The world’s top 10 consumers of coffee per capita per year, as of 2003:
The average American consumes 4.2 kilograms — more than 9 pounds — of coffee each year.
In 1876, London barrister Charles Bravo took three days to die of antimony poisoning but refused to say who had poisoned him or why.
An inquest determined it was a case of willful murder, but no one was ever arrested or charged. To this day, no one knows who killed him.
Let others talk of L N’s eyes,
And K T’s figure light and free,
Say L R, too, is beautiful —
I heed them not while U I C.
U need not N V them, for U
X L them all, my M L E.
I have no words when I would tell
How much in love with U I B.
So sweet U R, my D R E,
I love your very F E G;
And when you speak or sign, your voice
Is like a winsome L O D.
When U R I C, hope D K’s,
I am a mere non- N T T.
Such F E K C has your smile,
It shields from N E N M E.
For love so deep as mine, I fear,
There is no other M E D.
But that you love me back again —
O, thought of heavenly X T C;
So, lest my M T heart and I
Should sing for love an L E G,
T’s me no more — B Y’s, B kind,
O, M L E, U R, I C!
— Anonymous, cited in Carolyn Wells, A Whimsey Anthology, 1906
“The span of a man’s outstretched arms is equal to his height.” — Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks
Viagra keeps plants from wilting.
Israeli and Australian researchers found that a low concentration in water doubled the shelf life of cut flowers, from one week to two weeks.
In 1815, a fox was caught in a trap, at Bourne, Cambridgeshire, with which he made off. He was traced in the snow the following morning, by the Earl of De La Warr’s gamekeeper, upwards of ten miles, and was taken out of the earth alive and strong. His pad was then in the trap, which, with three feet of chain at the end of it, is supposed to have weighed fourteen pounds. Another fox accompanied him the whole of the way, seldom being distant from him more than four or five yards.
— The Cabinet of Curiosities, 1824
“All Is Vanity” (1892), by the American illustrator C. Allan Gilbert.
Back up to get the full effect.
“Adults are only obsolete children.” — Dr. Seuss
Mathematician J.E. Littlewood once wrote a paper for the French journal Comptes Rendus. A Prof. M. Riesz did the translation, and at the end Littlewood found three footnotes:
I am greatly indebted to Prof. Riesz for translating the present paper.
I am indebted to Prof. Riesz for translating the preceding footnote.
I am indebted to Prof. Riesz for translating the preceding footnote.
Littlewood notes that this could have gone on indefinitely but “I stop legitimately at number 3: however little French I know I am capable of copying a French sentence.”
73 × 9 × 42 = 7 × 3942