fact
The black strips below the eyes of NFL players was first used by baseball legend Babe Ruth in an attempt to reduce sun glare. Although studies have not conclusively proven its effectiveness. Wearing “eye black” now is more like modern war paint.
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In mid-18th century France, eating potatoes was considered cruel and unusual punishment: potatoes were thought of as feed for livestock, and they were believed to cause leprosy in humans. The fear was so widespread that the French passed a law banning them in 1748.
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Bank of America was originally founded as Bank of Italy, in America. They survived the Great San Fran Earthquake and were the first bank to open after it. Turns out, the bank owners had smuggled the money out of the city right after the quake. The fires consumed most of downtown and left the other […]
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A tree in Glastonbury, England, is said to flower on Christmas day—and people were disappointed that it did not obey the switch to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.
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In ’94 USA Today declaired the Mentos “Fresh Goes Better” campaign one of the worst ad campaigns even though sales doubled in ’94 and tripled in ’96.
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In 1949 Simon the cat was awarded a military medal after surviving injuries from a cannon shell, raising morale, and killing off a rat infestation during the Yangtze Incident.
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Due to food and labour shortages in the 1960’s, Brazil has the world’s largest population of Japanese people outside of Japan.
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The deepest parts of the ocean remain a mystery to people and scientists alike. And eels are just a tiny part of it. But, they are still incredibly interesting.
Here are some eel facts that will slither right into your brain and shock you.
Electrifying facts about eels
pic.twitter.com/t4cBJA2PqQ
— UberFacts (@UberFacts) July 5, 2021
There are over 800 different species of eels in the world. They can be as short as the 2-inch one-jawed eel, or as long as the 13-foot slender giant moray eel.
Most eels live in the shallow waters of the ocean, but some live in waters as deep as 13,000 feet.
They can burrow into sand, mud, or among rocks.
Most eels are also nocturnal, so they’re rarely seen by people.
The heaviest eel is the European conger. The maximum size reported of one of these eels is 240 pounds.
That’s a lotta eel.
Most eels begin life as larvae. The larvae are flat and transparent, and they eat marine snow, which are small particles floating in the water.
From there, they become glass eels, so named for their appearance.
At this stage, they transition from the ocean to freshwater.
As they grow, they become what are called elvers.
In the 19th century, Londoners would call the passage of young eels along the Thames “eel fare.” It’s been theorized that that’s where the term “elver” comes from.
After being elvers, eels mature into yellow stage eels, and finally, silver stage eels.
At this point, most eels will be back in the ocean to mate.
One of the most commonly known types of eel, the electric eel, is not actually an eel at all!
It’s really a South American knifefish, and it’s more closely related to carps and catfish than to true eels.
Electric eels can emit shocks up to 650 volts. That’s over five times the power of a standard American wall socket. But despite their electrifying power, these eels aren’t usually very aggressive.
They’ll usually just shock to stun prey or ward off predators. They also use a weak electric pulse as a kind of radar because their eyesight is very bad.
The eel used in sushi is usually unagi, which are freshwater eels.
The European eel, a common type of freshwater eel is currently an endangered species.
Eel blood is toxic to humans and other mammals if it is directly injected into the bloodstream.
Serum from an eel is about three times as poisonous as the most venomous viper. Luckily, the toxins in eel blood can be easily killed either by cooking or digestion.
Who knew eels could be suck fascinating creatures.
One of the coolest things about reading history is realizing just how bananas all those real people were.
Kings, military leaders, pioneers of art, and explorers—there are countless examples of people who, if they’d been dreamed up in a book or a movie, would be too far-fetched to even believe.
And yet they were very real.
But with all those stories come the tendencies to over-hype, omit key details, or just buy into false narratives entirely.
Redditor ReallyRealMaoZedong apparently was in the mood for skepticism when he asked:
“Who is the most overrated person in history?”
“King Tut. He didn’t really do much, he was just a boy who unfortunately died young. We just happened to find his tomb and that made him famous lol.”
“The tomb itself, while amazing and much to learn from, is a result of his culture and the line he happened to be born into, not really anything HE chose to do.” — barbaramillicent
“King Arthur. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.”
“Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.” — bozwold
“I don’t know about ‘most overrated’ but MaoZeDong was a brilliant guerrilla leader who transitioned into be very good at retaining power while being very bad at running a country.”
“I would not hang giant portraits of the guy all over my country.” — dieinafirenazi
“Gandhi.”
“I can go on…” — 00__starstruck__00
“Not in all history, but Chris McCandless was a f’king moron who does not deserve to be romanticised.”
