The Most Accurate English Speakers Can Pronounce Every Single Word in This Poem From 100 Years Ago

English is a hard language to master – whether it’s your native tongue or a second (or third) language, chances are you’ll still make plenty of mistakes. We don’t remember everything from school, all of the rules and the ways it breaks those rules, and of course, there are regional quirks that make our way not technically correct.

All of that adds up to the reasons this 1920s poem is so difficult to get right. In fact, only the most elite English speakers will nail every last word.

Image Credit: Pixabay

If you think that describes you, well, give it a go! And for the rest of us, we’ll just be playing along for sh*ts and giggles.

The poem is titled The Chaos, written by Dutch writer, traveler, and educator Gerard Nolst Trenite, and as you can see from the first eight lines, we’re not fooling around.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

The poem is obviously meant to drive people crazy – all 146 lines of it.

What’s more? The English Spelling Society published an extended version, featuring 274 lines, in the 1990s.

Trenite, in case you’re wondering, wasn’t a masochist; he was a private tutor who spent his time teaching young wealthy Dutch men to drop their foreign accents when speaking English.

Photo Credit: Photo Credit: Pixabay

The complete version of the poem contains around 800 examples of irregular spelling and pronunciation, though some words are fairly antiquated and not really in use. This will make it harder for modern readers, since some words won’t be familiar at all, but the Society maintains its integrity.

“The selection of examples now appears somewhat dated, as do a few of their pronunciations.

Indeed a few words may even be unknown to today’s readers (how many will know what a ‘studding-sail’ is, or that its nautical pronunciation is ‘stunsail’?) and not every rhyme will immediately ‘click’ (‘grits’ for ‘groats’?) but the overwhelming bulk of the poem represents as valid an indictment of the chaos of English spelling as it ever did.”

If you want to give it a try, pull up the PDF. Read along with the video below to make sure you’re getting it all right, and good luck!

I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m definitely going to (even though I have no expectation that I will get even half of it right!).

If you do it, please share your results. And don’t worry; no judging.

The post The Most Accurate English Speakers Can Pronounce Every Single Word in This Poem From 100 Years Ago appeared first on UberFacts.

A Stunning GIF Gives All of Us a Unique Look at the Surface of a Comet

Comets are really large space snowballs, with an icy center surrounded by frozen gasses, rocks and dust, orbiting the sun.

When they are completely frozen, comets are about the size of a town. But when one gets close to the sun,  it heats and starts spewing the gasses and dust until it forms a giant glowing head larger than many planets.

Then the dust and the gasses form a tail stretching for millions of miles away from the sun.

Photo Credit: NASA

With some fascinating footage obtained by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft, we earthlings got to see that this phenomenon looks a lot like a cosmic snowstorm when you are standing on the surface.

Photo Credit: European Space Agency

Back in 2016, Rosetta’s mission was to follow a comet to see what happens as it approaches the sun. The comet was the Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. This was important work for the spacecraft because predicting what the sun would do to a comet proved way too difficult from Earth.

Comets are a part of our solar system and they carry materials showing what our solar system looked like billions of years ago before planets were formed.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

Eberhard Grün, an interdisciplinary scientist working on the Rosetta mission at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Germany, said, in a statement,

“Rosetta has completely changed our picture of comets.

Previously, they were pictured as dirty ice balls — or, as some prefer, icy dust balls — but now we know them, or at least this one, to be geologically complex worlds where a myriad of processes are at work creating the incredible surface structure and activity of the comet.”

Rosetta’s mission is over, but the data was invaluable to scientists.

As for the general public, the images it brought back inspired art, music and poetry–all celebrating how much we love to look at the stars.

The post A Stunning GIF Gives All of Us a Unique Look at the Surface of a Comet appeared first on UberFacts.

Historical Incidents You Might Not Have Been Taught About In School

It’s understandable that we won’t have time to learn everything, but some things seem as if they might have been left out on purpose.

History is written by the victors, and oftentimes, it’s taught by the descendants of those victors – or even by the oppressors. We have to be hyper-aware of our own prejudices in order to overcome them, and from the list below, it seems as if we’re still teaching the history we like, and not the hard stuff.

Sometimes.

14. You can’t judge past people with a modern lens.

That you need to remove the whole “good guys” and “bad guys” mentality and actually learn to accept different moral standards of the past.

E.g. in UK schools when the empire is covered it’s from a perspective of how bad and evil it was, yet when it comes to Romans/Saxons/Vikings etc.. It’s more about what happened and the consequences without any direct judgement given. The Romans are covered for their historical impact to the British Isles, not condemned for their brutal suppression of the natives.

