No Such Thing as a Fish

The Large Hadron Collider was turned off for a short period of time because a piece of baguette was found in the machinery. (Harkin)

For the last month of his life, James A. Garfield ate everything through his anus. (Ptaszynski)

In 2013, six people in the United States named their child "Mushroom". (Harkin)

The first ever sandwich that we know about contained wine. (Ptaszynski)

In 2003, three people in Mexico were officially listed as having died of acne. (Harkin)

Amongst the other scientists called Einstein there is M.E. Einstein who came up with a formula for predicting the composition of a pork carcass, and Rosemary Einstein who co-investigated the use of cannabis, alcohol and tobacco on 300 young persons at her university. (Schreiber)

The earliest known dentistry is 9,000 years old. (Jenner)

According to the phantom time hypothesis, the Middle Ages never happened. (Schreiber)

The most indispensable sea creature in the United States is the horseshoe crab, due to its blood being used for medical purposes. (Edelman)

30 million Chinese people live in caves. (Schreiber)

There is a banker in Latvia who will lend you money using your immortal soul as security. (Harkin)

For 100 years, almost all maps of Africa contained a mountain range that did not exist, called the Mountains of Kong. (Ptaszynski)

Rats, namely Josephoartigasia monesi, were once the size of hippos. (Ptaszynski)

During his 27-year reign, Pope John Paul II took over 100 skiing vacations. (Schreiber)

100 years ago a quarter of the residents of New York City would move house on every single 1 May, at exactly 9 am. (Harkin)

Some plastic surgeons operated on a Belgian man to make him look more like Michael Jackson. (Abrahams)

The largest Viking ship ever discovered was found when renovating the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum (Oldfield)

The tobacco hornworm uses extremely bad halitosis to protect itself. (Murray)

A computer game has been invented that takes more than a lifetime to complete. (Harkin)

2013 was the first year since 1933 where there has been no sighting of the Loch Ness Monster. (Schreiber)

The French government forced Madame Tussaud to make models of her friends' decapitated heads. (Ptaszynski)

One of the last things that NASA had to do before launching space shuttles was to detach their inflatable owls that were used to scare woodpeckers. (Bell)

The music used on the You Wouldn't Steal a Car anti-piracy advert was stolen by the people who made the advert. (Schreiber)

According to the government website of the Czech Republic there are three symbols of Easter in the country: Easter eggs, the Easter lamb and whipping. (Harkin)

It was fashionable in New York City at the end of 19th century for women to wear live lizards as brooches. (Harkin)

Codebreaker Alan Turing lost his buried treasure when he could not crack his own code. (Schreiber)

In 2011, the largest sperm bank in the world stopped accepting sperm from redheads. (Ptaszynski)

In 1923, jockey Frank Hayes won a race, despite dying of a heart attack while riding his horse. (Lampaert)

Some Buddhist monks run marathons to achieve enlightenment. (Schreiber)

The Slovakian and Slovenian embassies in Washington D.C. meet once a month to exchange wrongly addressed mail. (Harkin)

The words "Tory" and "Prime Minister" both started out as insults. (Murray)

In a 2005 questionnaire about substance abuse, almost one in five people taking part admitted to taking a drug that did not exist called derbisol. (Ptaszynski)

Sea otters have a secret pocket in their armpit where they like to keep their favourite stones. (Schreiber)

If the 2014 version of Godzilla really existed, it would produce 12.9 million gallons of urine a day. (Harkin)

The real Long John Silver – William Ernest Henley, was the father of the real Wendy Darling – Margaret Henley. (Ptaszynski)

The tin foil hat worn by conspiracy theorists to stop the government sending messages into their brains actually has the opposite effect. It amplifies the signal. (Schreiber)

During World War II, the Nazi Party employed two official Nazi comedians called Tran and Helle. (Scheire)

The Philippine Basketball Association, the second oldest such association in the world, has ten teams in total, including the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters, the San Miguel Beermen, and the Talk 'N Text Tropang Texters. (Schreiber)

If you get a zebrafish drunk, and put that zebrafish in a tank full of sober zebrafish, the sober ones will follow the drunk one around. (Ptaszynski)

The CEO of Levi's, Chip Bergh, hasn't washed his jeans in more than a year. (Harkin)

During the first successful transatlantic flight, by Alcock and Brown, the pilots got lost in midair, entered some cloud and fog, and when they got out of the cloud and fog, they found they were just 60 feet above the water, and flying at a 90° angle. (Schreiber)

