During the Cold War, and more precisely in the period 1953

Until 1948, the non-alcoholic beverage 7 Up contained lith

In talks with US top envoy Henry Kissinger in 1973, the Ch

In 2002, 15 girls burned to death inside their school in M

In 1838, the state of Missouri, USA, entered into a full-s

Traffic accidents are one of the leading causes of death f

 In the USA, garbage collectors die more often at wor

According to the International Labour Organization, more p

 The notorious prison of San Quentin in California, U

In most US states, it is still allowed to have a tiger as

The odds of getting struck by a lightning are a lot higher

 In 2016, the famous economist, Guido Menzio, was eth

In 2016, Facebook’s Marketplace debut was very contr

 In May 2016, a seven-year-old Japanese boy went miss

Public dissection used to be a common practice in medieval

Europe-wide, Sweden has the highest rate per capita of rep

Europe-wide, Sweden has the highest rate per capita of rep

 In 1980, Troy Leon Gregg, a convicted murderer in Ge

 In 2011, a motorcyclist, Philip A. Contos, was parti

 In Burgas, Bulgaria, there is a monument dedicated t

In 80% of the mass shootings in the USA, the killers had o

 In 1998, the website of McDonald’s (aimed most

The newly elected Pope has his testicles inspected by card

Each year, around one hundred journalists get killed on du

Worldwide, icicles kill more people than sharks do.

 In 2014, a Spanish village was renamed to Castrillo

Operation CHASE (an acronym for “Cut Holes And Sink

 In Albania, thousands of people do not leave home be

 A US town (Woodland, North Carolina) rejected a sola

Ribbon worms can eat themselves if there is no food.

In Jatinga, India, a strange and unexplained phenomenon ha

In May 2016, the Philadelphia Police Department (USA) admi

  In 1975, a male participant in the famous bicy

Japanese women cannot remarry for six months after the div

   If intoxicated with methanol (contained

 The then US President Bill Clinton forced Haiti to d

In 1930, George Stathakis survived his trip over Niagara F

 In the 1930s, the Nazi regime in Germany widely publ

  In 2014, Mubarak Bala, a Nigerian atheist, was

 In October 2016, an atheist billboard in Nebraska, U

Nicosia, Cyprus, is the only European capital that is stil

On average, seven people worldwide are diagnosed with hear

 Since 2016, there have been several cases when starv

In Fiji, widows used to be strangled immediately after the

Killed soldiers at Waterloo had their teeth extracted. Tho

 In the Philippines, multiple karaoke bars have banne

On average, each year 12,000 miners die in accidents world

 In the US, the total number of prisoners increases b

 It is more probable to catch a computer virus on a c

Less than 2% of what you spend on fries at the restaurant

Only 30% of the global population have access to toilet pa

Live pigeon shooting used to be an official Olympic sport.

The famous Italian painter, Caravaggio, committed murder.<

One in nine black US children has had a parent in prison.<

The Ides of March denarius is one of the few coins dedicat

 Cymothoa exigua, or the tongue-eating louse, is a pa

 Cymothoa exigua, or the tongue-eating louse, is a pa

Upon his return to Colombia, the football player Andres Es

During World War II, a US pilot, Martin James Monti, defec

Until as late as 1986, many doctors worldwide thought that

 Even if both partners are HIV positive, they still n

 Tsetse flies kill about 70,000 people every year.

 Iowa, USA, wants to permit toddlers to use weapons.

Nine out of ten black actresses nominated for an Oscar pla

The only case when two democracies were at war occurred in

 In 2002, the pop star Madonna was unhappy with air t

US citizens who lived for more than six months in the UK i

 Until 1997, cattle in the US were routinely fed with

In Colorado, USA, losing an arm in a work-related accident

 During World War II, the Soviet Red Army executed 15

  If one eye of a baby monkey is covered with a

Baltimore, Maryland, was the most dangerous city in the Un

In 2015, Martin Shkreli became the US most hated man for i

According to the World Health Organization, hairdressers h

During World War II, American servicemen used to take &ldq

In 2015, a Disneyland employee, Darreck Enciso, attempted

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is a concentr

 A 1% increase in unemployment in the USA leads to 40

 In the late 1930s, the town of Yaphank, NY (USA) had

 The Makonde tribe in Mozambique is a matrilineal soc

  A five-star slum-like South African resort, Sh

 Worldwide, the Republic of Guyana has the highest su

Until 2002, the UK broadcaster BBC had banned the song &ld

 In Australia, bees kill more people than snakes do.<

Tarantulas mothers kill 99% of their babies.

