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Not everything that you read on the internet is true. In a similar vein, far from everything that sounds made up is fake. Fact is often stranger than fiction, and some truly bizarre things about life on Planet Earth are closer to reality than myth.

Reddit user u/Mmemyo sparked an interesting discussion on r/AskReddit. They invited everyone to share the “stupid facts” they knew which might sound suspicious and weird but are actually correct. We’ve collected the most intriguing ones to share with you, Pandas. Scroll down to check them out! Hopefully, you'll learn something new.

#1

The Bored Panda App used to be perfect, but now the App just wants to sell you stuff from Amazon which is a real shame.

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#2

The Eiffel Tower can be 15 centimeters taller during the summer due to thermal expansion.

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#3

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real There are clouds of alcohol floating around in space.

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#4

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real Cows have best friends and can become stressed when they're separated from them.

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#5

-40C and -40F are the same temperature.

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#6

You have to kill about 400 people to get enough iron from their blood to make a sword

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#7

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real A man named John Young brought a corned beef sandwich to space illegally and shared it with his colleague on board and he would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for the recording of them talking about the sandwich.

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#8

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real Someone named the fear of long words hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.

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#9

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real Sloths are most vulnerable to predators when pooping. They have to climb down to the trees to the floors floor, and it is a bit of a process for them to actually poop leaving them at risk of predators.

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#10

When basketball was first invented, at every game, they would have a man who would go up a ladder to retrieve the ball after every basket. It took them around 20 years to figure out maybe it would be a good idea to cut the bottom of the basket out to make retrieving the ball a lot easier. 20 years!!!

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#11

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real Pink is really just a light shade of red, but we think of it as a distinct color because we have a word for it that stuck. Not all languages have that. In Italian, they have a similar word for light blue, called “azzurro,” and it’s so common they actually think of it as a separate color from blue. We have the word “azure” in English, but it isn’t nearly as common, so we tend to think of that color as just a shade of blue.

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#12

A bone “break” is the same as a “fracture.” Fracture is just the medical term. It does not have any correlation with the severity.

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#13

A species of frog, the African clawed frog, was the most reliable pregnancy test for a few decades before at-home tests were widely affordable and accessible.

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#14

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real The vikings, who came from Scandinavia, used iron as their main ingredient for forging weaponry, but it was also common practice to add the bones of dead animals to the mix. The belief was that it would infuse the weapon with the spirit of the creature, making it stronger, but they ended up making a primitive version of steel because of the carbon in the bones mixing with the iron making the weapon stronger, just as they thought it would. 

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#15

A man named Wilmer McLean owned a farm in Manassas, Virginia USA where the very first battle of the US Civil War was fought. After the battle he's like "I'm outta here" and bought a farm way out in the country at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia...where Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses Grant in McLeans living room four years later.

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#16

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real If you open your eyes in a completely dark room, the name of the color you will see is eigengrau, a kind of dark grey shade

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#17

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real Bananas are berries, but strawberries are not true berries (in botanical terms berries are defined by their structure, and bananas fit the bill while strawberries don't)

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#18

Our planet will exist long after humans go extinct

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#19

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real - [ ] Of the few people who have top secret clearance at the White House one of them is the person who writes all of the party invitations.

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#20

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real The longest place name in the world is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu

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#21

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real You can go the rest of your life without breathing.

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#22

The average number of skeletons in a human body is more than 1.

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#23

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real For every single human being on Earth, there are 2.5 MILLION ants.

Yes, this means that there are about 20 QUADRILLION ants on this planet.

If the ants decide to take over, are you strong enough to handle the 2.5 million that you'll be responsible for killing? If you've got kids, you might have to kill more because a 2 year old isn't going to accomplish a god damn thing if millions of ants are marching towards them.

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#24

Redheads require more anesthesia than non-redheads.

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#25

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real Honey never spoils

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#26

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real Coffee is not a bean it is the pit of the coffee plant which is a fruit.

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#27

The Earth is not round. It is an oblate spheroid.

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Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het
Community Member
1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actually I have it on good authority from YouTube that the world is flat and surrounded by a giant ice wall. The "globe" is what our secret lizard overlords want us to believe.

Doctor Strange
Community Member
1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Also, if you scaled the earth down to the size of a pool ball, it would actually be smoother than said ball.

Miliukov Oleksandr
Community Member
1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

yeah sure... nothing is spheroid except of theoretical abstract (and therefore non-existence) spheroid (who let the purist scientists go out anyway?)

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#28

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real 18% of adult Americans claim they have seen or been in the presence of a ghost.

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#29

The plural of cul-de-sac is culs-de-sac

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#30

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real Cleopatra is closer to the invention of the iPhone than the building of the Giza pyramids.

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#31

Dung beetles navigate using the Milky Way

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#32

Bald eagles are not actually bald. Balde is old english for white.

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#33

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real The original name for the color orange was "geoluhread," which means "yellow-red" in Old English

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#34

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real A lot of averages.

Example: The average number of legs humans have is less than 2.

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#35

Racecar spelled backwards is racecar.

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#36

Crows can be trained to bring you money

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#37

The Atari 2600's release date and the last execution by guillotine happened less than 24 hours apart.

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#38

Some invader (don't remember specifics) sent a letter to sparta saying that "If I invade Lakonia you will be destroyed, never to rise again" and the Spartans sent a letter back with a single word in it. "If" 

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#39

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real There are 5.87 Popes per square mile in the Vatican City.

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#40

Pirates wear eye patches to see better in the dark (covered eye doesn't get used to sunlight and is more sensitive after uncovering).

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#41

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real Less than 40% of great white sharks have filed their 2022 tax returns

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#42

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real Im always seeing my nose ..its just that my brain ignores it

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#43

The Bored Panda App used to be perfect, but now the App just wants to sell you stuff from Amazon which is a real shame.

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#44

There was a plan to dose Hitler with oestrogen in the hopes that the female hormone would make him less aggressive.

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#45

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real I’m closer to being a millionaire than Bill Gates is.

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#46

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real We thought to put wheels on luggage after we got to the moon.

The lighter the Roast the more caffeine coffee has.

A new car costs less than it's equal weight in Hamburgers.

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#47

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real There are more planes in the ocean than boats in the sky

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#48

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real New Mexico (the state) got its name before Mexico (the country)

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#49

You are constantly clapping, but the claps are just spaced differently.

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#50

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real There are more Hydrogen atoms in a single molecule of water than there are stars in the entire Solar System.

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#51

50 “Stupid Facts” That Sound Fake But Are Genuinely Real 6X9+6+9=69

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#52

The Bored Panda App used to be perfect, but now the App just wants to sell you stuff from Amazon which is a real shame.

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#53

Chip Wilson, the founder of Lululemon

created the name (Lululemon) to have many L's so that it would sound western to Japanese buyers, who often have difficulty pronouncing the letter. He later remarked that he found it "funny to watch (Japanese speakers) try and say it" and that "it was the only reason behind the name"

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