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?

Carrots are ripe courgettes

Yeah, they're really not.

@SoupforBrains. Ooh! Thanks for that. Nice facts.

One true fact about carrots is that they originally came in purple, white and yellow. Fancy that! Then more beta carotene was added to one breed and that turned became orange.

“That turned them orange”.

Lady they still do- Lidl sell boxes of little carrots in all those colours and call them ‘unicorn carrots’!

@LadyWarleggan yes that's true about carrots.

I believe the were bred to be orange in honour of the House of Orange, i.e. William of Orange and his clan.

while we're on carrots I think most people know by now that carrots have no impact of your eyesight no matter how many you eat. The idea that carrots helped you see in the dark was propaganda disseminated by the British and Allies during the war to try to 'cover up' the invention of radar in order to explain how the brits were suddenly capable of spotting enemy planes so easily and accurately at night.

The only problem with that explanation is that the Germans were already familiar with the principles of radar and were not far behind in developing their own.

it's not a 'problem' Glad that IS what the reasoning behind the propaganda campaign was. It doesn't mean that the germans did or didn't know things, it was just designed to distract them from/explain away the sudden improvement in the Brit's accuracy and delay and attempts at the theft of the British tech to maintain the advantage for as long as possible. Everybody knew both sides were trying to develop that area of tech.

Flamingos are pink because of all the shrimp they eat!

I think it's Patagonia where they speak Welsh

Yes the Argentinian part of patagônia.

There's also the Chilean English and parts of Brazil where they speak German. Also the biggest Japanese population or people of Japanese decent living outside Japan is in Brazil.

Yes that’s amazing about Brazil. I am told by a Brazilian that about 60% of São Paulo residents are either Japanese or Italian.

The colour 'orange' was named after the fruit not the other way round. We didn't have a word for the colour until we started getting oranges. Before that we used to use 'red' hence robin red breast, red fox etc, which are actually orange.

@mrsnolasco actually that's not true.

The colour of Flamingos DOES come from their diet but it's nothing to do with shrimp. it's because of a blue-green algae that they eat.

It takes 130l water to produce 1kg potatoes

Loving this facts thread, where half the facts are wrong .

Oops @soupforbrains I stand corrected.

Yes and even odder about the word orange is that it comes from a sanskrit word Naranja which was the word for the fruit. But that wasn't derived from the colour but actually means fragrant. Because many of the natural and sweet oranges from Asia are green when they're ripe. In the USA they use Citrus Red #2 to dye the green oranges, orange. I think it's banned in Europe now, but they used to use it. Oranges do turn orange on the tree but they are often not as sweet as the green ones.

@Lino - you are 100% took me a while to get used to the ever so orangey oranges of the UK. the green/yellowish ones are delicious!

Baby hedgehogs are called heeglypigs.

Well... now I feel like I've been hard done by missing out on these amazing green oranges. hmph

I thought baby hedgehogs were called hoglets

"Horses" can sleep both lying down and standing up.

A 19th century "horse" named 'Old Billy' is said to have lived 62 years.

"Horses" have bigger eyes than any other mammal that lives on land.

Ponies are small "horses", and not regular sized ones seen far away.

Carrots are roots that grow under ground. Courgette grow over ground. Morrows are courgettes that have just been left to grow a bit longer.

Carrots and courgettes are definitely not related.

I expect there are regional variations in the names of baby hedgehogs.

The Earth is actually flat.