Browsing Category Fun & Interesting Facts
100+ fun, interesting, and happy facts that will brighten your day & increase your knowledge 🤓 🦄 ☀️

The Hawaiian alphabet has only 13 letters
The Hawaiian alphabet has only 13 characters a e i o u h k l m n p w ‘. That’s right, 5 vowels and 8 consonants. The ‘ character is a glottal stop called an “’okina.” As compared to English, the Hawaiian alphabet lists all the vowels first and then the consonants.

Wisdom teeth serve no purpose
Wisdom teeth served a purpose long, long ago when we foraged for foods like twigs and tough, raw meats. Since we no longer need that extra grinding power our bodies have evolved away from them. Our jawbones have decreased in size as well.

Beethoven went out of his way to ensure his morning coffee was made with exactly 60 beans per cup
Every morning, he personally counted out exactly 60 coffee beans that were then ground and made into his morning cup. It had to be precisely 60; no more or no less. By comparison, a modern cup of coffee requires around 70 beans. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the musical genius was drinking watery java.

Sea otters have a pouch under their forearm to store their favorite rocks
Under each forearm are baggy pockets of loose skin. The sea otter uses these pockets to store food it has gathered. It also stores favorite rocks that it uses for cracking open mollusks and clams. The forelegs are webbed and look sort of like flippers.

Our brains want us to be lazy
Society has encouraged people to be more physically active, yet we are actually becoming less active. A study offers a possible explanation: Our brains may be innately attracted to sedentary behavior. Electroencephalograms showed that test subjects had to summon extra brain resources when trying to avoid physical inactivity.

Before the eraser, bread was used to remove pencil marks
Until the 1770s, humanity’s preferred way of erasing errant graphite marks relied on bread that had been de-crusted, moistened and balled up. While these erasers were cheap and plentiful, they had a distinct disadvantage: They were, you know, made of bread.

Wind doesn’t make a sound until it blows against an object
Called eolian sound or aeolian tones, the sound is produced when the wind blows over objects and causes friction. This friction produces sound waves, which travel through the air and can make a range of sounds. For example, wind encountering moving objects, such as leaves, can produce irregular sounds.

About 40,000 Americans are injured by toilets each year
Close to 40,000 people get injured in toilet seat-related accidents every year in the US. Injuries to adults include bruised buttocks and tail bones, as well as dislocated hips from unexpectedly sitting on the toilet bowl rim because the seat is up or loose.

Baby porcupines are known as porcupettes
Baby porcupines are known as porcupettes and have been delighting keen-eyed visitors as they run after their parents.

Maya Angelou was San Francisco’s first Black female streetcar conductor
Maya Angelou, the poet, writer, and performer who passed away at the age of 86, also has a place in civil rights transportation history: at the age of 16, she says she became San Francisco’s first black streetcar conductor.

Albert Einstein never knew how to drive a car
Albert Einstein never learned to drive. He thought it too complicated and preferred walking. What he did not know—indeed, what no one knew until now—is that most cars would not work without the intervention of one of his most famous discoveries, the special theory of relativity.

“Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt.”
‘Dreamt’ is the only English word that ends with ‘mt’ According to Oxford Dictionaries, ‘dreamt’ is the only English word that ends with ‘mt’. The word’s derivatives, including undreamt, daydreamt, and redreamt, are the only other words that end with the same letters.

A group of frogs is called an army
A group of frogs is called an army, colony, or congregation. This name is very fitting for the amphibians as they are known to travel in large numbers.

Trees on your block can make you feel as healthy as someone who’s seven years younger
Trees and other urban plants remove pollutants from the atmosphere, reduce stress, and support better overall mental health. Being around more trees can make you feel as healthy as someone seven years younger, according to a 2015 Nature Journal Scientific Reports study.

White cats with blue eyes are usually deaf
Researchers found that only 17 to 22 percent of white cats with non-blue eyes are born deaf. The percentage rises to 40 percent if the cat has one blue eye, while upwards of 65 to 85 percent of all-white cats with both eyes blue are deaf.

Candles will burn longer and drip less if they are placed in the freezer for a few hours before using
Freezing your candle before you burn it will slow down the rate at which it burns. When the wax is cold, it becomes hard and melts slowly. This hack is handy for smaller candles or candles reaching their ends.

Men who have sex at least twice a week can almost half their risk of heart disease
Studies suggest that men who have sex at least twice a week and women who report having satisfying sex lives are less likely to have a heart attack.

Dogs and cats, like humans, are either right-handed or left-handed
About three-quarters of cats demonstrate a paw preference, while just under 70% of dogs exhibit this trait. Unlike humans, there does not seem to be a preference for right-handedness. Cats and dogs are equally right or left-pawed. However, female cats seem to be more commonly right-handed than male cats.

A song that gets stuck in your head is called an “earworm”
More than 100 years ago, Germans coined the term öhrwurm—earworm—to describe the experience of a song stuck in the brain. Scientists call it other names, like “stuck tune syndrome” and “musical imagery repetition.” But the creepy image of an earworm crawling into people’s brains caught on.

According to a Japanese study, looking at cute animal pictures can boost your focus
According to a new study lead by Nittono for Hiroshima University, looking at pictures of puppies and panda cams and grumpy, grumpy cat videos at work doesn’t just improve your mood, it can also increase your productivity.

Expressing gratitude towards people you love causes an immediate spike in your happiness
In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.

Bruce Lee was so fast that they had to slow the film down so you could see his moves
Martial artist Bruce Lee’s kicks were so fast that while filming for one scene in the movie, ‘Enter the Dragon’, they had to re-film it in slow motion so it wouldn’t appear fake.

Apples are very effective at waking you up in the morning
Ever heard the saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away?” Well, it turns out that apples can keep sleepiness away too. Packed with thirteen grams of natural sugar, apples are a great way to wake up — even better than coffee.

Earmuffs were invented by a 15-year-old
In 1877, Chester Greenwood, a young man from Farmington, Maine, patented his simple invention: earmuffs. Greenwood, who first had the idea for this “improvement in ear-mufflers,” as the patent documents describe it, at the age of 15, turned chilly ears into a business.

The first post office in the U.S. was established in a tavern
More than a century before the Continental Congress named Benjamin Franklin our Postmaster General, a Boston tavern owned by Richard Fairbanks was designated the colonies’ first post office. On November 6, 1639, the Massachusetts General Court named Fairbanks’ tavern as a post office for letters coming into or going out of the colony to overseas posts.

Continental plates drift as fast as fingernails grow
Earth’s land masses move toward and away from each other at an average rate of about 1.5 centimeters (0.6 inches) a year. That’s about the rate that human toenails grow.

Red Dawn was the first movie to be released with a PG-13 rating
On Aug. 10, 1984, only three months after parents were outraged over the release of PG-rated “Temple of Doom,” “Red Dawn,” a drama starring Patrick Swayze, became the first film to be released with a PG-13 rating. The rating was influenced by Spielberg and the rating of Gremlins a year earlier.

Hawaii is moving towards Japan 4 inches every year
Hawaii moves about 4 inches (or 10 cm) closer to Japan yearly. This is because Hawaii is in the middle of one of the largest crustal plates on Earth – the Pacific Plate. Crustal plates, also known as tectonic plates, contain both the Earth’s crust and the uppermost part of the mantle.

Yoda was partly modeled after a photo of Albert Einstein
A picture of Einstein ended up on the wall behind the Yoda sculptures, and the wrinkles around Einstein’s eyes somehow got worked into the Yoda design.

There are colors that other species can see but we can’t
Some animals see colors we cannot. Spiders and many insects can see a type of light called ultraviolet that most humans cannot see. Other animals, like snakes, are able to see infrared light.

A cat’s ability to see well at night is due to its tapetum lucidum
Cats have a layer of cells called the tapetum lucidum, which reflects light up to the retina. This allows cats to see in the dark by reflecting light off their retina back to the eye. This same reflective layer also causes cats to have a “yellow-green” glow in the dark.

Golf legend Jack Nicklaus earned his nickname, the Golden Bear, thanks to his size and blond hair.
The nickname was coined by a sportswriter named Don Ward, who was struck by Nicklaus’s burly physique and blonde hair, which reminded him of a bear. Ward reportedly first used the nickname in a 1961 article for Golf Digest, and it quickly caught on among Nicklaus’s fans and fellow players.

Pentheraphobia is the intense and disproportionate fear of your mother-in-law
Macmillan Dictionary defines Pentheraphobia as “a strong dislike or fear of one’s mother-in-law.” By this definition, many people might easily nod and say, “Yes, I have that.” However, Pentheraphobia is considered an exaggerated or irrational fear.

The modern popped collar originated as a way to keep tennis players’ necks from getting sunburned
Constantly exposed to rain and sun, the owners of these collars sometimes “popped” them for protection. Unbeknownst to many today, the popped collar originated with Rene Lacoste, who, in 1929, wore his newly-invented short-sleeve polo shirt with the collar popped to protect against the sun while playing tennis.

“J” was the last letter added to the alphabet
“Z” may be the last letter in alphabetical order, but the last letter added to our alphabet was actually “J.” In the Roman alphabet, the English alphabet’s father, “J” wasn’t a letter. It was just a fancier way of writing the letter “I” called a swash.

Green eyes are extremely rare: only 2 percent of the population has them
Within human genetics, green eyes are akin to a needle in a haystack. It’s probably somewhere in our DNA, but as a recessive gene, it’s less likely to pass on to future generations. Only 2 percent of the population has them, and they’re more common in females than males.

A person cannot taste food unless it is mixed with saliva
In order for food to have taste, chemicals from the food must first dissolve in saliva. Once dissolved, the chemicals can be detected by receptors on taste buds. Therefore, without saliva, you should not be able to taste anything.

When you remember a past event, you are remembering the last time you remembered it
Every time you remember an event from the past, your brain networks change in ways that can alter the later recall of that event. Thus, the next time you remember it, you might recall not the original event but what you remembered the previous time.

When feeding, a hummingbird can lick 10 to 15 times per second
Hummingbirds do not suck nectar through their long bills; instead, they lick it with fringed, forked tongues. They can lick 10 to 15 times per second when feeding. Despite their small size, hummingbirds are among the most aggressive bird species.

In colonial America, lobster was hardly a delicacy
Lobsters were considered the “poor man’s chicken” and were primarily used for fertilizer or fed to prisoners and slaves. Some indentured servants even revolted against being forced to eat the meat, and the colony agreed that they would not be fed lobster meat more than three times a week.

The position dogs assume when they’re inviting other pets to play is called a play bow
As the name suggests, a play bow is a dog’s way of inviting another dog, animal, or human companion to play. It’s their way of letting you know that what they’re doing is just fun and games.

An average person will spend about 26 years asleep
The average person spends about 26 years sleeping in their life, which equates to 9,490 days or 227,760 hours. That’s one third of our entire lives spent asleep in bed. Surprisingly, we also spend 7 years trying to get to sleep — a total of 33 years or 12,045 days.

Those tiny “seeds” on the outside of a strawberry aren’t seeds–those are actually little tiny fruits!
The “seeds” you see outside a strawberry are actually the plant’s ovaries called “achenes.” Each “seed” is technically a separate fruit with a seed inside it. Despite all this confusion about strawberry seeds, most strawberries are not grown from seeds.

The word dude originated as an insult to men overly concerned with the latest fashion trends
In the late 1800s, people started using “dude” to refer to well-dressed, foppish Americans. It described a certain kind of (usually male) person who styled themselves in a way that made them look richer than they were.

Cold showers are actually good for you
They help relieve depression and help keep skin hair healthy. The shock of cold water can also stimulate the blood cells that fight off infection (leukocytes).

Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts
Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. In a series of novels published by Random House in the 1960s, her parents’ names are given as George and Margaret Roberts from the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin.

Men suffer more emotional pain from failed romance
Researchers have found that men in their early twenties find breaking up and the highs and lows of romantic relationships more traumatic than women.

Convincing yourself you slept well tricks your brain into thinking it did
Studies suggest that we can trick our brains into thinking we’re getting better sleep than we are. The idea of “placebo sleep” tells us that we can be told that we slept better or worse than we did, which can affect how we perform throughout the day.

Bacon was used to make explosives during World War II
During WWII, the U.S. government urged Americans to save excess bacon grease from cooking and donate it to the army to produce glycerin, which in turn created bombs, gunpowder, and other munitions.

The smell of fresh cut grass comes from the chemicals plants release when in distress
The pleasantly sweet, sharp scent of freshly cut grass can conjure up visions of baseball fields, backyards, or the color green. But in scientific terms, the aroma is in fact a mixture of organic compounds, called green leaf volatiles, (GLVs), that serve as an aromatic distress signal to surrounding vegetation.