10 Interesting Facts About Women

People are fascinating. But some of us are more fascinating than others. I stumbled upon a rather lengthy list of interesting facts about women and decided that I would post what I thought were the top 10. Enjoy!

1. A Russian woman holds the record for most children birthed. She gave birth to a total of 69 children: 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets and 4 sets of quadruplets between 1725 and 1765; a total of 27 births. 67 of the 69 children born were said to have survived infancy. YOWCH!  (On a side note, the woman was the first wife of a Russian peasant, Feodor Vassilyev.  His second wife gave birth to 18 children, which gives Vassilyev a grand total of 87 children. Dude, get a hobby!!)
2. A Duke University study says that women wake up far more grumpier than men. It also says that women need much more sleep than men and can have problems such as heart disease and psychological issues from not getting the adequate amount of sleep needed. There may be something to this - I don't even like talking to my cat in the morning.
3. International Women’s Day is recognized on March 8th each year. Some countries even recognize it as an official holiday. Sadly, the US is not one of those countries!
4. Although highly unlikely to succeed in a Sharia court, in Saudi Arabia an old law still in effect says that if a husband doesn’t give his wife coffee that the woman can divorce him. Perhaps that's something that those child brides can use to get out of forced marriages.
5. In 1945, there was a 25-year old woman who was pregnant for 375 days and is recorded as the longest human pregnancy ever. The average woman is pregnant for a "mere" 280 days. I suppose it could be worse - an elephant's gestation period is 675 days.
6. Originally, the differentiation between women at different ages was done in the English language with the help of the terms maiden, mother, and crone. The maiden was the young girl who wasn’t married yet. The mother was the female in the years where she could bear children. The crone was the woman in the post-menopause period. I am officially a crone! Not sure how I feel about that.
7. In the August 2013 journal Science, a DNA analysis reports that the the origin of the first woman and man can be traced back to 1 woman and 1 man that lived on earth about 135,000 years ago. Hmmmm, I never bought into the Adam and Eve story, but...
8. Woman swallows a $5000 diamond! During an April 2013 charity event in Florida, 400 glasses were filled with champagne. 399 of the flutes contained a $10 cubic zirconia stone while 1 glass had a one carat diamond stone, which came up missing. Turns out an 80 year old woman accidentally swallowed it and although embarrassed she eventually told the event makers she had swallowed it while talking and laughing with other women at the table. The diamond was recovered by colonoscopy 2 days later. Post extraction, the woman took the diamond to be cleaned and planned to give it to her granddaughter.  Gee, thanks, Grams!
9. According to recent census data in March 2013, about 6% of U.S families in 1976 had a woman as the sole income provider. That same census shows that 23% of U.S households today have a woman as the sole income provider. Progress?
10. Cleopatra had 2 younger brothers and she married them both. It's also notable that Cleopatra first married at age 11 to one of the brothers. Gross!

I had fun finding all these interesting facts and fully plan on doing more postings of these fun and strange factoids!