• The first thing Queen Victoria's did after her coronation was to remove her bed from her mother's room.
  
• Automobiles take up about 24 percent of the total area of Los Angeles.
  
• Benjamin Franklin was the inventor of the rocking chair.
  
• The human kidney consists of over 1 million little tubes with a total length of about 40 miles in both kidneys.
  
• It was only after 440 A.D. that December 25 was celebrated as the birth date of Jesus Christ.
  
• The blue whale can go up to 6 months without eating.
  
• In Czechhoslovakia, there is a chruch that has a chandelier made of human bones.
  
• Charlie Chaplin was so popular during the 1920s and 1930s, he received over 73,00 letters in just 2 days during a visit to London.
  
• Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States in 1789.
  
• About 43% of convicted criminals in the U.S. are rearrested within a year of being released from prison.
  
• A temperature of 70 million degrees Celsius was generated at Princeton University in 1978. This was during a fusionism experiment and is the highest man-made temperature ever.
  
• During the middle ages, it was widely believed that men had one less rib than woman. This is because of the story in the Bible that Eve had been created out of Adam's rib.
  
• The country of Costa Rica does not have an army.
  
• There was a ratio of 35 women to one man in England mental asylums in 1971. However in England prisons, this ratio was the opposite.
  
• Electrical stimulation in certain areas of the brain can revive long lost memories.
  

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Originally posted by MIB VI, former Czar of Area 51:

• It was only after 440 A.D. that December 25 was celebrated as the birth date of Jesus Christ.

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From what I've heard (unverified), it was actually only after 1582 (in mainland Europe — 1600 in Scotland, 1752 in England); until then, it was January 6, as it still is in some cultures.  Which explains some traditions, such as "white Christmas"; in the UK at least, snow is rare in December but far more common in January...

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Originally posted by MIB VI, former Czar of Area 51:

• Charlie Chaplin was so popular during the 1920s and 1930s, he received over 73,00 letters in just 2 days during a visit to London.

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"73,00"? Is that supposed to be 7,300 or 73,000?

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• During the middle ages, it was widely believed that men had one less rib than woman. This is because of the story in the Bible that Eve had been created out of Adam's rib.

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Originally posted by SubMinus:
25. December is not celebrated as the birth date of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was born on the night of 24. December. The 25. is Christmas day, and the 24. is Christmas eve.

And what is a chruch?

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But "Christmas Eve" merely means "the evening before Christmas," and "Christmas" is short for "Christ's Mass," the Mass that celebrates the birth of Christ...

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Originally posted by bufungla:
[B]RE Christmas - more like 350AD or so, that day chosen specifically to coincide with the pagan holiday of Saturnalia, either to "tame and Christian-ify the pagan festival" or as "a thinly veiled compromise with the profane worship of pagan peoples" (if you're a right wing fundamentalist who equates Catholicism with idolatry

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A number of Christian holidays are celebrated on holy days on the pagan calendar, or around the same time. This was done with the intention that it would be easier to convert the believers of the old religion as long as they had similar holidays and festivals. An excellent example of this is Easter. While Christians are celebrating the resurrection of Christ, Pagans are celebrating Ostara or the Rites of Spring, which is a holiday celebrating the rebirth of the earth.

Here's a page that lists the pagan holidays and the reasons for them.

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Originally posted by bufungla:
RE Christmas - more like 350AD or so, that day chosen specifically to coincide with the pagan holiday of Saturnalia, either to "tame and Christian-ify the pagan festival" or as "a thinly veiled compromise with the profane worship of pagan peoples" (if you're a right wing fundamentalist who equates Catholicism with idolatry
http://www.holidays.net/christmas/story.htm http://www.celestia.com/alpha/SRP/DJ96/Html/EvolutionChristmas.html

and for a truly 'interesting' (in the Chinese sense) view ...
http://www.ynca.com/christmas.htm

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Saturnalia, either to "tame and Christian-ify the pagan festival"

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