25 Smart-Sounding Facts for Your Next Dinner Party

Have you ever been at a dinner party and wanted to make small-talk with someone but you didn't quite know what to say or how to start? Perhaps using some of these facts will create great ice-breakers for the next person you try and make conversation with:

1. People of Ancient China believed that swinging your arms could cure a headache.

2. Eating chocolate three times a month helps people live longer as opposed to people who overeat chocolate or do not eat chocolate at all.

3. India used to be the richest country in the world until the British invasion in the early 17th Century.

4. Istanbul, Turkey is the only city in the world located on two continents.

5. Toronto was the first city in the world with a computerized traffic signal system.

6. Each day the sun causes about one trillion tons of water to evaporate.

7. In 1998, Sony accidently sold 700,000 camcorders that had the technology to see through people's clothes.

8. An office desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet.

9. 93% of all greeting cards are purchased by women.

10. About 85% or product warning labels on household products are inadequate.

11. Oral-B were the first toothbrushes to go to the moon when they were aboard the Apollo 11 mission.

12. The word Cotton originates from the Arabic word "Qutun."

13. Hundreds of years ago, only the wealthy people used to wear underwear.

14. It takes eight and a half minutes for light to get from the sun to earth.

15. Traveling by air is the safest means of transportation.

16. The Central African raffia palm is known to have the longest leaves. The leaves can measure up to 82.5 feet long.

17. Just by recycling one aluminum can, enough energy would be saved to have a TV run for three hours.

18. In Quebec, Canada, an old law states that margarine must be a different colour than butter.

19. In France, it is illegal for a person to kiss another on railways.

20. In Singapore, it is illegal to sell or own chewing gum.

21. It cost the soft drink industry $100 million a year for thefts committed involving vending machines.

22. Bill Bowerman, the co-founder of the shoe company Nike, got his first shoe idea after staring at a waffle iron. This gave him the idea of using squared spikes to make the shoes lighter.

23. In the 1930's, Pepsi-Cola had an advertising campaign starring two cartoon cops called "Pepsi & Pete."

24. In Japan, the number four is considered to be unlucky because the Japanese word for four sounds very similar to the word death.

25. The average day is actually 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.09 seconds. We have a leap year every four years to make up for this shortfall.

Source: http://www.amusingfacts.com