26 Tiny Town of Hum, Croatia
Hum, Croatia, one of the world’s smallest towns, is smaller than a football field and houses just two dozen people. Despite its size, Hum boasts a museum, an inn, two churches, and a unique liqueur called biska, unavailable anywhere else.
27. In 2004, nearly one-third of the adult male population of the Pitcairn Islands, including the mayor, were convicted of child sex assault. His son, who later became mayor, is also a convicted sex offender. Another mayor, who served between them, was convicted for possessing child pornography.
28. With a population of 170 million, Bangladesh is the most populous country never to have won an Olympic medal as of 2024.
29. A group of Polish Haitians are descendants of Napoleonic soldiers who deserted their ranks to join Haitian forces upon learning that they were fighting for freedom against slavery. Today, their descendants-often referred to as “Poloné”-reside mainly in the village of Cazale, where Polish features and surnames are still common among the population.
30. In 2009, Moriusaq, Greenland, had a population of three. A self-defense incident reduced this number to two. Once a modest settlement near the Thule Air Base, Moriusaq has since become virtually abandoned, with official records now listing it as uninhabited.
31 British Expulsion of Diego Garcia
In 1971, the British expelled the entire population of Diego Garcia, relocating them to Mauritian slums to allow the United States to build a military base on the island. Over 1,500 Chagossians were forcibly removed, and despite decades of legal battles, they remain barred from returning to their homeland, which now hosts a major U.S. military facility.
32. Supai Village, the capital of the Havasupai Indian Reservation, is home to a few hundred residents. It is considered the most remote community in the continental United States and the only place where mail is delivered by mule.
33. During the Civil War, Brown County, Ohio, with a population of just under 30,000, supplied 2,000 enlisted men, nine generals, four admirals, and the future President Ulysses S. Grant.
34. As of 2021, the Cayman Islands have a population of 64,000 and hosted 100,000 registered companies. Notably, the Ugland House alone “holds” 20,000 companies.
35. Due to World War II, London’s population fell dramatically, not returning to pre-war levels until January 2015. The city’s population peaked at around 8.6 million in 1939 and dropped to just over 6.8 million by the 1980s due to wartime devastation and post-war decline.
36 Roman Republic’s Heavy Losses in War
During the Second Punic War (218-201 BC), the Roman Republic lost one-fifth of its male citizens over 17 years, totaling 150,000, in just 20 months.
37. A significant population from the Marshall Islands resides in Springdale, Arkansas, thanks to job opportunities at Tyson Foods. The city even hosts a Marshallese consulate. As of recent estimates, over 15,000 Marshallese live in northwest Arkansas-making it the largest Marshallese community outside the islands themselves.
38. Approximately 2.5 billion people, about 43% of the global population in 1997, watched Princess Diana’s funeral.
39. In 1864, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay waged the War of the Triple Alliance against Paraguay, largely in response to its territorial ambitions and interference in Uruguayan politics. The conflict nearly obliterated Paraguay, resulting in the death of 60-70% of its population. The war left Paraguay devastated, with its male population decimated-some regions reported gender ratios as high as 20 women to 1 man-and the nation took decades to recover demographically and economically.
40. As of 2024, Mongols make up less than 0.45% of China’s population, totaling about 6.3 million, while Mongolia itself only has a population of 3.5 million.
41 Jewish Population Census Margin
The global Jewish population falls within the margin of error in China’s census.
42. In 2011, Norwegian television broadcast a 134-hour documentary live, showcasing a cruise ship journey from Bergen to Kirkenes. Approximately half of Norway’s population tuned in to watch.
43. Between 1890 and 1900, the population of New York City more than doubled, increasing by 127%.
44. Before the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China, UK officials considered building a new city in Northern Ireland to resettle Hong Kong’s entire population on the Magilligan Peninsula near Coleraine.
45. During the English Civil War, 41% of Ireland’s population perished. In comparison, Scotland lost 6%, while England suffered a 3.7% death toll.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 1925 KKK Membership Peak
In 1925, the Ku Klux Klan’s membership peaked between 3 and 6 million, meaning at least 2.6% of the United States population were members.
47. As of 2022, Mississippi, with a population of about 2.94 million, has the highest incarceration rate among U.S. states at 0.86%. Conversely, Massachusetts, with around 6.98 million residents, has the lowest rate at 0.12%.
