Surprising if unimportant facts you've discovered recently.

[irocfan]

vonuber said:

lurky said:

John Wayne 's real name was Marion Morrison.

John Wayne, WW2 movie hero, never enlisted.

and was apparently quite the racist

[glenrobbo]

Puggit said:

Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are all closely related languages and they can all understand each other to a degree.

None of them can understand Finnish and the Finns can't understand them. No one else in the World can understand Finnish. The nearest related language is Hungarian.

The only language that shares a common root with Finnish is Turkish, from a very long time ago when a tribe split and embarked on diverging migratory routes.

Hungarian is a Slavonic language and unrelated to both of the above.

Also in Turkey there is a large family group of red-headed people descended from a Scottish settler. Their surname is McTurk.

True fact.

[Mr-B]

Although not a recent discovery I must have gone through the first 40 years of my life not realising that British Summer Time lasts 7 months and GMT 5, always thought they were equal length Not that it made a huge amount of difference to my life when I made the realisation.

[Oakey]

Mr-B said:

Although not a recent discovery I must have gone through the first 40 years of my life not realising that British Summer Time lasts 7 months and GMT 5, always thought they were equal length Not that it made a huge amount of difference to my life when I made the realisation.

It certainly feels like the other way around!

[austinsmirk]

there is an arrow hidden within the FEDEX logo.

[popegregory]

austinsmirk said:

there is an arrow hidden within the FEDEX logo.

Nobody ever spots it either, you have to be told it's there!

[antspants]

austinsmirk said:

there is an arrow hidden within the FEDEX logo.

Still took me a while to spot it

[AC43]

The French have no word for "entrepreneur".

[tvrolet]

popegregory said:

austinsmirk said:

there is an arrow hidden within the FEDEX logo.

Nobody ever spots it either, you have to be told it's there!

Similarly (and maybe even more elusive until you spot it) there's a bear in the Toblerone logo.

[Jakeztx]

Whitebait is not as I thought a type of fish, instead it is actually the collective term for the fry of larger fish - herring, sprat, sardines, mackerel, bass etc...

[Pistom]

Since the end of WW2, more English people have been killed by dogs than terrorists.

What I've not worked out is why WW2 made dogs so mad at English people.

[xRIEx]

AC43 said:

The French have no word for "entrepreneur".

There are no equivalent English words for the German word 'schadenfreude' or the Japanese word 'bokeh'.

Edited by xRIEx on Wednesday 31st August 14:51

[shirt]

P-Jay said:

The first person called 'Wendy' was the Wendy in Peter Pan.

first one i googled to verify. isnt true

[Ossiantoad]

There were only eleven years between the first flight of the Avro Lancaster and the first flight of the Vulcan.

[98elise]

The Hard Rock Cafe chain is owned by an Indian tribe based in Orlando Florida

Edited by 98elise on Wednesday 31st August 15:43

[Abbott]

popegregory said:

austinsmirk said:

there is an arrow hidden within the FEDEX logo.

Nobody ever spots it either, you have to be told it's there!

Now I've seen it it is impossible to unsee

[Zod]

littleowl said:

Apparently Jeremy Corbyn is still the the leader of the Labour party.

Winner: surprising, but unimportant

[Astacus]

Ossiantoad said:

There were only eleven years between the first flight of the Avro Lancaster and the first flight of the Vulcan.

Even more surprising is that there were only 11 years between the first powered flight and the fighter planes of WWI and less than 50 years between the Wright brothers sussing out how to do powered flight and Chuck Yeager breaking the speed of sound in level flight AND only 78 years from the wright brothers to the space shuttle. There were people alive whose life spanned no manned powered flight and man setting foot on the moon.

[Zod]

Vocal Minority said:

Kim Philby was recruited to the KGB by a man called Alfred (maybe Albert) Deutsch.

Alfred (maybe Albert)'s brother was called Oscar and founded a cinema chain.

Oscar
Deutsch
Entertains
Our
Nation.

bks: Odeon is an Ancient Greek word for theatre.

[SilverSpur]

Astacus said:

Ossiantoad said:

There were only eleven years between the first flight of the Avro Lancaster and the first flight of the Vulcan.

Even more surprising is that there were only 11 years between the first powered flight and the fighter planes of WWI and less than 50 years between the Wright brothers sussing out how to do powered flight and Chuck Yeager breaking the speed of sound in level flight AND only 78 years from the wright brothers to the space shuttle. There were people alive whose life spanned no manned powered flight and man setting foot on the moon.

Three World Wars, war, mother of invention.