In the USA, if you believe in a god you are twice as proba

Monsanto produced the Agent Orange, a herbicide notorious

 In the late 1920s, General Motors secretly started p

 In mediaeval England, some wandering gipsies claimed

US President Ulysses S. Grant had a plan to buy the Domini

Over 50,000 Americans get injured in toilets each year.

  If there is a first class on a flight, passeng

The Louisiana Supreme Court (USA) ruled in October 2016 th

 In countries where abortions are outlawed, women are

 US women are twice as likely to die from pregnancy a

Romans used a sponge on the end of a stick instead of toil

Euthanasia Coaster is a hypothetic project of a machine in

Since 2014, US cops take more assets from people than burg

Tooth decay is the most common disease worldwide.

Bolivia was founded in 1825. On average, it has experience

 In 2003, the Moroccan government offered to the US t

In 1935, the Esperanto language was legally forbidden in N

Worldwide, deforestation claims an area roughly the size o

Worldwide, Tonga has the highest rate of obesity.

 In early 2016, an Italian actor named Raphael Schuma

 During the first three months of World War II, more

In early 2016, a UK sexual offender was ordered to give th

A report from 2015 found traces of human DNA in hot dogs s

Haiti experienced more hurricanes and earthquakes than any

In 2015, a Saudi millionaire was cleared of rape charges a

In April 2016, North Korea proposed to halt its nuclear te

 5% of the entire population of North Korea serve in

As of early 2016, the 62 richest people possessed more mon

 In 2001, Turkmenistan outlawed opera, ballet, video

Star Wars' character Anakin Skywalker (aka Darth Vader

Airlines deal differently with in-flight deaths. Some majo

As of today, there are around 15,000 nuclear warheads worl

 Bootlace worms are one of the longest animals, with

Carlos Ghosn is the only CEO to have managed simultaneousl

 In 1983, in what is known as “the Alraigo Inci

A US company patented an automatic braking system capable

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, starred in a judo D

Mikhail Gorbachev was the first and only President of the

Russia covers 1/8 of the total land on Earth or 17 million

In 1698, the Russian emperor, Peter the Great, imposed a t

The word “Vodka” derives from the Slavic word

 The word “Jedi” is derived from Japanese

 In the Star Wars saga, the sound of the TIE Fighter

 In 1667, the Dutch swapped with Great Britain the is

 It was observed on many skyscrapers that the sun set

 According to the rules of the International Tennis F

 Stairwells in medieval castles were often curved ver

 It is that simple: if a month starts with a Sunday,

In 2010, Evan Muncie survived for 27 days trapped in a hug

The vast majority of modern people have in their DNA betwe

 In the United States of America, zebras hurt more zo

 Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela became the first black hea

