Fast Facts

From space, the brightest man-made place is Las Vegas, Nevada. Source: Understanding Electricity, The Learning Channel, March 27, 2000

The five most stolen items in a drugstore are batteries, cosmetics, film, sunglasses, and, get this, Preparation H. Apparently people are just too embarrassed to purchase the last item. And, just in case you are curious, one of Preparation H's main ingredient is shark liver oil. The oil not only helps shrink hemorrhoids, but will shrink any tissue. As a result, many older women in Florida use the stuff to help reduce the appearance of wrinkles! Source: Do Pharmacists Sell Farms? by Vince Staten (1998, Simon & Schuster)

Charles Lindbergh achieved great fame for being the first man to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. What most people don't know, however, is that two men had achieved the same goal eight years earlier! Flying for sixteen and a half hours from June 14 to June 15, 1919, Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten-Brown had copiloted a Vichers-Vimy twin-engine plane nonstop from Newfoundland across the Atlantic to Ireland. Lindbergh was just the first person to do it alone. Source: Fabulous Fallacies by Tad Tuleja (1982, The Stonesong Press, pages 4-5)

A South Korean movie theater owner decided that the movie The Sound of Music was too long. His solution? He shortened the movie by cutting out all of the musical scenes! Source: Uncle John's Fourth Bathroom Reader, 1989, page 63

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