Interesting Facts True Or False #4

1. The percentage of Americans who die due to lightning strikes has declined by only 20% since 1900.

2. Turkeys (the bird) are named after the country of Turkey. But they don't come from Turkey. They are originally from Mexico.

3. Freshwater snails are one of the deadliest creatures on the planet. They spread a parasitic flatworm that infects tens of millions of people every year and kills about 10,000.

4. It took San Francisco more than 33 years to build a two mile bus lane but made the 1,700m Alaska Highway in less than a year.

5. Aluminum is the most common metal in the Earth's crust. But aluminum used to be very difficult to extract from aluminum ore. This made it extremely expensive. In the mid-1700s, ingots of aluminum sold for $825 a pound - about three times the price of gold.

6. Chad and Romania do not have the same flag.

7. The U.S. government owns 42.4% of the land in the state of Nevada.

8. Before there was genetic engineering, there was atomic gardening. This was a form of horticulture where plants were exposed to radiation in the hope that they would develop useful mutations. And it worked! It created the Ruby Red grapefruit, as well as other plant varietals.

9. Antonio López de Santa Anna served NINE non-consecutive terms as President of Mexico.

10. There are four elements named after a small village in Sweden.

11. An earthquake made Mount Everest a two inches taller.

12. In the last 100 years, the height of the average person born in North Korea has decreased by 8.5 cm (3 inches). This is the greatest decrease of any country in the world.

13. The Soviet Union eliminated the week in 1932. It was replaced with a 5-day cycle, where 20% of the population was given the day off on any given day. Most people liked it but it was inconvenient, so the system was eventually scrapped in 1933.

14. Every U.S. state except one has recorded a temperature of at least 100° F. The one exception? Hawaii.

15. The effects of wealth disparity can last for centuries. In the year 1066, the Normans conquered England and placed themselves on top of the social hierarchy. More than 900 years later, people with Norman last names are still about 10% wealthier than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts.