Back when dinosaurs existed, there used to be volcanoes that were erupting on the moon.
100 Mind-Blowing Back Facts
The first service animals were established in Germany during World War I, but references to service animals date back to the mid-16th Century.
Red Solo cups are a common souvenir to bring back from the United States. The novelty comes from the cups being used in many party scenes in movies.
Swedish meatballs originated from a recipe King Charles XII brought back from Turkey in the early 1800s.
There is a village in Russia called Tsovkra where every resident can tightrope walk. It is a tradition that dates back over 100 years, but no one knows how it started.
Disney sold the streaming rights for the original Star Wars films in 2016 to Turner until 2024. Disney has since decided to start a streaming service and has tried asking for the rights back, but Turner refuses every time.
Though most think it’s Italian, pepperoni is an American invention. The first use of the word dates back to 1919.
Walter Hunt, a man from America, invented the safety pin back in 1849.
In Svalbard, a remote Norwegian island, it is illegal to die. This is because bodies are unable to be buried safely due to the permafrost on the ground. If you are about to die, they fly you back to mainland Norway to pass on there.
Your tonsils can grow back if there is tissue left behind during the removal process. Sometimes it’s accidental; other times, it’s left on purpose.
The front paws of a cat are different from the back paws. They have five toes on the front but only four on the back.
A woman once tried to commit suicide by jumping off the Empire State Building. She jumped from the 86th floor but was blown back onto the 85th floor by a gust of wind.
Give something back to the Earth on March 12th – because it’s officially known as “Plant a Flower Day.”
Although many people think shaving causes hair to grow back quickly, there is no scientific evidence for this.
China banned Back to the Future because it contained time travel.
One of the earliest depictions of dreadlocks dates back to 1600 BC to the Minoan Civilization, one of Europe’s earliest civilizations, who lived in what is now known as Greece.
The first computer virus ever created was called Creeper back in 1971. Shortly after this virus was created, Reaper was created as the world’s first anti-virus.
The earliest mention of the mythical creature, the Unicorn, dates back as far as 2700 BC in Asia and was described as a creature of great power and wisdom.
A chicken once lived for 18 months without a head. Mike the Chicken’s incredible feat was recorded back in the 1940s in the USA. He survived as his jugular vein and most of his brainstem were left mostly intact, ensuring just enough brain function remained for survival. In the majority of cases, a headless chicken dies in a matter of minutes.
Our solar system has a wall. The heliopause – the region of space in which solar wind isn’t hot enough to push back the wind of particles coming from distant stars – is often considered the “boundary wall” of the Solar System and interstellar space.
NASA genuinely faked part of the Moon landing. While Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the lunar surface were categorically not faked, the astronaut quarantine protocol when the astronauts arrived back on Earth was largely just one big show.
Hippos can’t swim. Hippos do have big bones, so big and dense that they’re barely buoyant at all. They don’t swim and instead perform a slow-motion gallop on the riverbed or the sea floor. Hippos can even sleep underwater, thanks to a built-in reflex that allows them to bob up, take a breath, and sink back down without waking.
Egypt is classified as the oldest country in the world, dating back to 3100 BCE.
Interesting facts aren’t just nice to have in your back pocket, but they can help foster a sense of connection with others, spark curiosity during a boring dinner conversation and even help you break past small talk on a first date. Get ready to show off your trivia prowess with one or more of the below fun facts across categories like food, travel, history, science, music and more. Be sure to bookmark this page for your next trivia night, and share it with your fellow fun fact obsessives. Dr Pepper was founded in Waco, Texas, by a pharmacist, in 1885, making it the oldest big soft drink brand in the country, per Southern Living.
Samsung tests phone durability with a butt-shaped robot. People stash their phones in their back pockets all the time, which is why Samsung created a robot shaped like a butt to “sit” on their phones to make sure they can take the pressure. Believe it or not, the robot even wears jeans.
Cats have fewer toes on their back paws. Like most four-legged mammals, cats have five toes on the front, but their back paws only have four toes. Scientists think the four-toed back paws might help them run faster.
That tiny pocket in jeans was designed to store pocket watches. The original jeans had only four pockets: that tiny pocket, plus two more on the front and just one in the back.
