110 Random Facts I Had to Double-Check to Believe
of all places the statue of liberty is made of copper so it was originally the same color as a penny it's turned completely green because of oxidation in 1920 well it's not easy being green one glass of water has more atoms in it than there are glasses of water in all the oceans of the earth check it out yourself some mountain chains, for example, the Sierra Nevadas in California have pink snow that tastes and smells like watermelons stay away from the yellow snow an ear of corn always contains an even number of rows normally 16 of them and kernels 800 on average you can really smell rain it smells like a mix of plant oils bacteria and ozone [Music] Salvador Dali himself designed the Chupa Chup's logo in 1969. he also insisted that it should be placed on top of the wrapper so that everyone could see it the southern hemisphere version of aurora borealis is aurora australis the best time to see the southern lights is also in the winter Victorians used to say prunes instead of cheese before taking a picture to look more serious smiling was reserved for the uneducated [Music] the sargasso sea has no shores it's located smack dab in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean and its borders are all-natural they are four ocean currents when you sneeze the air blows out of your nose at 100 miles per hour to find out if cranberries are ripe or not growers drop them and see if they can bounce over a wooden barrier only ripe berries can make it ninety percent of the world's population lives in the northern hemisphere ketchup used to be a medicine that was sold as pills across the us in the eighteen hundreds the world's longest musical piece lasts 639 years Oregon 2 also as slow as possible is being performed in Germany and should be finished by 2640. don't miss it every episode of friends has the word friends in it who would have thought jousting is the official sport of the state of maryland video game designer toru atawani explained a pizza with one slice removed was the inspiration for pac-man cookie monster from sesame street has a real name and it's sid an adult is made up of seven octillion atoms at seven with a boatload of zeros there's just three billion stars in our galaxy for comparison a blue whale's heart is as large as a small car and you can hear it beat from two miles away dolphins call each other by names or rather special vocal whistles cleopatra lived closer in time to the first moon landing two thousand years then to the construction of the great pyramid 2500 years bubble wrap was originally supposed to be a textured wallpaper it was invented by sealing two shower curtains together facebook like button was supposed to be the awesome button first you will spend around six months of your life waiting for red lights to turn green enjoy a bolt of lightning has enough energy to toast 100 000 slices of bread in 1992 nearly 30 000 rubber ducks were dropped into the pacific ocean off a cargo ship people still keep finding them from australia to alaska there's a bridge over a highway in the netherlands built just for squirrels but a maximum of five squirrels use it per year the little hole in the bottom of your padlock lets water drain out in case the lock is out in the open during a rain the largest snowflake in history was the size of a frisbee it fell in montana in 1887 roosters have built-in earplugs that keep them from going deaf from their own noise croissants that many see as one of the symbols of france were invented in vienna austria and only came to france in the 1830s the world's largest pyramid isn't in egypt but in puebla mexico if your brain were a computer it would perform 38 000 trillion operations per second even the most powerful super computer in the world has only point zero zero two percent of that capacity to become a taxi or rather cab driver in london you'd have to memorize 320 routes 25 000 streets and 20 000 sites gps is cheating the expiration date on a water bottle is for the bottle not the water plastic can leach inside with time and water never goes bad the most successful pirate of all times was a woman named ching shin she had 80 000 men under her command the average human checks their phone every 6 minutes that sums up to a total of 150 times a day the african continent is the only one that sits in all four hemispheres and both the equator and prime meridian pass through it roadway lines were invented thanks to leaky milk wagons a guy named edward hines saw dripping in the center of the road in 1911 and thought it was a great idea incan people use knots instead of notes to keep records nascar drivers sweat so much in extreme heat they can lose up to 10 pounds in one race pineapples were named after pine cones by european explorers because of their spiky looks your body gives off enough heat in half an hour to boil a gallon of water apple had its own clothing and lifestyle line in 1986 but it wasn't a success all blue-eyed people share one distant ancestor as they all have the same gene sequences for eye color an australian man tried to sell new zealand on ebay the bidding was stopped at three thousand dollars by ebay officials mount everest isn't the tallest in the world the champion is mauna kea it's a rock of just 13 800 feet above sea level but the rest of which is hidden under the water there is a city called boring in oregon that has a sister city called dahl in scotland the question mark and exclamation mark you probably use a lot to finish sentences has a name it's interobang doritos can be used as good kindling they are easily flammable and burn for a long time wow that's incendiary ikea stands for this guy's name i'm not even going to try the founder's name farm where he grew up and his hometown when glaciers are melting they make a loud fizzy sound called bergy seltzer i'm not even going to try but was the only person to have ever played golf outside the earth he did that on the moon in 1971 during the apollo 14 space mission continental plates drift at about the same rate as your fingernails grow cats can be allergic to humans but is most likely to be the perfume you wear or soap you use not your natural scent there is a fruit in central and south america named black sapote that tastes like chocolate pudding art used to be an olympic sport between 1912 and 1948 people competed in sculpture music painting and architecture black boxes on