-in-our-history-alan-shearer-wants-england-job-a7106856.html
Page 5, Position 1: More than half of the Earth’s surface is not subject to any nation’s laws.
http://www.vocativ.com/397787/deep-sea-protection/
Page 5, Position 2: It is illegal to sell Stilton cheese made in the village of Stilton.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24650468
Page 5, Position 3: In northern Italy, cheese is acceptable as security on a bank loan.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2017/04/17/this-bank-will-take-cheese-as-collateral/?utm_term=.79c810241342
Page 5, Position 4: An Italian estate agent was the inspiration for the handsome, sadistic hero of Fifty Shades of Grey.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/mysterious-50-shades-character-christian-grey-based-italian-real-estate-agent-article-1.1608166
Page 6, Position 1: The film of Fifty Shades of Grey was banned in Cambodia because it depicted ‘insane romance’.
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/50-shades-of-grey-banned-for-being-too-sexy-77906/
Page 6, Position 2: North Korea banned the disaster movie 2012 in case it jinxed the year 2012.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/7526951/North-Korea-fears-2012-disaster-film-will-thwart-rise-as-superpower.html
Page 6, Position 3: In French, Jaws became ‘The Teeth of the Sea’.
http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/g18755/20-movie-titles-that-got-lost-in-translation/?slide=9
Page 6, Position 4: The spiders used in Spider-Man and Arachnophobia were social huntsman spiders and completely harmless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delena_cancerides
Page 7, Position 1: Spiders tune their webs like guitars.
http://gizmodo.com/spiders-tune-their-webs-like-guitar-strings-1786323021
Page 7, Position 2: Every year, spiders consume more food than whales.
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/all-the-worlds-spiders-eat-as-much-prey-as-all-the-worlds-whales/
Page 7, Position 3: Ogre-faced spiders attract prey with their excrement.
https://australianmuseum.net.au/net-casting-spiders
Page 7, Position 4: In 2017, Australian scientists discovered 50 new species of spider in one 10-day research trip.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/11/fifty-new-species-of-spider-discovered-in-far-north-australia
Page 8, Position 1: 10% of spiders are missing at least one of their legs.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/06/110603-spiders-spare-legs-webs-science-animals/
Page 8, Position 2: In India, termites’ jaws were once used to close wounds.
Planet Earth 2
Page 8, Position 3: In Brazil, fish skin is used to bandage burns.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-brazil-burns-idUSKBN18L1WH
Page 8, Position 4: The NHS costs the UK more than £116 billion a year.
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/overview.aspx
Page 9, Position 1: The British eat more onions than the French.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30549150
Page 9, Position 2: Ancient Egyptian priests were not allowed to eat onions in case it boosted their libido.
Alan Davidson, Oxford Companion to Food
Page 9, Position 3: The average person has sex 5,778 times in a lifetime.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/how-may-times-you-have-sex-in-a-lifetime-study_uk_57f624ede4b00df730dc0379
Page 9, Position 4: Nicknames for 19th-century sex positions included The Ordinary, The Spiky Chair and The View of the Low Countries.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ChEGzPECulUC&pg=PT42&lpg=PT42&dq=_dog-fashion+flyingâ€,&source=bl&ots=nQajQjKKLb&sig=DA-xdYRtHp3WyCpxe1S_5AkvVFw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYwdK40Y_SAhUhAcAKHU4UBt8Q6AEILTAG#v=onepage&q=countries&f=false_
Page 10, Position 1: A sex manual in Qing dynasty China outlined 48 different ways to fondle a mutilated foot.
http://gbtimes.com/life/foot-binding-classy-sexy-and-extremely-painful
Page 10, Position 2: Musical theatre is the genre of music least likely to be played in the bedroom.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38918963
Page 10, Position 3: In 1917, P. G. Wodehouse had five musicals on Broadway at the same time.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/93fddd44-e727-11e6-a93a-4fa396e7e4ed
Page 10, Position 4: Ostentation funk is a Brazilian musical genre that celebrates the middle-class lifestyle.
https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/iburev/v25y2016i3p633-645.html
Page 11, Position 1: 40% of working Britons have less than £100 in savings.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-3813659/16-million-people-working-age-100-savings-study-shows.html
Page 11, Position 2: 1.7 million Britons haven’t got a bank account.
http://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-banks-exclusion-idUKKBN16W001
Page 11, Position 3: The chief economist at the Bank of England has never owned a credit card.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/28/property-is-better-bet-than-a-pension-says-bank-of-england-economist
Page 11, Position 4: The Pope doesn’t know how to use a computer.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-pope-bible-idUKKBN16C0J9
Page 12, Position 1: Westminster Abbey has a cleric called Canon Ball.
http://www.westminster-abbey.org/press/news/2016/may/new-canon-steward-appointed
Page 12, Position 2: The head of the UK police task force on knife crime is called Alfred Hitchcock.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/28/beyond-the-blade-the-truth-about-knife-in-britain
Page 12, Position 3: The man who holds the British record for summiting Everest is a Mr K. Cool.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/nepal/articles/Everest-Sixty-fascinating-facts/
Page 12, Position 4: IKEA sofas have Swedish names, its rugs have Danish names and its beds have Norwegian names.
https://qz.com/896146/how-ikea-names-its-products-the-curious-taxonomy-behind-billy-poang-malm-kallax-and-rens/
Page 13, Position 1: Norwegian passports display the aurora borealis under a UV light.
ttps://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/nov/17/norway-new-passport-design
Page 13, Position 2: You can be blocked from getting a Swiss passport if your neighbours find you too annoying.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/switzerland-deny-passport-dutch-vegan-anti-cowbell-nancy-holten-animal-rights-annoying-a7520991.html
Page 13, Position 3: Horses competing in the Olympics have their own passports and fly business class.
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-08-08/how-do-horses-get-to-the-olympics
Page 13, Position 4: A beer tap on an aeroplane would dispense only foam.
http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2016/07/08/klm-airlines-launching-worlds-first-on-tap-draught-beer-on-flights.html
Page 14, Position 1: The world’s most popular beer is called Snow and is virtually unknown outside China.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/10-biggest-selling-beer-brands-globally-2016-5/#3-bud-light-global-beer-volume-market-share-25-8
Page 14, Position 2: The most common job in the UK is ‘manager’.
http://www.aboutmybusiness.co.uk/top-jobs-data.php
Page 14, Position 3: In 2016, a London company advertised for an ‘emoji translator’.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/12/13/emoji-translator-wanted-london-company-advertises-first-kind/
Page 14, Position 4: In 2017, the US Secret Service advertised for a ‘social media sarcasm spotter’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27711109
Page 15, Position 1: If you blend 25 random pictures from the Internet, the result will be orange.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/the-color-of-every-photo-on-the-internet-blended-together-is-orange/378614/
Page 15, Position 2: ‘International orange’ is the specific shade of orange used for NASA spacesuits, the Tokyo Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge.
http://www.livescience.com/32618-why-are-astronauts-spacesuits-orange.html
Page 15, Position 3: Saturn’s North Pole is blue.
ttp://gizmodo.com/oh-my-god-look-at-saturns-north-pole-1793887193
Page 15, Position 4: NASA provided the first American woman in space with a specially designed make-up kit.
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/flats.html
Page 16, Position 1: American astronauts on the International Space Station can vote in elections by email.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition18/vote.html
Page 16, Position 2: In 2015, President Obama made it legal for Americans to own asteroids.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/asteroid-mining-made-legal-after-barack-obama-gives-us-citizens-the-right-to-own-parts-of-celestial-a6750046.html
Page 16, Position 3: The smallest satellite ever made weighs less than a smartphone.
https://qz.com/index/987034/satellites-keep-getting-smaller-this-one-weighs-less-than-a-smartphone/
Page 16, Position 4: NASA spacesuits are called Extravehicular Mobility Units.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2129602-nasa-might-run-out-of-space-suits-before-it-quits-the-iss/
Page 17, Position 1: Chocolate, salmon and whisky are the UK’s top three food and drink exports.
https://www.fdf.org.uk/news.aspx?article=7812
Page 17, Position 2: In January 1205, it was so cold in England that wine and ale froze and were sold by weight, not volume.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gwMqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA199&dq
Page 17, Position 3: The US’s ninth-largest brewery has made a new beer from recycled sewage water.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stone-brewing-toilet-to-tap_us_58cc60c7e4b0be71dcf4fc2f
Page 17, Position 4: In Finland, you can buy a party pack of 1,000 cans of beer.
http://time.com/money/4761382/finnish-brewery-nokina-panimo-1000-cans-keisari-lager/
Page 18, Position 1: In Sweden, you can buy toilet paper called Kräpp.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34975365
Page 18, Position 2: The original patent for the toilet-roll holder showed the paper hanging over the holder, not under.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3002112/Age-old-debate-toilet-paper-settled-patent-1891.html
Page 18, Position 3: Post-it notes should be peeled with the sticky strip vertical, not horizontal.
http://twentytwowords.com/everything-you-thought-you-knew-about-peeling-post-it-notes-is-wrong/
Page 18, Position 4: Wrapping paper is only 100 years old.
http://theweek.com/articles/455250/who-invented-wrapping-paper
Page 19, Position 1: 1 in 100 Americans work for Walmart.
https://qz.com/924056/walmart-wmt-is-the-largest-private-employer-in-19-states/
Page 19, Position 2: FTSE 100 CEOs make more money in two and a half days than the average worker makes in a year.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jan/04/uk-bosses-will-make-more-by-midday-than-workers-will-earn-all-year-fat-cat-wednesday?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Page 19, Position 3: Only 4.2% of Fortune 500 companies are run by women.
https://qz.com/925821/how-rare-are-female-ceos-only-4-2-of-fortune-500-companies-are-run-by-women/
Page 19, Position 4: Men appear in the newspapers three times as often as women and have done so since 1800.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4105410/How-pop-stars-overtook-politicians-AI-finds-cultural-shifts-hidden-British-newspapers-1800-1950.html
Page 20, Position 1: During the Second World War, Women’s Institutes played ‘Pin the Moustache on Hitler’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mmSa-SDb0tcC&pg=PT91&lpg=PT91&dq
Page 20, Position 2: In the Second World War, it was illegal to post knitting patterns abroad in case they contained coded messages.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/knitting-spies-wwi-wwii
Page 20, Position 3: In 1857, British officials were convinced Indian villagers were passing secret messages hidden in chapattis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapati_Movement
Page 20, Position 4: The first editorial assistant to work on the Oxford English Dictionary was sacked for industrial espionage.
https://blog.oup.com/2017/03/making-oxford-english-dictionary/
Page 21, Position 1: My Adventures as a Spy, by Lord Baden-Powell, has a chapter on ‘The Value of Being Stupid’.
http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/07/10/robert-baden-powells-entomological-intrigues/
Page 21, Position 2: Secret agents have to be trained to forget their advanced driving courses.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tom Marcus
Page 21, Position 3: The CIA uses board games to train spies.
s: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/03/the-cia-uses-board-games-to-train-officers-and-i-got-to-play-them/
Page 21, Position 4: The CIA Museum in Langley , Virginia, is not open to the public.
s: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cia-museum?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=120fe570c4-Newsletter_3_11_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f36db9c480-120fe570c4-63261525&ct=t(Newsletter_3_11_17)&mc_cid=120fe570c4&mc_eid=1968599da9
Page 22, Position 1: In the First World War, battlefield observation stations were hidden inside trees.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2274260/The-Armys-special-branch-How-bizarre-fake-spy-trees-appeared-mans-land-WWI.html
Page 22, Position 2: The oak is the national tree of Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Germany , Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia and the UK.
The Long, Long Life of Trees by Fiona Stafford.
Page 22, Position 3: There are more trees on Earth than stars in the Milky Way.
http://www.snopes.com/are-there-more-trees-on-earth-than-there-are-stars-in-the-milky-way/
Page 22, Position 4: 1% of all the timber sold in the world is bought by IKEA.
https://gizmodo.com/ikea-uses-a-staggering-one-percent-of-the-worlds-wood-677540490
Page 23, Position 1: 12% of all the iron in Britain in the 1780s was cast by one man – John ‘Iron Mad’ Wilkinson.
https://gizmodo.com/ikea-uses-a-staggering-one-percent-of-the-worlds-wood-677540490
Page 23, Position 2: One-third of entrepreneurs think their chance of failing is zero.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Pg2rAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183&dq=One-third+of+entrepreneurs+think+their+chance+of+failing+is+zero.&source=bl&ots=pl7jSXqoKu&sig=Fp-LcwpphcRe_bZwCrvB5gjaVjo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFudv3zKbUAhVIZFAKHbaDBTUQ6AEILTAA#v=onepage&q=One-third%20of%20entrepreneurs%20think%20their%20chance%20of%20failing%20is%20zero.&f=false
Page 23, Position 3: ‘Entopreneurs’ are people who farm new types of edible insect.
http://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Life/For-growing-numbers-eating-insects-is-Bugsolutely-fine?page=2
Page 23, Position 4: Minecraft is used to pitch for business deals.
http://mashable.com/2017/02/06/tesla-gigafactory-2-minecraft-lithuania/#xyGoygkDtSqk
Page 24, Position 1: After shaking hands, most people unwittingly sniff their fingers.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27070-after-handshakes-we-sniff-peoples-scent-on-our-hand/
Page 24, Position 2: Octopuses smell with their arms.
http://aquarium.org/eight-great-reasons-sucker-octopuses/
Page 24, Position 3: Vegetarians smell nicer than people who eat meat.
New Scientist 18 Feb 17
Page 24, Position 4: Sniffing milk to test its freshness rather than going by the sell-by date would save 100 million pints a year.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7ac18b04-fc77-11e6-99c1-0f7da5c35c8f
Page 25, Position 1: In 1946, only 2% of British households had a fridge.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/excalibur-estate-prefab-homes?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4c68c8699d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_04_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f36db9c480-4c68c8699d-63009445&ct=t(Newsletter_4_28_2017)&mc_cid=4c68c8699d&mc_eid=1e2fb84cd9
Page 25, Position 2: Octopuses spend 3% of their time tidying.
Octopus, Richard Schweid. Reaktion Books, 2014
Page 25, Position 3: Only 4% of people who try to quit smoking without help succeed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07c6ll4
Page 25, Position 4: Only 5% of Chinese people have a passport.
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21601028-how-growing-chinese-middle-class-changing-global-tourism-industry-coming
Page 26, Position 1: 31% of Chinese tourists pack instant noodles when they travel.
https://qz.com/802004/31-of-chinese-tourists-pack-instant-noodles-when-they-travel-an-alibaba-baba-survey-shows/
Page 26, Position 2: The ancient Chinese could count up to a million on their hands.
The Universal History of Numbers; From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer, George Ifrah (Harvill Press,1998)
Page 26, Position 3: Six million years ago, otters were bigger than leopards.
https://qz.com/893494/scientists-discovered-a-110-pound-otter-that-lived-6-2-million-years-ago-in-china/
Page 26, Position 4: An analysis of eight million books published between 1776 and 2009 found that Britons were happiest in 1957.
The Week 28.1.17 p6
Page 27, Position 1: In 1957, the US air force flew around the world to show they could bomb anywhere they wanted.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1957-us-flew-jet-around-world-prove-it-could-drop-nuclear-bomb-anywhere-180961769/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=socialmedia
Page 27, Position 2: More than 2,400 nuclear bombs have been detonated since 1945.
s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGFkw0hzW1c
Page 27, Position 3: It will be another 500 years before the Somme is free of bombs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36683448
Page 27, Position 4: On 16 March 1945, bombs dropped by the British on Würzburg, Germany , destroyed 90% of the buildings in 20 minutes.
http://www.historyandheadlines.com/march-16-1945-british-bombers-destroy-90-wurzburg-20-minutes/
Page 28, Position 1: 90% of Vietnamese share just 14 surnames.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/nguyen-name-common-vietnam?mc_cid=888c7ea70d&mc_eid=1e2fb84cd9
Page 28, Position 2: 90% of lobsters escape from lobster traps.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a26038/the-blood-of-the-crab/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Page 28, Position 3: 90% of film critics are male.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/video/2017/may/11/jessica-chastain-on-miss-sloane-why-we-need-more-female-film-critics-video
Page 28, Position 4: 90% of world trade is carried by ship.
http://www.ics-shipping.org/shipping-facts/shipping-and-world-trade
Page 29, Position 1: The world’s heaviest aeroplane weighs as much as the statue Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya
Page 29, Position 2: Until 1970, United Airlines had ‘men only’ flights serving steaks, brandy and cigars.
http://theweek.com/speedreads/557710/united-airlines-used-offer-menonly-flights
Page 29, Position 3: French tennis player Suzanne Lenglen drank brandy between sets but won 98% of her games.
s: http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/05/27/united-airlines-men-only-executive-service/
Page 29, Position 4: Emma Martina Luigia Morano, the world’s oldest person when she died at 117, outlived 90 Italian governments.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39610937
Page 30, Position 1: In 2017, a Brazilian great-grandmother discovered the figure of St Anthony that she’d prayed to for years was actually an elf from The Lord of the Rings.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/grandma-prays-daily-to-lord-of-the-rings-figure-thinking-it-is-a-saint-a3434591.html
Page 30, Position 2: Facebook uses The Lord of the Rings to teach its software how to think.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/facebook-lord-of-the-rings-teach-memory-network-2015-11?r=US&IR=T
Page 30, Position 3: 25% of Americans think God decides who wins the Super Bowl.
: http://www.prri.org/research/poll-super-bowl-women-sports-god-athletes-marijuana/?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 30, Position 4: A ticket to the first Super Bowl cost $12; today’s tickets cost up to $3,000.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2016/02/02/10-things-to-know-about-the-money-in-super-bowl-50/#2eb11af73bda
Page 31, Position 1: One side of the new £1 coin was designed by a 15-year-old.
s: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ccba1ca0-face-11e6-a6f0-cb4e831c1cc0
Page 31, Position 2: The first Christmas stamp in the UK was designed by a six-year-old.
Western Daily Press, 13 Dec 16
Page 31, Position 3: Santa Claus’s first commercial appearance was in a 1923 advert for ginger beer.
http://blog.inkyfool.com/2016_02_01_archive.html
Page 31, Position 4: To visit every child in the world Santa would need to travel at 3,000 times the speed of sound.
The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus, Hannah Fry
Page 32, Position 1: 92% of shopping-mall Santas have had their beard pulled to see if it was real.
http://www.discoversanta2016.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-Red-Suit-Survey-Results..pdf
Page 32, Position 2: 30% of shopping-mall Santas have been urinated on by a child.
http://www.discoversanta2016.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-Red-Suit-Survey-Results..pdf
Page 32, Position 3: Leopard urine smells like popcorn.
https://www.earthtouchnews.com/in-the-field/in-the-field/a-live-safari-so-real-you-can-almost-smell-the-leopard-urine/
Page 32, Position 4: The Romans used urine to clean their teeth.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/from-gunpowder-to-teeth-whitener-the-science-behind-historic-uses-of-urine-442390/
Page 33, Position 1: Oxford University’s first professor of chemistry thought fossils were frozen urine.
http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/learning/pdfs/plot.pdf
Page 33, Position 2: If you pick up a desert tortoise, it can urinate itself to death.
https://www.desertmuseum.org/kids/oz/long-fact-sheets/Desert%20Tortoise.php
Page 33, Position 3: Most of the white sand in the Caribbean is made of parrotfish droppings.
http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-142-the-15-most-influential-things-you-never-knew-existed/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter-weekly-20170705
Page 33, Position 4: Kangaroos keep cool by licking their forearms.
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/past-issues/archive-2013-2014/animal-survival-in-extreme-temperatures.html
Page 34, Position 1: Birds can tell what the speed limits are on roads.
http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/4/3/161040
Page 34, Position 2: The French air force has a squad of golden eagles, trained to hunt down drones.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/18/french-air-force-turns-to-eagles-to-fight-terror-drone-threat/
Page 34, Position 3: Dragonflies can be used as drones by fitting them with tiny backpacks.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/turning-dragonflies-drones-180962097/
Page 34, Position 4: Japanese scientists have invented a robot bee.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-10/tiny-drones-mimic-bees/8258858
Page 35, Position 1: The White House only got the ability to print double-sided in 2016.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/us/politics/technology-upgrades-get-white-house-out-of-the-20th-century.html?_r=1
Page 35, Position 2: Lyndon B. Johnson had a nozzle fitted to his shower in the White House that fired water at his genitals.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/03/ldb-white-house-shower
Page 35, Position 3: Donald Trump presses a red button on his desk when he wants the White House butler to bring him a Diet Coke.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-oval-office-desk-red-button-butler-coke-white-house-us-president-a7703056.html
Page 35, Position 4: Domino’s customers can place an order by tweeting a pizza emoji.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/11601989/Now-you-can-order-Dominos-by-tweeting-a-pizza-emoji.html
Page 36, Position 1: The world’s largest pizza was twice the size of a tennis court.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-pizza
Page 36, Position 2: From 1974 to 1992, a third of all tennis Grand Slams were won by Swedish men; today, there are none in the top 150.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/07/sports/tennis/no-end-in-sight-for-the-slide-in-swedish-tennis.html
Page 36, Position 3: A Swede born with ‘a silver spoon in their mouth’ is said to have ‘slid in on a shrimp sandwich’.
http://blog.ted.com/40-idioms-that-cant-be-translated-literally/
Page 36, Position 4: The Polish equivalent of ‘Were you born yesterday?’ is ‘Did you fall from a Christmas tree?’
http://blog.ted.com/40-idioms-that-cant-be-translated-literally/
Page 37, Position 1: The money spent on Christmas presents in the UK could fund the NHS from Boxing Day to 12 February.
The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus, Hannah Fry
Page 37, Position 2: Christmas crackers were originally called ‘bangs of expectation’.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/history-of-christmas-facts-story-1488046
Page 37, Position 3: The first Christmas tree erected in Trafalgar Square was transported at night because it exceeded the legal weight limits on British roads in daytime.
http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000540/19471219/104/0004
Page 37, Position 4: In the Australian outback, there is a road used for testing supercars that has no speed limit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-37283797
Page 38, Position 1: Potholes in roads in 19th-century Argentina were filled with surplus sheep’s heads.
Offal - Gourmet Cookery From Head to Tail" by Jana Allen and Margaret Gin:
Page 38, Position 2: In 19th-century America, roads were paved with oyster shells.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-voluminous-shell-heaps-hidden-in-plain-sight-all-over-nyc
Page 38, Position 3: An oyster thief in 19th-century London called Dando would eat dozens of oysters, then abscond without paying.
Oyster, Rebecca Stott
Page 38, Position 4: The Oyster card was designed by Saatchi & Saatchi.
Saatchi.
Page 39, Position 1: Wig-snatching was a common crime in 18th-century England.
______ http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-elaborate-wigsnatching-schemes-of-the-18th-century
Page 39, Position 2: In 2014, German police issued a fine to a one-armed cyclist for cycling with one arm.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-police-apologise-for-fining-onearmed-cyclist-for-riding-his-bike-with-only-one-arm-9578923.html
Page 39, Position 3: The Olympic Village for the 1980 Winter Games in Upstate New York is now a prison.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-1980-olympic-village-now-prison-180960161/
Page 39, Position 4: South Korean sniffer dogs sold to the Russian police in Siberia have proved to be useless because they don’t like the cold.
http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/n0842-failed-cloned-dogs-no-use-to-law-enforcement-because-they-dont-obey-orders-and-hate-cold/
Page 40, Position 1: More than a third of the 8.5 million dogs in Britain are obese.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/21/smart-collar-can-track-pets-health-exercise-habits/
Page 40, Position 2: In Taiwan, it is illegal to walk a dog by attaching its lead to a car or motorbike.
s: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/20adb076-1f53-11e7-ab8a-bed946da5aa3
Page 40, Position 3: Ships are not classified as abandoned if there is a dog or a cat onboard.
https://twitter.com/SocialHistoryOx/status/821731032877633537
Page 40, Position 4: 10,000 shipping containers are lost from ships every year.
http://www.yachtingworld.com/comment/shipping-containers-lost-at-sea-61867
Page 41, Position 1: The largest cruise ships have a greater population than the City of London.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/what-happens-when-you-flush-the-loo-on-a-cruise-ship-/?WT.mc_id=e_DM334542&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_Tra_New_05Feb&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DM334542&noLightbox=true&email=travelcommerce_2017_02_05Edi_Tra_New_05FebDM334542&utm_content=Edi_Tra_New_05Feb
Page 41, Position 2: Dangerous maritime goods include pistachios, almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts and peanuts because they can all self-heat and spontaneously combust.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5733837/when-pistachio-nuts-explode
Page 41, Position 3: There are more than 500 peanuts in the average jar of peanut butter.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/how-many-peanuts-go-regular-9681889
Page 41, Position 4: Prince Charles wants to reduce grey squirrel numbers by feeding them contraceptives hidden in Nutella.
s: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-prince-charles-battling-squirrels-using-contraceptives-and-lot-nutella-180962302/
Page 42, Position 1: Tanzanians scare off elephants by bombarding them with condoms filled with chilli powder.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/08/18/saving-elephants-may-depend-on-scaring-them-with-chili-powder-filled-condoms/
Page 42, Position 2: To treat mites, beekeepers dust their bees with sugar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3LwVwkzjyA
Page 42, Position 3: Honeybees ‘whoop’ when they bump into each other.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2121275-honeybees-let-out-a-whoop-when-they-bump-into-each-other/
Page 42, Position 4: Bees can be taught to play football.
http://theconversation.com/we-taught-bees-to-play-football-so-we-could-learn-about-their-brains-73485
Page 43, Position 1: Apes are the only animals that need to be taught how to swim.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170320-the-cruel-experiments-that-revealed-most-mammals-can-swim?ocid=fbatl
Page 43, Position 2: The Mola mola is known as the sunfish in English and the moonfish in Russian.
Google Translate
Page 43, Position 3: The first treadmill on the International Space Station was ejected into space and burned up in the atmosphere.
http://www.space.com/21516-space-station-treadmill-trash.html
Page 43, Position 4: Treadmills were once the harshest punishment short of the death penalty .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/a-machine-that-used-to-be-considered-punishment-is-now-a-35-billion-industry/2017/01/31/c872ceba-c619-11e6-bf4b-2c064d32a4bf_story.html?utm_term=.fb53c31ed1d8
Page 44, Position 1: 60% of the world’s selfie deaths take place in India.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/more-than-half-of-all-selfie-deaths-occur-in-one-country/
Page 44, Position 2: Mahatma Gandhi Pires, Marlon Brando da Silveira, John Lennon Silva Santos and Yago Pikachu are all Brazilian footballers.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/football/from-pikachu-to-john-lennon-a-list-of-brazilian-footballers-with-bizzare-names/story-qlYh2TTkwHmTWgTWB9yMvI.html
Page 44, Position 3: North Korea is a hereditary Marxist monarchy.
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21721146-donald-trump-grapples-his-trickiest-task-how-deal-worlds-most-dangerous-regime
Page 44, Position 4: The Indonesian flag is the same as the Polish flag upside down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Indonesia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Poland
Page 45, Position 1: Polish is the second most common language spoken in the UK.
http://imgur.com/a/sONSR#gEwExhL
Page 45, Position 2: A clock’s second hand is really its third hand.
A Word A Day
Page 45, Position 3: All mammals, regardless of size, take 12 seconds to defecate.
http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/27/your-average-poo-takes-12-seconds-in-order-to-protect-you-from-predators-6600489/
Page 45, Position 4: The US State Department is located in Foggy Bottom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foggy_Bottom
Page 46, Position 1: Eight billion particles of fog can fit into a teaspoon.
Calculation by Head Elf, James Harkin http://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/clouds.htm
Page 46, Position 2: China’s Er Wang Dong cave is so big it has its own weather system.
https://weather.com/slideshows/news/china-cave-weather-20131002
Page 46, Position 3: Lightning heats the surrounding air to temperatures five times hotter than the surface of the Sun.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/lightning/
Page 46, Position 4: When it gets hot, normally carnivorous tadpoles become vegetarian.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161103115201.htm
Page 47, Position 1: The world’s smallest frog is the size of a housefly .
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/01/120111-smallest-frogs-vertebrates-new-species-science-animals/
Page 47, Position 2: The world’s tiniest reptile is a chameleon the size of an ant.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170703-the-chameleon-the-size-of-an-ant
Page 47, Position 3: In 2016, a new species of ant was discovered after it was vomited up by a frog.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/frogs-ants-vomits-new-species/
Page 47, Position 4: Nymphister kronaueri is a beetle whose camouflage makes it look like an ant’s bottom.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2120872-new-beetle-species-bites-army-ants-butt-and-hitches-a-ride/
Page 48, Position 1: In 2004, a pine tree planted in memory of George Harrison died after an infestation of beetles.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-george-harrison-tree-beetles-replant-20150225-story.html
Page 48, Position 2: Natural history museums use teams of beetles to clean the flesh off specimens.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/68184/beetles-work-natural-history-museums
Page 48, Position 3: Caterpillars contain more protein than dung beetles.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-22570121
Page 48, Position 4: John Adams, second president of the US, liked to inspect London’s dung.
http://arnoldia.arboretum.harvard.edu/pdf/articles/2002-61-4-john-adams-farmer-and-gardener.pdf
Page 49, Position 1: Richard Nixon once ordered a nuclear strike on North Korea when drunk.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38651623
Page 49, Position 2: In 1987, Richard Nixon’s wife predicted that Donald Trump would one day become the president.
http://www.spiritualnorth.com/blog/nixon-1987-letter-to-trump-youll-be-a-winner
Page 49, Position 3: Donald Trump uses double-sided sticky tape to hold his tie in place.
http://www.esquire.com/style/news/a51174/donald-trump-tapes-his-tie/
Page 49, Position 4: Calvin Coolidge had two pet lions called Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau.
http://digital.vpr.net/post/calvin-coolidges-fiscal-legacy#stream/0
Page 50, Position 1: Aged 14, Fidel Castro wrote to President Roosevelt to ask for $10.
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/09/my-good-friend-roosvelt.html
Page 50, Position 2: The US Treasury has a ‘Conscience Fund’ for voluntary donations from people feeling guilty about cheating on their taxes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience_Fund
Page 50, Position 3: Collectively, Americans take 300,000 years to do their tax returns every year.
https://qz.com/953556/americans-spend-more-time-every-year-doing-their-taxes-than-playing-golf-and-golf-takes-ages/
Page 50, Position 4: A 17th-century Scottish tax on having sex out of wedlock was called ‘buttock mail’.
Word Drops, Paul Anthony Jones, pg. 301
Page 51, Position 1: Grooflins is Scots for flat on one’s face.
Pocket Scots Dictionary Ed Iseabail Macleod, Ruth Martin, Pauline Cairns (Aberdeen University Press, 1988) p91
Page 51, Position 2: Whummle is Scots for head over heels.
Pocket Scots Dictionary Ed Iseabail Macleod, Ruth Martin, Pauline Cairns (Aberdeen University Press, 1988) p345
Page 51, Position 3: Wabbit is Scots for exhausted or slightly unwell.
https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/638251825678942209?lang=en
Page 51, Position 4: Snoozle is Scots for poke with the nose.
Pocket Scots Dictionary Ed Iseabail Macleod, Ruth Martin, Pauline Cairns (Aberdeen University Press, 1988) p266
Page 52, Position 1: Hitting the snooze button makes you more tired during the day.
https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2016/jan/26/five-tips-start-day-well
Page 52, Position 2: People who play the didgeridoo snore less.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/12/23/1537183.htm
Page 52, Position 3: Vitamin B6 helps you remember your dreams.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11883552
Page 52, Position 4: Black Americans don’t sleep as well as white Americans.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-reiss-race-sleep-gap-20170423-story.html
Page 53, Position 1: In 2017, six Chinese officials were punished for falling asleep in a meeting about how to motivate lazy bureaucrats.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-corruption-dozing-idUSKBN15P09O
Page 53, Position 2: Inemuri, or falling asleep in public, is considered a sign of diligence in Japanese employees.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/world/what-in-the-world/japan-inemuri-public-sleeping.html?_r=1
Page 53, Position 3: Japanese scientists have warned that people making the peace sign could have their fingerprints stolen.
https://phys.org/news/2017-01-japan-fingerprint-theft-peace.html
Page 53, Position 4: 30,000 napkins a month are stolen from Jamie Oliver’s restaurants.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/oct/16/jamie-oliver-restaurant-napkins-stolen
Page 54, Position 1: A statue of Hercules in Arcachon, France, has had its penis stolen so often it’s been given a detachable one for ‘special occasions’.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/20/nude-hercules-statue-gets-removable-penis-for-special-events/
Page 54, Position 2: In 2012, thieves in the Czech Republic stole a 10-tonne railway bridge, claiming they were clearing the way for a cycle path.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9235705/Czech-metal-thieves-dismantle-10-ton-bridge.html
Page 54, Position 3: In 2008, thieves in Jamaica stole an entire beach.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/oct/21/jamaica
Page 54, Position 4: The Tamil word for ‘stealing a beach’ is manarkollai.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_theft
Page 55, Position 1: In 2017, an Irish beach that had been washed away in 1984 was returned by a freak tide.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/10/i-had-50-tourists-drive-here-born-again-irish-beach-dooagh-captures-worlds-attention
Page 55, Position 2: The Hebridean island of Barra has the only airport in the world that uses a beach as a runway.
http://www.hial.co.uk/barra-airport/airport-information/history-of-barra/
Page 55, Position 3: Qatar Airways allows up to six falcons to sit in Economy Class.
https://www.qatarairways.com/en-qa/baggage/animals.html
Page 55, Position 4: Planes carrying the Pope use the call sign ‘Shepherd One’.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/22/politics/pope-francis-shepherd-one-visit-united-states/index.html
Page 56, Position 1: ‘Playing chess with the Pope’ is an Icelandic euphemism for having a poo.
https://www.visindavefur.is/svar.php?id=6998
Page 56, Position 2: The Icelandic word used for Darth Vader translates as ‘Blackhead’.
http://icelandmag.visir.is/article/reykjavik-names-a-street-after-darth-vader-star-wars
Page 56, Position 3: From 1966 to 1987, Iceland banned TV on Thursdays, to encourage people to get out and socialise more.
http://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-should-know-about-iceland
Page 56, Position 4: 1% of the static on an untuned TV is radiation from the birth of the universe.
https://www.universetoday.com/25560/the-switch-to-digital-switches-off-big-bang-tv-signal/
Page 57, Position 1: The Milky Way produces nine trillion kilos of antimatter every second.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/explaining-why-our-galaxy-produces-so-much-antimatter/
Page 57, Position 2: Exoplanet HAT-P-7b has clouds made of liquid rubies.
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2016/12/it-rains-rubies-and-sapphires-on-this-distant-jupiter-like-planet/
Page 57, Position 3: 29 of the 52 spacecraft sent to Mars have failed to reach their destination.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everything-about-mars-is-the-worst/?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 57, Position 4: Saturn’s newest moon is called Peggy.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/14apr_newmoon
Page 58, Position 1: The ancient Egyptians had a hieroglyph for ‘meteorite’.
http://www.ironfromthesky.org/?page_id=2
Page 58, Position 2: If an asteroid hit the Earth, only 3% of people would be killed by the actual impact.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2122612-if-an-asteroid-hit-london-only-3-of-deaths-would-be-from-impact/
Page 58, Position 3: 25 million meteors fall to Earth every day.
https://www.wired.com/2017/01/bright-green-meteor-lights-mountains-india/
Page 58, Position 4: You can find micro-meteorites in the gutters of European cities.
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21711633-amateur-enthusiast-advances-planetary-science-finding-micrometeorites-city
Page 59, Position 1: Birds that live in the city start tweeting earlier to avoid rush hour.
https://qz.com/726926/like-people-birds-that-live-in-the-city-are-louder-meaner-and-more-stressed-out-than-their-country-cousins/
Page 59, Position 2: Male cockatoos use drum solos to attract mates.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/28/cockatoos-impress-opposite-sex-phil-collins-style-drum-solos?mc_cid=2b08b02c4b&mc_eid=d3a1822159
Page 59, Position 3: In the 17th century, migrating birds were thought to go to the Moon for winter.
http://www.npr.org/2016/08/13/489883499/bird-myth-busters-do-birds-fly-to-the-moon-in-winter-and-other-unknowns
Page 59, Position 4: Cities are hotter from Monday to Friday and cooler at the weekend.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2118700-big-cities-warm-up-during-the-week-as-commuters-flock-in/
Page 60, Position 1: Utepils is Norwegian for a beer enjoyed outside on a sunny day.
http://utepilsbrewing.com/2015/11/the-true-meaning-of-utepils/
Page 60, Position 2: Muckibus means ‘drunkenly sentimental’.
OED
Page 60, Position 3: Schnapsidee is German for an ingenious plan concocted while drunk.
https://digest.bps.org.uk/2016/01/28/there-are-at-least-216-foreign-words-for-positive-emotional-states-and-concepts-that-we-dont-have-in-english/
Page 60, Position 4: The German aristocrat who invented mulled wine also invented an aphrodisiac sorbet.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/25/german-archivists-discover-1844-recipe-for-love-sorbet/
Page 61, Position 1: Philematology is the study of kissing.
http://amjmed.org/science-of-kissing/
Page 61, Position 2: Your lips are 1,000 times more sensitive than your fingertips.
http://amjmed.org/science-of-kissing/
Page 61, Position 3: Ants communicate by sharing saliva.
http://www.livescience.com/57030-ants-swap-spit-to-communicate.html
Page 61, Position 4: Kissing under the mistletoe began between 1720 and 1784, but nobody knows exactly when.
A Christmas Cornucopia, Mark Forsyth
Page 62, Position 1: Victorian Christmas trees were topped with Union Jacks.
A Christmas Cornucopia, Mark Forsyth
Page 62, Position 2: The ‘mas’ in Christmas means ‘go away’.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/201826495/where-do-christmas-traditions-come-from
Page 62, Position 3: 60% of the world’s Christmas decorations are made in a single town in China.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2014/dec/19/santas-real-workshop-the-town-in-china-that-makes-the-worlds-christmas-decorations
Page 62, Position 4: For Christmas 2008, Becks bought Posh a $100,000 handbag.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/31-incredible-gifts-given-by-the-super-rich/ss-BBzIPXp?ocid=MSN_UK_NL_M_NO_14Apr17OM2-PID84960#image=24
Page 63, Position 1: Vanilla is more expensive than silver.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a98e6fd2-47c3-11e7-a901-fbc155c10c07
Page 63, Position 2: The Doge of Venice marries the sea once a year by throwing a ring into the water.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Aft4c9GauRsC&pg=PA1055&dq=crossing+equator+sacrifice&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxt93Jv-TQAhWCahoKHewjD7c4ChDoAQgvMAQ#v=onepage&q=crossing%20equator%20sacrifice&f=false
Page 63, Position 3: Italian scientists have grown strawberries in underwater greenhouses on the seabed.
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/aug/13/food-growing-underwater-sea-pods-nemos-garden-italy
Page 63, Position 4: Vanuatu has an underwater post office.
http://www.vanuatupost.vu/index.php/en/underwater-post
Page 64, Position 1: American Express used to be a delivery company .
https://secure.cmax.americanexpress.com/Internet/GlobalCareers/Staffing/Shared/Files/our_story_3.pdf
Page 64, Position 2: Shell used to sell shells.
http://www.shell.com/about-us/who-we-are/our-beginnings.html
Page 64, Position 3: Samsung began as a grocery store.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/40237632/ns/business-world_business/t/how-worlds-top-brands-got-started/#.WXdfhcmQyA8
Page 64, Position 4: Lamborghini started out making tractors.
https://www.lamborghini.com/en-en/brand/history
Page 65, Position 1: Drivers in Moscow spend 25% of their time in traffic jams.
http://m.dw.com/en/los-angeles-moscow-top-list-of-most-congested-cities/a-37628063?maca=en-standard_feed-en-9097-xml
Page 65, Position 2: Britain’s roads are in worse condition than those of Oman, Malaysia, Ecuador and Namibia.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/95087a14-f87a-11e6-a6f0-cb4e831c1cc0
Page 65, Position 3: The first car in Antarctica didn’t work because it kept overheating.
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/History/Ernest%20Shackleton_Nimrod_expedition.php
Page 65, Position 4: A car fuelled by the waste coffee produced by Caffè Nero in London in a year could go round the M25 3,689 times.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/caff-nero-becomes-first-major-coffee-chain-to-convert-beans-into-fuel-a3463331.html
Page 66, Position 1: Voltaire drank 50 cups of coffee every day.
http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/philosophers-drinking-coffee.html
Page 66, Position 2: Bach wrote a cantata about coffee.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/02/famous-coffee-drinkers_n_5358495.html
Page 66, Position 3: Liszt drank a bottle of cognac every day.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/a-surprising-number-of-great-composers-were-fond-of-the-bottle-but-can-you-hear-it/
Page 66, Position 4: Kafka wanted to write budget travel guides but couldn’t find anyone to fund them.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/dec/20/franz-kafka-hoped-to-write-budget-travel-guides
Page 67, Position 1: In 2017, a Kiwi tourist was detained in Kazakhstan because the immigration authorities refused to believe there was a country called New Zealand.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/05/tourist-claims-detained-kazakhstan-officials-refused-believe/
Page 67, Position 2: 1 in 3 parents allow their children to choose where to go on holiday.
http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/44837/kids-get-big-say-in-family-holiday-choices-finds-survey
Page 67, Position 3: 45% of British families with children communicate by text even when they’re all at home.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ca06a526-e027-11e6-b301-d3506ecf1753
Page 67, Position 4: Kindergarten children in Alaska are taught how to butcher a moose.
http://www.wideopenspaces.com/kindergarteners-alaska-learn-butcher-moose/?utm_source=Quartz+Morning+Brief&utm_campaign=a64fb08d18-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1ff2527dbb-a64fb08d18-57548377
Page 68, Position 1: It is illegal in Saudi Arabia to name a child Sandi.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/03/16/why-did-saudi-arabia-ban-51-baby-names/?utm_term=.55a1293ef8ef
Page 68, Position 2: It is illegal in Sweden to name a child Veranda.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/03/16/why-did-saudi-arabia-ban-51-baby-names/?utm_term=.00c0e2b990f9
Page 68, Position 3: In 2008, a pair of twins in New Zealand were named Benson and Hedges.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/01/world/asia/new-zealand-stange-baby-names/
Page 68, Position 4: Ed Sheeran can fit 55 Maltesers into his mouth.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/3743661/watch-ed-sheeran-put-fifty-five-maltesers-in-his-mouth-at-once-in-new-carpool-karaoke/
Page 69, Position 1: The word ‘confetti’ comes from the Italian for ‘sugared almonds’.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confetto
Page 69, Position 2: The US once required people to have blood tests before they could marry .
https://www.reference.com/science/were-blood-tests-required-before-marriage-16fa496b264f2110#
Page 69, Position 3: In Britain in the Second World War, there was a threefold increase in bigamy.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3j-kDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA222&lpg=PA222&dq=world+war+two+bigamist+warning+civil+notice+marriage&source=bl&ots=Avk_Tr2fAU&sig=TW3dJGTWg0IqfHz0XKxPLrrT86w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7jc_zs_7UAhXLh7QKHQhPDmsQ6AEIJDAA#v=onepage&q=world%20war%20two%20bigamist%20warning%20civil%20notice%20marriage&f=false
Page 69, Position 4: In Denmark, if you’re unmarried at 25, your friends will ambush you with a cinnamon shower.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/life/single-in-denmark-prepare-for-birthday-spice-attacks/
Page 70, Position 1: Chilli peppers taste milder in space than on Earth.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160719094751.htm
Page 70, Position 2: The synthetic drug spice was originally developed as a fertiliser for bonsai trees.
s: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/96907816-0c0f-11e7-a3d4-c0acbb3b985d
Page 70, Position 3: In 2017, the original Bramley apple tree was still living at 207 years old.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-36826038
Page 70, Position 4: Scientists have found a way to grow human ears on apples.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39108026
Page 71, Position 1: There is no such thing as a wild orange.
Penguins, Pineapples and Pangolins
Page 71, Position 2: Orang-utans plan their journeys in advance and tell friends where they’re going.
http://www.livescience.com/39570-orangutans-plan.html
Page 71, Position 3: Hsing Hsing, an orang-utan in Perth Zoo, is attracted to Nicole Kidman.
http://www.news.com.au/travel/australian-holidays/perth-zoo-orangutan-has-kidman-fetish/news-story/1a52ba90f2399369b588349d84d419bd
Page 71, Position 4: Sandra, an orang-utan in Buenos Aires Zoo, is the first non-human to become a legal person.
http://www.wired.com/2014/12/orangutan-personhood
Page 72, Position 1: Three of the world’s rivers are legal persons: they have guardians and are treated as minors in court.
https://qz.com/940935/there-are-now-three-rivers-that-are-legally-people/
Page 72, Position 2: More than 90% of all jury trials in the world occur in the US.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/jury
Page 72, Position 3: US lawyers aren’t allowed to use the words ‘honey’ or ‘darling’ in court.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/business/dealbook/aba-prohibits-sexual-harassment-joining-many-state-bars.html?_r=1
Page 72, Position 4: Swearing on the Bible is theologically problematic as the New Testament forbids the taking of oaths.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11455853/The-trouble-with-swearing-an-oath-on-a-holy-book.html
Page 73, Position 1: Swearing uses a different part of the brain to other speech.
What The F, Benjamin K Bergen
Page 73, Position 2: In the 14th century, the name Peter was a mild swear word.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Pete&allowed_in_frame=
Page 73, Position 3: Brahms once got drunk and used a word so shocking it broke up the party and no one would repeat it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4713910/Blue-eyed-boy-to-grumpy-old-man.html
Page 73, Position 4: Tolstoy wrote in his diary: ‘I’ve fallen in love or imagine I have; went to a party and lost my head. Bought a horse which I don’t need at all.’
went to a party and lost my head. Bought a horse which I don‰Ûªt need at all.‰Ûª
Page 74, Position 1: The Roman consul Crassus loved his pet eel so much he bought it necklaces and earrings.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/murenae.html
Page 74, Position 2: Tyrannosaurus rex had a sensitive nose it probably used for nuzzling.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/mar/30/tyrannosaurus-rex-was-a-sensitive-lover-new-dinosaur-discovery-suggests
Page 74, Position 3: The great grey shrike impales its prey on sharp thorns, then presents the ‘kebab’ to potential mates.
http://support.iucnredlist.org/updates/romantic-gifts-animal-kingdom
Page 74, Position 4: Madagascar hissing cockroaches can either grow big horns to fight for a mate or grow big testicles for mating. They can’t do both.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/11/gory-details-hissing-cockroach-testicles-evolution/
Page 75, Position 1: You aren’t allowed to warm your balls during a round of golf, but you can before you start.
http://www.golf.com/instruction/ask-rules-guy-ball-warmers-and-windmills
Page 75, Position 2: Golfers in Coober Pedy, Australia, use glow-in-the-dark balls because it’s so hot by day that everyone plays at night.
http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/13173734/st-andrews-kooky-deal-opal-fields-golf-club
Page 75, Position 3: Burglars always knock on the door before breaking into a house.
http://www.kgw.com/news/investigations/we-asked-86-burglars-how-they-broke-into-homes/344213396
Page 75, Position 4: Houses in Vermont have windows that are slanted diagonally to stop witches getting in.
http://distractify.com/old-school/2014/10/21/very-superstitious-1197796927
Page 76, Position 1: Inuit people made windows from walrus penises.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cTfK0wGGt2YC&pg=PA230&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 76, Position 2: The Queen has a personal bagpiper who plays outside her window for 15 minutes each morning.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/shortcuts/2013/dec/11/what-does-queens-warden-of-the-swans-do
Page 76, Position 3: The word ‘window’ replaced an Old English word that literally meant ‘eye-hole’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=window
Page 76, Position 4: The White House has 147 windows.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about/inside-white-house
Page 77, Position 1: Richard Nixon’s chair was 2.5 inches higher than everyone else’s in the Cabinet Room.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/donald-trump-has-spent-more-133000-taxpayers-money-furniture-four-months-1627462
Page 77, Position 2: A throttlebottom is an inept politician.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/political-putdowns/throttlebottom
Page 77, Position 3: A quockerwodger was a 19th-century politician whose strings were pulled by someone else.
https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/cue7o5a
Page 77, Position 4: Whipmegorum is a Scots word for a noisy quarrel about politics.
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/whipmegmorum
Page 78, Position 1: Voice dystonia is the inability to speak to other people.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-22/how-dilbert-s-scott-adams-got-hypnotized-by-trump?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Page 78, Position 2: Your inner monologue runs at 67 words per second.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/figuring-out-how-and-why-we-talk-to-ourselves/508487/
Page 78, Position 3: Artificial speechgeneration software can learn to sing as well as a person in 35 minutes.
https://qz.com/958213/i-couldnt-tell-that-this-was-a-robot-singing-duke-ellingtons-signature-song/
Page 78, Position 4: One of the world’s first robots was Squee the Squirrel, built in 1951.
http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/squee-the-robot-squirrel/
Page 79, Position 1: CERN has an animal shelter for computer mice.
http://computer-animal-shelter.web.cern.ch/computer-animal-shelter/index.shtml
Page 79, Position 2: Malmö, Sweden, has two tiny shops for mice.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stores-restaurants-mice-sweden_us_584ae4fae4b0bd9c3dfc7975
Page 79, Position 3: Mice sigh up to 40 times an hour.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/08/a-sighs-not-just-a-sigh-its-a-fundamental-life-sustaining-reflex
Page 79, Position 4: A Komodo dragon’s tongue can taste its prey from two and a half miles away.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/science/heres-what-makes-komodo-dragons-so-powerful_1/
Page 80, Position 1: Diners spend £2 more per head if a restaurant plays classical music instead of pop.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36424854
Page 80, Position 2: Listening to music can change the taste of wine and toffee.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/21/heard-it-through-the-grapevine-can-music-really-change-the-taste-of-wine?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=218418&subid=22528671&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
Page 80, Position 3: ‘I Will Survive’, ‘Stayin’ Alive’ and ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ have the correct number of beats per minute to perform CPR to.
https://qz.com/936920/new-york-presbyterian-hospital-released-a-playlist-of-all-the-songs-to-which-you-can-do-cpr/
Page 80, Position 4: CPR is successful only 8% of the time.
https://qz.com/936920/new-york-presbyterian-hospital-released-a-playlist-of-all-the-songs-to-which-you-can-do-cpr/
Page 81, Position 1: You can make human heart tissue from spinach.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/human-heart-spinach-leaf-medicine-science/
Page 81, Position 2: Artificial blood vessels can be made with a candyfloss machine.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/75276/scientists-use-cotton-candy-machines-make-artificial-blood-vessels
Page 81, Position 3: Oxford University is developing artificial knees made from spider silk.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/10/the-innovators-the-silk-road-to-reducing-knee-operations
Page 81, Position 4: Hummingbirds use spiders’ webs to glue their nests together.
http://www.worldofhummingbirds.com/nest.php
Page 82, Position 1: Male sparrows bring less food back to the nest if their partner has been unfaithful.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/31/birds-sense-if-partners-are-unfaithful-and-retaliate-by-providin/
Page 82, Position 2: It takes 60 nests’ worth of duck down to fill a duvet.
http://eiderdown.com/files/eider_article.pdf
Page 82, Position 3: 47 species of fungus live inside pillows.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/07/health/bed-making-you-sick/index.html
Page 82, Position 4: April 1st is International Pillow Fight Day.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/hundreds-gather-in-london-for-mass-pillow-fight-a7662191.html
Page 83, Position 1: The national sport of Turkey is oil wrestling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_wrestling
Page 83, Position 2: New Mexico has an official state question: ‘Red or green?’
http://www.sos.state.nm.us/kids_corner/state_symbols.aspx#question
Page 83, Position 3: Swedish only became Sweden’s official language in 2009.
https://www.thelocal.se/20090701/20404
Page 83, Position 4: Only 7% of the Chinese can speak Chinese properly.
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21708731-mandarin-becoming-worlds-most-commonly-spoken-language-it-contentious-home-let-not?fsrc=gnews
Page 84, Position 1: In 2010, Fiji lost its original Declaration of Independence and had to ask Britain for a photocopy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11565853
Page 84, Position 2: In 1875, the Royal Navy erased 123 islands from their charts because they didn’t exist.
https://www.1843magazine.com/places/cartophilia/deleted-islands
Page 84, Position 3: In 2001, the AA had to pay £20 million after it was caught copying Ordnance Survey maps.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/mar/06/andrewclark
Page 84, Position 4: Google Maps in India has Kashmir belonging to India. In Pakistan, it shows it as being disputed.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/08/google-maps-to-help-settle-afghanistan-pakistan-border-dispute
Page 85, Position 1: In 1983, the Spanish town of Lijar ended its 100-year war with France due to ‘the excellent attitude of the French’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=E_qS4RW5nw0C&pg=PT63&lpg=PT63&dq=%22excellent+attitude+of+the+French,%E2%80%9D%22&source=bl&ots=wlbPSIl7g6&sig=hhVO07uHyAhQiPWnJH8_KJpvz3w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi8qcLI8tjUAhUrJMAKHba6Dj8Q6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=%22excellent%20attitude%20of%20the%20French%2C%E2%80%9D%22&f=false
Page 85, Position 2: More people visit France than any other country on Earth.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/lists/country-rankings-what-each-nation-is-best-at/france/
Page 85, Position 3: The happiest country in the world is Costa Rica.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/lists/country-rankings-what-each-nation-is-best-at/costa-rica/
Page 85, Position 4: The friendliest country in the world is Iceland.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/thailand/articles/Thailand-20-fascinating-facts/
Page 86, Position 1: In Japan, police carry massive futons to roll up drunks in.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38365729
Page 86, Position 2: Korobikobou is Japanese police slang for deliberately bumping into a suspect and then arresting them for obstruction.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/japans-terrible-anti-terror-law-just-made-the-minority-report-reality?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon
Page 86, Position 3: All Japanese police officers are expected to become a black belt in judo.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38365729
Page 86, Position 4: Police in Zambia are not allowed to marry foreigners.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-38718205
Page 87, Position 1: The neon flying squid is faster than Usain Bolt.
: https://qz.com/1008442/in-honor-of-cephalopod-week-here-are-eight-fantastic-facts-about-octopuses-and-their-ilk/
Page 87, Position 2: The scientific name for the black bee-fly is Anthrax anthrax.
https://apple.news/AZyyTO3epSWy3nwEeUKzFEw
Page 87, Position 3: The pom-pom crab carries sea anemones in its claws and waves them around when threatened.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/crabs-anemones-pom-pom-clones-fight/
Page 87, Position 4: A group of cockroaches is called an ‘intrusion’.
https://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/what-do-you-call-a-group-of/
Page 88, Position 1: Slugs are twice as fast as snails.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/green_room/2009/04/feeling_sluggish.html
Page 88, Position 2: Rats practise walking and running before they’re born.
New Scientist, 28 Jan 2017
Page 88, Position 3: At the first Olympics, athletes got a bronze medal just for taking part.
http://amhistory.si.edu/sports/exhibit/olympians/first/
Page 88, Position 4: The winner of the 1896 Olympic discus competition had never thrown a discus before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_1896_Summer_Olympics___Men%27s_discus_throw
Page 89, Position 1: Croquet was dropped as an Olympic sport after the 1900 games, when only one spectator turned up.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/a-machine-that-used-to-be-considered-punishment-is-now-a-35-billion-industry/2017/01/31/c872ceba-c619-11e6-bf4b-2c064d32a4bf_story.html?utm_term=.fb53c31ed1d8
Page 89, Position 2: The Rio Olympics employed 75 lifeguards at the swimming events.
http://www.express.co.uk/sport/olympics/698096/rio-2016-olympics-lifeguard-swimming-useless-job
Page 89, Position 3: 600 million years ago, the Earth’s oceans were freshwater.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2130525-snowball-earth-melting-led-to-freshwater-ocean-2-kilometres-deep/
Page 89, Position 4: Swedish scientists have discovered that water is a combination of two distinct forms of liquid.
http://newatlas.com/stockholm-university-water-exists-two-liquid-states/50248/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=a00802ede1-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-a00802ede1-92793889
Page 90, Position 1: Dolphins provide babysitting services.
https://www.ted.com/talks/denise_herzing_could_we_speak_the_language_of_dolphins/transcript?language=en
Page 90, Position 2: Smooth-fan lobsters travel inside jellyfish and eat them as they go.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2016/08/25/jellyfish-lobster/
Page 90, Position 3: Lobsters’ brains are the same size as the tip of a ballpoint pen.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WiikO3rMVDAC&pg=PA44&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 90, Position 4: Healthy human brains feel like warm scallops.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1064889/Things-didnt-know-----Being-brain-surgeon.html#ixzz4VGd9OsXb
Page 91, Position 1: Your brain dries out as you age.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-food/201105/how-do-brains-age
Page 91, Position 2: The UK has four times as many people aged over 100 as it had 30 years ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/21/number-people-over-100-fivefold-increase-statistics
Page 91, Position 3: An ‘oldster’ was a Royal Navy term for a midshipman of four years’ standing.
OED
Page 91, Position 4: The giant shipworm grows as tall as a 12-year-old child.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/929c1cd8-23ac-11e7-bc20-132b509ff5ce
Page 92, Position 1: In 2017, Doris Day discovered she was two years older than she thought she was.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/02/birthday-surprise-doris-day-discovers-95-two-years-older-thought/
Page 92, Position 2: Julius Caesar wanted to ban actors from holding public office.
SPQR by Mary Beard
Page 92, Position 3: In 168 bc, the only tradesmen in Rome who were not slaves were bakers.
http://www.bakers.co.uk/A-Brief-History/In-the-beginning.aspx
Page 92, Position 4: In 14th-century London, the Bakers Guild split up and formed two rival guilds: one for brown bread and one for white.
http://www.bakers.co.uk/A-Brief-History/Brown-Bakers.aspx
Page 93, Position 1: In Venezuela, 90% of all wheat must be made into bread rather than cakes or pastries.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/17/bakers-arrested-illegal-brownies-venezuela-bread-war
Page 93, Position 2: In Waitrose, it costs more to buy empty jam jars than ones with jam in.
s: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/13/jam-jars-becoming-preserve-weathy-waitrose-sells-empty-jars/
Page 93, Position 3: Houses in Britain numbered 13 cost £9,000 less than average.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38611142
Page 93, Position 4: Million Dollar Point is an area in the Pacific where the US army dumped all its equipment after the Second World War because it was cheaper than bringing it home.
http://www.airvanuatu.com/blog/underwater-history-lesson-million-dollar-point/
Page 94, Position 1: The sailfish can swim at 70 mph.
http://blog.nwf.org/2011/03/the-fascinating-things-about-creatures-that-swim/
Page 94, Position 2: Swordfish secrete oil from their noses to smooth their passage through the water.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/swordfish-secrete-oil-may-let-them-swim-faster-180959723
Page 94, Position 3: An oyster can filter 50 gallons of water a day.
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2013/04/30/oysters-more-effective-than-previously-believed-in-filtering-water/
Page 94, Position 4: Most fish food is made of fish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_fish_feed
Page 95, Position 1: Fish sing the dawn chorus.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2106331-fish-recorded-singing-dawn-chorus-on-reefs-just-like-birds/
Page 95, Position 2: British children can be held responsible for crimes from the age of 10, but can’t own a goldfish until they’re 16.
Howard League for Penal Reform pamphlet, 2015
Page 95, Position 3: In medieval England, you could be made an outlaw if you failed to turn up to court five times in a row.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/outlaws-outlawry-medieval-early-modern-england/
Page 95, Position 4: It is illegal in France to breed killer whales in captivity .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/07/france-bans-breeding-killer-whales-captivity/
Page 96, Position 1: A pod of killer whales breathes in unison while asleep.
http://orcalab.org/orcas/resident-orcas/
Page 96, Position 2: The zombie worm lives and feeds on the bones of whales.
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/26/zombie-worms-mate-inside-whale-bones/
Page 96, Position 3: The Swedish for ‘whale’ also means ‘election’.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2016/05/21/gothenburgs-malm-whale/14637528003254
Page 96, Position 4: Parliamentary elections in India are three times as likely to be won by politicians convicted of serious crimes.
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21716019-penchant-criminality-electoral-asset-india-worlds-biggest
Page 97, Position 1: Ochlocracy is democracy’s evil twin: rule by the mob.
OED
Page 97, Position 2: In seven US states, you can change your vote after you’ve cast it.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/31/politics/changing-early-vote-cast/index.html
Page 97, Position 3: Pennsylvanian candidates in the 2016 US presidential election included Mickey Mouse, Wonder Woman, Harambe the Gorilla, Richard Nixon, We Deserve Better and Shoot Me Now.
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/dissatisfied-lackawanna-county-residents-got-creative-with-write-in-votes-1.2119955
Page 97, Position 4: Nevada is the only state whose ballot papers have a ‘None of the above’ option.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/not-fan-candidate-nevada-can-vote-none-candidates/
Page 98, Position 1: Scientists in Massachusetts have invented an AI machine that can see two seconds into the future.
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/technology/deep-learning-predicts-future-n690851
Page 98, Position 2: Beijing has three million hens that are looked after by robot nannies.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-12/china-tries-nanny-robots-to-keep-chickens-healthy
Page 98, Position 3: Dubai police have a Robocop.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/worlds-first-robotic-cop-joins-dubai-police/burj2/slideshow/59253750.cms
Page 98, Position 4: The US Department of Defense still uses 8-inch floppy disks.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/19/jared-kushner-technology-week-hell-yeah/
Page 99, Position 1: The first aircraft carriers were designed to carry hot-air balloons.
https://www.navalhistory.org/2012/08/01/the-birth-of-the-aircraft-carrier
Page 99, Position 2: Balloons and helicopters frighten the meerkats in London Zoo, but aeroplanes and pigeons don’t.
http://sc.www.buzzfeed.com.ydm0.rg.gy/floperry/weird-facts-you-probably-didnt-know-about-london-zoo
Page 99, Position 3: Pigeons can be trained to identify breast cancer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34878151
Page 99, Position 4: Rats can diagnose tuberculosis faster than doctors.
http://www.thenational.ae/world/africa/tanzanian-rats-sniff-out-tb-cases-better-than-humans
Page 100, Position 1: In the 16th century, cancer was thought to be curable with tobacco.
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/tobacco-miracle-cure-toxin
Page 100, Position 2: In the 17th century, Greek monks thought that tobacco was the excrement of Satan.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xLRfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA79&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 100, Position 3: In the 18th century, gin was thought to cure seasickness.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/11/gin-mothers-ruin-uk-56-distilleries
Page 100, Position 4: In the 19th century, an Edinburgh doctor sold homeopathic snake excrement to treat chest problems.
http://www.thomas-morris.uk/snake-poo-salesman/
Page 101, Position 1: Russia has 800,000 faith healers but only 640,000 doctors.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5751402e-1d47-11e7-ab8a-bed946da5aa3
Page 101, Position 2: Traces of aspirin and penicillin have been found on the teeth of Neanderthals.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2123669-neanderthals-may-have-medicated-with-penicillin-and-painkillers/
Page 101, Position 3: Neanderthals ate rhinoceroses.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-science-neanderthals-idUKKBN16F2LK?feedType=nl&feedName=uktechnology&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UK%20Oddly%20Enough%202017-03-09&utm_term=UK%20Oddly%20Enough
Page 101, Position 4: Buddha was not fat.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/photos/15-inaccurate-historical-facts/ss-AAnVN3A?ocid=MSN_UK_NL_M_NO_10Mar17OM2-PID84380#image=11\
Page 102, Position 1: During the Second World War, British pilots carried chocolate bars infused with garlic in case they were shot down and needed to make their breath smell French.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/01/garlic-chocolate-exploding-animal-droppings-britains-weird-wwii/
Page 102, Position 2: Eating garlic improves your body odour.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2015/11/30/study-finds-that-eating-garlic-actually-makes-your-bo-smell-better/#.Vl2Cw4TA6i4
Page 102, Position 3: You can buy cologne that smells of Play-Doh.
https://demeterfragrance.com/play-doh.html
Page 102, Position 4: Rats can smell fear.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128301-800-the-unsung-sense-how-smell-rules-your-life/
Page 103, Position 1: Naked mole-rats can survive for 18 minutes without oxygen by turning themselves into plants.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/04/20/naked-mole-rats-turn-plants-survive-without-oxygen-scientists/
Page 103, Position 2: Cuttlefish change colour to elude predators but are themselves colour-blind.
http://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/secrets-of-cephalopod-camouflage/
Page 103, Position 3: Side-blotched lizards have three throat colours and five genders.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-lizards-that-live-rock-paper-scissors-118219795/#3yX7Xs4TyypQr4td.99
Page 103, Position 4: The thorny devil lizard drinks through its skin.
https://phys.org/news/2016-11-thorny-devil-skin-gravity.html
Page 104, Position 1: Ostriches don’t drink at all; they get all the water they need from the plants they eat.
they get all the water they need from the plants they eat.
Page 104, Position 2: Water in Chile’s Atacama Desert has 100 times the safe level of arsenic, but local people have evolved to process it.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23331144-200-desert-people-evolve-to-drink-water-poisoned-with-deadly-arsenic/
Page 104, Position 3: 73% of people who are allergic to pollen are also allergic to cannabis.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4500844/36-million-Americpot-figures-show.html
Page 104, Position 4: Neurotic people are more likely to see faces in random objects.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/66363/neurotic-people-may-be-more-likely-see-faces-objects
Page 105, Position 1: Because of the way their eyes are positioned, pigs can’t see the sky.
http://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/pigs-no-real-appreciation-sky/
Page 105, Position 2: Starfish have eyes on the tips of their arms.
NatGeo Feb 2016
Page 105, Position 3: The cockeyed squid has one regular-sized eye and one giant eye.
New Scientist 18 Feb 17
Page 105, Position 4: The box jellyfish has 24 eyes, some of which always look skywards, even when it is upside down.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5795906/box-jellyfish-have-24-floating-eyes
Page 106, Position 1: The Portuguese man-o’-war jellyfish is hunted by the blanket octopus, which rips off its poisonous tentacles and uses them as weapons.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/139/3556/764
Page 106, Position 2: Gloomy octopuses throw seashells at each other.
Octopus, Richard Schweid. Reaktion Books, 2014
Page 106, Position 3: Octopuses range in size from two centimetres to six metres across.
Octopus, Richard Schweid. Reaktion Books, 2014
Page 106, Position 4: Dolphins tenderise octopuses by bashing them around before eating them.
http://www.livescience.com/58572-dolphins-tenderize-octopus-prey.html
Page 107, Position 1: The defence mechanism of turkey vultures is to vomit up their last meal.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/11-animals-that-use-odor-as-a-weapon/king-ratsnake#top-desktop
Page 107, Position 2: King ratsnakes, or ‘stinking goddesses’, deter predators by emptying their anal glands.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/11-animals-that-use-odor-as-a-weapon/king-ratsnake#top-desktop
Page 107, Position 3: Opossums defend themselves by faking their own death.
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/19/5-animals-with-stinky-defenses/
Page 107, Position 4: The UK spends less on defence than it does paying interest on the national debt.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/11-animals-that-use-odor-as-a-weapon/king-ratsnake#top-desktop
Page 108, Position 1: 1 in 14 Britons is on an NHS waiting list.
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2018UKbn_16bc1n_305056808s#ukgs302
Page 108, Position 2: 10% of the NHS budget is used to treat diabetes.
https://theconversation.com/why-gluten-free-food-is-not-the-healthy-option-and-could-increase-your-risk-of-diabetes-73979?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20March%209%202017%20-%2069315167&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20March%209%202017%20-%2069315167+CID_c6b66b5246365a434f06d71c403a2d48&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=an%20inverse%20relationship%20between%20gluten%20intake%20and%20type%202%20diabetes
Page 108, Position 3: 97% of people visiting hospital with appendicitis report pain when going over speed bumps on the way.
http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e8012
Page 108, Position 4: The world’s hottest chilli was bred to be used as an anaesthetic.
http://www.livescience.com/59184-how-dragons-breath-chili-peppers-can-kill.html
Page 109, Position 1: 15% of the air on the New York subway contains human skin.
http://www.metro.us/local/study-shows-subway-air-samples-include-human-skin/tmWmeh---f3ziRPgXKo9U
Page 109, Position 2: The Brazilian wax was invented in New York.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37896963
Page 109, Position 3: The high five was invented in 1977.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_five
Page 109, Position 4: Before the invention of pressurised cabins, all airline passengers had to wear oxygen masks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_mask
Page 110, Position 1: Wealthy women in the 16th century wore black velvet masks to protect their faces from the sun.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/visard-mask-elizabethan-visor-blank-16th-century
Page 110, Position 2: Japanese farmers protect the pale flesh of melons from sunburn by putting small hats on them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-17352173
Page 110, Position 3: The hooded nudibranch is a sea slug that smells like watermelon.
http://www.centralcoastbiodiversity.org/hooded-nudibranch-bull-melibe-leonina.html
Page 110, Position 4: Sea lions love the smell of cinnamon.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/sea-lions-are-surprisingly-receptive-to-holiday-spices
Page 111, Position 1: Whale breath smells like a mixture of fish and farts.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/most-whales-dont-know-how-bad-they-smell
Page 111, Position 2: Liver failure makes your breath smell of raw fish.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/11/disease-cancer-smell-like_n_4939873.html
Page 111, Position 3: German measles makes your sweat smell of freshly plucked feathers.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7661625
Page 111, Position 4: Typhoid makes your skin smell of freshly baked bread.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7661625
Page 112, Position 1: One outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease was traced to the hot tub in the Playboy Mansion.
