Do you know Miss Piggy's full name? The weirdest pet ever owned by a U.S. president? Or how many species of fish can walk on land? We rounded up the most interesting facts we could find. Keep scrolling to learn a bunch of new fun facts ASAP!
1. Ketchup was sold as medicine in the 1830s.
2. Modern thong underwear was introduced by Fiorello La Guardia, the mayor of New York City.
3. There are only two escalators in the entire state of Wyoming.
4. Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's son, was in close proximity to three out of four presidential assassinations.
5. Clownfish can change their sex, including their reproductive organs, and the process is irreversible.
6. If you're being violent or drunk in Japan the police will get a futon and roll you into a burrito.
7. Male ducks have corkscrew-shaped penises.
8. All mammals take about 12 seconds to poop, regardless of size.
9. Snakes can help predict earthquakes. They can sense them up to five days before, from up to 75 miles away.
10. Ancient Egyptians would use the paste from dead mice to cure toothaches.
11. David Bowie launched his own internet provider in 1998 called BowieNet.
12. Miss Piggy's original name was Piggy Lee.
13. Cruise ships have their own morgues.
14. Ladybugs defend themselves from predators by releasing a foul-smelling chemical from their knees.
15. Brad Pitt tore his Achilles tendon while playing Greek warrior Achilles in the movie Troy.
16. There's a rare neurological condition called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, which causes people to feel larger or smaller than they actually are.
17. Barcode readers only scan the white part and not the black.
18. Martin Luther King Jr. earned a "C" in his public speaking class during his first two semesters of seminary school.
19. There's a rare ant breed that can only be found in a 14-block section of Manhattan and nowhere else on the planet.
20. Talk about good acting — Toni Collette faked her appendicitis so well when she was a teen that doctors ended up removing her appendix.
21. Sea otters hold hands while they sleep so they don't drift apart.
22. In an attempt to make their menu more nutritious, McDonald's once created broccoli that tasted like bubblegum.
23. President Theodore Roosevelt had a pet hyena named Bill.
24. Humans are born with two innate fears: fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. The rest are learned.
25. Because gelatin is made from animal skin and bones, gummy worms technically have more bones in them than actual worms (which don't have any).
26. Miami is the only major US city founded by a woman.
27. The first oranges were actually green.
28. A grizzly bear's bite is strong enough to crush a bowling ball.
29. The story you've probably heard about lemmings jumping off of cliffs to their deaths FAKE.
30. John Cena has granted more Make A Wish requests than any other celebrity in the charity's history.
31. Cookie Monster's real name is Sid.
32. Anxious travelers can play with mini horses at a Kentucky airport.
33. Coca-Cola cannot be bought or sold in North Korea.
34. A game of golf was once played on the moon.
35. Lady Gaga once spent $50K on a ghost detector.
36. Canadians eat more mac 'n' cheese, specifically Kraft macaroni and cheese, than any other nation.
37. You can actually go to Hell...Hell, Norway that is, or even Hell, Michigan. And don't worry, it doesn't really get hot.
38. Woodpeckers wrap their tongues around their brain to protect them during their high-speed pecks.
39. Vending machines kill more people per year than sharks.
40. Early in his career, Sylvester Stallone was so low on cash, he was forced to sell his dog, Butkus, for $40. When he landed Rocky, he bought the dog back for $15K and gave him a role in the movie.
41. Most carrots were originally purple before the 17th century.
42. Human bodies contain small traces of gold.
43. The original fire hydrant patent (credited to Frederick Graff Sr. in the 1800s) was lost in a fire.
44. Male giraffes headbutt females in their bladder until they urinate. The male then tastes her pee to see if she's ovulating.
45. Former One Directioner Liam Payne has a severe phobia of dirty spoons.
46. Nutmeg isn't just used in food. It can also be hallucinogenic if consumed in large doses.
47. Sonic the Hedgehog's middle name is Maurice.
48. In Singapore, anyone caught chewing, importing, or selling gum could face a fine or jail time.
49. Winnie the Pooh was banned from a Polish playground because he doesn't wear pants.
50. Until 2015 in the UK, the coloring in red skittles contained carmine, which derives from the crushed abdomen of female beetles.
51. DUI offenders in Ohio are issued yellow license plates to help police officers identify them while on the road.
52. Inside the Actor's Studio host James Lipton used to be a Parisian pimp.
53. Jon Hamm was Ellie Kemper's high school drama teacher.
54. Crows can hold grudges due to their ability to remember human faces, especially those who treated them badly.
55. There's a company that allows you to memorialize the body of a loved one in the form of a reef.
56. The phrase "sweating like a pig" is technically impossible, because pigs can't physically sweat.
57. A blue whale's tongue weighs more than most elephants.
58. All of Tom Cruise's ex-wives were 33 when they divorced the actor.
59. Arsenic wafers were once eaten to improve skin and "facial disfigurements" like freckles and blackheads — well, until people realized it was slowly killing them.
60. German chocolate cake was actually invented in Texas by a person named Mrs. George Clay.
61. Nicolas Cage is known as an outlandish spender in Hollywood. Some of his past purchases include a $150,000 pet octopus, haunted houses, and shrunken pygmy heads.
62. Raw pistachios have been known to spontaneously combust when stored in large quantities.
63. Although illegal and dangerous, it's possible to walk from Russia to Alaska via the Bering Strait when it freezes in the winter.
64. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
65. Owls don't have eyeballs. Instead they have elongated tubes held by sclerotic rings. Owls can't move their eyes around, which is why they have to move their entire head to look in different areas.
66. In Japan, editors added a fifth finger to Bob the Builder's hands, so viewers wouldn't think he was associated with a feared Japanese mafia called Yakuza.
