Let’s get right to the point: we love facts. We think that when you know more about the world, it’s easier to understand how it works and how your actions affect it. And we especially love random facts — those little nuggets of knowledge that come up in conversation, and the immediate reaction they spark is, “Wait, what?”
We’ve been on a mission to dig up the most bizarre, surprising, and interesting facts and things you didn’t know (probably). We’re not going to give you a full history lesson or tell you about the origins of things — these are just fun facts that have nothing but random educational value! And if you’re anything like us, once you learn these fascinating bits of trivia, you’ll want to share them with everyone else. Like, did you know that the inventor of frisbee golf was literally turned into a frisbee after his death? Yeah, crazy.
We’ve rounded up some of our favorite cool facts for you here. They’re like a little gift to your brain and provide an excuse to share a tidbit of knowledge that would otherwise be lost. They’re also an excellent way to break the ice when you meet someone new — especially if they’re as nerdy as you are! Some are science-y, some are history-y, and some are just plain fun. But all of them are interesting and totally random in their own unique way!
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Some cats are actually allergic to humans.
Women's tears reduce men's testosterone levels.
So, in a way, if a man makes a woman cry, he is inadvertently emasculating himself. That one's for all those folks who don't believe in Karma.
To prove karma, you have to first prove that fairy tales exist & they cause things to happen (think religion). Next you have to prove it had anything to do with this. And finally that karma would cause something "just" to happen. Clearly karma didn't get Hitler, Stalin, Idi Emin, Pol Pot, Papa Doc, Kin-Jung Un, Trump, the Madman of Moscow, etc. See, karma is b******t?
Load More Replies...I think anything upsetting would naturally reduce testosterone levels. It's not exactly a turn on. Watching a badger being attacked by a group of rabid squirrels also reduces testosterone levels
I don't understand...ingested tears? Or like the sight of a woman crying?
Yoda’s design was based on and inspired by Albert Einstein.
Cows kill more Americans each year than sharks do.
People keep posting this as if it's somehow surprising. Think about how many landlocked states there are, and think about how many cows in total there are in the US. It's hardly a great surprise that cows kill more than sharks.
I get what your saying but what's crazier is mosquitos inadvertently kill more people a year than have been killed by sharks in all of time maybe
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A 70-year-old woman once completed seven marathons in seven days, across all seven continents.
Just as Earth has earthquakes, the Moon has moonquakes.
please, show yourself out *5th grader snickers*
Load More Replies...Well, not "just like" Earth, as they are not due the same causes. The moon's quakes are caused by meteoroid impacts and by the Earth pulling on its interior
Suspected to be caused by the Earth’s gravitational pull since the moon has no tectonic plates.
The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland.
And England has a lion. Which isn't native to England but does at least exist.
Load More Replies...Because they were thought to be the natural enemies of lions, i.e. the English.
The Monopoly Man has a proper name - it's Rich Uncle Milburn Pennybags.
even if he had a ton of bags of pennies, it wouldn’t be worth that much.
The metal would be worth more than the denomination
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The M's in M&Ms stand for "Mars & Murrie".
Really? Well damn, I would not have expected that. Also M&M stands for Millie&Moxxie for those Helluva Boss fans out there.
The Australian government banned the word "mate" for a day.
For context, officials in Australia's Federal Parliament in Canberra banned security staff & attendants from addressing Parliamentarians from using the word in August 2005. It was overturned 24 hours later by outraged politicians who had not been consulted & considered the ban to be ridiculous
Thanks for that! I thought it might have been a stunt or something.
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In 1930, BBC reported "There is no news".
That will never happen again. Not just because the world is crazy... if there happened to not be news, they would make something "news"
Children's medicine once contained morphine.
That's only shocking in hindsight. We might be amazed at what we put in medicine now in 2072
Your liver can regrow itself in three weeks.
It can. What it can't fix is cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is just the medical word for scarring, so if you think about it, it makes sense - if something's scarred it never heals properly again. Fortunately you do have to really go hammer and tongs to get to that point; earlier stages, like fatty deposits, are reversible.
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That “new car smell” may be toxic.
Dogs can learn to recognize a vocabulary of about 165 words.
Chinese police use geese squads.
So, who else has Cheap Trick song in their head? The dream police They live inside in my head The dream police They come to me in my bed The dream police They're coming to arrest me Oh no
I meant to change 'Dream police"to "Geese police"
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Twins are most likely to be born in Nigeria.
