- Aww knowledge whale's coming at you
with the flippers of knowledge!
Slap, slap!
Here are 50 amazing facts to blow your mind.
(relaxed music)
It's actually possible to walk
from one side of the United States
to the other on a single hiking pathway.
The American Discovery Trail is 10,944 kilometers long
and crosses the country coast to coast
from Cape Henlopen, Delaware,
to Limantour Beach, California.
A few days prior to signing
the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776,
Thomas Jefferson bought a new thermometer.
He recorded the temperature in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
where the document was signed on that historical day
as 76 degrees Fahrenheit, or 24.4 degrees Celsius.
In July of 2016, Radford Army Ammunition Plant,
a highly classified military explosive factory in Virginia,
had to take extra precautions
after people were caught sneaking onto the premises
while playing Pokemon Go on their phones.
A rumor spread that there was a Charizard on the property
when, of course, there wasn't.
The hides of around 22 cows are used
to make enough footballs for the Superbowl
and over 3,000 for a regular NFL season.
The oldest your momma joke is actually 3,500 years old.
It was written on a tablet by a student in Ancient Babylon.
In 1978, an undergraduate architectural student
named Diane Hartley saved an uncountable number of lives
when she pointed out a flaw in the construction
of a skyscraper in New York City.
If the error hadn't been fixed,
the 59 story building would have likely collapsed
and taken everyone inside and on the street below with it.
In 2013, Sony released a fully waterproof MP3 player.
To prove their new device's underwater capabilities,
each one was sold fully submerged in a bottle of water.
During World War II, the fuel used
in the US Navy's torpedo motors
was a 180 proof grain alcohol,
which the officers would often steal to make torpedo juice,
the combination of the fuel and pineapple juice.
That sounds nasty.
Naval authorities began mixing poisonous substances
into the fuel simply to stop it from being consumed,
but the sailors kept figuring out ingenious ways
to separate the alcohol from the poison.
Here's an idea, just don't drink it.
During breeding, a hummingbird will build
its nest close to a hawk's nest,
as the larger birds will instinctively protect them
from animals that prey on the hummingbird's eggs.
Although he was previously a nonsmoker,
actor James Franco started smoking
two packs of cigarettes a day
in order to prepare for his role as James Dean
in the 2001 television biographical film, James Dean.
Franco also learned to ride a motorcycle,
play guitar, and even isolated himself
from his friends and family
in order to get into the right mindset to play the part.
It seemed to pay off as he ended up winning
a Golden Globe for the performance.
Pattie Boyd, who was the wife
of the late George Harrison of the Beatles
and the inspiration for their song, Something,
is also the inspiration for Eric Clapton's hit, Layla,
in which he confesses being in love with his friend's wife.
Ooh, bet you didn't know that, but now you know.
Unlike regular tires, the tires used for NASCAR teams
are actually built with nitrogen instead of regular air.
This is because nitrogen has a more consistent
rate of contraction and expansion,
which gives the car better traction and handling
than if they were filled with just air.
Aw, yeah, scoot, scoot!
American novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
added the W to his last name in order
to keep his relation to his great-great-grandfather,
John Hathorne, a secret.
John Hathorne was the only judge that did not repent
his actions during the Salem Witch Trials.
Known as the Angel of Death,
Josef Mengele, a Nazi doctor at Auschwitz,
would conduct deadly experiments on many of the prisoners.
One of these included an attempt
to create conjoined twins by sewing two twins together.
The experiment was a complete failure
and gangrene soon set in and both twins died.
50 amazing facts getting dark.
There is actually a magnetic bone
inside your head right now.
It's called an ethmoid bone
and it's located at the top of your nose
where many believe your third eye is.
As a magnetic bone, the ethmoid
aids in your sense of direction.
Mine must be broken 'cause I constantly get lost.
After being captured on March 18th, 1915,
suspected member of the Mexican Revolution,
Wenseslao Moguel, a 25-year-old better known as El Fusilado,
or The Executed One, was shot nine times by a firing squad.
He managed to somehow survive
and went on to live another 60 years.
There is actually a response to the children's rhyme,
Liar Liar Pants on Fire.
It's, I don't care, I don't care.
I can buy another pair.
On the Richter scale, which is used
to measure the strength of earthquakes,
the asteroid impact that killed off the dinosaurs
approximately 66 million years ago
is estimated to have reached 13.
Anything that hits a 15 on the Richter scale
would completely destroy the Earth.
On July 31st, 1914,
in preparation for what would become World War I,
the tsar of Russia banned the sale of alcohol.
The move ended up devastating the state's budget
as the Russian government made over a third
of their income off the sale of booze.
In Russia, booze drink you.
Female kangaroos can actually slow the gestation
of a baby inside of them if they believe
the environmental factors around them
can be a risk to the newborn's life.
They can also determine the gender
of the baby while carrying it.
George R. R. Martin, the author of the books
the HBO series Game of Thrones is based on,
actually appeared in the unaired pilot
as a nobleman in a giant hat.
However, when the scenes were reshot,
Martin did not reprise the role.
In Australia, McDonald's has gained the nickname Macca's.
The name is so popular that, in 2013,
it was officially changed, signs and all.
Many Mayflower pilgrims were fleeing prosecution in England,
but some were actually leaving
in fear of the Dutch Republic,
who they believed were influencing their children.
