You know what they say: knowledge is power.
Learning is crucial to our existence – think of it as sustenance for the mind rather than the body. It helps us develop new abilities, perspectives, and values; it gives us a feeling of accomplishment and unveils endless opportunities; it boosts our confidence and allows us to engage in the most random conversations.
Some might argue that with the development of the good old internet, basking in new things doesn't feel as necessary perhaps as it would have before – however, now that knowledge is at everyone's fingertips, why not learn a fact or two to impress a couple of your pals?
“What is your go-to fact that blows people’s minds?” – this netizen turned to one of Reddit’s favorite communities asking members to share their go-to facts that never fail to impress others. The thread has managed to receive over 12K upvotes, as well as 9K worth of comments and mouth-opening statements.
More info: Reddit
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I just learned this: there are more castles in Germany than McDonalds in the U.S.
When it's so quiet you can hear snow falling, you're actually hearing the static discharge of the snowflake hitting the ground. It gathers the electricity while it's falling to Earth.
A graveyard is connected to a church while a cemetery is not.
Oxford University existed 250 years before the Aztecs existed. Oxford University first opened in 1096, the Aztec period was from 1345-1521. Oxford University is second only to the University of Bologna for continuous operation.
Greenland sharks can become up to 400 years old and don’t reach sexual maturity until they’re 150
Sharks have been around longer than the rings of Saturn.
Edit: It's an easy Google. The rings of Saturn formed no more that 100 million years ago, we know what they are made of, how fast they move, and the rate of decay. Sharks have been around for about 450 million years. We have fossilized records of this.
This is why we need to protect sharks. We can and still are learning so much from them.
that sahara desert used to be under the ocean, and you can still find seashells in the sand there
Neptune was originally discovered as apparently inexplicable changes in the orbital path of Uranus. Because a man named Le Verrier observing these alterations decided that there must be an orderly reason for it, he calculated where another planet would have to be to cause Uranus to act like that, and still keep the laws of gravitation discovered by Sir Isaac newton. He then sent his calculations to Royal Observatory in Berlin, and the prediction was within 1° of its actual position.
The beginning of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony sounds like this: "di-di-di-dah".
That is the Morse code representation of the letter V: (...-)
V is the Roman numeral for five.
Purely coincidence, as the Fifth was written 40 years before Morse code was invented.
The Goonies go underground on the exact same day (Saturday, Oct. 26, 1985) as Marty travels back in time to 1955.
All the Botox in the world, literally every gram, is produced in a factory in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland.
you know when you get up too fast and feel dizzy? squeezing/stiffening your buttocks together stops the dizziness.
There are more trees on planet earth (~3 trillion) than there are stars in our galaxy (~800 billion).
Note it says our galaxy (the milky way), not the entire universe. Still I find the sheer number of trees on our planet impressive
Whales are closer to artiodactyls (even toed hoofed animals) than they are to seals or manatees.
Whales are *essentially* just wet deer with extra steps.
Tamales are one of the oldest dishes on earth still commonly eaten today.
As an Italian in the us it’s that Pepperoni actually would mean peppers in Italy and has absolutely nothing to do with thinly sliced meat.
George Washington died in 1799.
Dinosaurs were discovered in 1824.
George Washington didn't know dinosaurs existed.
In Volkswagen’s official Parts catalog, one of the official Volkswagen parts, with its own part number (199 398 500 A), is a currywurst sausage they serve to their staff in Wolfsburg, Germany.
199 398 500 B is ketchup.
"The product has been described as the most produced of any of Volkswagen's parts, some 6.81 million sausages being manufactured in 2018. In many recent years the company has produced more sausages than cars."
When airline pilots are trained to fly a new type of jet, the first time they fly it is with paying passengers on board. All the training and testing is done in a simulator.
Of course they have a lot of flight time in other airplanes and there is a specially qualified training captain in command. However my first jet takeoff was LAX-DEN with 68 unsuspecting passengers.
The Earth is traveling through space at 2.1 million km/h (1.3 million mph) relative to the cosmic background radiation. Which means by the time you finished reading this, you've travelled roughly 8,700km (5,420 mi) through space.
You can see your nose all the time.
It is always within your field of view, unless you force your eyeballs to roll up as far as they go.
Your brain filters it out of your perception to save resources, but if you pay explicit attentio to it (as you may be doing now), it becomes obviously visible.
Do not despair, tho.. after a brief time, you forget about it and it "disappears" again.
The earth's crust (which is too deep for humans to drill through, much deeper than the deepest ocean) compared to the rest of the planet is similar to the skin of an apple compared to the rest of the apple.
I heard this when I was little and did not understand it. I always got scared if my dad or older brothers were digging in the yard hoping they would not fall into lava.
