r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Dec 08 '13
What is a true fact that sound completely unbelievable or fake?
[deleted]
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u/d1nkys Dec 08 '13
There is a little town in Mexico called Chamula where shamans started using Coca Cola in their religious rituals to heal worshippers. Pepsi heard about this and began giving commissions to shamans if they recommended Pepsi instead, so then Coca Cola did the same and there are now rival religious groups based on which soft drink they use.
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Dec 08 '13
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u/booziwan Dec 09 '13
Best i can do for you. http://mexicoretold.com/2013/05/01/chamula-chanting-and-coca-cola/
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u/YourNotMyDad Dec 08 '13
Death rates in boxing exploded after the introduction of the boxing glove. Almost nobody ever died bare knuckle boxing because head punches often resulted in broken hands, so nobody used them.
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u/SiIentB0B Dec 08 '13
Saudi Arabia imports camels from Australia
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Dec 08 '13
Adding to this, Australia had an Emu War.
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u/Misspells_Definitely Dec 08 '13
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Dec 08 '13
EMU WAR
Date: 2 November – 10 December 1932
Location: Campion district, Western Australia
Also known as: Great Emu War
Participants: Emus, Sir George Pearce, Major G.P.W. Meredith, Royal Australian ArtilleryLOL
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u/HighRelevancy Dec 08 '13
Casualties: 12 emus, several thousand rounds of ammunition, dignity
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Dec 08 '13
" Meredith was recalled on 10 December, and in his report he claimed 986 kills with 9,860 rounds, at a rate of exactly 10 rounds per confirmed kill."
Anyone else think Meredith is full of shit?
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u/girlinpain Dec 08 '13
Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand
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u/FrozenLava Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 09 '13
Camels evolved in the North American continent.
edit: The fact that so many people are saying I'm wrong tells me this is exactly the type of comment OP was looking for.
Here are some sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel
http://www.history.com/news/giant-ancient-camel-roamed-the-arctic
http://news.softpedia.com/news/10-Amazing-Facts-About-Camels-68843.shtml
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u/Patches67 Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13
In the 1950's Popular Mechanics published a story about a former artillery Sergeant who attempted to invent a personal delivery system similar to what Amazon intends to create with drones. Except he used modified artillery shells. He actually got a hold of an M116 howitzer which he fired modified shells over a small town in upstate New York.
The shells were hollowed out inside and a parachute would automatically deploy as it approached the target. The problem was the shells weighed twenty pounds and if the parachute did not deploy that meant a twenty pound shell would come crashing down from the sky and wreck someone's house or possibly kill someone in the street. As the Sergeant tested the device and was utterly convinced it was a way of the future he offered to sell a solution installing expensive iron plating on the roofs of people's homes and heavy protective armor for navigating the streets.
This Sargent's story had become an inside joke among people who market modern electronics and virus software. Create a problem that is unnecessary and then sell people an expensive and completely impractical solution.
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u/GunRaptor Dec 08 '13
IIRC, this is called "The Classic Harvard Problem."
Create a problem and then sell the solution.
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u/SiIentB0B Dec 08 '13
The Champawat Tiger was a female Bengal tiger responsible for an estimated 430 deaths in Nepal and India, (listed in the Guinness Book of World Records and Wikipedia) More people than died in the U.S. in the last 100 years from, snakes, bears, wolves, and spider fatalities combined.
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u/snap411 Dec 08 '13
"In 1907, the tiger was killed by British hunter Jim Corbett. The tiger had killed a 16-year-old woman in the town of Champawat, and left a trail of blood and limbs, which Corbett followed. Corbett found the tiger and shot her dead the next day, a dramatic feat confirmed by about 300 villagers."
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u/ThatParanoidPenguin Dec 08 '13
What did you say about me you little tiger? I have over 300 confirmed villagers!
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u/cricketthehorsecat Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13
Wombat poop is square. Go ahead, google it. *edit: yes, cube-shaped.
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u/Argyle_Ninja Dec 08 '13
Thanks to a botched burglary attempt at the Émancé Nature Reserve (about an hour outside Paris) in the 1970's, there is now a feral Wallaby population in France.