48. Pyramid schemes fail due to market saturation. If you start with 5 people and each recruits 5 more, by the 15th tier, you’d exceed Earth’s entire population.
49. Over 90% of Canada’s population resides within 100 miles of the U.S. border.
50. A small group of no more than 30 women initially settled Madagascar. These women are the ancestors of all native Malagasy people today. Population Stats: Genetic studies suggest these founding women arrived from Southeast Asia around 1,200 years ago, and their lineage now links to over millions of people across the island.
RE: Fact #26 (Tiny Town of Hum, Croatia) – I went to a rave in Croatia once, it was amazing watching the sunrise.
Wow, they have raves there, too?! I thought Hum people were all about the old-timey stuff, but it’s way more exciting than I imagined!
Wow, that town’s crazy! Twenty-four people, two churches, *and* they throw raves?
RE: Fact #36 (Roman Republic’s Heavy Losses in War) – One-fifth? That’s a serious cut!
So, two rounds of cutting things by 10% leaves you with 81% of what you started with. The second cut is only 9% of the total, not another 10%.
Roughly 2.118 decimations, if you follow my reasoning.
RE: Fact #39 (Devastating War on Paraguay) – One country doing that? Their fault. But if three others jump in at the same time… yeah, Paraguay probably messed up.
RE: Fact #37 (Marshallese Community in Springdale, Arkansas) – The Marshall Islands have a sweet deal with the US – their people can live and work here visa-free. They were part of a US territory after WWII, along with Palau and Micronesia. And guess what? They even use US zip codes.
We nuked a bunch of their islands to test the bombs… letting them come here is the least we can do.
RE: Fact #50 (Madagascar’s Ancestral Origins) – Pretty much everyone there speaks an Austronesian language.
Seems like the most likely story is that Madagascar was settled around 1200 years ago by a tiny group of mostly Indonesian women. This small group means it probably wasn’t a big, planned move from Indonesia, more like a small, maybe accidental, trip across the ocean.
This backs up the idea of a Polynesian-Indonesian link, and the DNA evidence seems to agree.
RE: Fact #21 (Qatar’s Citizenship Percentage) – Lots of those people called “expats” are actually Qatari-born, even second or third generation. And they’ll never become citizens.
Why so surprised?
My friend’s dad is Iranian, her mom’s from the UAE, but she only has an Iranian passport because the UAE doesn’t give citizenship through mothers. She’s never actually lived in Iran, though.
RE: Fact #9 (Holocaust’s Impact on Polish Jews) – It’s easy to overlook how effective the Holocaust actually was. Most Jews now live in Israel, the US, and Canada, not Europe. Think about it – a huge change from before the war.
RE: Fact #12 (Earth’s Population Milestone) – Half of all the people who ever lived died from mosquito bites.
RE: Fact #27 (Pitcairn Islands’ Scandal) – The island only had 59 people back then.
RE: Fact #20 (Moscow’s Massive Concert) – It was the first American metal concert since the Cold War, and these folks had only ever heard the music on dodgy, smuggled tapes.
Motley Crue, Skid Row, and Ozzy Osbourne played the Moscow Music Peace Festival in 1989, along with some other bands.
RE: Fact #16 (Merv’s Rise and Fall) – Historians are all over the map on this one. Most think the death toll was way overblown—some say only 1.2 million died. It was probably a massacre, but not nearly as big as people say.
Could a bunch of country folk have headed to the city for safety from the army? It was the only safe place for miles around, so if everyone evacuated, the population would’ve easily doubled.
RE: Fact #31 (British Expulsion of Diego Garcia) – Back in 2000, the British High Court said the islanders could go back to the Archipelago.
Great! That was something, anyway.
Then in 2002, about 4,500 islanders and their kids went back to court wanting money, saying the British Foreign Office had stalled for two years.
Yeah! I hope they got it!
But then, in June 2004, the British government just *banned* them from returning—permanently! They ignored the 2000 court decision.
Seriously? What the heck?!
A bunch of other Chagossians are still trying to get homes in the UK.
That’s awful.
In 2007, the UK government lost an appeal of a 2006 High Court ruling.
They appealed it?! Seriously? Okay, at least they lost the appeal. Is this finally over?
