Apparently, according to the rules of English hangmen, a prisoner weighing 196 pounds needed to be dropped 8 feet in order to die quickly but not lose his head; a prisoner weighing less than 154 pounds had to drop another foot to achieve the same effect.
Scotch and Brandy get better with age. Gin and Vodka do not.
Snoring can be legal grounds for divorce.
It has not been proven or disproven whether radio broadcasts can be picked up by fillings in a person's teeth.
A trained singer, holding the right note, can actually shatter glass, but only if the sound is artificially ampliphied.
The "mother" of all fears is phobophobia, the fear of fear.
Catsup flows from a bottle at about 0.003 miles per hour, less than half the speed of the fastest snail, which was set at 0.008 mph in 1970.
600,000 people are injured each year while sitting or lieing down.
People using public restrooms are 5 times more likely to wash thier hands if someone is in the room with them.
Statistics show that Mondays suck. While Monday boasts the highest percentage of heart attacks and strokes, Sunday has the least incidences. (but then again, statistical data also shows that PICKLES WILL KILL YOU!!!!!)
In 1920, for the first time in history, the average human could expect to live longer than the average goldfish.
If 700,000,000 people weighing an average of 110 pounds simultaniously jumped off a six foot platform, they could produce an impact equivelent to a 4.5 earthquake.
The chance of a pregnant woman would have quadruplets is greater than the chance of being delt a royal flush in the first hand of a poker game.
Take this, Santa: In order to deliver presents to all the nice kids on his list, Santa's sleigh would have to carry more than 321,000 tons, and Mr. Clause himself would have to drop down more than 800 chimneys a second.
SteveSmith's History Class
During the French Revolution, the skin of some executed noblemen was used to make book bindings.
Queen Victoria was perscribed marijuana to relieve menstrual cramps.
The first barbed wire was patented on June 25, 1867; cows discovered it shortly thereafter.
In 1474, a Swiss rooster was charged with being in league with the Devil because it supposedly laid an egg with no yolk; found guilty, the rooster was burned at the stake.
When Columbus and his crew brought tobacco from the New World to Spain and smoked it in public, the local Inquisitors locked them up because they thought smoke coming from thier mouths made them tools of the Devil.
Even in the late 1600's some people held suspission about tobacco; the English King banned it, the Pope excommunicated those who used it, and the Russian Czar cut off the noses of snuff-users.
Czar Peter the Great passed a law in 1705 taxing men with beards.
On September 10, 1897, the world's first drunk driver drove his electric car through the entrance of a building in London.
Before the 1800's, both boys and girls under the age of five wore dresses.
Aeschylus, a famous writer in ancient Greece, was warned that a "blow from heaven" would kill him; according to legend, he died after an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head.
The Roman poet Virgil held an extravigant funeral for a housefly, burying it with honors in a fly mausoleum.
SteveSmith's Amazing Animals
Herds of elephants in India have rampaged through Army camps and villiages looking for alcoholic beverages.
In some parts of Africa, Elephants can take dust baths in certain types of soil, turing themselves pink.
In 1957, scientists proved that Elephantsreally do have good memories.
In the late 1800's, a baboon named Jack operated a signal tower in Africa for nine years without ever making a mistake on the job.
A giant rooster named "Wierdo" weighed as much as 22 pounds; he killed two cats and crippled a dog.
Paul Cezanne, the famous impressionist painter, owned a parrot that knew just one phrase: "Cezanne is a great painter!"
In a carefully controlled experiment, college students and white rats were both tested to see how quickly they could navigate a maze. The rats learned three times faster than the humans.
The Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey Circus once featured a group of dancing cows.
Since 1700, 52 of 325 major matadors have been killed by the bull, indicating a success rate of 16% by the bulls.
French poodles were developed in Germany.
In China, roosters say, "Gu-gu-gu," while in Japan, pigs go, "Bu-bu" and dogs go, "Wan-wan."
Japanese cattle farmers use beepers to call thier cows to dinner.
Bloodhounds are the only nonhumans allowed to give legal evidence in U.S. courts.
In the average bird, the eyes weigh more than the brain.
Crocidiles really have been found in New York Sewers.
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? 700 pounds.
The humane way to relocate prarie dogs is to vaccum them out of thier burrows.
A pigion can see a peregrine falcon from one-half a mile away. A peregrine falcon can see a pigion from more than 5 miles away. Top speed for a pigion: 110 mph. Top speed for a peregrine falcon: 217 mph. Who do you think will win?
SteveSmith's Newsworthy News
During a baseball game in 1940, the third baseman successfully blew a slow-rolling ground ball over the foul line, saving two runs.
