There is a company in Japan that has schools that teach you how to be funny. The first one opened in 1982. About 1,000 students take the course each year.
100 Mind-Blowing How Facts
A wildlife technician, Richard Thomas, took the famous tongue-twister “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood” and calculated a rough estimate of what the answer would be. It came out to be around 700 pounds.
Nobody knows how the Academy Awards came to be referred to as the Oscars. The earliest mention was in 1932 and was made official in 1939.
There is a village in Russia called Tsovkra where every resident can tightrope walk. It is a tradition that dates back over 100 years, but no one knows how it started.
Animals yawn based on how large their brain is. The bigger the brain, the longer it will yawn.
The original name for Xbox was DirectXbox, designed to show how Microsoft’s Direct X graphics could improve the console market.
The only window that opens on the presidential car is the driver’s window to pay tolls. It also has no keyholes, and only the Secret Service knows how to open the doors.
October 19th is “Evaluate Your Life Day” – a day to think about your situation in life & wonder how it could be improved. Be sure to weigh the good and bad!
September 25th is known as “World Dream Day” – a day about chasing your dreams, no matter how big or small they may be!
After a Muslim astronaut had trouble figuring out how to fast for Ramadan in space, a booklet was written to explain how to observe Ramadan while in orbit.
Facebook causes you to overestimate how happy your friends are and, in turn, makes you more depressed.
The modern salute is believed to be derived from how French Knights would greet each other by lifting the visors of their helmets.
Scientists have no idea how dinosaurs mated.
All of the suits worn by Neil Patrick Harris in How I Met Your Mother were tailored especially for the actor. After the series finale, he took some of them home.
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.
“Strategic incompetence” is the art of avoiding certain tasks by pretending you don’t know how to do them.
A cloud weighs around a million tonnes. A cloud typically has a volume of around 1km3 and a density of around 1.003kg per m3 – that’s a density that’s around 0.4 per cent lower than the air surrounding it (this is how it can float).
Animals can experience time differently from humans. To smaller animals, the world around them moves more slowly compared to humans. Salamanders and lizards, for example, experience time more slowly than cats and dogs. This is because the perception of time depends on how quickly the brain can process incoming information.
The fear of long words is called Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. The 36-letter word was first used by the Roman poet Horace in the first century BCE to criticise those writers with an unreasonable penchant for long words. It was American poet Aimee Nezheukumatathil, possibly afraid of their surname, who coined the term how we know it in 2000.
Football teams wearing red kits play better. The colour of your clothes can affect how you’re perceived by others and change how you feel. A review of football matches in the last 55 years, for example, showed that teams wearing a red kit consistently played better in home matches than teams in any other colour.
Laughing came before language. How do we know? Some researchers tickled baby apes, which, beyond being adorable, showed that they share the same structure as ours and likely arose in our common ancestors millions of years ago. Language came about much later.
In 2010, Google tried to find out how many books there were in the world. They reckon there are about 130,000,000 of them. (Let’s call this one a semi-fact, though, ok?)
Nearest Green (“Uncle Nearest”), a formerly enslaved man, taught Jack Daniel as a young boy how to make whiskey, and served as the first master distiller for Jack’s Distillery No. 7 following abolition. While you may have heard of whiskey giant Jack Daniels, there is now a whiskey label called Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, honouring Uncle Nearest, “the best whiskey maker the world never knew.”
To determine how far away a lightning storm is from you, National Geographic Kids says you can count the seconds between the flash and the crack and watch for the flash of lightning from a safe location. Time how many seconds elapse before you hear thunder. Divide the number of seconds by five and the answer is the approximate number of miles away.
There are parts of Africa in all four hemispheres. For people whose education was largely focused on the Western world, it may be surprising to find out exactly how huge the continent of Africa is. For instance, it spans all four hemispheres and covers nearly 12 million square miles.
There’s enough gold inside Earth to coat the planet. Turns out, there’s quite a bit of gold on—or, really, in—our planet: 99 per cent of the precious metal can be found in the Earth’s core, Discover Magazine reports. How much is there? Enough to coat the entire surface of the Earth in 1.5 feet of gold.
People once ate arsenic to improve their skin. You’ve probably heard about how a lot of the Victorians’ favourite cosmetics were riddled with arsenic, but it gets worse. There were also products on the market in the late 19th century, like Dr. James P. Campbell’s Safe Arsenic Complexion Wafers, that were meant to be eaten. They claimed to get rid of freckles, blackheads, and other “facial disfigurements.” Admit it: That’s one of the most interesting facts you’ve learned in a while.
