40 Random Things You May Not Have Known Before Today

There are so many things that we tend to learn from the internet. Every day we save a new fact, hack or tip in our folders for later reference thinking, how have we gone our whole lives up to now, not knowing such a simple thing? But as it turns out, over thousands of years, humans have accumulated tons of information that they haven’t always consistently passed down to younger generations. Therefore, many folks have gaps in their knowledge despite how much time they may have spent trying to absorb everything there is to know about the world we live in.

Today we explore a much-loved online community that collects and shares such fascinating facts about the world that not everyone is aware of. Scroll below to check out this onslaught of information in the gallery below as you update yourself on more fun trivia about our universe that’s being discovered every single day.

#1 Elephant (Tarra) and a dog (Bella) had become close friends at a sanctuary in Tennessee. Unfortunately, one day Bella was killed by coyotes, and Tarra found her body and carried it a mile back to the barn where the staff were.

#2 That elephants stay cancer free as they have 20 copies of a key tumor-fighting gene; humans have just one.

#3 Astronauts on board the ISS need to sleep near a ventilator fan. Warm air does not rise in space so astronauts in badly-ventilated sections end up surrounded by a bubble of carbon dioxide.

#4 Scientists used a dating method to show a Viking ax cut trees on the North American continent exactly 1000 years ago, in 1021 C.E. This dating method uses a spike in solar radiation that left a mark in tree rings around the world. This proves the Vikings arrived before Christopher Columbus.

#5 In 1968, over 6000 sheep were killed in Utah and popular theories pointed to the Army. It was revealed 30 years later that it was indeed the result of nerve agent testing. Families nearby developed nervous system illnesses, but the Army accepted no responsibility.

#6 Juicero, a company that made a $699 juicer requiring Wi-Fi, an app, and QR-coded produce packs that had to be scanned and verified before juicing. Journalists found that the packs were easily squeezeable by hand, yielding the same results as the juicer. The company shut down shortly after.

#7 During “Hell week” of Navy SEAL training, candidates are given no more than 4 hours sleep over five and a half days, all while under continual mental and physical stress.

#8 During the 1920s, Guinness was recommended to pregnant women due to the perceived high iron content of the drink.

#9 When Fox refused to pay for Deadpool screenwriters Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick to be on set every day during filming, Ryan Reynolds paid with his own money to make sure they were there in order to keep the project on the right track & maintain the original creative team.

#10 In parts of the UK, a rule from 1902 mandates that homes facing each other at the rear must be built 21 meters apart. This specific distance was determined by two urban designers who measured how far apart they could see each other’s nipples through their shirts.

#11 when Domino’s Pizza entered the Italian market in 2015, the company had an ambitious plan of opening 880 outlets across the country by 2030. It got as far as opening 29 branches, that were all closed by 2022

#12 There are over 1,000 homes in Edinburgh, Scotland that nobody has lived in for over 10 years. The most common reason is a reclusive homeowner passing away and nobody realizing they’ve inherited the property.

#13 In 1967 at the outbreak of the Six Day War the Suez Canal was shut down stranding fifteen ships, anchored together the crews formed a yachting club, held lifeboat races, and produced their own postage stamps — the ships would remain there until 1974.

#14 Bob The Builder was altered for Japanese children so they wouldn’t confuse him for a Yakuza member.

#15 Harrison Okene (a cook) survived 3 days at the bottom of the ocean in a sunken ship by finding an air pocket.

#16 A computer study of over a million samples of normal English prose found that the longest word one is likely to encounter on an everyday basis is ‘uncharacteristically’ at 20 letters.

#17 Billy Idol was first choice for the role of T-1000 in Terminator 2, but a motorcycle accident in 1990 prevented it. During his time in hospital he also swore never to wear the Confederate flag again after a black employee explained his feelings on it.

#18 Isidor Straus, co-owner of Macy’s, and his wife Ida died on the Titanic after refusing a lifeboat to prioritize women and children.

#19 In 2012 a British man named Wesley Carrington bought a metal detector and within 20 minutes found gold from the Roman Age worth £100,000.

#20 Columbia Pictures refused to greenlight the 1993 film Groundhog Day without explaining why Phil becomes trapped in the same day. Producer Trevor Albert and director Harold Ramis appeased the studio, but deliberately placed the scenes too late in the shooting schedule to be filmed.

#21 A mathematics professor at Stanford University was [unalived] by his doctoral student who had been trying to get a PhD for 19 years.

#22 A study where monkeys were shown to be willing to pay (sacrificing food) for risque photos of other monkeys.

#23 That in 1956 the canals in Venice, Italy were drained and cleaned.

#24 From 1970 to 2015, The Sun published a picture of a topless female model on its page 3.

#25 There was a real-life Lord of the Flies-esque situation where school boys were stuck on a deserted island for 15 months but the boys banded together rather than feuding.

#26 During a screening of “A Fish Called Wanda,” Danish audiologist Ole Bentzen died from heart fibrillation, caused by an increased heart rate due to extended laughter. Newspapers reported he died laughing. Writer John Cleese considered using it for publicity but ultimately deemed it inappropriate.

#27 In 2022 seat belt use in the US was 91.6% of occupants (8.4% unrestrained) and unrestrained occupant deaths accounted for 49.8% of deaths.

#29 After actor Sean Astin turned 18, he left numerous personal items at his mother Patty Duke’s house. Upon returning for them, many items, including the treasure map from “The Goonies,” were gone. “It’s an item that would probably be worth $100,000 now,” he said. “And I think my mom threw it out.”

#30 After ABC executives & producers encouraged Margaret Cho to go on a crash diet, while filming her TV series All-American Girl in 1994, she lost 30 lbs (14 kg) in 2 weeks. This resulted in her hospitalization for kidney failure & led to major health issues that continued for years after the show.

#31 Buzz Aldrin battled depression and alcohol addiction after the Moon landing.

#32 That the Wizard of OZ is only the 1st of 14 original works, and a total of 40 books in a series about the Land of OZ.

#33 When the studio refused to meet Sienna Miller’s pay request to star in the film 21 Bridges, Chadwick Boseman gave her part of his salary in order meet her number because he said “that’s what you should be paid”.

#34 The Luddites were not anti-technology. They were highly-skilled laborers who protested wage reduction and job replacement due to automation.

#35 Stephen Hawking completed a final multiverse theory explaining how mankind might detect parallel universes just 10 days before he died.

#36 Anne, Queen of Great Britain had at least 17 pregnancies over a 17-year period & had miscarried or given birth to stillborn children at least 12 times. Of her 5 liveborn children, 4 died before the age of two & her sole surviving child, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, died at age eleven.

#37 Possum Trot, a small town in Texas, adopted all the foster kids on a waiting list, eliminating the need for foster homes within a 100-mile radius.

#38 Most newborns cry for 45 minutes to two hours every day during the first six months of life because crying is the only way they communicate.

#39 A pizzeria owner discovered DoorDash was conducting a “demand test” and had a lower price for his pizza even though he had not asked for the pizzeria to be on the app. The owner ordered 10 pizzas on the app, paid $160, and had them delivered to a friend. DoorDash paid the restaurant $240.

#40 Mu Us desert in China was completely wiped out by reforestation efforts.

Shanilou Perera

Shanilou has always loved reading and learning about the world we live in. While she enjoys fictional books and stories just as much, since childhood she was especially fascinated by encyclopaedias and strangely enough, self-help books. As a kid, she spent most of her time consuming as much knowledge as she could get her hands on and could always be found at the library. Now, she still enjoys finding out about all the amazing things that surround us in our day-to-day lives and is blessed to be able to write about them to share with the whole world as a profession.