Facts
- In 1876, the average man in the U.S. stood 5'5" tall, 4" shorter than today's average. Half of that increase has been since 1960, according to the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services - since then men are on average 2" taller.
- "Per capita" is adapted from the Latin phrase "pro capite", meaning "for each head." Statistics commonly use this term in place of "for each person" or "per person".
- One month after Michael Jackson passed away, his Facebook Page has become the first (by a big margin) to reach 10 million fans.
- Facebook: 5% of fan pages have more than 10 fans, 65% have 100+, 23% have 1,000+, 4% have 10,000+, 0.76% have 100,000+, 0.047% of pages have more than one million fans.
- Worldwide, over 50 million roses are given for Valentine's Day each year. 73% of people who buy flowers for Valentine's Day are men, while only 27% are women.
- More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.
- Boys who have unusual first names are more likely to have mental problems than boys with conventional names. Girls don't seem to have this problem.
- The murder rate in the United States is about four times greater than in Japan. In Japan, no private citizen can buy a handgun legally.
- Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada has the largest bar per capita than anywhere else in the world.
- In the United States, you are more likely to be killed by a bee sting than a shark attack.
- Since 1978, at least 37 people have died as a result of shaking vending machines, in an attempt to get free merchandise. More than 100 people have been injured.
- The three wealthiest families in the world have more assets than the combined wealth of the forty-eight poorest nations.
- Australian Graham Barker extracted his own belly button fluff every day for 18 years acquiring a record-breaking amount of fluff. He hopes to accumulate enough fluff to stuff a pillow.
- It is estimated that at any one time, 0.7% of the world's population is drunk.
- On average, 150 couples get married in Las Vegas each day.
