I ca n’t conceive there ’s a word for the blob of toothpaste you put on your toothbrush …
I don’t know about anyone else, but I love learning interesting, bizarre, and straight-up weird facts about anything and everything. (In fact, it’s quite a conversation starter.) That said, here are some wacky, intriguing, strange, and somewhat funny facts that sound somewhat fake but are entirely true:
1.Germany has more castles than there are McDonald’s in the United States. Yep, you heard that right. Germany is estimated to have25,000castles, and there are around13,000McDonald’s locations in America.
2.In Washington state, there’s a real-life law stating it’sillegalto kill Bigfoot and other sasquatch-like creatures. And you know what? Good for them.
3.Dogsare one of the three deadliest animals in the UK. The other two are bees and cows.
4.Sloths are slow in everything they do — including digestion. Because they digest foods so slowly, they basically have tobreathe out their fartsbecause they can’t actually fart.
5.There are caves in Missouri that store 1.4 billion pounds ofgovernment-owned cheese. Located deep in the Ozark Mountains in limestone-converted mines, the caves are kept at a perfect 36ºF. As someone who’s lactose intolerant, my stomach is in knots just thinking about it.
6.This one actually made me do a double-take: Cornflakes were invented tosuppresssexual impulses and desires.
7.Cockroach dust plays a part in why so many inner-city children haveasthma.
8.A single cloud can weigh about550 tonsor more.
9.Believe it or not, Canadians eat more Kraftmacaroni and cheesethan Americans. Like, 55% more.
10.Giraffes in the wild only sleep for aroundfive minutesat a time. Because of the dangers they face in the wild, not only do they sleep while standing, but they also sleep intermittently so that they’re prepared to run at any given moment. If keeping watch for a giraffe as they slept was a job, I’d apply in a heartbeat.
11.Snoop Dogg’s government name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr.
12.Despite being four inches long, the mantis shrimp throws the fastest punch in the world.
13.In Switzerland, owning only one guinea pig or parrot isillegal.
14.If you’re drunk or violent in Japan, police will take a plastic sheet androll you uplike a burrito.
15.If they wanted to, Clownfish couldchange their sex, including reproductive organs, through an irreversible process.
16.No one commits to the bit better than Toni Collete. When she was a teen,she faked having appendicitisto get out of going to school so well that she actually got her appendix taken out.
17.There’s a rare neurological disorder calledAlice in Wonderland Syndrome, which is a condition related to how you perceive your body, the world around you, or both.
18.A grizzly bear’s bite is strong enough tocrush a bowling ball, but that won’t stop my first instinct from being, “Aww, look how cute!”
19.Twice a month, the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport brings inminiature horsesto help calm the nerves of people with flying anxiety.
20.Male ducks havecorkscrew-shapedpenises.
21.Miss Piggy’s original name was going to bePiggy Lee.
22.If you say you’re not afraid of anything, I have some news for you: Humans are innately born with thefear of falling and loud noises. Whatever other fears one may have are shaped or learned with experience.
23.Considering gelatin is made up of animalskin and bones, gummy worms technically have more bones than actual worms (since worms don’t have any).
24.Lady Gaga, bless her heart, once spent $50K on aghost detector.
25.To protect themselves from their super-strong pecks, woodpeckerswrap their tonguesaround their brains. What a cool party trick.
26.For her role inWinter’s Bone, Jennifer Lawrencelearned how to skin a squirrel.
27.Pound cakeis called that because the original recipe used one pound of each ingredient.
28.In the Great Barrier Reef, there’s acoral reefthat’s taller than the Empire State Building.
29.Male giraffes will taste a female giraffe’s urine to see if she isready to mate. Even in the animal kingdom, men cannot mind their business.
30.On average, lightning strikes Earth100 timesper second.
31.It saddens me to report that Winnie the Pooh wasbanned from a Polish playgroundbecause the honey-obsessed bear doesn’t wear pants. As if it’s his fault!
32.Attempting to get kids to eat more vegetables, McDonald’s engineerbubblegum-flavored broccoli. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t a hit.
33.Blue whales are the baddies of the ocean (sorry, orcas), and if I were a sea creature, I would never, ever tussle with one, especially considering a blue whale’s tongue alone canweigh more than an elephant.
