100 Mind-Blowing British Facts

The British government coined the slogan “Keep Calm and Carry on” during World War 2 to motivate citizens to stay strong. Posters with the slogan were printed but never officially issued and were only unEarthed in 2000.

In World War II, Germany tried to collapse the British economy by dropping millions of counterfeit bills over London.

The British Pound is the world’s oldest currency still in use at 1,200 years old. The pound has been an identity as a symbol of British sovereignty.

English is not native to the British Isles. It was brought to Britain in the mid-5th to 7th Centuries by German, Danish, and Dutch settlers.

There was a snail glued to a specimen card in the British Museum mid-1800s. It spent four years glued there before scientists realized it was still alive.

There is a British chocolate scientist who insured her taste buds for £1 million.

There is such an expansive collection of books in the British Library in their archive that if a person could read 5 books per day, it would take 80,000 years to complete.

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.

The British tried to invent a ship made out of wood pulp and ice during World War II. Called Project Habakkuk, it was shelved due to costs.

In over 35 British divorce cases in 2012 alone, the video game “Football Manager” was cited.

The letter Z is the least frequently used letter in written English. It is more common in American English than in British English due to spelling differences.

Despite the name, Thomas’ Breads English Muffins aren’t British; the product was invented in the U.S.

Pigeon poop is the property of the British Crown. In the 18th century, pigeon poop was used to make gunpowder, so King George I confirmed the droppings to be the property of the Crown.

Uncle Ben’s rice was air-dropped to World War II troops. German chemist Erich Huzenlaub invented a process of parboiling rice to keep more nutrients in the rice and lessen the cooking time. The “Huzenlaub Process” had another unexpected benefit: It stopped bug infestations. The quick-cook, bug-free rice was a big advantage during World War II, and converted rice (as it was then known) was air-dropped to American and British troops. After the war, the company rebranded itself and became Uncle Ben’s Original Converted Brand Rice, named after one of the company’s best rice suppliers. The product hit grocery store shelves in 1947.

The British Empire was the largest in world history. The British Empire was most powerful in the 1920s, when it controlled 23 per cent of the world’s population and approximately 13.7 million square miles of territory—or nearly a quarter of the Earth’s land area, according to a report from Statista.

Bees can make coloured honey. In France, there’s a biogas plant that manages waste from a Mars chocolate factory, where M&Ms are made. Beekeepers nearby noticed that their bees were making “unnatural shades of green and blue” honey. A spokesperson from the British Beekeepers’ Association theorized that the bees eating the sugary M&M waste caused the coloured honey.

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.

The shortest war in history lasted 38 minutes. When the sultan of British-protected Zanzibar died and a new one took over without British approval in 1896, the Brits were not happy. Tension escalated when Sultan Khalid bin Barghash refused to step down, but the British warships spent less than 40 minutes bombarding the palace before Khalid fled, marking the (very quick) end of the Anglo-Zanzibar War.

British military tanks are equipped to make tea. There’s a boiling vessel inside so the crew can make tea and coffee anytime—including during battle. How frightfully English.

Queen Elizabeth II was a trained mechanic. When she was 16, the Queen joined the British employment agency at the Labour Exchange and learned the basics of truck repair. She can repair tyres and repair engines. Is there anything the Queen can’t do?!

A filmmaker once created a 10-hour “film” of paint drying. One of the pettiest yet wittiest fun facts: To protest high tariffs, filmmaker Charlie Lyne submitted a 10-hour “movie” of drying white paint to the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). The board had to watch Paint Drying in its entirety – all 10 hours and 7 minutes of it.

Queen Elizabeth II owns the swans in England. Not only does she own generations of corgis, but this monarch also co-owns most of the geese in England. Why? Swans are the British royal family’s symbol. As of the 12th century, legislation was passed stating that all mute swans were owned by the Crown. In the 15th century, two other entities were entitled to the swans in the River Thames.

M&M’s stands for “Mars & Murrie’s.” The two ‘M’s on this candy staple represent the names of Forrest E. Mars Sr., (founder of Newark Company), and Bruce Murrie (son of Hershey Chocolate’s president William F. R. Murrie). One of the little-known fun facts about M&M’s is that it’s made with Hershey’s chocolate. Another fun fact? It’s a copycat product! Mars only had an idea for the product from seeing its British predecessor, Smarties.

Computer mouse speed is measured in “Mickeys.” The roller-ball device was first invented by a British scientist in 1946 while working for the Royal Navy. However, the word “mouse” was not coined until 1965.

Pigeon poop is the property of the British royal family. Pigeon poop was used to make gunpowder in the 18th century, so King George I confirmed all the droppings as property of the crown.

