There are some things that are extremely hard to believe, even if they are true. That’s what’s going on with these 60 facts. Every single one of them is 100% true, yet, they all sound like lies. From the shocking size of blue whale hearts to the surprise reveal of Cookie Monster’s real name, this list includes all sorts of obscure info.
If you are a little skeptical of these facts at first, we totally understand. However, that’s the whole point. No one in their right mind would think that they are true. Yet, we assure you, they all are. Just in case you don’t believe us, we’ve included the sources to back them up. Which one of these crazy things that sound like lies is the most surprising to you?
1. The first carrots in the world were purple.
They originated in the region of the world that is currently occupied by Afghanistan. There were a mix of yellow and
purple carrots. The yellow ones became the ones that spread to the west and now dominate today. Over thousands of years, they transformed from yellow to orange. The purple ones spread to Asia in the east.
2. Earthworms have between five and ten hearts.
It varies based on how you define a heart.
Earthworms have five aortic arch pairs or ten single aortic arches Their hearts are much different than human hearts though. Each earthworm heart only has one chamber, whereas human hearts have multiple chambers.
3. Blue whale hearts are so big that a human could swim through the arteries.
Imagine zipping through the inside of a
90-foot-long, 40,000 pound blue whale. Their arteries are absolutely gigantic and so are their
hearts. A blue whale heart weighs around 640 times as much as a human heart.
4. The fingerprints of humans and koalas are indistinguishable under a microscope.
If you zoom in really close using an electron microscope, it would be very difficult to tell which species’ fingerprints you were studying. Both humans and
koalas have very similar ridges and swirling patterns. A trained professional wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.
5. The full name of a Barbie doll is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
Barbie is the doll’s
nickname. The toy was named after inventor Ruth Handler’s daughter. Ken dolls were named after Handler’s son— Ken.
6. Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backward.
They can also hover. They move similar to how a helicopter does. While other birds can move backward with the assistance of the wind, the
hummingbird is the only type that can do it solely with the power of its wings.
7. Saudi Arabia actually has to import camels from Australia.
It is one of the most iconic animal species in the region. Everyone associates
camels with their desert country. However, they don’t have enough of their own to meet their demand. Many have to be imported from other places.
8. You are likely drinking dinosaur pee every day.
Anyone who consumes water is drinking
molecules that at one point resided in a dinosaur’s body. In fact, there are molecules from almost all ancient beasts in water. It doesn’t matter where the water is sourced from.
9. Pineapples grow on stems like flowers.
Just look at the picture for proof. They don’t grow on trees or on stems on the ground like watermelons. They actually sprout up from the middle of the plant like big heavy flowers.
10. Humans share 50% of their DNA with bananas.
All life on earth is much more related than some realize. Even plants like
bananas share as much as 50% of their DNA with us. The blueprints for all plants and animals are surprisingly similar.
11. The real name of Cookie Monster is Sid.
Before he began his cookie habit, the blue shaggy
Muppet was just a normal guy named Sid. After tasting his first cookie, his life totally changed. He was hooked from the start.
12. Honey remains edible for thousands of years.
Some say it lasts forever. Either way, its shelf life is incredibly long due to honey’s low PH, low water content, and antibacterial properties. There have been vats of
honey found in ancient tombs in Egypt that are still just as good as new.
13. Vending machines are more likely to kill you than sharks are.
A vending machine is twice as likely to inflict deadly harm. Vending machine
accidents result in one death per 112 million people every year. Sharks result in one death per 250 million people yearly.
14. Days on the planet Venus last longer than their years.
The planet rotates very slowly. A day on
Venus equals 243 Earth days. A Venusian year equals 224.7 Earth days. Venus has the slowest rotation of any planet in our solar system.
15. Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.
The institution began teaching pupils in the year 1096. By contrast, the Aztec empire didn’t found their first city at Tenochtitlan until 1325.
Oxford was already a full-fledged university at that point.
16. On Jupiter and Saturn, it occasionally rains diamonds.
Talk about some heavy rains!
Diamonds fall from the sky on these planets like hailstones. The biggest ones are approximately a centimeter in diameter, or in other words, big enough for a ring.
17. There is no evidence that Humpy Dumpty was an egg.
It never mentions that he was an egg in the nursery rhyme. Although, that’s how artists have represented him in depictions. One of the first times
Humpty Dumpty was described as an egg was in Lewis Carol’s book
Looking Through The Glass, published in 1871.
18. Space ships don’t travel in straight lines.
Most people imagine them flying straight from the Earth to the Moon. However, they actually
travel in complex ellipticals. It’s due to the complicated field of orbital mechanics.
19. France was still executing people with guillotines up until the 1970s.
The last execution by guillotine in France occurred in 1977. The
method hadn’t changed since the French Revolution. It involved a sharp blade falling and slicing through a person’s neck.
20. If there was a tunnel through the earth that went all the way to the other side, it would take 42 minutes to fall through.
If you jumped in the
hole and somehow managed to not get burnt up flying through the hot molten core of the earth, you would be free-falling for the better part of an hour. In comparison, skydiving involves free-falling for only about 50 seconds until the parachute is pulled.
21. Armadillos always give birth to identical quadruplets.
They have four babies at once and they always look exactly the same as each other. A single fertilized
Armadillo egg splits into four embryos. An armadillo can only carry one egg at a time.
22. Cleopatra was closer in time to the moon landings than she was to the building of the pyramids.
Most of the pyramids were built thousands of years prior to her birth.
Cleopatra reined over Egypt from 69 BC to 10 BC. She was the last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty.
23. Actress Betty White is older than sliced bread.
The first pre-sliced loaves of
bread were sold in 1928. Meanwhile,
Betty White had already been alive for six years. The actress was born in 1922 and went on to have an 80+ year career in television.
24. There is cell service on the peak of Mount Everest.
Nepalese cell companies recently installed a high-altitude 3G tower at 5200 meters. It provides
service for all of the hikers and people operating at the base camps. You can text your friends and family at the top of the mountain, that is if you dare to take off your gloves up there.
25. The national animal of Scotland is the unicorn.
Technically, there is no proof that unicorns exist. Yet, the Scots celebrate a rich mythological history. The
unicorn is an important feature of many Scottish legends.
26. The sinking of the Titanic was predicted in a fiction book.
The book was called the
Wreck of the Titan and it was
written fourteen years prior. It featured a ship named Titan that was eerily similar to the Titanic sinking under similar circumstances. In the story, the ship hit an iceberg.
27. Bananas are considered berries but raspberries aren’t.
It’s hard to believe, especially since raspberries have the word berry in the name. However, it’s true. Strawberries and raspberries are actually considered aggregate fruits.
Bananas, on the other hand, stem from a single flower, making them berries.
28. A Roman emperor once declared war on Poseidon and ordered soldiers to throw spears into the ocean.
His name was
Caligula. He went down in history after declaring war on the god of the seas — Poseidon. He became known as the mad emperor for his crazy actions.
29. New York City is located further south than Rome, Italy.
If you compare them side by side based on
latitude, Rome is positioned at 41 degrees while NYC is positioned at 40 degrees. Rome is further to the North than most people think. In fact, all of Europe is.
30. Humans take more photos every two minutes than they did the entire 19th century.
In the digital age, taking
photos is easier than ever. Just a few hundred years ago, photos required all sorts of expensive equipment to produce. So much has changed in recent years.
31. Mammoths didn’t go extinct until 1000 years after the Great Pyramid was built.
They survived up until 3600 years ago. In the grand scheme of things, that’s relatively recent.
Mammoths weren’t just limited to the Ice Age as many believe.
32. Diet Coke cans float while regular Coke cans sink.
It’s due to the sugar content of regular Coca Cola. It makes it much
heavier. The density of regular Coke is higher than water while the density of Diet Coke isn’t.
33. Fake flamingos outnumber real flamingos.
There are more of the pink garden
flamingo statues than there are actual flamingos in the world. They are made out of plastic. They have been a very popular lawn item in the USA ever since the first ones were made in 1957.
34. One in ten Icelanders will publish books in their lifetime.
In Iceland, authors are everywhere. Everyone has at least a few writers among their friends and family. The country produces the most
books per capita of anywhere in the world.
35. Nintendo originally began as a trading card company.
The company had a very long history before they ever made their first gaming consoles. It was started all the way back in 1889 in Kyoto, Japan. It was initially called
Nintendo Koppai.
36. Majority of the energy used by microwaves happens when they aren’t cooking anything.
99% of the energy consumed by
microwaves actually happens when the appliance is idling in standby. That energy is mainly used to power the digital clock. Cooking things takes surprisingly little energy in comparison.
37. The man who played the voice of Doug on Doug also did the voice of Fry on Futurama.
The voices sound completely different. It’s hard to believe it’s the same guy speaking behind the scenes. However, it’s true. His real name is
Billy West.
38. The last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series, the Ottoman Empire still existed.
The Ottoman Empire was at its height of power in the 16th and 17th centuries. Although, it continued up until 1922. The
Cubs won the World Series last in 1908.
