There is a company in the U.K. that offers “being hungover” as a valid reason for calling off work. They are allotted four hungover days per year.
100 Mind-Blowing Days Facts
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.
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.
Snakes can help predict Earthquakes. They can sense a coming Earthquake from 75 miles away, up to five days before it happens.
New Jersey had 4 Governors in 8 days in early 2002. The shortest term of those was served by John Farmer Jr. for 90 minutes.
While filming Rocky IV, Lundgren hit Sylvester Stallone for real, and he ended up in the hospital for nine days.
In Cambodia, rats are being trained to sniff out land mines. They can clear 200 square meters in less than 35 minutes, which usually takes 2-3 days with a de-miner.
If the electors of the Holy Roman Emperor did not vote within 30 days, they were only allowed to eat bread and water and were forbidden to leave the city.
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.
The costume designers for The Lord of the Rings worked for two straight years making custom armour. Just one Orc suit had 13,000 rings and took 3 days to make.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were 3 sailors trapped in the USS West Virginia who could not be rescued, and it took 16 days for them to die.
A bottle of Coca-Cola has a PH scale of 2.8 and could dissolve a nail in just 4 days.
The world’s oldest cat lived to 38 years and three days old. Creme Puff was the oldest cat to ever live.
Somebody has been constipated for 45 days. In 2013, an unfortunate Indian woman had to undergo surgical removal of a faecal mass as large as a football.
The longest-reigning monarch ever was Louis XIV of France. He ruled for 72 years, 110 days. Exhausting.
We don’t know why, but research shows that in the days leading up to a full moon, people go to bed later and sleep less, reports Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials.
A one-way trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway involves crossing 3,901 bridges. Not only is the Trans-Siberian Railway the longest railroad in Russia, but it’s also the longest one in the world. The journey takes seven days, during which time passengers pass through eight different time zones and cross 3,901 bridges.
It takes a drop of water 90 days to travel the entire Mississippi River. Spanning 2,340 miles, the Mississippi River is the third-largest watershed in the world. That’s one long stretch of water. So long, that it takes one drop of water approximately 90 days to travel its entire length.
Some fungi create zombies and then control their minds. The tropical fungus Ophiocordyceps infects ants’ central nervous systems. Once it has been in an insect’s body for nine days, it has complete control over the host’s movements. According to National Geographic, it forces the ant to climb trees, then convulse and fall into the cool, moist soil below, where fungi thrive. Once there, the fungus waits until exactly solar noon to force the ant to bite a leaf and wait for death.
Baseball umpires used to sit in rocking chairs. People have been playing baseball since the mid-19th century. In the early days, umpires would officiate the games while reclining in a rocking chair located 20 feet behind home plate. By 1878, the National League also declared that home teams must pay umpires $5 per game.
The Eiffel Tower took exactly 2 years, 2 months, and 5 days to create. There are many stunning places in France. The Eiffel Tower, one of the most recognizable structures in the world, took a long time to make. Over two years!
Venus is the only planet to spin clockwise. It travels around the sun once every 225 Earth days but it rotates clockwise once every 243 days.
The oldest verified man ever is Jiroemon Kimura (1897–2013) of Japan, who lived to the age of 116 years and 54 days.
February used to be the last month of the year. We may know January and February as the first two months of the year, but these months were the last couple of months added to the Gregorian calendar. Before, the Roman calendar only recognised 10 months. However, the winter period was measured in these two months – making February the last month of the calendar. This is also why February has the shortest number of days in a month.
Sylvester Stallone landed in the I.C.U. While filming Rocky. Stallone wanted to make sure the boxing scenes looked authentic in Rocky IV, so he instructed Dolph Lundgren to hit him. A punch to the chest landed Stallone in intensive care for four days.
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.
Children are born less frequently on Saturdays. Among all the days in the week, most children in the world are born on a Thursday. Babies born on weekends in December are also the least common.
Snakes can predict Earthquakes. Studies have found that most species of snakes can detect Earthquakes before they occur. They are also able to sense quakes that occur as far as 75 miles away and up to five days away. I guess you could say, they’re just that down to Earth.
The average American spends 2.5 days annually looking for lost items. This statistic comes from one of the nation’s largest independent lost-and-found surveys. The most commonly misplaced items are phones, keys, wallets, purses, and remotes.
The longest recorded tennis match lasted for 11 hours. This took place at Wimbledon 2010. John Isner won this match against Nicolas Mahut and took over 3 days to complete.
The chacma baboons reside in Africa’s Namib desert. According to research, a group of chacma baboons once survived 116 days in the desert without any water. They survived solely by eating figs they found.