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/playboy-mansion-hot-tub-bacteria-spawned-legionnaires-disease-outbreak-back-february-article-1.113423
Page 112, Position 2: The Playboy Mansion has the second-largest residential pipe organ in the US.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/12100838/With-the-Playboy-Mansion-for-sale-take-a-look-at-the-worlds-sexiest-property-market.html
Page 112, Position 3: Until the 16th century, many people carried tiny portable organs called ‘organetti’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portative_organ
Page 112, Position 4: Half of churchgoers have noticed an organist slipping in unexpected tunes during a service.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10034068/Beware-the-wrath-of-the-church-organist-musical-revenge-is-sweet.html
Page 113, Position 1: Any song played on the radio in 1940s America had to have the whole band present in the studio.
https://timeline.com/live-musicians-were-so-terrified-of-recording-their-music-fdr-had-to-step-in-c03b6af16944
Page 113, Position 2: Paul McGuigan, the original bassist in Oasis, quit the band by fax.
http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-oasis-documentary-10-crucial-moments-itd-be-mad-to-miss-out-760285
Page 113, Position 3: 1 in 5 British households own a vinyl copy of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1eab9c60-00e6-11e7-8489-aa00e6d4223d
Page 113, Position 4: The composer who sold the most music CDs in 2016 was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mozart-has-sold-more-cds-in-2016-than-beyonce?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c483c23a67-Newsletter_12_15_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f36db9c480-c483c23a67-63261525&ct=t(Newsletter_12_15_2016)&mc_cid=c483c23a67&mc_eid=1968599da9
Page 114, Position 1: Opera Helps sends opera singers round to your house to sing the appropriate aria for your problems.
http://www.operahelps.com/
Page 114, Position 2: Jacques Offenbach gave his operas long overtures because people were often late for the performances.
http://factstore.info/jacques-offenbach-wrote-long-overtures-for-his-operas-because-many-spectators-were-late/
Page 114, Position 3: Tchaikovsky wanted his 1812 Overture to be played with live cannons.
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/tchaikovsky/guides/1812-hated-hit/#Q5UkDeyJXksuA63A.99
Page 114, Position 4: Tchaikovsky said the 1812 Overture was ‘very loud and noisy and completely without artistic merit, obviously written without warmth or love’.
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/tchaikovsky/guides/1812-hated-hit/#Q5UkDeyJXksuA63A.99
Page 115, Position 1: In 2009, Vodafone recreated the 1812 Overture using ringtones from 1,000 mobile phones.
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/tchaikovsky/guides/1812-hated-hit/#Q5UkDeyJXksuA63A.99
Page 115, Position 2: Mobile-phone users in the Netherlands are provided with traffic lights on the pavement to stop them getting run over.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/dutch-town-traffic-lights-pavements-smartphone-addiction-2017-2?r=US&IR=T
Page 115, Position 3: Prozvonit is a Czech word meaning ‘to call someone’s mobile so they have your number’.
Word Drops, Paul Anthony Jones, pg. 124
Page 115, Position 4: Phubbing is a new word meaning ‘ignoring your friends in favour of your mobile phone’.
http://globalnews.ca/news/3523638/phubbing-meaning/
Page 116, Position 1: The more crowded a subway train gets, the more people buy things on their phones.
s: https://www.recode.net/2017/4/25/15408846/study-mobile-ads-crowds-purchase-subway-commuters
Page 116, Position 2: The number of shopping centres in North Korea doubled between 2010 and 2017.
https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/2/15502672/north-korea-economy
Page 116, Position 3: Papua New Guinea has only recognised Taiwan for one week in 1999.
http://thediplomat.com/2017/05/the-sovereign-recognition-game-has-nauru-overplayed-its-hand/
Page 116, Position 4: Books may not enter or leave Tajikistan without written permission from the Ministry of Culture.
http://www.signature-reads.com/2017/04/new-tajikistan-rule-no-books-allowed-in-or-out-without-approval/
Page 117, Position 1: Google has a database of 25 million books that nobody is allowed to read.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-tragedy-of-google-books/523320/
Page 117, Position 2: The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is the first non-religious book to be translated into 300 languages.
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/read/article/the-little-prince-becomes-the-worlds-most-translated-book-excluding-religio
Page 117, Position 3: A Coptic translation of the New Testament is the world’s slowest-selling book: the first print run of 500 copies took 191 years to sell.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/slowest-selling-book
Page 117, Position 4: A library book borrowed by George Washington in 1789 wasn’t returned until 2010.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/55621/11-ridiculously-overdue-library-books-were-finally-returned
Page 118, Position 1: The British Library keeps its collection of over 60 million newspapers in an airtight room with low oxygen so they can’t catch fire.
https://www.bl.uk/press-releases/2015/january/british-library-opens-national-newspaper-building
Page 118, Position 2: The Moon has been collecting tiny bits of the Earth for three billion years.
https://www.space.com/35502-moon-has-oxygen-from-earth-plants.html
Page 118, Position 3: Collectively, humans have watched Adam Sandler movies on Netflix for longer than civilisation has existed.
s: https://qz.com/962420/collectively-humans-have-watched-adam-sandler-on-netflix-nflx-for-longer-than-civilization-has-existed/
Page 118, Position 4: Netflix’s biggest competitor is sleep.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/18/netflix-competitor-sleep-uber-facebook?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=222239&subid=22528671&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
Page 119, Position 1: In 2017, an Australian MP laughed so hard at the US TV show Veep he knocked himself out.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/may/04/veep-stars-respond-to-australian-mp-who-knocked-himself-out-laughing-at-episode?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=224408&subid=22528671&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
Page 119, Position 2: The two biggest opening-week releases in South Korean film history were both horror movies.
http://variety.com/2017/film/news/the-mummy-box-office-korea-1202455838/
Page 119, Position 3: On the first day of filming, Colin Farrell always wears his lucky shamrock-patterned underpants.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/superstars-superstitions-wet-towels-lucky-9528823
Page 119, Position 4: Tony Blair wore the same pair of shoes for every Prime Minister’s Questions for 10 years.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/superstars-superstitions-wet-towels-lucky-9528823
Page 120, Position 1: In JFK’s first political campaign, a newspaper complained he was ‘ever so British’.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-strange-tale-of-jfks-goatoutthevote-campaign
Page 120, Position 2: The US Constitution is kept in an atomicbomb-proof vault.
s: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/national-archives-vault
Page 120, Position 3: The Indian judiciary has a backlog of 31 million cases.
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21716019-penchant-criminality-electoral-asset-india-worlds-biggest
Page 120, Position 4: Mumbai has the world’s highest concentration of leopards.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/planet-earth-ii/cities
Page 121, Position 1: The world’s highest concentration of peregrine falcons is in New York City .
Planet Earth II
Page 121, Position 2: In Alabama, it is illegal to wear a fake moustache that causes laughter in church.
http://graduate.olivet.edu/news-events/news/united-states-crazy-laws
Page 121, Position 3: It is illegal in China to use the national anthem as your ringtone.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1046034.shtml
Page 121, Position 4: In Iran, it is illegal to walk a dog.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/world/middleeast/tehran-city-council-elections.html?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email
Page 122, Position 1: Popes John I, John X, John XI and John XIV all died in prison.
https://www.geriwalton.com/4348/
Page 122, Position 2: Pope Leo X told a man with 17,000 holy relics that he had saved himself 694,779,550 days in purgatory.
An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural _ James Randi
Page 122, Position 3: During the 1914 Christmas truce, German troops put up a sign that said ‘Gott mitt uns’, meaning ‘God with us’. A British sign in response read: ‘We got mittens too’.
http://www.ppu.org.uk/remembrance/xmas/xmas_tx1.html
Page 122, Position 4: Volkswagen’s official language is not German but English.
s: http://qz.com/875425/volkswagen-is-changing-its-official-language-from-german-to-english/
Page 123, Position 1: The Chinese buy more electric cars than everyone else in the world combined.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-autoshow-china-electric-idUKKBN14V1H3
Page 123, Position 2: The maps used by self-driving cars cannot be read by humans.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/03/the-most-detailed-maps-of-the-world-will-be-for-cars-not-humans/
Page 123, Position 3: Rolls-Royce added the Spirit of Ecstasy to the bonnets of its cars to stop drivers using tasteless mascots.
http://northstargallery.com/cars/spiritofecstacy.htm
Page 123, Position 4: In the 1980s, Nissan’s talking cars used tiny vinyl records.
http://jalopnik.com/5246380/1982-datsun-voice-warning-box-used-tiny-phonograph-record-just-like-moon-base-robots
Page 124, Position 1: At 19th-century funerals the last words of the dying were often played on early gramophones.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xeh0Fhe9Y9wC&pg=PA303&lpg=PA303&dq=phonograph+funeral&source=bl&ots=9SYh3eSzAA&sig=0Z9OFQzBewQEKR-8yJ-RlBFtrpk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_w4es_cnRAhVGJ8AKHaYqBM8Q6AEIKzAC#v=onepage&q=phonograph%20funeral&f=false
Page 124, Position 2: Alexander Graham Bell’s Ear Phonautograph was a recording device using a real human ear from a corpse.
http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/42
Page 124, Position 3: John Logie Baird called his prototype television a ‘shadowgraph’.
http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co8067245/baird-televisor-televisor
Page 124, Position 4: Jeremy Clarkson’s The Grand Tour on Amazon is the most illegally watched TV show ever.
link.fivethirtyeight.com/click/8346972.93328/aHR0cDovL2phbG9wbmlrLmNvbS90aGUtZ3JhbmQtdG91ci1tYXktYmUtdGhlLW1vc3QtaWxsZWdhbGx5LWRvd25sb2FkZWQtdHYtMTc4OTk4MzI5OD9leF9jaWQ9U2lnRGln/57e30dbf2ddf9c66ccd4b786B42692982
Page 125, Position 1: It takes 18 people 900 hours to put out the red carpet for the Oscars.
https://longreads.com/2017/02/26/whats-literally-underfoot-at-the-oscars-or-the-secrets-of-the-red-carpet-revealed/
Page 125, Position 2: The man who won the Oscar for best screenplay for The Bridge on the River Kwai was a Frenchman who couldn’t speak or write English.
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/16/movies/oscars-go-to-writers-for-kwai.html
Page 125, Position 3: Jerry Lewis is known in France as Le Roi du Crazy.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-max-rose-jerry-lewis-profile-20160823-snap-story.html?utm_source=Today%27s+Headlines&utm_campaign=934511b30c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b04355194f-934511b30c-80384829
Page 125, Position 4: The first named individual in history was an accountant.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/19/whos-the-first-person-in-history-whose-name-we-know/
Page 126, Position 1: More species have been named after Barack Obama than any other US president.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/these-nine-different-creatures-have-been-named-after-barack-obama
Page 126, Position 2: Neopalpa donaldtrumpi is a moth named after Donald Trump that has blond hair and comes from Mexico.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38661250
Page 126, Position 3: Words used by Donald Trump for the first time in a US president’s inaugural address include ‘bleed’, ‘ripped’, ‘rusted’, ‘stolen’, ‘trapped’ and ‘tombstones’.
s: https://twitter.com/PostGraphics/status/822513952051499009
Page 126, Position 4: Donald Trump got tens of thousands of dollars in tax breaks by using goats to cut the grass on his golf courses.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/goat-herd-helps-trump-lower-tax-bite-1461191607
Page 127, Position 1: The only woman in Einstein’s physics class at Zürich Polytechnic married him.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/einstein-facts-science-genius/
Page 127, Position 1: Emperor Wu, the first emperor of China, visited his harem in a goat cart; whoever the goats stopped beside was chosen as his concubine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Wu_of_Jin
Page 127, Position 2: Angora goats are named after the old spelling of the Turkish capital, Ankara.
https://www.seeker.com/goats-in-turkey-now-have-their-own-sperm-bank-2189109166.html
Page 127, Position 3: Goats are accepted at schools in Zimbabwe in lieu of tuition fees.
s: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-39639204
Page 128, Position 1: Dog lovers tend to have more Facebook friends than cat lovers, but cat lovers get invited to more parties.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/84569/facebook-dog-people-have-more-friends-cat-people-get-invited-more-parties
Page 128, Position 2: A peer-reviewed paper on low-temperature physics was published in 1975 by a cat.
http://www.academiaobscura.com/academic-animals/
Page 128, Position 3: A 1998 study found cats prefer cat lovers to cat haters.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15921504-800-cats-dont-do-it-just-to-spite-you/
Page 128, Position 4: 64% of Americans prefer their cat’s company to their partner’s.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/opinion/respect-your-cat-not-that-it-cares.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur&_r=0
Page 129, Position 1: One of the first chimpanzees in London Zoo came from Bristol by overnight coach.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/13/rhino-escapes-andbonnets-stealing-elephants-theamateurish-early/
Page 129, Position 2: Most female cats are right-pawed, and most male cats are left-pawed.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17510-is-your-cat-left-or-right-pawed/
Page 129, Position 3: Most orang-utans are left-handed, but most gorillas and chimpanzees are right-handed.
http://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/do-other-animals-show-handedness/
Page 129, Position 4: In 2016, a gorilla escaped at London Zoo and drank five litres of blackcurrant squash.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/20/gorilla-drank-litres-blackcurrant-juice-escaping-london-zoo-enclosure
Page 130, Position 1: Straightening people’s teeth also improves their balance.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160914090458.htm
Page 130, Position 2: Zoo animals have specially made toothbrushes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/magazine/how-to-brush-a-gorillas-teeth.html
Page 130, Position 3: Naked mole-rats operate their front teeth like chopsticks.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/14-fun-facts-about-naked-mole-rats-28758269/
Page 130, Position 4: Ocelots don’t have any chewing teeth, so they have to swallow their food whole.
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/ocelot/
Page 131, Position 1: The weights in a gym have 362 times more bacteria than a toilet seat.
http://www.bicycling.com/training/strength-training/this-piece-of-gym-equipment-has-362-times-more-bacteria-than-a-toilet
Page 131, Position 2: In 2011, a Canadian dentist bought one of John Lennon’s teeth at auction for £19,000.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/articles/4e641c9b-1a1f-4b07-9201-5843854aaa25?intc_type=promo&intc_location=news&intc_campaign=bizarrethingssoldatauction&intc_linkname=bbcmusic_ent_article
Page 131, Position 3: In 2017, British doctors found 27 lost contact lenses in a patient’s eye.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40630852
Page 131, Position 4: The average person farts 14 times a day.
http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/digestive/10-facts-about-flatus4.htm
Page 132, Position 1: Google reinforced its undersea cables because they kept being nibbled by sharks.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/sharks-are-eating-the-internet-in-vietnam-9962747.html
Page 132, Position 2: Ocean bacteria drift into the sky in spray and help create clouds.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/how-sea-dwelling-microbes-help-form-clouds
Page 132, Position 3: Most of ‘The Cloud’ is underwater.
http://time.com/4520922/the-digital-cloud-is-underwater-and-vulnerable/
Page 132, Position 4: All the cables under the ocean joined together would be long enough to reach to the Moon and back.
http://www.techinsider.io/fiberoptic-internet-cables-ocean-bottom-map-2015-9?utm_source=msn&utm_medium=referral
Page 133, Position 1: Killer whales’ favourite delicacy is whale’s tongue.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/07/killer-whales-orca-minke-kill-attack/
Page 133, Position 2: 40% of a shark’s brain is dedicated to its sense of smell.
http://discovermagazine.com/2014/may/26-20-things-animal-senses
Page 133, Position 3: Female Greenland sharks reach sexual maturity at 150 years old.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/11/400-year-old-greenland-shark-is-the-oldest-vertebrate-animal
Page 133, Position 4: Humpback whales protect other species from killer whales.
http://gizmodo.com/why-do-humpback-whales-protect-other-species-from-kille-1784175589
Page 134, Position 1: In 1579, English pirates raided and destroyed a Spanish ship, mistaking its cargo of cocoa beans for sheep droppings.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/history-of-chocolate3.htm
Page 134, Position 2: Coral’s main source of nutrition is fish pee.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/fish-urine-pee-coral-reefs-recycling-nutrients-ecology/
Page 134, Position 3: The world’s tallest church is being eroded by men urinating on it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/germany/articles/worlds-tallest-church-ulm-minster-under-threat-from-streams-of-urine/
Page 134, Position 4: Two churches on the Greek island of Chios celebrate Easter by firing rockets at each other.
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/04/the-easter-rocket-war-of-vrontados/100720/
Page 135, Position 1: Shakespeare’s daughter Judith was excommunicated.
http://theshakespeareblog.com/2014/02/judith-quiney-shakespeares-forgotten-daughter/
Page 135, Position 2: Sheep-creeps are low, square openings in drystone walls that let sheep in but keep cattle out.
Natural history of the hedgerow by John Wright.
Page 135, Position 3: Cows lie down when it’s cold or when they’re tired, not necessarily when it’s about to rain.
http://modernfarmer.com/2014/09/cows-really-lie-rainstorm/
Page 135, Position 4: A bull named Pawnee FarmArlinda Chief has more than two million great-granddaughters.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/10/the-dairy-industry-lost-420-million-from-a-flaw-in-a-single-bull/505616/
Page 136, Position 1: George Orwell said beer was best drunk out of china cups.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/pubs/11161984/The-perfect-pub-is-there-one-left-in-Britain.html
Page 136, Position 2: Only four people went to Jane Austen’s funeral.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=shg7AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA163&lpg=PA163&dq=Only+four+mourners+attended+Jane+Austen's+funeral.&source=bl&ots=u7amX6aoQy&sig=EOm6K51QONFA-G3Gbs5bv5Uvl3o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUyezty5LVAhUEL1AKHU88BS0Q6AEIPzAD#v=onepage&q=Only%20four%20mourners%20attended%20Jane%20Austen's%20funeral.&f=false
Page 136, Position 3: George Eliot’s right hand was much bigger than her left.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/28/embarassing-bodies-what-did-the-victorians-have-to-hide
Page 136, Position 4: George Bernard Shaw left money in his will to fund a 40-letter alphabet.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/04/does-spelling-matter/
Page 137, Position 1: In 1758, two camels came to London, one with one hump and one with two. They were called ‘the surprising camel’ and ‘the wonderful camel’.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n24/mary-wellesley/no-looking-at-my-elephant
Page 137, Position 2: A thirsty camel can drink a pint in 3.25 seconds.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/weepingcamel/thecamels.html
Page 137, Position 3: It would take 23 bales of straw to break a camel’s back.
https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/2mw59w/request_how_much_straw_would_it_actually_take_to/
Page 137, Position 4: Abu Dhabi has a beauty contest for camels.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-02/abu-dhabi-holds-annual-camel-beauty-contest/2391244
Page 138, Position 1: In 1966, the Chinese press claimed Chairman Mao swam nine miles down the Yangtze in 65 minutes, making him twice as fast as Michael Phelps.
. http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2054250,00.html
Page 138, Position 2: The first pharaoh of a united Egypt was killed by a hippo.
http://listverse.com/2017/01/24/10-facts-about-ancient-egyptian-animals-that-will-blow-your-mind/
Page 138, Position 3: There is only one deaf dentist in Egypt.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-39566586
Page 138, Position 4: In 2016, an Egyptian government memo on how to crush the press was accidentally sent to the press.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/world/middleeast/egypts-interior-ministry-in-error-releases-memos-on-restricting-news-media.html?_r=0
Page 139, Position 1: Adulterated olive oil makes three times as much profit as cocaine.
Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil (2011) by Thomas Mueller
Page 139, Position 2: Michael Phelps’s training breakfast consisted of an omelette, porridge, three slices of French toast, three egg sandwiches and three pancakes.
http://www.livescience.com/55747-what-olympians-eat.htmal
Page 139, Position 3: Tea leaves can flow upstream from the cup to the pot.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-07/particles-can-travel-waterfall
Page 139, Position 4: A tablespoonful of oil dropped into a lake can calm half an acre of water.
http://digg.com/video/oil-oil-lake?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Page 140, Position 1: Pigs can be pessimistic.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37996361
Page 140, Position 2: The fashion for heavily oiled hair in Victorian times is the reason for headrest cloths on trains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimacassar
Page 140, Position 3: 18th-century hairstyles included Spaniel’s Ears, Mad Dog and The Drowned Chicken.
http://www.racked.com/2016/5/24/11720972/competitive-hairdressing-omc-hairworld-olympics
Page 140, Position 4: A 16th-century recipe for an omelette included clover, goat’s cheese, cinnamon, mint, spring onion, marjoram, nutmeg and pig’s blood.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/03/03/sensory-delights/
Page 141, Position 1: Glow-worms go fishing.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2116354-cave-glow-worms-vomit-long-sticky-urine-threads-to-catch-prey/
Page 141, Position 2: Rats have near-death experiences.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23672150
Page 141, Position 3: Ravens suffer from paranoia.
https://www.cnet.com/au/news/ravens-smart-enough-to-be-paranoid/
Page 141, Position 4: Egyptian fruit bats argue.
http://www.npr.org/2016/12/31/507609012/when-bats-squeak-they-tend-to-squabble
Page 142, Position 1: The Bible’s Wikipedia entry has fewer citations than the one for Pokémon Go.
http://gizmodo.com/on-wikipedia-pokemon-go-is-a-bigger-deal-than-the-bibl-1784651888
Page 142, Position 2: Merlin was a Slytherin.
http://www.mtv.com/news/2034237/harry-potter-merlin-slytherin/
Page 142, Position 3: The Hobbit contains only one instance of the word ‘she’.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/men-chuckle-women-kiss-in-world-of-books-x650x5g3z
Page 142, Position 4: The words ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ appear only once each in the Bible.
http://findinggod.co.uk/2016/05/words-that-appear-only-once-in-the-kjv-bible/
Page 143, Position 1: In the 1930s, there were five suits in a pack of cards.
http://www.shortlist.com/news/five-playing-card-suits-eagle-crown-history?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link
Page 143, Position 2: There are more positions in a game of Go than there are atoms in the universe.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/24/computer-beats-chinese-master-ancient-board-game-go/
Page 143, Position 3: The European Parliament recommends chess is played in all schools.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P7-TA-2012-0097+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN
Page 143, Position 4: In medieval chess, each pawn had its own role: Gambler, City Guard, Innkeeper, Merchant, Doctor, Weaver, Blacksmith and Farmer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_(chess)#history
Page 144, Position 1: In 1913, the roulette wheel in Monte Carlo came up black 26 times in a row.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-night-the-gamblers-fallacy-lost-people-millions-1496890660
Page 144, Position 2: Gamblers in Japan are only allowed to bet on horse, boat or cycle races.
The Perfect Bet: How Science and Math Are Taking the Luck Out of Gambling by Adam Kucharski
Page 144, Position 3: Less than 1% of sports bets in the US are placed legally.
The Perfect Bet: How Science and Math Are Taking the Luck Out of Gambling by Adam Kucharski
Page 144, Position 4: All forms of gambling were illegal in Russia for 60 years from 1928 to 1988.
https://www.gamblingsites.com/online-gambling-jurisdictions/russia/
Page 145, Position 1: There are as many Russian agents in London today as there were at the height of the Cold War.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/29/russian-spies-cold-war-levels
Page 145, Position 2: The Queen Mother’s funeral was rehearsed for 22 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/16/what-happens-when-queen-elizabeth-dies-london-bridge?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Page 145, Position 3: Guillermo del Toro does all his writing in a room with a fake thunderstorm going on outside.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/guillermo-del-toro-bleak-house-lacma-monster-exhibition-a7157481.html
Page 145, Position 4: The longest known lightning bolt could have reached from Brussels to London.
http://www.livescience.com/56134-world-record-longest-lightning-bolt.html
Page 146, Position 1: In China, Pretty Woman became ‘I Will Marrya Prostitute to Save Money’.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11148825/The-Greatest-Chinese-Film-Title-Translations.html?frame=3065925
Page 146, Position 2: The location of the Teletubbies set was so secret that visitors had to be blindfolded.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/jun/03/how-we-made-teletubbies
Page 146, Position 3: The average person has 13 secrets.
s:https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21721129-weighing-heavy-soul-having-secrets-not-problem-thinking-about-them
Page 146, Position 4: ‘Eleven Men and a Secret’ was the Brazilian version of Ocean’s Eleven.
http://www.adorocinema.com/filmes/filme-26857/
Page 147, Position 1: In Mexico, it isn’t illegal to escape from prison.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/el-chapo-no-charges-for-breaking-out-of-jail_us_56d09a45e4b03260bf76ac8f
Page 147, Position 2: The original Godzilla costume was made of concrete.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/93171/meet-actor-who-brought-godzilla-life
Page 147, Position 3: All Quiet on the Western Front was banned in Poland for being pro-German and in Germany for being anti-German.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/most-loved-and-hated-novel-about-world-war-I-180955540/
Page 147, Position 4: $1,000 Reward (1913), a film about escaping convicts, was banned in Britain in case it gave real convicts ideas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_banned_in_the_United_Kingdom
Page 148, Position 1: Dutch trains have laser cannons to fire at leaves on the line.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429984-800-locked-on-lasers-burn-through-leaves-on-train-lines/
Page 148, Position 2: In Greek mythology , Odysseus escapes the Cyclops by hiding under a sheep. In the Apache version, he hides in the anus of a buffalo.
https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/the-dominion-post/20161115/282750586314930
Page 148, Position 3: In case someone needs to escape a polar bear, people in Churchill, Canada, never lock their car doors.
https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/eco-tourism/stories/life-in-the-polar-bear-capital-of-the-world
Page 148, Position 4: Self-driving Volvos avoid deer, elk and caribou but don’t recognise kangaroos.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/01/volvo-admits-its-self-driving-cars-are-confused-by-kangaroos
Page 149, Position 1: Cranberries cannot be farmed organically.
http://qz.com/844309/cranberry-sauce-on-thanksgiving-the-dark-history-behind-americas-obsession-with-cranberries/?utm_source=Quartz+Morning+Brief&utm_campaign=35a071c085-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1ff2527dbb-35a071c085-57548377
Page 149, Position 2: On busy Chinese trains, passengers take turns on the seats so everyone gets to sit for some of the journey .
http://www.forbes.com/sites/yw ang/2017/01/26/worlds-largest- human-migration-begins- chinese-new-year-2017/#31992b1 335fb
Page 149, Position 3: Noise-reduction equipment on Chinese trains means they make no more noise than a dishwasher.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/20/incredible-train-disappears-block-flats-chinas-mountain-city/
Page 149, Position 4: Items left on British trains include a six-foot-tall inflatable dinosaur, a dead fish and a framed photo of Mary Berry .
http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/29/revealed-the-weirdest-things-people-leave-on-trains-from-inflatable-dinosaurs-to-mary-berry-5271004/
Page 150, Position 1: The Estonian army travels with pop-up saunas.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/estonian-troops-have-never-fought-a-cold-warthanks-to-pop-up-saunas-1480357911?utm_source=Quartz+Morning+Brief&utm_campaign=bf51ae4f7f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_30&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1ff2527dbb-bf51ae4f7f-57548377
Page 150, Position 2: Most Americans have never eaten a blackcurrant.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-the-purple-skittle-tastes-different-outside-america?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20160912&bt_email=john_hardress_lloyd@hotmail.com&bt_ts=1473688070267
Page 150, Position 3: The cheapest Big Macs in the world can be found in Egypt.
http://metro.co.uk/2017/01/29/this-is-where-you-can-buy-the-cheapest-big-mac-in-the-world-6413133/
Page 150, Position 4: Uzbek master chefs can cook enough food in a single cauldron to feed 1,000 men.
https://www.zoo.com/quiz/97-people-cant-identify-individual-countries-just-a-map-outline-can-you?mkcpgn=i600006636&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=UK-Zoo-CountryOutline-Screenshots%28desktop%29&utm_term=5055356&utm_content=Can+You+Score+in+the+Top+3%25%3F+-+Country+Outline&sg_uid=fHsKF_qNRAqYi-AY6R7anA
Page 151, Position 1: Rudeness is contagious.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26121091
Page 151, Position 2: Morse code operators in the Second World War could recognise each other’s ‘accents’ over the line.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0YY0AQAAQBAJ&pg=PT17&lpg=PT17&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 151, Position 3: In January 1945, the Nova Scotia police received complaints that drivers were using their horns to send filthy messages in Morse.
http://boingboing.net/2016/12/12/car-horns-used-to-communicate.html
Page 151, Position 4: People who swear are less likely to be liars.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170117105107.htm
Page 152, Position 1: Drug-addicted parrots are depleting India’s opium crop.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/parrots-flying-high-drugs-annoying-10073428
Page 152, Position 2: Kea parrots find laughter contagious and high-five in mid-air.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2125261-parrots-find-laughter-contagious-and-high-five-in-mid-air/
Page 152, Position 3: In 2017, a parrot thief in Taiwan handed himself in because he couldn’t cope with the incessant squawking.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4544954/Parrot-thief-turns-loud-noise.html
Page 152, Position 4: Male kakapo parrots have a mating call that can be heard four miles away, but females can’t tell where it’s coming from.
Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species, Heise, Ursula K.
Page 153, Position 1: British warships make so much noise that enemy submarines can hear them from 100 miles away.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/05/british-warships-noisy-russian-submarines-can-hear-100-miles/
Page 153, Position 2: Humans have been using cannabis for 10,000 years and dealing in it for 5,000 years.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2096440-founders-of-western-civilisation-were-prehistoric-dope-dealers/
Page 153, Position 3: The first Europeans known to have tried cannabis lay on the ground complimenting each other, before one started a fight with a pillar.
Penguins, Pineapples and Pangolins, Claire Cock-Starkey
Page 153, Position 4: 25% of the cocaine in the US arrives by submarine.
https://news.vice.com/article/us-agents-watch-as-narco-sub-carrying-194-million-worth-of-cocaine-sinks-after-bust
Page 154, Position 1: ‘Oi’ has been rated the 61st most beautiful word in English.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4039185.stm
Page 154, Position 2: The oldest intact sunken warship in the US is called the Land Tortoise.
http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/5076.html
Page 154, Position 3: The golden tortoise beetle turns red when aroused or threatened.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/glad-you-ditched-the-anal-fork-golden-tortoise-beetle/
Page 154, Position 4: Saying ‘Ow’ when you stub your toe makes it hurt less.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2015/05/13/on-the-purpose-of-saying-ow-when-you-hurt-yourself/#.WTl9ozLMzBI
Page 155, Position 1: Sobremesa is Spanish for the time spent relaxing and enjoying the company after a meal.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/13-untranslatable-words-for-happiness-a6849211.html
Page 155, Position 2: A theist is someone who is addicted to tea.
https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/867627562247241728
Page 155, Position 3: Batrachomymachy is the technical term for making a mountain out of a molehill.
http://forreadingaddicts.co.uk/word-of-the-day/word-of-the-day-batrachomyomachy/4008
Page 155, Position 4: An eedle-doddle is Scots for someone who shows no initiative in a crisis.
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/eedledoddle
Page 156, Position 1: In Urdu and Hindi, the word for ‘panda’ is panda.
https://translate.google.com/#hi/en/panda
Page 156, Position 2: Queen Victoria ate bone marrow every day.
Offal. Nina Edwards. Reaktion, 2013
Page 156, Position 3: When dieting, Queen Victoria ate what her doctors advised on top of her normal meals.
http://www.historyextra.com/article/bbc-history-magazine/queen-victoria%E2%80%99s-appetites
Page 156, Position 4: Queen Victoria could read and write in Urdu and Hindi.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12670110
Page 157, Position 1: The Australian coat of arms features an emu and a kangaroo because they supposedly can’t go backwards, but they can.
https://www.pmc.gov.au/government/commonwealth-coat-arms
Page 157, Position 2: Pandas are white so they can hide in the snow and black so they can hide in the shadows.
http://www.livescience.com/58206-why-pandas-are-black-and-white.html
Page 157, Position 3: Foxes in Australia climb trees to eat koalas.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2120944-foxes-seen-climbing-trees-at-night-to-track-down-and-eat-koalas/
Page 157, Position 4: When the Queen toured Australia in 1954, 75% of Australians went to see her.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/04/prince-philip-retire-95-duke-edinburgh-numbers/
Page 158, Position 1: Soldier ants carrywounded comrades back to the nest.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2127770-soldier-ants-carry-comrades-wounded-in-raids-back-to-base/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=news&campaign_id=RSS%7CNSNS-news
Page 158, Position 2: Mariah Carey employs a man to walk backwards in front of her.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9763d7b4-076a-11e7-a9a4-674e2ac78952
Page 158, Position 3: Ostriches can only kick forwards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrich
Page 158, Position 4: Trap-jaw ants hit each other with their antennae more than 40 times a second.
https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/324794
Page 159, Position 1: Code V91.07 is ‘burn caused by water skis on fire’.
http://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/V00-Y99/V90-V94/V91-/V91.07
Page 159, Position 2: US medical diagnosis code S30.862 deals with insect bites on the penis.
http://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/S00-T88/S30-S39/S30-/S30.862D
Page 159, Position 3: Code V91.35 is ‘hit by a falling object due to a canoeing accident’.
http://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/V00-Y99/V90-V94/V91-
Page 159, Position 4: Code W55.21 is ‘bitten by a cow’.
http://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/V00-Y99/W50-W64/W55-/W55.21
Page 160, Position 1: For Christmas 2012, Angelina Jolie gave Brad Pitt a $1.6 million Californian waterfall.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/31-incredible-gifts-given-by-the-super-rich/ss-BBzIPXp?ocid=MSN_UK_NL_M_NO_14Apr17OM2-PID84960#image=9
Page 160, Position 2: At an arson trial in Florida in 2017, a lawyer’s trousers burst into flames.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39223150?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=facebook
Page 160, Position 3: Snapdragon was an old Christmas game where you grabbed a raisin from a bowl of burning brandy and put it in your mouth.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/29557/7-strange-christmas-traditions
Page 160, Position 4: Before turkey was adopted, the traditional British Christmas meal was a pig’s head and mustard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boar's_Head_Feast
Page 161, Position 1: Liszt had a stalker who stole the dregs of his tea and used it as perfume.
Economist 1st_July 2016
Page 161, Position 2: Tennyson once earned 1,000 guineas for writing a verse for a Christmas card.
London St James Gazette - January 15, 1903
Page 161, Position 3: Mendelssohn wrote the tune for ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’. He said he didn’t mind what the words were as long as they weren’t religious.
A Christmas Cornucopia, Mark Forsyth
Page 161, Position 4: Bach composed the Brandenburg Concertos as a job application but never got a reply.
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/bach/music/johann-sebastian-bach-brandenburg-concertos/
Page 162, Position 1: Apocalypse, Stormageddon, Root Ripper, Branch Wobbler and In a Teacup are names for storms suggested by the British public.
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-storm-names
Page 162, Position 2: The world’s largest perfume archive is the Osmothèque in Versailles. It has 4,000 scents dating back to the 1800s.
http://www.osmotheque.fr/en/the-collection/
Page 162, Position 3: The ‘Odour of Sanctity’ is the heavenly smell given off by the bodies of dead saints.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odour_of_sanctity
Page 162, Position 4: The smell of the apocalypse was created by artists in 2016, using scents mentioned in the Book of Revelation.
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/shortcuts/2016/apr/17/thompson-craighead-bible-amageddon-apocalypse-carroll-fletcher-art
Page 163, Position 1: Los Angeles has had the same climate for 50,000 years.
http://www.popsci.com/los-angeles-climate-50000-years
Page 163, Position 2: Gluggaveður (‘window-weather’) is Icelandic for weather that looks beautiful but is best enjoyed from indoors.
http://icelandmag.visir.is/article/10-words-and-phrases-icelandic-dont-exist-english
Page 163, Position 3: Komorebi is Japanese for sunlight filtering through the trees.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ella-frances-sanders/11-untranslatable-words-f_b_3817711.html
Page 163, Position 4: The colours of rainbows are used to measure air pollution.
http://theweek.com/articles/648706/fascinating-science-rainbows
Page 164, Position 1: A ladybird’s wings are four times the size of its body.
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/lady-bug-folding-wings
Page 164, Position 2: When hot weather comes, zebra finches sing to their eggs to warn them.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2101681-birds-sing-to-their-unborn-chicks-to-warn-them-about-hot-weather/
Page 164, Position 3: A baby partridge is called a ‘cheeper’.
http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/baby-animal-names.html
Page 164, Position 4: 1,400 wrens weigh as much as one swan.
Bill Baileyï†s Remarkable Guide To British Birds: The One Show October 7 2016
Page 165, Position 1: Mrs Thatcher did four photo shoots for Vogue and could get ready for them in four minutes.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/when-maggie-was-in-vogue-hrq9d6dc9
Page 165, Position 2: Three plovers, a parrot and a baboon feature in the Scottish version of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/89823/13-alternative-lyrics-twelve-days-christmas
Page 165, Position 3: A Victorian time capsule buried in London contains photographs of the 12 most beautiful women in England.
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-09-20/travel/tr-9348_1_obelisk
Page 165, Position 4: A photo of Nick Clegg was used in an ad at Las Vegas airport after the designers thought it was a stock image.
http://news.sky.com/story/nick-clegg-ends-up-as-model-in-bizarre-us-airport-poster-10804420
Page 166, Position 1: Mars was once devastated by 50-metre tsunamis.
New Scientist 28th May 2016
Page 166, Position 2: The photons hitting your retina right now were passing Mercury five minutes ago.
Francis, Gavin, Adventures in Human Being
Page 166, Position 3: No man-made object has survived on Venus for more than 127 minutes.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a9426/how-much-do-we-really-know-about-venus-15939291/
Page 166, Position 4: Half the water on Earth is older than the Sun.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/09/25/earths-water-is-older-than-the-sun/#.WFPw5qIrLfY
Page 167, Position 1: The fastest winds in the universe are on Neptune.
http://www.space.com/41-neptune-the-other-blue-planet-in-our-solar-system.html
Page 167, Position 2: Jupiter’s Northern Lights cover an area larger than Earth.
https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1613/
Page 167, Position 3: On Saturn’s moon Titan, twilight is 200 times brighter than midday.
http://www.space.com/36609-twilight-outshines-daylight-saturn-moon-titan.html
Page 167, Position 4: Uranus doesn’t smell much, apart from the odd fart-like waft.
http://gizmodo.com/uranus-smells-like-farts-1793765256
Page 168, Position 1: ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is a US agency that deports so many people it has its own airline.
s: https://qz.com/916697/the-us-government-deports-so-many-immigrants-each-year-at-a-cost-of-8000-an-hour-that-it-runs-its-own-ice-air-service/
Page 168, Position 2: Pluto has towers of ice 1,600 feet tall.
s: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/pluto-has-1600-ft-icy-penitentes?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Page 168, Position 3: Alpine glaciers are to be stored in a specially built bunker in Antarctica.
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-are-trying-to-collect-a-library-of-ice-before-it-disappears
Page 168, Position 4: Types of ice include pancake, icefoot and bummock.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/82967/15-blissfully-cool-facts-about-ice
Page 169, Position 1: The advertising for Trump World Tower claims it is 19 floors taller than it actually is.
http://harpers.org/archive/2017/02/harpers-index-391/
Page 169, Position 2: Police in Arizona must check your immigration status if called to inspect the height of your grass.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/may/04/kyrsten-sinema/under-arizona-immigration-law-overgrown-lawns-bark/
Page 169, Position 3: In Arkansas, it is illegal for grass to be six inches tall.
http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/index.aspx?page=1595
Page 169, Position 4: The Washington Monument was completed in 1888, but nobody knew its height until 2015.
http://gizmodo.com/why-we-didnt-know-how-tall-the-washington-monument-was-1686262508
Page 170, Position 1: Mrs Thatcher slept for the same number of hours each night as an elephant.
http://en.upali.ch/elephants-sleep/
Page 170, Position 2: Donald Trump has bathmophobia, the fear of falling down stairs.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cool-hand-theresa-deftly-twists-donalds-arm-b8hdxbxgq
Page 170, Position 3: David Cameron likes to imagine that any pheasants he shoots are called Boris or Michael.
s: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/portillos-odd-track-record-bgr2wv0pj
Page 170, Position 4: All Margaret Thatcher’s government documents had different spacing so she would know who’d leaked one if it appeared in the press.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dutT6YZixIoC&pg=PA175&dq
Page 171, Position 1: Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, fed claret to his pet parakeet.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n24/mary-wellesley/no-looking-at-my-elephant
Page 171, Position 2: The US army spent millions finding out if elephants could be used to smell bombs.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/03/11/bomb-sniffing-elephants/70149110/
Page 171, Position 3: At least 61 species live in elephants’ footprints.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/elephant-footprint/
Page 171, Position 4: The first giraffe in Britain was said to have died as a result of a sympathetic reaction to gout in George IV’s toe.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n24/mary-wellesley/no-looking-at-my-elephant
Page 172, Position 1: Only a quarter of employees look forward to their Christmas party .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38211828
Page 172, Position 2: Sabrage is a technique for opening champagne with a cavalry sword.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrage
Page 172, Position 3: A fencing guide from 1763 allowed the use of lanterns to illuminate opponents, to dazzle them and to hit them with.
http://thoulsparadise.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/the-lantern-in-combat.html
Page 172, Position 4: Yorkshire had a Christmas tradition of festive sword dancing.
Christmas in nineteenth-century England' by Neil Armstrong (MUP, 2010).
Page 173, Position 1: Pie crusts used to be called ‘coffins’.
http://blog.english-heritage.org.uk/recipe-for-real-mince-pies/
Page 173, Position 2: The word ‘Xmas’ was in use before the word ‘Christmas’.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/201826495/where-do-christmas-traditions-come-from
Page 173, Position 3: The first recipe for Brussels sprouts advised buttering them and serving them on toast.
A Christmas Cornucopia, Mark Forsyth
Page 173, Position 4: The world’s largest mince-pie factory can make two million pies in 24 hours.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/dec/09/inside-worlds-largest-mince-pie-factory-mr-kipling-christmas
Page 174, Position 1: The winner of Australia’s 2011 ‘So You Think You Can Stare’ competition lasted 40 minutes and 59 seconds without blinking.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/man-who-stared-41-minutes-and-science-blinking-241862
Page 174, Position 2: The award ceremony for obituary writers is called ‘The Grimmies’.
http://www.societyofprofessionalobituarywriters.org/the-grimmies.html
Page 174, Position 3: The 2016 Florida Keys Hemingway Lookalike Contest was won by Mr Dave Hemingway (no relation).
Fortean Times 350
Page 174, Position 4: A Paul Gascoigne lookalike competition in South Shields in 1991 was won by a teenage girl.
A Classless Society _ Alwyn Turner
Page 175, Position 1: NASA has a robo-glove which gives the wearer three times more gripping power.
https://technology.nasa.gov/patent/MSC-TOPS-37
Page 175, Position 2: Cinema audiences blink in unison.
https://m.curiosity.com/topics/moviegoers-blink-in-sync-because-the-brain-doesnt-want-you-to-miss-a-thing-curiosity/
Page 175, Position 3: The best female golfer in America putts with her eyes closed.
http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golf-central-blog/seeing-disbelieving-thompson-putts-eyes-closed/
Page 175, Position 4: One of the only players on the US PGA golf tour not to wear a glove is Lucas Glover.
Sky Sports coverage
Page 176, Position 1: In 19th-century Boston, it was bad luck to cut your nails at weekends.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/fingernails-clipping-history-nails
Page 176, Position 2: On the Moon, there’s a piece of lava from Oregon.
http://offbeatoregon.com/1208c-astronaut-left-oregon-lava-on-moon.html
Page 176, Position 3: Oregon is the only US state with a double-sided flag.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_whose_reverse_differs_from_the_obverse
Page 176, Position 4: The name of Portland, Oregon, was chosen by tossing a coin. The other option was ‘Boston’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Penny
Page 177, Position 1: Rainwater contains vitamin B12.
https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v219/n5154/abs/219617a0.html
Page 177, Position 2: Atlanta Zoo has a cockroach called Tom Brady.
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2017/02/14/tom-brady-cockroach/
Page 177, Position 3: A cockroach’s heart has 13 chambers.
http://www.livescience.com/49795-strange-animal-hearts.html
Page 177, Position 4: The world’s healthiest human hearts belong to the Tsimane people of Bolivia, who eat monkeys, tapirs, wild pigs and piranhas.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/18/south-american-tribe-found-have-healthiest-hearts-ever-studied/
Page 178, Position 1: Denmark has more pigs than people.
http://www.channel4learning.com/sites/wearefrom/denmark/amazing_facts.html
Page 178, Position 2: Tears contain vitamin A.
http://www.go-symmetry.com/health/bakup/dry-eyes.htm
Page 178, Position 3: Six-week-old babies cry for an average of two hours and 15 minutes a day.
http://www.livescience.com/58577-crying-and-colic-in-babies.html
Page 178, Position 4: Babies in Britain cry more than babies in Japan, and nobody knows why.
http://www.livescience.com/58577-crying-and-colic-in-babies.html
Page 179, Position 1: The world’s biggest shopping mall has an indoor ski resort and a penguin colony .
http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-uae-space-20170531-story.html
Page 179, Position 2: Pigs go ‘oink’ in Italy and Spain, ‘snork’ in South Africa, ‘groin’ in France and ‘buu buu’ in Japan.
http://www.bamfield.eu/sounds.php
Page 179, Position 3: The Curly-Coated Lincoln is an extinct breed of pig that had a woolly coat like a sheep.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincolnshire_Curly_Coat
Page 179, Position 4: The world’s first self-service grocery shop was called Piggly Wiggly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggly_Wiggly
Page 180, Position 1: Roald Dahl’s school report said: ‘I have never met anybody who so persistently writes words meaning the exact opposite of what is intended.’
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/scrumdiddlyumpious-in-praise-of-roald-dahl-8814505.html
Page 180, Position 2: Shops in Bristol are plagued by a ‘grammar vigilante’ who goes around correcting misplaced apostrophes on their sign’s.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-39459831/meet-the-grammar-vigilante-of-bristol
Page 180, Position 3: The most misspelled word in English is ‘separate’.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/7930745/Separate-is-most-commonly-misspelt-word.html
Page 180, Position 4: The word ‘nice’ is from the Latin nescius, which means ‘ignorant’.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/10/change-in-word-meanings/
Page 181, Position 1: Bats can swim.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170320-the-cruel-experiments-that-revealed-most-mammals-can-swim?ocid=fbatl
Page 181, Position 2: Wally in Where’s Wally? is 80% smaller than when he first appeared in 1987.
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/wheres-wally-algorithm-shrinking
Page 181, Position 3: The world’s smallest bat weighs as much as a paper clip.
https://books.google.com/books?id=v-QnOb13YS8C&pg=PA133&lpg=PA133&dq=world%27s+smallest+bat+paper+clip&source=bl&ots=xrs0KuJ9mC&sig=mPx-PRsazLFqECcHK66pNokD4Uc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOjc-67LfUAhVG6IMKHa21D1gQ6AEIQjAH
Page 181, Position 4: Vampire bats chase their prey on foot.
http://www.livescience.com/6908-yikes-vampire-bats-run.html
Page 182, Position 1: Olympic swimmers wear two swimming caps.
http://mentalfloss.com/uk/sport/45903/why-do-olympic-swimmers-wear-two-caps
Page 182, Position 2: Hippos can’t swim; they stroll about on the riverbed.
they stroll about on the riverbed.
Page 182, Position 3: Dumbo octopuses swim using their large ear-like protuberances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimpoteuthis
Page 182, Position 4: The average public swimming pool contains enough urine to fill a dustbin.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/mar/01/how-much-pee-is-in-our-swimming-pools-new-urine-test-reveals-the-truth
Page 183, Position 1: Winston Churchill’s household spent £104,400 on wine each year.
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21678752-gambler-who-saved-west-mr-high-roller?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/Mrhighroller
Page 183, Position 2: James Madison was the first US president to wear trousers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Presidential_firsts
Page 183, Position 3: In the first two years of his reign, Henry VII spent £3 million on clothes.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/06/01/miserly-henry-vii-was-actually-a-shopaholic-who-spent-3-million/
Page 183, Position 4: François Hollande, the former French president, spent the equivalent of £99,000 per year on haircuts.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/13/hollande-accused-of-shampoo-socialism-as-it-is-revealed-he-spend/
Page 184, Position 1: There are lakes under the sea.
http://sb.cc.stonybrook.edu/news/general/lowfishbiodiversity.php
Page 184, Position 2: The wine in a £5 bottle of wine is worth 47p.
: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/48653aae-1499-11e7-95d0-4f54ce31baae
Page 184, Position 3: The first Scottish wine, produced in 2015, was described by experts as ‘undrinkable’.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/scotlands-first-homegrown-wine-declared-6067820
Page 184, Position 4: King Zhou of Shang built a wine lake in China and made naked men and women chase each other round it.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zhou
Page 185, Position 1: There is no such thing as artificial salt.
s: http://www.cooksscience.com/articles/feature/salt-life/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Page 185, Position 2: Australia’s Pink Lake has bright-pink water.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Lake_(Western_Australia)
Page 185, Position 3: Blood Falls in Antarctica has bright-red water that is so salty it cannot freeze.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/antarcticas-blood-red-waterfall-180949507/
Page 185, Position 4: The ‘ice’ on the first artificial ice rink was made of pig fat and salt.
http://www.neatorama.com/2017/06/03/The-First-Artificial-Skating-Rinks-Looked-Pretty-But-Smelled-Terrible/
Page 186, Position 1: French football clubs cannot hire managers who are over 65.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4599010/Ranieri-deal-Nantes-delayed-age.html
Page 186, Position 2: Small icebergs are called ‘growlers’ because of the sound they make as they melt.
http://www.athropolis.com/arctic-facts/fact-bergy-bits.htm
Page 186, Position 3: When the Titanic first hit the iceberg, passengers played football with the bits of ice that fell on the deck.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tQhHAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=titanic+%22played+football%22+ice&source=bl&ots=XA3fTYnESw&sig=Ht9zDiymStyQ6GFlWZVJQt2PgdM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwijwJP-gM_SAhXFDMAKHUKcBc0Q6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=titanic%20%22played%20football%22%20ice&f=false
Page 186, Position 4: Mob football, played in the Middle Ages between whole towns and villages, had an unlimited number of players and a pig’s-bladder ball.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_football
Page 187, Position 1: The Peter Principle holds that people are always promoted beyond their ability .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
Page 187, Position 2: Eric Cantona was banned for a month for throwing the ball at the referee, extended to two months after he told the disciplinary committee they were idiots.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/5322854/Eric-Cantonas-new-Cannes-do-attitude.html
Page 187, Position 3: Stupid people thinking they are clever and clever people thinking they aren’t is called the Dunning–Kruger effect.
http://metro.co.uk/2017/03/13/ten-weird-signs-that-you-are-highly-intelligent-according-to-science-6506511/
Page 187, Position 4: The Dilbert Principle is that the worst staff are put in middle management to limit the damage they can cause.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle
Page 188, Position 1: Juma the Jaguar, mascot of the 2016 Rio Olympics, escaped before the games and was shot dead.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-36593573
Page 188, Position 2: The crown prince of Thailand promoted his dog Fufu to Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Thai Air Force.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/05/thai-crown-prince-pet-poodle-air-chief-marshal-foo-foo-cremated
Page 188, Position 3: There has only been one dog in the Royal Navy: Able Seaman Just Nuisance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Nuisance
Page 188, Position 4: New Zealand police have a guinea pig mascot called Constable Elliot.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11848154
Page 189, Position 1: Amazon ships bubblewrap in bubblewrap.
https://www.methodshop.com/2014/07/bubble-wrap-amazon.shtml
Page 189, Position 2: During the first performance of the play HarryPotter and the Cursed Child, an owl got loose and flew out into the audience.
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-06-10/harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child-removes-live-owls-from-the-production
Page 189, Position 3: On Disneyland’s opening day, someone put a ladder in the car park and charged people $5 to climb over the hedge.
http://www.history.com/news/disneylands-disastrous-opening-day-60-years-ago
Page 189, Position 4: Popular items for Amazon customers in the Andaman Islands are ladders, brooms and mayonnaise.
http://www.thehindu.com/business/markets/art-of-selling-a-dog-bone-in-andamans/article18595246.ece?utm_source=true&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Newsletter
Page 190, Position 1: In Sweden, ‘spontaneous dancing’ was illegal until 2017.
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/spontaneous-dancing-is-finally-legal-in-sweden
Page 190, Position 2: Container ships contain basketball courts.
http://digg.com/2017/containers-episode-1?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Page 190, Position 3: ‘Monk’s balls’ are popular pastries in Argentina.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/argentina-pastries-political?utm_source=Today%27s+Headlines&utm_campaign=88c34a833e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b04355194f-88c34a833e-80384829
Page 190, Position 4: The Serbian for ‘pride’ means ‘diarrhoea’ in Russian.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8e8e8cc8-10bc-11e7-9efc-104ca844d0d4
Page 191, Position 1: Lift operator Betty Lou Oliver holds the record for the longest survived fall: she fell 75 floors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-25_Empire_State_Building_crash
Page 191, Position 2: The sprinting champion awarded the laurel wreath at the first Olympic Games was a baker.
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/top10facts/428775/Top-10-facts-about-sprinting
Page 191, Position 3: In 1986, London’s bakers apologised for the Great Fire of London, 320 years after it happened.
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-06-10/news/mn-9748_1_london-bakers
Page 191, Position 4: Since 2003, 166 people have fallen down the gap at Baker Street Tube station.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/mind-the-gap-new-tube-trains-blamed-for-huge-rise-in-passenger-accidents-a3264531.html
Page 192, Position 1: There’s a hidden room in Mount Rushmore behind Lincoln’s head.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/91207/hidden-room-behind-mount-rushmore
Page 192, Position 2: The world’s fastest elevator travels at 47 mph.
http://newatlas.com/hitachi-worlds-fastest-elevator-guangzhou/49854/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=039bcd304c-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-039bcd304c-92793889
Page 192, Position 3: The Oval Office has pressure pads under the carpet so the Secret Service knows exactly where the president is at all times.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-meltzer/top-seven-coolest-secrets_b_7584648.html
Page 192, Position 4: The 400 men who carved the presidents on Mount Rushmore had their own baseball team.
https://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com/article/baseball-mount-rushmore
Page 193, Position 1: Headis is table tennis played with the head and a small football.
http://www.playph.com/7-unusual-sports-around-world/
Page 193, Position 2: Gustav Eiffel had a tiny apartment at the top of the Eiffel Tower with a grand piano in it.
http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/eiffel-tower-paris-secret-apartment
Page 193, Position 3: Hidden inside Grand Central Station is the Vanderbilt Tennis Club.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/vanderbilt-tennis-club
Page 193, Position 4: After unexpected rain during the 1971 Davis Cup, the tennis court was dried out by dousing it in petrol and setting it on fire.
http://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/11/archives/us-clinches-davis-cup-3-to1-smith-trounces-tiriac-in-3-sets-at.html?mcubz=2&_r=0.
Page 194, Position 1: No centipede has ever been found with exactly a hundred legs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centipede
Page 194, Position 2: A caterpillar’s head contains 248 muscles.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=21z4DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA240&lpg=PA240&dq=caterpillar+head+capsule+alone+consists+of+248+individual+muscles&source=bl&ots=qzWGj-E9hj&sig=alA1eo1kYnzOC_Yb1Nl4dwJyJ9U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiV5-7HzMDUAhVsDsAKHdTQCJQQ6AEIRDAH#v=onepage&q=caterpillar%20head%20capsule%20alone%20consists%20of%20248%20individual%20muscles&f=false
Page 194, Position 3: Caterpillars retain their memories when they turn into moths.
https://www.wired.com/2008/03/butterflies-rem/
Page 194, Position 4: Illacme tobini is a millipede with 414 legs, 200 poison glands and four penises.
http://metro.co.uk/2016/10/25/what-has-414-legs-200-poison-glands-and-four-penises-this-isnt-a-joke-6215228/
Page 195, Position 1: Only 20% of fish species live in the sea.
http://sb.cc.stonybrook.edu/news/general/lowfishbiodiversity.php
Page 195, Position 2: Objects viewed from between the legs look smaller.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/09/23/world/science-health-world/ig-nobels-go-scholar-studied-liars-one-put-pants-rats-another-lived-like-badger/
Page 195, Position 3: Tripod fish have three legs and stand at the bottom of the ocean.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathypterois_grallator
Page 195, Position 4: By 2050, the plastic in the world’s oceans will outweigh the fish.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/19/more-plastic-than-fish-in-the-sea-by-2050-warns-ellen-macarthur
Page 196, Position 1: Until 1952, only male cavalry officers were permitted to compete in Olympic equestrian events.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/equestrianism/2016/02/26/rio-2016-olympics-equestrianism-guide/
Page 196, Position 2: The Queen bought six Big Mouth Billy Bass singing fish for Balmoral.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4256473/No-wonder-the-Queen-whose-position-in-society-to-some-extent-parallels-Billy-Basss-finds-joy-in-his-touching-homily.html
Page 196, Position 3: The Queen’s 90th birthday presents included a silver Post-it note holder, an ostrich egg, two stags and a horse.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/19/horse-monopoly-set-queen-got-90th-birthday/
Page 196, Position 4: It is illegal in the UK to be drunk in charge of a horse.
http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Legal_Oddities.pdf
Page 197, Position 1: The first female American mayor was nominated for election by a group of men as a joke.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_M._Salter
Page 197, Position 2: The first event at the Olympic Games in 396 bc was a trumpet contest: the winner played the fanfare for all the other events.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herald_and_Trumpet_contest
Page 197, Position 3: In 2000, a 103-year-old man returned the official Olympic flag that he stole as a dare after coming third in diving at the 1920 Olympics.
http://london2012.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/olympic-flag-is-games-constant-symbol/?_r=1
Page 197, Position 4: The first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal didn’t realise she’d entered the Olympics.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-first-american-woman-to-win-an-olympic-championship-didnt-even-know-it
Page 198, Position 1: Apeirophobia is the fear of eternity .
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/apeirophobia-the-fear-of-eternity/498368/
Page 198, Position 2: President Obama’s farewell speech mentioned ‘democracy’ 20 times – more than the farewell speeches of the previous 15 presidents combined.
https://qz.com/882736/obama-name-checked-democracy-20-times-in-his-farewell-speech-more-than-the-last-15-presidents-combined/
Page 198, Position 3: Barack Obama has an irrational fear of snowmen.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/barack-obama-prank-white-house-snowman-fear-phobia-instagram-photos-a7490796.html
Page 198, Position 4: Bear Grylls is scared of cocktail parties.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39334917
Page 199, Position 1: 80% of the world’s gold is yet to be found.
Gold Fever, One manï†s Adventures on the Trail of the Gold Rush by Steve Boggan
Page 199, Position 2: Alogotransiphobia is the fear of being caught on public transport without a book to read.
https://interestingliterature.com/2016/03/09/10-great-words-about-words/
Page 199, Position 3: Books used to be bound in otter skin.
https://paw.princeton.edu/article/princetons-vault-1
Page 199, Position 4: Sea otters in China used to be called ‘soft gold’, because their pelts were so valuable.
Daniel Allen, Otter.
Page 200, Position 1: A cow-smuggling tunnel has been discovered under the India–Pakistan border.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cow-tunnel-smuggling
Page 200, Position 2: Norway’s Bouvet Island is so remote that after it was discovered in 1739, it was lost again for another 69 years.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bouvet-island
Page 200, Position 3: Every year, Ocean Shores, Washington, celebrates the night George Vancouver sailed past their harbour but didn’t discover it.
https://www.futilitycloset.com/2013/12/09/lost-history/
Page 200, Position 4: Geologists have discovered an eighth continent off the coast of Australia.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/16/scientists-discover-eighth-continent-zealandia/
Page 201, Position 1: 2016 was the first year since 1990 that none of Japan’s 4,000 public companies went bankrupt.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-04/zombie-nation-in-japan-zero-public-companies-went-bust-in-2016
Page 201, Position 2: Some US farmers feed their cattle Skittles because they’re cheaper than corn.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/skittles-cows-corn-truck-crash-american-farmers-wisconsin-dodge-county-a7536731.html
Page 201, Position 3: A bank in Zimbabwe accepts cattle as collateral.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25156209
Page 201, Position 4: If you have £1,785 of savings, you are richer than half of the world’s population.
http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21710771-new-analysis-how-worlds-wealth-distributed-you-may-be-higher-up?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/
Page 202, Position 1: GCHQ has an internal ghost-hunting club.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/aug/01/gchq-spy-agency-nsa-edward-snowden
Page 202, Position 2: 100,000 Japanese disappear without trace every year.
http://metro.co.uk/2017/01/15/the-mystery-behind-japans-evaporating-people-6377711/
Page 202, Position 3: The ghost orchid, Britain’s rarest wild flower, reappeared 23 years after being declared extinct.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/so-there-you-are-britains-rarest-wildflower-the-ghost-orchid-returns-from-the-dead-after-23-years-1923853.html
Page 202, Position 4: Washington DC is said to be haunted by DC the Demon Cat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_Cat
Page 203, Position 1: The Post Office used to employ cats to stop mice from eating money orders.
https://postalheritage.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/museumcats-day-industrial-chaos-in-the-post-office-cat-world/
Page 203, Position 2: GCHQ code words for surveillance techniques include ‘nut allergy’, ‘country file’, ‘dirty devil’ and ‘clumsy beekeeper’.
https://search.edwardsnowden.com/docs/JTRIGToolsandTechniques2014-07-14nsadocs
Page 203, Position 3: The Pentagon has six ZIP codes.
https://pentagontours.osd.mil/Tours/facts-zip.jsp
Page 203, Position 4: Buckingham Palace has its own post office.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/lists/fascinating-facts-about-buckingham-palace/
Page 204, Position 1: Thomas Mann’s daughter adapted a typewriter so her dog could write poetry.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/09/the-typing-life/amp?client=safari
Page 204, Position 2: Thomas Hardy had a cat called Kiddleywinkempoops.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/quotes-about-love-and-romance/dickens/
Page 204, Position 3: Thomas Cromwell had four pet beavers.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/27/new-thomas-cromwell-history-party-animal
Page 204, Position 4: Thomas Edison invented the word ‘hello’.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/05/garden/great-hello-mystery-is-solved.html
Page 205, Position 1: The only burp in Shakespeare is by Sir Toby Belch.
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/top10facts/666087/Ten-things-never-knew-One-Princess-Charlotte
Page 205, Position 2: The first typewriter was called ‘the writing harpsichord’.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/wonderland-steven-johnson-play-invention-innovation-design/
Page 205, Position 3: In Shakespeare’s day, plays were put on as soon as they were written; actors rehearsed using ‘foul papers’, the writer’s last handwritten draft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foul_papers
Page 205, Position 4: September, October and November are not mentioned in any of Shakespeare’s works.
http://mentalfloss.com/uk/trivia/47375/11-autumnal-facts-about-october
Page 206, Position 1: Fish eaten by jellyfish cost South Korea up to $200 million a year in lost revenue.
https://thecorrespondent.com/4831/the-jellyfish-are-coming-brace-yourself-for-goomageddon/903664777499-c2d232ec
Page 206, Position 2: A large fart has about the same volume as a can of fizzy drink.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-big-is-a-fart-somewhere-between-a-bottle-of-nail-polish-and-a-can-of-soda/?ex_cid=538twitter
Page 206, Position 3: Champagne bubbles are basically yeast farts.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/31/14135404/champagne-sparkling-wine-science-bubbles-physics-alcohol-hangovers-new-years
Page 206, Position 4: Carp can live without oxygen for months.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9848-how-carp-hold-their-breath-through-winter/
Page 207, Position 1: A French workman’s café was accidentally awarded a Michelin star in 2017 after a mix up with a Parisian restaurant of the same name.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/18/workmens-cafe-overwhelmed-customers-accidentally-given-michelin/
Page 207, Position 2: 225 Canadian fishermen die every year while urinating over the side of their boat.
http://www.lifesaving.ca/what-we-do/water-smart-public-education/boating-fishing-safety-tips/
Page 207, Position 3: 400,000 people died building the Great Wall of China.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/trump-wall-impossible-build-architects-2017-1?r=US&IR=T
Page 207, Position 4: The Roman emperor Domitian held a death-themed dinner party with black plates, charred food and conversations about murder and sudden death.
Orgy Planner Wanted
Page 208, Position 1: Prince Philip was born on a kitchen table in Corfu.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/10-things-might-not-know-prince-philip/?WT.mc_id=e_DM427697&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FPM_New_AEM_Recipient&utm_source=email&utm_medium=Edi_FPM_New_AEM_Recipient_2017_05_04&utm_campaign=DM427697
Page 208, Position 2: Salvador Dalà went to restaurants with his pet ocelot, claiming it was a cat with a pattern painted on.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/10590019/Salvador-Dali-11-things-you-didnt-know.html
Page 208, Position 3: Penguins’ adult offspring return home and demand to be fed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4313594/Galapagos-penguins-feed-grown-offspring.html
Page 208, Position 4: 7% of American adults believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/american-chocolate-milk-brown-cows-study-us-dairy-innvoation-adults-a7793016.html
Page 209, Position 1: The world is running out of sand.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-world-is-running-out-of-sand
Page 209, Position 2: Hawaii gets bigger by 165 square metres every day.
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/big-picture-hawaii-volcano
Page 209, Position 3: All the world’s beaches lined up in a row would reach the Moon.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/17/an-empty-beach-isnt-empty-at-all/
Page 209, Position 4: A grain of sand officially measures between 0.06 and 2 millimetres across.
https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/~/media/shared/documents/education%20and%20careers/Earth%20Science%20Week/esw12/GSL_Sand%20Grains%20Questionsv2.pdf?la=en
Page 210, Position 1: Army cutworm moths are 70% fat.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150910-the-fattest-animal-on-earth
Page 210, Position 2: All 436,800 sandwiches sold on the streets of London in 1851 were ham sandwiches.
http://essays.centreforlondon.org/issues/food/no-more-daily-bread/
Page 210, Position 3: ‘Sweet sizzlin’ green beans’ are 35% more likely to be ordered than ‘Healthy energy-boosting green beans’, even if prepared in the same way.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/13/people-more-likely-eat-vegetables-seductive-names-sound-unhealthy/391748001/
Page 210, Position 4: Hungryfemale praying mantises pretend to be interested in sex and then eat any interested males who turn up.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/12/23/when-a-female-mantis-is-hungry-she-fakes-fertility-to-snack-on-duped-mates/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.6242d8043ab6
Page 211, Position 1: Seeds have brains that tell them when to sprout.
https://www.livescience.com/59396-plants-use-brainlike-structures.html
Page 211, Position 2: A pair of the world’s largest butterflies sell for $10,000 on the black market.
http://www.neatorama.com/2017/03/31/The-Ins-and-Outs-of-Exotic-Animal-Smuggling/
Page 211, Position 3: Butterflies use their tongues like drinking straws.
http://mypages.iit.edu/~smart/pearkat/lesson1.htm
Page 211, Position 4: A woodpecker’s tongue is coiled around its brain.
http://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/blog/2013/12/10/woodpeckers-can-hammer-without-getting-headaches/
Page 212, Position 1: Giraffes have blue tongues, and nobody knows why.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/why-do-some-animals-have-blue-tongues
Page 212, Position 2: Tumbleweeds are native to Russia, not the US.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/12/tumbleweeds/johnson-text
Page 212, Position 3: The world’s leading cannabis expert has never smoked a joint.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/marijuana-expert-never-smoked-joint-raphael-mechoulam-medical-cannabis-research-thc-a7658731.html
Page 212, Position 4: No human beings have ever had sex in space.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/space-sex-is-serious-business/?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 213, Position 1: Half the wild boars in the Czech Republic are radioactive.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-czech-boars-idUKKBN1611G0
Page 213, Position 2: There is a Guinness World Record for ‘most matchsticks extinguished with the tongue’.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/111405-most-matchsticks-extinguished-with-the-tongue-in-one-minute
Page 213, Position 3: The longest single jump by a bullfrog was 4 feet 3 inches.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-of-winning-leaps-at-the-calaveras-county-frog-jumping-competition-2277694/
Page 213, Position 4: Polka-dot tree frogs are fluorescent.