Yes, their DNA makes having twins more likely than in other countries
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A mermaid "documentary" once fooled so many people that the U.S. government had to issue a statement.
Oh, the Animal Planet thing. Yeah, that was a low point for the channel and the country's collective intelligence. Admittedly, those two mermaid films were a master class in the tactics bad actors and conspiracy theorists use to try to make you believe them. The jargony words, the dude in the shadows with the voice changer to 'hide his identity,' the use of actual science at the beginning to ease you in, the explanations that seemed just plausible enough until you remembered it was baloney.
I still don’t understand how, you could tell it was bad cgi? I liked it but i never thought the weird merpeople were actually real
The moon is (slowly) slowing the Earth's rotation.
I'm okay with this, as long as I don't have to work longer..
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Giant squids have the largest eyes of any animal on Earth.
And even though they have similar structure to mammalian eyes, they evolved from completely different organs.
One man once survived two atomic bombs.
Orgasms were once thought to "Cure Hysteria".
Cenosillicaphobia is the fear of an empty beer glass.
Speed dating was invented by a Rabbi.
Sharks can live for five centuries.
Upon going deaf, Beethoven discovered that if he bit onto a metal pole that connected to the piano he was playing, he could hear almost perfectly well.
I suppose that makes sense, the vibrations would travel through the teeth to the skull. But hold on, how did he discover this? XD
No country is allowed to own the Moon.
Until it is colonized. Then, there will be a declaration of independence followed by a space war LOL
There may be 2,000 active serial killers in the U.S. right now.
The guy who quoted this says " its a rough estimate, for sure" There might be 500 there might be 10000.
I'm still disturbed by the fact that 500 is the low number
Load More Replies...I'm sure there's some where you live too. Pretty sure this is a statistic calculated by population - 'about one serial killer per however many million people' - as opposed to a country-specific number.
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The first person convicted of speeding was going 8 mph.
Our European ancestors were cannibals.
For 100 years, maps have shown an island that doesn't exist.
They were chopping them up, They were chopping them down
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Tornadoes can cause "fish rain".
the fish get lifted out of their body of water and dumped down wherever the tornado decides to go
Some planets produce diamond rain.
The cast of "Friends" still earns around $20 million each year.
I think some of them earn more than that. You mean only from "Friends" residuals?
Guinea pigs were once sacrificed wearing earrings and necklaces and wrapped like sushi.
They're a very important food source in South America. Not surprised they were used for ritual sacrifices.
Cookie Monster is named Sid.
The first hot air balloon ride contained a sheep, a duck and a rooster.
Bones of a dozen bodies were once found in Benjamin Franklin's basement.
Sea lions can dance to a beat.
You can always "see" your nose.
There's a textbook written entirely by an artificial intelligence author.
There's a family in Italy that feels almost no pain.
Why was this down-voted? Arod was just asking a question, geez. Anyway, to answer your question: Yes. I'm assuming they have Congenital insensitivity to pain. Its a condition where you feel mild to zero pain. So, yes, they feel no pain in general or if something that should hurt happens. Hope I was able to help! :3
Load More Replies...Yeah read the second Charlie Thorne book, it has them in it where they are criminals
Copper door knobs are self-disinfecting.
I just commented about this on another post. Copper is a natural antibiotic agent. Combine with zinc it and you have brass. Studies have shown that water stored in brass vessels for 3 days are over 99% pure. It eliminates cholera and many other water-born germs.
Copper itself has antiseptic properties. It's not just door knobs.
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The man who wrote Dracula never visited Transylvania.
I imagine there are a lot of authors who don't travel to all the settings in their books.
He is buried in Whitby, where Dracula lands in England in the book. The churchyard contains a sign reminding tourists seeking Dracula's grave that he's NOT F*****G REAL.
The word "MacGyvered" is in the Oxford English Dictionary.
The OED is constantly updated and by its nature can never be "complete."
Moonshiners used "cow shoes" to disguise their footprints during Prohibition.
Pringles innovator was buried in a Pringles can.
Thanks, even though that was a funny mental image
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George Washington was a major whiskey distiller.
"Chinese Checkers" was invented in Germany.
Well who else would call it Chinese Checkers? They would have just called it checkers if invented in China - or German Checkers
Hair and nails grow faster during pregnancy.
Is there a scientific reason why? The people who post these sure are vague. -_-
And if you see the same hairdresser regularly, they can sometimes tell you are pregnant even before you know yourself because your hair changes in other ways too.
