Fascinating Facts and Trivia

Dunce caps used to be signs of intelligence

Thirteenth-century philosopher John Duns Scotus believed that a pointed cap would help spread knowledge from the tip to the brain, and his “Dunsmen” followers wore them as a badge of honor. In the 1500s, though, his ideas became less popular and the meaning of the Duns cap was turned on its head, becoming something of a joke.

In the Philippines, McDonald’s serves spaghetti

The pasta comes with a beef tomato sauce and a piece of “McDo” fried chicken.

The inventor of the Internet regrets the URL setup

Tim Berners-Lee, who created the main software of the World Wide Web, admitted he regrets one thing: Adding “//” after “https:” in a web address. It was standard for programming but didn’t serve any real purpose, and when looking back in 2009, he said leaving it out would have saved time and space.

The Eiffel Tower was originally intended for Barcelona

The Spanish city thought the design was too ugly, so Gustave Eiffel pitched it to Paris instead, as a temporary landmark during its 1889 International Exposition. French critics didn’t like it much either though.

The Statue of Liberty used to be a lighthouse

About a month after the statue’s 1886 dedication, it became a working lighthouse for 16 years, with its torch visible from 24 miles away.

The shortest war in history lasted 38 minutes

When the sultan of British-protected Zanzibar died and a new one took over without British approval in 1896, the Brits were not happy. Tension escalated when Sultan Khalid bin Barghash refused to step down, but the British warships spent less than 40 minutes bombarding the palace before Khalid fled, marking the (very quick) end of the Anglo-Zanzibar War.

The world’s largest waterfall is underwater

At the Denmark Strait, the cold water from the Nordic Sea is denser than the Irminger Sea’s warm water, making it drop almost two miles down at 123 million cubic feet per second.

ManhattAnts are an ant species unique to New York City

Biologists found them in a specific 14-block strip of the city.

There are more pyramids in one small area of Sudan than in all of Egypt, except Sudan's pyramids are steeper and smaller than those of Ancient Egypt. The Meroë Pyramids Of The Sudanese Desert were also built for royalty - between 2,300 and 2,700 years ago - for the Nubian kings of Kush. The empire of these Pharaohs stretched from The Mediterranean Sea to present day Khartoum.

The length of a day on Saturn was a mystery until recently - determining the rotation of Saturn was actually very difficult to do because the planet doesn't have a solid surface. Unlike Mercury, you can't just watch to see how long it takes for a specific crater to rotate back into view - Astronomers needed to come up with a clever solution: The Magnetic Field. To determine the rotational speed of Saturn, astronomers had to measure the rotation of the planets magnetic field - by one measurement Saturn takes 10 hours and 14 minutes to turn on it's orbit, but when Cassini (only the 4th satallite to either fly by or orbit Saturn) approached Saturn, it clocked the rotation at 10 hours and 45 minutes. Astronomers now agree on an average day of 10 hours, 32 minutes and 35 seconds.

The most hamburgers eaten in 3 minutes is 12 and was acheived by Takeru Kobayashi (Japan) on the set of 'Lo Show dei Record' in Milan, Italy on 11th July 2014 - Kobayashi also holds the record for the most meatballs eaten in 1 minute - while filming a TV Show in Brooklyn, New York, Kobayashi at 29 meatballs in the 60 second allotted time frame, breaking the record for the most meatballs eaten in 1 minute. The meatballs were from IKEA although Kobayashi did not get to eat them with the brand's iconic Lingonberry Jam.




My favourite -
Linus Urbanec (Sweden) ate 31 Brussels Sprouts in 1 minute on 26th November 2008, suprisingly the record for eating Brussels Sprouts in 1 minute is competative and therefore quite specific. Competitors must use a cocktail stick to spike one sprout at a time for consumption.

Music trivia:
No one knows the name or currant location of the mysterious woman who graces the cover of Black Sabbath's debut album. On a side note, for those who don't know, the picture was taken at The 15th Century Mapledurham Watermill on the River Thames in Oxfordshire. Although it looks like a painting, the album cover was photographed by Keith Macmillan (aka Marcus Keef) using a technique called 'False Colour Photography' which makes green colours appear pink as well as other distinctive changes to conventional 'true colour' photography.

The first Fish 'n' Chip shop was opened in 1860 in East London by a Jewish immigrant named Joseph Malin.

The full official name of The Tower Of London is "Her Majesty's Royal Palace And Fortress Of London". It's home to the Queen of England's jewels. Among the 25,578 gems is the 530-carat Cullinan Diamond at the top of The Royal Spectre, the largest part of what was (until 1985) the largest diamond ever found.

A bit of Halloween trivia since it's nearly upon us....

Weight: 2,624.6 pounds.
Location: Ludwigsburg, Germany.
Year Grown: 2016.
Competition: Giant Pumpkin European Championship.

Mathias Willemijn's pumpkin is the largest pumpkin in the world by weight. While a 2,500 pound pumpkin was once considered unreasonable to expect, this jaw dropping giant topped previous records easily when it was authenticated by The Great Pumpkin Commonwealth. This pumpkin towered over the competition, weighing significantly more than a Volkswagen Beetle - Willemijn's won $11,460 for breaking the world record with his pumpkin, at a rate of $6 per pound.



Samainophobia is the fear of Halloween.

Ireland is typically believed to be the birthplace of Halloween.

Now this next fascinating post I was thinking of posting in the music thread but it's a band that has over 500 members and it is only a music video but evenstill 500 members playing Enter Sandman is pretty fascinating imo