Even Dubai Imports Sand
Dubai is sandy. Go outside the gleaming city in the United Arab Emirates, and you'll find plenty of towering sand dunes - a hot spot for tourists. But when it comes to construction, Dubai cannot use desert sand, simply because it's too smooth.
So it imports sand. In many countries, the demand for sand has led to illegal mining and the rise of a "sand mafia." In 2014 alone, Dubai imported $456 million worth of sand, gravel, and stone. 
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Two Powerful Nuclear Bombs Accidentally Fell On North Carolina
On January 24, 1961, North Carolina barely avoided tragedy. A B-52 carrying two powerful Mark 39 nuclear bombs broke up mid-flight. The two bombs fell and landed just outside of Goldsboro. Had they detonated, North Carolina would have been a tragic memory, as the bombs were 200-300 times more powerful than the ones that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 
The force of the aircraft's mid-air mishap began the fusing sequence on both bombs. The first was found with its nose embedded two feet into the ground, and only the "safe" switch prevented a detonation. 
The second one hit the ground hard and was armed to detonate, but the impact with which crashed prevented the explosion. While the first bomb was fully retrieved, one of the second bomb's nuclear cores went deep into the Earth. It was left there, and the area around it is actively farmed.
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In 1989, An Asteroid Nearly Hit Earth
March 23, 1989 is celebrated as Near Miss Day - and for a good reason. On that day, the Earth had a close call when an asteroid half a mile across whizzed by us at a distance of 400,000 miles. This does not sound close, but Earth had been in that same spot a mere six hours earlier. 
We didn't learn of the close encounter until nine days later. The closest call since then was in January 1991, when an asteroid approximately 30 feet wide passed within 106,000 miles of Earth. 
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Franklin D. Roosevelt Ordered A Hidden Anti-Gay Investigation In The Navy
When Franklin D. Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy and hoping to advance his political career, he thought of a purification program. He wanted to clean the Newport Navy of any LGBTQ+ individuals - or inverts, as non-heterosexual people were called back then. He went with a request to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to start an undercover investigation in the US Navy. When refused, Roosevelt did so anyway. 
Undercover operatives infiltrated the Navy to get close to the serving men and cadets who were gay, or otherwise effeminate. They were encouraged to get sexually involved with such men so they could be caught and charged with vice (homosexuality) and depravity (homosexual acts).
The undercover operatives were legally protected, but the men they entrapped were stripped of rank and convicted. This has gone down in history as the Newport Sex Scandal of 1919.
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The Only Japanese Passenger on RMS 'Titanic' Was Shamed By His Country For Being Alive
Masabumi Hosono was an employee of the Japanese Transportation Ministry who traveled to Russia and then to England to study railway operations. He boarded the RMS Titanic at Southampton, also called "the ship of dreams," before tragedy struck. When the Titanic went down, Hosono was on deck like all the other passengers looking for a way out. Suddenly, the officers announced that one of the lifeboats had space for two more passengers. Hosono became the second to jump in. 
Initially, when he went back to Japan, he was hailed as a survivor and became a mini celebrity. Later, he was denounced as a stowaway, first by Archibald Gracie, a first-class passenger and Titanic survivor, and then by his own countrymen.
Hosono lost his job, and while he was eventually hired back, his career never really revived. The shame persisted until his death in 1939, and even after. 
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If Marsupials Are Chased By A Predator, They Sacrifice The Joey
There are many cases of altruism in the animal world. Sometimes, animals sacrifice themselves for the betterment of the herd. And animal mothers can fiercely defend their babies. But when it comes to marsupials - the pouch-bearing natives of Australia - the opposite can be true. 
If chased by a predator, marsupials like kangaroos, wallabies, and even the ever-smiling quokka may let the joey fall out of the pouch. The abandoned joey makes a fuss and unwittingly distracts the predator. The mother is alive to have another baby, while the poor joey becomes the predator's meal.
