They say you cannot outrun a bear. True, but don’t panic, usually it
is enough to outrun the slowest member of your hiking group.
Sharks pee through their skin.
In England, you are not allowed to put a stamp with the queen
upside down on an envelope or a post card.
Every year, 350 people in Paris slip on a dog poo and are hurt so
badly they have to be taken to a hospital.
Otto the Great (Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 962) always
swore by his beard when he wanted to say something important.
***Dublin, 1875 - Malone‘s Malt house caught fire. 5,000 barrels of whisky
burst and a river of whiskey ran down the street. The incident resulted
in 13 casualties. Not from the fire but form the alcohol poisoning.
Persia (Iran today ) had ice cream already around 500 BC. They used a
special chilling structure called Yakhchal to create chilled fruit
juice, honey, and honey mixes. They would bring in snow and ice in the
winter and place it in the underground storage spaces of the dome-shaped
Yakhchal (which was often up to 60 feet tall). The Yakhchal would
channel heat up through its shape with the aid of windcatchers and keep
things chilly even in the summer heat.
In the 18th century, Benjamin Lay temporarily kidnapped the child of a
slave-owner to show him what it feels like when your relatives are sold
overseas.
Sharks can grow up to 50,000 teeth in their lifetime.
There are approximately 100,000 hairs on an average human head.
The word phonetic is not phonetic.
There’s one place where bribes won’t get you anywhere.
The public restroom line.
There are far more airplanes under the sea than
submarines up in the air!
People say “bless you” when you sneeze because this was often the first sign
of plague in medieval times.
So it is basically like saying “Well I hope you don’t die of that.Dark fun fact: There are far more airplanes under the
sea than there are submarines in the sky.
The distance between the fingertips of your left and your right
hand when you stretch out your arms to the sides are equal to your height.
We collected funny idioms from other
languages
When you’re chewing, you’re only moving your lower jaw.
There is an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe. That’s 13
galaxies for every living person. Averaging 100 billion stars per galaxy,
that’s 1,3 trillion stars, for you alone.
More people get hurt every year through using drink
dispensers than through shark attacks. A cockroach can survive up to 9 days without its head.
If there was a tunnel that would go straight through the Earth from one side
to the other and you jumped in it, it would take you 42 minutes to emerge on
the other side.
It is forbidden to die in the British Parliament.
The anniversary of Curiosity, the Mars rover’s landing is pretty
sentimental. On this day, the lonely Mars rover performs a special task: It
sings "Happy Birthday" to itself, all alone. Here’s how it sounds:External
link
Elephants are the only mammals that cannot jump.
The brain of an ostrich is smaller than either of its eyes.
More people get attacked every year by a cow than by a shark.
All the planets in our solar system would fit in the space between the Earth
and the Moon.
Drinking alcohol or taking any drug is basically you poisoning yourself.
Speaking slowly and slurring after a drink, puking or sleeping is the body’s
reaction intended to help you overcome the effects of the poison.
An infinite number of $1 notes and an infinite number of $50 notes would
amount to the same value.
Crunchy food goes soft when you leave it out for a while; soft food goes
crunchy when you leave it out for a while.
A healthy human thigh bone is tougher than concrete.
In Israel, more turkey meat is consumed per capita than anywhere else in the
world.
The world’s oldest person lives with over 7 billion people who were not
around when he/she was born.
We are lucky that fingerprints are so unique in every individual – otherwise
forensic science and security identification devices would have to focus on
tongues instead, because like fingerprints, everybody’s tongue print looks
different.
USA: Illinois (Oblong): If you go hunting or fishing on your wedding day,
you cannot have intercourse that day.
It was as late as January 2015 when London reached the size of its pre-WW2
population.
The red Santa Claus as we know him was created by Haddon Sundblom for a Coke
advertisment in 1931.
If the people are alive, we say ‘head count’, if they’re not, we say 'body
count.’
If you order a large tea at a coffee shop, the tea bag is the same – you
just pay for the extra water.
When you cut a hole in your fishing net, it has fewer holes.
If you were looking for a scientific name for the old gossiper, it is
quidnunc.
It is illegal to buy alcohol on a Sunday before 12 o’clock in New York
State. Pennsylvania, USA, has a law which bans you from sleeping on a fridge.
Apple cores contain cyanide.
The left-handed comprise 11% of the world’s population.
Japan now has a new class of citizens – the cyber homeless. They live in
cyber cafes because it is cheaper than an apartment. The cafes oblige with
free showers and even sell underwear.
You better watch what you’re bringing into the United Arab Emirates, their
laws against drug trafficking are so strict, you will get in trouble just
for having something containing poppy seeds on you.
You could stack 4 cars on top of the Tesla Model S and its roof wouldn’t
cave in, it achieved the highest safety ranking in automobile history.
In France, you are not allowed to kiss on railroad crossings.
Since 2013, the first royal child is heir to the British throne, regardless
of its sex.
Not very funny: In Lebanon, victims of rape are required by law to marry
their rapist.
A Ukranian engineer, Vladimir Tatarenko, developed an airplane which can
drop the passenger section in an emergency – the passenger cabin then lands
independently on parachutes.
Most countries ban or at least limit firearms – not so Svalbard, a Norwegian
chain of islands where, due to the local population of polar bears, firearms
are officially heavily recommended.
Justo Gallego Martínez, a former monk born in 1925 who had to leave his
order because of his tuberculosis, has been building a cathedral since 1961,
mostly by himself or with the help of his nephews, a local guy and the
occasional volunteer. He works every day, except on Sundays, for 10 hours
since 6 a.m.
One London supermarket has an undesired mascot. It’s a ginger cat named
Olly who keeps on coming back every time the security removes him. He’s
happy to just sit on top of the shelves and judge disapprovingly what you’re
putting in your trolley.
Akon the rapper brought solar energy to more than 1 million African
people and hasn’t stopped yet.
The official name for when your hairs stand on end is „piloerection“.
The longest average lifespan can be boasted by the people of Andorra, a
country between Spain and France – 83.49 years.
Every year, more people die because they’ve been hit by a flying champagne
cork than because they’ve been bitten by a venomous spider.
In Austria, you can get a speeding ticket based on the police officer’s
estimate of your speed, provided it is not more than 30 km/h over the speed
limit.
Shakira can speak 7 languages.
Research indicates that siblings may have more say in who we become than
our parents.
In Switzerland, you are not allowed to hang your washing to dry outside on
Sunday.
In Switzerland, it is an offence to mow your lawn on Sunday – it’s just too
noisy. For the same reason, you aren’t allowed to drop glass bottles and
cans into public recycling bins on Sundays. If all this quietness (see ban
on toilet flushing and stand-up peeing after 10 pm) gets too much, it may
cheer you that euthanasia is legal in Switzerland.
In the 1960s, the UK sold off an island called Diego Garcia in the Indian
Ocean to the US who intended to build a military base there. The island was
supposed to be depopulated, so the UK used some very brow-raising tactics to
remove the 2,000-odd Chagossians who lived there, including limited food and
medical supplies or the killing of their pets.
The National Academy of Science provided a free science facts hotline that
is available to both professional and amateur film makers, video game
developers and people engaged in TV projects. The purpose of the hotline is
to have more scientifically accurate films.