“Against all advice, he strolled out into the Alaskan wilderness with no idea what he was doing, with no map, underprepared, undersupplied and with no research into seasonal dangers, smashed up some cabins, shot a moose despite not being able to preserve or store the meat…”
“…thought he could teach himself to identify edible wild mishrooms, didn’t look beyond the river crossing he initially used where he would have found a hand-operated cable car half a mile away and died – probably from eating strange seeds – in an abandoned bus on a known hunting trail.”
“He was not pioneering, or inspiring, or bold, or free, he was f’king stupid and somehow this inspires people!” — Mischief_Makers
“Hitler. Hear me out!”
“National Socialism and Antisemitism was not something he invented and I am pretty sure that if it wasn’t for him somebody else like Goebbels or Hess would have become German dictator.”
“When people say, oh if only Hitler wasn’t born then WW2 or the Shoa would not have happened, that’s utter bullsh*t. I wish while teaching about the Holocaust, people would put it into context.”
“The climate of polarization in the 1920s in Germany is very similar to what is going on now in the USA. People were and are seeking out extremists with conspiracy theories to follow because they look for scapegoats.”
“The man on the top is just a symptom for a systemic problem which lies much deeper.” — marlenshka
“Ben Bradlee. He was lionized for going after Nixon as editor of the Washington Post.”
“But he lied under oath during the trial of a Black man who was accused of murdering one of Kennedy’s mistresses, all because he was friends with JFK and wanted to cover up his indiscretions. An innocent Black man nearly went to the electric chair.”
“He only pursued the truth when the president was a Republican.” — The_Bee_Sneeze
“Charles de Gaulle. MF was an officer of the army that lost half of France in 2 weeks to the Germans in WW2. Flees like a cockroach to the UK where somehow embodies the spirit of the resistance, somehow receives the title of General, even though his tasks were not dangerous nor fundamental.”
“When the allies take over France, he is not in any of the strategic discussions among generals of different armies, nonetheless he walks into Paris as their great liberator. Couple of years later gets elected president (because somehow he has managed to keep his popularity??).”
“While president, North African colonies declare war (and independence) from France. Many people die, and the french economy and territories takes a huge blow. Also he managed to dismantle the oldest European university of the world (Université de Paris)…”
“But nooooo! His name is on an airport, many avenues and countless plazas accross France.” — KarmaWhoreRepeating
“Ayn Rand. Elitist prick, complete nutbag, husband abuser, most likely committed infidelity. Moreover, her ideas are terrible. So dumb.”
“She clearly thinks poor=dumb and useless, when she doesn’t realize how privileged education is what makes someone ‘productive’ in the way that she imagined.”
“She even says it in Atlas Shrugged, John gault and Francisco wouldn’t have become who they were if they hadn’t had that one philosophy teacher who became a short order cook because the world is so mediocre and undeserving of his genius.”
“And the saddest part is so many people after reading Atlas Shrugged are like ‘yeah, selfishness is the best, anyone who is poor is weak and stupid. My life is good and it’s impossible to have a good life unless you won it for yourself so I must be the best person ever and all you plebs can eat my sh**.’ “
“Randian economics is a conflict in terms.” — Begotten_Glint
“John F. Kennedy.”
“Pill-popping, booty-slaying, trust-fund, back alley politician who conveniently only took an interest in civil rights in preparation for re-election.”
“He was handsome, charming, and his tragic death made him seem much better than he actually was.” — Way_2_Go_Donny
So there you have it.
Hope this list didn’t deflate any of your heroes.
But if it did, consider the value of being in the know.
Sure, the world is a fascinating place, but planet Earth itself is just as fascinating on its surface. The bodies of land and water that cover our mother Earth are as much a character in the story of our lives and the story of humanity as humans themselves.
Also, sometimes looking at a map doesn’t quite convey accurately what those places are LIKE, geographically.
We know in general where they are and what shape their borders take, usually, but do we know some of the cooler things?
“What geography fact blows your mind?”
Here were some of those answers.
“Australia is wider than the moon.”-fouryinthehouse
“There are 14 mountains over the height of 8000 metres. All of them are in Asia.”-victoryofsamothrace
“Texas is large enough that I could fit Copenhagen, Brussels, Zagreb, and Warsaw with their real life distances from each other inside the State lines.”
“The Great Lakes contain enough fresh water to flood an area the size of Great Britain in over 100 meters of water.”-whatifevery1wascalm
“Alaska is actually HUGE. It’s larger than Montana, Texas, and California combined. Yet, illustrated on maps as being tiny.”-Maximum_Mountain_446
“The distance between New Zealand and Australia is roughly the same as the distance between The Netherlands and Libya.”
“Came up in this thread comparing chocolate milk around the world.”
“One redditor made the assertion that NZ’s choc milk was probably as bad as Australia’s, because of the proximity of the two countries”-Javanz
“When I worked for FedEx back in the 90’s, one of the reasons why they chose Anchorage as a global hub?”