The largest shopping mall in the world, the New South Chin

Ray-Ban sunglasses were the first ones to introduce an ant

 Bolivian capital La Paz has the world’s larges

 In 2016, the clothing brand H&M increased the ag

In 2005, a mock-paper titled “Get me off your fuckin

 The origin of the word “dog” remains one

Dutch names can sound hilarious in English.  How abou

 In 1979, China invaded Vietnam because Vietnam had i

In 1987, a US court admitted for the first time DNA as evi

A US tea trader accidentally invented tea bags in 1904. Th

In Portugal, each canteen which receives public money is o

 Up until 1946, in the Japanese schools they were tea

In early 1915, almost ten million pigs were slaughtered in

The German retailer, Otto, uses artificial intelligence (A

Cans of regular soda are denser than water and sink. Cans

Elmo Monster (the Muppet character) was the first non-huma

The Easter Bilby is the Australian alternative to the East

Upon their return from the Moon in 1969, the US astronauts

In 2015, on average one billion dollars were given daily f

The Huzhu Pagoda, China, and the Tower of Church of Suurhu

The Huzhu Pagoda, China, and the Tower of Church of Suurhu

Formosa is the old name of Taiwan. It was widely used up u

In 2007, over 34,000 Americans committed suicide. No-one w

  In 1999, Bulgaria gave as a gift more than one

In early 2017, a French businessman sued Uber for €45

  The Emperor of Japan is not allowed to eat fug

Across the cultures, women want a husband on average 3.5 y

Germany was the first country ever to implement Daylight S

Sean Connery’s character James Bond was the first to

In Turkey, the Ulas family is better known as “The F

The Allied forces deployed more troops for the Battle of O

DNA analyses proved that Polynesians introduced chickens t

Warner Bros film studio has officially confirmed that Twee

The giant panda is the only bear that does not hibernate.<

 Pearl Jam is a US rock band that released 72 live al

 Aitabdel Salem spent nearly five months in a US jail

 The earliest documents containing written human name

During WWII, the paper clip was a symbol of the Norwegian

In Mexico, Austria and Germany the law recognizes that it

 In Massachusetts, USA, tattooing was illegal up unti

Spider-Man comics inspired the electronic bracelet.

The Battle of Sedan was fought during the Franco-Prussian

LEGO recently created Anti-LEGO slippers. Anyone who has s

 LEGO originates from the Danish phrase “leg go

Maybe you have noticed that the heads of LEGO figures have

Saint Patrick is the patron of Nigeria since 1961.<

Nowadays, only Cyprus and Kosovo have a map on their natio

In May 2016, an Australian senator gave a speech to the Pa

Around 1780, the so-called Industrial Revolution started i

 In 1913, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky (

Silk thrown at a brick wall would stick to the wall; cheap

Ascorbic” means “anti-scurvy”. Ascorbic

In 19th-century Scotland, “shit-faced” used to

 In 2013, a white US supremacist and racist, Craig Co

Some fourteen years before the sinking of Titanic, the nov

According to the Chinese law on the “Management Meas

Owls cannot move or roll their eyes.<

On average, in Kericho, Kenya, there is hail falling one o

The African country of Morocco applied for membership in t

 Turkey has only 3% of its territory in Europe. The c

Istanbul, Turkey, is the largest city that occupies two co

General Electric is the only still operating independent c

The famous singer, Elvis Presley, was a natural blond.

 Ouija boards were initially made of coffin wood. The

Among all animals, the crocodiles have the highest concent

 Nile crocodiles have a brain that continues growing

The middle name of the Hollywood actor, Richard Gere, is T

DVD players, computers and toasters were banned in Cuba un

Every two-dimensional map of Earth is distorted.

Worldwide, more IKEA catalogues are printed than Bibles.

Unlike most mammals, humans, primates, guinea pigs and bat

Pepsi was initially called “Brad’s Drink&rdquo

Over 4,000 islands in Indonesia are still unmanaged and wi

The Hotel Moskva in Moscow, Russia, was notable for the us

Mikheil Saakashvili was a politician in two countries. Ini

The city of Cincinnati in Ohio, USA, was named after the R

 In 1849, Henry Brown, a Virginia slave, successfully

The residents of the District of Columbia (United States o

 Alvinella pompejana, the Pompeii worm, is a species

Papua-New Guinea has a population of seven million people

In the period 1998-2016, none of the sumo champions was bo

The actors who voiced Mickey and Minnie Mouse were married

 In 2006, Honda introduced the first airbag for motor

In March 2017, the Chinese government closed down the last

 In early 2015, Dr Michal Kosinski created a computer

Darts rules prohibit drinking alcohol during the game.

