Princess Peach didn’t move until 1988 because it was too complicated for the designers to make her a moveable character.
100 Mind-Blowing Because Facts
The Buddha commonly depicted in statues and pictures is a different person entirely. The real Buddha was incredibly skinny because of self-deprivation.
There’s no period in “Dr. Pepper.” It was removed because the old logo font made it look like “Di: Pepper.”
When mice live in the wild, they typically only live for about six months. This is mostly because they’re a good source of food for other animals. However, in a controlled environment, like being kept as a pet, they can live up to two years.
Scientists discovered sharks living in an active underwater volcano. Divers cannot investigate because they would get burns from the acidity and heat.
The Ethiopian calendar is 7.5 years behind the Gregorian calendar because it has 13 months.
By the time they have been retired for 2 years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.
Over 290 people have died climbing Mount Everest since 1922. Most deaths occur because of avalanches, and not all bodies have been recovered.
When Shakira was in second grade, she was rejected by the school choir because her vibrato was too strong. The music teacher told her that she sounded like a goat.
During the 1908 Olympics in London, the Russians showed up 12 days late because they were using the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar.
Non-violent attempts to escape Mexican prisons are not punished because “it’s human nature to want freedom.”
Samsung means “three stars” in Korean. This was chosen by the founder because he wanted the company to be powerful and everlasting, like stars in the sky.
There is a correlation between pulling an all-nighter and snapping out of depression. This is because the brain gets more active the longer it goes without sleep.
The day after Thanksgiving is called “Brown Friday” by plumbers in America because it is their busiest day of the year.
The Leaning Tower of Piza is tilted because of the soft soil that it’s built on – which has also protected it from at least 4 powerful Earthquakes.
Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed because the pilot let his kids fly the plane and unknowingly disengaged the autopilot function. The crash killed everyone on board.
The longest Cricket Test match lasted over 12 days between England and South Africa. It only ended because the English team would have missed their boat home.
Because snow is composed of ice, it can be classified as a mineral. Water, however, does not fall under the same classification and is not a mineral.
In Switzerland, it is illegal to own just one guinea pig. This is because guinea pigs are social animals, and they are considered victims of abuse if they are alone.
Eminem’s mother filed an $11 million defamation lawsuit against him because of his lyrics about her. She settled for $25,000, and $23,354.25 of that went to her lawyer.
The Postal Service got its name based on the fact that they originally used USPS to send each other music tracks because of conflicting schedules.
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.
We feel “hungry” because it’s harder for us to control our emotions when our brains are low on glucose.
In the popular film, The Godfather, the word “mafia” is never said because the actual mafia commanded it.
In 18th Century England, having a pineapple was a symbol of wealth because of high import fees. They would be used as displays instead of being eaten.
“Tater Tots,” a registered trademark, originally failed because people thought the product was too cheap. Popularity rose after the price was raised.
Movie theatres make roughly 85% of their profit off concession stands. This is because ticket revenues have to be shared with the movie distributors.
The German Autobahn has no speed limits because Western Germany saw them as a Nazi relic. This became effective in 1972.
It takes longer to drown in saltwater than in freshwater. Because of this, around 90% of drownings occur in freshwater.
Because of the Electoral College, a presidential candidate can win with only 23% of the popular vote.
Kraft singles cannot be advertised as cheese because U.S. FDA standards state a food can only be identified as cheese if it contains “at least 51% real cheese”.
When electricity was first installed in the White House in 1891, President Benjamin Harrison and his wife were afraid of electrocution because of the new concept. They refused to touch light switches, so the staff had to turn the lights on and off for them.
Originally, the Eiffel Tower was going to be erected in Barcelona, but the project was rejected because citizens thought it was an eyesore.
Iceland was chosen as the training ground for Apollo astronauts because it was the most “moonlike” surface.
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas wanted to make an animated Calvin and Hobbes movie. The author declined because he wanted to protect the integrity of the comic.
All of the sweaters Mister Rogers wore on his show were hand-knitted by his mother. He said he loved wearing them because they always made him think of her.
The word “Gymnastics” linguistically means “to train naked.” It is derived from the two Ancient Greek words “gumnasía” (athletic training, exercise) and “gumnós” (naked). This is because many Greek athletes would train naked for the Olympic games.
