Strange But True

I read an article a while ago that stated late US President George Washington died 15 years before the first fossil of a dinosaur was discovered, meaning that he never knew that they had ever existed. I thought that this was an interesting enough fact to do some more research and write an article on strange but true surprising facts in recent history. 

Let's kick off with a Cray Wanderers related snippet. Back in 1860, when the Wands were first formed, the United States of America were not so united which culminated in the Civil War between 1861 and 1865, Queen Victoria had been reigning for 23 years and Lord Palmerston (Liberal Party) was the Prime Minister of the UK. Abraham Lincoln was elected as the US President in 1860.

Getting away from dates, here's a few things that I bet not many of us knew. Armadillos are bulletproof, apparently; I don't know how they found that one out. Pineapples take two years to grow; I think it takes longer than that to peel and slice them. And 5 minutes to eat them. The average time it takes to walk along the whole of the Great Wall of China is 18 months; I wonder how they worked out the 'average'.

Then there's Belize having the most colourful flag in the world. It has 12 colours. Egypt is classified as the oldest country in the world; I've also read that tiny San Marino has the same claim. It leaves me wondering which is right.

There are allegedly 9310 Tweets sent out every second. I can just imagine Elon Musk counting them! There is a neighbouring village and town in Kent called Ham and Sandwich; I know this as a fact, as I live quite close to them. There are 1.4 billion people living in China, which makes the place the most populated in the world.

There's around 5 billion internet users worldwide; I bet it would get interesting if we all decided to check our emails at the same time! A tiger's roar can be heard up to two miles away; even that doesn't seem to be far enough away, to be honest.

And just one final fact... owls don't have eyeballs. Apparently.