Random Fun Facts That Will Amaze You - Part 16

If you want to know about a shed-load of jaw-dropping facts, like the official color of the universe and why lighters actually existed before matches, you’ll have to read further as we delve into more fun facts what will amaze you!

Benjamin Franklin Wrote An Essay About Farts

In 1871, U.S. founding father and all-round brain-box Benjamin Franklin momentarily turned his attention to one very serious topic: farting.

As the story goes, the Royal Academy of Brussels had called for more scientific papers, and, as Franklin thought that the scientific establishment had gotten a bit too “up-tight” recently, he decided to pen a tongue-in-cheek essay titled "Fart Proudly". Although he wasn’t entirely serious, Franklin tried to make the essay as realistic as possible by investigating which foods produced what kind of smells.

In the essay, he also lobbied for the discovery of “some drug wholesome and not disagreeable, to be mixed with our common food or sauces, that shall render the natural discharges of wind from our bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreeable as perfumes”.

In other words, the great wordsmith, statesman and political philosopher wanted scientists to invent a drug that would make farts smell good. There’s no word on why Franklin was so utterly offended by the smell of his own farts that he decided to write an entire essay on it, but what we do know is that he never actually submitted it. Instead, he printed out several copies and gave them out for friends as a laugh.

Koalas Fingerprints Are Indistinguishable From Humans

Want to guess what a forensic investigators worst nightmare might be? The humble Koala probably doesn’t spring to mind, but any crime scene involving a person and one of these furry marsupials would dumbfound even the most seasoned detective.

Why? Because, if you were to look at a human fingerprint next to a koala’s, you’d hardly be able to tell the difference. Not even careful analysis under a scientific microscope can easily distinguish the loopy, whirling ridges on koala’s fingers from our own.

Koalas aren’t the only non-humans to have fingerprints, close relatives like chimps and gorillas have them too, but koala prints seem to have evolved totally independently. In fact, primates and modern koalas’ marsupial ancestors branched apart about 70million years ago on the evolutionary tree. Scientists think the koala’s fingertip features developed more recently in its evolutionary history because their own relatives like wombats and kangaroos don’t have them.

So why the prints? Researchers from the University of Adelaide, who first made the discovery in 1996, hypothesize that koalas have fingerprints simply because they can help them grip leaves and branches more easily. One thing’s for sure though; these docile, innocent-looking creatures really could get away with murder.

Cowboys Never Wore Cowboy Hats

You’d probably go stir-crazy if you travelled back in time to the Wild West in search of a cowboy wearing a wide-brimmed hat. That’s because the iconic ten-gallon cowboy hat you’ve seen in every Hollywood shoot-em’-up movie is a total historical inaccuracy.

It doesn't mean that cowboys didn’t wear hats at all though, in fact, their preferred headgear was something closer to the modern bowler hat, which can even be seen on the heads of famous gun-slingers like Bat Materson and Billy the Kid. The legendary ten-gallon Stetson hat, which was created by American hatter John Stetson, hit the market in 1865, and it didn’t become popular until the end of the 19th century.

This so-called classic cowboy hat was inspired by the Spanish-derived hats Stetson encountered after he moved to the West, and featured a crease in the middle of a high crown with a dent on each side, which allowed the wearer to remove it by the crown instead of the brim.

According to legend, Stetson met a cowboy on the road who was so impressed by the hat that he offered $5 for it, which was a big deal at the time. Before then, cowboys in the Wild West would never have chosen such a wide-brimmed hat, because it made them easy targets to adversaries.

Mary Actually Had A Little Lamb

We all know the nursery-rhyme, but get this: Mary really did have a little lamb, and it’s fleece probably was as white as snow. The real-life woman was Mary Elizabeth Sawyer, who was born on a farm in Sterling, Massachusetts in 1806. The incident itself occurred in 1815, when 9-year-old Mary and her father came across a sickly new-born lamb in a sheep pen which had been abandoned by its mother.

Succumbing to her puppy-dog-eyes, Mary’s father agreed to let her keep the lamb, and she nursed it back to health with such adoration that it never left her side. Sometime later, no one knows exactly when, Mary was on her way to school with her brother when the lamb started following them.

The siblings apparently didn’t try too hard to deter it and even hauled it over a fence on the way. When they arrived, Mary tried to hide her lamb under a blanket beneath her desk, but at some point it popped out, causing hysterics among the other students.

