Taken from The Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson
Q: What is the tallest mountain in the world?
A: Mauna Kea, the highest point on the island of Hawaii. This mountain 13,799 feet above sea level but when measured from the seabed to its summit, it is 33,465 feet high, about three quarters of a mile taller than Mount Everest. Mt Everest is at 29,029 feet is the highest mountain, not the tallest.ii
Q: Where is the driest place on earth?
A: Antarctica. Parts of the continent have seen no rain for two million years.
Q: What is the largest living thing?
A: It's a mushroom ( Armillaria ostoyae). In Malheur National forest in Oregon it covers 2,200 acres (80,9031km^2)
Q:How long can a chicken live without its head?
A: About two years
Q: Who invented the telephone?
A: Antonio Meucci
Q: How many senses does a human being have?
A: At least nine; sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, thermoception (sense of heat), equilibrioception (sense of balance), nociception (perception of pain from the skin), proprioception (body awareness).
Q:How do the Cherokee pronounce "Cherokee?"
A: They don't. The correct spelling (and pronunciation) is Tsalagi. Cherokee is a Creek Indian word meaning 'people with another language." The preferred Cherokee word for themselves is Aniyounwiya, which means "the principal people."
Q: Was Jesus born in a stable?
A: No. Not according to the New Testament. The idea that Jesus was born in a stable is an assumption made only because Saint Luke's Gospel says he was "laid in a manger."
Q: What is the most likely survivor of a nuclear war?
A: Cockroaches is the wrong answer. The king of radiation resistance is the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans.