Facts You Probably don’t Need
- Russia is 75% Asian by land mass and 80% European by population.
- With a lifespan of 122 years and 164 days, Jeanne Louise Calment, a French woman, is the oldest documented person to ever live. She was born in 1875 and died in 1997.
- The time between humans and the T-Rex is shorter than the time between the T-Rex and the Stegosaurus.
- Bobby Leach was the second person to ever go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. He survived, but his injuries kept him hospitalized for six months. He died 15 years later from injuries sustained after he slipped on an orange peel.
- In 2022, the population of Ireland surpassed 5 million for the first time since 1851. The population decline began with the great famine, but emigration sustained it — Ireland’s population didn’t start growing again until the 1960s, and there are still about 3 million fewer people living there than in 1841.
- The last “official” civil war widow died in 2020. In 1936, at age 17, Helen Jackson married 93-year-old James Bolin. Bolin fought for the Union Army in the Civil War. The ceremony took place 71 years after the war had ended.
- Fax machines were invented in 1843, over 30 years before the telephone.
Facts by Sean McVeigh, factologist.
