The Best Interesting Random Facts
From the 16th century Portugal was a world naval power, and the man-of-war was a large war ship armed with cannons and propelled mainly by sails and not by oars. The man-of-war was developed in England in the early 1600s from the carrack ship design, which later evolved into the galleon. The man-of-war was designed […]
Lobsters are a little different from humans and mammals, being that they’re crustaceans n all. Many lobsters live up to 50 years and even more in some cases. Some scientists have even claimed that they could effectively live indefinitely. They start out looking like tiny bugs, smaller than crickets, and they grow and molt all […]
The skua is a seabird that nests on the ground in temperate and Arctic regions and are long-distance migrants, and have even been sighted at the South Pole. The name skua comes from the Faroese word “skúgvur”, and refers to the species Stercorarius skua which is from the island of Skúvoy in central Faroe Islands, […]
Lion cubs belong to the pride, and they’re well taken care of and protected. Cubs can go to any nursing lioness within the pride and be assured of milk. The bad news is that adult males outside the pride are not so kind. When a new male or coalition takes over a pride, their first […]
Apples are fruits that grow on small, deciduous trees. The cultivated apple species, also known as Malus pumila or the ‘sweet’ apple, originated in the Tien Shan mountain range in Asia. The fruit can still be found in the region and has been a favorite snack for brown bears for thousands of years. The apple […]
There are four basic “ingredients” that go into the “recipe” for making soil: tiny pieces of rock, decayed plants and animals, water, and air. When small pieces of rock break off larger ones, they form the basis of all soil. This breaking can occur in several ways: through the action of glaciers pushing rocks along […]
Skunk spray or musk is not dangerous or poisonous to humans or animals such as dogs. However, to animals who depend on their sense of smell to hunt food, find and attract mates, or avoid predators, being sprayed makes them unable to pick up scents of any kind, leaving them vulnerable. There are 10 species […]
In the English language, there are only two words that end in “GRY”: angry and hungry. There are only three words that end in “CEED”: exceed, proceed, and succeed, while liquefy, putrefy, rarefy, and stupefy are the only four words ending in “EFY.” As for orange, purple, and silver, poets and songwriters should probably stay […]
Dogs are not color-blind like previously assumed, they can see colors, just not all colors. Color comes in red, blue, and green spectrums. Canines have a type of color-blindness called deuteranopia, meaning they lack the ability to discern the green spectrum. While dogs do recognize some red, it’s really the blue spectrum they’re best at […]
Llamas are not too picky about their food and will eat hay, grass, and grain. Domesticated Llamas are usually fed a mixture of bromgrass hay, alfalfa hay and corn silage, and a llama owner has a wide variety of commercial and farm based food products to choose from. Young llamas, which are still growing, require […]
Western Union developed the sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” as a test for their telex operators, and it’s thirty-five letters long. However it isn’t the shortest English sentence ever created using all the letters of the alphabet. That honor of shortest English sentence created using all the letters of the […]
Steamboat geyser, which can hurl its super hot water 300 feet in the air, is one of two geysers that seem to be tied for this title of most powerful geyser on earth. Steamboat geyser is located in Yellowstone National Park. The only trouble with Steamboat is that, unlike Old Faithful, which erupts on an […]
The Squid is a much faster swimmer than an Octopus. Octopi are smooth swimmers, gliding along on their tentacles like an eight-legged Fred Astaire, but they’re no match for the squid. Squid shoot water backward with a siphon in its mantle cavity via jet propulsion, pushing them forward in great bursts of speed. Both of […]
Some sheep farmers keep female milking goats on hand to “nanny” lambs when sheep mothers either die or reject their babies. But the name nanny goat didn’t come from this common practice. In English, Nanny is a derivative of the common name Anne. Like jack and jenny mules, there are billy, short for William, and […]
The time will come to each of us to chuck one’s weight around; to exhibit a period of ostentation, influence, or power. It may be long in the coming, but, according to the old proverb “every dog has his day”, everyone will at some time, at least once, be able to emulate the dog that, […]
In 1946, a crowd gathered in Lewiston, Maine, to watch a boxing match between Ralph Walton and Al Couture. When the bell rang to begin the first round, Couture dashed across the ring and swung at Walton before Walton had left his corner. The blow knocked Walton down, and he was counted out. The entire […]
It doesn’t seem to make sense for vulnerable colorful butterflies to be so brightly colored. They should be more like the other bugs, which blend so much into the background that they’re nearly invisible to their enemies. Butterflies are so bright, it’s almost as if they’re trying to be seen. It turns out, though, that […]
Beginning in the Stone Age and up through the early 20th century, there have been tribes of head-hunters in different parts of the world. These people believed that a man’s soul was located in his head, and by capturing the heads of their enemies, they would benefit their own people, increase their cattle, and improve […]
A giraffe calf is born into this world by experiencing gravity and a shocking thud. The 5 foot plus baby giraffe must drop 6 feet or more from the mother’s womb to the ground because giraffes give birth standing up. Giraffe gestation lasts between 400 and 460 days and usually a single calf is born. […]
Goats don’t eat anything and everything, but they are certainly not picky. Goats are browsing animals, not grazers like cattle and sheep, and love to sample things, even tin cans and cardboard boxes. They prefer to eat shrubbery and weeds, more than grasses, unlike sheep. Alfalfa is their favorite hay, but mold in a goat’s […]
The Traditional Spanish Folk Song “La Cucaracha”, is literally about a stoner cockroach’s wasted life, death, and funeral, and is beloved equally by children and the sandwich trucks that serve lunch to office workers. Also known as a corrido, it became popular in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution during the 20th century, and is played […]
The story of Frankenstein came from a ghost story party in 1816. Nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley, her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, her pregnant stepsister, Claire Clarement, Lord Byron (father of Claire’s unborn child), and Byron’s physician, John Polidori, were all staying together on holiday in Geneva, Switzerland. To fill the long, rainy nights during this stay, […]
Polar bears will eat about anything that moves, as well as a lot of things that don’t. They probably would eat penguins if given a chance, but because the two are on opposite ends of the earth, it just won’t happen. Polar bears and penguins are literally poles apart. Polar bears live in the Arctic […]
Sure, everyone knows that the Hamburger comes from Hamburg and the frankfurter comes from Frankfurt. What could be plainer? But it may interest you to know that while the meats themselves are German in origin, the idea of placing a Hamburger or a frankfurter in a bun is an American innovation and institution. The fact […]
Who was La Salle? Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle, was born in 1643 and studied in Jesuit schools to become a priest. But lured by the opportunity of adventure and fortune in North America, the 22-year-old Frenchman traveled to Montreal, a city on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. He cleared a patch […]
The state of Wisconsin definitely has badgers, but it’s not why it’s called the badger state. Wisconsin doesn’t have many more badgers than any other state, but you have to admit that Wisconsin has one up on Michigan. However, the state wasn’t really called that because of its badgers, surprise, surprise, except indirectly. “Badgers” became […]
At the end of the nineteenth century, most candies were too large and dangerous for a child’s mouth. They were sold unwrapped, and they inevitably caused a sticky mess on clothes, faces, and fingers. That was enough to make many parents keep their children from buying them. In a stroke of marketing genius, George Smith […]
Piggy banks are storage devices traditionally used for coins and are generally used by children of all ages. Piggy banks are usually made of ceramic or porcelain, and serve to teach children the value of money by encouraging them to save money. Money is inserted through a hole in the top and traditional Piggy Banks […]
Millipedes and earthworms have similar lifestyles. Both burrow in soil, eating dead and decaying vegetation, but they have evolved very different methods for forcing their way through the soil. Worms use the strong muscles in their body walls to build up pressure in the body cavity, and so develop the forces needed to push forward […]
Despite its perceived resemblance to the outer female reproductive organs, apparently noticed by very lonely gardeners, the orchid was actually named after male genitalia. The name orchid comes from the Greek orkhis, meaning “testicle.” It was adopted because of the orchid’s testicle shaped root. This resemblance may have led to the belief that orchids were […]