In December of 1914, many World War I soldiers on both sides stopped fighting and celebrated Christmas with each other.

Axis officials sent Hitler coded 'Happy Birthday' messages. Knowing what the message says beforehand makes it much easier for Allied agents to intercept and crack the Germans' current cipher.

Our good friend Sigmund Freud advertised cocaine as a medicine for mental illness. Man, that guy was awesome.

If you bang 3 times a week for a year then you'll have exerted roughly the same amount of energy you would if you ran about 75 miles.

Friedrich Engels, co-author of the Communist Manifesto, had the most glorious beard of all time.

Pi is exactly 3.

Couldn't think of one off the top of my head, so I googled an e-mail I got a few years back:

"I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too."

The longest word in the English language has 189,819 letters. Methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyl...isoleucine is the chemical name of the largest known protein titin. Lexicographers have argued however that chemical compounds should not count. The largest non-technical word is antidisestablishmentarianism, with a mere 28 letters.

It's...

Eddie the head:

If you don't mind me asking why is that grammatically correct and not just the same thing only with chicken?

Dr Snakeman:

Wait, what? You're going to have to go into more detail with that one.

Alright so, basically there's a city in New York called Buffalo, and buffalo is another word for bully or bother, buffalo also means bison (duh). So the sentence basically says "bison from New York who are bullied by other bison from New York bully bison from New York." It took me a while to get it as well, basically "Buffalo buffalo (Buffalo buffalo buffalo) buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

Take note of the capitalization!

edit: well, someone ninja'd me!

Sega Genesis has Blast Processing -Fact. :U

Snotnarok loves to make art, even when the program crashes mid-save.

Robert Ewing:
The longest word in the English language has 189,819 letters. Methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyl...isoleucine is the chemical name of the largest known protein titin. Lexicographers have argued however that chemical compounds should not count. The largest non-technical word is antidisestablishmentarianism, with a mere 28 letters.

its...PHA+W3Nwb2lsZXIgdGV4dCB0b28gbG9uZyAtIHBsZWFzZSBlZGl0IHRvIHJlZHVjZV08L3A+

Fact the Escapist doesn't have post limits or flood detection....

Fatboy_41:

nikki191:

A british soldier landed in normandy during ww2 with a long bow and killed german soldiers with it

Jack Churchill. No relation to Winston. He was a member of the original Commando corp established in WW2. He is the only soldier of the war to be credited with a kill by an arrow. He also carried a claymore sword as well as the bow.

There should be a Pantheon of Badassery, in which this man would hold a place of high honor.

LEGO came from a Danish phrase meaning "play-well".

TIMESWORDSMAN:

Fatboy_41:

nikki191:

A british soldier landed in normandy during ww2 with a long bow and killed german soldiers with it

Jack Churchill. No relation to Winston. He was a member of the original Commando corp established in WW2. He is the only soldier of the war to be credited with a kill by an arrow. He also carried a claymore sword as well as the bow.

There should be a Pantheon of Badassery, in which this man would hold a place of high honor.

Too tired to look for him myself, but maybe you'll find his name in here

webepoop:
The longest grammatically correct sentence using one word in the English language is:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

I thought that phrase only remains grammatically correct at the 6th "buffalo". This sentence has 8 "buffalo"'s

A more well-known, but still interesting fact:

Mufasa from Disney's The Lion King is Darth Vader(the voice). A.k.a. James Earl Jones.

Elementary - Dear Watson:
[quote="nikki191" post="18.352415.13971204"

A british soldier landed in normandy during ww2 with a long bow and killed german soldiers with it[/quote]

That is gosh darn awesome! You have made my month with this fact! Are there any books on him?

i was mistaken .. he rampaged around france in 1940 during the british retreat with a bike, longbow and 2 handed sword killing germans not in 1944.

he also led 2 companies of commandos again with a 2 handed sword in a raid in norway and when transfered to the pacific he was apparently annoyed the atomic bombs were dropped and is famously quoted as saying "if it hadn't been for those damned Yanks we could have kept the war going for another 10 years."

this nutter was mad jack churchill

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill
http://www.wwiihistorymagazine.com/2005/july/col-profiles.html

Royta:
You cannot, on any Windows operating system, name a folder "CON".
So funny.

You can't name a folder NUL either. Goes back to the DDOS days.

The Heavenator:

Melopahn:

The Heavenator:
The universe is actually flat.

Not true! 1 its a theory that it may be but even in the theory it is not flat, for it to be flat the critical density and the actual density would have to be identical. Even in the theory they are quite different numbers. The sheet of paper would have to be about 2 inches thick which breaks the definition of flat, something that is flat has .1% depth when compared to its length and width, by Nasa's terms. They have another theory where its the same shape as a saddle and that seems to be the one they like most.

Side note, the universe has arms which contain a large quantity of the matter in the universe while the "body" is relatively low in the amount of matter it contains... by comparison.

Yes you are correct. The universe could be flat, which is such a strange idea to me that it suck in my head as the actual shape.

