Interesting and Fun Facts from History

History is quite boring topic for many and even as a part of curriculum, very few considered History an interesting one. However, history is quite fascinating and interesting. Read out the very interesting and fun facts from History.

Shortest War Ever

England and Zanzibar holds the title of shortest war in the world of history. They fought in the year 1896 and the war lasted only for 38 minutes, where Zanzibar surrendered to England.

Longest Reign

Pepi II is the only monarch who ruled Egypt for 90 years and it is the longest reigning in the history ever until now.  The period of his reign was from 2566 BC to 2476 BC.

Guards of Great Wall of China

Many of you may aware that one of the Seven Wonders of the World - the Great Wall of China is protected by special guards. However, during the middle ages, the wall was protected by special group of men. This group of men not just guarded the Great Wall of China, but also dedicated their lives. The group lived there from birth to death. They grew up, worked as guards, get married, had children, and died there. In fact, the dead guards were buried in the wall itself.

Weird Fact

Romans had some unique practices and traditions. One such weird and funny practice is they mixed the human urine in the process of making toothpaste! How weird it is!!

Women in the Ancient Ages

Women were not provided equal freedom or independence like men in the ancient ages. In ancient days, in Greece, women were sentenced to death if they watch the Olympic Games. 

Funny Fact

This is totally funny. Romans considered a child with a crooked nose carry the powers of leadership.

The Flu Power

While women are not given equal power or freedom as men, a small flu over powered men! Yes, in Spain, more than 20 million were killed in a year by flu!

Unknown Last Words

Albert Einstein was seriously ill in his last days. He was looked after by a nurse and he uttered a few words just before he had his last breath. Unfortunately, since his nurse could not understand German, the last words were buried with him.

Spectacles

We wear eye glasses, called spectacles for many reasons, from poor vision to fashion statement. This isn’t a new fashion, but has been used for more than 700 years.

Amazing Facts about Plants

Plants are vital part of our lives. In fact, it is hard to survive without plants! Aren’t you interested to know about plants? Let us know the amazing facts about plants!

Fruits and Vegetables

Fruits and vegetables are important aspects of healthy food. However, both are originated from different sections. Fruit is one of the botanical terms, while vegetable is a term used in cooking, simply the culinary term like fry, bake, boil, etc.

Herbs and Spices

What is a herb? The herbs carry medicinal value and are used to add aroma as well as therapeutic properties to the food. To the contrary, spices are used to enhance the flavour of the food. Herbs are nothing but the leaves of the plants, whereas the spices may be the seeds, roots, stem or bulb of the plants.

Examples of Herbs: Basil, Bay leaf, Oregano, Mint, Cilantro, Rosemary, etc.

Examples of Spices: Pepper, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Ginger, Clove, etc.

Plants – the protective siblings

We do all know that plants reproduce. Do you know, plants can identify and protect their siblings?  Plants can easily identify their siblings and provide them privileged treatment, when other plants or strange plants from other groups are surrounded.

Alien Plants

Socotra Island in Yemen is the only place where around 35 percent of the land is filled with plants that look like aliens. The entire island itself has been described as Alien Island on earth because of the plants!

Survival of a plant

How amazing the plants are! Here is an example:

A flowering plant was discovered by Scientists. The plant was revived from a solidified fruit, found in the stomach of a squirrel in the arctic region. How special is that?  The squirrel was found in the ice and based on the research, it was dead before 32000 years ago!

Isn’t that really amazing?

Carnivorous  Plants

Just recently we have read about carnivorous plants. If you haven’t, give a read at learn science section.

A special garden has been dedicated to the poisonous and carnivorous plants in England and the garden is named, POISON GARDEN!

Difference and Similarity

You may not like cabbage, but cauliflower would be your favourite. You may hate broccoli for its dark colour, but love the sprouts or pink cabbage. Kale is obviously not loved by many in spite it is quite healthy –(effect ).  Cabbage, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels, sprouts, etc belong to the same species of a plant, but don’t carry the resemblance and of course the taste!

Edible Plants

While a few plants in the world became poisonous due to surroundings, there are many plants that are totally beneficial to the mankind. It means each part of a plant is useful.

One such amazing plant is Plantain! You can eat the flower, stem, vegetable and fruit. The leaf of the banana plant is used as a part which has medicinal values. In addition, the stem of the plant has healing properties, which is used to heal burns.

Besides Plantain, there is one more edible plant, which is 100 percent edible. It is Dandelion!
We can talk a lot of amazing facts about plants. Watch this space for facts in part II soon!

The leaves of the dandelion plant contain rich amount of Vitamin K. Flowers are used for aromatic purpose, used in natural medicines, and used in making wine. Besides, the roots of dandelion can be brewed like a coffee bean, and the drink tastes like coffee. How cool is that?

Amazing Facts about English Language

Alphabet – Alpha Plus Beta

Alphabet - The first thing that everyone learns. The term alphabet is derived from Greek - Alpha and Beta. The first two letters of Greek becomes the alphabet that covers all the 26 letters in English.

Official Language of Skies

English is the universal language. Besides, it is an official language of all the skies. Regardless of the origin, mother tongue, country of birth, all pilots identify only in English in International airlines. 

