believe it or not! Xerox Ed Publications

In 1934 Barney Ross was the lightweight boxing champion of the world. He had held the title for two years.
Then Ross did something very unusual. He decided to fight Jimmy McLarnin the welter-weight champion. McLarnin weighted 20 pounds more than Ross.
But Barney Ross won the fight and became the first fighter to hold both championship titles at the same time!

Fire struck Chicago's Iroquois Theater in December 1903. More than 500 people were killed in eight minutes. Many of these people might have escaped if they had not panicked.

In Toledo, Ohio, Mrs. Edwin Merok heard a tiny cry when she started her washing machine. She stopped the machine to see what was wrong. She was saddened to find that Socrates had been caught in the machine's motor and killed. Socrates was the Merok family's pet rat. So it was a case of curiosity killing the rat!

It is said that some people can move mountains. This means that they can make things happen that seem impossible. But in the Soviet Union in 1973, a mountain really did move. Heavy rains swelled an underground river. It carried a mountain over a mile in eight days!

It is said that eagles like to eat tortoises. To crack a tortoise's shell, an eagle will pick up the tortoise, fly high in the air, and drop the tortoise on a rock. There is a story about a famous Greek poet who died a strange death. An eagle mistook the poet's bald head for a rock and dropped a tortoise on it!

Some Portuguese came to the Hawaiian Islands in the late 1800's. They brought their little four-stringed guitars with them. The Hawaiians called the guitars ukuleles. In Hawaiian that means "jumping fleas."

When the tiny peeper frog lets out its high hum, it can be heard a half mile away. If a 6-foot man's voice carried as far for his size, he'd be heard for 100 miles!

The South American condor can fly higher than any other bird. It is said to reach heights as high as 4 miles above the earth. That's over 21,000 feet!

The state of Illinois gets its name from an Algonquin Indian word for "man"

A blue jay may attack a cat by pecking the cat on its head. This is just the blue jay's way of protecting its young.

Belgian horses are huge. They weigh between 1,900 and 2,200 pounds. These horses were once used to carry knights into battle. It's easy to see why the knights chose to use such huge horses. A knight's armor could weigh as much as 400 pounds!

Only five out of 37 U.S. Presidents were born in states west of the Mississippi. They are Herbert Hoover (Iowa), Harry Truman (Missouri), Dwight Eisenhower (Texas), Lyndon Johnson (Texas), and Richard Nixon (California).

From the top of Mt. Irazu in Costa Rica a person can see both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. The Caribbean is said to be part of the Atlantic Ocean. So the top of Mt. Irazu is the only point in the Americas where a person can see both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

The city of Los Angeles, California, gets its name from the Spanish words for "the angels."

The speed of most animals is measured in mph --miles per hour. A swordfish, for example, can swim as fast as 68 mph. A member of the cat family called the cheetah can run at about the same speed.
Other animals are so slow that their speed can be measured by hpm --hours per mile. The tortoise, for example, would take about six hours to crawl a mile. Slowest of all animals is the snail. Its top speed is 32 hpm

The name Clara comes from a Latin word meaning "bright"

Of all the animals, the gazelle is probably the best jumper. One jump can be as long as 40 feet and as high as 12 feet. With one such jump, the gazelle could break man's world records for the high jump and the broad jump!

Back in 1899 a Belgian name Camille Jenatzy built an electric automobile. It could reach a speed of 65 miles an hour!

A little boy name Orethal James Simpson had to wear leg braces because his bones lacked calcium. But he grew up to have a very fine pair of legs. He became the first man ever to run for over 2,000 yards in a single National Football League season. Today he's called "O.J." Simpson!

Little League baseball manager Josie Cross led her Yuba City, California, team to an 18 wins, 1 loss record. That's very good record. But Mrs. Cross was upset by the one loss. She blamed the loss on the umpire. She asked the league officials never to let that umpire work another game played by her team. The name of the umpire was Dale Cross. He was Mrs. Cross's husband.

In the 1929 Rose Bowl, the center on the California team picked up a fumbled ball. He ran 62 yards for the end zone. The he was stopped on the one yard line. It was another California player who stopped him and turned him around. The center had run toward the wrong end zone and was about to score 6 points for the other team!

