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Oh, what's that, Mr. Sunflower?
It's time for more facts?
Well, let's do it!
(soft music)
Here are 50 amazing facts to blow your mind.
Since 1968, Snoopy from the comic Peanuts
has been the official safety mascot for NASA.
Every mission since has traveled
with a silver Snoopy onboard and, once back on Earth,
is given as an award to a civilian
who worked to keep the astronauts safe.
Antoine-Augustin Parmentier
was responsible for the popularization of potatoes in France
during the late-1700s.
He would line guards around his potato patch during the day
to hint that he was hiding valuables,
then at night leave the patch unattended
so people could steal his potatoes and enjoy them.
He also came up with recipes featuring potatoes,
founded a school of bread-making,
and studied methods of food refrigeration.
The countries that have 'stan' in them,
such as Afghanistan and Pakistan,
end that way because the suffix 'stan'
is an ancient Persian word
that means 'land nation' or 'place of.'
The Spix macaw, which is the blue bird
featured in the animated film Rio,
is now officially extinct in the wild.
Deforestation is the leading cause of their extinction.
The animation studio Top Craft,
which is known for the 1977 animated film The Hobbit,
ended up splitting into two studios.
One went on to create the television show Thundercats
and the other became Studio Ghibli.
Beekeepers are strongly advised not to eat bananas
before interacting with bees
because the fruit contains a compound
that triggers their alarm pheromone.
If the bees notice this on their beekeeper's breath,
they will become extremely aggressive.
Honeybees will usually sleep
between five and eight hours a day,
and some will hold each other's legs as they sleep.
So, they like to sleep a lot and cuddle.
So, they're me.
For the 1983 film Cujo,
anywhere from five to 13 dogs were used for filming,
and all of their tails had to be tied down with fishing wire
because they were wagging from excitement the entire time.
According to research published in Animal Cognition,
rats may have empathy.
During one experiment, rats were given a choice
of a chocolate treat
or saving one of their own from drowning,
and they would choose to save their drowning companion.
Anywhere from 40,000 to 45,000 Ph.D.s
are given out every year in the United States.
However, over 50,000 fake Ph.D.s are given out every year
by diploma mills.
This means that over half of all the people
who claim to have a Ph.D. have a fake one.
Birds are insensitive to the compound capsaicin,
which is what makes chili peppers hot.
In fact, if rodents are always eating the bird food
that you put out, you can make it spicy
and it will deter them from eating it.
A study done by Durham University
showed that some well-known fairy tales
are much older than we previously thought.
Beauty and the Beast
can be traced back to Indo-European lineages
between 2,500 and 6,000 years ago.
Jack and the Beanstalk,
also known as The Boy Who Stole the Ogre's Treasure,
can be traced back more than 5,000 years ago.
Before he died, Ivan the Terrible never told anyone
about a secret library that he inherited from his father,
and it is still being searched for today.
The library is said to contain rare Greek,
Latin, Chinese, and Egyptian works.
Opossums love to eat ticks
and will virtually get rid of all of them in your yard.
In a single season, one is capable of eating 5,000 ticks.
NASCAR pit crew members used to be mechanics
that underwent physical training.
However, today, there are more athletes
who train to be mechanics
because of how physically demanding the job is.
Actor Cary Grant took LSD an estimated 100 times
from the years 1958 until 1961
in order to search for inner peace and meaning.
He said the result of these sessions was a rebirth
and that he finally got where he wanted to go.
The lowest attendance ever for a Major League Baseball game
occurred on April 29th, 2015,
between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox.
There was an insufficient amount of security for the game
because of the civil unrest in Baltimore
following the death of Freddie Gray.
Because of this, no one was allowed at the game
and it was the first crowdless game ever.
The Orioles ended up defeating the White Sox, 8-2.
According to research from the University of Cambridge,
children get more satisfaction
from the relationship with their pets
than their own brothers and sisters.
They also get along better with their pets
than their siblings.
Not a big surprise there.
The Walkie-Talkie skyscraper in London
had to be fitted with a sunshade
because the reflection from the sun on one of its sides
became so hot that it was melting cars
and even caused a fire in a barber shop on the street.
The word 'quarantine'
comes from the Italian word quarantino, which means 40.
During the Black Death in the 14th century,
ships had to wait for 40 days outside of the port
to prove that they weren't infected.
Director George Lucas introduced the concept
of the hit film Raiders of the Lost Ark
to his friend Steven Spielberg
when they were building a sandcastle
at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel in Hawaii.
Comedian Steve Martin has won more awards
from playing the banjo and bluegrass music
than he has from comedy.
Musician Bob Dylan has been on tour since June 7th, 1988,
and calls it the never-ending tour.
He played his 2,000th show
on October 16th, 2007, in Dayton, Ohio,
and his 3,000th how on April 19th, 2019, in Austria.
In 2015, Godzilla became a Japanese citizen
and was even employed as a tourism ambassador of Japan.
A common shrew must eat up twice their body weight in food
every day to stay alive.
They will actually starve to death
if they go without food for only a few hours.
US President Thomas Jefferson would breed
a special type of geese in order to produce his quill pens.
Because he was right-handed,
he would only use five feathers at the tip of the left wing.
Left-handed people would use the five feathers
at the tip of the right wing.
Then he would bury the feathers in hot, dry sand
to harden them and cut them down to a point.
Actor Viggo Mortensen from The Lord of the Rings trilogy
is fluent in Danish, English, French, and Spanish.
