85 Incredible Facts From the Cradle of Humankind – Africa – Part 2

There are over 150 regional "kings" in Nigeria, and that one of them used to be a Professor Emeritus at University of North Carolina

2. The British outlawed the worship of Sopona, the god of smallpox, in Nigeria after a doctor infiltrated a powerful cult of the god's priests and discovered they were deliberately spreading the disease in a plot to increase their power.

3. The main genetic ancestry of most Black Americans and Black Caribbeans is Yoruba from modern day Nigeria (and surrounding countries)

4. Google has started a beta in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Thailand and Uganda called 'Google trader' where locals can contact sellers of anything from chicken egg incubators to entire houses.

5. In 2005, in Northern Nigeria a group of Muslim leaders declared the polio vaccine to be a conspiracy to sterilize the true believers. Subsequently, the disease began to spread again

Nigeria has the 3rd largest film industry in the world in terms of earnings. It is nicknamed 'Nollywood'.

7. Teenagers in East Baltimore rate their communities more negatively than 15-17-year-olds living in Nigeria and New Delhi.

8. Bangladesh has more total English speakers than Canada and that Nigeria has more total English speakers than in the UK.

9. In 1995, scammers based in Nigeria defrauded the director of a Brazilian bank out of $242 million, including selling him a fake airport.

10. Nigeria has one of the biggest space programs, and already have 3 satellites in orbit

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Switzerland is the best place where to be born, with Nigeria coming in the last place

12. In Nigeria, it's common to send money to another business in cash, on a 12-hour bus ride. This is currently the cheapest way to move money.

13. The largest man-made structure in history were the Walls of Benin in present-day Nigeria. They were 4 times longer than the Great wall of China and contained a 100 times more material than the Kheops pyramid.

14. Electricity was introduced to Ethiopia in 1896 after Emperor Menelik II ordered two newly invented electric chairs as a form of humane capital punishment and realized they were useless in his country without electricity

15. The record for most passengers ever carried by a commercial airliner is 1,088, by an El Al Boeing 747 during Operation Solomon, which involved the evacuation of Ethiopian Jews from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and started on 24 May 1991. This figure included two babies born on the flight.

A regiment in the British Army owns the oldest drum in the world which they took from King Theodore of Ethiopia. Young officers used to wear it while drinking beer as an initiation into the regiment.

17. The article quoting UNICEF that "70% of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction" was in error. UNICEF's survey says its 7.8% and almost entirely in rural areas.

18. Ethiopia donated $5000 to earthquake victims in Mexico because Mexico supported Ethiopia when Italy invaded in 1935

19. Wham! donated all the royalties from "Last Christmas", released December 1984 to Ethiopia famine aid.

20. Lalibela, Ethiopia is home to 11 monolithic churches carved out of mountains and connected by tunnels. The churches' roofs are at ground level to make them invisible to raiders from a distance.

A 9-year-old Rachel pledge to donate money oh her birthday instead of receiving presents. She didn't reach her goal. A year later she passed away and her story made people donate $1.2 million which helped change the lives of over 60,000 people in Ethiopia.

22. The last Emperor of Ethiopia (Haile-Selassie-1) was deposed in 1975, almost 1000 years after the first Emperor was crowned.

23. Drunk Driving is legal in many countries, including Indonesia, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and many others.

24. Ethiopia's salt ponds contain one of the few places life cannot survive on Earth: The Dallol pools are likely so hot, salty and acidic that even extremophile microbes are unable to enter.

25. A famine in Ethiopia from 1983-1985 killed around 400,000-1,000,000 people and that 56,000 tons of food donated by aid efforts from the West through Live Aid was left to rot in a port by the Ethiopian government.