Black apples exist.
We tend to think of apples as being red, though there are, of course, some popular green and yellow varieties. But did you know there are also black apples? Called Black Diamond apples, they're found in Tibet and are from the Hua Niu family of apples, also known as Chinese Red Delicious. Aside from the black outer color—actually an extremely dark shade of purple—these apples look just like other Red Delicious apples, down to the white flesh inside.
The gene for six fingers is dominant, five fingers recessive.
Almost 100% of the matter that composes plants comes from the air, not the ground.
Water and minerals come from the ground but the carbon and other elements come from the air, that’s why a 1,000 ton tree is a bigger carbon sink per square meter of land then anything else. But the biggest land based carbon sinks are actually grass land and bog land because they turn that CO2 into soil through composting, think peat lands…
German Chocolate Cake was invented in New York by it’s baker Samuel German who wanted to do his version of a Black Forest Cake
Everyone knows what Black Forest Gateau is, who's ever heard of something called "German cake"?
No one. German chocolate cake, however, is pretty common.
Load More Replies...German chocolate cake, originally German's chocolate cake, is a layered chocolate cake filled and topped with a coconut-pecan frosting. Wikipedia (and they are SOOOOOOOO good!). I really don't like the cherry/chocolate Black Forest Gateau. Not sure what the picture on this post is, but here's a GCC. GermanChoc...ed4a24.jpg
Schwarzwalderkirschtorte: the only word I can remember from my GCSE German class. Though I do also recall a schoolmate and I coming up with 'Es gibt ein bahnhof in meine unterhose'. I failed German.
That mate of yours must have quite a busy pair of underpants 🤔😏
Load More Replies...I correct people all of the time about this. They act like I'm crazy. Haha
Load More Replies...I know black forest cake but never German chocolate cake... The picture looks like a black forest cake. So what's the difference?
Wtf? No one knows that Black Forest (Scwarzwald) cake is chocolate cake with cherries ans whipped cream/frosting and that German Chocolate Cake (created in the US) is chocolate cake with caramel pecan frosting? SERIOUSLY?
Dorchester, MA - the company is still in business today. (Baker's Chocolate).
That does not look like any German chocolate cake I have ever seen, eaten or baked.
Never heard of 'German chocolate cake', but I am very fond of Black Forest gâteau, the abomination in the picture is upside-down for a start . . . and Glacé Cherries? Please, BFG should have lashings of Strawberry or Black Cherry in jellied juice - on top!!
The two are nothing alike, so his version was a real odd take. Both good, though.
That's not a picture of German Chocolate Cake. The frosting is a caramel like with coconut. My Grandmother brought one for my brother's birthday every year.
I'm not sure about this description. I'm very familiar with Black Forest Gateau - rich chocolate cake, with kirsch (cherry liqueur), fresh cream, cherries and chocolate. For the German Chocolate Cake, a trip to Google was required. It seems to be a not terribly chocolate cake, layered with caramel butter cream, with coconut and pecans. That's not a huge deal of communality - a rich chocolate cake vrs a mild chocolate cake - the rest of the ingredients as quite different.
Black Gorest Gateau is a European thing. German chocolate cake is clearly not
Top center pic is my version of a German's Chocolate Cake. https://m.facebook.com/fromsusanskitchen/photos/a.154471339271/10156513453449272/?type=3
It's actually German's Chocolate cake as in Mr. German created the type of chocolate used in the cake. It has nothing to do with Germany, the obvious common misconception. It's also my favorite cake and my mom still makes me one every year. I'm 53. :)
My dad got a German chocolate cake every birthday.
Load More Replies...It's German's Chocolate cake. It's FANTASTIC!! My favorite.
Load More Replies..."OMG" usage can be traced back to 1917.
Even more surprising is that it was first found in a letter that the British admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher a British statesman named Winston Churchill.
A tablespoon of oil can calm about half an acre of water. It spreads out to form a layer 1-molecule thick on top of the water. That's why oil spills are so harmful and destructive. The largest oil spill (BP) was about 61,488,636,185 tablespoons, or about 68,000 miles of damage.
I doubt anyone here will know what I'm talking about, but they did this experiment on the show Duck Quacks Don't Echo. Worth watching, it's very entertaining! Besides, you can't get any funnier than Lee Mack :D
In the US, the dash lines on highways are generally 10 feet long, not 2-3 like most people assume.
There are more ways to arrange a deck of cards than there are atoms on earth.
Those look a little like dixit cards. By the way, I highly recommend dixit to anyone who hasn't played :)
In a group of 23 random people, the probability of two of them sharing a birthday is over 50%.
I married someone with the same date of birth as me. It was not a good reason
In the 1920s, Hawa‘ian music was the biggest selling category of sheet music.
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