It's time for your facts fix.
Here are 50 amazing facts to blow your mind.
The ship of Theseus. The ship of Theseus article
on Wikipedia has been edited over 1800 times since
it was first created in July of 2003.
At present, 0% of the phrases
in the original article remain.
That's about as meta as it gets.
A cat's lifespan. The average lifespan of a
pet cat has increased from 7 to 15
years between the early 1980s and 2021.
Horace Grant. After getting Lasik surgery, Horace Grant continued
to wear his signature goggles, but without the prescription
in order to remain a positive influence so that
kids who needed glasses would think it's cool.
Well, yes, glasses are cool.
Campaign for North Africa . The Campaign for North
Africa is a board game published in 1978
that's estimated to take 62 days to play.
The game includes 1600 countries and the level
of detail is such that Italian troops require
additional water supplies in order to boil pasta.
The green Eminem. The seductive nature of the green Eminem
originated from an urban legend during the 1970s that green
M&MS were aphrodisiacs. Banned from casinos.
Citizens of Monaco are banned from
gambling or working at casinos.
The famed Monte Carlo casino
is strictly for foreigners.
Sonia Orwell. Sonia Orwell, second wife of George
Orwell, died penniless in December of 1980, having
spent a fortune trying to protect Orwell's name
and having been swindled out of her remaining
funds by unscrupulous accountants.
The catamaran. The F50 foiling catamaran sailboat
can sail almost four times faster than the
wind and reach 100 km an hour.
The greatest contract. In 1939, RKO Pictures offered a
young Orson Wells with what is generally regarded as
the greatest contract offered to a filmmaker in history.
The contract gave Wells full creative control to
write, produce, direct and perform in two films.
His very first film under the contract, Citizen Kane.
Larry Fishburne. Lawrence Fishburne used to be
credited as Larry Fishburne in his movies,
including Boys in the Hood.
He began using Lawrence in 1993.
The largest air force.
The largest air force in the world is the US Air Force.
Interestingly, the second largest air force in the world
is, believe it or not, the US Navy.
Old tennis balls. Tennis balls used to be
black and white, but changed to yellow for
tv viewers thanks to David Attenborough's suggestion.
For profit ambulances. In the US, there are some
private for profit ambulance agencies that will bill a
person for responding to a scene, even if that
person refuses treatment and or transportation.
And was not the one who called 911.
The extinct dolphin. The Baiji was a species
of obligate freshwater river dolphin native to China's
Yangtze river, last photographed in 2002.
An extensive six week multivessel visual and acoustic survey
in 2006, covering its entire historical range, failed to
find any evidence that the species survived.
The star car. The Chevy suburban has a
star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The pope's family. When Machiavelli was tasked with writing
the history of Florence by the pope, he faced
having to say unpleasant truths about the pope's family.
In order to avoid displeasing him but remain objective,
he included all the negatives about his
family as words uttered by their enemies.
The Oval Office desk. Since the construction of the
Oval Office in 1909, a total of six different
desks have been used by 20 presidents.
Eight presidents use the resolute desk, six used
the Theodore Roosevelt desk, two used the Hoover
desk, and two used the Wilson desk.
One used the C&O desk, and one used the Johnson desk.
Crawling babies. Approximately 50% of babies
begin crawling by eight months.
But some babies may start before six months, and
others may not crawl until after eleven months,
if ever. The most produced vehicle. The Honda Super Cub
is the most produced motor vehicle in history. In manufacture
since 1958, with production surpassing 60 million in 2008 and
87 million in 2014 and 100 million in 2017.
Smart monkeys. Monkeys in Ethiopia have managed to domesticate
wild wolves by helping them hunt small rodents.
The wolves now coexist with even baby
monkeys without ever attacking them, instead going
for smaller, harder to catch prey.
The oldest golf course. The oldest golf course
in Scotland dates all the way back to
1552, whereas the oldest course outside of Scotland,
in France, dates back to 1856.
The blue banana. The blue banana is
a geographical region, stretching like a banana,
from northern Italy, across western Germany and
low countries into England's Liverpool region.
The area is believed by some to
constitute the industrial and economic backbone of
Europe, both presently and in history.
Microsoft's longest product. Microsoft's longest running product line
is, surprisingly not windows, but flight simulator, with
the first release being in November of 1982,
nearly three years before Windows 1.0.
The incredible engine. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, car
manufacturers developed a turbine engine that was capable of
running any type of fuel without modification.
As a demonstration, the car was driven to Mexico,
powered by tequila, and in France, it was powered
by Chanel No. 5. The Onion King.
In 1956, a man named Vincent Kosuga was
able to successfully corner the Chicago onion market
and made a fortune, controlling 98% of all
onions traded on the exchange.
