1Trench Warfare
During World War 1, the amount of trenches built along the western front was so mind-boggling that if they were to be laid end-to-end, their total length would gross over 25,000 miles, which would be enough to encircle the earth at the equator (24,901 miles).
2. Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) can only be titled as such if it meets certain conditions. Its free acidity must be less than 0.8%, must have a sensory grade higher than 6.5 points, and a median of zero defects, and a median of fruitiness above zero. It is the highest quality of olive oil around.
3. John Deydras was an imposter who pretended to be King Edward II due to being swapped at birth. When arrested, he challenged the real king to single combat and was found guilty of sedition. He claimed his cat was the devil in disguise and caused him to do it. Both he and the cat were hanged.
4. As a result of the "Baby Einstein" franchise of videos and books being named after Albert Einstein, royalties paid to his estate made Einstein one of the top five earning dead celebrities for a time.
5. Antarctica has a museum, gift shop, and a post office in the same building, known as Port Lockroy, which is open to all public. It is operated by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. Around 70,000 cards are sent from its post office each year.
Latest FactRepublic Video:
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Sailing Stones
The "sailing stones" in Death Valley move in very short 15-minute bursts due to a very specific combination of rain, freezing temperatures, and wind.
7. Doctors in popular media are often portrayed as wearing mirrors over their forehead. These mirrors are actually meant to be worn over one of the doctor's eyes when in use.
8. Queen ants can live for 15 to 30 years and worker ants (female) up to 1-3 years. Male ants may only live for several weeks, mate once, and then die.
9. Empress Leopoldina from the house of Habsburg was the first woman to become head of state in an independent country in America. She was one of the masterminds behind Brazil's independence and the yellow in the flag symbolizes her house of Habsburg. She was also behind German migrations there.
10. Circular Breathing is a technique used to continuously sustain embouchure on wind instruments without interruption. It is achieved by breathing in through the nose while simultaneously pushing air out through the mouth using air stored in the cheeks. Like a chipmunk. With this technique, you can play a wind instrument forever.
11Asteroid Belt
The asteroid belt is splintered and cannot coalesce into a planet because of the effects of Jupiter's gravity, which disrupts the asteroids and keeps them colliding with each other.
12. Bananas are curved because they are negatively geotropic. They curve upwards to break through the banana leaf canopy to reach sunlight.
13. The color "Jet Black" comes from a gemstone called jet. Jet is extremely dark, and so jet black refers to that dark.
14. Chocolate is crystalline and therefore has 6 phases (different ways of arranging crystals). This is important for the production of glossy, brittle, melt-in-mouth-not-in-hand tempered chocolate.
15. In 1912, after the sinking of the RMS Titanic, crewmen on its sister ship RMS Olympic went on strike over its small number and poor quality of lifeboats.
16Counterfeit Detector Pens
Counterfeit detector pens used in grocery stores contain an iodine solution that reacts with the starch in wood-based paper to create a black stain. When the solution is applied to the fiber-based paper used in real bills, no discoloration occurs.
17. Before becoming president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh worked as a dishwasher at the Drayton Court Hotel in London, as a line manager for General Motors in Boston, and as a pastry chef in Brooklyn among other jobs.
18. A Polish man named Stephan Bibrowski (1890–1932), was also known as Lionel the lion-faced man due to the 8-inch-long hair that covered his entire face. Stephan's mother gave him away at the age of 4 as she had witnessed a lion mauling her husband while she was pregnant with Stephan, and thus viewed him as an abomination.
19. The hippocampus of food-storing birds increases in size by up to 30% for a short period each year, so that they could remember where they hid their food.
20. In 1965, Norman Morrison, a Quaker Pacifist doused himself in kerosene and committed self-immolation in front of the Pentagon to protest the US involvement in the Vietnam War.
21Bittersweet Symphony Rights
The Verve only made about $1000 from their song ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ due to a copyright issue. The Rolling Stones had originally ended up with the rights before they returned them in 2019.
22. Yuri Knorozov was a Soviet officer during World War 2. After the war ended, he played an essential role in deciphering the Mayan hieroglyphics, after he stumbled upon a book in the German National Library, which said that "Mayan Hieroglyphics were indecipherable."
23. Sir James Chadwick, the English physicist who discovered the neutron and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1935, actually enrolled in Physics by mistake when he was a university student. He wanted to study mathematics. He also led the British team on the Manhattan project.
24. About 3% of the general population has antisocial personality disorder. It is a mental health disorder characterized by disregard for other people.
25. ‘Connections’ was a science education TV series which was created by science historian James Burke. This series, which premiered in 1978, contended that one cannot consider the development of any particular piece of the modern world in isolation but rather that interconnected isolated events are what drives history and innovation.
