2,024 QI Facts To Stop You In Your Tracks

Page 1, Position 1: Nobody knows who named the Earth.: https://www.livescience.com/32274-how-did-earth-get-its-name.html?utm_source=llm-newsletter&amp
Page 1, Position 2: Zero does not exist in nature.: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/5/17500782/zero-number-math-explained?utm_source=digg&amp
Page 1, Position 3: Without zero, modern electronics wouldn’t exist.: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/5/17500782/zero-number-math-explained?utm_source=digg&amp
Page 1, Position 4: According to many quantum physicists, there is no time.: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/738387/Time-NOT-real-EVERYTHING-happens-same-time-einstein
Page 2, Position 1: ‘Time’ is the most used noun in the English language.: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-time-is-most-often-used-noun/
Page 2, Position 2: The present moment is the most disorganised the universe has ever been.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics
Page 2, Position 3: People who have had their frown lines removed with Botox find it harder to read difficult sentences.: https://www.nhs.uk/news/medication/botox-injection-leads-to-rejection/
Page 2, Position 4: An altered state of consciousness can be achieved by staring into someone’s eyes for 10 minutes.: https://curiosity.com/topics/you-can-enter-an-altered-state-of-consciousness-by-staring-into-someones-eyes-for-10-minutes-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&amp
Page 3, Position 1: According to its CEO, Apple, Inc. is a conscious being.: https://qz.com/1315303/is-apple-conscious/
Page 3, Position 2: A glass of Calvados contains seven apples.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/france/articles/Christmas-in-France-nine-things-that-might-surprise-you/?WT.mc_id=e_DM614922&amp
Page 3, Position 3: There is enough room in the human memory for 300 years of television.: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memory-capacity/
Page 3, Position 4: Loganamnosis is an obsessive searching for a forgotten word.: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/loganamnosis
Page 4, Position 1: The word for ‘the inside of the elbow’ is chelidon.: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Chelidon
Page 4, Position 2: People who don’t have a tissue should sneeze into their chelidon, not their hand.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/health/how-to-sneeze.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180228&amp
Page 4, Position 3: A handshake begins and ends every game of curling.: https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1298395/
Page 4, Position 4: In Sweden, millennials are called ‘the Curling Generation’, because all obstacles have been brushed from their path by their parents.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/08/generation-y-curling-or-maybe-what-the-world-calls-millennials
Page 5, Position 1: All Olympic curling stones come from one uninhabited island 10 miles from Glasgow.: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-scottish-magma-to-sochi-ice/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ailsa_Craig http://www.worldcurling.org/from-island-to-ice-a-journey-of-curling-stones
Page 5, Position 2: In 2017, Glasgow was voted the most dangerous and also the friendliest city in Scotland.: https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/glasgow-one-most-dangerous-cities-12413140 https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/glasgow-voted-friendliest-city-uk-12574890
Page 5, Position 3: Eyebrows evolved to make humans look friendly to one another.: https://theconversation.com/the-evolutionary-advantage-of-having-eyebrows-94599
Page 5, Position 4: In the 10 seasons of Friends, the six main characters drink 1,154 cups of coffee.: https://www.indy100.com/article/coffee-friends-rachel-joey-monica-ross-phoebe-chandler-new-york-central-perk-7816926
Page 6, Position 1: The Hitler Youth only drank decaf coffee.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/decaf-coffee-nazi-party
Page 6, Position 2: Rats with low social status drink more than those with high social status.: A Short History of Drunkeness Mark Forsyth
Page 6, Position 3: 20,112 rats were caught and killed in Hanoi on a single day in 1902.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hanoi-rat-massacre-1902
Page 6, Position 4: On a single day in 2018, volunteers in India planted 66 million trees.: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/madhya-pradesh-india-tree-planting-record
Page 7, Position 1: The palm trees in Los Angeles are the result of a job-creation scheme in the 1930s.: https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/how-did-la-become-a-city-of-palms-and-other-questions-about-californias-trees
Page 7, Position 2: The way tree tops avoid touching each other as they grow is called ‘crown shyness’.: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/08/the-phenomenon-of-crown-shyness-where-trees-avoid-touching/?mc_cid=774f60f263&amp
Page 7, Position 3: The Queen practises wearing her crown for a week before the Queen’s Speech.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11629605/The-Queens-Speech-Everything-you-need-to-know.html
Page 7, Position 4: The Queen takes a monogrammed kettle with her on all foreign trips.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/her-majesty-the-queen-jet-lag-remedy-travel-habits/
Page 8, Position 1: The Teabag Boys, Yak Balls, Cecil Otter and Bus Driver are all names of professional rappers.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/her-majesty-the-queen-jet-lag-remedy-travel-habits/
Page 8, Position 2: Every year, Britons use enough wrapping paper to wrap the Moon.: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/christmas-2017-in-numbers-study-14030465
Page 8, Position 3: If all the plastic in the world were cling film, it could wrap the Earth.: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/less-70-years-weve-made-enough-plastic-wrap-entire-world-cling-film-1631068
Page 8, Position 4: There is enough plastic in the world to make 25,000 Empire State Buildings, 80 million blue whales or a billion elephants.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/507108/all-plastic-ever-produced-visualized
Page 9, Position 1: The Queen has banned plastic straws from the royal estates.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/queen-bans-plastic-straws-and-bottles-on-royal-estates-a8205896.html
Page 9, Position 2: The first bendy straws were designed for use in hospitals.: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/the-amazing-history-and-the-strange-invention-of-the-bendy-straw/248923/
Page 9, Position 3: The A&E department at Leicester Royal Infirmary treated twice as many patients the weekend Leicester City won the Premier League.: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/08/leicester-city-celebrations-royal-infirmary-hospital-busy
Page 9, Position 4: Football was banned in London in 1314 for being too noisy .: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170831093424.htm
Page 10, Position 1: In Arab countries, poetry competitions get better TV ratings than football matches.: Morning Star 4 March 2017
Page 10, Position 2: Footballers at Sweden’s Östersunds Fotbollsklubb are contractually obliged to read Dostoevsky.: https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-week/20180203/281732679928773
Page 10, Position 3: France has short-story vending machines.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/books/short-story-vending-machine.html
Page 10, Position 4: In 2017, a book called Forty Minutes Late was returned to a San Francisco library 100 years late.: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/01/16/library-book-called-forty-minutes-late-returned-100-years-late/96631878/
Page 11, Position 1: More than half of all meetings start late.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23831742-800-your-boss-is-probably-to-blame-for-meetings-starting-late/
Page 11, Position 2: The chances of surviving a heart attack increase when the top doctors are absent from the hospital attending important cardiologymeetings.: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2038979
Page 11, Position 3: The first meeting of the War Propaganda Bureau was attended by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and H. G. Wells.: https://www.ilab.org/eng/documentation/1301-a_brief_history_of_propaganda.html
Page 11, Position 4: The ‘coffee break’ was invented in 1952 by the American Coffee Bureau.: http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-718-12-things-you-believe-because-propaganda-told-you-to/
Page 12, Position 1: ‘Bacon and eggs’ was invented by Sigmund Freud’s nephew.: http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-718-12-things-you-believe-because-propaganda-told-you-to/
Page 12, Position 2: The Queen won’t reveal her favourite meal in case she never gets served anything else.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/her-majesty-the-queen-jet-lag-remedy-travel-habits/
Page 12, Position 3: For the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, Marmite brought out a special edition called Ma’amite.: https://www.adweek.com/creativity/marmite-celebrates-queens-diamond-jubilee-maamite-140933/
Page 12, Position 4: Alfred the Butler is the name of 12 different people in the Domesday Book.: https://opendomesday.org/name/
Page 13, Position 1: The bookshelf was invented by Christopher Columbus’s son.: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/the-man-who-tried-to-read-all-the-books-in-the-world
Page 13, Position 2: Children perform boring tasks better when dressed as Batman.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/02/exclamation-comma_n_7710586.html
Page 13, Position 3: Wonder Woman was created by the inventor of the lie detector.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/origin-story-wonder-woman-180952710/
Page 13, Position 4: Vranyo is Russian for lying even when everyone knows that’s what you’re doing.: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/23/mcmaster-and-maskirovka/
Page 14, Position 1: Mencolek is Indonesian for tapping someone on the opposite shoulder to fool them.: https://www.global-lingo.com/untranslatable-words-ultimate-list/
Page 14, Position 2: Bamboo sharks shrug their shoulders to swallow their food.: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bamboo-sharks-shrug-their-shoulders-swallow-their-prey-1630818
Page 14, Position 3: In the 1930s, artist Dorothy Beck invented an inverted underwater periscope so she could stay dry while sketching fish.: http://www.oobject.com/category/9-non-submarine-periscopes/
Page 14, Position 4: Swordfish track fast-moving prey in deep, cold water by heating up their eyes.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6861-swordfish-heat-their-eyes-for-the-hunt/
Page 15, Position 1: After Apollo 11 landed, the Moon’s temperature rose by 2°C.: https://www.livescience.com/62805-moon-surface-warming-apollo-astronauts.html
Page 15, Position 2: NASA’s ‘clean rooms’ are infested by microbes that resist heat, desiccation and radiation and eat the cleaning products.: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/06/bacteria-can-eat-the-cleaning-products-nasa-uses-to-sterilize-its-spaceships/562016/
Page 15, Position 3: The thermostat knobs in many hotel bedrooms don’t work: they’re rigged to save electricity .: http://www.wsj.com/articles/its-not-you-hotel-thermostats-really-are-rigged-1485371225
Page 15, Position 4: 80% of the ‘Close Door’ buttons in lifts are just for show: the doors are on a timer.: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/placebo-buttons-elevators-crosswalks.html?src=twr&amp
Page 16, Position 1: In 1986, 12 jurors got stuck in an Otis elevator in a courthouse on their way to hear a lawsuit against the Otis Elevator Company .: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1986-11-04/news/0270110010_1_elevator-otis-jammed
Page 16, Position 2: In 2017, a court in Indonesia blamed an increase in the divorce rate on the sudden popularity of pigeon racing.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-40801328
Page 16, Position 3: In Regina, California, it’s illegal to own more than 90 pigeons.: https://www.regina.ca/residents/bylaw/browse-most-requested-bylaws/domestic-pigeon-control/
Page 16, Position 4: It’s illegal to swim in the River Seine in Paris.: https://www.citylab.com/solutions/2016/05/paris-wants-to-make-the-seine-swimmable-by-2024/482031/
Page 17, Position 1: In professional swimming, it’s against the rules to wear two swimming costumes.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/7944084.stm
Page 17, Position 2: In public pools in New York City , you’re not allowed to hold your breath.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/29/swimming-pools-ban-holding-breath_n_7468010.html
Page 17, Position 3: In 2017, 70 students in Maryland drank so much alcohol at a party that the air in the house registered positive on a breathalyser.: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/students-drank-so-much-at-a-frat-party-the-air-registered-on-a-breathalyser-a3725556.html
Page 17, Position 4: ‘Breeching parties’ celebrated boys getting their first pair of trousers.: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/breeching-party-first-pants-regency-trousers-boys
Page 18, Position 1: New Year’s Day is the official birthday of everyone in Bhutan.: https://www.bhutanprivatetours.com/bhutan-general-info.html
Page 18, Position 2: In Johannesburg on New Year’s Day, it’s traditional to throw an item of furniture out of a window.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/38341760
Page 18, Position 3: When New Year was moved in 1751 from 25 March to 1 January, there were only 282 days in the year.: http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Give-us-our-eleven-days/
Page 18, Position 4: In ancient Egypt, the New Year began whenever the Nile started to flood.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/nile_01.shtml
Page 19, Position 1: Ancient Egyptians mummified their cats and gave them mummified mice to torment in the afterlife.: https://sciencing.com/egyptian-animals-were-mummified-9847.html
Page 19, Position 2: Catalan authorities regularly check websites ending with ‘.cat’ to ensure they’re about Catalonia, not cats.: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/23/spanish_government_criticized_over_catalan_internet_registry_raid/
Page 19, Position 3: Savannah is a breed of cat that can be trained to play fetch and go for walks on a lead.: https://www.prlog.org/10483884-about-savannah-cats-personality-trained-to-walk-on-leash-and-play-fetch.html
Page 19, Position 4: If human eyes were in the same proportion as cats’ eyes, they’d be eight inches across.: http://s.coop/catseyes
Page 20, Position 1: Honesty boxes with photos of eyes stuck on the wall next to them produce more money .: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9424-big-brother-eyes-make-us-act-more-honestly/
Page 20, Position 2: Painting eyes on cows’ bottoms stops lions attacking them.: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-are-painting-eyes-on-cows-butts-to-stop-lions-getting-shot
Page 20, Position 3: Rabbits hate being picked up because they think they’re about to be eaten.: http://www.justrabbits.com/handling-rabbits.html
Page 20, Position 4: Listening to talk radio can put pumas off their food.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2138040-talk-radio-puts-pumas-off-their-meals-so-they-may-kill-more-deer/
Page 21, Position 1: King George VI’s wedding was not broadcast on the radio in case people listened without removing their hats.: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/royal-history/art312972
Page 21, Position 2: A radio station in Texas that burned Beatles records in 1966 was struck by lightning the next day.: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&amp
Page 21, Position 3: Not realising his microphone was switched on, Ronald Reagan once joked that the US was about to bomb Russia.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/ronald-reagan-bombing-russia-joke-archive-1984
Page 21, Position 4: There are an estimated 14,485 nuclear weapons in the world today.: https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/
Page 22, Position 1: Airbnb’s HQ features a replica of the War Room from Dr Strangelove.: http://valleywag.gawker.com/airbnbs-office-has-a-replica-of-the-dr-strangelove-wa-1475788543
Page 22, Position 2: A supersonic flypast at Ottawa’s new airport in 1959 smashed all the glass in the buildings and delayed the opening for a year.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Macdonald%E2%80%93Cartier_International_Airport
Page 22, Position 3: The first loop-the-loop roller coaster had to close down because so many people were passing out.: https://gizmodo.com/why-roller-coaster-loops-are-never-circular-1549063718
Page 22, Position 4: Disneyland shut down its gondola rides because too many people were having sex on them.: https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/tom-hanks-disneyland-mile-high-club-conan-obrien-20131812/
Page 23, Position 1: When two prime numbers differ by 6 (e.g. 5 and 11), they are known as ‘sexy primes’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexy_prime
Page 23, Position 2: (6 × 9) + (6 + 9) = 69: https://www.buzzfeed.com/kellyoakes/maths-facts-youll-probably-never-need-to-use?utm_term=.qdZ3v6xNz#.olxOnZj05
Page 23, Position 3: The Babylonians were doing trigonometry 3,700 years ago.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/babylonians-trigonometry-develop-more-advanced-modern-mathematics-3700-years-ago-ancient-a7910936.html
Page 23, Position 4: 5,000 years ago, humans practised brain surgery on cows.: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/prehistoric-humans-may-have-practiced-brain-surgery-cows?utm_campaign=daily-digest&amp
Page 24, Position 1: Gaspare Tagliacozzi, the pioneer of the nose job, developed his skills at a clinic called the Hospital of Death.: A History of Plastic Surgery By Paolo Santoni-Rugiu Philip J. Sykes
Page 24, Position 2: The surgeon at the Battle of the Sierra Negra (1794) averaged one amputation every four minutes.: https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/a-history-of-fatal-castrations-and-gory-amputations-36609409.html
Page 24, Position 3: Plastic surgeons are eight times more likely to have had plastic surgery than the rest of us.: http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/cosmetic-treatments/have-most-plastic-surgeons-had-surgery-themselves.htm#mkcpgn=rssnws1
Page 24, Position 4: People who drink seven cups of coffee a day are more likely to think they sense the presence of dead people.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7827761.stm
Page 25, Position 1: Poltergeist is German for ‘noisy ghost’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poltergeist
Page 25, Position 2: The first planet discovered outside the Solar System was named Poltergeist.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_B1257%2B12_B
Page 25, Position 3: Pluto’s moon, Charon, was named by its discoverer after his wife Char(lene).: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/56-our-solar-system/planets-and-dwarf-planets/general-questions/228-who-named-the-planets-and-who-decides-what-to-name-them-beginner
Page 25, Position 4: Names of Greek ocean gods included Poseidon, Triton, Oceanus and Doris.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_(mythology)
Page 26, Position 1: In 2006, a Greek court ruled it was no longer illegal to worship Greek gods.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/may/05/greece
Page 26, Position 2: The world’s first Christian nation was Armenia.: http://www.welcomearmenia.com/armenia/first_christian_nation
Page 26, Position 3: Britain’s first vegetarian church opened in a building called Beefsteak Chapel.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20666581
Page 26, Position 4: Avocados are not vegan.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23731623-100-living-on-the-veg-10-things-you-thought-were-vegan-but-arent/
Page 27, Position 1: Mentioning guacamole on your dating profile gets you 144% more responses.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/guacamole-avocado-eggplant-dating-profile-survey-food
Page 27, Position 2: The first contraceptive pill was developed from Mexican yams.: http://advocatesaz.org/2013/01/08/the-history-of-the-birth-control-pill-part-1-hormones-our-chemical-messengers/
Page 27, Position 3: Viagra can make your urine turn blue.: http://www.livescience.com/37664-human-urine-colors-rainbow.html
Page 27, Position 4: Prussian blue was discovered by a German chemist trying to make red.: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-quest-for-billion-dollar-red/
Page 28, Position 1: Red placebo pills work better than blue ones.: https://mindhacks.com/2006/10/10/red-pill-or-the-blue-pill/
Page 28, Position 2: Yellow tennis balls, which look better on colour TV , were the idea of David Attenborough when he was Controller of BBC2.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tennis/article-4657740/How-David-Attenborough-took-Wimbledon-colour-TV-era.html
Page 28, Position 3: Different tennis balls are used for men’s and women’s matches; the men’s are fluffier to slow them down.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2016/03/29/andy-murray-using-a-womens-ball-at-miami-open/
Page 28, Position 4: Table tennis was the first sport to abolish the distinction between amateurs and professionals.: 'Summer's crown' by Stephen Chalke (Fairfield Books 2016)
Page 29, Position 1: Football World Cup referees have to learn swear words in other languages.: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/sports/soccer/11cursing.html
Page 29, Position 2: TITSUP is a military acronym for Total Inability To Support Usual Performance.: http://www.acronymfinder.com/Total-Inability-To-Support-Usual-Performance-(military-slang)-(TITSUP).html
Page 29, Position 3: SWIPERS is a retail-industry acronym for Seemingly Well-Intentioned Patrons Engaging in Routine Shoplifting.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/pay-for-a-carrot-pack-an-avocado-self-checkout-thieves-looting-stores-fz7r6gdj7
Page 29, Position 4: TASER is an acronym for Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle.: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/words-acronyms_n_6147354
Page 30, Position 1: In 2016, Australian police offered cash prizes to any drivers they found to be sober.: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-20/drink-driving-experiment-gives-sober-drivers-chance-to-win-money/7101316
Page 30, Position 2: The oldest known boomerang is from Poland.: https://www.apnews.com/5386e4fc34507bfe5a66dcb9f2753d80
Page 30, Position 3: Mount Kosciuszko, the highest mountain in Australia, is named after an artificial mound in Poland.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kosciuszko
Page 30, Position 4: The summit of Mount Everest was once part of the ocean floor.: https://www.nasa.gov/content/the-worlds-tallest-mountain
Page 31, Position 1: The highest mountain on British soil is in Antarctica.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42238262
Page 31, Position 2: At Two Ocean Pass, Wyoming, a mountain stream splits into two: one flows into the Atlantic, the other into the Pacific.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Ocean_Pass
Page 31, Position 3: In 1949, Mole Hill, West Virginia, was renamed Mountain.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain _West_Virginia
Page 31, Position 4: Joan Crawford was named by the readers of a movie magazine.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Crawford
Page 32, Position 1: On the set of Jaws, the shark was nicknamed Bruce, after Steven Spielberg’s lawyer.: https://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/05/entertainment/jaws-movie-40th-anniversary-feat/index.html
Page 32, Position 2: The first crime prosecuted using fingerprint evidence was the theft of some billiard balls.: https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/historical-crimes-that-changed-british-policing-law-enforcement/
Page 32, Position 3: The largest theft ever investigated by Quebec police was of maple syrup.: http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-great-maple-syrup-heist-trial-opens-in-largest-theft-ever-investigated-by-quebec-police
Page 32, Position 4: Between 1935 and 1937, Wisconsin law required all restaurant meals to be served with free cheese.: http://host.madison.com/news/local/are-restaurants-in-wisconsin-required-to-put-cheese-on-apple/article_f6490062-bc20-11de-a56b-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz2kkOf2gXc
Page 33, Position 1: The first use of the word ‘mammoth’ as an adjective meaning ‘big’ referred to a large cheese.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_BqjCgAAQBAJ&amp
Page 33, Position 2: The world’s largest asbestos mine is in Asbest, Russia.: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/yvxjy7/why-the-deadly-asbestos-industry-is-still-alive-and-well
Page 33, Position 3: The world’s largest paper plane had a 60-foot wingspan.: https://www.upi.com/Museum-seeking-world-record-for-largest-paper-plane/8721528818470/
Page 33, Position 4: Each pod on the world’s largest Ferris wheel is equipped with a TV screen to stave off boredom.: https://awol.junkee.com/china-just-built-the-worlds-biggest-ferris-wheel/45657
Page 34, Position 1: Season 7 of Game of Thrones was pirated more than a billion times.: http://news.sky.com/story/game-of-thrones-season-7-pirated-more-than-a-billion-times-11024050
Page 34, Position 2: Michael Bond, creator of Paddington Bear, was a camera operator on Blue Peter.: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/28/michael-bond-author-paddington-bear-interview-books-television-film
Page 34, Position 3: Paddington Bear wears a hat when swimming because Michael Bond’s father always did, in case he needed to raise it politely.: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/28/michael-bond-author-paddington-bear-interview-books-television-film
Page 34, Position 4: The etiquette experts Debrett’s run classes for five-year-olds on learning how to navigate dinner parties.: http://www.smallishmagazine.com/mind-over-manners/
Page 35, Position 1: Alumnesia is the failure to remember the name of a former classmate.: Oxford Dictionary of Quotations by Subject
Page 35, Position 2: Scurryfunge is to tidy up quickly before visitors arrive.: https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-week-junior/20170930/281638190400600
Page 35, Position 3: Cacozelia is the use of foreign words to make one appear un peu plus cultivé.: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cacozelia
Page 35, Position 4: Treppenwitz is German for the witty riposte that occurs to you too late.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/544512/expert-tips-for-creating-the-perfect-comeback
Page 36, Position 1: ‘Joke’ comes from the same Latin word as ‘jewel’.: https://www.etymonline.com/word/jewel
Page 36, Position 2: The redder a ruby, the more it costs.: http://www.gemewizard.com/newsletters/view_article.php?id=167
Page 36, Position 3: Donald Trump’s daughter Tiffany was named after the jewellers.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany_Trump
Page 36, Position 4: Peter Carl Fabergé made 50 exquisite Fabergé eggs and one Fabergé potato.: https://www.1843magazine.com/design/i-wish-id-done-that/caroline-scheufele-on-a-faberg-potato
Page 37, Position 1: Until they hatch, the eggs of cardinal fish are stored in the males’ mouths, where 30% of them are regrettably swallowed.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2281581/A-modern-male-sea-The-Cardinal-Fish-left-look-babies-weeks-end--MOUTH.html
Page 37, Position 2: The hands of a human foetus touching the walls of the womb causes the fingerprints to form.: http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2018-01-14/newspaper-letters/Fingerprints-start-forming-at-the-third-week-of-gestation-6736183540.
Page 37, Position 3: Elephant’s ear plants look like they’re diseased so eggs won’t be laid on them.: https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/plants-that-act-like-people/
Page 37, Position 4: Elephants can hear better with one foot off the ground.: Furry Logic - The Physics of Animal Life by Matin Durrani Liz Kalaugher (Bloomsbury 2017)
Page 38, Position 1: When his sound system failed, mime artist Marcel Marceau cancelled the performance.: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/23/AR2007092300172.html
Page 38, Position 2: The mayor of Bogotá hired 420 mime artists to shame traffic violators into driving better.: https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2013/oct/28/antanas-mockus-bogota-mayor
Page 38, Position 3: The aim of the sacred combat of the Moche people of ancient Peru was to knock your opponent’s hat off.: National Museum of the Americas
Page 38, Position 4: Peruvians are the world’s fastest workers.: https://priceonomics.com/ranking-the-most-and-least-productive-countries/
Page 39, Position 1: The Latin for ‘proud’ is superbum.: http://latin-dictionary.net/definition/36370/superbus-superba-superbum
Page 39, Position 2: ‘Bum’ was defined in Dr Johnson’s Dictionary as ‘the part on which we sit’.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/538473/funny-definitions-from-dictionary-of-the-english-language-samuel-johnson
Page 39, Position 3: The word ‘kleptomania’ was coined in the 1860s because words like ‘robbery’, ‘theft’ and ‘larceny’ were considered inappropriate for the upper classes.: https://www.geriwalton.com/english-miscellany-in-the-1860s/
Page 39, Position 4: A clank-napper was an 18th-century thief who specialised in stealing silverware.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 40, Position 1: The oldest object in the British crown jewels is a spoon.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/coronation-spoon-12th-century-england-crown-jewels
Page 40, Position 2: Knife marks on the oldest known book of English poetry suggest it was once used as a chopping board.: https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/research/digital/projects/exeter-book/
Page 40, Position 3: The world’s oldest pot plant is 243 years old and weighs one tonne.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/delicate-operation-at-kew-gardens-to-move-worlds-oldest-pot-plant-pppnlx7jjvq
Page 40, Position 4: The two oldest men living in Britain in 2018 were born on the same day in 1908.: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/25/britain-oldest-men-bob-weighton-alf-smith-110-years-old
Page 41, Position 1: Blowing out the candles on a birthday cake increases the number of bacteria on it by up to 1,400%.: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/blowing-out-birthday-candles-increases-cake-bacteria-1400-per-cent-saliva-spread-icing-study-reveals-a7868671.html
Page 41, Position 2: The least hygienic parts of an aeroplane are the tray tables.: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/the-least-hygienic-place-to-touch-on-a-plane-has-been-revealed-by-scientists-and-its-not-the-toilet-10486260.html
Page 41, Position 3: Terrifying flights were prescribed in the 1920s to cure deafness.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/doctors-once-prescribed-terrifying-plane-flights-cure-deafness-180965027/
Page 41, Position 4: In 1981, Margaret Thatcher refused to share Concorde with a giant panda.: In 1981 Margaret Thatcherrefused to share Concorde with a giant Eratosthenes. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/national-archives-margaret-thatcher-refused-to-share-a-flight-to-washington-with-a-giant-panda-a3728191.html
Page 42, Position 1: A mother panda is 800 times larger than her newborn.: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep27509
Page 42, Position 2: The man who named the panda was the younger brother of the man who named the pterodactyl.: was the younger brother of the man who named the pterodactyl. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Cuvier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Cuvier https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/panda
Page 42, Position 3: Sichuanese people who swallowed needles by mistake would try to melt them by drinking panda urine.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_panda#Uses_and_human_interaction
Page 42, Position 4: The ancient Greeks cured hangovers by wrapping their heads in cabbage leaves.: http://www.newsweek.com/11-historys-battiest-hangover-cures-324539
Page 43, Position 1: The man who coined the term ‘nostalgia’ thought it could be cured by taking laxatives.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23130920-500-wistful-thinking-why-we-are-wired-to-dwell-on-the-past/
Page 43, Position 2: Latex is Latin for ‘liquid’.: Lewis and Short A Latin Dictionary (OUP 1998) p 1039
Page 43, Position 3: British Army soldiers are given anti-bacterial underpants.: British Army soldiers are given anti-bacterialunderpants. http://www.thesilveredge.com/british-army-issues-colloidal-silver-underwear-to-soldiers.shtml#.WsuYfNPwYdU
Page 43, Position 4: The US military spends $42 million a year on Viagra.: http://www.militarytimes.com/pay-benefits/military-benefits/health-care/2015/02/13/dod-spends-84m-a-year-on-viagra-similar-meds/
Page 44, Position 1: The citizens of the Czech Republic are the baldest people in the world.: http://www.hairlossdaily.com/the-11-baldest-countries-in-the-world/
Page 44, Position 2: In Japan, people with thin, black, careful combovers are called ‘bar code men’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comb_over
Page 44, Position 3: At Joan of Arc’s trial, she was asked to comment on the hairstyles of the saints who appeared in her visions.: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/joanofarc-trial.asp
Page 44, Position 4: A tiger’s night vision is six times better than a human’s.: https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/tiger-facts.aspx
Page 45, Position 1: Humans glow in the dark.: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/jul/17/human-bioluminescence
Page 45, Position 2: In a desert, the naked eye can see the glow of a major city from 125 miles away.: The walker's guide to outdoor clues & signs' by Tristan Gooley (Sceptre 2015)
Page 45, Position 3: Snowflake, Arizona, was founded in 1878 by two men whose surnames were Snow and Flake.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake _Arizona
Page 45, Position 4: At the centre of every snowflake is a single piece of dust.: https://geology.com/articles/snowflakes/
Page 46, Position 1: Claude Monet paid a gardener to dust his water lilies before he painted them.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/NZXGROJ4Trq6rIYI03tvSg
Page 46, Position 2: Van Gogh’s Olive Trees has a dead grasshopper embedded in the paint.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/NZXGROJ4Trq6rIYI03tvSg
Page 46, Position 3: It is compulsory for Dutch schoolchildren to visit Rembrandt’s paintings.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/NZXGROJ4Trq6rIYI03tvSg
Page 46, Position 4: As a schoolboy, legendary wrestler André the Giant was driven to school by his neighbour, the playwright Samuel Beckett.: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/andre-the-giant-samuel-beckett/
Page 47, Position 1: Samuel Pepys went to a performance of Twelfth Night on Twelfth Night 1663, and thought it was ‘a silly play and not relating at all to the name or day’.: Christmas: A Biography Judith Flanders
Page 47, Position 2: The West End has fewer theatres than London’s private schools.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/private-schools-upstage-the-west-end-with-cutting-edge-theatres-fhbqxjfwn
Page 47, Position 3: In 1907, a riot broke out in New York over a play in which a woman drank a glass of beer.: Christmas: A Biography Judith Flanders
Page 47, Position 4: Beer mats were originally placed on top of glasses to keep the dust out.: http://www.ab-inbev.com/news/our-stories/beer-brewing/an-absorbing-tale--the-story-of-the-beer-mat.html
Page 48, Position 1: In the Second World War, kegs of beer were flown to the front line by Spitfire pilots.: https://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2014/08/beer-keg-carrying-spitfires-world-war-two/
Page 48, Position 2: One proposal to stop plane hijackings to Cuba in the 1970s was to build a fake Havana airport in south Florida.: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/skyjacking/
Page 48, Position 3: In 2016, a man from Wigan sent a pie into space to promote the World Pie Eating Championship.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-38334437
Page 48, Position 4: A smartphone contains more computing power than the whole of NASA had in 1969.: https://www.britishgas.co.uk/business/blog/smartphones-more-powerful-than-all-of-nasas-combined-computing-in-1969/
Page 49, Position 1: In 1985, New York City had 2,000 mobile phones, but only 12 of them could be used at any one time.: https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/951826557978468352
Page 49, Position 2: A man in New York makes $500 a week collecting fragments of gold and jewellery from the city’s pavements.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8587448/New-York-man-makes-500-a-week-from-gold-in-pavement-cracks.html
Page 49, Position 3: New York cabs and Hertz rental cars have yellow branding because they were founded by the same man.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Hertz
Page 49, Position 4: The flute was invented before the wheel.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions
Page 50, Position 1: Cement was invented before humans learned to cook meat.: http://www.pajiba.com/podcasts_1/podcast-review-surprisingly-awesome-is-surprisingly-awesome.php
Page 50, Position 2: When Icelandic women staged an equal-pay protest by refusing to do any cooking, all the supermarkets ran out of sausages.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/18/gender.uk
Page 50, Position 3: The world’s longest sausage was 39 miles long.: https://www.romania-insider.com/romania-sets-new-world-record-for-longest-sausage/
Page 50, Position 4: Volkswagen sells more sausages than cars.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/vw-volkswagen-currywurst-sausages-emissions-scandal-a6883751.html
Page 51, Position 1: The Lord Howe Island stick insect is also known as the ‘walking sausage’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball%27s_Pyramid
Page 51, Position 2: ‘Sausage guitar’ is urban slang for air guitar played on a stretched-out penis.: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Sausage%20Guitar
Page 51, Position 3: When Brian May goes on tour, his guitar has its own bodyguard.: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/18/brian-may-queen-guitar-red-special-dad
Page 51, Position 4: In 2004, Somalia issued a set of guitar-shaped coins.: In 2004 Somalia issued a set of guitar-shapedcoins. https://www.fleur-de-coin.com/articles/unusual-coins
Page 52, Position 1: In 2010, the national mint of Chile issued thousands of coins stamped ‘CHIIE’.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8511910.stm
Page 52, Position 2: Goldman Sachs complained to Microsoft for autocorrecting their name to Goddamn Sachs.: https://www.wired.com/2014/07/history-of-autocorrect/
Page 52, Position 3: American Kitchen Foods tried to rebrand peas by shaping them into chips and calling them I Hate Peas.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/23326/10-food-products-thankfully-flopped
Page 52, Position 4: Peas can be used to treat constipation in fish.: http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_constipated_fish.php
Page 53, Position 1: One-third of the fish caught around the world never get eaten.: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/09/one-in-three-fish-caught-never-makes-it-to-the-plate-un-report
Page 53, Position 2: During the Second World War, fish-and-chip-shop managers were exempt from military service.: Morning Star 12 Sept 17
Page 53, Position 3: The Russian intelligence service keeps Hitler’s teeth in a cigar box.: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/the-bizarre-decades-old-mystery-over-hitlers-possible-skull.html
Page 53, Position 4: The UK has 50,000 self-service tills.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/pay-for-a-carrot-pack-an-avocado-self-checkout-thieves-looting-stores-fz7r6gdj7
Page 54, Position 1: British trains arriving up to nine minutes late are counted as being on time.: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/british-train-delay-measure-minutes-late-on-time-rail-delivery-group-a7846261.html
Page 54, Position 2: In 2017, a Japanese rail company apologised after one of its trains departed 20 seconds early.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/17/japanese-rail-company-apologises-train-20-seconds-early
Page 54, Position 3: 590,000 Britons turn up late for work each day, costing the economy £9 billion a year.: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/staff-lateness-costs-the-economy-9-billion-every-year-8191289.html
Page 54, Position 4: In Qin dynasty China, the penalty for lateness was death.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazexiang_uprising
Page 55, Position 1: Mail theft in the US was a capital offence until 1872.: https://www.rd.com/culture/us-postal-service-facts/
Page 55, Position 2: Until 1971, the US Postmaster General was last in the line of succession to the presidency .: https://www.rd.com/culture/us-postal-service-facts/
Page 55, Position 3: Donald Trump is the first US president in 168 years not to have a pet in the White House.: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/ivana-ivanka-trump-book.html
Page 55, Position 4: US President Zachary Taylor had never voted in a presidential election before he voted for himself.: https://millercenter.org/president/taylor/campaigns-and-elections
Page 56, Position 1: US President William McKinley could shake hands 50 times a minute.: https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1298395/
Page 56, Position 2: The world’s oldest footprints are half a billion years old.: https://newatlas.com/oldest-animal-fossil-footprints/54945/?utm_medium=email&amp
Page 56, Position 3: The first scientist to study dinosaur footprints thought they were made by giant birds.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/edward-hitchcock-dinosaur-fossils-footprints-birds-amherst
Page 56, Position 4: Archaeopteryx was a bird-like dinosaur that was too heavy to sit on its own eggs without cracking them.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2163286-ancient-birds-couldnt-sit-on-their-eggs-without-smashing-them/
Page 57, Position 1: The black feathers of the male superb bird-of-paradise absorb 99.95% of light.: https://www.wired.com/story/the-worlds-most-metal-bird-makes-darkness-out-of-chaos/
Page 57, Position 2: The yellow-billed oxpecker bird sleeps in the armpit of a giraffe.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/animals-serengeti-tanzania-birds/
Page 57, Position 3: Ancient Egyptians used giraffes’ tails as fly swatters.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gsq_CQAAQBAJ&amp
Page 57, Position 4: A male giraffe drinks the urine of a female giraffe to see if she is ovulating.: https://www.popsci.com/giraffe-reproduction-birth-live-stream
Page 58, Position 1: Baby robins can eat so many caterpillars they turn green.: https://www.buzz.ie/entertainment/weird-things-didnt-know-robins-265316
Page 58, Position 2: Baby guillemots are called ‘jumplings’.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007yyky
Page 58, Position 3: Baby humpback whales drink 150 gallons of milk a day.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/science/baby-humpbacks-need-150-gallons-of-whale-milk/
Page 58, Position 4: Female whales have perforated umbilical cords that snap off after birth so the baby can swim to the surface for its first breath.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2rkHQpToi9sC&amp
Page 59, Position 1: When hibernating, woodchucks breathe as little as twice an hour.: http://blog.nwf.org/2011/01/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-groundhogs/
Page 59, Position 2: Breathing the air in New Delhi is equivalent to smoking 45 cigarettes a day.: https://qz.com/india/1124049/air-pollution-in-new-delhi-has-the-health-effect-of-smoking-45-cigarettes-a-day/
Page 59, Position 3: 1 in 3 smartphones in India run out of space every day because millions of Indians send daily ‘Good morning!’ texts with images or video attached.: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-internet-is-filling-up-because-indians-are-sending-millions-of-good-morning-texts-1516640068
Page 59, Position 4: In Honolulu, it’s illegal to cross the street using a mobile phone.: http://www4.honolulu.gov/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-196183/DOC007%20(14).PDF?mc_cid=dd21c8f5ab&amp
Page 60, Position 1: An Apple iPhone contains more than half the elements in the periodic table.: https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/archive/chemmatters-april2015-smartphones.pdf
Page 60, Position 2: Shoppers being absorbed in their phones at the checkout has resulted in a 15% fall in chewing-gum sales.: https://www.businessinsider.com/cell-phones-are-hurting-gum-sales-2013-3?IR=T
Page 60, Position 3: Polyisobutylene is the main ingredient of chewing gum and the inner tubes of bicycle tyres.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-43198104
Page 60, Position 4: A British designer has created a chewing-gum recycling bin made of recycled chewing gum.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-43198104
Page 61, Position 1: Chocolate in the 16th century was prescribed to treat angina, constipation, dysentery, indigestion, haemorrhoids, flatulence and gout.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3708337/
Page 61, Position 2: An 18th-century remedy for headaches was to comb the hair upwards, stroking it with nutmeg and vinegar.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/65413/15-terrifying-18th-century-remedies-what-ails-you
Page 61, Position 3: 19th-century doctors advised growing a beard to ward off illness.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/victorian-era-doctors-prescribed-beards-help-keep-men-healthy-180951471/
Page 61, Position 4: 15% of Americans get sick from eating food every year.: https://www.theguardian.com/animals-farmed/2018/feb/21/dirty-meat-shocking-hygiene-failings-discovered-in-us-pig-and-chicken-plants?mc_cid=5b020b211c&amp
Page 62, Position 1: When Winston Churchill visited the US during Prohibition, he got a doctor’s prescription for an unlimited supply of alcohol.: http://www.openculture.com/2016/05/winston-churchill-gets-a-doctors-note-to-drink-unlimited-alcohol-in-prohibition-america-1932.html
Page 62, Position 2: Churchill’s last words were: ‘I’m bored with it all.’: https://www.phrases.org.uk/quotes/last-words/winston-churchill.html
Page 62, Position 3: The last king of Egypt stole Winston Churchill’s watch.: http://madmonarchs.guusbeltman.nl/madmonarchs/farouk/farouk_bio.htm
Page 62, Position 4: The last emperor of China spent his final years as a street sweeper.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyi#Later_life_.281945.E2.80.931967.29
Page 63, Position 1: 37% of Britons think their jobs are meaningless and don’t contribute to the world.: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/08/12/british-jobs-meaningless/
Page 63, Position 2: 52% of Americans think God is doing a good job.: https://www.businessinsider.com/ppp-poll-questions-public-policy-polling-funny-quirky-obama-romney-2012-11?IR=T
Page 63, Position 3: In ancient Egypt, only gods and royalty could eat marshmallows.: https://www.candyusa.com/candy-types/marshmallows/
Page 63, Position 4: Pharaoh Rameses III made an offering to the Nile god of 11,998 jars of beans.: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/fava-the-magic-bean/
Page 64, Position 1: Pythagoras died because he hated beans and refused to run through a field of them to escape his murderers.: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/fava-the-magic-bean/
Page 64, Position 2: Socrates enjoyed dancing.: https://www.aldaily.com/new-books/did-you-know-that-aristotle-spoke-with-a-lisp-that-socrates-enjoyed-dancin/
Page 64, Position 3: Aristotle had a lisp.: https://www.aldaily.com/new-books/did-you-know-that-aristotle-spoke-with-a-lisp-that-socrates-enjoyed-dancin/
Page 64, Position 4: Karl Marx spent more than half his life in England.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx https://www.pressreader.com/uk/bbc-history-magazine/20180419/282454234565834
Page 65, Position 1: Thomas Young, the first person to decipher the Rosetta Stone, had read the Bible twice by the age of four.: https://www.emma.cam.ac.uk/about/history/famous/?id=9
Page 65, Position 2: The Bible has no mention of purgatory.: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-purgatory-in-the-bible
Page 65, Position 3: Utah has a prison called the Purgatory Correctional Facility .: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purgatory_Correctional_Facility
Page 65, Position 4: Prisoners in Brazil can have their sentences reduced by knitting.: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2013/aug/04/brazilian-prisoners-knit-for-fashion-designer-in-pictures
Page 66, Position 1: Because Sweden is going cashless, Swedish criminals have been reduced to stealing owls.: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/stealing-owls/559136/
Page 66, Position 2: Australian Bassian thrushes use their farts like leaf blowers to uncover worms.: http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/bookshelf/101910/extreme-birds-the-world-s-most-extraordinary-and-bizarre-birds
Page 66, Position 3: Giant predatory hammerhead worms from Asia are invading France.: https://qz.com/1285418/giant-predatory-worms-from-asia-are-invading-france/
Page 66, Position 4: At the time of the French Revolution, only half the population of France spoke French and only 1 in 8 could speak it well.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/world/national-identity-myth.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180301&amp
Page 67, Position 1: 1 in 8 young Britons are either bloggers or vloggers.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/03/one-eight-children-vlogger-blogger/
Page 67, Position 2: Steve Jobs never learned to code.: not in first draft. https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-never-wrote-computer-code-for-apple-2013-8?IR=T
Page 67, Position 3: The documentary Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? was found on Osama bin Laden’s computer.: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/osama-bin-laden-files-charlie-bit-my-finger-911-weirdest-discoveries-a8032396.html
Page 67, Position 4: Brian Eno used an Apple Mac to compose the start-up music for Windows 95.: https://www.theindustryobserver.com.au/the-odd-story-of-how-brian-eno-composed-the-windows-95-startup-sound/
Page 68, Position 1: The most dangerous music to play while driving is Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’.: http://nautil.us/issue/9/time/how-music-hijacks-our-perception-of-time
Page 68, Position 2: At the 1967 South African Grand Prix, the Mexican national anthem couldn’t be found, so the organisers played the ‘Mexican Hat Dance’ instead.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Rodr%C3%ADguez_(racing_driver)
Page 68, Position 3: The Czechoslovak national anthem was the Czech national anthem played between two halves of the Slovak national anthem.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/30/czech-national-anthem-faces-makeover-branded-short-not-patriotic/
Page 68, Position 4: Chinese citizens hearing their national anthem are advised to stand still but be full of energy.: https://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/15/world/asia/china-national-anthem-rules/index.html
Page 69, Position 1: The Sun generates more energy in one second than has been used during the whole of human history.: http://lsa.colorado.edu/essence/texts/solar.html
Page 69, Position 2: The centre of the Sun is 40,000 times hotter than boiling water.: https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1997/DedraForbes.shtml
Page 69, Position 3: The strike of a mantis shrimp is so quick it makes the surrounding water boil.: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/shrimp-packs-punch
Page 69, Position 4: Mantis shrimp can see a type of light that no other animals can, and they use it to send each other secret messages.: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2015/11/12/at-last-a-use-for-the-oceans-most-secretive-signals/
Page 70, Position 1: Puffins’ beaks glow in the dark.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/sharks-puffins-animals-biofluorescence-oceans/
Page 70, Position 2: Birds have special feathers that continually disintegrate into powder, making their other feathers waterproof.: http://www.birds.com/blog/waterproof-feathers-birds/
Page 70, Position 3: Rolls-Royce Phantoms have Teflon-coated umbrellas installed in the doors.: https://www.ndtv.com/photos/business/10-facts-every-rolls-royce-fan-should-know-14247#photo-185214
Page 70, Position 4: A new umbrella drone keeps you dry without you having to hold it.: https://mashable.com/2018/06/03/umbrella-drone-hands-free-noise/?europe=true
Page 71, Position 1: A pluviophile is someone who loves rainy days.: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pluviophile
Page 71, Position 2: Malneirophrenia is a bad mood caused by a poor night’s sleep.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/502463/15-obscure-words-everyday-feelings-and-emotions
Page 71, Position 3: Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia is the fear of the number 666.: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia
Page 71, Position 4: A cumlin is Scots for a pet cat that decides to go and live with new owners.: http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/cumlin
Page 72, Position 1: In 19th-century Scotland, to be counted as an island a piece of land had to have enough pasture to support at least one sheep.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-makes-an-island
Page 72, Position 2: Depending on the definition, the number of islands in the world is somewhere between 86,000 and 7 billion.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-makes-an-island
Page 72, Position 3: Palmerston Atoll in the South Pacific has a population of 60, all of whom speak with a Gloucestershire accent.: http://www.cookislands.org.uk/palmerston.html#.WiiNEkpl_IU
Page 72, Position 4: Pheasant Island is owned alternately by France and Spain.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheasant_Island
Page 73, Position 1: Pheasants are more likely to be run over than any other birds.: Western Daily Press 4 Oct 17
Page 73, Position 2: Pheasants will stop attacking each other if given spectacles.: https://www.gwct.org.uk/research/species/birds/common-pheasant/effects-of-spectacles-on-pheasants/
Page 73, Position 3: Scottish football referees are sponsored by Specsavers.: https://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottish-fa/referees/referee-education/sqa-awards-login/
Page 73, Position 4: The first advert on Channel 5 was for Chanel No. 5.: https://faqs.channel5.com/hc/en-us/articles/202738071-What-was-the-first-advert-screened-on-Channel-5-
Page 74, Position 1: Perfume is as bad for your health as car exhaust.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/shampoo-as-bad-a-health-risk-as-car-fumes-hxzbqlbjf
Page 74, Position 2: A Californian company has developed a perfume to make cows smell like people, so mosquitoes bite them instead of us.: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/human-scented-cow-cologne-your-next-insect-repellant-180951672/#vJmyiHklt2ww5Yew.99
Page 74, Position 3: Mosquitoes are responsible for half the deaths in human history.: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/09/the-mosquito-
Page 74, Position 4: The quinine in tonic water is effective against malaria, as long as you drink 300 gin and tonics every day.: http://www.thetraveldoctor.com.au/resources/travelaz/
Page 75, Position 1: It’s harder to tell how drunk you are if surrounded by drunk people.: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2016/09/15/despite-what-you-think-you-probably-dont-know-how-drunk-you-are/#.WejC9jLMzBJ
Page 75, Position 2: There are a dozen pubs in the UK that claim to be ‘Britain’s oldest pub’.: The Pub Pete Brown
Page 75, Position 3: ‘To be arrested by the white sergeant’ is 17th-century slang for a man being hauled out of a tavern by his wife.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZnrnCwAAQBAJ&amp
Page 75, Position 4: To stop postmen loitering in ale houses, they were given smart uniforms.
