Geography:
The Earth's circumference is approximately 24,901 miles (40,075 kilometers).There are more than 7,000 islands in the Philippines.Lake Baikal in Russia is the world's deepest freshwater lake, reaching depths of 5,387 feet (1,642 meters).The Sahara Desert is expanding by about 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometers) per year.The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is the largest living structure on Earth, visible from space.
Nature:
Honey never spoils. Archaeologists have found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that are over 3,000 years old and still perfectly edible.
The blue whale is the largest animal to have ever existed on Earth, with tongues alone weighing as much as an elephant.Lightning strikes the Earth's surface around 8 million times per day.The Venus Flytrap is a carnivorous plant native to the southeastern United States.The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat, with a wingspan of about 5.7 inches (14.5 cm).
History:
Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of Egypt, lived closer in time to the invention of the iPhone than to the construction of the Great Pyramid.
The ancient city of Rome had public toilets with a communal sponge stick for cleaning after use.The Great Wall of China is not a single continuous wall but a series of walls and fortifications built over centuries.The Library of Alexandria in ancient Egypt was one of the most comprehensive libraries in antiquity, with over 700,000 scrolls.The world's oldest known map is the Babylonian World Map, dating back to the 6th century BCE.
Science and Space:
A day on Venus is longer than its year. Venus rotates so slowly that its day is longer than its 225-day year.
There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on Earth.The speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 186,282 miles per second (299,792,458 meters per second).The Milky Way galaxy is estimated to be about 13.6 billion years old.The Hubble Space Telescope can see back in time, capturing images of galaxies billions of years old.
Technology:
The first computer mouse was made of wood.
In 1983, Motorola released the first commercially available mobile phone, which weighed 2.2 pounds (1 kg).The entire internet is estimated to weigh as much as a strawberry.The first webcam was invented to monitor a coffee pot at the University of Cambridge.The first email was sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971, and it simply said "QWERTYUIOP."
Animals:
Octopuses have three hearts: two pump blood to the gills, and one pumps it to the rest of the body.
Cows have best friends and can become stressed when separated from them.A group of flamingos is called a "flamboyance."The mantis shrimp has the most complex visual system in the animal kingdom, with 12 to 16 types of color receptors.Some species of ants enslave other ants and force them to do their work.
Cultural:
The Great Wall of China is not a single continuous wall but a series of walls and fortifications built over centuries.
The world's largest desert is not the Sahara but Antarctica.Russia spans 11 time zones, making it the country with the most time zones.There are more people in the world who speak Mandarin Chinese as their first language than any other language.The Eiffel Tower can be 6 inches (15 cm) taller during the summer due to the expansion of iron in the heat.
Language:
The word "bookkeeper" and "bookkeeping" are the only unhyphenated English words with three consecutive double letters.
The longest word in the English language without a vowel is "rhythms.""E" is the most commonly used letter in the English language.There are over 7,000 languages spoken in the world today.The Oxford English Dictionary has over 600,000 words.
Food:
Potatoes were the first vegetable to be grown in space.
The world's most expensive spice is saffron, which is derived from the flower of Crocus sativus.Honey never spoils. Archaeologists have found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that are over 3,000 years old and still perfectly edible.A single pineapple plant produces only one pineapple per year.The world's largest