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Friday Lessons with Uncle Jay
Have you ever sat around the table with friends or family, enjoying a perfectly acceptable lunch or dinner, and listened — powerless — as the conversation slowly turns to the topic you know nothing about?
Don’t panic — instead arm yourself with some unbelievable fact nuggets about the world that will make you seem thoroughly cultured.
Facts that will leave everyone jaw-on-the-floor amazed.
Category 1: Nature
1. The deepest place on Earth is the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. It’s 11,034m deep.
That’s over 11 kilometres!
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2. The longest river in the world is the River Nile, clocking 6 853km in length.
Its water resources are shared by 11 different countries, too.
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3. Lobsters are not ‘biologically immortal’, but they do produce an enzyme that repairs their cells and helps their DNA to replicate indefinitely.
That’s where the myth comes from.
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4. Pineapples take two years to grow.
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5. Acacia trees communicate with each other.
They emit gasses to alert other trees to produce the toxin tannin, which protects them from hungry animals.
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6. It would take you approximately 18 months to walk all the way along The Great Wall of China. (It’s over 8 000 kilometres long).
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Category 2: History
1. The national flag with the most colours in it is Belize (1981), with 12.
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2. The first hand-held mobile phone call was made on April 3, 1973, in New York City.
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3. Buzz Aldrin (the second man to ever step on the Moon, in 1969) actually peed himself while walking on the surface.
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4. The Anglo-Zanzibar War (1896) was the shortest war ever — lasting just 38 minutes!
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5. Egypt is classified as the oldest country in the world, dating back to 3100 BCE.
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6. Tim Berners-Lee created the first ever web browser (World Wide Web), in 1990.
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Category 3: Art and Culture
1. 9 310 Tweets are sent out every second.
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2. “Salvator Mundi” by Leonardo da Vinci is the most expensive painting in the world, valued at $450,3 million.
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3. The most-visited country on the planet is France, with 90 million visitors, according to figures from the UNWTO in 2018.
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4. 92 percent of the world’s currency is digital.
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5. The Statue of Unity in Gujarat, India, is the tallest in the world, standing at a whopping 182m.
Note: The Statue of Liberty is 93m by comparison!
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6. Brazil boasts the most biodiversity of any country on the planet, with more than 50,000 species of plants and trees.
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Category 4: People and Countries
1. Scientists say tears tell you the reason for someone crying.
If the first drop comes from the right eye, it’s tears of joy.
Otherwise, it’s because of pain.
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2. King Henry VIII of England had servants called “Grooms of Stool”, who wiped him clean after he visited the toilet.
Gross.
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3. Russia is the most forested country in the world, with 815 million hectares.
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4. China is the world’s most populous country, with around 1,4 billion people living there.
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5. The youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize is Malala Yousafzai (aged just 17 in 2014), for her work as a child rights activist and champion of girls’ right to education.
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Category 5: “No way! Really?”
1. Sunsets only exist because Earth’s atmosphere acts as a prism for light.
In scientific terms, it’s called “scattering”.
a) Molecules and particles in the atmosphere (which are more numerous at sunset) scatter short-wavelength violet and blue light away from your eyes, so we can see the other colours on the spectrum, like yellow and orange.
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2. When you do a Google query, 1000 computers are used to find the answer in 0.2 seconds.
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3. There are almost 5 billion internet users in the world.
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4. We actually produce enough food to feed everyone on the planet; the problem is distribution.
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5. A tiger’s roar can be heard up to two miles away.
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6. The Earth is 147,2 million kilometres away from the Sun, and it’s about 4,5 billion years old.
That’s some serious heritage.
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Thanks for reading.
Hopefully now you’re able to arm yourself with some fact nuggets to boost your next chat on the world. — www.ef.com.
Online Reporter