Marie Curie, the Nobel prize winning scientist who discovered radium, died of radiation poisoning.

Yoghurt, got its name from the Turkish word 'yogurur', which means 'long life'.

Ball lightning is a "ball of fire" that lasts for a few seconds in the sky and is very rare.

A toaster uses almost half as much energy as a full-sized oven.

At Stalin’s funeral 500 people were trampled to death.

Babies who wear disposable diapers are five times more likely to develop diaper rash than those that wear cotton diapers.

During the 1741 General Election, angry voters pelted candidates with dead cats and dogs.

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

20% of tuxedo rentals take place in May.

The biggest dam built by beavers is twice as long as the Hoover Dam.

Early Romans used to use porcupine quills as toothpicks.

'Second Street' is the most common street name in the U.S.; 'First Street' is the sixth.

Left-handed people are better at sports that require good spatial judgment and fast reaction, compared to right-handed individuals.

The banana tree cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man.

6% of drivers deliberately swerve to kill animals.

The United States has never lost a war when donkeys were used.

Qatar is the only country that begins with a Q and Iraq is the only country that ends with one.

The world’s smallest advert was stencilled onto a bee’s knee.

Eagles mate while airborne.

Mexico City is built on top of an underground resevoir!

All geese eat a vegetarian diet, feeding on grasses, seeds and grains.

Britons spend eight times as long watching television as they do cooking meals.

The word "nice" originally meant "foolish and stupid."

Forest fires move faster uphill than downhill.

The city of Las Vegas has the most hotel rooms in the world.

There are about 294,000,000,000,000 leaves in the world; for every leaf there are 340 ants.

Thomas Alva Edison patented almost 1,300 inventions in his lifetime!

12% of a sloth’s energy is used to climb up and down trees to go to the lavatory.

All of the stars comprising the Milky Way galaxy revolve around the centre of the galaxy once every 200 million years or so.

Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a Friday the 13th.

New-car smell is toxic to humans.

If you ate in a different New York eatery every day for 12 years, you still wouldn’t have visited all of the city’s restaurants.

Baby zebras can begin running just one hour after they are born.

On average, soccer players run as far as 9.5 miles in a single match.

A quarter of philosophers believe in zombies.

Sarcasm has been proven to make you smarter and more creative.

A crocodile always grows new teeth to replace the old teeth.

The voice actor of SpongeBob is married to the voice actor of Plankton's computer wife (Karen) in real life.

Racehorses can wear out new horse shoes in one race.

'face-off' in hockey was originally called a 'puck-off'.

The technology behind smartphones relies on up to 250,000 separate patents.

One-third of toads crossing roads are fatally run over.

Thomas Alva Edison patented almost 1,300 inventions in his lifetime.

UK house spiders include the Pink Prowler, the Spitting Spider and the Missing Sector Orb Weaver.

There are 2,500 species of moth in the UK but only 60 species of butterfly.

If you laid all the molecules in a teaspoon of water end to end, it would stretch 10 times the width of the solar system.

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.

To sleep for one night in every bed in Las Vegas would take 288 years.

Digestive biscuits have no particular digestive qualities. In the USA it is illegal to sell them under that name.

Human beings have as many brain cells in their stomachs as cats have in their brains.