• Left-handed people make up 12% of the world’s population.
• Around 1% of the population is ambidextrous, meaning they can use both hands equally well.
• For every 4 left-handed women, there are roughly 5 left-handed men.
• If a fetus sucks its left thumb while in the womb, it will grow up to be left-handed.
• According to one study, women in their 30s and 40s were far more likely to have left-handed children than younger women. A study of 2,228 college freshmen found that those whose mothers were aged 40 and over when they were born had more than twice the rate of left-handedness as those with moms who had them at 30 or younger.
• Two left-handed parents are twice as likely to produce twins.
• The chances of being born left-handed are genetically influenced as follows:
• If both parents are left-handed: 27% male / 21.4% female
• Righty father & lefty mother: 22.1% male / 21.7% female
• Lefty father & righty mother: 18.2% male / 15.3% female
• Both parents right-handed: 10.4% male / 8.5% female
• “Left” comes from the Old English word “lyft” which means “weak.” The French word for left “gauche” means clumsy. The word “sinister” comes from the Latin “sinistro” which means left.
• Britain’s monarch and the first and second in line for the throne are all left-handed: Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, and Prince William all favor their left hand.
• Of the 9 most recent U.S. presidents, 5 were left-handed: Joe Biden (R), Donald Trump (R), Barack Obama (L), George W. Bush (R), Bill Clinton (L), George H. W. Bush (L), Ronald Reagan (L), Jimmy Carter (R), Gerald Ford (L). Ronald Reagan was left-handed but was forced to write right-handed. Gerald Ford was left-handed, but switched back and forth.
• In 1996, a Belgian study on 1,700 pairs of twins found that nearly 21% were left-handed. This is 5% more than the general population of lefties.
• “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening is left-handed which may be why character Ned Flanders has his own left-handed item store, called The Leftorium.
• About half of the top hitters in baseball have been left-handed. In golf, only 4% of the top players are left-handed.
• 0.5% of guitarists played left-handed.
• In a 1998 full-page ad in “USA Today”, Burger King claimed it developed the “left-handed whopper,” a burger with the same fixings, but turned 180 degrees so it would not drip on left-handed customers. It was an April Fools’ prank.
• About 50 percent of dogs favor their left paws. The percentage is about the same for cats. Kangaroos appear to be almost exclusively left-pawed.
• Countries that have the most left-handed people: The Netherlands (13.2%), United States (13.1%), Belgium (13.1%), Canada (12.8%), and United Kingdom (12.24%).
• Countries that have the least left-handed people: South Korea (2.0%), Mexico (2.5%), China (3.5%), Japan (4.7%), and Taiwan (5.0%).
