Posted on 03/30/2004 10:45:31 AM PST by yankeedame
WORLD
>> Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".
>> The first McDonald's restaurant in Canada was in Richmond, British Columbia.
>> In 1984, a Canadian farmer began renting advertising space on his cows.
>> There are more donut shops in Canada per capita than any other country.
>> 0.3% of all road accidents in Canada involve a Moose.
>> In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only 6 people were injured.
>> In Quebec, there is an old law that states margarine must be a different color than butter.
>> The largest taxi fleet in the world is found in Mexico City. The city boasts a fleet of over 60,000 taxis.
>> Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
>> More than 90% of the Nicaraguan people are Roman Catholic.
>> Cuba is the only island in the Caribbean to have a railroad.
>> Jamaica has the most churches per square mile than any other country in the world.
>> Jamaica was the first country from the English speaking Caribbean to qualify for the Football World Cup.
>> Bolivia has two capitals.
>> The angel falls in Venezuela are nearly 20 times taller than Niagara Falls.
>> Canada is the only country not to win a gold medal in the summer Olympic games while hosting the event.
>> The Amazon is the world's largest river, 3,890 miles (6,259 km) long.
>> The town of Calma, Chile in the Atacama Desert has never had rain.
>> A single sausage measuring 5,917 feet (1,804 m) in length was cooked in Barcelona, Spain on September 22, 1986.
>> There is a church in Spain that allows worshippers to make donations via a credit card terminal.
>> The people of France eat more cheese than any other country in the world.
>> There's a place called "Y" in France.
>> King Louis XIX ruled France for 15 minutes.
>> The most common name in Italy is Mario Rossi.
>> The Eiffel tower in France varies in height depending on the temperature, Sometimes by as much as six inches.
>> Greece's national anthem has 158 verses.
>> In ancient Greece "idiot" meant a private citizen or layman.
>> Bulgarians are known to be the biggest yogurt eaters in the world.
>> Czechs are the biggest consumers of beer per male in the world.
>> A Czech man, Jan Honza Zampa, holds the record for drinking one liter of beer in 4.11 seconds.
>> A national campaign against swearing has started in Holland. Railway stations have started to display signs that say, "Missed your train? Cursing doesn't help!"
>> Netherlands is the only country with a national dog.
>> When we think of Big Ben in London, we think of the clock. Actually, it's the bell.
>> King George I of England could not speak English; he was born and raised in Germany. He let his ministers run the country to get around this problem.
>> The Automated Teller Machine (ATM) was introduced in England in 1965.
>> Buckingham Palace has 602 rooms.
>> In ancient Scotland, every leap year maidens were allowed to ask a man to be her husband, refusal cost him a pound.
>> Icelandic phone books sometimes contain people's occupations as well as their name. This is because so many people have the same name.
>> Icelanders consume more Coca-Cola per Capita than any other nation.
>> Until 1997, there were more pigs than people in Denmark.
>> Sweden has the lowest birth rate (1 in 100).
>> There is a hotel in Sweden built entirely out of ice; it is rebuilt every year.
>> Sweden has the least number of murders annually.
>> Until 1965, driving in Sweden was done on the left-hand side of the road. The conversion was done on a weekday at 5:00 p.m. This was supposed to prevent people from waking up in the morning and forgetting which side of the road to drive on.
>> Donald Duck Comics were once banned in Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
>> Lithuania has the highest suicide rate in the world.
>> The country code for Russia is "007".
>> To buy a McDonald's extra value meal in Russia it would cost the average Russian worker 1 months pay.
>> Russians generally answer the phone by saying, "I'm listening".
>> The U.S. bought Alaska for 2 cents an acre from Russia.
>> 1 in 5 of the world's doctors are Russian.
>> Antarctica is the only continent that does not have land areas below sea level.
>> The people of Israel consume more turkeys per capita than any other country.
>> The daily commuter trains arriving and departing from Bombay, India are designed to carry 1,700 passengers but are regularly packed with over 7,000 passengers.
>> Nepal is the only country that has a non-rectangular flag. It is also asymmetrical.
>> The official name for the city of Bangkok, Thailand is "Krung thep mahanakhon bovorn ratanakosin mahintharayutthaya mahadilok pop noparatratchathani burirom udomratchanivetma hasathan amornpiman avatarnsa thit sakkathattiyavisnukarmprasit" or just "Krung thep" for short meaning "City of Angels."
>> 1,800 cigarettes are smoked per person each year in China.
>> Respiratory Disease is China's leading cause of death.
>> In Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."
>> There are more than 40,000 characters in the Chinese script.
>> More people speak English in China than the United States.
>> There is a tea in China called "white tea" it is simply boiled water.
>> The Chinese built a battery that lasted 400 years.
>> The Chinese Lettered Goldfish has Chinese characters on it; it has been achieved though many years of cross breeding.
>> The toothbrush was invented in China in 1498.
>> If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction
>> Mongolia is the largest landlocked country.
>> Vatican City is the smallest country in the world, with a population of 1000 and a size 108.7 acres.
>> In Japan, watermelons are squared. It's easier to stack them that way.
>> 98% of Japanese are cremated.
>> Out of the 23,000 Japanese soldiers that died on the Guadal-canal, only 10% died from bullets. The majority died from fever, malaria, and hunger.
>> The number "four" is considered unlucky in Japan because it is pronounced the same as "death".
>> The average Japanese household watches more than 10 hours of television a day.
>> There's a place in Japan called "O."
>> The Philippines has about 7,100 islands, of which only about 460 are more than 1 square mile (2.6 sq km) in area. Eleven islands have an area of more than 1,000 square miles (2590 sq km) each and contain the bulk of the population.
>> Yo-yos were used as weapons by warriors in the Philippines in the 16th century.
>> Australian soldiers used the song "We're Off to See the Wizard" as a marching song in WWII.
>> Australia is the only country to have monotremes. A monotreme is a mammal that lays eggs but suckles its young on milk once they have hatched (e.g. the platypus).
The Australian $5 to $100 notes are made of plastic.
>> The Nullarbor Plain of Australia covers 100,000 square miles (160,900 km) without a tree.
>> The Salvation Army in Australia made the worlds first full length feature movie in 1900.
>> Tasmania, Australia has the cleanest air in the inhabited world.
>> The longest place name still in use, which is 85 letters long, is "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipuka- kapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu" which is a name of a hill in New Zealand.
>> According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, the first populated land where the sun will rise in the new millennium, and at the beginning of any other year, is at Kahuitara Point (44° 16' S 176° 9' W) on Pitt Island in the Chatham Islands, a dependency of New Zealand.
>> Greenland is the largest island in the world.
Cubans (perhaps other latin americans too) do this too. They answer with "Oigo!", which means "I'm listening". It sounds pretty rude to me, I have never quite gotten used to it.
No, but it certainly makes me feel better.
When I was in Nova Scotia last year, I noticed that no matter how small the town, there were at least two Tim Horton's in each. Sometimes, they were within a couple of hundred yards of each other.
Well, gee, not on purpose!
Well, that's true. But how many Chinese speak Americanese?
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