100 Things We Didn't Know Last Year

gollum123 writes "The BBC news magazine is running a compilation of the interesting and sometimes downright unexpected facts that we did not know last year, but now know. some examples — There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts. Urban birds have developed a short, fast 'rap style' of singing, different from their rural counterparts. The lion costume in the film 'Wizard of Oz' was made from real lions. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up. Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles. For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666. The egg came first."

Comments

Most useful

[nick255]

The one I found most useful was:

79. The best-value consumer purchase in terms of the price and usage is an electric kettle.

I wonder what the worst is?

Re:Not quite

[StikyPad]

6. The late Alan "Fluff" Freeman had trained as an opera singer.
Because it was a non-story? Or did people really care?
7. The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.
I'm assuming they knew this when they made it.
9. Fathers tend to determine the height of their child, mothers their weight.
Maybe scientists didn't know this, but tall men have probably known it for a while.
11. An infestation of head lice is called pediculosis.
An infestation of inaccurate headlines is called ridiculosis.
15. Donald Rumsfeld was both the youngest and the oldest defence secretary in US history.
I'm guessing someone figured that out three years ago when he surpassed George Marshall as the oldest.
17. Coco Chanel started the trend for sun tans in 1923 when she got accidentally burnt on a cruise.
Does that even warrant a comment?
20. Sex workers in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine.
Even assuming "things we forgot" counts as things we didn't know, that brothel was discovered in 1862.
24. One third of all the cod fished in the world is consumed in the UK.
Only 1/3?
28. More than 90% of plane crashes have survivors.
If you count the crashes that don't involve falling out of the sky. Anyway, the story appeared on CNN in 2005, and the report is from 2000.
32. Barbie's full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.
This is from 2003..
35. There were no numbers in the very first UK phone directory, only names and addresses. Operators would connect callers.
Someone just finally got around to opening the very first UK phone directory?
37. Pavements are tested using an 80 square metre artificial pavement at a research centre
You mean they test materials now?
41. Some Royal Mail stamps, which of course carry the Queen's image, are printed in Holland.
Insert prior evidence here.
42. Helen Mirren was born Ilyena Lydia Mironov
2004.
48. Allotment plots come in the standard measure of 10 poles
2001
49. When filming summer scenes in winter, actors suck on ice cubes
1978
50. There are 60 Acacia Avenues in the UK.
Didn't know, or didn't care to know?

I'll let someone else do the last 50.