40+ Fun Facts That Sound Too Unbelievable to Be True

The world is an interesting place and no matter how much you think you know, there's always something new and exciting you can learn. While much of our learning comes from school, if you want to know fun facts, the internet is the place to go. From geography and history to animals and pop culture, these people took to Reddit to share facts that sound too unbelievable to be true. Get ready to learn something new!

Free Willy

U/FroggiJoy87: "In 1978 a dolphin named Mr. Spock at Marine World in the SF Bay Area accidentally ate a bolt when some construction was being done on his tank. Surgery was too risky and it wouldn't be able to be passed, they had to reach in and pull out the bolt. With medical technology being what it was in the 70s, robots weren't an option and a dolphin's esophagus is really long. Here is where Golden State Warriors player Ray Flipper (love the irony) comes in! Out for the season for injury and with an 8ft wingspan, he was called in, lubed up, and reached down the dolphins' gullet to retrieve the bolt without any further distress to Mr. Spock!"

Cruise Clairvoyance

U/Professional-Tower76: "14 years before the Titanic sank, a fictional story was written by a man named Morgan Robertson. In the story, the ship was described as the largest ever built at the time (same as the Titanic), it was also woefully short on lifeboats, and it also struck an iceberg and sank. The ship in the story was also a triple screw propeller liner, and it was named the Titan."

Historical Coincidence

U/meatpopsicle42: "The first major troop engagement during the American Civil War — The First Battle of Bull Run — took place on and around the property of Wilmer McLean in Manassas, Virginia, in late July of 1861. After the battle, McLean decided to move about 190 kilometers south to the community of Appomattox Court House, in Appomattox County, also in Virginia. Nearly four full years later, in April of 1865, a Confederate messenger completely unaware of McLean’s prior ‘involvement’ in the war, knocked on the door of McLean’s new home and asked if Robert E. Lee might use the house on the following day to meet with Ulysses Grant and sign a formal surrender. McLean reluctantly agreed. Some time later, Wilmer McLean is supposed to have said, ‘The war began in my front yard, and ended in my front parlor.’"

Wall to Wall

U/Semour9: "The siege of Alesia, where Julius Caesar built a wall around the city the gallic defenders were defending from and then built a second wall to keep the gallic reinforcements out. He and his army just hung out in between the 2 walls and eventually won the battle even though they were technically outnumbered 3 to 1."

Hold Your Breath

U/Spiritual_Minor: "Asbestos was only banned in the UK in 1999. The unbelievable part is - asbestos was known to be dangerous as far back as the ancient Egypt. About 2500/3000 BC. It only took us 4500/5000 years to ban it. The ban on asbestos happened 25 years after the introduction of the health and safety at work regs. Until then the use of asbestos disproportionately hurt and killed poor people. Not exclusively. But disproportionately. With this new law that could jail people who put their employees at very high risk - the use of asbestos was limited and eliminated."

Transformation

U/Chickadee12345: "Butterflies and moths start out as eggs. Hatch into caterpillars. Turn themselves into cocoons and then basically turn into mush. Finally to emerge as an adult butterfly or moth whose main purpose in life is to reproduce and lay more eggs. Yet they can still retain memories from when they were caterpillars."

Unusual Naming

U/Peter_Parkingmeter: "There is a gene, named after the video game, called the ‘Sonic Hedgehog Gene’. It was then promptly discovered that a disorder of this gene was responsible for horrific birth defects, including holoprosencephaly and facial deformation. They tend to use the abbreviation when explaining the condition to devastated mothers instead of going the Idiocracy way and coming in like ‘says here on your chart your kid's f----- up, that's Sonic for ya.’"

Meowing Mayor

U/MeasurementProper227: "There is a town in Alaska called Talkeetna where a cat named Stubbs served as the honorary mayor for 20 years? Stubbs, a part-Manx cat, was elected as the mayor of Talkeetna in 1997 as a write-in candidate after residents weren't satisfied with the human candidates running for mayor. Despite not having any official powers, Stubbs became a beloved figure in the town and even attracted tourists who wanted to meet the 'mayor.' Stubbs passed away in 2017 at the age of 20, but his legacy as the honorary mayor of Talkeetna lives on. It's a quirky and heartwarming tale that showcases the unique and sometimes whimsical nature of small-town life."

New New Zealand

U/Fish-Foreign: "New Zealand wasn't discovered until about 1300. I'm not talking about Europeans found it. Literally no human found it until about 750 years ago. Over 2 million years of human beings and we found it 750 years ago. As in the magna carta is older than us finding New Zealand. University of Oxford is older than New Zealand. The first person who found it is closer to now than to Jesus."

Alpha Energy

U/guesdo: "There is no such thing as an 'alpha' in a wolf pack. The leaders of a pack are almost always the parents, but the person who coined the term studied wolves in captivity where their social interactions were different. Wolves in the wild do not behave like that. He realized this later and spent most of his career trying to correct people, but it was too late."

All the Small Things

U/Paytrin: "Blink-182 violated the Geneva Conventions. In an early form of the album cover of 'Enema of the State,' there is a female nurse with the famous red cross on her hat. The Geneva Convention specifically bars people from using that without expressed permission from the red cross. The band was told, and the new cover no longer has the cross on it."

Domino Effect

U/pops992: "Fifty Shades of Grey was a result of 9/11. Gerard Way witnessed the 9/11 attacks from a boat on his way to work in NYC. As an outlet for what he saw he started My Chemical Romance the next day. Stephenie Meyer was a fan of MCR and their music was used as inspiration for the Twilight books. Fifty Shades of Grey was originally a Twilight fanfiction before being changed to be its own thing."

Pure Talent

U/AtomicGearworks: "Leo Fender, the inventor who designed the Telecaster, Precision Bass, and Stratocaster guitars, as well as founder of 3 instrument companies (Fender, Music Man and G & L) only succeeded because he was a master at electronics. He had almost no musical abilities at all, having only played piano and saxophone as a young child. He never played guitar."

Fast Journey

U/no_lemom_no_melon: "If its cold enough, a section of the Bering Strait can freeze over and make it possible to make a 2.5 mile journey on foot between Little Diomede Island, which part of the US, and Big Diomede island, which is part of Russia. Also, if you made the journey, you'd cross the international date line - the time difference between the two islands is 21 hours, so you'd either need to put your clocks forward or back 21 hours depending on which side you travelled from."

Thank You Plague!

U/SomeSortOfDoctor: "The Black Death in the 1300s was an important driver for the emergence of the Middle Class. The significant reduction in the population resulted in a labor shortage, which empowered surviving workers by increasing their bargaining power and wages. In addition, the redistribution of wealth and land, along with the relative increase in wages, allowed some peasants and workers to accumulate assets and improve their living standards, thus shifting them into roles and lifestyles that were previously unattainable."

Time Warp

U/mjohnsimon: "There were already dinosaur fossils when dinosaurs were still alive. For example: the difference in years between Stegosaurus and T-Rex was 85 million years. Stegosaurus was already dead in the ground and fossilized while T-Rex was munching on some Triceratops steaks. Bonus: T-Rex piloting Apollo-11 with Cleopatra as a co-pilot is more 'accurate' (timeline-wise) than those paintings depicting T-Rex fighting against Stego because T-Rex lived closer to us than Stego by about 20 million years."

Finders' Keepers Does Not Apply

In 2014, the owners of the pawn shop featured on Pawn Stars were sold a collection of gold coins from a woman named Jennifer Beckman, for $12,375. Unbeknownst to the shop, these coins were allegedly stolen from David Walters, who claimed they were worth $50,000. When Walters reported the theft, the shop had already melted down the coins, a common practice in the pawn industry. Despite Nevada law requiring pawnshops to hold onto new items for 30 to 90 days, coins were not covered. As a result, Walters' collection was lost forever, and the shop faced no legal repercussions.

Old Timey Body Insecurity

History tends to compare Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, but did you know that the two literary icons once helped each other out in the masculinity department? F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda once went on an emasculating rant, telling her husband that he’d never please a woman with what he had going on in his pants. His only resolution was to meet Hemingway in the bathroom of a French bar and ask him to check his manhood. Apparently, Hemingway said he was “fine”.

Bite on That

Gypsy Rose Blanchard lost most of her teeth as a child due to the unnecessary and excessive medications her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, gave her. Dee Dee falsely convinced doctors that Gypsy had numerous health conditions, including leukemia and muscular dystrophy, as part of a pattern of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. This led to multiple medical procedures, including the removal of Gypsy’s salivary glands and many of her teeth, which further contributed to her dental deterioration.

Rest and Relaxation

"If you lay in bed all day, you are going to start to make your bones more brittle and easy to fracture. Astronauts, who go for months without gravity, usually exercise for a minimum of two hours a day and load up on calcium. If you don’t get up soon, you're going to have a hard time being able to get up again.”

Jane Seymour’s Tragic End

King Henry VIII was known for being a ruthless and controversial leader. One of the things he went down in history for was the way he treated his wives, and Jane Seymour, the third of six, had perhaps one of the most unfortunate endings. It was believed that she had a cesarean section for political reasons, and her death on 24 October 1537, 12 days after the delivery of Edward VI, was a result of the complications she faced, including deadly peritonitis, during her difficult childbirth.

Ring Code

"Any man or woman who wears a black ring on their dominant hand ring- finger means they are in the relationship and suggests the wearer is a swinger or poly, and looking for partners. The black ring on the right hand middle finger is for as----- people, not looking for advances."

Bluetooth Beware

“Did you know that while Bluetooth offers a sense of convenience, allowing everything from hand-free phone calls to wireless file-sharing to playing music on a car’s speakers, leaving it always on is very dangerous. If you’re phone’s Bluetooth is always on you kids are going to be affected by hackers exploiting technology to access private info and spread malicious software.”

Looking for Ladies

U/honestduane: "China actually has a woman shortage problem, Because all the families that were only allowed to have one child under the notorious one child per family act often did things to assure that they would have a son. And so as a result of that, the population demographics are completely screwed up, and they only have around 20 more years as a country before they implode, Due to all the elderly people that are getting older and older with not enough new young people to replace them."

Feeling Salty

“Did you know that if you close your eyes and pretend you have a salt shaker in your hand and sprinkle salt in your mouth, you'll taste something salty? This happens because the brain probably thinks you're trying to catch salt that might happen to miss your mouth. Go ahead and try it!”

All Planned Out

U/DoubleDeckerz: "'Lord of The Rings' author, JRR Tolkien, died in 1973. 1973 backwards is 3791. Three Rings for Elven-Kings under the sky. Seven for the Dwarf-Lords in their halls of stone. Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die. One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne. In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."

No Bones About It

U/unskilledplay: "There is no simple answer as to how many bones a human body has. Babies are born with a varying number of bones topping out at around 300. Many of these bones will fuse together and by adulthood there are typically a little more than 200 bones. It's not just the little bones in the hands and feet that vary. The number of bones in the spine and ribcage will also vary."

Spatial Awareness

U/Claytertot: "I do not remember which famous physicist or physics educator put it this way, but basically ‘Nothing can move through space at faster than the speed of light (the speed of causality). But space itself can do whatever the h--- it wants.’ Our current understanding of gravity (through General Relativity) is that gravity is not a force, but instead that Spacetime itself curves. This curvature causes the effect that we call gravity. We can also observe that the universe is expanding. But this expansion isn't like an explosion from a central point. This expansion is happening everywhere. It's more like the expansion on the surface of a balloon when you inflate it. So nothing is moving through space faster than light. But far enough galaxies are moving away from us faster than light because the space between us and them is expanding."

Identity Crisis

U/somebody12344: "Most of latin america is white. if you look at actual studies of the genetic makeup of latin people, not self reported ones. mexicans are at least 65% european, and at most 31% native ameirican and 4% african. Most other larger latin countries are whiter than mexico. it's only the tiny latin countries that are mostly native americans."

Making History

U/risketyclickit: "Tracy Ullman released a song called, 'They don't know about us' which changed the world. It was a hit in the U.K., and helped her get her own TV show. In the US, it was picked up by the fledgling FOX network. One segment of the show was a feature by Matt Groening. It was to be the birth of The Simpsons. The wild success of The Simpsons enabled FOX to thrive. We all know the rest."

Sunrise Sunset

U/Joshua21B: "People say the days get longer in the summer and shorter in the winter but it’s actually the other way around. The first day of summer is the the summer solstice which is the longest day of the year. The rest of summer the days get shorter. The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year and also the first day of winter. So every day of winter is longer than the last one."

Animal Wordplay

U/Vulpes_macrotis: "That pterosaurs (that are not dinosaurs, btw) were very good on land and that tyrannosaur was good swimmer and their babies had feathers to keep them warm. That bald eagles are not eagles. That sea otters are not otters. That hyenas are more related to cats than dogs. That spotted hyena is not a hyena. Oh and also that red pandas are not pandas. And maned wolf is neither fox or wolf. English names of animals are so cursed."

Closest Neighbors

U/thisaintgonnabeit: "The speed of light is 128,000 miles per second. Picture this as light going around the entire Earth seven times in one second. Almost unbelievably fast. The closest star beyond our sun is around 2 light years away. So imagine traveling that insane speed for a solid full two years that’s how far away we are to the next star."

Trippy Time Zone

U/pm_me_gnus: "There are people who were born after I was who are older than me. I was born in the Eastern Time Zone (U.S.) at 12:26 AM on November 6th. For the next 33 minutes (Central), 93 minutes (Mountain) or, 153 minutes (Pacific)...it was still November 5th. Everyone born in those places during those times was born after I was. But they were born on November 5th. When we were turning 18, 21, or any age for that matter, they did so the day before I did. They are considered older than me, having been born on the previous day. But I was born before all of them."

Heatwave

U/Bicykwow: "Portland, OR had a heat wave in 2021 (max temp of 116°) where it got hotter than the hottest temperature ever recorded in Dallas, TX (113° in 1980), San Antonio (111° in 2000), Austin (112° in 2011), Albuquerque (107° in 1994)... And hundreds of other locations throughout the US typically regarded as having hot climates."

Above Average

U/Angry_Washing_Bear: "If you have two arms then you have an above average amount of arms. Most people are missing an arm rather than having a third arm. This means the average amount of arms a human has across the human population will be slightly lower than 2, which means having two arms is above average. Same for legs, ears et.c. Sounds weird, but that’s how averages work..."

Stock Exchange

U/GotaHODLonMe: "1 company owns about 90% or so of the all the stocks in the stock markets. To actually own stock from a company you have to register it at the transfer agent through a process called Direct Registration System. The company that holds all the stock does a bunch of bad accounting to possibly makes up shares that shouldn't exist."

Go With the Flow

U/30FourThirty4: "In a crowd crush people behave more like a fluid than a solid. I don't mean people turn liquid but when people push and push until there is no where to go, there are people getting moved around like they're in the ocean with no control. While people at the edges have no idea the chaos that is going on in the crowd."

Open Land

U/onlyinsurance-ca: "The southernmost point of Canada is further south than the northern most point in California. There's also a stat something like there's more Americans living north of most Canadians. There's a ton of Americans who live further north than where most Canadians live. Canada is huge but it's mostly unpopulated."

Surf's Up

U/PostCoitalMaleGusto: "On an incredibly windy day in 1454, a man named Rohl Galling attached a wood board to his feet, held a rope, and jumped out of the back of a sailboat. Galling 'reportedly' stood up and was on the board balancing behind the boat for a few seconds before wiping out. This was the earliest attempt at wakeboarding that we know of."

Musical Roots

U/SinfullySinless: "All modern music basically stems from African-slave tunes. To explain: Africans combined African music and Christian hymns to make tunes that would keep morale during labor. Post-slavery, when African Americans would have more free time with each to form bands and play at clubs- they turned the slave tunes into the blues. Now the blues is basically the godfather of all modern music from rock, pop, metal, country, jazz, rap, anything. Always thought that was neat."

Medical Marketing

U/TikkiTakiTomtom: "Slapping a non-gmo/organic/no added hormones/ etc. label means its better than the other brand in terms of health. Some of it is a necessity but most of it is marketing b-------. Ask an unbiased inside professional. Vitamins/minerals also involve b------- marketing. It only caught on because health trends unfortunately coincides with actual health needs leading to blurring the lines. Unless you’re deficient or pregnant (iron, b9) you really don’t need extra supplementation when you are eating meals everyday. Ask your doctor, they will tell you."

Signed Sealed Delivered

U/KingOfTheP4s: "In almost all states, if you buy something online and the package is stolen off of your porch, the seller is obligated to replace the item or provide you a refund. You paid for an item to be delivered to you, the seller purchasing a cheaper shipping option that drops the item off without a signature is on them, not you. Same thing goes for shipping insurance, if an item is damaged in transit, it's the seller's problem, not the buyer's problem."

Wing It

U/Forosnai: "Birds are reptiles. We were taught not that long ago that they were their own distinct group of animals, but that's since been largely revised, considering a) they're the last line of theropod dinosaurs, in the same way that we're the last living line of hominins, with all of our other ancestors and cousins having died out... And b) they and crocodilians (collectively, archosaurs) are more closely related to each other than either of them is to other reptiles like lizards, snakes, and turtles."

The Oldest Baby

U/UnderDown556: "The one of the oldest frozen fetus born is older than the surrogate mother that gave birth to the baby. The embryo was frozen for 28 years but the surrogate mother is somewhere early to mid 20's. Not the first frozen embryo born years later, but being frozen for almost 30 years and born is impressive."