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/first-fluorescent-tree-frog
Page 214, Position 1: There is only one documented case of an elephant giving birth to triplets.
http://www.asesg.org/PDFfiles/Gajah/21-41-Tilakaratne.pdf
Page 214, Position 2: Mouse livers grow 40% larger at night.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2017/05/04/liver-grow-and-shrink/#.WXh5ETLMy3c
Page 214, Position 3: 40% of elephants in captivity are obese.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/fat-threatens-elephants-with-heart-disease-and-its-hard-to-weigh-them/2014/07/21/ffe8c5b2-0ea5-11e4-8c9a-923ecc0c7d23_story.html?utm_term=.799c3c2be1ae
Page 214, Position 4: Elephants disperse seeds up to 40 miles away.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/amazing-african-elephants-may-transport-seeds-farther-any-other-land-animal
Page 215, Position 1: Identical twins don’t run in families.
http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/2550.aspx?CategoryID=54
Page 215, Position 2: Twins live longer than non-twins.
http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/08/18/twins-especially-male-identical-twins-live-longer/
Page 215, Position 3: Identical twins live longer than non-identical twins.
http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/08/18/twins-especially-male-identical-twins-live-longer/
Page 215, Position 4: Identical male twins live longer than identical female twins.
http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/08/18/twins-especially-male-identical-twins-live-longer/
Page 216, Position 1: When the BBC remade Swallows and Amazons in 2016, Titty was renamed Tatty .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/23/family-of-swallows-and-amazons-titty--furious-as-bbc-film-change/
Page 216, Position 2: The royal family uses the word ‘smart’ instead of ‘posh’.
http://lifestyle.one/grazia/celebrity/news/royal-family-words-banned/
Page 216, Position 3: ‘Posh’ boys’ names suggested by Tatler include Barclay, Mao, Uxorious and Npeter (the ‘N’ is silent).
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/figgy-gethsemane-quail-and-ra-tatler-names-its-top-posh-baby-names-for-2017-a3432596.html
Page 216, Position 4: ‘Posh’ girls’ names suggested by Tatler include Czar-Czar, Estonia, Hum and Figgy .
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/figgy-gethsemane-quail-and-ra-tatler-names-its-top-posh-baby-names-for-2017-a3432596.html
Page 217, Position 1: The US presidential limo is called ‘The Beast’.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/28/obama-reckons-with-a-trump-presidency?utm_source=Quartz+Morning+Brief&utm_campaign=c874d5f793-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_19&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1ff2527dbb-c874d5f793-57548377
Page 217, Position 2: The first English librarian was named Edward Edwards.
https://archive.org/stream/edwardedwardschi00greeuoft/edwardedwardschi00greeuoft_djvu.txt
Page 217, Position 3: The spokesman for the British Leafy Salads Association is called Dieter Lloyd.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38851097
Page 217, Position 4: The director of dance at the Paris Opera Ballet from 2014 to 2016 was Benjamin Millepied.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35491842
Page 218, Position 1: Ladybirds bleed poison when threatened.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/group/ladybugs/
Page 218, Position 2: The wife of US President Lyndon B. Johnson had a brother called Thomas Jefferson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Bird_Johnson
Page 218, Position 3: LBJ’s wife’s name was ‘Bird’; when she became First Lady, she was known as Lady Bird.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Bird_Johnson
Page 218, Position 4: A group of ladybirds is called a ‘loveliness’.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/wildlife/homesforwildlife/m/hfwwildlife/66139.aspx
Page 219, Position 1: A smell-feast is someone who shows up to a party just for the food.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=meJGTvuB7A4C&pg=PA58&dq=smell-feast&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYmpjH47PVAhWPJ1AKHTqWC1MQ6AEIMjAC#v=onepage&q=smell-feast&f=false
Page 219, Position 2: To make themselves appear more threatening, western spotted skunks do handstands.
http://wild.enature.com/blog/the-spotted-skunk-is-one-stinky-acrobat
Page 219, Position 3: The surname Smellie has become 71% less common since 1881.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1164721/R-I-P-Smellie-Bottom-Balls--surnames-dying-embarrassment.html
Page 219, Position 4: The bird-dung crab spider looks and smells like dung and eats flies that are attracted to it.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28124-zoologger-a-spider-that-looks-and-smells-like-bird-droppings/
Page 220, Position 1: Female deep-sea squid store sperm in their arms.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/sep/21/male-squid-mate-sex-dark
Page 220, Position 2: The word ‘rooster’ was coined so Americans didn’t have to use the word ‘cock’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=rooster&allowed_in_frame=0
Page 220, Position 3: Cockerels lure hens for sex by pretending to have found food.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/stunned-scientists-find-out-chickens-9566964
Page 220, Position 4: Female market squid display fake testicles to avoid the advances of males.
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/11/female-squid-turn-testes-off-on-ocean-science/
Page 221, Position 1: All octopuses are venomous but only the blue-ringed octopus is harmful to humans.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/science-news/news/1675/
Page 221, Position 2: Squid can edit their own brain genes.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2127103-squid-and-octopus-can-edit-and-direct-their-own-brain-genes/
Page 221, Position 3: You can predict the winner of a fight between two octopuses by looking at their colours.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/inkfish/2016/02/17/octopus-colors-predict-the-winners-of-fights/
Page 221, Position 4: Female blanket octopuses are 10,000 times heavier than the males.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0212_030212_walnutoctopus_2.html
Page 222, Position 1: Whales communicate by jumping out of the water and splashing on the surface.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2114953-whales-talk-to-each-other-by-slapping-out-messages-on-water/
Page 222, Position 2: Seattle Aquarium holds a Valentine’s event where you can watch octopuses mating.
http://gizmodo.com/fearing-cannibalism-aquarium-cancels-valentines-day-oc-1759188834
Page 222, Position 3: Visiting an aquarium can lower your blood pressure.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33716589
Page 222, Position 4: The mouth of the blue whale at Gothenburg’s Natural History Museum used to have a café in it.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2016/05/21/gothenburgs-malm-whale/14637528003254
Page 223, Position 1: More than 350 languages are spoken in Mexico, as well as Spanish.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/also_in_the_news/7097647.stm
Page 223, Position 2: Killer whales can learn to speak dolphin.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141007111055.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28Latest+Science+News+--+ScienceDaily%29
Page 223, Position 3: English speakers can learn French in half the time it takes to learn Welsh.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/time-takes-become-fluent-another-9297677
Page 223, Position 4: The world’s largest Spanish-speaking country is Mexico.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/29/us-second-biggest-spanish-speaking-country
Page 224, Position 1: William Shatner insisted a Star Trek script be rewritten so that Kirk, rather than Spock, had the first interracial kiss on TV .
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5941608/10-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-star-trek-the-original-series
Page 224, Position 2: In the Spanish version of Terminator 2, Arnie says ‘Sayonara, baby’ rather than ‘Hasta la vista, baby’.
http://boingboing.net/2017/04/25/what-the-terminator-says-inste.html
Page 224, Position 3: In the Japanese version of Terminator 2, Arnie says ‘Cheerio, love’.
http://boingboing.net/2017/04/25/what-the-terminator-says-inste.html
Page 224, Position 4: Before Star Trek, William Shatner starred in Incubus, where the dialogue was all in Esperanto.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus_(1966_film)
Page 225, Position 1: NASA invented invisible braces.
https://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/40-years-of-nasa-spinoff/invisible-braces/
Page 225, Position 2: There have been no weddings in St Hilda’s Church in Yorkshire for 12 years because of a bat infestation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-18276908/churchgoers-being-driven-away-by-bats
Page 225, Position 3: Bats contain more viruses that are dangerous to humans than any other species.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/bats-really-do-harbor-more-dangerous-viruses-other-species
Page 225, Position 4: In medieval Germany , it was thought that wearing the left eye of a bat as a talisman would make you invisible.
An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural _ James Randi
Page 226, Position 1: Fossilised excrement is worth more if it has ‘the classic poo look’.
https://www.livescience.com/56872-fossilized-poop-collection-world-record.html
Page 226, Position 2: According to state law in New Mexico, Pluto is still a planet.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8922998
Page 226, Position 3: The global beauty and anti-ageing industry is worth $999 billion a year.
https://www.globalwellnessinstitute.org/wellness-now-a-372-trillion-global-industry/
Page 226, Position 4: Ostrich feathers were once worth as much as diamonds.
https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/london-metropolitan-archives/the-collections/Pages/ostrich-feather-trade.aspx
Page 227, Position 1: Hyperthymesia is the inability to ever forget anything.
http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-628-donE28099t-say-we-didnt-warn-you-22-bizarre-medical-stories/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter-weekly-20170606
Page 227, Position 2: Sloths excrete only once a week.
https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/sep/21/top-10-numbers-for-random-facts-adam-frost
Page 227, Position 3: Polar bears can smell seals 40 miles away.
https://www.nps.gov/yose/blogs/bear-series-part-one-a-bears-sense-of-smell.htm
Page 227, Position 4: The smell of rosemary improves children’s memories.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-39780544
Page 228, Position 1: Tube trains are cleaned with magnetic wands.
http://www.itv.com/news/london/2017-06-23/magnetic-wands-help-tackle-dangerous-superbugs-on-the-tube/
Page 228, Position 2: Cryptomnesia is when a memory floats into your conscious mind and you mistake it for an original idea.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/26/cryptomnesia-psychology-of-writing/
Page 228, Position 3: HarryBeck designed the iconic London Underground map for a one-off fee of 10 guineas.
https://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/harry-beck-and-londons-iconic-tube-map-1
Page 228, Position 4: 90% of London Underground stations are north of the Thames.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/London-Underground-150-fascinating-Tube-facts/
Page 229, Position 1: Almond orchards use 10% of the water in California.
http://www.almonds.com/get-facts-about-almonds-and-water
Page 229, Position 2: Mars has no magnetic field.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everything-about-mars-is-the-worst/?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 229, Position 3: All Dutch trains run on wind energy.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/10/dutch-trains-100-percent-wind-powered-ns
Page 229, Position 4: California generates almost half the solar energy in the US.
https://qz.com/948748/our-obsession-with-the-cult-of-the-entrepreneur-has-gone-too-far/
Page 230, Position 1: Plants can tell the time better than people.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/gizmodo.com/plants-can-tell-time-way-better-than-you-can-1795257824/amp
Page 230, Position 2: Texas has over 1,300 different kinds of soil.
http://boingboing.net/2017/02/10/geologists-on-the-impossible-l.html
Page 230, Position 3: The average British garden contains over 20,000 slugs and snails.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi-wKzk47PVAhWJLlAKHdmPCbsQFggzMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.express.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fnature%2F805965%2FUK-slug-invasion-spanish-slug-how-to-kill-Britain&usg=AFQjCNFxS34To2LWE79k3DyqStoEgkucqQ
Page 230, Position 4: Half of British gardeners cannot name a single shrub.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/21/survey-finds-half-british-gardeners-cannot-name-single-shrub/
Page 231, Position 1: Surgeons often operate to music.
https://qz.com/936920/new-york-presbyterian-hospital-released-a-playlist-of-all-the-songs-to-which-you-can-do-cpr/
Page 231, Position 2: Trees have their own songs.
https://www.theatlantic.com/please-support-us/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fscience%2Farchive%2F2017%2F04%2Ftrees-have-their-own-songs%2F521742%2F#seen
Page 231, Position 3: The father of Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, wrote songs for Bing Crosby.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/14/is-paul-dacre-most-dangerous-man-in-britain-daily-mail
Page 231, Position 4: Adam Ant’s mum was Paul McCartney’s cleaner.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/adam-ant-erics-leathers-paul-9058824
Page 232, Position 1: Prince Charles has waited longer to become king than any heir to the throne in British history.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/16/what-happens-when-queen-elizabeth-dies-london-bridge?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Page 232, Position 2: Richard III was a blue-eyed blond.
https://qz.com/936920/new-york-presbyterian-hospital-released-a-playlist-of-all-the-songs-to-which-you-can-do-cpr/
Page 232, Position 3: William IV’s head was shaped like a pineapple.
http://matt-history.weebly.com/william-iv.html
Page 232, Position 4: George III didn’t see the sea till he was 34 years old.
A History of England in 100 Places. John Julius Norwich.
Page 233, Position 1: Data has overtaken oil as the world’s most valuable resource.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21721656-data-economy-demands-new-approach-antitrust-rules-worlds-most-valuable-resource
Page 233, Position 2: Human DNA begins to degenerate at 55 years old.
http://sciencenordic.com/we-lose-control-our-dna-age-55
Page 233, Position 3: DNA testing is mandatory in Kuwait.
http://www.iflscience.com/technology/dna-testing-now-mandatory-kuwait/
Page 233, Position 4: If all the data from all of human history were encoded onto DNA, it would fit into a container the size and weight of two pickup trucks.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/dna-could-store-all-worlds-data-one-room
Page 234, Position 1: Ethiopia has a space programme.
https://qz.com/962128/the-rush-to-develop-african-space-programs-point-to-the-continents-technological-and-scientific-ambitions/
Page 234, Position 2: India is the world’s largest exporter of beef.
http://time.com/3833931/india-beef-exports-rise-ban-buffalo-meat/
Page 234, Position 3: The Department of Medals at India’s Ministry of Defence doesn’t make any medals, it just buys them at the market.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/For-men-in-uniform-panoply-of-duplicates/article16979219.ece?utm_source=true&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Newsletter
Page 234, Position 4: The UK’s Ministry of Defence owns three and a half times as many pieces of fine art as it does warships, tanks, helicopters, planes and submarines.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a7d4ad16-b41e-11e6-a484-48e510ab58d4
Page 235, Position 1: Venus Williams has spent more than a year of her life at Wimbledon.
http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/news/articles/2017-07-05/venus_extends_her_stay.html
Page 235, Position 2: Iceland imports ice cubes.
https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/world/selling-ice-iceland/
Page 235, Position 3: Australia moves 2.7 inches a year.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/24/world/what-in-the-world/australia-continental-drift-location-gps.html?ex_cid=newsletter
Page 235, Position 4: No one is ever born in Vatican City .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/lists/surprising-facts-about-the-vatican-city/vatican-citizens/
Page 236, Position 1: The halfway line at Brazil’s Zerão football stadium runs exactly along the equator.
https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/whats-special-little-stadium-brazil-200310652.html
Page 236, Position 2: The word ‘queue’ is the only word in English that sounds the same if you remove four of its letters.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=a8t5CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 236, Position 3: On average, people will wait six minutes in a queue before giving up.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/16/rule-six-governs-long-queue-shop/
Page 236, Position 4: People are reluctant to join a queue of more than six people.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/16/rule-six-governs-long-queue-shop/
Page 237, Position 1: Argentinian footballer Carlos Tevez earns £1 a second.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/row-zed/1-per-second-crazy-numbers-9492520
Page 237, Position 2: David Beckham owns over 1,000 pairs of football boots.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1z8XT9v15wPV17CygBJCY7S/12-things-we-learnt-from-david-beckham-s-desert-island-discs
Page 237, Position 3: To cover Gareth Bale’s salary, Real Madrid need to sell 1.2 million football shirts per year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/29638560
Page 237, Position 4: American football teams can have up to six captains, but only one gets to call the coin toss.
https://nflcommunications.com/Documents/2016%20Releases/2016%20Rulebook_Combined.pdf
Page 238, Position 1: There are only 70 wolves in Norway.
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21722470-two-wild-species-battle-sheep-farmers-and-prions-norways-wolves-are-being-hunted-its-reindeer-are?fsrc=gnews
Page 238, Position 2: Kendo masters get paid nothing.
https://www.tofugu.com/japan/kendo/
Page 238, Position 3: Elephant polo is popular in India, Nepal and Thailand.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/unusual-sports-around-the-world-2016-3/#elephant-polo-is-just-like-regular-polo-except-on-an-elephant--it-even-requires-the-same-equipment-this-sport-is-popular-in-nepal-india-and-thailand-9
Page 238, Position 4: In Thailand, it is illegal to own more than 120 playing cards.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi317fs47PVAhVCZlAKHQM9CHUQFggtMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPlaying_Cards_Act&usg=AFQjCNExHOE9N4z8HFjgrBWyMXuyvJ1PYw
Page 239, Position 1: The most murderous mammals are meerkats.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwich72Z5LPVAhWIA8AKHccQA58QFggtMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fscience%2Fmeerkats-revealed-as-the-most-murderous-mammal-known-to-science-a7335741.html&usg=AFQjCNFll8I6KHHgMFWucHR2auCnDdsYmg
Page 239, Position 2: The Viking King Olaf Tryggvason could jog round the outside of his longship on its oars while it was being rowed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings#Sports
Page 239, Position 3: Iceland’s elite police counter-terrorism unit is known as the Viking Squad.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/23/iceland-gripped-by-rare-case-as-womans-body-is-found
Page 239, Position 4: Firing squad is a legal method of execution in Oklahoma.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_by_firing_squad
Page 240, Position 1: Dolphins have no vocal cords.
http://www.whalefacts.org/how-do-dolphins-breathe/
Page 240, Position 2: Cats have whiskers on their front paws as well as their faces.
https://www.pets4homes.co.uk/pet-advice/why-do-cats-have-whiskers-on-their-front-legs.html
Page 240, Position 3: Seals have retractable nipples.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/wild_things/2015/10/09/lactation_in_mammals_humans_whales_seals_bats_and_echidnas.html
Page 240, Position 4: Wolves have a sense of fair play.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40205808
Page 241, Position 1: Bumblebees can learn to play golf.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2122383-bees-learn-to-play-golf-and-show-off-how-clever-they-really-are/
Page 241, Position 2: Cockroaches have no ears.
http://www.doderohearing.com/blog/how-do-cockroaches-cats-and-other-species-hear/
Page 241, Position 3: Orang-utans are good at charades.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070802091437.htm
Page 241, Position 4: A group of opossums is called a ‘grin’.
http://researchmaniacs.com/CollectiveNouns/Animals/What-is-a-group-of-Opossums-called.html
Page 242, Position 1: Oslo has a ‘bee highway’ that is planted with flowers and winds through the city .
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/norway-has-highway-bees-180955703/
Page 242, Position 2: Ancient beekeepers took their beehives on hikes if there weren’t enough flowers near by.
Orgy Planner Wanted
Page 242, Position 3: Bumblebees can make a flower open by buzzing in middle C.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/honeybees-honey-insects-pollen-agriculture/
Page 242, Position 4: Male bees sometimes chase aeroplanes in mistake for female bees.
http://bumblebeeconservation.org/images/uploads/Buzzword/Buzzword_19_final.pdf
Page 243, Position 1: When Winston Churchill got really angry , he would throw his teeth across the room.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-10795088
Page 243, Position 2: Norway has a ‘tooth bank’ which is aiming to collect 100,000 milk teeth.
http://www.uib.no/en/rg/biomaterial/67983/•-tooth-bankê-project-received-grants-tannlege-einar-bergersens-legat
Page 243, Position 3: The Mayans drilled holes in their teeth to fit precious stones in.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090518-first-dentists.html
Page 243, Position 4: 40% of toothbrushes have red handles.
Small Data: The Tiny Clues that Uncover Huge Trends by Martin Lindstrom
Page 244, Position 1: Comet West appeared in 1976; its previous visit took place before humans existed, and it will return in 250,000 years.
http://www.space.com/17918-9-most-brilliant-great-comets.html
Page 244, Position 2: Winston Churchill believed in aliens.
http://www.nature.com/news/winston-churchill-s-essay-on-alien-life-found-1.21467
Page 244, Position 3: After investigation, only 1.8% of UFOs remain ‘unidentified’.
Flim Flam _ James Randi
Page 244, Position 4: The first British plan to put a man on the Moon was made by Oliver Cromwell’s brother-in-law.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/cromwells-moonshot-how-one-jacobean-scientist-tried-to-kick-off-the-space-race-7907149.html
Page 245, Position 1: The Ottoman Empire was so large that it takes 21 countries to cover the area today.
'Peter the Great'. Robert K Massie
Page 245, Position 2: Cosmic dust left over from the dawn of time has been found on rooftops in Paris.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/12/06/cosmic-dust-found-rooftops-paris/
Page 245, Position 3: Since 1993, the Hubble Space Telescope has been the source for 25% of all published astronomy papers.
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/sep/27-20-things-you-didnt-know-about-telescopes
Page 245, Position 4: In 1900, France built a telescope which was so long it couldn’t be pointed at the sky.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Paris_Exhibition_Telescope_of_1900
Page 246, Position 1: Dragonflies have a kill rate of 95%.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/science/dragonflies-natures-deadly-drone-but-prettier.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=science&pagewanted=all
Page 246, Position 2: In the Ottoman Empire, anyone who took the throne would kill all his brothers to stop them assassinating him.
'Peter the Great'. Robert K Massie
Page 246, Position 3: Kookaburras have a hook in their top beak which is specifically designed for murdering their siblings.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2000/10/23/201846.htm
Page 246, Position 4: The most destructive predator in New Zealand is the possum.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/29/silicon-valley-new-zealand-apocalypse-escape
Page 247, Position 1: There’s a set of German traffic lights that have been on red for 30 years.
https://www.thelocal.de/20150615/there-is-a-light-that-never-goes-out
Page 247, Position 2: Dragonflies can see directly behind themselves.
http://listverse.com/2013/04/18/10-surprisingly-brutal-facts-about-dragonflies/
Page 247, Position 3: The purple sea urchin’s body acts as one giant eye.
NatGeo Feb 2016
Page 247, Position 4: Sulfhemoglobinemia is a condition where a person develops green blood.
http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-628-donE28099t-say-we-didnt-warn-you-22-bizarre-medical-stories/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter-weekly-20170606
Page 248, Position 1: An Essex egg farmer massively increased his output by playing Radio 2 to his hens for 15 hours a day.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/5172712.stm
Page 248, Position 2: Preference for the colour yellow declines with age.
https://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/Choosing/colour-personality.htm
Page 248, Position 3: Yellow cars are the least likely to have an accident.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/92999/yellow-actually-optimal-taxi-color
Page 248, Position 4: The toy case in a Kinder Surprise is yellow to represent an egg yolk.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/kinder-surprise-toy-case-colour-yellow_uk_58b53fd0e4b0780bac2cebbe
Page 249, Position 1: Aristotle thought plants had souls.
Brilliant Green: The Surprising History & Science of Plant Intelligence by Stefano Mancuso and Alessandra Viola (Island Press, 2015) p13
Page 249, Position 2: Test tube babies thrive if played techno music 24 hours a day.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/91f9c406-db5e-11e6-b8ce-5a639b2dfcaa
Page 249, Position 3: Illegal baby names in New Zealand include Lucifer, Christ and Messiah.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/newzealand/10029482/New-Zealand-says-no-to-bizarre-baby-names-4Real-Juztice-and-Lucifer.html
Page 249, Position 4: 54% of Americans believe science conflicts with religion, but not with their own.
https://relevantmagazine.com/slice/study-most-americans-believe-science-conflicts-with-others-religion-not-their-own/
Page 250, Position 1: Wind turbines were invented almost 150 years ago.
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21717371-thats-no-reason-governments-stop-supporting-them-wind-and-solar-power-are-disrupting
Page 250, Position 2: On 4 April 2017, there were 335,765,099 different products available on Amazon.
https://www.scrapehero.com/how-many-products-are-sold-on-amazon-com-january-2017-report/
Page 250, Position 3: 40% of pages in LEGO catalogues contain some kind of violence.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-36356604
Page 250, Position 4: LEGO is part-owner of the world’s largest wind turbine.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/lego-unveils-massive-world-record-13045056
Page 251, Position 1: The Oxford English Dictionary was originally offered to Cambridge.
https://blog.oup.com/2017/03/making-oxford-english-dictionary/
Page 251, Position 2: The word ‘soon’ used to mean ‘right now’.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=soon
Page 251, Position 3: The Yorkshire greeting ‘eh up’ was originally used by Vikings.
http://www.viking.no/e/england/yorkshire_norse.htm
Page 251, Position 4: Vladimir Nabokov used the word ‘mauve’ 44 times more often than it usually appears in English.
http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2017/03/31/521836700/nabokovs-favorite-word-is-mauve-crunches-the-literary-numbers
Page 252, Position 1: Sir James Dyson owns more English farmland than the Queen.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/peasants-revolt-as-celebrities-hoover-up-the-countryside-7mjklk3g9
Page 252, Position 2: King’s College, Cambridge, has won more Nobel Prizes than France.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/topstories/man-who-brought-you-brexit/ar-BBwNpZE?ocid=MSN_UK_NL_M_NO_06OCT16
Page 252, Position 3: Italy has more bank robberies than the rest of Europe combined.
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/05/the-italian-job-2.html
Page 252, Position 4: The king of Rwanda lives in a terraced house in Manchester.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/12/rwandas-new-king-named-a-father-of-two-living-on-an-estate-near-manchester
Page 253, Position 1: Scientists can tell how old you are from the fingerprint smudges on your phone.
Small Data: The Tiny Clues that Uncover Huge Trends by Martin Lindstrom
Page 253, Position 2: Britons use the winking emoji twice as often as any other nationality .
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/22/emoji-use-canada-smiling-poop-french-heart-italian-bananas-brits
Page 253, Position 3: There are emojis for ‘asshat’, ‘douchebag’ and ‘cockwomble’.
https://qz.com/932782/the-science-of-why-most-emoji-curses-dont-work-and-one-definitely-does/
Page 253, Position 4: The dung piles of white rhinos are their social network, telling other rhinos how they are.
https://apple.news/AXD20ZBfrSaK7xsKQox5DyQ
Page 254, Position 1: In Wisconsin, the word people most often google ‘how to spell’ is ‘Wisconsin’.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/05/31/googles-breakdown-of-what-americans-dont-know-how-to-spell-state-by-state/?utm_term=.743b11f8852e&wpisrc=nl_most-draw8&wpmm=1
Page 254, Position 2: Humans have adapted the way they walk so they can look at their phones.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/humans-are-evolving-to-adopt-a-text-shuffle-to-use-phones-whilst-walking-10426774.html
Page 254, Position 3: ‘What is my IP?’ is the most common search on Google.
https://www.mondovo.com/keywords/most-asked-questions-on-google
Page 254, Position 4: Every month, as many people google ‘How to make slime’ as ‘How to make love’.
https://www.mondovo.com/keywords/most-asked-questions-on-google
Page 255, Position 1: Most dogs prefer praise to food.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/dogs-would-rather-get-belly-rub-treat
Page 255, Position 2: The most misspelled word in New Mexico is ‘banana’.
http://digg.com/2017/map-commonly-misspelled-words-by-state?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Page 255, Position 3: The first monkey known to have got drunk was reported in 1779 by the ship’s doctor on HMS Dorchester.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EnoJDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT128&lpg=PT128&dq=hms+dorchester+monkey+drunk&source=bl&ots=X440-mJxB2&sig=4zrOReng2iol1jcMIB854Z_Ffq4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjwld6TsO_RAhVEi5AKHfjLBC8Q6AEIITAB#v=onepage&q=hms%20dorchester%20monkey%20drunk&f=false
Page 255, Position 4: Dogs prefer humans who are kind to other humans.
New Scientist 18 Feb 17
Page 256, Position 1: A million dollars in used $10 notes would come with a bonus of 1.17 cents’ worth of cocaine.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2017/02/06/6060/#.WJhsELaLSu4
Page 256, Position 2: 98% of Britons consider themselves to be among the nicest 50% of the population.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9763d7b4-076a-11e7-a9a4-674e2ac78952
Page 256, Position 3: Violent criminals rate themselves more moral, kind, self-controlled and honest than the average person.
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~crsi/Sedikides%20Meek%20Alicke%20%20Taylor%202014%20BJSP.pdf
Page 256, Position 4: In 1880s gangland New York, having someone punched cost $2, but there was a $15 charge for chewing their ear off.
http://www.murderbygaslight.com/2017/02/murder-among-whyos-part1.html
Page 257, Position 1: The 1976 Montreal Olympics overspent its budget by 720%.
http://boingboing.net/2016/07/14/its-official-the-olympics-e.html
Page 257, Position 2: The International Olympic Committee declared the 1980 Moscow Olympics ‘the first drug-free Olympics’.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-18/russia-olympic-doping-scandal-hangover-ussr-soviet-era/7756632
Page 257, Position 3: For the Rio Olympics, 70,000 families were displaced.
http://www.the42.ie/david-golblatt-dark-history-olympic-games-2919566-Aug2016/?utm_source=twitter_self
Page 257, Position 4: The average Olympic Games goes 156% over its budget.
http://boingboing.net/2016/07/14/its-official-the-olympics-e.html
Page 258, Position 1: There is a Danish myth that you can get drunk by soaking your feet in vodka.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2014/10/17/sorry-matter-long-soak-feet-vodka-will-never-get-drunk/#.WU_A-RPyvq0
Page 258, Position 2: The average person spends 375 days in a lifetime folding laundry.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38047950
Page 258, Position 3: Only 10% of homes in India have a washing machine.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39176358
Page 258, Position 4: The sandals of the Pueblo people of New Mexico had enough space for six toes.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/07/chaco-canyon-pueblo-bonito-social-implications-polydactyly-extra-toes/
Page 259, Position 1: The record number of people dressed like Einstein in one place is 404.
http://forward.com/culture/367586/a-bunch-of-canadian-albert-einstein-look-alikes-just-broke-a-guinness-world/
Page 259, Position 2: After migration, birds overeat and stagger around, ‘drunk’ on food.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2009/12/24/gary-bogue-drunk-robins-its-a-myth-that-those-birds-are-drunk-on-berries/
Page 259, Position 3: In 2013, American competitive eater Joey Chestnut ate 141 eggs in eight minutes.
http://www.majorleagueeating.com/contests.php?action=detail&eventID=572
Page 259, Position 4: Guinness dropped speed-eating records in 1991.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_World_Records
Page 260, Position 1: People who use Google Glass spectacles are known as Glassholes.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-glassholes-are-handling-the-end-of-google-glass
Page 260, Position 2: The mathematics that makes Wi-Fi possible was developed by a team of physicists looking for tiny black holes.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/09/18/3590519.htm
Page 260, Position 3: Nobody knows how many holes there are in the human body. Most of them are for sweat ducts and hair follicles.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5984591/you-probably-dont-know-how-many-holes-are-in-your-body-right-now
Page 260, Position 4: 1 in 100 Britons are born with a tiny hole in the top of their ears.
http://metro.co.uk/2016/11/20/1-in-100-of-brits-are-born-with-a-tiny-extra-hole-above-their-ears-heres-why-6270929/
Page 261, Position 1: The human body produces a gallon of mucus a day.
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1997-03/856841521.An.r.html
Page 261, Position 2: Head lice lay eggs to match your hair colour.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/126/2/392.full.pdf
Page 261, Position 3: The mola fish lays 300 million eggs but only two of them will make it to adulthood.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/animals-with-most-offspring-fish-eggs-reproduction/
Page 261, Position 4: Italy produces 44,000 tonnes of snails a year. Their eggs are sold as caviar and their mucus is used in skin creams.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/05/italys-snail-farmers-having-slime-lives-niche-beauty-product/
Page 262, Position 1: Older fish live longer if fed the faeces of younger fish.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/respect-sharks-are-older-than-trees-3818/
Page 262, Position 2: Tuna are more closely related to humans than to sharks.
http://www.academia.edu/21411139/Sharks_and_tuna_share_a_trait_called_RM_endothermy
Page 262, Position 3: Every winter, great white sharks swim for 40 days to meet up between Mexico and Hawaii, and nobody knows why.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2016/07/why_do_great_white_sharks_converge_on_a_mysterious_point_in_the_pacific.html
Page 262, Position 4: Sharks are older than trees.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/respect-sharks-are-older-than-trees-3818/
Page 263, Position 1: Some face mites can’t excrete, so they eat until they explode.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23231040-400-comb-jelly-videos-are-rewriting-the-history-of-your-anus/
Page 263, Position 2: Smelts are fish that smell of cucumber.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/the-fish-that-smells-like-cucumber-1.22153
Page 263, Position 3: Sea cucumbers fire their gonads out of their bodies to distract predators.
http://echinoblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/sea-cucumber-evisceration-defense.html
Page 263, Position 4: The polyclad flatworm has multiple anuses on its back.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150313-the-origin-of-the-anus
Page 264, Position 1: The British Tarantula Society was founded by Ann Webb.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/best-in-show-spiders-british-tarantula-society-180955306/
Page 264, Position 2: The McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish was invented for Catholics who couldn’t eat meat on Fridays.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-fishy-history-of-the-mcdonalds-filet-o-fish-sandwich-2912
Page 264, Position 3: During Lent, fasting is suspended on Sundays.
http://www.latintimes.com/when-does-lent-2017-start-and-end-how-long-does-it-last-411625
Page 264, Position 4: Tarantulas can last two years between meals.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9tD_hbixuoYC&pg=PA35&dq
Page 265, Position 1: 60% of people eating chocolate rabbits bite the ears off first.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170404090032.htm
Page 265, Position 2: The finance director of QuidditchUK is called Megan Snape.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuidditchUK
Page 265, Position 3: British Telecom, Prozac and Hobnobs were all named by the same man.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/marketing-the-name-game-1246883.html
Page 265, Position 4: The chocolate on a Hobnob is on the bottom of the biscuit, not the top.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/mcvities-reveal-whether-chocolate-top-10203469
Page 266, Position 1: Oorie is a Scots word meaning ‘miserable in cold weather’.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/oorie
Page 266, Position 2: Oligophagous means ‘eating only a few types of food’.
The Superior Person's Book Of Words. Peter Bowler: Bloomsbury, 2002.
Page 266, Position 3: Omnicompetent means ‘able to deal with anything’.
OED
Page 266, Position 4: Onomatomania is the frustration at not being able to think of the right word.
OED
Page 267, Position 1: Since 1945, all tanks in the British army have been equipped with tea-making facilities.
EI Digest 18.10.16 (quoting history.info)
Page 267, Position 2: ‘Marmite’ comes from an old French word meaning ‘hypocritical’.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/marmite
Page 267, Position 3: Only 1% of people who buy marmalade are under the age of 28.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/feb/24/marmalade-in-decline-as-paddington-struggles-to-lift-sales
Page 267, Position 4: The tea genome is four times longer than the coffee genome.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9d07d914-2ea6-11e7-aef5-2d8dbd8d80b5
Page 268, Position 1: Iceland has a bar called Pablo Discobar.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g189970-d11674412-Reviews-Pablo_Discobar-Reykjavik_Capital_Region.html
Page 268, Position 2: Hominids have used fire for 500,000 years, but only learned to make it 12,000 years ago.
https://qz.com/942986/before-you-make-an-emotional-decision-ask-yourself-these-four-questions/
Page 268, Position 3: Drug lord Pablo Escobar once burned $2 million in cash in one night to keep his family warm.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/colombia/6493894/Pablo-Escobar-burnt-1m-in-cash-to-keep-warm-on-the-run.html
Page 268, Position 4: Pablo Escobar offered to pay the whole of Colombia’s national debt.
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2043575_2043788_2043569,00.html
Page 269, Position 1: Ancient Roman baths were often warmed with solar power.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/solar-energy-in-ancient-rome-zbcz1401
Page 269, Position 2: Arda Turan, the Turkish midfielder who plays for Barcelona, pays the electricity bills for everyone living in his old block of flats in Istanbul.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/sep/15/arda-turan-atletico-madrid-real-madrid-derby-la-liga
Page 269, Position 3: The energy used in the world at any one time is enough to run 10 billion 100-watt lightbulbs.
https://www.britishgas.co.uk/the-source/our-world-of-energy/surprising-world-of-energy/energy-facts
Page 269, Position 4: Ta’¯ u island in American Samoa runs on 100% solar energy.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/tau-american-samoa-solar-power-microgrid-tesla-solarcity/
Page 270, Position 1: A ka door was a fake door built in Egyptian tombs as a link between the living and the dead.
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/falsedoors.htm
Page 270, Position 2: Until the 5th century, the must-have Roman gadget was a portable sundial.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/early-tech-adopters-ancient-rome-had-portable-sundials-180962225/
Page 270, Position 3: The Romans raised birds for food in special aviaries and fed them figs that were pre-chewed by the staff.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop_dia_Britannica/Aviary
Page 270, Position 4: Ancient Romans painted extra doors opposite real doors to make rooms look bigger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_door
Page 271, Position 1: Trees can recognise their offspring.
https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_simard_how_trees_talk_to_each_other/transcript?language=en
Page 271, Position 2: The Nuba people of Sudan have keyhole-shaped doorways to make room for the wide loads carried on their heads.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=agLPCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=nuba+doorways+keyhole+shape&source=bl&ots=lnBxGyKRci&sig=xPFsLA75831ub3kp_9C1YEUuWtQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjY7vWO5e7RAhWqCcAKHT2DAyIQ6AEILzAH#v=onepage&q=nuba%20doorways%20keyhole%20shape&f=false
Page 271, Position 3: The ‘doorway effect’ is when you walk into a room and completely forget what you came in for.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/79056/why-do-we-forget-what-were-doing-minute-we-enter-room?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Partner&utm_campaign=atlasobscura
Page 271, Position 4: Climbing a tree can help you to remember things.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/memory-problems-go-climb-a-tree
Page 272, Position 1: Finland has three million saunas for a population of 5.5 million people.
http://www.thedailystar.net/star-weekend/finland-_-country-curiosity-1298170
Page 272, Position 2: You can attract an emu by waving a handkerchief at it.
Outback Australia
Page 272, Position 3: An emuu was the original mother of each animal and plant species in ancient Finland.
http://odroerirjournal.com/finnish-tradition/5/
Page 272, Position 4: In Finnish folklore, the first person to use a sauna will become its ‘sauna elf’ when they die.
http://fairychamber.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/finnish-mythology-cats.html
Page 273, Position 1: It takes 52 litres of water to make a cup of tea with milk and two sugars.
http://www.improbable.com/2017/02/27/how-much-water-does-it-take-to-make-a-250ml-cup-of-tea/
Page 273, Position 2: To one decimal place, the population of Greenland per square mile is officially 0.0.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/The-worlds-least-densely-populated-countries/
Page 273, Position 3: Canada has underground water that is two billion years old.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-worlds-oldest-pool-of-water
Page 273, Position 4: Pure water is veryslightly sour.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/does-water-have-taste-yes-new-study-suggests-its-not-what-you-think-418583
Page 274, Position 1: The world’s first illustrated cookbook included a recipe for pizza topped with sugar and rose water.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/03/03/sensory-delights/
Page 274, Position 2: The first ‘chaser’ was alcohol taken to remove the aftertaste of coffee.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=chaser&allowed_in_frame=0
Page 274, Position 3: The coffee berryborer is the only animal that lives exclusively on coffee beans.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/14/this-beetle-is-ruining-your-coffee-with-the-help-of-bacteria/
Page 274, Position 4: Mary Berry has never ordered a pizza.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/14/bolognese-gate-mary-berry-shocks-fans-admitting-never-ordered/
Page 275, Position 1: The first gentlemen’s club in America was formed for the purpose of eating turtle soup.
http://primerstory.com/primer0013
Page 275, Position 2: Rose-tinted spectacles for chickens were used by US farmers in the early 1900s.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/thousands-of-chickens-once-wore-glasses-to-stop-them-ki-1700343874?null
Page 275, Position 3: According to a study in Ethiopia, you can avoid catching malaria by carrying a chicken at all times.
http://metro.co.uk/2016/07/21/this-simple-step-will-stop-you-getting-bitten-by-mosquitos-6019630/
Page 275, Position 4: In the late 1980s, officials in India released 25,000 turtles into the Ganges to eat dead bodies.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/indias-government-once-released-25000-flesh-eating-turtles-ganges-river-180953384/
Page 276, Position 1: In the 18th century, a St Kilda islander would eat up to 18 seabirds a day.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/29/census-sheds-new-light-st-kildan-diet-18-seabirds-day/
Page 276, Position 2: A hamster that eats nothing but corn will turn into a crazed cannibal.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/french-cornfields-are-full-of-cannibal-hamsters
Page 276, Position 3: The favourite food of Adélie penguins is jellyfish genitals.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/27/penguins-feed-jellyfish-prominent-sex-organs-underwater-footage/
Page 276, Position 4: Egyptian vultures get their vibrant yellow beaks from eating yellow cow dung.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/dung-beetles-feces-poop-recycling/
Page 277, Position 1: Using a leaf blower for half an hour creates more emissions than driving a pickup truck 3,800 miles.
https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/01/leafblower-legislation-local-press/424533/
Page 277, Position 2: The Orkney Islands are as close to Norway as they are to Aberdeen.
http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/The-History-of-Orkney-Shetland/
Page 277, Position 3: The world’s shortest scheduled flight, between two islands in the Orkneys, takes as little as 53 seconds.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/scottish-politics/9007300/Scottish-referendum-50-fascinating-facts-you-should-know-about-Scotland.html
Page 277, Position 4: The world’s shortest international flight, over Lake Constance between Austria and Switzerland, takes eight minutes.
http://www.thelocal.ch/20161102/worlds-shortest-international-flight-of-8-minutes-takes-off
Page 278, Position 1: Sean Connery was once caught speeding by a policeman called Sergeant James Bond.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/08/25/james-bond-sean-connery_n_8036238.html
Page 278, Position 2: In 2016, for the first time ever, more electricity was produced in the UK by wind than by coal.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-wind-generated-more-electricity-coal-2016
Page 278, Position 3: In 1888, hailstones as big as oranges fell in India.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/orange-sized-hail-reported-in-india
Page 278, Position 4: Orange cars hold their value better than cars of any other colour.
http://www.motortrend.com/news/bright-future-orange-cars-hold-value-better-colors/
Page 279, Position 1: Macrophiles are men who fantasise about sex with giant women.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/men-who-fantasise-sex-giant-9146301
Page 279, Position 2: Fidel Castro helped edit the novels of Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez.
http://qz.com/847274/fidel-castro-influenced-latin-americas-most-famous-authors-including-gabriel-garcia-marquez-mario-vargas-llosa-and-carlos-fuentes/?utm_source=Quartz+Morning+Brief&utm_campaign=aad8ae3d5e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1ff2527dbb-aad8ae3d5e-57548377
Page 279, Position 3: In Jamaica, Clarks shoes are a must-have gangsta fashion accessory.
http://clarksoriginals.com/editorial/clarks-in-jamaica/
Page 279, Position 4: In 17th-century London, women wore high-heeled clogs.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/arch-enemies/478350/
Page 280, Position 1: Australia’s first Olympian ran the marathon, then became delirious and punched a spectator.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/delirious-aussie-edwin-flack-punched-a-spectator-during-running-of-the-first-modern-marathon/news-story/50d05523c7cbf72dc831ba45be32f52a
Page 280, Position 2: The Statue of Liberty has a 35-foot waistline.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/north-america/united-states/new-york/articles/Statue-of-Liberty-50-fascinating-facts/
Page 280, Position 3: If a Formula One driver puts on 11 lb in weight, it can add 0.2 seconds to their lap time.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/the-times-sport/f1-drivers-starving-to-get-beanpole-position/news-story/9e47e19282095cfde1986eda19d4bf59
Page 280, Position 4: Ron Hill, the first Briton to win the Boston Marathon, ran every day for 19,032 days from December 1964 to January 2017.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/31/ex-olympian-ron-hill-finally-takes-day-going-run-every-day-52/
Page 281, Position 1: The first animal to be ejected from a supersonic jet with a parachute was a bear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KLnqorLgDM
Page 281, Position 2: After the first official women’s boxing match in the UK, the press stormed the ring and it collapsed under their weight.
A Classless Society _ Alwyn Turner
Page 281, Position 3: At the launch of the first ballpoint pen in the US, the crowds had to be restrained by riot police.
Adventures in Stationery: A Journey Through Your Pencil Case by James Ward
Page 281, Position 4: The first edition of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack was 112 pages long and padded out with accounts of the trial of King Charles I.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/thats-turn-up-books-strange-8952119
Page 282, Position 1: Men are six times more likely to be struck by lightning than women.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/does-lightning-strike-men-or-w/51439
Page 282, Position 2: In 18th-century France, fashionable women styled their hair à la rhinocéros.
https://timeline.com/clara-rhinoceros-europe-history-dc8a944c2a21#.cvmivl6z1
Page 282, Position 3: Tiaras were originally worn by men.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiara
Page 282, Position 4: 1,000 years ago, shirts and skirts were the same thing.
http://www.word-detective.com/2009/11/skirt/
Page 283, Position 1: In 2016, a 155-year-old mousetrap, kept as an exhibit in a Berkshire museum, caught a mouse.
http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/reading-berkshire-news/155-year-old-mouse-trap-10844771
Page 283, Position 2: The odds that Tasmanian tigers still exist have been calculated as 1.6 trillion to one.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2128077-odds-that-tasmanian-tigers-are-still-alive-are-1-in-1-6-trillion/
Page 283, Position 3: Some villages in the Central African Republic allow lions to live near by so locals can steal their kill.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/humans-steal-food-from-lions-14896586/
Page 283, Position 4: A 19th-century way to prevent toothache was to tie a dead mole around your neck.
http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Folk-Remedies/
Page 284, Position 1: Jet-lagged hamsters should be given Viagra.
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070521/full/news070521-1.html
Page 284, Position 2: There are 1,111 museums in Switzerland.
https://www.thelocal.ch/20170421/stuffed-frogs-and-sewing-machines-switzerlands-strangest-museums
Page 284, Position 3: James Franco’s Museum of Non-Visible Art contains no physical work, just ideas. A ‘piece’ called Fresh Air sold for $10,000.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/19/interview-with-aimee-davi_n_892618.html#s305184
Page 284, Position 4: Germany has a Museum of Snoring.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/museum-snoring
Page 285, Position 1: People who buy ‘bags for life’ are safer drivers.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7962aaea-05a5-11e7-976a-0b4b9a1a67a3
Page 285, Position 2: Tampon is French for ‘rubber stamp’.
http://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-french/tampon
Page 285, Position 3: The Symptoms, Nature, Cause, and Cure of a Gonorrhoea was published in 1818 by William Cockburn.
https://archive.org/details/symptomsnatureca00cock
Page 285, Position 4: Condoms are used by car mechanics to mend punctures.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/27/crabs-take-cubas-bay-pigs/
Page 286, Position 1: The 23A bus from Salisbury Plain to Imber runs only once a year.
https://imberbus.wordpress.com/
Page 286, Position 2: More than 200 drivers in Britain are at least 100 years old.
https://www.ft.com/content/d79cde1a-7436-11e6-bf48-b372cdb1043a?desktop=true
Page 286, Position 3: During the First World War, 1,000 double-decker London buses, complete with drivers and mechanics, were sent to the front line.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/world-war-1-battle-buses-3923565
Page 286, Position 4: Bus horns in Indonesia play tunes, are sampled by DJs and are available as apps.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/23/506713677/honk-if-you-love-memes-the-om-telolet-om-phenomenon-explained
Page 287, Position 1: Dairy cows in Norway must have a mattress to lie down on.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112954171
Page 287, Position 2: Only one blind person has climbed Everest.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/11/health/turning-points-erik-weihenmayer/
Page 287, Position 3: Cold elephants are kept warm by villagers in India knitting jumpers for them.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-elephant-jumpers-villagers-knit-protect-near-freezing-temperatures-weather-mathura-a7535101.html
Page 287, Position 4: The traditional Indian way of sobering up a drunk elephant was to feed it three pounds of melted butter.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KV83AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA320&lpg=PA320&dq=india+festival+brandy+elephants&source=bl&ots=BDw8AS1b76&sig=mlScskIh88AKwgCu9wS6t3BnYx0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwih7uO38ZfLAhUGOhQKHUsgA18Q6AEIKzAC#v=onepage&q=india%20festival%20brandy%20elephants&f=false
Page 288, Position 1: There is a bookshop in Shanghai that sells books by the kilo.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/849006.shtml
Page 288, Position 2: The Boston Public Library has a ‘car wash’ for books.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/book-car-wash-library-boston
Page 288, Position 3: 181 books published in 2016 had the F-word in their title, compared with just 52 in 2015.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/10b29d1e-e987-11e6-a93a-4fa396e7e4ed
Page 288, Position 4: There is a German airline that allows an extra free kilo of hand luggage, provided it’s books.
https://electricliterature.com/german-airline-allows-passengers-to-fly-with-extra-books-96acfda022e0#.2wwdgkuvq
Page 289, Position 1: By 2030, there will be no glaciers in Glacier Mountain Park, Montana.
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/melting-glaciers
Page 289, Position 2: Armageddon is a real place in Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Megiddo
Page 289, Position 3: There’s a town in India called Poo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poo,_Himachal_Pradesh
Page 289, Position 4: Nothing, Arizona, has a population of none.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing,_Arizona
Page 290, Position 1: Each sheet of parchment used to record British Acts of Parliament costs £35.
https://qz.com/index/982080/the-british-parliament-could-save-80000-if-it-stopped-writing-laws-on-parchment/
Page 290, Position 2: Macedonia has more mountain peaks than any country in the world.
https://www.zoo.com/quiz/97-people-cant-identify-individual-countries-just-a-map-outline-can-you?mkcpgn=i600006636&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=UK-Zoo-CountryOutline-Screenshots%28desktop%29&utm_term=5055356&utm_content=Can+You+Score+in+the+Top+3%25%3F+-+Country+Outline&sg_uid=fHsKF_qNRAqYi-AY6R7anA
Page 290, Position 3: Brazil’s highest mountain was unknown until the 1950s because it is permanently shrouded in cloud.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/south-america/brazil/articles/Brazil-30-fascinating-facts/
Page 290, Position 4: Asperitas is a cloud formation that resembles an unmade bedsheet.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7f7a8e56-1005-11e7-9efc-104ca844d0d4
Page 291, Position 1: The main danger dolphins face underwater is drowning.
http://www.whalefacts.org/how-do-dolphins-breathe/
Page 291, Position 2: Britain’s tallest waterfall is twice as high as Niagara but entirely underground.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/incredible-yorkshire-cave-waterfall-twice-5768426
Page 291, Position 3: There is a point in the Pacific Ocean where, if you drilled directly down through the planet, you would arrive back in the Pacific Ocean.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/3j8shn/the_pacific_ocean_contains_its_own_antipode/
Page 291, Position 4: A whole chapter of Moby Dick is dedicated to the fact that whales don’t have noses.
But What If Weêre Wrong _ Daniel Kahneman
Page 292, Position 1: Oregano is a name used for a dozen different plants.
Alan Davidson, Oxford Companion to Food
Page 292, Position 2: Three-quarters of Americans are in debt when they die.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-are-dying-with-an-average-of-62k-of-debt/
Page 292, Position 3: Only a quarter of British adults eat their five a day.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/30/just-one-four-adults-eating-five-day-nhs-reveals/
Page 292, Position 4: Golden Delicious apples have almost three times as many genes as people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Genome
Page 293, Position 1: There are four times as many species of orchid as there are species of mammal.
http://www.kew.org/plants-fungi/for-gardeners/orchids/
Page 293, Position 2: The fastest-growing plant is bamboo, which grows at three centimetres an hour.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/fastest-growing-plant/
Page 293, Position 3: The slowest-growing plant is a moss that grows less than 1 millimetre a year.
https://www.labmate-online.com/news/news-and-views/5/breaking-news/how-does-moss-thrive-in-freezing-temperatures/30145
Page 293, Position 4: Plants can tell when one of their leaves is being eaten, and react to try to stop it.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a11550/plants-can-hear-themselves-being-eaten-and-they-dont-like-it-17337795/
Page 294, Position 1: Scientists can predict when an elderly person is going to fall over three weeks before it happens.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/17/scientists-find-way-predictolder-peoples-falls-three-weeks-happen/
Page 294, Position 2: Camels gave humans the common cold.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/cold-camels-study-where-does-it-come-from-scientists-discover-mers-outbreak-a7198771.html
Page 294, Position 3: Zebras can be scanned like barcodes.
https://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/04/barcode-scanner-for-zebras.html
Page 294, Position 4: Science knows more about coffee, wine and tomatoes than it does about breast milk.
https://www.ted.com/talks/katie_hinde_what_we_don_t_know_about_mother_s_milk
Page 295, Position 1: Obsidional means boring people by staying too long.
OED
Page 295, Position 2: Obdormition is when your arm falls asleep from lying on it.
OED
Page 295, Position 3: Oniomania is the compulsive urge to buy things, including (but not necessarily) onions.
OED
Page 295, Position 4: Obscurum per obscurious is an explanation more complicated than the thing it’s trying to explain.
OED
Page 296, Position 1: Andrew Jackson, the face on the US $20 bill, was opposed to paper currency .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/03/06/why-is-andrew-jackson-on-the-20-bill-the-answer-may-be-lost-to-history/
Page 296, Position 2: Salvador Dal۪̉s moustache was set at ten past ten, like the hands of a clock.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/exhumation-salvador-dali-s-remains-finds-his-mustache-still-intact-n785211?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma
Page 296, Position 3: 9 out of 10 hedge funds are a waste of time and money .
http://nypost.com/2016/12/07/investing-in-90-percent-of-hedge-funds-isnt-worth-it-critics/
Page 296, Position 4: At New Year in Brazil, people eat lentils because they symbolise money .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/38341760
Page 297, Position 1: £1.5 million in cash has been eaten by British pets since 2003.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-30/the-bank-of-england-knows-how-many-people-are-its-cash
Page 297, Position 2: Warren Buffett has been paying income tax since he was 14.
https://qz.com/1015834/warren-buffetts-1944-tax-return-from-when-he-was-14-shows-he-was-already-making-bank/
Page 297, Position 3: In 2016, a worker at the Royal Canadian Mint was caught smuggling gold coins out in his bottom.
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/egan-170k-in-mint-gold-allegedly-smuggled-in-body-cavity-judge-hears
Page 297, Position 4: Airlines make more money selling air miles than seats.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-31/airlines-make-more-money-selling-miles-than-seats
Page 298, Position 1: If you stood on top of a mountain on the Moon and fired a gun at the horizon, you could shoot yourself in the back.
https://www.livescience.com/18588-shoot-gun-space.html
Page 298, Position 2: The world’s largest pet rabbit is 4 feet 4 inches long, weighs 3½ stone and eats 4,000 carrots a year.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/10777869/Worlds-largest-rabbit-gets-through-4000-carrots-a-year.html
Page 298, Position 3: The world’s largest volcano is 1,000 miles from Japan under the sea.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/09/130905-tamu-massif-shatsky-rise-largest-volcano-oceanography-science/
Page 298, Position 4: A volcano in Guatemala has erupted once an hour for the last 94 years.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/santa-maria-volcano-guatemala-erupts-every-hour-science/
Page 299, Position 1: Britain exports deer testicles to China.
Food Britannia. Andrew Webb. London: Random House, 2011.
Page 299, Position 2: More people in America own more than 10 guns than there are people in the whole of Denmark.
https://www.thetrace.org/2015/12/gun-violence-stats-2015/
Page 299, Position 3: In the US, offal is known as ‘variety meats’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offal
Page 299, Position 4: Serbia is home to the World Testicle Cooking Championships.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/29/serbia-world-testicle-cooking-championship
Page 300, Position 1: The breadcrumb sponge has been ‘discovered’ so many times it has 56 different names.
Atlas of Oceans
Page 300, Position 2: Sigmund Freud spent a month in 1876 searching for eels’ testicles, but never found any .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel_life_history
Page 300, Position 3: Eels that swim 3,000 miles across the Atlantic lose weight from their bones.
http://www.livescience.com/56535-eels-consume-their-bones-to-survive-migration.html
Page 300, Position 4: The gulper eel has a mouth which is bigger than the rest of its body.
Atlas of Oceans
Page 301, Position 1: The world’s oldest fish, Grandad, died in 2017 in his mid-nineties.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/07/grandad-the-lungfish-the-oldest-fish-in-captivity-euthanised-by-chicago-aquarium
Page 301, Position 2: A fifth of all known species of coral were named by the same man.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/godfather-of-coral-warns-of-great-barrier-reef-mass-extinction-20160306-gnbsj5.html
Page 301, Position 3: The number of marine species is unknown; estimates range from one million to 10 million.
estimates range from one million to 10 million.
Page 301, Position 4: Every spring, thousands of firefly squid light up Toyama Bay, Japan, glimmering like stars in the water.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/science/firefly-squid-toyama-japan.html
Page 302, Position 1: Botox was developed to treat double vision.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-creator-of-botox-never-cared-about-wrinkles/?WT.mc_id=SA_HLTH_20161108
Page 302, Position 2: People who read books live longer than people who don’t.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/people-who-read-books-live-longer-lives-study-says-a7171911.html
Page 302, Position 3: In the 17th century, blood from the recently deceased was used to treat epilepsy .
http://laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/brief-history-medical-cannibalism
Page 302, Position 4: Aspirin confused people at first. One headache sufferer strapped a tablet to his head.
http://www.independent.co.uk/ life-style/health-and- families/health-news/focus- aspirin-the-secret-history-of- a-wonder-drug-489558.html
Page 303, Position 1: There is a Chinese brand of spectacles called Helen Keller.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/04/20/chinese-company-names-sunglasses-after-helen-keller/
Page 303, Position 2: Aardvarks’ eyes don’t reflect light in the dark.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/study-busts-myth-aardvarks-don-t-drink
Page 303, Position 3: Charlotte Brontë could see in the dark well enough to read.
http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/20-things-you-probably-didn-t-know-about-charlotte-bront%C3%AB/
Page 303, Position 4: John Dollond of Dollond & Aitchison invented glasses for horses.
Aitchison invented glasses for horses.
Page 304, Position 1: John Williams has never seen any of the Star Wars movies he composed the music for.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/john-williams-hasnt-seen-a-single-star-wars-movie-1790469339
Page 304, Position 2: There are four cases of blind people regaining their sight after tripping over the leads of their guide dogs.
Fortean Times 342
Page 304, Position 3: The popularity of dog breeds is less influenced by breed, appearance or temperament than by their appearance in films.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140910152512.htm
Page 304, Position 4: J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis went to the cinema together to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but didn’t enjoy it.
http://observer.com/2017/04/jrr-tolkien-cs-lewis-hated-disney-snow-white-dwarfs/
Page 305, Position 1: Manatees adjust their buoyancy through controlled flatulence.
http://www.floridaocean.org/uploads/docs/blocks/169/manatee4.pdf
Page 305, Position 2: Chuck Berry had a degree in hairdressing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/arts/chuck-berry-dead.html?_r=0
Page 305, Position 3: Roman women donated their hair for use as military catapult elastic.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=X0H_CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA190&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 305, Position 4: Trap-jaw ants can close their jaws with such force they catapult themselves through the air.
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/trap-jaw-ants
Page 306, Position 1: Sex toys in Japan were known as ‘laughter devices’.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e6a8df2c-2c4f-11e7-9d2e-96f2194e0ac4
Page 306, Position 2: Walruses use birds as toys.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/walruses-playing-dead-birds-oceans/
Page 306, Position 3: 40% of toys in Russia are bought by grandparents.
Small Data: The Tiny Clues that Uncover Huge Trends by Martin Lindstrom
Page 306, Position 4: 1 in 5 children’s building sets and action figures in the UK are bought by adults for their own use.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/15c16862-1d67-11e7-ab8a-bed946da5aa3
Page 307, Position 1: It takes 65 milliseconds for a message to cross the Atlantic.
The Perfect Bet: How Science and Math Are Taking the Luck Out of Gambling by Adam Kucharski
Page 307, Position 2: North Korea’s entire Internet has only 28 websites.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/21/north-korea-only-28-websites-leak-official-data
Page 307, Position 3: 70% of online ads are never seen by humans.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9edc1bbe-efcd-11e6-8d68-d0e249a86942
Page 307, Position 4: ‘Wi-Fi’ isn’t short for anything.
http://boingboing.net/2005/11/08/wifi-isnt-short-for.html
Page 308, Position 1: A lychnobite is someone who sleeps all day and works all night.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lychnobite
Page 308, Position 2: Tidsoptimist is a Danish word for someone who thinks they have more time than they actually do.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/submission/4237/tidsoptimist
Page 308, Position 3: Shturmovschina is Russian for working frantically to meet a deadline, having not done anything for the last month.
http://blog.inkyfool.com/2011/07/shturmovshchina.html
Page 308, Position 4: ‘To egrote’ is to pretend to be ill to avoid work.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/10/09/15-forgotten-english-words-you-should-know
Page 309, Position 1: The use of CAPITAL LETTERS TO DENOTE SHOUTING dates back to the 19th century.
http://boingboing.net/2016/05/16/using-allcaps-to-denote-shouti.html
Page 309, Position 2: ‘Hit the farter’ is Australian slang for ‘go to bed’.
https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/753127618359259137?lang=en
Page 309, Position 3: ‘Bumpsy’ is 17th-century slang for ‘drunk’.
A Dictionary of Old Trades, Titles and Occupations. Colin Waters, 2002.
Page 309, Position 4: ‘Hot beef’ was Victorian rhyming slang for ‘Stop thief’.
http://strangeco.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/weekend-link-dump_13.html
Page 310, Position 1: Olive Oyl appeared 10 years before Popeye.
http://popeye.wikia.com/wiki/Olive_Oyl
Page 310, Position 2: If you shout at the Taj Mahal, it takes 28 seconds for the echoes to fade away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_and_architecture_of_the_Taj_Mahal#Symmetry_and_hierarchy
Page 310, Position 3: Inscriptions discovered under Peterborough Cathedral suggest it may be 1,000 years older than previously thought.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-cambridgeshire-39065079/peterborough-cathedral-tunnels-reveal-site-s-true-age
Page 310, Position 4: Covering buildings with olive oil protects them against acid rain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-20553406
Page 311, Position 1: In Montenegro, Only Fools and Horses is called Mucke.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/11/unlikely-place-everyone-knows-fools-horses-jokes-derek-trotters/
Page 311, Position 2: People eating popcorn remember adverts less.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24518203
Page 311, Position 3: Americans spend more than a year of their life flipping channels.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/it-can-take-year-your-life-find-something-watch-tv-180961026/
Page 311, Position 4: There are more CCTV cameras in Hackney than in the whole of Wales.
https://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Are-They-Still-Watching.pdf
Page 312, Position 1: Liu Bang, founder of the Chinese Han dynasty , hated Confucians so much that whenever he saw one he would urinate into his hat.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kOm-AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5&dq=sima+qian+liu+bang+confucian&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=sima%20qian%20liu%20bang%20confucian&f=false
Page 312, Position 2: The average BBC viewer is over 60 years old.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f38dd5aa-14bf-11e7-b29d-ceffe88c8938
Page 312, Position 3: At 104 years old, Jack Reynolds became the oldest person to get a tattoo, and, at 105, the oldest to ride a roller coaster.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/06/105-year-old-becomes-worlds-oldest-person-ride-rollercoaster/
Page 312, Position 4: Riding a roller coaster can help patients to expel their kidney stones.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/09/for-kidney-health-roller-coaster-therapy/501278/
Page 313, Position 1: The world record for the most bird species seen by one person in a year is 6,841.
https://longreads.com/2017/02/28/bird-man/?utm_source=New+Daily+Newsletter+Subscribers&utm_campaign=59f23acdb0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_03_05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4675a5c15f-59f23acdb0-81818165
Page 313, Position 2: Ostriches are the only birds with a bladder.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dtrNu3E_ydUC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=ostrich+bladder+weighs+them+down&source=bl&ots=HCRGgCvyi0&sig=chv4-aTOTP4k5AwsybhajR56UAw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW-KjfosnRAhWMJsAKHZQmDHQQ6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 313, Position 3: Electronic devices are scrambling the navigational cues used by migrating birds.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27313355
Page 313, Position 4: Tens of millions of birds have been ringed by ornithologists, but only 2.2% of them have ever been seen again.
'Do birds have knees?' by Stephen Moss
Page 314, Position 1: Startled deer run due north or due south so they don’t crash into each other.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-don-t-deer-crash-into-one-another-when-startled/
Page 314, Position 2: Giant flying turkeys as big as kangaroos once roamed Australia.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/evolution/fossil-finds-reveal-australia-was-once-home-to-enormous-flying-turkeys/news-story/00c7b8966fe51fc4774af9fc18167d16
Page 314, Position 3: A ‘willy-willy’ is a tiny tornado found in the Australian outback.
http://knowbefore.weatherbug.com/2013/10/04/hurricanes-typhoons-cyclones-whats-difference/
Page 314, Position 4: Australian compass termites build their mounds on a north–south axis.
Planet Earth 2
Page 315, Position 1: Didcot, Oxfordshire, is officially the most normal town in Britain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-39428314
Page 315, Position 2: The highest point in Mauritania cannot be found with a compass due to magnetic rocks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kediet_ej_Jill
Page 315, Position 3: The US Embassy in Kathmandu has guidelines on what to do if a yeti is found.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/02/26/search_for_yeti_the_foreign_service_memo_advising_yeti_hunters.html
Page 315, Position 4: One contender for the geographical centre of America is a place called Center.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/science/north-america-geographical-center-north-dakota.html?_r=4&partner=IFTTT
Page 316, Position 1: Kansas is only the seventh-flattest state in the US.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-battle-over-how-flat-kansas-is?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20160920&bt_email=john_hardress_lloyd@hotmail.com&bt_ts=1474379064491
Page 316, Position 2: Four times as many ferrets live in the south-east of England as in Yorkshire.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/apr/07/ferrets-britain-survey-south
Page 316, Position 3: 1 in 8 young Britons have never seen a cow in real life.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/31/one-eight-young-people-have-never-seen-cow-real-life/
Page 316, Position 4: England is smaller than New York state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York
Page 317, Position 1: The bottom of the sea is surprisingly noisy .
http://theterramarproject.org/thedailycatch/contrary-to-popular-belief-the-deepest-point-in-the-ocean-is-quite-noisy/
Page 317, Position 2: 50% of US territory is under the sea.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/nature/fun-surprising-facts-about-the-oceans
Page 317, Position 3: 85% of Vakkaru Island in the Maldives is made up of fish faeces.
http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/29192289/an-island-made-entirely-of-fish-excrement
Page 317, Position 4: Three-quarters of all ocean creatures glow in the dark.
http://www.livescience.com/58653-75-percent-of-ocean-animals-glow.html
Page 318, Position 1: Lou Reed once played a gig just for dogs.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EnoJDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT110&lpg=PT110&dq=Lou+Reed+once+played+a+gig+just+for+dogs.&source=bl&ots=X452-lIzG9&sig=yTm0zGo7eqqQIwlXCd0J_RTrQ1s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo37jPp8zUAhWLa1AKHcPWAEcQ6AEIOzAC#v=onepage&q=Lou%20Reed%20once%20played%20a%20gig%20just%20for%20dogs.&f=false
Page 318, Position 2: Samba music makes currytaste 10% spicier.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/12/music-makes-curries-taste-10pc-spicier-scientists-find/
Page 318, Position 3: The best-selling British music act in America in the 1990s was The Beatles.
A Classless Society _ Alwyn Turner
Page 318, Position 4: Lithuania has a memorial to Frank Zappa, even though he never went to Lithuania.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/frank-zappa-memorial
Page 319, Position 1: Avocado toast is poisonous to lemurs.
https://today.duke.edu/2016/12/avocados-blamed-sudden-deaths-four-aye-ayes
Page 319, Position 2: Fidel Castro’s favourite cow had its own food taster.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/military-guards-milking-musichas-any-cow-lived-as-well-as-cubas-ubre-blanca
Page 319, Position 3: Cuba bans statues of living Cubans.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4779529.stm
Page 319, Position 4: An effigy of the Pope stuffed with live cats was burned at the coronation of Elizabeth I.
http://the-toast.net/2014/05/12/devil-disguise-cat-west/
Page 320, Position 1: Horseshoe crab blood costs up to $28,000 a pint.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a26038/the-blood-of-the-crab/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Page 320, Position 2: To catch a rabbit, a stoat will hypnotise it with thrashing dance moves.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/worlds-deadliest-ngs/deadliest-stoat
Page 320, Position 3: Female dragonflies fake death to avoid sex with males.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2129185-female-dragonflies-fake-sudden-death-to-avoid-male-advances/
Page 320, Position 4: Seahorses greet their partners with a dance every day.
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/seahorses-monogamy-ocean-rider
Page 321, Position 1: In 2016, a llama-dressing-up contest in Minnesota was won by an alpaca.
http://www.twincities.com/2016/09/02/alpaca-wins-4-h-lama-costume-contest-though-its-not-a-llama/
Page 321, Position 2: 420,000 people die in the world each year as a result of falling.
https://mosaicscience.com/story/falling-science-injury-death-falls?utm_source=twitter&
Page 321, Position 3: Rottweilers are used in Norway for mountain rescue.
http://www.therottweilerclub.co.uk/the-breed/history-of-the-breed/
Page 321, Position 4: Louisiana only banned cockfighting in 2008.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2eb805f6-2857-11e7-9d2e-96f2194e0ac4
Page 322, Position 1: The cuckoo in the world’s largest cuckoo clock weighs 23½ stone.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/worlds-largest-cuckoo-clock?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b29b3c8fcf-Newsletter_1_9_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f36db9c480-b29b3c8fcf-63261525&ct=t(Newsletter_1_9_2016)&mc_cid=b29b3c8fcf&mc_eid=1968599da9
Page 322, Position 2: When dinosaurs roamed the Earth, days were only 23 hours long.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/11/28/3642932.htm
Page 322, Position 3: Until three million years ago, whales were less than 30 feet long.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/24/whales-large-food-distribution-ocean
Page 322, Position 4: The largest-ever photo was 111 feet wide and taken with a pinhole camera three storeys high.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/05/giant-pinhole-camera-is-three-stories-high/
Page 323, Position 1: Racing ferrets sometimes fall asleep halfway along the course.
https://www.all-about-ferrets.com/ferret-races.html
Page 323, Position 2: In 2017, there were three times as many robins in Britain as there were in 1987.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d3ed5752-14b5-11e7-b29d-ceffe88c8938
Page 323, Position 3: An Arctic tern weighs about the same as a bar of soap.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c09bde46-21f1-11e7-84e8-86f619ed3761
Page 323, Position 4: The world’s smallest fox is only 10 times larger than the world’s largest ant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinoponera
Page 324, Position 1: Self-driving cars play Grand Theft Auto to learn how to drive better.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-17/don-t-worry-driverless-cars-are-learning-from-grand-theft-auto
Page 324, Position 2: More than 200 US colleges offer courses in paranormal phenomena.
