Interesting Facts
41. The creature known as a false scorpion has venomous pincers but no tail.
42. Michael was the czar that rule Russia from 1613 to 1645 and founded the Ro-
manov dynasty.
43. The Houston Comets have won by far the most championships of any WNBA
team.
44. Also known as halite, rock salt can be formed when a body of salt water dries
up.
45. Béchamel, velouté, espagnole, sauce tomat, and hollandaise are the five
“mother sauces” of French cooking.
46. Abscam was an FBI sting operation starting in the late-1970s that got its
name from the fictitious business Abdul Enterprises.
47. The Key Deer is an endangered species found only in Florida that can easily
swim between islands.
48. Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Richard III are the four plays by Shake-
speare in which ghosts appear on stage.
49. On October 5, 1877, Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph surrendered to General Nelson Miles within 30 miles of the Canadian border.
50. Alabaster is a variety of the rock gypsum.
51. The NPR program All Things Considered has been on air since 1971 and has
had Robert Siegel as one of its weekday hosts since 1987.
52. Located more than 8,500 feet above sea level, Sucre is the judicial capital of
Bolivia.
53. Kingston, New York became the first capital city of that state in 1777 and was
burned by the British that same year.r
54. Pacifist and activist Bertha von Suttner was the first woman to win the Nobel
Prize for Peace in 1905.
55. You Are There was a 1950’s television program hosted by Walter Cronkite
that recreated historical events as news events.
56. The only two states with precious metals in their nicknames are California
(The Golden State) and Nevada (The Silver State).
57. The 1980 REO Speedwagon album Hi Infidelity was their biggest hit selling
more than 10 million copies and producing their first number one song “Take
It on the Run.”
58. The brown pelican is the state bird of Louisiana.
59. Prior to a 1968 ruling, flight attendants could be terminated if they got mar-
ried or reached the age of 32 or 35 depending on the airline.
60. Louis Daguerre began producing photographs in the 1830s by exposing sil-
ver-coated copper plates.
61. Rose Mary Woods became famous during the Watergate investigation as the
loyal secretary of Richard Nixon who had been with him since his time in
congress in 1951.
62. Nellie Tayloe Ross was the first female governor of the state of Wyoming in
1927, making her the first female governor of any U.S. state, who went on the
head the U.S. Mint for 20 years starting in 1933.
63. In 1719 certain prisoners in Paris were allowed to go free if they married
prostitutes and moved to Louisiana.
64. Clint Eastwood is the oldest person ever to win the Academy Award for Best Director for the 2004 film Million Dollar Baby.
65. Coined in the mid-1960s, the word “pixel” is combination of slang for pic-
tures and the word elements.
66. The state of Vermont once tried to become part of Quebec.
67. Virginia Wade was the last English woman to win the women’s singles title at
Wimbledon in 1977.
68. The current King of Jordan once worked as an extra on the TV series Star
Trek: Voyager.
69. The state capital of Arizona moved four different times before finally settling
in Phoenix.
70. The Obie, introduced the newspaper The Village Voice in 1956, is considered
Off-Broadway’s highest honor.
71. John Dillinger made a daring prison escape in 1934 using a carved wooden
gun.
72. Chuck is the cut of meat between the neck and shoulder blade of a cow.
73. Geologists discovered that much of sand in the Grand Canyon actually origi-
nated in the Appalachian Mountains.
74. Former surfing champion Jack Murphy was one of three men convicted of the
theft of the Star of India diamond (along with several other precious stones)
from the American Museum of Natural History in 1964.
75. Lemurs are only found on the island of Madagascar and a few small neigh-
boring islands.
76. Accounting for approximately 10% of the population, the Kurds are the
largest minority ethnic group in Turkey.
77. David Herold, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt were the
four conspirators hanged for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
78. Approximately 1.3 million Americans have died as a result of war since 1775.
79. Belgium has three federal regions; Wallonia, Flanders, and Brussels.
80. Japanese inventor Atsushi Shimizu has developed a turbine that can withstand
typhoon force winds and generate electricity.
