Unbelievable Fun Facts

[abacucat]

Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.
Doves are just white pigeons.
When Neil Armstrong returned from the moon, he had to go through customs.

Do you know any unbelievable fun facts?

The Queen has custody and legal responsibility for all royal children under 18.
This little known fact became apparent when Charles and Diana divorced and there was no mention of custody in the proceedings, relating to William and Harry.
Any decisions regarding their custody, even holidays etc had to be run by the Queen, due to her having legal custody over them.

Didn’t John Major also have legal custody?

Or was he just their guardian?

Here we are: “Following the death of Princess Diana in 1997, Mr Major - as he was then - was appointed special guardian to Princes Harry and William, responsible for legal and administrative matters.“

I think it's only the reigning monarch - it's apparently from an old royal statute from over 300 years ago.

Or so I read today on my lunchbreak anyway!

There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth.

All black holes will evaporate eventually due to Hawking radiation.

Frogs can't vomit? Some vomit up their whole stomach, scrape it clean with their legs and then suck it back in again.

Just for anyone interested - there's a podcast called no such thing as a fish and they review weird & wonderful facts every week. I've been listening for the past few days and find it so interesting! It's good when you're in the shower/getting ready, makes me feel a bit more like I have my head screwed on haha!

Dainty both of the facts I posted above were heard on NSTAAF

Not of earth shattering importance (unless you are a pygmy hippo, I guess!) but watching a zoo programme they said pygmy hippos have a built in sunscreen. You can see it when they get wet and rub on their backs. Wow.

daintydaisies no such thing as a fish is great, I'm shit at retaining full facts but it makes me feel smarter .

Apples are clones, there used to be apples the size of watermelons.

I discovered the other day that the sky at night down under is completely different. The milky way is visible to the naked eye and it looks like this. Blew my mind.

BalloonSlayer

Black cats are just tabbies with no brown and white bits. If you see a black cat in a certain light you can see the tabby pattern in different shades of black.

Can confirm. My two black cats often sit underneath an old style desk lamp with a spot light bulb in winter- presumably for their vitamin D. Anyway, when they’re sunbathing under this lamp you can see their patterns.

Brad Pitt is older than Nigel Farage

They didnt put extra carotene into orange carrots, it's there naturally. People selectively bred for orange as it's a more appetising colour than the deep purple.

Krakatoa isn't east of Java. The film makers just said it was to make the film title sound more exotic.

Baby guinea pigs are born with all their fur and teeth, their eyes open, and can run around within minutes of the birth. They start eating solids at around two days old.

Some newborn guinea pigs:

Earlier in the thread someone said Edinburgh is west of Bristol. Are you sure? Just looked at a map (albeit on a google pic) and it really doesn't look like it is.

Norwich is north of Birmingham.

Looking at this Bristol looks like it is just west of Edinburgh.

This was map I looked at and it doesn't, but I may be wrong

Agree it does on your map @SimonBridges

It's the maps' projection that makes it look like that. Bristol is 2°35′W, Edinburgh is 3°11′20″W.

Looking at maps isn't helpful because they tend to "correct" the tilt Britain is on. Looking at coordinates instead. Edinburgh is 3.2W, Bristol is 2.6W. (Don't know how to make the degree symbol, sorry.)

Depends which map projection is in use. The only true way to compare two locations is to know their actual coordinates in latitude and longitude.