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In the summer of 2013, male train drivers in Sweden circumvented a ban on shorts by wearing skirts to work in hot weather. Because of Swedish anti-sexist laws, men and women are allowed to wear the same clothes to work.

An American could become President of the United States by winning the majority of the votes in just 11 U.S. States.

The tomato has been brought back from the verge of extinction at least three times since it was first domesticated.

The word acalculia describes the inability to do sums.

Hummingbirds, bees and ants spend 80% of their day doing absolutely nothing.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

5

In order to celebrate Knowledge Guild’s 5th anniversary we are going to take a closer look at the number 5. Do not worry, it is not as dull as it sounds.

• The number of people killed by sharks since records began is equal to just five per cent of the number of toilet-related injuries in the USA in 1996.
• In the 18th century, 75% of all children died before they were five years old. 90% of children born in workhouses died before they were five years old.
• As a trick, the writer Arthur Conan Doyle once sent a letter to five friends that read, “We are discovered. Flee immediately.” One of his friends disappeared and Doyle never saw him again.
• An enzyme found in pineapples called “Bromelain” destroys fingerprints. It was used as a plotline in an episode of Hawaii Five-O. This enzyme can also get rid of mouth ulcers.
• Chelmsford was capital of England for five days in 1381 during the Peasants Revolt.
• The Punjabi for the number “5” is “4”.
• The most dangerous sport for American women is cheerleading. In 2002, 22,900 children between five and eighteen years of age went to hospital for cheerleading related injuries.
• Charles Darwin is one of only five people who are not royal to be buried in Westminster Abbey.
• Smoking takes five years off your health expectancy on average. However, as a man, removing your testicles adds thirteen years onto it.
• The Hebrew for the number “5” is pronounced “Hey”.
• The average height of an Eskimo is 5’4″ and the average life expectancy is 39. If you put five Eskimos in car, every Eskimo in the world could fit into the Los Angeles International Airport car park.
• The best thing to do with an old Christmas tree is to contact your local zoo and see if they want to give it to their animals for food. In Germany people often feed Christmas trees to elephants, which can eat five of them for lunch. In Dresden Zoo they also give Christmas trees to giraffes, rhinos, camels, deer and sheep.
• In Alexandre Dumas’ novel La Dem Aux Camelias, the main heroine, Marguerite Gautier, wears a white camellia for 25 days of month when she is available for sex, and a red one for five days when she is not available because she is having her period. The novel caused scandal in 19th century France when it was published and the flowers popularity grew.
• The five appendages on most starfish exhibit pentamerism.
• Only five people died in the Great Fire of London.
• India has no speed limits and every car in the country within five years will be involved in a fatal road accident. The UK has the largest number of car thefts in the world.
• Five pound notes are made out of a mixture of cotton and linen. Wooden paper is too fragile.
• There are only five places in America which have an apostrophe in them which are Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; Ike’s Point, New Jersey; John E’s Pond, Rhode Island; Carlos Elmer’s Joshua View, Arizona; and Clark’s Mountain, Oregon.
• In the British Army, you can tell which branch of the Brigade of Guards a soldier is in by the gaps between the buttons. If they are evenly spaced, they are in the Grenadiers Guards. Pairs mean they are Coldstream Guards, threes are Scottish Guards, fours are Irish Guards, and fives are Welsh Guards.
• The ideal way to kiss a Frenchman depends on what region of France you are in. Two kisses are normal in central and southern France and four in northern France. However, in Corsica it can be as many as five kisses. In Belgium and the Netherlands, three kisses is the usual amount.
• Anchovies are now mainly used for feed salmon in fish farms. For every salmon, five kilograms of anchovies are killed. Therefore, salmon farming is not really sustainable.
• Each country in the world has their own idea of how many portions of fruit and veg you should eat every day. The reason it is five in Britain is because doctors are of the belief that you cannot persuade the public to eat more than that. In Japan they recommend eating nine portions of fruit and veg, in Denmark it is six, in France it is ten.
• A Fitzroy is a bastard child of a royal. Charles II had five Fitzroys from his mistress Barbara Palmer.

See other: Anniversaries

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A community in Thule, in north-western Greenland, was so remote that until the start of the 19th century they believed themselves to be the only people in the world.

The potato originated in Peru about 3 million years ago; the Peruvians consider the spud a point of national pride.

During the late 1800s, sewage from the Chicago River repeatedly polluted Lake Michigan, Chicago’s main water source, causing devastating disease outbreaks. In the 1900, engineers built the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which reversed the river’s natural east-to-west flow and directed water toward the Mississippi River.

Backpfeifengesicht is German for ‘a face that makes you want to hit it’.

Aristotle believed that the Sun went round the Earth, that intelligence was located in the heart, and that the brain was a device for cooling the blood. He also taught that flies had four legs.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

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The official US State sport of South Dakota, Wyoming and Texas is Rodeo.

“Waltzing Matilda” is not about dancing, nor about a girl called Matilda. It is Aussie slang for drifting around the outback on foot with a bedroll – your ‘matilda’ – slung around your shoulder.

The Greeks introduced the olive to Italy around 600 BCE.

The 1982 American comedy series Police Squad!, which starred Leslie Nielsen and was produced by ABC, was cancelled after just six episodes. Then-ABC entertainment president Tony Thomopoulos said “Police Squad! was cancelled because the viewer had to watch it in order to appreciate it.” What Thomopoulos meant was that the viewer had to actually pay close attention to the show in order to get much of the humour, while most other TV shows did not demand as much effort from the viewer. In its annual Cheers and Jeers issue, TV Guide magazine quite rightly called the explanation for the cancellation “the most stupid reason a network ever gave for ending a series.”

Catherine the Great was famous for making five mistakes in a word containing only three letters. Not being a native Russian speaker, she once misspelled the word ‘eщё’ as ‘истчо’.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts