Facts You Probably don’t Need
- In 1998, one satellite failed causing about 80% of the world’s pagers to stop working.
- Avocados, Pumpkins, watermelons, and bananas are all berries while strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries are not.
- One of the most sought-after jobs in Venice is that of the gondolier. There are only about 425 licenses issued, and applicants must be Venetian by birth. Apprenticeships involve over 400 hours of training, and when a gondolier dies, the license passes to the beneficiary, who then decides the replacement.
- In Japan, blood type is believed to be an indicator as to one’s personality, creating a market for blood type themed goods.
- The makers of Edible Underwear were, at first, denied patent protection on the grounds that “candy and pants were incompatible.”
- It’s illegal to “pursue, shoot, shoot at, poison, wound, kill, capture, trap, collect, molest or disturb” a bald eagle in the U.S.
- The Sun’s distance from Earth is about 400 times the Moon distance, and the Sun’s diameter is about 400 times the diameter of the Moon. Because of this coincidence, it means that we can experience a total eclipse and the Moon covers the whole Sun.
Facts by Sean McVeigh, factologist.
