The $2 bill makes up 1% of currency circulation. Its scarcity in daily use has confused some merchants who believe the bill to be fake. A 13 year old girl in Texas was detained by police when she tried to pay for her school lunch with a $2 bill, because the school’s counterfeit pen wouldn’t […]
Japan has over 5 million operating…
Japan has over 5 million operating vending machines currently within the country, making it so there is 1 vending machine per 23 people, making it the country with the most vending machines per capita in the entire world.
14 Interesting Facts You Might Not Already Know
Facts make us feel more in the know, they help us win trivia games (always important!), and, like my great-grandfather said, you should try to learn something new every day.
We’d like to help you out today, so check out these 14 interesting facts!
14. Abraham Lincoln was a certified bartender.
His liquor license was discovered in 1930.
13. A Pixar employee accidentally deleted part of Toy Story 2 during production.
It would have taken up to a year to recreate what was deleted, but fortunately another employee had a backup of the entire film on their home laptop.
12. Your brain synapses shrink while you sleep.
A 2003 study on mice confirmed that the size of brain synapses shrink around 18% after a few hours of sleep.
11. Umpires used to call baseball games from rocking chairs.
They were located about 20 feet behind home plate – not a bad gig, since starting in 1878, they were paid $5 a game.
10. The first commercial passenger flight lasted only 23 minutes.
In 1914, Abram Pheil paid $400 (about $8500 today) to fly between St. Petersburg and Tampa (both in Florida). Pheil was the former mayor of St. Petersburg, and the short flight revolutionized our lives.
9. Pigeon poop belongs to the royals.
In the 18th century, bird poop was used to make gunpowder, so King George I declared all droppings property of the crown.
8. Beethoven basically couldn’t do math.
He could add, but one of the greatest composers in history couldn’t multiply or divide.
7. Apple, Inc. was created on April Fool’s Day.
The documents to form the Apple Computer Company were signed on April 1, 1976. Thirty years later, Apple became the country’s first trillion-dollar company – it is obviously not a joke.
6. A waffle maker inspired the design of Nikes.
Bill Bowerman was a track and field coach in the 1950s when he decided he wanted to design a better shoe for running. Inspiration struck during a waffle breakfast with his wife, when of course he thought to try the waffle design on the sole of a shoe.
5. The world’s first novel ends mid-sentence.
The Tale of Genji was written in the 11th century by Murasaki Shikibu. The work stops abruptly in the 55th chapter, and most believe the work was once complete. Some scholars do think he meant to end the story there, though.
4. The Ancient Egyptians replaced the eyes of the dead with small onions.
The rings and layers of onions were thought to represent eternal life, so sending the Pharaohs off with the onions in place of easily decomposed eyes makes sense.
3. In Latin, “aquarium” means “watering place for cattle.”
The first modern aquarium (for viewing sea creatures) opened in England in 1924. Presumably by someone who failed Latin in school.
2. Queen Victoria was one of the first people to own a tricycle.
She was on a tour on the Isle of Wight in 1881 when a woman on a tricycle passed her horse and carriage. Victoria stopped the woman and asked her to demonstrate the tricycle to the Queen, who ordered two and asked that they be delivered by their creator.
1. Boars wash their food before eating it.
At the Basel Zoo in Switzerland, zookeepers have observed both adult and juvenile wild boars wash sandy apples in a creek before eating them.
I definitely did today’s learning from this list – so many fun facts!
Did you learn something? Did you love one of these in particular? Share which in the comments!
The post 14 Interesting Facts You Might Not Already Know appeared first on UberFacts.
The man credited with saving….
The man credited with saving both Apollo 12 and Apollo 13 was forced to resign years later while serving as the Chief of NASA when Texas Senator Robert Krueger blamed him for $500 million of overspending on Space Station Freedom, which later evolved into the International Space Station (ISS).
In 1896, New York passed a law that…
In 1896, New York passed a law that alcohol could only be served on Sunday if it was with a meal. New York taverns then started “selling” inedible sandwiches (served with a drink). The waiter would collect the sandwich at the end of the meal, and serve it the next customer.
The steam iconically shooting…
The steam iconically shooting out of the streets of New York City comes from the underground new york steam system. The 105 mile system of pipes began providing services in 1882, it uses clean water and still delivers steam to over 2,000 city buildings today.
A study found tobacco and tomato…
A study found tobacco and tomato plants emit ultrasonic “squeals” when stressed. Microphones 4″ away picked up the sounds when plants had stems cut/were under-watered: an average of 15 – 25 sounds within 1 hr from cutting, and 11 – 35 sounds per hr from drought.
Einstein hated wearing socks….
Einstein hated wearing socks. In a letter to his wife he said that the reason he stopped wearing them was because his big toe always ended up making a hole in them.
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”
All of the actors who played patients in “One Flew over the cuckoos nest” (1975) actually lived on the Oregon State Hospital psychiatric ward throughout production. The men personalized their sleeping quarters, spent their days on campus “get[ting] a sense of what it was to be hospitalized” (as actor Vincent Schiavelli put it), and interacting […]
Danny Devito in “One Flew over the cuckoos nest” film
In “One Flew over the cuckoos nest” (1975) Martini (Danny Devito) was a pilot in the war, his plane was shot down and started to sink in the ocean. Whenever tension rises in the film, martini puts his feet on the chair as if the water started to rise, also as if he were still […]