A third of the world’s obese people live in developing countries. * Hitler was on the shortlist for the 1938 Nobel Peace Prize. * In 2002 the Amazon rainforest still covered 87 per cent of its 1950s footprint. * Only ten of 55 Democratic senators voted to empower President Bush to use the US army in the first Gulf war in 1991. Had three or more followed the party line and voted against, Bush would have lost the Senate vote. * At 365 square kilometres, the Gaza strip is slightly smaller than Sheffield. * In the 1930s, the Inland Revenue investigated Yeats’s tax returns because they could not believe a poet of his stature had sales that were so small. * In 1998 of 106 daily newspapers in Canada, Conrad Black owned 62. * Per capita, the biggest arms exporter in the world is the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Sweden is second, Jordan third and Norway fourth. * By the age of five, children have acquired 85 per cent of the language they will have as adults.