Vice versa, in WWII it’s all about how great the allies where in defeating the Axis, they would never cover stuff such as the Dresden bombings.

13. I’m learning there have been a stupid amount of genocides in the world.

The Holodomor (Ukrainian genocide) where millions of Ukrainians starved because of government control of farms.

12. It’s a really cool city.

For most of its history Wilmington was the biggest and richest city in North Carolina. During reconstruction, there was a terrible riot and mob that actually overthrew the democratically elected mayor and local government. This resulted in such a large scale migration, loss of life and loss of income that Charlotte permanently became the financial hub of the region.

The cause of the riot?the mayor had elected black city council members and refused to take back their seats.

Wilmington NC is the only city in the US that had it’s democratically elected government successfully overthrown by a coupe.

11. I love this story.

John Wilkes booth’s brother saved Lincoln’s son Robert Todd Lincoln.

Robert Lincoln was traveling by train from New York to Washington. He got off the train during a stop at Jersey City; He saw that the platform was extremely crowded. In order to be polite and wait his turn. he pressed his back to one of the train’s cars. about 30-60 seconds later the train started to move! The train wiped him down and dropped him into the space between the platform and train. Abe’s son would have died, if a stranger hadn’t yanked him out of the hole by his collar.

The stranger was Edwin Booth a Good actor in the 19th century and the brother of John Wilkes Booth. John Wilkes booth was the guy that killed Abe only a few years later.

10. I remember feeling the same way when I first learned about it.

Anything to do with Sumerian culture.

9. He probably wasn’t wrong.

Hitler gave his soldiers meth because it was “performance enhancing”.

Not only that, Hitler himself was claimed to be an amphetamine addict, with his personal physician giving him regular intravenous injections from 1942 until his death in 1945 (although he is said to have started occasional use of amphetamines in 1937). Albert Speer has said that this addiction played a large role in Hitler’s increasingly erratic behavior as the war dragged on, and worked to increase his paranoia and diminish his mental stability as his use continued.

Methamphetamine was sold under the trade name Pervitin in Germany, only becoming a controlled substance in 1986. It was especially popular with tank crews (who gave the drug the nickname “Panzerschokolade”, or “Tank Chocolates”) and Luftwaffe pilots (who alternately called them “Stuka-Tabletten”, or “Stuka Tablets&#8221$$ and “Hermann-Göring-Pillen”, or “Hermann Göring Pills”). Millions of pills were manufactured in 1940 alone, but even early on, problems were being uncovered as soldiers became addicted to the drug, and were becoming erratic and combative in their operations, becoming difficult to discipline and control the more they used the drug. The Wehrmacht was so concerned by these side effects that they moved to restrict Pervitin’s usage with their troops as early as 1940, though the drug probably remained in use throughout the war by the other forces of Germany.

Germany was not the only Amphetamine user in WW2, Japan also manufactured Methamphetamine under the name Philipon and is estimated to have manufactured 1 billion pills through the course of the war. Finland was another user of Pervitin, though it seems their use was mostly restricted to special forces. Allied Forces, especially American Bomber Crews flying over Europe and Japan, were given Benzedrine, a different kind of amphetamine, in order to stave off fatigue on long combat sorties. Amphetamine use in the US Armed Forces and other armies actually continued long after the end of WW2, some of their last use in a military operation was during the Persian Gulf War, when Allied Pilots would again use them to stay awake and alert during long missions over Iraq. Because of problems with addiction and lack of focus and control with extended Amphetamine use, it has largely been replaced with Modafinil.

8. There’s not enough time to go into it all.

African history gets pretty crazy. I’m writing a paper right now about how the British handpicked Idi Amin to run Uganda after Uganda had been independent for almost 10 years. Idi Amin ended up being a brutal dictator who killed about 500,000 people in Uganda.

The British contributed and may have even facilitated the overthrow of Milton Obote in favor of Amin because Obote was introducing policies that would take away British companies that were being used to exploit Uganda for resources.

7. Thank goodness someone in the Oval had their head on straight.

The CIA proposed committing a false flag terror attack which included shooting down a fake passenger jet as an excuse to invade Cuba.

JFK rejected the operation.

6. That seems like a bullet dodged.

That Franklin Roosevelt supported Mussolini and said something along the lines of how he wished he could emulate him back home. Obviously, we can ignore the rest of the effort that the US put into helping the Nazis.

Both Roosevelt and Stalin wanted to execute every single captured German soldier. Winston Churchill nipped that in the bud and said something like “no. I will never execute somebody for fighting for their country”

The US was responsible for hundreds, if not thousands, of rapes throughout Europe during World War II. The only people ever charged were black people.