  Many keyboards have proved to be more efficien

Krishna is the name of one of the Hindu gods. According to

In 2016, the University of California, USA, published a st

 The actor, John Cazale, appeared in five movies. The

Monaco and Indonesia have virtually the same national flag

 In 1964, the Soviet spy, Igor Ivanov, became the onl

Many aircraft engines are designed to be cooled by the fue

Adult mayflies live only a few hours. They do not sleep at

The first cash machine (ATM) was installed on 27 June 1967

Ramesses II was the most powerful pharaoh of Ancient Egypt

 In 1940, fearing a Nazi invasion, Winston Churchill

 The President of Uganda (from 1971 to 1979) designed

Sometimes, the automatic face-blurring technology used by

  Iceland switches off street lights so that eve

The inventor of the pacemaker, Wilson Greatbatch, also inv

 With his invention, the Gatling gun, Richard Jordan

On several occasions, pigeons were arrested in India on su

In 2013, two wannabe robbers armed with squirt guns entere

The speed camera was invented by a Dutch racing driver, Ma

Young rhinos can regrow a horn.

The Rio 2016 Paralympic Games (Brazil) were the first to i

Iowa is the only US state whose name starts with two vowel

Only flamingos, pigeons and some penguins produce “m

Denmark is by far the world leader in the incineration of

Francium was discovered in 1939. It was the last chemical

Batman is a town in south-eastern Turkey.

Metropolis, the home of Superman, really exists (in Illino

 Measured from the centre of Earth, Rio de Janeiro, B

Whales have eardrums larger in diameter than their throats

 Romans did not have an equivalent word for “in

All adult amphibious animals are carnivores.

 "Desire path” or “desire line&rdquo

The film actor, director and producer, Jackie Chan, is als

 In 1943, the US Supreme Court ruled that forcing pub

 In 2014, a study found a direct link between the fre

The Yamoussoukro Basilica, formally Basilique Notre-Dame d

A tick larva can live more than one year without food (i.e

Painted swamp turtles can not only freeze and then thaw, b

 Jonas Salk invented the killed-virus polio vaccine i

If the temperature is too low, snakes cannot digest food.<

 46 BCE was the longest year with its 445 days. Juliu

Some desert snails can survive more than five years withou

 The Scandinavian snus is a form of smokeless tobacco

Taller and older women give birth to twins more often.

In 1983, an Israeli Air Force F15 jet fighter lost one win

In 2005, the company 3M set up a promotional stunt at a bu

The Ferrari F40 became the first production car to break t

Every year, more than 70,000 whales die in the oceans from

Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Finland and all the former USSR

 The Japanese macaques, aka “snow monkeys&rdquo

If we were capable of hearing frequencies lower than 20 Hz

Mount Everest has 4G mobile phone coverage since 2013.

The British royal family are not allowed to play Monopoly

Several bird species are known to sleep while flying: swif

Initially, the WD-40 spray was developed for lubricating n

A large part of the Netherlands is actually below the sea

 Venezuela’s name roughly translates as “

 Until 2010, beekeeping was illegal in New York City,

The famous artist, Salvador Dali, designed the logo of Chu

The Australian Aboriginals never developed bows and arrows

The game of Scrabble was banned in Romania in the 1980s. T

There are no woodpeckers in Australia, New Guinea, New Zea

Some animals, such as alligators and platypuses, use their

The pioneer of television, Philo Farnsworth, got inspired

 The former Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, appeared in t

  "Hitler woman” is an anagram of &ld

Madagascar hosts the world’s only pirate graveyard.<

The Philippine tarsier is the mammal with the biggest eyes

The house with the narrowest facade of Amsterdam, The Neth

  In 2013, Tesla Model S underwent crash evaluat

 To produce 1 ton of paper from standing timber you n

About 1% of all insects are ants.

Playing hockey is very popular in Canada. It is even depic

The distance covered by individual players in a football g

Pseudis paradoxa, aka the paradoxical frog or shrinking fr

 Women’s feet are two to three degrees Celsius

Lausanne, Switzerland, is the smallest city in the world t

 A tiger’s tongue is covered with many sharp re

Normally, dolphins do not drink seawater. Like many sea ma

All the numbers on a roulette table add up to 666.<

The state flag of Alaska (USA) was invented by a 13-year-o

After the dissolution of the USSR, many Russians could not

Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. He bec

Worldwide, nine out of every ten people who learn Finnish

The US Army introduced multiple choice tests during WWI.