He's also conversational in Italian,
understands Norwegian and Swedish,
and even has some knowledge of Catalan.
During the New York draft riots of 1863, Leonard Jerome,
who was the grandfather of Winston Churchill,
defended the New York Times office building
with a Gatling gun.
For the 1978 film Superman,
Marlon Brandon as paid $3.7 million
and given 11.75% of the profits
to play Superman's father, Jor-El.
He only worked for 13 days
and was given less than 20 minutes of screen time.
For comparison, Christopher Reeve was paid $250,000
to play the role of Superman.
Between 2011 and 2013, China used more cement
than what the United States used
throughout the 20th century.
The Palace of the Parliament in Romania
is the heaviest building in the world,
weighing around 4,098,500,000 kilograms.
The cost of heating and electric use
also costs more than $6 million a year,
which is the cost of powering a medium-size city.
If your dishwasher is 10 years or older,
it probably has a self-cleaning filter.
However, if it's a newer model,
you most likely have to manually clean the filter regularly.
That's just a little fun fact
for y'all dirty, dirty dish people.
Sir Isaac Newton used a large sewing needle
to poke behind his eyeball
in an attempt to fix his vision. (gagging)
He deemed the experiment a success
and even wrote about it in detail in his journal,
complete with how to perform the procedure.
No thanks, no thanks.
I'd rather just not see.
Serial killer Ed Kemper,
who was depicted in the Netflix show Mindhunter,
used his time in prison
to record hundreds of books to audio for the blind.
You can actually listen to him read an excerpt
from the book Flowers in the Attic,
which involves incest and family abuse.
No thanks, I'll just stick to my regular audiobooks.
According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
there's about a 40% chance
that someone will get away with murder in the US.
There's also about a 50% chance
that someone will get away with assaulting someone.
While Catherine Bach was playing Daisy Duke
in the show The Dukes of Hazzard,
her legs were insured for $1 million.
The ancient Romans would recycle their urine
by peeing into pots and leaving them on the street.
Someone would come by to pick them up
so they could be turned into ammonia,
which they could use for different purposes,
such as bleach and even mouthwash.
Universal Pictures didn't include a copyright symbol
for the 1963 film Charade,
starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.
Because of this, the film entered public domain
upon its release in theaters.
The Central Intelligence Agency developed a heart attack gun
that shoots a small dart
and is capable of penetrating through clothing.
The dart then disintegrates on contact,
and all that's left is a small red dot on the skin
before the poison seeps into the bloodstream.
An autopsy also would show that the victim
simply died of a heart attack and nothing more.
According to the Journal of Forensic Sciences,
researchers discovered a deer
feeding on a human being for the first time.
They may have been eating it
because of a deficiency in minerals
such as phosphorus, salt, and calcium.
Yikes.
The mayor of Philadelphia had to issue a statement
that it's illegal to fill a dumpster with water
and use it as a pool
after people would tap fire hydrants
and fill them up during the summer months.
Lemme tell you something.
It has never been so hot
that I've ever thought of filling a trash-- (gagging)
I can't even, it's gross.
Aluminum that was recovered from the debris
of the World Trade Center after September 11th
was used as cable shields
for NASA's Mars exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
The purpose of this was to honor the victims
of that fateful day.
The unfrosted Pop-Tarts flavors
strawberry, blueberry, and brown sugar cinnamon
are considered vegan, but frosted Pop-Tarts are not
because they contain dairy.
Pop-Tarts also had their own cereal in the early 1990s
called Pop-Tart Crunch.
I do think I remember that.
It was delicious.
The term 'lunatic' comes from the Latin word lunaticus,
which referred to madness and epilepsy
because mental illnesses were believed to be caused
by the position of the moon.
Aristotle and Pliny the Elder
claimed that a full moon would trigger insane people
with bipolar disorder.
Until around 1700, it was believed that the moon
was one of the causes of fevers,
rheumatism, and other diseases.
Director John McTiernan,
who directed films such as Die Hard,
Predator, and The Hunt for Red October,
was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison camp
in Yankton, South Dakota, for lying to the FBI.
Actor Sir Anthony Hopkins has been sober
ever since December 29th, 1975,
after he woke up in Arizona with no idea how he got there.
He also didn't know he was autistic
until he was diagnosed with the syndrome well into his 70s.
According to the visual cliff study
done by Eleanor J. Gibson and Richard D. Walk,
humans are born with only two innate fears:
the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises.
The study was performed on infants in simulated settings.
Cats-- (meowing)
Enjoy laying in the sunlight while they nap
because it helps them save energy and expend fewer calories
to maintain their internal body heat.
They also run at a hotter body temperature than we do
at around 102 degrees.
Before he became the famous writer known as Mark Twain,
Samuel Clemens was a steamboat pilot
on the Mississippi River
until the Civil War broke out in 1861.
He thought of the name Mark Twain
because it's a nautical reference
that means 'two fathoms deep.'
The largest tuna fish ever recorded
was measured at 6.4 meters
and weighed a whopping 725.75 kilograms.
They're also extremely fast swimmers,
despite their large size,
and they can reach speeds up to 99.7 kilometers per hour.
But, hey, that's it for this video.
Thank you so much for subscribing to my channel,
and a very special thank you to all of my channel members,
especially the names that you see onscreen right now.
Every single one of you helps keep my channel going.
Thanks again, and I'll see you in the next video.