The world is full of things. No matter where you look, there will be things there. In this not-so-romantic blog, I’ve got some things you won’t believe are true.
vacuum cleaner
I want to start with the vacuum cleaner. For those who aren’t what a vacuum cleaner is, it’s the thing that will get all the dust and dirt off the carpet. Parents around the world are nagging their children to hoover their rooms. If you listen really carefully you’ll be able to hear them.
You push a vacuum cleaner around with your hands nowadays, but here’s a thing you won’t believe is true. The first vacuum cleaners were horse-drawn.
Now, I don’t mean that horses drew the first vacuum cleaners with a pencil (though that’s a funny mental image). What I mean is that horses used to have to pull the vacuum cleaners around.
As people started to realise that dirt was bad the inventors got inventing but the early inventions (by early I mean the late 1800s) were designed to blow rather than suck. So you’d blow the dust up off the carpet and into a bag- you can probably already tell why that wasn’t the best idea.
Engineer Hubert Cecil Booth looked at these new inventions and set about inventing his own. The difference is, that his invention would suck rather than blow.
After a great deal of testing Booth launched the British Vacuum cleaner company and the wealthy houses would never be dirty again. He only cleaned wealthy people’s houses as they were the only ones who could afford his services.
Like most original inventions these vacuum cleaners were huge, which is why they had to be pulled around by horses. They’d put a large hose into the house and then suck out all the dirt into the box outside.
Airports
Let’s talk about airports or more accurately, the lack of them. There are just five countries in the world which don’t have airports.
The countries are Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, Liechtenstein and Vatican City. Google it if you don’t believe me.
This means there might be a gap in the market if you fancy starting up a freelance airport.
panda
Let’s face it. It wouldn’t be a not-so-romantic blog if I didn’t talk about poo at least once. The poop of choice today is the poop of pandas.
The adorable black and white bears basically just eat bamboo. In order to get enough nutrients they have to eat roughly 30 pounds of the stuff every day. Of that 30 pounds, they poop out 24 pounds of it because bamboo is really difficult to digest properly.
So if you ever wondered where pandas put all the bamboo they eat the answer is nowhere as it goes in their mouth, through their body and out their bottom.
Glamorous.
J
Before I go any further I need to ask all the Men in Black fans to calm down, this isn’t about Agent J. This is about the letter J.
J was the final letter added to the English alphabet.
For a bonus science fact- J is the only letter not to appear on the periodic table.
pigs
Whenever we exercise, walk quickly, or see someone we want to ask on a date we sweat. Nothing is worse than sweat pouring down your forehead.
But believe it or not, not every living being on Earth sweats.
If a pig was to run a marathon it wouldn’t show a drop of sweat as pigs never sweat. They don’t have very many functioning sweat glands so, unsurprisingly, aren’t fans of really hot temperatures.
umbrellas
Umbrellas were originally only used by women. It was seen as a feminine accessory to protect them from the rain. How ridiculous! Men started to use them in the 18th Century in Britain with Jonas Hanway, a philanthropist and traveller apparently being the first British male to carry an umbrella.
For added information, a philanthropist is someone who tries to raise donations to good causes and a traveller is someone who travels.
CAT
From 1997 until 2017 the small town of Talkeetna had an extremely furry mayor who liked to lick himself instead of taking a bath, had two pointy ears and a fondness for tuna. You have probably already guessed by my expert description that the mayor of Talkeetna was a cat. A cat called Stubbs.
You might think Stubbs is a cute name, but he is so named because he had no tail so it’s actually a cruel joke.
Stubbs was found in a box full of kittens in 1997 and adopted by the general store manager. The town doesn’t have official mayors so Stubbs took the job!
He faced a threat to his power when he was attacked by a dog in 2013 and suffered a punctured lung, a fractured sternum (bottom) and a deep cut in his side. He was in the vet for 9 days but survived and came back fighting. Rumour is the dog who attacked him is still missing.
He was also shot by teenagers with a BB gun, fell into a deep fat fryer which was thankfully turned off at the time and tried to escape town on a rubbish bin lorry.
Stubbs sadly passed away in 2017. His owners described him as a “trooper until the end of his life”. He was 20 years old in fairness which is an incredible age for a cat to live.
I know I made a slight joke about it, but I do think animals would make far better decisions than most humans.
a moonbow
This one blew my tiny brain into even smaller pieces.
There are rainbows that can appear at night! Except they aren’t called rainbows, their alter ego nighttime version is called a moonbow as they form from the reflected light off the Moon rather than direct sunlight.
blue whale
Blue whales are the largest creatures to have ever lived on planet Earth so it won’t come as much surprise that their veins are big enough for a human to swim through.
Olympic flag
I’m sure you all recognise the 5 rings of the Olympics. They represent the five continents of the world. Europe, America, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
What’s interesting is that at least one of the colours- blue, yellow, black, green and red- appears on each of the flags of the nations that compete in the Olympics.
How sporting is that?
flamingos
Flamingos bend their legs at the ankle- not the knee. I was 31 years old when I learnt this.
a short war
The shortest war in history was the Anglo-Zanzibar War. It lasted 38 minutes. It was between the British Empire and the East African island Zanzibar. The British tried to install effectively a puppet ruler, but the Zanzibar prince objected and took control of the Sultan’s Palace.
The British sent a warship to fire on the palace.
The Zanzibar prince decided he wanted to live so surrendered the palace back to the British and was allowed safe passage to Germany.
strawberries
This is one of those strange facts. When you hear the word Strawberry you instantly presume that it is a berry. But it isn’t!
They aren’t berries because they grow from a single flower so are technically aggregate fruits.
Not to throw other wannabe berries under the bus but raspberries and blackberries aren’t berries either.
And there we have some things you won’t believe are true! Did you believe them? Did you already know some of them? Do you know any that you think would blow my new Christmas present socks off?
As always, let me know in the comments below!
what to read next
If you have enjoyed this not-so-romantic blog then here are some that I’d recommend you read next with a similar theme.
Thanks for reading! I’ll hopefully catch you in another blog soon.