One can become an air traffic controller in the United Sta

 In late 2016, the Bank of England confirmed that the

After 52 years of domination in its home car market, Volvo

In Moscow, Russia, you can receive your subway ticket free

At the outbreak of World War II, one of the highest-rankin

The Bazaar of Tabriz, Iran, is the largest covered market

There are documented cases when dental floss facilitated p

Between 1958 and 1961, the United Arab Republic was a stat

The famous German politician, Konrad Adenauer, invented th

The only indigenous primates that live in Canada are human

The US flag’s official colours are called “Old

 Graça Machel is the only woman so far to have

 Easter is the peak time for reading crime stories an

   Play-Doh (a modelling compound used by y

The partridge often sleeps lying on the ground with its le

 The national football team of Iceland made it to the

 Many Olympic swimmers wear a swim cap under their sw

 A Hijab can now form part of an official police unif

 One third of the inhabitants of Kaiserslautern, Germ

In 2010, Bhutan banned tobacco sales and distribution.

The Briton, Captain Robert Campbell, was captured by the G

  Berlin, Germany, has around 1,700 bridges, sev

  In South Korea and Japan, writing a person&rsq

There are still isolated tribes in the Andaman archipelago

The indigenous peoples of Greenland use the Danish languag

Grab a calculator: dividing 1 by 998,001 gives you a reall

 In New York, USA, it was illegal for men to show a n

  In 1985, Tipper and Al Gore instigated a US Se

On 24 August 2007, some 50 km (over 30 mi) of the Pacific

 Less than 25% of all snake species are venomous.

Diamond is not the hardest substance on Earth. In 2009, sc

The North Dakota Legislative Assembly (USA) has no permane

 In 2017, it cost on average 219 dollars for a US fam

Queens, New York (USA) has a ratio of 1:1 of native-born t

 Patients in several US states already have access to

 All high school graduates from Kalamazoo, Michigan (

The Roman emperor, Nero Claudius Caesar, frequently sent r

Camel racing jockeys in the United Arab Emirates are being

The capital of Egypt, Cairo, was named after the planet Ma

Owned by the German company Daimler AG, the brand Mercedes

The sound of a “shrimp layer” is the only natu

An axon (the part of a nerve cell which transmits impulses

Dolphins are the mammals with the most teeth. The long-sno

Initially, there was no hole in the baskets used to play b

Jimi Hendrix, Dolly Parton and Cher claimed to be of Chero

A Cherokee Indian, Sequoyah, aka George Guess, invented th

The Cherokee Native Americans refer to themselves as Ani-Y

Soldiers in the German Military Forces are allowed to diso

Elvis Presley’s first TV appearance was on 9 Septemb

A flatworm called planarian can fully regenerate from a 1/

 Esther de Figueiredo Ferraz became the first female

The Russky Bridge in Vladivostok, Russia, is the world&rsq

The founder of the automotive company Honda, Soichiro Hond

 45% of Russia is covered with forests. These forests

The vast majority of children under the age of six dream a

 The Goliath Frog – the largest one on Earth &n

 Two out of every three US soldiers who served in Vie

Luxembourg is planning to mine asteroids. Many asteroids a

 Charles Dickens coined the word “boredom&rdquo

The blue whale cannot swallow anything bigger than a grape

In many cases, toddlers recognise companies' logos bef

Three-quarters of the Swiss voters rejected UN membership

  In 2016, Granit and Taulant Xhaka became the f

Switzerland has four official languages. As a compromise,

35,000 Americans buy an insurance covering the risk of &ld

The ozone actually smells like geranium.

 The Dutch police use eagles to catch drones flying i

The drink Fanta originated in Nazi Germany during WWII. Lo

 The Soviet pilot, Ivan Chisov, survived a fall from

 During WWII, the US Army used code-talkers to transm

 Right after WWI, Germany made bicycles “tyres&

 The encircled “U” sign on food labels me

Nobody climbed Everest in 2015.

The Ford Pinto car was not a success in Brazil as “P

The US state with the most numerous plane flyovers is Virg

 The city of Shanghai hosts the first Disneyland in C

Each year, more than 80 million tourists visit France. The

Lew Wallace wrote “Ben Hur”. Did you know that

 A study found out that people who use their integrat

Norway is building the world’s first underwater floa

The construction of a 3-km pipeline from a brewery to the

Jelly bears are quite effective in stopping bullets.

