Last Updated on January, 2024 by Edison
Here are 130 amazing facts that will blow your mind.
I also added credible sources alongside the facts that seem too impressive.
Technology
1. The first ‘computer,’ the steam-driven calculating machine, was built in 1823 by Charles Babbage. [1]
2. The Xerox company was initially called the Haloid company.
3. The first product that Sony came out with was the rice cooker in the late 1940s. [2]
Human Body Facts
4. Each person’s tongue print is unique. [3]
5. Despite what most people believe. The tongue is not the strongest muscle in the human body. [4]
6. The rarest blood type is H-H. 4 in 1 million people have this blood type. [5]
7. Man’s first known trip to the dentist occurred as early as 9,000 years ago [6]
8. One in 200 people has an extra rib. [7]
9. The right lung of humans is larger than the left one because of the space and placement of the heart. [8]
10. Brain damage won’t occur unless the fever is over 42°C. [9]
11. Venom on Bee stings has been shown to treat arthritis. [10]
12. Carbon monoxide can kill a person in less than 15 minutes. [11]
13. Enamel is the hardest substance in the human body.
14. People living in high altitudes have blood in their bodies that can deliver oxygen more quickly than those at low altitudes.
People
15. The US department of defense is the largest employer globally. It has a workforce of 3.2 million people. [12]
16. Robert Walpole of England borrowed a book from the Sydney Sussex college in 1668. The book was returned 288 years later.
17. In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die. [13]
18. Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning 7 times and survived.
19. Tony Cicoria, MD, got hit by lightning at the age of 42 in Albany, New York. After he recovered, he had an incredible urge to play the piano.
Eventually, he quit his job as a surgeon and became a classical musician. He called the first composition “The Lightning Sonata.” [14]
20. Frane Selak, a Croatian man, escaped death seven times, and then he won the lottery in 2003. [15]
21. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a survivor of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings during WW2. [16]
22. On March 20, 2016, Barack Obama became the first US President to visit Cuba in nearly 90 years.
23. Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark.
24. Samuel O’Reilly invented the first tattoo machine in 1891. He was inspired by Edison’s invention called the “Electric Pen.” [17]
25. Teflon was accidentally discovered by scientist Dr. Roy Plunkett while conducting a coolant gas experiment in 1938. [18]
26. The wheelbarrow was invented by the prime minister of Shu Han, Zhuge Liang, in 231 A.D
27. During the 19th century, Japanese women dye their teeth black. [19]
28. George Washington had teeth made of hippopotamus ivory. [20]
29. Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar had epilepsy.
30. Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan worked as a lifeguard in his youth at a beach near Dixon, Illinois, and saved over 77 lives. [21]
31. 22 US Presidents claimed to be of Irish Descent.
32. David Atchison was the president of the US for one day.
33. John F. Kennedy wrote ‘Profiles in Courage’ and was the only president to win the Pulitzer Prize.
34. The youngest Pope was Pope John XII, who is believed to have been 18 years old when he ascended to the papacy in 955. [22]
35. During his lifetime, artist Vincent Van Gogh only sold one of his paintings (The Red Vineyard). [23]
36. The first African-American to receive a Nobel Peace Prize was Ralph J. Bunche in 1950.
37. Over 1 million Indians from 400 tribes live in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest. Each tribe has its language, culture, and land. [24]
Linguistics
38. There are currently 7,102 known languages in the world. [25]
39. The Longest word is 1909 letters, and it refers to a distinct part of DNA. [26]
40. The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters.
41. The sentence “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses every letter in the English language.
42. “I am” is the shortest complete sentence in English.