There are pink lakes in Australia. On the western coast of Australia, a pink lake called Lake Hillier can be found. It gets its colour from the algae present in the area which mixes with the lake’s salt content to create a pink colour. Despite the vibrant pink colour, it is safe to swim in this lake. The Russians arrived 12 days late to the 1908 Olympics. This was mainly because they were following the wrong calendar. After this incident, the catholic nations mandated the use of the Gregorian Calendar.
Earthquakes can permanently shorten the length of the Earth’s day. If a strong enough Earthquake occurs, it can move the spin of the Earth’s axis. The 2011 Earthquake in Japan knocked 1.8 microseconds off our days according to researchers.
Large banks use computers to process checks and debit card charges by the highest amount first. This is because checks with higher amounts of value need to be thoroughly double-checked first before clearing. This explains why it may take a few working days before clearing can be issued.
A cotton shirt takes 700 gallons of water to make. That is enough water for one person to stay hydrated for 900 days. Meanwhile, the amount of water needed to create a pair of jeans is equivalent to hosing your lawn for 9 hours straight.
In Slovakia, they have a Christmas Carp that lives in the family bathtub for a few days before they are eaten. A traditional Slovakian Christmas dinner is a main dish of breaded carp with sides of cabbage and sausage soup, and potato salad. However, the WTF facts twist is that the carp has to live in the family bathtub before it is cooked.
The longest time between two twins being born is 87 days. A mother in Ireland gave birth to twins Amy Ann and Kate Marie Elliot 87 days apart, the world record for the longest interval between twin births. Amy was born prematurely on June 1, 2012, and Kate only followed on August 27. The exact interval is 87 days, 1 hr and 45 mins.
A 100-foot asteroid nearly hit the Earth once. In January 2017, a 100-foot asteroid called AG13 passed by the Earth at less than ⅕ the distance between the Earth and the moon. Scientists only knew that it was coming two days before it could have made an impact.
No one knows how Edgar Allan Poe died. If his works were any indicator of who he was as a person, Edgar Allan Poe was a deeply disturbed man. Aside from his macabre writing, a lot of mystery surrounds Edgar Allan Poe. Even his death is unclear. He was last seen in Baltimore’s streets in 1849. He was wearing someone else’s clothes and in bad shape. 4 days later, he died in a hospital. Allegedly, he kept shouting “Reynolds” before his death.
Blue Ivy Carter is the youngest person ever to appear on a Billboard chart. When Jay-Z released “Glory” in 2012, he put his daughter Blue Ivy Carter as a feature. Her crying sample made her the youngest person to hit the Billboard charts at two days old.
A woman was once constipated for nearly two months. After 45 days without a bowel movement, a 28-year-old woman from India had to have surgery to remove a “football-sized” mass of faeces.
The most teeth extracted from a person is 526. A 7-year-old boy in Chennai, India had 526 teeth removed from his mouth after complaining of severe jaw pain and swelling. When doctors examined his mouth, they found a sac in his lower jaw filled with abnormal teeth, which they had to surgically remove. The entire procedure took 4-5 hours, and it took 3 days for the boy to be discharged from the hospital.
The biggest video game collection has a library of over 20,000 games. Antonio Monteiro of Texas holds the Guinness World Record for the largest video game collection at 20,139 video games. The collection features games from the 2nd to 8th generation consoles and over 100 devices to play them on. One of the most hardcore video game facts: It took Guinness 8 days to finish counting them all!
A man reached level 90 in World of Warcraft without leaving the starting zone, ever. The player Double agent spent 173.5 days mining and picking herbs for XP. Technically, he was stuck in the Wandering Isles for life – he couldn’t even play PvP since you’d need to have a faction for that.
The longest time without sleep is 11 days. The longest time recorded of a person without sleep is approximately 264 hours. Within 3 to 4 days without sleep, you may start having hallucinations. Sleep is a biological function for a reason – it is not advisable to pull all-nighters all the time.
You spend 92 days of your life on the toilet. Based on a study with 2,500 respondents, the average man spends 1 hr and 45 min on the toilet, which is 92 days a week.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise. Most planets rotate on their axis in an anti-clockwise motion. However, Venus rotates clockwise in retrograde once every 243 Earth days.
In Slovakia, they have Christmas carp that live in the bathtub for a few days before they are eaten.
In the early days of the telephone, operators would pick up a call and use the phrase, “Well, are you there?”. It wasn’t until 1895 that someone suggested answering the phone with the phrase “Number please?”
Mary Stuart became Queen of Scotland when she was only six days old.
To travel the entire Mississippi River a drop of water takes 90 days. The Mississippi River is the third-largest watershed in the world, spanning 2,340 miles. That body of water is very long. It is so lengthy that it takes a single drop of water about 90 days to cross the full distance.
