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If you thought you were having a bad day......

	A fierce gust of wind blew 45-year-old Vittorio Luise's car into a river near Naples, Italy in 1983. He managed to break out a window, climb out, and swim to shore where a tree blew over and killed him.
	Mike Stewart, 31, of Dallas was filming a public service movie in 1983 on "The Dangers of Low-Level Bridges" when the truck he was standing on passed under a low-level bridge and killed him.
	Walter Hallas, a 26-year-old store clerk in Leeds, England was so afraid of dentists that in 1979, he asked a fellow worker to try to cure his toothache by punching him in the jaw. The punch caused Hallas to fall down, hitting his head, and he died of a fractured skull.
	George Schwartz, owner of a factory in Providence, R.I. narrowly escaped death when a 1983 blast flattened his factory except for one wall. After treatment for minor injuries, he returned to the scene to search for his files. The remaining wall then collapsed on him, killing him instantly.
	Depressed since he couldn't find a job, 42-year-old Romolo Ibolla sat in his kitchen near Pisa, Italy with a gun in his hand,threatening to kill himself. His wife pleaded for him not to do it and after about an hour, he burst into tears and threw the gun to the floor. It went off and killed his wife.
	In 1983, a Mrs. Carson of Lake Kushaqua, N.Y. was laid out in her coffin, presumed dead of heart. As mourners watched, she suddenly sat up. Her daughter dropped dead of fright.
	A man hit by a car in New York City in 1977 got up uninjured, but laid back down in front of the car when a bystander told him to pretend he was hurt so he could collect insurance money. The car then rolled forward and crushed him to death.
	Surprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, a thief fled out the back door, climbed over a nine-foot wall, dropped down, and found himself in the city prison.
	Two German motorists had an all-too-literal head-on collision in heavy fog near the small town of Guetersloh. Each was guiding his car over the middle of the road. As the cars passed each other, the driver's heads were both out of the windows where they smacked. Both men were hospitalized with severe head injuries. Their cars weren't even scratched.
	Hitting on the novel idea that he could end his wife's incessant nagging by giving her a good scare, Hungarian Jake Fen built an elaborate harness to make it look as if he had hanged himself. When his wife came home and saw him, she fainted. Hearing the disturbance, a neighbor came over and, finding what she thought were two corpses, seized the opportunity to loot the place. As she was leaving the room, her arms laden, the outraged and suspended Mr. Fen kicked her stoutly in the backside. This so surprised the lady that she dropped dead of a heart attack. Happily, Mr. Fen was acquitted of and he and his wife were reconciled.
	A few years ago in California there was a raging brush fire. Once the fire was extinguished, the firefighters began the process of clean-up. In the middle of where the fire had been burning, they found a dead man wearing a scuba tank and wet suit. At first the firefighters were baffled as to why a man would be out in the middle of the countryside wearing full scuba gear. Upon further examination, it was determined that the man died from the impact with the ground and not the fire. As best anyone can determine, this man was scuba diving off the coast of California and was accidentally picked up by one of the firefighting aircraft when it was refilling its water tanks offshore. And you thought you were having a bad day... !!!

Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula."

Wilma Flintstone's maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble's Maiden name was Betty Jean Mcbricker.

The Ramses brand condom is named after the great pharaoh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.

If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die, they need gravity to swallow.

Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.

'Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.

Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the same sex.

Reindeer like to eat bananas.

A group of unicorns is called a blessing. Twelve or more cows are known as a "flink." A group of frogs is called an army. A group of rhinos is called a crash. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. A group of whales is called a pod. A group of geese is called a gaggle. A group of ravens is called a murder. A group of officers is called a mess. A group of larks is called an exaltation. A group of owls is called a parliament.

Physicist Murray Gell-Mann named the sub-atomic particles known as quarks for a random line in James Joyce, "Three quarks for Muster Mark!"

The phrase "sleep tight" derives from the fact that early mattresses were filled with straw and held up with rope stretched across the bedframe. A tight sleep was a comfortable sleep.