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There Are More Ways To Arrange A Deck Of Cards Than There Are Atoms On The Earth
This sounds more like fiction than fact, but it's true. Each deck contains 52 cards. The variety of ways it can be arranged is called 52 factorial or "52!" This in effect means 52 x 51 x 50 x .... x 1. So, the number of ways you can arrange a card deck is an integer with 68 digits. 
The number of atoms on Earth is estimated to be a number with 51 digits. In effect, every shuffling of cards that you hold in your hand could be a unique one.
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The Distance Between London And Moscow Is Shorter Than Between Sydney And Perth
London and Moscow seem to lie halfway across the world from each other. One is in the United Kingdom and the other in Russia, although both cities are located on the European continent. The distance between London and Moscow is 1,795.6 miles, or almost 2,890 km. A flight from London to Moscow takes approximately 3 hours and 50 minutes. 
Sydney and Perth, on the other hand, are Australian cities but much further apart. The distance between the two is 2,444.5 miles, or 3,934 km. The approximate flight time between the two is a surprising 5 hours. 
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A Litter Of Kittens Can Have Different Fathers
Cats are induced ovulators, meaning the act of copulation triggers the release of multiple eggs from the ovaries into the uterus. The eggs remain in utero for 24 hours. If the female mates with multiple males, each egg can technically be fertilized by sperm from a different donor, called superfecundation. 
Simply put, it means that each kitten in a litter can have a different father. However, just because each kitten looks different doesn't mean they actually do have different fathers. Sometimes that's just how cat genetics are.
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The Netherlands Commemorates All Fallen World War II Soldiers Annually With 2 Minutes Of Silence
The Dutch remember the fallen. Every year at 8 p.m. on May 4 - National Remembrance Day - the Netherlands observes a 2-minute silence in honor of all civilians and soldiers who lost their lives in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, or elsewhere in the world, since World War II. 
A commemorative service takes place at the National Monument on the Dam Square in Amsterdam prior to the silence. 
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The Nazis Awarded Henry Ford With Their Highest Civilian Honor
On Henry Ford's 75th birthday, in 1938, he received what most people today would call a dubious honor. His "gift" was the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle, the highest honor Nazi Germany could give to any foreigner. 
Ford became the first American recipient of the award, created by Adolf Hitler in 1937. It was said that Hitler greatly admired Ford and tried to do with the Volkswagen Beetle what Ford did with the Model T. 
To be fair to Ford, while he was anti-Semitic, he was also anti-war and refused to go to Germany to receive the honor. So the honor had to come to Dearborn, MI. 
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The First-Ever Hot Air Balloon Passengers Were Barnyard Animals
Six years before French citizens decided to revolt against royalty, the world's first hot air balloon took to the air. In 1783, King Louis XVI, his wife Marie Antoinette, and 130,000 French citizens watched as the balloon went aloft. The first passengers were barnyard animals, however, not humans. More specifically: a sheep, a duck, and a rooster flew over Versailles in an 8-minute flight.
The balloon landed in the woods safely, with the barnyard trio intact.
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Baby Formula Has Actually Been Around For More Than 150 Years
Baby formula - a manufactured supplement for breast milk - is a fairly modern invention, but probably not as modern as you think: It was invented in the 1800s.
The first supplements for a mother's milk were other women, known as “wet nurses,” who filled in to feed babies for wealthy mothers, or those who were unable to breastfeed. Wet nursing began as early as 2000 BCE, and was common in Europe and America during the 1700s. (Brunettes rather than blond or red-headed women were preferred as wet nurses because their milk was thought to be more nutritious.)
In the 1800s, attention turned instead to finding substitutes for breast milk. The first option considered was milk from animals such as cows, goats, horses, and donkeys, served fresh, heated, or diluted. Before baby bottles and rubber nipples were invented, infants were fed via spoon, or a container like a cow's horn covered with cloth, paper, or a sponge to serve as a nipple.
Doctors noticed, however, that infants fed cow's milk had a higher mortality rate and digestive problems. In 1838, German scientist Johann Franz Simon analyzed both types and found that cow's milk had more carbohydrates and less protein than human milk. In 1860, German chemist Justus von Leibig created the first commercial baby food, a powder that consisted of wheat and malt flours and potassium bicarbonate meant to be mixed with warmed cow's milk.
