How do you even figure that out?
"The day Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire was the exact middle of his life, to the day."
divshappyhour
"Talk about a mid-life crisis. I'll see myself out."
gbr555
Bad joke.
Giphy"A Russian luxury SUV Manufacturer attempted and failed to use whale penis skin for their SUV interiors."
PersephoneXXX1209
Woah.
"It is estimated viruses kill about 50% of ocean biomass every 4 days."
SonofBenson
"99.9% of which is bacteria and single-celled plants and animals, just in case anyone's thinking 'wow what do they do with all the dead whales.'"
ThadisJones
Bad squirrels.
"Iran arrested 14 squirrels on suspicion of espionage."
PizzaLeftovers_
"Nigeria once arrested a goat for stealing stuff in human form. Some other African country arrested someone for murdering a human in hyena form."
ithilras
Witchcraft!
Giphy"When compasses were first used on ships, sailors were afraid of them because they thought it had evil powers. Compasses were stored in boxes called a 'binnacle.'"
thisisanasparagus
"That's funny. My husband was asking me, 'How do you say compass in Spanish?' to which I replied, brújula. He was like, 'Brújula? That sounds like bruja, a witch.' The name makes sense if they were thought to have evil powers/brujería/witchcraft."
TheOneQueen
Why would he eat it?
"President Coolidge got sent a raccoon for Thanksgiving one year, but instead of eating it, he granted it a pardon because it was 'cute.'"
LargeBigHuge
That's weird.
"Orcas are a natural predator to moose."
chrisv267
"Moose swim between islands or from land to islands and orcas annihilate them from below."
chrisv267
I didn't know clouds weighed anything.
Giphy"A typical cumulus cloud actually weighs 1.1 million pounds (498,951 kg)."
NoC0nnection_
The rare pineapple.
"It takes 2 years for a pineapple to grow."
BobMightBeCool
"Have a pineapple plant in my yard. Can confirm. It's now Year 4 and it's about to bear 2nd fruit. And you only get one pineapple."
burnblue
Bad joke.
"There isn't a single bridge across the Amazon River."
BobMightBeCool
"I'm so glad all those bridges across the Amazon River found love."
Panda_Boners
OhTim
"There was a week in American history where Tim Allen had the #1 film, tv show, and book."
cameronbcook
"To this day, he’s the only one to ever accomplish it. Yet according to Bobby Slayton, Tim once mentioned to him that he wishes he (Tim) could go back to being a rookie or a semi-pro, because he “was bored and had nothing else to do.” It shows these days that he might have went crazy around that time."
nsnchcncjcn
Every man
"Ancient sailors believed that cats were magic and would often risk their own lives, even in an 'every man for himself' situation, to save a cat from a sinking ship. All ships had at least one ship's cat as cats would eat the rats that have always plagued ships. The ship's cat would often be given a rank and sailors would generally take excessively good care of their cats."
GargantuanCake
Roar
"Cheetahs can't roar. They meow like house cats."
SpeedyTrooper
"Thats because Cheetah's aren't Panthers which are the big cats that Roar: Tigers, Lions, Leopards, Jaguars and ... Snow Leopards."
"Yep Mountain Loins (aka Pumas, aka Cougars ) are not Panthers either and don't roar either; in fact Cougars are the Cheetah's closest living relatives and no more closely related to Lions than your house cat."
jwktiger
Anatomy
Season 2 Episode 3 GIF by Parks and RecreationGiphy"A barnacle has a penis up to 10 times the length of its body."
DrDhrupesh
"This was illustrated to me on a biology field trip in high school. The guy convening our breakout session had one of our male classmates use a 50ft rope to lasso a female classmate from across the room. It was about as awkward as it sounds."
ari_pop
Modernize
"The Nazis were the first ever people in modern history to start an anti-smoking and tobacco movement. Or being from Scotland, and finding out the national animal is the unicorn!"
HFFT5
"Many Nazis, including Hitler, were environmentalists. They strongly supported animal rights and conservation. Henrich Himler wanted a complete ban on hunting animals. Interestingly most German animal welfare laws are diluted versions of the laws introduced by the Nazis."
