Happiness Guaranteed: 35 Fun and Interesting Facts to Cheer You Up

In Los Angeles in 1994, after an earthquake-induced power outage, calls came into emergency centers about a "giant silvery cloud." It was the Milky Way.

2. Some farmers in Bangladesh have switched to raising ducks instead of chickens because, during catastrophic floods, ducks float.

3. There is enough gold at the core of the earth to cover the surface of the planet in 12 to 13 feet.

4. The voice actors for Mickey and Minnie Mouse are married in real life.

5. Greyhounds are known as universal blood donors. With few exceptions, blood from any greyhound can be given to any other breed of dog.

Inhabitants of the Chinese town of Liqian have blond hair and white skin. Historians have speculated they are the descendants of a lost Roman settlement.

7. Koala bear fingerprints are almost indistinguishable from human fingerprints. A forensic scientist suggested that koala bears were unlikely to be at the scenes of crimes, but police should be aware of the possibility.

8. Sergeant Stubby, a stray dog found during military training in 1917, served with the 102nd Infantry Regiment in World War 1. He saved them repeatedly with his ability to smell mustard gas at a distance. After the war, he became a celebrity, meeting three presidents and traveling around the country.

9. Tomato sauce was sold in the 1800s as medicine.

10. Alnwick Garden is a garden in Northern England dedicated entirely to poisonous plants. It's the most dangerous garden in the world. It holds over 100 killer plants such as hemlock, strychnine, and nightshade.

Male penguins give female penguins a pebble as a sign of love.

12. In 2008, the King of Norway knighted a penguin called Nils Olav III that lives at Edinburgh Zoo. The King described him as a penguin "in every way qualified to receive the honor and dignity of knighthood". He is a Brigadier and Colonel-in-Chief in the Norwegian army.

13. Rats laugh when tickled.

14. Cheetahs can’t roar, they can only meow, because of the absence of the hyoid bone in its neck.

15. Penguins are not heavy enough to set off landmines. Because of this, there is a huge nature preserve on the Falkland Islands, with 1 million penguins of 5 distinct species.

Sea otters have pockets and many adults carry their favorite rock at all times to break open clams and other shellfish.

17. Squirrels plant thousands of new trees each year simply by forgetting where they put their acorns.

18. In 1926, President Coolidge and his wife were gifted a raccoon as a Thanksgiving dinner gift. They did not want to eat her, so they named her Rebecca and kept her as a pet. She had a free range of The White House and would go on trips with the couple.

19. There is a small island named Okunoshima Island in Japan that is the site of an abandoned World War 2 chemical weapons manufacturing facility and is now home to hundreds of cute bunnies.

20. According to FDA standards, an eight-ounce glass of juice is allowed to have up to 5 fruit flies.

A sloth can hold its breath for up to 40 minutes, 4 times longer than a dolphin. They sleep for 15 hours a day and its internal organs like the heart, spleen, and liver are arranged to accommodate living upside down. The grip of a sloth is so strong that when they die they sometimes remain hanging on trees.

22. The oldest recorded Yo Mama joke comes from a Babylonian stone tablet. The tablet is from around 1,500 B.C.E. and was written by a student.

23. After "the world’s largest beach clean-up" at Mumbai's Versova beach, Olive Ridley turtles returned to lay eggs for the first time in 20 years.

24. There is a sport called Extreme Ironing, in which people take ironing boards to remote locations and iron items of clothing.

25. People living in Hong Kong and Japan who cannot afford to live in a house, take advantage of McDonald's "doors are always open" policy and live in their restaurants. These people are also known as McRefugees.