100 Strange but True Facts That Will Shock You

1. Donkey Kong got his name because his creator believed ‘donkey’ meant ‘stupid’ in English and wanted to convey the impression that the character was a “Stupid Ape”.
2. The medical name for a butt crack is “intergluteal cleft”.
3. People can suffer from a psychological disorder called Boanthropy that makes them believe that they are a cow. They try to live their life as a cow.
4. The name for the shape of Pringles is called a ‘Hyperbolic Paraboloid’.
5. There is a McDonalds in every continent except Antartica.
6. Mr Potato Head was the first toy to be advertised on TV.
7. A duel between three people is actually called a truel.
8. The stage before frostbite is called “frostnip”.
9. The two tiny holes drilled in every BIC pen is to ensure that the air pressure is the same both inside and outside the pen, which helps the ink flow to the tip.
10. In South Korea there is an emergency number (113) to report spies.
11. There are no bridges over the Amazon River.
12. The process by which bread toasts is called the ‘Maillard Reaction’.
13. Snails have 14000 teeth and some can even kill you!
14. Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi was not a man in a suit, it was actually a giant puppet.
15. Sonic the Hedgehog’s full name is actually Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog.
16. Even though Froot Loops are different colors, they all have exactly the same flavor.
17. George Clooney did the voice for ‘Sparky’ – a gay dog in South Park.
18. Most toilet paper sold for home use in France is pink.
19. Marmite was one of most confiscated items at airports from the UK – to overcome this issue, Marmite made smaller ones for travelling.
20. The human nose can remember 50,000 different scents.
21. Cards against Humanity bought an island in Maine to preserve wildlife. It is called Hawaii 2.
22. Daddy longlegs have penises, which technically makes them not a spider.
23. The television was invented only two years after the invention of sliced bread.
24. Bullfrogs do not sleep.
25. The dark region on the north pole of Pluto’s moon, Charon, is called Mordor.
26. Eight of the ten largest statues in the world are of Buddhas.
27. In 2015, a silver coin with Superman on the heads side was made which is legal tender in Canada. There was only 350,000 produced.
28. It took the creator of the Rubik’s Cube, Erno Rubik, one month to solve the cube after he created it; the current world record is 5.55 seconds.
29. Japanese square watermelons are ornamental plants and are not edible.
30. Tigers have striped skin not just striped fur. The stripes are like fingerprints and no two tigers have the same pattern.
31. Ketchup originated in China as a boiled-down brine of pickled fish and spices called ‘ke-chiap’.
32. In Morse Code -.- means k.
33. In 2005, a fortune cookie company called Wonton Food Inc correctly foretold lottery numbers, resulting in 110 winners and an investigation. No fraud was involved.
34. Two PlayStation 1 games, FIFA 2001 and Gran Turismo 2, has scratch & sniff discs. The FIFA 2001smelled like a soccer field, while Gran Turismo 2 smelled like car tires.
35. If you die in Amsterdam with no next of kin, and no friends or family to prepare funeral or mourn over the body, a poet will write a poem for you and recite it at your funeral.
36. The Himalayan Honey Bee -largest of the honey bees – makes a hallucinogenic honey that tribes collect.
37. In 2014, Sony made a cassette tape that can store 185TB of data!
38. The collars on men’s dress shirts used to be detachable. This was to save on laundry costs as the collar was the part that needed cleaning the most frequently.
39. The man who found the 5,000 year old corpse Ötzi the Iceman in 1991 (Oldest natural European mummy) was also found dead frozen in ice in 2004.
40. In 2014, a missing woman on a vacation in Iceland was found when it was discovered that she was in the search party looking for herself.
41. If you sneeze while travelling at 60 mph your eyes are closed for an average of 50 feet.
42. Both Nicholas Cage and Michael Jackson shared the same wife, Elvis Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie Presley.
43. Alligators will give manatees the right of way if they are swimming near each other.
44. Crystal – the monkey from The Hangover 2 and Night at the Museum has her own IMDB page!
45. The “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature in Google search actually cost Google $110 million a year, as 1% of all searches use this feature and bypass all advertising.
46. Magpies are considered one of the most intelligent animals in the world, and the only non-mammal species able to recognize itself in a mirror test.
47. Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Trivago, Travelocity, and Orbitz are all owned by the same company, Expedia Inc.
48. Before the term “bloopers” was coined, ‘out-takes’ were called ‘boners’.
49. Baked beans are actually not baked, but stewed.
50. Rowan Atkinson – also known as Mr. Bean – is the voice of Zazu in The Lion King.
51. The most popular item at Walmart is bananas. They sell more bananas than any other single item they have in stock.
52. Sunsets on Mars are blue.
53. ‘lbs’ comes form the Latin word ‘libra’ which means pound.