Page 76, Position 1: Posting a letter from London to Edinburgh in 1818 cost as much as the average daily wage.: https://www.economist.com/news/business/21740790-falling-letter-volumes-and-gig-economy-are-also-hurting-postman-amazon-not-only
Page 76, Position 2: Postage was originally paid by the person receiving the letter, not the sender.: http://www.victorianweb.org/history/pennypos.html
Page 76, Position 3: In 1909, two suffragettes posted themselves to 10 Downing Street to try to get an audience with the prime minister.: https://postalheritage.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/suffragette-human-letters/
Page 76, Position 4: The crowd that greeted Tony Blair when he first entered Downing Street had been bussed in.: https://www.ft.com/content/bcfe0106-edee-11e6-930f-061b01e23655
Page 77, Position 1: The winning tree in the annual competition of the British Christmas Tree Growers’ Association is displayed outside No. 10, and the runner-up goes inside.: https://www.hortweek.com/welsh-grower-wins-xmas-tree-downing-st-competition/ornamentals/article/1447791
Page 77, Position 2: Artificial Christmas trees are less environmentally friendly than real ones, unless you use them for more than 20 years.: https://www.zmescience.com/other/feature-post/real-vs-artificial-christmas-tree-science-says/
Page 77, Position 3: There is only one person in the UK called Mr Baubles.: https://www.bctga.co.uk/gallery/press-releases/87-three-kings-living-in-bedfordshire-christmassy-name.html
Page 77, Position 4: There are 16 people in England with the surname Grinch.: https://www.bctga.co.uk/gallery/press-releases/87-three-kings-living-in-bedfordshire-christmassy-name.html
Page 78, Position 1: The official names of Scotland’s salt-spreading trucks include Sir Andy Flurry , Ready Spready Go and Gritty Gritty Bang Bang.: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/gritters-in-scotland-have-names-like-gritty-gritty-bang-bang-and-you-can-track-them-on-a-map-a3741576.html
Page 78, Position 2: Bin lorries in Taiwan play music to alert residents to bring out their rubbish.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/09/taiwan-garbage-trucks-music_n_1195020.html
Page 78, Position 3: 7% of the land in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, is covered in rubbish dumps.: http://oc-media.org/drowning-in-rubbish-bakus-waste-management-headache/
Page 78, Position 4: There are more than 180 tonnes of rubbish on the Moon.: https://technologynews.site/2018/01/31/although-we-do-not-live-on-the-moon-yet-we-left-over-180-tons-of-rubbish-on-it/
Page 79, Position 1: Every time there’s a full moon, Sri Lanka has a public holiday.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Sri_Lanka#List_of_holidays
Page 79, Position 2: In China, public holidays last a week because it takes so long to travel across the country.: http://s.coop/chinabook
Page 79, Position 3: 23 March is a Bolivian public holiday called The Day of the Sea, on which the landlocked country mourns the loss of its coastline in 1893.: http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/04-10/bolivias-day-of-the-sea-bolivia.html
Page 79, Position 4: Aston Martin has developed a luxury submarine.: https://www.dezeen.com/2017/10/04/aston-martin-triton-project-neptune-luxury-submarine-monaco-yacht-show/
Page 80, Position 1: The Icelandic for ‘the cherryon top’ is rúsínan í pylsuendanum, ‘the raisin at the end of the sausage’.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/64451/11-delightful-icelandic-words-and-phrases
Page 80, Position 2: Laddie Boy, President Warren Harding’s dog, not only went to state meetings, he had his own chair.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-white-houses-first-celebrity-dog-48373830/
Page 80, Position 3: A luxury hotel in Mexico provides each guest with a personalised sewing kit whose threads match the clothes they’re wearing.: https://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21591743-be-my-guest
Page 80, Position 4: The Bayeux Tapestry is not a tapestry.: http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk/bayeuxinfo.htm
Page 81, Position 1: According to the UK Department of Health, the potato is not a vegetable.: http://discovermagazine.com/2000/apr/breakfolk
Page 81, Position 2: Turkmenistan has a public holiday to celebrate melons.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3142311.stm
Page 81, Position 3: The watermelon is the state vegetable of Oklahoma.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/18/usa.matthewweaver
Page 81, Position 4: In the 19th century, the US Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes are vegetables.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/18/the-obscure-supreme-court-case-that-decided-tomatoes-are-vegetables/
Page 82, Position 1: The oldest known mashed potatoes were discovered in Utah and are 10,900 years old.: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/prehistoric-mashed-potato-10900-years-utah-valley-scientists-escalante-a7820586.html
Page 82, Position 2: Climate change is causing ancient mummies to turn into black slime.: https://www.sciencealert.com/the-world-s-oldest-mummies-are-turning-into-black-slime-why
Page 82, Position 3: King Ferdinand I of Naples had his enemies killed, stuffed, mummified and mounted in their everyday clothes.
Page 82, Position 4: Clothes are eaten by only seven of the UK’s 2,500 species of moth.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44080884
Page 83, Position 1: There’s a caterpillar that eats coca leaves and vomits cocaine onto its predators.: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ae38xj/the-moths-that-could-destroy-colombias-cocaine-trade
Page 83, Position 2: Nematocampa caterpillars hate being shouted at.: https://nerdist.com/this-shape-shifting-caterpillar-hates-being-yelled-at/
Page 83, Position 3: The ‘shouting bomb’, developed by the US in 1957, was designed to lecture the enemy for three minutes as it fell from the sky.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MeNttzvGPI0C&amp
Page 83, Position 4: During the Second World War, Foyle’s bookshop bomb-proofed itself by covering the roof with copies of Mein Kampf.: https://europeupclose.com/article/book-tour-of-london/
Page 84, Position 1: Vellichor is the strange wistfulness of a second-hand bookshop.: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/internets-favorite-words/vellichor
Page 84, Position 2: Jólabókaflóð is Iceland’s official book-buying season, which runs from September to December.: https://jolabokaflod.org/about/founding-story/
Page 84, Position 3: Winners of the Diagram Prize for the ‘Oddest Book Title of the Year’ include Living with Crazy Buttocks and Cooking with Poo.: https://www.thebookseller.com/feature/diagram-prize-previous-winners
Page 84, Position 4: Barbara Cartland insisted on including the title of every one of her 723 novels in her Who’s Who entry.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Cartland
Page 85, Position 1: The library at Balmoral is heated by a two-bar electric fire.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/04/queen-frugal-would-appall-henry-viii-historian-says/
Page 85, Position 2: Every year, 100 American fire fighters are arrested for arson.: https://listverse.com/2016/08/05/10-surprising-facts-about-firefighters/
Page 85, Position 3: Fire fighters used to shout ‘Hi yi, hi yi, hi yi’ as they ran to a fire.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rXnLDgAAQBAJ&amp
Page 85, Position 4: Fireman Sam’s full name is Samuel Peyton Jones.: http://firemansam.wikia.com/wiki/Fireman_Sam_(character)
Page 86, Position 1: Postman Pat’s full name is Patrick Clifton.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/cbeebiesgrownups/entries/a840cb6b-eae8-3de6-b432-622b9f026145
Page 86, Position 2: A petition to change the name of Bell End, in the West Midlands, was called ‘a bit silly’ by Stephen Young, 72, of Minge Lane, Worcester.: https://news.sky.com/story/bell-end-residents-launch-petition-to-change-rude-street-name-11193060
Page 86, Position 3: The designer of the Spitfire hated its name, saying, ‘It’s just the sort of bloody silly name they would choose.’: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KBMgCgAAQBAJ&amp
Page 86, Position 4: Dunkin’ Donuts is taking steps to drop the word ‘Donuts’ from its name.: https://qz.com/1047486/dunkin-donuts-dnkn-is-testing-out-a-competitive-new-brand-name-change/?mc_cid=13cb2eef76&amp
Page 87, Position 1: Tunnock’s teacakes aren’t allowed in RAF planes in case they explode.: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/retired-raf-bomber-reveals-secret-2275633
Page 87, Position 2: Bumblebees’ penises explode when they ejaculate.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/31456502/valentines-day-the-animals-that-dont-do-romance
Page 87, Position 3: 1% of middle-aged honeybees work as undertakers.: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/09/970910052734.htm
Page 87, Position 4: According to her last wishes, Elizabeth Taylor arrived late for her own funeral.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/8405620/Elizabeth-Taylor-arrives-late-for-her-own-funeral.html
Page 88, Position 1: Over 2 million people went to Victor Hugo’s funeral – twice the population of Paris at the time.: https://isreview.org/issue/89/enduring-relevance-victor-hugo
Page 88, Position 2: The population of Bangladesh is 114% the size of Russia’s, crammed into an area 115 times smaller.: https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=firefox-b&amp
Page 88, Position 3: In 1926, Poland gave the US a 150th birthday card signed by 20% of the population.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/07/03/americas-standing-may-be-tumbling-now-but-once-upon-a-time-poland-sent-the-u-s-a-birthday-card-with-5-million-signatures/?utm_term=.b3635da1059f
Page 88, Position 4: Inappropriate behaviour on the Queen’s Official Birthday caused a goat that had reached the rank of lance corporal in the British Army to be demoted.: http://www.debate.org/opinions/a-goat-reached-the-rank-of-lance-corporal-in-the-british-army-before-being-demoted-for-inappropriate-behavior-during-the-queens-official-birthday-do-we-assign-too-much-importance-to-animals
Page 89, Position 1: James Cook’s goat was the first known female to have circumnavigated the globe.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=F2wTAgAAQBAJ&amp
Page 89, Position 2: Goats produce more milk when listening to ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’.: https://nypost.com/2014/12/13/8-things-you-didnt-know-about-all-i-want-for-christmas-is-you/
Page 89, Position 3: The first Glastonbury tickets cost £1 and came with a free bottle of milk.: http://www.headheritage.co.uk/uknow/features/?id=36
Page 89, Position 4: The Vatican uses milk from the Pope’s cows to paint its buildings.: https://www.dairyherd.com/article/how-do-you-paint-vatican-milk-popes-cows
Page 90, Position 1: The Pope has eight titles, and not one of them is ‘the Pope’.: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/Pope-Titles--196518461.html?amp=y
Page 90, Position 2: Pope Formosus died and was buried in 896, but was dug up, tried and found guilty in 897.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/morbid-monday-cadaver-synod
Page 90, Position 3: Pope Francis has his own 68-page weekly magazine.: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/world/europe/a-new-magazine-for-fans-of-the-vaticans-biggest-star.html
Page 90, Position 4: The person who writes about legal marijuana for Forbes magazine is called Julie Weed.: http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-names/having-the-right-name-at-the-right-or-sometimes-wrong-time-idUKKCN1C425Q?feedType=nl&amp
Page 91, Position 1: Only two land animals survive entirely on seaweed: the North Ronaldsay sheep and the Galapagos marine iguana.: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/seaweed-sheep-north-ronaldsay-orkney-festival?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 91, Position 2: Sea urchins wear dead hermit crabs as hats.: http://www.backtothesea.org/blog/guest-post-urchins-wearing-hats
Page 91, Position 3: Straw hats in the US were traditionally worn after 15 September; any earlier and they would be snatched off your head and stomped on.: http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/04/03/straw_hat_riot_remembering_one_of_the_weirdest_crime_sprees_in_american.html
Page 91, Position 4: The earliest re-enactments of the American Civil War took place during the American Civil War.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/civil-war-reenactments-were-thing-even-during-civil-war-180967405/
Page 92, Position 1: During the American Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant got so drunk that he vomited into his horse’s mane.: https://www.history.com/news/a-brief-history-of-presidential-drinking
Page 92, Position 2: In 1873, the Spanish city of Cartagena wrote to President Ulysses S. Grant to ask to join the US.: http://eldoblecero.blogspot.com/2013/09/cuando-cartagena-quiso-ser-de-estados.html
Page 92, Position 3: The world’s shortest international bridge connects Spain to Portugal and is 3.2 metres long.: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-worlds-shortest-international-bridge?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 92, Position 4: To travel between the Portuguese towns of Funchal and Monte you can rent a toboggan.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/toboggan-monte-funchal
Page 93, Position 1: Superionic ice is both solid and liquid at the same time.: https://www.livescience.com/62373-superionic-ice-lab-created.html
Page 93, Position 2: The world’s hottest ice cream, which contains peppers 100 times hotter than a jalapeño, is called Devil’s Breath and is made in Glasgow.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/respiro-del-diavolo-ice-cream?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 93, Position 3: The Scottish mountain Bod an Deamhain, ‘penis of the demon’, is usually translated into English as The Devil’s Point.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil%27s_Point
Page 93, Position 4: Titivillus was a demon blamed by medieval monks for spelling misatkes.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titivillus
Page 94, Position 1: Male proboscis monkeys are more likely to attract a large harem if they have big noses.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/animals-monkeys-sex-noses-mating/
Page 94, Position 2: Your nose looks 30% bigger in a selfie than in a photo taken from five metres away.: https://www.livescience.com/61896-why-selfies-distort-your-face-math.html
Page 94, Position 3: Robotic noses smell more efficiently if filled with fake snot.: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/07/11/robotic.nose/index.html
Page 94, Position 4: Saudi Arabia was the first country to grant citizenship to a robot.: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/saudi-arabia-robot-sophia-citizenship-android-riyadh-citizen-passport-future-a8021601.html
Page 95, Position 1: Senior citizens in New Zealand can join ‘coffin clubs’, where they meet up once a week to make and decorate their own coffins.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/10/new-zealand-coffin-club-death-music-spd/
Page 95, Position 2: Homeless Victorians could pay fourpence to sleep in an unused coffin for the night.: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_penny_coffin
Page 95, Position 3: The first meat pies were called ‘coffins’.: https://www.puckles.com.au/pages/a-history-of-meat-pies
Page 95, Position 4: Pie Town, New Mexico, got its name when a prospector who had failed to find gold sold dried-fruit pies to cowboys instead.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pie-town-new-mexico
Page 96, Position 1: Albuquerque, New Mexico, has a giant X-ray machine that melts diamonds and makes electricity that moves 20,000 times faster than a bolt of lightning.: http://newatlas.com/black-hole-theory-wrong/51123/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&amp
Page 96, Position 2: Lightning produces antimatter.: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24630
Page 96, Position 3: The Earth’s largest habitat is the sky.: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2017/10/copley-blue-planet.page
Page 96, Position 4: Baltimore has ‘an eye in the sky’ that continually photographs the city for the police.: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/24/baltimore-police-aerial-surveillance-cameras
Page 97, Position 1: Some police stations in China use guard geese instead of guard dogs.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10190456/China-deploys-elite-gaggle-of-geese-police.html
Page 97, Position 2: In 1st-century Denmark, rich people were buried with a chicken; the veryrich were buried with a goose.: https://www.thelocal.dk/20180406/nordic-iron-ages-biggest-status-symbol-was-a-goose-danish-research
Page 97, Position 3: Che Guevara was buried without his hands: they were sent to Argentina for fingerprinting.: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/05/15/the-surprising-history-and-future-of-fingerprints/?utm_source=digg&amp
Page 97, Position 4: God and Jesus are the only characters in The Simpsons to have five fingers on each hand.: https://www.today.com/popculture/25-years-simpsons-25-things-you-never-knew-about-hit-1D80353418
Page 98, Position 1: 10 out of the 12 water companies in the UK still make use of divining rods.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-42070719
Page 98, Position 2: An underwater pipeline discovered by border officials in Kyrgyzstan in 2013 was used to smuggle alcohol into the country from Kazakhstan.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23723092
Page 98, Position 3: Kazakh engineers have invented reusable toilet paper.: https://frontnews.eu/news/en/14460/Kazakh-engineers-have-created-reusable-toilet-paper
Page 98, Position 4: British soldiers in the Second World War had a ration of three sheets of toilet paper a day. US soldiers were allowed 22.5 sheets a day.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ceXQCwAAQBAJ&amp
Page 99, Position 1: The penalty for taking an unofficial photo during the First World War was death by firing squad.: http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/masterman.htm
Page 99, Position 2: During the Second World War, Finnish frontline soldiers were provided with saunas.: http://inktank.fi/sweating-war-finnish-wwii-soldiers-sauna/
Page 99, Position 3: When Peter III of Russia caught a rat gnawing one of his toy soldiers, he had it court-martialled and hanged on a miniature gallows.: http://historythings.com/historys-nutcases-peter-iii-of-russia/
Page 99, Position 4: Piglets prefer new toys to ones they’ve already played with.: https://news.aces.illinois.edu/news/behavior-study-shows-piglets-prefer-new-toys
Page 100, Position 1: 4,000 children under the age of two are listed as owners of British companies.: https://qz.com/1250047/pavel-durovs-fake-telgeram-case-shows-its-terrifyingly-easy-to-create-fake-uk-companies/
Page 100, Position 2: The average child has the aerobic fitness of a triathlon athlete.: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2018/04/24/children-fitness-endurance-athlete/#.WuOb51Mvyu4
Page 100, Position 3: Harrods used to sell pet leopards.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4833450.stm
Page 100, Position 4: The first pet cemetery opened in Paris in 1899, after the introduction of a law that banned throwing dead dogs into the Seine.: https://www.geriwalton.com/first-pet-cemetery-in-the-world/
Page 101, Position 1: The first St Bernard was called Barry .: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_(dog)
Page 101, Position 2: Right-pawed dogs are more cheerful than left-pawed dogs.: https://scienmag.com/right-or-left-handedness-affects-sign-language-comprehension/
Page 101, Position 3: It’s easier to understand sign language if the signer is right-handed.: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2017/05/sign-language-comprehension.aspx
Page 101, Position 4: Scientists can tell whether early humans were left- or right-handed by looking at their fossilised teeth.: https://www.livescience.com/56613-oldest-evidence-right-handedness.html
Page 102, Position 1: Pangolins have no teeth; they grind food in their stomachs by swallowing small stones.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/11370277/Pangolins-why-this-cute-prehistoric-mammal-is-facing-extinction.html
Page 102, Position 2: The Makira people of the Solomon Islands use flying-fox teeth as currency .: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2017/10/16/flying-fox-currency/#.WjP7U1SFiqA
Page 102, Position 3: Piranhas continually replace a quarter of their teeth at a time.: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1978.tb03306.x/abstract
Page 102, Position 4: Piranhas bark.: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/111012-piranhas-bark-science-get-away/
Page 103, Position 1: There’s a train in Japan that barks like a dog to scare deer off the line.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-42714353
Page 103, Position 2: Quaking aspen trees produce their own sunscreen.: 'The walker's guide to outdoor clues & signs' by Tristan Gooley (Sceptre 2015)
Page 103, Position 3: Pisonia trees lure birds to their death for no good reason.: https://curiosity.com/topics/the-pisonia-tree-lures-and-murders-birds-for-no-good-reason-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&amp
Page 103, Position 4: Trees have a veryslow pulse, expanding and contracting to pump water round their body.: https://curiosity.com/topics/trees-may-have-a-heartbeat-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&amp
Page 104, Position 1: Horses have five ‘hearts’: each hoof acts as an extra blood pump.: https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-interesting-facts-about-horses
Page 104, Position 2: People who walk slowly are more likely to die of heart disease.: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/slow-walkers-heart-disease-more-likely-risk-study-a7921501.html
Page 104, Position 3: Babies born in October are more likely to live to 100 than those born in March.: http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jar/2011/104616/
Page 104, Position 4: When a sperm meets an egg and conception takes place, zinc atoms are released and sparks literally fly .: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/04/26/bright-flash-of-light-marks-incredible-moment-life-begins-when-s/
Page 105, Position 1: A study at the University of Illinois has concluded that sex doesn’t sell.: https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/522402
Page 105, Position 2: Ted Hughes was so attractive that one woman who met him had to rush straight to the bathroom to be physically sick.: https://harpers.org/archive/2016/01/same-mistakes/
Page 105, Position 3: John Wilkes Booth, the man who shot Abraham Lincoln, was dating five different women when he himself was shot.: http://allthatsinteresting.com/john-wilkes-booth-women
Page 105, Position 4: A sex pheromone found in male mouse urine is named darcin, after Mr Darcy .: https://www.livescience.com/10662-urine-pheromone-mice-named-jane-austen-character.html
Page 106, Position 1: Skúffuskáld is Icelandic for someone who puts their poems in a drawer rather than publishing them.: http://www.forwardartsfoundation.org/forward-arts-foundation-in-conversation-with-nancy-campbell/
Page 106, Position 2: Mbuki-mvuki is a Bantu word for ‘the irresistible urge to strip when dancing’.: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170126-the-untranslatable-emotions-you-never-knew-you-had
Page 106, Position 3: Sisu is Finnish for ‘indomitable courage and persistence in the face of adversity’.: http://www.finlandia.edu/about/our-finnish-heritage/
Page 106, Position 4: Uitwaaien is Dutch for ‘to take a bracing walk in the wind’.: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170126-the-untranslatable-emotions-you-never-knew-you-had
Page 107, Position 1: Ancient Greek athletes had their spleens removed to help them to run faster.: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5337376
Page 107, Position 2: The verb ‘run’ has 645 meanings in English.: https://www.npr.org/2011/05/30/136796448/has-run-run-amok-it-has-645-meanings-so-far
Page 107, Position 3: At the 1932 Olympics, the steeplechase lasted 8.5 laps instead of the usual 7.5 because officials lost track of how many times the runners had been round.: https://theolympians.co/2017/02/25/the-unseen-hurdle-in-the-steeplechase-at-the-1932-los-angeles-olympics-when-3000-meters-measured-about-3460/
Page 107, Position 4: In anonymous surveys, half of all athletes admit cheating.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/30/nearly-half-professional-athletes-surveyed-break-rules-enhance/
Page 108, Position 1: The findings of a 2015 study about procrastination were inconclusive because half the participants didn’t get around to finishing the survey.: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221478291500024X?_rdoc=1&amp
Page 108, Position 2: The Procrastinators’ Club of America has earmarked 5 September as Be Late for Something Day.: https://nationaldaycalendar.com/days-2/national-be-late-for-something-day-september-5/
Page 108, Position 3: Neil Armstrong’s application to become an astronaut arrived at NASA a week after the deadline.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34170799
Page 108, Position 4: Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit had 21 layers and weighed 36 kg.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/neil-armstrongs-spacesuit-was-made-by-a-bra-manufacturer-3652414/
Page 109, Position 1: NASA is designing a clockwork rover for Venus: the planet is so hot it would melt the electronics in a normal one.: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/a-clockwork-rover-for-venus/
Page 109, Position 2: Three NASA astronauts have appeared in Star Trek.: https://www.space.com/38340-star-trek-astronaut-cameos-history.html
Page 109, Position 3: The first series of Star Trek was made by Lucille Ball’s production company . She originally thought it was a show about celebrities on tour.: http://uk.businessinsider.com/lucille-ball-is-the-reason-we-have-star-trek-heres-what-happened-2016-7
Page 109, Position 4: David Bowie first appeared on television aged 17, as the founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men.: https://mashable.com/2016/03/17/david-bowie-long-hair/?europe=true
Page 110, Position 1: Men are half as likely as women to be naturally blond.: https://www.elle.com/uk/beauty/hair/a19837242/hair-colour-explained-genes-study/
Page 110, Position 2: Pogonotrophy is the cultivation of a beard.: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/239305?redirectedFrom=Pogonotrophy+#eid
Page 110, Position 3: The entire British supply of yak hair was used up making false beards for The Hobbit.: https://www.belgraviacentre.com/blog/yaks-beards-and-blockbusters-hair-and-the-hobbit/
Page 110, Position 4: Peter the Great introduced a beard tax for everyone except clergy and peasants.: zcxjmh https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dhm0cGdrTOIC&amp
Page 111, Position 1: In 1943, the US banned sliced bread.: http://time.com/3946461/sliced-bread-history/
Page 111, Position 2: 20% of sandwich varieties account for 80% of sales.: https://longreads.com/2017/11/30/the-sandwich-whisperer-of-victoria-street/
Page 111, Position 3: Prawn mayonnaise has been Marks & Spencer’s bestselling sandwich since 1981.: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the-sandwich-consumed-britain
Page 111, Position 4: Mrs Beeton had a recipe for a toast sandwich.: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the-sandwich-consumed-britain
Page 112, Position 1: Beetles have become 20% smaller over the last century.: https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/animals-ecology/beetles-shrunk-20-past-century-likely-due-climate-change/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 112, Position 2: The real-life policeman who inspired Sgt. Pepper didn’t like The Beatles.: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/real-sgt-pepper-was-straitlaced-canadian-cop-no-fan-of-the-beatles-1.3439578
Page 112, Position 3: The police in Rome have an undercover squad that stops people jumping in fountains.: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/world/europe/no-swimming-rome-braces-for-summer-of-tourists-at-its-fountains.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fjason-horowitz&amp
Page 112, Position 4: A waterside restaurant in Perth, Australia, hands out water pistols so that diners can repel the seagulls.: https://thetakeout.com/restaurant-arms-diners-with-squirt-guns-to-ward-off-god-1826227619
Page 113, Position 1: Australia is slightly wider than the Moon.: https://www.quora.com/Is-Australia-bigger-than-the-moon
Page 113, Position 2: Australia is an island 20 times the size of Japan, but with a shorter coastline.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/countries-with-longest-coastlines/
Page 113, Position 3: Galešnjak is a heart-shaped island in Croatia also known as ‘the Island of Love’.: https://www.frankaboutcroatia.com/galesnjak-lovers-island-croatia/
Page 113, Position 4: The average heart rate in San Francisco rose by four beats per minute the day Donald Trump was elected.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2167883-brexit-and-trump-votes-screwed-with-our-heart-rates-for-months/
Page 114, Position 1: Holding hands causes heart rates, breathing and brainwaves to synchronise.: https://www.colorado.edu/today/2017/06/21/lovers-touch-eases-pain-heartbeats-breathing-sync
Page 114, Position 2: Hand-dryers in public toilets blow faecal bacteria all round the room and spread it evenly over your hands.: https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/hand-dryers-hygienic-04321423/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 114, Position 3: 7% of Netflix users watch movies in public toilets.: https://qz.com/1128973/people-watch-netflix-at-work-and-in-public-bathrooms/?mc_cid=5d17bce889&amp
Page 114, Position 4: The pig toilet, once common in rural China, fed human waste straight to the pigs.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_toilet
Page 115, Position 1: In Germany , you can be fined €2,500 for calling someone an ‘old pig’.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=C7REDgAAQBAJ&amp
Page 115, Position 2: During the First World War, truces would occasionally be called in the trenches so both sides could yell insults at each other.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223549/WWI-soldiers-diary-reveals-trench-truce-day-calling-mans-land.html
Page 115, Position 3: During the Christmas truce of 1914, one English soldier got a haircut from a German who used to be his barber in Holborn.: http://noglory.org/index.php/articles/182-how-true-is-the-1914-christmas-truce-when-enemies-played-football-instead-of-killing-each-other
Page 115, Position 4: In 1865, the Duke of Buckingham was blown from Holborn to Euston through a pneumatic tube intended for parcels.: https://www.newstatesman.com/future-proof/2013/12/londons-victorian-hyperloop-forgotten-pneumatic-railway-beneath-capitals-street
Page 116, Position 1: Roman maps gave exact distances between towns and rated the roadside inns and the road quality .: https://books.google.ru/books?hl=ru&amp
Page 116, Position 2: In Iceland, drawing a map on an envelope works just as well as writing the address.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/85583/iceland-drawing-map-your-mail-works-just-well-address
Page 116, Position 3: Until 2011, buildings in South Korea were numbered according to when they were built.: https://globalz.com/2016/01/15/south-koreas-new-addressing-system/
Page 116, Position 4: When the River Han in Korea was crossed by tightrope walkers, the Washington Post reported: ‘Skywalkers in Korea Cross Han Solo’.: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050300374.html
Page 117, Position 1: The Yellow River in China has lost 30% of its fish species, and 66% of its water is undrinkable.: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jan/18/china.pollution
Page 117, Position 2: Only 36% of Americans can locate North Korea on a map.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/09/nearly-two-thirds-of-americans-cant-find-north-korea-on-a-map-can-you/
Page 117, Position 3: There are Google Maps for the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Pluto, four of Jupiter’s moons and seven of Saturn’s.: https://www.blog.google/products/maps/space-out-planets-google-maps/
Page 117, Position 4: One of the moons of Uranus is called Margaret.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_(moon)
Page 118, Position 1: Uranus is the coldest planet in the Solar System, even though it’s nearer to the Sun than Neptune.: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-makes-uranus-the-coldest-planet-in-the-solar-system.html
Page 118, Position 2: 99% of the time, the temperature on Mars is below zero.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/weather-report-mars
Page 118, Position 3: Mars has distanced itself from the deep-fried Mars bar because it goes against the company’s ‘commitment to promoting healthy, active lifestyles’.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-19487149
Page 118, Position 4: There is a pig farm in Japan where the pigs only drink green tea.: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/05/11/national/shizuoka-farm-plies-pigs-green-tea-instead-water/#.W2lOUDLMzBI
Page 119, Position 1: Over half the farmworkers in the US work in Texas.: http://digg.com/2018/iconics-jobs-state-map
Page 119, Position 2: The most common job in America today is shop assistant.: https://www.ranker.com/list/most-common-jobs-in-america/american-jobs
Page 119, Position 3: Shops in Romania may offer chewing gum instead of small change.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17078958
Page 119, Position 4: Kraft Foods in China tried replacing the filling in Oreo biscuits with chewing gum, but it didn’t catch on.: https://qz.com/1265179/krafts-jif-jaff-is-an-oreo-lookalike-tailor-made-for-chinese-consumers/
Page 120, Position 1: In 2005, a red panda called Babu escaped from a nature reserve in Birmingham and was voted ‘Brummie of the Year’.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-23533303
Page 120, Position 2: When a new motorway bisected the HP Sauce factory in Birmingham, a pipeline was installed that carried vinegar from one side of the road to the sauce-mixing department on the other.: Morning Star
Page 120, Position 3: Noisy miners are small birds of the honeyeater family.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/australian-magpie-calls-8252723/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 120, Position 4: Vulture bees make honey from rotten meat.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulture_bee
Page 121, Position 1: If butterflies eat road salt, the males become more muscular and the females get bigger eyes and brains.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25704-butterflies-near-salted-roads-grow-larger-eyes-and-muscles/
Page 121, Position 2: Passion-fruit vines deter butterflies from laying eggs on their leaves by growing mock butterfly eggs.: https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/plants-that-act-like-people/
Page 121, Position 3: Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, is home to a tiny frog called a pinkletink.: https://patch.com/massachusetts/marthasvineyard/what-is-a-pinkletink
Page 121, Position 4: Tiny moons in Saturn’s rings named after kittens include Fluffy , Garfield, Socks, Whiskers, Butterball and Mittens.: https://www.iflscience.com/space/bits-of-saturns-rings-are-being-named-after-kittens/
Page 122, Position 1: Journalist Christopher Morley called his two cats Shall and Will, because ‘nobody can tell them apart’.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GTz2TuBMnNAC&amp
Page 122, Position 2: Lyndon B. Johnson had two beagles called Him and Her.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_pets
Page 122, Position 3: When Gavin Williamson was Conservative chief whip, he kept a tarantula called Cronus on his desk.: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/gavin-williamson-michael-fallon-chief-whip-defence-secretary-pet-tarantula-cronus-a8033366.html
Page 122, Position 4: Spiders have hydraulic legs.: https://asknature.org/strategy/legs-use-hydraulics/
Page 123, Position 1: The first hydraulic lift was used to carry sheep onto a roof.: https://leedsnorthern.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/the-dark-side-of-temple-works-holbecks-urban-gem/
Page 123, Position 2: If you lift a kangaroo’s tail off the ground, it can’t hop.: https://www.express.co.uk/pictures/pics/6180/Amazing-facts-you-didn-t-know-about-animals-in-pictures
Page 123, Position 3: Almost 10% of a cat’s bones are in its tail.: https://www.catster.com/lifestyle/cat-tail-5-cool-facts
Page 123, Position 4: Luna moths avoid being eaten by bats by using their tails as sonar deflectors.: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150218191559.htm
Page 124, Position 1: The odds of being bitten by a shark, bear or snake in any three-year period is 893 quadrillion to one.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/odds-of-man-bit-shark-bear-snake-dylan-mcwilliams-animals-spd/
Page 124, Position 2: Lima bean plants attacked by spider mites release a burst of chemicals that attract insects which then eat the spider mites.: https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/plants-that-act-like-people/
Page 124, Position 3: The tea mite, Tuckerella japonica, has been lurking in cups of tea for 3,000 years.: http://smithsonianscience.org/2014/05/primitive-bizarre-beautiful-mites-are-a-lost-world-awaiting-discovery/
Page 124, Position 4: There’s only one species of tea plant.: Miracle Brew Pete Brown
Page 125, Position 1: Tea leaves uncurl when hot water is poured on them, in a process known as the ‘agony of the leaves’.: http://www.theteahousetimes.com/members/theteahousetimes/blog/VIEW/00000004/00000700/Ahhhthe-Agony-of-the-Tea-Leaves.html
Page 125, Position 2: The world’s largest amphibian makes a sound like a crying baby.: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/how-a-pyramid-scheme-doomed-the-worlds-largest-amphibians/560786/
Page 125, Position 3: The call of the male túngara frog of Central America sounds like a Star Trek phaser.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/science/animals-count-numbers.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180206&amp
Page 125, Position 4: Parrots use Alexa to order items from Amazon.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4902954/Amazon-order-parrot-uses-Alexa.html
Page 126, Position 1: When ducks sleep in a row, the ones at either end sleep with their outside eye open, looking for predators.: https://neuwritesd.org/2017/04/27/half-asleep/
Page 126, Position 2: Fish swim faster in city rivers than in country rivers.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2170007-in-big-cities-even-the-fish-are-always-rushing-around-the-place/?utm_campaign=RSS|NSNS
Page 126, Position 3: The first English reference to fish-and-chip shops called them ‘a considerable source of nuisance’.: OED
Page 126, Position 4: Shops sell more clothes if their mannequins have a head.: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S014829631500209X
Page 127, Position 1: Shrews’ heads are 20% bigger in the summer than in winter.: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/scientists-shed-light-on-amazing-shrinking-shrew-skull.htm#mkcpgn=rssnws1
Page 127, Position 2: The pen-tailed tree shrew’s entire diet is fermented nectar containing up to 3.8% alcohol.: http://www.livescience.com/7540-tree-shrew-sober-drinking-day.html
Page 127, Position 3: Alcohol helps you speak foreign languages better.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/alcohol-helps-pronunciation-foreign-language/
Page 127, Position 4: The International Bartenders Association recognises only 77 cocktails.: http://iba-world.com/contemporary-classics/
Page 128, Position 1: One of the pilgrims on the Mayflower sailed with 139 pairs of shoes.: http://www.dummies.com/education/history/american-history/the-mayflower-compact-a-dutch-pilgrimage/
Page 128, Position 2: First names of pilgrims on the Mayflower included Remember, Resolve, Humility , Truelove and Wrestling.: https://www.geni.com/projects/The-First-American-Thanksgiving/30215
Page 128, Position 3: When the royal family changed its name in 1917 because it was too German, new names considered included Guelph, Wipper, Wettin, Tudor-Stuart and England.: http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/wettin-windsor-changing-royal-name/
Page 128, Position 4: The royal family is named after Windsor Castle.: https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/752571/royal-family-tree-last-name
Page 129, Position 1: A man in Rio has lived in a sandcastle since 1996.: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5388445/man-lives-brazil-beach-rio-de-janerio-sandcastle-22-years/
Page 129, Position 2: Saturn’s moon Titan has electrostatic sand that would be perfect for sandcastles.: http://www.news.gatech.edu/2017/03/27/electric-sands-titan
Page 129, Position 3: The world’s largest sandcastle was built in Germany , 180 km from the coast.: https://www.nola.com/travel/index.ssf/2017/09/worlds_tallest_sandcastle_buil.html
Page 129, Position 4: You can be fined €1,000 for taking sand from Sardinia.: https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/4312711/holidaymakers-are-being-fined-thousands-of-pounds-for-taking-souvenirs-of-sand-from-sardinias-beaches/
Page 130, Position 1: In 2018, after a nine-year legal battle, an unemployed man in southern Italy was acquitted of stealing an aubergine.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/27/italian-man-cleared-of-aubergine-theft-after-nine-year-legal-battle?CMP=twt_gu
Page 130, Position 2: The Lamborghini Countach gets its name from the Piedmontese slang for ‘Holy shit!’: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-chasing-perfection-ferruccio-lamborghini-took-the-fast-lane-1527771601
Page 130, Position 3: There has been only one posthumous Formula 1 champion.: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/mar/03/formula-one-motor-sport-jochen-rindt-scott-hunt
Page 130, Position 4: Mexico City’s Day of the Dead parade didn’t exist until it appeared in the James Bond film Spectre.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead
Page 131, Position 1: The phrase ‘vital statistics’ originally referred to births, marriages and deaths.: https://www.etymonline.com/word/vital%20statistics
Page 131, Position 2: George Washington is the highest-ranking general in the US, even though he’s been dead for over 200 years.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/65227/george-washington-historys-only-six-star-general-sort
Page 131, Position 3: George Washington called a ceasefire during the American Revolutionary War to return a British general’s terrier that had wandered onto the battlefield.: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/200901/george-washington-president-general-and-dog-breeder?a
Page 131, Position 4: King Henry III of France liked to tie a ribbon round his neck, from which he hung a basket of small dogs.: https://www.heritage-history.com/index.php?c=read&amp
Page 132, Position 1: Dogs like reggae.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-38757761
Page 132, Position 2: Animals and humans prefer music that is close to their own vocal range.: https://www.livescience.com/33780-animal-music-pets.html
Page 132, Position 3: A mathematical study of 50 years of hit singles concluded that The Beatles had no influence at all on the history of pop music.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4260212/Top-scientist-insists-Beatles-no-influence-pop.html
Page 132, Position 4: Ozzy Osbourne’s 1992 tour was called ‘No More Tours’. His 2018 tour was called ‘No More Tours 2’.: http://ultimateclassicrock.com/ozzy-osbourne-no-more-tours-2/
Page 133, Position 1: The Tour de France hasn’t been won by a French cyclist since 1985.: https://qz.com/1036562/tour-de-france-why-has-it-been-32-years-since-a-french-cyclist-won/?utm_source=digg&amp
Page 133, Position 2: Chinese tourists can pay $50,000 to shoot a polar bear in Canada.: http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1002071/the-gun-loving-chinese-tourists-hunting-for-new-thrills
Page 133, Position 3: A Chinese robot named Xiaoyi (‘Little Doctor’) has passed the written stage of the national medical licensing exam.: https://futurism.com/first-time-robot-passed-medical-licensing-exam/
Page 133, Position 4: Ford has a robot called Robutt that simulates a large man sitting on its car seats.: https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/30/16569496/robotic-butt-ford-testing-robutt
Page 134, Position 1: Speeding offences increase significantly the weekend after the release of a Fast and the Furious film.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/06/fast-furious-causing-surge-speeding/
Page 134, Position 2: The video game Grand Theft Auto V has made more money than any film in history.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/news/grand-theft-auto-v-has-made-money-film-history/
Page 134, Position 3: Psycho was the first major American film to feature a flushing toilet.: http://www.filmsite.org/1960-filmhistory.html
Page 134, Position 4: The boy who played Piggyin Lord of the Flies was bullied by the other boys.: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/56-peter-brook-on-the-making-of-lord-of-the-flies
Page 135, Position 1: The first eight popes were all murdered.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popes_who_died_violently
Page 135, Position 2: There is a secret passageway at the back of the Vatican in case the Pope needs to escape.: http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2015/02/03/passetto_di_borgo_the_pope_s_secret_vatican_city_passage.html
Page 135, Position 3: Pope Urban VIII issued a decree that all pasta shops must be at least 25 yards apart.: https://www.tastemade.com/articles/7-more-things-you-didnt-know-about-pasta
Page 135, Position 4: Italian pasta-makers used to knead dough with their bare feet.: https://www.zingermans.com/article.aspx?articleid=article48
Page 136, Position 1: The word ‘shampoo’ comes from a Hindi word meaning ‘to knead’.: https://www.etymonline.com/word/shampoo
Page 136, Position 2: The Indian peafowl is the national bird of India. The Great Indian Bustard nearly made it, but there were concerns it might be misspelled.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Indian_bustard#In_culture
Page 136, Position 3: Melville Dewey, creator of the Dewey Decimal System, was such a fan of spelling reform that he spelled his first name ‘Melvil’.: https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2014/03/24/melvil-dewey-compulsive-innovator/
Page 136, Position 4: Hotmail is so named because it contains the letters HTML: it was originally HoTMaiL.: https://highnames.com/hotmail-webmail-name-origin/
Page 137, Position 1: When Bill Clinton was president, he sent only two emails.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/17/bill-clinton-emails_n_824563.html
Page 137, Position 2: The man who invented email later became an importer of sheep semen.: http://www.wickedlocal.com/article/20100819/NEWS/308199246
Page 137, Position 3: Human semen contains fructose.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10408311
Page 137, Position 4: Scientists have devised a method of finding the best sperm for IVF by making them complete a tiny obstacle course.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/sperm-obstacle-course-ivf-created-healthy-selection-us-scientists-test-fertility-treatment-a8141696.html
Page 138, Position 1: In the first egg-and-spoon race, in 1894, competitors had to punt with their spare hand.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg-and-spoon_race
Page 138, Position 2: In 2018, a charity snail race was cancelled after cold weather caused all the competitors to go into hibernation.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/23/snail-racing-competition-postponed-snails-sluggish-take-part/
Page 138, Position 3: Sea slugs prefer to eat an animal that has just eaten another animal, so they get two meals in one.: https://api.atlasobscura.com/articles/sea-slugs-pirate-steal-food-nudibranch
Page 138, Position 4: The UK’s food supply chain means we are only ever nine meals away from empty supermarket shelves.: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/01/farmers-brexit-wolf-sheep-voted-leave-eu-subsidy-tory-enemies?utm_source=esp&amp
Page 139, Position 1: Some bacteria are not only resistant to antibiotics, they enjoy eating them.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2167660-how-some-resistant-bacteria-can-even-eat-antibiotics-as-food/
Page 139, Position 2: The Korowai people of New Guinea put grubs in their ears to eat their earwax.: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/01/bbc-journalist-has-earwax-clea.html
Page 139, Position 3: Dinosaurs suffered from dandruff.: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/25/oldest-known-case-of-dandruff-found-in-125-million-year-old-dinosaur
Page 139, Position 4: People suffering from plague may not enter a library in the UK.: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/22/contents
Page 140, Position 1: The Queen is a fee-paying member of the Jigsaw Puzzle Library.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/games/10027958/Theres-nothing-puzzling-about-our-love-of-jigsaws.html
Page 140, Position 2: The Queen owns a treadmill that 18 horses can use at the same time.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3805985/All-Queen-s-horses-giant-equine-treadmill-ll-saddled-130-000-bill.html
Page 140, Position 3: Scientists have made a hat for horses with built-in earphones so they can listen to music.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4282298/Hi-tech-headphones-let-horses-listen-music-trot.html
Page 140, Position 4: Using a musical instrument to annoy someone is illegal in Singapore.: http://uk.businessinsider.com/things-that-are-illegal-in-singapore-2015-7
Page 141, Position 1: Pangolin-and-caterpillar soup is illegal in China.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/14/pangolin-princess-detained-china-posting-images-online-cooked/
Page 141, Position 2: Carp soup is a popular Christmas dish in Poland. It’s good luck to keep the scales in your wallet till the next Christmas.: http://uk.businessinsider.com/good-luck-charms-different-countries-2017-3?