Water makes different pouring sounds depending on its temperature.
Nutmeg can be fatally poisonous.
It can also alter your...mindset considerably if you take less than the fatal dose (it's still a buttload). It causes hallucinations and can last for days.
I read about that before I was old enough to drink alcohol. I’m so glad I never tried it.
Load More Replies...don’t care. it’s almost autumn in the US, pour straight nutmeg down my throat.
Saudi Arabia imports camels from Australia.
we had them for exploring the red center, where horses were useless.
And now they overrun the place and often have to be culled
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Crows remember the face of their abductor years after the incident.
It was an experiment at a university, IIRC. They had a person in a distinctive costume mask 'abduct' the crows, creating an unpleasant memory. A couple of years later, when they sent someone to walk around campus in the mask, not only did the 'abducted' crows yell and behave aggressively, but younger birds that had never seen the mask also treated it as a threat, suggesting that the crows had taught their subsequent offspring that the masked person was dangerous. Edit: Found the study, it was at the University of Washington, published in 2011.
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Germany uncovers 2,000 tons of unexploded bombs every year.
Detroit undercover cops in a drug ring once fought another group of undercover cops.
Cats once delivered mail in Belgium.
The Twitter bird's official name Is Larry.
"Flip the Larry" doesn't quite sound right, but maybe I can get it to catch on
The longest title of a book consists of 27,978 characters.
https://guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/358711-longest-title-of-a-book
Some Maryland residents are taxed for the rain.
I thought it was all MD residents. You get taxed based on how much land you've placed structures on. The building prevents rainwater absorption into the ground and contributes to excess runoff into the Chesapeake.
Load More Replies...New York was briefly named "New Orange".
Lobster bladders are in their heads.
Brings a new meaning to the word "brain fart" hehe. Edit: I just realized what I typed, oof I'm way too tired-
Humans are the only animals that blush.
For the fourth week running, this "fact" is bollocks. Penguins blush.
Playing the accordion was once required for teachers in North Korea.
Apple Pie isn't actually American.
I would think that if you bake it in America, it's American. I had a Chihuahua once but he was born in England, so he was English. I know this for sure because I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk in Mexican and he just lay there, watching cartoons (Ren & Stimpy, if you're interested). I asked him again in English and he said 'No thanks. I'm watching cartoons'.
" I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk in Mexican" or "Spanish" as the rest of us call it :D I did a similar test on a Welsh sheep dog once. The owner said he wasn't sure if the dog knew Welsh or not, so I called "Dere 'ma!" (come here!) and he just ignored me, so we concluded he didn't.
Load More Replies...One man was once constipated for nearly two months.
Bill Gates has donated nearly half his fortune.
Earth won't always have the same North Star.
The majority of your brain is fat.
I read this as the majority of your brain is fart. I’m obviously very mature
Sea otters hold hands while they sleep.
Constipation kills people.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) was decided by a coin toss.
Mr. Clean has a first name - it's Veritably.
As well as Mr Clean, we have a product called Mr Sheen in Australia. When my brother was about 10 he used the music from the jingle and came up with 'I'm Mr Sheen, Mr George WashingmaSheen' and whenever I hear of either Mr Sheen or Mr Clean I can't stop that popping into my head!
Is it furniture polish? We have Mr Sheen polish in the UK. If the adverts are to be believed, he shines umpteen things clean.
Load More Replies...Many feet bones don't harden until you're an adult.
You lose up to 30% of your taste buds during flight.
Pretty sure you don't. They might stop working, but they don't fall off.
Mine fell off and I had half of the cabin chasing them around the plane.
Load More Replies...i believe this is why tomato juice tastes better while on a flight and why so many people order it
Cotton candy was invented by a dentist.
Pigeons can tell the difference between a painting by Monet and Picasso.
Yeah pretty sure anyone can tell when a face is scattered across a canvas like it exploded
Chewing gum boosts concentration.
Space smells like seared steak.
Abraham Lincoln's bodyguard left his post at Ford's Theatre to go for a drink.
C'mon guys, nothing ever happens at the theatre, let's get a drink.......
Load More Replies...Koalas have fingerprints.
If you're not in Australia, I think this creates more problems than it solves
Load More Replies...The Silverback gorilla can lift almost a literal ton.
There is an immortal jellyfish.
Baby blue whales grow 200 pounds per day.
That means their intake has to be equal or more right? Feed conversion ratios and such.