Rank 3

While English is widely spoken across the globe, ruling the planet, it is ranked only at 3rd place as the most spoken language. The winners and runners are Chinese and surprisingly Spanish!

A Blend of Three Languages

English isn’t a clear and pure language with its own origin. It is derived from and a mix of ancient German, Anglo Norman and Norse. The English we speak today has been modernized in the 14th century.

Owing to the origin, English resembles Dutch, and Flemish.

English Grows every 2 Hours

As we are aware that learning new and interesting words in English improves our vocabulary and knowledge, we may never learn everything in English. Do you know, almost every 2 – 3 hours, a new word is added in English. How interesting!

Grammar Rules

Standard rules for English grammar were laid in 1750s and until then there were no customary rules.

Common words

The two common and most spoken words in English are I and YOU.

Computer friendly language

English may not be the widely spoken language, but the world of technology runs only by this language. Almost more than 90 percent of the data stored in the computers is in English.

Surprising fact

This is quite an amazing fact about English. Around 90 percent of everything that is written in English (Except the typical medical terms) uses only 1000 common words in English.

Amazing Facts about Earth

Earth is a volcanic bomb

Yes, earth has more than 500 volcanoes in the underground. More than 80 percent of the earth, both above and below the surface is completely made of volcanic soil! Earth is a volcanic bomb!!

Earth has a twin planet

Earth is a twin planet and it has another planet called Theia. According to the current research, the twin planet disappeared. However, almost before 4.5 billion years ago, the twin planet, Theia, which was in the size of the planet mars shared the same orbit as shared by earth.

Earth don’t take 24 hours for self-rotation

We believe that earth takes 24 hours to spin itself, which gives us day and night. We don’t have 24 hours a day as we follow. We run short of 3 minutes and 56 seconds a day! The actual time is 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds. However, the duration of a day can be extended by 1.5 hours extra. This could happen after 250 million years and caused due to slower rotation of the earth.

Earth is blue

The colour of the earth is blue! Yes, the colour due water. Around 70 percent of the earth is covered by water bodies and earth appears blue! Guess what, no more than 5 percent of the earth is explored by the humans! Earth is a mystery! 

No equal gravity

Gravity isn’t equally distributed to all regions on the earth! A few places have less gravity and vice versa. For instance, Hudson Bay, Canada has lesser gravity. Lower rate of land mass is the major reason for reduced gravity.

Water

Around 70 percent of earth’s fresh water (almost more than two-third) is found in Antarctica.

Amazing Facts about Human Body

Our human body is quite amazing. There are many unknown facts about our human body that everyone should know! The human body is very intricate system that even the expert physicians cannot explore it fully. Now, learn about nine amazing facts about human body that you may not know.

• The human ear has more than 25000 tiny cells of hair, which are very essential for hearing each and every sound! 
• It is a common belief that excessive body fat is completely unhealthy. The real fact is, excessive fat become a life-threatening condition when the total amount of fat in the body exceeds 35 percent in men and 40 percent women.
• Any healthy person can survive for more than two weeks without having food. But cannot survive even for 3 days without water. Similarly, no sleep for more than 5 days also causes death.
• Most of the cells in the body regenerates and refreshes itself, but brain cells could not regenerate! Once the brain cells are dead, they can neither get repaired nor treated!
• Opposite attracts! The left side of your brain control the activities and functions of the right side of your body and the right side of the brain controls the activities and functions of left side of your body!
• Around 10 percent of the world population grind their teeth during sleep and this is caused due to stress or depression. Similarly, around 5 percent of world population snores. 
• When you sleep, you olfactory sense, the sense of smell doesn’t work! And you don’t wakeup smelling something nice and sweet.
• It is very common to lose around 30 to 50 strands of hair everyday and it is not hair loss.
• The funny fact about the human body – Small Intestine is the largest organ in the body

Interesting Facts About Water

The world is made of fascinating things beyond our imagination and control. There are many aspects in the world that we cannot live without and one such amazing element is WATER. The essence of life for all living things in the earth is WATER. Here is the list interesting facts for kids about WATER.

• Around 70 percent of the surface of Earth is covered by water. Alternatively, when we calculate the mass of the earth in proportion to water surface, it is lesser than 1 percent.   
• Who said, oxygen is the most important gas for us to survive? Even HYDROGEN is an important gas for us to live. Water is a combination of 2 hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecules. No hydrogen means no water!
• Have you ever tasted pure water? How good was it or how bad was it? This is one of the most interesting facts of kids to learn about water. Pure water is not drinkable; no one can ever drink it! The water is so pure that it doesn’t contain any minerals. It tastes very bland. Drinking pure water will make you feel very dry as it will absorb all nutrients from your tongue. It is also unsafe for drinking. So, minerals are added to make it safer and tastier for drinking.
• Every natural food contains water and there is no food (natural produce) that contains no water.
  • Milk – 80 to 90 percent water
  • Water melon – 98 percent water
  • Cucumber, tomato, lettuce, cabbage, pumpkin – 85 to 95 percent water
  • Potato – 75 percent water
  • Our Body – 60 percent water
• The world of information technology is survived by water. Yes, computers, smartphones and internet won’t function without water. GOOGLE, the leading search engine uses thousands of gallons of water every day. The minute parts and micro chips of tech industry is cleaned using purest form of water.
• Shockingly, around 5000 children die a day due to water scarcity or by diseases caused due to impure water.
• We all are aware about many different sources of water. But did you know, water exists itself inside the earth crust? A large amount of water, larger that the quantity of water found in the external surface of water including ocean is locked deeply inside the mantle and rocks. Dig around 400 kilometers deep inside the earth.
• Carbonated drinks are unhealthy; they contain additives, which make us love to drink it again and again. Do you know, one litre of coco cola or a pepsi or other carbonated beverages need around 4 litres of water!  See, how much water is wasted?

