I bet you never knew ___________, what exactly?

I bet you never knew there are 332 dimples on a golf ball.

Margaret Thatcher.

I bet you never knew that of all bird species, only ducks, swans, and ostriches have penises.

I bet you never knew that James Joyce wrote fantastically dirty, erotic letters to his lover. Gave me a whole new appreciation for the man! source NSFW

@hawaii_jake I shall consider that the next time I flat hook one of the little buggers into the woods :¬(
@lucillelucillelucille It’s true I never knew the bitch….....former Prime Minister, but her & I do share a birthday. Not the year I hasten to add!

I bet you never knew that Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) had horns removed from his head when he was born. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

I bet you never knew that Charles Richter, inventor of the Richter scale, was a nudist.

I bet you never knew that San Marino is the oldest constitutional Republic in the world.

I bet you never knew Fox News is intended just for the lulz.

I bet you never knew J. Edgar Hoover wore dresses in public. or did you?

@Aster No, it’s a new one on me…....not the dresses! ;¬}

I bet you never knew that the Richter Scale is out of duty since the seventies.
Wiki

Edward Mordake had a female face that grew from the back of his head and spoke to him as he put it ‘of such things as they only speak of in Hell’. A very curious story documented in Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine by George Gould and Walter Pyle.

I bet you never knew that the Pope’s favorite drink is orange Fanta.

Some folks think cucumbers taste better pickled.

I bet you never knew that Sony’s first product was the rice cooker.

I bet you never knew (unless you are @fiddleplayingcreolebastard) that the last official military Morse Code message was sent to President Bill Clinton on July 12, 1999 from the ship, the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, from San Francisco Bay. The message was received at the White House as an e-mail, thus ushering in a new era of official military communication.

@Kardamom Pardon me, dear, but I knew this! MWAHAHA.

Ooops, I forgot that @KatetheGreat was another one of our Fluther military historians. Beg pardon : )

@Kardamom Hehehe, but still, that’s a really cool fact! For some reason, Morse code has always fascinated me.

@KatetheGreat Apparently they stopped teaching it in the military, which is kind of too bad, because there are certain circumstances where I think it would come in handy.

@Kardamom My friend and I used to write each other notes in Morse code. I don’t understand why they discontinued it. It’s a lot of fun and pretty useful.

@KatetheGreat it’s really difficult to type morse code into a fluther box! It makes it look as if you are whispering random dots

@Blueroses It sure is! If that wasn’t the case, I’d be typing in Morse code most of the time.

Now I’m unhappy. I always was proud that, if I ever needed help, I could tap SOS and someone would come. Now only Old People will understand me. Much help they’d be!

21 people were killed in the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

They say on hot summer days you can still smell molasses in the air. But ‘they’ are notoriously prone to narrative exaggeration.

Nintendo started out in 1889, selling playing cards.

When JK Rowling created Hedwig, she had no idea that snowy owls were diurnal, and that they don’t hoot.

Great White sharks smell through taste, by biting things.

The mechanical shark in Jaws was named Bruce, after Stephen Spielberg’s lawyer.

You can use toothpaste to clean silver jewelery.

A farmer discovered coffee when he found his goats acting funny after eating coffee beans.

In the movie Pet Sematary, sixteen different cats were used to display the one cat in the film, Church. (who’s entire name is Winston Churchill)

In the same film, Rachel’s older dying sister, Zelda, is actually played by a man.
This was because apparently, they couldn’t find a woman who was thin enough for that part. Erm.

Coca Cola was originally designed as medicine.

Nosferatu is not a Romanian word. It’s a derivation of a Greek word meaning “plague bearer”. I forgot what the actual word was though…something like nosphoros.

The Russian vampire myth features a dart which shoots out from underneath the tongue and lodges itself in the victim’s jugular in order to drain the blood, as opposed to the traditional fangs.

One of the oldest “vampire” legends ever documented is from Africa, featuring a red skinned demon like being, who stalks the night, draining villagers of their blood. Its name is “Bota”. Phear it.

The word zombie was created by the English speaking world when they couldn’t pronounce its origin right, ’‘nzambi’’, meaning spirit of the dead.

The famous French guillotine was fashioned after a similar execution device created by the Scotts, (Scottish Maiden) which in turn was originally fashioned from the design of a clothes washing apparatus.

That’s not stuff that nobody ever knows, but I hope I surprised some people, or at least freaked em out.

@Symbeline I think the Romanian word for vampire is actually ‘vampir’ or ‘vampyr’ which I guess just wasn’t exotic enough.

You should check out The Family of the Vourdalak for a good 19th century Russian vampire tale.

I love the domestic origins of the guillotine.

Vampire in Romanian is ’‘strigoi ’’(with two dots on the I) it even has a female version of the word, I forget it at this point. Although their vampire mythology isn’t exactly like what we know of today. Apparently, since Vlad was such a historic hero to Romania, they’re very insulted in the stereotypical image of the vampire attributed to him.
Thanks for the link. I don’t see a story anywhere, but the book encompassing several classic vampire stories seems awesome. :)

@Symbeline Mmm, my bad. Apparently “vampir’ is the Serbian word. (Not too lazy to google!)

The story starts on page 75. I read it as part of this collection, which has some good, and some very bad Victorian vampire stories. But there is a fair amount of charm to be found in badly written 19th century gothic literature.

That’s Serbian? I never knew where the word vampir/vampyr came from lol. So what do you consider a bad, but charming Victorian vampire story? Also, ever read that one about a ’‘vampiric pillow’’?

Oh my god, read the first chapter of Varney the Vampire (pg 170), it’s such a load “dark and stormy” teensploitation.

I haven’t heard of the vampiric pillow, is it at all like vampire pumpkins? I love a vampire pumpkin.

The feather Pillow

This is messed up shit man.

Oh yeah, Varney. I have a big book full of Victorian vamp stories, and it includes the first two chapters of that. Actually I thought it was kind of creepy, I’d love to read the whole thing. Michael jackson hair and guns that look like trumpets how can you go wrong lol. Ever read Good Lady Ducayne? Always loved that one.

@sliceswiththings What do the other birds have?

@faye penis envy

Haha!, but seriously?

Male avian reproductive system
@sliceswiththings was right. I never knew this.

@Symbeline Wow, that was some seriously purple prose. It reminds me of green porno.

Good Lady Ducayne is the one with the creepy old lady right? I totally read that one. In my imagination that’s what would have happen in Rebecca if the girl hadn’t run off with Maxim. One chapter was enough Varney for me. That book is like a brick, they were way too good at making a story go on and on back then.

I bet you never knew how much a ribcage tattoo hurts! Owie

@Symbeline The Greek word is νοσοφορος (nosophoros), and its literal meaning is “disease-bearer.”

I bet you never knew that Erwin Rommel, the famous German WWII field marshal of the Afrika Korps, repeatedly disobeyed direct orders from Hitler and he even supported the idea of arresting Hitler and having him tried for war crimes.

I bet you never knew that blondes do have more fun. :P

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I hate to play the sycophant here, but I gotta. Yup, I knew that about Rommel. Here was one nazi who saw the fuhrer for what he was, a ranting, posturing meglomaniac with questionable leadership qualities. He’s actually quite a hero figure of mine, as far as his military expertise went that is. Controversial, but true!

I bet you never knew that I can throw one hell of a nekked pancake party.

@erichw1504 I knew that. I still have maple syrup in my hair

@ucme, that’s how I feel about it too, except I hesitate to even call him a Nazi.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Yeah, call it a freudian slip. We mustn’t advocate prejudice now must we?

@fundevogel Good lady Ducayne is one of those cool stories where you suspect all the wrong things the whole time, so it’s cool when you get to the plot twists and punchlines…although all that medical equipment stuff sorta kills the mood but eh, it’s still awesome.
So Varney’s a huge book…I wonder if the whole of it is as awesome as the first two chapters lol.

@WWII That’s probably something everyone already knew, but I recently learned that Heinrich Himmler is pretty much responsible for coming up with ’‘the final solution’’. Hitler didn’t think up of much, he was just the bitch making it happen :/

Check it out, messed up facts!

I like that Hitler fun fact.