And they went to the House of Lords!
Come on! In 2008, the UK government *won* that appeal, overturning the 2006 ruling and keeping the islanders out.
Britain, what the heck?! That’s terrible!
Diego Garcia and the other Chagos Islands were empty until way late in the 1700s. The only people there were put there by the British and French.
RE: Fact #39 (Devastating War on Paraguay) – Paraguay’s president, Solano Lopez, really wanted access to the ocean, so he started a war—against *three* countries at once! It was a bad idea from the start; he only won a few early battles because he totally surprised Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Even after his army was crushed, his capital was taken, and he was clearly defeated, Solano refused to give up. He launched a brutal guerrilla war, even using kids as soldiers. That’s when most Paraguayan civilians died. Brazil’s Emperor Pedro II wouldn’t settle for anything less than Solano’s capture or death, and his stubbornness made the war last way longer than it should have. Brazil’s top general, Caxias, the guy who won the war for them, wouldn’t fight a guerrilla war against civilians, so he just retired.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. The war didn’t start because Lopez just decided to pick a fight with three countries at once to get to the sea.
The colonial history’s a mess, but here’s the short version: Newly independent countries had fuzzy borders. Brazil and Argentina became the big players. To weaken Argentina, Brazil backed Paraguay and Uruguay. Paraguay and Uruguay, stuck in the middle, were buddies. Brazil and Argentina started secretly messing with Uruguay’s politics. Paraguay, seeing Uruguay’s fate as their own, tried to help solve things peacefully. They were totally ignored. Brazil sent its navy to Uruguay and supported rebels. With no other choice to stop Uruguay from becoming a puppet, Paraguay stepped in. Then Brazil and Argentina teamed up to crush Uruguay, threatening to wipe it off the map unless it attacked Paraguay.
So, Paraguay was now in a three-on-one war. I’m not saying Lopez was a saint – his guerrilla tactics and use of child soldiers were awful – but the war started because Uruguay and Paraguay were caught between bigger powers and refused to be pushed around, not because Paraguay wanted a crazy three-on-one fight.
In the end, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina won. Paraguay lost because they wouldn’t let themselves or their allies become puppets of the regional powers.
Bottom line: The war was a mess, maybe unavoidable, but if you have to blame someone, it’s Brazil for messing with Uruguay to stay on top. Paraguay attacked first, yes, but what would *you* do when two much bigger countries ignore you, attack your friend, and show zero respect for your independence? Lopez was a bad guy, but he didn’t randomly attack three countries for land.
Glad to hear that, point three. Some Brazilian monarchists see Pedro II as practically a saint, you know, beyond criticism.
Those same people don’t see fact number three as a negative.
RE: Fact #30 (Moriusaq’s Population Drop) –
So, the acting chief… is it just some other guy from around here? Man, losing one person really messes things up. And who’s filling in for the lawyer? “Usually Gregg, but I shot him, so I guess we’ll share his work.”
He’s likely the police chief from a bigger town nearby, filling in because this one doesn’t usually have its own police. Just a hunch, though.
RE: Fact #21 (Qatar’s Citizenship Percentage) – Enslaved people
Wow, a thousand times worse! They got totally scammed into going there and then they had their passports taken away!
RE: Fact #10 (Paris Restaurant Density) – Leaving out the 44 million yearly tourists
The city’s way bigger, and most people commute in from the surrounding area for work. Lunch and dinner with coworkers or friends at restaurants is super common.
A fifth of France lives around Paris—that’s 13 million people! The rest of the country’s pretty sparsely populated.
That’s likely who they’re aiming for.
People in Paris eat out a lot more than you’d think.
RE: Fact #7 (Rome’s Medieval Population Decline) – Wow, this is mind-blowing! I never knew that. It makes me want to spend an hour just thinking about what it must have been like back then.
RE: Fact #44 (Hong Kong Resettlement Plan Considered) – Chinatown’s on Craggy Island?!
RE: Fact #43 (New York City’s Population Boom) – That’s almost half the population of London back then.
RE: Fact #15 (China’s Cave Dwellers Outnumber Canada) – Canadians are starting to think about living underground!
Rent for a two-bedroom place outside Toronto is insane!
Yeah, I wish. Can’t afford it. Living in a tent, checking for cheap places every day – me, my two and a half kids, and Moose the pet.
RE: Fact #43 (New York City’s Population Boom) – I’m curious how much of that increase was from more people moving in, and how much was from Brooklyn and the other boroughs joining together as NYC. The article doesn’t mention it.
That’s a great question! Looks like the big jump is mostly because of the consolidation. Here’s the breakdown: Manhattan—1,960,000; Brooklyn—1,180,000; The Bronx—150,000; Queens—140,000; Staten Island—70,000.
RE: Fact #19 (Ngatik Massacre’s Lingering Impact) – After the massacre, some of Hart’s crew and some Pohnpeians rebuilt the island, marrying local widows. They even created a whole new language, Ngatik Men’s Creole – a mix of English and the Ponapean dialect. The name’s a bit misleading, though. It’s mainly spoken by the men, especially when they’re fishing or building boats, but the women and kids understand it perfectly, even if they don’t use it much. It’s still spoken today, almost 200 years later, by around 500 people on the atoll and another 200 on Pohnpei.
Whoa, I just learned that “creole” means a mix of different languages and cultures, not just one specific group of people.
It’s like a taboo for women to speak it; the men still do, but the women get it.
RE: Fact #32 (Supai Village: Grand Canyon’s Hidden Gem) – Been there, it’s gorgeous! Waterfalls, caves, and the clearest blue water you’ve ever seen in that canyon. I was surprised how close it is—a short hike gets you there.
Seriously, all there is to do is stare at waterfalls or trek to more waterfalls. I went twice, and I’m not complaining, but getting there’s a real pain. I even took an extra day off to recover.
If you’re not into hiking, waterfalls, cliff jumping, camping, or being way out in the sticks under a crazy starry sky, then this probably isn’t for you.
RE: Fact #5 (Native American Population Decline) – Disease wiped out most of the population. That’s also why there might be real “lost cities” in the Amazon – their people were already dying off before most Europeans even showed up.
It’s crazy to think the Incas believed disease was a spirit attack. Then the Spanish rolled in, talking about their God who’s supposedly even more powerful, and would wipe out the Incas’ enemies. The massive death toll from disease, along with guns and the whole psychological impact, made conquering the New World super easy for the Spanish. A huge chunk of the gold and silver they took ended up in Asia, buying spices and stuff, which fueled further European expansion. It’s wild to think how different things would be if disease hadn’t hit the Americas so hard.
1491 and 1493 are awesome books—everyone should check them out! They’re history books, but the stuff in them is still totally relevant.
So, imagine if everyone survived that initial trade thing – what would the world look like? There’d still be fights and shifting borders, for sure, but which native groups would’ve become the most powerful?
It’d be a real mess, kind of like what happened with the British and the Zulus.
Interestingly, Europe couldn’t really colonize Africa until the 1800s because they had no protection from African diseases like malaria. Those diseases wiped out their horses, too, so they couldn’t really get around until they figured out how to handle that.
Even with all that went down, some groups really benefited from new tech. Like the Lakota Sioux, who used horses to take over a huge chunk of the northern plains.
RE: Fact #7 (Rome’s Medieval Population Decline) – I bet the folks who lived there had some strong feelings about the empire, huh?
RE: Fact #46 (1925 KKK Membership Peak) – A huge rally, like seriously huge, happened in northern New Jersey back in the late 20s or early 30s. I think there were around 30,000 people there, maybe even more!
RE: Fact #14 (American Samoa’s Military Enlistment) – With an all-volunteer army, you mostly get people who don’t have many other choices. Nobody I served with joined because they loved their country—we joined because flipping burgers was the other option. That said, I doubt there’s much chance of getting ahead in American Samoa. How does their college acceptance rate compare to the mainland? What about their income?
RE: Fact #45 (Devastating Impact of English Civil War) – Back in the 1800s, the English really hammered the Irish population during the Potato Famine.
RE: Fact #43 (New York City’s Population Boom) – That’s wrong, New York City took over Brooklyn, western Queens, and Staten Island back in 1898.
RE: Fact #13 (Miracle Village’s Unique Demographics) – There’s this apartment complex in Lacombe, Louisiana, that’s basically a halfway house for sex offenders. People around there call it “Molester’s Mansion.” One guy living there got stabbed after trying to rape someone at a laundromat.