You’re not allowed to swear if playing in Wimbledon. Because of this, line judges have to learn curse words in every language.
Deep snow can sometimes appear blue because the extra layers of snow create a filter for light.
A Brussels airline flight to Vienna was aborted because the pilot was attacked in the cockpit. The attacker was a passenger’s cat.
Because of its unique tilt, a single night on Uranus lasts for 21 years.
The word “oxymoron” is itself an oxymoron. This is because it derives from Ancient Greek, where “oxy” means sharp and “moros” means stupid.
Daniel Radcliffe broke over 80 wands while filming the Harry Potter movies because he used them as drumsticks!
Give something back to the Earth on March 12th – because it’s officially known as “Plant a Flower Day.”
Several African countries don’t like second-hand clothes being imported to their countries because it is destroying their local textile industry.
There was a man in the late 1700s who had such a constant and severe appetite that he was once kicked out of a hospital because they thought he ate an entire toddler.
At his audition for The Office, John Krasinski told someone he was nervous about the producers ruining the show because of how great the British version was – little did he know, the person he was talking to was the show’s executive producer.
China banned Back to the Future because it contained time travel.
A female’s heart is smaller than a male’s by about 25%. Because of this, the female heart has to beat around six times more than the male heart to pump the correct amount of blood around the body.
Emilie de Ravin‘s biggest TV role as Claire Littleton on the hit show “Lost“, loves peanut butter – which is unintentionally ironic because Emilie is allergic to peanuts. In reality, her biggest weakness is chocolate.
Identical twins don’t have the same fingerprints. You can’t blame your crimes on your twin, after all. This is because environmental factors during development in the womb (umbilical cord length, position in the womb, and the rate of finger growth) impact your fingerprint.
Animals can experience time differently from humans. To smaller animals, the world around them moves more slowly compared to humans. Salamanders and lizards, for example, experience time more slowly than cats and dogs. This is because the perception of time depends on how quickly the brain can process incoming information.
Water might not be wet. This is because most scientists define wetness as a liquid’s ability to maintain contact with a solid surface, meaning that water itself is not wet, but can make other objects wet.
You can yo-yo in space. In 2012, NASA astronaut Don Pettit took a yo-yo on board the International Space Station and demonstrated several tricks. It works because a yo-yo mainly relies on the laws of conservation of angular momentum to perform tricks, which, provided you keep the string taut, apply in microgravity too.
Most ginger cats are male. There are roughly three ginger male cats to one ginger female. This is because the ginger gene is found on the X chromosome, meaning female cats would require two copies of the gene to become ginger whilst males only need one.
Your nails grow faster in hot summer. This is probably due to increased blood supply to the fingertips. It could also be because you’re less stressed while on holiday so less likely to gnaw away at ‘em.
Being bored is a ‘high arousal state’ physiologically. This is because when you’re bored your heart rate increases.
Platypuses sweat milk. This is because it doesn’t have teats. Milk appears as sweat on a platypus, but it’s an aquatic mammal so it doesn’t sweat at all.
You don’t like the sound of your voice because of the bones in your head. This may be because the bones in our head make our voice sound deeper.
Football players spit so much because exercise increases the amount of protein in saliva. When you exercise, the amount of protein secreted into the saliva increases. A protein mucus named MUC5B makes your saliva thicker when you’re exercising which makes it more difficult to swallow so we tend to spit more. It may occur during exercise because we breathe through our mouths more. MUC5B could activate to stop our mouths from drying out, therefore.
Dogs tilt their heads when you speak to them to better pinpoint familiar words. Your dog is tilting its head when you speak to it to pinpoint where noises are coming from more quickly. This is done to listen out more accurately for familiar words such as ‘walkies’ and helps them to better understand the tone of your voice. If a dog doesn’t tilt its head that often (as those with shorter muzzles might), it’s because it relies less on sound and more on sight.
If the Earth doubled in size, trees would immediately fall over. This is because surface gravity would be doubled. It would also mean dog-size and larger animals would not be able to run without breaking a leg.
Pine trees can tell if it’s about to rain. Next time you see a pine cone, take a close look. If it’s closed, that’s because the air is humid, which can indicate rain is on its way.
