Current Events > Random Interesting Facts ITT

(+) Yeah! (+)

The 1831 version of London Bridge is now in Arizona.

Trees weren't always biodegradable:

Today, bacteria and fungi eat away at fallen trees, but that wasn't always the case. Bacteria had to evolve to eat wood, so hundreds of millions of years go, trees would fall at death, leaving large piles of dead wood. Forest fires of unimaginable proportions would burn the massive mounds of dead wood. And that's where most of the coal today on Earth came from, according to National Geographic.

Detroit undercover cops in a drug ring once fought another group of undercover cops:

"Put your hands up!" "No, you put your hands up!" That's likely what went down in November 2017 when two groups of undercover cops in Detroit accidentally mistook each other for the drug dealers and buyers they were respectively trying to bust. What ensued during the raid was a stand-off, resulting in fists being thrown while guns were pointed at each other. Internal affairs had to be contacted to put the officers under investigation in an attempt to figure out the unfortunate miscommunication.

indica posted...

Detroit undercover cops in a drug ring once fought another group of undercover cops:

"Put your hands up!" "No, you put your hands up!" That's likely what went down in November 2017 when two groups of undercover cops in Detroit accidentally mistook each other for the drug dealers and buyers they were respectively trying to bust. What ensued during the raid was a stand-off, resulting in fists being thrown while guns were pointed at each other. Internal affairs had to be contacted to put the officers under investigation in an attempt to figure out the unfortunate miscommunication.

Makes me think of when America fought itself in a proxy war.

Sufferedphoneix posted...

Makes me think of when America fought itself in a proxy war.

Civil war I presume?

Wow, so apparently in Korea babies are recorded to be born at one year old already, rather than zero like most countries.

MI4 REAL posted...

Civil war I presume?

No proxy war is where you manipulate other countries into fighting and you back one side cause them winning is in your interests. I heard of a case where the CIA was backing one country and another agency was backing the other and neither agency was aware.

Joelypoely posted...

Wow, so apparently in Korea babies are recorded to be born at one year old already, rather than zero like most countries.

That's actually true for most Asian countries, especially east asian

Alucard is Dracula spelt backwards

indica posted...

That's actually true for most Asian countries, especially east asian

I mean, I guess if they count the nine months in the womb...

TULPAMANCER posted...

I mean, I guess if they count the nine months in the womb...

There definitely is some subjectivity in there...

An earth day is 365.26 days. Why we don't have leap centuries every 100 years I don't know.

MI4 REAL posted...

An earth day is 365.26 days. Why we don't have leap centuries every 100 years I don't know.

Leap years have always been a little confusing. I think it was every 4 years, unless the year is divisible by 100, unless that year is also divisible by 400. So, while both 2000 and 2400 will have leap years, the years 2100, 2200, and 2300 wont Its basically to get us as close as possibly to the correct time

There were 3 Canadian hockey teams named the Swastikas. This was, of course, before Hitler's influence made the symbol taboo.

Nintendo was created almost half a year after Hitler was born.

indica posted...

One man once survived two atomic bombs:

Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived both nuclear attacks to Japan when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs during World War II. Yamaguchi, sent to Hiroshima on business on August 6th, 1945, saw the U.S. drop the first atomic bomb. Miraculously, he survived with burns across his face and arms, but made it home to Nagasaki. Three days later, the second atomic bomb hit, flattening Yamaguchi's home. Because his family was out finding ointments to treat his already existent burns, they were safe in a tunnel and miraculously survived as well.

You left out the best part (at least if I remember correctly) - he was literally telling someone about the Hiroshima bombing, to which that other person denied such a bomb could possibly exist, when the bomb hit Nagasaki.

Trumble posted...

You left out the best part (at least if I remember correctly) - he was literally telling someone about the Hiroshima bombing, to which that other person denied such a bomb could possibly exist, when the bomb hit Nagasaki.

I want to remember that it was at his job and his boss asked him why he wasnt in Hiroshima on his business trip.

RetroGamer68 posted...

Nintendo was created almost half a year after Hitler was born.

My brain is weird. It immediately rebelled against the fact that Hitler was born in the 1880s.

The city of Kokura was originally supposed to be the 2nd nuke target in WW2, but due to bad weather, it was changed to Nagasaki.

The man who survived both nukes lived to be 93 years old, and died in 2010.

