Sport trivia
About 42 000 tennis balls are used in the 650 or so matches in the Wimbledon Championship.
A baseball ball has exactly 108 stitches, a cricket ball has between 65 and 70.
A soccer ball is made up of 32 leather panels, held together by 642 stitches.
Basketball and rugby balls are made from synthetic material. Earlier, pigs' bladders were used as rugby balls.
Golf is the only sport to have been played on the moon: on February 6, 1971, Alan Shepard hit a golf ball there.
Major League baseball teams use about 850 000 balls each season.
A badminton shuttle easily travels at 180 km/h.
Geography trivia
The tallest mountain on earth is mostly under the ocean: Mauna Kea in Hawaii is 9100 m high from its base on the sea floor to its summit 4207 m above sea level. Mt Everest is 8848 m above sea level.
The Dead Sea is 365 m below sea level.
What you don't need to know
It's widely known that Alexander Graham Bell beat Elisha Gray to the patent office by a mere two hours with his application to patent the telephone. However, 10 years after Bell's patent was issued, patent examiner Zenas Wilber admitted in a sworn affidavit that he had taken a $100 bribe from Bell, had taken a loan from Bell's patent attorney, and had given Bell the complete details of Gray's caveat. Hmmm . . .
What you should know
The oldest skeleton found in Australia, that of an Aboriginal male, is believed to be 60 000 years old. Traces of ochre (a ceremonial paint used by Aboriginals) were also found.
The first ever meeting of the Australian Labor Party (also the first political party to form in 1891) was held under a gum tree at Barcaldine in Queensland.
The circumference of Uluru (Ayers Rock) is more than 8 km.
Australia's first radio station was built in 1912.
The average Australian will consume half a tonne of cheese, eight tonnes of fruit and 10 tonnes of vegetables.
The main source of immigrants to Australia is from the United Kingdom and Ireland, totalling 6.35 per cent of all immigrants. The second-largest source of immigrants is from New Zealand, at 1.70 per cent of all immigrants.
What they said
Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.
_ Bob Newhart
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