Other What's the best/your favorite fun fact you've learned recently?

[GraySkyl]

I love collecting weird fun facts I can share with people unexpectedly, and I need to grow my collection! Please let me know of any cool, interesting, or just plain weird fun facts you know of!

 

[DragonSlayer57]

Hmm, here’s one! Beached whales have been known to explode due to build up in internal pressure thanks to their tough skin being unable to let loose the gasses their dead body produces. In dead animals, this is called bloating, and will usually go up until their intestines rupture and everything just falls out their butthole. Once upon a time in Taiwan, when a dead whale was being taken for postmortem examination, it exploded in an urban area. Cars and people were showered with blood and organs alike. Pretty cool right!

 

[Cogwork]

Queen Christina of Sweden loved raising people to nobility to the extent that the number of noble families doubled during her reign, with the amount of Count and Barons reportedly sextupled.

This, however, proved to be a bit of a problem as the crown was supposed to give away an estate to each Count and Baron. But Christina had ennobled so many that she lost track of which estates belonged to the crown and which she'd already given away. This led to some estates being given away twice.

 

[GraySkyl]

Queen Christina of Sweden loved raising people to nobility to the extent that the number of noble families doubled during her reign, with the amount of Count and Barons reportedly have sextupled.

This, however, proved to be a bit of a problem as the crown was supposed to give away an estate to each Count and Baron. But Christina had ennobled so many that she lost track of which estates belonged to the crown and which she'd already given away. This led to some estates being given away twice.

Oh, how I wish I was her, sabotaging the structure of nobility from within

 

[Cogwork]

Oh, how I wish I was her, sabotaging the structure of nobility from within

Well, her actions ended up cementing the nobility's power more than anything else. When she abdicated the throne, roughly half the country was on land owned by the nobility.

 

[Cogwork]

Oh, here's another fun fact. When Franz Lehár visited Sweden for the first, he was invited to a dinner. Now at some point during the dinner, all the men in the room stands up and solemnly starts singing. Lehár assumed that the song had to be the Swedish national anthem.

It was actually "Helan Går" which is nothing more than a popular drinking song.

But that's not the last time that "Helan går" was mistaken as a national anthem. When the Swedes won the world championship in hockey against the Soviets in 1957, the Soviets hadn't prepared for that and were unable to play the Swedish national anthem during the gold medal ceremony. So it was decided that the Swedish hockey team would make up for it by singing it over the PA system, however partly to poke fun at the Soviets and partly because none on the team know all the words to the actual national anthem they all decided to sing "Helan Går" instead.

Supposedly the team found it hilarious when Zhukov (the then minister of defense of the Soviet Union) stood to attention for a simple drinking song.

 

[Coca-Cola]

I have a few

Spoiler: morbid

You can waterboard anyone with anything, it does not have to be water. When people lose their heads to the guillotine they stay alive for 15 to 30 seconds. In space no one can hear you scream. You wouldn't die right away if you were fed into a wood chipper. Roman emperor Nero would burn Christians like candles. Chickens will run around when their heads are cut off. Children can actually remember past lives. You yes you reading this have tinny little bugs on your skin

 

[Cogwork]

This, however, proved to be a bit of a problem as the crown was supposed to give away an estate to each Count and Baron. But Christina had ennobled so many that she lost track of which estates belonged to the crown and which she'd already given away. This led to some estates being given away twice.

Oops, I forgot the best part. To remedy this, the estate letters that were given away by the crown had to be changed to include a clause where they were only valid as long as they hadn't already given away the same estate to someone else.

Also, another fun fact, back in the day before it was discovered that they migrated over the winter, the Swedish Bishop Olaus Magnus claimed that swallows hibernated. That theory might not sound too outlandish (in fact, it was pretty common at the time) until you get to the part where he claims that said hibernation was done underwater. Apparently, this was "common knowledge" to fishermen at the the time who reportedly managed to drag them up from the bottom of lakes occasionally. Though wiser, more experienced fisherman knew that doing so was pointless as the swallows could not survive the experience.

 

[Daisie]

Oh! Not recent, but it is the fact that brings me the most joy.
The scientific name for "bumblebee" is "bombus".

BOMBUS?!
THERE AREN'T WORDS TO DESCRIBE HOW MUCH I ADORE THIS.
BOMBUS.

 

[Edythir]

Sharks evolved before trees did. There was a time in earth's history where the oceans had sharks before the surface had trees. Sharks are over four times older than the rings of saturn, the north star and even the formation of the rocky mountains. Sharks have been around for a while. In fact, Sharks are twice as old as the Jurassic period. Sharks existed way before Dinosaurs ever did.

 

[KyIe]

The Arabic language has 160+ different words for "camel".

 

[Otto Levin]

Scientists discovered that your brain can make new neurons, even as an adult! So that whole "your brain cells don't grow back" thing is total nonsense. Looks like your brain's just been sneaking in some new neurons while you're busy losing your car keys... again

 

[Cogwork]

The French lawyer Bartholomew Chassenée (1480–1541) allegedly made his reputation as a lawyer thanks to his eloquent defense of a group of rats that had been put to trial for destroying a barely crop.

 

[AaronMk]

When the House of Bourbon won the Spanish Throne after the War of Spanish Succession, Philip V Bourbon conducted a general survey of the realm where the new Bourbon dynasty discovered that Aragon was still using Roman numerals in accounting, and not Arabic numbers.

The Kingdom of Spain was in reality at least eight different states, all of which the King of Spain was head of state. All of which had their own laws, traditions, aristocratic traditions that the king had to swear allegiance to. Three of these were three separate Basque Republics. This is in comparison to France at the height of Absolutism where the King was at the height of it all, but power was delegated out from him downwards into the patchwork of dioceses, parlements, provincial assemblies, and so on and were more or less coordinated by the royal Council Of State, Spain had no such organ but rather a tendency to cliques surrounding the most currently favored friend of the King, a tradition that would remain until roughly Napoleon

 

[AaronMk]

When the House of Bourbon won the Spanish Throne after the War of Spanish Succession, Philip V Bourbon conducted a general survey of the realm where the new Bourbon dynasty discovered that Aragon was still using Roman numerals in accounting, and not Arabic numbers.

The Kingdom of Spain was in reality at least eight different states, all of which the King of Spain was head of state. All of which had their own laws, traditions, aristocratic traditions that the king had to swear allegiance to. Three of these were three separate Basque Republics. This is in comparison to France at the height of Absolutism where the King was at the height of it all, but power was delegated out from him downwards into the patchwork of dioceses, parlements, provincial assemblies, and so on and were more or less coordinated by the royal Council Of State, Spain had no such organ but rather a tendency to cliques surrounding the most currently favored friend of the King, a tradition that would remain until roughly Napoleon

To add to the list of Spanish facts:

During the 17th century a shift in agricultural priorities to herding and poor agricultural practices, including a total cessation of any development whatsoever lead to a mass migration of Spaniards from the interior to the coasts and to the colonies, even if the later wasn't approved by the King's Cortes

The banishment of the Conversos and Moriscos crippled the Spanish population and created vast areas of severe under population or absolute abandonment

The Portuguese would just do Spaghetti Western ass stuff in Southern Spain for any lack of the Spanish to stop them and their British mercenary friends