34.Due to their genes, redheads may need about 20%more anesthesiathan non-redheads.
35.I literally never thought about Barbie being called anything other than Barbie, but herfull nameis Barbara Millicent Roberts.
36.There are more possiblechess game variationsthan atoms in the universe.
37.The warty comb jellyfishdoesn’t have an anus, so when it needs to poop, its gut fuses with an outer layer of its “skin” to create a hole in its body. After the deed is done, the hole closes right back up.
38.In Thailand, there’s an annualMonkey Buffet Festivalwhere residents of Lopburi leave 4.5 tons of fruit, veggies, and other treats to honor the approximately 3,000 monkeys that live near the Phra Prang Sam Yot temple. Way better than Coachella, IMO.
39.I was pleased to find out that abuttloadis an actual unit of measurement! One buttload is equivalent to 126 gallons of wine.
40.Back in the day, Victoriansate arsenicto get a paler complexion.
41.There’s a church decorated with thebones of 40,000 peoplein Czechia.
42.Sharks were roaming the planetbefore Saturn’s ringsformed. With this information, this is a shark’s world, and we’re all just living in it.
43.There are morefake flamingosin the world than real ones.
44.Humans typically produce0.5 to 1.5 liters of salivaevery day.
45.Crocodiles cangalloplike horses do.
46.If you’re afraid to go into the ocean because of sharks, you might want to avoid hotel hallways and break rooms, because vending machines aretwice as likelyto kill you.
47.Though dead bones are dry and brittle, living bones arewet and a bit soft.In order to absorb pressure, bones are also slightly flexible. Up to one-third of a living bone’s weight is water.
48.“Gnurr” is the term used to describe the lint that collects at the bottom of your pockets.
49.Scotland’snational animalis a unicorn.
50.The closest US state to Africa isMaine.
51.If you sneeze uncontrollably after being suddenly exposed to bright light or intense sunlight, you might have inherited a genetic trait calledAchoo Syndrome.
52.Armadillos almost always give birth toidentical quadruplets.
53.As long as you legally obtain human flesh or limbs,cannibalism is allowedin the Netherlands.
54.The short-horned lizardsquirts bloodout of its eyes — at a distance of up to three feet — to confuse predators. However, the blood contains a chemical that makes dogs, wolves, and coyotes noxious. Love that.
55.A rainbow on Venus is called a"glory."
56.Frogsuse their eyesto help them swallow their meals. When a frog swallows food, its eyes pull down to the roof of their mouth to help push the food down its throat.
57.Human brains are constantly eating themselves. To “cleanse” the system, cells will smother and consume smaller cells or molecules in a process calledphagocytosis.
58.The fear of long words is calledhippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. After seeing that, I’m scared, too.
59.Ants don’t have lungs. Instead, they breathe through tiny holes on the sides of their bodies calledspiracles.
60.When lightning strikes, the air it passes through can reach up to 50,000ºF —five times hotterthan the sun’s surface.
61.Due to thermal expansion, the Eiffel Tower can “grow” up tosix inchesin the summer.
62.Tigers don’t just have striped fur but skin, too! If you were to shave a tiger, you’d findidentical striped markingsas if they were tattoos.
63.If you go to the sky deck of the Willis Tower in Chicago on a clear day, you can seefour other US states: Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
64.Ablue whale’s heartbeatcan be heard from two miles away.
65.Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins. Dolphins must come to the surface almost every 10 minutes, but sloths can hold their breath for 20 minutes or more byslowing down their heart rates.
66.Before toiler paper,corn cobswere used as a method of wiping.
67.This one might unsettle you, butsnails have teeth. Snails can have up to 1,000 to 12,000 teeth. I don’t know what they need those for, but good for them! I hope they have snail dentists, then.
68.While she was a teenager during World War II, Queen Elizabeth II became a junior officer in the Auxiliary Territorial Service and became atrained mechanic.
69.The real name of a hashtag is actuallyoctothorpe.
70.Due to the anatomy of their neck muscles and spine, pigscannot look up to the sky.Imagine being a pig and never knowing that there is a whole world above you. BRB, gonna cry for a sec.