39. A glass of water has more molecules than there are glasses of water on earth.
You could scoop up glasses of
water from all of the oceans and the total still wouldn’t match the number of molecules in a single glass. The number of molecules in a tablespoon of water is approximately 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
40. The 10th president of the USA, John Tyler, has two living grandsons.
John Tyler’s presidency lasted from 1841 to 1845. He passed away in 1862. However, in his lifetime, he had 15 children. Two of his
grandkids are still alive to this day.
41. The dot above an i is called a “tittle”.
The one over top of a j is called a
tittle as well. Many other languages have tittles for various letters. Although, the word tittle itself is rarely if ever used in real life.
42. Alaska is the most northern, western, and eastern US state.
Most people can understand the northern and western part. However,
Alaska is the most eastern state as well due to the Aleutian Islands. They belong to the state’s territory.
43. Turtles can breathe out of their butts.
Technically, it’s not their butts per se, but it is located in that region. The breathing happens through a rear vent called a
cloaca. In most turtles, it only contributes a small amount to overall respiration.
44. Pluto never actually completed a full orbit during its time as a planet.
It was discovered in 1930. However, it takes
Pluto 248 years to complete one orbit of the sun. It was declassified as a planet well before it reached a full cycle.
45. Peanuts are not nuts.
Despite the name,
peanuts are actually more closely related to beans. They belong to the legume family. It’s because they grow in the ground.
46. A thousand seconds is only 16 minutes.
If you think about it, a thousand seconds is actually a very short period of time. There are 60 seconds in a minute. 1000 seconds equals 16.66 minutes. It’s just simple math.
47. Over 90% of the cells in the human body are not human.
They are microbes such as bacteria and fungi cells. Only a small portion of the cells in the
body are actually ours. The human body is essentially a giant planet for millions of other lifeforms.
48. There are more stars than grains of sand on earth.
A conservative estimate puts the number of stars in the universe at 10 billion billion stars (10 sextillion). Meanwhile, there are approximately 5 sextillion grains of
sand on all of earth’s beaches combined. These are rough estimates.
49. If you fold a piece of paper 42 times, its height would reach the moon.
Although, it’s physically impossible to do so. Every time you fold a piece of
paper, it doubles in thickness. The number gets bigger exponentially. After 42 times, it would be equal to an unfathomable amount of pieces of paper stacked on top of each other.
50. Lake Superior has enough water to cover all of North and South America.
It would be one foot deep if spread out over that distance. It’s an incredible amount of water.
Lake Superior is the world’s largest freshwater lake.
51. It’s almost impossible to hum while holding your nose.
Try it for yourself and see. It’s the equivalent of trying to talk while holding your breath. There just isn’t an easy way to do it…
52. The USA has more public libraries than it does McDonald’s.
People like to hate on the fast-food culture in the United States. However, the country balances out the good and the bad. There is also an amazing amount of public
libraries in the USA as well.
53. One in 5000 babies is born without an anus.
The doctors then have to create one manually in the hospital. It’s a condition called
imperforate anus. It means the anus didn’t develop properly before birth.
54. The amount of humans and ants on earth weigh the same.
There are about 1.6 million ants for every human. They might be tiny creatures, but their combined weight is huge. The total
weight of all of the ants on the planet is approximately the same as the total weight of all of the people.
55. There is a charity called Food For The Poor who’s CEO is named Robin Mahfood.
His name literally sounds like “robbing my food”. It’s a pretty hilarious coincidence. However, it’s also very fitting. You could say the
man was destined for the job.
56. Octopus have three hearts.
In addition, each
octopus has eight arms. Apparently, it has no tentacles. An arm is only considered a tentacle if its suckers are located at the tip. The octopus has suckers located along the entire length of the arm.
57. Mario punches blocks with his hands.
A lot of people think the Nintendo character hits them with his head. However, it’s not true. Only Luigi hits the blocks with his head.
Mario puts his fist up in the air.
58. If you scratch back and forth on the inside of your ear, it sounds like Pac-Man.
Put your finger in your ear and move it around. You’ll see what we mean. It sounds just like Pac-Man navigating through the maze and eating dots.
59. The closest US state to Africa is Maine.
It’s a mind-bender. After all,
Maine is one of the northernmost states. However, it is located farther to the west than the other states as well.
60. Shakespeare invented the name Jessica in one of his plays.
He made it up, or at least, that is the first documented case of its use. The
name was featured in his play
Merchant of Venice. It probably originated from the biblical name Jescha.
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