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  • Language

    Interlingue, an international auxiliary language, was released 100 years ago under the name Occidental

  • People

    Action bias is the psychological phenomenon where people tend to favor action over inaction, even when there is no indication that doing so would point towards a better result.

  • People

    Sophie Freud, the granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, criticized psychoanalysis as a “narcissistic indulgence”

  • Science

    the quantum boomerang effect causes particles to turn around and return to their starting point

  • People

    According to Bohr’s law, the person who draws first in a gunfight loses

  • History

    Ancient Romans made toothpaste with human urine

  • History

    After a massacre that took place there, the village of Sohagpur was renamed the “village of widows”

  • Creatures

    Ossicones are paired weapons on the heads of giraffes, male okapi, and some of their extinct relatives

  • Food + Drink

    Recipes for cream cheese can be found in U.S. cookbooks and newspapers beginning in the mid-18th century

  • Technology

    1 the Road is an experimental novel composed by artificial intelligence in the spirit of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

  • Human Body

    Endometriosis, a condition in which tissue from the womb occurs in unusual locations, can cause bleeding into the chest during menstrual periods

  • Creatures

    males in two species of megabats have been observed to produce milk

  • People

    Mae Jemison, the first black woman in space, worked at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand and was a medical officer for the Peace Corps before becoming an astronaut

  • Pop Culture

    Japanese pop group Yaen, originally formed to perform a parody song on a television variety series, went on to produce three top-ten albums

  • Creatures

    black-sided flowerpeckers camouflage the outside of their nests with lichens

  • History

    the common-law wife of the ninth vice president of the United States was Julia Chinn, an enslaved woman

  • Earth

    The Congolian rainforest is the world’s second-largest tropical forest, spans six countries, and contains a quarter of the world’s remaining tropical forest

  • Earth

    The deepest known cave — measured from its highest entrance to its lowest point — is Veryovkina Cave in Abkhazia, Georgia, with a depth of 2,204m (7,231 ft)

  • Creatures

    Capybaras are semiaquatic mammals found throughout almost all countries of South America except Chile

  • Earth

    1888 eruption of Ritter Island reduced the 780-metre tall (2,560 ft) volcano to a height of just 140 metres (460 ft)

  • History

    Pliofilm, a pre-war food wrap, was used to waterproof firearms during the Normandy landings

  • Earth

    The Straits of Mackinac connect Lake Michigan to Lake Huron, which are hydrologically one

  • Creatures

    Rice’s whale is one of the most endangered cetaceans, with fewer than 50 adult individuals believed to remain

  • History

    A symbolic amount of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center after it was destroyed in the September 11 attacks was used in the construction of the USS New York

  • Creatures

    Boie’s frog resembles dead leaves on the floor of the forest

  • Culture

    Nora Ephron was the first writer to use the word “shit” in Esquire, in her 1972 essay “A Few Words About Breasts”

  • space

    spiral galaxy NGC 3393 hosts the nearest known pair of supermassive black holes

  • Culture

    Civil rights lawyer Deborah Archer is the first African-American to be president of the American Civil Liberties Union in its 101-year history

  • Human Body

    A sesamoid bone is a bone embedded within a tendon or a muscle, like your kneecap.

  • History

    Horse carcasses, and trash from three of New York City’s boroughs, were once processed at Barren Island, Brooklyn

  • Language

    The pilcrow, ¶, is a typographical character marking the start of a paragraph.

  • History

    Slovakia was the only country that paid for the deportation of its Jewish citizens during the Holocaust

  • Culture

    The Bangkok neighbourhood of Bang Rak is home to Buddhist temples, mosques, a Chinese shrine, and the city’s Catholic cathedral

  • Human Body

    An acidic pH (around 5.0) and low amounts of water make the epidermis hostile to many microorganic pathogens

  • Politics

    The English and French agreed to a draft treaty in 1354 to end what was to become the Hundred Years’ War, but the French reneged and the war continued for a further 101 years

  • History

    When New York City’s Harlem Ship Canal Bridge had to be replaced, it was floated down the river to become the University Heights Bridge

  • Language

    A Latin translation of Winnie-the-Pooh spent 20 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list

  • Creatures

    The Pallas’s cat fur is dense with up to 9,000 hairs per cm2

  • Culture

    A museum in Sendai, Japan was built around a 20,000-year-old campsite

  • Politics

    In 1981 Bernie Sanders won the election to become Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, by ten votes

  • History

    The infernal machine was a 25-barrel gun used in a failed assassination attempt on King Louis Philippe I in 1835

  • History

    New York City’s Grand Central Terminal was built at its current location because of a prohibition of steam trains in Lower Manhattan

  • Food + Drink

    Japanese rolled omelettes–Tamagoyaki–are made with rectangular pans

  • Culture

    Lake Kristi in North Carolina was built specifically to allow water skiing champion Kristi Overton Johnson to train

  • Creatures

    The Phinda button spider’s freshly laid egg sacs are bright purple

  • Earth

    Mexico has 160 species of oak trees.

  • History

    Within six hours of Alabama radio station WFPA being served an eviction notice, the tower had been dismantled

  • Culture

    BECAUSE is the longest-running and largest conference for the bisexual community in the United States

  • Technology

    The correction fluid Wite-Out was invented in 1966

  • Earth

    The Tibetan Plateau contains the world’s third-largest store of ice

  • Culture

    France was the first country to adopt the 35-hour workweek

  • Pop Culture

    The film Fritz the Cat was the first X-rated animated feature

  • Creatures

    The brains of spider monkeys are weigh twice as much as the brains of howler monkeys of equal size

  • History

    The Berry Islands of the Bahamas were settled in 1836 by a group of freed slaves

  • space

    The fastest-spinning neutron star known is PSR J1748-2446ad and rotates at a rate of 716 times a second

  • Creatures

    The toxin found in the skin of the hooded pitohui, a bird from New Guinea, is the same as that found in poison arrow frogs

  • Earth

    The geology of the Grand Canyon area includes more than 40 identified rock layers

  • Creatures

    The Scaly foot gastropod is the only known animal to incorporate iron into its skeleton

  • Culture

    The practice of headshrinking has only been documented in the northwestern region of the Amazon rainforest

  • History

    The Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned literacy tests as a voting qualification in the US

  • Earth

    Rogue waves are common near Cape Algulhas off the southern tip of Africa

  • History

    Typhoon Kelly caused 452 landslides in Japan in 1987

  • Language

    Bae is a slang term of endearment primarily used among youth in North America

  • Earth

    Glacial periods, commonly referred to as ice ages, are actually cold intervals within an ice age

  • Technology

    The pun riddle “What do you call a spicy missile? A hot shot!” was generated by computer as part of computational humor research

  • Food + Drink

    The skin of the Austrian white wine grape Zierfandler turns red just before it is ready to harvest

  • Language

    the cyberpunk science-fiction genre was named after the 1983 short story “Cyberpunk” by Bruce Bethke

  • Creatures

    All aruncus sawflies are females, and breed asexually

  • Language

    The word “jazz” was originally a California baseball slang term and was first applied to a style of music in Chicago around 1915

  • History

    Oil Creek State Park in Pennsylvania is the site of the world’s first commercial oil well

  • History

    snow in Florida has been reported at least 34 times, including as far south as Homestead

  • History

    JMWAVE was a secret CIA base on University of Miami campus grounds during the 1960s

  • History

    Polish writer Gustaw Morcinek survived three Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War

  • Creatures

    Catfish of the genus Dekeyseria can rapidly change their colouration to fit their mood or their surroundings

  • History

    NYC’s skyscraper at 33 Thomas St was designed to be self-sufficient and protected from nuclear fallout for two weeks after a nuclear blast

  • History

    John Pollack collected 165,321 wine corks to create a boat with the help of 100 volunteers

  • Sports

    Since the Chicago Marathon began in 1977 a total of six participants have died

  • Culture

    Two Boats School is the only school on Ascension Island and provides education to all resident children aged 3–16

  • History

    The last naturally occurring case of smallpox (Variola minor) was diagnosed on 26 October 1977

  • Human Body

    Ephelides describes a freckle which is flat and light brown or red and fades with reduction of sun exposure

  • Science

    Fungi that can adopt a single-celled growth habit are called yeasts

  • Sports

    In 1998 Eleanor Robinson set a world record of 13 days, 1 hour, 54 minutes for a woman to run 1,000 miles

  • History

    In 1976 civil rights activist Unita Blackwell became the first African-American woman to be elected mayor in the state of Mississippi

  • Creatures

    A tick finds a potential host by detecting its breath and body odors, or by sensing its vibrations or changes in temperature

  • Earth

    Mount Erebus is the second-highest volcano in Antarctica but the southernmost active volcano on Earth

  • Sports

    The Miami Dolphins have not won a playoff game since the 2000 season

  • Pop Culture

    David Bowie wrote the lyrics to his 1987 song “Time Will Crawl” after hearing of the Chernobyl disaster

  • Creatures

    The thick-billed ground pigeon eats seeds regurgitated by the magnificent bird-of-paradise

  • Creatures

    The sea snake barnacle is short-lived because it does not usually survive when its host sheds its skin

  • History

    The first recorded human cannonball act was an 1877 London performance by 14-year-old Rossa Matilda Richter

  • Language

    In the Sasak language, the verb “to eat” differs depending on the social status of the speaker and the addressee

  • Creatures

    Pangolins are believed to be the world’s most trafficked mammal

  • History

    The United States gave nuclear weapons to Britain as part of Project E

  • Creatures

    The blob sculpin is the first egg-laying, deep sea fish known to provide parental care

  • Food + Drink

    Banana pasta is lower in calories and fat, higher in protein, and less expensive to produce than whole wheat pasta

  • History

    Louise Nixon Sutton was the first African-American woman to be awarded a PhD in mathematics by New York University in 1962

  • Science

    The largest producers of chromium ore in 2013 were South Africa (48%), Kazakhstan (13%), Turkey (11%), India (10%)

  • Food + Drink

    The word “pizza” (Italian: [ˈpittsa]) first appeared in the town of Gaeta, then still part of the Byzantine Empire, in 997 AD

  • Science

    The speed of sound is around 767 miles per hour (1,230 kilometers per hour)

  • Pop Culture

    Inkubo (Incubus) is a 1966 black-and-white American horror film spoken entirely in the constructed language Esperanto

  • Human Body

    It takes the average body around 12 hours to completely digest eaten food

  • Earth

    Tulips are perennials (a plant that lives for more than 2 years), they bloom in spring, usually for only 3-7 days

  • Culture

    The mango is the national fruit of India, Pakistan and the Philippines. It is also the national tree of Bangladesh.

  • space

    The planet Mercury has an orbital period around the Sun of 88 days, the shortest of all the planets in our Solar System

  • Earth

    Hyperion is the name of a redwood tree in California that was measured at 115.61 meters (379.3 feet) tall

  • Creatures

    In order for a new wolf cub to urinate, its mother has to massage its belly with her warm tongue

  • History

    The Mercedes Ladies were the first all-female rap group

  • Earth

    The Congo River in Africa is the world’s second largest river and the world’s deepest river (220 m)

  • Creatures

    A group of toads is often called a knot

  • Technology

    The trumpet has only three valves but can produce 45 distinct notes

  • Earth

    The Amazon canopy is so dense in some parts that the ground is in permanent darkness.

  • Human Body

    Muscle makes up around half of the total human body weight

  • Food + Drink

    Quebec generates two-thirds of the globe’s syrup

  • Food + Drink

    Casu marzu is a type of cheese that contains live maggots, intentionally added to enhance the fermentation process

  • Creatures

    Unlike many other songbirds in North America, both the male and female cardinals can sing

  • space

    The Sun orbits around the center of our Milky Way galaxy once every 240 million years

  • Human Body

    For every pound of fat gained, you add seven miles of new blood vessels

  • History

    The very first St. Patrick’s Day parade was not in Ireland. It was in Boston in 1737.

  • Human Body

    Your salivary glands produce two to six cups (0.5-1.5 liters) of saliva a day

  • Food + Drink

    The laetiporus sulphureus mushroom is also known as “chicken of the woods”

  • Pop Culture

    The clothes Ice Cube wears in the first scene of Friday are the same he wears in the final scene of Boyz n the Hood

  • Creatures

    A lion’s roar is the loudest of any big cat and can be heard up to 5 miles (8 km) away

  • space

    A moonquake is the lunar equivalent of an earthquake

  • Culture

    The Japanese name for Japan is “Nihon” or “Nippon” which means “sun origin

  • Human Body

    Kids grow a bit faster in the spring than during other times of the year

  • History

    The early Egyptians built the Great Sphinx so that it points directly toward the rising sun on the spring equinox

  • History

    The word ‘cancer’ comes from the Latin for ‘crab’ – just like the zodiac sign

  • Creatures

    Some type of moths have no mouths and don’t eat once emerging from their cocoons

  • History

    Interracial marriage in the United Sates was banned in 1664 and not overturned until 1967

  • Science

    Uranium is 40 times more naturally abundant than silver

  • Creatures

    Moles can dig up to 18 feet in one hour

  • Sports

    The Indianapolis 500 is a car race on a 2.5 mile oval circuit and consists of 200 laps

  • Creatures

    Manatees, like their elephant relatives, continuously replace their teeth throughout their lives

  • Culture

    The reason rapper Flavor Flav wears a clock from his neck is because time is “the most important element in our life”

  • Science

    Water expands by 9% when it freezes

  • Creatures

    A pygmy hedgehog’s heart beats between 180-280 times per minute

  • History

    The United States had open borders from its inception until 1882

  • space

    Surrounding Jupiter’s core is an ocean of liquid hydrogen about 1,000 kilometers deep

  • Human Body

    On average, we lose 50 to 100 strands of hair a day from the scalp

  • Creatures

    The Norwegian Lundehund is the only dog that has six toes on each foot

  • Creatures

    Cats have over 20 muscles that control their ears

  • Pop Culture

    When 2pac was in jail Jim Carrey wrote letters to him to help him laugh and smile

  • Science

    Light from our Sun takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto

  • Earth

    It can take more than 500 years to form two centimeters of topsoil

  • Pop Culture

    Before Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. was known to the world as Lil Wayne, his rap moniker was Shrimp Daddy

  • Sports

    The first NFL game played outside of the United States was August 16th, 1976 in Tokyo, Japan

  • Culture

    Since 1996, the US presidential candidate whose likeness sells the most Halloween masks has won the election

  • Language

    The letters in the word “listen” can be rearranged to spell “silent”

  • Culture

    It estimated that the total number of ants alive in the world at any one time is between one and ten quadrillion

  • Human Body

    Unconsciousness will occur about 8-10 seconds after loss of blood supply to the brain

  • Food + Drink

    Espresso translates from Italian to mean “pressed out”

  • Creatures

    A gentoo penguin can swim at a speed of 36 kilometers per hour (22 mph)

  • space

    It takes Neptune 164.8 Earth years to orbit the Sun

  • Creatures

    One single teaspoon of soil contains 1 billion bacteria & 120,000 fungi & 25,000 algae

  • Creatures

    Mice have facial expressions which communicate their mood to others

  • Earth

    Rings in trees are narrower in years of low rainfall

  • History

    Humans have left 96 bags of urine, feces, and vomit on the moon

  • Human Body

    A single strand of human hair can support up to 100 grams in weight

  • History

    Moss was used as a bandage during the First World War to prevent blood loss

  • Earth

    Requirements for a blizzard: at least 3 hours with sustained wind speed of 35 mph and visibility less than 1/4 mile

  • Creatures

    The Bee Hummingbird is the smallest living bird in the world, with a length of just 5 cm (2 in)

  • Food + Drink

    Pineberry is a strawberry cultivar with a pineapple-like flavor, white coloring, and red seeds

  • Human Body

    Cartilage continues to grow until the day you die, and your earlobes elongate from gravity

  • Creatures

    The stenocara gracilipes beetle survives by collecting water on its bumpy back surface from early morning fogs

  • Creatures

    Pseudoscorpions are tiny arachnids with a flat, pear-shaped body resembling a scorpion, only 2-8 millimeters in length

  • Creatures

    Hedgehogs have about 5000 spikes, each lasting about a year before falling out and regrowing

  • space

    On a clear night with no moon and little light pollution, a person with very good eyesight may be able to see 2000-2500 stars

  • Culture

    The fresh heart of a puffin is eaten raw as a traditional Icelandic delicacy

  • Science

    Glass is 100% recyclable and can be recycled endlessly without loss in quality or purity

  • space

    The highest mountain in the known universe is Olympus Mons, a giant volcano on Mars, over 15 miles tall

  • Food + Drink

    The McRib sandwich contains about 70 ingredients

  • space

    Jupiter’s moon Ganymede has its own magnetic field and is larger than the planet Mercury

  • Creatures

    The word orangutan is derived from the Malay and Indonesian words orang (person) and hutan (forest) – person of the forest

  • Science

    In a 100-year period, a water molecule spends 98 years in the ocean, 20 months as ice, about 2 weeks in lakes and rivers, and less than a week in the atmosphere.