The origin of the smoke detector. The smoke detector
was accidentally invented in the 1930s by swiss physicist
Walter Jaeger. While he was trying to come up
with a sensor that would easily identify poison gas,
Jaeger's device instead registered his cigarette smoke.
Elephant gestation. An elephant's gestation period
is longer than any other mammal.
African elephants are pregnant for an average of 22
months, while asian elephants it's 18 to 22 months.
The Stanley cup . When the NHL Stanley cup
runs out of space engravings, the oldest engravings
are removed and a new one is added.
Most recently, the bands for winners
from 1954 to 1965 were removed.
The longest prison sentence. The longest prison
sentence ever given was 141,078 years, given
to a thai woman in 1989.
She was released four years later.
The hero. In 1982, a man named Jim Rice rushed the stands
to help a four year old boy that was struck in the
head by a line drive off a bat during a baseball game.
Rice carried the boy onto the field, through the Red
Sox dugout and into the clubhouse, where he was treated.
Immediately.
Jim's swift response saved the boy's life.
Orcas vs. Sharks
Scientists for the first time in
significant detail captured footage of orcas hunting
and killing great white sharks via first
time ever aerial footage of the behavior
in South Africa. Researchers recorded
eleven shark deaths by orcas.
Evidence also suggested that the
hunting was becoming more common.
Celebrity divorce rates. A-list celebrities are two
times more likely to divorce in their
1st 14 years of marriage.
Amazon river dolphins. Amazon river dolphins are
the only known species to have been
observed having nasal sex, I. E.
Penetration of the blowhole.
It's just science, folks.
Original semantic meanings. Despot, tyrant, dictator, and autocrat
were originally respectable titles and did not have
any negative connotations that we do today.
There are examples of how language changes over
time where words can take on different meanings.
The best selling car. The best selling
single model year vehicle in american history
is the 1965 Chevrolet Impala.
1,074,925 units in one year was
the record that's yet to be broken.
200,000 of these vehicles have the SS package.
The USPS mandate. In 1923, the United States
Post office department mandated that every household have
a mailbox or letter slot to receive mail.
Before that, letter carriers knocked on the
door and waited for people to answer.
And nowadays, if you're a FedEx driver, you just throw
it against the door and hope it doesn't break.
The appearance policy. Abercrombie and Fitch's
appearance look policy require staff to buy
the company's clothes. After losing a lawsuit,
they agreed not to force workers to buy its
clothes and to reimburse former employees for purchases made
during the period cited. The horse airplane.
There's actually a special airline just
for horses named Air Horse one. It's true.
The expensive console. The Neogeo is the most expensive home
video console ever made, selling for $650 in 1990.
That's over $1600 in today's money.
It was originally supposed to be a rental console,
but was sold for retail due to high demand.
The renaming of America. America was almost named
Amerige, meaning land of Amerigo, but was changed
to the feminine form of America following the
naming convention of Asia and Europe.
Tibet flights. There are virtually zero commercial planes that
fly over Tibet, one of the reasons being that
in the event of depressurization or engine failure, planes
cannot descend to 10,000ft because the tibetan plateau has
an average elevation of over 14,000ft.
Independent cities. The United States has 41 independent cities
which aren't in the territory of any country.
Of these, 38 of them are in Virginia.
Cher's music video. The music video for
Cher's if I could turn back time
was filmed on the battleship USS Missouri.
The revealing outfit that she wore caused
considerable controversy, with World War II veterans
saying that it desecrated a historic site.
The survey,. According to Zety’s Leaving a Job: Termination
to resignation 2023 report over 50% of workers fear
being fired more than death, and 65% fear it
more than sickness or poor health.
Law firm influence. In a survey of 500 law
firm workers, over 50% confirmed that legal tv shows
had influenced their career choice, and 57% of those
felt that the tv series that impacted them was
a realistic depiction of a legal career.
30% identified Suits as their show and
22% said Law and order. Buddy Holly.
Weezer's Buddy Holly music video was
included on the Windows 95 installation
CD without the band's prior permission.
The rock star. Rock guitar icon Duane Allman
only started playing guitar at 14, slide guitar
at 22, and tragically died at 24.
In 2003, he was ranked number two in Rolling
Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of
all time, second only to Jimi Hendrix.
The underground city. Derinkuyu in modern day
Turkey was a 3000 year old underground city that
once housed up to 20,000 people and their livestock.
The De-extinction task force. There's a De-extinction task
force established in 2014 by the Species Survival
Commission whose purpose is to identify suitable animals
to bring back the that would not harm
humans and can thrive.
The three methods currently employed are
cloning, genome engineering, and backbreeding.
A dog's permission.
The legendary baseball star Ichiro Suzuki once refused
to tell the media the name of his
dog because he didn't have the dog's permission.
He also credited the dog with convincing him to
stay with his longtime team, the Seattle Mariners.