67. Jennifer Lawrence learned how to skin a squirrel for her role in Winter's Bone.
68. The first college football game was played on Nov. 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton (formally known as the College of New Jersey). Rutgers won.
69. Flamingos can only eat when their heads are upside down, due mainly to the structure of their beaks.
70. Before deciding on the name Google, the popular search engine was called BackRub.
71. Pound cake got its name because the original recipe for the dessert required one pound of each ingredient.
72. Before her rise to fame, Madonna worked at Dunkin' Donuts. She was later fired for squirting jelly on a customer.
73. Walt Disney actually hated the character Goofy, calling him a "stupid cartoon."
74. Thailand holds an annual Monkey Buffet Festival where residents of Lopburi honor the 3,000 monkeys that live near the Phra Prang Sam Yot temple by providing 4.5 tons of fruit, vegetables, and treats for them to eat.
75. Shredded cheese packages typically contains cellulose (also known as wood pulp or sawdust) to prevent them from clumping.
76. Shakira's school teacher told her she was bad at singing and banned her from choir. Her classmates stated she sounded like a goat.
77. Dr. Seuss created Green Eggs and Ham because his publisher bet him he couldn't write a book shorter than The Cat in the Hat.
78. The Yoruba people of Nigeria are known for giving birth to more twins than anywhere else in the world — 50 per 1,000 births.
79. Paul Newman taught Jake Gyllenhaal how to drive.
80. Ears of corn typically have an even number of rows — most have an average of 16.
81. Jack Nicholson grew up believing his mom, June, was his sister, and that his grandmother, Ethel May, was his mother.
82. Long before New York received its iconic nickname "The Big Apple," it was known as New Orange.
83. The word "podcast" is a portmanteau — a combination of the words "iPod" and "broadcast." The term itself was actually created by accident in 2004.
84. The first text message sent to a cellphone happened almost 30 years ago (!) — in 1992 — and the message sent was "Merry Christmas."
85. In 1953, Swanson was basically forced to invent TV dinners because they had around 260 tons of leftover frozen Thanksgiving turkeys and needed a way to get rid of them.
86. In 2002, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first TV show to ever use "google" as a verb.
87. In 2005, Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" became the first song to sell a million digital downloads.
88. The word "meme" isn't new, and was first coined in 1976 by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene — albeit, it did have a bit of a different meaning.
89. Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought was the first book ever sold on Amazon in 1995.
90. McDonald's created Chicken McNuggets because of changing dietary habits in the late '70s (aka people — because of health concerns — were eating less red meat and were eating more chicken).
91. It wasn't until the Great Depression that movie theaters began selling popcorn as a snack to eat during movies.
92. The first Disney Channel Original Movie was 1997's Northern Lights, starring Diane Keaton.
93. Cap’n Crunch has a full name — it's Horatio Magellan Crunch.
94. The urban legend about the ghost of a boy appearing in Three Men and a Baby actually started after the film was released on home video.
95. An extinct species of monkey crossed the Atlantic on its own.
96. Mars constantly makes a humming noise.
97. When plants are under attack from insects, they let out aromas that warn other plants and entice the insects' predators.
98. It's likely that more than 11 species of fish can walk on land.
99. Over 1,000 years ago, Puebloans in modern-day New Mexico survived droughts by melting ancient ice in the depths of caves.
100. There was a badger-like animal 66 million years ago, and scientists named it Adalatherium, which means "crazy beast."
101. In the past couple decades, supermassive black holes in distant galaxies have launched jets of material.
102. Some hummingbirds use colors we can't see to find food.
103. There is a giant lakebed a mile under northwest Greenland.
104. A 550-million-year-old fossilized digestive tract was found in Nevada, making it the oldest known digestive tract ever.
105. On average, lightning strikes Earth 100 times each second.
106. And lightning strikes over 100 million times a year in the tropics.
107. A Cuvier’s beaked whale can stay underwater for at least 3 hours and 42 minutes.
108. Babies' brains are wired to see faces and places.
109. Through sensing electrostatic fields, bumblebees can tell if another bee has visited the flower they're at in the past couple of minutes.
110. There are four buried lakes on Mars.
111. Modern humans reached westernmost Europe 38,000 to 41,000 years ago — 5,000 years earlier than we thought.
112. The oldest known species of pythons were in Germany.
113. A gas associated with living organisms is in Venus's atmosphere.
114. Some bats make different kinds of sounds to talk about different subjects, like food or sleep.
115. There's a blue fruit that gets its color from its fat.
116. Tectonic plates became a thing over four billion years ago — at least a billion years earlier than we thought.
117. The New Guinea Singing Dog isn't extinct.
118. An animal in Antarctica hibernated over 250 million years ago, which is the oldest evidence of a hibernation-like state.
119. There's a coral reef in the Great Barrier Reef that's taller than the Empire State Building.
120. Duckbilled dinosaurs were present in Africa, and they swam from Europe or Asia.
121. Tropical songbirds reproduce less during droughts.
122. There were periods of extreme cold in Ancient Rome, and it was caused by a volcano eruption in Alaska.
123. Earth's continents were submerged 3.8 billion years ago.
124. After sea turtles lay eggs, they create decoy nests to fool predators.
125. One of the Popes tried to ban sneezing.
126. Cappuccino drinks are named after Italian friars, specifically the hoods of their robes.
127. And lastly, there is water on the moon.
Were there any facts here that completely surprised you? Feel free to let us know in the comments!
This post contains content from Andy Golder, Brian Galindo, Hope Lasater, Morgan Murrell, and Terri Pous. It was compiled by Salimah McCullough.Â