30 Random Facts That Never Crossed My Mind, But Now I Can't Get Them Out Of My Head
1.There's a company that allows you to memorialize the body of a loved one in the form of a reef.
2.Harry Styles has a condition called polythelia, which caused him to grow four nipples.
3.The phrase "sweating like a pig" is technically impossible, because pigs can't physically sweat.
4.A blue whale's tongue weighs more than most elephants.
5.All of Tom Cruise's ex-wives were 33 when they divorced the actor.
There are even some conspiracy theories swirling around about it.
6.Arsenic wafers were once eaten to improve skin and "facial disfigurements" like freckles and blackheads — well, until people realized it was slowly killing them.
7.Sorry Disney, but the first feature-length animated film came out 20 years before Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was a 1917 Argentinian silent film called El Apóstol.
8.German chocolate cake was actually invented in Texas by a person named Mrs. George Clay.
According to Food Tribe, the use of the word German was coined because an American man named Sam German created a chocolate bar for Baker's Chocolate Company, which was used in the initial recipe.
9.Nicolas Cage is known as an outlandish spender in Hollywood. Some of his past purchases include a $150,000 pet octopus, haunted houses, and shrunken pygmy heads.
10.Raw pistachios have been known to spontaneously combust when stored in large quantities.
11.Although illegal and dangerous, it's possible to walk from Russia to Alaska via the Bering Strait when it freezes in the winter.
12.Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
13.Owls don't have eyeballs. Instead they have elongated tubes held by sclerotic rings. Owls can't move their eyes around, which is why they have to move their entire head to look in different areas.
14.In Japan, editors added a fifth finger to Bob the Builder's hands, so viewers wouldn't think he was associated with a feared Japanese mafia called Yakuza.
According to BBC, members of Yakuza "cut off their little fingers as a sign they can be trusted and have strength of character."
15.Jennifer Lawrence learned how to skin a squirrel for her role in Winter's Bone.
16.The first college football game was played on Nov. 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton (formally known as the College of New Jersey). Rutgers won.
17.Flamingos can only eat when their heads are upside down, due mainly to the structure of their beaks.
18.Before deciding on the name Google, the popular search engine was called BackRub.
"They called it this because the program analyzed the web’s 'back links' to understand how important a website was, and what other sites it related to," according to Business Insider.
19.Pound cake got its name because the original recipe for the dessert required one pound of each ingredient.
20.Before her rise to fame, Madonna worked at Dunkin' Donuts. She was later fired for squirting jelly on a customer.
21.Walt Disney actually hated the character Goofy, calling him a "stupid cartoon."
22.Thailand holds an annual Monkey Buffet Festival where residents of Lopburi honor the 3,000 monkeys that live near the Phra Prang Sam Yot temple by providing 4.5 tons of fruit, vegetables, and treats for them to eat.
23.Shredded cheese packages typically contains cellulose (also known as wood pulp or sawdust) to prevent them from clumping.
24.Shakira's school teacher told her she was bad at singing and banned her from choir. Her classmates stated she sounded like a goat.
25.Dr. Seuss created Green Eggs and Ham because his publisher bet him he couldn't write a book shorter than The Cat in the Hat.
He obviously won that bet, because The Cat in the Hat had 236 different words, while Green Eggs and Ham used just 50 words, according to Biography.com.
26.The Yoruba people of Nigeria are known for giving birth to more twins than anywhere else in the world — 50 per 1,000 births.
According to Reuters, twins are also believed to be magical in Yoruba culture.
27.Paul Newman taught Jake Gyllenhaal how to drive.
28.Ears of corn typically have an even number of rows — most have an average of 16.
29.Jack Nicholson grew up believing his mom, June, was his sister, and that his grandmother, Ethel May, was his mother.
June was 18 years old when she gave birth to Jack. In order to avoid gossip of having a baby out of wedlock, Ethel May decided to raise Jack as her son, and pretended June was his much older sister.
Jack didn't learn the truth until after both June and Ethel May died, according to InStyle.
30.And finally, long before New York received its iconic nickname "The Big Apple," it was known as New Orange.
When the Dutch captured New York from the English in 1673, they renamed the state New Orange to honor William III of Orange. But that didn't last long, because the following year, the English regained control and renamed it New York, according to History.com.
