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FACT-OF-THE-DAY ARCHIVE
"Our life is what our thoughts make it."
- Marcus Aurelius

OCT 2010


Previous Archives

DATEFACT OF THE DAY
10/1/10     Between 1945 and 1990, the U.S. produced more than 70,000 nuclear bombs and warheads; about 9,420 nuclear weapons remain in the U.S. stockpile. - Provided by The World Almanac 2010
10/2/10     Railroad companies instigated the introduction of Standard Time in the U.S. so that they could better plan train schedules across the country. - Provided by The World Almanac 2010
10/3/10     The Supreme Court chief justice's salary was $4,000 in 1789; Chief Justice John Roberts' salary is currently $223,500. - Provided by The World Almanac 2010
10/4/10     In 1990, Americans put 6.5 percent of their disposable income into savings accounts; by 2008, that number had dropped to 2.7 percent. - Provided by The World Almanac 2010
10/5/10     Women over age 55 watch more television per week than any other age group in the U.S. - Provided by The World Almanac 2010
10/6/10     The earliest recorded female physician was Merit Ptah, a doctor in ancient Egypt who lived around 2700 B.C. Many historians believe she is the first woman recorded by name in the history of all of the sciences. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/7/10     Countless excellent phrases, now commonly used, occur first in Shakespeare, including one fell swoop, vanish into thin air, play fast and loose, be in a pickle, foul play, tower of strength, flesh and blood, be cruel to be kind, and with bated breath. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/8/10     Mexico is second only to Brazil in the number of Catholic citizens. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/9/10     You cannot snore and dream at the same time. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/10/10     Some common girl names in ancient Rome included Julia, Livia, Drusilla, Antonia, and Claudia. Common boy names included Marcus, Julius, Antonius, Titus, Caius, Didius, Marius, and Septimus. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/11/10     Approximately one in five women worldwide reports being sexually abused before the age of 15. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/12/10     Assisted suicide is legal in three states: Oregon, Montana, and Washington. - Provided by The World Almanac 2011
10/13/10     Though weighing only 11 ounces on average, a healthy heart pumps 2,000 gallons of blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels each day. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/14/10     Blood is actually a tissue. When the body is at rest, it takes only six seconds for the blood to go from the heart to the lungs and back, only eight seconds for it to go the brain and back, and only 16 seconds for it to reach the toes and travel all the way back to the heart. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/15/10     In the average adult, the skin covers 12-20 square feet and accounts for 12% of body weight. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/16/10     The average human head has about 100,000 hairs. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/17/10     The appendix has no function in modern humans. It is believed to have been part of the digestive system in our primitive ancestors. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/18/10     Humans produce about 10,000 gallons of saliva in a lifetime. Saliva is required for taste - until food is dissolved by saliva, we cannot taste it. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/19/10     The maximum length of a mammal's life is generally related to its size. Thus, a man's lifespan should be somewhere between that of a goat and a horse, between 10 and 30 years. However, humans have developed ways to protect themselves from predators and disease, increasing their average lifespan to 74.7 years in the United States. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/20/10     Harvard receives the largest financial endowments of any institution in the world at $26 billion. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/21/10     Yale selects a freshman class of 1,300 from nearly 20,000 applications each year. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/22/10     There are over 4,000 accredited colleges and universities in the U.S. which enroll over 15 million students and grants over two million degrees a year. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/23/10     The first film ever made in Hollywood was D.W. Griffith's 1910 In Old California, a Biograph melodrama about a Spanish maiden (Marion Leonard) who has an illegitimate son with a man who later becomes governor of California. It was shot in two days. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/24/10     Around 32.5 million Americans (more than 10 percent of the population) had at least one foreign-born parent in 2008. - Provided by The World Almanac 2011
10/25/10     Wal-Mart is the world's largest private employer, with more than 2 million employees. - Provided by The World Almanac 2010
10/26/10     The Library of Congress in Washington D.C. doesn't just have over 33 million books; it also has 12 million photographs, millions of maps, sheet music, and other manuscripts. Its holdings make it largest library in the world; and having been founded in 1800, it is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. - Provided by The World Almanac 2010
10/27/10     The purchase of Alaska - initially ridiculed by some as 'Seward's Folly' - added 663,267 square miles to the U.S. for less than $11 per square mile. - Provided by The World Almanac 2010
10/28/10     Heart disease is the number one cause of death for both men and women in the United States. Cancer and stroke round out the top three. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/29/10     Heart-healthy foods include salmon, ground flaxseed, oatmeal, black or kidney beans, almonds, walnuts, red wine, tuna, brown rice, and blueberries. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/30/10     People with poor oral health may be more likely to have atherosclerosis (clogged arteries) because the bacteria in the gums and teeth can enter the bloodstream and affect blood clotting. - Provided by RandomHistory.com
10/31/10     In 2009, the top most stressful jobs were a surgeon, commercial airline pilot, photojournalist, advertising account executive, and real estate agent. The least stressful jobs were actuary, dietitian, astronomer, systems analyst, and software engineer. - Provided by RandomHistory.com


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