Beethoven never knew how to multiply or divide. The renowned pianist went to a Latin school called Tirocinium, where he was taught some math but never learned multiplication or division—only addition. Once, when he needed to multiply 62 by 50, he wrote 62 down a line 50 times and added it all up.
A waffle iron inspired one of the first pairs of Nikes. Bill Bowerman was a track and field coach in the 1950s who didn’t like how running shoes were made. He first created the Cortez shoe but wanted a sneaker that was even lighter and could be worn on a variety of surfaces. During a waffle breakfast with his wife in 1970, he came up with the idea of using the waffle texture on the soles of running shoes. Waffle-soled shoes made their big debut in the 1972 U.S. Olympic track and field trials in Eugene, Oregon.
Wimbledon tennis balls are kept at 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature of a tennis ball affects how it bounces. At warmer temperatures, the gas molecules inside the ball expand, making the ball bounce higher. Lower temperatures cause the molecules to shrink and the ball to bounce lower. To make sure the best tennis balls are used, Wimbledon goes through more than 50,000 tennis balls each year.
The world’s oldest toy is a stick. Think of how versatile a stick is. You can use it to play fetch with your dog, swing it as a bat, or use your imagination to turn it into a lightsaber. That’s why, in 2008, the National Toy Hall of Fame inducted the stick into its collection of amazing toys as, very possibly, the oldest toy ever.
Michelangelo wrote a poem about how much he hated painting the Sistine Chapel. One translation of the poem he sent to his friend begins: I’ve already grown a goitre from this torture, hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy (or anywhere else where the stagnant water’s poison). Doesn’t sound like he was too thrilled with his task.
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.
Scotland has more than 400 words for snow. There are a lot of weird facts out there. But how many of them involve word choice? In Scotland, yes, there are more than 400 words for snow. There are 421, to be exact!
Cars can easily reach 140 degrees Fahrenheit. You might be driving along the highway and not notice how hot your car is getting. But when you pull over for a while, your car can reach intense degrees.
You can’t move or touch William Shakespeare’s bones. William Shakespeare’s legacy doesn’t stop at his plays and how many words he created – but even in the afterlife, he leaves a lasting display of his wit. Buried in 1616, the playwright was said to have written his tombstone inscription which reads: “Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forebearer, To digg the dust enclosed heare; Bleste be the man that spares thes stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.”
Sneezing while travelling at 60 mph makes you close your eyes for 50 feet. In a not-so-fun fun fact, the few milliseconds you spend sneezing can make you lose track of the distance you travel. No matter how amazing that may be, it is very hazardous for the road. About 2,500 road accidents occur in a U.K. winter due to colds and sneezing.
Netflix spent $0 on marketing its DVD rental business, but over 6 million people still used it. Remember how compact disks feel in your hand? The frustration of wiping it clean when it starts to skip? Nowadays, it’s all Netflix and chill. However, one of the coolest fun facts about Netflix is how it owned the marketing game in 2014. Despite spending nothing on marketing, sales for DVD rentals soared at an all-time high that year.
No one knows for sure how dinosaurs mate. It’s easy to get caught up in a dinosaur’s grotesque features, but have you ever wondered how dinosaurs mated in the first place? With all those spines and armour, how did they do it enough to roam the world before us? So far, no dinosaurs have been found with their reproductive organs intact. Until then, only cross-referencing from existing descendants (birds and reptiles) as well as computer modelling can give us hints as to how they’d done the deed.
Penguins can jump as high as 9 feet in the air. These creatures may be known for their adorable waddling, but they’re quite the action stars. One of the fun facts about these fun creatures is that depending on their species, penguins can jump up to 9 feet. How do these boxy birds do it, you ask? The magic happens underwater – penguins wrap their bodies in air bubbles from their wings and use this to propel themselves up to the surface.
Crocodile poop was the first contraceptive. The Ancient Egyptians certainly had a unique way of doing things. One of the fun facts about Egypt is how they practised safe sex: Women would insert crocodile dung into their vaginas. (Uh, fun?!) The science was that it would soften when it reached body temperature, forming a barrier.
The Titanic film runs for as long as the ship sunk. Minus the present-day scenes and opening/ending credits, Titanic is 2 hours and 45 minutes long – which is also the time it took for the ship to sink in 1912. Additionally, the collision scene lasted 37 seconds, which is also how long the ship collided with the iceberg in real life.
Brad Pitt and Edward Norton learned how to make soap in Fight Club. The 90s cult classic had one of its most iconic scenes when Brad Pitt and Edward Norton’s characters made soap. They learned for real.
The people who are currently alive are only 7% of the total number of people who have ever lived. One of the fun facts that’ll make you realize how long humans have been around: According to the Population Reference Bureau, over 108 billion people have ever been born. At 7.5 billion, that’s only a meagre 7% of the people who have ever lived.
The longest wedding veil was longer than 63 football fields. If you think you’ve seen how crazy grand weddings can get, think again. Maria Paraskeva claimed the Guinness World Record for the longest wedding veil in 2018. This dream-come-true veil measured nearly 23,000 feet, which is the size of 63.5 football fields.
T-shirts were originally made for unmarried men who didn’t know how to sew buttons on collared shirts. However, people didn’t pay much mind to T-shirts until the 1950s.
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.
Putting sugar on a cut will make it heal faster. Pour some sugar on top of the wound and wrap it with a bandage. The granules of the sugar crystals will absorb any moisture that bacteria thrive on. How’s that for some sweet treat?
75 burgers are sold at McDonald’s every second. You can view how many burgers have been sold in real-time on the McDonald’s website. You can also track the number of other products that have also been sold from all over the world.
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.
Melting glaciers make fizzy noises. This is also known as bergy seltzer because of how similar it sounds to fizzing soda. The sound is mainly due to the melting waters that free tiny bubbles trapped in ice.
Ioannis Ikonomou has been the chief translator of the European Parliament since 2002. This Greek translator has 32 languages under his belt and even knows languages outside of the EU. How’s that for a hidden talent?
Most businesses do not see the practicality of having diaper tables. However, they quickly change their minds after being given the idea that women would have to change their baby’s diapers on a bathroom floor. Who knows how many bacteria are on those floors?
Saliva can be used to monitor alcohol intake. It can also detect how often you smoke or use drugs. Some research also uses it to diagnose diseases.
The folds in a chef’s hat represent the number of ways you can cook an egg. The toque is also known to determine the position of the chef in the kitchen and how experienced they are. How’s that for a hidden talent?
Depending on how they descend, waterfalls have different classifications. This can be divided into 10 main categories. The most common ones are the plunge and multi-step.
Baby sea otters are unable to swim. Their mothers carry them wrapped around a piece of kelp while they hunt to keep them from drowning. This is only done until the pup learns how to float on his own eventually.
About 7% of American adults believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. While this may not seem like a lot, this totals around 16.4 million Americans. Imagine how they feel when you tell them buttermilk doesn’t have any butter in it.
Space travel makes mice run in circles. NASA once sent 20 rodents to the International Space Station to see how the effects of space affected mice. Not long after they got there, the mice all started running in loops inside their cages. No one is exactly sure why this occurred, but researchers stated that the critters might’ve just been enjoying their time in space.
The Antarctic glaciers are made up of 3% penguin urine. Due to the extreme temperatures in this region of the world, the urine cannot evaporate. Hence how they freeze and mould with the glaciers around them.
The most mathematical flag in the world belongs to Nepal. In its constitution, there is a detailed step-by-step guide on how to draw the flag to its exact measurements. Nepal is also one of the few countries that have a triangular flag.
Knowing how to speak Russian is a requirement to become an International astronaut. The ISS has operations in Russia and will not provide a translator during the job. Most new astronauts claim that learning a new language is the most difficult part of the job.
The ancient Greeks chewed gum like mastic. Mastic is a substance that comes from the bark of a tree. This bark was believed to be how the Greeks maintained oral health.
Most of the air you breathe goes out of your nostrils. This is good because this is how our bodies were designed to naturally breathe. Breathing through our nose allows us to take fuller and deeper breaths which provides the lungs greater amounts of oxygen to distribute through the body.
The smiley was nearly invented by Vladimir Nabokov. This Russian-American writer stated how it was important to create special punctuation marks to indicate emotion in writing. Nabokov was the first to propose the smiley as a way to add humour and make the text more lively.
Ice rinks will always go counter-clockwise. This is because the majority of people are right-handed. Those who do not know how to skate will often grab onto the railings on the outermost side of the ring. How’s that for cool did you know the facts?
The filmmakers of Saw paid for Jigsaw to have its seat. Jigsaw the puppet is the face of the grisly Saw franchise. Whether you’re a sadist who enjoyed the films or you’re one of the people who just looked away, one of the interesting facts about Saw is that Jigsaw once got its plane seat. James Wan and Leigh Whannell paid for Jigsaw to have a seat on a flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles. Imagine how its seatmate felt!
Most of your house dust is your dead skin. The next time you get mad at all the dust in your place, remember that it’s your fault. Humans lose 30,000 to 40,000 dead skin cells each minute. So, aside from the dust from the streets, most of the dust bunnies gunking up your house probably came from you. How’s that for interesting facts that’ll change your perspective?
Talking uses 100 muscles. Introverts, you’re all valid. Talking is a chore – not just mentally, but physically. To form a few phrases, the body must use 100 different muscles from the chest, neck, jaw, tongue, and lips. Imagine how buff and chatty people would be if these muscles bulked up too?
10 Google searches can power a 60-watt light bulb. At any point in time, the overall energy being used by Google for searches can power 200,000 homes. How’s that for interesting facts?
The Fender Guitar company makes 90,000 guitar strings a day. Fender may be one of the biggest music companies, but its founder, Leo Fender, did not know how to play any instruments.
Cookie Monster’s real name is Sid. You’ve heard about villain origin stories, but we bet you haven’t seen this one yet: Before eating his first cookie, Cookie Monster was Sid. What this implies has not been confirmed, as well as who he was as Sid. How’s that for dark, interesting facts?
Bad feelings are good for you. Nobody wants to feel sad, afraid, or hurt, but suppressing these negative emotions can hamper us psychologically. One’s mental health should acknowledge and know how to process negative feelings.
Venus Williams hit the fastest serve in women’s tennis at 205 km/h. If you’re having trouble picturing how fast that is, the maximum speed recorded by a person running is 45km/h.
Game of Thrones Night’s Watch cloaks are made from Ikea rugs. Creating something like Game of Thrones takes a lot of painstaking attention to detail to take people to the rugged, sooty world of Westeros. However, you’d be surprised that some of the production designs are just from everyday things. Namely, IKEA rugs for the Night Watch’s cloaks. IKEA has since released a tutorial for how to make GoT cloaks.
The Simpsons creator intended for Homer Simpson to be Krusty the Clown. If you follow The Simpsons, you’ll notice how Homer Simpson and Krusty the Clown look almost identical. Simpsons creator Matt Groening was planning to reveal Homer Simpson behind all that clown makeup. However, to avoid the plot from getting too complex, he scrapped the idea.
The CIA spent 25 million dollars on “spy cats.” In the 1960s, the CIA tried using cats to gather intel on the Kremlin and Soviet embassies. They equipped cats with a batter, microphone and antenna to record data. You can guess how that turned out.
A sound engineer once got accidentally high on LSD while cleaning an old radio. When Eliot Curtis tried to restore an old Buchla Model 100 synthesizer, he ended up tripping on 50-year-old LSD. He only noticed a crystalline substance that had gathered on the radio, which he wiped off. Since he found it in a dark closet at a university, the psychedelic components were preserved. The LSD residue dissolved in his hands and got him into a 9-hour trip. How’s that for wild funny facts?
Scientists have taught rats to drive. According to an experiment, rats can learn how to drive. Scientists made tiny cars with an aluminium floor and a “steering wheel” made out of three copper bars. When the rat stood on the car’s aluminium floor and touched the copper bars, it would start an electrical charge that moved the car. By the end of the experiment, they had taught the rats to steer the car in different directions by touching different copper bars. Their secret? Froot Loops. The scientists conditioned the rats to manoeuvre in different ways by rewarding them with cereal pieces.
There’s a hilarious continuity error in the opening scene of Sex and The City. If you look closely, you’ll notice how in one shot, the bus that splashes Carrie is full of passengers. However, in the next frame, the same bus appears empty. One of the funny facts that’ll make you realize the devil is in the details.
It took Rubik a month to solve his cube. With 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible combinations, who could blame him? Aside from the irony, what puts this in funny facts is how the current record-holder for the fastest time to solve a Rubik’s cube finished it in 4.22 seconds.
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.
You sweat an average of 26 gallons on your bed per year. This means that an average person sweats 1 cup of perspiration on his bed per day. How’s that for WTF facts?
“Bluetooth” was named after a king. Bluetooth technology was named after King Harald Bluetooth Gormsson. The traditional explanation for his moniker is that Harald had a bad tooth that looked “blue.” In the 10th century, Bluetooth united Denmark and Norway – much like how wireless Bluetooth now joins different devices.
The Romans used to clean their teeth with urine. How’s that for an organic toothpaste?
Wimbledon tennis balls must be stored at perfect room temperature. Wimbledon tennis balls must be kept at 68 degrees Fahrenheit because the temperature affects how it bounces. If it’s warmer gas molecules inside the ball expand, which makes it bounce higher. If it’s cooler, the molecules will shrink, making the ball bounce lower.
The Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland used to have real skeletons. In the 1960s, the skeletons on the Pirates ride at Disneyland were real. Why? They thought the fake skeletons didn’t look spooky enough. How? They contacted the UCLA medical department and bought skeletons usually found in anatomy classrooms. However, they stopped when they realized that the fake skeletons were cooler (and probably cheaper.)
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.
Beethoven could still hear after going deaf. If you’re wondering how Beethoven still managed to be a great composer even when he was deaf, it was because of this method: He bit onto a metal pole connected to his piano. He then felt or heard his music through the vibration in his bones.
You can always “see” your nose. One of the WTF facts you’ll struggle to unsee: Our eyes always see our nose, but block it out through unconscious selective attention. Think of it as how the rims of glasses don’t bother you.
In a 2007 study in Taiwan, about 59.3% of children studied had been forced to convert from left-handedness. Asia is notorious for collectivist societies, and this shows how some parents might force their children to change handedness to be more “normal”.
Scientists detected a radio signal in space from 5 billion light-years away. 5 billion light-years mean the Earth did not exist at the time the source transmitted it! How strange.
An episode of Peppa Pig was banned from Australian television. Their offense? The episode taught children not to fear spiders. Given how many venomous spiders live in Australia, it’s only natural to ban them for the safety of the kids watching.
LEGO is the world’s largest tyre manufacturer. Pretty ironic considering how small LEGO tyres are, but LEGO is the biggest tyre manufacturer in the world. Lego manufactures over 318 million toy tyres per year, with 870,000 tyres per day.
The heart symbol was inspired by ancient birth control. Do you remember how shocked you were when you discovered in biology class that our hearts weren’t shaped like the cute symmetrical shape we see everywhere? Your next question probably would’ve been, “Well, how did they come up with that butt shape?” A theory suggests that the shape came from the silphium, a type of now-extinct plant that the ancient Greeks and Romans consumed for medicine, food, and birth control. Silphium seeds were shaped like our modern heart icon.
Humans have farted 17 quadrillion times since the beginning of time. If you want a picture of how far the human race has come, you can measure it in farts. The average person farts 14 times a day. The next time you’re questioning your contributions to society hold on to these kinds of WTF facts.
One kiss transfers more than 80 million germs. When Dua Lipa said, “One kiss is all it takes,” she meant more than just falling in love. In one 10-second French kiss, over 80 million microbes are transferred between partners. Sounds pretty icky, but scientists think kissing may boost the immune system through shared bacteria. Similarly, people in long-term relationships were found to have the same bacteria in their mouths. How sweet!
Abercrombie & Fitch paid MTV to make sure the cast of Jersey Shore doesn’t wear their clothes. You’ve heard of sponsorship deals, but how about getting paid not to use a certain brand or product? Reality TV is almost like the epitome of all the evils of humanity. Simply put, it’s a very messy place. So, to protect its brand image, Abercrombie & Fitch offered a hefty sum just to ensure that The Situation and other cast members would switch to other brands. Yikes.
You can estimate the temperature through cricket chirps. If you count how many chirps a cricket makes in 15 seconds and then add 37, you’ll get a rough estimate of the temperature.
People used to answer the phone by saying “Ahoy!” What would you do if you called someone and they answered with, “Ahoy!” I, for one, would throw my hands at how unnecessary that would be. However, when the public started using the phone in the 1800s, inventor Alexander Graham Bell decided that phone calls should be answered with “ahoy” instead of “hello.” However, Thomas Edison wanted users to answer the phone with “hello.” By 1880, “ahoy” was just something a pirate would say.