Scotland wanted to replicate the Parthenon bigger and cheaper in 1826. It was never completed and is now nicknamed “Scotland’s Disgrace.”
100 Mind-Blowing Completed Facts
The Empire State Building only took a little over a year to build (410) days, and it was 12 days ahead of schedule when completed.
Ben & Jerry’s learned how to make ice cream from a $5 course at Penn State. The titular Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were childhood friends. Although Greenfield finished college, he was unable to pursue med school. Cohen, on the other hand, dropped out of school. In 1977, Cohen and Greenfield completed a course on ice cream making from Pennsylvania State University’s Creamery. One of the fun facts no one knows about this famous product: Have you ever wondered why Ben & Jerry’s is so chunky? Ben Cohen has a condition where he can’t smell or taste anything. Instead, he relied on food textures texture to provide variety in his diet. This led to the company’s trademark chunks in their ice cream.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is tilted due to the soil at its base. The soft soil it is built on is also the reason why it was able to survive 4 major Earthquakes. This tower took over 344 years to build and was completed in 1178.
Red blood cells circulate in your body at an amazing speed. Within 20 seconds, one RBC would have already completed one lap around your circulatory system. These blood cells help deliver oxygen to all the organs and cells in the body.
A 70-year-old woman once completed one marathon for each continent in a week. For Chau Smith’s 70th birthday, she celebrated by completing one marathon for each continent in just a week.
A gamer completed Dark Souls using a Rock Band guitar. Another game notorious for its gameplay, only a few souls (nudge, nudge) brave this action RPG. However, Benjamin “Bearzly” Gwin took bravery to the next level: He beat the game with nothing but a Rock Band guitar. It doesn’t end there – he’s also done runs with the Rock Band drum kit, Rock Band piano, Donkey Kong bongo drum, microphone (voice control only), Wiimote, dance mat, steering wheel, and an Xbox 360 pad. He programmed these alternative controls himself, too. Wow.
Neptune has only completed one orbit around the Sun since its discovery. This is one of our favourite facts about space, and perhaps the most memorable (if you want to impress your friends next time you’re sharing cool facts. Neptune takes a whopping 165 years to complete one full orbit around the Sun. Since it was discovered in 1846, Neptune only finished its first full post-discovery orbit in 2011. Demoted planet Pluto has yet to match this – it is not even close to completing one full, 248-year orbit since its discovery in 1930.
A wall of trees is being planted across Africa to help prevent desertification. The Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel is Africa’s leading attempt to help mitigate the effects of desertification. The initiative also aims to transform the lives of millions of people living along the edge of the Sahara Desert. Unsurprisingly, planting trees at the edge of a desert is difficult. Despite having planted more than 5.5 billion seedlings in Ethiopia alone, only four per cent of the project had been completed by the end of 2020.
The world’s first Guinness world record for push-ups was 6,006. Charles Linster took home the first Guinness World Record in this category when he completed all 6,006 push-ups non-stop back in 1965. There are plenty of different record categories for push-ups these days, ranging from the most completed in one hour (2,806) to the most consecutive one-finger push-ups (124).
The First Computer ever (ENIAC). The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) made history as the first computer in the world (which was electronic programmable). Development of the computer was completed in 1945, and the computer entered service in December of that year. ENIAC could displace the computational power of 2,400 human beings for $500,000. ENIC relied on octal-base radio tubes to function. However, these tubes constantly burned out daily and required replacement. This means that ENIAC ran about 50% of the time and experienced downtime for tube replacements otherwise. More specialised and durable tubes eventually became available, leading to failures every one to two days.
Study Reveals Surgeons Need To Play More Video Games, But Why? Beth Israel Medical Centre in New York recently carried out a study with 33 of its surgeons. The surgeons took a surgical skills test in Laparoscopy that lasted almost two days. In the study, researchers tracked performance in the skills test on an individual level. They then recorded each surgeon’s habits about playing video games. Nine of 33 surgeons played an average of three hours of games per week. They outscored surgeons that never played video games in various categories. For instance, they committed 37 per cent fewer errors and completed the test 27 per cent faster. The study concluded a strong correlation exists between surgical skill and Laparoscopy performance.
The Boston Marathon didn’t allow female runners until 1972. The first woman to finish the Boston Marathon, Roberta Gibb, actually ran the race a few years earlier in 1966. She hid in some bushes until the race started to avoid detection and then ran the marathon without any official sanction. Another woman, Katherine Switzer, didn’t declare herself a woman when she competed in 1967 and was allowed to enter the race. When it became apparent that she wasn’t a man, the officials unsuccessfully tried to stop her from competing. It wasn’t until the fall of 1971 when the Amateur Athletics Union allowed women to compete, which made 1972’s marathon the first to officially allow female entrants. Eight women competed in the 1972 Boston Marathon, and all eight completed it, with Nina Kuscsik claiming the first official female victory.
A small population of Mammoths survived on Wrangel Island until 1650 BC, about 900 years after the construction of The Great Pyramid of Giza was completed.
Linux is used by every major space programme in the world, including NASA and the ESA. Private space companies like SpaceX also leverage it, with the latter having completed 65 space missions (and counting) with the assistance of a fault-resistant Linux system in their powerful Falcon 9 rockets.
French was the official language of England for over 300 years: After William the Conqueror of France completed the Norman Conquest of 1066, French became the official language of England. However, the language was mainly spoken by noblemen, whilst lower classes spoke English. French continued to be the official language of England until 1362. Historians believe that the country reverted to being English-speaking due to King John’s loss of the French region of Normandy in 1294. This was encouraged further by the 100-year War against France, which started in 1337. Despite this, French names were popular throughout England, with Richard, Robert and William still being common names to this day!