Weird Facts

Weird Facts & More 16

weird16Weird Facts 16 Strange But True

Dedicated to keeping you informed about all the interesting, strange and cool facts from around the world.

 

  1. No one knows who invented the fire hydrant, because its patent was burned in a fire. Source
  2. A buttload is actually a measurement of volume. One buttload is equal to 126 gallons. Source
  3. Jacques Cousteau invented scuba gear while in the French resistance during World War II.
  4. If vampire bats goes 2 days without drinking blood they can die, however, well fed female bats are generous and will puke up blood and share it with other bats which is nice of them. Source
  5. Jet lag was once called boat lag, back before jets existed.

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  6. John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in a theatre and was found in a warehouse. Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was found in a theatre.
  7. An electric bell has been running off the same battery for 170 years and no one knows what the battery is made of. Source
  8. Goodwill is a multibillion-dollar company, but pays some of it’s disabled workers as little as 22 cents an hour due to a legal loophole. Source
  9. Lady Astor once told Winston Churchill 'if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee'. His reply ' if you were my wife, I would drink it!'
  10. A mathematician worked out a formula for perfect parallel parking. Source
  11. The A-10 Warthog was designed to fly with one engine, one tail, one elevator, and half of one wing missing. Source
  12. Look at the number four on a clock face that uses Roman numerals. If the clock is made correctly then the Roman numeral four is wrong. The standard and correct way to write the Roman numeral four is "IV," but the traditional way to show it on a clock face is "IIII." Legend has it that a clock was made for Louis XIV, king of France. When he saw the clock he mis- informedly corrected the clock maker who re-did the clock face to show a "IIII" instead of an "IV" thus not risking offending the king. Other clock makers followed suit so as not to embarrass the king.  Now it is the traditional way to make clocks. Source
  13. Mozart was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave. Source
  14. NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building is so huge it needs 10,000 tons of AC equipment to prevent rain clouds from forming inside on humid days. Source
  15. "The bikini got it’s name from the oooh and awe resulting from a nuclear test at Bikini Atoll." Read More
  16. Eighty nine per cent of the weight of water is made up from oxygen.
  17. The world’s largest parrot is also flightless and nocturnal. There are only 126 left in the world, and they spend their days hiding from giant eagles that went extinct hundreds of years ago. Source
  18. 40% of Americans think that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time. Source
  19. No animal, once frozen solid (i.e., water solidifies and turns to ice) survives when thawed, because the ice crystals formed inside cells would break open the cell membranes. However there are certain frogs that can survive the experience of being frozen. These frogs make special proteins, which prevent the formation of ice (or at least keep the crystals from becoming very large), so that they actually never freeze even though their body temperature is below zero Celsius. The water in them remains liquid: a phenomenon known as 'supercooling.' If you disturb one of these frogs (just touching them even), the water in them quickly freezes solid and they die.

  20. Between 1932 and 1972 the US government tricked black citizens into believing they were receiving free healthcare so they could study the natural progression of untreated syphilis. Source

  21. Violet Jessop, who survived the sinking of the Titanic, also survived the sinking of it’s sister ship, the Britanic, and a collision on it’s third sister ship, the Olympic. Source
  22. Oak trees do not have acorns until they are fifty years old or older.
  23. An Oregon survey found that panhandlers outside of WalMart were making more than the employees working inside. Source
  24. Heinrich Schliemann while searching for the archaeological remains of Troy, blew up 9 levels of archaeological remains with dynamite, including the level that is believed to be the historical Troy. Source
  25. In 1920′s the Hollywood-sign was lit by thousands of light bulbs and the guy who changed the burnt ones, lived in a little cabin near the sign. Source

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