The whale milk has a very thick consistency. The milk is almost solid. The thickness is attributed to the high-fat concentration that can reach up to 50% fat in some whale species. The consistency and texture of the whale milk are compared to that of toothpaste.
Load More Replies...Maine is the only state that borders just one other state.
Umm, no. It is New Hampshire, not Vermont. New Hampshire to the west, Quebec to the north, New Brunswick to the east and Atlantic Ocean the the south.
To be clear, you were replying to Ron Baker, right? Otherwise, your answer plus the order of replies makes you a geographical idiot.
Load More Replies...And if they cut Kansas into 20 pieces it’d be the smallest
Load More Replies...It only borders the state of Vermont, everything else is Canada provinces
Load More Replies...You can learn the High Valyrian language from Game of Thrones with an online course.
Scientists have partially revived disembodied pig brains.
The U.S. almost went to war with Canada over a pig.
Kentucky has more bourbon than people.
Ounces? Barrels? Need more info... found it: https://vinepair.com/booze-news/kentucky-more-bourbon-than-people/
How about that you can't drink bourbon in the county where Jack Daniel's is made?
A chef's hat has exactly 100 pleats.
Stop signs used to be yellow.
Powered lawnmowers kill almost 200 people a year.
Spicy food can cut down on fat intake.
Why, because you can only eat so much of it without your mouth catching fire?
George Washington invented instant coffee.
Wrong. Firstly, it's a different George Washington, and secondly, he invented a freezing process. Alphonse Allais invented instant coffee.
Cap'n Crunch isn't a captain. Instead, he is a commander because of the three stripes on his uniform cuffs.
In the Navy, "captain" is both a rank and a role. One can "captain" a ship, regardless of rank.
Indeed. If a lieutenant is in command, he's still referred to as "captain" by those addressing him.
Load More Replies...The first potato chip flavor was Cheese & Onion.
Seems more likely that it was "burnt potato grease"... the first commercially available one, though...
More human twins are being born now than ever before.
The world wastes about 1 billion metric tons of food each year.
Very sad given that the same amount probably goes hungry each year also.
Only two mammals like spicy food: humans and the tree shrew.
I found the study. They discovered that the tree shrews have a genetic mutation making them less sensitive to capsaicin, which is why they're the only known non-human mammal to be attracted to spicy foods. They speculated that this gives them an advantage by broadening their diet options, since there are a lot of capsaicin-producing plants in their native range.
Load More Replies...Rabbits can't puke.
Fingernails don't grow after you die.
Bees sometimes sting other bees.
The healthiest place to live in the world is in Panama.
Dolphins have been trained to be used in wars.
I think they were trained to attatch magnetic mines to the hulls of enemy ships. Dogs were trained go under tanks, although this failed badly as the dogs recognised the shape of the tanks they were trained with and not the enemy. Russian and Germany can't remember which way round
I saw an interview once with a Japanese-American soldier who had been part of some special military 'projects' during WWII; apparently, they were trying to train military dogs to only attack Japanese people, on the theory that they smelled different from Caucasian people and the dogs would be able to learn the difference. Oddly enough, teaching German Shepherds to be racist didn't work very well. The guy said once the dogs got familiar with them, they stopped being aggressive, and they'd be ordered to beat the dogs to make them attack. I think they ditched the project after less than six months.
Load More Replies...They are trained to do many things, search for mines, plant explosives, assault enemy divers, locate enemy submarines, rescue friendly divers, etc...
Humans are just one of the estimated 8.7 million species on Earth.
A tick bite can make you allergic to red meat.
Only the Lone Star tick. Deer ticks give you Lyme Disease, not meat allergies.
The fire hydrant patent was lost in a fire.
In Germany, people help toads cross the road.
Yeah? And? There are no Germans that run them over? There are no other countries where people are helpful to road-going amphibians?
Yeah, but the Germans organize entire brigades of volunteers in toad migration areas to capture them and move them to safety.
Load More Replies...Cheetahs don’t roar.
France has a dozen time zones.
Danes once bred a pig to look like the flag.
America's first bank robber deposited the money back into the same bank.
There's a device that creates energy from snowfall.
They're not technically creating energy, they're capturing the kinetic energy of the falling snow.
Load More Replies...The word "hipster" goes all the way back to the 1930s.
I thought it related to flasks of booze carried on the hip
Load More Replies...Scientists were able to take a picture of an atom's shadow.
Allergy season is getting longer and more intense each year.
