WEIRD FACTS ABOUT
BRAZIL

curly underline

BRAZIL

Half the people in South America live in Brazil, but most Brazil nuts come from Northern Bolivia. The weight of coffee produced in Brazil, however, is twice the weight of tea produced in India.

A major traffic jam was caused in Brazil in 1964 when a couple kissed in a car and their dentures became inextricably locked together.

In 1969, a gang of Brazilian bus drivers was charged with training beetles to climb into fare boxes and take out coins. The beetles were also arrested.

In December 2001, Ellen Gracie Northfleet was sworn in as Brazil's first female supreme court judge, but there was one small problem: the Supreme Federal Tribunal building still had no women's toilet in the judges' chambers. 'If she has to go to the bathroom, she'll have to do it before the ceremony or wait until after it's over,' a spokesman explained.

In 2002, Brazilian weight-training instructor Edmar Freitas set a world record by doing 111,000 sit-ups in 24 hours. In the same year, scientists in Sao Paolo were reported to have cloned a bull accidentally. They were trying to clone a cow. The world's largest commercial cattle herd is in Brazil and consists of 170 million head of cattle.

In 2002, Brazilian model and actress Susana Alves received an unusual insurance deal: in exchange for letting them put her image on its billboards, a company insured her buttocks, knees and ankles for $2 million. In Brazil, insurance policies on celebrity rear ends have become so common that insurers have a special term for them: 'bumbum policies'.


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