100 Mind-Blowing Fun Facts That Are Actually True

The world is a strange place. Just when you think you have it figured out, you learn that hippos can fly, Wombats poop cubes, and you have been pronouncing “Dr. Seuss” wrong your entire life.

At Interesting Story, we hunt for the truth behind the weirdness. We have curated the ultimate list of 100 mind-blowing facts—ranging from brand-new discoveries in 2025 to ancient history secrets that were buried for centuries.

Ready to be the smartest person in the room? Let’s dive in.

Weird News & Trending Discoveries

Fresh facts from the last 12 months that you probably missed.

1. Hippos can “fly.” Scientists recently discovered that when hippos sprint, they become airborne (all four feet off the ground) for 15% of their stride.
2. A woman lived inside a grocery store sign for a year. In Midland, Michigan, a 34-year-old woman was found living inside a rooftop “Family Fare” sign. She had a desk, flooring, and a coffee maker.
3. New Zealand put a time limit on hugs. Dunedin Airport introduced a “3-minute max” rule for farewell hugs to stop traffic jams.
4. Robots can have “living skin.” Scientists in Tokyo created a robot face covered in living skin cells that can “heal” itself if cut.
5. There is a new cat color. A rare genetic mutation in Finland has created a new cat coat pattern called “Salty Licorice” (black at the root, white at the tip).
6. We found a “ghost ship” in the desert. Archaeologists uncovered a WWII-era ship buried in the sands of the Californian desert, miles from the ocean.
7. Orcas are surgeons. Killer whales were filmed performing “surgery” on Great White Sharks—targeting and eating only their livers with precision accuracy.
8. The “Night Parrot” isn’t extinct. One of the world’s most mysterious birds was genetically sequenced in 2024, proving it still survives in the Australian outback.
9. Your brain has a “waste disposal” system. New research shows your brain literally washes itself with fluid while you sleep to clear out toxins.
10. A “Box Demon” terrorized Pennsylvania. A person wearing a paper plate mask left a box on a porch claiming to be a “Box Demon.” (It was just a prank, but a terrifying one).

Animals & Nature

Nature is arguably the best horror movie writer of all time.

11. Wombat poop is cube-shaped. They are the only animal in the world that does this (to stop the poop from rolling down hills).
12. Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins. By slowing their heart rate, they can stay underwater for 40 minutes.
13. Sharks existed before trees. Sharks appeared ~400 million years ago. Trees appeared ~350 million years ago.
14. Reindeer eyes turn blue in winter. It helps them see in the Arctic darkness. (We wrote a full story on this!).
15. A snail can sleep for 3 years. If the weather isn’t right, they just hit the snooze button.
16. The “Wood Frog” freezes solid. It stops its heart and brain activity in winter and thaws out alive in spring.
17. Crows hold grudges. They can recognize human faces and will teach their children to hate specific people who wronged them.
18. Male platypuses are venomous. They have spurs on their hind feet that can deliver a sting painful enough to incapacitate a human.
19. Butterflies taste with their feet. That’s how they find a good leaf to lay eggs on.
20. Koalas have fingerprints. They are so similar to humans that they have confused crime scene investigators.
21. Octopuses have three hearts. Two pump blood to the gills, one pumps it to the rest of the body.
22. Cows have best friends. They get stressed when they are separated from them.
23. Turritopsis dohrnii is an “immortal jellyfish.” It can revert its cells back to childhood and start its life cycle over again.
24. Tigers have striped skin. It’s not just their fur; if you shaved a tiger, it would still be striped.
25. The Horned Lizard shoots blood from its eyes. It can squirt blood up to 5 feet to scare off predators.

Space & Science

The universe is bigger, weirder, and scarier than you think.

26. One day on Venus is longer than one year on Venus. It spins so slowly that it orbits the sun faster than it completes a single rotation.
27. Space is completely silent. There is no atmosphere to carry sound waves.
28. There is a planet made of diamond. 55 Cancri e is likely composed largely of graphite and diamond.
29. Neutron stars are dense. A teaspoon of a neutron star would weigh 6 billion tons.
30. Footprints on the Moon will last forever. There is no wind to blow them away.
31. You become taller in space. Without gravity compressing your spine, you can grow up to 2 inches.
32. The sun makes a sound. If space had air, the sun would be as loud as a jackhammer—even from Earth.
33. We are made of stardust. The calcium in your bones and the iron in your blood came from ancient explosions of giant stars.
34. Cold welding is real. If two pieces of the same metal touch in space, they will permanently bond together.
35. There are more trees on Earth than stars in the Milky Way. (3 trillion trees vs. 100-400 billion stars).
36. Water can boil and freeze at the same time. It’s called the “Triple Point.”
37. Bananas are radioactive. They contain Potassium-40, but you’d need to eat 10 million at once to die.
38. Glass is a liquid (sort of). It’s an “amorphous solid,” somewhere between the two states.
39. Humans glow in the dark. We emit a tiny amount of light, but our eyes are too weak to see it.
40. Honey never spoils. You could eat 3,000-year-old honey from an Egyptian tomb.

