Few things spice up your day quite like learning a new, perspective-shifting bit of knowledge—something that makes you rethink a long-held assumption, or question a spurious textbook, or even start doubting every lesson and lecture and Wikipedia page you've gleaned information from. In other words, a fact that makes you say, "Wow!" Herein, we've gathered a whopping 150 that are guaranteed to do just that. So read on, and be astonished! And for more of life's secrets, don't miss the 40 Facts So Funny They're Hard to Believe.
1 | Tomatoes Contain Nicotine
While we've all heard that fruits and vegetables are packed with nutrients you probably weren't aware that tomatoes also contain...nicotine? In fact, studies have shown that eating nicotine-rich things like tomatoes and peppers can actually help reduce your chances of getting Parkinson's disease. And to discover more foods you should definitely be consuming, check out The 50 Best Foods for Your Brain.
2 | Humans Are the Only Animals with Chins
"If you're looking across all of the hominids, which is the family tree after the split with chimpanzees, there [are] not really that many traits that we can point to that we can say are exclusively human," Duke University's James Pampush told NPR. "[T]hose animals all walked on two legs. The one thing that really sticks out is the chin." While other animals have jaws, no others besides humans have the little section of bone on the lower jaw that juts past the teeth.
3 | A Woman Convicted of the Death Penalty Was Released When She Survived
Edinburgh-local woman Margaret Dickinson was hung in 1736 for killing her baby after it was born. But after her body was tossed onto a cart to be taken away, she awoke and, since Scots Law prohibited punishment being meted out twice, she was free to go. And for similarly bizarre stories, don't miss 30 Crazy Facts That Will Change Your View of History.
4 | The Ampersand Used to Be the 27th Letter of the Alphabet
A combination of the cursive letters for "e" and "t" (forming the Latin word et, meaning "and"), the "&" symbol was for decades included in the alphabet, after "z." It didn't get its official name until 1837.
5 | Camel Humps Are Devoid of Water
Camels' humps are not for storing water: they’re for insulation and food storage. The hump is almost all fat, which regulates body temperature and serves as an alternative fuel source when they’re wandering for days at a time with no food in sight. So where do they store their water? Right in their bloodstream.
6 | A Bear Became a War Hero in the Polish Army
During World War II, Poland's 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the 2nd Polish Corps counted a 440-pound Syrian bear named Wojtek among its ranks. He came to them as a cub and was raised as a pet, drinking milk from a bottle, then beer. He would help carry munitions and was eventually made an official soldier when the army reached Egypt, where pets were not allowed (but soldiers were). And if you think that's adorable, don't miss these 40 Amazing Animal Facts.
7 | France Has More Time Zones Than the U.S. or Russia
It might not seem like a huge country compared to those others, but France has islands scattered all over the globe. Altogether, its territories fall into 12 distinct time zones, compared to Russia's nine and America's six.
8 | The United Kingdom Is the World's Most Tornado-Prone Country
When you think of the UK, tornadoes likely aren't the first thing that comes to mind. But according to the National Climatic Data Center, the UK has more tornadoes relative to its land mass than any other nation. So while Argentina, Bangladesh, New Zealand, and Japan—as well as America's famous tornado alley in the midwest—all suffer from tornadoes, there's nothing quite so classically British as a tornado, old chap.
9 | A Stranded Sailor Once Let His Hands Freeze Into Hooks to Allow Him to Better Swim to Shore
When a sailor named Howard Blackburn found himself in freezing temperatures far from shore in Newfoundland and without mittens, he knew his hands would freeze. But to still be able to use them, he reached down and "picked up the two oars and squeezing my fingers around the handles, held them there until I could no longer move my fingers. I knew then they were frozen stiff." It allowed him to row to continue rowing and eventually make it to shore.
10 | Spices and Herbs Are Different
Spices come from every part of a plant aside from the leaf; herbs are the leaf itself. A spice should be added to food and/or roasted before and during cooking, while herbs should be added at the very end because they release flavor faster.
