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?

According to my Chambers dictionary published in 1978, a billion in the UK and France etc is a million x million, but in the USA (and often now in Britain) it is a thousand x million.

That's quite a difference.

So that clears that one up then. Not.

Horses can't vomit.

If, when about to sneeze, you put your tongue to the roof of your mouth, it is then impossible to actually sneeze.

Birds don't pee
A single ant can live for 29 years
Humans, chimpanzees and rats are the only species that can laugh

You would wonder what rats have to laugh about.

Out of all the different frogs in the world there is only one kind that makes the stereotypical 'ribbit ribbit' sound.

In many languages the word for Dove and the word for Pigeon are the same. They don't separate them like we do in English.

Brazil borders France

Giraffes have no vocal cords, frogs can't vomit and kangaroos can't fart.

It's illegal to enter the houses of parliament in a full suit of armour.

It takes nearly 1800 gallons of water to produce 1lb of beef.

This includes mainly the grains and grasses in feed, plus water for drinking and processing.

popocatepetals In 1975 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the Treasury would start to use the short form (1 billion = 1 thousand million). In the digital age you can imagine how confusing the US and other English-speaking countries using different systems would be. I think that the countries that had used the short form should have switched to the s

Posted too soon! I think that the countries that used the short form should have switched to the long form, which almost every other country uses, and is also much more logical.

"KathrynOfArrogance

Wales and whales are similar in size"
What??

And surely Brazil fies not border France unless you food your map. It may border a French overseas territory.

Rats laugh if you tickle them.
Also, they can't vomit.

One thousand times one million used to have its own name — it was called one milliard.

The first ninjas were stage crew.
They wore black so the audience knew to disregard their presence in the play, though they could move objects and actors "invisibly".
Only much later did assassins take their name and dark costume for their own ends.
The word "assassin" comes from "Hashish", as apparently getting high adds an extra something to a kill.
I also know some facts that aren't about murder etymology...

A horse can jump higher than a house

Placemarking because I flipping love all these!!!

That’s a pretty small house seeing as the record horse jump was 8ft 1in

A house can't jump. Groan

Was about to come on and say that correct original term for US billion is milliard but someone beat me to it.

However, I believe that is the reason finance industry talk about 'yards' of Japanese Yen

Place marking too as this is fun.

Can anyone explain the wales/whales one?

Ditto!

Wales and whales are similar in size

What? Am I missing something? Wales is 8000 sq miles, The largest blue whale is 98ft long. The largest living organism is a patch of fungus at four square miles.

The number 142857 is a cyclic number. If you multiply it by 2, or 3, or 4, or 5, or 6, the digits reappear in the same sequence, but starting in a different place. Also multiplying it by 7 gives an interesting result, as does working out 142 + 857.

70 belongs to a set of very rare "weird" numbers. All known ones are even, and nobody knows if any odd weird numbers exist.

Oh, what is a weird number? With a weird number such as 70, its factors 1, 2, 5, 7, 10, 14, 35 (excluding 70 itself) add to more than 70; but no set of them adds to 70.

Really feeling like this thread is full of more fake facts and holes than it is true stuff!