LOL The random fact of the day thread

In 1836, Mexican General Santa Anna held an elaborate state funeral for his amputated leg.

Seniors who drink a cup of coffee before a memory test score higher than those who drink a cup of decaffeinated coffee

Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise

 

The moon is thought to have been originally part of the Earth, but was blasted off by a massive meteor or comet impact in it's very early years.

 

^^That is not really a fact and rather an opinion.

This is: Cracking your knuckles does not actually hurt your bones or cause arthritis. The sound you hear is just gas bubbles bursting.

 

In 1810, Peter Durand invented the tin can for preserving food


Five thousandths of a millimeter is the tolerance of accuracy at the LEGO mould factories

 

^Related

The can opener was first invented in 1855.

Lego bricks have a production failure rate of 18:1,000,000

 

quantum encryption is the only known theoretically perfect encryption scheme.

 

Wiff-waff, the pre-cursor to table tennis.

The game originated as a sport in Britain during the 1880s, where it was played among the upper-class as an after-dinner parlour game. A row of books were stood up along the center of the table as a net, two more books served as rackets and were used to continuously hit a wine cork, later a golf-ball from one end of the table to the other.

Commonly known as "wiff-waff" due to the sound made striking the cork/ball. Later played with paddles made from cigar box lids it became known as table tennis or ping pong.

(It's amazing what you can learn whilst stood out on the pavement having a smoke )

 

Did you know you share your birthday with at least 9 other million people in the world

 

The youngest pope was 11 years old

 

The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.

 

Sorry, that one's not true, factoring in the unusual axis of rotation Uranus also exhibits retrograde rotation

 

TGS is one of them.

 

Bump. Like this thread, don't want it to die

 

The taste of Dr. Pepper is due to prune juice.

 

There are 10 sorts of people - those who understand binary, and those who don't.

 

Not sure about this one?

Some octopuses have been known to eat their arms off when they are exposed to stressful situations

 

The smallest man ever was Gul Mohammed (1957-1997) of India, who measured 1 feet, 10? inches

500,000 tons of dog excrement are dumped annually on the streets of Paris

 

Yup, that's true.

Opal, agate, quartz, chalcedony, chrysoprase, heliotrope, and onyx are all the same thing-SiO2. And they're all the same chemical composition as glass (sand glass, specifically)-only the crystal structure differs.

 

Lies. There are 10 types of people, but they are the ones who understand tertiary, those who don't, and those who mistake it for binary.

 

The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses

There are 500,000 detectable earthquakes in the world each year

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee