A lot of weird and wonderful things have happened over the course of history, so much so that there are lots of true facts that sound completely fabricated. For instance, did you know that a famous video game company was founded in the 1800s, or that there are still people claiming pensions from the US civil war?! We’ve got plenty more where that came from. So, check out these 14 crazy facts that sound fake, but are actually true!
Scotland’s national animal is the unicorn.
Betty White is actually older than sliced bread. The actress was born in 1922, whereas sliced bread didn’t make its debut until 1928.
Finland and North Korea both share a border with the same country. Yup, Russia is pretty huge!
The first pornographic movie was released in November 1986, less than a year after the very first public screening of a motion picture.
If you lined up all the planets in our galaxy, they would fit in the space between the Earth and our moon.
Although the American civil war ended in 1865, there are still two people claiming pensions from it. These are actually the children of soldiers who fought in the war, however. If still alive today, any soldiers who fought in the civil war would be well over 150!
Oxford University is older than the Aztec empire. And, its various buildings are still standing!
In the time between Pluto being discovered and Pluto being downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet, it hadn’t even orbited the Earth once.
There are whales in our oceans who have been alive since before Moby Dick was released (which was in 1851). Some bowhead whales off the coast of Alaska are more than 200 years old.
Nintendo was founded in 1889. Obviously, this was long before video games were invented, but the company started out creating playing cards called Hanafuda.
We’re not suggesting that the movie 10,000 BC was a beacon of historical accuracy, but mammoths actually existed up until 4,000 years ago, so they were around when the Egyptian pyramids were being built. They most certainly only lived in much cooler parts of the world, however.
Being struck by lightning often gives people these cool marks on their skin, known as Lichtenberg figures. Sadly, they’re only temporary.
The T-Rex was around at a time closer to the existence of humans than it was closer to the existence of the Stegosaurus. Dinosaurs ruled the planet for around 180 million years, so not all species were around at the same time. The Stegosaurus was chilling on Earth roughly 150 million years ago, then the T-Rex showed up 84 million years later, and finally humans evolved about 82 million years after that.
The largest tree in the world covers an area of almost 9,500 square meters, which is larger than your average Walmart. The Great Banyan Tree, located near Kolkata in India, has a large number of aerial roots, making it look more like a forest than a single tree.
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