Poor Pluto

U/Impressive-Card9484: "The reason why Pluto is not considered a planet is not because of how small it is, how far it is, or it having a weird tilted orbit. Its not considered as a planet because its whole body doesn't stay on its own orbit. Pluto's moon is a third of its size so it makes the planet's center of gravity being placed outside its body."

Size Matters

"It is against federal law to deceptively fill a container with less than its capacity. It is considered misbranded and misleading if its container is made, formed, or filled that way."

Dedicated Groupies

U/Ok-Victory-3239: "When Phish had a massive following in the mid to late 90’s, on the coattails of dead tour after jerry died, there were 5-10k+ fans traveling along with the tour and attending every show. They say there was anywhere from 1/4 of a million to one million dollars in black market transactions done outside the show before/after."

Mister Mayor

U/mollylevi: "Idyllwild, CA has a dynastic family of Golden Retrievers who have served as mayor for three generations. Mayors Max I, Max II, and now Max III. The deputy mayors are also Golden Retrievers. No scandals, no crooked deals, just public figures who are dedicated and engaged in the community."

Made a Splash

U/Helpful_Wave: "The name Madison for a girl has been one of the most popular girls names since 1990, but prior to 1985 was practically nonexistent going back millennia. It was barely used as a boys name, and was used almost exclusively as a surname. The reason? In 1985, the movie ‘Splash,’ with Tom Hanks and Darryl Hannah, debuted and was a global hit in multiple languages. Darryl Hannah's character, the mermaid, chose to go by the name ‘Madison’ after ‘Madison Square Park,’ because her mermaid name shattered all the glass in ¼km radius. Suddenly everyone was naming their daughters Madison. After a mermaid who took her name naively after an entertainment facility."

Tiny But Mighty

U/dabears4hss: "The total weight of all the ants on Earth is about the same as the total weight of all the humans. Though individual ants are tiny, the sheer number of them worldwide (estimated to be around 10^15) makes their combined weight surprisingly high."

Eat Up

U/JR21K20: "Lemons are a man-made fruit. They’re a cross between Citron and bitter Orange. Also Tomatoes are originally from South America along with peppers and potatoes. Meaning that a lot of ‘traditional’ European dishes either looked very different back in the day, or did not exist until after the discovery of the New World."

Great Mystery

U/aventus13: "Particles act both as particles and waves. When we don't 'look' at them, they propagate like waves, creating a wave-like pattern. But when we want to 'see' how they do it, they act just like regular particles. This has been proven by a double-slit experiment. It's called a wave function collapse and is one of the greatest mysteries of quantum mechanics."

A Bit Feverish

U/Michael48732: "Fevers are not dangerous and do not cause brain damage. Even febrile seizures from really high fevers are harmless (despite being scary to witness). However, most people focus on the fever and try to reduce it while ignoring whatever might be causing it. Some of those causes can cause the brain damage that the fever usually gets blamed for."

Big Hearted

U/dabears4hss: "A blue whale's heart is so big that a human could swim through its arteries. While this is slightly exaggerated, the heart of a blue whale is about the size of a small car, and some of its arteries are indeed large enough for a human to fit inside."

Covered Care

U/Mprddt: "Most Americans get health insurance through their employer because the government needed workers to support the war effort during WW II. During WW II, the US government implemented a wage freeze to prevent competition for workers to support the war effort. Employers took advantage of a loophole and began offering health insurance to recruit workers, leading to our current employer-based health insurance system."

Grains of Stars

U/kingcrabsuited: "There's a lot of stars in the universe. The amount has been compared to the number of sand grains on all the Earth's beaches combined, but that's actually selling it short by quite a bit. For every star that found a single grain of sand to go tanning on while visiting Earth, about 10,000 others would have to go without any beach real estate. But grains of sand are big, relatively speaking. If we change our units of comparison from grains to molecules, then we can find an equivalent match in quantity for our stars. Moving from the beach to the ocean, if every star in the universe were to go swimming in a single molecule of water, then all the stars would have their swim satisfied by a mere 10 drops of water."

Seeing the Future

U/Psyqlone: "A 1968 science-fiction novel, Stand on Zanzibar, written by John Brunner, rather accurately predicted technological trends, the industrial decline of America...from the foreword: To anticipate the industrial decline of Detroit was one thing, but to forecast Detroit Techno squatters performing rave parties in the factories? That’s as eerily accurate as Brunner’s offhand description of a hip New York street girl: purple hair and portable earphones. People wear photo-resistant sunglasses. Computers have laser printers—’domestic computers’ are described, when the real world’s personal Apple-1 was still eight years in the author’s future."