The name Peter comes from the Greek word for "rock."

Some people believe the state of Kentucky gets its name from an Iroquois Indian word meaning "land of tomorrow."

Long ago people believed that there was some special connection between the so-called ring finger and the heart. They also believed that the heart had a lot to do with being in love. So people began to do wear their wedding rings on this finger. And they still do today!

On July 20, 1969, John Fairfax rowed his 22-foot boat into the harbor of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He had left the Canary Islands six months before. That made him the first man to row a boat across the Atlantic Ocean by himself.
A week later on July 27, 1969, Tom McLean reached Ireland in his rowboat. He had left Newfoundland 71 days before. So he became the second man to row a boat across the Atlantic Ocean - and the first to do it from west to east.

Golfers playing on the Yellowknife course in north Canada have more than their share of problems. First, the course has no grass - only sand. And the course is dotted with rocks that make golf balls take crazy hops. And then there are those large black birds called ravens. Sometimes they carry away golf balls thinking the balls are eggs!

The human heart is about the size of a person's fist. Yet the work done by the beating heart is truly great. In 24 hours the force used by tthe beating heart is equal to that needed to lift 2,000 pounds to a height of 82 feet! In an average person's lifetime his heart will beat aobut 3,000,000,000 (2 billion) times!

Raccoons are known to was their food before they eat it. They don't wash food to make it clean though. Water softens the food and makes it easier for the raccons to chew.

The name Leroy comes from the French word for "king."

In 1959 Alf Dean caught a fish off the coast of Australia. Using a strong rod and reel, he pulled in a great white shark. It was 16 feet 10 inches and weighed 2,664 pounds!

The city of Portland, Oregon, might be called Boston except for the flip of a coin. A man from Portland, Maine, want to name the new Oregon city after his hometown. And a man from Massachusetts wanted to name it after the city of Boston. They flipped a coin to decide, and the Maine man won!

In Egypt divorces are very common. All a husband has to do to divorce his wife is to say to her three times, "I divorce you."

Tickling fish is said to be an art. Some people in England, Europe, and New Zealand practice it. Sneak up on a trout that is resting in shallow water with his head partly under a rock. Then stroke the sides or belly of the fish until it moves backward into your hands. Grab him by the gills and you've got yourself a fish. Sound easy? try it.

New York City has a football team called the Jets, a baseball team called the Mets, a basketball team called the Nets, and a tennis team called the Sets!

In 1960 Jacques Piccard went 35,802 feet down into the Pacific Ocean in a diving craft called a bathyscaphe (BATH-i-skaf). That almost 7 miles beneath the surface of the sea.

The state of Alabama gets its name from a Choctaw Indian word meaning "people who clear away bushes and shrubs."

Long ago in the Yap island people use huge stones as money. Sometimes the stones were 12 feet across! A medium-sized stone would buy a canoe or a wife.

The first baseball team was founded in 1845 by Alexander Joy Cartwright, Jr. The team's name was the New York Knickerbockers. They played their first game with a team called the New York Nine. The Knickerbockers lost 23-1.

The name Margaret comes from a Greek word meaning "pearl"

Modern cruise ships have stubby "wings" called stabilizers. They stick out from the sides of the ship under the water. They help keep the ship from rolling from side to side. They also help keep the ship's passengers from getting seasick.

The first circus sideshow in history was in 1793. One of its stars was a 28-year old horse named Jack. The horse belonged to George Washington, first President of the United States.

A Civil War general named Ambrose Burnside grew his whiskers in a strange way. He let the hair grow down the sides of his face. But he shaved his chin. People came to call this kind of beard burnsides after the general. Today, for some reason the name has changed to sideburns.

Every day you sprinkle something on your food that is made up of two poisons. When a poisonous gas called chlorine are chemically combined, they make a harmless seasoning called salt!

The largest prison in the world is in the Soviet Union. Kharkhov. Prison holds 40,000 prisoners.