  • Creatures

    A cockroach can live for weeks without a head

  • Earth

    Antarctica’s highest peak is Mount Vinson, with an elevation of 16,066 feet

  • History

    In 1893 New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world in which all women had the right to vote

  • Language

    A group of prisoners is called a pity

  • space

    Light travels at the speed of 670,616,629 miles per hour. 

  • Creatures

    The nautilus is a “living fossil” having survived almost unchanged since the Triassic period (200-250 million years ago). 

  • Food + Drink

    1 pound of chocolate requires 3,170 gallons of water

  • Science

    Tyrian purple was a dye made from murex sea snail mucus and gets brighter in sunlight (instead of fading).

  • Science

    1 gallon of water weights about 8 pounds. 

  • Creatures

    During chillier seasons, worker honey bees can live for a few months. But in the summer, they rarely last longer than six weeks.

  • Science

    A calorie is a measurement of the amount of energy needed to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius

  • Creatures

    The water opossum is also the only living marsupial in which both sexes have a pouch.

  • Human Body

    The women’s one mile world record holder is Svetlana Masterkova (Russia) with a time of 4 minutes 12.56 seconds.

  • History

    The most commonly used letter in the English language is “e”

  • Creatures

    The electric eel’s vital organs take up only 20 percent of its body. The rest of its body contains the organs that allow it to produce a 600 volt shock.

  • Creatures

    Boops boops is a type of fish (also called the bogue)

  • Creatures

    A ‘paddywhack’ is a ligament of sheep and cattle – often dried to make a dog treat.

  • Creatures

    A mosquito can beat its wings up to 600 times per second

  • Science

    Snowflakes are not unique, they come in only 35 different shapes

  • Food + Drink

    Potatoes and onions should not be stored together. Onions give off gas that will accelerate sprouting.

  • Pop Culture

    Genuphobia is the fear of knees and/or kneeling.

  • Science

    Placebo pill color can be a factor in their effectiveness; “hot-colored” pills work better as stimulants and “cool-colored” pills work better as depressants.

  • Human Body

    Compression (rubbing) of the eyeballs can slightly lower your heart rate, which is called the oculocardiac reflex

  • Pop Culture

    Robin Williams named his daughter Zelda after the The Legend of Zelda video games

  • Creatures

    A type of Cyclosa spider creates decoy spiders in its webto confuse or distract predators

  • Science

    A bolt of lightning can reach 53,430 degrees Fahrenheit, which is five times hotter than our sun

  • Human Body

    Identical twins do not have matching fingerprints

  • Human Body

    The average person has about 10,000 taste buds and they’re replaced every 2 weeks or so

  • Science

    The average cloud droplet is .02mm in diameter, about five times thinner than of a sheet of paper.

  • Creatures

    The giant armadillo can have up to 100 teeth, the most of any land mammal

  • History

    Alaska used to have four time zones. In 1983 it was changed to two

  • Human Body

    Caffeine causes an initial contracting of artery walls but then relaxes them to allow for greater blood flow

  • Earth

    The Hamza River in Brazil is 4,000 meters underground and 6,000 kilometers long, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean deep under the surface.

  • History

    After having a part of his frontal lobe removed, Paul Kern didn’t sleep for 40 years

  • Pop Culture

    The Beatles song “A day in the Life” has an extra high-pitched whistle, audible only to dogs

  • Creatures

    Tardigrades (“water bears”) can survive the vacuum of outer space and go without food or water for more than 10 years

  • Food + Drink

    It is estimated that three liters of water is used to package one liter of bottled water

  • Science

    In one day, one large tree can lift up to 100 gallons of water out of the ground and discharge it into the air

  • Creatures

    Dolphins let only one half of their brain sleep at a time. If both halves were to sleep at the same time they would forget to breathe, then suffocate and die.

  • Science

    “Hibernation” involves  sleeping through winter, while sleeping through summer is “estivation”

  • Creatures

    Earthworms are hermaphrodites; each earthworm contains both male and female sex organs, however they still require a mate to reproduce

  • Food + Drink

    1 bottle of Goldschläger has approximately 13mg of gold leaf, currently worth about $0.66.

  • Pop Culture

    In the mid-1960s, Slumber Party Barbie® came with a book called “How to Lose Weight.” Tip: “Don’t eat.”

  • History

    The 50-star American flag was designed by a high school student for a class project. His teacher gave him a B–.