In the 1870s, Nestle's Infant Food, made from malt, cow's milk, sugar, and wheat flour, diluted with water, was sold in the US. Other companies created their own formulas, and the ingredients, or percentage of ingredients, changed in the following decades based on findings from doctors and scientists about the most optimal nutrition for babies. Other improvements included pasteurization (to kill bacteria) and evaporation (to make milk more digestible).
In the early 1900s, manufacturers tried making infant formula more like human milk, adding ingredients like maltose, dextrin, calcium, phosphorous, cod liver oil, and other animal and vegetable fats. One such product was called “Similac” because it was supposed to be “similar to lactation.” Later additions included soy and iron. 
The number of women who breastfeed reached a low in the 1960s when people thought formula was more nutritious, and companies provided formula for free to new mothers in hospitals.
In the US, the Infant Formula Act of 1980 set standards for ingredients, testing, and manufacturing. In more recent decades, companies have developed special formulas for infants who are premature, lactose-intolerant, or have other medical problems or needs.
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Chicken, A Town In Alaska, Got Its Name Because Of A Spelling Problem
You may not have heard of the town of Chicken, AK, population 12 (as of 2019). The small town is notable for its funny name, and arguably funnier origin story. Chicken was founded in the late 1800s by gold-miners. They managed to survive the harsh Alaskan life by eating wild and plentiful ptarmigan, the Alaskan state bird, which looks similar to a chicken.
When deciding what to name the town, residents wanted to pay homage to the ptarmigan. But they couldn't decide on the correct spelling and didn't want to embarrass themselves, so they called it a day and named their home "Chicken" instead.
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Charlie Chaplin Reportedly Entered A Charlie Chaplin Look-Alike Contest And Lost Badly
A story about Charlie Chaplin losing a look-alike contest has taken on a legendary quality, and different sources reporting on the incident (which seemingly would have taken place around 1915-1920) get a little bit murky in the details. The popularized version reported in the papers was relayed by Mary Pickford to Lord Desborough, a British athlete and politician:
Charlie Chaplin was one day at a fair in the United States, where a principal attraction was a competition as to who could best imitate the Charlie Chaplin walk. The real Charlie Chaplin thought there might be a chance for him so he entered for the performance, minus his celebrated moustache and his boots. He was a frightful failure and came in 20th.
An earlier alleged account ran in the Chicago Herald in 1915:
When he entered a contest run by a theater in San Fransisco, he failed even to make the finals. “I am tempted to give lessons in the Chaplin walk,” he told a reporter, “out of pity as well as in the desire to see the thing done correctly.”
While where and when the contest took place, as well as just how poorly he finished, are up for debate, Charlie Chaplin contests like this were actually a thing during the actor's height in popularity, and entering one himself seems like a very Charlie Chaplin thing to do.
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Penguins Shoot Projectile Poop 'Bombs' Up To 4 Feet Away
Anyone who's watched March of the Penguins knows that nature can be a cruel and unforgiving place. Penguins who abandon their nests, even for a bathroom break, can leave their eggs vulnerable to any number of dangers. So certain penguin species have an innovative defecating technique: projectile poop.
These penguins can stay on their nest without dropping a deuce on their offspring. They expel with such force that their waste lands up to 4.39 feet away. If you were to put that in proportion to a human-size body, that'd be the equivalent of launching a turd more than 10 feet.
Scientists continue to research penguin fecal matter to better calculate a "safe zone" for zookeepers.
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The Average Cloud Weighs More Than 1 Million Pounds
It's easy to assume the floaty cotton balls of the sky are light as a feather. But the average cumulus cloud actually weighs 1.1 million pounds. That's like the weight of 100 elephants dangling in the sky.
How do clouds stay afloat? They're made up of trillions of tiny water droplets spread out over a very large space. Some of the water droplets are so tiny, it would take millions to make a single raindrop. The cloud is buoyant because it is less dense than dry air. However, when the cloud's water density increases, it does fall from the sky in the form of rain.
