- Writer Edgar Allan Poe and LSD advocate Timothy Leary were both kicked out of West Point.
- The German Kaiser Wilhelm II had a withered arm and often hid the fact by posing with his hand resting on a sword, or by holding gloves.
- James Doohan, who plays Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott on Star Trek, is missing the entire middle finger of his right hand.
- Hulk Hogan's real name is Terry Bollea.
- Shirley Temple always had 56 curls in her hair.
- Paul Revere rode on a borrowed horse that belonged to Deacon Larkin.
- Napoleon Bonaparte's mother's name was Laticia.
- Pamela Anderson Lee is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence.
- Al Capone's famous scar (which earned him the nickname "Scarface") was from an attack. The brother of a girl he had insulted attacked him with a knife, leaving him with the three distinctive scars.
- The Red Baron's real name was Manfred Von Richtofen.
- A golden razor removed from King Tut's Tomb was still sharp enough to be used.
- Susan Sarandon's last name is from her first husband, Chris Sarandon, also known as Prince Humperdinck from The Princess Bride.
- Dr. Seuss pronounced his name so that it rhymed with "rejoice”.
- Karl Marx wrote to Friedrich Engles, "I do not trust any Russian. As soon as a Russian worms his way in, all hell breaks loose”.
- People who work at night tend to weigh more than people who don't.
- The "L.L." in L.L. Bean stands for Leon Leonwood.
- In 1976 Sarah Caldwell became the first woman to conduct the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
- The Earl of Condom was a knighted personal physician to England's King Charles II in the mid-1600's. The Earl was requested to produce a method to protect the King from syphillis.(Charles the II's pleasure-loving nature was notorious.). The result should be obvious.
- The "R" in Dean R. Koontz's name stands for Ray.
- Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous trans Atlantic flight.
- Stalin was only five feet, four inches tall.
- Stalin's left foot had webbed toes, and his left arm was noticeably shorter than his right.
- Betsy Ross was born with a fully formed set of teeth.
- Betsy Ross's other contribution to the American Revolution, besides sewing the first American flag, was running a munitions factory in her basement.
- The only real person to be a Pez head was Betsy Ross.
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| Isaac Newton |
- John Wilkes Booth's brother once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son.
- Sting got his name because of a yellow-and-black striped shirt he wore until it literally fell apart.
- Every photograph of an American atomic bomb detonation was taken by Harold Edgerton.
- The woman who has appeared most on the covers of Time magazine is the Virgin Mary -- ten times.
- Napoleon favored mathematicians and physical scientists, but excluded humanists from his circle, believing them to be troublemakers.
- Physicist Murray Gell-Mann named the sub-atomic particles known as quarks for a random line in James Joyce, "Three quarks for Muster Mark!"
- Samuel Clemens's pseudonym "Mark Twain" was the nickname of a riverboat pilot about whom Clemens wrote a needless nasty satirical piece. Apparently, Clemens felt guilt later and adopted the name as a nom de plume as some sort of expiation. The phrase does not mean measuring the depth of the river; it means a specific depth, to wit, two fathoms (twelve feet.)
- Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
- The only person ever to decline a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was Sinclair Lewis for his book Arrowsmith.
- Horatio Alger, the man whose name symbolized success, had many personal problems and died broke. His stories of poor boys who became rich inspired people to a better life -- but Alger himself did not profit by it.
- Elizabeth Bacon Custer, wife of "The Boy General" is one of the few women buried at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.
- Cleopatra's last name was Ptolemy, and she was Greek rather than Egyptian.
- Alexander the Great was an epileptic.
- The Mongol emperor Genghis Khan's original name was Temujin.
- Genghis Khan started out life as a goatherd.
- The type specimen for the human species is the skull of Edward Drinker Cope, an American paleontologist of the late 1800's. A type specimen is used in paleontology as the best example of that species.
- Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
- Louis IV of France had a stomach the size of two regular stomachs.
- Elizabeth I of England suffered from anthophobia, a fear of roses.
- Lizzie Borden was acquitted.
- Leon Trotsky, the seminal Russian Communist, was assassinated in Mexico with an ice-pick.
- Alexander Hamilton was shot by Aaron Burr in the groin.
- Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.
- A scholar who studies the Marquis de Sade is called a Sadian.
- St. Augustine was the first major proponent of the "missionary" position.
- Ralph Lauren's original name was Ralph Lifshitz.
- Anne Boleyn had six fingernails on one hand.
- Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.
- Artist Constantino Brumidi fell from the dome of the U.S. Capitol while painting a mural around the rim. He died four months later.
- Oliver Cromwell was hanged and decapitated two years after he had died.
- A person from the country of Nauru is called a Nauruan; this is the only palindromic nationality.
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