The world record for high-speed bicycling keeps going up, of course, but the record for low-speed bicycling has remained unchallenged for 40 years. In 1965, Tsugunobu Mitsuishi of Tokyo, Japan, remained perfectly stationary for 5 hours and 25 minutes.

Moscow has the most heavily used metro system in the world, carrying 8-9 million passengers on a normal weekday. It has 170 stations and 12 lines, including an unusual “ring line” that circles the city.

According to legend, this came about when Stalin’s coffee cup left a ring on one of the blueprints. Historians dispute this account — but on maps, the ring line is always printed in brown.

Famous tall women:

• Janet Reno – 6’3″
• Venus Williams – 6’1″
• Ann Coulter – 6′
• Geena Davis – 6′
• Allison Janney – 6′
• Elle MacPherson – 6′
• Brooke Shields – 6′
• Uma Thurman – 6′
• Tyra Banks – 5’11”
• Famke Janssen – 5’11”
• Anna Nicole Smith – 5’11”
• Sigourney Weaver – 5’11”
• Naomi Campbell – 5’10”
• Diana, Princess of Wales – 5’10”
• Jenna Elfman – 5’10”
• Daryl Hannah – 5’10”
• Queen Latifah – 5’10”
• Charlize Theron – 5’10”
• Liv Tyler – 5’10”
• Serena Williams – 5’10”

Until 1999, Abe Lincoln was the only person to appear on both the front and back of the same United States coin (he’s just barely visible on the back of the penny, sitting in his memorial):

Now George Washington can claim the same honor with the release of New Jersey state quarter, whose reverse shows him crossing the Delaware River:

The United States sees 1 parachuting fatality per 80,000 jumps. “There are old jumpers and there are bold jumpers,” says a maxim, “but there are no old, bold jumpers.”

The five most expensive items sold on eBay (as of 2002):

1. A Grumman Gulfstream II jet (sold for $4.9 million)
2. A 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card ($1.65 million)
3. Diamond Lake Resort in western Kentucky ($1.2 million)
4. Shoeless Joe Jackson’s “Black Betsy” baseball bat ($577,610)
5. A round of golf with Tiger Woods ($425,000)

An anonymous seller from Brazil once offered a decommissioned aircraft carrier. There were no takers.

The average Fortune 500 CEO is 6 feet tall — 3 inches taller than the average American man.

Of the 43 U.S. presidents, only five have been more than an inch below average height.

The 2004 tsunami arrives in Thailand. Its total energy equaled about 5 megatons of TNT, more than twice the total explosive energy used in all of World War II, including the two atomic bombs.