The US tried to enforce racial segregation within the UK and Australia during World War II, even going as far as ensuring that they did not purchase from any shop that sold anything to black people. This resulted in countless fights between British and American soldiers. One American died in Australia as a result of these fights. The black Americans stayed hanging around with the British and Australian soliders which had minimal racism.

5. Straight up evil.

The Heart of Darkness is based in the Congo Free State, which was presided over by King Leopold II of Belgium.

Conrad wrote the story in part as a critique not just of European imperialism but also of the atrocities and crimes against humanity perpetuated during that time. It is estimated that between 5-10 million of a roughly 20 million population died during Belgian rule of the Congo Free State due to a combination of famine, disease, and forced labor. Belgium enriched itself through forced slavery and coercion, using strict quotas for the harvest of natural rubber, and an individual failing to meet a quota was punishable by death.

For me personally, we read the book in high school, but we never learned the historical context or about King Leopold’s part in all of this.

4. Hunger, not famine.

There was no famine in Ireland, it was genocide.

3. I hate that this is possible.

My Chinese tour guides who were in their mid-twenties did not know about the Tiananmen Square Massacre and Tank Man.

They looked at us time we had three heads when we asked about is during our visit.

2. We can never teach about this enough.

The population of the Native Americans when the first explorers arrived in North America was believed to have rivaled that of Europe at the time. In the tens of millions.

Those same explorers exterminated upwards of 95 percent of the Native Americans simply by showing up and sharing their infectious bugs with the natives. The intercommunication between tribes assured they spread across the continent. So, by the time more explorers, and colonists, returned years and years later, they found an almost pristine wilderness with sparse populations, ripe for colonizing.

1. So many crimes that will never be answered for.

That the UK caused a famine in Bengal India During WW2 killing over 2 million indigenous people.

I want to go and learn more about all of these things immediately.

Were any of these bits new to you? Do you have one to add? If so, please drop it in the comments!

The post Historical Incidents You Might Not Have Been Taught About In School appeared first on UberFacts.

10 Very Weird Websites You Might Want to Check Out

What is the coolest website you’ve visited that not many people know about?

A few weeks that question was posted to AskReddit and the comments piled up. Seems as if a lot of Redditors have their obscure favorites they’re willing to share. So, if you’re deciding between getting off the computer to try your hand at a sourdough starter or staying on to find more rabbit holes, might I suggest the rabbit holes?

Here are 10 of them ripe for exploring…

1. Addictive pics of people you will never see IRL.

www.thispersondoesnotexist.com

It shows you a computer generated image of a person every time you refresh.

Sometimes there are some weird artifacts in the images but often they look very real.

2. Build your own nation. BRB.

Photo Credit: NationStates.net

NationStates.

Online nation simulator. The core of the game is pretty simple; answer multiple-choice issues that appear once every 6 hours. Depending on what you pick, the stats of your nation (everything from cheese exports to citizen rudeness) will change.

The fun really starts on the forums, IMO.

3. Create your own The Princess Bride-based film festival.

Photo Credit: BestSimilar.com

BestSimilar.

You watched a movie that you loved? With this website you can input a film and it’ll give you similar ones.

Apart from that, you can also get movies that fall into one same category.

4. A scale model of the solar system.

Photo Credit: Single Pixel Moon

Single pixel moon…

https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html

5. Excellent television.

Photo Credit: my90stv.com

My 90s TV

This is a fun, novelty website where you can easily lose yourself for hours with nostalgia. Basically it uses YouTube videos to simulate watching TV in 90s and allows you to specify the year you want, along with what categories you want to see when you change channels.

There is also a My 80s TV and a My 70s TV

For those of you that think it doesn’t work on mobile because of what it says, it totally does. Just make sure to turn the TV on with either power button.

6. One click will tell you all you need to know.

Photo Credit: IsDMXinjail.com

Ever wondered if DMX was in jail?

Yeah, it’s updated.

7. For hex code addicts.

Photo Credit: jacopocolo.com

https://www.jacopocolo.com/hexclock/

It looks different on a computer compared to mobile, but it’s a clock that cycles through hex codes for colors every second!

8. For people who want to pretend they’re hackers.

Photo Credit: HackterTyper.net

https://hackertyper.net/

Hack the system like in NCIS.

9. Make birthday gifts for your friends.

Photo Credit: GIFprint

http://gifprint.com/

It takes a gif and makes you a printable flipbook!

AWESOME!!