An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural _ James Randi
Page 324, Position 3: 90% of students have hallucinated that their phone is buzzing in their pocket.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35271420
Page 324, Position 4: Nokia didn’t make phones from 2011 to 2016.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia
Page 325, Position 1: Anemones have slapping contests.
British Wildlife, Aug 16
Page 325, Position 2: Robots cannot be taught to lace a pair of trainers.
https://qz.com/966882/robots-cant-lace-shoes-so-sneaker-production-cant-be-fully-automated-just-yet/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email
Page 325, Position 3: The record for the most Wimbledon titles is held by Professor Bernard Neal: he was croquet champion 38 times.
http://www.worldcroquet.org.uk/index.php/latest-news/158-bernard-neal-dies-at-93
Page 325, Position 4: You can improve your darts game by training yourself to dream about playing darts.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2017/01/30/6040/#.WJUbQbaLSu4
Page 326, Position 1: There is no evidence that dogs have a better sense of smell than humans.
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-humans-smell-myth-20170511-story.html
Page 326, Position 2: To tiny ocean creatures, water is as thick as jelly.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16822664-500-meet-me-at-the-goo/
Page 326, Position 3: The California black sea hare is a giant slug as big as a cat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_sea_hare
Page 326, Position 4: The longest pet cat in the world weighs 31 lb and eats raw kangaroo meat.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/17/cat-weighs-14kg-eats-raw-kangaroo-meat-could-longest-world/
Page 327, Position 1: People put on a horse that is too difficult for them to ride are said to have been ‘over-horsed’.
http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/features/signs-you-have-overhorsed-yourself-613420
Page 327, Position 2: 770 lb of dog hairs are swept up after Crufts each year.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-crufts/
Page 327, Position 3: American cocker spaniels are all descended from a single English dog named Obo II.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obo_II
Page 327, Position 4: William III of England, Alexander III of Scotland, Leopold V of Austria and Louis IV of France all died after falling off a horse.
http://listverse.com/2017/02/24/10-ways-sport-has-changed-history/
Page 328, Position 1: In South America, an ocelot is a manigordo, or ‘fat hands’, because its forepaws are much bigger than its hind ones.
http://www.livescience.com/55072-ocelot-facts.html
Page 328, Position 2: Bargibant’s pygmy seahorses are the size of a 50p coin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus_bargibanti
Page 328, Position 3: A zeptosecond (a trillionth of a billionth of a second) is the smallest unit of time ever recorded.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2112537-smallest-sliver-of-time-yet-measured-sees-electrons-fleeing-atom/
Page 328, Position 4: Because it cannot be seen, the Aymara people of the Andes think of the future as behind them.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiSlMqr7LPVAhVKKVAKHd5ZBXMQFgg1MAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2005%2Ffeb%2F24%2F4&usg=AFQjCNGvCY_RXYBQBjZIO06Ib7mPAT7pxw
Page 329, Position 1: Between 1977 and 1998, 23 people in the US caught the plague from pet cats.
http://www.abnews24.com/english/2017/03/28/8888/11-ways-your-pet-may-make-you-sick
Page 329, Position 2: The Asian flat-headed cat has webbed feet and washes its prey in water.
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/creatura-blog/2014/07/flat-headed-cat
Page 329, Position 3: Cat videos on YouTube are not as popular as dog videos.
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/creatura-blog/2014/07/flat-headed-cat
Page 329, Position 4: The first pet cat lived in Egypt 10,000 years ago.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwj5rNvl7LPVAhVKZlAKHSGdBWgQFggzMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedaily.com%2Freleases%2F2017%2F06%2F170619125825.htm&usg=AFQjCNE-u0oy0sbUvadKV4wgS7kSFUJ11g
Page 330, Position 1: Giant pandas born in the US prefer American food and understand English better than Chinese.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/usborn-pandas-struggle-in-china-as-they-only-know-english/article9357426.ece?utm_source=Quartz+Morning+Brief&utm_campaign=17dc44aedc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1ff2527dbb-17dc44aedc-57548377
Page 330, Position 2: Rats who have sex at least once a day for 14 days grow more neurons in their brain.
http://time.com/3689474/8-ways-sex-affects-your-brain/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter
Page 330, Position 3: In the mating season, mouse lemur testes swell to become bigger than their brains.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141113142002.htm
Page 330, Position 4: Snails use just two brain cells to decide if they’re hungry .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-36443264
Page 331, Position 1: The best people at making lists of random numbers are 25-year-olds.
https://phys.org/news/2017-04-golden-age-ability-random-choices.html
Page 331, Position 2: China buys bottled fresh air from Britain.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/man-sells-british-fresh-air-to-wealthy-chinese-elite-for-80-a-jar-a6857461.html
Page 331, Position 3: There are 600,000 psychopaths in Britain.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vzQiAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=There+are+600,000+psychopaths+in+Britain.&source=bl&ots=4dTrQz8WwQ&sig=GtkE-VUpAUVVEKZbtQuKWbNrLYM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjstt-P7bPVAhWMY1AKHfcoBegQ6AEIMzAB#v=onepage&q=There%20are%20600%2C000%20psychopaths%20in%20Britain.&f=false
Page 331, Position 4: The BBC’s weekly global audience is 372 million people.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2017/global-audience-measure
Page 332, Position 2: F¯al-gu¯ sh, or eavesdropping on random strangers, is a method of divination practised in Iran.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C4%81l-g%C5%ABsh
Page 332, Position 3: Ololygmancy is predicting the future by interpreting the howling of dogs.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=M5hlO8sgpCgC&pg=PA190&l#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 332, Position 4: Psithurism is the sound of rustling leaves.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/psithurism
Page 333, Position 1: 53 million years ago, Antarctica was covered in palm trees.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-climate-change-meant-antarctica-was-once-covered-with-palm-trees-12098835/
Page 333, Position 2: Only one female film director has ever won the Palme d’Or.
http://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/did-you-know-the-first-ever-cannes-film-festival-never-took-place-at-all/article18525099.ece?utm_source=true&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Newsletter
Page 333, Position 3: Rapper Tupac Shakur was a former ballet dancer.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yCeVAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT77&dq=tupac+ballet+nutcracker&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqtcOendnUAhVLAcAKHaNTCnAQ6AEIUDAJ#v=onepage&q=tupac%20ballet%20nutcracker&f=false
Page 333, Position 4: Cary Grant started his career as an acrobat.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/may/12/cary-grant-how-100-acid-trips-in-tinseltown-changed-my-life-lsd-documentary?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=225821&subid=22528671&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
Page 334, Position 1: There are only 16 circus animals left in the UK.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2eb805f6-2857-11e7-9d2e-96f2194e0ac4
Page 334, Position 2: The Parliament of Bats was held in Leicester in 1426.
http://semper-eadem.tripod.com/Articles/06.htm
Page 334, Position 3: Redditch once made 90% of the world’s needles.
http://www.redditchhistory.org.uk/needles.html
Page 334, Position 4: The only wooden stocks in Oxfordshire are in Woodstock.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/686236/Stocks-could-be-brought-back-to-Oxfordshire-after-councillors-discovers-they-are-legal
Page 335, Position 1: 26% of Britons own their homes, compared with 75% of Poles.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a631cd00-fac7-11e6-a6f0-cb4e831c1cc0
Page 335, Position 2: For the first time in over a century, 18- to 34-year-old Britons are less likely to live with a spouse than with their parents.
s: https://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewzeitlin/12-things-millennials-arent-buying?utm_term=.dgdVk1MKZ#.euXO3M9BL
Page 335, Position 3: The parents of most geniuses aren’t geniuses.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/05/genius-genetics-intelligence-neuroscience-creativity-einstein/
Page 335, Position 4: Orang-utan mothers breastfeed for eight years.
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2017/5/17/15653130/baby-orangutans-nursing-teeth-barium-analysis
Page 336, Position 1: The world’s eight richest men are worth more than half the population of the world combined.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e902eb84-db58-11e6-a7b1-3a60b507a068
Page 336, Position 2: Most people who were dollar billionaires in 1995 aren’t billionaires today.
http://time.com/money/4152051/billionaires-rich-lose-build-wealth/
Page 336, Position 3: Only 11 of the 1,810 billionaires in the world are black.
ttps://www.quora.com/In-2016-how-many-black-people-are-billionaires-in-the-world-and-who-are-they
Page 336, Position 4: The most expensive jeans in the world cost $10,000.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-expensive-jeans
Page 337, Position 1: Neanderthals wore capes.
http://www.livescience.com/55624-parkas-helped-early-humans-survive.html
Page 337, Position 2: Renaissance women removed their body hair with arsenic.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/get-rid-body-hair-renaissance-women-made-lotions-arsenic-cat-dung-and-vinegar-180949977/
Page 337, Position 3: Ancient Egypt had nine-pin bowling.
https://www.britannica.com/sports/bowling#toc29796
Page 337, Position 4: Martin Luther had his own bowling lane.
https://www.britannica.com/sports/bowling#toc29796
Page 338, Position 1: An Adamite is someone who walks around naked for religious reasons.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/adamite
Page 338, Position 2: Shivviness is an old Yorkshire word for the uncomfortable feeling you get from wearing new underwear.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 338, Position 3: Kalsarikannit is the Finnish for drinking at home alone in your underpants.
http://www.vogue.com/article/finnish-trend-kalsarikannit-vogue-archive
Page 338, Position 4: A deipnosophist is someone who is good at small talk.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-dS6DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 339, Position 1: When introduced to a stranger, Argentinians stand closest and Romanians furthest away.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9fdd1c8c-2e9f-11e7-aef5-2d8dbd8d80b5
Page 339, Position 2: Members of the Nigerian parliament earn 10,000 times the national minimum wage.
https://qz.com/983331/a-dogged-transparency-campaign-reveals-why-it-pays-to-be-a-lawmaker-in-nigeria/
Page 339, Position 3: The 9th US president, William Henry Harrison, claimed he was born in a log cabin but was actually born in a mansion.
http://www.ithaca.edu/rhp/programs/cmd/blogs/posters_and_election_propaganda/the_log_cabin_campaign:_image_deception_in_1840/#.WGgVN306u4J
Page 339, Position 4: Orson Welles wrote speeches for Franklin D. Roosevelt.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fdr-had-famous-ghostwriter-orson-welles-180962658/
Page 340, Position 1: Americans spend $11 billion a year on the pursuit of happiness.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2174691/my-weekend-conference-super-happy?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email
Page 340, Position 2: People who have children are less happy but live longer.
https://qz.com/932388/a-new-study-that-shows-people-with-children-live-longer-and-the-relationship-between-parents-and-longevity-increases-with-age/
Page 340, Position 3: Cheerful women are less likely to be promoted.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10101889/Key-to-promotion-for-women-dont-smile.html
Page 340, Position 4: The man who popularised the high five has only four fingers.
http://www.espn.co.uk/espn/story/_/page/Mag15historyofthehighfive/who-invented-high-five
Page 341, Position 1: Only six people are qualified to raise or lower Tower Bridge.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/sep/04/tower-bridge-operator
Page 341, Position 2: On his retirement, the senior crayon-maker at Crayola finally admitted he was colour-blind.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1990/12/06/crayon-maker-shows-his-true-colors/e76e2c27-c3d7-49d8-b5ca-72309f6911ee/?utm_term=.424079412df2
Page 341, Position 3: All RSPCA inspectors must be able to swim 50 metres fully clothed in 2.5 minutes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-37822027
Page 341, Position 4: Billy Muir from Orkney has 20 jobs, including lighthouse keeper, firefighter, rubbish collector, electrician, tour guide and builder.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-37822027
Page 342, Position 1: Autocracies build more skyscrapers than democracies.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7a1cfa9a-3367-11e7-b61d-fc80f211cbc9
Page 342, Position 2: There are more than 20,000 abandoned villages in Russia.
http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2016/russias-desert/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Page 342, Position 3: Citibank employs more than 23,000 compliance officers.
https://www.marketplace.org/2016/04/13/world/its-surprisingly-hard-figure-out-what-big-banks-spend-follow-rules
Page 342, Position 4: There are more than 45,000 species of spider.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/03/15/spiders-outdo-humans-whales-chop-800-million-tons-prey-year/
Page 343, Position 1: There are 20,000 edible-cricket farms in Thailand.
http://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Life/For-growing-numbers-eating-insects-is-Bugsolutely-fine
Page 343, Position 2: Gillette stopped sponsoring cricket after market research showed that their brand was more associated with sport than with razors.
The Cricket Paper, 23 Sept 16
Page 343, Position 3: Celebrities got more mentions in British newspapers than politicians for the first time in 1901.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4105410/How-pop-stars-overtook-politicians-AI-finds-cultural-shifts-hidden-British-newspapers-1800-1950.html
Page 343, Position 4: Trains first got more newspaper mentions than horses in 1902, and football beat cricket in 1920.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4105410/How-pop-stars-overtook-politicians-AI-finds-cultural-shifts-hidden-British-newspapers-1800-1950.html
Page 344, Position 1: 149–0 is the world’s highest football score. The losers lost on purpose and all the goals were own goals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS_Adema_149_0_SO_l%27Emyrne#
Page 344, Position 2: While at AC Milan, defender Paolo Maldini averaged only one tackle every other game.
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/steve-harper-testimonial-ac-milan-5907233
Page 344, Position 3: Bossaball is a kind of volleyball played on trampolines to music.
http://www.bossaballsports.com/bossaball/what-is-bossaball/
Page 344, Position 4: Rectangular trampolines are safer than round ones.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4315548/Trampolines-caused-300-ambulance-visits-2016.html
Page 345, Position 1: Socks in international pro cycling must be no higher than midway between ankle and knee, and it’s someone’s job to check.
http://road.cc/content/news/55389-uci-technical-regulations-update-socks-helmets-and-hydration-packs-all-come-under
Page 345, Position 2: At the 1968 Olympics, Bob Beamon broke the world long jump record by so much they had to find another tape measure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEt_Xgg8dzc&feature=youtu.be
Page 345, Position 3: There is no standard height for ‘sea level’.
New Scientist 11 Feb 17
Page 345, Position 4: Less than 1% of Camemberts are made to official Camembert standards.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/camembert-world-running-out-under-threat-french-soft-cheese-a7791366.html
Page 346, Position 1: ‘Onion Johnnies’ were Frenchmen on bicycles with berets and stripy tops and strings of onions round their necks.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9703957/Onion-Johnnies-return-to-England-as-French-market-dries-up.html
Page 346, Position 2: Bermuda celebrates New Year by dropping a massive illuminated papier mâché onion from the town hall.
http://bernews.com/2015/12/bermuda-onion-up-ready-to-drop-in-2016/
Page 346, Position 3: 175 countries produce an onion crop.
Alan Davidson, Oxford Companion to Food
Page 346, Position 4: The ancient Greek poet Archestratus described goose liver pâté as ‘the soul of the goose’.
Offal. Nina Edwards. Reaktion, 2013
Page 347, Position 1: Bar-headed geese can hyperventilate without getting dizzy .
http://barheadedgoose.bangor.ac.uk/about.php.en
Page 347, Position 2: Blind people can learn to see with their tongues.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/seeing-with-your-tongue?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email
Page 347, Position 3: Frogs’ tongues are 10 times softer than human tongues.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/01/scientist-cracks-mystery-of-the-amazing-power-of-the-frogs-tongue-its-called-spit/
Page 347, Position 4: Frogs survived the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/07/03/535383841/how-frogs-benefited-from-the-dinosaurs-extinction?mc_cid=80582f0b80&mc_eid=d3a1822159
Page 348, Position 1: The world’s largest dinosaur footprint is longer than Mark Zuckerberg is tall.
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/dinosaur-footprint-australia
Page 348, Position 2: Prince’s flip-flops had three-inch heels.
http://www.astrotheme.com/heights/5'9
Page 348, Position 3: The pressure per square inch the Eiffel Tower puts on the ground is about the same as that of a woman in high heels.
http://www.toureiffel.paris/images/PDF/supports-pedagogiques/EN/en_10_la_tour_en_chiffres.pdf
Page 348, Position 4: 60% of the world’s shoes are made in China.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21646204-asias-dominance-manufacturing-will-endure-will-make-development-harder-others-made
Page 349, Position 1: Piñatas were invented in China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi%C3%B1ata
Page 349, Position 2: More people work in the tea industry in China than live in the UK.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/jun/02/all-the-tea-in-china-in-pictures
Page 349, Position 3: The heat in curries comes from chillies brought to India by the Portuguese in the 15th century.
http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1628191_1626317_1632291,00.html
Page 349, Position 4: The Aztecs dabbed chilli sauce on their arrowheads.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-daily-telegraph-saturday/20170408/281487866205505
Page 350, Position 1: The heaviest chilli ever grown was planted by a man called Edward Curry .
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/heaviest-pepper
Page 350, Position 2: Washing machines in India have a special mode for dealing with currystains.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39176358
Page 350, Position 3: Croatia has a 210-foot-long sea organ which is ‘played’ by the tide.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/12/music-makes-curries-taste-10pc-spicier-scientists-find/
Page 350, Position 4: Spring tides occur all year round; the name has nothing to do with the seasons.
the name has nothing to do with the seasons.
Page 351, Position 1: Ancient Japan had 72 seasons, lasting around five days each.
http://boingboing.net/2016/12/23/why-just-four-seasons-ancient.html
Page 351, Position 2: In Japan, you can take exams in how to throw house parties.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-parties-could-be-big-in-japan-if-people-knew-how-to-throw-them-1465766626
Page 351, Position 3: ‘Cocktail party syndrome’ is a rare genetic disorder that makes people extremely friendly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_syndrome
Page 351, Position 4: Friendship has more influence on longevity than exercise, diet, heart problems and smoking.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/well/live/having-friends-is-good-for-you.html
Page 352, Position 1: Nobody knows why we say ‘hmm’.
https://www.livescience.com/20861-origin-hmm-thinking.html
Page 352, Position 2: Nobody knows how many people live in Nigeria.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/06/economist-explains-6
Page 352, Position 3: Nobody knows how many organs we have.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2017/01/06/got-mesentery-news-wrong/#.WI-GBLaLSu5
Page 352, Position 4: All the organs of Enrique Iglesias are on the opposite side of his body to normal.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2016/sep/08/situs-inversus-and-my-through-the-looking-glass-body
Page 353, Position 1: Andy Murray has three kneecaps.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2008/mar/13/tennis.andymurray
Page 353, Position 2: Billy Ocean has three lungs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Ocean
Page 353, Position 3: There is actually only one ocean in the world.
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/howmanyoceans.html
Page 353, Position 4: There are two Air Force Ones.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/02/the-presidents-secret-air-force-215091?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Page 354, Position 1: The average person makes 35,000 decisions a day.
https://qz.com/942986/before-you-make-an-emotional-decision-ask-yourself-these-four-questions/
Page 354, Position 2: 300,000 objects a year are lost on the London Underground.
http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/london-transport/londoners-lost-300000-items-on-the-tube-last-year/11791.article
Page 354, Position 3: The first man to use an umbrella in London was pelted with rubbish.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-public-shaming-of-englands-first-umbrella-user
Page 354, Position 4: The London borough of Southwark is rented from the Queen for £11 a year.
http://www.guildablemanor.org/history.html
Page 355, Position 1: It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament in a suit of armour.
http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Legal_Oddities.pdf
Page 355, Position 2: Sir Edmund Hillary and Lady Thatcher became Knights of the Garter on the same day.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/nepal/articles/Everest-Sixty-fascinating-facts/
Page 355, Position 3: Lord Salisbury ran the British Empire with 52 civil servants.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/topstories/man-who-brought-you-brexit/ar-BBwNpZE?ocid=MSN_UK_NL_M_NO_06OCT16
Page 355, Position 4: For the first time in history, more species are being lost every year than found.
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-new-species-top-10-20170522-htmlstory.html
Page 356, Position 1: Children under three years old cannot imagine the future.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224826581_Recalling_yesterday_and_predicting_tomorrow
Page 356, Position 2: Adults think about the future three times as often as the past.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/opinion/sunday/why-the-future-is-always-on-your-mind.html?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email&_r=0
Page 356, Position 3: Stephen Hawking predicts the human race has only 1,000 years left on Earth.
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/12/02/stephen-hawking-says-only-cooperation-can-save-the-planet/21618878/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_1329850&ncid=txtlnkusaolp00001361
Page 356, Position 4: Dick Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, died in 1423.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Whittington
2,024 QI Facts To Stop You In Your Tracks
Page 1, Position 1: Nobody knows who named the Earth.
https://www.livescience.com/32274-how-did-earth-get-its-name.html?utm_source=llm-newsletter&
Page 1, Position 2: Zero does not exist in nature.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/5/17500782/zero-number-math-explained?utm_source=digg&
Page 1, Position 3: Without zero, modern electronics wouldn’t exist.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/5/17500782/zero-number-math-explained?utm_source=digg&
Page 1, Position 4: According to many quantum physicists, there is no time.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/738387/Time-NOT-real-EVERYTHING-happens-same-time-einstein
Page 2, Position 1: ‘Time’ is the most used noun in the English language.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-time-is-most-often-used-noun/
Page 2, Position 2: The present moment is the most disorganised the universe has ever been.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics
Page 2, Position 3: People who have had their frown lines removed with Botox find it harder to read difficult sentences.
https://www.nhs.uk/news/medication/botox-injection-leads-to-rejection/
Page 2, Position 4: An altered state of consciousness can be achieved by staring into someone’s eyes for 10 minutes.
https://curiosity.com/topics/you-can-enter-an-altered-state-of-consciousness-by-staring-into-someones-eyes-for-10-minutes-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&
Page 3, Position 1: According to its CEO, Apple, Inc. is a conscious being.
https://qz.com/1315303/is-apple-conscious/
Page 3, Position 2: A glass of Calvados contains seven apples.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/france/articles/Christmas-in-France-nine-things-that-might-surprise-you/?WT.mc_id=e_DM614922&
Page 3, Position 3: There is enough room in the human memory for 300 years of television.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memory-capacity/
Page 3, Position 4: Loganamnosis is an obsessive searching for a forgotten word.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/loganamnosis
Page 4, Position 1: The word for ‘the inside of the elbow’ is chelidon.
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Chelidon
Page 4, Position 2: People who don’t have a tissue should sneeze into their chelidon, not their hand.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/health/how-to-sneeze.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180228&
Page 4, Position 3: A handshake begins and ends every game of curling.
https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1298395/
Page 4, Position 4: In Sweden, millennials are called ‘the Curling Generation’, because all obstacles have been brushed from their path by their parents.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/08/generation-y-curling-or-maybe-what-the-world-calls-millennials
Page 5, Position 1: All Olympic curling stones come from one uninhabited island 10 miles from Glasgow.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-scottish-magma-to-sochi-ice/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ailsa_Craig http://www.worldcurling.org/from-island-to-ice-a-journey-of-curling-stones
Page 5, Position 2: In 2017, Glasgow was voted the most dangerous and also the friendliest city in Scotland.
https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/glasgow-one-most-dangerous-cities-12413140 https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/glasgow-voted-friendliest-city-uk-12574890
Page 5, Position 3: Eyebrows evolved to make humans look friendly to one another.
https://theconversation.com/the-evolutionary-advantage-of-having-eyebrows-94599
Page 5, Position 4: In the 10 seasons of Friends, the six main characters drink 1,154 cups of coffee.
https://www.indy100.com/article/coffee-friends-rachel-joey-monica-ross-phoebe-chandler-new-york-central-perk-7816926
Page 6, Position 1: The Hitler Youth only drank decaf coffee.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/decaf-coffee-nazi-party
Page 6, Position 2: Rats with low social status drink more than those with high social status.
A Short History of Drunkeness Mark Forsyth
Page 6, Position 3: 20,112 rats were caught and killed in Hanoi on a single day in 1902.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hanoi-rat-massacre-1902
Page 6, Position 4: On a single day in 2018, volunteers in India planted 66 million trees.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/madhya-pradesh-india-tree-planting-record
Page 7, Position 1: The palm trees in Los Angeles are the result of a job-creation scheme in the 1930s.
https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/how-did-la-become-a-city-of-palms-and-other-questions-about-californias-trees
Page 7, Position 2: The way tree tops avoid touching each other as they grow is called ‘crown shyness’.
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/08/the-phenomenon-of-crown-shyness-where-trees-avoid-touching/?mc_cid=774f60f263&
Page 7, Position 3: The Queen practises wearing her crown for a week before the Queen’s Speech.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11629605/The-Queens-Speech-Everything-you-need-to-know.html
Page 7, Position 4: The Queen takes a monogrammed kettle with her on all foreign trips.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/her-majesty-the-queen-jet-lag-remedy-travel-habits/
Page 8, Position 1: The Teabag Boys, Yak Balls, Cecil Otter and Bus Driver are all names of professional rappers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/her-majesty-the-queen-jet-lag-remedy-travel-habits/
Page 8, Position 2: Every year, Britons use enough wrapping paper to wrap the Moon.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/christmas-2017-in-numbers-study-14030465
Page 8, Position 3: If all the plastic in the world were cling film, it could wrap the Earth.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/less-70-years-weve-made-enough-plastic-wrap-entire-world-cling-film-1631068
Page 8, Position 4: There is enough plastic in the world to make 25,000 Empire State Buildings, 80 million blue whales or a billion elephants.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/507108/all-plastic-ever-produced-visualized
Page 9, Position 1: The Queen has banned plastic straws from the royal estates.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/queen-bans-plastic-straws-and-bottles-on-royal-estates-a8205896.html
Page 9, Position 2: The first bendy straws were designed for use in hospitals.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/the-amazing-history-and-the-strange-invention-of-the-bendy-straw/248923/
Page 9, Position 3: The A&E department at Leicester Royal Infirmary treated twice as many patients the weekend Leicester City won the Premier League.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/08/leicester-city-celebrations-royal-infirmary-hospital-busy
Page 9, Position 4: Football was banned in London in 1314 for being too noisy .
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170831093424.htm
Page 10, Position 1: In Arab countries, poetry competitions get better TV ratings than football matches.
Morning Star 4 March 2017
Page 10, Position 2: Footballers at Sweden’s Östersunds Fotbollsklubb are contractually obliged to read Dostoevsky.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-week/20180203/281732679928773
Page 10, Position 3: France has short-story vending machines.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/books/short-story-vending-machine.html
Page 10, Position 4: In 2017, a book called Forty Minutes Late was returned to a San Francisco library 100 years late.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/01/16/library-book-called-forty-minutes-late-returned-100-years-late/96631878/
Page 11, Position 1: More than half of all meetings start late.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23831742-800-your-boss-is-probably-to-blame-for-meetings-starting-late/
Page 11, Position 2: The chances of surviving a heart attack increase when the top doctors are absent from the hospital attending important cardiologymeetings.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2038979
Page 11, Position 3: The first meeting of the War Propaganda Bureau was attended by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and H. G. Wells.
https://www.ilab.org/eng/documentation/1301-a_brief_history_of_propaganda.html
Page 11, Position 4: The ‘coffee break’ was invented in 1952 by the American Coffee Bureau.
http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-718-12-things-you-believe-because-propaganda-told-you-to/
Page 12, Position 1: ‘Bacon and eggs’ was invented by Sigmund Freud’s nephew.
http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-718-12-things-you-believe-because-propaganda-told-you-to/
Page 12, Position 2: The Queen won’t reveal her favourite meal in case she never gets served anything else.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/her-majesty-the-queen-jet-lag-remedy-travel-habits/
Page 12, Position 3: For the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, Marmite brought out a special edition called Ma’amite.
https://www.adweek.com/creativity/marmite-celebrates-queens-diamond-jubilee-maamite-140933/
Page 12, Position 4: Alfred the Butler is the name of 12 different people in the Domesday Book.
https://opendomesday.org/name/
Page 13, Position 1: The bookshelf was invented by Christopher Columbus’s son.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/the-man-who-tried-to-read-all-the-books-in-the-world
Page 13, Position 2: Children perform boring tasks better when dressed as Batman.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/02/exclamation-comma_n_7710586.html
Page 13, Position 3: Wonder Woman was created by the inventor of the lie detector.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/origin-story-wonder-woman-180952710/
Page 13, Position 4: Vranyo is Russian for lying even when everyone knows that’s what you’re doing.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/23/mcmaster-and-maskirovka/
Page 14, Position 1: Mencolek is Indonesian for tapping someone on the opposite shoulder to fool them.
https://www.global-lingo.com/untranslatable-words-ultimate-list/
Page 14, Position 2: Bamboo sharks shrug their shoulders to swallow their food.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bamboo-sharks-shrug-their-shoulders-swallow-their-prey-1630818
Page 14, Position 3: In the 1930s, artist Dorothy Beck invented an inverted underwater periscope so she could stay dry while sketching fish.
http://www.oobject.com/category/9-non-submarine-periscopes/
Page 14, Position 4: Swordfish track fast-moving prey in deep, cold water by heating up their eyes.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6861-swordfish-heat-their-eyes-for-the-hunt/
Page 15, Position 1: After Apollo 11 landed, the Moon’s temperature rose by 2°C.
https://www.livescience.com/62805-moon-surface-warming-apollo-astronauts.html
Page 15, Position 2: NASA’s ‘clean rooms’ are infested by microbes that resist heat, desiccation and radiation and eat the cleaning products.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/06/bacteria-can-eat-the-cleaning-products-nasa-uses-to-sterilize-its-spaceships/562016/
Page 15, Position 3: The thermostat knobs in many hotel bedrooms don’t work: they’re rigged to save electricity .
http://www.wsj.com/articles/its-not-you-hotel-thermostats-really-are-rigged-1485371225
Page 15, Position 4: 80% of the ‘Close Door’ buttons in lifts are just for show: the doors are on a timer.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/placebo-buttons-elevators-crosswalks.html?src=twr&
Page 16, Position 1: In 1986, 12 jurors got stuck in an Otis elevator in a courthouse on their way to hear a lawsuit against the Otis Elevator Company .
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1986-11-04/news/0270110010_1_elevator-otis-jammed
Page 16, Position 2: In 2017, a court in Indonesia blamed an increase in the divorce rate on the sudden popularity of pigeon racing.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-40801328
Page 16, Position 3: In Regina, California, it’s illegal to own more than 90 pigeons.
https://www.regina.ca/residents/bylaw/browse-most-requested-bylaws/domestic-pigeon-control/
Page 16, Position 4: It’s illegal to swim in the River Seine in Paris.
https://www.citylab.com/solutions/2016/05/paris-wants-to-make-the-seine-swimmable-by-2024/482031/
Page 17, Position 1: In professional swimming, it’s against the rules to wear two swimming costumes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/7944084.stm
Page 17, Position 2: In public pools in New York City , you’re not allowed to hold your breath.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/29/swimming-pools-ban-holding-breath_n_7468010.html
Page 17, Position 3: In 2017, 70 students in Maryland drank so much alcohol at a party that the air in the house registered positive on a breathalyser.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/students-drank-so-much-at-a-frat-party-the-air-registered-on-a-breathalyser-a3725556.html
Page 17, Position 4: ‘Breeching parties’ celebrated boys getting their first pair of trousers.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/breeching-party-first-pants-regency-trousers-boys
Page 18, Position 1: New Year’s Day is the official birthday of everyone in Bhutan.
https://www.bhutanprivatetours.com/bhutan-general-info.html
Page 18, Position 2: In Johannesburg on New Year’s Day, it’s traditional to throw an item of furniture out of a window.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/38341760
Page 18, Position 3: When New Year was moved in 1751 from 25 March to 1 January, there were only 282 days in the year.
http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Give-us-our-eleven-days/
Page 18, Position 4: In ancient Egypt, the New Year began whenever the Nile started to flood.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/nile_01.shtml
Page 19, Position 1: Ancient Egyptians mummified their cats and gave them mummified mice to torment in the afterlife.
https://sciencing.com/egyptian-animals-were-mummified-9847.html
Page 19, Position 2: Catalan authorities regularly check websites ending with ‘.cat’ to ensure they’re about Catalonia, not cats.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/23/spanish_government_criticized_over_catalan_internet_registry_raid/
Page 19, Position 3: Savannah is a breed of cat that can be trained to play fetch and go for walks on a lead.
https://www.prlog.org/10483884-about-savannah-cats-personality-trained-to-walk-on-leash-and-play-fetch.html
Page 19, Position 4: If human eyes were in the same proportion as cats’ eyes, they’d be eight inches across.
http://s.coop/catseyes
Page 20, Position 1: Honesty boxes with photos of eyes stuck on the wall next to them produce more money .
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9424-big-brother-eyes-make-us-act-more-honestly/
Page 20, Position 2: Painting eyes on cows’ bottoms stops lions attacking them.
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-are-painting-eyes-on-cows-butts-to-stop-lions-getting-shot
Page 20, Position 3: Rabbits hate being picked up because they think they’re about to be eaten.
http://www.justrabbits.com/handling-rabbits.html
Page 20, Position 4: Listening to talk radio can put pumas off their food.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2138040-talk-radio-puts-pumas-off-their-meals-so-they-may-kill-more-deer/
Page 21, Position 1: King George VI’s wedding was not broadcast on the radio in case people listened without removing their hats.
http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/royal-history/art312972
Page 21, Position 2: A radio station in Texas that burned Beatles records in 1966 was struck by lightning the next day.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&
Page 21, Position 3: Not realising his microphone was switched on, Ronald Reagan once joked that the US was about to bomb Russia.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/ronald-reagan-bombing-russia-joke-archive-1984
Page 21, Position 4: There are an estimated 14,485 nuclear weapons in the world today.
https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/
Page 22, Position 1: Airbnb’s HQ features a replica of the War Room from Dr Strangelove.
http://valleywag.gawker.com/airbnbs-office-has-a-replica-of-the-dr-strangelove-wa-1475788543
Page 22, Position 2: A supersonic flypast at Ottawa’s new airport in 1959 smashed all the glass in the buildings and delayed the opening for a year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Macdonald%E2%80%93Cartier_International_Airport
Page 22, Position 3: The first loop-the-loop roller coaster had to close down because so many people were passing out.
https://gizmodo.com/why-roller-coaster-loops-are-never-circular-1549063718
Page 22, Position 4: Disneyland shut down its gondola rides because too many people were having sex on them.
https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/tom-hanks-disneyland-mile-high-club-conan-obrien-20131812/
Page 23, Position 1: When two prime numbers differ by 6 (e.g. 5 and 11), they are known as ‘sexy primes’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexy_prime
Page 23, Position 2: (6 × 9) + (6 + 9) = 69
https://www.buzzfeed.com/kellyoakes/maths-facts-youll-probably-never-need-to-use?utm_term=.qdZ3v6xNz#.olxOnZj05
Page 23, Position 3: The Babylonians were doing trigonometry 3,700 years ago.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/babylonians-trigonometry-develop-more-advanced-modern-mathematics-3700-years-ago-ancient-a7910936.html
Page 23, Position 4: 5,000 years ago, humans practised brain surgery on cows.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/prehistoric-humans-may-have-practiced-brain-surgery-cows?utm_campaign=daily-digest&
Page 24, Position 1: Gaspare Tagliacozzi, the pioneer of the nose job, developed his skills at a clinic called the Hospital of Death.
A History of Plastic Surgery By Paolo Santoni-Rugiu Philip J. Sykes
Page 24, Position 2: The surgeon at the Battle of the Sierra Negra (1794) averaged one amputation every four minutes.
https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/a-history-of-fatal-castrations-and-gory-amputations-36609409.html
Page 24, Position 3: Plastic surgeons are eight times more likely to have had plastic surgery than the rest of us.
http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/cosmetic-treatments/have-most-plastic-surgeons-had-surgery-themselves.htm#mkcpgn=rssnws1
Page 24, Position 4: People who drink seven cups of coffee a day are more likely to think they sense the presence of dead people.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7827761.stm
Page 25, Position 1: Poltergeist is German for ‘noisy ghost’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poltergeist
Page 25, Position 2: The first planet discovered outside the Solar System was named Poltergeist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_B1257%2B12_B
Page 25, Position 3: Pluto’s moon, Charon, was named by its discoverer after his wife Char(lene).
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/56-our-solar-system/planets-and-dwarf-planets/general-questions/228-who-named-the-planets-and-who-decides-what-to-name-them-beginner
Page 25, Position 4: Names of Greek ocean gods included Poseidon, Triton, Oceanus and Doris.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_(mythology)
Page 26, Position 1: In 2006, a Greek court ruled it was no longer illegal to worship Greek gods.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/may/05/greece
Page 26, Position 2: The world’s first Christian nation was Armenia.
http://www.welcomearmenia.com/armenia/first_christian_nation
Page 26, Position 3: Britain’s first vegetarian church opened in a building called Beefsteak Chapel.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20666581
Page 26, Position 4: Avocados are not vegan.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23731623-100-living-on-the-veg-10-things-you-thought-were-vegan-but-arent/
Page 27, Position 1: Mentioning guacamole on your dating profile gets you 144% more responses.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/guacamole-avocado-eggplant-dating-profile-survey-food
Page 27, Position 2: The first contraceptive pill was developed from Mexican yams.
http://advocatesaz.org/2013/01/08/the-history-of-the-birth-control-pill-part-1-hormones-our-chemical-messengers/
Page 27, Position 3: Viagra can make your urine turn blue.
http://www.livescience.com/37664-human-urine-colors-rainbow.html
Page 27, Position 4: Prussian blue was discovered by a German chemist trying to make red.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-quest-for-billion-dollar-red/
Page 28, Position 1: Red placebo pills work better than blue ones.
https://mindhacks.com/2006/10/10/red-pill-or-the-blue-pill/
Page 28, Position 2: Yellow tennis balls, which look better on colour TV , were the idea of David Attenborough when he was Controller of BBC2.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tennis/article-4657740/How-David-Attenborough-took-Wimbledon-colour-TV-era.html
Page 28, Position 3: Different tennis balls are used for men’s and women’s matches; the men’s are fluffier to slow them down.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2016/03/29/andy-murray-using-a-womens-ball-at-miami-open/
Page 28, Position 4: Table tennis was the first sport to abolish the distinction between amateurs and professionals.
'Summer's crown' by Stephen Chalke (Fairfield Books 2016)
Page 29, Position 1: Football World Cup referees have to learn swear words in other languages.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/sports/soccer/11cursing.html
Page 29, Position 2: TITSUP is a military acronym for Total Inability To Support Usual Performance.
http://www.acronymfinder.com/Total-Inability-To-Support-Usual-Performance-(military-slang)-(TITSUP).html
Page 29, Position 3: SWIPERS is a retail-industry acronym for Seemingly Well-Intentioned Patrons Engaging in Routine Shoplifting.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/pay-for-a-carrot-pack-an-avocado-self-checkout-thieves-looting-stores-fz7r6gdj7
Page 29, Position 4: TASER is an acronym for Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/words-acronyms_n_6147354
Page 30, Position 1: In 2016, Australian police offered cash prizes to any drivers they found to be sober.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-20/drink-driving-experiment-gives-sober-drivers-chance-to-win-money/7101316
Page 30, Position 2: The oldest known boomerang is from Poland.
https://www.apnews.com/5386e4fc34507bfe5a66dcb9f2753d80
Page 30, Position 3: Mount Kosciuszko, the highest mountain in Australia, is named after an artificial mound in Poland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kosciuszko
Page 30, Position 4: The summit of Mount Everest was once part of the ocean floor.
https://www.nasa.gov/content/the-worlds-tallest-mountain
Page 31, Position 1: The highest mountain on British soil is in Antarctica.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42238262
Page 31, Position 2: At Two Ocean Pass, Wyoming, a mountain stream splits into two: one flows into the Atlantic, the other into the Pacific.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Ocean_Pass
Page 31, Position 3: In 1949, Mole Hill, West Virginia, was renamed Mountain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain _West_Virginia
Page 31, Position 4: Joan Crawford was named by the readers of a movie magazine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Crawford
Page 32, Position 1: On the set of Jaws, the shark was nicknamed Bruce, after Steven Spielberg’s lawyer.
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/05/entertainment/jaws-movie-40th-anniversary-feat/index.html
Page 32, Position 2: The first crime prosecuted using fingerprint evidence was the theft of some billiard balls.
https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/historical-crimes-that-changed-british-policing-law-enforcement/
Page 32, Position 3: The largest theft ever investigated by Quebec police was of maple syrup.
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-great-maple-syrup-heist-trial-opens-in-largest-theft-ever-investigated-by-quebec-police
Page 32, Position 4: Between 1935 and 1937, Wisconsin law required all restaurant meals to be served with free cheese.
http://host.madison.com/news/local/are-restaurants-in-wisconsin-required-to-put-cheese-on-apple/article_f6490062-bc20-11de-a56b-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz2kkOf2gXc
Page 33, Position 1: The first use of the word ‘mammoth’ as an adjective meaning ‘big’ referred to a large cheese.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_BqjCgAAQBAJ&
Page 33, Position 2: The world’s largest asbestos mine is in Asbest, Russia.
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/yvxjy7/why-the-deadly-asbestos-industry-is-still-alive-and-well
Page 33, Position 3: The world’s largest paper plane had a 60-foot wingspan.
https://www.upi.com/Museum-seeking-world-record-for-largest-paper-plane/8721528818470/
Page 33, Position 4: Each pod on the world’s largest Ferris wheel is equipped with a TV screen to stave off boredom.
https://awol.junkee.com/china-just-built-the-worlds-biggest-ferris-wheel/45657
Page 34, Position 1: Season 7 of Game of Thrones was pirated more than a billion times.
http://news.sky.com/story/game-of-thrones-season-7-pirated-more-than-a-billion-times-11024050
Page 34, Position 2: Michael Bond, creator of Paddington Bear, was a camera operator on Blue Peter.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/28/michael-bond-author-paddington-bear-interview-books-television-film
Page 34, Position 3: Paddington Bear wears a hat when swimming because Michael Bond’s father always did, in case he needed to raise it politely.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/28/michael-bond-author-paddington-bear-interview-books-television-film
Page 34, Position 4: The etiquette experts Debrett’s run classes for five-year-olds on learning how to navigate dinner parties.
http://www.smallishmagazine.com/mind-over-manners/
Page 35, Position 1: Alumnesia is the failure to remember the name of a former classmate.
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations by Subject
Page 35, Position 2: Scurryfunge is to tidy up quickly before visitors arrive.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-week-junior/20170930/281638190400600
Page 35, Position 3: Cacozelia is the use of foreign words to make one appear un peu plus cultivé.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cacozelia
Page 35, Position 4: Treppenwitz is German for the witty riposte that occurs to you too late.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/544512/expert-tips-for-creating-the-perfect-comeback
Page 36, Position 1: ‘Joke’ comes from the same Latin word as ‘jewel’.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/jewel
Page 36, Position 2: The redder a ruby, the more it costs.
http://www.gemewizard.com/newsletters/view_article.php?id=167
Page 36, Position 3: Donald Trump’s daughter Tiffany was named after the jewellers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany_Trump
Page 36, Position 4: Peter Carl Fabergé made 50 exquisite Fabergé eggs and one Fabergé potato.
https://www.1843magazine.com/design/i-wish-id-done-that/caroline-scheufele-on-a-faberg-potato
Page 37, Position 1: Until they hatch, the eggs of cardinal fish are stored in the males’ mouths, where 30% of them are regrettably swallowed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2281581/A-modern-male-sea-The-Cardinal-Fish-left-look-babies-weeks-end--MOUTH.html
Page 37, Position 2: The hands of a human foetus touching the walls of the womb causes the fingerprints to form.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2018-01-14/newspaper-letters/Fingerprints-start-forming-at-the-third-week-of-gestation-6736183540.
Page 37, Position 3: Elephant’s ear plants look like they’re diseased so eggs won’t be laid on them.
https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/plants-that-act-like-people/
Page 37, Position 4: Elephants can hear better with one foot off the ground.
Furry Logic - The Physics of Animal Life by Matin Durrani Liz Kalaugher (Bloomsbury 2017)
Page 38, Position 1: When his sound system failed, mime artist Marcel Marceau cancelled the performance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/23/AR2007092300172.html
Page 38, Position 2: The mayor of Bogotá hired 420 mime artists to shame traffic violators into driving better.
https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2013/oct/28/antanas-mockus-bogota-mayor
Page 38, Position 3: The aim of the sacred combat of the Moche people of ancient Peru was to knock your opponent’s hat off.
National Museum of the Americas
Page 38, Position 4: Peruvians are the world’s fastest workers.
https://priceonomics.com/ranking-the-most-and-least-productive-countries/
Page 39, Position 1: The Latin for ‘proud’ is superbum.
http://latin-dictionary.net/definition/36370/superbus-superba-superbum
Page 39, Position 2: ‘Bum’ was defined in Dr Johnson’s Dictionary as ‘the part on which we sit’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/538473/funny-definitions-from-dictionary-of-the-english-language-samuel-johnson
Page 39, Position 3: The word ‘kleptomania’ was coined in the 1860s because words like ‘robbery’, ‘theft’ and ‘larceny’ were considered inappropriate for the upper classes.
https://www.geriwalton.com/english-miscellany-in-the-1860s/
Page 39, Position 4: A clank-napper was an 18th-century thief who specialised in stealing silverware.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 40, Position 1: The oldest object in the British crown jewels is a spoon.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/coronation-spoon-12th-century-england-crown-jewels
Page 40, Position 2: Knife marks on the oldest known book of English poetry suggest it was once used as a chopping board.
https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/research/digital/projects/exeter-book/
Page 40, Position 3: The world’s oldest pot plant is 243 years old and weighs one tonne.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/delicate-operation-at-kew-gardens-to-move-worlds-oldest-pot-plant-pppnlx7jjvq
Page 40, Position 4: The two oldest men living in Britain in 2018 were born on the same day in 1908.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/25/britain-oldest-men-bob-weighton-alf-smith-110-years-old
Page 41, Position 1: Blowing out the candles on a birthday cake increases the number of bacteria on it by up to 1,400%.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/blowing-out-birthday-candles-increases-cake-bacteria-1400-per-cent-saliva-spread-icing-study-reveals-a7868671.html
Page 41, Position 2: The least hygienic parts of an aeroplane are the tray tables.
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/the-least-hygienic-place-to-touch-on-a-plane-has-been-revealed-by-scientists-and-its-not-the-toilet-10486260.html
Page 41, Position 3: Terrifying flights were prescribed in the 1920s to cure deafness.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/doctors-once-prescribed-terrifying-plane-flights-cure-deafness-180965027/
Page 41, Position 4: In 1981, Margaret Thatcher refused to share Concorde with a giant panda.
In 1981 Margaret Thatcherrefused to share Concorde with a giant Eratosthenes. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/national-archives-margaret-thatcher-refused-to-share-a-flight-to-washington-with-a-giant-panda-a3728191.html
Page 42, Position 1: A mother panda is 800 times larger than her newborn.
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep27509
Page 42, Position 2: The man who named the panda was the younger brother of the man who named the pterodactyl.
was the younger brother of the man who named the pterodactyl. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Cuvier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Cuvier https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/panda
Page 42, Position 3: Sichuanese people who swallowed needles by mistake would try to melt them by drinking panda urine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_panda#Uses_and_human_interaction
Page 42, Position 4: The ancient Greeks cured hangovers by wrapping their heads in cabbage leaves.
http://www.newsweek.com/11-historys-battiest-hangover-cures-324539
Page 43, Position 1: The man who coined the term ‘nostalgia’ thought it could be cured by taking laxatives.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23130920-500-wistful-thinking-why-we-are-wired-to-dwell-on-the-past/
Page 43, Position 2: Latex is Latin for ‘liquid’.
Lewis and Short A Latin Dictionary (OUP 1998) p 1039
Page 43, Position 3: British Army soldiers are given anti-bacterial underpants.
British Army soldiers are given anti-bacterialunderpants. http://www.thesilveredge.com/british-army-issues-colloidal-silver-underwear-to-soldiers.shtml#.WsuYfNPwYdU
Page 43, Position 4: The US military spends $42 million a year on Viagra.
http://www.militarytimes.com/pay-benefits/military-benefits/health-care/2015/02/13/dod-spends-84m-a-year-on-viagra-similar-meds/
Page 44, Position 1: The citizens of the Czech Republic are the baldest people in the world.
http://www.hairlossdaily.com/the-11-baldest-countries-in-the-world/
Page 44, Position 2: In Japan, people with thin, black, careful combovers are called ‘bar code men’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comb_over
Page 44, Position 3: At Joan of Arc’s trial, she was asked to comment on the hairstyles of the saints who appeared in her visions.
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/joanofarc-trial.asp
Page 44, Position 4: A tiger’s night vision is six times better than a human’s.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/tiger-facts.aspx
Page 45, Position 1: Humans glow in the dark.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/jul/17/human-bioluminescence
Page 45, Position 2: In a desert, the naked eye can see the glow of a major city from 125 miles away.
The walker's guide to outdoor clues & signs' by Tristan Gooley (Sceptre 2015)
Page 45, Position 3: Snowflake, Arizona, was founded in 1878 by two men whose surnames were Snow and Flake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake _Arizona
Page 45, Position 4: At the centre of every snowflake is a single piece of dust.
https://geology.com/articles/snowflakes/
Page 46, Position 1: Claude Monet paid a gardener to dust his water lilies before he painted them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/NZXGROJ4Trq6rIYI03tvSg
Page 46, Position 2: Van Gogh’s Olive Trees has a dead grasshopper embedded in the paint.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/NZXGROJ4Trq6rIYI03tvSg
Page 46, Position 3: It is compulsory for Dutch schoolchildren to visit Rembrandt’s paintings.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/NZXGROJ4Trq6rIYI03tvSg
Page 46, Position 4: As a schoolboy, legendary wrestler André the Giant was driven to school by his neighbour, the playwright Samuel Beckett.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/andre-the-giant-samuel-beckett/
Page 47, Position 1: Samuel Pepys went to a performance of Twelfth Night on Twelfth Night 1663, and thought it was ‘a silly play and not relating at all to the name or day’.
Christmas: A Biography Judith Flanders
Page 47, Position 2: The West End has fewer theatres than London’s private schools.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/private-schools-upstage-the-west-end-with-cutting-edge-theatres-fhbqxjfwn
Page 47, Position 3: In 1907, a riot broke out in New York over a play in which a woman drank a glass of beer.
Christmas: A Biography Judith Flanders
Page 47, Position 4: Beer mats were originally placed on top of glasses to keep the dust out.
http://www.ab-inbev.com/news/our-stories/beer-brewing/an-absorbing-tale--the-story-of-the-beer-mat.html
Page 48, Position 1: In the Second World War, kegs of beer were flown to the front line by Spitfire pilots.
https://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2014/08/beer-keg-carrying-spitfires-world-war-two/
Page 48, Position 2: One proposal to stop plane hijackings to Cuba in the 1970s was to build a fake Havana airport in south Florida.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/skyjacking/
Page 48, Position 3: In 2016, a man from Wigan sent a pie into space to promote the World Pie Eating Championship.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-38334437
Page 48, Position 4: A smartphone contains more computing power than the whole of NASA had in 1969.
https://www.britishgas.co.uk/business/blog/smartphones-more-powerful-than-all-of-nasas-combined-computing-in-1969/
Page 49, Position 1: In 1985, New York City had 2,000 mobile phones, but only 12 of them could be used at any one time.
https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/951826557978468352
Page 49, Position 2: A man in New York makes $500 a week collecting fragments of gold and jewellery from the city’s pavements.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8587448/New-York-man-makes-500-a-week-from-gold-in-pavement-cracks.html
Page 49, Position 3: New York cabs and Hertz rental cars have yellow branding because they were founded by the same man.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Hertz
Page 49, Position 4: The flute was invented before the wheel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions
Page 50, Position 1: Cement was invented before humans learned to cook meat.
http://www.pajiba.com/podcasts_1/podcast-review-surprisingly-awesome-is-surprisingly-awesome.php
Page 50, Position 2: When Icelandic women staged an equal-pay protest by refusing to do any cooking, all the supermarkets ran out of sausages.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/18/gender.uk
Page 50, Position 3: The world’s longest sausage was 39 miles long.
https://www.romania-insider.com/romania-sets-new-world-record-for-longest-sausage/
Page 50, Position 4: Volkswagen sells more sausages than cars.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/vw-volkswagen-currywurst-sausages-emissions-scandal-a6883751.html
Page 51, Position 1: The Lord Howe Island stick insect is also known as the ‘walking sausage’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball%27s_Pyramid
Page 51, Position 2: ‘Sausage guitar’ is urban slang for air guitar played on a stretched-out penis.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Sausage%20Guitar
Page 51, Position 3: When Brian May goes on tour, his guitar has its own bodyguard.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/18/brian-may-queen-guitar-red-special-dad
Page 51, Position 4: In 2004, Somalia issued a set of guitar-shaped coins.
In 2004 Somalia issued a set of guitar-shapedcoins. https://www.fleur-de-coin.com/articles/unusual-coins
Page 52, Position 1: In 2010, the national mint of Chile issued thousands of coins stamped ‘CHIIE’.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8511910.stm
Page 52, Position 2: Goldman Sachs complained to Microsoft for autocorrecting their name to Goddamn Sachs.
https://www.wired.com/2014/07/history-of-autocorrect/
Page 52, Position 3: American Kitchen Foods tried to rebrand peas by shaping them into chips and calling them I Hate Peas.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/23326/10-food-products-thankfully-flopped
Page 52, Position 4: Peas can be used to treat constipation in fish.
http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_constipated_fish.php
Page 53, Position 1: One-third of the fish caught around the world never get eaten.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/09/one-in-three-fish-caught-never-makes-it-to-the-plate-un-report
Page 53, Position 2: During the Second World War, fish-and-chip-shop managers were exempt from military service.
Morning Star 12 Sept 17
Page 53, Position 3: The Russian intelligence service keeps Hitler’s teeth in a cigar box.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/the-bizarre-decades-old-mystery-over-hitlers-possible-skull.html
Page 53, Position 4: The UK has 50,000 self-service tills.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/pay-for-a-carrot-pack-an-avocado-self-checkout-thieves-looting-stores-fz7r6gdj7
Page 54, Position 1: British trains arriving up to nine minutes late are counted as being on time.
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/british-train-delay-measure-minutes-late-on-time-rail-delivery-group-a7846261.html
Page 54, Position 2: In 2017, a Japanese rail company apologised after one of its trains departed 20 seconds early.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/17/japanese-rail-company-apologises-train-20-seconds-early
Page 54, Position 3: 590,000 Britons turn up late for work each day, costing the economy £9 billion a year.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/staff-lateness-costs-the-economy-9-billion-every-year-8191289.html
Page 54, Position 4: In Qin dynasty China, the penalty for lateness was death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazexiang_uprising
Page 55, Position 1: Mail theft in the US was a capital offence until 1872.
https://www.rd.com/culture/us-postal-service-facts/
Page 55, Position 2: Until 1971, the US Postmaster General was last in the line of succession to the presidency .
https://www.rd.com/culture/us-postal-service-facts/
Page 55, Position 3: Donald Trump is the first US president in 168 years not to have a pet in the White House.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/ivana-ivanka-trump-book.html
Page 55, Position 4: US President Zachary Taylor had never voted in a presidential election before he voted for himself.
https://millercenter.org/president/taylor/campaigns-and-elections
Page 56, Position 1: US President William McKinley could shake hands 50 times a minute.
https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1298395/
Page 56, Position 2: The world’s oldest footprints are half a billion years old.
https://newatlas.com/oldest-animal-fossil-footprints/54945/?utm_medium=email&
Page 56, Position 3: The first scientist to study dinosaur footprints thought they were made by giant birds.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/edward-hitchcock-dinosaur-fossils-footprints-birds-amherst
Page 56, Position 4: Archaeopteryx was a bird-like dinosaur that was too heavy to sit on its own eggs without cracking them.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2163286-ancient-birds-couldnt-sit-on-their-eggs-without-smashing-them/
Page 57, Position 1: The black feathers of the male superb bird-of-paradise absorb 99.95% of light.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-worlds-most-metal-bird-makes-darkness-out-of-chaos/
Page 57, Position 2: The yellow-billed oxpecker bird sleeps in the armpit of a giraffe.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/animals-serengeti-tanzania-birds/
Page 57, Position 3: Ancient Egyptians used giraffes’ tails as fly swatters.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gsq_CQAAQBAJ&
Page 57, Position 4: A male giraffe drinks the urine of a female giraffe to see if she is ovulating.
https://www.popsci.com/giraffe-reproduction-birth-live-stream
Page 58, Position 1: Baby robins can eat so many caterpillars they turn green.
https://www.buzz.ie/entertainment/weird-things-didnt-know-robins-265316
Page 58, Position 2: Baby guillemots are called ‘jumplings’.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007yyky
Page 58, Position 3: Baby humpback whales drink 150 gallons of milk a day.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/science/baby-humpbacks-need-150-gallons-of-whale-milk/
Page 58, Position 4: Female whales have perforated umbilical cords that snap off after birth so the baby can swim to the surface for its first breath.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2rkHQpToi9sC&
Page 59, Position 1: When hibernating, woodchucks breathe as little as twice an hour.
http://blog.nwf.org/2011/01/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-groundhogs/
Page 59, Position 2: Breathing the air in New Delhi is equivalent to smoking 45 cigarettes a day.
https://qz.com/india/1124049/air-pollution-in-new-delhi-has-the-health-effect-of-smoking-45-cigarettes-a-day/
Page 59, Position 3: 1 in 3 smartphones in India run out of space every day because millions of Indians send daily ‘Good morning!’ texts with images or video attached.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-internet-is-filling-up-because-indians-are-sending-millions-of-good-morning-texts-1516640068
Page 59, Position 4: In Honolulu, it’s illegal to cross the street using a mobile phone.
http://www4.honolulu.gov/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-196183/DOC007%20(14).PDF?mc_cid=dd21c8f5ab&
Page 60, Position 1: An Apple iPhone contains more than half the elements in the periodic table.
https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/archive/chemmatters-april2015-smartphones.pdf
Page 60, Position 2: Shoppers being absorbed in their phones at the checkout has resulted in a 15% fall in chewing-gum sales.
https://www.businessinsider.com/cell-phones-are-hurting-gum-sales-2013-3?IR=T
Page 60, Position 3: Polyisobutylene is the main ingredient of chewing gum and the inner tubes of bicycle tyres.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-43198104
Page 60, Position 4: A British designer has created a chewing-gum recycling bin made of recycled chewing gum.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-43198104
Page 61, Position 1: Chocolate in the 16th century was prescribed to treat angina, constipation, dysentery, indigestion, haemorrhoids, flatulence and gout.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3708337/
Page 61, Position 2: An 18th-century remedy for headaches was to comb the hair upwards, stroking it with nutmeg and vinegar.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/65413/15-terrifying-18th-century-remedies-what-ails-you
Page 61, Position 3: 19th-century doctors advised growing a beard to ward off illness.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/victorian-era-doctors-prescribed-beards-help-keep-men-healthy-180951471/
Page 61, Position 4: 15% of Americans get sick from eating food every year.
https://www.theguardian.com/animals-farmed/2018/feb/21/dirty-meat-shocking-hygiene-failings-discovered-in-us-pig-and-chicken-plants?mc_cid=5b020b211c&
Page 62, Position 1: When Winston Churchill visited the US during Prohibition, he got a doctor’s prescription for an unlimited supply of alcohol.
http://www.openculture.com/2016/05/winston-churchill-gets-a-doctors-note-to-drink-unlimited-alcohol-in-prohibition-america-1932.html
Page 62, Position 2: Churchill’s last words were: ‘I’m bored with it all.’
https://www.phrases.org.uk/quotes/last-words/winston-churchill.html
Page 62, Position 3: The last king of Egypt stole Winston Churchill’s watch.
http://madmonarchs.guusbeltman.nl/madmonarchs/farouk/farouk_bio.htm
Page 62, Position 4: The last emperor of China spent his final years as a street sweeper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyi#Later_life_.281945.E2.80.931967.29
Page 63, Position 1: 37% of Britons think their jobs are meaningless and don’t contribute to the world.
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/08/12/british-jobs-meaningless/
Page 63, Position 2: 52% of Americans think God is doing a good job.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ppp-poll-questions-public-policy-polling-funny-quirky-obama-romney-2012-11?IR=T
Page 63, Position 3: In ancient Egypt, only gods and royalty could eat marshmallows.
https://www.candyusa.com/candy-types/marshmallows/
Page 63, Position 4: Pharaoh Rameses III made an offering to the Nile god of 11,998 jars of beans.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/fava-the-magic-bean/
Page 64, Position 1: Pythagoras died because he hated beans and refused to run through a field of them to escape his murderers.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/fava-the-magic-bean/
Page 64, Position 2: Socrates enjoyed dancing.
https://www.aldaily.com/new-books/did-you-know-that-aristotle-spoke-with-a-lisp-that-socrates-enjoyed-dancin/
Page 64, Position 3: Aristotle had a lisp.
https://www.aldaily.com/new-books/did-you-know-that-aristotle-spoke-with-a-lisp-that-socrates-enjoyed-dancin/
Page 64, Position 4: Karl Marx spent more than half his life in England.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx https://www.pressreader.com/uk/bbc-history-magazine/20180419/282454234565834
Page 65, Position 1: Thomas Young, the first person to decipher the Rosetta Stone, had read the Bible twice by the age of four.
https://www.emma.cam.ac.uk/about/history/famous/?id=9
Page 65, Position 2: The Bible has no mention of purgatory.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-purgatory-in-the-bible
Page 65, Position 3: Utah has a prison called the Purgatory Correctional Facility .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purgatory_Correctional_Facility
Page 65, Position 4: Prisoners in Brazil can have their sentences reduced by knitting.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2013/aug/04/brazilian-prisoners-knit-for-fashion-designer-in-pictures
Page 66, Position 1: Because Sweden is going cashless, Swedish criminals have been reduced to stealing owls.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/stealing-owls/559136/
Page 66, Position 2: Australian Bassian thrushes use their farts like leaf blowers to uncover worms.
http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/bookshelf/101910/extreme-birds-the-world-s-most-extraordinary-and-bizarre-birds
Page 66, Position 3: Giant predatory hammerhead worms from Asia are invading France.
https://qz.com/1285418/giant-predatory-worms-from-asia-are-invading-france/
Page 66, Position 4: At the time of the French Revolution, only half the population of France spoke French and only 1 in 8 could speak it well.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/world/national-identity-myth.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180301&
Page 67, Position 1: 1 in 8 young Britons are either bloggers or vloggers.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/03/one-eight-children-vlogger-blogger/
Page 67, Position 2: Steve Jobs never learned to code.
not in first draft. https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-never-wrote-computer-code-for-apple-2013-8?IR=T
Page 67, Position 3: The documentary Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? was found on Osama bin Laden’s computer.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/osama-bin-laden-files-charlie-bit-my-finger-911-weirdest-discoveries-a8032396.html
Page 67, Position 4: Brian Eno used an Apple Mac to compose the start-up music for Windows 95.
https://www.theindustryobserver.com.au/the-odd-story-of-how-brian-eno-composed-the-windows-95-startup-sound/
Page 68, Position 1: The most dangerous music to play while driving is Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’.
http://nautil.us/issue/9/time/how-music-hijacks-our-perception-of-time
Page 68, Position 2: At the 1967 South African Grand Prix, the Mexican national anthem couldn’t be found, so the organisers played the ‘Mexican Hat Dance’ instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Rodr%C3%ADguez_(racing_driver)
Page 68, Position 3: The Czechoslovak national anthem was the Czech national anthem played between two halves of the Slovak national anthem.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/30/czech-national-anthem-faces-makeover-branded-short-not-patriotic/
Page 68, Position 4: Chinese citizens hearing their national anthem are advised to stand still but be full of energy.
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/15/world/asia/china-national-anthem-rules/index.html
Page 69, Position 1: The Sun generates more energy in one second than has been used during the whole of human history.
http://lsa.colorado.edu/essence/texts/solar.html
Page 69, Position 2: The centre of the Sun is 40,000 times hotter than boiling water.
https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1997/DedraForbes.shtml
Page 69, Position 3: The strike of a mantis shrimp is so quick it makes the surrounding water boil.
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/shrimp-packs-punch
Page 69, Position 4: Mantis shrimp can see a type of light that no other animals can, and they use it to send each other secret messages.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2015/11/12/at-last-a-use-for-the-oceans-most-secretive-signals/
Page 70, Position 1: Puffins’ beaks glow in the dark.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/sharks-puffins-animals-biofluorescence-oceans/
Page 70, Position 2: Birds have special feathers that continually disintegrate into powder, making their other feathers waterproof.
http://www.birds.com/blog/waterproof-feathers-birds/
Page 70, Position 3: Rolls-Royce Phantoms have Teflon-coated umbrellas installed in the doors.
https://www.ndtv.com/photos/business/10-facts-every-rolls-royce-fan-should-know-14247#photo-185214
Page 70, Position 4: A new umbrella drone keeps you dry without you having to hold it.
https://mashable.com/2018/06/03/umbrella-drone-hands-free-noise/?europe=true
Page 71, Position 1: A pluviophile is someone who loves rainy days.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pluviophile
Page 71, Position 2: Malneirophrenia is a bad mood caused by a poor night’s sleep.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/502463/15-obscure-words-everyday-feelings-and-emotions
Page 71, Position 3: Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia is the fear of the number 666.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia
Page 71, Position 4: A cumlin is Scots for a pet cat that decides to go and live with new owners.
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/cumlin
Page 72, Position 1: In 19th-century Scotland, to be counted as an island a piece of land had to have enough pasture to support at least one sheep.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-makes-an-island
Page 72, Position 2: Depending on the definition, the number of islands in the world is somewhere between 86,000 and 7 billion.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-makes-an-island
Page 72, Position 3: Palmerston Atoll in the South Pacific has a population of 60, all of whom speak with a Gloucestershire accent.
http://www.cookislands.org.uk/palmerston.html#.WiiNEkpl_IU
Page 72, Position 4: Pheasant Island is owned alternately by France and Spain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheasant_Island
Page 73, Position 1: Pheasants are more likely to be run over than any other birds.
Western Daily Press 4 Oct 17
Page 73, Position 2: Pheasants will stop attacking each other if given spectacles.
https://www.gwct.org.uk/research/species/birds/common-pheasant/effects-of-spectacles-on-pheasants/
Page 73, Position 3: Scottish football referees are sponsored by Specsavers.
https://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottish-fa/referees/referee-education/sqa-awards-login/
Page 73, Position 4: The first advert on Channel 5 was for Chanel No. 5.
https://faqs.channel5.com/hc/en-us/articles/202738071-What-was-the-first-advert-screened-on-Channel-5-
Page 74, Position 1: Perfume is as bad for your health as car exhaust.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/shampoo-as-bad-a-health-risk-as-car-fumes-hxzbqlbjf
Page 74, Position 2: A Californian company has developed a perfume to make cows smell like people, so mosquitoes bite them instead of us.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/human-scented-cow-cologne-your-next-insect-repellant-180951672/#vJmyiHklt2ww5Yew.99
Page 74, Position 3: Mosquitoes are responsible for half the deaths in human history.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/09/the-mosquito-
Page 74, Position 4: The quinine in tonic water is effective against malaria, as long as you drink 300 gin and tonics every day.
http://www.thetraveldoctor.com.au/resources/travelaz/
Page 75, Position 1: It’s harder to tell how drunk you are if surrounded by drunk people.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2016/09/15/despite-what-you-think-you-probably-dont-know-how-drunk-you-are/#.WejC9jLMzBJ
Page 75, Position 2: There are a dozen pubs in the UK that claim to be ‘Britain’s oldest pub’.
The Pub Pete Brown
Page 75, Position 3: ‘To be arrested by the white sergeant’ is 17th-century slang for a man being hauled out of a tavern by his wife.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZnrnCwAAQBAJ&
Page 75, Position 4: To stop postmen loitering in ale houses, they were given smart uniforms.
Page 76, Position 1: Posting a letter from London to Edinburgh in 1818 cost as much as the average daily wage.
https://www.economist.com/news/business/21740790-falling-letter-volumes-and-gig-economy-are-also-hurting-postman-amazon-not-only
Page 76, Position 2: Postage was originally paid by the person receiving the letter, not the sender.
