Due to its aquatic habitat and behavior, the Catholic Church officially categorized the Beaver as a type of fish, making it acceptable to eat on Good Friday and throughout Lent. This ruling was later extended to the Capybara and muskrat as well. 

The Latin phrase libra pondo was used in Ancient Rome to indicate weight, which is why today the abbreviation for “pound” is “lb.” 

   Frozen lobsters can come back to life when thawed. – 

   Leonardo da Vinci may have written backward not for secrecy, but because he is left-handed and it was easier for him to do. 

  The World Bank stopped tracking inflation in Zimbabwe in November 2008, when it reached 79.6 billion percent. One year later, the country abandoned its currency. The exchange rate at the time was $35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars to $1 USD. –

   At around 5PM EST, greatest proportion of the world is asleep (55-60%)

   If someone commits suicide in Japan by jumping in front of a train, the company charges his family a disruption fee. –

  There is a professional Indian cricketer named ‘Napoleon Einstein’ and when asked about his unusual name, said: “We don’t believe in God. In our family, we’re rationalists. Other people are named Krishna and Ram after Gods, so we were named Einstein and Napoleon after great people

The biggest cashew tree in the world covers an area of about 80,000 square feet and produces over 60,000 fruits each year. The tree gets its size from two genetic issues, which allow branches to grow outwards instead of upwards, taking new roots when touching the ground. 

   When a Long Island woman accidentally threw away an envelope with $5000 cash intended for her mortgage, sanitation workers sifted through tons of trash until they found it. They refused to accept a reward. –

In 2007, Michael Jackson had plans to build a 50 foot tall moon walking robot, a replica of himself to roam the desert sands of Las Vegas.

A strawberry is not an actual berry, but a banana is.

  Peanut butter in a plastic jar at the supermarket usually has a sell-by date of about 18 months after it hits the shelf. Past this date, if it’s unopened it’s still perfectly good. Opened, peanut butter will slowly develop off-flavors of rancid nuts over the next five or so years.

There is a bridge in Scotland where dogs are known to commit suicide. In the past fifty years, over fifty dogs have visited the bridge and leapt to their death. –

  Dinosaurs had giant fleas with beaks the size of modern syringe needles. –

           Ruts leftover from the wagon trains traveling the Oregon Trail are still visible today. 

  There is a bar in Yukon, Canada where you can drink a Sourtoe Cocktail. It has a real severed human toe in it. 

There’s a mountain where each face flows to a different ocean (Arctic, Pacific, Atlantic).

   In Japan, death by overwork is so common that they have a word for it, “Karoshi”. Some examples of karoshi are: working 110 hours a week, working 3000 hours a year with no days off in 15 years, working 4320 hours a year, and working 34-hour shifts five times a month. 

   Night Witches were the members of an all-female bomber regiment in WW2 Russia. These pilots would turn off their engines, glide and bomb German targets to avoid being heard on approach. They dropped 3,000 tons of bombs over German lines, and were so good at evading enemy planes that German pilots were promised the Iron Cross for shooting down a single Night Witch. 

  The record for most passengers on an airplane was set in 1991 when 1086 Ethiopian Jews were evacuated on a Boeing 747 to Jerusalem. The plane landed with 1088 passengers as two babies were born during the flight. –

   The Super Bowl has required national anthem vocals to be pre-recorded since 1993 when Garth Brooks declined to pre-record and then refused to sing live until a dispute over debuting a music video during the game could be settled, resulting in a delayed kickoff. 

   If you pour cold water into a person’s ear, their eyes will move in direction of the opposite ear, if you pour warm water into their ear, their eyes will move towards that same ear. This is used to test for brain damage and is called ‘caloric stimulation’. 

   Chef Eduardo Garcia received a bionic hand after losing his left arm when he prodded a bear cub laying on a concealed power cable. He says the accident helped his career as a chef. “I can grab things out of an oven and not get burnt. I don’t cut my fingers anymore.”

The human womb is the oxygen equivalent of the top of Mount Everest, designed to keep the fetus asleep 95% of the time. –

 In 2015, a Chinese woman who was missing for a decade and presumed dead was found living in an internet cafe playing games for 10-years. 

   New York’s Washington Square Park used to be a graveyard, and it is believed over 20,000 there are still buried there. –

  The USA has a law that allows citizens to occupy any unclaimed island in the world, as long as there is seabird or bat poop on it.

There’s a subway ticket machine in Moscow that accepts 30 squats as payment. Installed ahead of the 2014 Sochi Olympics to “bring sports to the people”

   In 2008, a 480-pound Florida woman died after having spent the last 6 years of her life stuck in a couch and died attached to the couch as well. By the time of her death, her skin had literally become one with the fabric of the sofa.