The Danish flag is the oldest current flag of a sovereign state. It was adopted in 1370 or earlier. The second oldest was the Netherlands in 1572.
100 Mind-Blowing Earlier Facts
There are more bacterial cells in your body than human cells. The average human is around 56 per cent bacteria. This was discovered in a 2016 study and is far less than the earlier estimates of 90 per cent. As bacteria are so light, however, by weight, each person is over 99.7 per cent human.
The world’s first animated feature film was made in Argentina. Even if you know a lot of Disney trivia, you might assume that the honour of the first animated feature film belongs to Walt Disney’s 1937 movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. But 20 years earlier, a full-length animated feature film was made in Argentina. It was a political satire called El Apóstol made up of 58,000 drawings and had a running time of 70 minutes, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
A premature birth takes place when the baby arrives earlier than 37 weeks during pregnancy. Those who are born early will often have complicated medical problems. Premature birth usually occurs when not enough nutrition is given to the mother during pregnancy. A few famous premature births include Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, and Isaac Newton.
Cooking shows are almost always scripted. For most cooking contests, contestants would get the ingredients they have to use weeks earlier. For restaurant improvement shows, the restaurants they feature usually go bankrupt a month after their episode is aired.
The remote control was invented earlier than the television. 30 years before the first digital television, Nikola Tesla invented a “teleautomaton” that could control certain devices at a distance through radio waves. His first remote-controlled device was a remote-controlled boat in 1898. Since then, people adapted the wired remote for television. However, due to injuries, they developed it further to be a wireless remote.
Argentina produced the first animated feature film ever. Even if you are well-versed in Disney history, you might suppose that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a 1937 Walt Disney production, holds the distinction of being the first animated feature film. However, Argentina produced a full-length animated feature film 20 years earlier. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, El Apostol, a political satire, had a running period of 70 minutes and was composed of 58,000 drawings.
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.
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.
Gravity is also the reason why our days are getting longer. Over a billion years ago, a day on Earth lasted around 18 hours. Our days are longer now because the moon’s gravity is causing Earth’s spin to slow down. In Earth’s earlier days, the moon wasn’t as far away, which caused Earth to spin much faster than it currently does. Longer days also mean shorter years—kind of. The time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun hasn’t changed, but the amount of days within a year has. Back when the dinosaurs ruled 70 million years ago, days were only around 23.5 hours long, and a year was made up of 372 of those slightly shorter days.
You Can Make Your Money Crisp by Ironing It: Ready for a surprising money fact that involves a little bit of fabric know-how? If you’ve got a creased, crumpled, or wrinkled dollar bill, you can make it look new by pressing it with your iron. As mentioned earlier, U.S. dollars are 75% cotton and 25% linen, so it’s fabric. To iron the money, dampen the dollar bill slightly with a spritz bottle, sprinkle water by hand, or use the spray function on the iron itself. Set the iron to low heat, put a towel under the bill and another on top of it, and then iron the money in a circular motion. Set aside to air dry. Presto! You should have a nice flattened bill.
AI can be used to diagnose diseases. AI can analyse medical images and identify early signs of disease, potentially leading to earlier diagnosis and more effective treatment.