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/pennypos.html
Page 76, Position 3: In 1909, two suffragettes posted themselves to 10 Downing Street to try to get an audience with the prime minister.
https://postalheritage.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/suffragette-human-letters/
Page 76, Position 4: The crowd that greeted Tony Blair when he first entered Downing Street had been bussed in.
https://www.ft.com/content/bcfe0106-edee-11e6-930f-061b01e23655
Page 77, Position 1: The winning tree in the annual competition of the British Christmas Tree Growers’ Association is displayed outside No. 10, and the runner-up goes inside.
https://www.hortweek.com/welsh-grower-wins-xmas-tree-downing-st-competition/ornamentals/article/1447791
Page 77, Position 2: Artificial Christmas trees are less environmentally friendly than real ones, unless you use them for more than 20 years.
https://www.zmescience.com/other/feature-post/real-vs-artificial-christmas-tree-science-says/
Page 77, Position 3: There is only one person in the UK called Mr Baubles.
https://www.bctga.co.uk/gallery/press-releases/87-three-kings-living-in-bedfordshire-christmassy-name.html
Page 77, Position 4: There are 16 people in England with the surname Grinch.
https://www.bctga.co.uk/gallery/press-releases/87-three-kings-living-in-bedfordshire-christmassy-name.html
Page 78, Position 1: The official names of Scotland’s salt-spreading trucks include Sir Andy Flurry , Ready Spready Go and Gritty Gritty Bang Bang.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/gritters-in-scotland-have-names-like-gritty-gritty-bang-bang-and-you-can-track-them-on-a-map-a3741576.html
Page 78, Position 2: Bin lorries in Taiwan play music to alert residents to bring out their rubbish.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/09/taiwan-garbage-trucks-music_n_1195020.html
Page 78, Position 3: 7% of the land in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, is covered in rubbish dumps.
http://oc-media.org/drowning-in-rubbish-bakus-waste-management-headache/
Page 78, Position 4: There are more than 180 tonnes of rubbish on the Moon.
https://technologynews.site/2018/01/31/although-we-do-not-live-on-the-moon-yet-we-left-over-180-tons-of-rubbish-on-it/
Page 79, Position 1: Every time there’s a full moon, Sri Lanka has a public holiday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Sri_Lanka#List_of_holidays
Page 79, Position 2: In China, public holidays last a week because it takes so long to travel across the country.
http://s.coop/chinabook
Page 79, Position 3: 23 March is a Bolivian public holiday called The Day of the Sea, on which the landlocked country mourns the loss of its coastline in 1893.
http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/04-10/bolivias-day-of-the-sea-bolivia.html
Page 79, Position 4: Aston Martin has developed a luxury submarine.
https://www.dezeen.com/2017/10/04/aston-martin-triton-project-neptune-luxury-submarine-monaco-yacht-show/
Page 80, Position 1: The Icelandic for ‘the cherryon top’ is rúsÃnan à pylsuendanum, ‘the raisin at the end of the sausage’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/64451/11-delightful-icelandic-words-and-phrases
Page 80, Position 2: Laddie Boy, President Warren Harding’s dog, not only went to state meetings, he had his own chair.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-white-houses-first-celebrity-dog-48373830/
Page 80, Position 3: A luxury hotel in Mexico provides each guest with a personalised sewing kit whose threads match the clothes they’re wearing.
https://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21591743-be-my-guest
Page 80, Position 4: The Bayeux Tapestry is not a tapestry.
http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk/bayeuxinfo.htm
Page 81, Position 1: According to the UK Department of Health, the potato is not a vegetable.
http://discovermagazine.com/2000/apr/breakfolk
Page 81, Position 2: Turkmenistan has a public holiday to celebrate melons.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3142311.stm
Page 81, Position 3: The watermelon is the state vegetable of Oklahoma.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/18/usa.matthewweaver
Page 81, Position 4: In the 19th century, the US Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes are vegetables.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/18/the-obscure-supreme-court-case-that-decided-tomatoes-are-vegetables/
Page 82, Position 1: The oldest known mashed potatoes were discovered in Utah and are 10,900 years old.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/prehistoric-mashed-potato-10900-years-utah-valley-scientists-escalante-a7820586.html
Page 82, Position 2: Climate change is causing ancient mummies to turn into black slime.
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-world-s-oldest-mummies-are-turning-into-black-slime-why
Page 82, Position 3: King Ferdinand I of Naples had his enemies killed, stuffed, mummified and mounted in their everyday clothes.
Page 82, Position 4: Clothes are eaten by only seven of the UK’s 2,500 species of moth.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44080884
Page 83, Position 1: There’s a caterpillar that eats coca leaves and vomits cocaine onto its predators.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ae38xj/the-moths-that-could-destroy-colombias-cocaine-trade
Page 83, Position 2: Nematocampa caterpillars hate being shouted at.
https://nerdist.com/this-shape-shifting-caterpillar-hates-being-yelled-at/
Page 83, Position 3: The ‘shouting bomb’, developed by the US in 1957, was designed to lecture the enemy for three minutes as it fell from the sky.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MeNttzvGPI0C&
Page 83, Position 4: During the Second World War, Foyle’s bookshop bomb-proofed itself by covering the roof with copies of Mein Kampf.
https://europeupclose.com/article/book-tour-of-london/
Page 84, Position 1: Vellichor is the strange wistfulness of a second-hand bookshop.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/internets-favorite-words/vellichor
Page 84, Position 2: Jólabókaflóð is Iceland’s official book-buying season, which runs from September to December.
https://jolabokaflod.org/about/founding-story/
Page 84, Position 3: Winners of the Diagram Prize for the ‘Oddest Book Title of the Year’ include Living with Crazy Buttocks and Cooking with Poo.
https://www.thebookseller.com/feature/diagram-prize-previous-winners
Page 84, Position 4: Barbara Cartland insisted on including the title of every one of her 723 novels in her Who’s Who entry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Cartland
Page 85, Position 1: The library at Balmoral is heated by a two-bar electric fire.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/04/queen-frugal-would-appall-henry-viii-historian-says/
Page 85, Position 2: Every year, 100 American fire fighters are arrested for arson.
https://listverse.com/2016/08/05/10-surprising-facts-about-firefighters/
Page 85, Position 3: Fire fighters used to shout ‘Hi yi, hi yi, hi yi’ as they ran to a fire.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rXnLDgAAQBAJ&
Page 85, Position 4: Fireman Sam’s full name is Samuel Peyton Jones.
http://firemansam.wikia.com/wiki/Fireman_Sam_(character)
Page 86, Position 1: Postman Pat’s full name is Patrick Clifton.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/cbeebiesgrownups/entries/a840cb6b-eae8-3de6-b432-622b9f026145
Page 86, Position 2: A petition to change the name of Bell End, in the West Midlands, was called ‘a bit silly’ by Stephen Young, 72, of Minge Lane, Worcester.
https://news.sky.com/story/bell-end-residents-launch-petition-to-change-rude-street-name-11193060
Page 86, Position 3: The designer of the Spitfire hated its name, saying, ‘It’s just the sort of bloody silly name they would choose.’
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KBMgCgAAQBAJ&
Page 86, Position 4: Dunkin’ Donuts is taking steps to drop the word ‘Donuts’ from its name.
https://qz.com/1047486/dunkin-donuts-dnkn-is-testing-out-a-competitive-new-brand-name-change/?mc_cid=13cb2eef76&
Page 87, Position 1: Tunnock’s teacakes aren’t allowed in RAF planes in case they explode.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/retired-raf-bomber-reveals-secret-2275633
Page 87, Position 2: Bumblebees’ penises explode when they ejaculate.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/31456502/valentines-day-the-animals-that-dont-do-romance
Page 87, Position 3: 1% of middle-aged honeybees work as undertakers.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/09/970910052734.htm
Page 87, Position 4: According to her last wishes, Elizabeth Taylor arrived late for her own funeral.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/8405620/Elizabeth-Taylor-arrives-late-for-her-own-funeral.html
Page 88, Position 1: Over 2 million people went to Victor Hugo’s funeral – twice the population of Paris at the time.
https://isreview.org/issue/89/enduring-relevance-victor-hugo
Page 88, Position 2: The population of Bangladesh is 114% the size of Russia’s, crammed into an area 115 times smaller.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=firefox-b&
Page 88, Position 3: In 1926, Poland gave the US a 150th birthday card signed by 20% of the population.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/07/03/americas-standing-may-be-tumbling-now-but-once-upon-a-time-poland-sent-the-u-s-a-birthday-card-with-5-million-signatures/?utm_term=.b3635da1059f
Page 88, Position 4: Inappropriate behaviour on the Queen’s Official Birthday caused a goat that had reached the rank of lance corporal in the British Army to be demoted.
http://www.debate.org/opinions/a-goat-reached-the-rank-of-lance-corporal-in-the-british-army-before-being-demoted-for-inappropriate-behavior-during-the-queens-official-birthday-do-we-assign-too-much-importance-to-animals
Page 89, Position 1: James Cook’s goat was the first known female to have circumnavigated the globe.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=F2wTAgAAQBAJ&
Page 89, Position 2: Goats produce more milk when listening to ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’.
https://nypost.com/2014/12/13/8-things-you-didnt-know-about-all-i-want-for-christmas-is-you/
Page 89, Position 3: The first Glastonbury tickets cost £1 and came with a free bottle of milk.
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/uknow/features/?id=36
Page 89, Position 4: The Vatican uses milk from the Pope’s cows to paint its buildings.
https://www.dairyherd.com/article/how-do-you-paint-vatican-milk-popes-cows
Page 90, Position 1: The Pope has eight titles, and not one of them is ‘the Pope’.
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/Pope-Titles--196518461.html?amp=y
Page 90, Position 2: Pope Formosus died and was buried in 896, but was dug up, tried and found guilty in 897.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/morbid-monday-cadaver-synod
Page 90, Position 3: Pope Francis has his own 68-page weekly magazine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/world/europe/a-new-magazine-for-fans-of-the-vaticans-biggest-star.html
Page 90, Position 4: The person who writes about legal marijuana for Forbes magazine is called Julie Weed.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-names/having-the-right-name-at-the-right-or-sometimes-wrong-time-idUKKCN1C425Q?feedType=nl&
Page 91, Position 1: Only two land animals survive entirely on seaweed: the North Ronaldsay sheep and the Galapagos marine iguana.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/seaweed-sheep-north-ronaldsay-orkney-festival?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 91, Position 2: Sea urchins wear dead hermit crabs as hats.
http://www.backtothesea.org/blog/guest-post-urchins-wearing-hats
Page 91, Position 3: Straw hats in the US were traditionally worn after 15 September; any earlier and they would be snatched off your head and stomped on.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/04/03/straw_hat_riot_remembering_one_of_the_weirdest_crime_sprees_in_american.html
Page 91, Position 4: The earliest re-enactments of the American Civil War took place during the American Civil War.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/civil-war-reenactments-were-thing-even-during-civil-war-180967405/
Page 92, Position 1: During the American Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant got so drunk that he vomited into his horse’s mane.
https://www.history.com/news/a-brief-history-of-presidential-drinking
Page 92, Position 2: In 1873, the Spanish city of Cartagena wrote to President Ulysses S. Grant to ask to join the US.
http://eldoblecero.blogspot.com/2013/09/cuando-cartagena-quiso-ser-de-estados.html
Page 92, Position 3: The world’s shortest international bridge connects Spain to Portugal and is 3.2 metres long.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-worlds-shortest-international-bridge?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 92, Position 4: To travel between the Portuguese towns of Funchal and Monte you can rent a toboggan.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/toboggan-monte-funchal
Page 93, Position 1: Superionic ice is both solid and liquid at the same time.
https://www.livescience.com/62373-superionic-ice-lab-created.html
Page 93, Position 2: The world’s hottest ice cream, which contains peppers 100 times hotter than a jalapeño, is called Devil’s Breath and is made in Glasgow.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/respiro-del-diavolo-ice-cream?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 93, Position 3: The Scottish mountain Bod an Deamhain, ‘penis of the demon’, is usually translated into English as The Devil’s Point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil%27s_Point
Page 93, Position 4: Titivillus was a demon blamed by medieval monks for spelling misatkes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titivillus
Page 94, Position 1: Male proboscis monkeys are more likely to attract a large harem if they have big noses.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/animals-monkeys-sex-noses-mating/
Page 94, Position 2: Your nose looks 30% bigger in a selfie than in a photo taken from five metres away.
https://www.livescience.com/61896-why-selfies-distort-your-face-math.html
Page 94, Position 3: Robotic noses smell more efficiently if filled with fake snot.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/07/11/robotic.nose/index.html
Page 94, Position 4: Saudi Arabia was the first country to grant citizenship to a robot.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/saudi-arabia-robot-sophia-citizenship-android-riyadh-citizen-passport-future-a8021601.html
Page 95, Position 1: Senior citizens in New Zealand can join ‘coffin clubs’, where they meet up once a week to make and decorate their own coffins.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/10/new-zealand-coffin-club-death-music-spd/
Page 95, Position 2: Homeless Victorians could pay fourpence to sleep in an unused coffin for the night.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_penny_coffin
Page 95, Position 3: The first meat pies were called ‘coffins’.
https://www.puckles.com.au/pages/a-history-of-meat-pies
Page 95, Position 4: Pie Town, New Mexico, got its name when a prospector who had failed to find gold sold dried-fruit pies to cowboys instead.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pie-town-new-mexico
Page 96, Position 1: Albuquerque, New Mexico, has a giant X-ray machine that melts diamonds and makes electricity that moves 20,000 times faster than a bolt of lightning.
http://newatlas.com/black-hole-theory-wrong/51123/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&
Page 96, Position 2: Lightning produces antimatter.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24630
Page 96, Position 3: The Earth’s largest habitat is the sky.
https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2017/10/copley-blue-planet.page
Page 96, Position 4: Baltimore has ‘an eye in the sky’ that continually photographs the city for the police.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/24/baltimore-police-aerial-surveillance-cameras
Page 97, Position 1: Some police stations in China use guard geese instead of guard dogs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10190456/China-deploys-elite-gaggle-of-geese-police.html
Page 97, Position 2: In 1st-century Denmark, rich people were buried with a chicken; the veryrich were buried with a goose.
https://www.thelocal.dk/20180406/nordic-iron-ages-biggest-status-symbol-was-a-goose-danish-research
Page 97, Position 3: Che Guevara was buried without his hands: they were sent to Argentina for fingerprinting.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/05/15/the-surprising-history-and-future-of-fingerprints/?utm_source=digg&
Page 97, Position 4: God and Jesus are the only characters in The Simpsons to have five fingers on each hand.
https://www.today.com/popculture/25-years-simpsons-25-things-you-never-knew-about-hit-1D80353418
Page 98, Position 1: 10 out of the 12 water companies in the UK still make use of divining rods.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-42070719
Page 98, Position 2: An underwater pipeline discovered by border officials in Kyrgyzstan in 2013 was used to smuggle alcohol into the country from Kazakhstan.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23723092
Page 98, Position 3: Kazakh engineers have invented reusable toilet paper.
https://frontnews.eu/news/en/14460/Kazakh-engineers-have-created-reusable-toilet-paper
Page 98, Position 4: British soldiers in the Second World War had a ration of three sheets of toilet paper a day. US soldiers were allowed 22.5 sheets a day.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ceXQCwAAQBAJ&
Page 99, Position 1: The penalty for taking an unofficial photo during the First World War was death by firing squad.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/masterman.htm
Page 99, Position 2: During the Second World War, Finnish frontline soldiers were provided with saunas.
http://inktank.fi/sweating-war-finnish-wwii-soldiers-sauna/
Page 99, Position 3: When Peter III of Russia caught a rat gnawing one of his toy soldiers, he had it court-martialled and hanged on a miniature gallows.
http://historythings.com/historys-nutcases-peter-iii-of-russia/
Page 99, Position 4: Piglets prefer new toys to ones they’ve already played with.
https://news.aces.illinois.edu/news/behavior-study-shows-piglets-prefer-new-toys
Page 100, Position 1: 4,000 children under the age of two are listed as owners of British companies.
https://qz.com/1250047/pavel-durovs-fake-telgeram-case-shows-its-terrifyingly-easy-to-create-fake-uk-companies/
Page 100, Position 2: The average child has the aerobic fitness of a triathlon athlete.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2018/04/24/children-fitness-endurance-athlete/#.WuOb51Mvyu4
Page 100, Position 3: Harrods used to sell pet leopards.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4833450.stm
Page 100, Position 4: The first pet cemetery opened in Paris in 1899, after the introduction of a law that banned throwing dead dogs into the Seine.
https://www.geriwalton.com/first-pet-cemetery-in-the-world/
Page 101, Position 1: The first St Bernard was called Barry .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_(dog)
Page 101, Position 2: Right-pawed dogs are more cheerful than left-pawed dogs.
https://scienmag.com/right-or-left-handedness-affects-sign-language-comprehension/
Page 101, Position 3: It’s easier to understand sign language if the signer is right-handed.
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2017/05/sign-language-comprehension.aspx
Page 101, Position 4: Scientists can tell whether early humans were left- or right-handed by looking at their fossilised teeth.
https://www.livescience.com/56613-oldest-evidence-right-handedness.html
Page 102, Position 1: Pangolins have no teeth; they grind food in their stomachs by swallowing small stones.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/11370277/Pangolins-why-this-cute-prehistoric-mammal-is-facing-extinction.html
Page 102, Position 2: The Makira people of the Solomon Islands use flying-fox teeth as currency .
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2017/10/16/flying-fox-currency/#.WjP7U1SFiqA
Page 102, Position 3: Piranhas continually replace a quarter of their teeth at a time.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1978.tb03306.x/abstract
Page 102, Position 4: Piranhas bark.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/111012-piranhas-bark-science-get-away/
Page 103, Position 1: There’s a train in Japan that barks like a dog to scare deer off the line.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-42714353
Page 103, Position 2: Quaking aspen trees produce their own sunscreen.
'The walker's guide to outdoor clues & signs' by Tristan Gooley (Sceptre 2015)
Page 103, Position 3: Pisonia trees lure birds to their death for no good reason.
https://curiosity.com/topics/the-pisonia-tree-lures-and-murders-birds-for-no-good-reason-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&
Page 103, Position 4: Trees have a veryslow pulse, expanding and contracting to pump water round their body.
https://curiosity.com/topics/trees-may-have-a-heartbeat-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&
Page 104, Position 1: Horses have five ‘hearts’: each hoof acts as an extra blood pump.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-interesting-facts-about-horses
Page 104, Position 2: People who walk slowly are more likely to die of heart disease.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/slow-walkers-heart-disease-more-likely-risk-study-a7921501.html
Page 104, Position 3: Babies born in October are more likely to live to 100 than those born in March.
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jar/2011/104616/
Page 104, Position 4: When a sperm meets an egg and conception takes place, zinc atoms are released and sparks literally fly .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/04/26/bright-flash-of-light-marks-incredible-moment-life-begins-when-s/
Page 105, Position 1: A study at the University of Illinois has concluded that sex doesn’t sell.
https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/522402
Page 105, Position 2: Ted Hughes was so attractive that one woman who met him had to rush straight to the bathroom to be physically sick.
https://harpers.org/archive/2016/01/same-mistakes/
Page 105, Position 3: John Wilkes Booth, the man who shot Abraham Lincoln, was dating five different women when he himself was shot.
http://allthatsinteresting.com/john-wilkes-booth-women
Page 105, Position 4: A sex pheromone found in male mouse urine is named darcin, after Mr Darcy .
https://www.livescience.com/10662-urine-pheromone-mice-named-jane-austen-character.html
Page 106, Position 1: Skúffuskáld is Icelandic for someone who puts their poems in a drawer rather than publishing them.
http://www.forwardartsfoundation.org/forward-arts-foundation-in-conversation-with-nancy-campbell/
Page 106, Position 2: Mbuki-mvuki is a Bantu word for ‘the irresistible urge to strip when dancing’.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170126-the-untranslatable-emotions-you-never-knew-you-had
Page 106, Position 3: Sisu is Finnish for ‘indomitable courage and persistence in the face of adversity’.
http://www.finlandia.edu/about/our-finnish-heritage/
Page 106, Position 4: Uitwaaien is Dutch for ‘to take a bracing walk in the wind’.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170126-the-untranslatable-emotions-you-never-knew-you-had
Page 107, Position 1: Ancient Greek athletes had their spleens removed to help them to run faster.
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5337376
Page 107, Position 2: The verb ‘run’ has 645 meanings in English.
https://www.npr.org/2011/05/30/136796448/has-run-run-amok-it-has-645-meanings-so-far
Page 107, Position 3: At the 1932 Olympics, the steeplechase lasted 8.5 laps instead of the usual 7.5 because officials lost track of how many times the runners had been round.
https://theolympians.co/2017/02/25/the-unseen-hurdle-in-the-steeplechase-at-the-1932-los-angeles-olympics-when-3000-meters-measured-about-3460/
Page 107, Position 4: In anonymous surveys, half of all athletes admit cheating.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/30/nearly-half-professional-athletes-surveyed-break-rules-enhance/
Page 108, Position 1: The findings of a 2015 study about procrastination were inconclusive because half the participants didn’t get around to finishing the survey.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221478291500024X?_rdoc=1&
Page 108, Position 2: The Procrastinators’ Club of America has earmarked 5 September as Be Late for Something Day.
https://nationaldaycalendar.com/days-2/national-be-late-for-something-day-september-5/
Page 108, Position 3: Neil Armstrong’s application to become an astronaut arrived at NASA a week after the deadline.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34170799
Page 108, Position 4: Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit had 21 layers and weighed 36 kg.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/neil-armstrongs-spacesuit-was-made-by-a-bra-manufacturer-3652414/
Page 109, Position 1: NASA is designing a clockwork rover for Venus: the planet is so hot it would melt the electronics in a normal one.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/a-clockwork-rover-for-venus/
Page 109, Position 2: Three NASA astronauts have appeared in Star Trek.
https://www.space.com/38340-star-trek-astronaut-cameos-history.html
Page 109, Position 3: The first series of Star Trek was made by Lucille Ball’s production company . She originally thought it was a show about celebrities on tour.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/lucille-ball-is-the-reason-we-have-star-trek-heres-what-happened-2016-7
Page 109, Position 4: David Bowie first appeared on television aged 17, as the founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men.
https://mashable.com/2016/03/17/david-bowie-long-hair/?europe=true
Page 110, Position 1: Men are half as likely as women to be naturally blond.
https://www.elle.com/uk/beauty/hair/a19837242/hair-colour-explained-genes-study/
Page 110, Position 2: Pogonotrophy is the cultivation of a beard.
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/239305?redirectedFrom=Pogonotrophy+#eid
Page 110, Position 3: The entire British supply of yak hair was used up making false beards for The Hobbit.
https://www.belgraviacentre.com/blog/yaks-beards-and-blockbusters-hair-and-the-hobbit/
Page 110, Position 4: Peter the Great introduced a beard tax for everyone except clergy and peasants.
zcxjmh https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dhm0cGdrTOIC&
Page 111, Position 1: In 1943, the US banned sliced bread.
http://time.com/3946461/sliced-bread-history/
Page 111, Position 2: 20% of sandwich varieties account for 80% of sales.
https://longreads.com/2017/11/30/the-sandwich-whisperer-of-victoria-street/
Page 111, Position 3: Prawn mayonnaise has been Marks & Spencer’s bestselling sandwich since 1981.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the-sandwich-consumed-britain
Page 111, Position 4: Mrs Beeton had a recipe for a toast sandwich.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the-sandwich-consumed-britain
Page 112, Position 1: Beetles have become 20% smaller over the last century.
https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/animals-ecology/beetles-shrunk-20-past-century-likely-due-climate-change/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 112, Position 2: The real-life policeman who inspired Sgt. Pepper didn’t like The Beatles.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/real-sgt-pepper-was-straitlaced-canadian-cop-no-fan-of-the-beatles-1.3439578
Page 112, Position 3: The police in Rome have an undercover squad that stops people jumping in fountains.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/world/europe/no-swimming-rome-braces-for-summer-of-tourists-at-its-fountains.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fjason-horowitz&
Page 112, Position 4: A waterside restaurant in Perth, Australia, hands out water pistols so that diners can repel the seagulls.
https://thetakeout.com/restaurant-arms-diners-with-squirt-guns-to-ward-off-god-1826227619
Page 113, Position 1: Australia is slightly wider than the Moon.
https://www.quora.com/Is-Australia-bigger-than-the-moon
Page 113, Position 2: Australia is an island 20 times the size of Japan, but with a shorter coastline.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/countries-with-longest-coastlines/
Page 113, Position 3: Galešnjak is a heart-shaped island in Croatia also known as ‘the Island of Love’.
https://www.frankaboutcroatia.com/galesnjak-lovers-island-croatia/
Page 113, Position 4: The average heart rate in San Francisco rose by four beats per minute the day Donald Trump was elected.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2167883-brexit-and-trump-votes-screwed-with-our-heart-rates-for-months/
Page 114, Position 1: Holding hands causes heart rates, breathing and brainwaves to synchronise.
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2017/06/21/lovers-touch-eases-pain-heartbeats-breathing-sync
Page 114, Position 2: Hand-dryers in public toilets blow faecal bacteria all round the room and spread it evenly over your hands.
https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/hand-dryers-hygienic-04321423/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 114, Position 3: 7% of Netflix users watch movies in public toilets.
https://qz.com/1128973/people-watch-netflix-at-work-and-in-public-bathrooms/?mc_cid=5d17bce889&
Page 114, Position 4: The pig toilet, once common in rural China, fed human waste straight to the pigs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_toilet
Page 115, Position 1: In Germany , you can be fined €2,500 for calling someone an ‘old pig’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=C7REDgAAQBAJ&
Page 115, Position 2: During the First World War, truces would occasionally be called in the trenches so both sides could yell insults at each other.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223549/WWI-soldiers-diary-reveals-trench-truce-day-calling-mans-land.html
Page 115, Position 3: During the Christmas truce of 1914, one English soldier got a haircut from a German who used to be his barber in Holborn.
http://noglory.org/index.php/articles/182-how-true-is-the-1914-christmas-truce-when-enemies-played-football-instead-of-killing-each-other
Page 115, Position 4: In 1865, the Duke of Buckingham was blown from Holborn to Euston through a pneumatic tube intended for parcels.
https://www.newstatesman.com/future-proof/2013/12/londons-victorian-hyperloop-forgotten-pneumatic-railway-beneath-capitals-street
Page 116, Position 1: Roman maps gave exact distances between towns and rated the roadside inns and the road quality .
https://books.google.ru/books?hl=ru&
Page 116, Position 2: In Iceland, drawing a map on an envelope works just as well as writing the address.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/85583/iceland-drawing-map-your-mail-works-just-well-address
Page 116, Position 3: Until 2011, buildings in South Korea were numbered according to when they were built.
https://globalz.com/2016/01/15/south-koreas-new-addressing-system/
Page 116, Position 4: When the River Han in Korea was crossed by tightrope walkers, the Washington Post reported: ‘Skywalkers in Korea Cross Han Solo’.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050300374.html
Page 117, Position 1: The Yellow River in China has lost 30% of its fish species, and 66% of its water is undrinkable.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jan/18/china.pollution
Page 117, Position 2: Only 36% of Americans can locate North Korea on a map.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/09/nearly-two-thirds-of-americans-cant-find-north-korea-on-a-map-can-you/
Page 117, Position 3: There are Google Maps for the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Pluto, four of Jupiter’s moons and seven of Saturn’s.
https://www.blog.google/products/maps/space-out-planets-google-maps/
Page 117, Position 4: One of the moons of Uranus is called Margaret.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_(moon)
Page 118, Position 1: Uranus is the coldest planet in the Solar System, even though it’s nearer to the Sun than Neptune.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-makes-uranus-the-coldest-planet-in-the-solar-system.html
Page 118, Position 2: 99% of the time, the temperature on Mars is below zero.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/weather-report-mars
Page 118, Position 3: Mars has distanced itself from the deep-fried Mars bar because it goes against the company’s ‘commitment to promoting healthy, active lifestyles’.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-19487149
Page 118, Position 4: There is a pig farm in Japan where the pigs only drink green tea.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/05/11/national/shizuoka-farm-plies-pigs-green-tea-instead-water/#.W2lOUDLMzBI
Page 119, Position 1: Over half the farmworkers in the US work in Texas.
http://digg.com/2018/iconics-jobs-state-map
Page 119, Position 2: The most common job in America today is shop assistant.
https://www.ranker.com/list/most-common-jobs-in-america/american-jobs
Page 119, Position 3: Shops in Romania may offer chewing gum instead of small change.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17078958
Page 119, Position 4: Kraft Foods in China tried replacing the filling in Oreo biscuits with chewing gum, but it didn’t catch on.
https://qz.com/1265179/krafts-jif-jaff-is-an-oreo-lookalike-tailor-made-for-chinese-consumers/
Page 120, Position 1: In 2005, a red panda called Babu escaped from a nature reserve in Birmingham and was voted ‘Brummie of the Year’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-23533303
Page 120, Position 2: When a new motorway bisected the HP Sauce factory in Birmingham, a pipeline was installed that carried vinegar from one side of the road to the sauce-mixing department on the other.
Morning Star
Page 120, Position 3: Noisy miners are small birds of the honeyeater family.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/australian-magpie-calls-8252723/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 120, Position 4: Vulture bees make honey from rotten meat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulture_bee
Page 121, Position 1: If butterflies eat road salt, the males become more muscular and the females get bigger eyes and brains.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25704-butterflies-near-salted-roads-grow-larger-eyes-and-muscles/
Page 121, Position 2: Passion-fruit vines deter butterflies from laying eggs on their leaves by growing mock butterfly eggs.
https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/plants-that-act-like-people/
Page 121, Position 3: Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, is home to a tiny frog called a pinkletink.
https://patch.com/massachusetts/marthasvineyard/what-is-a-pinkletink
Page 121, Position 4: Tiny moons in Saturn’s rings named after kittens include Fluffy , Garfield, Socks, Whiskers, Butterball and Mittens.
https://www.iflscience.com/space/bits-of-saturns-rings-are-being-named-after-kittens/
Page 122, Position 1: Journalist Christopher Morley called his two cats Shall and Will, because ‘nobody can tell them apart’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GTz2TuBMnNAC&
Page 122, Position 2: Lyndon B. Johnson had two beagles called Him and Her.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_pets
Page 122, Position 3: When Gavin Williamson was Conservative chief whip, he kept a tarantula called Cronus on his desk.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/gavin-williamson-michael-fallon-chief-whip-defence-secretary-pet-tarantula-cronus-a8033366.html
Page 122, Position 4: Spiders have hydraulic legs.
https://asknature.org/strategy/legs-use-hydraulics/
Page 123, Position 1: The first hydraulic lift was used to carry sheep onto a roof.
https://leedsnorthern.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/the-dark-side-of-temple-works-holbecks-urban-gem/
Page 123, Position 2: If you lift a kangaroo’s tail off the ground, it can’t hop.
https://www.express.co.uk/pictures/pics/6180/Amazing-facts-you-didn-t-know-about-animals-in-pictures
Page 123, Position 3: Almost 10% of a cat’s bones are in its tail.
https://www.catster.com/lifestyle/cat-tail-5-cool-facts
Page 123, Position 4: Luna moths avoid being eaten by bats by using their tails as sonar deflectors.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150218191559.htm
Page 124, Position 1: The odds of being bitten by a shark, bear or snake in any three-year period is 893 quadrillion to one.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/odds-of-man-bit-shark-bear-snake-dylan-mcwilliams-animals-spd/
Page 124, Position 2: Lima bean plants attacked by spider mites release a burst of chemicals that attract insects which then eat the spider mites.
https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/plants-that-act-like-people/
Page 124, Position 3: The tea mite, Tuckerella japonica, has been lurking in cups of tea for 3,000 years.
http://smithsonianscience.org/2014/05/primitive-bizarre-beautiful-mites-are-a-lost-world-awaiting-discovery/
Page 124, Position 4: There’s only one species of tea plant.
Miracle Brew Pete Brown
Page 125, Position 1: Tea leaves uncurl when hot water is poured on them, in a process known as the ‘agony of the leaves’.
http://www.theteahousetimes.com/members/theteahousetimes/blog/VIEW/00000004/00000700/Ahhhthe-Agony-of-the-Tea-Leaves.html
Page 125, Position 2: The world’s largest amphibian makes a sound like a crying baby.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/how-a-pyramid-scheme-doomed-the-worlds-largest-amphibians/560786/
Page 125, Position 3: The call of the male túngara frog of Central America sounds like a Star Trek phaser.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/science/animals-count-numbers.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180206&
Page 125, Position 4: Parrots use Alexa to order items from Amazon.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4902954/Amazon-order-parrot-uses-Alexa.html
Page 126, Position 1: When ducks sleep in a row, the ones at either end sleep with their outside eye open, looking for predators.
https://neuwritesd.org/2017/04/27/half-asleep/
Page 126, Position 2: Fish swim faster in city rivers than in country rivers.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2170007-in-big-cities-even-the-fish-are-always-rushing-around-the-place/?utm_campaign=RSS|NSNS
Page 126, Position 3: The first English reference to fish-and-chip shops called them ‘a considerable source of nuisance’.
OED
Page 126, Position 4: Shops sell more clothes if their mannequins have a head.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S014829631500209X
Page 127, Position 1: Shrews’ heads are 20% bigger in the summer than in winter.
https://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/scientists-shed-light-on-amazing-shrinking-shrew-skull.htm#mkcpgn=rssnws1
Page 127, Position 2: The pen-tailed tree shrew’s entire diet is fermented nectar containing up to 3.8% alcohol.
http://www.livescience.com/7540-tree-shrew-sober-drinking-day.html
Page 127, Position 3: Alcohol helps you speak foreign languages better.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/alcohol-helps-pronunciation-foreign-language/
Page 127, Position 4: The International Bartenders Association recognises only 77 cocktails.
http://iba-world.com/contemporary-classics/
Page 128, Position 1: One of the pilgrims on the Mayflower sailed with 139 pairs of shoes.
http://www.dummies.com/education/history/american-history/the-mayflower-compact-a-dutch-pilgrimage/
Page 128, Position 2: First names of pilgrims on the Mayflower included Remember, Resolve, Humility , Truelove and Wrestling.
https://www.geni.com/projects/The-First-American-Thanksgiving/30215
Page 128, Position 3: When the royal family changed its name in 1917 because it was too German, new names considered included Guelph, Wipper, Wettin, Tudor-Stuart and England.
http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/wettin-windsor-changing-royal-name/
Page 128, Position 4: The royal family is named after Windsor Castle.
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/752571/royal-family-tree-last-name
Page 129, Position 1: A man in Rio has lived in a sandcastle since 1996.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5388445/man-lives-brazil-beach-rio-de-janerio-sandcastle-22-years/
Page 129, Position 2: Saturn’s moon Titan has electrostatic sand that would be perfect for sandcastles.
http://www.news.gatech.edu/2017/03/27/electric-sands-titan
Page 129, Position 3: The world’s largest sandcastle was built in Germany , 180 km from the coast.
https://www.nola.com/travel/index.ssf/2017/09/worlds_tallest_sandcastle_buil.html
Page 129, Position 4: You can be fined €1,000 for taking sand from Sardinia.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/4312711/holidaymakers-are-being-fined-thousands-of-pounds-for-taking-souvenirs-of-sand-from-sardinias-beaches/
Page 130, Position 1: In 2018, after a nine-year legal battle, an unemployed man in southern Italy was acquitted of stealing an aubergine.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/27/italian-man-cleared-of-aubergine-theft-after-nine-year-legal-battle?CMP=twt_gu
Page 130, Position 2: The Lamborghini Countach gets its name from the Piedmontese slang for ‘Holy shit!’
https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-chasing-perfection-ferruccio-lamborghini-took-the-fast-lane-1527771601
Page 130, Position 3: There has been only one posthumous Formula 1 champion.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/mar/03/formula-one-motor-sport-jochen-rindt-scott-hunt
Page 130, Position 4: Mexico City’s Day of the Dead parade didn’t exist until it appeared in the James Bond film Spectre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead
Page 131, Position 1: The phrase ‘vital statistics’ originally referred to births, marriages and deaths.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/vital%20statistics
Page 131, Position 2: George Washington is the highest-ranking general in the US, even though he’s been dead for over 200 years.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/65227/george-washington-historys-only-six-star-general-sort
Page 131, Position 3: George Washington called a ceasefire during the American Revolutionary War to return a British general’s terrier that had wandered onto the battlefield.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/200901/george-washington-president-general-and-dog-breeder?a
Page 131, Position 4: King Henry III of France liked to tie a ribbon round his neck, from which he hung a basket of small dogs.
https://www.heritage-history.com/index.php?c=read&
Page 132, Position 1: Dogs like reggae.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-38757761
Page 132, Position 2: Animals and humans prefer music that is close to their own vocal range.
https://www.livescience.com/33780-animal-music-pets.html
Page 132, Position 3: A mathematical study of 50 years of hit singles concluded that The Beatles had no influence at all on the history of pop music.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4260212/Top-scientist-insists-Beatles-no-influence-pop.html
Page 132, Position 4: Ozzy Osbourne’s 1992 tour was called ‘No More Tours’. His 2018 tour was called ‘No More Tours 2’.
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/ozzy-osbourne-no-more-tours-2/
Page 133, Position 1: The Tour de France hasn’t been won by a French cyclist since 1985.
https://qz.com/1036562/tour-de-france-why-has-it-been-32-years-since-a-french-cyclist-won/?utm_source=digg&
Page 133, Position 2: Chinese tourists can pay $50,000 to shoot a polar bear in Canada.
http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1002071/the-gun-loving-chinese-tourists-hunting-for-new-thrills
Page 133, Position 3: A Chinese robot named Xiaoyi (‘Little Doctor’) has passed the written stage of the national medical licensing exam.
https://futurism.com/first-time-robot-passed-medical-licensing-exam/
Page 133, Position 4: Ford has a robot called Robutt that simulates a large man sitting on its car seats.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/30/16569496/robotic-butt-ford-testing-robutt
Page 134, Position 1: Speeding offences increase significantly the weekend after the release of a Fast and the Furious film.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/06/fast-furious-causing-surge-speeding/
Page 134, Position 2: The video game Grand Theft Auto V has made more money than any film in history.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/news/grand-theft-auto-v-has-made-money-film-history/
Page 134, Position 3: Psycho was the first major American film to feature a flushing toilet.
http://www.filmsite.org/1960-filmhistory.html
Page 134, Position 4: The boy who played Piggyin Lord of the Flies was bullied by the other boys.
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/56-peter-brook-on-the-making-of-lord-of-the-flies
Page 135, Position 1: The first eight popes were all murdered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popes_who_died_violently
Page 135, Position 2: There is a secret passageway at the back of the Vatican in case the Pope needs to escape.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2015/02/03/passetto_di_borgo_the_pope_s_secret_vatican_city_passage.html
Page 135, Position 3: Pope Urban VIII issued a decree that all pasta shops must be at least 25 yards apart.
https://www.tastemade.com/articles/7-more-things-you-didnt-know-about-pasta
Page 135, Position 4: Italian pasta-makers used to knead dough with their bare feet.
https://www.zingermans.com/article.aspx?articleid=article48
Page 136, Position 1: The word ‘shampoo’ comes from a Hindi word meaning ‘to knead’.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/shampoo
Page 136, Position 2: The Indian peafowl is the national bird of India. The Great Indian Bustard nearly made it, but there were concerns it might be misspelled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Indian_bustard#In_culture
Page 136, Position 3: Melville Dewey, creator of the Dewey Decimal System, was such a fan of spelling reform that he spelled his first name ‘Melvil’.
https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2014/03/24/melvil-dewey-compulsive-innovator/
Page 136, Position 4: Hotmail is so named because it contains the letters HTML: it was originally HoTMaiL.
https://highnames.com/hotmail-webmail-name-origin/
Page 137, Position 1: When Bill Clinton was president, he sent only two emails.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/17/bill-clinton-emails_n_824563.html
Page 137, Position 2: The man who invented email later became an importer of sheep semen.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/article/20100819/NEWS/308199246
Page 137, Position 3: Human semen contains fructose.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10408311
Page 137, Position 4: Scientists have devised a method of finding the best sperm for IVF by making them complete a tiny obstacle course.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/sperm-obstacle-course-ivf-created-healthy-selection-us-scientists-test-fertility-treatment-a8141696.html
Page 138, Position 1: In the first egg-and-spoon race, in 1894, competitors had to punt with their spare hand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg-and-spoon_race
Page 138, Position 2: In 2018, a charity snail race was cancelled after cold weather caused all the competitors to go into hibernation.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/23/snail-racing-competition-postponed-snails-sluggish-take-part/
Page 138, Position 3: Sea slugs prefer to eat an animal that has just eaten another animal, so they get two meals in one.
https://api.atlasobscura.com/articles/sea-slugs-pirate-steal-food-nudibranch
Page 138, Position 4: The UK’s food supply chain means we are only ever nine meals away from empty supermarket shelves.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/01/farmers-brexit-wolf-sheep-voted-leave-eu-subsidy-tory-enemies?utm_source=esp&
Page 139, Position 1: Some bacteria are not only resistant to antibiotics, they enjoy eating them.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2167660-how-some-resistant-bacteria-can-even-eat-antibiotics-as-food/
Page 139, Position 2: The Korowai people of New Guinea put grubs in their ears to eat their earwax.
https://boingboing.net/2018/05/01/bbc-journalist-has-earwax-clea.html
Page 139, Position 3: Dinosaurs suffered from dandruff.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/25/oldest-known-case-of-dandruff-found-in-125-million-year-old-dinosaur
Page 139, Position 4: People suffering from plague may not enter a library in the UK.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/22/contents
Page 140, Position 1: The Queen is a fee-paying member of the Jigsaw Puzzle Library.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/games/10027958/Theres-nothing-puzzling-about-our-love-of-jigsaws.html
Page 140, Position 2: The Queen owns a treadmill that 18 horses can use at the same time.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3805985/All-Queen-s-horses-giant-equine-treadmill-ll-saddled-130-000-bill.html
Page 140, Position 3: Scientists have made a hat for horses with built-in earphones so they can listen to music.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4282298/Hi-tech-headphones-let-horses-listen-music-trot.html
Page 140, Position 4: Using a musical instrument to annoy someone is illegal in Singapore.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/things-that-are-illegal-in-singapore-2015-7
Page 141, Position 1: Pangolin-and-caterpillar soup is illegal in China.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/14/pangolin-princess-detained-china-posting-images-online-cooked/
Page 141, Position 2: Carp soup is a popular Christmas dish in Poland. It’s good luck to keep the scales in your wallet till the next Christmas.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/good-luck-charms-different-countries-2017-3?
Page 141, Position 3: The Christmas Tree Grower Council of Europe holds its Christmas party in June.
https://www.bctga.co.uk/
Page 141, Position 4: The first person to use the phrase ‘MerryChristmas’ was also the first to use the word ‘Prosecco’.
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2015/03/8-things-you-should-know-about-prosecco/5/
Page 142, Position 1: In the last 300 years, the average size of a wine glass has increased almost sevenfold.
https://www.livescience.com/61193-glass-shattering-how-wineglass-size-has-changed-since-1700.html
Page 142, Position 2: Jeff Goldblum puts orange juice on his cereal.
https://longreads.com/2017/11/03/jeff-goldblum-prefers-pouring-orange-juice-in-his-cereal/
Page 142, Position 3: The Pope drives a blue Ford Focus.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/pope-francis-lamborghini-charity-donation-signs-blesses-custom-car-a8057551.html
Page 142, Position 4: ÃsbÃltúr is Icelandic for going for a drive and ending up with an ice cream.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/where-to-isbiltur-ice-cream-road-trip-iceland-180967999/
Page 143, Position 1: Eating ice cream for breakfast can increase mental alertness.
https://curiousmindmagazine.com/eating-ice-cream-for-breakfast/
Page 143, Position 2: 1 in 5 Britons cannot name a single author of literature.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/01/one-five-cannot-name-single-author-literature-survey-shows/
Page 143, Position 3: The first, second and third most common sentences in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels are ‘I sighed’, ‘He sighed’ and ‘I shrugged.’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/10468854/The-Hunger-Games-Harry-Potter-and-Twilight-most-popular-sentences-are-revealed.html
Page 143, Position 4: George Orwell ran the village shop in Wallington, Hertfordshire.
http://www.hertfordshirelife.co.uk/people/in-orwell-s-footsteps-in-letchworth-and-wallington-1-1646802
Page 144, Position 1: Agatha Christie worked as a hospital pharmacy assistant during the First World War.
http://www.pharmacytimes.com/careers-news/5-pharmacist-facts-about-agatha-christie
Page 144, Position 2: The first real murder on the Orient Express took place the year after Agatha Christie’s novel came out.
http://www.agathachristie.com/film-and-tv/murder-on-the-orient-express/facts-about-murder-on-the-orient-express
Page 144, Position 3: King Ferdinand of Bulgaria was so scared of being murdered on the Orient Express that he locked himself in the toilet.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-history-of-the-orient-express-149702768/
Page 144, Position 4: The surrender of Germany after the First World War and the surrender of France in the Second World War were signed in the same carriage of the Orient Express.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-history-of-the-orient-express-149702768/
Page 145, Position 1: Theodore Roosevelt coined the expression ‘lunatic fringe’.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 145, Position 2: When Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, got its first pub in 2000, locals described it as the worst thing to hit the town since the Luftwaffe.
https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0 3604 368560 00.html
Page 145, Position 3: The oldest known writing on Earth contains a swastika.
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/archaeologists-have-found-7000-year-old-example-one-worlds-earliest-writing-systems-1661958
Page 145, Position 4: In ancient Greek, one line of text would be written left to right, and the next right to left.
https://www.britannica.com/art/boustrophedon
Page 146, Position 1: There used to be six more letters in the English alphabet: ‘eth’, ‘thorn’, ‘wynn’, ‘yogh’, ‘ash’ and ‘ethel’.
https://www.rd.com/culture/there-were-six-more-letters-in-our-alphabet/
Page 146, Position 2: Denmark hated the letter ‘Q’ so much they abolished it in 1872.
http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/word-lists/more-about-words-that-end-in-q.html
Page 146, Position 3: The letters ‘K’, ‘W’ and ‘Y’ were officially added to the Portuguese alphabet in 2009.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/portuguese/guide/alphabet.shtml
Page 146, Position 4: Seychelles is the only member of the UN whose name has no letters in common with ‘Britain’.
https://africa-facts.org/34-facts-about-seychelles/
Page 147, Position 1: Britain and Portugal have been allies since 1373.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Portuguese_Alliance
Page 147, Position 2: A Portuguese way of telling someone to leave you alone is: ‘Go away and comb monkeys.’
https://matadornetwork.com/notebook/20-funniest-portuguese-expressions-use/
Page 147, Position 3: ‘To feed the donkey sponge cake’ is a Polish expression meaning ‘to treat someone better than they deserve’.
https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/02/portuguese-idioms/
Page 147, Position 4: ‘Don’t come the raw prawn with me’ is Australian slang for ‘You must be joking.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27805070
Page 148, Position 1: Prawn crackers in Italian are nuvole di drago, ‘dragon clouds’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prawn_cracker
Page 148, Position 2: Some buildings in Hong Kong have large holes designed into them for dragons to fly through.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/heres-why-hong-kong-skyscrapers-have-holes-feng-shui-2017-3
Page 148, Position 3: The world’s largest building in the shape of a bottle is the Strong Drinks Museum in Moldova.
http://winetours.md/eng/blog/12-amazing-facts-you-probably-didn-t-know-about-wine-of-moldova
Page 148, Position 4: A hecatompedon is a building measuring exactly 100 ft by 100 ft.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 149, Position 1: The lost property office at Dublin airport has an unclaimed tombstone with the words: ‘You will always be remembered, never forgotten.’
https://www.upi.com/You-will-always-be-remembered-headstone-left-at-Ireland-airport/8191503425281/
Page 149, Position 2: The Chinese government has announced a crackdown on strippers at funerals.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-funeral-strippers-crack-down-rural-attract-mourners-death-a8220866.html
Page 149, Position 3: The classic ghost costume dates from the time when bodies of the poor were wrapped in a sheet.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/507440/assault-robbery-and-murder-dark-history-bedsheet-ghosts
Page 149, Position 4: Highwayman Thomas Wilmot used to disguise himself as a ghost, scare gamblers from the tables, then take the money they’d left behind.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/507440/assault-robbery-and-murder-dark-history-bedsheet-ghosts
Page 150, Position 1: Gambling was illegal in public libraries from 1898 to 2005.
https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/08/odd-laws-of-the-united-kingdom/
Page 150, Position 2: In 2014, Oakland, California, discovered that pinball had been illegal there for 80 years and immediately legalised it.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2015/05/29/pinball_was_banned_in_new_york_until_a_single_miraculous_shot_convinced.html
Page 150, Position 3: In 2017, Oregon banned poker and also a game called Big Injun, despite the fact that it hadn’t been played since the 1950s.
http://www.wweek.com/news/2017/05/10/an-oregon-anti-poker-room-bill-also-bans-chinese-chuck-a-luck-and-something-called-big-injun-what-are-these-games/
Page 150, Position 4: The best poker face is a smile.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908123/
Page 151, Position 1: Blind people smile, even though they have never seen anyone else doing so.
https://www.science20.com/news_releases/blind_people_use_same_emotional_expressions_because_they_are_innate_not_learned_study
Page 151, Position 2: When Wal-Mart opened in Germany , it scrapped its policy of employees smiling at customers because the Germans found it too weird.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908123/
Page 151, Position 3: In Germany , until 1888 you had to have a licence to take a child out in a pram.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7_o8DAAAQBAJ&
Page 151, Position 4: The German for ‘contraceptive pill’ is Antibabypille.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/german-english/antibabypille
Page 152, Position 1: STEVE is an acronym for the path sperm take through the male reproductive system: Seminiferous Tubules, Epididymis, Vas deferens, Ejaculatory duct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medical_mnemonics
Page 152, Position 2: ‘Popeye biceps’ and ‘Popeye butt’ are medical terms for muscle injuries.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2011/03/15/success-doctors-solve-first-known-case-of-popeye-butt/#.WejBjDLMzBJ
Page 152, Position 3: Blood pressure readings are 50% more accurate when taken at home.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/18/white-coat-syndrome-real-blood-pressure-readings-home-50-per/
Page 152, Position 4: When a white coat is worn and people are told it belongs to a doctor, they become more attentive. It doesn’t work if they are told it belongs to a painter.
https://psmag.com/economics/the-brain-focusing-power-of-the-lab-coat-40108
Page 153, Position 1: Hay fever didn’t exist until the 1800s.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28038630
Page 153, Position 2: There is a conspiracy theory that Finland doesn’t exist and was made up by Japan and the USSR.
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/finland/articles/does-finland-exist-many-dont-think-so/
Page 153, Position 3: The existence of Antarctica was completely unknown until 1820.
https://www.livescience.com/43881-amazing-antarctica-facts.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&
Page 153, Position 4: Queen Victoria didn’t know that pandas existed.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/animal-magic/2014/jan/06/the-first-giant-panda-and-how-it-ended-up-in-paris
Page 154, Position 1: It costs five times more to keep a panda than an elephant.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/us/eats-shoots-leaves-and-much-of-zoos-budgets.html
Page 154, Position 2: Humans and bees are the only species elephants fear.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/3309619/Elephants-are-scared-of-bees-scientists-say.html
Page 154, Position 3: Pliny the Elder noted that the stare of a menstruating woman could kill bees.
http://listverse.com/2017/12/14/10-strange-things-people-used-to-believe-about-animals/
Page 154, Position 4: Spot removal for Pliny the Elder involved rubbing the affected part with a paste made from the ashes of a roast dolphin.
http://folklorethursday.com/myths/dolphin-lore-of-the-ancient-world/#sthash.Xq7W7LD9.DiiqE3OC.dpbs
Page 155, Position 1: Black leopards have spots, but you can only see them in infrared light.
http://study.com/academy/lesson/black-panther-facts-lesson-for-kids.html
Page 155, Position 2: Puma and Adidas were founded by two brothers who fell out and went into competition against one another.
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0 28804 2089859_2089888_2089889 00.html
Page 155, Position 3: After 11 months on the International Space Station, astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth 13 milliseconds younger than his twin brother.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/29/scott-kelly-astronaut-interview-space-younger-twin-endurance?CMP=fb_gu
Page 155, Position 4: Ewan McGregor’s brother used to be a Tornado pilot who flew with the call sign ‘Obi-Two’.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/471605/ewan-mcgregor-forced-brother-to-splash-the-cash-on-his-own-vhs-copy-of-trainspotting/
Page 156, Position 1: The Porgs in Star Wars were devised to cover up the vast numbers of puffins that kept walking into shot.
http://www.starwars.com/news/designing-star-wars-the-last-jedi-part-1-how-porgs-were-hatched
Page 156, Position 2: There are eight places on Earth called Puffin Island.
https://www.worldwildlife.org/blogs/good-nature-travel/posts/ten-high-flying-facts-about-puffins
Page 156, Position 3: The Alutiiq people of Alaska made rattles from puffin’s beaks.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jul/27/wings-desire-mark-cocker-birds?CMP=twt_gu
Page 156, Position 4: Alaska has 1,000 earthquakes a month.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/earthquake-tsunami-warning-gulf-of-alaska-spd/
Page 157, Position 1: At Seattle’s 1909 Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition, one of the raffle prizes was a month-old orphan named Ernest.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/memorable-time-when-seattle-was-world-of-wonder-in-1909/
Page 157, Position 2: The 2017 Ig Nobel Prize for Cognition was awarded to scientists who proved that identical twins often can’t tell which of them is which.
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/09/liquid-cats-vagina-speakers-and-more-from-the-ig-nobel-prizes-of-2017/
Page 157, Position 3: In 2007, the Ivory Coast government gave away a house to an employee as a prize for turning up on time.
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/09/liquid-cats-vagina-speakers-and-more-from-the-ig-nobel-prizes-of-2017/
Page 157, Position 4: More than 50% of the ivory imported into China comes from woolly mammoths.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-39583877?ocid=socialflow_twitter
Page 158, Position 1: 10 million mammoths are still trapped in the Arctic permafrost.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-39583877?ocid=socialflow_twitter
Page 158, Position 2: Frostproof, Florida, was so named to persuade farmers it wouldn’t get a frost. Two years later, frost killed almost its whole citrus crop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostproof _Florida#History
Page 158, Position 3: Whynot, North Carolina, was named after a long debate concluded with someone saying: ‘Why not just name it Why Not and let’s go home?’
https://www.southernliving.com/culture/how-whynot-north-carolina-was-named
Page 158, Position 4: Johnny Cash’s real name is J. R. Cash: his parents couldn’t agree on his names, only the initials.
https://www.last.fm/music/Johnny+Cash/+wiki
Page 159, Position 1: Johnny Cash named his daughter Roseanne after Rose and Anne, his nicknames for her mother’s breasts.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-johnny-cash-20131031
Page 159, Position 2: UK street names include Fanny Hands Lane, Willey Lane and Uranus Road.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/695574/top-40-rude-street-name-uk-hilarious-road-signs
Page 159, Position 3: Houses on streets with rude names are cheaper.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/odd/rude-street-names-lead-to-cut-in-house-prices-1-3317869
Page 159, Position 4: You can say ‘f*ck’ at any time on Canadian radio, provided it’s a French-language station.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/09/canada-declares-f-word-not-rude-radio/
Page 160, Position 1: NASA has its own radio station called Third Rock Radio.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/third-rock-radio
Page 160, Position 2: In 1972, Peru banned Santa Claus from appearing on radio and TV .
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=E4CML6akeYMC&
Page 160, Position 3: Santa’s helpers in Iceland include the Spoon Licker, the Door Sniffer and the Sausage Swiper.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/meet-the-thirteen-yule-lads-icelands-own-mischievous-santa-clauses-180948162/
Page 160, Position 4: Good Icelandic children get presents at Christmas, naughty ones get rotten potatoes.
https://www.iceland.is/the-big-picture/news/celebrating-christmas-with-13-trolls/7916/
Page 161, Position 1: Frederick William of Prussia decreed that anyone refusing to plant potatoes would have their noses and ears cut off.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5LwdEs9OkccC&
Page 161, Position 2: Police in Vanuatu are encouraging people to grow potatoes instead of pot.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40665520
Page 161, Position 3: It is illegal in England to import Polish potatoes, or potatoes suspected of being Polish.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36389585
Page 161, Position 4: When foreign films are dubbed into Polish, all the parts, even those of women and children, are read by one male actor.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB119215016517556740
Page 162, Position 1: During a speech in Warsaw, Jimmy Carter mistakenly announced he wanted to have sex with the Polish people.
https://www.chido-fajny.com/2017/10/polish-lektor-one-weirdest-things-poland.html
Page 162, Position 2: Richard Nixon’s chair in the Cabinet Room was 2.5 inches higher than everyone else’s.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/donald-trump-has-spent-more-133000-taxpayers-money-furniture-four-months-1627462
Page 162, Position 3: Teddy Roosevelt had a pet badger called Josiah.
http://www.kansas.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-story-of-kansas/article1098732.html
Page 162, Position 4: In 2017, a Tyneside woman found a cyst in the ear of her beagle that bore an uncanny resemblance to Donald Trump.
http://rare.us/rare-animals/a-cyst-found-inside-a-dogs-ear-bears-an-uncanny-resemblance-to-donald-trump/
Page 163, Position 1: Trumpadóir is Irish for ‘loudmouth’.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/the-irish-words-for-selfie-brexit-and-spam-1.3160155
Page 163, Position 2: People with autotopagnosia literally cannot tell their arse from their elbow.
The Darker the Night the Brighter the Stars: A Neuropsychologist's Odyssey by Paul Broks (Allen Lane 2018) p32
Page 163, Position 3: A macroverbumsciolist is someone who pretends to know a word, but then secretly looks it up.
https://atkinsbookshelf.blog/2012/10/15/theres-a-word-for-that-macroverbumsciolist/
Page 163, Position 4: A wonty-tump is Herefordshire dialect for a ‘molehill’.
Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane (Hamish Hamilton/ Penguin 2015) p47
Page 164, Position 1: George Orwell’s first word was ‘beastly’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/53129/first-words-11-famous-people
Page 164, Position 2: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them won the Oscar for Best Costume Design, the only HarryPotter film to win an Academy Award.
https://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-02-27/fantastic-beasts-picks-up-first-ever-oscar-for-harry-potter-franchise/
Page 164, Position 3: The fact that the Defence Against the Dark Arts professors in HarryPotter are all cursed was inspired by all the drummers in Spinal Tap dying in bizarre ways.
https://www.radiotimes.com/news/film/2018-03-15/jk-rowling-confirms-why-her-defence-against-the-dark-arts-teachers-are-all-cursed/
Page 164, Position 4: The JD in JD Wetherspoon is from a character in The Dukes of Hazzard; Wetherspoon was a teacher at the founder’s primary school.
'Wetherspoon' was a teacher at the founder's primary school.
Page 165, Position 1: The Irish get through 50 beer mats per person per year.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/soaking-it-all-up-irish-are-worlds-biggest-beer-mat-users-92714.html
Page 165, Position 2: The Queen owns several pubs, including one called the Windsor Castle.
http://www.the-windsorcastle.co.uk/
Page 165, Position 3: The Queen has won more than £6 million from horse racing.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/25/sport/queen-elizabeth-horse-racing-prize-money/index.html
Page 165, Position 4: The Queen employs an official stamp collector.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7910711.stm
Page 166, Position 1: 1930s postboxes doubled as stamp vending machines.
London Postal Museum
Page 166, Position 2: In 1972, Bhutan issued a set of talking stamps.
https://thevinylfactory.com/features/the-curious-tale-of-bhutans-playable-record-postage-stamps/
Page 166, Position 3: ‘Philately’ is from the Greek for the ‘love of exemption from taxation’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philately
Page 166, Position 4: In Mexico, artists can pay their taxes by donating their work.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/in-mexico-artists-can-pay-taxes-with-artwork/360519/
Page 167, Position 1: The US tax code has increased in length from 400 pages in 1913 to 70,000 pages today.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/look-at-how-many-pages-are-in-the-federal-tax-code
Page 167, Position 2: Denmark taxes new cars at 150%.
https://www.thelocal.dk/20151120/whats-the-deal-with-denmarks-car-registration-tax
Page 167, Position 3: Until 1999, tax-deductible items in Germany included bribes.
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2014/0214/Top-12-weirdest-tax-rules-around-the-world/Germany-tax-deduction-on-bribes
Page 167, Position 4: Germany’s Rheinsberg nuclear plant was decommissioned in 1990 but still has over 100 employees.
https://www.abandonedberlin.com/2015/09/rheinsberg-nuclear-power-station-east-germany.html https://www.cleanenergywire.org/dossiers/challenges-germanys-nuclear-phase-out
Page 168, Position 1: In 2008, two pigeons at an Iranian nuclear facility were arrested for spying.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5385619/West-used-lizards-spy-Irans-nuclear-facilities.html
Page 168, Position 2: US civil defence guidelines advise against using hair conditioner after a nuclear strike.
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/15/543647878/in-the-event-of-a-nuclear-blast-don-t-condition-your-hair?mc_cid=338befee82&
Page 168, Position 3: Reed College in Oregon has the world’s only nuclear reactor run by undergraduates.
https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-08/best-college-labs-reed-college-nuclear-reactor
Page 168, Position 4: The first nuclear reactor was built in a squash court.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1
Page 169, Position 1: Tennis courts were once shaped like an hourglass.
https://qz.com/1028129/if-it-wasnt-for-wimbledon-we-might-be-playing-tennis-on-an-hourglass-shaped-court/
Page 169, Position 2: The grass at Wimbledon is trimmed by a millimetre a week for 12 weeks and cared for by a man called Mr Stubley .
https://www.ft.com/content/19083758-25c3-11e7-a34a-538b4cb30025
Page 169, Position 3: Ritalin was named after its inventor’s wife Rita because it improved her tennis so much.
https://newrepublic.com/article/137066/adhd-sold
Page 169, Position 4: Tennys Sandgren is a tennis player from Tennessee.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennys_Sandgren
Page 170, Position 1: There’s a street in Leeds called Cavalier Approach.
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/analysis/no-exit-from-cavalier-approach-how-the-developers-dreams-turned-to-dust-1-2343743
Page 170, Position 2: The Laughing Cavalier isn’t laughing and isn’t dressed as a cavalier.
http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&
Page 170, Position 3: Gainsborough painted his outdoor scenes using little models made of broccoli.
http://www.leedsartgallery.co.uk/gallery/listings/l0049.php
Page 170, Position 4: In 2003, the Tate announced that two Turner paintings of Venice were actually of Portsmouth.
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/lifestyle/real-life/50-facts-all-about-portsmouth-and-its-people-1-3582083
Page 171, Position 1: ‘Dockyard oyster’ is a phrase used in Portsmouth to describe a gob of phlegm on the pavement.
https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/people/eight-words-or-phrases-you-ll-hear-in-portsmouth-but-not-in-southampton-1-6958379
Page 171, Position 2: The street price of a hand grenade in Sweden is 100 krona, or £8.62.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/world/europe/sweden-crime-immigration-hand-grenades.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180305&
Page 171, Position 3: Wounds sustained during the day heal twice as quickly as those sustained at night.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2152754-daytime-injuries-heal-twice-as-fast-as-wounds-sustained-at-night/
Page 171, Position 4: Pieces of coconut shell were used by Pacific Islanders to mend broken skulls.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=soqy__Vue6kC&
Page 172, Position 1: Mahler’s Sixth Symphony features a part for an enormous hammer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66ihI7Ijry8
Page 172, Position 2: Picasso liked to shoot blanks at people who bored him.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/pablo-picasso-trivia_n_7018574
Page 172, Position 3: Bangladesh is home to the world’s only specialist diarrhoea hospital.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/23/bangladesh-took-global-killer-worlds-diarrhoeal-disease-hospital/
Page 172, Position 4: 1 in 3 people in Britain admitted to hospital as an emergency have at least five illnesses.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/bad-lifestyles-mean-patients-arrive-at-a-e-sicker-than-a-decade-ago-vxbpzjhtw
Page 173, Position 1: The 911 emergency number used to be spoken as ‘nine–eleven’ but was restyled as ‘nine–one–one’ to avoid people wasting time looking for the ‘11’ button.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/crime-history-first-911-system-installed-in-the-us/article/17175
Page 173, Position 2: The phonebook on Norfolk Island, Australia, lists people by their nicknames.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_Island#Demographics
Page 173, Position 3: TancÃtaro, Mexico, has a special police unit to stamp out avocado theft.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/may/18/avocado-police-tancitaro-mexico-law-drug-cartels
Page 173, Position 4: In 2017, Frankfurt police found a car belonging to a 76-year-old man who had forgotten where he parked it 20 years earlier.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/man-forgets-park-car-finds-20-years-later-frankfurt-a8058416.html
Page 174, Position 1: Pittsburgh police classify condoms as ‘instruments of crime’ to help them prosecute sex workers.
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2018/06/16/Got-a-condom-go-to-jail/stories/201806140024
Page 174, Position 2: A single sex act by parasitic flukeworms can last for over 40 years.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/10/08/even-blood-flukes-get-divorced/#.WqfHzpPFL_Q
Page 174, Position 3: When two earthworms mate, they both have children.
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/05/10-facts-about-worms/
Page 174, Position 4: Castrator pea crabs live inside the genitals of limpets.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2157002-genital-parasite-crabs-are-struggling-to-find-sex-partners/
Page 175, Position 1: Chinese street barbers shave the insides of their customers’ eyelids.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-china-eyecleaning/flipping-lids-chinese-barber-offers-eyelid-shaves-idUKKBN1DP03M?feedType=nl&
Page 175, Position 2: 20–20 vision is not perfect, just normal.
https://www.kchitter.com/good-vision-2020-vs-mlb-vision-2012/
Page 175, Position 3: The only things anyone has ever ‘seen’ are photons.
https://www.quora.com/Scientists-have-never-seen-an-atom-Why-not/answer/Eric-Bittner
Page 175, Position 4: Sea urchins are the only known animals that can see without having eyes.
https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/animals-ecology/sea-urchins-see-feet-0432432/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 176, Position 1: Your eardrums move in sync with your eyeballs, but no one knows why.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2141467-your-eardrums-move-in-sync-with-your-eyes-but-we-dont-know-why/
Page 176, Position 2: Lobsters use sand in their inner ear to work out if they are the right way up.
http://www.lobsters.org/tlcbio/biology6.html
Page 176, Position 3: Until the mid-1800s, lobsters were considered to be food for the poor.
https://www.ft.com/content/b3e6f2fa-8eb6-11e5-8be4-3506bf20cc2b
Page 176, Position 4: 30,000 years ago, people ate mammoth and fed reindeer to their dogs.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141124074841.htm
Page 177, Position 1: 10,000 years ago, lions didn’t have manes.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/5077393/Super-sized-lions-roamed-UK-in-ice-age.html
Page 177, Position 2: African wild dogs vote on whether to go hunting or not by sneezing.
Page 177, Position 3: The Isle of Man was the first place in the world to give votes to women and under-18s.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/isle_of_man/4690678.stm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_age
Page 177, Position 4: The king of the Isle of Man from 1112 to1143 was Olaf the Titbit.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/58623/60-historys-strangest-royal-epithets
Page 178, Position 1: Gavin Barwell, former MP and author of How to Win a Marginal Seat, lost his marginal seat.
Page 178, Position 2: Applause is forbidden inside the Houses of Parliament.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/538526/things-forbidden-in-british-parliament
Page 178, Position 3: Police guarding the outside of the Houses of Parliament are under orders to feel inside men’s underpants.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/04/sajid-javid-counter-terrorism-plans-britain-freedom
Page 178, Position 4: In 1930s New Zealand, there was an outbreak of exploding trousers.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pants-trousers-exploding-new-zealand-sodium-chlorate?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 179, Position 1: During the First World War, an estimated one tonne of explosives was fired for every square metre on the Western Front.
http://www.ww1hull.org.uk/index.php/streets-people-came-from/the-numbers-in-charts
Page 179, Position 2: The Western Front was supplied with 500 ferrets a month to catch rabbits.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-cumbria-41696155
Page 179, Position 3: Rabbits are repelled by the butterfly bush.
http://www.bigblogofgardening.com/flowers-shrubs-herbs-trees-that-rabbits-and-deer-wont-eat/
Page 179, Position 4: The skunk cabbage melts the frozen ground around it by generating heat like an animal.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/mmcmenam/journal.html
Page 180, Position 1: When the retired Roman emperor Diocletian was asked to return to the throne, he said he’d rather grow cabbages.
https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/abdication-emperor-diocletian
Page 180, Position 2: The entire Roman Empire was sold at auction in 193 ad.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/puzzles/5.html
Page 180, Position 3: Christie’s auctioneers are taught to stop their hands shaking with nerves by clenching their buttocks.
https://www.christies.com/features/What-it-feels-like-to-conduct-an-auction-7680-1.aspx
Page 180, Position 4: In 1942, a single banana was auctioned in London for the equivalent of £95.
https://listverse.com/2015/03/18/10-creative-ways-weve-gotten-through-wartime-rationing/
Page 181, Position 1: Japanese farmers have created a new kind of banana with edible peel.
https://qz.com/1191654/a-banana-with-an-edible-peel-is-now-available-for-sale-in-japan/?mc_cid=0228d5c7e5&
Page 181, Position 2: Farmers in India use Coca-Cola as a pesticide: the sugar attracts ants that eat the larvae that would have eaten the crops.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3977351.stm
Page 181, Position 3: Wolf whistles were first used by Albanian farmers to warn sheepdogs of approaching wolves.
