Interesting Facts

from 1,411 Quite Interesting Facts to Knock You Sideways by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin:

"Everyone has at least 50,000 thoughts a day but 95% of them are the same as the day before."

"The hole in a guillotine through which you stick your neck is called a “lunette.”"

from 1,339 Quite Interesting Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin:

"The faint trace of perfume left in the wake of a passing person is known as “sillage.”"

"Locust swarms move so fast because each locust is trying to eat the one in front and avoid being eaten by the one behind."

"When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, people flocked to look at the space where it had been."

"Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, spent nine years sitting facing a wall."

"General Franco kept the mummified hand of St. Teresa of Avila on his bedside table until his death."

"Everyone sleeps in one of six different positions: “fetus,” “log,” “yearner,” “soldier,” “freefaller,” or “starfish.”"

"The medical condition known as a “stroke” is short for “a stroke of God’s hand.”"

from 1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin:

"Oranges and lemons smell different due to chemically identical molecules that are mirror images of each other. An orange is really just a left-handed lemon."

"50% more US soldiers committed suicide in 2012 than were killed in action in Afghanistan."

"Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest in San Francisco. Not only did he not win, he failed even to make the final."

"Metrophobia n. Fear of poetry."

"Aborigines, whose culture reaches back to the last Ice Age, have names for (and can locate) mountains that have been under the sea for 8,000 years."

"There is more information in one edition of the New York Times than the average person in 17th-century England would have come across in a lifetime."

"The Italian verb asolare means “to pass time in a delightful but meaningless way.”"

"As soon as tiger shark embryos develop teeth they attack and eat each other in the womb."

And not a fact, but a good quote from "The Museum of Literary Souls by John Connolly:

"“I met Hamlet at a number 48B bus stop,” said Mr. Gedeon. “He’d been there for some time, poor chap. At least eight buses had passed him by, and he hadn’t taken any of them. It’s to be expected, I suppose. It’s in his nature.”"