In 2007, a woman called Evan Lattimer inherited Napoleon Bonaparte's penis from her father. (Ptaszynski)

The Aztecs wore necklaces made out of popcorn. (Harkin)

In 2011, China tried to pass off a scene from the film Top Gun as footage from its own air force. (Ptaszynski)

In 2003, somebody misplaced the masterkeys to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, thus meaning they had to replace the locks, at a cost of $1,000,700. (Schreiber)

The World Record for the most kicks to one's own head is 127 in a minute. (Harkin)

There is a bear in the Pyrenees which is facing castration because he has fathered nearly all the other bears in the area. (Miller)

Poland's only official ghost hunter thinks that ghosts have given up on haunting humans. (Schreiber)

The first known football chant was composed by Edward Elgar. (Ptaszynski)

Eric Cantona was raised in a cave. (Schreiber)

In the first World Cup final, Uruguay and Argentina could not agree on the size of the ball to use, so they used Argentina's small ball in the first half and Uruguay's big ball in the second. After half time Argentina were 2–1 up, but by the end Uruguay won 4–2. (Harkin)

When Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon and said "That's one small step for man", he was wearing ladies underwear. (Turner)

In 1963, Muhammad Ali released a stand-up comedy album. (Schreiber)

In 1325, in Italy, a war was declared and 2,000 people were killed because of a stolen bucket. (Ptaszynski)

A kangaroo's tail is used as a leg, so they have either three or five legs. (Harkin)

During the financial crisis of 1720, known as the South Sea Bubble, the Houses of Parliament called for stockbrokers to be sewn into sacks filled with poisonous snakes and thrown into the River Thames. (Ptaszynski)

There are three times as many estate agents in the UK as there are members of the British Armed Forces. (Murray)

The most painful place on the human body to be stung by a bee is the nostril. (Harkin)

For breakfast, Walt Disney ate fresh doughnuts dunked in Scotch whisky. (Schreiber)

The French word for arsenic used to be "poudre de succession" or "inheritance powder", because it was used in so many murders. (Miller)

"Made in Germany" product labels were originally invented to put people off buying the product. (Ptaszynski)

In 1991, Prof. Alexander Abian of Iowa State University proposed that we could solve virtually every problem of human existence by blowing up the Moon. (Schreiber)

In New York City, until 1925, drivers going east or west stopped at an amber traffic light and drove on green, while drivers going north or south drove on an amber light and stopped on green. (Harkin)

In 1903, a man called W. Reginald Bray posted himself. (Harkin)

The world's oldest ham has just celebrated its 112th birthday. (Schreiber)

Orangutans like playing with iPads, but gorillas do not. (Ptaszynski)

Alexander the Great banned beards in battle to combat beard-pulling. (Ptaszynski)

Psychopaths do not experience contagious yawning as often as non-psychopaths. (Schreiber)

The Big Bang was quieter than a Motörhead concert. (Harkin)

When he was bored Calvin Coolidge used to ring a bell to summon his bodyguards and then hide from them under the Oval Office desk. (Bell)

Until 2011 the Sun was only in theory a sphere, but it has since been confirmed that it is actually a sphere. (Schreiber)

There are some bird's nests that contain over 100 rooms and are so heavy they cause trees to fall down. (Ptaszynski)

Rats that wear polyester trousers cannot get erections. (Ptaszynski)

During World War I entertainments for the troops included organised pillow fights, wheelbarrow races and wrestling on the backs of mules. (Murray)

The atmosphere of Venus is so hot that if you took a pizza out of a freezer there it would cook in three seconds. (Harkin)

Koko the gorilla, who knows sign language, has owned and cared for three pet cats during her lifetime. (Rich)

According to yeti experts it is easier to escape from a female yeti than a male yeti, because females have such long dangling breasts, so before they can chase a human they need to chuck them over their shoulders, otherwise they might trip over them. (Schreiber)

The Kama Sutra suggests 64 arts to practice alongside sex including solving word puzzles and teaching birds how to talk. (Harkin)

LOL originally meant "Little Old Lady". It was a medical definition. Others included "LOLINAD", meaning "Little Old Lady in No Apparent Distress", and "LOLFDGB", meaning "Little Old Lady Fall Down Go Boom" (Zaltzman).