In 1914, a 4-year-old girl was mailed from one town to another in Idaho because the cost of postage was less than the cost of a train ticket.
On November 30, 1954, Mrs. Hewlatt Hodges became the only known person to be hit by a meteorite; the nine-pound rock caused only minor injuries.
In 1875, a Sweedish 13-year-old girl fell into a coma; more than 32 years later, she returned to consciousness and lived a normal, healthy life for another 42 years.
In 1972, Japanese police arrested a talking crow for harassing children and using foul language.
In 1924, a horse threw off its rider, a notorious gangster, killing him. In retaliation, his gang formed a lynch mob and kidnapped the horse, shooting it at the same spot where it had committed the act.
In 1963, a judge in Lebanon sentenced 75 pigions to death because they had been trained to smuggle currency into the country.
In 1924, a labrador named Pep killed a cat owned by the governor of Pennsylvanis; later he was found guilty and sentenced to life in the state penitentiary.
In 1962, a Japanese ship sank after being punctured by a large swordfish.
Castro's a touchy guy:A cow was given an official state funeral in Cuba in 1960 after it was killed by an American ricket that crashed after an aborted takeoff in the United States.
A man in England yawned so wide he locked his mouth open. It took doctors more than 7 hours to unlock his jaws.
In 1907, a German prisoner escaped from jail by chewing his way through a wooden beam.
Early in the morning on October 16, 1999, an earthquake of magnetude 7.0 struck fifty miles east of Barstow, sending shockwaves all over California and derailing a train. Only four poeple were killed and no one was hurt. (If you think this isn't amazing, you havn't lived in L.A. before)
Records SteveSmith Has Yet To Have Broken
In 1965 a Japaneese cyclist set a world's record for going nowhere on a bicycle by balancing on it in one spot for 5 hours, 25 minutes.
In 1930, two men drove a Model A Ford in reverse from New York to Los Angeles and back again, a total of 6,680 miles.
Cyrano de Bergerac fought more than 1,000 duels because of insults to his nose.
Thomas Wedders, who lived in England during the 1700's, had the longest nose ever at 7-1/2 inches.
Yuichiro Miura, a Japaneese skier, skied down Mt. Everest, decending 1-1/2 miles from an altitude of 26,200 feet at speeds of up to 94 miles per hour.
The loudest human scream has been measured at 128 decibles, 28 decibles louder than a chainsaw.
Nicholas Wood, an Englishman, ate an entire sheep at one sitting, and at another meal ate 400 pigeons.
In 1900, Johann Hurlinger walked from Vienna to Paris, a distance of 870 miles, on his hands, setting a record that still stands today.
In 1966, Christopher Timms fell 7,500 feet (nearly 1-1/2 miles) from a 10,000 foot peak in New Zeland, suffering only minor injuries.
The world-record speed for water skiing is 136 miles per hour, just 7 miles per hour slower than the record with skis.
In 1930, a North Carolina swimmer swam 2-1/2 miles while smoking a pipe.
A limbo dancer limboed under a bar six inches off the florr and on fire (and I saw it personally, too).
Dr. SteveSmith's List 'o Folk Remedies
Got nightmares? Sniff your socks before going to bed.
Got a hair problem? Rub milk on the bald spot and let a cat lick it off, or rub it with an onion.
Got a headache? Apply molasses and cow dung to your forehead.
Got a cold? Swallow a spider.
Got a toothache? Bite off the head of a live mouse and wear it in a bag around your neck, or just hold a live frog next to the tooth.
SteveSmith's Obituaries
In 1971, a man committed suicide by drilling eight holes in his head with an electric drill.
In 1989, an eleven-year-old boy was killed by a giant snowball.
Juan Aanillo, famous Spanish matador, was killed by being hit over the head with a bottle.
In 4 days in 1952, London fog killed 4,000 people.
On January 15, 1919, 2 million gallons of molasses was spilled from a holding tank in Bostonm creating a wave that reached 30 feet high and killed 21 people.
In 1988, a woman was killed by a falling poodle which hit her in the head.
Also in 1988, a recovering cancer patient died when a huge stack of get-well cards fell over on her
And David Letterman would like you to not forget about the dead guy on the subway.
Pissed On by the Heavens: In May, 1999, a woman was killed in Yorkshire, England by a twenty-foot shaft of frozen urine, which had fallen from a leak in a toilet facility of an overhead plane. (thanks to The Gromet)
Soon to come: SteveSmith's Kicka** Jackie Chan Quotes.
Want to add to SteveSmith's Lists? E-mail your suggestions to SteveSmith today!
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