FACT-OF-THE-DAY ARCHIVE
"Our life is what our thoughts make it."
- Marcus Aurelius
MAY 2013

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DATE FACT OF THE DAY 5/1/13      The human female egg is the largest cell in the human body. It is the only human cell that can be seen with the naked eye. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/2/13      Gerald Ford was the first person to be both vice president and president without being elected by the people. He was appointed vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned and he succeeded to the presidency when Nixon resigned. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/3/13      One West African group, the Ashanti, take dreams so seriously that they would allow a husband to take legal action against another man if that man had an erotic dream about his wife. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/4/13      In June 2006, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added "Google" as a verb. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/5/13      At its peak, Rome included more than one million people. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the city's population fell dramatically to less than 50,000 people. In 2007, there were over 2.7 million people living in the greater Rome area. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/6/13      A person weighing 150 pounds on Earth would weigh 4,200 pounds on the sun because the sun's gravity is 28 times that of Earth. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/7/13      As late as 1940, fewer than 1 in 20 adults held a B.A. degree in the United States. From 1945-2000, the number of B.A degrees awarded annually rose almost eightfold, from 157,349 to approximately 1.2 million. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/8/13      As of July 2011, the population of Egypt was 82,079,663, making it the 15th most populated country in the world. Approximately 99% of the population lives on about 5.5% of the land. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/9/13      Japan's 9.0 earthquake in 2011 not only moved the island closer to the United States, it also shifted the planet's axis by 6.5 inches. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/10/13      The English word "girl" was initially used to describe a young person of either sex. It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that the term was used specifically to describe a female child. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/11/13      Las Vegas is the top wedding destination with over 100,000 weddings a year, followed by Hawaii at 25,000 weddings a year. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/12/13      Earthquakes kill approximately 8,000 people each year and have caused an estimated 13 million deaths in the past 4,000 years. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/13/13      Brain scientists have identified the cerebellum as the part of the brain that prevents us from tickling ourselves. It helps us distinguish between expected and unexpected sensations. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/14/13      Approximately 90% of the world's recoverable helium is located in the ground under Amarillo, Texas. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/15/13      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 5/16/13      The Romans did not use soap. To get rid of sweat and grime, they would cover themselves with oil and then scrape off the oil with special a scraper made of metal, wood, or bone called a strigil. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/17/13      In the average home, 75% of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. The average desktop computer idles at 80 watts, while the average laptop idles at 20 watts. A Sony PlayStation 3 uses about 200 watts and nearly as much when idle. Idle power consumes more electricity than all the solar panels in America combined. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/18/13      The University of Rome is one of the world's oldest universities and was founded by the Catholic Church in A.D. 1303. Often called La Sapienza ("knowledge"), the University of Rome is also Europe's largest university with 150,000 students. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/19/13      Several famous actors were decorated during WWII. For example, Henry Fonda won a Bronze Star in the Pacific, Walter Matthau was awarded six battle stars while serving on a B-17, and David Niven was awarded the U.S. Legion of Merit. Christopher Lee was a pilot in the Royal Air Force and also won a number of awards. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/20/13      The average child in America watches over 40,000 television commercials in a year, or over 100 a day. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/21/13      Bullying happens not just in the United States but also all over the world. International researchers have demonstrated that bullying in schools is universal. - Provided by RandomHistory.com 5/22/13      An estimated 16 million Americans have pre-diabetes, and many of them are unaware of their condition. - Provided by RandomHistory.com

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