Scientists say tears tell you the reason for someone crying. If the first drop comes from the right eye, it’s tears of joy. Otherwise, it’s because of pain.
Sunsets only exist because Earth’s atmosphere acts as a prism for light. In scientific terms, it’s called “scattering”. a) Molecules and particles in the atmosphere (which are more numerous at sunset) scatter short-wavelength violet and blue light away from your eyes, so we can see the other colours on the spectrum, like yellow and orange.
As CNBC noted, more than 60% of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware because of its favourable business climate, specifically its Court of Chancery, a designated court system designed only for handling corporate cases.
Human beings can use only a small fraction of Earth’s water. In school, we were taught that most (specifically, 71 per cent) of the planet’s surface is covered in water. While that’s true, humans can use only 0.007 per cent of that water, according to National Geographic. That’s because only about 2.5 per cent of Earth’s water is freshwater, and only 1 per cent of that is accessible. The rest is made up of glaciers and snowfields.
Lemons float, but limes sink. Because limes are denser than lemons, they drop to the bottom of a glass, while lemons float at the top. Out of all these random fun facts, this one’s been in front of our faces (or rather, in our glasses) this whole time!
Most Disney characters wear gloves to keep animation simple. Walt Disney might have been the first to put gloves on his characters, as seen in 1929’s The Opry House, starring Mickey Mouse. In addition to being easier to animate, there’s another reason for the gloves: “We didn’t want him to have mouse hands because he was supposed to be more human,” Disney told his biographer in 1957.
Europeans were scared of eating tomatoes when they were introduced. Scholars think Hernán Cortés brought the seeds in 1519 with the intent of the fruits being used ornamentally in gardens. By the 1700s, aristocrats started eating tomatoes, but they were convinced the fruits were poisonous because people would die after eating them. In reality, the acidity from the tomatoes brought out the lead in their pewter plates, and they died of lead poisoning.
Paint used to be stored in pig bladders. The bladder would be sealed with a string and then pricked to get the paint out. This option wasn’t the best because it would often break open. American painter John G. Rand was the innovator who, in the 19th century, made paint tubes from tin and screw caps.
Onions were found in the eyes of an Egyptian mummy. Pharaoh Ramses IV of ancient Egypt had his eyes replaced with small onions when he was mummified. The rings and layers of onions were worshipped because people thought they represented eternal life. This aligns with the reason for mummification: to allow the pharaoh to live forever.
Abraham Lincoln was a bartender. You know that the 16th president of the United States fought for the freedom of slaves and the Union, but what you didn’t know is that he was a licensed bartender. Lincoln’s liquor license was discovered in 1930 and displayed in a Springfield liquor store. According to Wayne C. Temple, a Lincoln expert, Congress wanted to fire Ulysses S. Grant in 1863 because he drank a lot, and Lincoln’s response was to send Grant a supply of whiskey.
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.
The Pope can’t be an organ donor. Pope Benedict XVI was issued an organ donor card in 1970. Once he ascended to the papacy in 2005, the card was invalid, reports the Telegraph. According to the Vatican, the Pope’s entire body must be buried intact because his body belongs to the universal Catholic Church.
Ice pops were invented by an 11-year-old by accident. In 1905, an 11-year-old boy named Frank Epperson left soda powder and water outside overnight with its wooden stirrer still in the cup. The mixture had frozen in the chilly nighttime weather, and so the Epsicle was born. He sold the treat around his neighbourhood and a nearby amusement park and even patented the recipe. Years later, he changed the name to Popsicle because that’s what his kids called their pop’s concoction.
The British royal family is named after Windsor. You’d think Windsor Castle was named after the House of Windsor, but it’s the other way around. The royal family changed its name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1917 so it would sound less German and chose Windsor because they had ties with the English town.
3 Musketeers bars got their name because they used to come with three flavours. The original 3 Musketeers bars of the 1930s came in three packs, with a different nougat flavour in each: vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry. World War II rations made that triple threat expensive, so the company cut down to one.
NASA uses countdowns because of a sci-fi film. The countdown Fritz Lang used to create suspense in the rocket launch scene of his 1929 silent film Frau im Mond didn’t just change film history—it also inspired NASA to use countdowns before its blastoffs. It’s not exactly a race against the clock though.