Page 141, Position 3: The Christmas Tree Grower Council of Europe holds its Christmas party in June.: https://www.bctga.co.uk/
Page 141, Position 4: The first person to use the phrase ‘MerryChristmas’ was also the first to use the word ‘Prosecco’.: https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2015/03/8-things-you-should-know-about-prosecco/5/
Page 142, Position 1: In the last 300 years, the average size of a wine glass has increased almost sevenfold.: https://www.livescience.com/61193-glass-shattering-how-wineglass-size-has-changed-since-1700.html
Page 142, Position 2: Jeff Goldblum puts orange juice on his cereal.: https://longreads.com/2017/11/03/jeff-goldblum-prefers-pouring-orange-juice-in-his-cereal/
Page 142, Position 3: The Pope drives a blue Ford Focus.: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/pope-francis-lamborghini-charity-donation-signs-blesses-custom-car-a8057551.html
Page 142, Position 4: Ísbíltúr is Icelandic for going for a drive and ending up with an ice cream.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/where-to-isbiltur-ice-cream-road-trip-iceland-180967999/
Page 143, Position 1: Eating ice cream for breakfast can increase mental alertness.: https://curiousmindmagazine.com/eating-ice-cream-for-breakfast/
Page 143, Position 2: 1 in 5 Britons cannot name a single author of literature.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/01/one-five-cannot-name-single-author-literature-survey-shows/
Page 143, Position 3: The first, second and third most common sentences in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels are ‘I sighed’, ‘He sighed’ and ‘I shrugged.’: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/10468854/The-Hunger-Games-Harry-Potter-and-Twilight-most-popular-sentences-are-revealed.html
Page 143, Position 4: George Orwell ran the village shop in Wallington, Hertfordshire.: http://www.hertfordshirelife.co.uk/people/in-orwell-s-footsteps-in-letchworth-and-wallington-1-1646802
Page 144, Position 1: Agatha Christie worked as a hospital pharmacy assistant during the First World War.: http://www.pharmacytimes.com/careers-news/5-pharmacist-facts-about-agatha-christie
Page 144, Position 2: The first real murder on the Orient Express took place the year after Agatha Christie’s novel came out.: http://www.agathachristie.com/film-and-tv/murder-on-the-orient-express/facts-about-murder-on-the-orient-express
Page 144, Position 3: King Ferdinand of Bulgaria was so scared of being murdered on the Orient Express that he locked himself in the toilet.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-history-of-the-orient-express-149702768/
Page 144, Position 4: The surrender of Germany after the First World War and the surrender of France in the Second World War were signed in the same carriage of the Orient Express.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-history-of-the-orient-express-149702768/
Page 145, Position 1: Theodore Roosevelt coined the expression ‘lunatic fringe’.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 145, Position 2: When Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, got its first pub in 2000, locals described it as the worst thing to hit the town since the Luftwaffe.: https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0 3604 368560 00.html
Page 145, Position 3: The oldest known writing on Earth contains a swastika.: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/archaeologists-have-found-7000-year-old-example-one-worlds-earliest-writing-systems-1661958
Page 145, Position 4: In ancient Greek, one line of text would be written left to right, and the next right to left.: https://www.britannica.com/art/boustrophedon
Page 146, Position 1: There used to be six more letters in the English alphabet: ‘eth’, ‘thorn’, ‘wynn’, ‘yogh’, ‘ash’ and ‘ethel’.: https://www.rd.com/culture/there-were-six-more-letters-in-our-alphabet/
Page 146, Position 2: Denmark hated the letter ‘Q’ so much they abolished it in 1872.: http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/word-lists/more-about-words-that-end-in-q.html
Page 146, Position 3: The letters ‘K’, ‘W’ and ‘Y’ were officially added to the Portuguese alphabet in 2009.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/portuguese/guide/alphabet.shtml
Page 146, Position 4: Seychelles is the only member of the UN whose name has no letters in common with ‘Britain’.: https://africa-facts.org/34-facts-about-seychelles/
Page 147, Position 1: Britain and Portugal have been allies since 1373.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Portuguese_Alliance
Page 147, Position 2: A Portuguese way of telling someone to leave you alone is: ‘Go away and comb monkeys.’: https://matadornetwork.com/notebook/20-funniest-portuguese-expressions-use/
Page 147, Position 3: ‘To feed the donkey sponge cake’ is a Polish expression meaning ‘to treat someone better than they deserve’.: https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/02/portuguese-idioms/
Page 147, Position 4: ‘Don’t come the raw prawn with me’ is Australian slang for ‘You must be joking.’: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27805070
Page 148, Position 1: Prawn crackers in Italian are nuvole di drago, ‘dragon clouds’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prawn_cracker
Page 148, Position 2: Some buildings in Hong Kong have large holes designed into them for dragons to fly through.: http://uk.businessinsider.com/heres-why-hong-kong-skyscrapers-have-holes-feng-shui-2017-3
Page 148, Position 3: The world’s largest building in the shape of a bottle is the Strong Drinks Museum in Moldova.: http://winetours.md/eng/blog/12-amazing-facts-you-probably-didn-t-know-about-wine-of-moldova
Page 148, Position 4: A hecatompedon is a building measuring exactly 100 ft by 100 ft.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 149, Position 1: The lost property office at Dublin airport has an unclaimed tombstone with the words: ‘You will always be remembered, never forgotten.’: https://www.upi.com/You-will-always-be-remembered-headstone-left-at-Ireland-airport/8191503425281/
Page 149, Position 2: The Chinese government has announced a crackdown on strippers at funerals.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-funeral-strippers-crack-down-rural-attract-mourners-death-a8220866.html
Page 149, Position 3: The classic ghost costume dates from the time when bodies of the poor were wrapped in a sheet.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/507440/assault-robbery-and-murder-dark-history-bedsheet-ghosts
Page 149, Position 4: Highwayman Thomas Wilmot used to disguise himself as a ghost, scare gamblers from the tables, then take the money they’d left behind.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/507440/assault-robbery-and-murder-dark-history-bedsheet-ghosts
Page 150, Position 1: Gambling was illegal in public libraries from 1898 to 2005.: https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/08/odd-laws-of-the-united-kingdom/
Page 150, Position 2: In 2014, Oakland, California, discovered that pinball had been illegal there for 80 years and immediately legalised it.: http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2015/05/29/pinball_was_banned_in_new_york_until_a_single_miraculous_shot_convinced.html
Page 150, Position 3: In 2017, Oregon banned poker and also a game called Big Injun, despite the fact that it hadn’t been played since the 1950s.: http://www.wweek.com/news/2017/05/10/an-oregon-anti-poker-room-bill-also-bans-chinese-chuck-a-luck-and-something-called-big-injun-what-are-these-games/
Page 150, Position 4: The best poker face is a smile.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908123/
Page 151, Position 1: Blind people smile, even though they have never seen anyone else doing so.: https://www.science20.com/news_releases/blind_people_use_same_emotional_expressions_because_they_are_innate_not_learned_study
Page 151, Position 2: When Wal-Mart opened in Germany , it scrapped its policy of employees smiling at customers because the Germans found it too weird.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908123/
Page 151, Position 3: In Germany , until 1888 you had to have a licence to take a child out in a pram.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7_o8DAAAQBAJ&amp
Page 151, Position 4: The German for ‘contraceptive pill’ is Antibabypille.: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/german-english/antibabypille
Page 152, Position 1: STEVE is an acronym for the path sperm take through the male reproductive system: Seminiferous Tubules, Epididymis, Vas deferens, Ejaculatory duct.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medical_mnemonics
Page 152, Position 2: ‘Popeye biceps’ and ‘Popeye butt’ are medical terms for muscle injuries.: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2011/03/15/success-doctors-solve-first-known-case-of-popeye-butt/#.WejBjDLMzBJ
Page 152, Position 3: Blood pressure readings are 50% more accurate when taken at home.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/18/white-coat-syndrome-real-blood-pressure-readings-home-50-per/
Page 152, Position 4: When a white coat is worn and people are told it belongs to a doctor, they become more attentive. It doesn’t work if they are told it belongs to a painter.: https://psmag.com/economics/the-brain-focusing-power-of-the-lab-coat-40108
Page 153, Position 1: Hay fever didn’t exist until the 1800s.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28038630
Page 153, Position 2: There is a conspiracy theory that Finland doesn’t exist and was made up by Japan and the USSR.: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/finland/articles/does-finland-exist-many-dont-think-so/
Page 153, Position 3: The existence of Antarctica was completely unknown until 1820.: https://www.livescience.com/43881-amazing-antarctica-facts.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&amp
Page 153, Position 4: Queen Victoria didn’t know that pandas existed.: https://www.theguardian.com/science/animal-magic/2014/jan/06/the-first-giant-panda-and-how-it-ended-up-in-paris
Page 154, Position 1: It costs five times more to keep a panda than an elephant.: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/us/eats-shoots-leaves-and-much-of-zoos-budgets.html
Page 154, Position 2: Humans and bees are the only species elephants fear.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/3309619/Elephants-are-scared-of-bees-scientists-say.html
Page 154, Position 3: Pliny the Elder noted that the stare of a menstruating woman could kill bees.: http://listverse.com/2017/12/14/10-strange-things-people-used-to-believe-about-animals/
Page 154, Position 4: Spot removal for Pliny the Elder involved rubbing the affected part with a paste made from the ashes of a roast dolphin.: http://folklorethursday.com/myths/dolphin-lore-of-the-ancient-world/#sthash.Xq7W7LD9.DiiqE3OC.dpbs
Page 155, Position 1: Black leopards have spots, but you can only see them in infrared light.: http://study.com/academy/lesson/black-panther-facts-lesson-for-kids.html
Page 155, Position 2: Puma and Adidas were founded by two brothers who fell out and went into competition against one another.: http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0 28804 2089859_2089888_2089889 00.html
Page 155, Position 3: After 11 months on the International Space Station, astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth 13 milliseconds younger than his twin brother.: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/29/scott-kelly-astronaut-interview-space-younger-twin-endurance?CMP=fb_gu
Page 155, Position 4: Ewan McGregor’s brother used to be a Tornado pilot who flew with the call sign ‘Obi-Two’.: https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/471605/ewan-mcgregor-forced-brother-to-splash-the-cash-on-his-own-vhs-copy-of-trainspotting/
Page 156, Position 1: The Porgs in Star Wars were devised to cover up the vast numbers of puffins that kept walking into shot.: http://www.starwars.com/news/designing-star-wars-the-last-jedi-part-1-how-porgs-were-hatched
Page 156, Position 2: There are eight places on Earth called Puffin Island.: https://www.worldwildlife.org/blogs/good-nature-travel/posts/ten-high-flying-facts-about-puffins
Page 156, Position 3: The Alutiiq people of Alaska made rattles from puffin’s beaks.: http://m.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jul/27/wings-desire-mark-cocker-birds?CMP=twt_gu
Page 156, Position 4: Alaska has 1,000 earthquakes a month.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/earthquake-tsunami-warning-gulf-of-alaska-spd/
Page 157, Position 1: At Seattle’s 1909 Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition, one of the raffle prizes was a month-old orphan named Ernest.: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/memorable-time-when-seattle-was-world-of-wonder-in-1909/
Page 157, Position 2: The 2017 Ig Nobel Prize for Cognition was awarded to scientists who proved that identical twins often can’t tell which of them is which.: https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/09/liquid-cats-vagina-speakers-and-more-from-the-ig-nobel-prizes-of-2017/
Page 157, Position 3: In 2007, the Ivory Coast government gave away a house to an employee as a prize for turning up on time.: https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/09/liquid-cats-vagina-speakers-and-more-from-the-ig-nobel-prizes-of-2017/
Page 157, Position 4: More than 50% of the ivory imported into China comes from woolly mammoths.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-39583877?ocid=socialflow_twitter
Page 158, Position 1: 10 million mammoths are still trapped in the Arctic permafrost.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-39583877?ocid=socialflow_twitter
Page 158, Position 2: Frostproof, Florida, was so named to persuade farmers it wouldn’t get a frost. Two years later, frost killed almost its whole citrus crop.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostproof _Florida#History
Page 158, Position 3: Whynot, North Carolina, was named after a long debate concluded with someone saying: ‘Why not just name it Why Not and let’s go home?’: https://www.southernliving.com/culture/how-whynot-north-carolina-was-named
Page 158, Position 4: Johnny Cash’s real name is J. R. Cash: his parents couldn’t agree on his names, only the initials.: https://www.last.fm/music/Johnny+Cash/+wiki
Page 159, Position 1: Johnny Cash named his daughter Roseanne after Rose and Anne, his nicknames for her mother’s breasts.: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-johnny-cash-20131031
Page 159, Position 2: UK street names include Fanny Hands Lane, Willey Lane and Uranus Road.: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/695574/top-40-rude-street-name-uk-hilarious-road-signs
Page 159, Position 3: Houses on streets with rude names are cheaper.: https://www.scotsman.com/news/odd/rude-street-names-lead-to-cut-in-house-prices-1-3317869
Page 159, Position 4: You can say ‘f*ck’ at any time on Canadian radio, provided it’s a French-language station.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/09/canada-declares-f-word-not-rude-radio/
Page 160, Position 1: NASA has its own radio station called Third Rock Radio.: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/third-rock-radio
Page 160, Position 2: In 1972, Peru banned Santa Claus from appearing on radio and TV .: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=E4CML6akeYMC&amp
Page 160, Position 3: Santa’s helpers in Iceland include the Spoon Licker, the Door Sniffer and the Sausage Swiper.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/meet-the-thirteen-yule-lads-icelands-own-mischievous-santa-clauses-180948162/
Page 160, Position 4: Good Icelandic children get presents at Christmas, naughty ones get rotten potatoes.: https://www.iceland.is/the-big-picture/news/celebrating-christmas-with-13-trolls/7916/
Page 161, Position 1: Frederick William of Prussia decreed that anyone refusing to plant potatoes would have their noses and ears cut off.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5LwdEs9OkccC&amp
Page 161, Position 2: Police in Vanuatu are encouraging people to grow potatoes instead of pot.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40665520
Page 161, Position 3: It is illegal in England to import Polish potatoes, or potatoes suspected of being Polish.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36389585
Page 161, Position 4: When foreign films are dubbed into Polish, all the parts, even those of women and children, are read by one male actor.: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB119215016517556740
Page 162, Position 1: During a speech in Warsaw, Jimmy Carter mistakenly announced he wanted to have sex with the Polish people.: https://www.chido-fajny.com/2017/10/polish-lektor-one-weirdest-things-poland.html
Page 162, Position 2: Richard Nixon’s chair in the Cabinet Room was 2.5 inches higher than everyone else’s.: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/donald-trump-has-spent-more-133000-taxpayers-money-furniture-four-months-1627462
Page 162, Position 3: Teddy Roosevelt had a pet badger called Josiah.: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-story-of-kansas/article1098732.html
Page 162, Position 4: In 2017, a Tyneside woman found a cyst in the ear of her beagle that bore an uncanny resemblance to Donald Trump.: http://rare.us/rare-animals/a-cyst-found-inside-a-dogs-ear-bears-an-uncanny-resemblance-to-donald-trump/
Page 163, Position 1: Trumpadóir is Irish for ‘loudmouth’.: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/the-irish-words-for-selfie-brexit-and-spam-1.3160155
Page 163, Position 2: People with autotopagnosia literally cannot tell their arse from their elbow.: The Darker the Night the Brighter the Stars: A Neuropsychologist's Odyssey by Paul Broks (Allen Lane 2018) p32
Page 163, Position 3: A macroverbumsciolist is someone who pretends to know a word, but then secretly looks it up.: https://atkinsbookshelf.blog/2012/10/15/theres-a-word-for-that-macroverbumsciolist/
Page 163, Position 4: A wonty-tump is Herefordshire dialect for a ‘molehill’.: Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane (Hamish Hamilton/ Penguin 2015) p47
Page 164, Position 1: George Orwell’s first word was ‘beastly’.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/53129/first-words-11-famous-people
Page 164, Position 2: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them won the Oscar for Best Costume Design, the only HarryPotter film to win an Academy Award.: https://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-02-27/fantastic-beasts-picks-up-first-ever-oscar-for-harry-potter-franchise/
Page 164, Position 3: The fact that the Defence Against the Dark Arts professors in HarryPotter are all cursed was inspired by all the drummers in Spinal Tap dying in bizarre ways.: https://www.radiotimes.com/news/film/2018-03-15/jk-rowling-confirms-why-her-defence-against-the-dark-arts-teachers-are-all-cursed/
Page 164, Position 4: The JD in JD Wetherspoon is from a character in The Dukes of Hazzard; Wetherspoon was a teacher at the founder’s primary school.: 'Wetherspoon' was a teacher at the founder's primary school.
Page 165, Position 1: The Irish get through 50 beer mats per person per year.: https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/soaking-it-all-up-irish-are-worlds-biggest-beer-mat-users-92714.html
Page 165, Position 2: The Queen owns several pubs, including one called the Windsor Castle.: http://www.the-windsorcastle.co.uk/
Page 165, Position 3: The Queen has won more than £6 million from horse racing.: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/25/sport/queen-elizabeth-horse-racing-prize-money/index.html
Page 165, Position 4: The Queen employs an official stamp collector.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7910711.stm
Page 166, Position 1: 1930s postboxes doubled as stamp vending machines.: London Postal Museum
Page 166, Position 2: In 1972, Bhutan issued a set of talking stamps.: https://thevinylfactory.com/features/the-curious-tale-of-bhutans-playable-record-postage-stamps/
Page 166, Position 3: ‘Philately’ is from the Greek for the ‘love of exemption from taxation’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philately
Page 166, Position 4: In Mexico, artists can pay their taxes by donating their work.: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/in-mexico-artists-can-pay-taxes-with-artwork/360519/
Page 167, Position 1: The US tax code has increased in length from 400 pages in 1913 to 70,000 pages today.: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/look-at-how-many-pages-are-in-the-federal-tax-code
Page 167, Position 2: Denmark taxes new cars at 150%.: https://www.thelocal.dk/20151120/whats-the-deal-with-denmarks-car-registration-tax
Page 167, Position 3: Until 1999, tax-deductible items in Germany included bribes.: https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2014/0214/Top-12-weirdest-tax-rules-around-the-world/Germany-tax-deduction-on-bribes
Page 167, Position 4: Germany’s Rheinsberg nuclear plant was decommissioned in 1990 but still has over 100 employees.: https://www.abandonedberlin.com/2015/09/rheinsberg-nuclear-power-station-east-germany.html https://www.cleanenergywire.org/dossiers/challenges-germanys-nuclear-phase-out
Page 168, Position 1: In 2008, two pigeons at an Iranian nuclear facility were arrested for spying.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5385619/West-used-lizards-spy-Irans-nuclear-facilities.html
Page 168, Position 2: US civil defence guidelines advise against using hair conditioner after a nuclear strike.: http://www.npr.org/2017/08/15/543647878/in-the-event-of-a-nuclear-blast-don-t-condition-your-hair?mc_cid=338befee82&amp
Page 168, Position 3: Reed College in Oregon has the world’s only nuclear reactor run by undergraduates.: https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-08/best-college-labs-reed-college-nuclear-reactor
Page 168, Position 4: The first nuclear reactor was built in a squash court.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1
Page 169, Position 1: Tennis courts were once shaped like an hourglass.: https://qz.com/1028129/if-it-wasnt-for-wimbledon-we-might-be-playing-tennis-on-an-hourglass-shaped-court/
Page 169, Position 2: The grass at Wimbledon is trimmed by a millimetre a week for 12 weeks and cared for by a man called Mr Stubley .: https://www.ft.com/content/19083758-25c3-11e7-a34a-538b4cb30025
Page 169, Position 3: Ritalin was named after its inventor’s wife Rita because it improved her tennis so much.: https://newrepublic.com/article/137066/adhd-sold
Page 169, Position 4: Tennys Sandgren is a tennis player from Tennessee.: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennys_Sandgren
Page 170, Position 1: There’s a street in Leeds called Cavalier Approach.: https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/analysis/no-exit-from-cavalier-approach-how-the-developers-dreams-turned-to-dust-1-2343743
Page 170, Position 2: The Laughing Cavalier isn’t laughing and isn’t dressed as a cavalier.: http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&amp
Page 170, Position 3: Gainsborough painted his outdoor scenes using little models made of broccoli.: http://www.leedsartgallery.co.uk/gallery/listings/l0049.php
Page 170, Position 4: In 2003, the Tate announced that two Turner paintings of Venice were actually of Portsmouth.: http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/lifestyle/real-life/50-facts-all-about-portsmouth-and-its-people-1-3582083
Page 171, Position 1: ‘Dockyard oyster’ is a phrase used in Portsmouth to describe a gob of phlegm on the pavement.: https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/people/eight-words-or-phrases-you-ll-hear-in-portsmouth-but-not-in-southampton-1-6958379
Page 171, Position 2: The street price of a hand grenade in Sweden is 100 krona, or £8.62.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/world/europe/sweden-crime-immigration-hand-grenades.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180305&amp
Page 171, Position 3: Wounds sustained during the day heal twice as quickly as those sustained at night.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2152754-daytime-injuries-heal-twice-as-fast-as-wounds-sustained-at-night/
Page 171, Position 4: Pieces of coconut shell were used by Pacific Islanders to mend broken skulls.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=soqy__Vue6kC&amp
Page 172, Position 1: Mahler’s Sixth Symphony features a part for an enormous hammer.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66ihI7Ijry8
Page 172, Position 2: Picasso liked to shoot blanks at people who bored him.: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/pablo-picasso-trivia_n_7018574
Page 172, Position 3: Bangladesh is home to the world’s only specialist diarrhoea hospital.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/23/bangladesh-took-global-killer-worlds-diarrhoeal-disease-hospital/
Page 172, Position 4: 1 in 3 people in Britain admitted to hospital as an emergency have at least five illnesses.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/bad-lifestyles-mean-patients-arrive-at-a-e-sicker-than-a-decade-ago-vxbpzjhtw
Page 173, Position 1: The 911 emergency number used to be spoken as ‘nine–eleven’ but was restyled as ‘nine–one–one’ to avoid people wasting time looking for the ‘11’ button.: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/crime-history-first-911-system-installed-in-the-us/article/17175
Page 173, Position 2: The phonebook on Norfolk Island, Australia, lists people by their nicknames.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_Island#Demographics
Page 173, Position 3: Tancítaro, Mexico, has a special police unit to stamp out avocado theft.: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/may/18/avocado-police-tancitaro-mexico-law-drug-cartels
Page 173, Position 4: In 2017, Frankfurt police found a car belonging to a 76-year-old man who had forgotten where he parked it 20 years earlier.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/man-forgets-park-car-finds-20-years-later-frankfurt-a8058416.html
Page 174, Position 1: Pittsburgh police classify condoms as ‘instruments of crime’ to help them prosecute sex workers.: http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2018/06/16/Got-a-condom-go-to-jail/stories/201806140024
Page 174, Position 2: A single sex act by parasitic flukeworms can last for over 40 years.: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/10/08/even-blood-flukes-get-divorced/#.WqfHzpPFL_Q
Page 174, Position 3: When two earthworms mate, they both have children.: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/05/10-facts-about-worms/
Page 174, Position 4: Castrator pea crabs live inside the genitals of limpets.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2157002-genital-parasite-crabs-are-struggling-to-find-sex-partners/
Page 175, Position 1: Chinese street barbers shave the insides of their customers’ eyelids.: https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-china-eyecleaning/flipping-lids-chinese-barber-offers-eyelid-shaves-idUKKBN1DP03M?feedType=nl&amp
Page 175, Position 2: 20–20 vision is not perfect, just normal.: https://www.kchitter.com/good-vision-2020-vs-mlb-vision-2012/
Page 175, Position 3: The only things anyone has ever ‘seen’ are photons.: https://www.quora.com/Scientists-have-never-seen-an-atom-Why-not/answer/Eric-Bittner
Page 175, Position 4: Sea urchins are the only known animals that can see without having eyes.: https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/animals-ecology/sea-urchins-see-feet-0432432/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 176, Position 1: Your eardrums move in sync with your eyeballs, but no one knows why.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2141467-your-eardrums-move-in-sync-with-your-eyes-but-we-dont-know-why/
Page 176, Position 2: Lobsters use sand in their inner ear to work out if they are the right way up.: http://www.lobsters.org/tlcbio/biology6.html
Page 176, Position 3: Until the mid-1800s, lobsters were considered to be food for the poor.: https://www.ft.com/content/b3e6f2fa-8eb6-11e5-8be4-3506bf20cc2b
Page 176, Position 4: 30,000 years ago, people ate mammoth and fed reindeer to their dogs.: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141124074841.htm
Page 177, Position 1: 10,000 years ago, lions didn’t have manes.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/5077393/Super-sized-lions-roamed-UK-in-ice-age.html
Page 177, Position 2: African wild dogs vote on whether to go hunting or not by sneezing.
Page 177, Position 3: The Isle of Man was the first place in the world to give votes to women and under-18s.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/isle_of_man/4690678.stm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_age
Page 177, Position 4: The king of the Isle of Man from 1112 to1143 was Olaf the Titbit.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/58623/60-historys-strangest-royal-epithets
Page 178, Position 1: Gavin Barwell, former MP and author of How to Win a Marginal Seat, lost his marginal seat.
Page 178, Position 2: Applause is forbidden inside the Houses of Parliament.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/538526/things-forbidden-in-british-parliament
Page 178, Position 3: Police guarding the outside of the Houses of Parliament are under orders to feel inside men’s underpants.: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/04/sajid-javid-counter-terrorism-plans-britain-freedom
Page 178, Position 4: In 1930s New Zealand, there was an outbreak of exploding trousers.: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pants-trousers-exploding-new-zealand-sodium-chlorate?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 179, Position 1: During the First World War, an estimated one tonne of explosives was fired for every square metre on the Western Front.: http://www.ww1hull.org.uk/index.php/streets-people-came-from/the-numbers-in-charts
Page 179, Position 2: The Western Front was supplied with 500 ferrets a month to catch rabbits.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-cumbria-41696155
Page 179, Position 3: Rabbits are repelled by the butterfly bush.: http://www.bigblogofgardening.com/flowers-shrubs-herbs-trees-that-rabbits-and-deer-wont-eat/
Page 179, Position 4: The skunk cabbage melts the frozen ground around it by generating heat like an animal.: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/mmcmenam/journal.html
Page 180, Position 1: When the retired Roman emperor Diocletian was asked to return to the throne, he said he’d rather grow cabbages.: https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/abdication-emperor-diocletian
Page 180, Position 2: The entire Roman Empire was sold at auction in 193 ad.: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/puzzles/5.html
Page 180, Position 3: Christie’s auctioneers are taught to stop their hands shaking with nerves by clenching their buttocks.: https://www.christies.com/features/What-it-feels-like-to-conduct-an-auction-7680-1.aspx
Page 180, Position 4: In 1942, a single banana was auctioned in London for the equivalent of £95.: https://listverse.com/2015/03/18/10-creative-ways-weve-gotten-through-wartime-rationing/
Page 181, Position 1: Japanese farmers have created a new kind of banana with edible peel.: https://qz.com/1191654/a-banana-with-an-edible-peel-is-now-available-for-sale-in-japan/?mc_cid=0228d5c7e5&amp
Page 181, Position 2: Farmers in India use Coca-Cola as a pesticide: the sugar attracts ants that eat the larvae that would have eaten the crops.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3977351.stm
Page 181, Position 3: Wolf whistles were first used by Albanian farmers to warn sheepdogs of approaching wolves.: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180322-the-surprising-history-of-the-wolf-whistle
Page 181, Position 4: Some Scottish farmers use lasers to protect their livestock from eagles.: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/scotland-farmers-laser-beams-sea-eagles-lambs-rspb-a8145421.html
Page 182, Position 1: Laser pointers are the second most common cause of pilot incapacity , after tummy upsets.: https://theconversation.com/why-having-two-pilots-on-commercial-flights-is-vital-for-passenger-safety-84858
Page 182, Position 2: There are more living US astronauts than living Concorde pilots.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24629451
Page 182, Position 3: The wingspan of a Boeing 747 is longer than the distance travelled during the Wright brothers’ first flight.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-4185292/The-amazing-plane-facts-ever.html
Page 182, Position 4: The first successful all-metal passenger plane had wickerwork seats.: http://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/number-of-planes-in-air
Page 183, Position 1: A group of raptors in flight is called a ‘kettle’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettle_(birds)
Page 183, Position 2: A group of penguins on land is called a ‘waddle’.: https://www.discover-the-world.co.uk/blog/29-things-you-might-not-have-known-about-penguins
Page 183, Position 3: A group of sharks is called a ‘shiver’.: https://gizmodo.com/have-a-kindle-of-kittens-and-10-other-hilarious-names-1588270081
Page 183, Position 4: A group of swans on land is called a ‘bank’.: https://www.britishbirdlovers.co.uk/articles/collective-nouns-for-birds
Page 184, Position 1: Deutsche Bank’s largest shareholder is Chinese.: https://www.ft.com/content/8f31a774-9bbb-4336-8113-6fb9a5f279cd
Page 184, Position 2: China has an exact replica of the Austrian village of Hallstatt so tourists don’t have to go all that way to see it.: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-china-austria/made-in-china-an-austrian-village-idUSLNE85301M20120604
Page 184, Position 3: Palau is to pass a new law allowing only five-star hotels to be built.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-4124522/We-just-want-rich-tourists-Pacific-island-nation-Palau-pass-law-allows-new-five-star-hotels.html
Page 184, Position 4: A hotel in Oman employs a full-time turtle ranger.: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2017/05/03/turtle-minder-oman-hotel/
Page 185, Position 1: The Mary River turtle breathes through its genitals.: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/scientists-highlight-plight-of-endangered-australian-genital-breathing-mary-river-turtle-a3811811.html
Page 185, Position 2: Plankton were one of the 12 official logos for Eurovision 2018.: https://eurovision.tv/story/all-aboard-slogan-for-eurovision-2018
Page 185, Position 3: If food supplies to Britain in the Second World War had been cut off completely, there were plans for everyone to eat plankton.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9099881/Wartime-population-faced-eating-plankton-to-avert-food-shortages.html
Page 185, Position 4: Phytoplankton are microscopic plants that produce up to 85% of the planet’s oxygen.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0607_040607_phytoplankton.html
Page 186, Position 1: Oxygen levels in a human womb are similar to those at the top of Mount Everest.: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise/
Page 186, Position 2: The cornea is the only part of the human body with no blood supply. It gets its oxygen from the air.: http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/there-any-part-body-doesnt-have-blood-vessels
Page 186, Position 3: The ancient Greeks believed the uterus wandered around inside the body.: It's All In Your Head: Stories from the Frontline of Psychosomatic Illness by Suzanne O'Sullivan (Vintage 2015) p177
Page 186, Position 4: Examining the pelvis is the only way to tell the sex of a human skeleton.: http://www.exploreforensics.co.uk/determining-sex.html
Page 187, Position 1: No one knows if Lucy , humanity’s oldest ancestor, was male or female.: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/lucy-or-brucey-gender-tricky-human-ancestors-n349971
Page 187, Position 2: Male red-sided garter snakes pretend to be female and entice other males to have sex with them.: Furry Logic - The Physics of Animal Life by Matin Durrani Liz Kalaugher (Bloomsbury 2017)
Page 187, Position 3: To kill off the snakes in Guam, 2,000 dead mice were pumped full of paracetamol and dropped by tiny parachutes into the forests.: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/two-thousand-mice-dropped-guam-parachute-kill-snakes-f2D11685572
Page 187, Position 4: Parachute tester Rickster Powell has made 20,000 parachute jumps and tested 50 new parachutes – only nine of which went into production.: https://www.payscale.com/career-news/2013/09/the-best-job-for-adrenaline-junkies
Page 188, Position 1: The Guinness World Record for the highest fall survived without a parachute is 10,000 metres.: Fortean Times 350
Page 188, Position 2: The world record for the most people licking ice cream in one place is 2,728.: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/search?term=lick
Page 188, Position 3: The world record for the most people licking lollipops is 12,831.: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/search?term=lick
Page 188, Position 4: ‘Lick into shape’ comes from the medieval belief that bear cubs were born shapeless and were ‘licked into shape’ by their mothers.: The Prevalence of Nonsense p268Œæ
Page 189, Position 1: Matabele ants nurse each other and tend each other’s wounds.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2161051-ants-care-for-wounded-comrades-by-licking-their-wounds-clean/
Page 189, Position 2: Ancient ants were the size of hummingbirds.: https://www.livescience.com/14008-giant-ant-fossil.html
Page 189, Position 3: Palaeontologists lick stones to identify whether they are fossils or not.