43. Shakespeare invented +1700 words. [27]
44. Google got its name from the word “googol,” which refers to the number one with a hundred zeros after it.
45. The most common name in the world is Mohammad.
46. The word tulip comes from the Turkish word for turban. [28]
47. The word “checkmate” in chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the king is left helpless.”
48. The word Spain means “the land of rabbits.”
49. The word “Nike” comes from Greek Mythology. Nike is the goddess of victory.
Facts about nature
50. There are over 8.7 million species in the world. [29]
51. The sound made by Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe is so loud that it can be heard 40 miles away. [30]
52. An earthquake on Dec. 16, 1811, caused parts of the Mississippi River to flow backward. [31]
53. When a volcano erupts, it releases hot winds containing gas, ash, and rock, traveling to 100 km/h.
54. Japan has over 100 active volcanoes and is home to 10% of the active volcanoes in the world. [32]
55. A tsunami occurred in Alaska in 1958 that was 524 meters above sea level. [33]
56. The largest artificial lake in the world is Lake Kariba. It is located between Zambia and Zimbabwe.
57. Lake Nyos in Cameroon bleached carbon dioxide. Its poisonous burps killed 1,800 people in one night in August 1986.
58. One of the largest hailstones ever recorded was in Bangladesh, where one hailstone weighed 1 kg. [34]
59. Hot water freezes more quickly than cold water.
60. The largest desert in the world also contains most of the world’s freshwater!
Antarctica qualifies as a desert as it has virtually no rainfall.
61. Oil and coal are both made from the dead bodies of animals and plants that lived millions of years ago.
Plants
62. Medical research has found substances in mistletoe that can slow down tumor growth. [35]
63. The most poisonous plant in the world is the castor bean. When you dissect the plant, you see the seeds.
These seeds contain a protein called ricin which is 6000 times more poisonous than cyanide. [36]
64. The largest living organism on Earth is a giant fungus. It covers 10 square kilometers in Oregon, USA. It is thought to be around 2,400-8650 years old. [37]
65. The saguaro cactus can live for up to 200 years and grow 18 meters tall. It can store 1 ton of water in it. But don’t cut one open for a drink in the desert as it’s poisonous to humans!
66. Isaac Newton’s apple tree is still alive and growing today.
67. Apples are part of the rose family. [38]
68. The long fibers found in bananas are excellent for making paper.
Animals
69. 98% of brown bears in the United States are in Alaska.
70. Polar bear livers contain so much Vitamin A that it can be fatal if eaten by a human.
71. No two zebras have stripes that are exactly the same.
72. There are no snakes in New Zealand.
73. When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.
74. The only predator that polar bears have are humans.
75. Charles Darwin spent 39 years studying earthworms. [39] (It seems very fun).
76. Chocolate can be fatal to dogs. Chocolate contains the chemical theobromine, which is poisonous to dogs. [40]
77. A chicken with red earlobes will produce brown eggs, and a chicken with white earlobes will produce white eggs. [41]
78. The Hydra, which is related to the jellyfish, can grow its body back in a couple of days if cut in half.
79. Jellyfish have been on Earth for over 650 million years. This is before sharks and dinosaurs.
80. A leech has 32 brains.
81. The fastest shark in the world is “Shortfin Mako” it can reach a swimming speed of 70 km/h. [42]
82. Sharks have been in the ocean for about 400 million years and survived five mass extinctions.
83. Since the early 18th century, St. Bernard’s dogs were kept by monks in Switzerland to save people trapped in the snow.
For about 200 years, these heroic dogs have saved more than 2000 lives. [43]
Space
84. The first planet to be discovered was Uranus by William and Caroline Herschel on 13 March 1781.
85. Neptune was the only planet to be discovered by mathematics. [44]
The mathematician Alexis Bouvard published a series of astronomical tables detailing the orbit of Uranus.
In 1821 Astronomers observed that Uranus wobble from its predicted orbit from time to time. The theory was that another “planet” was causing this.
So, two astronomers, John Adams and Urbain Le Verrier made the calculations to predict Neptune’s position.
In 1846 they confirmed Neptune’s presence.
86. The astronomers above were not the first to observe Neptune. That Honor goes to Galileo Galilei. [45]
While sketching the moons of Jupiter, he drew Neptune, which happened to be in conjunction with Jupiter in late 1612.
By using Starry Night Software, observers re-created what Galileo saw in 1612.
He mistook Neptune for a star because of its slow movement.