If you took one cent and doubled your money everyday,
you would be a millionaire in just 27 days.
In fact, you would have $1,342,177 in that time.
There are more people in the world
who learn English as a second language
than those who learned it as their first language.
Animated superhero girls, the Powerpuff Girls,
were actually creator Craig McCracken's college project.
Back then, the project went by
the original name, Whoopass Stew!
When at full capacity,
the University of Nebraska's Memorial Stadium
in Lincoln, Nebraska holds 85,458 people.
This exceeds the population of any other Nebraska city,
with the exception of Omaha and Lincoln itself.
Meaning the stadium is briefly
the third largest city in the state.
If you're caught drunk or acting violently
in the country of Japan,
police will place you on the top of a futon
and roll you into a burrito.
Many species of animals experience
something called the Coolidge effect.
Named after United States president, Calvin Coolidge,
this biological anomaly occurs
when a new female is introduced to a group
and the male exhibits a renewed sexual interest.
This can also occur directly after the male
has just finished having sex
with a previous and still available partner.
Between 2005 and 2007, in an attempt to prevent
copyrighted music from being pirated,
Sony BMG legally put rootkits on 22 million of their CDs.
When the disc was put into a computer,
the software, which could not be uninstalled,
would modify the user's operating system
in a way that made copying CDs nearly impossible,
while also sending their music
listening habits back to Sony.
Ironically, the software the company used
wound up being a copyright infringement of its own.
The Holocaust Memorial Project in Berlin
was halted in 2003 after people found out
that the company that created the coding
used in the monuments to prevent graffiti
was the same company that created the gas
that was used to kill millions of Jews
in World War II concentration camps.
The world's longest cave system is Mammoth Caves.
Located in the state of Kentucky,
it has over 640 kilometers of passageways
and is almost twice as long as the runner up,
Sac Actun Underwater Cave in Mexico.
Dogs have a second organ for smelling
located at the back of their nose.
Known as the Jacobson's organ,
it helps improve the canine sense of smell so much
the animals can actually smell cancer on a patient's breath.
Technically, dogs can detect cancer.
Hollywood's Walk of Fame currently has 17
fictional characters with their own stars on it.
Among these are Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Shrek,
Godzilla, Woody Woodpecker, Donald Duck, and Snoopy.
Back in the Middle Ages,
two men were able to move in together,
combine their resources,
and essentially live as a married couple
under a legal category know as enbrotherment.
New York's Brooklyn Bridge, which was finished in 1883,
actually predates Tower Bridge in London by 11 years,
the latter not being finished until 1894.
The USS O'Bannon, a World War II naval destroyer
defeated a Japanese submarine in 1943
by heaving potatoes at the enemy vessel.
A plot was created commemorating
the crew on their ingenuity,
but it was stolen in the 1970s.
In order to strengthen their immune systems,
kindergarten students in Siberia
often strip down to their underwear,
go outside, and dump freezing cold water on themselves.
No thanks.
On December 11th, 1937, Romford Stadium in London
held its very first cheetah race.
Up against two greyhounds,
the female cheetah named Helen left the pooches in her dust,
reaching a speed of 88.5 kilometers per hour
and instantly giving her the title of Queen of the Track.
Released in 2012, The Lorax features the voice talents
of Danny DeVito as the titular character.
But not just in the English versions of the film.
The actor also provided voice for the German,
Italian, Spanish, and Russian dubbed versions.
The cicada, a flying insect found in Africa,
spends 17 years of its life sleeping before it wakes up,
spends two weeks mating, and then it dies.
During his term as president of the United States,
John Quincy Adams approved an expedition
to the center of the Earth in an attempt
to prove the planet was hollow.
While filming the 1964 movie, Cheyenne Autumn,
some Native American actors kept making
inappropriate comments in their native tongues
as nobody else on the set spoke their language.
At least one of these comments actually made it
into the final edit of the film
and featured the actors making fun
of the size of the character's penis.
In April of 2015, Hayley Atwell,
who plays Peggy Carter in Marvel's Captain America movies,
had her driver's license photo taken
while in full movie makeup.
In 2014, construction on a highway in Iceland
was stopped because protesters claimed the crew
would have to destroy a church
that was attended only by elves in its path.
The city paid to have the church,
which appeared only as a giant boulder to human eyes,
moved by crane before construction
on the roadway was allowed to continue.
Nearly as many people were executed by guillotine
under Hitler's rule by Nazi Germany
as were in the French Revolution.
The first hot air balloon trip
took place in Versaille, France in September of 1783.
But instead of humans, the passengers
were a sheep, a duck, and a rooster.
How did they get themselves down?
When ATMs were first introduced,
many believed that they would be total failures
because only prostitutes and gamblers
would want to do their banking
without looking a teller in the eye.
In 1993, archeologists discovered what is believed
to be the oldest pieces of chewing gum
on the Swedish island of Orust.
Three pieces of chewed birch resin were found,
each dating back over 9,000 years.
In August of 1957, Buddy Holly and the Crickets
became the first Caucasian band
to play at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York.
Due to a mix up, the man who booked the band
thought that he was getting The Crickets,
and R&B group with a similar name
that was made up of African-American men,
but instead got three white men from Texas.
With it being too late to change anything,
Buddy Holly's band went onstage and after a rocky start
eventually won over the crowd.
(relaxed music)