Today, the internet has caused a lot of trouble in knowing which factoid is true and which is fake. Fake news has become so rampant that both Google and Facebook had to take up measures in order to tackle this menace.
Sometimes, some factoids sound so bizarre and unbelievable, that one dismisses it for fake. However, we bring to you 10 such facts which are difficult to digest, but are 100% true.
Match.com is a website that was founded by Gary Kremen in 1994. He then left the company in 1996 with $50,000 payout and to his ill fortune, Match.com made $900 mn in 2015 alone. He might have been a billionaire had he not left the company he started.
However, more than money, Kremen lost his girlfriend to the website as well. His girlfriend made a profile on the site and met a man and broke up with Kremen.
Image Source: www.internethistorypodcast.com
We all know about Oxford University and how prestigious it is to study in the illustrious education place. However to put things about how old the university is, the famed Aztec civilization was founded in 1200 AD in Mexico and are known to developed the calendar, had universal education system. They were wiped out by an invasion by Spanish Hernan Cortes in 1521.
Well, the thing is University of Oxford predates the Aztec civilization by 2000 years, as it was established in year 1096 AD. The university became famous when it got the royal charter during the reign of King Henry III in 1248. So in all, the university is about 921 years or so old.
Image Source: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk
Normally you need to apply heat at high temperature in order to join two metals and the process is known as welding. However, if the two pieces of metal were placed somewhere without any oxygen, like in a vacuum or space, they would instantly fuse together in what is called as cold welding.
Oxygen provides a layer over the atoms of metals, in order to keep them together. However, when the same metal is placed along with another metal in an area without any oxygen, the atoms of both metals don’t know they are two separate pieces and mix together.
That is why astronauts have tools made of plastic or with plastic coating to avoid fusing their screwdriver to their space ship while maintenance walks in space.
Fossils in Siberia proved that sharks appeared on Earth during the Silurian period some 450 million years ago and at one point there were 3,000 species of sharks, as compared to 500 species today. The funny thing is that it is believed that trees didn’t appear on Earth for millions of years after Sharks appeared. Trees appeared during the Devonian period, some 418 mn to 358 mn years ago.
The oldest known tree fossil is 385 million years ago, which is about 65,000,000 years after sharks appeared. Sharks are 220 million years older than dinosaurs and about 390 years older than Mount Everest. Feast on that thought.
Image Source: www.toptenz.net
Pasteurization is a process by which a liquid is heated to kill bacteria in it to make it safe for consume. It was invented by Louis Pasteur in 1800s and later on, he decided to find a cure for rabies, a disease that is fatal and incurable even today.
Pasteur worked with live rabid animals in his lab and he had given orders to his assistants to shoot him, if he is ever bitten by one of the infected animals. Finally and fortunately it didn’t come to that and in 1885, July 6, his team invented the first vaccine for rabies and was used on a 9 year old boy to save his life.
Image Source: www.line.do
Professional models have their weights closely monitored by modeling agencies and have many dietary restrictions to follow. You must think that models live a hard life due to all the restrictions. Well, they atleast have it better than F1 race drivers.
Since F1 races are highly precise, 2kgs of weight can wipe off 0.02 seconds from your race time and could mean in a loss. F1 drivers have to be around 60-65 kgs to race in professional circuit and in 2013, Jenson Button admitted to starving himself and avoiding carbs in order to be ready for the races.
Image Source: www.f1fanatic.co.uk
Everyone pictures Arab nations as hot places with lots of camels and sand, since most of them are deserts. However, to your surprise, most of the sand in Arab countries is exported and it is a lucrative business to do so. Australia is a major exporter of sand to Arab countries and Germany recently followed suit.
The global market for sand is around $89bn and has given rise to sand mafias that strip tropical beaches of sand in a single night.
Image Source: www.toptenz.net
The Empire State Building in US was once the tallest building in the world. It is 86 storey high and if some poor soul happens to fall off the top, it is pretty much done for that fellow. However in 1979, Elvita Adams, took a ticket to the observation deck on the top, climbed the railings and jumped off the roof.
She however survived and was brought into the hospital in full consciousness. Now you may how she survived. Well a strong gust of wind pushed her towards the ledge of 85th floor and she landed on it and fractured her hip. She did try to jump again, but security caught her and brought her back inside.
In 2007, a window cleaner managed to survive a 47 storey fall off the building, thanks to sheer luck.
Image Source: www.history.com
Pyramids are old as anything. They were built around 2,500 BC, 1,000 years before Moses lived. Just to tell you how old they are, Egypt’s queen Cleopatra lived closer in time to the first Pizza hut opening than to the pyramids.
She reigned from 69-31 BC and the first Pizza hut opened in 1958, the gap between the two being around 2,000 years. However, the pyramids were built 2,450 years before Cleopatra was born, making her closer to the Pizza hut rather than Pyramids.
Image Source: www.dribbble.com
April 26, 1986 is a date that history will never forget, as a nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded and humanity witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in its history. 31 people died instantly and it poisoned millions of square miles of land which won’t be habitable for atleast 10,000 years to come.
The WHO at that time estimated 4,000 deaths due to radiation and after 31 years, we are still guessing the number of people killed due to this disaster. UN estimates 16,000, while the Ukraine National Commission for Radiation Protection calculates 500,000. No matter the numbers, Chernobyl is the second biggest and deadliest disaster in human history after the Floods in China in 1931 which may have killed over 4 million people.
Image Source: www.theatlantic.com