Page 189, Position 4: The longest-ever dog’s tongue was more than twice as long as the smallest living dog.: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2017/10/video-meet-mochi-the-dog-with-the-longest-tongue-496856 http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/smallest-dog-living-(length)
Page 190, Position 1: The world’s largest timber-framed structure is a replica of Noah’s Ark at a Christian theme park in Kentucky.: https://harpers.org/blog/2017/11/brief-history-of-time/
Page 190, Position 2: In 2004, a boat in Texas capsized because everyone ran to one side to look at a nudist beach.: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4890829/ns/us_news-weird_news/t/barge-sinks-after-nude-sighting-texas/
Page 190, Position 3: In 2012, a smuggler was arrested at the Smuggler’s Inn, Washington, after arriving in a car with the licence plate SMUGLER.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/21/smuggler-license-plate_n_1369962.html
Page 190, Position 4: Seven US states have not produced a single billionaire.: https://howmuch.net/articles/richest-person-of-all-time
Page 191, Position 1: The famous sign ‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’ isn’t in Las Vegas but in Paradise, Nevada.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/27757/shocking-truth-about-las-vegas-strip
Page 191, Position 2: There are more rooms in the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas than there are people in the town of Bellagio in Italy.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellagio _Lombardy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellagio_(resort)
Page 191, Position 3: It’s illegal for citizens of Monaco to go to the casino at Monte Carlo.: https://www.europalace.com/blog/monte-carlo-monaco/
Page 191, Position 4: The first James Bond film was released on the same day as the first Beatles single.: https://www.thedailybeast.com/james-bond-movies-and-the-beatles-still-pop-culture-icons-50-years-after-debuts
Page 192, Position 1: Paul McCartney met John Lennon at a church fete.: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/day-john-lennon-met-paul-12790524
Page 192, Position 2: The first picnics took place indoors.: OED
Page 192, Position 3: In Thailand, you can be arrested for having a picnic.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/68b89cf6-519d-11e7-9c77-dc4d2ab46f4b
Page 192, Position 4: A typical British family with children throws away 40% of the food it buys.: http://www.ifr.ac.uk/waste/Reports/WRAP%20The%20Food%20We%20Waste.pdf
Page 193, Position 1: The average American lives 18 miles from his or her mother.: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-family.html?_r=0
Page 193, Position 2: Mother’s Day is banned in North Korea because it distracts citizens from their love for Kim Jong-un.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/21/kim-jong-un-bans-drinking-singing-mothers-day-celebrations-wake/
Page 193, Position 3: Jim Henson’s mother owned the green coat that the original Kermit the Frog’s skin was made from.: owned the green coat that the original Kermit the Frog's skin was made from. http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2010/08/an-old-coat-and-a-ping-pong-ball-kermit.html
Page 193, Position 4: A frozen wood frog goes completely rigid; when you drop one, it goes ‘clink’.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070220-frog-antifreeze.html?utm_campaign=daily-digest&amp
Page 194, Position 1: The pumpkin toadlet is a Brazilian frog whose mating call can be heard by every animal except other pumpkin toadlets.: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/21/scientists-discover-unique-brazilian-frogs-that-are-deaf-to-their-own-mating-calls
Page 194, Position 2: The Cuyaba dwarf frog inflates its bottom to scare off predators.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/animals-frogs-poisonous-inflatable-backside-behavior-camouflage/
Page 194, Position 3: The Aztecs burned incense to mask the smell of the Spanish.: http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/clean-aztecs-dirty-spaniards
Page 194, Position 4: King Henry IV of France smelled strongly of goat.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JxorBgAAQBAJ&amp
Page 195, Position 1: Beyoncé has released more perfumes than albums.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyoncí©_discography#Studio_albums https://www.beyonceparfums.com/en-gb
Page 195, Position 2: Will Young considered breaking his leg to get out of Strictly Come Dancing.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/health/will-young-considered-breaking-legs-get-strictly-bryony-gordons/?WT.mc_id=e_DM450275&amp
Page 195, Position 3: The oldest member of England’s 2018 World Cup squad was Ashley Young.: https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/englands-oldest-lion-ashley-young-12617275
Page 195, Position 4: The oldest member of any 2018 World Cup squad was Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary. He was born in Kafr al-Battikh – ‘Town of the Watermelon’ – and celebrates victory by eating watermelons.: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/may/30/essam-el-hadary-egypt-goalkeeper-45-world-cup-oldest-playerhttps://www.fifa.com/news/y=2012/m=5/news=the-weird-wacky-world-footie-celebrations-1629677.html
Page 196, Position 1: Blue whales eat four tonnes of krill a day.: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/b/blue-whale/
Page 196, Position 2: The Sami people of Lapland have werewhales, not werewolves.: http://www.strangehistory.net/2017/09/03/werewhales/
Page 196, Position 3: To prepare for the role of Wolverine, Hugh Jackman researched wolves, not realising they were different animals.: https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/05/hugh-jackman-wolverine-wolves-x-men
Page 196, Position 4: Moose is Scots for ‘mouse’.: https://www.boisdale.co.uk/blog/scottish-drinking-toasts/ The Pocket Scots Dictionary Ed I. Macleod R. Martin P. Cairns (Aberdeen University Press) p170
Page 197, Position 1: 3D-printed mouse penises can alert airport security scanners.: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/that-time-the-tsa-found-a-scientists-3d-printed-mouse-penis/527673/?mc_cid=7f70982c8d&amp
Page 197, Position 2: In 2017, a man at Colombo airport was arrested for attempting to smuggle almost a kilo of gold in his rectum ‘with difficulty’.: http://news.sky.com/story/man-caught-with-kilo-of-gold-hidden-in-rectum-at-sri-lanka-airport-11052856
Page 197, Position 3: Military special services reserve difficult tasks for soldiers aged 27 or older.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/times2/what-rocks-27-club-told-me-about-talent-and-mental-illness-37rh83pmn
Page 197, Position 4: The French work a 35-hour week and finish their tasks by Thursday lunchtime.: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/view-from-the-top-andy-haldane-chief-economist-analysis-statistics-bank-of-england-a8011836.html
Page 198, Position 1: Seamus Heaney was scared of frogs.: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140317-james-joyce-in-a-bar-brawl
Page 198, Position 2: Lenin spoke English with an Irish accent.: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/lenin-spoke-english-with-an-irish-accent-say-russians-26890316.html
Page 198, Position 3: The ‘transatlantic’ accent used by Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant was invented by their dialect coach.: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the-rise-and-fall-of-katharine-hepburns-fake-accent/278505/
Page 198, Position 4: The first director of Jaws was fired because he kept calling the shark a whale.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaws_(film)
Page 199, Position 1: In the film Twister, the noise of the tornado was made using the moan of a camel.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaws_(film)
Page 199, Position 2: Angela Merkel has an ambition to host her own TV talk show.: http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germany-election-merkel/watch-out-oprah-german-chancellor-merkel-wants-her-own-tv-show-idUKKCN1BC58P?feedType=nl&amp
Page 199, Position 3: Sooty and Soo weren’t allowed to touch each other on TV in case things got steamy.: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/bbc-fought-over-sooty-getting-a-girlfriend-because-they-might-have-sex-a7339291.html
Page 199, Position 4: The first US TV show broadcast in the Soviet Union was Fraggle Rock.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/66611/17-fun-facts-about-fraggle-rock
Page 200, Position 1: In 1990, the Soviet Union paid for $3 billion worth of Pepsi with warships.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soviet-union-pepsi-ships
Page 200, Position 2: Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Dr Pepper were all invented by pharmacists.: http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/the-chronicle-of-coca-cola-birth-of-a-refreshing-idea
Page 200, Position 3: French pharmacists are all qualified to identify edible mushrooms.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/8774805/Follow-the-French-if-you-want-to-forage-safely.html
Page 200, Position 4: Mushrooms are farmed in the catacombs under Paris.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/paris-catacomb-mushrooms
Page 201, Position 1: There are 19 alligator farms in the US.: http://www.doitintheamericas.com/us/attractions/alligator-farms.htm
Page 201, Position 2: 70% of all the birds on Earth are farmed poultry.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/human-impact-biomass-043432/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 201, Position 3: Clarence Birdseye founded his company with $7, which he spent on blocks of ice and an electric fan.: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NgKEO9L-H2EJ:www.chicagotribune.com/dining/recipes/sc-food-0214-giants-birdseye-20140215-story.html+&amp
Page 201, Position 4: The president of Rwanda is an Arsenal fan.: https://qz.com/1291316/rwanda-and-arsenal-football-club-when-the-poor-sponsor-the-rich/
Page 202, Position 1: The women’s football World Cup has only ever been won by democracies.: https://media.economist.com/news/leaders/21743655-and-economist-has-ideas-about-how-countries-should-go-about-winning-it-all-its-faults
Page 202, Position 2: Fund managers from poor backgrounds are better at investing than those from wealthy backgrounds.: https://qz.com/882508/fund-managers-who-come-from-poor-backgrounds-are-better-investors-than-rich-ones/
Page 202, Position 3: When investor Henry Budd died in 1862, he left his fortune to his two sons, on condition that neither of them ever grew a moustache.: http://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2015/04/brixton-history-the-wealthy-budd-family-mausoleum-and-the-no-moustache-family-rule/
Page 202, Position 4: The three richest Americans have as much money as the 160 million poorest Americans.: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/08/bill-gates-jeff-bezos-warren-buffett-wealthier-than-poorest-half-of-us?utm_source=esp&amp
Page 203, Position 1: Due to climate change, Sweden’s Lake of the Pine Trees is now surrounded by birch trees.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/climate-change-species-migration-disease/
Page 203, Position 2: 53 million years ago, Antarctica was covered in palm trees.: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-climate-change-meant-antarctica-was-once-covered-with-palm-trees-12098835/
Page 203, Position 3: There is a species of palm tree that can walk.: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20151207-ecuadors-mysterious-walking-trees
Page 203, Position 4: The cabbage palm tree is neither a cabbage, a palm nor a tree.: https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/4361/Cordyline-australis/Details
Page 204, Position 1: Palm cockatoos make drum kits out of seedpods and sticks.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/06/28/these-birds-are-the-only-other-animals-that-drum-to-a-beat/?utm_term=.d3f1027c4c44
Page 204, Position 2: T-Rex couldn’t stick its tongue out.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/dinosaur-trex-tongue-alligator-spd/
Page 204, Position 3: Everyone has a unique tongue print.: http://www.dentistryiq.com/articles/2014/01/new-oral-features-can-be-considered-unique-as-a-fingerprint.html
Page 204, Position 4: The printer on the International Space Station was 20 years old when it was replaced in 2018.: https://mashable.com/2017/11/02/nasa-updates-international-space-station-printer/?europe=true
Page 205, Position 1: Google accounts for 40% of the Internet’s carbon footprint.: https://qz.com/1267709/every-google-search-results-in-co2-emissions-this-real-time-dataviz-shows-how-much/
Page 205, Position 2: The world’s smallest computer is smaller than a grain of sand.: https://newatlas.com/worlds-smallest-computer-university-michigan/55175/?utm_medium=email&amp
Page 205, Position 3: The hard drive on Terry Pratchett’s computer containing his unfinished works was destroyed at his request by a steamroller.: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/30/terry-pratchett-unfinished-novels-destroyed-streamroller
Page 205, Position 4: In 2017, a drink-driver in Northern Ireland was arrested after his Ford Fiesta phoned the police to say it had been involved in a crash.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bf4dff46-39ad-11e7-8c42-97760aa22c36
Page 206, Position 1: An AI programmed to come up with messages for Love Hearts sweets suggested ‘BEAR WIG’, ‘MEAT MATE’ and ‘YOU ARE BAG’.: https://www.pedestrian.tv/tech/ai-generates-cooked-candy-hearts/
Page 206, Position 2: Messages in the first sticks of rock included ‘Do you love me?’, ‘Do you love sprats?’ and ‘Sir Robert Peel’.: The Oxford Companion to Food äóñ Alan Davidson
Page 206, Position 3: Names of bell-ringing peals include the ‘Reverse Canterbury Pleasure’, the ‘Yorkshire Surprise’ and the ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Yorkshire Surprise’.: the 'Yorkshire Surprise'
Page 206, Position 4: There is a bell that’s been ringing in Oxford non-stop for 178 years.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Electric_Bell
Page 207, Position 1: The first ice-hockey referees used cowbells, not whistles.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Waghorne#Officiating
Page 207, Position 2: The first ice-hockey pucks were made from frozen cow dung.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/32285/11-fun-facts-about-hockey-pucks
Page 207, Position 3: The first American footballs were meant to be spherical; they just weren’t blown up properly.: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-did-the-pigskin-get-its-shape-63180450/#MboVZZMw2jT5Gzxr.99
Page 207, Position 4: The first rubber bands were made from the inner tubes of car tyres.: http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20180515-how-to-become-an-elastic-thinker-and-problem-solver
Page 208, Position 1: The minty flavour of toothpaste comes from pine trees.: Element in the Room - Arney & Mould
Page 208, Position 2: Colgate has trademarked the Tooth Fairy.: https://www.trademarkia.com/tooth-fairy-73265049.html
Page 208, Position 3: Lloyd’s of London insured Ken Dodd’s teeth for four times more than they did the Titanic.: https://www.lloyds.com/lloyds/about-us/history/catastrophes-and-claims/titanic
Page 208, Position 4: Tetley tea’s chief tester has his taste buds insured for £1 million.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/weird-news/tea-expert-insures-his-taste-buds-for-1-million-9883915.html
Page 209, Position 1: There were more coffee houses per person in London in the 1700s than there are today.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/London-cafes-the-surprising-history-of-Londons-lost-coffeehouses/ http://www.ukcoffeeleadersummit.com/yet-growth-uk-coffee-shop-market-coffee-shops-become-new-local/ http://blog.localdatacompany.com/a-look-into-coffee-shops-in-great-britain-for-internationalcoffeeday
Page 209, Position 2: The man who invented coffee pods doesn’t use them because they’re bad for the environment.: http://uk.businessinsider.com/k-cup-inventor-john-sylvans-regret-2015-3?utm_source=reddit.com&amp
Page 209, Position 3: In ancient China, adulterous men were punished by having their penises removed.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_removal
Page 209, Position 4: 25% of Americans have had a pubic hair grooming injury.: https://www.livescience.com/60149-pubic-hair-grooming-injuries.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&amp
Page 210, Position 1: ‘Gooseberrybush’ was 19th-century slang for ‘pubic hair’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gooseberry
Page 210, Position 2: ‘Got the morbs’ was Victorian slang for ‘temporary melancholia’.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/53529/56-delightful-victorian-slang-terms-you-should-be-using
Page 210, Position 3: ‘Muffin-walloper’ was Victorian slang for a ‘gossip’.: https://www.english.com/blog/more-fascinating-facts-about-english/
Page 210, Position 4: ‘Loitersacke’ was 17th-century slang for a ‘slacker’.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/61819/42-old-english-insults
Page 211, Position 1: Argon is Greek for ‘lazy’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argon
Page 211, Position 2: When the chemical compound thioacetone was first distilled, it smelled so bad that it caused anyone within a mile of the lab to vomit and fall unconscious.: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thioacetone
Page 211, Position 3: Scientists can’t tell what sex a person is by studying their brain alone.: https://www.nbcnews.com/better/wellness/can-you-tell-which-brains-are-male-neither-can-these-n471751
Page 211, Position 4: By swabbing your phone screen, a researcher can find out what you eat, where you’ve been and what medicine you take.: https://www.livescience.com/56948-wacky-science-stories-to-talk-about-thanksgiving.html
Page 212, Position 1: The World Mobile Phone Throwing Championships take place in Finland.: http://www.mobilephonethrowing.fi/
Page 212, Position 2: When the Russians invaded Finland in 1940, they were so sure they’d be welcomed that they brought musical instruments with them.: https://www.outsideonline.com/2267491/red-dawn-lapland
Page 212, Position 3: During the war between India and Pakistan in 1947, King George VI was technically at war with himself.: https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/why-pak-army-entered-so-late-into-the-1948-war-of-kashmir.338814/
Page 212, Position 4: Pakistan was originally Pakstan, an acronym representing Punjab, Afghan province, Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan.: OED
Page 213, Position 1: Karachi bid for the 1960 Winter Olympics, despite its temperature never having fallen below 0°C.: https://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/onmyplate/karachi-olympics-and-lessons-from-the-winter-games/
Page 213, Position 2: When the 1964 Winter Olympics were threatened by lack of snow, the Austrian Army carried 40,000 cubic metres of it up to the ski slopes.: https://www.olympic.org/innsbruck-1964
Page 213, Position 3: When the East German luge team were caught heating the runners on their sleds in 1968, they blamed a ‘capitalist revanchist plot’.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/54657/9-crazy-moments-winter-olympics-history
Page 213, Position 4: Liechtenstein only found out they had the same flag as Haiti when they both arrived at the 1936 Olympics.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein_at_the_1936_Summer_Olympics
Page 214, Position 1: According to the US Flag Code, the Stars and Stripes is a living thing.: http://www.sfai.edu/uploads/about-sfai/SFAI_A_Living_Thing_Final_01112017.pdf
Page 214, Position 2: The current 50-star US flag was designed in 1958 by a 17-year-old as part of a school project. He got a B.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Heft
Page 214, Position 3: A retired UN official has spent 25 years collecting 14,000 ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/do-not-disturb-signs-collection
Page 214, Position 4: The official retirement age for Russian men is two years above their average life expectancy .: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-44495136
Page 215, Position 1: Alzheimer’s cannot be definitively diagnosed until the patient is dead.: https://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/guide/making-diagnosis-tests#1
Page 215, Position 2: Jason Bourne is named after Ansel Bourne, one of the most famous amnesiacs in medical history.: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=3445059&amp
Page 215, Position 3: Type A and Type B personalities were made up by a tobacco company .: http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/17241/1/Type-A-and-Type-B-Personalities-Useful-Measure-of-Personality-or-Conspiracy-Funded-by-Tobacco-Companies.html
Page 215, Position 4: Smoking the venom of the Sonoran Desert toad is said to be like having a Force 5 hurricane in your head.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/magazine/the-sunday-times-magazine/the-magazine-interview-michael-pollan-on-his-new-book-and-what-he-learnt-smoking-the-psychedelic-venom-of-a-toad-mmwd9ss8n
Page 216, Position 1: Scientists in Morocco have created a scorpion-milking machine that can extract venom from four scorpions at once.: http://newatlas.com/scorpion-venom-milking-machine/50337/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&amp
Page 216, Position 2: The man who invented condensed milk also invented an amphibious horse and cart equipped with a mast and sail.: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/condensed-milk-try-meat-biscuit-180967095/#HwfsouRrjKgpJ0kI.99
Page 216, Position 3: Grampussing was a punishment in which sailors’ hands were tied above their heads and buckets of water poured down their sleeves.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/63819/15-historic-terms-crime-and-punishment-defined
Page 216, Position 4: The heatproof sleeve on the outside of a disposable coffee cup is called a ‘zarf’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarf
Page 217, Position 1: DEFRA gets through 1,400 disposable cups a day.: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/21/uk-environment-department-using-1400-disposable-coffee-cups-a-day
Page 217, Position 2: 69 ants’ nests in the UK have listed building status.: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/nov/04/ants-nests-forest-building-protection
Page 217, Position 3: UK Control of Noise at Work Regulations (2006) recognise no distinction between a factory and an opera house.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43582484
Page 217, Position 4: The Ministry of Defence’s official Book of Abbreviations is 373 pages long.: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/227048/acronyms_and_abbreviations_dec08.pdf
Page 218, Position 1: Perissology is the unnecessary use of rather more words than are necessary to get the meaning of the words across to the majority of people in a meaningful manner or way.: OED
Page 218, Position 2: A philodox is someone who loves their own opinion.: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/philodox
Page 218, Position 3: To perendinate is to put something off till the day after the day after tomorrow.: Horologicon Mark Forsyth
Page 218, Position 4: Parorexia is the desire to eat strange foods.: http://phrontistery.info/p.html
Page 219, Position 1: Britain’s leading apple researcher is severely allergic to apples.: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/observations/2016/10/bite-apple-man-obsessed-our-most-english-fruit
Page 219, Position 2: The US once had over 14,000 varieties of apple. Today, there are only 90.: http://www.tfp.org/went-17000-15-main-varieties-apples/
Page 219, Position 3: The original Bramley apple tree has a fan club in Japan.: http://www.southwellcouncil.com/index2.php?option=com_content&amp
Page 219, Position 4: iTunes customers have to agree not to use Apple products to create nuclear weapons.: https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-dont-make-nuclear-weapons-using-itunes/
Page 220, Position 1: MPs in the Ukrainian parliament must leave weapons and explosives in their lockers.: https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/03/20/world/europe/ap-eu-ukraine-guns-in-parliament.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180321&amp
Page 220, Position 2: MPs in the UK parliament are not allowed to call each other asses, gits, rats, sods, swine, idiots, tarts, cowards, hooligans or guttersnipes.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/538526/things-forbidden-in-british-parliament
Page 220, Position 3: The Habeas Corpus Act (1679) became law only because a portly lord was counted as 10 votes and the Opposition didn’t notice.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_Corpus_Act_1679The
Page 220, Position 4: The British Labour Party is the largest political party in western Europe.: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tories-membership-nandos-discount-card_uk_5affdaf7e4b0463cdba2039b?ncid=APPLENEWS00001
Page 221, Position 1: The Romans drank turpentine to treat depression.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/is-turpentine-medicine
Page 221, Position 2: Frankincense is used in Oman as a stomach soother, cough medicine, blood thinner, wound cleaner and fly repellent.: http://www.mei.edu/sqcc/frankincense
Page 221, Position 3: King Edward VII had a liqueur specially created for him to drink while driving.: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/drink-like-royalty-berry-bros-rudds-kings-ginger-hits-america/251903/
Page 221, Position 4: Prairie voles can drink the equivalent of 15 bottles of wine a day.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/animals-drinking-alcohol-monogamy-love/?mc_cid=9188af7fe2&amp
Page 222, Position 1: A group of pandas is called an ‘embarrassment’.: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/talk-to-the-animals-the-art-and-humour-of-the-collective-noun-2142716.html
Page 222, Position 2: The man who invented the plastic garden flamingo dressed in matching clothes with his wife for 35 years.: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-guy-who-wore-the-same-clothes-as-his-wife-for-35-years-also-designed-the-pink-garden-flamingo/276372/
Page 222, Position 3: 26 tons of clothing are abandoned each year at the start line of the Boston Marathon.: https://news.wgbh.org/2017/04/12/local-news/what-happens-50000-pounds-clothes-left-boston-marathon-start-line
Page 222, Position 4: The surnames of the two most famous football commentators in Russia are Gusev (Goose) and Utkin (Duck).: https://www.rbth.com/arts/2014/05/25/what_russian_surnames_mean_35481
Page 223, Position 1: Before he became a billionaire, Roman Abramovich ran a company that made plastic ducks.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/visa-snub-to-abramovich-fuels-tension-with-russia-j3qnzpr25
Page 223, Position 2: Piggybanks get their name from the Old English pygg, meaning ‘clay’.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/qi/8912210/QI-Quite-interesting-facts-about-pigs.html
Page 223, Position 3: Every new car is first modelled in clay by a sculptor.: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-high-tech-world-car-clay.html?mc_cid=e005e11bf5&amp
Page 223, Position 4: In 2017, Bentley launched a new off-road model fitted out for falconers, complete with a perch and a gauntlet compartment.: http://newatlas.com/bentley-bentayga-falconry-by-mulliner/49626/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&amp
Page 224, Position 1: Migrating birds are welcomed to New Zealand every spring by the bells of St Paul’s, Papanui, ringing for half an hour.: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/our-future/7203140/Our-amazing-migrating-godwits
Page 224, Position 2: Birds in cages hop in the direction they would migrate, if they could.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/birds-migration-magnetic-field-navigation-reed-warblers-changing-declination-longitude-a7899511.html
Page 224, Position 3: More than half of all species on Earth are moving their habitats due to climate change.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/climate-change-species-migration-disease/
Page 224, Position 4: The average frog breeds eight days earlier than it would have done 10 years ago.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/climate-change-species-migration-disease/
Page 225, Position 1: 65 million years ago, there were frogs that ate dinosaurs.: https://www.livescience.com/60474-frog-with-powerful-bite.html
Page 225, Position 2: Dinosaurs were living on Earth before Saturn got its rings.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dinosaurs-probably-older-saturns-rings-180967565/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&amp
Page 225, Position 3: The world’s oldest rock is 4.38 billion years old.: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-rocks-ancientscience/oldest-rocks-on-earth-found-in-northern-canada-idUSTRE48O7JW20080925
Page 225, Position 4: The world’s largest gold nugget had to be broken up because it was too big to fit on the bank’s scales.: https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/history/australia-home-to-the-worlds-largest-gold-nugget.aspx
Page 226, Position 1: Only 0.05% of the Earth’s mass is water.: http://sciencenordic.com/earth-has-lost-quarter-its-water
Page 226, Position 2: Glaciers can move faster than a speeding train.: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/why-slow-glaciers-can-sometimes-surge-fast-speeding-train-wiping-out-people-their-path
Page 226, Position 3: Gravity travels at the speed of light.: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/06/09/ask-ethan-if-mass-curves-spacetime-how-does-it-un-curve-again/#4ce29ad5746a
Page 226, Position 4: Super Mario’s jumps and falls suggest he lives on a planet with eight times more gravity than Earth.: http://uk.businessinsider.com/mario-brothers-physics-gravity-2015-2?r=US&amp
Page 227, Position 1: Jupiter is so close to its moon Io that it causes the ground there to bulge and contract by hundreds of feet every day.: http://listverse.com/2018/03/27/10-out-of-this-world-facts-about-jupiters-moon-io/
Page 227, Position 2: Jupiter is known to have 79 moons.: https://science.howstuffworks.com/jupiter-have-79-moons-when-earth-just-has-one.htm
Page 227, Position 3: Pluto’s equator is covered in blades of ice made of methane.: https://boingboing.net/2017/10/16/plutos-equator-is-covered-in.html
Page 227, Position 4: Not all humans have methane in their farts.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatulence
Page 228, Position 1: Henry II had a court jester whose Christmas dance featured a jump, a whistle and a fart.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-true-story-of-roland-the-farter-and-how-the-internet-killed-professional-flatulence
Page 228, Position 2: A yuleshard is someone who is still preparing for Christmas on Christmas Eve.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/21-obscure-christmas-words-youve-never-heard/
Page 228, Position 3: At 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve, 40% of Swedes watch Donald Duck.: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/12/nordic_quack.html
Page 228, Position 4: Buying every gift mentioned in ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ would cost £27,016.92.: http://uk.businessinsider.com/12-days-of-christmas-song-cost-index-pnc-2017-11
Page 229, Position 1: Irving Berlin presented himself with the Best Original Song Oscar for ‘White Christmas’.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aM5CDwAAQBAJ&amp
Page 229, Position 2: Silent films had musical accompaniment to drown out the noise of the projectors.: http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Music-MUSIC-IN-SILENT-FILM.html
Page 229, Position 3: Horror films are the only movie genre in which more women appear than men.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2123926-machine-learning-reveals-lack-of-female-screen-time-in-top-films/
Page 229, Position 4: The film Fargo was released in Hong Kong as ‘Mysterious Murder in Snowy Cream’.: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/13782/50-movie-titles-that-got-lost-in-translation
Page 230, Position 1: The night-vision camera released by Sony in 1998 had to be recalled because it could see through people’s clothes.: https://fossbytes.com/sony-accidentally-launched-camcorders-see-peoples-clothes/
Page 230, Position 2: The first Sony Walkman had two headphone jacks in case it was thought to be antisocial.: http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0 8599 1907884 00.html
Page 230, Position 3: The 2014 version of the Walkman was sold inside a bottle of water to prove it was waterproof.: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/sony-sells-waterproof-walkman-in-bottle-of-water-9122124.html
Page 230, Position 4: Queen Victoria owned a bulletproof umbrella.: http://shootingvictoria.com/post/27439205271/the-latest-in-royal-protection-c-1842
Page 231, Position 1: Canon was originally spelt ‘Kwanon’, after the 1,000-armed Buddhist goddess of mercy .: https://global.canon/en/corporate/logo/
Page 231, Position 2: Photocopying was banned in Tibet in 2010.: http://thetibetpost.com/en/news/international/882-chinas-harsh-crackdown-on-photocopying-in-lhasa-tibet
Page 231, Position 3: The first person to photocopy a body part was Andy Warhol.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-xerox-invented-the-copier-and-artists-pushed-it-too-its-limits
Page 231, Position 4: Wilhelm Röntgen took the veryfirst X-ray of his wife Anna Bertha’s hand. Seeing her skeleton made her gasp, ‘I have seen my death!’: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/roentgen-xrays-discovery-radiographs
Page 232, Position 1: Dinosaur skeletons are increasingly bought by wealthy private collectors, because museums can’t afford them.: https://qz.com/1295534/dinosaur-skeleton-auctions-mean-that-important-fossils-are-going-to-rich-people-instead-of-museums/
Page 232, Position 2: The Kattenkabinet museum in Amsterdam has works of art by Rembrandt, Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso – but only the ones featuring cats.: https://museu.ms/museum/details/1035/kattenkabinet
Page 232, Position 3: The tagline for the National Poo Museum on the Isle of Wight is ‘Have You Been?’: https://www.poomuseum.org
Page 232, Position 4: Berlin has a curried-sausage museum.: http://currywurstmuseum.com/en/
Page 233, Position 1: The smell of Play-Doh is trademarked.: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/18/17369226/hasbro-play-doh-smell-trademarked
Page 233, Position 2: Valium is present in potatoes.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2849941
Page 233, Position 3: Alcohol is 114 times as dangerous as marijuana.: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/23/marijuana-may-be-even-safer-than-previously-thought-researchers-say/
Page 233, Position 4: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was banned in Malaysia because Morphin sounded a bit like ‘morphine’.: http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/Newsbriefs/9512/12-22/am.html
Page 234, Position 1: ‘Groin’ once meant the snout of a pig.: OED
Page 234, Position 2: Dogs inhale through their nostrils and exhale through slits on the sides of their noses.: https://www.rover.com/blog/secret-history-dogs-nose-in/
Page 234, Position 3: A poodle–Rottweiler cross is called a Rottiepoo, a Rottiedoodle or a Rottweilerpoo.: https://www.101dogbreeds.com/rottle-rottweiler-poodle-mix.asp
Page 234, Position 4: All Jack Russells are descended from a dog called Trump.: https://www.therealjackrussell.com/breed/history.php
Page 235, Position 1: Dogs visiting US National Parks can be certified as Bark Rangers.: https://www.nps.gov/resources/2016.htm?id=23A2D8A6-1DD8-B71B-0BF6B8E8A2F79A66
Page 235, Position 2: The first public parks in the US were cemeteries.: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/03/our-first-public-parks-the-forgotten-history-of-cemeteries/71818/
Page 235, Position 3: In the 1840s, Mount AuburnCemetery ranked alongside Niagara Falls as the nation’s most popular tourist attraction.: http://www.americanforests.org/magazine/article/in-the-garden-cemetery-the-revival-of-americas-first-urban-parks/
Page 235, Position 4: To tackle the problem of expanding cemeteries in Brazil, the mayor of Biritiba-Mirim suggested that death be outlawed.: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/10454687/ns/us_news-weird_news/t/if-only-it-were-easy/#.W3riFa3Mw3g
Page 236, Position 1: The mayor of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire is weighed every year to see if he’s got fat during his term in office.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_of_High_Wycombe
Page 236, Position 2: Plants make up 82% of the mass of all living things.: http://www.newser.com/story/259591/by-this-new-measure-plants-rule-the-earth.html%C2%A0
Page 236, Position 3: Only 30% of Hindus are vegetarian.: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-interesting-facts-about-Hinduism/answer/Abhishek-Jain-875
Page 236, Position 4: The DNA in your body could stretch to Pluto and back again 17 times.: https://www.zmescience.com/other/feature-post/10-quick-scientific-facts-will-blow-mind/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&utm_campaign=dfef270e5d-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3b5aad2288-dfef270e5d-242764853&goal=0_3b5aad2288-dfef270e5d-242764853
Page 237, Position 1: The Sun is closer to the Earth during the UK’s winter, not the summer.: https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/perihelion-aphelion-solstice.html
Page 237, Position 2: In the Qing dynasty , people swapped their pillows in the summer for cooler ceramic ones.: https://www.christies.com/features/Song-ceramic-pillows-a-triumph-of-cooling-and-ancient-artistry-7676-1.aspx
Page 237, Position 3: Ancient Greek soldiers once went on strike for softer pillows.