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180322-the-surprising-history-of-the-wolf-whistle
Page 181, Position 4: Some Scottish farmers use lasers to protect their livestock from eagles.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/scotland-farmers-laser-beams-sea-eagles-lambs-rspb-a8145421.html
Page 182, Position 1: Laser pointers are the second most common cause of pilot incapacity , after tummy upsets.
https://theconversation.com/why-having-two-pilots-on-commercial-flights-is-vital-for-passenger-safety-84858
Page 182, Position 2: There are more living US astronauts than living Concorde pilots.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24629451
Page 182, Position 3: The wingspan of a Boeing 747 is longer than the distance travelled during the Wright brothers’ first flight.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-4185292/The-amazing-plane-facts-ever.html
Page 182, Position 4: The first successful all-metal passenger plane had wickerwork seats.
http://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/number-of-planes-in-air
Page 183, Position 1: A group of raptors in flight is called a ‘kettle’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettle_(birds)
Page 183, Position 2: A group of penguins on land is called a ‘waddle’.
https://www.discover-the-world.co.uk/blog/29-things-you-might-not-have-known-about-penguins
Page 183, Position 3: A group of sharks is called a ‘shiver’.
https://gizmodo.com/have-a-kindle-of-kittens-and-10-other-hilarious-names-1588270081
Page 183, Position 4: A group of swans on land is called a ‘bank’.
https://www.britishbirdlovers.co.uk/articles/collective-nouns-for-birds
Page 184, Position 1: Deutsche Bank’s largest shareholder is Chinese.
https://www.ft.com/content/8f31a774-9bbb-4336-8113-6fb9a5f279cd
Page 184, Position 2: China has an exact replica of the Austrian village of Hallstatt so tourists don’t have to go all that way to see it.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-china-austria/made-in-china-an-austrian-village-idUSLNE85301M20120604
Page 184, Position 3: Palau is to pass a new law allowing only five-star hotels to be built.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-4124522/We-just-want-rich-tourists-Pacific-island-nation-Palau-pass-law-allows-new-five-star-hotels.html
Page 184, Position 4: A hotel in Oman employs a full-time turtle ranger.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2017/05/03/turtle-minder-oman-hotel/
Page 185, Position 1: The Mary River turtle breathes through its genitals.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/scientists-highlight-plight-of-endangered-australian-genital-breathing-mary-river-turtle-a3811811.html
Page 185, Position 2: Plankton were one of the 12 official logos for Eurovision 2018.
https://eurovision.tv/story/all-aboard-slogan-for-eurovision-2018
Page 185, Position 3: If food supplies to Britain in the Second World War had been cut off completely, there were plans for everyone to eat plankton.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9099881/Wartime-population-faced-eating-plankton-to-avert-food-shortages.html
Page 185, Position 4: Phytoplankton are microscopic plants that produce up to 85% of the planet’s oxygen.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0607_040607_phytoplankton.html
Page 186, Position 1: Oxygen levels in a human womb are similar to those at the top of Mount Everest.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise/
Page 186, Position 2: The cornea is the only part of the human body with no blood supply. It gets its oxygen from the air.
http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/there-any-part-body-doesnt-have-blood-vessels
Page 186, Position 3: The ancient Greeks believed the uterus wandered around inside the body.
It's All In Your Head: Stories from the Frontline of Psychosomatic Illness by Suzanne O'Sullivan (Vintage 2015) p177
Page 186, Position 4: Examining the pelvis is the only way to tell the sex of a human skeleton.
http://www.exploreforensics.co.uk/determining-sex.html
Page 187, Position 1: No one knows if Lucy , humanity’s oldest ancestor, was male or female.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/lucy-or-brucey-gender-tricky-human-ancestors-n349971
Page 187, Position 2: Male red-sided garter snakes pretend to be female and entice other males to have sex with them.
Furry Logic - The Physics of Animal Life by Matin Durrani Liz Kalaugher (Bloomsbury 2017)
Page 187, Position 3: To kill off the snakes in Guam, 2,000 dead mice were pumped full of paracetamol and dropped by tiny parachutes into the forests.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/two-thousand-mice-dropped-guam-parachute-kill-snakes-f2D11685572
Page 187, Position 4: Parachute tester Rickster Powell has made 20,000 parachute jumps and tested 50 new parachutes – only nine of which went into production.
https://www.payscale.com/career-news/2013/09/the-best-job-for-adrenaline-junkies
Page 188, Position 1: The Guinness World Record for the highest fall survived without a parachute is 10,000 metres.
Fortean Times 350
Page 188, Position 2: The world record for the most people licking ice cream in one place is 2,728.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/search?term=lick
Page 188, Position 3: The world record for the most people licking lollipops is 12,831.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/search?term=lick
Page 188, Position 4: ‘Lick into shape’ comes from the medieval belief that bear cubs were born shapeless and were ‘licked into shape’ by their mothers.
The Prevalence of Nonsense p268ξ
Page 189, Position 1: Matabele ants nurse each other and tend each other’s wounds.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2161051-ants-care-for-wounded-comrades-by-licking-their-wounds-clean/
Page 189, Position 2: Ancient ants were the size of hummingbirds.
https://www.livescience.com/14008-giant-ant-fossil.html
Page 189, Position 3: Palaeontologists lick stones to identify whether they are fossils or not.
Page 189, Position 4: The longest-ever dog’s tongue was more than twice as long as the smallest living dog.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2017/10/video-meet-mochi-the-dog-with-the-longest-tongue-496856 http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/smallest-dog-living-(length)
Page 190, Position 1: The world’s largest timber-framed structure is a replica of Noah’s Ark at a Christian theme park in Kentucky.
https://harpers.org/blog/2017/11/brief-history-of-time/
Page 190, Position 2: In 2004, a boat in Texas capsized because everyone ran to one side to look at a nudist beach.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4890829/ns/us_news-weird_news/t/barge-sinks-after-nude-sighting-texas/
Page 190, Position 3: In 2012, a smuggler was arrested at the Smuggler’s Inn, Washington, after arriving in a car with the licence plate SMUGLER.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/21/smuggler-license-plate_n_1369962.html
Page 190, Position 4: Seven US states have not produced a single billionaire.
https://howmuch.net/articles/richest-person-of-all-time
Page 191, Position 1: The famous sign ‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’ isn’t in Las Vegas but in Paradise, Nevada.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/27757/shocking-truth-about-las-vegas-strip
Page 191, Position 2: There are more rooms in the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas than there are people in the town of Bellagio in Italy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellagio _Lombardy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellagio_(resort)
Page 191, Position 3: It’s illegal for citizens of Monaco to go to the casino at Monte Carlo.
https://www.europalace.com/blog/monte-carlo-monaco/
Page 191, Position 4: The first James Bond film was released on the same day as the first Beatles single.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/james-bond-movies-and-the-beatles-still-pop-culture-icons-50-years-after-debuts
Page 192, Position 1: Paul McCartney met John Lennon at a church fete.
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/day-john-lennon-met-paul-12790524
Page 192, Position 2: The first picnics took place indoors.
OED
Page 192, Position 3: In Thailand, you can be arrested for having a picnic.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/68b89cf6-519d-11e7-9c77-dc4d2ab46f4b
Page 192, Position 4: A typical British family with children throws away 40% of the food it buys.
http://www.ifr.ac.uk/waste/Reports/WRAP%20The%20Food%20We%20Waste.pdf
Page 193, Position 1: The average American lives 18 miles from his or her mother.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-family.html?_r=0
Page 193, Position 2: Mother’s Day is banned in North Korea because it distracts citizens from their love for Kim Jong-un.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/21/kim-jong-un-bans-drinking-singing-mothers-day-celebrations-wake/
Page 193, Position 3: Jim Henson’s mother owned the green coat that the original Kermit the Frog’s skin was made from.
owned the green coat that the original Kermit the Frog's skin was made from. http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2010/08/an-old-coat-and-a-ping-pong-ball-kermit.html
Page 193, Position 4: A frozen wood frog goes completely rigid; when you drop one, it goes ‘clink’.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070220-frog-antifreeze.html?utm_campaign=daily-digest&
Page 194, Position 1: The pumpkin toadlet is a Brazilian frog whose mating call can be heard by every animal except other pumpkin toadlets.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/21/scientists-discover-unique-brazilian-frogs-that-are-deaf-to-their-own-mating-calls
Page 194, Position 2: The Cuyaba dwarf frog inflates its bottom to scare off predators.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/animals-frogs-poisonous-inflatable-backside-behavior-camouflage/
Page 194, Position 3: The Aztecs burned incense to mask the smell of the Spanish.
http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/clean-aztecs-dirty-spaniards
Page 194, Position 4: King Henry IV of France smelled strongly of goat.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JxorBgAAQBAJ&
Page 195, Position 1: Beyoncé has released more perfumes than albums.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyoncé_discography#Studio_albums https://www.beyonceparfums.com/en-gb
Page 195, Position 2: Will Young considered breaking his leg to get out of Strictly Come Dancing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/health/will-young-considered-breaking-legs-get-strictly-bryony-gordons/?WT.mc_id=e_DM450275&
Page 195, Position 3: The oldest member of England’s 2018 World Cup squad was Ashley Young.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/englands-oldest-lion-ashley-young-12617275
Page 195, Position 4: The oldest member of any 2018 World Cup squad was Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary. He was born in Kafr al-Battikh – ‘Town of the Watermelon’ – and celebrates victory by eating watermelons.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/may/30/essam-el-hadary-egypt-goalkeeper-45-world-cup-oldest-playerhttps://www.fifa.com/news/y=2012/m=5/news=the-weird-wacky-world-footie-celebrations-1629677.html
Page 196, Position 1: Blue whales eat four tonnes of krill a day.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/b/blue-whale/
Page 196, Position 2: The Sami people of Lapland have werewhales, not werewolves.
http://www.strangehistory.net/2017/09/03/werewhales/
Page 196, Position 3: To prepare for the role of Wolverine, Hugh Jackman researched wolves, not realising they were different animals.
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/05/hugh-jackman-wolverine-wolves-x-men
Page 196, Position 4: Moose is Scots for ‘mouse’.
https://www.boisdale.co.uk/blog/scottish-drinking-toasts/ The Pocket Scots Dictionary Ed I. Macleod R. Martin P. Cairns (Aberdeen University Press) p170
Page 197, Position 1: 3D-printed mouse penises can alert airport security scanners.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/that-time-the-tsa-found-a-scientists-3d-printed-mouse-penis/527673/?mc_cid=7f70982c8d&
Page 197, Position 2: In 2017, a man at Colombo airport was arrested for attempting to smuggle almost a kilo of gold in his rectum ‘with difficulty’.
http://news.sky.com/story/man-caught-with-kilo-of-gold-hidden-in-rectum-at-sri-lanka-airport-11052856
Page 197, Position 3: Military special services reserve difficult tasks for soldiers aged 27 or older.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/times2/what-rocks-27-club-told-me-about-talent-and-mental-illness-37rh83pmn
Page 197, Position 4: The French work a 35-hour week and finish their tasks by Thursday lunchtime.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/view-from-the-top-andy-haldane-chief-economist-analysis-statistics-bank-of-england-a8011836.html
Page 198, Position 1: Seamus Heaney was scared of frogs.
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140317-james-joyce-in-a-bar-brawl
Page 198, Position 2: Lenin spoke English with an Irish accent.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/lenin-spoke-english-with-an-irish-accent-say-russians-26890316.html
Page 198, Position 3: The ‘transatlantic’ accent used by Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant was invented by their dialect coach.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the-rise-and-fall-of-katharine-hepburns-fake-accent/278505/
Page 198, Position 4: The first director of Jaws was fired because he kept calling the shark a whale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaws_(film)
Page 199, Position 1: In the film Twister, the noise of the tornado was made using the moan of a camel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaws_(film)
Page 199, Position 2: Angela Merkel has an ambition to host her own TV talk show.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germany-election-merkel/watch-out-oprah-german-chancellor-merkel-wants-her-own-tv-show-idUKKCN1BC58P?feedType=nl&
Page 199, Position 3: Sooty and Soo weren’t allowed to touch each other on TV in case things got steamy.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/bbc-fought-over-sooty-getting-a-girlfriend-because-they-might-have-sex-a7339291.html
Page 199, Position 4: The first US TV show broadcast in the Soviet Union was Fraggle Rock.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/66611/17-fun-facts-about-fraggle-rock
Page 200, Position 1: In 1990, the Soviet Union paid for $3 billion worth of Pepsi with warships.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soviet-union-pepsi-ships
Page 200, Position 2: Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Dr Pepper were all invented by pharmacists.
http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/the-chronicle-of-coca-cola-birth-of-a-refreshing-idea
Page 200, Position 3: French pharmacists are all qualified to identify edible mushrooms.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/8774805/Follow-the-French-if-you-want-to-forage-safely.html
Page 200, Position 4: Mushrooms are farmed in the catacombs under Paris.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/paris-catacomb-mushrooms
Page 201, Position 1: There are 19 alligator farms in the US.
http://www.doitintheamericas.com/us/attractions/alligator-farms.htm
Page 201, Position 2: 70% of all the birds on Earth are farmed poultry.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/human-impact-biomass-043432/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 201, Position 3: Clarence Birdseye founded his company with $7, which he spent on blocks of ice and an electric fan.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NgKEO9L-H2EJ:www.chicagotribune.com/dining/recipes/sc-food-0214-giants-birdseye-20140215-story.html+&
Page 201, Position 4: The president of Rwanda is an Arsenal fan.
https://qz.com/1291316/rwanda-and-arsenal-football-club-when-the-poor-sponsor-the-rich/
Page 202, Position 1: The women’s football World Cup has only ever been won by democracies.
https://media.economist.com/news/leaders/21743655-and-economist-has-ideas-about-how-countries-should-go-about-winning-it-all-its-faults
Page 202, Position 2: Fund managers from poor backgrounds are better at investing than those from wealthy backgrounds.
https://qz.com/882508/fund-managers-who-come-from-poor-backgrounds-are-better-investors-than-rich-ones/
Page 202, Position 3: When investor Henry Budd died in 1862, he left his fortune to his two sons, on condition that neither of them ever grew a moustache.
http://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2015/04/brixton-history-the-wealthy-budd-family-mausoleum-and-the-no-moustache-family-rule/
Page 202, Position 4: The three richest Americans have as much money as the 160 million poorest Americans.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/08/bill-gates-jeff-bezos-warren-buffett-wealthier-than-poorest-half-of-us?utm_source=esp&
Page 203, Position 1: Due to climate change, Sweden’s Lake of the Pine Trees is now surrounded by birch trees.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/climate-change-species-migration-disease/
Page 203, Position 2: 53 million years ago, Antarctica was covered in palm trees.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-climate-change-meant-antarctica-was-once-covered-with-palm-trees-12098835/
Page 203, Position 3: There is a species of palm tree that can walk.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20151207-ecuadors-mysterious-walking-trees
Page 203, Position 4: The cabbage palm tree is neither a cabbage, a palm nor a tree.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/4361/Cordyline-australis/Details
Page 204, Position 1: Palm cockatoos make drum kits out of seedpods and sticks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/06/28/these-birds-are-the-only-other-animals-that-drum-to-a-beat/?utm_term=.d3f1027c4c44
Page 204, Position 2: T-Rex couldn’t stick its tongue out.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/dinosaur-trex-tongue-alligator-spd/
Page 204, Position 3: Everyone has a unique tongue print.
http://www.dentistryiq.com/articles/2014/01/new-oral-features-can-be-considered-unique-as-a-fingerprint.html
Page 204, Position 4: The printer on the International Space Station was 20 years old when it was replaced in 2018.
https://mashable.com/2017/11/02/nasa-updates-international-space-station-printer/?europe=true
Page 205, Position 1: Google accounts for 40% of the Internet’s carbon footprint.
https://qz.com/1267709/every-google-search-results-in-co2-emissions-this-real-time-dataviz-shows-how-much/
Page 205, Position 2: The world’s smallest computer is smaller than a grain of sand.
https://newatlas.com/worlds-smallest-computer-university-michigan/55175/?utm_medium=email&
Page 205, Position 3: The hard drive on Terry Pratchett’s computer containing his unfinished works was destroyed at his request by a steamroller.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/30/terry-pratchett-unfinished-novels-destroyed-streamroller
Page 205, Position 4: In 2017, a drink-driver in Northern Ireland was arrested after his Ford Fiesta phoned the police to say it had been involved in a crash.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bf4dff46-39ad-11e7-8c42-97760aa22c36
Page 206, Position 1: An AI programmed to come up with messages for Love Hearts sweets suggested ‘BEAR WIG’, ‘MEAT MATE’ and ‘YOU ARE BAG’.
https://www.pedestrian.tv/tech/ai-generates-cooked-candy-hearts/
Page 206, Position 2: Messages in the first sticks of rock included ‘Do you love me?’, ‘Do you love sprats?’ and ‘Sir Robert Peel’.
The Oxford Companion to Food äóñ Alan Davidson
Page 206, Position 3: Names of bell-ringing peals include the ‘Reverse Canterbury Pleasure’, the ‘Yorkshire Surprise’ and the ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Yorkshire Surprise’.
the 'Yorkshire Surprise'
Page 206, Position 4: There is a bell that’s been ringing in Oxford non-stop for 178 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Electric_Bell
Page 207, Position 1: The first ice-hockey referees used cowbells, not whistles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Waghorne#Officiating
Page 207, Position 2: The first ice-hockey pucks were made from frozen cow dung.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/32285/11-fun-facts-about-hockey-pucks
Page 207, Position 3: The first American footballs were meant to be spherical; they just weren’t blown up properly.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-did-the-pigskin-get-its-shape-63180450/#MboVZZMw2jT5Gzxr.99
Page 207, Position 4: The first rubber bands were made from the inner tubes of car tyres.
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20180515-how-to-become-an-elastic-thinker-and-problem-solver
Page 208, Position 1: The minty flavour of toothpaste comes from pine trees.
Element in the Room - Arney & Mould
Page 208, Position 2: Colgate has trademarked the Tooth Fairy.
https://www.trademarkia.com/tooth-fairy-73265049.html
Page 208, Position 3: Lloyd’s of London insured Ken Dodd’s teeth for four times more than they did the Titanic.
https://www.lloyds.com/lloyds/about-us/history/catastrophes-and-claims/titanic
Page 208, Position 4: Tetley tea’s chief tester has his taste buds insured for £1 million.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/weird-news/tea-expert-insures-his-taste-buds-for-1-million-9883915.html
Page 209, Position 1: There were more coffee houses per person in London in the 1700s than there are today.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/London-cafes-the-surprising-history-of-Londons-lost-coffeehouses/ http://www.ukcoffeeleadersummit.com/yet-growth-uk-coffee-shop-market-coffee-shops-become-new-local/ http://blog.localdatacompany.com/a-look-into-coffee-shops-in-great-britain-for-internationalcoffeeday
Page 209, Position 2: The man who invented coffee pods doesn’t use them because they’re bad for the environment.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/k-cup-inventor-john-sylvans-regret-2015-3?utm_source=reddit.com&
Page 209, Position 3: In ancient China, adulterous men were punished by having their penises removed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_removal
Page 209, Position 4: 25% of Americans have had a pubic hair grooming injury.
https://www.livescience.com/60149-pubic-hair-grooming-injuries.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&
Page 210, Position 1: ‘Gooseberrybush’ was 19th-century slang for ‘pubic hair’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gooseberry
Page 210, Position 2: ‘Got the morbs’ was Victorian slang for ‘temporary melancholia’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/53529/56-delightful-victorian-slang-terms-you-should-be-using
Page 210, Position 3: ‘Muffin-walloper’ was Victorian slang for a ‘gossip’.
https://www.english.com/blog/more-fascinating-facts-about-english/
Page 210, Position 4: ‘Loitersacke’ was 17th-century slang for a ‘slacker’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/61819/42-old-english-insults
Page 211, Position 1: Argon is Greek for ‘lazy’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argon
Page 211, Position 2: When the chemical compound thioacetone was first distilled, it smelled so bad that it caused anyone within a mile of the lab to vomit and fall unconscious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thioacetone
Page 211, Position 3: Scientists can’t tell what sex a person is by studying their brain alone.
https://www.nbcnews.com/better/wellness/can-you-tell-which-brains-are-male-neither-can-these-n471751
Page 211, Position 4: By swabbing your phone screen, a researcher can find out what you eat, where you’ve been and what medicine you take.
https://www.livescience.com/56948-wacky-science-stories-to-talk-about-thanksgiving.html
Page 212, Position 1: The World Mobile Phone Throwing Championships take place in Finland.
http://www.mobilephonethrowing.fi/
Page 212, Position 2: When the Russians invaded Finland in 1940, they were so sure they’d be welcomed that they brought musical instruments with them.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2267491/red-dawn-lapland
Page 212, Position 3: During the war between India and Pakistan in 1947, King George VI was technically at war with himself.
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/why-pak-army-entered-so-late-into-the-1948-war-of-kashmir.338814/
Page 212, Position 4: Pakistan was originally Pakstan, an acronym representing Punjab, Afghan province, Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan.
OED
Page 213, Position 1: Karachi bid for the 1960 Winter Olympics, despite its temperature never having fallen below 0°C.
https://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/onmyplate/karachi-olympics-and-lessons-from-the-winter-games/
Page 213, Position 2: When the 1964 Winter Olympics were threatened by lack of snow, the Austrian Army carried 40,000 cubic metres of it up to the ski slopes.
https://www.olympic.org/innsbruck-1964
Page 213, Position 3: When the East German luge team were caught heating the runners on their sleds in 1968, they blamed a ‘capitalist revanchist plot’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/54657/9-crazy-moments-winter-olympics-history
Page 213, Position 4: Liechtenstein only found out they had the same flag as Haiti when they both arrived at the 1936 Olympics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein_at_the_1936_Summer_Olympics
Page 214, Position 1: According to the US Flag Code, the Stars and Stripes is a living thing.
http://www.sfai.edu/uploads/about-sfai/SFAI_A_Living_Thing_Final_01112017.pdf
Page 214, Position 2: The current 50-star US flag was designed in 1958 by a 17-year-old as part of a school project. He got a B.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Heft
Page 214, Position 3: A retired UN official has spent 25 years collecting 14,000 ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/do-not-disturb-signs-collection
Page 214, Position 4: The official retirement age for Russian men is two years above their average life expectancy .
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-44495136
Page 215, Position 1: Alzheimer’s cannot be definitively diagnosed until the patient is dead.
https://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/guide/making-diagnosis-tests#1
Page 215, Position 2: Jason Bourne is named after Ansel Bourne, one of the most famous amnesiacs in medical history.
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=3445059&
Page 215, Position 3: Type A and Type B personalities were made up by a tobacco company .
http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/17241/1/Type-A-and-Type-B-Personalities-Useful-Measure-of-Personality-or-Conspiracy-Funded-by-Tobacco-Companies.html
Page 215, Position 4: Smoking the venom of the Sonoran Desert toad is said to be like having a Force 5 hurricane in your head.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/magazine/the-sunday-times-magazine/the-magazine-interview-michael-pollan-on-his-new-book-and-what-he-learnt-smoking-the-psychedelic-venom-of-a-toad-mmwd9ss8n
Page 216, Position 1: Scientists in Morocco have created a scorpion-milking machine that can extract venom from four scorpions at once.
http://newatlas.com/scorpion-venom-milking-machine/50337/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&
Page 216, Position 2: The man who invented condensed milk also invented an amphibious horse and cart equipped with a mast and sail.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/condensed-milk-try-meat-biscuit-180967095/#HwfsouRrjKgpJ0kI.99
Page 216, Position 3: Grampussing was a punishment in which sailors’ hands were tied above their heads and buckets of water poured down their sleeves.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/63819/15-historic-terms-crime-and-punishment-defined
Page 216, Position 4: The heatproof sleeve on the outside of a disposable coffee cup is called a ‘zarf’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarf
Page 217, Position 1: DEFRA gets through 1,400 disposable cups a day.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/21/uk-environment-department-using-1400-disposable-coffee-cups-a-day
Page 217, Position 2: 69 ants’ nests in the UK have listed building status.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/nov/04/ants-nests-forest-building-protection
Page 217, Position 3: UK Control of Noise at Work Regulations (2006) recognise no distinction between a factory and an opera house.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43582484
Page 217, Position 4: The Ministry of Defence’s official Book of Abbreviations is 373 pages long.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/227048/acronyms_and_abbreviations_dec08.pdf
Page 218, Position 1: Perissology is the unnecessary use of rather more words than are necessary to get the meaning of the words across to the majority of people in a meaningful manner or way.
OED
Page 218, Position 2: A philodox is someone who loves their own opinion.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/philodox
Page 218, Position 3: To perendinate is to put something off till the day after the day after tomorrow.
Horologicon Mark Forsyth
Page 218, Position 4: Parorexia is the desire to eat strange foods.
http://phrontistery.info/p.html
Page 219, Position 1: Britain’s leading apple researcher is severely allergic to apples.
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/observations/2016/10/bite-apple-man-obsessed-our-most-english-fruit
Page 219, Position 2: The US once had over 14,000 varieties of apple. Today, there are only 90.
http://www.tfp.org/went-17000-15-main-varieties-apples/
Page 219, Position 3: The original Bramley apple tree has a fan club in Japan.
http://www.southwellcouncil.com/index2.php?option=com_content&
Page 219, Position 4: iTunes customers have to agree not to use Apple products to create nuclear weapons.
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-dont-make-nuclear-weapons-using-itunes/
Page 220, Position 1: MPs in the Ukrainian parliament must leave weapons and explosives in their lockers.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/03/20/world/europe/ap-eu-ukraine-guns-in-parliament.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180321&
Page 220, Position 2: MPs in the UK parliament are not allowed to call each other asses, gits, rats, sods, swine, idiots, tarts, cowards, hooligans or guttersnipes.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/538526/things-forbidden-in-british-parliament
Page 220, Position 3: The Habeas Corpus Act (1679) became law only because a portly lord was counted as 10 votes and the Opposition didn’t notice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_Corpus_Act_1679The
Page 220, Position 4: The British Labour Party is the largest political party in western Europe.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tories-membership-nandos-discount-card_uk_5affdaf7e4b0463cdba2039b?ncid=APPLENEWS00001
Page 221, Position 1: The Romans drank turpentine to treat depression.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/is-turpentine-medicine
Page 221, Position 2: Frankincense is used in Oman as a stomach soother, cough medicine, blood thinner, wound cleaner and fly repellent.
http://www.mei.edu/sqcc/frankincense
Page 221, Position 3: King Edward VII had a liqueur specially created for him to drink while driving.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/drink-like-royalty-berry-bros-rudds-kings-ginger-hits-america/251903/
Page 221, Position 4: Prairie voles can drink the equivalent of 15 bottles of wine a day.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/animals-drinking-alcohol-monogamy-love/?mc_cid=9188af7fe2&
Page 222, Position 1: A group of pandas is called an ‘embarrassment’.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/talk-to-the-animals-the-art-and-humour-of-the-collective-noun-2142716.html
Page 222, Position 2: The man who invented the plastic garden flamingo dressed in matching clothes with his wife for 35 years.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-guy-who-wore-the-same-clothes-as-his-wife-for-35-years-also-designed-the-pink-garden-flamingo/276372/
Page 222, Position 3: 26 tons of clothing are abandoned each year at the start line of the Boston Marathon.
https://news.wgbh.org/2017/04/12/local-news/what-happens-50000-pounds-clothes-left-boston-marathon-start-line
Page 222, Position 4: The surnames of the two most famous football commentators in Russia are Gusev (Goose) and Utkin (Duck).
https://www.rbth.com/arts/2014/05/25/what_russian_surnames_mean_35481
Page 223, Position 1: Before he became a billionaire, Roman Abramovich ran a company that made plastic ducks.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/visa-snub-to-abramovich-fuels-tension-with-russia-j3qnzpr25
Page 223, Position 2: Piggybanks get their name from the Old English pygg, meaning ‘clay’.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/qi/8912210/QI-Quite-interesting-facts-about-pigs.html
Page 223, Position 3: Every new car is first modelled in clay by a sculptor.
https://phys.org/news/2017-09-high-tech-world-car-clay.html?mc_cid=e005e11bf5&
Page 223, Position 4: In 2017, Bentley launched a new off-road model fitted out for falconers, complete with a perch and a gauntlet compartment.
http://newatlas.com/bentley-bentayga-falconry-by-mulliner/49626/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&
Page 224, Position 1: Migrating birds are welcomed to New Zealand every spring by the bells of St Paul’s, Papanui, ringing for half an hour.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/our-future/7203140/Our-amazing-migrating-godwits
Page 224, Position 2: Birds in cages hop in the direction they would migrate, if they could.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/birds-migration-magnetic-field-navigation-reed-warblers-changing-declination-longitude-a7899511.html
Page 224, Position 3: More than half of all species on Earth are moving their habitats due to climate change.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/climate-change-species-migration-disease/
Page 224, Position 4: The average frog breeds eight days earlier than it would have done 10 years ago.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/climate-change-species-migration-disease/
Page 225, Position 1: 65 million years ago, there were frogs that ate dinosaurs.
https://www.livescience.com/60474-frog-with-powerful-bite.html
Page 225, Position 2: Dinosaurs were living on Earth before Saturn got its rings.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dinosaurs-probably-older-saturns-rings-180967565/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&
Page 225, Position 3: The world’s oldest rock is 4.38 billion years old.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-rocks-ancientscience/oldest-rocks-on-earth-found-in-northern-canada-idUSTRE48O7JW20080925
Page 225, Position 4: The world’s largest gold nugget had to be broken up because it was too big to fit on the bank’s scales.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/history/australia-home-to-the-worlds-largest-gold-nugget.aspx
Page 226, Position 1: Only 0.05% of the Earth’s mass is water.
http://sciencenordic.com/earth-has-lost-quarter-its-water
Page 226, Position 2: Glaciers can move faster than a speeding train.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/why-slow-glaciers-can-sometimes-surge-fast-speeding-train-wiping-out-people-their-path
Page 226, Position 3: Gravity travels at the speed of light.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/06/09/ask-ethan-if-mass-curves-spacetime-how-does-it-un-curve-again/#4ce29ad5746a
Page 226, Position 4: Super Mario’s jumps and falls suggest he lives on a planet with eight times more gravity than Earth.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/mario-brothers-physics-gravity-2015-2?r=US&
Page 227, Position 1: Jupiter is so close to its moon Io that it causes the ground there to bulge and contract by hundreds of feet every day.
http://listverse.com/2018/03/27/10-out-of-this-world-facts-about-jupiters-moon-io/
Page 227, Position 2: Jupiter is known to have 79 moons.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/jupiter-have-79-moons-when-earth-just-has-one.htm
Page 227, Position 3: Pluto’s equator is covered in blades of ice made of methane.
https://boingboing.net/2017/10/16/plutos-equator-is-covered-in.html
Page 227, Position 4: Not all humans have methane in their farts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatulence
Page 228, Position 1: Henry II had a court jester whose Christmas dance featured a jump, a whistle and a fart.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-true-story-of-roland-the-farter-and-how-the-internet-killed-professional-flatulence
Page 228, Position 2: A yuleshard is someone who is still preparing for Christmas on Christmas Eve.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/21-obscure-christmas-words-youve-never-heard/
Page 228, Position 3: At 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve, 40% of Swedes watch Donald Duck.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/12/nordic_quack.html
Page 228, Position 4: Buying every gift mentioned in ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ would cost £27,016.92.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/12-days-of-christmas-song-cost-index-pnc-2017-11
Page 229, Position 1: Irving Berlin presented himself with the Best Original Song Oscar for ‘White Christmas’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aM5CDwAAQBAJ&
Page 229, Position 2: Silent films had musical accompaniment to drown out the noise of the projectors.
http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Music-MUSIC-IN-SILENT-FILM.html
Page 229, Position 3: Horror films are the only movie genre in which more women appear than men.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2123926-machine-learning-reveals-lack-of-female-screen-time-in-top-films/
Page 229, Position 4: The film Fargo was released in Hong Kong as ‘Mysterious Murder in Snowy Cream’.
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/13782/50-movie-titles-that-got-lost-in-translation
Page 230, Position 1: The night-vision camera released by Sony in 1998 had to be recalled because it could see through people’s clothes.
https://fossbytes.com/sony-accidentally-launched-camcorders-see-peoples-clothes/
Page 230, Position 2: The first Sony Walkman had two headphone jacks in case it was thought to be antisocial.
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0 8599 1907884 00.html
Page 230, Position 3: The 2014 version of the Walkman was sold inside a bottle of water to prove it was waterproof.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/sony-sells-waterproof-walkman-in-bottle-of-water-9122124.html
Page 230, Position 4: Queen Victoria owned a bulletproof umbrella.
http://shootingvictoria.com/post/27439205271/the-latest-in-royal-protection-c-1842
Page 231, Position 1: Canon was originally spelt ‘Kwanon’, after the 1,000-armed Buddhist goddess of mercy .
https://global.canon/en/corporate/logo/
Page 231, Position 2: Photocopying was banned in Tibet in 2010.
http://thetibetpost.com/en/news/international/882-chinas-harsh-crackdown-on-photocopying-in-lhasa-tibet
Page 231, Position 3: The first person to photocopy a body part was Andy Warhol.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-xerox-invented-the-copier-and-artists-pushed-it-too-its-limits
Page 231, Position 4: Wilhelm Röntgen took the veryfirst X-ray of his wife Anna Bertha’s hand. Seeing her skeleton made her gasp, ‘I have seen my death!’
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/roentgen-xrays-discovery-radiographs
Page 232, Position 1: Dinosaur skeletons are increasingly bought by wealthy private collectors, because museums can’t afford them.
https://qz.com/1295534/dinosaur-skeleton-auctions-mean-that-important-fossils-are-going-to-rich-people-instead-of-museums/
Page 232, Position 2: The Kattenkabinet museum in Amsterdam has works of art by Rembrandt, Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso – but only the ones featuring cats.
https://museu.ms/museum/details/1035/kattenkabinet
Page 232, Position 3: The tagline for the National Poo Museum on the Isle of Wight is ‘Have You Been?’
https://www.poomuseum.org
Page 232, Position 4: Berlin has a curried-sausage museum.
http://currywurstmuseum.com/en/
Page 233, Position 1: The smell of Play-Doh is trademarked.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/18/17369226/hasbro-play-doh-smell-trademarked
Page 233, Position 2: Valium is present in potatoes.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2849941
Page 233, Position 3: Alcohol is 114 times as dangerous as marijuana.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/23/marijuana-may-be-even-safer-than-previously-thought-researchers-say/
Page 233, Position 4: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was banned in Malaysia because Morphin sounded a bit like ‘morphine’.
http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/Newsbriefs/9512/12-22/am.html
Page 234, Position 1: ‘Groin’ once meant the snout of a pig.
OED
Page 234, Position 2: Dogs inhale through their nostrils and exhale through slits on the sides of their noses.
https://www.rover.com/blog/secret-history-dogs-nose-in/
Page 234, Position 3: A poodle–Rottweiler cross is called a Rottiepoo, a Rottiedoodle or a Rottweilerpoo.
https://www.101dogbreeds.com/rottle-rottweiler-poodle-mix.asp
Page 234, Position 4: All Jack Russells are descended from a dog called Trump.
https://www.therealjackrussell.com/breed/history.php
Page 235, Position 1: Dogs visiting US National Parks can be certified as Bark Rangers.
https://www.nps.gov/resources/2016.htm?id=23A2D8A6-1DD8-B71B-0BF6B8E8A2F79A66
Page 235, Position 2: The first public parks in the US were cemeteries.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/03/our-first-public-parks-the-forgotten-history-of-cemeteries/71818/
Page 235, Position 3: In the 1840s, Mount AuburnCemetery ranked alongside Niagara Falls as the nation’s most popular tourist attraction.
http://www.americanforests.org/magazine/article/in-the-garden-cemetery-the-revival-of-americas-first-urban-parks/
Page 235, Position 4: To tackle the problem of expanding cemeteries in Brazil, the mayor of Biritiba-Mirim suggested that death be outlawed.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/10454687/ns/us_news-weird_news/t/if-only-it-were-easy/#.W3riFa3Mw3g
Page 236, Position 1: The mayor of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire is weighed every year to see if he’s got fat during his term in office.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_of_High_Wycombe
Page 236, Position 2: Plants make up 82% of the mass of all living things.
http://www.newser.com/story/259591/by-this-new-measure-plants-rule-the-earth.html%C2%A0
Page 236, Position 3: Only 30% of Hindus are vegetarian.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-interesting-facts-about-Hinduism/answer/Abhishek-Jain-875
Page 236, Position 4: The DNA in your body could stretch to Pluto and back again 17 times.
https://www.zmescience.com/other/feature-post/10-quick-scientific-facts-will-blow-mind/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&utm_campaign=dfef270e5d-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3b5aad2288-dfef270e5d-242764853&goal=0_3b5aad2288-dfef270e5d-242764853
Page 237, Position 1: The Sun is closer to the Earth during the UK’s winter, not the summer.
https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/perihelion-aphelion-solstice.html
Page 237, Position 2: In the Qing dynasty , people swapped their pillows in the summer for cooler ceramic ones.
https://www.christies.com/features/Song-ceramic-pillows-a-triumph-of-cooling-and-ancient-artistry-7676-1.aspx
Page 237, Position 3: Ancient Greek soldiers once went on strike for softer pillows.
Page 237, Position 4: The software in new cars can contain up to 100 million lines of code.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/saving-the-world-from-code/540393/?mc_cid=e3461f8228&
Page 238, Position 1: The mysterious green code that begins all the Matrix movies is in fact recipes for sushi.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/the-matrix-green-falling-code-meaning-sushi-recipes-a8022641.html
Page 238, Position 2: Matrix is Latin for ‘womb’.
Matrix is Latin for'womb'. https://www.etymonline.com/word/matrix
Page 238, Position 3: Japan’s oldest porn-movie actress retired at the age of 80.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2017/03/22/entertainment-news/japans-oldest-porn-queen-calls-quits-80/#.WOuEt461vp4
Page 238, Position 4: The skull of the ‘world’s oldest Dutchwoman’ has been carbon dated at 13,000 years old.
https://www.livescience.com/61882-skull-of-oldest-dutchwoman-found.html#?utm_source=ls-newsletter&
Page 239, Position 1: 5,000 years ago, the most popular tattoo was a sheep.
https://boingboing.net/2018/03/13/popular-tattoos-5000-years-ag.html
Page 239, Position 2: Mentioning The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on your dating profile increases your replies by one-third.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/book-readers-best-lovers-bilbiophiles-hunger-games-sex-attractive-richard-branson-men-women-a7708091.html
Page 239, Position 3: George V had a dragon tattoo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_V#Early_life_and_education
Page 239, Position 4: It’s illegal in Indiana to tattoo your eyeballs.
https://apnews.com/a2dfde8307eb47cc9616cf7a306bb00a?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&
Page 240, Position 1: Many Japanese bathhouses ban people with tattoos.
https://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/11/07/are-these-normal-japanese-things-weird-to-you-10-things-that-might-surprise-you-when-you-visit-japan/
Page 240, Position 2: At Italian swimming pools, swimming caps are compulsory.
https://www.canvasholidays.co.uk/blog/2015/04/06/the-rules-of-swimming-attire-in-france/
Page 240, Position 3: In French swimming pools, men are obliged to wear budgie smugglers.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/12/speedos-fashion
Page 240, Position 4: There’s a spa in the Czech Republic where you can bathe in beer.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/jan/17/spas-weird-baths-around-the-world-beer
Page 241, Position 1: Brno, in the Czech Republic, has an annual parade of Silly Walks.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/czech-silly-walkers-pay-tribute-monty-python-051558219.html
Page 241, Position 2: Rácˇkovat is a Czech word meaning ‘to mispronounce your “Râ€s’.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rÃçÛï†kovat
Page 241, Position 3: Bats have regional accents.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8000520/Bats-have-regional-accents.html
Page 241, Position 4: Bats eat so many insects that they save US farmers $22.9 billion a year.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/opinion/05tue3.html
Page 242, Position 1: Farmsoil quality can be checked by burying a pair of underpants and seeing how long they take to decompose.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/11/02/farmers-urged-bury-underpants-improve-quality-beef/
Page 242, Position 2: Experts have warned people not to boil their underwear in hotel kettles.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/underwear-boil-hotel-kettles-spread-bacteria-health-risk-heather-hendrickson-hostels-a7909941.html
Page 242, Position 3: English women didn’t wear underpants until the 19th century.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/502080/secrets-getting-dressed-18th-century-woman
Page 242, Position 4: In the early 1900s, women in Chicago could be fined $50 for wearing a hatpin over 9 inches long.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hatpin-peril-terrorized-men-who-couldnt-handle-20th-century-woman-180951219/
Page 243, Position 1: The first mass-produced bicycle for women was called the Ladies’ Psycho.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hatpin-peril-terrorized-men-who-couldnt-handle-20th-century-woman-180951219/
Page 243, Position 2: Penny-farthings weren’t called penny-farthings until they were almost obsolete.
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/140209?redirectedFrom=penny-farthing#eid
Page 243, Position 3: The Royal Mint made only seven pennies in 1933: there were enough in circulation, but they didn’t want to miss a year.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1302005/1933-penny-coin-valued-80k-offered-eBay-suddenly-withdrawn.html
Page 243, Position 4: 60% of 1p and 2p coins are used once, then put in a jar.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43388662
Page 244, Position 1: Pickpockets in 17th-century Russia used sharpened coins to slice open their victims’ purses.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-44088275
Page 244, Position 2: The Bitcoin network uses more power than the whole of Serbia.
https://newatlas.com/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-power-consumption/52556/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&
Page 244, Position 3: The Serbian equivalent of saying ‘Bless you’ to a sneeze is ‘Go away, kitten.’
https://newatlas.com/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-power-consumption/52556/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&
Page 244, Position 4: Looking at photos of puppies and kittens helps you concentrate.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/536413/facts-about-puppies
Page 245, Position 1: Paper wasps know every other wasp in their colony by sight.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/111202-wasps-people-faces-recognition-insects-science-animals/
Page 245, Position 2: The record distance for throwing a paper plane is 69.14 metres.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/farthest-flight-by-a-paper-aircraft
Page 245, Position 3: Truman Capote took six paperweights with him wherever he went.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/09/20/the-surprising-history-of-paperweights/?utm_source=New+Daily+Newsletter+Subscribers&
Page 245, Position 4: The World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things is based in Kansas.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/world-s-largest-collection-of-the-world-s-smallest-versions-of-the-world-s-largest-things
Page 246, Position 1: The world’s largest key collection includes the keys to the White House toilets, Mozart’s wine cellar and Hitler’s bunker.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/baldpate-inn-key-collection
Page 246, Position 2: The credits for the film Airplane! included Adolf Hitler as ‘Worst Boy’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_boy#Etymology
Page 246, Position 3: Rescuing a damsel from the train tracks only ever appeared in films as a spoof.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rethinking-the-origins-of-the-damsel-on-the-railroad-tracks
Page 246, Position 4: Oscars are not given for stunts or casting.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/26/game-of-thrones-the-crown-nina-gold-casting-director http://uk.businessinsider.com/heres-why-stunt-people-oscars-2018-3?r=US&
Page 247, Position 1: The sound of the doors on the starship Enterprise was made by pulling a piece of paper out of an envelope.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150616-the-secret-sounds-in-movies-and-tv
Page 247, Position 2: The sound at one Deep Purple concert was so loud that three people in the crowd fell unconscious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudest_band
Page 247, Position 3: The Welsh mythical hero Culhwch had a battle cry so loud it was said to sterilise women.
http://www.mabinogion.info/culhwch.htm
Page 247, Position 4: Gulf corvina fish have sex so loudly they deafen dolphins.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/how-machine-gun-fish-orgasms-11725723
Page 248, Position 1: Click beetles can withstand 40 times more G-force than a fighter pilot.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/animals-sharks-spiders-birds-beetles/
Page 248, Position 2: Montenegro is a member of NATO but has no fighter planes.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_155113.htm
Page 248, Position 3: In Japanese bullfighting, there are no bullfighters.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44015286
Page 248, Position 4: The only ants in Iceland are in a zoo.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/08/ants/did-you-know-learn https://grapevine.is/news/2017/11/30/leaf-cutter-ants-have-arrived-in-iceland/
Page 249, Position 1: Indigo plants aren’t blue.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MI-vbcXDdssC&
Page 249, Position 2: Dogs see in blue and yellow.
http://digg.com/video/what-dogs-see-when-watching-tv?utm_source=digg&
Page 249, Position 3: Lizards in New Guinea have lime-green blood.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/green-blood-lizard-423423/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 249, Position 4: There are over 4,000 pubs in the UK called the Red Lion.
The Pub Pete Brown
Page 250, Position 1: In 2017, a pub in Cardiff apologised to a group of priests who’d been asked to leave by staff who assumed they were on a stag do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-40792962
Page 250, Position 2: The Popemobile used by John Paul II on his visit to Ireland can be rented out for stag parties.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/the-popemobile-used-during-his-visit-to-ireland-can-now-be-hired-for-stags-and-hens-451686.html
Page 250, Position 3: After the Reformation, pubs called the Pope’s Head were changed to the King’s Head.
The Pub Pete Brown
Page 250, Position 4: King’s holly, a Tasmanian shrub, is at least 43,000 years old, but has never been seen to flower.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/how-do-you-define-a-tree/557135/?utm_source=twb
Page 251, Position 1: There is an eighth continent called Zealandia, but 94% of it is under the sea.
http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/27/3/article/GSATG321A.1.htm#toclink2
Page 251, Position 2: 500 times as much uranium is dissolved in the sea as is under the ground.
https://newatlas.com/nuclear-uranium-seawater-fibers/55033/?utm_medium=email&
Page 251, Position 3: Plutonium remains toxic for at least 100,000 years.
https://granta.com/the-waste-land/
Page 251, Position 4: Amazon owns more than 100,000 robots.
https://qz.com/se/perfect-company-2/1172282/this-company-built-one-of-the-worlds-most-efficient-warehouses-by-embracing-chaos/?mc_cid=8e1698a981&
Page 252, Position 1: The research that led to the founding of Google was funded by grants from the CIA.
https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-cia-and-nsa-research-grants-for-mass-surveillance/
Page 252, Position 2: The CIA stages fake conferences to lure professors they want to recruit.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/10/the-science-of-spying-how-the-cia-secretly-recruits-academics
Page 252, Position 3: In 2018, the University of Miami appointed the US’s first professor of atheism.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/01/how-should-atheism-be-taught/551885/?utm_source=newsletter&
Page 252, Position 4: The inventor of the bar code first drew it in sand on Miami Beach.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/history-bar-code-180956704/
Page 253, Position 1: In 2013, a stolen prosthetic arm was found in a second-hand shop in Bournemouth.
http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/10860772.Stolen_prosthetic_arm_discovered_in_a_second_hand_shop/
Page 253, Position 2: Mary Shelley is buried in Bournemouth.
https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/6/the-second-worst-poet-in-english-9867
Page 253, Position 3: Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in Bournemouth.
https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/6/the-second-worst-poet-in-english-9867
Page 253, Position 4: Cumberland Clark, the Bard of Bournemouth, is widely considered to be the second-worst poet in the English language.
https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/6/the-second-worst-poet-in-english-9867
Page 254, Position 1: The worst pollutant of all household cleaning products is air freshener.
https://priceonomics.com/which-cleaning-products-pollute-your-home-the-most/
Page 254, Position 2: Moose Murders, generally agreed to be the worst-ever Broadway play, lasted one night in 1983.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/theater/21moos.html?8dpc=&
Page 254, Position 3: When astronaut Sally Ride first went into space in 1983, NASA engineers asked if 100 tampons would be enough to last her a week.
https://www.popsci.com/brief-history-menstruating-in-space
Page 254, Position 4: Elon Musk works twice as many hours a week as the average American.
https://qz.com/1000370/the-days-and-nights-of-elon-musk-how-he-spends-his-time-at-work-and-play/
Page 255, Position 1: The risk of a heart attack increases by 25% the Monday after the clocks go back.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heart-daylightsaving/daylight-saving-time-linked-to-heart-attacks-study-idUSBREA2S0D420140329
Page 255, Position 2: ‘Widdershins’ is another word for ‘anticlockwise’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widdershins
Page 255, Position 3: In 2017, the chimes of Big Ben at Legoland were silenced to match those of the real one during its renovation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40829260
Page 255, Position 4: Palm trees don’t have rings.
https://curiosity.com/topics/the-worlds-first-trees-didnt-have-rings-curiosity/
Page 256, Position 1: Palm oil is in 50% of all the products in supermarkets, from instant noodles to detergent.
https://qz.com/650521/leonardo-dicaprio-shared-his-indonesian-vacation-pics-to-highlight-palm-oils-harm-to-wildlife/?mc_cid=9b381e4113&
Page 256, Position 2: Malaysia supplies 40% of the world’s palm oil.
https://www.aseanbriefing.com/news/2017/02/13/getting-a-grip-on-malaysias-rubber-glove-industry.html
Page 256, Position 3: The largest hotel in the world is in Malaysia.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-hotel-locations-in-the-world.html
Page 256, Position 4: Hilton Hotels’ largest shareholder is Chinese.
http://fortune.com/2016/10/25/china-hna-group-hilton-deal/
Page 257, Position 1: There is a Belgian hotel that will rent you a goldfish to keep you company .
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/belgium/articles/belgian-hotel-lets-lonely-guests-rent-goldfish-for-three-eruro-fifty-a-night/
Page 257, Position 2: Electric eels aren’t eels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_eel
Page 257, Position 3: One way to treat jellyfish stings is to apply shaving foam and ‘shave’ the area with a credit card.
Morning Star 11 Aug 17
Page 257, Position 4: Fish can cough.
https://www.livescience.com/32168-do-fish-cry.html
Page 258, Position 1: Dead Salmon is a paint colour: ‘salmon’ is a shade of pink and ‘dead’ is a synonym for matt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color
Page 258, Position 2: Farrow & Ball paint colours include Savage Ground, Smoked Trout, Mouse’s Back, Mole’s Breath, Setting Plaster, Railings and Pigeon.
http://www.farrow-ball.com/colours/paint/fcp-category/list
Page 258, Position 3: Paint names suggested by an AI algorithm include Clardic Fug, Snowbon, Bunflow, Bank Butt, Caring Tan, Grass Bat, Stoner Blue, Stanky Bean and Turdly.
http://lewisandquark.tumblr.com/post/160776374467/new-paint-colors-invented-by-neural-network
Page 258, Position 4: Taupe is the colour of a French mole.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/ariannarebolini/believe-me-when-i-tell-you-these-little-known-facts-about?utm_term=.hwQx0Kljg#.dt25PN1ZK
Page 259, Position 1: Naked mole rats have the same chance of dying at the age of one as at 25.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heart-daylightsaving/daylight-saving-time-linked-to-heart-attacks-study-idUSBREA2S0D420140329
Page 259, Position 2: Scientists prepare pet parrots for their return to life in the wild by staging parrot murder scenes and making them watch.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/teaching-captive-birds-to-fear-their-natural-predators/545195/
Page 259, Position 3: Falcons are more closely related to parrots than to hawks or eagles.
https://www.birdnote.org/blog/2015/02/parrots-and-falcons-äóî-long-lost-cousins
Page 259, Position 4: There are 550 wild parrots living in New York City .
not in first draft https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/nyregion/resilient-monk-parrots-flock-to-queens-and-beyond.html
Page 260, Position 1: Zoologist Francis Buckland had a parrot that liked to hail taxis from its perch by the window.
Rogues Villains and Eccentrics p.113
Page 260, Position 2: Hatebeak is a death-metal band fronted by a parrot.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9bgbz3/twelve-years-later-hatebeak-remains-the-worlds-only-death-metal-band-fronted-by-a-parrot-666
Page 260, Position 3: The death’s head hawk moth is the only moth that squeaks instead of buzzing.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150811-insects-moths-science-animals-death-noises/Butterfly
Page 260, Position 4: The East African jumping spider drinks mammals’ blood.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2017/10/31/real-halloween-horrors-peer-reviewed-collection-of-spider-records/#.Wf4IshO0M0o
Page 261, Position 1: Male spiders in the Salticidae family have fangs longer than their bodies.
https://peerj.com/articles/3972/
Page 261, Position 2: American scientists have genetically engineered a 10-legged spider.
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/13/4921
Page 261, Position 3: Sea urchins have 10 feet.
http://www.softschools.com/facts/animals/sea_urchin_facts/479/
Page 261, Position 4: In the 1940s, Americans were allowed to buy only three pairs of shoes a year.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/shoe-rationing-wwii-america-180968428/
Page 262, Position 1: Knights Templar were not allowed to wear pointy shoes or speak to women.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-the-templar-knights-ate?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 262, Position 2: The ancient Romans force-fed snails.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ancient-foie-gras-debate?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 262, Position 3: Some Roman statues had detachable heads that could be removed if the person fell from favour.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/bbc-history-magazine/20170525/283540860643318
Page 262, Position 4: In 2017, two 240-year-old letters were found in Spain inside the hollow buttocks of a statue of Jesus.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/letters-found-butt-jesus-statue-time-capsule-spain-spd/
Page 263, Position 1: In 2017, 100,000 euros were found blocking some toilets in Geneva.
https://news.sky.com/story/unusual-deposit-geneva-loos-blocked-by-100000-cash-11042528
Page 263, Position 2: The world’s most expensive earrings were sold at auction in Geneva for $56,290,627.
http://newatlas.com/earrings-worlds-most-expensive-apollo-artemis-sothebys/49559/
Page 263, Position 3: Cameroon’s president-for-life spends 15% of his year in a five-star hotel in Geneva, where no one knows what he does.
https://qz.com/1210373/cameroons-president-for-life-paul-biya-spends-15-of-his-time-outside-his-country/?mc_cid=fa8a6e6591&
Page 263, Position 4: No one knows how dinosaurs grew to be so large.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44744153
Page 264, Position 1: Quetzalcoatlus was a feathered dinosaur as tall as a giraffe that could fly 10,000 miles non-stop.
https://www.wired.com/2010/10/long-distance-giant-pterosaurs/
Page 264, Position 2: Crocodiles in the prehistoric Sahara galloped and ate dinosaurs.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/nov/19/galloping-dinosaur-eating-crocodiles?utm_source=esp&
Page 264, Position 3: T-Rex had a top speed of 12 mph and would have broken its legs if it had tried to run.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-science-trex-running-idUKKBN1A3182?feedType=nl&
Page 264, Position 4: Woolly mammoths could be blond, brunette or ginger.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5154892.stm
Page 265, Position 1: Jason Allen of Tucson was invited on Jimmy Kimmel Live! for having the world’s longest leg hair.
https://www.top10hq.com/top-10-people-with-record-breaking-long-body-parts/
Page 265, Position 2: To keep the censors happy, when Elvis went on The Ed Sullivan Show, he was only filmed from the waist up.
http://www.neatorama.com/2011/07/14/elvis-from-the-waist-up/
Page 265, Position 3: The largest known anaconda had a 44-inch waist.
http://www.extremescience.com/biggest-snake.htm
Page 265, Position 4: There were 473 bananas in the world’s largest bunch of bananas.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-bunch-of-bananas
Page 266, Position 1: A pottle is a small conical fruit basket.
http://phrontistery.info/p.html
Page 266, Position 2: To procaffeinate is to put off doing anything until you’ve had your first cup of coffee.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=procaffeinate
Page 266, Position 3: Pecorous means ‘full of cows’.
OED
Page 266, Position 4: Pullastrine means ‘of, or like, a pigeon’.
http://phrontistery.info/p.html
Page 267, Position 1: Yawning is contagious for budgies.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/on-the-many-mysteries-of-yawning/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 267, Position 2: Orang-utans blow raspberries at each other as they go to sleep.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8gdpDQAAQBAJ&
Page 267, Position 3: Growing blackcurrants was illegal in the US for the whole of the 20th century.
http://www.currantc.com/index.php?src=gendocs&
Page 267, Position 4: It’s illegal in Canada to be drunk in charge of a canoe.
https://boingboing.net/2017/10/16/means-of-muscular-power.html
Page 268, Position 1: Around 650 ad, Polynesians in canoes reached Antarctica.
https://www.ablogabouthistory.com/history-of-antarctica/
Page 268, Position 2: Antarctica is the most volcanic region on Earth.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/12/scientists-discover-91-volcanos-antarctica
Page 268, Position 3: Antarctic sea spiders can grow to the size of dinner plates.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/science/sea-spiders-oxygen.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180605&
Page 268, Position 4: You are advised not to build snowmen in Antarctica as it might disturb the animals.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HBBkDAAAQBAJ&
Page 269, Position 1: The world’s tallest snowwoman was only 30 feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty .
https://www.worldrecordacademy.com/biggest/tallest_snowman_world_record_set_by_Behtel_residents_80154.htm
Page 269, Position 2: In the last 300 years, there have been only six times when there’s been no snow on the ground anywhere in Britain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-41310947/scotland-s-oldest-snow-patch-set-to-melt-away
Page 269, Position 3: Australia has salt-and-vinegar flavoured grass.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/scientists-have-discovered-a-grass-that-tastes-like-salt-and-vinegar-chips-in-aussie-outback/news-story/a693c3af0b8e30fe613403b6be118628
Page 269, Position 4: Atlas, one of Saturn’s moons, is shaped like a piece of ravioli.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2169652-why-saturns-inner-moons-look-like-ravioli-cigars-and-potatoes/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&
Page 270, Position 1: Genoa airport has relaxed its rules on carrying liquids, but only for pesto.
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/italy-genoa-airport-pesto-genovese-liquid-rules-100ml-flying-angels-a7802256.html
Page 270, Position 2: A single queue at an airport makes passengers more relaxed because they don’t worry that other queues are moving faster.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/64808/12-behind-scenes-secrets-airports
Page 270, Position 3: Useless information travels faster than light.
http://bigthink.com/dr-kakus-universe/what-travels-faster-than-the-speed-of-light
Page 270, Position 4: For each gallon of fuel, the QE2 can only travel the length of a Greyhound bus.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/qe2-much-fuel/
Page 271, Position 1: Poodles at dog shows are regularly checked for illegal hairspray.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/pets/8800958/Kennel-Club-suspends-testing-dogs-for-banned-substances-amid-widespread-cheating.html
Page 271, Position 2: Most hairspray isn’t vegan.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13673943
Page 271, Position 3: There’s a tanning salon in St Andrews called Sun Tan Drews.
http://www.118118.com/st-andrews/solariums-and-tanning-salons/1476578-sun-tan-drews.html
Page 271, Position 4: There’s a tanning salon in Lytham St Annes called Lytham St Tanz.
https://www.facebook.com/sttanz.lythamsttanz/?rf=127386040643787
Page 272, Position 1: Sunscreen was invented for people climbing glaciers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/fashion/24skinside.html
Page 272, Position 2: In 2016, KFC launched Extra Crispy Sunscreen, which smelled like fried chicken.
http://time.com/4461631/kfc-introduces-sunscreen-that-smells-like-fried-chicken-to-keep-you-from-turning-extra-crispy/
Page 272, Position 3: Airline passengers are advised to wear sunscreen by the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/sunscreen-on-planes-skin-cancer-risk/
Page 272, Position 4: The World Bollard Association looks after half a billion bollards.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/world-bollard-association?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 273, Position 1: The roundest country in the world is Sierra Leone.
https://gciruelos.com/what-is-the-roundest-country.html
Page 273, Position 2: The combined area of all the parking spaces in America is larger than Israel, Cyprus or Macedonia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_area https://www.curbed.com/2017/4/26/15421594/parking-garages-driverless-cars-gensler
Page 273, Position 3: US basketball player Jimmy Butler removed the rear-view mirrors on his car as a reminder never to look back.
http://www.espn.com/sportsnation/post/_/id/13927339/the-chicago-bulls-jimmy-butler-reportedly-took-car-rearview-mirror-reminder-never-look-back
Page 273, Position 4: In the Fast and the Furious movies, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson drives trucks because he’s too big to fit into the cars.
https://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/films/the-rock-was-too-huge-to-fit-in-almost-all-the-cars-in-fate-of-the-furious/94441
Page 274, Position 1: ‘The Rock’ was told about the death of Osama bin Laden 45 minutes before the news media got hold of the story.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/05/why-rock-heard-about-bin-laden-you-did/350306/
Page 274, Position 2: Nick Clegg announced the news of the 5p charge on plastic bags from a notorious Glasgow dogging site.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/politics/dot-commons-diary/73008/nick-clegg-and-dogging-hotspot
Page 274, Position 3: On 18 April 1930, the BBC announced that there was no news that day, so listeners could enjoy some piano music.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39633603
Page 274, Position 4: George Gershwin learned to play the piano by copying the movement of the keys on a friend’s pianola.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/mar/28/classicalmusicandopera.artsfeatures
Page 275, Position 1: Anthony Trollope introduced the postbox to Britain.
https://www.royalmailgroup.com/sites/default/files/Royal%20Mail%20Post%20Boxes%20Heritage%20Agreement.pdf
Page 275, Position 2: The UK’s first postboxes were painted green to blend in with the landscape.
https://www.royalmailgroup.com/sites/default/files/Royal%20Mail%20Post%20Boxes%20Heritage%20Agreement.pdf
Page 275, Position 3: During the Second World War, the tops of British pillar boxes were coated with special yellow paint designed to detect poison gas.
https://postalheritage.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/painting-of-letter-boxes-during-world-war-ii/
Page 275, Position 4: Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, took mercury pills for immortality and died of mercury poisoning, aged 39.
https://www.livescience.com/22454-ancient-chinese-tomb-terracotta-warriors.html
Page 276, Position 1: Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson began recording an album together, but fell out because Jackson kept bringing his pet llama to the studio.
http://modernnotion.com/how-a-llama-ruined-one-of-the-most-anticipated-albums-ever/
Page 276, Position 2: Llamas urinate backwards.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b0AsAQAAMAAJ&
Page 276, Position 3: The ancient Romans had war dogs that were trained to fight in formation.
https://www.livescience.com/60518-animals-used-in-warfare.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&
Page 276, Position 4: Sheep fighting is a popular, but illegal, sport in Algeria.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2018/mar/02/the-brutal-world-of-sheep-fighting-the-illegal-sport-beloved-by-algerias-lost-generation-podcast
Page 277, Position 1: Santo Tomás, Peru, celebrates Christmas by holding a village punch-up.
https://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/14/world/americas/vice-peru-takanakuy/index.html
Page 277, Position 2: A fight broke out after the first indoor ice-hockey match between the players and people who wanted to go skating.
http://www.thehockeynews.com/news/article/from-deaths-to-monsters-a-history-of-fighting-in-hockey
Page 277, Position 3: After winning a fight with a rival, the male Southeast Asian mangrove crab does a victory dance.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mangrove-crab-fight-club-victory-dance-dominance
Page 277, Position 4: The Queen loves to dance to ‘Dancing Queen’.
http://royalcentral.co.uk/uk/thequeen/the-queen-reportedly-loves-to-dance-along-to-abbas-dancing-queen-85652
Page 278, Position 1: When a verylarge star quietly turns into a black hole, it’s called a ‘massive fail’.
https://www.space.com/37001-black-hole-born-from-collapsing-star-video-images.html
Page 278, Position 2: If the Earth had the density of a black hole, it would be the size of a peanut.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius
Page 278, Position 3: Alzheimer’s patients lose the ability to smell peanut butter.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3823377/pdf/nihms514234.pdf
Page 278, Position 4: Tortilla chips can spontaneously combust.
https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/austin-firefighters-respond-to-fires-caused-by-spontaneous-combustion-of-tortilla-chips
Page 279, Position 1: Australian black kites collect smouldering sticks from wildfires and use them to start new fires to smoke out prey .
https://www.livescience.com/61375-fire-spreading-raptors.html
Page 279, Position 2: South American scorpions shed their tails to escape predators, in the process losing their anus so they can’t poo any more.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/29/how-the-scorpion-lost-its-tail-and-its-anus/
Page 279, Position 3: Newborn lily beetles cover themselves in their parents’ excrement so they look like bird droppings.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/15/lily-beetle-wears-a-frock-of-frass-to-deter-foes
Page 279, Position 4: In the 19th century, snake excrement was taken for lung complaints.
http://www.thomas-morris.uk/snake-poo-salesman/
Page 280, Position 1: In the 16th century, women removed body hair using lotions made of vinegar and cat poo.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/get-rid-body-hair-renaissance-women-made-lotions-arsenic-cat-dung-and-vinegar-180949977/#pii5rjgweiSOr1fX.99
Page 280, Position 2: The oldest human hair was found in a fossilised hyena turd.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29119702/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/human-hair-found-prehistoric-hyena-poop/
Page 280, Position 3: One of the hyenas in The Lion King was called Shenzi, which means ‘worthless bastard’ in Swahili.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4L7UAwAAQBAJ&
Page 280, Position 4: Bastardium, nipponium and pandemonium are all rejected names for chemical elements.
http://www.compoundchem.com/2016/01/30/rejectedelements/
Page 281, Position 1: The periodic table, Google and The Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’ were all conceived in dreams.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/12763/11-creative-breakthroughs-people-had-their-sleep
Page 281, Position 2: Sleepless in Seattle T-shirts are a bestseller at Seattle-Tacoma airport.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/64808/12-behind-scenes-secrets-airports
Page 281, Position 3: The giant armadillo sleeps for 18.5 hours a day.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=l8j_z5-qZfAC&
Page 281, Position 4: Nurse sharks sleep on the seabed in piles.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/n/nurse-shark/
Page 282, Position 1: Horses can remember if you smiled when they last saw you.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2167423-horses-remember-if-you-smiled-or-frowned-when-they-last-saw-you/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&
Page 282, Position 2: Women have broader smiles than men.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/smile-ai-gender-826274/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 282, Position 3: There are more species of ladybirds than there are species of mammals.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/parasitic-wasps-dominate-the-animal-kingdom/557348/
Page 282, Position 4: Only 26 of the 47 British species of ladybird look like ladybirds.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150506-the-truth-about-ladybirds
Page 283, Position 1: Ladybirds recognise each other by the smell of their feet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150506-the-truth-about-ladybirds
Page 283, Position 2: The brains of pigeons have six times as many nerve cells as human brains.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170926090528.htm
Page 283, Position 3: Climbing Mount Everest causes brain damage.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brain-cells-into-thin-air/
Page 283, Position 4: Nepal has eight of the 10 highest mountains in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_mountains_on_Earth
Page 284, Position 1: Mountaineers can get ‘third man syndrome’, where they feel as if someone else is there with them.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26516-ever-felt-a-ghostly-presence-now-we-know-why/
Page 284, Position 2: In Madagascar, every seven years the bodies of the dead are dug up to dance with their living relatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famadihana
Page 284, Position 3: Mary Shelley learned to read using her mother’s gravestone.
M. Seymour. Mary Shelley. Grove Press 2002. P xvi (https://bit.ly/2uHz2U4).C. Gordon. Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. Random House 2015 (https://bit.ly/2mAXcLx)..A. Carlson. England's First Family of Writers: Mary Wollstonecraft William Godwin Mary Shelley. JHU Press 2007. P. 246 (https://bit.ly/2Lvf9t8).
