Since 1990 the United States has added more acres of forest than it has lost, with almost 20 million new acres of forest land added in the last 2 decades.
100 Mind-Blowing Decades Facts
Queen Elizabeth II had a stand-in to make sure the sun wouldn’t get in her eyes. Ella Slack has a similar height and stature to the queen, so before big events, she’ll rehearse to avoid any royal pains like the sun getting in Her Majesty’s eyes. Slack had been doing it for three decades but wasn’t allowed to sit on the throne, so she had to squat above it.
American Airlines saved money by getting rid of olives from their meals. About three decades ago the airline started looking into ways how to save money. They started by removing a single olive on their first-class meals which led to an annual savings of $40,000 during the 1980s.
The manager of Elvis Presley was also selling hate merchandise for Elvis. For nearly two decades, Tom Parker was the manager of The King. It was sometime in the 1950s that Parker signed a merchandising deal to turn Elvis into a brand name which also included ‘I hate Elvis’ badges.
Research states that the loneliest creature on the planet is a whale. This whale has been observed calling out for a mate for over two decades now. However, due to its calls being at a different pitch than other whales, it is unable to successfully find a partner.
The longest hiccups lasted nearly 69 years. When Charles Osborne started hiccupping in 1922, he didn’t stop until 1990. Charles Osborne hiccupped non-stop for 68 years. He wasn’t even doing anything to trigger his decades-long hiccup – it just started while he was weighing a hog before slaughter. Initially, he hiccupped 40 times a minute. However, in his later years, it slowed to 20 hiccups per minute. After his long hiccupping episode, he managed to live a hiccup-less life for only a year until he died in 1991. One of the more unfortunate WTF facts.
Coral reefs are Earth’s largest living structure. Coral reefs are not only beautiful natural wonders but also the largest living structure on Earth. These underwater ecosystems are made up of colonies of tiny animals called coral polyps, which build calcium carbonate skeletons that accumulate over time and form the complex structures we know as coral reefs. Coral reefs are incredibly diverse and play a vital role in the ocean ecosystem, providing habitat and protection for many species, and acting as a natural barrier that helps to protect coastlines from storms and erosion. Unfortunately, coral reefs are under threat from a range of environmental factors, including ocean acidification, rising temperatures and global warming. ESA research has shown how our ocean waters have become more acidic over the last three decades and how this is having a detrimental effect on marine life. By using satellite technology to measure ocean colour, temperature and salinity, scientists can track changes in ocean chemistry and detect areas where acidification is occurring. Rising temperatures can also have a direct impact on coral reefs, causing coral bleaching, which occurs when corals expel the algae that live in their tissues and provide them with food. Coral bleaching can lead to the death of the coral, which can have knock-on effects on the wider ecosystem.
Bill and Melinda Gates have given away more than $45 billion since 1994. Bill Gates alone has ranked among the world’s richest for decades now, amassing much of his vast fortune from Microsoft, which he co-founded. Bill and Melinda Gates founded the “Giving Pledge” in 2010 to encourage other wealthy people like themselves to donate much of their wealth either during their lifetimes or afterwards. Despite giving so much away, Bill Gates is still worth over $110 billion.
A cat named Stubbs was the mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska for two decades.
You can spell your email in Morse code. In 2004, the @ symbol became the first new character to be added to Morse code for the first time in many decades. The character is called a “Commat” and consists of the signals for A and C with no break in between.
Father of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell founded the company that would decades later help bring Unix to life, and by extension, Linux as well.
AI has been around for decades. While AI is often thought of as a new technology, the concept has been around since the 1950s. Early AI systems were used to perform tasks such as playing chess and solving mathematical problems.