According to researchers at Glasgow Caledonian University listening to Billy Connolly can substantially increase your pain tolerance. (Schreiber)

The first woman to cycle around the world, Annie "Londonderry" Cohen Kopchovsky learnt to ride only the day before she set off. (Ptaszynski)

Over 100 people used to watch Louis XIV of France getting dressed every morning. (Murray)

There is an original Picasso that no-one will ever see because it was eaten by his dog. (Harkin)

During World War II the US Navy diving manual contained detailed instructions for what to do if you were eaten by a giant clam. (Schreiber)

The head of the International Chess Federation, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, believes chess was brought to Earth by aliens. (Harkin)

The Greenland shark is so slow it needs all of its food to be asleep in order to eat it. It can only swim at 1mph, so if the prey moves it will outrun the shark. (Schreiber)

In 19th century America you could be committed to a mental asylum for reading a novel. (Ptaszynski)

The first BBC radio presenter with a northern accent, Wilfred Pickles, was given the job to make it more difficult for the Nazis to impersonate news readers. (Harkin)

In China, if you want to empty a building of people, or indeed if you want to end anything, play the song "Going Home" by Kenny G. (Schreiber)

The two leading paleontologists of the 19th century, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, used to destroy their fossil sites after excavating them so that their rival couldn't find anything about the site. (Ptaszynski)

In the 17th century there was a prophet called Dorothy Harling who would cure you of your sins by urinating on the offending body part. (Harkin)

Despite the fact that homosexuality is illegal in South Sudan a woman can have a female husband and a child can have a female father. (Ptaszynski)

Tommy Flowers, the designer of the Colossus computer, discovered that the way to prevent the valves from blowing up was not turning it off and on again. (Schreiber)

In 1060 BC, the entire Egyptian city of Pi-Ramesses was moved 20 kilometres to the north because part of the River Nile dried up. (Gardner)

In 1864 a friend of Charles Dickens had a flatpack Swiss chalet sent to his home as a Christmas present. (Ptaszynski)

Neuroscientists can tell if you are a musician simply by looking at your brain. (Harkin)

Until the year 635 AD Halloween was celebrated on 12 May. (Murray)

Witches used broomsticks to put hallucinogenic drugs up their bottoms. (Schreiber)

The woman who played the voice of Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist only agreed to play the part on the condition that she had two priests in her sound booth at all times, could be constantly drinking whisky, chain-smoking cigarettes and eating raw eggs. (Ptaszynski)

Comets stink of rotten eggs, cat urine and bitter almonds. (Harkin)

Ranulph Fiennes used to suffer from such bad vertigo that he used to have to get his wife to climb ladders to clear the gutters. (Murray)

A Ryanair crew member hired today could not possibly be the same height as a crew member from the first Ryanair flight. Today crew members have to be at least 5'2", but when it started you had to be less than 5'2". (Ptaszynski)

Viking names included "desirous of beer", "squat-wiggle", "lust-hostage", "short penis", "able to fill a bay with fish by magic" and "the man without trousers". (Harkin)

You Only Live Once is Katie Price's fourth autobiography. (Schreiber)

William Morton, the father of anaesthesia, first experimented on himself but kept falling asleep before he could describe the results. (Ptaszynski)

If you got into an argument in 18th century Abyssinia you could resolve it by, "blaming everything on the camel". (Ptaszynski)

In Ancient Greece they used to play with yo-yos. (Schreiber)

Most honey bee hives in the USA live on flatbed trucks. (Murray)

In 1874 there was a plan to transport dead bodies from all over Europe to Mount Vesuvius and throw them in. (Ptaszynski)

In 2010 an abandoned waste-water treatment plant in Baltimore was found to be home to an estimated 107,000,000 spiders. (Harkin)

According to Vatican City's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, the greatest pop album of all time is Revolver by The Beatles. (Schreiber)

Ant nests can become infested by ants. (Scheire)

In Cambodia a teenage girl's parents might build her a "love hut" where her parents encourage her to sleep with as many boys as she wants until she finds the one that she likes. (Ptaszynski)

The longest canyon in the world is 50% longer than the Grand Canyon and it was not discovered until August 2013. It is buried under 1.9 miles of ice in Greenland. (Murray)

The San Francisco Fire Department's ladders are made from wood. (Harkin)

Astronauts do not snore. (Schreiber)

In March 1876 it rained mutton-tasting meat in Kentucky. (Ptaszynski)

In 18th century France tooth-pullers were entertainers who would perform in front of live audiences. (Murray)

In World War I the Romanian army issued an order that only officers above the rank of major had the right to wear eye shadow in battle. (Ptaszynski)

The most borrowed children's author in British libraries, Daisy Meadows, doesn't exist. (Miller)

Before going on stage to read A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens had a warm-up routine of drinking a pint of champagne. (Schreiber)

Crap Christmas jumpers date back to the Romans. (Harkin)

Male turkeys blush when they see female turkeys. (Ptaszynski)

Franz Kafka once convinced his entire family that Einstein's theory of relativity was going to cure his tuberculosis. (Ptaszynski)

Dead geckos still stick to walls after they die. (Murray)

The active ingredient in the first ever homeopathy treatment was the blood of Thomas Becket. (Harkin)

Cows have friends and they get sad when they are separated. (Bell)

It is illegal to take a selfie with a tiger in New York City. (Harkin)

Morgue refrigerators in Turkey are equipped with motion sensors, alarms and handles that open them from the inside in case anyone wakes up inside. (Ptaszynski)

Between 800-1349 the Colosseum was used as an apartment block. (Ptaszynski)

You can be fined for swearing in Australia. In the last financial year people in Northern Territory were fined A$48,372 in total. (Harkin)

When the first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1858 the reception on it was so bad that it took 17 hours to send the first message across. (Murray)

In 1960s America one bus route that was only 35 miles long went through seven different time zones due to the way daylight saving time was adopted across the country. (Jenner)

If a predator gets too close to a limpet then the limpet will lift up its shell and stamp on the predator's foot. (Murray)

After landing on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin worked in a car dealership where he failed to sell a single car. (Ptaszynski)

There have been three Top 50 songs in the British charts that have been sung exclusively in Latin: "Gaudete" by Steeleye Span; "Choral in Latin" from Evita; and "Pie Jesu" from Requiem, sung by Charlotte Church. (Murray)

The way to recognise the Buddha is to look out for his webbed feet, his tongue that can reach his ears, and withdrawn genitalia. (Ptaszynski)

The whoopee cushion was invented by the Roman Emperor with the birthname Bassianus. (Schreiber)

According to a 2011 YouGov survey 27% of Britons neither love or hate Marmite. (Harkin)

The Knights of the Round Table included Lancelot, Gawain, Galahad and Gareth. (Schreiber)

The Ministry of Defence owns 15 golf courses. (Murray)

Charles Hawtrey horded bedsteads, believing that they would help make this fortune. (Coren Mitchell)

In 1937 you could visit Romford Dog Track and watch cheetahs racing. (Harkin)

In 2010 the US Military built a supercomputer using 1,760 PlayStation 3's. (Miller)

Until the mid-2000s the best method for finding out how many pandas there were alive was to sieve through their faeces. (Murray)

Since 2007 the Wikipedian Bryan Henderson has made more than 50,000 edits, all of which are exactly the same: tracking down articles using the words "comprised of" and changing them to "consists of". (Schreiber)

The worlds largest saw is used to cut through mountains in Kazakhstan. (Harkin)

The 2012 law prohibiting nudity in San Francisco was proposed by a politician named Scott Wiener. (Harkin)

Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, got so large that he could not sit at his dinner table any more. Rather than exercising or dieting, he cut a semi-circle in his dining table so he could fit his stomach in. (Schreiber)

Spotify's random function is not random. (Murray)

The son of Henry Perky, the man who invented shredded wheat, was also an inventor. He invented round shredded wheat. (Ptaszynski)

In the 1960s a Canadian psychologist visited cafes across the world counting how much couples touched each other. In Puerto Rico it was 180 times in an hour; in Paris it was 110; in London it was zero. (Murray)

In a particular time and place in history, you could avoid castration by shouting the word "Soho". (Harkin)

The route for the Hong Kong ultramarathon is to run up and down the same stretch of road 25 times. (Murray)

The metre is wrong. It is 0.16mm out. (Ptaszynski)

St Andrews Aquarium currently has three meerkats called Churchill, Admiral and Sheilas' Wheels. The also had two other meerkats called Aviva and Direct Line, but these have since died. (Harkin)

Finnish budget meatballs have so little meat in them that they have had to be renamed "balls", or pyöryköitä in the Finnish language. (Murray)

Lady Florence Dixie once had to apologise to Queen Victoria after her pet jaguar killed three of Victoria's pet deer. (Ptaszynski)

The Statue of Liberty originally wore a headscarf. (Schreiber)

When you have a tattoo lasered off you end up pooing it out. (Murray)

