Facts That Sound Completely Made Up

[timmy]

During World War II, the United States created a bomb that carried hundreds of bats. Each bat carried a small incendiary charge, and they would be released from the bomb in mid air to fly into different buildings in the area before detonation. The plan, which was thought up by a dentist who was friends with Eleanor Roosevelt, was approved by the government, but then cancelled in favor of the atom bomb.

[timmy]

 

The Rubik's Cube is advertized as having billions of possible permutations, but that is only because it was thought that the general public would be unable to comprehend the actual number: 43,252,003,274,489,856,000. If you had a Rubik's Cube for each of its possible permutations and laid them side by side, they would stretch for 261 light years!

[timmy]

Dino Days

If you ever imagined a T-Rex fighting a Stegosaurus, then you are in for a rude awakening. Less time actually separates the existence of humans and the Tyrannosauraus Rex than the existence of the Stegosaurus and the T-Rex. Anatomically modern Homo sapiens first appeared about 200,000 years ago, the T-Rex roamed the Earth about 66 to 67 million years ago, and the Stegosaurus dates back a whopping 150 to 155 million years ago.

 

[timmy]

 

When you get a kidney transplant, your non-working kidney is not actually removed. Instead, the doctors will place the new kidney in your pelvis and simply redirect the arteries and veins to that kidney. For that reason, it's not unusual for many people to have three or more kidneys.

:3D_Smiles: :3D_Smiles:

[timmy]

 

A wave of molasses killed 21 people in Boston in the early 1900s. The molasses rushed through the Boston streets at 35 mph, and locals swore they could still smell the unmistakeable scent on hot summer days decades later.

[timmy]

 

It is possible for a professional mimic to forget his own voice. This phenomenon happened to actor Gary Oldman, who had to visit a speech therapist in order to regain his native British accent after losing it for his various acting roles.

 

:3D_Smiles_38: :3D_Smiles_38: :3D_Smiles_38:

[timmy]

 

The founder of the popular internet dating site Match.com, Greg Kremen, actually lost his girlfriend to a man she met using Match.com. We are left to wonder if this is really sad or a really good publicity stunt.

[timmy]

 

When Abraham Lincoln's son Robert nearly fell off a train platform, his life was saved by Edwin Booth, who pulled him to safety. Edwin was the brother of John Wilkes Booth, who would famously assassinate Robert's presidential father a year and a half after this.

 

:3D_Smiles: :3D_Smiles: :3D_Smiles:

[timmy]

 

Russia is bigger than Pluto! You may have known the Dwarf Planet was small, but you probably didn't think it was smaller than a country on Earth. Russia has a surface area of 17,075,200 square kilometers, while Pluto is only 16,647,940 square kilometers.

[timmy]

 

Anne Frank and Martin Luther King, Jr. were born in the same year. Both the Jewish author and the civil rights leader were born in 1929, which most people find surprising.

[timmy]

 

A full-on war erupted between Honduras and El Salvador because of a soccer game. Before the second North American qualifying round of the 1970 FIFA World Cup, tensions between these two countries had been mounting due to immigration issues, and this finally erupted in rioting during the soccer game. The war that commenced lasted only 100 hours.

[timmy]

 

Diamond Rain

On Saturn and Jupiter, it actually rains diamonds! Although the diamonds disintegrate before they reach the planet surfaces, they fall in their solid forms through the atmosphere. Do you think you can catch enough to fund a space trip to go get them?

 

:surprised-038: :surprised-038: :surprised-038:

 

[timmy]

 

Mongolia had the largest navy in the world during the 13th century, but then it suddenly vanished. The Soviet Union revived the navy in the 1930s, but only by giving Mongolia one boat. Today, the Mongolian Navy consists of one tugboat that is manned by seven people — only one of them even knows how to swim!

[timmy]

 

The current 50-star American flag was designed by a 17-year-old boy for a school project. He received a B- on the design.

 

 

[timmy]

 

Pyramids

Cleopatra actually lived closer in time to the moon landing than she did to the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza. The famous Egyptian pharaoh lived from 69 BC to 30 BC, which is further from the 2560 BC completion of the Great Pyramid than from the 1969 moon landing.