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Tell me an interesting fact I probably don't know.

malyse

malyse

Community Resetter
Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,966
Wakanda, where we do not suffer fools
Just like in the cute thread, sincerity is better than snark. And cite your facts please.

I'll start.



The Electric Slide is a vibrator.

According to a source close to [Electric Boogie songwriter, Neville] Livingston, word of the question about the origins of the song reached him in Kingston, Jamaica where he currently resides and he put the rumors to rest. "I'm surprised it took people this long to figure out" the source tells us he said. Apparently Livingston wrote the song after a girlfriend told him she didn't need him because she had a toy she nicknamed the "electric slide"​
 
sphagnum

sphagnum

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
16,058
The Byzantine Emperor Theophilus had automatons in his court to impress people. According to Liutprand, the visiting bishop of Cremona there were:

"lions, made either of bronze or wood covered with gold, which struck the ground with their tails and roared with open mouth and quivering tongue," "a tree of gilded bronze, its branches filled with birds, likewise made of bronze gilded over, and these emitted cries appropriate to their species" and "the emperor's throne" itself, which "was made in such a cunning manner that at one moment it was down on the ground, while at another it rose higher and was to be seen up in the air."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton
 
Torpedo Vegas

Torpedo Vegas

Member
Oct 27, 2017
22,598
Parts Unknown.
642521
 
Cymbal Head

Cymbal Head

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,373
German chocolate cake doesn't come from Germany. It named after its creator, Samuel German, an American. It was originally known as German's Chocolate Cake.

Likewise the Outerbridge Crossing, a bridge that connects New Jersey to Staten Island, is named for Eugenius Harvey Outerbridge, the first chair of the Port Authority.
 
Skade

Skade

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,851
Despite the statistics, French people very rarely eat snails. It's the tourists who eat 80/90% of them. Same goes with frogs.
 
AlteredBeast

AlteredBeast

Don't Watch the Tape!
Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,761
Nebraska has more miles of rivers than any state in the country. It also lies above the Ogallala Aquifer (which extends to Texas in parts but also spans nearly the whole state), which is one of the largest in the world. Nebraska has a ton of water, relatively few lakes, interestingly enough.
 
Nairume

Nairume

SaGa Sage
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,929
During the 19th century, British society got in a tizzy over the gender politics of their Canadian colonies due to the extremely unbalanced ratio of men to women in various labor focused communities causing less successful workers take on more of a domestic role in their respective labor camps. As such, mainland British folk began developing a deep social anxiety that these workers were slowly becoming too feminine and thus began pushing for more women to immigrate to the colonies.

On of those communities, of course, was the lumberjack community of British Columbia.

And that's okay.
 
Jader7777

Jader7777

Member
Oct 26, 2017
1,211
Australia
There's a place at the beach along the coast of Australia the drizzles out fresh bore water from a sea cliff. It's very cold and clean tasting. People have been drinking it for years now.
 

Deleted member 2109

User-requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,927
Elvis never performed outside of the US except a few times in Canada. His manager was an illegal immigrant and was afraid he'd get caught at the border.
 
Qasiel

Qasiel

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,330
Gates McFadden aka Dr. Beverley Crusher of Star Trek TNG fame choreographed the ballroom dancing scene from Labyrinth.

The first person to surf the "Severn Bore", a tidal wave that surges along a river in the UK was a man known as "Mad Jack" who also fought in WW2 using bagpipes, a broadsword and an English longbow.
 
Downhome

Downhome

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,356
The Chick-Fil-A Polynesian sauce is essentially just Marzetti Honey French dressing.
 
AmericanKirby

AmericanKirby

Member
Aug 31, 2018
774
Inside your house
I once heard that the yearly rate of shark attacks is lower than the yearly rate of sexual assault by dolphins, but I can't find any statistics for it and I'm not going to keep googling around for it, so take it with a large boulder of salt.

I do know that your more likely to be killed by a vending machine (1 in 115 million) than a shark (1 in 250 million) though.
 
boi

boi

Member
Nov 1, 2017
1,768
There are more chickens on earth than there are humans.
 
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Maquiladora

Maquiladora

Member
Nov 16, 2017
5,083
All of the gold that has ever been mined on earth, if melted, would fit into the confines of one Olympic swimming pool.
 
Joe

Joe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,593
In the 18th Century, very fashionable young English men who travelled Europe became big fans of macaroni pasta. The word macaroni turned into sort of slang. The men were sometimes referred to jokingly as the Macaroni Club and used the word macaroni to describe fashionable, cool stuff. Fashionable for them was, like, curly wigs and foppish things.

Anyway, that's the reason why, when Yankee Doodle went to town, riding on his pony, he stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni. The idea was that the boorish, dumb Americans were so uncultured, that they would think a feather in a hat was sufficiently fancy to be called "macaroni." The song was basically a dig by the English at the Americans. Either the Americans didn't understand the slight, or the tune was just too catchy, because now it's this classic American song.
 

Sounds

Member
Oct 27, 2017
928
There are more museums in the United States than there are McDonald's and Starbucks combined.
 
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