We believe that there's nothing more important in life than cultivating a curious mind. And what better way to do that than to learn a mind-blowing fun fact! How many of these did you know already?
42. How Convenient!
black Fayorit typewriter with printer paperPhoto by Florian Klauer on UnsplashThe device you’re reading this on probably has a QWERTY keyboard. Many different arrangements were used by early typewriters, but QWERTY is the one that ended up sticking.
Strangely, one of the longest words that can be typed on a single row of a QWERTY keyboard is “typewriter.”
41. A Big Heart
The blue whale is the largest animal that’s ever existed—and it's not even really close. A full-grown Blue weighs almost twice as much as the heaviest dinosaur.
An animal that big needs a serious heart to keep it going: The blue whale’s heart can be the size of a small car, weigh 1,300 pounds, and has vessels so large that a human could swim in them... although I imagine a Blue Whale would not be thrilled about that experiment.
40. Tennis Anyone?
woman in white vest and black bikini with hand on chestPhoto by Darius Bashar on UnsplashYour lungs are filled with tiny sacs called alveoli that draw oxygen from the air you breathe into your bloodstream. In total, the average adult has around 600 million of these alveoli, and their combined surface area is roughly the size of a tennis court.
39. Take Flight
Aviophobia, or the fear of flying, affects millions of people.
But not only are plane crashes incredibly rare, they aren't even always fatal. In fact, between 1983 and 2000, 96% of people who were involved in plane crashes actually survived! It really is the safest way to travel.
38. Bit by Bitcoin
gold and silver round coinsPhoto by Kanchanara on UnsplashSatoshi Nakamoto is the inventor of bitcoin.
Nakamoto published a paper in 2008 that first described the currency, and released the first version of a bitcoin software client in 2009. But “Satoshi Nakamoto” is a pseudonym, and to this day no one knows who he or she is. The last anyone has heard from them was in 2011, and various sleuths have tried to uncover their identity (unsuccessfully) ever since.
37. Take the Stairs
The entire state of Wyoming has only two escalators, both in the city of Casper. They’re so rare that some Wyoming residents visit these escalators just for the novelty of it, with one of them describing it as “like riding a tilt-a-whirl, but only slower.”
Annnnd that it is the most adorably mid-Western statement ever made. No wonder we love the middle states.
36. Christmas in Vietnam
man in black suit jacket sitting beside brown wooden tablePhoto by Jake Goossen on UnsplashIf you were listening to the radio in Vietnam in April, 1975, you might have heard a surprising song: Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas.” That’s because it was the secret signal for Americans to evacuate the country in an event called Operation Frequent Wind.
Speaking of White Christmas, here's another fun fact: Bing Crosby's ode to the holiday is actually the best-selling single of all time. It's true!
35. Half a Million on Your Head
The F-35 fighter jet is one of the most expensive military projects of all time. It’s estimated that by the time the project is finished, it will have cost $1.4 trillion. Clearly, no expense was spared at any point, and that includes in the pilot’s helmets: Each F-35 helmet costs a whopping $400,000.
34. Hope You Like Walking
red and white concrete houses during daytimePhoto by Phil Aicken on UnsplashIn an effort to make the city more pedestrian-friendly and to lower its carbon footprint, the city of Oslo in Norway made plans to ban all cars from entering the city center by 2019. And believe it or not: It worked! In 2019 Oslo reported exactly 0 pedestrian or cyclist fatalities.
33. A Cat by Any Other Name
The cougar goes by more names than any other animal. You might know it as a puma, mountain lion, panther, catamount, or one of another 40 English, 18 native South American, and 25 native North American names.
32. Dinner and a Show
Steve Aoki | Future Music Festival, Randwick, Sydney, Austra… | Flickrwww.flickr.com
The founder of the iconic Japanese restaurant chain Benihana was a man by the name of Rocky Aoki.
If you recognize that name, it’s because his son is DJ Steve Aoki and his daughter is actress/model Devon Aoki. But although Rocky was a millionaire, he didn’t spread the wealth to his children. Since he came from nothing, he wanted his children to do the same, so never gave Steve any money to start up his record label.
31. Searching for Giants
The Lewis and Clark expedition is famous for many reasons, but they had one goal you might not expect: Thomas Jefferson asked them to find a mammoth.
Turns out, Jefferson had a thing for mammoths (or, more accurately, American Mastodons). He was completely enamored with the extinct behemoths, and held out hope that they continued to live many miles away in the west of America. So when he sent Lewis and Clark out on their famous expedition, he told them to look for mammoths. What a discovery that would have been!
30. It’s-a-Me! Tom Hanks!
a toy figure of mario on top of a blue objectPhoto by Mika Baumeister on UnsplashTom Hanks was initially cast to play Mario in the 1993 movie Super Mario Bros. However, this was early in Hanks’ career, and the studio heads were concerned about his star power (no pun intended) and how much money he was asking for. The studio then replaced Hanks with Bob Hoskins, who they considered to be the more bankable star. The movie? Did not make bank.
Shoulda cast Chris Pratt...
29. Shhhh!
The British Library has more than 150 million items, and that number keeps growing. Every year, more than 3 million items are added to the collection, meaning that 12km of shelves need to be added yearly to accommodate it all.
28. Smells Like…Deodorant!
blue vinyl record on brown wooden tablePhoto by Jurian Kersten on UnsplashWhen he set out to write “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Kurt Cobain said that he was trying to write the ultimate pop song in the style of the Pixies.
He came up with the title when a friend of his (Kathleen Hanna, the lead singer of Bikini Kill) wrote the phrase “Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit” on his wall. Cobain thought the sentence had a certain poetic ring to it, and the rest is history. Really though, Hanna just meant he smelled like Teen Spirit, a popular deodorant at the time.
27. Dinosaurs Didn't Go Extinct
Who doesn't wish that the dinosaurs were still alive for us to see today? Well, good news—they didn't go extinct, and they're all around us! That's because one kind of dinosaur survived their extinction: Birds! Birds didn't just evolve from dinosaurs, they are dinosaurs, just very specialized ones.
26. Throwing Around The PigCowskin
brown and black Wilson footballPhoto by Dave Adamson on UnsplashDespite the common nickname, NFL footballs are actually made from cow leather, and it takes 3,000 cows to supply the league with footballs for just one season.
25. Space Pharaohs
The era of Ancient Egypt lasted for thousands of years, which can be hard to wrap your head around. To put it in perspective, the Great Pyramid of Giza was built roughly between 2550 and 2490 BC, while Cleopatra took the throne in 51 BC. That means that the Cleopatra’s reign was closer in time to the moon landing than it was to the building of the Great Pyramid.
24. The Shrimp from Hell
brown and white crab on white and brown rockPhoto by Amber Wolfe on UnsplashThe mantis shrimp attacks its prey by essentially punching them extremely hard. Their fist-like appendages can punch so fast that they can boil the water around them and split your finger to the bone.
23. How Do You Sing Along?
Spain’s national anthem has no words. It’s called the "Marcha Real" and it’s one of four anthems on earth that’s entirely instrumental (the other countries are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and San Marino).
22. No Expiry Date
clear glass jar with brown liquidPhoto by Art Rachen on UnsplashEveryone’s had to deal with emptying a fridge of food that’s long since gone bad, but there’s one food that you don’t have to worry about: honey. Because of its unique makeup, it never spoils, and people have found pots of honey that are thousands of years old with the sweet stuff still perfectly preserved inside.
21. Watching the Universe
The static on your old TV set is actually caused in part by the Big Bang. Television static is caused by your antenna picking up radiation in the atmosphere. Some of that radiation is the “cosmic microwave background,” which is leftover radiation from the formation of the universe. So the next time you see static on a TV, know that you’re looking actually looking at part of the beginnings of our universe.
20. Checkmate
chess pieces on boardPhoto by Felix Mittermeier on UnsplashIt’s common knowledge that chess is a complicated game, but just how complicated is hard to imagine. In fact, there are so many different possible moves in a chess game that it isn’t even worth the impossible amount of effort it would take to calculate it. But scientists can confidently say that there are far more potential unique chess games than there are atoms in the entire universe.
19. We Learn Fast
Before 1903, no human had ever achieved powered flight. But once we passed that barrier, progress started happening fast. Airplanes were used in warfare within a decade, and people had landed on the moon just 66 years after the first flight. Not bad considering people had been trying to fly for millennia.
18. Months of Traffic
black traffic light turned on during night timePhoto by Tsvetoslav Hristov on UnsplashNext time you’re stuck at a red light, try not to do the math of how much time you spend there—it won’t make you feel any better. Drivers spend an average of two days a year waiting at red lights, which adds up to about 4 months over the course of a lifetime driving if you live to be 75.
17. Smart Birdy
Along with dolphins and chimpanzees, the Eurasian magpie is right up there with the most intelligent animals on Earth. The mirror test (the ability to recognize yourself in a mirror) is seen as an important test in animal intelligence, and the Eurasian magpie is the only non-mammal that has passed it. It also has one of the largest brain-to-weight ratios in the animal kingdom and has been observed using tools, working in teams, playing games, and grieving.
16. More Unique Than Unique
silver and diamond studded cross pendantPhoto by Zdeněk Macháček on UnsplashInhabitants of Fort Keogh in Montana found snowflakes that were more than a foot across during a snowstorm in 1887. Some of the flakes were 15 inches wide, the biggest ever recorded.
15. Wealth Gap
If you combined the wealth of the 48 poorest nations on earth, they would still have less money than the world’s three richest people.
