A Bunch Of Strange But True Stuff

85 Facts That Sound Absurd But Are Actually True

Maybe this is a little long, and maybe all of this is true, or maybe it’s not, or maybe some of it is true… or maybe… well, just read it and choose for yourself.

1. If you put your finger in your ear and scratch, it sounds just like Pac-Man.

2. The YKK on your zipper stands for “Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikigaisha.”

3. Maine is the closest U.S. state to Africa.

4. Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barbara Walters were born in the same year, 1929.

5. The name Jessica was created by Shakespeare in the play Merchant of Venice.

6. Cleopatra lived closer to the invention of the iPhone than to the building of the Great Pyramid.

7. Russia has a larger surface area than Pluto.

8. Saudi Arabia imports camels from Australia.

9. Hippo milk is pink.

10. The toy Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.

11. Woody from Toy Story has a full name too — it’s Woody Pride.

12. And while we’re at it, Mr. Clean’s full name is Veritably Clean.

13. Oh, and Cookie Monster’s real name is Sid.

14. Carrots were originally purple.

15. The heart of a blue whale is so big a human can swim through the arteries.

16. Vending machines are twice as likely to kill you as a shark is.

17. Home Alone was released closer to the moon landing than it was to today.

18. Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.

19. Not once in the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme does it mention that he’s an egg.

20. France was still executing people with a guillotine when the first Star Wars film came out.

21. Armadillos nearly always give birth to identical quadruplets.

22. Betty White is actually older than sliced bread.

23. The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland.

24. A strawberry isn’t a berry but a banana is.

25. So are avocados and watermelon.

26. New York City is further south than Rome, Italy.

27. North Korea and Finland are separated by one country.

28. Mammoths were alive before the Great Pyramid was built and went extinct 1,000 years after the Egyptians finished building the Great Pyramid.

29. There are more fake flamingos in the world than real flamingos.

30. Nintendo was founded as a trading card company back in 1889.

31. The man who voiced Fry on Futurama, Billy West, also voiced Doug on Doug.

32. The last time the Chicago Cubs won the baseball World Series, the Ottoman Empire still existed.

33. And lollipops had not yet been invented.

34. And women did not have the right to vote in the United States.

35. If you shrunk the sun down to the size of a white blood cell and shrunk the Milky Way Galaxy down using the same scale, it would be the size of the continental United States.

36. John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States, has a grandson who is alive today.

37. Will Smith is now older than Uncle Phil was at the beginning of The Fresh Prince.

38. The show the The Wonder Years aired from 1988–1993 and covered the years 1968–1973. Today, in 2014, if one were to make a similar show, it would cover the years 1994–1999.

39. Humans share 50% of their DNA with bananas.

40. Duck Hunt is a two-player game. Player two controls the ducks.

41. The difference in time between when Tyrannosaurus Rex and Stegosaurus lived is greater than the difference in time between Tyrannosaurus Rex and now.

42. One more fact about the Cubs: The last time they won the World Series, Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, and New Mexico were not yet states.

43. Speaking of Alaska — it’s simultaneously the most northern, the most western, and the most eastern state in the U.S.

44. Pluto never made a full orbit around the sun from the time it was discovered to when it was declassified as a planet. It has not had its 1^st birthday.

45. A thousand seconds is about 16 minutes.

46. A million seconds is about 11 days.

47. A billion seconds is about 32 years.

48. And one trillion seconds is about 32,000 years. A trillion is a lot.

49. But the good news is: Honey never spoils. You can eat 32,000-year-old honey.

50. There are more stars in space than there are grains of sand on every beach on Earth.

51. And there’s enough water in Lake Superior to cover all of North and South America in one foot of water.

52. There are more public libraries than McDonald’s in the U.S.

53. For every human on Earth there are approximately 1.6 million ants. The total weight of all those ants is approximately the same as the total weight of all the humans on Earth.

54. An octopus has three hearts.

55. Mario hits blocks with his hand, not his head.

56. The CEO of Food For The Poor is named Robin Mahfood.

57. One in every 5,000 babies is born with a condition known as “imperforate anus.” This means the baby is born without an anus and has to have one created manually in the hospital.

58. You can’t hum while holding your nose.

59. It rains diamonds on Saturn and Jupiter.

60. If a piece of paper were folded 42 times, it would reach to the moon.

61. The pyramids were as old to the Romans as the Romans are to us.

62. If you dug a hole to the center of the Earth and dropped a book down, it would take 42 minutes to reach the bottom.

63. There are 10 times more bacteria in your body than actual body cells.

64. And 90% of the cells that make us up of aren’t human but mostly fungi and bacteria.

65. Every two minutes, we take more pictures than all of humanity.

67. When you get a kidney transplant, they usually just leave the original kidneys in your body and put the 3^rd kidney in your pelvis.

68. The founder of math.com, Gary Kremen, lost his girlfriend to a man she met on match.com.

69. We went to the moon before we thought to put wheels on suitcases.

70. It is possible for a professional mimic to forget his voice.

71. If you have 23 people in the same room, there is a 50% chance that 2 of them will the same birthday.

72. The lighter was invented before the match.

73. Can openers weren’t invented until 50 years after the invention of the can.

74. The Mongolian Navy consist of a tugboat with a seven man crew, and only one of them can swim.

75. Reno is West of LA as are 6 state capitals.

76. The first major engagement of the US Civil War started in a man’s back yard and ended in the same man’s parlor.

77. Elephants can control their privet parts like a second trunk.

78. The introduction of boxing gloves lead to a steep increase of concussions.

79. Every day there are 6 years’ worth of video being published on YouTube.

80. The red liquid from raw meet is not blood, it is myoglobin.

81. We have better maps of the the surface of Mars than of our own ocean floor.

82. Pirates wore an eye patch so that when they went below deck they could change to patcth to see better in the dark.

83. Hippo milk is pink.

84. Most toilets flush in E-Flat.

85. If you stared out with a penny and were able to double your money you would be a millionaire in less than a month.

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