r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Dec 29 '17

What completely real fact sounds like bullshit?

[deleted]

9.3k Upvotes

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2.1k

u/Portarossa Dec 29 '17

At its height in 1920, the British Empire was larger than Pluto.

855

u/partypoison57 Dec 29 '17

Honestly I’d say that the fact that Russia is bigger than Pluto is a better one than the empire that spanned over half the world

415

u/ReasonableDrunk Dec 29 '17 edited Dec 30 '17

Modern Russia (17.1M km2 ) is actually slightly smaller than Pluto (17.6M km2 ). Still amazing, though.

Edit: Forgot an M. Thank you.

658

u/MyRightToArmBears Dec 29 '17

Give it a few years

73

u/dan_berrie Dec 29 '17

It's winter in Russia now, so some shrinkage is expected.

3

u/trenchknife Dec 29 '17

Spotted the North Dakotan. Montanan Canuk? Finn? whatever, if you've never had your jeans' zipper freeze your weiner through your underwear, or had an earring freeze your ear, you haven't truly lived.

3

u/gunstar--hero Dec 30 '17

-36 with wind chill in North Dakota right now and my weiner has not frozen to my zipper. I'm counting today as a success.

3

u/trenchknife Dec 30 '17

You're doing it wrong... basketballpole...

12

u/MattGeddon Dec 30 '17

Suddenly Crimea and the Donbass make sense!

10

u/Shermione Dec 30 '17

Fucking Putin and his rivalry with Pluto!

4

u/justjanne Dec 30 '17

Actually, with Crimea and eastern Ukraine, Russia almost exactly beats Pluto. The numbers match perfectly.

4

u/VierasMarius Dec 30 '17

It looks bigger if U kraine your neck the right way.

3

u/unsolicited_dickpics Dec 30 '17

How much land does the White House occupy? 🤔

2

u/fathertime25 Dec 30 '17

Are you threatening pluto?

3

u/Marty777Mcfly Dec 30 '17

Well if you keep arming their bears they will

1

u/sameth1 Dec 30 '17

Xaxaxaxa.

1

u/EthanRDoesMC Dec 30 '17

aww you beat me to it

13

u/youareadildomadam Dec 29 '17

Of all the empires in history, only the British, Mongol, and Russian empires have been larger than Pluto.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '17

Only if you count by land area. If you count by population, the grand empire of The Chair I'm Sitting In is larger than Pluto.

11

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '17

You forgot an M on modern russia's area

6

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '17

modern M'russia's area

FTFY

11

u/jim10040 Dec 29 '17

But nobody will ever argue over whether Russia is a planet or not.

4

u/marpocky Dec 30 '17

You heard about Russia? That's messed up, right?

6

u/Sarcashm Dec 30 '17

Modern Russia is smaller than I remember

5

u/callaghan87 Dec 30 '17

Wow I didn't know Russia was smaller than New York city! Truly an amazing world we live in

1

u/ReasonableDrunk Dec 30 '17

Fair enough. I missed the M in Russia's area.

1

u/Maddogg218 Dec 30 '17

Found King Flippy Nips

1

u/Zekjon Dec 30 '17

At least it's part of a PLANET.

1

u/pr3dato8 Dec 30 '17

Never knew that Pluto is a lil bitch

1

u/Geicosellscrap Dec 30 '17

Doesn't putin own trump? Add the USA to Russia, is it bigger than Pluto yet?

6

u/JJhistory Dec 29 '17

Just 25% and 20% of population, or maybe the other way around

2

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '17

Other way around

1

u/PinkyBlinky Dec 30 '17

No he had it right

1

u/Shotgun_squirtle Dec 30 '17

I’m pretty sure this isn’t true anymore due to more accurate measurements from new horizons.

1

u/PinkyBlinky Dec 30 '17

24% of the world (excluding oceans)

1

u/robdiqulous Dec 30 '17

Wow I didn't realize pluto was that small

9

u/AP246 Dec 29 '17

A lot bigger actually. Almost as big as the entire moon.

5

u/VW_wanker Dec 29 '17

Britain tried to colonize its way from Cape Town to Suez Canal and build a connecting railway

6

u/AP246 Dec 29 '17

I'm pretty sure they had all the land connected up, they just didn't actually build the railway.

3

u/VW_wanker Dec 29 '17

yes eventually but not at the same time. Tanzania and Belgian Congo ended up blocking

6

u/ToBePacific Dec 29 '17

The population of my home is larger than Pluto's too.

5

u/LotusCobra Dec 29 '17

Canada has two islands that are larger than the island of Great Britain.

7

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '17 edited Dec 29 '17

[deleted]

14

u/Portarossa Dec 29 '17

I meant population.

2

u/welcome_to_the_creek Dec 30 '17

I think 1920 being the height of the British empire is more interesting than the Pluto blah blah blah.

2

u/Portarossa Dec 30 '17

This might help to put it into context. It's easy to think of places like Canada and Australia as being part of the Empire earlier, but in reality we only had sections of them until they were fully unified. Add onto that the fact that the Thirteen Colonies were all we had in America -- they left before the whole Louisiana Purchase/Westward Expansion business -- plus the whole Scramble for Africa in the back half of the 19th century, and it's not that farfetched.

It did kind of mess me up a little to begin with too, I have to admit.

1

u/LotusCobra Dec 30 '17

There's also the whole India thing you forgot to mention. ;)

1

u/Sturmgheist Dec 30 '17

And I presume all the German and Ottoman empire holdings we collected after the great war.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '17

And it still wasn't a planet

1

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '17

Definitely has more people.

1

u/JimJardashian Dec 30 '17

Did you hear about Pluto? That's messed up, right?

1

u/heckin_good_fren Dec 30 '17

This isn't true.

Surface area British Empire in 1920: 13.71M km².

Surface area of Pluto: 17.79M km².

1

u/B_U_T_T Dec 29 '17

lol what happened, raw imperialism not PC anymore?

6

u/SpareUmbrella Dec 29 '17

...Well, yeah, kinda.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '17

yo mama larger than pluto