The lamb was ushered outside, and the next day another student, John Roulstone, handed Mary a piece of paper with a poem he’d written about the events, titled "Mary had a little lamb". The poem got popular after it was set to music in the late-1800s, and in 1877 it even became the first audio recording in history when Thomas Edison recited it on his newly-invented phonograph.

Andrew Jackson Had A Swearing Parrot

Apparently, U.S. presidents throughout history have had quite a thing for pet birds: Thomas Jefferson had a mockingbird named Dick, John F. Kennedy had a canary named Robin and Teddy Roosevelt had a one-legged Rooster. But none are quite as famous as the parrot owned by the 7th U.S. president Andrew Jackson, for one hilariously obscene reason.

Jackson’s African Grey, which was named Poll, had quite a penchant for cursing that was probably passed down by his owner, who was so tough-as-old-boots that his own nickname was Old Hickory. Poll was certainly a source of amusement for the presidents’ peers, but he really came into his own when Jackson kicked the bucket on 8th June 1945.

When thousands gathered to pay their respects to the fallen president, Poll decided to join in by squawking and swearing so crudely that the foul-mouthed, or should I say, beaked, bird had to be removed from the funeral altogether.

According to an account written by Reverend William Menefee Norment, who presided at Jackson’s funeral, the presidential parrot was “excited by the multitude and… let loose perfect gusts of cuss words” while guests were “horrified and awed at the bird’s lack of reverence”.

A Man Swelled To Twice His Normal Size After A Diving Accident

Alejandro Ramos Martinez is a Peruvian fisherman who dives for his catch, but in 2017 a disastrous turn of events transformed him into a real-life version of the Michelin Man.

When Martinez came up to the surface too quickly one day he suffered a nasty case of Decompression Sickness, which is more commonly known as The Bends. The condition occurs when inert gases which have formed in the body swell in size and overwhelm the system during a speedy ascent.

When Martinez made the near-fatal mistake of rising too quickly from deep depths, nitrogen bubbles built up in his system and swelled in size, leaving him with an extra 30kg of weight in the form of balloon-like sacks attached to his flesh.

This sudden Hulk-like transformation certainly didn’t bestow him with any superpowers, though. The growths are extremely painful, and Martinez also suffers from ‘hypertension’ which causes abnormally high blood pressure and joint pain.

Doctors are working to reduce the sacks in Martinez’s body by using a ‘hyperbaric chamber’ which has so far reduced the nitrogen by around 30%, but he will require about 100 more sessions and a $100,000 procedure to restore his body to its original size.

The Official Color Of The Universe Is Beige

Back in 2002, a team of astronomers from John Hopkins University set out to understand the star formation process by running a series of tests which collected light samples from 200,000 studied galaxies. By using these spectral analysis readings, they determined that the majority of stars were formed some 5 billion years ago, but they also made another interesting discovery, the same data allowed them to see what color the universe appears from Earth.

After doing some workings out using the different samples of light, they concluded that they averaged together to create a beige-ish white color with the hex triplet value of #FFF8E7. The astronomers cast a vote for the colors official name, but eventually disregarded every other suggestion and settled on Cosmic Latte instead, which sounds like something off the Starbucks secret menu.

Apparently, the color is due to how light emitted from distant stars appear from down here on our planet. As they travel billions of lightyears to Earth, these light waves tend towards pure white due to the light coming from the stars when they were younger and bluer, so, maybe the sky is beige after all. Some of the other names that were in the running for the official color of the universe were Cappuccino Cosmico, Univeige, Big Bang Buff and Cosmic Cream.

Nipple Piercing Was Fashionable In Victorian Britain

The Victorian era is known for being one of the most strait-laced periods in history, so it might surprise you to learn that, beneath all those embroidered capes and corsets, some Victorian women were hiding a saucy little secret: pierced bosoms.

Believe it or not, tasteful gold nipple rings were actually a brief fad among well-bred European socialites in the 1800s, and it’s all thanks to the beautiful medieval Queen of France, Isabella of Bavaria. Isabella was a lover of extravagant fashions, and in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, she favored elaborate garments featuring necklines that plunged all the way to the navel. She chose such daring dresses to compliment her choice of jewelry: namely, her pierced nipples featuring diamonds connected by delicate chains of pearls and gold.

In the 19th century, these so-called “bosom rings” had a minor resurgence and were considered a stylish and risqué way to keep the bosoms in a state of “constant excitation.” Others saw the piercings as rebellious, and the medical community was in uproar because the procedure was seen to inhibit breastfeeding, which was considered the “purpose of a woman’s body”. Next time you think you’re being edgy, just remember, the Victorians probably did it first.

Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer Was Invented By A Department Store

He may be a staple of the holiday season, but Santa’s very own red-nosed reindeer ceased to exist altogether before he was dreamed up by a copywriter for a department store in 1939. That year, executives for Montgomery Ward decided they needed a fun character for the freebie coloring books they were handing out to kids who visited Santa at their stores. Robert May, a copywriter at the time, was given the task, and he managed to create the Rudolph character and the accompanying poem by August 1939, despite his wife tragically dying that summer.

In the first year alone, Montgomery Ward gave out 2.4million copies of the new coloring book, and as the story caught on customers picked up a further 3.6million in 1946. It wasn’t until a decade later in 1949 that May’s own brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, wrote the lyrics for the famous song which was recorded by Gene Autry and went on to sell over 150million copies! It’s hard to imagine Christmas without him, but without these festive brothers, there’d be no such thing as good old Rudy.

Lighters Existed Before Matches

What came first: the lighter or the match? Believe it or not, lighters have actually existed since the 17th century, although they were mostly converted flintlock pistols that used gunpower rather than something we would recognize.

In 1823 though, a German chemist named Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner created the first sole-purpose lighter which became known as the Döbereiner’s Lamp. The device used a simple design, zinc metal reacts with sulfuric acid, creating the flammable gas hydrogen that bursts into flame when it meets sparks at the mouth of the container.

The device was large, impractical and not commercially successful, so it wasn’t until Carl Auer Von Welsback patented the flint in 1903 that lightweight lighters became more readily available. The first friction matches, on the other hand, weren’t invented for another three years until an English man named John Walker debuted his Congreves matches in 1826, but they weren’t all that great either.

5 years later, Charles Sauria of France developed a match that used white phosphorous, but these were so successful that they often ignited by accident. It also turned out that phosphorous was highly toxic and was slowly poisoning the workers in the match plant, which wasn’t too great. It wasn’t until the 1900s when the U.S. government forced manufacturers to switch to a non-toxic chemical.

Shrek Was Originally Canadian

It’s a pretty undisputed fact that DreamWorks is yet to top the cult classic that is Shrek, which was released in 2001, but there was a time when the boisterous green ogre was going to be very different. Instead of ranting about onions in a thick Scottish accent, audiences would probably have watched their favorite sarcastic ogre guzzling maple syrup by the gallon and wooing princess Fiona with his hockey skills.

Mike Myers has since revealed that he originally recorded the voice of Shrek in to sound like himself but with a thicker Canadian twang, until he finally saw a rough cut in February 2000 and had a sudden epiphany. Instead of sounding scary and imposing, Myers realized that Shrek’s voice needed to show some vulnerability, so he decided to challenge himself with a Scottish accent instead.

It may have been a stroke of genius from Myers, but it was a total nightmare for DreamWorks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, who said that one third of the scenes involving Shrek had already been animated. In the end, Katzsenberg reluctantly allowed Myers to re-record his lines, a massive risk that cost about $4 million, or about 10% of the movies production budget according to Katzenberg. It all paid off in the end though, the movie was a hit with movie critics and cinema audiences alike, and we can’t imagine Shrek any other way!

Turtles Don’t Live “Inside” Their Shells

Cartoons have probably taught you that a turtles and tortoises can proudly pop out of their shells whenever they like, but the reality is that if you try to remove a turtle from its shell it will probably die. Contrary to popular belief, a turtle’s shell isn’t just an empty space where the creature can curl up for a quick nap, although they can tuck their limbs inside for protection, it’s actually an integral part of a turtle’s anatomy.

Take a look at the shocking cross-section of a tortoise shell below. The shell is actually fused to the bones of the skeleton at the ribs and spine, and it even has its own nerve endings, which means they can feel when it’s being touched or stroked.

Turtles and tortoises don’t get to pick which shell they live in either, they’re born with them and they grow alongside them, so they’re always the perfect size. Think of it this way: asking a turtle to shimmy out of its shell would be like asking a human to just step out of their skin; it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience.

I hope you were amazed at these weird and wonderful trivia facts. If you want to find out more interesting facts, you might want to take a look at our whole fun facts series. Thanks for reading.