All facts — Page 21
The complete ONAURE library, newest first. Every fact has an explanation and a source you can check.
2056 facts
Cleopatra was not ethnically Egyptian, but of Greek origin.
She belonged to the Ptolemaic dynasty, a family of Macedonian origin that ruled Egypt after the death of Alexander…
Ancient Romans used human urine to bleach their clothes.
Urea decomposes into ammonia, a highly effective alkaline cleaning agent for removing tough stains and whitening…
The first text message in history said "Merry Christmas".
It was sent in December of nineteen ninety-two by a computer engineer to the director of a telecommunications company…
Queen Victoria survived at least seven assassination attempts.
During her long reign, several individuals tried to attack her with firearms or knives, but failed due to poor aim…
Some bamboo species can grow almost a metre in a single day.
This extremely rapid growth is due to a unique cell expansion system that allows the plant to reach its maximum…
Young sunflowers track the sun during the day, but stop when the flower matures.
Heliotropism occurs due to asymmetric stem growth driven by hormones, but when the flower reaches maturity and…
Giant sequoias are highly resistant to fire.
Their thick, fibrous bark contains no flammable resin, which acts as a natural thermal insulator that protects the…
Rainwater contains small amounts of vitamin B12.
Bacteria present in the atmosphere and soil produce this vitamin, which is then swept into clouds and falls with…
A lightning bolt can strike the same tree multiple times.
Tall, isolated trees act as natural lightning rods. Oak and pine trees, due to their height and water content, are…
A lightning bolt is five times hotter than the surface of the Sun.
The electrical discharge heats the air around it to about thirty thousand degrees Celsius in an instant, which causes…
Graphene is the strongest material ever tested.
Formed by a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in hexagons, it is two hundred times stronger than steel, while…
Blue eyes do not contain blue pigment.
The colour results from the Tyndall Effect, the same scattering of light that makes the sky blue. The lack of melanin…
On Pluto, it snows methane on the highest mountains.
The dwarf planet's thin atmosphere contains methane that freezes and falls as snow in elevated regions, creating a…
The astronauts' footprints on the Moon will remain there for millions of years.
Since there is no atmosphere, wind, or water on the Moon, there is no erosion to erase the marks left by the Apollo…
Jupiter shrinks by about two centimetres every year.
The planet's huge mass generates strong gravitational compression, and the slow loss of internal heat causes the gas…
The first digital camera weighed almost five kilograms.
Created by Steven Sasson in nineteen seventy-five, it used cassettes to store images and took over twenty seconds to…
Bluetooth was named after an ancient Viking king.
Harald Bluetooth united disjointed Scandinavian tribes in the tenth century, just as the technology was created to…
A large part of the Apollo missions code was written by women.
Teams of female programmers at MIT, led by Margaret Hamilton, developed the flight software that allowed the…
The snapping shrimp creates a flash of light when closing its claw.
The claw closes so fast that it creates a cavitation bubble. When the bubble collapses, it emits a flash of light and…
Crows understand water displacement to get food.
Studies prove that crows drop stones into tubes with water to raise the level and reach a floating treat, just like…
The lyrebird can mimic the sounds of chainsaws and cameras.
This Australian bird has the most complex vocal system in the world, allowing it to accurately copy almost any…
The mantis shrimp has sixteen colour receptors in its eyes.
While humans only have three, this crustacean possesses sixteen, allowing it to see polarised and ultraviolet colours…
Human blood vessels could wrap around the Earth more than twice.
If we stretched all the arteries, veins, and capillaries of an adult, they would reach about one hundred thousand…
The human tongue print is unique to each person.
Just like fingerprints, the texture and shape of the tongue are exclusive to each individual, which has led some…