Fungi can control the mind and make them a zombie. Ophiocordyceps is a kind of tropical fungus that affects the ant’s central nervous system. After nine days, when it’s been inside the ant’s body, it has complete control over the host’s movements. It can influence the ant’s behaviour too by making them climb the tree and then fall.
A year on Mars is 687 days long compared to Earth’s 365 days.
Venus is the only planet that spins clockwise. Every 225 Earth days, Venus travels around the sun, but Venus rotates clockwise once every 243 days.
“Stewardesses” is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand. Although “flight attendant” is the preferred term these days!
The longest time between two twins being born is 90 days. Molly and Benjamin West are dizygotic (fraternal) twins who were born in Baltimore, Maryland, on January 1 and March 30, 1996. Molly was three months premature, but doctors were able to hold off Benjamin’s birth for 90 days!
The oldest cat in the world lived to be 38 years and three days old. Creme Puff lived a sweet, long life. On average, cats tend to live around 15 years.
It takes 90 days for one drop of water to travel the entire Mississippi River.
If you walked for 12 hours a day, it would take the average person 690 days to walk around the world.
Mars is the 4th planet from the sun. It is 227,936,637 km (141 million miles) away from the sun. It would take 300 days (around 8 months) to get there from Earth.
One year on Mars is 687 days long. That’s 1.9 Earth years. This is because Mars is further away from the sun so it takes longer to orbit it.
The planet Neptune’s days are 16 hours long.
In the early days of baseball, umpires sat in rocking chairs behind home plate.
On Mercury, a day is twice as long as a year. Technically, one Mercurian day lasts 59 Earth days, while a year lasts 88. However, due to Mercury’s very eccentric orbit and alignment with the Sun, the length of time from sunrise to sunrise, known as a ‘solar day’, is equal to 176 Earth days — twice as long as a Mercurian year.
Our days are getting longer. Earth’s spin speed is slowing: every year, it takes our planet a little longer to complete one full revolution on its axis. The change is miniscule, however. Every century, Earth slows by 1/500th of a second; 1,000 years from now, one day will be two-hundredths of a second longer than today.
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.
Venus spins backwards. Venus spins in the opposite direction to the rest of the planets in our Solar System. This is a puzzle that requires solving if we are to understand more about the formation and evolution of our Solar System. Could it be that, in the early days of the Solar System, Venus was hit by another object, sending it spinning in the opposite direction? The truth is, there is no confirmed theory as to why Venus spins backwards relative to the other planets. But that’s not the only strange thing about Venus’s orbit. The planet also rotates slowly, with the Venusian day equivalent to 243 Earth days, and longer than the Venusian year of 225 Earth days.
Neptune’s days are 16 hours long.
Yuma, Arizona gets over 4000 hours of sunshine a year, making it the sunniest place on Earth. The least sunny place is the South Pole, where the sun only shines on 182 days a year. (Which would you rather live in?)
Sloths cannot shiver to stay warm, and so have difficulty maintaining their body temperature on rainy days.
Eyelashes live for about 150 days before falling out.
They can go several days without drinking water.
In 1992, after a record amount of snow, the government of Syracuse, NY, declared any additional snowfall before Christmas Eve illegal. Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn’t take the threat too seriously. It snowed two days after the move was announced.
In 2017, Chau Smith decided to celebrate her 70th birthday by running seven marathons on all seven continents in seven days. Her amazing feat almost did not happen due to travel delays, however.
A female housefly lays batches of around 100–150 white eggs and may lay more than 500 eggs in her lifetime of just a few days.
A traffic jam lasted for more than 10 days, with cars only moving 0.6 miles a day.
If you started with $0.01 and doubled your money every day, it would take 27 days to become a millionaire.
A company in Japan awards non-smokers an extra six days of paid leave each year. It was brought to the marketing firm’s attention that employees who went for smoke breaks had more than 15 minutes of extra time away from their desks each day. Instead of penalising smokers, they came up with a creative incentive to quit smoking while keeping their non-smoking employees happy in the process!
Nintendo used to have a hotline you could call if you were stuck in one of their games. Back in the days before the Internet, video games were much more challenging, and finding the right way to beat them sometimes seemed impossible. Nintendo was well aware of this, and in the US, at least provided a service called the “Powerline,” which struggling gamers could call for tips and tricks.
It turns out that you don’t need to drink six to eight cups of water per day. Water is without a doubt one of the most important things on our planet, and since around the 1940s, it’s been popularly believed that you should drink about 84 ounces (2.5 litres) of the stuff every day to stay healthy. Researchers have since delved deeper into the issue and concluded that you don’t need to drink anywhere near that much, as you get a lot of water from the food you eat. Instead, you’re merely advised to drink when you’re thirsty and drink extra on particularly hot days.