10. Portraits of presidents holding hams.

Photo Credit: Presidential Ham

http://presidentialham.com/

My high school substitute’s son is an artist who painted each US President holding a ham.

I have no idea why, but I go there sometimes for a laugh.

My hope is that this list of cool websites will stop you from cutting your own hair or finding your old clarinet. Maybe it will even inspire you to embrace your own weird and build a website that does something cool.

Have other websites you go to for laughs or hours of entertainment?

Let us know in the comments.

The post 10 Very Weird Websites You Might Want to Check Out appeared first on UberFacts.

20 People Ponder Things That Would Make 2020 Go Even More Downhill

In the past year, there have been massive fires in Australia, California, and the Amazon. Worldwide carbon emissions from various types of businesses, human activity, and burning fossil fuels have also made a dent in our year, and not exactly for the better.

On top of COVID19, a contagious disease spread by the novel coronavirus, countries such as Saudi Arabia have seen swarms of locusts, and Zagreb, Croatia experienced an earthquake.

Naturally, Reddit commenters had something to say about realistic doomsday scenarios that could make 2020’s first quarter hold its beer. They’re not pretty, so let’s hope for the best while giving these some thought.

20. California Gets an Epic Quake

“The ‘Big One’ finally happens in California that we’ve been warned about our entire lives.”

dancingtwilight

19. Hurricanes Are Coming

“Hurricane season is coming up!”

YMYOH

18. Grocery Store Closures

“Grocery stores are forced to close due to employees being infected by the Corona virus.”

CallHimIshmael

17. Revenge Of The Coronavirus

“The Coronavirus could mutate to become deadlier. Or we could just realize it is deadlier or has long term effects we didn’t know about.”

TheFckingNSA

16. Solar Flare-Related Power Outage

“Unexpected solar flare completely shuts down all electronics & internet for a long period; would be HORRIBLE for the quarantined (am in there ? )”

sossololpipi

15. A Geyser Eruption

“If Yellow Stone erupted, you might as well grab a good bottle of your choice and kick back.”

LegacyGasket

14. Getting Rid of All Privacy

“The EARN-IT Bill being passed by Congress.

It effectively ends internet encryption and any perceived internet privacy we still have: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/earn-it-bill-governments-not-so-secret-plan-scan-every-message-online

jess-jess-jesse

13. *Any* Possible Disasters

“Any disasters during this pandemic. Imagine if this is still spreading rapidly in April with mass quarantines, and a tornado outbreak on the likes of 2011 super outbreak hits. Injured normally have medical to go to, but if it’s all filled up by sick patients, well…let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.

Everyone in the states, count yourselves lucky that this outbreak didn’t hit in july-september and hope it gets cleared before then. Imagine if this was widespread during a Category 5 hurricane impact, when they normally tell an entire region to scram to other parts of the country.”

FPSXpert

12. Past Disasters Are Tough Too

“I live in Nashville and we’d pretty much just come out of a pretty bad tornado that wrecked a good chunk of the city.

Then this corona virus garbage. And most of us are service industry or freelancers (musicians, photographers, videographers) so we’re really getting hit hard with all this quarantine mess.”

erik_the_obtainer

11. Success Of The Sinister Kind

“North Korea “successfully” launching a nuclear warhead that lands either in South Korea or Japan, then sparking an international incident.

Or Russia invading the Baltic states.”

twoleftspoons

10. Big Brother Happens For Real

“This virus doesn’t just clear up on its own, the vaccine takes longer than estimated to develop but it’s not a cure for those that already have it anyway and then the virus mutates.

International borders are closed, the military begins patrolling to make sure people are not sneaking in. Whole towns and cities are now closing to outsiders, people begin to stop trusting their neighbors or people they don’t know.

Governments stop behaving democratically and urge the population to report their own family, friends and neighbors to the authorities if they look sick.

Nobody has a job, money doesn’t matter because it has no use, violence is a feature of life, the government has gone to ground and then reports that the military has started shooting civilians at the borders begin to circulate…”

papahet

9. An AI Takeover

“Either IBM’s Watson or Google’s quantum computer becomes self-aware, humanity fails the vibe-check.”

HartyTartyoneone

8. Instability in Iran

“The most likely if Iran collapses, the nation is being destroyed by the virus and their have been mass protests for months on the end, them shooting down the jet liner only added to it and the virus is just making things worse.

Iran collapsing will lead to possibly America going to try to “create stability” but it definitely won’t and will cause even more problems, a whole new wave of terror groups would likely form, think of it if isis was actually an effective military force with the equipment, training and financial support to back it up and you have what parts of the Iran military could become, add to that nuclear material, not even weapons grade, just the ability to have it and make some kind of dirty bomb.

