Do You Know we have plenty of new facts just for you?Share your newfound knowledge with your friends and family. You can find more of our Do You Know Series, here.
Apollo-nauts’ Moon-away-from-Moon!
Iceland has Europe’s largest banana plantation.
Apollo astronauts trained in Iceland because it was felt that the terrain would most resemble the surface of the moon.
A full day on the moon, from one sunrise to the next, lasts about 29.5 Earth days on average.
The beautiful symmetry of a total solar eclipse happens because – by pure chance – the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but is also 400 times farther from Earth, making the two bodies appear the exact same size in the sky.
The Amazon rainforest has been in existence for at least 55 million years.
The Sun-Centric Thinker
It takes the Solar System about 240 million years to complete one orbit of the Galaxy.
Classical Greek culture, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and provided the foundation of modern Western culture.
The name “Amazon” comes from the “Amazons” of Greek mythology, a race of woman warriors. In many tribes of the area, women fought alongside the men.
The theory that the Sun is the centre around which the planets orbit was first proposed by the ancient Greek Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd century BC.
Human inhabitants first settled in the Amazon rainforest at least 11,200 years ago.
Beijing’s Air
For every one million tonnes of oil shipped, about one tonne is spilled.
Almost a third of San Francisco’s air pollution comes from China.
Breathing the air of Beijing has the same health risks as smoking 21 cigarettes a day.
Nearly 700 million Chinese people drink contaminated water.
Breathing the air in Mumbai, India, for just one day is equivalent to smoking 100 cigarettes.
How ‘Askew’ Gives You a Tilted View
A “butt” was a Medieval unit of measure for wine.
If you have a pizza with radius Z and thickness A, its volume is = Pi*Z*Z*A
In Spanish, the word “esposas” means both “wives” and “handcuffs.”
If you search for “askew” in Google, the content will tilt slightly to the right.
A Cleveland Browns fan requested six Cleveland Browns pallbearers at his funeral so “the Browns could let him down one last time”.
Grape Expectations
In Greek mythology, it was believed that redheads turn into vampires when they die.
Construction workers in Brazil cemented a car on a pavement after its driver refused to move it.
Shakira was rejected from the school choir because the teacher thought she sounded like a goat.
Most people can’t distinguish expensive wines from inexpensive ones, a study proved.
“Odd” and “Even” are popular names for males in Norway.
Moo-ving to the Beat
A man named Moondyne Joe escaped prison so many times, that police built a special cell for him, from which he escaped as well.
The Hundred Years’ War lasted for 116 years.
Over 80,000 people graduated from McDonald’s Hamburger University with a bachelor’s degree in hamburgerology.
Cows moo in accents specific to their region, just like humans.
Surgeons who grew up playing video games make 37% fewer mistakes.
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading “Do You Know? Go to Iceland for Your Bananas… the Country, of Course”.
