100 things we didn't know last year
10:52 UK time, Friday, 28 December 2012
1. Bond star Daniel Craig does not like his knees.
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2. In China, crowded public swimming pools are called boiling dumplings.
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3. People eat Christmas trees.
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4. Goats have accents.
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5. Authors who finish other writers' works are known as "continuators".
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6. A horse fly is named after Beyonce.
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7. State workers in South Carolina answer the phone with, "It's a great day in South Carolina."Ìý
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8. There are 364 different ways to mis-spell the name of the Welsh village Betws-y-Coed.
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9. Moths have a taste for Chardonnay.
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10. More babies were born in the UK during 1920 than in any other year.Ìý
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11. The world's hottest chilli pepper can burn its way through gloves.
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12. The average US share holding lasts 22 seconds.
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13. The early horse shrank to the size of a cat.
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14. King's Lynn is the caravan capital of England and Wales.
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15. Fans of snowdrops are known as galanthophiles.
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16. Hitler was embarrassed about a photograph showing him wearing lederhosen.
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17. Lizards can survive a spin in the washing machine.
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18. Female fish fancy males who flirt with other males.
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19. Lord Byron was one of the first diet icons.Ìý
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20. Spiders appear bigger when you're afraid of them.
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21. The longest word ever used in the House of Commons is floccinaucinihilipilification.
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22. Horses can be borrowed from the Metropolitan Police.
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23. Wearing a white lab coat helps you perform better in tests.
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24. Richard Dawkins invokes God when flustered.
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25. Birds take "girls only" holidaysÌý
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26. Bees have different personalities and some are thrill-seekers.
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27. Sex-starved fruit flies turn to drink.
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28. Barack Obama knows sign language.
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29. The first silicone breast implant was carried out on a dog called Esmerelda.Ìý
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30. Ernest Hemingway cried after he was forced to shoot his injured cat.
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31. A tweet by Jamie Oliver is worth $3,250 (£2,044).
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32. Ants inoculate themselves by licking each other.
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33. Holding a gun makes someone look taller.Ìý
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34. A dog can be best man at a wedding.
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35. The polar bear is 450,000 older than previously thought.
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36. Bob Marley banned smoking at home.
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37. Robert Redford didn't want to include hit song Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
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38. Occultist Aleister Crowley had his own chess column in the Eastbourne Gazette.
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39. Listening to opera helps mice recover from heart surgery.
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40. Timbuktu is twinned with Hay-on-Wye in Wales.
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41. Bees don't like babysitting their nephews and nieces.
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42. David Cameron thought LOL was shorthand for "lots of love".
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43. A woman's "gaydar" improves when she is ovulating.Ìý
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44. Beetles like living near street lights.
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45. On a French keyboard you have to press the shift key to get a full stop.
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46. Beijing has a "two flies" rule in its public toilets.
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47. Roy Hodgson is in the acknowledgments of Sebastian Faulks's novel A Week in December.
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48. The tastiest tomatoes are not uniformly red.
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49. Rihanna has sold more UK singles than the Rolling Stones.Ìý
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50. Only two countries retain the definite article in English - The Bahamas and The Gambia.
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51. Enoch Powell used to do impressions of Antiques Roadshow.
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52. The US government is sceptical about the existence of mermaids.
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53. One in three South Koreans follow Manchester United.
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54. It takes more energy to sit through a 15-minute meeting than it takes Usain Bolt to run three Olympic 100m races.
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55. Female crickets eat male virgins.
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56. Jumping off a tall building wearing Batman's cape would result in a crash landing at 50mph.
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57. The Nazis plotted to kill Sir Winston Churchill with an exploding bar of chocolate.
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58. Mexicans drink more bottled water per capita than any other country.
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59. ANC guerrillas contacted London to get the exact wording of a speech from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
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60. A patas monkey would beat Usain Bolt's 100m world record by three seconds.
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61. Men's brains are designed to shut down after sex.
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62. The US airforce trains more drone pilots than actual pilots.
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63. The earliest known use of "OMG" was in a 1917 letter to Winston Churchill.
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64. Olympic swimmers pee in the pool.
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65. When a player signs for Man City, the club already knows his girlfriend's taste in restaurants.
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66. In Italian, there is a word for a summer hit song that is played everywhere you go - tormentone.
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67. The favourite number of Count von Count from the Muppets is 34,969.
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68. Chimpanzees have a secret handshake.
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69. A hurricane can make the Mississippi River run backwards for 24 hours.
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70. There has only ever been one Secretary of State for Wales named Jones.
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71. Spoof disaster movie Airplane! elicits three belly laughs per minute from viewers - more than the Life of Brian's 1.2.
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72. Only two flavours - chocolate and lavender - are interpreted the same way whether eaten or smelt.
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73. The average Mexican eats 430 eggs each year, the highest per capita amount of any nation.
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74. The oldest dental filling has been found in a Stone Age tooth.
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75. Ed Sheeran is the most pirated artist in the UK.
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76. One in every 10 people uses the same Pin number - 1234.
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77. Bexhill, Sussex, has more centenarians per head of population than anywhere else in the UK.
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78. Honey can turn blue and green.
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79. Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna was part of the choir that sang the theme tune to Mr Bean.
80. The Duchess of Cambridge grows her own potatoes.
81. People prone to feeling guilty make for the best friends.
82. Women get more stressed than men when they read bad news stories.
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83. Men named Brian and women called Helen have the best credit profiles in the UK on average.
84. Michael Fish has about a hundred fish-themed ties.
85. Flying ant day is a myth.
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86. Some 10% of UK lottery millionaires buy a caravan.
87. It takes six hours to reset Big Ben from BST to GMT.
88. Watching a horror film burns more calories than movies of other genres.
89. Ikea has sold over 11 billion meatballs in the UK.
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90. Mars has soil similar to Hawaii's.
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91. New Scotland Yard is actually New New Scotland Yard.
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92. Abraham Lincoln is the US president who has been portrayed most on film.
93. The staff carried by the next Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has a rock badger carved on it because he once burst out laughing while reading aloud in church a biblical passage about the animal.
94. There used to be first-class carriages on London's Tube and the Paris Metro.
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95. Virgin birth is possible for wild snakes.
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96. People are more likely to spend banknotes when they are grubby.
97. Men with a partner increase the space between themselves and an attractive woman if exposed to the bonding hormone oxytocin.
98. Nude dancing in strip clubs is a form of free speech in the US.
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99. The perfect number of baubles on a Christmas tree is 0.206 multiplied by the height of the tree in centimetres.
100. Great apes have mid-life crises.
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