Cows don’t have upper front teeth. They do have molars on top, in the back of their mouths, but where you’d expect upper incisors, cows, sheep, and goats have a thick layer of tissue called a dental pad. They use that with their bottom teeth to pull out grass.
A woman called the police when her ice cream didn’t have enough sprinkles. The West Midlands police in England released a recording of a woman who called 999 (the U.K. version of 911) because there were “bits on one side and none on the other,” she says in the recording. She was even more upset when the ice cream truck man did not want to give her money back.
Neil Armstrong’s hair was sold in 2004 for $3,000. The lucky buyer, John Reznikoff, holds the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of hair from historical celebrities, reports NBC. But Armstrong’s lawyers threatened to sue Marx Sizemore, the not-so-lucky barber who cut the former astronaut’s hair; they said he violated an Ohio law that protects the rights of famous people. Sizemore said he wouldn’t pay, and Reznikoff said he wouldn’t give back the hair but that he’d donate $3,000 to charity.
Brad Pitt suffered an ironic injury on a film set. In Troy, based on Homer’s Illiad, Pitt plays the brave (and buff) Greek hero Achilles. Legend has it that Achilles could not be defeated unless hit in his heel. (It’s where we get the term “Achilles’ heel,” meaning a vulnerable point.) While filming an epic battle scene, Pitt ironically hurt his Achilles tendon—an injury that set back the film’s production by two months.
Pregnancy tests date back to 1350 B.C.E. According to a document written on ancient papyrus, Egyptian women urinated on wheat and barley seeds to determine if they were pregnant or not, reports the Office of History in the National Institutes of Health. If wheat grew, it predicted a female baby. If barley grew, it predicted a male baby. The woman was not pregnant if nothing grew. Experimenting with this seed theory in 1963 proved it was accurate 70 per cent of the time.
Some sea cucumbers fight with their guts (literally). When threatened, they’ll shoot out their internal organs, which are poisonous to predators. They’ll sometimes get rid of their entire digestive systems—but the organs grow back.
The inventor of the Internet regrets the URL setup. Tim Berners-Lee, who created the main software of the World Wide Web, admitted he regrets one thing: Adding “//” after “https:” in a web address. It was standard for programming but didn’t serve any real purpose, and when looking back in 2009, he said leaving it out would have saved time and space. We guess we can forgive him.
Emma Bunton auditioned for the role of Bianca Butcher in Eastenders. Baby Spice already had a small part in the soap back in the 90s but tried out for a full-time role. She was pipped to the post by Patsy Palmer but ended up auditioning for the Spice Girls not long after.
The last letter added to the English alphabet was ‘J’. The letter dates back to 1524, and before that, the letter ‘i’ was used for both the ‘i’ and ‘j’ sounds.
Ketchup was once sold as medicine. The condiment was prescribed and sold to people suffering from indigestion back in 1834.
A frog can throw up an entire organ. Frogs don’t have a gag reflex like humans and other animals. Their way of rejecting unwanted elements is way more hardcore: The frog vomits its entire stomach out, dangling it from its mouth. The frog then uses its forearms to clear out all of the stomach’s contents. Finally, it swallows the stomach back down again.
Drinking coffee in Turkey was once punishable by death. In 1633, The Ottoman Sultan Murad IV beheaded anyone he saw drinking coffee in public. Aside from coffee being seen as a mild narcotic back then for its stimulating properties, Murad IV believed that coffee shops could encourage dangerous thoughts or speech against his rulership.
Nebraskan drivers had the flashiest traffic situation back then. In 1912 a Nebraska law stated that night drivers must do the following: stopping every 150 yards, sending up a skyrocket, then waiting eight minutes for the road to clear before proceeding – while blowing their horns and shooting off flares.
Before the 1800s, people slept in batches. Before, people had a “first” and “second sleep.” Towards the evening, they would sleep for 3-4 hours, wake for 2-3 hours to do some activities, and then go back to sleep until morning.
The Russians showed up 12 days late to the 1908 Olympics. It was no sweat, though: back then, the Olympics lasted for 6 months. The Russians showed up late to the 1908 London Olympics because they were using the Julian calendar, which is 2 weeks behind the Gregorian calendar already used by the rest of the world.