ETTConnor
A Great Era
Feeling It Drama Club GIF by NickelodeonGiphy"Pocahontas and Shakespeare lived during the same time."
rance_kun
You're Late
"Leonardo Da Vinci died within a few months of when Cortez landed in Cuba. The New World had been discovered almost 30 years earlier, and Ponce de Leon had set out some seven years earlier, so there’s a reasonably good chance that Leonardo was aware that Florida existed when he died."
ForgettableUsername
Be Cool
"Astronomer here! The coldest place we know of in the universe is actually... on Earth! To explain further, the coldest places we know of that naturally occur in the universe are inside dark nebulae with little to no star formation, and thus no starlight to heat things up. The coldest one known so far is the Boomerang Nebula, where the temperature has been measured as low as 1 degree above absolute zero (−272 °C or −458 °F)."
"However, we regularly get below this temperature in labs on Earth! Specifically, absolute zero is at –273.15°C (or –459.67°F) and labs on Earth regularly get to within a tenth or even a hundredth of a degree of that. Pretty cool!"
Andromeda321
There is so much out there to learn.
What would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments below!
This Reddit thread is stocked with the vigilantes of the fun fact. They've adopted the thankless, but important role of setting the record straight.
The result is a list of deflating revelations. But arguably, these corrections carry as much, if not more interest than the original *incorrect* facts themselves.
Ryrylx asked, "What's a common 'fact' that's actually incorrect?"
Bring a Shield and it's Safe and Sound
"It's not dangerous to wake a sleepwalker. They won't have a heart attack or be put into a coma. They'll just be confused and it won't be pleasant for them, that's it." -- calathea1
"And depending on what kind of dream they're in, they might hit you." -- Fantastic-Mrs-Fox
Gotta Cut Corners Somewhere
"The beverage used by Jim Jones to kill all of those people was not Kool-aid, it was another brand called 'Flavor-aid.' " -- FloralBison
"When you're making enough fruit-flavored beverage to serve a thousand people, the savings from using a generic brand can really add up." -- brberg
Better Odds, but Still Bad
"Gladiator games in ancient Rome were not 'two men go in, one comes out.'"
"The figure I've seen in most studies is a chance of 1:9 for a gladiator to die during a munus that he took part in."
"That's huge, of course... but still means that, in most cases, it wasn't a fight to the death."
-- slacker25
Work Smarter, Not Harder
"You most probably weren't the fastest sperm cell. The egg has an outer protective layer that takes several sperm to wear down before fertilization."
"Honestly, you were probably one of the slowest sperm cells who arrived too late to do any work but still won the race of life."
"Also, the egg actually has a number of chemical barriers that select sperm with certain attractive chemical markers. The egg actually chooses which packet of DNA makes it to fertilization."
-- TinCupTan
Don't Flatter Yourselves
"Humans eat 8 spiders a year in their sleep."
"Spiders generally like cool, dry places. The inside of your mouth is not an appealing place for them."
Brian Power--About Three AA Batteries
"'We only use 10% of our brainpower.'"
"You always use 12 watts. That is the total power of the brain." -- DjDisingenius
"More specifically, you use all of your brain, but use different parts at different times, rather than all at once."
"This is why you never hear doctors saying, 'Thank god, he got shot in the 90% of the brain that doesn't do anything.'" -- Kakyoins_Egg
WHAT.
"'Breakfast is the most important meal of the day...'"
"Kelloggs payed researchers to create studies confirming that statement and started using it as a slogan to sell more cereal."
-- ValentinerX
Standard Measurement Strikes Again
"Napoleon wasn't short, he was actually 5'7" which was considered average-to-tall height for the time."
"Apparently the only way we can surmise that the urban legend started that he was short was because of the difference between English and French Imperial units, which led to his height seeming small by British figures."
-- Mayfair_Heir
And How do you Account for the Lungs Hmmmm?
"That the blood in your body is blue until it hits oxygen." -- StrikingWeb3
"I got onto a debate about this last year and dropped the 'blood literally carry's oxygen through your body' and they shut up." -- onionswithrubber
Would Have Run Out of Places a LONG Time Ago
"It's commonly said that 'lightning never strikes twice in the same place. In fact, it does - and frequently.'" -- Back2Bach
"Otherwise lightening rods would not be a thing." -- otter_pickles
"Or the one guy that has about 7 lightning strikes in his medical history." -- redbetweenlines
Do you have something to confess to George? Text "Secrets" or "" to +1 (310) 299-9390 to talk him about it.