FACTS TO LEAVE YOU SPEECHLESS

More people work for the Chinese government monitoring the internet than serve in its armed forces.

Blue whales don’t know they’re blue. They can only see in black and white.

The M96 is a fake motorway used for firefighting practice.

In 1849 “running amok” was an officially recognised medical condition.

In 1900 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle caught fire during a cricket match at Lord’s. The ball hit a box of matches in his pocket. Alex Salmond once appeared in a Bollywood soap opera.

In 2014 more bets were placed on who killed Lucy Beale in EastEnders than on the Champions League final.

The Wright brothers flew together only once. Their father had forbidden it in case they crashed.

The world’s oldest land animal is a 183-year-old giant tortoise called Jonathan. When Queen Victoria came to the throne, he was five years old.

Arthur Scherbius, inventor of the Enigma machine, also invented an electric pillow. Abraham Lincoln was a licensed bartender.

In Thailand the National Office of Buddhism has a hotline for complaints about unruly monks. Eight out of 10 UK vegetarians will end up eating meat. Guantanamo Bay has a gift shop.

More than 300 species of spider pretend to be ants.

There are more bacteria on Earth than there are stars in the known universe. A blue whale can swallow half a million calories in a single mouthful. The average supermarket contains enough food to keep you alive for 55 years or 63 years if you don’t mind eating cat food. Astronauts’ eyes get flatter in space. Mumps is five times as contagious as Ebola.

Uzbekistan shuts down the internet during the nation’s standardised annual university entrance exam. It also disables all text messaging.

Thanks to the US military the most accurately mapped country in the world is Afghanistan.

A third of all Britons say that they neither love nor hate Marmite.

The iceberg that hit the Titanic was 3,000 years old. It formed when Tutankhamun was pharaoh.

Aztec mothers who died in childbirth were regarded as highly as warriors who died in battle.

Emily Brontë who wrote Wuthering Heights and Kate Bush who sang Wuthering Heights were both born on July 30, 140 years apart. There are at least a billion tons of ice on the moon. The world record for the most people sat on one chair is 1,831. JK Rowling’s parents met at King’s Cross station. John Adams, second president of the USA, had a dog called Satan.

Every year the Bank of England’s damaged and mutilated notes service receives claims for more than £100,000 for banknotes eaten by pets. In 1952 the great smog of London was so bad that blind people led sighted people home from the train stations. The last time an elephant took part in battle was in 1885, for Vietnam against France. EXTRAORDINARY, clockwise from top: The space station is the most expensive object ever built; Keira Knightley owes her name to her mum’s poor spelling; Jonathan is the world’s oldest creature; and Lincoln, licensed bartender Between 2003 and 2008 the lost property office of Madame Tussauds collected 123 pairs of false teeth and one false leg. The first ever children’s picture book was in Latin and had instructions for beer brewing and winemaking.

More people in the world have mobile phones than possess flushing toilets. Lord Lucan was once asked to audition for James Bond.

Glitter was invented by accident by a cattle rancher from New Jersey.

The atmosphere on Venus is so hot that it would cook a pizza in seven seconds. Keira Knightley’s first name is a spelling mistake by her mother. The hit song Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks was originally called Liverpool Sunset. The oldest known snake fossil had four feet.

All of the American war dead on European soil were buried facing away from Germany, but George S Patton, who died shortly after the war, is facing his troops. Bhutan has an official yeti hunter. He hasn’t found any (yet).

In the early part of this century Tonga’s finance minister was also its official court jester.

There are more tattoos on British teachers than there are on members of the British Armed Services.

In 1710 the boys of Winchester College rioted over meagre beer rations.

US President James Garfield’s favourite meal was squirrel soup.

The only person ever killed by a boa constrictor was an escapologist who got into a coffin with one.

The only meteorite known to have hit a person is called the Hodges meteorite. It slightly injured Mrs Ann Hodges in Alabama in 1954.

The front between Islamic State and the Iraqi Kurds in 2015 was 50 per cent longer than the Western Front in 1914.

Three members of ITV’s Gladiators team were also in the film Gladiator. Fifa has 18 more members than the UN. After Disney released The Princess And The Frog more than 50 children were hospitalised with salmonella after trying to kiss frogs. Mankind has reached 20 billion miles beyond Earth but only seven-and-a-half miles inside it. The International Space Station is the single most expensive object ever built. Daily Express Thursday June 29 2017 Due to heavy snow in 1891 the 3pm train service from Paddington to Plymouth left on March 9 and arrived on March 13. Scientists have performed brain surgery on a cockroach.

The longest-ever Viking longship was unearthed by accident during renovations of a Danish longship museum. Nando’s is the world’s biggest buyer of South African art.

The oldest known letter of complaint by a customer was written on a clay tablet in 1750BC.

You are 100 times more likely to be struck by lightning standing under an oak than a beech. Only two per cent of Belgians know their national anthem.

For marrying a Protestant, Josef Goebbels became the only Nazi to be excommunicated.

The world’s largest container ship can carry 900 million cans of baked beans – 60 beans for every person on Earth.

English has more words for the noises dogs make than any other language. Only 30 per cent of the Sahara desert is sand.

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