Fun Facts

• John Hancock was the only one of fifty signers of the Declaration of Independence who actually signed it on July 4

• The corkscrew was invented by M.L. Bryn, also of New York, in 1860

• In South Africa, termites are often roasted and eaten by the handful, like pretzels or popcorn

• Some people consider the $1 bill unlucky because there are so many 13's on it: 13 stars, 13 stripes, 13 steps, 13 arrows and even an olive branch with 13 leaves on it. Of course the $1 bill is unlucky - if it was lucky it would be a $100 bill

• The Sphinx at Giza in Egypt is 240 feet long and carved out of limestone. Built by Pharaoh Khafre to guard the way to his pyramid, it has a lion's body and the ruler's head

• The longest Monopoly game ever played was 1,680 hours long, that's 70 straight days!

• "Evian" spelled backwards is naive

• Victor Hugo's Les Miserables contains one of the longest sentences in the French language—823 words without a period

• The longest word used by Shakespeare in any of his works is "honorificabilitudinitatibus," found in "Love's Labors Lost." Unfortunately he's no longer around to tell us what it means