My grandad used to say his hay fever was always better if he had travelled during the year. I wish that was the case for me since I have it year round!
The inventor of Frisbee Golf was turned into a Frisbee.
Disc Golf, and Ed Headrick is the inventor (Father) of the sport. As per Ed Headrick’s wishes, his ashes were incorporated into a limited number of discs. The discs were given to friends and family and the limited remaining discs are for sale with all proceeds going to a 501 c(3) nonprofit to fund the “Steady” Ed Memorial Disc Golf Museum at the PDGA International Disc Golf Center in Columbia County, Georgia.
PEZ comes from the German word for peppermint.
Bananas can't reproduce.
*manufactured bananas can’t reproduce. there’s hundreds of types of bananas, many of which have seeds.
It's why diseases wipe out entire varieties of bananas. They're all genetically identical.
Only Cavendish ones, the kind most consumed in the industrialized world. They're clones and as such are very susceptible to disease.
Brown bottles are better for beer.
The heads on Easter Island have bodies.
The longest wedding veil was the same length as 63.5 football fields.
Kids ask around 300 questions a day.
But why would you count them? What’s the point? Also what day is it tomorrow?
The total weight of ants on earth once equaled the total weight of people.
Ants have a built-in pedometer.
It gives them the ability to navigate easily back to their homes.
Load More Replies...A restaurant in New York employs grandmas as chefs.
Shaq only ever made one three-pointer.
Every time you shuffle a deck of cards, you get a combination that's most likely never existed.
America accidentally dropped an atom bomb on South Carolina in 1958.
If you've ever been to South Carolina, you'll know it wasn't an "accident" LOL
There's an excellent book called 'Command and Control' about the history of nuclear weapons. The number of near-catastrophic accidents and mistakes that have occurred is terrifying.
The hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 2 billion Kelvin.
It takes 364 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.
Vegetables can make you tan.
As an infant I ate so much carrot and squash baby food that I turned orange
Bananas make great water filters.
Goosebumps are meant to ward off predators.
It's an evolutionary leftover. Your skin is trying to make your fur stand on end so you'll look bigger.
The hottest spot on the planet is in Libya.
I guess it's supposed to be "the hottest spot to live in"? Pretty sure you can have a lava spot somewhere that would be hotter? I feel like this list is super vague
Your nostrils work one at a time.
Some people have an extra bone in their knee (and it's getting more common).
The legend of the Loch Ness Monster goes back nearly 1,500 years.
Hitler had a flatulence problem.
Astronauts in space are exposed to the same amount of radiation as 150 to 6,000 chest x-rays.
That's spectacularly vague. It's like saying that a man once lived who was as tall as... well... somewhere between a large pea and a spaceship. Also, as I write this, this entry has amassed 10 points. I need to meet the 10 Pandas who entered this thread with such low expectations that they upvoted this! Good grief. I'm going for a lie down.
Downvoted! Let's get it to the bottom where it belongs, somewhere between 15 and 1300 posts from the top of the list
Load More Replies...Beaver bum goo is occasionally used to enhance vanilla flavorings.
Not their actual feces, the musk from their a**l glands. Close to the butt, not the actual butt.
The bowler hat was invented as safety measure.
There's no such thing as "pear cider".
Pigs are constitutionally protected in Florida.
Why? The difference between Ron DeSantis and a flying pig is the letter "F"
Load More Replies...Trees weren't always biodegradable.
And the forests around Chernobyl still have plants in them that died during and just after the disaster, fully intact. This is because all the microorganisms that generally cause decomposition all died.
There were not the right microbes to digest them. I believe that's why we have Oil
Load More Replies...Women are attracted to the scent of Good & Plenty licorice candy and cucumber.
Coffee pioneer was buried in a coffee pot.
You can grow extra nipples.
You have lines of breast tissue down your chest and an increase in oestrogen can cause them to grow nipples. Some women grow extra nipples when pregnant and lose them again after they stop nursing. It'll be because we have an evolutionary ancestor species that suckled multiple live young at a time, I'd guess.
Load More Replies...Canada once heavily targeted LGBTQ+ individuals.
And sadly it seems some people want to bring it back.
Load More Replies...Studies indicate that garlic possibly attracts vampires.
This study indicates no such thing. What it does indicate is that garlic possibly attracts leeches.
Come to think of it, that'll be the perfect cover if vampires spread rumors that they are warded off my garlic...they've had centuries to make it seem feasible.