In Elizabethan England, the spoon was so novel and prized that people carried their folding spoons to banquets. In the 13th century, the coronation of every British king was preceded by a ritual where the new king would be anointed with a ceremonial spoon.

The British Empire was the largest in the world. In the 1920s, the British Empire ruled over 23% of the world’s population. Their territory covered 13 million square miles. As such, the British Empire is considered the largest empire in history.

Children’s book author, Roald Dahl was a spy. To be more precise, he was an agent for the British Security Coordination. He was tasked to gather intel during the Second World War.

‘OMG’ was first used in a letter to Winston Churchill in 1917. A retired British admiral of the Royal Navy one day became excited due to headlines regarding the mobilising forces of Britain. Excited to share this news with a college, the admiral quickly wrote a small acronym for ‘Oh My God!’ in his letter. Little did he know that he had just invented one of the most popular acronyms in today’s society.

The oldest currency in the world is the British pound. It dates over 1,200 years old in usage. The British pound is also seen as the identity of British Sovereignty.

A British scientist studying chocolate has her taste buds insured. Her taste buds are insured for one million British Pounds. This entails that she would need to avoid very hot foods to keep her taste buds from damage.

The Swiss are known to eat the most chocolate in the world. This is closely followed by the British. Over 22.36 pounds of chocolate is consumed per person annually according to statistics.

A British submarine once kept a fully grown reindeer aboard the vessel in WWII. This reindeer was kept on the HMS Trident for six weeks straight. They took care of it because it was said to be a gift from their Russian allies.

Bonnie and Clyde’s gunshot sounds were so loud, that a projectionist kept lowering the volume. Director-star Warren Beatty deliberately made the gunshot sounds in Bonnie and Clyde pop out from the mix. During the film’s British premiere, Beatty noticed the projectionist at the cinema lowering the volume because he thought the loud gunshots were due to poor audio mixing.

Spotted dick is a dish. We know what you’re thinking, but spotted dick is a British dessert popularized in 19th century England. It is a pudding made traditionally with suet and dried fruit, often served with custard. “Spotted” referred to the dried fruit pieces, while “dick” and “dog” were terms widely used for pudding at the time.

The British Royal Family can’t play Monopoly. It’s not really because of a royal decree (Like how the Queen can’t sit on the Iron Throne since she can only sit on hers!). One of the ridiculously unbelievable funny facts: Prince Andrew said playing the game “gets too vicious” for the Royal Family.

The British Queen’s handbag is a communication device. The Queen uses her bag to relay secret and silent messages to her staff.

The shortest war in history lasted less than an hour. When the sultan of Zanzibar died and a new one took over without British approval in 1896, the Brits saw it as disrespect. When the unofficially appointed Sultan Khalid bin Barghash refused to step down, British warships spent 38 minutes bombing the palace before Khalid fled. This marked the end of the Anglo-Zanzibar War.

During World War II, Germany planned to collapse the British economy by dropping millions of counterfeit bills over London.

British military tanks are equipped to make tea. If the crew needs hot tea or coffee, they can just reach for the boiling vessel inside the tank.

Queen Elizabeth II was a trained mechanic. As a teenager, Queen Elizabeth II joined the British employment agency at the Labour Exchange and learned about truck, engine, and tyre repair.

Queen Elizabeth II was a trained mechanic. When she was a teenager, Queen Elizabeth II joined the Labor Exchange’s British employment agency. There, she learned about repairing tyres, trucks and engines.

British military tanks were designed in a way so that they could make tea. If the military crew need any hot boiling water, there’s a built-in boiling vessel to make coffee or tea.

Make tea not war! All British armoured vehicles have the equipment needed to make tea.

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.

Antarctica is home to the largest ice sheet on Earth. More than six times as large as Greenland, Antarctica is the southernmost continent and is the coldest and windiest place on Earth – with temperatures that can drop as low as -89.2°C and winds that can exceed 320 km per hour. Antarctica is home to the largest ice sheet on Earth, containing a staggering 30 million cubic kilometres of ice. This represents an incredible 70% of Earth’s freshwater and 90% of its ice. As a result, changes to the Antarctic ice sheet can have significant implications for global sea levels and ocean currents. Monitoring the Antarctic ice sheet is therefore of paramount importance and satellite data plays a crucial role in this effort. Data from satellites such as CryoSat, ESA’s ice mission, allow scientists to track changes in the thickness and movement of the ice sheet over time, providing insights into how it is responding to a changing climate. ESA has recently teamed up with NASA and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) to carry out an ambitious campaign in Antarctica which involved taking simultaneous measurements of sea ice from ESA’s CryoSat and NASA’s ICESat-2 satellites. This research is essential for informing policy decisions on issues such as climate change and sea level rise, and for developing strategies to mitigate their impact on coastal communities around the world.

