23 Things I Literally Just Learned That Left Me In Complete Disbelief

    Justice for the Tasmanian tiger.

    Andrew Ziegler
    by Andrew Ziegler

    BuzzFeed Editor

    1. The Statue of Liberty, which was a gift to the United States from France and which symbolizes not only freedom but also friendship between the two nations, is made of copper. That means it was originally the color of a penny; but due to oxidation, it ended up turning bluish/green:

    2. An island called Lough Key, also known as the Rock, was once home to the MacDermot clan, one of the most powerful families in medieval Ireland from the 12th century until the 17th century. The castle pictured below, however, wasn't theirs. It was built in the 19th century, and the MacDermot ruins are buried underneath it:

    3. The Radisson Blu hotel in Berlin boasts the largest free-standing cylindrical aquarium in the world, which you can look directly into from your room's balcony (depending on your room):

    A massive aquarium that several stories high
    Ullstein Bild / Getty Images

    4. Beijing's Forbidden City is no less impressive from above than on the ground. Since its completion in 1420, 24 emperors have lived within its fortified walls — and moat. In 1925, it was converted into the Palace Museum:

    5. The Edmund Fitzgerald set off on Lake Superior on Nov. 9, 1975. The following day it hit a storm that would sink the ship and kill all 29 crew members on board. Not a single body was recovered. In 1994, a mini submarine was used to explore the wreckage and a body was actually spotted on the floor of the lake underneath some debris:

    6. This exquisite bracelet was discovered in King Tut's tomb. The scarab itself, which is incredibly detailed, is made of lapis lazuli:

    7. Discovered in 2015, the Graff Lesedi la Rona (the name given to this massive diamond) was the second-largest gem-quality diamond ever discovered. I say "was" because in 2019 it was cut into the world's largest square emerald diamond:

    8. This praying mantis looks remarkably good for being 12 million years old:

    9. Shen Jie and Liu Xi were pursuing in vitro fertilization when they were tragically killed in a car accident in 2013. Their parents fought hard to continue the pregnancy through surrogacy and won. The child, a boy, was born in 2017:

    10. This is Wisdom, a 70-year-old albatross who recently hatched another baby chick. She's believed to have hatched anywhere between 30–36 chicks in her life. A band was attached to her ankle by biologists in 1956 and she's still going strong:

    11. Widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the history of film, Charlie Chaplin was also an outspoken advocate of human rights. Suspected of being a communist, the FBI blacklisted him in 1948 so that he could never work in Hollywood again and in 1952 he was barred from the United States, where he had lived for the past 40 years. He denied being a communist, stating simply that he "wants nothing more for humanity than a roof over every man's head":

    12. There's a train station in Japan that can only be reached by train, and the only thing to do there is take in gorgeous views:

    13. Geckos have a remarkable ability to scale walls and hang upside down, but did you know that they're able to turn their sticky feet "on" and "off"? In the words of one researcher, "a gecko by definition is not sticky — he has to do something to make himself sticky":

    If you care to learn more about the biology behind a gecko's sticky feet, check out this article from Live Science.

    14. Vasa was a state-of-the-art warship built by the Swedish Navy — the most sophisticated and expensive warship ever built in Europe at the time. In 1628, a mere 20 minutes after setting sail for the very first time, a gust of wind sank it:

    15. During the winter months, these Austrian hiking trails are dry and walkable, but that changes as winter gives way to spring. As the snow melts on the Hochschwab Mountains, these winding trails become a "crystal clear" lake that's as deep as 40 feet in some areas:

    16. SpaceX uses robotic dogs to inspect sites that might not be safe for humans to approach. Earlier this month when Starship serial No. 10 exploded, they used one to inspect the wreckage:

    17. This gross and unsettling phenomenon, in which the eyes of some frogs and toads develop inside their mouths, is called a "macromutation" and can manifest in a variety of ways. Some reports suggest that macromutations can be caused by certain parasitic infections:

    18. Several mammoth bone huts, which were discovered together in 1965, formed a sort of early human settlement. The now-extinct wooly mammoths were used not only for shelter and food but also for heat, as burned bones were discovered in hearths:

    19. Ying Ying and Le Le have been trying (and failing) to mate for the last 10 years. Turns out all they needed was a bit of privacy:

    20. Tasmanian tigers, also referred to as "thylacines," were a species of large marsupial predators. European settlers in Tasmania hunted them and gradually chipped away at their habitat until they were declared extinct in 1936. Pictured below is Benjamin, the last Tasmanian tiger believed to have existed and who died in captivity:

    21. And aboriginal cave paintings tell us that Tasmanian tigers used to occupy large swaths of the Australian mainland and Papua New Guinea. Its former ubiquity makes its extinction all the more tragic:

    22. This beautiful throne room was discovered by archaeologists in 1900. Note the fresco on the wall behind the throne, which depicts two griffins staring admiringly at the throne's intended occupant:

    23. And in the city of Holland, Michigan, the plows don't have quite as much mileage as those in some other northern cities:

    Want to see what I learned last week? Click here to find out.