Page 237, Position 4: The software in new cars can contain up to 100 million lines of code.: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/saving-the-world-from-code/540393/?mc_cid=e3461f8228&amp
Page 238, Position 1: The mysterious green code that begins all the Matrix movies is in fact recipes for sushi.: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/the-matrix-green-falling-code-meaning-sushi-recipes-a8022641.html
Page 238, Position 2: Matrix is Latin for ‘womb’.: Matrix is Latin for'womb'. https://www.etymonline.com/word/matrix
Page 238, Position 3: Japan’s oldest porn-movie actress retired at the age of 80.: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2017/03/22/entertainment-news/japans-oldest-porn-queen-calls-quits-80/#.WOuEt461vp4
Page 238, Position 4: The skull of the ‘world’s oldest Dutchwoman’ has been carbon dated at 13,000 years old.: https://www.livescience.com/61882-skull-of-oldest-dutchwoman-found.html#?utm_source=ls-newsletter&amp
Page 239, Position 1: 5,000 years ago, the most popular tattoo was a sheep.: https://boingboing.net/2018/03/13/popular-tattoos-5000-years-ag.html
Page 239, Position 2: Mentioning The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on your dating profile increases your replies by one-third.: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/book-readers-best-lovers-bilbiophiles-hunger-games-sex-attractive-richard-branson-men-women-a7708091.html
Page 239, Position 3: George V had a dragon tattoo.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_V#Early_life_and_education
Page 239, Position 4: It’s illegal in Indiana to tattoo your eyeballs.: https://apnews.com/a2dfde8307eb47cc9616cf7a306bb00a?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp
Page 240, Position 1: Many Japanese bathhouses ban people with tattoos.: https://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/11/07/are-these-normal-japanese-things-weird-to-you-10-things-that-might-surprise-you-when-you-visit-japan/
Page 240, Position 2: At Italian swimming pools, swimming caps are compulsory.: https://www.canvasholidays.co.uk/blog/2015/04/06/the-rules-of-swimming-attire-in-france/
Page 240, Position 3: In French swimming pools, men are obliged to wear budgie smugglers.: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/12/speedos-fashion
Page 240, Position 4: There’s a spa in the Czech Republic where you can bathe in beer.: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/jan/17/spas-weird-baths-around-the-world-beer
Page 241, Position 1: Brno, in the Czech Republic, has an annual parade of Silly Walks.: https://www.yahoo.com/news/czech-silly-walkers-pay-tribute-monty-python-051558219.html
Page 241, Position 2: Rácˇkovat is a Czech word meaning ‘to mispronounce your “R”s’.: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ríçÛkovat
Page 241, Position 3: Bats have regional accents.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8000520/Bats-have-regional-accents.html
Page 241, Position 4: Bats eat so many insects that they save US farmers $22.9 billion a year.: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/opinion/05tue3.html
Page 242, Position 1: Farmsoil quality can be checked by burying a pair of underpants and seeing how long they take to decompose.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/11/02/farmers-urged-bury-underpants-improve-quality-beef/
Page 242, Position 2: Experts have warned people not to boil their underwear in hotel kettles.: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/underwear-boil-hotel-kettles-spread-bacteria-health-risk-heather-hendrickson-hostels-a7909941.html
Page 242, Position 3: English women didn’t wear underpants until the 19th century.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/502080/secrets-getting-dressed-18th-century-woman
Page 242, Position 4: In the early 1900s, women in Chicago could be fined $50 for wearing a hatpin over 9 inches long.: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hatpin-peril-terrorized-men-who-couldnt-handle-20th-century-woman-180951219/
Page 243, Position 1: The first mass-produced bicycle for women was called the Ladies’ Psycho.: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hatpin-peril-terrorized-men-who-couldnt-handle-20th-century-woman-180951219/
Page 243, Position 2: Penny-farthings weren’t called penny-farthings until they were almost obsolete.: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/140209?redirectedFrom=penny-farthing#eid
Page 243, Position 3: The Royal Mint made only seven pennies in 1933: there were enough in circulation, but they didn’t want to miss a year.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1302005/1933-penny-coin-valued-80k-offered-eBay-suddenly-withdrawn.html
Page 243, Position 4: 60% of 1p and 2p coins are used once, then put in a jar.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43388662
Page 244, Position 1: Pickpockets in 17th-century Russia used sharpened coins to slice open their victims’ purses.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-44088275
Page 244, Position 2: The Bitcoin network uses more power than the whole of Serbia.: https://newatlas.com/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-power-consumption/52556/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&amp
Page 244, Position 3: The Serbian equivalent of saying ‘Bless you’ to a sneeze is ‘Go away, kitten.’: https://newatlas.com/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-power-consumption/52556/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&amp
Page 244, Position 4: Looking at photos of puppies and kittens helps you concentrate.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/536413/facts-about-puppies
Page 245, Position 1: Paper wasps know every other wasp in their colony by sight.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/111202-wasps-people-faces-recognition-insects-science-animals/
Page 245, Position 2: The record distance for throwing a paper plane is 69.14 metres.: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/farthest-flight-by-a-paper-aircraft
Page 245, Position 3: Truman Capote took six paperweights with him wherever he went.: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/09/20/the-surprising-history-of-paperweights/?utm_source=New+Daily+Newsletter+Subscribers&amp
Page 245, Position 4: The World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things is based in Kansas.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/world-s-largest-collection-of-the-world-s-smallest-versions-of-the-world-s-largest-things
Page 246, Position 1: The world’s largest key collection includes the keys to the White House toilets, Mozart’s wine cellar and Hitler’s bunker.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/baldpate-inn-key-collection
Page 246, Position 2: The credits for the film Airplane! included Adolf Hitler as ‘Worst Boy’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_boy#Etymology
Page 246, Position 3: Rescuing a damsel from the train tracks only ever appeared in films as a spoof.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rethinking-the-origins-of-the-damsel-on-the-railroad-tracks
Page 246, Position 4: Oscars are not given for stunts or casting.: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/26/game-of-thrones-the-crown-nina-gold-casting-director http://uk.businessinsider.com/heres-why-stunt-people-oscars-2018-3?r=US&amp
Page 247, Position 1: The sound of the doors on the starship Enterprise was made by pulling a piece of paper out of an envelope.: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150616-the-secret-sounds-in-movies-and-tv
Page 247, Position 2: The sound at one Deep Purple concert was so loud that three people in the crowd fell unconscious.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudest_band
Page 247, Position 3: The Welsh mythical hero Culhwch had a battle cry so loud it was said to sterilise women.: http://www.mabinogion.info/culhwch.htm
Page 247, Position 4: Gulf corvina fish have sex so loudly they deafen dolphins.: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/how-machine-gun-fish-orgasms-11725723
Page 248, Position 1: Click beetles can withstand 40 times more G-force than a fighter pilot.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/animals-sharks-spiders-birds-beetles/
Page 248, Position 2: Montenegro is a member of NATO but has no fighter planes.: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_155113.htm
Page 248, Position 3: In Japanese bullfighting, there are no bullfighters.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44015286
Page 248, Position 4: The only ants in Iceland are in a zoo.: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/08/ants/did-you-know-learn https://grapevine.is/news/2017/11/30/leaf-cutter-ants-have-arrived-in-iceland/
Page 249, Position 1: Indigo plants aren’t blue.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MI-vbcXDdssC&amp
Page 249, Position 2: Dogs see in blue and yellow.: http://digg.com/video/what-dogs-see-when-watching-tv?utm_source=digg&amp
Page 249, Position 3: Lizards in New Guinea have lime-green blood.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/green-blood-lizard-423423/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 249, Position 4: There are over 4,000 pubs in the UK called the Red Lion.: The Pub Pete Brown
Page 250, Position 1: In 2017, a pub in Cardiff apologised to a group of priests who’d been asked to leave by staff who assumed they were on a stag do.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-40792962
Page 250, Position 2: The Popemobile used by John Paul II on his visit to Ireland can be rented out for stag parties.: https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/the-popemobile-used-during-his-visit-to-ireland-can-now-be-hired-for-stags-and-hens-451686.html
Page 250, Position 3: After the Reformation, pubs called the Pope’s Head were changed to the King’s Head.: The Pub Pete Brown
Page 250, Position 4: King’s holly, a Tasmanian shrub, is at least 43,000 years old, but has never been seen to flower.: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/how-do-you-define-a-tree/557135/?utm_source=twb
Page 251, Position 1: There is an eighth continent called Zealandia, but 94% of it is under the sea.: http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/27/3/article/GSATG321A.1.htm#toclink2
Page 251, Position 2: 500 times as much uranium is dissolved in the sea as is under the ground.: https://newatlas.com/nuclear-uranium-seawater-fibers/55033/?utm_medium=email&amp
Page 251, Position 3: Plutonium remains toxic for at least 100,000 years.: https://granta.com/the-waste-land/
Page 251, Position 4: Amazon owns more than 100,000 robots.: https://qz.com/se/perfect-company-2/1172282/this-company-built-one-of-the-worlds-most-efficient-warehouses-by-embracing-chaos/?mc_cid=8e1698a981&amp
Page 252, Position 1: The research that led to the founding of Google was funded by grants from the CIA.: https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-cia-and-nsa-research-grants-for-mass-surveillance/
Page 252, Position 2: The CIA stages fake conferences to lure professors they want to recruit.: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/10/the-science-of-spying-how-the-cia-secretly-recruits-academics
Page 252, Position 3: In 2018, the University of Miami appointed the US’s first professor of atheism.: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/01/how-should-atheism-be-taught/551885/?utm_source=newsletter&amp
Page 252, Position 4: The inventor of the bar code first drew it in sand on Miami Beach.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/history-bar-code-180956704/
Page 253, Position 1: In 2013, a stolen prosthetic arm was found in a second-hand shop in Bournemouth.: http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/10860772.Stolen_prosthetic_arm_discovered_in_a_second_hand_shop/
Page 253, Position 2: Mary Shelley is buried in Bournemouth.: https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/6/the-second-worst-poet-in-english-9867
Page 253, Position 3: Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in Bournemouth.: https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/6/the-second-worst-poet-in-english-9867
Page 253, Position 4: Cumberland Clark, the Bard of Bournemouth, is widely considered to be the second-worst poet in the English language.: https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/6/the-second-worst-poet-in-english-9867
Page 254, Position 1: The worst pollutant of all household cleaning products is air freshener.: https://priceonomics.com/which-cleaning-products-pollute-your-home-the-most/
Page 254, Position 2: Moose Murders, generally agreed to be the worst-ever Broadway play, lasted one night in 1983.: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/theater/21moos.html?8dpc=&amp
Page 254, Position 3: When astronaut Sally Ride first went into space in 1983, NASA engineers asked if 100 tampons would be enough to last her a week.: https://www.popsci.com/brief-history-menstruating-in-space
Page 254, Position 4: Elon Musk works twice as many hours a week as the average American.: https://qz.com/1000370/the-days-and-nights-of-elon-musk-how-he-spends-his-time-at-work-and-play/
Page 255, Position 1: The risk of a heart attack increases by 25% the Monday after the clocks go back.: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heart-daylightsaving/daylight-saving-time-linked-to-heart-attacks-study-idUSBREA2S0D420140329
Page 255, Position 2: ‘Widdershins’ is another word for ‘anticlockwise’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widdershins
Page 255, Position 3: In 2017, the chimes of Big Ben at Legoland were silenced to match those of the real one during its renovation.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40829260
Page 255, Position 4: Palm trees don’t have rings.: https://curiosity.com/topics/the-worlds-first-trees-didnt-have-rings-curiosity/
Page 256, Position 1: Palm oil is in 50% of all the products in supermarkets, from instant noodles to detergent.: https://qz.com/650521/leonardo-dicaprio-shared-his-indonesian-vacation-pics-to-highlight-palm-oils-harm-to-wildlife/?mc_cid=9b381e4113&amp
Page 256, Position 2: Malaysia supplies 40% of the world’s palm oil.: https://www.aseanbriefing.com/news/2017/02/13/getting-a-grip-on-malaysias-rubber-glove-industry.html
Page 256, Position 3: The largest hotel in the world is in Malaysia.: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-hotel-locations-in-the-world.html
Page 256, Position 4: Hilton Hotels’ largest shareholder is Chinese.: http://fortune.com/2016/10/25/china-hna-group-hilton-deal/
Page 257, Position 1: There is a Belgian hotel that will rent you a goldfish to keep you company .: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/belgium/articles/belgian-hotel-lets-lonely-guests-rent-goldfish-for-three-eruro-fifty-a-night/
Page 257, Position 2: Electric eels aren’t eels.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_eel
Page 257, Position 3: One way to treat jellyfish stings is to apply shaving foam and ‘shave’ the area with a credit card.: Morning Star 11 Aug 17
Page 257, Position 4: Fish can cough.: https://www.livescience.com/32168-do-fish-cry.html
Page 258, Position 1: Dead Salmon is a paint colour: ‘salmon’ is a shade of pink and ‘dead’ is a synonym for matt.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color
Page 258, Position 2: Farrow & Ball paint colours include Savage Ground, Smoked Trout, Mouse’s Back, Mole’s Breath, Setting Plaster, Railings and Pigeon.: http://www.farrow-ball.com/colours/paint/fcp-category/list
Page 258, Position 3: Paint names suggested by an AI algorithm include Clardic Fug, Snowbon, Bunflow, Bank Butt, Caring Tan, Grass Bat, Stoner Blue, Stanky Bean and Turdly.: http://lewisandquark.tumblr.com/post/160776374467/new-paint-colors-invented-by-neural-network
Page 258, Position 4: Taupe is the colour of a French mole.: https://www.buzzfeed.com/ariannarebolini/believe-me-when-i-tell-you-these-little-known-facts-about?utm_term=.hwQx0Kljg#.dt25PN1ZK
Page 259, Position 1: Naked mole rats have the same chance of dying at the age of one as at 25.: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heart-daylightsaving/daylight-saving-time-linked-to-heart-attacks-study-idUSBREA2S0D420140329
Page 259, Position 2: Scientists prepare pet parrots for their return to life in the wild by staging parrot murder scenes and making them watch.: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/teaching-captive-birds-to-fear-their-natural-predators/545195/
Page 259, Position 3: Falcons are more closely related to parrots than to hawks or eagles.: https://www.birdnote.org/blog/2015/02/parrots-and-falcons-äóî-long-lost-cousins
Page 259, Position 4: There are 550 wild parrots living in New York City .: not in first draft https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/nyregion/resilient-monk-parrots-flock-to-queens-and-beyond.html
Page 260, Position 1: Zoologist Francis Buckland had a parrot that liked to hail taxis from its perch by the window.: Rogues Villains and Eccentrics p.113
Page 260, Position 2: Hatebeak is a death-metal band fronted by a parrot.: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9bgbz3/twelve-years-later-hatebeak-remains-the-worlds-only-death-metal-band-fronted-by-a-parrot-666
Page 260, Position 3: The death’s head hawk moth is the only moth that squeaks instead of buzzing.: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150811-insects-moths-science-animals-death-noises/Butterfly
Page 260, Position 4: The East African jumping spider drinks mammals’ blood.: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2017/10/31/real-halloween-horrors-peer-reviewed-collection-of-spider-records/#.Wf4IshO0M0o
Page 261, Position 1: Male spiders in the Salticidae family have fangs longer than their bodies.: https://peerj.com/articles/3972/
Page 261, Position 2: American scientists have genetically engineered a 10-legged spider.: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/13/4921
Page 261, Position 3: Sea urchins have 10 feet.: http://www.softschools.com/facts/animals/sea_urchin_facts/479/
Page 261, Position 4: In the 1940s, Americans were allowed to buy only three pairs of shoes a year.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/shoe-rationing-wwii-america-180968428/
Page 262, Position 1: Knights Templar were not allowed to wear pointy shoes or speak to women.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-the-templar-knights-ate?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 262, Position 2: The ancient Romans force-fed snails.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ancient-foie-gras-debate?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 262, Position 3: Some Roman statues had detachable heads that could be removed if the person fell from favour.: https://www.pressreader.com/uk/bbc-history-magazine/20170525/283540860643318
Page 262, Position 4: In 2017, two 240-year-old letters were found in Spain inside the hollow buttocks of a statue of Jesus.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/letters-found-butt-jesus-statue-time-capsule-spain-spd/
Page 263, Position 1: In 2017, 100,000 euros were found blocking some toilets in Geneva.: https://news.sky.com/story/unusual-deposit-geneva-loos-blocked-by-100000-cash-11042528
Page 263, Position 2: The world’s most expensive earrings were sold at auction in Geneva for $56,290,627.: http://newatlas.com/earrings-worlds-most-expensive-apollo-artemis-sothebys/49559/
Page 263, Position 3: Cameroon’s president-for-life spends 15% of his year in a five-star hotel in Geneva, where no one knows what he does.: https://qz.com/1210373/cameroons-president-for-life-paul-biya-spends-15-of-his-time-outside-his-country/?mc_cid=fa8a6e6591&amp
Page 263, Position 4: No one knows how dinosaurs grew to be so large.: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44744153
Page 264, Position 1: Quetzalcoatlus was a feathered dinosaur as tall as a giraffe that could fly 10,000 miles non-stop.: https://www.wired.com/2010/10/long-distance-giant-pterosaurs/
Page 264, Position 2: Crocodiles in the prehistoric Sahara galloped and ate dinosaurs.: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/nov/19/galloping-dinosaur-eating-crocodiles?utm_source=esp&amp
Page 264, Position 3: T-Rex had a top speed of 12 mph and would have broken its legs if it had tried to run.: http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-science-trex-running-idUKKBN1A3182?feedType=nl&amp
Page 264, Position 4: Woolly mammoths could be blond, brunette or ginger.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5154892.stm
Page 265, Position 1: Jason Allen of Tucson was invited on Jimmy Kimmel Live! for having the world’s longest leg hair.: https://www.top10hq.com/top-10-people-with-record-breaking-long-body-parts/
Page 265, Position 2: To keep the censors happy, when Elvis went on The Ed Sullivan Show, he was only filmed from the waist up.: http://www.neatorama.com/2011/07/14/elvis-from-the-waist-up/
Page 265, Position 3: The largest known anaconda had a 44-inch waist.: http://www.extremescience.com/biggest-snake.htm
Page 265, Position 4: There were 473 bananas in the world’s largest bunch of bananas.: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-bunch-of-bananas
Page 266, Position 1: A pottle is a small conical fruit basket.: http://phrontistery.info/p.html
Page 266, Position 2: To procaffeinate is to put off doing anything until you’ve had your first cup of coffee.: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=procaffeinate
Page 266, Position 3: Pecorous means ‘full of cows’.: OED
Page 266, Position 4: Pullastrine means ‘of, or like, a pigeon’.: http://phrontistery.info/p.html
Page 267, Position 1: Yawning is contagious for budgies.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/on-the-many-mysteries-of-yawning/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 267, Position 2: Orang-utans blow raspberries at each other as they go to sleep.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8gdpDQAAQBAJ&amp
Page 267, Position 3: Growing blackcurrants was illegal in the US for the whole of the 20th century.: http://www.currantc.com/index.php?src=gendocs&amp
Page 267, Position 4: It’s illegal in Canada to be drunk in charge of a canoe.: https://boingboing.net/2017/10/16/means-of-muscular-power.html
Page 268, Position 1: Around 650 ad, Polynesians in canoes reached Antarctica.: https://www.ablogabouthistory.com/history-of-antarctica/
Page 268, Position 2: Antarctica is the most volcanic region on Earth.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/12/scientists-discover-91-volcanos-antarctica
Page 268, Position 3: Antarctic sea spiders can grow to the size of dinner plates.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/science/sea-spiders-oxygen.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180605&amp
Page 268, Position 4: You are advised not to build snowmen in Antarctica as it might disturb the animals.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HBBkDAAAQBAJ&amp
Page 269, Position 1: The world’s tallest snowwoman was only 30 feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty .: https://www.worldrecordacademy.com/biggest/tallest_snowman_world_record_set_by_Behtel_residents_80154.htm
Page 269, Position 2: In the last 300 years, there have been only six times when there’s been no snow on the ground anywhere in Britain.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-41310947/scotland-s-oldest-snow-patch-set-to-melt-away
Page 269, Position 3: Australia has salt-and-vinegar flavoured grass.: http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/scientists-have-discovered-a-grass-that-tastes-like-salt-and-vinegar-chips-in-aussie-outback/news-story/a693c3af0b8e30fe613403b6be118628
Page 269, Position 4: Atlas, one of Saturn’s moons, is shaped like a piece of ravioli.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2169652-why-saturns-inner-moons-look-like-ravioli-cigars-and-potatoes/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&amp
Page 270, Position 1: Genoa airport has relaxed its rules on carrying liquids, but only for pesto.: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/italy-genoa-airport-pesto-genovese-liquid-rules-100ml-flying-angels-a7802256.html
Page 270, Position 2: A single queue at an airport makes passengers more relaxed because they don’t worry that other queues are moving faster.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/64808/12-behind-scenes-secrets-airports
Page 270, Position 3: Useless information travels faster than light.: http://bigthink.com/dr-kakus-universe/what-travels-faster-than-the-speed-of-light
Page 270, Position 4: For each gallon of fuel, the QE2 can only travel the length of a Greyhound bus.: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/qe2-much-fuel/
Page 271, Position 1: Poodles at dog shows are regularly checked for illegal hairspray.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/pets/8800958/Kennel-Club-suspends-testing-dogs-for-banned-substances-amid-widespread-cheating.html
Page 271, Position 2: Most hairspray isn’t vegan.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13673943
Page 271, Position 3: There’s a tanning salon in St Andrews called Sun Tan Drews.: http://www.118118.com/st-andrews/solariums-and-tanning-salons/1476578-sun-tan-drews.html
Page 271, Position 4: There’s a tanning salon in Lytham St Annes called Lytham St Tanz.: https://www.facebook.com/sttanz.lythamsttanz/?rf=127386040643787
Page 272, Position 1: Sunscreen was invented for people climbing glaciers.: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/fashion/24skinside.html
Page 272, Position 2: In 2016, KFC launched Extra Crispy Sunscreen, which smelled like fried chicken.: http://time.com/4461631/kfc-introduces-sunscreen-that-smells-like-fried-chicken-to-keep-you-from-turning-extra-crispy/
Page 272, Position 3: Airline passengers are advised to wear sunscreen by the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD).: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/sunscreen-on-planes-skin-cancer-risk/
Page 272, Position 4: The World Bollard Association looks after half a billion bollards.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/world-bollard-association?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 273, Position 1: The roundest country in the world is Sierra Leone.: https://gciruelos.com/what-is-the-roundest-country.html
Page 273, Position 2: The combined area of all the parking spaces in America is larger than Israel, Cyprus or Macedonia.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_area https://www.curbed.com/2017/4/26/15421594/parking-garages-driverless-cars-gensler
Page 273, Position 3: US basketball player Jimmy Butler removed the rear-view mirrors on his car as a reminder never to look back.: http://www.espn.com/sportsnation/post/_/id/13927339/the-chicago-bulls-jimmy-butler-reportedly-took-car-rearview-mirror-reminder-never-look-back
Page 273, Position 4: In the Fast and the Furious movies, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson drives trucks because he’s too big to fit into the cars.: https://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/films/the-rock-was-too-huge-to-fit-in-almost-all-the-cars-in-fate-of-the-furious/94441
Page 274, Position 1: ‘The Rock’ was told about the death of Osama bin Laden 45 minutes before the news media got hold of the story.: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/05/why-rock-heard-about-bin-laden-you-did/350306/
Page 274, Position 2: Nick Clegg announced the news of the 5p charge on plastic bags from a notorious Glasgow dogging site.: https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/politics/dot-commons-diary/73008/nick-clegg-and-dogging-hotspot
Page 274, Position 3: On 18 April 1930, the BBC announced that there was no news that day, so listeners could enjoy some piano music.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39633603
Page 274, Position 4: George Gershwin learned to play the piano by copying the movement of the keys on a friend’s pianola.: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/mar/28/classicalmusicandopera.artsfeatures
Page 275, Position 1: Anthony Trollope introduced the postbox to Britain.: https://www.royalmailgroup.com/sites/default/files/Royal%20Mail%20Post%20Boxes%20Heritage%20Agreement.pdf
Page 275, Position 2: The UK’s first postboxes were painted green to blend in with the landscape.: https://www.royalmailgroup.com/sites/default/files/Royal%20Mail%20Post%20Boxes%20Heritage%20Agreement.pdf
Page 275, Position 3: During the Second World War, the tops of British pillar boxes were coated with special yellow paint designed to detect poison gas.: https://postalheritage.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/painting-of-letter-boxes-during-world-war-ii/
Page 275, Position 4: Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, took mercury pills for immortality and died of mercury poisoning, aged 39.: https://www.livescience.com/22454-ancient-chinese-tomb-terracotta-warriors.html
Page 276, Position 1: Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson began recording an album together, but fell out because Jackson kept bringing his pet llama to the studio.: http://modernnotion.com/how-a-llama-ruined-one-of-the-most-anticipated-albums-ever/
Page 276, Position 2: Llamas urinate backwards.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b0AsAQAAMAAJ&amp
Page 276, Position 3: The ancient Romans had war dogs that were trained to fight in formation.: https://www.livescience.com/60518-animals-used-in-warfare.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&amp
Page 276, Position 4: Sheep fighting is a popular, but illegal, sport in Algeria.: https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2018/mar/02/the-brutal-world-of-sheep-fighting-the-illegal-sport-beloved-by-algerias-lost-generation-podcast
Page 277, Position 1: Santo Tomás, Peru, celebrates Christmas by holding a village punch-up.: https://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/14/world/americas/vice-peru-takanakuy/index.html
Page 277, Position 2: A fight broke out after the first indoor ice-hockey match between the players and people who wanted to go skating.: http://www.thehockeynews.com/news/article/from-deaths-to-monsters-a-history-of-fighting-in-hockey
Page 277, Position 3: After winning a fight with a rival, the male Southeast Asian mangrove crab does a victory dance.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mangrove-crab-fight-club-victory-dance-dominance
Page 277, Position 4: The Queen loves to dance to ‘Dancing Queen’.: http://royalcentral.co.uk/uk/thequeen/the-queen-reportedly-loves-to-dance-along-to-abbas-dancing-queen-85652
Page 278, Position 1: When a verylarge star quietly turns into a black hole, it’s called a ‘massive fail’.: https://www.space.com/37001-black-hole-born-from-collapsing-star-video-images.html
Page 278, Position 2: If the Earth had the density of a black hole, it would be the size of a peanut.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius
Page 278, Position 3: Alzheimer’s patients lose the ability to smell peanut butter.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3823377/pdf/nihms514234.pdf
Page 278, Position 4: Tortilla chips can spontaneously combust.: https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/austin-firefighters-respond-to-fires-caused-by-spontaneous-combustion-of-tortilla-chips
Page 279, Position 1: Australian black kites collect smouldering sticks from wildfires and use them to start new fires to smoke out prey .: https://www.livescience.com/61375-fire-spreading-raptors.html
Page 279, Position 2: South American scorpions shed their tails to escape predators, in the process losing their anus so they can’t poo any more.: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/29/how-the-scorpion-lost-its-tail-and-its-anus/
Page 279, Position 3: Newborn lily beetles cover themselves in their parents’ excrement so they look like bird droppings.: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/15/lily-beetle-wears-a-frock-of-frass-to-deter-foes
Page 279, Position 4: In the 19th century, snake excrement was taken for lung complaints.: http://www.thomas-morris.uk/snake-poo-salesman/
Page 280, Position 1: In the 16th century, women removed body hair using lotions made of vinegar and cat poo.: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/get-rid-body-hair-renaissance-women-made-lotions-arsenic-cat-dung-and-vinegar-180949977/#pii5rjgweiSOr1fX.99
Page 280, Position 2: The oldest human hair was found in a fossilised hyena turd.: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29119702/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/human-hair-found-prehistoric-hyena-poop/
Page 280, Position 3: One of the hyenas in The Lion King was called Shenzi, which means ‘worthless bastard’ in Swahili.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4L7UAwAAQBAJ&amp
Page 280, Position 4: Bastardium, nipponium and pandemonium are all rejected names for chemical elements.: http://www.compoundchem.com/2016/01/30/rejectedelements/
Page 281, Position 1: The periodic table, Google and The Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’ were all conceived in dreams.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/12763/11-creative-breakthroughs-people-had-their-sleep
Page 281, Position 2: Sleepless in Seattle T-shirts are a bestseller at Seattle-Tacoma airport.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/64808/12-behind-scenes-secrets-airports
Page 281, Position 3: The giant armadillo sleeps for 18.5 hours a day.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=l8j_z5-qZfAC&amp
Page 281, Position 4: Nurse sharks sleep on the seabed in piles.: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/n/nurse-shark/
Page 282, Position 1: Horses can remember if you smiled when they last saw you.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2167423-horses-remember-if-you-smiled-or-frowned-when-they-last-saw-you/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&amp
Page 282, Position 2: Women have broader smiles than men.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/smile-ai-gender-826274/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 282, Position 3: There are more species of ladybirds than there are species of mammals.: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/parasitic-wasps-dominate-the-animal-kingdom/557348/
Page 282, Position 4: Only 26 of the 47 British species of ladybird look like ladybirds.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150506-the-truth-about-ladybirds
Page 283, Position 1: Ladybirds recognise each other by the smell of their feet.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150506-the-truth-about-ladybirds
Page 283, Position 2: The brains of pigeons have six times as many nerve cells as human brains.: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170926090528.htm
Page 283, Position 3: Climbing Mount Everest causes brain damage.: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brain-cells-into-thin-air/
Page 283, Position 4: Nepal has eight of the 10 highest mountains in the world.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_mountains_on_Earth
Page 284, Position 1: Mountaineers can get ‘third man syndrome’, where they feel as if someone else is there with them.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26516-ever-felt-a-ghostly-presence-now-we-know-why/
Page 284, Position 2: In Madagascar, every seven years the bodies of the dead are dug up to dance with their living relatives.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famadihana
Page 284, Position 3: Mary Shelley learned to read using her mother’s gravestone.: M. Seymour. Mary Shelley. Grove Press 2002. P xvi (https://bit.ly/2uHz2U4).C. Gordon. Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. Random House 2015 (https://bit.ly/2mAXcLx)..A. Carlson. England's First Family of Writers: Mary Wollstonecraft William Godwin Mary Shelley. JHU Press 2007. P. 246 (https://bit.ly/2Lvf9t8).
Page 284, Position 4: Queen Silvia of Sweden thinks her palace is haunted.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38507015
Page 285, Position 1: A tommyknocker is western American slang for a ghost that lives in a mine.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/508553/16-scary-sayings-ghost-across-united-states
Page 285, Position 2: In Texas, cowboy boots are tax-exempt.: https://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-animals/
Page 285, Position 3: In a drugs bust in Detroit in 2017, undercover agents posing as dealers attempted to arrest other undercover agents posing as buyers.: https://www.upi.com/Undercover-Detroit-police-attempt-to-arrest-each-other-in-embarassing-drug-bust/8361510804710/
Page 285, Position 4: In 1999, a man in Connecticut was barred from joining the police because his IQ was too high.: https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836
Page 286, Position 1: In the Philippines, it’s a crime to annoy or irritate someone.: https://coconuts.co/manila/news/unjust-vexation-philippines-law-punishes-act-annoying-another-person/
Page 286, Position 2: In Durham in 1350, William Standupryght annoyed his neighbours so much that they all left the village.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=32JJ31F4QOUC&amp
Page 286, Position 3: In Lincolnshire in 1347, Letitia Bat was accused of fornication with Roger Sweatinbed.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=32JJ31F4QOUC&amp
Page 286, Position 4: During the Super Bowl, the two teams produce 11 gallons of sweat between them.: https://www.popsci.com/how-much-super-bowl-sweat?con=TrueAnthem&amp
Page 287, Position 1: 39% of the fresh water in the US is used to cool power stations.: https://newatlas.com/power-pant-steam-water/54981/?utm_medium=email&amp
Page 287, Position 2: The US uses more electricity for air-conditioning than the whole of Africa uses for everything.: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/26/how-america-became-addicted-to-air-conditioning
Page 287, Position 3: The ash produced by coal-fired power plants is more radioactive than the waste from nuclear power plants.: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
Page 287, Position 4: A Swedish power plant has reduced its dependency on coal by burning clothes from H&M instead.: http://fortune.com/2017/11/24/sweden-power-plant-hm-clothes/
Page 288, Position 1: The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum switched to solar power in 2017.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/04/06/the-coal-mining-museum-in-harlan-county-ky-switches-to-solar-power/
Page 288, Position 2: Insects are attracted to solar panels, which they mistake for water.: https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2010/scientists-propose-fix-to-keep-insects-away-from-solar-panels/
Page 288, Position 3: Most termites are blind.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/science/american-cockroach-genome.html?emc=edit_mbae_20180327&amp
Page 288, Position 4: Honeybees can grasp the concept of zero.: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3kw5w/honey-bees-are-the-first-insect-known-to-grasp-the-concept-of-zero
Page 289, Position 1: Chickens communicate using over 200 distinct noises.: https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-interesting-facts-about-birds
Page 289, Position 2: A cloop is the sound of a cork being drawn from the bottle.: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cloop
Page 289, Position 3: A million plastic bottles are bought every minute.: https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-bottle-crisis-2450299465.html
Page 289, Position 4: 7% of the microplastic in the sea comes from the paint used for road markings.: http://www.dw.com/en/river-of-plastic-trash-is-flooding-our-oceans/a-39817471
Page 290, Position 1: The Japan pig is a seahorse so tiny that hundreds of them would fit into your hand.: https://www.livescience.com/63335-tiny-japan-pig-seahorse.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&amp
Page 290, Position 2: In 19th-century Paris, it was fashionable to take turtles for walks on a lead.: 'Eavesdropping' by John L. Locke (OUP 2010)
Page 290, Position 3: In 14th-century France, it was a capital offence to wear stripes.: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/09/books/when-fashion-decreed-stripes-a-capital-crime.html
Page 290, Position 4: In the 1910s, there was a US baseball team made up of death-row prisoners, whose executions were delayed so long as they kept winning.: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/death-or-glory-488553.html
Page 291, Position 1: Before every Major League Baseball game, mud from the Delaware River is rubbed on the ball.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_rubbing_mud
Page 291, Position 2: Punchball is a sport like baseball in which you punch the ball instead of using a bat.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchball
Page 291, Position 3: The first punch Mike Tyson ever threw was because someone killed his pigeon.: Œæhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8376856/Dead-pigeon-prompted-Mike-Tysons-first-fight.html
Page 291, Position 4: 18th-century actor James Quin killed a fellow actor in a disagreement over how to pronounce the name Cato.: http://www.libraryireland.com/biography/JamesQuin.php
Page 292, Position 1: In 1871, an Ohio lawyer was killed when he accidentally shot himself demonstrating how a ‘murder victim’ might have accidentally shot himself.: http://www.civil-war-150.com/tag/clement-vallandigham/
Page 292, Position 2: In 1994, a convicted murderer in England was given a retrial after it was revealed that his jurors had consulted a Ouija board.: http://www.civil-war-150.com/tag/clement-vallandigham/
Page 292, Position 3: In 1474, a rooster was put on trial in Switzerland for laying an egg.: https://esoterx.com/2017/09/06/fowl-play-the-trial-of-a-sorcerous-swiss-rooster/
Page 292, Position 4: No woman in Britain has ever been convicted of stealing a bird’s egg.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7325311.stm
Page 293, Position 1: After the Queen, the first living person to appear on a British postage stamp was Roger Taylor, the drummer from Queen.: http://gbstamp.co.uk/article/living-people-on-british-stamps-132.html
Page 293, Position 2: Queen Victoria was given the first Pekingese dog in Britain. As he was looted from China, she named him Looty .: https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/406974/looty
Page 293, Position 3: Miniature Pekingese are also known as Sleeve Pekingese: they were once kept up the sleeve for use as weapons.: http://thepekingeseclubofamerica.net/purpose.html
Page 293, Position 4: Of all dog breeds, Pekingese are the most genetically similar to wolves.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekingese
Page 294, Position 1: Wolves are more intelligent than dogs.: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/pets/wolves-are-smarter-than-dogs.htm#mkcpgn=rssnws1
Page 294, Position 2: Artificial intelligence can beat 99% of humans at Fantasy Football.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2202449/Artificial-intelligence-beat-99-fantasy-football-players-day-help-emergency-teams-save-lives.html
Page 294, Position 3: Two tech billionaires who think we live in a computer simulation have hired a team to work on how to break out of it.: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/computer-simulation-world-matrix-scientists-elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-ai-a7347526.html
Page 294, Position 4: Disney has filed a patent for huggable robots.: https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/04/disney-files-patent-for-huggable-and-interactive-robots/
Page 295, Position 1: The surname Disney was originally D’Isney and meant someone who came from Isigny in Normandy.: https://www.etymonline.com/word/Disney
Page 295, Position 2: Yen Sid, the sorcerer in Fantasia, is ‘Disney’ backwards.: http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Yen_Sid
Page 295, Position 3: Kiss is Swedish for ‘pee’.: https://www.thelocal.se/20151014/eight-swedish-words-that-sound-awkward-in-english
Page 295, Position 4: The longest penis on record is only three inches shorter than the shortest man on record.: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/man-says-189-inch-penis-9661421
Page 296, Position 1: Mambo is Swedish for an adult who still lives with their parents.: https://www.thelocal.se/20170720/untranslatable-swedish-words-language
Page 296, Position 2: Fremdscham is German for being embarrassed for someone else.: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fremdschí_men
Page 296, Position 3: An attaccabottoni is Italian for someone who only talks about themself.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_d9FDQAAQBAJ&amp
Page 296, Position 4: Egduutei is Mongolian for the irresistible urge to pinch or squeeze something or someone unbearably cute.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c99b84a8-716d-11e7-83f1-667fddf1d78f
Page 297, Position 1: Stockholm trains named by schoolchildren include Best Friend, Glitter, and The Kisses and Hugs Train.: https://twitter.com/ingebjorgthor/status/990684528724324352?lang=en
Page 297, Position 2: To become someone’s best friend takes 200 hours.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/hours-best-friend-042342/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 297, Position 3: Only death releases someone from the Official Secrets Act.: https://granta.com/the-waste-land/
Page 297, Position 4: Shakespeare killed two of his characters by baking them into a pie.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/news/pie-facts/
Page 298, Position 1: A Bedfordshire Clanger was a long pie with meat at one end and pudding at the other.: http://www.discoverbritainmag.com/great_british_pie_trail/
Page 298, Position 2: The annual Wigan pie-eating contest was scandalised in 2005, when it was found that the pies were imported from nearby Bolton.: http://waterall.co.uk/british-pie-week-2017-10-things-never-knew-pies/
Page 298, Position 3: Italy holds an annual Hide-and-Seek world championship.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hide_and_Seek_World_Championship
Page 298, Position 4: America has a National Grocery Bag Packing competition.: http://www.nationalgrocers.org/special-programs/best-bagger
Page 299, Position 1: The only member of the Ecuadorean Olympic ski team trains on tarmac using roller skis.: https://qz.com/1189058/winter-olympics-debuts-ecuador-eritrea-kosovo-malaysia-nigeria-singapore/
Page 299, Position 2: Roller-skating messengers were once used for the 17 miles of corridors in the Pentagon.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/87527/9-amazing-facts-about-pentagon
Page 299, Position 3: The most decorated US marine in history was called Chesty Puller.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesty_Puller
Page 299, Position 4: 1 in 4 Americans don’t know which country the US declared independence from.: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-many-in-us-ignorant-of-july-4th-history/
Page 300, Position 1: Japan has a school where pupils learn to behave like Anne of Green Gables.: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/17/world/cavendish-journal-annes-of-japan-come-dreaming-of-green-gables.html
Page 300, Position 2: When Greenland left the EEC, the community’s area was reduced by half.: http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/top10facts/846937/greenland-top-10-facts-worlds-largest-island
Page 300, Position 3: If the San Francisco Bay Area were a country, it would have the 16th largest GDP in the world.: http://www.bayareaeconomy.org/the-bay-area-led-broad-regional-gdp-growth-surge-in-2015/
Page 300, Position 4: 10% of the GDP of Tuvalu comes from the registration of .tv domain names.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/internet-domain-riches-fail-to-arrive-in-tuvalu-2029221.html
Page 301, Position 1: The French TV version of Bake Off uses music from Doctor Who.: https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2018-01-15/turns-out-the-french-version-of-bake-off-uses-music-from-doctor-who/
Page 301, Position 2: In the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, 43 Azerbaijanis voted for Armenia, some of whom were later interviewed by the police.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8205907.stm
Page 301, Position 3: Under Section 54 of the Metropolitan Police Act 1839, it’s illegal to carrya plank along the pavement.: http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Legal_Oddities.pdf
Page 301, Position 4: ‘Plankton’ and ‘planet’ both come from the same Greek word meaning ‘to wander about’.: Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon Intermediate Edn. (OUP) p643
Page 302, Position 1: A passenger aircraft without windows would be 50% lighter.: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/would-you-travel-on-a-windowless-plane/9843722
Page 302, Position 2: 56% of France’s military aircraft are unfit to fly .: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/16/ground-force-half-frances-military-planes-unfit-fly/
Page 302, Position 3: In 2006, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was incapacitated by a jellyfish attack.: http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a14017901/china-aircraft-carriers-jellyfish-swarms/?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 302, Position 4: Nomura’s jellyfish can weigh up to 440 pounds.: http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a14017901/china-aircraft-carriers-jellyfish-swarms/?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 303, Position 1: A Danish scientist has invented jellyfish crisps.: http://newatlas.com/jellyfish-crisps/50662/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&amp
Page 303, Position 2: Wolves returned to Denmark in 2017 for the first time in 200 years.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/04/wolves-return-denmark-first-time-200-years/
Page 303, Position 3: In 2017, deer were seen eating a human body for the first time.: http://www.popsci.com/deer-eating-human-remains?src=SOC&amp
Page 303, Position 4: The first shark attack recorded in British waters took place in 2017 and left its victim with a cut on his thumb.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/07/first-shark-attack-surfer-uk-waters-leaves-man-small-cut-thumb/
Page 304, Position 1: The minute leaf chameleon is the size of a human thumbnail.: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/11/green-haired-turtle-that-breathes-through-its-genitals-added-to-endangered-list
Page 304, Position 2: The cucamelon is the size of a grape, but looks like a watermelon and tastes like cucumber.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/cucamelon-mouse-melon-mexico?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 304, Position 3: Half the world’s legal cannabis is grown by the Chinese.: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2108347/green-gold-how-china-quietly-grew-cannabis-superpower88
Page 304, Position 4: Until 1916, Harrods sold heroin and cocaine.: https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/11-facts-about-london-that-will-blow-your-mind-a3322476.html
Page 305, Position 1: Queen Victoria took cocaine with Winston Churchill.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/magazine-16681673
Page 305, Position 2: Slang terms for heroin include ‘dog food’, ‘elephant’, ‘witch’, ‘horsebite’ and ‘gravy’.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6519172/Police-given-3000-word-A-to-Z-of-drugs-slang-to-stay-ahead-of-criminals.html
Page 305, Position 3: Colonel Sanders was sued by KFC for saying their gravy was ‘sludge’ and ‘wallpaper-paste like’.: https://kottke.org/16/08/for-the-colonel-it-was-fingerlickin-bad
Page 305, Position 4: The South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has warned people not to add wasps to cocktails.: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/south-koreans-told-not-to-mix-wasps-and-other-insects-into-their-favourite-alcohol-soju-a3805166.html
Page 306, Position 1: Bees’ tongues have no taste buds.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bee
Page 306, Position 2: The ‘oral size illusion’ is when your tongue gives you the impression that a hole is bigger than it is.: https://io9.gizmodo.com/5719827/why-our-tongues-and-fingers-see-the-world-differentlys
Page 306, Position 3: The heat of the hole that the egg of a Pacific green sea turtle is incubated in determines its sex.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/australia-green-sea-turtles-turning-female-climate-change-raine-island-sex-temperature/
Page 306, Position 4: ‘Turtle rabbit’ is the literal translation of the Aztec for ‘armadillo’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo
Page 307, Position 1: A rabbit’s nose can twitch more than 120 times a minute.: https://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/Bunnies-twitch-their-noses-for-information-3215094.php
Page 307, Position 2: A nasothek is a collection of nose sculptures.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasothek
Page 307, Position 3: In ancient Rome, being born with a crooked nose was a sign of leadership.: http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/argonautsandemperors/2014/04/25/roman-noses/
Page 307, Position 4: Your nose is always in your eyeline, but your brain has learned to ignore it.: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/your-hidden-censor-what-your-mind-will-not-let-you-see/
