It doesn't help that when the right time of year comes along, perfectly legitimate resources will sometimes let their silly impulses get the better of them. It's like how the Australian Museum includes a believable article about the mythical drop bear on their website alongside profiles of the rest of Australia's wildlife.
However, sometimes the world can really be that weird. Saudi Arabia really does import camels from Australia and turtles actually can breathe through their butts.
By the same token, these 16 side-eye worthy facts will turn up true no matter how much you check them.
COMMENT and tell us what bizarre realities you didn't believe at first.
1. If you had a beard during Peter the Great's Russia, you had to pay a tax on it.
This law came about as part of the leader's efforts to modernize Russia and break with tradition, even if one of those traditions was simple facial hair. Those who paid were given this token as proof, while those who didn't were forcibly shaved in public.
2. People used to seriously believe in dog-headed people.
Saint Augustine of Hippo wrestled with the existence of cynocephaly, as it was called, in his book, City of God. After careful thought, he concluded that if they did exist, they were descended from Adam.
3. There may be more trees in our world than stars in our galaxy.
Of course, we can only estimate at how many stars exist in the Milky Way, but the number usually ranges from 100 billion to 400 billion. In contrast, there are about 3.1 trillion trees living on our planet right now.
4. American women were asked to take off their corsets for the war effort during World War I.
This request was meant to conserve steel and it seemed to work. The practice saved about 28,000 tons of the metal, which was enough to build a battleship.
5. The Nazis were the first to research the dangers of smoking.
Their research also apparently discovered the threat of secondhand smoking. Hitler reportedly found the habit disgusting and promised his closest associates a gold watch if they quit.
6. There was a massive party on the last day alcohol was allowed in the Navy.
When the secretary of the Navy prohibited alcohol on all vessels in 1914, they had to use up the stocks they had. So they invited members of the British, French, Dutch and German navies to join in on one last celebration.
By the end of that month, those involved would be at war with each other.
By the end of that month, those involved would be at war with each other.
7. You can rent the entire nation of Liechtenstein for $70,000 a night.
The offer is available through Airbnb, but nobody has successfully followed through with it yet. Snoop Dogg reportedly tried to rent it for a music video, but that didn't pan out.
8. Picasso died the same year that Dark Side of the Moon came out.
While he's most known for his paintings in the early 20th century, he died in 1973 at the age of 91.
9. Vikings used burnt animal bones to make their swords stronger.
They believed that hammering in the animal parts would infuse their weapons with the creature's power. In a way, they were right because they made steel by adding the carbon from the bones to the iron swords.
10. Nixon had the Secret Service dress like a marching band.
He reportedly found their normal attire "slovenly" and wanted the ornate uniforms you see below. The new outfits were widely mocked and the Secret Service changed back by the mid-1970s.
11. Natural gas doesn't actually smell like anything on its own.
You've likely caught a whiff of an unpleasant rotten egg smell when there's natural gas around. That's because an odorant called ethyl mercaptan is intentionally added to the mix to warn people of gas leaks.
12. This is what the torpedo room in a World War I U-boat looked like.
The whole sub was about this complicated but the U-boats couldn't do much against the much faster British warships.
13. Mozart and Beethoven composed music for the glass armonica.
This is an instrument made from spinning glass discs that sound similar to when you move your hand over the rim of wine glasses with water in them. To make things sound even more made up, the instrument was invented by Benjamin Franklin.
14. Napoleon was overrun by rabbits.
He asked his chief of staff to organize a rabbit hunt, but hundreds of them got loose and started chasing his party. The problem was that Napoleon's chief of staff used tame rabbits, who didn't run away like wild ones did and simply thought Napoleon would give them food.
15. Until they lost World War II, Japan valued the cannabis plant very highly.
The strong ropes made from hemp were so essential to the war effort that there were about 25,000 cannabis farms by 1948. However, when the United States occupied the land, the harsh anti-weed doctrine came with them. Since then, Japan has adopted some of the toughest marijuana laws ever created.
0 comments: