Uninteresting trivial facts, add yours

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The swordfish is known as The Gladiator (gladius) because of the sharp, sword-like bill it wields as a weapon—to spear prey as well as for protection from its few natural predators. The shortfin mako shark is one of the rare sea creatures big enough and fast enough to chase down and kill an adult swordfish.

(I'll never order swordfish in a restaurant again.)

The youngest pope was 11 years old.

The youngest Garlic priest was 14 years old.

Closely related to the Walther P99, the Smith & Wesson SW99 is a joint venture between Walther, who produces a modified receiver in Germany, and Smith & Wesson, who fabricates the slides and barrels in the USA. Magazines can be interchanged between the two variants, but the pistols are considered to be two separate types, and are easily distinguished from each other by the trigger guard and slide design. The SW99 is also available in .45 ACP, while the P99 is not.

Although some Walther P99s carry the proof mark "SMITH & WESSON Springfield, MA" this only denotes importation by Smith & Wesson (currently the official importer) and not that it was manufactured by them. An "eagle over N" proofmark on the frame, barrel and slide is present on all German made P99s.

(Hey Litigious, check out how much we like guns here in Arizona, USA. www.scottsdalegunclub.com Kinda makes you want to hurry down to the ol' passport office, doesn't it/)

The word "Vodka" can be found in the Novgorod chronicle in records dated 1533, where the term vodka is used in the context of herbal alcoholic tinctures. A number of pharmaceutical lists contain the terms "vodka of bread wine" (водка хлебного вина) and "vodka in half of bread wine" (водка полу хлебного вина). As alcohol had long been used as a basis for medicines, this implies that the term vodka is a noun derived from the verb vodit’, razvodit’ (водить, разводить), "to dilute with water". Bread wine was a spirit distilled from alcohol made from grain (as opposed to grape wine) and hence "vodka of bread wine" would be a water dilution of a distilled grain spirit.

In Swedish; brännvin.

(Yaaaaaahhhhhh)

Early grenades were usually made of paper, ceramics, or primitive glass and could contain any sort of dangerous or unpleasant substance, ranging from botanical or animal toxins, skin irritants, lye, acids, flammable naptha, petroleum and unstable gunpowder, diseased matter, or parasite eggs (such as locusts, lice, fleas).

Cups are pretty

The M16 rifle is the U.S. military designation for a family (XM16, M16/A1/A2/A3/A4) of rifles derived from the ArmaLite AR-15 and further developed by Colt starting in the mid-20th century. It has been the primary infantry rifle of the United States military since the 1960s, is in use by 15 NATO countries, and has been the most produced firearm in its caliber.

(Lots of fun to fire off a clip or two.)

My brother actually had it caught on movies when he was firing an M-16, a Beretta pistol and a Smith & Wesson revolver, though the movies were wiped out when his computer crashed.

The 1999 Model of the Suzuki GSX1300R "Hayabusa" is the worlds fastest mass produced motorcycle.
It's top speed is over 190mph.
Since 2000 all motorcycle companys have agreed to electronically limit top speeds to 186mph.

When watching horror movies, always remember that's NOT a vampire bat you're seeing. The Vampire Bat of South America is quite small, and totally non-threatening in looks. When the movie shows a live bat, it's usually a Fruit Bat. They're quite large, and several species have a mean looking face indeed.

Also, Vampire Bats don't suck. Literally. They land on you while you're asleep, creep up to your neck, gently graze their little fangs, and then lap up your blood. They have anti-coagulants in their saliva, so they can keep lapping to fill their evil little tummies.

Vlad Tepes (the Impaler), was the "real" count Dracula and lived in what today is Romania, but not in Transsylvania, that actually is a real province and not a fairy land, but in Valachia, south of Transsylvania. He was a warrior lord, probably of mongolian heritage, that fought the Turks and the Russians in the 15th century. He loved to kill and torture people. Once he filled a church with sick and crippled people and set it on fire to demonstrate his despise for weakness. Another time, when two Turkish ambassadors refused to take of their turbans to show respect for him, he let nail the turbans to their heads...The epithet the Impaler came from the fact that he used to impale his enemys by forcing wooden steaks up their anuses, until it came out through their chests or mouths. This probably is a worse way of dying than crucifixion.

His castle can still be seen in Romania and is owned by a German count claiming to be a late relative of Vlad.

(Good one, Litigious!!)

Vlad called himself Drakula. His father was a Warrior who belonged to the Order of The Dragon. Dragon was rendered Drakul. Adding an "a" meant 'son of'. If I remember correctly, his father was also hell bent on driving out the Turks. Vlad was such a sadist, that one time he was imprisoned, and bribed his jailers to bring him small animals to torture and kill. (yeeecchhhh) Apparently Bram Stoker thought his reputation was bad enough to be turned into a fictional creature. Bram did extensive research before writing the book, and the details that Van Helsing relates in the story were facts that Stoker discovered in his research.

"Playing in the jazz clubs of New York, Miles Davis was in frequent contact with users and dealers of drugs, and by 1950, in common with many of his contemporaries, he had developed a serious heroin addiction. For the first part of that decade, although he gigged a great deal and played many sessions, they were mostly uninspired, and it seemed that his talent was going to waste. No one was more aware of this than Davis himself, and his wife. In the winter of 1953-1954 he returned to East St. Louis and locked himself in a guest room in his father's farm for seven days until the drug was fully out of his system.

After overcoming his heroin addiction, Davis made a series of important recordings for Prestige in 1954, later collected on Bags' Groove, Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants and Walkin'. At this time he started to use the Harmon mute to darken and subdue the timbre of his trumpet, and this muted trumpet tone was to be associated with Davis for the rest of his career."