People Share The Most Obscure, Random Facts They Know

Just Another Manic Monday

It is more likely for anyone to have a stroke on Monday rather any other day, because of the stress that comes with the beginning of a new week.

in this link it also says that the most common weeks are around holidays too.

https://www.pulsara.com/blog/if-youre-going-to-have-a-stroke-or-stemi-heres-when-it-might-happen

- nobodyrealyO_o

My father had a heart attack on an early Monday morning. The wonderful people at the hospital told us that they get the most heart attack and stroke victims at - I think - 9 o'clock in the morning. Thankfully it was minor and he is now happy and healthy!

- Thatkid11235

Woah, this is 100% accurate! My father had his stroke on the Monday after the Easter weekend, right when he wanted to get up for work.

He hasn't been to work since.

- anna-gla

Holy crap. I had what I believe was a seizure earlier this morning. It's Monday.

This scares the sh*t out of me. I live alone with my dog in a house with lots of hardwood stairs as well. Nobody to really check on me.

Terrible cell reception, you have to go to a specific spot on my property for a good call. My fear is that I'll die, and nobody will find me for weeks or months.

- BrownShadow

Lobster Face

Lobsters pee out of their faces. From right under their eyes.

also you'd be wrong to assume they do it to.. actually pee. In fact they pee into each other's face to communicate, or before a fight, or before some hot sexy time.

- andreyzudwa

Before You Dig

I located utility lines for awhile. You honestly have no idea how much infrastructure is underneath you. Get your lines marked before you dig. There is a decent chance that there is a major electrical or fiber optic line running through your back yard, not just the lines to YOUR house.

when they are marked:

Red-electric

Green-sewer

Blue-water

Yellow-Gas

Orange-communication

orange with a dot on either side- fiber optic

any color in a diamond with parallel lines- duct run, lots of lines in one trench.

- ekolanderia

It's funny because my dad and I went to put a fence up and had the lines marked. Put a auger right through a communication line because they marked it like 4' off lol

- SPYK3O

Can't Vomit

Horses can't throw up.

- keelyshobbrook

Neither can rabbits or rats.

That's why most modern rat poisons are emetic. Other creatures (cats, dogs, human children, etc.) that find and eat the poison very quickly become violently sick and vomit up most or all of the poisonous material, significantly reducing the risk that they will be harmed by it.

Rats, however, cannot be sick, and so the poison stays in them and kills them off.

- McChes

Wait, what do horses do if they eat something bad? Do they just have strong stomachs?

- DirtySoapFlakes

Lol no. They die.

Horses can be pretty ridiculous about randomly dying, especially with colic, which is basically a horrible horse tummy ache. I knew one horse that would colic if you didn't feed him his special food at the exact same time every day 3 times a day.

- aveindha25

My Aunt's horse died from eating moldy bread because you are right, horses cant throw up.

- the_obmj

Um ... Australia? Things OK Down There?

Platypuses glow when they're exposed to UV lights.

- False-improvement-56

Bioflorescent... they are steadily found more and more examples that do the same thing. I think Tasmanian Devils and Wombats were both captured recently.

- InanimateCarboRodAU

Tassie Devils do... kind of.

It seems to only happen to those animals in captivity?

The belief is that these (primarily) nocturnal creatures are expected to be seen by daylight in zoos and as a result they absorb too much UV radiation from the sun and when in the dark they re-emit and it shows up better under UV light.

- FiligreesDaddy

Wombats glow on their noses!

- so_it_goes17

Netflix

Netflix was founded before Google

- ItzBlossom05

Even better: In 2000, Netflix offered itself for sale to Blockbuster for something like $50 million. Blockbuster, convinced that Netflix was a flash in the pan and that people would always want to rent disks, declined.

This was before streaming was even an idea in the mind of Reed Hastings; streaming was still a very, very new technology at the time and most people were still on dial-up modems, so it just wasn't feasible. Still, things would be certainly different today.

- SpaceForceAwakens

Default Mode

Your brain prefers to default your mood back to one that you've made comfortable for yourself. So you can literally train yourself to default back to being sad, or being happy, or being anxious etc.

Unfortunately I don't have expertise in exactly how to do that.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) would be helpful and maybe a type of therapy called Gestalt therapy? But I'm no expert on any of this stuff.

I have 2 friends who are counsellors and a sister as well. So maybe I could ask them.

- Stevieeer

A Man-child Changes History

This one potentially changed the course of history.

