I love surprising/interesting facts, so much so that I've written many, many facts posts during my time here at BuzzFeed. One of my favorite facts is that the last surviving witness to President Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865, Samuel J. Seymour, lived long enough to appear on the TV game show I've Got a Secret in 1956, where he told his story.
And if that wasn't surprising enough, among the contestants trying to guess Samuel's secret was none other than the legendary Lucille Ball. This also means Samuel is probably the only person ever to have been in the same room with both Abraham Lincoln and Lucille Ball!
Well, recently, my love of facts led me to stumble upon this Reddit thread where user I-eat-foot asked: "What is your 'oh f*ck off there is no way that’s true' fact/stat?"
The thread went viral, getting over 8K comments. Below are some of the top and best facts that people shared:
1. "There were only 25 episodes of the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! 1969 TV series."
2. "The lineup of the Beatles we love so much were only together for a little over seven years before breaking up. It's as long as it takes some bands to get their first record deal."
3. "Ancient Egypt lasted so long that Ancient Egyptian archaeology was a career in Ancient Egypt."
4. "A worm was frozen solid for over 46,000 years in Siberian permafrost, but some scientists revived it. So, it was actually not dead, just resting."
5. "A full-size basketball court can fit inside a soccer penalty box. Still amazes me."
6. "We live closer in time to the Tyrannosaurus Rex than the Tyrannosaurus Rex lived to Stegosaurus."
7. "The last execution by guillotine in France occurred the same year Star Wars was released (1977)."
8. "Sharks existed before trees did."
9. "There are more trees on Earth than stars in the Milky Way."
10. "Humans are the ONLY animals to have a chin. Sounds fake right? Wrong. Monkeys? Nope. Give your dog's chin a scratch? Nope, you’re scratching its jaw. Only humans have chins."
11. "The last recipient of a Civil War pension died during the Trump administration (in 2020)."
12. "We are as far away from the end of WWI as WWI was from the Napoleonic Wars."
13. "Wooly mammoths did not go extinct until 1,000 years after the Great Pyramids of Giza were built."
14. "Hannibal Lecter only has 16 minutes of screen time in The Silence of the Lambs."
15. "If you're 7 feet tall you have a 1 in 6 chance of landing in the NBA."
16. "Nintendo was founded in 1889. They were a card game company."
17. "There were only two seasons of both The Munsters and The Addams Family. Given the number of times I watched reruns, that surprised me."
18. "German chocolate cake is not named for the country, it's named after chocolate maker Samuel German and was originally called German's Chocolate."
19. "It was only 66 years from the Wright brothers' first flight to Neil Armstrong walking on the moon."
20. "President Joe Biden was born closer to Lincoln's assassination [77 years earlier] than his own inauguration [79 years later]."
21. "John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States, born in 1790, still has a living grandson: Harrison Ruffin Tyler."
22. "Greenland sharks can live up to 500 years. They don’t reach sexual maturity until they are over 100 years old. When they get pregnant, gestation lasts up to 18 years."
23. "During WWII, a bear fought in the Polish Army. He was enlisted as a private and later promoted to corporal. He carried ammunition to the front line, drank beer, and was taught to salute. His name was Wojtek."
24. "George H.W. Bush was almost eaten by cannibals during WWII."
25. "One of the reasons your puppy likes squeaky toys is because the sound reminds them of killing a small animal."
26. And lastly, "That Macaulay Culkin's middle name is Macaulay Culkin. His name is Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin."
You can read the original thread on Reddit.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.