71.For most people, it’s impossible to lick their elbows. (Go ahead, try it.)
72.A French general gave John Quincy Adams an alligator as a gift. The gator was kept in one of theWhite House’s bathtubs.
73.Ostriches havebigger eyes than they do brains.In fact, among all land animals, ostriches have the biggest eyes.
74.A dentistinvented the electric chairas a method for execution. Simply put, I’m glad I wasn’t his patient.
75.Like fingerprints, human tongues also have uniquetongueprints.
76.If you’ve ever wondered what to call that blob of toothpaste you squeeze onto your toothbrush, it’s called anurdle.
77.Animals process time differently depending on their size. Research suggests thatsmaller animalslike mice and lizards process time faster than larger animals like elephants and giraffes. This is also true about animals that fly and marine predators. Due to fast-paced lifestyles, these animals have visual systems that take in changes at higher and faster rates.
78.Competitive artwas considered a sport for the first four decades of the modern Olympics. Artists could earn medals for painting, architecture, sculpting, and music.
79.From 1924–1954,stop signsused to be yellow. At the time, red dyes faded after a while, so the American Association of State Highway Officials went with yellow dye, which didn’t fade. It wasn’t until the 1950s that sign makers began using fade-resistant enamel.
80.If you thought Abraham Lincoln wasn’t fascinating enough, the dude is honored in theWrestling Hall of Fame. He often competed in wrestling matches when he was younger and rarely lost. In 1992, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame formally inducted the former president as an “Outstanding American.” There’s even a mural of Lincoln inside the Hall of Fame museum in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
81.If you’ve ever used a reindeer and a caribou in the same sentence, thinking you were referencing different animals (I’m definitely guilty), I’m sorry to announce that they’re thesame species.
82.Among the world’s five ocean basins, the Atlantic Ocean takes the cake as thesaltiest.
83.The inside of a Kit Kat is made up of a small amount of otherKit Kats, usually ones that cannot be sold.
84.Unfortunately, George Washington diednot knowingdinosaurs existed. The first and former president died in 1799, while the first official description of dinosaurs happened in 1842. Sad.
85.Humans don’t always see their noses because our brainsfilter out"useless" things to better grasp our surroundings.
86.A polar bear’s fur isn’t actually white; it’stranslucent. It only appears white because it reflects visible light.
87.It’s certainly possible to use sign language with anaccent.
88.Australia iswiderthan the moon. The moon’s diameter is around 2,112 miles, while Australia’s is 2,485 miles.
89.Thefastest-movingmuscle in the human body is the eyes. It’s called the orbicularis oculi, and we have one in each eye.
90.The Olympic rings were first produced in 1913, and they were designed toincludeall participating nations. The rings' colors, along with the white background, reflect the colors found on all of the countries' flags. How wholesome!
91.There was once a French king who believed he wasmade of glass. King Charles IV had a psychiatric disorder called “Glass Delusion” and thought that he would shatter if anyone touched him.
92.Beer wasbannedin Iceland until 1989.
93.Oscar the Grouch fromSesame Steetwasoriginally orangeinstead of green. In the show’s first season, Oscar was orange partly due to some limitations of colorized TV at the time. It wasn’t until season 2 that he turned green.
94.If you ever wondered where the term “honeymoon” came from, itoriginatedin the Middle Ages. When there was a newly married couple, they’d be supplied enough honey wine to last the first month of their marriage.
95.Due to increased blood flow to the fingertips, human fingernails grow faster during summertime.
96.Illinois is known as thepumpkin capitalof the United States.
97.A housefly’s feet are 10 million timesmore sensitivethan a human tongue.
98.Californiaexperiencesover 100,000 earthquakes a year. Thankfully, though, many of them are minor or are barely felt at all!
99.Every year, Norway gifts London a huge Christmas tree, which is then decorated and displayed in Trafalgar Square. The tree serves as athank-you giftfor all the help the UK gave Norway during WWII.
100.Owls sometimesswallowtheir food whole.
101.The average Swiss person consumes about48 poundsof cheese per year.
102.Lastly: Walt Disneymade it a rulefor Disneyland not to sell chewing gum to keep the park clean.