Kaiser Wilhelm II of the German Empire was the ruler of Germany during WWI. Though technically a constitutional monarchy at the time Germany, and its military especially, operated more like an autocratic monarchic state. The top ranks of the German military relied on the personal patronage the kaiser for career advancement.

Thing is, he was a bit of a man-child. So instead of a jump, "how high," situation, it was more like "here's a dress, it'd be funny if you marched around."

In 1908, Field Marshal Dietrich von Hulsen-Haeseler was the top ranking German officer and was only 56 years old. He died that year of a heart attack while marching around for kaiser dressed in a tutu and a feathered hat. Presumably because of the stress and embarrassment of the situation.

Had he lived, he would've commanded the German military in WWI. Instead, they entered the war led by Generals who had risen to the rank without ever actually commanding an army in the field. They were untested jesters in war. It didn't go well.

And that is my useless fact of the day!

- PurveyorOfUselessFacts

Spirit Carbon

Ancient Europeans believed that if they ground up the bones of their greatest warriors or sacred animals and mixed them in with the iron when forging a sword, the sword would contain their spirits, making it stronger.

Little did they know that by adding in the ground up bones they were introducing carbon to the mix and creating carbon steel, which is much stronger than simple iron.

So they were making their swords stronger by adding the sacred bones, just not in the way they thought they were.

- Equivalent-Floor-607

Brain Bag

I just learned this yesterday. After an autopsy the brain is put in to the body instead of back in the skull.

It's very hard to fit the cap back on the skull with brain put back in place. The better fit without the brain makes the head look better after the autopsy for sake of the family.

- itsyourgirlbobby

All innards removed are put into a bag, in the abdominal cavity, and then the corpse is stitched up.

- elegantpun

Umbrellas Are High Demand

I can't find any good sources for this, but based on countless stories, first-hand experience, and a Japanese friend's confirmation: "The top 3 things most commonly stolen in Japan are: umbrellas, bicycles, and underwear" 😅

I find this amusing because I've lost my wallet and phone multiple times here in Japan, but they always come back. Yet I've probably spent hundreds of dollars buying umbrellas 😅

- CosmicBabyElephant

The Water Slide

The Verrückt (meaning insane or crazy) Was one of the tallest waterslides in Schlitterbahn Kansas City At a staggering height of 168 feet!

However, On August 7, 2016, Caleb Schwab, the 10-year-old son of Kansas state representative Scott Schwab, died while riding Verrückt.

He was decapitated my a piece of metal that got loose from the netting it supported.

- Im_EatingChips2

Figs

Figs, despite being a fruit, aren't technically vegetarian/vegan due to the chance of fig wasps having been killed in the pollination process.

Fig plants have a unique pollination process in which female wasps crawl inside the fig flower to lay eggs, losing her wings and antennae in the process, and promptly dies. The baby wasps then hatch and fly to another fig plant, pollinating it and so the process repeats. The fig flower, now pollinated, grows into the fig fruit.

Now, this usually happens to the 'male' fig plant species (we typically eat the female variant) but some wasps do get confused, hence why they cant be guaranteed vegetarian.

- [Reddit]

Bird Nerd

Let me regale you with bird facts because I'm a huge bird nerd:

• It's not precisely known why sparrows and other birds take "dust baths" (they shake dust and dirt into their feathers) but it's likely because they're removing mites from their feathers.
• Speaking of dirt, birds purposefully ingest dirt because it aids with digestion.
• Pigeons are smarter than we think. "Pigeons are considered to be one of the most intelligent birds on the planet and able to undertake tasks previously thought to be the sole preserve of humans and primates. The pigeon has also been found to pass the 'mirror test' (being able to recognize its reflection in a mirror) and is one of only 6 species, and the only non-mammal, that has this ability. The pigeon can also recognize all 26 letters of the English language as well as being able to conceptualize. In scientific tests pigeons have been found to be able to differentiate between photographs and even differentiate between two different human beings in a photograph when rewarded with food for doing so."
• Eating like a bird isn't a compliment, because if you ate like a bird, you would most likely be eating the equivalent of a dozen or more large pizzas a day.
• Birds have been known to eat paint chips for calcium, especially blue jays.
• Woodpeckers attract mates by pecking. The louder they can peck, the more likely they are to attract a mate. So if you wondered why they're pecking on your chimney, that's most likely why.

Mozart

Mozart composed 626 pieces in under 34 years. That is roughly 18.5 compositions per year; each of them about 20/30 minutes long. This means that he wrote approximately 1.2 minutes PER DAY, which (as a composer myself) is incredibly difficult.

- lolinnitfam