If a thief steals your bike he may repaint it and remove its serial number. Then you'll have a hard time proving the bike is yours. so try this. write your name and phone number on a small card. Then remove a handgrip, put the card inside the handlebar, and the handgrip back on. Now no one but you knows that your bike has a secret ID card.

Americans eat 4 billion pounds of candy every year. That's 20 pounds of candy for every man, woman, and child.

James Whistler waas an American painter who lived in England. He once became very angry when the English write John Ruskin said on of Whistler's paintings was terrible. So Whistler went to court and sued Ruskin. Whistler claimed that Ruskin's writing had kept him from selling his painting. He asked the court to order Ruskin to pay him what the painting was worth. The English court agreed with the American painter. The court ordered Ruskin to pay Whistler what the painting was worth- one-fourth of one cent!

The albatross is the largest seabird. From one wing tip to the other measures 17 feet in the largest birds. Sometimes an albatross will eat so many fish that it is unable to fly. When the albatross does fly, however, ti can go for days without landing.

The comic strip "Little Orphan Annie" has been appearing in the U.S. newspapers since 1924.

Suppose you were on the coast of Cape Flattery in the state of Washington. And someone else was on the Florida coast just south of the city of Miami. Then you'd be 2,835 miles apart. And that's as far apart as two people can be and still both be in the 48 states of course if you went to Alaska or Hawaii you two would be much farther apart.

The nation of San Marino has the world's smallest army. There are 11 soldiers in it.

The first airline stewardess was Ellen Church. She served on the United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Cheyenne, Wyoming. She comforted the passengers and served them food and drinks. She also had to help put gas in the plane and to push the plane into the hangar.

One tablespoon of uranium gives as much energy as 1-1/2 million pounds of coal- enough energy to cook one day's meal's for 55,383 average American families.

The name Elmo comes from the Greek word for "lovable"

Some antlike insects called termites make mud nests that stand 20 feet high. Sometimes a tree grows from the top of such a termite tower.

In the past years people who didn't have warm winter boots found a free way to keep their feet from freezing. They just lined their shoes with newspaper. This helped a lot - until their feet got wet. Today's people have found a better way. They slip plastic bags over their socks before putting on their shoes.

During WWII, 5 American brothers served together in the famous 442nd Regiment. When the war ended, one brother was dead. Another was completely disabled. And the other 3 had all been wounded. Together the 5 brothers had won more than 20 medals for bravery.
When other soldiers were honored, their mothers went to Washington, D.C. to receive the medals. But for these five brothers that wasn't allowed. The 5 Masaoka brothers were Japanese Americans. And their mother, like 110,000 other Japanese Americans, was forced to remain in prison like camp throughout the war!

Ivan Cunningham was finished at last. For weeks he had been making regular visits to a Canoga Park, California, undertaker. Now the two had agreed on all the details for Cunningham's own funeral. So the 74-year-old Cunningham shook the undertaker's hand, walked out into the parking lot, and shot himself to death!

Take the word tough. Ad and h and you have though. Then add an r and you have through. Each time you added a letter, the sound of the last four letters changed!

The world's most popular ball game is soccer. More than 700 million people watched on TV as Brazil defeated Italy, 4-1, in the World Cup Championship in 1970. That's more people than watched the first landing on the moon!

Chicago, Illinois, is often called the "windy city." No one is sure why. Wichita Falls, Kansas, might deserve the title of "windy city" more. In 1938 the wind in Wichita Falls reached 280 mph - the highest speed ever in the United States. The windiest spot in the U.S. is probably the top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. There the wind averages better than 35 mph.

An 81-year-old man in Pontiac, Michigan, has an unusual way of keeping in shape. He climbs to the top of a 40-foot pine tree and does a headstand.

In Egypt divorces are very common. All a husband has to do to divorce his wife is to say to her three times, "I divorce you."

The new World Football League has a team called Chicago Fire. The team's first director of player personnel is named Bill Byrne.

Jack rabbits can jump 15 to 20 feet in a single leap. They've been clocked at speeds up to 40 miles an hour.

Yosemite Valley in California gets its name from a Miwok Indian word meaning "grizzly bear."

The state of Tennesse probably gets its name from a Cherokee Indian word meaning "river of the big bend."