I got tired of not knowing many fun facts years ago, so I made a point to cram my head with the most useless knowledge I currently know.
Here's a few to get you started:
- Ring around the rosie is a reference to the black plague
The symptoms of the plague included a rosy red rash in the shape of a ring on the skin (Ring around the rosy). Pockets and pouches were filled with sweet smelling herbs ( or posies) which were carried due to the belief that the disease was transmitted by bad smells. The term "Ashes Ashes" refers to the cremation of the dead bodies! The death rate was over 60% and the plague was only halted by the Great Fire of London in 1666 which killed the rats which carried the disease which was transmitting via water sources. The English version of "Ring around the rosy" replaces Ashes with (A-tishoo, A-tishoo) as violent sneezing was another symptom of the disease.
- The placebo effect is so strong, it can make medicine do the opposite of what it's supposed to.
Once, a doctor decided to do a little experiment on placebos and decided that it would be a good idea to give two women with serious stomach viruses, one of whom was pregnant, a medicine that would actually lower the effectiveness of their immune systems and worsen the virus. Because the doctor presented the medicine in a positive manner (nothing else, he had to stick to a script), both women recovered fully. The placebo effect doesn't even need to be conveyed. Yellow and red sugar pills are significantly more helpful for treating depression than blue or purple pills (and almost as good as the real thing).
Well, kind of. Even though they don't communicate, they do let out hypersonic sounds as a response to stimuli such as a knife coming close or being at really high altitudes.
- There is a lake in Africa called lake Titicaca. That is a thing.
- The needle rifle was a fully automatic weapon
- Bruce lee's son died because he fired a blank into his forehead a joke, not know in would kill him at so close of a distance.