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Domino's Japan Had A Reindeer Delivery Program
In 2016, Domino's Japan thought it had come up with a clever way to promote its new live delivery GPS system, take on raging blizzards in Hokkaido, and add a bit of festive cheer all at once: delivery reindeer.
According to Domino's, the reindeer were a genius idea because they served as a "light vehicle" that had no costs and could deliver heavy items without needing a license. What could go wrong?
Customers had mixed reactions, with some concerned about animal cruelty and others fearing the caribou would eat their pizza. Actual problems included the animals repeatedly shaking their antlers, dislodging the pizzas they was carrying, and refusing to stop at delivery locations.
The program lasted one week before Domino's Japan threw in the towel on Dasher and Dancer and ended the reindeer deliveries.
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Koalas Have Smooth Brains
Koalas may be cute to look at, but there's not much going on upstairs. Aside from the exceptionally small size of their brains, they also are smooth-brained, meaning they lack the higher-level recognition expected from most mammals.
For instance, if you placed eucalyptus leaves (their main food source) from a tree branch on a plate, koalas wouldn't know what to do with them or recognize them as food. Also, they apparently have zero understanding of what rain is. According to a University of Melbourne article, "They will just sit in that rain wondering why they get wet until the rain passes."
While koalas have adapted to their environment by making eucalyptus leaves their main diet, the leaves are an incredibly inefficient food source, taking a high amount of energy to chew and digest and giving little energy or nutrition in return. Because of this, koalas spend more than 20 hours of their day sleeping. Their small brains may actually be an evolutionary adaptation, as small brains require less energy. 
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The Average Person Spends More Time On The Toilet Than Exercising
The average adult spends twice as much time on the toilet as they do working out, according to a UKActive survey of 2,000 British adults in 2017. 
Their results showed that the average adult in the United Kingdom spent three hours and nine minutes on the loo each week, compared with one hour and 30 minutes being physically active. 
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Rubber Bands Last Longer When Refrigerated
If you encounter a bag of rubber bands in a friend's fridge, they're not storing them as a tasty snack. Rubber bands actually last longer and get stretchier at cooler temperatures.
While most materials expand when heated and contract when cooled, the polymer structure of rubber actually produces the opposite effect. Rubber molecules are grouped in chains like "tangled spaghetti." When the long chains get hot, they shorten and contract, while colder temps make them relax and expand. 
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There's A Washington Law That Forbids Killing Bigfoot
Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, is commonly dismissed as a myth. But in Skamania County, WA, there's a law prohibiting Sasquatch murder - just in case one or multiple large ape-men are actually roaming the Pacific Northwest.
After the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film, the most famous purported evidence of Bigfoot's existence, Sasquatch fever was at an all-time high. The less-than-a-minute video of a large hairy creature prompted Skamania County to create a law in 1969 that made it a felony (punishable by up to five years in prison) to slay Sasquatch.
Fifteen years later, the offense was downgraded from a felony to a misdemeanor (or gross misdemeanor). Yet, if the county prosecutor determines the creature to be human-like enough, homicide could be on the table.
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The Color Orange Comes From The Fruit
Considering the color orange has been around since the literal dawn of time, perhaps in the first sunrise, it seems like the word orange would originate with the hue. But it doesn't.
According to the Collins English Dictionary, the word orange comes from the Old French "pomme d'orenge" for the juicy citrus fruit. That likely came from the Sanskrit word "nāranga" from the Persian and Arabic languages.
The use of "orange" to describe the color is believed to have begun in the 1500s, when the fruit became a popular product of English market stalls. And not everyone adopted a word for the color. English is actually only one of a few languages that has a specific term for the color orange.
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A Question Mark With An Exclamation Point Is Called An 'Interrobang'
In 1962, a magazine editor named Mark Speckter saw a common problem with a simple solution. He wanted one character to convey the dual inquisitive and exclamatory nature of a "?!" sentence. So he combined the question mark and the exclamation point into one unit: the interrobang (‽). Other names considered were the "exclarotive" and the "exclamaquest."
