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Here we have 32 strange and other interesting oddities for you!
The Berlin Wall
- Citizens only tore down the Berlin Wall after an East German spokesman spoke at a press conference and wrongly mentioned immediate border crossing privileges for every citizen.
- The name “Australia” comes from the Latin “Terra Australis” or “Southern land”.
- Australia has over 10,000 beaches. You could visit a new beach every day for over 27 years.
- A newly-discovered species of rust-eating bacteria will have consumed the wreck of the Titanic within 20 years.
- In Ancient Egypt, killing a cat, even accidentally, incurred the death penalty.
Square Watermelons?!
- Google Street View used a camel called “Raffia” to capture “street view” images of the desert around Abu Dhabi’s Liwa Oasis.
- Japanese farmers grow square watermelons for easier stacking and storage.
- There is a “Fruit Salad” Tree that sprouts three to seven different fruits in the same tree.
- Carat weight can be 10, 12, 14, 18, 22 or 24. The higher the number, the greater the purity.
- Excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to some 200,000 years ago. Modern humans arrived about 40,000 years ago.
The Simpsons… More Like The Groening’s
- During his time as a congressman and later as US President, John F Kennedy donated all of his salary to charity.
- Leonardo Da Vinci first conceived of contact lenses in 1508.
- All characters on The Simpsons are based on, and named after, the creator Matt Groening’s family.
- There are about three million first dates every day worldwide.
- McDonald’s restaurants feed 68 million people every day, more than the population of the UK.
The Sacred Family Church
- Sign language is one of three official languages of New Zealand.
- Astronauts on the International Space Station witness around 15 sunrises and 15 sunsets every day.
- In the UK, accents change noticeably about every 25 miles.
- The Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona has been under construction since 1882, but the main structure won’t be complete until 2026.
- The world’s biggest family lives in India: a man with 39 wives and 94 children!
Let’s Be Honest… We Could All Do With More Than 25 Years of Sleep
- A dentist invented candy floss.
- In 2011, Pakistani guards placed a monkey under arrest for crossing the border from India.
- A volcano in Indonesia spews blue flame.
- Sea otters hold hands when they sleep so they don’t drift away from each other.
- Humans spend a third of their life sleeping. That’s about 25 years.
Spend, Spend, Spend on Friends
- If every light in the world used energy efficient bulbs, it would save nearly £90,704 million annually.
- The colder the water, the heavier it gets.
- The human body contains enough fat to make seven bars of soap.
- Spending money on others yields more happiness than spending it on yourself, a study concluded.
- You’re born with just one pint of blood, but by the time you’re an adult you have 8 to 10.
- Cows moo with regional accents.
- Dorset, Minnesota elects a new mayor every two years by drawing names out of a hat. In 2015, they elected a three-year-old boy.
Thank you for reading ‘Families With 134 Members and Other Interesting Oddities!’. For more in our Do you Know series, click here.