Funny Facts About English

English is the universal language. With mere English knowledge, many reached great heights. Aren’t you interested in knowing some amazing facts of this language?

• Most commonly used alphabet is ‘E’
• Most commonly used Vowel is ‘E’
• Most commonly used consonant is ‘R’
• How many words you can tell ending with ‘GRY’? Only TWO! - ANGRY and HUNGRY
• Name the longest word that doesn’t contain the repetition of any alphabet! – UNCOPYRIGHTABLE
• 1 /5th world population speak English
• More than 80 percent of the data stored in the computer across the globe is stored in English
• The ‘dot’ we use over the alphabet ‘i’ and ‘j’ is referred as SUPERSCRIPT DOT.
• ‘S’ is the most commonly used alphabet
• The oldest words in English – I and We
• For every 90 minutes, a new word is created in English
• No more than 1000 words are used by world population, which accounts for more than 80 percent of content written in English
• No number from 0 (zero) to 999 contains the alphabet A.

Funny Facts About Human Body

Human body remains a mystery. The extremely complex mechanism and intricate system of a human body even baffles expert medical professionals. So, it is quite natural that there are many weird and surprising human body facts we never heard. Are you interested to know some lesser known and yet amazing human body facts?

You cannot breathe while you eat. Either you breathe or chew and swallow your food. However, newborns are exceptional. They can eat and breathe simultaneously.

For most of the people, in spite of how hard you pinch on your skin on the elbow, it won’t hurt. Wouldn’t you love to try it?

Do you think you have a great sense of smelling? Well, human beings are deprived of sense of smell when they are asleep. So, just make sure that your mom doesn’t cook your favorite food when you are asleep. Similarly, you cannot sneeze when your eyes open.

Everyone suffers from color blindness at least for a few weeks in their life time. Yes, the babies are born color blind and could not see various colors.

Do you know there is one part of your body that never grows? It remains the same size from birth until death. They are eyes!

The small intestine is the largest organ in the body and the average length of this organ is 6 miles.

Every human has a tennis court in his and her body. Guess what? The average surface area of the human lungs is almost equivalent to the surface area of a tennis court.

More than 80 percent of the diseases are caused and sometimes worsened by stress.

According to a recent study, Monday is the most daunting day in the week. Around 20 to 30 percent of people died-off heart attack on Mondays.

Its Monday! Beware.

Who invented the yo-yo?

The yo-yo is an ancient toy, with the oldest surviving model dating back to 500BC. Ancient Greaks made the toy from wood, metal and terracotta. In the Philippines, hunters used yo-yos as retractable weapons – rocks were attached to 6.09m long thick ropes which were hurled at wild animals. The yo-yo derives its name from a native Filipino word meaning ‘come back’.

In the 18th and 19th century, the simple yet dynamic toy that worked on the principles of physics became very popular in Europe and was known by various names like bandelore, quiz and L’emigrette.

In 1928, a Filipino American named Pedro Flores opened a small toy factory in California, USA, becoming the first person I the world to mass-produce yo-yos. The yo-yos became such a rage that a businessman, Donald Duncan bought over Flores’ company. Doncan’s factory manufactured 3600 yo-yos in an hour, earning the town of Luck in Wisconsin, the epithet of ‘Yo-Yo Capital of the World’!

The yo-yo has undergone various innovations to make it spin faster and longer. Today, yo-yo competitions are held all over the world.

How does electronic paper work?

Electronic paper, also known as e-paper or Electronic Paper Display (EPD) is a display which imitates the appearance of ordinary paper. Electronic paper is portable and reusable – it can be refreshed (electronically) and written upon millions of times.

Many different technologies are used for making e-paper. The most commonly used e-paper consists of millions of tiny plastic capsules which are sandwiched between two sheets of flexible plastic. Each capsule, which is as narrow as a human hair, contains several positively charged white beads and negatively charged black beads floating in a clear fluid.

When an electric voltage is applied to each of the capsules through the circuitry embedded underneath, the beads, due to their unlike charges, get separated and move to the opposite faces of the capsule. When white beads are on top, the upper face of the capsule appears white, thus making the display appear white at the point where the capsule is located. Similarly, when black beads are on top, the display appears black at the point. Thus, each capsule functions as a separate pixel allowing the black text or picture to be visible on the display.