“OK” most likely stands for fake words. In the 1830s, people jokingly spelt abbreviations incorrectly. One of the most famous: “All correct” turned into “orl korrekt,” and then of course into OK. Historians think it stuck because Martin Van Buren—known as Old Kinderhook, after his hometown in New York—supporters called themselves the OK Club when he was campaigning for reelection.
The last letter added to the alphabet was actually “J”. You might think that the letter “Z” is the last letter added because it’s the last letter of the alphabet, but that’s incorrect. It’s actually “J.” The alphabet that we know and love today wasn’t created alphabetically, too!
It’s illegal to own just one guinea pig in Switzerland. It’s considered animal abuse because they’re social beings and get lonely.
The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland. It was chosen because of its connection with dominance and chivalry as well as purity and innocence in Celtic mythology.
The Japanese word ‘Kuchi zamishi’ is the act of eating when you’re not hungry because your mouth is lonely. We do this all the time.
The probability of a blue lobster existing is widely touted as being one in two million. Bright blue lobsters are so coloured because of a genetic abnormality that causes them to produce more of a certain protein than others.
Humans are the only animals that blush. We’re also the only animals that experience embarrassment, too. This is because it’s a complex emotion that involves understanding other people’s opinions.
Hazelnuts are the official state nut of Oregon, USA. Because yes that’s a thing.
Lemons float, but limes sink. This is because of their different densities, often causing unpeeled limes to sink if submerged in a liquid.
The name for the Pringles shape is a hyperbolic paraboloid. The saddle shape of a Pringles chip is known in math as a hyperbolic paraboloid. Pringles were made in this shape because it allows the chips to be stacked easily and kept in place during packageing.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. Because of a membrane that holds its tongue to the roof of its mouth, a crocodile can’t stick its tongue out of its elongated snout. However, alligators can.
Artificial banana flavouring is based on an extinct banana. You may notice that your banana-flavoured food products don’t taste quite like the real thing. This is because the commercially used banana flavouring is based on a type of banana that was wiped out by a plague in the 1950s.
Men’s dress shirt collars used to be detachable. To save on laundry costs, men’s shirt collars were removable in the mid-1800s. This was because the collar was the part that needed the most frequent cleaning.
People don’t sneeze in their sleep. While asleep, humans are more prone to sneezing because the mucous membranes swell when lying down. However, the brain shuts down the neuroreceptors that stimulate our sneezing reflex. That way, only very strong stimuli can wake one to sneeze.
The national animal of Scotland is the Unicorn. One of the fun facts that’ll make you feel like we’re pulling your leg: the unicorn is officially Scotland’s national animal. The unicorn is the Celtic symbol of purity, innocence, masculinity, and power. Because people believed they were real for around 2,500 years, there’s no wonder why the official coat of arms of the United Kingdom features a unicorn.
Insects are attracted to light because of the moon. Bug behaviour can be especially strange, but scientists predict that night insects (like moths) are attracted to lights because they used the light of the moon to navigate the Earth way before artificial lights were made.
Jellyfish almost caused mass nuclear explosions in 2013. In the extremely warm summer of 2013, several nuclear power plants across the world were forced to close down because of jellyfish. The sudden increase in jellyfish clogged the filters that cooled down the reactors, which led to the power plants being shut down for immediate maintenance and safety measures.
It takes 142.18 licks to reach the centre of a Tootsie Pop. The Tootsie Pop was created in 1931 and was a popular staple during the Great Depression because of its cheap price. The more you know, right?
The creators of Stranger Things wanted to direct the It remake. The Duffer Brothers wanted to direct the 2017 remake of It, but the film wasn’t given to them because they weren’t established enough. However, they ended up creating Stranger Things (2016), which co-stars Finn Wolfhard (who plays Richie in It).
Victorians said “prunes” when taking pictures. Whenever we take photos, we say “cheese” because it makes us smile. However, smiling in photographs was once seen as a vulgar act. To keep a neutral face, they would say “prunes,” but there was little to no chance of it forming a smile.
Your nails grow at the same time as continental plates drift. Tectonic plates drift about a millimetre a week, which is the same amount your nails grow. Continental plates drift because of the heat pushing its way to the surface from the core. In a year, tectonic plates end up drifting between one and two inches.