11 | Yes, You Can Feel When Someone is Looking at You
It’s called “gaze detection,” and it’s the sense your brain uses when it feels someone staring at you. Research has shown that certain brain cells fire in response to when someone is staring right at you, but not when the observer's gaze is averted just a few degrees to the left or right of you (which causes different cells to fire instead). We’ve evolved with this ability in order to sense potential threats, as the direct gaze is a symbol of dominance.
12 | A Soccer Game Once Sparked a War Between El Salvador and Honduras
Literally known as The Football War, this 1969 Central American skirmish took place as a wide range of tensions roiled between the two countries. But the thing that sparked it was a series of games between the two in which tensions grew more intense until Honduras finally cut off diplomatic ties with its neighbor. Two weeks later, El Salvador invaded.
13 | Eels Have Two Jaws
The second is hidden in their throat and kicks in when the animal bites down on its prey, pulling it down further into its throat. The result is like something out of a sci-fi movie.
14 | When You "Speak" Inside Your Mind, Your Throat Says Each Word
NASA scientists have been working on a machine that can read the nerve signals in the throat that control speech when humans talk. They found nerve sensors located under the chin, near the Adam’s apple, that communicate between the brain and the voice box. According to the researchers, these sensors be read by a computerized processor that would be able to transmit the signals into words. (In other words, NASA is on the brink of being able to read your mind.)
15 | Onions Make You Cry Because They Release Acid
Onions have an enzyme called lachrymatory-factor synthase, which converts amino acids in the onion into sulfenic acid. The sulfenic acid becomes unstable when the onion is being cut and breaks apart into thiosulfonate (that’s the onion’s odor) and syn-propanetriol-s-oxide (the gas that makes you tear).
16 | It's Hard to Make Swords as Strong as the Vikings'
You'd think with all our technological developments that it would be easy to recreate weapons the Vikings made hundreds of years ago. Turns out, not so much. NOVA looked at modern swordsmiths trying to re-create "Ulberfht swords" made of crucible steel. They managed to pull it off, but just barely. Turns out the ancient Vikings were pretty skillful engineers.
17 | Police Horses in Toronto Have Their Own Trading Cards
Like baseball players or Pokémon, the four-legged members of the Toronto Police Service mounted unit get their own deck of trading cards. The passion project of a pair of horse enthusiasts, the effort puts out a deck of cards every other year, with one of the pair taking pictures of the horses and the other designing the cards.
18 | Zebras’ Stripes Are for Repelling Insects
In one experiment, scientists placed zebra look-alike coats on regular horses and compared the result to “real” zebras. They found that flies that would normally be attracted to the horses seemed to be extremely thrown off when attempting to make a landing. However, the horse’s heads—which weren't dressed up in zebra stripes—still attracted flies.
19 | The Placebo Effect Still Works When You Know You Took a Placebo
Scientists have found that the placebo effect does not have to rely on the person not realizing they've taken a placebo. In a study from Harvard University and the University of Basel, those who unknowingly took a placebo supposed to relieve pain and those who knowingly received the dummy drugs both showed relief from pain.
20 | John Wilkes Booth's Brother Saved Lincoln's Son
In 1864 or 1865, actor Edwin Booth pulled the president's son, Robert Lincoln, back from a train as it was starting to move and the young man found himself pressed up against it. Robert Lincoln would recall how "I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name." Abraham Lincoln would be assassinated by Booth's brother months after the incident.
21 | Ants Refuse "Medical" Assistance When They Know They Are Mortally Wounded
To avoid wasting the colony's resources, seriously injured ants will refuse the help of "paramedic ants" that would usually try to help them. As National Geographic explains, "The dying ants refused to cooperate, flailing their legs around when probed or picked up, forcing their helpers to abandon them."
