Amazing Facts archive

• It is a fact that there are over 250,000 sweat glands in our feet
• Our feet produce almost 1/2 a cup of sweat a day
• Foot odour comes from bacteria eating dead skin and sweaty feet provide the right environment for bacteria and fungi
• Your foot produces sweat even when you are not exercising
• Your feet sweats in order to keep the skin supple
• I feel for people with smelly feet, so here are some ways to cure them

1. Use antibacterial soap to wash your feet
2. Newspaper is a great way to absorb the odour in smelly shoes. Just crumple some and leave them in
3. Baking soda can take away the stink in your shoe
4. Drink lots of water

• Amy Winehouse was kicked out of school for piercing her nose at the age of 13
• Amy Winehouse died at the same age as Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain… the 27 club? Is it a fact?

• Truffles were first discovered by pigs
• The ancient Greeks thought that truffles were made when lightning struck damp soil
• Pigs are used to find truffles because truffles produce a sex pheromone almost identical to that found in a male pig’s saliva
• Contrary to belief, truffle oil only contains tiny amounts of truffle
• The most expensive truffle sold for over £28,000

• In the early days, temples were used as banks and the first loans were taken out against rice
• Just before the US started bombing Baghdad, nearly $1 billion dollars was stolen from the Central Bank of Iraq and is now the largest bank robbery in history
• The Bank of America on Disneyland’s Main Street was in fact a functioning bank (for Cast Members) until the late ’70′s. It was also  the only bank in America that was open on Sunday.
• The Bank of America was originally called The Bank of Italy
• In 2010, the Bank of America was the 3rd largest company in the world
• In 2007, the top five hold $6,775,079,249,000.00 in assets. That’s six trillion dollars!
• In Papua New Guinea, people can enter a bank just wearing a penis sheath (koteka)

• The contact lens was invented in 1888, the same year the first beauty contest was held
• It is a fact that contact lenses were first made of heavy glass

• Roman soldiers were once paid in salt coins
• The word ‘salary’ actually comes from the root word of salt
• The word ‘salad’ also originated from the word salt. Thats an ironic fact
• The bible refers to salt 30 times
• In 1933,the Dalai Lama was burried atop a bed of salt

• Dell Computers was started by a 19 year old with only $1000
• Dell’s first advertisement was made on the back of a pizza box

• In the middle ages, it is a curious fact that smallpox was treated by letting the patient wear red clothing and sitting in a room with daylight coming through red curtains

It is an interesting fact that in olden times, people were so superstitious and gullible that animals were often used to cure ailments and fix problems:

• after a fall, one had to drink the blood from a cat’s tail that had been chopped off
• a bad chest was cured by drinking blood from a cat’s ear mixed with red wine
• A field full of weed could be fixed by burying a dead cat in it
• in the middle ages, quacks believed that animals spoke in Latin and that their cries had significance
• a person with scarlet fever was cured by taking hair from the patient and feeding it to an ass, which was to contract the fever and thus curing the patient
• children with measles were treated by plucking hair from the nape of their necks and feeding it to dogs
• patients with rickets would be passed over the back and under the belly of an ass (donkey) nine times without uttering the word by successive numbers
• if you had fits, every morning you will need to chew on some grass and feed it to a jay. Once the bird died, you would be cured
• In Europe, epilepsy was cured by cutting the nose off a mole and letting 9 drops of blood fall on a cube of sugar which was then eaten by the patient
• In Shropshire, a toothache was treated by simply applying the amputated foot of a poor mole
• a person bitten by a dog was to eat the hair from the same dog
• eels were placed in the ears of deaf people to cure them

• Charlemagne had a series of very bad omens before his death in 814AD. A fireball even fell from the sky causing his horse to buck
• In the crusade by Pope Innocent III, the youngest crusaders were  led by a 12 year old named Stephen of Cloyes. Most ended up sold as slaves or died from diseases
• King Louis IX was the only French king who, at his burial, suddenly sat back up and continued to rule for another 26 years
• The hundred year war started with victories for English archers but ended with a French archer, Michael Perunin
• Back then in France, the Catholics called their enemies/non-believers “Cathars” which actually meant ‘Cat worshippers’. This was because the Catholics said that their enemies had to kiss the bum of a black cat.
• When the pope moved from Rome to France in the 1300s, his palace at Avignon had 2 whole floors of toilets