Common Sense Test - Part 19 of General Knowledge Quiz

In 1845, inventor Thomas Adams started the world’s first chewing gum factory.
In 1693, the postage rate of a letter was determined by how much light went through the letter. The less the light went through the letter the more expensive the rate would be. This technique was referred to as candling.
Polar bears can smell seals that are 20 miles away.
Hair is made from the same substance as fingernails.
Polar bears have been known to swim more than 60 miles without resting.
Before 1883, the three-cent U.S. stamp was also used for advertising. The advertisement was located on the back of the stamp for various products.
The largest ketchup bottle in the world is 170 feet tall and is located in Collinsville, Illinois, USA. It was built in 1949 by the W.E. Caldwell Company as a water tower.
Bo Jackson set a Monday Night Football record by rushing for 222 yards in one game against the Seattle Seahawks, including a 91-yard TD run.
There are approximately 75,000,000 horses in the world.
The fins of the Spiny Dogfish Shark are sometimes used as sandpaper for wood products.
The Super Bowl is so popular that it is the number one at-home party event of the year.
There was a time in Japan when a wife being left-handed was a ground for divorce.
The United States produces enough plastic film annually to cover the entire state of Texas.
It is possible to get high by licking a toad. The Cane Toad produces a toxin called bufotenine to ward off predators. When licked, this toxin acts as a hallucinogen.
Stinging insects kill approximately 25 people annually in the U.S.
The first commercial microwave oven was called the "1161 Radarange" and was the size of a refrigerator.
The chances of a woman getting breast cancer are increased by excessive use of alcohol.
A common name for pincurls is also spitcurls because woman sometimes wet their hair with their saliva before curling it.
The first hot air balloon flight traveled 5.5 miles over Paris and lasted for 23 minutes.
Birds do not sweat, as they do not have sweat glands.
Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan once wore a Nazi uniform while acting in a film during his Hollywood days. The name of the movie was "Desperate Journey," which was filmed in 1942.
The town of Olney, Illinois celebrates a "Squirrel Day" festival to honor the 200 albino squirrels that live in the town. The festival includes a squirrel blessing by a priest.
In the United States, there are about three million honey-producing colonies.
Adult earwigs can float in water for up to 24 hours.
January is named for the Roman god Janus. Janus was a temple god who could look forward and backward at the same time.
Pepper was sold as individual grains during the Elizabethan times. The guards at the London docks had to sew up their pockets so they would not steal any of the pepper.
On average, the life span of an American dollar bill is eighteen months.
Shakespeare invented the word "assassination" and "bump.".
A diet high in fat is said to impede memory.
There are more than 1,000 chemicals in a cup of coffee. Of these, only 26 have been tested and half-caused cancer in rats.
Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.
Every year approximately 2,500 left-handed people are killed by using objects or machinery designed for right-handed people.
The heart of an adult giraffe weighs on average 26 pounds.
Two million red blood cells die every second.
The first American astronaut in space was Alan B. Shepard Jr.

The world record for donut eating is held by John Haight, who ate 29 donuts (52 ounces) in a little over six minutes.
Hundreds of years ago, only wealthy people used to wear underwear.
Buffalo wings, got their name because the spicy chicken wings originated in Buffalo, New York.
The board game Scrabble was originally called "Criss Cross Words" by inventor Alfred Butts.
Men are more likely to be colorblind than women. About one out of 12 men are colorblind.
Edwin Armstrong invented the FM radio in 1933. The first men to use FM radio to communicate with Earth from the moon’s surface were named Edwin Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.
The MGM lion, whose name was Leo, lived in Memphis until his death.
The Bible was written by over 40 authors over a period of 1500 years.
The range of a medieval long-bow is 220 yards.
Studies indicate that weightlifters working out in blue gyms can handle heavier weights.
African heart-nosed bats can have such a keen sense of sound that they can hear the footsteps of a beetle walking on sand from six feet away.
Many of the stars that were in the Poltergeist Trilogy had strange deaths.
The sap of a banana plant leaves serious stains on hands and clothes that are extremely hard to remove.
In Ireland, a prime minister is called a Taoiseach.
American President John Tyler had 15 children.
Even though red roses look the same, there are over 900 different types of red roses.
People in France own more pets in the world per person than in any other country.
In a five-card poker game, there are 2,598,960 possible hands.
The most common pear worldwide is the Bartlett. It is bell-shaped, sweet, and soft with a light green color.
All of the clocks in the movie Pulp Fiction are stuck on 4:20.
The average person falls asleep in about 12 to 14 minutes.
Eighty percent of the Vanilla Beans which are used to make ice cream are grown in Madagascar.
Annually, British people eat more than 15 pounds of beans.
The largest known hailstone to have fallen was in Germany in 1925, which weighed close to four and a half pounds.
The Kraft Company produces enough Cool Whip, a brand of whipping cream, in one year to fill the entire Grand Canyon.
Karate actually originated in India but was developed further in China.
A seagull can drink salt water because it has special glands that filter out the salt.
Elvis had a twin brother named Jesse Garon, who died at birth.
95% of the entire lemon crop produced in the U.S. is from California and Arizona.
There are more than 3000 documented caves located in the state of Tennessee.
Soy crayons have been invented to replace wax crayons and one acre of soybeans can produce over 80,000 crayons.
People drank gold powder mixed in with water in medieval Europe to relieve pain from sore limbs.
Basketball great Wilt Chamberlain never fouled out of a game.
Twit is the name given for a pregnant goldfish.
An ear trumpet was used before the hearing aid was invented by people who had difficulty hearing.
In 1982, a cactus in Phoenix, Arizona killed a man. David Grundman fired two shotgun blasts at a giant saguaro cactus that ended up falling on top of him.
There are 293 steps to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
The most popular American city for Kool-Aid sales is St. Louis, Missouri.
A human embryo is smaller than a grain of rice at four weeks old.
In 1923, the first neon sign was introduced in the U.S. Two neon signs were sold to a Packard car dealership for $24,000 which read, "Packard.".

Silk was developed in China where it was kept a secret for more than two thousand years. Anyone found trying to smuggle silkworm eggs or cocoons out of the country was immediately put to death.
Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been mixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.
Sir John Harington, the godson of Queen Elizabeth I, was the inventor of the toilet.
The Popsicle was invented by 11-year-old Frank Epperson in 1905. He left his drink outside with a stir stick in it and he noticed that it had frozen. He applied for a patent in 1923 and named it "Epsicle." The name was later changed to Popsicle.
In the U.S., approximately 46% of the chicken that is eaten by people comes from restaurants or other food outlets.
An earthquake on December 16, 1811, caused parts of the Mississippi River to flow backward.
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous". They are tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
One pound of maple syrup can make eight pounds of candy or sugar.
Uranus is the only planet that rotates on its side.
The peanut is not a nut, it is actually a legume.
Approximately 71% of American chocolate eaters prefer to eat milk chocolate.
A colony of bees has to fly almost fifty-five thousand miles and tap two million flowers to make one pound of honey.
Popped popcorn should be stored in the freezer or refrigerator as this way it can stay crunchy for up to three weeks.
An office desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet.
In Czechoslovakia, there is a church that has a chandelier made out of human bones.
The first fruit eaten on the moon was a peach.
The name "Lego" came from the Danish word LEg Godt, which means "play well.".
Female and male black bears cannot tolerate being around each other except when they breed.
In 1998, Ten Speed Press publishing company published a book, "The Eat A Bug Cookbook" by David George Gordon that contains over 33 bug recipes.
Twelve men have landed on and explored the moon.
The football team Green Bay Packers comes from a meat packing company called Acme Packing.
Unlike a frog, a toad cannot jump.
The average weight of a newborn baby is 7 lbs. 6 oz. For a triplet baby, it is 3 lbs. 12 oz.
Baseball was the first sport to be pictured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.