22 | States Have Their Own Treason Laws
We think of treason as a federal crime, but many states have their own treason laws—and their enforcement tends to be harsher than the national laws. No American has been executed for treason against the federal government of the United States, though five people convicted of treason against individual states have faced execution.
23 | The Loudest Sound On Record Was a Volcanic Eruption in 1883
That would be the Krakatoa volcano, near Indonesia, which, after having been dormant 200 years, erupted in an ear-bursting blast that shot ash 20 miles into the air and triggered multiple tsunamis. It produced a sound that was heard 3,000 miles away, in the central Australian island of Rodrigues.
24 | The President of Food For The Poor Is Named Robin Mahfood
Sometimes you are just born to do something. The president and CEO of nonprofit hunger relief organization Food For The Poor is none other than Robin Mahfood.
25 | Reruns Help Your Brain Relax
Watching your favorite shows and movies, re-reading your favorite books, and listening to your favorite music over and over actually has benefits: it puts your mind in a state of ease. As humans, we have a limited pool of mental resources. When we're overwhelmed, we begin to have less self-control and less motivation for the tasks at hand. When you watch a rerun or listen to your favorite tunes, you don't have to exert effort to control what you're thinking, which means your brain can do a quick mental reset.
26 | The Word "Robot" Originated From Czech Word for "Slave"
The word "robot" appeared in English in the 1920s, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, based on the Czech word "robotnik," which meant slave, and which itself was rooted in the Old Church Slavonic word for servitude, "rabota." That fact should be especially ironic once we reach singularity and the robots become our overlords. And for info on how far we actually are into the robotic revolution, learn the 20 Types of Artificial Intelligence You Use Every Single Day And Don't Know It.
27 | During Kidney Transplants, Doctors Usually Just Add the Additional Kidney Without Removing Either of the Other Two
We imagine a kidney transplant would involve swapping out the unhealthy kidney for the healthy one. In fact, in most cases, surgeons will leave the kidney inside the patient's body and add the healthy kidney somewhere near their pelvis. And for more amazing kidney hacks, see the 20 Warning Signs Your Kidneys Send You.
28 | There's a Name for that Feeling You Get When You're High Up and Think About Jumping
Whether at the top of an insanely tall building or looking over a steep drop from the highway, you've probably had that weird moment where you ask, "What if I jumped?" It turns out, you're not alone—so much so, that there is actually a name for the phenomenon; it's the "Call of the void" or "the high place phenomenon."
29 | In 1973, a Detroit Tiger Brought a Table Leg to the Plate
After three strikeouts, "Stormin" Norman Cash walked out to the plate with a table leg he had grabbed from the locker room, ready to swing. "Why not? I won't hit anyway," he responded when the umpire asked what he was doing, before tossing the leg aside.
30 | The AIDS Quilt Is the Largest Folk Art Piece in the World
Started in 1986, by gay rights activist Cleve Jones, by 2016, the quilt (officially titled the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt) measured 1.3 million square feet and weighed an estimated 54 tons.
31 | U.S. Cities Had "Ugly Law" Until the 1970s
A number of cities had "ugly laws" on the books prohibiting those deemed "diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting" from being seen in public. Most eventually repealed these laws, though Chicago was the last, repealing in 1974. And for more city secrets, see The 50 Most Exhausted Cities in America.
32 | Loch Ness Holds More Fresh Water Than All of England and Wales' Waterways Combined
That includes all of the country's rivers and lakes, considering the loch is 23 miles long and about a mile wide…and deep enough for a massive sea creature.
33 | Harry Truman Refused to Get on Disneyland's Dumbo Ride
When visiting the recently opened theme park in 1957, President Harry S. Truman, a staunch Democrat, did not want to be photographed sitting on an elephant, the symbol for the rival Republican party, so he refused to board the flying elephant ride. It may also have just been that he was nervous about heights.