Page 284, Position 4: Queen Silvia of Sweden thinks her palace is haunted.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38507015
Page 285, Position 1: A tommyknocker is western American slang for a ghost that lives in a mine.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/508553/16-scary-sayings-ghost-across-united-states
Page 285, Position 2: In Texas, cowboy boots are tax-exempt.
https://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-animals/
Page 285, Position 3: In a drugs bust in Detroit in 2017, undercover agents posing as dealers attempted to arrest other undercover agents posing as buyers.
https://www.upi.com/Undercover-Detroit-police-attempt-to-arrest-each-other-in-embarassing-drug-bust/8361510804710/
Page 285, Position 4: In 1999, a man in Connecticut was barred from joining the police because his IQ was too high.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836
Page 286, Position 1: In the Philippines, it’s a crime to annoy or irritate someone.
https://coconuts.co/manila/news/unjust-vexation-philippines-law-punishes-act-annoying-another-person/
Page 286, Position 2: In Durham in 1350, William Standupryght annoyed his neighbours so much that they all left the village.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=32JJ31F4QOUC&
Page 286, Position 3: In Lincolnshire in 1347, Letitia Bat was accused of fornication with Roger Sweatinbed.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=32JJ31F4QOUC&
Page 286, Position 4: During the Super Bowl, the two teams produce 11 gallons of sweat between them.
https://www.popsci.com/how-much-super-bowl-sweat?con=TrueAnthem&
Page 287, Position 1: 39% of the fresh water in the US is used to cool power stations.
https://newatlas.com/power-pant-steam-water/54981/?utm_medium=email&
Page 287, Position 2: The US uses more electricity for air-conditioning than the whole of Africa uses for everything.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/26/how-america-became-addicted-to-air-conditioning
Page 287, Position 3: The ash produced by coal-fired power plants is more radioactive than the waste from nuclear power plants.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
Page 287, Position 4: A Swedish power plant has reduced its dependency on coal by burning clothes from H&M instead.
http://fortune.com/2017/11/24/sweden-power-plant-hm-clothes/
Page 288, Position 1: The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum switched to solar power in 2017.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/04/06/the-coal-mining-museum-in-harlan-county-ky-switches-to-solar-power/
Page 288, Position 2: Insects are attracted to solar panels, which they mistake for water.
https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2010/scientists-propose-fix-to-keep-insects-away-from-solar-panels/
Page 288, Position 3: Most termites are blind.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/science/american-cockroach-genome.html?emc=edit_mbae_20180327&
Page 288, Position 4: Honeybees can grasp the concept of zero.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3kw5w/honey-bees-are-the-first-insect-known-to-grasp-the-concept-of-zero
Page 289, Position 1: Chickens communicate using over 200 distinct noises.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-interesting-facts-about-birds
Page 289, Position 2: A cloop is the sound of a cork being drawn from the bottle.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cloop
Page 289, Position 3: A million plastic bottles are bought every minute.
https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-bottle-crisis-2450299465.html
Page 289, Position 4: 7% of the microplastic in the sea comes from the paint used for road markings.
http://www.dw.com/en/river-of-plastic-trash-is-flooding-our-oceans/a-39817471
Page 290, Position 1: The Japan pig is a seahorse so tiny that hundreds of them would fit into your hand.
https://www.livescience.com/63335-tiny-japan-pig-seahorse.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&
Page 290, Position 2: In 19th-century Paris, it was fashionable to take turtles for walks on a lead.
'Eavesdropping' by John L. Locke (OUP 2010)
Page 290, Position 3: In 14th-century France, it was a capital offence to wear stripes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/09/books/when-fashion-decreed-stripes-a-capital-crime.html
Page 290, Position 4: In the 1910s, there was a US baseball team made up of death-row prisoners, whose executions were delayed so long as they kept winning.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/death-or-glory-488553.html
Page 291, Position 1: Before every Major League Baseball game, mud from the Delaware River is rubbed on the ball.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_rubbing_mud
Page 291, Position 2: Punchball is a sport like baseball in which you punch the ball instead of using a bat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchball
Page 291, Position 3: The first punch Mike Tyson ever threw was because someone killed his pigeon.
ξhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8376856/Dead-pigeon-prompted-Mike-Tysons-first-fight.html
Page 291, Position 4: 18th-century actor James Quin killed a fellow actor in a disagreement over how to pronounce the name Cato.
http://www.libraryireland.com/biography/JamesQuin.php
Page 292, Position 1: In 1871, an Ohio lawyer was killed when he accidentally shot himself demonstrating how a ‘murder victim’ might have accidentally shot himself.
http://www.civil-war-150.com/tag/clement-vallandigham/
Page 292, Position 2: In 1994, a convicted murderer in England was given a retrial after it was revealed that his jurors had consulted a Ouija board.
http://www.civil-war-150.com/tag/clement-vallandigham/
Page 292, Position 3: In 1474, a rooster was put on trial in Switzerland for laying an egg.
https://esoterx.com/2017/09/06/fowl-play-the-trial-of-a-sorcerous-swiss-rooster/
Page 292, Position 4: No woman in Britain has ever been convicted of stealing a bird’s egg.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7325311.stm
Page 293, Position 1: After the Queen, the first living person to appear on a British postage stamp was Roger Taylor, the drummer from Queen.
http://gbstamp.co.uk/article/living-people-on-british-stamps-132.html
Page 293, Position 2: Queen Victoria was given the first Pekingese dog in Britain. As he was looted from China, she named him Looty .
https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/406974/looty
Page 293, Position 3: Miniature Pekingese are also known as Sleeve Pekingese: they were once kept up the sleeve for use as weapons.
http://thepekingeseclubofamerica.net/purpose.html
Page 293, Position 4: Of all dog breeds, Pekingese are the most genetically similar to wolves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekingese
Page 294, Position 1: Wolves are more intelligent than dogs.
https://animals.howstuffworks.com/pets/wolves-are-smarter-than-dogs.htm#mkcpgn=rssnws1
Page 294, Position 2: Artificial intelligence can beat 99% of humans at Fantasy Football.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2202449/Artificial-intelligence-beat-99-fantasy-football-players-day-help-emergency-teams-save-lives.html
Page 294, Position 3: Two tech billionaires who think we live in a computer simulation have hired a team to work on how to break out of it.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/computer-simulation-world-matrix-scientists-elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-ai-a7347526.html
Page 294, Position 4: Disney has filed a patent for huggable robots.
https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/04/disney-files-patent-for-huggable-and-interactive-robots/
Page 295, Position 1: The surname Disney was originally D’Isney and meant someone who came from Isigny in Normandy.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/Disney
Page 295, Position 2: Yen Sid, the sorcerer in Fantasia, is ‘Disney’ backwards.
http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Yen_Sid
Page 295, Position 3: Kiss is Swedish for ‘pee’.
https://www.thelocal.se/20151014/eight-swedish-words-that-sound-awkward-in-english
Page 295, Position 4: The longest penis on record is only three inches shorter than the shortest man on record.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/man-says-189-inch-penis-9661421
Page 296, Position 1: Mambo is Swedish for an adult who still lives with their parents.
https://www.thelocal.se/20170720/untranslatable-swedish-words-language
Page 296, Position 2: Fremdscham is German for being embarrassed for someone else.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fremdschÃ_men
Page 296, Position 3: An attaccabottoni is Italian for someone who only talks about themself.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_d9FDQAAQBAJ&
Page 296, Position 4: Egduutei is Mongolian for the irresistible urge to pinch or squeeze something or someone unbearably cute.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c99b84a8-716d-11e7-83f1-667fddf1d78f
Page 297, Position 1: Stockholm trains named by schoolchildren include Best Friend, Glitter, and The Kisses and Hugs Train.
https://twitter.com/ingebjorgthor/status/990684528724324352?lang=en
Page 297, Position 2: To become someone’s best friend takes 200 hours.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/hours-best-friend-042342/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 297, Position 3: Only death releases someone from the Official Secrets Act.
https://granta.com/the-waste-land/
Page 297, Position 4: Shakespeare killed two of his characters by baking them into a pie.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/news/pie-facts/
Page 298, Position 1: A Bedfordshire Clanger was a long pie with meat at one end and pudding at the other.
http://www.discoverbritainmag.com/great_british_pie_trail/
Page 298, Position 2: The annual Wigan pie-eating contest was scandalised in 2005, when it was found that the pies were imported from nearby Bolton.
http://waterall.co.uk/british-pie-week-2017-10-things-never-knew-pies/
Page 298, Position 3: Italy holds an annual Hide-and-Seek world championship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hide_and_Seek_World_Championship
Page 298, Position 4: America has a National Grocery Bag Packing competition.
http://www.nationalgrocers.org/special-programs/best-bagger
Page 299, Position 1: The only member of the Ecuadorean Olympic ski team trains on tarmac using roller skis.
https://qz.com/1189058/winter-olympics-debuts-ecuador-eritrea-kosovo-malaysia-nigeria-singapore/
Page 299, Position 2: Roller-skating messengers were once used for the 17 miles of corridors in the Pentagon.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/87527/9-amazing-facts-about-pentagon
Page 299, Position 3: The most decorated US marine in history was called Chesty Puller.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesty_Puller
Page 299, Position 4: 1 in 4 Americans don’t know which country the US declared independence from.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-many-in-us-ignorant-of-july-4th-history/
Page 300, Position 1: Japan has a school where pupils learn to behave like Anne of Green Gables.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/17/world/cavendish-journal-annes-of-japan-come-dreaming-of-green-gables.html
Page 300, Position 2: When Greenland left the EEC, the community’s area was reduced by half.
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/top10facts/846937/greenland-top-10-facts-worlds-largest-island
Page 300, Position 3: If the San Francisco Bay Area were a country, it would have the 16th largest GDP in the world.
http://www.bayareaeconomy.org/the-bay-area-led-broad-regional-gdp-growth-surge-in-2015/
Page 300, Position 4: 10% of the GDP of Tuvalu comes from the registration of .tv domain names.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/internet-domain-riches-fail-to-arrive-in-tuvalu-2029221.html
Page 301, Position 1: The French TV version of Bake Off uses music from Doctor Who.
https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2018-01-15/turns-out-the-french-version-of-bake-off-uses-music-from-doctor-who/
Page 301, Position 2: In the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, 43 Azerbaijanis voted for Armenia, some of whom were later interviewed by the police.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8205907.stm
Page 301, Position 3: Under Section 54 of the Metropolitan Police Act 1839, it’s illegal to carrya plank along the pavement.
http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Legal_Oddities.pdf
Page 301, Position 4: ‘Plankton’ and ‘planet’ both come from the same Greek word meaning ‘to wander about’.
Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon Intermediate Edn. (OUP) p643
Page 302, Position 1: A passenger aircraft without windows would be 50% lighter.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/would-you-travel-on-a-windowless-plane/9843722
Page 302, Position 2: 56% of France’s military aircraft are unfit to fly .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/16/ground-force-half-frances-military-planes-unfit-fly/
Page 302, Position 3: In 2006, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was incapacitated by a jellyfish attack.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a14017901/china-aircraft-carriers-jellyfish-swarms/?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 302, Position 4: Nomura’s jellyfish can weigh up to 440 pounds.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a14017901/china-aircraft-carriers-jellyfish-swarms/?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 303, Position 1: A Danish scientist has invented jellyfish crisps.
http://newatlas.com/jellyfish-crisps/50662/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&
Page 303, Position 2: Wolves returned to Denmark in 2017 for the first time in 200 years.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/04/wolves-return-denmark-first-time-200-years/
Page 303, Position 3: In 2017, deer were seen eating a human body for the first time.
http://www.popsci.com/deer-eating-human-remains?src=SOC&
Page 303, Position 4: The first shark attack recorded in British waters took place in 2017 and left its victim with a cut on his thumb.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/07/first-shark-attack-surfer-uk-waters-leaves-man-small-cut-thumb/
Page 304, Position 1: The minute leaf chameleon is the size of a human thumbnail.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/11/green-haired-turtle-that-breathes-through-its-genitals-added-to-endangered-list
Page 304, Position 2: The cucamelon is the size of a grape, but looks like a watermelon and tastes like cucumber.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/cucamelon-mouse-melon-mexico?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 304, Position 3: Half the world’s legal cannabis is grown by the Chinese.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2108347/green-gold-how-china-quietly-grew-cannabis-superpower88
Page 304, Position 4: Until 1916, Harrods sold heroin and cocaine.
https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/11-facts-about-london-that-will-blow-your-mind-a3322476.html
Page 305, Position 1: Queen Victoria took cocaine with Winston Churchill.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/magazine-16681673
Page 305, Position 2: Slang terms for heroin include ‘dog food’, ‘elephant’, ‘witch’, ‘horsebite’ and ‘gravy’.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6519172/Police-given-3000-word-A-to-Z-of-drugs-slang-to-stay-ahead-of-criminals.html
Page 305, Position 3: Colonel Sanders was sued by KFC for saying their gravy was ‘sludge’ and ‘wallpaper-paste like’.
https://kottke.org/16/08/for-the-colonel-it-was-fingerlickin-bad
Page 305, Position 4: The South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has warned people not to add wasps to cocktails.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/south-koreans-told-not-to-mix-wasps-and-other-insects-into-their-favourite-alcohol-soju-a3805166.html
Page 306, Position 1: Bees’ tongues have no taste buds.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bee
Page 306, Position 2: The ‘oral size illusion’ is when your tongue gives you the impression that a hole is bigger than it is.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/5719827/why-our-tongues-and-fingers-see-the-world-differentlys
Page 306, Position 3: The heat of the hole that the egg of a Pacific green sea turtle is incubated in determines its sex.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/australia-green-sea-turtles-turning-female-climate-change-raine-island-sex-temperature/
Page 306, Position 4: ‘Turtle rabbit’ is the literal translation of the Aztec for ‘armadillo’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo
Page 307, Position 1: A rabbit’s nose can twitch more than 120 times a minute.
https://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/Bunnies-twitch-their-noses-for-information-3215094.php
Page 307, Position 2: A nasothek is a collection of nose sculptures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasothek
Page 307, Position 3: In ancient Rome, being born with a crooked nose was a sign of leadership.
http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/argonautsandemperors/2014/04/25/roman-noses/
Page 307, Position 4: Your nose is always in your eyeline, but your brain has learned to ignore it.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/your-hidden-censor-what-your-mind-will-not-let-you-see/
Page 308, Position 1: The word ‘sneeze’ was originally ‘neeze’. Nobody knows where the ‘s’ came from.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4Wq-AAAAQBAJ&
Page 308, Position 2: Nobody knows whether or not bats fart.
https://www.livescience.com/61292-does-it-fart-10-fascinating-facts-about-animal-toots.html?utm_source=llm-newsletter&
Page 308, Position 3: Cats could follow human instructions if they wanted to, but they don’t.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/cat-hearing-study-owners-dont-care_n_4351732
Page 308, Position 4: In 1963, a Parisian stray called Félicette became the first cat sent into space.
https://www.livescience.com/61292-does-it-fart-10-fascinating-facts-about-animal-toots.html?utm_source=llm-newsletter&
Page 309, Position 1: From space, you can tell East Berlin from West Berlin because streetlights in the East use yellow sodium vapour, while those in the West are fluorescent white.
https://www.citymetric.com/horizons/you-can-see-berlin-s-east-west-divide-space-886
Page 309, Position 2: The 1936 Berlin Olympics were sponsored by Coca-Cola.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/fanta-soda-origins-nazi-germany?mc_cid=9b381e4113&
Page 309, Position 3: Russia’s October Revolution is celebrated in November.
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0
Page 309, Position 4: July used to rhyme with ‘truly’.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=slDJAwAAQBAJ&
Page 310, Position 1: The most popular pub-quiz team name in Britain is QuizTeam Aguilera.
https://quizquizquiz.com/2012/08/whats-the-most-popular-quiz-team-name/
Page 310, Position 2: Christina Ricci has an irrational fear of houseplants.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-12/18/content_291442.htmhttps://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rGhHAgAAQBAJ&
Page 310, Position 3: 40% of Americans say they are too scared to ask what is in their hotdogs.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hot-dog-horror-show-survey-finds-americans-are-scared-to-find-out-what-is-in-their-hot-dogs-300652501.html
Page 310, Position 4: Fear is good for stock markets.
https://www.ft.com/content/797e17a8-0fd6-11e8-8cb6-b9ccc4c4dbbb?mc_cid=7788acfe21&
Page 311, Position 1: When chased by lions, zebras fart loudly with every stride.
S: Does it Fart
Page 311, Position 2: Zebra crossings can cause epileptic fits and migraines.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/08/stripes-modern-life-may-trigger-migraines-seizures-warn-scientists/
Page 311, Position 3: The NHS uses more than 10% of the world’s pagers.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-pagers-one-in-10-of-world-fears-outdated-technology-britain-hospitals-a7937491.html
Page 311, Position 4: Anaesthetics work on plants.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-knocking-out-plants-solving-mystery-anesthesia-180968035/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&
Page 312, Position 1: In the Middle Ages, peonies were used to treat lunacy .
'Fine herbs' by Deni Brown (Unwin Hyman 1988)ξ
Page 312, Position 2: Plants can be trained to expect rewards.
https://www.sciencealert.com/plants-can-hear-themselves-being-eaten-researchers-have-discovered
Page 312, Position 3: Sniffer dogs can be trained to detect works of art.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/531097/new-program-trains-dogs-sniff-out-art-smugglers
Page 312, Position 4: Paintings that don’t fit into lifts are less popular at auctions.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/8622710/The-worlds-most-expensive-paintings.html
Page 313, Position 1: The Swedish for ‘lift’ is hiss.
https://www.tok-pisin.com/swedish-translation/define.php?swedish=hiss-lyfta&
Page 313, Position 2: The Irish for ‘escalator’ is staighre beo, ‘living stairs’.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/20/irish-passport-guide-authentically-irish-brexit
Page 313, Position 3: 12,000 Americans die falling down stairs each year.
https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-04/fyi-why-are-escalators-so-dangerous
Page 313, Position 4: Unmarried people are more likely to fall down stairs than married people, and previously married people more likely to do so than either.
Bill Bryson äóñ At Home
Page 314, Position 1: The world record for the most stairs climbed while balancing another person upside down on one’s head is 90.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2017/1/vietnamese-circus-duo-smash-record-for-most-stairs-climbed-with-a-person-on-the-h-457854
Page 314, Position 2: Guinness has world records for ‘Most Mousetraps Released on the Tongue’ and ‘Most Fan Blades Stopped by the Tongue’.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/
Page 314, Position 3: A pangolin’s tongue is longer than its body.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ugq5BgAAQBAJ&
Page 314, Position 4: Possession of a pangolin is illegal in Ghana.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4300090/
Page 315, Position 1: It’s illegal in 18 US states to sell fake urine.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/states-move-to-ban-fake-urine-a-new-challenge-for-drug-testing-amid-an-abuse-epidemic/2018/04/07/05cad026-1cd8-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html?noredirect=on&
Page 315, Position 2: In New Zealand, imperial measures are illegal, apart from pints of beer, which are regarded as a description, not a measure.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&
Page 315, Position 3: In Britain in the First World War, it was illegal to serve someone more beer than they asked for.
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1996/may/01/deregulation-long-pull-order-1996#S5LV0571P0_19960501_HOL_241
Page 315, Position 4: In London in 1814, eight people drowned when a vat in a breweryruptured, creating a 15-foot tidal wave of beer.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/what-really-happened-in-the-london-beer-flood-200-years-ago-9796096.html
Page 316, Position 1: The Guinness brewery is 259 years into its 9,000-year lease.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103495161
Page 316, Position 2: Lagar is Irish for ‘weakness’ or ‘depression’, and lágar means ‘beer’.
xzc possibly this MotherfoclÃ_ir Darach Ãñ Séaghdha
Page 316, Position 3: Seelenklempner, the German for ‘psychiatrist’, literally translates as ‘soul plumber’.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2007/dec/15/businessjargon
Page 316, Position 4: The 93rd-most-cited psychologist of the 20th century was Edwin Boring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Boring
Page 317, Position 1: The shortest published scientific paper, ‘An Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of “Writer’s Blockâ€â€™, contains no words.
http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/01/shortest_science_papers.html
Page 317, Position 2: Mark Twain’s uncensored autobiography, published 100 years after his death, made him a bestselling author in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-mark-twain-it-was-love-at-first-sight-180968141/
Page 317, Position 3: The expressions ‘PIN number’ and ‘ATM machine’ are examples of Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome
Page 317, Position 4: A ‘murdermonger’ is a writer of murder mysteries.
http://www.oed.com/oed2/00153783
Page 318, Position 1: Sea lions are more murderous than actual lions.
https://sciblogs.co.nz/news/2016/09/29/muderous-mammals-violence-mapped/
Page 318, Position 2: In the last 30,000 years, the Great Barrier Reef has died five times.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2170064-the-great-barrier-reef-has-died-5-times-in-the-last-30000-years
Page 318, Position 3: Sugar heals infections that even antibiotics can’t cure.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180328-how-sugar-could-help-heal-wounds
Page 318, Position 4: Kierkegaard made coffee by filling a cup with sugar, pouring in coffee until it dissolved and then downing the lot.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/features/2013/daily_rituals/coffee_from_balzac_to_beethoven_it_has_fueled_artistic_endeavor_for_centuries.html
Page 319, Position 1: The dome of the Taj Mahal is held together with sugar, fruit juice and egg whites.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/26/built-by-roma-agrawal-review
Page 319, Position 2: In 17th-century India, smoothies were made by shaking mangoes till they liquefied, then sucking the juice out through a hole.
Penguins Pineapples & Pangolins
Page 319, Position 3: The shape of Perrier bottles is based on that of Indian clubs.
https://www.indianclubs.com.au/indianclubs/indian-clubs-inspired-perrier-bottles/
Page 319, Position 4: In the US, bottled water outsells all other soft drinks combined.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2017/03/09/bottled-water-not-soda-uss-fave-drink/98966530/
Page 320, Position 1: The entire water supply of Bermuda comes from rain collected by special roofs.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38222271
Page 320, Position 2: 85% of bikinis never get wet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini
Page 320, Position 3: German physicist Theodor Kaluza taught himself to swim from a book.
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Kaluza.html
Page 320, Position 4: Pigeons can be taught to recognise words.
https://www.sciencealert.com/new-research-shows-pigeons-can-be-taught-to-read-kind-of
Page 321, Position 1: Reuters started as a flock of pigeons ferrying financial news between Germany and Belgium.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-reuters-thomson-chronology/chronology-reuters-from-pigeons-to-multimedia-merger-idUSL1849100620080219
Page 321, Position 2: In 2018, news of forest fires in Canada caused panic buying of toilet paper in Taiwan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/world/asia/taiwan-toilet-paper-shortage.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180228&
Page 321, Position 3: In 2014, protesters in Moscow were arrested for holding invisible posters.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-26936770
Page 321, Position 4: Researchers in China have invented printable invisible ink.
https://phys.org/news/2017-11-kind-invisible-ink.html
Page 322, Position 1: 1 in 6 Georgians mistakenly think their country is a member of the EU.
http://oc-media.org/analysis-one-in-six-georgians-think-the-country-is-a-member-of-the-eu/
Page 322, Position 2: One-third of all flight delays in Europe are caused by French air traffic controllers.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/18/frances-strike-prone-ill-equipped-air-traffic-controllers-cause/
Page 322, Position 3: To avoid confusion, African reed frogs change colour during orgies.
https://www.popsci.com/frogs-change-color-orgies
Page 322, Position 4: Sex between two hummingbirds lasts three to five seconds.
http://www.gardening-for-wildlife.com/hummingbirds-mating.html
Page 323, Position 1: Graham crackers were originally intended to reduce people’s sexual urges.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/graham-crackers-were-supposed-to-be-a-sex-drivesuppressing-diet-food-15675399/
Page 323, Position 2: Eating nuts improves sperm count.
https://newatlas.com/sperm-quality-diet-nuts-study/55316/?utm_medium=email&
Page 323, Position 3: Fox squirrels arrange their nuts by variety .
https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/fox-squirrels-use-chunking-sort-and-organize-their-nuts
Page 323, Position 4: The 40 squirrels that appear in one scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory spent 10 months in training.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4702653.stm
Page 324, Position 1: Director David Fincher had a stuntman fall down stairs 12 times for one scene in Fight Club, and then used the first take.
http://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/100-random-movie-facts-you-really-need-to-know-763942
Page 324, Position 2: The word ‘slapstick’ comes from a stick used in 16th-century Italian comedy to make a slapping noise without hurting another actor.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slapstick http://www.delpiano.com/carnival/html/arlechin_batocio.html
Page 324, Position 3: Billiards was once played with ‘maces’, or sticks with blocks on one end. Cues developed from players getting better scores by using the ‘wrong’ end of the stick.
Billiards was once played with 'maces' or sticks with blocks on one end. Cues developed from players getting better scores by using the 'wrong' end of the stick. https://www.pooltables.com/history-of-pool
Page 324, Position 4: Billiards was the first sport to have a world championship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_real_tennis_world_champions
Page 325, Position 1: In 1863, a hot-air balloon equipped with a billiard table, a photographic workshop, a lavatory and a refreshment room successfully flew 400 miles.
http://www.artinsociety.com/the-adventures-of-nadar-photography-ballooning-invention--the-impressionists.html
Page 325, Position 2: The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is banned from advertising in Germany .
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germany-court-spaghetti-monster-idUKKBN1AI2FD
Page 325, Position 3: In Brooklyn, you can enjoy spaghetti Bolognese doughnuts.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-08/doughnuts-are-on-a-global-rampage-and-they-must-be-stopped
Page 325, Position 4: Slouching can help you solve maths problems.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-it-can-help-children-to-slouch-1444662618
Page 326, Position 1: Pilates was devised as a way to keep prisoners-of-war fit.
https://www.denverlibrary.org/blog/joseph-pilates-circus-performer-fitness-prophet
Page 326, Position 2: Most yoga poses date back only 150 years.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/06/01/411202468/those-yoga-poses-may-not-be-ancient-after-all-and-maybe-thats-ok
Page 326, Position 3: Until the 1970s, almost no women ate their own placenta.
https://qz.com/1022404/no-mothers-in-human-history-ate-their-own-placentas-before-the-1970s/
Page 326, Position 4: Genetically speaking, placentas belong to the baby, not the mother.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/placenta-plays-pivotal-umpire-role-to-influence-pregnancy-outcomes
Page 327, Position 1: Debussy’s father owned a china shop.
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/debussy/pictures/debussy-20-facts-about-great-composer/paris-conservatoire/
Page 327, Position 2: In 2013, a Chinese father hired virtual hitmen to kill his son’s character in the computer game he played so he would focus on getting a job.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20931304
Page 327, Position 3: Japanese employees can hire someone else to get told off by the boss.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2017/11/paying-for-fake-friends-and-family/545060/
Page 327, Position 4: Russians can hire a private jet to take Instagram pictures in, but it never takes off.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/20/grounded-private-jet-hire-helps-russians-fake-lavish-lifestyles/
Page 328, Position 1: The downdraught from the helicopter filming the mountain scene at the start of The Sound of Music knocked Julie Andrews over after each take.
https://www.cinemablend.com/news/1677709/filming-the-iconic-sound-of-music-hills-scene-was-super-rough-according-to-julie-andrews
Page 328, Position 2: Helicopters can protect crops from frost by flying over them and moving the air around.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fuzzy-history-georgia-peach-180964490/
Page 328, Position 3: Apple consumption in the US tripled in the 10 years after McDonald’s added sliced apples to their menu.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-impact-of-mcdonalds-sliced-apples-2016-5
Page 328, Position 4: The consumption of gin in 18th-century England was 25 times higher than it is today.
https://quartzy.qz.com/1204132/gin-how-the-liquor-known-as-mothers-ruin-went-from-scourge-to-savior/
Page 329, Position 1: The quinine in tonic water glows a brilliant blue under UV light.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/shining-science-explore-glow-in-the-dark-water/
Page 329, Position 2: People in Iceland can be stopped by the police for driving under the influence of the Northern Lights.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/iceland/articles/northern-lights-putting-drivers-at-risk-icelandic-police-report/
Page 329, Position 3: Driving a car for 12 miles has the same carbon footprint as one ‘all-day breakfast’ sandwich.
https://newatlas.com/sandwiches-global-warming/53128/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&
Page 329, Position 4: More people in Britain work in the sandwich industry than in agriculture.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the-sandwich-consumed-britain
Page 330, Position 1: Italians use ‘al fresco’ to mean ‘in prison’, like the US slang ‘in the cooler’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_fresco_dining
Page 330, Position 2: In 2017, eight donkeys in India spent four days in prison for eating valuable plants.
https://www.zmescience.com/space/galactic-clockwork-432432/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 330, Position 3: Tomato plants release chemicals that turn caterpillars into cannibals.
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49831/title/Caterpillars-Turn-to-Cannibalism--Study/
Page 330, Position 4: Caterpillars are more likely to vomit when on their own.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120412124840.htm
Page 331, Position 1: Bats swim using the butterfly stroke.
https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/animal-behaviour/newsflash-bats-can-swim-and-theyre-surprisingly-good-at-it/
Page 331, Position 2: The longest-ever kayak trip was completed by a man who couldn’t swim.
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/01/from-nazi-germany-to-australia-the-incredible-true-story-of-historys-longest-kayak-journey
Page 331, Position 3: J. K. Rowling couldn’t submit her final changes to The Casual Vacancy because an aardvark had chewed through a power cable.
https://www.iol.co.za/entertainment/books/jk-rowlings-book-was-scuppered-by-hungry-aardvark-in-sa-14017010
Page 331, Position 4: The second HarryPotter film came with a warning that it contained ‘mild language and horror, and fantasy spiders’.
http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/feature/a785575/mild-peril-and-occasional-language-the-bbfcs-10-best-parental-warnings/
Page 332, Position 1: Spiders of the Selenops family can spin around eight times in a second.
https://peerj.com/articles/3972/
Page 332, Position 2: All galaxies, regardless of size, rotate once every billion years.
https://www.zmescience.com/space/galactic-clockwork-432432/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 332, Position 3: There are galaxies called the Cartwheel, the Tadpole, the Cigar, the Sunflower and the Sombrero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_galaxies
Page 332, Position 4: Cashpoint, Bubble Wrap, Jet Ski, Ping Pong and Memory Stick are all brand names.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks
Page 333, Position 1: In 2017, a peacock caused £3,000 worth of damage to a new Range Rover after seeing its reflection in the paintwork and mistaking it for a rival.
https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/peacock-attacks-car-after-thinking-its-reflection-rival/#.WdN8EhNSyRs
Page 333, Position 2: In 2018, an emotional support peacock named Dexter was denied access to an American Airlines flight, despite having a ticket and his own seat.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/31/not-gonna-fly-emotional-support-peacock-turned-away-by-airline
Page 333, Position 3: There is no evidence that peahens choose their partner because of his plumage.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13535-have-peacock-tails-lost-their-sexual-allure/
Page 333, Position 4: Peacock spider species include Skeletorus and Sparklemuffin.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/five-new-peacock-spider-species-discovered-in-western-australia/news-story/9c5bff70b6648a9a62cf41e079fca0aa
Page 334, Position 1: Some wasps cover their partner’s eyes when mating.
https://academic.oup.com/aesa/article-abstract/85/2/219/73669/Male-Foretibial-Plates-and-Mating-in-Crabro?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Page 334, Position 2: Wasps can be deterred by hanging up a paper bag, which they mistake for an enemy nest.
https://academic.oup.com/aesa/article-abstract/85/2/219/73669/Male-Foretibial-Plates-and-Mating-in-Crabro?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Page 334, Position 3: A Venus flytrap can take over a week to digest a large insect and spit out its bones.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/5848121/can-a-venus-flytrap-digest-human-flesh
Page 334, Position 4: Venus has a crater named Mulan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Mulan
Page 335, Position 1: The Earth hums.
https://www.livescience.com/61263-weird-earth-discoveries-in-2017.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&
Page 335, Position 2: A special tartan has been designed for exploring Mars.
https://tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails?ref=11658
Page 335, Position 3: In medieval Scotland, the national drink was claret.
https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/a-great-union-of-the-sloshed-richard-godwin-on-the-scotlandengland-drinking-bond-9740846.html
Page 335, Position 4: Pershittie is a 19th-century Scots word meaning ‘hard to please’.
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/perskeet
Page 336, Position 1: Sir Walter Scott’s novel Anne of Geierstein, in which a woman is cursed by an opal, caused opal sales in Europe to drop by 50%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opal#Historical_superstitions
Page 336, Position 2: The first work of fiction about travelling back in time to kill the young Adolf Hitler was published in 1941.
https://newrepublic.com/article/136707/foolish-errand-time-travel
Page 336, Position 3: The Vatican’s chief astronomer has written a book called Would You Baptise an Extraterrestrial?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-vaticans-big-bang-theory?source=Weekend&
Page 336, Position 4: In 2017, the Vatican banned the use of gluten-free bread for Holy Communion.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/08/vatican-outlaws-use-gluten-free-bread-holy-communion/
Page 337, Position 1: In 320 ad, the Catholic Church made it a sin to eat sausages.
https://www.lovepork.co.uk/how-to-cook-pork/sausages/sausage-facts/
Page 337, Position 2: In 17th-century Japan, people put chillies in their socks to keep their toes warm.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2015/07/17/food/history-vegetable-hated-japanese-children/#.WdtplNOGP-b
Page 337, Position 3: Sprinkling black pepper into a load of laundry will stop it fading.
https://www.rd.com/home/cleaning-organizing/5-peculiar-uses-for-pepper/
Page 337, Position 4: Red, green and yellow peppers are all from the same plant but in various stages of ripeness.
Page 338, Position 1: Birds can’t taste chilli.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.aspx?id=tcm:9-202877
Page 338, Position 2: Crows can count up to six.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-interesting-facts-about-birds
Page 338, Position 3: Counting sheep to try to get to sleep keeps you awake for longer.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/health/16real.html
Page 338, Position 4: ‘Sheep-stealing’ is the practice of one American church luring the congregation of another.
https://redeeminggod.com/sheep-stealing/
Page 339, Position 1: Sheep smuggling used to be called ‘owling’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owling_(legal_term)
Page 339, Position 2: In 2012, thieves in the Czech Republic stole an entire ski lift.
https://news.expats.cz/weekly-czech-news/moravian-thieves-steal-12-hectares-of-corn/
Page 339, Position 3: Stonehenge was built by the Welsh.
https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/britain/english-landmark-stonehenge-built-by-welsh-37180313.html
Page 339, Position 4: China’s Tomb-Sweeping Day is for tending your relatives’ graves and for young couples to have their first date.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39487437
Page 340, Position 1: Oil Nationalisation Day is a public holiday in Iran.
http://barrelperday.com/2013/03/20/happy_nationalization_day/
Page 340, Position 2: In Bermuda, the nearest weekday to 24 May is the first day of the year when Bermuda shorts may be worn as formal wear.
https://www.bermuda-attractions.com/bermuda_000108.htm
Page 340, Position 3: On formal occasions, Barack Obama wore the same dinner jacket and shoes for all eight years of his presidency .
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/michelle-obama-husband-barack-wore-same-tuxedo-8-years-no-one-noticed-president-us-a7777021.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/michelle-obama-husband-barack-wore-same-tuxedo-8-years-no-one-noticed-president-us-a7777021.html
Page 340, Position 4: The Simpsons predicted Donald Trump would become president 16 years before he was elected.
http://time.com/4667462/simpsons-predictions-donald-trump-lady-gaga/
Page 341, Position 1: Calvin Coolidge chose all his children’s clothes and insisted his sons wore tuxedos at dinner.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-the-president-was-the-quietest-man-in-the-room
Page 341, Position 2: Calvin Klein kept a Pantone card in his kitchen so his chef could get the colour of his coffee exactly right.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/who-made-that-pantone-chip.html
Page 341, Position 3: Pantone created a new shade of purple in honour of Prince called Love Symbol #2.
https://www.pantone.com/the-prince-estate-and-pantone-unveil-love-symbol-number-2
Page 341, Position 4: Prince’s favourite colour was orange.
https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/arts/crown-jewels-of-prince-s-purple-reign-come-to-london-a3616416.html
Page 342, Position 1: Victor Hugo could fit a whole orange in his mouth.
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&
Page 342, Position 2: At the age of 69, Victor Hugo had sex with 40 different people in five months.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/a-monument-to-french-culture-1.140976
Page 342, Position 3: Male brown widow spiders prefer to mate with older females, even though they are more likely to be eaten by them afterwards.
https://phys.org/news/2018-04-brown-widow-male-spiders-sex.html
Page 342, Position 4: Squid change sexual position when requested to do so by their partners.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2018/02/14/squid-switches-sex-position-when-told/#.WrDmhpPFJ-V
Page 343, Position 1: In 2017, underperforming employees at a Manchester call centre were punished by having a dead squid dropped on their faces.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4463154/Call-centre-workers-suffer-squid-challenge.html
Page 343, Position 2: The Nazca people employed someone to walk around with a dead fox on their head.
National Museum of Peru
Page 343, Position 3: The first Western eyewitness account of India described it as having ants the size of foxes.
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/25/world/himalayas-offer-clue-to-legend-of-gold-digging-ants.html
Page 343, Position 4: Mosquitoes on the London Underground’s Piccadilly Line are genetically different from those on the Bakerloo Line.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/urban-living-drives-evolution-in-surprising-way/
Page 344, Position 1: Baker Island, in the middle of the Pacific, is the last place on Earth to ring in the new year.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/baker-island-ham-radio-expedition-2018
Page 344, Position 2: The world’s smallest flightless bird is the Inaccessible Island rail.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-interesting-facts-about-birds
Page 344, Position 3: Cleaning a train in Pakistan takes 40 people four hours.
https://herald.dawn.com/news/1154043/railways-failure-to-meet-public-expectations
Page 344, Position 4: Human nose grease can be used to clean photographic negatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_sebum
Page 345, Position 1: People enjoy their food more if they share photographs of it on social media.
http://www.cookinglight.com/healthy-living/study-sharing-your-healthy-food-on-instagram-makes-it-taste-better
Page 345, Position 2: The customer who ordered the world’s smallest sushi, made with a single grain of rice, was so moved she cried for an hour and a half.
https://kottke.org/18/03/the-worlds-smallest-sushi-is-made-from-a-single-grain-of-rice
Page 345, Position 3: Rui-katsu (‘tear-seeking’) is a Japanese therapy in which women pay to have a good cry with a handsome man.
https://boingboing.net/2018/01/23/japanese-women-pay-handsome-ma.html?mc_cid=4d413adf35&
Page 345, Position 4: Three Argentinian rugby players use their new tooth implants as bottle openers.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3063868/Salta-Beer-reward-rugby-players-bottle-opening-TOOTH-implants-brilliant-commercial.html
Page 346, Position 1: When the Chinese invented the compass, they used it for fortune-telling.
http://www.learnchinesehistory.com/history-chinese-compass/
Page 346, Position 2: Whenever a hurricane is forecast, sales of strawberryPop-Tarts increase sevenfold.
https://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/a44550/walmart-strawberry-pop-tarts-before-hurricane/
Page 346, Position 3: Poppies were first used as a symbol of the Napoleonic Wars.
https://bramptonlol5.webs.com/historyofthepoppy.htm http://www.bbc.co.uk/remembrance/how/poppy.shtml
Page 346, Position 4: There is a new genetically engineered poppy whose seeds won’t make you fail a drugs test.
http://www.grubstreet.com/2017/06/new-poppy-seeds-wont-make-you-fail-a-drug-test.html
Page 347, Position 1: Elvis Presley wanted to be a federal drug enforcement agent and was given a specially made badge by President Nixon.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-elvis-met-nixon-69892425/
Page 347, Position 2: President Calvin Coolidge enjoyed buzzing for his staff and hiding under the Oval Office desk while they searched for him.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PTIWBAAAQBAJ&
Page 347, Position 3: President Lyndon B. Johnson had an amphibious car that he liked to drive into the water, shouting, ‘The brakes don’t work, we’re going under!’
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/03/06/photo_lyndon_johnson_drives_in_a_lake_in_his_amphicar.html?via=gdpr-consent
Page 347, Position 4: 18 former presidents of Switzerland are still alive.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/presidential-explainer_switzerland-s-18-living-ex-presidents--a-political-record/43308498?ns_mchannel=nagg&
Page 348, Position 1: People with Cotard’s syndrome believe themselves to be dead.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/50197/plight-living-dead-10-case-reports-cotard%E2%80%99s-syndrome
Page 348, Position 2: A lifetime’s association of certain letters with specific colours can be caused by early exposure to Fisher-Price fridge magnets.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140611-can-synaesthesia-be-learnt
Page 348, Position 3: The world’s most advanced magnet is called ‘the double pancake’ and weighs as much as a Boeing 747.
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/iter-fusion-magnet-to-be-built-in-europe/
Page 348, Position 4: In 1935, Vogue readers were told that pancakes ‘are not worth eating unless paper thin’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/92966/10-things-you-might-not-know-about-pancakes
Page 349, Position 1: The British overcook roast beef by an average of 41 minutes.
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/reduce-environmental-impact-sunday-roast-1.739750
Page 349, Position 2: Jamie Oliver has a customised Land Rover that slow-roasts meat under the bonnet and makes butter and ice cream in the wheel drums.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/jamie-oliver-making-meals-wheels-11292715
Page 349, Position 3: Chopsticks were designed to be used for cooking, not eating.
http://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/a-brief-history-of-chopsticks
Page 349, Position 4: Chicken noodle soup really does relieve symptoms of the common cold.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11035691
Page 350, Position 1: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have a ‘Most Wanted’ list for flu viruses.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/h7n9-flu-pandemic/543318/?utm_source=twb
Page 350, Position 2: It’s illegal to get into a black London taxi if suffering from food poisoning, anthrax, measles or leprosy .
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/notifiable-diseases-and-causative-organisms-how-to-report http://content.tfl.gov.uk/taxi-drivers-abstract-of-laws.pdf
Page 350, Position 3: Vivaldi suffered from asthma.
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/vivaldi/guides/vivaldi-facts-about-great-composer/
Page 350, Position 4: 25% of Americans who catch salmonella from pet chickens admit to having kissed them recently.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cdc-chickens-backyard-salmonella-kissing-cuddling
Page 351, Position 1: Prairie dogs greet each other with kisses.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9393000/9393496.stm
Page 351, Position 2: In 2015, a woman in Indiana was shot in the foot by her dog, Trigger.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-names/having-the-right-name-at-the-right-or-sometimes-wrong-time-idUKKCN1C425Q?feedType=nl&
Page 351, Position 3: The inventor of the Uzi sub-machine gun was imprisoned for illegal possession of a firearm.
http://www.toptenz.net/10-things-probably-didnt-realize-named-people.php
Page 351, Position 4: The Apple III computer was built without a cooling fan because Steve Jobs hated the noise.
https://www.tekrevue.com/apple-iii-drop/
Page 352, Position 1: Joe Davis won the 1933 World Snooker Championship in a building named after himself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_snooker_champions
Page 352, Position 2: The only basketball coach at Kansas University with a losing record was James Naismith, the man who invented basketball.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_Jayhawks_men%27s_basketball
Page 352, Position 3: From 1541 to 1555, playing bowls was illegal for commoners, except on Christmas Day.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/89754/when-christmas-was-only-day-you-could-legally-go-bowling
Page 352, Position 4: 25% of the world’s prisoners are in the US.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCGpftCfG5I&
Page 353, Position 1: When Oscar Wilde was in prison, he had special dispensation to have his light on at night so he could keep reading.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/oscar-wilde-prison-library-a-book-of-book-lists-reading-gaol-a8265866.html
Page 353, Position 2: A restaurant in Connecticut gives diners a free book with their meal.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/traveler-restaurant
Page 353, Position 3: Timothy Dexter wrote a book with no punctuation, but included a sheet of punctuation marks for the reader to distribute as they pleased.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Dexter
Page 353, Position 4: The exclamation mark was originally called the ‘point of admiration’.
Dictionarie of the French and English Tonguesξ1611ξ
Page 354, Position 1: In Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, it was a mark of high status to have a folding stool.
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/furniture.htm
Page 354, Position 2: In the Cabinet Office at No. 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s chair is the only one with arms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_Downing_Street#Cabinet_Room
Page 354, Position 3: A Dutch designer has invented a chair that gives an electric shock to people who say ‘Yes, but . . .’ in meetings.
http://www.cyrielkortleven.com/yes-chair-studio-roosegaarde/
Page 354, Position 4: Researchers in Singapore have built a robot that can assemble an IKEA chair.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/science/robots-ikea-furniture.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180419&
Page 355, Position 1: Nintendo is Japanese for ‘leave luck to Heaven’.
https://gizmodo.com/the-surprisingly-long-history-of-nintendo-1354286257
Page 355, Position 2: According to Nintendo, Mario isn’t a plumber.
Page 355, Position 3: In 2018, a plane full of Norwegian plumbers had to turn back because of a broken toilet.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/norwegian-plumbers-plane-turn-around-broken-toilet/
Page 355, Position 4: In 2009, a British Airways plane was delayed from taking off for half an hour because it didn’t have an ashtray in the lavatory.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/5409448/British-Airways-flight-delayed-by-missing-ashtray.html
Page 356, Position 1: In 2015, a Southampton to Dublin flight had to turn back after a bee got stuck in the flight instruments. It was a Flybe flight.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-33040634
Page 356, Position 2: In 1952, a US Air Force lieutenant accidentally shot down his own plane.
https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/above-amp-beyond-shooting-up-a-shooting-star-47469405/?all
Page 356, Position 3: In 1943, a US destroyer accidentally torpedoed a ship that was carrying President Roosevelt.
http://taskandpurpose.com/wwii-naval-ship-unlucky-almost-killed-fdr/
Page 356, Position 4: The US Navy uses Xbox controllers to operate periscopes.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military-xbox-360-controller
Page 357, Position 1: The US director of the International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame is called Jack Dagger.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/sports/knife-throwing-sport.html
Page 357, Position 2: Winston Churchill trained his pet budgie to walk up and down his dining-room table carrying a salt spoon.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11291075/Budgie-trainer-and-pig-sketcher-auction-reveals-the-family-life-of-Winston-Churchill.html?WT.mc_id=e_3755667&
Page 357, Position 3: When Danish explorer Peter Freuchen was buried by an avalanche at the North Pole, he hacked his way out with a tool made of his own frozen poo.
https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/24/5441984/explorers-club-elon-musk-adventure-space-frozen-poop-chisel
Page 357, Position 4: A butcher in Totnes who got trapped in his freezer in 2018 had to batter his way out with a frozen black pudding.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/devon-butcher-imprisoned-freezer-black-pudding-meat-christopher-mccabe-totnes-a8153546.html
Page 358, Position 1: The French don’t have Christmas pudding or Christmas crackers at Christmas.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/france/articles/Christmas-in-France-nine-things-that-might-surprise-you/?WT.mc_id=e_DM614922&
Page 358, Position 2: The pioneers of the French naturist movement were a married couple called Lecoq.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturism_in_France
Page 358, Position 3: Louis XVI issued a decree prohibiting anyone from carrying a handkerchief larger than his.
http://www.textileartscouncil.org/tattered-rags2-the-art-of-boro/
Page 358, Position 4: Lawn, a fine cloth used to make handkerchiefs, gets its name from the French city of Laon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_cloth
Page 359, Position 1: The curator of the British Lawnmower Museum is allergic to grass.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2005/apr/17/unitedkingdom.familyholidays.family
Page 359, Position 2: As a child, Welsh jockey Sean Bowen was allergic to horses and practised riding by sitting on the arm of a sofa.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/grand-national-2015-welsh-jockey-8998672
Page 359, Position 3: US ice-hockey goalie Chris Truehl is allergic to ice.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41917767
Page 359, Position 4: Under a US law signed by Ronald Reagan, July is National Ice Cream Month and 15 July is National Ice Cream Day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ice_Cream_Month
Page 360, Position 1: February was known to the Anglo-Saxons as Solmoneth, or ‘mud month’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solmï†ï†naÃ_
Page 360, Position 2: Over 100 men a month visit a hospital in Bangkok to have their penis whitened.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/thailands-penis-whitening/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 360, Position 3: The inventor of the bra had a pet whippet called Clytoris.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/71612/caresse-crosby-brazen-inventor-brassiere
Page 360, Position 4: Abraham Lincoln patented an inflatable ship.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/abraham-lincoln-only-president-have-patent-131184751/
Page 361, Position 1: In 2017, China imported 33 shipping containers of avocados – up from zero in 2014.
http://www.vogue.co.uk/article/the-real-cost-of-avocados-facts-and-health-economy
Page 361, Position 2: The flag of the Philippines has the blue stripe on top in peacetime and the red stripe on top in wartime.
https://fotw.info/flags/ph.html
Page 361, Position 3: The first red flag symbolising workers’ rights was dyed with calf’s blood.
http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/Dic_Penderyn.htm
Page 361, Position 4: Blood donors in Sweden are sent a thank-you text message when their blood gets used.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/blood-donors-in-sweden-get-a-text-message-whenever-someone-is-helped-with-their-blood-10310101.html
Page 362, Position 1: The first Kleenex tissues were made from the same material as the gas-mask filters during the First World War.
http://time.com/4725511/world-war-one-i-inventions-centennial/
Page 362, Position 2: During the Second World War, the Northern Ireland Assembly building was covered in cow manure to camouflage it.
http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/assembly-business/office-of-the-speaker/80th-anniversary-open-day/parliament-buildings-facts/
Page 362, Position 3: Defecating causes sloths as much pain as childbirth.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/230432/20180616/pooping-creates-the-same-pain-as-childbirth-for-sloths-and-it-is-dangerous.htm
Page 362, Position 4: The oldest human settlement in Australia was found by a man looking for a lavatory.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/aboriginal-australian-searching-toilet-stumbles-49000-evidence-earliest-human-settlement-a7394731.html
Page 363, Position 1: Australians feel they need to earn more than three times as much as people in the Caribbean to be equally happy.
https://www.livescience.com/61764-how-much-money-buys-happiness.html
Page 363, Position 2: Warriors in Papua New Guinea made daggers from their enemies’ thigh bones.
https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2018/04/in-new-guinea-human-thigh-bone-daggers.html
Page 363, Position 3: Fractures can be diagnosed by holding a tuning fork to the bone: if it rings like a bell, all’s well.
if it rings like a bell you're fine.
Page 363, Position 4: The Japanese have invented a noise-cancelling fork to counteract the sound of people slurping their noodles.
https://newatlas.com/noise-cancelling-ramen-fork/51873/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&
Page 364, Position 1: In 2018, the Thai prime minister directed reporters’ questions to a cardboard cut-out of himself.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/09/thai-prime-minister-uses-cardboard-cutout-avoid-journalists/
Page 364, Position 2: Sarcasm is banned in North Korea.
Page 364, Position 3: 70% of South Koreans aged under 30 are short-sighted.
https://qz.com/1266600/the-rare-sight-of-women-wearing-glasses-in-korea-speaks-to-its-unjust-beauty-norms/
Page 364, Position 4: South Korean women who wear glasses to work are seen as unprofessional.
https://qz.com/1266600/the-rare-sight-of-women-wearing-glasses-in-korea-speaks-to-its-unjust-beauty-norms/
Page 365, Position 1: A zoilist is someone who gets pleasure from finding fault.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 365, Position 2: A cumberground is someone whose only purpose is to take up space.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 365, Position 3: Whipper-tooties are feeble excuses for not doing something.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 365, Position 4: Crytoscopophilia is the urge to look through the windows of someone’s house as you pass by.
http://www.ico.org/Benefits_ICA2007.asp
Page 366, Position 1: In France, you can ask the postie to look in on your elderly parents.
https://www.propertyguides.com/france/news/french-postal-workers-set-watch-elderly-relatives/
Page 366, Position 2: For its first 300 years, the word ‘worrying’ was what dogs did to sheep.
etymonline
Page 366, Position 3: For its first 100 years, the word ‘mugger’ meant someone who sold mugs.
OED
Page 366, Position 4: 600 billion cups of coffee are drunk each year.
http://www.ico.org/Benefits_ICA2007.asp
Page 367, Position 1: You are 10 million times more likely to be struck by lightning than hit by a piece of falling space debris.
https://www.space.com/40115-china-space-station-crash-chances-debris-strike.html
Page 367, Position 2: The pressure inside a proton is a billion billion billion times greater than that at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2169113-weve-measured-the-pressure-inside-a-proton-and-its-extreme/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&
Page 367, Position 3: The scientific journal Academic Emergency Medicine records an experiment in which sheep were tasered while high on crystal meth.
https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-04/taser-shocks-meth-intoxicated-sheep-dont-harm-heart-taser-study-says
Page 367, Position 4: Over 15,000 published scientific studies mention Arnold Schwarzenegger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFvdSvaLPQg
Page 368, Position 1: William Shatner had a kidney stone removed and sold it for $25,000.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shatner-sells-kidney-stone-for-25000/
Page 368, Position 2: Some people can produce goosebumps on demand.
https://www.improbable.com/2018/03/02/people-who-have-voluntary-control-of-goosebumps/
Page 368, Position 3: 7% of Americans have bashful bladder syndrome, which means they can’t pee if they can see or hear another person.
Ladies and Gents - Olga Gershenson
Page 368, Position 4: 80% of women hover over public toilets.
Ladies and Gents - Olga Gershenson
Page 369, Position 1: Bacteria can penetrate six layers of loo paper.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/aedc/ce206627ab712ff8b1fa66d3cefc3462acfc.pdf
Page 369, Position 2: Rats can tread water for three days and survive being flushed down the lavatory.
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/dec/20-things-rats
Page 369, Position 3: Funnel-web spiders can live in water for 30 hours.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36397505
Page 369, Position 4: Coconut crabs grow as big as dogs.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/82033/10-ginormous-facts-about-coconut-crabs
Page 370, Position 1: A blind man who is scared of dogs has been given the UK’s first guide horse.
https://news.sky.com/story/blind-man-scared-of-dogs-to-get-uks-first-guide-horse-11239836
Page 370, Position 2: The Titanic’s gym had an electric horse for passengers to hone their riding skills.
https://mashable.com/2015/03/14/titanic-gym/?europe=true#WY17lcOx0Zq0
Page 370, Position 3: President Ulysses S. Grant was arrested for speeding on a horse.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/65855/cop-who-gave-ulysses-s-grant-speeding-ticket
Page 370, Position 4: Horses have three more facial expressions than chimpanzees.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/05/researchers-compile-directory-horse-facial-expressions
Page 371, Position 1: Chimpanzees can be taught to play Rock, Paper, Scissors.
https://www.livescience.com/60134-chimps-learn-to-play-rock-paper-scissors.html
Page 371, Position 2: 60% of primatologists have been scratched by a primate, and 40% have been bitten by one.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19408683
Page 371, Position 3: Pottos are primates that smell like curry .
http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Perodicticus_potto/
Page 371, Position 4: 75 million bacteria per square centimetre can live in one rubber duck.
https://www.livescience.com/62139-rubber-ducky-bacteria.html
Page 372, Position 1: Ducks’ penises grow and shrink with the seasons.
https://www.popsci.com/duck-penis-social-pressure
Page 372, Position 2: Summer and autumn are the times when Google searches for ‘hair loss’ peak.
https://www.livescience.com/60763-hair-loss-searches-peak-in-summer.html
Page 372, Position 3: Pulling someone’s hair is a legal tackle in American football: if it reaches to their jersey , it counts as part of their uniform.
http://thesportjournal.org/article/analyzing-hair-pulling-in-athletics/
Page 372, Position 4: To catch cheating footballers, scientists have invented anti-diving shin pads.
https://metro.co.uk/2011/04/08/anti-diving-shinpads-developed-to-stop-footballers-cheating-650028/
Page 373, Position 1: The backs of playing cards used to be left blank so people could make notes on them.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=y3UwKT7ddPIC&
Page 373, Position 2: The translator of Finnegans Wake into Chinese is having to write footnotes for 80% of the words.
https://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/joyces-finnegans-wake-takes-off-in-china/
Page 373, Position 3: Detective Speechley is a spokesman for the NYPD.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-names/having-the-right-name-at-the-right-or-sometimes-wrong-time-idUKKCN1C425Q?feedType=nl&
Page 373, Position 4: Stephen Hawking wrote ‘Galeelaeo’ and ‘Ahristottal’ in his lecture notes so his speech machine would pronounce them properly.
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/events/strings02/dirac/hawking/
Page 374, Position 1: The ancient Greeks had a contraceptive suppository made of frankincense, myrrh and blister beetles.
http://sdsu-dspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10211.3/173303/Genshock_sdsu_0220N_11385.pdf?sequence=1
Page 374, Position 2: A panda’s sperm count is a hundred times higher than a man’s.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/what-you-think-you-know-about-animals--probably-not-true/
Page 374, Position 3: Pandas can distinguish 18 shades of grey .
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061013201943.htm
Page 374, Position 4: Pandas are losing their black eye patches, and no one knows why.
https://qz.com/1269997/scientists-puzzled-by-pandas-black-eye-patches-turning-white/
Page 375, Position 1: No one knows why the upside-down catfish swims upside down.
http://www.aquariumlife.net/articles/tropical-fish/upside-down-catfish/203.asp
Page 375, Position 2: Goldfish can survive for five months without oxygen.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2143579-goldfish-go-months-without-oxygen-by-making-alcohol-inside-cells/
Page 375, Position 3: Praying mantises are the only insects known to see in 3D.
https://newatlas.com/praying-mantis-3d-vision/53339/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&
Page 375, Position 4: Insect burgers are available in Switzerland.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/15/mealworm-burger-insect-food-sale-switzerland
Page 376, Position 1: Yellville, Arkansas, celebrates Thanksgiving by dropping turkeys from a light aircraft.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/turkey-drop-trot-yellville-arkansas_us_57f92100e4b0b6a43032b9e4
Page 376, Position 2: In 1605, an Act of Parliament made the celebration of Bonfire Night compulsory.
https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/a-very-short-history-of-bonfire-night/
Page 376, Position 3: During the Second World War, paraffin was used to make cakes.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pjJ_CgAAQBAJ&
Page 376, Position 4: France and French Polynesia have special mailboxes for baguette deliveries.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mailbox-baguette-french-polynesia
Page 377, Position 1: French became the official language of the Aosta Valley in Italy three years before it was adopted by France itself.
https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Aosta+Valley
Page 377, Position 2: Drunken fights among pétanque players are known in the French press as bouliganism.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/28/no-jeans-rule-raises-tempers-among-frances-petanque-players/
Page 377, Position 3: France has a population of wild hamsters.
Page 377, Position 4: A group of pheasants is called a ‘bouquet’.
http://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/400-pheasants-worth-up-to-60-000-stolen-from-village-near-buntingford/story-30496987-detail/story.html
Page 378, Position 1: Ptarmigan is eaten by 8% of Icelanders at Christmas.
https://grapevine.is/news/2016/12/21/whats-for-christmas-dinner-in-iceland/
Page 378, Position 2: The past tense of ‘snow’ used to be ‘snew’.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snew
Page 378, Position 3: Snow fleas survive the cold because their bodies contain natural antifreeze.
https://www.wired.com/2014/01/snow-fleas/
Page 378, Position 4: It is only safe to eat snow that has fallen within the last half-day.
http://time.com/5140350/is-snow-safe-to-eat/
Page 379, Position 1: According to the Office for National Statistics, Britons eat 50% more than they say they do.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/the-big-fat-lie-britons-eat-50-more-than-theysay-cpxcgnh8p
Page 379, Position 2: The Welsh for ‘peaches’ literally translates as ‘woolly plums’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/32LYRFTf8hSR9xknCxYXl7T/seven-welsh-words-that-are-well-worth-knowing
Page 379, Position 3: In the 17th century, potatoes were cut into fishy shapes and fried as a fish substitute when it was too cold to go fishing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8419026.stm
Page 379, Position 4: People with auto-brewerysyndrome can get drunk from eating chips.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150305-the-man-who-gets-drunk-on-chips
Page 380, Position 1: Pancakes in food ads are drizzled with motor oil because it looks better than maple syrup.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150305-the-man-who-gets-drunk-on-chips
Page 380, Position 2: The director of Canada’s Avian Science and Conservation Centre is called Professor Bird.
https://www.improbable.com/2017/10/05/professor-bird-avian-science-expert/
Page 380, Position 3: Birds have a built-in ‘smell map’ that helps them navigate featureless oceans.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170829113839.htm
Page 380, Position 4: A pelican’s bill can hold as much water as two flushes of a toilet.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/06/pelican-grace/did-you-know-learn
Page 381, Position 1: 50 geese can produce 5,000 pounds of excrement a year.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/c/canada-goose/
Page 381, Position 2: The UK has more Wildlife Trust nature reserves than branches of McDonald’s.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/06/pelican-grace/did-you-know-learn
Page 381, Position 3: Donald Trump asked the White House chef to recreate items from the McDonald’s menu for him.
http://www.tronc.com/gdpr/latimes.com/
Page 381, Position 4: When Donald Trump asked the Guggenheim Museum to lend the White House a Van Gogh, they offered him a solid gold toilet instead.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/the-white-house-wanted-a-van-gogh-the-guggenheim-offered-a-used-solid-gold-toilet/2018/01/25/38d574fc-0154-11e8-bb03-722769454f82_story.html?__twitter_impression=true&
Page 382, Position 1: To quomodocunquize is to make money in any way possible.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/505126/25-words-you-didnt-know-were-dictionary
Page 382, Position 2: A lanspresado is a 17th-century word for the friend who never seems to have any money with them.
http://blog.inkyfool.com/2011/02/lanspresados-and-snecklifters.html
Page 382, Position 3: A tunklehead is Maine slang for an ‘idiot’.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/dictionary-of-american-regional-english_us_599199fee4b08a247275c897
Page 382, Position 4: Euneirophrenia is the peaceful feeling experienced on emerging from a nice dream.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/euneirophrenia
Page 383, Position 1: Birds sing in their dreams.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2160842-birds-dream-sing-by-moving-their-vocal-muscles-in-their-sleep/
Page 383, Position 2: Dogs only make sad faces if there’s a person watching.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/10/19/puppy-dog-eyes-benefit-humans-scientists-find/
Page 383, Position 3: A complete set of two-inch-square cotton Pantone colour swatches costs $7,395.
https://www.pantone.com/cotton-swatch-library
Page 383, Position 4: Pope Francis’s watch cost less than a paperback Bible.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-24/how-un-luxurious-is-pope-francis-compared-to-his-predecessors-
Page 384, Position 1: Pope Benedict XVI commissioned a special eau de cologne for himself that smelled like the Grotto at Lourdes.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9143148/Perfume-created-for-Pope-Benedict-XVI.html
Page 384, Position 2: Modern Catholic exorcisms are carried out by reciting Latin prayers over a mobile phone.
https://www.livescience.com/62360-vatican-exorcism-training-cellphones.html
Page 384, Position 3: After the Gunpowder Plot, English Catholics were banned from voting, practising law or serving as officers in the army or navy until 1829.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/gunpowder_robinson_01.shtml
Page 384, Position 4: The word ‘conspire’ comes from the Latin conspirare, meaning ‘to breathe together’.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/conspire
Page 385, Position 1: Hvalreki is Icelandic for ‘windfall’ and ‘beached whale’.
http://www.oceanographerschoice.com/2015/02/hvalreki/
Page 385, Position 2: The Latin for ‘pan pipes’ was the same as the word for a whale’s blowhole.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/fistula
Page 385, Position 3: Bowhead whales rub up against rocks to exfoliate their skin.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171122151041.htm
Page 385, Position 4: Sea urchins can drill holes in solid rock with their teeth.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2161771-sea-urchins-can-drill-holes-in-solid-rock-with-just-their-teeth/?utm_term=Autofeed&
Page 386, Position 1: 10% of chipped teeth are caused by popcorn.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/07/posh-popcorn-explosion-behind-rise-chipped-teeth/
Page 386, Position 2: Over 25% of the mentions of teeth in the Bible involve ‘gnashing’.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=simple&
Page 386, Position 3: Tasleek is a Saudi word meaning to nod along and pretend to care what the other person is saying.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211695817302933 ξhttps://www.reddit.com/r/DoesNotTranslate/comments/8dxoxg/arabic_%D8%AA%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%83_when_someone_speaks_to_you_and_you/
Page 386, Position 4: In 19th-century France, the least-important dinner guests sat at the ends of the table. Honoured guests were seated in the middle, with more people to talk to.
https://www.geriwalton.com/various-19th-century-french-etiquette-rules/
Page 387, Position 1: People walk faster when passing banks.
'The walker's guide to outdoor clues & signs' by Tristan Gooley (Sceptre 2015)
Page 387, Position 2: On the Moon, skipping is more efficient than walking.
https://www.nature.com/news/1998/980723/full/news980723-2.html
Page 387, Position 3: The grunts of a tennis player become higher-pitched when they’re losing.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170705095414.htm
Page 387, Position 4: Venus Williams has spent more than a year of her life at Wimbledon.
http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/news/articles/2017-07-05/venus_extends_her_stay.html
Page 388, Position 1: Novak Djokovic never uses the same shower twice in a row.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/wimbledon/9365454/Wimbledon-2012-the-bizarre-rituals-driving-the-top-players.html
Page 388, Position 2: Canadian snooker player ‘Big Bill’ Werbeniuk drank eight pints of beer before a match, then one for each frame.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1419706/Bill-Werbeniuk.html
Page 388, Position 3: In the 19th century, a ‘pool room’ was where people placed bets on horse racing.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9Q08AAAAIAAJ&
Page 388, Position 4: Pool started as a medieval game called jeu de la poule, in which you threw rocks at a chicken.
http://www.etymonline.com/word/pool
Page 389, Position 1: Pet chickens in Silicon Valley have their own personal chefs.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/computer-simulation-world-matrix-scientists-elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-ai-a7347526.html
Page 389, Position 2: The 17th-century game Sparrow Mumbling involved holding a live bird in your mouth.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/58439/29-games-nobody-plays-anymore
Page 389, Position 3: Robins go through puberty every year.
http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2012/04/13/the-springtime-of-robins/
Page 389, Position 4: If your metabolism was as fast as a hummingbird’s, you would need to drink a can of Coke a minute just to stay alive.
https://coach.nine.com.au/2017/12/12/13/23/metabolism-facts-and-myths/9
Page 390, Position 1: Hummingbirds’ hearts beat 10 times a second and are the size of the rubber on the end of a pencil.
https://theamericanscholar.org/joyas-volardores/
Page 390, Position 2: From the 16th to the 19th century, England had a world monopoly on pencil production.
http://www.cumbria-industries.org.uk/wad/
Page 390, Position 3: You can win a game of Monopoly after only four turns.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/06/how_to_win_monopoly_in_21_seco.htmlhttps://www.buzzfeed.com/jamesgrebey/mind-boggling-facts-about-board-games?utm_term=.dopKzjjWD#.syj6n77px
Page 390, Position 4: Vikings were buried with board games to combat boredom in the afterlife.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/vikings-were-buried-with-board-games-to-beat-boredom-1-4187676
Page 391, Position 1: There are more people today pretending to be Vikings in the computer game Vikings: War of Clans than there ever were actual Vikings.
https://github.com/andrew-t/fish/wiki/List-of-No-Such-Thing-as-a-Fish-Episodes
Page 391, Position 2: In Welsh mythology , fairies ride corgis into battle.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/87683/ancient-connection-between-corgis-and-fairies
Page 391, Position 3: In Norse mythology , Naglfar was a ship made from the untrimmed fingernails of the dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naglfar
Page 391, Position 4: The longest human thumbnail ever recorded measures six and a half feet.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/indian-news/2015/9/record-holder-profile-video-shridhar-chillal-and-the-longest-fingernails-ever-398817
Page 392, Position 1: The world’s largest cruise ship is five times the size of the Titanic.
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/ms-symphony-of-the-seas-royal-caribbean-largest-cruise-ship?utm_source=digg&
Page 392, Position 2: Lightning storms are twice as likely in shipping lanes as in the rest of the ocean.
https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21729974-lighting-strikes-are-double-average-shipping-lanes-pollution-ships?fsrc=rss%7Csct
Page 392, Position 3: A ‘dirty’ thunderstorm is when lightning is produced in a volcanic plume.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_thunderstorm
Page 392, Position 4: The number of people killed by lightning today is a tenth of what it was in the 1940s.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/lightning-death-why-statistics-rare-united-states.htm
Page 393, Position 1: Only 139 cars were produced in the US during the Second World War.
http://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_home_war_production.htm
Page 393, Position 2: In 1820s Manhattan, there was one pig for every five humans.
https://qz.com/1025640/hogs/
Page 393, Position 3: In 1899, Henry Bliss became the first American pedestrian to be killed by a car.
https://www.wired.com/2011/09/0913first-us-pedestrian-killed-by-car/
Page 393, Position 4: The man who invented one-way streets, roundabouts, taxi stands and stop signs never learned to drive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Phelps_Eno
Page 394, Position 1: French people are 19 times less likely to wait for the green man than Japanese people.
Times 15/02/17
Page 394, Position 2: Hitchhikers in Sweden wait longest for a ride; those in Iraq wait shortest.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/22/magazine/voyages-worlds-greatest-hitchhiker.html?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 394, Position 3: According to research by North Korea, the world’s second-happiest country is North Korea.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/06/north-korea-global-happiness-index-china-happiest-place_n_871784.html
Page 394, Position 4: The demilitarised zone between North and South Korea is home to 5,097 different species.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/wildlife-thrives-dmz-korea-risk-location-180967842/#bHflBKSxPOHvg5rz.99
Page 395, Position 1: Insects make up 72% of all animals, but only 2% of endangered species.
https://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/encyclopedia-article.pdf
Page 395, Position 2: Until the 19th century, Primrose Hill in London was inhabited by wolves.
https://www.allinlondon.co.uk/life/article-183-the-history-of-primrose-hill.php
Page 395, Position 3: New York City controls its rat problem by giving them the menopause.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2130114-menopause-causing-bait-is-curbing-rat-populations-in-new-york/?utm_term=Autofeed&
Page 395, Position 4: In 1902, after the French colonial government in Hanoi offered one cent for every rat’s tail, enterprising Vietnamese started rat farms to earn the bounty .