54. The small indents in the bottom of frozen pizzas are there to prevent air bubbles forming inside the dough.
55. The term ‘footage’ comes from films being measured in feet, when being edited in the early days of film making.
56. In 2005, Mark Zuckerberg unsuccessfully tried to sell Facebook for $75 million. Back then it was called TheFacebook.
57. There is an opposite of albino animals, which aren’t white, but black. These are known as Melanistic animals.
58. Some areas in Scotland and Japan switched to blue street lights at night, and saw a decrease in crime & suicide rates.
59. The first film with a $100 million budget was True Lies, which was made in 1994.
60. ‘Digging a hole to China’ is theoretically possible if you start in Argentina.
61. There are cells in human body called Faggot cells which cause leukaemia.
62. Strawberries can also be white or yellow, and some can even taste like pineapples!
63. Elephants make friends, bury their dead, travel for ‘funerals’, speak to each other, and show extreme intelligence.
64. As of 1998, over 50% of Iceland’s population believed in the existence of elves.
65. The Boston Marathon didn’t allow female runners until 1972.
66. When watermelons are grilled or baked, they lose their granular texture and can even be used as meat substitute, a ‘watermelon steak’.
67. James Blunt recorded his first album while living with Carrie Fisher. ‘Goodbye My Lover‘ was recorded in her bathroom!
68. Some cat breeds (called ‘puppy cats’) are bred specifically to exhibit dog-like behavior.
69. In October 2015, United Airlines made a man with Cerebral Palsy crawl off one of its flights. The flight attendants just watched as he struggled.
70. “Bluetooth” technology was named after a 10^th century king, King Harald Bluetooth. He united Denmark and Norway – just like the wireless technology united computers and cell phones.
71. All dogs are banned from Antarctica since April 1994. This ban was made because of concern that dogs might spread diseases to seals.
72. Hart Island is the final burial place to over a million of New York City’s unclaimed bodies, and thought to be the largest government sponsored mass grave on the earth.
73. In Slovakia they have Christmas Carp that live in the family bathtub for a few days before they are eaten.
74. Banks have therapists known as ‘wealth psychologist’ who help ultra-rich clients, who are unable to mentally cope with their immense wealth.
75. In 1999 hackers revealed a security flaw in Hotmail that permitted anybody to log into any Hotmail account using the password ‘eh’. At the time it was called “the most widespread security incident in the history of the web”.
76. A small population of Mammoths survived on the Wrangel Island until 1650 BC, about 900 years after the construction of The Great Pyramid of Giza were completed.
77. The state of Ohio gives out different colored license plates for those convicted of DUI.
78. The Flintstones was the most profitable network cartoon franchise for 30 years, that’s before The Simpsons came along.
79. The University of Minnesota is older than Minnesota the state itself!
80. In Japan, you are equally likely to die from being struck by lightning as you are from being shot by a gun.
81. As of 2016, the site MySpace still gets 50 million visitors a month!
82. C-3PO and R2-D2 had their own 1985 single season 13 episode spin-off TV series called Star Wars: Droids. The season shown the adventures of R2-D2 & C-3P0 before they joined Luke Skywalker.
83. People don’t sneeze in their sleep due to their brain shutting down the reflex.
84. If you made $1 every second, it would take you 2,511 years to have more money than Bill Gates (over $79.2 billion dollars).
85. In 2013 Toy Story was remade shot-for-shot with real toys and real people! Watch the video!
86. The word “Jurassic,” which we so often associate with dinosaurs, comes from the Celtic word for “forest”.
87. The brain is our fattiest organ, being composed of nearly 60% fat.
88. Guy Fawkes is the reason guys are called “guys”.
89. February used to be the last month of the year, which is why it has the shortest number of days.
90. Dead people can get goosebumps!
91. The first film ever shown in the White House was The Birth of a Nation, a pro-white supremacy silent film that the KKK also used as a recruiting tool.
92. In September 2007, a guy named Kevin Shelley broke 46 wooden toilet seats with his head in one minute to create a world record.
93. Samuel Jackson has a clause in his film contracts that allows him to play golf during film shoots whenever he wants.
94. In 1945 the first atomic bomb was created, and was nicknamed “The Gadget”.
95. For every child born in Wales since April 2014, the Welsh Government have donated a fruit tree to Ugandan families, to celebrate the birth or adoption of every child.
96. Restaurants can sing ‘Happy Birthday’ now because the copyrights claims are now invalid. Judge George H. King ruled that a copyright filed in 1935, granted only the rights to specific piano arrangements of the music, not the song itself.
97. Although Australia is home to the largest number of venomous snakes in the world, it averages only one fatal snake bite per year.
98. Shoe shops used X-Ray machines to measure shoe sizes in the 1940’s before the risks of X-Rays were fully understood.
99. Iguanas have three eyes. Two normal eyes and a third eye on top of their head that only perceives brightness.
100. Big Ben (Elizabeth Tower) in London is leaning over so much it can now be seen with the naked eye. In 4000 years it will be at the same angle as the tower in Pisa is now.