Interesting Facts & Trivia

Everyone loves a surprising and interesting fun fact to make you question the world around you, to challenge your assumptions and long-held beliefs and ultimately proving that there’s never a time in your life when you stop learning. But you know what everyone loves even more than a fun fact? Well, a fun fact so surprising and interesting that you stop dead in your tracks to say, "Holy smokes! Really?"

Here are 15 interesting and fun facts to ponder (or not).

Showers Spark Creativity Showers aren’t just good for your hygiene—they’re good for your creativity, too. A recent study out of Drexel University found that over seven out of 10 people have reported experiencing an insight or breakthrough while in the shower. Other solitary activities, like taking a walk and daydreaming, show similar opportunities for inspiration.

Kids Ask 300 Questions a Day A recent British study observed young children and recorded the questions they asked the adults around them. Perhaps not surprisingly, the children usually turned to their mothers for answers, and these moms could end up answering an average of nearly 300 questions per day, or one question every two-and-a-half minutes. The moms reported that the hardest questions they were asked included “Why water wet?” and “What are shadows made of?”

The Total Weight of Ants Equals the Total Weight of People You’ve probably heard that the number of bugs on the planet exceeds the number of people many times over, but it can be hard to comprehend what that really looks like. Entomologists have estimated that there at least one million trillion insects, and only 1 percent of that number is ants.

If you took all those ants (about ten thousand trillion) and put them on one side of a giant scale, you’d have to put all the humans on earth (7.4 billion) on the other side to balance it out. Yes, the total weight of all the ants on earth equals the weight of all the people.

You Have a Nail in Your Body Or, at least, the components of one. Iron is an important nutrient that the human body needs. It helps your red blood cells carry oxygen, which is necessary for producing energy, throughout the body, so an iron deficiency can present with a feeling of exhaustion. Amazingly, a healthy adult has enough iron in their body that, if it were pulled out and melted down, it could form a nail up to three inches long.

Our European Ancestors Were Cannibals In 16th and 17th century Europe, cannibalism was actually a fairly common practice, and it was all for medical purposes. The practice seems to have started because Egyptian mummies were thought to have magical curative properties and so were ground up and put in many remedies.

As the idea evolved, human bone, blood, and fat were all used in medical concoctions. Got a headache? Crush a skull and make it into tea! While medical cannibalism has, thankfully, fallen out of favor, modern medicine still sometimes uses one human body to heal another in the form of blood donations, organ transplants, and skin grafts.

Pringles Aren’t Technically Potato Chips The next time you see a can of Pringles, take a closer look—you won’t see the word “chip” anywhere on the packaging. That’s because Pringles aren’t made of thinly-sliced potatoes, but instead dehydrated potato flakes pressed into their signature parabolic shape. That’s what makes them less greasy, but when other potato chip manufacturers complained, the FDA ruled that Pringles couldn’t be marketed as chips. The company eventually settled on “potato crisp.”

Pro Baseball Once Had Women Players While there are currently no female players in Major League Baseball, there have been plenty of women in professional men’s leagues. The first was Lizzy Arlington, who in 1898 pitched the ninth inning for the Reading Coal Heavers and won her team the game.

A little over 30 years later, an African-American woman, Jackie Mitchell, pitched against the Yankees during an exhibition game, striking out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. What’s more impressive: Mitchell was 17 years old at the time.

Rolls-Royce Makes the Most Expensive (New) Car in the World Currently, the most expensive car in the world is a Rolls-Royce Sweptail that sold for $13 million. However, even if you have that kind of dough lying around, you won’t be able to buy it—only one was made, and it was custom-built from the ground up according to the buyer’s specifications. Apparently, though, brand new custom cars have nothing on used classics; the recent sale of a 1963 Ferrari GTO for $70 million is supposedly the highest price ever paid for a car.

Chinese Police Use Geese Squads You’ve heard of police dogs, but police geese? As of 2013, twelve police stations in a rural area of China have begun to use geese as sentries. They are alert animals and, as you probably know, can create a lot of noise and commotion, and creative Chinese law enforcement officers are taking advantage of that fact. While this trend has yet to spread throughout China, Dongwan police claim that the geese have already stopped at least one theft.

The First iPhone Wasn’t Made by Apple The first mobile device to be called an “iPhone” was made by Cisco, not Apple. It allowed the user to use the voice functions of Skype without a computer. Apple announced its own product just 22 days later, and Cisco sued for trademark infringement. The lawsuit was ultimately settled out of court and both companies were allowed to keep using the name. However, it’s safe to bet that you’ve never heard of the Cisco iPhone.

Harriet Tubman Was Basically an Action Hero You probably know that Harriet Tubman was a former slave who became a political activist for the abolition movement. You may not know, however, that Tubman routinely fought for the cause. In addition to smuggling escaped slaves through the Underground Railroad, during the Civil War she was the first woman to lead an armed assault. She planned and executed a number of raids and was known to carry a revolver for personal protection.

Napoleon Was Once Attacked by Thousands of Rabbits Napoleon Bonaparte was once one of the most powerful men in Europe, but he suffered an ignominious defeat at the hands (or paws) of rabbits. After a military victory, Napoleon’s chief of staff organized a rabbit hunt to celebrate. Thousands of rabbits were brought in to be set loose, but instead of hopping away when the cages were opened, they turned to attack, swarming the partygoers. After trying and failing to shoo them away, the great Emperor Napoleon ran for the safety of his carriage.

Apple Pie Isn’t Actually American Apples originally come from Asia. The first pies were baked in Medieval Europe. Even the concept of putting apples in pie traces back to a recipe from England in 1381. Nevertheless, the phrase “as American as apple pie” turned up by 1924 and became a common saying during the years of the Second World War.

Sharks Can Live for Five Centuries Greenland Sharks are known to be some of the oldest living animals in our world. Researchers did carbon dating on a Greenland Shark that was caught four years ago and found it to be around 392 years old. Further testing revealed that our fishy friends could be up to 512 years old. Yes, that would mean that our geriatric friends would have been alive when Leonardo Da Vinci painted the “Mona Lisa.” Still, they aren’t as friendly as they look as they are apex predators, or top predators, within their ecosystem.

A 70-Year-Old Woman Completed Seven Marathons in Seven Days Across all Seven Continents Chau Smith was always an avid runner, and, in 2017, decided that for her 70th birthday, she would complete seven marathons in one week across all of the continents (yes, that includes Antarctica). Traveling made it challenging, as Smith made the race in Egypt just minutes before the start, because her plane to Cairo was delayed. Despite the obstacles, she went into full “beast mode” and completed her goal.

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).