The interrobang started off with a bang. The hottest new punctuation mark of the 1960s, it was also included on many typewriter keys of the '70s. Because phototype setting machines have a limited character capacity, the interrobang eventually faded into oblivion. But in the 2000s, the interrobang began to make a comeback, appearing again in some digital fonts.
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One Horsepower Doesn't Equal The Power Of One Horse
When you hear a car commercial describe the "horsepower" of the engine, you might think it refers to the equivalent number of horses pulling a car. But one horsepower does not equal the output a horse is capable of creating. In fact, the maximum output of a horse can be up to 15 horsepower. One horsepower is actually more equivalent to the max output of a human. A Tour de France biker, for instance, can operate at 1.2 horsepower for 15 seconds, and slightly under 0.9 horsepower for a full minute.
Why isn't it called "humanpower" then? The term was created by James Watt, a Scottish inventor who made considerable improvements to the steam engine, and Watt wanted to sell his product to the public. If he said it had the same short-term power as a horse, there'd be no incentive to buy it, because people already had horses.
Instead, Watt compared the engine (and its horsepower) to the amount of work a horse can do in a day. So while a horse's output at any given time might be 15 horsepower, averaging the horse's output over the course of a day brings us closer to 1 horsepower.
Watt defined the term as "the amount of work required from a horse to pull 150 pounds out of a hole that was 220 feet deep."
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Lava Is More Like Peanut Butter Than Water
We've all seen the gruesome movie demise where someone falls into molten rock and is quickly submerged under the bubbling red surface. But what would actually happen if you fell into lava? Turns out, you'd just lie there on top of the surface. While immediately bursting into flames, of course.
Lava is actually three times more than dense water, and because humans are mostly water, it's also much denser than us. It's viscosity (resistance to flow) is 1.1 million times that of water, meaning it's "about as fluid as a jar of peanut butter or a vat of Crisco."
It would be nearly impossible to actually sink into a pit of lava, though the heat isn't overestimated. It's about four times hotter than a broiler oven and would be immediately lethal.
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The Dot Over Lowercase 'i' And 'j' Is Called A Tittle
Turns out, there's a name for everything, even the tiny little dot over "i" and "j," the tittle. "Tittle" is derived from the Latin word "titulus," meaning inscription or heading, and began appearing in the 11th century as a way to further distinguish the two letters in writing. Originally a larger mark, the tittle as we know it today was introduced in the Roman-style typeface of the 1400s. 
The phrase "to a T," meaning precisely or exactly, is thought to originate from the phrase "to a tittle," meaning down to the very last detail of dotting the "i" or "j."
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The Libyan Flag Was Just Green For Almost 34 Years
Libya's flag, and sovereignty, have a long and complex history. But in 1977, the flag wasn't complicated at all - it was just solid green.
Previously under colonial rule, Libya didn't have one unified flag until 1949. This version of the flag had red, black, and green horizontal stripes with a white star and crescent in the middle. It was the flag of the United Kingdom of Libya, with different elements of the flag representing Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan.
In 1969, Moammar Gadhafi overthrew the monarchy and changed the flag's design to red, white, and black horizontal stripes to emulate the Arab Liberation Flag. However, Egypt's flag was also based on the Arab Liberation Flag. When Egypt later brokered peace with Israel under Anwar Sadat, Gadhafi cut diplomatic ties with the country and didn't want to share a similar flag.
So in 1977, Gadhafi's new flag debuted as a plain green flag that was supposed to symbolize "the green revolution" he would bring to the country. Previously rich farmland, Libya had grown increasingly barren and impoverished; Gadhafi's "green revolution" promised to make the country green again. The color was also symbolic of Islam.
In 2011, Gadhafi was overthrown, and the country reverted to the OG 1949 flag.
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Gary Numan Is 13 Days Older Than Gary Oldman
English musician Gary Numan, known as one of the "founding fathers of synth pop," was born in London on March 8, 1958. English actor Gary Oldman, an Academy Award-winning chameleon, was born in London on March 21, 1958. 
So Gary Oldman is actually 13 days newer than Gary Numan.