Page 308, Position 1: The word ‘sneeze’ was originally ‘neeze’. Nobody knows where the ‘s’ came from.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4Wq-AAAAQBAJ&amp
Page 308, Position 2: Nobody knows whether or not bats fart.: https://www.livescience.com/61292-does-it-fart-10-fascinating-facts-about-animal-toots.html?utm_source=llm-newsletter&amp
Page 308, Position 3: Cats could follow human instructions if they wanted to, but they don’t.: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/cat-hearing-study-owners-dont-care_n_4351732
Page 308, Position 4: In 1963, a Parisian stray called Félicette became the first cat sent into space.: https://www.livescience.com/61292-does-it-fart-10-fascinating-facts-about-animal-toots.html?utm_source=llm-newsletter&amp
Page 309, Position 1: From space, you can tell East Berlin from West Berlin because streetlights in the East use yellow sodium vapour, while those in the West are fluorescent white.: https://www.citymetric.com/horizons/you-can-see-berlin-s-east-west-divide-space-886
Page 309, Position 2: The 1936 Berlin Olympics were sponsored by Coca-Cola.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/fanta-soda-origins-nazi-germany?mc_cid=9b381e4113&amp
Page 309, Position 3: Russia’s October Revolution is celebrated in November.: https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0
Page 309, Position 4: July used to rhyme with ‘truly’.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=slDJAwAAQBAJ&amp
Page 310, Position 1: The most popular pub-quiz team name in Britain is QuizTeam Aguilera.: https://quizquizquiz.com/2012/08/whats-the-most-popular-quiz-team-name/
Page 310, Position 2: Christina Ricci has an irrational fear of houseplants.: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-12/18/content_291442.htmhttps://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rGhHAgAAQBAJ&amp
Page 310, Position 3: 40% of Americans say they are too scared to ask what is in their hotdogs.: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hot-dog-horror-show-survey-finds-americans-are-scared-to-find-out-what-is-in-their-hot-dogs-300652501.html
Page 310, Position 4: Fear is good for stock markets.: https://www.ft.com/content/797e17a8-0fd6-11e8-8cb6-b9ccc4c4dbbb?mc_cid=7788acfe21&amp
Page 311, Position 1: When chased by lions, zebras fart loudly with every stride.: S: Does it Fart
Page 311, Position 2: Zebra crossings can cause epileptic fits and migraines.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/08/stripes-modern-life-may-trigger-migraines-seizures-warn-scientists/
Page 311, Position 3: The NHS uses more than 10% of the world’s pagers.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-pagers-one-in-10-of-world-fears-outdated-technology-britain-hospitals-a7937491.html
Page 311, Position 4: Anaesthetics work on plants.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-knocking-out-plants-solving-mystery-anesthesia-180968035/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&amp
Page 312, Position 1: In the Middle Ages, peonies were used to treat lunacy .: 'Fine herbs' by Deni Brown (Unwin Hyman 1988)Œæ
Page 312, Position 2: Plants can be trained to expect rewards.: https://www.sciencealert.com/plants-can-hear-themselves-being-eaten-researchers-have-discovered
Page 312, Position 3: Sniffer dogs can be trained to detect works of art.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/531097/new-program-trains-dogs-sniff-out-art-smugglers
Page 312, Position 4: Paintings that don’t fit into lifts are less popular at auctions.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/8622710/The-worlds-most-expensive-paintings.html
Page 313, Position 1: The Swedish for ‘lift’ is hiss.: https://www.tok-pisin.com/swedish-translation/define.php?swedish=hiss-lyfta&amp
Page 313, Position 2: The Irish for ‘escalator’ is staighre beo, ‘living stairs’.: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/20/irish-passport-guide-authentically-irish-brexit
Page 313, Position 3: 12,000 Americans die falling down stairs each year.: https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-04/fyi-why-are-escalators-so-dangerous
Page 313, Position 4: Unmarried people are more likely to fall down stairs than married people, and previously married people more likely to do so than either.: Bill Bryson äóñ At Home
Page 314, Position 1: The world record for the most stairs climbed while balancing another person upside down on one’s head is 90.: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2017/1/vietnamese-circus-duo-smash-record-for-most-stairs-climbed-with-a-person-on-the-h-457854
Page 314, Position 2: Guinness has world records for ‘Most Mousetraps Released on the Tongue’ and ‘Most Fan Blades Stopped by the Tongue’.: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/
Page 314, Position 3: A pangolin’s tongue is longer than its body.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ugq5BgAAQBAJ&amp
Page 314, Position 4: Possession of a pangolin is illegal in Ghana.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4300090/
Page 315, Position 1: It’s illegal in 18 US states to sell fake urine.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/states-move-to-ban-fake-urine-a-new-challenge-for-drug-testing-amid-an-abuse-epidemic/2018/04/07/05cad026-1cd8-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html?noredirect=on&amp
Page 315, Position 2: In New Zealand, imperial measures are illegal, apart from pints of beer, which are regarded as a description, not a measure.: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&amp
Page 315, Position 3: In Britain in the First World War, it was illegal to serve someone more beer than they asked for.: http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1996/may/01/deregulation-long-pull-order-1996#S5LV0571P0_19960501_HOL_241
Page 315, Position 4: In London in 1814, eight people drowned when a vat in a breweryruptured, creating a 15-foot tidal wave of beer.: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/what-really-happened-in-the-london-beer-flood-200-years-ago-9796096.html
Page 316, Position 1: The Guinness brewery is 259 years into its 9,000-year lease.: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103495161
Page 316, Position 2: Lagar is Irish for ‘weakness’ or ‘depression’, and lágar means ‘beer’.: xzc possibly this Motherfoclí_ir Darach íñ Sí©aghdha
Page 316, Position 3: Seelenklempner, the German for ‘psychiatrist’, literally translates as ‘soul plumber’.: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2007/dec/15/businessjargon
Page 316, Position 4: The 93rd-most-cited psychologist of the 20th century was Edwin Boring.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Boring
Page 317, Position 1: The shortest published scientific paper, ‘An Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of “Writer’s Block”’, contains no words.: http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/01/shortest_science_papers.html
Page 317, Position 2: Mark Twain’s uncensored autobiography, published 100 years after his death, made him a bestselling author in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-mark-twain-it-was-love-at-first-sight-180968141/
Page 317, Position 3: The expressions ‘PIN number’ and ‘ATM machine’ are examples of Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome
Page 317, Position 4: A ‘murdermonger’ is a writer of murder mysteries.: http://www.oed.com/oed2/00153783
Page 318, Position 1: Sea lions are more murderous than actual lions.: https://sciblogs.co.nz/news/2016/09/29/muderous-mammals-violence-mapped/
Page 318, Position 2: In the last 30,000 years, the Great Barrier Reef has died five times.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2170064-the-great-barrier-reef-has-died-5-times-in-the-last-30000-years
Page 318, Position 3: Sugar heals infections that even antibiotics can’t cure.: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180328-how-sugar-could-help-heal-wounds
Page 318, Position 4: Kierkegaard made coffee by filling a cup with sugar, pouring in coffee until it dissolved and then downing the lot.: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/features/2013/daily_rituals/coffee_from_balzac_to_beethoven_it_has_fueled_artistic_endeavor_for_centuries.html
Page 319, Position 1: The dome of the Taj Mahal is held together with sugar, fruit juice and egg whites.: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/26/built-by-roma-agrawal-review
Page 319, Position 2: In 17th-century India, smoothies were made by shaking mangoes till they liquefied, then sucking the juice out through a hole.: Penguins Pineapples & Pangolins
Page 319, Position 3: The shape of Perrier bottles is based on that of Indian clubs.: https://www.indianclubs.com.au/indianclubs/indian-clubs-inspired-perrier-bottles/
Page 319, Position 4: In the US, bottled water outsells all other soft drinks combined.: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2017/03/09/bottled-water-not-soda-uss-fave-drink/98966530/
Page 320, Position 1: The entire water supply of Bermuda comes from rain collected by special roofs.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38222271
Page 320, Position 2: 85% of bikinis never get wet.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini
Page 320, Position 3: German physicist Theodor Kaluza taught himself to swim from a book.: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Kaluza.html
Page 320, Position 4: Pigeons can be taught to recognise words.: https://www.sciencealert.com/new-research-shows-pigeons-can-be-taught-to-read-kind-of
Page 321, Position 1: Reuters started as a flock of pigeons ferrying financial news between Germany and Belgium.: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-reuters-thomson-chronology/chronology-reuters-from-pigeons-to-multimedia-merger-idUSL1849100620080219
Page 321, Position 2: In 2018, news of forest fires in Canada caused panic buying of toilet paper in Taiwan.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/world/asia/taiwan-toilet-paper-shortage.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180228&amp
Page 321, Position 3: In 2014, protesters in Moscow were arrested for holding invisible posters.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-26936770
Page 321, Position 4: Researchers in China have invented printable invisible ink.: https://phys.org/news/2017-11-kind-invisible-ink.html
Page 322, Position 1: 1 in 6 Georgians mistakenly think their country is a member of the EU.: http://oc-media.org/analysis-one-in-six-georgians-think-the-country-is-a-member-of-the-eu/
Page 322, Position 2: One-third of all flight delays in Europe are caused by French air traffic controllers.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/18/frances-strike-prone-ill-equipped-air-traffic-controllers-cause/
Page 322, Position 3: To avoid confusion, African reed frogs change colour during orgies.: https://www.popsci.com/frogs-change-color-orgies
Page 322, Position 4: Sex between two hummingbirds lasts three to five seconds.: http://www.gardening-for-wildlife.com/hummingbirds-mating.html
Page 323, Position 1: Graham crackers were originally intended to reduce people’s sexual urges.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/graham-crackers-were-supposed-to-be-a-sex-drivesuppressing-diet-food-15675399/
Page 323, Position 2: Eating nuts improves sperm count.: https://newatlas.com/sperm-quality-diet-nuts-study/55316/?utm_medium=email&amp
Page 323, Position 3: Fox squirrels arrange their nuts by variety .: https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/fox-squirrels-use-chunking-sort-and-organize-their-nuts
Page 323, Position 4: The 40 squirrels that appear in one scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory spent 10 months in training.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4702653.stm
Page 324, Position 1: Director David Fincher had a stuntman fall down stairs 12 times for one scene in Fight Club, and then used the first take.: http://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/100-random-movie-facts-you-really-need-to-know-763942
Page 324, Position 2: The word ‘slapstick’ comes from a stick used in 16th-century Italian comedy to make a slapping noise without hurting another actor.: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slapstick http://www.delpiano.com/carnival/html/arlechin_batocio.html
Page 324, Position 3: Billiards was once played with ‘maces’, or sticks with blocks on one end. Cues developed from players getting better scores by using the ‘wrong’ end of the stick.: Billiards was once played with 'maces' or sticks with blocks on one end. Cues developed from players getting better scores by using the 'wrong' end of the stick. https://www.pooltables.com/history-of-pool
Page 324, Position 4: Billiards was the first sport to have a world championship.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_real_tennis_world_champions
Page 325, Position 1: In 1863, a hot-air balloon equipped with a billiard table, a photographic workshop, a lavatory and a refreshment room successfully flew 400 miles.: http://www.artinsociety.com/the-adventures-of-nadar-photography-ballooning-invention--the-impressionists.html
Page 325, Position 2: The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is banned from advertising in Germany .: http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germany-court-spaghetti-monster-idUKKBN1AI2FD
Page 325, Position 3: In Brooklyn, you can enjoy spaghetti Bolognese doughnuts.: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-08/doughnuts-are-on-a-global-rampage-and-they-must-be-stopped
Page 325, Position 4: Slouching can help you solve maths problems.: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-it-can-help-children-to-slouch-1444662618
Page 326, Position 1: Pilates was devised as a way to keep prisoners-of-war fit.: https://www.denverlibrary.org/blog/joseph-pilates-circus-performer-fitness-prophet
Page 326, Position 2: Most yoga poses date back only 150 years.: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/06/01/411202468/those-yoga-poses-may-not-be-ancient-after-all-and-maybe-thats-ok
Page 326, Position 3: Until the 1970s, almost no women ate their own placenta.: https://qz.com/1022404/no-mothers-in-human-history-ate-their-own-placentas-before-the-1970s/
Page 326, Position 4: Genetically speaking, placentas belong to the baby, not the mother.: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/placenta-plays-pivotal-umpire-role-to-influence-pregnancy-outcomes
Page 327, Position 1: Debussy’s father owned a china shop.: http://www.classicfm.com/composers/debussy/pictures/debussy-20-facts-about-great-composer/paris-conservatoire/
Page 327, Position 2: In 2013, a Chinese father hired virtual hitmen to kill his son’s character in the computer game he played so he would focus on getting a job.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20931304
Page 327, Position 3: Japanese employees can hire someone else to get told off by the boss.: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2017/11/paying-for-fake-friends-and-family/545060/
Page 327, Position 4: Russians can hire a private jet to take Instagram pictures in, but it never takes off.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/20/grounded-private-jet-hire-helps-russians-fake-lavish-lifestyles/
Page 328, Position 1: The downdraught from the helicopter filming the mountain scene at the start of The Sound of Music knocked Julie Andrews over after each take.: https://www.cinemablend.com/news/1677709/filming-the-iconic-sound-of-music-hills-scene-was-super-rough-according-to-julie-andrews
Page 328, Position 2: Helicopters can protect crops from frost by flying over them and moving the air around.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fuzzy-history-georgia-peach-180964490/
Page 328, Position 3: Apple consumption in the US tripled in the 10 years after McDonald’s added sliced apples to their menu.: http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-impact-of-mcdonalds-sliced-apples-2016-5
Page 328, Position 4: The consumption of gin in 18th-century England was 25 times higher than it is today.: https://quartzy.qz.com/1204132/gin-how-the-liquor-known-as-mothers-ruin-went-from-scourge-to-savior/
Page 329, Position 1: The quinine in tonic water glows a brilliant blue under UV light.: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/shining-science-explore-glow-in-the-dark-water/
Page 329, Position 2: People in Iceland can be stopped by the police for driving under the influence of the Northern Lights.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/iceland/articles/northern-lights-putting-drivers-at-risk-icelandic-police-report/
Page 329, Position 3: Driving a car for 12 miles has the same carbon footprint as one ‘all-day breakfast’ sandwich.: https://newatlas.com/sandwiches-global-warming/53128/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&amp
Page 329, Position 4: More people in Britain work in the sandwich industry than in agriculture.: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the-sandwich-consumed-britain
Page 330, Position 1: Italians use ‘al fresco’ to mean ‘in prison’, like the US slang ‘in the cooler’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_fresco_dining
Page 330, Position 2: In 2017, eight donkeys in India spent four days in prison for eating valuable plants.: https://www.zmescience.com/space/galactic-clockwork-432432/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 330, Position 3: Tomato plants release chemicals that turn caterpillars into cannibals.: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49831/title/Caterpillars-Turn-to-Cannibalism--Study/
Page 330, Position 4: Caterpillars are more likely to vomit when on their own.: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120412124840.htm
Page 331, Position 1: Bats swim using the butterfly stroke.: https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/animal-behaviour/newsflash-bats-can-swim-and-theyre-surprisingly-good-at-it/
Page 331, Position 2: The longest-ever kayak trip was completed by a man who couldn’t swim.: https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/01/from-nazi-germany-to-australia-the-incredible-true-story-of-historys-longest-kayak-journey
Page 331, Position 3: J. K. Rowling couldn’t submit her final changes to The Casual Vacancy because an aardvark had chewed through a power cable.: https://www.iol.co.za/entertainment/books/jk-rowlings-book-was-scuppered-by-hungry-aardvark-in-sa-14017010
Page 331, Position 4: The second HarryPotter film came with a warning that it contained ‘mild language and horror, and fantasy spiders’.: http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/feature/a785575/mild-peril-and-occasional-language-the-bbfcs-10-best-parental-warnings/
Page 332, Position 1: Spiders of the Selenops family can spin around eight times in a second.: https://peerj.com/articles/3972/
Page 332, Position 2: All galaxies, regardless of size, rotate once every billion years.: https://www.zmescience.com/space/galactic-clockwork-432432/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 332, Position 3: There are galaxies called the Cartwheel, the Tadpole, the Cigar, the Sunflower and the Sombrero.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_galaxies
Page 332, Position 4: Cashpoint, Bubble Wrap, Jet Ski, Ping Pong and Memory Stick are all brand names.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks
Page 333, Position 1: In 2017, a peacock caused £3,000 worth of damage to a new Range Rover after seeing its reflection in the paintwork and mistaking it for a rival.: https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/peacock-attacks-car-after-thinking-its-reflection-rival/#.WdN8EhNSyRs
Page 333, Position 2: In 2018, an emotional support peacock named Dexter was denied access to an American Airlines flight, despite having a ticket and his own seat.: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/31/not-gonna-fly-emotional-support-peacock-turned-away-by-airline
Page 333, Position 3: There is no evidence that peahens choose their partner because of his plumage.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13535-have-peacock-tails-lost-their-sexual-allure/
Page 333, Position 4: Peacock spider species include Skeletorus and Sparklemuffin.: http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/five-new-peacock-spider-species-discovered-in-western-australia/news-story/9c5bff70b6648a9a62cf41e079fca0aa
Page 334, Position 1: Some wasps cover their partner’s eyes when mating.: https://academic.oup.com/aesa/article-abstract/85/2/219/73669/Male-Foretibial-Plates-and-Mating-in-Crabro?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Page 334, Position 2: Wasps can be deterred by hanging up a paper bag, which they mistake for an enemy nest.: https://academic.oup.com/aesa/article-abstract/85/2/219/73669/Male-Foretibial-Plates-and-Mating-in-Crabro?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Page 334, Position 3: A Venus flytrap can take over a week to digest a large insect and spit out its bones.: https://io9.gizmodo.com/5848121/can-a-venus-flytrap-digest-human-flesh
Page 334, Position 4: Venus has a crater named Mulan.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Mulan
Page 335, Position 1: The Earth hums.: https://www.livescience.com/61263-weird-earth-discoveries-in-2017.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&amp
Page 335, Position 2: A special tartan has been designed for exploring Mars.: https://tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails?ref=11658
Page 335, Position 3: In medieval Scotland, the national drink was claret.: https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/a-great-union-of-the-sloshed-richard-godwin-on-the-scotlandengland-drinking-bond-9740846.html
Page 335, Position 4: Pershittie is a 19th-century Scots word meaning ‘hard to please’.: http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/perskeet
Page 336, Position 1: Sir Walter Scott’s novel Anne of Geierstein, in which a woman is cursed by an opal, caused opal sales in Europe to drop by 50%.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opal#Historical_superstitions
Page 336, Position 2: The first work of fiction about travelling back in time to kill the young Adolf Hitler was published in 1941.: https://newrepublic.com/article/136707/foolish-errand-time-travel
Page 336, Position 3: The Vatican’s chief astronomer has written a book called Would You Baptise an Extraterrestrial?: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-vaticans-big-bang-theory?source=Weekend&amp
Page 336, Position 4: In 2017, the Vatican banned the use of gluten-free bread for Holy Communion.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/08/vatican-outlaws-use-gluten-free-bread-holy-communion/
Page 337, Position 1: In 320 ad, the Catholic Church made it a sin to eat sausages.: https://www.lovepork.co.uk/how-to-cook-pork/sausages/sausage-facts/
Page 337, Position 2: In 17th-century Japan, people put chillies in their socks to keep their toes warm.: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2015/07/17/food/history-vegetable-hated-japanese-children/#.WdtplNOGP-b
Page 337, Position 3: Sprinkling black pepper into a load of laundry will stop it fading.: https://www.rd.com/home/cleaning-organizing/5-peculiar-uses-for-pepper/
Page 337, Position 4: Red, green and yellow peppers are all from the same plant but in various stages of ripeness.
Page 338, Position 1: Birds can’t taste chilli.: http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.aspx?id=tcm:9-202877
Page 338, Position 2: Crows can count up to six.: https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-interesting-facts-about-birds
Page 338, Position 3: Counting sheep to try to get to sleep keeps you awake for longer.: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/health/16real.html
Page 338, Position 4: ‘Sheep-stealing’ is the practice of one American church luring the congregation of another.: https://redeeminggod.com/sheep-stealing/
Page 339, Position 1: Sheep smuggling used to be called ‘owling’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owling_(legal_term)
Page 339, Position 2: In 2012, thieves in the Czech Republic stole an entire ski lift.: https://news.expats.cz/weekly-czech-news/moravian-thieves-steal-12-hectares-of-corn/
Page 339, Position 3: Stonehenge was built by the Welsh.: https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/britain/english-landmark-stonehenge-built-by-welsh-37180313.html
Page 339, Position 4: China’s Tomb-Sweeping Day is for tending your relatives’ graves and for young couples to have their first date.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39487437
Page 340, Position 1: Oil Nationalisation Day is a public holiday in Iran.: http://barrelperday.com/2013/03/20/happy_nationalization_day/
Page 340, Position 2: In Bermuda, the nearest weekday to 24 May is the first day of the year when Bermuda shorts may be worn as formal wear.: https://www.bermuda-attractions.com/bermuda_000108.htm
Page 340, Position 3: On formal occasions, Barack Obama wore the same dinner jacket and shoes for all eight years of his presidency .: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/michelle-obama-husband-barack-wore-same-tuxedo-8-years-no-one-noticed-president-us-a7777021.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/michelle-obama-husband-barack-wore-same-tuxedo-8-years-no-one-noticed-president-us-a7777021.html
Page 340, Position 4: The Simpsons predicted Donald Trump would become president 16 years before he was elected.: http://time.com/4667462/simpsons-predictions-donald-trump-lady-gaga/
Page 341, Position 1: Calvin Coolidge chose all his children’s clothes and insisted his sons wore tuxedos at dinner.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-the-president-was-the-quietest-man-in-the-room
Page 341, Position 2: Calvin Klein kept a Pantone card in his kitchen so his chef could get the colour of his coffee exactly right.: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/who-made-that-pantone-chip.html
Page 341, Position 3: Pantone created a new shade of purple in honour of Prince called Love Symbol #2.: https://www.pantone.com/the-prince-estate-and-pantone-unveil-love-symbol-number-2
Page 341, Position 4: Prince’s favourite colour was orange.: https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/arts/crown-jewels-of-prince-s-purple-reign-come-to-london-a3616416.html
Page 342, Position 1: Victor Hugo could fit a whole orange in his mouth.: https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&amp
Page 342, Position 2: At the age of 69, Victor Hugo had sex with 40 different people in five months.: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/a-monument-to-french-culture-1.140976
Page 342, Position 3: Male brown widow spiders prefer to mate with older females, even though they are more likely to be eaten by them afterwards.: https://phys.org/news/2018-04-brown-widow-male-spiders-sex.html
Page 342, Position 4: Squid change sexual position when requested to do so by their partners.: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2018/02/14/squid-switches-sex-position-when-told/#.WrDmhpPFJ-V
Page 343, Position 1: In 2017, underperforming employees at a Manchester call centre were punished by having a dead squid dropped on their faces.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4463154/Call-centre-workers-suffer-squid-challenge.html
Page 343, Position 2: The Nazca people employed someone to walk around with a dead fox on their head.: National Museum of Peru
Page 343, Position 3: The first Western eyewitness account of India described it as having ants the size of foxes.: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/25/world/himalayas-offer-clue-to-legend-of-gold-digging-ants.html
Page 343, Position 4: Mosquitoes on the London Underground’s Piccadilly Line are genetically different from those on the Bakerloo Line.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/urban-living-drives-evolution-in-surprising-way/
Page 344, Position 1: Baker Island, in the middle of the Pacific, is the last place on Earth to ring in the new year.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/baker-island-ham-radio-expedition-2018
Page 344, Position 2: The world’s smallest flightless bird is the Inaccessible Island rail.: https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-interesting-facts-about-birds
Page 344, Position 3: Cleaning a train in Pakistan takes 40 people four hours.: https://herald.dawn.com/news/1154043/railways-failure-to-meet-public-expectations
Page 344, Position 4: Human nose grease can be used to clean photographic negatives.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_sebum
Page 345, Position 1: People enjoy their food more if they share photographs of it on social media.: http://www.cookinglight.com/healthy-living/study-sharing-your-healthy-food-on-instagram-makes-it-taste-better
Page 345, Position 2: The customer who ordered the world’s smallest sushi, made with a single grain of rice, was so moved she cried for an hour and a half.: https://kottke.org/18/03/the-worlds-smallest-sushi-is-made-from-a-single-grain-of-rice
Page 345, Position 3: Rui-katsu (‘tear-seeking’) is a Japanese therapy in which women pay to have a good cry with a handsome man.: https://boingboing.net/2018/01/23/japanese-women-pay-handsome-ma.html?mc_cid=4d413adf35&amp
Page 345, Position 4: Three Argentinian rugby players use their new tooth implants as bottle openers.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3063868/Salta-Beer-reward-rugby-players-bottle-opening-TOOTH-implants-brilliant-commercial.html
Page 346, Position 1: When the Chinese invented the compass, they used it for fortune-telling.: http://www.learnchinesehistory.com/history-chinese-compass/
Page 346, Position 2: Whenever a hurricane is forecast, sales of strawberryPop-Tarts increase sevenfold.: https://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/a44550/walmart-strawberry-pop-tarts-before-hurricane/
Page 346, Position 3: Poppies were first used as a symbol of the Napoleonic Wars.: https://bramptonlol5.webs.com/historyofthepoppy.htm http://www.bbc.co.uk/remembrance/how/poppy.shtml
Page 346, Position 4: There is a new genetically engineered poppy whose seeds won’t make you fail a drugs test.: http://www.grubstreet.com/2017/06/new-poppy-seeds-wont-make-you-fail-a-drug-test.html
Page 347, Position 1: Elvis Presley wanted to be a federal drug enforcement agent and was given a specially made badge by President Nixon.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-elvis-met-nixon-69892425/
Page 347, Position 2: President Calvin Coolidge enjoyed buzzing for his staff and hiding under the Oval Office desk while they searched for him.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PTIWBAAAQBAJ&amp
Page 347, Position 3: President Lyndon B. Johnson had an amphibious car that he liked to drive into the water, shouting, ‘The brakes don’t work, we’re going under!’: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/03/06/photo_lyndon_johnson_drives_in_a_lake_in_his_amphicar.html?via=gdpr-consent
Page 347, Position 4: 18 former presidents of Switzerland are still alive.: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/presidential-explainer_switzerland-s-18-living-ex-presidents--a-political-record/43308498?ns_mchannel=nagg&amp
Page 348, Position 1: People with Cotard’s syndrome believe themselves to be dead.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/50197/plight-living-dead-10-case-reports-cotard%E2%80%99s-syndrome
Page 348, Position 2: A lifetime’s association of certain letters with specific colours can be caused by early exposure to Fisher-Price fridge magnets.: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140611-can-synaesthesia-be-learnt
Page 348, Position 3: The world’s most advanced magnet is called ‘the double pancake’ and weighs as much as a Boeing 747.: https://www.theengineer.co.uk/iter-fusion-magnet-to-be-built-in-europe/
Page 348, Position 4: In 1935, Vogue readers were told that pancakes ‘are not worth eating unless paper thin’.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/92966/10-things-you-might-not-know-about-pancakes
Page 349, Position 1: The British overcook roast beef by an average of 41 minutes.: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/reduce-environmental-impact-sunday-roast-1.739750
Page 349, Position 2: Jamie Oliver has a customised Land Rover that slow-roasts meat under the bonnet and makes butter and ice cream in the wheel drums.: http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/jamie-oliver-making-meals-wheels-11292715
Page 349, Position 3: Chopsticks were designed to be used for cooking, not eating.: http://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/a-brief-history-of-chopsticks
Page 349, Position 4: Chicken noodle soup really does relieve symptoms of the common cold.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11035691
Page 350, Position 1: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have a ‘Most Wanted’ list for flu viruses.: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/h7n9-flu-pandemic/543318/?utm_source=twb
Page 350, Position 2: It’s illegal to get into a black London taxi if suffering from food poisoning, anthrax, measles or leprosy .: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/notifiable-diseases-and-causative-organisms-how-to-report http://content.tfl.gov.uk/taxi-drivers-abstract-of-laws.pdf
Page 350, Position 3: Vivaldi suffered from asthma.: http://www.classicfm.com/composers/vivaldi/guides/vivaldi-facts-about-great-composer/
Page 350, Position 4: 25% of Americans who catch salmonella from pet chickens admit to having kissed them recently.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cdc-chickens-backyard-salmonella-kissing-cuddling
Page 351, Position 1: Prairie dogs greet each other with kisses.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9393000/9393496.stm
Page 351, Position 2: In 2015, a woman in Indiana was shot in the foot by her dog, Trigger.: https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-names/having-the-right-name-at-the-right-or-sometimes-wrong-time-idUKKCN1C425Q?feedType=nl&amp
Page 351, Position 3: The inventor of the Uzi sub-machine gun was imprisoned for illegal possession of a firearm.: http://www.toptenz.net/10-things-probably-didnt-realize-named-people.php
Page 351, Position 4: The Apple III computer was built without a cooling fan because Steve Jobs hated the noise.: https://www.tekrevue.com/apple-iii-drop/
Page 352, Position 1: Joe Davis won the 1933 World Snooker Championship in a building named after himself.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_snooker_champions
Page 352, Position 2: The only basketball coach at Kansas University with a losing record was James Naismith, the man who invented basketball.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_Jayhawks_men%27s_basketball
Page 352, Position 3: From 1541 to 1555, playing bowls was illegal for commoners, except on Christmas Day.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/89754/when-christmas-was-only-day-you-could-legally-go-bowling
Page 352, Position 4: 25% of the world’s prisoners are in the US.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCGpftCfG5I&amp
Page 353, Position 1: When Oscar Wilde was in prison, he had special dispensation to have his light on at night so he could keep reading.: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/oscar-wilde-prison-library-a-book-of-book-lists-reading-gaol-a8265866.html
Page 353, Position 2: A restaurant in Connecticut gives diners a free book with their meal.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/traveler-restaurant
Page 353, Position 3: Timothy Dexter wrote a book with no punctuation, but included a sheet of punctuation marks for the reader to distribute as they pleased.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Dexter
Page 353, Position 4: The exclamation mark was originally called the ‘point of admiration’.: Dictionarie of the French and English TonguesŒæ1611Œæ
Page 354, Position 1: In Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, it was a mark of high status to have a folding stool.: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/furniture.htm
Page 354, Position 2: In the Cabinet Office at No. 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s chair is the only one with arms.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_Downing_Street#Cabinet_Room
Page 354, Position 3: A Dutch designer has invented a chair that gives an electric shock to people who say ‘Yes, but . . .’ in meetings.: http://www.cyrielkortleven.com/yes-chair-studio-roosegaarde/
Page 354, Position 4: Researchers in Singapore have built a robot that can assemble an IKEA chair.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/science/robots-ikea-furniture.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180419&amp
Page 355, Position 1: Nintendo is Japanese for ‘leave luck to Heaven’.: https://gizmodo.com/the-surprisingly-long-history-of-nintendo-1354286257
Page 355, Position 2: According to Nintendo, Mario isn’t a plumber.
Page 355, Position 3: In 2018, a plane full of Norwegian plumbers had to turn back because of a broken toilet.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/norwegian-plumbers-plane-turn-around-broken-toilet/
Page 355, Position 4: In 2009, a British Airways plane was delayed from taking off for half an hour because it didn’t have an ashtray in the lavatory.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/5409448/British-Airways-flight-delayed-by-missing-ashtray.html
Page 356, Position 1: In 2015, a Southampton to Dublin flight had to turn back after a bee got stuck in the flight instruments. It was a Flybe flight.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-33040634
Page 356, Position 2: In 1952, a US Air Force lieutenant accidentally shot down his own plane.: https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/above-amp-beyond-shooting-up-a-shooting-star-47469405/?all
Page 356, Position 3: In 1943, a US destroyer accidentally torpedoed a ship that was carrying President Roosevelt.: http://taskandpurpose.com/wwii-naval-ship-unlucky-almost-killed-fdr/
Page 356, Position 4: The US Navy uses Xbox controllers to operate periscopes.: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military-xbox-360-controller
Page 357, Position 1: The US director of the International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame is called Jack Dagger.: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/sports/knife-throwing-sport.html
Page 357, Position 2: Winston Churchill trained his pet budgie to walk up and down his dining-room table carrying a salt spoon.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11291075/Budgie-trainer-and-pig-sketcher-auction-reveals-the-family-life-of-Winston-Churchill.html?WT.mc_id=e_3755667&amp
Page 357, Position 3: When Danish explorer Peter Freuchen was buried by an avalanche at the North Pole, he hacked his way out with a tool made of his own frozen poo.: https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/24/5441984/explorers-club-elon-musk-adventure-space-frozen-poop-chisel
Page 357, Position 4: A butcher in Totnes who got trapped in his freezer in 2018 had to batter his way out with a frozen black pudding.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/devon-butcher-imprisoned-freezer-black-pudding-meat-christopher-mccabe-totnes-a8153546.html
Page 358, Position 1: The French don’t have Christmas pudding or Christmas crackers at Christmas.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/france/articles/Christmas-in-France-nine-things-that-might-surprise-you/?WT.mc_id=e_DM614922&amp
Page 358, Position 2: The pioneers of the French naturist movement were a married couple called Lecoq.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturism_in_France
Page 358, Position 3: Louis XVI issued a decree prohibiting anyone from carrying a handkerchief larger than his.: http://www.textileartscouncil.org/tattered-rags2-the-art-of-boro/
Page 358, Position 4: Lawn, a fine cloth used to make handkerchiefs, gets its name from the French city of Laon.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_cloth
Page 359, Position 1: The curator of the British Lawnmower Museum is allergic to grass.: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2005/apr/17/unitedkingdom.familyholidays.family
Page 359, Position 2: As a child, Welsh jockey Sean Bowen was allergic to horses and practised riding by sitting on the arm of a sofa.: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/grand-national-2015-welsh-jockey-8998672
Page 359, Position 3: US ice-hockey goalie Chris Truehl is allergic to ice.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41917767
Page 359, Position 4: Under a US law signed by Ronald Reagan, July is National Ice Cream Month and 15 July is National Ice Cream Day.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ice_Cream_Month
Page 360, Position 1: February was known to the Anglo-Saxons as Solmoneth, or ‘mud month’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solmnaí_
Page 360, Position 2: Over 100 men a month visit a hospital in Bangkok to have their penis whitened.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/thailands-penis-whitening/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 360, Position 3: The inventor of the bra had a pet whippet called Clytoris.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/71612/caresse-crosby-brazen-inventor-brassiere
Page 360, Position 4: Abraham Lincoln patented an inflatable ship.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/abraham-lincoln-only-president-have-patent-131184751/
Page 361, Position 1: In 2017, China imported 33 shipping containers of avocados – up from zero in 2014.: http://www.vogue.co.uk/article/the-real-cost-of-avocados-facts-and-health-economy
Page 361, Position 2: The flag of the Philippines has the blue stripe on top in peacetime and the red stripe on top in wartime.: https://fotw.info/flags/ph.html
Page 361, Position 3: The first red flag symbolising workers’ rights was dyed with calf’s blood.: http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/Dic_Penderyn.htm
Page 361, Position 4: Blood donors in Sweden are sent a thank-you text message when their blood gets used.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/blood-donors-in-sweden-get-a-text-message-whenever-someone-is-helped-with-their-blood-10310101.html
Page 362, Position 1: The first Kleenex tissues were made from the same material as the gas-mask filters during the First World War.: http://time.com/4725511/world-war-one-i-inventions-centennial/
Page 362, Position 2: During the Second World War, the Northern Ireland Assembly building was covered in cow manure to camouflage it.: http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/assembly-business/office-of-the-speaker/80th-anniversary-open-day/parliament-buildings-facts/
Page 362, Position 3: Defecating causes sloths as much pain as childbirth.: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/230432/20180616/pooping-creates-the-same-pain-as-childbirth-for-sloths-and-it-is-dangerous.htm
Page 362, Position 4: The oldest human settlement in Australia was found by a man looking for a lavatory.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/aboriginal-australian-searching-toilet-stumbles-49000-evidence-earliest-human-settlement-a7394731.html
Page 363, Position 1: Australians feel they need to earn more than three times as much as people in the Caribbean to be equally happy.: https://www.livescience.com/61764-how-much-money-buys-happiness.html
Page 363, Position 2: Warriors in Papua New Guinea made daggers from their enemies’ thigh bones.: https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2018/04/in-new-guinea-human-thigh-bone-daggers.html
Page 363, Position 3: Fractures can be diagnosed by holding a tuning fork to the bone: if it rings like a bell, all’s well.: if it rings like a bell you're fine.
Page 363, Position 4: The Japanese have invented a noise-cancelling fork to counteract the sound of people slurping their noodles.: https://newatlas.com/noise-cancelling-ramen-fork/51873/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&amp
Page 364, Position 1: In 2018, the Thai prime minister directed reporters’ questions to a cardboard cut-out of himself.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/09/thai-prime-minister-uses-cardboard-cutout-avoid-journalists/
Page 364, Position 2: Sarcasm is banned in North Korea.
Page 364, Position 3: 70% of South Koreans aged under 30 are short-sighted.: https://qz.com/1266600/the-rare-sight-of-women-wearing-glasses-in-korea-speaks-to-its-unjust-beauty-norms/
Page 364, Position 4: South Korean women who wear glasses to work are seen as unprofessional.: https://qz.com/1266600/the-rare-sight-of-women-wearing-glasses-in-korea-speaks-to-its-unjust-beauty-norms/
Page 365, Position 1: A zoilist is someone who gets pleasure from finding fault.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 365, Position 2: A cumberground is someone whose only purpose is to take up space.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 365, Position 3: Whipper-tooties are feeble excuses for not doing something.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 365, Position 4: Crytoscopophilia is the urge to look through the windows of someone’s house as you pass by.: http://www.ico.org/Benefits_ICA2007.asp
Page 366, Position 1: In France, you can ask the postie to look in on your elderly parents.: https://www.propertyguides.com/france/news/french-postal-workers-set-watch-elderly-relatives/
Page 366, Position 2: For its first 300 years, the word ‘worrying’ was what dogs did to sheep.: etymonline
Page 366, Position 3: For its first 100 years, the word ‘mugger’ meant someone who sold mugs.: OED
Page 366, Position 4: 600 billion cups of coffee are drunk each year.: http://www.ico.org/Benefits_ICA2007.asp
Page 367, Position 1: You are 10 million times more likely to be struck by lightning than hit by a piece of falling space debris.: https://www.space.com/40115-china-space-station-crash-chances-debris-strike.html
Page 367, Position 2: The pressure inside a proton is a billion billion billion times greater than that at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2169113-weve-measured-the-pressure-inside-a-proton-and-its-extreme/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&amp
Page 367, Position 3: The scientific journal Academic Emergency Medicine records an experiment in which sheep were tasered while high on crystal meth.: https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-04/taser-shocks-meth-intoxicated-sheep-dont-harm-heart-taser-study-says
Page 367, Position 4: Over 15,000 published scientific studies mention Arnold Schwarzenegger.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFvdSvaLPQg
Page 368, Position 1: William Shatner had a kidney stone removed and sold it for $25,000.: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shatner-sells-kidney-stone-for-25000/
Page 368, Position 2: Some people can produce goosebumps on demand.: https://www.improbable.com/2018/03/02/people-who-have-voluntary-control-of-goosebumps/
Page 368, Position 3: 7% of Americans have bashful bladder syndrome, which means they can’t pee if they can see or hear another person.: Ladies and Gents - Olga Gershenson
Page 368, Position 4: 80% of women hover over public toilets.: Ladies and Gents - Olga Gershenson
Page 369, Position 1: Bacteria can penetrate six layers of loo paper.: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/aedc/ce206627ab712ff8b1fa66d3cefc3462acfc.pdf
Page 369, Position 2: Rats can tread water for three days and survive being flushed down the lavatory.: http://discovermagazine.com/2006/dec/20-things-rats
Page 369, Position 3: Funnel-web spiders can live in water for 30 hours.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36397505
Page 369, Position 4: Coconut crabs grow as big as dogs.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/82033/10-ginormous-facts-about-coconut-crabs
Page 370, Position 1: A blind man who is scared of dogs has been given the UK’s first guide horse.: https://news.sky.com/story/blind-man-scared-of-dogs-to-get-uks-first-guide-horse-11239836
Page 370, Position 2: The Titanic’s gym had an electric horse for passengers to hone their riding skills.: https://mashable.com/2015/03/14/titanic-gym/?europe=true#WY17lcOx0Zq0
Page 370, Position 3: President Ulysses S. Grant was arrested for speeding on a horse.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/65855/cop-who-gave-ulysses-s-grant-speeding-ticket
Page 370, Position 4: Horses have three more facial expressions than chimpanzees.: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/05/researchers-compile-directory-horse-facial-expressions
Page 371, Position 1: Chimpanzees can be taught to play Rock, Paper, Scissors.: https://www.livescience.com/60134-chimps-learn-to-play-rock-paper-scissors.html
Page 371, Position 2: 60% of primatologists have been scratched by a primate, and 40% have been bitten by one.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19408683
Page 371, Position 3: Pottos are primates that smell like curry .: http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Perodicticus_potto/
Page 371, Position 4: 75 million bacteria per square centimetre can live in one rubber duck.: https://www.livescience.com/62139-rubber-ducky-bacteria.html
Page 372, Position 1: Ducks’ penises grow and shrink with the seasons.: https://www.popsci.com/duck-penis-social-pressure
Page 372, Position 2: Summer and autumn are the times when Google searches for ‘hair loss’ peak.: https://www.livescience.com/60763-hair-loss-searches-peak-in-summer.html
Page 372, Position 3: Pulling someone’s hair is a legal tackle in American football: if it reaches to their jersey , it counts as part of their uniform.: http://thesportjournal.org/article/analyzing-hair-pulling-in-athletics/
Page 372, Position 4: To catch cheating footballers, scientists have invented anti-diving shin pads.: https://metro.co.uk/2011/04/08/anti-diving-shinpads-developed-to-stop-footballers-cheating-650028/
Page 373, Position 1: The backs of playing cards used to be left blank so people could make notes on them.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=y3UwKT7ddPIC&amp
Page 373, Position 2: The translator of Finnegans Wake into Chinese is having to write footnotes for 80% of the words.: https://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/joyces-finnegans-wake-takes-off-in-china/
Page 373, Position 3: Detective Speechley is a spokesman for the NYPD.: http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-names/having-the-right-name-at-the-right-or-sometimes-wrong-time-idUKKCN1C425Q?feedType=nl&amp
Page 373, Position 4: Stephen Hawking wrote ‘Galeelaeo’ and ‘Ahristottal’ in his lecture notes so his speech machine would pronounce them properly.: http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/events/strings02/dirac/hawking/
Page 374, Position 1: The ancient Greeks had a contraceptive suppository made of frankincense, myrrh and blister beetles.: http://sdsu-dspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10211.3/173303/Genshock_sdsu_0220N_11385.pdf?sequence=1
Page 374, Position 2: A panda’s sperm count is a hundred times higher than a man’s.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/what-you-think-you-know-about-animals--probably-not-true/
Page 374, Position 3: Pandas can distinguish 18 shades of grey .: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061013201943.htm
Page 374, Position 4: Pandas are losing their black eye patches, and no one knows why.: https://qz.com/1269997/scientists-puzzled-by-pandas-black-eye-patches-turning-white/
Page 375, Position 1: No one knows why the upside-down catfish swims upside down.: http://www.aquariumlife.net/articles/tropical-fish/upside-down-catfish/203.asp
Page 375, Position 2: Goldfish can survive for five months without oxygen.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2143579-goldfish-go-months-without-oxygen-by-making-alcohol-inside-cells/
Page 375, Position 3: Praying mantises are the only insects known to see in 3D.: https://newatlas.com/praying-mantis-3d-vision/53339/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&amp
Page 375, Position 4: Insect burgers are available in Switzerland.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/15/mealworm-burger-insect-food-sale-switzerland
Page 376, Position 1: Yellville, Arkansas, celebrates Thanksgiving by dropping turkeys from a light aircraft.: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/turkey-drop-trot-yellville-arkansas_us_57f92100e4b0b6a43032b9e4
Page 376, Position 2: In 1605, an Act of Parliament made the celebration of Bonfire Night compulsory.: https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/a-very-short-history-of-bonfire-night/
Page 376, Position 3: During the Second World War, paraffin was used to make cakes.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pjJ_CgAAQBAJ&amp
Page 376, Position 4: France and French Polynesia have special mailboxes for baguette deliveries.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mailbox-baguette-french-polynesia
Page 377, Position 1: French became the official language of the Aosta Valley in Italy three years before it was adopted by France itself.: https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Aosta+Valley
Page 377, Position 2: Drunken fights among pétanque players are known in the French press as bouliganism.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/28/no-jeans-rule-raises-tempers-among-frances-petanque-players/
Page 377, Position 3: France has a population of wild hamsters.