The collapse will also lead to an even bigger refuge crisis as well as other terrorist groups moving in to carve up the land, in short when Iran collapses and it probably will, its gonna cause the whole middle east to get worse.”

lasthopel

7. Revenge of The Extroverts

“Many people leave this obligatory quarantine also leaving behind their sanity (except the introverts and anti-socials) and potentially making things worse such as the economy and stuff.”

Dinosoar_Nugget

6. A Postponed Election

“A postponed election.

This is obviously a US issue and I’m not taking political sides. But postponing the election because of things like caps on how many people can be in the same area seems possible.

Edit: People are mentioning the Constitution as if crazier shit hasn’t happened in the past four years.”

HardcoreKaraoke

5. No More Coffee!

“Coronavirus runs rampant in Brazil, taking out the majority of the worlds coffee production.”

goldjack

4. This Nightmare Scenario

“You get fired, after your company gets bailed out to keep jobs. And your firer or boss collects a massive bonus at the end of the year to boot. Plus he poured sugar in your gas tank, and impregnated your daughter.”

SunDriedHomunculus

3. Space Construction Projects

“Demolition of our planet to make way for an interstellar expressway, I guess.”

TheWorldIsQui3tH3r3

2. Queen Elizabeth’s Passing

“Queen Elizabeth dies.

Economies would go crazy.”

djrumbledrop

1. And, The Unthinkable!

“Cats 2: 2 Cats 2 Curious.”

jraygun13

They say it’s best to hope for the best while preparing for the worst. Is there anything you think should’ve been added to this list?

We look forward to hearing these scenarios (while also knocking on wood).

The post 20 People Ponder Things That Would Make 2020 Go Even More Downhill appeared first on UberFacts.

Europeans Discuss American Problems They Don’t Understand

We do things very differently than the Europeans. Inches vs. centimeters, coffee vs. tea, and currency notes that are all the same color.

But our differences are slightly deeper than this. Governments, banks, and transportation systems work differently in the United States, and that can be hard to wrap your head around.

In a Reddit thread, Europeans and other non-US nationals talked about things in the USA they just don’t understand. Their posts show we have a lot to learn!

20. Voter Registration is a Trip!

“Registering to vote.

As a Canadian, you’re automatically enrolled when you turn 18 and get a notice where your polling station will be for every election.”

wbajl

19. Taxes Not Include in Cost

“You have $4.50 in your pocket. The fancy drink is advertised at $3.99.

Do you have enough money to buy it? Dunno!”

2059FF

18. Uneven Double-Standards

“Here is one i cant understand:

Strong violence on tv : No one bats an eye..

Nipple slip : Everybody loses their minds.”

Boundish91

17. Ads For Prescription Medication

“Australian here:

The tv ads for prescription medication always gets me. Like really specific medication too, not just a new over the counter pain killer.

I think it’s good to research medication if you have a condition to be informed about your options. But it’s so bizarre to see ads for it in between property brothers episodes and ads for Taco Bell.”

somwillson

16. Actually, Ads All The Time…

“Why do you have so many Ads on TV?

When I visited I swear there were Ads every 5 minutes and they last so long! I honestly don’t understand why anyone watches TV when it’s like that.

Speaking of Ads, the prescription drug Ads are fucking creepy and weird and ya’ll should stop that.”

Negcellent

15. The Use of Fax Machines

“American here:

When I was studying in the UK I had to send some financial documents back to the US. The only way these documents were considered valid was if the original was mailed in, or if I faxed a copy.

When I asked the printing office if they could fax it for me they looked at me like I was an alien and said the school hadn’t owned a fax machines for like a decade.

Then they asked me if I still use a VCR.”

meatdrawer25

14. So. Much. Tipping.

“Tipping. Just pay your staff!

Tips should be a bonus not a base.”

gomedia91

13. Private Correctional Facilities

“Privatized prison system

I want to clarify that I am an American. Former military member (army infantry) did some time in Germany and got knowledge on how there system works. It feels like the United States creates laws out of thin air so you can continuously break a law and have a constant chance of seeing a jail see for the slightest thing every day. When you add in police aggression into the mix you pretty much flip a coin whenever you get pulled over (depending on how good the cop is. Honest police will give respect and in return receive and have cooperation, police on power trips….well we all have seen some form of how bad that can go.