Samsung tests phone durability with a butt robot. People tend to store their devices in their back pockets, which is why Samsung created a robotic butt to test phone durability.
The tiny pocket in jeans is for pocket watches. When jeans were invented by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss in 1893, they only had four pockets: one in the back, two in the front, and a tiny pocket.
A waffle iron inspired one of the first iconic Nike shoes. Nowadays, running shoes have a wide range of different technology and materials. However, that wasn’t the case back in the 1950s. Bill Bowerman of Nike wanted to make a lighter running shoe that could be worn on different surfaces. As such, the idea of using a waffle texture sole came to him during breakfast with his wife. Check out the waffle sole on the recently retired Nike Tailwind ‘79.
The stick is the world’s first toy. This ancient toy dates back to the Stone Age.
Rudolph the Reindeer is female. This can be observed through their antlers. Female deer shed their antlers in the spring and grow them back to full size by winter. The male reindeer stops its growth during the winter.
You are more likely to have a weird or scary dream when sleeping on your stomach. This is because different sleeping positions give different pressures on your body. Sleeping on your stomach restricts other movements compared to sleeping on your side or back. Research believes that this may be why the intensity of your dreams differs depending on your sleeping position.
A man was once saved by a sea lion. During a suicide attempt, a man by the name of Kevin Hines survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. However, during his jump, he had broken his back thus causing him to drown. A nearby sea lion witnessed this and swam beneath the man to keep him afloat until the coast guards arrived.
Dolphins have names. Research has found that dolphins use their unique vocal whistles to identify and differentiate one another. When a specific call was played back to the dolphins, they would respond differently each time.
The most popular state bird is the Northern Cardinal. Out of the 50 states in the U.S., seven voted for this species as their favourite bird. Perhaps this may be due to the Angry Birds trend from a few years back.
May 29th is Put a Pillow on Your Fridge Day. This odd holiday dates back to the early 1900s when families would place a piece of cloth on top of their larders. This is regularly celebrated in Europe and the U.S. to bring luck and wealth.
People used to answer the phone with “ahoy”. Back during the 1800s phone greetings were inspired by the Simpsons when Mr. Burns would pick up the phone with “Ahoy-hoy”. Thomas Eddison, however, wanted users to use ‘Hello’ instead. We know who won that argument.
Peas are the oldest vegetables. The oldest known vegetable is the pea which tracks back to Stone Age settlements over 8,000 years ago. This vegetable has been cultivated by humans for centuries.
The oldest chocolates in the world are around 106 years old. These chocolates date back to the coronation of King Edward VII. This is dated back to the year 1902.
Swishing wine inside your mouth allows all your taste buds to detect its flavour. Sweetness is detected at the tip of the tongue and bitterness at the back. Sour tastes are detected on the sides of your tongue.
The fastest man in the world is not physically perfect. Usain Bolt suffers from scoliosis. However, he states that as long as he continues to keep his core and back strong, it does not bother him much.
Several people residing in Iceland believe in elves. A survey conducted at the University of Iceland found that 62% of residents believe in elves. This is mainly due to the country’s elf history which dates back to the Viking era.
The first soup ever recorded comes from a hippo. This event dates back to 6000 BC. Soups were also believed to be the foundation of the earliest restaurants in history.
The oldest condom ever found dates back to the 1640s. Evidence of this was found in a cesspit at Dudley Castle. The condom was made from the innard of animals and fish which was a common material for early birth control.
Cats can jump a height of 7 times its tail length. This is approximately 8 feet high. This is possible due to the powerful back leg muscles of the cat.
Originally, tennis was played with bare hands. During the 12th century, Tennis was first played in France. The game was played by using your palm to hit the ball back to your opponent.
The pea is the oldest known vegetable. Historians have found traces of its origins dating back as far as the Stone Age. Since then it has been heavily cultivated and consumed.
Back in Medieval Times, bedrooms weren’t private. Aside from absurd, ominous art, we can all agree that the Medieval Ages was a weird time. During this period, beds were placed in areas where guests could see them. Usually, beds would be placed by a window, so passersby can admire whoever is sleeping. Sounds like something out of a thriller movie by today’s standards.
Wood was the first art medium. The earliest forms of art were found in prehistoric cave drawings dating back to the Stone Age. The drawings were made with charcoal, which is essentially burnt wood.