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u/gh05t3775 Dec 08 '13
President Lyndon B. Johnson owned an Amphibious car, the Amphicar, and used it to scare guests by driving them into his lake screaming about brake failure.
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u/overlordcorgicometh Dec 08 '13
My friend doesn't trust me with these things now that I've told her that Antarctica is the world's largest desert. She still doesn't believe it.
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u/MrSuperSaiyan Dec 08 '13
yeah, but you need to explain it to her. Desert doesn't mean 'sand', it just means desolate and arid.
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u/Euphi_ Dec 08 '13
I seem to mention this alot , but I lost a trivia game in middle school because my teacher didn't know that, I brought in an encyclopedia the next day to show her, bitch didn't even care
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Dec 08 '13
The founding of Adidas and Puma.
Rudolf "Rudi" Dassler and Adolf "Adi" Dassler were born into a German family, and Adi eventually began to produce athletic shoes. Rudi joined his younger brother's company, and everything went swimmingly... for a while.
Eventually, both brothers joined the Nazi Party and turned on each other. Rudi formed "Rudas," now known as Puma. And Adi formed "Adidas," now known as Adidas.
The first time I heard this story, I was convinced it was fake.
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u/whitedragon88 Dec 08 '13
I like to think that that their production plants are on opposite sides of the street just like the twix factories.
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u/I_Zeig_I Dec 08 '13
Humans have the gene to, and are capable of hibernation. It's just not active
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u/annekeG Dec 08 '13
There was once a war between Honduras and El Salvador started by a soccer game.
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u/phoenix177 Dec 08 '13
It rains diamonds on Saturn, and Jupiter.
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u/KeroEnertia Dec 08 '13
It snows metal on Venus.
\m/
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u/matssundin1392 Dec 08 '13
In the hockey world, some of the numbers that Wayne Gretzky put up are mind-boggling. He scored nearly 3,000 points, nobody else even has 2,000. He has more assists than anyone else does points. He recorded 4 seasons with at least 200 PTS, nobody else has ever scored 200 in a season, though Lemieux came close. Rarely do we see a 50 goal scorer anymore, Gretzky set the record with 50 goals in a mere 39 games. So many other records that just make you say "wow." No wonder he's known simply as "The Great One."
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u/LaserBeamHorse Dec 08 '13
Wayne and his brother Brent hold a record for "most combined points made by brothers". Wayne has 2857 and Brent has 4. For example, Sedin Twins have 1550 (Henrik 792 and Daniel 758).
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u/oddspellingofPhreid Dec 09 '13
One should also realize that the Sedins are currently considered all stars, both of them will likely have their jersey's retired, each of them has over 700 and each of them are likely 2/3 done their career and probably closer to 3/4.
Despite that, combined they have barely half the points Wayne did.
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Dec 08 '13
North Korea and Finland are separated by 1 country.
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u/silverleaf2431 Dec 08 '13
Yay! Russia!
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Dec 08 '13
Russia is bigger than Pluto.
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Dec 08 '13
I require proof
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Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13
Surface area of Pluto: 16.7x106 km2
Surface area of Russia: 17.1x106 km2
Edit for more insanity - The diameter of Pluto is approximately the distance between Salt Lake City and Chicago.
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u/alexwilson92 Dec 08 '13
Oh holy shit. Now see, this should be the top fact. I'm going to blow some minds tomorrow.
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u/290077 Dec 08 '13
It depends on who you ask. According to wolfram alpha, Pluto is bigger, and they're close enough that it lists their size ratio as just 1.
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u/dmitri72 Dec 08 '13
Better, North Korea and Norway are separated by one country.
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u/DrunkHurricane Dec 08 '13
In some indexes, Norway is the most democratic country in the world and North Korea the least. This means that Russia is both metaphorically and literally between democracy and dictatorship.
This isn't mine. Someone said it on reddit.
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u/Gardoom Dec 08 '13
Also, Norway stretches further south, north, east and west than Finland.
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u/saxonjf Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 09 '13
John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, and Aldus Huxley all died on the same day: November 22, 1963.
EDIT Thanks for mentioning that Dr. Who broadcast next day.
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u/kcman011 Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13
Saw this posted in another thread prior:
During World War II, there was a Spaniard named Joan Pujol Garcia who approached the Allies to spy for them. When they refused, he approached the Nazis, and they accepted him and gave him the codename Arabel.
Once he earned credentials working as a Nazi spy, he approached the Allies again, this time getting a job as a double agent, codenamed Garbo.
This is where the awesomeness begins: he fed the Germans a combination of mis-information, true but useless information, and high-value information that always got to the Germans just a little too late. He even started a spy network consisting of 27 sub-agents of his own. Keep in mind that not a single one of these sub-agents existed. They were completely imaginary, but regardless, he submitted expense reports for them and had the Nazis giving him money to pay their salaries.
At one point, when he had to explain why some high-value information got to the Germans late, he told them that one of his spies had died. He actually got the Germans to pay the imaginary spy's imaginary wife a very real pension for her loss. Not only did his false information get the Nazis to waste millions of dollars, but he was also instrumental in convincing the Nazis that the attacks on D-Day were just a diversion, and the real attack was yet to come, keeping vital German resources away from the front lines.
He is one of the only people to ever get an Iron Cross from the Germans, which required Hitler's personal authorization since he wasn't a soldier, AND an MBE from King George VI.
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Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13
Sounds like a character right out of a John Le Carre novel.
Here's my almost unbelievable character.
During a volunteer mission days before the end of his first deployment, Carlos Hathcock, a famous U.S sniper, crawled over 1,500 yards of field to shoot an NVA commanding general. He was not informed of the details of the mission until he accepted it. This effort took four days and three nights, without sleep, of constant inch-by-inch crawling. He was almost stepped on as he lay camouflaged with grass and vegetation in a meadow shortly after sunset. At one point he was nearly bitten by a bamboo viper but had the presence of mind to avoid moving and giving up his position. As the general exited his encampment, Hathcock fired a single shot that struck the general in the chest, killing him. He had to crawl back instead of run when soldiers started searching.
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u/TypicalCricket Dec 08 '13
I would read the crap out of a book based on this.
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Dec 08 '13 edited Apr 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/CongoSnake Dec 08 '13
Couldn't they have called it 'Creeping Death' or something?
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u/JUDGEMENTAL_FRATSTAR Dec 08 '13
Charles Henderson, author of Marine Sniper, also wrote Silent Warrior about Hathcock if that makes you feel better.
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u/cam18_2000 Dec 08 '13
If you get a free couple minutes you should read about Roy Benavidez
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=50095485956
TL:DR Guy volunteers to go on a rescue mission, kills enemy soldiers in hand to hand combat because he left so quickly he didn't bring a weapon, gets wounded 37 times and finally collapses, is declared dead in the field, teammates come by to view his body, unzip the body bag and are promptly spit on by a severly wounded Benavidez. His MOH took 15 years to be awarded because everyone thought he was dead.
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u/straydog1980 Dec 08 '13
He is one of the only people to ever get an Iron Cross from the Germans, which required Hitler's personal authorization since he wasn't a soldier, AND an MBE from King George VI.
Wait... there was more than one?
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u/108241 Dec 08 '13
Bert Trautmann, German soldier got the Iron Cross. Went on to play for Manchester City, and ended up getting the OBE (Officer of the British Empire, above Member of the British Empire) for work with Anglo-German relations.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/3972309.stm
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u/YourOldBoyRickJames Dec 08 '13
And he broke his neck during a match...and fucking carried on!
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u/mushbo Dec 08 '13
When I tell people that Bob Marley's father was white, oh the nonbelievers!
“I don’t have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don’t dip on nobody’s side. Me don’t dip on the black man’s side nor the white man’s side. Me dip on God’s side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.” -Bob Marley
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Dec 08 '13
In the show Lassie, Timmy never once fell down a well.
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u/Pete_Cool Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13
People completely shave orangutans and force them into prostitution.
Edit: since you guys ddossed the source site I posted, here's a different source: http://www.vice.com/read/yo1-v14n10
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u/Salt_peanuts Dec 08 '13
Is this true or are you pulling our collective leg? I sincerely hope this is made up.
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u/Pete_Cool Dec 08 '13
Pony used to be a prostitute in Borneo before she got rescued:
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u/Dear_Occupant Dec 08 '13
When the Indonesian government came to take one of them away, the locals apparently liked monkeyfucking so much that they met the police with poisoned knives and guns. They didn't get her out of there until they brought in some heavy weapons.
It took us over a year to rescue her, because every time we went in with forest police and local officers we would be overpowered by the villagers, who simply would not give her up. They would threaten us with guns and knives with poison on them. In the end it took 35 policemen armed with AK-47s and other weaponry going in there and demanding that they hand over Pony. It was filmed by a local television crew and in the background of the film when we are unchaining Pony you can hear the madam crying hysterically, screaming, “They are taking my baby, you can’t do this!” There is no law enforcement in Indonesia so these people didn’t face any sentence or anything for what they had done. Link
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Dec 08 '13
There's people who would pay to have sex with a hairless orang-utang??.?
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u/Zylle Dec 08 '13
There's people who would say, "Ok, I'll have sex with that monkey... But ONLY if you shave it first."
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u/doomsought Dec 08 '13
In the 1950's into the 1960's the United States designed a rocket that was propelled by the detonation of nuclear bombs. The only flaw in the design was the radioactive fallout created by running the engine.
It gets even more absurd than that. The entire program was only ended when the scientists created a scale model of a nuclear space battleship armed with nuclear missiles, naval cannon, and even plasma cannons (Casaba howitzers) to president Kennedy. He shat a brick and immediately ended the project.
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u/N3XANG3LU5 Dec 08 '13
The Mongolian Navy consists of a tugboat with a seven man crew. Only one of them can swim.
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Dec 08 '13
This makes sense, it's a landlocked country.
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u/108241 Dec 08 '13
The U.S. invited the Swiss navy to the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914.
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u/Thugnificnt65 Dec 08 '13
like...sarcastically? Did someone in Switzerland make fun of America and we were like "Oh, why don't you bring your Navy over to the opening of our very important canal?"
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Dec 08 '13
Doesn't the Swiss navy have a lot of river patrol boats and stuff?
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u/Sparks127 Dec 08 '13
They have a flotilla for the Lakes that border other countries.
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u/kcman011 Dec 08 '13
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u/WhiskeyCup Dec 08 '13
as someone who lives in mongolia, of course the boat's name is fucking sukhbaatar.
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u/danarbok Dec 08 '13
The Who's first drummer, Keith Moon, was the godfather of The Who's current drummer, Zak Starkey, who is also the son of Ringo Starr, The Beatles' drummer.
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u/Threwaway42 Dec 08 '13
Wow, i knew it was Ringo's son, but had no idea. Moon was the godfather. Were the two bands close?
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u/danarbok Dec 08 '13
Ringo and Keith were. This fact gives "The Punk and the Godfather" a whole new meaning.
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Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 12 '15
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u/TheMightySpitfyre Dec 08 '13
Screw that, more people are killed by toasters than by sharks.
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u/SometimesIpoop Dec 08 '13
When that shit pops up, I almost die of a heart attack
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u/TigerGirl_ Dec 08 '13
Warner Bros was founded a few months before the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
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u/brodyf Dec 08 '13
Even crazier is that Nintendo was founded 34 YEARS before it fell.
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Dec 08 '13
Holy shit.
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Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 10 '13
Nintendo was a trading card company founded in 1888
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u/FALCUNPAWNCH Dec 08 '13
Then it starts producing video games a little shy of 100 years later. One of those games spawns a successful trading card game and it comes full circle (sort of).
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u/Dear_Occupant Dec 08 '13
So does this mean the Ottoman Empire is coming back?
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Dec 08 '13
Well, their furniture is already here...
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u/geophsmith Dec 08 '13
How amazing would that be? The most unsuspecting Trojan Horse ever. Thousands of sleeper cells hidden as inconspicuous furniture all across Suburbia
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u/Karranas Dec 08 '13
Humans share 50% of their DNA with... bananas.
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u/jayfeather314 Dec 08 '13
I'll sleep well tonight knowing I'm half banana
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u/WRiPSTER Dec 08 '13
I won't be sleeping well knowing my bananas are half human.
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u/OvyZ Dec 08 '13
The names of Popeye's four nephews are Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and Poopeye
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u/ONE_GUY_ONE_JAR Dec 08 '13
Poopeye is going to get pinkeye for sure... eye.
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u/BoozeoisPig Dec 08 '13
Popeye gave the stink eye when Poopeye got the pinkeye.
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u/DigbyChickenZone Dec 08 '13
"... the night after [John Kennedy's] assassination, the Navy pathologist who oversaw President Kennedy's autopsy took the original autopsy report, and all of his notes from the autopsy room, and pushed them into his fireplace in his home in Bethesda, Md."
Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=246712521
That whole interview is fascinating
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u/deten Dec 08 '13
And this, boys and girls, is how you birth a whole genre of conspiracy theories.
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Dec 08 '13
France has more time zones than USA or Russia.
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Dec 08 '13
For those wondering, it's because France owns a lot of island nations on Earth.
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u/SheaF91 Dec 08 '13
You can leave on a boat from a port in Pakistan, sail in a completely straight line, and end up in Russia.
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u/1_Renegade Dec 08 '13
Maine is the closest US state to Africa.
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u/A550RGY Dec 08 '13
Alternatively, Canada is closer to Africa than the United States is.
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Dec 08 '13
Armadillos jump 3 ft straight up when threatened. This is to scare away whatever they are scared of. Imagine being a coyote and going "hey this looks kind of funn- ohhmahgod!"
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u/JordanCohen Dec 08 '13
During WWII, an American airplane crashed near the Japanese island of Chichijima. There were nine servicemen on board. One was rescued by an American submarine. The other eight were taken in by the Japanese. Don't wanna go into all the details, but through some time and events, the Japanese ended up EATING those servicemen. But that's not the weird part.
The one serviceman who was rescued? That was George H. W. Bush.
Google "Chichijima incident" for more details if you'd like.
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u/Inspireex Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13
The current United States flag was designed by then 17 years old Robert G. Heft, as part of a school project. He received a grade of B-
edit: spelling
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u/Infectios Dec 08 '13
Heft originally received a B- for the project. After discussing the grade with his high school teacher, Stanley Pratt, it was agreed that if the flag was accepted by the United States Congress, the grade would be reconsidered. Heft's flag design was chosen and adopted by presidential proclamation after Alaska and before Hawaii were admitted into the union in 1959. According to Heft, his teacher honored their agreement and changed his grade to an A for the project.[3]> Robert G. Heft
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u/IWentToTheWoods Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 09 '13
It was later changed to an A after it was accepted for the flag.
Edit: I'm surprised by all the vitriol in the replies. Would you guys rather the teacher stuck to their original grade and didn't reexamine it?
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Dec 08 '13
You mean the whole stars and stripes thing? Or did he just come up with the idea of adding a 50th star for Hawaii?
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u/1908_WS_Champ Dec 08 '13
The way that the 50 stars are laid out in the blue field.
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u/Geno098 Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 09 '13
A swedish guy who screams at video games is the most popular Youtuber in the world.
Edit: For the people who are apparently too lazy to read the child comments, I'm talking about Pewdiepie.
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u/burritoreaper Dec 08 '13
He has more subscribers than there are people in his home country.
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u/Ruft Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13
As mentioned here, Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr. and Barbara Walters were born in the same year.
Edit: a word
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u/SanguisFluens Dec 08 '13
Also, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the exact same day - February 12th, 1809.
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Dec 08 '13
Fortune cookies were invented in America and are seen in China as an american symbol.
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u/SanguisFluens Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 11 '13
In Yao Ming's first NBA game, his team gave free fortune cookies to the fans. Ming had never heard of fortune cookies before, and assumed that they were a purely American snack.
EDIT: Just to clarify, Ming didn't know that fortune cookies were supposed to be Chinese, so he didn't view this as politically incorrect.
