And that's a fact

1 The Public Records Office has on its books details of a naval ancestor who was court-marshalled for "offences with a goat below deck"

2 On the summit of Everest, temperatures can drop to -70C and wind speeds can reach 192 mph

3 The words millionaire, fish, toothbrush and fruit have no synonyms

4 King Edward II gave away most of his wedding presents to his 'favourite' - presumed to be his gay lover - a handsome Gascon knight, Piers Gaveston

5 Escapologist Houdini's favourite saying was "Do others or they will do you"

6 At the end of the 19th century, England imported the fur of 50,000 wolves, 30,000 bears, 22,000 American otters, 750,000 racoons, 40,000 cats, 50,000 pine marten and 265,000 foxes every year

7 Cocaine was first used as a local anaesthetic in general surgery in 1884 by an American doctor conducting an eye operation

8 In 1800 archaeologists uncovered the remains of a baby perfectly preserved in a jar of honey thousands of years old

9 To cast a spell "to bring money to your purse" you need a green candle, a craft knife, prosperity oil, salt, a sheet of newspaper and a purse or wallet

10 The methane gas produced by just ten cows would be enough to heat and light a small house for a year

11 British fathers are more likely to spend time with a son than with a daughter - and prefer gardening to spending time with either

12 American aircraft carrier formations off Japan used more oil between March and July 1945 than the whole Japanese nation in 1944

13 The Victorian owners of Darley Cotton Mill in Derbyshire enticed women and children to work there with the promise of a milking cow to each family

14 The MGM Grand in Las Vegas is the largest hotel in the world with 5,000 rooms, 170,000 square feet of casino, 14 restaurants, a 1,700 seat theatre, two swimming pools, a health spa and a monorail

15 Witch covens in the United States campaigning against animal cruelty have helped to ban greyhound racing in many states

16 After the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, conspiracy theorists advanced their ideas on more than 36,000 web sites

17 If Apollo 11 had set off for the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, instead of the moon, it would still be travelling after a million years

18 The word 'kilt' comes from the Danish kilte, "to tuck up"

19 Fortune tellers can recharge the energy of a quartz crystal ball by exposing it to a few nights when the moon is full or nearly full: but remove before daylight

20 The United States throws away 2.5 million bottles an hour

And here's where we found them...

1 The People Detective by Tom McGregor (HarperCollins, £14.99);

2 Eyewitness Everest (Dorling Kindersley, £9.99);

3 The New Oxford Thesaurus Of English (Oxford University Press, £20);

4 Kings And Queens Of England, edited by Antonia Fraser (reissued by Cassel & Co, £9.99);

5 Houdini's Box by Adam Phillips (Faber and Faber, £9.99);

6 The Eternal Frontier: an ecological history of North America and its peoples by Tim Flannery (William Heinemann, £20);

7 The Greatest Inventions Of The Past 2,000 Years, edited by John Brockman (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, £14.99);

8 Pickled, Potted & Canned: how the preservation of food changed civilisation by Sue Shephard (Headline, £7.99);

9 Candle Burning Rituals by Marie Bruce (Foulsham, £7.99);

10 Dung: a festering pile of fantastic facts and gross animal antics by Michael Powell (Robinson Children's Books, £3.99);

11 Fatherhood: an anthology edited by John Lewis-Stempel (Simon & Schuster, £17.99);

12 Pearl Harbor by HP Wilmott (Cassell & Co, £20);

13 Blood, Sweat And Tears: the evolution of work by Richard Donkin (Texere, £18.99);

14 I Am An Oil Tanker: travels with my radio by Fi Glover (Random House, £9.99);

15 How To Bewitch: a manual of modern witchcraft by Raven Tempest (Cassell & Co, £9.99);

16 The Bodyguard's Story by Trevor Rees-Jones with Moira Johnston (Little, Brown £6.99);

17 Light Years: an exploration of mankind's fascination with light by Brian Clegg (Piatkus, £14.99);

18 Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable Millennium Edition revised by Adrian Room (Cassell & Co, £16.99);

19 The Fortune-Telling Book by Gillian Kemp (Orion, £9.99);

20 Dung (see number 10).