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-cheese-under-threat-from-mass-production-and-bacteriological-correctness-a6762111.html
Page 396, Position 1: In 1959, the US government issued a memo saying that yetis could only be killed in self-defence.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/505087/time-us-confirmed-you-can-only-kill-yeti-self-defense
Page 396, Position 2: Sloths can hold their breath for 40 minutes.
https://www.worldanimalprotection.us.org/news/10-facts-about-sloths-natures-slowest-animals
Page 396, Position 3: Ostriches have four kneecaps.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2146112-why-the-ostrich-is-the-only-living-animal-with-four-kneecaps/
Page 396, Position 4: Babies’ kneecaps don’t show up on X-rays.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/89970/7-facts-about-your-knees
Page 397, Position 1: Babies born into the Budweiser family have five drops of Budweiser dropped on their tongues as a first taste.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/12/22/166493220/the-bitter-tale-of-the-budweiser-family
Page 397, Position 2: Beer is more nutritious than bread.
https://www.historyextra.com/period/drinking-history/
Page 397, Position 3: The world record for the most beer mats flipped and caught with the same hand is held by a man called Matt Hand.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-beer-mats-flipped
Page 397, Position 4: ‘As much food as one’s hand can hold’ was Dr Johnson’s Dictionary’s definition of ‘lunch’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/538473/funny-definitions-from-dictionary-of-the-english-language-samuel-johnson
Page 398, Position 1: The bowl formed by cupping one’s hands together is called a ‘gowpen’.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 398, Position 2: Rachmaninov had enormous hands: he could span 12 piano keys with either one.
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/rachmaninov/guides/rachmaninov-facts/pianist-7/
Page 398, Position 3: Jimi Hendrix’s father told him his left-handedness meant he was born of the Devil.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/times2/what-rocks-27-club-told-me-about-talent-and-mental-illness-37rh83pmn
Page 398, Position 4: The Jim Smith Society has over 2,000 members worldwide, all called Jim Smith.
http://www.jimsmithsociety.com/jss2012_004.htm
Page 399, Position 1: The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was founded in 1889 by women denied membership of the British Ornithologists’ Union.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/07/22/operation-easter
Page 399, Position 2: Beyoncé’s fans are called the Beyhive.
https://www.beyonce.com/register/
Page 399, Position 3: The WD-40 fan club has over 100,000 members.
https://www.wd40.com/news/in-the-news/wd-40-fan-club-reaches-milestone
Page 399, Position 4: J. R. R. Tolkien described his fans as ‘deplorable’.
https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&
Page 400, Position 1: 1 in every 160 New Zealanders was involved in the production of The Lord of the Rings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(film_series)
Page 400, Position 2: Jurassic Park was hit by the most powerful hurricane ever to reach Hawaii, but Richard Attenborough slept right through it.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11054608/Richard-Attenboroughs-14-most-luvvie-moments.html
Page 400, Position 3: In the movie Chinese Zodiac, Jackie Chan had 15 credits, including actor, writer, director, composer and catering coordinator.
https://screenanarchy.com/2012/12/jackie-chan-holds-guinness-world-records-for-most-credits-in-chinese-zodiac.html
Page 400, Position 4: Amber Rudd was credited as ‘aristocracy coordinator’ on Four Weddings and a Funeral.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/03/amber-rudd-i-was-aristocracy-coordinator-on-four-weddings-and-a-funeral
Page 401, Position 1: A. A. Milne planned a film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, with Mr Darcy played by Eeyore.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/aa-milne-had-darcy-down-as-an-eeyore-mx57gl5c2
Page 401, Position 2: 5% of piglets are crushed to death by their own mothers.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/22/technology/startups/piglet-crushing-prevention-swinetech/index.html
Page 401, Position 3: The world record for crushing concrete blocks with the head is held by a 17-year-old boy from Bosnia.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/26/teenager-breaks-world-record-crushing-blocks-head/?WT.mc_id=e_DM391263&
Page 401, Position 4: Concrete cannot be recycled.
https://newatlas.com/skyscraper-demolition-lifespan/54703/?utm_medium=email&
Page 402, Position 1: The average lifespan of a skyscraper is 42 years.
https://newatlas.com/skyscraper-demolition-lifespan/54703/?utm_medium=email&
Page 402, Position 2: The useful lifespan of a coffee stirrer is four seconds.
https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2012/10/05/the-last-straw-reduce-your-plastic-footprint-and-hydrate-trash-free/
Page 402, Position 3: The longest-living animal is the red sea urchin, which survives for up to 200 years in the wild.
http://www.softschools.com/facts/animals/sea_urchin_facts/479/
Page 402, Position 4: Brandt’s bat is the longest-living bat: it can live for 40 years and weighs as much as eight paperclips.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3212
Page 403, Position 1: Paperclips float on water.
https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1324763/
Page 403, Position 2: The world’s biggest paperclip is 30 feet long and nine feet wide.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-paperclip
Page 403, Position 3: You can buy a Prada paperclip for $185.
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/shortcuts/2017/jun/26/is-the-185-prada-paperclip-fashions-latest-mundane-must-have
Page 403, Position 4: The Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh has been converted into the world’s most luxurious prison.
https://qz.com/1122818/luxury-hotel-ritz-carlton-riyadh-is-currently-housing-political-prisoners/?mc_cid=5eb1842723&
Page 404, Position 1: Cellblocks is a cryptocurrency used in American prisons.
http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/cellblocks-the-first-cryptocurrency-being-used-in-the-american-prison-system-1026991931
Page 404, Position 2: Cryptocurrency worth $534 million was stolen in Japan in 2018, making it the biggest theft in the history of the world.
New Scientist 3 Feb
Page 404, Position 3: In 2005, security guards at Australia’s parliament were banned from calling MPs ‘mate’. The ban was lifted within 24 hours for being un-Australian.
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1441746.htm
Page 404, Position 4: There are two places in Australia called Dismal Swamp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismal_Swamp
Page 405, Position 1: Trees sweat to cool down.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jan/31/australian-trees-sweat-to-survive-extreme-heatwaves-researchers-reveal
Page 405, Position 2: By using bidets instead of toilet paper, Americans could save 15 million trees a year.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-talks-bidets/
Page 405, Position 3: Woodpeckers bang their heads into trees at 15 miles an hour, 12,000 times a day.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2018/03/02/flashback-friday-woodpeckers-use-wood-eating-fungus-to-make-their-pecking-easier/#.Wpl4dpOFii4
Page 405, Position 4: The Canary Islands have dandelion trees.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/how-do-you-define-a-tree/557135/?utm_source=twb
Page 406, Position 1: 75% of the sesame seeds grown in Mexico are used on McDonald’s burger buns.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/56603/where-do-sesame-seeds-come
Page 406, Position 2: Until the 1870s, all Camembert was made by a single family.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/dec/01/londonreviewofbooks
Page 406, Position 3: Since the 1970s, France has lost 50 types of cheese.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-cheese-under-threat-from-mass-production-and-bacteriological-correctness-a6762111.html
Page 406, Position 4: The world’s most expensive cheese is made from donkey’s milk.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/pule-donkey-cheese?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 407, Position 1: Thomas Hardy’s novels were considered so disgusting they were sold in plain, brown wrappers.
https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/themes/trails/queen-marys-dolls-house/library#/
Page 407, Position 2: Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad all wrote books the size of postage stamps for Queen Mary’s doll’s house.
https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/themes/trails/queen-marys-dolls-house/library#/
Page 407, Position 3: Christina Foyle, owner of Foyle’s bookshop, read an entire book every day, never did her own housework and only drank champagne.
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/11/world/christina-foyle-88-the-queen-of-the-london-bookstore-dies.html?pagewanted=all&
Page 407, Position 4: There’s an orchid in Madagascar that smells like champagne.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/stingrays-anteaters-orchids-year-newly-discovered-species?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 408, Position 1: There’s a secret pub inside the Tower of London that only Beefeaters and their guests can visit.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/tower-of-london-secret-pub-beefeaters-2017-7
Page 408, Position 2: In 18th-century London, a sick person could pay three guineas to bathe in beef soup.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soup-broth-baths-history-healthy
Page 408, Position 3: The average Briton eats 17.3 kg of beef a year.
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/top10facts/566327/Top-10-facts-about-beef
Page 408, Position 4: Dung beetles contain more protein than beef does.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23422-beautiful-bug-biscuits-to-tempt-the-squeamish/
Page 409, Position 1: 80% of Japan’s protein comes from the sea.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/japans-bizarre-and-sad-new-whaling-laws_us_596cf1cde4b07f87578e6ac8
Page 409, Position 2: The plastic waste that goes into the oceans every year is enough to fill five shopping bags for every foot of shoreline in the world.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11410220/Each-foot-of-coastline-contains-five-bags-of-plastic-say-scientists.html
Page 409, Position 3: Half of all the plastic that has ever existed was made in the last 13 years.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/07/plastic-age/533955/?utm_source=twb
Page 409, Position 4: When Jung and Freud first met, their conversation lasted 13 hours.
https://thebrowser.com/videos/when-freud-met-jung
Page 410, Position 1: Sheep can recognise celebrities with 80% accuracy .
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/nov/08/is-it-baa-rack-obama-sheep-able-to-recognise-celebrities-say-neuroscientists
Page 410, Position 2: Elmo is the only non-human to testify before the US Congress.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2012/11/12/sesame-street-loses-a-little-magic-amid-elmo-allegations/?utm_term=.99522e4bf32c
Page 410, Position 3: Bert and Ernie only have one eyebrow between them.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/sesame-street
Page 410, Position 4: DVDs of the first few series of Sesame Street are labelled ‘Adult Only’.
https://www.businessinsider.com/12-sesame-street-scandals-that-have-plagued-the-shows-history-2012-11?IR=T
Page 411, Position 1: By the standards of the rest of the animal kingdom, human beings should be 200 times as murderous as they are.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/28/495798448/what-meerkat-murder-tells-us-about-human-violence
Page 411, Position 2: The longest New York City has gone without a murder is 12 days.
(The Week Issue 1010 p8)
Page 411, Position 3: A Chewbacca defence is a lawyer’s way of confusing the other side by spouting irrelevant nonsense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense
Page 411, Position 4: Chewbacca is 7' 6", the same height as the tallest high-school basketball player in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AURnnpiGOxs https://www.starwars.com/databank/chewbacca
Page 412, Position 1: The largest snowflake ever recorded was 15 inches across.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/did-you-know-the-largest-snowflake-ever-recorded-was-15-inches-wide.html
Page 412, Position 2: The longest and shortest pub names in Britain are both in Stalybridge, Manchester.
https://www.tameside.gov.uk/stalybridge/facts
Page 412, Position 3: Manchester United MacGyver is a 19-year-old Namibian footballer.
https://www.namibian.com.na/135525/archive-read/Top-youngsters-put-on-fine-exhibition
Page 412, Position 4: Joey Barton missed his planned debut for Manchester City because a Middlesbrough fan had stolen his shirt.
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/how-boro-fan-ruined-joey-12042237
Page 413, Position 1: Macedonian footballer Mario Gjurovski was sent off for celebrating a goal by taking his shorts off and putting them on his head.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2330311/Mario-Gjurovskis-celebrates-goal-removing-shorts-sent-off.html
Page 413, Position 2: Fulham striker Facundo Sava celebrated each goal by putting on a Zorro mask that he kept in his sock.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sportacademy/hi/sa/football/features/newsid_2303000/2303885.stm
Page 413, Position 3: Princess Diana smuggled sweets into William and Harry’s school in their football socks.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/22/naughty-dont-get-caught-joker-diana-told-harry-revealed-smuggled/
Page 413, Position 4: Haribos contain nine of the 10 amino acids essential to humans.
https://www.haribo.com/enAE/contact-information-service/faq.html
Page 414, Position 1: Candy cigarettes are illegal in France, Spain, Scandinavia, Portugal, Ireland, Brazil, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_cigarette
Page 414, Position 2: Chocolate milk is better for you than a sports drink.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/chocolate-milk-workout-recovery-sports-drinks-protein-shakes-study-gym-exercise-a8445601.html
Page 414, Position 3: Cockroach milk is one of the most nutritious substances on the planet.
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1995413/its-no-gag-cockroach-milk-one-worlds-most-nutritious-and-calorie-rich
Page 414, Position 4: Relative to their size, cockroaches can run at 210 mph.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/science/american-cockroach-genome.html?emc=edit_mbae_20180327&
Page 415, Position 1: Only 52% of the UK’s 2,838 speed cameras are switched on.
http://news.sky.com/story/half-of-britains-speed-cameras-are-switched-off-11112323
Page 415, Position 2: A woman in Oxfordshire has 51 points on her driving licence.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40862975
Page 415, Position 3: Ant McPartlin was given the biggest drink-driving fine in British history.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/16/ant-mcpartlin-arrives-court-face-drink-drive-charge-crash/
Page 415, Position 4: To get round the law that licensed premises must be a minimum of 500 metres from a highway, a pub in Kerala constructed a maze to its front door.
http://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/a-bar-in-kerala-just-made-a-250m-long-maze-wall-to-beat-supreme-court-s-500m-rule-275175.html
Page 416, Position 1: San Marino is the only country in the world with more motor vehicles than people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita
Page 416, Position 2: A law in Rome allows any cat to live undisturbed in its birthplace.
https://www.thelocal.it/20170421/rome-unusual-facts-history
Page 416, Position 3: Beatrix Potter shot a squirrel out of a tree to provide a model for Squirrel Nutkin.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/travel/1997/08/31/bunny-boiler-was-the-beloved-creator-of-peter-rabbit-a-bunny-cooking-vivisectionist/a8c367d6-5903-4d04-8123-d818578743b8/?noredirect=on&
Page 416, Position 4: It would take 41,923 hazelnuts to encircle the Coliseum.
https://www.nutella.com/en/uk/did-you-know
Page 417, Position 1: In 4th-century Rome, underpants were banned.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/drsarahbond/2017/05/05/real-romans-dont-wear-pants-barbarian-dress-codes-from-rome-to-game-of-thrones/#3fc3cedb1cdd
Page 417, Position 2: Florence hoses down church steps so tourists don’t picnic on them.
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/florence-church-tourists-water-wet-hose-santa-croce-basilica-picnics-eating-food-italy-a7767111.html
Page 417, Position 3: Amsterdam has a day mayor and a night mayor.
http://nachtburgemeester.amsterdam/night-mayor-summit/
Page 417, Position 4: At a riot in 1766, the mayor of Nottingham was knocked over by a large cheese.
http://www.quarterbridge.co.uk/what-does-the-nottingham-cheese-riot-tell-us-about-markets/
Page 418, Position 1: Russia has a police riot squad made entirely of sets of identical twins.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-25090823
Page 418, Position 2: 2% of the world’s twins are currently involved in a scientific study about twins.
How To Be Human New Scientist book p49
Page 418, Position 3: Until the 17th century, mothers hung their babies on hooks as they worked.
http://the-history-girls.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/travelling-with-baby-in-1645-by-ann.html
Page 418, Position 4: Prehistoric women had stronger arms than members of modern-day rowing clubs.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/prehistoric-womens-manual-work-was-tougher-than-rowing-in-todays-elite-boat-crews
Page 419, Position 1: Before he became the first person to row solo across the Atlantic, John Fairfax was apprenticed to a pirate.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/us/john-fairfax-who-rowed-across-oceans-dies-at-74.html
Page 419, Position 2: Captain Hook was an Old Etonian and his last words were the school motto: ‘Floreat Etona.’
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/12/the-secret-history-of-captain-hook/68313/
Page 419, Position 3: Wood-mouse sperm hook onto one another to catch a ride.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2018/02/14/sperm-win-animals-mating/#.WqfRuZPFL_Q
Page 419, Position 4: The longest spider sperm is twice as long as the smallest spider.
https://peerj.com/articles/3972/
Page 420, Position 1: A pooter is a device used by entomologists to suck insects into a jar without accidentally inhaling them.
http://www.discoverwildlife.com/make-a-pooter
Page 420, Position 2: To poon is to prop up a piece of wobbly furniture with a wedge under the leg.
Horologicon Mark Forsyth
Page 420, Position 3: Phobophobia is the fear of developing a phobia.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/phobophobia
Page 420, Position 4: Ploitering is pretending to work when you aren’t.
Horologicon Mark Forsyth
Page 421, Position 1: Scientists are working on a way to convert astronauts’ excrement into food.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/space-waste-food-0432422/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 421, Position 2: Henry Ford made it compulsory for his workers to go square dancing.
https://qz.com/1153516/americas-wholesome-square-dancing-tradition-is-a-tool-of-white-supremacy/
Page 421, Position 3: In 2017, a trade union in Michigan complained that goats were taking its members’ jobs.
https://qz.com/1025165/union-workers-in-michigan-are-blaming-goats-for-taking-away-landscaping-jobs/
Page 421, Position 4: All UK postal workers have to sign the Official Secrets Act.
https://www.justanswer.com/uk-law/6vwui-i-m-employed-royal-mail-postman-reporting.html
Page 422, Position 1: Refuse workers in Turkey have made a 4,750-volume library out of discarded books.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/space-waste-food-0432422/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 422, Position 2: Napoleon had a small portable library that he called his ‘kindle’.
http://www.openculture.com/2017/10/napoleons-kindle-see-the-miniaturized-traveling-library-he-took-on-military-campaigns.html
Page 422, Position 3: Braille is based on a system devised for Napoleon’s army to help soldiers communicate in darkness.
https://www.historytoday.com/stephen-bertman/louis-braille-and-night-writer
Page 422, Position 4: You can hear rhubarb growing in the dark.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/forced-rhubarb-makes-sound?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 423, Position 1: China is planning to grow potatoes on the dark side of the Moon.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/china-orbiter-lander-03432/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 423, Position 2: Eating too many tomatoes can give you a heart attack.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34225517
Page 423, Position 3: The world’s longest pizza weighed as much as an elephant.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/california-chefs-make-the-worlds-longest-pizza-stretching-6333-ft/articleshow/59093807.cms
Page 423, Position 4: Rhinos have surprisingly dainty feet and walk on their insteps.
https://www.livescience.com/62055-weirdest-animal-feet.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&
Page 424, Position 1: The Russian for ‘step’ is spelled ‘шaг’ and pronounced ‘shag’.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%88%D0%B0%D0%B3
Page 424, Position 2: According to a poll carried out in Russia, 10% of Russians think polls are useless.
http://fom.ru/posts/10542
Page 424, Position 3: Russia has four monuments to dumplings.
http://fom.ru/posts/10542
Page 424, Position 4: Brussels has a statue commemorating the place where Peter the Great vomited.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/commemoration-of-peter-the-great-s-vomit
Page 425, Position 1: Peter the Great was 6' 8".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_the_Great#cite_note-FOOTNOTERiasanovsky2000216-7
Page 425, Position 2: NBA star Manute Bol was 7' 7", but his passport said he was 5' 2" because he had been measured sitting down.
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-02-11/sports/sp-4394_1_manute-bol
Page 425, Position 3: The world’s second-tallest person is a sitting-volleyball player from Iran who won gold at the 2016 Paralympics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morteza_Mehrzad
Page 425, Position 4: Medals at the 2016 Paralympics had small steel balls inside them so they could be rattled and heard by visually impaired medallists.
https://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/13/health/paralympics-medals-noises-trnd/index.html
Page 426, Position 1: The world land speed record for a blind motorcyclist is 165.7 mph.
http://www.mcnews.com.au/flying-blind-at-266-km-h-50-year-old-ben-felten/
Page 426, Position 2: Australia hosts a World Cup for Australian Rules football, but the Australian men’s team doesn’t compete because it wouldn’t be fair.
http://www.afl.com.au/internationalcup/
Page 426, Position 3: Britain exports over 50,000 boomerangs to Australia every year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37510315
Page 426, Position 4: The kangaroo rat can last longer without water than a camel can.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20160926-the-creatures-that-can-survive-without-water-for-years
Page 427, Position 1: The Sahara desert is 10% bigger than it was 100 years ago.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/sahara-desert-is-getting-bigger.htm#mkcpgn=rssnws1
Page 427, Position 2: 40 million years ago, a meteorite hit Canada, raising the temperature to a record-breaking 2,370°C.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23531433-600-found-the-hottest-place-ever-found-on-earths-surface/
Page 427, Position 3: In Venezuela in 1972, a meteorite killed a cow, but nobody knew about it because the farmer ate the cow and used the meteorite as a doorstop.
http://www.christies.com/features/Meteorites-Works-of-art-from-outer-space-7203-3.aspx
Page 427, Position 4: Cows with mastitis are given bras for their udders.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-44081370
Page 428, Position 1: Pythons have leg bones.
https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/darwin/evolution-today/how-do-we-know-living-things-are-related/vestigial-organs/
Page 428, Position 2: A rooster cannot hear how loud its own crowing is.
https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/animals-ecology/rooster-crow-0423432/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 428, Position 3: Coral reefs make a sound like popcorn being made.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/07/posh-popcorn-explosion-behind-rise-chipped-teeth/
Page 428, Position 4: Coral can drown.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/coral-atoll.htm
Page 429, Position 1: The Breton word for water is ‘dour’.
https://www.freelang.net/expressions/water.php
Page 429, Position 2: The Frisian word for water is ‘wetter’.
https://www.freelang.net/expressions/water.php
Page 429, Position 3: The air pockets in an iceberg lettuce are known as ‘goblin caves’.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the-sandwich-consumed-britain
Page 429, Position 4: When an alpaca gives birth, it is called an ‘unpacking’.
http://www.alpacabreeder.co.uk/alpaca-facts
Page 430, Position 1: Rats dressed in polyester trousers have sex less often than those made to wear woollen ones.
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/may/29-the-sexual-frustration-of-rats-in-polyester-pants
Page 430, Position 2: By examining the DNA of any rat in New York, researchers can tell which part of the city it comes from.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/rats-of-new-york/546959/?utm_source=digg&
Page 430, Position 3: Manhattan has a monument commemorating the sinking of the Staten Island Ferry by a giant octopus, an event that was entirely made up by the artist.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/01/new-york-staten-island-ferry-octopus-attack-fake-monument
Page 430, Position 4: 15,152 life forms can be found in the New York subway.
http://time.com/3697797/new-york-city-subway-germs-bacteria-dna/
Page 431, Position 1: New York state has a town called Lonelyville.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonelyville _New_York
Page 431, Position 2: Disenchantment Bay is a place in Alaska.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disenchantment_Bay
Page 431, Position 3: The Useless Islands belong to New Zealand.
https://www.topomap.co.nz/NZTopoMap/nz13467/Useless-Islands/
Page 431, Position 4: Misery is a village in France.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misery _Somme
Page 432, Position 1: Half a billion men in the world have depression.
https://www.onebillionhappy.org/happiness-library/how-to-cure-depression-in-a-half-a-billion-men/
Page 432, Position 2: Gloom swept Finland on being rated the world’s happiest country.
https://qz.com/1276649/the-happiest-country-on-earth-is-finland-and-finns-arent-happy-about-it/
Page 432, Position 3: Rasputin was happily married and had seven children.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/69238/retrobituaries-rasputins-daughter-maria-fascinating-mad-monk-himself
Page 432, Position 4: Rasputin’s daughter Maria grew up to become a professional lion tamer.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/69238/retrobituaries-rasputins-daughter-maria-fascinating-mad-monk-himself
Page 433, Position 1: Frankie Dettori’s mother worked in a circus.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/champion-jockey-frankie-dettori-on-the-queen-the-g-t-the-naughty-sausage-dog-and-his-pet-emus-gs3wjt5d7
Page 433, Position 2: Warren Buffett plays the ukulele.
https://qz.com/1295584/a-fan-paid-3-million-for-a-lunch-with-warren-buffett-but-you-can-get-his-best-advice-for-free/
Page 433, Position 3: David Beckham has the Solar System tattooed on his head.
https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/david-beckham-debuts-solar-system-scalp-tattoo-as-he-adds-to-growing-collection-a3827556.html
Page 433, Position 4: Marilyn Manson collects prosthetics.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/marilyn-manson-brand-absinthe-collects-5883747
Page 434, Position 1: The world’s oldest known colour is pink.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-44775531
Page 434, Position 2: Cough is Cornish for ‘scarlet’.
http://www.freelang.net/online/cornish.php?lg=gb
Page 434, Position 3: Isaac Newton’s bed, bed curtains, bedspreads, settee, easy chair and cushions were all crimson.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/design-it-has-got-to-be-red-in-bed-1165931.html
Page 434, Position 4: Farmed salmon is white; the pink is added artificially.
http://time.com/4790794/farmed-salmon-pink/
Page 435, Position 1: There are only two words for colours in the Bassa language of Liberia: ziza for warm ones and hui for cool ones.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/apr/29/what-vocabularies-tell-us-about-culture
Page 435, Position 2: 6,900 different languages are spoken in the world today.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q3tAqIU0dPsC&
Page 435, Position 3: 770,000 people living in England cannot speak English.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/14/sajid-javid-770000-people-in-england-not-able-to-speak-english
Page 435, Position 4: Over 650 languages in India are not recognised by the state because they are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/peoples-linguistic-survey-of-india-ganesh-devy?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 436, Position 1: There are 10,000 black holes at the centre of our galaxy .
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qvx3gb/around-10000-black-holes-are-at-the-center-of-the-galaxy-study-says
Page 436, Position 2: There are 10,000 planes in the sky at any one time.
http://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/number-of-planes-in-air
Page 436, Position 3: One litre of Dior’s J’Adore perfume contains 10,000 flowers.
https://qz.com/se/perfect-company-2/1172275/the-top-luxury-company-in-the-world-is-fighting-to-save-the-flowers-that-go-into-its-perfume
Page 436, Position 4: 10,000 bridges in Italy are in danger of collapsing.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/genoa-collapse-thousands-of-italian-bridges-in-danger-of-collapsing-cfb6gwpb2
Page 437, Position 1: It takes 1.3 million cars to produce as much carbon dioxide as the UK’s microwave ovens.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/01/18/microwaves-britain-generate-much-carbon-dioxide-13-million-cars/
Page 437, Position 2: You can’t melt a Cadbury’s Flake in a microwave.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/true-you-cant-melt-cadburys-6214901
Page 437, Position 3: Melted chocolate that has dried on a road is a worse hazard than snow.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/world/europe/poland-chocolate-road.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180510&
Page 437, Position 4: 20% of all the animal road deaths in England take place on the A303.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b738afbe-2935-11e7-9d2e-96f2194e0ac4
Page 438, Position 1: Gloucester sends a lamprey pie to the Queen for each of her jubilees, but as a protected species in the UK, the lampreys have to come from Canada.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-34187086
Page 438, Position 2: Canada has a strategic maple-syrup reserve.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Quebec_Maple_Syrup_Producers#Strategic_reserve
Page 438, Position 3: Fort Blunder, built by the US in 1816 to defend itself from Canada, was accidentally built in Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Montgomery_(Lake_Champlain)#%22Fort_Blunder%22
Page 438, Position 4: Bear Castle is the literal translation from Swedish of Björn Borg.
https://swedimen.tumblr.com/post/138082104092/bj%C3%B6rn-borg-a-talented-swede-on-so-many-levels
Page 439, Position 1: Mahatma Gandhi wrote in to ask about the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course.
https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/lessons-in-manliness-from-charles-atlas/
Page 439, Position 2: Krishna Pandit Bhanji is Sir Ben Kingsley’s real name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Kingsley
Page 439, Position 3: Mswati III, the king of Swaziland, has changed his country’s name to eSwatini to avoid it being mistaken for Switzerland.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-africas-last-absolute-monarch-renames-swaziland-as-eswatini-2018-4
Page 439, Position 4: In 2007, the Swiss Army invaded Liechtenstein by accident: it was dark, and they couldn’t see where they were going.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=2921407&
Page 440, Position 1: In the 15th century, the Swiss Army used flutes for signalling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_concert_flute
Page 440, Position 2: The longest musical note in common usage is called a breve and comes from the Latin for ‘brief’.
Page 440, Position 3: Brahms took 22 years to write his First Symphony .
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/brahms/guides/brahms-facts-great-composer/johannes-symphony/
Page 440, Position 4: A 128th note is called a semihemidemisemiquaver.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_twenty-eighth_note
Page 441, Position 1: ‘Full penetration butt weld’ is a technical term used by metal-workers.
https://www.bssa.org.uk/topics.php?article=147
Page 441, Position 2: Human beings are 3% metal.
Page 441, Position 3: If two pieces of metal touch in space, they stick together.
http://www.coolsciencefacts.com/2006/metal.html
Page 441, Position 4: Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, told her family she was going to a skydiving training camp. Her mother only found out the truth from the news.
http://www.yarregion.ru/eng/Pages/famous_people_Valentina_Vladimirovna_Tereshkova.aspx
Page 442, Position 1: The dirty clothes worn by astronauts on the International Space Station are jettisoned to burnup on re-entry.
https://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/livinginspace/Astronaut_Laundry.html
Page 442, Position 2: When astronaut Harrison Schmitt ran for the US Senate, his opponent’s slogan was ‘What on Earth has he done for you lately?’
Packing for Mars - Mary Roach
Page 442, Position 3: America’s Prohibition Party has been on every presidential ballot paper since 1872.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-prohibition-party-still-exists-and-is-on-the-ballot-in-at-least-3-states?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&
Page 442, Position 4: The Rhinoceros Party of Canada promised to repeal the law of gravity and improve higher education by building taller schools.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_Party_of_Canada_(1963%E2%80%9393)
Page 443, Position 1: Turkish schools no longer teach evolution.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-evolution-teaching-stop-schools-curriculum-erdogan-a7955596.html
Page 443, Position 2: Pupils in Ireland study Irish for 10 years; outside school, only 1.8% of the population speak Irish every day.
http://www.thejournal.ie/poll-irish-compulsory-subject-secondary-schools-subject-gaeilge-836760-Mar2013/ http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/education/the_irish_education_system/overview_of_the_irish_education_system.html
Page 443, Position 3: Schools in Wakayama, Japan, serve whale meatballs for lunch.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2010/09/05/national/whale-meat-back-on-school-lunch-menus/
Page 443, Position 4: Some schools in Pennsylvania have been equipped with buckets of stones to throw at armed attackers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43523797?campaign_id=A100
Page 444, Position 1: Janis Joplin was voted the ‘ugliest boy in the school’.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/times2/what-rocks-27-club-told-me-about-talent-and-mental-illness-37rh83pmn
Page 444, Position 2: Noel Gallagher once broke Liam Gallagher’s foot with a cricket bat.
http://www.cracked.com/article_18586_the-7-most-impossible-rock-stars-to-deal-with.html
Page 444, Position 3: The singer-songwriter Tom Robinson kept poison in his fridge for 10 years in case he needed to kill himself in the night.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/times2/what-rocks-27-club-told-me-about-talent-and-mental-illness-37rh83pmn
Page 444, Position 4: Pop stars aged between 26 and 35 are ten times as likely to die as the rest of us.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/times2/what-rocks-27-club-told-me-about-talent-and-mental-illness-37rh83pmn
Page 445, Position 1: Rolling Stone magazine named the Instagram feed of the US Transportation Security Administration the fourth best in the world.
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/the-100-best-instagram-accounts#ixzz4xqJEFs3r
Page 445, Position 2: Items confiscated by the Transportation Security Administration include a knife inside an enchilada and a dagger concealed in a replica Eiffel Tower.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/tsa-instagram-showcases-the-wacky-and-weird-from-airport-checkpoints/2016/11/27/22c4cf24-b00a-11e6-840f-e3ebab6bcdd3_story.html
Page 445, Position 3: The Leaning Tower of Pisa took 206 years to complete.
https://curiosity.com/topics/a-500-year-old-mystery-about-the-leaning-tower-of-pisa-has-been-solved-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&
Page 445, Position 4: The bootlace worm is as long as Nelson’s Column is tall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineus_longissimus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson%27s_Column
Page 446, Position 1: The Ravenmaster at the Tower of London whistles a special tune to summon the ravens to bed each night.
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2013/03/03/chris-skaife-master-raven-keeper-at-the-tower-of-london-merlin-the-raven/
Page 446, Position 2: In 1959, a new language was discovered in the Pyrenees that consisted entirely of ear-splitting whistles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aas _Pyrénées-Atlantiques
Page 446, Position 3: The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts offers a degree in yodelling.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42877230
Page 446, Position 4: He’e holua is the traditional Hawaiian sport of lava sledding.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/intelligent-travel/2011/05/24/sledding-in-hawaii/
Page 447, Position 1: Skyaking is the extreme sport of skydiving in a kayak.
https://metro.co.uk/2010/03/04/skyaking-the-extreme-sport-of-skydiving-in-a-canoe-148098/
Page 447, Position 2: The oldest skydiver is a 101-year-old British D-Day veteran.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/may/14/d-day-veteran-verdun-hayes-worlds-oldest-skydiver-at-101-and-38-days?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 447, Position 3: You can scuba dive underneath Budapest.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/gallery/20180514-a-hidden-world-30m-below-budapest
Page 447, Position 4: Only 16% of Hungarians think they live in a tolerant nation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43791600
Page 448, Position 1: Britons feel they need to keep only six of the Ten Commandments.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/25/six-commandments-christians-feel-four-ten-no-longer-important/
Page 448, Position 2: Ten-pin bowling evolved from a German religious ceremony .
https://www.britannica.com/sports/bowling
Page 448, Position 3: Only two members of the US Congress say they don’t believe in God.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/01/how-should-atheism-be-taught/551885/?utm_source=newsletter&
Page 448, Position 4: The bar-tailed godwit can fly 6,800 miles without a rest.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100609102052.htm
Page 449, Position 1: Songbirds get angrywhen their rivals are better at singing.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2150994-songbird-gets-angry-when-its-rivals-are-brilliant-at-singing/
Page 449, Position 2: A blackbird can sing two songs simultaneously and harmonise with itself.
https://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2013/06/20/blackbird-singing-in-the-dead-of-night/
Page 449, Position 3: 40,000 Highland midges can land on a single human arm in one hour.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/outdoors/donal-hickey/scourge-of-the-midges-during-an-irish-summer-404473.html
Page 449, Position 4: Asian elephants have the same female sex pheromone as 140 species of moth.
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~abrg/pheromones/index.html
Page 450, Position 1: A horse’s teeth take up more space in its head than its brain.
http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/features/9-fascinatingly-random-horse-facts-589133
Page 450, Position 2: Red pandas are the only non-primate mammals that can taste artificial sweeteners.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/7-things-you-didne28099t-know-about-red-pandas/
Page 450, Position 3: Pan Pan the panda, rescued as a cub in 1986, has since fathered 120 of the 520 pandas alive in captivity .
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-complicated-legacy-of-a-panda-who-was-really-good-at-sex/
Page 450, Position 4: All pandas born outside China are repatriated there by Fedex at about four years old.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-fedex-giant-panda-180962191/?utm_source=smithsoniantopic&
Page 451, Position 1: Just four of Japan’s 6,852 islands make up 97% of its land area.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NLFmDwAAQBAJ&
Page 451, Position 2: The Queen has travelled over a million miles.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/her-majesty-the-queen-jet-lag-remedy-travel-habits/
Page 451, Position 3: Prince Charles is exempt from the Data Protection Act.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/obscure-law-lets-prince-charles-set-off-nuclear-bomb-a6787626.html
Page 451, Position 4: Donald Trump steams his trousers while still wearing them.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/03/kfc-elton-john-fierce-temper-new-book-claims-lift-lid-life-inside/
Page 452, Position 1: Chino is Latin American Spanish for ‘toasted’.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/chino?ref=etymonline_crossreference
Page 452, Position 2: Levi’s jeans are made to look pre-worn by scorching them with lasers.
https://qz.com/quartzy/1215862/levis-jeans-will-be-broken-in-with-lasers/
Page 452, Position 3: The inventor of the laser didn’t know what it would be used for.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/history-bar-code-180956704/
Page 452, Position 4: The idea of the midlife crisis was invented by a Canadian in London in 1957.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/05/the-invention-of-the-midlife-crisis/561203/?utm_source=newsletter&
Page 453, Position 1: Steel was invented in India around 400 bc.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a20722505/history-of-steel/?curator=LongformREDEF
Page 453, Position 2: The Humber Bridge is held up by 44,117 miles of steel wire, enough to circle the world twice.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-36286178
Page 453, Position 3: Christmas Island has a bridge built just for crabs.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/12045930/Crabs-get-their-own-bridge-to-cross-busy-road-on-Christmas-Island.html
Page 453, Position 4: The carrier crab uses its back legs to grip a sea urchin, which it carries on its back like a shield.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/sea-urchin-rides-carrier-crab/
Page 454, Position 1: The cloakroom at the Houses of Parliament has storage space for MPs’ swords, and at least one MP uses it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31049249
Page 454, Position 2: Theresa May was introduced to her husband by Benazir Bhutto.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1512385/theresa-may-pays-tribute-benazir-bhutto-un/
Page 454, Position 3: The briefing folder David Cameron took to Prime Minister’s Questions was known as the ‘plastic fantastic’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31049249
Page 454, Position 4: In the last 20 years, Switzerland has had over 180 referendums.
https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/switzerland-held-9-referendums-already-2016/
Page 455, Position 1: The Swiss Air Force is only available during business hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/feb/19/swiss-air-force-ethiopian-airlines-hijacking-office-hours
Page 455, Position 2: 10 trillion business cards are printed in the US each year, 88% of which are thrown away within a week of being handed out.
https://www.statisticbrain.com/business-card-statistics/
Page 455, Position 3: The names of UK businesses including the word ‘Scottish’ outnumber those including the word ‘English’ by four to one.
http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/britains-bizarre-business-naming-habits/19870.article
Page 455, Position 4: In 1961, the co-founder of Domino’s Pizza traded his 50% stake in the business for a Volkswagen Beetle.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/13055/50-stake-domino%E2%80%99s-pizza-was-once-traded-used-vw-beetle
Page 456, Position 1: Only female bees can sting.
https://askentomologists.com/2015/09/23/why-cant-male-bees-or-wasps-sting/
Page 456, Position 2: Jellyfish stinging cells explode with an acceleration a million times greater than a Ferrari’s.
https://undark.org/article/wilo-berwald-spineless/?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 456, Position 3: Sloths move three times faster in water than on land.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/02/12/sloths-are-surprisingly-fast-swimmers/
Page 456, Position 4: When the Arctic sea ice melts, it will be possible to swim in a straight line from Antarctica to Norway.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8fgs9l/when_the_arctic_sea_ice_melts_it_will_be_just/
Page 457, Position 1: Norway’s deepest fjord is 100 metres deeper than the combined height of the Empire State Building and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
https://www.gct.com/community/the-inside-scoop/travel-trivia/witw-norway-fjords
Page 457, Position 2: The Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, was built by Samsung.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4081885.stm
Page 457, Position 3: 40 leopards live in Dubai, and 40% of their diet is provided by the city’s dogs.
https://qz.com/1224409/mumbais-41-leopards-may-be-protecting-locals-from-thousands-of-rabid-stray-dogs/?mc_cid=c0ef793433&
Page 457, Position 4: The Mesolithic diet was mostly hazelnuts.
The Mesolithic diet was mostlyhazelnuts. https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/essential-guide-hazel
Page 458, Position 1: Chestnut was Clyde Barrow of Bonnie and Clyde’s middle name.
https://www.biography.com/people/clyde-barrow-229532
Page 458, Position 2: No one knows why the Finns call their country Suomi.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180225-the-mysterious-origins-of-finlands-true-name
Page 458, Position 3: The original Finnish alphabet didn’t include the letter ‘F’.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180225-the-mysterious-origins-of-finlands-true-name
Page 458, Position 4: Per head of population, Finland has won more medals at the Summer Olympics than any other country.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/04/finland-tops-podium-for-most-olympic-medals-won-per-capita
Page 459, Position 1: So they can be shared with family and friends, the gold medals designed for the 2024 Paris Olympics are divisible into four.
https://www.dezeen.com/2017/07/25/philippe-starck-paris-2024-olympic-medals-designed-to-be-shared/
Page 459, Position 2: Gold worth $2 million passes through Swiss sewers every year.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/swiss-sewage-full-gold-apparently-180965245/?utm_source=twitter.com&
Page 459, Position 3: Augustus Caesar sent 10,000 troops to find the source of the world’s frankincense.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8505251.stm
Page 459, Position 4: Slugs hate myrrh.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/wise-men-enlist-myrrh-defeat-2395423
Page 460, Position 1: Lewis Carroll collected snails.
Steve Jones The Daily Telegraph 24.3.07
Page 460, Position 2: In 2008, a new species of insect was discovered in the garden of the Natural History Museum by a five-year-old boy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1035264/Natural-History-Museum-experts-baffled-new-bug-garden.html
Page 460, Position 3: Indian jumping ants can smell which of the larvae will mature into a queen.
https://scienmag.com/princess-pheromone-tells-ants-which-larvae-are-destined-to-be-queens/
Page 460, Position 4: Queen Victoria hung a photograph of Prince Albert on his deathbed over every bed she slept in.
History Today Aug 2011
Page 461, Position 1: In 1926, the future George VI competed in the men’s doubles at Wimbledon, but was knocked out in his first match.
http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/news/articles/2014-12-04/20141204_throwback_thursday_a_jubilee_at_wimbledon_in_1926.html
Page 461, Position 2: Cricketers wore a box to protect their genitals for more than 100 years before they wore a helmet to protect their head.
http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=37479&
Page 461, Position 3: In Finland, they make bread from crickets.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/23/anyone-for-crickets-bread-made-insect-finnish-bakery-fazer
Page 461, Position 4: Elephants have three times as many brain cells as humans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons
Page 462, Position 1: Edward VII had a golf bag made from an elephant’s penis.
https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/matter-of-fact-1-533064
Page 462, Position 2: Donald Trump’s golf bag contains high-powered rifles, as well as clubs.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-carries-high-powered-rifles-with-clubs-playing-golf-florida-trump-international-golf-a7678826.html
Page 462, Position 3: The average plastic bag gets used for 12 minutes but takes up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.
https://theoutline.com/post/2998/new-york-city-plastic-bag-ban-law?zd=3&
Page 462, Position 4: Eating a bag of crisps a day for a year is equivalent to drinking five litres of cooking oil.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5367822.stm
Page 463, Position 1: Snakes that eat snakes can eat snakes that are 139% of their own length.
http://snakesarelong.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/snake-eating-snakes.html
Page 463, Position 2: The smallest known snake is the size of a toothpick.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-strangest-facts-about-snakes https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-strangest-facts-about-snakes
Page 463, Position 3: In 2017, snakes were observed hunting in packs for the first time.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/snakes-hunting-in-packs-cuban-boas-caves
Page 463, Position 4: Snakes are not allowed on American Airlines planes as emotional support animals.
https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/special-assistance/service-animals.jsp?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 464, Position 1: The Americans most likely to use fonts that look like handwriting are Nevadans.
https://priceonomics.com/the-comic-sans-index-what-kind-of-fonts-do/
Page 464, Position 2: Comic Sans is based on lettering from the Watchmen comics.
https://www.creativebloq.com/interview/inspiration-comic-sans-gives-his-verdict-awful-font-812618
Page 464, Position 3: In graphic design, the use of too many mismatched fonts is called ‘the ransom note effect’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_note_effect
Page 464, Position 4: The ‘third-person effect’ is the belief that advertising only convinces other people.
https://academic.oup.com/poq/article-abstract/47/1/1/1906961/The-Third-Person-Effect-in-Communication?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Page 465, Position 1: The ‘bystander effect’ is where a person does nothing in a crisis because they think someone else will.
https://curiosity.com/topics/we-all-think-were-too-smart-for-ad-campaigns-curiosity/
Page 465, Position 2: New members of the British royal family undergo hostage simulation training.
https://qz.com/1142603/prince-harry-and-meghan-markles-wedding-us-actress-to-get-sas-military-hostage-training/?mc_cid=39a0f4bb54&
Page 465, Position 3: The Royal Navy is half the size it was in 1990.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/21/cuts-britains-military-mean-no-longer-rule-waves-fleet-halved/
Page 465, Position 4: During the Cold War, to plan for a nuclear meltdown Russia, Sweden and Finland dusted off their old steam locomotives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_steam_reserve
Page 466, Position 1: Siderodromophobia is the fear of trains.
http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=38359&
Page 466, Position 2: Aibohphobia is the fear of palindromes.
http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=38359&
Page 466, Position 3: People can overcome phobias if they’re given cash every time they think about the thing they’re scared of.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/21/paying-people-helps-them-overcome-phobias---new-research/
Page 466, Position 4: £200,000 in loose change is found on public transport in London each year.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/tfl-lost-property-revealed-including-200k-worth-of-cash-left-on-tube-a3618031.html
Page 467, Position 1: 2,400 phone boxes in Britain are listed as ‘historic landmarks’.
https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/blogs/amazing-afterlife-british-phone-boxes
Page 467, Position 2: L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, predicted the smartphone in 1926.
https://kottke.org/18/04/nikola-tesla-predicted-the-smartphone-in-1926
Page 467, Position 3: Steve Jobs launched the iPhone in 2007 by making a prank call to Starbucks.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3006147/because-steve-jobss-first-public-iphone-call-starbucks-still-
Page 467, Position 4: The area code for Cape Canaveral is 3–2–1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_code_321
Page 468, Position 1: Snoopy is NASA’s official safety mascot.
https://gizmodo.com/snoopy-the-astrobeagle-nasas-mascot-for-safety-1570066950
Page 468, Position 2: NASA has green-lit a project to create swarms of robot bees to explore Mars.
https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-wants-swarms-buzzing-robot-bees-marsbees-to-explore-mars
Page 468, Position 3: A bee’s brain weighs less than a milligram.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/5/17500782/zero-number-math-explained?utm_source=digg&
Page 468, Position 4: The inventor of M&M’s was allergic to peanuts.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/68189/creator-peanut-mms-was-allergic-peanuts
Page 469, Position 1: Candyfloss was invented by a dentist.
http://www.latimes.com/food/sns-dailymeal-1890308-cook-cotton-candy-was-invented-dentist-20180305-story.html
Page 469, Position 2: The price tag was invented by the Quakers.
https://timespelunking.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/the-invention-of-the-price-tag/
Page 469, Position 3: In the 1950s, Quaker Oats gave away one square inch of land in Canada with every box sold.
https://newsok.com/article/5484693/taking-stock-decades-old-deed-to-one-square-inch-of-canadas-yukon-territory-has-some-value
Page 469, Position 4: The Vikings ate frozen food.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2143059-viking-hordes-dined-on-frozen-norwegian-cod-shipped-to-germany/
Page 470, Position 1: The Netherlands is Europe’s biggest importer of insects.
https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2017/41/the-netherlands-largest-importer-of-insects-in-the-eu
Page 470, Position 2: 1 in 200 Slovenians keep bees.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/slovenia/articles/beekeeping-slovenia-world-bee-day-ljubljana/
Page 470, Position 3: Aphids are born pregnant.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/911/are-aphids-born-pregnant
Page 470, Position 4: Toenail fungus is asexual.
https://www.livescience.com/61846-toenail-fungus-reproduction-may-spell-doom.html
Page 471, Position 1: Astronauts often lose their fingernails after space walks.
https://boingboing.net/2010/09/15/astronauts-fingernai.html
Page 471, Position 2: Children who bite their nails are less likely to develop allergies as an adult.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2016/07/07/peds.2016-0443
Page 471, Position 3: Mango skins contain the same allergen as poison ivy .
https://web.extension.illinois.edu/cfiv/homeowners/120726.html
Page 471, Position 4: Napoleon was allergic to leather.
https://www.christies.com/features/Specialist-Shari-Kashani-on-Napoleons-bicorn-hat-6919-1.aspx
Page 472, Position 1: When George Washington died, Napoleon ordered 10 days of mourning in France.
https://www.politico.com/story/2009/12/george-washington-dies-at-mount-vernon-dec-14-1799-030536
Page 472, Position 2: Winston Churchill’s funeral was planned under the code name Operation Hope Not.
https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/news/2015/jan/21/operation-hope-not/
Page 472, Position 3: The middle name of 17th-century English economist Nicholas Barbon was If-Christ-had-notdied-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned.
https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/curiosities-of-puritan-nomenclature-1888/
Page 472, Position 4: The full name of Thing from The Addams Family is Thing T. Thing.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0901062/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t139
Page 473, Position 1: Louisa Adams, the wife of the sixth US president, John Quincy Adams, is the only First Lady apart from Melania Trump not to have been born in the US.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/melania-trump-facts-first-lady-2018-5/#she-is-only-the-second-first-lady-in-american-history-born-outside-of-the-united-states-in-slovenia-the-only-other-foreign-born-first-lady-was-louisa-catherine-johnson-the-wife-of-john-quincy-adams-she-was-born-in-england-1
Page 473, Position 2: Newborn babies have half as much chance of developing asthma if there’s a cat in the house.
https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/cat-asthma-newborn-gene-0942342/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 473, Position 3: When huskies sleep, they curl up with their tail over their nose, which traps the heat against their bodies.
http://www.dummies.com/pets/dogs/understanding-a-siberian-huskys-sleep-style/
Page 473, Position 4: One-third of the energy a python gets from a meal goes on digesting the meal.
http://discovermagazine.com/1994/apr/diningwiththesna362
Page 474, Position 1: The world’s largest wine cellar has underground streets 150 miles long, where staff and tourists get about by bike, car and bus.
https://www.winerist.com/magazine/entry/where-in-the-world-is-the-largest-wine-cellar
Page 474, Position 2: The world’s largest wine cellar and the world’s secondlargest wine cellar are both in Moldova.
https://www.winerist.com/blog/entry/where-in-the-world-is-the-largest-wine-cellar
Page 474, Position 3: As much Prosecco is drunk in the UK each year as the annual rainfall on Wembley stadium.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/prosecco-may-be-contributing-to-increased-dental-decay-1.3198483
Page 474, Position 4: Britain’s first professional footballer had only one eye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lang_(footballer)
Page 475, Position 1: An Australian law student has fought a five-year battle to have a drawing of a cock and balls officially recognised as his legal signature.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/melbourne-man-faces-stiff-opposition-to-penis-signature-20160106-gm0sx6.html
Page 475, Position 2: T. S. Eliot coined the word ‘bullshit’.
http://www.openculture.com/2015/06/young-t-s-eliot-writes-the-triumph-of-bullsht-and-gives-the-english-language-a-new-expletive-1910.html
Page 475, Position 3: In 2017, the World Taekwondo Federation changed its name to World Taekwondo because of the ‘negative connotations’ associated with its initials.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/taekwondo/40391326
Page 475, Position 4: Sumo is Japanese for ‘rushing at each other’.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9B%B8%E6%92%B2
Page 476, Position 1: Professional sumo wrestlers aren’t allowed to drive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumo
Page 476, Position 2: If a woman enters a sumo ring, it has to be cleaned immediately with salt.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/world/asia/women-sumo-ring-japan.html
Page 476, Position 3: After iodine was added to salt in 1924, the average American IQ jumped by 15%.
http://www.businessinsider.com/iodization-effect-on-iq-2013-7?IR=T
Page 476, Position 4: Butterflies can get the salt they need by drinking the tears from turtles’ eyes.
https://www.livescience.com/63092-butterflies-drink-turtle-tears.html
Page 477, Position 1: TV naturalist Steve Irwin (1962–2006) and Charles Darwin (1809–82) owned the same tortoise.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/darwins-tortoise-dies-after-176-years/
Page 477, Position 2: Lizards were defined by Dr Johnson as ‘an animal resembling a serpent, with legs added to it’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/538473/funny-definitions-from-dictionary-of-the-english-language-samuel-johnson
Page 477, Position 3: Each leg of an offshore wind turbine may have up to 4.3 tonnes of mussels clinging to it.
https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21730129-flexing-mussels-offshore-wind-farms-will-change-life-sea
Page 477, Position 4: St David’s is Britain’s smallest and windiest city .
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/uks-windiest-city-4966116
Page 478, Position 1: For its size, Britain has more tornadoes than any other country in the world.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/only-in-britain/tornado-strikes-london/
Page 478, Position 2: The average warning time for a tornado is 13 minutes.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/13-minutes-thats-the-average-warning-time-before-a-tornado-strikes/361195/
Page 478, Position 3: The average Briton spends a year of their working life off sick.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2473674/The-average-Briton-spends-YEAR-working-life-si.html
Page 478, Position 4: A quarter of British nurses are obese.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/05/one-four-nurses-obese-new-study-shows/
Page 479, Position 1: To nurdle is to muse on a subject you know nothing about.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nurdle#cite_note-3
Page 479, Position 2: To snerdle is to wrap up cosily in bed.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/21-obscure-christmas-words-youve-never-heard/
Page 479, Position 3: A petarade is a series of farts.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/fart-words-and-euphemisms/petarade
Page 479, Position 4: Ninguid is a 17th-century word for ‘snowy’.
http://www.foyles.co.uk/Blog-Paul-Anthony-Jones-Long-Forgotten-Words
Page 480, Position 1: Part of Antarctica is called the Kodak Gap because it is so beautiful it’s impossible to take a bad photo there.
Part of Antarctica is called the 'Kodak Gap' because it is so beautiful it's impossible to take a bad photo there. https://www.antarcticaguide.com/lemaire-channel-photographers-dream/
Page 480, Position 2: The US Postal Service photographs every one of the 160 billion items of US mail a year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirms-photographing-all-us-mail.html
Page 480, Position 3: Jeff Bezos has been photographed eating an iguana.
https://www.bloomberg.com/hyperdrive
Page 480, Position 4: Oscar Wilde tore off and ate a corner of each page after he’d read it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/books/review/Shae-t.html
Page 481, Position 1: The NME was originally called the Accordion Times.
http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/nmes-first-ever-issue-from-1952-the-best-bits-1554872 c
Page 481, Position 2: Freddy Mercury’s original title for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was ‘The Cowboy Song’.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/70634/10-operatic-facts-about-bohemian-rhapsody
Page 481, Position 3: The song ‘Mahna Mahna’, made famous by the Muppets, was written for a porn film.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mah_N%C3%A0_Mah_N%C3%A0
Page 481, Position 4: Paul McCartney once spent three hours in prison for setting a condom on fire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Best#The_Beatles_and_Hamburg
Page 482, Position 1: Steve Jobs tried to change the name of the Apple Macintosh to the Apple Bicycle.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-macintosh-turns-25-and-how-it-was-almost-a-bicycle/
Page 482, Position 2: The tank was nearly called ‘the cistern’ or ‘the reservoir’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank#Etymology
Page 482, Position 3: In the 17th century, magpies were called ‘pie-maggots’.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 482, Position 4: A sequin was originally a gold coin from Italy.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/sequin
Page 483, Position 1: In 1929, Italy’s Fascist government banned the use of foreign words.
https://writersalmanac.org/note/july-23-2016-on-this-day-fascist-government-in-italy-bans-the-use-of-foreign-words/
Page 483, Position 2: Cumhracht is Irish for the smell of a man’s body after intercourse.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/motherfocl%C3%B3ir-the-irish-they-didn-t-teach-you-in-school-1.3219777
Page 483, Position 3: Emmanuel Macron, president of France, spends the equivalent of £24,000 a year on make-up.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/25/emmanuel-macron-under-fire-26000-euros-makeup-bill
Page 483, Position 4: In camel beauty contests, competitors are disqualified if they use Botox.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-camels/prize-camels-keep-tradition-alive-in-changing-saudi-but-please-no-botox-idUKKBN1FB1WL?feedType=nl&
Page 484, Position 1: In the 1880s, thousands of spectators flocked to newspaper typesetting competitions.
https://www.economist.com/prospero/2018/03/30/when-newspaper-compositors-were-sporting-heroes
Page 484, Position 2: To design a new English-language font requires about 230 separate elements called ‘glyphs’; to make a Chinese one needs over 13,000.
https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1283302/
Page 484, Position 3: The Glyptodon was an ancient armadillo the size of a Volkswagen Beetle whose shell was large enough for humans to live in.
http://allthatsinteresting.com/glyptodon
Page 484, Position 4: As a teenager, Xi Jinping, president of China, lived in a cave.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Thoughts_Chairman_Xi
Page 485, Position 1: Neanderthals used glue.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170831093424.htm
Page 485, Position 2: Wallets were first used to carrymeat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallet
Page 485, Position 3: All the iron in Bronze Age tools and weapons came from meteorites.
https://newatlas.com/bronze-age-iron-tools-meteorites/52474/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&
Page 485, Position 4: At least 200 meteorites on Earth are known to have come from Mars.
https://www.zmescience.com/space/space-flight-space/nasa-meteorite-mission-mars-15022018/
Page 486, Position 1: Every day, 800 million viruses fall on each square metre of the Earth’s surface.
https://www.livescience.com/61689-viruses-fall-from-sky.html
Page 486, Position 2: The MRSA virus can be treated with an Anglo-Saxon potion that is 1,000 years old.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27263-anglo-saxon-remedy-kills-hospital-superbug-mrsa/#.VRqblka1_vB
Page 486, Position 3: The antibiotic vancomycin comes from soil on the jungle floor in Borneo.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/could-the-answer-to-our-most-urgent-health-crisis-be-found-on-a-toilet-seat/528687/?src=longreads
Page 486, Position 4: The rainforest floor gets less than 3% of the light that the treetops do.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ErkxBgAAQBAJ&
Page 487, Position 1: American tree populations are steadily moving west, and no one knows why.
https://www.sciencealert.com/american-trees-have-started-migrating-west-and-no-one-knows-why
Page 487, Position 2: No one knows why shower curtains cling to you.
https://curiosity.com/topics/no-one-knows-why-the-shower-curtain-will-randomly-cling-to-you-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&
Page 487, Position 3: In his late 60s, Ulysses S. Grant claimed that no one had seen him naked since he was a young child.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-4-most-impressively-weird-sex-lives-u.s.-presidents
Page 487, Position 4: When Spy magazine sent cheques for 13 cents to some of the world’s richest people, no one cashed them except a Saudi arms dealer and Donald Trump.
https://splinternews.com/lets-remember-the-time-donald-trump-cashed-a-13-check-1793849388
Page 488, Position 1: Bankruptcy is likely to be as fatal as heart disease.
https://nypost.com/2018/04/04/bankruptcy-increases-risk-of-early-death-as-much-as-heart-disease/
Page 488, Position 2: A fatal dose of water is six litres.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-drinking-too-much-water-can-kill/
Page 488, Position 3: A fatal dose of caffeine is 113 cups of coffee, but you’d die of water poisoning first.
http://scienceblogs.com/worldsfair/2009/05/01/lethal-doses-and-substance-abu/
Page 488, Position 4: Nestlé sells 56 different brands of water.
https://theconversation.com/why-sales-of-bottled-water-overtaking-soft-drinks-is-nothing-to-celebrate-41695
Page 489, Position 1: Watering plants with club soda makes them grow faster and go a nicer shade of green.
https://www.improbable.com/2018/07/09/the-benefits-of-watering-plants-with-club-soda-study/
Page 489, Position 2: As long as you use soap, washing your hands works just as well if the water is cold.
http://time.com/4800412/wash-hands-cold-water/
Page 489, Position 3: Mano a mano means ‘hand to hand’, not ‘man to man’.
http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=37302&
Page 489, Position 4: The Island of Misunderstanding got its name because it was missed by a map-making expedition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedorazumeniya_Island
Page 490, Position 1: The first Americans came from Siberia.
https://www.livescience.com/62531-native-american-founder-population.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&
Page 490, Position 2: The earliest known song was written in Syria.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180424-did-syria-create-the-worlds-first-song?ocid=global_travel_rss&
Page 490, Position 3: Cougars have a cry that sounds like a woman screaming.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/north-america/articles/how-a-year-in-a-log-cabin-changed-my-life/?WT.mc_id=e_DM674469&
Page 490, Position 4: Australian magpies can understand what other birds are saying.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/australian-magpie-calls-8252723/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 491, Position 1: Pelicans swallow pigeons whole.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/515654/10-fun-facts-about-pelicans
Page 491, Position 2: Hedgehogs hunt and kill adders.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-strangest-facts-about-snakes
Page 491, Position 3: Coconut crabs climb trees and hunt birds.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/11/11/these-crabs-can-grow-up-to-3-feet-and-hunt-birds-a-biologists-video-proves/?undefined=&
Page 491, Position 4: Quetzal birds eat avocados whole but regurgitate the stone because it makes them too heavy to take off.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_sbGtJRO5ewC&
Page 492, Position 1: You can lose weight by leaving your bedroom window open at night.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/03/20/open-bedroom-window-night-prevent-obesity-type-2-diabetes-says/
Page 492, Position 2: There are more possible arrangements of a deck of cards than there are stars in the known universe.
https://www.metafilter.com/172381/52
Page 492, Position 3: Children asked to draw stars instinctively draw five of them.
https://sharonhenning.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/quadrivium-number-geometry-music-heaven.html
Page 492, Position 4: The human eye can detect a single photon.
https://curiosity.com/topics/can-you-see-a-single-photon-with-your-naked-eye-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&
Page 493, Position 1: A single violin is made from over 70 pieces of wood.
http://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/incredible-facts/violin/
Page 493, Position 2: Christchurch, New Zealand, has a 700-seat cathedral made of cardboard.
http://www.cardboardcathedral.org.nz/
Page 493, Position 3: Cardboard was invented in China before the birth of Christ.
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/02/invention-cardboard-box/
Page 493, Position 4: The nail was invented by the ancient Romans.
https://www.livescience.com/33749-top-10-inventions-changed-world.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&
Page 494, Position 1: Scientists can’t decide on the definition of a tree.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/how-do-you-define-a-tree/557135/?utm_source=twb
Page 494, Position 2: Hawaiian violets have wooden stems.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d7a5/648339d7ab2bcc6a0aca804a432699be7ff5.pdf
Page 494, Position 3: Physicists at the University of Hawaii have solved the problem of how washing machines get clothes clean.
https://curiosity.com/topics/scientists-just-figured-out-how-laundry-machines-clean-your-clothes-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&
Page 494, Position 4: Washing Machine – The Movie is a 66-minute-long single shot of a wash, rinse and spin cycle, with a score by Michael Nyman.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/28/soap-opera-michael-nyman-composes-score-for-washing-machine-film?utm_source=esp&
Page 495, Position 1: There are more vending machines in Japan than there are people in New Zealand.
https://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/indepth/cultural/hj/vendingmachines.html http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/new-zealand-population
Page 495, Position 2: The Japanese for ‘achoo!’ is hakashun!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-23162903
Page 495, Position 3: The Filipino for ‘achoo!’ is haching!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-23162903
Page 495, Position 4: Deaf people don’t say ‘achoo!’ when they sneeze.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-23162903
Page 496, Position 1: The droplets in a single cough can contain 200 million virus particles.
https://www.livescience.com/3686-gross-science-cough-sneeze.html
Page 496, Position 2: Cough mixture in Qatar must be prescribed by a doctor.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/06/leave-vicks-home-foreign-office-warns-medication-could-land1/
Page 496, Position 3: Vicks VapoRub is illegal in Japan, Greece and Singapore.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/06/leave-vicks-home-foreign-office-warns-medication-could-land1/
Page 496, Position 4: No one knows how aspirin works.
https://curiosity.com/topics/a-russian-scientist-injected-himself-with-35-million-year-old-bacteria-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&
Page 497, Position 1: British pensions are so complicated that not even the chief economist of the Bank of England understands them.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/may/19/bank-of-englands-chief-economist-calls-for-more-simple-pension-system
Page 497, Position 2: Membership of the Royal Bastards Society is open to anyone who can prove illegitimate descent from a king of England, Wales or Scotland.
https://royalbastards.org/
Page 497, Position 3: James IV of Scotland paid people to let him extract their teeth.
https://cvhf.org.uk/history-hub/10-facts-about-the-16th-century-game-of-queens/
Page 497, Position 4: The Queen travels everywhere with a black mourning suit, just in case.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/her-majesty-the-queen-jet-lag-remedy-travel-habits/?WT.mc_id=e_DM608169&
Page 498, Position 1: The French Foreign Legion has its own vineyard.
http://www.wineterroirs.com/2008/09/legion_wine.html
Page 498, Position 2: 90% of wines are meant to be drunk within a year.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/apr/20/wines-for-the-cellar
Page 498, Position 3: Britons in 2018 buy six times as many cups of coffee as they did in 2000.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41251451
Page 498, Position 4: Postgraduate students are six times as depressed as the rest of us.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/graduate-students-depressed-042343/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 499, Position 1: Every year spent in secondary education adds 11 months to the length of your life.
https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/these-7-habits-literally-add-years-to-your-life-according-to-science.html
Page 499, Position 2: The Ethiopian calendar has 13 months.
https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/ethiopia-calendar.html
Page 499, Position 3: Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to travel on Friday the 13th.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/weird-news/friday-the-13th-is-it-really-unlucky-and-why-do-people-fear-it-a6733126.html
Page 499, Position 4: 45% of the world’s cargo ships are travelling empty .
https://qz.com/1031020/heres-a-sign-of-our-massive-global-trade-imbalance-right-now-45-of-ships-are-traveling-without-cargo/?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 500, Position 1: Fishing boats cast their nets over 55% of the ocean’s surface.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/fishing-map-2016/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 500, Position 2: Only 34% of the world’s land surface is used for any kind of agriculture.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/fishing-map-2016/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&
Page 500, Position 3: The Gobi Desert is twice the size of France.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mongolian-camel-coaxing-art-ritual-lost?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&
Page 500, Position 4: The world’s smallest desert covers one square mile.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180621-the-unlikely-home-of-the-worlds-smallest-desert?utm_source=digg&
Page 501, Position 1: The circumference of the world was estimated by Eratosthenes of Cyrene 2,000 years ago, and he was only 1% out.
https://gizmodo.com/how-the-circumference-of-earth-was-accurately-estimated-1493009177
Page 501, Position 2: All the Slinkys ever made would encircle the world 150 times.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/the-story-of-the-slinky/266713/
Page 501, Position 3: The inventor of the Slinky ran away to join a religious cult.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/the-story-of-the-slinky/266713/
Page 501, Position 4: In 2015, the Vatican performed an exorcism on the whole of Mexico.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-catholic-church-performed-an-exorcism-to-help-mexico-2015-6
Page 502, Position 1: The Australian constitution includes New Zealand as its seventh state.
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/preamble
Page 502, Position 2: The Hungarian constitution was drafted on an iPad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Hungary#Drafting_process
Page 502, Position 3: The US constitution is the only one from the 18th century still in use.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/09/24/are-americans-too-constitution-obsessed/
Page 502, Position 4: The Irish for USA is SAM.
https://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/united-states-of-america
Page 503, Position 1: Hitler’s nephew, William Hitler, served in the US Navy .
http://www.cracked.com/article_24724_the-true-adventures-bill-hitler-hilters-idiot-nephew.htmlhttp://www.businessinsider.com/21-rare-and-weird-facts-about-world-war-2-2015-8?IR=T#15-adolph-hitler-and-henry-ford-each-kept-a-framed-picture-of-the-other-on-his-desk-1111115
Page 503, Position 2: Before the Second World War, the US Navy trained on the assumption that it would have to fight the Royal Navy next.
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-USA-plan-to-attack-Britain-in-1936
Page 503, Position 3: Japan’s Self-Defence Forces have a larger navy than Britain and France combined but have never fired a shot in battle.
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21717079-many-army-apparently-had-no-idea-they-might-have-do-some-fighting-japans
Page 503, Position 4: Samurai always brought dried plums to battles.
https://www.livescience.com/60738-ancient-samurai-book-reveals-warrior-rules.html
Page 504, Position 1: France has a larger economy than the whole of Africa.
https://news.sky.com/story/theresa-mays-silence-on-brexit-success-leads-to-one-conclusion-11485765
Page 504, Position 1: Asparagus tips are called ‘squibs’.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfZZICeBgaS/?taken-by=haggardhawks
Page 504, Position 2: Concrete is stronger if carrots are added to it.
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/06/16/making-buildings-cars-and-planes-from-materials-based-on-plant-fibres?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20180614n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/UK/128676/n&
Page 504, Position 3: When the first avocados were sold by Marks & Spencer, they came with a leaflet explaining how to eat them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/87a56e5c-6d41-4495-9e22-523efb6b4cb0
Page 504, Position 4: All strawberries today derive from five plants brought to France from Chile in 1712.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QIFTVWJH3doC&
Page 505, Position 1: The oceans are getting louder.
https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/7/18/15988494/ocean-noise-pollution
Page 505, Position 2: 99.99% of the territory of the Cook Islands is open sea.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/08/cook-islands-faces-its-worst-case-scenario-being-granted-developed-country-status?utm_source=esp&
Page 505, Position 3: Tahitian has no word for ‘sadness’.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2008.00509.x?referrer_access_token=SsPN6gJ8KtHKHZmQb4dzjota6bR2k8jH0KrdpFOxC66fmTHTQHODkoQXCsJeT-A7f7HnCGuv2auq4aA-ycaoMVc2-KwAQsQCQEk8aLl6PQkpGQC7Yolxi2tdW6a0FbfYWM_c37DNSoU2ZByp2TSvrw%3D%3D
Page 505, Position 4: The parliament of Palau is called the House of Whispers.
https://www.pristineparadisepalau.com/about-palau/government
Page 506, Position 2: Ferns are older than seeds.
https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/1349113/
Page 506, Position 3: Darkness moves faster than light.
https://curiosity.com/topics/darkness-is-faster-than-the-speed-of-light-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email
Page 506, Position 4: There’s no such thing as total darkness anywhere in the universe.
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-such-a-thing-as-total-darkness-according-to-science-on-Earth