100 Interesting Facts About Water

A man named Rajendra Singh is known as "waterman of India" revived 5 rivers and brought water back to 1000 villages in India using native water preservation techniques.

52. Expiration dates on bottled water are for the bottle and not for the water in it.

53. April 16, 2016, will be the 500 year anniversary of Bavaria adopting the Reinheitsgebot. It is a law that said that the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley, and hops. It was later amended to include yeast.

54. A US nuclear submarine that sank in deep water in 1968 is still resting at the bottom of the sea at a known location. Its nuclear reactor and nuclear weapons have never been recovered.

55. Since 1940, 85% of those who have attempted to break the water speed record have died in the attempt

Segway inventor Dean Kaman has been working on a water purification machine to bring clean water to the parts of the world without it. He designed the new Coca-Cola fountain dispensers in exchange for Coke's support in distributing his machines.

57. A reservoir of water three times the volume of all the oceans has been discovered deep beneath the Earth’s surface.

58. In October 2014, General Motors complained that the newly sourced Flint water supply was causing corrosion at a local engine plant. GM switched back to Detroit's Lake Huron supply, meanwhile, residents complained about the smell and taste of their drinking water, which they were assured was safe

59. When hot water freezes faster than cold water, the effect is called "the Mpemba Effect". It's named after Tanzanian Erasto Mpemba who was originally ridiculed for bringing it up in class after noticing his warmer ice cream mix was freezing before the cooler batch

60. The three gorges dam in China holds back so much water it slows the rotation of the earth slightly.

China is creating a car-free city from scratch: "Great City will be built around a high-rise core housing 80,000 people, entirely walkable, and surrounded by green space." It is designed to use less water, create less waste and generate less carbon dioxide than a normal city.

62. Three teenagers from Tokelau who on a drunken dare, stole a boat and got lost adrift on the Pacific Ocean to be found after 51 days. They had barely any food or water, no clothing, no fishing gear, no life vests, and no first-aid kit.

63. To lose 63 pounds for his role in The Machinist, Christian Bale's daily diet consisted of one can of tuna fish, and/or one apple per day, black coffee, and water.

64. The Amazon River spews so much fresh water into the Atlantic that surface water can be drinkable up to 200 miles from shore

65. In 2006, a middle schooler named Jasmine Roberts won an award for her science project, which found that on average 70% of the ice that comes from fast food restaurants is dirtier than toilet water.

One liter of oil can contaminate one million liters of water. It's important to understand that when you dispose of oil in the sink, it affects a million liters of recyclable water.

67. A single lake (Lake Baikal) holds one-fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water; more than all the great lakes combined, yet it covers half the area of Lake Michigan. It is both the deepest (1 mile) and oldest (25 million years) lake in the world.

68. Babies have an innate swimming reflex where they hold their breath and slow their heart rate in water until they are 6 months old.

69. In the 1850's the entire city of Chicago was raised 5-10 feet with hydraulic jacks to improve drainage and make room for water and sewer lines, in response to outbreaks of typhoid fever and cholera.

70. Alcatraz was the only federal prison at the time to offer hot-water showers for its inmates. The prison staff reasoned that prisoners acclimated to hot water would not be able to withstand the freezing waters of the San Francisco Bay during an escape attempt.

The new Toyota Mirai is one of the first fuel cell vehicles being sold commercially and uses hydrogen to run while emitting water vapor.

72. Most New York City apartment buildings are six stories tall because the water reservoirs for the city provide just enough pressure to get water six stories up - above that you need a water tank on top of the building.

73. At least 22 million gallons of water is trapped in plastic bottles and thrown into landfills annually in the US alone.

74. The average American golf course consumes around 312,000 gallons of water per day.

75. While Alfred Hitchcock was filming 'The Pleasure Garden', an actress refused to enter the water because she was on her period. It was the first time Hitchcock heard about menstruation, and a cameraman had to explain to him what she meant.