If you are struggling to maintain focus, then consider grabbing a piece of gum. Scientists at the British Psychological Society have found gum increases concentration.

There are over 1,200 different species of animals and plants on British beaches. There are lots of wildlife along British coastlines. There are over 1,200 different species of animals and plants. Next time you take a trip to the beach, see how many you can spot!

Isaac Newton was a member of the British parliament for one year. He spoke only once, and that was to tell someone to please close the window.

Since 1945, all British tanks come with tea-making equipment.

Platypuses are so weird that when scientists first discovered them, they thought it was a hoax. Platypuses have been well-known for thousands of years by Indigenous Australians, but when British scholars first encountered them, they were extremely puzzled. The confusion came down to the fact that while being mammals, these bizarre creatures lay eggs, have a duckbill, a beaver’s tail, feet like an otter’s, and the males are even venomous!

The author of the James Bond novels wrote the first book to take his mind off the fear of getting married. Ian Fleming was a bachelor of 44 years when he wrote Casino Royale in 1952, the first in a long series about the devilishly handsome British spy. Many years later, Fleming wrote in his memoirs that he was so terrified at the concept of finally getting married that he wrote his first Bond novel. Some authors doubt this dismissal, claiming he simply wrote it as a quick cash job, but it makes a hell of a good story!

A British man found £100,000 of Roman gold coins 20 minutes after buying his first-ever metal detector.

There is a group of wolves in British Columbia called sea wolves with a 90% marine diet.

This is the first website ever. In 1989, British scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and published the first website ever which can be found here. Tim worked for CERN at the time. He hosted the first website on his NeXT Computer to allow scientists and universities to share information with ease. This archaic website described the World Wide Web (W3) project itself and was the start of the Internet Era as we know it today.

Facebook: It’s Become a Leading Factor in Divorce. Facebook has been the subject of myriad research studies, but few are as intriguing as one published in the Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behaviour and Social Networking that investigated relationship break-up rates. Findings, that “more frequent social media use and monitoring of one’s partner could lead to misunderstandings and feelings of jealousy,” in addition emotional and physical cheating can be traced to Facebook interactions. Additionally, another study undertaken by British attorneys using evidence culled from Facebook for divorce proceedings, concluded that Facebook can hurt people in committed relationships and even offer tips on how to avoid splitting up.

Colonial background. The first British officer killed in World War One was an Englishman, born in India, in a Scottish regiment, commanding Senegalese troops in Togoland.

Army on the streets. The last time the British Army deliberately killed anyone in Britain, (as distinct from Northern Ireland which is a very different story), was in August 1911. Two civilians were shot in Liverpool during a rail strike, and a few days later in Llanelli, two civilians were shot and killed again during a strike.

Ungentlemanly conduct. In 1759 the French besieging Madras strongly complained that the British defenders had fired at their HQ. The British immediately apologised.

British invasions and conflicts. According to research, out of the 193 countries that are currently United Nations (UN) member states, Britain invaded or fought conflicts in the territory of 171 countries, which accounts for approximately 90% of the total.

Two significant car crashes. On 13 December 1931, Winston Churchill was struck by a car while crossing Fifth Ave in New York City. He had looked the wrong way before crossing the street and was dragged for several yards, sustaining bruises, sprains and cuts. In the same year, a 19-year-old British aristocrat named John Scott-Ellis was driving a red Fiat in Munich and almost hit the future Führer, Adolf Hitler. Scott-Ellis jumped out of his car and apologised, and Hitler only suffered minor bruises. They shook hands, and Scott-Ellis later remarked, ‘For a few seconds, perhaps, I held the history of Europe in my rather clumsy hands. . . [Hitler] was only shaken up, but had I killed him, it would have changed the history of the world.’

Happy Birthday Queen Vic. On 1 January 1886, the British government gave Queen Victoria an extravagant birthday gift: Burma.

Bad nominations. Among the nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize are Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini (both 1939) and Joseph Stalin (1945 and 1948). Hitler’s nomination was submitted by a Swedish MP, while Mussolini’s came from an Italian professor. Stalin’s nominations were made by a British MP and a group of Norwegian politicians.

Stop looking for war dead. The British government halted the search for war dead on the Western Front in September 1921 when they were still finding 500 bodies a week.