Studies have found that nine out of ten people experience phantom phone vibrations. It’s suggested that when we keep our phones in our pockets regularly, they become almost like an extension of ourselves. This is similar to wearing glasses for extended periods. When we experience any kind of muscle spasm, a shift in clothing, or any other form of vibration, we instantly assume that it is our phone. This is believed to be because we are much more high-strung these days and are always on the alert, so we don’t miss important texts or notifications.
One of Fleetwood Mac’s founding guitarists disappeared just before a show and was found days later as a newly initiated cult member. Jeremy Spencer was with Fleetwood Mac from the very beginning, but during a tour to the US in the 70’s he became quite disillusioned with his career and life in general. He met members of Children of God, a religious cult in California, and decided to join them instead of continuing on the road to stardom. Jeremy Spencer is still affiliated with the cult, now known as Family International.
8th-grade students from a town in Alaska must spend two nights on an uninhabited island as part of their science exam. The tradition began forty-six years ago when a school teacher in Ketchikan, Alaska, made it his goal to educate the town’s youth on how to survive in the harsh climate of Alaska. He also just wanted kids to have more fun at school, as there wasn’t much fun going around back in his schooling days. Despite not being mandatory, most of the town’s grade eights eagerly make the trip each year.
Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone let his fans vote on what he should change his middle name to. The famous Home Alone child star has faded away a little into obscurity these days, but he’s still manageing to stay relevant. In November 2018, he asked the world to give him a new middle name, as his name was “something dumb.” Out of a wide range of ridiculous finalists, he ended up changing his middle to his full name and is now officially known as Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin!
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 oldest dog that ever lived was 31 years and 165 days old.
The world’s oldest cat lived to 38 years and three days old.
The longest tennis match in history took 11 hours and five minutes, spanning over three days.
Mongolia has the world’s sparsest population and in some regions, you can go days without seeing another person.
Days on Venus are longer than years. Due to its slow axis rotation, it takes 243 Earth days to spin once; but it only takes 225 Earth days to go around the sun.
Only two people have ever swam the entire length of the 2,350-mile Mississippi River: Slovenian long-distance swimmer Martin Strel in 2002 and American former Navy SEAL Chris Ring in 2015. Strel swam for 68 days in a row; Ring took one day off a week, taking 181 days.
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.
Wikipedia is run and maintained by thousands of humans and hundreds of bots. Everyone knows Wikipedia is powered by thousands of human contributors. On the other hand, most people don’t realize hundreds of bots contribute to the effort, too. ClueBot NG catches vandalism on Wikipedia pages almost in real-time. A variety of other bots contribute standardised data to the online encyclopedia. This combination of humans and bots ensures Wikipedia runs without any problems 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
Domain Names were free before 1995. Domain name registration often costs a few dollars (or more) these days. Before 1995, registering a domain didn’t cost a penny, though. The National Science Foundation gave Network Solutions permission to charge for domain registration that year. Two-year registration for a domain initially cost $100. Prices trended downward for .COM domains after that. Available, unparked domains often cost $20 to $30 for a two-year registration. Purchasing a parked or popular domain name can, of course, cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. By 1995, only a few thousand domain names existed, so not many companies received free domains.
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.
Over 1 billion Active iPhones in the World. Around 1.65 billion Apple brand devices are currently in use, says CEO Tim Cook. How does the company determine this number? Folks only need to use their Apple-branded device once within 90 days and the activity is added to the total. Having recently set both revenue and product sales records – with iPhones leading the way – further proof of this company’s record-setting numbers is measured by the number of “upgraders” also counted. Contributing to these statistics are FaceTime calls driven by the pandemic. It’s anyone’s guess whether chip shortages or supply chain issues will impact Apple sales in 2022.
The first commercial text message was sent in 1992. On December 3, 1992, a software architect, Sema Group, used a computer to text “Merry Christmas” to a Vodafone employee who was using an Orbitel 901 handset. These days, over six billion texts are sent per day!
40% of American couples meet online. Online dating is hugely popular these days, and apparently, it seems to work! 40% of couples who got together in 2017 met online. Looking at a larger scale, meeting through friends declined by 13% from 1995 to 2017.
There’s a term for old people who use the Internet. Seniors who are over 50 and use the Internet regularly are rare these days. So rare there’s a term for it – Silver Surfers.
An average 21-year-old has spent 5,000 hours playing video games. These days, by 21, you’ll have also sent 250,000 emails and texts and spent 10,000 hours on a cell phone. That’s a lot of time!