Page 377, Position 4: A group of pheasants is called a ‘bouquet’.: http://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/400-pheasants-worth-up-to-60-000-stolen-from-village-near-buntingford/story-30496987-detail/story.html
Page 378, Position 1: Ptarmigan is eaten by 8% of Icelanders at Christmas.: https://grapevine.is/news/2016/12/21/whats-for-christmas-dinner-in-iceland/
Page 378, Position 2: The past tense of ‘snow’ used to be ‘snew’.: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snew
Page 378, Position 3: Snow fleas survive the cold because their bodies contain natural antifreeze.: https://www.wired.com/2014/01/snow-fleas/
Page 378, Position 4: It is only safe to eat snow that has fallen within the last half-day.: http://time.com/5140350/is-snow-safe-to-eat/
Page 379, Position 1: According to the Office for National Statistics, Britons eat 50% more than they say they do.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/the-big-fat-lie-britons-eat-50-more-than-theysay-cpxcgnh8p
Page 379, Position 2: The Welsh for ‘peaches’ literally translates as ‘woolly plums’.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/32LYRFTf8hSR9xknCxYXl7T/seven-welsh-words-that-are-well-worth-knowing
Page 379, Position 3: In the 17th century, potatoes were cut into fishy shapes and fried as a fish substitute when it was too cold to go fishing.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8419026.stm
Page 379, Position 4: People with auto-brewerysyndrome can get drunk from eating chips.: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150305-the-man-who-gets-drunk-on-chips
Page 380, Position 1: Pancakes in food ads are drizzled with motor oil because it looks better than maple syrup.: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150305-the-man-who-gets-drunk-on-chips
Page 380, Position 2: The director of Canada’s Avian Science and Conservation Centre is called Professor Bird.: https://www.improbable.com/2017/10/05/professor-bird-avian-science-expert/
Page 380, Position 3: Birds have a built-in ‘smell map’ that helps them navigate featureless oceans.: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170829113839.htm
Page 380, Position 4: A pelican’s bill can hold as much water as two flushes of a toilet.: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/06/pelican-grace/did-you-know-learn
Page 381, Position 1: 50 geese can produce 5,000 pounds of excrement a year.: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/c/canada-goose/
Page 381, Position 2: The UK has more Wildlife Trust nature reserves than branches of McDonald’s.: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/06/pelican-grace/did-you-know-learn
Page 381, Position 3: Donald Trump asked the White House chef to recreate items from the McDonald’s menu for him.: http://www.tronc.com/gdpr/latimes.com/
Page 381, Position 4: When Donald Trump asked the Guggenheim Museum to lend the White House a Van Gogh, they offered him a solid gold toilet instead.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/the-white-house-wanted-a-van-gogh-the-guggenheim-offered-a-used-solid-gold-toilet/2018/01/25/38d574fc-0154-11e8-bb03-722769454f82_story.html?__twitter_impression=true&amp
Page 382, Position 1: To quomodocunquize is to make money in any way possible.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/505126/25-words-you-didnt-know-were-dictionary
Page 382, Position 2: A lanspresado is a 17th-century word for the friend who never seems to have any money with them.: http://blog.inkyfool.com/2011/02/lanspresados-and-snecklifters.html
Page 382, Position 3: A tunklehead is Maine slang for an ‘idiot’.: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/dictionary-of-american-regional-english_us_599199fee4b08a247275c897
Page 382, Position 4: Euneirophrenia is the peaceful feeling experienced on emerging from a nice dream.: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/euneirophrenia
Page 383, Position 1: Birds sing in their dreams.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2160842-birds-dream-sing-by-moving-their-vocal-muscles-in-their-sleep/
Page 383, Position 2: Dogs only make sad faces if there’s a person watching.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/10/19/puppy-dog-eyes-benefit-humans-scientists-find/
Page 383, Position 3: A complete set of two-inch-square cotton Pantone colour swatches costs $7,395.: https://www.pantone.com/cotton-swatch-library
Page 383, Position 4: Pope Francis’s watch cost less than a paperback Bible.: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-24/how-un-luxurious-is-pope-francis-compared-to-his-predecessors-
Page 384, Position 1: Pope Benedict XVI commissioned a special eau de cologne for himself that smelled like the Grotto at Lourdes.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9143148/Perfume-created-for-Pope-Benedict-XVI.html
Page 384, Position 2: Modern Catholic exorcisms are carried out by reciting Latin prayers over a mobile phone.: https://www.livescience.com/62360-vatican-exorcism-training-cellphones.html
Page 384, Position 3: After the Gunpowder Plot, English Catholics were banned from voting, practising law or serving as officers in the army or navy until 1829.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/gunpowder_robinson_01.shtml
Page 384, Position 4: The word ‘conspire’ comes from the Latin conspirare, meaning ‘to breathe together’.: https://www.etymonline.com/word/conspire
Page 385, Position 1: Hvalreki is Icelandic for ‘windfall’ and ‘beached whale’.: http://www.oceanographerschoice.com/2015/02/hvalreki/
Page 385, Position 2: The Latin for ‘pan pipes’ was the same as the word for a whale’s blowhole.: https://www.etymonline.com/word/fistula
Page 385, Position 3: Bowhead whales rub up against rocks to exfoliate their skin.: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171122151041.htm
Page 385, Position 4: Sea urchins can drill holes in solid rock with their teeth.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2161771-sea-urchins-can-drill-holes-in-solid-rock-with-just-their-teeth/?utm_term=Autofeed&amp
Page 386, Position 1: 10% of chipped teeth are caused by popcorn.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/07/posh-popcorn-explosion-behind-rise-chipped-teeth/
Page 386, Position 2: Over 25% of the mentions of teeth in the Bible involve ‘gnashing’.: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=simple&amp
Page 386, Position 3: Tasleek is a Saudi word meaning to nod along and pretend to care what the other person is saying.: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211695817302933 Œæhttps://www.reddit.com/r/DoesNotTranslate/comments/8dxoxg/arabic_%D8%AA%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%83_when_someone_speaks_to_you_and_you/
Page 386, Position 4: In 19th-century France, the least-important dinner guests sat at the ends of the table. Honoured guests were seated in the middle, with more people to talk to.: https://www.geriwalton.com/various-19th-century-french-etiquette-rules/
Page 387, Position 1: People walk faster when passing banks.: 'The walker's guide to outdoor clues & signs' by Tristan Gooley (Sceptre 2015)
Page 387, Position 2: On the Moon, skipping is more efficient than walking.: https://www.nature.com/news/1998/980723/full/news980723-2.html
Page 387, Position 3: The grunts of a tennis player become higher-pitched when they’re losing.: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170705095414.htm
Page 387, Position 4: Venus Williams has spent more than a year of her life at Wimbledon.: http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/news/articles/2017-07-05/venus_extends_her_stay.html
Page 388, Position 1: Novak Djokovic never uses the same shower twice in a row.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/wimbledon/9365454/Wimbledon-2012-the-bizarre-rituals-driving-the-top-players.html
Page 388, Position 2: Canadian snooker player ‘Big Bill’ Werbeniuk drank eight pints of beer before a match, then one for each frame.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1419706/Bill-Werbeniuk.html
Page 388, Position 3: In the 19th century, a ‘pool room’ was where people placed bets on horse racing.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9Q08AAAAIAAJ&amp
Page 388, Position 4: Pool started as a medieval game called jeu de la poule, in which you threw rocks at a chicken.: http://www.etymonline.com/word/pool
Page 389, Position 1: Pet chickens in Silicon Valley have their own personal chefs.: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/computer-simulation-world-matrix-scientists-elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-ai-a7347526.html
Page 389, Position 2: The 17th-century game Sparrow Mumbling involved holding a live bird in your mouth.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/58439/29-games-nobody-plays-anymore
Page 389, Position 3: Robins go through puberty every year.: http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2012/04/13/the-springtime-of-robins/
Page 389, Position 4: If your metabolism was as fast as a hummingbird’s, you would need to drink a can of Coke a minute just to stay alive.: https://coach.nine.com.au/2017/12/12/13/23/metabolism-facts-and-myths/9
Page 390, Position 1: Hummingbirds’ hearts beat 10 times a second and are the size of the rubber on the end of a pencil.: https://theamericanscholar.org/joyas-volardores/
Page 390, Position 2: From the 16th to the 19th century, England had a world monopoly on pencil production.: http://www.cumbria-industries.org.uk/wad/
Page 390, Position 3: You can win a game of Monopoly after only four turns.: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/06/how_to_win_monopoly_in_21_seco.htmlhttps://www.buzzfeed.com/jamesgrebey/mind-boggling-facts-about-board-games?utm_term=.dopKzjjWD#.syj6n77px
Page 390, Position 4: Vikings were buried with board games to combat boredom in the afterlife.: http://www.scotsman.com/news/vikings-were-buried-with-board-games-to-beat-boredom-1-4187676
Page 391, Position 1: There are more people today pretending to be Vikings in the computer game Vikings: War of Clans than there ever were actual Vikings.: https://github.com/andrew-t/fish/wiki/List-of-No-Such-Thing-as-a-Fish-Episodes
Page 391, Position 2: In Welsh mythology , fairies ride corgis into battle.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/87683/ancient-connection-between-corgis-and-fairies
Page 391, Position 3: In Norse mythology , Naglfar was a ship made from the untrimmed fingernails of the dead.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naglfar
Page 391, Position 4: The longest human thumbnail ever recorded measures six and a half feet.: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/indian-news/2015/9/record-holder-profile-video-shridhar-chillal-and-the-longest-fingernails-ever-398817
Page 392, Position 1: The world’s largest cruise ship is five times the size of the Titanic.: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/ms-symphony-of-the-seas-royal-caribbean-largest-cruise-ship?utm_source=digg&amp
Page 392, Position 2: Lightning storms are twice as likely in shipping lanes as in the rest of the ocean.: https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21729974-lighting-strikes-are-double-average-shipping-lanes-pollution-ships?fsrc=rss%7Csct
Page 392, Position 3: A ‘dirty’ thunderstorm is when lightning is produced in a volcanic plume.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_thunderstorm
Page 392, Position 4: The number of people killed by lightning today is a tenth of what it was in the 1940s.: http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/lightning-death-why-statistics-rare-united-states.htm
Page 393, Position 1: Only 139 cars were produced in the US during the Second World War.: http://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_home_war_production.htm
Page 393, Position 2: In 1820s Manhattan, there was one pig for every five humans.: https://qz.com/1025640/hogs/
Page 393, Position 3: In 1899, Henry Bliss became the first American pedestrian to be killed by a car.: https://www.wired.com/2011/09/0913first-us-pedestrian-killed-by-car/
Page 393, Position 4: The man who invented one-way streets, roundabouts, taxi stands and stop signs never learned to drive.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Phelps_Eno
Page 394, Position 1: French people are 19 times less likely to wait for the green man than Japanese people.: Times 15/02/17
Page 394, Position 2: Hitchhikers in Sweden wait longest for a ride; those in Iraq wait shortest.: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/22/magazine/voyages-worlds-greatest-hitchhiker.html?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 394, Position 3: According to research by North Korea, the world’s second-happiest country is North Korea.: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/06/north-korea-global-happiness-index-china-happiest-place_n_871784.html
Page 394, Position 4: The demilitarised zone between North and South Korea is home to 5,097 different species.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/wildlife-thrives-dmz-korea-risk-location-180967842/#bHflBKSxPOHvg5rz.99
Page 395, Position 1: Insects make up 72% of all animals, but only 2% of endangered species.: https://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/encyclopedia-article.pdf
Page 395, Position 2: Until the 19th century, Primrose Hill in London was inhabited by wolves.: https://www.allinlondon.co.uk/life/article-183-the-history-of-primrose-hill.php
Page 395, Position 3: New York City controls its rat problem by giving them the menopause.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2130114-menopause-causing-bait-is-curbing-rat-populations-in-new-york/?utm_term=Autofeed&amp
Page 395, Position 4: In 1902, after the French colonial government in Hanoi offered one cent for every rat’s tail, enterprising Vietnamese started rat farms to earn the bounty .: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-cheese-under-threat-from-mass-production-and-bacteriological-correctness-a6762111.html
Page 396, Position 1: In 1959, the US government issued a memo saying that yetis could only be killed in self-defence.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/505087/time-us-confirmed-you-can-only-kill-yeti-self-defense
Page 396, Position 2: Sloths can hold their breath for 40 minutes.: https://www.worldanimalprotection.us.org/news/10-facts-about-sloths-natures-slowest-animals
Page 396, Position 3: Ostriches have four kneecaps.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2146112-why-the-ostrich-is-the-only-living-animal-with-four-kneecaps/
Page 396, Position 4: Babies’ kneecaps don’t show up on X-rays.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/89970/7-facts-about-your-knees
Page 397, Position 1: Babies born into the Budweiser family have five drops of Budweiser dropped on their tongues as a first taste.: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/12/22/166493220/the-bitter-tale-of-the-budweiser-family
Page 397, Position 2: Beer is more nutritious than bread.: https://www.historyextra.com/period/drinking-history/
Page 397, Position 3: The world record for the most beer mats flipped and caught with the same hand is held by a man called Matt Hand.: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-beer-mats-flipped
Page 397, Position 4: ‘As much food as one’s hand can hold’ was Dr Johnson’s Dictionary’s definition of ‘lunch’.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/538473/funny-definitions-from-dictionary-of-the-english-language-samuel-johnson
Page 398, Position 1: The bowl formed by cupping one’s hands together is called a ‘gowpen’.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 398, Position 2: Rachmaninov had enormous hands: he could span 12 piano keys with either one.: http://www.classicfm.com/composers/rachmaninov/guides/rachmaninov-facts/pianist-7/
Page 398, Position 3: Jimi Hendrix’s father told him his left-handedness meant he was born of the Devil.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/times2/what-rocks-27-club-told-me-about-talent-and-mental-illness-37rh83pmn
Page 398, Position 4: The Jim Smith Society has over 2,000 members worldwide, all called Jim Smith.: http://www.jimsmithsociety.com/jss2012_004.htm
Page 399, Position 1: The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was founded in 1889 by women denied membership of the British Ornithologists’ Union.: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/07/22/operation-easter
Page 399, Position 2: Beyoncé’s fans are called the Beyhive.: https://www.beyonce.com/register/
Page 399, Position 3: The WD-40 fan club has over 100,000 members.: https://www.wd40.com/news/in-the-news/wd-40-fan-club-reaches-milestone
Page 399, Position 4: J. R. R. Tolkien described his fans as ‘deplorable’.: https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&amp
Page 400, Position 1: 1 in every 160 New Zealanders was involved in the production of The Lord of the Rings.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(film_series)
Page 400, Position 2: Jurassic Park was hit by the most powerful hurricane ever to reach Hawaii, but Richard Attenborough slept right through it.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11054608/Richard-Attenboroughs-14-most-luvvie-moments.html
Page 400, Position 3: In the movie Chinese Zodiac, Jackie Chan had 15 credits, including actor, writer, director, composer and catering coordinator.: https://screenanarchy.com/2012/12/jackie-chan-holds-guinness-world-records-for-most-credits-in-chinese-zodiac.html
Page 400, Position 4: Amber Rudd was credited as ‘aristocracy coordinator’ on Four Weddings and a Funeral.: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/03/amber-rudd-i-was-aristocracy-coordinator-on-four-weddings-and-a-funeral
Page 401, Position 1: A. A. Milne planned a film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, with Mr Darcy played by Eeyore.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/aa-milne-had-darcy-down-as-an-eeyore-mx57gl5c2
Page 401, Position 2: 5% of piglets are crushed to death by their own mothers.: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/22/technology/startups/piglet-crushing-prevention-swinetech/index.html
Page 401, Position 3: The world record for crushing concrete blocks with the head is held by a 17-year-old boy from Bosnia.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/26/teenager-breaks-world-record-crushing-blocks-head/?WT.mc_id=e_DM391263&amp
Page 401, Position 4: Concrete cannot be recycled.: https://newatlas.com/skyscraper-demolition-lifespan/54703/?utm_medium=email&amp
Page 402, Position 1: The average lifespan of a skyscraper is 42 years.: https://newatlas.com/skyscraper-demolition-lifespan/54703/?utm_medium=email&amp
Page 402, Position 2: The useful lifespan of a coffee stirrer is four seconds.: https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2012/10/05/the-last-straw-reduce-your-plastic-footprint-and-hydrate-trash-free/
Page 402, Position 3: The longest-living animal is the red sea urchin, which survives for up to 200 years in the wild.: http://www.softschools.com/facts/animals/sea_urchin_facts/479/
Page 402, Position 4: Brandt’s bat is the longest-living bat: it can live for 40 years and weighs as much as eight paperclips.: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3212
Page 403, Position 1: Paperclips float on water.: https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1324763/
Page 403, Position 2: The world’s biggest paperclip is 30 feet long and nine feet wide.: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-paperclip
Page 403, Position 3: You can buy a Prada paperclip for $185.: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/shortcuts/2017/jun/26/is-the-185-prada-paperclip-fashions-latest-mundane-must-have
Page 403, Position 4: The Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh has been converted into the world’s most luxurious prison.: https://qz.com/1122818/luxury-hotel-ritz-carlton-riyadh-is-currently-housing-political-prisoners/?mc_cid=5eb1842723&amp
Page 404, Position 1: Cellblocks is a cryptocurrency used in American prisons.: http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/cellblocks-the-first-cryptocurrency-being-used-in-the-american-prison-system-1026991931
Page 404, Position 2: Cryptocurrency worth $534 million was stolen in Japan in 2018, making it the biggest theft in the history of the world.: New Scientist 3 Feb
Page 404, Position 3: In 2005, security guards at Australia’s parliament were banned from calling MPs ‘mate’. The ban was lifted within 24 hours for being un-Australian.: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1441746.htm
Page 404, Position 4: There are two places in Australia called Dismal Swamp.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismal_Swamp
Page 405, Position 1: Trees sweat to cool down.: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jan/31/australian-trees-sweat-to-survive-extreme-heatwaves-researchers-reveal
Page 405, Position 2: By using bidets instead of toilet paper, Americans could save 15 million trees a year.: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-talks-bidets/
Page 405, Position 3: Woodpeckers bang their heads into trees at 15 miles an hour, 12,000 times a day.: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2018/03/02/flashback-friday-woodpeckers-use-wood-eating-fungus-to-make-their-pecking-easier/#.Wpl4dpOFii4
Page 405, Position 4: The Canary Islands have dandelion trees.: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/how-do-you-define-a-tree/557135/?utm_source=twb
Page 406, Position 1: 75% of the sesame seeds grown in Mexico are used on McDonald’s burger buns.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/56603/where-do-sesame-seeds-come
Page 406, Position 2: Until the 1870s, all Camembert was made by a single family.: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/dec/01/londonreviewofbooks
Page 406, Position 3: Since the 1970s, France has lost 50 types of cheese.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-cheese-under-threat-from-mass-production-and-bacteriological-correctness-a6762111.html
Page 406, Position 4: The world’s most expensive cheese is made from donkey’s milk.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/pule-donkey-cheese?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 407, Position 1: Thomas Hardy’s novels were considered so disgusting they were sold in plain, brown wrappers.: https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/themes/trails/queen-marys-dolls-house/library#/
Page 407, Position 2: Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad all wrote books the size of postage stamps for Queen Mary’s doll’s house.: https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/themes/trails/queen-marys-dolls-house/library#/
Page 407, Position 3: Christina Foyle, owner of Foyle’s bookshop, read an entire book every day, never did her own housework and only drank champagne.: http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/11/world/christina-foyle-88-the-queen-of-the-london-bookstore-dies.html?pagewanted=all&amp
Page 407, Position 4: There’s an orchid in Madagascar that smells like champagne.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/stingrays-anteaters-orchids-year-newly-discovered-species?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 408, Position 1: There’s a secret pub inside the Tower of London that only Beefeaters and their guests can visit.: http://uk.businessinsider.com/tower-of-london-secret-pub-beefeaters-2017-7
Page 408, Position 2: In 18th-century London, a sick person could pay three guineas to bathe in beef soup.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soup-broth-baths-history-healthy
Page 408, Position 3: The average Briton eats 17.3 kg of beef a year.: https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/top10facts/566327/Top-10-facts-about-beef
Page 408, Position 4: Dung beetles contain more protein than beef does.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23422-beautiful-bug-biscuits-to-tempt-the-squeamish/
Page 409, Position 1: 80% of Japan’s protein comes from the sea.: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/japans-bizarre-and-sad-new-whaling-laws_us_596cf1cde4b07f87578e6ac8
Page 409, Position 2: The plastic waste that goes into the oceans every year is enough to fill five shopping bags for every foot of shoreline in the world.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11410220/Each-foot-of-coastline-contains-five-bags-of-plastic-say-scientists.html
Page 409, Position 3: Half of all the plastic that has ever existed was made in the last 13 years.: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/07/plastic-age/533955/?utm_source=twb
Page 409, Position 4: When Jung and Freud first met, their conversation lasted 13 hours.: https://thebrowser.com/videos/when-freud-met-jung
Page 410, Position 1: Sheep can recognise celebrities with 80% accuracy .: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/nov/08/is-it-baa-rack-obama-sheep-able-to-recognise-celebrities-say-neuroscientists
Page 410, Position 2: Elmo is the only non-human to testify before the US Congress.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2012/11/12/sesame-street-loses-a-little-magic-amid-elmo-allegations/?utm_term=.99522e4bf32c
Page 410, Position 3: Bert and Ernie only have one eyebrow between them.: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/sesame-street
Page 410, Position 4: DVDs of the first few series of Sesame Street are labelled ‘Adult Only’.: https://www.businessinsider.com/12-sesame-street-scandals-that-have-plagued-the-shows-history-2012-11?IR=T
Page 411, Position 1: By the standards of the rest of the animal kingdom, human beings should be 200 times as murderous as they are.: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/28/495798448/what-meerkat-murder-tells-us-about-human-violence
Page 411, Position 2: The longest New York City has gone without a murder is 12 days.: (The Week Issue 1010 p8)
Page 411, Position 3: A Chewbacca defence is a lawyer’s way of confusing the other side by spouting irrelevant nonsense.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense
Page 411, Position 4: Chewbacca is 7' 6", the same height as the tallest high-school basketball player in the world.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AURnnpiGOxs https://www.starwars.com/databank/chewbacca
Page 412, Position 1: The largest snowflake ever recorded was 15 inches across.: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/did-you-know-the-largest-snowflake-ever-recorded-was-15-inches-wide.html
Page 412, Position 2: The longest and shortest pub names in Britain are both in Stalybridge, Manchester.: https://www.tameside.gov.uk/stalybridge/facts
Page 412, Position 3: Manchester United MacGyver is a 19-year-old Namibian footballer.: https://www.namibian.com.na/135525/archive-read/Top-youngsters-put-on-fine-exhibition
Page 412, Position 4: Joey Barton missed his planned debut for Manchester City because a Middlesbrough fan had stolen his shirt.: https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/how-boro-fan-ruined-joey-12042237
Page 413, Position 1: Macedonian footballer Mario Gjurovski was sent off for celebrating a goal by taking his shorts off and putting them on his head.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2330311/Mario-Gjurovskis-celebrates-goal-removing-shorts-sent-off.html
Page 413, Position 2: Fulham striker Facundo Sava celebrated each goal by putting on a Zorro mask that he kept in his sock.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sportacademy/hi/sa/football/features/newsid_2303000/2303885.stm
Page 413, Position 3: Princess Diana smuggled sweets into William and Harry’s school in their football socks.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/22/naughty-dont-get-caught-joker-diana-told-harry-revealed-smuggled/
Page 413, Position 4: Haribos contain nine of the 10 amino acids essential to humans.: https://www.haribo.com/enAE/contact-information-service/faq.html
Page 414, Position 1: Candy cigarettes are illegal in France, Spain, Scandinavia, Portugal, Ireland, Brazil, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_cigarette
Page 414, Position 2: Chocolate milk is better for you than a sports drink.: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/chocolate-milk-workout-recovery-sports-drinks-protein-shakes-study-gym-exercise-a8445601.html
Page 414, Position 3: Cockroach milk is one of the most nutritious substances on the planet.: http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1995413/its-no-gag-cockroach-milk-one-worlds-most-nutritious-and-calorie-rich
Page 414, Position 4: Relative to their size, cockroaches can run at 210 mph.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/science/american-cockroach-genome.html?emc=edit_mbae_20180327&amp
Page 415, Position 1: Only 52% of the UK’s 2,838 speed cameras are switched on.: http://news.sky.com/story/half-of-britains-speed-cameras-are-switched-off-11112323
Page 415, Position 2: A woman in Oxfordshire has 51 points on her driving licence.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40862975
Page 415, Position 3: Ant McPartlin was given the biggest drink-driving fine in British history.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/16/ant-mcpartlin-arrives-court-face-drink-drive-charge-crash/
Page 415, Position 4: To get round the law that licensed premises must be a minimum of 500 metres from a highway, a pub in Kerala constructed a maze to its front door.: http://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/a-bar-in-kerala-just-made-a-250m-long-maze-wall-to-beat-supreme-court-s-500m-rule-275175.html
Page 416, Position 1: San Marino is the only country in the world with more motor vehicles than people.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita
Page 416, Position 2: A law in Rome allows any cat to live undisturbed in its birthplace.: https://www.thelocal.it/20170421/rome-unusual-facts-history
Page 416, Position 3: Beatrix Potter shot a squirrel out of a tree to provide a model for Squirrel Nutkin.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/travel/1997/08/31/bunny-boiler-was-the-beloved-creator-of-peter-rabbit-a-bunny-cooking-vivisectionist/a8c367d6-5903-4d04-8123-d818578743b8/?noredirect=on&amp
Page 416, Position 4: It would take 41,923 hazelnuts to encircle the Coliseum.: https://www.nutella.com/en/uk/did-you-know
Page 417, Position 1: In 4th-century Rome, underpants were banned.: https://www.forbes.com/sites/drsarahbond/2017/05/05/real-romans-dont-wear-pants-barbarian-dress-codes-from-rome-to-game-of-thrones/#3fc3cedb1cdd
Page 417, Position 2: Florence hoses down church steps so tourists don’t picnic on them.: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/florence-church-tourists-water-wet-hose-santa-croce-basilica-picnics-eating-food-italy-a7767111.html
Page 417, Position 3: Amsterdam has a day mayor and a night mayor.: http://nachtburgemeester.amsterdam/night-mayor-summit/
Page 417, Position 4: At a riot in 1766, the mayor of Nottingham was knocked over by a large cheese.: http://www.quarterbridge.co.uk/what-does-the-nottingham-cheese-riot-tell-us-about-markets/
Page 418, Position 1: Russia has a police riot squad made entirely of sets of identical twins.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-25090823
Page 418, Position 2: 2% of the world’s twins are currently involved in a scientific study about twins.: How To Be Human New Scientist book p49
Page 418, Position 3: Until the 17th century, mothers hung their babies on hooks as they worked.: http://the-history-girls.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/travelling-with-baby-in-1645-by-ann.html
Page 418, Position 4: Prehistoric women had stronger arms than members of modern-day rowing clubs.: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/prehistoric-womens-manual-work-was-tougher-than-rowing-in-todays-elite-boat-crews
Page 419, Position 1: Before he became the first person to row solo across the Atlantic, John Fairfax was apprenticed to a pirate.: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/us/john-fairfax-who-rowed-across-oceans-dies-at-74.html
Page 419, Position 2: Captain Hook was an Old Etonian and his last words were the school motto: ‘Floreat Etona.’: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/12/the-secret-history-of-captain-hook/68313/
Page 419, Position 3: Wood-mouse sperm hook onto one another to catch a ride.: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2018/02/14/sperm-win-animals-mating/#.WqfRuZPFL_Q
Page 419, Position 4: The longest spider sperm is twice as long as the smallest spider.: https://peerj.com/articles/3972/
Page 420, Position 1: A pooter is a device used by entomologists to suck insects into a jar without accidentally inhaling them.: http://www.discoverwildlife.com/make-a-pooter
Page 420, Position 2: To poon is to prop up a piece of wobbly furniture with a wedge under the leg.: Horologicon Mark Forsyth
Page 420, Position 3: Phobophobia is the fear of developing a phobia.: http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/phobophobia
Page 420, Position 4: Ploitering is pretending to work when you aren’t.: Horologicon Mark Forsyth
Page 421, Position 1: Scientists are working on a way to convert astronauts’ excrement into food.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/space-waste-food-0432422/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 421, Position 2: Henry Ford made it compulsory for his workers to go square dancing.: https://qz.com/1153516/americas-wholesome-square-dancing-tradition-is-a-tool-of-white-supremacy/
Page 421, Position 3: In 2017, a trade union in Michigan complained that goats were taking its members’ jobs.: https://qz.com/1025165/union-workers-in-michigan-are-blaming-goats-for-taking-away-landscaping-jobs/
Page 421, Position 4: All UK postal workers have to sign the Official Secrets Act.: https://www.justanswer.com/uk-law/6vwui-i-m-employed-royal-mail-postman-reporting.html
Page 422, Position 1: Refuse workers in Turkey have made a 4,750-volume library out of discarded books.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/space-waste-food-0432422/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 422, Position 2: Napoleon had a small portable library that he called his ‘kindle’.: http://www.openculture.com/2017/10/napoleons-kindle-see-the-miniaturized-traveling-library-he-took-on-military-campaigns.html
Page 422, Position 3: Braille is based on a system devised for Napoleon’s army to help soldiers communicate in darkness.: https://www.historytoday.com/stephen-bertman/louis-braille-and-night-writer
Page 422, Position 4: You can hear rhubarb growing in the dark.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/forced-rhubarb-makes-sound?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 423, Position 1: China is planning to grow potatoes on the dark side of the Moon.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/china-orbiter-lander-03432/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 423, Position 2: Eating too many tomatoes can give you a heart attack.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34225517
Page 423, Position 3: The world’s longest pizza weighed as much as an elephant.: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/california-chefs-make-the-worlds-longest-pizza-stretching-6333-ft/articleshow/59093807.cms
Page 423, Position 4: Rhinos have surprisingly dainty feet and walk on their insteps.: https://www.livescience.com/62055-weirdest-animal-feet.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&amp
Page 424, Position 1: The Russian for ‘step’ is spelled ‘шaг’ and pronounced ‘shag’.: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%88%D0%B0%D0%B3
Page 424, Position 2: According to a poll carried out in Russia, 10% of Russians think polls are useless.: http://fom.ru/posts/10542
Page 424, Position 3: Russia has four monuments to dumplings.: http://fom.ru/posts/10542
Page 424, Position 4: Brussels has a statue commemorating the place where Peter the Great vomited.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/commemoration-of-peter-the-great-s-vomit
Page 425, Position 1: Peter the Great was 6' 8".: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_the_Great#cite_note-FOOTNOTERiasanovsky2000216-7
Page 425, Position 2: NBA star Manute Bol was 7' 7", but his passport said he was 5' 2" because he had been measured sitting down.: http://articles.latimes.com/1985-02-11/sports/sp-4394_1_manute-bol
Page 425, Position 3: The world’s second-tallest person is a sitting-volleyball player from Iran who won gold at the 2016 Paralympics.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morteza_Mehrzad
Page 425, Position 4: Medals at the 2016 Paralympics had small steel balls inside them so they could be rattled and heard by visually impaired medallists.: https://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/13/health/paralympics-medals-noises-trnd/index.html
Page 426, Position 1: The world land speed record for a blind motorcyclist is 165.7 mph.: http://www.mcnews.com.au/flying-blind-at-266-km-h-50-year-old-ben-felten/
Page 426, Position 2: Australia hosts a World Cup for Australian Rules football, but the Australian men’s team doesn’t compete because it wouldn’t be fair.: http://www.afl.com.au/internationalcup/
Page 426, Position 3: Britain exports over 50,000 boomerangs to Australia every year.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37510315
Page 426, Position 4: The kangaroo rat can last longer without water than a camel can.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20160926-the-creatures-that-can-survive-without-water-for-years
Page 427, Position 1: The Sahara desert is 10% bigger than it was 100 years ago.: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/sahara-desert-is-getting-bigger.htm#mkcpgn=rssnws1
Page 427, Position 2: 40 million years ago, a meteorite hit Canada, raising the temperature to a record-breaking 2,370°C.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23531433-600-found-the-hottest-place-ever-found-on-earths-surface/
Page 427, Position 3: In Venezuela in 1972, a meteorite killed a cow, but nobody knew about it because the farmer ate the cow and used the meteorite as a doorstop.: http://www.christies.com/features/Meteorites-Works-of-art-from-outer-space-7203-3.aspx
Page 427, Position 4: Cows with mastitis are given bras for their udders.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-44081370
Page 428, Position 1: Pythons have leg bones.: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/darwin/evolution-today/how-do-we-know-living-things-are-related/vestigial-organs/
Page 428, Position 2: A rooster cannot hear how loud its own crowing is.: https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/animals-ecology/rooster-crow-0423432/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 428, Position 3: Coral reefs make a sound like popcorn being made.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/07/posh-popcorn-explosion-behind-rise-chipped-teeth/
Page 428, Position 4: Coral can drown.: https://www.skepticalscience.com/coral-atoll.htm
Page 429, Position 1: The Breton word for water is ‘dour’.: https://www.freelang.net/expressions/water.php
Page 429, Position 2: The Frisian word for water is ‘wetter’.: https://www.freelang.net/expressions/water.php
Page 429, Position 3: The air pockets in an iceberg lettuce are known as ‘goblin caves’.: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/24/how-the-sandwich-consumed-britain
Page 429, Position 4: When an alpaca gives birth, it is called an ‘unpacking’.: http://www.alpacabreeder.co.uk/alpaca-facts
Page 430, Position 1: Rats dressed in polyester trousers have sex less often than those made to wear woollen ones.: http://discovermagazine.com/2008/may/29-the-sexual-frustration-of-rats-in-polyester-pants
Page 430, Position 2: By examining the DNA of any rat in New York, researchers can tell which part of the city it comes from.: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/rats-of-new-york/546959/?utm_source=digg&amp
Page 430, Position 3: Manhattan has a monument commemorating the sinking of the Staten Island Ferry by a giant octopus, an event that was entirely made up by the artist.: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/01/new-york-staten-island-ferry-octopus-attack-fake-monument
Page 430, Position 4: 15,152 life forms can be found in the New York subway.: http://time.com/3697797/new-york-city-subway-germs-bacteria-dna/
Page 431, Position 1: New York state has a town called Lonelyville.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonelyville _New_York
Page 431, Position 2: Disenchantment Bay is a place in Alaska.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disenchantment_Bay
Page 431, Position 3: The Useless Islands belong to New Zealand.: https://www.topomap.co.nz/NZTopoMap/nz13467/Useless-Islands/
Page 431, Position 4: Misery is a village in France.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misery _Somme
Page 432, Position 1: Half a billion men in the world have depression.: https://www.onebillionhappy.org/happiness-library/how-to-cure-depression-in-a-half-a-billion-men/
Page 432, Position 2: Gloom swept Finland on being rated the world’s happiest country.: https://qz.com/1276649/the-happiest-country-on-earth-is-finland-and-finns-arent-happy-about-it/
Page 432, Position 3: Rasputin was happily married and had seven children.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/69238/retrobituaries-rasputins-daughter-maria-fascinating-mad-monk-himself
Page 432, Position 4: Rasputin’s daughter Maria grew up to become a professional lion tamer.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/69238/retrobituaries-rasputins-daughter-maria-fascinating-mad-monk-himself
Page 433, Position 1: Frankie Dettori’s mother worked in a circus.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/champion-jockey-frankie-dettori-on-the-queen-the-g-t-the-naughty-sausage-dog-and-his-pet-emus-gs3wjt5d7
Page 433, Position 2: Warren Buffett plays the ukulele.: https://qz.com/1295584/a-fan-paid-3-million-for-a-lunch-with-warren-buffett-but-you-can-get-his-best-advice-for-free/
Page 433, Position 3: David Beckham has the Solar System tattooed on his head.: https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/david-beckham-debuts-solar-system-scalp-tattoo-as-he-adds-to-growing-collection-a3827556.html
Page 433, Position 4: Marilyn Manson collects prosthetics.: https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/marilyn-manson-brand-absinthe-collects-5883747
Page 434, Position 1: The world’s oldest known colour is pink.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-44775531
Page 434, Position 2: Cough is Cornish for ‘scarlet’.: http://www.freelang.net/online/cornish.php?lg=gb
Page 434, Position 3: Isaac Newton’s bed, bed curtains, bedspreads, settee, easy chair and cushions were all crimson.: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/design-it-has-got-to-be-red-in-bed-1165931.html
Page 434, Position 4: Farmed salmon is white; the pink is added artificially.: http://time.com/4790794/farmed-salmon-pink/
Page 435, Position 1: There are only two words for colours in the Bassa language of Liberia: ziza for warm ones and hui for cool ones.: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/apr/29/what-vocabularies-tell-us-about-culture
Page 435, Position 2: 6,900 different languages are spoken in the world today.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q3tAqIU0dPsC&amp
Page 435, Position 3: 770,000 people living in England cannot speak English.: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/14/sajid-javid-770000-people-in-england-not-able-to-speak-english
Page 435, Position 4: Over 650 languages in India are not recognised by the state because they are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people.: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/peoples-linguistic-survey-of-india-ganesh-devy?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 436, Position 1: There are 10,000 black holes at the centre of our galaxy .: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qvx3gb/around-10000-black-holes-are-at-the-center-of-the-galaxy-study-says
Page 436, Position 2: There are 10,000 planes in the sky at any one time.: http://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/number-of-planes-in-air
Page 436, Position 3: One litre of Dior’s J’Adore perfume contains 10,000 flowers.: https://qz.com/se/perfect-company-2/1172275/the-top-luxury-company-in-the-world-is-fighting-to-save-the-flowers-that-go-into-its-perfume
Page 436, Position 4: 10,000 bridges in Italy are in danger of collapsing.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/genoa-collapse-thousands-of-italian-bridges-in-danger-of-collapsing-cfb6gwpb2
Page 437, Position 1: It takes 1.3 million cars to produce as much carbon dioxide as the UK’s microwave ovens.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/01/18/microwaves-britain-generate-much-carbon-dioxide-13-million-cars/
Page 437, Position 2: You can’t melt a Cadbury’s Flake in a microwave.: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/true-you-cant-melt-cadburys-6214901
Page 437, Position 3: Melted chocolate that has dried on a road is a worse hazard than snow.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/world/europe/poland-chocolate-road.html?emc=edit_mbe_20180510&amp
Page 437, Position 4: 20% of all the animal road deaths in England take place on the A303.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b738afbe-2935-11e7-9d2e-96f2194e0ac4
Page 438, Position 1: Gloucester sends a lamprey pie to the Queen for each of her jubilees, but as a protected species in the UK, the lampreys have to come from Canada.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-34187086
Page 438, Position 2: Canada has a strategic maple-syrup reserve.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Quebec_Maple_Syrup_Producers#Strategic_reserve
Page 438, Position 3: Fort Blunder, built by the US in 1816 to defend itself from Canada, was accidentally built in Canada.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Montgomery_(Lake_Champlain)#%22Fort_Blunder%22
Page 438, Position 4: Bear Castle is the literal translation from Swedish of Björn Borg.: https://swedimen.tumblr.com/post/138082104092/bj%C3%B6rn-borg-a-talented-swede-on-so-many-levels
Page 439, Position 1: Mahatma Gandhi wrote in to ask about the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course.: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/lessons-in-manliness-from-charles-atlas/
Page 439, Position 2: Krishna Pandit Bhanji is Sir Ben Kingsley’s real name.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Kingsley
Page 439, Position 3: Mswati III, the king of Swaziland, has changed his country’s name to eSwatini to avoid it being mistaken for Switzerland.: http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-africas-last-absolute-monarch-renames-swaziland-as-eswatini-2018-4
Page 439, Position 4: In 2007, the Swiss Army invaded Liechtenstein by accident: it was dark, and they couldn’t see where they were going.: https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=2921407&amp
Page 440, Position 1: In the 15th century, the Swiss Army used flutes for signalling.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_concert_flute
Page 440, Position 2: The longest musical note in common usage is called a breve and comes from the Latin for ‘brief’.
Page 440, Position 3: Brahms took 22 years to write his First Symphony .: http://www.classicfm.com/composers/brahms/guides/brahms-facts-great-composer/johannes-symphony/
Page 440, Position 4: A 128th note is called a semihemidemisemiquaver.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_twenty-eighth_note
Page 441, Position 1: ‘Full penetration butt weld’ is a technical term used by metal-workers.: https://www.bssa.org.uk/topics.php?article=147
Page 441, Position 2: Human beings are 3% metal.