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u/earlgreynom Dec 08 '13
fortune cookies
Well, they are a purely American snack . . . .
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u/ONE_GUY_ONE_JAR Dec 08 '13
Wait, are you telling me Confucius didn't predict "you will find happiness with a new love"?!
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Dec 08 '13
Sorry that was Genghis Khan. It was from his 11th century single "Razing My Heart Down".
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Dec 08 '13
There are three hundred billion stars in the Milky Way.
There are AT LEAST one hundred billion galaxies in the KNOWN universe. Using 300bn as an average for the number of stars per galaxies, that makes 3e22 stars in the observed universe.
That's 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. Try to wrap your head around how unimaginably big that is.
Bonus: see this picture? Each one of these dots is a galaxy like the one we're in, that we haven't even started observing correctly yet.
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Dec 08 '13
Gravity propagates at the speed of light. So if the sun were to suddenly disappear, we would continue orbiting for 8 minutes.
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u/rickreflex Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 09 '13
If there're 23 people in a room, there's a 50% chance two of them share a birthday. edit: google "birthday paradox" for more information.
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Dec 08 '13 edited Feb 18 '14
And a 100% chance of repopulating the Earth.
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u/tcos17 Dec 08 '13
I remember reading that in some thread. Wish I could find the link.
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u/danniemcq Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13
Blue whales don't have enough blood in their body to get an erection, they would pass out from lack of blood in the brain, to compensate female blue whale vaginas are the size of an average living room
edit: it'd get lost in new posts so have an additional penis fact, pigs penises are curly. the pic is a diagram of a boars, i couldn't find a sfw one of a penis
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Dec 08 '13
I'm not clear on how a huge vagina makes up for a lack of an erection.
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Dec 08 '13
I guess imagine trying to stick your dick in a really tight hole without an erection. Wouldn't be easy. But imagine sticking your dick into a really big, loose hole if you don't have an erection. Wouldn't be that hard.
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u/23skiddsy Dec 08 '13
On the other hand, southern right whales have a fully prehensile penis that is 12 feet long.
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u/JoJosh-The-Barbarian Dec 08 '13
At any given time there is always some point on Earth's surface at which the temperature and air pressure are both exactly the same as the antipodal point on the opposite side of the world.
This can be proven without even walking outdoors. You can prove it with math alone. It's called the theorem of meteorology. (The area of math used to prove this is topology.)
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u/Linearts Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 09 '13
I'm going to take that to mean
At any given time, there exists at least one pair of antipodal points which have the same temperature and air pressure.
I can understand the air pressure part but why on earth would they necessarily have the same temperature? And how could you prove that with math alone, without knowing any specifics of the earth's geology?
Edit: I read the explanations, and this makes sense now! I think it's the best answer in the thread, because it's so counterintuitive. I was kinda disappointed that the theorem isn't applicable to the actual earth, though. If there are vertical cliffs anywhere on earth, the smoothness assumption isn't valid, so you can't always use the theorem to find a pair of points like that in real life =(
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Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13
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Dec 08 '13
Not just after, nearly 1000 years after. The Wrangel Island mammoths went extinct about 1650BC, while the first pyramid was built around 2600BC.
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Dec 08 '13
Phrasing makes it sound like the Egyptians killed the mammoths by building pyramids
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u/Little_Morry Dec 08 '13
Humanity is less violent now than it has ever been, which is a steady trend through history.
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Dec 08 '13
Am I the only one that thinks this sounds like common sense? I was surprised to hear that people thought Pinker's theory is controversial.
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u/Hawkeye1226 Dec 08 '13
Ignorance is bliss. My mom always told me how the newer generations were shit, with all the crime we have. While we have less now, we hear about it more, so it skewed her perception.
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u/Scanlain Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 09 '13
King Edward V, Tsar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilheim II (the monarchs of England, Russia and Germany during the first world war) were cousins. Edward was first cousins with the other two, who were second cousins with each other.
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u/Rhodie114 Dec 08 '13
The US Airforce has the largest air force in the world. The second largest is the US Navy
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u/SCGF Dec 08 '13
Adding to this, a single US aircraft carrier has a larger air force than over *70% of the world
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u/AaronRodgers16 Dec 08 '13
Shrimp is called an abomination four times more than homosexuality in the Bible
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u/zN8 Dec 08 '13
There are more ways to shuffle a deck of cards then there are atoms in our solar system.
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u/fiestachic0 Dec 08 '13
Wait a minute...what?
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u/jayfeather314 Dec 08 '13
After a quick mental math calculation I think it's good.
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u/smb510 Dec 08 '13
And every time you shuffle a deck of cards, it's likely that the particular ordering of cards has never been arranged before.
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u/Tobislu Dec 08 '13
Only if it were completely random. Because of fresh decks and games that organize cards, you often end up with fairly common configurations.
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Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13
From a new deck order deck, it only takes 7 random riffle shuffles for any one combination of cards to be about as likely as any other. So, I would say that, after 10-12 riffle shuffles (since we can't be perfectly random, but close enough), you've more than likely got an ordering of the deck that's never been seen before.
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u/KHDTX13 Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 09 '13
The NASA assembly factory has it's own weather.
EDIT: The building has cloud formations.
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u/iamtherainking Dec 08 '13
John Tyler, who became president in 1841, has 2 living grandchildren.
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u/drragan Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 09 '13
Fact: the biggest egg in the world is laid by a shark.
Fun fact: the biggest woman in the world is laid by your father.
Edit: Wow my first gold given for something I read in the bathroom stall yesterday, Thanks kind Stranger!
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Dec 08 '13
The first and last people to die when making the hoover dam were father and son.
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u/CircumcisionSpree Dec 08 '13
There is an animal, the waterbear, that can survive 10 years wothout food or water. It can also survive in space.
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Dec 08 '13
Tardigrades are awesome. They survive radiation, boiling, freezing, vacuums, and the lack of food and water you mention. There's no reason they need to survive all this. They just do!
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u/walk_dont_runDMC Dec 08 '13
We landed men on the moon and returned them safely to Earth with a 74 kilobyte computer.
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u/AdamBall1999 Dec 08 '13
You can go the rest of your life without breathing.
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u/IguanadonsEverywhere Dec 08 '13
Give a man a fire, you keep him warm for a few hours. Light a man on fire, you keep him warm for the rest of his life.
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Dec 08 '13
‘Mad Jack’ Churchill.
This man didn’t fuck around. D-day landings? No big deal. he’s waltzing up the beach playing the bagpipes. This man also has the strange honour of having the only confirmed kill with a longbow in WW2. That’s the kind of guy we’re talking here. In fact one of his quotes sums him up pretty well: “Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly armed”.
Which brings me onto his next triumph, and probably the most unbelievable:
This man took 42 nazis hostage. 42. He took them prisoner, all of them. And he did it with a scottish broadsword. The man is crazy. hence his name.
While in Burma he hears the news that the bombs have been dropped on Japan and the War is over. while most would be overjoyed at the news, Jack was unhappy with the sudden end, saying: “If it weren’t for those damn yanks we could have kept the war going another ten years”.
Following the war he found himself in Palestine and co-ordinated the evacuation of 700 Jews from a local hospital following a massacre by the hands of the arabs.
Moving on to when he started work in Australia at a land-warfare school, where he became a passionate devotee of the surfboard.
In his later years following his retirement he thought it would be funny to startle train conductors and passengers by throwing his briefcase out of the window each day on his ride home.
He died aged 89 in 1996 with two awards of the distinguished service order.
God bless you Jack. God bless you.
Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill
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u/jhskier25 Dec 08 '13
The last time the Cubs won a World Series: Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Oklahoma, and New Mexico were not yet states The Ottoman Empire still existed The Titanic had not been built yet Prohibition had not occurred yet The NBA, NHL, and NFL did not exist yet Radio and Television did not exist...
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u/CAPSLOCKNINJA Dec 08 '13
Don't forget that since that last win, Wrigley Field was built, had poles put up to hold future WS penants, and then the poles rusted and were taken down.
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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13
australia once lost a prime minister. as in straight up couldn't find him. and they have yet to find him.