Super mario is named after the real life businessman Mario Segale, who had rented out a warehouse to nintendo.

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Before it was known that birds migrated in the winter, it was a commonly accepted theory that birds dug holes and buried themselves in the ground during the cold months. In fact, Aristotle claimed he had found "swallows and kites [...] in holes in the ground".

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Otter faeces are called spraints and some have a strong aroma of freshly mown hay.

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Coffee is universally beneficial against several kinds of liver diseases

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There is a cafe run by acid attack victims near the Taj Mahal.

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If your second toe is longer than your big toe, it is a condition called Morton’s Toe and that some statues, including the Statue of Liberty, have feet sculpted that way.

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A bite from a Lone Star tick can cause lifelong allergies to red meat and certain poultry.

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Babies born via C-section appear more likely to develop allergies and asthma; believed to be due to delayed development of the gut flora.

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Despite its free-market image, all the land in Singapore is owned by the government, and 85 percent of housing is supplied by the government’s own housing corporation. 22 percent of GDP is produced by state-owned enterprises including Singapore Airlines.

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One theory why garlic was thought to repel vampires was that it’s an antibiotic, and since vampirism was often thought to be a disease, it was harmful to them. Another theory is that garlic was believed to repel mosquitoes, and since they’re both bloodsuckers, vampires would also be repelled.

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Slavery wasn’t abolished in Ethiopia until 1942.

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The earliest documentation of abortion is from 1550 BCE.

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When Australia stopped using the pound as its currency, some of the suggested names for the new currency were austral, the oz, the boomer, the roo, the kanga, the emu, the digger, the Quid, the dinkum and the Ming before the government ultimately settled on the Australian dollar.

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There is enough water in Lake Superior to flood the entire landmasses of North and South America to a depth of 1 foot. It contains over 3 quadrillion gallons of fresh water.

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The “folds” in a Chefs Hat are meant to represent the many different ways the chef can cook an egg.

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Petrichor is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. The scent is from water interacting with plant oils.

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Hot water freezes faster than cold water and the effect is called “the Mpemba Effect”. It’s named after Tanzanian Erasto Mpemba who was originally ridiculed for bringing it up in class after noticing his warmer ice cream mix was freezing before the cooler batch.

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Taking fenugreek not only promotes lactation in nursing mothers, but it also makes sweat and urine smell like maple syrup.

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Babies will instinctively hold their breath underwater until the age of six months.

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The words "lesbian" and "sapphic" both come from this legendary woman named Sappho who lived on the island of Lesbos

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