Posted by Have you ever sat around a dinner table with friends or family for a perfectly acceptable lunch or dinner, and then listened to — helpless — the conversation slowly turning to topics of “culture” or “art” or “world”?
Want to dominate your weekly trivia contest? Just want to expand your knowledge with all kinds of random facts? We’ve got you covered! This article contains 113 interesting facts on topics from outer space to history to pop culture and more. By reading these facts, you’ll learn what camels actually store in their humps, why sunsets on Mars are blue, the ancient Romans’ crazy use of human urine, and more. We group these facts into eight categories. Read all of them, or just focus on a specific area where you want to learn more weird facts!
Don’t panic – instead arm yourself with some incredible facts about the world that will make you look very cultured. A fact that stunned everyone.
Do you want to accomplish this delicate table trick?
First, you need to establish a “presence”. Let me explain what I mean.
You have to look cultured like you really know what you’re talking about. Then you can recite any of the 50 facts below to surprise your company.
Master the body language of seasoned academics with this simple 4-step trick:
pursed lips (pouting)
Raised eyebrows (creates an aura of conspiracy)
Hold up your Coca-Cola and swirl around the glass for a while (show your sophistication)
Finally, lean back slightly in the chair (indicating that you are comfortable)
Now you are ready to accept the truth.
Category 1: Nature
The deepest place on Earth is the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. It is 36,201 feet (11,034 meters) deep. Almost seven miles!
The longest river in the world is the Nile at 6,853 kilometers. Its water resources are also shared by 11 different countries.
Lobsters aren’t “biologically immortal,” but they do produce an enzyme that repairs their cells and helps their DNA replicate indefinitely. This is where the myth comes from.
The deepest freshwater lake in the world is Lake Baikal in Siberia. It descends to an astounding depth of 5,315 feet (1,620 meters). Wow!
Pineapples take two years to grow.
Acacia trees in Africa communicate with each other. They release gases to alert other trees to produce toxin tannins, which protect them from hungry animals.
Armadillos are bulletproof. (This is not an invitation to test the facts.)
Niagara Falls never freezes.
Each limestone/granite block that makes up the Great Pyramid of Giza weighs 2.5 tons. 2.3 million of them. Yes, you’re not mistaken.
It takes about 18 months to walk all the way along the Great Wall. (It’s over 5,000 miles long).
Category 2: History
The flag with the most colors is Belize (1981), which has 12 sides.
On April 3, 1973, the first hand-held mobile phone was made in New York City.
Apparently, Buzz Aldrin (the second man to walk on the moon, 1969) actually urinated while walking on the lunar surface.
In ancient Egypt, the word “cat” was actually pronounced “meow” or “meow.”
The American Revolution (1765-1783) preceded the French Revolution (1789-1799).
The Anglo-Zanzibar War (1896) was the shortest war ever – lasting only 38 minutes!
Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1440 that revolutionized the sharing of information.
The largest continuous land empire in history was the Mongol Empire (13th and 14th centuries).
Egypt is listed as the oldest country in the world, dating back to 3100 BC.
Tim Berners-Lee created the first web browser (World Wide Web) in 1990.
Category 3: Arts and Culture
In 2019, scientists discovered the world’s oldest known artwork on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. It was created 44,000 years ago.
The name “Sandwich” comes from an 18th century nobleman named the 4th Earl of Sandwich.
9310 tweets per second.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi is the most expensive painting in the world at $450.3 million.
According to 2018 data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization, the most visited country in the world is France, with 90 million tourists. Who is in second place? Spain.
92% of the world’s currencies are digital currencies.
“Avengers: Endgame” is the highest-grossing movie of all time, earning over $2.7B!
The richest company in the world in 2020 is Saudi Aramco.
The statue of unity in the Indian state of Gujarat is the tallest in the world at 579 feet (182 meters). Note: By comparison, the Statue of Liberty is 93m!
Brazil has the most biodiversity of any country on Earth, with over 50,000 species of plants and trees.
Category 4: People and States
Tears can tell you why someone is crying, scientists say. If the first drop comes from the right eye, it is a tear of joy. Otherwise, it is because of pain.
In the UK in 2019, electricity generated from renewables surpassed fossil fuels for the first time. Also, did you know that Norway gets 0% of its electricity from coal? 1 kW of renewable energy capacity per person installed in Germany over the past decade?
- a) (Climate change is the biggest global issue of our time, but there is something to be optimistic about!)
The longest reigning monarch was Louis XIV of France. He ruled for 72 years and 110 days. exhausted.
Marie Curie was the first person ever to receive two Nobel Prizes – one in Physics in 1903 and another in Chemistry in 1911, for her work on radioactivity.
King Henry VIII of England had a servant called the “Stool Groom” who wiped him clean after he used the toilet. Total.
0.5% of the male population are descendants of Genghis Khan. (A 2003 study by scientists suggested that about 16 million men shared a Y chromosome with the famous emperor.)
Iceland, the Faroe Islands and the Isle of Man all claim to have the oldest parliaments in history, all founded in the 9th and 10th centuries.
Russia is the country with the largest forest area in the world, with 815 million hectares of land.
China is the most populous country in the world, with about 1.4 billion people living there.
The youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize is Malala Yousafzai (17 years old in 2014) for her role as a children’s rights activist and defender of girls’ right to education.
Category 5: “Impossible! Really?”
Sunsets exist because Earth’s atmosphere acts as a prism for light. In scientific terms it is called “scattering”.
- a) Molecules and particles in the atmosphere (more at sunset) scatter short wavelengths of violet and blue light away from your eyes, so we can see other colors on the spectrum, such as yellow and orange.
The most remote place in the world is Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic. They are 2,434 kilometers from the nearest inhabited place, St. Helena. Imagine your mom takes you out for groceries, but the local supermarket is closed? It was a long journey.
When you do a Google query, it takes 1000 computers to find the answer in 0.2 seconds.
There are nearly 5 billion Internet users worldwide.
As of 2019, the median age of the world’s population was around 30 years old.
We actually produce enough food to feed everyone on the planet; the problem is distribution.
In 2010, Google tried to find out how many books there were in the world. They estimate there are about 130,000,000 of them. (Let’s call it half-fact, though, shall we?)
The tiger’s roar could be heard from two miles away.
Earth is 147.2 million kilometers from the sun and is about 4.5 billion years old. This is some serious legacy.
Owls have no eyeballs.