Wow!
That part of town? Everyone calls it Felony Flats.
RE: Fact #17 (Iceland’s Football Spirit) – Thirty-six thousand people, in case you were curious.
RE: Fact #3 (Toronto’s Irish Famine Aid) – They came, but most didn’t stick around. By 1848, only 781 had made it their permanent home. The rest spread out to other places.
My family were among the Irish who ended up in Canada, but then decided Cleveland, Ohio looked like a better bet. Honestly, Cleveland wasn’t so bad from 1850 to 1970.
Those chicks with the red lipstick all singing “Cleveland Rocks”—how awful could it possibly be?
It was a huge American city for a while, too.
Cleveland’s pretty awesome, actually.
RE: Fact #34 (Cayman Islands’ Business Hub) – Delaware’s got the most companies and money stashed away – it’s the biggest tax haven worldwide.
Delaware isn’t exactly a tax haven like the Cayman Islands. Most Delaware companies pay taxes where they operate. The real benefit of incorporating there is its strong, well-established corporate laws. This gives investors more confidence because they know what to expect legally.
RE: Fact #23 (Bison Conservation Success) – Humans are way more common, I’d say.
RE: Fact #8 (Human Population Near Extinction) – 600? That’s a tiny gene pool, no wonder we’re all a bit…slow.
RE: Fact #3 (Toronto’s Irish Famine Aid) – How did the city handle so many new people all at once?
RE: Fact #41 (Jewish Population Census Margin) – They’ve actually won 22% of all Nobel Prizes ever given out—six out of twelve in 2013 alone!
A lot of chess grandmasters are Jewish.
Lots of Asians play GO. 😉
RE: Fact #16 (Merv’s Rise and Fall) – It’s a world heritage site now. That part about all that lost knowledge really bummed me out. Al-Istakhri, a Persian geographer and traveler, said Merv’s people were known for their smarts and learning. Another geographer, Yaqut al-Hamawi, counted ten huge libraries in Merv, with one in a big mosque holding 12,000 books.
RE: Fact #6 (Ancient Rome’s Population Milestone) – Plenty of clean water and working sewers? That’s what really makes a civilization take off.
Rome had it all figured out – seven aqueducts, one a crazy 40 miles long, plus a sewer system that never backed up. London, on the other hand, was a cholera-infested mess for ages. Disease killed more people than were born for a long time, which is why it took so incredibly long to get as big as Rome.
RE: Fact #5 (Native American Population Decline) – American civilizations were wiped out before Europeans even showed up. The diseases spread faster than the explorers did. Later explorers found whole areas empty, the people gone, and the mounds abandoned just decades after those settlements were reported. Since there wasn’t much fighting with Europeans, it’s pretty clear that Old World diseases like smallpox and the flu killed off most of the last mound-building Native Americans.
RE: Fact #6 (Ancient Rome’s Population Milestone) – It’s pretty wild how Rome’s population crashed to around 40,000 people. For a long time after the Empire, it was just a smaller city in Italy.
Completely deserted during Justinian’s wars, it was. Procopius wrote creepy stuff about wild dogs in the empty forums, and a few desperate souls hiding out in empty houses and yards. It was a total ghost town – crazy to imagine!
That’s awesome to imagine!
RE: Fact #29 (Polish Haitian Heritage) – So, when they got there and the fighting started, the Poles saw the slaves battling their French owners for freedom. Most of them ended up joining the slaves against the French. It was like their own fight back home against Russia, Prussia, and Austria—they’d been fighting for freedom since 1772. Some even joined Napoleon’s army, hoping to unite. A lot of Polish soldiers really respected the slaves’ fight and switched sides to join the Haitian revolution in 1804.
RE: Fact #35 (London’s Post-War Population Recovery) – If I recall correctly, Berlin’s population hasn’t gotten back to its pre-war levels yet.
Jewish numbers haven’t bounced back since the 1930s; there were over 16 million then, and now there are 14 million.
No way, we’ve got a long way to go. The population was nearly 4.5 million in 1939, but less than 3 million by 1945. We haven’t even hit 3.5 million since then, so it’s still almost a quarter below the pre-war high.