When John McCain died at the age of 81, his mom was still alive. She lived to be 108.

You're pronouncing Dr. Seuss' name wrong:

Dr. Seuss, the popular children's book author who is known for his rhyming skills, was born with the name Theodor Seuss Geisel. Seuss is his mother's maiden name, and their family pronounces it as "soice" (rhyming with voice). Seuss' college friend Alexander Liang even wrote a poem about the common misconception.

Mount Everest is also mispronounced. It's named after Sir George Everest, whose name was pronounced "eve-rest", with emphasis on the first syllable like the female name Eve.

indica posted...

You're pronouncing Dr. Seuss' name wrong:

YugiNoob posted...

Mount Everest is also mispronounced.

This is why Ettore Boiardi messed with the spelling, on his products.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/4/4/AAEhCpAADVdo.png

Almost all healthy babies are born knowing how to swim, and lose the ability I think in about 6 weeks.

Cocytus posted...

Almost all healthy babies are born knowing how to swim, and lose the ability I think in about 6 weeks.

see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis

Cocytus posted...

Almost all healthy babies are born knowing how to swim, and lose the ability I think in about 6 weeks.

Part of phylogeny recapitulates...?

Nearly all species to have ever existed on Earth are extinct:

We walk an Earth that has seen the extinction of 99.9 percent of all of the species who've ever lived on it, according to PBS. Congratulationsthat means you are technically in the .1 percent at least for now!

indica posted...

Nearly all species to have ever existed on Earth are extinct:

We walk an Earth that has seen the extinction of 99.9 percent of all of the species who've ever lived on it, according to PBS. Congratulationsthat means you are technically in the .1 percent at least for now!

That may sound bad but it's not like we have other planets we know of to compare stats to

The Silverback gorilla can lift almost a literal ton:

The Silverback gorilla can lift up to 10 times its body weight on average: a total of about 1,800 pounds, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. This makes them one of the strongest living animal species on Earth. Though they are feared, the Silverback gorillas will only use their strength when they feel threatened.

Imagine a Silverback gorilla on steroids.

indica posted...

The Silverback gorilla can lift almost a literal ton:

The Silverback gorilla can lift up to 10 times its body weight on average: a total of about 1,800 pounds, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. This makes them one of the strongest living animal species on Earth. Though they are feared, the Silverback gorillas will only use their strength when they feel threatened.

I've seen videos of them tearing the bark off trees with no effort, literally with the same ease as you or I would rip a sheet of paper. Scary strength.

Mike Tyson tried to pay a zookeeper $10,000 to fight a silverback gorilla that was bullying others. I love this quote lol

"I paid a worker at New Yorks zoo to re-open it just for me and Robin. When we got to the gorilla cage there was one big silverback gorilla there just bullying all the other gorillas. They were so powerful but their eyes were like an innocent infant. I offered the attendant $10,000 to open the cage and let smash that silverbacks snot box. He declined," Mike Tyson said.

The sandwhich was invented for one of two reasons that I've seen. It was either he wanted to be able to play poker without getting the cards greasy or cluttering the table with plate and utensils so he asked for a piece of ham between two pieces of bread. Or same idea but doing paperwork in his office. I've also seen varying accounts that it was him or his butlers idea.

The word slaughter is just the word laughter with an s in front of it.

rexcrk posted...

The word slaughter is just the word laughter with an s in front of it.

There was this adult cartoon show with a Strawberry Shortcake type girl and she said "Remember kids, you can't spell slaughter without laughter."

The Lincoln-Kennedy conections:
Both were elected to congress in '46 (1846 from Illinois, 1946 from Massachusetts).
Both were elected to the presidency in '60 (1860, 1960).
Both have seven letters in their last names ("Lincoln" and "Kennedy").
Both were concerned with civil rights (The Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil Rights Act of 1964).
Both married in their 30s to women that were in their 20s.
Both were shot, in the head, on a Friday (Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Friday, November 22, 1963).
Both were assassinated by Southerners (John Wilkes Booth from Maryland, Lee Harvey Oswald from New Orleans, Louisiana).
Both of the presidents' successors were named Johnson (Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson) that were Southerners (Tennessee, Texas) and both were born in '08 (December 29, 1808, August 27, 1908).
Both assassins, John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald, are known by their three names, and their full name are composed of fifteen letters. They were both assassinated before their trials.

President Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln. President Lincoln did however not have a secretary named "Kennedy".

Buddy Starcher wrote a song recounting many of these coincidences and parallels between the two presidents' careers and deaths entitled "History Repeats Itself." It became a U.S. Top 40 hit for him during the spring of 1966,[53] and reached number two on the Country chart. Cab Calloway also scored a minor chart hit with the song that same year.

Every time you shuffle a deck of cards, you get a combination that's never existed:

Grab a deck of cards and shuffle. Most likely, you will have created a combination of cards that had never existed yet until that moment. Any math experts out there know that this is because the probability comes out to 52 factorial or 52! (52 x 51 x 50 x 2 x 1). The probability that two card shuffles are exactly the same is so small, it likely will never happen.

Newer technology is more asshole and doesn't cover the absolute basics.

MI4 REAL posted...

Newer technology is more asshole and doesn't cover the absolute basics.

I've been saying this ever since the iPhone 6s.
Another example is literally every modern video game.

There was a squirrel (possibly multiple?) who got stuck in a fence by his nutsack D:

Maintenance Fee is 100% synonymous with "Bullshit"

Mussolini's granddaughter made a jpop album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jelk5h260E

Mars is strange.
In the late 1800, astronomers saw canals and seasonal changes on the surface that corresponded with the melting of the polar ice.
In 1888 Perrotin described having observed dramatic changes in a feature, named "Libya" by Schiaparelli, and assumed to be a continental land mass. "Clearly visible two years ago, it no longer exists today," and by 1892, Perrotin had switched his attention to watching for
"bright projections" on Mars, reporting three in the summer of that year.
In 1894 Percival Lowell noted a tawny colored cloud of dust that extended over 300 miles.
The Viking 1 landed on Mars on July 20, 1976, continuous recording data until Nov. 11, 1982, over six years of
recordings.
The Space Telescope Science Institute (STSci) report, MARS: A Cooler, Clearer World, states the fact several times that the Mars surface temperature has changed since Viking landing missions, constantly dropping in temperature.
In 1954 National Geographic sponsored a Mars observation project at Lamount-Hussey Obervator, Bloemfontein, South Africa on Naval Hill an altitude of 4888 feet. From this National Geographic sponsored expedition 20,000 pictures were taken of Mars. The National
Geographic published the article September 1955, pages 427 to 436 written by Dr. E.C. Slipher.
The picture in the National Geographic article reveals the areas mentioned as blue-green seasonal change. These observations were in September 1954, two years before the 1956 planet wide dust storm.
In 1971, Mariner 9's images reveal a barren planet, with no apparent seasonal changes except for the polar caps.
Valley of the Mariners was strangely first discovered by the Mariner 9. It stretches over 4000 km, nearly a quarter of the planet's circumference.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/8/1/AAZgIXAADXOt.jpg

^I live in Charleston SC. 30-40% of the peninsula is built on artificial fill which is made primary of sand, broken up masonry, and oyster shells.

There is an immortal jellyfish:

When it's an adult, the "Immortal Jellyfish," scientifically named Turritopsis dohrnii, can transform its cells back to its childhood state. This usually happens when it is physically harmed, sick, or even when it is starving. The jellyfish evolved this skill in order to survive throughout history, specifically when latching onto ships. Since it can hitchhike, its DNA has spread and the not-so-rare species is emerging all over the world.

indica posted...

There is an immortal jellyfish:

When it's an adult, the "Immortal Jellyfish," scientifically named Turritopsis dohrnii, can transform its cells back to its childhood state. This usually happens when it is physically harmed, sick, or even when it is starving. The jellyfish evolved this skill in order to survive throughout history, specifically when latching onto ships. Since it can hitchhike, its DNA has spread and the not-so-rare species is emerging all over the world.

I remember learning about this when I was younger. And I was actually thinking about this the other night. Haha

Male ducks squack; females quack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff8Y0YOXtTU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiA8IYrOwFw

Baby blue whales grow 200 pounds per day:

Blue Whale calves grow 200 pounds per day for the first year they are alive. They can move at a brisk pace of five miles per hour when fully grown, but can get up to 20 miles per hour if need be. They can also hear up to 1,000 miles away in the ocean.

3C 321 is a system of two galaxies rotating around each other. The larger galaxy, dubbed the "Death Star Galaxy" by NASA astronomers, has an energetic jet directed towards its companion.