"Three dog night" (attributed to Australian Aborigines) came about because on especially cold nights these nomadic people needed three dogs (dingoes, actually) to keep from freezing.

In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.

Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been overmixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.

The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."

A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.

The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.

The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.

The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable."

Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."

Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.

The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead".

Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."

Camel's milk does not curdle.

An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.

Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.

The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.

Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.

All porcupines float in water.

Hang On Sloopy is the official rock song of Ohio.

Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?

Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of "Lorne Greene's Wild Kingdom."

Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.

If you bring a raccoon's head to the Henniker, New Hampshire town hall, you are entitled to receive $.10 from the town.

The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

Non-dairy creamer is flammable.

The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)

Texas is also the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.

The only nation whose name begins with an "A", but doesn't end in an "A" is Afghanistan.

Pamela Anderson Lee is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence.

When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.

The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.-Same thing with the library at the University of Massachusetts.

The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later they were both eaten by a killer whale.

A psychology student rented out her spare room to a carpenter in order to nag him constantly and study his reactions. After weeks of needling, he snapped and beat her repeatedly with an ax leaving her mentally retarded.

In 1992, Frank Perkins of Los Angeles made an attempt on the world flagpole-sitting record. By the time he had come down, eight hours short of the 400 day record, his sponsor had gone bust, his girlfriend had left him and his phone and electricity had been cut off.

A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen, shaking frantically with what looked like a wire running from his waist towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current she whacked him with a handy plank of wood by the back door, breaking his arm in two places. A shame as he had merely been listening to his Walkman.

Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded, trampling the two hapless protesters to death.

Iraqi terrorist, Khay Rahnajet, didn't pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with "return to sender" stamped on it. You've guessed it, he opened it and said a fond farewell to his face.

In Kentucky, 50 percent of the people who get married for the first time are teenagers.

Kotex was first manufactured as bandages, during W.W.I.

Einstein couldn't speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he might be retarded.

In Los Angeles, there are fewer people than there are automobiles.

About a third of all Americans flush the toilet while they're still sitting on it. (Who studied this and why? :)

You're more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day than in any other weather.

An average person laughs about 15 times a day.

Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently eaten bananas.

Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.

The average person is about a quarter of an inch taller at night.

A sneeze zooms out of your mouth at over 600 m.p.h.

The condom - made originally of linen - was invented in the early 1500's.

The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.

A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her coffee.

The Neanderthal's brain was bigger than yours is.

Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.

The average bank teller loses about $250 every year.

In 1980, there was only one country in the world with no telephones - Bhutan.

Every person has a unique tongue print.

Your right lung takes in more air than your left one does.

Women's hearts beat faster than men's.

Pollsters say that 40 percent of dog and cat owners carry pictures of the pets in their wallets.

Bubble gum contains rubber.

You can only smell 1/20th as well as a dog.

Only 55 percent of all Americans know that the sun is a star.

The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in Jello.

Even if you cut off a cockroach's head, it can live for several weeks.

Most American car horns honk in the key of F.

The world population of chickens is about equal to the number of people.

Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his head.

In 75% of American households, women manage the money and pay the bills.

A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.

About 70 percent of Americans who go to college do it just to make more money.

It's against the law to catch fish with your bare hands in Kansas.

Some toothpaste's contain antifreeze.

Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.

Millie the White House dog earned more than 4 times as much as President Bush in 1991. And, rightfully so.

Bird droppings are the chief export of Nauru, an island nation in the Western Pacific.

There are more plastic flamingos in America than real ones.

Most lipstick contains fish scales.

Lee Harvey Oswald's cadaver tag sold at an auction for $6,600 in 1992.

Mosquitoes have teeth.

Spotted skunks do handstands before they spray.

Hypnotism is banned by public schools in San Diego.

The three best-known western names in China: Jesus Christ, Richard Nixon, and Elvis Presley.

When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.

Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.

27 percent of U.S. male college students believe life is "a meaningless existential hell."

In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.

Aztec emperor Montezuma had a nephew, Cuitlahac, whose name meant "plenty of excrement."

Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark. (Hence, the light bulb?)