And random fact: Kleenex was originally made from components of Kotex pads. The '-ex' in Kleenex comes from Kotex.

I think you are missing what "flat" means in this context, flat in terms of universe means that (and now we are going into 4d geometry and i don't know the technical terms) if you imagine all of 3d space to be a surface then in 4 spatial dimensions the universe is flat. So the flat, saddle shape etc. are simply analogies to geometry we can picture

dvd_72:
Anitediphobia: The fear that somehow, somewhere, a duck is watching you.

The fun fact that you eat about 8 or so spiders a night is not actually a fact, but a falsehood perpetrated by a scientist for an experiment to see how quickly information travels around the world.

"Magic numbers" is an actual technical term in nuclear physics. These magical numbers are the numbers of nucleons that make up extremely stable nuclei. Nuclei with more or less nucleons are less stable until the next magic number is reached.

Water expands when frozen. This is due to the structure of the H2O molecules that causes them to have intermolecular bonds strong enough to form a sort of crystal structure when the temperature becomes low enough.

Lukewarm water freezes faster than cold water. While apparently a fact I do not know the background behind it, nor do I quite believe it is a fact, but I thought I'd share it.

Start from any page in Wikipedia. Click the (I think) first link in that page, and every subsequent page. You will eventually end up on the philosophy page.

All that I could come up with at this time. I'll see if I can't recall more later ;)

Just tried the wikipedia thing, i got stuck in a loop which doesn't include philosophy, sorry :P

The Great Wall Can't be seen from Space and in many cases, was made from various aged wall sections that were connected together.

The only word in the English language with two letters repeated three times in a row is Bookkeeper

When it comes to dating sites, men are more likely to spend more time browsing pictures while women are more likely to browse profiles.

dontlooknow:
If you drink an average-sized glass of water, the chances are that you'll take in at least one molecule that passed through the bladder of Oliver Cromwell.

Richard Dawkins teach you that?

The Unworthy Gentleman:

Friedrich Engels, co-author of the Communist Manifesto, had the most glorious beard of all time.

That beard. Good LORD, that beard.

The most common metal element in the earth's crust and 3rd overall is Aluminum. It comprises roughly 8-8.2 percent of all material.

Upon smelling bananas, bees will go into a frenzy, stinging the next thing that moves.

Fijiman:
LEGO came from a Danish phrase meaning "play-well".

TIMESWORDSMAN:

Fatboy_41:

Jack Churchill. No relation to Winston. He was a member of the original Commando corp established in WW2. He is the only soldier of the war to be credited with a kill by an arrow. He also carried a claymore sword as well as the bow.

There should be a Pantheon of Badassery, in which this man would hold a place of high honor.

Too tired to look for him myself, but maybe you'll find his name in here

Indeed, this is a fine memorial, but I still think there should be some sort of corporeal building devoted to such lords utter awe.

Today, the 29th of February, is little orphan Annie's birthday.

Walt Disney, while being the voice of Mickey Mouse, was afraid of them.

Apple seeds contain a minute amount of cyanide.

Some Bond Facts

Ian fleming based bond in a friend he had during the war and the name came from an ornithologist he read the name in a newspaper

Timothy Dalton is the tallest of the bonds and Daniel Craig is the shortest

the game goldeneye 007 gain more money that the movie Goldeneye and tomorrow never dies combined

In dr No Sean Connery sings underneath the mango tree to this day it's the only time james had ever sing

007 in new york is the only original Fleming short story that hasn't been made into a movie

Siping, the wavy lines cut into the soles of boat shoes to avoid slipping on wet surfaces, was originally designed by a guy who was working in a slaughterhouse and was sick of slipping on the blood.

Zecora the zebra in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic speaks solely in iambic tetrameter (da DUN da DUN da DUN da DUN), though occasionally she misses a beat if she can't say it "properly".

Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand is in fact the caldera of a massive volcano.

The lake was formed after the Oruanui eruption, the worlds largest in 70000 years with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 8 (the highest).

It's last major eruption was around 1800 years ago which may have turned the sky red over Rome and China.

TIMESWORDSMAN:

MetaKnight19:
The town of Doncaster is technically a part of Scotland

A fan of Blackadder are we?

How did you guess...

Here's a useless factoid, LEGO was originally designed not as a toy but as a cheap prefabricated building material to rebuild Europe after World War II (at a much larger scale obviously).

Also, coconuts kill more people each year than sharks.

And if you Google "recursion" it will ask if you meant "recursion".

I have a few:

You are the centre of the observable universe. The universe itself is expanding, but it has no edge.

A Great White Shark's liver is so big it folds over three times, it's skin is essentially made of teeth (or are it's teeth essentially made of shark skin?)

A giraffe has valves in it's neck that close when it leans down for a drink, otherwise the blood pressure rushing to its head would kill it. It has the same amount of neck vertebrae as we do.

If you go to google, type "find chuck norris" and hit "I'm feeling lucky" it'll tell you not to look for him.