The man who invented the airship, Alberto Santos-Dumont, used to hold dinner parties with 10ft high chairs so his guests could experience the joy of flight. (Ptaszynski)

A new scientific study has concluded that there are too many scientific studies. (Schreiber)

Firefighters use wetter water than most people. (Harkin)

Plants have their own internet made of fungi. (Ptaszynski)

In 1710 the boys of Winchester College rioted over insufficient beer rations. (Murray)

For 200 years after tomatoes made it to England, they were grown almost entirely for ornimental reasons. (Ptaszynski)

NASA is planning on giving the Moon a moon. (Schreiber)

Basil Rathbone, one of the first men to play Sherlock Holmes on film, spent much of World War One dressed as a tree. (Murray)

Monorails were originally horse-drawn. (Schreiber)

The Great Smog of 1952 was so bad that blind people led sighted people home from train stations. (Murray)

On 24 March 2015 the temperature in Antarctica was higher than that in Malta, Madrid and Marrakech. (Harkin)

Kaiser Wilhelm II once lost a valuable arms contract for Germany because he slapped Ferdinand I of Bulgaria on the bottom. (Ptaszynski)

"Beware of Pickpocket" signs attract pickpockets. (Murray)

No-one is quite sure how to pronounce Louis Armstrong's name. (Schreiber)

The first thing was a parliament. (Harkin)

One of the largest majorities in a Brazilian local election was won by a rhino. (Ptaszynski)

Finland's parliament sometimes makes decisions in their sauna. (Schreiber)

The final McDonalds burger ever sold in Iceland can currently be watched decomposing on a webcam. (Harkin)

In 1851 Prince Albert commissioned a ballroom in Balmoral Castle made entirely out of corrugated iron. (Lloyd)

During the 19th century Saddlers Wells Theatre was routinely flooded to stage fake naval battles. (Ptaszynski)

Instead of being one of the founders of the USA, Benjamin Franklin almost stayed in Britain to found a swimming school on the River Thames. (Ptaszynski)

Sumo wrestling referees carry a knife on them so in the event they make a bad decision during a match they can kill themselves. (Schreiber)

The trailer for the longest movie ever made, Ambiancé, is 72 minutes long. (Harkin)

Twice in its history the United States has been run by a shepherd: Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson both kept sheep. (Hound)

There is a village in rural Russia where every single person knows how to tightrope walk. (Harkin)

In Britain pedestrians step to the right to avoid each other and in Japan they step to the left. No-one knows why. (Ptaszynski)

The first ever novel, The Tale of Genji, ended mid-sentence. (Ptaszynski)

J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis both once went to a party dressed as polar bears. It was not a fancy dress party. (Harkin)

Agatha Christie thought that Hercule Poirot was a, "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, egocentric, little creep". (Murray)

Bananas emit antimatter. (Harkin)

Slovenia's largest lake, Lake Cerknica, disappears every year. (Ptaszynski)

Half the world's saigas have died in the previous month and no-one knows why. (Murray)

Cleaner fish can cheat their bosses, and their bosses can punish them. (Murray)

Al Qaeda's job application form has a question asking who should be contacted in the event that the applicant becomes a martyr. (Schreiber)

The single biggest expense for the computer game Lego Universe was to hire human moderators to make sure people were not making Lego penises. (Harkin)

In the 1840s London buses has straps attached to the driver's arms that the passenger would yank if they wanted the bus to stop. (Harkin)

Standing like Superman, with hands on hips, chest up and head tilted-up, can make you more successful. (Miller)

Margaret Atwood's latest novel, Scribbler Moon, will not be released until 2114 as part of the Future Library project. (Schreiber)

Guantanamo Bay has a gift shop. (Schreiber)

The Natural History Museum, London is turning moths gay to stop them from destroying the exhibits. (Ptaszynski)

The word "marvellous" has fallen in use from 155 times per million twenty years ago, to only 2 times per million today. (Harkin)

Only 28% of people know when they have been flirted with. (Ptaszynski)

Ancient Sumerian beer was as thick as porridge and was drunk through a straw. (Harkin)

Baby turtles co-ordinate when they are going to hatch from within their eggshells. (Murray)

In Peru depictions of the Last Supper show Jesus Christ and the disciples eating a guinea pig. (Murray)

The Citigroup Center skyscraper has a 400 tonne weight at the top of it to stop it from falling over. (Bell)

Canadian crime writer Howard Engel lost the ability to read while also not losing the ability to write. (Ptaszynski)

