How much time does a person spend at a red traffic light during their lifetime? What were Queen Elizabeth I’s criteria for personal hygiene? How many babies are given to the wrong parents in hospitals every day? Read our collection of unexpected, interesting, and funny facts.
- Internet traffic grows by 314,000% annually.
- The three most expensive brands on Earth in the pre-internet era, in descending order: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser.
- If you drop alcohol on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
- One in eight Americans has worked at McDonald’s at some point.
- 70% of all boats sold worldwide are used for fishing.
- 300 years ago, the average lifespan of an Egyptian was 30 years.
- You burn more calories sleeping than watching TV.
- In 1778, it was fashionable in Paris to wear lightning rods on women’s hats.
- Celery contains negative calories: it takes more calories to eat it than it contains.
- In the 18th century, English gambling houses employed staff whose sole task was to swallow dice in case of a police raid.
- The first product to have a barcode was Wrigley’s gum.
- In Calama, a town in the Chilean Atacama Desert, it has never rained.
- The Russian treasury is 10% funded by vodka sales.
- A person spends six months of their life standing at a red traffic light.
- The first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed an elephant in the zoo.
- A moment is a unit of time lasting one hundredth of a second.
- The word “samba” means “to rub navels together.”
- If you press a crocodile’s eyes, it will immediately open its jaws.
- The horns of most American cars honk in the key of F major.
- There are ten times more termites than people in the world.
- By weight, hamburgers are more expensive than new cars.
- Ketchup flows out of a bottle at a speed of 30 kilometers per year.
- The diameter of the star Betelgeuse is greater than the diameter of Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
- The volume of the Moon equals the volume of water in the Pacific Ocean.
- In the US state of New Hampshire, the slogan “Live Free or Die” is embossed on license plates. The license plates are made by local prisoners.
- The cat is the only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible.
- If a human could jump like a flea, they could leap over a football field.
- Queen Elizabeth I considered herself very clean, claiming to bathe once every three months, whether she needed it or not.
- The record duration of a chicken’s flight is 13 seconds.
- The United Nations has six official languages: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish.
- A hedgehog’s heart beats 300 times per minute.
- If Coca-Cola didn’t contain coloring, it would be green.
- The first blood transfusion was performed in 1667. Doctor Jean-Baptiste Denis transfused 250 milliliters of lamb’s blood to a boy, who, surprisingly, recovered.
- Most house dust is shed skin.
- There is a city named Rome on every continent.
- The famous English admiral Horatio Nelson suffered from seasickness his entire life.
- Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and worms like fried bacon.
- In the 1830s, ketchup was sold as medicine.
- Every day, 12 babies are given to the wrong parents in hospitals worldwide.
- The stomach lining renews itself every two weeks.
- Female lions do 90% of the hunting.
- Money is made from cotton, not paper.
- The male gypsy moth can sense the female’s scent from 1.8 kilometers away.
- Prince Charles has a passion for collecting toilet seats.
- A movie ticket in Tokyo is 26 times more expensive than in Mexico City.
- Every seven minutes, someone on the planet strains their hamstring while doing gymnastics.
- Over 80% of computer hacks are due to simple passwords.
- An oak tree doesn’t produce acorns until it is at least 50 years old.
- Mosquito repellents do not repel insects; they hide you from them. The spray blocks the mosquito’s sensory system, making it unable to locate you.