“Apart from the fact that aircraft use less fuel due to it being cooler, it was that it is one of the only places in the world that is within 10 hours of the three biggest global markets; North America, Europe and Asia!”
“Who would have thought that a place considered in the middle of nowhere is actually the centre of the world.”-Geronimo2U
“Despite Canada being the US’s ‘neighbor to the north,’ the majority of Canadians live south of Seattle.”-Slant_Juicy
“My parents in Canada live closer to me in England than they do to my in-laws in Canada.”-Kurgan1536
“If you took a boat out of Reykjavík and sailed directly south, the first land mass you’d hit would be Antarctica.”-RyzenRaider
“-The Appalachian mountain range formed before the North American continent broke away from Europe, so there’s a little chunk of the Appalachians in France.”
“-Relatively speaking, we live on the skin of an apple. That’s about how thick the Earth’s crust is in proportion to its volume.”
“-The Australian tectonic plate is drifting north at a rapid rate relative to other plates. The whole continent is moving north and slightly clockwise at around 2.7 inches a year, which is fast enough that GPS systems have had to compensate for it to stay accurate.”
“In a few hundred million years, Australia will probably collide with Asia, creating a mountain range even taller than the Himalayas when it does.”
“-It’s also easy to forget how recent some of our research and discoveries are. Though the idea of ‘continental drift’ was first proposed in 1915, the theory of plate tectonics wasn’t really well developed until the 1950s, continuing into the 1970s.”
“And while we currently understand pretty well that an asteroid impact caused most dinosaurs to rapidly go extinct, down to the exact location of the crater and the size of the asteroid and everything, the asteroid-impact theory wasn’t proposed until 1980.”-Taman_Should
“The most southern piece of land of Canada (Middle Island) is further south than the entirety of 13 US States. As well as partially of another 14.”
“Also even though its located in Canada’s territorial waters and always been a part of Canada:”
“Up until 2000 it was privately owned by the owner of an Ohio Car Dealership and was purchased by (edit; a private charity for $867k and donated to) Parks Canada when he died.”-GreyGonzales
“Antarctica is the world’s largest desert, since it doesn’t get all that much rainfall. Also, if you put a cherry on top of it, Antarctica is the world’s largest dessert.”-CrabbyBlueberry
“How far north Europe is. I always pictured Europe as roughly parallel to the US, so northern Europe would be the same latitude as Minnesota and southern Europe as Florida.”
“Not even close. The UK is almost entirely north of the lower 48 states and Rome is further north than New York City.”-mordeci00
“In Iceland, you can see where the North American tectonic plate and the Eurasia tectonic plate are moving away from each other.”
“Another place that is similar, but not as intense, is Point Reyes National Seashore in California. It is separated by the San Andreas Fault, where the North American and Pacific plates come together.”-[username deleted]
“The earth is remarkably smooth.”
“Everest at 8.85km above sea level compared to the Marianas trench at -11kms. A net difference of 19.85kms on a sphere 12,742kms. 0.156% of the planets circumference contains all terrain heights.”
“The surface of a cue ball (2.25in), has a tolerance for surface finish allowing pits or grooves to be up to 0.005in. 0.222% of its circumference.”
“Earth is smoother than a cue ball, even if you put Everest next to the Marianas trench or dug the trench another 9km deeper, it would still be within scaled cue ball tolerance for smoothness.”-Jtothe3rd
“Russia’s western most border and city in Europe is farther west than Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria. The city is also farther west than Warsaw, Poland.”
“Not really mind blowing per se, but people forget about Kaliningrad Oblast, lol. For all the ‘Finland/Bielefeld doesn’t exist’ jokes, I’m surprised no one ever tried it with Kaliningrad given the weirdness of the Oblast.”
“Kaliningrad is closer to Berlin than Gusev is to Pskov or Smolensk.”-Legion213
“Even though on the maps, and how people describe Russia, it seems like a really, really big country. In reality, it’s less than twice the size of the U.S. (It’s still a large country, I just over-estimate it).”
“Also: The largest country (Russia) is over 38.8 MILLION times larger than the smallest country in area (Vatican City).”-Pingu277
“Astronomer here- also, Russia has more surface area than Pluto!”-Andromeda321
“I was always told growing up that Russia and Alaska are only 2 miles apart from each other at their closest point.”
“They are, but not the mainlands. The Diomede Islands are 2 islands, 1 owned by each country, and only about 2 miles apart.”
“The mainlands are closer to like 50 miles apart, which is still closer than most people might realize.”-whatifevery1wascalm
Like we said, looking at a map doesn’t tell the entire story.
Some parts of Alaska are closer to Russia than New York City is to Washington DC or Boston.
Australia and Asia will one day collide.
No matter what field you choose to inspect when it comes to our mother Earth, gold and fascinating subject matter await you at every turn.