Page 441, Position 3: If two pieces of metal touch in space, they stick together.: http://www.coolsciencefacts.com/2006/metal.html
Page 441, Position 4: Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, told her family she was going to a skydiving training camp. Her mother only found out the truth from the news.: http://www.yarregion.ru/eng/Pages/famous_people_Valentina_Vladimirovna_Tereshkova.aspx
Page 442, Position 1: The dirty clothes worn by astronauts on the International Space Station are jettisoned to burnup on re-entry.: https://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/livinginspace/Astronaut_Laundry.html
Page 442, Position 2: When astronaut Harrison Schmitt ran for the US Senate, his opponent’s slogan was ‘What on Earth has he done for you lately?’: Packing for Mars - Mary Roach
Page 442, Position 3: America’s Prohibition Party has been on every presidential ballot paper since 1872.: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-prohibition-party-still-exists-and-is-on-the-ballot-in-at-least-3-states?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&amp
Page 442, Position 4: The Rhinoceros Party of Canada promised to repeal the law of gravity and improve higher education by building taller schools.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_Party_of_Canada_(1963%E2%80%9393)
Page 443, Position 1: Turkish schools no longer teach evolution.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-evolution-teaching-stop-schools-curriculum-erdogan-a7955596.html
Page 443, Position 2: Pupils in Ireland study Irish for 10 years; outside school, only 1.8% of the population speak Irish every day.: http://www.thejournal.ie/poll-irish-compulsory-subject-secondary-schools-subject-gaeilge-836760-Mar2013/ http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/education/the_irish_education_system/overview_of_the_irish_education_system.html
Page 443, Position 3: Schools in Wakayama, Japan, serve whale meatballs for lunch.: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2010/09/05/national/whale-meat-back-on-school-lunch-menus/
Page 443, Position 4: Some schools in Pennsylvania have been equipped with buckets of stones to throw at armed attackers.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43523797?campaign_id=A100
Page 444, Position 1: Janis Joplin was voted the ‘ugliest boy in the school’.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/times2/what-rocks-27-club-told-me-about-talent-and-mental-illness-37rh83pmn
Page 444, Position 2: Noel Gallagher once broke Liam Gallagher’s foot with a cricket bat.: http://www.cracked.com/article_18586_the-7-most-impossible-rock-stars-to-deal-with.html
Page 444, Position 3: The singer-songwriter Tom Robinson kept poison in his fridge for 10 years in case he needed to kill himself in the night.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/times2/what-rocks-27-club-told-me-about-talent-and-mental-illness-37rh83pmn
Page 444, Position 4: Pop stars aged between 26 and 35 are ten times as likely to die as the rest of us.: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/times2/what-rocks-27-club-told-me-about-talent-and-mental-illness-37rh83pmn
Page 445, Position 1: Rolling Stone magazine named the Instagram feed of the US Transportation Security Administration the fourth best in the world.: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/the-100-best-instagram-accounts#ixzz4xqJEFs3r
Page 445, Position 2: Items confiscated by the Transportation Security Administration include a knife inside an enchilada and a dagger concealed in a replica Eiffel Tower.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/tsa-instagram-showcases-the-wacky-and-weird-from-airport-checkpoints/2016/11/27/22c4cf24-b00a-11e6-840f-e3ebab6bcdd3_story.html
Page 445, Position 3: The Leaning Tower of Pisa took 206 years to complete.: https://curiosity.com/topics/a-500-year-old-mystery-about-the-leaning-tower-of-pisa-has-been-solved-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&amp
Page 445, Position 4: The bootlace worm is as long as Nelson’s Column is tall.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineus_longissimus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson%27s_Column
Page 446, Position 1: The Ravenmaster at the Tower of London whistles a special tune to summon the ravens to bed each night.: http://spitalfieldslife.com/2013/03/03/chris-skaife-master-raven-keeper-at-the-tower-of-london-merlin-the-raven/
Page 446, Position 2: In 1959, a new language was discovered in the Pyrenees that consisted entirely of ear-splitting whistles.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aas _Pyrí©ní©es-Atlantiques
Page 446, Position 3: The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts offers a degree in yodelling.: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42877230
Page 446, Position 4: He’e holua is the traditional Hawaiian sport of lava sledding.: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/intelligent-travel/2011/05/24/sledding-in-hawaii/
Page 447, Position 1: Skyaking is the extreme sport of skydiving in a kayak.: https://metro.co.uk/2010/03/04/skyaking-the-extreme-sport-of-skydiving-in-a-canoe-148098/
Page 447, Position 2: The oldest skydiver is a 101-year-old British D-Day veteran.: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/may/14/d-day-veteran-verdun-hayes-worlds-oldest-skydiver-at-101-and-38-days?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 447, Position 3: You can scuba dive underneath Budapest.: http://www.bbc.com/travel/gallery/20180514-a-hidden-world-30m-below-budapest
Page 447, Position 4: Only 16% of Hungarians think they live in a tolerant nation.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43791600
Page 448, Position 1: Britons feel they need to keep only six of the Ten Commandments.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/25/six-commandments-christians-feel-four-ten-no-longer-important/
Page 448, Position 2: Ten-pin bowling evolved from a German religious ceremony .: https://www.britannica.com/sports/bowling
Page 448, Position 3: Only two members of the US Congress say they don’t believe in God.: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/01/how-should-atheism-be-taught/551885/?utm_source=newsletter&amp
Page 448, Position 4: The bar-tailed godwit can fly 6,800 miles without a rest.: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100609102052.htm
Page 449, Position 1: Songbirds get angrywhen their rivals are better at singing.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2150994-songbird-gets-angry-when-its-rivals-are-brilliant-at-singing/
Page 449, Position 2: A blackbird can sing two songs simultaneously and harmonise with itself.: https://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2013/06/20/blackbird-singing-in-the-dead-of-night/
Page 449, Position 3: 40,000 Highland midges can land on a single human arm in one hour.: https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/outdoors/donal-hickey/scourge-of-the-midges-during-an-irish-summer-404473.html
Page 449, Position 4: Asian elephants have the same female sex pheromone as 140 species of moth.: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~abrg/pheromones/index.html
Page 450, Position 1: A horse’s teeth take up more space in its head than its brain.: http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/features/9-fascinatingly-random-horse-facts-589133
Page 450, Position 2: Red pandas are the only non-primate mammals that can taste artificial sweeteners.: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/7-things-you-didne28099t-know-about-red-pandas/
Page 450, Position 3: Pan Pan the panda, rescued as a cub in 1986, has since fathered 120 of the 520 pandas alive in captivity .: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-complicated-legacy-of-a-panda-who-was-really-good-at-sex/
Page 450, Position 4: All pandas born outside China are repatriated there by Fedex at about four years old.: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-fedex-giant-panda-180962191/?utm_source=smithsoniantopic&amp
Page 451, Position 1: Just four of Japan’s 6,852 islands make up 97% of its land area.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NLFmDwAAQBAJ&amp
Page 451, Position 2: The Queen has travelled over a million miles.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/her-majesty-the-queen-jet-lag-remedy-travel-habits/
Page 451, Position 3: Prince Charles is exempt from the Data Protection Act.: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/obscure-law-lets-prince-charles-set-off-nuclear-bomb-a6787626.html
Page 451, Position 4: Donald Trump steams his trousers while still wearing them.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/03/kfc-elton-john-fierce-temper-new-book-claims-lift-lid-life-inside/
Page 452, Position 1: Chino is Latin American Spanish for ‘toasted’.: https://www.etymonline.com/word/chino?ref=etymonline_crossreference
Page 452, Position 2: Levi’s jeans are made to look pre-worn by scorching them with lasers.: https://qz.com/quartzy/1215862/levis-jeans-will-be-broken-in-with-lasers/
Page 452, Position 3: The inventor of the laser didn’t know what it would be used for.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/history-bar-code-180956704/
Page 452, Position 4: The idea of the midlife crisis was invented by a Canadian in London in 1957.: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/05/the-invention-of-the-midlife-crisis/561203/?utm_source=newsletter&amp
Page 453, Position 1: Steel was invented in India around 400 bc.: https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a20722505/history-of-steel/?curator=LongformREDEF
Page 453, Position 2: The Humber Bridge is held up by 44,117 miles of steel wire, enough to circle the world twice.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-36286178
Page 453, Position 3: Christmas Island has a bridge built just for crabs.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/12045930/Crabs-get-their-own-bridge-to-cross-busy-road-on-Christmas-Island.html
Page 453, Position 4: The carrier crab uses its back legs to grip a sea urchin, which it carries on its back like a shield.: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/sea-urchin-rides-carrier-crab/
Page 454, Position 1: The cloakroom at the Houses of Parliament has storage space for MPs’ swords, and at least one MP uses it.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31049249
Page 454, Position 2: Theresa May was introduced to her husband by Benazir Bhutto.: https://tribune.com.pk/story/1512385/theresa-may-pays-tribute-benazir-bhutto-un/
Page 454, Position 3: The briefing folder David Cameron took to Prime Minister’s Questions was known as the ‘plastic fantastic’.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31049249
Page 454, Position 4: In the last 20 years, Switzerland has had over 180 referendums.: https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/switzerland-held-9-referendums-already-2016/
Page 455, Position 1: The Swiss Air Force is only available during business hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/feb/19/swiss-air-force-ethiopian-airlines-hijacking-office-hours
Page 455, Position 2: 10 trillion business cards are printed in the US each year, 88% of which are thrown away within a week of being handed out.: https://www.statisticbrain.com/business-card-statistics/
Page 455, Position 3: The names of UK businesses including the word ‘Scottish’ outnumber those including the word ‘English’ by four to one.: http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/britains-bizarre-business-naming-habits/19870.article
Page 455, Position 4: In 1961, the co-founder of Domino’s Pizza traded his 50% stake in the business for a Volkswagen Beetle.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/13055/50-stake-domino%E2%80%99s-pizza-was-once-traded-used-vw-beetle
Page 456, Position 1: Only female bees can sting.: https://askentomologists.com/2015/09/23/why-cant-male-bees-or-wasps-sting/
Page 456, Position 2: Jellyfish stinging cells explode with an acceleration a million times greater than a Ferrari’s.: https://undark.org/article/wilo-berwald-spineless/?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 456, Position 3: Sloths move three times faster in water than on land.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/02/12/sloths-are-surprisingly-fast-swimmers/
Page 456, Position 4: When the Arctic sea ice melts, it will be possible to swim in a straight line from Antarctica to Norway.: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8fgs9l/when_the_arctic_sea_ice_melts_it_will_be_just/
Page 457, Position 1: Norway’s deepest fjord is 100 metres deeper than the combined height of the Empire State Building and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.: https://www.gct.com/community/the-inside-scoop/travel-trivia/witw-norway-fjords
Page 457, Position 2: The Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, was built by Samsung.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4081885.stm
Page 457, Position 3: 40 leopards live in Dubai, and 40% of their diet is provided by the city’s dogs.: https://qz.com/1224409/mumbais-41-leopards-may-be-protecting-locals-from-thousands-of-rabid-stray-dogs/?mc_cid=c0ef793433&amp
Page 457, Position 4: The Mesolithic diet was mostly hazelnuts.: The Mesolithic diet was mostlyhazelnuts. https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/essential-guide-hazel
Page 458, Position 1: Chestnut was Clyde Barrow of Bonnie and Clyde’s middle name.: https://www.biography.com/people/clyde-barrow-229532
Page 458, Position 2: No one knows why the Finns call their country Suomi.: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180225-the-mysterious-origins-of-finlands-true-name
Page 458, Position 3: The original Finnish alphabet didn’t include the letter ‘F’.: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180225-the-mysterious-origins-of-finlands-true-name
Page 458, Position 4: Per head of population, Finland has won more medals at the Summer Olympics than any other country.: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/04/finland-tops-podium-for-most-olympic-medals-won-per-capita
Page 459, Position 1: So they can be shared with family and friends, the gold medals designed for the 2024 Paris Olympics are divisible into four.: https://www.dezeen.com/2017/07/25/philippe-starck-paris-2024-olympic-medals-designed-to-be-shared/
Page 459, Position 2: Gold worth $2 million passes through Swiss sewers every year.: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/swiss-sewage-full-gold-apparently-180965245/?utm_source=twitter.com&amp
Page 459, Position 3: Augustus Caesar sent 10,000 troops to find the source of the world’s frankincense.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8505251.stm
Page 459, Position 4: Slugs hate myrrh.: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/wise-men-enlist-myrrh-defeat-2395423
Page 460, Position 1: Lewis Carroll collected snails.: Steve Jones The Daily Telegraph 24.3.07
Page 460, Position 2: In 2008, a new species of insect was discovered in the garden of the Natural History Museum by a five-year-old boy.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1035264/Natural-History-Museum-experts-baffled-new-bug-garden.html
Page 460, Position 3: Indian jumping ants can smell which of the larvae will mature into a queen.: https://scienmag.com/princess-pheromone-tells-ants-which-larvae-are-destined-to-be-queens/
Page 460, Position 4: Queen Victoria hung a photograph of Prince Albert on his deathbed over every bed she slept in.: History Today Aug 2011
Page 461, Position 1: In 1926, the future George VI competed in the men’s doubles at Wimbledon, but was knocked out in his first match.: http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/news/articles/2014-12-04/20141204_throwback_thursday_a_jubilee_at_wimbledon_in_1926.html
Page 461, Position 2: Cricketers wore a box to protect their genitals for more than 100 years before they wore a helmet to protect their head.: http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=37479&amp
Page 461, Position 3: In Finland, they make bread from crickets.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/23/anyone-for-crickets-bread-made-insect-finnish-bakery-fazer
Page 461, Position 4: Elephants have three times as many brain cells as humans.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons
Page 462, Position 1: Edward VII had a golf bag made from an elephant’s penis.: https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/matter-of-fact-1-533064
Page 462, Position 2: Donald Trump’s golf bag contains high-powered rifles, as well as clubs.: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-carries-high-powered-rifles-with-clubs-playing-golf-florida-trump-international-golf-a7678826.html
Page 462, Position 3: The average plastic bag gets used for 12 minutes but takes up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.: https://theoutline.com/post/2998/new-york-city-plastic-bag-ban-law?zd=3&amp
Page 462, Position 4: Eating a bag of crisps a day for a year is equivalent to drinking five litres of cooking oil.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5367822.stm
Page 463, Position 1: Snakes that eat snakes can eat snakes that are 139% of their own length.: http://snakesarelong.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/snake-eating-snakes.html
Page 463, Position 2: The smallest known snake is the size of a toothpick.: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-strangest-facts-about-snakes https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-strangest-facts-about-snakes
Page 463, Position 3: In 2017, snakes were observed hunting in packs for the first time.: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/snakes-hunting-in-packs-cuban-boas-caves
Page 463, Position 4: Snakes are not allowed on American Airlines planes as emotional support animals.: https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/special-assistance/service-animals.jsp?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 464, Position 1: The Americans most likely to use fonts that look like handwriting are Nevadans.: https://priceonomics.com/the-comic-sans-index-what-kind-of-fonts-do/
Page 464, Position 2: Comic Sans is based on lettering from the Watchmen comics.: https://www.creativebloq.com/interview/inspiration-comic-sans-gives-his-verdict-awful-font-812618
Page 464, Position 3: In graphic design, the use of too many mismatched fonts is called ‘the ransom note effect’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_note_effect
Page 464, Position 4: The ‘third-person effect’ is the belief that advertising only convinces other people.: https://academic.oup.com/poq/article-abstract/47/1/1/1906961/The-Third-Person-Effect-in-Communication?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Page 465, Position 1: The ‘bystander effect’ is where a person does nothing in a crisis because they think someone else will.: https://curiosity.com/topics/we-all-think-were-too-smart-for-ad-campaigns-curiosity/
Page 465, Position 2: New members of the British royal family undergo hostage simulation training.: https://qz.com/1142603/prince-harry-and-meghan-markles-wedding-us-actress-to-get-sas-military-hostage-training/?mc_cid=39a0f4bb54&amp
Page 465, Position 3: The Royal Navy is half the size it was in 1990.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/21/cuts-britains-military-mean-no-longer-rule-waves-fleet-halved/
Page 465, Position 4: During the Cold War, to plan for a nuclear meltdown Russia, Sweden and Finland dusted off their old steam locomotives.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_steam_reserve
Page 466, Position 1: Siderodromophobia is the fear of trains.: http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=38359&amp
Page 466, Position 2: Aibohphobia is the fear of palindromes.: http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=38359&amp
Page 466, Position 3: People can overcome phobias if they’re given cash every time they think about the thing they’re scared of.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/21/paying-people-helps-them-overcome-phobias---new-research/
Page 466, Position 4: £200,000 in loose change is found on public transport in London each year.: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/tfl-lost-property-revealed-including-200k-worth-of-cash-left-on-tube-a3618031.html
Page 467, Position 1: 2,400 phone boxes in Britain are listed as ‘historic landmarks’.: https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/blogs/amazing-afterlife-british-phone-boxes
Page 467, Position 2: L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, predicted the smartphone in 1926.: https://kottke.org/18/04/nikola-tesla-predicted-the-smartphone-in-1926
Page 467, Position 3: Steve Jobs launched the iPhone in 2007 by making a prank call to Starbucks.: https://www.fastcompany.com/3006147/because-steve-jobss-first-public-iphone-call-starbucks-still-
Page 467, Position 4: The area code for Cape Canaveral is 3–2–1.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_code_321
Page 468, Position 1: Snoopy is NASA’s official safety mascot.: https://gizmodo.com/snoopy-the-astrobeagle-nasas-mascot-for-safety-1570066950
Page 468, Position 2: NASA has green-lit a project to create swarms of robot bees to explore Mars.: https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-wants-swarms-buzzing-robot-bees-marsbees-to-explore-mars
Page 468, Position 3: A bee’s brain weighs less than a milligram.: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/5/17500782/zero-number-math-explained?utm_source=digg&amp
Page 468, Position 4: The inventor of M&M’s was allergic to peanuts.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/68189/creator-peanut-mms-was-allergic-peanuts
Page 469, Position 1: Candyfloss was invented by a dentist.: http://www.latimes.com/food/sns-dailymeal-1890308-cook-cotton-candy-was-invented-dentist-20180305-story.html
Page 469, Position 2: The price tag was invented by the Quakers.: https://timespelunking.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/the-invention-of-the-price-tag/
Page 469, Position 3: In the 1950s, Quaker Oats gave away one square inch of land in Canada with every box sold.: https://newsok.com/article/5484693/taking-stock-decades-old-deed-to-one-square-inch-of-canadas-yukon-territory-has-some-value
Page 469, Position 4: The Vikings ate frozen food.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2143059-viking-hordes-dined-on-frozen-norwegian-cod-shipped-to-germany/
Page 470, Position 1: The Netherlands is Europe’s biggest importer of insects.: https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2017/41/the-netherlands-largest-importer-of-insects-in-the-eu
Page 470, Position 2: 1 in 200 Slovenians keep bees.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/slovenia/articles/beekeeping-slovenia-world-bee-day-ljubljana/
Page 470, Position 3: Aphids are born pregnant.: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/911/are-aphids-born-pregnant
Page 470, Position 4: Toenail fungus is asexual.: https://www.livescience.com/61846-toenail-fungus-reproduction-may-spell-doom.html
Page 471, Position 1: Astronauts often lose their fingernails after space walks.: https://boingboing.net/2010/09/15/astronauts-fingernai.html
Page 471, Position 2: Children who bite their nails are less likely to develop allergies as an adult.: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2016/07/07/peds.2016-0443
Page 471, Position 3: Mango skins contain the same allergen as poison ivy .: https://web.extension.illinois.edu/cfiv/homeowners/120726.html
Page 471, Position 4: Napoleon was allergic to leather.: https://www.christies.com/features/Specialist-Shari-Kashani-on-Napoleons-bicorn-hat-6919-1.aspx
Page 472, Position 1: When George Washington died, Napoleon ordered 10 days of mourning in France.: https://www.politico.com/story/2009/12/george-washington-dies-at-mount-vernon-dec-14-1799-030536
Page 472, Position 2: Winston Churchill’s funeral was planned under the code name Operation Hope Not.: https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/news/2015/jan/21/operation-hope-not/
Page 472, Position 3: The middle name of 17th-century English economist Nicholas Barbon was If-Christ-had-notdied-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned.: https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/curiosities-of-puritan-nomenclature-1888/
Page 472, Position 4: The full name of Thing from The Addams Family is Thing T. Thing.: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0901062/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t139
Page 473, Position 1: Louisa Adams, the wife of the sixth US president, John Quincy Adams, is the only First Lady apart from Melania Trump not to have been born in the US.: http://uk.businessinsider.com/melania-trump-facts-first-lady-2018-5/#she-is-only-the-second-first-lady-in-american-history-born-outside-of-the-united-states-in-slovenia-the-only-other-foreign-born-first-lady-was-louisa-catherine-johnson-the-wife-of-john-quincy-adams-she-was-born-in-england-1
Page 473, Position 2: Newborn babies have half as much chance of developing asthma if there’s a cat in the house.: https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/cat-asthma-newborn-gene-0942342/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 473, Position 3: When huskies sleep, they curl up with their tail over their nose, which traps the heat against their bodies.: http://www.dummies.com/pets/dogs/understanding-a-siberian-huskys-sleep-style/
Page 473, Position 4: One-third of the energy a python gets from a meal goes on digesting the meal.: http://discovermagazine.com/1994/apr/diningwiththesna362
Page 474, Position 1: The world’s largest wine cellar has underground streets 150 miles long, where staff and tourists get about by bike, car and bus.: https://www.winerist.com/magazine/entry/where-in-the-world-is-the-largest-wine-cellar
Page 474, Position 2: The world’s largest wine cellar and the world’s secondlargest wine cellar are both in Moldova.: https://www.winerist.com/blog/entry/where-in-the-world-is-the-largest-wine-cellar
Page 474, Position 3: As much Prosecco is drunk in the UK each year as the annual rainfall on Wembley stadium.: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/prosecco-may-be-contributing-to-increased-dental-decay-1.3198483
Page 474, Position 4: Britain’s first professional footballer had only one eye.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lang_(footballer)
Page 475, Position 1: An Australian law student has fought a five-year battle to have a drawing of a cock and balls officially recognised as his legal signature.: http://www.smh.com.au/national/melbourne-man-faces-stiff-opposition-to-penis-signature-20160106-gm0sx6.html
Page 475, Position 2: T. S. Eliot coined the word ‘bullshit’.: http://www.openculture.com/2015/06/young-t-s-eliot-writes-the-triumph-of-bullsht-and-gives-the-english-language-a-new-expletive-1910.html
Page 475, Position 3: In 2017, the World Taekwondo Federation changed its name to World Taekwondo because of the ‘negative connotations’ associated with its initials.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/taekwondo/40391326
Page 475, Position 4: Sumo is Japanese for ‘rushing at each other’.: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9B%B8%E6%92%B2
Page 476, Position 1: Professional sumo wrestlers aren’t allowed to drive.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumo
Page 476, Position 2: If a woman enters a sumo ring, it has to be cleaned immediately with salt.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/world/asia/women-sumo-ring-japan.html
Page 476, Position 3: After iodine was added to salt in 1924, the average American IQ jumped by 15%.: http://www.businessinsider.com/iodization-effect-on-iq-2013-7?IR=T
Page 476, Position 4: Butterflies can get the salt they need by drinking the tears from turtles’ eyes.: https://www.livescience.com/63092-butterflies-drink-turtle-tears.html
Page 477, Position 1: TV naturalist Steve Irwin (1962–2006) and Charles Darwin (1809–82) owned the same tortoise.: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/darwins-tortoise-dies-after-176-years/
Page 477, Position 2: Lizards were defined by Dr Johnson as ‘an animal resembling a serpent, with legs added to it’.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/538473/funny-definitions-from-dictionary-of-the-english-language-samuel-johnson
Page 477, Position 3: Each leg of an offshore wind turbine may have up to 4.3 tonnes of mussels clinging to it.: https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21730129-flexing-mussels-offshore-wind-farms-will-change-life-sea
Page 477, Position 4: St David’s is Britain’s smallest and windiest city .: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/uks-windiest-city-4966116
Page 478, Position 1: For its size, Britain has more tornadoes than any other country in the world.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/only-in-britain/tornado-strikes-london/
Page 478, Position 2: The average warning time for a tornado is 13 minutes.: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/13-minutes-thats-the-average-warning-time-before-a-tornado-strikes/361195/
Page 478, Position 3: The average Briton spends a year of their working life off sick.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2473674/The-average-Briton-spends-YEAR-working-life-si.html
Page 478, Position 4: A quarter of British nurses are obese.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/05/one-four-nurses-obese-new-study-shows/
Page 479, Position 1: To nurdle is to muse on a subject you know nothing about.: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nurdle#cite_note-3
Page 479, Position 2: To snerdle is to wrap up cosily in bed.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/21-obscure-christmas-words-youve-never-heard/
Page 479, Position 3: A petarade is a series of farts.: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/fart-words-and-euphemisms/petarade
Page 479, Position 4: Ninguid is a 17th-century word for ‘snowy’.: http://www.foyles.co.uk/Blog-Paul-Anthony-Jones-Long-Forgotten-Words
Page 480, Position 1: Part of Antarctica is called the Kodak Gap because it is so beautiful it’s impossible to take a bad photo there.: Part of Antarctica is called the 'Kodak Gap' because it is so beautiful it's impossible to take a bad photo there. https://www.antarcticaguide.com/lemaire-channel-photographers-dream/
Page 480, Position 2: The US Postal Service photographs every one of the 160 billion items of US mail a year.: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirms-photographing-all-us-mail.html
Page 480, Position 3: Jeff Bezos has been photographed eating an iguana.: https://www.bloomberg.com/hyperdrive
Page 480, Position 4: Oscar Wilde tore off and ate a corner of each page after he’d read it.: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/books/review/Shae-t.html
Page 481, Position 1: The NME was originally called the Accordion Times.: http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/nmes-first-ever-issue-from-1952-the-best-bits-1554872 c
Page 481, Position 2: Freddy Mercury’s original title for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was ‘The Cowboy Song’.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/70634/10-operatic-facts-about-bohemian-rhapsody
Page 481, Position 3: The song ‘Mahna Mahna’, made famous by the Muppets, was written for a porn film.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mah_N%C3%A0_Mah_N%C3%A0
Page 481, Position 4: Paul McCartney once spent three hours in prison for setting a condom on fire.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Best#The_Beatles_and_Hamburg
Page 482, Position 1: Steve Jobs tried to change the name of the Apple Macintosh to the Apple Bicycle.: https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-macintosh-turns-25-and-how-it-was-almost-a-bicycle/
Page 482, Position 2: The tank was nearly called ‘the cistern’ or ‘the reservoir’.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank#Etymology
Page 482, Position 3: In the 17th century, magpies were called ‘pie-maggots’.: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-anthony-jones/66-facts-you-may-not-have_b_5508623.html
Page 482, Position 4: A sequin was originally a gold coin from Italy.: https://www.etymonline.com/word/sequin
Page 483, Position 1: In 1929, Italy’s Fascist government banned the use of foreign words.: https://writersalmanac.org/note/july-23-2016-on-this-day-fascist-government-in-italy-bans-the-use-of-foreign-words/
Page 483, Position 2: Cumhracht is Irish for the smell of a man’s body after intercourse.: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/motherfocl%C3%B3ir-the-irish-they-didn-t-teach-you-in-school-1.3219777
Page 483, Position 3: Emmanuel Macron, president of France, spends the equivalent of £24,000 a year on make-up.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/25/emmanuel-macron-under-fire-26000-euros-makeup-bill
Page 483, Position 4: In camel beauty contests, competitors are disqualified if they use Botox.: https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-camels/prize-camels-keep-tradition-alive-in-changing-saudi-but-please-no-botox-idUKKBN1FB1WL?feedType=nl&amp
Page 484, Position 1: In the 1880s, thousands of spectators flocked to newspaper typesetting competitions.: https://www.economist.com/prospero/2018/03/30/when-newspaper-compositors-were-sporting-heroes
Page 484, Position 2: To design a new English-language font requires about 230 separate elements called ‘glyphs’; to make a Chinese one needs over 13,000.: https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1283302/
Page 484, Position 3: The Glyptodon was an ancient armadillo the size of a Volkswagen Beetle whose shell was large enough for humans to live in.: http://allthatsinteresting.com/glyptodon
Page 484, Position 4: As a teenager, Xi Jinping, president of China, lived in a cave.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Thoughts_Chairman_Xi
Page 485, Position 1: Neanderthals used glue.: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170831093424.htm
Page 485, Position 2: Wallets were first used to carrymeat.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallet
Page 485, Position 3: All the iron in Bronze Age tools and weapons came from meteorites.: https://newatlas.com/bronze-age-iron-tools-meteorites/52474/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&amp
Page 485, Position 4: At least 200 meteorites on Earth are known to have come from Mars.: https://www.zmescience.com/space/space-flight-space/nasa-meteorite-mission-mars-15022018/
Page 486, Position 1: Every day, 800 million viruses fall on each square metre of the Earth’s surface.: https://www.livescience.com/61689-viruses-fall-from-sky.html
Page 486, Position 2: The MRSA virus can be treated with an Anglo-Saxon potion that is 1,000 years old.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27263-anglo-saxon-remedy-kills-hospital-superbug-mrsa/#.VRqblka1_vB
Page 486, Position 3: The antibiotic vancomycin comes from soil on the jungle floor in Borneo.: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/could-the-answer-to-our-most-urgent-health-crisis-be-found-on-a-toilet-seat/528687/?src=longreads
Page 486, Position 4: The rainforest floor gets less than 3% of the light that the treetops do.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ErkxBgAAQBAJ&amp
Page 487, Position 1: American tree populations are steadily moving west, and no one knows why.: https://www.sciencealert.com/american-trees-have-started-migrating-west-and-no-one-knows-why
Page 487, Position 2: No one knows why shower curtains cling to you.: https://curiosity.com/topics/no-one-knows-why-the-shower-curtain-will-randomly-cling-to-you-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&amp
Page 487, Position 3: In his late 60s, Ulysses S. Grant claimed that no one had seen him naked since he was a young child.: http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-4-most-impressively-weird-sex-lives-u.s.-presidents
Page 487, Position 4: When Spy magazine sent cheques for 13 cents to some of the world’s richest people, no one cashed them except a Saudi arms dealer and Donald Trump.: https://splinternews.com/lets-remember-the-time-donald-trump-cashed-a-13-check-1793849388
Page 488, Position 1: Bankruptcy is likely to be as fatal as heart disease.: https://nypost.com/2018/04/04/bankruptcy-increases-risk-of-early-death-as-much-as-heart-disease/
Page 488, Position 2: A fatal dose of water is six litres.: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-drinking-too-much-water-can-kill/
Page 488, Position 3: A fatal dose of caffeine is 113 cups of coffee, but you’d die of water poisoning first.: http://scienceblogs.com/worldsfair/2009/05/01/lethal-doses-and-substance-abu/
Page 488, Position 4: Nestlé sells 56 different brands of water.: https://theconversation.com/why-sales-of-bottled-water-overtaking-soft-drinks-is-nothing-to-celebrate-41695
Page 489, Position 1: Watering plants with club soda makes them grow faster and go a nicer shade of green.: https://www.improbable.com/2018/07/09/the-benefits-of-watering-plants-with-club-soda-study/
Page 489, Position 2: As long as you use soap, washing your hands works just as well if the water is cold.: http://time.com/4800412/wash-hands-cold-water/
Page 489, Position 3: Mano a mano means ‘hand to hand’, not ‘man to man’.: http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=37302&amp
Page 489, Position 4: The Island of Misunderstanding got its name because it was missed by a map-making expedition.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedorazumeniya_Island
Page 490, Position 1: The first Americans came from Siberia.: https://www.livescience.com/62531-native-american-founder-population.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&amp
Page 490, Position 2: The earliest known song was written in Syria.: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180424-did-syria-create-the-worlds-first-song?ocid=global_travel_rss&amp
Page 490, Position 3: Cougars have a cry that sounds like a woman screaming.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/north-america/articles/how-a-year-in-a-log-cabin-changed-my-life/?WT.mc_id=e_DM674469&amp
Page 490, Position 4: Australian magpies can understand what other birds are saying.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/australian-magpie-calls-8252723/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 491, Position 1: Pelicans swallow pigeons whole.: http://mentalfloss.com/article/515654/10-fun-facts-about-pelicans
Page 491, Position 2: Hedgehogs hunt and kill adders.: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-strangest-facts-about-snakes
Page 491, Position 3: Coconut crabs climb trees and hunt birds.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/11/11/these-crabs-can-grow-up-to-3-feet-and-hunt-birds-a-biologists-video-proves/?undefined=&amp
Page 491, Position 4: Quetzal birds eat avocados whole but regurgitate the stone because it makes them too heavy to take off.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_sbGtJRO5ewC&amp
Page 492, Position 1: You can lose weight by leaving your bedroom window open at night.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/03/20/open-bedroom-window-night-prevent-obesity-type-2-diabetes-says/
Page 492, Position 2: There are more possible arrangements of a deck of cards than there are stars in the known universe.: https://www.metafilter.com/172381/52
Page 492, Position 3: Children asked to draw stars instinctively draw five of them.: https://sharonhenning.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/quadrivium-number-geometry-music-heaven.html
Page 492, Position 4: The human eye can detect a single photon.: https://curiosity.com/topics/can-you-see-a-single-photon-with-your-naked-eye-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&amp
Page 493, Position 1: A single violin is made from over 70 pieces of wood.: http://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/incredible-facts/violin/
Page 493, Position 2: Christchurch, New Zealand, has a 700-seat cathedral made of cardboard.: http://www.cardboardcathedral.org.nz/
Page 493, Position 3: Cardboard was invented in China before the birth of Christ.: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/02/invention-cardboard-box/
Page 493, Position 4: The nail was invented by the ancient Romans.: https://www.livescience.com/33749-top-10-inventions-changed-world.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&amp
Page 494, Position 1: Scientists can’t decide on the definition of a tree.: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/how-do-you-define-a-tree/557135/?utm_source=twb
Page 494, Position 2: Hawaiian violets have wooden stems.: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d7a5/648339d7ab2bcc6a0aca804a432699be7ff5.pdf
Page 494, Position 3: Physicists at the University of Hawaii have solved the problem of how washing machines get clothes clean.: https://curiosity.com/topics/scientists-just-figured-out-how-laundry-machines-clean-your-clothes-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&amp
Page 494, Position 4: Washing Machine – The Movie is a 66-minute-long single shot of a wash, rinse and spin cycle, with a score by Michael Nyman.: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/28/soap-opera-michael-nyman-composes-score-for-washing-machine-film?utm_source=esp&amp
Page 495, Position 1: There are more vending machines in Japan than there are people in New Zealand.: https://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/indepth/cultural/hj/vendingmachines.html http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/new-zealand-population
Page 495, Position 2: The Japanese for ‘achoo!’ is hakashun!: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-23162903
Page 495, Position 3: The Filipino for ‘achoo!’ is haching!: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-23162903
Page 495, Position 4: Deaf people don’t say ‘achoo!’ when they sneeze.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-23162903
Page 496, Position 1: The droplets in a single cough can contain 200 million virus particles.: https://www.livescience.com/3686-gross-science-cough-sneeze.html
Page 496, Position 2: Cough mixture in Qatar must be prescribed by a doctor.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/06/leave-vicks-home-foreign-office-warns-medication-could-land1/
Page 496, Position 3: Vicks VapoRub is illegal in Japan, Greece and Singapore.: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/06/leave-vicks-home-foreign-office-warns-medication-could-land1/
Page 496, Position 4: No one knows how aspirin works.: https://curiosity.com/topics/a-russian-scientist-injected-himself-with-35-million-year-old-bacteria-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&amp
Page 497, Position 1: British pensions are so complicated that not even the chief economist of the Bank of England understands them.: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/may/19/bank-of-englands-chief-economist-calls-for-more-simple-pension-system
Page 497, Position 2: Membership of the Royal Bastards Society is open to anyone who can prove illegitimate descent from a king of England, Wales or Scotland.: https://royalbastards.org/
Page 497, Position 3: James IV of Scotland paid people to let him extract their teeth.: https://cvhf.org.uk/history-hub/10-facts-about-the-16th-century-game-of-queens/
Page 497, Position 4: The Queen travels everywhere with a black mourning suit, just in case.: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/her-majesty-the-queen-jet-lag-remedy-travel-habits/?WT.mc_id=e_DM608169&amp
Page 498, Position 1: The French Foreign Legion has its own vineyard.: http://www.wineterroirs.com/2008/09/legion_wine.html
Page 498, Position 2: 90% of wines are meant to be drunk within a year.: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/apr/20/wines-for-the-cellar
Page 498, Position 3: Britons in 2018 buy six times as many cups of coffee as they did in 2000.: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41251451
Page 498, Position 4: Postgraduate students are six times as depressed as the rest of us.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/graduate-students-depressed-042343/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 499, Position 1: Every year spent in secondary education adds 11 months to the length of your life.: https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/these-7-habits-literally-add-years-to-your-life-according-to-science.html
Page 499, Position 2: The Ethiopian calendar has 13 months.: https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/ethiopia-calendar.html
Page 499, Position 3: Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to travel on Friday the 13th.: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/weird-news/friday-the-13th-is-it-really-unlucky-and-why-do-people-fear-it-a6733126.html
Page 499, Position 4: 45% of the world’s cargo ships are travelling empty .: https://qz.com/1031020/heres-a-sign-of-our-massive-global-trade-imbalance-right-now-45-of-ships-are-traveling-without-cargo/?ex_cid=SigDig
Page 500, Position 1: Fishing boats cast their nets over 55% of the ocean’s surface.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/fishing-map-2016/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 500, Position 2: Only 34% of the world’s land surface is used for any kind of agriculture.: https://www.zmescience.com/science/fishing-map-2016/?utm_source=ZME+Science+Newsletter&amp
Page 500, Position 3: The Gobi Desert is twice the size of France.: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mongolian-camel-coaxing-art-ritual-lost?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&amp
Page 500, Position 4: The world’s smallest desert covers one square mile.: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180621-the-unlikely-home-of-the-worlds-smallest-desert?utm_source=digg&amp
Page 501, Position 1: The circumference of the world was estimated by Eratosthenes of Cyrene 2,000 years ago, and he was only 1% out.: https://gizmodo.com/how-the-circumference-of-earth-was-accurately-estimated-1493009177
Page 501, Position 2: All the Slinkys ever made would encircle the world 150 times.: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/the-story-of-the-slinky/266713/
Page 501, Position 3: The inventor of the Slinky ran away to join a religious cult.: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/the-story-of-the-slinky/266713/
Page 501, Position 4: In 2015, the Vatican performed an exorcism on the whole of Mexico.: http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-catholic-church-performed-an-exorcism-to-help-mexico-2015-6
Page 502, Position 1: The Australian constitution includes New Zealand as its seventh state.: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/preamble
Page 502, Position 2: The Hungarian constitution was drafted on an iPad.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Hungary#Drafting_process
Page 502, Position 3: The US constitution is the only one from the 18th century still in use.: https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/09/24/are-americans-too-constitution-obsessed/
Page 502, Position 4: The Irish for USA is SAM.: https://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/united-states-of-america
Page 503, Position 1: Hitler’s nephew, William Hitler, served in the US Navy .: http://www.cracked.com/article_24724_the-true-adventures-bill-hitler-hilters-idiot-nephew.htmlhttp://www.businessinsider.com/21-rare-and-weird-facts-about-world-war-2-2015-8?IR=T#15-adolph-hitler-and-henry-ford-each-kept-a-framed-picture-of-the-other-on-his-desk-1111115
Page 503, Position 2: Before the Second World War, the US Navy trained on the assumption that it would have to fight the Royal Navy next.: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-USA-plan-to-attack-Britain-in-1936
Page 503, Position 3: Japan’s Self-Defence Forces have a larger navy than Britain and France combined but have never fired a shot in battle.: http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21717079-many-army-apparently-had-no-idea-they-might-have-do-some-fighting-japans
Page 503, Position 4: Samurai always brought dried plums to battles.: https://www.livescience.com/60738-ancient-samurai-book-reveals-warrior-rules.html
Page 504, Position 1: France has a larger economy than the whole of Africa.: https://news.sky.com/story/theresa-mays-silence-on-brexit-success-leads-to-one-conclusion-11485765
Page 504, Position 1: Asparagus tips are called ‘squibs’.: https://www.instagram.com/p/BfZZICeBgaS/?taken-by=haggardhawks
Page 504, Position 2: Concrete is stronger if carrots are added to it.: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/06/16/making-buildings-cars-and-planes-from-materials-based-on-plant-fibres?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20180614n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/UK/128676/n&amp
Page 504, Position 3: When the first avocados were sold by Marks & Spencer, they came with a leaflet explaining how to eat them.: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/87a56e5c-6d41-4495-9e22-523efb6b4cb0
Page 504, Position 4: All strawberries today derive from five plants brought to France from Chile in 1712.: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QIFTVWJH3doC&amp
Page 505, Position 1: The oceans are getting louder.: https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/7/18/15988494/ocean-noise-pollution
Page 505, Position 2: 99.99% of the territory of the Cook Islands is open sea.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/08/cook-islands-faces-its-worst-case-scenario-being-granted-developed-country-status?utm_source=esp&amp
Page 505, Position 3: Tahitian has no word for ‘sadness’.: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2008.00509.x?referrer_access_token=SsPN6gJ8KtHKHZmQb4dzjota6bR2k8jH0KrdpFOxC66fmTHTQHODkoQXCsJeT-A7f7HnCGuv2auq4aA-ycaoMVc2-KwAQsQCQEk8aLl6PQkpGQC7Yolxi2tdW6a0FbfYWM_c37DNSoU2ZByp2TSvrw%3D%3D
Page 505, Position 4: The parliament of Palau is called the House of Whispers.: https://www.pristineparadisepalau.com/about-palau/government
Page 506, Position 2: Ferns are older than seeds.: https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/1349113/
Page 506, Position 3: Darkness moves faster than light.: https://curiosity.com/topics/darkness-is-faster-than-the-speed-of-light-curiosity?utm_campaign=daily-digest&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email
Page 506, Position 4: There’s no such thing as total darkness anywhere in the universe.: https://www.quora.com/Is-there-such-a-thing-as-total-darkness-according-to-science-on-Earth