Deaf Americans will be better understood in France than in

Orthodox Christians observe on average 200 days of fasting

 The largest rodent to ever exist was Josephoartigasi

The company Goodyear is now known for producing tyres. Dec

To date (early 2018), the most bananas peeled and eaten in

 In Italy, the number 17 is considered unlucky.

Worldwide, 1.8 million Ikea meatballs are sold every day.

Finland became the first country in the world to launch it

The word “bistro” comes from Russian, where it

 There are no reptiles in Antarctica.

The Philippines remains the only UN-member state without l

Italy only legalised divorce in 1970.

Elephants give birth after about two years of pregnancy.

The Palace of the Parliament in Romania is the heaviest an

 Pope Benedict IX was elected pope at the tender age

The B52 bomber entered in service in 1955 and is expected

China’s “one family-one child” policy la

There is more information about the Virgin Mary in the Qur

The tiny country of Luxembourg is the largest investment f

Hyperloop, Elon Musk’s project for a levitating trai

 Sweaty people and pregnant women have a greater chan

Theoretically, a female mosquito can produce about 150 mil

Male mosquitos have large, feather-like antennas and can b

Multiple studies show that men are more likely to marry an

Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake was inspired by

A UK Paralympic swimmer was disqualified from the IPC Euro

Up to 10% of all paper towels in the gym are used to wipe

In Lichtenstein, prison inmates with sentences over two ye

In 2009, the Brazilian environment group SOS Mata Atlantic

Figs are one of the oldest fruits grown by humans.<

A UK filmmaker shot a movie that shows just a freshly pain

Sri Lanka was known by the name of Ceylon until 1948.

 Jupiter’s moon Io is so volcanically active th

The spacecraft Voyager was initially named Mariner Jupiter

 Empty batteries bounce when dropped, charged ones do

There are registered cases of dying of laughter.

Pistachios can combust spontaneously.

 In 2012, a Belgian man filed for divorce after 19 ye

The engine oil of Aston Martin Vulcan can be changed in le

Jupiter and Saturn radiate more energy than they absorb fr

The foods your mother ate while pregnant with you are like

In parts of Germany, it is illegal to wash your car on Sun

 Saudi Arabia only switched to the “Western&rdq

Built by the Nazis between 1936 and 1939, the German beach

Australia has not experienced a recession for the last 25

Bullfighting is not an ancient tradition at all. It starte

So far, only two Popes have visited Sweden.<

 In Japan, 10 October 2006 was declared “Tom Cr

Tom Cruise was the first actor to have five back-to-back h

Up until the early 19th century, the conductor of a musica

Barra Airport, Scotland, is the only airport in the world

The female hyena has a pseudo-penis, which is larger than

 Andorra welcomes almost 2.5 million tourists every y

The airport in Stuttgart, Germany, was named after the loc

Norway planned to give Finland a mountain peak as a gift f

Japan and Russia did not sign a peace treaty after WWII, m

 The last Japanese combatant from WWII, Lt. Hiroo Ona

The Latvian soldier, Janis Pinups, deserted from the Red A

Deep Purple, the rock band, were inspired to write their h

The hagfish is the only living animal to have a skull but

Asphalt was first used as a road building material in Baby

Since 2016, one in three landline phone calls in the USA i

In 1848, Bern and Zurich were both striving to become the

Retailers did the math – a more lenient return polic

In 2016, endohedral fullerene was the most expensive mater

South Korea grants exemption from military service, which

Samsung provides free smartphones for a period of up to fi

The Mediterranean island of Mallorca (Spain) has the oldes

The shootout scene of the movie “Heat” is show

Mickey Mouse was the first non-human to win an Oscar.

The IBM ThinkPad was the first laptop with a DVD-ROM reade

People in Iceland suffer twice less often from seasonal af

75% of children eat the ears of chocolate bunnies first.

In the English language, no sovereign state in the world (

 Women are more likely to cheat on their partner in t

Finland has the world’s highest coffee consumption p

There are many “volcanoes” on Triton (Neptune&

 Uruguay produces almost 100% of its electricity out