34 | "Truman Show Delusion" Is a Thing
People have actually been diagnosed with "Truman Show Delusion." Named after the 1998 film starring Jim Carrey, this phenomenon was defined in an issue of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry as "a novel delusion, primarily persecutory in form, in which the patient believes that he is being filmed and that the films are being broadcast for the entertainment of others."
35 | Elephants Have Prehensile Genitalia
Like its trunk, the elephant's procreative organ is prehensile. As one onlooker to the phenomenon describes, "As we watched in baffled amusement (and the faintest tinge of inadequacy), he used his penis to prop himself up, swat flies from his side and scratch himself on his stomach. David Attenborough never showed us that."
36 | Almost 15 percent of Earth's Population Is Missing a Tendon
You can test if you are part of this exclusive group by holding your arm out and touching your thumb to your pinky. Likely you will see a raised tendon, that's palmaris longus, a muscle that was once likely of use but no longer does much for us. Those without it are the minority who have evolved beyond it.
37 | Almost All Serotonin Is Produced in the Gut
We think of serotonin as that neurotransmitter that makes us feel good and is released to our mind by various illicit substances. But in fact, more than 90 percent of serotonin is produced in our digestive tract.
38 | Rival High School Coaches Once Conspired to Help a Player Break a Record
In 2003, high school quarterback Nate Haasis set a record for passing yardage, only to learn later that his own coach and the coach of the rival team had conspired to let it happen (in exchange for allowing the rival team score a touchdown). Haasis took the high road when he learned of what had happened, and rejected the honor.
39 | You'd Need More than 700 Floppy Disks to Equal One Gigabyte of Storage
As storage solutions get continually more compact and efficient with each passing year, it can seem unbelievable just how far we've come. A one-gigabyte file is easily stored in the cloud these days. But back in the 90s and early 2000, we stored our files on things like floppy disks. And it would take 711 1.44 MB floppy disks to store one gigabyte. That's a whole lot of floppy disks. Thank goodness for the cloud, right?
40 | Babies Have More Bones than Adults
It's true! While we're born with about 300 bones, some of those fuse up as we age—which means by the time we're adults we have just 206 bones. Our smallest bone is inside our ear while the largest is the femur. And for more amazing baby facts, check out the 20 Most Popular Baby Names Inspired By Movies.
41 | House Flies Live About a Month or Two
Though the colloquial belief is that the common housefly lives just two to three days, in fact, the rather disgusting insect lives an average of one to two months, giving it plenty of opportunities to land on your food and make it gross.
42 | Shaq Only Hit One Three-Pointer in His Entire Career
Over a 19-year career in which he scored 28,596 points, Shaquille O'Neal hit a three-point shot exactly once: On Feb. 16, 1996, in a 121-91 game between the Orlando Magic and Milwaukee Bucks. "I wouldn't call him a good 3-point shooter, let's put it that way," as his coach Brian Hill said. "He could get the ball up there on the rim, but he wasn't going to make too many of them."
43 | New Yorker Writer Joseph Mitchell Had Writer's Block for 32 Years
After writing his piece "Joe Gould's Secret" in 1964, the beloved New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell never published another piece, yet he continued to go to work at the magazine's offices every day. He produced no new writing until his death in 1996.
44 | The Very First Search Engine Was Named Archie and Was Invented by Canadians
While it's hard to imagine a world without Google, and while a few of us may even remember Ask Jeeves, back in the early nineties there were only a handful of fledgling search engines available to internet users. But the very first one was created in 1990 by a few students at McGill University in Montreal. Apparently, the rudimentary search engine was so popular that at one point it accounted for nearly 50 percent of all of the city's internet traffic. Its inventors named it Archie—like archive but without the "V."
45 | Charlie Chaplin Released His First Sound Film 13 Years After the Talkie Was Invented
Chaplin was such a success in silent film, that he continued making them for years after "talkies" began to take off in popularity. Part of this was due to the fact that his silent films still made money, and part was due to his own lack of confidence in his skills in the new medium. When he finally did his first talkie, 1940's The Great Dictator, it was a masterpiece that effectively silenced critics.