RE: Fact #9 (Holocaust’s Impact on Polish Jews) – My mom’s old boss, a dentist in the making back in Hungary, heard from a cop buddy in the late 1930s about terrible things planned for Jewish people. He urged his family, who were pretty well-off, to get out, but they figured it’d all calm down and stayed put. He ended up in New York, made a killing in the jewelry business, and became incredibly successful. Sadly, his whole family – about a dozen people – were murdered in the Holocaust. He said he replays that last conversation, where he basically gave up trying to convince them, in his head constantly.
RE: Fact #2 (Amsterdam’s Oldest Sex Workers) – Louise’s story about being forced into prostitution is heartbreaking. She had three kids by her late teens with a violent guy, then he basically sold her to a brothel. She says she went out one Saturday night, thinking it was a date, only to end up forced to work that night. She tried to convince herself it was just a job, but then her boyfriend came back to take all her earnings. It’s horrific.
People in this industry often talk about the same things: violence, threats, mental health problems, STDs, and a strong urge to get out—sometimes they’re forced in, sometimes it’s money problems, morals, or maybe they just thought it’d be something they’d want to do.
I don’t get why some people think this awful business is something normal, like any other job. Would you ever suggest it to a friend or your kids? Most people would say absolutely not, and for tons of reasons.
RE: Fact #26 (Tiny Town of Hum, Croatia) – What counts as the world’s tiniest town, anyway?
RE: Fact #19 (Ngatik Massacre’s Lingering Impact) – What’s the deal with tortoise shells? And how does that even relate to language?
So this one guy thought an island was packed with tortoise shell treasure. He tried to trade, but the locals weren’t interested and sent him packing. He came back a year later with guns, wiped out most of the men, only to find a measly 11 kilos of shell. Some stayed, repopulated the island with the widowed women, and created a whole new English-Ponapean culture and language.
Bang is a strange way to spell rape, haha.
RE: Fact #31 (British Expulsion of Diego Garcia) – They really shouldn’t have been there to begin with.
RE: Fact #10 (Paris Restaurant Density) – Paris is huge—think 10.8 million people, similar to London and New York City. Plus, tons of people visit every year, over 40 million!
RE: Fact #27 (Pitcairn Islands’ Scandal) – Whoops, imagine accidentally bringing the family here for a vacation… Total nightmare fuel.
RE: Fact #33 (Brown County’s Remarkable Civil War Contribution) – That was the Browns’ last win in Ohio.
RE: Fact #18 (Global Lactose Intolerance) – Most Asians can’t digest milk, that’s like 90% or more of them. And globally, only about 35% of people can. Asia has a huge population, almost 60% of the world, so that makes a big difference.
That’s crazy to me, being from Asia. Almost no one in my family has any real problem with dairy.
So, where are you from? Some Asian countries, like Mongolia, have a way higher percentage of people who can digest milk than others. It really depends on whether your ancestors drank milk regularly—if the benefits outweighed the tummy troubles—over many generations, or not. Mongolians used horse milk a lot, but the Chinese didn’t really use milk at all, considering it gross.
RE: Fact #14 (American Samoa’s Military Enlistment) – So, a lot of those US islands in Micronesia are basically all about the military. Guam, the biggest one, has a massive air base and a huge naval base, and they’re moving a big Marine base there from Okinawa soon. There’s not much else going on economically, maybe a little tourism from Korea and Japan. It’s pretty much just the military and whatever else they can squeeze onto a small island.
Hawaii’s pretty much tourists, tourism workers, or people struggling financially, plus the military. Seeing all those well-off people in uniform made me think about joining up, but I had other reasons, really.
Funny thing, when I was in Guam, I kept thinking of Hawaii. Guam’s Tamuning area felt just like Waikiki/Ala Moana in Honolulu – all the tourist stuff. But the rest of the island was a lot like the quieter parts of Oahu and the other islands, especially the Big Island. You’d find some amazing spots, but it was clear most people lived pretty simply, even though things are expensive because it’s so far away.
Guam felt like a budget version of Hawaii, if that makes sense.
RE: Fact #40 (Mongol Population in China and Mongolia) – Three other examples come to mind: More Pashtuns live in Pakistan than Afghanistan. More Tajiks live in Afghanistan than Tajikistan. More Azeris live in Iran than Azerbaijan. And, if you consider Iraqi Kurdistan a separate country, Turkey has more Kurds than Kurdistan.