People once claimed that coconuts kill more people than sharks yearly. In a 1984 study “Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts,” it was claimed that falling coconuts kill 150 per year, which is a lot more than shark-related deaths at 5 per year. However, it was only a misinterpretation of the statistics gathered from Papua New Guinea. However, there have been several documented cases of coconuts killing people. Falling coconuts can cause fatal injuries to the head, neck, shoulders, and back.
Camels have straight spines. One look at a camel would have you thinking, “What are you talking about? These funny facts are lies!” However, camel spines are no different than ours in structure. The hump on their back is not their spine – but an energy reserve entirely made of fat.
Over a dozen skeletons were found in Benjamin Franklin’s basement. In 1998, an organisation called Friends of Benjamin Franklin House decided to restore the four-story Georgian house where Franklin lived in London. However, they discovered a gruesome sight – one of the workers found a human thigh bone. The authorities were brought in, and a total of remains from 15 people were found – 6 of those belonging to children, and all with holes drilled into their skulls. The skeletons date back to 200 years ago then, which was around the time Benjamin Franklin lived in the house. This is one of the most disturbing WTF facts.
Some people have an extra bone in their knee. The fabella is found at the back of the knee in some people. Also known as a sesamoid bone, it grows in the tendon of a muscle.
Starfish eat with their stomachs outside their body. Starfish may not have brains, but they’ve got a hell of a stomach. Mostly feeding on clams and mussels, the starfish wraps its arms around its prey’s shell and squeezes it open. The starfish then pushes its stomach out of its mouth and into the prey’s shell. Once it digests the animal inside the shell, the starfish will retract its stomach back into its body. Who knew these innocent-looking sea creatures were so hardcore?
A head of human hair is strong enough to support 12 tons. If you’ve treated your hair with anything other than your natural hair colour, you’d know that it is stronger than you think. Science has proof to back it up. According to a study, a strand of hair can hold up to 30 ounces, and an entire head of hair can withstand up to 12 tons (or, the size of two elephants).
Barbie and Ken broke up in 2004. However, Mattel announced that they were getting back together on Valentine’s Day 2011.
The oldest piece of chewing gum is more than 9,000 years old. The oldest chewing gum ever found was a lump of birch bark tar that dates back to the Stone Age.
Oreo has made enough cookies to go to the moon and back 5 times. Since Oreo was introduced to the market in 1912, over 450 billion Oreo cookies have been sold worldwide.
Peyton List is a philanthropist. She uses her platform to give back to society and raise awareness for causes close to her heart, such as environmental conservation and youth empowerment.
Oysters can change from one gender to another (and back again).
The number ‘172’ can be found on the back of the U.S. 5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.
The festive tradition of the Christmas tree dates back thousands of years to the Romans and Ancient Egyptians.
The letter “J” was the last added to the English alphabet. It dates back to 1524. Shockingly, before it became a letter, the letter “i” was used for both “i” and “j” sounds!
Ketchup used to be sold as medicine. Back in 1834, people with indigestion were given a prescription for the condiment.
One of the world’s oldest-known recipes is for beer. Archaeologists uncovered a 5,000-year-old brewery in China with ancient “beer-making tool kits” in underground rooms dating back to 3400 and 2900 B.C.
Back in the day, ketchup used to be sold as medicine.
NASA’s Moon landing mission wasn’t entirely true. When the astronauts landed back on Earth, their quarantine procedure was a performative one.
Wild dolphins call each other by name. They let out a unique whistle to identify each other and will respond if they hear their call played back.
African buffalo herds display voting behaviour, in which individuals register their travel preference by standing up, looking in one direction, and then lying back down. Only adult females can vote.
Samsung once used a butt-shaped robot to test the durability of its cell phones. That’s because so many people put their phones in their back pockets and accidentally sit on them.
