- Cleopatra was born closer to the time of the Moon Landing than when the Egyptian pyramids were built.
- Anne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr. were born in the same year, 1929.
- In the 18th and 19th centuries, the word 'macaroni' meant 'fashionable' or a 'fashionable young English man'.
- 'stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni' basically means that the hat was now fashionable because it had a feather in it.
- The body of Vladimir Lenin, who died in 1924, is in a preserved state and on display in Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow.
- When the Russian peoples were asked whether Lenin's body should be buried, the majority were not in favor. [ source ]
- Anne Frank was possibly bisexual.
- Unconsciously, I had these feelings even before I came here. Once when I was spending the night at Jacque's, I could no longer restrain my curiosity about her body, which she'd always hidden from me and which I'd never seen. I asked her whether, as proof of our friendiship, we could touch each other's breasts. Jacque refused.
- I also had a terrible desire to kiss her, which I did. Every time I see a female nude, such as the Venus in my art history book, I go into ecstasy. Sometimes I find them so exquisite I have to struggle to hold back my tears. If only I had a girlfriend!
- The Vault Boy's iconic thumbs-up pose in the Fallout games is much more than that, it is an actual "rule of thumb". Supposedly if you see a mushroom cloud, extend your arm and stick out your thumb over the cloud: If the cloud extends past your thumb, you may be in the radiation zone and should evacuate immediately. [ source ]
- Especially compelling as the games take place after a massive nuclear war.
- The largest nuclear weapon ever detonated was the Tsar Bomba, a 50-58 megaton hydrogen bomb, detonated in 1961 in Russia.
- It was 1,400 times the combined power of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and 10 times the combined power of all the conventional explosives used in World War II.
- It was the largest artificial explosion in human history, and the most powerful device ever made by man.
- video of the detonation
- On a size scale, a speck of dust is between a subatomic particle and the Earth.
- The largest known galaxy is IC 1101. It has a diameter of six million light years, and contains approximately 100 trillion stars.
- It is more than 50 times the size of the Milky Way, which contains only 100-400 billion stars and has an ~100,000 light year diameter.
- If you have a pizza with a radius of "z" and a thickness of "a", it's volume will be pi(z*z)a.
- Every game of Windows FreeCell is winnable, except for game #11982.
- The biomass of all ants on Earth is greater than that of the biomass of all humans.
- The length of your forearm from elbow to wrist is the same length of your foot from heel to toe.
- There are more atoms in your body than there are stars in the universe. [source]
- There are more grains of sand on Earth than there are stars in the Milky Way. [source]
- In the early 20th century, the Antikythera mechanism was found in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece. The mechanisms construction has been dated at 1st century BCE, though the mechanism is as complex as a 14th century AD clock. It is believed the purpose of the mechanism was to predict eclipses or planetary positions.
- The famous Johnny Cash song "Boy Named Sue" was originally a poem by Shel Silverstein.
- The first Harry Potter novel was published in 1998, the same year that the final Battle of Hogwarts takes place. "I open at the close."
- The reason Lord Voldemort could not feel love is because he was conceived under the effects of a love potion.
- Humans text the equivalent of The Complete Works of Shakespeare every day... 18,000 times over.
- The first words spoken on a telephone were from Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant: "Mr. Watson, come here. I need you."
- Ernest Hemingway once wrote a six word story. For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.
- The largest known star is NML Cygni, which has a radius 1,650 times that of our Sun.
- Nintendo was founded on September 23, 1889. It originally produced handmade hanafuda cards, a type of playing card.
- Honey has antibacterial properties.
- Though the Chicago Fire is is well-known as one of the largest fires to occur in the United States, it was not the deadliest. That title belongs to the Peshtigo Fire, which occurred in Peshtigo, Wisconsin at the same time as the Chicago Fire.
- Approximately 1,200-2,500 people were killed in the Peshtigo Fire, whereas only 300-or-so perished in the Chicago Fire.
- Also, approximately 1.2 million acres were destroyed in the Peshtigo Fire, while only 2,000 acres were destroyed in the Chicago Fire.
- Because the Peshtigo Fire happened in a fairly remote area (compared to Chicago), it has been largely forgotten by outsiders.
- Both fires, which occurred at the same time, are believed to have originated from the same source. However, to this date, there remains uncertainty as to what caused the fires.
- Diamonds are not that rare.
- Alexandrite, tanzanite, ruby, and emerald (to name a few) are all more rare than diamonds.
- The company De Beers holds approximately 75% of all gem-quality diamonds and sells them in small quantities for a large price. Which is why a 1ct. diamond can cost upwards of $2.5k while it is, in fact, not worth nearly that much rarity-wise.
- The oldest living tree is the Methuselah tree, a bristlecone pine from California. It is 4,844 years old.
- The Prometheus tree (also a bristlecone pine) was the same age when it was cut down in 1964.
- The oldest living tree is now known as an unnamed tree, a bristlecone pine, also from California, that is 5062 years old. The fact about the Prometheus tree is still true, however.
- Old Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr came up with an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary for wireless communication; i.e. she's the reason you're reading this on your wireless device right now.
- The iconic somersault scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was Gene Wilder's idea, to show that from that moment on, you'd never know if Wonka was lying or telling the truth.
- Though he had been making films for over half a century, Charlie Chaplin did not receive an Academy Award until 1972.
- He received a 12 minute standing ovation, the longest in Academy history.
- Polish is the only word in the English language that changes meaning and pronunciation with capitalization.
mar 1 2013 ∞
dec 13 2017 +