Five Random Facts about the World You Probably Didn’t Know
If you are hankering for some trivia to make yourself feel more knowledgeable, this story brings you some truths which truly are stranger than fiction.
Our mind likes to feed on new information. It might not always be useful, but it comes in handy when you throw in some nuggets of random knowledge to impress people around you. Suddenly you are accepted as smart and witty. So, it’s always better to know some trivia to turn boring conversations exciting and funny. If you are out of your trivia stock, here are some interesting facts about our world that you could flaunt at the next get-together.
A man got struck by lightning seven times
This happened in Virginia USA, where a man named Roy Cleveland Sullivan used to work as a park ranger at Shenandoah National Park was hit by lightning from 1942 to 1977. Interestingly, Sullivan survived all seven lightning accidents. As a result, he made a world record of being the person most hit by lightning and an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. Roy Sullivan was nicknamed as ‘Human lightning Rod’ and lived up to the age of seventy one.
Indians like to read more than any other country
People in India like to take up reading books as a source of entertainment more than anywhere in the world. A study conducted in 2017 revealed that the average time given by an Indian to reading is more than ten hours a week, followed by countries like Thailand, China, Egypt and the Philippines. This looks commendable in the times when social media has taken over all the other forms of entertainments, including reading.
The tortoise of Charles Darwin was alive until recently
Charles Darwin had a tortoise named Harriet that was five years old at the time of its adoption. It lived up to the age of 176 and outlived his master by 124 years. The last years of her life were spent in Australia before she bid the world goodbye in the year 2006.
Victorians never smiled for a photograph
Victorians used the word ‘prunes’ and not ‘cheese’ when they posed for a camera. Speaking Prunes would negate any chance of faintest smile on their face, which was considered an appropriate expression for a picture. Smiling and laughing were considered as a sign of frivolity and lack of dignity. This explains the sombre expressions of people on vintage photographs.
Madame Curie’s notebooks are highly radioactive
The inventor of radium, Curie worked with highly radioactive elements like uranium which took a toll of her health and eventually life. Her personal belongings and her valuable notebooks were all prone to radioactivity, and therefore those books are stored in boxes made of lead. These books shall stay radioactive for another 1500 years.
