Tell me a random fact about the world, I want to learn something new.

There is a man in China who is the 83d descendant of Confucius in an unbroken father-son line. In addition, Confucius has some 2-3 million direct descendants living today.

Kingsport, Tennessee once hanged a circus elephant for murder.

http://blueridgecountry.com/archive/mary-the-elephant.html

The largest desert in the world is Antarctica.

The only point ever truly shared by four nations in world history existed briefly in late 1960 and early 1961, in central Africa. For eight short months, Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, and a British territory called Northern Cameroons met in the middle of Lake Chad, near the floating island of Kaalom. Then Nigeria took over Northern Cameroons, and the elusive quadripoint was no more.

The validity of the often mentioned Namibia-Zambia-Zimbabwe-Botswana quadripoint is still in question but Google shows the border intersections do not create a quadripoint but two tripoints about 250 meters apart.

http://www.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=208330235915026971882.0004b43ce3c07a1cc544d&ie=UTF8&t=m&vpsrc=6&ll=-17.644022,25.664063&spn=16.697794,21.972656&z=5&source=embed

NoVan wrote:

ooatmeal wrote:

John Tyler, the 10th President of the United States (1841), has two LIVING grandsons.

http://www.sherwoodforest.org/Genealogy.html

The last living grandson I saw there died in 1979.

Lyon Gardiner TYLER, Jr. (b. 1924) married Lucy Jane POPE (b. 1924)

Harrison Ruffin TYLER (b. 1928) married Frances Payne BOUKNIGHT (b. 1933)

"As of January 2012, Tyler has two living grandsons through his son Lyon Gardiner Tyler. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Jr., was born in 1924, and Harrison Ruffin Tyler was born in 1928. Harrison Tyler maintains the family home, "Sherwood Forest." Tyler is the oldest former President with living grandchildren, and none of the succeeding Presidents have living grandchildren until James A. Garfield, who served forty years after Tyler..."

Jungle Master wrote:

junglemaster wrote:

A lion's roar can be heard for up to 5 miles.

A tiger, up to 2.

An elephant is the only mammal that cannot jump and has 4 knees.

Hippos? Sloths?

How is it that elephants have 4 knees anyway. I would think that their forelimbs have basically the same bone structure as other mammals (or are you saying that all mammals have 4 knees?).

I was under the impression Kemo Sabe means Velvet Mouth although have heard some say Velvet Tongue is a more exact translation.Two traveling companions,one in skintight longjohns, sleeping night after night under the romantic skies of america's sothwest...makes you wonder.

Facts... wrote:

Kemo Sabe means soggy shrub in Navajo.

The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.

Counting the lines of seeds spiraling out from the center of a sunflower in both directions will result in two consecutive fibonacci numbers. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55...

Haiti, despite what people say, is not the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Liberia is.

fdsfdsa wrote:

Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain in the world, in relation to sea level. But, because the Earth isn't perfectly round, Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador is actually closer to outer space/the moon than Mt. Everest.

Denali (Mt. McKinley), in Alaska, when measured from base to summit is the tallest mountain on land

Mount Washington in New Hampshire has the record for highest recorded gust of wind at 231 mph.

Facts... wrote:

Kemo Sabe means soggy shrub in Navajo.

False, though Trivial Pursuit thought so.

Parochial Boy wrote:

Haiti, despite what people say, is not the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Liberia is.

What about Montserrat?

i like this thread. this is my favorite thread on letsrun right now.

The word robot was invented by a Czech writer in 1920 for his play, Rossum's Universal Robots. It comes from the Czech word robota, or "hard labor".

Pennsylvania produces 80% of pretzels in the US.

Hydrite wrote:

fdsfdsa wrote:

Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain in the world, in relation to sea level. But, because the Earth isn't perfectly round, Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador is actually closer to outer space/the moon than Mt. Everest.

Denali (Mt. McKinley), in Alaska, when measured from base to summit is the tallest mountain on land

Mount Washington in New Hampshire has the record for highest recorded gust of wind at 231 mph.

both of these are false

monaloa in hawaii(spelling, i'm in a rush) is the tallest from summit to base

and wind speeds were recorded faster in australia, just recently varified

The human head weighs 8 pounds.

There is a word in the English language with only one vowel which occurs six times: indivisibility.