planes are actually bright orange it makes them easier to be located if you know they have to german chocolate cake has nothing to do with germany it was named after american baker samuel german wow the sky on mars is red and the sunsets are blue this has to do with the dust in the martian air a chef's famous hat is called toke and has exactly 100 pleats symbolizing 100 ways to cook an egg and in france one egg is a noof sixty percent of your brain is made of fat in fact it's the fattiest organ in the body plato was designed as a way to clean wallpaper stop signs were yellow for 30 years by 1954 red dye that wouldn't fade became available and it all changed in 2014 two research scientists living a 45-minute helicopter ride away found each other using a dating app in antarctica tree rings grow wider when the weather is warm and wet the hottest inhabited place in the world is dallo ethiopia with the average annual temperature 94 degrees fahrenheit and summer highs of 116 degrees the only letter that's not in the periodic table is j a single strand of spaghetti is called a spaghetto and one ravioli is a raviolo a french exit is what they call leaving a party without telling anyone in english in french they call it to leave english style you can burn around 100 calories per hour just standing and doing nothing gps is free to use but it costs 2 million dollars per day to make it work the united kingdom has more tornadoes per area than any other country in the world times square was called long acre square until the new york times headquarters moved here in 1904 the word kimono translates as a thing to wear key means where and mono means thing santa claus received a pilot's license and airway maps from the u.s government in 1927. they also promised runway lights will be on for him the first band that performed live on all seven continents was metallica on december 8 2013 they played a show called frieza mall in antarctica there are more cell phones than humans on the planet the eiffel tower was supposed to be erected in barcelona but the citizens disliked the project so much they moved it to paris there are no key holes in the presidential limousine and only the secret service knows how to open it the only window that opens is on the driver's side to pay tolls or talk to secret service agents escorting the car the longest game of cricket lasted over 12 days between england and south africa and ended without a winner because the english team had to catch their boat home there was a qantas airways interstate flight powered on cooking oil it was the first commercial flight in australia to run on sustainable biofuel the guy who started the guinness book of world records couldn't find information on the fastest game bird ever and got so angry he invented his own way of keeping all records in one source the bigger the brain an animal has the longer it will yawn mice have the shortest seans and dogs and camels have the longest ones only surpassed by humans pizza margarita has tomato mozzarella and basil on top to represent the italian national flag it was created around 1890 for queen margarita of italy and became her favorite a human heart beats around 115 000 times a day 42 million times in a year and more than 3 billion times in an average lifetime abraham lincoln loved cats so much he once let a kitty eat from the table at a formal white house dinner spam mail was named after canned meat that was said to be tasting horrible and being ubiquitous and inescapable in a monty python skit the least frequently used letters in written english are j q x and z there is just one chance in 1 461 for a kid to be born on february 29th as it only happens once in 1 461 days the most remote atm in the world is in the antarctic it serves around a thousand residents of a scientific facility really you need cash down there papua new guinea has more languages than any other country over 820 indigenous languages king of the jungle was the original name for the lion king then the creators realized lions don't live in the jungle and renamed it there's a special word meaning both nieces and nephews it's nibblings one surprising way to cure a tickly throat is to scratch your ear if your throat tickles scratching your ear can help quiet it this way you'll stimulate the nerves that cause muscle spasms in your throat [Music] fruit stickers are edible because a special safe glue is used for them but it doesn't mean you don't have to wash the fruit before eating the smallest thing ever photographed is the shadow of an atom it was cast onto a detector and only then a digital camera could capture it 16 million thunderstorms happen worldwide every year and 1800 of them are going on right now one of the weirdest holidays ever is celebrated on march 3rd as what if cats and dogs had opposable thumbs day what do you think they would do first if they really got opposable thumbs share your ideas in the comment section below the largest tree on earth is a giant sequoia named general sherman it's over two 000 years old and is as tall as the statue of liberty or big ben and 18 times as heavy as a blue whale elvis presley used to have blonde hair in his childhood in teen years then he decided black hair was cooler and sometimes even touched it up with shoe polish the first photograph ever was made in 1826 and took eight hours to expose imagine sitting motionless for all that time to show affection in ancient greece guys used to throw apples at ladies catching it meant accepting that love babies arising from those unions were usually named fuji or macintosh nah just kidding the original idea of tea bags was removing tea out of them before drinking but people decided it was way more comfortable to brew it in the bag the temperature of a beehive is about the same as healthy human body temperature when it becomes hotter bees relocate through the hive and flap their wings to cool it down extreme ironing is a real extreme sport that was invented in england the idea is to take an ironing board to a remote location and iron tons of clothing okay so where do you plug the iron in the first roller coaster was built in the early 19th century as a construction to carry coal down a hill then people found out how much fun it was and were willing to pay to go on a ride the smallest inhabited island is located in new york state and is called just enough room there is literally just enough room for a tree
Tags
Facts