The Moon is getting farther away every year. The Moon exerts a pull on Earth, causing our planet to be slightly egg-shaped. It affects water even more, creating tides and causing the oceans to pile up towards one side of the planet, forming a ‘tidal bulge’. This bulge is dragged around with the Moon as it orbits. As Earth rotates faster than the Moon – 24 hours versus 27.3 days – the bulge moves slightly ahead of the Moon’s position in orbit. The Moon pulls back on it, effectively trying to slow it down and causing Earth’s rotation rate to gradually slow down over time as a result. As the two bodies interact through gravity, this tugging causes Earth to lose energy while the Moon gains energy. Because of this energy boost the Moon is slowly spiralling outwards, moving away from us by 3.8cm per year.
Elephant tusks do not grow back.
Historians think that the narwhals are what the unicorn myth is based on. During the Middle Ages, unicorn horns were so coveted that royalty would pay extraordinary prices for them, often the weight of the horn in gold. Hunters travelled to Northern Europe to try and capture the narwhals and bring back their horns (which they would tell the royals were from unicorns).
In many cultures, Reindeer are used to pull sledges and sleighs. There’s evidence of this dating back 7,000 years ago in Siberia!
Sloths, moths and algae have a beneficial relationship: The pyralid moth is a species of moth that lives in the sloth’s fleece. There is also an algae species that grows in the grooved hair of the sloth. Scientists believe that the moth transports nutrient-rich waste from the sloth’s poop to fertilize the algae. In other words, the moths are algae farmers on the sloth’s back. And guess what else? The algae is a key source of food for the sloth!
The earliest menu dates back to the mid-1700s. They first popped up in Europe around then to accommodate high-class residents during dinner parties.
Cleopatra was Queen of Egypt from 50 to 30 B.C. She came into power at 12 years old and married two of her brothers during her reign. It sounds crazy today, but this was fairly common practice back then!
Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb. While it’s true he got a patent for the invention back in 1880, the real credit goes to Warren de la Rue, a British astronomer, and chemist who created the first bulb forty years earlier.
The brain is not capable of multitasking. While we may think we’re doing two things at the same time, we’re just quickly switching back and forth between different tasks.
Earth has a squishy interior. Earth’s interior is not solid but rather has a semi-solid or ‘squishy’ consistency owing to high temperatures and pressures. This squishy consistency allows the mantle to flow and move over geological timescales, which is responsible for phenomena such as plate tectonics, volcanic activity and Earthquakes. One consequence of this squishy interior is a process known as post-glacial rebound. During the last ice age, large portions of Earth’s surface were covered by glaciers, causing the underlying mantle to deform and sink. As the glaciers melted and receded, the mantle slowly rebounded back to its original position over thousands of years, causing the land above it to rise. This process is still occurring today in places such as Canada, Scandinavia, and Greenland, where the land is still rebounding from the weight of the glaciers that once covered the region. Recent research has found that West Antarctica is rising faster than anywhere else in the world, thanks to data from ESA’s GOCE gravity mission. The study of post-glacial rebound provides important insights into the structure and behaviour of Earth’s interior, and how it responds to changes in the surface environment over long timescales.
Trees are breathers. Trees are one of the most effective tools we have to combat climate change. Forests are home to around 80% of biodiversity on land and tropical forests alone produce over 40% of the oxygen we breathe. Covering around 30% of Earth’s land surface, we depend on forests for our survival. Forests absorb around 8 Gigatonnes a year of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and play a crucial role in the carbon cycle and climate system. However, climate change, forest degradation and deforestation are causing much of this stored carbon to be released back into the atmosphere. Recent research found that recovering tropical forests was only successfully combating a quarter of the current carbon emissions which indicates the importance of preserving and restoring our tropical forests. To better understand the role of trees in regulating our planet’s carbon cycle, ESA’s upcoming mission called Biomass will use advanced radar technology to measure the amount of carbon stored in Earth’s forests and other biomass, providing a more accurate assessment of carbon storage and uptake than ever before. By monitoring changes in biomass over time, scientists will be able to assess the effectiveness of forest conservation efforts and better understand the impact of deforestation on our climate.
One Japanese man, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, was in Hiroshima for a business trip on August 6, 1945. This just happens to be the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He somehow survived with burn injuries and went back home to Nagasaki. Then, on August 9, 1945, another atomic bomb hit that city. Yamaguchi and his family survived this attack, as well.
A baby has around 30,000 taste buds. They are not just on the tongue but also the sides, back, and roof of the mouth. Adults have about 10,000.
Frozen lobsters can come back to life when thawed.