Being from New Orleans, Louisiana (which houses the most inmates in the union) you feel not only a constant threat to protect yourself from criminals but also from the law. With lawmen not In check it almost feels like they want you to end up in jail for a broken tail light (New Orleans prisons are no fucking joke) it’s a real problem everywhere from big city, to small town USA and I believe is fueled by a privatized prison system.”

hairbear1390

12. Just How Do Credit Scores Work?

“How your credit score system works.

I will never understand why using a debit card, so only spending money you actually have, doesn’t have a positive effect on your CS but paying your credit card every month has.”

Lenaturnsgreen

11. Unusually High Water on Toilets

“I don’t know if this is considered a problem for Americans but it sure as hell was a problem/inconvenience for me while I was there.

Unreasonably high water level in the toilets like, holy shit my balls were almost touching the water. FUCK THAT”

activator

10. Lobbying, aka Legalized Bribery

“Lobbying, i never understand how every politician on both sides gets away with legalized bribery and everyone just accepts it.

I understand the need for specialist interest groups to promote their ideas but to be allowed to visibly finance a politician and rate their friendliness to your cause with no repercussions is insane to me.

It’s bribery no matter how you dress it up.”

mcgowand

9. Location-Dependent Prescription Costs

“While watching Chelsea vs Manchester United yesterday on NBCSN, during halftime there was a Good Rx commercial where the guy is asking a woman if she would like to fill her prescription, he pulled up the phone and showed her that the same pill can cost from $10 to $90 depending on the area. And that Good Rx can help her fill the prescription with the cheapest prices.

Now someone please explain to me how in the ever loving fuck is it possible for a drug to cost 10x more depending on your location !? Don’t they have constant prices like in the rest of the civilized world !?

Edit: the answers to my inquiry are even more fucked up. What the fuck America!? You’re getting robbed in broad daylight.”

TheMexicanJuan

8. A High Homeless Population

“The amount of homeless people and the amount of homeless mental patients.”

larsvondank

7. Berating People For How They Eat

“Caring about other people’s food.

As a Pole I don’t care how do you like your pierogi, pyzy, kartacze, bigos, etc.

But damn me if I ask in the US for a “well done” steak. Or if I order a Hawaiian Pizza.”

CrossError404

6. People, Like… LOVE Their Flag

“How strongly Americans feel about the flag. I saw a photographer get torn to pieces online because someone was standing on the tiniest bit of the flag and people went fucking ape shit. In the UK most people probably couldn’t spot if the Union Flag was round the wrong way.

Edit – Just in case you were wondering which way round the Union Flag goes…In the half of the flag nearest the flagpole, the wider diagonal white stripe must be above the red diagonal stripe, as Scotland’s St Andrew’s Cross takes precedence over Ireland’s St. Patrick’s Cross. It is most improper to fly the flag upside down, but nothing people would lose their shit over, it’d just be some knob head like me who’d point it out.

Also thanks for the gold.”

the_heff

5. Right On Red

“Having to remember that cars can turn on a red light.

I know this is a thing. I’ve known this for ten years. I still forget and nearly die every time I need to cross a road when I’m in the US.

ETA: I have learned many things in this comment thread, and am formally changing my answer to “traffic laws varying between states”. The red light turn thing still terrifies me though.”

xthesummoningdarkx

4. Suing For Everything

“The fact that Americans refer to a 24h clock as “military time” you mean just regular time?

Also, suing culture.

Got injured? Sue!

Fell down some stairs? Sue!

Fight with neighbour? Sue!”

bouchandre

3. University and College Loans

“Student debt.

I pay €20/Semester tuition in Austria.”

TheLadderGuy

2. Treating Politicians Like Stars

“The idolization of politicians.

They are public servants, similar to a courthouse clerk or a city hall coordinator. They are not rock stars. You don’t need to scream their name, buy their merch, fully commit your life to them and believe everything they say.

Just… treat them like public servants. Sure, they get power and position, but hold them accountable when they abuse it.

Don’t let corporations and politicians take over, the political system is created by the people, FOR the people. It just… boggles the mind.”

Koenigseggalicious

1. Not Driving Manual Cars

“Not European but Driving manual cars.

Where I’m from, most people learn stick at 16-18.”

tanmak100

Listening to other people’s perspectives is always interesting, isn’t it? It’s true that some of these posts harp on some of the negative aspects of society, but that gives us all a chance to improve for the better and continue to take part in the more positive things we’re known for.

Are you from Europe or another part of the world? If there’s anything you thought was missing from the discussion that you’d like to add to this list?

That’s exactly what our comments section is for. Post away!

The post Europeans Discuss American Problems They Don’t Understand appeared first on UberFacts.

A Law Firm Hired a Chef to Hilariously Screw With a Security Guard

Some people get a badge and are on a huge power trip. And while we should show the same courtesy and respect to someone in a uniform with badge ensemble that we’d show anyone, any kind of power-tripping also deserves an eye-roll. Also, thinking outside the box so we can all go about our days, bruised ego notwithstanding.

Here’s a story about how such thinking got this poor baker out of a jam when all he was trying to do was deliver some damn bagels to an important customer.

 The story is called “The day I was hired and fired from a law firm.”

Photo Credit: Reddit

After he and another baker completed the orders, he had to deliver half of them on his way home.

Photo Credit: Reddit

He just needs to find a place to park.

Photo Credit: Reddit

He meets his protagonist.

Photo Credit: Reddit

Sam The Security Guard guards parking spaces with his life.

Photo Credit: Reddit

But Bob has an idea.

Photo Credit: Reddit

Fully employed, OP completes his task of bagel delivery.

Photo Credit: Reddit

And they all lived happily ever after, except Sam.

Photo Credit: Reddit

Isn’t it sad when someone with a tiny mind and a big badge goes out of his way to keep someone from doing a simple job? Sam, you need some hobbies!

What do you think? Have any reactions to this crazy story?

Let us know in the comments!

The post A Law Firm Hired a Chef to Hilariously Screw With a Security Guard appeared first on UberFacts.

16 History Facts You Probably Didn’t Learn In School

There are only so many things teachers can get into during a school year, so unless you decided to dedicate yourself to the study of history, there are a great many things you’ll never hear about unless you stumble across them on accident.

Even if you do decide to dedicate your life to studying history, your focus will likely have to be so narrow that there will be many, many things outside your purview.

So, for all of us, here are 16 things that – for varying reasons – no teacher is probably going to bring up.

16. I knew this but it still blows me away.

Native Americans weren’t granted citizenship until the 1920s.

Aboriginals, the native owners of Australia were not even considered human until 1967.

It was 1947 for natives in Canada.

15. That’s a man I could work for!

Captain Bartholomew Roberts the pirate gave his pirate crew a bedtime.

Gotta have your eight hours so you can make that pillaging tomorrow!

14. This is one of my favorite things about history.

How much in common we have with people of the past.

Pictures, sculptures and carvings going all the way back showing sex, drugs, drinking, partying and graffiti that you would see on an abandoned building or train today. The plight of the middle class and class struggles vs the upper class is the same today as for thousands of years. If we could listen to a court jester, their jokes would ring true today more than likely. Outside of technology making things faster/easier in a sense, were still doing/enjoying/complaining about most of the same things we have been for millenia.

“Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it” and “theres nothing new under the sun” is real.

13. I mean. I’m glad we have bananas?

The US government went to war in Guatemala over bananas.

12. They really don’t teach you about this in school.

How bad the rape of Nanking was.

11. I had no idea!

Hitler’s nephew served for the US in WW2.

10. We don’t like to talk about it.

It took me an anthropology class in college to learn about human zoos.

That is zoos where white people paid money to see aboriginal people from various regions in cages. It happened all over the world, including in the bronx zoo in, like, the 1920’s. I had never heard about anything like that in any schooling before that, and I doubt most people have.

9. Sometimes movies can teach us things, too!

Well, until I saw Lincoln, I had never heard of Thaddeus Stevens, who seems to be a much greater believer in the equality of men than many.

8. The good old days?

The Tulsa Race Massacre.

In the early 1920s Tulsa Oklahoma had a very affluent black neighborhood called black wall street. Basically many African Americans were doing better financially than whites. White folks were angry about their success and wanted their land. An African American was wrongly accused of assault by a white girl and the whites used this as an excuse to attack the neighborhood including dropping bombs from WWI era planes.

Many were killed and beaten. Over 10,000 people were left homeless due to houses and businesses being burned down.

This is the greatest single incident of racial violence in US history.

7. We already knew he was a d*ck, but…

Stalin son killed himself in a concentration camp yet Stalin mocked him until his death.

6. Men really don’t deserve to run anything.

The Japanese military kidnapped hundreds (if not thousands) of Korean and Chinese women during WWII and forced them to be sex workers for the Japanese military.

Some Japanese women were even drafted to be comfort women, but they didn’t know what they were being drafted for until they were there. It’s actually a pretty common thing in many wars, because the military wants to keep the soldiers “pure”. By kidnapping these women, they know that they aren’t riddled with STD’s. It’s very sad, especially because when the war is over, many of the camps are cleared and these women are forced to find their way back home, without even knowing the war is over.

