12654. Food Facts

The town of Bunol, in Spain, has an annual tomato fight when up to 25,000 people throw around 100 tonnes (220,000 pounds) of tomatoes at each other. The streets can be flooded up to 30 centimetres (12 inches) deep with juice.

12655. Food Facts

The reproductive organs of sea urchins are eaten raw in many parts of the world, including Japan, Chile and France.

12656. Food Facts

Raw, pickled jellyfish are eaten in the Samoan Islands.

12657. Food Facts

Yeast are tiny fungi (mould), present in bread, beer and wine.The yeast eat sugar in the ingredients, making the gas which forms the bubbles in beer and wine and the holes in bread.

12658. Food Facts

In the Samoan Islands, the intestines of sea cucumbers are sold in jars, steeped in sea water. The sea cucumber is a slithery, tube-like animal and not a cucumber at all. When it's cooked, it is called a sea slug.

12659. Food Facts

In the UK, game – wild animals and birds shot in the fields – is often hung until it is ‘high', which means it is hung up on a hook until it is starting to go off.

12660. Food Facts

In the Masai Mara in Africa people drink blood drained from the neck of a live animal with a straw, mixed up with milk.

12661. Food Facts

The alcoholic drink mescal has a cactus maggot preserved in the bottle.

12662. Food Facts

In France, calves' eyes are soaked in water, then boiled and stuffed and finally deep fried in breadcrumbs.

12663. Food Facts

Most US states don't allow alcohol or tobacco in a prisoner's last meal.

12664. Food Facts

Eels are sold live in markets around the world and killed just before cooking – or before putting in the bag to go home, if you don't want the bag wriggling all the way.

12665. Gland

Gland : hypothalamus
Hormone : releasing and inhibiting hormones and factors posterior pituitary hormones produced here.

12666. Gland

Gland : posterior pituitary gland
Hormone : receives hormones from hypothalamus no hormones synthesised here stores and secretes the following: oxytocin antidiuretic hormone (adh) (vasopressin).

12667. Gland

Gland : anterior pituitary gland
Hormone : follicle stimulating hormone (fsh) luteinising hormone (lh) prolactin thyroid stimulating hormone (tsh) adrenocorticotrophic hormone (acth or corticotrophin) growth hormone (gh).

12668. Gland

Gland : parathyroid gland
Hormone : parathormone.

12669. Gland

Gland : thyroid gland
Hormone : triiodothyronine (t3)and thyroxine (t4) calcitonin.

12670. Gland

Gland : adrenal cortex
Hormone : glucocorticoids (cortisol) mineralocorticoids (aldosterone).

12671. Gland

Gland : adrenal medulla
Hormone : adrenaline (epinephrine) noradrenaline (norepinephrine).

12672. Gland

Gland : islets of langerhans
Hormone : insulin (beta cells) glucagon (alpha cells).

12673. Gland

Gland : stomach duodenum
Hormone : gastrin secretin cholecystokinin (pancreozymin).

12674. Gland

Gland : kidney ovary
Hormone : renin oestrogens(17 beta-oestradiol) progesterone.

12675. Gland

Gland : corpus luteum
Hormone : progesterone and oestrogen.

12676. Gland

Gland : placenta
Hormone : chorionic gonadotrophin human placental lactogen.

12677. Gland

Gland : testis
Hormone : testosterone.

12678. History Facts

In France in the late 1600s, it was considered a great honour to talk to King Louis XIV while he was on the lavatory.

12679. History Facts

In Anglo-Saxon times, shepherds were given twelve days' worth of cow manure at Christmas.

12680. History Facts

In 896, the rotting body of Pope Formosus was removed from his coffin, dressed in his papal robes and put on trial. Found guilty, his blessing finger was cut off and he was thrown in the river.

12681. History Facts

The body of British philosopher Jeremy Bentham was preserved and kept in an open wooden box which is still on display in University College, London. For many years, Bentham was brought out to attend special functions and meetings.

12682. History Facts

Roman gladiator and slave rebel leader Spartacus had 300 of his followers crucified to show the others what would happen to them if they deserted his army.

12683. History Facts

During the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution, 17,000 people were beheaded using the guillotine.

12684. History Facts

The Scottish bagpipes were originally made from the entire skin or stomach of a dead sheep.

12685. History Facts

Russian leader Peter the Great had a museum in which he kept the stuffed bodies of deformed people and animals, such as a child with two heads and a sheep with five feet. The museum was looked after by a deformed dwarf who knew he would become an exhibit when he died.

12686. History Facts

It took the executioner three blows to behead Mary Queen of Scots in 1567.And he still had to saw through the remaining skin and gristle with a knife.

12687. History Facts

In Ancient Egypt, a flea-catcher would cover himself in milk and stand in the middle of the flea-infested room until all the fleas jumped onto him then he'd leave, taking them all with him.

12688. History Facts

English hatmakers used to soften the straw they plaited into hats by spitting on it.

12689. History Facts

In the 1800s, there were several cases of people being buried when not really dead. Terrible stories about opened coffins with scratch marks on the inside, and corpses with fingernails worn away by trying to escape, led to cautious people being buried with a system of warning bells fitted in the coffin which they could ring if they woke up.

12690. History Facts

During witchcraft trials in Salem, Massachusetts, USA, in 1692, 25 people were condemned to death on the flimsy evidence of a group of hysterical girls.

12691. History Facts

King Kokodo of the Congo ruled for three years after his death. His body was wheeled around in a box during this part of his reign…

12692. History Facts

Leather used to be cured with a mixture of dog and chicken faeces smeared on it for many months. The fat and rotting meat scraps were scraped off with a knife.

12693. History Facts

It is said that the cursed mummy of Egyptian princess Amen-Ra was on board the Titanic when it sank in 1912, killing 1,500 people.The mummy was being sent from the British Museum to the USA; only the lid of the mummy's coffin is still in the British Museum.

12694. History Facts

Bald Romans used to make a paste of mashed up flies and spread it over their heads in the belief that it would make their hair regrow. It didn't…

12695. History Facts

Ivan the Terrible of Russia punished a bishop by having him stitched into the skin of a dead bear and releasing a pack of hounds to hunt and kill him.

12696. History Facts

Instead of a hollow pumpkin with a candle inside, Celtic people are said to have used real human heads cut from defeated enemies to keep away ghosts and ghouls in the autumn.

12697. History Facts

Chimney sweeps used to have three baths a year – one in the spring, one in the autumn and one for Christmas.The rest of the time, they were covered in soot.

12698. History Facts

In the past, European women sometimes wore a tube filled with sticky tree sap around their necks or on animal fur.These were supposed to attract and trap any fleas on their bodies.

12699. History Facts

The earliest cosmetic surgery was practised by doctors in India who made fake noses for criminals who had their noses cut off as a punishment for their crimes.

12700. History Facts

If sheep grazed on pastures full of clover, shepherds sometimes had to puncture the stomachs of sheep with a sharp knife to release all the gases that built up inside them.

12701. History Facts

In the old days, a ‘whipping boy' used to sit next to a royal prince in lessons. If the prince made a mistake, or did something wrong, the whipping boy was punished instead of the prince.

12702. History Facts

In the Middle Ages a royal farter was employed to jump around farting in front of the king to amuse him.

12703. History Facts

In Africa, it was common to bend back springy saplings and tie them beneath the ears of someone about to be beheaded, so that the person's last sensation would be of their head flying through the air.

Fact
Anti-American demonstrators protesting in Bangladesh after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks carried posters of Osama bin Laden sitting alongside Bert, a beloved Sesame Street Muppet character      .. More >>