History & The Past

History class left out the best parts.

41. Cleopatra lived closer to the iPhone than the Pyramids. The Great Pyramid was built ~2560 BC. Cleopatra died in 30 BC.
42. Oxford University is older than the Aztecs. Oxford started teaching in 1096. The Aztec Empire began in 1325.
43. Woolly Mammoths were still alive when the Pyramids were being built. A small population survived on Wrangel Island until 1650 BC.
44. Heroin was once sold as cough medicine. Bayer marketed it for children in the 1890s.
45. Napoleon wasn’t short. He was average height for his time; the “short” myth was British propaganda.
46. Ketchup was used as medicine. In the 1830s, it was sold to cure indigestion.
47. The shortest war lasted 38 minutes. The Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 ended before you could finish a lunch break.
48. Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets. That was an invention of 19th-century opera costume designers.
49. Potatoes were illegal in France. For years, the French Parliament banned them because they thought they caused leprosy.
50. Ancient Romans used urine as mouthwash. The ammonia helped whiten their teeth.
51. Waiters in Paris once staged a “No Tipping” strike. In 1928, they demanded a salary instead of tips.
52. Albert Einstein could have been President of Israel. He was offered the job in 1952 but declined.
53. Tug-of-War was an Olympic sport. It was played from 1900 to 1920.
54. The Eiffel Tower grows in summer. The metal expands in the heat, making it grow by up to 6 inches.
55. There were female gladiators. They were called “Gladiatrices.”

The Human Body & Psychology

You are the most complex machine on the planet.

56. Your stomach blushes when you do. The lining of your stomach turns red when you get embarrassed.
57. You have a “second brain” in your gut. The enteric nervous system has 100 million neurons.
58. Humans are the only animals with chins. No other mammal has one.
59. Your nose and ears never stop growing. It’s actually gravity causing the cartilage to break down and sag.
60. You lose 4kg of skin cells a year. Most of the dust in your house is dead skin.
61. Babies don’t have kneecaps. They have cartilage that hardens into bone later.
62. The strongest muscle is the masseter (jaw). It can close with a force of 200 pounds.
63. Your heartbeat changes with the music. It mimics the tempo of the song you are listening to.
64. You can’t hum while holding your nose. Go ahead, try it.
65. Your eyes have a blind spot. Your brain just “fills in” the missing information so you don’t notice.
66. Goosebumps are evolutionary leftovers. They were meant to fluff up our fur to make us look bigger to predators.
67. Phobophobia is the fear of having a phobia.
68. The “Placebo Effect” works even if you know it’s a placebo.
69. Memories are easy to fake. Scientists have successfully implanted false memories in mice (and humans).
70. Yawning cools down your brain. It’s not just about oxygen; it acts like a fan for an overheated processor.

Just Plain Weird

Facts that don’t fit anywhere else but are too good to skip.

71. McDonald’s once created bubblegum-flavored broccoli. Kids still hated it.
72. A “jiffy” is a real unit of time. It is 1/100th of a second.
73. The dots on dice are called “pips.”
74. Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
75. There is a town in Norway where you can’t die. (Read the full story on Longyearbyen).
76. Nintendo was founded in 1889. They started by making playing cards long before Mario existed.
77. Saudi Arabia imports camels from Australia. They need them for meat and milk production.
78. The inventor of the Pringles can is buried in one. His ashes were placed in an Original flavor tube.
79. Cotton candy was invented by a dentist. His name was William Morrison (genius business move).
80. High heels were originally for men. Persian soldiers used them to stay locked in stirrups while riding horses.
81. “Unfriend” was a word in 1659. It’s not just a Facebook term.
82. There are more fake flamingos in the world than real ones.
83. A cloud can weigh over a million pounds.
84. Dr. Seuss invented the word “Nerd.” It first appeared in If I Ran the Zoo (1950).
85. The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland.
86. Bangkok’s real name is 168 letters long. It starts with “Krung Thep Mahanakhon…”
87. The Great Wall of China is NOT visible from space. That is a myth.
88. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
89. Chainsaws were invented to help with childbirth. (We won’t go into details, but it’s true).
90. A group of pugs is called a “Grumble.”
91. Avocados are berries. But strawberries are not.
92. Humans share 60% of their DNA with bananas.
93. Blue whale hearts are the size of a car. A human could swim through the arteries.
94. The longest wedding veil was longer than 63 football fields.
95. Antarctica is the world’s largest desert. A desert is defined by low precipitation, not sand.
96. Dead people can get goosebumps.
97. You can hear a blue whale’s heartbeat from 2 miles away.
98. Lighters were invented before matches.
99. Shattered glass travels at 3,000 mph.
100. You just read 100 facts. And now you are smarter than you were 5 minutes ago.

Conclusion

If your brain feels a little heavier, that’s just the weight of all this new knowledge. Whether it’s the fact that hippos can fly or that you are made of stardust, the world is full of interesting stories waiting to be discovered.

Want more? Dive deeper into the History or Nature categories for the full stories behind these facts.