Do you ever wonder about the stranger, smaller things in life? Like how many ways you can really tie a tie, or which genius first thought to combine chocolate and milk? Or do you just take things for granted, like that croissants come from France, and that a baby rabbit is called a bunny?
Well, prepare to gain a wealth of knowledge with these 25 crazy little facts.
1. Barbie has a last name.
And a middle name, too. Her full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. No word on Ken.
2. Croissants aren’t from France.
Though their name is French for “crescent,” these flaky pastries actually hail from Vienna, Austria.
3. There are over 100,000 ways to tie a tie.
According to mathematicians in Sweden, there are 177,147 possible ways to tie a tie. We doubt they’re all attractive, and we’re also wondering who funded this research.
4. The signature line is not a line.
The signature line is actually the word “signature” in tiny print, repeated over and over again.
5. Chocolate milk was once sold as medicine.
I mean, chocolate milk does make everything better. It was originally invented by an Irish physician and sold in the U.K. for medicinal purposes.
6. Buttermilk contains no butter.
Speaking of milk, buttermilk is actually the liquid left over after butter is churned.
7. The chainsaw has a surprising origin.
It actually began life as a surgical instrument, and was used in symphysiotomy, which is a procedure that widens the pelvis to assist in childbirth. Ouch.
8. Tic Tacs are full of sugar.
They say “sugar free,” but are actually 98% sugar. How do they get away with that? Well, to be “sugar free,” a food must have less than 0.5 grams of sugar (the percent of sugar isn’t taken into account). A Tic Tac is 0.49 grams.
9. There are many different kinds of bees.
There are 20,000 species of bees, but only seven of those are recognized as honey bees.
10. Hydrox came first.
Everyone thinks these are the quintessential Oreo rip-off, but it’s actually the other way around…which is unfortunate for Hydrox. Although you have to admit, “Hydrox” is an unappetizing name for a cookie.
11. No one knows who invented fire hydrants.
It’s because the office where the patents were being held burned down. Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up.
12. Lighters came before matches.
The first modern lighter was created by German chemist Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner in 1823. Matches were invented three years later by John Walker in England.
13. You can fold paper more than seven times.
At 0.1 millimeters thick, a sheet of paper can be folded more than seven times, but there is a finite number of folds you can make.
14. Hypothetically, you could reach the moon with paper.
If you folded 0.1 millimeter-thick paper 42 times, the resulting paper would theoretically be thick enough to reach the moon.You can’t actually do that, though, so don’t try.
15. You can also span the universe with paper.
Taking this even further, if you folded the paper 103 times, it would span the known universe. How? Because with each fold, the thickness of the paper doubles, and after doubling 103 times, it would get very, very large.
16. The sacrifice for poo is great.
127,000 trees are chopped down every day to make enough toilet paper for everyone on the planet. Conserve, people (or just take a shower if it’s that bad).
17. Watermelons are technically berries.
Bananas, pumpkins, and avocados fall into the same category. That’s because the scientific definition of a berry is: “a fleshy fruit produced by a single ovary.” So there’s that.
18. Strawberries aren’t berries.
Their official status is “accessory fruit,” which gets us into more weird conversations about fruit ovaries.
19. Peanuts aren’t nuts.
They’re legumes, like peas and beans.
20. Pineapples get sweeter with salt.
It seems counterintuitive, but it works.
21. Trailers used to come after the movie.
That’s why they’re called “trailers.” But theaters started playing them in the beginning because most people wouldn’t stick around to watch them after the movie ended.
22. 99% of the Earth’s gold is inside its core.
So much for mining.
23. There’s not that much gold available to humans.
Which is why it’s so valuable. If you amassed all gold ever mined by humans, you’d have enough to build about a third of the Washington Monument — about 10 billion ounces.
24. There’s even less platinum available.
All the platinum ever mined by humans would fill an average-sized house.
25. Finally, “bunny” isn’t a term for a baby rabbit.
A baby rabbit is technically called a “kitten.” “Bunny” is just cutesy talk for a rabbit of any age. So there, your entire life is a lie.
Now that you’ve had this knowledge dropped on you, does the world seem a little more magical?