Babies practice saying their first words before saying them out loud. (Murray)

The first pair of Nike trainers were made with a waffle iron. (Ptaszynski)

Rats dream of places that they want to visit. (Schreiber)

The world record for the horse long jump is shorter the record for the human long jump. (Schreiber)

Every time Alfred Hitchcock had a cup of tea he always smashed the teacup afterwards. (Ptaszynski)

The Romanian equivalent of comparing apples and oranges is to compare grandmothers and machine guns. (Murray)

The first item to be sent by New York's pneumatic post system was an artificial peach. The second thing to be sent was an alive black cat. (Ptaszynski)

Scientists have made a form of algae that tastes like bacon. (Harkin)

Telescopes have a "new telescope smell" that can break them. (Murray)

As part of the preparation for the D-Day landings the Allied Forces used condoms to collect soil and sand from the Normandy beaches. (Ptaszynski)

Every second at least one star in the universe explodes. (Schreiber)

Cannibals in ancient Mexico ate their human flesh with chilli sauce. (Harkin)

According to the diary of the first chief of MI6, Mansfield Smith-Cumming, this is how the first day went: "Went to the office. Saw no-one, nor was there anything to do there." (Schreiber)

There is a distillery in Kentucky that claims that playing Bruce Springsteen to the whiskey improves the ageing process. (Harkin)

There is a statue of Nikola Tesla in Silicon Valley that radiates free wi-fi. (Bell)

The Scrooge Effect states that if you make someone think about death, that person is more likely to be more charitable and get more satisfaction when making charitable donations.

If you like grilled cheese you will have 32% more sex.

In 1567 the man with the longest beard died when he tripped over his own beard while running away from a fire.

In 2009 two French mayors declared the same street a one way street, but in different direction.

Canadian $1 coins are called "loonies" and $2 coins are called "toonies".

The Danish word for "fifty-eight" translates "eight and half-three twenties".

Jelly babies were originally marketed under the name of "unwanted babies".

A rhinoceros beetle strength capacity is the same as a human lifting nine male elephants over his head.

In 1958 Nikita Khrushchev met Mao Zedong, and Mao suggested a meeting while swimming, knowing that Khrushchev could not swim. Aides then appeared with water wings for Khrushchev and the meeting took place with Mao swimming up-and-down and Khrushchev flailing around.

The police department in Cambridge, Massachusetts requested that when the Harvard Bridge was refurbished in the 1980s that the graffiti on it was maintained by the people who created it because became useful in identifying when acts of vandalism were committed on the bridge.

F. Scott Fitzgerald bitched to Ernest Hemingway that his dick was too small, then he went to the bathroom, Hemingway looked at it and pronounced it fine.

The name "Gary" is as of 2013 less popular in the UK than both the names "Thor" and "Loki".

When the tooth of a mastodon was once found in North America it was identified by the tooth of a giant.

According to chemistry, alcohol is a solution.

The first ICBMs placed outside of the Soviet Union could never be used because the Soviets in charge of them drank the rocket fuel because it was made out of alcohol.

Bucharest and Budapest are the fifth most mixed up places in the world.

The wages in Chelsea and Fulham are so high that it is the only constituency in the UK where the average wage is higher than the wage of their MP.

Apollo 13 nearly ended in disaster before it got to space because of a malfunction, but a second malfunction occurred which prevented the ship from being destroyed.

If you wanted to recreated the entire Lego Movie with actual Lego you would need 15,080,330 pieces.

When a dog enters a room it knows what has happened two hours before, because of its sense of smell.

Baby koala bears cannot digest eucalyptus leaves when they are first born, so they have to get the bacteria from their mother's poo to digest eucalyptus.

The milk used to make Ben & Jerry's ice cream comes from massaged cows.

The motto of the Salvation Army is: "Blood and fire".

Since 1945 all British tanks must come equipped with tea making supplies.

Josef Stalin had some scientists attempt to create an ape-human hybrid because he thought it would be useful in Russian industry and could withstand more pain.

In 1953 NASCAR driver Tim Flock raced for eight races with a rhesus monkey named Jocko Flocko as his co-driver.

There is a consultant urologist at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, Somerset, named Nicholas Burns-Cox.

