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South Africa
  • Half of the world’s gold is produced in South Africa
  • South Africa boasts as many (6) Nobel prize winners as Mexico (3), China (1) and India (2) put together
  • In South Africa,  @ is called “aapstert” wich means a “monkey’s tail”
  • A South African baboon called ‘Jacky’ was promoted to the rank of private during World War I
  • Afrikaans is the youngest official language in the world
  • South Africa has the 5th bluest sky in the world (Britain’s National Physical Laboratory)
  • Bear wrestling is illegal in South Africa
  • South Africa has two national anthems

Pluto
  • Pluto was discovered by accident. Calculations which later turned out to be wrong, falsely predicted a planet beyond Nepture. Astronomers found Pluto before their mistake was corrected
  • In 2006, Pluto was no longer considered a planet and was demoted to dwarf planet status
  • Pluto is the 2nd most contrasty body in the Solar System, after Iapetus

United States, USA, America
  • 26 of the American states have names originating from native Indian words, including Iowa which means “Sleepy Ones” and Texas meaning “Ally”

Led Zeppelin
  • Led Zeppelin deliberately misspelled their first part of their name so people would not mispronounce it

Mario
  • Mario, of Super Mario Bros. fame, appeared in the 1981 arcade game, Donkey Kong. His original name was Jumpman, but was changed to Mario to honor the Nintendo of America’s landlord, Mario Segali

X, Malcolm
  • Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little but considered “Little” his slave name and changed it to “X” representing his lost tribal name
  • When Malcolm X was younger, he bleached his hair red brown, and was known as Big Red and Detroit Red
  • Malcolm X dropped out of high school

Uranus
  • Uranus was originally called Georgium Sidium, in honour of King George III of Britain
  • Uranus’ axis is at 97 degrees. which means that it orbits on its side. (Most of the planets spin on an axis nearly perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic but Uranus’ axis is almost parallel to the ecliptic.)
  • Summer on Uranus lasts for 21 years

names
  • The most common name in the world is Mohammed
  • The name Wendy was made up for the book ‘Peter Pan’. It came from the author’s friends, whom he called his “fwendy” (friend) Thanx ‘a girl named Ryan’

Los Angeles
  • Los Angeles was formerly known as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula or The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels of the Little Portion although its official name was simply El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles.Thanx Beth

Everest, Mount
  • Everest is not the tallest mountain. Mauna Kea Mountain in the Hawaiian Island is 230m taller. It is 4201m above water and 4877 underwater! Everest is only 8848m
  • Mount Everest which was named by Colonel Waugh was innitially named Gahoorishanke (Presented before the Academy of Sciences in Paris 1857)