Shortest war. The shortest war in history is the Anglo-Zanzibar War, on 27 August 1896. It started at 9.02 am and ended at 9.40 am. 1 British soldier was injured. It followed the refusal of the Zanzibari Sultan to step down after the British issued an ultimatum. British warships then fired on his position and the Sultan surrendered.

The national dish features Indian cuisine: Commencing the Food section of this array of facts about England is the country’s national dish, Chicken Tikka Masala. According to NATO, the dish is England’s favourite, while Wales‘ national dish is Welsh Cawl, Scotland‘s is Haggis and Ireland‘s is Irish Stew. It’s believed that Chicken Tikka came over from India and was first introduced in Glasgow. The Masala sauce part of the dish was added during the 1970s when a Bangladeshi chef wanted to match the British tradition of serving meat in gravy. Indian cuisine has massively influenced the country’s dining scene, with CurryCulture.co.uk estimating there to be around 10,000 curry houses in the UK.

Brits drink a lot of tea… about 100 million cups every day!: The stereotype that the British drink a lot of tea is immediately confirmed with this fun fact. They drink around 100-160 million cups of tea daily, which is about 36 billion every year. The difference from most of the countries in the world is that almost all the tea drinkers in the UK (98%) add milk to their cup of tea.

The Queen didn’t have a passport: During her 70 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II has visited over 100 countries on official duties. Although every person in the world needs an identity card, she does not need a British passport during her travels. This is because passports are issued in the name of the Queen.

Chicken Tikka Masala is England’s national dish: You probably think of roast dinner, fish and chips or a steak and kidney pie when you hear someone saying, ‘British food’. Nevertheless, the UK residents voted the chicken tikka masala as the country’s national dish. Its popularity can be explained by its former colony and still strong ties with India. The dish was popularised by British-Asian cooks in the 1960s, but who came up with the recipe for this Indian mild curry is not known.

Windsor Castle in the UK is the oldest royal residence and the British Royal family still resides there.

As British passports are issued in the name of the queen, she doesn’t need to own one.

The British author J.K. Rowling is the first writer to ever become a billionaire through her writings.

Margaret Thatcher was the first female British prime minister.

The British Library is the largest in the world with a collection of 170-200 million reading material.

The world-famous British playwright Shakespeare added more than 1,700 new words and phrases to the English language.

There are in total of 32 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories.

On some selected British food products you will see a royal stamp and it means that the product has been bought by the Royal Family for at least five years.

British Secret Service agents during the First World War used semen as invisible ink.

Parliamentary Prohibition: No British royal has entered the House of Commons since Charles the First barged in with guards to prosecute MPs, which eventually caused civil war.

The Queen Did Not Possess a Passport: In her 70 years as queen, Queen Elizabeth II has travelled to more than 100 nations for official business. Even though everyone on the planet requires an identity card, she can travel without a British passport. This is so because the Queen’s name appears on every passport.

Big Ben Is Not a Clock: One of the interesting facts about England is that, despite what the general public believes, Big Ben is the name of the thirteen-ton bell, not the iconic clock. And Big Ben is often associated with the entire tower. The tower was officially known as St. Stephen’s Tower until 2012 when it was renamed Elizabeth Tower in honour of Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, which marked 60 years on the British throne.

The first ATM launched in 1967 in London: John Shepherd-Barron is credited with the invention of the Automated Teller Machine (ATM). The first ATM was set up at a branch of Barclay’s Bank on a street in Enfield, London in June 1967. The first ATM in the US was launched in September 1969 at the Chemical Bank branch in Rockville Centre in New York. In 1970, a British engineer called James Goodfellow created the concept of a personal identification number (PIN).

America Isn’t the Only Country that Uses the US Dollar: Besides the United States and its five inhabited territories, 11 countries in the world also use the U.S. dollar, the world’s reserve currency, as their official currency: The British Virgin Islands, Timor-Leste (or East Timor), Bonaire, Ecuador, El Salvador, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau, Panama, Turks and Caicos, and Zimbabwe.

The Oldest Currency Still in Use Is the British Pound: The British pound dates back to 775 AD and was called the pound sterling when Anglo-Saxon kings used silver pennies, or sterlings as money. Today, this foreign currency is the fourth most traded in the foreign exchange market, after the U.S. dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen.

Some of the most rare and valuable British coins include the 1933 Penny, the 1703 Queen Anne Silver Vigo Five Guineas, and the 1819 George III Sovereign.

The British pound is the oldest surviving currency in the world, it was once made of sterling silver which is how it got its name ‘pound sterling’, and the Bank of England was the first institution to begin regular issuance of banknotes in 1695.

The pound sterling is the oldest currency in the world still in use today. The British currency was adopted in the 8th century AD.

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