35 Facts About The World That Sound Totally Fake But Are 100% True

The world is an amazing place, and our minds love to figure out why things happen as they do. The quest for answers continues as many remain attentive to discoveries about how things work. For avid thinkers, get ready for another deep dive: we have an intriguing list of factoids to share today, covering nearly every subject imaginable. Whether it’s history, science, or the mysteries of the human psyche, this unusual list may sound unbelievable, but it is, in fact, 100% true. Redditors online shared their responses to the question, “What’s a fact about the world that sounds totally fake but is 100% true?”, and we’ve gathered the most fascinating answers in the gallery below.

#1

Image source: Jt_250, Pixabay

Clouds weigh millions of pounds on average.

#2

Image source: acasiabanksia, Matthias Zomer

Cows have best friends and get stressed when they’re separated. Honestly more emotional intelligence than some people.

#3

Image source: WholeLottaNothing-7, Solstice Hannan

T-Rex lived closer in time to the cell phone than it did to stegosaurus.

Sharks have been in the ocean on earth for longer than Saturn has had rings.

#4

Image source: Lazarus558, google

Norway is separated from North Korea by one country: Russia.

#5

Image source: WellWellWellthennow, Mike Prince

The number of vertebrae in a giraffe’s neck is the same as in a humans – 7.

#6

Image source: Grapeape934, Ronin

Magnolias are one of the oldest flowering plants, with a lineage that dates back over 95 million years to the age of the dinosaurs. At that time, bees had not yet evolved, so magnolias developed a pollination strategy that relied on beetles, which are still their primary pollinators today.

#7

Image source: RoboticGreg, Chanute_hangglider.jpg

It was 66 years between the wright brothers first flight and landing on the moon.

#8

Image source: TrollerCoasterWoo, K. Mitch Hodge

The first BBC radio broadcast in a foreign language was a broadcast to Egypt in Arabic.

Air France used to be the aviation arm of the French postal service.

American Express used to deliver packages.

The Portuguese were the first European sailors to make contact with the Indians and the Japanese.

Speaking of the Portuguese, the Portuguese border is the oldest, unchanged border in Europe.

#9

Image source: genescheezesthatpls, Pixabay

Mushrooms absorb vit D so much that they can basically be a supplement.

#10

Image source: DorsalMorsel, A R-T

90% of the trash floating around the oceans of the world come from 10 rivers in Asia and Africa.

#11

We are closer in time to Shakespeare than he was to the time people spoke in Old English. Yet half the English teachers in the US tell kids “Shakespeare wrote in Old English.” Drives me insane.

Image source: RogerMooreis007

#12

Image source: Keno837, Darius Krause

It once rained for 1 million years straight around 225 million years ago.

#13

Image source: Lovebeingadad54321, Jonathan Cooper

Woolly mammoths were still around when the pyramids were built.

#14

Image source: EnleeJones, Mike Petrucci

Australia is wider than the moon. 🌙.

#15

Image source: baromanb, panumas nikhomkhai

Data Centers now consume about 5% of the world’s total energy .

#16

There’s water reservoirs located over 400 miles beneath the Earths surface that hold 3x more water than all of Earths oceans combined.

Image source: korevis

#17

There are, in fact, Native Antarcticans – 11 people were born there.

Image source: Native-Antarctican

#18

Image source: Joober81, Crispin Jones

Wood is one of the rarest things in the galaxy. Much rarer and more valuable than any precious gems or metals.

#19

Image source: jerrrrrrrrrrrrry, shraga kopstein

All the ants 🐜 in the world weigh more than all the people in the world!

#20

Image source: RogLatimer118, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The human body is estimated to contain more bacterial cells than human cells, with trillions of microorganisms living on and inside you.

#21

Image source: lemelisk42, Shivam Kumar

Moose can dive 20 feet deep to graze on the bottom of lakes.

#22

Of all the humans that have ever lived throughout history, about 7% are still alive.

Image source: ThinkPath1999

#23

A bolt of lightning is hotter than the surface of the sun.

Image source: natescode

#24

Image source: hiro111, Chait Goli

Oxford University was founded 332 years BEFORE the founding of the Aztec Empire.

#25

Image source: A911owner

The last civil war pension was paid in December of 2020.

Helen Viola Jackson, lived until December 16, 2020, to the age of 101. At 17, she married 93-year-old Union veteran James Bolin in 1936 during the Great Depression. Their marriage was arranged so she could receive his pension, a fact she kept secret for most of her life.

#26

Image source: Lazarus558, Dick Hoskins

There are three candidates for the tallest mountain on earth, depending on how you define the tallest.

* Highest elevation above sea level: Everest (Nepal/Tibet) at 8,848.86 m / 29,032 ft
* Tallest from base to peak: Mauna Kea (Hawai`i) at 10,205 m / 33,481 ft
* Tallest from earth’s centre to peak: Chimborazo (Ecuador) at 6,384.4 km (3,967.1 mi) vs Everest at 6,382.3 km (3,965.8 mi).

#27

Image source: Oddharry1923, Los Muertos Crew

Running your hand on stainless steel removed smells from your hands. Onions. Garlic. Metal rust. Try it!

#28

That octopuses have three hearts always blows my mind. Feels like something a kid would make up on the spot but nope, completely real. They’re just built different.

Image source: twohertbrain

#29

Anne Frank and Martin Luther King, Jr were the same age.

Image source: Emily-Seger

#30

Image source: RogLatimer118, Aditya Romansa

Less than 1% of the atoms that you were composed of at birth are still there at age 70.

#31

Image source: Henri_Bemis, Lukas

I had some reason to google the French Foreign Legion yesterday, because it couldn’t possibly still be a thing, but it is, and it’s still old school. The only way to sign up is to literally knock on the door of a recruitment center in France.

#32

Image source: GnarlyNarhwal, Felix Mittermeier

A teaspoon of a neutron star would weigh about a billion tons.

#33

Image source: Iriltlirl, Peter de Vink

The earth is missing a giant mass of itself which – after divesting itself of this mass in a collision with another celestial object – became our moon.