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Random Facts Thread

claybugg

claybugg

New Member
I thought I'd be neat to have a thread in which each person would post an interesting and hopefully little known fact. I think you pick up a lot of random knowledge when you're an avid reader (or an internet junkie) so this is the perfect place to share it. I'll go first:

I just learned that the term "mad as a hatter" (the Mad Hatter) began to be used hundreds of years ago when hat makers really did go mad. They used mercury to treat furs and would inhale the vapor, which over time caused brain damage and psychological problems.
 
Oh, wow. I didn't know that.

Mmm...how about this. Marie Antoinette was frequently said to have shouted, "Let them eat cake!" at a hungry crowd. However, the incident came from a book written before Antoinette ever arrived in France. The passage described a "great princess" and the quote was attributed to Antoinette completely by mistake. Ironically, it's her most famous quote, and the one usually used to judge her character in the history books.
 
I learned the other day that humans, dolphins, apes and possibly elephants are the only known animals to be able to recognise their own refelction in a mirror.
 
stephiebaby said:
Seriously?? That is totally interesting. Do you have names?
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I don't but here's where I discovered this fact.


North Korea

Population: 22,488,000

British population: 5

Expat life does not come much more offbeat than in North Korea, arguably the world's most reclusive country. There are fewer than 300 foreigners among a population of 22m. Apart from UK diplomats and their families, the five Britons registered as resident in Pyongyang include NGO workers and an English teacher at Kim Il-Sung university. Members of the close-knit foreign community learn to be good at entertaining themselves. Social life includes Chinese meals at the Yanggakdo Hotel, golf by the river and a bar that opens on Friday nights at the offices of the World Food Programme.

Zina Bowey, teacher developer at Kim Il-Sung university.

My parents were worried when I told them I was going to teach in Pyongyang, but I assured them it would be perfectly safe. And it was. I felt no animosity, even during the nuclear standoff. You could hear air-raid drills from time to time, when the students would have to leave the classroom and go to a shelter, but that was normal. It is just a precaution.

The students were wonderful, but in terms of the working conditions it was a little different from other places I taught. There was less heating and lighting, and some other items were in short supply. There were no major restrictions on what I taught. We could use British textbooks, but I could not discuss religion or politics. In many ways it was similar to China, where I once taught.

How to do it

Don't even try ... but if you really want to, contact the Embassy of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the UK, 020-8992 4965 (singuk.ha@btinternet.com).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1998308,00.html
 
Found this one:

The largest waterfall on Earth is actually underwater. It is found in the Denmark Strait, and slowly cascades downward for 2.2 miles. This is over three times as tall as Angel Falls, in Venezuela, which is the tallest land waterfall.
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and:

The pressure at the deepest point in the ocean is more than 11,318 tons/sq m, or the equivalent of one person trying to support 50 jumbo jets.
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and, from the 'how on earth did they find this out' pile:

In the weightlessness of space a frozen pea will explode if it comes in contact with Pepsi.
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I read somewhere that sharks never get sick. They are somehow immune to all diseases. Eek!

This is a great thread, BTW.
 
Elephants are the only mammals that can't jump.

The elephant is the only animal with 4 knees.

Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

"Goodbye" came from "God bye" which came from "God be with you."
 
This IS a great thread. I wish I could think of something more to add than I have. I'm full of odd facts, but none as interesting as anyone else has posted...

There is only one registered case of someone getting HIV from "French kissing."

There is a law in a United States city on the east coast that no unauthorized rats can step on land from a boat.
 
Catalyst said:
Elephants are the only mammals that can't jump.
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Just picturing an elephant trying to jump!:D The poor things. There goes any dreams of basketball superstardom.

A couple more:

Olympus Mons (on Mars) is the largest Volcanic mountain in the Solar System. It is 600 km across and 27 km high! And you thought Mount Everest (about 8 and a half km high) was tall! To see a great overhead picture of it click here.
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Saturn has such a low density that it would float if put in water!
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I just learned recently that after the death of Abraham Lincoln's 12 year old son, his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, had a number of séances conducted in the White House to contact him. She made her husband participate. Weird.
 
I just discovered:

gynophagia (n). the sexual fetish involving fantasies of the cooking and consumption of human females.

and

cynophagia (n). "dog-eating". (cyno- prefix being greek for puppies, an expert assures me).

Also, I just looked up the Saturn one, and:

3) While it is true that an object with the density of Saturn would float on water, Saturn would not for a couple of reasons. First off, you would need an enormous planet with an ocean at least deep enough for Saturn to float in. This in itself is almost inconceivable, and likely would require an object so massive that it could not exist as a planet, but rather would condense into a star itself (or a pre-stellar object known as a brown dwarf). And secondly, Saturn is not a solid object like a Styrofoam tm ball. The outer regions have very low densities, while the inner portions of the planet have densities higher than water. Thus if you could find a ocean large enough, the core of Saturn would sink while the outer layers either would escape into space or dissolve into the ocean. So the idea of Saturn floating on an ocean is helpful in imagining the planet's density -- but the idea is "all wet."
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I found that at some site.
 
I found a few interesting ones in the latest Reader's Digest:

Matt Lucas, of Little Britain fame, went bald of shock at the age of 6 after being hit by a car.

The average person in a bookstore spends 8 seconds looking at the cover of a book and a further 15 seconds reading the back.
 
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