46 | Man o' War Only Lost One Race
Legendary racehorse Man o' War ran in just 21 races over his career and won 20 of them. His only loss, in August 1919, was at the hooves of a competitor named, appropriately, Upset.
47 | Nobody Born After 1935 Has Walked on the Moon
The last person to have the honor of walking on the moon was American astronaut Eugene Andrew Cernan, the eleventh and last person to walk on the moon (during the Apollo 17 mission). But it was Charles Duke, the tenth person to walk on the Moon, who was born the latest of anyone who's ever walked on it—October 3, 1935.
48 | Malaria Is Responsible for the Deaths of Half the Humans Who Have Ever Lived
It's one cruel killer.
49 | Roughly One-Third of Languages Spoken Today Are Endangered
There are a an estimated 7,097 languages spoken throughout the world today (839 spoken in Papua New Guinea alone), but because many of these are spoken by a small number of people they are considered at risk of extinction.
50 | Crickets Can Help You Tell the Temperature
Though specifics vary, scientists have found that crickets chirp at different intervals depending on the temperature outside. They do so consistently enough that you can determine how warm or cold it is by counting the number of chirps over a particular interval and adding a set number to it (one popular formula from an old Farmer's Almanac is to count the number of chirps over a 14-second interval and add 40 to it).
51 | Possums Don't Play Dead, They Pass Out
The creatures aren't quite the skilled actors they are often portrayed as. Instead, they are just strategic wimps, falling into an involuntarily comatose state when they feel intense fear, which can last for hours, convincing any would-be predators that they are dead (they even emit a corpse-like smell to really sell the act).
52 | Daddy Longlegs Aren't Spiders
They don't produce silk, have just one pair of eyes, and don't have the narrow "waist" that spiders do. In fact, they're more closely related to the scorpion than other spiders. (That doesn't really make them less creepy, though.)
53 | In 1925, Texas Held a Special Session of an All-Female Supreme Court
Since a case involved a fraternal organization of which almost all of Texas' elected officials were members and had to recuse themselves, the governor eventually came to the idea of appointing a group of female supreme court justices, since the organization did not accept female members.
54 | The Mayans Had a Goddess of Suicide by Hanging
Called Ixtab, she oversaw the heaven where those who hung themselves would go to in the afterlife.
55 | Ben Franklin Left Thousands to Boston and Philadelphia—That They Couldn't Touch for 200 Years
The man who coined the phrase "a penny saved is a penny earned" lived and died by the mantra. In his will, he left the cities of Boston and Philadelphia each 1,000 pounds sterling (worth about $4,500 at the time), with the caveat that they could not touch it for 200 years. Both followed his wishes and, in 1990, found that those few thousands were worth millions. And for more money secrets, see the 20 Crazy Facts You Never Knew About One Dollar Bills.
56 | Ancient Egyptians Had a Bonus Month
The ancient Egyptian calendar was similar to our current one, with 365 days in a year and 12 months. But each was exactly 30 days, leaving five extra days at the end of the year. Instead of spreading those throughout the year, they just made it an "intercalary month" treated as separate from the rest of the year proper.
57 | America's Favorite Drink Got Healthier in 2013
Who says Americans are getting less healthy? While soda was the country's most-consumed beverage for more than two decades, in 2013, bottled water took that title.
58 | David Letterman Once Created a Scholarship for "C" Students
Never a star academic himself, the late-night TV legend created a scholarship in 1985 for telecommunications students who showed outstanding creativity, rather than academic excellence. To apply, they were asked to submit a creative project such as writing or interactive media.
59 | During the Cold War, a Small West Virginia Town Requested Soviet Aid
In 1977, the mayor of Vulcan, West Virginia, frustrated by the lack of state support he'd received to replace a bridge, put out a request to the Soviet Union to help pay for it. Within the hour that a Russian journalist showed up to report on the story, the West Virginia Legislature released the $1.3 million funds to pay for the bridge's replacement.