RE: Fact #47 (Mississippi’s High Incarceration Rate) – Check out poverty rates and see if they’re related.
Funding for schools
Republicans always go on about Chicago being a total mess, but its murder rate’s only slightly higher than Mississippi’s.
RE: Fact #38 (Princess Diana’s Global Funeral Audience) – I’m really not buying those viewership numbers.
So, what counts as “watching,” anyway? I mean, even just catching a glimpse on a TV screen— there were giant screens showing it in some Indian cities, right? She’s technically part of the royal family, after all.
RE: Fact #4 (São Paulo’s Cultural Diversity) – It’s got the biggest Lebanese community outside Lebanon, the biggest Armenian community outside Armenia, the second biggest Lithuanian community—and so on. Though, some folks say Moscow or LA might actually have more Armenians than São Paulo. Still a pretty big group, though.
RE: Fact #24 (London’s Hairy Coincidence) – I bet tons of people in London are completely bald.
RE: Fact #15 (China’s Cave Dwellers Outnumber Canada) – I stayed in one when I visited family. They’re really nice and comfy. The only downside is that you have to go outside to get from one room to another—a real drag in the winter.
RE: Fact #38 (Princess Diana’s Global Funeral Audience) – I watched it live in the US, and remember hearing numbers around a billion viewers. It’s impossible to know for sure, but tons of people probably saw it—24-hour news was huge back then, and her death dominated everything from the moment it happened until after the funeral. It took a while for it to fade from the daily news, even then. I’m not sure about half the world’s population, but it was a massive deal in the Western media.
RE: Fact #11 (Japanese Weddings Favor Christianity) – Fake priests are running “Christian ceremonies,” and lots of Japanese women want a Western-style wedding and to walk down the aisle like everyone else. Turns out, many of these fake priests are foreigners with part-time jobs.
RE: Fact #49 (Canada’s Border Population Density) – Fun fact: California’s got more people than all of Canada!
Believe it or not, Southern Ontario is actually south of Northern California.
Roughly 30% of US states are way north of Ontario’s southernmost point, and about half are at least partly further north.
I live in Southern Ontario, and it’s kinda funny how we use the Detroit River to figure out which way is north around here.
RE: Fact #40 (Mongol Population in China and Mongolia) – India’s Muslim population actually surpasses that of most Muslim-majority nations. And get this—India even tried to join the Organization of Islamic Countries, but Pakistan blocked it.
RE: Fact #12 (Earth’s Population Milestone) – Basically, the population’s gotten so huge, it’s almost a tenth of everyone who’s ever lived.
RE: Fact #41 (Jewish Population Census Margin) – It’s easy to forget that, for a religion as important as that one is, there weren’t actually that many followers. That’s probably because they didn’t try to spread their faith to others.
They lost a few members now and then.
RE: Fact #11 (Japanese Weddings Favor Christianity) – My family’s Japanese, and I’ve heard this old saying: you’re born Shinto, live without religion, marry Christian, and die Buddhist.
Buddhism survived the Meiji period’s temple-smashing campaign for two main reasons. First, lots of temples were community hubs and government offices – hard to just get rid of. Second, Shinto views death as impure, unlike Buddhism, which offers much better comfort to the bereaved.
If Shinto considers death impure, why were there so many suicides and murders during Japan’s imperial period?
RE: Fact #45 (Devastating Impact of English Civil War) – Around 616,000 people died – 112,000 Protestants and 504,000 Catholics – from plague, war, and famine. That’s out of about 1.5 million people before the war even started. It’s easy to overlook how huge a deal figuring out what caused infectious diseases was for people. Throw in famine, which is way more likely when people are on the run during wartime, and things get much worse, fast. I’d guess diseases like measles, pneumonia, scarlet fever, smallpox, cholera, typhoid, flu, diphtheria, typhus, and especially tuberculosis were major players.
RE: Fact #31 (British Expulsion of Diego Garcia) – I’m reading this book about how the island got emptied out. Apparently, there were all sorts of schemes to scare everyone off, like Sir Bruce Greatbatch ordering the gassing of thousands of pet dogs. They even tried starving people by cutting off supplies.