87. The USSR launched the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957.
88. NASA’s Pioneer spacecraft was launched in 1972 on its voyage towards the star Aldebaran, but it will take two million years to arrive! [46]
89. Coca-cola was the first soft drink to be consumed in space. [47]
90. In March 1989, 32 chicken eggs were sent to space on the space shuttle Discovery. [48]
91. Mars is the home of Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in our solar system. [49]
92. February 1999 had no full moon. The same thing happened in February 2018. It will happen again in 2037. [50]
93. Some astronauts have suffered from an illness called lunar lung caused by breathing in moon dust.
94. By now, there have been discovered 3,706 exoplanets. (Planets outside our Solar system)
More Amazing facts
95. The Great Pyramids used to be as white as snow because they were encased in bright limestone. [51]
96. The first lighthouse was in Alexandria in 290 B.C. [52]
97. In the Czech Republic, a church has a chandelier made of human bones.
98. Istanbul, Turkey, is the only city located on two continents.
99. The smallest country in the world is the Vatican, with an area of 0.44 km².
100. Every continent has a city called Rome – except Antarctica.
101. The USA bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million. [53]
102. In 1893, they built the first mosque in the U.S. in Chicago. [54]
103. The New York Stock Exchange started as a coffee house. [55]
104. In 2013, Egypt’s capital Cairo witnessed snowfall for the first time in 112 years.
105. The Library of Congress in Washington D.C. is the largest in the world. It has over 162 million items.
106. The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. It lasted only 38 minutes. [56]
107. There are two pieces of land not owned by anyone, “Bir Tawil” and Antarctica.
108. There is an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which has a winter population of 1000 people in summer and 200 people in winter.
109. On August 21, 1911, the “Mona Lisa” was stolen by three Italians from the Louvre Museum. It was returned 28 months later. [57]
110. A Violin is a complex instrument with 70 separate pieces of wood.
111. Lasvegas.com is the most expensive domain name ever sold. It was purchased for $90 million in 2005.
112. The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com on March 15, 1985.
113. In 1897, Bayer, the makers of Aspirin, once marketed the drug heroin. [58], (Why I’m not surprised!)
114. The IRS employee’s tax manual has instructions for collecting taxes after a nuclear war. [59] (The world might be destroyed, but you’ll still pay taxes…)
115. In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10. The reason is that it’s a time when brand and logo are positioned nicely. [60]
116. The first TV commercial advertisement was by the Bulova Watch Company on July 1, 1941. The watch company paid $9.00 for an announcement that was 10 seconds long. [61]
117. The rarest and most expensive coffee in the world is Black Ivory Coffee, which is produced in Thailand. It cost about $500 a pound.
118. The 1912 Olympics was the last Olympics that gave out gold medals that were made entirely out of gold
Today gold and silver medals are made of 92.7% silver.
119. Most lipstick contains fish scales. Check the ingredients list for “Guanine”. [62]
120. The deepest mine in the world is the East Rand mine, which goes to a depth of about 3,585 meters.
121. You share your birthday with over 19 million people around the world.
122. It costs about 5.5 cents to make a $1 bill in the United States.
123. Printed on the tablet being held by the Statue of Liberty is July IV, MDCCLXXVI
124. The Dutch people are known to be the tallest people in Europe.
125. In Las Vegas, casinos do not have any clocks.
126. In Belgium, there is a museum just for strawberries.
127. The formula for Coca-cola has never been patented.
128. Coca-Cola was created in 1886 by Pharmacist John Pemberton. It was made by mixing the coca-leaf extract with Bordeaux wine.
To avoid liquor regulations, he chose to mix his coca-leaf extract with sugar syrup instead of wine. He also added kola nut extract. [63]
129. Coca-cola was cocaine-infused till 1929.
130. In 2001 a geologist in India called Chirananda De found fossilized raindrops! The imprint was found in ancient rocks, proving that it rained on earth 1.6 billion years ago.
131. They named Reebok after the rhebok – African Antelope.
132. The story of Mulan had been told in China for almost 1,400 years before Disney decided to make it into an animated movie.
We suggest:
60 Science facts, questions, and stories you probably didn’t know