If they aren’t too afraid or ashamed to go back home, they’re usually turned away from their families because they are so ashamed of what happened.

5. Way too many stories like this from all over the world.

About the Lost children of Francoism.

These children were abducted from Republican parents who were either in jail or had been assassinated by Nationalist troops during the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Spain. These children were then given to families that would practice Catholicism and nationalism. However this lasted after 1975, when Franco died. By then this practice was already a trafficking business run by nuns, doctors and nurses.

My mum is a Lost children and she has told me that almost anyone has found their parents.

4. So much awful out there we’re never taught.

Turkey genocided Armenians.

Those stats just kinda get tossed in with WW1, so they don’t really stand out. Until you look and see that it didn’t have anything to do with the actual war. ” Hey everyone is pretty busy with the Germans, let’s get rid of these Armenians.”

3. I have no idea why humans can be so horrible.

That Argentina pretty much eliminated the black race.

They had ways to get rid of the men first. Not as much for the women though. Once the male to female ratio drastically dropped (Black population) the women were pretty much forced to sleep with white men, in order to wash out the “Black”. The Black population was so low, the Argentine government pretty much removed the “Black” option as a race. Crazy how they succeed.

2. Uncomfortable to think about, really.

If you go back far enough, everyone’s ancestry contains rape at some point.

1. Not surprised.

Central Park, in New York, was created under eminent domain and razed a predominantly black and Irish community called Seneca Village. Most of the inhabitants were compensated but many felt they did not receive fair market value.

According to the Louise Chipley Slavicek, author of New York’s Central Park, the pro-park lobby were largely “affluent merchants, bankers and landowners”, who wanted a “fashionable and safe public place where they and their families could mingle and promenade”.

It took me forever to write this article because I was off Googling details for some of these!

Were these surprises to you? Did you already know about some of them?

I’m always fascinated to learn about everything I don’t know!

The post 16 History Facts You Probably Didn’t Learn In School appeared first on UberFacts.

You’ve Probably Heard of Déjà Vu, but What About Déjà RêVé?

Most of us have experienced déjà vu at one point or another. It’s an eerie feeling that makes you pause and wonder just what the hell is going on…and it’s usually the most mundane things that trigger it.

But have you ever heard of déjà rêvé? It’s basically the opposite of déjà vu, “already dreamed” instead of “already seen.”

Déjà rêvé occurs when you experience something in real life that you feel like you have dreamed before. It’s kind of creepy, to be honest. And there’s really no time limit on this weird phenomenon.

Some people who have reported experiencing déjà rêvé claim that these dreams, almost like prophecies, happened years before they actually experienced it in real life. One study showed that déjà rêvé experiences were common in people who had received electric brain stimulations to treat epileptic symptoms.

Photo Credit: iStock

The study suggests that the feelings of déjà rêvé, or “already dreamed” feelings, could be the result of something occurring physiologically in the brain.

Scientists think this could lead to a better understanding of how dreams work.

Photo Credit: Unsplash,Richard Ludwig

Déjà rêvé means not only thinking you’ve dreamt a real-life situation before, but also that you sometimes feel like you are dreaming at the moment you realize it, even though you are awake.

The participants in the study described their déjà rêvé experiences in three ways:

Episodic – where they could remember an exact day or time that they had the prophetic dream, even if it was years ago.

Familiarity-like – where people have a dreamy, hazy memory about their dreams that you might remember in the morning after you wake up.

Dreamy-state – participants who felt this way didn’t experience the recalled-dream memories of others. Instead, they say that the experience itself (while awake) was strange and like a dream. Some even described it as nightmarish.

Dreaming is still a big mystery for the most part, but maybe studying déjà rêvé will eventually give us more insight into how the human mind works.

Pretty trippy stuff, right? Has this ever happened to you? If so, please tell us about it in the comments!

The post You’ve Probably Heard of Déjà Vu, but What About Déjà RêVé? appeared first on UberFacts.

Twisty Riddles To Kill Some Free Time

There are days when you’re looking for ways to pass the time – and improving your logic skills has to be one of the better investments of your free time!

If you agree, we’ve got 6 twisty riddles that will pair perfectly with your morning cup to get those brain juices flowing!

Let’s go!

6. Full of holes.

5. Heavy, poor, but full of silver…

4. Invisible but needed?

3. Not the classic couple.

2. Holes and more holes.

1. Don’t let it lick you.

Continue reading to check your answers.

6.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

Did you solve them all? Which one did you think was the cleverest?

Let us know in the comments and thanks for playing along today!

The post Twisty Riddles To Kill Some Free Time appeared first on UberFacts.