Here are some fun technology facts from today as well as years gone by.  Some of these might even surprise you a bit.

1. More than a billion transistors are manufactured every second.

2. Surgeons who grew up playing video games make 37 percent fewer mistakes.

3. The technology contained in a single game boy unit in 2000 exceeds all the computing power that was used to put the first man on moon in 1969.

4. Windmills always turn anti-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland!

5. Whale oil was used in automobile transmissions as late as 1973.

6. To have your picture taken by the very first camera you would have had to sit still for 8 hours!

7. Thomas Alva Edison patented almost 1,300 inventions in his lifetime!

8. There are only 14 blimps in the world.

9. The Queen Mary – the grandest vessel of her day – had many of her vital components made by car manufacturer Skoda!

10. The oil used by jewelers to lubricate clocks and watches costs about $3,000 a gallon.

11. The normal static electricity shock that zaps your finger when you touch a doorknob is usually between 10,000 and 30,000 volts!

12. The life boat was patented in 1845!

13. The IRS processes more than 2 billion pieces of paper each year.

14. The first hard drive available for the Apple II had a capacity of only 5 megabytes.

15. The first alarm clock could only ring at 4 a.m.

16. The electric chair was invented by a dentist!

17. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

18. The ball on top of a flagpole is called a ‘truck’.

19. The average car produces a pound of pollution every 25 miles!

20. The American Automobile Association was founded for the sole purpose of warning motorists of police speed traps!

21. Technically speaking, crystal glass is actually a Liquid that flows very slowly.

22. Originally, Nintendo was a playing card manufacturer.

23. Originally, BMW was an airplane engine manufacturer.

24. More steel in the United States is used to make bottle caps than to manufacture automobile bodies.

25. Kleenex tissues were originally used as filters in gas masks.

26. Jumbo jets use 4,000 gallons of fuel to take off.

27. It would take twenty new mid-size cars to generate the same amount of pollution that a mid-size 1960′s car did.

28. It takes six months to build a Rolls Royce…and 13 hours to build a Toyota.

29. In the early 1960′s, Porsche commercially manufactured farm tractors.

30. If a car is travelling at 55 miles per hour it will travel 56 feet before the driver can shift his foot from the accelerator to the brake.

31. Henry Ford produced the model T only in black because the black paint available at the time was the fastest to dry.

32. First four countries to have television: England, the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and Brazil.

33. Energy is being wasted if a toaster is left plugged in after use.

34. Contrary to popular belief, putting sugar in a car’s gas tank will NOT ruin its engine.

35. Castor oil is used as a lubricant in jet planes.

36. Car airbags kill 1 person for every 22 lives that they save.

37. Attics were invented in Attica.

38. Any modern jet is capable of breaking the sound barrier.

39. About 39,000 gallons of water are used to produce the average car!

40. A small airplane can fly backwards.