61 | Medal of Honor Recipients Get Much More Than a Medal
It's not just about the nice speech and medal for recipients of the Medal of Honor. They also get a $1,300 monthly bonus, a 10 percent raise in retirement pay, and, in some states, a special Medal of Honor license plate.
62 | A Father Once Hired a Virtual Hitman to Kill His Son's Videogame Character
Frustrated that his unemployed son spent all his time playing video games, a father in China hired a skilled player to kill off his son's character. It didn't work, though, as even when the son stopped playing he continued to show no interest in getting a job.
63 | Coca-Cola Released Their Own Clear Drink
Soon after PepsiCo introduced Crystal Pepsi, Coca-Cola rolled out Tab Clear. Despite early success, like its competitor, the drink soon floundered on the market, and many believe it was a "kamikaze" stunt to hurt Crystal Pepsi by association.
64 | "Genuine Leather" Is Actually Pretty Crummy
While that label might seem to imply something about a wallet or pair of boots' quality, in fact, the term "genuine leather" is a formal phrase applied to leather that has a corrected (in other words, artificial) grain that gives it a more natural appearance. Leather buffs typically view it as of low quality.
65 | Stephen Hawking Once Threw a Party for Time Travelers
In 2009 the theoretical physicist prepared canapés, champagne and a giant banner with the words "Welcome, Time Travelers" in hopes that any actual time traveler from the future might come back in time to attend. Sadly, no one showed up.
66 | The Catholic Church Has Been Okay With Evolution Since 1950
While evolution is often characterized as being antithetical to Biblical teachings, the Catholic Church recognized Darwinian evolution going back to Pope Pius XII in 1950.
67 | Angelina Jolie Once Hired a Hitman to Kill Herself
During a dark time in the actress' younger days, she contemplated suicide but thought it might be easier on her family to have her life taken by someone else. So, as she told an interviewer in 2001, she hired a hitman who urged her to think about it for a month before going ahead with it. She thought better of it and decided against going through with the plan.
68 | The Swimming Pool Aboard the Titanic Is Still Full
Bad joke. But the ship did have an impressive six-foot-deep, heated salt-water swimming pool for both swim workouts and spa-style relaxation.
69 | Women Suffer Sports Concussions at Higher Rates Than Men
Researchers found that females playing high school soccer were about one and a half times more likely to suffer a concussion than boys playing high school soccer—and the concussions were likely to be more severe.
70 | Nelson Mandela Was on the U.S. Terror Watch List Until 2008
This went back to 1986, when the Reagan administration condemned Mandela's group, the African National Congress, for fighting against the apartheid regime of South Africa (which had supported the U.S. during the Cold War) through what it called "calculated terror" (it didn't help that Mandela's group also included a number of prominent Communists).
71 | Kleenex Were Invented by the Military to Use in Gas Masks
Kleenex tissues may seem like an innocent invention designed to soothe snuffly noses, but in fact, it developed as a filter to put in gas masks during WWI. Originally called Cheesecloth UGG the paper filters replaced cotton ones after cotton was needed for bandages in the battlefield.
72 | John F. Kennedy, Aldous Huxley, and C. S. Lewis All Died the Same Day
That would be November 22, 1963. Though you probably only remember that as the day of JFK's assassination (apologies to English authors).
73 | Of the First Five Presidents, Three Died on July 4th
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826—the 50th anniversary of the birth of the United States. The country's fifth president, James Monroe, died five years later on July 4, 1831.
74 | A Soldier Once Survived a Freefall of 22,000 Feet
Alan Magee, an American gunner during WWII survived a fall of 22,000 feet, without a parachute, when his B-17 was shot and caught fire. He passed out on the way down due to shock and a lack of oxygen that high up but woke up to find that he had fallen through the glass roof of the train station of a small German town. He was treated and became a prisoner of war for two years.
