Weird and Wonderful Facts

written by Adam Howarth, Editor 18/09/2020

Here’s our latest collection of weird and wonderful facts to win friends and also influence people:

Drivers in New York City spend an average of 107 hours per year searching for parking at the cost of $2,243 (£1,710) per driver in wasted time, fuel and also emissions.
Female residents in The Vatican City are still unable to vote.
Only 11% of Japanese people are willing to fight for their country, the lowest in the world. In Morocco and Fiji, it’s 94%.
The mathematics that makes Wi-Fi possible was by a team of physicists looking for tiny black holes.
The CEO of low-budget airline Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, wanted to charge passengers £1 to use the onboard toilets. The policy violated EU regulations.

The record number of people dressed like Einstein in one place is 404.
The American flag is reversed on military uniforms so that when the soldier marches forward, the flag also faces forward, not in retreat.
Wallace Souza, a Brazilian TV personality that hosted a true-crime show, arranged murders himself to get the inside scoop and boost ratings.
President Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving forward a week so that the Christmas shopping season could start earlier.
What is reputed to be Mozart’s skull is at the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg. His skeleton is missing.

If you find a meteorite in South Africa, it should be given to the nearest authorities as they are protected under the National Heritage Law.
In the states of Oregon and New Jersey, it is illegal to fill up your own car with fuel.
Rolex replaced, for free, all watches seized by the Germans from shot-down Allied pilots in WW2.
The International Space Station will be hit by 100,000 meteoroids.
Aristotle thought plants had souls.

In Wisconsin, the word people most often google ‘how to spell’ is ‘Wisconsin’.
Scientists can deduce; hair, skin-care products, food and medications taken from chemicals found on the surface of their mobile phones.
Illegal baby names in New Zealand include Lucifer, Christ and Messiah.
Post-it notes should be peeled horizontally, not upwards because this causes the paper to curl.
The climbing gourami is a fish that can climb out of the water, breathe oxygen, and even walk for short distances.

Sulfhemoglobinemia is a condition where a person develops green blood.
John F Kennedy’s brain was kept in the National Archive after his autopsy, it went missing and is still lost.
Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, under fire for sexual harassment allegations, has been thanked about 34 times in Oscar speeches.
The longest scarf knitted whilst running a marathon is 12ft 1.75in by David Babcock during the Kansas City Marathon.
Cheetahs love the smell of Calvin Klein fragrances.

Reggae star Bob Marley has had a blood-feeding fish parasite named after him. The “Gnathia Marleyi” lives in Caribbean coral reefs.
The commonest place to hide household valuables is in the sock drawer and this is the first place that burglars check.
The first oranges ever imported to the West were green in colour. They were tangerine-pomelo hybrids from SE Asia and they stay green throughout their lifetime.

Finally, thank you for reading ‘Here’s our latest collection of weird and wonderful facts’. For more in our do you know series, click here.