The first man to swim the English Channel, Captain Matthew Webb, later had a show where he floated in a tank for two hours. (Murray)

The first item sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer. It was bought by a man who collects broken laser pointers. (Schreiber)

When Alexander Fleming's neighbours foiled a burglary at his house, as a thank you gift Fleming gave them some mould from the first penicillin. (Ptaszynski)

Dog urine makes street lights collapse. (Harkin)

After the button was invented it took over 1,000 years for someone to invent the buttonhole. (Schreiber)

As a baby Saint Nicholas refused to drink his mother's breast milk on fast days. (Murray)

Las Vegas holds an award ceremony for people who make awards, presented by the Awards and Recognition Association. (Harkin)

Napoleon Bonaparte loved roast chicken so much that his household chefs were constantly cooking some in case he decided he wanted any. (Murray)

IMDb was originally just a list of actresses with beautiful eyes. (Schreiber)

The current French Scrabble Champion, Nigel Richards, does not speak a word of French. (Schreiber)

The worlds only venomous frogs headbutt their enemies to death. (Harkin)

When the film All Quiet on the Western Front was released in Germany, Joseph Goebbels when to see it at the cinema and within 10 minutes he had released stink bombs, itching powder and white mice in order to make people flee from the cinema. (Ptaszynski)

The first ever pencils were used to draw on sheep. (Murray)

Drinking alcohol makes you more attractive. (Schreiber)

The National Giant Vegetable Championships had to move venues in the mid 1980s as the pumpkins started to get too big to fit through the doors. (Harkin)

Ruby, a sheep genetically engineered to glow in the dark, was accidentally sold to an abattoir. (Miller)

During the launch of BBC Two in 1964, a live kangaroo got stuck in a lift at BBC Television Centre. (Bell)

Dr. Seuss once wrote a Warner Bros. film called Going Home, that was banned because it accidentally predicted the Manhattan Project. (Ptaszynski)

In winter we should all wear our socks outside our shoes, because they are grip more on ice. (Schreiber)

Ancient Jerusalem's lost property office just involved shouting about what you lost in the hope that somebody had found it. (Murray)

Charles Blagden, the man who discovered why we sweat, found it out by getting into a sauna with a dog, a beef steak and an egg. (Ptaszynski)

The seventh time park ranger Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning coincided with the 22nd time he fought off a bear with a stick. (Schreiber)

In 2015, America's "Hero Dog of the Year Award" was won by a cat. (Harkin)

The earliest known penalty of illegal parking, dating back to Assyria in the 7th century BC, was to be impaled on a stake. (Ptaszynski)

Two people in Sydney every week get bitten by ticks and shortly afterwards become allergic to meat for the rest of their lives. (Kruszelnicki)

The Millennium bug is going to hit in 2038. (Murray)

Buckminster Fuller's complete diaries take over 18 metres of shelf space. (Bell)

During the Miracle of 1511 the people of Brussels protested against the government by filling the city with dozens of pornographic snowmen. (Harkin)

Harris hawks stand on each others shoulders to get a better view. (Ptaszynski)

Pope Innocent VIII was given the nickname "The Honest" because he was the first pope to acknowledge that he had illegitimate children. (Murray)

For the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II people dressed up as television sets. (Murray)

The world puddle jumping championships bans fizzy drinks in case they improve the participant's performance. (Harkin)

The shuttlecocks used in professional badminton are made using real goose feathers which are always taken from the bird's left wing. (Mason)

The world's only Cornish pasty museum is in Mexico. (Ptaszynski)

20% of people wake up wearing fewer clothes than they went to bed with. (Harkin)

There are people who mine for jeans. (Murray)

The total number of hours spent by people watching The One Show this year is the same as the total number of hours that have passed since humans left Africa. (Harkin)

The largest object ever discovered is a hole: the supervoid. (Ptaszynski)

In 2012 a kestrel was arrested in Turkey on suspicion of spying. (Schreiber)

Lord Byron's nickname for William Wordsworth was: "William Turdsworth". (Murray)

If you grow a cos lettuce in a spaceship it tastes like rocket. (Harkin)

Scientists have grown an ear using Vincent Van Gogh's DNA. (Schreiber)

Before trains had corridors guards had to climb along the outside of the carriage to check your ticket. (Murray)

The names given by Ernest Shackleton to his dogs included Slippery, Slobbers, Satan, Painful, Swanker, Bomber and Bob. (Harkin)

According to a recent theory, Stonehenge was built as a part of a team building exercise. (Schreiber)

The Great Wall of China is held together by sticky rice. (Harkin)

The world's largest single-cell organism, Caulerpa taxifolia, can get up to 12 inches long. (Murray)

If you are bitten by the boomslang snake you bleed from every orifice. (Ptaszynski)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar was originally called A Week with Willi the Worm. (Harkin)

During World War II the XX Committee, or "Double-Cross Committee" was in charge of turning German spies. (Miller)

Houses in Bali are built in proportion to the owner's body. (Ptaszynski)

There is only a 1 in 800,000 chance of nobody will cough during the recording of this podcast. (Harkin)

The Colosseum has recently banned centurions. (Schreiber)

From 1978 to 1991 tens of thousands of chicken heads were dropped from helicopters over Switzerland. (Ptaszynski)

The oldest turkey in the UK is called Dinner. (Harkin)

Cary Grant and Clark Gable used to meet up once a year at Christmas to exchange unwanted monogramed gifts they received. (Ptaszynski)

When it gets really cold Christmas trees can turn into glass. (Murray)

There is a chemical called arsole.

In the late 1950 and early 1960s, comics with gorillas on the front cover sold considerably more than comics without them.

The 25th Amendment allows US vice-presidents to take over as president when the president becomes incapacitated. It has happened three times, and each time the president was having a colonoscopy.

There is a scene in the movie Léon: The Professional where lots of police cars are parked outside a building. While this scene was being filmed a man who had just robbed a shot ran onto the movie set, thought it was the real police, and handed himself in.

Gary Numan is three weeks older than Gary Oldman.

The new organist of Leeds Cathedral is David Pipe.

There was a ghost army in World War II. The Allies used rubber inflatable tanks and recorded the sound of troops to trick the Germans into thinking the enemy was there.

Parrot fish wear protective pyjamas at night, which they eat in the morning.

The parents of fringe-limbed treefrogs grow extra layers of skin to feed their tadpoles.

The new tallest building in London is going to be named "Undershaft".

In 1774, one newspaper estimated that out of the 872,564 married couples in England only nine entirely happy.

At the Admiralty Office Lord Nelson has a small mahogany box to stand on because he was short and the admirals sat on a raised platform to make themselves higher before everyone who came before them to speak.

When Prince Charles married Princess Diana the TV cables put in place during the wedding were run through small holes by ferrets.

A ferret called Misty ran cables from the United States Space Command at the Y2K Centre. Her fee was a strawberry pop tart.

When a new HQ of the London Underground was opened in 1929 the statue on the front of the building of a naked boy was so controversial and there was so much public outcry that the sculpture had to reduce the size of the statue's penis by 1.5 inches.

Claire Danes and all of her movies were banned from the Philippines after she insulted the country in an interview.

The Korean term for the grinding dance is: "bubibubi".

Ottoman Emperor Abdul Hamid made it illegal to use the words "sibling", "star", "bedbug" and "nose".

Czech deer still avoid crossing the Iron Curtain. (Murray)

If every car in Monaco decided to go for a drive at the same time, they would not fit on the roads. (Harkin)

Centralia, Pennsylvania has been on fire since 1962. (Ptaszynski)

Socrates had a spirit who spoke to him through the medium of sneezing. (Ptaszynski)

People used to hang their refrigerators from the ceiling. (Murray)

David Frost used to host live TV shows 8 nights a week, by travelling via Concorde. (Schreiber)

Tomorrow will be the longest day of your life, because days on Earth are getting longer. (Arney)

In 1457 men with moustaches were banned from Dublin. (Harkin)

Diplodocuses could break the sound barrier. (Schreiber)

Even though we are not sure if it exists, the possible Planet Nine is the most planety planet of all the planets. (Schreiber)

The first use of the word "snowmageddon" came in the same press release as for the apology for the first use of the word "snowmageddon". (Harkin)

The week this podcast was recorded, the largest known prime number ever discovered by found. It would have been discovered in September 2015, but the computer which found it forgot to tell anybody. (Murray)

A New Zealand firm has developed an irrationally angry robot to train telesales staff. (Murray)

A fifth of the United States of America's meals are eaten in cars. (Ptaszynski)

The most dangerous job in Britain is that of a hairdresser. (Harkin)

A million seconds is 11.5 days. A billion seconds is 32 years. (Taylor)

Star Trek was almost not commissioned because the pilot was considered to erotic. (Ptaszynski)

Lausanne, Switzerland, has banned silent discos for being too loud. (Harkin)

Swiss cheese is losing its holes. (Ptaszynski)

There is a ski shop in the middle of the Sahara desert. (Murray)

The world's only firework-boxing match took place in London in 1937. (Harkin)