You're right: I suppose that's not really a "fun fact". But we did promise mind-blowing trivia as well... and that is certainly astonishing.
14. I Wonder if They Tried Honking
vehicles on road at daytime selective photographyPhoto by Iwona Castiello d'Antonio on UnsplashThe biggest traffic jam of all time happened in 2010 in China. Mostly taking place on China National Highway 110, it affected cars for over 60 miles. The jam lasted for more than 10 days, and some people were trapped in their cars for five days straight.
13. I Bet, I Bet, 50 Words or Less
Green Eggs and Ham is one of the most popular children’s books of all time, and if you count them up, it uses exactly 50 different words. That’s because Dr. Seuss wrote it on a bet: his publisher bet Seuss $50 that he couldn’t write an entire book with 50 or fewer words.
12. Duck Money
File:"Uncle Patinhas" "StreetArt it seems that we have business ...commons.wikimedia.org
Scrooge McDuck was named by Forbes as the richest fictional character in the world. They estimate his personal net worth to be $65.4 billion. They said he made his money in mining and treasure hunting, and that he kept most of his wealth, of course, in his gold coin swimming pool.
11. Pennyweight
The smallest birds on earth are hummingbirds. Although they come in a variety of sizes, the smallest weighs as little as 2.4 grams. For comparison, a US penny weighs 2.5 grams.
10. #onelongbook
person holding space gray iPhone XPhoto by Marten Bjork on UnsplashIf you took everything posted on Twitter every day and put it into a book, that book would be 10 million pages long.
9. Fluffy and Heavy
Clouds are made up of water vapor that’s collected in the atmosphere. Because they float in the sky, you might think that they’re light as a feather, but the average weight of a cumulus cloud (the really fluffy-looking ones) is actually 1.1 million pounds.
8. Get Your Peafowl Straight
photo of blue and green peacockPhoto by Ricardo Frantz on UnsplashPeacocks are all male. They’re actually a kind of bird called a peafowl, and the females are called peahens.
7. These Colors Do Fade
Red, white, and blue no more. In 2012, NASA confirmed that five of the six American flags planted on the moon by various lunar missions were still standing where they were. The catch? The flags don’t really look like American flags anymore. In the harsh radiation of space and the bright sunlight on the moon, unfiltered by any atmosphere, the flags have been bleached completely white.
6. Don't Mess with the IRS
red and black brick wallPhoto by Jon Tyson on UnsplashAl Capone was one of America's most famous mob bosses, ruling the Chicago underworld and making an estimated $100 million per year.
So what brings down a gang lord like that?
Turns out that Capone's crimes only caught up with him because the IRS looked into his tax situation. He'd gone years without filing, and in the end, that's the crime that did him in. He was given an eleven-year sentence for tax evasion, the longest tax evasion sentence ever given in the United States.
5. The Big Guys Can’t Jump
Elephants, rhinos, and hippos are some of the very few types of mammal that can’t jump.
While rhinos and hippos will occasionally get all four feet off of the ground while running, the elephant never does at all, staying firmly landlocked at all times.
Remember that next time you're trying to have fun with an elephant: if you break out a skipping rope, you're really going to hurt their feelings.
4. Try to Name Them All!
textPhoto by Joshua Hoehne on UnsplashEnglish is a complicated language, and words like “set” and “run” don’t make it any easier. For years, set was considered to have the most meanings of any word, with the Oxford English Dictionary giving it 430 separate definitions in 1989. But according to OED's chief editor John Simpson, the word “run” has surpassed it with a whopping 645 meanings as of 2011!
3. Better Loot
Confederate cavalry commander James Ewell Brown “J.E.B.” Stuart once sent a telegram to Union General Montgomery C. Meigs complaining about the quality of the mules he had just stolen from Union soldiers. “Gen. Meigs,” he wrote, “will in the future please furnish better mules; those you have furnished recently are very inferior.”
2. A Fact About "Having Fun"
grayscale photo of woman doing silent hand signPhoto by Kristina Flour on UnsplashSkyn Condoms performed surveys to find out the sex habits of U.S. millennials by State. They learned that a surprising number of people from California, for example, had sex in a school. According to their findings:
- Millennials from Georgia were most likely to pleasure themselves multiple times per day.
- More than half of the population of sexually active millennials from Kansas have done it in a hot tub or pool.
- Millennials in Massachusetts were most likely to have had a one-night stand.
- Millennials in New York were most likely to have a threesome.
1. Poopy Time
Not such a fun fact: Toilet paper is so ineffective that using it to wipe your butt after you poop doesn't even prevent health problems such as urinary tract infections. It simply doesn't remove all the poop. There's also research to suggest aggressive wiping with toilet paper can cause anal fissures and even hemorrhoids. Doctors recommend using wet wipes instead, which are far more effective at removing fecal matter.
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.